BANK OF CANADA

Tiff Macklem says inflation mostly about supply, suggesting more gentle path for rising rates

Kevin Carmichael - Yesterday 
Financial Post


© Provided by Financial Post

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem spoke at a conference hosted by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce on Feb. 9.

Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem said the current inflation scare is mostly a supply issue. If he’s right, the central bank’s path back to higher interest rates might not be as steep as some on Bay Street currently think it will be.

The Bank of Canada’s latest economic outlook has year-over-year increases in the consumer price index averaging 5.1 per cent this quarter, well outside policy-makers’ comfort zone of one per cent to three per cent.

Inflation at that pace leaves the central bank with little choice but to raise interest rates. The central bank’s marching orders from the government call on it to keep the consumer price index advancing at an annual rate of about two per cent, the midpoint of that comfort zone. Forecasters at Bank of Nova Scotia predict that will require lifting the benchmark interest rate to two per cent by the end of the year. The rate is currently at an emergency setting of 0.25 per cent, about as close to zero as it can get without unduly disputing financial markets.

Canada’s economy no longer requires emergency stimulus. Employment returned to where it would have been if the COVID recession hadn’t interrupted hiring trends at the end of last year, and gross domestic product is back at pre-pandemic levels. With the economy healed, policy-makers turned their attention to inflation at their latest interest-rate meetings, opting to end a promise to keep borrowing costs near zero until at least the spring. Macklem left little doubt that he and his deputies will raise the benchmark rate on March 2, the next scheduled interest-rate announcement.

“The economy will need higher interest rates to moderate growth in spending and bring demand in line with supply,” Mackelm said in a speech at a conference hosted by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, Feb. 9. “We also agreed that we must keep inflation expectations well anchored. If inflation expectations become unmoored, the costs of getting inflation back to target will be much higher. For both of these reasons, we signalled with unusual clarity that Canadians should expect a rising path for interest rates.”

Unusual clarity isn’t perfect clarity. Macklem has resisted saying too much about how fast he will raise interest rates, and at what level he might stop. He indicated in a press conference on Jan. 26 that it would be reasonable to expect a quick pace of increases in the beginning, given the benchmark rate is essentially at zero compared with 1.75 per cent at the start of the pandemic. But he warned against thinking that the central bank was on autopilot. He said he and his deputies could choose to take a break as they get closer to two per cent.

Canada loses 200,000 jobs, nearly double the blow economists expected

Bank of Canada governor says it's unclear how quickly inflation will drop

Tiff Macklem stokes doubts about usefulness of forward guidance

Something Macklem said earlier in his speech could shed some light on how policy-makers are thinking about inflation.

At the start of last year, central bankers insisted that inflation would be temporary, arguing that acute supply shortages would be resolved as soon as clever executives and logistics experts figured out how to navigate supply bottlenecks. That didn’t happen, and by the end of the year, policy-makers such as Macklem conceded they had a problem. The Bank of Canada, the Federal Reserve in the United States, and other central banks all started raising interest rates or advancing plans to do so.

But Macklem hasn’t stopped thinking that inflation is primarily a supply phenomenon. That’s important because higher interest rates can’t do much about inflation that’s being driven by congested ports, Asian factories that close for COVID outbreaks and droughts brought by climate change. Macklem made a point of pushing back against arguments that his policies and fiscal stimulus were the main source of inflation.

“It is not the result of generalized excess demand in the Canadian economy,” Macklem said. “Our economy is only just now getting back to full capacity.”

The Bank of Canada does have influence over demand. Macklem seems to think demand isn’t the issue. If supply gets back to normal, the path to higher interest rates could be flatter.

• Email: kcarmichael@postmedia.com | Twitter: carmichaelkevin

Macklem says increased productivity, business investment, needed to temper inflation

The governor of the Bank of Canada made clear Wednesday that higher interest rates are coming to tamp down on inflation, but said businesses also need to do their part by boosting productivity and easing the supply constrains that are helping to push up prices.

Tiff Macklem, speaking virtually at a Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said it is important businesses invest in worker productivity because it creates economic growth without higher inflation rates.

"Productivity growth is vital to non-inflationary growth and rising standards of living. At a time when inflation is already well above our target, this is more vital than ever."

Worker productivity, which measures how much is produced in a set amount of time, needs to go up so that rising wages don't lead to higher unit costs, he said.

"Higher productivity pays for higher wages," he said.

Speaking on a media call after the event, Macklem said that lower productivity growth would mean less supply expansion, which could mean interest rates would have to go up more.

He emphasized though that higher rates are coming either way, both to dampen demand and to head-off expectations that inflation could be a problem beyond the short-term.

The bank projects inflation will run high at close to five per cent for the first half of the year, but expects it to get down to three per cent by the end of 2022. Expectations that inflation could run higher for longer could makes getting it under control crucial, he said.

The bank ended its commitment to hold interest rates at its floor of 0.25 per cent on Jan. 26, opening a path to raising rates at its next scheduled rate decision is March 2.

Macklem's remarks are the clearest sign yet that rates are set to go up.

"There’s no question that Canadians are seeing inflation on a broader set of goods, and that certainly can start to influence their psyche. That’s why it’s been very important for us to get out and signal very clearly that we are not comfortable with where inflation is.

"Inflation is too high and we will be bringing it down.”

Desjardins analyst Royce Mendes said in a note that the governor's unequivocal statement that the economy requires a significant shift in monetary policy means an increase should be expected in the near-term.

"This signal all but clears the way for a rate hike in March, despite the labour market’s slide in January."

How much and how quickly rates rise from there will depend on a variety of factors, but Macklem made it clear that business investment is one of them.

He noted that Canada has long lagged the U.S. in business investment, including in information and communication technology that plays an important role in driving productivity growth.

There are signs of increased spending on the way though. The Bank's most recent business outlook survey showed 62 per cent of firms plan to spend more on machinery and equipment in the year ahead than last year, the highest level since the survey was introduced in 1999.

Indications are that business investment will grow faster in Canada than in the U.S., as long as businesses actually go ahead with that spending, said Macklem.

"It’s imperative that businesses in Canada follow through on these plans or risk losing out to U.S. competitors."

He says businesses will also need to lean into the flexible and remote working arrangements created by the pandemic to allow access to a wider labour pool, while workers will also need to be prepared to keep their skills fresh.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 9, 2022.

Ian Bickis, The Canadian Press

Bank of Canada: Economy needs more capacity investment, not stimulus

By Julie Gordon and David Ljunggren -

OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada's economy does not need more stimulus, but rather more investment from both government and businesses to build up supply capacity to meet strong consumer demand, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said on Wednesday.

Macklem, when asked in an audience Q&A session if government should be spending to further stimulate the economy, said Canada is already in the midst of a consumer-led recovery, and more capacity investment is needed to sustain that.

"To sustain a strong consumer-led recovery, you need investment," he said. "Whether it's businesses or governments, what we need is more focus on building that supply capacity."

"Demand is now looking self-sustaining," he added.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during his election campaign last year pledged C$78 billion https://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-election-idCAKBN2FX3M7 ($62 billion) in new spending over five years to foster Canada's economic rebound.


© Reuters/BLAIR GABLEFILE PHOTO: Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem speaks during a news conference in Ottawa

Macklem said that with inflation well above the central bank's 2% target, productivity growth was more vital than ever. Businesses can help increase productivity by investing in new technology to boost efficiency, he said.

"For the economy as a whole, investment is critical to non-inflationary growth," he said

If Canadian businesses fail to go ahead with planned investments, it could impact the path of rate increases, he later told reporters.

"If productivity growth is weaker, that means we're going to have less growth in potential output in the economy, less expansion of our supply capacity and, other things equal, that means that interest rates would have to go up more," he said.

PRODUCTIVITY LAGS

Despite a stronger rebound in employment than seen in the United States, Canada's productivity growth continues to lag. This is both due to more public health restrictions and lower business investment, said Macklem.

"The question is, does COVID-19 provide us with an opportunity to change our course? I believe it does," said Macklem, pointing to the pandemic-driven rise in digital investments and remote work.

Corporate balance sheets are strong, consumer demand is high and U.S. demand for Canadian exports is rising, with investment intentions among firms at their highest level since 1999, Macklem said.

The central bank signaled last month it would soon start hiking rates https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/hike-or-not-its-toss-up-ahead-bank-canada-rate-decision-2022-01-26, saying the economy no longer needed pandemic-level supports. Money markets see the first increase in March, with six in total this year. [BOC WATCH]

The Canadian dollar was trading 0.3% higher at 1.2670 to the greenback, or 78.93 U.S. cents.

($1 = 1.2669 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Julie Gordon and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Additional reporting by Fergal Smith in Toronto; Editing by Alex Richardson, Kirsten Donovan and Mark Porter)

Popular Brazilian podcaster says the country should recognize a Nazi party

By CALEB GUEDES-REED/JTA 

- Yesterday 
The Jerusalem Post

Jewish organizations in Brazil are outraged after a popular podcast presenter said the country should recognize a Nazi party by law

Bruno Aiub, who goes by the name of Monark on social media, made the comments on an episode of his Flow podcast, which has millions of YouTube subscribers, that aired on Monday.

He was in conversation with parliament members Tabata Amaral and Kim Kataguiri. Amaral pushed back, saying that “freedom of expression ends when your expression puts another’s life at risk,” and she said that Nazism puts the Jewish population at risk.

Monark defended his stance, adding on to his previous statement that he believes “if someone wants to be anti-Jew, they should have the right to be.”

Later in the episode, Kataguiri added fuel to the fire, saying he was against the criminalization of Nazism in Germany.


© Provided by The Jerusalem Post

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro speaks during a ceremony to celebrate the International Anti-Corruption Day 2021 at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, December 9, 2021. 

(credit: REUTERS/ADRIANO MACHADO/FILE PHOTO)

Monark posted an apology video on Twitter on Tuesday, claiming that he was very drunk and that he hopes people will be understanding. He didn’t seek an apology for the idea, rather what he said was the insensitive way he presented it.

His podcast studio took down the episode and cut ties with him.

The incident did not die down: Also on Tuesday night, Adrilles Jorge, a prominent TV commentator and leading supporter of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, drew scrutiny after making a Nazi salute at the end of a debate about Monark’s podcast on the Jovem Pan TV show, in which he defended Kataguiri.

Jewish organizations, such as Jews for Democracy and the Instituto Brasil-Israel, were quick to respond on Twitter, denouncing Monark’s statements. The Confederação Israelita do Brasil, the umbrella group of Brazilian Jewish communities and organizations, also released a statement condemning Monark.

Jews for Democracy wrote, “Ideologies that aim to eliminate others must be banned. Racism and persecution of any identities are not freedom of expression.”

IBI also condemned the podcast on their social media accounts while simultaneously putting pressure on the podcast’s sponsors, Insider Store and Flash Beneficios, to end their support of the show — which they both did within 24 hours of the episode’s release.

To address the controversy, the podcast invited André Lajst, executive director of the Brazilian chapter of StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy organization, onto its episode on Tuesday. In it, Lajst discussed how the Nazi party rose to power in Germany.

“My objective,” Lajst wrote about the episode on Twitter, “was to correct statements made on the program yesterday, the 7th, in favor of the existence of a Nazi party in Brazil and the possibility of someone claiming to be anti-Jewish.”

Jewish groups in Brazil have been worried about the resurgence of Nazi rhetoric since Bolsonaro rose to power. In defense of his reluctance to shut down his country to reduce COVID-19 cases, Bolsonaro employed the expression “work sets you free,” which many felt trivialized a phrase associated with Auschwitz. Bolsonaro’s supporters have also been known to make Nazi salutes, including at rallies supporting the president. One of his aides was accused of flashing a white supremacist hand signal during a legislative hearing.

The Monark incident comes during the same week that a far-right extremist from Germany, Nikolai Nerling, took shelter in Brazil to avoid being punished for his record of Holocaust denial — which is illegal in Germany. Nerling has continued to record and disseminate online content that denies the Holocaust while touring cities in the south of Brazil.

Over 18,000 ancient pottery fragments found in Egypt include lines written by 'naughty pupils'

Oscar Holland, CNN - 


Archaeologists have uncovered over 18,000 pieces of pottery inscribed with details of life in ancient Egypt -- including lines written as punishment by badly behaved students.

The 2,000-year-old fragments also included receipts, school texts, trade information and lists of names, according to researchers at Germany's University of Tübingen, which carried out the excavation.

The discoveries were made at the site of Athribis, an ancient settlement built around 200 kilometers north of Luxor. Marked with ink using reeds or hollowed sticks, the recovered pottery pieces, known as "ostraca," are the remains of jars or vessels that were used as writing materials.

Around four-fifths of the fragments were inscribed with Demotic, one of the three ancient scripts featured on the Rosetta Stone. Greek, Arabic and Egyptian hieroglyphics were among the other scripts found on the ostraca.

Many of the pottery pieces originated from an ancient school, according to the University of Tübingen Professor Christian Leitz, who led the excavations alongside a team from Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. "There are lists of months, numbers, arithmetic problems, grammar exercises and a 'bird alphabet' -- each letter was assigned a bird whose name began with that letter," Leitz said in a press release.

Hundreds of the pottery pieces also featured a single symbol repeated on both front and back, which archaeologists believe to be evidence of "naughty pupils" being made to write lines, the press release added.

Other fragments included a child's drawing of three human forms, as well as pictorial representations of gods, geometric figures and animals like scorpions and swallows.

The university said it was "very rare to find such a large volume" of ostraca. A similar quantity has only been discovered once before, near the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, researchers said.

Located near the present-day city of Sohag, on the west bank of the Nile, Athribis has been the subject of excavations for over 100 years. But more intensive research at the 30-hectare site began in 2003, when the University of Tübingen and Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities launched the Athribis Project.

The investigation centers on a temple that was built by the pharaoh Ptolemy XII and later decorated by successive Roman emperors. The temple has since been opened to visitors, while the wider archeological site contains the remains of a necropolis, quarries and a human settlement.

Top image: An inscription detailing offerings of money, wine, castor oil, wheat and barley made to the goddess Repit.


© Athribis-Project TübingenHundreds of tablets were found with the same symbol written on both front and back, which archaeologists believe to be evidence of pupils being forced to write lines.


© Athribis-Project TübingenA child's drawing was among the 18,000 inscribed fragments found at the site.


© Marcus MüllerResearchers from the University of Tübingen and Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities have been excavating the ancient settlement of Athribis since 2003.

MANITOBA
Critics pan Tories’ French education funding boost


Tory ministers touted new funding for French education at a mid-day news conference Tuesday — an event political opponents are calling a smoke screen for scathing criticism about second-language resources in a provincial report that was released hours after the event.

Shortly after noon, Advanced Education Minister Jon Reyes and Rochelle Squires, minister responsible for francophone affairs, announced the Manitoba government would be earmarking additional funds for education programs at the University of Saint-Boniface.

The duo, alongside university president Sophie Bouffard, indicated the province will start picking up a $350,000 annual tab — a sum that has been covered by temporary federal grants since 2017— to ensure USB can continue to graduate as many as 70 French teachers every year.

“(Its) bachelor of education program is the only program in Manitoba designed entirely to prepare students to teach in the public school system’s français and French Immersion programs,” Reyes told reporters, during a bilingual news conference.

“Having additional teachers to provide these services is key to the vitality of Manitoba’s francophone community and francophile community.”

Over the last five years, USB has increased its annual intake of education students to 62 (from 37), owing to an annual funding partnership with Ottawa that expires at the end of March.

Last spring, the Manitoba Association of School Superintendents surveyed all divisions that offer French programs to pinpoint the exact number of French-language educators needed in classrooms across the province. The survey found approximately 149 more educators who are proficient in French education must be added to the system to meet demand.

Teacher retirements and spikes in both enrolment in the Division scolaire franco-manitobaine and interest in French immersion is driving the demand, said Barb Isaak, executive director of MASS.

Between September 2010 and 2020, the number of students in the DSFM rose by 19 per cent. Immersion enrolment has been on a steep incline, with numbers spiking 47 per cent in the last decade, in comparison to two per cent growth across English programs.

Manitoba’s 2020-21 report on French language services, which was published Tuesday, suggests the province’s second-language offerings — especially amid the pandemic — are not meeting the needs of a growing French-speaking population.

“Across all public bodies, COVID-19 highlighted gaps in the delivery of services in French, and demonstrated ongoing challenges based on the lack of awareness regarding Manitoba’s obligations to the francophone community,” states an excerpt in the report from the Francophone Affairs Secretariat.

The 25-page document includes a detailed section on complaints submitted to the secretariat, which rose threefold between 2019-20 and 2020-21, to 86 from 29 — a nearly 197 per cent increase. Almost 50 per cent of all complaints were directly related to the pandemic.

Complainants raised pandemic-related issues about delays in publishing French language surveys and uploading translated information to websites, a lack of French services at vaccination centres, and an absence of bilingual telephone services, among other items.

The report notes contracted vendors often did not fully consider the need for bilingualism and improved planning might have occurred “if the requirement to provide bilingual services and information had been recognized at the highest levels (of government).”

COVID-19 concerns aside, members of the public raised alarms about an inability to register a newborn for a Manitoba health card in French, cancer screening documents only being available in English, and the closure of designated rural bilingual government centres, among other items.

The Manitoba Liberals were quick to put out a release Tuesday, accusing the Stefanson government of using the USB funding announcement to distract from the report.

Dougald Lamont, MLA for St. Boniface, said the latest funding does not make up for the “serious damage” the Progressive Conservatives have done to French services in Manitoba.

“This PC government has always treated minority rights as if they are a luxury that the people fighting for them do not deserve,” Lamont said in a release.

The NDP critic for francophone affairs echoed similar sentiments in a statement Tuesday, noting the latest monies “just barely” cover a recent cut to USB’s operating funding.

Adrien Sala added: “Manitobans deserve a government that prioritizes French language education, instead of cutting it.”

Meantime, USB administrators were all smiles at the news conference earlier in the day.

“We receive more interest and candidates for the (education) program than we are able to accept at the moment, so there’s great potential for growth,” Bouffard said, noting the new funding will maintain the current program.

Maggie Macintosh, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Winnipeg Free Press

PERSPECTIVE
Biden’s task force on unionization: A corporatist agenda for austerity and war

Jerry White
9 February 2022

WSWS.ORG

On Monday, the White House “Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment” published its report to President Biden outlining a series of measures aimed at strengthening the pro-corporate trade unions as critical instruments for the suppression of class struggle.

The task force was formed by executive order last April, shortly after the defeat of the union drive at Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama warehouse, which was aggressively promoted by the Biden administration. It is co-chaired by Vice President Kamala Harris and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, a former building trades union official and Boston mayor. It includes cabinet members directing some of the most critical functions of the US government, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Treasury Secretary and former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The historically unprecedented intervention of the Biden administration is a response by the faction of the corporate-financial elite that it represents to the growth of working-class opposition, which is increasingly taking the form of a rebellion against the trade unions. The White House wants a labor police force, fully backed and financed by the state.

President Joe Biden speaks in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, February 8, 2022.

 (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The task force outlines 70 recommendations to advance its “unprecedented mission” of strengthening the unions, which have seen membership fall from 30 percent of the US workforce in the 1950s to 10.3 percent in 2021, including only 6.1 percent of private-sector workers.

This includes proposals to virtually every federal government agency to “remove unnecessary barriers that impede unions’ ability to organize federal workers and increase their membership.” Union officials will be given access to military bases, national parks and federal buildings.

It proposes to use the federal government’s spending power to encourage the unionization of the employees of government contractors, explicitly instructing the Department of Defense to tell its contractors that they can bill the government for the “costs of shop stewards, labor management committees, employee publications, and other related activities.”

As a “purchaser of goods and services,” the report continues, the federal government “has an interest in its contractors reaching first collective bargaining agreements to promote stability and minimize disruption of services and goods procured by the federal government.”

By “promoting stability” and “minimizing disruption,” the task force means utilizing unions in preventing strikes at critical government suppliers. Biden has put this to the test over the last few months, relying on the United Steelworkers (USW) and other unions to prevent strikes by workers at shipyards in Mississippi and Virginia owned by defense contractor Huntington Ingalls, which would delay the delivery of ships needed for the administration’s war drive against Russia and China.

Moving beyond companies directly contracting with the federal government, the task force calls on the National Labor Relations Board to work with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to “assist with the process of an employer voluntarily recognizing a union.” The latter regularly involves unions signing sweetheart deals behind the backs of their prospective members in exchange for employer “neutrality” or recognition without a vote.

The report not only calls for the encouragement of union membership. It proposes direct government funding to prop up these long-discredited organizations. Barriers that “keep unions from fairly competing for and winning some federal grants and contracts” should be lifted, the task force states. These grants would fund union-controlled workforce training programs and labor-management bodies, which have been used, most notoriously by the United Auto Workers (UAW), to funnel billions of dollars to union executives.

Under the subheading, “Ensuring Unions Have a Seat at Many Federal Advisory Tables,” the report urges virtually every federal agency to “include union voices in their formal advisory discussions and informal networks, outreach, and other interactions.”

The 43-page document is filled with proposals along these lines, which, leaving aside the absurd language about “worker empowerment,” are aimed at one thing: the strengthening of a labor police force comprised of upper-middle class executives to enforce the dictates of the ruling class.

Eighty-two years ago, Leon Trotsky, the great revolutionary Marxist and leader of the Fourth International, noted (in an essay titled “Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay”) that “there is one common feature in the development, or more correctly the degeneration, of modern trade union organizations in the entire world: it is their drawing closely to and growing together with the state power.”

Writing shortly after the outbreak of World War II, Trotsky explained, “Democratic unions in the old sense of the term, bodies where in the framework of one and the same mass organization different tendencies struggled more or less freely, can no longer exist.”

Trotsky was writing shortly after the eruption of the semi-insurrectionary struggles, including the seizure of factories in sit-down strikes, that led to the formation of the mass industrial unions in the US. However, his analysis of the tendency toward the “growing together” of the unions, the state and the corporations was extraordinarily prescient. This process continued throughout the post-World War II period, including through the purging of socialists and militant workers from the unions prior to and after the merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955.

Commenting on the transformations that have taken place since Trotsky’s analysis, WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North noted that “the process of global economic integration and transnational production deprived the trade unions of a national framework within which they could apply pressure for limited social reforms. No room was left for even the most moderate resort to the methods of class struggle to achieve minimal gains. The unions, rather than extracting concessions from the corporations, were transformed into adjuncts of the state and corporations that serve to extract concessions from the workers.”

Reference to the AFL-CIO and its affiliated organizations as “unions” is a historical anachronism. These discredited and hated organizations only exist due to the good graces of the employers and the state.

Facing an intractable economic and political crisis, one faction of the ruling class, led by Trump, has responded with the promotion of fascistic conspiracies to overturn the Constitution. Another faction, led by Biden and the Democrats, seeks to strengthen a type of tripartite government-business-union structure first pioneered in Mussolini’s Italy.

Organized around the reactionary defense of “national interests,” the aim is to smother any independent expression by the working class of its own class interests, while suppressing internal dissent and disciplining workers for war against Russia and China. In return, the already lavishly paid union executives will be given access to union dues and other forms of remuneration that come directly from the capitalist state.

Whatever the aims of the White House, however, the logic of the class struggle is developing into an open rebellion of workers against the unions. Contracts supported by the unions are routinely rejected by 90 percent or more.

Workers at Volvo Trucks and John Deere, and educators throughout the country have taken up the call by the World Socialist Web Site for the formation of independent, rank-and-file committees, which have led the fight against the ruling class and its union police force. Biden, intensely aware of these developments, visited a Volvo Mack Trucks plant last July to promote the UAW less than two weeks after Volvo and the UAW rammed through a sellout contract in the face of mass opposition from workers at the New River Valley plant in southern Virginia.

During the pandemic, the unions have gone from imposing concessions on workers to imposing conditions that have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of workers, including in health care, education, meatpacking, logistics and manufacturing. The American Federation of Teachers has spearheaded the back-to-school policy, which has accelerated the spread of the deadly disease, while the UAW, USW and other industrial unions have kept workers on the job in equally dangerous factories.

Facing a revolt by BNSF workers, the railway unions have enforced a strikebreaking injunction by a federal judge that strips workers of the right to speak out against an abusive attendance policy. Refinery workers are biting at the bit to strike against oil companies making record profits while the USW desperately tries to prevent a walkout, which would quickly escalate into a direct conflict with the Biden administration.

The fight to develop independent rank-and-file factory and workplace committees, in the US and internationally, must be intensified and broadened. The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) must be expanded to every section of the working class.

This must be combined with the building of a revolutionary leadership in the working class. The fight against the pandemic, the ravages of inflation and the austerity demands of capitalist governments must be fused with the struggle against imperialist war and dictatorship and the fight for world socialism.
Sign u

Ford temporarily lays off thousands at North American plants, citing chip shortage

James Martin, Marcus Day
9 February 2022

WSWS.ORG

Ford Motor Company announced last week it would stop or reduce production at several plants across North America, citing a shortage of semiconductors. On Monday, Ford temporarily laid off thousands of hourly workers, many who will struggle to pay their bills without supplemental unemployment benefits.

Most production ground to a halt at Ford’s factories in Chicago, Illinois; Wayne, Michigan; and Cuautitlan, Mexico. At Ford’s Kansas City Assembly Plant, the company idled production of its lucrative F-150 pickup trucks, while another shift for Ford’s Transit vans will continue to run.

Trucks on the assembly line at Ford Dearborn Assembly (Ford Media)

Output at Ford’s Kentucky Truck and Louisville Assembly plants, as well its Dearborn, Michigan, truck plant, will be operated either on single shifts or a reduced schedule. Ford also said it would eliminate overtime at its Oakville factory in the Canadian province of Ontario.

Kelli Felker, Ford’s manufacturing and labor communications manager, told the press, “The global semiconductor shortage continues to affect global automakers and other industries in all parts of the world. While we continue to manufacture new vehicles, we’re prioritizing completing our customers’ vehicles that were assembled without certain parts due to the industry-wide semiconductor shortage.”

Stellantis, also citing the chip shortage, reduced production of its Chrysler Pacifica minivans at its Windsor, Ontario, plant last week. Last year, Stellantis had announced that it would be laying off 400 workers in January at its Belvidere Assembly Plant, near Rockford, Illinois.

Labor shortages due to workers getting infected by the coronavirus have deepened the global supply chain crisis, as corporations and countries across the world fail to implement any serious measures to stop the pandemic, ever-more openly pursuing a criminal “herd immunity” or “live with the virus” strategy. At just one semiconductor plant in Malaysia, owned by French-Italian conglomerate STMicro, at least 20 workers died of COVID in 2021, as the factory was pushed to run nearly nonstop to meet overseas demand, according to a report in December by Bloomberg.

At the same time, Ford and General Motors made billions in profits last year, while countless workers were sickened on the job during the Delta and Omicron surges. According to recent earnings reports, Ford reported $17.9 billion for 2021 in net income globally. About $8.2 billion of its 2021 net income came through Ford’s financial speculation and non-productive investment gains from its stake in the electric auto startup Rivian. However, with the ongoing labor and supply chain crisis, Ford projected a reduction in output for the first quarter, causing a selloff of Ford shares by 10 percent on Friday.

While companies such as GM have sought to put forth an air of confidence that the worst of the supply chain crisis is behind them, financial analysts, as well as chip makers such as Intel, Nvidia, and AMD themselves, have repeatedly pushed back the target for a “return to normal” to the second half of 2022, or into 2023 or later.

Meanwhile, the auto companies and the unions continue to maintain a near-total information blackout on the number of COVID cases, making it difficult to determine to what extent the latest production disruptions have been driven by outbreaks at plants in the US. To fight for information on the spread of infections and the implementation of necessary safety measures—including the shutdown of non-essential production and full income protection for those affected—more and more workers have been organizing rank-and-file committees at auto plants, schools and other workplaces.
Kansas City: “I pretty much live paycheck to paycheck”

Ford’s Kansas City facility in Claycomo, Missouri employs over 7,520 workers and is down to just one shift this week. The plant has been ravaged by mass infections and deaths in recent months during the Omicron surge.

A worker at the Claycomo facility described the delays workers often face in getting unemployment pay, telling the WSWS, “Since I am C crew, this will be my first time this year filing for unemployment. It will be my ‘waiting’ week. I’ll have to wait for the letter in the mail from unemployment and then take it to the hall in order to get paid and that could be another week. So it’s annoying.

“I pretty much live paycheck to paycheck,” she added, “and my daughter’s birthday is this month.”

A trucker that delivers to Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, where workers produce the Bronco and the Ranger, said, “My regular runs have all been canceled since last Thursday, and yesterday almost no one at my company was working. Things have been very slow at the plants.

“I think it’s very telling,” he observed on the relationship between the pandemic and the supply chain crisis, “that these plants will operate for as long as they possibly can until enough people refuse to work in unsafe conditions throughout the supply chain causing these shortages that force plants to shut down.

“I think we as workers need to organize that momentum into a coordinated strike to shut down all non-essential production until the virus can be eliminated.”
Chicago: “It’s crazy. Everyone has been getting it”

At Ford’s 98-year-old Chicago Assembly Plant (CAP) in the Hegewisch neighborhood, thousands of workers are out of work for the duration of the week and face hardship due to the idling of production. Ford’s assembly plant in Chicago has over 5,800 workers and produces the Explorer and Lincoln Aviator sports utility vehicles, as well as the Police Interceptor Utility.

Last week United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 551 announced that the main plant would be on layoff, starting with B crew, from February 3 through February 13. A UAW spokesperson stated on Facebook that there were “multiple supplier issues” prompting the layoffs.

One worker replied, “We’ve been out of bcm [body controller] modules for a while now. They’ve been recycling them and just parking units outside.” Body controller modules are electronic units in cars that control different vehicle parts, including windows, mirrors, air conditioners, locking and more.

Many of the plant’s just-in-time auto parts suppliers and its workforce across the region in Chicago and the industrialized region of northwest Indiana, including Lear Seating, will also be impacted or idled. Ford’s Chicago Stamping Plant in Chicago Heights, which employs 1,290 workers who supply sheet metal stampings for CAP, will also be affected by the slowdown.

While the UAW claims that the workers at the assembly plant will get 75 to 80 percent of their pay during closures, the temporary part-time and full-time workers will not receive any supplemental unemployment benefit (SUB) pay and will face immense hardship, being forced to rely on just meager state jobless aid. In Illinois, the maximum weekly unemployment check for an individual is $542.

The cruel conditions temp workers will face are the direct product of decades of UAW-backed concessions and sellout contracts, including the vast expansion of the use of temps forced through by the union during the 2019 contract struggle.

To add insult to injury, temporary full-time Ford workers affected by the layoffs who have newly been converted to become “in-progression” second-tier workers will not be eligible for supplemental unemployment benefits. A UAW Local 551 post noted, “You need one year of seniority as of the last day of work prior to a lay-off” to receive additional unemployment benefits.

As at many auto plants, workers at CAP have confronted the increasing threat of infection or even reinfection with COVID as the Omicron variant surged throughout the population since November. Last month, 32-year-old CAP autoworker Caleb Dye died tragically after a long battle with COVID-19. As has been the norm throughout the auto industry, the UAW did nothing to inform workers about Caleb’s cause of death or to stop production despite the spread of the virus at the plant.

A Ford CAP worker spoke out against the unsafe conditions workers face from COVID and the cover-up by the company and the union as they attempt to keep workers on the job.

“It’s crazy. Everyone has been getting it,” he said, “but some people who’ve already had it don’t say anything because you only get paid [sick leave] for the first time,” adding that workers have had to deal with a large amount of bureaucratic hurdles in order to even get their unpaid COVID absences approved by management.

The worker said he himself had recently contracted COVID a second time. “Pretty sure I got it at work. A lot of coughing and some horrible body aches, and I got really tired very quickly.”

This 1986 Autonomous Test Vehicle Was Surprisingly Good, But Slow

Chris Bruce - Tuesday

motor1.com


This great-great-grandfather of modern autonomous tech needed a whole van full of computers to get around.

Tesla's Full Self Driving beta program, General Motors' Ultra Cruise, and various competing systems make autonomous driving seem closer than ever to being common on public roads. The Trucks Venture Capital's weekly Future of Transportation newsletter recently highlighted the video above of the 1986 NavLab 1 from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). While crude by modern standards, this was one of the earliest steps toward our autonomous future.

NavLab kicked off in 1984, things started understandably slow, according to a recap of the project from the university. The first step was the Terregator, which was a six-wheeled, unmanned buggy that was capable of driving itself but at speeds that weren't much quicker than a person walking.
The Future Of Autonomous Driving:

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The NavLab 1 in the video above took what the scientists learned and applied it to an actual vehicle. The big Chevy van used cameras and LIDAR to monitor the road. Inside the vehicle, there were racks of computers for processing all of this information.

In concept, the NavLab 1 has commonalities with the autonomous systems that are under development today. Cameras and LIDAR are still tools for a vehicle to sense its surroundings. The major difference is that developers no longer need a van full of computers to implement this tech. All of this equipment can now fit into a normal passenger vehicle.

CMU researchers continued to develop NavLab 1, and you can see the progress in the video above. This version used mapping to learn about the roads in a given area and remember them. At this point, the van is also able to move a bit faster. The developers even trusted it enough to avoid a human obstacle. The vehicle's speed on the road appeared to be faster, too.

The NavLab project continued beyond this van. By 1995, the NavLab 5 was based on a Pontiac Trans Sport and was able to cover over 6,000 miles of autonomous driving.

Source: cmuroboticsYouTube, Todd JochemYouTube, Carnegie Mellon University, Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute

Driverless Trucks for Driver Shortage

NTD EVENING NEWSNTD

Newsroom Feb 9, 2022

Duration 1:24

An autonomous vehicle startup in Palo Alto is planning to solve the truck driver shortage issue with autonomous trucking through its partnership with Walmart.

Report: GE Supports Chinese Military Modernization
CHINA IN FOCUS

NTD Newsroom 

Feb 9, 2022

A new report is examining the relationship between certain U.S. tech giants and China.
It says three American conglomerates are supporting China’s military modernization and state surveillance. The companies in question include Microsoft, Intel, and General Electric.

RACIST CASTISM OF BJP HINDUTVA NATIONALISM

Karnataka 'hijab row': protests spread in India as girls refuse to be told what not to wear

By Rhea Mogul, Manveena Suri and Swati Gupta, 

CNN /ANI/Reuters

Aburqa-wearing college student has become a symbol of resistance in India's Karnataka state, where religious tensions are rising over the right to wear religious clothing to school.

Muskan Khan was attempting to hand in a college assignment in the city of Mandya when she was accosted by a group of Hindu men wearing saffron scarves -- the color of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- according to video posted to social media.

The men heckle her as she makes her way across the school grounds, demanding she take off her face covering, but instead of complying, Khan shouts back "Allahu Akbar" as she punches her fist in the air.

The confrontation illustrates the religious divide that's been widening in Karnataka since a group of girls began protesting outside their government-run school in January after they were denied entry in the classroom for wearing a hijab.

The girls petitioned the state's top court to lift the ban, prompting rival protests from right-wing Hindu students.

On Wednesday the court referred the petition to a larger panel of judges, but no date has been set for hearings.

Activists say the hijab row is yet another example of a broader trend in India -- one that has seen a crackdown on India's minority Muslim population since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP came to power nearly eight years ago.

They say that by denying Muslim women the choice to wear the hijab, the government is denying them their religious freedoms, enshrined in the Indian constitution.

"This is a massive attempt by the BJP to homogenize Indian culture, to make it a Hindu-only state," said 23-year-old Muslim activist Afreen Fatima, who has been protesting in support of the students in her hometown of Allahabad in India's northern Uttar Pradesh state.

"Muslim women are isolated in India. And the situation is getting worse every day."
The 'hijab row'

What started as a small protest made national headlines after several other government-run educational institutions in Karnataka denied entry to students wearing hijabs.


© Altaf Qadri/AP

Indian Muslim woman shouts slogans during a protest

 in Delhi against the ban on Muslim girls wearing hijab in class.

The protests have since spread to other cities. Scores of students took to the streets in India's capital Delhi this month holding placards and shouting slogans to express their anger at the ban. And hundreds more have protested in Kolkata and Hyderabad, Reuters reported.

On Tuesday, BJP-ruled Karnataka ordered a three-day closure of all high schools and colleges amid the growing tensions. And on Wednesday authorities in the state's capital Bengaluru banned protests outside schools for two weeks.

For many Muslim women, the hijab is an integral part of their faith. While it has been seen as a source of controversy in some western countries, in India it is neither banned, nor restricted from being worn in public places.

Karnataka's education minister B.C. Nagesh said he supported banning the hijab in educational institutions, citing the state's mandate on religious attire.

"Government is very firm that the school is not a platform to practice dharma (religion)," he told CNN affiliate CNN News-18.

But experts say the issue runs deeper than a dress code.

Karnataka -- where just 13% of the population is Muslim -- is governed by the BJP.

According to lawyer Mohammed Tahir, who is representing one group of petitioners in court, Karnataka is a "hotbed" of the Hindutva ideology supported by many right-wing groups, which seeks to make India the land of the Hindus.

Karnataka has banned the sale and slaughter of cows, an animal considered sacred to Hindus. It has also introduced a controversial anti-conversion bill, which makes it more difficult for interfaith couples to marry or for people to convert to Islam or Christianity.

And according to Tahir, the lawyer, religious tension in the state will likely increase ahead of pivotal state elections next year.

"These issues (like the hijab ban) are very easy to polarize the entire community for votes," he said.

In a statement Tuesday, the Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy said it "strongly condemns the attempt by Hindutva forces and the BJP government of Karnataka to engulf college and school campuses in the already raging communal fire in the state."

"College campuses have thus been transformed into yet another playing field for the BJP and other right-wing Hindu majoritarians," the statement said.

CNN has attempted to contact the state authorities but did not receive a response.
Muslim women further targeted

The hijab row follows a string of online attacks against Muslim women in India.

In early January, the Indian government was investigating a website that purported to offer Muslim women for sale. It was the second time in less than a year that a fake online auction of that kind sparked outrage in the country.

"They came for us online," said Fatima, who was featured on the online app. "Now, they are directly targeting our religious practice. It started in one college, and grew. I have no reason to believe it will end there."

On Tuesday, Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, called the hijab row "horrifying."

"Objectification of women persists -- for wearing less or more. Indian leaders must stop the marginalisation of Muslim women," she wrote on Twitter.

The All India President of the Students' Federation of India, V P Sanu, criticized the hijab ban, saying it was used "as a reason to deny Muslim women's right to education."

Modi referred briefly to Muslim women in a speech in Uttar Pradesh Thursday as that state started voting in local elections.

The Prime Minister said his government "stands with every victim Muslim woman."

He didn't refer to the hijab ban but said the government gave Muslim women "freedom" by scrapping the controversial Muslim practice of triple talaq, which allows a Muslim man to divorce his wife by simply saying the Arabic word for divorce, "talaq", three times. The Indian government criminalized the practice in 2019.

Khan, the student who yelled at the Hindu men, said she was defending her religious rights.

"Every religion has freedom, India is a unity...every religion has freedom," Khan told reporters Wednesday.

"They are following their culture and I am following my culture. They should let us follow our culture and not raise any obstacle."


© ANI/Reuters

Men with saffron scarves outside the college in Mandya, 

Karnataka where Muskan Khan tried to hand in her assignment.

Indian students block roads as row over hijab in schools mounts
By Rupak De Chowdhuri - 

KOLKATA (Reuters) - Hundreds of students in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata on Wednesday chanted slogans and blocked roads in protest of a hijab ban in the southern state of Karnataka, as a row over wearing the head covering in schools intensifies.

The row has drawn in Malala Yousafzai, the campaigner for girls' education and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who survived being shot aged 15 by a Taliban gunman in her native Pakistan in 2012, who asked Indian leaders in a tweet to "stop the marginalisation of Muslim women".


© Reuters/RUPAK DE CHOWDHURI

Protest against the recent hijab ban, in Kolkata

Local media reported last week that several schools in Karnataka had denied entry to Muslim girls wearing the hijab citing an education ministry order, prompting protests from parents and students.

Hindu students mounted counter-protests, flocking to schools in recent days in support of the ban, forcing the Karnataka state government to shut schools and colleges for three days to ease tensions between the two communities.

In one incident in a video widely shared online, a lone Muslim student wearing the hijab is surrounded by Hindu male youths shouting religious slogans while trying to enter her school in Karnataka.

The protesting students in Kolkata on Wednesday were predominantly women wearing hijabs, a Reuters eyewitness said, adding the demonstrations were without incident. The students told Reuters that they plan to reconvene on Thursday.

"We will keep protesting until the government stops insulting the students," said Tasmeen Sultana, one of the protestors. "We want our fundamental rights back…you cannot take away our rights."

Protests have also been planned on Wednesday in India's capital New Delhi.

"Refusing to let girls go to school in their hijabs is horrifying. Objectification of women persists — for wearing less or more," Yousafzai said in a tweet late on Tuesday.

The government of Karnataka, where 12% of the population is Muslim and which is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has said in an order that students should follow dress codes set by schools.

Opposition parties and critics accuse the BJP government at federal and state level of discriminating against the minority Muslim population. Modi has defended his record and says his economic and social policies benefit all Indians.

(Writing by Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Alasdair Pal and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Malala Yousafzai joins outcry over "horrifying" hijab bans in India

Arshad R. Zargar 

- Yesterday 
 CBS News

New Delhi — Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai has urged Indian leaders to "stop the marginalization of Muslim women" amid mounting protests over a college's ban on students wearing the traditional Islamic headscarf, or hijab.

Authorities in the southern Indian state of Karnataka on Tuesday ordered schools and colleges to close for three days, and on Wednesday they banned gatherings near all educational institutions for two weeks in a bid to curb the protests, which have drawn counter-protests by Hindu students.

There were reports of dueling protesters pelting each other with stones and of police resorting to force on Tuesday as the demonstrations spread to more colleges and at least two other states.

"Refusing to let girls go to school in their hijabs is horrifying," Yousafzai wrote on Twitter, quoting a report in which a Muslim student said she and her classmates were being forced to choose between learning, and wearing the hijab.

"Objectification of women persists — for wearing less or more. Indian leaders must stop the marginalization of Muslim women," wrote Yousafzai, who was 15 when she survived an attack by the Taliban in Pakistan for speaking out on girls' right to education.

The hijab protests in India started in January at a government-run college in Karnataka state's Udupi district, when six teenaged girls were barred from classes for wearing the head covering. The college introduced its ban on the hijab in December, saying the scarves violated school uniform rules.


© Provided by CBS News

Parents of Indian students who were barred from entering their classrooms for wearing the hijab, a headscarf used by Muslim women, argue with a police official outside the college premises in Udupi, India, February 4, 2022. / Credit: Bangalore News Photos/AP

Talks between the protesting students and college administrators failed to resolve the crisis, as more colleges implemented new hijab bans. As the protests started to garner headlines, Hindu students began turning up in schools wearing shawls in saffron — a color that symbolizes India's majority Hindu population — in protest against Muslim women and girls wearing hijabs.

Soon the protests spread, with students holding marches and shouting religious slogans.

One video of a lone Hijab-clad Muslim girl being heckled outside a college by a group of Hindu students in saffron scarves, shouting religious slogans, went viral on Tuesday. It shows the girl responding with shouts of the Muslim refrain "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) before she's escorted away by college staff.

"They started shouting 'Jai Shri Ram' [Hindu proclamation of faith], so I started screaming 'Allahu Akbar,'" Muskan, the Muslim girl, later told Indian news outlet NDTV. "We will continue to protest for the hijab."

On Wednesday, after hearing petitions challenging the hijab bans at colleges in the state, a judge at the Karnataka High Court said it was too serious a matter for a lone arbitrator to rule on, noting that: "These matters give rise to certain constitutional questions of seminal importance in view of certain aspects of personal law."

The court's Chief Justice will now appoint a multiple-judge bench to hear the case.

The hijab standoff has angered much of India's Muslim community, which, at approximately 200 million, is a minority in the country of almost 1.4 billion people.

Many believe Muslims have been marginalized in India for decades, but increasingly during the eight years of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tenure.

Two years ago, Modi faced violent protests by Muslims across the country when his government brought in a new citizenship law that singled out members of the religion.


© Provided by CBS News

Death toll climbs in India protests

India has repeatedly witnessed deadly Hindu-Muslim violence over the course of its 75-year history as an independent nation, with its politics and society deeply divided along religious lines.

That divide is generally highlighted, even exploited, around elections, when political parties try to polarize voters by focusing on religious issues. The current tension around the hijab comes ahead of elections in five states, including in the key state of Uttar Pradesh, where people start heading to the polls on Thursday.

Over the years, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been accused of running an anti-Muslim campaign and backing violence against minorities, but it rejects all of the allegations.

India: Protests banned as hijab row escalates

Protests and violence over a ban on female students wearing the hijab in some schools led officials to close all educational institutions in a southern Indian state for three days.

Activists such as those from the National Students Unions of India will not be allowed to protest

The Indian city of Bangalore banned protests around schools and other educational institutions for two weeks on Wednesday.

The move comes just 24 hours after all high schools in Karnataka state closed their gates for the remainder of the week as a row over an Islamic headscarf ban intensified.

The southern Indian state, of which Bangalore is the capital, closed all educational institutions for three days beginning Wednesday, as protests and violence escalated over the decision of some colleges to prohibit female students from wearing the hijab or a headscarf in classrooms.

On Tuesday, clashes between Muslim students against the ban and those supporting it broke out. Stone-throwing, arson and baton charges by police took place in several towns in Karnataka state, NDTV news channel reported.

The debate in southern India is raging over whether the government can implement such a ban. Legal action, as well as angry protests, has been threatened against the local government.

'Horrifying' hijab ban, says prominent activist

Outrage at the ban has spilled over onto social media, with Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai tweeting her support for the young women's right to wear the hijab.

"College is forcing us to choose between studies and the hijab," she said. "Refusing to let girls go to school in their hijabs is horrifying. Objectification of women persists — for wearing less or more. Indian leaders must stop the marginalization of Muslim women."

Footage has gone viral of one hijab-wearing student being pursued by Hindu men shouting "Jai Shri Ram" (Hail Lord Ram) as she arrives at PES College in the city of Mandya, around 100 kilometers (around 60 miles) southeast of Bangalore.

Activists, as well as many from India's 200 million-member minority Muslim community, say hate crimes against Muslims have increased since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014.

jsi/sms (AFP, Reuters, dpa)

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Hinduism Is Fascism 

Indonesian crocodile freed after five years trapped in tire

Agence France-Presse
February 08, 2022

Conservationists believe someone may have deliberately placed the tyre around 

the protected animal's neck in a failed attempt to trap it as a pet

 ARFA AFP/File

A wild crocodile in Indonesia who was trapped in a tyre for more than five years has been rescued, freed from its rubber vice and released back into the wild, officials and residents said Tuesday.

Conservation workers have been trying to lure the stricken saltwater crocodile from a river since 2016 after residents of Palu city on Sulawesi island spotted the animal with a motorbike tire wrapped around its neck.

But it was a local resident who snared the 5.2-metre (17 foot) long reptile -- who was regularly seen sunbathing in the Palu river in Central Sulawesi -- from its tight squeeze late on Monday.

Tili, a 34-year-old bird-seller, used chicken as bait and ropes to catch the beast at the end of what he said was a three-week rescue effort, before dozens of locals helped to drag the crocodile to shore and cut the tyre around its neck.

"I just wanted to help, I hate seeing animals trapped and suffering," Tili, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, told AFP.

His first two attempts to rescue the croc failed because the ropes were not strong enough to contend with its weight, he said, before turning to nylon ropes used for tugging boats.

"I was already exhausted so I let them finish the rescue, the crocodile was unbelievably heavy, everybody was sweating and getting very tired."

The crocodile was released back into the water immediately after the rescue to relieved cheers from locals.

Conservationists believe someone may have deliberately placed the tire around the croc's neck in a failed attempt to trap it as a pet in the archipelago nation that is home to several species of the animal.

Tili beat the authorities to the capture because they lacked the proper equipment for a rescue in the river that houses more than 30 other crocodiles.

"Yesterday was a historical day for us, we are grateful the crocodile was finally rescued and we appreciate the locals who showed concern for the wildlife," Hasmuni Hasmar, head of the local conservation agency, told AFP.

The reptile made headlines in early 2020 when the local government promised a reward to anyone who caught the croc and removed the tire, but later called off the contest over fears it could endanger its safety.

But the local conservation agency said Tili is in line for a prize after his daring plan paid off.

"We will award Tili for his effort in rescuing the wildlife," Hasmar said.