Nearly four years have passed, but Himachal Pradesh has still not recovered from the shock and agony felt at the time of a most terrible rape and murder of a 16 year girl, called Gudiya by the media, while she was returning from a school and had to also pass a small stretch of forest on her way to home. The shock of those days was recalled on April 28 when, after a long investigation, which had several twists, a tree-cutter named Nillu was found guilty of murder and rape. What became evident in the course of investigation was that he had been drinking around the time the terrible crime was committed, the liquor bottle was also found near the dead body. It also became clear that he was a habitual drinker who was also involved in other molestation incidents around the same time.
In fact if we trace the circumstances in which some of the most terrible sexual crimes were committed in recent times, in quite a significant number of these crimes the fact of the perpetrator of the crime being under the influence of liquor would be noted. This is not just incidental, the close linkage between alcohol /substance abuse and sexual crimes has been repeatedly confirmed by several studies in various countries.
However several studies are from western countries where the context in an important respect is different from developing countries like India. This difference is that in most parts of India particularly villages liquor consumption by women is very less or negligible. While many western studies reveal that both the perpetrator and the victim had been drinking in a significant number of cases, this would not apply to most parts of India and many other developing countries where the social situation is similar to India.
The World Report on Violence and Health (WRVH) says that alcohol abuse is an important factor in sexual violence. The WRVH says that both from the perspective of the assaulter and the victim, alcohol and drug consumption increases the risk of sexual violence, including rape. In the context of the victim this report says that consuming alcohol or drugs makes it more difficult for women to protect themselves “by interpreting and effectively acting on warning signs.” In the context of the assaulter this report says that alcohol has been shown to play a disinhibiting role in certain types of sexual assault.
According to a widely cited paper on ‘alcohol and sexual assaults’ by Antonia Abbey, Tina Zawacki and others of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (USA), “ at least one half of all violent crimes involved alcohol consumption by the perpetrator, the victim or both. Sexual violence fits this pattern. Thus across disparate population studies, researchers consistently have found that approximately one half of all sexual assaults are committed by men who have been drinking alcohol. Depending on the sample studied and the measure used, the estimates for alcohol use among perpetrators have ranged from 34 to 74 percent. Similarly, approximately one third of all sexual assault victims report that they were drinking alcohol at the time of assault with estimates ranging from 30 to 39 per cent. However, these researchers also point out that while a woman’s alcohol consumption may place her at increased risk of sexual assault, she is in no way responsible for the assault. The researchers rightly say that the perpetrators remain legally and morally responsible for their behavior.
According to a report from the National Task Force on College Drinking (USA), 1400 college students die each year in alcohol related accidents, 5, 000,00 are injured and there are 70, 000 victims of alcohol related sexual assault or date rape. A study by Tests and Livingston mentioned women’s narrative description of incapacitated rape which indicates that many were unconscious and found out later that they were raped, or else were only dimly aware of what was happening and so were unable to stop the assailant.
Hence there is much more need for drawing attention to alcohol and substance abuse related factors in the overall many-sided efforts to reduce sexual crimes as much as possible.
Students at four universities in Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham began occupying campus buildings last week in protest over their treatment as "cash cows".
The protests follow the return of millions of students to university campuses across the UK. Despite even the Johnson government's reckless "roadmap" for reopening the economy stating that higher education providers should not reopen for in-person teaching before May 17, many universities have encouraged students to travel across the country to return to rented halls.
Banners hanging either side of the entrance of the occupied Samuel Alexander building at the Oxford Road campus in Manchester reading “Students and Staff Unite and Fight” (credit: WSWS media)
Office for National Statistics data for March found that three quarters of students had already returned to the same accommodation they had been using in the previous term. The university administrations, backed by the media, have mounted a propaganda campaign to insist all students return as soon as possible. In April, the University of Portsmouth even produced a template letter for its students to send to MPs, which said the closure of campuses "hurts students, benefits no one and is inconsistent with other government decisions."
Students know the main thing "hurt" by their remaining at home is the universities' and property companies’ ability to collect their exorbitant rent. Thousands of students at around 50 universities have joined rent strikes since January 2020, demanding refunds on the rent they have been paying for halls they could not even access due to travel restrictions, or in which they were forced to self-isolate after being drawn to campuses by lies about "Covid-secure" conditions.
These strikes secured partial refunds and concessions at many universities, with the University of Sheffield granting refunds of 30 percent to students who could not access their halls, and the University of Manchester conceding a 30 percent rent reduction for the first term after students occupied a building on the Fallowfield campus in December. However, the concessions universities made were limited.
The University of Sheffield offered a refund of just two weeks rent to students on practical courses, such as medicine, who had no choice but to return. The refund in Manchester was not extended to the second term.
The universities refusal to offer any further concessions, has sparked the new round of occupations at the University of Nottingham, the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, and University of Manchester.
On April 22, Manchester students occupied the Samuel Alexander building containing the School of Arts, Languages of Cultures, in support of the demand for a 30 percent rent rebate for the second term, a cash rebate of £1,500 for all students, and that the university's senior management team be elected by staff and students. They are demanding the university withdraw the threat of compulsory redundancies for library staff, and to end police patrols on the Fallowfield campus.
Students at Sheffield Hallam have occupied the Cantor building. Despite paying in some cases up to £170 per week in rent, many Hallam students complain of poor and squalid living conditions. They have reported mice and rat infestations and leaking sewage and being left without hot meals or working toilets. Students at the University of Sheffield, occupying the Arts Tower building, have reported being charged £30 for poor food parcels, with students who requested vegetarian food given meat.
Students at the Sheffield universities and at Manchester also report being intimidated by security guards entering private dorms and police entering dorms without a warrant. Police violence and intimidation has been a major issue facing students during the pandemic. Students on the University of Manchester Fallowfield campus have been subject to numerous police and security measures since returning in September, including an incident of racial profiling of a student by university security, and an incident where the university put up steel fencing around the site and forced students to travel through a security checkpoint.
Two of the student protestors at Sheffield Hallam were victims of brutality by university security, having been pinned against the floor at the Cantor building occupation.
When the rent strikes began in January, many of the organisers declared their intention not just to fight for rent refunds, but against the system of marketisation in higher education, which has transformed universities into profit-making businesses. Students are treated primarily as customers, or sources of income, with ever-increasing targets set for university "recruitment" teams, particularly aimed at international students, who pay inflated fees. The occupations and rent strikes show that young people are looking for a way to wage a struggle for basic demands the profit-driven universities refuse to meet.
In a meeting hosted by the pseudo-left People's Assembly on Wednesday evening, addressed by University and College Union (UCU) General Secretary Jo Grady and National Union of Students (NUS) President Larissa Kennedy, both insisted students must stop talking about “marketisation”.
Grady falsified the record of the UCU, both over its role in allowing the government to open campuses during the pandemic, and in its recent strikes against the undermining of the Universities Superannuation (pension) Scheme (USS). Her claim that the UCU "took a strident position" in opposing campus reopenings at the start of the academic year in reality consisted only of appeals to university managements and open letters to the Conservative government regarding safety concerns—but with no call for industrial action by its 130,000 members.
Just as dishonest was her claim that "In 2018 student occupations were central in getting UCU members progressive good deals in the USS strike." The strikes to defend the pension scheme in 2018 ended with a miserable sellout, with the employers’ offering up a promise to listen to the report of a “Joint Expert Panel,” the findings of which were promptly ignored.
One of the “progressive good deals” put to the membership in March 2018 was described by Grady herself as “a needless capitulation.” She was not union leader at the time and knew that voting against the sellout deal would win her backing in a leadership contest. She was elected after her predecessor, Sally Hunt, was ousted by members following the 2018 USS sellout. Her current apologetics confirm that the role of the UCU as a tool of management in imposing unsafe working conditions and cuts in pay, terms, conditions and jobs remains unchanged.
Grady put forward a “friendly suggestion” that although it was clear students were receiving less contact time due to the burden of marketisation on staff resources, “when we’re trying to tell people that, it doesn’t really make sense to them”. The NUS sang from the same hymn sheet, with Kennedy asking, “We're here talking about 'marketisation'—what average student do you know that's talking about marketisation? I'm so sorry, like, I love you folks, but nobody cares.”
The real concern of the UCU and NUS is that any criticisms of privatisation threatens their lucrative role as part of the university governance structure.
In contrast, most students speaking from the occupations traced the source of their mistreatment to the market system now established in higher education, and expressed opposition to the reckless reopening of campuses in the midst of a pandemic.
A speaker from the University of Sheffield occupation echoed comments he had made to the Tab web site, describing the local student’s union as “a puppet of the university”. The Manchester students recalled the role of their students’ union during the previous occupation, which attempted to sell out the struggle for a mere five percent rent refund.
To take their struggle forward, students must unite with education workers throughout the sector in a joint offensive. A successful struggle cannot be conducted through the NUS or educations unions that have strangled every fight of student and education workers over decades.
At least 45 people have died and 150 were injured, 40 in a critical condition, in a crush Friday at a religious celebration on Mount Meron in northern Israel. It is one of Israel’s worst civilian disasters.
The Lag B’Omer festivities at Meron, where a second-century Jewish sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai was buried, usually attracts hundreds of thousands of people who dance, sing, and make bonfires around his tomb. Attendance this year is estimated at 100,000.
Mourners carry the body of a person who died during Lag B'Omer celebrations at Mt. Meron in northern Israel, at his funeral in Jerusalem on Friday, April 30, 2021. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
While the cause is not yet entirely clear, it appears that the crush was precipitated at about 1.00am Friday morning after some celebrants slipped on steps, causing dozens of people to fall over and the many hundreds behind to fall on top of them in a “human avalanche.”
Photographs later in the morning show the scene covered with thousands of blue plastic bottles, crushed by the crowds that had stepped on them, that may have caused the crowd to slip and fall.
Witnesses described scenes of total confusion and chaos, with Eliyahu, who was injured in the crush, telling Ha’aretz, “We tried to leave, but the police had closed all kinds of areas and weren’t letting us leave.” “We begged them to open the gates to get out, but the police for some reason didn’t let people leave and everyone was pushed, and people were simply trampled to death. I didn’t understand what was happening and fainted,” he added.
Two other witnesses told Ha’aretz that a police barricade had prevented people from leaving, contributing to the overcrowding. Rabbi Aharon Boimel said he avoided the compound the entire evening fearing disaster, saying, “We've warned of overcrowding there in the past—and what we feared most happened. If police had not positioned barricades at the compound the disaster would have been greater.”
According to TV news Channel 12, it was the bottleneck where the disaster started rather than the number of total worshipers at the site that drove the tragedy. The entire site has only one entrance through one access road that meant that the police—5,000 had apparently been deployed to steward the event—should have been able to control the number of people entering the site. Film showed police officers trying to stop people from fleeing the scene, either because they did not appreciate the extent of the danger or because they were trying to prevent a stampede from spilling out into other areas of the site. Television images showed a side door in the passageway that had been locked shut.
According to the police, while the site had the same capacity as usual, bonfire areas had been cordoned off as a Covid-19 precaution—they had been banned last year—possibly creating unexpected chokepoints for the participants.
Hours after the crush, the families of those who had lost their lives had yet to be notified amid a complicated effort to identify the victims.
Attendance at the event was higher than last year when restrictions were in place to halt the spread of the virus, but very much lower than usual because there were few overseas visitors and non-Hasidic Israelis.
Despite warnings from Israeli health officials that the mass celebrations could become a super spreader event, the authorities, having lifted restrictions on social gatherings after the third lockdown, allowed the event to go ahead. It was the largest gathering since the start of the pandemic.
The police have started an investigation, while the Attorney General said that an inquiry had started into the policing of the event, with the Department for Internal Investigations already at the scene to determine whether there was any criminal culpability on the part of the police. Major General Shimon Lavi, the Northern District police chief, declared that he bore full responsibility for the deadly event. However, a senior police official pinned responsibility for the tragedy on the government and public officials for allowing unrestricted access to the celebrations, resulting in overcrowding and the tragic stampede.
He said, “This narrow passageway was approved by engineers,” pointing to the location of the crush, adding, “The Northern District of the police was prepared for any eventuality ahead of the Thursday holiday celebrations. Major General Lavi toured the site in advance and told organizers he was worried that barriers put in place were dangerous for children. He also met with religious leaders on the scene who demanded a larger participation be allowed but he resisted. Imagine how much worse things could have been.” He said, “It is the responsibility of the state.”
A police spokesperson Commander Eli Levi, told Ynet that all relevant government authorities had approved the passageway where the crush occurred and “Everyone understood that after festivities were banned last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, there would be large crowds at Mount Meron this year.” Indeed, officials had said prior to the event that hundreds of thousands would be allowed to participate.
There were chaotic scenes as people tried to leave the scene of the disaster, with masses of people, including small children waiting for hours for transport. A massive bussing operation was being rolled out in a haphazard and ill-directed way, causing people to stop passing buses to ask their destinations and adding to the already enormous traffic jams and confusion in the narrow lanes around Mount Meron.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who toured the site on Friday morning with Public Security Minister Amir Ohana and police, described the tragedy as a “heavy disaster.” According to reports in the Hebrew media, some of the worshipers who remained at the site booed and heckled the prime minister and chanted slogans against him.
Israel, a member of the OECD, the club of the world’s richest nations, is famous for its high-tech inventions, has the most powerful air force in the region and a huge arsenal of nuclear bombs, and has long threatened to bomb Iran, a thousand miles away. Yet it could not manage the mass gathering safely.
It follows the entirely avoidable deaths during the pandemic of nearly 6,500 people in Israel and 3,231 Palestinians living in the territories illegally occupied by Israel since 1967, and the untold suffering of hundreds of thousands more as Netanyahu, like his counterparts across the globe, put profits before lives.
The ultra-orthodox communities had been particularly badly hit. Already among the poorest members of Israeli society, living in overcrowded conditions, they were always going to be vulnerable to the coronavirus. Their unemployment rate—they are largely employed in low skilled, low wage sectors if they work at all and most do not—rose twice as much as the rest of the population due to the lockdowns, while their infection rate was nearly five time higher.
The ultra-orthodox or Haredim, by no means a monolithic bloc, are made up of numerous sects and leaders, each with their own customs and traditions. While the religious parties have been instrumental in keeping Netanyahu in power, the Haredim are enormously distrustful of the government and secular, public authorities.
Netanyahu, in return for their support, has made numerous dispensations, including allowing them to keep their schools open, which do not teach a core curriculum of math, science, and English but focus on religious studies, and granting de facto exemptions from social distancing and lockdown restrictions, as well as exemption from military service.
This has served to heighten tensions between religious and secular Israelis, which Netanyahu and the ruling elite have encouraged as a means of dividing opposition to economic and social policies that have created one of the most unequal countries within the OECD.
The latest tragedy demonstrates once again that the “existential threat” to Israeli working people lies not with Palestinians or its neighbours in the region. Israel’s Palestinian citizens in nearby towns and villages set up stalls, handing out free food and drink for the thousands of Jewish worshipers trying to make their way out of the area in the wake of the tragedy.
The threat lies with the readiness of Israel’s financial oligarchy to sacrifice the lives and welfare of Israeli workers and their families for its own selfish interests.
Workers at Airbus, the world's largest airliner manufacturer, are waging a struggle against the company’s decision to close one of its Spanish factories and to use a temporary redundancy scheme to axe 600 jobs nationwide.
The trade unions CCOO, close to the pseudo-left party Podemos, and UGT, close to the Socialist Party (PSOE), are intervening to demobilise workers and facilitate further attacks.
Striking workers on a picket line near the Puerto Real Airbus factory (credit: @naterismos)
In recent weeks, the company had informally conveyed to the trade unions and different government bodies its decision to close one of its plants in Puerto Real, located in the metropolitan area of the Andalusian city of Cádiz. The final decision to close the plant was ultimately not taken in a meeting last week between Airbus and the trade unions, but the closure is still on the table. The company stated that it had “not made any mention of the closure or non-closure of Puerto Real [factory]” and that “the factory is in a critical situation that requires dialogue with workers and national and local institutions.”
This manoeuvre was quickly seized on by the CCOO and UGT to call off the workers’ mobilisations that were planned, including a one-day strike that was to begin on April 23 at all Airbus factories in Spain.
Trying to sell this surrender to the company as a great success, CCOO leader at Airbus, Francisco San José, declared that it had been a “small victory of the union and social mobilization against the closure of this plant”. He was quick to add that “good conditions have been created to start a conversation [with Airbus], but always maintaining the premise of maintaining employment in the plants of the multinational company in Spain.”
For his part, CCOO leader at the factory, Juan Manuel Trujillo, declared "there will continue to be an opportunity for dialogue and negotiation under the axiom that no Airbus plant will be closed, nor will any job in the Airbus group in Spain be lost."
What these union bureaucrats did not disclose is that job losses are already being implemented. In October 2020, CCOO signed a redundancy scheme with management, agreeing to eliminate 1,220 jobs. Last year, 553 jobs were already lost in the defense division, and another 169 will be eliminated this year. In the commercial division, 900 more employees are expected to be laid off this year, while 3,226 are out of work in a furlough scheme that will last until May 31.
The trade unions are therefore already actively collaborating in the destruction of jobs. They have called off industrial action not because any victory has been achieved but, on the contrary, as part of a ploy with Airbus management to demobilize the workers.
This strategy enjoys the full collaboration of the pseudo-left Anticapitalistas, a party that was the chief founder of Podemos in 2014. Last year, amid growing opposition, it decided to leave the PSOE-Podemos government to better suppress workers’ struggles from the outside.
The mayor of Cádiz—near to where Airbus is planning the factory closure—and member of Anticapitalistas, José María González, considered it a success that "the Board of Directors has not announced the closure or sale of the plant.” This, he said, was due to the "key participation, both of the public administration as well as the different social agents [trade unions].” Andalusian lawmaker José Ignacio García, one of Anticapitalistas’ deputies in the regional Andalusian parliament after it broke with Podemos, said “We have achieved a small victory, but we have only bought some time.”
Anticapitalistas is intervening to promote illusions in the trade unions and the PSOE-Podemos government. Their real concern is to prevent a social outbreak from taking place in the social powder keg in the region of the Cádiz bay, which has already seen mass layoffs in recent years, including workers at Tabacalera, Delphi, Visteon, Gadir Sola and a long list of other factories and workplaces.
Growing social discontent was reflected in a large demonstration that took place on April 10, when hundreds of workers and thousands of people from Cádiz protested against the possible closure of the Airbus factory. The closure would mean unemployment for 500 Airbus workers and around 1,000 others who belong to the auxiliary industries that supply the company.
The General Confederation of Labour, CGT, is playing its usual role by making toothless criticism of the larger CCOO and UGT trade unions and making liberal use of radical phraseology and “militant” actions. After CCOO and UGT called off the demonstrations, the CGT called on workers to camp outside the Puerto Real Airbus factory.
Workers at this camp interviewed by La Voz de Cádiz said, “There is no success to celebrate… If they had said that Puerto Real is not going to be closed, of course we would celebrate it, but that’s not the case. Those of us who are camping here defend and think that we have to continue with the pressure. We have to keep fighting and fighting, following our calendar of mobilizations”.
Whether the person interviewed was a CGT delegate is not clear, but anger is mounting. According to the worker, "this opinion is not from CGT, we are many colleagues who agree that there is nothing to celebrate."
Aware of mounting anger, the trade unions once again called token actions. They called one-hour strikes on April 27 and 29 and protests outside Airbus factories across Spain on April 26, 28 and 30. These were solely designed to let off steam in the workforce while Airbus prepares new attacks.
The PSOE-Podemos government has not lifted a finger to support Airbus workers, despite the fact that the Spanish state owns 4 percent of the company's capital in Spain. On the contrary, it sent anti-riot police to repress the protests that have taken place in recent weeks.
Three Airbus workers in Puerto Real, members of the CGT union, were arrested on April 19 on charges of public disorder. At no time were they informed about the specific acts that had given rise to the arrest. Another group of 23 workers was prevented from moving to the Madrid city of Getafe where they intended to hold a protest rally during the inauguration of the new Airbus Campus, in which King Felipe VI was going to participate. The bus was intercepted by heavily armed police and forced to return to Puerto Real.
The CGT showed them the necessary paperwork for the trip under conditions of restricted mobility due to COVID-19 but, according to the CGT website, “Such permits have been of little use… the police had an express order not to let them pass, ignoring any legal details. It did not matter if they had the necessary papers to make the trip.”
The CGT accepted this major attack on democratic rights without any significant protest. It is not even clear what legal argument the police used to justify their actions. Had they claimed COVID-19 health restrictions, the CGT could have defended their legal right to demonstrate while respecting social distancing. If the police had persisted, it would have been a devastating exposure of the criminal “herd immunity” policy of the PSOE-Podemos government, prioritizing profits over human life. It would have shown how public health restrictions are used as a pretext to de facto ban workers protests even as the government forces millions of workers in non-essential industries to work and children to school, so far costing the lives of over 100,000 people and 3.4 million infections.
Amidst the ongoing military confrontation with Russia, reports have emerged proving that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is seeking to appoint the far-right Serhiy Sternenko as head of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) in Odessa, in an attempt to further his alliance with neo-Nazi forces.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky [Credit: en.kremlin.ru]
As the former head of the neo-Nazi Right Sector in Odessa, Sternenko was directly implicated in the 2014 Trade Unions House massacre of 46 people. He is a convicted criminal and currently under investigation for murder.
Andriy Bohdan, the former head of Zelensky’s administration, confirmed the president’s offer in a Facebook post in response to questions by a reporter with the online news site Strana. When asked if the rumors were true that Zelensky had offered the position to Sternenko, Bohdan replied, “I think he did it right when they were quickly forming a list of government deputies. An acute personnel shortage as they say.”
While Sternenko had previously claimed that he met personally with Zelensky and was offered the position in 2019, ties between the two had never been officially confirmed by anyone close to the president.
Confirmation of the offer demonstrates that the administration of Zelensky, who came to power in 2019 due to widespread disillusionment and disgust with his right-wing nationalist predecessor Petro Poroshenko, has in fact continued and increased the conspicuous alliance of Ukraine’s oligarchy with neo-Nazi thugs.
As a far-right political operative, Sternenko has a bloody political and criminal history including drug charges, kidnapping and murder.
In February of this year, he was found guilty and sentenced to seven years and three months in prison for the 2015 kidnapping and robbery of Serhiy Shcherbych, an Odessa district councilor and member of the pro-Russian Rodina Party.
Following the verdict, protests broke out across the country led by Ukrainian far-right nationalist forces calling for Sternenko’s release. The protests resulted in the trashing of Zelensky’s presidential offices, with 27 police officers injured in the process.
Serhiy Sternenko in June 2020 in a court in Kyiv (credit: RBC Ukraine via Wikipedia / CC-BY-SA 4.0)
Sternenko has likewise been supported by Ukraine’s most prominent right-wing politicians, former President Petro Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who both criticized Sternenko’s sentencing.
In addition to kidnapping charges, Sternenko is under investigation for the killing of Ivan Kuznetsov. Kuznetsov was killed in 2018 after another man confronted the infamous Sternenko and his girlfriend in the streets of Odessa. According to reports, after a fight broke out Sternenko chased down a fleeing Kuznetsov for over 100 meters and eventually stabbed him to death.
Sternenko first came to political prominence as a right-wing supporter of the US-backed coup in 2014 that ousted the elected pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. The coup heavily relied on neo-fascist forces such as Sternenko, his Right Sector and the Azov Battalion.
Later, as leader of the Right Sector in Odessa, Sternenko was directly implicated in the massacre of 46 people who were horrifically burned to death by right-wing thugs on May 2, 2014, after being forced to take shelter in Odessa’s Trade Unions House.
Since the Odessa Trade Unions House fire, Sternenko’s Right Sector thugs have interrupted a number of memorial events by family members to the victims. None of them have ever been held accountable for the massacre.
Despicably, in the Western press Sternenko is often depicted as a “pro-democracy” and “anti-corruption” activist who has been unfairly prosecuted.
Sternenko previously wore typical neo-Nazi military garb, but now is often seen dressed in a suit with glasses. He even earned himself a law degree in an effort to appear more respectable, garner support from Western imperialism and hide his neo-Nazi ties.
Recently, the rabidly anti-Russian Washington D.C.-based Atlantic Council think tank attempted to whitewash the bloody nature of Sternenko and Ukraine’s far right which the think tank itself supports.
Turning the truth on its head regarding the events of the Odessa massacre in 2014, the Atlantic Council wrote, “Sternenko has been in the public eye for a number of years and has frequently attracted controversy. He initially rose to prominence as head of the Odessa branch of Ukrainian far-right nationalist group Right Sector, and was actively involved in efforts to prevent a Kremlin-led takeover of the Black Sea port city in spring 2014 during the initial phase of Russia’s ongoing hybrid war against Ukraine.”
In March, thanks to the support he received from the US-backed section of the Ukrainian ruling class, Sternenko was released from jail on house arrest. Several Ukrainian parliamentary members had offered to pay Sternenko’s bail, including members from Zelensky’s own Servant of the People party.
Sternenko had been taken into custody after his sentencing in February and is now out on a pending appeal. His case is following a pattern in the Ukrainian judicial system where far-right thugs are rarely convicted or, even when convicted, can later skip out of jail and prison on appeal.
Sternenko’s release conspicuously coincided with the ramping up of hostilities with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and tensions with Moscow as well as Zelensky’s crackdown on the pro-Russian opposition in Ukraine.
In February Zelensky undemocratically banned the popular pro-Russian television stations ZIK, NewsOne, and 112 Ukraine, ostensibly to combat Russian “disinformation.”
The channels are affiliated with pro-Russian opposition leader and oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, who favors a negotiated peace settlement with Moscow and the Donbass separatists. This past week, Zelensky moved even further, banning the stations from YouTube in Ukraine.
By banning the channels, Zelensky has furthered his dangerous confrontation with Moscow over Crimea and the separatist-controlled Donbass region. He has also taken out media outlets which often expose the comfortable relationship between the pro-NATO section of the Ukrainian oligarchy and right-wing anti-Russian fascists like Sternenko.
One of the banned channels, 112 Ukraine, has reported previously on the recruitment and promotion of figures such as Sternenko by the SBU following the anti-Moscow coup in 2014. According to a June 2020 report from 112 Ukraine, Sternenko’s ties to the SBU date back to 2014 and that for some time while in Odessa as head of the Right Sector Sternenko basically worked as a paid employee of the SBU.
For the Ukrainian government, which recently announced a strategy to “retake” Crimea and continues to engage in a potentially catastrophic confrontation with Moscow with the military support from the US, figures such as Sternenko are indispensable for carrying out their dirty work both in the war zone, and when it comes to suppressing popular opposition.
Ukraine’s right-wing Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, who is closely affiliated with neo-Nazi forces such as the Azov Battalion, recently called for the neo-fascists, whom he called “patriots,” to ready themselves to protect the “motherland” from Russia. These statements, like Zelensky’s increasingly open ties with the country’s far right, are further proof that the Ukrainian ruling class is counting on such elements to serve as the spearhead in a potential war with Russia.
Multiple reports have emerged over the past week about the deaths of children in the United States caused by COVID-19, providing further evidence that kids are vulnerable to fatal outcomes from the virus which has already killed more than 580,000 people in America alone.
A teacher reaches her hand out to Pedro Garcia, 4, as he arrives for the first day of school at the Mosaic Pre-K Center in Queens, Monday, Sept. 21, 2020 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, over 3.71 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic last year. Deaths among children are rising against the backdrop of the deadly reopening of public schools and the spread of more contagious variants of the virus.
One of the recent children to succumb to the disease was a first grader, 6-year-old Week Day from Marshall, Minnesota, who passed away on Sunday. She reportedly contracted the virus without having any underlying health conditions. The Minnesota Department of Health identified Day as a student at Park Side Elementary. Day’s death has coincided with a worrisome increase in cases and hospitalizations of children from the virus in the state.
A letter was sent out to parents at the school alerting them of the child’s passing as a result of complications from coronavirus. One parent, Cecilia Albarez told local news outlet KVOA that she was “immediately heartbroken for the parents and the family,” sharing her sympathy as a parent of a young daughter herself. She also questioned the push to reopen schools and the abandonment of distance learning. “Education is, of course, important, but their lives are more important,” Alvarez said. “You don’t get them back; you don’t get a do-over.”
Alex Hernandez, a 14-year-old boy from Milwaukee, Wisconsin died of COVID-19 complications in early April. His was the first reported pediatric death caused by the virus in the state. Hernandez had first tested positive for the virus last November. Officials indicated that the boy’s infection remained active before he tested positive again on March 27. He passed away on April 1.
A third child, an unidentified 11-year-old boy who traveled to Hawaii earlier this week died on Tuesday from COVID-19. His parents had been fully vaccinated and tested for the virus before arriving in the state on vacation but vaccines have yet to be approved for use in children.
The child’s death came as a shock, as health officials say he started experiencing COVID-19 symptoms within hours after landing in the islands before being rushed to the hospital. The boy is only the 479th reported fatality in Hawaii and the first coronavirus-related death of a person in that age range in the state.
While the precise circumstances surrounding the deaths of younger children are often not made public due to privacy concerns, each tragedy should be seen within the context of the ruling elites’ homicidal “herd immunity” approach to the pandemic nationwide—which has resulted in more than 33 million infections—and the advent of new and even more deadly variants that are proving to pose a far greater danger to younger people. Outbreaks of the variants are being driven principally by the reckless reopening of in-person learning, which is placing millions of children and educators’ lives at risk.
The community where Day lived, Marshall, had reopened classrooms since the beginning of the semester under the “hybrid” model, which allowed all K-4 students to attend schools onsite for four days per week, with just one day of distance learning. According to Marshall School District officials, Park Side Elementary has seen 22 students and staff go into quarantine since the semester started. Dr. Brooke Moore, a pediatric pulmonologist for Children’s Minnesota Hospital, told KVOA that while most children who get COVID-19 will be asymptomatic, around 10 percent of cases in children are severe.
In comments to the media following the death of Day, Superintendent Jeremy Williams declared the district would merely continue following Minnesota Department of Health guidelines and no changes would be implemented for the school’s hybrid and in-person reopening policies. He noted the district’s supposed ongoing efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and simply told parents that they should watch their children for symptoms and get them tested.
This stance has been the policy for the greater portion of school districts, large and small, for most of the pandemic’s duration, ultimately placing responsibility on parents for students being infected, and not the irrational drive to reopen schools.
This nationwide campaign has been intensified since the beginning of the spring semester, as media commentators and school administrators have repeated ad nauseam the unconcerned and unscientific talking points of politicians from the corporate-controlled Democratic and Republican parties, claiming that deaths among children from COVID-19 are rare and should therefore not deter officials from filling classrooms.
Superintendent Williams expressed this view in his perfunctory message to parents after Day’s death. Before admitting that the danger of children dying from the virus was “scary and concerning for many,” he said the district would merely enlist “crisis team members ... to support all those in need,” instead of calling for the shutdown of schools and a wholesale return to distance learning until the virus is suppressed. These comments reflect President Joe Biden’s marching orders aimed at opening the majority of K-8 schools by the first 100 days of his administration.
Democratic Minnesota governor Tim Walz said in a statement that it was “simply heartbreaking to hear that COVID-19 has taken the life of someone so young,” and that “there is no grief more profound than the loss of family.” Such comments amount to very little coming from the same governor who told the media in February, “It’s time to get our students back in school” and patted himself on the back by saying, “We’re on our way to ending the pandemic. We’re beating this thing.”
Biden and the Democrats have sought to couch their murderous plans in the most benevolent terms, with the president claiming that reopenings would coincide with providing “help” and “giving students extra support.” This policy has meant the continued sacrifice of children, educators and staff members’ health and lives to the profit-interests of the super-rich and the capitalist system. To the ruling class and their flunkies in both capitalist parties, more students need to be pushed back into unsafe schools to ensure that parents can go back into unsafe factories and workplaces and continue pumping out wealth for big business and the financial elite.
The consequences of these policies are being borne out all across the country, where cities and entire states are witnessing an alarming spike in COVID-19 infections among children and young adults as a result of novel strains of COVID-19. In Michigan, which has gone full speed ahead with its reopening drive, there has been a record-breaking spike in child hospitalizations in recent weeks. Last week, Michigan’s Health & Hospital Association released data showing children hospitalized with severe COVID-19 symptoms across the state had increased to 70, twice as many as were hospitalized during the second wave of the pandemic in November.
Public health officials across the country are increasingly turning their attention to developments in Michigan, citing the growing predominance of the B.1.1.7 variant as the source behind the latest wave. Health scientists are highlighting the situation in Michigan as a precursor for what could manifest in the majority of the United States once the new variant makes deep inroads in communities throughout the country.
In an interview with WebMD in early April, Minnesota state epidemiologist Ruth Lynfield pointed to the rapidly rising infection rate in the state and mentioned how the B.1.1.7 variant has a higher attack rate among children than earlier versions of the virus, causing a far higher likelihood for infection when exposed. Lynfield said health officials are vigorously tracking cases that are emerging primarily through non-essential workplaces and spaces, such as youth sports leagues, classrooms and day care centers. “We certainly get the sense that youth are what we might refer to as the leading edge of the spread of variants,” she said.
In Massachusetts, the largest number of new COVID-19 infections since the start of April have been among children and teenagers. The state also has the fifth highest number of B.1.1.7 cases in the US, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cases have been especially severe for youth with underlying medical conditions. But even among healthier children, the virus has been known to trigger a far more serious post viral syndrome called MIS-C, which has led to more hospitalizations for small children in many parts of the country.
While children only represent a fraction of deaths from COVID-19 infections, statistics recently have confirmed that children now comprise a larger percentage of people getting infected than earlier in the pandemic. An American Academy of Pediatrics report showed that children accounted for one in five cases detected nationwide during the second week of April. In Michigan, for example, rates of child infections are now higher than at any point in the pandemic. As late as April 17, children aged 10-19 were averaging more than 1,150 cases per day during the previous week, the state’s highest rate of new cases. For children younger than 10, the average was 400 new cases per day.
In contrast to the complacency shown by public officials toward the relatively low rate of fatality among children from the virus, the number of child deaths have reached tragic levels. According to the Covid Project, which tracks child deaths from COVID-19 using government reports and news accounts, there were 582 child deaths as of late March. This makes the disease one of the top 10 causes of death for children in the US. It’s also worth noting that this number was recorded before the explosion of infections from the new B.1.1.7 variant that was seen in April.
Scientists have also recently noted that while children may have a lower risk of developing severe COVID-19 than adults, many children have already become “long haulers” of the disease and are experiencing symptoms months after they first contracted the virus. In the United States, very limited data has been collected to gauge how common this phenomenon is among school children under 18, mostly due to intransigence on the part of public officials that no information be released that counters the unsafe reopening drive.
But in other places, such as the United Kingdom, recent data has shown that 10 to 15 percent of children younger than 16 infected with COVID-19 still had at least one symptom five weeks later. A research study from the Department of Woman and Child Health at Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli in Rome, Italy also came to similar conclusions after analyzing a cohort of 129 children diagnosed with COVID-19 between March and November 2020. Of these, more than half (52.7 percent) reported experiencing at least one symptom of COVID-19 approximately four months after the initial diagnosis.
As Brazil tops 400,000 recorded COVID-19 deaths, “opposition” state governors of the Workers Party (PT) and the Maoist Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) are implementing policies in tandem with fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro’s reopening of the economy and defense of mass infection.
Residents place roses on mattresses symbolizing COVID-19 victims, during a protest against the Government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)
While the media and state governments are promoting the slightly lower Intensive Care Unit (ICU) occupation rates resulting from partial closures by state governments, the reality is that the rate of infection across Brazil has risen to unprecedented levels for more than a month. During the height of the Manaus surge in January the rolling average peaked at 55,626 cases; it reached 77,129 in March and has yet to fall below the levels of January.
The result is one of the highest coronavirus daily death counts in the world, with more than 2,000 people dying every single day for the past 40 days.
The number of COVID-19 deaths registered in April is the highest since the pandemic started. The death toll reached 200,000 ten months after the first case was registered in the country. However, 76 days later the number reached 300,000 and it only took 36 days for the country to top 400,000 deaths.
Last week, the Finance Ministry announced that the funds solicited by the Health Ministry for the vaccine effort and for the purchase of intubation kits—which include sedatives and muscle relaxants needed for intubation—would be released in smaller installments, citing the “possibility of the acute crisis winding down with the advances in vaccination.”
This effective denial of resources cut the purchase of intubation kits in half, so that stockpiling would now be enough to hold on for 90 days, while the initial estimate was 180. The Finance Ministry announcement came two days after Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga postponed from May to September the end date for the vaccination of the first-priority group, which corresponds to only 37 per cent of the population.
While the government and the mainstream media publicly focus on preparations for the national mass production and new purchases of vaccines, most of which will only become available several months from now, the Health Ministry revealed its real concerns in letters sent to the Finance Ministry .
The documents stated that the situation is severe and that there is “uncertainty” about the demand of hospital units and medical supplies, making a reference to the beginning of April, when ICUs in 24 states were at 80 per cent capacity, while 11 had rates above 95 per cent, which “characterizes a very severe situation.”
Meanwhile, the delays in vaccine imports are compromising the distribution of shots. On Wednesday, a report in Estado de São Paulo concluded that cities in at least eight states will not be able to give the second shots in time. There are currently no studies on the effectiveness of taking a single jab, which means that the lives of hundreds of thousands may be at risk. More than 100,000 people will receive their second shots after the 28-day optimal period for the CoronaVac vaccine. In the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, 223,000 are at risk of losing their window for the second shot after a delay in the arrival of vaccines.
As the vaccination campaign suffers repeated delays, the federal and state governments’ policy of reopening the economy throughout the country means forcing the vast majority of the population to go back into their workplaces and risk getting infected. This murderous campaign is being waged by all sections of the political establishment, including the self-proclaimed “left” state governments.
The delays in the national and local vaccination rollouts haven’t stopped the states from reopening their economies. Last week, Governor Flávio Dino of the PCdoB announced the rolling out of vaccinations for teachers in the state of Maranhão as part of his effort to promote the return to schools in the region, which will inevitably result in a surge of COVID-19 cases among students. On April 9, during the biggest surge in the country yet, Dino announced the reopening of churches with 25 per cent capacity, following a decision by the Bolsonaro-appointed Federal Supreme Court Judge Nunes Marques.
On April 11, Governor Camilo Santana of the PT announced the reopening of the economy in the state of Ceará based on false claims about a “decline” in the state’s deaths and hospitalizations, which meant a stabilization of the numbers at more than 800 deaths per week.
The deadly threat posed by this policy is seen in a report on Thursday that 99.45 per cent of Ceará’s territory, or 184 out of 185 cities in the state, are under an “extremely high risk” of COVID-19 transmission, the highest levels reported in Ceará since January.
The PT governor’s murderous policy was starkly exposed by the explosion of an oxygen cylinder fulfillment plant in Ceará last Saturday, in which six workers were injured, with three being taken to the hospital. A video showed nearby houses with broken windows and people injured. White Martins, the owner company, reported 150 houses damaged.
Although the immediate causes for the explosion are not clear, the criminal response of the self-proclaimed “left” politicians, aligned with Bolsonaro’s drive to let people get sick and die to guarantee profits, has resulted in a surge in demand for oxygen cylinders.
In March, Anvisa, Brazil’s health regulatory agency, announced that, thanks to the loosening of rules and protocols, some companies managed to increase oxygen production and cylinder fulfillment by 200 per cent. Data published by the agency shows that the sale of oxygen cylinders spiked by 47 percent in March, even before the worst period of the pandemic.
White Martins stated during the same month that six states, including Ceará, had been “presenting excessive oxygen consumption” and announced that its plants were starting 24-hours-a-day production. That was before the April surge in deaths throughout the country. One day after the explosion, the company announced that it was transporting oxygen cylinders to Ceará to serve hospitals in the capital and other cities.
The Workers Party and the Communist Party are carrying out these policies while declaring that the defense against Bolsonaro’s preparations for a dictatorship in Brazil is to be found within the same military that imposed a regime of mass repression between 1964 and 1985. Bolsonaro’s herd immunity campaign has been accompanied by repeated calls for using the military to force a reopening of the economy, which would imply the establishment of an openly authoritarian regime.
During a visit to the PT-governed state of Bahia on Monday, just days before the beginning of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) to investigate the state and federal governments’ handling of the pandemic, the president declared that “we must not allow some pseudo-governors who want to impose a dictatorship using the virus to subdue” the population. He added that “it wasn’t the federal government who made you stay at home or closed stores, which destroyed millions of jobs.”
Amid critical levels of social inequality, widespread reports of hunger and the spread of strikes and protests by app delivery workers, oil workers, metalworkers and transport workers, these so-called “left” parties are focusing all of their efforts on preventing workers’ opposition from getting out of their control.
In the state of Pernambuco, governed by a PSB (Brazilian Socialist Party)/PCdoB coalition, teachers who had led a courageous strike against the reopening of schools in September, have again entered into struggle, striking for two weeks. The response of the PT-controlled Sintepe (Pernambuco’s Education Workers Union) is to raise the demand, repeated throughout the country, for “the vaccination of all education workers,” while leaving kids to transmit and die from the coronavirus once in-person classes begin.
The bogus campaign by the union is exposed by its own actions. Back in September, the president of the union, Fernando Melo, declared that workers’ dissatisfaction was caused by the “way in which the announcement of the return was made,” not by the lives claimed by the virus. The maneuvers of the union eventually led to the defeat of the strike.
The Sintepe is affiliated to the PT-controlled CUT, which has invited right-wing figures like São Paulo Governor João Doria and Arthur Lira, who was elected chairman of the lower house of Congress with support from Bolsonaro, to participate in this year’s May Day Rally.
A year into the pandemic, all sections of the political establishment are exposed for their criminal indifference to widespread suffering and are actively implementing the herd immunity policy. At the same time, workers are entering into struggle to defend themselves against the policies that are killing their loved ones and destroying their living standards.
