Lights off on the Pandemic: Johns Hopkins University to retire COVID-19 tracker

Benjamin Mateus

After providing the public in the US and across the world three years of vital day to day information on the status of the COVID pandemic, Johns Hopkins University announced yesterday that they were retiring their highly acclaimed and well-appreciated Coronavirus Resource Center on March 10, 2023. Indeed, the end of this invaluable resource has significant implications for the present and for future pandemics.

Picture of the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine online Coronavirus Resource Center, February 10, 2023 [Photo: WSWS]

The site had been launched on March 3, 2020, by Johns Hopkins engineering professor, Lauren Gardner, precisely because there was a complete lack of any information or infrastructure for reporting such data. In September 2020, Gardner was named one of the “100 most influential people in the world” by Time for her efforts to develop the free, open website.

She noted at the time, “ I am deeply honored and humbled to have been individually recognized for an effort that has required the hard work and dedication of so many, including the team at the Applied Physics Lab, our students in the Center for Systems Science and engineering, our partners at ESRI, and multiple colleagues from across Johns Hopkins University, who have spent tireless weeks and months collecting, verifying, delivering, and communicating on this critical data, incoordination with officials from around the nation and the world.”

It can’t be overstated that in a pandemic, reliable data is of the essence for utilizing resources appropriately and directing plans rationally to contain the spread of disease and save lives and well-being. However, given that “forever COVID” is the stated policy of the Biden administration to the pandemic, reliable data is anathema to ending all pandemic measures.

With the carefully crafted and systematically implemented cover-up of critical COVID metrics led foremost by the White House beginning last year in the wake of the highly contagious and deadly Omicron phase of the pandemic, the public, as well as academic and government institutions across the globe, had no other recourse but to rely even more on the only credible source for data being provided by the Johns Hopkins COVID dashboard. In the wake of yesterday’s announcement that their tracker was shutting down meant not only had the curtain been drawn on any public health response against the pandemic, but the lights are about to go out altogether.

This comes as no surprise. It was almost one year ago, on March 14, 2022, that the World Socialist Web Site remarked that with the US public’s attention on the war in Ukraine, the entire state apparatus was shutting down daily reporting of COVID-19 cases and deaths. As the report noted then, “This nationwide rollback has been carried out with no public awareness, and there has not been a single national news report, in any major US news outlet, on these moves to shut down regular reporting.” These assessments have now been confirmed completely.

But by no means has the pandemic completed its assault on the population in the US (or anywhere else for that matter) despite President Joe Biden’s declaration last fall that the pandemic was over and with calls by both Democratic and Republican parties to wind down all public health emergency measures that provide people free effective and safe vaccines, rapid antigen tests and antivirals that can prevent the development of severe disease and Long COVID. In the wake of these measures, millions will be left without insurance and financial assistance all the while inflation is rapidly emptying saving accounts across millions of homes.

According to the CDC’s wastewater tracking, more than one-third of all sites reporting such data to the national public health agency have seen more than doubling of levels of SARS-CoV-2 up three-fold from a month ago despite the decline in official COVID cases reported to authorities. The seven-day average in deaths has been steadily climbing since the beginning of December having consistently remained over 450 deaths per day since the New Year.

In all, close to 1.14 million Americans have died from COVID, with 20,000 deaths just in 2023. If we tallied all the deaths since the BA.1 surge passed through the country in mid-February 2022, almost 190,000 people have died, an average of around 520 deaths per day. This is the new normal that American families have been asked to swallow. Such figures only confirm that the pandemic is far from over and calls for the complete dismantling of all public health tracking of infectious diseases is completely contrary to the social functions of state and national public health institutions and an abdication of their stated responsibilities.

Dr. Ellie Murray, epidemiologist at Boston University who spoke eloquently on the issue that COVID was far from becoming endemic, told the WSWS, “I’m really sad to see it ending, as it was a fantastic resource and demonstrated so well how people from all areas of expertise have something to contribute to public health and pandemic response. That said, I certainly don’t fault them for not being able to keep this going indefinitely. They were providing a valuable public health service. But public services are supposed to be provided by our governmental agencies and funded via our taxes. We never should have had to be in the position where JHU [Johns Hopkins University] needed to provide this service, no matter how grateful I and many others are to them for doing so.”

Devabhaktuni “Sri” Srikrishna, a San Francisco-based diagnostic expert and computer/network architect who was drawn into the 2014 unfolding Ebola crisis in Guinea, wrote in an email exchange regarding the JHU COVID tracker, “it was at times the world’s only trusted source of real-time, daily insight into the worldwide growth of the pandemic. It was relied on by people, governments and corporations alike ... I wish such a tracker existed and maintained for all infectious disease worldwide (such as Flu and Ebola) not just COVID.”

Greg Travis, who has carefully tracked COVID data and has been vocal on the need for reliable data and responsible public health response to the pandemic, wrote on Twitter, “And were’ done. I will stop processing Johns Hopkins data on March 10th when they shut down. I will continue to report COVID mortality from death certificates after that data, but be aware that death certificates suffer from undercount and at least a six month lag.”

In a brief telephone interview yesterday afternoon, Travis said, “It's just so tragic. What I saw, what I thought today about the JHU announcement, the main emotion it arose in me was deep sadness. It’s not unexpected, though. I wasn’t prepared for JHU to do it, but not surprising. I wonder though the timing and phrasing …”

Though Johns Hopkins never openly explained why they were taking their dashboard down, were there political pressures being brought to bear? Travis noted that JHU is reliant like any other tracker on reliable data. Even back in September of 2022, Axios reported that due to lack of real-time data and reliable figures, it had to drop testing numbers and provide less frequent updates.

In an email they wrote, “The changes are being driven by the declining quality and utility of pandemic data reported by state governments.” Data head for JHU’s Coronavirus Resource Center, Beth Blauer, had commented, “We have seen a dramatic shift in the way that state and local governments not only collect this data but share it publicly. That deeply constrains the way that we can actually report.”

Travis made a similar observation with regards to the American Academy of Pediatrics who had been tracking and publishing cases among children due to lack of reliable statistics from the centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “But in July 2022 they announced they would not do it anymore because no one was giving them the information,” he added.

“It wasn’t because it wasn’t important, or they tired of it. They just couldn’t get the information. And this has happened to JHU. Since spring of 2022, case and death attainment has completely collapsed. Most of the US only provides, at best, data once a week. And entire states that didn’t report anything throughout the holidays. You have to gather the information from the ground. If that stops happening, you can’t aggregate it up. I’ve been tracking this information every day.”

Travis explained that such information is being deliberately withheld. “Our response to signals is to discontinue following those signals.” He explained that the superintendent of his son’s school informed the parents that in January 2022 they would stop collecting and sharing data on the number of COVID cases among children. “And that was the deadliest month for them during the pandemic. Meaning, we aren’t going to look anymore because the numbers were just too horrible. And families are being held responsible for making decisions about sending children to schools but lack any information to make appropriate decisions.”

He continued, “I recently sent an email to my schoolboard asking them what we can do to make schools safe as the world’s most powerful and affluent afford themselves at Davos.” During the highly publicized but secretive meeting between world leaders and billionaires, every pandemic measure was taken to protect the world’s elite.

“They said nothing - Thank you for your interest. That’s it. Nothing about how to increase ventilation. Nothing about CO2 monitors. Nothing about ultraviolet sterilizers or vaccines. These were things they employed at Davos to keep the participants safe. They had a lanyard that attested they were COVID positive or negative and they couldn’t get into the venue if they were positive.”

On the question of Biden and the ending of the pandemic emergency measures which are intimately tied to ending of all statistics on the state of the pandemic, Travis said, “It amazes me that when people talk to me about the Trump administration, and don’t see the same thing happening in the Biden administration. Their response to the pandemic has no ideology. It is only cruelty.”

He continued, “For a person, myself, who once called Biden a national treasure during Obama’s tenure, there is nothing dispiriting than to realize that a party I belonged to my entire life a party, that my late wife was an elected official in that party, when I heard what Biden said about the public health emergency, I realized that the Democratic party’s only guiding ideology was an ideology of cruelty for cruelty’s sake.”

He concluded, “I can’t imagine a politician that doesn’t want good news. The fact that they are shutting it down means the news is not good and the way they respond to bad news is to hide it.”

Death toll in Turkey-Syria quake nears 25,000, reports expose Turkish government’s criminality

Ulaş Ateşçi

As the earthquake disaster on the Turkish-Syrian border enters its fifth day, the death toll is set to reach a staggering 25,000. As of yesterday evening, total deaths in Turkey, where some 80,000 people were reportedly injured, exceeded 20,665, while deaths in Syria reached 3,500. Tens of thousands of people are thought to still be under the rubble in both countries, and at least 6 million people have been left homeless by the quake.

The Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) announced having received over 30,000 “damage reports” after the quake that devastated ten cities in Turkey. In Syria, where the first international aid only reached Thursday, over 900 buildings collapsed and about 2,000 buildings were damaged, according to the Gazete Duvar.

People bury their loved ones, victims of Monday earthquake, in Adiyaman, Turkey, Friday, Feb. 10, 2023. Emergency crews made a series of dramatic rescues in Turkey on Friday, pulling several people, some almost unscathed, from the rubble, four days after a catastrophic earthquake killed more than 20,000. [AP Photo/Emrah Gurel]

One of the most striking images of the social catastrophe in the region was of the mass grave where thousands of people were buried in Adıyaman. The situation is similar in other cities hit by the earthquake.

Journalists working for media outlets outside the government's control and social media users are reporting that there are still problems in the affected provinces in meeting basic needs such as electricity, water, natural gas, shelter and sanitation.

An aid volunteer in Hatay's Antakya district, one of the hardest-hit areas, told the World Socialist Web Site that only on the third day of the earthquake did heavy equipment begin search and rescue operations, in a district which looked “as if an atomic bomb had been dropped.” Before that, people used picks and shovels to dig out those under the rubble, and critical hours were wasted.

Turkish rescue workers carry Ergin Guzeloglan, 36, to an ambulance after pulled him out from a collapsed building five days after an earthquake in Hatay, southern Turkey, early Saturday, Feb. 11, 2023. Emergency crews made a series of dramatic rescues in Turkey on Friday, pulling several people, some almost unscathed, from the rubble, four days after a catastrophic earthquake. [AP Photo/Can Ozer]

The aid volunteer said there is still no large-scale operation except for search and rescue teams from a few Istanbul district municipalities. There is still no phone reception and no Internet. Only a few tents have been set up at the entrance to the city, and most people are still spending the night on the streets with fires. A cholera outbreak has begun.

Official figures show that yesterday Turkey surpassed the death toll threshold of the great Marmara Earthquake of 1999. This 7.4 magnitude earthquake that struck nearly a quarter of a century ago killed 17,480 people in five provinces, according to official reports. But some unofficial reports put the actual death toll at over 50,000.

However, the 2023 earthquake, centered in Kahramanmaraş, came after decades of massive advances in industry and construction technology worldwide and in Turkey, improved earthquake regulations, and persistent warnings from scientists.

The Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) has filed a criminal complaint against “authorized and responsible contractors and officials who took part in the construction of the buildings that collapsed in the earthquake, and those who approved and failed to inspect the projects of the collapsed buildings,” and demanded they are prosecuted for “intentional homicide” and “negligent homicide.”

It is clear who should be put on trial. Responsibility for this massive social crime belongs to the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in particular, and to the entire state and political establishment that failed to take necessary safety measures.

The Erdoğan government's response to the earthquake has focused more on covering it up than on promptly coming to the aid of earthquake victims above and below the rubble.

Speaking yesterday in Adıyaman, facing enormous social anger and opposition that could not be suppressed Erdoğan said, “There have been some shortcomings in this process, but our state has rushed to the rescue of citizens with all its means.” He then admitted, “It is a fact that we could not speed up the interventions as much as we would have liked.” Nevertheless, he attacked those who criticized his government's bankrupt response to the earthquake disaster as “political looters.”

With the monthly poverty line for a family of four around 29,000 TL (US$1,540) and a minimum wage of 8,500 TL (US$450), Erdoğan announced that earthquake victims will receive only 10,000 TL (US$530) per household.

This is a continuation of the government’s policy. It has not allocated resources to save tens of thousands of lives by building earthquake-resilient cities in the 10 provinces hit by the quake, or in Istanbul, where scientists expect an earthquake of over 7-magnitude in the coming years. Instead, it has poured hundreds of billions into the banks, the major corporations and military spending.

As scientists have underlined, no party of the capitalist establishment has mobilized or campaigned against the government’s official neglect policy towards coming earthquake disasters in Kahramanmaraş or Istanbul.

Geologist Prof. Dr. Naci Görür, who has drawn attention to the growing danger of earthquakes in the region, especially in the last three years, demanding immediate measures are taken, again pointed out the danger to Istanbul after Monday's earthquake. “The probability of an earthquake [in Istanbul] within 30 years, at any time since 1999, was 62 percent. We have spent 23 years. 62 percent probability has increased to around 70 percent. We are now in overtime.”

Since the earthquake, Erdoğan has repeatedly claimed that it was impossible to be prepared for such a massive disaster in order to deny his government’s responsibility. Both the analyses of scientists and the reports of Turkish state institutions themselves refute this argument.

Prof. David Alexander, an expert in emergency planning and management at University College London, told the BBC, “The maximum intensity for this earthquake was violent but not necessarily enough to bring well-constructed buildings down.”

Despite improvements in earthquake regulations in 2018, there was corruption in practice, Prof. Alexander added. “In most places the level of shaking was less than the maximum, so we can conclude out of the thousands of buildings that collapsed, almost all of them don't stand up to any reasonably expected earthquake construction code.”

The BBC report pointed to Turkish government “construction amnesties… effectively legal exemptions for the payment of a fee, for structures built without the required safety certificates.” Pelin Pınar Giritlioğlu, Istanbul head of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects' Chamber of City Planners, said, “Up to 75,000 buildings across the affected earthquake zone in southern Turkey have been given construction amnesties.”

The last “construction amnesty” was in 2018.

A January-June 2022 report by the Turkish Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Ministry stated that a total of 244,607 unsafe buildings were identified in 81 provinces across Turkey, of which 2,512 were in Hatay, 1,765 in Kahramanmaraş and 1,239 in Adıyaman. In 10 provinces, including these three, the number of buildings officially said to have been completely collapsed is around 6,500.

In Istanbul, a city of 16 million inhabitants, 84,000 unsafe buildings were identified. Hundreds of thousands of people living in these buildings are vulnerable to an imminent earthquake.

Despite this, according to the daily BirGün, during the earthquake disaster district municipal councils in Istanbul, governed by Erdoğan’s AKP, convened and “green areas were opened for construction in the February session of the municipal councils.” This means further reducing the already very limited gathering areas after earthquakes.

The Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD), affiliated to the Interior Ministry and coordinating the earthquake response, was revealed to be completely unprepared for a disaster directly affecting 13 million people in Turkey alone. AFAD, which responded to the earthquake with only around 8,000 search and rescue personnel, confirmed that it was understaffed in its own 2019 report.

According to T24, the report noted that “the division of duties, authorities and responsibilities within the institution has not been made sufficiently clear,” “structural and functional integration has not yet been fully achieved due to the merger of three institutions that were previously in operation,” and “some search and rescue technicians cannot take active roles in search and rescue services.”

AFAD's budget was cut by one-third in 2023. Its response to the magnitude-6 earthquake in the northwestern city of Düzce on November 23, 2022, already made clear the inadequacy of the institution and criminal neglect of the government. In its report on this 2022 Düzce earthquake, in which no one died under the rubble, AFAD expressed its own shortcomings as follows:

After the earthquake, Turkey Disaster Response Plan (TAMP) could not be put into effect because disaster groups and institutions were not sufficiently prepared. Since TAMP could not be implemented, disaster management turned into chaos and confusion, leading to confusion of duties and authorities. Decisions could not be taken properly due to lack of communication. Disaster response groups were not able to manage their resources effectively, which resulted in inadequate response.

This led to the late and inadequate response to the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake, resulting in tens of thousands of preventable deaths and leaving tens of thousands more trapped under the rubble.

Mental Health Illness: A Global Tragedy by Design

Graham Peebles

After being ignored and scoffed at for generations, there is now growing awareness of the legitimacy and seriousness of mental health illness; of the debilitating, often suffocating, impact conditions such as depression and anxiety have on individuals, as well as the broader societal impact.

Mental health illness is a modern-day tragedy of global proportions; while individual patterns and circumstances vary, widespread interwoven causes within contemporary society function as major trigger of unhappiness, low self-esteem and discontent. Values, so-called, socio-economic and educational methodologies, including competition, comparison and conformity, the relentless agitation of desire, the importance of ‘success’ and focus on pleasure, all create insecurity, discontent and division; and where there is division of any kind, within the individual or society, conflict inevitably follows.

In June 2022 the World Health Organization (WHO) published its most detailed report on the topic: ‘The World mental health report: Transforming mental health for all’, designed, “To inspire and inform better mental health for everyone everywhere.” The data shows that around one billion people suffer from some form of mental health illness, or one in eight of us; “a staggering figure” [rising annually] which the UN agency rightly illustrates, “is even more worrying, if you consider that it includes around one in seven teenagers.”

Shocking as they are, these figures serve as little more than pointers to the scale of the problem. Most people do not live in developed countries with relatively well-resourced health services, but in poor or desperately poor nations, where little research is carried out and where there is often no mental health support. WHO report that, “around half the world’s population lives in countries where there is just one psychiatrist to serve 200,000 or more people.”

Where treatment is available, it is often unaffordable or inaccessible; consequentially “most people with diagnosed mental health conditions go completely untreated,” and so they suffer, often agonizingly, and in many cases for decades. Mental health illness destroys lives, feeding employment, education and relationship issues or failures; alcohol and drug addiction, and in extreme cases self-harm and suicide. According to WHO (2019 figure), every 40 seconds, of every day, someone somewhere in the world dies of suicide, many more attempt it; among under 25 year olds it’s one of the leading causes of death.

A perpetual state of agitation

Parallel with growing awareness of mental health, there is a good deal of talk in western nations now (commonplace in the Orient for eons) about meditation; and the Buddhist inspired discipline of mindfulness; of focusing completely on the task or activity at hand.

Meditation (from the Sanskrit dhyana) is, strictly speaking, not an activity: it is a direct experience of reality, in which the division between experiencer and experience has ceased to be. However, what is commonly regarded as mediation is more often than not some form of concentration or visualization exercise. Concentration on the breath, on an imagined form or a particular word/form of words – a mantra of some kind. All of which, whilst perhaps not qualifying as ‘meditation’, is extremely positive for mental fitness.

In the same way that physical health requires our active engagement (exercise, diet, sleep etc.), if we are to create a healthy mind, particularly given the enormous stresses and demands of life, we need to take responsibility for it. To pay attention to the activity of the mind, to learn to focus. This means becoming aware of the movement of thoughts, which much of the time takes place unconsciously and is saturated in conditioning. Psychological/sociological conditioning is ubiquitous; beginning from birth – before in fact – and continuing relentlessly until, or unless we wake up and realize that what we take to be ‘I’ or ‘me’, is nothing more than a conditioned structure, an image, built around a set of accumulated ideas; opinions and views – about the world, other people and ourselves, poured into the mind and unconsciously absorbed.

Such constructs are inherently inhibiting and divisive, adding to the belief that we are separate, from one another, from the natural environment, and from that which we call God. The socio-economic ideology of the age strengthens this sense of separation; cruel, violent and unjust it denies compassion, promoting values based on selfishness, personal ambition/achievement at the expense of the collective good, and the health of the natural world. Economic insecurity is, for the majority, the daily reality, how to pay the rent/mortgage, for instance, and avoid destitution; separation and isolation creates an environment in which fear, most commonly experienced as anxiety or stress, can and does flourish.

Consumerism, which constitutes the life blood of the economic system, is offered as a way to alleviate the inflicted pain. Poisonous on numerous levels it requires discontent and desire to be constantly maintained, ensuring that the mind is kept in a perpetual state of agitation; driven by longing, moving from one feeling induced thought to another, never settled. In order to move beyond the endless buffeting of fluctuating, often painful feelings and transient thoughts, we need to create mental fitness and strengthen the mind. A powerful way of doing this is through meditation and mindfulness.

The impact of meditation on stress

Over the years various studies have been conducted investigating the impact of meditation. In October 2022 Practical Psychology discussed research showing “that meditation can help thicken the prefrontal cortex of the brain,……[which], not only increases our ability to complete tasks…but also reduces aging in the brain.” In addition, “Meditation reduces chatter in the monkey mind. We stop focusing on our problems and start observing what is happening around us,” thus reducing mental agitation; a 2020 study undertaken by the Center for Healthy Minds (CHM) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on a Buddhist monk, found that his brain was ‘eight years younger’ than his 41 years; adding “to a growing pile of evidence that meditative practice may be associated with slowed biological ageing…….[which] makes sense biologically, because stress is a thing that causes ageing,” and meditation helps to reduce stress.

New research, reported in The British Medical Journal (BMJ), which looked at the impact of meditation on the gut health of 37 Tibetan Buddhist monks, and 19 secular residents, revealed that gut bacteria associated with the alleviation of mental illness “in the monks differed substantially from those of their secular neighbors……suggesting that meditation can influence certain bacteria that may have a role in mental health.”

Becoming mentally aware, learning to consciously work with the mind, to focus on the task at hand, and not allowing the mind to wander off; strengthening and expanding one’s ability to concentrate, facilities mental fitness, reduces the impact of daily stress and worry, and, as the Buddha taught, creates joy: “ it is a great good to control the mind; a mind self-controlled [focused] is a source of great joy.” The simple act of sitting quietly for 15 minutes or so, once or twice a day, shifting our focus away from the external chaos and turning within, has been demonstrated (by CHM and others) to aid this process.

Like all exercise regimes, discipline and consistency is needed, but once a rhythm of reflection is established, it quickly becomes part of the daily routine. In choiceless observation, the great Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti maintained, “every form of conditioning is dissolved,” allowing transformation within the brain to take place; healing, in which, as the study on the 41 year old monk demonstrated, the brain cells themselves are rejuvenated, allowing peace of mind to spontaneously come about.

The world we are living in, with its constant noise, demands and pressures; the destructive ideologies, divisions and unjust systems, works against such inner quiet and mental well-being. Indeed, contentment and unconditional happiness is the enemy of the dominant corrupt economic paradigm, founded and reliant as it is on consumerism and desire. Constant longing (through dishonest advertising and relentless marketing) is its aim and is the guarantee for misery, depression and anxiety/stress. Within such a mentally and physically unhealthy environment, it is crucial that individually we recognize the dangers, which are real and potent, and, where possible and within our own limitations, act to safeguard our own well-being, mental and physical, and of course, the two are inextricably connected.

Former NATO general to be next Czech president

Markus Salzmann

At the end of January, Petr Pavel won the run-off election for the office of Czech president. The former NATO general is considered to be a zealous warmonger against Russia. Like the country’s right-wing government led by Petr Fiala, he advocates an intensification of the conflict with Russia in the Ukraine war.

Petr Pavel at the end of his term as chairman of the NATO Military Committee 2018 [Photo by NATO / flickr / CC BY-ND 2.0]

The arms deliveries made so far to Ukraine were not enough, according to Pavel. On this issue, he sees “really no reason to set limits,” the military leader told the AFP news agency. The West should provide Ukraine with all types of weapons except nuclear ones, he said.

“Ukraine cannot fight such a tough opponent without tanks, drones, artillery and longer-range missiles, and perhaps not without supersonic aircraft,” Pavel said. He openly criticised European countries that, in his opinion, were not delivering enough heavy warfare equipment to Ukraine. He said that “more courage” was needed to deliver modern weapons. In this context, he also called for the dispatch of F-16 fighter jets and that Ukraine be allowed to join NATO as soon as possible.

In his view, Western governments should have reacted more decisively, i.e., intervened militarily immediately after the secession of the Donbas. He advocates direct intervention by NATO ground troops against Russia. He would also agree to the deployment of NATO soldiers to protect humanitarian corridors and to a no-fly zone.

He has also gone onto the offensive against China. As soon as he was elected, Pavel telephoned Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and invited her to a personal meeting. Until now, the Czech Republic has officially supported a One-China policy and did not maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

The Ukraine war was the central topic of the presidential election. The massive price increases resulting from the sanctions against Russia are hitting the population harder than almost any other country in the EU, with the exception of the Baltic states.

Broad sections of the population, who must bear the burden for the war, reject the policy advocated by the future president and the government. In the presidential election, however, this opposition found no expression.

In the first round of voting, former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and Pavel were on equal terms, with all other candidates far behind. In the run-off election on January 27 and 28, Pavel then prevailed with 58.2 percent of the vote against his opponent’s 41.6 percent. Eleven of the country’s 14 districts went to Pavel and in the capital Prague he got 76 percent of the vote. Babiš won only in rural areas.

The result does not signify support for Pavel's fanatical war policy; rather, it is a distorted expression of anger with the entrepreneur and billionaire Babiš. He is seen as the epitome of corruption and the subordination of all sectors of society to the interests of business. In his government from 2017 to 2021, he passed several austerity pacts, made concessions to companies and the super-rich, while at the same time giving free rein to the pandemic.

Babiš's attitude towards the Ukraine war was somewhat more cautious than Pavel's. Before the second round of elections, he even answered “no” in a TV debate to the question of whether he would support the Baltic states or Poland in the event of a Russian attack. After the broadcast, however, he quickly distanced himself from his statement.

In the meantime, Babiš has congratulated Pavel on his election victory and advised him, “Forget Babiš!” However, the oligarch is not expected to retire quietly from politics. His party, ANO, is still the strongest in parliament and expects to win the election in three years’ time.

All the defeated candidates from the first round called for votes for Pavel in the run-off. Danuše Nerudová and Pavel Fischer even attended a Pavel election rally and provided advertising space.

There is expected to be close cooperation between the president and the government when the term of incumbent President Milos Zeman ends on March 8 and Pavel is sworn in a day later. Although Pavel ran as an independent candidate, he says he voted for the SPOLU party alliance, which agreed to Petr Fiala (ODS) as prime minister, following the last parliamentary election in 2021.

Fiala leads a five-party coalition held together by their opposition to Babiš. It is dominated by right-wing, conservative parties and extends to the Pirate Party. Like the government, Pavel advocates the introduction of the euro, austerity measures and rearmament both at home and abroad.

Pavel's background as a military man and his aggressive stance towards Russia also made him the preferred candidate of the EU and its member states. Ursula von der Leyen, head of the EU Commission in Brussels, was the first to congratulate him. Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová made a point of travelling to Pavel's campaign headquarters in Prague to congratulate him personally.

Pavel stands for the growth of militarism that is being vehemently pursued within the EU. On his election posters he presented himself with the slogan “Experienced diplomat and war hero.” This included a military medal next to his portrait.

Born in 1961 in western Bohemia, Pavel comes from an officer's family. He was educated at the military high school in Opava, after which he studied at the Army Military College in Vyškov. From 1983 he served with the paratroopers in Prostějov and quickly rose to become commander of an elite unit. During this time he became a member of the Stalinist Communist Party. In the late 1980s he attended a military intelligence school.

After the so-called Velvet Revolution in 1989 and the introduction of capitalism, Pavel was one of those political opportunists who used their contacts in the military and intelligence services to further their careers. Only a few years after the fall of communism, Pavel was an advocate of the NATO war in Yugoslavia and was himself deployed there.

From 2012 to 2015, he was chief of the General Staff of the Czech Army, then, until 2018, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, the highest military position in the Western defence alliance. Pavel was the first representative from a former Warsaw Pact state to hold this position.

Already, the effects of the EU's war policy are dramatic for the population, which is suffering from soaring inflation. Housing is becoming a luxury. According to a report by the consulting firm Deloitte, the price per square metre for housing in the capital Prague is the equivalent of €15. According to the report, a 70-square-metre flat costs more than €1,000 a month, about 25 percent more than a year ago. At the same time, the average monthly salary is around €1,600.

Buying a flat, which was very popular until a few years ago, is now hardly possible. Rising prices per square metre and mortgage interest rates have quadrupled in five years, posing extreme problems for working families.

Electricity and gas prices rose more than in almost any other country last year. In the first half of 2022, electricity prices increased by 62 percent, gas by 71. Even households with average incomes already have to spend 65 percent of their income on rent and energy costs. Government leader Fiala declared last year that the government did not have the means to compensate for these price increases for households.

The more than 300,000 Ukrainian refugees in the country are particularly affected by poverty. Of them, 58 percent were living in poverty in December. Six months earlier, this figure was 49 percent. While the government never misses an opportunity to mention the suffering of the Ukrainian population at the hands of Russia in order to justify its war policy, there is no proper official support for the refugees in the country.

At the same time, banks and corporations are making record profits thanks to massive government support. As the statistics of the Czech National Bank show, Czech banks posted a net profit of the equivalent of €4.4 billion in 2022, according to current figures. Compared to the previous year, this is an increase of €1.5 billion.

As economic distress grows in Russia, government makes officials’ wealth and income classified information

Andrea Peters

Indices published since the start of 2023 show that key sections of Russian industry, the country’s treasury and masses of working people are in economic distress. As signs of the problems increase, the country’s Duma recently passed a law ending the requirement that parliamentary representatives publicly declare their wealth and income. The measure was justified on grounds of military expediency.

People stand in line to withdraw U.S. dollars and Euros from an ATM in St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)

Despite record oil and gas sales, the Kremlin has not overcome the impacts of crippling western sanctions imposed after Russia invaded Ukraine in response to years of US-NATO provocations. As Washington and its allies escalate militarily—ever more openly proclaiming their intentions to break apart and “decolonize” Russia—the ruling class in Moscow finds itself on a collision course with its own working class, a population which it can only exploit but not defend.

In late January, news broke that auto manufacturing in Russia declined by 58.8 percent year, reaching a level not seen since the era of “stagnation” under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. The decline, reported by the Association of European Business based on official Russian data, has set the country back 50 years. Industry expert Sergei Slyanov described the situation in an interview with press outlet Nastoyashschye Vremya as “catastrophic.” The plants, he says, are filled with half-built cars.

Last year, every auto factory in the country halted operations at some point, and most have not come back online, with American and European manufacturers having pulled out of the Russian market entirely. Citroen, Opel, Peugeot, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen, Mazda, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai-Kia, Nissan and Toyota are just a few of the companies that have closed down facilities that span all of Russia, from Saint Petersburg in the east to Vladivostok in the west.

According to the Rosstat, the country’s federal statistical agency, in October of last year 27.1 percent of autoworkers were furloughed, and another 8.4 percent were working part-time. The industry directly employs 300,000 and indirectly roughly 3 million people. The shuttered Hyundai plant in Saint Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, laid off 2,180 workers last month.

Speaking about the Russian province located in between Poland and Lithuania along the coast of the Baltic Sea, Slyanov stated, “To count precisely the number of people who have survived in the Kaliningrad region at Avtotor, for example—it is very difficult to imagine such a thing. It is not for nothing that they were given land and sown potatoes so that these people, who produced BMWs recently, are now turned into peasants and at least will not starve to death.”

While Chinese manufacturers have taken over some idled facilities, this is not enough to compensate for the production that has been lost. The new cars, twice as expensive as those made before the war, are out of reach of most Russians. According to an analysis of government data conducted by Russia’s Higher School of Economics, real incomes in 2022 were 8 to 9 percent lower than they were in 2013, with essentially a decade of growth having been wiped out.

Russian domestic carmakers have neither the technology nor the know-how to restart production on a wide scale, as the industry has been dominated by foreign firms for decades. Currently, producers at AvtoVaz, Russia’s massive, flagship facility in Togliatti, are largely out of paint, and one can only buy an automobile in one of three colors.

In his interview, Slyanov noted that the government is remaining tight-lipped about conditions in other industries. “We can see that aviation is not doing well either, but we do not know what is happening with ships, what is happening with food, clothing, medicine. We can only guess,” he said.

The Kremlin has recently touted data showing that poverty and unemployment levels are at historic lows in Russia, and inflation is falling. But the statistics and the claims are based on a combination of half-truth and cover-up.

While inflation, which stood at around 12 percent last year, has declined, the fact that price increases are slowing does not mean that working people who could not afford goods at yesterday’s prices will suddenly be able to afford them at today’s. If one could not buy a pound of butter for $1 in December, one will not be able to buy one for $1.05 in January. A drop in the inflation rate from 12 percent to a predicted 5 to 8 percent in 2023 does not improve the situation for a single working person.

Costs continue to rise for households in those areas of the economy most central to families’ budgets. Last year, the Russian government authorized what was supposed to be a maximum 9 percent increase in rates charged for utilities. Households and businesses across the country, however, report being hit with bills that are 30 to 40 percent higher and more.

In many cities, residents are circulating petitions opposing the new tariffs. One petitioner in Saint Petersburg said that between November and December of last year his bill went from 3,000 rubles to 5,100 rubles a month, despite the fact that his usage did not climb accordingly. When comparing what he paid for gas in December 2021 to December 2022, a resident of Orenburg saw his charges double.

The federal government insists that the price hikes are necessary to cover the cost of Russia’s dilapidated utility infrastructure. According to a January 26 article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 6,000 utility failures of one form or another happen every month in Russia resulting in blackouts, water shutoffs and heating outages. “People often die,” reports the newspaper. In total, the country needs to replace more than 952,000 kilometers of heating, water and sewer networks.

In 2022, the government took limited measures to buoy the incomes of some of the most distressed layers of the population. It issued a number of support payments to families and indexed pensions for retirees, giving them a 10 percent across-the-board boost. The result of this has been to pull many just across the absurdly-low official poverty line, such that even though they are desperately poor, they are not counted as such.

The state, however, is not willing to extend the mirage farther. The Russian Duma just recently refused to increase the pensions of those of retirement age who continue to work. In other words, a 65-year-old man who still has a job as a security guard will get his pension, but not the 10 percent increase offered pensioners who are not working at all. In addition, in 2023 no one in Russia is eligible for retirement. When the government pushed through pension reforms in 2016, it created a gap in the years that individuals are eligible for retirement such that those who did not make an earlier cutoff date have to wait several more to stop working.

Widespread socioeconomic distress in Russia manifests itself in different forms. One out of every five job-seekers reports long searches to find new work, according to Zarplati.ru. Of the working population under the age of 35, just 17.7 percent make enough to be considered “middle class,” found a new study by the Center for Stratification Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. Forty percent of Russians do not have enough savings to last even three months in the event of a job loss, a federal agency found. Crimes related to drug production are up 40 percent, says the ministry of international affairs. The country is entering its seventh year of population decline, with 2023–2024 expected to have the lowest birth rate on record, notes the Gaidar Institute. A primary reason is that young people are too indebted to have kids.

A report based on a recent survey by sociologists from MGIMO and the University of Finance warned that the socioeconomic situation in Russia is “fraught with the possibility of a social explosion.”

While the Kremlin is quick to highlight the size of Russia’s revenues being generated from hydrocarbon sales, nonetheless there is a growing hole in the country’s treasury, with the state running a budget deficit of 2 trillion rubles, about 2.2 percent of GDP. Experts expect it could rise to 6 trillion rubles. The government has to finance its disastrous war at the same time that it has lost, according to the upper chamber of the country’s parliament, trillions in revenue to tax breaks for businesses. While the country continues to export massive amounts of oil and gas, purchasers are demanding 30 to 40 percent discounts off global prices because, due to western sanctions, it is a “buyer’s market.”

It is under these conditions that the state Duma just enacted a law that ends income and wealth reporting requirements for parliamentary representatives. There is a related effort underway to extend this to thousands more government officials. Already, many local and regional politicians are able to keep their riches secret because they are also businessmen and, no doubt out of the generosity of their own hearts, have long decided to forego a meager government salary. As a result, they are required to reveal virtually nothing about their wealth.

Clearly the Russian ruling class is afraid that under conditions of growing social suffering and an unwinnable war instigated by the imperialist powers and being waged for the defense of the country’s oligarchs, knowledge of its wealth will provoke a social explosion.

Simultaneously, the state Duma is considering a law that will allow commanding officers and military police to arrest and detain rank-and-file soldiers for disciplinary reasons without the decision of a military court during times of conscription, war and martial law.

In budget talks with Biden: Republicans target food stamps, student loans for cuts

Patrick Martin

In their initial proposals for social spending cuts, in response to a repeated request from President Joe Biden, congressional Republicans have put forward demands to target food stamps and other programs for the poor, as well as to rescind entirely Biden’s proposed student loan debt relief plan, which is currently being challenged in the courts.

While the White House has publicly rejected efforts to link budget cuts to the raising of the federal debt ceiling, which Congress must approve by early June to avoid a federal debt default, the talks have nonetheless begun, on the basis of a purely nominal separation. Debt ceiling talks are going on in one room, as it were, and talks on cuts in social spending in another room, conducted simultaneously and interlinked.

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (Republican-California) [AP Photo/Scott Applewhite]

Biden implicitly backed this cynical arrangement by agreeing to the meeting with Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in the first place. He repeated his appeal to the Republicans to put forward their own budget proposals in his State of the Union speech and in subsequent campaign-style appearances in Madison, Wisconsin, Wednesday and Tampa, Florida, Thursday.

Referring to the formal issuance of a budget proposal for the 2024 fiscal year, which begins October 1, he said in Tampa, “Next month when I offer my fiscal plan, I ask my Republican friends to lay down their plan as well. I really mean it.”

The various proposals have not yet been backed by McCarthy or adopted by the House Republican caucus, but they give a glimpse of the type of reactionary attacks on the working class and young people which will be on the table in the talks with Biden begun by McCarthy last week. McCarthy is to return to the White House within a matter of days for the next round.

One list of proposed cuts was released by Representative Jodey Arrington of Texas, the new chairman of the House Budget Committee, on behalf of the Republican majority on that panel. Arrington identifies himself as a “far-right ideological conservative,” putting him squarely in the mainstream of the Republican caucus.

The 21 Republicans include four members of the ultra-right group that held up McCarthy’s election as speaker for 15 ballots last month, in order to extract concessions on House rules and budget policy.

The measures proposed include cuts totaling more than $1 trillion in domestic discretionary spending, none of it from the military or police, which are treated as untouchable.

The biggest single cut would be $404 billion from Biden’s proposed relief of student loan debt, which came to less than one quarter of the massive $1.7 trillion, but was still anathema to the Republican right. There would be a $25 billion spending reduction by ending the moratorium on student loan payments, currently set to go through June 30, and $379 billion by rescinding the debt cancellation plan, which has not yet taken effect because of state lawsuits against it.

Another $381 billion would come from rescinding $100 billion in pandemic relief funds that are in the pipeline to the states but not yet expended, and eliminating $281 billion in “improper payments,” estimated by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) but not specifically identified (and the estimate includes underpayments as well as overpayments).

The most significant is a full-scale onslaught on social benefits for the most vulnerable sections of the working class, estimated to cut at least $135 billion. Undocumented immigrants, who pay income tax, would be cut off from the Child Tax Credit by requiring Social Security numbers. Workers who qualify for Obamacare subsidies would see those capped. Workers receiving food stamps (SNAP) would be required to provide income verification and submit to work requirements. Those who receive Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF), the very limited cash aid payments remaining after Democrat Bill Clinton backed the abolition of federal welfare payments (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) 27 years ago, would also face work requirements.

Another $100 billion would be cut from environmental programs, including $87 billion from spending authorized by last year’s Inflation Reduction Act and another $13 billion for the purchase of electric or low-emission buses, garbage trucks and postal vehicles, as well as reduced spending on “greenways” and trails.

Another proposed cut inadvertently exposes the hollow demagogy of the Republican attack on so-called “woke” spending. These programs, largely directed at opposing prejudice against gays and lesbians, come to a grand total of $6 million, less than a drop in the bucket. Eliminating them is not an anti-deficit measure, but an expression of the very bigotry the programs are supposed to combat.

The Republican majority on the Budget Committee flatly rejected any increase in taxation on the wealthy, or any increase of any kind in federal revenues, declaring that the budget deficit must be eliminated entirely through spending cuts.

Its press release declared: “We must ‘reverse the curse’ of deepening deficits and debt by addressing the underlying reason that we are having to raise the debt ceiling to begin with: uncontrolled federal spending.”

One of the most vocal members of the committee, Chip Roy of Texas, said there was overall agreement with McCarthy. “The Speaker has indicated his commitment to what we’ve all agreed to fighting to make sure that we restrict spending,” he told the press. “He’s been pretty clear about needing caps, and we’re going to cap 2024 spending.”

Another group of five of the most fascist Republican representatives, all of whom voted against McCarthy’s speakership, sent a letter to Biden before the State of the Union speech demanding “structural reforms” in the food stamp program to reduce its total cost significantly. The five include Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Dan Bishop, Lauren Boebert and Ralph Norman. They all represent districts with sizeable numbers of impoverished working people who would be cut off and left to starve under their proposed cuts.

Senator Rick Scott, whose plan to “sunset” Social Security and Medicare every five years was singled out for attack in the State of the Union address, reiterated his support for the proposal in remarks on Twitter and to the press.

As for the Republican leadership, Speaker Kevin McCarthy declared after Biden’s speech, “A responsible debt limit increase that begins to eliminate wasteful Washington spending and puts us on a path to a balanced budget is not only the right place to start, it’s the only place to start… The debt limit is one of the most important opportunities Congress has to change course.”

The Democrats and the Biden administration will now proceed to “negotiations” with the Republicans, which will inevitably end in massive cuts to social programs.