EU imposes sanctions on Russia as NATO escalates troop deployments

Alex Lantier & Johannes Stern

Yesterday, as Russian forces bombed targets in Ukraine and attacked Ukrainian troops and far-right militias in the east of the country, the European Union (EU) agreed to impose “very massive, very strong” sanctions on Russia, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian reported last night. This came as Washington deployed 7,000 more US troops to Germany, and the NATO alliance built up its forces all along the western borders of Russia and Ukraine.

European Union leaders gather during a round table meeting at an extraordinary EU summit on Ukraine at the European Council building in Brussels, Thursday, Feb 24, 2022. (Olivier Hoslet, Pool Photo via AP)

The NATO imperialist powers are clearly responding to the Russian attacks in Ukraine not by seeking to avert a broader war but to intensify economic and military pressure on Russia, risking escalation to a global war directly between the major nuclear powers.

EU sanctions will target Russian energy and transport firms, financial firms, and trade in so-called “dual use” goods, that is, civilian goods that have direct military applications. The EU is also ending the granting of visas to Russian citizens and preparing new sanctions targeting the financial assets of Russian firms and individuals. Russian assets and property in the EU are to be seized, and the access of Russian banks and the Russian state to financing in Europe suspended.

Several EU countries, including Germany, Italy and Cyprus, opposed calls to suspend Russian access to the SWIFT inter-bank payment system, which would end Russia’s ability to make payments in US dollars, freezing it out of most international financial markets. Asked about this threat, however, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made clear it was still an option, declaring: “We need to keep sanctions ready for later times.”

Suspending Russian access to SWIFT, described in the financial press as the “nuclear option,” threatens an all-out EU energy and trade blockade of Russia, which provides the EU with 36 percent of its natural gas. This would be a devastating blow to the world economy, triggering an explosive rise in energy prices in Europe and beyond. It would, moreover, vastly intensify price inflation that is already devastating workers’ living standards and threaten a collapse of world trade.

This underscores that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not simply the product, as broad layers of European media present it, of the scheming of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is the bankrupt and reactionary nationalist response of the Kremlin to an intractable political and economic crisis of the entire world capitalist system. It is, however, the NATO imperialist powers that hold the militarily and financially stronger position on a world scale and that play the most aggressive role.

The NATO alliance is activating unspecified emergency plans to accelerate the deployment of tens of thousands of troops to the borders of Ukraine and Russia. Yesterday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said: “Today, the North Atlantic Council decided to activate our defense plans at the request of our top military commander, General Tod Wolters. … [This] will enable us to deploy capabilities and forces, including the NATO Response Force, to where they are needed.”

The NATO Response Force is a 40,000-strong rapid response force made up of troops from several NATO countries, deployed as part of the alliance’s Crisis Reaction Measures plan. A 5,000-strong Franco-German brigade that is part of this force is already on high alert. Yesterday, Washington also announced the deployment of 7,000 more US troops to Germany in a state of high alert, 300 soldiers to Latvia and F-35 fighter jets to Estonia and Lithuania.

It is apparent, moreover, that a far-reaching militarization of the NATO countries themselves is underway, as NATO asks European governments to take unspecified emergency measures.

Yesterday, the German Defense Ministry said: “Due to current events, NATO has called on its member states to take further Crisis Response Measures, a catalog of measures to be taken in event of crisis. … Based on NATO triggering rapid response measures, the [German] Federal Ministry of Defense has now triggered so-called national alert measures.” It added that the “population may notice more military movements in public areas over the next few days. There may also be transport restrictions, as land, sea and air transport must be kept available for military purposes.”

Emergency measures are indubitably being taken by Polish, Slovak, Hungarian and Romanian authorities in order to deploy troops to greet thousands of desperate Ukrainian refugees, who are fleeing the Russian invasion into EU countries on Ukraine’s western border.

It is also apparent, however, that the major NATO powers are preparing a military escalation targeting Russia that threatens an outbreak of global nuclear conflict, as well as an escalation of emergency measures at home. Already, it has deployed so-called “battlegroups” in Poland and the Baltic states, which are now also to deploy to Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary. Le Drian himself baldly warned Russia yesterday: “NATO is also a nuclear alliance.”

In this conflict, the NATO imperialist powers are indubitably the main aggressor. They have worked systematically to encircle Russia since the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the Soviet Union 30 years ago. After Moscow emerged as an obstacle to NATO proxy wars in Syria and the Middle East, Washington and Berlin organized a coup in Kiev, led by fascist forces such as the Svoboda Party and the Right Sector, to install an anti-Russian regime in Kiev. Since then, NATO has tightened the noose around Russia.

The World Socialist Web Site rejects and opposes the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which will not stop the NATO offensive against Russia but rather intensify the danger of a Third World War. Its opposition to the reactionary Russian nationalism of the Putin regime does not, however, entail any lessening of its irreconcilable opposition to the lies and hypocrisy the imperialist powers use to justify their campaign against Russia.

The European powers are rushing to put their long cherished rearmament plans into action, while moving to eliminate all public health measures against the COVID-19 pandemic, which still claims over 20,000 lives across Europe every week. Above all, the German ruling class, which waged a barbaric war of extermination against the Soviet Union in World War II, is going on the offensive even as over 200,000 people fall ill with COVID-19 every day in Germany.

In an extraordinary statement Thursday, the German Army’s highest ranking officer, Lieutenant General Alfons Mais, called for massively rearming against Russia. “I would not have believed in my 41st year of service in peace that I would have to experience another war. And the Bundeswehr, the army I have the privilege of leading, is more or less bare,” the general wrote on the LinkedIn network. “The options we can offer the politicians to support the alliance are extremely limited.”

“This does not feel good! I’m pissed off!” Mais fumed, adding that “now is the time” to “structurally and materially … reorganize” the army.

The media is in propaganda mode, insisting that a new era of war calls for the embrace of force. “The European order, which gave the continent three decades of relative security and stability after the end of the Cold War, is breaking up. A new, dangerous era is beginning,” Der Spiegel writes, asserting that in such times, one must “say goodbye to some cherished life lies.” This includes “the assumption that all conflicts can be solved through persuasion.”

That is unmistakable: Don’t talk, but fight! Der Spiegel continues by demanding, “Europeans have to come to terms with the idea that the military is also a factor in 21st century politics. Many thought the fate of nations was determined solely by economic data, technology, artificial intelligence.” Briefly seeming to applaud the Russian invasion, it enthuses that Putin is showing “that politics can also be made with much more archaic means: tanks, fighter jets, artillery.”

War danger surge as Ukraine demands Turkey close straits to Russia, Israel bombs Syria

Ulaş Ateşçi

As President Vladimir Putin announced yesterday that Russia launched a “special operation” to protect the “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk from the Ukrainian military, the war threatens to rapidly spread across the Middle East and rest of the world.

Yesterday, only hours after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Damascus, Israel launched multiple missile attacks on the city. They hit targets at 1:10 a.m., killing three Syrian government soldiers. Syria’s state-owned SANA news agency reported: “Air defense system confronted the missiles and downed most of them. The aggression caused some material damages.”

A paramedic treats an injured woman wounded by Israeli missile strikes at a hospital in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, November 20, 2019 (SANA via AP)

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on Syria since Washington and the other NATO powers launched their war for regime change in Syria in 2011. Tel Aviv has targeted positions it claims to belong to Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian forces, as well as Syrian government positions. Both Russia and Iran have provided militarily decisive support to the Assad government in the decade-long war instigated by NATO powers and their regional allies.

While Moscow had largely been silent on earlier US-backed Israeli strikes on Syria, the February 9 strikes that killed one soldier and wounded five, provoked a strong condemnation from the Russian government.

It described these attacks as “illegal,” adding: “Russia strongly condemns the Israeli raids on Syria, and calls for an end to them.”

Syrian Foreign Minister Fayssal Mikdad announced on Wednesday that the aim of Russian Defense Minister Shoigu’s visit to Syria was “to send a message to the whole world that Russia and Syria are strong, and that the battle that the two countries are waging for security and stability all over the world is one.”

Mikdad reaffirmed “Syria’s support for Russian President Putin’s decision to recognize the independence of the Luhansk and Donetsk republics from Ukraine,” before adding: “the West is currently acting against Russia, in terms of hostile practices and campaigns aimed at offending it, similarly to what it did against Syria during the terrorist war.” He also condemned US and Turkish military forces in his country as “occupiers.”

Syria’s other major ally, Iran, also blamed NATO for provoking the Russian invasion of Ukraine and called for a peaceful settlement. As Iran faces the threat of a US-led war and crippling US sanctions, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said yesterday: “The Ukrainian crisis is rooted in NATO provocations. We do not see resorting to war as a solution. … Establishing a ceasefire and focusing on a political and democratic solution is a necessity.”

In reality, however, military tensions have surged in the Middle East as the NATO powers made clear they would make no concessions to Russia. After Syrian and Russian fighter aircraft began joint patrols of the airspace along Syria’s borders in mid-January, 15 Russian warships carried out naval exercises off the Syrian coast last week.

Yesterday, Israeli activated air raid sirens after a drone crossed into Israeli airspace from Lebanon undetected by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.

This war danger is the culmination of the devastating consequences of the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine plays into the hands of the US-NATO powers and increases the danger of a world war. Above all, however, these tensions are the product of 30 years of uninterrupted NATO imperialist wars in the Middle East and Central Asia and its reckless encirclement against Russia, made possible by the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

NATO imperialist wars that caused millions of deaths and wounded in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria have relentlessly stoked the risk of a new world war. Thus, this month, US Lieutenant General Erik Kurilla, nominated to take over Central Command that oversees Middle East operations, told the Senate Armed Services Committee the Russia-Ukraine conflict could spill into Syria.

China’s increasing commercial influence in the Middle East is also seen as unacceptable by Washington. After signing a 25-year commercial and military treaty with Iran in 2020, Beijing recently included Syria into China’s “Belt and Road” global industrial infrastructure project.

Turkey lies at the heart of both the Ukrainian and Syrian conflicts immediately to its north and to its south, respectively. Having armed NATO-backed Islamist “rebel” militias in Syria but also having repeatedly invaded Syria to prevent US-backed Syrian Kurdish nationalist militias from establishing a state on its border, Turkey has played a bloody role in the Syrian war.

Yesterday, lining up with its NATO allies, Ankara condemned Russia’s decision to recognize Donetsk and Lugansk and its “special operation” in Ukraine. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that his government found the military operation of Russia against Ukraine “unacceptable” and “rejected” it, adding: “This step, which we consider contrary to international law, is a heavy blow to the peace, tranquility and stability of the region.”

A massive contradiction underlies Erdoğan’s policy. Ankara supports NATO’s Ukraine policy and its accelerating war drive against Russia, supplying Kiev with critical Bayraktar TB2 armed drones. It signed a military alliance with Ukraine in 2020. During Erdoğan’s visit to Kiev in early February, a free trade agreement was signed, as well as a Turkish-Ukrainian military deal to jointly produce Bayraktar drones.

However, Ankara also has critical military and economic ties with Moscow. Despite US objections, it purchased S-400 air defense systems from Kremlin. It supplies around one-third of its natural gas from Russia through direct pipelines. Russia is building the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant in the southern Turkish city of Mersin. Turkey also imports more than 60 percent of its wheat from Russia.

Referring to Ukraine and Russia, Erdoğan said on Wednesday: “We cannot give up on either. We have political, military and economic relations with Russia. We also have political, military and economic relations with Ukraine.”

But whatever Ankara’s ties with Moscow, Ankara forms part of NATO’s war drive against Russia and has supported Kiev in the conflict.

Yesterday, Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Bodnar said: “Turkey should not remain neutral in this conflict.” He asked Ankara to close the Turkish straits to Russian ships. The 1936 Montreux Convention gives Turkey control of the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits and regulates the passage of ships between the Mediterranean and Black seas.

Bodnar also provocatively demanded that in order to prosecute war with Russia, Turkey should help Ukraine this year become “a member of NATO within the context of the Madrid Summit. I am sure that if Ukraine is accepted into NATO then Ukraine will win and Russia will lose this war.”

These developments are a serious warning. A conflict could erupt if Turkey closed the straits to Russian vessels or clashed with Russian forces in Syria or the Black Sea. Moreover, it could lead to an all-out war between the NATO alliance and Russia, in accordance with NATO’s Article 5, which states that “an armed attack against one or more ‘parties’ will be considered an attack against all of them.”

While the NATO powers, whose policy of mass infection during the COVID-19 pandemic has led the death of millions of people, provoke a war threatening the entire planet, there is mass popular opposition to war. Hundreds of thousands of tweets were sent yesterday in Turkey with the hashtags “No to War” and “Stop the War.”

Hundreds reported dead in first day of Russia-Ukraine war

Clara Weiss

Ukraine is in the grips of a full-scale war after Russia launched large-scale bombing raids early Thursday morning local time, in the biggest military operation by Russia since the Afghanistan war.

Ukrainian servicemen sit atop armored personnel carriers driving on a road in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

While it is not clear whether the Russian military has deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure, bombs have fallen on multiple residential complexes, killing and wounding civilians. Masses of people have sought refuge in bombing shelters and subway stations; others are desperately trying to flee the country.

According to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, 137 people, including 10 officers, have been killed, and 316 have been wounded. The Russian Defense Ministry has published no casualty numbers. The Ukrainian army claims to have destroyed 7 Russian planes, 7 helicopters and over 30 tanks and to have killed at least 450 Russian soldiers.

As of this writing, Russian troops are advancing on Kiev. Within hours after the beginning of the attack, the Russian army had taken Kiev’s airport and parts of south Ukraine. They have also taken the area around the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has reportedly also launched attacks in the Black Sea south of Odessa.

Reports of Russian ground troops invading from Belarus have been denied by both the Russian and Belarusian governments. The armed forces of the self-proclaimed “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk (Luhansk), which were formed in the wake of the US-backed far-right coup in Kiev in February 2014 and recognized as “independent” by Putin on Monday, have joined the Russian army in fighting the Ukrainian military. The Pentagon claims that Russia dropped 160 missiles on Ukraine in the first day of the war.

The Russian Defense Ministry declared on Thursday night that its “goals” for the day had been achieved, with over 80 military targets eliminated. In-fighting seems to be ongoing in almost every part of the country.

The Ukrainian government has mobilized the entire population, announcing that everyone would be given weapons and announcing an amnesty for all those willing to fight. Far-right forces that have played a critical role in the 2014 coup and the war preparations over the past eight years have taken to arms, while former President Petro Poroshenko appears to have set up an independent military command center in Kiev to coordinate the capital’s defense.

Newsweek published an article on February 24, indicating that US officials were expecting Ukraine to fall within 96 hours. Sources close to the Zelensky government indicated that they were not counting on holding up much longer. NATO has rejected calls by the Ukrainian government to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, arguing that it would result in a direct confrontation with Russia.

In the night to Friday, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky stated, “We don’t fear talks with Russia. We don’t fear speaking about security guarantees for our state. We don’t fear speaking about a neutral status. But what kind of guarantees do we have for this [status] to be maintained? Which countries will give them [these guarantees] to us? We need to talk about the end of this invasion. We need to talk about a ceasefire.”

In response to Russia’s attack, the US and EU have announced far-reaching economic sanctions that target virtually the entire Russian banking sector and amount to all-out economic warfare. Russia’s stock exchange was closed for most of Thursday, and the ruble plunged to historical lows. Other regional currencies, including Ukraine’s Hryvnia and Kazakhstan’s Tenge have also collapsed. A run on the banks began across Russia with banks reportedly running out of dollars by the evening. Ordinary people, who often only make a few hundred dollars a month, saw their meager savings shrink dramatically within hours. On European markets, gas prices rose by 60 percent.

In a clear indication that the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine will be accompanied by class war at home, Putin’s first step domestically after the beginning of the attack was to meet with the leaders of big business. Appealing to the oligarchs to understand his decision to go to war, he stated, “I see the task on the part of the government … as providing you with good conditions. To ensure more freedom. There can only be one answer [to the impact of the sanctions]: to provide more freedom for entrepreneurial activity.”

For the vast majority of the Russian population, which has been battered by skyrocketing food prices and a horrific surge in COVID-19 cases—Russia reported over 130,000 new cases on Thursday as the pandemic has already claimed up to 1 million lives in the country of 142 million—the outbreak of war has come as a complete shock. Putin gave his speech announcing the beginning of the war at 5:50 a.m. local time (9:50 p.m. EST), making it easier for the war mongerers in Washington to follow his moves than it was for ordinary people in Russia or Ukraine.

The hashtag #нетвойне (meaning “no to war” in Russian) was the number one trending hashtag in Russia on Twitter all day, with posts by many ordinary people and youth posting from Russia and Ukraine. One wrote, “I’m Russian. I’m scared of what our president does. All my dreams about life fade as long as war escalates. No one ever asked me or any other citizen if we wanted it. Ukraine is not an enemy, and I scorn the idea of war.” Another wrote, “Why are we being taught throughout our childhood: ‘You have to remember the war, so that the horrors of World War II, of the Great Patriotic War, won’t be repeated.’ And where is this memory now?”

Yet another wrote, “I don’t know who is to blame but I think that the people are not to blame. … People don’t want war for territory. … Don’t drag the people into affairs by the government. Please stop this.” A 15-year-old student wrote, “I want my grandmother to be able to afford food and medication, for my brother to be able to earn money for the family. For my friends and relatives to be able to just go online, and that their houses won’t be bombed. I want a future for my cousin who needs medication. I want peace.”

Some 2,000 people joined antiwar protests in Moscow, and several thousands joined a protest in St. Petersburg. Many smaller protests took place throughout the country. The Russian state has responded with a violent crackdown, reportedly arresting over 1,700 people.

The pro-US liberal opposition has organized several of these demonstrations as it has launched an aggressive campaign against the Putin regime over the war. Alexei Navalny, who has long been built up by the US and Berlin as a pro-imperialist critic to the Putin regime, released a statement against the war while standing trial on Thursday. A large number of prominent politicians and public figures, including Ksenia Sobchak, who has longstanding ties to Russia’s oligarchy and Putin himself, and journalists from state-run media like Russia Today and Tass, have signed an appeal against the war.

Workers must be warned: Far from representing a “peace” faction within the oligarchy, these layers speak for sections of the oligarchy and upper middle class that seek a direct integration of Russia into NATO and a dismemberment of Russia, in alliance with imperialism. Just like the Putin regime itself, they have emerged out of the decades-long reaction by the Stalinist bureaucracy against the October Revolution of 1917 and its violent suppression of the Trotskyist opposition to Stalinism.

The bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 created the grounds for the decades-long imperialist encirclement of Russia and the escalating provocations by imperialism that have now provoked the Putin regime into this catastrophic war. Neither faction of the oligarchy that emerged from this counterrevolution has anything to offer to workers but war, austerity and repression.

DAAD Short-Term Research Grants 2022

Application Deadline:

1st April 2022

Tell Me About DAAD Short-Term Research Grants:

The primary aim of this programme is to promote research projects within the context of doctoral programmes.

Which Fields are Eligible?

A research project or course of continuing scientific education at a state or state-recognised institution of higher education or a non-university research institute in Germany, which is being carried out in coordination with an academic adviser in Germany.

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Grants

Who can apply for DAAD Short-Term Research Grants?

Excellently-qualified doctoral candidates and young academics and scientists who have completed a Master’s degree or Diploma, or in exceptional cases a Bachelor’s degree at the latest by the time they begin their grant-supported research, or those who have already completed a PhD (postdocs).
Doctoral candidates who are doing their entire doctorate at a German university are not eligible to apply

What requirements must be met?

• As a rule, applicants should not have graduated any longer than six years before the application deadline. If you already hold a doctoral degree, you should not have completed your doctorate more than four years ago. Doctoral candidates should not have started their doctoral degree any longer than three years previously.
• Applicants who have been resident in Germany for longer than 15 months at the application deadline cannot be considered.

Note:
For applicants from the fields of human medicine, veterinary medicine and dentistry, other regulations are applicable. Please refer to the leaflet “Additional information on DAAD Research Grants for applicants from medical fields” (www.daad.de/extrainfo).

• A Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science degree of 2nd class upper division level and a Master of Arts/Master of Science degree are required.
• For francophone countries: A Licence or Maitrise degree of “assez bien” level and a DEA/DESS degree or a Master corresponding to the LMD system are required.

Language skills

• The required language level depends on the applicant’s study plans and subject: In the arts, social sciences and in law, at least a good knowledge of German is usually expected. For the natural sciences and engineering, proof of good English language skills may also be accepted if English is spoken at the host institute.

How are Applicants Selected?

An independent selection committee consisting of specialist scientists reviews applications.

Central selection criteria are:

• a convincing and well-planned research or training project
• academic achievements

Furthermore, additional documents submitted that prove the applicant’s professional aptitude or provide information about extracurricular commitment will also be included in the evaluation.
For further information on the selection procedure, please refer to the Important Scholarship Information / Section E.

Which Countries are Eligible?

Developing countries

Where will Award be Taken?

Germany

How Many Scholarships will be Given?

Not specified

What is the Benefit of DAAD Short-Term Research Grants?

• Depending on academic level, monthly payments of
  euros 861.- for graduates,
  euros 1,200.- for doctoral candidates and postdocs
• Payments towards health, accident and personal liability insurance cover
• Travel allowance
• In the case of a disability or chronic illness: subsidy for additional costs which result from the disability or chronic illness and are not covered by other funding providers: Further information

How Long will the Program Last?

• One month to a maximum of six months; the length of the grant is decided by a selection committee and depends on the project in question and the applicant’s work schedule.
• The grant is non-renewable.

How to Apply for DAAD Short-Term Research Grants:

• Certificates, proof of credits, certifications and translations may be scanned in non-certified form and uploaded to the DAAD portal. The DAAD reserves the right to request certified copies of the documents.
• It is important to read & adhere to application requirements in Award Webpage. Please note that incomplete applications will not be taken into consideration.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Mental health crisis among Canada’s youth exposes failure of Trudeau governments’ pandemic response

Jake Silver

Students walking out of Winnipeg's Kelvin High School to protest the lack of COVID-19 safety measures. (Striking Students/Reddit)

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the response of Canada’s ruling elite, led by the Federal Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has been organized around the principle of defending corporate profits over the health, wellbeing and, indeed, the lives of the population.

The federal government and its provincial counterparts of all political stripes explicitly rejected the implementation of a Zero COVID policy. They refused to carry out mass testing and contact tracing, the shutdown of all non-essential production with full compensation for all workers affected, and the mobilization of the resources necessary to reinforce healthcare infrastructure and provide families with financial, social, and educational support to shelter at home.

Governments at all levels left health care workers, educators, students and their families, and the entire working class to fend for themselves without adequate personal protective equipment, including high-quality masks. Instead, the political elite concentrated on organizing massive bailouts to the banks and big business with virtually no strings attached. Only a pittance was provided to workers, and much of this support was quickly clawed back by the tax authorities. As a result, Canada’s billionaires, millionaires and sections of the upper-middle class have seen their stock and real-estate portfolios balloon to unprecedented heights, even as more than 36,000 Canadians have succumbed to the virus.

The five successive waves of the virus have been driven by unscientific and premature school and workplace reopenings. Governments’ primary concern was the need to step up the exploitation of the working class to guarantee corporate profits.

These homicidal policies have taken a devastating toll on the mental health of children and young people. The possibility of getting sick and potentially getting Long COVID, as well as the danger of bringing home the virus from overcrowded schools and infecting family members, are constant fears for children. The cynical lies from politicians and the media about their desire to keep schools open at all costs to protect kids’ “mental health” have left many young people feeling like their lives are worthless as far as the ruling class is concerned. The real reason governments were so determined to keep schools open was so they could function as a babysitting service for parents, whose labour power was needed by the capitalists to keep churning out profits.

Social isolation from friends and extra-curricular activities, a lack of robust online learning and social supports for students, and the general economic fallout from the pandemic have exacerbated the mental health challenges youth already face.

Community charity Toronto Foundation president and CEO Sharon Avery describes the mental health crisis as a “shadow pandemic.” The charity’s 2021 Vital Signs report documented “alarming increases in mental health challenges” for children and youth in Toronto over the previous two years based on data from hundreds of studies, interviews, and articles. The report showed trends of increased cases of eating disorders, feelings of loneliness, as well as emergency room visits for suicidal ideation at the Hospital for Sick Children located in Toronto.

Dr. Tyler Black, a British Columbia-based child psychiatrist, has noted that child admissions to hospital for attempted suicides increased most when lockdowns were lifted and the virus was spreading widely.

In an interview with CBC News, Avery explained, “We are concerned that long-term anxiety and depression become life-long illnesses and burdens for our children to carry.” Underscoring both the tragic impact of decades of austerity on critical social and health infrastructure and services, and the urgency of the mental health crisis facing young people, she warned of the danger of the shadow pandemic “overrunning the mental health system, which was already overburdened, particularly for youth.”

According to a report by Children’s Mental Health Ontario (CMHO), the number of youth under 18 on waiting lists for mental health and addiction services more than doubled between 2017 and 2020 to 28,000. The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Waterloo Wellington, also in Ontario, reported a 40 percent increase in the number of youth accessing mental health services last year.

In Alberta, members of the Alberta Medical Association and the Alberta Psychiatric Association made an urgent call for a meeting with the provincial Health Minister Jason Copping. The doctors are advocating for significant increases in funding and an overhaul of the mental health system, including more preventative supports in schools.

Dr. Sterling Sparshu, section president of the child and adolescent psychiatry section with the Alberta Medical Association, told CBC earlier this month, “I’ve never seen so many kids suffering so badly. I’ve never seen so many families in need of hope and I’ve never seen so many colleagues struggling with the degree of burnout they are right now. The system is on the edge of collapse.”

The emergency room doctor at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary explained that the overburdened and underfunded mental health system has been overwhelmed with the additional stress of COVID. He pointed to a 200 percent increase in mental health related emergency department visits over the past decade. Since the start of the pandemic, admissions for attempted suicide have doubled. There are long waiting periods for community-based support programs, while average wait times for mental health treatment beds have jumped from 10 hours to 33 hours over the past two years.

A meta-analysis of 29 different studies involving 80,879 youth from across the globe published in August 2021 by the University of Calgary found that rates of depression and anxiety symptoms doubled during the pandemic. The analysis was printed in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics under the title “Global Prevalence of Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms in Children and Adolescents During Covid-19.” The prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms were higher later in the pandemic, in older adolescents, and in girls.

Children’s Healthcare Canada (CHC), a national organization representing child health care providers, reported that Kids Help Phone received about 4.6 million calls in 2020. This was more than double the 1.9 million calls received by the toll-free distress hotline for young people in 2019. CHC also noted that children’s hospitals are recording higher volumes of young people being admitted for suicide attempts, substance abuse and complex eating disorders.

Rather than introducing the social and psychological supports that are desperately needed to combat these troubling developments, governments at all levels claimed that the answer was to force children to return to dangerous, overcrowded classrooms with almost no protections against COVID-19.

The strains and stresses on working class families are not limited to the younger generation. According to a study by the Angus Reid Institute published January 24, 36 percent of Canadians say they are struggling with their mental health. This was an increase from the 25 percent who said they were struggling in November, prior to the fifth wave driven by the Omicron variant, which has killed over 5,000 Canadians since the start of the year.

A Nanos Research poll commissioned by CTV and publish in January found that 33.3 percent of respondents aged 18-34 sought help for their mental health during the pandemic, through either counselling or treatment. This was more than the 19.5 percent of 35-54 year-olds and 5.9 percent of those 55 and up. Nearly half of all respondents, including 64 percent of those aged 18-34, said their mental health had worsened since the start of the pandemic. This is a significant increase from April 2020, when 38 percent of all respondents reported a deterioration in their mental health.

Young adults, including post-secondary students, are also vulnerable to mental health challenges. International students have been particularly hard hit. A study of 1,000 international students from 84 countries conducted by The Conversation found that 55 percent of respondents were at risk of depression and about 50 percent were at risk of an anxiety disorder.

Life insurance companies report a sudden rise in non-COVID-related deaths

Benjamin Mateus

According to a report Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, US life insurance companies saw nearly a 40 percent rise in death benefit claims in the third quarter of 2021 compared to the pre-pandemic baseline, the largest such increase (so far) in the coronavirus pandemic.

While claims for COVID-related deaths were expected to jump, and did so, up 18.7 percent over the pre-pandemic baseline, there was surprise at the sudden jump in non-COVID death claims, which rose even more, up 19 percent.

The peak in COVID-19 death claims actually occurred in the fourth quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021. Each quarter showed a rise of almost 22 percent over pre-pandemic levels, coinciding with the brutal winter peak that killed a quarter-million Americans [See chart below]. By comparison, claims for non-COVID-19 deaths only reached 6.4 percent over baseline in the fourth quarter of 2020 and were at baseline in the first quarter of 2021.

Percentage change from pre-pandemic in number of death-benefit claims. Date from 20 US insurers’ employer sponsored group life programs. (Society of Actuaries Research Institute)

This sudden jump in non-COVID-19 death-benefit claims was stunning and unexpected to life insurance analysts. Industry executives and actuaries speaking to the Journal speculated that these “additional non-COVID fatalities” were a byproduct of delays in medical care due to lockdowns in 2020 and more recently due to people’s fears to seek medical attention or delays associated with going to their doctor.

With barely a mention in official political and media circles of COVID-19’s continuing deadly impact in every community across the country, only an analysis of death claims by life insurers suggests the dimensions of another massive crime against the population: the sudden rise in non-COVID-related deaths. Notably, the financial claims arising from these deaths are what drew the attention of the financial executives and the media, rather than the lives lost.

The results of the third quarter 2021 death-benefit claims for COVID-19 fatalities certainly underscore the deadliness of the Delta wave that killed at least 175,000 lives in a matter of three to four months. However, the jump in non-COVID-19 deaths as delineated in the Journal report shows the broader social catastrophe largely buried in the media. The hidden cost of these excess deaths only emerged in the accounting ledgers of these financial companies, which make their livelihoods betting on the population’s life expectancy.

Given that the Omicron wave produced a death toll even higher than Delta and incapacitated health systems across the country for weeks, the trend reported by these life insurance conglomerates is expected to continue well into the future. It will be exacerbated if, as multiple international bodies fear, BA.2 becomes the dominant strain and proves more virulent than its older distant cousin, BA.1.

According to the American Council of Life Insurance (ACLI), a Washington based lobbying and trade group for the life insurance industry, life insurers paid out more than $90 billion in 2020, a 15.4 percent rise in claims over 2019, the highest single-year surge since the 1918 influenza pandemic when payments rose 41 percent. By comparison, the third quarter of 2021 with a 38 percent over baseline increase approaches the calamity wrought by the 1918 influenza virus.

Life-insurance payments percent change for 120 years. (American Council of Life Insurers)

Globe Life finance chief Frank Svoboda, speaking with investors and analysts, said, “The losses we are seeing continue to be elevated over 2019 levels due at least in part, we believe, to the pandemic and the existence of either delayed or unavailable healthcare.” However, the Journal explained that the “hit to the industry’s bottom line has been less than initially feared … because many victims have been older people who typically have smaller policies if any coverage.”

Indeed, the description of these cold-blooded calculations is on par with the impersonal confessions of a sociopath offering a stone-faced accounting of how he killed his victims. It is financial loss, not the loss of priceless lives, that matters under capitalism.

One fact often omitted in news reports, the death rate among working-age people has risen a horrific 40 percent above pre-pandemic levels. According to the CDC’s COVID Data Tracker, with data available on 786,000 deaths, at least 191,000 working-age adults have died from COVID-19 alone, about 25 percent of the total. Factoring for the current cumulative COVID-19 deaths, which are around 960,000, then the number of COVID-related deaths among working-aged people would be approximately 230,000.

CEO Scott Davison, the head of Indianapolis-based insurance company OneAmerica, said during a news conference at the end of last year, “We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business—not just at OneAmerica. The data is consistent across every player in that business.”

He added that the increase in deaths “represents huge, huge numbers,” and not only among the elderly but “primarily working-aged people 18 to 64. And what we saw just in third quarter, we’re seeing it continue into fourth quarter, is that death rates are up 40 percent over what they were pre-pandemic. Just to give you an idea of how bad that is … a one-in-200 catastrophe would be 10 percent over pre-pandemic. So, 40 percent is just unheard of.”

The Journal continued, “COVID-19 and other excess deaths have cut into many carriers’ quarterly earnings, especially as deaths linked to the Delta variant increased for people in their working years with employer-sponsored death benefits.”

Many of these non-COVID-19 excess deaths were due to heart attacks, strokes and cancers. Recent studies have shown that a month after people are infected by COVID-19, their risk of death from heart attacks, strokes, blood clots and irregular heart rhythms increases. To the extent that COVID infections predispose the population to more health complications, the risk of death from these conditions is not negligible.

NBC News, reporting on these findings, observed, “It appears the coronavirus can leave patients at risk for heart problems for at least one year following infection, according to one of the largest analyses of post-COVID health effects to date … the illness increased the possibility of heart rhythm irregularities, as well as potentially deadly blood clots in the legs and lungs, in the year after an acute infection. COVID also increased the risk for heart failure by 72 percent, heart attack by 63 percent, and stroke by 52 percent, even among those … whose original illness were mild.”

However, the Wall Street Journal failed to elaborate on how good the COVID-19 pandemic has been for policy sales by life insurers. ACLI recorded “$20.4 trillion in total life insurance coverage last year [2020], including $3.3 trillion in life insurance coverage purchased. Overall, 43.1 million life insurance policies were purchased last year. The number includes group life insurance policies, primarily available through employers, which increased 19 percent from 2019 to 2020 and individual coverage rising nearly three percent during the period.”

Though death-benefit payouts in 2020 rose 15.4 percent to $90.43 billion, at the same time, industry assets rose almost eight percent from $7.6 trillion to $8.2 trillion. Insurers are now weighing the direct and indirect costs of COVID-19 for their shareholders and determining how they will plan to “reprice” their group-life contracts.

US warns Nepal of serious consequences if aid program not ratified

Rohantha De Silva

US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Donald Lu has demanded that the leaders of Nepal’s main political parties ratify the Millennium Challenge Corporation-Nepal Compact (MCC) before February 28 or face a “review” of Washington’s relations with the country.

Nepalese protesters opposing a proposed U.S. half billion dollars grant for Nepal clash with police outside the parliament in Kathmandu, Nepal, Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shreshta)

Lu delivered his ultimatum in separate telephone calls on February 10 with Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, Communist Party of Nepal (CPN-UML) chairman Sharma Oli and Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal.

Assistant Secretary of State Lu reportedly voiced Washington’s dissatisfaction over alleged Chinese influence in attempts to block the $US500 million MCC-Nepal Compact which was signed nearly five years ago, in 2017.

The Kathmandu Post said it was the “first such strongly-worded message to Nepali political leadership from Washington” since the countries established bilateral relations in 1947.

Washington’s threatened “review” of its relations with Nepal is part of its ongoing efforts to tie the strategically-located country into the escalating US war preparations against Russia and China and reverse its historic decline. Beijing has branded Washington’s intervention as “coercive diplomacy,” reflecting the deepening geopolitical tensions between the US and India on one hand and China on the other.

The proposed MCC grant involves the development of electricity transmission facilities in Nepal, particularly along its border with India. MCC programs, which are presented as aid, are part of Washington’s efforts to entrench its influence in backward countries. Their strategic importance for Washington is indicated by the MCC leadership—the US secretary of state serves as MCC chairman and the US Treasury secretary is the vice chairman.

In a direct threat, Lu made clear to Nepali political leaders during his phone call that Washington would use political corruption and human rights issues in Nepal to enforce its demands. “Manipulation of MCC by some individuals has made us take a tough stand and position on human rights abusers and those involved in systematic corruption in Nepal.”

The US, which has a long and sordid record of human rights violations and war crimes, hypocritically and cynically exploits “human rights” to pressure other countries into aligning themselves with Washington’s geopolitical agenda.

Lu also blamed supposed social media “misinformation” campaigns for popular concerns about the MCC program and its political strings, insisting during the call that it was not “connected to any security or military elements as hyped by some sections in Nepal.”

Stepping up its pressure on Kathmandu, the US embassy in Nepal last week initiated a new Facebook and Twitter campaign against alleged “disinformation” and to promote Washington’s interests.

The ramped-up US threats have increased political turmoil in Nepal. The Nepali Congress-led government attempted to get parliamentary ratification of the MCC compact last Friday but was forced to backtrack after its ally, the Maoist Centre, said it opposed the program “in its present form.” Deuba’s minority government, which came to power last year, relies on parliamentary support from the Maoist Centre.

The media reported that Deuba put the MCC program on the parliamentary agenda again on Sunday, after being assured of support by the opposition CPN-UML leader Sharma Oli.

The Maoist Centre called a demonstration in Kathmandu last Wednesday, and on Sunday, opposing the tabling of the MCC program in the parliament agenda. The government mobilised police to disperse the protesters, attacking them with batons, tear gas and firing rubber bullets.

Nepali workers and students aware of US interventions and regime-change operations in other countries have a legitimate fear of the MCC program. However, the Maoist party, which has been in previous bourgeois coalition governments and is discredited among masses is cynically seeking to exploit this popular opposition.

Dahal, the Maoist Centre leader, is close to China, and was part of the former administration of Prime Minister Sharma Oli which blocked the ratification of the MCC. While Dahal has said that his party will not ratify the aid program unless there are amendments, Lu has rejected any amendments.

In order to increase pressure on the Maoist Centre, the MCC has leaked a joint letter signed by Deuba and Dahal last September. The joint letter sought “additional time for the ratification in the parliament” but did not raise the question of amendments.

Reflecting the concerns of sections of the Nepali political elite, Ramesh Nath Pandey, a former Nepali foreign minister told the Kathmandu Post: “The US will definitely retaliate given its nature and its past records but we do not know what kind of action it may take.” He warned that the fallout would impact Nepal on a “political, economic and strategic” level, and warned, this could “invite a huge political crisis in Nepal.”

Suresh Chalise, who has served as an ambassador of Nepal in Washington, said that the country should not “lose the trust” of the US. “Nepal needs support from countries like the US, because it is sandwiched between India and China, where you can see “ups and downs once in a while.”

The government and the ruling elite are also deeply concerned about losing US aid at a time when the economy is reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nepal’s main foreign currency earners—tourism, and remittances from migrant workers—have collapsed. The US is currently the country’s biggest bilateral donor.

Lu has indicated that not only US aid will be curtailed but other assistance and investments Nepal receives from various bilateral and multilateral agencies as well as private investment will suffer. Washington has the final say in international agencies like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

For its part, China has expressed its concerns about Washington’s aggressive pressure in Nepal. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a press conference on Friday: “We oppose coercive diplomacy and actions that pursue a selfish agenda at the expense of Nepal’s sovereignty and interests.” China, he added, provides international aid to Nepal “without political conditions.”

Reporting Wang’s remarks, the Global Times noted: “The US criticism of China is totally groundless. The US has smeared China as an attempt to achieve its own geostrategic goals by sowing discord and creating a rift between China and Nepal.”

Well aware of US plans to militarily encircle it, China is seeking to increase its influence on Nepal with investment projects and aid packages. Beijing is also concerned about India, which has increased its influence in Kathmandu since the Nepali Congress formed government last year.

If the Deuba-led minority government fails to secure parliamentary ratification of the MCC program, it could collapse as Washington intensifies its efforts to impose its demands on Nepal.