COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness is rapidly waning in children

Benjamin Mateus

The fundamental feature of President Biden’s National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan is to ensure there will be no future economic and educational shutdowns whatever the cost to the population. In this regard schools have been the primary focus for the Democrats and Republicans, who understand quite well that economic output is directly related to having children in the classrooms so their parents can work. Yet, there is little discussion in his plan on declining vaccine effectiveness, especially in school-aged children, nor the evolution of coronaviruses with more immune-evading capacities.

Arihana Macias, 7, gets a compress after reviving the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children five to 12 years at a Dallas County Health and Human vaccination site in Mesquite, Texas, Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

As the 94-page document notes, during last winter’s massive COVID wave, which killed more than 300,000 people in the US, only 46 percent of K-12 schools were open for in-person learning. The report then suggests a connection between school reopenings and economic performance: “Today, about 99 percent of K through 12 schools are open for in-person learning. And since President Biden took office, there has been historic job growth. The US economy created 6.6 million jobs in 2021—the strongest job growth of any year on record …”

The massive wave last winter was triggered by attempts to force schools back to in-person education, followed by record numbers of people traveling and gathering for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Naturally, with the virus still widely present throughout communities, a devastating surge was the foreseeable result.

At the peak of the wave in mid-January 2021, there were about 211,500 pediatric infections reported. During that wave, from the beginning of October 2020 to the end of March 2021, about 170 children died from COVID.

The COVID vaccines, which were rolled out in mid-December 2020 and proved effective, became the means by which the federal government, states, and local officials coerced schools to reopen in the fall of 2021. However, two additional waves of COVID infections followed, the first with Delta (peak in September 2021 with 251,781) and then soon after with Omicron (peak in late January 2022 with 1,150,543).

Between the beginning of August 2021 and end of February 2022, more than 8.4 million children were infected, accounting for two-thirds of all pediatric COVID cases in the entire first two years of the pandemic.

According to the CDC’s tracker, just over 400 children had died from COVID by the end of summer 2021. Since then, another 1,000 children have succumbed, a product of school and day care reopenings that have allowed more virulent and contagious variants to spread unchecked.

For those who continue to insist that COVID doesn’t harm children, the flu statistics in the figure below demonstrate the dramatic reduction in flu cases in 2021. It also demonstrates how much deadlier COVID has been for children as compared to the flu.

Figure 1: Influenza-Associated Pediatric Deaths by Week of Death [Source: CDC]

There is a very clear and direct line from the initiation of these policies to the deadly outcomes being witnessed. In applauding the Biden administration’s efforts to ensure economic activities are back at a record pace, the pandemic preparedness plans make no reference to these statistics.

By April 19, 2021, all US states had declared Americans ages 16 and over eligible for the vaccines. On May 10, the FDA approved Pfizer’s COVID vaccine for adolescents aged 12 to 15. Then in November 2021, using a reduced vaccine dose (10 microgram), the FDA cleared the vaccine for children five to 11.

Most recently, the FDA postponed its Advisory Committee Meeting last month to discuss emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s COVID vaccine for children aged six months through four years (dosed at three micrograms) to allow the pharmaceutical giant to trial a third dose two months after the second dose. The vaccines had proved ineffective against the predominant Omicron variant, causing Pfizer to delay attempting a rollout. That leaves this sub-group of children, who number 24.6 million in all, quite vulnerable as Omicron leads to more hospitalizations and deaths. The figure from the Economist provides visual context to these developments.

Figure 2: COVID infections and hospitalizations in the US by age groups [Source: The Economist]

As of the last week of February, 7.1 million US children ages five through 11 have completed a two-dose vaccination series, accounting for only 25 percent of this age group. For children 12 to 17, 14.2 million or 57 percent of this age group has been fully vaccinated. As a whole, the 72.8 million children in the US remain quite vulnerable.

Yet, recent data is demonstrating the situation is even more concerning. Vaccine effectiveness for children has waned considerably. Data based on the New York state pediatric population, for those five to 11, shows vaccine effectiveness has declined from 100 percent to 48 percent, while the infection rate for vaccinated children is on par with those who never received the vaccines. The figure for vaccine effectiveness against infection shows a dramatic decline for the Omicron variant.

Figure 3: Vaccine effectiveness against infection, by week and year of age

For children 12 to 17, for the week ending November 29, prior to Omicron being detected in the US, vaccine effectiveness against infection compared to the unvaccinated showed an 85 percent protection rate. By mid-December, when Omicron represent 19 percent of all sequences, the effectiveness dropped to 65 percent. By January 24, 2022, with Omicron dominant, the effectiveness had dropped to 50 percent, as noted in the figure below. Vaccine effectiveness for older teens remained higher at 73 percent, but this too was down from a high of 94 percent.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) new guidelines and the repealing of all mask mandates in school by state officials will have a significant impact on the health of children. According to Education Week, a newly formed coalition called The Urgency of Equity, which include Yale University Epidemiology Professor Gregg Gonsalves, has called on schools to make high-quality masks available for all students and defended universal masking.

They wrote, “Healthy schools mean fewer children bringing the virus home to their families where it can spread to other vulnerable family members, including grandparents and younger siblings. Over 200,000 children have lost a caregiver during the pandemic, causing emotional stress, poor mental health, and severe disruptions to learning … Tragically, more than 400 teachers have died.”

Meanwhile, the Biden administration had promised $130 billion from his American Rescue Plan towards the improvement of school ventilation and also to allow schools to access tests and hire more teachers, nurses, and other staff. Such promises have yet to materialize, and may never.

“These improvements,” as Chalkbeat noted, “will take time, and some won’t be completed for years after the pandemic first disrupted schooling … With limited options for spending a big, one-time chunk of money, school districts are using part of it for expensive facilities projects, which may have only a tenuous connection to the pandemic and will take years to complete.”

By next week, only the District of Columbia and Hawaii will have mask mandates fully in place. California, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, and possibly New York will end theirs soon. It remains to be seen how BA.2 will surface in the US. Last week it represented 8 percent of all sequenced variants and it continues to double weekly.

Who gets NATO’s weapons in Ukraine?

Jason Melanovski & Clara Weiss

As the war in Ukraine continues, NATO has been pouring weapons into the country under the banner of a campaign supposedly aimed at protecting “free” and “democratic” Ukraine from Russia. One of the many questions that is never raised in the media is: Who is getting these weapons?

A Ukrainian National guard soldier guards a mobile checkpoint together with the Ukrainian Security Service agents and police officers during a joint operation, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022.

Workers must oppose the criminal war by the Putin regime against Ukraine from the standpoint of revolutionary socialism. However, the claims of the imperialist powers that they and the Zelensky government are defending “freedom and democracy” against “Putin’s Russia” are cynical and dangerous lies.

Since the US-backed far-right coup in Kiev in 2014, which overthrew a pro-Russian government, Ukraine has been systematically transformed into a launchpad for war against Russia. The build-up of its military and the far right has been a central component of this process and shaped the way that this war has evolved.

The large-scale weapons deliveries now underway are not only a direct provocation against Russia. Their primary beneficiaries, both politically and militarily, are far-right forces in both Ukraine and internationally, who are being strengthened and emboldened.

The Ukrainian armed forces and the Geneva Conventions

Officially, the weapons will primarily go to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. What is not stated, however, is that for the past week, Ukraine’s Armed Forces have been making statements that they intend to undertake actions that likely violate the Geneva Conventions—they constitute war crimes.

On Twitter, Telegram, Facebook and elsewhere, the country’s military has been conducting a depraved social media campaign, posting photos and videos of dead Russian soldiers. The gruesome images—and the glee with which they are posted—testify to the reactionary and right-wing nature of the forces fighting on behalf of imperialism in Ukraine.

The official Twitter account of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is airing particularly violent content, including a number of videos of the burned and dismembered bodies of Russian soldiers who had been traveling in tanks and armored vehicles. They may have been killed by the much-publicized US-made Javelin anti-tank missiles.

On Tuesday, the Facebook account of the Commander of Ukraine’s special forces announced it would no longer take Russian artillerymen prisoner, but kill them on the spot. The post also threatened that surrendering to Ukraine’s special forces would be worse than death and that captured Russian artillerymen would be “cut up like pigs.”

The Facebook post by the Commander of Ukraine’s Special Forces, announcing that captured Russian artillerymen would be “cut up like pigs”

These posts are the announcement of the intent to commit war crimes. Such policies are in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions regarding the treatment of prisoners of war (POW), which call for the humane treatment of POWs “in all circumstances.”

The social media accounts of Ukraine’s far-right forces, many of which are fully integrated into the army, are likewise rife with violent content and exhortations to commit atrocities against Russian soldiers.

Serhiy Sternenko, a well-known far-right “activist” who is currently serving in Ukraine’s military, has been busy since the start of the war popularizing anti-Russian slogans such as “Russophobia is not enough!” and posting content of dead Russian soldiers.

A tweet by the far-right Serhyi Sternenko, with a picture of a dead Russian soldier

Among the posts shared by Sternenko was a photo of a dead Russian paratrooper whose parachute failed to open, a dead and frozen Russian soldier, as well as videos of burned Russian tanks and bodies. The celebration of death is accompanied by mocking jokes.

One particularly gruesome TikTok video circulating on right-wing Ukrainian social media shows a young Russian soldier singing behind the wheel of a Russian vehicle. The video later cuts to a video of the same soldier dead in a field from a direct shot to the head.

Significant effort has gone into such propaganda, and it is clearly backed by the Ukrainian government, which is attempting to demonstrate that killing people is “cool” and “fun,” as the leader of the Neo-Nazi group C14 Yevhen Karas told his audience at a political seminar named after the Ukrainian Nazi-collaborator Stepan Bandera in early February. Karas has also bluntly stated that it is precisely because neo-Nazis like him love killing Russians that the West supplies them with weapons.

The Ukrainian armed forces may also be violating the Geneva Conventions by regularly recording and posting videos of captured or surrendered Russian soldiers on social media. Many of the soldiers appear extremely young and are clearly of a poor or rural background, and made to serve in a deadly campaign by the Russian oligarchy. Several seem to be answering under duress and in one video a Russian soldier refuses to shout the right-wing Ukrainian slogan Slava Ukraini!(Glory to Ukraine!) while being humiliated by Ukrainian interrogators.

The Geneva Conventions prohibit POWs from “insults” and “intimidation” being displayed for “public curiosity,” all of which the Ukrainian military is violating with such social media postings.

This reactionary online campaign has reached such a level that even the war-mongering Washington Post noticed and published an article titled, “The gory online campaign Ukraine hopes will sow anti-Putin dissent probably violates the Geneva Conventions,” on Thursday.

The Azov Battalion and the far right

The Azov Battalion, which openly glorifies Nazism and Ukrainian Nazi collaborators and played a principal role in the 2014 coup, has been accused of many war crimes, as well as rape and assassination. Since 2014, it has fully been integrated into the National Guard, thus receiving arms and training from the government. The Ukrainian government allows the Azov Battalion and other far-right formations to run “youth camps,” where children as young as 9 years old are indoctrinated with fascist ideology and taught how to use weapons.

It is these forces that are now receiving a significant portion of the massive weapons deliveries by NATO. The Azov Battalion is reportedly heavily involved in the battle over Mariupol, a city in southern Ukraine. According to a report by Newsweek, it has also formed its own “Azov territorial defense detachment” in Kiev.   

Even as he has been threatened and attacked by far-right tendencies like the Azov Battalion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made every effort to further integrate neo-fascist and paramilitary forces into the war effort. At the very beginning of the war, he announced that convicted criminals, including those serving sentences for war crimes, would be amnestied if they were ready to take up arms against Russia. He has called on “foreign fighters” to join the war in Ukraine.

Jonathan Brunson, a former political analyst for the US embassy in Ukraine, bluntly told Newsweek that before Russia’s invasion, “aid to the far-right was plausibly accidental. “But that may no longer be the case, because ‘all hands on deck’ means just that—and enables Ukraine’s far right to play a heroic role they otherwise wouldn’t.”

Not just the Ukrainian far right, but neo-fascist forces from all over the world, including the US and Europe, will now receive combat experience with the most advanced weapons in the world. They will also be able to continue developing their international networks, to which the Ukrainian far right, and especially the Azov Battalion, have long been central.   

Speaking to Newsweek, Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremist Project, said: “Immediately after the invasion, some groups within Ukraine affiliated with right-wing extremism, in particular the Azov Regiment, which is now part of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, have put out public calls on social media for volunteers to come and join them. The Azov Regiment issued fairly detailed travel instructions via its social media channels but made clear that a) travel will not be facilitated until the individual is in Ukraine and b) no payment will be given for the volunteers and c) several months of service should be expected.”

US preparations for an “insurgency” in Ukraine

The arming of Ukraine’s far right and its integration into the military effort is neither an accident nor a “mistake.”

The imperialist intervention in Ukraine has historically relied on the mobilization of fascistic forces. The CIA and other Western intelligence services established close ties with Ukrainian Nazi collaborators after the war, integrating them into their structures and deploying them in the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

The build-up of the far right in the lead-up to the 2014 coup and ever since stands in these traditions.

Moreover, since 2015, the CIA has engaged in systematic preparations for an “insurgency” in Ukraine. In January, a report by Yahoo News revealed that for the past eight years the CIA has been overseeing “a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel.” The program, according to Yahoo, involved “training in firearms, camouflage techniques, land navigation, tactics like ‘cover and move,’ intelligence and other areas, according to former officials.” A former CIA official told the news site that “The United States is training an insurgency,” teaching Ukrainians how “to kill Russians.”

A former senior intelligence official said, “If the Russians invade, those [graduates of the CIA programs] are going to be your militia, your insurgent leaders. We’ve been training these guys now for eight years. They’re really good fighters. That’s where the agency’s program could have a serious impact.”

Over the past year, US officials have repeatedly threatened that they intend to turn Ukraine, which used to be the world’s third-largest nuclear power, into “another Afghanistan” for Russia.

Demands grow in Washington for US war with Russia

Andre Damon

As the war between Russia and Ukraine entered its 10th day, the conflict is rapidly escalating. As the Russian military continues its advance toward the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, there are growing demands for direct US military intervention to target Russian forces in Ukraine.

This image shows a Russian SU-27 long-range fighter, as shown from the cockpit of UK Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter intercepting it over Estonia in 2019. The imposition of a no-fly zone over Ukraine would likely mean air-to-air combat between NATO and Russian aircraft. (Royal Air Force via AP)

On Thursday, US Senator Lindsay Graham, an influential Republican Senator, called for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Is there a Brutus in Russia?”, Graham asked, referring to the assassination of Roman emperor Julius Caesar by Marcus Brutus and thus advocating what is, under international law, a war crime. “The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You would be doing your country—and the world—a great service.”

Graham’s comments were only the most extreme example of a growing chorus within the American political establishment for greater military escalation. Many of these involved calls for destroying all Russian aircraft operating over Ukraine, an action termed imposing a “no-fly zone.”

“Debate over Ukraine no-fly zone heats up,” wrote the Hill.

“This is a good moment to renew my call for a no-fly zone, at the invitation of the Ukraine government. I fear if this continues, we will have to intervene in a bigger way,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a pilot in the Air National Guard, tweeted within hours of Graham’s call. 

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told the Huffington Post that a no-fly zone should be “seriously considered.”

In a pre-recorded message, Ukrainan President Zelensky called NATO “weak” for not imposing the no-fly zone, asserting: “NATO knowingly approved the decision not to close the skies over Ukraine. We believe that the NATO countries themselves have created a narrative that the alleged closing of the sky over Ukraine will provoke direct Russian aggression against NATO.”

“All the people who die from this day forward will also die because of you, because of your weakness, because of your lack of unity,” Zelensky said. 

For now, the White House and NATO have said they do not plan to impose a no-fly zone and thus enter a direct military conflict with Russia, a major nuclear-armed power.

“It would essentially mean the U.S. military would be shooting down planes—Russian planes. That is definitely escalatory. That would potentially put us into a place where we’re in a military conflict with Russia. That is not something the president wants to do,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told MSNBC on Monday. “We are not going to have a military war with Russia with U.S. troops.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg echoed these statements, saying: “NATO is a defense alliance… NATO is not seeking a war with Russia.”

While the initial calls for a direct clash came from Republicans, they have now been taken up by members of the Democratic Party.

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a Democrat and a key figure in the first impeachment of US President Donald Trump, approved Kinzinger’s statements, despite coming next to a CNN caption warning that the setting up of a no-fly zone could lead to a “full-fledged war.”

“He is definitely on to something,” Vindman said of Kinzinger. “There is no such thing as a risk-free option, at this point. There are only calibrated- and risk-informed options.”

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, also a Democrat, told the Hill that “the option for a no-fly zone shouldn’t be taken off the table.”

“I just think it’s important to, to kind of protect all your options,” he said. “And even though they’ve gone on the record, I suspect that there have to be some people that are still giving some thought to a more limited approach if it is required.”

Retired Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan told the Hill he “suggested” that “the U.S. and NATO could establish a no-fly zone over the western part of the country where Russian troops haven’t arrived.”

Over the weekend, four-star U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, who led U.S. forces in Europe and served as NATO’s supreme allied commander from 2013 to 2016, demanded that the United States and NATO set up a no-fly zone over Ukraine. He admitted that this would be “an act of war” against Russia.

Foreign Policy asked Breedlove, “Yet, in spite of all of that, you said you would actually support the idea of a no-fly zone?”

To this, Breedlove replied, “Are we going to sit and watch while a world power invades and destroys and subjugates a sovereign nation? Are we just going to watch?”

Breedlove went on to explain exactly what this would mean:

“if you put a no-fly zone in the eastern part of Ukraine, for instance, and we’re going to fly coalition or NATO aircraft into that no-fly zone, then we have to take out all the weapons that can fire into our no-fly zone and cause harm to our aircraft. So that means bombing enemy radars and missile systems on the other side of the border. And you know what that means, right? That is tantamount to war. So, if we’re going to declare a no-fly zone, we have to take down the enemy’s capability to fire into and affect our no-fly zone.”

Further calls for military escalation came from the Washington Post in the form of an editorial. “Alas, the Russians are making gains in the southern part of the country, along the Black Sea coast, threatening to cut off Ukrainian forces. All the more reason for the United States and European allies,” the Post writes, “to speed… weapons to its military, lest Mr. Putin actually win.”

These extremely belligerent statements come amid renewed warnings of just how dangerous the situation is. “Russia’s nuclear alert means NATO must tread carefully,” noted a column in the Financial Times. It added that in the “current scenario, Russian leaders are most likely to use a tactical nuclear weapon to prevent or put an end to NATO intervention.”

It continued, “Russian leaders, for example, might see volunteers from NATO countries filtering into Ukraine as covert advance guards for a full-scale intervention. They might regard arms convoys coming to Ukraine from NATO states as the functional equivalent of intervention.”

The article concluded: “If it is truly not the intention of western leaders to intervene, they should make sure that their forces act in ways that will convince Russian leaders of that. The world may depend on it.”

In reality, Washington is taking extraordinarily provocative steps, seeking not a negotiated settlement to end the conflict, but to escalate and inflame it.

On Friday, Voice of America, the state-owned broadcaster of the United States, published an article entitled “American Veterans Volunteer to Fight in Ukraine,” which reported:

“A representative of the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington told VOA that 3,000 U.S. volunteers have responded to the nation’s appeal for people to serve in an international battalion that will help resist Russia’s invading forces.”

The article was subsequently deleted without explanation.

Meanwhile, US and NATO weaponry continues to pour into Ukraine’s borders, while the country’s financial system is being largely excised from the global economy and  is being subjected to a de facto economic blockade.

According to the United Nations, 331 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the fighting so far, and 1.2 million people have fled.

Ukraine Crisis Highlights Crisis of New World Order

 Taj Hashmi

ukraine refugees2

Since the end of World War II, the US and its allies have been directly responsible for 81 percent of all unjust wars, illegal occupations of countries, civilian deaths, violations of human rights, destruction of entire nations like Vietnam, Cambodia, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and many more. So, the most embarrassing question for the US and its allies is this: Do they have any moral ground to condemn Russia for its latest aggression in Ukraine? Ukrainian crisis exemplifies the New World Order, which is neither new nor relevant to the world order. It is also a continuation of the gunboat diplomacy Western nations have used worldwide since Columbus’ time. Considering the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia, it’s time to ponder whether the crisis is merely another conflict between two neighbours or whether there is more to read and elaborate on the whole situation!

Is it Ukraine Crisis or the crisis of the New World Order? The New World Order of Bush Sr., intended to prevent foreign invasions of countries – such as Saddam Hussein’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait to Iraq – has paradoxically led to even more unjust wars and invasions, and millions of unarmed civilian deaths. The so-called New World Order appears to be a safe haven for invaders, destructors of civilizations, human rights, and dignity, but only if the invading nations are from the West, and the victims are from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Let’s look at the apparent reasons of the Ukraine-crisis. The country was a part of the Soviet Union until its disintegration in 1991. In 2014, Vladimir Putin invaded and annexed Crimea, which Soviet Prime Minister Khrushchev had formally ceded to Ukraine in 1954. On 24th February, Putin again invaded Ukraine apparently to stop it from joining NATO. This has triggered vociferous condemnation by America and its allies. They have demonised Putin as another Hitler and have imposed multiple sanctions against him and his country. Meanwhile, we are getting mixed signals from Russia and Ukraine. While the two countries have agreed to talk about resolving the crisis, Putin is said to have mentioned the nuclear option in order to resolve the issue.

It is condemnable if Putin really referred to the nuclear option. However, although Putin has condemned “illegal sanctions” of the West, and its belligerence against Russia, he has never used the expression “nuclear option” at all. He simply asked his generals to keep “other modes of military options” ready. The deliberate lie in Western media about Putin’s so-called reference to nuclear weapons shows, once again, that the West has some hidden agenda against Russia and the entire region. In a region where autocrats are prolific, the West’s “penchant” for democracy and order is at best a bad joke, and at worst an attempt to achieve a hidden agenda.

Meanwhile, no one can absolve the NATO custodians of pushing Ukraine into the fold of the alliance that was formed solely to keep the West safe from communist aggression during the Cold War. And it’s relevant to mention the stubborn US opposition to the installation of any Russian military base in Cuba in 1962, which Khrushchev was forced to abandon following Kennedy’s clear and unambiguous threat of retaliation. As a Russian base in Cuba would pose a security threat to the US, why would a NATO base in Ukraine not do the same to Russia? Since Russia doesn’t pose any existential threat to the West, why can’t the West dismantle NATO following the example of the Warsaw Pact? Hasn’t NATO outlived its utility after the collapse of the Soviet Union and communism in Europe? By expanding NATO in the region instead of dismantling it altogether, is the West interested in reenacting the misadventures of Napoleon and Hitler in Russia by invading the behemoth using other means? Only honest answers to the above questions can help us understand the ongoing conflict in Eastern Europe and beyond.

The West must realise that just as colonialism is over, so are the days of postcolonial Western hegemony everywhere. It should also stop dreaming of the unipolar world under US tutelage. Regional powers such as Russia and China already possess weapons, technology, and money to challenge the shrieking Western hegemony around the globe. Instead of dismissing Putin’s demands for Ukraine’s total “de-militarization” and “de-Nazification” (a term for saving Russian speaking Ukrainians from neo-Nazi vigilantes), the West and its allies should pay attention to these demands for durable peace under a New World Order, in the full sense of the term.

Now, understanding the Ukraine Crisis requires looking at the contemporary history of Russian and Western diplomacy vis-a-vis Ukraine and its disputed territories in Donbas (in the east) and Crimea (in the south). This helps us figure out who is at fault: Putin, Obama, or Biden!

Obama Administration pressured Ukraine to join NATO. Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych – who opposed NATO membership and wanted Russian as the second official language – was forced from power in February 2014 through a pro-Western coup, and he now lives in exile in Russia. Interestingly, French President Macron also opposes Ukraine’s entry into NATO. Petro Poroshenko, a pro-Western billionaire businessman, succeeded Yanukovych in June 2014. Meanwhile, days before Poroshenko became the President, by referendum, the majority (Russian-speaking) in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas sub-region on 11 May 2014 had voted on whether to remain in Ukraine. They opted for independence. No government, including those of the United States, the European Union, and Ukraine, recognized the results favoring the independence of the entities. Some countries, including the US, Germany, France, and Britain, branded the referendum unconstitutional and illegitimate. On 20th May 2019, Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian-turned-politician, succeeded Poroshenko as President. Avowedly pro-Western Zelensky favours Ukraine joining NATO.

It’s noteworthy, the Putin Administration expressed its “respect” for the results of the referendum and called for a civilized implementation, and later announced its recognition of the Republics on 21 February 2022, becoming the first UN member state to do so. The referendum was very similar to one held in Crimea in February 2014, which supported the peninsula’s joining the Russian Federation. Russia invaded Crimea and on 18 March 2014, formally annexed the peninsula. During 2014 and 2015, two rounds of trilateral talks (“agreements”) among Russian, Ukrainian, and OSCE representatives over the status of the Donbas sub-region in Ukraine failed to yield results. No party was sincere about ensuring human rights, freedom of expression, and fair elections. Putin declared on 24th February (the day Russia invaded Ukraine) that the Minsk Agreement did not exist, just three days after recognizing the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk.

In light of the above and the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, we know as always that truth has been the first victim of war. The Western media, Joe Biden, and other Western leaders started saber-rattling in the weeks prior to the invasion, warning of dire consequences for anyone daring to invade Ukraine. Within minutes of the Russian attack on Ukraine, Western leaders and media began spewing poison against Putin and his supporters. Through them, we learnt how Western and global sanctions would cripple Russia. The same people who were directly or indirectly responsible for killing millions of innocent civilians in Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Palestine, Indonesia, Iraq, Chile, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and Sub-Saharan Africa since 1945 call Putin a war criminal and demonize him as another Hitler.

It is interesting that neither the United States nor any of its allies has participated in the war against Russia in defence of Ukraine. No wonder Zelensky lamented after the Russian attack: “We have been left alone to defend our state!”. But why? Tulsi Gabbard, a former US Congresswoman from Hawaii, and former Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 answered the question. She told Tucker Carlson of Fox TV on 25 February that Biden could have stopped the invasion of Ukraine by “guaranteeing that Ukraine wouldn’t become a member of NATO”, but he decided not to intervene for the benefit of the US Military-Industrial Complex; and that Biden actually wanted Russia to invade Ukraine so that the US Military-Industrial Complex would benefit from the new cold war. Furthermore, the West understands that a war with a nuclear-armed Russia is unwinnable and that an attack on Russia would most likely ensnare China, North Korea, and perhaps Iran as well. Putin and Xi Jinping are likely to have a tacit understanding of this whole issue. There is no windfall waiting in the wings for the West as there was after the First Gulf War in 1991 since Putin is not another Saddam, neither is Russia another Iraq or Ukraine another Kuwait.

In conclusion, one believes that in the end, Putin will have accomplished his main objectives in Ukraine. He will separate Russian-speaking Donetsk and Luhansk from Ukraine, eventually transferring them to Russia. Also, Zelensky will abandon his ambition of making his country a member of NATO. In a matter of days, Russia would decisively defeat Ukraine, as the West and its allies knew before Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine. Due to its air force being completely disabled, Ukraine will be forced to negotiate its total surrender with Russia. A different outcome is unlikely. Other consequences of the invasion will also be unpalatable to the West. Putin has proved once again that might is right is at the heart of the New World Order. As a consequence, the West in the coming years will again behave like a sitting duck following the most likely occupation of Taiwan and territories in the northeast of India by China. Nobody in the East or the West has ever fought for lofty ideals (democracy, freedom, and human rights, for instance), and no one in the East or the West minds doing business with nasty dictators anywhere in the world, including Eastern Europe. In reality, neither Russia, Ukraine, nor Belarus – among others – are democracies in the neighborhood. Who gives a damn? No one will challenge a nuclear-armed China, just as no one will challenge Russia today. This is the new normal under the New World Order!

There’s no reason to believe what Joe Biden told his “patriotic” countrymen during his State of the Union Speech this Tuesday about effective and complete sanctions on Russia until Putin withdraws his troops from Ukraine. Sanctions do not hurt superpowers. Napoleon’s Continental System (sanctions against Britain) would have worked otherwise. Excluding Russia from the SWIFT interbank payment system is likely to backfire too. Eventually, China, Russia, and their allies will have their own global orders, economic, political, and military. Their own United Nations, perhaps, with equal voting rights for each member nation! As opposed to overreacting to conflicts between rogue regimes and even violations of international law (as Putin has done in invading Ukraine), the West should reflect on its genocidal invasions of Palestine, Indo-China, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and scores of other countries (too many to mention here), since the end of World War II. Furthermore, the West must realize that just as colonialism is gone, so too are the days of neo-colonialism vanishing fast. Since the onset of the New World Order (which was meant to protect Western interests only), we have known non-Western nations occupying countries (with big repercussions in the West) much like the United States, Great Britain, and France did in the past. Clearly, this development points to the crisis of the New World Order. Thus, there is a dire need for a “new” New World Order for every nation and race.

Biden’s COVID-19 Preparedness Plan will keep schools and businesses open regardless of the death toll

Benjamin Mateus

During his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden made the preposterous claim, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic, “We’re leaving no one behind or ignoring anyone’s needs as we move forward!”

President Biden at State of the Union (left) and Selfie of Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland without mask (right). (White House.Gov video / Deb Haaland twitter account)

Yet, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) own directives leave in the lurch millions of moderately-to-severely immunocompromised people who have been told to consult with their doctors or “have a plan ready,” whatever this means. A quarter of Americans don’t have a primary-care provider, while nearly 30 million Americans are uninsured.

The new CDC directives are unscientific recommendations that endanger every adult and child in America. Its worst impact will be on the lives of the 10 million immunocompromised individuals that live in the US, as well as the 54 million people over 65, many with significant comorbidities. With only 29 percent of the population having received a booster, most American adults must be considered under-vaccinated against the immune evading variants that dominate.

Lastly, there are 75 million children for whom Omicron has been quite devastatingly severe. Since the end of October 2021 (four months), nearly 850 children died from COVID, accounting for 60 percent of all deaths in this age group during the entire pandemic.

What Biden “forgot” to mention while hailing his administration’s record on the pandemic and promises that schools would never close again, was that vaccine effectiveness against hospitalizations for children 5 to 11 years of age declined dramatically from 100 percent to 48 percent. During the Omicron surge, the rate of infection for these children was no different than for the unvaccinated. Vaccines had no benefit in terms of protecting them against infection.

Meanwhile, with Biden’s endorsement, state after state has repealed all the mask mandates in schools, even as Omicron continues at historically high levels, and as the frequency of the BA.2 sub-variant continues to climb. In tandem with the scrapping of masks, the CDC has also rescinded its mandate for universal contact tracing, meaning the tracking of cases—a tenet of public health proven effective by centuries of experience—will no longer be required at schools. These initiatives only attempt to head off any rebellion among teachers and parents by depriving them of information about the unsafe conditions that will exist in classrooms for teachers and students alike.

As Theresa Chapple-McGruder, the director of the Department of Public Health in Oak Park, Illinois, said to The Atlantic, “It is public health’s job to protect everybody, not just those people who are vaccinated, not just those people who are healthy.” And as to the follow-up question, do “the CDC’s new guidelines meet the mark,” she replied, “Not at all!”

Indeed, COVID is a community disease and a public health emergency that affects everyone. A libertarian and individualistic approach to prevention of disease will do nothing to deter new waves of infection and the spawning of new variants, and will actually facilitate further catastrophes. The foundation of public health is the ability of centralized authority to direct measures guided by science to attack the causes of infection and make public and private spaces safe for everyone.

This means a comprehensive infrastructure overhaul of all indoor heating and ventilation based on specifications set by aerosol physicists and HVAC experts. And this is just the first step. Masks and tests left in storage don’t stop the spread of the virus. Tracking and tracing must be at the heart of any pandemic response with the stated goal of seeing the number of infections reduced to zero and kept there.

The deadly pandemic has devastated country after country principally due to the criminal policies that have placed the needs of financial institutions before the public health concerns of communities. For all Biden’s rhetorical self-congratulation during his State of the Union address, his administration’s deplorable track record on COVID-19 has built on the record of his unlamented predecessor, and made it even worse.

Scientists have taken the administration and the hypocrisy of the State of the Union address to task on these points.

Dr. Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of World Health Network, which is fighting for elimination of COVID, said of the State of the Union, “Testing was required to attend. Five senators and congressmen tested positive and did not attend. They are telling children and workers to go to school and work without tests. So, they take precautions for themselves they don’t give others. That is just not OK.”

Julia Raifman, Doctor of Science at Boston University, who is currently focusing her work on health and social policies that can reduce the burden of COVID-19, responded to the following excerpt taken from the White House’s National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan: “We know how to keep our businesses and our schools open with the tools that we have at our disposal. We’ve shown we can do it, even during the Omicron surge.”

She wrote, “We cannot do better unless we face what happened and prepare for better. This is not what happened. There were widespread labor shortages and business closures. [More than] 150,000 people died of COVID since December 15, 2021. When will we face it and prevent more?”

Researcher Joshua Salomon, Professor of Medicine and core faculty member for Health Policy at Stanford University and Alyssa Bilinski, assistant professor at the Department of Health Services, Policy & Practice (HSPP) at Brown School of Public Health, attempted to provide a concrete response to the question, “How high will expected mortality reach before CDC recommends more prevention?”

Using the performance indicators recently set by the CDC with emphasis on those that predict deaths three weeks later and then comparing it to historical “high” trends during the pandemic (200 weekly cases per 100,000), the result was death rates of 1,000 to 2,500 per day nationally, or 7,000 to 17,500 deaths per week.

Professor Salomon lamented, “As a level of mortality the White House and CDC are willing to accept before calling for more public health protection, this is heartbreaking. For the next surge to be less lethal, we need earlier signals, not later ones—and stronger prevention strategies, not weaker ones.”

Putting this into perspective, the last time the daily COVID death toll was under 1,000 per day was in mid-August of 2021. In fact, the average daily death toll in America during the pandemic has been over 1,300 per day, or just over 9,000 per week, given 950,000 reported deaths.

In other words, the state of the pandemic as it is now is to become the measure of success. If 2022 ends up as deadly as 2021, when 475,000 people died, the Biden administration would construe that as a success. Two years ago, in March 2020, then President Donald Trump said that “if the US could keep the death toll between 100,000 to 200,000, that would be a very good job.”

Today, the death toll is approaching 1 million. At the rate deemed to be acceptable by the White House and the CDC, that horrific total could reach 1.3 million or even more by Christmas, and this would be presented to the American people as a cause for satisfaction, a return to “normalcy.” If, indeed, the US government even bothers to publish the numbers at all.

Vanuatu inquiry into Australia’s exploitative seasonal worker scheme

John Braddock

The government of Vanuatu, in the southwest Pacific, has launched an inquiry into the country’s seasonal worker program with Australia, citing concerns about rampant exploitation.

Vanuatu seasonal workers, December 2021 [Source: Vanuatu Seasonal Workers Facebook]

The Guardian reported on February 23 that the inquiry follows testimony from Vanuatuan workers to a parliamentary hearing in Australia, in which they recounted experiences of bullying, exploitative working conditions, poor accommodation and lack of support services.

One worker, Sergio, told the hearing that he had received just $100 a week, from which $30 a week was deducted with no explanation about what the deductions were for. Sergio had worked picking grapes in Mildura, Victoria, since 2019. He was paid by piece rate at $2.50 a box and could fill up to 110 boxes in a day. However, he received payments of just $70 into his bank account.

Sergio further testified that when workers were ill, “medics” would come and force them to go to work. “I [did] not come here [to be] a slave. You should give me a better life, and that’s why I fight for my peoples,” he told the inquiry. At one point he had organised a week-long strike among his friends.

Last November, the Australian government launched an aggressive campaign to prevent Pacific workers from fleeing their jobs after more than 1,000 reportedly absconded. The campaign warned they would “bring shame to their families” and risked having their visa cancelled. Sydney lawyer Stewart Levitt has begun preparing a class action against the federal government, detailing “substandard and inhumane conditions” rife in the program.

Vanuatu’s opposition leader, Ralph Regenvanu, tweeted he had “urged our government to seek to revise the agreements between the Vanuatu and Australian governments” concerning the scheme. “Vanuatu Government has its duty to safeguard its citizens,” he declared. Regenvanu, however, was responsible for introducing the policy as foreign minister in 2011.

The Pacific Island governments, who are partners in the programs, will do nothing to materially improve the conditions of the workers. They have all signed up to the agreements and are closely involved in vetting applicants and even helping supervise their behaviour. The schemes have been lauded by all the participating authorities for the purported economic “benefits” to fragile island economies which depend heavily on remittances paid by expatriates and overseas workers.

Despite repeated complaints and media exposures over the years, nothing has changed. Researcher Tupai Fotuosamoa Jackson also told the Guardian that participants in the Vanuatu inquiry could be afraid to speak openly for fear of losing their job. “For the worker, there is an obligation to remain on the program and there is a fear that your opportunity to continue will be impacted,” he said.

Australia’s Seasonal Worker Program (SWP) and Pacific Labour Scheme (PLS) recruit workers into jobs in rural and regional Australia, particularly for the agricultural sector. More than 20,000 workers have entered the program since it was started by the Labor government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, supported by the unions, in 2008. It was opened up to residents from the impoverished nations of Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Before COVID-19 hit, numbers were increasing every year.

New Zealand also operates a Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme which began in 2007, preceding the Australian schemes. It allows the horticulture and viticulture industries to import workers on temporary work visas from Samoa, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji.

There are currently roughly 4,500 Vanuatuan workers in Australia, according to the Vanuatu’s government. Since it commenced the overall program has filled a total of more than 50,000 seasonal jobs. New Zealand’s RSE scheme has grown from 5,000 workers a year to more than 14,000. There are currently 7,300 RSE workers in New Zealand, but the supply of workers has been disrupted by COVID-19 border controls.

A Guardian investigation in October 2020 into the Australian scheme cited reports of alleged abuse and intimidation and workers surviving by eating the food they were picking. Others were charged more than $1,000 a week to sleep on a couch. Some workers have taken legal action over their treatment. Others have died, underscoring the deprivation of basic food, shelter and medical care.

A 2016 joint Australian parliamentary committee inquiry heard that exploitation was “common.” According to Union Aid Abroad, complaints included the provision of substandard accommodation, deductions of up to 60 percent of wages for lodging and board, long hours and excessive or unpaid overtime, and lack of access to health care. The NGO declared some conditions amounted to “modern slavery.”

There have been similar reports of employers abusing the scheme in New Zealand. A Newsroom investigation in 2020 alleged that in the Hawkes Bay, a horticulture region with the largest share of RSE workers, authorities were “turning a blind eye to migrant exploitation to keep the quota of RSE workers flowing into their region.”

The report identified an under-reporting of exploitation, the tolerance of ‘prison-like’ accommodation, and an environment where workers earn barely above the minimum wage and are often treated like indentured labourers. There was no way for RSE workers to complain about their treatment to anyone independent of their employer. Workers who did complain were threatened with return plane trips and allowances withheld, or even blacklisting, which would see them permanently banned.

Australia and New Zealand occupy a position of neo-colonial domination over the region. The importation of Pacific people as a source of cheap labour, exploiting desperately impoverished and oppressed Pacific peoples for their own economic ends, is a practice with a long and brutal history.

Currently in both countries industry employers are among the loudest demanding the removal of all COVID-19 restrictions to prevent ongoing disruptions to their operations and flow of profits. This is despite the huge increase in infections as the Omicron variant continues to spread, including across the Pacific.

Last September Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne announced an additional 12,500 workers would be brought in by March, with 27,000 already in the “work-ready pool.” Additional “flexibilities,” such as removing the upper age limit of 45 years, will also be enacted. In New Zealand, following strident calls by “stakeholders” that over 14,000 workers are required for the peak harvest season in March, temporary workers are among the first to be given entry under the Labour government’s border re-opening program.

Australia’s scheme is a contemporary version of the system of “blackbirding” whereby nearly one million workers were used as cheap indentured labour in Australia and other Pacific countries from the 1860s to the 1940s. Many Pacific Islanders were kidnapped and sold to Australian landowners who treated them as virtual slaves with no security or citizenship rights.

New Zealand governments also have a long and tainted history of imposing discriminatory and draconian labour and immigration controls over Pacific Islanders. When severe labour shortages developed in the early 1960s, thousands of Pacific workers were recruited for menial and factory jobs, only to subsequently find themselves victimised by hostile and racist immigration laws.

During the 1970s, many Pacific immigrant families were torn apart when police and immigration officials forcibly seized workers and their dependents, classified as “overstayers,” in a series of dawn raids, and summarily expelled them from the country. Last June, Prime Minister Ardern made a hypocritical formal apology for the raids, even as her government implements ongoing attacks on the rights of immigrants who continue to be ruthlessly exploited.