Eligible Countries: Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) & Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries
To be taken at (country): Azerbaijan
About the Government of Azerbaijan Award: The Educational Grant Program for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation” and “The Grants Program for the Citizens of the Non-Aligned Movement” were approved by the President of the Republic of of Azerbaijan on December 6, 2017 and on January 10, 2018, respectively. The Educational Grant (hereinafter referred to as “scholarship”) Programs provide a pre-requisite course for undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, general medicine / residency programs.
Programmes provide an opportunity for selected 40 candidates on annual basis to study in the leading universities of Azerbaijan at • Preparatory courses • Undergraduate, graduate • Doctoral • General medicine/residency programmes
Type: Undergraduate, Masters, Doctoral
Eligibility:
Citizens of the OIC and the NAM member countries
For undergraduate and general medicine programmes – citizens younger than 30
For graduate and residency programmes – citizens younger than 35
Selection: The selection process will cover two stages:
Review of the relevant documents
Interviews (online/Skype)
The candidates will be informed about the results by early July, 2022 Note: only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
Number of Awards: 40
Value of Government of Azerbaijan Award:
Tuition fee
International flight
Monthly stipend for meals, accommodation and utility costs ($ 800)
Medical insurance
Visa and registration costs
How to Apply for Government of Azerbaijan Scholarships:
As the rate of coronavirus infections reaches ever new heights and the even more infectious Omicron subvariant BA.2 spreads, the German government is moving to end the last existing measures to protect against the virus. In so doing it is following the example of the US and other European countries.
The 7-day incidence is now 1,472 infections (per 100,000 residents), with 240,000 people recently infected in a single day. In every district of Germany the incidence rate exceeds 500. In 342 counties it stands above 1,000 and in 48 counties above 2,000. The highest incidence is in the county of Eichstätt, with an incidence value of 3,897.
The growing number of infections is accompanied by a disastrous increase in cases occurring in hospitals and nursing homes. Just last week there were 174 outbreaks in medical treatment facilities (20 more than in the previous week) and 373 outbreaks in nursing homes and homes for the elderly (127 more than in the previous week).
The number of severe outbreaks also continues to rise. On Friday, more than 1,750 people were hospitalized. The adjusted hospitalization incidence is now about 11 (weekly hospitalizations per 100,000 residents), doubling in one month. The percentage of free intensive care beds remains just above 10 percent, which is considered the borderline of hospital response capacity. Nearly 1,000 people have died since the week began.
Schools remain a central driver of infection. Among 15- to 34-year-olds, the 7-day incidence is 1,988, whereas among 5- to 14-year-olds it is as high as 4,187. For the past four weeks, 2,124 coronavirus outbreaks have been reported in schools, with that figure expected to rise as late reports come in. The number of school outbreaks is thus four times higher than at the height of outbreaks last school year.
Of particular concern is the rapid spread of Omicron subvariant BA.2, which has seen its share of infections increase fivefold since the beginning of the year. It is currently believed to be 30 percent more infectious than BA.1 and can reinfect people within weeks of a BA.1 Omicron infection.
The ruling class is responding to this wave of infections by announcing even more comprehensive steps to reopen and even promising an end to all remaining pandemic safety measures. The federal and state governments are vying with each other to open fastest.
In his inaugural speech in the Bundesrat (federal council) on Friday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democrats, SPD) declared that “the peak of the wave is in sight,” despite exploding case numbers. “That lets us consider a first reopening step at the federal-state meeting next week, as well as others for the spring.”
Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) delivering his first address (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
Scholz justified this with the absurd claim that “especially elderly citizens have fortunately not been strongly affected by the Omicron wave.” In view of hundreds of outbreaks in old people’s homes every week, this statement can only be regarded a brazen lie. In the last week alone, 660 people over the age of 60 have died from the coronavirus.
At the same time, the chancellor openly admits that nurses and doctors are working at their limits and tries to spin as a success that the health care system has not collapsed: “Our health care system—despite great strain on doctors and hospital staff—has held up so far.”
While Scholz announces steps toward reopening in the spring, other parts of his government want to reopen earlier. The current infection control measures remain in effect until March 20. After that, the Bundestag will vote on whether to extend them for another three months. Liberal (FDP) parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr told the FunkeMediengruppe newspapers that any remaining protective measures should be lifted at that time: “On March 20, Germany should return to normal.”
But looser restrictions are needed before then, he told ARD and ZDF’s Morgenmagazin. One should focus on creating a “smooth transition” to March 20 with gradual relaxations, he said. First to fall should be vaccination (or proof of recovery) requirements in retail, contact tracing and contact restrictions for private gatherings.
While federal government officials are still just talking about relaxations, the states are already implementing them. Last week, all German states uniformly decided to raise the cap on the number of spectators allowed at large outdoor events to 10,000. The state governments of Schleswig-Holstein and Hesse announced an end to vaccination-or-recovered regulations across the retail sector. Now more and more states are following suit.
Bavaria, which is currently the state with the highest incidence, announced it would lift the curfew in pubs and further increase the maximum number of spectators at major events. For sporting events, 15,000 instead of 10,000 spectators will be allowed and the maximum occupancy rate will be raised from 25 percent to 50 percent. For cultural events, occupancy will even be increased from 50 percent to 75 percent.
After Schleswig-Holstein and Hesse, the states of Berlin and Brandenburg have now also announced that they will overturn the vaccination-or-recovered regulation in the retail sector. In Brandenburg, the night-time curfew for unvaccinated people in hotspot regions is also to be dropped.
Implementing this relaxation of safety regulations contradicts all scientific reasoning and risks thousands of deaths. Klaus Reinhardt, president of the German Medical Association, warned in an interview with the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung against relaxation of regulations: “We still lack reliable and comprehensive data on the current incidence of infection. That makes it difficult to clearly assess the situation.”
Resistance to this policy is growing. An online petition by more than 100 student representatives calling the government’s “current mass-infection plan” “irresponsible and lacking solidarity” has now received 134,000 signatures. Under the hashtag #WirWerdenLaut (#We’reGettingLoud), a great number of students, teachers, parents and scientists are calling for “fighting the pandemic by any means necessary” and are making a number of demands, such as equipping schools with air filters, free FFP2 masks and a repeal of compulsory attendance.
Politicians and the media have responded with a smear campaign to denounce the petition’s legitimate demands as unscientific or a “scare campaign.”
The petition is an important expression of opposition to the profits-before-life policies of the ruling class. But their demands cannot be implemented by appealing to those in power. For two years now, those powers have ignored all such appeals, making it clear that they are pursuing policies in the interest of maximizing the profits of banks and corporations rather than protecting the health and lives of the population.
Today, New Zealand’s Ministry of Health reported a record 981 new cases of COVID-19 in the community. This follows 810 cases yesterday, which was nearly double the previous day’s tally.
In the space of two weeks, New Zealand’s Omicron outbreak has roughly quadrupled in size from a total of 770 active cases on January 31, to more than 4,000 yesterday. The number of people in hospital with the virus has jumped from 14 to 39 in one week.
Auckland City Hospital, where several patients and staff in the geriatric ward have tested positive for COVID-19. (Source: Google Streetview)
Until recently, New Zealand was relatively free from COVID-19. In October 2021, however, during an outbreak of the Delta variant, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declared that the government would no longer seek to reduce cases to zero using lockdowns and other public health measures.
With the arrival of the highly infectious Omicron variant, the Labour Party-Greens government dropped any pretence of eliminating COVID-19. It is now following the same policy as governments in Europe, America and Australia: schools and businesses must remain open, so that profits are extracted from the working class, while the virus is allowed to spread everywhere, infecting masses of people.
The alarming spike in daily cases is only the beginning. COVID-19 researcher Dion O’Neale told the New Zealand Herald the country would likely reach 1,000 confirmed cases a day by the middle of the week. This would quickly overwhelm the country’s contact tracing capacity.
Epidemiologist Michael Baker told Stuff the number of people already infected could be 10 times higher than the official tally, since people without symptoms are not being tested. He said the majority of the country would soon be exposed to the virus.
Cabinet is meeting today to discuss whether to begin Phase 2 of the government’s plan, outlined last month, for dealing with Omicron. Phase 2 does not mean the reintroduction of public health restrictions. On the contrary, it will help the virus spread even faster by reducing the mandatory self-isolation period for positive cases from 14 days to 10 days, and for contacts from 10 days to 7 days. Contact tracing will also be scaled back.
The government has already announced plans to end the requirement for New Zealand citizens returning from overseas to isolate for 10 days in one of several hotels that are serving as managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities.
The reckless decision to reopen schools this month has helped fuel the outbreak. Last Friday, the Ministry of Education reported there were already 98 COVID-19 cases in schools and 19 at early childhood education centres.
More than half of children aged 5 to 11 are unvaccinated, and those under 5 are ineligible, making them particularly susceptible to catching Omicron and spreading it to others.
Among people aged over 12, 95 percent have received at least two doses of the vaccine. But only about one third of the population has received a third dose, which is essential for significant protection from Omicron.
Newshub reported yesterday that the Auckland South Corrections Facility, run by private company Serco, “is a super-spreader,” with 34 prisoners testing positive through rapid antigen tests, and two staff also testing positive.
Seven staff and seven patients have also tested positive at two Auckland Hospital geriatric wards. New admissions and discharges from the wards have been halted.
A New Zealand tourist may have spread Omicron to the Cook Islands, a Pacific semi-colony of NZ with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. A passenger on a flight that left the islands last Monday tested positive, and is thought to have been infectious while in the Cook Islands for eight days.
Karla Eggleton, from the Cook Islands’ tourism department, told TVNZ that despite the danger of an outbreak “the border remains open” and “it’s business as usual.” Only 70 percent of the eligible population is triple-vaccinated, and the small healthcare system will not cope in an outbreak. There are two respirators suitable for COVID patients.
While New Zealand’s corporate media is largely focused on anti-vaccination protesters outside parliament, there is growing concern in the working class about the impending explosion of Omicron.
A healthcare worker at Taranaki Base Hospital in New Plymouth told the World Socialist Web Site he feared they would be overwhelmed with cases. “We have to give health support to other diseases too, not only COVID. So what is the government’s plan? If things go on like this, our hospitals will be out of beds and staff members in the next one or two months.”
The hospital, which serves a region with 124,380 people, has 150 beds and, according to official information, only 6 fully-staffed intensive care beds.
A Wellington hotel worker, who asked to be referred to as T, told the WSWS that she was worried about coming into contact with travelers from Auckland, the centre of New Zealand’s outbreak, and international travelers. She suffers from asthma, placing her at greater risk of illness if she contracts the virus.
T said the food and beverage team was not well-protected, especially when the restaurant area is crowded. “We’re quite close to the customers, we’re very interactive because we have to serve them.” Customers were “very cautious about COVID-19” but they did not wear masks during meals. Like most workers, the hotel staff were not being given the most effective N95 masks, but only less-effective surgical masks.
There is considerable financial pressure on low-paid workers not to get tested for COVID. As a casual, part-time worker, T said that when she recently had to get a test and isolate for two days, she was not paid by her employer.
John, a student at Victoria University of Wellington, said he was “very concerned about the prospect of getting Omicron. I haven’t had my booster yet. There’s no guarantee I won’t get Long COVID, or even worse, and there’re older members of the family who are more at risk. So I’m really concerned at the prospect of widespread community transmission.”
Last year there were mask mandates on campus but “loads of people weren’t wearing them, or were wearing them inadequately,” John said. He said he would face “huge risks of exposure” travelling by train and going into crowded lecture theatres.
John commented that he “was hoping last year, that there would be protests saying: ‘don’t abandon elimination.’ But there was nothing, there was no coordinated resistance.”
As is the case internationally, the New Zealand trade unions, acting in the interests of the affluent middle class and big business, have suppressed opposition to the government’s policy of mass infection. They have collaborated in herding people back to unsafe workplaces and schools.
COVID-19 deaths in the United States have reached their highest level during the Omicron wave, coinciding not with escalating efforts to save lives but an escalating drive to cover up the devastating impact of the pandemic on the health of the American people.
Mandatory reporting of COVID-19 deaths by hospital systems to the US Department of Health and Humans Services (DHSS) ended on February 2, 2022.
Additionally, in quick succession, states across the country are allowing their mask mandates to lapse. New York Governor Kathy Hochul dropped the state’s stringent indoor mask mandate last Wednesday. These include populous Democratic-held states, such as Illinois, California and New Jersey, to name a few.
Patient in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) [Source: Wikimedia Commons]
According to the Worldometer dashboard, the 7-day moving average reached 2,600 deaths per day by the end of January. On February 1, 2022, the New York Times COVID-19 dashboard recorded a daily average of 2,653 deaths with a single-day high of 3,582.
Since then, the COVID-19 trackers report a sudden and significant drop in the daily death averages—2,044 for Worldometer and 2,454 for the New York Times. Only the Johns Hopkins coronavirus resource center, one of the leading and most reliable trackers frequently used by government and international bodies, has indicated that the number of deaths has plateaued or continues to climb though at a much slower pace. According to their tracker, the 7-day average for COVID-19 deaths remains over 2,500.
Indeed, the change in the trajectory of deaths can be supported by the decline in new infections and hospitalizations for COVID-19, although they still remain at pandemic highs. However, other countries with similar trajectories in their infection metrics have continued to see deaths climb, with Denmark and South Africa being two notable examples.
Aside from how hospital administrators and health officials are adjusting their reports of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, recent efforts on the part of states and governments to dismantle reporting systems are part of the more considerable effort to dispense with such metrics altogether as they interfere with efforts to force schools and businesses to open and stay open while getting the country back to work en masse permanently. The critical and necessary tracking of infections has grown to become a nuisance for the ruling elite.
In this regard, the complete silence on the part of major media outlets on the number of deaths that continue to mount plays a major role. A cursory survey of the US Sunday papers is remarkable in that not one has mentioned the devastating toll the Omicron variant continues to take on the population. The rapid shift is astounding. One would assume that the pandemic has ended or that it was a nightmare from which we are all awakening. In reality, the nightmare continues in a new form.
Placing the present daily COVID-19 death toll into context, more than 2,700 people died on September 11, 2001, in the World Trade Center towers and the surrounding area after two hijacked planes were flown into the buildings. The deaths were eulogized and referenced repeatedly on every major news outlet. They were used as a pretext for US wars across the Middle East and suppression of democratic rights at home, which have had considerable relevance to developments during the pandemic.
And last week, more than 14,000 people died from COVID-19, the equivalent of almost five 9/11 events. But there is barely a mention by any media commentator. That is because these deaths are attributable, not to a terrorist “enemy,” but the US ruling class itself, and both its parties, Democratic and Republican, whose deliberate policy has allowed the disease to run rampant throughout the country.
Since New Year’s Day 2022, more than 90,000 people in the US have perished from COVID-19 and its complications. This is equivalent to twice the number of American combatants killed in combat in the Vietnam conflict. Instead of a war that encompassed a dozen years, the pandemic deaths took place in the span of just six weeks.
Furthermore, since President Joe Biden was sworn into office, more than a half million Americans have died of COVID-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus deaths to more than 943,000, according to Worldometer. Indeed, far more have died under Biden’s administration than under Trump, as the twin parties of American capitalism pursued the policy of herd immunity.
It is noteworthy that the plans to end the last vestiges of the paltry mitigation measures were drawn up even before anyone heard of the Omicron variant. Inevitably, these had to be put on hold for several months after Omicron sparked a huge surge in the pandemic.
Last week, the New York Times wrote: “The easing of New York’s pandemic restrictions on businesses comes as Democratic-led states from New Jersey to California have announced similar moves this week, in a loosely coordinated effort that is the result of months of public-health planning, back-channel discussions and political focus groups that began in the weeks after the November elections.”
That the Omicron surge delayed only briefly this closing down of public health measures only underscores the wholly unscientific character of the decision. The federal and state governments were driven, not by data and analysis but by the necessity to recoup the trillions paid out to corporate America in the course of the pandemic.
With the number of cases on the decline (but still at staggering levels), governors took their concerns to the White House, demanding the shift to “living with the virus” under the guise that SARS-CoV-2 was on its way to becoming endemic.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, also the Vice Chairman of the National Governors Association, speaking to reporters after meeting with Biden, said, “What does the road from pandemic to endemic look like, and how do we keep score? There was broad agreement that that’s the task before us.”
In other words, the ending of the pandemic also means the termination of all the metrics and measures that remind the population that a deadly virus continues to kill people at record highs, with the cumulative death toll approaching closer to 1 million every day.
Indeed, what does the road from pandemic to endemic look like?
The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), a UK government body that advises the central government, recently published on February 10 a paper by academics on COVID-19 viral evolution scenarios.
They provide four scenarios from the most optimistic to the direst. They wrote: “In each scenario, it is assumed that a relatively stable, repeating pattern is reached over time (two to 10 years), but it is likely that the transition to this will be highly dynamic and unpredictable. It may not be possible to know with confidence from what happens in the next 12 to 18 months which long-term pattern will emerge.”
They note particularly: “There is also a feedback loop between the global epidemic dynamics (i.e., transmission and incidence) and viral evolution and adaptation: higher global SARS-CoV-2 prevalence provides more opportunities for viral evolution, while new variants can drive higher prevalence.” And they warn that it should not be assumed that a more transmissible variant is necessarily of lower severity, or vice versa. On the contrary, in the worst case scenario, a more lethal and more contagious variant may emerge.
Dr. Zoë Hyde, an epidemiologist and biostatistician at the University of Western Australia and an expert on COVID-19, in response to the report wrote on social media: “The best-case scenario doesn’t seem realistic [a variant of both lesser virulence and lesser transmissibility]. It’s inconsistent with what’s occurred so far. … Based on our experience with SARS-CoV-2 to date, the central pessimistic scenario seems most likely to me. However, I think one element of the worst-case scenario—increased long-term impacts following infection—may also be correct.”
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again contradicted new US claims that a Russian invasion is imminent and implored Ukrainians to remain calm. Throwing doubt on the latest allegations by Washington, Zelensky stated, “Today the best friend of our enemy is panic in our country, and all this information, which only helps panic, doesn’t help us.”
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan earlier stated Russian forces were “in a clear position to be able to mount a major military action,” but admitted, “[w]e don’t know exactly what is going to happen.” The supposedly forthcoming attack, Der Spiegel and the New York Times reported, could come “as early as next Wednesday.”
In this handout photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, speaks at a press conference in Kherson, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
Zelensky went on to state that his government had no information that an invasion would occur in the upcoming week, as claimed by the US. “We understand all the risks, we understand that there are risks. If you or anyone else has 100 percent true information regarding an invasion by the Russian Federation starting on February 16, then please give us this information.”
Later he released photos via Facebook of him doing a tour of military exercises. He again begged Ukrainians not to panic. Zelensky is aware that there is mass opposition to war in Ukraine and that the US/NATO-led provocation of a war with Russia will unleash a social and political crisis in the country.
Washington and its allies around the world, including Britain, Germany, Israel and Australia, have begun telling their citizens to leave the country, and Russia has announced that it will downsize its embassy in Ukraine.
Despite its repeated rejection of US claims about a supposedly imminent invasion, Zelensky’s government has continued its belligerent stance towards Moscow and the pro-Russian political opposition within Ukraine. Pro-Russian television station Nash, which is affiliated with politician Yevheniy Murayev, was closed down. Murayev was recently identified by British intelligence as a potential replacement for Zelensky in a supposed Russian plot to overthrow the Ukrainian government. As Murayev himself pointed out, however, he is currently banned from Russia and has had his assets seized by its government.
Even as it attacks the opposition inside Ukraine, the Kiev government is continuing military drills with drones and US-supplied anti-tank Javelin missiles. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksio Reznikov insists these are in response to Russian training exercises.
The country’s political far right, led by former President Poroshenko, has called for Zelensky to act even more aggressively towards Moscow and echoed the warnings of his US backers that an invasion is forthcoming.
“It now arises to the responsibility of politicians to take all emergency measures to protect the country and its people from the worst-case scenario,” Poroshenko said on Twitter.
Poroshenko also attempted to insert himself into the decision making, calling for “a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council with the participation of leaders of all parliamentary factions to discuss proposals and develop a common and joint action plan on how to protect the country.”
Having developed a close relationship with Joe Biden during his term as vice president in the Obama administration, Poroshenko is the preferred puppet of US policymakers. It appears Poroshenko is waiting to step forward should war start and the Zelensky government fall.
In Kiev, Mayor Vitaly Klitchko has undertaken far-reaching preparations for war. According to the Russian online newspaper Gazeta.ru, Klitchko created a commission that has worked out evacuation plans for every party of the city and prepared its infrastructure for a war. The number of bomb shelters in the Ukrainian capital has been tripled and 4,500 underground parking lots and underpasses, subway stations and basements, set up as shelters. Klitchko also announced that he is deploying a brigade to defend the city.
On Friday, aides to Ukrainian President Zelensky continued to maintain a hardline stance in negotiations with Russia held on Friday in Berlin.
The talks, part of the “Normandy format” brokered by France and Germany, were intended to work out the details of full implementation of the Minsk Peace Agreement. Those accords were first agreed to by both Moscow and Kiev in 2015 in order to end the civil war between the Ukrainian government and Russian-backed separatists in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk provinces.
Seven years later, the civil war continues and has killed approximately 14,000 Ukrainians, as successive governments in Kiev, with the backing of the United States and NATO, have refused to implement the Minsk Accords. The government has continually refused to negotiate, as called for in the agreement, with the leaders of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, whom it labels as “terrorists.”
On Friday, Ukrainian officials maintained the same stance, once again sabotaging any chance for a negotiated settlement.
“Unfortunately, almost nine hours of talks have ended without any significant results. The Ukrainians presented a very hard position. We did not manage to overcome this,” Russian Deputy Chief of Staff Dmitry Kozak said following the meeting.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, while stating he hoped for a “diplomatic settlement of the conflict” signaled to Ukraine’s far-right militia groups that it would never cross the “red line” of direct negotiations with the pro-Russian separatists.
“The key question yesterday—was direct talks with the separatist Donetsk and Lugansk provinces. This question is well known to everyone. Russia insists that Ukraine holds a direct dialog with the so-called Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics. If Ukraine goes for this, then the status of Russia changes to just a negotiator in the conflict. And that is why we can’t accept this,” Kuleba stated.
All sides agreed to another round of Normandy format talks in March, with Russia calling for France and Germany to pressure Ukraine to negotiate with the separatists. A previous round of talks was held in Paris on January 26 and likewise ended in failure.
A week before Friday’s meeting, Kuleba also ruled out a special federated status for the breakaway areas, another one of the key points that Kiev refuses to accept in the Minsk Accords.
Speaking with Poland’s Rzeczpospolita newspaper, Kuleba said, “No Ukrainian region will have a right for national state decisions. This is set in stone! There will be no special status, as Russia imagines it, not voting power.”
The Ukrainian government and its imperialist backers rightly fear that reintegrating the provinces without them being fully subjugated to Kiev would jeopardize the country’s chances for entry into NATO, thus limiting Ukraine’s usefulness as a proxy against Moscow.
Until the 2014 United States-backed coup of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, NATO membership was opposed by a majority of the Ukrainian population. More recently, in December of last year, polling from the US Republican Party-affiliated International Republican Institute showed that just 58 percent of Ukrainians support a referendum to join NATO despite seven years of pro-NATO propaganda. If polling had included Crimea and the separatist-controlled Donbass regions, the number would be significantly lower.
In an action that combines brazen theft, imperialist brutality and unlimited hypocrisy, the Biden administration announced Friday that it will seize control of $7 billion in Afghanistan financial assets, held largely at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, rather than return them to the Afghanistan central bank.
Media attention has largely been devoted to Biden’s splitting of the $7 billion, with $3.5 billion set aside to meet the legal claims of survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and $3.5 billion to be used for “humanitarian aid” to the people of Afghanistan. Both actions are cynical diversions from what is an effort to starve the country and avenge the humiliating defeat which US imperialism suffered last summer.
A Taliban fighter stands guard in front of people waiting to enter a bank, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Feb. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
The $3.5 billion supposedly to be used for aid will not be available for many months, if ever, as State Department officials acknowledged over the weekend, ensuring that nothing will reach the starving population of Afghanistan during the winter months. According to the UN World Food Program, some 23 million Afghans face hunger and malnutrition this year, while UNICEF warns that as many as one million Afghan children could die of severe malnutrition and outright starvation.
The delay is due to the administration’s decision to allow legal claims against the Taliban amounting to $7 billion, awarded by default in a court proceeding nearly a decade ago, to go forward. Some of the plaintiffs are likely to challenge the 50-50 split in Afghan bank funds, which could tie up any allocation more or less indefinitely.
That appears to be the real purpose of the Biden decision: to allow millions to suffer and starve in Afghanistan, while claiming to be above the battle. “It’s all up to the courts,” Biden will declare, washing his hands of the spectacle of mass death in Central Asia, just as he has facilitated mass death in the COVID pandemic.
In addition, by refusing to return any portion of the $7 billion to the central bank of Afghanistan, the Biden administration intensifies its vengeful wrecking operation against the Afghan economy. Without a functioning central bank—and outright collapse is now a distinct possibility now that its main reserves have been confiscated—Afghan banks and businesses cannot function, workers cannot be paid, no international corporation will do business with the country, and few aid organizations will be able to operate.
Afghan-American groups and aid groups overwhelmingly condemned the action, pointing particularly to the impact on the overall economy. It is not the lack of aid, in itself, but the inability of the economy to function which is the principal cause of mass suffering in Afghanistan.
The message to the Afghan people is clear. As long as you are ruled by the Taliban, you will starve. It is not necessary for American imperialism to bomb the country back to the Stone Age, as military warmongers threatened in Vietnam. They can do so by cutting off all credit and international commerce to a country they have already bombed for 20 years.
The Biden action is illegal on a number of levels. Even the Washington Post, which published an editorial enthusiastically supporting the decision, had to acknowledge that the White House position is self-contradictory: The Biden administration refuses to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan; at the same time, it authorizes the use of Afghan national bank resources to pay off a legal judgment against the Taliban.
The invocation of 9/11 is particularly monstrous and cynical. As numerous commentators in Afghanistan, Pakistan and internationally have pointed out, none of the 9/11 hijackers hailed from Afghanistan. Most were Saudis, citizens of a country that is the closest US Arab ally and the recipient of hundreds of billions in US arms sales.
Even if one accepts, for the sake of argument, the claim that the Taliban protected Osama bin Laden against US government demands for his surrender, there is no evidence that the Taliban had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks. More fundamentally, why should the people of Afghanistan be punished for this, on top of 20 years of US conquest and occupation, which have left their country in ruins?
It is particularly cynical to suggest that Afghan children not even born on September 11, 2001 should suffer because of the actions of terrorists like bin Laden, a Saudi multi-millionaire who began his career fighting in the CIA-backed mujahadeen war against Soviet troops. The US military-intelligence apparatus had far closer connections to Al Qaeda than anyone in Afghanistan, and these connections resumed in 2011 when the Islamists served as the CIA’s ground troops in Libya and Syria.
The Taliban government in Kabul denounced the Biden decision. “The theft and seizure of money held/frozen by the United States of the Afghan people represents the lowest level of human and moral decay of a country and a nation,” Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem said on Twitter.
Faiz Mohammad, a Kabul resident, made another critical point in an interview with Iran’s Press TV. “First, I don’t think the US has the right to use Afghanistan’s money to compensate 9/11 victims,” he said. “The US had no reason when it attacked us, but a lot of people died in the past 20 years. So, it’s the US that should compensate us, and they should not spend our money.”
There is no doubt an additional consideration in the White House action: the pressure of the fascist right, which is uppermost in Biden’s political calculations. Releasing even a small portion of Afghanistan’s assets will come under fire from Fox News, Breitbart, Donald Trump, and the bulk of the Republican Party. “After the surrender to the Taliban, comes the payment of tribute”: the script for know-nothings like Tucker Carlson almost writes itself.
Similar charges were made about the Iran nuclear pact, where the release of a fraction of Iran’s own assets, held in foreign bank accounts that handle payments for oil exports, was portrayed as “paying tribute to the ayatollahs.”
So, to protect his right flank, Biden invokes the scarecrow of 9/11. White House officials claimed that a lawsuit by 9/11 survivors and relatives required action on Afghan assets by February 11 because of a court-imposed deadline, but this is a transparent pretext.
More than 20 years after 9/11, a tragedy that has never been fully investigated because connections with the Saudi monarchy and the US military-intelligence apparatus had to be covered up, the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans is still utilized to serve the interests of the American ruling class.
Germany’s leading weekly news magazine Der Spiegel recently published a long background article about Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (Verfassungsschutz) from 2012 to 2018. The article posed the question: “…did Maassen become radicalised after his involuntary departure from the top post, or had he previously developed his penchant for ultra-right positions? To what extent did Maassen politically influence the Verfassungsschutz?”
Hans-Georg Maassen in 2012 (Image: BMI / Sandy Thieme / CC BY-SA 3.0)
In fact, the answer to this question has been clear for a long time. Maassen was agitating against Germany’s asylum laws and refugees even before these themes were taken up by the country’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). As head of the Verfassungsschutz, Maassen met on several occasions with AfD leaders to help them evade surveillance by the agency he headed. The German government was finally forced to send Maassen into temporary retirement in November 2018 after he spoke out in defence of a far-right demonstration in the city of Chemnitz—an act that provoked a storm of protest.
At the same time that Maassen was protecting and promoting far-right extremists, he clamped down hard on anti-fascists, opponents of war and socialists. It was Maassen who was responsible for listing the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP–Socialist Equality Party) as a “left-wing extremist” organisation in the Verfassungsschutz’s annual report, subjecting it to official surveillance, because—as the Federal Interior Ministry later argued—the party opposes “capitalism, alleged nationalism, imperialism and militarism.”
Meanwhile, Maassen is so deeply immersed in the far-right camp that, as Der Spiegel writes, this is “not only a problem for the CDU [Christian Democratic Union] but also for the agency Hans-Georg Maassen headed for six years” and increased in size from 1,100 to 3,500 employees. “Maassen is tarnishing the office,” one security official is quoted as saying.
Maassen has been blatantly flaunting his fascist nostrums during his retirement, while drawing a state pension estimated at 6,000 euros a month. He has whitewashed attacks on defenceless refugees, spread far-right conspiracy theories, called for a “ban on COVID vaccinations” and raged against the “dangers of socialist ideology” and the alleged destruction of society by those on the left.
Maassen is a member of the Christian Democratic Union and temporarily joined the WerteUnion (Union of Values). The chairman of the ultra-conservative WerteUnion is Max Otte, who is running as the AfD’s official candidate for the post of president of Germany. Maassen has also published articles in Junge Freiheit, the central organ of Germany’s New Right, and is active on the social network Gettr, a platform of the Alt-Right movement.
“Day by day, Maassen seems to be plunging deeper into the world of right-wing ideologues and conspiracy advocates,” Der Spiegel writes. Maassen’s successor at the Verfassungsschutz and his deputy for many years, Thomas Haldenwang, is trying to “distance himself as much as possible from his former boss.” According to the magazine, Haldenwang “declared that a firm course would be taken against old and new far-right extremists in the country. But each new provocation by Maassen undermines his efforts.”
Der Spiegel is visibly trying to assist Haldenwang. If Maassen has already ruined his own reputation, then at least the reputation of the Verfassungsschutz must be saved. The journalists at Der Spiegel “spoke with active and former employees of both the federal- and state-run Verfassungsschutz” and “evaluated documents classified as secret and confidential from Maassen’s time in office.” The authors of the article take great pains to reveal only what is already common knowledge, but the balance of their report is nevertheless devastating.
A mere summary of the facts makes clear that the Verfassungsschutz is a hotbed of the type of far right-wing extremism it is supposed to combat. The AfD and the country’s militant neo-Nazi scene owe their successes largely to the complicity of the Verfassungsschutz. Any serious fight against the dangers emanating from the far right must begin with the dismantling of this opaque and conspiratorial agency.
Support from interior ministers from all parties
Maassen is only the most obvious expression of a much broader problem. Although—or because—his right-wing views were known early on, he was promoted and supported by a series of interior ministers and all of Germany’s parliamentary parties.
He began his career under Otto Schily (Social Democratic Party–SPD), the interior minister of the SPD-Green government at the time. Under Schily, Maassen became department head in the Federal Interior Ministry. He ensured that Murat Kurnaz, who was born and grew up in Germany, was not allowed to return to Germany and had to spend five years in the notorious US Guantánamo prison camp although he had committed no crime.
In 2012, Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich (Christian Social Union–CSU) appointed Maassen to head the Verfassungsschutz in order to cover up the scandal surrounding the NSU (National Socialist Underground) terror group. Shortly before Maassen’s appointment, a trio of neo-Nazis had been exposed after a reign of terror, during which they committed 10 racist murders, several bombings and a number of bank robberies, all carried out under the noses of the security authorities. Although dozens of undercover agents were active in the milieu around the NSU, the Verfassungsschutz claimed to have known nothing about the fascist group’s activities and destroyed relevant secret files.
As soon as he took office, even Germany’s Left Party opened its doors to Maassen and invited him to take part in a public meeting in Berlin.
As new head of the Verfassungsschutz, Maassen paraded himself as “Mister Clean” and announced a “day of opening up of the safes.” The secret files were to be opened and inventoried.
Based on its research, Der Spiegel concludes that “the action was never carried out.” The neo-Nazi network remained intact. Stephan Ernst, who assassinated the Kassel district president Walter Lübcke in 2019, was part of this network. Ernst had known the members of the NSU personally and, like them, was in close contact with undercover agents of the Verfassungsschutz.
Friedrich’s successors as federal interior minister, Thomas de Maizière (CDU) and Horst Seehofer (CSU) also protected Maassen. When Maassen, together with his friend, federal police chief Dieter Romann, denounced Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policy to news editors in 2015, de Maizière did not dare to dispatch his disloyal official into retirement. According to Der Spiegel, de Maizière allowed Maassen to “increasingly pursue his own agenda and align his domestic intelligence service accordingly.”
Horst Seehofer even wanted to promote Maassen and make him state secretary for security in the Interior Ministry when it was clear he was no longer tenable as head of the domestic intelligence service. In his new post, Maassen would have been responsible for all of the country’s security agencies. Only after strong protests did Seehofer abandon his plan and send Maassen into temporary retirement.
Seehofer continued his efforts to protect the AfD after Maassen’s departure. The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on January 21 of this year that the interior minister personally intervened a year ago to water down an 800-page confidential report on the AfD by the Verfassungsschutz. In particular, Seehofer was not prepared to classify Islamophobic and xenophobic statements as examples of far-right extremism.
For years, Maassen had refused to take up the question of the AfD and its neo-Nazi “völkisch” wing, led by Björn Höcke, although, according to Der Spiegel’s research, several state Verfassungsschutz agencies favoured such a course. In 2015, prior to the AfD taking seats in the Bundestag (German federal parliament), Maassen met with the then-AfD party leader Frauke Petry on at least two occasions. According to Der Spiegel, there is “the suspicion that Maassen gave the party tips on how it could avoid being targeted by the agencies.”
Maassen denies this took place, but all of the circumstantial evidence points to it having happened. Between the two meetings with Petry, for which there are no minutes, Maassen attended a conference of the Saarland interior ministry, where surveillance of the particularly radical Saarland AfD was discussed. Shortly afterwards, Petry met again with Maassen and dissolved the Saarland state association.
According to Der Spiegel, Maassen also prevented surveillance of Götz Kubitschek’s Institute for State Policy, an ideological cadre school for the New Right, members of the Identitarian movement and völkisch AfD members.
The new interior minister is brought into line
Meanwhile, it is the fascist Höcke wing that dominates the AfD. After party founder Bernd Lucke and Frauke Petry, Jörg Meuthen is the third leading official in the AfD to resign. Meuthen resigned at the end of January, arguing that the party had moved too far to the right. It was the protective hand of Maassen and Seehofer that enabled the openly fascist wing to increasingly dominate the AfD.
The situation has not changed under Haldenwang. The Verfassungsschutz is a state within a state. It has long since evaded any democratic control. This has been confirmed by the recent attacks on the new interior minister, Nancy Faeser (SPD).
Faeser has been heavily criticised because she published an article last summer in the magazine of the Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime/Federation of Antifascists (VVN-BdA). The article dealt with the death threats signed “NSU 2.0” sent to Faeser in her previous function as chair of the SPD in the state of Hesse.
The VVN-BdA carries out anti-fascist education. Among its best-known members was the recently deceased Auschwitz survivor Esther Bejarano. The organisation also includes other surviving victims of the Nazi regime and former concentration camp inmates, including members of the German Communist Party (DKP, the successor organisation to the KPD, which was ruthlessly suppressed by the Nazis).
Because of the presence of DKP members, the VVN-BdA continues to be spied on by the Verfassungsschutz at the federal level and in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg and Baden-Württemberg. The Bavarian Verfassungsschutz goes so far as to describe the VVN-BdA in its report as the “largest left-wing extremist-influenced organisation active in the field of anti-fascism in Germany.” This means that education about the crimes of the Nazis is considered to be illegal and anti-constitutional.
Because of her article, Faeser has been accused of cooperating with a “left-wing extremist” organisation. The first to make this accusation was Junge Freiheit, the central organ of the extreme right. The yellow press Bild - Zeitung and several CDU deputies then eagerly took up the campaign.
In fact, even the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung attests that Faeser is “not on the left, but rather on the right wing of the SPD.” It writes: “The fully qualified lawyer did not, after all, work in a large international law firm in Frankfurt’s banking district in order to destroy capitalism from within.” The newspaper continues: “She was able to earn good money there and had a job that many a supporter of the [free market] FDP [Free Democratic Party] could only dream of. Faeser is one of the social democrats who appeals to more conservative voters.”
Faeser will react to these attacks in the same manner as all social democratic ministers since Gustav Noske, who ordered the bloody repression of revolutionary workers and sailors during the November Revolution of 1918. Instead of seeking to contain right-wing forces in the state apparatus, she will invariably seek their confidence by proving her own reliability to them.
