Sri Lanka still has no finance minister amid continuing anti-government protests

Saman Gunadasa

Days after the resignation of the entire Sri Lankan cabinet, President Gotabhaya Rajapakse has not been able to find a taker for the crucial post of finance minister. The country is currently embroiled in its worst economic crisis in decades and stands on the brink of default. Dwindling foreign exchange has led to shortages of fuel, food and medicines, soaring prices and lengthy electricity blackouts sparking continuing mass protests demanding the resignation of the president and his government.

Night time protest of university students and youth in Ragama, a Colombo suburb, on April 7 [WSWS Media]

Basil Rajapakse, the president’s brother, was the finance minister and has been widely blamed for the economic crisis, including within the ruling coalition. When he stepped down, along with the rest of the cabinet on Monday, he was replaced by Ali Sabry, the president’s personal lawyer and close confidant. Less than 24 hours later, he also resigned.

The president has been scouring the Colombo establishment to find a replacement but as of yesterday no one appeared willing to accept the poisoned chalice. The Daily Mirror reported that former Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardena had been approached, but “showed reluctancy” to accept the offer.

With rising public anger against the government, “all government MPs are reluctant and seem to be passing the ball from one to another with the president unable to find a suitable candidate to the portfolio,” the article stated. It explained that time was running out for the president because the finance minister has to head a delegation to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington by the second week of April to seek desperately needed economic assistance.

Rajapakse has appointed a new Central Bank governor and Finance Ministry secretary, but no one wants to take responsibility for leading the team that has to beg for an emergency bailout from the IMF. Any such package would inevitably come with severe austerity measures that will certainly provoke angrier protests under conditions where hunger and starvation loom.

The inability to find a finance minister only underscores the enormity of the economic and political crisis engulfing the government and Colombo political establishment as whole. The government currently consists of a skeleton cabinet comprising the president, the prime minister, and three other ministers for foreign affairs, education and transport.

The perplexity in ruling circles was further highlighted by the farcical character of the two-day debate in the parliament on Wednesday and Thursday. Wholesale defections on Tuesday reduced the government numbers to a wafer-thin majority of 114 seats in the 225-seat parliament.

In opening the debate on the crisis, the speaker warned that the country faced impending starvation. None of the parliamentarians paid any attention and the debate descended into a pantomime.

Government MPs accused the opposition parties—the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)—of whipping up the protests and inciting “violence.” In reality, the opposition parties have had little or no role in the protests that have overwhelmingly erupted outside of their control.

The opposition parties are just as terrified of this mass popular movement as the government. They refused the plea by Rajapakse to join a government of national unity.

SJB MPs protested in parliament, again demanding the president’s resignation, but party has no solution to the crisis facing the masses. It has been urging the government for weeks to go to the IMF and accept its draconian terms for a bailout.

JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake revealed the class character of his party when he declared that the JVP was ready and willing to collaborate with other capitalist parties in forming an interim government—as long as President Rajapakse resigned.

“The citizens of this country will not accept any interim government or other mechanism that will come while the president continues to be in office,” he said. “The president must resign. Under this condition we are ready to discuss any proposal… [for] a coalition or an interim administration.”

The JVP, which is notorious for its populist, at times even socialistic, demagogy, has been posturing as a supporter of the protest movement and declaiming on the need for a “people’s government.” Dissanayake has made clear what the JVP’s proposed people’s government really is: a sordid combination of capitalist parties and politicians cobbled together behind the backs of working people.

Youth demonstrate in Kandy to demand Sri Lankan president resign [WSWS Media]

The working class had already experienced the JVP in office when it joined the coalition government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga in 2004–2005 amid considerable political turmoil. The four JVP ministers, with Dissanayake himself as minister of agriculture, livestock, land and irrigation, were instrumental in enforcing the IMF’s austerity demands, particularly in rural areas. The JVP would have no hesitation in doing the same today under conditions of a far deeper economic crisis.

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that the Sri Lankan rupee has overtaken the Russian ruble as the world’s worst performing currency. The value of the rupee has dived by 32 percent since the start of the year. The Colombo Stock Exchange, according to Bloomberg, is running a close second to the Russian bourse as the world’s worst performer.

Inflation hit 18.5 percent of GDP in March, but food inflation is far higher at 30 percent, making it ever more difficult for working people to buy food, even when they can find supplies. The real situation is far worse. Steve H. Hanke, a Johns Hopkins University economist, has calculated that inflation in Sri Lanka had soared to 55 percent by March 24—the sixth highest in the world after Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Turkey and Sudan.

The public health system is breaking down. Sri Lanka imports more than 85 percent of its pharmaceutical needs and the government has no US dollars to pay for them. Gotabhaya Ranasinghe, a cardiologist at the National Hospital in Colombo, told the Guardian that hospitals were running out and many lives were at stake.

“There are important heart medications, medicines for blood pressure, heart attacks, all are running out. I have heard that many cancer drugs are also not available anymore, so it is a very worrying situation,” he said. “People are struggling, they are out on the streets, but we are stuck in a terrible limbo and I can’t see a way out of it.”

Yesterday, doctors, nurses and other hospital workers held protests throughout the country demanding a solution to the health crisis. Over the past two days, protests have taken place in many cities, including Colombo, Kalutara, Ratnapura, Kandy, Kurunegala, Trincomalee, Ratmalana, Moratuwa, Galewela, Bingiriya and Maharagama.

Health workers protest outside Kayts Hospital in northern Sri Lanka [WSWS Media]

Some public sector unions, including in the health, education and electricity sectors, have reluctantly called limited protests in Colombo and other cities. These same unions have betrayed one strike struggle after another over the past two years. They are only intervening now to try to contain and suppress the anger that is welling up among their members.

Thousands of university students from Moratuwa, Uva Wellassa, Rajarata, Wayamba and the Open University also joined the protests yesterday. Some school students also joined in.

The political establishment is mired in deep crisis at present. But unless the working class advances its own solution to the desperate situation confronting the masses, the capitalist class will prevail and impose even greater burdens on working people, through dictatorial means if need be.

New Zealand’s leading health officials resign as COVID deaths mount

Tom Peters

Three leading officials in New Zealand’s Ministry of Health have announced their resignations, in the middle of the country’s Omicron surge that has overwhelmed hospitals and is killing 10 to 20 people per day.

On Wednesday, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield, one of the most well-known public faces of the Labour Party-led government’s COVID-19 response, announced he would step down in July—a year earlier than he had previously indicated he would leave. A few hours later, the Ministry of Health confirmed that Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay, and Deputy Director of Public Health Dr Niki Stefanogiannis were resigning at the end of the week.

Composite image of Dr Caroline McElnay, Director of Public Health, and Dr Ashley Bloomfield, Director-General of Health. (Source: Ministry of Health YouTube videos from March 29, 2022 and March 24, 2022)

Media reports attributed the resignations to “stress” and “burnout.” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who has appeared alongside Bloomfield in countless press conferences during the pandemic, said on Instagram that he “wanted to spend time with his family, and that’s the least we owe him.” McElnay blandly told a press conference she also wanted to spend time with family.

In a worried article, the New Zealand Herald said the sudden departures would leave a “giant hole” and “raise questions about what impact their vacancies will have in a pandemic that shows no sign of ending, with possible resurgences in cases in coming months, including over winter, and new variants inevitably arriving here.”

Whatever the exact reasons for the leadership exodus, it comes amid an historic health crisis caused by the government’s decision to embrace the “let it rip” approach to COVID-19, which has led to millions of deaths worldwide. Last October, Ardern announced the end of the elimination policy that saved thousands of lives during the first two years of the pandemic. The government promised big business that schools and businesses would be reopened and there would be no more lockdowns.

Bloomfield and McElnay had the undoubtedly stressful task of defending the government’s criminal policy decisions in the Ministry of Health’s regular media conferences. While none of those leaving has expressed any disagreement with the government’s approach, the departures came soon after the removal of nearly all remaining public health restrictions.

At the start of April, vaccine mandates and passes were scrapped and contact tracing systems were dismantled. The government has abandoned any pretence of trying to stop the virus, and COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins has said deaths are inevitable.

The Ministry of Health reports that 466 people have died with COVID during the pandemic as of today—an increase of more than 100 in the past week. The vast majority of deaths followed the government’s abandonment of the zero COVID policy. At the start of October 2021, only 32 people had died of the virus over nearly two years.

The death toll has now exceeded the projection made by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in January of 400 deaths by May 1. It has also surpassed a forecast by NZ-based modelers of up to 300 COVID deaths by the end of April.

The mounting toll demolishes the claims made by Ardern, Bloomfield, McElnay and other government spokespeople, that the virus could be allowed to circulate in the community and people would be protected by vaccinations. In fact, just over half of all New Zealanders have received a necessary third (or booster) dose. Moreover, it is well-known that vaccines alone cannot stop the virus from spreading and causing ongoing deaths and severe illnesses, including Long COVID, which can damage the brain, heart and other organs.

The Ministry of Health has pointed to a decline in daily cases in recent weeks—from roughly 20,000 to about 10,000-15,000 per day—but the figures are not reliable. University of Auckland professor Rod Jackson told the New Zealand Herald that since people are now expected to self-report the results of rapid antigen tests (RATs), the daily case numbers are meaningless. He said the accuracy of RATs can be as low as 50 percent.

Meanwhile, the crisis in public hospitals is unprecedented, affecting not just COVID patients, but others whose treatment has been postponed. There are 626 people in hospital with the virus, down from a peak of over 1,000 recently. This week, however, Auckland District Health Board (DHB) managers said hospitals are still only able to perform urgent surgical procedures, due to chronic staff shortages.

On April 3, a few days before Bloomfield and company announced their departures, TVNZ’s “Sunday” program aired a damning report on the crisis facing nurses. “Already underpaid and overworked before the pandemic, burnout is rife and resignations flooding in,” presenter Miriama Kamo said. One nurse said there were frequently shifts “where we should have four [staff rostered] plus our team leader, and we’re down on the rosters to one and two.”

Health Minister Andrew Little said there is a shortage of 3,000 nurses in the hospital system and 1,000 in the aged care sector. Last year, Chalmers Rest Home in New Plymouth closed its hospital wing after it received zero applications for its nursing vacancies. Seventeen elderly people were forced to find somewhere else to live.

Little declared that nurses “should not feel they have to” work to the point of burnout and it was up to “their managers” to prevent this. The government has refused, for years, to address the crisis in hospitals. Following a nationwide nurses’ strike in 2018, the government, assisted by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO), imposed a sellout deal that failed to address the staffing shortage.

On the One News Facebook page, hundreds of people commented on the report, supporting the nurses and denouncing the government. Marilyn, a registered nurse, wrote that Little was “passing the buck” and she had “lost count” of how many times governments have promised nurses “pay parity” with other occupations.

Another comment, with more than 50 likes, said “Little should resign. He is out of his depth in everything. People are suffering. Only going to get worse.” Several comments criticised the government’s immigration restrictions, which have made it much harder for hospitals to recruit workers from overseas.

In response to a comment defending the NZNO, Serjio commented: “This is a union working for the government and the NZNO board members,” not for nurses. The NZNO supports Labour’s agenda of letting the virus spread; none of the unions have called for a return to the zero COVID policy.

NATO intensifies anti-Russia war drive

Andre Damon

In a series of coordinated actions, the United States, NATO and the European Union massively escalated their involvement in the war between Ukraine and Russia on Thursday, threatening to turn the conflict into a new world war.

NATO announced additional shipments of heavy weapons to Kiev, the European Union pledged to end Russian energy imports, and the US and its allies successfully removed Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Ukrainian servicemen study a Sweden shoulder-launched weapon system Carl Gustaf M4 during a training session on the Kharkiv outskirts, Ukraine, Thursday, April 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Marienko)

These actions make clear that US allegations earlier this week of Russian war crimes in the suburbs of Kiev were a propaganda barrage aimed at destroying any prospect of a negotiated settlement and preparing public consciousness for an intensification of NATO involvement.

Speaking at this week’s summit of the trans-Atlantic alliance in Brussels, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba declared, “The battle for Donbas will remind you of the Second World War, with its large operations and maneuvers, the involvement of thousands of tanks, armored vehicles, planes and artillery.” He added, “And this will not be a local operation, based on what we see in Russia’s preparations.”

Yet, rather than recoiling from this prospect, the NATO member states are doing everything possible to realize it.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg pledged to provide “a wide range” of weapons systems to Ukraine. Asked by Al Jazeera whether NATO would supply “offensive” weapons, Stoltenberg declared, “I think that this distinction between offensive and defensive is a bit strange, because we speak about providing weapons to a country which is defending itself, and self-defence is a right which is enshrined in the UN Charter.”

“There was support for countries to supply new and heavier equipment to Ukraine, so that they can respond to these new threats from Russia,” UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told reporters.

She continued, “We agreed to help Ukrainian forces move from their Soviet-era equipment to NATO standard equipment, on a bilateral basis.”

Truss declared a “new era” of European relations with Russia, stating, “The age of engagement with Russia is over.” Instead, she proclaimed “a new approach to security in Europe based on resilience, defense and deterrence.”

On Wednesday, the Times of London reported that the UK would provide armored vehicles to Ukraine. The newspaper cited a UK official as saying, “These could enable Ukrainian forces to push further forward towards Russian lines.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who participated in the NATO summit, pledged to provide “new systems” to Ukraine, adding, “We are not going to let anything stand in the way of getting Ukrainians what they need... We are looking across the board right now, not only at what we have provided.”

On Wednesday, the US Senate passed a bill to expedite arms shipments to Ukraine. “As the war in Ukraine unfolds, delivering military aid as quickly as possible is pivotal for Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Putin’s unprovoked attacks,” said Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the leading Democratic sponsor of the bill.

On Thursday, the United States succeeded in its effort to remove Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council. The last time a country was removed from the body was when Libya was taken off in 2011. Shortly afterwards, Islamist terrorists funded by the United States murdered its president, prompting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to joke, “We came, we saw, he died.”

The same day, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for “an immediate full embargo on Russian imports of oil, coal, nuclear fuel and gas.” The resolution also called for Russia to be entirely cut off of the SWIFT banking network.

In announcing a series of measures targeting Russia, Stoltenberg made it clear that China was also a primary object of NATO.

“We have seen that China is unwilling to condemn Russia’s aggression, and Beijing has joined Moscow in questioning the right of nations to choose their own path,” Stoltenberg said Thursday. “This is a serious challenge to us all.”

NATO’s escalation occurred as Russia appeared to call for a diplomatic solution. In an interview with Sky News, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov noted, “We have significant losses of troops,” adding, “It’s a huge tragedy for us.”

The reckless and unhinged character of the war fever gripping sections of the ruling class was spelled out in Thursday’s editorial in the Wall Street Journal, which declared, “Ukraine won the battle of Kyiv, but the battle for the Donbas in the east is likely to be even more savage... This war could be long, and the West’s resolve will have to match Mr. Putin’s brutality.”

In the past week, it has become clear that sections of the US and European political establishment have shifted and expanded their goals in the proxy conflict with Russia over Ukraine. Instead of merely being content with bleeding Russia dry over the course of months or years, they are eyeing not only a decisive tactical but even a strategic victory.

In this context, there are growing demands within the US political establishment for the country to prepare for nuclear war.

In an interview with Voice of America, Philip Breedlove, NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, stated, “We have been so worried about nuclear weapons and World War III that we have allowed ourselves to be fully deterred. And [Putin] frankly, is completely undeterred.”

Record inflation is driving mass poverty in Germany

Elisabeth Zimmermann

The consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and the sanctions imposed on Russia have led to an explosion in prices worldwide. While managers and the rich continue to pile up wealth, the working population and the poorest are bearing the costs of inflation. The result is an intensification of the international class struggle.

In Germany, annual inflation rose to 7.3 percent in March. This is the highest price increase since the Iran-Iraq war in 1981. Inflation is being fueled mainly by the Ukraine war, which is causing prices for gas, heating oil and petrol to go through the roof. In February, the inflation rate was lower, at 5.1 percent. In some federal states the rate is even higher. In North Rhine-Westphalia it is 7.8 and in Hesse 8.0 percent.

A homeless person sleeping rough

These figures are based on initial estimates by the German Statistical Office. The detailed examination shows that the prices for food, energy and other daily necessities have risen disproportionately. For example, cooking fats and vegetable oils rose by 19.7 percent, vegetables by 14.2 percent and bread by 7 percent.

In addition, the major German supermarket chain, Aldi, and other grocery chains, which had already raised the prices of key food items in recent weeks, have announced a new round of double-digit price increases, some of which were implemented 4 April. Butter will become about 30 percent more expensive at Aldi, and other foodstuffs such as meat, sausage and dairy products will increase by 20 to 50 percent.

The prices for petrol and diesel have risen to well over €2 per litre, with the main oil companies raking in bumper profits. The Tagesschau newspaper reported a fortnight ago that “the surplus—that is, the sum that the companies rake in minus crude oil costs and taxes—has recently risen massively. At the beginning of February, the surplus was around 29 cents per litre of diesel, by mid-March it had risen to as much as 68 cents.” The report is based on data from the Federal Cartel Office’s Market Transparency Unit for Fuels and published on the Benzinpreis.de portal.

The price increase for heating oil was particularly drastic. Here, the price had already climbed to new highs before the outbreak of war in Ukraine, and now it has practically doubled. In March it was 99.8 percent higher than last year, in February it stood at “only” 37.7 percent. Petrol and diesel have risen by 49.1 percent, gas for consumers by 30.1 percent.

The drastic price increases hit the working population and the poorest in society particularly hard. Previously these sections of society had barely enough to live on, but after the price increases for food, daily necessities and energy, millions of workers and their families can no longer make ends meet. Often they do not earn enough to put sufficient food on the table every day for themselves and their families.

The high energy costs mean that low-income earners, Hartz IV welfare recipients, pensioners, students and basic income recipients can no longer pay their rents and utilities and are threatened with homelessness. On average, German households spend 37 percent of their net income on housing and energy, and up to 50 percent for those with a monthly household income below €1,300.

Inflation had already risen sharply before the Ukraine war. The huge sums of money used by the German government and the European Central Bank to drive shares and the fortunes of the rich to dizzying heights, while workers’ incomes fell and 20 million lives were sacrificed to the pandemic worldwide, have fueled inflationary trends. The pandemic-related disruption of supply chains and the sanctions against Russia have accelerated this process and the working class is now being made to pay.

A crucial role in passing the rising prices on to the working class is played by the trade unions. They have already concluded wage agreements below the rate of inflation in recent years, i.e., lowering real wages. To prevent industrial action for higher wages, they have often agreed on a pay-out term of several years for the miserly deals agreed.

The unions have now reacted immediately to prevent the compensation of workers for their declining wages. In the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, the IG BCE union has simply postponed the upcoming collective bargaining process for half a year. Negotiations on a new collective agreement are not to begin until October.

As a “bridging solution,” the union has agreed with the Federal Employers’ Association for the Chemical Industry on a one-off payment of €1,400. This corresponds to an annual increase of only 5.3 percent, and is not part of the collectively agreed sum upon which the next wage increase will be based. “In real terms, workers are currently losing a great deal of income,” commented the Frankfurter Allgemeine.

According to the newspaper, the deal has a “signaling effect.” Other employers’ associations could take the same path: “The lump sum helps soothe employees who are currently groaning under high energy prices while giving employers financial flexibility, since they are not burdening themselves with long-term wage increases.”

At the same time, there are many indications that inflation is far from peaking.

According to a recent YouGov survey commissioned by Postbank, more and more people are worried about their day-to-day existence because of high inflation. According to their own statements, more than 15 percent of adults in Germany can barely meet their living costs. In a survey carried out in January, 11 percent had stated that high inflation was threatening their day-to-day lives.

Of respondents with a monthly household net income of less than €2,500, 23.6 percent now say they are barely able to meet their regular expenses due to rising prices. In January, this figure stood still at 17 percent.

“Incomes can hardly keep up with general inflation,” commented Postbank Chief Economist Marco Bargel. “While wages and salaries recently rose by 3.6 percent year-on-year, the cost of living increased by 7.3 percent. The loss of real income also affects households with a middle income.”

According to the YouGov survey, 53.4 percent are very worried about rising prices for goods and services. This compares to 44 percent in January, an increase of almost 10 percent in three months. Economists do not expect inflation rates to fall in the coming months. “In the short term, inflation could continue to rise from the current already high levels due to high energy prices,” Bargel said.

More than 60 percent of the respondents would like to see more government support in the face of rising inflation. The “relief package” recently adopted by the German government is not enough to mitigate the effects of inflation, he said.

The “traffic light” coalition (Greens, Social Democrats and Free Democrats) has decided to lower the energy tax for three months to make petrol and diesel cheaper. Those in work are to receive a one-time energy allowance of €300 on their gross salary, and families a bonus of €100 per child on their child allowance. This is less than a drop in the ocean for workers, while millions of Hartz IV recipients, pensioners, students and the poor will be left with virtually nothing.

Volunteer food banks, which support poor people with donated food, are also reaching their limits. The number of people in need of support has doubled in some cases. In addition to the victims of inflation there are now tens of thousands of refugees from Ukraine. At the same time, the amount of food donations is decreasing because supermarkets are donating fewer goods.

Der Spiegel reports on a study by the consulting firm Deloitte, which has run through several scenarios for the future. It concludes that the war in Ukraine is already having a noticeable impact on the German economy, which will only remain manageable if the war ends soon. This is highly unlikely, however, as NATO powers are doing everything they can to intensify the war.

“If the fighting in Ukraine and the conflict with the West continue until autumn, only 2.3 percent growth and 5.1 percent inflation can be expected. In particular, persistently high energy prices and disrupted supply chains will slow the economic recovery from the corona pandemic and drive up prices,” Deloitte’s second scenario states.

In the event that the war lasts well into 2023, Deloitte projects just 0.6 percent economic growth and 8.3 percent inflation. This approximates to stagflation and prices levels not seen since the Second World War.

Deloitte has not calculated the effects of an immediate supply stop of gas and oil from Russia, which is now being advocated from many quarters. Such a development cannot be modelled in because there are no empirical values and little historical data, Deloitte chief economist Alexander Boersch told Der Spiegel. But a recession would be the likely outcome, resulting in mass layoffs and mass unemployment.

Cold Response 2022: NATO concludes war rehearsal on Russia’s northern flank

Robert Sutherland

The United States and its NATO allies have military encroached upon Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. The arrival of the imperialist alliance on Russia’s doorstep prompted Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. With the ultimate goal of subjugating Russia, NATO is war-gaming every approach to Russian territory. In the largest military exercise led by NATO ally Norway in a generation, last week NATO finished a live-fire rehearsal for war on Russia’s northern flank, the High Arctic exercise dubbed Cold Response 2022.

The significance of such large-scale NATO exercises is underscored by the escalating conflict in Ukraine. As Russia desperately seeks to counter the spread of NATO influence over its neighbor with its reactionary invasion of that country, putting NATO military exercises into practice becomes an immediate possibility. Cold Response took place as the world powers tangle on the brink of World War III.

U.S. Marines inspect a MV-22B Osprey prior to flight at Norwegian Air Force Base Bodo during Exercise Cold Response 22, Norway, March 16, 2022. (Lance Cpl. Elias E. Pimentel III/U.S. Marine Corps via AP)

Cold Response is a biannual display of martial might that has grown with the immediacy of NATO war plans. “We invite this exercise mainly within a NATO framework, and the size of it all depends on the interest from our allies and partners,” Norwegian military spokesman Preben Aursand told High North News, before the maneuver. With the US and NATO considering direct conflict with Russia over Ukraine, the “interest” in preparing the northern theater is running especially high, and Cold Response has scaled up accordingly, more than doubling in size since 2020.

The objective of the large-scale military maneuver is to prepare to engage militarily with Russia on the sea, land and air in the Arctic environment. Approximately 30,000 troops from 27 countries—including 3,000 US Marines and 1,000 German “Bundeswehr” soldiers —along with 220 aircraft and 50 vessels converged on the north of Norway.

The first phase of Cold Response was a maritime “access and denial” operation, which amounts in practical terms to a blockade of Russian military and commercial vessels from accessing the Atlantic Ocean from the northern cold-water port of Arkhangelsk, as well as to assuring that NATO warships can reach the Barents Sea off Russia’s northern coast, where US and UK ships resumed patrols in 2020 after an absence since the 1980s.

The tremendous presentation of NATO sea power in these waters so critical to Russia included aircraft carrier strike groups from the UK and Italy, lead by the HMS Prince of Wales. A third carrier strike group lead by the USS Harry S. Truman was scheduled to participate, having just completed exercise Neptune Strike 2022, but extended its deployment in the Mediterranean to “reassure allies” as the war in Ukraine escalates.

Intensive air operations, including the deployment of carrier-based air power, in the second phase of Cold Response served to prepare for amphibious invasion simulations in the third phase. Thousands of NATO troops have been congregating in Norway since last fall to practice assaults on costal population centers.

Invariably presented as a defensive exercise to “restore national integrity,” these operations need only be shifted a little eastward along the northern Norwegian coast to become a real attack on the Russian north. Russia’s Northern Fleet, armed with nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles, makes berth in Murmansk, less than 150km from the Norwegian border.

Significantly, officials and commentators were increasingly dispensing with the pretense of the supposedly “defensive” nature of these military exercises. “I think this exercise is a good counterpart, a good companion to the ongoing reinforcement of the (alliance’s) eastern flank that has been taking place since Russia’s invasion began,” said Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Cold Response 2022 also marked the culmination of Operation Brilliant Jump, the exercise and a certification of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, NATO’s vanguard, all-theater rapid reaction force. Brilliant Jump, involving 2,500 troops, 10 warships and 750 sailors, began in Norway last February. Once certified, these elite units are deployable within five days to any NATO theater, including the High North.

While Moscow declined an invitation to formally observe the exercise, Russian warships patrolled at a distance.

As large as Cold Response is, it threatens primarily the northern approach to Russia. In imperialism’s encirclement of its geopolitical rival, however, NATO conducts a host of massive military exercises along Russia’s western and southern flanks. The massive Steadfast Defender 2020 exercise war-gamed the approach to Russia from northern Europe while Steadfast Defender 2021 practiced the approach from the south, preparing for combat in the Balkans and Black Sea Region. War games on the Black Sea itself were staged in Operation Sea Breeze. Trident Juncture, like Cold Response, war-gamed the far north in 2018. The list goes on.

The eastward expansion of NATO beginning after the fall of the Soviet Union has steadily crossed Eastern Europe, absorbing the post WWII “buffer states” and reaching Russia’s boarder in the Baltic in 2004. In 2014, a Western-orchestrated right-wing coup in theretofore Russia-aligned Ukraine installed a pro-western government deep in Russia’s side. That Russia retained control of Crimea, which hosts Russia’s Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol, was considered a military imperative as NATO spread its sphere of influence over Russia’s strategically important neighbor. Russia responded to NATO’s continued arming and training of anti-Russian elements within Ukraine—the Ukrainian army, led by a pro-Western government, as well as neo-Nazi paramilitary groups like the Azov Battalion—by launching its military attack at the end of February.

Western cries of “Russian aggression” in an “unprovoked invasion” serve only as political cover while NATO pushes eastward with the ultimate aim of removing Russia as an obstacle to a global “rules-based order,” that is, US political and economic domination. Whether by instigating a regime change, inciting internal divisions or by direct military confrontation, imperialism, driven by nation-based capitalism’s demand for control of global markets and resources, considers it “in its interest” to subjugate by whatever means its Russian, and for that matter Chinese, rival. Without defending the reactionary Putin regime of oligarchs and kleptocrats, it is NATO, not Russia, who is the aggressor.

Beyond the immediate confrontation with Russia, heightened interest in the Arctic, embodied by Cold Response and the even larger Trident Juncture in 2018, is driven by what capitalist governments perceive as “opportunities” as manmade climate change causes sea ice to retreat. The shortened shipping routes with the opening of the Northwest and Northeast Passages are viewed not as a manifest catastrophe but as potentially lucrative for business, requiring military control in the “national interest” of Arctic nations. Mineral and fossil fuel deposits becoming accessible in Arctic regions likewise have world powers jostling to exploit them. It is an irredeemable indictment of capitalism that its response to the irrefutable consequences of climate change does not inspire an alarmed re-prioritization of resources to save the planet but rather renewed vigor in geopolitical machinations .

UK schools face teacher shortage as government makes derisory pay offer

Ioan Petrescu

A reception class teacher, left, leads the class at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Monday, May 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

UK schools are facing a severe staffing crisis. After an initial fall in the number of COVID-19 cases at the beginning of the year, numbers have been rising dramatically since March. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in schools.

All mitigation measures (insufficient to begin with) were eliminated completely in January, together with free testing in most schools. Last Friday, free testing was ended in special schools as well, leaving even the most vulnerable children with no protection against the spread of the virus.

More and more teachers are being forced to call in sick, meaning schools are having to send children home, sometimes for days at a time. In most cases, online teaching is not available owing to the lack of teachers.

More than 10 percent of pupils missed classes in Wales in the week ending March 25, according to WalesOnline .

On the Isle of Man, four schools had to close last week due to teacher absences, leading to the cancellation of face-to-face lessons for hundreds of students.

The Sighthill Community Campus in Glasgow, which houses several primary schools, announced March 22 that parents would have to keep their children at home for three days per week until the Easter holidays. According to the Glasgow Evening Times, more than half of the campus’ teaching staff are currently absent due to COVID.

School closures due to teacher shortages have taken place across the UK.

COVID absences are compounded by a general shortage of staff throughout the sector. Teacher recruitment was already falling before the pandemic due to years of funding cuts and stagnant pay. After a brief uptick in 2020, the decline has got worse. Government data released in early March showed the number of new teacher applications has fallen by 23 percent compared to February 2021.

Researchers at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) say there is a “substantial risk” that hiring targets are not going to be met for multiple subjects in the 2022 recruitment cycle. Out of the 19 subjects considered, 14 are estimated to be at risk of falling below target, with subjects that were understaffed before the pandemic (Physics, Modern Foreign Languages, and Computing) joined by subjects that had generally recruited well such as Biology, English, Geography, and Art).

The overwhelming reason for poor recruitment is the abysmal pay and conditions that characterise the sector. The 2008 global financial crash precipitated a decade of “austerity” in the public sector. As a result, after inflation is considered, median teacher pay is about seven to nine percent below the 2010-11 rate, according to the NFER. This is set to get much worse. Inflation has rocketed to 8.2 percent (RPI), on its way to above 10, while teachers’ pay was frozen for the 2021-2022 school year.

On March 4, the Department for Education (DfE) recommended to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) that the starting salary for teachers should reach £30,000 by 2023. It also acknowledged that a “significant” pay rise is needed to overcome the shortage of staff. In its submission to the STRB, the DfE proposed a 16 percent pay rise over two years, with 8.9 percent in 2022-23 and 7.1 percent in 2023-24. However, this only applies to new hires, with the proposal to increase existing teachers’ salaries by only 5 percent over two years. Given the rate of inflation, this amounts to a significant pay cut on top of the losses already suffered.

To receive this pittance, teachers are being asked to work more hours. NFER data shows that before the pandemic the average teacher workload was 47 hours a week. After a brief dip to 40 hours during the first lockdown in 2020, it rose back to 46 hours last academic year.

Jack Worth, NFER’s school workforce lead, said, “teacher workload remains a significant issue as more than half of full-time teachers perceive that they work too many hours”. In a TES (formerly Times Educational Supplement ) survey from January 2022, 67 percent of almost 3000 surveyed teachers said their workload was unmanageable.

Teachers are often not even paid for the extra hours they spend working. A report published in February by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) revealed that almost a third (31 percent) of teachers worked unpaid overtime in 2021, up from a quarter (25 percent) in 2020, based on Office for National Statistics (ONS) Labour Force data from July-September 2021.

In the last two years, heavy workloads and poor pay have been coupled with repeated exposure to COVID. Hundreds of education workers have been killed by the disease. According to the latest ONS figures, the teaching and education sector suffers the joint highest rate of Long COVID of any sector, at 3.79 percent, with 1.64 percent affected for longer than a year.

Low pay, long hours and COVID are combining to drive teachers out of the profession in large numbers. According to NFER’s autumn survey of school leaders, a fifth said that staff turnover was higher than before the pandemic. Fifteen percent of new teachers go on to quit after just a year, 25 percent do so within three and 40 percent within ten.

The education trade unions have made a show of outrage in response to the latest recruitment figures. Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, warned that school leadership supply is “teetering on the brink”. Dr Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said there was “clear and unshakeable evidence of the enormous damage that has been inflicted on the morale of teachers after more than a decade of real-term cuts to teachers’ pay”. Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, referred to the “huge damage” caused by “pay cuts, high workload and the imposition of PRP [performance-related pay]”.

What goes unmentioned is that these unions have actively collaborated with the government in imposing the dire conditions teachers confront. They have refused to mobilize teachers in opposition the government’s pandemic policies or austerity agenda, suppressing any kind of opposition in the membership.

This was highlighted by the announcement of last year’s pay freeze. Despite denouncing the action, the unions did not put forward a single ballot for industrial action let alone organise a joint campaign of all educators and other public sector workers who confront a similar assault on their wages .

The NEU responded by conducting yet another “survey” of its members on pay. Their survey revealed that two-thirds (63 percent) of teachers have considered leaving the profession because of concerns on pay. Well over half of teachers (58 percent) report that they are underpaid compared to other graduate professionals. The survey was the largest on teachers’ pay progression, with over 25,000 responding. The NEU has done nothing with the results other than to hand them over to the pay review board whose recommendations are consistently rejected by the government.

The unions’ opposition consists entirely of the hot air in which they specialise. Their real agenda is to facilitate the demands of Johnson’s Conservative government.

Survey of US high school youth finds mental health issues climbed in second year of pandemic

Alex Johnson

Youth wearing mask (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

A recent survey of high schoolers conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned of an increase in “mental health threats” among youth in the United States as a result of the devastating conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been allowed to run rampant, officially sickening more than 80 million and killing 1 million.

The CDC data came from the Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey (ABES), a nationwide poll conducted among 7,705 high school students from January to June 2021. It is the first nationally representative survey of public- and private-school high school students to assess the mental health and well-being of American youth during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While no doubt prevalent prior to 2020, the data in the CDC report point to a dramatic growth in youth psychological and emotional trauma over the past two years, as the pandemic has wreaked havoc on schools and communities nationwide. In 2021, 37 percent, more than a third, of high school students reported they experienced poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly half, 44 percent, reported they persistently felt sad or hopeless in 2021.

The report notes more than 55 percent of high schoolers experienced emotional abuse, such as swearing, insulting or belittling at the hands of a parent or other adult in the home. Those surveyed indicated 11 percent experienced physical abuse by a parent or guardian, including hitting, beating or other expressions of violent harm.

A JAMA Network research study in 2013 found parental abuse to be substantially lower, with 13.9 percent of respondents ages 14 to 17 reporting emotional abuse during the preceding year, and only 5.5 percent reporting physical abuse.

The significant rise in these figures over the last two years is an indicator of a deep social crisis in the United States. As Debra Houry, CDC Acting Principal Deputy Director, described it: “These data echo a cry for help.” Houry explained further: “The COVID-19 pandemic has created traumatic stressors that have the potential to further erode students’ mental wellbeing.”

More than 25 percent of students who identified as lesbian, gay and bisexual reported that they attempted suicide in the past year, along with 12 percent of female students. These groups also reported greater emotional abuse from a parent or caregiver and having attempted suicide more than their counterparts.

A large chunk of students, 36 percent, reported experiencing racism before or during the pandemic. The highest levels were reported among Asian students, with 64 percent saying they experienced racism, while 55 percent of black students and students of multiple races each responded in the affirmative. As the CDC news release notes: “experiences of racism among youth have been linked to poor mental health, academic performance, and lifelong health risk behaviors.”

The alarming statistics on racism point to a toxic social climate that has been fostered by the far right, which has deliberately whipped up racist sentiment during the pandemic. This campaign was spearheaded by former-President Donald Trump and far-right opponents of public health measures who repeatedly use racist terms to describe COVID-19 like “Wuhan virus” and the “Chinese Plague” in their efforts to scapegoat Asians for the US government’s criminal handling of the pandemic.

The Republican Party’s fascistic strategy has also encouraged racial prejudice in the name of a crusade against Critical Race Theory in schools and racial and gender politics, which it falsely associates with socialism and Marxism. The Democratic Party has sought to confine all opposition to the far-right by promoting identity politics, aimed at sowing divisions among workers and youth while covering up the fundamental class divisions in society.

The ABES survey follows a rare public health advisory issued from the US Surgeon General last December, warning of a “devastating” rise in adolescent depression, anxiety and mental health distress that were already widespread before the onset of the pandemic in the spring of 2020.

In addition to mental and emotional distress, more than a quarter of high schoolers reported a parent or other adult in their home lost a job, and 24 percent reported they experienced hunger.

Indeed, the corporate assault on workers’ jobs and living conditions intensified throughout 2021. Corporations and Wall Street exploited the pandemic as an opportunity to reap massive profits while families saw their living standards slashed due to layoffs, inflation and the rise in the cost of living. Corporate profits surged to their highest levels in decades, rising 25 percent year over year to $2.81 trillion.

Meanwhile, millions of young children and households have had to endure chronic unemployment, unaffordable rents, hunger, and parents and teens risking their lives working under threat of a deadly virus. Food insecurity for US families shot upward to 26.8 percent in the past year and 45.4 percent for low-income families.

Income data point to the social catastrophe worsening for millions of households in the coming year, with projections that the average American household will see $5,200 in lost income in 2022 due to inflation. Politicians on both sides of the aisle assert nothing can be done to stop this social disaster, all while the federal reserve continues to pump billions into Wall Street every month and Congress proposes record-breaking military budgets to wage imperialist wars.

The combined evils of social inequality and the forced resumption of workplaces and schools in the face of a raging pandemic have inflicted immense levels of trauma on young people.

The response of the American ruling-class, led first by the Donald Trump administration and now the Biden presidency, has been to subordinate the health of the entire population to the defense of corporate profits. This has led to over 1 million American lives lost, tens of millions infected and many having to endure the potentially life-long consequences of Long COVID.

The mainstream press, which has dutifully parroted the narrative of both the Democrats and Republicans that the pandemic is over even as hundreds still lose their lives each day, responded to the ABES study with indifference. A New York Times article headlined, “Many Teens Report Emotional and Physical Abuse by Parents During Lockdown,” carries a substantially watered-down examination of the study’s dismal figures.

The Times piece makes no reference to the social and economic conditions that have plunged millions of families into dire poverty and traumatized an entire generation of youth. No mention is made of the more than 200,000 American children who have now lost a parent or primary caregiver to COVID-19, and the trauma that has accompanied being orphaned at such an early stage in life.

To the extent that any analysis is made, the piece makes a transparent effort to promote the idea that staying home in the early stages of the pandemic, instead of being forced back into infected classrooms, contributed to the dysfunctional environments children have been subjected to during the pandemic. The author argues that the research suggests “home was not a safe place” for teenagers who were “ordered” to remain out of school.

The article cites statements from Kathleen Ethier, head of the adolescent and school health program at the CDC, which seeks to reinforce the notion that being in school protects students from harmful households. The Times quotes Ethier as saying the data “underscores the protective role that schools can play in the lives of young people.” Ethier argues further: “Schools provide a way of identifying and addressing youth who may be experiencing abuse in the home.”

While schools may lend a protective buffer against potentially harmful home environments, the explanations provided by Ethier are disingenuous at best, as mental health problems among young people predate the pandemic and have risen sharply over the last 20 years. Research from the American Academy of Pediatrics, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Mental Health America, showed that the mental health of young people had been on a downward spiral the past two decades.

The share of youth aged 12 to 17 reporting a major depressive episode had doubled between 2009 and 2019. The rate of hospital emergency room visits for children’s deliberate self-harm rose by 329 percent from 2007 to 2016 and youth suicide rates consistently increased over the past decade. By 2018, suicide became—and still is—the second leading cause of death for ages 10 to 24.

Furthermore, according to the KIDS COUNT Data Center, the percentage of high school students reporting persistent sadness or hopelessness increased over the past decade from 26 percent in 2009 to 37 percent in 2019. In California, this figure reached nearly half of high school students in 2019. In a similarly troubling trend, the share of young adults ages 18 to 24 reporting zero poor mental health days had been declining prior to the pandemic, with only 46 percent, less than half, reporting no poor mental health days in the past month between 2017 and 2019.

In fact, immediate access to mental health services and treatment were largely inaccessible to broad sections of young people as a result of decades of austerity and cuts to public health services. Funding for public education and social support for students has been bled dry to satiate the ruling-class’s unbridled appetite for profit. Although the youth mental health crisis was vastly intensified by the pandemic, it remains only a symptom of a failed capitalist order.

Capitalist politicians and their media mouthpieces who lament over school closures as being the cause of worsening mental health are the same figures who have overseen or advocated for the systematic destruction of social services, the starving of education, and the decades-long continuation of wars and militarism abroad, which have been supplied with trillions of dollars every year with wide bipartisan approval.

The same conditions that are driving the rise of mental health disorders and suffering among youth are also giving rise to social opposition. There is an immense striving on the part of students, youth and workers to fight back against the unbearable conditions created by the capitalist system.

Earlier this year, thousands of high school students throughout the country staged walkouts and protests in opposition to the unsafe return to in-person learning amid a massive surge in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the Omicron COVID-19 variant.

In the past month, thousands of teachers launched strike action in Sacramento, California and Minneapolis, Minnesota. There is an ongoing strike by 600 oil refinery workers in Richmond, California.