Australian environmental scientists face mounting censorship

Frank Gaglioti

A report released in September outlined the increasing bullying and censorship that environmental scientists in Australia are facing from governments and the authorities.

This has gone hand in hand with the refusal of successive governments, Labor and Liberal alike, to take any measures to address climate change, and their subordination of all environmental questions to the dictates of the corporate elite. The federal Liberal-National government, for instance, recently introduced legislation for streamlined environmental approval of business developments, paving the way for even greater degradation of nature.

The report, “Consequences of information suppression in ecological and conservation sciences,” was conducted by a team of scientists headed by Don A. Driscoll from the Centre for Integrative Ecology at Deakin University. It surveyed 220 scientists working in universities, government departments and industry.

The report stated: “Australia has globally significant biodiversity, with high degrees of endemism (fauna and flora unique to a given area), but also one of the world’s worst contemporary records.”

Some 34 percent of environmental scientists working for governments said that their reports had been modified, while the figure was 30 percent of those in the private sector. Indicating pervasive censorship, 52 percent in government were forbidden from making the results of some or all of their research public. Many of the respondents stated that the situation had become more restrictive in recent years.

“Government staff are rewarded or penalised on the basis of complying with opinions of senior staff regardless of evidence,” a scientist commented anonymously.

Areas where scientists were “constrained” related to threatened species, native vegetation clearing and climate change.

“I wasn’t surprised it’s happening, but I was surprised by the extent and range of ways it’s happening. It was quite disturbing to see that even internal communication, sharing of information within organisations was being suppressed,” report co-author Euan Ritchie told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

The constraints have had a major impact on scientists and their work.

One scientist explained: “A project… clearly had unacceptable impacts on a critically endangered species… the approval process ignore(d) these impacts…Not being able to speak out meant that no one in the process was willing or able to advocate for conservation or make the public aware of the problem.’’

Scientists are prevented from even commenting as private individuals on social media platforms. This censorship was upheld by an Australian High Court ruling in 2019, which declared that the Australian government is within its rights to sack a public servant for making “anonymous, out-of-hours social media posts that were vitriolic and scathing of government policy, because the action was contrary to codes of conduct.”

The suppression of scientists is expanding as governments, regardless of which big business party heads them, serve the interests of the corporate elite. After decades of government funding cuts, universities are increasingly reliant on commercial partnerships that are incompatible with scientific freedom and the independence of research.

While the report points to the severe consequences of the suppression, it ends up making an appeal to the authorities that are responsible for it.

“These severe personal consequences, alongside the civic and conservation consequences, demand a strong and urgent response from universities, government, and industry,” it stated.

This plaintive appeal, which will fall on deaf ears, is connected to the “apolitical” character of the report, which studiously avoids reference to the class interests and political issues underlying attacks on the sciences.

Due to the censorship they confront, few scientists have spoken publicly about the curtailment of their research. Those cases that have emerged in the media, however, demonstrate that the restrictions on research are the result of bipartisan government policy and the demands of big business.

Climate science has been particularly targeted for government funding cuts.

In February 2016, the federal Liberal government of Malcolm Turnbull cut approximately 200 positions from the Oceans and Atmosphere (O&A) division of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). This amounted to 80 percent of climate scientists at the preeminent government research body.

The job cull was accompanied by the censorship of research that exposed the scale of climate change. Sea level rise expert John Church, who was sacked in 2016, stated that the CSIRO was “missing in action” at critical times, with the organisation failing to comment on areas that impinged on government policy.

According to climate scientist David Karoly, CSIRO management has tended to take “a risk-avoidance approach… They don’t want to risk being perceived as providing government with advice that is inconsistent with government policy.”

The curtailment of research also occurred under the previous federal Labor government. A peer-reviewed paper by senior CSIRO environmental economist Clive Spash, opposing the government’s carbon trading policy, which did nothing to address climate change and provided a bonanza to sections of business, was censored.

Coral bleaching (Credit: Australian Institute of Marine Science/James Gilmour)

In one of the worst examples of the suppression of scientific work, in May 2016 an entire chapter of a UNESCO report on the Great Barrier Reef was deleted at the insistence of the Turnbull Liberal government. The missing chapter highlighted the detrimental impact of global warming, which had caused widespread coral bleaching and the general degradation of the reef.

The government was concerned that the report threatened the World Heritage status of the Great Barrier Reef, which could have a negative impact on the lucrative tourism trade, and exposed its failure to protect the world-famous attraction.

Will Steffen, emeritus professor at the Australian National University and head of Australia’s Climate Council said the censorship was “frankly astounding… I’ve spent a lot of my career working internationally… And it’s very rare that I would see something like this happening. I haven’t seen it happen before.”

The current COVID-19 pandemic is being used to subordinate the universities ever-more directly to corporate interests, including through the destruction of tens of thousands of jobs. Hundreds, if not thousands, of research positions are among those to be culled.

At the same time, the federal parliament is currently discussing Environmental protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Streamlining Environmental approvals) Bill 2020. It will enable major corporations to more rapidly proceed with large scale projects, without the hindrance of already-threadbare environmental restrictions.

The devastation of the environment and the suppression of science go hand in hand. Both demonstrate that the subordination of society to the profit interests of a tiny financial aristocracy is incompatible with social need, including a habitable environment, as well as scientific inquiry and independent research.

Health care systems face collapse across Eastern Europe amid resurgent COVID-19 pandemic

Markus Salzmann

The dramatic increase in coronavirus infections is placing increased pressure on Europe’s health care systems. In Eastern European countries, where health care has been destroyed over the past three decades by privatisations and austerity measures, conditions are especially dire.

The situation is almost out of control in Poland. Approximately 14,000 cases are being recorded daily. This is about the same number of cases recorded in Germany, but in a country with a population of 38 million—less than half of Germany’s. Polish medical experts believe that the number of undetected cases is extremely high. Statistics show that just 0.9 tests are carried out for every 1,000 residents.

Corona test laboratory in Serbia (Photo: Dejan Vidanovic / CC-BY-SA 2.0)

Poland’s leading epidemiologist, Robert Flisiak, pointed to parallels between current conditions in Poland and those in Italy earlier this year, when the health care system collapsed due to the number of infections. Nobody has control of the situation, he remarked.

Temporary hospitals are emerging everywhere because the resources in the country’s hospitals are already at or close to capacity. However, a spokesman for the Polish government stated that the lack of intensive care beds is only part of the problem. As was well known prior to the pandemic, a lack of nurses and doctors is the main issue.

A recent report by German regional public broadcaster MDR provides a sense of the catastrophic conditions. From recorded conversations of emergency rescue services obtained by the TVN24 television channel, it was revealed that a patient in serious condition was sent back and forth between four hospitals for hours. In the end, the despairing emergency rescuers asked a hospital if they should leave the patient before the door and called the police for help.

Tomasz Siegel, head of anaesthesiology at the Warsaw Orlowski hospital, confirmed this. “Where should I evacuate the sick who are lying there? The minister won’t say, because there is no room anywhere,” he said on Facebook. Preparing intensive care units requires money, staff and time. The official figures are a “fiction.” The ordinances from the government are only “created in order to hold a press conference and wash the blood of those from their hands who are dying before our eyes and who will continue to die due to a lack of help.”

“The critical moment in the pandemic in Poland will come when care collapses in the hospitals,” predicted epidemiologist Tomasz Oszorowski, and added, “We are getting closer to that point.”

Various governments have bled the health care system in Poland dry over the past 30 years. This is now becoming clear. Of the 10,000 ventilators in the country, 1,400 have been reserved for coronavirus patients. Sixty percent of these are already being used. Some of the remaining ventilators cannot be used due to a shortage of staff.

Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Sasin recently urged doctors to get over their “fear” and operate the often highly complex devices without training, putting the lives of patients at risk.

Talented medics and nurses have been emigrating to Western Europe for years because they can barely live on their wages in Poland. In 2017, Poland had just 2.4 doctors for every 1,000 residents. Germany had almost twice as many.

Romania has recorded an extremely high number of COVID-19 deaths. The death rate, currently 4.5 for every 1,000 residents, is more than 10 times higher than in Germany. Last Friday, the country, with a population of close to 20 million, reported 5,028 cases, the highest daily figure since the beginning of the pandemic up until that point. More than 200,000 people have been infected, and over 6,000 have died.

Right-wing president Klaus Johannis was forced to admit that the pandemic has plunged the entire country into chaos. While the government has failed to adopt any meaningful protection measures, schools were recently closed in Bucharest for two weeks and teaching will be carried out online.

The country’s hospitals are so overwhelmed by the number of patients that the government was forced to issue an order stating that only the worst cases should be treated in hospital while the rest are cared for at home. Only at the beginning of this month did the government pass legislation requiring hospitals to keep a portion of their beds free for COVID-19 patients. Many say this was too late.

Health Minister Nelu Tataru stated several weeks ago that a level of 3,600 cases per day would lead to critical conditions in hospitals. Of the 1,040 intensive care beds, 749 were already occupied at the beginning of last week. The shortage of doctors is also dire. Only around 1,000 specialists and 800 assistant doctors work in intensive care units across the country, as ARD reported.

With a population of 10.7 million, the Czech Republic is reporting the sharpest increase in coronavirus cases. Last week, the first COVID-19 patients had to be transferred to Germany for treatment. Over 15,200 cases were recorded on Friday alone.

The health care system is now at the limit of its capacities, stated minister Roman Prymula. Thirty percent of those currently tested for coronavirus receive a positive result. Some regions have reported a 500 percent increase in infections.

Hospitals are no longer in a position to guarantee treatment; 120 ventilators are being sent from other European Union (EU) countries to the Czech Republic. Staff from other EU countries and the United States have also been requested. These developments were predictable at the beginning of the pandemic. Earlier this year, the government of businessman Andrej Babis, which includes the social democrats and Stalinists, abandoned all COVID-19 protection measures. Curfews, the wearing of masks and similar measures are only now being reintroduced.

In Slovenia, almost all resources in hospitals are now being used to treat COVID-19 patients. Saturday’s 1,697 cases marked the highest daily total in the pandemic. Several days prior, a government spokesman reported that 25.5 percent of tests were positive. According to World Health Organisation guidelines, the rate of positive tests should ideally not rise above 5 percent. Test capacity is already limited. Infections have doubled within a week.

The pandemic has exposed the true state of the health care system. We must “do something for health care infrastructure,” demanded Dr. Vojko Flis, general director of the Maribor university hospital, to Radio Slovenia. “All of our hospitals are in relatively old buildings. At the same time, we have no building equipped for accommodating patients who could spread highly infectious diseases.”

Large numbers of residents in several elderly care homes across the country are also infected. Between 5 and 10 percent of total infections are health care employees.

Similar conditions are to be found in all countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans that are recording a rapid increase in infections. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, where 10 percent of the more than 1,000 daily cases are school children, conditions in hospitals were already disastrous prior to the pandemic. In spite of the rise in cases, the government stated explicitly that there would be no lockdown due to concerns about its impact on the economy.

Doctors in Serbia are also awaiting an “Italian scenario,” after the government in Belgrade withdrew all measures to contain the pandemic.

Although some governments are adopting certain measures in an act of desperation to contain the virus, this does not conceal the fact that the corrupt and discredited regimes are endangering the lives of thousands of people in a criminal manner. Only an independent mass working class movement against the capitalist system can put a stop to this.

French government whitewashes COVID-19 clusters in schools, universities

Samuel Tissot

It is now two months since the reopening of schools and universities in France. On September 1, when the first schools and universities began instruction for the autumn term, there were 3,082 confirmed cases. Sunday’s figure of 52,013 new cases represents an astronomic increase of 1,700 percent in a little under two months. On Saturday, 298 COVID-19 deaths were recorded, the highest number since May 14. It is increasingly clear that schools and universities have played a central role in preparing the mounting death toll.

The reopening of in-person education has been a central element of the anti-scientific and murderous policy of “herd immunity” overseen by the French government. The major banks and corporations see opening schools and universities as necessary to allow the population to remain at work for the continued extraction of profit from the working class. The government has flatly denied the spread of the virus among students. Each one of these lies is a deadly crime against the working class.

As part of this effort, last week French Health Minister Olivier Véran denied the significance of figures showing that 60 percent of clusters had been recorded in workplaces, schools, and universities.

In what amounts to an effective admission that clusters are being ignored, he tweeted that “60 percent of clusters only accounts for 10 percent of cases,” and one could not “confuse clusters and diagnostics.” A cluster is defined as at least three or more confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 among people in the same community or who participated in the same gathering.

Up until October 11, only 3.6 percent of the cases in the Île-de-France region, including Paris and the surrounding areas, have been linked to clusters. This is despite the near-capacity use of the metro, a full return to work, and a virtual complete restart of education in the region.

Véran and the French state would have the population believe that 90 percent (96 percent in the Paris region) of case transmissions in the country are simply one-off events, with no connection to workers and students being forced into close quarters on a daily basis. This narrative is also crucial for attempts to convince the public that the recently introduced 9:00 p.m. curfew is an effective measure against the virus. In reality, the curfew’s sole purpose is to allow the government to claim it is fighting the virus while it follows a herd immunity policy.

It also functions as a convenient excuse to occupy the streets of the capital with 12,000 police officers.

In fact, the health ministry’s official advice for universities includes a host of anti-scientific measures. For example, students who test positive for the virus are only required to quarantine for seven days, as opposed to the 14 as advised by the World Health Organization. Furthermore, despite the scientifically established inadequacy of a one-meter distance and mask wearing, students who are exposed to the virus are only considered contact cases if this occurred without a mask. Even when rules are adhered to, the educational environment is deadly.

These measures fly in the face of established science. A collaborative study between the University of Montpellier and Princeton University has shown that the virus can be transmitted over two meters from asymptomatic individuals during speech. The study also acknowledges that although masks are beneficial, they are no guarantee against transmission. It concludes, “Most significantly, our results illustrate that 2 m, or 6 feet, do not represent a ‘wall.’” Testimony from students in a number of French universities has shown that even the 1m rule is regularly ignored.

In a denunciation of the anti-scientific “herd immunity” policy, The Lancet, the leading British medical journal, warned: “Uncontrolled transmission in younger people risks significant morbidity and mortality across the whole population.”

In one example of the extent of the continuing spread at universities, Lisa, a student at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, told the WSWS that in a recent round of testing, half of the students at the school had tested positive for the virus.

The WSWS has already exposed the efforts within the French education system to prevent students from knowing they have been exposed to positive individuals. Determined to keep classes running at all costs, French universities are willing to trample on students’ right to know if they have been exposed to a deadly disease. One can only speculate how many students have been unknowingly exposed to the virus and have then gone on to infect their relatives and family members, believing they were safe.

The abandonment of efforts to contain the virus has dovetailed with the attempt to shift the blame for the majority of new cases on social gatherings, particularly those involving youth. In cases where young people do socialize recklessly, responsibility lies first and foremost with the government and media.

For months, students and young people, in particular, have been told to “do their bit” to help the economy by resuming a regular social life and that their youth effectively provides immunity to the virus. In addition to the role played by young people in the spread of the virus, it should be noted that at least 40 people under 30 have died from the virus and its long-term effects are still unclear.

The full consequences of the wanton disregard of science and social rights by the French government is beginning to become clear. On Monday, Jean-Francois Delfraissy, the president of the Scientific Council, warned listeners of RTL radio, “The second wave will surely be stronger than the first,” ominously adding, “Many of our fellow citizens are not yet aware of what lies ahead.” He added that he believed the real number of daily infections was closer to 100,000 as the current testing infrastructure is not able to keep pace with the contagion.

There is a very real danger of tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths in France over the coming months. Guided by the interests of the financial aristocracy and its need for the continued extraction of profit, the French government has mercilessly enforced a de facto herd immunity policy. In reality, every death is a social murder, consciously prepared and carried out by the cabal of criminal capitalist politicians at the head of the French state.

To prevent an even larger loss of life, universities and schools must immediately return to online learning. This must be accompanied by the closure of all non-essential workplaces. Provide full financial support and housing for all during a renewed lockdown. The time it takes to bring about these necessary measures should be used to introduce a vast expansion of testing and contact tracing to finally contain the virus. This must be funded by the requisitioning of the hundreds of billions of euros given to the banks at the beginning of the pandemic.

Clashes erupt in Guinea-Conakry as Condé declared president for third term

Anthony Torres

A week after the Oct. 18 presidential elections in Guinea, the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) declared incumbent President Alpha Condé elected to an unprecedented third term. It claimed that he obtained 59.49 percent of the vote against his opponent, Cellou Dalein Diallo, who declared himself the victor the day after the election.

After this announcement, Diallo denounced the CENI for having “validated massive organized fraud after the election,” adding that he would mount a legal challenge against the election result. Diallo called on “the populations to mobilize themselves to defend by all legal means the truth of the ballot box,” repeating his earlier claim that he had won 53.8 percent of the vote.

Supporters of Guinean opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo cheer at his headquarters in Conakry, Guinea, Monday Oct. 19, 2020. (AP Photo/Sadak Souici)

Diallo’s campaign had announced the publication of election results allegedly compiled by its representatives. They contradicted results published earlier by the CENI, which placed Condé ahead in four electoral districts where results were already available: Matoto (where Condé had allegedly won 49.13 percent), Matam (51.39 percent), Kaloum (51.87 percent) and Boffa (56.69 percent).

The week that has unfolded since the election was marked by violent clashes between supporters of the rival election campaigns. According to Diallo’s party, the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea, there have been 27 dead and nearly 200 wounded by gunshot.

No clearly accepted election result has emerged, as the government held closed-door meetings with the diplomatic corps to prepare Condé’s third term and bloody repression of opposition parties. Jeune Afrique (Young Africa) magazine reported on “a meeting held behind closed doors in the Foreign Ministry during which the head of the diplomatic corps recalled that observers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had certified the election result. The minister alleged that it was Cellou Dalein Diallo who triggered all the violence of recent days by claiming victory. The foreign minister said his recount had fallen from the sky and threatened possible legal charges.”

While ECOWAS praised the way the election was held, forces inside the CENI itself challenged the vote count. RFI reported that, in a statement they issued to the press, two election commissioners withdrew from the certification of vote totals, denouncing “serious anomalies” detected in the counting of the vote: “Our observations on how to guarantee transparency, reliability, and sincerity of the results have not been taken into account.”

The Condé government sent army troops and a Security and Defense Forces (FDS) unit, fearing that opposition from the Fulani community, to which Diallo belongs, coming from the north suburbs of Conakry, could mount further protests against Condé.

Souleymane, a resident of the Bambeto neighborhood in the north of Conakry, said that after Condé’s victory was announced, “Youth began to come out, and shots started being fired. We told the kids to get inside. We went back to our homes, but they were still firing. Since 9 p.m. yesterday, Red Berets have acted to back up police and military police units.”

Mamadou Bailo Barry of the National Front to Defend the Constitution (FNDC), a group that has mounted street protests against a Condé third term since April 2019, said: “There is at the highest levels of the state a group of men from several ethnicities who, to satisfy their private interests and by lack of vision, play on ethnic issues in order to terrorize and divide Guineans among themselves. In reality, many ethnicities live side by side here. But this issue has become a political weapon.”

The FNDC has called to restart this week protest marches launched across Guinea before the elections, “until dictator Alpha Condé leaves.” These protests have already seen brutal crackdowns that left 90 dead.

The current political crisis in Guinea erupted with the vote to amend the Constitution in March by Condé in order to allow him a third term, whereas presidents were previously limited to two terms. This provoked protests starting in April against Condé called by the opposition parties in the name of the defense of democratic rights.

The Stalinist bureaucracy and then, after it dissolved the Soviet Union in 1991, capitalist Russia were historic allies since Guinea’s independence from France in 1958, establishing diplomatic relations and cooperation in numerous industries. Sixty percent of the Guinean army’s equipment comes from Russia. It oversees the mining the country’s vast mineral resources, in particular bauxite, which is key to the production of aluminum.

In Guinea, a former French colony, French imperialism and its NATO allies have gradually lost market share under Condé to China, Russia and Turkey. China became Guinea’s second-largest trading partner, and Turkey has seen the volume of its trade with Guinea double since 2016.

The passage of the constitutional amendment depended on support from Moscow and Beijing. Russian Ambassador Alexander Bregadze said: “Constitutions are not dogmas, Bibles or Korans. Constitutions adapt to reality, it is not reality that adapts to constitutions. We support you, Mr. President. … Guinea really needs you, today more than ever! And as the popular Russian saying goes, one does not change horses in midstream. Currently, Guinea is in midstream. Stand with her, this beautiful and wealthy woman!”

The Condé regime is a brutal dictatorship attempting to maintain itself in power by bloody repression. However, the workers and oppressed masses of Guinea cannot rely on any of the bourgeois factions now competing for power in the country.

Diallo, a former top official of Guinea’s central bank, is profoundly tied to imperialism. His party is linked to the “Liberal International” whose sections include the right-wing Free Democratic Party in Germany and the Reform Movement in Belgium. He has nothing to offer to working people.

The bourgeoisie in Guinea has proven historically incapable of overcoming tensions between Fulani, Malinke and other ethnicities—conflicts now inflamed by the bloody imperialist war waged by France with German aid in neighboring Mali. The Condé regime even provided troops for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the UN force fighting under the control of Paris in Mali.

Recent months have seen powerful movements of workers and oppressed masses across the region, from the mass “hirak” protests against the Algerian military junta to teachers and railway strikes in Mali. There is rising anger in Ivory Coast against the 2011 French intervention to install President Alassane Ouattara in power, ousting Laurent Gbagbo, just before the French invasion of Mali. The international unification of strikes and struggles in Africa with class struggles in Europe and internationally for socialism is the only way to establish and defend democratic rights in the region.

Malaysian king rejects PM’s “request” for emergency rule

Mike Head

On Sunday, Malaysia’s King Sultan Abdullah rejected a request by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin for him to declare a state of emergency in response to a worsening coronavirus resurgence and “political instability.” As a result, Muhyiddin could be forced to resign, throwing the country into further turmoil.

In Malaysia, like other states throughout southeast Asia, the political establishment is facing a severe economic breakdown, the intensifying US confrontation with China and rising unemployment, poverty and class tensions.

The pandemic is accelerating the protracted breakup of the old political parties, especially the corrupt and repressive United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which ran the country from the end of British rule in 1957 until it was defeated at a general election in May 2018.

Both Muhyiddin’s bid to rule by decree and the monarch’s rejection point to an acute political and constitutional crisis. There are clearly rifts within the ruling class and its security apparatus, above all over how to deal with popular discontent.

The police and military chiefs had joined the prime minister’s cabinet meeting last Friday that decided to seek emergency rule, but the royal palace rejected the move after consultations with the country’s other sultans.

“Al-Sultan Abdullah is of the opinion that there is no need at the moment for His Majesty to declare an emergency in the country or in any part of the country of Malaysia,” the palace announced.

Lawyers said the king’s decision was “unusual,” but he had not exceeded his powers, as a supposed constitutional monarch, by blocking the prime minister’s plan. They said Muhyiddin had merely made a “request,” not a formal application, for emergency rule.

Muhyiddin’s proposal for emergency rule had provoked widespread opposition, and consternation in the wealthy corporate elite. There were concerns that such a move could set off a social explosion and further crash the economy. It had been “greeted with alarm by Malaysians,” Al Jazeera and Reuters reported.

Muhyiddin’s “request” was an obvious bid to cling to office after opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, claimed to have secured the parliamentary numbers to topple the unstable coalition government.

The government could face defeat in a no-confidence vote when the legislature resumes for the scheduled November 6 annual budget, which will report a massive fiscal deficit. Such a vote could instigate an early general election.

Echoing big business alarm, Anwar said he was “deeply concerned” by the emergency bid. A “descent into dictatorship and authoritarianism” would damage the economy and be a “threat to national security.”

Anwar said the government’s handling of the pandemic response was “lacking” and too little was being done to revive the economy.

Since the end of British colonial occupation in 1957, emergency rule has been imposed once before. That was in 1969, during anti-Chinese pogroms whipped up by the ethnic Malay ruling class.

Under that order, the constitution was suspended, parliament was dissolved and a National Operations Council took over the government. A curfew was imposed, the media was censored and opposition politicians were arrested, facing indefinite detention. Parliament reconvened in February 1971 under tight UMNO control, but the emergency ordinance was not repealed until 2013.

As in other parts of the world, the pandemic is producing a public health and economic catastrophe.

Malaysian authorities reported another 823 new COVID-19 cases on October 25, bringing the total to 26,565—more than double the number a month ago—and the total number of fatalities has risen to 229.

Most of the cases had been in Sabah, one of Malaysia’s north Borneo states, but infections have spread to the peninsula, leading to partial lockdowns in Kuala Lumpur, the capital, and surrounding Selangor state.

Last week, the International Monetary Fund forecast that the Malaysian economy would shrink by 6 percent this year, worse than the IMF’s previous June forecast of a 3.8 percent contraction.

Across the region, the IMF warned, fear of infection and social-distancing measures were eroding consumer confidence, while unemployment was surging, particularly among women and younger workers. Weak global growth, largely closed borders and US-China tensions had worsened prospects of a trade-led recovery

Officially, Malaysia’s unemployment rate remained at 4.7 percent in August, the Department of Statistics Malaysia announced last week, leaving about 750,000 workers jobless.

This is a vast understatement, however. Last month, the Ministry of Higher Education revealed the unemployment rate among fresh graduates in 2020 was projected to be 25 percent.

The overall jobless rate was likely to balloon to 13 percent, or 2.4 million people, according to an Employees Provident Fund (EPF) report published in May, based on estimations by the Malaysia Employers Federation.

The situation was even worse in the “informal” sectors. The report said 46 percent of self-employed people—or two million—were out of work. A survey found that 95 percent of the self-employed had lost 90 percent of their income, while 71 percent reported they had enough savings to only last one month.

Social inequality is worsening. Even before the pandemic, EPF said 19 percent of children were living in relative poverty. That is, 1.7 million children were living in a family whose parents or guardians made less than about 2,900 ringgit ($US700) a month—half the median household income.

Based on EPF’s 2019 data, the income of 86 percent of Malaysian workers was less than 4,000 ringgit, and 4.4 million—or half the EPF members—made less than 2,500 ringgit.

These conditions will deteriorate as the ruling elite imposes the burden of the pandemic on the back of workers, including the cost of the 305 billion ringgit ($73.3 billion) handed out in business stimulus packages.

On October 5, Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz told CNBC that the budget’s fiscal deficit would be around 5.8 percent to 6 percent, following financial “injections” into the economy totalling around 20 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

Two weeks ago, opposition leader Anwar held an hour-long meeting with the king in an effort to take office and stabilise the political order. He told a media conference that he gave the king evidence of the support of 120 members of the 222-strong parliament.

Anwar said: “I urge all parties to give space to the king to carry out his responsibilities under the constitution, and to go through the documents and call party leaders to confirm and receive their input and views.”

In this Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019, file photo, Malaysia's King Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah, right, sits next to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad during his welcome ceremony at Parliament House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (AP Photo/Yam G-Jun, FIle)

These are just the latest sordid machinations in the unravelling ruling elite. For 60 years, UMNO relied on an electoral gerrymander, anti-democratic laws and a politically-controlled police, judiciary and media. Anwar became deputy prime minister in that regime but fell out with then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in 1998 over Anwar’s backing for IMF free-market demands that would undercut UMNO’s crony capitalism.

Anwar spent years in jail on trumped-up corruption and sodomy charges, orchestrated by Mahathir’s government, before partnering with Mahathir to oust Mahathir’s successor, Najib Razak, over the multi-billion dollar 1MDB scandal.

Mahathir and Anwar also opposed Najib’s signing of $22 billion worth of infrastructure deals with Chinese corporations as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The pair cobbled together the Pakatan Harapan coalition, which won the 2018 election. That opportunist arrangement broke apart in February this year after Mahathir reneged on a deal to hand over the prime minister’s post to Anwar. Muhyiddin, who had also switched allegiance from UMNO to Pakatan, was installed as prime minister with the backing of the Malay elite after a week of turmoil.

None of these factions has any commitment to democratic rights. While Muhyiddin has called for a state of emergency to be imposed, Anwar’s opposition is based on fears of a social explosion and potential economic damage. Both have appealed to the unelected king to arbitrate on behalf of Malaysia’s ruling class.

The policy of “herd immunity” pushes Europe’s health care system toward the abyss

Anthony Torres

The limited measures announced by various European governments following record numbers of new coronavirus cases in multiple countries over the weekend cannot hide the disaster caused by their premature policy of resuming work and reopening schools.

On Sunday, records were broken in Italy, France and Germany. There were 21,273 cases of COVID-19 detected in Italy. According to data reported by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for Infectious Diseases, there were 11,176 more cases in Germany than the day before. France recorded 52,010 cases, up from 45,000 the day before.

Medical workers tend a patient suffering from COVID-19 in the Nouvel Hopital Civil of Strasbourg, eastern France, Thursday, Oct.22, 2020.(AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)

In France, the milestone of one million cases since the beginning of the pandemic has been passed. The number of deaths attributable to the disease reached 116 on Sunday, bringing the total number of deaths since the beginning of the epidemic to 34,761. The test positivity rate continues to rise, reaching 17 percent, up from 16 percent the day before, and only 4.5 percent in early September.

Spain reported more than 52,000 new cases this weekend, and a cumulative total of 361.7 cases per 100,000 inhabitants diagnosed in the last 14 days. Confirmed cases are increasing across the peninsula and the Balearic Islands. On Friday, 231 additional deaths were recorded, bringing the official death toll to 34,752. The real figure, according to the Spanish press, is more than 55,000 deaths.

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Saturday that it had recorded a new world record of coronavirus infections for the third consecutive day, with the Northern Hemisphere being particularly affected. According to WHO world statistics, 465,319 cases were confirmed on Saturday, compared to 449,720 on Friday and 437,247 on Thursday.

Faced with the chaotic health situation in Europe, measures have been taken in several countries. Italy will close cinemas, theaters, gyms and swimming pools, while bars and restaurants will stop serving after 6 p.m. One of the most affected countries, Belgium, moved its curfew forward to 10 p.m. Cultural and sports activities have been banned since Monday.

In Spain, where some 4,500 classrooms, or 1.3 percent of the total, are in quarantine, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has imposed a curfew throughout the country, except the Canary Islands. A state of health emergency has been declared.

In a speech after meeting with his cabinet, Sanchez said: “The reality is that Europe and Spain are immersed in a second wave of the pandemic. The situation we are living through is extreme.” However, Sanchez still ruled out new containment measures. “There will be no home confinement in this state of emergency, but the longer we stay at home, the safer we will be,” he said. “Everyone knows what to do.”

“We know that there are many epidemics in the social sphere, but I doubt that most of them are at night, especially after midnight,” Pedro Gullon, of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology, said, mocking the late night curfew in Spain as in many other countries.

Gullon proposed instead a lockdown and to make working from home compulsory where possible. Under these conditions, he explained, “a lot of mobility is avoided, from when people have to take public transport,” limiting transmission of the virus.

In France, local and national lockdowns are still being discussed within the government, according to a statement on Sunday by Cédric O, the junior minister for digital economy. Speaking on France Info, O replied to a question about a possible reconfinement by stating: “Everything is possible.” Macron is holding two meetings of the defense council today and tomorrow to discuss the response to the pandemic.

While the current acceleration of the pandemic is ravaging the continent, O simply said: “We must not rule out anything and see what to do according to the evolution of the epidemic.”

In fact, for weeks Macron has been acting like Nero while France burns. A disaster threatens the whole of Europe. More than a third of intensive care unit beds in France—and more than 68 percent in the Ile-de-France region surrounding Paris—are occupied by COVID-19 patients. The number of patients is doubling approximately every ten days. Even if a strict and widespread lockdown were imposed immediately, the number of patients would continue to rise for several weeks, overwhelming hospitals.

An intensive care unit doctor told the Parisian: “There are 15 patients in the corridors, we don’t know where to put them. We are on duty until 4 a.m. If we continue like this, we’re going to crash. When we discovered the headline of Les Echos where the minister said that the hospital is stronger than in the spring, we choked. We were horrified!”

The gains from the lockdowns imposed in March by the European states have now been lost. Strict containment measures were implemented against the ruling elite’s wishes in the face of a series of wildcat strikes that had brought Italian industry to a standstill and were spreading throughout Europe. Having imposed a premature return to work and school and removed restrictions, the ruling class has caused a rebound in the contagion that threatens millions of lives in Europe.

The opposition of governments and banks to new lockdowns reveals their complete disregard for the lives at risk. Leaders have resorted to curfews and other more or less performative measures mainly out of fear of an eruption of social anger that is rising across the board against the policy of “living with the virus.” The pandemic and the hundreds of thousands of deaths have exposed the bankruptcy of the financial aristocracy and their inability to protect human lives.

This criminal policy was possible with the complicity of the trade unions and their “left-wing populist” political allies, who negotiated the disastrous policy of a return to work and reopening of schools. These forces were not only propagandists of the policy of herd immunity. They implemented it.

In Spain, one of the countries most affected by the pandemic, the government is an alliance between social democracy and the “left-wing populists” of Podemos. This party has implemented the EU’s herd immunity policy and supported during the summer the dispatch of police to the confined working class neighborhoods of Madrid. Now that the health situation in Spain is once again a disaster, the government to which Podemos belongs refuses to take measures to control the virus in order to continue extracting profits for the banks on the backs of the workers.

These events vindicate the call by the International Committee of the Fourth International for workers to form their own health and safety committees, independent of the unions, in schools and workplaces. These committees would ensure to protect essential workers from the virus, and to prepare a workers’ struggle to impose lockdowns, the only effective method capable of controlling the spread of the deadly virus.

Workers in non-essential sectors and young people must be allowed to stay home, and the thousands of billions of euros from stimulus plans must be used not to bail out the banks but to allow workers to shelter in place with no loss of income. For this the socialist expropriation of the financial aristocracy is necessary. This means a struggle for the seizure of power by the European working class and the reorganization of society according to the needs of humanity.

Facebook deploying teams with advanced censorship tools in advance of the US election

Kevin Reed

The social media platform Facebook is preparing an aggressive program of censorship for the US presidential election next week. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, teams of Facebook employees have been formed to deploy specially developed software tools previously used to “calm election-related conflict” in “at-risk” countries.

The Journal report, based on comments from anonymous sources, says that the “emergency measures include slowing the spread of viral content and lowering the bar for suppressing potentially inflammatory posts.” The methods have been used previously during civil unrest in Sri Lanka and Myanmar and are “part of a larger tool kit developed by Facebook to prepare for the U.S. election.”

Among the other features of the censorship tools are “across-the-board slowing of the spread of posts as they start to go viral,” the ability to tweak “the news feed to change what types of content users see” and lowering “the threshold for detecting the types of content its software views as dangerous.”

The Journal sources also said that Facebook “needs to be prepared for all possibilities” and use the tools to “alter what tens of millions of Americans see when they log onto the platform, diminishing their exposure to sensationalism, incitements to violence and misinformation, said the people familiar with the measures.”

The Facebook app sign-in screen (pxfuel.com)

Policy Communications Manager at Facebook, Andy Stone, responding to questions about the Journal report, issued a statement which said, “We’ve spent years building for safer, more secure elections. We’ve applied lessons from previous elections, hired experts, and built new teams with experience across different areas to prepare for various scenarios.”

Among the preparations that Facebook has made for the 2020 elections is a deeper collaboration with the Democratic Party and its faction of the US intelligence apparatus. Among the pre-election censorship measures carried out by Facebook have been the shutdown of pages and groups accused without any proof of “trying to mislead Americans and amplify division.”

Facebook has also worked with the pro-imperialist Bipartisan Policy Center to set up a Facebook Voting Information Center and placed fact checking labels on the posts of the Trump campaign.

Speaking to the Financial Times in September, Facebook Vice President for Global Affairs and Communications Nick Clegg reported that the social media company had “drawn up plans” for unprecedented outcomes including the possibility of violence arising from the November elections. Clegg said that there were some “break-glass options” that would only be used in the event of extreme chaos and civil unrest.

Buzzfeed News reported recently that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed a companywide meeting on October 15 and said that content rules banning hate and conspiracy theories were implemented because of the US presidential elections. The report said Zuckerberg claimed that the recent changes to its content policies were made “to address the unstable situation around the US election and its aftermath” and “there has been no change in the way the company operates.”

Zuckerberg further stated, based on a Buzzfeed transcript of the audio of his speech, “Once we’re past these events, and we’ve resolved them peacefully, I wouldn’t expect that we continue to adopt a lot more policies that are restricting of a lot more content.”

So, in other words, the censorship measures that are now in place at Facebook will not be lifted regardless of what happens on November 3 and there may well be more stringent suppression of speech implemented, especially if the election results in violence.

Speaking about the experiences of Facebook in suppressing speech in other countries, Zuckerberg said, “We’ve had ongoing work in a number of countries that we consider at risk—countries at risk of ongoing civil conflict, places like Myanmar, or Sri Lanka, or Ethiopia—where the determination that we’ve made alongside human rights groups and local groups on the ground is that a wider band of speech and expression would lead potentially to more incitement of violence or different issues.”

The view that stopping “a wider band of speech” among the public is preferred for the ruling political and media establishment is a deeply reactionary and undemocratic position that is now being implemented in the US and around the world.

Zuckerberg also expressed support for the policy announced at Google that employees are not permitted to talk publicly about the recently filed federal and state government antitrust lawsuit. Calling the policy “prudent,” Zuckerberg said, “anything that any of you say internally is, of course, available to be subpoenaed or used in any of these investigations, I just think we should make sure that people aren’t just, you know, mouthing off about this and saying things that may reflect inaccurate data, or generally just are kind of incomplete.”

He also said, after noting that Facebook stood for free expression, “You shouldn’t be emailing about these things and you shouldn't really be discussing this in non-privileged forums across the company.”

No confidence can be placed in reassurances from the billionaire Zuckerberg that the censorship measures that have been put in place prior to November 3 will not be extended or strengthened in the period after the elections.

The Wall Street Journal report makes clear that preparations for social unrest in the US and its suppression by the state are well advanced. Facebook’s 2020 election censorship measures for the purpose of silencing speech on its platform are connected to the historically developing crisis of capitalist rule in the US and throughout the world.

How Coronavirus Exposed the Flaws of the Childcare Economy

Sonali Kolhatkar

The U.S. government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics finds that childcare workers in the nation have a median salary of just over $24,000 a year—below the poverty line for a family of four. The segment of our nation’s workforce that attends to the basic needs of our children is shockingly underpaid, and now during the coronavirus pandemic, left even farther behind as childcare centers are forced to downsize or close. At the same time, billionaires have minted money during our time of national crisis. The fortunes of the wealthiest have increased by a quarter over the past several months, proving once more that the economy is rigged to benefit the already-rich.

It is no coincidence that an industry dominated by women, particularly women of color (40 percent of childcare workers are women of color—twice their population representation) is in dire straits. The vast majority of childcare workers do not have health insurance. Many are self-employed and, even before the pandemic, operated on razor-thin margins to stay financially afloat. While the cost of operating a childcare center is fixed, children age out quickly, making revenues extremely unstable. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The businesses have little in the way of collateral. Banks are rarely interested in lending to them, beyond costly credit cards, making it difficult to ride out rough patches.”

In other words, childcare is not a lucrative business in spite of its crucial nature, and while the cost of childcare for parents is often far too high, the cost of operating even a bare-bones childcare business is also too high.

Once the pandemic hit, many childcare providers simply lost clients as lockdowns required families to remain at home. According to one survey conducted in April 2020, “60% of programs [were] fully closed and not providing care to any children” at that time. While some workplaces were able to transition to remote environments, by its nature, childcare work was not able to adapt to this “new normal.” While many workers like grocery store employees, nurses, and delivery drivers were deemed “essential” to society and continued working, they needed care for their out-of-school children. Suddenly American women providing childcare found themselves out of work, while women in other industries had no access to the care their children required.

Millions of parents, mostly mothers, have already left the workforce to care for their children during the pandemic. The U.S. Census Bureau in August 2020 found that nearly 20 percent of “working-age adults said the reason they were not working was because COVID-19 disrupted their childcare arrangements.” Additionally, “women ages 25-44 [were] almost three times as likely as men to not be working due to childcare demands.”

Melissa Boteach of the National Women’s Law Center told Politico, “the parents who are not going to be able to go back to work or who are going to have to give up their careers or jobs for less pay—because they can’t find the child care to cover the hours that they need—are disproportionately going to be women and women of color.” In other words, women of color are disproportionately impacted on both ends of the childcare equation—both as providers and as customers who rely on these services.

As I prepared for an interview with Wendoly Marte, director of economic justice at Community Change Action, about the crisis of childcare, I fielded texts from my seven-year-old son who could not find an extension cord for the tablet that he uses for school. My child was in the room next to the home-studio that I work out of and knows never to disturb me during interviews. But he was desperate to turn his device on so he wouldn’t miss his next lesson. I found myself for the umpteenth time wishing I didn’t have to work so I could be more present for my children during a time of deep uncertainty. But I also remembered how much I loved my job and continued to speak with Marte, who explained that I was not alone. “I think a lot of parents have had to make really hard choices over the last few months as they tried to balance working from home and caring for their children,” said Marte, who helps to organize childcare workers and amplify their voices in government.

Like millions of American women, I find myself constantly worrying about the state of my children’s mental health during the pandemic. Isolated from their peers and forced to learn through screens and Zoom chats, they are coping as best as they can. I am terrified of the long-term impacts on them and yet unable to leave a job on which my family depends to help pay the mortgage and purchase necessities, and at the same time resenting the fact that I have to even consider leaving a job that I love and that I have invested years of my life in.

The pandemic has highlighted, in Marte’s words, the need for “a system that is truly universal and equitable and that takes into account the perspective of parents, the children, and the childcare providers.” She articulated that “we’re going to need a serious public investment in a bold solution that actually matches the scale of the crisis.”

There was a crisis in childcare even before the pandemic. More than a year ago, the Center for American Progress explained that “Whether due to high cost, limited availability, or inconvenient program hours, child care challenges are driving parents out of the workforce at an alarming rate,” and that, “in 2016 alone, an estimated 2 million parents made career sacrifices due to problems with child care.” Add to that a public health crisis that has no end in sight, and the U.S.’s childcare industry could collapse entirely under the weight of multiple pressures.

While the federal government made available small business loans through the Paycheck Protection Program earlier this year, the Bipartisan Policy Center concluded that the program did not work for childcare businesses and only about half of applicants ever received the government-backed loans. While the federal government’s “Childcare and Development Fund” provides some measure of support through block grants, according to Marte it is not nearly enough and “the money ran out very quickly.”

In late July, House Democrats passed the Childcare Is Essential Act, which Marte’s group has supported. The bill creates a $50 billion fund to buttress the reeling industry. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has made clear that he is far more interested in remaking the judicial system to benefit conservatives than ushering in financial aid bills for ordinary Americans.

President Donald Trump and his allies have expressed an eagerness to return to normal that is not couched in reality as a third wave of coronavirus infections threatens to derail the economy once more. Without direct federal government intervention to save the childcare industry, the future is frighteningly precarious for women, and especially women of color.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has shrewdly outlined a plan for what his campaign calls a “caregiving economy,” promising to “[e]nsure access to high-quality, affordable child care and offer universal preschool to three-and four-year olds through greater investment, expanded tax credits, and sliding-scale subsidies.” The ambitious $775 billion plan is a start, and Biden will need to be held to his promises if he wins the White House.

When the coronavirus upended the economy, the crisis of childcare that had been brewing for years exploded and revealed the truly barbaric nature of a society that leaves human needs to the whims of “market forces.” There is no better symbol of a society’s future potential than the well-being of its children, and judging by that, we are in deep trouble.