About the Award: The CFA Institute Access Scholarship Program (“Program”) is designed to make CFA Institute programs more available to individuals who may not be able to afford the full program fees. (“Access Scholarships”). In order to protect the integrity of the Program, the following Official Rules (“Rules”) shall bind all participants in the Program.
Scholarship Candidates may be either new or existing candidates in the CFA Program. There is no minimum or maximum income or asset level for Scholarship Candidates. Candidates are ineligible if their current employer provides any financial assistance for participation in the CFA Program. Candidates can only receive one Access Scholarship per calendar year. Further, a Candidate may only receive one scholarship per exam, so if a candidate applies for both an Access and an Awareness Scholarship, and receives an award, the remaining application will be void.
Selection Criteria: Applications will be reviewed by CFA Institute and/or a local CFA Institute Member Society in the Scholarship Candidate’s geographic area. While financial need will be strongly considered, awards may be made based on a combination of factors, including financial need; the academic, professional or other accomplishments of the candidate; obstacles overcome by the candidate; contributions to the local community; the candidate’s interest in pursuing the CFA charter; and other personal characteristics that indicate the individual is a strong candidate to receive an Access Scholarship and become a CFA charter holder.
Number of Awardees: Not specified
Value of Scholarship: The scholarship covers the one-time CFA Program enrollment fee (if applicable) and reduces the exam registration fee (includes access to the curriculum eBook) to US$250.
Mural at the hall of the Arts House of the University of Concepción, Chile. Photograph Source: Fotografía tomada por Farisori; Autor del mural: Jorge González Camarena – CC BY-SA 3.0
The world wants to see an end to the conflict in Ukraine. The NATO countries, however, want to prolong the conflict by increasing arms shipments to Ukraine and by declaring that they want to “weaken Russia.” The United States had already allocated $13.6 billion to arm Ukraine. Biden has just requested $33 billion more. By comparison, it would require $45 billion per year to end world hunger by 2030.
Even if negotiations take place and the war ends, an actual peaceful solution will not likely be possible. Nothing leads us to believe that geopolitical tensions will decrease, since behind the conflict around Ukraine is an attempt by the West to halt the development of China, to break its links with Russia, and to end China’s strategic partnerships with the Global South.
In March, commanders of the U.S. Africa Command (General Stephen J. Townsend) and Southern Command (General Laura Richardson) warned the U.S. Senate about the perceived dangers of increased Chinese and Russian influence in Africa as well as Latin America and the Caribbean. The generals recommended that the United States weaken the influence of Moscow and Beijing in these regions. This policy is part of the 2018 national security doctrine of the United States, which frames China and Russia as its “central challenges.”
No Cold War
Latin America does not want a new cold war. The region has already suffered from decades of military rule and austerity politics justified based on the so-called “communist threat.” Tens of thousands of people lost their lives and many tens of thousands more were imprisoned, tortured, and exiled only because they wanted to create sovereign countries and decent societies. This violence was a product of the U.S.-imposed cold war on Latin America.
Latin America wants peace. Peace can only be built on regional unity, a process that began 20 years ago after a cycle of popular uprisings, driven by the tsunami of neoliberal austerity, led to the election of progressive governments: Venezuela (1999), Brazil (2002), Argentina (2003), Uruguay (2005), Bolivia (2005), Ecuador (2007), and Paraguay (2008). These countries, joined by Cuba and Nicaragua, created a set of regional organizations: the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America–Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) in 2004, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) in 2008, and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in 2011. These platforms were intended to increase regional trade and political integration. Their gains were met with increased aggression from Washington, which sought to undermine the process by attempting to overthrow the governments in many of the member countries and by dividing the regional blocs to suit Washington’s interests.
Brazil
Because of its size and its political relevance, Brazil was a key player in these early organizations. In 2009, Brazil joined with Russia, India, China, and South Africa to form BRICS, a new alliance with the goal to rearrange the power relations of global trade and politics.
Brazil’s role did not please the White House, which—avoiding the crudeness of a military coup—staged a successful operation, in alliance with sectors of the Brazilian elite, that used the Brazilian legislature, judiciary system, and media to overthrow the government of President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and to cause the arrest of President Lula in 2018 (who was then leading the polls in the presidential election). Both were accused of a corruption scheme involving the Brazilian state oil company, and an investigation by Brazil’s judiciary known as Operation Car Wash ensued. The participation of both the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI in that investigation was revealed following a massive leak of the Telegram chats of Operation Car Wash’s lead prosecutor. However, before the U.S. interference was uncovered, the removal of Lula and Dilma from politics brought the right wing back to power in Brasília; Brazil no longer played a leading role in either the regional or the global projects that could weaken U.S. power. Brazil abandoned UNASUR and CELAC, and remains in BRICS only formally—as is also the case with India—weakening the perspective of strategic alliances of the Global South.
Turning Tide
In recent years, Latin America has experienced a new wave of progressive governments. The idea of regional integration has returned to the table. After four years without a summit meeting, CELAC reconvened in September 2021 under the leadership of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Argentine President Alberto Fernández. Should Gustavo Petro win the Colombian presidential election in May 2022, and Lula win his campaign for reelection to Brazil’s presidency in October 2022, for the first time in decades, the four largest economies in Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia) would be governed by the center-left, notably supporters of Latin American and Caribbean integration. Lula has said that if he wins the presidency, Brazil will return to CELAC and will resume an active stance in BRICS.
The Global South might be prepared to reemerge by the end of the year and create space for itself within the world order. Evidence for this is in the lack of unanimity that greeted NATO’s attempt to create the largest coalition to sanction Russia. This NATO project has aroused a backlash around the Global South. Even governments that condemn the war (such as Argentina, Brazil, India, and South Africa) do not agree with NATO’s unilateral sanction policy and prefer to support negotiations for a peaceful solution. The idea of resuming a movement of the nonaligned—inspired by the initiative launched at the conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955—has found resonance in numerous circles.
Their intention is correct. They seek to de-escalate global political tensions, which are a threat to the sovereignty of countries and tend to negatively impact the global economy. The spirit of nonconfrontation, and peace, of the Bandung Conference is urgent today.
But the Non-Aligned Movement emerged as a refusal by Third World countries to choose a side in the polarization between the United States and USSR during the Cold War. They were fighting for their sovereignty and the right to have relations with the countries of both systems, without their foreign policy being decided in Washington or Moscow.
This is not the current scenario. Only the Washington-Brussels axis (and allies) demand alignment with their so-called “rules-based international order.” Those who do not align suffer from sanctions applied against dozens of countries (devastating entire economies, such as those of Venezuela and Cuba), illegal confiscation of hundreds of billions of dollars in assets (as in the cases of Venezuela, Iran, Afghanistan, and Russia), invasions and interference resulting in genocidal wars (as in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan), and outside support for “color revolutions” (from Ukraine in 2014 to Brazil in 2016). The demand for alignment comes only from the West, not from China or Russia.
Humanity faces urgent challenges, such as inequality, hunger, the climate crisis, and the threat of new pandemics. To overcome them, regional alliances in the Global South must be able to institute a new multipolarity in global politics. But the usual suspects may have other plans for humanity.
Today’s Queen’s Speech, in which the government’s legislative agenda for the upcoming session of Parliament is outlined, took place amid a heightened political crisis for the ruling class. The Conservative government’s programme was a further lurch to the right, with an evisceration of democratic rights at its centre.
With Buckingham Palace citing the queen’s “episodic mobility problems”, the 96-year-old monarch was unable to attend the State Opening of Parliament to read the speech. The queen has only twice missed the ritualistic constitutional ceremony in her 70 years on the throne, both due to pregnancies, and the last time in 1963.
Instead, the deeply unpopular Prince Charles, himself 73 and next in line to the throne, gave the speech with the queen’s Imperial State Crown on a table next to him. The Palace ensured that Charles’s eldest son, Prince William, attended his first State Opening sitting alongside him.
Prince Charles sits next to the Queen's crown during the State Opening of Parliament, at the Palace of Westminster in London, May 10, 2022. Queen Elizabeth II did not attend the opening of Parliament amid ongoing mobility issues. Prince William is seated second left, and Camilla Duchess of Cornwall is seated right. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, Pool)
With both heirs to the throne present, the state was on full alert. Sky News anchor Adam Boulton noted, “The security around Westminster is the greatest I have seen in four decades,” adding that “they’ve [police and security] sealed off all the way around the [Buckingham] Palace, as well as the Mall, and St James Park, as well as here at Westminster.”
The event took place amid NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, in which Britain is buried up to the hilt, and as a massive political crisis affecting the major political parties rages at home.
Last week’s elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly saw the nationalist Sinn Féin win the most seats, intensifying the crisis of British imperialism both in its oldest colony and regarding its relations with the European Union and the US. The pro-British Unionist parties are demanding the scrapping of the Northern Ireland Protocol governing post-Brexit EU trade and there is little possibility of the power-sharing executive resuming. But given the threat of a constitutional unravelling and a possible trade war that would alienate Washington as well as Berlin and Paris, the Queen’s Speech could only refer in general to taking “all steps necessary” to protect Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market.
Since November, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s leadership has been threatened by the Partygate scandal, after it was revealed he and other leading government officials broke COVID public health measures in place during 2020/21. But Johnson may now not be the first leader forced to stand down. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has been dragged into the crisis in the “Beergate” scandal, with Durham police launching an investigation into whether he also breached rules during a political campaign event in the north east of England. Just 24 hours prior to Parliament opening, Starmer announced that if he is fined he will resign along with his deputy, Angela Rayner—following his repeated calls demanding Johnson’s resignation.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (left) and Boris Johnson walk to the House of Lords to hear the Queen's Speech (Credit: UK Parliament Jessica Taylor)
The government’s response was to throw “red meat” to satisfy the Tory Party’s right-wing constituency and the capitalist class demanding an escalation in the offensive against the working class.
Despite Johnson’s “levelling up” mantra, there was not a single concession to workers being hammered by more than a decade of grinding austerity. In what was presented as the first “post-COVID” Queen’s Speech by a government that has overseen almost 200,000 deaths, what was tabled was a deepening of the onslaught to be imposed by repressive measures.
The speech contained 38 bills to be legislated, including a Public Order Bill, which, building on the newly passed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, effectively ends the right to protest. All protests “interfering with key national infrastructure” such as airports, railways and newspaper printing presses, will be outlawed, with prison sentences of up to 12 months. Any person blocking the construction of major transport projects such as the HS2 high-speed train network faces six months in prison.
“Locking on”, where environment protesters glue themselves to roads and structures, will incur a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment and an unlimited fine. People deemed to have come equipped to lock on will also be hit with a fine.
Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab has authored a grotesquely named Bill of Rights to “restore the balance of power between the legislature and the courts”, which will repeal the Human Rights Act introduced in 1998 by the Blair Labour government. The government cynically announced Raab’s Bill would curb “the incremental expansion of a rights culture without proper democratic oversight”.
Law Society president Stephanie Boyce warned, “If the new Bill of Rights becomes law, it would make it harder for all of us to protect or enforce our rights. The proposed changes make the state less accountable. This undermines a crucial element of the rule of law, preventing people from challenging illegitimate uses of power.”
Whatever remains of any European Union-based legislation that hinders the untrammelled operations of big business is to be shredded under a Brexit Freedoms Bill. The Independent noted, “The legislation will also remove the principle of supremacy of EU law, which still applies to 2,376 acts of parliament passed before Brexit.” The Bill allows the amendment or repeal of many laws by using “secondary legislation”, to be enacted by ministers without full parliamentary scrutiny.
Among other incoming legislation is a media bill facilitating the privatisation of Channel 4 Television, a precursor to the eventual privatising of the main state broadcaster the BBC, a long-time aim of the Conservatives.
A measure aimed at bolstering the Israeli apartheid state will prevent public bodies from boycotting certain countries, i.e., Israel.
Further laws to be enacted include a national security bill, which will tighten the official secrets law and require lobbyists and PRs to register any work carried out for foreign states.
The Great British Railways Act will see the state offering the private sector train-operating companies guaranteed returns. It lays the basis for intensifying attacks on railworkers’ conditions. Another law will require all vessels operating at UK ports, specifically ferry companies, to pay employees the minimum wage, in effect laying the basis for a permanently low paid workforce.
The Queen’s Speech is a declaration of war against the working class by a ruling elite that is shoveling unlimited financial resources into a proxy war against Russia, threatening a nuclear conflict. This is to be paid for by workers through an assault on their jobs, pay, terms and conditions and access to the basics of life including health care, education and housing.
In response, Starmer cynically called for the government to address the raging cost of living crisis as inflation races towards 10 percent. Johnson said only that he would address this “in the days to come”. This will consist of a few sops doing nothing to address the social distress impacting millions of people who can no longer afford to live. It may include making a grant of the £200 energy bills loan being made available to households from October. To put this into perspective, a household using a typical amount of gas and electricity will by then be paying up to £2,600 annually.
Millions already cannot even afford to eat properly. Research published this week by the Food Foundation reveals that almost 5 percent of households, or 2.4 million adults, had not eaten for a whole day during the last month. More than one in 10 households (6.8 million adults) had eaten smaller meals than usual or skipped meals because they could not afford or access food. Some 2.6 million children live in households that do not have access to a healthy and affordable diet, which puts them at high risk of diet-related diseases.
In this situation, that a sated ruling elite with no significant social base to govern can offer nothing except militarism, war and repression points to a society headed for a social explosion.
On May 9, on the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and newly-reelected French President Emmanuel Macron met in Berlin. They discussed plans to accelerate the re-militarization of Germany and the EU and escalate EU participation in the war NATO is waging against Russia in Ukraine.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, left, welcomes French president Emmanuel Macron, center, with military honors prior to a meeting at the the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Monday, May 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)
In the evening, the two visited the Brandenburg Gate, which was illuminated in Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow colors. A few hundred supporters and journalists were allowed to gather near Scholz and Macron and to shout pro-Ukrainian slogans. Asked by journalists what message he and Scholz intended to send with their night-time visit to the Brandenburg Gate, Macron replied: “Full support for Ukraine.”
Earlier that day, Scholz had given a speech rejecting any “Russian-dictated peace” in Ukraine, after having accused Russia of waging a “war of extermination” and “breaking with civilization.” The reactionary capitalist regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin is waging war in Ukraine, but Scholz’s war speech, effectively equating Russia with Nazism as a genocidal entity that must be fought and destroyed, was inflammatory and false. It was the basis for Scholz and Macron to lay out a militaristic agenda.
At the joint press conference, Scholz praised Macron's reelection as “a good sign for Europe.” He said that there had been agreement “for a long time that our countries can only successfully master the great challenges of our time if we proceed together and within the framework of a strong and sovereign Europe. We want to continue on this path together.”
The remarks of Scholz and Macron left no doubt as to what this meant. Berlin and Paris are working to massively rearm Europe and organize it more powerfully in order to be able to pursue their geostrategic and economic interests more independently of Washington. All the phrases of “peace and freedom,” “democracy” and “social justice”—employed repeatedly by both leaders during their remarks—cannot hide this fact.
Scholz and Macron threw their weight behind NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and announced further arms deliveries to Kiev. “We stand closely and unbreakably by Ukraine's side,” Scholz said. “We support them financially, from a humanitarian standpoint and also militarily with our arms deliveries in order to end this war”—that is, to militarily defeat Russia.
Scholz described Germany’s military support for Ukraine as “very far-reaching.” Its arms deliveries, he said, are “very comprehensive assistance from our own stocks, from cooperation with our defense industry and from cooperation with the countries of Eastern Europe that have what is so urgently needed in Ukraine, namely Russian weapons that can be used immediately in the conflict.”
Currently, beyond supplying its own heavy weapons, such as the self-propelled Howitzer 2000, Berlin is organizing so-called “ring exchanges” with Eastern European countries. Concretely, this means that Eastern European EU and NATO member states supply Soviet-designed tanks and air defense missiles to Ukraine. In return, Germany undertakes to replace the respective weapons systems with corresponding weapons of Western and German production.
At the same time, the Bundeswehr will train Ukrainian soldiers in Germany on these weapon systems. Future Ukrainian crews of the self-propelled howitzer 2000 and technical specialists reportedly landed in Rhineland-Palatinate on Tuesday. Training is to start today at the Bundeswehr’s artillery school in Idar-Oberstein. According to an expert report by the Bundestag’s Scientific Service, the training of Ukrainian soldiers on German soil constitutes war participation under international law.
In addition to military support for Ukraine, Scholz stressed that Germany would do “whatever it takes” to “strengthen its own defense capabilities.” At a special summit of the European Council at the end of May, he said, “We want to discuss how we in the European Union can better coordinate our investments in defense and use them more effectively. In this context, we naturally also want to speed up Franco-German armaments projects.”
The far-reaching plans at stake are evident in foreign policy papers such as the “Strategic Compass for Security and Defense,” recently adopted by the EU. In Berlin, Macron described the paper, which aims to equip the EU for “this era of growing strategic competition” and “major geopolitical shifts,” as an important means of establishing a more independent European foreign and war policy.
To achieve the necessary capabilities, the paper commits EU states to “spend more and better in defence” and massive rearmament. Among other things, it proposes to “jointly develop cutting-edge military capabilities” in all operational areas, “such as high-end naval platforms, future combat air systems, space-based capabilities and main battle tanks.”
Some of these mega-projects, worth hundreds of billions in total, such as the new European Future Combat Air System (FCAS) and the Franco-German Main Ground Combat System (MGCS), are now being pushed. For example, the rearmament package announced by Scholz at the end of February provides for spending of some €34 billion on these “multinational armament projects” alone.
At the press conference with Macron, Scholz boasted of Germany's biggest rearmament drive since the Nazis. Berlin, he said, will “permanently spend two percent of its economic output on defense. We have decided that we will launch a special fund of €100 billion to advance this process and also bring about a restructured defense capability for Germany,” he said. Germany already has “a very large conventional army,” he added, and “if we correspondingly strengthen massively our armed forces, of course that will have positive effects on the defense capability of Europe as a whole.”
Macron backed Germany’s rearmament. “Germany has just made far-reaching decisions that I expressly welcome,” he said. Macron also presented his own plans to make Europe more powerful, which were again supported by Scholz. To give Europe “the right political and geopolitical shape,” he advocated building “a European political community.” In addition to Great Britain, which left the EU on January 31, 2020, Macron also mentioned the countries of the Western Balkans and Ukraine as potential members.
On the EU, Macron advocated dispensing with the requirement of unanimity in EU decision-making. He proposed moving to “qualified majority voting” in “public policies that we currently still decide by unanimity … for example, fiscal policy or defence policy.” This would allow the EU to take faster decisions on military offensives and on social austerity policies under conditions of large-scale war and economic crisis on the European continent.
In reality, broad layers of European workers are aware that the reckless war policy of the EU and the entire NATO alliance threatens to escalate into an all-out NATO-Russia nuclear war. One recent poll found that 76 percent of French people are concerned about the danger of a nuclear war with Russia. Nonetheless, EU governments are thrusting aside mass popular disquiet and opposition to rearm and grab their share of the spoils in an imperialist carve-up of the former Soviet Union.
Fierce tensions are building up between the German and French ruling classes under the surface, notably over how the loot is to be divided. During last month’s French presidential election, Macron’s far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen, threatened to end the Franco-German alliance, calling Germany “the absolute negation of French strategic identity.” While every effort is for now being made to paper over these divisions, conflicts inside the EU also continue to mount.
Above all, the EU policy depends on an onslaught against the working class. This takes overt form in Macron’s election promise to spend billions more on the military, even as France sends hundreds of millions of euros in arms to Ukraine, by slashing unemployment payments and pensions and making welfare recipients work for their benefits.
Words are followed by deeds, the saying goes. Spurred on by the nationalist howls of war that have permeated every TV channel and newspaper around the world since the start of the Ukraine war, more and more right-wing radicals in Europe feel emboldened to commit violent and racist attacks.
A shocking incident occurred at the end of April during the Orthodox Easter festival in Greece. Ten to 12 Ukrainian nationalists beat up three people of Russian origin who were celebrating Easter on the beach in Athens. Among the victims was Oksana Maryakhina, a historian and archaeologist who studied at Athens’ Kapodistrias University and has lived in Greece for 20 years, where she also works as a tour guide.
Maryakhina described to the Greek news website The Press Project how the group of Ukrainian nationalists shouted the far-right slogan “Slava Ukraini” (“Glory to Ukraine”) and attacked her and two friends after they identified themselves as Russians. One of them hit her in the face with a knuckle duster, she said. “They kicked and punched my arms, legs and ribs so that I collapsed covered in blood.” Police were called but were late in arriving, she said. In a video posted on her Facebook page the day after, she showed the wounds on her eye, cheek and head.
Oksana Maryakhina after a violent attack by Ukrainian nationalists in Athens (Photo: Facebook video).
“This is clearly a fascist attack just because we are Russians and we support our country,” she said in an interview with The Press Project. “Not only do we feel threatened, but now we are afraid to speak Russian in the street.” There have been many attacks, and Russian restaurants are also being threatened, Maryakhina said. The newspaper refers to screenshots it has showing that Ukrainian nationalists have created lists of “pro-Russian separatists” in Greece.
There were right-wing extremist attacks in Greece in the first weeks after the war began. In mid-March, neo-Nazis desecrated the monument to the Soviet soldier in the Athens district of Kallithea, dedicated to three Red Army prisoners of war who were executed by the Nazi occupiers in the summer of 1944. Unknown persons daubed the monument with the word “Azov,” a reference to the far-right Ukrainian Azov battalion fighting Russia, the SS symbol of the “Wolfangel,” used by Azov, and the Celtic cross, an identifying symbol of Greek and international far-right groups.
Monument to the Soviet soldier in Athens, smeared with Nazi symbols, 19 March 2022 (Photo: Facebook page of the Russian Embassy in Greece).
In early April, violent attacks took place against a pro-Russian motorcade protest in central Athens, injuring two people and damaging cars. According to the daily Kathimerini, criminal proceedings were initiated against two suspects of Georgian origin for attempted murder, racism, violation of the weapons law and other charges.
Such acts of violence against the backdrop of the Ukraine war are not limited to Greece. In Bulgaria, clashes broke out a few days ago after the parliament voted in favour of “military-technical support” for Ukraine. Pro-Ukrainian demonstrators demanding arms deliveries tried to cover the Soviet Army monument in the capital Sofia with the Ukrainian and Bulgarian flags, which pro-Russian counter-demonstrators prevented. A member of the Stalinist Bulgarian organisation “Movement 23 September” was allegedly beaten up by right-wing radicals wearing the Azov symbol on their clothes, The Press Project reported.
In Germany, too, attacks are taking place in connection with the Ukraine war, which are hardly reported by the media. On April 19, the Federal Criminal Police Office reported that around 200 crimes were being committed per week, including threats, insults and damage to property, which are directed “mostly against members of our society of Russian origin, but also against members of our society of Ukrainian origin.”
As the WSWS warned in its first statement after the war began, Putin’s reactionary invasion is dividing the Russian and Ukrainian working class and playing directly into the hands of US and European imperialism. The Western governments have since unleashed a rapid arms build-up and anti-Russia smear campaign. They are deliberately escalating the conflict which threatens to develop into a nuclear war.
Greece plays a key role in NATO policy because of its strategically important geopolitical position. The government under the right-wing Nea Dimokratia (ND) fully supports NATO’s war course and the sanctions of the European Union (EU), despite historically close cultural and economic ties to Russia. Greece was one of the first EU countries to promise arms deliveries to Ukraine, sending mainly rifles and anti-tank missiles. The Greek armed forces are also represented in NATO’s Rapid Reaction Force (NRF), which was activated after the Russian invasion and deployed to the Eastern flank.
An important hub for NATO’s Eastern flank is the northern Greek port city of Alexandroupolis, through which weapons and armaments from other NATO states are transported towards Ukraine. Two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers—the USS Harry S. Truman from the US and the Charles de Gaulle from France—have been transferred to Greece in the Mediterranean.
Greece had already strengthened military relations with the US and Europe before the war. A military agreement with France was signed in September 2021, and the defence agreement with the US was renewed in October. Greece also granted extended access to four US military bases.
From 2017, the pseudo-left Syriza government, in coalition with the far-right Anel, had pushed military cooperation with Washington under then-President Donald Trump. In addition to arms deals, the expansion of the Souda military base on Crete was initiated and the establishment of four new US bases was allowed: in Aktio in Epirus, in Andravida in the North Peloponnese, in Kalamata in the South Peloponnese and in Alexandroupolis.
To push through its foreign policy line, the government is trying to create a climate hostile to Russia. Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni implemented sanctions against Russian cultural institutions as early as the beginning of March and canceled all planned performances of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake with the Bolshoi Ballet, causing a storm of indignation.
On April 7, the government invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to address the Greek parliament by video. Zelensky then ceded the stage to a Greek-born member of the fascist Azov battalion in Mariupol who appealed to Greek nationalism in a repulsive video message.
In the embattled regions of eastern Ukraine, especially in Mariupol, Donetsk and Odessa, there are many members of the Greek minority who have settled on the Sea of Azov for centuries and today still number about 100,000 inhabitants. The fate of these people, who are now suffering from the catastrophic destruction of their towns in the proxy war between NATO and Russia, is cynically misused by the Greek government for its nationalist war rhetoric.
The fact that a member of a fascist fighting organisation was courted in the Greek parliament caused widespread horror in the working class. In a poll, 65 percent gave a negative assessment of the Ukrainian president’s appearance in parliament, only 11 percent reacted positively.
Then, a week ago, Greek state television ERT broadcast an exclusive interview with Zelensky in which he downplayed the role of the Azov Battalion to allay concerns among the Greek population. In 2014, volunteer battalions still dominated, making “quite radical” statements against Russia, Zelensky said. But that had allegedly changed now that the Azov regiment is officially part of the Ukrainian armed forces. So, the incorporation and arming of the neo-Nazis is said to have tamed them!
Ukrainian Ambassador Sergei Shutenko in Athens was also given the opportunity to defend the Azov orator in an interview on ERT last week, complaining of an allegedly great influence of Russian propaganda on the Greek public.
What is troubling the ruling class is that despite all its efforts, antiwar sentiment among the population continues to grow. This is evidenced in two polls on the Ukraine war published by the Greek polling institute Public Issue on March 21 and April 18. According to these polls, 68 percent of respondents expressed displeasure with the government’s policy on the Ukraine issue in March and 74 percent in April. The number of those who advocated that Greece adopt a neutral position also rose from 65 to 71 percent, while only 20 percent argued in favour of supporting Ukraine.
The negative assessment of the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and the US also continued to rise: for Vladimir Putin from 72 to 74 percent, for Joe Biden from 60 to 69 percent and for Volodymyr Zelensky from 56 to 68 percent.
The Greek ruling class is sitting on a powder keg. It is trying to pass on the costs of the war to the working class, which is already living from hand to mouth after 10 years of austerity dictates. The Greek statistics authority expected inflation to rise to over 10 percent in April. At the end of March, a survey by Alco for the trade union federation GSEE showed that 59 percent of respondents had to save on basic foodstuffs. The figure was as high as 74 percent for heating costs and 80 percent for leisure activities. In addition, the pandemic has officially claimed almost 30,000 lives in Greece.
Opposition to the course of the war and its social consequences already erupted at the beginning of April in a general strike that paralysed the whole country. In the weeks before, Greek railway workers had blocked the transport of NATO armoured military vehicles to the Ukrainian border with a strike. At the end of April, dockworkers went on strike because of the unacceptable working conditions at Cosco at the port of Piraeus.
On Tuesday, a demonstration took place in Athens against the draconian new labour laws which, among other things, restrict the right to strike. Private sector workers and transport workers stopped work from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Wall Street, together with other stock markets around the world, has continued to fall under the impact of rising interest rates, inflation, and a slowing global economy amid warnings the conditions are being created for instability in financial markets.
The Financial Times reported that its All-Worlds barometer of global equities dropped on Monday by 3 percent, its sharpest fall since June 2020 as markets were hit by the onset of the pandemic, reaching its lowest level since December of that year.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The sharp declines on Wall Street last week continued Monday with the S&P 500 down by 3.2 percent with the tech-focused NASDAQ dropping a further 4.3 percent. The S&P is down more than 16 percent for the year while the NASDAQ has fallen more than 25 percent and is now down 27 percent from its record high last November.
After a significant selloff in Asian markets yesterday, Wall Street rose slightly on the day.
Summing broad sentiments, Seema Shah of Principal Global Investors told the Wall Street Journal: “By 2023 you are very likely to see growth slowing very significantly, and the spectre of recessions is really starting to loom.”
The world economy is pointing in the same direction. There are fears of a significant slowdown in China as it grapples to bring the spread of the latest COVID-19 outbreak under control with exports falling to their lowest levels in two years last month. There are indications of a slowdown in German and French manufacturing industries. The price of oil has also fallen as fears grow of a weakening global economy.
The latest phase in what the WSJ described as a “rout” began last Thursday. Prices had risen sharply the previous day on the back of assurances by Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell that the central bank was not considering an increase of 0.75 percent points in the bank’s interest rate.
But then the reality of continued Fed rate rises—Powell indicated rises each of 0.5 percentage points were on the table for at least the next two meetings of the Fed—sank in and markets fell sharply.
Beneath the immediate fluctuations of the share markets, there are indications of mounting problems in the financial system. It is haunted by the meltdown in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic which saw the Fed intervene to the tune of around $4 trillion, becoming the backstop for all areas of finance.
These fears were highlighted in the Fed’s semi-annual Financial Stability report issued on Monday. It said there was a “higher than normal” chance that conditions in US financial markets could suddenly worsen.
“Further adverse surprises in inflation and interest rates, particularly if accompanied by a decline in economic activity, could negatively affect the financial system,” the report stated.
A sharp rise in rates “could lead to higher volatility, stresses to market liquidity, and a large correction in prices of risky assets, potentially causing losses at a range of financial intermediaries” which could reduce “their ability to raise capital and retain the confidence of their counterparties.”
The Fed report said banks remain well capitalised “but some money market and bond funds are still exposed to sizable liquidity risks.” It warned that some types of money market funds remained prone to runs and “many bond and bank loan mutual funds continue to be vulnerable to redemption risks.” That is, they can experience liquidity problems when large numbers of investors decide to pull their money out.
It noted that elevated inflation and rising interest rates could have far-reaching effects, negatively impacting on “domestic economic activity, asset prices, credit quality, and financial conditions.”
If any near terms risks were realised, it continued, “and especially should such events precipitate a marked worsening of the economic outlook, their effects could be amplified through the financial vulnerabilities” within the system.
The Fed report noted that since late 2021 there had been a tightening in the market for US Treasury securities. Markets are regarded as liquid if traders can make transactions without affecting the market as a whole. Low liquidity, by contrast, can amplify volatility and result in unexpected financial tightening.
“In extreme cases, such as the market turmoil at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, low liquidity can impair the ability of the financial system to respond to a large shock because investors may not be able to adjust their holdings of assets to raise cash or hedge risks, or they may be able to do so only at a substantial cost.”
While the deterioration in liquidity had not been as extreme as in past cases, “the risk of a sudden deterioration appears higher than normal.”
The low depth of liquidity, it said, could indicate that liquidity providers were being particularly cautious. “Declining depth at times of rising uncertainty and volatility could result in a negative feedback loop, as lower liquidity in turn may cause prices to be more volatile.”
The report also drew attention to the situation now developing in the corporate bond market noting that heightened uncertainty weighed on the risk appetite for this form of debt. The share of new speculative-grade bonds with the lowest ratings from financial agencies was low by historical standards but it pointed to the build-up of problems in other areas.
“[The] share of outstanding bonds with the lowest investment-grade ratings—the so-called triple-B cliff—reached its highest level in two decades, suggesting that many investment-grade bonds remain vulnerable to being downgraded to speculative-grade in the event of a negative economic shock.”
The rise in bank interest rates has sparked a selloff in Treasury bonds with the yield on the 10-year Treasury now around 3 percent, compared to less than 1 percent only a few months ago. [Bond prices and their yield or interest rate move in opposite directions.]
The shift in Treasury yields is having an effect in the corporate bond market. The Financial Times reported on Monday that the Bank of America estimated that the average price of investment-grade US corporate bonds has fallen to just above 93 cents on the dollar.
This was below the level reached during the market crash of March 2020 and at a level not seen since May 2009 when markets were still reeling from the effects of the global financial crisis of 2008. Now there are clear indications the conditions which produced these crises are building up once again.
On Tuesday night, the US House of Representatives voted by 357 to 48 to approve a record $39.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine, just hours after the text of the bill was made known. It is widely expected that the Senate will also approve the bill and that it will be presented to President Joe Biden for ratification later this week.
The bill marks an extraordinary escalation of the NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.
It goes even beyond the $33 billion that had been requested by the Biden administration and amounts to 5 percent of the total US national security budget of $782 billion. The almost $40 billion comes on top of $13.67 billion approved by Congress at the beginning of the war, bringing the total aid to Ukraine to over $53 billion in only two months. This is more aid than any country has received from the US in at least two decades.
Almost all of this money is going directly to fund the war against Russia. According to the magazine Politico, out of the $39.8 billion, $11 billion would go to transfers of weapons and equipment from the US military stockpiles directly to Ukraine; $8.7 billion would be used to replenish weapon inventories sent to the frontlines (up from $3.3 billion that the White House had requested); $6 billion would go to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative which allows the Biden administration to buy weapons from contractors and then send them directly to the Ukrainian army; and $3.9 billion would be used to fund increased troop deployments and other military NATO operations in Europe. Only $900 million are provided for the 5.9 million refugees of the conflict.
These staggering sums are being pushed through in a bipartisan effort while a miserable $10 billion for COVID-19 relief was unceremoniously dropped by the Democrats, even as the Biden administration is now expecting that 100 million people might get infected in the fall and winter.
Yet after 1 million people have died from COVID-19 in the US, the ruling class is not even pretending to try to save lives anymore. Instead, in a desperate and reckless attempt to divert immense class tensions outward, it is pushing for the escalation of the NATO proxy war in Ukraine into an ever more direct and open conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.
The supposed “left” wing of the Democratic Party is completely lining up behind the war drive, conspiring in attempts to stifle any public discussion about its implications. Expressing his support for the push by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to ram the package through Congress as fast as possible, the supposedly “left” Senator Bernie Sanders stated, “We should always have a debate, but the problem is that Ukraine is in the middle of a very intense war right now. I think every day counts, and I think we have to respond as strongly and vigorously as we can.”
The implications of the new “aid” package are immense. The noted historian of Nazi Germany, Adam Tooze—who is an open supporter of NATO in the conflict—warned in a comment for The Guardian that the package, if approved, “will mean that we are financing nothing less than a total war.” He wrote this with regard to the smaller sum of $33 billion initially proposed by the White House.
The aid package for Ukraine was passed within the framework of the Biden administration’s renewal of the Land-Lease bill which the US adopted in March 1941 to provide direct military support to its allies against Nazi Germany and Japan in World War II. Raising in so many words the specter of a Third World War, Tooze noted in The Guardian that the March 1941 bill marked the moment when the US “abandoned neutrality” in the war, which it only formally entered in December 1941.
In a move that can only be described as sinister, Biden chose Monday, May 9, the anniversary date of the end of World War II which cost 60 million lives, to sign the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022 into law. The US can now easily lend and lease weapons directly to Ukraine or to Eastern European countries for the war.
Everything is being done to chloroform public opinion as to the enormous dangers bound up with this deliberate escalation of the NATO conflict with Russia.
Amid reports that Russia has effectively taken over large parts of east Ukraine, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that “we are not confident the fight in Donbas will effectively end the war.”
Haines claimed, “Our view [is] that there is not sort of an imminent potential for Putin to use nuclear weapons” because Putin would turn to nuclear weapons if he perceived an existential threat either to his regime or to Russia and if he believed that NATO was “either intervening or about to intervene in that context.”
But this is precisely what NATO and especially the US have been signaling at every step of the way, constantly seeking to provoke Russia into an escalation of the war. The Biden administration alone has already funneled billions of dollars worth of weapons, tanks, anti-tank missiles, ammunition and more into Ukraine, directly influencing the course of the war that has claimed the lives of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and Russian soldiers. Other NATO members, including Germany, the UK , France and Poland, have also provided billions worth of weapons, tanks and other military aid.
In the most recent provocation, information was leaked confirming that the US had provided intelligence to help Kiev assassinate Russian generals and sink the flag ship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva. The US now claims that as many as 10 Russian generals may have been killed in the war, a staggering figure for a conflict that is barely three months old.
Emboldened by the imperialist powers and working in cahoots with NATO-armed neo-Nazi militias, the Ukrainian government of Volodymyr Zelensky is also doing everything it can to escalate the war. Speaking to the Financial Times on Tuesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced that, given that the West keeps funneling weapons to Ukraine, Kiev is now preparing to retake the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in March 2014, and the Donbass. Kuleba said, “Of course the victory for us in this war will be the liberation of the rest of our territories.”
In fact, already back in March 2021, the Ukrainian government approved a new military strategy that explicitly aimed at “recovering” Crimea and the Donbass, which at the time was tantamount to an announcement that Ukraine was preparing for war. The strategy was backed by the Biden administration and was one of the many provocations that propelled the Kremlin into launching its invasion, in a desperate bid to preempt a potentially devastating military move by imperialist-backed Ukraine and to force the imperialist powers to the negotiating table.
Three months into the war, it is clear that this decision was not only criminal but also a disastrous miscalculation by the Putin regime. Far from showing any signs of willingness to compromise, the imperialist powers are instead doing everything they can to broaden the war and bleed the Russian army dry, while working with sections of the oligarchy to bring about a regime change in Moscow.
The Putin regime, which has emerged out of the Stalinist bureaucracy’s destruction of the Soviet Union and the oligarchy’s plunder of state property, can only respond to the increasing pressure of imperialism by whipping up Russian nationalism and threatening to deploy its nuclear weapons.
