First-ever outbreaks of Marburg Virus Disease in Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania

Benjamin Mateus

The outbreak of Marburg Virus Disease (MVD) spreading since it was first confirmed on February 12 in the northeastern rural province of Kié-Ntem of the West African country of Equatorial Guinea. It has now reached the coastal city and economic center, Bata, home to approximately half a million people. As of last week, four cases had been detected in the port city, which raised the threat for possible multi-country transmission of the disease, which has a fatality rate similar to Ebola.

In a social media update from last Wednesday on the first-ever epidemic of the “hemorrhagic fever” caused by the Marburg virus, Equatorial Guinea’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare announced that thus far there had been 13 cases with nine confirmed deaths. Two are hospitalized and one has only shown mild symptoms. There are 825 contacts that are being followed.

Equatorial Guinea, located on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, just north of Gabon. [Photo by JRC, EC / CC BY 4.0]

However, at Wednesday’s World Health Organization press briefing, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus indicated that the agency is aware of “additional cases” and has asked the government to “report these cases officially to the WHO.” Twenty suspected but unconfirmed cases have all ended in death.

In his opening statement, Ghebreyesus remarked, “The WHO is on the ground with partners, supporting the Ministry of Health to respond to the outbreak. We have deployed teams to assist with case finding, clinical care, logistics, and community engagement. We have also helped establish treatment units in the affected areas. The number of officially reported cases remains at nine, with seven deaths in three provinces. However, these three provinces are 150 kilometers apart, suggesting wider transmission of the virus.”

Even more concerning is that on March 21, 2023, almost 3,000 kilometers to the east of Equatorial Guinea, Tanzania confirmed its first-ever cases of MVD in the country’s northwest Kagera region, on the western shore of Lake Victoria and adjacent to Uganda’s border. These two recent outbreaks of infections with Marburg Virus do not appear to be epidemiologically related. However, viral sequencing is underway to confirm these are separate events.

It is also worth recalling that Uganda had recently faced one of the largest outbreaks of the Sudan variant of Ebola in two decades. Only on January 11, 2023, did Uganda’s Ministry of Health declare the end of the outbreak, which had affected nine districts and the country’s highly populated capital, Kampala, killing 77 of 164 infected people.

In Tanzania, five of eight confirmed cases have died, including a health care worker, while the other three are under treatment. The WHO noted that they have identified 161 contacts who are being monitored. Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, Regional Director for WHO in Africa, told the media, “The effort by Tanzania’s health authorities to establish the cause of the disease is a clear indication of the determination to effectively respond to the outbreak. We are working with the government to rapidly scale up control measures.”

Although the WHO is initiating “ring vaccination” trials in Equatorial Guinea with three experimental vaccines—produced by Sabin Vaccine Institute, Janssen, and Public Health Vaccines (PHV)—which are similar to Ebola Zaire vaccines but specifically developed for use against Marburg virus, there are currently no approved treatments or vaccines available to protect the people of the affected countries. And of the experimental vaccines, there are only a few hundred doses of Sabin and PHV while Janssen has a few thousand jabs available. 

The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), which uses a recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus vector (VSV) technology for its candidate Marburg vaccine, currently has no available doses. IAVI was awarded $35.7 million from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the US Department of Defense, in 2019.

Electron Microscope of the Marburg virus. [Photo: Dr. Erskine Palmer, Russell Regnery, Ph.D., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library ]

It will be important to identify the safety and efficacy of these treatments, especially as GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization) has warned that outbreaks of Marburg are increasing in frequency  and geography. The fatality rate for infection with Marburg virus is quoted at 88 percent, although with a wide range from 22 to 90 percent. 

The two largest outbreaks to date occurred in Democratic Republic of Congo (1998-2000) with 154 cases and 128 deaths (83 percent fatality rate) and Angola (2005) with 374 cases and 329 deaths (88 percent fatality rate). The present outbreak in Equatorial Guinea could be construed as the third largest, depending on the ability for public health officials in the field to contain its spread.

The appearance of such a deadly pathogen in a large city like Bata is significant in light of recent events with Ebola Sudan in Kampala. As Teresa Lambe, Professor of Vaccinology, and Immunology at Oxford’s Pandemic Sciences Institute told the Telegraph, “Although Marburg virus has recently been detected in rural Tanzania and Equatorial Guinea, the spread of this deadly virus into a heavily populated city is very concerning.” 

Like SARS, MERS, Nipah and Hendra viruses, as well as Ebola, the Marburg virus is carried by bats, which are known to harbor more zoonotic viruses than other mammals. Due to an unusual adaptation of their immune systems, bats avoid the complications of the disease these viruses can cause and can therefore survive to transmit them to other species.

In particular, there is strong evidence that the Egyptian fruit bat is the natural animal reservoir for the Marburg virus, which explains the locations of these outbreaks. What scientists and researchers still don’t understand is the mechanism of animal-to-human spread, but clearly human encroachment into previously undisturbed habitats and the impact of climate change on these areas has led to more human contact with wild animals and more frequent outbreaks.

Like Ebola, the Marburg virus is transmitted through infected body fluids once the person begins to show symptoms, which involve almost every organ system in the body. Typical signs include abdominal pain, loss of appetite, generalized fatigue and aches, nausea and vomiting, bloody diarrhea, electrolyte, liver, and blood abnormalities. Death comes as a result of multiorgan dysfunction and shock. 

The incubation period can last usually between five to 10 days but may be as long as three weeks. Contact tracing and quarantining are critical in controlling the spread of disease and in beginning to administer life supportive care to improve the odds of surviving. Those fortunate few who do survive can have a protracted recovery and long-term sequalae from their infection.

Much of the clinical information comes from the experience in 1967 when infected African green monkeys were shipped to the West German towns of Marburg and Frankfurt as well as Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia). In total, there were 25 primary Marburg virus infections, seven deaths, and six non-lethal secondary infections. Early recognition of the yet unknown infectious etiology that was causing these illnesses among laboratory workers led to rapid containment of the spread. 

The turn of this century has already seen the appearance of multiple outbreaks of deadly viruses culminating in the current COVID pandemic that has led to the deaths of tens of millions of people. The highly pathogenic influenza virus, H5N1, poses a real threat to humanity should the virus learn to transmit efficiently between people. Add to this the recurrent outbreaks of filoviruses—Marburg, Ebola (both Zaire and Sudan versions)—into the mix and the already forgotten pandemic of monkeypox virus, the question isn’t if, but when, the next significant pathogen will threaten millions of the world’s population.

Even as a new variant of the coronavirus called XBB.1.16, which is more contagious and possibly more virulent than its predecessor XBB.1.5, has spread to more than 23 countries, the ruling class in every country across the globe is seeking to completely cover up the real status of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the interlinking of countries in an international public health effort is coming undone, at a time when international collaboration and cohesion are of utmost importance in pandemic preparedness. 

The Marburg outbreaks in Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania, even if, in the best case, they are rapidly contained, should come as a dire warning to the working class. The COVID pandemic has already wrought immeasurable misery because finance capital deemed eradicating the coronavirus and saving lives an expense not worth undertaking.

Sri Lankan government’s Anti-Terrorism Bill: A sweeping attack on democratic rights

Saman Gunadasa & Pani Wijesiriwardena

The Anti-Terrorism Bill gazetted on March 22 by the government of President Ranil Wickremesinghe is a sweeping attack on the basic democratic rights of the working class, youth and the rural poor.

Contrary to government claims, the Anti-Terrorism Bill has nothing to do with stopping terrorism but is to crush the rising popular opposition to its International Monetary Fund-dictated social attacks. Wickremesinghe has already publicly slandered those protesting against his austerity measures as “fascists” and “terrorists.”

Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe with airforce commander Air Marshal Sudarshana Pathirana, background left, and police chief Chandana Wickremeratne, right, watch during the 75th Independence Day ceremony in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. [AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena]

While the bill was developed under the pretext of replacing the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), it retains all its viciousness. The former government of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, which came to power in 2015, attempted to pass this Anti-Terrorism bill in 2016, and again in 2018, but had to withdraw it in the face of widespread public opposition.

The draconian PTA was originally enacted in 1979, on the pretext of combating the Tamil militant groups and was extensively used against Tamils during the 30-year communal war against Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Successive Colombo governments have wielded it against their political opponents, including to suppress rural unrest in the island’s south between 1988 and 1990 during which the state slaughtered tens of thousands of youth.

Wickremesinghe, who was anti-democratically installed as president last year, has already utilised the PTA against political activists and student leaders. The new anti-terror bill, however, opens the way for even harsher measures against political opponents and the working class in particular.

The entire ruling class, including Wickremesinghe and his government, live in fear of a resurgence of last year’s mass movement that ousted President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government. Most of the provisions of the new act are aimed at preventing such an uprising.

Workers, who are already reeling from massive increases in taxes, electricity and water charges, bank interest rates and skyrocketing inflation, now face a new round IMF dictated assaults.

In exchange for a $US2.9 billion bailout loan over four years, Wickremesinghe has started imposing what the IMF itself recently described as a “brutal experiment.” This includes the privatisation of state enterprises, elimination of tens of thousands of public sector jobs, and the destruction of what remains of health and education services.

In recent weeks, ports, petroleum, telecom, banking, health and education workers have taken action against these attacks in defiance of the government’s “essential service” anti-strike bans.

Last week, the government deployed thousands of military and police personnel to break an anti-privatisation strike by petroleum workers. Twenty striking workers, mostly union leaders, were placed on compulsory leave. Petroleum Minister Kanchana Wijsekara said legal action would be taken against the striking workers under the “Essential Services” Act. Those charged could be expelled from their jobs, with heavy fines and imprisonment.

This is the political background to Wickremesinghe’s new anti-terrorism measures. According to section 4 of the Bill, anyone deemed to have committed a “terrorism” offence would face capital punishment, be imprisoned for up to 20 years and face one million-rupee fines.

The Bill is so broad and vague that any anti-government political activity can be defined as terrorism. This includes: “Intimidating the public or section of the public; wrongfully or unlawfully compelling the Government of Sri Lanka, or any other Government, or an international organization, to do or to abstain from doing any act; unlawfully preventing any such government from functioning.”

This Bill would make it a terrorist offense to expose the ruthless class nature of the government’s attacks on social and democratic rights, including through the IMF austerity program. Educating working people about the growing danger of world war could also be defined as “intimidating” the public.

Anti-austerity strikes and protests by workers—“wrongfully or unlawfully compelling the Government of Sri Lanka, or any other Government, or an international organization, to do or to abstain from doing any act”—could be defined as a terrorist act.

Section 3 of the Bill defines “terrorism” as: “Causing serious damage to any place of public use, a state or governmental facility, any public or private transportation system or any infrastructure facility or environment; causing serious obstruction or damage to or interference with essential services or supplies or with any critical infrastructure or logistic facility associated with any essential service or supply; causing serious risk to the health and safety of the public or a section thereof; being a member of an unlawful assembly for the commission of any act or illegal omission set out in paragraphs above.”

As a result, any anti-government protestor or group could be prosecuted for terrorism on the basis of trumped-up allegations of “damage” including that carried out by the police or its provocateurs. Strikes in essential services, which already carry severe punishment the Essential Public Services Act, could be defined as terrorism under the new Bill.

The Bill is a fundamental assault on freedom of expression. Section 10 states that anyone “who publishes or causes to be published a statement, or speaks any word or words, or makes signs or visible representations which is likely to be understood by some or all of the members of the public as a direct or indirect encouragement or inducement for them to commit, prepare or instigate the offence of terrorism” could be prosecuted for “terrorism.”

In other words, any individual or organisation criticising government policy, including its austerity measures, and/or asking people to protest these policies would face “terrorist” charges.

Police officers and members of the armed forces will be given far-ranging powers to arrest anyone suspected of terrorism. Suspects can be incarcerated for 48 hours before being presented to a magistrate and then held in remand for one year without any criminal procedures being instituted. This period can be extended in three-month increments by a high court judge.

The so-called anti-terror act paves the way for dictatorial rule. It makes clear that President Wickremesinghe and his government are determined to fully use all organs of the capitalist state—the judiciary, the military, the police, the prisons and the parliament—against the workers and oppressed masses.

The response of the trade unions to these new measures, like their reaction to the Essential Public Service Act, has been utterly bankrupt.

On March 22, National Trade Union Centre convenor and a leader of the opposition Janata Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Wasantha Samarasinghe told the media that he did “not understand the purpose of the new Act.” He also declared: “We would like to ask the IMF whether they accept these moves of the government or not.” As if this instrument of international finance capital has the slightest concern for the democratic rights of working people!

Wasantha Samarasinghe, National Trade Union Centre convenor and a leader of Sri Lanka's opposition Janata Vimukthi Peramuna. [Photo: JVP YouTube]

Samarasinghe’s response implies that the government’s new autocratic measures have no clear purpose. This is nothing but a blatant cover-up. The state is being bolstered to brutally crack down on the growing anti-government opposition of workers, youths and the rural poor.

Finland’s NATO membership prepares major escalation of war against Russia

Andre Damon

On Friday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that Finland would become the 31st member of the US-led NATO military alliance within days, following the passage of a ratification vote by Turkey, the last member of NATO required to approve the proposal.

Stoltenberg boasted that it was “the fastest ratification process in NATO’s modern history” and that it will happen “within days.” The rapidity of Finland’s accession is not an accident. It is closely tied to US plans for a spring offensive in Ukraine, which will be accompanied by a major military buildup on Russia’s border.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, center, speaks with Finland's Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen, right, and Finland's Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, left, prior to a meeting in Brussels on Monday, March 20, 2023. [AP Photo/Olivier Matthys]

The United States, Germany and other NATO members are surging tanks, armored vehicles and thousands of Ukrainian troops trained in NATO countries into the conflict, even as they make plans to deploy tens of thousands of NATO troops near the Russian border. 

Five NATO states currently border Russia: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Norway. NATO’s border will effectively be doubled once Finland joins. The country has the largest land border with Russia of any state in Europe, at 830 miles.

The Finnish border is only 100 miles from St. Petersburg, one of the most important economic and political centers in Russia. Finland controls vital sea lanes of communication used by Russia, and it plays a major role in the scramble for domination of the Baltic Sea and the Arctic.

NATO’s expanded land border with Russia is being massively militarized. On March 18, Politico reported, “In the coming months, the alliance will accelerate efforts to stockpile equipment along the alliance’s eastern edge and designate tens of thousands of forces that can rush to allies’ aid on short notice.”

NATO’s “eastern flank” increasingly resembles the battle lines of the Eastern front in the Second World War, which stretched from Finland to Ukraine. The move to incorporate Finland into the NATO alliance has enormous historical significance, as the country was a key ally of Nazi Germany during the Second World War and played a critical role in the war of extermination against the Soviet Union, including the siege of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg.

The move to further expand NATO also undercut all the claims promoted by the Biden administration and the media of an “unprovoked war.” According to the White House’s well-worn narrative, the war in Ukraine is a “war of choice” launched by a single man in February 2022. Putin started the war, and only Putin can end it—by withdrawing Russian troops to where they were last year, the White House endlessly repeats.

But while the conflict between the US/NATO and Russia erupted over the Ukrainian border, it is in fact the outcome of a decades-long drive by US imperialism to encircle, weaken and ultimately carve up and dismantle Russia, as part of the preparation for conflict with China.

Amidst and in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States actively pursued the inclusion of the Eastern European states into NATO, while also fueling nationalist movements within Russia to create instability and fragment the country. 

Since 1990, 13 countries have joined NATO, effectively doubling its membership. Over that time period, NATO’s border has been moved 800 miles to the east.

In 1998, the US Senate voted in favor of expanding NATO to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. “This, in fact, is the beginning of another 50 years of peace,” said then-Senator Joe Biden. On June 15, 2001, in a speech in Warsaw, Poland, US President George W. Bush declared his “Plan to enlarge NATO” in order to create a ring of countries that would stretch “from the Baltic to the Black Sea.”

In 2004, NATO expanded again, adding seven more countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania. These Eastern European countries were all either part of the Soviet Union or its satellite states during the Cold War.

Croatia and Albania joined NATO in 2009.  Montenegro joined in 2017, and North Macedonia joined in 2020.

The war over Ukraine was itself instigated by the refusal of the Biden administration to negotiate over Russia’s demand for a guarantee that Ukraine would not become a member of NATO. The invasion was the reactionary and reckless response of the Putin government, representing a faction of the Russian oligarchy, to imperialist encirclement.

In 1997, as the Clinton administration was beginning a campaign to include the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland into NATO, George F. Kennan, the Cold War strategist and author of the theory of “containment,” acknowledged that “it had been somehow and somewhere decided to expand NATO up to Russia’s borders.” He warned that “expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.”

In the ensuing two decades, the entire US political establishment and media have embraced the expansion of NATO and the efforts to provoke a conflict with Russia. This war fever was accompanied by the declaration that any opposition to the expansion of NATO is “Russian propaganda.”

Commenting on the conflict that erupted last year, the political scientist John Mearsheimer wrote that “the mainstream view in the West is that he is an irrational, out-of-touch aggressor bent on creating a greater Russia in the mould of the former Soviet Union. Thus, he alone bears full responsibility for the Ukraine crisis.”

But he continued, “But that story is wrong. The West, and especially America, is principally responsible for the crisis which began in February 2014. It has now turned into a war that not only threatens to destroy Ukraine, but also has the potential to escalate into a nuclear war between Russia and NATO.”

The US media’s entire narrative of the war ignores his antecedent history, in an effort to drown all rational thought about the war in a torrent of pro-war propaganda.

In the preface to A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony 1990–2016, David North, chairman of the World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board, wrote of the significance of then President Barack Obama’s declaration that the US would go to war in defense of NATO member Estonia.

How many Americans know about, let alone understand the implications of, the military commitment made by the Obama administration to the politically unstable and reckless right-wing government in Estonia? The distance between Tallinn in Estonia and St. Petersburg in Russia is just 230 miles, ten miles less than the distance between New York City and Washington, DC.

The further expansion of NATO to include Finland raises to a new level the threat of a direct war between the US and Russia, the two largest nuclear-armed powers.

Hungarian PM warns EU may discuss sending “peacekeeping” troops to Ukraine

Andre Damon

On Friday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that European powers are close to discussing the deployment of “peacekeeping” forces in Ukraine as the US-NATO war with Russia escalates.

It is “close to a legitimate, accepted, well-established question in the conversation between European leaders as to whether or not the member states of the European Union can send peacekeeping troops in some form or not,” Orbán said.

“We are close to this border that was previously thought to be impassable,” he added.

Orbán continued, “I am convinced that the threat of world war is not a literary exaggeration. So when European and American leaders say that if this continues, we may end up in the Third World War, this seems like an incredibly exaggerated sentence at first. But where I work and where I see the events, this is a real danger at this moment.”

Orbán made these remarks in an interview with Hungarian radio station Kossuth Rádió, and his statement was cited by Newsweek and Yahoo News.

Orbán is the first leader of a NATO country to publicly raise the prospect of the deployment of troops from NATO countries into Ukraine.

Earlier this year, the US pledged to “go on the offensive to liberate Russian-occupied Ukraine.” But Ukraine has suffered enormous casualties, and it is becoming clear that this goal cannot be achieved without the direct involvement of NATO in the war.

Responding to Orbán’s comments, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “If we are talking about some kind of serious negotiations, then this is a potentially extremely dangerous discussion.”

Former Russian President Dimitri Medvedev added, “In Europe, a new false idea is being discussed to send some kind of ‘peacekeepers’ to Ukraine under the auspices of NATO. ... It is clear that the so-called NATO peacekeepers are simply going to enter the conflict on the side of our enemies.”

Medvedev said that such an action would “bring the situation to the point of no return” and “unleash the very Third World War, which is so feared in words.” He added, “It remains only to clarify whether Europe is ready for a long line of coffins for its ‘peacekeepers’?”

While Orbán has clashed with the US over the extent of Hungary’s support for the NATO war drive, Hungary is a member of NATO and appeared on a list of “unfriendly” nations published by the Kremlin on Thursday.

Explaining the decision, Russia’s envoy to Budapest, Yevgeny Stanislavov said, “Hungary has signed all the anti-Russian sanctions packages of Brussels and is forced to strictly comply with them.”

While Orbán raised the prospect of discussions of the deployment of “peacekeepers” as a hypothetical question, the United Sates and its allies are massively expanding their direct involvement in the conflict.

To date, the US has provided more than $30 billion in weapons to Ukraine, Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said Friday. This is in addition to more than $70 billion in financial and economic aid.

Meanwhile, over 10,000 Ukrainian troops are being trained in the US, Germany and other NATO allies, Ryder said.

“Since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022, US European Command, US Army Europe and Africa and Security Assistance Group Ukraine have trained more than 7,000 members of the Ukrainian armed forces.”

He continued, “Just this week, 65 Ukrainian air defenders completed Patriot training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and have now arrived back in Europe.”

Ryder provided an update on the thousands of Ukrainian troops being trained in Germany alongside US-NATO armored vehicles and tanks. “At the close of this month, more than 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers in two brigades—one equipped with M2 Bradleys and one equipped with Strykers—will have completed combined arms training and have returned to Ukraine.”

At this moment, Ryder said, over 11,000 Ukrainian soldiers are receiving training in 26 different countries.

On Friday, Reuters reported that the US will imminently announce yet another weapons package for Ukraine to the tune of $2.6 billion, including radars, rockets and tank munitions.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko both raised the prospect of deploying Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus, bringing the weapons closer to the borders of NATO.

“I and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin can decide and deploy strategic nuclear weapons here, if need be,” Lukashenko said, pledging to defend Belarus’s “sovereignty and independence.”

These developments take place as the war in Ukraine is accelerating. US General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the battle in Bakhmut a “slaughter-fest.” In response to ongoing losses in the war, Putin on Thursday authorized a new draft of 147,000 men.

On Thursday, Finland won approval from Turkey to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, massively expanding NATO’s land border with Russia. It is also considering the deployment of up to 300,000 troops to its border with Russia, Politico reported.

In a report dated March 18, Politico wrote, “In the coming months, the alliance will accelerate efforts to stockpile equipment along the alliance’s eastern edge and designate tens of thousands of forces that can rush to allies’ aid on short notice—a move meant to stop Russia from expanding its war beyond Ukraine.”

It continued, “The numbers will be large, with officials floating the idea of up to 300,000 NATO forces needed to help make the new model work.”

The initial layer of troops, comprising roughly 100,000 soldiers capable of mobilizing within 10 days, could be sourced from Poland, Norway, and the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

NATO’s border with Russia to double in length as Finland joins US-led alliance

Jordan Shilton

The final obstacle for Finland to become the 31st member of the US-led NATO aggressive military alliance was cleared late Thursday when the Turkish parliament voted unanimously to approve Helsinki’s membership application. With approval now assured from all existing NATO members, Finland will be formally admitted as a member at the next NATO summit scheduled for Vilnius in July.

The move marks a massive escalation of the war on Russia by the US and NATO, whose border with Russia will be more than doubled. Finland shares a 1,340-kilometre land border with Russia and will become the seventh state with a Baltic Sea coast to join NATO. Only Sweden, whose accession to the alliance is pending approval from Turkey, remains formally outside of the military alliance. Once Swedish membership is finalised, likely following the presidential election in Turkey in May, Russia will be entirely surrounded by NATO adversaries in the Baltic Sea.

The confirmation of Finnish NATO membership comes in the wake of a significant intensification of the war in Ukraine since the beginning of the year. The imperialist powers have drastically stepped up their shipments of high-powered weaponry, including battle tanks and surface-to-air missiles, increasing the likelihood of a direct shooting war between NATO and Russian forces. Debates on sending fighter jets and even ground troops are well under way, moves which would radically increase the threat of a clash between nuclear-armed powers.

Representatives from NATO and the Western imperialist powers responded with enthusiasm to the news. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted “I look forward to raising Finland’s flag at NATO HQ in the coming days. Together we are stronger and safer.” Finland’s US ambassador Douglas Hickey described the decision as an “historic moment” and said Finland is a “strong, capable partner that shares NATO’s values.”

To describe the references to Finland’s NATO membership ensuring “security” and “stability” as Orwellian would be an understatement. What it in fact indicates is how the present situation resembles ever more the first half of the 20th century, when the world’s great powers sought to repartition the world in their interests. In the aftermath of World War I and during World War II, the Finnish bourgeoisie served as willing accomplices of the imperialist powers as they sought to inflict a military defeat on the Soviet Union and turn the area that is now Russia and the former Soviet republics into the direct possessions of American, German, and British capital for ruthless plunder. This is the same path now being followed by the Social Democrat-led government of Prime Minister Sanna Marin and right-wing President Sauli Niinistö.

After bloodily crushing the Finnish revolution in 1918, which broke out in direct response to the conquest of power by the Bolsheviks in Russia, the Finnish ruling class used their newly established “independence” to subordinate themselves to German and subsequently British imperialism. Finland served as a base of operations for the counter-revolutionary whites, who received extensive military aid from the imperialist powers.

During World War II, the Finnish ruling elite exploited the counter-revolutionary policies of the Stalinist bureaucracy to justify a military and strategic alliance with Nazi Germany. Determined to recapture territory lost in the Winter War, Finnish forces participated in the Nazis’ war of annihilation against the Soviet Union in a conflict that became known as the Continuity War. Finnish forces were involved in the brutal siege of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg.

The balance of power between the imperialists and the Stalinist Soviet bureaucracy following World War II, together with the post-war economic equilibrium under the hegemony of US imperialism, enabled the ruling elites in the Nordic region, including in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, to posture as guardians of a haven of peace in a world riven by great power conflicts. Substantial concessions in the form of social programmes and welfare benefits were made to working people, while Finland and Sweden remained formally “non-aligned” in the Cold War.

Conditions in the region today could hardly be further removed from this earlier period, which is still hailed by “progressives” around the world as an example of how capitalism can be “reformed.” The Nordic countries are now frontline states in the imperialist war aimed at subordinating Russia to the status of a semi-colony and seizing control of its vast natural resources. The social programmes once held up as examples of the “Nordic model” have either been slashed to the bone or eliminated entirely.

Major NaTO exercises take place on a regular basis involving Finland and Sweden, and American troops have massively expanded their operations in Norway. An agreement with the Norwegian government recently granted the US unimpeded access to so-called “agreed areas,” something which Washington is seeking to replicate in Sweden and Finland.

Earlier this month, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden struck an agreement to operate their approximately 250 US-built F-35 fighter jets as part of a single Nordic fleet. The March 24 letter of intent commits the four countries to create a “unified Nordic Air Defence.” Danish air force commander major General Jan Dam commented, “Our combined fleet can be compared to a large European country.” The signing of the deal took place at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where NATO Air Command Chief General James Hecker was also present. Military officials from the four Nordic countries are also working on transforming the major NATO Cold Response exercise, traditionally hosted in Norway, into a Nordic Response maneuver that will encompass the entire Nordic region.

In its report on Finland’s NATO membership, The New York Times, followed by media outlets internationally, portrayed the move as being “set off by the invasion of Ukraine.” This is a flat-out lie. Like the war in Ukraine itself, the integration of Finland and soon Sweden into NATO was prepared over decades of ever more aggressive US imperialist wars around the world and NATO’s eastward expansion up to Russia’s borders.

As part of NATO’s initial expansion following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Finland and Sweden were among the first members of the “Partnership for Peace,” a NATO initiative that enabled them to participate in joint exercises and gain experience with NATO procedures and equipment. Both Finland and Sweden became NATO “enhanced opportunity partners” together with Ukraine in 2014, and joined the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), a British imperialist-led alliance of Baltic and Nordic NATO members, in 2017. Putin’s reactionary invasion of Ukraine merely served as the pretext to implement plans to formally bring Finland and Sweden into the military alliance that had long been in the works.

The reactionary nationalist Putin regime, representing the interests of the criminal capitalist oligarchy that emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union, has no progressive response to the escalation of military aggression by the imperialists throughout the Nordic region. In line with its disastrous invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia responded to the imminent confirmation of Finland’s NATO membership by issuing blood-curdling threats of military retaliation. A statement from Russia’s embassy in Stockholm Wednesday declared, “If anyone still believes that this will somehow improve Europe’s security, you can be sure that the new members of the hostile bloc will become a legitimate target for Russia’s retaliatory measures, including military ones.” Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström responded by summoning the Russian ambassador to the Foreign Ministry in Stockholm.

Preview release of ChatGPT shows potential of artificial intelligence

Kevin Reed

Last November, the artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory OpenAI launched a free prototype of its text-based human conversation simulator called ChatGPT. Over the past four months, more than 100 million users across a wide range of disciplines have been experimenting with the preview version of ChatGPT.

The users are testing the system in fields such as science and journalism research, essay and legal brief writing, software development, math problem solving and language translation, to name just a few. Some of the more creative uses of ChatGPT have included writing limericks, fixing software bugs and songwriting.

ChatGPT is designed to generate natural language responses to questions, provide recommendations and to write copy. It has numerous applications and has the potential to transform the way people interact with technology and each other.

The breakthrough system is based on advanced computer technology known as generative pretrained transformers (GPTs). GPTs are defined as a family of large language models (LLMs) developed by OpenAI that have been trained with large databases of texts.

The 'pre-training' in GPTs refers to the learning process on a large text corpus enabling the language model to predict the next word in a passage. This provides a foundation for the model to perform well without being dependent on task-specific data.

Like the way Google autocompletes web search entries, ChatGPT anticipates the content of inquiries submitted by users. Known as synchronous processing, it interprets questions as they are typed in real-time and generates responses on the fly.

The limitations of ChatGPT, as described by OpenAI, are its tendency to sometimes write, “plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers,” and its inclination to be “excessively verbose” and overuse certain phrases. The system will also often guess at an answer when asked an ambiguous question as opposed to “asking a clarifying question.”

Whatever its drawbacks, ChatGPT represents a significant step forward in AI technology. In December, Ethan Mollick of Harvard Business Review called ChatGPT a tipping point for artificial intelligence, writing, “While versions of GPT have been around for a while, this model has crossed a threshold: It’s genuinely useful for a wide range of tasks … While previous generations of the system could technically do these things, the quality of the outputs was much lower than that produced by an average human. The new model is much better, often startlingly so.”

The initial release of ChatGPT was based on GPT-3.5. On March 9, OpenAI announced the release of GPT-4, which has been described in a Cornell University research paper as having characteristics which are “strikingly close to human-level performance, and often vastly surpasses prior models such as ChatGPT.”

The authors state that early experiments with GPT-4 show that it exhibits “sparks of artificial general intelligence,” that is, it has the ability to simulate thinking and not just answer specific questions, but do things like reason, sense and behave.

There is no doubt that ChatGPT and GPT-4 show how artificial intelligence technologies are increasing productivity. By replacing functions previously carried out by groups of people into a single automated process, tasks can now be completed quickly and accurately by a computer.

While the mass adoption of personal computers beginning in the 1980s had a dramatic impact on productivity, the adaptive and learning features of artificial intelligence tools like GPTs mean productivity will rise exponentially over a much shorter period of time.

For example, today, ChatGPT is a powerful tool for software developers. Using its natural language processing capability, it can model what a developer is trying to accomplish and provide corresponding code snippets. It can also automate repetitive and time consuming tasks without mistakes and inconsistencies typical of direct human coding input.

ChatGPT can quickly and accurately simplify complex computer code and provide comments and documentation that are often more accurate and informative than anything a developer can write.

Artificial intelligence was pioneered in the mid-20th century, with important contributions made by scientists such as Alan Turing, Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy. Turing, a British mathematician and computer scientist, is widely considered a founding father of AI. In 1950, he proposed the Turing Test, a measure of a computer’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to that of a human.

Turing’s idea was groundbreaking and set the stage for decades of research on machine learning and natural language processing. Turing published a paper in 1950 called “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” in which he discussed the potential for machines to mimic human intelligence through the use of algorithms and programming.

Marvin Minsky, an American cognitive scientist and computer scientist, was a pioneer of AI who, along with John McCarthy, founded the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT in 1959. Minsky was interested in the idea of machine perception, or the ability of machines to understand and interpret visual and sensory information. McCarthy, who is often credited with coining the term “artificial intelligence” in 1956, was responsible for Lisp, which became a favored programming language for artificial intelligence (AI) research.

ChatGPT can be described as a new generation of artificial intelligence text-based chatbots that were begun in the 1960s. ELIZA, developed by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966, used pattern matching and substitution methodology to simulate human conversation. It attempted to match scripted responses to a series of psychotherapy questions.

Later in 1988, the chatbot Jabberwacky was created by Rollo Carpenter to simulate entertaining human conversation by expanding pattern matching to include another level of variability to account for the context of questions being asked.

One of the breakthroughs that came in the 1980s was the development of rule-based systems for natural language processing. These systems relied on sets of hand-crafted rules to analyze and generate natural responses, but they were limited in their ability to handle complex and ambiguous language.

In 1995, Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity (ALICE) operated over the internet and added heuristics—the ability to apply shortcuts that humans often use to solve problems—to the previously developed pattern matching methods. In the 1990s, statistical approaches gained popularity in natural language processing, allowing systems to learn from large datasets of text. This led to the development of probabilistic models which were able to handle a wider range of language inputs and generate more accurate outputs.

In the 2000s, with the development of neural network architectures, deep learning emerged as a powerful technique for natural language processing. These models were able to learn and represent complex patterns in language data, leading to significant improvements in language processing accuracy and efficiency.

In 2010, Apple released the first version of Siri as an intelligent personal assistant and learning navigator that uses spoken natural language to perform computer executed duties such as reading text messages, playing music, scheduling events and searching the web for answers to questions. This simulation of audible human conversation was also offered by Google with Google Assistant (2012) and Amazon with Alexa (2014) .

In addition to the software of ChatGPT, the hardware that runs it is a critical factor in the speed and accuracy of its responses as well as the number of queries it can handle simultaneously. The hardware includes a large number of interconnected processors or nodes working together to handle the computational workload.

The platform also includes specialized processors optimized for machine learning and deep learning workloads as well as high-speed networking and storage technologies that enable fast data transfer and retrieval.

Finally, the advances made in AI, as manifested in ChatGPT, are the product of a collaborative effort among researchers, engineers, and innovators from around the world. The development of AI is truly a global effort, with contributions from individuals and organizations in many different countries.

AI is a field that requires a multidisciplinary approach, bringing together experts from computer science, mathematics, neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, and other related fields. Advances in hardware, software, and data infrastructure have also been made possible by global collaboration and cooperation.

Many countries have made significant investments in AI research and development, and international organizations and conferences such as the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) provide a platform for researchers and practitioners to share their work and collaborate on new ideas around the world.

However, while ChatGPT brings forward all the accomplishments of computer technology of the past 75 years on a world scale and possesses socially transformative potential, it also remains ensconced within capitalism, its private property for profit system and national state political structures.

The immediate concerns of Wall Street, which has driven up the value of OpenAI to $29 billion following an investment by Microsoft of $10 billion in January, is to ensure that technology oligarchs such as Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, and Reid Hoffman have a clear path to realizing a return on their financial commitment to the company.

The expectation is that the core technology of ChatGPT will be sold to corporations across all industries as a means of cutting costs and eliminating jobs. In the present economic environment of inflation, rising interest rates and falling share values on Wall Street, this prospect is without question an attractive one for corporate executives, boards of directors and investors.

According to a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, half of the tasks performed by auditors, interpreters and writers can be performed more quickly by AI tools. A report published by McKinsey & Company estimates that 25 percent of work across all occupations could be automated by 2030 and 60 percent of 800 occupations listed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics could have one-third of their work tasks automated in the coming decades.

Meanwhile, as with all other high tech innovation under capitalism, the power of ChatGPT and artificial intelligence are understood to fetch substantial contracts with the Pentagon and defense departments around the globe.

With AI technologies already in use to automate battlefield operations in the imperialist wars of the twenty-first century, including unmanned drone air assaults and targeted assassinations, the power of GPT decision-making is being actively pursued by the US military.

According to an article in Defense One, Lauren Barrett Knausenberger, the chief information officer of the Air Force, said, “I think that there is a lot of benefit to the DOD of being able to find information, of being able to find who’s in charge, of being able to rapidly pull together information in general because we do waste a lot of time like with taskers, for instance.”

Another report on Vice said that the Pentagon is using ChatGPT to write a news report on February 8 about the launch of a new counter-drone task force. In other words, the Pentagon is leveraging the potential of AI to automate decision-making and to deliver pro-militarist propaganda.

Taiwanese president’s trip to US exacerbates tensions with China

Peter Symonds

In another move that is deliberately raising tensions with China, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen held a series of high-level meetings in New York on Wednesday and Thursday with American politicians and representatives.

Official photo of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, November 30, 2020. [Photo by 總統府 / CC BY 2.0]

The trip to the US is being held under the guise of a “transit” by Tsai as she proceeds to visit Guatemala and Belize in central America—two of the 13 small countries around the world that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, rather than China. While not formally announced, Tsai reportedly will meet with US Congressional House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as she “transits” in Los Angeles on her return to Taiwan on April 7.

China has reacted angrily to the trip. Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, made the obvious point that Tsai’s transits go well beyond waiting at airports and hotels. She warned that if Tsai meets with House Speaker McCarthy, it would be “another provocation that seriously violates the ‘One China’ principle, harms China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and destroys peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

Under the ‘One China’ principle, Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province that is an integral part of China. It has called for peaceful reunification on the basis of “one country, two systems,” but has long warned that it would forcibly incorporate the island if the Taiwanese government formally declared independence from China.

The Biden administration responded by dismissing China’s concerns. White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Tsai’s trip was in line with what she and previous Taiwanese presidents have done in the past. Her “transit is consistent with our longstanding unofficial relationship with Taiwan and is consistent with the United States’ one-China policy, which remains unchanged,” he said, warning China against using it “as a pretext to step up any aggressive activity around the Taiwan Strait.”

In reality, it is US imperialism that is inflaming tensions across the Taiwan Strait as it accelerates its plans for war with China. Under Trump and now Biden, Washington has fundamentally altered the delicate balancing act that led to the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between Beijing and Washington in 1979.

At the time, the US acknowledged that China regarded Taiwan as part of its territory, but did not formally endorse Beijing’s position. Its actions, however, in effect embraced the One China principle: Washington cut formal diplomatic ties and ended its military alliance with Taipei and withdrew US military forces from the island.

For decades, while selling defensive weapons to Taiwan, the US refused to unambiguously commit to waging war against China in the event of conflict. It also maintained low-key unofficial contact with Taipei through a quasi-embassy—the American Institute in Taiwan. Under Trump and Biden, these diplomatic protocols have been torn up.

It is enough to consider the incident that triggered what became known as the Third Taiwan Strait crisis—the visit by Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to the US in June 1995, nominally as a private citizen, to deliver a speech to his alma mater, Cornell University. In line with past policy, the Clinton administration initially refused to grant a visa, following a decision a year earlier to refuse a visa when Lee transited in Hawaii on his return from a visit to South America.

Faced with a Congressional opposition, the Clinton administration relented and Lee made his speech, setting off a military confrontation that could have led to conflict. China accused Lee of trying to “split China” and branded him a traitor. It mobilised military forces across the strait from Taiwan and announced missile tests, as well as naval and amphibious landing drills. The US responded with a huge show of military force, with multiple transits through the Taiwan Strait by US warships, including the aircraft carrier, USS Nimitz and its battle group. The crisis continued into 1996 before Beijing backed off.

By comparison with Lee’s 1995 trip, Tsai’s “transit” through New York is a calculated provocation by Taipei and Washington, to which Beijing is responding with considerable restraint. While her meetings have been behind closed doors, details leaked to the media make clear that Tsai is cementing ties with the US as it ramps up its economic and strategic confrontation with China.

After arriving on Wednesday night, Tsai told a meeting in New York that relations between Taiwan and the US were “closer than ever” and boasted of “significant progress” in economic and military cooperation. Tsai belongs to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that advocates a more independent Taiwan but stops short of declaring formal separation from China.

She told the meeting that Taiwan was a “beacon of democracy in Asia” that would not allow itself to be isolated by Beijing, adding “we have demonstrated a firm will and resolve to defend ourselves.” Those attending included New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and Laura Rosenberger, chair of the American Institute in Taiwan.

On Thursday night, Tsai gave a speech at a meeting hosted by the right-wing Hudson Institute think tank, which awarded her its Global Leadership Award. According to Hudson Institute director Miles Yu, Tsai declared that “the defense of Taiwan is actually the defense of America.” In other words, the US must be unambiguously committed to fighting a war with China over Taiwan.

Significantly, also on Thursday, the top Democrat in the US House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, met with Tsai, but no details were released. Last August when the Democrats controlled the house, Nancy Pelosi, as house speaker, made a provocative trip to Taipei that triggered a major military standoff in waters surrounding Taiwan. As the Chinese military conducted missile tests and deployed warships into the Taiwan Strait, the US and its allies mounted major naval operations adjacent to Taiwan.

Any meeting by current House Speaker McCarthy—Jeffries’ Republican counterpart—with Tsai in Los Angeles in the coming week threatens to trigger another confrontation. While it has not formally condoned the meeting, the Biden administration will exploit any crisis to further its strategy of creating a pretext for war with China, by goading it into attacking Taiwan.

In a similar fashion to the US-NATO war in Ukraine against Russia, the US is seeking to draw Beijing into a debilitating conflict over Taiwan as the means to destabilise and ultimately fracture China, which Washington regards as the chief threat to its global dominance.