German government plans to remove all coronavirus protections

Tamino Dreisam

In an interview with Tagesspiegel towards the end of December, virologist Christian Drosten declared that in his view, the pandemic in Germany was “over.” Within a very short time, politicians from all major parties took this as an opportunity to call for the removal of the remaining protective measures.

Virologist Christian Drosten [AP Photo/Markus Schreiber]

Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (Liberal Democratic Party, FDP) wrote on Twitter: “We are in an endemic state. As a political consequence, we should end the last #Coronavirus protections.” FDP deputy chairman Wolfgang Kubicki told Tagesspiegel that there was no basis for “any [...] restriction of fundamental rights to contain the coronavirus” and called on the federal and state governments to end their limited protective measures as soon as possible.

Green Party health politician Janosch Dahmen also joined in the propaganda in Tagesspiegel about the end of the pandemic: “At the moment, there is much to suggest that the coronavirus is hardly changing and that its currently still strong spread will finally decrease significantly with the end of this winter.”

Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (Social Democratic Party, SPD), whose position is generally portrayed in the media as more moderate, in fact fully endorses this narrative. In an interview with broadcaster ZDF’s heute journal news programme, he stated:

It is true that we are now moving into an endemic state. That is, the waves that are coming now no longer cover the entire population, but only the parts that are not sufficiently vaccinated or have previous damage. So, a big wave that would cover the whole population again is not to be expected at the moment. The new variants are not as contagious or as dangerous as they appeared to be in the laboratory a few months ago. This defuses the situation somewhat.

At the same time, Lauterbach knows exactly how dramatic the situation is: “We still have full hospitals at the moment, even children can’t be cared for well. We have a high excess mortality rate; people die every day from coronavirus who didn’t necessarily have to die.”

In this situation, however, Lauterbach is not suggesting taking serious measures to save lives and prevent hospitals from collapsing. He simply advocates postponing the lifting of all measures for a few weeks. This is completely in line with his previous policy. Lauterbach himself actively promoted and implemented the almost complete winding down of protective measures as Minister of Health.

Support for the lifting of the remaining measures is also coming from the opposition. The Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) are calling for a special conference of federal and state governments at the beginning of January at which the last protective measures—such as mandatory mask wearing in doctors’ surgeries and hospitals and on public transport (in most states)—are to be lifted.

The CDU/CSU’s parliamentary health spokesperson Tino Sorge told RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND): “It is time to declare the pandemic finally over. The coalition [government] can no longer shirk this above all political decisions.”

Apart from a few exceptions, the obligation to wear a mask and quarantine must be replaced in the New Year by recommendations, demanded Sorge. Europe was returning to normality, only the coalition government did not have the courage to do so, he said. “A conference of the chancellor with the heads of the state governments at the beginning of January would be the appropriate format to coordinate such a step together with the federal states,” the CDU politician said.

Contrary to government and opposition claims, however, the pandemic is by no means over. Currently, more than 100 people are dying from COVID on average every day in Germany and hospitals are on the verge of collapse. The adjusted hospitalization rate is 15 (per 100,000 inhabitants), which corresponds to almost 12,500 hospitalizations per week.

Intensive care units have been filling up for weeks, with 1,230 people currently receiving intensive care. Only 9.3 percent of intensive care beds are currently free. Ten percent is considered the threshold value for the responsiveness of hospitals, below which it should not fall.

The president of the German Society for Internal Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, Christian Karagiannidis, warned that the situation will worsen. “We will certainly have regional bottlenecks [on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day], but not across the board,” he said in an interview with RND. “I’m more concerned about January and the mood that’s resonating right now. Hospitals will be running at full capacity in January, and staff are slowly starting to resign under the constant burden.”

Additionally, a growing staffing shortage is putting a strain on hospitals. In the last two years alone, he said, hospitals have lost 25 percent of high-care intensive care beds because of a lack of staff. “It’s an illusion to think those beds will ever be reinstated,” Karagiannidis said. This capacity has been lost forever, “This is the new reality for which we have to find a solution.”

However, the consequences of the pandemic still go far beyond the immediate situation in the hospitals and the number of deaths. Even seemingly harmless infections attack organs and can seriously damage them. Hundreds of thousands of people in Germany are already struggling with the consequences of Long COVID. Life expectancy has fallen by half a year and excess mortality is reaching record levels.

In the future, the murderous “herd immunity” policy of allowing the virus to rip through the population, which has already led to more than 160,000 deaths in Germany alone, is to be implemented even more brutally. In addition to the planned elimination of protective measures, numerous vaccination centres will also be closed in 2023. Yet more than one in five people are still not vaccinated. Only 63 percent of the population has received one booster vaccination, and only 15 percent has received two.

The impact of China abandoning its Zero COVID policy, which Western governments and the media have long called for, can now be added to this. The ever-escalating COVID disaster and the rapid infection of millions of people with the virus threaten to lead to the emergence of new more infectious, dangerous, and resistant variants.

Homeless deaths surged across the US in 2022 due to extreme weather, economic hardship

Linda Rios

Numerous states throughout the US witnessed a sharp rise in the number of homeless and deaths of people experiencing homelessness in 2022.

David Cooper huddles up with gloves, hand warmers and layers of blankets in an attempt to stay warm while living on the street as temperatures with wind chill hovered in the single digits in Portland, Ore., on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. [AP Photo/Claire Rush]

Due to the lifting of eviction moratoriums put in place at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the soaring prices in the cost of living, the ranks of the homeless and those living in precarious conditions are swelling, putting tens of thousands at risk of a premature death. According to the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago, 500,000 to 600,000 people in the US experience homelessness on any given night; approximately one-third of them sleep on the streets.

Strong winter storms over the last two weeks and extreme weather throughout the year made environmental conditions deadly for those living unsheltered and in substandard housing.

The recent storms that battered the eastern half of the US have claimed the lives of nearly 60 people, some of whom were homeless and found in snow banks or in vehicles. One of the homeless victims, 57-year-old Charles Wilson Ligon Jr., was attempting to make it home to his family in Tennessee from Louisiana on foot. He was found by hunters in southern Mississippi last Monday morning frozen to death.

Many homeless shelters saw a sharp rise in the number of people they served in December due to the harsh winter conditions.

“It’s very worrisome. We know people die in these conditions,” Burke Patten, communications manager for Night Ministry, a Chicago nonprofit that shelters nearly 6,000 people experiencing homelessness, told The Guardian.

Warming shelters have become places of refuge for the homeless, but many of them do not open their doors until the temperature drops to 32-30 degrees Fahrenheit, already dangerous considering that hypothermia and frostbite can set in at 50 degrees. The National Weather Service warned that last week’s cold front could see temperature drops of 20 degrees or more in just a few hours.

Kyle Knutson, the Social Services Director at The Salvation Army in Corpus Christi, Texas, told local news station KIII that nearly half of the 43 official homeless deaths in the city this year were the result of cold weather.

However, the winter weather this year was only one of a number of causes of death for the homeless. In many states, the death count was higher than in previous years. Causes of death in addition to exposure to the elements include overdose due to substance use, homicide and treatable health conditions.

December 21 is recognized annually as National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day, a tribute to those who have died while experiencing homelessness and whose lives and passing might otherwise have gone unrecognized. Vigils were set up around the country in communities large and small to remember those who lost their lives this year.

On the West Coast and throughout the Midwest, records were set in the numbers of deaths of the homeless population.

In Seattle and King County, Washington, more than 270 people died this year, the highest number recorded in 20 years, ranging in age from 2 to 80 years old. 

While making up 12 percent of the country’s population, California now accounts for 30 percent of the homeless population, with the US Department of Housing and Community Development estimating that over 172,000 residents experienced homelessness this year alone. California also saw the country’s largest increase in its homeless population over any other state. 

In Southern California, recorded deaths among the homeless population in San Diego County increased over 7 percent from 2021 to a total of 574 deaths, up from 536 last year and 357 the year before. Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, saw 158 homeless residents die last year while Santa Barbara on the central coast lost 38 in the last two years.

In San Francisco, over 200 people died in 2022, many from accidental drug overdoses. Last April, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health found that nearly 2,000 homeless people died between April 2020 and March 2021, marking a 56 percent increase in deaths compared to the previous year before the pandemic began.

In Maricopa County, Arizona, the death toll has also risen for people who experienced homelessness. The more than 700 people who died without permanent shelter in 2022 represented a 42 percent increase over 2021. Another 450 people could be added to that figure, although local law enforcement has not determined whether those people were homeless. 

Lisa Glow of Central Arizona Shelter Services told 12 News, “We really are at a crisis… The lack of shelter is leading to those increased street deaths. We’ve even had babies die in the streets, a lot of seniors dying on the streets.”

The number of deaths of homeless people increased in the Denver, Colorado metro area as well, with 263 total recorded last year; however, local agencies state that these figures are incomplete due to incomplete record keeping. Other cities in Colorado also saw increased numbers of deaths, mostly due to sub-zero conditions, although some were the victims of violent attacks. Many of them were in their 40s. Others died due to opioid use, specifically from the use of fentanyl.

The nation’s capital, Washington D.C., recorded 77 homeless deaths last year, but this figure does not account for additional autopsies that remain to be completed by the medical examiner’s office, which has a 90-day delay in reporting. According to the Washington Post, D.C. appears to be on track to exceed the 100-deaths mark, after recording 180 deaths in 2020 and 138 in 2021.

A study conducted by The Guardian and the University of Washington found that from 2016 to 2020, the deaths of people experiencing homelessness in the US rose by 77 percent, representing at least 18,000 deaths.

Regardless of the location of death, a clear fact remains: The life of the average American is seen by the capitalist ruling elite as dispensable, expendable, and holds no value except when it can be exploited for profit.  

The explosion in the rise of homelessness itself has been caused by a multitude of  factors. Millions of Americans have been pushed to the brink of or directly into the path of impoverishment and ruin by the bipartisan attack on living standards and social programs over the past 40 years; successive bailouts of corporations and banks overseen by both Democratic and Republican administrations, of which the burden of paying for them has been placed on the backs of the working class; the countless sellouts and betrayals by rotten corporatist union bureaucracies; trillions of dollars spent to build up the military and wage endless wars which have given way to the US-NATO proxy war against Russian in Ukraine.

The ruling class’s disregard for human life is most naked in the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Where Trump openly threw caution to the wind in terms of a policy to fight against and contain the spread of the virus, Biden rode in on a wave of popular optimism that he would “follow the science” if he were elected president.

As the last few years have proved, the Biden administration has done anything but keep this promise, declaring the pandemic over while eliminating public health measures such as enforcing lockdowns, requiring the wearing of masks, social distancing and quarantining those who are sick or exposed. The consequences have been the official deaths of over one million people in the US and over 20 million worldwide, and even such ghastly figures are widely known to be vastly undercounted.

New Zealand’s COVID wave continues over holiday season

John Braddock

New Zealand is now into its third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and, as is the case internationally, the holiday season is posing the danger of an even greater surge. A majority of cases are in the urban centres of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

Medical staff test shoppers who volunteered at a pop-up community COVID-19 testing station at a supermarket carpark in Christchurch, New Zealand, 2022. [AP Photo/Mark Baker]

On December 30 there were 3,812 COVID cases announced, 767 down on the day before. The seven-day running average was at 3,471, but the week before Christmas it had risen to 5,157. With people away on holiday, reporting is likely to have dropped away.

About 30 percent of all cases are reinfections, which increases the risks of a person developing debilitating Long Covid. The young are being primarily hit by reinfections/ In the 10–19 years age group, 41 percent of cases are reinfections and 46 percent hitting the 20–29 group.

Active COVID cases are running highest among the 20–29 and 30–39 age groups. While 84 percent of the eligible population has received a first vaccine dose, just 54 percent has had one booster. With second boosters rationed and unavailable to those deemed younger or healthy, just 14 percent of the population has had one.

According to one modelling expert, the official infection figures are likely to be lower than the actual number of cases circulating in the community. Dion O'Neale told Radio New Zealand that about two-thirds of cases would go unreported, because people who were asymptomatic would not be testing. “Around 30 to 40 percent of infections are asymptomatic,” he said.

Admissions to hospitals, including ICU, have been increasing since early October, peaking in the week prior to Christmas. There were 732 people in hospital last week with 16 in ICU, and thousands more at home in isolation. Because hospital admissions usually lag by a couple of weeks, doctors are warning the early new year threatens to be another “crunch time” for the overburdened health system.

The escalating COVID-19 death rate, which began rising in late October after 7 fatalities during the first week of that month, has been consistently high throughout December. It rose to 78 in the week to December 28, up from 64 the week before, including a child aged under 10.

According to data to the end of November, measured by mortality and age-standardised, COVID-19 in New Zealand has cost five to six years of public health improvements during 2022.

Despite the surge in cases and the mounting death toll, the Labour-led government and corporate media continue to insist that the pandemic is over. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern scrapped New Zealand’s zero-COVID policy in October 2021, at a time when the country had experienced just 32 deaths. The government imposed the program of mass infection that had already killed millions of people worldwide.

Virtually all public health measures have since been overturned, with the death toll soaring to nearly 2,500 people in the past year. The figure will soon reach 2,779, equaling the number of New Zealand soldiers killed at the battle of Gallipoli in World War I. While this event is commemorated as a national tragedy at annual Anzac Day ceremonies, deaths from COVID are now totally ignored by the political establishment.

Underscoring the government’s reckless adoption of the “living with COVID” policy, Ardern told the Woman’s Weekly in early December this would be the first Christmas in three years “where we haven’t had COVID hanging over us.” After criticism from several experts, Ardern claimed she had been “misinterpreted,” declaring: “This is the first summer where there hasn't been the risk of border closures, gathering limits, cancellations of large-scale events. We do, however, continue to have COVID amongst us.”

Ministry of Health data released before Christmas showed school teachers and child carers had the highest COVID-19 rates among all occupational groups. The data, produced by the ministry as part of its Public Health Risk Assessment of COVID report, was only released after a request under the Official Information Act.

According to the report, teachers had the highest rates of infection at 41 percent, followed by 38 percent of child carers, while hospitality workers were third at 36 percent. Occupations in the health sector ran between 30 and 33 percent, mainly because masks and other personal protective equipment were widely used within the sector.

Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said the data showed the education sector was highly exposed to COVID-19 with lower protection than others. Teachers were exposed to groups with a slower vaccine roll-out, for example five to 11-year-olds, who became eligible last January, and were not consistently mandated to wear masks, increasing the risk for COVID to spread, Baker said.

Culpability for the dire situation in the schools rests with the teacher unions, the NZ Educational Institute (NZEI) and Post Primary Teachers Association (PPTA). Both organisations initially opposed demands to close the schools then later shepherded teachers back into them when big business and the government decreed shut-downs should end.

Neither union has mounted any campaign, or called strike action, to protect the health and safety of teachers and students. Following the initial outbreak in March 2020, the PPTA opposed calls from teachers and health workers for schools to be shut, with the union’s president Melanie Webber absurdly declaring that they were “safe places.”

Schools fully reopened for most of 2022. Over the winter, teachers expressed anger and said they felt unsafe in their classrooms as case numbers soared. Schools stated that they were at “breaking point” with many staff off sick. Records show that on one day in March 2022 over 250,000 children were absent. Schools were left to decide individually how they would deal with the spread of the virus.

Internationally, reopening schools was a key demand of the financial and business elite, forcing parents to return to work so that the extraction of profits from the working class could fully resume. However, during the deepening crisis mid-year, in an interview with NewstalkZB, on July 25 Webber repeated the false propaganda that schools were “safe,” preposterously claiming that “a lot of transmission is actually happening outside of schools rather than within schools.”

Health experts are already expressing concern over the situation that is likely to develop when schools return after the holiday break. Epidemiologist Amanda Kvalsvig and a team at the University of Otago last week repeated a call they had made, unsuccessfully, at the beginning of 2022 for an urgent “COVID Action Plan for Schools.”

The existing policy, the group declared, “isn’t following #Covid science, exposing students, staff, and their families to an array of preventable risks.” Amid the recent surge, children were not required to isolate if a close contact at school was a confirmed case, and schools were not required to inform parents when there had been a positive case in their child’s class.

Kvalsvig tweeted on December 28; “How will NZ children fare in winter 2023? The answer is not in viruses and bacteria, but in policy. We hope to hear an announcement that ‘protecting children’s right to life, health, and education is paramount,’ backed up with guidance and resources for schools and families.”

She warned; “If, however, we hear that ‘The most important outcome is face-to-face learning and closing schools is a last resort,’ the decision is business as usual and children are going to be collateral damage. We know already from NZ 2022 and N hemisphere winter what that looks like.”

Appeals to the government and ruling elite are, however, futile. The policy of “herd immunity,” which prioritises profits over public health, is backed by the entire political establishment. Heading into the fourth year of the pandemic, schools and other worksites will become super-spreaders of COVID and an influx of other severe illnesses, all hitting the working class hardest.

Lula is inaugurated as Brazil’s president amid deep crisis of bourgeois rule

Tomas Castanheira

Luis Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers Party (PT), was sworn in Sunday as Brazil’s president alongside his vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin. The inauguration ceremony took place under conditions unprecedented in the 40 years since the end of the US-backed military regime that dominated the country from 1964 to 1985.

Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, reviews the troops during Inauguration Day, Brasilia, January 1, 2023. [Photo: José Cruz/Agência Brasil]

The inauguration ceremony took place in Brasilia in the absence of Lula’s predecessor, the former fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro, as well as his vice president, Gen. Hamilton Mourão, who refused to hand over the presidential sash symbolizing the transfer of power to the elected government.

Alongside his Liberal Party (PL), which has the largest delegation in Brazil’s Congress, Bolsonaro refused to acknowledge his defeat at the polls, which he falsely claimed were rigged. In the two months since the election results were announced, the incumbent president has fomented a violent fascist movement calling for a military coup to stop the supposed rise of “socialism” in Brazil.

Far from a passive agent, the Brazilian military directly participated in these conspiracies against the democratic system. The Ministry of Defense, headed by conspiracist Gen. Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, fueled the far-right movement with false allegations of a “relevant risk to the security of the [electoral] process” supposedly identified in a military investigation.

Reportedly, the commanders of the three Armed Forces were divided over whether to give direct support for contesting the elections which they openly discussed with the fascistic president. Even though they did not decide on open support for Bolsonaro’s coup attempt, they officially legitimized the fascist demonstrations as a “popular movement” and used the threat of insubordination to extend their political control over the elected government.

The inauguration speeches made by Lula Sunday had the central aim of convincing the Brazilian population that this monumental political crisis was nothing more than a nightmare that is now finally over.

Lula began his first speech, before Congress, with an extraordinary acknowledgment. He said, “Never have the resources of the state been so misappropriated for the benefit of an authoritarian project of power. Never has the public machine been so derailed from republican controls. Never have voters been so constrained by economic power and by lies disseminated on an industrial scale.”

In his second speech, addressed to the audience gathered at the Esplanade of Ministries, the president-elect acknowledged another monstrous aspect of the Brazilian reality. Speaking of the brutal extent of social inequality in the country, Lula mentioned the figures: “700,000 Brazilians killed by COVID. 125 million suffering some degree of food insecurity, from moderate to very serious. 33 million going hungry.”

The recognition that an authoritarian project, sponsored by powerful economic interests, was able to take over the state machine and promote the social murder and mass misery of its population can only mean that the current political and social regime in Brazil has totally lost its historical legitimacy. But this is not the conclusion drawn by Lula and the PT, who serve the same social class responsible for these barbaric crimes.

Lula reaffirmed his inalienable commitment to the profit interests of the capitalist class, affirming that Brazil has “sufficient technical, capital, and market capacity to resume industrialization and the supply of services at a competitive level” and that the country “can and should be at the forefront of the global economy.”

Promoting the thesis that the mortal economic and political crisis facing the Brazilian working class should be attributed exclusively to Bolsonaro and a few rotten apples, Lula promoted himself as the representative of a “broad democratic front” that brings together the entire rotten bourgeois political system.

He declared in his speech to Congress: “I understood, from the beginning of the journey, that I should be a candidate for a broader front than the political camp in which I was formed, maintaining a firm commitment to my origins. This front was consolidated to prevent the return of authoritarianism to the country.”

In his speech to the public, Lula called for a “broad front against inequality, involving society as a whole,” “workers” and “businessmen.”

These hypocritical appeals are a dirty disguise for promoting the continuation of capitalist attacks and an amnesty for state forces that are co-responsible for Bolsonaro’s crimes and who continue to foment dictatorial plots.

The cabinet formed by the PT in the image of its fraudulent “broad front” included nine representatives of the openly right-wing Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), União Brasil (Brazil Union) and the Social Democratic Party (PSD).

Less than seven years ago, the MDB was responsible for promoting the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, which the PT classifies as a coup d’état. União Brasil is the product of a recent merger of the very party that elected Bolsonaro in 2018, the Social Liberal Party (PSL); and the Democrats, direct heirs of Arena, the party of the military dictatorship.

But the PT is still seeking to further expand its political alliances in the far-right camp. The newly sworn-in Minister of Institutional Relations, Alexandre Padilha, a historical figure in PT governments, declared on Sunday: “We will talk to the parties that were Bolsonaro’s support base and that, in a first moment, may signal that they belong to the opposition.”

According to Padilha, by approving the budget amendment proposed by the transitional government, “the National Congress gave a demonstration at the end of the year that there is neither direitão (right-wing) nor esquerdão (left-wing) nor a centrão (center).”

Padilha is promoting a unity of interests sought by the PT precisely with the Congress dominated by the PL, which did not recognize Lula’s victory and seeks to build itself as a distinctly fascist party personally led by Bolsonaro.

The PT’s aim to amnesty the Armed Forces, deeply implicated in the conspiracies against democracy, was made clear by the inauguration speech of Defense minister José Múcio Monteiro, on Monday.

To a restricted audience, composed mainly of military personnel and their families, Múcio affirmed that “Brazil and its Armed Forces”—responsible for a bloody 21-year dictatorship and the exportation of dictatorial regimes throughout the South American continent—“have always positioned themselves in favor of peace, democracy, and respect for institutions.”

Múcio declared his “admiration for all those who preceded me, especially General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, whose courtesy and efficiency [sic] in the most harmonious process of government transition.”

The fact that the defense minister chosen by Lula dedicates his mandate to General Nogueira, one of the main agents of Bolsonaro’s dictatorial conspiracy, reveals the mortal crisis of the newly inaugurated PT government.

Marcelo Kanitz Damasceno, upon assuming on Monday the command of the Air Force, the military branch considered to be the most aligned to Bolsonaro, confirmed the military’s expectation of deepening its political domination of the state during the PT administration. “I am absolutely convinced that the Armed Forces will continue to enjoy the strategic projects of the Presidency of the Republic and the Ministry of Defense, as well as gentle and harmonious treatment in defense matters,” Damasceno said.

Seeking to mask the reactionary character of its new government, which already begins as the most right-wing in its history, the PT launched a determined turn to identity politics.

Lula gave special emphasis in his speech to the public on the creation of the ministries of Racial Equality, Indigenous Peoples, and Women, which will supposedly be responsible for overcoming “the backwardness of more than 350 years of slavery.”

Two of these ministries have been assigned to figures linked to the pseudo-left Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL), originally created as a supposed “left opposition” to the PT. The first of them was assumed by Anielle Franco, sister of the murdered PSOL councilwoman in Rio de Janeiro, Marielle Franco. The second went to Sônia Guajajara, vice-presidential candidate for the PSOL in the last presidential elections.

Storm clouds massing over global economy and financial system

Nick Beams

The new year opens with dark clouds gathering over the financial system and the global economy, each containing potential storms which either separately, or in combination, could set off a major crisis.

IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva on CBS' "Face the Nation" [Photo: CBS News]

In a US television interview aired on Sunday, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, warned that a third of the world economy would be hit with recession this year as it faced a “tougher” year than 2022.

She said half the European Union was likely to be in recession as inflationary pressures, rising interest rates imposed by central banks and the Ukraine war continued to be a drag on the global economy.

Another factor is the impact of the COVID catastrophe in China where, as a result of the demands of the imperialist powers, the Xi Jinping regime has dropped virtually all public health measures in line with the situation in the rest of the world.

Referring to the COVID spread in China, “the impact on the region will be negative, the impact on global growth will be negative,” Georgieva said.

This meant that rather than boosting global growth, as it has in the past, China would be a drag on production. “That has never happened before,” she said.

The slowing global economy will cause increased problems for financial markets already showing mounting instability as the consequences of the reversal of the ultra-easy monetary policies of the world’s central banks increasingly make themselves felt.

These measures—so-called “quantitative easing,” which intensified after the onset of the pandemic when trillions of dollars more were poured into the financial system to prevent its collapse—have now been ended in the name of “fighting inflation.”

The central objective is not to bring down prices but to suppress the global upsurge of the working class in response to the highest inflation in four decades. This is regarded by the guardians of finance capital as the greatest danger to the system over which they preside.

The tightening interest rate regime, spearheaded by the US Federal Reserve, has already had a major impact on stock markets.

According to calculations by the Financial Times (FT), global stocks and bonds lost $30 trillion in 2022—equivalent to almost 30 percent of global GDP—the biggest loss in financial asset markets since the crisis of 2008.

In what were once considered to be “normal” times, when stocks went down government bonds provided something of a safe haven. But because stock markets and the price of bonds rose on the low interest rate regime, they have both been in sharp decline.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 index finished the year down by 19 percent and the tech-heavy NASDAQ ended 33 percent lower in the worst result for both since the global financial crisis. US stock markets lost $12 trillion in value last year of which five major tech-based stocks accounted for a quarter.

Bond markets were also hit by a major sell-off. The yield in the 10-year Treasury bond, a benchmark for global financial markets, rose from 1.5 percent to finish the year at 3.9 percent. (The price of bonds and their yield, or interest rate, have an inverse relationship.) It was the biggest annual increase according to records going back to the 1960s.

The overall result for the decline in the S&P is significant but may not be considered large, at least so far. However, some of the falls in the market value of major companies, particularly those boosted by low interest rates, indicate more is to come and that major losses have already been incurred.

Two of the leading companies in the tech sector, Apple and Microsoft, have fallen by 30 percent. The Google parent Alphabet is down by nearly 40 percent, while the Facebook owner Meta has plunged 64 percent and the chipmaker Nvidia has lost 50 percent.

The most spectacular fall has been in the share price of Elon Musk’s electric car maker Tesla. Since November 2021, when it hit its peak, some $900 billion had been wiped off its market value.

Its decline has mirrored one of the other major events of the last year—the collapse of the crypto market, most sharply expressed in the $32 billion crash of the FTX crypto exchange and the bringing of criminal charges against its founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Since start of 2022, the value of the crypto currency market is estimated to have fallen by $1.7 trillion.

The parallel between Tesla and crypto is not accidental. Their business models have been similar in many respects. Just as crypto, so-called digital money bypassing central banks, was hyped as the wave of the future, so Musk’s operations were boosted by claims of a new era. Both have depended on the inflow of cheap money in search of overnight speculative gains.

As is always the case, relatively small retail investors, drawn in by the hype, have been taken to the cleaners. But as the fall of Tesla indicates—a loss of more than $800 billion in 2022 alone—big money has also been involved and the trend has accelerated.

In what the FT described as a “gruesome December,” more than 40 percent was wiped off the value of Tesla shares leaving them two thirds lower than they were in late September. Some of this fall was no doubt due to Musk’s takeover of Twitter, into which he has poured billions. But the underlying trend is clear—the demise of the share values of companies dependent on cheap money.

If the storms were confined to speculative areas of the market, they could perhaps be dismissed as “frothy” movements.

But one of the biggest of the recent period involved a supposedly stable area of the financial system—pension funds. The September-October crisis in the UK—only brought under control because of an intervention by the Bank of England (BoE)—threatened a financial crash of the £1.5 trillion British pension funding system.

The movement in the yields on 30-year UK government bonds on a single day, September 28 when the BoE decided to intervene, was larger than took place in most years.

Subsequent investigation has revealed that the crisis was not the outcome of peculiarities of the British pension system. Rather it was the expression of broader trends—the attempts by funds to meet their financial obligations by investing in riskier assets because the return on safe government bonds was so low under the previous low-interest rate regime.

This development promoted a warning from the Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) at the end of last month. Pension funds had to be “extremely careful” when searching for higher yields by investing in illiquid assets which cannot be readily turned into cash if the need arises.

When the financial system is operating smoothly, they have no need for cash. But if a sharp turn takes place, such as a rise in interest rates, cash becomes essential.

Speaking on the OECD findings, Pablo Antolin, of the organisation’s Financial Affairs Division, said there was a need for pension funds to invest in more illiquid assets, but “we also have to be extremely careful because liquidity issues are very important in the management of investment strategies.”

The developing crisis goes across the board. As an FT editorial on the end of the cheap money era noted, higher interest rates would bring “casualties” and, given the uncertainty, market turmoil would continue.

“The combination is likely to shake out overbought assets and increase defaults. If rates rise further defaults will become more likely. That will not just be in developing and emerging economies, where distress is already visible. Highly leveraged ventures will be under pressure in high-income countries too.”

The implications for the working class of this deepening crisis are revealed not only in the repeated statements from the major central banks that in lifting interest rates their target is “tight” labour markets but in the actions of major corporations.

The chief US economist at RBC Capital Markets, Tom Porcelli, told the FT that with a weakening global economy, companies would try to protect their profit margins by “going after labour.”

His assessment was shared by Carl Riccadonna, chief US economist at BNP Paribas as he pointed to job cuts in the technology sector.

“As you face margin compression [reduced profit rates] and you try to defend against that, you’re reducing overtime, you’re freezing wages, freezing hiring, or even outright layoffs,” he said.

International School for Young Astronomers (ISYA) 2023

Application Deadline: 31st March 2023

About the Award: The school is organized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (NASL) and by the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO). This school will take place over a three-week period and is aimed towards early graduate students (MSc/PhD) in Physics, Astronomy or Astrophysics from African countries, although we will also consider final year BSc students with a strong intention of entering a graduate program on Astronomy and Astrophysics. The lecturers are invited experts from around the world.

Type: Training

Eligibility:

• This school will take place over a three-week period and is aimed towards early graduate students (MSc/PhD) in Physics, Astronomy or Astrophysics from African countries, although we will also consider final year BSc students with a strong intention of entering a graduate program on Astronomy and Astrophysics.
• These chosen students will be from regions where less opportunities are available for students to be directly exposed to the full extent of up-to-date astrophysics, both on theory and observations.

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be Taken at (Country): Cape Town, South Africa 

Number of Awards: 30

Value of Award: Acceptance to the school covers flights to and from South Africa (including domestic flights), accommodation and subsistence at the ISYA. All selected students are expected to commit 100% of their time to participate in all the planned activities held over the three week duration of the school (we will start each day at 9am and end about 7pm).

Duration of Award: 19 November – 9 December 2023.

How to Apply: Find out more

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Higher Education Scholarships in Taiwan 2023/2024

Application Deadline: 15th March, 2023

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: The students of eligible countries of the region of Asia Pacific, West Asia, Africa (Burkina Faso, Republic of Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, South Africa, Swaziland), Caribbean, Central America, South America, Europe can apply for this scholarship.

To be taken at (country): Universities in Taiwan

Accepted Subject Areas: For undergraduate, masters and PhD courses offered at any of the participating University in Taiwan

About Scholarship: International education and training has long been one of the TaiwanICDF’s core operations, among many others. Human resources development programs play a vital role in assisting partner countries to achieve sustainable development, and education is a crucial mechanism for training workforces in developing countries.

The TaiwanICDF provides scholarships for higher education and has developed undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. programs in cooperation with renowned partner universities in Taiwan.

The scholarship recipients gets a full scholarship, including return airfare, housing, tuition and credit fees, insurance, textbook costs and a monthly allowance.

Type: Undergraduate, Masters and PhD Scholarship

Who is eligible to apply? An applicant must:

• -Be a citizen of List of Countries Eligible (including select African countries) for TaiwanICDF Scholarship, and satisfy any specific criteria established by his or her country and/or government of citizenship.
• -Neither be a national of the Republic of China (Taiwan) nor an overseas compatriot student.
• -Satisfy the admission requirements of the partner university to which he or she has applied to study under a TaiwanICDF scholarship.
• -Be able to satisfy all requirements for a Resident Visa (Code: FS) set by the Bureau of Consular Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and an Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) set by the Ministry of the Interior, of the ROC (Taiwan) government (this means that the TaiwanICDF has the right to revoke a scholarship offered if an applicant cannot satisfy the visa requirements).
• -Upon accepting a TaiwanICDF scholarship, not hold any other ROC(Taiwan) government-sponsored scholarship (such as the Taiwan Scholarship) in the same academic year in which the TaiwanICDF scholarship would be due to commence.
• -Not be applying for a further TaiwanICDF scholarship in unbroken succession — applicants who have already held a TaiwanICDF scholarship must have returned to their home country for more than one year before re-applying.
• -Have never had any scholarship revoked by any ROC (Taiwan) government agency or related institution, nor been expelled from any Taiwanese university.

Number of Scholarships: Not Specified

Scholarship Benefits and Duration: The TaiwanICDF provides each scholarship recipient with a full scholarship, including return airfare, housing, tuition and credit fees, insurance, textbook costs and a monthly allowance.

• Undergraduate Program (maximum four years): Each student receives NT$12,000 per month (NT$144,000 per year) as an allowance for food and miscellaneous living expenses.
• Master’s Program (maximum two years): Each student receives NT$15,000 per month (NT$180,000 per year) as an allowance for food and miscellaneous living expenses.
• PhD Program (maximum four years; four-year PhD programs start from 2012): Each students receives NT$17,000 per month (NT$204,000 per year) as an allowance for food and miscellaneous living expenses.

How to Apply: 

• Applicants must complete an online application (found in Program Webpage link below). Then submit a signed, printed copy and all other application documents to the ROC (Taiwan) Embassy/ Consulate (General)/ Representative Office/ Taiwan Technical Mission or project representative in their country.
• Please note that each applicant can only apply for one program at a time. The applicant must also submit a separate program application to his/her chosen universities.

Visit Program Webpage for the Online Application System and more details about this scholarship.

Ukraine Women Prove Resilient in the Face of War

Cesar Chelala

Photograph Source: Silar – CC BY-SA 4.0

The war in Ukraine is having growing negative effects on women and girl’s health and well-being. They encompass not only gender-based violence, but include all aspects of women’s and girl’s lives. Access to basic services and life-saving sexual and reproductive health care have been drastically disrupted.

Since the 2013 Maidan revolution, also known as “dignity revolution,” Ukrainian women have been increasingly engaged in the political, social, and economic affairs of the country. This engagement has led to an increase in women’s political participation, manifested by gains in parliamentary seats and in village and regional councils. As a result, Ukraine has ratified or joined most international agreements on gender equality.

In spite of these advances, however, gender inequalities persist, bolstered by traditional norms that promote systemic discrimination and biases against women and girls. These inequities have been aggravated by the war conducted by Russia in eastern Ukraine since 2014. The years of conflict since then have increased and deepened pre-existing gender inequalities and created new ones such as arbitrary killings, rape and trafficking.

The war has particularly affected marginalized and disadvantaged groups such as female-headed households, internally displaced persons, Roma people, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ people. As a result, women facing multiple forms of discrimination are in need of special assistance.

Today, millions of people have fled Ukraine and million’s more –nearly two-thirds of them women and children—have been internally displaced and, as a consequence, do not have access to essential services such as health care, employment, and housing. Poverty and dependency on social assistance has increased and has pushed many women into the unprotected informal sectors of the economy.

The COVID-19 pandemic, that began in Ukraine on March 3, 2020, threatened the gains that had been made on women’s rights, economic empowerment and access to health care. Prolonged restrictions on mobility, particularly for women and young people, have increased despair and isolation, and have increased its negative effect on people with mental health challenges. Young people and children are forced to sacrifice their future so they can survive in the present.

Even in times of peace, women tend to be more food insecure than men, but the war in Ukraine has exacerbated the number of women experiencing hunger, energy insecurity and economic instability. The Russian aggression on Ukraine has provoked a redistribution of family roles, adding to the already heavy burden of women who, in addition to traditional home responsibilities are now obliged to look for additional sources of income.

Women who are caring for children face extreme shortages of essential medicines, healthcare and funds to obtain basic items, including baby food and formula. Many women face the challenge to accommodate and feed internally displaced people. This increases their unpaid care and domestic work responsibilities, often at the expense of their physical and mental health and wellbeing.

The martial order issued by the Ukraine State Border Guard Service at the beginning of the Russian invasion that led to tens of thousands of civilians fleeing to other countries decreed that those between 18 and 40 years old should stay in the country. It is estimated that 95 percent of single-parent households are headed by single mothers, who now face increased pressure to provide for their families while male family members are more directly involved in defense activities.

Despite the heavy burdens imposed by the war, Ukrainian women have shown considerable resilience and have contributed greatly to defense efforts. It is estimated that women make up 25 percent of Ukrainian armed forces. This is an almost 10 percent increase from the beginning of the Russian invasion. Women have integrated fully in the armed forces, performing duties as soldiers and holding positions of command.

The Russian military leaders didn’t expect such a strong resistance from the Ukrainian soldiers, and even less from a Ukrainian army strengthened by the participation of women, something that needs to be acknowledged and honored as a critical factor in the defense of their country.