US ramps up “financial war” on Russia as retired generals call for no-fly zone

Andre Damon

The United States and European Union ramped up their “financial war” against Russia on Tuesday, announcing major measures to restrict Russian oil and gas imports.

US President Joe Biden announced the immediate ban of all oil and natural gas imports from Russia, while the UK announced a plan to end all oil and gas imports by the end of 2023.

The European Union separately announced a plan to slash oil and gas imports by two-thirds this year.

The announcement had an immediate impact on markets, with crude oil surging 7 percent, to $128 per barrel. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of petroleum products, including crude oil and natural gas.

FILE - Two Polish Air Force Russian made Mig 29's fly above and below two Polish Air Force U.S. made F-16's fighter jets during the Air Show in Radom, Poland, on Aug. 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz, File)

Biden made clear that the measures targeting the Russian population would have disastrous consequences for the US population. “This is a step that we’re taking to inflict further pain on Putin, but there will be costs as well here in the United States.”

Biden volunteered the American population to bear the costs of surging energy prices. “I said I would level with the American people from the beginning, and when I first spoke to this, I said defending freedom is going to cost us as well in the United States.”

These actions are part of what Julia Friedlander, a former member of the National Security Council, called a “financial war” against Russia, aiming to “change military strategy in a war that is already happening.”

It also threatens, however, to trigger a major recession in the United States and Europe. The Financial Times (FT) quoted Mohammed Barkindo, secretary-general of OPEC, warning that there is no way to counterbalance the effects of cutting Russia out of the global oil market. “There is no capacity in the world at the moment that can replace 7mn barrels of exports.”

The FT warned, “The rise in oil and gas prices triggered by the Ukraine conflict and western moves to punish Moscow has raised the threat of the worst stagflationary shock to hit energy importing economies since the 1970s.”

Responding to the actions by the US and EU, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed his Cabinet to produce a list of items that Russia would stop importing and exporting until the end of 2022. Russia also threatened to cut off gas exports to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

The rapidly accelerating economic war came amid growing demands within the US military and foreign policy establishment for the United States to set up a no-fly zone, a move that both the White House and the Kremlin have made clear would lead to war between the United States and NATO.

On Tuesday, Politico published an open letter by a group of retired military officers, diplomats, and national security officials to “impose a limited No-Fly Zone over Ukraine starting with protection for humanitarian corridors.”

The signatories included retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former Commanding General, United States Army Europe, as well as retired General Philip Breedlove, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe for NATO.

Among the signatories were many of the leading witnesses in the first impeachment of Donald Trump, which was centered on claims that the former president withheld weapons from Ukraine .

The signatories also included Kurt Volker, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, and the first witness to testify against Trump in the impeachment.

He was joined by William Taylor, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, who declared that Ukraine was “on the front line of the conflict with a newly aggressive Russia.”

Another key impeachment witness, Colonel Alexander Vindman, has stated his support for a no-fly zone, but was not among the official signatories.

Other defense officials included Ian Brzezinski, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and the son of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Paula Dobriansky, former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs, and Eric Edelman, former Under Secretary of Defense.

Responding to the letter, the White House was clear about what the signatories were demanding. “A limited no-fly zone would still require implementation of a no-fly zone, even if it’s a smaller geography, which would still require shooting down Russian planes if they fly into your no-fly zone,” said White House spokesperson Jen Psaki. “So that would still have—we would still have concerns about that being an escalatory action that could lead us into a war with Russia, which is not something the President intends to do.”

Despite the White House’s insistence that it does not intend to fight a “war with Russia,” the conflict is escalating at a breathtaking pace.

On Tuesday, Poland announced a plan to transfer all of its Soviet-era MiG-29 aircraft to the United States, and fly them to Germany, from which they would be flown into Ukrainian airspace to engage Russian aircraft.

“The authorities of the Republic of Poland ... are ready to deploy—immediately and free of charge—all their MIG-29 jets to the Ramstein Air Base and place them at the disposal of the Government of the United States of America,” Poland’s foreign ministry said.

In a tersely worded statement, Pentagon Spokesperson John Kirby said, “We do not believe Poland’s proposal is a tenable one.”

He added that “departing from a U.S./NATO base in Germany to fly into airspace that is contested with Russia over Ukraine raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance.”

The Washington Post noted, “The move by Poland appeared intended to shift the responsibility for delivering the aircraft — and risking a potential Russian military retaliation — to the United States. It occurred as the No. 3 official at the State Department, Victoria Nuland, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”

The response by the US came despite the statement by Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday that NATO countries had a “green light” to send aircraft to Ukraine.

Despite the US response to the proposal from Poland, the US effort to funnel arms to Ukraine is staggering in scope. The Wall Street Journal wrote that the US is carrying “one of the largest and fastest arms transfers in history.”

The Journal noted: “In Poland, the provincial airport of Rzeszow located about 60 miles from the Ukrainian border has been so crowded with military cargo jets that on Saturday some flights were briefly diverted until airfield space became available. On the country’s highways, police vehicles are escorting military transport trucks to the border, with other convoys slipping into Ukraine via snow-covered back roads through the mountains.”

The Wall Street Journal added that “The race to deliver arms to Ukraine is emerging as a supply operation with few historical parallels.”

Much of this weaponry is finding its ways to neo-Nazi militia, such as the Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi organization which over 40 members of the US congress sought unsuccessfully to designate a foreign terrorist organization.

On Monday, Nexta, a media outlet affiliated with the Belarusian opposition, published photos of NATO instructors training members of the Azov battalion, wearing neo-Nazi insignia, on how to operate a shipment of NLAW anti-tank missiles.

Anger mounts at Ukrainian security forces’ treatment of Africans fleeing war

Kumaran Ira

While the US and European press present NATO intervention against the Russian war in Ukraine as a defence of democracy, anger is mounting across Africa at reports of racist targeting of Africans by Ukrainian security personnel and border guards as they try to flee the country. About 16,000 African students were studying in the country before the Russian invasion, according to Ukraine’s ambassador to South Africa.

Scores of African citizens have been blocked from leaving Ukraine. France 24 interviewed several African students at the Lviv train station in western Ukraine who said they were turned back by Ukrainian border guards while attempting to cross into Poland.

“They stopped us at the border and told us that Blacks were not allowed. But we could see White people going through,” Moustapha Bagui Sylla, a Guinean student, told France24. He said he fled his university residence in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, when the bombing began.

Bagui Sylla walked for hours in freezing temperatures heading for the Polish border village of Medyka, where he was ordered to turn back. He reported that Ukrainian border guards said they were merely following instructions from their Polish counterparts. Officials in Warsaw denied the claim, however.

Ukrainian soldiers drive on an armored military vehicle in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, March 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Barlaney Mufaro Gurure, a space engineering student from Zimbabwe at Ukraine’s National Aviation University, fled Kyiv after Russia launched the military intervention on February 24. She told Al Jazeera that she had finally reached the front of a nine-hour queue at Ukraine’s western border crossing of Krakovets after an exhausting four-day trip.

When her turn came to cross, the border guard blocked her and four other African students at the border for hours, giving Ukrainians priority. “We felt treated like animals. When we left [Kyiv] we were just trying to survive,” she told Al Jazeera. “We never thought that they would have treated us like that … I thought we were all equal, that we were trying to stand together,” she added.

The UN estimates 2 million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began. Queues along the border are dozens of kilometres long. Some African students told Al Jazeera they have been waiting for days to cross amid freezing temperatures and with no food, blankets or shelter.

There are mounting reports, as well, that Polish far-right nationalists are attacking African, South Asian and Middle Eastern people who have crossed the Ukrainian border into Poland. In Przemyśl, attackers dressed in black tracked down groups of non-white refugees, primarily students who arrived at a train station in Poland from Ukraine after the war began. Police said three Indians were beaten up by a group of five men, leaving one of them hospitalized.

“Around 7 p.m., these men started to shout and yell against groups of African and Middle Eastern refugees who were outside the train station,” reported two Polish journalists from the OKO press agency. “They yelled at them: ‘Go back to the train station! Go back to your country.’”

Police and riot officers were sent after groups of men arrived chanting “Przemyśl always Polish.”

“I was with my friends, buying something to eat outside,” said Sara, a 22-year-old Egyptian student in Ukraine. “These men came and started to harass a group of men from Nigeria. They wouldn’t let an African boy go inside a place to eat some food. Then they came towards us and yelled: ‘Go back to your country.’”

Polish police also warned that far-right groups are spreading false information about crimes allegedly committed by African and Middle Eastern citizens fleeing Ukraine. On Twitter, Przemyśl police said: “In the media, there is false information that serious crimes have occurred in Przemyśl and the border: burglaries, assaults and rape. It’s not true. The police did not record an increased number of crimes in connection with the situation at the border.”

Ukrainian and Polish officials have denied reports of racial discrimination at the border. A spokesperson for the Ukrainian border guards claimed that only Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 60 were stopped from leaving the country, as they are required to join the war against Russia. However, footage on social media have shown acts of discrimination, abuse and violence against African and other foreign citizens fleeing Ukraine at its border posts.

Amid mounting anger in Africa, African officials have expressed concern over discriminatory treatment against their citizens. Videos and tweets under the hashtag #AfricansinUkraine have flooded social media, prompting numerous crowdfunding initiatives on Telegram and Instagram to help students at the borders.

Last Monday, in a statement, the African Union declared: “Reports that Africans are singled out for unacceptable dissimilar treatment would be shockingly racist and in breach of international law.” Similarly, the Nigerian government said that a group of Nigerians had been refused entry into Poland. A South African foreign ministry spokesperson said that a group of South African nationals and other Africans were “treated badly” at the Polish-Ukrainian border.

The ill treatment of many Africans by security officials and far-right mobs exposes the hypocrisy of the crocodile tears the NATO media are shedding for millions of people fleeing Ukraine as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reactionary invasion of Ukraine.

Since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the NATO powers have attacked Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, destroying infrastructure and killing countless thousands. As people fled these countries, taking risky journeys via land and sea to seek shelter in Europe, the EU enacted increasingly draconian anti-immigrant measures, refusing to grant asylum to those who managed to arrive in Europe. As a result, tens of thousands of migrants and refugees have drowned when their boats capsized in the Mediterranean Sea or even in the English Channel.

In reality, draconian EU anti-migrant policies and the NATO powers’ longstanding legitimization of far-right politics across Europe, and notably their support for the February 2014 Kiev putsch that brought to power a pro-NATO government in Ukraine, fuel anti-refugee hatreds. The NATO powers are not concerned about refugees’ fate, but rather are exploiting their suffering to justify further warmongering against Russia.

Internationally, there is mounting opposition not only to the Russian invasion but to the US-NATO war campaign against Russia. Seventeen African countries, including South Africa, Senegal, Uganda, and Mali abstained from the UN vote to condemn Russia’s “aggression against Ukraine.” Several of them have suffered enormous losses during invasions launched by the NATO powers in nearby countries like Libya and Mali.

Last week, the Senegalese government issued a strongly-worded statement condemning Ukraine’s policy in Africa. This followed attempts by Ukraine’s embassy in Senegal to recruit volunteers via Facebook to join far-right Ukrainian nationalist militias fighting Russia; the Ukrainian embassy claimed that 36 Senegalese citizens had, in fact, enlisted. However, under Senegalese law it is illegal to recruit mercenaries on Senegalese soil.

On March 3, Senegal’s foreign ministry said it had summoned the Ukrainian ambassador in Dakar after learning “with astonishment” about the Facebook post. The ministry said it had “firmly” condemned “this practice which constitutes a violation of the obligation to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State.” It told the Ukrainian embassy to withdraw its Facebook post.

Russian-backed cable news network RT America shuts down

Kevin Reed

RT America, the Russian state-funded cable news network in the US, was shut down on Thursday and all 120 of its employees were laid off.

T&R Productions, the firm that operates RT America, informed its staff in writing that it was “ceasing production” due to “unforeseen” events. The employees at the channel’s offices in New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles and Miami were also told of the decision during a company-wide town hall meeting on March 3.

CNN Business reported the shutdown after obtaining a memo from T&R Productions general manager Mikhail Solodovnikov, which said: “As a result of unforeseen business interruption events, T&R Productions, LLC (‘T&R’) will be ceasing production and, therefore must lay off most of its staff who work at all of its locations,” and, “Unfortunately, we anticipate this layoff will be permanent, meaning that this will result in the permanent separation from employment of most T&R employees at all locations.”

RT America was the US division of the RT (formerly Russia Today) network, a global multilingual television news network based in Moscow. RT America was distributed through a select group of cable TV providers, streaming services and live streamed through its website.

RT coverage of the controversy over 15-year-old Kamila Valieva at the 2021 winter Olympics

On March 1, in an act of anti-Russian hysteria, the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences suspended the general membership of T&R Productions manager Solodovnikov and removed him from its board of directors. A representative of the organization told Deadline, “Due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the International Academy is suspending Mikhail Solodovnikov’s membership and board position, as well as the membership of Elizaveta Brodskaya.”

Brodskaya is head of news at the RT International and RT Russia based in Moscow. Several other Russian members were also stricken from the Academy’s membership list.

RT America ran numerous programs that were hosted by popular talk show figures with a wide range of political views and perspectives such as Dennis Miller, William Shatner, Peter Lavelle, Chris Hedges, Lee Camp and Jesse Ventura. The channel was launched in February 2010. RT’s sister channels in Canada and Europe have also been shut down.

RT’s deputy editor-in-chief Anna Belkina told CNN, “We are sad and disappointed that our groundbreaking channel RT America had to go off the air after more than 10 years, and that the company that supplied much of its content, T&R Productions, had to cease most of its operations, due to challenging external circumstances.”

Although details about the “external circumstances” have not been officially stated, it is known that DirecTV, the multichannel video programming distributor with 15 million subscribers and a major source of RT America’s viewing audience and revenue, dropped the network on March 1, two days before the shutdown. Roku, a supplier of television streaming equipment, also removed RT America from its channel store on March 1.

Ora.TV, the producer of the Dennis Miller + One and William Shatner’s I Don’t Understand programs, released a statement on March 1 that said, “Given the invasion of Ukraine and the tragic humanitarian crisis, Ora Media has paused production of content we license to T&R Productions. Future business decisions will be made based on the evolving situation.”

In a statement, Shatner said, “Ora TV sold the show to RT America. I had no say in the matter.” He added that the show is “informative, entertaining and totally, absolutely non-political. My contract for seventy half-hour shows this past year has been with Ora TV. Those seventy shows are in the pipeline, and I have no voice in that matter as well.” Shatner also expressed sympathies for the Ukrainian people.

The shutdown of RT America follows a pattern of censorship measures imposed by the European Union (EU) that banned RT and Sputnik, the Russian state-run news agency and radio broadcast service. The official EU ban was followed shortly by all of the major tech and social media platforms—YouTube, Facebook and TikTok—shutting down access to RT and Sputnik across Europe. Apple removed the Russian news services from its app store everywhere in the world except for Russia.

Among those whose programs were terminated in the RT America shutdown is the stand-up comedian, author and activist Lee Camp, the host of the weekly Redacted Tonight. Camp, who identifies himself as anti-war, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, also had his podcast called Moment of Clarity removed from the audio streaming service Spotify.

Appearing on the YouTube channel The KatieHalper Show, Camp said his TV program was shut down suddenly and with very little information. He said, in his view, it was obvious that RT America was terminated by either a directive from the US Justice Department or the sanctions regime imposed on Russia that made it a crime for the network to continue to operate.

Camp said that being dropped by platforms would not cause an immediate shutdown of the channel since the organization had financial resources that should have enabled it to continue operating even if it had to scale back. Camp said that the fact that RT America was shut down instantly meant, “the only thing that would ever cause that would be a fear of the executives getting arrested or literally the Justice Department saying, ‘shut it down’.”

Camp went on, “For anyone to celebrate this brand of McCarthyism, this kind of mass censorship—I was censored on three platforms in the span of three days. My YouTube videos of Redacted Tonight were banned throughout Europe and the UK, my show was gone. And, on top of that, my personal podcast Moment of Clarity was deleted from Spotify in three days … the idea that anyone would celebrate this level of censorship is really tragic.”

In response to a question from Halper about the attempt to silence critical voices on the war in Ukraine, Camp said, “I said clearly in all my videos that I was opposed to this, I think Russia’s invasion is wrong. But I also give context to what’s going on in the situation, you know, how NATO has expanded over the years, how there are literally Nazis with Nazi emblems like swastikas on their helmets involved in the Donbass region. And giving context, if people think giving context is somehow justifying, that’s utter nonsense. We should be intelligent; we should understand the context of these issues.”

Foreign corporations exit Russia to provoke economic collapse

Andrea Peters

The imposition of sweeping sanctions on Russia has prompted a mass exodus of foreign corporations from the country, the devastating consequences of which are just beginning to come into full relief. The pullout is hitting virtually every sector of the economy—finance, aviation, automotive, energy, technology, telecommunications, service, entertainment, food production, fashion, and consumer goods.

The list of major companies suspending sales, production, and service in Russia includes Mastercard, VISA, American Express, Google, Apple and Apple Pay, Samsung, General Electric, Shell Oil, BP, ExxonMobil, Ikea, Nike, Reebok, Hyundai, Ford, BMW, Daimler, General Motors, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Nokia, Ericsson, Dell, Siemens, BMW, Renault, Netflix, Walt Disney, Universal, Lego, Expedia, FedEx, Valio, Fazer, Danone, Arla, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Starbucks and hundreds more.

While medical and pharmaceutical companies are legally allowed to do business in Russia, the removal of the country from the SWIFT system for international financial transactions is making it increasingly difficult for them to do so.

In short, masses of ordinary people in Russia are being ejected from the global marketplace with the express aim of depriving them of jobs, incomes, and access to essential goods, like food and medicine. The aim of this “total economic and financial war,” in the words of French Foreign Minister Bruno La Maire, is “the collapse of the Russian economy.”

Apple logo sign. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

The American and European ruling classes are extracting their pound of flesh. The bodies of dead Ukrainians, who were used as a cat’s paw to drag Russia into a disastrous military conflict long prepared, are not enough for them.

The Russian government has not released any official data on inflation, part of its desperate attempt to cover up the impact of the sanctions on the population. But experts estimate that inflation in the country is currently running at just under 17 percent. The price of foodstuffs is going through the roof.

Some areas are creating hotlines that consumers can call to report skyrocketing prices. The cost of vegetables in Moscow has risen between 2 and 17 percent. In Stavropol, a city of about 400,000 in southwestern Russia, sugar is now 120 rubles, about a fourfold increase from several weeks ago. Sverdlovsk has set limits on the amount of some items that consumers can purchase, such as dairy products. People trying to buy food before they can no longer afford it are clearing grocery store shelves.

In Kazan, one mother told the press, “Four days ago, I bought baby food for 1,381 rubles, but yesterday it already cost 2,233 rubles.” Local officials in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug just decided that they will start to officially “check the prices of food and essentials, including baby clothes, diapers and baby food,” as complaints have begun to pour in from the public. “Prices for some children’s goods have doubled,” said one regional representative.

Layoffs are spreading throughout the economy, due to the shuttering of factories and retail stores because of a combination of the pullout of foreign firms, shortages of parts, sanctions that make it impossible for Russian companies to do business, and falling demand.

The food producer Fazer will let go of 2,300 workers at its operations in Saint Petersburg. Nissan, which employs about 2,000 people at its facility there, is shutting down, as is Hyundai, with another 2,500 workers. Bonava, which has about 370 people on its payroll, is suspending its construction projects in the city. А paper manufacturer in the larger region of which Saint Petersburg is a part, Leningrad Oblast, may close and axe 1,700 jobs.

The auto industry is being particularly hard hit, with American and German manufacturers with large-scale facilities in Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod, Togliatti, and elsewhere announcing either permanent or temporary shutdowns. Hanover-based automotive company Continental just declared that it would end its operations in Kaluga, which is south and east of Moscow and has a population of about 325,000, placing 1,300 jobs in jeopardy.

In addition, food manufacturers Valio and Paulig are closing up shop in Tversk Oblast, with 600 layoffs expected.

McDonald’s, which has a workforce of 62,000 in Russia, just declared it is halting its operations, as are Starbucks and Coca-Cola. There has been a crazed campaign in the Western press over the last several days singling out companies that have not yet closed up shop, with the express aim of achieving what was just achieved.

This is just the beginning. The companies exiting the Russian economy employ directly hundreds of thousands of people and indirectly, millions. According to one analyst writing on the Russian economic news site Investing.com, depending on the industry in question, Russian producers rely on foreign supplies and services for anywhere between 40 percent to all of their parts and operations. This includes companies in food production, the service sector, metallurgy, aviation, and shipping, for instance.

The information agency of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, located in Russia’s north Caucasus, had a short news report up that listed the number of employees of some of the firms closing down their operations in the country. It listed the following: Ikea, 15,000 jobs, Renault-Nissan in Togliatti, 35,000 jobs, BMW’s Avtotor, 3,500 jobs. It noted that Yandex, the top Russian search engine, warned its 12,000 employees that it was at risk of default.

This news report was affixed with a large red label that said, “Fake.” It has since been removed, an action less likely the result of the actual false character of the information and more likely the product of the danger it poses to the government. President Putin just signed into law fines and prison sentences for the dissemination of “fake” news that would undermine the war goals of the government.

The Kremlin is attempting to manage the spiraling crisis by projecting a false image of calm, scrubbing the internet of damaging news reports, announcing a limited number of social measures, and declaring total support for the business sector.

The Ministry of Finance announced Tuesday that 455 billion rubles are being allotted for payments to families with children between the ages of 8 to 16 years old. Depending on where they live in Russia, they will receive between 50 and 100 percent of the official subsistence minimum for a child, which is between 6,000 and 12,000 rubles.

If the mother in Kazan trying to buy baby food were to receive such an amount—which she will not because her child is under 8—she could purchase maybe another three to five confections of the product.

The government also declared a moratorium on audits of small and medium enterprises and IT firms from now through 2024. Businesses that need to renew their licenses will be allowed to continue to operate, the process of selling products to the state is being simplified, and authorities have been given the right to raise pensions. In addition, those earning less than 20,000 rubles a month will no longer have to pay taxes, saving them about 2,600 rubles. Given that millions of Russians work in the shadow economy, particularly those at the lower end of the pay scale, this is hardly any help at all.

At the onset of the war crisis, President Putin declared that Russia would ensure “maximum freedom for business.” This can only mean giving Russian corporations free rein to cut labor costs as they sees fit and, when workers object, using the power of the state to keep them at their jobs.

Africa Plant Nutrition Scholarship Program 2022

Application Deadline: 30th April 2022.

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:

1. Currently attending a degree-granting institution located in Africa.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

How to Apply: The application is only available on-line here at www.apni.net/scholar-apply

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

World Bank Robert S. McNamara (RSM) Fellowship 2022/2023

Application Deadline: 4th April 2022

Eligible Countries: World Bank Member Countries

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. McNamara Fellowship? To be considered for the RSMFP, applicants must be:

1. Nationals of World Bank WBG member countries, with preference to nationals of developing countries;
2. Graduates of MA level studies or currently pursuing a PhD in Economics or a related field;
3. No more than 35 years of age (by June 30th of the year the fellowship starts);
4. 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)
• Writing sample in English (optional)
• Code samples (optional)

Visit the Fellowship Webpage for Details

IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship 2022

Application Deadline: 16th April 2022

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

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.

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider:  The Boston Globe, New York Times,

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.

Canada’s Trudeau visits Europe to plot escalation of war drive against Russia

Roger Jordan

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.

Studies warn Omicron BA.2 is the most dangerous COVID variant ever

Patrick Martin

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.