Thousands still isolated one week after devastating floods in New Zealand

Tom Peters

One week after much of New Zealand’s North Island was devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle, it is clear that the storm was the country’s most destructive event since the 2010–2011 Christchurch earthquakes, and the worst weather-related disaster this century.

Yesterday the Labour Party government extended its state of emergency for flood-affected areas for another week. There were still 15,000 properties without power, mostly in Napier and Hastings. This morning police reported that 1,700 people are still unaccounted for. Many communities remain cut off due to impassable roads in the Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne, East Cape, Northland and Coromandel regions.

The remains of a vehicle after flooding in Eskdale [Photo: Hastings District Council]

The death toll stands at 11, with the government warning that this is likely to increase further.

Questions have been raised about why places that are prone to flooding like the Esk Valley in the Hawke’s Bay, where many properties were destroyed and a two-year-old girl drowned, were not evacuated before the storm.

On Monday at 8.33 p.m., the Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence and Emergency Management issued a notice saying: “If evacuation is required overnight, teams will be deployed to advise residents.” People could also self-evacuate, “if you feel concerned.” According to Stuff, “evacuations were under way at 3.19 a.m.,” but by then the Esk Valley was already inundated.

In nearby Puketapu, a family with several children, including a nine-month-old baby, climbed onto the roof at 5.00 a.m., watching as the water swept away vehicles below. The mother repeatedly called emergency services who told her help was on the way, but it never arrived. The group were rescued by neighbours more than six hours later.

The mother told Radio NZ (RNZ): “I was really disappointed… you hear on the news that, you know, they’re congratulating themselves for rescuing everybody and it’s like, ‘No, I could’ve died.’”

The fact that so many people remain isolated and have not been contacted since the February 13–14 storm raises serious concerns about their welfare.

Many are on the East Cape, where the only highway connecting dozens of villages has been severely damaged. This was entirely predictable: the road is poorly maintained and notoriously vulnerable to flooding and slips. Despite several days’ warning about the approaching cyclone, preparations were not made to support communities that would be cut off for a week or longer.

Midwife Corrina Parata​ told Stuff she had to walk for hours on Sunday to take supplies to a pregnant woman in the isolated Mangahauini​ Valley on the East Cape. “The stress levels and anxiety levels can pose problems for expectant mothers,” Parata said. “It’s been quite concerning not being able to see women with high-risk pregnancies on a normal, regular basis.”

The region’s small Te Puia Springs Hospital, which accommodates dementia patients, remained in a severe crisis on Sunday. Hospital services coordinator Ra Campbell told Stuff it still had “no running water, no toilets, nowhere to wash. Everyone’s starting to get diarrhoea, vomiting, everything like that is starting now.” The water supply has since been restored after a generator was flown to the hospital by helicopter.

In Tokomaru Bay, another cut-off town, some supplies have been delivered by the military, but residents told Stuff they were not being distributed fairly. “I haven’t seen a loaf of bread in four days… nobody knows where it’s going,” one person said.

The World Socialist Web Site spoke with Hamish, a service station worker in Napier, where tens of thousands of people are still without power after a substation was flooded. Hamish, who worked as a relief worker for the Red Cross during previous flooding in 2020, said his house has avoided significant damage, but Eskdale and surrounding areas (population 2,673 according to the most recent census) is largely uninhabitable, with homes and businesses buried in silt. He said he was planning to volunteer to help with the clean-up operation.

“I think we all could have had a lot more notice” to evacuate, he said. At his workplace, two staff members were manning the night shift when the storm hit and power and internet went out around 11.15 p.m. “They weren’t getting any contact from anybody to say whether they should stay or go, so they stayed working until 5.00 a.m., when my manager came in” and told them to leave. “They started to lock everything up and they got the alert on their phones from Civil Defence saying the banks had broken.”

Empty supermarket shelves in Napier, which spent most of last week cut off and with supply shortages. [Photo by Supplied]

Damage to roads and bridges means supply chains will remain disrupted for some time, Hamish said. “Supermarkets are always going to be left bare because they can’t keep up with demand. You’re going to have workers wanting to fix roads but they’ve got nothing to fix them with” because of equipment being used elsewhere.

Hamish is convinced that a large amount of the damage could have been avoided. Across the Hawke’s Bay and East Coast, debris known as slash from the multi-billion dollar logging industry was washed down rivers, forming dams and diverting the flow of water so “it got pushed out sideways and it flooded townships.” Videos posted on social media show road bridges collapsing during the storm under the weight of accumulated slash.

“It’s ridiculous how much has come down,” Hamish said. “I went to the beach just across the road from my work after everything happened. A week ago it had a few stones and maybe one or two logs you could sit on. It’s now absolutely littered with slash, it’s horrendous.”

Forestry consultant Allan Laurie told RNZ this morning that it was a “huge challenge” to solve the problem of slash while ensuring that the logging industry remains profitable. It could not be done without “major investment from [the] government,” he said.

Journalist Mike Smith said the problem stemmed from 1987, when the Labour Party-led government split what was then the state-owned Forest Service into two entities: the Forestry Corporation, which was run as a business, and the Conservation Department. The country’s forests were subsequently privatised and deregulated, and the industry is now one of the most dangerous, with frequent reports of worker deaths and serious injuries.

Hamish told the WSWS that Napier remains extremely vulnerable if it is hit by more severe weather in coming weeks. This happened in Auckland, which experienced unprecedented rainfall and flooding on January 27 and again with Cyclone Gabrielle. 

“If that happens, we’re not ready. That power station in Redclyffe, they’re still trying to clear the mud out of the machines to see the extent of the damage. What power the city is getting is hanging on a fine wire.”

The MetService website is currently warning of a possible “extended period of rain for the east coast of the North Island, including Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay,” starting on Thursday.

Commonwealth Distance-Learning Scholarships 2023/2024

Application Deadline: 28th March 2023

Eligible Countries: Bangladesh, Cameroon, Eswatini, Ghana, Guyana, India, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, The Gambia, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia

To be taken at: UK Universities

About the Award: Commonwealth Distance Learning Scholarships are offered for citizens of certain developing Commonwealth countries. These scholarships are funded by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), to contribute to the UK’s international development aims and wider overseas interests, supporting excellence in UK higher education, and sustaining the principles of the Commonwealth.

These scholarships are offered under six themes:

1. Science and technology for development
2. Strengthening health systems and capacity
3. Promoting global prosperity
4. Strengthening global peace, security and governance
5. Strengthening resilience and response to crises
6. Access, inclusion and opportunity

Find out more about the CSC Development themes.

Information for universities is now available.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: To apply for these scholarships, you must:

• Be a citizen of or have been granted refugee status by an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person
• Be permanently resident in an eligible Commonwealth country
• Hold a first degree of at least upper second class (2:1) standard; a lower qualification and sufficient relevant experience may be considered in certain cases
• Be unable to afford to study your chosen course without this scholarship.

The CSC aims to identify talented individuals who have the potential to make change. We are committed to a policy of equal opportunity and non-discrimination, and encourage applications from a diverse range of candidates.

Selection Criteria: Selection criteria include:

• Academic merit of the candidate
• Potential impact of the work on the development of the candidate’s home country

How to apply: The CSC’s online application form is now open.

• You should apply to study an eligible Master’s course at a UK university that is participating in the Distance Learning scheme. Click here for a list of participating universities and eligible courses.
• You must also secure admission to your course in addition to applying for a Distance Learning Scholarship. You must check with your chosen university for their specific advice on when to apply, admission requirements, and rules for applying. You must make your application using the CSC’s online application system, in addition to any other application that you are required to complete by your chosen university. The CSC will not accept any applications that are not submitted via the online application system.
• You can apply for more than one course and/or to more than one university, but you may only accept one offer of a Distance Learning Scholarship.
• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage see link below) before applying

Visit the Scholarship Webpage for Details

Fiji’s ex-PM Bainimarama suspended from parliament for sedition

John Braddock

Amid an escalating political crisis in Fiji, the South Pacific country’s former coup leader, ex-prime minister and now opposition leader, Frank Bainimarama, has been suspended from parliament for three years for sedition and insulting the president.

Fiji prime minister and FijiFirst leader Frank Bainimarama addressing climate conference in 2017. [Photo by Flickr/James Dowson / CC BY-NC-SA 2.5]

A parliamentary vote on Friday authorised Bainimarama’s suspension after he had launched a verbal attack on the president, Ratu Wiliame Katonivere. The suspension motion, which provides for a standard two-year stand-down for even minor breaches of privilege, was based on a measure previously enacted by Bainimarama’s own authoritarian government.

In a belligerent speech on the opening day of parliament on February 13, Bainimarama criticised Katonivere—who is also the former president of Bainimarama’s party, FijiFirst—for supporting the new government, saying he had “failed the Fijian people.” “He will go down in history as the person who aided and abetted the most incompetent and divisive government,” Bainimarama declared.

Bainimarama also accused recently installed Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and his coalition government of “setting out to destroy constitutional democracy.” “In all of this,” he said, “the President who we looked up to because we believed that he genuinely believed in the values and principles of the Constitution has done an about turn.”

The narrow vote, which followed a recommendation by the Privileges Committee, saw 27 MPs in favour, 24 opposed while four abstained. Bainimarama was not present. According to the sanctions, Bainimarama is barred from entering the parliamentary precincts and is required to apologise to both the public and Katonivere.

The FijiFirst opposition made it clear that Bainimarama will not apologise, declaring he had done “nothing wrong.” The party flatly denied that their leader had incited rebellion and pointed to his base of support, which drew 29 percent of all votes in the December election.

The election itself was another sham contest between two parties led by former military strongmen, carried out under conditions of tight media censorship, heavy political restrictions and accusations of government intimidation. With Fiji’s ruling elite sharply divided, Bainimarama will not simply disappear and indeed, will continue plotting.

The election resulted in a hung parliament and the removal of Bainimarama who had ruled the country with a population of 930,000 since his 2006 coup. Rabuka, another former military coup leader and ex-prime minister, took office as head of a fragile three-party coalition including his People’s Alliance Party (PAP), the National Federation Party (NFP) and the Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA)—a minority party holding the balance of power with just three MPs.

The installation of the new government has resulted in an ongoing power struggle between the two former coup leaders and the contesting factions of the ruling elite that back them. The possibility of yet another coup remains acute. In January, the head of the military, Major General Jone Kalouniwai, released an extraordinary media statement warning Rabuka not to proceed too quickly with “sweeping changes.”

Bainimarama made his own pitch to the military, which he once commanded, in his parliamentary speech. Directly addressing the “rank and file” of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF), he demagogically declared that “all the philosophical commitment and years of hard work of the RFMF is now being undermined and disregarded by this government.” 

Bainimarama called on the RFMF to “maintain their credibility and their calling and not forsake their constitutional role,” which he said was “being bashed on a daily basis” by the Rabuka government. He absurdly claimed that Fijians who want “socio-economic stability,” all “look up to the RFMF to guarantee these if and when it is under threat.”

Kalouniwai’s media release had prompted widespread alarm, with the Fiji Times reporting that a “wave of concern and emotions swept through the nation.” Section 131 of the 2013 Constitution, drawn up under Bainimarama, gives the RFMF commander unrestrained powers to ensure the “safety and security of the country.” While Kalouniwai promised during the elections that he would “respect” the process and outcome, his statement was a blunt assertion that the RFMF is still in charge.

Prior to the parliamentary session, Bainimarama and his former Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum were called in for police questioning over allegations of abuse of office. According to police, the pair were interrogated for several hours “with regards to a separate report lodged earlier.” This appeared to relate to a complaint against Sayed-Khaiyum in December for allegedly inciting racial hatred and violence at a media conference before the coalition government had been formed.

The election and its aftermath have seen a sharp revival and promotion of communalist racial politics. The government is already cementing the position of the ethnic Fijian iTaukei elite at the expense of Indo-Fijians. Rabuka has re-established the privileged Great Council of Chiefs. That body was shut down in 2012 by Bainimarama, who accused it of exacerbating racial divisions “to the detriment of Fiji’s pursuit of a common and equal citizenry.”

The government is also moving to repeal as many as 32 laws deemed “discriminatory” to traditional Fijian landowners. High on the list is the “surfing decree.” This 2010 measure sought to boost the tourism industry by allowing public admission to world-class surfing areas previously only accessible through the patronage of private resorts controlled by foreign owners.

Rabuka has also quickly moved to replace key personnel in the civil service seen as Bainimarama’s political appointees. Police commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho and corrections services boss Francis Kean have been suspended. Former elections supervisor Mohammed Saneem has resigned and is under investigation by the anti-corruption agency while the Broadcasting Corporation board has sacked CEO Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, who is also under a corruption cloud.

Successive regimes, including Rabuka’s term as prime minister from 1992-1999, have all rested on the military and have been authoritarian and anti-working class. Harsh austerity measures that have heightened social inequality and misery have been accompanied by repressive laws and violence by the police and military. Struggles by workers, including strikes, have been harshly suppressed. The renewed turn to racialist politics will be used as a battering ram against any emerging struggles of the working class.

Like governments around the world, the government will impose the dictates of international finance capital, with even greater austerity measures against workers and the rural poor. A national Economic Summit is to be held in April, ostensibly to “rebuild the country’s economic fortunes through consultation and collaboration.” In every country where such events have been held, they have heralded sweeping attacks on the working class.

Fiji’s workers are still suffering a skyrocketing cost of living and thousands of lost jobs. The social catastrophe has been exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The poverty rate was nearly 30 percent in 2020, but half the population is struggling to put food on the table. After three years of economic decline, total debt is 88.6 percent of GDP.

Governments in Australia, New Zealand and the US are closely watching developments. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken promptly declared that Washington “looks forward to deepening our relationship for the benefit of the people of Fiji, the US, and the broader Indo-Pacific.”

The imperialist powers, who regard the Pacific as their own “backyard,” are chiefly concerned with their geostrategic interests against Beijing. After the 2006 coup, Canberra and Wellington initially imposed trade and diplomatic sanctions. These backfired with Bainimarama’s “Look North” policy toward China prompting Washington to demand a new strategy aimed at bringing the dictator into the fold.

As chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, Bainimarama has since played a key role orienting Pacific Island leaders towards Washington. Fiji’s new government is also falling into line. Rabuka recently cancelled a police training and exchange agreement with China before tweeting: “Australia and NZ remain key strategic partners. We will continue to strengthen our relationship with the @USEmbassySuva, while continuing cooperation with China.”

Health care workers’ protests and strikes mount across Spain

Alejandro López

Spanish health workers are continuing to protest and strike against the capitalist offensive against health care. Strikes and protests have continued for over a year, and doctors, nurses and other health staff have taken separate action in regions across the country. Strikes were called in Cantabria in November, Catalonia in January, Navarra in February, and Valencia in March and April.

In Madrid, the epicentre of this struggle, strikes have proceeded intermittently since the end of last year. They culminated in a protest by half a million people in Madrid in mid-November in defence of the public health care system and against its dismantling and privatization under the right-wing Popular Party (PP) regional government of Isabel Ayuso. Organizers say 670,000 people took to the streets, one of the largest protests in Spain’s capital in decades.

Last week, hundreds of thousands joined a new rally in support of doctors and in defence of public health. According to the organisers, 1 million people were present, while the government claimed 250,000 joined. A petition with 50,000 signatures was delivered to the ministry of health. Meanwhile, 50,000 protested in Galicia’s capital, Santiago de Compostela, and 11,000 in Burgos.

It is part of the emerging revolutionary crisis, as the ruling class privatises, dismantles and sacks thousands of health workers, while providing trillions of euros in bank bailouts and military spending on NATO’s war on Russia in Ukraine.

People gather during a protest in support of public health care at the Cibeles square in downtown Madrid, Spain, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. [AP Photo/Manu Fernandez]

Madrid’s 5,000 physicians and doctors have staged weekly walkouts since November and are currently on an indefinite strike. They say they are unable to provide adequate care under current expectations to see 60-70 patients a day. They are demanding at least 10 minutes to see each patient in general medicine, and at least 15 minutes for pediatric patients.

Madrid’s physicians have now been joined by hospital workers who are calling for a two-day strike on March 1 and 2. In the region of Aragon, the medical unions have called a strike for March 31. In Navarre, a strike by nurses and physiotherapists has been called for February 28.

Health workers are in a very powerful position. There are over 1.1 million health care workers in Spain. The country’s public health care is immensely popular among workers who depend on it for their care of their children, the elderly and themselves. Moreover, health workers were widely hailed for their enormous sacrifices in the ongoing struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic, which claimed over 160,000 lives and continues to kill dozens of people every week in Spain.

The Madrid health strike is part of an escalating conflict between the entire working class and the political establishment across Europe. However, to achieve its aims it cannot be won based upon a bankrupt and unrealistic perspective of pressuring the Ayuso government in Madrid; appeals to the PSOE-Podemos; or partial one day or indefinite strikes called by the union bureaucracies.

The Ayuso regional government has made clear that it will not respond to mass protests by changing policy. Instead, it is escalating repression. Directly attacking doctors’ freedom of speech, her government ordered random inspections to ensure doctors were not collecting signatures or putting up posters during working hours. Ayuso tried and failed to break the strike by requiring a ‘minimum services’ requirement by health workers during the strike, of 50 to 100 percent of normal workloads.

Appeals to the PSOE and Podemos, who rule at the national level and in some regions where health workers are in struggle—such as Valencia, Aragon, Castile-La Mancha—are also a dead end. A counter-offensive demands a political and organisational struggle against the PSOE-Podemos government which colludes with the PP in their attacks.

Like Ayuso, the PSOE-Podemos government tries to break strikes using minimum services laws, particularly against airline workers and is preparing other repressive measures to block strikes.

In fact, the PSOE-Podemos government and Ayuso work together on anti-worker policies. In autumn 2020, they worked together to implement a murderous Covid-19 policy, with the PSOE-Podemos threatening to deploy 7,500 soldiers against protests of Ayuso’s order limiting lockdowns to only the working class districts of Madrid. The order, worked out between the Madrid regional and the PSOE-Podemos national government, required workers and youth to continue reporting to work and school. It imposed lockdowns only in working class suburbs.

The PSOE-Podemos is handing over billions of euros in state funds from the EU ‘Next Generation’ bailouts to corporations and banks, while diverting the historic amount of €27 billion to the Spanish military. It has provided millions of euros in offensive military, including tanks and ammunition to the right-wing Kiev regime in NATO’s war against Russia in the Ukraine, while claiming there is no money for the public healthcare system.

Imperialist war abroad has gone hand in hand with class war at home. Last year, the PSOE-Podemos government deployed armoured vehicles against striking metalworkers, thousands of police to protect the NATO summit in Madrid last June and 23,000 police against the three-week nationwide truck drivers’ strike. It was the largest police deployment and scabbing operation against a strike ever in Spain.

Workers cannot rely on the union bureaucracy, which acts as the labour police of the ruling class. The systematic attacks on public health care over the past decades, have only been possible with the active collusion of the bureaucracy. Both medical and nursing unions and national union confederations like CCOO, UGT, CSIF or CGT have looked the other way for years without raising any real opposition.

Now, they are systematically sabotaging the struggle. The medical unions grouped in the State Confederation of Medical Unions (CESM) have refused to unify the different strikes carried out in various regions. They thus avoid a broader mobilization, cutting health workers off from their colleagues across Spain and Europe, and more broadly from the escalating strike movement in the European and international working class.

Even within the same union, they have called strikes on different dates. Within the same region, the unions have also worked to isolate different sections of healthcare workers in struggle. In Madrid, primary care and emergency doctors held separate strikes on different dates.

Besides maintaining this strategy of dispersing strikes on different regions and dates, wherever possible, the union bureaucracies shut them down after imposing agreements with the different regional governments that betray health workers’ demands. In Madrid, the Amyts doctors’ union watered down its demands last week, calling for a €400 pay increase instead of €479.77.

Why are 42 percent of US high school students experiencing persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness?

Kate Randall

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month released its “Youth Risk Behavior Survey [YRBS] Data Summary & Trends Report: 2011-2021.” The CDC’s findings are both shocking and disturbing.

Among US high school students in 2021:

• 42 percent experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness
• 29 percent experienced poor mental health during the previous 30 days
• 22 percent seriously considered attempting suicide
• 18 percent made a suicide plan
• 10 percent attempted suicide
• 3 percent were injured in a suicide attempt that had to be treated by a doctor or nurse

There were approximately 17 million students enrolled in private and public high schools in the US in 2021 (Statistica). Extrapolating from the CDC data, this means that more than 7 million of these students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and 1.7 million attempted suicide. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among 15- to 24-year-olds in the US.

Youth Risk Behavior Survey: Data Summary & Trends Report [Photo: US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]

What is behind this devastating picture of the mental health of teenagers in America? While the CDC offers few answers or solutions, they can be pointed to in the life experiences of this young segment of the population in the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, which served to amplify the ills and mental health struggles in a society already wracked by poverty, social inequality, police violence and war.

Consider some of the conditions young people confront:

• 238,500 young people in the US have lost a primary caregiver in the pandemic—becoming COVID-19 orphans—according to Imperial College London.

Losing a parent is one of the most destabilizing and stressful events of the human experience, placing bereaved children at increased risk of mental ill-health and psychosocial problems. Orphans are at increased risk of substance abuse, dropping out of school, and almost twice as likely as non-orphans to die by suicide.

Adding to the pressure on children was the mounting incidence of mental health issues among their parents. 71 percent of parents surveyed in 2020 said they believed the pandemic had hurt their mental health.

A 2021 study found that 34 percent of parents reported elevated anxiety symptoms and 28 percent of them reported depression symptoms at the point of clinical concern, reports Lucy (Kathleen) McGoron, assistant professor of Child and Family Development at Wayne State University.

In October 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics declared a national emergency in child mental health, citing “soaring” rates of child mental health.

The US government has committed only $300 million to a national response to the child mental health crisis, a pittance compared to the $25 billion in “security assistance” given to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration.

Breaking down the statistics

The YRBS survey found that poor mental health and suicidality were worse for certain sections of the high school population. 

Fifty-seven percent of female students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and 41 percent said they experienced poor mental health during the previous 30 days. Over the previous year, 30 percent of high school girls considered attempting suicide, 24 percent made a suicide plan, 13 percent attempted suicide and 4 percent were injured in a suicide attempt.

LGBQ+ students fared the worst in all mental-health-related categories. (YRBS did not have a question assessing gender identity, so did not specifically include students who identify as transgender.) A staggering 69 percent of LGBQ+ students experienced persistent feelings of hopelessness in 2021; 52 percent experienced poor mental health during the previous 30 days, 45 seriously considered attempting suicide, 37 percent made a suicide plan, 22 percent attempted suicide, and 7 percent were injured in a suicide attempt.

In 2021, 31 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native students experienced high levels of poor mental health, 27 percent seriously considered suicide, 22 percent made a suicide plan, and 16 percent attempted suicide. Forty-nine percent of students identifying as multiracial experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, 33 percent experienced poor mental health over the previous 30 days, and 24 percent seriously considered attempting suicide.

Black, Hispanic, white and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students showed similar rates of feeling persistently sad or hopeless (39–41 percent), experiences poor mental health (20–30 percent), seriously considered suicide (21–23 percent) or made a suicide plan (17–20). Asian students fared somewhat better than other demographics.

The survey considered race and sexual identity to the exclusion of questions of class or socioeconomic status. One survey question did ask whether, over the previous 30 days, students experienced unstable housing—living in a shelter or emergency housing, being homeless, doubling up with family or friends, living in a shelter or emergency housing, or in motel, car, campground or other public place—which would indicate students living in a household experiencing unemployment, poverty or abusive conditions.

The overall total of students experiencing unstable housing was 3 percent, with the highest rates among American Indian or Alaska Natives (8 percent) and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders (10 percent). The survey’s preoccupation with race and sexual identity is reflected in its inability to offer any understanding of why high school students are experiencing a mental health crisis or what can be done about it.

Results from other Focus Areas of the survey mirror the advanced stage of the social crisis in America as experienced by young people.

Substance use

The CDC’s YRBS survey found that among all US high school students in 2021:

• 23 percent drank alcohol during the previous 30 days
• 16 percent used cannabis during the previous 30 days
• 12 percent had ever misused prescription opioids

US overdose deaths rose by 15 percent to record levels in 2021, nearing 108,000, fueled mainly by fentanyl. Deaths involving synthetic opioids rose to 71,000 in 2021, up from 58,000 in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.

Youth Risk Behavior Survey: Data Summary & Trends Report [Photo: US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]

Experiencing violence

Among all high school students in 2021:

• 7 percent were threatened or injured with a weapon at school
• 15 reported being bullied at school
• 16 percent were electronically bullied
• 11 percent of all students, 18 percent of females, and 39 percent of students who reported any same-sex sexual contacts experienced sexual violence.

So far this year, as of February 19, the Gun Violence Archive reports 5,789 gun violence deaths of all causes, including 2,489 homicides/unintentional shootings and 3,300 suicides.

Seventy-nine mass shootings resulted in the deaths of 32 children (age 0-11) and 212 teenagers (age 12-17).

There were 183 police-involved shootings, resulting in 112 deaths; murder/suicides claimed 102 lives.

Youth are witness to this non-stop slaughter at home as well as the violence of the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. The US ruling elite is hurtling now toward war with nuclear power Russia, raising the threat of millions of deaths in a Third World War.

US life expectancy in the US decreased for the second year in a row in 2021, according to the CDC, leading to a decline in life expectancy from 77 years to 76.4 years. If this trend continues, a child born in the US today is expected to live a shorter life than his or her grandparents.

The mental health emergency plaguing America’s high school students is above all a social crisis that must be confronted by workers and youth in a struggle against a wealthy elite that is prepared to drive millions into poverty as prices soar, real wages plunge and job prospects for young people dwindle.

Rise of congenital syphilis in the US the result of a decades-long deterioration in public health

Jesus Ugarte & Benjamin Mateus

There has been a disturbing trend in the rise of congenital syphilis (CS)—the transmission of the bacteria that causes the disease from mother to fetus—over the last decade. A disease that was on its way to eradication is once again reemerging along with other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), affecting the most vulnerable members of society.

An infant receives a routine vaccination in Fayetteville, Georgia, Tuesday, August 17, 2021. [AP Photo/Angie Wang]

The number of babies being treated for CS has jumped by more than 900 percent over five years in Mississippi, home to the nation’s worst infant mortality rate. In 2021, 102 newborns in the US state were treated for CS, up from 10 in 2016, according to an analysis of hospital billing data shared by Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the medical director for the Mississippi State Department of Health’s Crossroads Clinic in Jackson, which focuses on sexually transmitted infections. 

Dobbs, the state’s former health officer, told NBC News that he has spoken with health care providers who “are absolutely horrified” that babies are being born with the disease and in rare instances dying from it. That such diseases are readily treatable, easily identifiable and therefore completely preventable, that CS is once more taking hold, particularly among the poorest and most marginalized, fundamentally underscores the all too evident fact that public health in the US is being abandoned.

The resurgence of such diseases is also a symptom of the abandonment of the social contract between government and elected officials and their constituents at the behest of the financial handlers who deem any spending on meaningful programs that make life better for the working class wasteful and unprofitable. The lack of investment in public health, particularly in impoverished areas, has contributed to the growing spread of CS.

Syphilis is a chronic infection caused by Treponema pallidum (T. pallidum), which belongs to the family of spiral-shaped bacteria, the Spirochaetaceae, commonly referred to as spirochetes. Fritz Schaudinn and Erich Hoffman identified T. pallidum as the cause of syphilis in 1905. Humans are the only host for the bacteria. Although it has been present in human society for thousands of years, the first well-documented outbreak of syphilis occurred in Italy in 1494. Since then, syphilis has been a socially stigmatized disease. Initially called “the French disease” by the Neapolitans, it was variously referred to by other xenophobic names, such as “the Polish disease,” “the German disease” or “the Christian disease” during the nascent development of capitalism and nation-state systems, which would quickly lay blame on their neighbors when such epidemics took hold.

In 1943, 15 years after the introduction of penicillin in 1928, clinical trials demonstrated the antibiotic to be highly effective against the spirochete. This is also the case with CS, which occurs when T. pallidum is transmitted from an infected mother to her baby. Timely treatment of the expecting mother with penicillin exhibits a 98 percent efficacy against CS. But this requires that pregnant women have access to necessary obstetric care, which should begin with valuable education before conception. Such care should include prenatal vitamins, testing for STIs, and thorough evaluation to ensure the mother’s health and that of her unborn child remain optimal throughout the pregnancy.

An important distinction between adult syphilis and the congenital variation is in the way T. pallidum enters the body. In the former, the bacterium enters through the skin, causing a local infection. But in CS, the bacterium is released directly into the bloodstream of the fetus. This leads to a systemic infection affecting many organs and resulting in widespread inflammation, tissue destruction, and other harmful, likely permanent effects throughout the child’s body. The bones, kidneys, spleen, liver and heart can be affected, hence the importance of early diagnosis and treatment.

CS is estimated to affect about 1 million pregnancies annually worldwide. It is one of the major contributors of infant mortality, responsible for 305,000 perinatal deaths globally each year. In the US, CS reached its highest point in 1991, with 100 cases per 100,000 live births. It then declined rapidly as efforts to treat the disease were taken up in earnest, reaching its lowest level by 2012 when case rates dropped to 8.4 cases per 100,000 live births. By 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a global campaign to eliminate CS, with the goal of keeping cases below 50 per 100,000 live births.

Since then, however, CS has been on the rise in the US, with preliminary 2021 data indicating a rate of 74.1 cases per 100,000 live births, triple the rate seen in 2017 and eight times the rate in 2012. Indeed, the US stands alone among developed countries with a rate above the WHO threshold.

The rise in CS in the US closely tracks the rise in adult syphilis, which has seen a meteoric rise in the last decade. Preliminary 2021 figures indicate a rate of 51.5 cases per 100,000 adults. In fact, the US has the highest rates among industrialized nations not only of syphilis, but of all sexually transmitted diseases. Still, despite the available data and clinical knowledge, the US does not have a national program to mandate screening all pregnant women for CS. In fact, there are still six states where there is no screening requirement and only a third of states require a third trimester screening.

The rise in syphilis and congenital syphilis is an expression of the growing social antagonism between the ruling elite and the working class, an essential characteristic of capitalism. The monomaniacal pursuit of profit, the quintessential class interest of the ruling class, is fundamentally at odds with the provision of health care to the working class. The financial oligarchs are opposed to any investment, including the sorely needed funding of public health institutions, not returning an immediate profit.

Unsurprisingly, the most affected are the poorer sections of the population. Decades of erosion of public spending have left in place a decrepit public health system. The predictable capitalist response of solving the problem through private enterprise has created an increasingly inaccessible health care system, available only to the wealthier sections of the population.

The importance of public health cannot be understated. It is the essential infrastructure that provides an enduring value throughout a person’s life—the recognition that one’s health and welfare are protected and that, when afflicted, measures are in place to return them to health, while protecting the community from a similar calamity. Prevention of disease is the primary principle of such a contract.

Indeed, the study of public health in the early decades of the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution saw life expectancy climb, seeing it rapidly catch up with the USSR’s European and US counterparts despite lacking similar resources and material goods. These advances were brought about by investing in training physicians, nurses and researchers to study critical medical questions. Hospitals, clinics and sanitariums came into existence to tend to health concerns at no cost to the population.

Combating the surge in CS diagnoses is of the utmost political urgency. Even though the mechanisms to eradicate this curable disease are relatively straightforward, they are nonetheless being abandoned by the ruling class. This brings to the foreground the inextricable link between access to health care and the class struggle.

Death toll tops 45,000 in Turkish-Syrian earthquake

Ulaş Ateşçi

Twelve days after two massive earthquakes in Kahramanmaraş struck southern Turkey and northern Syria, the death toll continues to rise. The quakes, measuring 7.7 and 7.6 magnitudes, devastated ten provinces in Turkey, bringing the death toll in the country to 39,672 as of yesterday, according to official figures.

Dogan Keles cries over the coffin of his son Hazar Keles, 21, before they bury him at Sehir cemetery in Malatya, Turkey, Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023. [AP Photo/Francisco Seco]

Syria, already devastated by the war for regime change waged since 2011 by the NATO powers, including Turkey, and the crippling sanctions imposed by the imperialist powers, was also severely hit by the quakes. Nearly 6,000 people lost their lives in the country, where the UN estimates that over 5 million people have been left homeless.

Moreover, over 1 million Syrians who fled the war and sought refuge in Turkey were living in the border provinces where the earthquake struck. While no official announcement has been made on the number of Syrian refugees who lost their lives in the earthquake, Taha El Gazi, spokesperson for the Asylum Seekers Rights Platform, claimed that the number was over 6,000.

According to the latest statement by Murat Kurum, Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change in Turkey, 684,000 buildings in the earthquake zone were inspected and over 84,000 buildings were identified as “collapsed, to be demolished immediately or heavily damaged.” This means that 12 percent of these buildings have collapsed or been heavily damaged, a proportion that rises much higher in some places.

Vice President Fuat Oktay said yesterday that the number of sites with continuing search-and-rescue operations is below 200. The state started search-and-rescue operations in the affected area days after the earthquakes, leading to the deaths of many injured people waiting to be rescued under the rubble. Soon after the official response began, and with many people still under the rubble, debris removal operations were launched in many cities.

While no official announcement has been made as to how many people might still be under the rubble, alive or dead, it is widely feared that many people may die during debris removal work carried out with heavy construction equipment.

The rescue of Neslihan Kılıç from under the rubble in Maraş on Thursday after a construction equipment operator noticed her during the debris removal work underscored this danger. This premature debris removal work is, in fact, a continuation of the bankrupt, politically criminal policy of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government—both in failing to prepare for the quakes and failing to intervene afterwards to save lives.

The government, which only started to intervene in the affected region on the third day of the earthquake, focused more on covering up its obvious responsibility for the disaster than on search-and-rescue and relief efforts. While no official has resigned, 83 people, mostly contractors, have so far been arrested as scapegoats.

Erdoğan, whose government made no preparations for an earthquake that scientists and state-affiliated institutions had been warning about for years, blamed the resulting social disaster on “fate,” arguing that it is impossible to prepare for massive earthquakes.

However, among many other reports, the “Kahramanmaraş Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Plan” published in 2020 by the Governorship of Kahramanmaraş and the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) under the Interior Ministry has revealed that the earthquake and destruction that occurred in February 6, 2023 were largely predicted.

“In the event of a major earthquake, it is foreseen that a large part of the city would be affected,” the report said in the scenario of a 7.5 magnitude earthquake in Kahramanmaraş. It listed the following possible causes of destruction: “The region is close to an active fault zone; the building stock is poor; soil conditions are suitable for liquefaction; and the ground water level is very high.”

It warned: “Kahramanmaraş region and its surroundings are located in the first degree earthquake zone with high seismic activity in terms of its tectonic structure. The region is under the influence of the East Anatolian Fault and the Dead Sea Fault, which are still active. It is understood that there is an energy accumulation of 200 years on these faults and there is a seismically high potential hazard. At the same time, the fact that the segments of the faults that have not yet been dislocated are located near Kahramanmaraş increases the degree of risk in this section.”

The report continued:

The fact that the Eastern Anatolian Fault and the Dead Sea Fault meet just south of Kahramanmaraş and twist into branches may constitute the epicenter area of possible large magnitude earthquakes. This raises concerns that it will increase the risk and the degree of damage. In addition, the fact that most of the settlements are located on very weak soils further strengthens this concern.

Emphasizing that the public was unaware of the danger of a possible earthquake and that this further increased the extent of the danger, the report outlined the measures the government should take:

For this reason, in order to minimize the loss of life and property in a possible earthquake, it is essential to carry out detailed ground surveys in residential areas and evacuate buildings in hazardous zones. In addition, earthquake activity and earthquake risk must be taken into consideration in the selection of the establishment and development locations of new villages, towns and cities. Earthquake-resistant buildings with correct reinforced concrete and static calculations should be constructed on solid ground away from active faults.

However, those living in hazardous zones were not evacuated, nor was public safety ensured by constructing earthquake-resistant buildings on solid ground. Tens of thousands of people lost their lives as a result, under conditions where the public was largely unaware of the danger. In Turkey, where the state-sponsored private construction industry prided itself on huge investments and reaped huge profits, such a long-term investment, requiring extensive state support, was not seen as profitable.

As millions in the earthquake area were unable to meet their basic needs and thousands were still under the rubble, the Erdoğan government focused on emphasizing “national unity and solidarity” to hide the capitalist profit interests and irresponsible policies behind the disaster.

Initially, while the state and the billionaires stood by and watched the disaster unfold, miners, construction workers, firefighters, health workers, and other layers of workers and youth flocked to the region to join in search-and-rescue and relief efforts. This effort saved many lives and provided for the basic needs of thousands of people. However, the ruling class saw the focus on this effort as unacceptable, as it exposed the state’s undeniable responsibility for the disaster and its criminal incapacity.

On Wednesday, the government issued a live-stream “Turkey in Full Unity” event to collect donations for earthquake victims. The program was hosted by celebrities and broadcast live on many TV channels. It essentially turned into a promotion of the financial oligarchy that owes its fortunes to the exploitation and impoverishment of the working class.

In reality, 85 billion of the 115 billion Turkish liras (US$6.1 billion) said to have been collected for the AFAD state disaster agency in the “Turkey in Full Unity” event came from public banks, not from private sources.

The main official and private institutions of Turkish capitalism, which puts private profit and the accumulation of wealth ahead of human life, tried to whitewash this corrupt social system by throwing millions of dollars around. Some of them were the construction giants wringing their hands to get tenders for the new building projects that the government announced would be completed within a year in the area that turned into mass graves.

What Friedrich Engels wrote in 1845 in The Condition of the Working Class in England about the disgusting hypocrisy of the English bourgeoisie of the time is as if written for today’s Turkish ruling elite’s response to this preventable social catastrophe:

As though you rendered the proletarians a service in first sucking out their very life-blood and then practising your self-complacent, Pharisaic philanthropy upon them, placing yourselves before the world as mighty benefactors of humanity when you give back to the plundered victims the hundredth part of what belongs to them!