Washington presses regional governments to secure Maduro’s ouster in Venezuela

Andrea Lobo

Five weeks after the July 28 presidential elections in Venezuela, the fascistic leader of the US-backed opposition, Maria Corina Machado, demanded on Thursday that the Biden administration “do more” to oust President Nicolas Maduro from power.

Edmundo González Urrutia speaks during a demonstration next to Maria Corina Machado (left), July 31, 2024 [Photo: Voice of America]

Speaking to reporters from an undisclosed location, Machado argued that this was a matter of strategic importance for US interests globally and concluded: “I am partial to maximum pressure.” She then repeated her appeals for the Venezuelan military to overthrow Maduro.

Following a Supreme Court ruling on August 22 declaring Maduro re-elected, Machado’s Unitary Platform coalition has continued to claim that its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, won the election. 

The entire election predictably served as a fraudulent “democratic” cover to create the conditions for a coup and possible foreign military interventions, and the Biden administration is already escalating pressures on all fronts.

At the same time, having already failed to oust Maduro by simply recognizing another self-anointed “president” like Juan Guaidó in 2019, Washington has continued to support talks with Caracas for a negotiated handover of power.

If possible, the Biden administration hopes for a regime change without a prolonged civil war or a more catastrophic economic disruption that could affect oil production or provoke a further exodus of migrants and the political intervention of key sectors of the working class. 

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that US-based oil giant Chevron pressured the White House to safeguard its continued production in the country, which has the largest known reserves in the world, even if that means keeping Maduro in power. 

Venezuelan oil exports, including to the US and Europe, reached a four-year high of 885,000 barrels per day last month and are seen as a potential alternative for Europe to Russia, whose exports are sanctioned, and the war-torn Middle East. 

Company executives argued, moreover, that Chevron serves as “a bulwark there against geopolitical adversaries gaining additional footholds in the country.” 

The Biden administration, however, has made clear that in the context of an emerging world war against Russia and China, nothing will suffice but total domination of Venezuelan oil and other key natural resources and cheap labor platforms in US imperialism’s “backyard.”

Pro-opposition demonstrations have remained subdued since July 30. While the corporate media claims this is primarily due to a wave of arrests and repression, such a swift suppression of the protests led by the far right can only be explained by a lack of active popular support, which entirely belies the claims of the Morenoite pseudo-left that these protests represented in any way the “popular will.” 

The far right has continued its attacks against public infrastructure, which only exacerbate mass suffering, including possibly recent fires that temporarily disrupted the electrical grid and the railroads.

While threatening to add sanctions against Venezuelan officials, Washington is now primarily acting through its regional allies, both the openly right-wing and nominally “left” governments alike, which have combined direct appeals for talks with Maduro with rabid provocations and backchannel overtures to the Venezuelan armed forces. 

US authorities stole Maduro’s presidential airplane last week in the Dominican Republic, whose multimillionaire President Luis Abinader met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday to coordinate future actions regarding Venezuela. 

In a major intensification of these efforts, on Thursday, Ecuador’s president, the banana oligarch Daniel Noboa, requested that the UN Security Council declare the Venezuelan crisis a “direct threat to regional stability and international security,” clearly trying to set the stage for a foreign military intervention. The Chinese and Russian delegations blocked the discussion. 

That same night, Argentine President Javier Milei hosted a summit of the fascist Madrid Forum that Machado belongs to. There, this cheerleader for the Zionist genocide in Gaza lamented that “the free world is crossing its arms” while Maduro turns Venezuela into a “human cemetery.” 

As Milei was speaking, Argentine troops were finishing 10 days of military exercises with the Pentagon and the Chilean military, which were hosted by pseudo-left Chilean President Gabriel Boric. The exercises were launched after a “defense conference” in Santiago, where the US military’s top commander, Gen. Charles C. Brown, US Southern Command Chief Gen. Laura Richardson, and several Latin American and NATO military officials discussed “regional threats to democracy,” with a focus on Venezuela. 

Then there was the publication of a statement signed by 31 former Latin American and Spanish presidents, whose hands are covered with the blood of hundreds of thousands from imperialist wars and state violence, demanding that the International Criminal Court order the arrest of the entire Venezuelan leadership. 

In a manner entirely complicit with these fascist forces, the nominal allies of Maduro in the “pink tide” governments of Lula da Silva in Brazil, Gustavo Petro in Colombia and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in Mexico have sought to strong arm Maduro toward an off ramp, while backing the demands of the Venezuelan far right and Washington that Maduro present proof of his victory.

After Maduro and Machado both rejected their initial proposal for new elections, Lula and Petro are now pushing for an international “inquiry” into voting records and the setting up of a transitional government. 

These maneuvers make it clear that the elections were conceived of from the outset as a mechanism to press forward for regime change and secure US geopolitical interests in the context of brutal economic sanctions. All demands for an inquiry on election data from these governments are aimed at furthering the drive to bring to power the CIA “assets” who comprise the right-wing opposition. 

Currently, Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, who is particularly close to the US political establishment, has sought to coordinate a meeting between Maduro, Lula, AMLO and Petro in efforts openly backed by Washington.

During this process, Lula has adopted an increasingly impatient and menacing tone, declaring last week that Maduro “must bear the consequences of his actions, and I will bear the consequences of my actions. Now I have the political awareness that I tried to help a lot, but a lot and a lot.” It is worth recalling that last December, Lula deployed troops to the Venezuelan border amid threats by Maduro to take control of territories disputed with neighboring Guyana. 

At the same time, Washington has sought to make an example of the government of Honduran President Xiomara Castro, one of the few that still backs Maduro. Last week, the US ambassador denounced a meeting between Honduran Defense officials with Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López. This was followed by the leaking of a video given by the head of a local drug cartel to US authorities that shows Castro’s brother-in-law accepting money from the cartel during her election campaign. 

This has led to a wave of resignations in Honduras and a media and political campaign calling for the overthrow of Castro herself similar to that preceding the US-backed military coup in 2009 that ousted Castro’s husband, Manuel Zelaya. 

Meanwhile, the Maduro administration has tried to use the elections and the aftermath to convince US imperialism that it can serve its interests better than the opposition by continuing to suppress the class struggle. It has combined threats against the far-right opposition with an olive branch to US imperialism. 

At the same time, a recent reshuffling of cabinet positions, including the naming of Diosdado Cabello—the second most powerful leader of the Chavistas—as Interior Minister points to insecurity over allegiances. The elections have also shown that the government has lost a significant base of support in the working class.

In recent days, arrests of suspected opposition supporters have stopped, and a bill to outlaw foreign NGOs and another to wipe out organizations accused of “fascism” have been temporarily shelved.  

Maduro has also extended the repression against organizations to the left of the government.

While an arrest warrant was issued against opposition candidate González Urrutia, efforts to detain him and Machado have been limited. On Wednesday, general prosecutor Tarek William Saab, a top Chavista leader, summoned González Urrutia’s lawyer, José Vicente Haro, for a private three-hour meeting. 

While Williams Saab reaffirmed the arrest warrant against González Urrutia and rebuffed requests for an inquiry into the elections, Haro himself represents a bridge between factions of the ruling class and US imperialism. He helped draft the 1999 Constitution approved under Hugo Chávez and several other laws, while advising top Chavista officials before becoming a Stanford fellow and deepening ties with US foreign policy circles. 

The dangers for the working class cannot be overstated. If Machado-Gonzalez have their way, they would install a fascistic, military dictatorship that would seek to privatize oil and other sectors and impose brutal social austerity at the behest of Wall Street, while aligning the country behind the US-NATO war against China and Russia. 

However, every established political organization in Venezuela has been implicated in backing Chavismo or the far right. The most important aspect of the Venezuelan crisis is that it has exposed all bourgeois nationalist governments of the Latin American pink tide and their pseudo-left apologists as instruments of US imperialism as it drags the region and the world toward world war, fascist reaction and barbarism.

Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future Fellowship 2025/2026

Application Deadline: 10th November 2024

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries and Emerging Economies

To be taken at: Top universities abroad

Accepted Subject Areas: Physical sciences and related disciplines

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

Offered Since: 2004

Type: PhD/PostDoctoral, Fellowship

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

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

Eligibility: Applicants must meet all the following criteria:

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

Number of fellowships: Several

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

How to Apply: Interested candidates may Apply below

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details

Metformin and COVID-19: An old drug with compelling anti-viral properties

Benjamin Mateus & Bill Shaw

With the COVID pandemic approaching the end of its fifth year, the ninth major wave of infections is washing across the global population infecting tens of millions of people each day. The return to school and the winter holidays in the Northern Hemisphere will only cause the number of infections to swell, raising both the number of deaths and the ranks of the invisible millions suffering from Long COVID.

Both in the United States and worldwide, capitalist political authorities have effectively ended any effort to protect the population from this deadly disease. The “forever COVID” policy, as the WSWS has termed it, or declaring COVID to be “endemic,” as Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, did last month, means more than just shutting down the collection of data on the number of infections, hospitalizations and deaths, or the number affected by Long COVID.

Willful blindness to the extent of the pandemic has been combined with near-abandonment of efforts to develop more powerful therapies against the disease, even as previously discovered therapies are of sharply declining effectiveness, because of the constant mutation of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID.

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

Notably, the FDA pulled the emergency use authorization (EUA) of the monoclonal antibody Evusheld in January 2023. Only 14 months later, in March 2024, it supplanted this with pemivibart as COVID pre-exposure treatment for people with moderate to severe immune system dysfunction—solid organ transplant recipients, cancer patients receiving CAR T-cell therapy or stem cell transplants, or those with hematologic cancers that cannot mount a response to COVID vaccines, as well as others such as advanced HIV patients. 

This treatment is extremely costly, with a two-hour infusion administered in a medical setting every three months, coming with a price tag of more than $6,000 for one course, not including the additional medical fees for the facility, nursing and physician costs that go into administering the treatment. 

Additionally, for most of the world’s population, access to the anti-viral treatments by Pfizer (Paxlovid) and Moderna (Lagevrio) has been thwarted due to lack of availability or the horrendous cost for such treatments. Pfizer announced last year that a five-day course of Paxlovid would cost nearly $1,400. 

For patients with health conditions at risk for severe disease, Paxlovid can potentially reduce their risk of hospitalization by nearly half if taken early in the course of illness. But for the standard risk population, the treatment didn’t show such benefits. And complications with the treatment include multiple drug interactions and a virological “rebound” that can extend the duration of the period when the patient is infectious to others. 

Similarly, Remdesivir and Lagevrio have proven ineffective in patients with prior vaccine immunity or infections. The known safety concerns with these medications also mean potential complications for little benefit. 

This is the reality behind Dr. Cohen’s declaration that “we have the tools” to fight the virus that causes COVID, and her implicit blaming of patients who don’t take advantage of the tools, rather than the profit-based medical system supposedly supplying them.

The development of new therapies is held back by a health system rooted in capitalist profit interests. Specifically, issues around intellectual property rights, how they are reformulated, regulatory blocks and financialization of the drugs pose significant challenges. Additionally, there are problems in convincing the population to accept new therapies, given the anti-scientific reaction and quackery that was the hallmark of the early days of the pandemic, with fascistic figures like Donald Trump and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro promoting hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. 

The promising results with metformin

Still, one recent medication that has appeared to overcome some of these hurdles is an old drug that has been used to treat diabetes, called metformin. Known to have anti-viral properties, its cheap price, favorable side-effect profile and widespread availability have aroused interest in its potential benefit to treat COVID. 

What follows is a summary of significant research on the anti-Covid properties of Metformin, and must not be read as a recommendation for its use without consultation with a well-informed physician familiar with a patient’s medical history and overall condition. Moreover, Metformin may produce side-effects and is not well-tolerated by all patients to whom it is prescribed.

Discovered in 1922, metformin didn’t become widely used until the mid-1990s when broad population-based studies proved its benefits. It is now the most widely used oral therapy for regulating blood sugar levels in diabetics. It has been proven to lower risks of age-related conditions like cardiovascular diseases and cancers as well as reduce all-cause mortality in diabetics. In 2022, it was the second most prescribed drug in the US. 

As authors of a 2023 review paper on metformin noted, “Interestingly, metformin was originally investigated as an anti-influenza drug in the early 1940s and showed some promise in improving flu symptoms coupled with reducing blood glucose levels. While it was not directly pursued as an anti-influenza drug, metformin showed promise in a variety of infections. Further retrospective studies suggest that metformin has protective benefits during flu infection as well. For example, obese patients with a history of metformin treatment have been shown to have a lower rate of influenza mortality. Another study demonstrated that in diabetics, metformin treatment reduced overall risk for hospitalization due to infections compared to other oral hypoglycemics such as sulfonylureas.”

Metformin was the second most prescribed US medicine in 2022.

Complications associated with COVID disproportionately affect the elderly, mainly due to their decline in immune function and ability to fend off infections. Also, those with comorbidities like diabetes and obesity can also develop severe reactions from a COVID infection. Preexisting diabetes has also been a risk factor after infection with SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV coronaviruses. Moreover, patients treated in ICUs for severe complications with these viruses fared better when their blood glucose levels were kept in normal ranges.

The exact mechanisms for metformin’s health benefits have not been completely worked out. But some researchers have pointed to the possibility that metformin through its ability to cause changes to the ACE2 receptor—it adds a phosphate group to this receptor, causing conformational and functional changes—it could decrease the binding of the virus to respiratory cells. 

It has also been theorized that metformin’s anti-viral properties stem from its ability to block a crucial signaling pathway used by the coronavirus. A study published in January 2023 in the journal Virus Research found that in cell culture the administration of metformin to SARS-COV-2-infected cells led to a dramatic decline in viral proteins and viral life cycle, thus protecting these cells. A small group of patients treated with metformin in the study showed a drop in their viral titers, underscoring that their “results unambiguously demonstrated a potent anti-SARS-CoV-2 effect of metformin.”

Moreover, irrespective of one’s diabetic state, metformin has been shown to ameliorate the immune system’s response to inflammatory pathways, reducing cytokine levels, which have been implicated for development of severe COVID. As the authors of the above review underscored:

Metformin has the capability to impact immune responses through its modulation of inflammation, the microenvironment, and via metabolic and non-metabolic action on immune cells themselves. These findings highlight the ability of metformin to modulate immune cell function, specifically in T cells, macrophages, and B cells which are essential for controlling responses to infection and generating long-term immunological memory.

One of the first reports on the potential for metformin to mitigate the deadly consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection was published online in May 2020 from researchers in Wuhan, China. In their retrospective analysis of diabetic patients hospitalized with confirmed COVID from January 27, 2020 to March 24, 2020, in-hospital mortality for the metformin group was 2.9 percent (3 of 104 patients), versus 12.3 percent (22 of 179 patients) for the group not taking metformin. 

Dr. Carolyn Bramante [Photo: University of Minnesota Medical School]

Another early observational report was published in preprint form in June 2020 by Dr. Carolyn Bramante from the University of Minnesota and colleagues. In that retrospective cohort analysis utilizing data extracted from the insurance company UnitedHealth Group’s Clinical Discovery Database, they analyzed the impact of COVID-19 on 6,256 patients admitted to US hospitals, of whom 2,333 were taking metformin in an outpatient setting. Interestingly, the study showed that there was a statistically significant reduction in mortality, but only for women. 

The COVID-OUT clinical trial

Nonetheless, with respect to gender, the above work prompted the Minnesota group to initiate the COVID-OUT clinical trial that enrolled participants, either overweight or clinically obese, from December 30, 2020 to January 28, 2022, to investigate three medications: immediate-release metformin, ivermectin (anti-parasite drug), and fluvoxamine (an anti-depression medication from the group known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). The trial included 1,126 people who gave their consent to participate and completed at least one long-term follow-up survey 180 days after starting in the trial. There were six subgroups, one each for metformin plus ivermectin, placebo plus ivermectin, metformin plus fluvoxamine, placebo plus fluvoxamine, metformin plus placebo, and placebo plus placebo.

The study was “quadruple blinded,” which meant that neither the investigators, the individuals who assessed outcomes (i.e., Long COVID), the treating clinicians, nor the participants themselves knew which combination of drugs any participant was receiving. 

The analysis of the impact of metformin on Long COVID was published in Lancet Infectious Diseases, showing that the drug metformin lowered one’s risk of developing Long COVID by 41.3 percent, while no such reduction was seen with ivermectin or fluvoxamine.

The overall incidence of Long COVID in the metformin group nearly one year out from their initial infection was 6.3 percent compared to 10.6 percent in the placebo group. Earlier initiation of metformin during acute COVID-19 resulted in a greater reduction in risk. Initiating metformin within four days of symptom onset reduced risk by 63 percent versus 36 percent for initiation after. The strain of the virus did not affect the incidence of Long COVID. Vaccination status also did not impact the results; the reduction in risk was the same for both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.

Graph shows reduction in viral load for patients treated with metformin, vs. a placebo. [Photo: University of Minnesota Medical School]

Most recently, their latest publication in the journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases demonstrated a dramatic 3.6-fold reduction in SARS-CoV-2 viral load by day 10. Those receiving metformin were less likely to have detectable viral load than placebo by day five or day 10. The reviewers of the study commented that this

study makes a strong case for a potential effect of metformin on COVID-19 virologic decay and prompts reevaluation of existing data in support of its use. In vitro studies have identified both antiviral and anti-inflammatory activities of the drug, and the investigators initially identified metformin as a promising agent through use of sophisticated in silico modeling.

Furthermore, observational studies have suggested that individuals treated with metformin for diabetes have improved COVID-19 outcomes compared with those not on this drug. While cross-study comparisons have limitations, it is notable that the absolute risk reduction for hospitalization or death for metformin versus placebo in COVID-OUT was nearly identical to that from a recent study that compared nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) to lack of treatment in a propensity-scored matched analysis in the vaccination era (i.e., 1 percent versus 3 percent). 

The fact that more than 50 percent of participants in COVID-OUT were vaccinated further amplifies the relevance of the study results to the current immunologic profile of today’s population, where nearly everyone has been vaccinated, or had COVID-19, or both.

The authors of the COVID-OUT studies should be commended for their initiative, which has provided compelling evidence for the benefits offered by Metformin. Further work to confirm these benefits should be expedited and consideration given to bringing other treatments forward to address the vacuum that exists in the treatment of COVID. 

Clearly, the paucity of effective treatments for COVID and mitigating Long COVID in a period where mass infection has been normalized is part and parcel of the logic of “forever COVID.” The need for treatments to address the harms caused by repeat infections with SARS-CoV-2 underscores the irrational and reactionary character of the policy of mass infection.

Unlike the flu, where adults may catch the influenza virus on average twice per decade, serial viral infection with COVID is commonplace. There have been more than 1.1 billion infections across the US during the COVID pandemic; on average, every person in the US and, by extension, the rest of the world, can expect to be infected annually. And given the long-term consequences of repeat COVID infections to respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological and metabolic systems, many have predicted that chronic health conditions will disable millions more and these illnesses will begin appearing at earlier ages than previously expected.

Macron names Barnier to lead right-wing French government backed by neo-fascists

Anthony Torres & Alex Lantier

Yesterday, after an unprecedented seven weeks of talks with members of the parliamentary parties since the July 7 elections, President Emmanuel Macron named Michel Barnier prime minister. Barnier will now try to select a ministerial cabinet that can win the support of the majority of the National Assembly.

New Prime Minister of France, Michel Barnier, right, and outgoing French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, left, arrive for the handover ceremony, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024 in Paris [AP Photo/Michel Euler]

Macron’s selection of Barnier, a member of the discredited, right-wing The Republicans (LR) party, tramples upon the elections and installs the far right at the center of official politics. Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s New Popular Front (NFP) won a plurality in the July 7 elections, with 182 seats. Macron’s Ensemble coalition won 163 seats, and the far-right National Rally’s (RN) 143, only because the NFP endorsed Ensemble candidates, supposedly to stop a RN victory.

Having preserved his party from collapse with Mélenchon’s support, France’s widely-hated president has now named a right-wing prime minister who would rule with far-right support. LR and Ensemble together control only 233 seats in the Assembly, and Barnier is well short of a 289-seat majority in the 577-seat National Assembly. Yesterday, however, RN officials indicated that they played a central role in selecting Barnier and would, at least initially, support his government.

A Macron-Barnier government would impose violently right-wing policies and, sooner rather than later, provoke mass opposition in the working class. It is committed to policies that face opposition from an overwhelming majority of the French people, above all in the working class—notably escalating the NATO war in Ukraine by sending troops to fight Russia, and continuing attacks on pensions and social spending.

Barnier is a 73-year-old European Union (EU) bureaucrat known mainly as the EU’s representative in Brexit talks with Britain. He is a partisan of strict austerity and corporate tax cuts. He denounces social spending for creating “entitled people,” and opposes renewable energy. He has proposed a further one-year rise in the retirement age, beyond the two-year increase to 64 that Macron imposed in 2023, despite overwhelming popular opposition and mass strikes.

Barnier has adopted violently anti-immigrant, xenophobic positions, especially since the Brexit talks. In 2021, he called for a five-year ban on immigration into France, claiming that otherwise “there will be more Brexits.” He demanded “liberty of maneuver” for France to violate EU rules on immigration, and appealed to the police, demanding that immigration decisions be taken out of the hands of “people smugglers and judges.”

Having spent much of his career in the EU machine in Brussels, near NATO headquarters, Barnier also is a partisan of NATO. During the war in Ukraine, he has criticized policies of EU and French military autonomy advanced earlier by Macron, hailing NATO as a “pillar” of European defense.

The Elysée presidential palace announced Barnier’s nomination in a perfunctory communiqué, stating that Barnier would “build a government of unity serving the country and the French people,” aiming to “be as stable as possible and to have the best chances to create the broadest unity.”

Yesterday, RN officials made clear that they played a key role in the selection of Barnier, and that they would keep his government afloat, as long as it carries out policies acceptable to them.

RN leader Marine Le Pen told a press conference at the Assembly: “We demanded a certain number of conditions, namely that we have a prime minister that would respect RN voters. … I believe that Mr. Barnier fulfills that criterion. As for other things, on substantive issues, we will wait and see what the statement of general policy of Mr Barnier will bring, and the way in which he carries out the necessary compromises on the upcoming budget.”

The Belgian establishment daily Le Soir concluded that the RN “is the arbiter in the new legislature,” while the Courrier International wrote that “Barnier was the only name [Le Pen] did not immediately veto.”

The announcement of a Barnier government backed by the RN tramples the election results underfoot. Masses of workers and youth voted for NFP candidates, or for Ensemble candidates backed by the NFP, in order to block the coming to power of a far-right government. Under conditions where overwhelming majorities of the population oppose further pension cuts, the genocide in Gaza and military escalation against Russia, there were broad expectations that the vote would compel a shift in policy.

It is apparent that during the seven weeks of negotiations that followed the elections, Macron and the neo-fascists were engaged in constant plotting on how to continue the reactionary political agenda of the previous Macron government.

The NFP and allied trade and student unions have called nationwide protests tomorrow against Macron’s theft of the election. While a movement must be built among workers and youth against Macron, this poses profound questions of political perspective and orientation before the working class. Indeed, workers cannot fight war, genocide and social reaction on a national, purely “democratic” basis, by putting pressure on Macron to respect the election result and name a prime minister who would serve under him.

What faces workers in France, and in every country, is a deepening global war, attacks on social and living conditions, and police-state regimes rooted in an international crisis of capitalism. This cannot be resolved through appeals to national capitalist governments, who now brazenly display their fascistic sympathies at home and support for war and genocide abroad. There is nothing to be negotiated with them.

Indeed, the naming of the Barnier government amounts to an exposure of the bankruptcy of Mélenchon and his France Unbowed (LFI) party. He formed the NFP as an alliance with the big business Socialist Party (PS), the Greens and the Stalinist French Communist Party (PCF) that backed Macron in the elections. It refused to make any appeal to mobilize its voters, particularly in the urban working class, in mass strikes and protests against Macron’s far-right plotting. It thus played a central role in facilitating Macron’s installation of a far-right-backed government.

Now, NFP politicians are attacking Macron and, in the case of LFI, calling for participation in the September 7 protests. “The election was stolen from the French people. The message was ignored,” Mélenchon tweeted, calling for “the most powerful possible mobilization.”

Macron “is continuing to live as an autocrat. By naming Michel Barnier, the president is refusing to respect popular sovereignty and voters’ choices in the ballot box,” commented Mathilde Panot, the head of the parliamentary delegation for Mélenchon’s France Unbowed (LFI) party. She called on her supporters to fight “this coup that is unacceptable in a democracy” by participating in the September 7 protests.

While the PS called to censure Macron, the NFP collectively issued a statement denouncing Macron’s “total contempt for millions of French people” who voted in the elections, and the “arrival in power of the National Rally and its ideas.” It reiterated its “solemn pledge during the election campaign” to form a government that would “break with Macron’s policies.”

Zelensky begins mass dismissal of cabinet ministers

Jason Melanovski

On Wednesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky began the largest shake-up of the country’s cabinet since the beginning of the war. So far, seven ministers have resigned and one presidential aide was fired. 

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is thus far the most prominent of Zelensky’s ministers to offer his resignation in a mass exodus that is expected to continue in the coming days. 

Other exiting staff include Justice Minister Denys Maliuska, Ecology Minister Ruslan Strilets, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna, and Deputy Prime Minister Reintegration Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, and Strategic Industries Minister Alexander Kamyshin, who was in charge of weapons production.

According to the head of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party in parliament, David Arakhamia, the changes could end up involving more than half of Zelensky’s staff. It is the largest government shake-up since 2020, when Zelensky dismissed much of his early government in favor of ministers closely tied to Western imperialism and the former administration of President Petro Poroshenko.

On Thursday, Ukraine’s parliament voted to accept Kuleba’s resignation. He will be replaced by Andrii Sybiha, who previously served as deputy foreign minister. Kuleba, who began his political career under Poroshenko, has served as Ukraine’s Foreign Minister since March 2020 following the dismissal of then Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk and his entire cabinet. During his brief six-month tenure as prime minister, Honcharuk was best known for attending a neo-Nazi rock concert in Kiev.

Kuleba was involved in the elaboration of a new national security strategy to “recover” Crimea in early 2021, which is widely seen as a major factor in provoking the Russian invasion a year later. Since 2022, he has continually prodded the Western imperialist powers to remove any limitations on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons inside of Russia. He developed particularly close ties with the Biden administration and played a leading role in finalizing the ten-year bilateral security agreement between the United States and Ukraine in June.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in September 2023. [AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky/Pool]

On Tuesday, just one day before his resignation, Kuleba gave an interview to CNN, calling upon Ukraine’s NATO backers to send more long-range weapons and lift restrictions on striking airfields deep inside Russia, as well as permit the use of NATO air defense systems to shoot down Russian missiles over Ukrainian territory. Dismissing any concerns over the escalation of war with a nuclear-armed Russia, Kuleba stated, “What else has to happen for everyone in the world to understand that the escalation argument is flawed? It never worked in the last two and a half years.” He added that fear of escalation “simply serves as an excuse not to do something.”

Zelensky, who is ruling the country without a legal mandate after suspending presidential elections, has yet to offer any details on the reasons for the mass resignation of his ministers. He only stated on Wednesday that Ukraine needs “new energy, and that includes in diplomacy.” His own party appears to be divided about the government shake-up. According to Russia’s Gazeta.ru, Zelensky had to overcome opposition within his own Servant of the People party to complete the sweeping changes especially in regards to Kuleba’s dismissal and was looking to trade votes for “personal, financial or other bonuses.” Because of the opposition in the ruling party, Zelensky has still not been able to dismiss as many ministers and officials as he wants to. 

The shake-up is an indication of the intense military, political and economic crisis gripping the country.

In East Ukraine, the Ukrainian army is faced with the prospect of collapse. Russia moved only a limited number of troops to counter the Kursk invasion and nearly a month later, Russian forces are now reportedly advancing at a daily rate of 500 meters to one kilometer on several axes in the Donetsk region near the strategically important city of Pokrovsk, which serves as a road and rail hub for the Ukrainian army. 

Just 26,000 residents remain in the city formerly of over 40,000 as Russian forces are now reportedly just 10 km east of the city. Its capture is regarded as imminent by military analysts and the Ukrainian government, which ordered its evacuation earlier in August. With further advances into Donetsk, Russia will likely be able to strike Ukrainian forces throughout the neighboring Zaporizhia region.

Meanwhile, after over two years of war and half a million dead, opposition to the war in the population and among the soldiers is growing. Almost every day, new videos circulate showing Ukrainians confronting military recruiters to prevent them from kidnapping men off the street even in the country’s western regions where nationalism has historically had the most support.

At the front lines, three companies of a battalion of the Ukrainian National Guard, including their commanders, refused to execute the orders of the military high command because of a “huge personnel shortage,” according to Strana.ua. Ukrainian troops are outnumbered by Russian troops by a ratio of one to three. Ukrainian soldiers are reportedly also deserting in large numbers, in what are growing indications of the unfolding disintegration of the Ukrainian armed forces.

In addition to successive military setbacks in East Ukraine, the country is facing a severe energy crisis caused by the war. One of the principal components of Russia’s military strategy has consisted of targeted attacks on energy infrastructure, which have led to rolling blackouts throughout the country and contributed to masses of Ukrainians fleeing the country or refusing to return from abroad. It is widely feared that the country will be unable to provide enough energy for heat and electricity this winter, and it was the energy minister who was first forced to leave earlier this week. 

There are also indications that the government crisis and conflicts in the ruling class are  propelled by the US presidential elections. As the Financial Times reported, “Uncertainty surrounding the upcoming US presidential election and internal pressures in the EU are also of concern to Kyiv, which fears the long-term security and financial commitments it relies on could soon wane.” In an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman on Tuesday, Donald Trump reiterated his promise of ending the war declaring, “If I win, as president-elect, I’ll have a deal made, guaranteed. That’s a war that shouldn’t have happened.” For many years, the war against Russia in Ukraine has been central to the factional infighting between the Democratic Party and the Republicans. In 2019, the Democrats made the arming of Ukraine for war against Russia a central issue in their effort to impeach Donald Trump.

Given the intense political crisis in the US, one aspect of the frenzied government reshuffle in Kiev may well be an effort by Zelensky to create as many “facts on the ground” as possible before a potential shift in power in the White House. Zelensky is expected to attend the United Nations’ General Assembly and meet with outgoing US President Joe Biden later this month. Several reports in Western media speculated that he hoped to have a new cabinet to present to his NATO backers, who have no doubt been consulted beforehand. Last week, Zelensky also announced that he planned to present Biden with a four-part “victory plan” but declined to give any details.

In an interview with NBC on Tuesday, Zelensky claimed that his adventurist invasion of the Kursk region is part of his “victory plan” and that Ukraine plans to hold onto the reported 1,000 square kilometers of occupied Russian territory indefinitely.

UK suspension of Israeli arms contracts a guilty fraud

Thomas Scripps

The British Labour government’s suspension of 30 arms export licenses to Israel is a filthy manoeuvre. Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced the move on Monday, following the conclusion of a two-month legal review—which has not been made public in full.

The decision drew immediate condemnation from all the usual quarters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu branded it “shameful”. His Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced himself “deeply disheartened”.

David Lammy at the Party of European Socialists (PES) Congress in London, November 11, 2023 [Photo by PES Communications/Flicr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]

In the UK, Board of Deputies of British Jews President Phil Rosenberg declared, “Our allies will wonder whether the UK will stand by their sides, and our adversaries will see that when they commit atrocities, it will be our allies that are punished.” Labour Friends of Israel, never missing an opportunity to warmonger, wrote that it was “deeply concerned by the signal this sends to Iran”. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson posted a widely reported tweet asking, “Why are Lammy and [Prime Minister Keir] Starmer abandoning Israel? Do they want Hamas to win?”

Both the Telegraph and the Times ran editorials denouncing the Labour government for “emboldening Hamas”, “playing to the gallery”, “hamfisted diplomacy” and “cynical and performative” politics that risked “legitimising the murderous activities of those who wish to see Israel extirpated.” Starmer, wrote the Times, had previously said that “‘Israel must always have the right to defend her people.’ How hollow those words now sound, the arms decision following in the wake of the killing by Hamas on Saturday of six hostages”.

Such outrage is itself “cynical and performative”. Everyone knows, and the two newspapers acknowledge, that the decision is “designed to change nothing on the ground… but aimed at easing potential dissent on Labour’s backbenches and appeasing further former Labour voters in the Muslim community… a PR exercise designed to insulate Labour from any domestic fallout.” in the Times’ words.

Britain is responsible for a tiny fraction of the arms received by Israel, overwhelmingly provided by the United States. In any case, the government’s decision affects just 30 of 350 arms contracts between the UK and Israel, and critically, excludes parts for F-35 fighter jets killing Palestinian men, women and children day after day. It was one of these aircraft responsible for the al-Mawasi massacre of roughly 90 people in a “safe zone”.

Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-35I Adir stealth multi-role fighter jet [Photo by IDF Spokesperson's Unit photographer / CC BY-SA 3.0]

Making clear his opinion that this brutal war should continue, Lammy announced the suspensions with professions of the right of Israel to “defend itself” and assurances, repeated by Defence Secretary John Healey, that the government’s decision would not affect Israel’s capacity for “defence”. The carefully calibrated character of his decision is best indicated by the measured response of United States officials who—despite reportedly pushing against the move behind the scenes—acknowledged the UK’s “own legal judgments based on their system and their laws.”

Amnesty International UK’s Chief Executive Sacha Deshmukh described the arms suspensions as “limited and riddled with loopholes.” Chief Executive of Oxfam GB Halima Begum commented, “the suspension is little more than window dressing.”

Although both groups characterised the move as some form of “recognition” of Israeli breaches of international law, or evidence that the government had “accepted the very clear and disturbing evidence of Israeli war crimes in Gaza,” the actual grounds on which these suspensions have been imposed are strictly circumscribed.

The available summary of the government’s legal review claims that it was not possible to reach a “determinative judgment on allegations regarding Israel’s conduct of hostilities… in part due to the opaque and contested information environment in Gaza and the challenges of accessing the specific and sensitive information necessary from Israel”.

This is broadly the approach taken by the government in response to the legal action brought against it by Al-Haq and the Global Legal Action Network. In that case, as summarised by lawyer Sam Fowles, who advised Global Justice Now on the same issue: its “position appears to remain, broadly, that the sales are lawful because Israel is not breaching international law. It relies heavily, however, on assurances provided by Israel itself. It is not clear, from the case papers at least, whether the UK has made any significant effort to verify Israel’s claim.”

Instead, what allegedly motivates the government’s arms contracts decision is Israel’s failure to “reasonably do more to facilitate humanitarian access and distribution” and “credible claims of the mistreatment of detainees”—both raised in the most guarded and minimising terms.

In other words, even as it suspends some arms contracts—in a transparent attempt to appease elements of its core constituency which have wavered in their support for Labour thanks to its support for the genocide in Gaza—the government continues to deny knowledge of any evidence suggesting the killings of tens of thousands of civilians constitute war crimes. Even the Guardian’s defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh felt required to acknowledge the “obvious” and “fundamental incoherence” of the “fudged” decision.

It is doubtless for the same reason that Lammy has refused to publish the legal report he was given. Labour’s leaders know they are culpable and are watching their backs carefully.

As the New Statesman notes, “Starmer, who took an active role in the decision, is a lawyer… Lammy is a lawyer; Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, is a lawyer… Attorney General Richard Hermer, a former Doughty Street colleague of Starmer, is a leading authority on international law. 

“This, in short, is not a government that is likely to leave itself legally exposed.”

As far as this has provoked any genuine anger in the ruling class, it is out of concern that any acknowledgement of the crimes in Gaza lets a chink of light through a door supposed to be kept tightly shut by a blanket insistence on the legality of Israel’s war—at least on the part of its two major partners, the US and the UK.

Labour is essentially accused of having broken ranks for its own petty interests; of having “cut loose a friend in need” to “reduce the domestic political damage to Labour from the war in Gaza,” according to the Times, and given moral succour to the mass anti-genocide movement, viewed as an enemy within.

That movement must reject the appeals of misleaders including former Labour head Jeremy Corbyn to see this as “first step” by the Labour government in “ending all arms to Israel”—as in the statement issued jointly with his Independent Alliance of non-party MPs elected on anti-genocide platforms. Starmer has no intention of going any further.

As with previous breaks with US and former Tory government policy—like resuming UNRWA funding and dropping the UK’s opposition to the International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant—the arms contracts suspensions are the minimum action deemed necessary to continue facilitating Israel’s genocide while providing itself some political cover and preserving something of the fiction of international law made use of by the “liberal” imperialist powers against their opponents.

Canada joins US in imposing 100 percent tariff on Chinese-made EVs

Niles Niemuth

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last week that his government was following in the footsteps of the United States and imposing a 100 percent tariff on all electric vehicles manufactured in China. This move—which would double the cost of EVs and hybrid vehicles imported from China—was coupled with the imposition of a 25 percent tariff on Chinese aluminum and steel. 

In announcing the new tariffs, Trudeau postured as a defender of “Canadian workers.” In reality, the tariffs are driven by the predatory interests and ambitions of Canadian imperialism, and are being coordinated with Washington, its principal partner, to reassert North American imperialist global hegemony through aggression and war.

At the July NATO summit, the final communique approved by all 32 members, Canada included, denounced China as a “decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine.” NATO’s increasingly bellicose threats against Beijing, and closer cooperation with regional rivals like Japan, South Korea and Australia, are aimed at preparing for war as part of the imperialist powers’ drive to redivide the world. The imperialists deem it necessary to prevent China’s emergence as an economic peer competitor in the coming decades, especially in key “clean energy” sectors like EVs. They are also determined to secure dominance over the raw materials needed for their production, as well as of advanced armaments and weapons systems.

Trudeau with Unifor President Lana Payne, who strongly supports the trade war tariffs on Chinese-made EVs [Photo: Justin Trudeau/Facebook]

Trudeau claimed doubling the cost of EVs from China was necessary to “level the playing field for Canadian workers.” He complained that, “Actors like China have chosen to give themselves an unfair advantage in the global marketplace, compromising the security of our critical industries and displacing dedicated Canadian auto and metal workers. So, we’re taking action to address that.”

The announcement by Trudeau came at a Liberal Party cabinet retreat in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which was addressed by President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, who was on his way to Beijing for talks. Sullivan told reporters that the US was hoping that Canada and its other allies would take a coordinated approach to cutting off the sale of Chinese EVs. Beijing has responded to Ottawa’s actions by announcing an investigation into possible tariffs on canola, one of Canada’s largest exports.

Canada’s anti-China trade war measures—which are strongly supported by the Conservatives and the Liberals’ governmental allies in the trade union-sponsored New Democratic Party—are an integral part of Canada’s ever-deeper involvement in US imperialism’s economic and military preparations for war with China. At the end of July, a Canadian warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait in a military provocation against China, an action which was carried out in close coordination with the Pentagon. The Trudeau government, at the urging of the military establishment and foreign policymaking circles, has pushed to expand Canada’s military presence in the Asia-Pacific as it carries out a comprehensive program of military rearmament so Ottawa can play a major role, as it did in the two imperialist world wars of the last century, in a rapidly developing global war.

For much of the past 18 months, official Canadian political life has been dominated by a furor whipped up by the intelligence agencies and amplified by the corporate-controlled media over supposed Chinese efforts to “subvert” Canadian democracy. Key aims of this furor have been to force the Trudeau government to adopt an even more hard-line stance towards Beijing, and poison popular attitudes toward China and delegitimize anti-war sentiment.

While the sales of EVs made by China-based companies have yet to take off in Canada, US-based Tesla has been importing cars made at its Shanghai gigafactory to the country since 2023. The tariff, which goes into effect on October 1, is expected to force Tesla to shift the production of imports to Canada to its plants in the US or Europe. 

The cheapest vehicle offered by Chinese-based BYD is just over C$14,600, while EVs currently available in Canada start at C$40,000. 

The Canadian government, in conjunction with the provincial governments of Ontario and Quebec, has shelled out C$53 billion in incentives and subsidies to entice the global automakers to establish EV operations—from battery manufacturing to final assembly—in the country. 

Stellantis, in partnership with LG, is currently building an EV battery plant in Windsor, Ontario with $15 billion in promised government funds, while $13 billion is to be handed over to Volkswagen to build its own battery plant in St. Thomas, Ontario. And $7 billion has been offered to Northvolt for a battery plant in Quebec. 

Through these massive public subsidies and the new tariffs, the Canadian bourgeoisie hopes to establish itself as a major player in the emerging global EV industry, even as the transnational automakers—led by the Big Three: Ford, GM and Stellantis—restructure their operations, closing plants and slashing jobs to increase profitability.

This program is supported by the Liberals, NDP, Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois and Greens. Unifor, the main auto workers’ union, and the entire Canadian Labour Congress bureaucracy, are also fully on board with it. The unions have lobbied the Trudeau government to open the spigot and offer the auto companies however much money they demand to build new plants or retool current operations. This goes hand in hand with their imposition of concessions-filled contracts on workers, so as to attract investment and protect the “global competitiveness” of Canadian capitalism.

The unions are fully integrated into the war plans of Canadian imperialism and are party to the cross-border conspiracy with the Biden-Harris administration to suppress the class struggle across North America. Top Unifor and CLC officials have held closed-door meetings with Trudeau and Biden government officials to discuss their North America-wide efforts to smother worker opposition to their joint program of austerity and war.

Statements by the likes of Unifor President Lana Payne are in keeping with the position taken by United Autoworkers president Shawn Fain, who has taken to appearing in public with t-shirts picturing B-52 bombers and invoking the “arsenal of democracy” to underscore his union’s support for Washington’s policy of world war. His reference is to the unions’ role in smothering working-class opposition during World War II so that American imperialism had peace on the home front as it fought savagely against its imperialist rivals for world domination. This illustrates perfectly the part the UAW and Unifor intend to play in the rapidly emerging third world war on behalf of the ruling class in Washington and Ottawa.

“Canada can and must protect auto and manufacturing jobs here in this country, which thousands of workers rely on for their livelihoods,” Payne declared in a statement welcoming the new tariff. “There is no justification to trade away high-paying, high-skilled jobs for cheap high-carbon intensive vehicles build [sic] under deplorable working conditions. Our union welcomes the Canadian tariff that matches the U.S. to present a united front in support of the auto sector and the communities that benefit from it. We must all remember that cheap comes at a very high cost—a cost to good Canadian jobs and communities.”

Payne and her fellow union bureaucrats are championing a “united front” with governments that are readying for war with China, back the genocide against the Palestinians to the hilt, and have instigated and are relentlessly escalating a bloody war with Russia. They seek to pit Canadian workers against their Chinese brothers and sisters in a race to the bottom, while offering up their labour to the global auto giants for exploitation. This poisonous nationalism fans the flames of the war fever being whipped up by all the major powers.