Ongoing surge in COVID-19 cases across Pacific Island states

John Braddock

The total number of cases of COVID-19 listed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for Pacific nations is approaching 500 following an increase of more than 48 infections since early July. The main contributor remains the US territory of Guam which, with over 100 active cases, is struggling with a fresh surge of infections.

The WHO has reported over 280 cases on Guam, including five deaths. Multiple cases on the island’s huge US military bases are not included in the overall count. There are ongoing tensions over the arrival of COVID-19 through the US military, directly attributable to the Trump administration’s policy of allowing the disease to run unchecked.

In April, Captain Brett Crozier of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, stationed on Guam, was fired for demanding that the bulk of his crew be evacuated and quarantined to prevent the spread of the virus. Nearly one quarter of the 4,800 crew was eventually infected. Hundreds of sailors were placed for 14 days in Guam hotels and crowded into the Guam Navy base gym. While most have since recovered from the virus, one serviceman has died. There have also been 35 cases of COVID-19 reported this month at the nearby US Andersen Air Force Base.

The Northern Marianas (CNMI), another US Pacific territory, confirmed four new cases of COVID-19 in the week ending July 17, bringing the total to 37, including two deaths. A CNMI-government imposed State of Emergency is in its seventh month, expected to run until at least mid-August.

In Papua New Guinea (PNG), eleven new COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the capital Port Moresby. The total number of cases is now 30, over half of them having emerged in the past week. Most of the new cases are health workers at Port Moresby General Hospital where all non-essential services have been suspended. A cancer patient who died at the hospital this week was found by a post-mortem examination to have had the virus—the first COVID-19 linked fatality in Melanesia.

Earlier, the PNG government had announced a cluster outbreak at the Central Public Health Laboratory on the hospital premises, following a previous outbreak at the country’s central military barracks. Prime Minister Marape declared COVID-19 is now “prevalent,” with community transmission taking hold in the capital and urged all residents to wear masks. Four recent cases have brought Fiji’s total to 22. Nine border quarantine cases have been confirmed since July 6, all repatriated citizens from India. More than 160 Fijian soldiers returned negative results after returning from the Middle East last month following a COVID-19 outbreak at the Sinai military camp where they had been stationed.

The far-flung islands of the Pacific have so far escaped high levels of COVID-19. However, the factors that have helped contribute to this—remoteness, small and scattered populations and the difficulties of travel and transport—are currently fuelling a worsening economic and social crisis.

In Fiji, one NGO estimates that half the population of 883,000 is facing “severe” financial distress. In June, the Sofitel Resort sacked 160 staff and the Pullman Resort another 220. The sackings followed more than 1,000 redundancies at Fiji Airways and Air Terminal Services. Overall 115,000 workers—one-third of the country’s workforce—have had their hours slashed or lost their jobs.

According to government figures, 86,000 Fijians have accessed relief payments from their pension savings in the National Provident Fund, with another 26,000 ready to do so in the next phase of unemployment. Much needed remittances from overseas family members are projected to fall by 15 percent.

Fiji’s reserve bank has predicted a contraction of 21.7 percent in the economy, driven largely by the collapse of tourism. The government last week projected a $US1.7 billion budget for the 2020–21 financial year. Minister for Economy Aiyaz Saiyed-Khaiyum said a 20.2 percent increase in the deficit will lift the debt-to-GDP ratio to 83.4 percent. Foreign direct investment is set to plunge 40 percent. A $US930 million stimulus package for business has been announced, along with the restructuring of $US1.6 billion in financial sector loans. Welfare had been increased by a paltry $US6.5m.

Many Pacific governments are seeking to revive their tourist industries, regardless of the risks. While the region’s main sources of tourists, Australia and New Zealand, are under lockdown with an upsurge of infections, Fiji is enticing potential visitors with an invitation to “escape the pandemic in paradise.” The government has offered 150,000 tourists a “once-in-a-lifetime” travel stipend of $US185 for flights, hotels and meals, plus dropping of quarantine restrictions for arrivals from some countries.

French Polynesia will have an estimated 3,000 visitors this month as the territory opens for international travel and another 7,000 in August, coinciding with France's summer holiday. The first flights from Los Angeles arrived last week after tourists from the US were cleared to enter without needing to quarantine. An online registration system is in place for persons boarding a plane for Tahiti to have cleared a COVID-19 test.

Tahiti’s reopening comes despite a decree from Paris banning air travel to and from many of its overseas territories. President Edouard Fritch acknowledged that the COVID-19 crisis had worsened in the US but told La Depeche that if French Polynesia didn’t open up the consequences would be “catastrophic.” He acknowledged the “probability” that there would be more COVID-19 cases.

The Northern Marianas was also scheduled to open for regular international flights last week, but fresh outbreaks of COVID-19 in the CNMI’s main tourism markets of China and South Korea forced carriers to abandon their plans. The Commonwealth Ports Authority said a new target date to reopen the international airport has yet to be determined.

The Cook Islands government is holding talks with New Zealand officials, including Deputy PM Winston Peters, to establish a “quarantine-free” travel bubble between the two countries. Ninety percent of the Cook Islands economy relies on tourism. University of Canterbury Academic Michael Plank told Radio NZ that it will be necessary to “tread very carefully” so NZ does not export the virus to the Pacific, which has a high risk of “devastating” health impacts. In Samoa last year, 83 people died in a measles epidemic that originated in Auckland.

The Auckland-based New Zealand Fiji Business Council and other corporate lobbyists, as well as former NZ Labour PM Helen Clark, have been demanding the Ardern-led government relax its border restrictions for “mutual economic benefits.” However, the head of the South Pacific Tourism Organisation, Chris Cocker, told Radio NZ that any prospect of a tourism rebound this year has been “written off,” adding that a first quarter 2021 resumption was the “best case scenario.”

With the virus spreading uncontrolled around the globe and a disastrous financial and economic collapse underway, even this is likely a serious underestimation. The already catastrophic impact on the fragile and impoverished former colonies of the Pacific region is likely to get worse.

Record daily coronavirus infections in Australia

Patrick O’Connor

Australia yesterday registered the highest number of new coronavirus infections since the beginning of the pandemic.

The total of 502 new cases surpassed the previous daily high of 469 cases on March 28, nearly four months ago. Unlike the initial wave of infections, which was driven by people returning from their overseas holidays, the latest surge features widespread community transmission. More than 2,000 cases remain under investigation, meaning that health authorities do not know how and where these infections were contracted.

Just six weeks ago, on June 9, only 2 new coronavirus cases were reported across Australia. The return of large scale infection is a consequence of the decision by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and every state leader, Labor and Liberal, to lift lockdown measures in May.

A COVID-19 testing center in Melbourne’s inner west

This move defied evidence within an expert report submitted by epidemiologists and medical scientists that lockdown measures needed to be maintained for at least another month in order to eradicate the virus. Like their counterparts in the US and internationally, the Australian ruling elite has throughout the pandemic prioritised the needs of big business and finance capital ahead of public health and safety.

Melbourne remains the worst affected city, with 484 of the 502 total cases yesterday registered in the state of Victoria. There was one case reported in both Queensland and South Australia, and 16 in New South Wales (NSW). Earlier today, an additional 403 cases was recorded in Victoria and 19 in NSW.

Yesterday two people died from the virus, both men in their 90s, with the incidents reportedly “connected with aged care settings.” Today another five deaths were recorded in Australia, with the youngest deceased being a man in his 50s. Three of the five deaths were related to aged care.

Across Melbourne, 45 aged care centres have registered one or more infections among their staff or residents since July 8. The worst clusters are at Menarock Life Aged Care in Essendon, with 38 infections, Estia Health aged care in Ardeer, with 54 cases, and St Basil’s Home for the Aged in Fawkner, with 69 cases. Federal health authorities have taken over the operating of St Basil’s, with a replacement workforce brought in.

Infections were so widespread there that every regular staff member has to self isolate at home for a fortnight. Workers have reported that the facility’s management did not enforce proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE), with staff told this was optional.

In some affected aged care facilities, residents are being isolated in their rooms instead of being evacuated if they are not infected and hospitalised if they are.

Marylouise McLaws, an infection control expert at the University of NSW and adviser to the World Health Organization, told the Guardian that aged care facilities lacked the necessary pressured rooms, Hepa filters, and designated areas for PPE storage. “It’s very difficult to all of a sudden turn really a shared home into a proxy hospital with cutting-edge infection control,” she said.

Victoria’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, nevertheless said earlier this week that aged care evacuations were being decided on a “case-by-case basis.”

When residents of Sydney’s Newmarch House were left inside their infected facility during an outbreak in April, 19 elderly people died of COVID-19. The Victorian government’s failure to organise comprehensive evacuation measures for affected aged care facilities will likely lead to many more deaths.

Melbourne and the neighbouring regional shire of Mitchell have been in official lockdown since July 9. Residents are only permitted to leave their homes for four reasons—to exercise, purchase supplies, provide caregiving, and to go to work or school. Ten postcode “hotspots” had the same restrictions imposed a week earlier, on July 2. Despite this, the coronavirus infection numbers have not declined.

Epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre, from the University of New South Wales’s Kirby Institute, told the ABC: “Generally, when you apply an intervention, you would expect to see the effects in two weeks, which is the incubation period. So it is very concerning to be still seeing figures in the triple figures.”

The Victorian Labor government has now mandated the wearing of masks or face coverings in public. It has not, however, imposed any restrictions on business activity, despite admitting that 80 percent of all infections since May have occurred within workplaces.

The pandemic has been exacerbated by the casualisation of the workforce that was engineered over the last four decades by successive Labor and Liberal governments as part of their “free market” offensive against the working class. Fewer than half of all workers now have a permanent full-time paid job, with proper leave entitlements. More than 25 percent of all workers are in casual employment, with zero job security and no paid leave of any kind.

Many of the aged care clusters are understood to originate from infected casual workers who were compelled to take different shifts across multiple facilities.

Other workplaces have likewise been affected by casual workers who have not self-isolated due to fears of losing their job, or being unable to cope with lost wages. Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews acknowledged yesterday: “If they don’t work the shift, they don’t get paid for the shift—they don’t have sick leave. This is a commentary on insecure work.”

The Labor leader did not take any responsibility for this “commentary,” nor announce measures to address insecure working conditions. Instead, as a band aid measure, casual workers who take a coronavirus test are eligible for a new $300 payment to self isolate while awaiting the result, with an additional $1,500 available for those who test positive and need to forego at least two weeks wages. It remains to be seen whether the limited payments will have any affect on virus transmission.

Many other workers continue to be exposed to dangerous conditions—including tens of thousands of school teachers. Schools in Victoria opened for Term 3 last Monday, with all public teachers expected to work on-site even if their students are learning from home. Around 100,000 Years 11 and 12 students are attending school each day, together with Year 10s doing senior subjects, children in specialist schools, and children whose parents cannot supervise them at home.

In just four days, 21 schools have reported infections among staff and/or students. These are across multiple areas of Melbourne—many in working class suburbs such as Dandenong High School, Roxburgh College, and Gladstone Park Secondary, others in upper-middle class and inner suburbs such as Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School and Toorak Primary School.

Keeping schools open is regarded by state and federal governments as a key measure to ensure corporate Australia has access to the required workforce. The reckless endangerment of teachers and students safety flies in the face of growing scientific evidence. A South Korean research study reported this week that both adolescents and children aged 10 and over are equally infectious with COVID-19 as are adults.

Victorian authorities today reported that four children are among the 201 people currently hospitalised with coronavirus.

German defence minister propagates rearmament, militarism and war

Johannes Stern

Anyone wanting to understand the origins of the right-wing extremist networks in Germany’s Bundeswehr (armed forces) and the security services and why they can operate largely unhindered should read the current interview with Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer in the German weekly magazine Die Zeit.

The minister and acting Christian Democratic Union (CDU) chairwoman beats the drum so aggressively for re-armament, militarism and war that one is inevitably reminded of Nazi policies.

It is “high time” to discuss “how Germany must position itself in the world in the future,” she insists right at the outset of the interview. Germany is “expected to show leadership, not only as an economic power.” It concerns “collective defence, it concerns international missions, it concerns a strategic view of the world, and ultimately it concerns the question of whether we want to actively shape the global order.”

By this, Kramp-Karrenbauer means a massive rearmament offensive to advance the interests of German imperialism in a new period of war and great power conflicts. One could “clearly feel that 1989 was not the end of history.” Instead, one encounters “conflicts between the USA and China, which confront us Europeans ever more abruptly with the question of what we are prepared to do for our values and our way of life.”

Seventy-five years after the end of the Second World War and the Nazis’ war of annihilation in the East, German imperialism is once again targeting Russia. “The claim of the current Russian leadership” to advocate their interests “very aggressively” must be “confronted with a clear position: We are well-fortified and in case of doubt, ready to defend ourselves. We see what Russia is doing and we will not let the Russian leadership get away with it.”

In response to the question by Die Zeit about what “the Bundeswehr could do,” Kramp-Karrenbauer threateningly answers, “As a NATO and EU [European Union] country in the middle of events, we need a 360-degree view. If you look at who is within range of Russian missiles in Europe, then it’s just the Central and Eastern European states and us.” Germany will use its EU Presidency to “work on a joint threat analysis” and to develop “defence systems.” This would increasingly involve “drones, swarms of AI-controlled drones or hypersonic weapons.”

What Kramp-Karrenbauer and the ruling class have in mind is the comprehensive militarization of society. She is pleased “that we have been able to make the Bundeswehr somewhat more visible in the midst of society, with troops taking a public pledge before the German Bundestag [federal parliament] on the Bundeswehr’s birthday and the free train rides for those in uniform.” She added that it was also important “to maintain force overhaul as a Bundeswehr capability in its own right,” the planned acquisition of new fighter jets and “also our demands on industry in terms of operational readiness and equipment.”

And all this is only the beginning. “What is now up for discussion is the question of arming drones to protect our soldiers,” adds Kramp-Karrenbauer.

The entire interview makes it clear that the extreme right-wing networks in the army are only the sharpest expression of the right-wing offensive of the grand coalition of the CDU–Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the entire ruling class. With the revival of German militarism, the militaristic traditions that are historically linked above all to the unruly Soldateska [bands of soldiers] of the Kaiserreich (Imperial Empire) and the Wehrmacht (armed forces of Nazi Germany) are inevitably returning.

In response to the remark of Die Zeit that “comradeship, war, dying for one’s country, killing someone” was “practically non-existent in the public self-representation of the Bundeswehr,” Kramp-Karrenbauer replied that precisely this had to change. “We are an army. We are armed. When in doubt, soldiers must also kill,” she declared. Unlike in the past, “today, dangerous foreign missions are common. Those who join the Bundeswehr know that. That is also part of what I understand by a well-fortified democracy and a strong Europe.”

Kramp-Karrenbauer protests that she really does not take the fascist terror networks in the army, “which hoard ammunition and prepare for a ‘Day X’,” “lightly,” which may or may not be the case. In any case, she is systematically working with the military leadership to cover up the extent of the extreme right-wing conspiracy in the army. “There is no general suspicion. The attitude of the absolute majority of our soldiers is correct,” she claims.

Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer at a joint press conference with the Inspector General of the German Armed Forces Eberhard Zorn (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

Regarding her latest measures to restructure the KSK elite force, recently shown to harbour a multitude of soldiers professing neo-Nazi views, Kramp-Karrenbauer makes it clear that it serves less to crush the extreme right-wing forces than to promote them and extend their long-secret practice of “targeted killing.” The KSK’s operations were subject to “special secrecy, if only so as not to endanger their success,” she said. But from within the unit itself, “there is now a desire to speak more openly about the operations. We will make this possible, and this is also part of the decisions that have been made recently.”

The interview with Kramp-Karrenbauer is a warning. It underlines that the ruling class, as in the past, will stop at nothing to push forward the interests of German capital both at home and abroad. As in the 1930s, it is reacting to the deep crisis of the capitalist system and the growing resistance in the working class with militarism and fascism.

Significantly, the interview was conducted by Mariam Lau—the Die Zeit journalist who already defended right-wing extremist Humboldt Professor Jörg Baberowski (“Hitler was not vicious”) in a detailed article in 2017. Baberowski, who in addition to trivialising and justifying Nazi crimes is also notorious for his calls for brutal war missions and violence, has close ties to the army and the defence ministry.

New coronavirus cases globally rocket past a quarter million

Bryan Dyne

A record 279,769 new cases of COVID-19 were reported yesterday, bringing the total number of known cases globally to nearly 15.4 million. There were also 7,113 confirmed deaths, a fatality count not seen since April, bringing the number of confirmed deaths caused by the coronavirus to 629,343.

Brazil, India, South Africa and the United States accounted for the vast majority of the new cases, with Brazil and the United States accounting for almost half by themselves. Similarly, the deaths in Brazil, India, Mexico and the US made up more than half of yesterday’s confirmed coronavirus fatalities. Twenty other countries recorded more than 1,000 new cases of the virus yesterday, and eleven posted more than 50 new deaths.

India posted a record day of both new cases, at 45,599, and new deaths, at 1,120, and the rate of increase of both indicates that the pandemic is continuing to spiral out of control in the world’s second most populous country. Its total case count and death tally stand at 1.24 million and 29,890, respectively. Brazil reported the most deaths of any country yesterday, at 1,293, bringing its number of dead to nearly 83,000. The largest economy in Latin America also saw another 65,000 infections, a new daily record, sending its current case count above 2.2 million.

South Africa also suffered a record number of new deaths, 572, double the previous record, bringing the total to 5,940, and a near record of new cases, 13,150, bringing confirmed infections to just under 395,000. As the country was recording these grim figures, the South African newspaper the Sowetan noted that the number of excess deaths in the country from natural causes had rose to 17,090 from May 6–July 14, four times the official COVID-19 death toll over the same period. This suggests that the pandemic has claimed, directly or indirectly, more than 23,000 human lives in the country.

Nearly 7,000 new cases were recorded in Mexico, a figure which has been steadily climbing over the past month and a half from less than 3,200 per day at the beginning of June. During that same period, deaths have increased from an average of more than 350 per day to now more than 580 a day. The country currently has more than 362,000 known cases, ranking seventh in the world, and 41,190 reported deaths. At this rate, Mexico is on track to exceed the number of deaths in the United Kingdom (currently at 45,501) by the end of the month.

There was also a resurgence of new deaths in the United States, which rose to 1,205, the highest number since May 30. The number of new cases also jumped back up to just under 72,000. The spread of the pandemic in the US continues to be driven by hot spots such as California (12,137 new cases; 156 new deaths), Texas (10,528; 202), Florida (9,785; 140) and Georgia (3,314; 81). Eleven states have more than 100,000 confirmed cases, and Louisiana is on track to become the twelfth tomorrow. In addition, California is slated to overtake New York as the state with the highest number of cases this week, while the case counts in Florida and Texas will likely exceed those in New York by the end of the month.

Amid the spiraling death toll of the pandemic globally, US President Donald Trump appeared in press briefings on Tuesday and Wednesday, the first time he has personally been at a coronavirus-related White House press conference since April.

Both had similar themes, with Trump almost immediately calling the pandemic by the xenophobic term “China virus,” especially inflammatory given the rising tensions currently being instigated by the US in the South China Sea. He also boasted that the federal government had cut a deal with Pfizer to produce 100 million doses of the vaccine it is developing with a further order of 500 million later on, without knowing whether or not the vaccine will be effective or safe.

Trump also doubled down on his administration’s calls for sending children back to schools as the pandemic spirals out of control. He made explicit that, “Our strategy is to shelter the highest risk Americans while allowing younger and healthier citizens to return to work or school.” He based this on the claim that, “The median age of those who succumb to the China virus is 78 years old. Roughly half of all deaths have been individuals in nursing homes or long term care. In one study, 90 percent of those hospitalized had underlying medical conditions.”

He then asserted, “99.96 percent of deaths aren’t children,” hoping to gloss over the fact that, whether or not such a figure is even correct, it would mean that 58 children have already died from the disease with school closed. At the same time, he warned, correctly for once, “It will … get worse before it gets better.”

While Trump may dismiss the sickness in young people as “mild,” if he has his way, by September, tens of millions of children will be back in school, and many will be infected with coronavirus and will have caught it from or passed it on to their teachers, school staff, bus drivers, parents and elderly family members. Given the course of the virus, by October, the number of sick and dead will begin to sharply rise. By November, for every 10 million kids forced to go back to school under such unsafe conditions, 4,000 will be dead, their families mourning the loss of the next generation even as they themselves cope with contracting the disease.

Conversely, it suggests that tens of thousands—perhaps millions—of toddlers and teenagers will be forced to witness the slow, agonizing deaths of the mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles or grandparents because they inadvertently brought the virus home.

Trump also took the opportunity to denigrate the youth who participated in the demonstrations against police violence in the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd. He claimed, “Cases started to rise among young Americans shortly after demonstrations … which presumably triggered a broader relaxation of mitigation efforts nationwide and a substantial increase in travel.”

This is in fact not true. While health experts were worried of a sharp rise in cases as young people across the country braved the pandemic, as well as waves of police brutality, to protest against state repression, that spike in cases never materialized. Instead, the rise in cases has been attributed to the reopening of the economy, particularly in crowded factories and plants, without having a robust testing and contact tracing plan in place.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, spoke to this in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday. Fauci called the US network of testing and contact tracing “patchy.” He further noted, “One of the things that is an issue … is the time frame from when you get a test to the time you get a result back is sometimes measured in a few days. If that’s the case, it kind of negates the purpose of the contact tracing. Because if you don’t know if that person gets their results back early, … when you get to six or seven days, that kind of really mitigates getting a good tracing and good isolation.”

US orders closure of China’s Houston consulate, raising the danger of war

Mike Head

Tuesday’s order by the Trump administration for China to close its consulate in Houston within three days, without providing any details to justify its decision, is a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in the US conflict with China.

Coming amid a tense standoff between US and Chinese warships in the South China Sea, it is hard to see the move as anything besides a step toward war.

The White House and the US political establishment as a whole, facing a massive domestic crisis over its failure to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, which has already cost nearly 150,000 American lives, is seeking to divert internal tensions outward to an external “enemy.”

China’s foreign ministry condemned the closure of its oldest consulate in the US, which has been in existence since the two countries normalised diplomatic ties in 1979. A spokesperson called it “an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage relations between the two countries.”

The US government made no attempt to explain its totally unsubstantiated claims against Beijing. The State Department vaguely accused China of conducting “massive illegal spying and influence operations throughout the United States.” Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus echoed the litany of wild allegations issued by Donald Trump this week, accusing China of “violating” US sovereignty, “intimidating” the American people, thieving “American jobs” by “unfair trade practices” and “other egregious behaviour.”

Asked for specifics on why the consulate was being closed, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded only with sweeping assertions that China was stealing US intellectual property, which was “costing hundreds of thousands of jobs.” Pompeo told reporters in Copenhagen, Denmark: “President Trump has said, ‘Enough, we’re not going to allow this to continue to happen’.”

On Twitter, Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a long-time agitator against China, was even more vague and provocative. “China’s consulate in #Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central node of the Communist Party’s vast network of spies & influence operations in the United States. Now that building must close & the spies have 72 hours to leave or face arrest. This needed to happen.”

As with its earlier claims about China having “weaponized” COVID-19 by supposedly unleashing the virus on the world from a Wuhan lab, there is not a shred of evidence to support these incendiary allegations. Moreover, they are issued by the country that conducts the greatest spying and political interference operations in the world, from Iran to Venezuela and China.

The Houston charges are part of a welter of claims and actions against China in recent weeks. On the same day, the US was mounting another show of force in the South China Sea, conducting joint exercises between the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group and Japanese and Australian warships near islets claimed and occupied by China. This was the second such military display this week, after Pompeo, for the first time, formally branded virtually all of China’s claims in the South China Sea as “illegal.”

US officials also unsealed an indictment against two former engineering students in China, charging them with hacking to try to steal data on COVID-19 vaccine research, supposedly at the direction of the Chinese government, as well as for their “own profit.”

On Tuesday as well, Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper both delivered speeches in London warning that the US is preparing its military forces across the Indo-Pacific ­region for potential confrontation with China and raising the pressure on other governments to join a coalition to counter the growing global influence of Beijing. “We hope we can build out a coalition that understands this threat,” Pompeo declared. “It includes every country,” he said, standing alongside British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

Esper told the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies that the US military was modernising its “strength deterrence” across Asia and prioritising the deployment of forces and technologies to counter Chinese efforts to establish “a completely different regional order that puts China at the top.”

Pompeo and Esper are touring Europe to demand that its governments line up with the US against China, having just succeeded in pressuring the British government to reverse its previous decision to permit Huawei, the largest telecommunications equipment maker in the world, to provide 5G technology in the UK.

Earlier this month, Trump signed a bill authorizing sanctions on China over its policies in Hong Kong. The US Treasury also sanctioned several high-ranking Chinese officials over Beijing’s treatment of ethnic minorities in Tibet and China’s northwestern Xinjiang region.

The White House has not the slightest concern for the democratic rights of people in China or anywhere else, as witnessed by the mobilization of para-military troops against protesters in Portland, Oregon and Trump’s threats to do the same in other major cities. Instead, Washington is hypocritically seeking to exploit the issues of “human rights” and “spying” to confront China, which it now regards as the chief threat to its global hegemony.

The reaction of the capitalist regime in Beijing to the Houston closure has again been a mixture of appealing to Washington for a power-sharing compromise and issuing its own nationalist and militarist responses. On Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin appealed to the US to revoke the closure. At the same time, he threatened countermeasures against the “outrageous and unjustified” violation of international law and “unprecedented escalation” of recent US actions against China.

In the South China Sea, China’s air force held live-fire drills and sent more fighter jets to its base on disputed Woody Island—actions that only underscore the danger of a military conflict that could potentially spiral into a nuclear confrontation. Sitting on top of its own social time bomb, Beijing is itself engaging in an arms race that can only end in disaster for humanity.

These dangers are not only driven by the crisis of the Trump administration and the looming presidential election. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the drive by the US, already taken to a new level under the Obama administration, to confront China on every front, including militarily, to subordinate it and prevent it from becoming a threat to the global ascendancy established by US imperialism in World War II.

Behind the allegations of theft of vaccine research, there is a reactionary global struggle between competing corporations and nations to be the first to patent a vaccine for the coronavirus. At stake are billions of dollars for corporate CEOs, investors and bankers, and an immense geopolitical advantage for the country that wins the vaccine sweepstakes.

The United States is most nakedly pursuing a nationalistic course, aimed at enriching American oligarchs and deploying the vaccine not as a means to save lives, but as a weapon against countries in the crosshairs of US imperialism. Washington will withhold the vaccine from countries deemed impediments to its drive for global hegemony and reward those that fall into line behind its plans for war and conquest with access to the lifesaving drug.

All sections of the US political establishment have lined up behind the Trump administration’s anti-Chinese campaign, with his presumptive Democrat challenger Joe Biden attacking Trump for not being aggressive enough.

These developments highlight the enormous danger of war and the need to mobilize the international working class, including the Chinese and US working people, against this threat and the political regimes responsible for it, and for a unified global effort to fight the pandemic. This is only possible on the basis of a socialist program, directed at overturning the capitalist system and abolishing its outmoded division of the world into rival nation states.

German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) International PhD Fellowship 2021

Application Deadline: 15^th December 2020.

Eligible Countries: International

To be Taken at (Country): Germany

About the Award: The DKFZ is Germany’s largest biomedical research institute and has an international and dynamic work environment, providing students with access to state-of-the-art research facilities and exceptional resources. More than 500 PhD students in over 100 divisions and research groups carry out research to unravel the causes and mechanisms of cancer development and to identify novel tools for diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

Type: Research

Eligibility: Applicants still studying for their master’s degree should anticipate to receive it not later than 6 months after they have been accepted to the PhD program. A transcript or provisional certificate from the university, stating the examination marks already obtained, should be provided. During completion of the online application form you will be required to upload a scanned copy of your certificates as a JPEG or PDF file of not more than 3MB.

Number of Awards: Numerous

Value of Award:

• All PhD positions at the DKFZ are fully funded for three years. The salaries are competitive by national standards. There is no tuition fee.
• Doctoral researchers awarded a PhD position through the biannual selection roundsare funded either by a DKFZ PhD contract (65 % of a TVöD EG 13) or by third-party funding from their group leader.
• In addition to DKFZ PhD positions, the DKFZ offers scholarships to international PhD candidates in collaboration with the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) within the Graduate School Scholarship Programme.

Duration of Award: 3 years

How to Apply:

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Programme 2021/2022 for Mid-level Career Professionals (Fully-funded to USA)

Application Deadline: 15th August 2020

To Be Taken At (Country): USA

About the Award: During their stay at a host American university, Humphrey Fellows are invited to take graduate courses relevant to their professional interests.  However, as the Humphrey Fellowship is not a degree program, participants spend a considerable portion of their time engaged in professional development activities including: consultations and affiliations with U.S. faculty and experts, field trips, workshops, research projects, and the development of practical useful strategies that could be applied in the Fellows’ home countries.

Field of Study: The Humphrey Fellowship offers opportunities in the following fields:

• Sustainable Development
• Economic Development
• Educational
• Public Health 

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• Have a minimum of a four-year undergraduate degree from S.A. (BA + Honors)
• Have a minimum of five years of full-time professional experience beyond the attainment of a first university/undergraduate degree prior to August 2020
• University lecturers have to have management or policy responsibilities and experience. Exceptions apply to teachers of English as a foreign language and specialists in substance abuse preventions and treatment
• Demonstrated Leadership Ability: candidates should have achieved positions of significant responsibility at the national, regional or local level and show clear promise to assume greater future leadership roles
• A record of public service in the community: candidates careers must reflect a present and future commitment to public service, broadly defined in the public, NGO, or private sector

The following individuals are not eligible for the HHH Fellowship:

• Individuals who have attended graduate school in the United States for one academic year or more during the seven years prior to August 2020 are ineligible to apply
• Individuals who have had more than six months of U.S. experience during the five years prior to August 2021 are ineligible to apply
• Individuals with dual U.S. citizenship or U.S. permanent resident status are ineligible to apply.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The Fellowship provides for:

• Payment of tuition and fees at the assigned host university;
• Pre-academic English language training, if required;
• A living allowance, including a one-time settling-in allowance;
• Accident and sickness coverage;
• A book allowance; one-time computer subsidy;
• Air travel (international travel to and from the U.S. for the Program and domestic travel to required program events);
• A Professional Development allowance for professional activities, such as field trips, professional visits and conferences.

Duration of Programme: 10 months

How to Apply: The online application can be accessed HERE


Visit Programme Webpage for Details 

Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Dissertation Fellowships 2020

Application Deadline: 1st February 2020

About the Award: The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Dissertation Fellowships are being offered to PhD students from around the world, who are completing the writing of their dissertations in the fields of violence and aggression in relation to social change, intergroup conflict, war, terrorism, crime, and family relationships, or related fields.
This fellowship is not for support of doctoral research. Applications are evaluated in comparison with each other and not in competition with the postdoctoral research grant proposals.

Eligible Field(s): PhD dissertation written by students in their final year, on violence and aggression in relation to social change, intergroup conflict, war, terrorism, crime, and family relationships, etc.

Type: PhD Degree

Eligibility:

• These fellowships of $20,000 each are designed to contribute to the support of the doctoral candidate to enable him or her to complete the thesis in a timely manner and are only appropriate for students approaching the final year of their Ph.D. work.
• This fellowship is not for support of doctoral research. Applications are evaluated in comparison with each other and not in competition with the postdoctoral research grant proposals.
• Applicants may be citizens of any country and studying at colleges or universities in any country.
• These grants are made to Ph.D. candidates who are entering the dissertation stage of graduate school. Usually, this means that fieldwork or other research is complete and writing has begun. If analysis and writing are not far enough along for an applicant to be confident that he will complete the dissertation within the year, he should not apply, as the application will not be competitive with those that comply with this timetable. In some disciplines, particularly experimental fields, research and writing can reasonably be expected to be completed within the same year, and in those cases it is appropriate to apply.

Eligible Countries: Any

To be Taken at (Country): Colleges and universities in any country

Number of Awards: Ten or more

Value of Award: US$20,000 each

Duration of Award:

• Timing: Applications for dissertation fellowships must be received by February 1, for a decision in June. Applications are reviewed during the spring and final decisions are made by the Board of Directors at its meeting in June. Applicants will be informed promptly by e-mail as well as letter of the Board’s decision. Awards ordinarily commence on September 1, but other starting dates (after July 1) may be requested if the nature of the project makes this appropriate.
• Final Report: Recipients of the dissertation fellowship must submit a copy of the dissertation, approved and accepted by their institution, within six months after the end of the award year. Any papers, books, articles, or other publications based on the research should also be sent to the foundation.

How to Apply:
Applications are submitted online–the application will be available beginning October 1st. (However, we will still accept a mailed application using our previous application method, a printable PDF form, provided it arrives at the foundation’s office no later than February 1, or the following Monday if February 1 falls on a weekend.)
Applicants will first create a login account and will then be able to access detailed guidelines and the online application.

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Militarism and COVID-19

Michael D. Knox

After six months of enduring this tragic but preventable COVID-19 pandemic, there is still no national leadership. More than 200,000 Americans will die, and hundreds of thousands will suffer through the disease process, and then continue to have debilitating symptoms long after. Compare the response to how quickly our nation mobilized for war after less than 3000 died on 9/11; war that we continue to fight in the Middle East and Africa.

The inadequacies of our healthcare and public health systems and the persistent shortages of equipment, supplies, hospital beds and timely testing underscore the fact that military-related activities are the highest priority of the U.S. government. Its 2020 military budget is $738 billion. That’s over $84 million an hour for war. That’s where our tax dollars go and that’s where the resources are—spread around the world to intimidate and do harm, rather than good.

The President’s recent extravagant patriotic speeches and ceremonies ignore the pandemic and instead, extol the virtues of “law and order” and the largest military budget ever. Flyovers of fighter jets, used as a way of showing appreciation to healthcare workers treating COVID-19, demonstrates an effort to tie all aspects of our life, even this most desperate public health situation, into the U.S. war culture. Obviously, the cost of these nationwide military tributes and ceremonies, which is significant, could have provided medicine, testing, facemasks, and other items that are still desperately needed to help stem the spread of this disease. Perhaps these expensive public relations stunts were an effort to distract us from the government’s continuing failed leadership in handling the COVID-19 crisis.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if war was deemed a non-essential activity, and our country focused instead on eliminating healthcare disparities, systemic racism, aggressive policing, poverty, and this heartbreaking pandemic. These are the things that are terrorizing Americans.

Weaponizing Intellectual Property: the Scientist and the Spy

Bill Julian

China is the latest in the long list of post-World War II villains who threaten the American way of life, or America’s deserved spot at the head of the table, or the peace and prosperity of America’s allies, or the values of the West.

China’s particular threat is its ambition to replace the US at the top of the world’s economy through the appropriation of American or Western technology, and to use its economic dominion to advance an authoritarian political regime. Of lesser importance to American myth-makers is China’s success in raising 700 million of its people out of poverty, and its initiative in constructing economic infrastructure in former Western colonies who lack it in Africa and South Asia and even in the peripheries of Europe (Greece), that will help to raise living standards there. America’s leadership, even if it is to nowhere or to chaos, must not be challenged. To counter the China threat the US is using every advantage it believes it enjoys in global finance, global technology, global trade, and conventional and nuclear military deployments and technology (renewed arms race) to undermine China’s advance. This “pivot toward Asia” pre-dates the escalating hostile rhetoric of the Trump administration and will outlast it.

To justify its aggressive posture, the US has placed special emphasis on protecting intellectual property and counteracting industrial and technical espionage. This makes an outstanding piece of investigative journalism by Mara Hvistendahl, The Scientist and the Spy, especially timely and relevant.

In The Scientist and Spy, Ms. Hvistendahl traces a lengthy investigation and prosecution by the FBI of Robert Mo, a Chinese agronomist working for a Chinese firm in the US, who was accused and convicted of stealing ears of corn and seeds from Monsanto and/or Pioneer test plots in the Mid-West for potential “reverse engineering” (identification of corn plant genetics) by a seed company in China.

She meticulously tracks the events; deftly explains and illuminates the science; evaluates the activities of law enforcement and lawyers before, during and after prosecution; and conveys in a sensitive and understated tone the impacts of the case on the lives of the individuals and families most directly involved, both Chinese and American.

This “industrial espionage” was not sophisticated breaking and entering, enabled by high tech methods, to steal high-level industrial, cyber- or engineering processes. This “industrial espionage” was picking up ears of corn in a field. I note that the case began in 2012 and was concluded before the accession of Donald Trump to the Presidency.

The multiple ironies of “intellectual property” in agriculture run throughout the book. At the most basic level is the irony that “soybeans originally came from China, but then due to accidents of history and trade the major seed companies gained control of the crop and made money selling the seeds back to China,” (quoting Robert Mo.) The same could be said of corn, wheat, rice, cassava, all of which have travelled freely around the world from their points of origin, but are now in some sense “proprietary” rather than part of humanity’s “common.”

At another level of irony, the book clearly articulates the dilemmas and disadvantages faced by American farmers caused by the dominance of seed companies, who are in a position increasingly to dictate farming and management practices to protect their property in genetically engineered seeds. One of the important observations in the book is the decision both as matter of resource priorities and policy to abandon FBI and Justice Department anti-trust investigations of Monsanto and Pioneer, which would have benefited American farmers, in favor of the pursuit and prosecution of the Chinese scientist. To the get the Chinese “spy” the FBI needed the cooperation of Monsanto in understanding the details of the science – what exactly was being “stolen.” To get Monsanto’s cooperation the FBI had to convert the company from target to ally by dropping the anti-trust case. To get the conviction, the FBI ended up protecting the very “intellectual property” rights that were harming American farmers. Decisions, decisions.

A further irony is that the genetic trait that was the basis for prosecution was specific modification to make the corn seed “Round-up ready.” A probable carcinogen, Round-up was a Monsanto weed-killer extensively used to suppress foreign plant material in corn fields and Monsanto bred seed-corn to resist the deleterious effect of Round-up. As a final irony Hvistendahl quotes a Bayer representative after the European company’s acquisition of Monsanto lauding the FBI’s protection of the American intellectual property it was acquiring.

Research in agronomy, plant genetics, and agricultural organization are crucial areas of work to address global issues of nutrition and living standards. Cooperation across international boundaries and sharing of knowledge about the most basic areas of human activity, like agriculture and food production, will be essential in addressing those issues. Past successes in food production like the Green Revolution in rice cultivation had international institutions and cooperation at the forefront. The Scientist and the Spy suggests that America has turned away from cooperation in a crucial area of food production – seed development. A similar – neo-liberal — approach to addressing the technical (intellectual property) issues of energy and climate change would contribute to climate catastrophe.

Most concerning is the recent kerfluffle of the US/UK/Canada intelligence cabal over allegations that Russian hackers were trying to “appropriate” knowledge about COVID vaccine development by researchers in those countries.  Free cooperative development of ideas in these crucial areas to improve the world – food, energy, health – should be the norm.  The Scientist and the Spy shows us how far we have strayed.

The UK’s Sinking Brexit Ship

Kenneth Surin

Boris Johnson and his Tory colleagues are playing a game that is doomed to fail where the twin threats of the Covid pandemic and Brexit are concerned. As the UK careens towards a No Deal Brexit, the “message” is that the economic and social disaster caused by a No Deal Brexit is really to be attributed to the pandemic, while another “message” is that the country will be “back to normal” by Christmas with regard to the pandemic, leaving the decks miraculously clear for a mighty effort to stem the calamitous No Deal Brexit.

“It is my strong and sincere hope”, BoJo Johnson told a Downing Street press conference, that the virus will be under such strong control that the country could see “a significant return to normality” from November.

Both messages are a con, which must surely be apparent even to a self-deceiver like to BoJo. It certainly is to EU leaders.

The Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte added this twist to the Brexiter’s mantra “Brexit means Brexit” by adding “and hard Brexit means hard Brexit”. As has been clear all along, the EU is not going to give an inch to perfidious Albion in its divorce from the EU.

It soon became obvious that BoJo’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and chief medical officer Chris Whitty did not get BoJo’s message. Within hours both men were telling the House of Lords science committee that social distancing is here to stay.

Whitty said: “[The virus] has not gone away. [The measures] need to continue for a long period of time”. Vallance added that “social distancing and hygiene measures will be necessary” given it was “highly likely” the virus would return, stressing that it was just a matter of when, not if, Covid “comes back in force” in several waves.

The truth is that there will be no return to a “pre-Covid normality” without levels of contact tracing that have never been achieved in the UK, as well as effective Covid security on public transport, and so on.

The current testing system, outsourced to the private companies Serco and G4S, fails to contact nearly a quarter of people who test positive. In one town in the north of England now dealing with a major outbreak of the virus, the testing app, touted as “world-beating” by BoJo, is failing to reach half of its close contacts.

The UK economy was in poor shape even before Covid struck, but the economy is now on the verge of flat lining.

National output dropped by a dismal 20.4% in April, and although economic forecasters predicted growth of 5.5% in May the actual figure turned out to be an insipid 1.8%. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says another major coronavirus outbreak in the UK could result in an unemployment rate of 15%.

The Office for National Statistics reports that 650,000 people have lost their jobs since lockdown began, and vacancies are at their lowest level since records began two decades ago. Up to 3 million UK jobs are now thought to be at risk because of unsustainable corporate-debt levels, and these firms are pleading for government bailouts.

The coronavirus crisis has left many UK businesses in a worse position to cope with a no-deal Brexit, according to the independent think-tank the Institute for Government. The Institute says that 3 out of 5 firms have not even begun to prepare for the finalization of the EU-UK separation on 31st December 2020 due to continued indecision about the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

The minister for Brexit, Michael Gove, has confirmed that up to 5 sites in Kent (in the south of England abutting the English Channel) will be used as Brexit border facilities, with another 7 situated elsewhere in the country. Gove has already confirmed the purchase of a £705m/$942m site for a “Brexit border” centred on a vast lorry park in Ashford, Kent, where transport operators will have to fork out money on an hourly basis while they wait for customs clearance.

The profound irony is that Ashford is solidly pro-Tory and pro-Brexit— in the 2016 EU referendum it voted Leave 59.4% (with Remain at 40.6%). Property values in Ashford are expected to crash with the construction of the vehicle park, with its ensuing traffic bottlenecks and the stress it will place on local infrastructure and services.

The Brexiters of Ashford are already turning NIMBY, though understandably many Remainers have little sympathy for them.

So much for the Brexiter “taking back control” slogan.

BoJo suffered a major political defeat this week.

He had been sitting on a parliamentary report since before the December 2019 election which investigated Russian interference in the 2016 EU referendum and the 2019 general election.

Releasing the Russian report is the task of the House Committee on Intelligence and Security, but BoJo had prevented it from meeting for 7 months. When he could no longer do this, BoJo tried to influence the committee’s leadership. In an act of egregious executive over-reach, he directed that the committee be headed by one of his flunkies, the error-prone former minister Chris “Failing” Grayling.

The committee has 9 members, 5 Tory and 4 belonging to opposition parties. In something of a coup, one of the 5 Tories, the independent-minded Julian Lewis, stood against “Failing” Grayling, and persuaded the 4 opposition-party members to vote for him.

BoJo’s hope was that Grayling would somehow be able to prevent the release of the Russian report, but Lewis, now the committee’s chair, has already chaired his first committee meeting and obtained unanimous agreement to publish the report within a week.

BoJo retaliated by having Julian Lewis kicked out of the parliamentary Conservative party.

Such is the state of democracy in Ukania.

So, what can lie ahead for Ukania?

The Thatcherite neoliberal “settlement” from 1979 onwards was a failed attempt to deal with the breakdown of the 1945 social-democratic settlement, premised as it was on a “managed capitalism”.

The current convergence of the consequences, mostly impossible to anticipate, of the continuing pandemic (and especially a projected Covid second wave), with an economic upheaval brought out by a No Deal Brexit, could create conditions for the overturning of the 1979 “give capitalism free rein” Thatcherite consensus.

But let us not get ahead of ourselves.

Labour’s current Blairite leadership, under Keir Starmer, having eschewed Corbyn’s experiment in social democracy, is committed in so doing to the maintenance of Thatcherism, give or take a few palliatives not so far in evidence.

If the sting of a No Deal Brexit is not felt deeply by those who believe the EU is to blame for the UK’s decades-long economic and social decline (and this anti-EU refrain is the constant Tory message), the overturning of the Thatcherite consensus can be deferred.

For how long though?

History shows that events tend to proceed at their own pace, though sometimes with great rapidity.