New Zealand PM in the US promotes internet censorship, downplays pandemic

Tom Peters

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is in the middle of a two-week visit to the United States, with the stated aim of boosting trade and tourism, after NZ ditched almost all its COVID-19 restrictions and reopened the border.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern answers a question during a press conference at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand. (Robert Kitchin/Pool Photo via AP)

Ardern is accompanied by Trade Minister Damien O’Connor and representatives from major NZ companies including dairy exporter Fonterra, meat processor Silver Fern Farms, and kiwifruit exporter Zespri.

In a press release, Ardern made clear that the US relationship “is fundamental to us in political and security terms too.” She will meet President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, and they will discuss New Zealand’s role in the US-NATO war against Russia, and in the growing preparations for war against China.

It is Ardern’s second overseas trip since the pandemic began. Last month, she visited Japan, where she signed an intelligence-sharing agreement, helping to bring Japan into closer alignment with the US-led Five Eyes spy network.

Ardern’s US visit has been overshadowed by the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde. In response to these horrific events, she echoed the banal statements of Biden and other politicians, which are aimed at preventing any serious discussion of their underlying social and political causes.

In her commencement address to Harvard University graduates last Thursday, and during an earlier appearance on the “Late Show,” Ardern was applauded for mentioning New Zealand’s “gun control” measures. The country’s parliament banned military-style assault rifles following the March 15, 2019 terror attack, in which fascist gunman Brenton Tarrant killed 51 people at two Christchurch mosques.

In her Harvard speech, Ardern said nothing about the role of far-right politicians, including Donald Trump, in fueling Tarrant’s ideology. Instead, she blamed the attack on social media and promoted her government’s push for global internet censorship, dubbed the Christchurch Call to Action.

Ardern lamented the declining influence of “mainstream media outlets,” that is, those which serve corporate interests, and urged social media companies to work with governments to develop “responsible algorithms” to stop “disinformation.”

What this means in practice can be seen in New Zealand, where the Labour Party-led government has already boosted the powers and resources of the Office of the Censor to rapidly take down online content deemed “extremist.” The real target of such measures is not the far-right, but working people, who are moving to the left.

New Zealand, like the US, is seething with class tensions. Ardern portrayed the country as a sort of identity politics paradise, telling her privileged audience: “Almost 50 percent of our parliament are women, 20 percent are Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, and our deputy prime minister is a proud gay man.”

She did not mention that her “diverse” Labour-Greens coalition government has used the pandemic to engineer the biggest transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich in New Zealand’s history. Tens of billions of dollars have been handed to corporations and the banks, while real wages are going backwards amid the soaring cost of living. Nearly one in four children lives in poverty, while homelessness and reliance on charity are at record levels.

Workers are seeking a means to fight back, with a nationwide strike by 10,000 healthcare workers held earlier this month. Low-paid hospital workers face chronic staff shortages, made worse by the constant stream of sick and dying COVID-19 patients.

The New Zealand government is now following the US and other countries in removing all public health restrictions and allowing COVID to infect millions of people. While visiting the US, where hundreds are dying from the virus every day, Ardern promoted the lie that the pandemic is over, as she encouraged tourists to return to New Zealand.

In an interview which was basically an advertorial for New Zealand, “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert congratulated Ardern on the country’s relatively low COVID death toll of more than 1,000 people in a country of five million. Ardern explained that this was because “we decided that we would try and eliminate, just get rid of COVID,” using lockdowns and border quarantine measures.

Ardern said New Zealand had adopted this policy because “we just couldn’t stand the idea of our population being devastated when we could do something about it… It was the right thing to do, it saved so many lives.” She said the border had remained closed “for the entirety of the pandemic,” implying that the restrictions are being lifted now because the pandemic is over.

Ardern’s presentation was false from start to finish. Her Labour Party-led government, supported by the nurses’ and teachers’ unions, initially opposed a nationwide lockdown. The measure was announced in late March 2020, not out of altruism, but because the ruling class feared a mass movement developing among tens of thousands of healthcare workers and others, who were demanding action to stop the virus.

Ardern failed to mention that New Zealand’s elimination policy was abandoned last October, against the advice of public health experts, and that the Omicron variant has spread like wildfire. Following the instructions of the corporate and financial elite, which is totally unconcerned about protecting lives and views all public health measures as a barrier to profit-making, the NZ government has embraced the criminal policy of mass infection.

Quarantine-free travel is resuming just as New Zealand is in the middle of a deadly surge, which is expected to get worse as the country heads into winter. The vast majority of the more than 1,100 COVID-related deaths happened in the last three months, following the reopening of schools for in-person learning.

According to Worldometers, New Zealand recorded 20 COVID deaths per million in the past seven days, the eighth-highest weekly death rate in the world. More than one million people in the country have been infected, meaning there could be hundreds of thousands suffering from Long COVID.

Seeking to minimise the danger posed by the virus, Ardern joked with Colbert about her own recent infection, saying she got COVID “for Mother’s Day” from her partner, and she did not recommend it as a gift.

The virus has, however, disrupted Ardern’s US trip. So far, three members of her delegation have tested positive, including Ministry of Foreign Affairs chief Chris Seed and Ardern’s chief press secretary Andrew Campbell. California Governor Gavin Newsom also revealed he had tested positive the day after meeting Ardern in San Francisco.

Despite this spate of infections, Ardern’s meeting with Biden is still scheduled to go ahead. As the world hurtles towards war, Ardern told the media that she would encourage greater US “engagement” in the Pacific region. This is meant to push back against China’s growing influence and to defend the NZ ruling class’s own interests in its neo-colonial patch.

Sri Lanka faces worsening health crisis

N. Ranges

Alarmed doctors and other health workers across Sri Lanka are issuing serious warnings about severe shortages of vital drugs, vaccines and medical equipment caused by the country’s deepening economic crisis.

Sri Lankan government medical officers protest outside the national hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Thursday, April 7, 2022. [AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena]

While this has most heavily impacted on the country’s run down and underfunded free public health system on which most Sri Lankans rely, both services—public and private—are suffering major shortages of basic medical items.

Reuters reported on May 23 that doctors, health workers and patients at Apeksha Hospital, Sri Lanka’s premier cancer treatment centre, said that the situation was becoming desperate with doctors forced to suspend tests and postpone important medical procedures, including critical surgery.

Dr. Roshan Amaratunga told the news agency: “It is very bad for cancer patients. Sometimes, in the morning we plan for some surgeries [but] we may not be able to do them on that particular day because supplies are not there.” If the situation is not improved quickly, he said, some patients faced a “virtual death sentence.”

Another Apeksha Hospital doctor told the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) that shortages of certain drugs were impacting on other departments. Leukemia treatment doctors, he said, were lacking G-CSF (granulocyte colony-stimulating factor) drugs and antibiotics. Relatives of some patients are also having to find and purchase external supplies of potassium saline vials.

A doctor from the Kandy National Hospital told the WSWS that it had been over a week since the hospital’s last supplies of clips used to send cameras into the mouths of patients suffering from oral evictions of blood due to liver failure had been exhausted.

These life-threatening problems have emerged at every Sri Lankan hospital over the past five months as the country’s financial crisis, precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic and more recently the US-NATO instigated war against Russia, has worsened.

In a desperate attempt to deal with falling foreign currency reserves, President Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s government has slashed key imports, including essential food items, medicines and fuels, leading to extended power cuts.

The resulting social crisis has precipitated mass protests demanding the ouster of President Rajapakse and his regime, and an end to the shortages. Health workers, including doctors, nurses, paramedical staff and other medical workers have been in the forefront of these struggles.

Sri Lanka has to import over 80 percent of its pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies. While the health ministry says it has opened a Letter of Credit for imports, the banks say they have no US dollars.

On May 16, former Health Ministry Secretary Sanjeewa Munasinghe told a special committee that 188, or almost a third of the 646 of the basic medicines required by patients, were not available in the ministry’s medical supplies division. Fourteen of these drugs, including one for heart patients, were essential, he said. Surgical equipment was also in short supply.

Munasinghe admitted that the ministry had been unable to pay 34 billion rupees ($US100 million) to pharmaceutical and surgical equipment suppliers.

The Rajapakse government in recent months has sharply increased the price of various pharmaceuticals by nearly 90 percent. The cost of drugs rose by 29 percent on March 11, 20 percent on April 11 and another 40 percent on April 30.

This dire situation is not restricted to state-run public hospitals. Private sector hospitals have revealed that over 70 vital medicines, including anaesthetics, were in short supply at their facilities, forcing them to use less effective substitute medicines.

Doctors have repeatedly warned about the developing catastrophe. Early last month, the Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) declared: “Already decisions have been made to curtail some services, such as routine surgical operations, and even limit the usage of available material to life-threatening illnesses. This is not at all a sound policy because what are considered non-emergency situations could turn into life-threatening problems within a few hours.”

It warned if the situation was not rectified within weeks “emergency treatment will also not be possible. This will result in a catastrophic number of deaths, which is likely to be in excess of the combined death toll of COVID, Tsunami and the Civil War.”

These estimates are unprecedented. The country’s vastly underestimated COVID-19 death toll is currently over 16,500, the December 2004 tsunami resulted in the death of over 30,000 Sri Lankans, and Colombo’s bloody 26-year, anti-Tamil war killed at least 150,000 people, the majority of them Tamil civilians.

These warnings by Sri Lanka’s premier medical association point to the extent of the health catastrophe created by the shortage of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment.

This situation, combined with the looming starvation caused by rampant inflation, is producing a social disaster for millions of people in the coming days and weeks. Last month, the annualised National Consumer Price Index showed a rise of 33.8 percent and the food index was up 45.1 percent.

In a recent special address to the nation, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe warned, “the next couple of months will be the most difficult in the lives of all citizens.” The population must prepare to “make some sacrifices,” he declared.

Last week, Wickremesinghe declared that the government had no money and that state spending had to be “cut to the bone.”

The ruthless attitude of the Sri Lankan ruling elite is demonstrated by comparing Ministry of Defence and Health expenditure over the past three years, amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The budget allocation for defence in 2020 was 290 billion rupees, while health spending was just 254 billion rupees; in 2021 defence received 380 billion rupees with 286 billion rupees for health. This year, 373 billion rupees were allocated for defence and 225 billion rupees for health, the lowest amount for health sector in the past three years.

These figures make clear that Sri Lankan capitalism will never provide the funds necessary to provide adequate health service and other basic social needs to the working class, youth and the urban and rural masses.

US gives Ukraine blank check for strikes inside Russia

Andre Damon

With the ink barely dry on the $40 billion weapons and aid package signed May 21 by the Biden administration, the United States is further expanding the range of weapons it is flooding into Ukraine, creating conditions for a vast enlargement of the terrain over which the war is being fought.

On Saturday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that Ukraine had begun to take delivery of the Harpoon anti-ship missile transferred by the US via Denmark, as well as the M109 Paladin armored self-propelled howitzer directly from the US.

The M109, weighing in at nearly 30 tons, is capable of firing artillery rounds, each weighing 100 pounds, at distances of over 25 miles. The Harpoon, according to manufacturer Boeing, is “the world’s most successful anti-ship missile … capable of executing both land-strike and anti-ship missions.”

Boeing writes, “The 500-pound blast warhead delivers lethal firepower against a wide variety of land-based targets, including coastal defense sites, surface-to-air missile sites, exposed aircraft, port/industrial facilities and ships in port.”

The provision of these weapons systems means that Ukrainian forces will be using the same anti-ship missiles and mobile artillery systems as the US Navy and Army.

Reznikov also announced that Ukraine had recently received more than 100 drones. With the M109’s 25-mile firing range, the Harpoon’s 77-mile range, and the US-procured Bayraktar drones with a range of thousands of miles, the United States has already provided Ukraine with means to strike dozens or hundreds of miles into Russian territory.

Last week, a US official told Reuters that the US is putting no geographic limits on the use by Ukrainian forces of the weapons it is providing. “We have concerns about escalation and yet still do not want to put geographic limits or tie their hands too much with the stuff we’re giving them,” the official said.

In other words, the US is effectively providing Ukraine with a blank check on strikes inside Russian territory. 

The Ukrainian army has already carried out multiple strikes within Russia, killing at least one civilian and wounding dozens. The Russian Defense Ministry recently increased its troops and artillery deployments to the Kursk region neighboring Eastern Ukraine. 

In addition to advanced weapons systems, the US has plans to provide Ukraine with even longer-range weapons in the form of multiple rocket launchers potentially capable of striking deep inside Russia.

While Biden told journalists Monday that the US was “not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia,” White House officials immediately clarified that Biden’s statement was largely meaningless. 

According to the White House, it only applied to certain long-range munitions fired by the systems the US would provide, such as the MGM-140 ATACMS missile which has an effective range of up to 190 miles. These systems violate the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but the United States, which has killed thousands of people with cluster munitions in wars all over the world, does not abide by the treaty.

In the words of Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia, Ukraine will still “get new shipments of precision-guided missiles with longer ranges than Ukrainians have now.”

Even Biden’s statement on the most minimal restrictions on weapons transfers to Ukraine was immediately denounced in the media.

The Wall Street Journal was apoplectic, accusing Biden of wanting Ukraine to “merely survive to sign a truce with more of its former territory under Russian control.”

Seemingly in a panic, the Journal warned that Russian forces are making “new military gains in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.” It accused the US president of “reassuring Vladimir Putin about what the US won’t do,” and that “Biden’s ambivalence in aiding Ukraine encourages the Russian to believe he can still achieve a strategic victory.”

In a similar vein, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham accused Biden of carrying out “a betrayal of Ukraine️ and democracy itself.”

Although the Wall Street Journal is the most hysterical, the war fever spans the entire political establishment. The apparent advances being made by Russian forces in Eastern Ukraine are only leading US officials to up the ante, threatening an ever-greater escalation of the war.

Liberal journalist Gideon Rachman, writing in the Financial Times on Monday, penned a warmongering column entitled, “The West must hold its nerve on Ukraine.” Condemning isolated voices within the US political establishment who have raised the prospect of a diplomatic settlement of the conflict, Rachman insisted, “The momentum in the war must shift back towards Ukraine before there is any prospect of an acceptable peace settlement.”

The expansion of the imperialist proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is assuming a logic of its own, even as the United States actively escalates its conflict with China over Taiwan. 

On March 11, Biden still declared, “We will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine. Direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent.”

Yet since then, day in and day out, the US has taken step after step toward a direct clash with Russia. The US expanded its weapons shipments to Ukraine, first ten- and then a hundredfold. By March 26, Biden stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power.” Last month, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged that “we” are in a “fight” with Russia, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer openly stated this month, “We are at war.”

In an analysis of a series of simulations conducted by a group of think tanks, the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank warned of “a dangerous tendency toward unintended [geographic] escalation over the course of a protracted conflict, even when participants stated they wanted to keep the conflict contained to one country.” 

To see this dangerous trend in action, one need look not at what is happening in simulations, but on the ground in Ukraine.

By providing Ukrainian forces with the ability to strike further and deeper inside Russian territory, the US hopes to provoke a further escalation of the war.

The recklessness of American imperialism in escalating a war with a nuclear-armed power is a testament to the massive domestic crisis it is facing. Amid raging inflation, falling wages, shortages of key products, and a looming recession, there is a growing movement of the working class in the US as part of a global upsurge of the class struggle.

The entire US political establishment is united in escalating the war with Russia, which has already killed tens of thousands of people and threatens to kill millions.

UK: BT facing first strike action in 35 years as 40,000 telecoms workers ballot over pay

Tony Robson

BT Group, the UK telecoms giant, is facing a national strike over pay by 40,000 frontline staff across BT and its subsidiaries, Openreach and EE. The Communication Workers Union (CWU) will begin balloting from June 15.

BT announced its decision to impose a pay award for this year of between 3 and 8 percent for 58,000 staff, on April 7. This was after it brought an abrupt end to any further negotiations with the CWU.

The company hailed its pay award as the best in 20 years, but it’s a de facto pay cut, deeper now than it was just over a month ago. Since then, the CPI rate of inflation has climbed from 7 to 9 percent and the RPI rate (including housing costs) has risen from 9 to 11.1 percent.

CWU General Secretary Dave Ward (left) and Assistant General Secretary for Telecoms & Financial Services Andy Kerr (right) at the union's May 25 online meeting to announce the countdown for the ballot for strike action (Credit: screenshot-CWU Facebook)

The company recorded £1.3 billion in profits last year but has unilaterally imposed a substandard pay award. The CWU is framing its strike mandate call around convincing management to return to negotiations, rather than a full mobilisation of telecom workers to defend their rights and assert the demand for a genuine pay increase.

BT feels it can act with impunity. It has the measure of the CWU based upon its record of collusion with the company. Last year the CWU agreed to a pay freeze. Workers received only a £1,000 lump sum, with pledges of a pay rise this year. Nothing remains of these promises of jam tomorrow based on the union’s collaboration with management.

The imposition of a pay freeze was part of the CWU’s demobilisation of the fight against restructuring which targeted 13,000 jobs. In December 2021, a consultation ballot recorded a strike mandate of 97.9 percent. Instead of moving to a full strike ballot as pledged, the CWU negotiated with BT behind the back of its members, rubber stamping an agreement for the closure of offices around the country. CWU Assistant General Secretary for Telecoms & Financial Services (TFS) Andy Kerr tried to justify this sell-out in a video posted July 21 on the union’s Facebook group—but his excuses were widely ridiculed, with telecoms workers describing the union as company stooges.

While BT workers are looking to make a stand, the union is manoeuvring with management. The CWU is concerned it has been bypassed as a junior partner of BT in keeping a lid on workers’ opposition.

As the CWU stated, “At the heart of the dispute, after all, is the company’s abandonment of time-honoured negotiating protocols based on partnership and consent that have underpinned decades of industrial peace.”

That the CWU’s pay demand is for 10 percent is solely down to the initiative of engineers, call centre and shop workers. The CWU TFS formally acknowledged the demand but has dropped any reference to it in the preparations to ballot for strike action.

In fact, Kerr warned against a “summer of discontent” while trying to falsely align himself with the oppositional mood of telecom workers claiming it is time for the company to put its people before profit.

This is empty rhetoric proven by his own comments. After describing how BT Group was preparing to pay out 60 percent of its profits to shareholders, Kerr stated, “If BT reduced the 7.7 pence per share dividend they are planning to give shareholders by between 0.4 and 0.5 pence, and gave that money instead to those who generate the profits, that would be enough to settle a deal I’m confident members would find acceptable.”

BT workers’ determination to fight the company’s pay cut was shown on May 25, when 11,500 members attended the CWU’s online meeting to launch the countdown for a ballot on strike action.

Kerr was joined at the meeting by CWU General Secretary Dave Ward and CWU President Karen Rose. A stream of comments came through declaring “Yes” to industrial action. Rose tried to bat off questions over the delay by the CWU in organising a strike ballot. The CWU president went through a lengthy explanation of why the ballot had to be postal and that the union was adhering to the letter of anti-strike laws.

Even as the CWU finally got round to balloting for the strike, the so-called “left” Dave Ward set out to dampen militant opposition in the most condescending manner. He said the CWU were running a “proper dispute” and that the strike ballot was “not about putting your head down and running at them”. The CWU would also pursue dialogue to convince the big shareholders, he explained.

On the CWU’s Facebook page where a video of the online meeting was posted, telecom workers demanded to know the union’s pay demand in relation to the strike. For all their bluster about the cost-of-living crisis, none of the three CWU leaders addressed this central issue in their remarks to the meeting. The bitter experience of last year’s sell-out has not been forgotten, as shown by a number of the comments. In relation to the CWU jettisoning the strike ballot after an emphatic majority in the consultative ballot, one worker added, “The ballot showed how we felt. Why did the union not come back and ballot for strike? Why did they roll over and accept zero %? Why did they not ballot about site closures?”

The highly paid executives of the CWU fear any strike action could serve as a focal point for pent up opposition against rampant exploitation and intolerable working conditions demanded in the name of maximising profits.

The CWU is sitting on the potential for a far wider counter-offensive across the telecommunications and postal network among its 200,000 members.

Following a national strike on May 3 by its membership across the Post Office against a paltry 2 percent pay offer and £250 lump sum for this year, the CWU is downscaling the action. Its latest revised offer is just 2.5 percent and a £500 lump sum. The next stoppage will be on June 4 involving only counter staff at 114 Crown Offices across the UK. Those in the supply chain, engaged in cash collections and deliveries, and other administration staff, are being called out separately on June 6.

At Royal Mail, the CWU is stifling strike action by around 100,000 postal workers after the company tabled a pay offer of just 5.5 percent. This involves a mere 2 percent core pay rise with the remaining 3.5 percent conditional on productivity strings and concessions, including compulsory Sunday working and reduced sick pay and allowances. Rather than ballot for strike action against the insulting pay offer and attack on historic rights won in past struggles, the CWU has entered a four-week Dispute Resolution Process. Talks are set to continue with management to the end of next week.

A BT Openreach van in Leamington Spa (Credit: Creative Commons/Vauxford)

Telecom workers across BT, Openreach and EE should return a massive strike vote in the ballot, but no confidence can be extended to the CWU. Far from challenging the false claim by the company that it cannot afford more, the CWU is silently dropping the 10 percent demand. Kerr’s comments show it will not fight for redistribution of a single penny in share dividends to be paid out during BT’s next profit windfall.

The company’s generous “offer” —which it has imposed—will be funded by setting aside £90 million, a figure that is overshadowed by the £761 million to be handed to shareholders.

Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar Awards 2022

Application Deadline: 1st August 2022

About the Award: The Foundation welcomes proposals from any of the natural and social sciences and aligned disciplines that promise to increase understanding of the causes, manifestations, and control of violence and aggression. Highest priority is given to research that addresses urgent, present-day problems of violence—what produces it, how it operates, and what prevents or reduces it.  

Eligible Field(s): The Foundation is interested in violence related to many subjects, including, but not limited to, the following:

• War
• Crime
• Terrorism
• Family and intimate-partner relationships
• Climate instability and natural resource competition
• Racial, ethnic, and religious conflict
• Political extremism and nationalism

The Foundation supports research that investigates the basic mechanisms in the production of violence, but primacy is given to proposals that make a compelling case for the relevance of potential findings for policies intended to reduce these ills. Likewise, historical research is considered to the extent that it is relevant to a current situation of violence. Examinations of the effects of violence are welcome insofar as a strong case is made that these outcomes may serve, in turn, as causes of future violence. 

Type: Award

Eligibility: Applicants for an award may be citizens of any country. While almost all recipients of these awards possess a Ph.D., M.D., J.D., or equivalent degree, there are no formal degree requirements for the award. The award, however, may not be used to support research undertaken as part of the requirements for a graduate degree. Applicants need not be affiliated with an institution of higher learning, although most are college or university professors.

Eligible Countries: International

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value & Duration of Award: Most awards fall within the range of $15,000 to $45,000 per year for periods of one or two years. Applications for larger amounts and longer durations will be considered but must be strongly justified. The awards are made to individuals (or sometimes two or, rarely, three principal investigators) for specific projects, not general research support. They are not awarded to institutions for institutional programs. Individuals who receive research grants may be subject to taxation on the funds awarded.

How to Apply: Candidates for the Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar Award may apply online annually between May 1 and August 1. Applicants must create an account to access the application and guidelines. The guidelines are also available through the second link below.

• Online Application (Login required)
• Application Guidelines (PDF)

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Students are Often Segregated Within the Same Schools

Kari Dalane

Photograph Source: jdog90 – CC BY 2.0

Children from low-income households are increasingly being segregated into different classrooms from their peers from higher-income households, according to recent research I have conducted with education policy scholar Dave E. Marcotte.

From 2007 to 2014, we tracked all North Carolina public school students statewide, from third through eighth grades, observing how the students were grouped into math and English language arts classes by each school’s process for creating class groups.

We used course enrollment data to figure out how many students in each classroom were from families whose incomes are at or below 185% of the federal poverty threshold – and how many were not. We found that those economically disadvantaged students were increasingly likely to be concentrated in a subset of classrooms rather than spread out relatively evenly throughout the school.

Why it matters

Often school segregation is thought about as Black and white students being forced to attend different schools. This makes sense given the history of Jim Crow – a 19th- and 20th-century legal system meant to relegate Black people to second-class status in white society – and court orders to desegregate schools.

Another aspect of this issue is how students are sorted into classrooms within schools. A 2021 study found that more racially diverse schools are more likely to have classrooms that are more segregated than schools that are less diverse overall.

Researchers have recently begun to identify rising levels of segregation between schools based not just on race, but also on household income.

Students from wealthier households are more likely than their less-well-off peers to have higher academic achievement as measured by test scores and to attend and complete college.

Efforts to provide equitable opportunities for all students often focus on comparing funding and staffing between schools. Indeed, lower levels of school funding lead to lower educational attainment and lower wages in adulthood.

However, resources can also be distributed inequitably within schools, on a classroom-by-classroom basis. For instance, more experienced teachers raise student test scores more than novice teachers, on average. However, novice teachers are frequently assigned to classrooms with more low-income students. Therefore, the more students are separated along lines of household income, the more likely poorer students are to fall behind academically.

What still isn’t known

We aren’t sure why there is an increase in segregation within schools by household income. One potential reason could be an increase in what is called “academic tracking,” which is the process of grouping students into classes based on their prior achievement, such as performance on standardized tests.

If low-income students perform worse on standardized tests than their peers, they may be placed in lower tracks. However, standardized test scores may not accurately reflect ability for low-income students, since students from marginalized groups perform disproportionately worse on assessments.

If in fact test scores do accurately reflect ability, there may be some educational advantages to track students into certain classes. However, researchers have long argued that tracking perpetuates inequalities between low- and high-tracked students. For example, students who are placed on lower tracks than their peers suffer from lower self-esteem and are not as well prepared for college success as higher-tracked students with similar test scores.

The growth in charter school enrollments over the past two decades could also contribute to the increases in within-school segregation by income that we find. Public school principals who fear their students may depart for charters may attempt to retain them by introducing specialized curricula or expanding gifted and talented programs. If these programs continue to primarily serve students from families with higher incomes, that could increase income segregation within schools. This is a possibility we are exploring.

Israeli ultra-nationalists and settlers attack Palestinians in “Flag March” through Jerusalem

Jean Shaoul

Thousands of Israeli settlers and far right activists attacked Palestinians on Sunday as they marched through Jerusalem's Old City. The attacks took place as part of the now annual Flag March marking Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem after its capture during the 1967 Arab Israeli war.

Israeli thugs attacking Palestinians in Jerusalem's Old City on Jerusalem Day, an Israeli holiday celebrating the capture of the Old City during the 1967 Mideast war. Sunday, May 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Last week, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court overturned a police order stopping far-right activists praying in the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site for Muslims, in breach of a longstanding agreement between Israel and Jordan, which administers the affairs of the mosque. Settlers, nationalist and religious activists regularly storm the compound and perform Jewish prayers at the site which is reserved for Muslim prayers.

Bentzi Gopstein, the founder and leader of the fascistic Lehava organisation, has even called for the destruction of the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock to make way for a Third Jewish Temple. He called on settlers to break into the mosque on Jerusalem Day (May 29) and start dismantling it. While the authorities banned the Flag March from entering the compound, they approved a route through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City and the Damascus Gate, a popular meeting place for Palestinians, with a massive police escort, knowing this would provoke mass protests that could inflame the entire region. 

Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary general, and Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas warned they would respond if the march approached the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Last year’s Flag March that coincided with Ramadan was one of the factors that led to the ratcheting up of tensions and another of Israel’s murderous assaults on Gaza, as well as violent clashes between Arab and Jewish Israelis within Israel.

Yesterday’s march provoked angry clashes, with at least 40 Palestinians wounded in the Old City and the surrounding area, of whom 15 were hospitalized. Their injuries include wounds from rubber-coated steel bullets, beatings and pepper spray. Video clips show settlers assaulting and pepper-spraying Palestinians.

Despite a massive police presence, nothing was done to stop the attacks. Officers instead protected the marchers, assaulting the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s medical staff trying to reach the wounded near the Damascus Gate.

This followed the storming of the al-Mosque compound earlier in the day by more than 2,600 ultra-nationalists and settlers who prayed at the site and raised the Israeli flag. They then marched through the Old City, before converging with the main march outside the Damascus Gate.

Israelis wave national flags in front of Damascus Gate outside Jerusalem's Old City to mark Jerusalem Day, an Israeli holiday celebrating the capture of the Old City during the 1967 Mideast war. Sunday, May 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Sunday’s provocations take place amid Israel’s deliberate ratcheting up of tensions. Hardly a day goes by without the security forces carrying out a raid in the occupied West Bank, ostensibly in pursuit of “terror suspects.” They have killed dozens of Palestinians, injured hundreds and made mass arrests that have left detention centres full to overflowing.

The latest victim was a 15-year-old, Zaid Ghuneim, shot dead in cold blood on Friday evening in Al-Khader, a village near Bethlehem, while 85 Palestinians were wounded as the Israeli military cracked down on protesters across the occupied West Bank. These raids come in the wake of a series of killings of 14 Israelis by desperate Palestinians with few known connections to each other or to armed groups.

Israeli security forces take positions during clashes with Palestinians following a demonstration against Israel's annual nationalist march through Jerusalem, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, Sunday, May 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

It was during one such raid in Jenin, a centre of opposition to Israel, that the Israeli military deliberately shot and killed Shireen Abu Akleh, the veteran Al Jazeera Arabic reporter, who was clearly visible and wearing a press identifier. That and the police’s attack on her funeral procession sent a clear message that Israel will not tolerate the reporting of its brutal suppression of the Palestinians.

The Palestinians’ fury over the killings—more than 60 Palestinians have been killed so far this year—settler violence against their farms, homes and property, evictions, house demolitions and settlement expansion has been worsened by the deteriorating economic and social conditions in the West Bank and Gaza, particularly in the aftermath of US sanctions on Russia that have pushed up the cost of fuel, fertilisers and food.

Israeli violence has escalated since Naftali Bennett, who heads the small ultra-nationalist Yamina (Right) Party, became prime minister on 21 June 2021. Bennett, a leader of the settlers, is a determined advocate of Israel’s expansionist policy, advocating in 2012 the de jure annexation of Area C, the 60 percent of the occupied West Bank under Israeli military control and home to around 300,000 Palestinians, including it in his 2019 election manifesto.

Such a policy can only be carried out by direct military rule, at the expense of both the Palestinian masses and the Israeli working class via social cuts and tax hikes. It has been prepared through the advocacy of communalist and ethno-religious politics, including ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, Israel’s Arab citizens and migrant workers.

As the gap between rich and poor has grown, the state has become increasingly reliant on right-wing settlers and extreme nationalist zealots. As Bennett’s fractious coalition loses its majority in the 120-seat Knesset, he is increasingly playing to these fascistic forces. He has called for the formation of armed vigilante groups, based in part on civilian volunteers, including from the “New Hashomer” (the New Guardian), a militia funded by wealthy donors in the US, far right groups in Israel and the government that carries out extensive indoctrination activities with high school students described as “social involvement.”

Bennet instructed the National Security Council to present “an orderly and budgeted plan to establish a national civilian guard” by the end of May. This is aimed not just at fighting “terrorists” but also Palestinian uprisings in mixed cities that are home to both Arabs and Jews, as happened in Lod and other cities last year during Israel’s 11-day assault on Gaza.

Tensions were further inflamed last week when Israeli forces began demolishing the homes of Palestinians living in the Masafer Yatta district in the West Bank, leaving villagers to sleep out in the open or in tents. It followed a high court ruling this month sanctioning the expulsion of about 1,000 Palestinians from their homes in 12 villages in the area and the repurposing of the land for Israeli military use. Israel has announced plans to build 4,000 new settlement homes in the West Bank.

The demolitions are a flagrant breach of the Geneva conventions banning the expropriation of occupied land or the forcible transfer of the local population, They set a precedent for further expulsions of Palestinians in the West Bank.

In 1981, Israel designated the area as “firing zone 918” for the exclusive use of the military with the explicit intention of forcing the villagers from their homes, according to cabinet minutes. “Firing zones” now cover 18 percent of the West Bank. The Israeli authorities first sought to expel the residents of the Masafer Yatta area in 1999, but the Supreme Court allowed them to return to their homes, pending a ruling by the high court that took two decades to reach a decision. 

Since then, the Palestinians have had to live with the threat of the demolition of their homes and the confiscation of their land because they do not have the necessary building license from the Israel’s Ministry of Defence. Since 2006, the authorities have granted just 75 building permits to Palestinians in Area C, compared with the 20,500 for Israeli settlements. Only 0.5 percent of Area C is available for Palestinian development. With almost all construction deemed illegal, Palestinians cannot access electricity from the grid, infrastructure or water and are forced to pay for costly private water supplies or build solar-powered pumps to access water.

Molar of ancient human Denisovan species discovered in northern Laos

Frank Gaglioti

The recent discovery of a Denisovan tooth in Laos represents the first fossil discovery of the enigmatic hominid species outside of Russia and Tibet. Although the genetic structure of modern-day Australian Aboriginals and Pacific Islanders shows the presence of Denisovan genes, indicating the species was widely dispersed through Australia, Papua New Guinea and Oceania, no fossils had been discovered before this in the region.

The fossilized molar of what is believed to be a young female of the Denisovan hominid species (Credit: Fabrice Demeter, by permission)

Denisovans, first discovered in the Denisova cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia, are thought to have existed from 30,000 to 500,000 years ago and have only been known from very limited fossil evidence found in Russia and Tibet. DNA analysis found that the Denisovans had split from Neanderthals 400,000 to 500,000 years ago. 

The discovery was reported in a paper titled “A Middle Pleistocene Denisovan molar from the Annamite Chain of northern Laos,” published in Nature Communications on May 17. 

“We knew that Denisovans should be here. It’s nice to have some tangible evidence of their existence in this area,” Laura Shackelford, co-author of the paper and a paleoanthropologist at the University of Illinois, told the New York Times.

The discovery was made in the Ngu Hao 2 cave in Huà Pan Province in the Annamese Mountains in northern Laos. Local children directed the scientists to the site at the end of their field season in 2018. The cave walls were studded with fossil bones, mostly belonging to extinct mammals such as pigs and pygmy elephants. It is thought that the bones were brought to the cave by porcupines using them to sharpen their teeth.

The entrance to the cave in northern Laos. (Credit: Fabrice Demeter, by permission)

One of the discoveries was a lower left molar that the scientists recognized as belonging to an extinct hominid species. The tooth was thought to have belonged to a female child aged between 3.5 to 8.5 years due to its underdeveloped root structure.

The paper stated, “the morphology of the tooth is compatible with an attribution to either a first or a second lower molar.”

Radioactive dating of minerals in the cave estimated the age of the fossil at between 131,000 and 164,000 years before the present, well before modern humans were known to have been in the area. The oldest known Homo sapiens fossils in the area, discovered in 2009, were dated at between 46,000 and 63,000 years ago.

Fossils embedded in the cave wall. (Credit: Fabrice Demeter, by permission)

A number of hominid species are known to have been in Southeast Asia. A Homo erectus skull and femur, known as Java man, was discovered in Indonesia in 1892. It was estimated to be between 700,000 and 1 million years old. It is thought that H. erectus continued in the region until about 250,000 years ago. 

More recent species have been discovered, including Homo floresiensis, known as the Hobbit due to its diminutive size. It was discovered on the island of Flores in Indonesia and was extant from 50,000 to 190,000 years ago. Homo luzonensis fossils discovered on the island of Luzon in the Philippines have been established to have been extant 50,000 years ago.

Scientists have discovered evidence of Denisovan DNA in Australian Aboriginals, Papua New Guineans and Pacific Islanders, indicating that the species was widespread throughout the region. “However, there is still no fossil evidence explaining the Denisovans genetic imprint on modern southeast Asian populations and—due to the paucity of the Middle Pleistocene fossil record—it is still unknown whether one or more human lineages (co)existed in continental southern Asia,” the authors of the paper stated.

Intriguingly, scientists doing DNA analysis of the Denisova cave’s finger bone found evidence of the interbreeding of Denisovans with Neanderthals, which was published in 2018.

A scientist examining the fossilized molar. (Credit: Fabrice Demeter, by permission)

The researchers examined other fossils from the Laotian cave but found no traces of DNA, so the molar was considered unlikely to have any DNA, as genetic material degrades very rapidly in humid conditions. Analysis of protein extracted from the tooth enamel proved inconclusive. Protein analysis has become an increasingly important tool in recent times as it degrades less readily than DNA.

The designation of the tooth as Denisovan was finally made through a detailed examination of the tooth’s surface structure. This was compared to 400 molars of living and extinct humans.

The scientists stated that “morphometric analyses of the external and internal crown structural organization allow us to reject a number of hypotheses regarding species assignment. TNH2-1 has large crown dimensions and a complex occlusal surface that differentiates it from the smaller and morphologically simpler teeth of H. floresiensis, H. luzonensis and H. sapiens. The … shape shows a mixture of Neanderthal-like and H. erectus-like features, closely resembling the … morphology of the Denisovan specimen from Xiahe.”

Xiahe is on the northeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau, where a Denisovan mandible was discovered in 1980.

The researchers at first thought the tooth belonged to H. erectus but ruled this out as it was too complex. 

“Although it (the tooth) shares some characteristics with Neanderthal teeth, it is also “large, and kind of weird”, said palaeoanthropologist at the University of Toronto Bence Viola. “Denisovans have absolutely gigantic teeth... So, it seems like a good assumption that this is likely a Denisovan.”

Some scientists have disagreed with the Denisovan classification due to the badly degraded nature of the tooth, lack of any accompanying fossils or DNA evidence.

Katerina Douka, an archaeological scientist at the University of Vienna, told Nature “the reality is that we cannot know whether this single and badly preserved molar belonged to a Denisovan.”

On the other hand, Bence Viola said that it was in the “right place and right time” to belong to a Denisovan. 

This discovery underscores that Asia and southeast Asia in particular may provide enormous opportunities for further discoveries that will enable deeper elucidation of the evolution of Denisovans, that are only known through a few fossils and some intriguing DNA evidence.

The study concluded that “the tooth from Tam Ngu Hao 2 Cave in Laos thus provides direct evidence of a most likely Denisovan female individual with associated fauna in mainland Southeast Asia by 164-131 thousand years ago. This discovery further attests that this region was a hotspot of diversity for the genus Homo, with the presence of at least five late Middle to Late Pleistocene species: H. erectus, Denisovans/Neanderthals, H. floresiensis, H. luzonensis and H. sapiens.”

“When we started looking in Laos, everyone thought we were crazy … But if we can find things like this tooth—which we weren’t even anticipating—then there are probably more hominin fossils to be found,” said Shackelford.