Thai opposition party turns to right after being anti-democratically dissolved

Robert Campion

Following the anti-democratic dissolution of the Move Forward Party (MFP) last month, Thailand’s main opposition party has regrouped in what is now called the People’s (Prachachon) Party. It remains the largest, single party in the National Assembly while continuing to posture as a progressive party opposed to the traditional elites centred on the military and the monarchy.

People's Party leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, standing at the Parliament in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, Aug. 16, 2024 [AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit]

The rebranding of the MFP took place on August 9, two days after the party was formally banned by Thailand’s military-appointed Constitutional Court (CC). Eleven leading figures in the party, including members of parliament, are barred from politics for ten years. The remaining 143 MPs then joined the micro Thinkakhao Chaowilai Party, renaming it the People’s Party (PP).

The court dissolved the MFP on the phony claims that it was seeking to overthrow the monarchy as part of its campaign pledge to amend the lèse-majesté law. Also referred to as Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code, the lèse-majesté law forbids any criticism of the king with punishments of up to 15 years for each offence. Since large-scale, student-led protests in 2020, it has been used to charge around 272 protesters and government critics, with one individual sentenced to a record 50 years.

The dissolution is bound up with the crisis of bourgeois rule in Thailand. Two days after the ruling, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin of Pheu Thai was also dismissed by the Constitutional Court for supposedly breaching “ethical standards” by appointing as cabinet member a lawyer who was sentenced to six months in prison for corruption in 2008.

The conservative establishment is aware that it sits on a social powder keg due to low economic growth, low wages, exorbitant household debt and growing attacks on job positions as factories throughout Thailand close. Thailand consistently ranks as one of the most socially unequal countries in the world in terms of wealth inequality with the top 1 percent holding 56 percent of total wealth—a source of immense social tensions.

Having lost the popular vote in the 2023 general election, the layers close to the military and monarchy are opting to eliminate their political opponents through “legal” means to give their anti-democratic manoeuvres a veneer of legitimacy. The MFP garnered more than 14 million votes in last year’s election, more than any other party.

The PP is the third iteration of the party, which was originally founded in 2018 as the Future Forward Party (FFP) by Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, once the richest member of parliament. The FFP was dissolved in 2020 by the Constitutional Court under another phony pretext that the party violated election law in the manner it accepted donations.

The PP is now led by 37-year-old Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut and is representative of the well-off social layers the party speaks for. Son of wealthy real estate tycoon Suchart Ruengpanyawut, Natthaphong holds declared assets of 397.3 million baht ($US11.6 million), including a plot of land and four buildings in Bangkok. After graduating as a computer engineer from the prestigious Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, he founded the software development firm, Absolute Management Solutions.

Natthaphong, like his predecessors MFP leader Pita Limjaroenrat and Thanathorn, represents layers of the ruling class dissatisfied with the monopoly control of the economy by conservative sections associated with the military and the monarchy. In 2019, Natthaphong joined the FFP and has been a close political ally of Thanathorn.

Following the MFP dissolution ruling, Natthaphong has worked to prevent mass protests like those that took place in 2020-21 following the FFP’s dissolution, by calling on supporters to look towards the 2027 general election. Thanathorn, who now leads an organisation aligned with the PP known as Progressive Movement, urged members and supporters of the MFP to “just shrug and move forward” and to respond to injustice by simply “working harder”.

In little more than two weeks, more than 62,000 people have registered as members of the People’s Party and raised over 26 million baht ($US758,000) in donations, far exceeding its announced goal of 10 million baht by the end of the month. It is aiming to recruit 100,000 new members in a one-month span. Undoubtedly, many have joined the party or supported the party, concerned about the brazen attacks on democratic rights.

The refusal of the MFP, now the PP, to call protests and rallies to defend democratic rights reflects its fear, and that of the ruling class as a whole, that the opposition could spiral out of control, involve the working class and threaten bourgeois rule. The party has confined its opposition to the military-appointed Constitutional Court while tamely accepting its dissolution and reforging itself to function as a parliamentary opposition.

The newly adopted PP slogan is “liberty, equality, fraternity” of the 1789 French Revolution. However, no section of the bourgeoisie—in Thailand or internationally—bears any resemblance to the rising bourgeoisie in 18th century France which overthrew the feudal monarchy and aristocracy with the support of sections of the middle classes and the oppressed masses.

The PP’s stated aim of forming a single party government in the 2027 election is intended to attract votes while attempting to convince workers and youth that democracy can be defended through the thoroughly anti-democratic parliamentary system imposed by the military after the 2014 coup.

Natthaphong stated in parliament that the party aims to fix the “root problems”, being the constitution and the unchecked power of “independent” organisations such as the Constitutional Court. Such comments are deliberately deceiving. The Thai military, which has a long history of coups this century and last, has made absolutely clear that it will resist any attempt to fundamentally change the constitution it drew up or the Constitutional Court that it appointed.

The root cause of the destruction of basic democratic rights in Thailand and internationally is the profit system. As the global crisis of capitalism worsens and social inequality deepens, the ruling classes are incapable of imposing huge new burdens on working people democratically.

The legal cases against the PP have not ended. Sawang Boonmee, secretary-general of the Election Commission, has responded to accusations that the PP is illegally receiving donations before being formally launched, saying he would look into the claims.

There are also 44 MPs and party members, including Natthaphong, who face possible lifetime bans for supporting a past bill to amend the draconian lèse-majesté law. This was specifically cited by the CC in its ruling dissolving the MFP and is being deliberated over by the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

In an interview with Nation TV, Natthaphong stated he was not worried about the investigation, saying that he simply signed the bill, but “did not join any anti-monarchy rallies, seek bail for the activists, or put up stickers showing solidarity with the anti-monarchy activists.”

The Move Forward Party gained substantial support particularly from young people in the mass protests after the 2019 election as a result of its opposition to the military and calls for limited democratic reforms. The comments of Natthaphong disowning any connection to the protest movement are a clear sign that the party is shifting to the right and seeking an accommodation with the Bangkok establishment.

Up to 2 million UK pensioners will be in “serious trouble” this winter with 10 percent energy bills rise/means test introduction

Dennis Moore

This winter will see households across the UK hit with increases in energy bills following regulator Ofgem’s announcing an increase in the cap on prices for electricity and gas.

The regulator said that the rise was made necessary by heightened political tensions, energy market prices and extreme weather events. Met Office official guidance for the UK is that El Nino winters are more likely to be colder, and also more frequent due to climate change.

Blue flame coming out of a gas stove burner. [Photo by Ervins Strauhmanis/Flickr / CC BY 4.0]

From October 1 to December 31, energy bills for a typical household using electricity and gas and paying directly from a bank account will go up 10 percent (£149 per year). Average payments for a dual fuel energy bill will increase to £1,717 a year—from the current £1,568 in place since July. The sum could be larger if the winter is colder than expected and households need to keep the heating on for longer.

Prices could be hiked again this winter. Ofgem’s next review—to cover the period January 1 to March 31, 2025—will be announced by November 25.

Analysis carried out by the End Fuel Poverty Coalition found that, in real terms, these changes will mean that some older people will face the highest energy bills on record.

Many older people already live in constant fear of turning the heating on, worried about bills they will not be able to pay, endangering their health and lives. There is no question that the further increase in the cost of energy will lead to even more deaths among the most vulnerable people, on top of the thousands who already die each winter—many faced with the terrible choice of heating or eating.

The higher energy bills are compounded by July’s sadistic announcement by Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves that the universal Winter Fuel Payments scheme for millions of pensioners is to be scrapped, instead only being paid to those in receipt of means-tested benefits such as Pension Credit. To receive pension credit, a pensioner must have an income of no more than £12,000 a year.

The fuel allowance, worth between £100 and £300, was paid to 11.4 million pensioners in 8.4 million households in the winter of 2022/23. Its scrapping means an estimated 10 million pensioners across England and Wales will face far higher energy costs this winter. Under Labour’s means test, payments worth £200 will be made to households receiving pension credits, rising to £300 for over-80s.

The joint impact of energy price increases and the removal of winter fuel payments will be devastating for the elderly, particularly the elderly and disabled. Those dependent on feeding machines, powered chairs, and other electrical devices must now pay more to run this vital equipment.

Poverty and elderly charities denounced the measure. The End Fuel Poverty Coalition has estimated that 4,950 excess winter deaths were caused by people having to live in cold homes during the winter of 2022/23.

A spokesperson for the organization commented, “Pensioners will feel the brunt of the energy price hike this winter. In fact, for older people who previously had the Winter Fuel Payment, new analysis shows that their bills this winter will be the highest on record.

“The Chancellor’s cruel decision to axe winter fuel payments for millions will prove a false economy as more vulnerable people succumb to the health complications from living in cold damp homes and turn to the NHS [National Health Service] for help this winter.”

Co-ordinator Simon Francis said, “This has the potential to create a public health emergency which will actually create more pressure on the under-pressure NHS which the Prime Minister says he wants to fix”.

This week, Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer defended Reeves’ policy, insisting that nothing could jeopardize the economic interests of the capitalist class. Speaking from Downing Street, Starmer said of the first government budget scheduled for October—in which £22 billion in spending cuts are planned—it is “going to be painful.”

On cutting pensioner payments, he said, “I didn’t want to means-test the winter fuel payment, but it was a choice that we had to make, a choice to protect the most vulnerable pensioners while doing what is necessary to repair the public finances.”

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaking in the garden of 10 Downing Street, August 27, 2024 [Photo by Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]

Reeves and Starmer lie that vulnerable pensioners will be protected, when at least 1.8 million of the poorest will be hit by the cut. Age UK commented that Labour’s policy means “as many as two million pensioners who badly need the money to stay warm this winter will not receive it and will be in serious trouble as a result”.

The increase in energy costs comes at a time when many households are already in fuel poverty.

Research from the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) shows that one in four people (16.5 million) are so worried about increases in energy costs that they will be forced to turn off heating and hot water this winter. Nearly half the population (35.1 million people) will have to turn down or turn off their heating or hot water; a third (22.8 million) will have difficulty affording food or other essentials, such as their rent, mortgage or childcare; and 7 percent (4.5 million) think they will be forced to skip meals.

The CAB is helping record numbers of people with energy debt, now the most common debt people are seeking help with. There are nearly 5 million people across Britain that live in households in debt to their energy supplier, including 14 percent of households with children under 18.

Five million people are defined as having a negative budget, with more money being paid out than income coming in. It is estimated that the price cap increase to almost £150 will pull a further 187,000 people into negative budget.

Gillian Cooper, director of energy at Citizens Advice, said, “Energy bills will now be around two thirds higher than before the crisis, and with record levels of debt and removal of previous support, people are in desperate need.”

The pauperization of millions is directly linked to the wealth of corporations and their shareholders. Ofgem included a note in its announcement on price rises that the profit margins energy suppliers will be allowed to make will increase by 11 percent. A staggering £420 billion in profit has been raked in by the large energy companies since bills first shot up in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Around £30 billion of this has gone to those business units and firms that maintain the wires and pipes to deliver electricity and gas—equivalent to over £1,000 per household. These companies are paid through the standing charge part of energy bills, which has increased by 147 percent since 2021, to an average of £334.

Unemployment sharply escalates in New Zealand

John Braddock

Figures released in August showed 33,000 more New Zealanders are unemployed compared to the same time last year. Total unemployment at the end of June stood at 143,000, the highest since March 2021.

Stats NZ data showed the annual unemployment rate rose to 4.6 percent in the June quarter, from 4.4 percent in the previous quarter. The level of underutilisation, a measure of “slack” in the jobs market, rose to 11.8 percent from 11.2 percent.

New Zealand Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers 2024 budget, May 30, 2024 [Photo: Facebook/Nicola Willis MP]

According to Radio NZ (RNZ), Auckland University of Technology economics professor Tim Maloney says that based on data on benefits and filled jobs, unemployment very likely had hit 4.8 percent in July. The Reserve Bank expects the rate to peak at 5.4 percent in a year’s time but Maloney predicts, with possible recessions looming in New Zealand and internationally, it could reach that level far sooner.

The jobs carnage has continued throughout August with 1,000 more people pushed onto welfare every week, including 250 from the beleaguered construction sector. In the biggest city Auckland, there are currently 11 jobseekers for every vacancy. In the Manawatu-Whanganui region the number is 17 jobseekers for every vacancy.

Last week the farmer-owned dairy co-op Fonterra, the country’s major exporter, announced 80 finance jobs will be cut in the Hamilton office as it outsources work to existing partner accounting firm, Accenture which has offices in the Philippines and India.

The economic crisis is exacerbated by an electricity shortage and soaring prices. Winstone Pulp International declared recently that it can no longer afford the energy bill for its Karioi Pulpmill and Tangiwai Sawmill. The closures scheduled for mid-September will make 230 workers redundant in the rural Ruapehu district where there are few other job options. Dozens more contractors who depend on the mills will also be driven out of work, and nearby towns such as Raetihi, Ohakune and Waiouru face further depopulation.

Another paper milling company, Oji Fibre Solutions in Penrose, has also threatened to close, which would result in 75 job cuts.

The four semi-privatised energy companies—Meridian, Mercury, Genesis and Contact (fully privatised in 1999)—meanwhile made a combined $NZ512.4 million in profits since July 1. According to Newsroom, since the privatisations began the companies paid out $10.8 billion in dividends to shareholders, while total generating capacity increased by just one percent.

Young people are bearing the brunt of the escalating jobs crisis. Those aged between 15 and 24 make up almost half of the newly unemployed. Aaron Hendry of youth charity Kick Back told RNZ there are widespread feelings of “hopelessness.” When young people do get jobs, he said, they are more likely to be insecure, with worse conditions than those of older workers.

The deepening joblessness crisis is a product of deliberate policies of the ruling elite to make the working class bear the brunt of the crisis of capitalism. Drastic austerity measures are being imposed along with increased military spending, as New Zealand is integrated more closely into US-led imperialist operations against Russia, China and in the Middle East.

The Reserve Bank reduced the official cash rate (OCR) by 0.25 percent to 5.25 percent on August 14, after official annual inflation slowed to 3.3 percent in the second quarter of 2024 from 4 percent. It was the first cut to the OCR since March 2020. Rates had progressively risen from 0.25 percent three years ago, when inflation was running at 7.3 percent.

The central bank’s stated aim was to engineer a recession using high interest rates to drive up unemployment and put downward pressure on wages. Private sector wages rose just 3.6 percent in the 12 months to June, well below the 5.4 percent increase in household living costs. Average wages are forecast to rise in real terms by just 0.2 percent over the next year.

Public sector wages rose 6.9 percent in the same period, only marginally ahead of inflation, following years of effective pay freezes enforced by the trade union bureaucracy.

The National Party-ACT-NZ First coalition government has now launched a scorched earth assault on jobs and services across the public sector. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has imposed ruthless funding cuts of 7.5 percent across most ministries. Since January over 6,500 jobs have been axed.

Health NZ is calling on administrative workers to volunteer for redundancy as the government seeks to slash $1.4 billion and 2,500 jobs in the grossly understaffed public health system by 2025. The Aotearoa NZ national committee of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons has warned that waiting times for surgeries will inevitably continue to blow out.

The assault on public sector jobs is rippling through the private sector, particularly in the capital, Wellington. Two popular bars in the capital’s entertainment strip, Rubix and SugarWoods, have closed down, and an up-market restaurant, Concord, is also about to shut its doors, further fueling warnings that Wellington is becoming a “ghost town.”

Public sector cuts and deferred private sector investment have had a significant impact on IT revenues. The major IT and telecommunications company Spark is planning to cut its labour costs by $50 million (10 percent) in the current financial year, with job losses in the hundreds looming. Profits fell 72 percent to $316 million for the year to June. Spark’s 5,291 staff is already down by 141 from last year.

Growing numbers of people are emigrating in search of work. In the year to June, 131,200 people departed New Zealand, the highest annual figure on record.

Commenting on the wave of job losses, NZ Council of Trade Unions economist Craig Renney wrote on X/Twitter that the government “should be taking urgent action to get ahead of what could become a much deeper crisis.… Right now there is no plan.”

The trade unions, however, have made clear that they will do nothing to defend any jobs. Far from mobilising an industrial and political campaign across the working class, they are enforcing the cuts, including by corralling workers behind whatever paltry exit provisions may be on offer as they are ushered out the doors.

The Public Service Association and E tū, the principal unions in the public sector, have channeled widespread opposition into the legal system claiming that the sackings have been executed outside employment contract provisions. These legal cases change nothing: the sackings still proceed but now with the collaboration of union bureaucrats who ensure that the correct “process” is followed, while each group of workers is kept isolated from others.

There is deep hostility and anger over the government’s attack on the social position of working people and its billions of dollars in tax cuts for the rich. When Willis presented the budget in May, thousands protested in major centres and outside parliament.

The Labour Party and its allies, however, do not have any fundamental differences with the government’s agenda. Labour governed in coalition with the right-wing nationalist NZ First from 2017‒2020, and with the Greens from 2020‒2023. During these six years Labour-led governments produced a further increase in social inequality, poverty and homelessness while public services were starved of funds.

Labour contested the 2023 election promising to slash public service budgets by up to 4 percent—a proposal which was praised as “a prudent move to tighten the belt” by Public Service Association leader Duane Leo in a Radio NZ interview in August last year. Labour also made clear that it supports billions more in military spending, which is being funded at the expense of social programs.

Declaring COVID-19 “endemic,” Biden administration oversees policy of forced mass infection

Evan Blake

The United States is currently mired in its ninth wave of mass infection since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the population now completely abandoned by the powers that be. A policy of forced infection has emerged, in which all public health measures have been scrapped, and the most basic protection of mask-wearing is being criminalized in a growing number of counties and states.

Wastewater data show that over 1.2 million Americans are being infected with COVID-19 every day. Hospitalizations are climbing, in particular, among children and the elderly, while official deaths are approaching 1,000 per week. Excess deaths, a more accurate measure of the real death toll attributable to COVID-19, stand at over 500 per day, with the cumulative death toll in the US nearing 1.5 million. Long COVID, an array of symptoms which are often debilitating, now affects over 20 million Americans and over 400 million people globally.

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According to wastewater modeler Dr. Mike Hoerger, there have been over 1.1 billion cumulative COVID-19 infections in the United States alone, with the average American infected three or four times. With multiple studies showing that each reinfection compounds one’s risk of Long COVID and other adverse health events such as strokes or heart attacks, the current trajectory of the “forever COVID” policy is towards ever-broadening mass debilitation and death on a world scale.

Under these conditions, on August 23 top officials from America’s leading public health agencies held an extraordinary press conference, which very explicitly outlined the Biden administration’s criminal “forever COVID” policy.

Leading the event was Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Mandy Cohen, who bluntly declared that COVID-19 “is endemic, it is here with us.” This is the first time a top public health official has proclaimed COVID-19 to be “endemic,” after Drs. Anthony Fauci, Rochelle Walensky and Ashish Jha repeatedly and falsely said that the virus was “in the process” of becoming endemic since the emergence of the Omicron variant in late 2021.

An endemic disease is one which is largely contained, predictable and not disruptive to the basic functioning of society. None of this applies to COVID-19, which is spreading like wildfire almost year-round, causing widespread damage to the health of the population, as well as mass absenteeism and economic disruption to the tune of over $1 trillion annually.

After claiming that COVID-19 is “endemic,” Cohen hastened to add, “We need to protect ourselves. And we have the tools to do it, we just need to use them.”

Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since July 10, 2023 [AP Photo/Bryan Anderson]

The reality is that the public health “tools” necessary to mitigate the dangers of COVID-19, let alone stop the pandemic, have been systematically stigmatized, denied and even criminalized by the entire political establishment. The capitalist state, beholden to the profit interests of Wall Street and corporate America, has dismantled all pandemic surveillance and left the population to fend for themselves. Those who remain vigilant and seek to avoid infection are increasingly isolated and unable to protect themselves amid a sea of viral transmission.

Over the course of the press conference, it became abundantly clear that the only “tool” advocated by the Biden administration are new vaccines designed for the KP.2 variant, which are currently being rolled out. The officials present covered up the fact that these vaccines are too little, too late, given that the KP.3.1.1 variant is now dominant, with KP.2 accounting for just 3.2 percent of cases nationally, and that the current wave appears to be just peaking.

Furthermore, in the course of the press conference it became clear that the latest vaccines will not be guaranteed to everyone, with Cohen stating that uninsured Americans (over 26 million people) will have to try to navigate their local or county public health bureaucracy or pay upwards of $120 for the shot. No speaker seriously addressed the fact that vaccine uptake is abysmally low, the product of bipartisan anti-vaccine disinformation and propaganda portraying the pandemic as over.

Not once in the course of the press conference was the word “mask” even mentioned, despite the fact that numerous studies have proven that well-fitting N95 respirators can block the transmission of COVID-19 and all other airborne pathogens.

In fact, just two days after the CDC press conference, police arrested an 18 year old in Nassau County, New York, for wearing a ski mask, after a county-wide mask ban was put in place earlier this month. Those arrested for wearing masks can face a fine of up to $1,000, up to a year in jail or both. A similar mask ban is now in effect in North Carolina, while cities including Los Angeles have floated the idea of such bans.

Another “tool” increasingly unavailable or impossible for average Americans to access is Paxlovid, one of the only effective treatments for COVID-19. In her remarks, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official Dawn O’Connell noted that starting in 2025 Pfizer will entirely control the distribution of Paxlovid. The pharmaceutical giant will undoubtedly charge the full price for the drug, which costs upwards of $1,500.

When asked by a reporter about the latest science on the risks of reinfection with COVID-19, Cohen downplayed the dangers and reiterated the vaccine-only strategy of the Biden administration, saying nothing about the need to wear masks to prevent transmission. The reality is that multiple studies have shown that each reinfection heightens one’s risk of developing Long COVID, which is only slightly mitigated by vaccination.

The response of the Biden administration to the latest wave of mass infection reaffirms that capitalism is descending into barbarism, with centuries of advances in science and public health trampled upon and discarded. Mass infection with a preventable illness is no longer to be prevented, but rather encouraged.

While the Democrats and Republicans bear primary responsibility for this policy of death, they are joined by the pseudo-left presidential campaigns of the Green Party’s Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West. Both have tailored their rhetoric to the far-right anti-vaccine constituency cultivated by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who himself has endorsed the “herd immunity” pioneer Donald Trump.

Israel’s West Bank offensive continues

Thomas Scripps

Israel’s intensified ethnic cleansing in the West Bank continued Thursday, taking the death toll since the military operation began to at least 18.

A bulldozer from the Israeli forces moves on a street during a military operation in the West Bank refugee camp of Al-Faraa, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. [AP Photo/Nasser Nasser]

Five were killed in a mosque in the Tulkarem refugee camp, apparently amid a firefight. The camp was placed under siege by the Israeli military, with soldiers including special forces carrying out house raids, snipers taking up positions on rooftops and aircraft flying low overhead. The Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital and al-Israa Specialised Hospital were blockaded, and the Palestinian Red Crescent prevented from entering the camp to douse fires and help the injured.

There were overnight raids in Far’a, al-Khader, Arroub, Nur Sham, Nablus and Nabi Saleh, with multiple Palestinians reported injured by shooting, beatings or fire. Electricity and Internet services were cut in a large swathe of Jenin city, where snipers shot “anyone who is moving” according to Mohammed al-Atrash of Al Jazeera Arabic, reporting from the scene. The Jenin Governmental Hospital was besieged, with ambulances blocked.

The huge deployment of lethal military force has been coupled with calls for mass evictions, with Foreign Minister Israel Katz leading the pack. He repeated his threats today, saying removals were necessary for the “dismantling of terror infrastructures” which must be accomplished “by all necessary means”.

Multiple organisations have condemned the offensive. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Al-Haq, and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights issued a joint statement warning of “even more escalated violence in the West Bank, with the employment of tactics that mirror those used in Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, particularly attacks on hospitals and healthcare facilities, and the use of excessive and indiscriminate force.”

A statement issued on behalf of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply concerned by the latest developments in the occupied West Bank, including Israel's launch today of large-scale military operations in Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas governorates, involving the use of airstrikes, which resulted in casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure. He strongly condemns the loss of lives, including of children.”

Amnesty International’s Erika Guevara explained that the “military assault on cities and towns across the occupied West Bank follows an escalation in unlawful killings by Israeli forces in recent months,” a “horrifying spike in lethal force by Israeli forces and violent state-backed settler attacks”.

She continued, “It is likely that these operations will result in an increase in forced displacement, destruction of critical infrastructure and measures of collective punishment, which have been key pillars of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians and of its unlawful occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

Over 600 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli military since October 7, over a fifth of them by airstrikes. Among the dead are more than 140 children. Just in the days August 20-26, before the latest assault began, 13 Palestinians were killed, eight in airstrikes, including four children.

Close to 10,000 have been arrested, held in prisons and detentions centres where abuses of human rights including torture and sexual violence are endemic.

Meanwhile, 12.7 square kilometres of land seizures have been officially approved by the Israeli government—the largest area in three decades. This process is spearheaded by far-right Israeli settlers who have carried out 1,270 attacks against Palestinians documented by the UN in the last 10 months, leading to 11 deaths and driving many communities out of their homes.

On Thursday, several dozen settlers staged a provocation in the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem again, under the protection of Israeli security forces and while they restricted the entry of Palestinian worshippers—under conditions of an effective lockdown of Palestinian quarters of the Old City.

Former director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth told Al Jazeera, “Frankly, the dream of the far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s government is to ‘solve the problem’ of the West Bank. ‘Solve the problem’ of the apartheid regime that Israel is maintaining there, by just getting rid of the Palestinians… a massive war crime.”

This is true, but the project is shared by the whole Netanyahu regime currently implementing it. The gleefully vicious comments of the likes of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich serve as a convenient scapegoat for sections of the ruling class keen to be seen condemning Israeli actions from time to time but totally committed to supporting its government.

The apartheid, Jewish supremacist character of the state was highlighted by the treatment even of one of the recently returned hostages—in whose name Israel is waging its war. Kaid Farhan al-Kadi, the latest hostage to be brought back alive, is returning to a demolition notice.

Al-Kadi is one of Israel’s 300,000 heavily discriminated against Bedouin Arabs. Seventy percent of the residents are being evicted from his home village Khirbet Karkur—among the one-third of Bedouin Arab settlements the Israeli government intends to destroy. A local authority spokesperson cynically commented that Al-Kadi and his family would be exempt “in light of the situation”.

Over 1,300 Bedouin homes have been demolished in the first half of 2024, a 50 percent increase over the same period in 2022, according to the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality.

While the war on the West Bank unfolds, scores of people continue to be killed in Gaza every day, amid a worsening humanitarian disaster. Israeli strikes killed and wounded Palestinians, including women and children, across the Strip, in Khan Younis, Rafah, Gaza City, the Nuseirat refugee camp and Deir el-Balah.

Hina Khoudary, reporting for Al Jazeera, described how “eight Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces targeted al-Amal Hotel. It was obvious that displaced Palestinians were sheltering there, and they burned alive because no one was there to rescue them.” The ability of the Gaza Civil Defence to respond to these incidents has been massively cut back by Israel’s attacks on ambulances and fire trucks and on shops supplying spare parts.

Conditions for the almost entirely displaced population are so dire that Gaza has recorded its first polio case in 25 years, a 10-month-old baby now partially paralyzed by the infection, sparking fears of an epidemic. Hepatitis A is already spreading rapidly, with 40,000 cases reported earlier this month. For three months, the Israeli government has blocked Doctors Without Borders’ efforts to import 4,000 hygiene kits containing soap, toothbrushes, shampoo, and laundry powder.

Vials of polio vaccine have now been sent to Gaza but cannot be distributed due to the chaos of Israel’s repeated displacement and bombardment of the population. The issue has built up steam in the corporate media, where capitalist politicians are trying to gain a reputation for humanitarianism by insisting children must have the opportunity to be vaccinated before being buried under rubble.

Netanyahu has dismissed talk of any pause in the genocide, suggesting only the “designation of specific places” for vaccinations, a designation whose only practical impact is to require the Israeli military to claim their bombing is “accidental”.

IV fluid shortages intensify crisis in Australian healthcare system

John Mackay & Maria Smith

Serious shortages of essential intravenous (IV) fluids in Australia and subsequent rationing in hospitals have caused significant concern among medical professionals and deepening pressures on the already underfunded and understaffed healthcare system.

Nurse preparing to administer IV fluid to hospital patient [Photo: anzcog.edu.au]

On Tuesday, federal Health Minister Mark Butler announced that the Labor government had “secured” the supply of an additional 22 million IV fluid bags over the next six months. Butler claimed this would be “more than enough” to meet demand.

However, Butler gave no indication of when the additional fluids would actually be delivered. In a clear indication that the shortage is by no means over, he said, “there is generally advice going through the system that IV fluids should be used judiciously at this stage.”

Australia and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) President David Story told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) doctors were “very pleased” to hear that more fluids had been sourced. But he warned, “The details are yet to be released. … I don’t think [the additional fluids] will be available tomorrow.”

Late last month Australian Medical Association (AMA) President Professor Steve Robson told the media that the shortages could see the healthcare system come to a “grinding halt,” with disruptions to surgery very likely.

“This lack of supply is unprecedented. The number of patients potentially affected would be unbelievable,” he said. “It would affect anaesthesia, surgery, chemotherapy, emergency departments, managing people with acute infectious illness in hospital ... (and) paediatric intensive care.” Robson’s comments were echoed by other peak professional health bodies. including the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, which called for “a nationally co-ordinated strategy” for the future procurement of vital medicine, to be “informed by healthcare professionals.”

The IV fluids in short supply are 0.9 percent saline, a similar salt concentration to what occurs naturally in the body, and Hartman’s solution, which combines a range of salts, including potassium and calcium. These are vital to many aspects of medical practice in hospital settings with some hospitals often requiring hundreds of bags per day.

The products are crucial to maintaining blood volume for the body’s normal function and to combat dehydration, which can lead to kidney damage and other complications. They are also necessary for administering anaesthetics and other drugs, including during surgical procedures, and for delivering nutrients to patients who cannot eat or drink.

The shortages have resulted in rationing in hospitals across the country. In late July, one New South Wales health district directed doctors to use “conservation strategies” to manage the shortage, including restricting some solutions for use in resuscitation, intensive care and surgery, minimising fasting in surgical patients to reduce the need for fluid replacement and using oral fluids wherever possible.

This month, the Age newspaper cited a Royal Melbourne Hospital internal memo ordering a reduction of IV fluid usage by 20 percent. “We ask that all staff use IV fluids judiciously and where clinically appropriate,” it said.

ANZCA has also advised hospitals to reduce consumption of IV fluids during operations where there may be limited or minimal benefit. “There needs to be much greater transparency of what’s happening at individual states, but to a certain degree, individual hospitals, and there needs to be honest discussions about where places may need to cease elective surgery if required,” a college spokesperson said.

In a joint statement with the Australian Society of Anaesthetists on Wednesday, ANZCA wrote: “No widespread cancellations of elective procedures have been required, as was feared earlier on. Nevertheless, anaesthetists are being asked to consider the need for preoperative IV fluids on a patient-by-patient basis, and to be judicious in their use.”

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) regulates medicines and medical devices for safety, quality and effectiveness in Australia. While the TGA claimed in mid-July that the shortages were the result of “global shortages,” it provided no detailed information to back this claim. In fact, there are no global shortages, but some international transport disruptions with the only manufacturer in Australia, US-based Baxter, attempted to make up the shortfall.

Butler claimed this week that Baxter was “running their lines at more than 105 percent” and would expand its local manufacturing plant in the coming weeks.

It remains unclear when authorities were first alerted to the shortage and precisely what is behind it. According to the ABC, the Tasmanian Department of Health voiced its concerns about shortages with the TGA more than 18 months ago.

While the TGA monitors health products from the standpoint of safety, the body is not charged with monitoring supply. Purchasing of medicines is left to the individual states with no federal government oversight. Butler initially claimed that the government was “managing [the shortage] pretty well.” This line was repeated by Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, who recently told parliament that the government was providing “nationally consistent clinical guidance.” She then denounced the Liberal-National opposition for what she claimed was “a fear and scare campaign” in the community.

Confronted with rising media coverage about the impact of IV fluid shortages on hospitals across the country, Butler called an emergency meeting of state and territory health ministers on August 16, established a “Response Group” and sought to reassure the media that the lack of IV fluids was easing.

Despite Butler’s announcement this week of the newly secured IV supplies, the Response Group “is continuing to meet on a weekly basis, or more frequently if required.” This is a clear sign that there remains a high level of concern over the constrained supply.

What the IV fluid shortages reveal is that there is no effective monitoring system for identifying stock supplies of life-saving treatments that are essential for proper management of public health. Supply has been left to “market forces”—i.e., the demands of the profit system and the corporations’ efforts to manage supply to maximise their earnings.

The IV fluid crisis is a manifestation of the breakdown of Australia’s public healthcare system impacted by years of privatisation, government cost-cutting, understaffing and other problems worsened by COVID-19.

The profit-driven abolition of all scientific and public health safety strategies to deal with COVID-19, led by Labor federal and state governments, with support from the healthcare unions, has caused more than 25,000 deaths, millions of infections, and kept the healthcare system in a continuous state of crisis for more than four years.

The dangerous lack of IV fluids is not an aberration but another example of the incompatibility of capitalism with the basic needs of the population, including healthcare.

Chinese bond market surge points to economic and financial problems

Nick Beams

The ongoing slowdown in the Chinese economy, the outcome of the ending of its previous growth model based on property and construction, is throwing up a set of problems in the financial system centred on the bond market.

An elderly woman passes by workers dismantling scaffolding at a shopping mall in Beijing, January 17, 2024 [AP Photo/Ng Han Guan]

The slowing of the economy suggests that government and financial authorities would like to see a lowering of interest rates to provide some economic stimulus. But instead, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is moving in the opposite direction, at least as far as the bond market is concerned. (The price of bonds and their yield move in the opposite direction.)

But rather than welcoming the lowering of interest rates this produces, the central bank has been moving in the opposite direction for the past several months including selling bonds in order to lower their price and push up their yields.

Earlier this month, it even went so far as to “name and shame” a group of four rural banks for buying government bonds which the Financial Times (FT) characterised as a “most unusual sin” and likened it to “punishing a child for tidying up their bedroom.”

However, this seemingly irrational behaviour does have an objective foundation. The PBoC is fearful that if banks load up on bonds, then they will suffer major losses if interest rates start to rise, and the value of their holdings falls.

This could then lead to the same kind of crisis which hit the US Silicon Valley Bank in March 2023 when, as a result of interest rate rises by the US Federal Reserve, the value of its bond holdings fell, leading to a run on the bank and forcing it under.

The crisis, which threatened to spread, was only halted through intervention by government authorities—the Treasury, the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation—in which they gave an implicit guarantee that uninsured depositors throughout the banking system would not lose their money. (Uninsured deposits are those greater than $US250,000.)

At the same time there is an objective reason for the rush into bonds. As the FT noted in a recent article, prices in China are falling and that increases the return to be made by holding bonds after this is taken into account.

It pointed out that while the consumer price index (CPI) has been slightly positive, the deflator for the measurement of GDP has been negative for five consecutive quarters, and given that investment is a huge share of China’s economy, the deflator is likely a more accurate measure of overall prices than the CPI.

The article said that with a gloomy economic outlook—no end in sight for the housing market downturn, domestic companies hit by weak consumption and the problems resulting from the government crackdown on high-tech companies such as Alibaba and Tencent—“it seems wholly rational for Chinese investors to flock into bonds and gold.”

The extent of this movement was outlined in a Wall Street Journal article this week. It said that according to their half-year reports, “investment gains from government bonds now make up a large chunk of profits for some smaller city-level commercial banks.”

As an example, it cited the case of the Jiangsu Kunshan Rural Commercial Bank. Its holdings of government-bond investments jumped from $2.9 billion at the end of 2022 to $5.3 billion at the end of last year.

For the average Chinese investor bonds were attractive because the property market is in a “downward spiral,” the stock market is “on track for a fourth straight yearly decline” and capital controls mean it is difficult to invest much overseas.

The government has tried to take some measures to boost the property market, but they have had little effect and are generally regarded as being insufficient, either to increase housing demand or bolster the financial position of developers.

Goldman Sachs has estimated that the stock of unsold new housing could be up to 30 times the level of average monthly sales.

There have been repeated calls from many sources for the government to undertake stimulus measures to boost the economy. But no major stimulus program is going to be undertaken because authorities fear this this will only lead to greater debt and cause problems for the financial system.

Central government debt is relatively low, coming in around 24 percent of GDP. But the debts of local government authorities, which are responsible for much of government spending, amount to at least 93 percent of GDP, and are rising.

The central government policy is the development of “high quality productive forces” and the expansion of high-tech exports to the world market.

This export drive, however, does little or nothing to boost the domestic economy. It is also running into problems because of the US imposed of tariffs against cheaper Chinese goods—electric vehicles being one of the major items. Overall while the volume of exports may be rising, the revenue is not because of the general slowdown in the world economy.

The interconnected economic and financial problems have social and political implications. The Xi Jinping regime, which represents the oligarchy that had developed with the restoration of capitalism, rests on a base of better-off sections of the middle class with which it has a kind of social contract—the repressive character of the regime is tolerated insofar as it can deliver a growing economy, with prospects for their social advancement and their children.

But with the growth of economic problems, that is coming apart and the fear of the ruling oligarchy is that through the cracks opposition from the 400 million strong working class may emerge.

These political considerations are also at work in the attempt to halt bond-buying because the fall in their yield implies a degree of economic weakness, sending out a dangerous message regarding political stability.

This week the China Dissent Monitor published by the US Freedom House organisation reported an 18 percent increase in cases of dissent for the second quarter of the year compared to 2023.

Such data, coming from a right-wing organisation, should be taken with a grain of salt. But they are in line with the trend of economic developments. According to the report, some 44 percent of dissent incidents related to labour and 21 percent involved aggrieved homeowners. This dissent has yet to threaten the regime, but it could well develop further.

As the head of the Dissent Monitor, Kevin Slaten, noted there was a certain acceptance of the authoritarian nature of the regime as a “trade-off for economic prosperity” but this could be undermined as slowing economic growth impacted more people.