At least 450 children across 20 countries now suffering from acute hepatitis

Benjamin Mateus

Global cases of acute hepatitis among children have grown sharply to 450 children across at least 20 countries since the outbreak was first brought to the attention of the World Health Organization (WHO) by the Scottish National Health Service in early April. Acute hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver that can lead to imminent liver failure, a life-threatening condition. At present, 12 children have died globally during the ongoing outbreak.

In their initial report to the WHO, the NHS Scotland wrote that “five children aged three to five presented to the Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow with severe hepatitis of unknown etiology within a three-week period. The typical number of cases of hepatitis of unknown etiology across Scotland would be fewer than four per year.”

Children and their caregivers arrive for school in New York, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

By April 8, the global case count had risen to 74. All cases had tested negative for the usually suspected viruses. A number of children were documented to have been infected with an adenovirus or COVID-19, though other factors were being considered.

On April 15, the WHO released the first of three disease outbreak alerts, asking health systems and public health officials to heighten their awareness and diligence in identifying, investigating and reporting hepatitis cases. They said, “Given the increase in cases reported over the past one month and enhanced case search activities, more cases are likely to be reported in the coming days.”

By April 21, 169 cases had been reported across 12 countries, ranging in age from one month to 16 years old. The bulk of these cases were from the United Kingdom, while the US had observed eleven cases by then. At this time, the WHO made clear that the COVID-19 vaccines were not implicated in the hepatitis outbreak, as a significant majority of the impacted children were unvaccinated.

On Tuesday, the WHO announced that the number of probable cases of hepatitis in children now stands at 348 spanning 20 countries across five global regions.

The recent spike in global pediatric hepatitis cases since late last month reflects additions made by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in their ongoing investigation. There are currently 109 such cases in the US from a total of 25 states and territories.

Dr. Jay Butler, the deputy director for infectious diseases at the CDC, noted that 90 percent of these children were hospitalized dating back to October 2021, when nine such cases were identified in Alabama. He said 14 percent required an emergent liver transplant and five of the children tragically died.

Dr. Philippa Easterbrook, a senior scientist at the WHO’s Global HIV, Hepatitis and STI Programmes, stated Tuesday, “At present the leading hypotheses remain those which involve adenovirus, but I think still there is the important consideration about the role of COVID as well, either as a co-infection or as a past infection. Over the last week, more testing has gone on… confirming that still around 70 percent of the cases that have been tested are positive for adenovirus.”

On Wednesday, the European CDC published an update indicating the total number of cases worldwide has reached 450. In the EU/European Economic Area, the total number of cases stands at 105, with Italy reporting the most cases at 35, followed by Spain with 22, then Sweden with 9. The United Kingdom currently has the most confirmed cases of any country at 163, and six countries have reported more than five cases.

On Thursday, Ireland reported the death of a child from acute hepatic failure, raising the global total to 12. Brazil is investigating another eight cases, bringing their total to 28. In all, the fatality rate is between 2-3 percent and rates of liver transplantation range between 10-15 percent.

The etiology for the devastating cases remains to be elucidated. The statement by Easterbrook is opaque, and many scientists have noted that the presence of adenovirus among cases does not directly implicate this ubiquitous virus as causative.

It seems more than coincidental that the sudden emergence of a rare disease never before described among healthy children has taken place just months after the massive wave of COVID-19 infections that spread across the globe during the Omicron BA.1 surge last winter. Seroprevalence studies indicate that potentially hundreds of millions of children have been infected worldwide since last December, making rare manifestation of COVID-19 infection more likely to arise.

Notably, acute hepatitis has been previously associated with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), which affects children after the acute phase of COVID-19 infection. In the US, the incidence of MIS-C has reportedly been around one in 3,000-4,000 COVID-19 cases.

In a tweet now shared more than 10,000 times, gastroenterologist Dr. Farid Jalali explained that adenoviruses have only caused acute liver failure in patients with severe immunodeficiency and not previously healthy children. The severity of the disease is dependent on the intensity and duration of the immunosuppression in cases where patients are being treated for malignancy on chemotherapy or taking anti-rejection medication after organ transplant.

Dr. Jalali explained that adenovirus infections are very common in children and can be detected in up to 11 percent of healthy, asymptomatic children from throat samples. Additionally, the virus can persist for months to years in approximately 30 percent of “immunocompetent” children.

He wrote, “Relying on adenovirus detection by PCR in children (often incidental due to persistence and shedding) can falsely attribute adenovirus as the cause of disease for which the clinician may have no other proper explanation (e.g., pediatric acute liver failure in context of COVID-19 pandemic?).”

Because of his expert and well-reasoned explanations and concerns, Dr. Jalali has received numerous threats and vilification by right-wing commentators.

Australian epidemiologist Dr. Raina MacIntyre weighed in on these issues with a rare but lengthy Twitter thread, noting, “It’s most likely a complication of COVID-19 but may take a while to be adjudicated as much.”

Dr. MacIntyre added, “Hepatitis is a known presentation of MIS-C and MIS-C is a late complication after the acute infection [of COVID]. So, the fact that [SARS-CoV-2] PCR is negative is not surprising… SARS-CoV-2 is tropic to the liver and commonly causes liver injury, so biological plausibility (one of the Bradford-Hill criteria for causation) is present.”

Interestingly, many of these children had not obtained COVID-19 antibody testing nor were the liver biopsies checked for SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Dr. MacIntyre asks pointedly, “And what about ideological reasons why there is a concerted effort to deny COVID as a cause and find another explanation? Any explanation? It’s called ‘escalating commitment to a failing proposition’ and is a normal reaction to accruing evidence that a vested position is wrong.”

The impact of COVID-19 on children has been repeatedly minimized by almost every world government. Last year, US President Joe Biden famously told a second-grader that she shouldn’t fear COVID-19, that schools are safe to return to and she was unlikely to infect her parents. These have proven to be bald-faced lies and COVID-19 is demonstrably dangerous for children, with tens of thousands of children having likely been killed by the virus worldwide.

Dr. MacIntyre concludes her thread by noting, “In the UK, children were denied vaccination for the longest time, and then belatedly and reluctantly offered it. When countries and experts have invested in this position, and evidence accrues that it is a wrong position, we see escalating commitment to a failing proposition… Perhaps this is why we have not seen a proper epidemiologic analysis of causation… yet. Yes, it may be caused by something else. But in the midst of the pandemic, COVID is the most likely cause.”

The realities confronting Ukraine’s six million refugees

Andrea Peters

Six million people have now fled Ukraine, according to recent data from the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Another 7.7 million are internally displaced. Collectively, this represents about 31 percent of the country’s population.

While the Western media has sought to portray the situation as if the women, children, and elderly men pouring out of Ukraine are walking into the loving arms of America and Europe’s governments, all of the social and political problems of global capitalism in a severe state of decay—poverty, inequality, the breakdown of the health care system, low wages, human trafficking, anti-immigrant chauvinism and racism, and borders that cannot be crossed without visas—are manifesting themselves in the refugee crisis.

The United States, which just approved a $40 billion package for Ukraine that is primarily devoted to transforming the country into killing fields, will admit just 100,000 refugees. The “United for Ukraine” program, while receiving 19,000 applications so far, has granted visas to just 6,000. Entrants must complete background checks, biometric scans and, most significantly, demonstrate that they have private sponsors in the US that have the financial means to support them.

Prior to the start of “United for Ukraine,” 20,000 refugees from the country were piling up along the southern border of the US. While they have mostly been dispersed, going to Mexico City or back to Europe, some are still being housed in temporary shelters staffed by volunteers. Washington insists that no Ukrainians will be admitted to the country or granted any legal status unless they complete the visa process off of US soil.

In the UK, a Home Office representative told the press on Wednesday that Ukrainians going to the country without documentation will be deported, possibly to war-torn Rwanda, to which African migrants are now being sent. Any Ukrainian entering Great Britain by transiting from Ireland to Northern Ireland and then to the British mainland will be treated as an illegal immigrant. The government official would not say whether those crossing the English Channel from France would also be included in this category.

News is continuing to come out about problems with Great Britain’s “Homes for Ukraine” program. Migrants, predominantly women and children, have been placed in households for which there have been no criminal background checks, even though this step is supposed to be required. Currently, there are efforts to get 600 Ukrainian families out of places that have since been deemed unsafe. Advocates are concerned that the vulnerable population will fall prey to human traffickers.

In addition, Britain’s grossly underfunded National Health Service (NHS), while in principle accessible to those Ukrainians granted entry, cannot handle the needs of the population. Refugee advocates note that the migrants, particularly children, are in extreme need of mental health services. They face a two-year wait to receive any.

Canada, home to 10 million Ukrainians and a breeding ground of far-right Ukrainian nationalism, has come under criticism for failing to provide any means to get to the North American country for those receiving temporary, three-year visas through the Canada-Ukraine Emergency Travel Authorization program.

In response, Ottawa announced that it is sending three charter planes in late May and early June to transport a mere 900 refugees. They can get seats on the planes on “first come, first serve” basis. Once in Canada, “free accommodation will be offered to Ukrainians who do not have a suitable place to stay for up to 14 days,” an official told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. What the individuals from among Europe’s poorest country are supposed to do with themselves after those two weeks is unclear.

Germany, which has declared that it will set no upper limit on the number of Ukrainian refugees it will take, is, according to the leading American journal Foreign Policy, kicking Afghans, who sought safe harbor from the Taliban, out of their apartments in order to make way for the newcomers from Ukraine.

Reporting on the circumstances of one Afghan household, Foreign Policy wrote, “Amiri and her family have already been moved twice since their March eviction and now live in a former hotel on Berlin’s northern outskirts in Reinickendorf that is advertised as a temporary shelter for people who are ‘homeless’; it’s the family’s third home within a month.”

Germany is also refusing visa-free admission to Ukrainians who do not have biometric Ukrainian passports. They are stuck in Poland, which is the primary recipient of those escaping the Russian-Ukraine/NATO war. There have been 3,200,000 people who have crossed into its territory. How many are staying there or moving onto other places—or at least trying to—is unclear because the responsibility for managing this population has largely devolved to city and local-level governments that are struggling to get a grip on the situation.

Charities, non-governmental organizations, church groups and ordinary people are those primarily providing services, such as help finding temporary shelter, food and clothing, medical care, schooling and so forth. The mayor of Warsaw recently described the response as an “improvisation.”

He said that the federal government, while allowing Ukrainians to cross the border, has been giving little logistical support. Financing for many efforts is coming out of city budgets, but volunteers are frequently those stepping in to do the on-the-ground work, and the money allocated is not enough.

One Polish volunteer told The New Republic in mid-April, “At first, the laundromats would launder the sheets we needed for free; caterers wouldn’t charge for food. That’s starting to end,” but, he added, “people are still coming.” The situation is particularly unsustainable because the ability of the citizenry to provide things like housing by opening up their homes to families in need cannot continue for months, much less years on end.

Poland’s capital has seen its population grow by more than 15 percent in two and a half months, with 300,000 Ukrainians now living in the city and making up one of out of every five residents. Rents, reports The New Republic, “rose 15 percent in the first two weeks of the war—in Kraków 26 percent and in Wrocław 33 percent.” Inflation, running at 12.3 percent as of April, is now the highest it has been since 1998.

Warsaw, which now has 120,000 Ukrainian children to educate, is hiring refugee teachers to educate them at a rate of $40 a day for six hours of work—a little over $6.50 an hour. This is not enough to even cover the average rent of a one-bedroom apartment. Many refugee households, moreover, do not have two earners, as working age men are not allowed to leave Ukraine.

After Poland’s banking system started to enter a crisis in March because it was unable to handle the volume of near-worthless Ukrainian currency that refugees were trying to exchange for Polish zloty, a policy has been instituted whereby migrants are guaranteed the ability to exchange 300 euros worth of hryvnia for three months. What happens after that time is unknown.

Other countries are also buckling under the weight of the refugee crisis. The tiny country of Moldova—home to 3 million people and along with Ukraine one of the poorest countries in Europe—has seen 430,000 refugees transit through its territory, of which 95,000 have remained. With anemic economic growth, inflation running at 22 percent, soaring natural gas prices and the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it simply cannot provide for this population.

Remittances from Moldovans working abroad, which amounted to $1.5 billion in 2020, or 10 percent of the country’s GDP, have also collapsed. The International Monetary Fund has even appealed to foreign powers to simply give Moldova money, so that the country, of geostrategic significance in the conflict with Russia, does not implode.

In March the EU decided to grant Ukrainian refugees “temporary protection status” (TPS), which allows them to live in member states, as well as potentially receive some social benefits and possibly work on a legal basis. It was portrayed by Brussels as a great humanitarian act. Indeed, it is more than desperate migrants from the Middle East and Africa—left to drown in the Mediterranean, locked up in detention facilities, water-cannoned at the border, abused by the police, and deported—have received.

However, the length of stay allowed under TPS varies from country to country, from as little as 90 days to one year. Sometimes, but not always, it comes with the possibility of renewal. In the meantime, refugees have to apply for longer-term work permits or permanent asylum through completely overloaded official channels with endless waits and bureaucratic obstacles. Many will be denied and shipped back to Ukraine, regardless of whether or not it is safe.

In addition, it is clear that some within the EU largely view Ukrainian refugees as a profitable, low-wage workforce. “We can already see how many people from Ukraine are working legally in Poland, often filling in jobs that Poles don’t want, so it’s evident that the help is mutual,” said Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki recently. The jobs that Poles “don’t want” are those with substandard wages and working conditions.

Furthermore, TPS status is being denied to those who cannot prove Ukrainian citizenship, such as Africans who were studying in Ukraine when the war broke out and refugees from the Middle East who were using Eastern Europe as a transit point. Roma with dual citizenship are also being refused EU entry. The Czech Republic, for instance, just instituted new rules for refugees to show proof of identification with the express aim of keeping them out.

When noted in the press, these facts are frequently attributed to racism. This plays a role, with EU states having long promoted the most disgusting forms of anti-Arab, anti-African and anti-Roma prejudice and discrimination.

But the central issue is not the skin color or origins of the refugees. It is the fact that Ukrainians are fleeing a war allegedly created in its entirety by dictator Vladimir Putin and his hatred of “freedom” and “democracy.” The Ukrainian refugees, pawns in America’s and Europe’s quest for domination, are thus easily used in the anti-Russian propaganda that is laying the groundwork for the US and NATO to launch a direct war against Moscow. Thus, they for the moment receive relatively sympathetic treatment in the media and some governmental assistance.

Refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and elsewhere, however, are attempting to get out of areas that are clearly and directly the product of the total destruction of these regions by the US and its allies. And those fleeing Africa are trying to escape violence and desperate poverty that are the products of the colonial and neo-colonial rape of the continent. Apart from their usefulness in whipping up anti-immigrant chauvinism in an effort to divert social anger in a right-wing direction, for Washington and Brussels, these refugees are largely human trash.

As the crisis unleashed by the war spirals, Ukraine’s refugees, like their country, will also be brutalized.

Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship 2022

Application Deadline: 7th June 2022

About the Award: Fellowships for PhD students at universities globally pursuing research aligned to the Microsoft Research areas of focus.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility:

• Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Students should support this mission and embrace opportunities to foster diverse and inclusive cultures within their communities.
• PhD students must be enrolled at a university in Africa
• Proposed research must be closely related to one of the themes at Microsoft Africa Research Institute (MARI)
  • AI/ML/NLP/data science: In many practically useful applications, data is often scarce and biased. Understanding how we work under these settings and deliver useful results has a great impact for many practical problems and gives us deep insights into what it means to learn with data. From practical application such as NLP, to understanding the fairness and generality of results and deepening our understanding of what is feasible with the available data for a particular problem. We’re interested how we work better with the limitations of data.
  • Health: Advances in machine learning and AI offer us an opportunity to address the disparities in the access to, and delivery of quality healthcare for all people. We’re interested in understanding and exploring spaces where technology can assist to fill the gap, from assisting healthcare practitioners to perform their roles more effectively, to bridging the last mile to patients, through scaling the delivery and reach of quality healthcare using technology.
  • Sustainability: Microsoft’s commitment to sustainability will be achieved by leveraging cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) tools to transform the way we monitor, model and ultimately help in solving environmental challenges facing the globe. Within MARI, we are applying AI and analytics to understand and develop solutions that will address challenges related to sustainability. If you are a student enrolled in an African University undertaking a PhD program in artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics or a related field with a focus on solving problems related to sustainability, we would be delighted to receive your application.​​
  • Human-computer interaction: We seek fellows in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) who will explore Usability and Design questions under the areas of Work, Health and Sustainability & Society. Typically, HCI interns lead and conduct research studies (online or on the ground), usability studies, literature reviews, and design interventions.

• Students must be entering their second year or beyond of their PhD program sometime between August 2022 – July 2023 having taken into account transfers, approved leaves of absence, etc.
• PhD students must continue to be enrolled at the university in the beginning of academic year 2022 or forfeit the award. Fellowships are not available for extension. If you require time away for family or medical leave, this will be accommodated. If you are unsure if a particular need for time away will affect the award, you can contact Microsoft Research Fellowships at msfellow@microsoft.com.
• Payment of the award, as described above, will be made directly to the university and dispersed according to the university’s policies. Microsoft will have discretion as to how any remaining funds will be used if the student is no longer qualified to receive funding (e.g., if the student unenrolls from the program, graduates, or transfers to a different university).
• Funding is for use only during the recipient’s time in the PhD program; it cannot be used for support in a role past graduation, such as a postdoc or faculty position. Those interested in receiving this fellowship will need to confirm their PhD program starting month and year, as well as their expected graduation month and year.
• A recipient of the Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship subject to disciplinary proceedings for inappropriate behavior, including but not limited to discrimination, harassment (including sexual harassment), or plagiarism will forfeit their funding.
• PhD students submitting a proposal should be able to communicate about their research (both in writing and verbally) in English.

Eligible Countries: Countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:

• $15,000 USD is provided to help complete research as part of their doctoral thesis work for academic year 2023–24.
• Eligible recipients will be offered a 12-week paid internship with Microsoft Research’s Cambridge, UK lab, or the Microsoft Africa Research Institute (MARI).
• Opportunities will be provided to build relationships with research teams at Microsoft and receive mentorship.

How to Apply: See information (in LINK) below

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Italian Government Bachelors, Masters & PhD Scholarships 2022/2023

Application Deadline: 9th June 2022 at 2pm

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Scholarships can be awarded only for study/ research projects at institutions within the Italian public education and research system.

Fields of Study: Courses for which grants are available:

•        Master’s Degree (Laurea Magistrale 2° ciclo)
•        Courses of Higher Education in Arts, Music, and Dance (AFAM)
•        PhD programmes
•        Research under academic supervision (Progetti in co-tutela)
•        Italian Language and Culture Courses

About Scholarship: The Italian Government awards scholarships for studying in Italy both to foreign citizens and Italian citizens resident abroad (IRE). The aim of these scholarships is fostering international cultural cooperation, spreading the Italian language, culture and science knowledge and promoting the economic and technological sectors of Italy all around the world.

Type: Masters, PhD, Research

Eligibility:

1. Academic qualifications: Applications must only be submitted by foreign students not residing in Italy and by Italian citizens living abroad (IRE)* holding an appropriate academic qualification required to enroll to the Italian University/Institute. https://studyinitaly.esteri.it/en/Recognition-of-qualification.
2. Age requirements: 
   • Applicants for Master’s Degree/Higher Education in Arts, Music, and Dance (AFAM) Programmes/ Italian Language and Culture Courses should not be over 28 years old by the deadline of this call, with the sole exception of renewals.
   • Applicants for PhD Programmes  should not be over 30 years old by the deadline of this call, with the sole exception of renewals.
   • Applicants for Research Projects under academic supervision should not be over 40 years old by the deadline of this call.
3. Language proficiency 
   • Applicants must provide a certificate of their proficiency in Italian language. The minimum level required is B2 within the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR): (https://www.linguaitaliana.esteri.it/data/lingua/corsi/pdf/tabella_certificazioni.pdf).
   • Proof of proficiency in Italian is not required for courses entirely taught in English.
   • In this case applicants must provide a language certificate of their proficiency in English Language. The minimum level required is B2 within the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).
   • For Italian language and culture courses, applicants must provide a certificate of their proficiency in Italian language. The minimum level required is A2 within the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR):

Number of Scholarships: not specified

Value of Scholarship:

• Normally, the scholarship holders are exempt from the payment of the university tuition fees, in accordance with existing regulations. However the Universities, as part of their autonomy, may not allow such exemption. Candidates are therefore recommended to contact the chosen Institution in order to be informed on eventual taxes or tuition fees.
• For the sole period of the scholarships granted by the Italian Government, the scholarship-holders are covered by an insurance policy against illness and/or accident. Air tickets are not granted, except for Chilean citizens.

Duration of Scholarship: 1 year

How to Apply: 

• Click here to access the registration form
• Before applying, please read carefully the Call for Procedure

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details

Media Ignore Tragedies, Exploitation in Canadian Mines

Yves Engler

Eight miners in Burkina Faso have been stuck underground for nearly a month. Unlike other mining disasters, it’s received little attention outside West Africa.

Over the weekend K. Diallo tweeted, “for 20 days, 8 African miners have been stranded more than 500 meters deep in a zinc mine operated by a Canadian company in Burkina Faso. Why on earth isn’t there more outrage on this? Or is solidarity just a privilege that remains for those who live in the west and are white.”

Vancouver-based Trevali Mining owns the mine in central Burkina Faso. On April 16 the mine flooded during thunderstorms and eight miners were trapped 550 meters below the surface. Burkina Faso Prime Minister Alberta Ouedraogo reportedly blamed “irresponsibility” by those running the mines, saying the use of dynamite contributed to the flooding. Trevali’s managers have been temporary blocked from leaving the country.

The eight men stuck underground are but the latest in a string of tragedies at Canadian mines in Burkina Faso. At least 37 were killed in a rebel attack at Montréal based SEMAFO’s operations there in 2019. In October several of Toronto-based IAMGOLD’s employees were kidnapped in northern Burkina Faso. A half dozen villages were relocated to make way for IAMGOLD’s open pit gold mine, which gobbles up significant water in an arid region. That company was also accused of hiding gold in coal shipments to avoid paying royalties.

Labour violations, killings or ecological damage at Canadian mines in Burkina or elsewhere on the continent rarely receive much attention. When they are mentioned, it’s usually in the Globe and Mail Report on Business or Financial Post and there’s generally little about Canada’s influence over mining policy.

Canadian companies dominate the impoverished country’s main export industry. Responsible for 75% of the country’s gold exports, Canadian firms have some $4 billion invested in Burkina Faso.

Ottawa also shapes the country’s mining policy. The above data is drawn from a Canadian embassy sponsored project designed to promote the industry (interestingly, they failed to reveal how much profit Canadian firms extract from the country.) In 2014 Ottawa helped establish an office of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum in Burkina Faso and has funded aid initiatives with the mining sector.

In response to Diallo’s tweet a number of individuals on social media pointed out how there’s a great deal of discussion about China buying up Africa’s natural resources but little about how Canadian companies dominate mining in most African countries. (In 2019 Natural Resources Canada reported that Canadian mining investment in Africa totaled $37.8 billion.) The crass double standard has been obvious for some time. In 2013 I wrote, “the dominant media prefers to focus on how Chinese companies are buying up the continent even though on a per capita basis Canadian corporations have taken control of a great deal more of Africa’s natural resources than China’s.”

In another example of media silence on Canadian mining policy in Burkina Faso I was unable to find a single criticism of the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) Ottawa signed with an interim, military-dominated regime, in any major Canadian news outlet.

In 2014 Ottawa signed a FIPA with the transition administration that took over after President Blaise Compaoré’s 27-year reign was ended by popular protest. Burkina Faso was represented at the April 2015 FIPA signing ceremony in Ottawa by Prime Minister Yacouba Isaac Zida, who was deputy commander of the presidential guard when Compaoré was ousted by popular protest six months earlier. While the West African nation’s caretaker government was supposed to move aside after an election planned for later that year, the FIPA cannot be fully repealed for 16 years.

At the time I submitted an opinion piece to four major dailies decrying this flagrant disregard for electoral democracy. Unsurprisingly, they all refused to publish it.

FIPAs undermine Africans’ ability to democratically determine economic policy by giving corporations the right to sue governments — in private, investor-friendly tribunals — for pursuing policies that interfere with their profit making. These bilateral investment accords are primarily about protecting Canadian mining firms from popular discontent. After decades of privatization and loosened restrictions on foreign investment through International Monetary Fund structural adjustment programs (SAPs), mining companies operating in Africa fear a reversal of these policies. The ability to sue a government in an international tribunal for lost profits partially alleviates those fears, which is why Ottawa has signed/negotiated these accords with 20 African countries.

There’s also been little discussion of Canada’s role promoting SAPs. Through the late 1980s and 1990s Canada channeled hundreds of millions of dollars in “aid” to support SAPs. The structural adjustment process forced more than thirty African governments to rewrite mining codes to facilitate foreign ownership and exploitation of their mineral resources. A World Bank promoted reform in Burkina Faso, for instance, reduced mining income taxes by 20 percent, dividend withholding taxes by 50 percent and capped the government’s share of mining ventures at 10 percent.

At the same time as Canada’s aid agency promoted reforms that benefited foreign mining firms in Burkina Faso, Canadians mapped the country’s underground riches. Long-time West Africa-based freelance journalist, Joan Baxter, describes a chance encounter with Canadian geologists in her 2008 book Dust From Our Eyes: an Unblinkered Look at Africa: “Another CIDA [Canadian International Development Agency] employee I met one evening in Bamako [Mali] told me his work with CIDA had been a long-term project to map the mineral resources of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. When we spoke, he was on a two-year sabbatical from CIDA, working with Canadian mining companies that had taken out concessions in that country. In the 1980s in Burkina Faso, I had met a team of Canadians who were flying in an odd-looking plane so full of antenna and wires that it resembled a flying catfish. When I asked the crew what kind of plane it was, they told me it was for mapping the underground riches of Burkina Faso, whose gold is now being mined today by foreign — and several Canadian — companies.”

Canada’s been shaping African mining policy since the colonial period. In 1916 Montreal-based Alcan started exploring in Guinea and a dozen years later began operating through a French subsidiary. After Guinea’s 1958 independence Alcan’s Boké project became highly contentious.

A decade before Uganda won its independence, Falconbridge acquired a 70% stake in the Kilembe copper-cobalt mine in the western part of the country. Independence leader Milton Obote’s nationalization of the mine is one reason the UK, US and Canada backed General Idi Amin’s coup against Obote.

Like the eight miners trapped underground for a month, Canada’s exploitation of African resources is of little interest to the dominant media.

New South Korean president lines up behind US war drive

Ben McGrath

On May 10, Yoon Suk-yeol took office as the new president of South Korea. His inauguration marks a return to power of the conservative party, currently known as the People Power Party. Under Yoon, Seoul plans to increasingly integrate itself into United States’ war plans aimed at Russia and China.

South Korea's president-elect Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a news conference at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea on March 10, 2022. (Kim Hong-ji/Pool Photo via AP)

While interspersing empty platitudes about freedom throughout his inaugural speech, Yoon made clear that his new administration would conform closely to the interests of US imperialism. Without directly referencing Moscow or Beijing, he stated, “We, as global citizens who enjoy real freedom, must never turn a blind eye when freedom is attacked. Freedom abides by the rules and seeks to aid others in need.”

Washington regularly trumpets “freedom” and claims that Russia and China have violated the so-called rules-based order around the world—the post-World War II order dominated by the US and in which it sets the rules—in order to justify ramping up military tensions with China and launching the US/NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Under the guise of “aiding others,” Yoon is preparing to take part in these conflicts.

In attendance at the ceremony were Douglas Emhoff, the husband of US Vice President Kamala Harris, and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi. Beijing sent Vice President Wang Qishan to Tuesday’s inauguration ceremony, the highest ranking Chinese official to ever attend a South Korean inauguration.

Yoon held talks with the US and Chinese dignitaries, telling Emhoff that the US-South Korean “comprehensive strategic alliance [was] a top priority foreign policy.” Wang, who is close to President Xi Jinping, invited Yoon to visit China while stating, “China sincerely supports efforts by South and North Korea to improve their relations and seek reconciliation and cooperation.” Beijing undoubtedly hopes to build closer relations with Seoul in an effort to maintain the status quo on the Korean Peninsula.

Yoon however pledged to “bolster” the alliance with the US and to explicitly align Seoul with Washington in opposition to China during his presidential campaign. He has stacked his cabinet with figures having close connections with Washington, including his Foreign Minister Park Jin and Defense Minister Lee Jong-seop.

Park, a former lawmaker, has long-standing diplomatic ties with political circles in Washington. He served as head of the National Assembly’s foreign affairs committee from 2008–2010, which included meeting with US President Joe Biden when the latter served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. He most recently chaired South Korea’s parliamentary diplomacy forum with the US. Park also advocates closer relations with Japan.

Lee, a retired general, worked as a vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tasked with mapping out the US-South Korea joint military posture. He was previously in charge of US policy at the Defense Ministry’s office of national defense policy. In addition, he earned his doctorate from Tennessee State University, focusing on the US-South Korea alliance.

Heavily committed to the alliance with Washington, the Yoon administration is adapting to the major shifts in international relations that have taken place since the beginning of the US/NATO-instigated proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. As such, Seoul’s foreign and military policies are largely dictated by Washington. The US military personnel and assets stationed in South Korea are deployed in the interests of US imperialism and Seoul is expected to fall in line with the Pentagon’s planning.

Yoon has already expressed support for the US retaining wartime operational control (OPCON) of the South Korean military, which means in the event of a conflict, Washington takes control of the latter’s large, well-equipped armed forces. He stated on May 7, “Who takes the command should be decided based on the most effective ways of winning a war, not for any causes or ideologies.”

This is also what lies behind Yoon’s offer of economy assistance to North Korea in his inaugural address, saying, “If North Korea genuinely embarks on a process to complete denuclearization, we are prepared to work with the international community to present an audacious plan that will vastly strengthen North Korea’s economy and improve the quality of life for its people.”

The approach is similar to that of the former Trump administration, which has not been fundamentally altered under Biden. Washington is attempting to neutralize North Korea or even bring Pyongyang into its orbit as the US turns its attention to waging war first against Russia and then China.

Therefore, while prepared for a conflict with the North, the military build-up, including calls by South Korean conservatives for the deployment of a second Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and the return of US nuclear weapons to the peninsula are aimed above all at China and the Russian far east.

Foreign Minister Park has called for the resumption of the US-Korea Extended Deterrence Strategy and Consultation Group (EDSCG), which has not met since January 2018. The group allows Washington and Seoul to hold discussions on strategic and policy issues regarding so-called extended deterrence, including the use of nuclear weapons.

Speaking during a confirmation hearing on April 30, Park stated, “We will reactivate the EDSCG at an early stage so that the bilateral extended deterrence cooperation between South Korea and the United States can be systematically continued through a permanent consultation mechanism.”

Biden plans to visit South Korea and Japan for summits with Yoon and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on May 21 and 23 respectively. Biden will almost certainly use his summit with Yoon to coordinate Seoul’s position on Russia and China. Yoon’s administration has already claimed that the war in Ukraine has security consequences for South Korea in Northeast Asia and is currently considering expanding so-called “humanitarian aid” to Kiev.

Yoon has also stated that, if invited, he would “positively review joining” the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), a quasi-military alliance aimed at China, led by the US and including Japan, Australia, and India. Japanese media reported in April that Yoon requested to attend a Quad summit as an observer on May 24 in Tokyo, but his office denied this.

Yoon is also contemplating taking part in the NATO summit June 29–30 in Madrid, Spain, which could be his first meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida. Yoon has pledged to improve Seoul’s relationship with Tokyo, another key demand from Washington.

The US/NATO proxy war with Russia in Ukraine is ultimately aimed at the weakening and break-up of Russia in preparation for conflict with China, which Washington regards as the chief threat to its global domination. The denunciations of North Korea provide a convenient pretext for Seoul to deepen its integration into US-led war drive.

Macron to dismantle last remaining anti-COVID health measures in France

Jacques Valentin

During a cabinet meeting on May 4, French president Emmanuel Macron announced, according to Libération, “some adaptations in the coming weeks” to the measures still in place against COVID-19. Macron intends to end “the obligatory wearing of masks on public transport, obligatory self-isolation after a positive Covid test, and compulsory vaccination for health care workers under pain of suspension.” This would amount to the ending of the last remaining restrictions on the spread of the virus.

In the middle of March, before the presidential elections, Macron had already abandoned the health pass that certifies vaccination status, and also the general wearing of face masks, excepting public transport and health and public establishments.

In carrying out his policy, Macron relied on unanimous support from the established political parties, none of whose candidates in France’s recent presidential election challenged his policy on the pandemic, or proposed a scientifically-based policy to combat the virus.

A resurgence of the pandemic linked to the extremely contagious Omicron variant then followed in April, after the relaxing of measures taken in March.

In France as elsewhere internationally, the ruling class has systematically operated a policy of profits before lives. The pseudo-left parties and trade unions totally lined up behind this policy in every country, thus working to suppress working class opposition to a policy of mass infection.

The various countries are in a race to the bottom in abandoning public health measures. Only China is still carrying out a “Zero-COVID” policy, which faces serious opposition from economic quarters and western leaders, with the official media pouring venomous hostility on China’s policy. The NATO proxy war in Ukraine has been a pretext to avoid virtually any further discussion of the pandemic.

The number of new daily cases in France (seven day average), showing the explosion of the Omicron variant from the end of November 2021 and the resurgence of cases in April. (Santé publique France Meteo-covid.com)

In France, in preparation for completely terminating the fight against COVID-19, Macron declared during the election campaign: “We are going, I think, to exit the acute epidemic phase (…) If we continue in this direction, we are going to experience an endemic phase.”

The reference to “endemic” is totally misleading. Endemicity refers only to the habitual presence of a disease in a region or a specific population. That has nothing to do with the health policy undertaken to deal with the disease itself.

Macron wants to exploit the fall in case rates to argue that COVID-19 will circulate at a low level, with no requirement needed for any specific measures.

The COVID reproduction rate (R0) has indeed fallen below 1 after mid-April, which means the number of cases has been falling regularly for a month. But the level of cases remains high; it has only recently dropped below 50,000, and that is not taking into account the asymptomatic cases, which increasingly are not detected. The level of hospital admissions remains above 20,000. More than 1,000 people are hospitalized every day and more than 100 are taken into intensive care.

The mortality rate remains at a very high and uneven plateau, with over 100 deaths per day since the fall in the mortality rate from COVID at the end of February.

It is not at all certain that France will experience a significant and enduring fall in the number of deaths, especially if the remaining precautionary measures are lifted and a climate of risk denial is deliberately encouraged. The end of masking in mass transit and in health and public establishments would be especially catastrophic.

Once again, measures to combat the virus are being dismantled at the moment when a policy of elimination could be put in place. The consequence is a catastrophic recrudescence of the epidemic.

Again, there is speculation about a possible “herd immunity” to obviate the need to combat COVID. This would be obtained through a high vaccination coverage reinforced by tens of millions of people contaminated by Omicron.

But the effects of the vaccination campaign and booster shots will soon diminish, as studies have shown that the vaccine protection falls rapidly for the Omicron variant. Mortality will therefore inevitably increase. There will again be more serious cases and deaths for the same number of contaminated people, to the extent that the vaccination campaign has stalled and that only 59 percent of the population has had a booster shot.

The French Scientific Council has also warned about the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants which are currently provoking a fifth wave of infection in South Africa and which could provoke an epidemic wave in France at the summer’s end. These variants have already started to spread in France and other countries. They partially elude acquired immunity and vaccines.

The United States is experiencing a resurgent epidemic in connection with another Omicron variant (BA.2.12.1), which is spreading rapidly in New York state. In Europe, other than the BA.4 and BA.5, there is also the XE variant that is gaining ground, notably in the U.K and Spain.

Scientists are also warning of the fact that there is no ground for believing that COVID-19 is evolving constantly toward a more benign form. Whilst the Omicron variant imposed itself because it was more contagious, the appearance of more or less deadly forms is largely a question of chance. Allowing the unhindered spread of the virus over the greater part of the planet can result in the appearance at any moment of a deadly variant.

Epidemiologist Antoine Flahaut, professor at the Geneva Faculty of Medicine, thinks that the virus, because of the explosive character of BA.4 and BA.5 in South Africa, could trigger a new wave far earlier than thought, as soon as the first months of summer.

Flahaut also underlined that the high mortality rate in France is in part due to the underutilization of available treatments, in particular Pfizer’s Paxlovid, which the WHO has recommended in preference to other treatments.

In France, only 10,000 prescriptions have been written for the 500,000 cartons purchased. The treatment, which targets people at risk of catching a serious infection (age, excess weight, etc.) has to be administered less than five days after the appearance of the first symptoms to be effective.

It can in theory be prescribed by family doctors since February 3, 2022. But the prescription rules that are in place have all but blocked its use up until recently. This is one illustration of the indifference with which the pandemic is treated.

Macron, like his counterparts in other European countries, has decided to allow an avoidable disease to become a constant feature of daily life in France, which will probably kill tens of thousands of people every year, much more than the worst annual flu epidemics in decades past. Moreover, the pandemic threatens to create a much worse health catastrophe if a more aggressive variant appears. And deaths will be even higher, especially in countries where health systems are less developed than in the richest countries of Europe.

Astronomers publish first imagery of Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole

Bryan Dyne

Astronomers have published the first ever imagery of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*, pronounced “Sagittarius A-star”), confirming the hypothesis developed in the 1980s that this compact radio source is in fact a supermassive black hole that sits at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The results were presented at press conferences held simultaneously around the world.

The research was done by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration, a grouping of 300 astronomers and hundreds more support staff at 60 universities and institutions in 20 countries. The observing campaign was conducted in April 2017 using eight telescopes in Europe, South America, North America and Antarctica. Thousands of terabytes of data recorded by the telescopes were analyzed and processed for five years using supercomputers around the world to produce the simple but stunning graphical result.

The first imagery of Sagitarrius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The black hole, invisible, resides in the center of the glowing ring of gas surrounding it, known as the accretion disk. Credit: EHT Collaboration

NASA’s Chandra, NuSTAR and Swift telescopes participated in the experiment to complement the EHT’s measurements. The space-based observatories are capable of observing in X-ray and gamma ray wavelengths of light, revealing further details about the large-scale clouds of gas and dust interacting with the black hole.

Sgr A* has been studied for many decades. Karl Jansky, one of the founders of the field of radio astronomy, rose to prominence after detecting radio waves emanating from the center of the Milky Way in 1933. In the decades after, further observations discovered that the source of these observations was a very compact object, suggesting a black hole. Further evidence was presented in the early 2000s when a team of physicists led by Reinhard Genzel at the Max Planck Institute reported on a star orbiting a single massive and invisible object, ruling out the possibility of a cluster of massive dark objects in the galactic core.

Observations of the black hole itself have only been possible thanks to developments in very-long-baseline interferometry. The technique was first developed in the 1960s as a way to combine observations from multiple telescopes in order to emulate a single, larger telescope that is effectively the size of the distance between the two farthest receivers. Over the years, incremental improvements to the technology have allowed astronomers to shrink the wavelengths used in this method from the 1 meter scale down to 1.3 millimeters, with corresponding increases in resolution.

Moreover, since the actual shape of the radio waves have to be recorded and processed, every aspect of the technology needs to improve: the design of the radio telescopes, more precise pointing of the telescopes and the ability to record titanic amounts of data, transmit the data and recombine them. Using advances made in the past 60 years, particularly in fiber optics and atomic clocks, the EHT team was able to take measurements to within a trillionth of a second between observatories that are separated as far as Spain and the South Pole, making a telescope effectively the size of Earth. In doing so, astronomers were able to achieve the necessary precision to directly image the area around the Milky Way’s central black hole.

The data presented is the second set of measurements studying the environment immediately surrounding a black hole, particularly of the radiation produced by matter accreting around and eventually spiraling into the super-dense objects. The first such measurements were also taken by the EHT team and released in 2019, showing the region around the central black hole of galaxy Messier 87 (M87). Those results were deemed so significant that the following year, the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for research into black holes.

One the most important differences of the observations presented yesterday is that the black holes studied have vastly different masses. The black hole in the center of M87 is 6.5 billion times more massive than our Sun and occupies a region of space on the order of the entire Solar System. In comparison, Sgr A* is about 4.1 million times as massive as the Sun and it extends to about the orbit of Mercury, that is, it is 1,600 times smaller in mass and size than the black hole in M87.

A size comparison of the two black holes imaged by EHT. M87* is 6.5 billion times the mass of our Sun and located in the heart of galaxy Messier 87. Sgr A* is 4.1 million times the mass of our Sun and sits at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. Credit: EHT collaboration (acknowledgment: Lia Medeiros, xkcd)

The peculiarities of general relativity also mean that the timescales just beyond the event horizon of the two black holes (the point at which light can escape) also differ by a factor of about 1,600. Changes in the structure of the hot gas orbiting the black hole in M87, for example, might take one month. The same changes of the matter orbiting Sgr A* take about 30 minutes, making the neighborhood around the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole much more dynamic than that of its larger counterpart.

The rapidity of events in the region around Sgr A*, however, made it much more difficult to study. The researchers had to keep track of how structures were evolving over the course of a night, and individual observations could rarely last more than a few minutes. In addition, the much lower flow of material into this black hole makes for a fainter target, making it even harder to acquire quality data. Whole new computer algorithms had to be developed and tested in order to account for and surmount these hurdles.

Once these technical challenges had been overcome, a whole new physical regime could be visualized. Despite the vast differences in size, mass and inflow into the two black holes now imaged, both show a characteristic image form which can only be explained by the warping of spacetime predicted by Einstein’s general relativity. At the same time, the differences between the two black holes confirms the theory holds even under diverse conditions.

The relative quiescence of Sgr A* also provided an opportunity to observe a super-massive black hole in what is likely the normal state of most of these astronomical objects. In doing so, it served as a chance to more deeply understand how they interact with galaxies more generally, how accretion disks are formed and how jets of energy, such as the one being emitted from the center of M87, are launched.

The data also provided a measurement of the spin of the black hole, its most important property after its mass. The researchers were thus able to test the validity of the so-called Kerr metric, the mathematical description of in the theory of general relativity of a rotating black hole. It was also determined that one of the poles of Sgr A* is pointing more or less at Earth.

And more is to come. Similar to their observations of M87, the EHT astronomers also collected the polarization of the light (the orientation of the electromagnetic waves) emitted from the accretion disk around Sgr A*, which will let them reconstruct the magnetic fields around the black hole and provide further insight into the dynamics of its environment.

The collaboration also announced further work, including data collected this past March using an upgraded network of telescopes that will potentially be used to make movies of black holes in the near future. They are also planning to try to observe black holes in the center of even more distant galaxies, particularly those with large accretion disks and emitting colossal amounts of radiation.

Skeptics of science and its materialist inquiry into nature once dismissed black holes as artifacts of the imagination. But through the growth of human technique and material theory, science now has images of relatively close ones self-illuminated by their diet of gas. Through the equally new field of gravitational wave astronomy, the last decade has also produced recordings of the ripples of their mergers in the distant Universe.