About the Award: The African Plant Nutrition Institute (APNI) has released the details of the 2021 Plant Nutrition Scholar Award program that is available to graduate students enrolled in programs specializing in the sciences of plant nutrition and management of crop nutrients.
The 2022 African Plant Nutrition Scholar Award Program will offer ten (10) awards of $2,000 (U.S. Dollars) to M.Sc., M.Phil., or Ph.D. students in the disciplines of soil science, agronomy, and horticultural or tree crop science with a focus on plant nutrition. Students must also be attending a degree-granting institution located in Africa.
Type: Masters, PhD
Eligibility for Africa Plant Nutrition Scholarship: Graduate students are eligible if they are:
Currently attending a degree-granting institution located in Africa.
Candidates for M.Sc., M.Phil., or Ph.D. degrees, who are currently enrolled in a program of graduate study as of the application deadline. Applicants who have already completed their degrees are ineligible.
Students in the disciplines of soil and plant sciences (including agronomy, horticulture, ecology, soil fertility, soil chemistry, crop physiology, environmental science, and other areas related to crop nutrition) are encouraged to apply.
Past winners of the Award are not eligible.
Eligible Countries: African countries
To be Taken at (Country): African countries
Number of Awards: 10
Value of Africa Plant Nutrition Scholarship Program: USD $2,000 each.
To be taken at (country): Fellows will be hosted at the World Bank in Washington, D.C.
Eligible Subject Areas: Economics, health, education, agriculture, environment, natural resource management, or other development related subject.
About Scholarship: The World Bank Robert S. McNamara Fellowships Program (RSMFP) matches aspiring development economics researchers from developing countries with World Bank research economists creating unique opportunities for the fellows to participate in rigorous policy-relevant research in the World Bank’s Development Economics Vice Presidency (DEC). Fellows will be hosted at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. for 8 months (September to May each year) and work under the supervision of researchers in the World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) and Development Research Group departments, engaging in high-quality and policy-relevant research projects..
By working with World Bank DEC researchers and their external academic collaborators from top universities, fellows will learn current research standards, acquire new econometric skills, and network with leading researchers in their field. They will have a unique opportunity to participate in rigorous policy-relevant research and widen their perspective on potential development questions, and how their research can address challenges in the developing world.
Type: Fellowship
Who is qualified to apply for World Bank Robert S. McNamaraFellowship? To be considered for the RSMFP, applicants must be:
Nationals of World Bank WBG member countries, with preference to nationals of developing countries;
Graduates of MA level studies or currently pursuing a PhD in Economics or a related field;
No more than 35 years of age (by June 30th of the year the fellowship starts);
Available to relocate to Washington, D.C. for the duration of the fellowship.
Research programs
Applicants will have the option to select in the application whether they would like to be hosted by the Development research department or the Impact evaluation department in the World Bank’s Development Economics Vice Presidency (DEC).
Selection Criteria: The RSMFP uses the following process to review completed applications, with the aim to identify eligible candidates with the most innovative and relevant research proposals in the area of development.
Two qualified reviewers independently review each eligible application to assess the following:
Quality of the proposed fellowship (70%)
Prospects for a productive career in research post-PhD (30%)
Selection Process: All criteria are strictly adhered to. No exceptions are made. Eligibility criteria WILL NOT change during an open call for applications. However, this information is subject to change between the close of one application process and the opening of the next.
Value of World Bank Robert S. McNamara Award: The RSMFP offers a competitive compensation, totaling $42,750 net of income taxes per fellow for an 8-month fellowship (paid in monthly installments). Since the fellows will be hosted at the World Bank in Washington D.C., the World Bank’s HR Operations unit will assist the selected candidates with their application for G4 visa.
Note: The fellowship does not cover travel expenses.
Number of Awards: Several
Duration of Award: 8 months
How to Apply: Applications for the RSMFP cohort are open annually from March 1 – April 30. To be considered, applicants must submit:
Resume
Statement of research interests
Contact details for a letter of recommendation (RSMFP team will contact the academic advisor for the letter)
To be taken at (country): Fellowship begins in Boston with an internship at the Boston Globe and research/coursework at MIT’s Center for International Studies
About IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship: The Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship provides academic and professional opportunities to advance the reporting skills of women journalists who focus on human rights and social justice.
The Neuffer Fellowship is designed for affiliated or freelance women journalists with at least three years of professional experience in journalism working in print, broadcast, or digital media.
The Fellow will complete research and coursework at MIT’s Center for International Studies and journalism internships at The Boston Globe and The New York Times.
The flexible structure of the program will provide the fellow with opportunities to pursue academic research and hone her reporting skills.
Past fellows have taken advantage of opportunities to publish work under their byline through various media outlets.
Type: Fellowship (Career)
Eligibility:
The IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship is open to women, non-binary and gender non-conforming journalists whose work focuses on human rights and social justice issues.
All applicants for the Neuffer Fellowship must be working journalists with at least three years of full-time, professional journalism experience. Internships and journalism-related work completed as a university student do not count as professional experience. Applicants may be affiliated or freelance journalists.
Journalists from any country around the world are eligible to apply. However, applicants must speak, read, and write English fluently in order to fully participate in and benefit from the Fellowship.
Selection: The fellow will be selected by a committee made up of family and friends of Elizabeth Neuffer and IWMF Advisory Council members. Consideration of candidates will be based on their complete applications, the caliber and promise of their reporting on human rights and social justice issues, and their personal statements explaining how the fellowship would be a transformative experience for their careers. Finalists for the fellowship may be interviewed by the IWMF and the Fellowship selection committee.
Number of Awardees: Not specified
Value of IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship:
A fixed monthly stipend will be provided to cover housing, meals, and ground transportation during the fellowship.
Round-trip economy airfare will be purchased from the fellow’s place of residence to Washington, D.C., and from Washington, D.C., to the fellowship city.
The fellow will receive health insurance during the program.
The fellowship does not include a salary.
For fellows residing outside of the United States, the fellowship also covers the costs of applying for and obtaining a U.S. visa.
The fellow will be fully responsible for any additional incidental expenses and other costs.
During this fellowship, the selected journalist will have the chance to complete research and coursework at MIT’s Center for International Studies and participate in internships with media outlets including The Boston Globe and The New York Times. The flexible structure of the program allows Fellows to pursue academic research and hone reporting skills. Past Fellows have taken advantage of opportunities to publish work under their bylines through various media outlets. Fellows have explored a wide range of under-reported issues including gender-based violence, indigenous rights, and religious intolerance.
Duration of IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship: Twelve months
Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship Schedule:
June 2022: Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow will be selected
January 2023: Fellowship begins in Boston with an internship at the Boston Globe and research/coursework at MIT’s Center for International Studies
May 2023: Fellow moves to New York for internship at The New York Times
June 2023: Fellowship ends
How to Apply for IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship: Submit a complete online application form with the following information in link below.
Important Notes: Family members are welcome to accompany the fellow. However, the IWMF will not be responsible for any arrangements or expenses related to the travel and residence of family members, including support of visa applications.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is currently on a four-country European tour to discuss Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the US-NATO war drive against Russia. Prior to his departure, Trudeau told the media that Canada and NATO do not want to get into a “direct conflict” with Moscow.
“The thing that we have so far avoided, and will continue to need to avoid, is a situation in which NATO’s forces are in direct conflict with Russian soldiers,” Trudeau stated Friday. “That would be a level of escalation that is unfortunate.”
Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, gestures as he speaks at a joint press conference attended by Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, where they gave an update on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at Downing Street in London, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, Pool)
Trudeau’s comments are a pack of lies. His trip is in fact aimed at escalating the US-led drive to war with Russia, which Canadian imperialism has helped spearhead. Since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Canada has, together with the United States and Britain, been among the Western powers pushing for the most aggressive and provocative measures against Moscow.
Trudeau held talks Monday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, an arch-Thatcherite whose government has overseen the deaths of more than 180,000 people during the COVID-19 pandemic due to its “herd immunity” policies. The pair discussed options for supplying further weaponry to Kiev to further fuel NATO’s proxy war with Russia.
At a joint press conference, Trudeau unveiled new sanctions against ten Russian oligarchs, who he bragged had been selected from a list compiled by jailed opposition figure Alexei Navalny. A far-right Russian nationalist and US imperialist asset, Navalny has called people from the Caucasus and Central Asia “cockroaches,” and participated in marches with fascist political forces. The Prime Minister concluded his announcement with the declaration, “We continue to stand with Ukraine, united in struggle.”
Trudeau pointed out that Ottawa has supplied Kiev with $1 billion in financial aid in recent years. Over the past three weeks, the Trudeau government has sent tens of millions of dollars worth of lethal weaponry to the Ukrainian military, including anti-tank weapons, grenades, carbines, and rifles. It has also announced a further build-up of military personnel in Eastern Europe, including sending a second warship to the Black Sea region, and placed 3,400 troops on stand-by for immediate deployment to the continent.
Along with his Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who was photographed carrying a Ukrainian fascist banner at a recent demonstration, Trudeau pushed for the harshest possible sanctions against Russia from the war’s outset. Freeland reportedly played an important role with her US colleagues in persuading the European powers to sanction Russia’s central bank and exclude the country from the SWIFT payment system. These acts of economic warfare have crashed the value of the ruble, devastating the living standards of millions of workers across Russia.
From the standpoint of Canadian imperialism, there is nothing “unfortunate” about the escalation of direct military tensions with Russia, which carry the real danger of triggering a third world war. On the contrary, this is an outcome which the Trudeau government and its Conservative predecessor have been working towards for years. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union over three decades ago, Canada has played a major role in almost every US imperialist-led war of aggression around the world, from the NATO bombardment of Serbia to the wars in Libya and Syria. Successive Canadian governments have supported NATO’s expansion right up to Russia’s borders, and the alliance’s isolation and encirclement of Russia with high-powered military forces. Ottawa has also given crucial backing to far-right Ukrainian nationalists.
Shortly after the fascist-led Maidan putsch in 2014 that brought a pro-Western regime to power in Kiev, Canada’s Conservative government, led by Stephen Harper, dispatched fighter jets to Romania and a warship to the Black Sea. Ottawa began sending military aid to Kiev in August 2014, and initiated a military training program for the Ukrainian national guard and military in 2015 involving the deployment of 200 Canadian Armed Forces personnel to western Ukraine.
When Trudeau came to power in 2015, his Liberal government picked up seamlessly from where Harper left off. Trudeau ratcheted up pressure on Russia at the 2016 NATO summit in Warsaw, announcing that Canada would lead one of NATO’s four battlegroups stationed in Poland and the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
After the NATO summit, Trudeau travelled on to Ukraine, where he vowed to support the far-right regime of Petro Poroshenko to reconquer the territory in eastern Ukraine taken over by pro-Russian separatists following the 2014 Maidan coup. “We are giving significant support to the Ukrainian military to be able to be more effective in defending and reclaiming Ukrainian territory,” Trudeau said at the time. Trudeau twice lengthened Canada’s training mission in Ukraine, including earlier this year when he increased the troop contingent to 400. Leaked documents late last year revealed that Canadian military personnel provided training to members of the fascist Azov Battalion and officers belonging to the neo-Nazi Centuria group.
In October 2017, Canada’s House of Commons adopted a “Magnitsky Act” law with all-party support. The law contained provisions to freeze the Canadian assets of “corrupt foreign officials” and block their entry into Canada. Earlier that year, the Liberal government unveiled a plan to hike military spending by over 70 percent in less than a decade, and cited the “threat” posed by Russia and China as justification.
In March 2020, a high-level defence policy conference held in Ottawa discussed how Canada was already “at war” with Russia. Speakers at the gathering demanded massive upgrades to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a Cold War-era bilateral continental defence system operated by Canada and the United States, to prevent Russian incursions from the Arctic.
Canada played an important part in US-led efforts to incite the Putin government’s reactionary invasion of Ukraine. It was an active partner in a series of provocative NATO exercises throughout 2021, including the Seabreeze military drills in the Black Sea. Then in January 2022, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly travelled to Kiev and added to the Biden administration’s efforts to goad Putin into a war by refusing to acknowledge any of Russia’s security concerns. “Canada’s position has not changed,” she proclaimed. “We believe that Ukraine should be able to join NATO.”
Trudeau will visit several key NATO allies this week to plot the next stage in the imperialist powers’ aggressive drive to war with Russia. In addition to Johnson, he is scheduled to have talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, before travelling on to Poland and Latvia. His meeting with the German Chancellor will no doubt touch on Scholz’s tripling of Germany’s defence spending for 2022 in what has been labelled the beginning of a “new foreign policy epoch.”
The Trudeau government’s position as one of Washington’s attack dogs in the drive to war with Russia has been welcomed with enthusiasm by top military and defence policy experts, who see the war in Europe as an opportunity to push for an even larger rearmament program. In particular, the cost of NORAD modernization, which was not included in the 2017 round of military spending hikes, is front and centre. The key upgrade for military planners is bringing Canada into the US ballistic missile defence system, which is aimed at making a nuclear war “winnable.”
“Here’s a perfect moment to announce that we’re coming on board with all forms of ballistic missile defence … and we are going to discuss the positioning of new radar systems and new missile interceptors on Canadian soil,” said Tom Lawson, the former deputy commander of NORAD and Canada’s chief of the defence staff from 2012 to 2015. Andrea Charron, director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba, commented, “Ukraine has made NORAD even more important, because we are the back door to NATO.”
Leading Globe and Mail columnist John Ibitson wrote Saturday that increasing Canada’s defence budget to more than 2 percent of gross domestic product is in “the national interest.” He proceeded to present a shopping list of items to be procured, including “new fighter aircraft,” “combat surface vessels to replace the retired destroyers,” “cutting-edge sensors, satellites, and software” to upgrade NORAD, and “new submarines.”
Calls for more military spending are supported by all major parties in parliament, from the Liberals and Conservatives to the sovereignist Bloc Quebecois. The New Democratic Party has waged the past two election campaigns on platforms demanding defence spending increases, and denouncing the Liberals and Conservatives for allegedly not increasing the military budget enough. More importantly, the NDP has provided the minority Liberal government with the parliamentary votes it needs to secure a majority in the House of Commons since 2019, helping it enforce its defence spending hike and provocative anti-Russian policies.
Recent studies of the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron suggest that it is both more transmissible and more lethal than Omicron BA.1, and that it is quickly supplanting the previous variant in country after country. The findings directly contradict the claims of governments around the world that the pandemic is ending, that Omicron is “mild,” and that public health measures to fight to pandemic can be relaxed or eliminated altogether.
Children and their caregivers arrive for school in New York, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
These findings come as the recent drop in COVID infections worldwide has slowed, and seems to have hit a plateau. All previous such plateaus have been followed by a new and more widespread and deadly upsurge, usually associated with a new variant, such as Alpha (originating in Britain), Delta (first detected in India) and Omicron (first identified in South Africa). A new surge may well be triggered by the spread of BA.2.
For their part, the Biden administration and corporate media have virtually dropped any discussion of the pandemic, focusing all their attention on the war in Ukraine and the frenzied efforts of the NATO countries to intervene in the crisis and prepare for war with Russia. The subject of COVID-19 has virtually disappeared from the news, under conditions where 1,500 people on average are dying each day in the US. The month of February closed with 61,000 total COVID deaths, and January and February were the fourth and fifth worst months of the pandemic, despite nearly three-quarters of the eligible population being vaccinated.
The most alarming report has come in a study at the University of Tokyo, which compared Omicron BA.1 and BA.2, and concluded that BA.2 is so different that it should be classified as a full-fledged new variant, the most dangerous yet to emerge in the COVID-19 pandemic, now in its third year.
“Based on our findings, we propose that BA.2 should be recognized as a unique variant of concern, and this SARS-CoV-2 variant should be monitored in depth,” said lead scientist Kei Sato.
In an interview conducted after the Tokyo study was made public, and published today on the WSWS, scientist Yaneer Bar-Yam, co-founder of the World Health Network, which advocates a policy of eliminating COVID rather than “living with the virus,” explained the significance of the findings.
The study found that BA.2 is not only more transmissible than BA.1, it is more vaccine evading and more resistant to previous infection by BA.1. “If you were previously infected by BA.1, the level of protection to BA.2 is not the same as BA.1. BA.2 will bypass immunity after infection by BA.1 and lead to [higher risk] of another infection,” he told us.
The Tokyo study also found that, in animals, BA.2 caused substantially more damage than BA.1, because it drove the infection deeper into the lungs than the original Omicron sub-variant. Bar-Yam told the WSWS: “Now, obviously this is something that we still need to see in people, but if you realize that this is what’s happening in hamsters, you should stop assuming that it’s okay and you should go back and look at what’s going on now.”
Bar-Yam said the description of BA.2 as a sub-variant of Omicron was likely incorrect. “BA.2 is different enough from BA.1 that it should be given its own designation—its own Greek letter—according to the current numbering scheme. But that’s politically not very comfortable because people are declaring this to be over and having a new Greek letter would raise questions that require us to reevaluate what’s going on.”
Other studies have confirmed that BA.2 is displacing BA.1. The new strain of COVID is now found in 8-10 percent of genetic samples in the United States, about where the first Omicron variant was in early December.
Other recent studies confirm that BA.2 is more transmissible than BA.1 by a factor of 50 percent (in Denmark, where BA.2 is now dominant), and in the Tokyo study, which found a 40 percent increase in infectivity.
Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead on COVID-19 for the World Health Organization, said, “BA.2 has a growth advantage even over BA.1,” and that accordingly, “We need to drive transmission down. Because if we don’t, we will not only see more cases, more hospitalizations, more deaths, but we will see more people suffering from Long Covid and we will see more opportunities for new variants to emerge.”
A study by Michigan State University reviews a range of findings on BA.2 and concludes, “We forecast Omicron BA.2 will become another prevailing variant by infecting populations with or without antibody protection.”
In particular, BA.2 was found to be 30 percent more vaccine-resistant than BA.1 and 17 times more vaccine-resistant than the Delta variant. It has significantly more mutations than BA.1, including four unique mutations in the receptor binding domain, the key area for attaching the virus to cells in the body and invading them.
A Massachusetts study found, “There is increasing evidence that the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection among vaccinated individuals is variant-specific, suggesting that protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2 may differ by variant.” Other research confirms that this applies to the two sub-variants of Omicron: infection with BA.1 does not protect from a subsequent infection with BA.2
The journal Nature published a study Monday involving patients, all over 50, who underwent brain scans both before and after contracting COVID-19. The study found tissue damage primarily in areas related to the sense of smell, but also in some areas connected to other brain functions.
Other reports documented the ongoing toll of the pandemic. According to Michigan Medicine’s National Poll on Healthy Aging, older adults postponed or canceled 30 percent of their health care appointments, including tests, procedures, and operations, as well as annual check-ups, for pandemic-related reasons. Vaccinated people canceled far more often than the unvaccinated.
A report in the Washington Post Monday highlighted the impact of the pandemic on mental health—not the bogus claims that remote learning causes mental illness in children, but the real consequences of mass death and suffering on the population, under conditions of a scarcity of resources for mental health care.
The Post noted: “The federal government’s mental health and substance abuse referral line fielded 833,598 calls in 2020, 27 percent more than in 2019, before the pandemic began. In 2021, the number rose again, to 1.02 million.”
Besides a series of harrowing interviews with people desperate for counseling and other services, but unable to access them, the article noted extremely long waiting lists for pediatric health care services—a 10-month wait at Boston Medical Center, for example. There are only 8,300 child psychiatrists in the United States to serve 15 million young people estimated to need them, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
This avalanche of scientific evidence of the ongoing and worsening danger from COVID-19 cuts across the policies of most capitalist governments (except China), which have largely abandoned any effort to limit the spread of the virus, claiming that the pandemic is ending and that vaccination has effectively ended the risk of hospitalization and death.
The purpose of this propaganda campaign is to enforce the back-to-work, back-to-school policy which is based, not on science or public health, but on the requirements of the capitalist system, which demands workers on the job generating profits for the corporations and the super-rich.
Seizing upon Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to implement long-standing military plans, the European Union (EU) powers are recklessly escalating the crisis. Beyond delivering arms to Ukraine to attack Russian troops, they are discussing a possible cut-off of energy trade and preparing for nuclear war.
A Ukrainian serviceman has "Mommy" written on his weapon strap as he stands guard at a checkpoint on a main road in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
This weekend, for the first time since the Cold War ended, France raised the number of its nuclear missile submarines on patrol to two. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, only one of France’s four ballistic missile-launching submarines based at L’Ile-Longue island off Brittany is on patrol at any given time. Now, however, Le Télégramme wrote, “Never has there been this much tension at the Breton base since France’s sea-based nuclear deterrent began in 1972.”
A French ballistic missile submarine holds 16 M51 missiles, each of which carries 6 independently-targeted warheads, each exploding with the force of 100,000 tons of TNT. This sub can thus launch 800 times the destructive force of the US bomb that obliterated the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Washington has 14 ballistic missile subs, each carrying 20 Trident II D5 missiles with 14 independent 100-kiloton warheads—around 2,300 times the power of the bomb that killed 140,000 people at Hiroshima.
There is an enormous danger of that nuclear war could erupt as NATO escalates its confrontation with Russia, intervening to arm Ukraine. This danger is now widely discussed, after Moscow placed its nuclear forces on high alert this weekend in response to NATO arms deliveries to Ukraine.
An opinion piece by former US State Department policy planning official Jeremy Shapiro in London’s Financial Times noted that Moscow might use nuclear weapons in “a scenario in which a superior conventional force such as NATO attacked Russia.” Russia, he added, is now “particularly vulnerable to a NATO conventional attack in Belarus and western Russia, as well as in Ukraine.”
The Russian military, Shapiro wrote, “may view NATO troop concentrations in states on Ukraine’s eastern flank as potential intervention forces and they may lack sufficient precision-guided weapons in their already very depleted inventory to attack them conventionally.” They may, he added, “even believe [a NATO attack] is already happening given European and American arms deliveries and NATO troop movements to eastern Europe.” The firing of smaller nuclear bombs could lead to “nuclear escalation to the strategic level (i.e. the end of the world).”
While these dangers are clearly on the mind of the military staffs of all the major powers, the EU is nonetheless recklessly arming the Ukrainians and threatening to strangle Russia’s economy.
On Monday, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht announced new arms deliveries to Ukraine. “Everything that is possible is under consideration and we are also talking about it in the cabinet,” she told ZDF. So far, Berlin has sent Kiev 2,700 “Strela” surface-to-air missiles, 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 “Stinger” surface-to-air missiles. Ukraine’s embassy in Berlin has now also asked for tanks, self-propelled howitzers, air defense systems, helicopters, reconnaissance and combat drones, transport aircraft and warships.
Berlin is also strengthening its presence in Eastern Europe. It is establishing a mission in Slovakia as in Lithuania, Inspector General Eberhard Zorn said last week. In Lithuania, Germany has led a 1,000-strong NATO battlegroup since 2017, which has been strengthened by another 350 soldiers and 100 vehicles and weapons systems. Germany’s air force sent six Eurofighter jets to Romania.
Other EU powers are also arming Ukraine. Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles told Antena3 that Madrid will send Ukraine 1,370 anti-tank grenade launchers, machine guns and 700,000 rounds. Italy is sending Stinger missiles and machine guns. The Netherlands is sending 200 Stinger missiles, Norway 2,000 M72 anti-tank weapons, Sweden 5,000 anti-tank weapons and Finland 1,500 rocket launchers and 2,500 assault rifles.
French Defense Minister Florence Parly confirmed last week that Paris is delivering lethal weapons and fuel to Ukraine, but refused to reveal the type and quantities supplied.
The NATO powers are also preparing a cut-off of Russian oil and gas exports to Europe that are at the heart of Russia’s economy. Oil prices soared to $140 per barrel yesterday after Washington announced it might embargo Russian energy supplies. Yesterday German Chancellor Olaf Scholz postponed the measure, however.
While provocatively stating that the EU intends to find alternatives to Russian oil and gas, Scholz said, “this won’t happen overnight.” To compensate for Russian gas imports, Germany alone would need to import the full capacity of the world’s 600 liquefied natural gas tankers. Calling Russian oil and gas “essential” to Europe’s economy, he concluded: “It’s therefore a conscious decision on our part to continue the activities of business enterprises in the area of energy supply with Russia.”
Moscow warned such a cut-off would devastate the world economy. “It is absolutely clear that a rejection of Russian oil would lead to catastrophic consequences for the global market,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said. “The surge in prices would be unpredictable. It would be $300 per barrel if not more. … European politicians need to honestly warn their citizens and consumers what to expect.”
The EU’s growing involvement in the war in Ukraine shows that, after the experience of two world wars, the European ruling class is again tobogganing towards a new catastrophe. It is using Putin’s reactionary invasion of Ukraine as an opportunity to put long-prepared military plans into action.
In an article published by Project Syndicate titled “Putin’s War Has Given Birth to Geopolitical Europe,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell boasted: “In the week since Russia’s invasion, we have also witnessed the belated birth of a geopolitical Europe. For years, Europeans have been debating how the EU can be made more robust and security-conscious … We have now arguably gone further down that path in the past week than we did in the previous decade.”
He called to develop the EU as a major military power, capable of waging wars with heavy losses in Ukraine and beyond. “First, we must prepare to support Ukraine and its people for the long haul,” he writes. “Second, we need to recognize what this war means for European security and resilience more broadly.” He added, “Third, in a world of power politics, we need the capacity to coerce and defend ourselves. … Yes, this includes military means and we need to develop them more.”
Borell is proposing a massive military build-up, subordinating social life to the army’s diktat. “The core task for ‘geopolitical Europe’ is straightforward,” he concludes. “We must use our newfound sense of purpose first to ensure a free Ukraine, and then to re-establish peace and security across our continent.”
Who is Borell trying to fool? The EU is not securing a “free Ukraine,” but escalating a NATO war drive against Russia that is spiraling out of control. Behind empty propaganda phrases about “peace” and “security,” the NATO powers are headed straight towards World War III.
The militaristic and essentially fascistic character of the European rearmament and war drive emerges most clearly in Germany. There, the ruling class has seized upon Putin’s invasion to launch a long-planned rearmament programme worth hundreds of billions. The defence budget is to increase by at least €24 billion to over €71 billion annually. After the unspeakable crimes of the Nazis, Germany seeks once again to become Europe’s dominant military power.
The so-called NSU 2.0 trial began at the Frankfurt Regional Court on February 15. Between August 2018 and March 2021, hundreds of threatening letters were sent to artists, lawyers, and politicians under the acronym NSU 2.0, which is a reference to the neo-Nazi terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU) responsible for the murder of nine immigrants and a policewoman.
The recipients were insulted and threatened with murder, among other things. Of particular concern is that the letters contained protected personal data about residential addresses and family members of those affected, which were known only to the police.
Already, a familiar pattern is emerging. Only one alleged individual perpetrator stands accused, 54-year-old Alexander M. from Berlin. He is charged by the public prosecutor with issuing threats, coercion and insults. The question of the background to the case and any accomplices—especially from the ranks of the police—is being hushed up. As in the Munich trial of the NSU, which had murdered nine immigrants and a policewoman between 2000 and 2007, the numerous clues and evidence pointing to the state apparatus, the police and the secret service are being ignored.
Lawyer Seda Başay-Yıldız (right) with Abdulkerim Şimşek on the day of the verdict in the NSU trial (Image: Henning Schlottmann/CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons)
A look at the current facts clearly shows that (1) it could not have been a single perpetrator, and (2) at least one police officer must have helped suspect Alexander M. retrieve data from a police computer in Frankfurt. Despite this, the public prosecutor’s office is not bringing charges against any police officers and remains silent about the reasons for this. The indictment does not even attempt to explain who was responsible for querying the database in the Frankfurt police station. It is claimed the investigations had simply led to no result.
On the first day of the trial, the 124-page indictment was read out. The defendant Alexander M. is accused of having written and sent a total of 116 threatening letters. People such as lawyer Seda Başay-Yıldız, cabaret artist Idil Baydar and the then chairwoman of the Left Party parliamentary group in the Hesse state parliament, Janine Wissler, were written to via email, fax and SMS with the signoff “NSU-2.0.”
Others affected were satirists and comedians Jan Böhmermann, Christian Erich, Caroline Kebekus, politicians Martina Renner (Left Party), Jutta Dithfurt (Ökolinx), Sawsan Chebli (Social Democratic Party, SPD), Bundestag Vice President Claudia Roth (Green Party), Katja Kipping (Left Party), Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Green Party), Karamba Diaby (SPD), as well as taz columnist Hengameh Yaghoobifarah, journalists Deniz Yücel and Anja Reschke, and publicist Michel Friedman.
Alexander M. is alleged to have committed 85 criminal offences, including 67 extreme libels, public incitement to commit crimes, incitement of the people, possession of child and youth pornographic writings and a violation of the Weapons Act.
It all began on August 2, 2018, when Başay-Yıldız received an initial threatening letter, citing her correct address and the name of her young daughter: “In retaliation for 10,000 euros in fines, we’ll slaughter your daughter.” The lawyer had represented the family of the NSU’s first murder victim, Enver Şimşek, in the NSU trial from 2013 to 2018. All the letters are written in this vile tone.
The defendant faces five years in prison. He was arrested in his Berlin apartment on May 3, 2021, after the police had allegedly previously investigated him unsuccessfully for years. During the operation, he allegedly pulled out a blank pistol. Threatening letters were found on the computer of the unemployed computer scientist.
His background fits well with the crimes. In the past, he allegedly posed as a civil servant to get information from his former teacher. He was on right-wing extremist blogs, where he called himself “SS-Obersturmbannführer,” among other things. His demeanour in the courtroom was also very aggressive: he repeatedly interrupted the judge and the prosecutor and held up two fingers to the press cameras.
The first witnesses to testify were Başay-Yıldız and Mehmet Daimagüler, both lawyers for NSU victims. They reported how the threatening letters containing personal information and the possible involvement of police officers had put them under massive psychological pressure.
Over a dozen letters reached Başay-Yıldız. Her parents and their dates of birth were also mentioned in them, and her new address, which was classified as secret, was posted on the internet. Unknown people walked around her house and took photos. The identities of these people remain unclear to this day. Başay-Yıldız is clear that helpers at the police department were involved in at least the first letter.
Just 90 minutes before the first threatening communication was received on August 2, 2018, her data was queried on a police computer at the 1st Precinct in Frankfurt am Main. In total, 17 requests were made for data on the lawyer without official cause. Experienced investigators say that such extensive queries are very unusual. As a rule, they are made when the identity of the suspect is unknown after an arrest. Such a query, they say, takes about six minutes.
Of the six officers who had access to the police computer during that time, none supposedly remembered who had used it. Nor did anyone remember any supposed calls from outside. Everyone has remained silent ever since.
After a search on September 11, 2018, State Criminal Office (LKA) investigators confiscated a phone from the officer under whose account the query had been made. A right-wing extremist Whatsapp chat group was found on the phone. In it, six police officers and a private person exchanged pictures with Nazi images (including swastikas and Adolf Hitler) and vicious jokes about Jews, people with disabilities and refugees. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Frankfurt police did not inform the LKA about the chat group.
On October 25, 2018, a house search of Johannes S., one of the officers of the 1st Precinct, found a “museum-like” room filled with Nazi memorabilia. This officer was the focus of the investigation for a long time; he was suspected of having made the database query on August 2, 2018.
As it turned out, he had falsified his alibi, according to which he was on an operation at the time of the query. However, this took place 48 minutes later, which would also make him a possible sender of the first threatening communication to Başay-Yıldız. A phrase that Johannes S. used in the right-wing extremist chat (“I’ll rip your head off and shit down your neck”) is also frequently found in the threatening letters. Police officer S. is also familiar with anonymous surfing and the so-called Tor network, which is needed to access the darknet.
On the same evening that Başay-Yıldız received the first threatening letter, an anonymous call for violence against her was also posted on the de.indymedia.org platform, also giving her private address. A later letter even used her new address, which was classified as secret, suggesting that another database query must have occurred later. If there had been another telephone inquiry, the LKA would have been notified, but that never happened.
Martina Renner (Left Party), a member of the Thuringia state parliament active against right-wing extremism, also testified at the trial. She reported the psychological effects that the threats of violence had on her, “to the point that you dream about it.”
Although Renner received a total of 11 threatening NSU 2.0 letters, as well as numerous other right-wing extremist threats, the LKA in Berlin and Thuringia downplayed the letters and spoke of an “abstract threat.” Renner had to take private security measures. She said she had not wanted to turn to the Hesse LKA because of their involvement in far-right scandals: “They weren’t the first port of call when it came to confidence-building measures.”
Children’s nurseries were also put on alert and courts evacuated because the NSU 2.0 had sent bomb threats.
Başay-Yıldız and four other recipients of threatening letters protested on Twitter before the trial began: “For us, it’s a scandal that the investigation was conducted against an alleged lone perpetrator.”
Alexander M., who testified on the second day of the trial, denied the allegations against him. Regarding the prosecution theory that he had retrieved the data from the police computers using a false identity, he said, “That I obtained any amount of top-secret data from the police computers via phone calls would be a unique nonsense in German legal history.”
According to him, the threatening letters came from a far-right chat group on the Darknet, which he had participated in since 2019. “I was sure that police officers were also involved there because of the extensive insider knowledge and many official secrets, but I can’t prove it,” the defendant said. After he had contradicted the claim that there was a Jewish world conspiracy, he was expelled from the group in the summer of 2020, he said. Nevertheless, he said he has the identities of some chat participants, which he could provide to the court. In return, however, he wanted to be included in the witness protection program.
It would appear Alexander M. was involved in issuing the threatening letters, but that he wrote them alone, without any collaborators, is completely unlikely. The central question that the prosecution is avoiding in the trial is: How did the Berlin right-wing extremist (or other perpetrators) obtain protected data from the Frankfurt police? In addition, data was also retrieved from police stations in Wiesbaden, Berlin and Hamburg.
The answer of the police, claiming M. pretended to be an official in telephone calls, is absurd. The public prosecutor’s office mentions only briefly in passing that there were also investigations against police officers, but it was allegedly not possible to find out who had made the computer query on August 2, 2018.
After the indictment of Alexander M., Hesse Interior Minister Beuth had declared the police exonerated: “According to everything we know today, no Hesse police officer was ever responsible for the NSU 2.0 threats.” In response to an inquiry from the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, the state Interior Ministry reiterated: “Hesse police officers were at no time the senders of or participants in the NSU 2.0 series of threatening emails.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi refused to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine at a leadership summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) last Thursday. The meeting of the US-led quasi-military alliance of India, Japan and Australia against China was hosted by US President Joe Biden. While Japan and Australia had already fully endorsed the US-NATO war drive against Russia, Biden hoped to pressure India into publicly condemning the Russian invasion.
Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi addresses a gathering ahead of Bihar state Assembly elections in Patna, India, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Aftab Alam Siddiqui)
The Modi government is attempting to balance between New Delhi’s strategic partnership with Washington and its historic defence ties with Moscow. India’s ruling elite regards its strategic partnership with the US that has developed over two decades under Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) and Congress governments, as the best means of advancing its regional and global ambitions. India’s defence ties with Russia, however, have been a crucial factor in its foreign policy.
In early February, Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar avoided making any comment on the looming Ukraine war at a Quad foreign ministers’ meeting by insisting that the Quad’s geographical area was the Indo-Pacific.
Last Thursday’s summit, however, was specifically called by Biden to discuss “the war against Ukraine and its implications for the Indo-Pacific.” Prior to the summit Biden insisted that there was “no room for excuses or equivocation” on the issue.
A joint statement issued after the summit declared that Quad leaders “discussed the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and assessed its broader implications” and agreed on “a new humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mechanism which will enable the Quad to meet future humanitarian challenges in the Indo-Pacific and provide a channel for communication as they each address and respond to the crisis in Ukraine.”
A separate press release issued by the India government, which is desperate to avoid taking sides in any direct military conflict between the US and Russia, said that the Quad discussed developments in Ukraine, including their “humanitarian implications,” but that Modi had “emphasised the need to return to a path of dialogue and diplomacy.” The statement added that the Quad “must remain focused on its core objective of promoting peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.”
New Delhi’s precarious balancing between the US and Russia, however, is becoming increasingly untenable with the rapid escalation of the conflict in the Ukraine.
Washington is not ready to accept anything short of full support for its the war drive against Russia. This was made clear in remarks last Wednesday to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Donald Lu, the US assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia.
At that point India had repeatedly abstained on motions condemning Russia over the Ukraine invasion: twice in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC); once at a special emergency session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA); and in a procedural resolution at UNSC for convening the UNGA session.
“All of us have been working to urge India to take a clear position, a position opposed to Russia’s actions,” Lu told the Senate hearing, and warned that India needed “to further distance itself from Russia.”
In another significant move, the US State Department sent a cable to its diplomats advising them to raise the issue of Ukraine with their counterparts from India and the UAE. The cable reportedly said that the UAE’s and India’s “position of neutrality” on Ukraine put them “in Russia’s camp.” At the Wednesday meeting of the UNGA, the UAE voted in favour of the resolution condemning Russia, having previously abstained in two UNSC votes. India, however, continued to abstain.
Although the State Department withdrew the cable later on Wednesday, saying it had included “inaccurate language and was released in error,” the fact that Washington sent such a cable further highlights pressure being applied to India by the US.
Even as it continues to maintain its “neutral” position, India has inclined towards the US position.
A US State Department statement issued on Thursday night noted that India has said “all member states of the UN are not only obliged to follow the UN Charter but to respect international law and territorial integrity and sovereignty of states.” This phraseology echoes Washington’s pretext for preparing war against Russia that it was defending the “territorial integrity and sovereignty” of Ukraine.
The harsh economic sanctions now imposed by the US and EU against Russia have forced India to scale back its dependence on defence equipment and supplies from Russia which comprise significant portion of New Delhi’s military hardware.
As Lu told the Senate committee hearing, “It is going to be very hard for any country in the globe to buy major weapon systems from Russia because of the sweeping sanctions now placed on Russian banks.” Lu enthusiastically noted a 53 percent decrease in India’s purchase of Russian arms, but insisted that further reductions were required.
Sections of the Indian elite, although still a minority, are demanding the Modi government fully embrace the US war drive against Russia. On March 2, senior Congress party leader P. Chidambaram, tweeted: “The Government of India should stop its verbal balancing act and sternly demand that Russia stop immediately the bombing of key cities in Ukraine.”
Chidambaram’s position is not a surprise. The Congress-led government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, from 2004 to 2014, initiated significant ties with the US that developed into a strategic partnership. The current US–India partnership was further advanced by the Modi government, which has since 2014, transformed the country into a frontline state in Washington’s war drive against Beijing. The US is now demanding that this be extended to include Moscow.
On March 3, Foreign Policy published an article entitled “India must take a stand on Russia’s war in Ukraine” by Indiana University Political Science Professor Sumit Ganguly. He argued that “New Delhi’s fence-sitting no longer serves its diplomatic or security interests” and warned that “there may be limits to the tolerance of the United States and other partners…
“India’s failure to stand with the United States and other democracies on the Ukraine question could lead to some diplomatic isolation,” Ganguly said. He called on the Indian government “to muster the fortitude to make costly choices and take a stand.”
Notwithstanding Modi’s appeals for “dialogue and diplomacy” to avoid taking sides against Russia, the US war drive, driven by the deep economic, social and political crisis at home, will drag in the whole globe, including India and rest of South Asia, and threatens to trigger a nuclear catastrophe.
