US undersecretary of state acknowledges there are biological warfare labs in Ukraine

Kevin Reed

State Department Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria J. Nuland speaks during a briefing at the State Department in Washington, Jan. 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool)

On Tuesday, Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland stated before a Senate hearing that “biological research facilities” have been operating in Ukraine, in response to a question from Senator Marco Rubio (Republican of Florida) about the presence of chemical or biological weapons in the country.

While she said nothing about US involvement in the labs, Nuland rapidly shifted her testimony during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to efforts by the State Department to “prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces.” She went on, in a carefully orchestrated exchange with Rubio, to say that if there were a biological or chemical weapons attack inside Ukraine, it would “no doubt” be carried out by Russia.

The following is the transcript of the exchange between Rubio and Nuland:

Sen. Marco Rubio: Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?

Victoria Nuland: Ukraine has biological research facilities which, in fact, we’re now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of, so we are working with the Ukrainians on how we can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach.

Sen. Marco Rubio: I’m sure you’re aware that the Russian propaganda groups are already putting out there all kinds of information about how they have uncovered a plot by the Ukrainians to unleash biological weapons in the country, and with NATO’s coordination.

If there is a biological or chemical weapon incident or attack inside Ukraine, is there any doubt in your mind that 100% it would be the Russians behind it?

Victoria Nuland: There is no doubt in my mind, senator. And in fact, it is a classic Russian technique to blame the other guy for what they are planning to do themselves.

The extraordinary admission by Nuland about Ukrainian bioweapons labs confirms reports from Moscow that a military biological program was being operated inside the country by the US. The State Department admission also proves that statements by the Pentagon calling the Russian reports “absurd,” and from the office of Ukrainian President Zelensky denying that such programs existed, were entirely false.

A report by Reuters on Wednesday morning said, “Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said evidence of the alleged programme had been uncovered by Russia during what it calls its military operation in Ukraine, which its forces invaded on Feb. 24.”

Reuters reported that Zakharova also said that Russia had “documents showing that the Ukrainian health ministry had ordered the destruction of samples of plague, cholera, anthrax and other pathogens after Feb. 24.” Zakharova said, “We can already conclude that in Ukrainian biological laboratories in direct proximity to the territory of our country, development of components of biological weapons was being carried out.”

Responding to the exposures, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday demanded that the US “give a full account” of biological weapons research that the Russians say was being carried out in Ukraine with US funding.

Spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Zhao Lijian, said, “In particular, the US, as the party that knows these laboratories the best, should publish relevant specific details as soon as possible, including the types of pathogens stored and the research conducted,” in order to ensure the “health and safety of people in Ukraine, the surrounding areas and even around the world.”

Details about the biological weapons facilities in Ukraine were reported by the Russian Defense Ministry on March 6 when Major General Igor Konashenkov alleged that pathogens for deadly diseases for biological warfare were being created in Ukrainian labs that were funded by the Pentagon.

Konashenkov told the Russian news agency TASS, “Obviously, with the start of a special military operation, the Pentagon had serious concerns about disclosing the conduct of secret biological experiments on the territory of Ukraine.”

A damage-control Twitter thread posted by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki late Wednesday afternoon did not reference Nuland’s congressional testimony but called the Russian and Chinese reports “preposterous” and a “disinformation operation.” Psaki went on to state that the US “is in full compliance with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention and does not develop or possess such weapons anywhere.”

The White House press secretary then accused Russia of a “long and well-documented record of using chemical weapons, including in attempted assassinations and poisoning of Putin’s political enemies like Alexey Navalny.” She also wrote that Russia “continues to support the Assad regime in Syria, which has repeatedly used chemical weapons.”

However, the alleged poisoning of Navalny —the leader of the imperialist-backed anti-Putin opposition in Russia—with Novichok in December 2020 was never proven and quickly turned out to be part of an international propaganda campaign aimed at stoking US war preparations against Russia in advance of the inauguration of Biden as president. Meanwhile, documents published by WikiLeaks have exposed the accusations of a Syrian chemical weapons attack in Duoma in 2018 as an elaborate scheme to justify an assault by the US, Britain and France against the government in Damascus.

Psaki finished her tweet by saying Russia has a “track record of accusing the West of the very violations that Russia itself is perpetrating,” a claim that is thoroughly exposed as false by the Nuland testimony on Tuesday.

Nuland’s devastating revelation, which exposes before the entire world the preparations of US imperialism for war in Ukraine long before Russia invaded the country, has caught the corporate media by surprise. Apparently waiting for their line from the White House, no major American news outlet has reported it yet. Meanwhile, news reports are continuing to call the now verified Russian allegations of biological weapons labs in Ukraine “a false narrative” and “debunked conspiracy theory.”

A Newsweek report published at noon on Wednesday says, for example, “In fact, the U.S. Defense Department has never had a biological laboratory in Ukraine.” Newsweek also reported that the partnership between the Pentagon and Ukraine Ministry of Health “is part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which began in 1991 with the aim of reducing the threat of weapons of mass destruction following the fall of the Soviet Union.”

The exposure of Pentagon-backed biological weapons development in Ukraine is a warning to the international working class as to what US imperialism is preparing militarily against Russia. Given its decades-long wars of aggression, which have resulted in the deaths of millions in the Middle East and North Africa, there can be no illusions as to the degree of lying, provocation and military violence that the US is prepared to carry out in pursuit of its geostrategic aims.

UK imaging study finds that even in mild COVID cases there is brain atrophy and cognitive decline

Benjamin Mateus

“There is a greater cognitive decline … a decline in mental ability, in being able to perform complex tasks.” Professor Gwenaëlle Douaud, lead author of the UK Biobank study reviewing the impact of COVID on the brain.

Every day new evidence emerges from studies conducted across the globe highlighting the serious dangers posed by infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. The recent publication in the journal Nature by the UK Biobank on the impact of COVID and loss of the brain’s grey matter is quite alarming.

Led by scientists from the University of Oxford, the UK Biobank study is a 30-year-long project launched in 2006 intending to follow 500,000 volunteers ages 40 to 69 to investigate the impact genetics and environment may have on disease development. The imaging arm of the large trial was opened in 2015 aimed at supplementing the overall findings with high-quality scans of the brain and other organs to gain better insight into disease processes and the impact of treatments.

With the plan of scanning 100,000 images, the study had already conducted more than 40,000 brain scans when the pandemic hit. As more and more reports of severely ill patients suffering from neurological consequences of their infections surfaced, the researchers turned their attention to studying the impact COVID had on the brains of the infected.

Their initial findings were released in preprint form in June 2021, and “revealed a significant, deleterious impact of COVID-19 on the olfactory cortex [the region of the brain responsible for smell perception] and gustatory cortex [taste and flavor], with a more pronounced reduction in grey matter thickness and volume in the left para-hippocampal gyrus, the left superior insula and the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex in COVID patients.” In the current study, the authors attempted to discern if even milder cases of COVID led to brain pathology after the acute phase of the infection had subsided.

Dr. Gwenaëlle Douaud, lead author of the UK Biobank study and professor in the department of clinical neurosciences at the University of Oxford, said, “What is really different in this study is that we had mild participants who were not hospitalized, so they were well enough to stay at home, and some were asymptomatic.” Additionally, a control group was used for comparison who also had two brain scans conducted and were confirmed never to have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Figure 1 Areas of the brain impacted by COVID infection. See linked study for details of the figures and graphs. Source UK Biobank study.

Participants who had been diagnosed with a COVID infection were scanned, on average, four to five months after their infection. The results of the second brain scan were contrasted with their previous scans obtained before their COVID infection (in most instances, completed before the pandemic) offering a direct comparison. The authors wrote, “The availability of pre-infection imaging data reduces the likelihood of pre-existing risk factors being misinterpreted as disease effects.”

This facet of the study is highly critical in confirming their findings, as the infected participant’s previous scan becomes a baseline comparison. Control participants without previous infection assist in eliminating bias from changes that occur during aging.

The study measured hundreds of distinct brain imaging-derived phenotypes (IDP) where each IDP reflected one specific aspect of the brain’s structure or function. Comparing a participant’s brain scan at two different time points, they were able to identify effects associated with tissue damage and atrophy [shrinkage] caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection. Douaud added, “We are not seeing the kind of gross pathology that you would see in all of these other brain imaging studies that have focused on hospitalized patients. We are looking at much more subtle kind of differences here.”

In all, there were 785 UK Biobank participants between the ages of 51 to 81. There were 401 cases who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection between their brain scans and 384 controls that were “matched for age, sex, ethnicity, comorbidities, economic status, and time elapsed between the two scans.”

The scientists remarked on three primary findings from their analysis:

1) There was greater reduction in grey matter thickness and tissue-contrast in the orbitofrontal cortex and para-hippocampal gyrus, areas of the brain involved with decision making and memory encoding and retrieval.

2) Greater changes in markers of tissue damage in regions functionally connected to the primary olfactory cortex responsible for the sense of smell.

3) Greater reduction in global brain size equivalent to a decade’s worth of aging.

They wrote: “… we identified significant effects associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection primarily relating to greater atrophy [shrinkage] and increased tissue damage in cortical areas directly connected to primary olfactory cortex, as well as changes in global measures of brain and cerebrospinal fluid volume.” Additionally, corroborating these visual changes, infected participants also demonstrated a larger “cognitive decline” between the two scans, shown in cognitive testing administered during the trial.

When they compared hospitalized patients to non-hospitalized cases (mild cases), though less pronounced, similar patterns in the loss of grey matter was seen. The affected regions included areas that control cognitive processes in decision-making and “attention” allocation that include ethics and morality, impulse control, and emotions. It is no wonder that some people suffering from Long COVID have complained of brain fog and feeling of a loss of identity.

Figure 2 Trail Making Test Part A and Part B.

Attempting to place their findings into context, the authors first note that the “strongest” structural changes observed between those infected and control groups corresponded to a loss of around two percent of mean baseline IDP value.

They wrote, “This additional loss in the infected participants of 0.7 percent on average across the olfactory-related brain regions—and specifically ranging from 1.3 to 1.8 percent for the FreeSurfer volume of the para-hippocampal/perirhinal and entorinal cortex [these regions are involved in the formation and processing of memories]—can be helpfully compared with for instance, the longitudinal loss per year of around 0.2 percent (middle-age) and 0.3 percent (older age) of hippocampal volume [regions related to memory] in community-dwelling individuals.”

The implications of these findings will require longer follow-up times but infection with SARS-CoV-2, as some are hypothesizing, may predispose some to the development of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Though no memory impairment was established among those with mild disease, when they were administered the Trail Making Test (parts A and B), they took a significantly longer time to complete the tasks compared to non-infected controls. The test is a commonly used neuropsychological test of visual attention and task switching, as well as executive function, that is sensitive to detecting cognitive impairments associated with dementia.

Participants previously infected with COVID had a “significantly greater time” completing part B of the test, also known as the alphanumeric trail B, which is associated with “longitudinal changes in the cognitive part of the cerebellum.” As the authors note, this part of the brain is associated with cognitive impairments in patients with stroke. These participants and, in general, those infected with COVID will need to be followed closely for years to see if these findings correlate with the development of memory problems or dementia.

One concerning finding was that the differences between the infected and uninfected grew with age. Though the performances were similar between the two groups for those in their 50s and 60s, the performance gap widened considerably for the eldest. Douaud admitted, “I don’t know if that’s because younger people recover faster or they were not as affected to start with, [it] could be either or it could be both.” It should be added, it is unknown when the damage incurred is of sufficient magnitude that it surfaces as a clinical finding. Younger people may manifest more cognitive flexibility, but whether they will suffer the consequences of this harm sooner in their future lives remains an important question.

Serious as these findings are and the insight they offer into the complex processes of cognition, one fundamental question must be asked: “Was it necessary for the population to have undergone this social trauma caused by policies that have allowed the virus to spread throughout communities unimpeded?”

Clearly, the results of the study should evoke a deep sense of unease, if not horror, at what is happening to the billions of people on the planet who have become infected. The findings are more than just the exposure of the devastating impact COVID has on the human body, but irrefutable proof of the dangerous policies being imposed by the ruling elites forcing the population to “live with the virus.” If the precautionary principles of medicine hold no sway, the results are chilling, and they reinforce the demand a radical shift in policy to eliminate COVID once and for all.

China offers to mediate talks between Russia and Ukraine

Peter Symonds

On the sidelines of China’s annual National People’s Congress, Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a lengthy press conference on Monday urging a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine while reaffirming the “iron clad” friendship between China and Russia. His comments come amid mounting pressure from the US and its allies demanding that Beijing condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Wang suggested that China could mediate peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv, saying: “China is prepared to continue playing a constructive role to facilitate dialogue for peace and work alongside the international community when needed to carry out necessary mediation.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks during a remote video press conference held on the sidelines of the annual meeting of China's National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)

The foreign minister also outlined a six-point plan to address the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine as fighting continues and intensifies. No doubt reacting to the deluge of Western media propaganda seizing on the plight of Ukrainian civilians, he said that the provision of aid should “abide by the principles of neutrality and impartiality, and avoid politicising humanitarian issues.” He called for the United Nations to be in charge of coordinating relief efforts.

Wang said the Red Cross Society of China would provide Ukraine “with a tranche of emergency humanitarian supplies as soon as possible.” The Chinese foreign ministry announced on Wednesday that China would supply a batch of nearly $800,000 worth of aid, including food and daily necessities. The first shipments had already been sent.

Ahead of an EU–China summit in April, Wang also made a thinly veiled appeal for European powers to distance themselves from Washington and to strengthen ties with Beijing that “are not directed at, dependent on, or subject to third parties.” He declared that there were “some forces” that did not want stable China–EU relations, “so they fabricate the ‘China threat,’ hype up competition with China, advocate ‘systemic rivalry’ and even provoke sanctions and confrontation.”

China is engaged in a precarious balancing act in the Ukraine crisis. It has refused to line up with the US–NATO war drive by condemning or imposing sanctions on Russia but neither has it fully endorsed Moscow’s actions. Beijing has not supported Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decree last month recognising the independence of two regions in eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists. It fears that Putin’s move sets a dangerous precedent for US intervention to break up China.

At the same time, Beijing has blamed the conflict on the encroachment of the US and NATO into eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics, and their refusal to acknowledge Russian national security concerns or guarantee that Ukraine will not become part of NATO. It has called for the international recognition of the national security concerns of all parties—both Russia and Ukraine.

Wang’s appeal for closer EU ties with China is directed at marshalling support in Europe for negotiations to end the Ukrainian conflict, in opposition to Washington’s determination to escalate the war as a means of weakening and breaking up Russia. While NATO has lined up with the US war drive, there are undoubtedly fears in European capitals, as well as the broader population, about the dangers of a far wider war enveloping Europe.

In an interview on Saturday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said China had to be the one to mediate, but acknowledged that the EU had yet to ask Beijing to do so. “There is no alternative… it must be China, I am sure of that,” he said.

On Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping held a virtual meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in which he declared he was “pained to see the flames of war reignited in Europe” and called for “maximum restraint” in the Ukraine crisis.

While a statement released after the meeting declared that all three leaders supported “negotiations aimed at a diplomatic solution to the conflict,” it announced no concrete proposal for talks or any agreement for a solution. Germany and France have both delivered weapons to Ukraine and supported EU sanctions on Russia. France has also increased the number of its nuclear-armed submarines on active patrol.

President Xi told the National People’s Congress (NPC) on Sunday: “The world has entered a new era of turbulence and change which makes domestic reform and development a challenging task.” Xi is well aware that China is also facing the mounting threat of war as the US seeks to prevent any challenge to its global dominance as well as a worsening economic crisis as the world economy is plunged into turmoil.

In his report Premier Li Keqiang forecast an economic growth rate of just 5.5 percent for China in the coming year—the lowest in decades and well below the government’s benchmark of 8 percent to ensure high employment and prevent social turmoil. Even this figure is optimistic given the uncertainties posed by the conflict in Ukraine.

The US is already ratcheting up pressure on China. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday accused Beijing of hypocrisy, claiming that it was failing to speak up against Russia. “China speaks often about the sanctity of this principle of sovereignty… [Yet] you have one of its permanent members [Russia] violating that very principle.”

The US, of course, has routinely flouted the national sovereignty of countries through coups and invasions. Its unilateral sanctions against Russia in the Ukraine crisis not only ban American corporations from doing business with Russia, but apply to companies around the world including in China.

On Tuesday, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo warned that the US would take “devastating” action against Chinese companies that defied Russian sanctions. In an interview with the New York Times, she declared that the Biden administration could “essentially shut” Chinese enterprises that sold goods to Russia that were subject to US bans, by cutting them off from American equipment and software needed to manufacture their products.

Even more ominously, the US and its allies have been deliberately intensifying tensions with China over Taiwan. In a manner similar to the stream of propaganda accusing Russia of preparing to invade Ukraine, there has been a steady drum beat of warnings and allegations in the Western media that China could invade Taiwan. At the same time, Washington has strengthened its ties with Taipei even while acknowledging the “One China” policy, under which Taiwan is part of China.

In his media conference. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang lashed out at the US for sowing instability in the region by supporting Taiwan. “The real goal of the US Indo-Pacific strategy is to establish an Indo-Pacific NATO,” he said, referring to Washington’s strengthening of military ties with regional allies and strategic partners. “The US is going to great lengths to engage in zero-sum competition with China and keeps provoking China on issues concerning our core interests.”

Wang also drew a distinction between Ukraine and Taiwan. “Some people, while being vocal about the principle of sovereignty on the Ukraine issue, have kept undermining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity on the Taiwan question,” he said. “This is a blatant double standard.”

The continuing US threats and provocations against China, despite its current focus on Russia, underscore the very real danger that the rapidly escalating conflict in Europe will quickly spill over into Asia and potentially engulf the world in a war between nuclear-armed powers.

Democrats, Republicans, Biden agree on staggering increase in military budget

Patrick Martin

The Biden administration and congressional leaders in both the Democratic and Republican parties reached agreement early Wednesday on the passage of an overall budget bill funding federal spending for the rest of the current fiscal year, which runs until September 30.

The House of Representatives passed the legislation Wednesday night, divided into two sections. The military spending portion, providing a record $782 billion to the build-up of the US military machine, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan vote. The social spending portion, smaller at $730 billion, passed on a near party-line vote, 260-171, supported by all but one Democrat and only 39 Republicans.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., center, Assistant Majority Leader Patty Murray, D-Wash., left, and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., right, speaks after the Democratic strategy meeting at the Capitol Hill, Tuesday, March 8, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

The bill is massive, both in terms of the funds allocated, some $1.5 trillion, and in its physical size, more than 2,700 pages. Dozens of extraneous provisions were inserted in the “must-pass” legislation, while other measures were stripped out to appease Senate Republicans, whose support was required to overcome any filibuster.

The record military spending is supplemented by another $14 billion, labeled “aid to Ukraine,” although the bulk of it is spending to support US military operations in Eastern Europe, including the deployment of thousands of additional troops, tanks and warplanes.

The total comes to nearly $800 billion, more than any US administration has ever spent on military operations for a single year. The Biden administration initially requested $715 billion for the Pentagon. Congress raised this figure by $25 billion in the National Defense Authorization Act passed late last year. The appropriations bill adds another $42 billion, plus the Ukraine money.

To this should be added most of the appropriation for the Department of Energy, which manages the production of US nuclear warheads before they are loaded into bombs and missiles, and much of the spending for the Department of Homeland Security, which reached a record $106 billion, an increase of 11 percent, as well as spending on the intelligence agencies.

Total spending by all departments of the federal government for the military-intelligence apparatus certainly exceeds $1 trillion, more than the next eight countries in the world combined. By comparison, the Russian military budget is estimated at $62 billion, about one-sixteenth of the US total.

Other provisions include support for “counterterrorism” efforts in Africa, an additional $1 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome rocket defense system, and money for the State Department to promote pro-Israeli, anti-Palestinian measures such as the Abraham Accords, reached under the Trump administration, between the arch-reactionary oil sheikdoms and the Zionist state.

In order to obtain Senate Republican support for the “omnibus” bill before the next federal shutdown deadline of Friday midnight, the White House, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to virtually every demand by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Appropriations Committee.

McConnell issued a statement declaring, “This agreement provides significantly more money than the Biden Administration requested for defense and significantly less money than the Administration requested for non-defense. At my insistence, it also provides much more money for Ukraine than Democrats had proposed, particularly for authorities and funding to deliver crucial military equipment to Ukraine quickly.”

“The Omnibus rejects liberal policies and effectively addresses Republican priorities,” Shelby gloated. “The House and Senate should act quickly and send it to the President.” Among the Democratic concessions, he cited the dropping of an effort to rescind the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of Medicaid or other federal money to pay for abortions.

Liberal Democrats sought to use the Ukraine crisis as a justification for their support for the record military spending. “I do support military aid to Ukraine,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Democrat, New York). “I think that’s the thing. We never support the defense budget.” Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer said, “It’s situational. And there’s a lot riding on it. We need to support Ukraine.”

The White House also cited the Ukraine aid, as well as a $46 billion increase in domestic social spending, as reasons for supporting the bipartisan deal. But the total spending deviates from Democratic Party claims of “parity” between military and non-military spending, providing $782 billion for the military and $730 billion for all other discretionary spending by the federal government.

Speaking on behalf of the White House, budget director Shalanda Young said in a statement: “The bipartisan funding bill is proof that both parties can come together to deliver for the American people and advance critical national priorities... It will mean historic levels of assistance for the Ukrainian people, a bold new initiative to drive unprecedented progress in curing cancer and other diseases, and more support to keep our communities safe.”

The latter was a reference to additional funding for state and local police agencies, mainly through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Justice Department.

The division of the omnibus spending bill into two parts is for the purposes of political posturing. All the Democrats and a handful of Republicans approved the domestic social spending, while most Republicans and all but seven Democrats approved the military spending. Each measure contains a provision to combine the two into a single bill when it goes to the Senate later in the week.

In a significant exposure of the reactionary maneuvering to obtain passage of the bill, Speaker Pelosi removed a $15.6 billion provision for supplementary COVID-19 spending from the omnibus bill, which delayed the planned vote from the afternoon until late at night. She did so after many “progressive” Democrats objected to the method used to finance the COVID-19 supplement, which was to raid funds already previously appropriated under last year’s American Relief Act but not yet sent to state and local governments for distribution.

In other words, the COVID-19 “spending” was not new money at all, in contrast to the Ukraine military supplement, which is added to the money being allocated to the Pentagon. There was widespread opposition from Democratic representatives spread across some 30 states that would lose money. In a letter to the Democratic caucus, Pelosi admitted that states would lose about 9 percent of the federal funds they were expecting to receive. This admission only generated more opposition, so Pelosi simply pulled the bill from the floor so that it could be hurriedly revised and resubmitted.

The episode demonstrates both the cynical and reactionary character of the congressional Democratic leadership, and the timidity of the “opposition” by progressives, if it even merits the name. All factions of the Democratic Party will be united in passage of the overall legislation, in both the House and Senate, providing the biggest bonanza in history for the US war machine.

COVID-19 infections rise in Australia as BA.2 begins to take hold

Martin Scott

In the past week, 203,275 COVID-19 infections were recorded in Australia, an increase of around 20 percent over the previous week, and the highest seven-day figure in a month.

The dangerous BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron has begun to take hold in Australia. According to covariants.org, BA.2 accounts for 24 percent of cases nationally. Across the country, the prevalence of BA.2 is growing at a rate of around 8.9 percent per day.

BA.2 accounts for 30 percent of recent samples sequenced in New South Wales (NSW) and 20 percent in Victoria. The small percentage of samples that are sequenced are mostly from seriously ill patients, meaning if there is an over representation of BA.2 in this data, it is because the sub-variant is causing more severe symptoms.

A drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Saturday, January 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

Across the country, only a tiny handful of positive test specimens are subjected to genomic sequencing. Each week, fewer than 2,500 sequences are reported to GISAID, the largest repository of COVID-19 samples in the world.

This is part of the criminal attempt by Australian governments to hide crucial information about the pandemic from the population and conceal the devastating and continuing consequences of the “let it rip” policy.

The media is entirely on board with the cover-up. While Australians continue to die from COVID-19 at a rate of more than 36 per day, the pandemic has virtually disappeared from the headlines.

Nevertheless, it is clear that BA.2 is spreading rapidly and is likely to become the dominant strain in Australia within weeks.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard today revealed in parliament that modelling from the University of NSW (UNSW) predicted daily cases could double by mid-April as the sub-variant takes hold.

While he said the preliminary evidence was “concerning,” Hazzard did not propose a return of indoor mask mandates, density limits, or other public health measures, but merely said “people need to go out and get the booster fast.”

Labor Shadow Minister for Health Ryan Park agreed, posting on Twitter: “Cases could double in as little as one month. COVID hasn’t been washed away with the floods. Please get boosted.”

Fewer than 60 percent of adults have received a booster in NSW, compared with double-dose rates well in excess of 90 percent. The low booster take up is clearly bound up with the official propaganda barrage claiming that the pandemic is a thing of the past.

While Park raised the need to “prepare hospitals” for a surge in cases, he said nothing about reintroducing measures to actually reduce transmission.

James Wood, from the UNSW School of Public Health, said he expected 90 percent of COVID-19 infections in the state will be BA.2 by the end of this month.

Wood said the emergence of BA.2 “is the main factor driving the rise in cases.”

The increasing spread of BA.2 in Australia mirrors what is taking place globally. The sub-variant is dominant in at least 34 countries, including 4 of the 10 highest-ranking countries in terms of daily infections.

In Hong Kong, where per capita death and infection rates in the current COVID-19 surge are smashing all previous records around the world, BA.2 accounts for all sequenced samples.

A recent University of Tokyo study found BA.2 is more transmissible, more vaccine evading and more resistant to previous infection than the original Omicron strain, BA.1.

In addition, the study found that BA.2 caused more severe illness than BA.1, because it reproduced deeper in the lungs of the animals studied.

Scientist Yaneer Bar-Yam told the World Socialist Web Site in a recent interview: “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 and the Tokyo study’s lead scientist, Kei Sato, agreed the designation of BA.2 as a sub-variant was incorrect, as it is different enough from BA.1 to warrant its own Greek letter.

With mounting evidence that BA.2 may be the most dangerous variant yet, the World Health Organisation’s refusal to classify it as a “variant of concern” in its own right is based on politics, not science.

Such a designation would conflict with the narrative relentlessly pushed by governments and the corporate media that Omicron is “mild,” COVID-19 will become “endemic,” and the pandemic is “over.”

These utterly false and unscientific claims are designed to force children and teachers back into schools, and workers back into factories and offices, in order to satisfy the demands of big business that nothing, even the deaths of millions of people, be allowed to stand in the way of ever-increasing profits.

In fact, the only thing that is “over” is any semblance of a public health response to COVID-19, anywhere in the world except China.

Australian governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike, have in recent weeks slashed virtually all of the few remaining COVID-19 safety measures.

Daily case numbers are increasing in NSW, Western Australia (WA), South Australia, Tasmania, and the Australian Capital Territory.

In addition to the rise of the more-transmissible BA.2, the surge is being driven by growing infections in schools after students and teachers were forced back into face-to-face learning last month despite massive levels of community transmission.

Details of COVID-19 outbreaks in schools are tightly suppressed, but the Committee for Public Education has collected reports of almost 1,000 schools affected by the virus in Term 1, a fraction of the total.

It has been reported on social media that 600–700 students (more than a quarter of the school population) at Castle Hill High School are absent due to a major outbreak of COVID-19.

The Hills Shire Local Government Area, where the school is located, currently has the second-highest number of active cases in NSW, with an average of more than 500 new infections reported each day.

The bipartisan character of the murderous “let it rip” policies is starkly revealed in WA.

The state was the last in Australia to maintain at least a partial suppression policy, and maintained a “hard border” until last week. This was in no small part due to massive public support for elimination of COVID-19 demonstrated in the landslide re-election of Labor Premier Mark McGowan in March last year.

Today WA reported 4,535 new infections, more than the total recorded in the state from the beginning of the pandemic until February 23.

Since the beginning of the year, 17,000 students and 1,400 staff have either tested positive for COVID-19 or needed to isolate due to exposure.

An outbreak among bus drivers in the state forced the cancellation of around 30 bus routes on Tuesday.

Following the blueprint established throughout the country, the WA Labor government’s response to the massive surge in cases was not to tighten public health measures in an attempt to stem transmission, but to slash close contact and isolation rules for school children, teachers and “critical workers”—essentially everyone who cannot work from home.

The emergence of BA.2 is an entirely predictable result of the decision by capitalist governments around the world to promote the rampant spread of COVID-19. The world has been turned into a massive petri dish for the development of an unlimited number of new and more dangerous strains of the virus.

Market convulsions could spark financial crisis

Nick Beams

Somewhere along the way, more likely sooner than later, a major speculative investor or financial institution could take a significant hit because of the gyrations in markets, with far-reaching consequences ripping through the global financial system.

Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, financial markets were their most fragile since March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, due to fears of what interest rate increases and a tightening of monetary policy by the US Fed and other central banks would produce.

The Wall St. street sign is framed by the American flags flying outside the New York Stock exchange, Friday, Jan. 14, 2022, in the Financial District. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

The sanctions imposed on the Russian banking and financial system by the US and NATO along with the bans on Russian oil by the US have sent commodity prices soaring—not only for oil and natural gas, but wheat and other grains together with industrial metals.

Oil has gone as high as $139 a barrel. Gas prices in Europe at one stage hit €345 a megawatt hour before falling back to €241. One year ago, the price was €16.

The financial flow-on effects of the escalation of commodity prices were starkly demonstrated this week in the market for nickel, of which Russia is a major producer.

On Monday, the price of nickel on the London Metals Exchange (LME) rose by 75 percent to $50,000 a tonne. The next day it doubled to $100,000, then fell back to $80,000 before the LME suspended trading in the metal.

Nickel prices usually move at most by a few percent a day and long-time traders in the LME said they had never seen in anything like it before.

The financial impact was soon revealed. Chinese billionaire Xiang Guangda, the founder of the country’s leading stainless-steel producer Tsingshan Holding Group, had shorted nickel, that is, had taken out contracts based on the assumption its price would fall.

The movement the other way left the company with paper losses totalling several billions of dollars. Initial estimates in the Chinese media were that losses could be as high as $8 billion.

Announcing the suspension of nickel trading, which is not expected to resume before the end of this week, the LME said the decision was taken on “orderly market grounds.”

The extreme turbulence extends well beyond commodity markets and the institutions that trade in them, often making large bets based on where they consider prices will move. It also impacts on banks that have invested in Russian financial markets.

The Italian bank UniCredit, the world’s 34th largest, has warned it faces losses of around €7 billion in the face of an “extreme scenario” in which its entire Russian business is wiped out. The company said yesterday it had loans of about €7.8 billion in its Russian consumer unit and cross-border exposures to companies of €4.5 billion of which about 5 percent had been hit by sanctions.

The effect of the sanctions goes far beyond the companies and financial institutions that are directly caught up in them.

In an article earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal cited the remarks of Christopher Smart, a former special assistant to President Obama. He said the situation facing global businesses in the wake of the sanctions was reminiscent of that which accompanied the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

“We’ve never seen anything this comprehensive, this powerful and this sudden imposed on an economy this size and important to the global economy,” he said.

It recalled Lehman Brothers because of uncertainty about who had exposure to Russia. “I may know that I’m not exposed, but I’m not really sure who among my clients may be exposed, who has investments that they’re … going to have to write down,” Smart commented.

The surge in commodity prices, which is already lifting the inflation rate around the world, has enormously complicated the situation facing the world’s major central banks.

Before the war crisis they were on course to begin tightening monetary policy—already a delicate operation given that the financial markets have become so dependent on cheap money that even a small rise could provoke market turbulence and even a recession.

Now inflation is surging, and the financial system has become even more unstable. The first indication of how they intend to react will come today when the European Central Bank (ECB) announces the future direction of its monetary policy.

Last month the ECB’s governing council said it would undertake a “gradual normalisation” of monetary policy including a possible wind-down of its asset purchasing program and a lifting of interest rates at least by the end of the year.

The indications from ECB President Christine Lagarde and ECB Chief Economist Philip Lane are that these plans may be put on hold.

As the Financial Times noted, Lagarde has said the bank would “take whatever action is needed” in response to the Ukraine situation. Lane said it could accept inflation above its 2 percent target when dealing with “an adverse supply shock” and the bank could consider “new policy instruments” to support financial markets.

However, such measures could widen already existing divisions in the bank’s governing council. Some members may insist that the “normalisation” policy must continue under conditions where inflation hit a eurozone record of 5.8 percent in February and is expected to go to 7 percent later this year.

The FT cited one “hawk” on the governing council who said: “It is obvious that inflation will stay with us, so we have to do something. We cannot just say we will wait and see.”

The Fed will determine its monetary policy next week, having already pencilled in a rise of 0.25 percent, with further rises of the same size over the course of the year as well as starting to reduce its $9 trillion holdings of financial assets.

The expectation of interest rate rises has already had a major impact on Wall Street with the tech-heavy NASDAQ index now down by almost 20 percent so far this year.

The shares of tech companies, many of which have yet to turn a profit, are highly sensitive to interest rate increases because their “expectations” of future profits are discounted at the prevailing interest rate to determine their present market value—the higher the rate the lower the value.

An article by Robin Wigglesworth in the FT noted: “In dollar terms, the tech-heavy market has now lost well over $5 trillion since its November peak—more than the NASDAQ’s dollar losses through the entire dotcom bubble unwinding in 2000–02.”

The relatively stronger position of Big Tech companies—the well-known names such as Apple, Google and Microsoft—was obscuring the extent of the damage. But the rapid fall in the shares of Meta (the owner of Facebook) indicate that even Big Tech is not immune.

It has been estimated that almost two-thirds of the NADAQ’s 3,000 members have fallen by at least 25 percent from their 52-week highs. Almost 43 percent have lost more than half their value and a fifth had dropped by over 75 percent.

“The $5.15 trillion that has evaporated from the NASDAQ in recent weeks is like the entire UK stock market going ‘poof’,” Wigglesworth wrote.

Goldman Sachs has estimated that if the Fed decides to forcefully tighten monetary policy—and it may decide to do so with inflation predicted to rise even further in the US, possibly reaching double-digit levels—the NASDAQ could fall another 17 percent.

Wigglesworth concluded that a repeat of the dotcom bust may not come but added that “the scales of the wealth destruction is already enormous” and the “wider reverberations are still unknowable, and could be significant.”

Understanding the War in Ukraine

Vijay Prashad

kyiv ukraine

The war between Russia and Ukraine began much before February 24, 2022—the date provided by the Ukrainian government, NATO and the United States for the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to Dmitry Kovalevich, a journalist and a member of a now-banned communist organization in Ukraine, the war actually started in the spring of 2014 and has never stopped since.

He writes to me from the south of Kyiv/Kiev, Ukraine, and recounts an anecdote: “What’s there at the front line?” asks one person. “Our troops are winning as usual!” comes the response. “Who are our troops?” the first person inquires and is told, “We’ll soon see…” In a war, everything is in dispute, even the name of Ukraine’s capital (Kyiv in Ukrainian, and Kiev in Russian, goes the debate online).

Wars are among the most difficult of reporting assignments for a journalist. These days, especially, with the torrent of social media and the belligerence of network news television channels, matters on the ground are hard to sort out. Basic facts about the events taking place during a war are hard to establish, let alone ensuring the correct interpretation of these facts. Videos of apparent war atrocities that can be found on social media platforms like YouTube are impossible to verify. Often, it becomes clear that much of the content relating to war that can be found on these platforms has either been misidentified or is from other conflicts. Even the BBC, which has taken a very strong pro-Ukrainian and NATO position on this conflict, had to run a story about how so many of the viral claims about Russian atrocities are false. Among these false claims, which have garnered widespread circulation, is a video circulating on TikTok that wrongly alleges to be that of a “Ukrainian girl confronting a Russian soldier,” but is instead a video of the then-11-year-old Palestinian Ahed Tamimi confronting an Israeli soldier in 2012; the video continues to circulate on TikTok with the caption, “Little [girls] stand up to Russian soldiers.”

Meanwhile, disputing the date for the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war as February 24, Kovalevich tells me, “The war in Ukraine didn’t start in February 2022. It began in the spring of 2014 in the Donbas and has not stopped for these eight years.” Kovalevich is a member of Borotba (Struggle), a communist organization in Ukraine. Borotba, like other communist and Marxist organizations, was banned by the previous U.S.-backed Ukrainian government of Petro Poroshenko in 2015 (as part of this ongoing crackdown, two communist youth leaders—Aleksandr Kononovich and Mikhail Kononovich—were arrested by Ukrainian security services on March 6).

“Most of our comrades had to migrate to Donetsk and Luhansk,” Kovalevich tells me. These are the two eastern provinces of mainly Russian speakers that broke away from “Ukrainian government control in 2014” and had been under the control of Russian-backed groups. In February, however, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized these “two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent,” making this contentious move the stepping stone for the final military invasion by Russia. Now, Kovalevich says, his comrades “expect to come back from exile and work legally.” This expectation is based on the assumption that the Ukrainian government will be forced to get rid of the existing system, which includes Western-trained-and-funded anti-Russian right-wing vigilante and paramilitary agents in the country, and will have to reverse many of the Poroshenko-era illiberal and anti-minority (including anti-Russian) laws.

‘I Feel Nervous’

“I feel quite nervous,” Kovalevich tells me. “[This war] looks very grim and not so much because of the Russians but because of our [Ukrainian] armed gangs that are looting and robbing [the country].” When the Russians intervened, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy handed out weapons to any citizen who wanted to defend the country. Kovalevich, who lives in central Ukraine just south of the capital, says, “My area was not affected by military actions—only by the terror of [right-wing] nationalist gangs.”

During the first days of the Russian military intervention, Kovalevich took in a Roma family who had fled from the war zone. “My family had a spare room,” Kovalevich tells me. Roma organizations say that there are about 400,000 Roma in Ukraine, most of them living in the western part of Ukraine, in Zakarpatska Oblast (bordering Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia). “The Roma people in our country are regularly assaulted by [right-wing] nationalists,” Kovalevich says. “The nationalists used to attack them [Roma] publicly, burning their encampments, calling it ‘cleansing garbage.’ The police didn’t react as our far-right gangs always work in cooperation with either the police or with the security service.” This Roma family, who was being sheltered by Kovalevich and his family, is on the move toward western Ukraine, where most of the Ukrainian-Roma population lives. “But it is very unsafe to move,” Kovalevich tells me. “There are nationalists [manning these] checkpoints [along] all roads [in Ukraine, and they] may shoot [anyone] who may seem suspicious to them or just rob refugees.”

Minsk Agreements

The war in the Donbas region that began in 2014 resulted in two agreements being signed in Belarus in 2014 and 2015, which were named after the capital of Belarus, and were called the Minsk agreements. These agreements were aimed at “[ending] the separatist war by Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine.” The second of these agreements was signed by two leading political figures from Ukraine (Leonid Kuchma, the president of Ukraine from 1994 to 2005) and from Russia (Mikhail Zurabov, the ambassador of the Russian Federation to Ukraine, 2009-2016), respectively, and was overseen by a Swiss diplomat (Heidi Tagliavini, who chaired the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia, 2008-2009). This Minsk II agreement was endorsed by the UN Security Council resolution 2022 on February 17, 2015. If the Minsk agreements had been adhered to, Russia and Ukraine would have secured an arrangement that would have been acceptable in the Donbas.

“Two Ukrainian governments signed the Minsk agreements,” Kovalevich tells me, “but didn’t fulfill it. Recently Zelenskyy’s officials openly mocked the agreement, saying they wouldn’t fulfill it (encouraged by the U.S. and the UK, of course). That was a sheer violation of all rules—you can’t sign [the agreements] and then refuse to fulfill it.” The language of the Minsk agreements was, as Kovalevich says, “liberal enough for the government.” The two republics of Donetsk and Luhansk would have remained a part of Ukraine and they would have been afforded some cultural autonomy (this was in the footnote to Article 11 of the February 12, 2015, Minsk II Agreement). “This was unacceptable to our nationalists and [right-wing nationalists],” Kovalevich says to me. They “would like to organize purges and vengeance there [in Donetsk and Luhansk].” Before the Russian military intervention, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights found that more than 14,000 people had been killed in the ongoing conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk despite the Minsk agreements. It is this violence that provokes Kovalevich to make his comments about the violence of the ultra-nationalists and the right-wing paramilitary. “The elected authorities are a cover, masking the real rulers of Ukraine,” Kovalevich says. Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy and his allies in the parliament do not drive the governing process in their country but have “an agenda imposed on them by the far-right armed groups.”

Peace?

Negotiations are ongoing on the Ukraine-Belarus border between the Russians and the Ukrainians. Kovalevich is, however, not optimistic about a positive outcome from these negotiations. Decisions, he says, are not made by the Ukrainian president alone, but by the right-wing ultra-nationalist paramilitary armed groups and the NATO countries. As Kovalevich and I were speaking, the Washington Post published a report about “Plans for a U.S.-backed insurgency in Ukraine”; former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton implied an Afghanistan-style guerrilla war in Ukraine, saying, “We have to keep tightening the screws.” “This reveals that they [the U.S.] don’t really care about Ukrainians,” Kovalevich says. “They want to use this as an opportunity to cause some pain to the Russians.”

These comments by Clinton and others suggest to Kovalevich that the United States wants “to organize chaos between Russia and the Europeans.” Peace in Ukraine, he says, “is a matter of reconciliation between NATO and the new global powers, Russia and China.” Till such a reconciliation is possible, and till Europe develops a rational foreign policy, “we will be affected by wars,” says Kovalevich.