UNESCO report: 10 million arts jobs lost in 2020 due to COVID-19

David Walsh

A report issued earlier this month by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) provides a glimpse of some of the consequences for cultural life of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sign on the door of a closed Regal movie theater in New York City, March 2020 (Photo credit–Eden, Janine and Jim)

The Re/Shaping Policies for Creativity 2022 report is written in the usual global-bureaucratic language of such agencies. It is full of references to “Building resilient and sustainable cultural and creative sectors” and “Ensuring a diversity of voices,” “Re-imagining mobility” and “Opening up cultural governance,” and so forth.

The report consists of four sections, concerned, respectively, with supporting “sustainable systems of governance for culture”; achieving “a balanced flow of cultural goods and services” and increasing “the mobility of artists and cultural professionals”; integrating “culture in sustainable development frameworks”; and promoting “human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Generally, in each section, “encouraging developments” are detected that “point to slow but positive progress.” On closer examination, however, a “host of barriers” or “challenges” emerge in almost every case that more or less outweigh, if not wipe out entirely, the previously documented “progress.”

The “barriers” and “challenges” arise inexorably, objectively, in fact, from the existence of capitalist private property, in particular the profit interests of giant entertainment and media corporations, and the system of rival nation-states. The UNESCO study takes the existence of the present social order for granted and seeks some dignified means of navigating around the obstacles this places in the path of harmonious, globally coordinated cultural development. But those obstacles, as a careful reading of the report reveals, are insurmountable within the present economic and political set-up.

The foreword, by UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, a French Socialist Party politician and Culture Minister in the right-wing government of Prime Minister Manuel Valls from 2016 to 2017, sets the general tone.

Re/Shaping Policies for Creativity 2022 UNESCO report

Azoulay acknowledges that the pandemic “has led to an unprecedented crisis in the cultural sector. All over the world, museums, cinemas, theatres and concert halls … have closed their doors. In 2020, the income drawn by creators fell by more than 10 percent, or more than 1 billion euros. What was already a precarious situation for many artists has become unsustainable, threatening creative diversity.”

Who was responsible for this “unprecedented,” but entirely preventable crisis? Azoulay, a former official of the French state, does not care to say. She simply moves on to a series of banalities, “We need the vitality of a sector which employs young people and nurtures innovation and sustainable development,” “we also need what culture and creation, in all the diversity of their expressions, can do to provide some personal respite and what they can do to unite our societies and forge the road ahead.”

She speaks of “long-term policies,” but none of the meager measures proposed, even if they were introduced, would repair the damage done, much less solve the problem of art at the mercy of profits and the market.

In any event, the following passages provide some sense of what is actually occurring.

The current “challenges” in the cultural and creative sectors, we are told, “which have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis, include poverty, gender inequality, climate change and inequalities within and among countries.”

Re/Shaping Policies notes there is “an ongoing downward trend in public investment for culture, which points to new challenges for the cultural and creative sectors, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the economic and social vulnerability of artists and cultural professionals across the world.”

Moreover, remarkably, the share of Official Development Assistance (i.e., foreign aid) to poorer countries devoted to culture and recreation in 2018 represented only a third of the funding that was available before the 2008 global financial crisis. A further decline “is predicted in the coming years due to COVID-19-related recessions.”

In one of the study’s central passages, it reports that COVID-19 has “led to the closure of cultural facilities and the cancellation of events; hampered or halted regular work and collaboration in most cultural and creative occupations; put a stop to international mobility; and compromised the purchasing power of audiences.” According to initial estimates, the study’s authors continue, “the global Gross Value Added in the cultural and creative industries contracted by US$750 billion in 2020, and at least 10 million jobs were lost. In the countries for which data are available, the revenue of the cultural and creative industries decreased by between 20 percent and 40 percent in 2020, and cultural and creative industries generally performed worse than their national economies, thereby sustaining more damage than during any previous crisis.” [Emphasis added.]

Mean government expenditure on ‘cultural services’ and ‘broadcasting and publishing services’ as a percentage of GDP, 2010-2019

The report observes that the “collapse in employment and income followed a decline in public funding and a rise in the precariousness of cultural workers. These factors have reinforced entrenched patterns of gender and regional inequality. … Digitization took a front seat during the pandemic, as it became more central to creation, production, distribution and access to cultural expressions. … As a result, online multinationals consolidated their position, and inequalities in Internet access became more significant.”

In regard to the consolidation of the multinationals, the report notes: “Unfortunately, monopolistic and oligopolistic structures in the media remain commonplace.”

The report describes “the threat of oligopoly, which could recreate the gatekeeper function that traditional media companies enjoyed when spectrum capacity limited broadcast output and a handful of TV and radio network controllers effectively decided on content. This time, however, the oligopoly would exist at the global rather than the national level.”

Freedom of information and “diversity in media” are threatened by “increased disinformation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, insufficient media monitoring, ongoing concentration of media ownership and broadcasters’ difficulties in meeting existing quota requirements due to a lack of local content.”

As for artists’ conditions, in a remarkable indictment of governments, arts agencies and philanthropists, the report cites figures indicating that “the largest subsidy for the arts comes not from governments, patrons or the private sector, but from artists themselves in the form of unpaid or underpaid labour.”

Artists and cultural professionals globally face “common conditions and vulnerabilities”: “long or atypical working hours, project-to-project contracts and last-minute confirmations or cancellations, … working under physical, emotional and mental pressure and being unable to afford downtime.”

Many artists and professionals work under “informal and undocumented arrangements, which include unfair or inadequate remuneration—and even non-payment—for work delivered, diminished or non-existent pensions at retirement, lack of social safety nets or sick leave and contractual conditions that do not provide stability.”

Freelance workers, the most vulnerable portion of the workforce, make up an estimated 30 to 50 percent of Europe’s creative sector, and that figure rises to between 40 percent and 60 percent in poorer countries. “The predominance of freelancing, as well as irregular contracts, creates a constant lack of predictability and security. This is compounded by the prevalence of low pay, or even working for no pay.”

The pandemic and accompanying social crisis are not only rendering the artists poorer and more economically insecure, they are also making the political and creative atmosphere more dangerous. Re/Shaping Policies points to the work of Freemuse, which produces annual statistics on attacks against artists around the world and across creative sectors.

Freemuse’s records “for the period 2018 to 2020, compared with 2017, show a 20 percent rise in censorship against artists and cultural professionals. The most serious attacks, namely killings, imprisonments, detentions and prosecutions, have all increased in recent years. Other forms of repression make up the bulk of abuses and include instances of physical and online attacks and threats, banning of works and halting of performances, denial of licences and restrictions on freedom of movement.”

The combined economic, political and social consequences of the pandemic, which the UN’s Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Karima Bennoune, in a February 2021 report, termed “a cataclysm for cultural rights,” are taking a horrifying toll. In addition to the hundreds of leading musicians, actors, writers and others who have died from COVID, the report observes that as the pandemic progresses “the impact on mental health globally is being revealed, with early studies carried out in several countries showing exponential increases in reported cases of depression, which in some cases are up fourfold compared with 2019.”

Re/Shaping Policies points out that the impact of this mental health crisis “on the cultural sector has been particularly acute. According to Muzik-Sen, the Turkish Musicians and Performers Union, over 100 musicians in Turkey are believed to have died by suicide because of being unable to continue to practise [perform].” Similarly, in Australia, the report explains, “there has been an increase of people in the music industry taking their own lives during the pandemic … —a sad pattern no doubt echoed in other countries and cultural sectors.”

This is the grim reality, which empty, sugary phrases about “resiliency” and “sustainability” and “new opportunities” cannot conceal.

Beijing condemns Washington’s “irresponsible and immoral” behaviour in the Ukraine crisis

Peter Symonds

The Chinese foreign ministry yesterday condemned Washington for deliberately inflaming the danger of war in the Ukraine crisis. It criticised US President Biden’s imposition of further sanctions on Moscow after Russian President Putin signed a decree recognising two eastern Ukrainian regions as “independent” and dispatched Russian troops into these areas.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin talk to each other during their meeting in Beijing, China, Friday, Feb. 4, 2022. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

At a press conference, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the US was “raising tensions, creating panic, and even playing up the schedule of war… If someone is adding fuel to the fire while blaming others… then that behaviour is irresponsible and immoral.”

Asked if China would impose sanctions on Russia, Hua stated that the Chinese government believed that “sanctions have never been a fundamental and effective way to solve problems.” She reiterated that the Chinese government regarded the US imposition of unilateral sanctions, not just on Russia but other countries, including China, as “illegal.”

“Since 2011, the United States has imposed sanctions on Russia more than 100 times, but we can all think about it calmly,” Hua said, adding: “Have US sanctions solved the problem?” She repeated China’s plea for negotiations to maintain regional peace and stability.

The US, however, has no intention of “solving the problem.” It is hell-bent on ramping up tensions in the Ukraine and provoking war with Russia. Beijing’s pleas for talks and a peaceful solution will fall on deaf ears.

Hua pointedly warned that in its handling of the Ukraine crisis and relations with Russia, “the US must not harm the legitimate rights and interests of China and other parties.” Beijing is clearly concerned that the US will exploit its unilateral sanctions against Russia as a pretext for taking action against Chinese entities for any alleged breaches.

At the same time, while China has not condemned Putin’s actions in recognising the “independence” of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, it has given no political support to the move or Russia’s dispatch of troops to these areas.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has defended Russia’s concerns about the encroachment of NATO into Eastern Europe as legitimate, but Beijing is deeply worried by the international precedent set by any redrawing of national borders. It has not formally recognised Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which followed the US-backed coup, involving openly fascist forces, that ousted the elected pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.

Hinting that Ukrainian security concerns also had to be taken into account, Hua said China had “called on all parties to respect and attach importance to each other’s legitimate security concerns, strive to resolve issues through negotiation and consultation, and jointly maintain regional peace and stability.”

Beijing’s concerns stem from legitimate fears that the US will exploit such precedents to justify support for separatist movements, including in Hong Kong and among the Uyghur and Tibetan minorities, as a means of destabilising and breaking up China. The US propaganda machine endlessly recycles the lie that the Chinese government is engaged in the “genocide” of the Uyghurs in China’s western region of Xinjiang.

Moreover, the US is deliberately inflaming tensions over Taiwan, which it nominally recognises as part of China under the “One China” policy. In a definite echo of its accusations of a Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the US media has repeatedly claimed, without any substantiation, that China is preparing to take control of Taiwan using military force. In reality, the US has undermined longstanding protocols regarding the status of Taiwan by strengthening ties with the island, including the deployment of US troops there for the first time in more than four decades.

The Chinese foreign ministry statements yesterday follow a phone call between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday. Wang expressed concern about the “evolving situation in Ukraine” and did not endorse Blinken’s accusations of “Russian aggression.”

Wang blamed the crisis in the Ukraine on “the delayed implementation of the Minsk agreement.” This ceasefire deal was engineered by France and Germany, not the US, in 2014 and 2015 to end fighting between pro-Russian separatist militia in eastern Ukraine and the Ukrainian military, which was working with armed fascist groups.

The Minsk agreement cut across the agenda of the US and extreme right-wing Ukrainian parties and groupings, which sought to continue and intensify the fighting, including to regain control of the Crimea. Along with the removal of all foreign fighters and the pulling back of heavy weaponry, the agreement called for greater autonomy for the rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine, while requiring the separatists to return control of the border between Ukraine and Russia to the Kiev regime. These provisions have never been established.

The Russian and Chinese presidents undoubtedly discussed the looming crisis in the Ukraine in depth at their meeting in Beijing on February 4 at the opening of the Winter Olympics. A lengthy joint statement said the two countries had a friendship that had “no limits.” Without naming the US and its allies, the statement declared that Russia and China “stand against attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their common adjacent regions,” and “counter interference by outside forces in the internal affairs of sovereign countries under any pretext.”

Putin and Xi no doubt also discussed their somewhat different positions on the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as the Crimea. As a result, Putin will not have been surprised by the lack of Chinese support for his announcement recognising Donetsk and Luhansk as independent. He will, however, be looking for Chinese economic and financial support to combat the sanctions imposed by the US and its allies on Russia.

The summit concluded a major agreement for Russia to supply China with 10 billion cubic metres of gas per year—a critical lifeline to Moscow under conditions where its markets in Europe are now being hit by US sanctions. With trade between Russia and China already increasing in the wake of the 2014 Ukrainian crisis, Putin and Xi agreed to boost it to $250 billion annually.

Biden declared that the penalties imposed on Russia this week were just the “first tranche,” so the potential for conflict with China for “breaching” the US sanctions regime can only rise. Washington will have no qualms about drumming up pretexts for punitive measures against Beijing, which it regards as even more of a threat to its global domination than Moscow. This underscores the danger that a war in Europe can rapidly extend to the Indo-Pacific, creating a global disaster.

After Russia announces “special military operation” in Ukraine, Biden declares US will “hold Russia accountable”

Clara Weiss

At 5:50 a.m. Moscow time on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Explosions were reported in parts of Ukraine starting at around 5:00 a.m. local time, including in the capital Kiev, in the eastern city of Kharkov and in other parts of the country. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry claimed that military bases in Kiev and Kharkov were subject to missile strikes. Later Thursday morning, Ukrainian official Oleksiy Arestovych reported that 40 Ukrainian soldiers and 10 civilians had been killed, and dozens of soldiers wounded.

In this image made from video released by the Russian Presidential Press Service, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressees to the nation in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. (Russian Presidential Press Service via AP)

The Ukrainian government also alleged that Russian troops had landed in Odessa and were crossing the border in Kharkov. Contradicting this information, CNN reported that no ground forces had been sighted. On social media, footage was shared showing cars racing on highways to flee Kiev.

The Russian Ministry of Defense denied that Ukrainian cities had been subject to any missile strikes and insisted that only military infrastructure was being targeted. Later, it reported: “Military infrastructure at Ukrainian army air bases has been rendered out of action.”

The Ukrainian government of Volodymyr Zelensky has proclaimed martial law, without specifying what restrictions would be in place.

The Ukrainian government already declared a state of emergency to go into effect Thursday. It involves a ban on strikes, demonstrations and the production and dissemination of “destabilizing” information in the media, as well as unspecified restrictions on the use of social media.

Russia has closed the airspace over East Ukraine and bordering Russian regions. The airport in Rostov on Don, the main Russian city near Ukraine’s border, has been closed entirely. The Ukrainian government had earlier closed several international airports in East Ukraine, including in Kharkov (Kharkiv), Dnepr, Zaporozhe and Kherson. It has now closed its airspace entirely.

US President Joe Biden, who spoke with Zelensky Wednesday night US time, denounced Russia’s troop deployment as a “chosen premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering.” He will deliver a national address today.

Russia initiated its military operation after the separatist leaders of the so-called “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk (Luhansk) (DNR and LNR) in eastern Ukraine had appealed to the Kremlin for military support. Putin had recognized the independence of the separatist enclaves on Monday.

Russia’s Rossiya 24 state television channel reported Wednesday night that the Ukrainian armed forces had crossed the border of the LNR and had launched artillery bombardment of the city of Nikolaevka (Mykolaivka).

The DNR and LNR were proclaimed by pro-Russian separatists in 2014, after a civil war broke out following the US-backed far-right coup in Kiev that ousted a pro-Russian government.

In his speech early Thursday morning, Putin denounced NATO’s expansion to Eastern Europe and the US wars in the Middle East and Yugoslavia and threatened: “Anyone who tries to interfere with us, or even more so, to create threats for our country and our people, must know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never before experienced in your history.”

He said that Russia did not intend to “occupy” Ukraine, but only to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” it.

The Moscow stock exchange halted trading on Thursday, after the index had fallen by 11 percent in the early morning. The ruble has begun a rapid collapse.

European stock markets fell heavily as trading began yesterday morning, with the FTSE-100 down 2.34 percent in London, the Dax down 3.62 percent in Frankfurt, and the CAC-40 down 3.36 percent in Paris. Oil prices surged above US$100 per barrel for the first time in seven years. In Paris, wheat prices rose 10 percent overnight to over €300 per ton.

British Council Scholarships 2022

Application Deadline:

Application deadlines vary between courses but range from 28 February to 10 April 2022. Please check the deadline carefully with the university you plan to apply to, in order to avoid disappointment.  

Tell Me About British Council Scholarships for Women in STEM:

For the second year running, the British Council has launched a scholarship programme in partnership with 26 UK universities with the aim of benefiting women from the Americas, South Asia, South East Asia, Egypt, Turkey and Ukraine. We are looking for women with a background in STEM, who can demonstrate their need for financial support and who wish to inspire future generations of women to pursue careers in STEM.

Why a scholarship programme?

This scholarship programme aims to increase opportunities in STEM for girls and women. According to data from the UN Scientific Education and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), fewer than 30 percent of researchers worldwide are women and only 30 percent of female students select STEM-related fields in higher education.

Globally, female students’ enrolment is particularly low in Information and Communications Technology (three percent), natural science, mathematics and statistics (five percent), and engineering, manufacturing and construction (eight percent).

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Master, Fellowship

Who can apply for British Council Scholarships for Women in STEM?

Applicants can apply from the following countries

For both Master’s Scholarships and Early Academic Fellowships	Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam
For Masters Scholarships only	Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, Peru, Turkey, Ukraine

We are looking for women who:

• are able to take up a course of study in the UK for the academic year from September/October 2022 – 2023
• can demonstrate a need for financial support
• have an undergraduate degree that will enable them to gain access onto one of the pre-selected postgraduate courses at a UK university
• can attain the level of English required for postgraduate study/research at a UK university 
• are active in the field with work experience or a proven interest in their subject area
• are passionate about their course of study and are willing to engage as committed British Council scholarship alumni

Full eligibility criteria are available below in the documents section.

Which Countries are Eligible?

Women from the Americas, South Asia, South East Asia, Egypt, Turkey and Ukraine.

Where will Award be Taken?

UK

How Many Scholarships will be Given?

Numerous

What is the Benefit of British Council Scholarships for Women in STEM?

Main benefits

• academic prestige – the UK’s universities are amongst the world’s leaders in STEM subjects
• economic support will include tuition fees, stipend, travel costs, visa and health coverage fees
• special support for mothers
• English language support

How to Apply for British Council Scholarships for Women in STEM:

Applications should be made directly to the participating universities. Please follow the links below (information will be updated as the application process in each participating university becomes live).

Please ensure you check and meet all of the eligibility requirements before applying. 

Visit Award Webpage for Details

How Nanoplastics Enter the Human Body

Erica Cirino

If you regularly drink water from plastic bottles, you’re likely ingesting even more plastic than the average consumer.

We are no better protected from plasticized air outdoors than we are indoors. Minuscule plastic fibers, fragments, foam, and films are shed from plastic stuff and are perpetually floating into and free-falling down on us from the atmosphere. Rain flushes micro- and nanoplastics out of the sky back to Earth. Plastic-filled snow is accumulating in urban areas like Bremen, Germany, and remote regions like the Arctic and Swiss Alps alike.

Wind and storms carry particles shed from plastic items and debris through the air for dozens, even hundreds, of miles before depositing them back on Earth. Dongguan, China; Paris, France; London, England; and other metropolises teeming with people are enveloped in air perpetually permeated by tiny plastic particles small enough to lodge themselves in human lungs.

Urban regions are especially replete with what scientists believe could be one of the most hazardous varieties of particulate pollution: plastic fragments, metals, and other materials that have shed off synthetic tires as a result of the normal friction caused by brake pads and asphalt roads, and from enduring weather and time. Like the plastic used to manufacture consumer items and packaging, synthetic tires may contain any number of a manufacturer’s proprietary blend of poisons meant to improve a plastic product’s appearance and performance.

Tire particles from the world’s billions of cars, trucks, bikes, tractors, and other vehicles escape into air, soil, and water bodies. Scientists are just beginning to understand the grave danger: In 2020, Washington State researchers determined that the presence of 6PPD-quinone, a byproduct of rubber-stabilizing chemical 6PPD, is playing a major factor in a mysterious long-term die-off of coho salmon in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. When Washington’s fall rains herald spawning salmon’s return from sea to stream, the precipitation also washes car tire fragments and other plastic particles into these freshwater ecosystems. In recent years, up to 90 percent of all salmon returning to spawn in this region have died—a number much greater than is considered natural, according to local researchers from the University of Washington, Tacoma. As University of Washington environmental chemist Zhenyu Tian explained in an interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting, 6PPD-quinone appears to be a key culprit: “You put this chemical, this transformation product, into a fish tank, and coho die… really fast.”

While other researchers have previously searched for, and detected, microplastic dispersed in indoor and outdoor air, a study by Alvise Vianello, an Italian scientist and professor at Aalborg University in Denmark, was the first to do so using a mannequin emulating human breathing via mechanical lung. Despite the evidence his research provides—that plastic is getting inside of human bodies and could be harming us—modern health researchers have yet to systematically search for it in people and comprehensively study how having plastic particles around us and in us at all times might be affecting human health.

Vianello and Jes Vollertsen, a professor of environmental studies at Aalborg University, explained that they’ve brought their findings to researchers at their university’s hospital for future collaborative research, perhaps searching for plastic inside human cadavers. “We now have enough evidence that we should start looking for microplastic inside human airways,” Vollertsen said. “Until then, it’s unclear whether or not we should be worried that we are breathing in plastic.”

He speculated that some of the microplastic we breathe in could be expelled when we exhale. Yet even if that’s true, our lungs may hold onto much of the plastic that enters, resulting in damage.

Other researchers, like Joana Correia Prata, a PhD student at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, have highlighted the need for systematic research on the human health effects of breathing in microplastic. “Microplastic particles and fibers, depending on their density, size, and shape, can reach the deep lung causing chronic inflammation,” she said. People working in environments with high levels of airborne microplastics, such as those employed in the textile industry, often suffer respiratory problems, Prata has noted. The perpetual presence of a comparatively lower amount of microplastics in our homes has not yet been linked to specific ailments.

While they’ve dissected the bodies of countless nonhuman animals for decades, it’s only been a few years since scientists began exploring human tissues for signs of nano- and microplastic. This, despite strong evidence suggesting plastic particles—and the toxins that adhere to them—permeate our environment and are widespread in our diets. In the past decade, scientists have detected microplastic in the bodies of fish and shellfish; in packaged meats, processed foods, beer, sea salt, soft drinks, tap water, and bottled water. There are tiny plastic particles embedded in conventionally grown fruits and vegetables sold in supermarkets and food stalls.

As the world rapidly ramped up its production of plastic in the 1950s and ’60s, two other booms occurred simultaneously: that of the world’s human population and the continued development of industrial agriculture. The latter would feed the former and was made possible thanks to the development of petrochemical-based plastics, fertilizers, and pesticides. By the late 1950s, farmers struggling to keep up with feeding the world’s growing population welcomed new research papers and bulletins published by agricultural scientists extolling the benefits of using plastic, specifically dark-colored, low-density polyethylene sheets, to boost yields of growing crops. Scientists laid out step-by-step instructions on how the plastic sheets should be rolled out over crops to retain water, reducing the need for irrigation, and to control weeds and insects, which couldn’t as easily penetrate plastic-wrapped soil.

This “plasticulture” has become a standard farming practice, transforming the soils humans have long sown from something familiar to something unknown. Crops grown with plastic seem to offer higher yields in the short term, while in the long term, use of plastic in agriculture could create toxic soils that repel water instead of absorbing it, a potentially catastrophic problem. This causes soil erosion and dust—the dissolution of ancient symbiotic relationships between soil microbes, insects, and fungi that help keep plants alive.

From the polluted soils we’ve created, plants pull in tiny nanoplastic particles through their roots along with the water they need to survive, with serious consequences: An accumulation of nanoplastic particles in a plant’s roots diminishes its ability to absorb water, impairing growth and development. Scientists have also found early evidence that nanoplastic may alter a plant’s genetic makeup in a manner increasing its susceptibility to disease.

Based on the levels of micro- and nanoplastics detected in human diets, it’s estimated that most people unwittingly ingest anywhere from 39,000 to 52,000 bits of microplastic in their diets each year. That number increases by 90,000 microplastic particles for people who regularly consume bottled water, and by 4,000 particles for those who drink water from municipal taps.

In 2018, scientists in Austria detected microplastic in human stool samples collected from eight volunteers from eight different countries across Europe and Asia. Clearly, microplastic is getting into us, with at least some of it escaping through our digestive tracts. We seem to be drinking, eating, and breathing it in.

UK announces sanctions on Russian banks and oligarchs, as armed forces prepare anti-Russian provocations

Robert Stevens

Britain has stepped up its warmongering against Russia, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson announcing sanctions against five banks and three oligarchs close to President Putin.

Johnson’s statement was heralded by cabinet minister Sajid Javid declaring that Putin’s decision to recognise the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk constituted an invasion. He told Sky News, “We have seen that he has recognised these breakaway eastern regions in Ukraine and from the reports we can already tell that he has sent in tanks and troops… From that you can conclude that the invasion of Ukraine has begun.”

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is briefed by the Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin at the Ministry of Defence on the situation in Ukraine. 22/02/2022. (Picture by Andrew Parsons/No 10 Downing Street/Flickr)

Johnson announced sanctions against Rossiya, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank and the Black Sea Bank, along with Gennady Timchenko, Boris Rotenberg, and Igor Rotenberg. “This the first tranche, the first barrage of what we are prepared to do and we hold further sanctions at readiness to be deployed.”

Such is the war fever in ruling circles in the general rush to position Britain as the attack dog of US imperialism against Russia that Johnson was met with a hostile barrage from MPs from all parties who denounced the sanctions as hopelessly inadequate. The most hawkish MPs in his own Conservative Party, with close connections to the military, were vociferous in their anti-Russian demands. Even before the debate in parliament Tom Tugendhat, Conservative chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told the BBC, “I’d like to see this go much further, much faster. As my former boss, the chief of the defence staff, Gen Lord Richards, put it: clout, don’t dribble.”

Even so, the opposition Labour Party outdid any Tory in bloodcurdling rhetoric. Party leader Sir Keir Starmer said, “a threshold has already been breached” as Ukraine “has been invaded in a war of aggression… if we do not respond with the full set of sanctions now Putin will once again take away the message that the benefits of aggression outweigh the costs”.

Labour would work with Johnson and NATO allies “to ensure that more sanctions are introduced”. He demanded, “Russia should be excluded from financial mechanisms like Swift and we should ban trading in Russian sovereign debt” and that “Russia Today should be prevented from broadcasting its propaganda around the world”.

Labour MP Chris Bryant’s pro-imperialist credentials include refusing to serve in 2015 as shadow defence minister under former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as he could not get a commitment that he would authorise a nuclear attack on Russia. Yesterday he called for the sanctioning of Russian owner of London-based Chelsea Football Club, Roman Abramovich. “Everybody in this house will work closely with the government to deliver far more effective and secure sanctions if the prime minister asks but they have to be now. We have to close the dirty Russian money down.”

Another Labour MP, Liam Byrne, declared, “We are here today because our strategy of deterrence has failed… The risk is that today’s slap on the wrist will not deter anything further. It’s been 2014 since we proposed sanctions for economic crimes, apart from the Magnitsky sanctions. The sanctions against the oligarchs have been on the American list since 2018… The prime minister has got to recognise that pulling our punches does not work with President Putin. We need to punch harder and if we’re not prepared to send bombers we should at least take on the bankers.”

Such was the anti-Russian fervour from the Labourites that Johnson felt able to declare his opposition to “casual Russophobia”!

Johnson defended his militarist agenda by encouraging and taking his own swipes at Germany, France and other European Union member states he described as taking a back seat in opposing Russia. “I do think it’s been right for us to be out in front in offering military assistance, defensive military assistance to the Ukrainians.”

Stung by criticism, a statement by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss announced following Johnson’s speech, “The UK will also sanction those members of the Russian Duma and Federation Council who voted to recognise the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk in flagrant violation of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.” She added, “And we are prepared to go much further if Russia does not pull back from the brink. We will curtail the ability of the Russian state and Russian companies to raise funds in our markets, prohibit a range of high-tech exports, and further isolate Russian banks from the global economy.”

Britain is being dragged by the Tories and Labour into the vortex of a military conflict with Russia. Cited in the Financial Times, Tom Keatinge, of the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, declared bluntly, “All the talk on sanctions so far has meant to be a deterrent and we have turned up to a gunfight with a peashooter.”

Such statements are meant to ensure that there is no let-up in Britain’s military escalation in Eastern Europe and Ukraine. Britain’s preparations for war were accelerated Monday at the conclusion of a belligerent summit of the defence ministers making up the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) of Northern European countries. The ministers declared after meeting at Belvoir Castle, England that they were “united in our condemnation of that unjustified act, the build-up of Russian forces on the border with Ukraine, and further incursion in the Donbas region.

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace (centre) meeting with Joint Expeditionary Force defence ministers in Belvoir Castle on Tuesday (source: Ministry of Defence/Twitter)

“We strongly support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and reiterate the right of all sovereign nations to choose their own path, their own security arrangements and their own alliances, free from external aggression and coercion, as a fundamental principle of the European security order.”

After Britain declared just days ago that Russia planned to invade Ukraine from Belarus, where Moscow has just conducted joint military training exercises, the JEF statement said, “We condemn the instrumentalization of migration flows and other hybrid activity towards Latvia, Lithuania and Poland by the Belarussian regime.”

The JEF was established in 2014 at the initiative of Prime Minister David Cameron’s Tory government and the United States/NATO. It comprises ten “High North, North Atlantic and Baltic Sea” nations: the UK, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The countries involved share over 2,300 km of borders with Russia. Included in its military forces are personnel and equipment from the UK’s Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Army and Royal Air Force. Becoming fully operational in 2018, JEF command and control is located at the Standing Joint Force Headquarters in Northwood, England.

The importance of the JEF for US and British imperialism as a Europe-faced military force operating outside the orbit of the European Union was summed up by the Washington think tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). It noted last October, “The integration of the JEF Baltic Protector maritime task force into the U.S.-led BALTOPS 2019 exercise—an annual NATO-led exercise running since 1972—shows the potential utility of JEF in a nutshell: independent and flexible, but NATO-capable and scalable. As one Royal Navy commodore puts it, the JEF is a ‘force of friends, filling a hole in the security architecture of northern Europe between a national force and a NATO force.”

General David Richards, hailed Tuesday by the warmonger Tugenhadt, played a major role in establishing the JEF. He echoed the CSIS in a 2012 speech saying of the then proposed force, “With the capability to ‘punch’ hard and not be a logistical or tactical drag on a coalition, we will be especially welcomed by our friends and feared by our enemies.”

The defence ministers’ statement emphasised, “The JEF is designed from first principles to be complementary to NATO’s Deterrence and Defence posture.” That the JEF also includes two non-NATO members, Finland and Sweden, blows out of the water the lies of the US and its allies that the incorporation of Ukraine into NATO is a distant prospect, which Moscow is exaggerating in order to excuse its own aggression. The JEF’s military architecture already exists for Ukraine to be fully integrated into anti-Russia operations well before it is granted NATO membership.

As an “agile, capable, and ready force”, the JEF statement announced it “today agreed to undertake a series of integrated military activities across our part of northern Europe—at sea, on land and in the air.” What are planned are a series of provocative actions on Russia’s doorstep. The JEF concluded, “For example, we will shortly conduct an exercise demonstrating JEF nations’ freedom of movement in the Baltic Sea.”

Bolsonaro’s Russia trip highlights rising geopolitical tensions in South America

Miguel Andrade

Brazil’s fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro concluded a three-day trip to Russia and Hungary last Friday in the face of virtually unanimous condemnation from the corporate media and major political forces in Brazil. The trip was attacked for undermining Brazilian relations with the imperialist powers, as they engage in hysterical accusations against the Russian government aimed at provoking a war in Ukraine.

Jair Bolsonaro and Vladimir Putin meet in Moscow on February 16, 2022 (credit: Alan Santos/PR)

In his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bolsonaro declared Brazil to be “in solidarity” with Russia. The declaration drew immediate criticism from White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who said Brazil “appeared to be on the opposite side of the global community.” On the following day, Bolsonaro met Hungary’s far-right leader Viktor Orbán, declaring their common values as “God, fatherland, family and liberty” – an open celebration of their shared fascistic orientation.

Bolsonaro’s visit had been agreed on in December and was announced as focusing on unspecified military cooperation agreements, bilateral trade and investments and, in particular, reassurances on Russia’s supply of fertilizers to Brazil’s crucial agribusiness sector. Grain and meat production has been virtually the only sectors of the Brazilian economy to experience any economic growth in the last ten years, and are seen as responsible for avoiding an even sharper GDP downturn since 2015.

The corporate press, fully aligned with the US political establishment and especially the Democratic Party, attempted to minimize the objective contradictions driving the trip. The assessment by major newspapers ranged from portraying it exclusively as an attempt to “provoke” US President Joe Biden to the absurd claim that it was driven by Putin’s and Bolsonaro’s shared “male chauvinism.” Significantly, pundits were keen to minimize the commercial relations between Brazil and Russia. A typical assessment widely shared in the press came in the ultra-right Veja magazine, which wrote “Bolsonaro prefers to upset the US, the world’s largest economy, by visiting an economic partner of little importance.”

The fact remains that Brazil imports 90 percent of its fertilizers, and Russia is responsible for a quarter of that. Crippling sanctions imposed on Belarus, another key fertilizer supplier, coupled with pandemic shortages and export restrictions in China and India have made fertilizer prices shoot up 300 percent in 2021. Already hit by a massive drought driven by global warming, Brazilian meat and grain industries are facing a perfect storm, and Brazil’s agriculture minister was forced to travel to Russia in December 2021 to seek more supplies.

As Bolsonaro’s travel date approached, the US-led war threats intensified, and Bolsonaro’s arrival date, February 16, was even declared by the White House as the day for a Russian invasion. Editorials in Brazil begged Bolsonaro to delay the trip, warning that it would undermine stated goals of his administration – deepening ties with NATO and entering the OECD. Foreign Relations Ministry officials reportedly insisted that Bolsonaro delay the trip or at least include a stop in Ukraine in order to show “neutrality,” which Bolsonaro rejected. Reports also multiplied citing US concerns over the trip.

The media furor did little to illuminate the real tensions underlying Bolsonaro’s defiance of both US imperialism and the apparent consensus within Brazil’s political establishment. The Brazilian statement after the meeting emphasized Brazil’s “historic independence in military technology” and how “Russia has always been a technological reference, especially in nuclear issues.” Such declarations have ominous implications.

There is no doubt that Bolsonaro’s Russian trip amid the US warmongering expresses deep divisions and concerns within the Brazilian ruling class and across South America. The incapacity of the corporate press to discuss those objective tensions, focusing instead on a personalistic narrative is in itself an expression of extreme nervousness and disorientation. As the semi-official narrative goes, with the mindless Bolsonaro gone after the October elections, Brazil will return to a democratic, peace-loving and fraternal relationship with the world and a whirlwind of foreign investment will ensue.

Reality couldn’t be further from this daydream, as international tensions reach a boiling point. Bolsonaro’s trip to Russia amid the frenzied US war drive goes well beyond the considerable degree of ambiguity that has marked Brazilian foreign and military policy after World War II, despite its general alignment with the US against the Soviet Union and both countries’ joint anti-communist military actions across the continent.

At the root of these conflicts is the historical decline of US imperialism, which is growing increasingly aggressive as it attempts to offset its diminishing economic power with military force.

Bolsonaro’s Russian trip follows what had been a series of breakthroughs in US-Brazilian relations during his term, with unprecedented joint military drills involving US forces on Brazilian territory, the promotion of the country as a “NATO special partner” and growing collaboration with the US in space technology.

Those early developments in Bolsonaro’s presidency marked a reversal of a historic reluctance of the Brazilian military to offer unconditional cooperation with the Pentagon. On the key issue of military and nuclear industries, the Brazilian military has historically sought to preserve room to maneuver against US and even UN pressure. Famously, senior Brazilian military figures have cited the national nuclear industry, and especially the capacity to mine and enrich uranium for its two power plants outside Rio de Janeiro, as a military deterrent, preserving the capacity to develop a nuclear arsenal. Brazil has never let the UN fully inspect its nuclear infrastructure.

Under the PT’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the military chose the Swedish Gripen fighter jets on the explicit basis that they would allow independence from NATO technology. The PT relentlessly boasts of signing a deal with France making Brazil the only non-nuclear country able to build and operate a nuclear-powered submarine – the AUKUS pact has finally given Australia the same capacity.

The PT always sought to cast its massive rearmament program in the language of “multilateralism,” that is, of an armed deterrent, or an “armed peace.” Defying this bankrupt nationalist logic, the Brazilian military crowned the PT rearmament program with the first National Defense Strategy white paper of the Bolsonaro presidency, which declared for the first time “inter-state” conflicts, and not guerrilla warfare or “drug dealing,” as the main concern for South American security and the chief strategic concern of the Brazilian armed forces.

That designation followed closely the 2017 US strategic shift from the “war on terror” to “great power conflicts,” which has included the Pentagon’s commitment to countering Chinese and Russian influence in Latin America.

Tensions have escalated on the continent. Bolsonaro took office amid the frenzied US offensive to overthrow Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. At the time, the Brazilian press was filled with concerns that the country’s armed forces were falling behind NATO-armed Colombia, and could not engage Venezuela’s Russian-supplied fighter jets during or in the fallout from US regime-change attempts.

The intensification of cooperation with Russia on key issues in defiance of US foreign policy and amid the hysteria over Ukraine flows directly from an assessment that unconditional alignment with a United States that is suffering declining global hegemony doesn’t offer sufficient guarantees for the interests of Brazilian capitalism.

Such an assessment extends far beyond Brazil, with Argentine President Alberto Fernández— Bolsonaro’s nominal “left” rival—making his own trip to Russia just days before Bolsonaro, and facing the same internal pressures in his own country.

Further north, in Colombia, the most reliable US ally in the region, such tensions are raising the specter of a coup in case the new administration to be elected in May does not continue to toe Washington’s line. In a recent trip to the country, the diplomatic engineer of the 2014 anti-Russian coup in Ukraine, under-secretary of state Victoria Nuland, charged Russia with interfering in the Colombian elections— to the benefit of the front-runner, Senator Gabriel Petro.

Latin American nations, having lived the entire 20th century under Washington’s domination, viewed as US imperialism’s “own backyard,” will not escape imperialist war through a bankrupt “military deterrent,” or by means of maneuvering with Washington’s Russian, Chinese or European rivals.

Twice in the twentieth century, Brazil was drawn into world wars on the side of the US and Britain. In 1942, in declaring war on the Axis, Brazilian corporatist dictator Getúlio Vargas not only sent 25,000 troops to Italy, but was also forced to cede control of the country’s northeast as a platform for US aviation to attack Axis forces in western Africa. Vargas reached a deal with the US in the face of threats that the Germans themselves would assault the region and use it for the same purposes.

Needless to say, the spiraling international conflicts of the 21st century would immediately bring Brazilian infrastructure under an even more direct threat. Brazil’s grain and meat terminals loading Chinese cargo ships would be only the first target. Attacks on Argentina would cripple Brazil, given the two country’s economic integration, and the opposite would be no less true.

There is not a single political force in any South American country remotely willing to tell the public the truth about this reality, let alone able to act on it. In Brazil, Lula and the PT leadership were thrown into disarray by Bolsonaro’s trip. Having concentrated its entire opposition to Bolsonaro on foreign policy issues and the need to be more assertive in seeking concessions from the US, the PT has been bitterly split and disoriented by the trip.

Lula’s former Foreign Relations minister Celso Amorim openly complimented Bolsonaro for defying the US. On the other hand, the party’s 2018 presidential candidate, Fernando Haddad, a hero of identity politics purveyors in the country, fully aligned himself with US imperialism, declaring that Bolsonaro went to Moscow to learn how to improve his “fake news” operations in Brazil – thus lending credibility to the entire anti-Russian hysteria in the press.

Haddad meant his reactionary pro-imperialist tirade as a condemnation of Bolsonaro’s threats to the October elections, exposing that the PT itself has nothing more than an appeal for imperialist backing, in the form of “Russian interference” charges, to counter a Bolsonaro coup.