US, UK to deliver advanced longer-range missile systems to Ukraine

Clara Weiss

US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that Washington will deliver advanced longer-range missile systems HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) to the Ukrainian army, as part of yet another $700 million in military aid that the White House announced on May 31. This latest tranche brings the total direct military aid committed by the Biden administration since the beginning of the war three months ago to $4.6 billion.

Hours after this announcement from Washington, Politico reported that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Biden had spoken Wednesday morning about the transfer of US-made M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS). UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken are set to discuss further details on the deliveries on Thursday morning.  

Out of all of the imperialist provocations of recent months against Russia in their proxy war in Ukraine, the US and NATO delivery of longer-range missile systems is one of the most dangerous.

Both the HIMARS and MLRS are advanced long-range missile systems which, depending on the munition, can launch rockets as far as 300 kilometers, or 186 miles, away. According to CNN, both “are fired from a mobile vehicle at land-based targets, which would allow the Ukrainians to more easily strike targets inside Russia.”

As for munitions, the US will deliver the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System rockets that can strike targets that are 80 kilometers, or 50 miles, away. In an op-ed for the New York Times, Biden said that these missiles “will enable them [the Ukrainian army] to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine.” 

The delivery of these advanced missile systems is clearly meant to shift the balance of forces in the imperialist proxy war in Ukraine against Russia back to Ukraine’s NATO-backed military. 

Unlike in the first stage of the war, when Ukraine’s military and paramilitary could drag down Russian forces in bloody urban fighting, the war is now almost entirely fought in East Ukraine, and artillery is playing a much bigger role, giving Russia an advantage. 

After a humiliating first stage of the war and major military losses, Russia has made significant advances in recent weeks. The strategic port city of Mariupol is now under Russian control, enabling the Kremlin to form a land bridge between the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea and the territories around Donetsk and Lugansk, which have been held by pro-Russian separatists since 2014. Russian forces also appear to be in the process of taking over the strategic city of Severodonetsk (or Sievierodonetsk).

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged last week that his army was losing “between 60 and 100” men each day in the war in the Donbass while 500 are being wounded on a daily basis. Many estimate that Ukrainian losses may be even higher. 

Above all, however, the HIMARS and MLRS deliveries raise the direct prospect of Ukraine firing missiles far into Russian territory. Leading Russian officials have made stark warnings of the potential escalation of the war and its expansion beyond the borders of both Ukraine and Russia.

Commenting on the first reports about the impending deliveries of these systems last week, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated, “We have warned the West in the most serious manner that they are, in essence, already waging a proxy war against the Russian Federation with the hands, bodies and brains of Ukrainian neo-Nazis, but this [such deliveries] will constitute the most serious step toward an unacceptable escalation.” 

Dmitry Medvedev, the head of the Russian Security Council and one of the most bellicose politicians in Moscow, warned on May 30 that, in case of attacks on Russian cities, Russia’s armed forces would carry out strikes on the decision-making centers responsible for coordinating these strikes, noting that “Some of them are not at all in Kiev.” 

The White House announced the extraordinarily provocative move with the empty assurance that the US would “only” deliver munitions that can strike 80 kilometers, or 50 miles, and that the Ukrainian government had given “assurances” that it would not strike targets in Russia. 

This is a charade. Munition deliveries can be changed at any moment. In fact, in the past two months, in which Washington has passed more than $54 billion of aid for Ukraine, it has revised, time and again, what had earlier been proclaimed “off limits.”

Even before Washington rammed through a $40 billion aid budget for Ukraine in May, the US had committed over 90 155mm Howitzers and over 200,000 155mm artillery rounds; 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems; over 5,500 Javelin anti-armor systems and over 14,000 other anti-armor systems. The US has since begun delivering Harpoon anti-ship missiles via Denmark to Ukraine, as well as the M109 Paladin armored self-propelled howitzer, the same anti-ship missiles and mobile artillery systems that the US Navy and Army are using. 

Now, US weapons manufacturers are looking forward to over $17 billion in weapons contracts, just from the $40 billion war bill. 

And the word of the government of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, which is parading neo-Nazis from the Azov Battalion as “heroes” and the “best defenders of Ukraine,” is worthless. 

In an interview Tuesday night, Zelensky claimed, “We are not planning to attack Russia. We are not fighting on their territory. We have the war on our territory.”

In fact, there already have been multiple air strikes on targets from the Ukrainian side on arms depots and factories, as well as villages in the Russian Kursk region. Dozens of Russian civilians have been wounded, and at least two have been killed; many residents of the border region have been relocated. The Russian Defense Ministry has recently increased its troop and artillery deployments to the Kursk region. 

Ukrainian officials have refused to either confirm or deny that Kiev was behind these attacks, but even outlets like the Wall Street Journal now openly write that Ukraine has been carrying out strikes on Russian territory. 

A Russian official, speaking to the government-controlled Izvestiia newspaper, noted that the US does not recognize Crimea as part of Russia or the so called People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent, as the Kremlin does. Strikes on these territories with the HIRMAS or MLRS could therefore be justified as legitimate by both Kiev and the White House but still provoke major retaliation by Russia. Since March 2021, the “retaking” of both the Donbass and Crimea has been part of Ukraine’s official military doctrine.

In a lying op-ed for the New York Times, Biden claimed that the US does not “seek a war between NATO and Russia” and does not “want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia.” The US president must take his readers for fools. 

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia was not only provoked deliberately for many years. Every step the US has taken since the beginning of its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine has been aimed at escalating and expanding the conflict.

While the White House and its subservient media work overtime to lull the public about the dangerous implications of these reckless policies, denying or downplaying the threat of nuclear escalation, the Wall Street Journal has now revealed that there “has been a series of urgent meetings in the administration to map out how Mr. Biden should respond if Russia conducts a nuclear detonation in Ukraine or around the Black Sea. Officials will not discuss the classified results of those tabletop exercises.”

US bank chief warns of economic “hurricane”

Nick Beams

Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of America’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, has warned that an economic “hurricane” is about to hit the US because of the war in Ukraine and the tightening of monetary policy by the US Federal Reserve.

Two weeks ago, Dimon warned of “storm clouds” gathering over the US economy. He escalated that assessment at a financial services conference yesterday.

“I said they’re storm clouds, they’re big storm clouds here. It’s a hurricane. That hurricane is right out there down the road coming our way,” he said.

“We just don’t know if it’s a minor one or Superstorm Sandy [the devastating hurricane of 2012] … And you better brace yourself,” he told investors at the conference.

The Wall St. street sign is framed by the American flags flying outside the New York Stock exchange, Friday, Jan. 14, 2022, in the Financial District. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

He warned the Ukraine war would continue to put upward pressure on oil prices, which could go to as high as $150 or $175 per barrel. At present oil is over $120 after a spike following the decision by the European Union to ban seaborne oil imports from Russia as part of its tightening sanctions regime.

Dimon warned that oil prices would continue to rise over the longer term.

“We’re not taking the proper actions to protect Europe from what’s going to happen to oil in the short run. And we’re not taking the proper actions to protect you all from what’s going to happen to oil in the next five years, which means it almost has to go up in price.”

He also directed attention to the monetary tightening initiated by the Fed.

This consists of two components: Interest rate rises each of 0.5 percent over the next two meetings of its policymaking body, with more to follow; and a winding down of the $9 trillion of financial assets purchased by the Fed in response to the 2008 financial crisis and the market meltdown in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic.

The effects of interest increases are generally known, at least if historical experience is any guide. They must be lifted to “stunt” economic growth, in the words of one of the Fed governors, Christopher Waller, in a speech delivered on Monday calling for sustained interest rate increases.

But the effect on financial markets and the economy more broadly of a continuous reduction in the Fed’s balance sheet, known as “quantitative tightening [QT],” is not because it has never been undertaken in a sustained way before. Before the 2008 crisis the Fed held just under $1 trillion in financial assets in order to facilitate the operation of its monetary policy.

The expansion of its assets holding since then has had a different purpose—to prevent the implosion of the financial system which has loomed large twice in the past 14 years.

The only other occasion when the Fed, briefly, moved to cut its asset holdings took place in 2018. It contributed to a sharp fall on Wall Street at the end of that year and was rapidly withdrawn by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in January 2019.

Dimon warned that there was a risk of market volatility as the Fed began quantitative tightening.

“They do not have a choice because there’s so much liquidity in the system,” he said. “They have to remove some of the liquidity to stop the speculation, to reduce home prices and stuff like that. And you’ve never been through QT.”

With the Fed reducing its holding of Treasury bonds, the supply will increase, bringing about a “huge change in the flow of funds around the world. I don’t know what the effect of that is,” he said, warning of the potential for “huge volatility.”

His “hope” was that it would end up “OK,” but “who the hell knows?”

As Dimon was making his remarks, the rating agency S&P Global issued a warning that investors were underestimating the severity of the financial and social effects of what it called the “global food shock.”

In a report published yesterday, it said food price rises, combined with the escalation of energy prices, would impact the credit worthiness of a large number of emerging economies.

According to Frank Gill, a specialist on sovereign debt for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at the ratings agency: “Rising energy and food prices represent yet further balance-of-payments, fiscal and growth shocks to the majority of emerging markets. This intensifies strains on their public finances and ratings, which are already impacted negatively by the global pandemic.”

These markets are already experiencing an outflow of capital from their bond markets, which have already had their worst start to a year in almost three decades, as a result of the increase in interest rates in the US. Dollar-denominated debt is also coming under increasing stress because of the rise in the value of the US currency on global markets.

S&P Global said emerging markets exposed to the food price hikes already had low credit ratings, and they could fall even further.

The social and political consequences were underscored in remarks by Uday Patnaik, head of emerging market debt at Legal and General Investment, a major European asset management firm, to the Financial Times.

“For emerging markets, food is a much more significant part of your disposable income. If you’re a big importer or poorer country this is painful. This is an issue that can cause governments to fall,” he said.

He commented that Sri Lanka, where ongoing protests strikes have erupted calling for the end of the Rajapaksa presidency, was already “highly stressed” before the war in Ukraine, but the food price shock was “the final straw that pushed them over the edge.”

Other countries could follow, with the S&P Global report noting that price shock and the reduction in food supplies raised the risk of social unrest with the crisis to last for years not months.

The economic and social turmoil will not be confined to so-called emerging market economies because the crisis is striking at the major economies as well. Inflation in the UK is running at 10 percent and threatening to go even higher. In the Eurozone it hit 8.1 percent in May, up from 7.4 percent in March and April; and in the US it is running at more than 8 percent.

In all these regions, as well as others, the cost of basic items, such as food and energy that make up much of the spending of the working class, are rising much faster than the official inflation rate.

The policy of capitalist governments and central banks everywhere is to hike interest rates, inducing a recession if that is considered necessary, to try to crush a wages movement of the working class.

In the US, the Fed’s agenda received the backing of the Biden administration in a meeting between the president, the Treasury secretary Janet Yellen and Fed chair Powell earlier this week.

Following the meeting Biden said: “My plan … to address inflation starts with a simple proposition: Respect the Fed, respect the Fed’s independence which I have done and will continue to do.”

He said Powell and other members of the Fed were focused, “laser-focused on addressing inflation as I am.”

As Powell had made clear on numerous occasions, that “laser focus” means continuing to lift interest rates to a level where they drive down wages, and a preparedness to follow the path of Fed chair Paul Volcker in the 1980s. He raised rates to record highs, resulting in the deepest recession since the 1930s and inflicting social and economic devastation from which the working class has never fully recovered.

Dimon’s “hurricane” remarks were directed to an audience of financial market operators. But it is also clear that a social and economic hurricane is confronting the working class in the US and around the world.

Sri Lankan police intensify witch hunt against anti-government activists

Pani Wijesiriwardena

Sri Lankan police are systematically unleashing repression against activists involved in nationwide anti-government protests demanding the resignation of President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government, and an end to the escalating social catastrophe.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa [Credit: AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena]

These protests, which erupted across Sri Lanka in early April, were fueled by intolerable price rises and shortages of essential items—food, medicine and fuel—and lengthy power cuts. Tens of thousands of people, including workers, youth and the poor, gravitated to and occupied Galle Face Green, making it the main protest centre.

On May 9, thousands of thugs from Rajapakse’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) brutally attacked unarmed protesters at Galle Face Green and in front of Temple Trees, the prime minister’s official residence, injuring about 100 people. The police did not stop the thugs but allowed them to roam freely. Police later used teargas and water cannons to disperse the attacks but did not arrest any of them.

The most recent victim of the police repression against the protesters is Rathindu Suramya Senaratne, prominent among activists at Galle Face Green. Popularly known as “Ratta,” Senaratne is an actor, filmmaker and regularly posts videos on YouTube.

Senaratne was summonsed to the Slave Island police station where he was arrested on May 30, accused of unlawful assembly and obstructing police during his involvement in a protest outside the Colombo Fort courts on May 25. He was brought before a magistrate and bailed on a 100,000-rupee surety on May 30.

Rathidu Suramya Senarathna (Image: Facebook)

In fact, the group, including Senaratne, were demonstrating outside the Colombo Fort courts over the May 9 attack. The group was demanding justice for the Galle Face Green protesters, and the arrest of other perpetrators of the attack.

A few days earlier, 14 protesters, who were eyewitnesses to the violent May 9 attack, were banned from travelling abroad and ordered to surrender their passports to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The ban was imposed by the court, following a police request. Those targeted include Jagath Manuwarna, a famous teledrama actor, and Jeewantha Peiris, a Catholic priest, both complainants of the May 9 thug attack.

Senaka Perera, head of the Committee for Protecting the Rights of Prisoners and a lawyer for those targeted, told the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) yesterday that the order obtained by the CID for surrender of passports was illegal under Sri Lankan law. He also said that he had just been informed by CID that its officers would be visiting him to obtain a statement. This was part of the ongoing witch hunt, he said.

In a separate incident, Wekendawela Rahula, a Buddhist monk, was summoned to the Walasmulla police station on May 26 and taken into custody. Police have questioned him about a damaged a statue in memory of President Rajapakse’s parents near their ancestral home, the burning of the Walasmulla Pradeshiya Sabha (local government authority) chairman’s home, and several other incidents.

Rahul, who denies any involvement in these events, has been a prominent campaigner for protection of the environment since 2005. He is due to be before the courts again on May 31.

The police, on the pretext of prosecuting people allegedly involved in violent acts, including damaging the property of ruling party politicians after the May 9 assaults, have taken 1,808 persons into custody from across the island. About 780 of these people have been remanded. According to media reports, the majority of those arrested were from lists of political opponents prepared by SLPP politicians and the party’s local leaders.

These repressive measures, taken with the blessing of the government of President Rajapakse and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, are part of the regime’s preparation for a broader crackdown against working people and youth.

The May 9 thug attack was a deliberate provocation initiated by the SLPP leadership, particularly former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, in order to create a pretext for increased state repression.

The Galle Face Green protest movement attracted support from hundreds of thousands of people across the country. Millions of workers participated in a general strike on April 28 with another general strike and a hartal (small business closures) on May 6 involving almost every section of workers and the oppressed.

While workers powerfully demonstrated their determination to defend their rights, the trade unions called these strikes to divert this anger under the wing of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). These opposition parties were calling for an interim regime to keep the mass opposition within safe parliamentary channels.

Terrified by this explosive movement of the working class, President Rajapakse imposed a state of emergency on May 6 with the power to mobilise the military, ban strikes, proscribe organisations, impose censorship and other anti-democratic measures.

Thousands of workers and other sections of the population flooded onto Galle Face Green to oppose the right-wing thug attacks on May 9. They demanded the immediate arrest of those responsible. Health, postal and port workers immediately walked out on strike, they were joined the next day by other sections of the working class, compelling the unions to call a general strike.

Retaliatory violence also erupted in many parts of Sri Lanka in response to the May 9 assaults, with the homes of some government ministers and MPs set on fire.

Rajapakse seized on this situation and deployed the military onto the streets with orders to shoot on sight those deemed to be rioters. The unions immediately capitulated to these repressive measures, and on May 11 called off an indefinite strike that began on May 10, a day after the thug attacks.

Heavily-armed soldiers and military vehicle in Colombo enforcing curfew. [Image: Facebook]

Fearful of the mass anger over the May 9 thug attack, the Sri Lankan attorney general ordered police to immediately arrest 22 people, including former ministers who planned and led the violent assault at Galle Face Green on protesters. Only eight of those named have so far been arrested. Former Highways Minister Johnston Fernando, for instance, was summoned to the police headquarters on May 24 but released after being questioned for five hours and recording a statement.

The attorney general initially ordered the arrest of Deshabandu Tennekoon, the Deputy Inspector General of Police and in charge of Colombo. This order, however, was later changed to transfering Tennekoon out of Colombo. Nothing has happened to ex-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, who allegedly made a speech inciting the SLPP goons. He has just been “questioned” by CID officers.

A record 86 million people forcibly displaced worldwide

Jean Shaoul

The number of people living in internal displacement around the world reached 59.1 million at the end of 2021, up from 55 million and 50 million in 2020 and 2019, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)’s annual global report. There are an additional 26.6 million registered refugees living outside their country of origin, taking the total number of forcibly displaced people to 86 million.

Internally displaced people wait for aid in Djibo, Burkina Faso, Thursday May 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)

To put this figure in context: the equivalent of the population of Germany, or more than one percent of the world’s 7.9 billion population, have been driven from their homes. And this is only the recorded number. The real figure is higher. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), whose annual Global Trends Report on forced displacement is due to be published on June 16, puts the total number including asylum seekers at more than 100 million.

The record number of internally displaced people (IDPs) is the result of wars, conflicts and violence provoked or directly waged by the imperialist powers, as well as natural disasters, often created or exacerbated by the activities of the world’s giant corporations and their governments.

Last year saw 38 million new IDPs created, with sub-Saharan Africa the most affected area. More than five million people were displaced in Ethiopia alone, the highest figure ever for a single country in one year, due to the civil war against Tigrayan rebels that has spread to neighbouring provinces. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Afghanistan and Myanmar also registered unprecedented numbers of IDPs in 2021.

The DRC has for decades been the arena of largely unreported and forgotten wars, fought by shifting alliances aided and abetted by neighbouring countries and the local kleptocrats they serve, for control of the country’s vast mineral resources. These are of critical importance for the global manufacturing of the lithium-ion batteries used for electric vehicles (containing cobalt), electronic devices (containing tantalum, tin and gold) and infrastructure (copper for transmission lines). Over 4.5 million Congolese are displaced within the DRC due to violence in the Kasai, Tanganyika, Ituri, and Kivu regions, while more than 864,000 Congolese refugees were recorded in 2021. The DRC also hosts large numbers of refugees from neighbouring countries.

The Middle East and North Africa has recorded the smallest number of new IDPs in 10 years, as US-orchestrated conflicts in Syria, Libya and Iraq have to some degree subsided while Washington’s attention is focused on Russia. The overall number of those fleeing evictions, death threats and ethnic cleansing perpetuated by sectarian violence—typically young jobless men, single mothers and unaccompanied children—remains very high.

While natural disasters triggered the most internal displacements, conflicts and violence compounded the scale of these disasters, forcing people to flee several times. There were multiple, overlapping crises in Mozambique, Myanmar, Somalia and South Sudan that affected food security and forced people from their homes. The knock-on effects of the COVID pandemic, including loss of employment and global travel restrictions, also exacerbated the situation.

Some 25.2 million (41 percent) of the world’s IDPs are under the age of 18. They will suffer the lifelong disadvantages, including the psychological impact, that flow from being forced to live in squalid refugee camps—little more than prisons for the world’s most vulnerable—rife with disease and exploitation.

More than 25 percent of the world’s refugees are from Syria, with around 6.7 million Syrians in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Turkey as a result of the imperialist-instigated civil war. In Lebanon, where there are no formal camps, more than one million Syrians are scattered around the country, often in overcrowded temporary shelters.

A view of the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan, 2017 (Credit: Flickr / UN Photo/ Sahem Rababah)

Roughly 10 percent of the world’s refugees, 2.6 million, are Afghan by birth and living in neighboring Pakistan and Iran. Of those Afghans still living in their home country, most are in areas directly affected by conflict, forcing continual internal displacement. The country has suffered natural disasters including floods, landslides, earthquakes and drought.

Nearly four million South Sudanese people have fled their homes, with around 2.6 million displaced to Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya and the DRC. In December 2013, war erupted between rival factions of the ruling elite for control of newly established South Sudan’s oil resources.

An increasing number of people are fleeing neighboring Sudan amid ongoing poverty, drought and famine that fueled mass protests in the run up to the pre-emptive military coup in April 2019 and the subsequent violence of the military junta. Sudan is at the same time the fifth largest country of asylum for refugees, including the largest population of refugees from South Sudan.

More than 1.1 million Rohingya refugees have fled ongoing violence in Myanmar since August 2017, with many of the stateless Rohingya ending up in the world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

Another sectarian conflict—in the Central African Republic (CAR), ongoing since 2012—has displaced more than one million people, more than 20 percent of the country’s five million population.

Around 10 percent of Eritrea’s population—over 492,000 people—are living overseas as refugees due to the social and political instability and violence fueled by US and European imperialism’s bid to control energy resources and the strategic location on the Red Sea, through which much of the Middle East’s oil exports pass.

Thousands have died attempting to flee the war zones created by the imperialist powers throughout Africa and Asia in their quest for markets and mineral resources. The European Union has adopted a policy of mass murder, all but obliterating the right to asylum by refusing to accept refugees, leading to more than 3,000 people dead or reported missing while trying to cross the Mediterranean and the Atlantic last year according to the UNHCR.

The UN body appealed last April for $163.5 million to assist and protect thousands of refugees and asylum seekers. This and similar appeals by UN agencies for humanitarian aid fell on deaf ears. The major powers are using the war in Ukraine and the recession engulfing the world as a pretext for reducing already limited humanitarian aid available to people viewed as so much surplus labour.

There has been barely any mention of the latest displacement figures in the world’s press. Wars, conflicts and disasters and the ensuing misery are not only normalized but becoming the policy of choice for the major imperialist powers and their puppet regimes in the world’s poorest countries.

The numbers of IDPs and refugees are already out of date. The war in Ukraine that began on February 24 had by the beginning of May caused more than eight million of Ukraine’s 44 million population to flee their homes, with a further 6.8 million taking refuge outside Ukraine. This far exceeds the UNHCR’s initial estimate that four million Ukrainians—nearly 10 percent of the population—would be displaced internationally because of the war. Most have fled to neighbouring Poland, Romania, Moldova, Hungary and Slovakia.

Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, commented, “The situation today is phenomenally worse than even our record figure suggests, as it doesn’t include nearly eight million people forced to flee the war in Ukraine.” The US/NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine has caused the largest displacement crisis in Europe since World War II.

The globally displaced and refugee population is likely to reach a new high by the end of 2022 as Washington and NATO massively expand the war in Ukraine and threaten China.

BA.4/5 Omicron subvariants produce a fifth wave of infection in South Africa despite 97 percent population immunity

Benjamin Mateus

Since the advent of the Omicron phase of the COVID pandemic, the new variants of SARS-CoV-2 have evolved into far more contagious versions without losing any of their intrinsic pathogenicity or virulence. They have also proven to evade immunity provided by the current mRNA COVID vaccines. Effectiveness against symptomatic infection even after a booster is proving short and fleeting.

One of the leading examples of this process, South Africa, is currently riding out its fifth wave of COVID infection, with the new BA.4 and BA.5 variants dominant. A recent population-based COVID seroprevalence study (which reviews blood evidence from large populations rather than individuals), found that 97 percent of the population had significant antibodies either from vaccination or previous infection. But the presence of these antibodies was no barrier to the new infections.

The implication here is that no combination of previous vaccination and infection will ever bring the pandemic to an end. “Herd immunity,” the claim that rising antibody levels will reduce the population vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 to such a low level that the virus will die out for lack of hosts, is a myth.

Against the claims by government officials and the corporate media that COVID-19 has become endemic, it would be more correct to say that the pandemic has become permanent.

The evidence is mounting that SARS-CoV-2 is proving to be a very fit pathogen. It adapts to population immunity while maintaining its intrinsic virulence. The politically convenient construct of coronavirus evolving into ever-milder versions, peddled incessantly in the corporate press, has proven false.

The researchers who investigated the estimate of prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in South Africa in March 2022 recently said in a press conference, “The infectious pressure of the Omicron variant was extraordinarily high to have produced such a significant bump in prevalence at this relatively mature stage of the epidemic. It is hardly possible to imagine much higher prevalence values.” 

South Africa was the hardest-hit country on the African continent, with reported COVID deaths exceeding 101,000. However, the World Health Organization’s recent study on excess deaths from January 2020 to December 2021 found excess deaths in South Africa exceeded 239,000.

Since the new year, another 10,000 COVID deaths were registered, implying that the excess death toll is probably well over a quarter million for the nation with almost 60 million inhabitants. This puts South Africa’s COVID deaths per capita at one in every 240 people, ahead even the United States, which has a rate of one in every 330.

The nature of the evolution of these variants is critical to understanding the course of the pandemic into its third year.

In a new study uploaded on to the bioRxiv preprint server for biology by the Sato Lab, based at the University of Tokyo, found that the latest subvariants of Omicron, BA.4 and BA.5, as well as BA.2-related variants that have acquired mutations in the L452 amino acid residue of the virus’s spike protein, were more contagious than the original BA.2 variant.

Figure 1: Virological features of BA.2.12.1 and BA.4 and BA.5 in vivo. (Source: Sato Lab)

More so, antibodies induced by previous infection with BA.1 and BA.2 are less effective against the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. Immunity based on recent prior infection with the BA.1 and BA.2 provides little protection against later variants.

In animal studies on hamsters, the BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 appear to replicate more efficiently in lung cells with stronger binding to these cells. Additionally, when these animals were sacrificed and their lungs evaluated under the microscope, there was more pathologic injury and inflammation to the vasculature and lung tissue from the newer variants than the original BA.2. 

The authors wrote, “The relatively more severe disorders in the lungs of BA.4/5 infected hamsters than those of BA.2 infected hamsters were supported by the more efficient spread of BA.4/5 than BA.2 in the infected lungs. Altogether, these observations suggest BA.4/5 is more highly pathogenic than BA.2 in a hamster model.”

They warned, “A simplistic assumption without conclusive evidence implies that SARS-CoV-2 will evolve to attenuate its pathogenicity. However, we argue against this notion with at least three observations. First, the Delta variant exhibited relatively higher pathogenicity than the ancestral virus in an experimental animal model. Clinical studies also provide evidence suggesting the higher virulence of the Delta variant than the other prior variants including the Alpha variant. Second, although the Omicron BA.1 variant was less pathogenic than Delta … Omicron BA.2 acquired the potential to exhibit higher pathogenicity than that of Omicron BA.1. Third, here we demonstrate that the Omicron BA.4/5 are more potentially pathogenic than Omicron BA.2. Therefore, our observations strongly suggest that SARS-CoV-2 does not necessarily evolve to attenuate its pathogenicity.”

In plain language, SARS-CoV-2 is not evolving in the direction of a relatively harmless seasonal flu, as the propagandists of “endemicity” claim. New variants are equal to or worse than their predecessors in terms of the damage they do to the human organism.

These laboratory studies are crucial. But real-world clinical data provides additional insight on the complexity of an ever-evolving dynamic between the viruses and the populations that are their hosts. 

This week the New York Times published an important report that underscored how much deadlier the Omicron wave was for older people than Delta. As the Figure 2 below demonstrates, the death rate among those 65 years and older was 163 percent higher during the Omicron wave as compared to Delta, despite the increased immunization among the elderly.   

The current BA.2 and BA.2.12.1 waves that are passing through the US have seen hospital admissions rise despite the greater prevalence of boosters among the elderly as compared to the population in general. Dr. Sharon Inouye, a geriatrician, and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical school, told the Times, “I think we are going to see the death rates rising. It is going to become more and more risky for older adults as their immunity wanes.”

Figure 2: Mortality for elderly population across the Delta and Omicron waves. (Source Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

The White House earlier in May admitted that their modeling for the fall and winter projected possibly 100 million infections, far more than recorded during the three months of the BA.1 wave. They also acknowledged the possibility of a considerable rise in fatalities. 

In this regard, the elderly, who often have high co-morbidities, as well as the immunocompromised, face a significant threat to which both the Democrats and Republicans have no response. In the first three months of 2022, 40 percent of all COVID deaths were among vaccinated individuals. Indeed, officials of the White House coronavirus task force will resort to the usual “we could not have predicted things would get so bad” as they have repeatedly done in their press conferences. Additionally, as Inouye aptly stated, “It just seems that now the onus is put completely on the individual. It’s not like it’s made easy for you.”

With mask wearing completely falling off and any form of isolation or even serious restrictions at an end, without any meaningful evidence to base any risk assessment, the population is facing an endless assault as the society flies blind through the pandemic. Masses of people will be subjected to one or two COVID infections each year, with the concomitant risk of Long COVID and substantial deterioration of their overall health.

The recent experience in South Africa with BA.4/5 confirms that only an elimination strategy, carried out on a worldwide basis, can bring this pandemic in permanence to an end.

A pair of experiments reveal new details regarding the origin of life on Earth

Philip Guelpa

One of the central questions in biology is how life first evolved from inanimate matter, known as abiogenesis. It has long been hypothesized that the origin of life on Earth involved the evolution of molecules, floating in the “primordial soup” 4 billion years ago, that assembled themselves into structures that self-replicate. Two recently reported research projects bring us closer to an understanding of possible mechanisms by which that took place.

At the most basic level, a living organism is one that can reproduce itself by incorporating raw materials from its environment (i.e., nutrients) and use these materials to make more or less identical copies of itself. In order for the copies to resemble the original, there must be a recorded pattern, a code, which determines the form of the copies.

All life on Earth is based on two complex molecules: deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), which constitute the code by which the information to construct and reproduce an organism is recorded and implemented. Both are composed of chains of chemicals known as nucleotides. Sets of three nucleotides specify a particular amino acid. The sequence of these nucleotide “triplets” in any given DNA or RNA molecule constitutes a code that can specify a series of amino acids which together compose a particular protein. Proteins are a basic building block of living organisms.

Graphic representation of a loop of RNA. Highlighted are the nucleotide bases (green) and the ribose-phosphate backbone (blue). This is a single strand of RNA that folds back upon itself. (Credit: Vossman , via Wikimedia Commons).

DNA is the famous double helix, the structure of which was first discovered by James Watson and Francis Crick. Its structure consists of two parallel strands of nucleotides entwined helically. RNA exists as a single strand of nucleotides, though it can form double strands and thereby replicate itself.

In addition, not only must living organisms reproduce themselves, but they must have the ability to adapt to a changing environment, in other words, to evolve through succeeding generations, classically known by the Darwinian phrase “descent with modification.” Otherwise, if replication were perfect every time, no change would occur, and the pattern would simply be repeated ad infinitum, like the growth of a crystal, and the myriad living organisms that have existed on Earth would never have evolved.

How did these properties originate?

The current dominant theory, known as the “RNA world,” formulated by Walter Gilbert in 1986, holds that the first living organisms were based on RNA as their genetic material, with DNA-based organisms evolving later, presumably as an evolutionary development from an RNA ancestor.

In the first of the two recent studies, a Japanese team, based at the University of Tokyo, used RNA sequences that, under specific conditions, spontaneously replicated themselves and underwent modification in subsequent generations (Mizuuchi, Furubayashi, and Ichihashi, “Evolutionary transition from a single RNA replicator to a multiple replicator network,” Nature Communications, March 18, 2022).

They posed their research question as follows. “An origins-of-life scenario depicts Darwinian evolution from self-replicating molecules, such as RNA, toward complex living systems. How molecular replicators could develop complexity by continuously expanding information and functions is a central issue in prebiotic evolution.”

This team conducted a long-term experiment in which they encased RNA molecules obtained from Escherichia coli (a common bacteria), in water-in-oil droplets, heating them, and introducing additional nucleotides as raw material. They found that over time, as new copies of the RNA molecules were generated, the original sequences mutated, creating distinct lineages. Notably, the new lineages did not undergo further mutations at the same rate and began to differentiate due to imperfect replication, indicating the potential for different evolutionary trajectories and, in effect, manifesting the potential for different evolutionary “fitness” which would have been subject to natural selection. They also found that different lineages interacted with each other in replication, creating a complex, interdependent system.

The researchers concluded, “Our results provide evidence that Darwinian evolution drives complexification of molecular replicators, paving the way toward the emergence of living systems.” Thus, natural chemical processes not only produce molecules that replicate themselves but launch a self-sustaining trajectory to increasing complexity.

One of the team, Ryo Mizuuchi, explained to OnlySky, “The simplicity of our molecular replication system, compared with biological organisms, allows us to examine evolutionary phenomena with unprecedented resolution. The evolution of complexity seen in our experiment is just the beginning. Many more events should occur towards the emergence of living systems.”

He added, “We found that the single RNA species evolved into a complex replication system: a replicator network comprising five types of RNAs with diverse interactions, supporting the plausibility of a long-envisioned evolutionary transition scenario.”

A second experiment was conducted by a different set of researchers, based at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, Germany (Muller et al, “A prebiotically plausible scenario of an RNA-peptide world,” Nature, May 11, 2022). This team set out to examine how, prior to the appearance of DNA, the first life forms, based on RNA, could begin to assemble amino acids into proteins. It had been previously observed that RNA strands become increasingly fragile as they lengthen, thus posing the question of how RNA could assemble more than short segments of amino acids, also known as peptides, which are intermediate steps in the construction of proteins.

It has long been known that nucleic acid strands in both RNA and DNA contain segments that code specifically for the assembly of amino acids into proteins and others the function of which was unclear. The research by Muller et al demonstrates that these “non-coding” segments of RNA can bond with amino acids to form structures, some relatively complex, that strengthen the RNA strand and form a “scaffolding” on which longer segments of amino acids can be assembled by the “coding” sections of the RNA.

The German research appears to address earlier criticisms of the RNA-world scenario which contend that RNA alone could not have fulfilled the necessary replicatory and information storage functions necessary to initiate life. RNA by itself does not have what one critic called “computational reflexivity,” the capacity to accurately reproduce itself. These critics proposed an RNA-peptide world in which combinations of these two molecules had this property. This is what the German team has found.

In many modern organisms, DNA functions as the primary mechanism by which genetic information is stored in order not only to direct the growth and function of an individual organism but also to transmit the code to produce the next generation. RNA operates in a “supportive” role within a cell, functioning to transfer sections of code to assemble the necessary amino acids to construct specific proteins in intra-cellular structures called ribosomes.

The combined results of these two studies provide key details regarding the initial evolution of life from “non-life.” Many questions remain. How did DNA develop? How did RNA become incorporated in a “subordinate” role within cells where DNA functions as the primary information repository?

Nevertheless, the results of these two research projects contribute to the demystification of the origin of life and reinforce our understanding that living things, including humans, do not embody some mysterious “divine spark,” as religion would have it, but instead are the product of natural, scientifically understandable laws of the material world. And, furthermore, that if suitable, though not necessarily identical, conditions exist on other planets in the Universe, life is likely to exist elsewhere as well.

A New Colombia? Petro Wins First-Round Victory in Presidential Vote

W.T. Whitney Jr.

Photograph Source: National Police of Colombia – CC BY-SA 2.0

During 212 years of Colombia’s national independence, the propertied and wealthy classes, with military backing, have held the reins of power. Gustavo Petro and Francia Marquez, presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the Historical Pact coalition, scored a first-round victory in elections held on May 29. They are forerunners of a new kind of government for Colombia.

If they prevail in second-round voting on June 19, they will head Colombia’s first ever people-centered government. Petro’s opponent will be the May 29 runner-up Rodolfo Hernández.

The tallies were: Petro, 40.3 percent (8.333.338 votes); Hernández, 28.1 percent (5.815.377 votes); Federico Gutiérrez, 23.9 percent (4.939.579 votes). Other candidates shared the remaining votes. The voter participation rate was 54 percent, standard for Colombia.

Petro’s rightwing electoral opponents represented varying degrees of attachment to the extremist ex-President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010) and his protegee, current President Ivan Duque, who was not a candidate.

Oscar Zuluaga, the early standard-bearer for the Uribe cause ended his non-prospering campaign in March in favor of Federico Gutiérrez and his “Team for Colombia” party. Opinion polls showed Gutiérrez losing ground while, coincidentally, the candidacy of the conservative Hernández was gaining support.

Petro, 62 years old, was a leader of the radical April 19 Movement, mayor of Bogota, twice a presidential candidate, and has been a senator. As such, he led in calling to account ex- President Uribe for political corruption and ties with paramilitaries. He defines his politics as “not based on building socialism, but on building democracy and peace, period.”

Vice-presidential candidate Francia Márquez projects what looks, from this vantage point, to be star-power. She is a 40-year-old African-descended lawyer and award-winning environmentalist who, from her rural base, organized against plunder of natural resources. As a presidential candidate in the primary elections in March, she gained 780,000 votes from Historical Pact electors – third place within that coalition. Her candidacy reflects a merger of sorts between social-movement and political-party kinds of activism.

Candidate Rodolfo Hernández is a special case. Analyst Horacio Duque claims that, “The Gringos’ Embassy and the [Colombian] ultraright are moving to catapult” this former mayor of Bucaramanga “onto a platform for existential salvation … by forcing a way toward a second round.” The wealthy real estate profiteer and mega landlord for low-income renters faces bribery charges relating to a “brokerage contract” and trash disposal. With a slogan of “no lying, no stealing, and no treason,” Hernández is a self-described enemy of the “traditional clans.” He is a devotee of social media.

The Historical Pact campaign benefited from circumstances. The failings of 2016 Peace Agreement with the FARC insurgency are clear, namely: persisting violence, no agrarian reform, and continuing drug war in the countryside. Blame falls upon Uribe’s machinations and the Duque government.

The campaign follows two years of demonstrations that, led by young people, were violently repressed by the police. Protesters called for full access to healthcare and education, pension reforms and new labor legislation. They set an agenda for change.

Death threats greeting Petro and Francia Márquez on the campaign trail forced them to cancel some events and deliver speeches from behind protective shields. Earlier popular mobilizations had also triggered ugly reactions.

Commentators recalled the assassinations of four leftist or liberal presidential candidates between 1987 and 1990 and the murder of prospective presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on April 9, 1948. Petro and Gaitan are the only progressively-oriented political figures in Colombia’s history to have had realistic hopes for becoming president.

For a few days in early May the “Clan del Golfo” paramilitary group reacted to its leader’s extradition to the United States on drug-trafficking charges; paramilitaries “stole, threatened, killed, and burned trucks and taxis” throughout northern Colombia. They coordinated their mayhem with the police and soldiers, and “the Duque government didn’t move a finger to contain them.” Reasserting their role as enforcers and destabilizers, the paramilitaries disrupted the Historical Pact’s campaign.

Petro and Márquez promised much. They would improve food security, education, healthcare, pensions and reverse the privatization of human services. Petro would rein in extractive industries, cut back on fossil-fuel use, and renegotiate free trade agreements. He called for land for small farmers, peace with insurgent National Liberation Army, and for restraining the paramilitaries. He promised to respect Venezuela’s sovereignty.

Colombia’s military is displeased about a prospective Petro government. In April, Petro criticized military commanders’ close ties with paramilitary bosses. In a revealing response that violated constitutional norms, General Eduardo Zapateiro accused Petro of harassing the military for political reasons and of having taken illegal campaign funds.

An interventionist U.S. government is uneasy about a change-oriented government in Colombia. U.S. General Laura Richardson, head of the U.S. Southern Command, met with Colombian General Luis Navarro in March. She sought assurance that a Petro victory would not lead to the dismantling of seven U.S. Air Force bases in Colombia. Navarro indicated military leaders and most congresspersons would oppose such a step. The Southern Command issued a press release confirming that “Colombia is a staunch security partner.”

U.S. Ambassador Phillip Goldberg used an interview in mid-May to reflect upon electoral fraud. He mentioned the “real risk posed by the eventual interference in the elections by the Russians, Venezuelans, or Cubans.” As U.S. ambassador in Bolivia in 2019, Goldberg had taken the lead in advancing false accusations of electoral fraud that fueled the coup against President Evo Morales.

The U.S. impulse to determine who governs in Colombia was on display on May 13 with a debate involving Colombian vice-presidential candidates. It was staged in Washington, not in Colombia. The congressionally-funded U.S. Institute of Peace session hosted the session. The appearance was that of a junior partner auditioning, as in seeking approval from a boss.

Commenting on his victory, Petro remarked that “forces allied to Duque have been defeated … The message to the world is that an era is finished.” Reaching out to “fearful businesspersons,” he proposed that “social justice and economic stability are good for productivity.”

The Historical Pact faces an uphill battle as it approaches the voting on June 19. According to an observer, opposition candidate Rodolfo Hernández will inherit the institutional and personnel resources the Duque government dedicated to the Federico Gutiérrez campaign. First – round voters for the several rightwing candidates will now turn to Hernández. The Historical Pact will have to engage with Colombians who did not vote on May 29.