Why the U.S. Shouldn’t Play Games With Cyberwarfare as Its Power Declines

Prabir Purkayastha

Two major cyberhacks—of SolarWinds and Microsoft Exchange Server—have affected a whole range of computer systems worldwide. Both are supply chain hacks, meaning that they appeared to be routine software upgrades for particular components in these systems instead of inserted malicious codes.

In the SolarWinds hack, a backdoor in one of the components was downloaded to the systems of 18,000 organizations, including the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.

In the Microsoft Exchange Server hack, an estimated 250,000 machines worldwide might have been affected by a vulnerability that allowed hackers to control the machines and even infect other systems in the internal network of the targeted companies. Four major vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server were reported to Microsoft in early January. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until early March that Microsoft released patches, according to ZDNet. These vulnerabilities were used by the hackers during the period that Microsoft had either not released the patches, or companies had not upgraded their systems and installed the patches.

In the SolarWinds hack, the U.S. authorities and security companies that work closely with the U.S. government have blamed Russian intelligence agencies for the hack, which was discovered in late 2020. In the case of the recent Microsoft Exchange Server hack, Microsoft blamed “a Chinese state-sponsored group dubbed ‘Hafnium,’” according to PC Magazine. It is unlikely that either the Russians or Chinese spy agencies would execute such a widespread attack on systems. Their interests are better served by targeting a few critical systems and compromising them rather than infecting systems on such a wide scale.

The scale of the attacks multiplied exponentially, particularly after Microsoft announced the four vulnerabilities and released their patches. Many of the large number of organizations that use Microsoft Exchange for their email servers—including small companies and local governments—were slow to apply the patches. This allowed a huge number of rogue hackers to get into the act, setting off a feeding frenzy of hacking unprotected systems.

U.S. government agencies are looking at how to retaliate against Russia and China for the cyberattacks, with some lawmakers going as far as to wonder if “the [SolarWinds] cyber intrusion amounts to an ‘act of war,’” according to Breaking Defense. What these claims overlook is that all countries have offensive and defensive capabilities, and “stealing” data and knowledge from other countries is a time-honored tradition of spook agencies. It becomes an act of war only if it leads to physical damage to critical equipment or infrastructure.

Any identification of the cyberattacks as Russian or Chinese is based on the evidence of supposed Russian or Chinese “signatures” in the software. The CIA’s hacking tools, details of which are available in Vault 7 of WikiLeaks, show that such signatures can be faked by the agency. The NSA tools dumped by a group called the Shadow Brokers on the internet in 2017 show that the NSA can also spoof signatures of other countries or of hacker groups. A report from DarkOwl titled “Nation State Actors on the Darknet” says that NSA’s tools made public by the Shadow Brokers include UNITEDRAKE, which “provides the unique capability to disguise the origin of the attack, effectively projecting attribution onto another country or hacking group.” This problem is further compounded by the fact that these tools are now accessible to all hackers. This means that identifying the origin of software from code “signatures” is at best a conjecture.

Why does the United States expect Russia or China not to hack other country’s systems, when we all know that the NSA and the CIA have been routinely hacking systems from all over the world? The Edward Snowden revelations showed that the United States and its Five Eyes partners did everything (and then some) that they are today accusing Russia and China of doing. XKeyscore and Prism, two of the largest NSA programs, showed how systems across the world had been hacked or compromised by the intelligence agency. The NSA’s Tailored Access Operations hacked hardware that went to different countries, providing the NSA with physical backdoors into equipment in foreign networks. The U.S. and its Five Eyes partners hacked systems across the rest of the world, not even sparing their close NATO allies like Belgium and Germany. The NSA’s UK counterpart, the GCHQ, hacked Belgium’s largest telecom company, Belgacom (now known as Proximus), which operates a large number of data links internationally. It serves millions of people including top officials from the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council. According to a February 2016 article in the Local, WikiLeaks documents revealed that the NSA even listened in on German “Chancellor Angela Merkel’s private conversations with world leaders.”

The United States has, meanwhile, mounted a worldwide campaign against the Chinese multinational technology company Huawei for being a security risk for global networks and asserts that a clean network means no Chinese equipment. In March 2014, the New York Times and Der Spiegel reported on an NSA program code-named “Shotgiant” that hacked into Huawei systems and its network to find a link between Huawei and the People’s Liberation Army. As the New York Times report says, “But the plans went further: to exploit Huawei’s technology so that when the company sold equipment to other countries—including both allies and nations that avoid buying American products—the NSA could roam through their computer and telephone networks to conduct surveillance and, if ordered by the president, offensive cyberoperations.” The Times report adds, quoting an NSA document that it and Der Spiegel disclosed, “Many of our targets communicate over Huawei-produced products… We want to make sure that we know how to exploit these products… to ‘gain access to networks of interest’ around the world.”

The NSA document above shows that the NSA not only conducted surveillance operations in the networks of other countries but also carried out offensive cyber operations. So if the NSA or the CIA compromises the computers, routers or other equipment of a country, they not only exfiltrate data out of these networks but also have offensive capabilities of inserting logic bombs in the target network or equipment to bring them down.

In a reenactment of former President Obama’s campaign in 2013-14 against China and Russia on cyberwar and cyberespionage, the Biden administration is attributing all the major cyberhacks in the world to ‘evil’ Russian and Chinese actors. Obama’s campaign had to be aborted due to the damaging Snowden revelations. The United States appears to believe that the world by now has forgotten about Snowden. The time is ripe again for a renewed offensive on hacking against Russia and China, with the Biden administration continuing Trump’s confrontationist policies relating to both these countries.

The question is, with growing offensive capabilities, can we continue to play along this path of confrontation? Can we play this reckless game of cyber chicken without suffering devastating consequences? Can cyber offensive capabilities lead inadvertently to an attack that has physical consequences and, therefore, to a physical war?

With the Stuxnet attack on Iran’s centrifuges, a line of not causing physical damage using cyberweapons—the cyber Rubicon—was crossed. Dress it up any way we want, an attack on equipment processing radioactive material that could lead to possible radioactive leakage marked the first use of a cyberweapon.

In a repeat of the atom bomb era, where the United States thought that it had a long-term monopoly over nuclear weapons, the United States now considers its cyber dominance to be long-term. Commenting on the U.S.’s rejection of any proposal to ban cyberweapons—in a May 2012 report published by the international affairs think tank Chatham House, “Cyber Security and International Law”—Mary Ellen O’Connell from the University of Notre Dame Law School and Chatham House’s Louise Arimatsu explained that the United States’ resistance to proposals for a treaty may have been related to “U.S. plans to use the Internet for offensive purposes… U.S. officials claim publicly that Cyber Command is primarily defensive, but the reluctance to entertain the idea of a cyberspace disarmament treaty is raising questions about the true U.S. position.”

The United States and its NATO allies have turned down every attempt within the United Nations framework to ban cyberweapons. Russia, China and many other countries tried to have a UN process to discuss a cyber peace treaty. In 2009, Russia proposed a treaty modeled on the Chemical Weapons Convention that would ban cyberweapons, a call it has repeated in the UN. The United States has turned it down every time, arguing instead that every country should accept the Tallinn Manual. The Tallinn Manual is a nonbinding academic study sponsored by a group of NATO countries on how international law should be interpreted for cyberspace. It does not call for a ban on cyberweapons but only defines what a cyberweapon is and where its use would violate international law. Clearly, the Tallinn Manual is a far cry from a treaty on maintaining cyber peace and banning cyberweapons.

Cybersecurity threats are emerging as one of the most serious challenges of the 21st century. The Russians and Chinese are not the only ones promoting a cyber peace treaty—or at least negotiations of dos and don’ts in the cyber era. With the leak of the NSA’s tools on the internet and in the wake of WannaCry ransomware attacks, even tech giants like Microsoft started talking about nation-states (read: the NSA in this case) not stockpiling and exploiting vulnerabilities in systems.

The reality that the United States refuses to accept is that it is no longer the sole cyber hegemon. A report called the “National Cyber Power Index 2020” by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs ranked the cyber power of countries by both offensive and defensive capabilities. Although the United States is still the leading player, China is in second place and catching up fast. Russia, the UK and others are still some distance behind.

With computer systems and networks underpinning the global infrastructure, the risks of cyberweapons to the world are greater than ever before. If we do not work for cyber peace, we will inevitably tip over to a ruinous cyber exchange and possibly the splintering of the global internet with hard borders. It is critical that we do not enter the even more dangerous territory of a hot war that initially starts as a cyberwar.

Yemen is a Public Health Catastrophe

Cesar Chelala

The war in Yemen -the Arab world’s poorest country- has reached new heights of sickness and death by the spreading of the coronavirus pandemic in a vulnerable and fragile population. The death toll from the coronavirus pandemic could be greater than the combined toll of war, disease and hunger over the last five years, according to Lise Grande, the U.N.’s head of humanitarian operations in Yemen.

The country’s civilians have been the unwilling participants in a proxy war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and has left the public health system in shambles. Last December, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated that the conflict in Yemen has claimed over 233,000 lives over the last six years, either directly due to the conflict or for causes related to it, calling this number “unfortunate and unacceptable.”

The conflict started in 2014 when Iranian-backed Houthi fighters seized Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, and much of the north of the country. The Houthis were confronted by a U.S.-backed Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in a bid to bring back Yemeni President Abed Rabu Mansour Hadi (who had been forced to resign) to power, without success. Since 2017, Hadi has reportedly been living in Saudi Arabia.

The effects of the war on the civilian population have been deepened by floods that have ravaged huge areas across the country, facilitating the spread of cholera and other waterborne diseases. Since January 2019 there have been over 2,500,000 cholera cases, 12-15 precent of them severe. As the medical situation further deteriorates, the humanitarian response has become more difficult.

Children have been the most affected by the conflict. For the past three years, 25 percent of civilian casualties have been children, according to statistics from Save the Children. What makes this situation even more dire is that children die either directly from the conflict or from entirely preventable causes.

The Saudi-Emirati-led coalition has placed severe obstacles to medical imports, depriving the Houthi-run public health system of critical medicines. This has proved deadly for patients on emergency care who rely on life-saving medical supplies. Houthi forces have been accused of stopping humanitarian cargo trucks, and holding them for days before allowing them to continue.

Public health personnel and hospital facilities have been attacked, leading to the closure of health facilities. This has further hindered the proper delivery of health care. Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has consistently denounced those abuses. To make matters worse, 92-95 percent of medical equipment in Yemeni hospitals and health facilities no longer functions, according to that organization.

The situation is particularly dire in rural areas, which already lack the essential resources minimally available in the cities. UNICEF reports 20 million out of the country’s 30 million people currently rely on food assistance. However, the coronavirus pandemic has made the delivery of food even more problematic.

Countries from both sides of the conflict (Iran, on one side and the United States, UK, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE] have the humanitarian responsibility to redress this situation. In 2018, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres called it “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.”

There is something wrong when the richest Arab countries team up with leading democracies to bomb thousands of civilians and ravage the poorest country in the Middle East. Horrified by the loss of 323 young Argentinean lives during the sinking of the Belgrano cruiser by the British during the Malvinas/Falklands war, Bruce Chatwin wrote, “I cling to the archaic idea that unjustifiable killing in peace or war eventually rebounds on the killer. The dead do haunt the living. There is such thing as blood guilt.” The same words could be applied to those responsible for the war in Yemen today.

Jordan is where domestic and regional fissures collide

James M. Dorsey

Former Crown Prince Hamzah bin Hussein has papered over a rare public dispute in the ruling Jordanian family in a move that is unlikely to resolve long-standing fissures in society and among the country’s elite and that echo multiple Middle Eastern fault lines.

Differences over socio-economic policies, governance, and last year’s normalization of relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and three other Arab states as well as leadership of the Muslim world were laid glaringly bare by a security crackdown that targeted not only Prince Hamzah, a popular, modest, and pious 41-year-old half-brother of King Abdullah, but also seemingly unrelated others perceived by the monarch as a threat.

Reading tea leaves, the perceived threats may be twofold albeit unrelated: Prince Hamzah’s association with powerful conservative tribes who over the last decade have demanded an end to corruption and prominent figures with close ties to Saudi Arabia.

The kingdom, home to Islam’s two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, has been quietly manoeuvring to force Jordan, the administrator of the faith’s third holiest site, Al-Haram ash-Sharif or Temple Mount in Jerusalem, to share its role. A say in Jerusalem would significantly boost the kingdom’s claim to leadership of the Muslim world.

There is little evidence that the two forces were working together despite government assertions that it had intercepted communications between the two in the days prior to this weekend’s crackdown that prompted Prince Hamzah to speak out.

Prince Hamzah’s statement focused on domestic issues, suggesting that the government may have been most immediately concerned that he was fueling further protests particularly on the eve of Jordan’s April 11 centenary. The concern may have created the opportunity to address perceived less imminent threats.

The crackdown led to the arrest of among others two prominent leaders of the Al-Majali tribe and political clan, long a pillar of Hashemite rule, and Bassem Awadallah, a former top aide to King Abdullah, finance minister and envoy to Saudi Arabia, who is also an advisor to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Mr. Awadallah is a dual Jordanian-Saudi citizen.

The Washington Post reported that Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan had requested during a visit to Amman on Tuesday that Mr. Awadallah be released and allowed to travel to the kingdom with his delegation.

Privately, many Jordanians fear that Saudi Arabia could support efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by turning the kingdom into a Palestinian state that would incorporate those parts of the occupied West Bank that would not be annexed by Israel.

Saudi Arabia has so far refused to establish diplomatic relations with Israel as long as the Palestinian issue has not been resolved. Mr. Bin Farhan reiterated the kingdom’s position earlier this month but also told CNN that relations with Israel would be “extremely helpful” and bring “tremendous benefits.”

Relations between Saudi Arabia and Jordan, hard hit by the pandemic and home to one of the world’s largest Syrian refugee contingents, were strained by King Abdullah’s refusal to embrace former US President Donald J. Trump’s Deal of the Century Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

King Abdullah opposed the plan because it recognized Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem, legitimized Israeli settlements in occupied territory and envisioned Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank.

Saudi Arabia this weekend, like other Middle Eastern countries, was quick to express support for King Abdullah.

Prince Hamzah and Mr. Awadallah were not known to be close. Tribal leaders rejected Mr. Awadallah’s privatization of telecommunications, potash and phosphate companies during his tenure as finance minister as primarily benefitting the country’s allegedly corrupt elite and foreign companies.

Prince Hamzah, in an agreement mediated by the former crown prince’s uncle, Prince Hassan bin Talal, and several other princes, pledged allegiance to King Abdullah days after releasing two clips in which he denounced corruption and poor governance that had allegedly prevailed for much of the monarch’s rule. King Abdullah acceded to the throne in 1999.

The agreement takes the immediate sting out of the rare public airing of differences within the ruling family but fails to tackle grievances of the tribes and other segments of the population.

Prince Hamzah’s declaration of fealty may be less of a concession than it would appear at first glance. The former crown prince is not believed to aspire to succeeding King Abdullah.

Moreover, protests going back to the time of the 2011 popular Arab revolts and continuing more recently with the tribal-backed Hirak protest movement, have consistently stopped short of demanding regime change.

Tribal leaders went perhaps furthest when in 2011 they issued a statement asserting corruption among members of Kuwait-born Queen Rania’s Palestinian family and demanded that King Abdullah divorce his wife.

In the government’s statement on Sunday, Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi studiously avoided speaking of an attempted coup, asserting instead that the former crown prince and others had targeted “the country’s security and stability.”

Said a tribal activist: “Our issue is not the king or the family. Nobody is asking for regime change. That does not mean that our leaders have a blank check. They have to introduce real change and accommodate popular demands for transparency and accountable governance.”

Election exacerbates political crisis in Bulgaria

Markus Salzmann

According to the first results, the right-wing conservative GERB party of government leader Boyko Borisov once again emerged as the strongest force from Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Bulgaria. It only achieved around 24 percent of the vote, losing about 10 percent compared to the 2017 election, and voter turnout was at an all-time low of 47.5 percent.

Bojko Borissow (Photo: EVP / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Although the final election results are not expected until today, it is already clear the majority of the population not only rejects the policies of the right-wing Borisov government but also has no confidence in the other establishment parties in the Balkan country. The opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) came in at around 15 percent after the preliminary count, losing about 12 percent compared to the last election. The ultra-nationalist WMRO, which had last formed a coalition with Borisov, failed to clear the four-percent hurdle and will not be represented in the new parliament.

On the other hand, the “Democratic Bulgaria” party, which with ex-justice minister Hristo Ivanov was involved in the organisation of the mass demonstrations against Borisov last year, will enter parliament. With around 10 percent, it was just ahead of the party of the Turkish minority, which will again enter the 240-seat parliament with 9.4 percent.

The party “There is such a people” of TV presenter and singer Slavi Trifonov was able to benefit from the defeat of the establishment parties. Founded in 2019, it became the second strongest force in its first election participation with over 18 percent of the vote.

Yet the party’s political programme is limited to vague criticism of rampant corruption in the country and the government’s influence on the media. During the election campaign, Trifonov did not hold any events or rallies; its election closing event was a music concert in an empty hall. Most voters under 30 voted for Trifonov.

The fact more than half of Bulgarians stayed away from the polls and almost a fifth of the electorate voted for a well-known entertainer with no political programme to speak of says volumes about the political conditions in the poorest EU member state.

The fact that Borisov enjoys hardly any support among the population had already become apparent after the last election in 2017. To achieve a wafer-thin parliamentary majority, GERB entered into a coalition with the fascist party alliance United Patriots (VP). The alliance included the National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria, the Macedonian Internal Revolutionary Organisation (WMRO) and Ataka.

WMRO, the largest of the three organisations, is the successor to a nationalist militia that had used terrorist means fighting for decades for a Greater Bulgaria including Macedonia. The National Front for the Salvation of Bulgaria also openly advocates fascist and racist positions. It emerged from the Ataka party in 2011.

Last year, thousands of people demonstrated against the prime minister and the government almost every day for two months. They demanded its resignation, new elections and fundamental reforms in the state apparatus. Borisov, who started his career in the Stalinist Communist Party, is seen as the embodiment of a system characterised by corruption and a close intertwining of oligarchs, politics and the state. Although the protests were organised by equally discredited figures, they expressed widespread opposition to the political and social circumstances in the country.

While the living conditions of the general population continued to deteriorate, the government increased spending on the repressive state apparatus and military and conducted racist campaigns against refugees and the Roma minority.

A report by the Federation of Independent Trade Unions shows that 65 percent of the population is currently unable or barely able to cover their living costs. With monthly costs for a household of two adults and two children at €1,300, 22 percent of households earn less than the €185 per household member per month considered to be the poverty line. Another 43 percent of households have a monthly income that lies between this poverty line and €1,300. Accordingly, only 35 percent earn incomes above €1,300.

The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the situation over the past year. While unemployment has risen, the average hourly wage has fallen in 2020. It is now only €2.40. In the tourism industry, wages fell by almost 30 percent, while the number of workers fell by 40 percent. In the air transport industry, wages have fallen by 28 percent and the number of workers by 19 percent.

At the same time, government policies are responsible for the catastrophic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. In the country of almost 7 million inhabitants, the number of new daily infections exceeded 4,200 at the end of March, reaching new highs. Meanwhile, according to official figures, 13,589 people have died from COVID-19. The country’s hospitals are completely overloaded. “We are almost at our limit,” Assen Baltov, director of Bulgaria’s largest emergency hospital, said in a recent radio interview. With 12,145 cases, infections among medical staff are extremely high.

As late as March 1, with another wave already looming, the government opened up the dining sector and other facilities after a lockdown late last year. Although medical experts warned of the consequences of such a step, government representatives praised this “Bulgarian model.” The result was a rapid and dramatic increase in the number of cases, which continues.

The Roma minority is particularly affected. Last year, entire settlements were sealed off by the police, allegedly to prevent the spread of the virus. Residents were only allowed to leave their neighbourhoods in exceptional cases. Not infrequently, the few who had one lost their jobs because they could not reach it. Roma receive state support only in rare cases.

The virus spreads easily in Roma communities. Large families must live together in a very small space. While the average person has 23 square metres of living space, among the Roma it is only 11. Half of the houses inhabited by Roma do not even have a connection to the sewage system. Technical conditions that would be necessary for homeschooling for children do not exist in these settlements.

It is already clear that forming a government will be difficult and there may have to be further elections if the parties are unable to reach an agreement. Notwithstanding its coalition with fascist forces and its disastrous coronavirus policies, the GERB government enjoys the support of the most powerful states in the EU because Borisov follows an EU-friendly course and does not maintain close relations with Russia.

Borisov responded to the electoral defeat by calling for the formation of a “government of experts” supported by all parties. “I am glad that so many parties have come to parliament because I am tired of being in charge alone,” he declared. Borisov is well aware that under the present circumstances mass protests could break out again, which none of the discredited parties can contain.

Spanish premier Sanchez pledges to end social distancing as COVID-19 rises

Alice Summers

As COVID-19 cases rise across Europe, Spain’s PSOE (Socialist Party)-Podemos government has pledged to end social distancing measures in order to fully reopen Spain’s economy.

On Tuesday, Spain reported 6,623 new coronavirus cases, taking the total number of COVID-19 infections in the country up to more than 3.3 million. Another 128 coronavirus deaths were announced, bringing the official death toll to nearly 76,000. The National Statistics Institute’s count indicate that the real number of COVID-19 fatalities is far higher—over 100,000. The number of daily cases reported is likely a significant underestimate, as testing levels are still inadequate, and infection and hospitalisation rates are rising across Europe.

People line up outside a public ambulatory as they wait to receive a dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Barcelona, Spain, Tuesday, April 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Nonetheless, PSOE Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez spoke at a press conference after a meeting of the ministerial cabinet to announce that on May 9, the government plans to end the “state of alarm.” This is the juridical mechanism the government used to justify imposing obligatory social distancing measures such as lockdowns or mask-wearing mandates.

“I hope that it will not be necessary to continue the state of alarm and that the Interterritorial Health Council will continue responding” to the pandemic, Sánchez said. “We want May 9 to be the end, full stop, of the state of alarm.”

This demonstrates the PSOE-Podemos government’s staggering indifference to human life, as infection rates pick up across Spain and Europe. The seven-day rolling average of new cases and the 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 inhabitants have both been steadily climbing since mid-March. In the middle of March, the seven-day rolling average was just over 4,000, compared to more than 6,500 at the start of this week.

The current countrywide incidence rate stands at 164.71 per 100,000, having risen from the low point of 127.8 in the middle of last month. According to the government’s own framework, an incidence rate above 150 puts Spain at “high risk.” Five of Spain’s autonomous regions—Ceuta, Melilla, Navarra, Madrid and the Basque Country—are now in “extreme risk,” meaning that the incidence rate there is over 250 per 100,000 people.

Hospital admissions for coronavirus patients are also rising again. Nearly 9,000 people are currently hospitalised with COVID-19 in Spain, occupying more than 7 percent of all hospital beds. This is the highest figure in a month. Across the country, around a fifth of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds are full. Four regions report ICUs are at 35 percent capacity or more: Melilla (41 percent), Madrid (37 percent), La Rioja (35.85 percent) and Catalonia (35 percent).

“The risk is increasing that we will reach a moment of saturation [in hospitals] if we have an exponential rise in cases,” Pedro Gullón, an epidemiologist and member of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology, told online news site Público. “ICUs and hospitals may not be capable of absorbing the patient demand and it will lead to an increase in mortality.”

Meanwhile, the vaccine rollout has continued to be mired in chaos. Only 12 percent of the Spanish population has received at least one dose of the vaccine—or 5.9 million people—and a mere 6 percent (2.8 million people) have had both required jabs.

Due to the PSOE-Podemos government’s disastrously organised vaccine strategy and the nationalist controversies surrounding the AstraZeneca vaccine, a far greater proportion of 25-49 year olds in Spain (10.6 percent) have received at least one dose of the vaccine than people in the 70-79 age bracket (5 percent), according to Ministry of Health data. This is despite the latter being at higher risk from the disease and nominally being in a “priority group.”

On Tuesday, Sánchez said that 10 million Spaniards will have been fully vaccinated by the first week of June, declaring, “we will only be able to regain full normality thanks to the vaccine. And we have begun to do so.” Sánchez also claimed that 33 million people, or 70 percent of the population, will have received jabs by the end of August. At the current rate, however, Spain would not achieve 70 percent vaccination for a year and a half.

Authorities in Spain and across Europe have been warning of an imminent “fourth wave” of the virus since January. In the middle of February, Fernando Simón, director of the Centre for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies (CCAES), declared:

“It’s possible that there will be a fourth wave [which will] largely depend on how we get out of this one, on what level of low transmission we manage to achieve in this one and on how the vaccination [campaign] develops over the next weeks.”

But rather than taking the necessary measures to prevent this forecasted outbreak, the PSOE-Podemos government is scaling back social distancing to open Spain up to tourism. Recent weeks have seen wall-to-wall demands in the bourgeois media to “save the tourist season.”

The PSOE-Podemos government refused to take any measures to restrict tourism during the busy Easter holiday period, even though Spanish inhabitants were themselves prevented from leaving their own regions due to coronavirus restrictions. In response to the ruling class’ carte blanche to tourism companies, many airlines put on additional flights from countries such as Germany to cater for the anticipated surge in demand.

This led to an influx of holiday-makers at the end of March, including from countries with far higher incidence rates than Spain, such as Germany and France. There has been widespread alarm and opposition among workers to the government’s policy of facilitating tourism. Numerous photos and videos circulated on the internet of holiday-makers crowding onto Spanish beaches and streets.

PSOE Prime Minister Sánchez, however, defended this policy, declaring that “Spain is following the recommendations of the EU.”

“The European Commission has been saying for months that closing borders does not guarantee that there will be no virus transmission,” Sánchez continued. “We will keep the border open [and] ask for a negative PCR from within 72 hours. … We’re already getting there with vaccinations and are in the final phase of the pandemic.”

At the end of last month, PSOE Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, also emphasised that the government’s top priority is to boost tourism revenue—which contributes to around 12 percent of Spain’s GDP and employment—no matter the cost in lives.

“Perhaps the objective is to reach half the number of tourists we had in 2019 [this summer]. This would be an achievement.” This would mean the arrival of at least 40 million holiday-makers into Spain this year, greatly increasing the risk of an explosion of COVID-19.

While acknowledging that Spain was now on the cusp of a “fourth wave” of the virus, CCAES director Simón sought to blame the population for the rise in cases, claiming that if the population simply behaved themselves it would only be a “little wave.” “At the national level,” Simón stated last week, “if we have a constant increase [in cases], we will have a fourth wave, but if we maintain full discipline and control measures over Easter, perhaps it does not make sense to talk of a fourth wave and we would speak of a rippling in a short period.”

The increase in infections in Spain is not the fault of individuals, but the responsibility of the PSOE-Podemos government, who have consistently prioritised profits over lives.

Russia conducts nationwide military exercises as Ukraine, NATO prepare for war

Andrea Peters

Against the backdrop of intensifying tensions with Ukraine, the Russian government will proceed with previously planned nationwide military exercises, announced Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday. The test of the country’s fighting capacity and readiness will stretch over the course of April, involve both ground and naval forces, and include more than 4,000 separate events conducted across the country, even in its most remote regions.

Map of the Black Sea region (Wikimedia Commons/NormanEinstein)

While the military exercises have been scheduled for some time, Moscow’s public reaffirmation that they will proceed is clearly intended as a show of force in the face of growing threats of war against Russia over Ukraine. In the last several weeks, these threats have reached a fever pitch, with the danger emerging of a full-blown conflict between Russia and Ukraine, behind which stand the United States and Germany.

Over the last seven days, the Ukrainian government has called on NATO to admit the country to the transnational military alliance, appealed for stepped-up NATO intervention in the Black Sea, and announced that Ukrainian forces will be conducting joint exercises with NATO later this year.

Prior to this, Kiev outlined its intentions to retake Crimea by force, the peninsula extending into the Black Sea that rejoined Russia in 2014. Fighting has also intensified between Ukrainian and Russian-allied forces in the Donbass, where breakaway republics emerged in 2014 after a coup orchestrated by Washington and Berlin brought to power a far-right anti-Russian government in Ukraine.

In calls with the heads of state of Canada and Britain on Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky secured assurances of these nations’ support for Ukraine. They follow the lead of the US government, the architect of the pro-Kiev, anti-Russian campaign, which has involved the financing, equipping, and training of Ukraine’s military for years. Writing for the Atlantic Council, American political analyst Stephen Blank appealed Tuesday for the US to go further and upgrade Ukraine’s air force in order to make clear the “hard and tangible long-term strategic costs Russia must bear for its malign conduct.”

These events unfold as NATO is pressing forward with war preparations against Russia. It is currently conducting a massive military training exercise that extends across the European continent. DEFENDER-Europe 2021, involving 27 nations and 30,000 troops and unfolding in 12 countries, “demonstrates,” according to the US Army’s Europe and Africa division, “our ability to serve as a strategic security partner in the western Balkans and Black Sea regions while sustaining our abilities in northern Europe, the Caucasus, Ukraine and Africa.”

Involving ground, maritime, and airborne exercises along the entire stretch of Russia’s western borders and in areas central to Moscow’s geopolitical interests, DEFENDER-Europe 21 is gearing up NATO to wage World War III. The consequences of such a conflict would be, at the very least, the loss of tens of millions of lives in Europe and Russia and, most likely, the nuclear annihilation of the planet, as the US military has repeatedly made clear that it is prepared to use atomic weapons to secure American interests.

Not a single person in Ukraine, or anywhere else for that matter, will achieve “liberation” from “Russian aggression” under these circumstances. Rather, they will all be dead.

Nonetheless, the Ukrainian government of President Zelensky is careening forwards. Its top negotiator in previous peace accords brokered over the conflict in Ukraine’s Donbass, Leonid Kravchuk, first president of an independent Ukraine, just declared that he would no longer hold discussions with the leading representative of one of the breakaway republics. He also declared that he would not attend talks if they were held in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, which is allied with Russia.

Ukraine’s parliament is passing measures that will allow it to more rapidly call up conscripts. Zelensky is creating two new federal agencies charged with combatting “disinformation,” with the clear intention of scrubbing out any of the widely held anti-war sentiments felt in the population.

The war drive is, in part, a desperate effort to divert attention away from the disastrous situation in the country with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of economic policies the Kiev government is implementing at the behest of the Western powers.

Ukraine’s population is being hammered by the combined effects of the coronavirus and International Monetary Fund austerity policies. On Wednesday, the country reported an additional 15,415 COVID-19 cases, up from 13,276 the previous day. Deaths from the virus also just reached new records. Hospitals are hitting capacity. Only 0.005 percent of the population has been vaccinated, less than the impoverished countries of Rwanda or Mongolia.

Utility rates for a whole number of services were increased at the start of the year, prompting widespread protests, including street demonstrations and road blockages. “Fuel poverty,” in particular, is a pressing problem, as households can no longer afford to heat their homes or cook food. Due to increasing costs, 11 million—70 percent—of Ukraine’s pensioners have an income below the official cost of living.

Like Ukraine, Russia too is in the grip of domestic crises. In addition to the physical toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has officially infected 4.4 million people and killed nearly 100,000, the virus is hammering the working class economically. There are widespread job losses and wage cuts. Prices for basic foodstuffs are rising, as is household debt.

Disillusionment with the Putin government is growing and, in the lead up to Duma elections in September of this year, the Kremlin seeks to use the conflict with Ukraine to shore up its position by appealing to nationalist sentiment and the well-founded fears of the population that the West is hell-bent on their destruction.

The working class of Russia and Ukraine will not find their way out of this situation either by turning to the war-crazed powers in Washington, Berlin, and elsewhere, or to the Kremlin. The American ruling class, perched on top of a rotting corpse of an economy, has laid waste to society after society since the year 2001 alone, in its desperate effort to secure global hegemony and arrest its economic decline.

The true toll of the coronavirus pandemic

Bryan Dyne

The official death toll of the coronavirus pandemic continues to spiral to staggering heights. In the United States, more than 570,000 lives have been lost to the disease. Worldwide, the number exceeds 2,890,000. Daily case and death counts are rising internationally as the continued spread of new and more infectious variants threatens to exceed last year’s fall surge.

Moreover, the actual number of deaths attributed to the disease and its consequences is in reality far higher. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently revealed that the number of “excess deaths” in 2020, those deaths above what was expected based on averages from previous years, exceeded 503,000, 42 percent more than the officially recorded coronavirus deaths from last year.

COVID-19 patient Efrain Molina, center, gets a fist bump from nurse leader Edgar Ramirez at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

But even this massive death toll is only one reflection of the reality of the pandemic. Just as millions of people have died, tens of millions more have and continue to suffer from what, in a rational society, would be a preventable disease.

Among them are the many children who have lost a parent to the coronavirus. An article in JAMA Pediatrics written by Rachel Kidman and her colleagues published Monday reveals that “an estimated 37,300 to 43,000” children in the US now suffer from parental bereavement as a result of the pandemic, three-quarters of whom are adolescents. In contrast, about 20,000 American children lost a parent as a result of the Vietnam War.

And as Kidman notes, these are only children who have lost a parent, not another relative or person who is their primary caregiver, nor did they look at the impact of the many thousands of parents who have lost children, or the broader circle of friends, co-workers and family that knew those who died.

Kidman and her coauthors also note the dangers of failing to contain the disease. If left unchecked, her team estimated that there will be a total of 1.5 million pandemic-related deaths in the US, leaving behind “116,900 parentally bereaved children.” In other words, if society is to “live with the disease,” as is now being promoted by the political, corporate and media officialdom, at least 75,000 to 80,000 more youth must grow up having lost at least one parent to the coronavirus.

It is this arithmetic, however, that is being pushed by the Biden administration as it calls for the full reopening of in-person learning at schools, while at the same time steadily abandoning safety guidelines. Schools have been shown to be among the chief way the pandemic spreads, through both teachers and students, and are especially dangerous now that, according to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, “the [more contagious and deadly] B.1.1.7 variant is now the most common lineage circulating in the United States.”

Moreover, whatever the cynical claims by the Biden administration of the costs on the childrens’ education and mental health, that cost is already enormous. New findings published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal found that, among more than 236,000 COVID-19 patients in the US, 34 percent were diagnosed with a neurological or psychiatric condition within six months of their initial infection. Common symptoms included anxiety and mood disorders, while seven percent had a stroke and another seven percent developed substance abuse disorders. For thirteen percent of those in the study, this was their first recorded neurological or psychiatric diagnosis.

Generalizing to all those who had the coronavirus, these results suggest that more than 45 million people have or will acquire a neurological or mental health problem as a result of COVID-19.

Research has also documented further long-term effects caused by the coronavirus well after patients have “recovered.” Physicians at Danderyd Hospital and Karolinska Institute in Sweden recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that 11 percent of people who had just mild cases of COVID-19 still suffer from loss of smell, loss of taste or fatigue eight months after contracting the disease, significantly impairing their ongoing health and quality of life.

Other reports have documented different aspects of what is being termed post-viral or Long COVID syndrome. Last summer, more than 87 percent of patients released from hospitals in Italy reported having at least one of the following—fatigue, shortness of breath, joint pain and chest pain—more than two months after symptoms of the coronavirus itself began. A study in China found similar conditions for at least six months after COVID-19 patients were discharged. Even those who contracted the disease but were asymptomatic have developed these health problems.

Such studies paint a grim picture beyond the 133 million people that have contracted a potentially deadly illness. They reveal tens of millions of survivors that live daily with the possibility of chronic and extraordinary health problems for months, and tens of millions more wonder if they were unknowingly exposed and will contract, or perhaps have already contracted a debilitating symptom that will be with them for months.

It is also unclear when, or even if, such long-term symptoms will end. This virus is at best estimates only 18 months old, which means no one knows what the long-term effects will be after 10, 20 or 30 years. The physical and mental health of millions have been potentially permanently ruined, with devastating and limitless costs.

In the calculation of the financial oligarchy and the government that serves it, such considerations are of no consequence. The deaths and long-term illnesses are just statistics. But these were in fact hundreds of thousands of living, breathing human beings, murdered by criminal policies of Republican and Democratic administrations, and millions more are now forced to languish.

The argument put forward by every capitalist government in Europe and the United States—that society must “live with” the virus—comes at an unacceptable cost in lives, in health, and in heartache. No, humanity cannot “live with” this virus, and it cannot “live with” the capitalist social order that refuses to contain it.

Israel escalates attacks on Iran, targeting vessel in Red Sea

Jean Shaoul

In a deliberate and provocative escalation of its offensive against Iran, Israel mined the cargo ship MV Saviz, owned by the state-linked Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, in the Red Sea on Tuesday morning.

It signals Israel’s determination to continue its naval offensive against Iran, despite potential reprisals from Tehran and the danger of an escalation into all-out war, as the major powers meet with Iran in Vienna to discuss a return to the 2015 nuclear accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), unilaterally abandoned by former President Trump.

MV Saviz (Credit: MNA)

The New York Times cited an unnamed American official as saying that Israel had informed the US that its navy had attacked the vessel near the Djibouti coast, claiming the attack was in retaliation for earlier Iranian strikes on Israeli vessels.

According to Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh, Tuesday’s explosion, caused by “limpet mines attached to the hull of the ship, resulted in only minor damage.” He added that the Saviz was a “non-military ship” helping to “provide security along shipping lines and combat pirates” in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb strait, a crucial chokepoint in international shipping.

US and Saudi analysts claim the vessel, present in the Red Sea since late 2016, is a “mothership” for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ flotilla of ships in the Red Sea and that uniformed men and a class of small boats used by the Guards have been photographed on board the ship’s deck. It is believed to play a crucial role in Tehran’s efforts to evade sanctions by transferring oil shipments midsea to non-Iranian flagged vessels.

The Israeli attack is part of its long-running, covert offensive by its naval, air, security and intelligence forces against Iran.

Last month, the Wall Street Journal, citing US officials, revealed for the first time that Israel had attacked at least a dozen ships bound for Syria in the past two and a half years, most of which were carrying Iranian oil, while some were carrying weaponry to Tehran’s allies, including Hezbollah, in Syria. The leaks to the Journal, like those earlier this week to the Times, are presumed to have come from officials opposed to Israel’s efforts to torpedo talks aimed at restoring the nuclear accord with Iran and isolating China.

A report in Ha’aretz puts the number of Iranian tankers sabotaged at around 20, with an estimated loss to Al Quds, Hezbollah and the Shi’ite militias of $500,000 over two and a half years. These attacks, which damaged but deliberately avoided sinking the vessels, were for the dual purpose of disrupting Iran’s supply of oil to Syria and choking off the revenue stream that paid the Shi’ite militias and Hezbollah supporting the Syrian regime forces. The newspaper also confirmed earlier Syrian and Iranian claims about an explosion on an Iranian tanker in the Red Sea in late 2019.

Such military attacks on civilian vessels in international waters are flagrant breaches of international law, potentially exposing Israel to international court actions, although the Journal was silent on that issue. By escalating the dangers to shipping, they could also lead to an increase in insurance premiums for maritime commerce in the region.

The attack on MV Savid is the second attack on an Iranian vessel since the WSJ report last month, when Iran accused Israel of damaging another ship sailing in the Mediterranean Sea.

Following the Journal’s revelations about Israel’s attacks, Tehran could no longer turn a blind eye, instead retaliating in a tit-for-tat response, with reports of Iranian missile attacks on two Israeli-owned cargo ships, one in the Arabian Sea and another in the Mediterranean.

Israel’s clandestine attacks on Iranian ships opened a new front in its operations that had largely been carried out by land and air. Tel Aviv has admitted to carrying out hundreds of strikes on Iranian-linked targets, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, in neighbouring Syria since the start of the US-led proxy war to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as part of its broader campaign to isolate Iran. It has also carried out a series of attacks inside Iran, including an explosion in July that destroyed an advanced centrifuge assembly plant at the Natanz nuclear facility and the assassination in November of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a leading Iranian scientist who set up the country’s nuclear programme two decades ago.

These attacks were carried out in conjunction with the Trump administration’s campaign of “maximum pressure” against Iran, launched after Washington unilaterally abrogated the JCPOA in 2018. The ever-tightening economic sanctions, particularly on oil, Iran’s main export industry, and secondary sanctions—tantamount to a state of war—have devastated Iran’s economy, while condemning millions of Iranians to hunger and disease, choking off vital medicines and medical supplies in the midst of the raging COVID-19 pandemic.

Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif said earlier this year that the Trump administration had imposed, reimposed or relabeled some 1,600 sanctions on Iran, causing $1 trillion worth of direct and indirect economic damage to the country. The sanctions regime has also had wide-ranging regional repercussions, with Lebanon—whose banks served as the conduit for channeling money to Lebanese and Syrian citizens, as well as Hezbollah—one of the major victims.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that there should be no return to the “dangerous” 2015 nuclear accord, telling his Likud party on Tuesday, “In parallel we must continue to fend off Iranian belligerence in our region. And this threat is no theoretical matter. I’m not uttering it rhetorically. We must take action in the face of the fanatical regime in Iran, which simply threatens to wipe us off the face of the earth.”

While Netanyahu is determined to sabotage any attempt by the Biden administration to rejoin the JCPOA and lift sanctions against Iran, the New York Times cited an Israeli official as saying that the attacks were part of its broader strategy to force Tehran into agreeing to tougher and longer curbs on its nuclear ambitions along with restrictions on its ballistic missile program and its support for regional militias.

Netanyahu was speaking as Iran and the US were holding indirect talks in Vienna on ways to revive the deal that included the European powers, China and Russia. Both Tehran and Washington described the talks as “constructive.” Tehran has insisted that Iran would return to full compliance with the agreement as soon as Washington verifiably lifted the complex web of sanctions imposed on Iran since 2018 that includes many different categories, some of which are unrelated to the nuclear deal.

His increasing belligerence against Iran is conditioned by Monday’s opening of the evidentiary sessions for his long-delayed trial on multiple charges of bribery, corruption and breach of trust, for which if convicted he faces years in jail. Refusing to resign while he defends himself in court, he has called his trial an “abuse of power” by the state prosecutor’s office, saying, “This is what a coup attempt looks like.” After leaving Monday’s session, he accused the prosecution of having illegally tampered with evidence, conducting a “witchhunt” against him and attempting to carry out a judicial “coup.”

In the last four years, Netanyahu has fought four inconclusive elections amid rising unemployment poverty and inequality, in a bid to assemble a coalition government strong enough to pass laws granting him immunity from prosecution and increased powers that would effectively neuter the judicial system, prompting his critics to warn of an impending constitutional crisis. While President Reuven Rivlin has called on Netanyahu, whose Likud party is the largest party in the Knesset, to try and form a government, it is widely believed that he will be unable to do so precipitating yet another election.

Under such circumstances, Netanyahu calculates that fomenting a war with Iran may serve to divert social, economic and political tensions outwards and enable him to maintain his grip on power, even though such a war could engulf the entire region and, indeed, the entire world.

Homelessness crisis rises across the US Midwest

Cole Michaels

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released its 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) on March 18. Also called the Point-in-Time (PIT) report, the AHAR graphs changes in the numbers of sheltered and unsheltered homeless people from year to year. The PIT report concluded that nationally, homelessness had increased even before the economic impact of the pandemic. 580,466 people were homeless on a single night in January 2020—an increase of 2.2 percent from 2019. Homelessness has increased for the previous four years.

The economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have already resulted in a sharp increase in homelessness in the Midwest. A larger crisis looms when the federal eviction moratorium, extended again on March 29 through June 30, is allowed to expire. The federal eviction moratorium has never included rent forgiveness for tenants, meaning that thousands of dollars of debt are accumulating that cannot be repaid.

[Credit: Envato]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that homeless encampments not be razed to help contain coronavirus spread. Nonetheless, homeless encampments have been subject to being cleared out by municipalities, spreading the COVID-19 pandemic as individuals are forced to seek out new shelter.

These efforts to clear out homeless encampments also involve police violence. A March 18 clearing out of a homeless encampment in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was denounced by the public for recorded brutality on the part of the Minneapolis Police Department. A video of the incident shows an officer kneeling on a protester’s neck or back. The city is currently the site of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes in May 2020 and sparked protests by tens of millions of people across the globe. Minnesota is estimated to have 20,000 homeless people on any given night.

The Minnesota legislature has begun to discuss ways to lift the state’s eviction moratorium. Approximately 100,000 Minnesota households are behind on rent, owing a combined total of $200 million. Even if the legislature does not remove the restriction on evictions tenants are at risk. The state is one of seven that does not require landlords to give written notice before filing an eviction lawsuit. Once a lawsuit is filed, tenants can be kicked out for failure to pay rent in only nine days. More than 600 people have lost their housing to eviction lawsuits during the state moratorium.

ABC News affiliate KCRG in Cedar Rapids, Iowa revealed that Linn County officials emailed the office of Governor Kim Reynolds pleading for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to be distributed to vulnerable populations, including the homeless. The state had granted 3,200 doses to Hy-Vee supermarkets to vaccinate Collins Aerospace employees, but gave nothing to the underserved.

In the email Tricia Kitzmann, community health division manager for Linn County Public Health, complained, “It is becoming increasingly clear that the Governor’s Office does not trust local public health to identify and serve individuals in our community who are the most vulnerable,” including the homeless, those with mental health issues, and those from minority and immigrant communities.

Kitzmann continued, “By not listening to the voices of those most vulnerable and doing what we can to meet their needs, we are reinforcing messages that those with privilege, such as those with secure employment, reliable transportation, access to technology, and stable housing, come before them. We are reinforcing the message that they cannot rely on or trust our Government or those with power to protect and serve their community.”

Encampments have been set up in downtown areas of cities as a visible protest of the inadequate assistance the homeless receive. In Missouri, the Kansas City Star reported on an encampment in the Westport district of Kansas City, a major entertainment district. At least 18 people are staying there. Two dozen tents have been set up across from the City Hall since February.

“They don’t want to see us, so we went to where they’ve got to see,” 60-year-old James Shelby told the Kansas City Star about the purpose of the City Hall encampment. The encampments were formed in the aftermath of the death of local homeless man Scott “Sixx” Eicke, who was found dead on New Year’s Day. The Kansas City Police Department is accused of having removed him from an encampment he depended on for survival in winter. Local advocates have formed the Kansas City Homeless Union and the Midwest Homeless Collective to fight for homeless representation.

Adding insult to injury, states have been demanding back thousands of dollars in benefits received by unemployed workers. Katie Powell of St. Charles, Missouri told KSDK News that she was notified in February that she had to pay back nearly $10,000 of unemployment benefits. She told of how losing these benefits would devastate her family. “They are going to garnish my paychecks to the point that I won’t be able to afford childcare to be able to go to work so it’s a little backwards. It’ll set me back in a way that I might not be able to recover from.” Powell’s attempts to appeal have been stonewalled, as she could not establish contact with anyone on the state unemployment hotline.

The Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations claims that it overpaid nearly $96 million in benefits for the period from January through September 2020. Governor Mike Parson has made it clear that the Missouri government will not allow these ‘mistakenly’ deposited funds to remain in recipients’ accounts.

Meanwhile, demand is high for aid from the federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP). Missouri’s Greene County, which includes the city of Springfield, with a population of 293,000, saw 1,500 requests for ERAP assistance in the first week of the program’s inception. Greene County received $9 million of ERAP funding.

Continuum of Care Coordinator for Community Partnership of the Ozarks Amanda Stadler explained to KY3 News how the pandemic affects the homeless and the broader community: “They are more vulnerable to different illnesses or sicknesses whether from underlying health conditions or being in more of a congregate setting maybe.” She confirmed that shelters contribute to people congregating and spreading COVID-19 and other diseases. “Meal sites tend to be congregate. Often, emergency shelters are kind of set up with that model.” Missouri’s homeless residents were only cleared to be given priority for the COVID-19 vaccine on March 29.

Some nonprofits and other organizations have been given vaccines to administer to the homeless, as they have built trusting relationships with their homeless clients over a period of time.

K.K. Assmann, founder of Care Beyond the Boulevard, told KSHB in Kansas City that it is difficult for the homeless to learn of vaccination opportunities. “What we’re seeing is that people who are on the streets are by and large not getting the vaccine, they don’t have access to social media.” If they do know where to get vaccinated, they may not go due to distrust of healthcare organizations. “People who are experiencing homelessness often times have a little bit of a trust issue when it comes to health care organizations, we have built that trust because we’re out here every week, we go to the people.” Assmann has called for organizations that have built on-the-ground connections with homeless individuals to be given vaccines to administer.

St. Louis County, Missouri, the state’s most populous with nearly 1 million residents, has bypassed the federal moratorium and is allowing most evictions to proceed as of April 5. The St. Louis County Circuit Court was already allowing evictions concerning commercial properties and those related to drug crimes and other criminal activity.

St. Louis Public Radio reported that homeless St. Louis residents have been shuffled into inadequate and dangerous housing. At the start of the pandemic, in April 2020, a homeless encampment across from St. Louis City Hall was cleared. Tenants were moved to hotels with documented crime, safety and sanitation problems. Public records show that some tenants suffered violent attacks. Tenants are angry that they are being placed in areas of the city heavy with drug use and crime. There have also been complaints about bedbugs in the hotels.

Hope Center, a homeless shelter for youth, open in December 2020 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the state’s third largest city, with 104,000 residents. The Green Bay Press-Gazette reported that this facility opened because House of Hope, a shelter that at the time was not licensed to house minors, had been receiving two dozen calls a year from schools and social workers asking for placement for young clients.

“That’s why we really started this path. It had happened a couple years in a row and then we just started receiving more and more calls,” Shannon Wienandt, executive director of House of Hope, told the Press-Gazette. “We talked to other agencies, and they were telling us they would receive calls as well but didn’t have anywhere to refer homeless youth. There are services that provide outreach, referral, and connection, but not shelter in our community.”

Hope Center is one of the few voluntary shelters for homeless youth in Wisconsin. It has become more difficult to track homeless youth since the pandemic began, with many youth taking classes remotely. It is estimated that as of December 31, Brown County had 68 homeless unaccompanied youth. An estimated 2,300 unaccompanied homeless youth are attending statewide school districts, out of a total homeless youth population of 18,000.

Elsewhere, homelessness has been rising in the state of Nebraska. Since 2019 there was an increase in the homeless population of 1.6 percent, or 39 people, with total 2020 homelessness standing at 2,404. Of these, 143 people are unsheltered, up 33 people from 2019. There are 682 homeless families with children, up 4.9 percent.

Evictions have gone forward across the state throughout 2020 despite the federal protections. Scott Mertz of Legal Aid of Nebraska told KETV Omaha, “We saw the numbers in the data [of eviction filings] creep up particularly late into 2020 as landlords found the ways to circumvent the CDC order.” The Omaha City Council approved $22.2 million in rental assistance on March 2. Only those who make 80 percent lower than the average area income can qualify. They must also provide proof of citizenship or legal resident status in the United States, and have an existing rental agreement. There is a cap on how many months a person or household can receive city assistance.