About the Bonn SDG Fellowships: The aim of this funding line is to invite post-doctoral scientists in all areas of specialization that conduct research primarily on a topic addressed in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as set forth by the United Nations in its Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. The scientists should research and teach at the University of Bonn for one or two semesters. The funding is for a period of at least 3 and not more than 12 months.
The University of Bonn currently has a large number of collaborations with universities and research institutes in Africa, Asia and South America. As shown by the SDG index, implementing the Sustainable Development Goals poses considerable challenges for many countries in these regions. Based on the 17th Sustainable Development Goal, “Partnerships for the Goals”, researchers in the above-mentioned regions are given preference for the Bonn SDG Fellowships. The goal is to support talented researchers and build and strengthen networks through them.
Type: Fellowship
Eligibility for Bonn SDG Fellowships: Post-doctoral scientists (with foreign citizenship), who research or teach at a university or research institute in the above-mentioned regions, and who can demonstrate proven expertise in an area of research from the thematic spectrum of the SDGs.
Selection Criteria:
The quality of the research project to be worked on during the stay in Bonn
Work on a topic that contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as set forth by the United Nations in its Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development
Relevance of the research topic to developments in the region of origin
The fellow’s contribution to academic life in Bonn (e.g. via public lectures, seminars or colloquiums)
The fellow’s integration into the host institute (place of work, integration into existing teaching and research activities)
Follow-on value: a plan for future collaboration projects between the fellow and the host institute in Bonn
Eligible Countries: Countries in Africa, Latin America and the South/East
To be Taken at (Country): Germany
Number of Awards: Not specified
Value of Bonn SDG Fellowships: The funding can cover the following:
A travel allowance (depending on country of origin)
A scholarship of € 3,000 per month (additional funds for family members: up to € 300 for a spouse and € 250 per child)
A research expense allowance of up to € 500 per month can be submitted to the International Office after the fellowship has been awarded. Information on applying for the allowance will be provided with your fellowship award.
Insurance benefits are not included in the scholarship.
Please note that the International Office cannot provide housing for scholarship recipients.
Duration of Award: The funding is for a period of at least 3 and not more than 12 months. When calculating costs please note the instructions in the financing plan (and use the following Excel table, download here).
How to Apply: Application includes:
Online form
Project description (PDF of max. 8 pages), consisting of:
An outline of the research project to be worked on during the fellow’s stay in Bonn
Reasons for the fellow’s invitation and a description of his or her contribution to research and teaching at the University of Bonn, an outline of the activities through which the fellow will enrich university life at the University of Bonn during his or her stay there
An overview of the collaboration between the applicant and the fellow so far
An outline of the integration of the fellow into the host institute (place of work, participation in teaching and research activities)
An outline of follow-on value: (a) plan for the outcome of the stay, (b) plan for growing the collaboration in the future.
Fellow’s CV (PDF)
A financing plan (please use the following Excel table
The application must be submitted by a full-time professor at the University of Bonn together with the fellow.
Application Deadline: 5th April 2024 midnight (Brussels time)
Offered annually? Yes
Eligible Countries: All African countries except Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia (applicants from these countries are eligible under the Scholarship Programme for Young Researchers from the European Neighbourhood).
To be taken at (Country): The following Coimbra Group universities are participating in the 2024 edition of the scheme:
University of Barcelona (Spain)
University of Coimbra (Portugal)
University of Cologne (Germany)
Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)
University of Granada (Spain)
University of Graz (Austria)
University of Groningen (The Netherlands)
Istanbul University (Turkey)
Jagiellonian University in Krakow (Poland)
Leiden University (The Netherlands)
University of Padova (Italy)
University of Pavia (Italy)
University of Poitiers (France)
Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic)
University of Salamanca (Spain)
University of Siena (Italy)
University of Turku (Finland)
University of Würzburg (Germany)
About Coimbra Group Short-Term Scholarships: Universities of the Coimbra Group offer short-term visits (generally 1 to maximum 3 months) to young African researchers from higher education institutions from Sub-Saharan Africa. The main aim of this scholarship programme is to enable scholars to undertake research in which they are engaged in their home institution and to help them to establish academic and research contacts. The scholarships are financially supported by the Coimbra Group member universities participating in this programme, while the Coimbra Group Office is in charge of the administrative management of the applications.
Type: Research, Short course
Eligibility: Applicants should be:
born on or after 1 January 1979
nationals of and current residents in a country in Sub-Saharan Africa
current staff members of a university or an equivalent higher education institution in Sub-Saharan Africa
of doctoral/postdoctoral or equivalent status, although some universities offer grants for Master’s level students (please see details in the table in the Link below).
Female candidates are encouraged to apply and will be prioritized.
CoimbraGroupShort–Term Scholarships Selection: The administrative check of applications will be undertaken by the Coimbra Group Office to select candidates who meet the eligibility criteria. The host universities will undertake the selection of candidates. When the selection has been agreed upon, the host university may send a letter of invitation directly to the successful candidate. The Coimbra Group Office will contact all candidates and inform them about the result of their application. Successful candidates currently employed by a University are responsible for ensuring that their home institution will grant them leave of absence to undertake the proposed visit.
Number of Awardees: Limited
Value of Coimbra Group Short-Term Scholarships: Successful candidates will access excellent academic knowledge in quality facilities. The scholarships include financial support for tuition, living costs, airfares etc.
Duration of Program: From 1 to maximum 3 months. The dates of the candidate’s stay should be agreed upon between the candidate and the academic supervisor at the Coimbra Group University.
How to Apply: It is important to go through the Application instructions on the Program Webpage (see Link below) before applying: Apply here!
Application Deadline: 5th April 2024 midnight (Brussels time)
Offered annually? Yes
Eligible Countries: Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Serbia, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
To Be Taken At (Country): The following Coimbra Group Universities are participating in the 2024 edition of the Coimbra Group Scholarship Programme:
Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi (Romania)
University of Barcelona (Spain)
University of Granada (Spain)
University of Graz (Austria)
Heidelberg University (Denmark)
Istanbul University (Turkey)
Jagiellonian University in Krakow (Poland)
University of Padova (Italy)
University of Poitiers (France)
University of Salamanca (Spain)
University of Siena (Italy)
University of Würzburg (Germany)
About the Award: Universities of the Coimbra Group offer short-term visits to young researchers from higher education institutions from countries in the European Neighbourhood. The main aim of this scholarship programme is to enable scholars to undertake research in which they are engaged in their home institution and to help them to establish academic and research contacts.
Type: Research
Eligibility: Applicants must fulfil all the following criteria:
be born on or after 1 January 1989
be nationals of and current residents in one of the above-listed countries
be current academic staff members of a university or an equivalent higher education institution located in one of the above-listed countries and be of postdoctoral or equivalent status, although some institutions may offer opportunities to doctoral students
Number of Awards: Not specified
Value of Award: Successful candidates will have access to excellent academic knowledge in quality facilities. The scholarships include financial support for tuition, living costs, airfares etc.
Duration of Program: The dates of your stay should be agreed upon between the applicant and the academic supervisor at the Coimbra Group University. Typically this will be during the academic year 2024/2025.
Important new information continues to emerge about how the Canadian state provided safe haven to Nazis and Nazi collaborators who were involved in the Holocaust and Hitler’s war of annihilation against the Soviet Union.
On February 1, the Canadian government quietly declassified a further fourteen pages of an annex to the final 1986 report of the Deschenes Commission into War Criminals in Canada, most of which was suppressed until last summer.
Authored by Alti Rodal, “Nazi War Criminals in Canada: The Historical and Policy Setting from the 1940s to the Present” is a detailed, 619-page historical investigation of Canadian policy towards Nazi collaborators. With the latest release, most of the report is finally in the public domain—some 38 years after it was submitted and following the deaths of virtually all those it investigated.
What remains redacted and off-limits is notable, however. This includes the true identities of the alleged Nazi collaborators themselves, their numbers, and information detailing Canadian government cooperation with US intelligence.
A trained historian and senior government bureaucrat who was born in 1944 in western Ukraine to Holocaust survivors, Alti Rodal was the Director of Historical Research for the Deschenes Commission.
Pierre Trudeau and the Nazi accomplice “Subject F”
The newly released pages of her report detail the 1967 refusal of then Justice Minister (later Prime Minister) Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the father of current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to support extradition to the USSR of a Nazi collaborator who had been chief of a Latvian police station during WWII. Admitted to Canada in 1948 and protected for decades by the Canadian state, the person identified in Rodal’s report only as “Subject F” was Haralds Petrovich Puntulis. He was accused of involvement in the murders of 15,000 partisans, Jews and Gypsies, and the enslavement of many others, and was convicted in 1965 in absentia by the USSR’s Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic.
A 1965 External Affairs document, cited by Rodal, described Puntulis as “an ardent Nazi lackey, not only cooperating actively with the occupying German forces but actually serving their Jewish and Gypsy extermination squads.”
Despite the fact that “there was indeed evidence against Subject F” the elder Trudeau refused to extradite Puntulis, as “similar steps might be taken against any persons who had obtained a certificate of citizenship if it were found he had not disclosed occurrences in his past…”
Other still secret annexes to the Deschenes Commission report contain the records of more than 700 such persons, including wartime leaders of fascist Slovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia, and German SS officers, all of whom were admitted to Canada after WWII and protected by the Canadian state. Rodal’s report contains coded references to Subjects “A” through “Z”.
Canada’s parliament applauds Yaroslav Hunka, a former member of the Waffen-SS. Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre is on the far left.
Justin Trudeau’s government has faced mounting pressure to make a complete disclosure of the state’s historical relationship with Nazi war criminals since the entire Canadian Parliament gave a standing ovation to Yaroslav Hunka, a volunteer for the notorious Ukrainian-manned 14th Galizien Division of the Waffen SS.
Taken together, the release of the Rodal report and the continuing scandal over the official state tribute paid to the Nazi Yaroslav Hunka point to a fundamental truth: Canadian state collaboration with outright fascist forces continues to this day. In Ukraine, the government of the younger Trudeau is arming and politically supporting the ideological descendants of the Nazi war criminals protected by the elder Trudeau, and by previous Prime Ministers.
Canada arms, trains and politically defends today’s Nazis in the Azov Battalion and other fascist elements in the Ukrainian state and political establishment in order to advance its imperialist ambitions in Eurasia, all the while dressing up what is essentially a criminal conspiracy in the phony language of “democracy” and “human rights.” If anything, the Rodal report exposes the continuity of Canadian imperialist policy, not some anomalous “bad practices,” and the persistence of official lying about it.
Last week it was exposed that the Trudeau government lied when it claimed in September 2023 that it was unaware of who Yaroslav Hunka was. In fact, Hunka had received a personal invitation from the Prime Minister’s Office, at the suggestion of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), with which, as we have detailed in the World Socialist Web Site series, “Canadian Imperialism’s Fascist Friends” , Ottawa has worked for decades. This included providing safe haven to the Nazis’ Ukrainian accomplices, helping them whitewash their crimes. Subsequently, the Ottawa-backed UCC promoted an extreme right-wing, virulently anti-communist and anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism that glorifies the Nazi collaborator and pogromist Stepan Bandera.
The Canadian capitalist press has reported some of the latest revelations from the Rodal report, but only as historical footnotes. Not a single paper has named Puntulis, or revisited his alleged crimes. This is because the Canadian state has a great deal more to hide.
Reading the now largely unredacted Rodal report, one understands why it was kept secret. It demonstrates that many of Justice Jules Deschenes’ conclusions in the official Report on War Criminals in Canada were lies.
Deschenes demurred that “the Commission will leave it to professional historians to examine the reasons which may explain this lack of interest on the part not only of successive governments, but of the people themselves,” in the prosecution of war criminals in Canada.
This deeply cynical statement, which attempts to blame the Canadian working class for the political complicity of the ruling class, was made with full knowledge of how the Canadian state rapidly relaxed its policy on the admission of those who fought for the Nazis and did so voluntarily.
Canada’s post-war “Nazi Open Door” policy
The Rodal report lists a series of government policy decisions, some of them heretofore secret Orders in Council and RCMP memoranda, which indicate the development of the Canadian state’s open-door policy to Nazis, for example:
29 May 1947: P.C (Privy Council) 2047 provides for entry to Canada under Minister’s Permit of German scientists and technicians under certain conditions…
31 July, 1947: P.C. 2908 lifts ban on admission of enemy aliens for nationalities of Finland, Hungary, Italy and Roumania… Service in the armed forces of these countries during the war not to be a ban on admission to Canada, according to External Affairs circular, January 1948.
April 1948: RCMP and Immigration decision to admit former members of Baltic Waffen SS who enlisted after December 1, 1943
30 Nov 1950: RCMP circular: membership in the Nazi Party no longer grounds for rejection for immigration to Canada…
May 1951: Security Panel recommendations: that service in the Waffen SS should no longer be cause for blanket rejection.... that Waffen SS should be rejected if: non-German SS found to bear mark of SS blood group… Collaboration in itself not to be considered cause for rejection… All cases of ‘major and ‘minor’ collaborators to be decided by Deputy Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.”
Rodal notes that in discussions within the Canadian state on the admission of Nazi war criminals, “the moral dimension was absent.” Canadian officials took into consideration only the cold calculations of the interest of Canadian capitalism and imperialism.
Rodal report, page 291. Remarks of Joseph Robillard, Chief of Canadian Immigration Mission in Germany, to Canada’s Ambassador to West Germany. 1955. Emphasis added. [Photo: Government of Canada]
Rodal’s report further exposes how those regulations on the entry of war criminals which remained in place were openly countermanded by secret orders. She writes, “Research for this report indicates that there were instances when Canadian officials decided to overlook SS tattoo marks… that there were in fact directives issued to screening officers to ignore SS tattoo marks for Baltic Waffen SS cases…” and several other instances.
While the official Deschenes report blessed the decisions of previous governments to admit war criminal suspects, as they had been “individually screened for security purposes before admission to Canada,” the Rodal report exposes the security screening processes as a fraud, and Deschenes’s statement as a lie.
Rodal notes that “One must reject as unfounded recollections and conclusions reached by former immigration and security screening officers regarding the strictness and thoroughness of postwar immigration screening procedures.” Yet these were the very same phony recollections which the official Deschenes report promoted as good coin.
Thanks to Rodal, we know that Jules Deschenes lied outright when he stated that, “Public statements by outside interveners concerning alleged war criminals in Canada have spread increasingly large and grossly exaggerated figures as to their estimated number.”
Rodal reached exactly the opposite conclusion, declaring “it would be rash to assume that significant numbers of war criminals and Nazi collaborators did not enter Canada.”
Likewise, Deschenes infamously exonerated all of the members of the Ukrainian 14th Waffen SS Galizien Division, at least 3000 of whom entered Canada.
Yaroslav Hunka (front center) among Nazi Waffen-SS Galicia Division troops. [Photo: Ivan Katchanovski/Twitter or X]
Rodal noted that the previous employment of many members of the Division in various Ukrainian police battalions which had played a major role in the Holocaust in Ukraine, rounding up and killing Jews en masse, “may not remove, but rather strengthen the probability of a war criminal element.” Further, Rodal documented the campaign of lies waged by the Ukrainian Canadian Committee from 1947 to 1950 to mis-characterize the Waffen SS Division as a unit of the regular German army, and even as “labour conscripts.” Deschenes in contrast, gave the UCC official standing before the Commission of Inquiry!
As the WSWS has previously explained, the Deschenes Commission was a cover-up. Its report and findings were written not to tell the truth, but to protect the Canadian state, which ran Nazi war criminals as intelligence agents during the Cold War, deploying them as a blunt weapon against the working class at home and abroad. The Rodal report was likewise written with the aim of assisting the Canadian state, by ensuring that its senior operatives were confidentially apprised of some of the most sordid and politically explosive of its Cold War crimes.
The case of the Serbian Nazi and deputy concentration camp commander “Radon”
Typical is a case which Rodal chose to describe in detail, and at random, for its representative nature of a whole body of similar cases, codenamed in government records variously as “U,’ “V” or “Radon.”
After thirteen years of membership in the Lotich–the Serbian Nazi party—and the Belgrade Police—Radon became the deputy commander of the Branjica concentration camp, “associated with the deaths of 700,000 people” according to Rodal. In all likelihood Radon is Radovan Charapic,[i] who was named subsequent to Rodal’s report. Radon was accused of being “one of those responsible for making selection lists of those prisoners to be shot, sent to gas chambers, or to concentration camps in Germany.” He was sentenced to death in absentia in 1947 in Yugoslavia.
“Radon” entered Canada under the Bulk Labour Program using forged papers provided by US intelligence in 1948. He immediately began espionage work against Yugoslav Communists in Toronto under RCMP supervision. This lasted until 1951, when the Globe and Mail reported on the Yugoslav government’s demand for his extradition to stand trial for war crimes. Despite the conclusion of the Department of Justice “that there was sufficient evidence to take action against ‘U’ ” no action was ever taken to prosecute him.
Actions were instead taken to protect him. In 1962 the RCMP Security Service deliberately withheld information from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration which would have informed them of Radon’s wartime activities. The RCMP testified that any association of “U/V” (Radon) with Charapic was “probably a case of mistaken identity.”
The Deputy Minister of Immigration at the time could not help but comment that “I can’t escape the conclusion that there is probably something to this story: nor can I believe that we would have been quite so unconcerned about really getting to the bottom of the whole business if the man had been a subversive of the ‘left’ rather than on the ‘right’ side of the political spectrum.”
By 1967, Canada’s Department of External Affairs was aware of Radon’s identity and wartime criminal record. Nothing was done. In 1979, the RCMP interviewed Radon, and declared “there is nothing on file to indicate that the Security Service or any other Canadian Agency was aware of V’s correct identity prior to his arrival in Canada using false documentation.” This pathetic excuse is entirely beside the point, as his identity was publicly revealed in 1951, yet he was allowed to remain in Canada unmolested.
A 1983 secret RCMP report determined that Radon’s identity as an accused war criminal had been confirmed to the Security Service in 1964.
1983 was also the year in which the RCMP destroyed more than 6,462 cubic feet of immigration files, an act which Justice Deschenes declared, “should not be considered a culpable act or a blunder, but which has occurred in the normal course of the application of a routine policy.”
Rodal suggests the reason for the RCMP’s protection of Radon: his continued exploitation by US intelligence and the RCMP. She reveals that in 1961, Radon possessed two different passports, using two different aliases. “This suggests the possibility that his past record for such services to the Americans and his false identity would also have been known by Canadian authorities at that time.”
An ongoing state coverup
Rodal also reveals that she herself was under immense pressure NOT to investigate the links between state intelligence agencies and Nazi war criminals, stating “The author of this report was specifically discouraged by Commission Counsel from researching these allegations further on the grounds that the task was an impossible one, and not properly the work of the Commission.” Rodal responded that “Nevertheless, aspects of the allegations do appear to have some foundation, and the issue calls for further research.”
Further research has been stymied by the deliberate destruction and falsification of the historical record. Underscoring this is Rodal’s remark “that internal RMCP memoranda, at the time when Corporal Yetter of the Federal Policing Branch was investigating the allegations regarding the role of American and British intelligence, refer to the disappearance in the early 1970’s of files relating to the subject of Nazi war criminals and to the reconstitution of a ‘false docket’ on the subject.”
The US carried out a blatantly illegal drone strike in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad late last Wednesday, killing two members of the Kata’ib Hezbollah militia and provoking angry protests in the city’s streets. Identification cards found nearby reportedly identified them as Arkan al-Elayawi and Abu Baqir al-Saedi.
Civil defense members gather at the site of a burned vehicle targeted by a US drone strike in east Baghdad, Iraq, Feb. 7, 2024 [AP Photo/Hadi Mizban]
The Special Operations drone strike was part of the ongoing US retaliation for the deaths of three American soldiers in an attack on a US military base in Jordan. The Pentagon claimed that al-Saedi was responsible for directing Kata’ib Hezbollah operations, including the strike in Jordan.
Like the first round of strikes in Iraq and Syria the previous Friday, the US military has offered no evidence for any of its claims. Rather, Washington has arrogated to itself the right to carry out murderous attacks across the Middle East, deliberately inflaming tensions and widening the war already underway as a consequence of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Sky News reported that people rapidly surrounded the burning vehicle, chanting anti-American slogans. Witnesses told reporters there was a lot of anger over the blatant disregard by the Americans for civilian lives. The US admitted to carrying out a “unilateral attack” that destroyed a car in a busy civilian street in the east of the capital.
“America needs to be investigated for breaching international law,” one man told Sky News.
“How are they able to attack another country and kill people with immunity?”
Within hours of the strike, crowds gathered at the entrance to the heavily-fortified Green Zone in Baghdad to protest against the killings. Demonstrators chanted “Death to America” and “America, get out of our land,” as large numbers of heavily-protected riot police blocked the entrance.
The Green Zone, built in the aftermath of the criminal US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, contains the huge American embassy and associated infrastructure which directed the US military occupation of the country that resulted in an estimated million civilian deaths.
The day after the attack, Iraqi military spokesman Yehia Rasool denounced the strike as “a blatant assassination” that showed “no regard for civilian lives or international laws.”
Rasool warned: “The trajectory compels the Iraqi government more than ever to terminate the mission of this [US-led] coalition, which has become a factor for instability and threatens to entangle Iraq in the cycle of conflict.”
The US has around 2,500 troops in Iraq on the pretext of combatting remnants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters. Another 900 American troops occupy parts of Syria without even the pretence of authorisation by the Syrian government.
The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani also suggested that US troops and others from the US-led coalition against ISIS should leave Iraq. A social media post “highlighted Iraq’s enhanced capabilities in combating terrorism, leading to the decision to end the coalition’s mission as ISIS terrorist remnants no longer pose a threat to Iraq.”
Major General Tahsin al-Khafaji, a spokesman for Iraq’s security services, branded the strike as “an aggression” that “violated Iraqi sovereignty and risked dangerous repercussions in the region.”
The Iraqi government’s response highlights the deeply destabilising impact of the Israeli regime’s barbaric war against the Palestinians, backed by the US and all the imperialist powers, and the wider regional war that the US and Israel are opening up. While US and Israeli strikes have to date been restricted to Iranian-backed militia groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, Iran itself is the chief target.
The government in Baghdad formed in October 2022 is a highly unstable amalgam of Shiite parties aligned to a greater or lesser extent with Tehran, along with Sunni and Kurdish parties. Prime Minister al-Sudani was nominated by the Iran-backed Shia Coordination Framework, the largest bloc of legislators in the country’s parliament.
The government, however, faces opposition from a bloc led by populist Shiite leader and cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, which won the largest number of parliamentary seats in the 2021 national elections. The Sadrists, who demand the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Iraq, including US troops and Iran-back militia, refused to join the current government.
The US strikes will further inflame popular opposition to the American military presence in the country, adding to the political volatility.
Reporters for US-based PBS travelled to western Iraq last week where the US military had hit several towns as part of its retaliatory strikes on February 2, provoking angry reactions from local people. On that day, nuclear-capable B-1B bombers delivered over 125 munitions on 85 targets in seven locations throughout Iraq and Syria.
The town of Akashat, located near the Syrian border, was heavily hit by American airstrikes. Largely abandoned after the fighting with ISIS, it is under the control of the 13th Brigade of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella group of paramilitary forces formed to fight ISIS and is now officially part of Iraq’s security forces.
Eyewitnesses told PBS that the first missile hit the military hospital, killing the five people inside and wrecking the ambulance. In all, 17 PMF members were killed.
PMF commander Qasem Musleh flatly denied involvement with any of the militia groups operating as Islamic Resistance in Iraq that have attacked US forces. “I hope that the United States will reveal one piece of evidence that there is support to the resistance factions. There was no leadership here, as they claimed, or people with ties to foreign countries, or who took part in strikes on coalition forces.”
In the town of al-Qaim, where a Kata’ib Hezbollah base is located, PBS spoke to Anmar Al-Rawi, whose brother was killed by a US missile strike on the family home. “Of course, their [the US] strike was a reaction to the attack on them, but their response fell on the civilians, not on the militaries. Not one from Kata’ib Hezbollah was killed. They knew there was ammunition in the base and that civilians would be affected.”
A local tribal leader, Sheik Ragheb Al-Karbouli, warned that hostilities could lead to “an unpredictable regional war.” Asked what would prevent such a conflict, he bluntly declared: “The solution to the solution is the Palestinian issue. An independent Palestinian state with full sovereignty will give an opportunity for security and peace in the entire region.”
Neither Israel nor the US and its allies has the slightest intention of creating an independent Palestinian state or resolving the oppression of the Palestinian people. Rather, the Israeli military is poised to escalate its barbaric war with an onslaught on Rafah where a million refugees from other parts of Gaza are gathered in atrocious conditions.
US claims that it is seeking to avoid a wider regional war, endlessly repeated, are a lie. The Israeli war on the Palestinians is adding fuel to wider conflicts underway throughout the Middle East as the US and Israel intensify their strikes in the region.
On Saturday, an Israeli drone strike hit a car near Lebanon’s southern port city of Sidon, killing at least two people and wounding two others. The attack was one of the deepest inside Lebanon, where Israel has carried out numerous strikes in an undeclared war with Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia. The target appears to have been Hamas official Basel Saleh, reportedly responsible for recruiting Hamas fighters in Gaza and the West Bank.
The Israeli military carried out airstrikes on several sites on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus on Saturday. The British-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said one of the strikes hit a residential building west of the capital, killing three people. The observatory said it was the 10th Israeli strike on Syrian territory since the beginning of the year.
The US has been engaged in new military exchanges with Houthi militia in Yemen. The US Central Command announced on Saturday that US warships had destroyed two mobile unmanned surface vessels, four anti-ship cruise missiles and one cruise missile that were threatening ships in the Red Sea. In addition, the US and Britain conducted several airstrikes on Houthi-held areas across Yemen, including the capital of Sanaa.
Healthcare workers at Jackson Memorial Hospital,in Miami. [AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee]
The healthcare industry in the United States is laying off tens of thousands of workers to shore up profits, threatening to stretch a badly understaffed healthcare system past the breaking point.
According to a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the healthcare sector laid off 58,560 jobs in 2023, a 91 percent increase over 2022. The sector only trailed the tech and retail sectors for most jobs wiped off the slate.
Overall, 721,677 jobs were cut last year in the US, nearly double the number in 2022. This is a deliberate class policy, aimed at smashing growing working class opposition through mass unemployment. High inflation monetary policy and the use of major advances in automation and artificial intelligence are the two principal weapons in this assault on jobs.
The latest healthcare layoffs come from Amazon, which recently announced several hundred cuts at its One Medical and Amazon Pharmacy operations. Across all of its divisions, the tech giant has cut more than 27,000 jobs in the recent period.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, candidly observed in the Washington Post about the mass layoffs, “That is the way the American capitalist system works. It’s ruthless when it gets down to striving for profitability and creating wealth. It redirects resources very rapidly from one place to another.”
But the layoffs in healthcare are particularly sinister because they are taking place amid the second-highest wave of the coronavirus pandemic, while the government has shut down all public health measures. The elimination of federal coronavirus funding has only exacerbated the cuts. This is an attack on the basic social right to healthcare, which the ruling class increasingly views as a wasted expense.
Even the figures cited by Challenger, Gray & Christmas are a vast undercount of the real staffing situation because they do not include the countless healthcare professionals who have been driven out of the system entirely by impossible and dangerous working conditions.
The attack on healthcare is also aimed at one of the most active segments of the working class which is striking against stagnant pay and worsening working conditions. According to figures collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16 out of the 43 major strikes last year were by healthcare workers, involving more than 112,000 workers combined. Cornell University’s Labor Action Tracker found 192 strikes and labor protests last year by healthcare workers. The trade union bureaucracy, however, fought tooth and nail to limit these strikes and impose sellouts, as it did in the strike by over 70,000 Kaiser Permanente workers late last year.
A review by Becker’s Hospital CFO Report last month found that105 hospitals and healthcare systems have cut jobs across the United States. Job cuts over the last six months include:
Illinois
In Chicago, two major medical centers, University of Chicago (UoC) and Rush, have let employees go, citing financial struggles for these decisions. UoC has terminated 180 workers (2 percent of its medical staff). Its president, Tom Jackiewicz, noted, “Outside pressures, including higher supply and labor costs, are converging as healthcare delivery rapidly evolves. Additionally, we grew our staff to address the pandemic, which was necessary for that moment but cannot be maintained.”
Rush has not disclosed how much of its staff has been axed but said in a written statement, “In response to financial headwinds affecting healthcare providers nationwide, Rush has undertaken a restructuring resulting in elimination of some administrative and leadership positions.” Notable, however, in 2022, the medical giant earned $2.6 billion, with net income increasing $18 million, according to tax documents.
Alivo Medical Center in Pilsen, which provides healthcare for migrants and asylum seekers, has slashed pay for its workers by at least 20 percent with a drastic reduction in hours.
Ollie Idowu, president and chief executive officer of the Illinois Primary Health Care Association, told Chicago Sun Times that many clinics across the state are struggling financially with the ending of the COVID-19 relief money and “instability of federal funding.”
California
Kaiser Permanente is laying off an additional 79 administrative employees after cutting 115 tech positions in December and 49 more administrative positions in October.
John Muir Health laid off 164 employees in Concord, after it sold its home health services division to Joliet, Illinois-based Cornerstone Home Healthcare last month.
Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside let go nearly 100 employees to align operations with the decline in hospital volume, “which has been 25 percent lower than historical trends.”
Southwest Healthcare’s Palmdale Regional Medical Center suspended its maternity services and fired 87 workers.
Kaiser Foundation Hospital has notified the state it cut positions in Pleasanton and Oakland in Northern California. Additional cuts are planned in Pasadena, Rancho Cucamonga, San Diego and Burbank in Southern California.
Maine
St. Mary’s Health System, part of Covenant Health in Lewiston, Maine, is terminating 31 employees, while reducing hours for many other workers.
Pennsylvania
Tower Health in West Reading sacked 30 employees in December to “streamline operations” and outsourced much of its information technology department to an external vendor.
Florida
Sixty employees at Coral Gables of Florida-based Baptist Health were “voluntarily” separated in November.
River Medical Center, part of the Dallas-based Steward Health Care, has reduced its workforce, claiming, “This is a reflection of hospital volume and normal market fluctuations.” More than 80 people were let go in 2022. The 178-bed facility has a medical staff of approximately 100 physicians and 500 nursing and ancillary staff.
Arkansas
Baxter Health in Mountain Home has cut 155 positions.
New York
Rome Health, located in the upstate city of the same name with a population of 32,000, restructured its workforce by terminating 32 positions and reducing hours for other workers.
Minnesota
The Community Memorial Hospital cut 30 positions at its nursing home facility, which operates on the hospital campus.
Minneapolis-based Fairview Health Services terminated 250 positions to curb what it called “ongoing challenges, including inflation, high labor costs and lagging payment rates from insurers.”
Missouri
Boone Health in Columbia shuttered its home care and hospice service line, resulting in the loss of employment for 26 employees in November.
Pemiscot Memorial Health Systems terminated 10 of its 100 or so workers in October.
Washington
In October, Vancouver’s PeaceHealth informed the state that it was closing its Sacred Heart Medical Center University District hospital in Eugene, Oregon, impacting 463 caregivers. The healthcare system said it would try to offer jobs to 325 of them, while the remaining 129 will have to search for new positions.
Ohio
Toledo-based ProMedica laid off 122 people in October from its home health agency. They also closed facilities in Clyde, Ohio, and Dundee, Michigan.
North Carolina
Novant Health in Winston-Salem let go 160 of its 36,000 employees in November as part of an “organizational redesign plan.”
Texas
Southwestern Health Resources disclosed it was laying off many of its workers, although it was careful not to disclose the exact figures.
In August, Vibra Healthcare let 76 employees go at its specialty hospital in DeSoto, Texas. Additional firings took place in late September at its critical access facility.
Iowa
West Burlington-based Southeast Iowa Regional Medical Center is laying off 67 people across two hospitals.
Massachusetts
Tufts Medicine, located in Burlington, cut hundreds of positions from its diagnostics labs in August and outsourced these to Labcorp, a corporate giant that operates the largest clinical laboratory networks in the world.
The profit-driven crisis in American healthcare
Many news outlets have emphasized that the cuts in healthcare are falling predominately on administrative staff and upper-level management under the auspices of reducing redundancy and improving organizational efficiency. But these job cuts signal a deepening of the merger, acquisition and monopolization of the healthcare industry which will see a further deterioration of quality of care at the expense of profit.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage completely unimpeded. Healthcare economists have computed that the “endemic COVID-19” policy could result in additional annual healthcare costs of $137 to $379 billion, based on scenarios analyzed by McKinsey’s COVID-19 Epidemiological Scenario Planning Tool. This is based on reasonable estimates of 110 to 220 million COVID-19 infections per year, with an “upper-bound” estimate of 20 million Long-COVID cases per year in the US. The stress on the healthcare sector will be made even worse by short-term cost-cutting measures to maintain quarterly earnings reports.
While any rational society would respond with a vast increase in public health resources, the complete subordination of healthcare to the financial sector in the United States is leading to the exact opposite. Moody’s Investors Services is expecting many overleveraged healthcare companies—including those involved in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, outpatient care and hospitalization—to begin to default on their debt payments, according to BloombergNews. “More than half have weak liquidity,” Bloomberg added. “Ten companies, including Air Methods, Envision, and Mallinckrodt, saw their rating downgraded to default this year (2023) and many more will do so in 2024.”
These defaults are a byproduct of the era of “aggressive private equity-backed mergers and acquisitions in the decade following the global financial crisis” that saw debt climb. Inflation now is driving up costs and wages with intense pressure on firms to “shrink the bills.”
Furthermore, 41 companies, including Bausch Health, Cano Health and Biosolutions, have been ranked one level above junk. As Moody noted, “Against a background of excessive leverage, elevated interest rates and expiring interest rate hedges, we believe that many healthcare companies on the B3N [credit rating] List will likely have no other options but to restructure their debt in 2024 to regain much needed financial breathing room.”
In the most basic terms, the entire healthcare sector, which will take with it the entire financial apparatus, is on the verge of imploding at any moment. These will have massive social implications and potential for significant social convulsions.
