New study finds young adults vulnerable to developing debilitating long-term complications from COVID-19

Dominic Gustavo

A new study conducted by the University of Dayton in Ohio has concluded that adolescents and young adults who fall ill with COVID-19 have a high chance of being afflicted with persistent and potentially devastating long-term complications. The results expose the pseudoscientific claims, promoted by the bourgeois press, that young people are exempt from the most serious effects of COVID-19. The promotion of this lie has been used to justify the homicidal back-to-school drive despite record cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the virus.

The preliminary study surveyed 43 students who had either tested positive or been clinically diagnosed with COVID-19. Only students who had been sickened with a mild or moderate (non-hospitalized) case of COVID-19 were surveyed. Over 50 percent of these students reported symptoms more than 28 days later, and 30 percent were still experiencing symptoms more than 50 days later. The study also surveyed 58 students who had not contracted COVID-19 as a control group, to make sure that the symptoms were not the result of general stressors or other health issues that typically affect college students.

The symptoms reported most frequently by what they called the “post-COVID syndrome” group were impaired concentration, headaches, rhinitis, exercise intolerance, dyspnea, sleep impairment, brain fog, appetite loss, fatigue, and chest pain. It is notable that all but one of the post-COVID-19 syndrome group were women. According to the study, although men are more likely to die from COVID-19 (accounting for 70 percent of COVID-19 deaths), women are more likely to experience prolonged complications.

Young people wearing masks (pikist.com)

The study explains: “It is plausible that the more active female immune system may be an advantage in clearing the virus, but this could be a double-edged sword if the female immune activation produces a lingering syndrome. This sexually dimorphic immune response is further supported by a recent study which found that 12.5 percent of males but only 2.6 percent of females with severe COVID-19 had neutralizing immunoglobulin G (IgG) autoantibodies against interferons which could explain some of the increased male mortality.”

Overall, these findings sharply contradict the claim that long-term complications from COVID-19 only affect middle-aged or elderly people. Dr. Julie Walsh-Messinger, one of the organizers of the study, said in a statement on the university website:

The common belief in the U.S. is that COVID-19 is benign or short-lived in young adults. … Our study, which we believe is the first to report on post-COVID syndrome in college students, almost exclusively between 18 and 21 years of age, suggests otherwise. More research needs to be done to confirm these findings, but until then, we urge the medical and scientific community to consider young adults vulnerable to post-COVID syndrome and to closely monitor those who contracted the disease for lingering viral effects.

The study goes on to cite a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report, which found that one in five adults between the ages of 18 and 34 reported that they were still experiencing symptoms three weeks after testing positive for the virus. A July report by the CDC found that fully 35 percent of people with mild cases of COVID-19 had not fully recovered two-three weeks later.

It is notable that the study took place at the University of Dayton, where an  18-year-old freshman died of COVID-19 in October, a deadly consequence of the pseudoscientific notion that young adults and adolescents have nothing to fear from the novel coronavirus. Since reopening, the University of Dayton has recorded at least 1,532 cases of COVID-19 on campus.

The as yet unnamed “post-COVID syndrome” presents itself in a wide range of symptoms from mild to debilitating and potentially life-threatening. Common symptoms include chronic fatigue, shortness of breath, headaches, heart palpitations, aching of the joints, chest pain, loss of taste or smell, and gastrointestinal issues. More serious complications include damage to the heart, lungs and kidneys, among many others.

The syndrome can also manifest in a number of neurological disorders ranging from insomnia to cognitive impairment—which some survivors have likened to dementia—marked by “brain fog,” memory loss and general confusion. Psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety have also been commonly reported.

One case that has received widespread attention is that of Arizona resident Riley Behrens. Behrens, a 23-year-old Harvard student and rugby athlete, suffered a Transient Ischemic Attack, a form of mild stroke, after contracting COVID-19. Though mostly recovered since then, he continues to experience dizziness and fatigue, with even mundane activities proving a challenge. According to USAToday: “I’m not walking my dog on long walks. I’m not over-exerting myself cleaning my house. I’m not allowed to drive until I’m cleared by a neurologist. I can’t play sports because the risk of another head injury increases the risk of a stroke.”

Dr. Luay Shayya, associated with Neurology Consultants of Arizona, told USAToday that the case of Behrens is more common than one might imagine: “There have been multiple case reports published ... about patients who are young having large strokes due to COVID. … It’s very unusual for young people to have strokes to begin with.”

It is also known that young children and teens are susceptible to developing post-COVID syndrome. One anguished parent told the WSWS: “My daughter has lost 30 pounds, she has heart problems, she has joint swelling and pain, she spends four hours a week at therapy, she has weird infections, she fights fatigue daily, she has brain fog. I just found out yesterday that she has a weak heart with a constant rapid heart rate. She just hasn’t been the same.”

Those who suffer from post-COVID syndrome, known as “long-haulers,” are breaking their silence and speaking out about their struggles. Many have had their experiences dismissed by doctors as being the result of PTSD or depression resulting from their COVID-19 illness. However, as the population stricken with the syndrome grows, their pain has become undeniable. Online support groups such as Body Politic and Survivor Corps have appeared, giving a voice to those who had been suffering in silence.

A recent New York Times article published the accounts of COVID-19 survivors and their health care providers as they struggle to understand and treat the debilitating syndrome. Dr. Ann Parker, who works at a post-COVID clinic at Johns Hopkins, reported: “Approximately three months after their acute illness, more than half of our patients have at least a mild cognitive impairment. … We’re also seeing substantial mental health impairments.”

Hannah Davis, a 32-year-old Brooklyn artist and researcher, told the Times: “I forgot my partner’s name. … I would regularly pick up a hot pan, burn myself, put it down and literally do it again. I forgot how to shower. I forgot how to dress myself.” Davis, who is involved with Body Politic, went on to cite a survey conducted by the group of 3,800 of its members in 56 countries. According to the Times, the survey found that 85 percent reported cognitive dysfunction, 75 percent were having difficulties functioning at work, and almost half had difficulties with speech and language.

Several physicians, among them Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Health, have speculated that many of those suffering from COVID-19 complications are on track to develop a condition resembling Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). ME/CFS, is described by the Institute of Medicine as “a serious, chronic, complex systemic disease that often can profoundly affect the lives of patients.” This is a mysterious affliction that has no known cure and can cripple its sufferers for months, and sometimes years.

While the exact mechanism whereby COVID-19 causes these long-term effects remains murky, what is undeniable are the devastating implications of hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions of Americans being stricken with debilitating chronic health issues. In light of the growing mountain of evidence showing that young adults and adolescents are vulnerable to the ravages of COVID-19, the policy of reopening the schools and universities assumes a criminal character.

The catastrophic policies of the ruling class—represented by both Democrats and Republicans—which have allowed the uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus, will not only result in hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths, but will also cause untold suffering and misery for the millions who survive. This constitutes nothing less than a crime against all of humanity, and only the intervention of the international working class on the basis of a revolutionary socialist program—with the explicit aim of overthrowing capitalism—can halt this orgy of agony and death.

Lufthansa increases job cuts to almost 50,000

Ulrich Rippert

Resting on the close collaboration of Verdi and the other airline unions, the Lufthansa Executive Board is stepping up its cost-cutting measures. The already announced reduction of 30,000 jobs is being accelerated and increased to almost 50,000.

In the spring, the German government provided the company with a rescue package worth €9 billion. This money will now be used to organise an unprecedented retrenchment, destroying the livelihoods of tens of thousands of workers and their families in what is a jobs massacre at state expense with the support of the trade unions.

On Monday, Focus-Online magazine published a report on the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on Lufthansa. It states that the already announced and commenced reduction of 29,000 jobs will not be stretched out to the end of next year but will be completed in the next three weeks, by the end of the year, meaning compulsory redundancies are unavoidable.

Lufthansa aircraft at Frankfurt Airport (Photo: Kevin Hackert / CC BY-NC 2.0)

“But that is by far not all,” the article states. The airline had also sold off its catering subsidiary LSG’s European business, with 7,500 employees, and next year, another 10,000 jobs are to be slashed in Germany. “Those who stay at Lufthansa should forgo their salary—others will be laid off,” Focus-Online writes. A company spokeswoman confirmed a corresponding report in Bild am Sonntag over the weekend.

This massive attack on the jobs and incomes of employees is not the inevitable result of the flight cancellations and falling passenger numbers due to the coronavirus crisis, as the company management and union officials claim in identical statements. If this were the case, employees—who are, in any case, largely being financed by the state via short-time work compensation—could receive interim payments from the rescue fund until after the crisis.

The coronavirus is not the cause but serves as a pretext for enforcing long-planned and long-prepared restructuring measures, combined with job and wage cuts and worse working conditions. The goal is to build up Lufthansa as a leading European airline and make it highly profitable for investors—i.e., to trim it for profit and position it successfully for international competition.

The pandemic is being used to accelerate the industrial policy goals of the grand coalition of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, which Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) presented at the beginning of last year as the “National Industrial Strategy 2030.”

The German government is working closely with major shareholder Heinz Hermann Thiele, who increased his shareholding in Lufthansa to 15 percent in March. Last month, he had called for a “viable restructuring programme worthy of the name.” According to Thiele, the most important thing is that costs be reduced immediately and sustained through “comprehensive job cuts.”

Thiele is known for his ruthless capitalist methods. The 79-year-old multibillionaire has assets of €13 billion and is one of the 10 richest people in Germany. He built his company Knorr-Bremse into the world market leader in brakes for trains and commercial vehicles by radically intensifying the levels of exploitation. He makes employees work 42 hours a week, seven hours longer than in metalworking companies covered by collective agreements.

The unions also support the federal government’s “National Industrial Strategy.” Although they still call themselves “employee representatives,” they collaborate closely with the government and management and play a key role in pushing through dismissals, wage reductions and social cuts.

To combat this social devastation and defend jobs and wages, it is necessary to understand the function and role of the trade unions and their works council representatives. Their top officials sit on company supervisory boards, advise management on all personnel matters, and draw up the strategic plans to implement the cuts—i.e., the social attacks. For this, they are rewarded with princely earnings, in addition to being bribed with high emoluments. In total, the 10 so-called employee representatives on the Lufthansa Supervisory Board have received €1,070,000 for their close cooperation in the elaboration of savings measures and redundancies.

The works council and union representatives implement the cuts programmes, compile the list of layoffs, persuade employees to sign termination agreements in one-on-one talks, exerting blatant pressure and threatening anyone who resists with being placed on the layoff list. At the same time, they organise the occasional noisy protest to blow off steam while doing everything to suppress any serious struggle to defend jobs.

At Lufthansa, the role of the unions takes drastic forms. In recent months, all three aviation unions have signed downgrading agreements that dwarf all the concessions and give-backs made by the unions.

The pilots’ union Cockpit (VC), the Independent Flight Attendants Organisation (UFO) and service union Verdi, which represents the approximately 35,000 ground workers and acts as Lufthansa’s de facto in-house union, are seeking to outbid each other in terms of the social cuts. According to their own statements, they have offered the Lufthansa board of directors a €1.2 billion cut in employee incomes.

Cockpit already agreed in the spring to reduce pilot salaries by up to 50 percent by the end of the year. On Wednesday, the union announced that this salary cut would be extended until the end of June 2022. In addition to short-time work, the package provides for concessions in salaries and pensions, VC said. “The concessions agreed this spring, and those now additionally offered, amount to a total of over €600 million. This corresponds to salary reductions of up to 50 percent compared to the pre-crisis period,” VC President Markus Wahl said.

UFO signed an agreement with Lufthansa in the summer, which will save the company half-a-billion euros by the end of 2023. For the 22,000 cabin crew of the parent company to which the agreement applies, this means an average loss of income of €23,000 over three-and-a-half years.

The savings will be realised by suspending wage increases, shortening working hours with a corresponding reduction in wages, reducing contributions to the company pension scheme and cutting jobs. In addition, there will be “voluntary” measures, such as using unpaid leave, further reductions in working hours and early retirement. Those affected will thus lose not only a large part of their current income but also their future pension provisions.

At the beginning of November, Verdi also agreed to a downgrading agreement for the ground staff. By immediately waiving vacation and Christmas bonuses as well as a wage freeze and waiving allowances until the end of 2021, “the ground staff are making a savings contribution of more than €200 million to help overcome the crisis,” explained Verdi Vice-chair Christine Behle, who is also deputy chairwoman of the Lufthansa Supervisory Board. By reaching an agreement covering ground staff, up to 50 percent of the personnel costs of this group of employees could be saved next year, rejoiced Michael Niggemann, head of Human Resources.

It is a first for the trade unions in Germany to agree on such a wages give-back totalling €1.2 billion. This takes on a new dimension of union sell-outs and is encouraging management to take even tougher action and drastically accelerate job cuts.

In the summer, WSWS published the article “Lufthansa and the bankruptcy of the unions,” in which we stated: “The events at Lufthansa clearly show the bankruptcy of the trade unions and their perspective. For decades, they have subordinated the interests of the workers to the profit interests of the corporations, within the framework of ‘social partnership.’ There are no mass dismissals and plant closures in Germany that do not bear the signature of the trade unions and their works council representatives. At Lufthansa, the unions are now going so far as to organise rallies for a ‘rescue package’ that includes the destruction of tens of thousands of jobs and massive wage and social cuts!”

The events at Lufthansa expose the transformation of the unions into management consultants defending the interests of the corporations and the government. Faced with the deepest global crisis of capitalism in 75 years, they are determined to decimate workers’ living standards to defend the profits of “their” national corporations in the international trade war—not only at Lufthansa but also in auto, engineering, steel, chemical and all other industries.

It is time to break with these corrupt organisations. Jobs, wages and social gains can only be defended in a rebellion against the unions. The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) calls for the establishment of independent rank-and-file committees that network internationally and across corporations and organise the struggle to defend jobs and wages.

This requires a socialist perspective centred on the interests of working people, not company profits and the enrichment of shareholders. The crisis in the airline industry cannot be solved on a capitalist basis and within a national framework. It requires the expropriation of the corporations and their transformation into democratically controlled public institutions that serve the needs of society rather than the drive to increase profits.

US secretary of state hypocritically sanctions Chinese officials over Hong Kong human rights

Peter Symonds

On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seized on the disqualification last month of four opposition members of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council to sanction 14 members of the standing committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC). The standing committee had authorized the Hong Kong administration to disqualify legislators who promoted Hong Kong independence, refused to recognise Chinese sovereignty or called for foreign intervention. Opposition members of the Legislative Council resigned en masse in protest.

In his statement, Pompeo, who is notorious for his anti-China diatribes, again lashed out at “Beijing’s unrelenting assault against Hong Kong’s democratic processes [that] has gutted its Legislative Council, rendering the body a rubber stamp devoid of meaningful opposition.” He attacked the actions of the NPC standing committee as having “effectively neutered the ability of the people of Hong Kong to choose their elected representatives.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing in March, 2020. (Image Credit: AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Pompeo also condemned the NPC standing committee for passing a sweeping anti-democratic National Security Law in June that has been used to crack down on anti-Beijing protests that erupted last year over the attempts by the Hong Kong administration to enact a new extradition treaty. Last week, the Hong Kong courts sentenced three prominent protest leaders—Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, Ivan Lam—to jail terms for their part in an unauthorized assembly last year.

Under the sanctions, the 14 members of the NPC standing committee and their immediate family members will be barred from entering the United States, their assets in the US will be blocked and American citizens will be barred from any dealing with them. On the pretext of defending democracy in Hong Kong, the US State Department has already imposed similar sanctions on a number of individuals including its chief executive Carrie Lam, who holds the territory’s top post.

Fearing that the protests in Hong Kong could encourage unrest on the Chinese mainland, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime has since resorted to increasingly anti-democratic methods to suppress opposition. However, for the Trump administration to portray itself as the defender of democratic rights in Hong Kong, or anywhere else for that matter, is the height of hypocrisy. Trump had no compunction about mobilizing federal paramilitary forces to brutally crack down on widespread protests in the US against police violence, and moreover has conspired to subvert the victory of Joe Biden in the presidential election last month.

Washington has a long record of selectively exploiting human rights issues to further its economic and strategic interests, while turning a blind eye to flagrant abuses of democratic rights by its allies and strategic partners. Pompeo’s denunciations of China over a growing range of issues—from human rights in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet, to Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea and blaming Beijing for the coronavirus—are part of the escalating US-led economic and strategic confrontation with China over the past decade.

In a comment entitled “China Is National Security Threat No. 1” published in the Wall Street Journal last week, the US Director of National Intelligence

After declaring that “the People’s Republic of China poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War II,” Ratcliffe accused China, on the basis of unsubstantiated assertions, of robbing US companies of intellectual property, stealing sensitive defence technology and developing its own “world-class capabilities in emerging technologies.”

In other words, the US fears that China will overtake it economically and technologically, including in the arena of military power. Declaring that China posed a “once-in-a-generation challenge,” Ratcliffe declared: “This generation will be judged by its response to China’s effort to reshape the world in its own image and replace America as the dominant superpower.” And he urged a warlike response, on a par with the US entry into World War II to defeat “the scourge of fascism” and Cold War measures aimed at “bringing down the Iron Curtain.”

Should Joe Biden assume the presidency next January, his administration will only escalate the US war drive against China. As the vice-president in the Obama administration, Biden was closely involved in its aggressive “pivot to Asia” that involved an across-the-board diplomatic, economic and strategic offensive aimed at undermining China. Its military “rebalance” has ensured that 60 percent of American naval and air assets were stationed in the Indo-Pacific region by 2020 and has strengthened US alliances, basing agreements and strategic alliances throughout the region.

During his election campaign, Biden sought to outflank Trump as a more aggressive and hardline defender of the interests of US imperialism. He branded Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “thug” and, in one of his election ads, declaring that “Trump rolled over for the Chinese—he took their word for it” over COVID-19. While Biden’s tactical approach to China may be different, he is just as determined to prevent it from challenging US global hegemony.

“Human rights” is the increasingly tawdry banner under which the US is prosecuting its aggressive confrontation with China. Last month, the Five Eyes top-level intelligence-sharing group—comprising the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand—took the unusual step of weighing in alongside Washington in condemning the disqualification of Hong Kong legislators and posturing as defenders of democratic rights.

Hong Kong, which was a British colony up until its hand-over to China in 1997, has never been ruled democratically. Beijing simply took over the anti-democratic structures through which London administered its colony—the all-powerful British colonial governor was renamed as the chief executive and selected by a committee of Beijing appointees. The Legislative Council, with its limited powers, remained largely as it was—only partially chosen by direct elections. The US of course never cavilled against Britain for its undemocratic, colonial rule.

The political weakness of the protest movement that erupted last year is that it was dominated by organisations and parties that promoted the false hope that the US and Britain would defend democratic rights in Hong Kong. For Washington, the rights of people in Hong Kong, or for that matter throughout China, are simply a convenient pretext for its war drive. The real allies of working people in Hong Kong are workers in China and internationally, not US and British imperialism, which will quickly abandon their “democratic” bluster if it suits their interests.

Moreover, the orientation towards Washington and London plays directly into the hands of Beijing, which exploits claims of “foreign interference” to justify its anti-democratic methods. On Tuesday, China denounced the US sanctions on NPC standing committee members. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying condemned “the American side’s rude and unreasonable, crazy and vile behaviour.” On the same day, the Hong Kong police arrested at least eight opposition leaders in a new sweep under the draconian National Security Law.

European Central Bank set to provide further market boost

Nick Beams

The European Central Bank is expected to announce a further boost for financial markets by adding an additional €500 billion to the €1.35 trillion financial asset purchasing program it initiated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, when its governing council meets on Thursday.

On the same day, European leaders will start a series of virtual meetings to try to gain agreement on a €750 billion European Union fund aimed at providing assistance to governments that have been hardest hit by the pandemic.

Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (Image credit: Bernd Hartung / European Central Bank)

The fund was approved in principle earlier this year, but its operation has been held up because of disputes with the increasingly authoritarian governments of Poland and Hungary over its disbursement. The EU majority has said the provision of funds must be tied to respect for the rule of law.

One of the aims of the increased ECB financial asset purchases is to raise the price of government bonds, thereby lowering the interest rates that governments have to pay to finance their borrowing programs, as well as providing a further boost to financial and equity markets.

The crucial importance of the ECB program was highlighted back in March when it was developing its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Incoming ECB president Christine Lagarde remarked at a press conference that it was not the job of the central bank to close the gap between the yield on the bonds of the stronger and weaker members of the eurozone.

Her remarks prompted a major sell-off of Italian government bonds and a 17 percent fall in the country’s stock market. Lagarde gave a television interview in which she pulled back from her previous remarks.

At the same time, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, the ECB’s chief economist Philip Lane “made dozens of private calls to banks and private investors,” to provide reassurances that the ECB was ready to buy Italian bonds if necessary.

The calls, which involved major hedge funds and banks, such as BlackRock, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, were a significant departure from what is considered the normal practice of only delivering information to market participants at the same time.

Whatever the content of the discussions, they were followed by a major initiative six days later when the ECB unveiled a €750 billion asset purchasing program which it upscaled to €1.35 trillion in June.

Bond prices rose, leading to a fall in yields (the two have an inverse relationship), with the result that yields on Italian and Spanish government bonds have fallen to record lows. As the WSJ noted, “this has meant that owning European government bonds has been profitable for investors this year” because the value of their holdings has risen.

As Sandra Holdsworth of Aegon Asset Management told the Financial Times: “The commitment to keeping spreads low has impressed markets this year. Why wouldn’t you buy Portuguese or Italian bonds if you know they have the support of the central bank?”

Since the upscaling of the asset purchasing program in June, the ECB has indicated it intends to provide still further stimulus.

Its actions form a vital component of the trillions of dollars poured into financial markets by the world’s central banks, which have seen stock prices soar to record highs amid the carnage inflicted on the lives of workers the world over.

According to the Financial Times, the MSCI All-Country World share index rose by 12.2 percent in November in its best month on record to reach an all-time high. Since the lows reached in March, market capitalisation has increased by $30 trillion.

Wall Street, as a result of the Federal Reserve’s stimulus measures, is leading the way. After rebounding from the lows in March, when a financial freeze led to a massive Fed intervention, it has reached all-time highs with the Dow passing what President Trump called the “sacred” number of 30,000. This has taken place amid a dramatic acceleration in the infection rates for COVID-19.

The markets have been boosted by the prospect of a rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. But the main factor in the Wall Street surge has been the stimulus provided by the Fed along with the more than $3 trillion funnelled to corporations through the CARES Act.

Wall Street is looking to further measures from an incoming Biden administration following the announcement that former Fed chair Janet Yellen will be appointed Treasury Secretary. Yellen was a firm proponent of the quantitative easing policies, initiated by her predecessor Ben Bernanke under the Obama administration.

In a comment to the Financial Times, long-time market analyst Ed Yardeni described Yellen as the “Fairy Godmother of the Bull Market” and said that as Biden’s Treasury Secretary “she will continue to wave her magic wand.”

In terms of their relationship to underlying value, stock prices have reached record highs, especially in the high-tech area which has risen 36 percent this year while the broader market has gained 14 percent.

The cyclically adjusted price to earnings ratio of the S&P 500 index developed by economist Robert Shiller reached 33.4 at the start of this month, putting it above the level it reached in 1929 before the crash that ushered in the Great Depression and nearly double its historic average of 17. The only time that current levels have been exceeded is December 1999 on the eve of the collapse of the tech bubble.

The rise and rise of global markets has far-reaching implications. In the first place it makes clear why governments refuse to take meaningful measures to deal with the pandemic—including the shutdown of non-essential services with payment to workers affected. Such measures, which would necessitate significant inroads into corporate wealth, would precipitate a stock market meltdown.

Secondly, the rise and rise of the markets, amid the most significant economic contraction since the 1930s, is not an indication of health but rather of financial parasitism. Stocks as well as bonds, both corporate and government, are not value in and of themselves. In the final analysis they are fictitious capital—claims on the surplus value extracted from the working class elsewhere in the economy.

This is why, in every country, class relations are being restructured to worsen working conditions, lower real pay and step up exploitation in order to feed this ever-growing cancer.

Trudeau Foundation Doctoral Scholarships 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 5th January 2021

To be taken at (country): Canadian Universities

Accepted Subject Areas: Social Sciences and Humanities related studies, preferably one of the following:

• Human Rights and Dignity
• Responsible Citizenship
• Canada and the World
• People and their Natural Environment

About the Award:  The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholarship Program will help shape researchers into engaged leaders who are conscious of the impact of their research, connected to the realities of the communities in which they work, and open to non-conventional forms of knowledge. The Foundation is seeking candidates who are audacious, original, and forward-thinking.

The program will last for three years and will also provide generous support for Scholars’ doctoral work in the form of a stipend and a research and travel allowance.

While the pandemic will require that the process be much more virtual, the Foundation will seek the brightest emerging Scholars from Canada and abroad to receive this remarkable Scholarship, as has always been the case. Through the Foundation’s leadership development program, these Scholars will learn from a new cohort of Fellows and Mentors, leading lights in their institutions and communities, under the scientific theme beginning in 2021, Language, Culture & Identity. 

The selection criteria for 2021 ushers in important changes rooted in the Foundation’s Strategic Plan 2019-2024. Importantly, these criteria are built upon the definition of diversity outlined in the plan, including the commitment to a diversity of perspectives, now under the banner Plurality of Perspectives. We continue to seek scholars with the greatest intellectual capacity, while also looking for those committed to deep listening, profound curiosity, exploring grey areas, and demonstrating a willingness to engage with a diversity of people, cultures, ideologies, and perspectives. In tandem with this development, the Foundation is pleased its programs will bear the emblem Brave Spaces, accountable and democratic spaces where a multiplicity of ideas may be expressed and debated in an open and welcoming fashion. This commitment to Brave Spaces, privileging robust debates while offering a safety net of policy, empathy circles, and mutual respect, recognizes that challenging and sometimes uncomfortable discussions are important steps on the road to becoming an Engaged Leader. 

Also, of note, all eligible candidates must now apply to the Foundation directly. In the past, universities selected a shortlist of nominees, a step that will no longer be part of the process in 2021. Universities will remain a vital partner in our selection process, however, this open application will allow far more candidates to be considered for the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholarship. We look forward to applicants who demonstrate the greatest academic excellence and intellectual capacity, leadership and engagement, agility and resilience, and, importantly, a commitment to engaging with a plurality of perspectives.  

Selection Criteria

• Academic excellence;
• Leadership experience and abilities;
• Thematic relevance of research to the Foundation’s themes;
• Public engagement;
• Desire to contribute to public dialogue and share knowledge;
• Communication skills;
• Desire to belong to a vibrant community made up of leaders from across sectors

The Foundation welcomes candidates embodying all forms of diversity, including but not limited to gender, ethnicity, language, region, and discipline. We encourage First Nations, Métis, and Inuit candidates.

Eligibility:

• You must be already accepted into or in year one, two, or three of a full-time doctoral program in the humanities or social sciences
• Your doctoral work must relate to at least one of the Foundation’s four themes: Human Rights and Dignity, Responsible Citizenship, Canada and the World, People and their Natural Environment
• Canadian citizens are eligible whether they are at a Canadian or an international institution
• Non-Canadians (permanent residents or foreign nationals) enrolled in a doctoral program at a Canadian institution are eligible

Selection:

1. Candidates who are committed to a three-year leadership program and who meet the eligibility criteria can apply directly to the Foundation through the application portal.
2. Universities play an integral role encouraging candidates to apply, recommending candidates (academic referees) and later, confirming the status of their students and other details.
3. The Foundation reviews all applications and shortlisted candidates are invited to group interviews. Finalists proceed to interviews with the Application and Nomination Review Committee (ANRC) who ultimately recommend their choices to the Board of Directors for final approval.

Number of Awards: Up to 20 Scholars will be selected in 2021.

Value of Awards: If you are chosen as a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar, you will receive:

• Membership in a community of other Scholars, Mentors, and Fellows, all of whom are leaders and change-makers in their respective disciplines and sectors;
• Leadership training from Mentors and Fellows;
• $40,000 per year for three years to cover tuition and reasonable living expenses; and
• Up to $20,000 per year for three years, as a research and travel allowance;

If you are chosen as a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar, you must:

• Attend a community retreat and two Institutes of Engaged Leadership during the first year of your term;
• Collaboratively plan and participate in a conference event during the second year of your term;
• Work with other Scholars, Mentors, and Fellows on a creative knowledge sharing and dissemination project during the third year of your term;
• Work towards fluency in English and French with support from the Foundation;
• Actively engage and collaborate with the Foundation’s community of Scholars, Mentors, and Fellows; and
• Submit one research progress report per year.

Duration: 3 years

How to Apply: All eligible candidates must now apply to the Foundation directly. In the past, universities selected a shortlist of nominees, a step that will no longer be part of the process in 2021. 

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Gangsterism as Foreign Policy: Assassinations are Becoming the New Norm

Patrick Cockburn

I was in Israel on 4 November 1995 when a student named Yigal Amir assassinated the Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin as he left a peace rally in Tel Aviv. A video shows Amir loitering by an exit to the square for 40 minutes before Rabin appears, when his killer takes out a pistol and fires two shots point blank into Rabin’s back. His purpose was to prevent a lasting peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians by killing the man who was the most powerful protagonist of such an agreement.

The assassination was universally condemned amid plaudits for Rabin as a man and a statesman, but within a year Binyamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister and progress towards a settlement stalled and went into reverse.

Twenty-five years later almost to the day, another assassination took place, this time in Iran, of a nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, as he was driving in a car east of Tehran. He was ambushed and killed by a squad of gunmen, alleged to be Israeli, who shot him and exploded a bomb in a car prepositioned at the scene of the attack.

This time there was no international condemnation of the action of what was, going by different accounts, a death squad operating in a foreign country against a foreign citizen. This free pass was because the target was an Iranian and Fakhrizadeh had been accused by Israel of playing a leading role in a secret plan to build a nuclear device. But these allegations were unproven, mostly dated from long ago, and the current activities of the dead man are unclear. What is evident, however, is that “targeted killings” by assassins outside their home countries are becoming very much the norm as a way in which nations show their strength. The poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury by Russian agents in Salisbury in 2018 and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi death squad in Istanbul the same year are good examples of this and the death of Fakhrizadeh is another.

This latest assassination was not justified primarily as an attempt to disrupt Iran’s nuclear programme, but as a legitimate and successful display of state power. The New York Times said approvingly that “Mr Fakhrizadeh has become the latest casualty in a campaign of audacious covert attacks seemingly designed to torment Iranian leaders with reminders of their weakness.” It added that the operation confronted Iran with an agonising choice between retaliation and seeking to re-engage with the US when Joe Biden becomes president, replacing the viscerally anti-Iranian Donald Trump.

Any description of this or other “targeted killing” by Israel or anybody else should carry a health warning. Everybody involved has a reason for lying, just as they once did about Saddam Hussein’s non-existent WMD in 2003. Anything leaked by intelligence agencies to a credulous media should only be consumed with a large measure of salt.

Without officially claiming the attack, Israel is sending a message to Tehran to the effect that “we may soon no longer have Trump in our corner, but we can still hit you hard”. A further motive is to sour Iran against a nuclear deal with America, embolden Iranian hard liners who always opposed it, potentially provoke self-destructive Iranian retaliation, and complicate Biden’s declared intention to return to Barack Obama’s 2015 agreement with Iran.  

Notice several peculiarities about this assassination: those emphasising the enormity of the breach in Iranian security are not Israelis but Iranians, reputedly close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). These paint a rather unlikely scenario of an ambush by a dozen assassins, some leaping from a car and others arriving on motorcycles, and in case they should miss their target, there is a Fiat car packed with explosives ready to detonate.

A more likely explanation is that the IRGC, which was responsible for Fakhizadeh’s security, failed once again and is trying to excuse themselves by claiming that they were faced with an overwhelming force that nobody could have resisted. The IRGC’s reputation for competence had already been damaged in January this year when an IRGC crew manning an anti-aircraft missile battery shot down a Ukrainian aircraft over Tehran, killing 176 passengers and crew.

This disastrous mistake came in the wake of the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the IRGC head of covert operations in much of the Middle East, by a US drone at Baghdad airport on 3 January, another sign that state-sponsored assassinations are becoming an acceptable international practice.

How will this all play out in terms of future US relations with Iran? The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, was his chief diplomatic achievement. Withdrawing from it in 2018 and seeking to extract better terms from Iran through sanctions amounting to an economic siege, was the most important initiative by Trump in the Middle East.

Economic warfare like this did a lot of damage to Iran but it did not succeed in forcing it to negotiate and it was never likely to do so since Trump’s strategy, if anything so incoherent deserves that name, was to force surrender or regime change on Iran.

Biden says he wants to return to the JCPOA, but only if Iran is compliant, too. There is plenty of room here for disagreement about what exactly compliance entails and a return to the old agreement will be resisted by Israeli, Saudi Arabia and its anti-Iranian Arab allies, and much of the foreign policy establishment in Washington.

Iranian enthusiasm for the 2015 agreement has also ebbed since they discovered that it did not in practice end economic sanctions. They have since found that these can to some degree be circumvented by secretly selling oil at a discounted price.

All recent US administrations have come into office hoping – and sometimes declaring publicly – that they would not allow themselves to be sucked into crises and messy wars in the Middle East. Invariably they have failed because the region is where the political tectonic plates of the world meet and grind together. It is the arena where outside powers confront each other directly or through their proxies.

“Targeted killings” on an individual or mass basis may appear to be a way of tipping the balance towards whatever country has decided to go into the assassination business. The killing of Yitzhak Rabin did matter for the future of the Israelis and the Palestinians, but this was the act of a single fanatic and not of a government. Few other assassinations in the Middle East have had much long-term impact, contrary to the cinematic view of a world where Mr Bigs, like Goldfinger or Dr No, are evil masterminds whose elimination will make a difference. In the real world, figures like Fakhrizadeh and Soleimani can always be replaced.

Generals and politicians once imagined that campaigns to kill the local leaders of insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq would open the door to victory. But they found that “night raids” enraged local communities and dead leaders were swiftly replaced by angrier and more aggressive substitutes. One such campaign in Iraq led to a sharp jump in attacks on American forces. State-sponsored assassinations employ the methods of gangsterism and discredit and delegitimise those who use them.

The Erosion of US Dominance in Latin America

Yanis Iqbal

On November 30, 2020, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned China National Electronics Import & Export Corporation (CEIEC) – a state-owned company specializing in engineering and defence electronics – for having provided technological support to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s administration. The CEIEC has been supporting the state firm National Anonymous Telephone Company of Venezuela (CANTV), the main Internet service provider in the country.

In a language characteristic of imperialist America, the press release pertaining to CEIEC has hubristically criticized “Maduro regime’s efforts to undermine democracy in Venezuela.” Neatly forgetting the US role in imposing murderous sanctions on the Venezuelan masses and supporting a bloody, coup-mongering opposition, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin hypocritically added, “The United States will not hesitate to target anyone helping to suppress the democratic will of the Venezuelan people and others around the world.”

Criticizing US sanctions against CEIEC, Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza has said, “We denounce the US government’s coercive measures which were imposed to affect projects in favor of the Venezuelan people ahead of the parliamentary elections.” In a press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying also denounced the sanctions, stating, “China supports Venezuelan efforts to defend its sovereignty and is opposed to abusing international sanctions.”

China in Latin America

Washington’s growing concern about the global multipolarization unleashed by China’s rise is one the primary explanations behind the enforcement of new sanctions. China has been making inroads in Latin America, implicitly challenging the unipolar hegemony of the American Empire and its Monroe Doctrine. In the late 1990s, total trade (imports plus exports) between China and Latin America was approximately US$5-8B a year. Bilateral trade grew dramatically from the turn of the century, reaching more than US$255B in 2014. Between 1999 and 2014, Chinese imports from Latin America increased more than forty fold, and exports to the region more than twenty-five fold.

Unlike the US imperialist trade paradigm, which penetrates sensitive economic sectors like agriculture, imports from China have not generated mass dislocation of local producers. These imports are mainly found in high-technology sectors where large-scale domestic production is absent. Therefore, increased imports from China are not necessarily negative for all producers. Imports of low-cost Chinese inputs or capital goods can help reduce production costs and increase profitability for local producers. Such transactions may also involve technology transfer.

Growing trade with China has positively impacted Latin American manufacturing through technology transfer and the establishment of beneficial economic links. Official Chinese documents identify technology transfer and research and development (R&D) as important areas for cooperation between China and Latin America. China’s 2016 Policy Paper refers to “the expansion of cooperation with Latin American and Caribbean countries in high-tech fields such as information industry, civil aviation, civil nuclear industry and new energy, as well as to build more joint laboratories, R&D centres and high-tech parks.”

The China and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Forum Cooperation Plan, adopted in Beijing in 2015, also stresses the centrality of R&D in trade relations, talking about the need to “Promote the development and demonstration of modern agricultural technologies and strengthen countries’ collaboration in R&D, as well as investment and development zones to advance agricultural technological innovation and increase agricultural production and processing capacity and international competitiveness of both sides.”

The Latin American Left

Left-wing governments in Latin America have seen expanding relations with China as a way of enlarging policy space: it makes them less vulnerable to the conditionalities of the Washington Consensus and enables them to pursue alternative social policies free from external pressures. To take one example, in Ecuador, when the National Assembly passed a law in 2010 which required the renegotiation of contracts with transnational corporations in the oil industry, Chinese companies proved more willing than Western ones to accept the new terms of trade.

In Bolivia, a joint venture between China’s Jungie Mining and the Alto Canutillos mining cooperative found during consultations that the local community in Tacobamba was opposed to the opening of a tin-processing plant near the mine and the firm agreed to locate on a site 25 miles away, avoiding potential conflict. This type of cooperative attitude respects the social bases of socialist organizations and contributes towards their political consolidation.

In Venezuela, the Chavista government has used Chinese loans to finance its social programmes which would not have been possible had they needed to raise funds on international capital markets. In a situation where the imperialist belligerence of the US government and the financial markets’ disapproval of Venezuela’s socialist policies led to very poor international credit ratings, borrowing from China was an attractive way for the government to fund its economic program.

In 2007, the China Development Bank (CDB) made its first loan of $4B to Venezuela’s Heavy Fund. The fund was supplemented by further CDB loans in 2009 and 2013; the repayment of these loans required the supply of 330,000 barrels of oil a day. In 2010, a second fund, the Large Volume, was created with a 10-year loan from CDB. The loans were used to fund infrastructure projects, housing developments, and imports of consumer goods from China. In Venezuela, a loan by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) in 2012 was used for 20,000 units of social housing. By 2016, China had loaned Venezuela a total of over $60B.

Chinese lending to Latin America is not restricted to Venezuela. Those countries in the region that have defaulted on debts in the recent past, such as Argentina and Ecuador and, therefore, find it difficult to access international capital markets or can only do so at very high interest rates, have also benefitted from no-strings-attached Chinese loans. Since the debt crisis of the 1980s, Latin American countries have sought to avoid fiscal deficits in order to maintain their credit ratings, which significantly reduces government expenditure. The availability of Chinese funds – which are provided without imposing macroeconomic conditions on the recipient – enabled the leftist regimes of Ecuador and Argentina to increase social expenditure.

At its peak in 2010, Chinese lending to Latin America was considerably greater than that of either the World Bank or the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), while China’s Exim Bank has lent more than four times as much as the US Exim Bank in Latin America since 2005. Chinese loans to Latin America were dominated by one country, Venezuela, which received more than half of the total loans identified by Inter-American Dialogue since 2005; and four countries together, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Ecuador, accounted for 95% of the total.

With the help of China, Latin American governments have been creating alternative institutions to confront the hegemonic tools of imperialism. Through the erosion of US dominance and the establishment of post-hegemonic initiatives of international cooperation, a road has been paved for the development of socialism. In contrast to imperialism, multipolar world politics respects the sovereignty of countries in the Global South and allows them to pursue their own economic policies. With the rise of China, such a global framework of non-interference has begun replacing imperialism.

Hungry children in the Empire

Farooque Chowdhury

Many news from the Empire interest many readers, as the Empire itself is interesting. It’s interesting due to its economy, politics and diplomacy, part of its geostrategic and geotactical games, and for its audacity and arrogance, and for its hated character, and for its perished core, which lies in its home, in its economy.

International news agency AFP’s news-report “Pandemic sends hunger rising in America, and children bear the brunt” is not only interesting; it’s also affrighting.

The December 6, 2020 datelined report said:

“Increasing numbers of children are going hungry in the United States as it weathers the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak, which has killed around 280,000 people and caused a once-in-a-generation economic crisis.

“Nearly 12 percent of adults said they lived in a household where there was not enough to eat ‘sometimes’ or ‘often’ last month, according to the Commerce Department.

“Ten percent of mothers reported their children under the age of five went hungry to some degree in October and November, a Brookings Institution survey found.

“Non-profit Feeding America estimates over 50 million people will be considered food insecure this year, including about one in four children, reversing gains made in recent years that had brought hunger among children to its lowest level in at least two decades.

“We feel pretty confident in saying food insecurity right now is the highest on record in the modern era,” Lauren Bauer, an economic studies fellow at Brookings, told AFP.”

Is this tale different from the Third and Fourth Worlds (TFW)? Rather, in some countries in the TFW, in the “blessing”-forsaken Global South, the situation is not that much worse.

The news agency tells the sulfurous truth:

“The numbers [mentioned above] are jarring for a country that has the world’s largest economy and is a major donor of food aid worldwide.”

The news-report hasn’t told a few other facts as, may be, those don’t sound pertinent. The country is a major producer of arms and ammunitions, of war, of destructions, of misery, of suffering in countries, and a producer of sermons on liberty, freedom, democracy and economic planning, and of economic and political manipulations. But, alas! The rich economy fails to feed its citizens, its children! It’s a dynamics of the economy, and a dialectics – yes and no. Yes for the few, and no for the many. The few are powerful, resource-rich while the many are weak, resource-poor, hungry or near-hungry.

The report adds another picture on a wide canvass:

“Schools […] shut down [following the on-going pandemic], making it complicated for poorer children to get free meals provided there, and […] runs on grocery stores created a shortage of basic goods that put low-income parents further behind.”

Is this story different from stories from the poverty-dominated TFW, from the TFW-shanties, from the poor children in the poor-world? However, this is a different story as this poverty-tale is from “the world’s largest economy” and “a major donor of food aid worldwide”, which is weathering “the world’s worst coronavirus outbreak,” where a survey finds “[t]en percent of mothers reported their children under the age of five went hungry to some degree in October and November […]”

There’s a “safety net” in schools, for the children attending the schools. Nevertheless, according to the report, “[t]here is […] a gap for parents with children too young to attend school – the age at which poor nutrition can have life-long consequences.” There’re “life-long consequences” for the children going hungry, going without enough food. A Baanglaa people’s song says: “Kaar baachhaar jotenee doodh, shookno mookh” – Whose child goes hungry [a crude translation in a hurry]?

There’s the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the food stamp, in actual sense langar khana, the gruel kitchen in this subcontinent of Bangladesh-India-Pakistan, in the Empire. But, according to the report, the SNAP “doesn’t pay enough to live off of […]”. So, non-profits provide “weekend groceries […] for families whose children rely on school meals.” According to the report, the Baltimore Hunger Project, a non-profit, “has seen demand triple to more than 2,000 families since the pandemic struck.” It’s a story from one city. There’re hundreds of cities and towns, and thousands of hungry children and their parents.

Then, there comes politics.

The report said:

“The surge in hungry Americans comes amid a controversy over who Biden will pick as agriculture secretary, a position that would oversee SNAP and other nutrition programs.

“Heidi Heitkamp, a former North Dakota senator, is seen as a favorite for the position, but progressive groups and unions say she’s too close to major oil and agriculture companies.

“They have pushed for Biden to appoint House Representative Marcia Fudge, who has advocated for expanding SNAP.”

In capitalist economies, politics moves around food, around the poor, and around profit. The mainstream politics, academia and media always try to hide this fact of food-poor-profit-politics. Interestingly, a group of progressives seldom forgets to raise the issue as they forget the fact that it’s not the Empire that should teach economy, fight against poverty, and fight for democracy, as they forget that the democracy the Empire propagates is fundamentally different from the democracy the poor need, which is the Democracy of the Exploited.

However, the fact has been told by Ayo Akinremi, an immigrant from Nigeria, quoted in the AFP report: “It breaks my heart.” Ayo Akinremi was picking up groceries for his wife and children after losing his job. He said: “It was a culture shock for me, to come to the US to find so much food insecurity.”

The hunger-story is yet to be completed. A National Review piece (“Give to Charity over Political Campaigns”, December 6, 2020) by Naomi Schaefer Riley Naomi, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, James Piereson, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, questions:

“Which is the better way for Americans to help their fellow citizens in need this holiday season: effecting systemic political change or making direct donations to charity?”

The article said:

“It is hardly a surprise to find that liberals prefer direct political engagement to private charitable giving as a means of addressing social problems. Yet amid a deadly pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and upended the American economy, the government doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job of helping those affected. It is not for lack of spending. Trillions of dollars have been sent from Washington, but in such a haphazard way that many families still worry about where their next meal will come from.” [Emphasis added.]

Hunger and politics go hand-in-hand. There’s no way to escape from politics while looking at the eye of hunger. The piece tells the fact:

“Government is simply funneling its largesse toward private charities anyway, and politicizing the nonprofit world to an unprecedented degree in the process.”

Non-profits are not free from politics, and it’s in the Empire also, not only in the corruption-ridden TFW, and non-profits nowhere are never without politics – either with partisan politics in narrow sense, or with class politics in broader sense.

Letting the non-profit issue sit idle temporarily, the fact that comes to forefront is: The Empire hasn’t resolved the question of hunger although it sermons all around the world on hunger and poverty, on freedom and liberty, although freedom and liberty from pangs of hunger is a fundamental question humanity is struggling to resolve for generations. The stranger fact: Yet, groups of persons, politicians and non-profits keep their trust on and allegiance to the economy and mechanism the Empire uses to keep its soul alive and dominate others despite the Empire’s failure in fighting out hunger, in subduing poverty.