Thirty years of the Hubble Space Telescope

Bryan Dyne

The Hubble Space Telescope recently celebrated its 30th year of scientific observations and remains the longest-running space-based astronomical observatory. This will be its last decade of operation before it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere, unless immediate plans are made to boost it to a higher orbit, a maneuver which was previously performed during servicing missions by the now-discontinued Space Shuttle program.

Astronomers have taken 1.4 million observations with the telescope and produced more than 17,000 peer-reviewed scientific publications. The data it has produced will fuel further research for many years after the telescope itself has ceased operations.

We are reposting the article initially published for Hubble’s 25th anniversary. The text is unchanged while some of the imagery has been updated to reflect the ongoing science of the mission.

                                                             * * *

The Hubble Space Telescope as seen from space shuttle Discovery during its second servicing mission. Hubble, which orbits 600 kilometers above Earth, has been a keystone of astronomical investigations for the past twenty-five years.

Start slideshow

For the past 25 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has been one of the most fruitful and versatile astronomical platforms ever launched into space. For more than 9,000 days, the telescope has provided outstanding scientific data in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum on nebulae, globular clusters, galaxies, supernovae, exoplanets, black holes and our own solar system. For a generation, Hubble has inspired and spearheaded a new era of inquiry about the cosmos.

Hubble was launched on April 24, 1990 on board the space shuttle Discovery. It was the first of NASA’s Great Observatories to be launched, a constellation of four space telescopes which also includes the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (de-orbited in 2000), the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Each was designed to observe different wavelengths, complementing the others and combining their views into a greater whole. The series has been one of NASA’s most successful scientific programs. Every telescope launched (with the exception of Compton) remains in at least partial operation.

Six instruments are used to collect light focused by Hubble’s mirrors: Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS). Data is then beamed down to Earth for processing, distribution and study.

The Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. It is the largest and most massive galaxy of the Local Group, a collection of about 45 galaxies to which the Milky Way belongs. It contains an estimated one trillion stars.

Significantly, none of the instruments on the telescope are part of its original equipment. One of the main reasons for launching Hubble by space shuttle was that the instruments on board could be replaced as newer ones became available. Indeed, almost everything on Hubble—scientific instruments, batteries, gyroscopes, solar panels, computers—has been upgraded. Only the original mirrors and the substructure itself remain from the original launch. The final scheduled service mission was in 2009.

While it is a public relations boost for NASA, Hubble’s true importance lies in its continued and vast contributions to astronomy. One of its initial goals was to observe a specific class of stars known as Cepheid variables, whose brightness can be determined, and then donmeasure their distance from Earth. This greatly increased the precision in measuring the expansion rate of the universe, reducing the margin of error from fifty percent to ten percent.

A follow-up study, this time observing supernovae in distant galaxies, found that the expansion rate of the universe is increasing, rather than decreasing as expected. Ground-based observations confirmed the existence of the poorly understood force driving the expansion, called “dark energy.” Its discovery was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize for physics.

The “Pillars of Creation”, a part of the Eagle Nebula containing a large amount of gas, dust and newly born stars. The leftmost pillar is about four light years in length, approximately the distance from the Sun to its nearest stellar neighbor.

Hubble’s high resolution also made possible the first direct studies of supermassive black holes. These objects were first identified as radio sources in distant galaxies but the source was unclear. Something extraordinarily powerful would have to be generating a great deal of energy to be seen from billions of light years away. After decades of work, it became clear in the 1960s that the only explanation for what astronomers were seeing was the energy emitted from an accretion disk of black holes millions and even billions of times the mass of our Sun.

Here, the Chandra observatory has played a key role in understanding these objects, working in tandem with Hubble to dig deeper into the underlying physics that drives these events. It was Chandra which first discovered that the nearby Andromeda galaxy most likely has two supermassive black holes instead of one. Combined efforts using Hubble, Chandra and other telescopes have since shown that supermassive black holes are common features of galactic nuclei.

Hubble also contributed substantially to our understanding of the mechanics by which giant clouds of gas and dust collapse to form new stars. Its stunning portrait of the Eagle Nebula in 1995 became a popular poster and screen background for millions worldwide. This image captured pillars of dense gas containing even denser cores becoming new stars, simultaneously being evaporated by the young and brilliant stars already formed. A recent image captures motions in the intervening 14 years, measuring a 200 kilometer per second growth of a jet associated with a young star.

The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field, taken in 2012 over twenty-three days. Except for a few stars, everything in this image is an entire galaxy, some of which are 13.2 billion years old.

Infrared images of the Eagle Nebula were taken by the Spitzer telescope in 2007 to see inside the clouds, complementing Hubble’s observations. The most striking feature revealed is the abundance of hot dust, most likely warmed by a nearby supernova from 8,000 to 9,000 years ago. If so, the explosion’s blast wave would have toppled the three pillars 6,000 years ago. Since light takes 7,000 years to travel from the Eagle Nebula to Earth, we will see whether or not this prediction is true within a millennium.

Perhaps the most extraordinary science done by the observatory are the deep field images, the first of which was the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) taken in 1995. Focusing on an area of the sky less than 100 times the size of the Moon as viewed from Earth, where only a handful Milky Way stars can be seen, Hubble collected light for eleven days.

In that minute region of space, Hubble revealed to astronomers and the public alike just how large space is. About 3,000 distinct galaxies were observed in the images, each containing tens of billions of stars, with spiral, irregular and elliptical galaxies all present. The study provided the first in-depth look at the early universe, seeing galaxies as far as 12 billion light years away and thus—since light takes time to travel through space—galaxies as they were 12 billion years ago. Astronomers were astonished by the number and variety of young galaxies Hubble revealed.

The Lagoon Nebula is between 4,000 and 6,000 light-years from Earth and was first discovered in 1654. It contains a central structure known as the Hourglass Nebula, within which were the first direct observations of active star formation by accretion.

These images motivated a succession of subsequent “deep field” explorations, created with new generations of improved cameras aboard Hubble. In 2003-2004, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) was taken, focusing on 11 square arcminutes in the constellation Fornax and looking back in time 13 billion years to view 10,000 galaxies forming less than a billion years after the Big Bang. The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) was taken in 2012 focusing in on a region of the HUDF. The exposure was taken over twenty-three days, collecting data on galaxies that are ten billion times fainter than the human eye can see. Some of the 5,500 newly discovered galaxies are 13.2 billion years old, the oldest ever observed in visible light. Due in part to this work, astronomers estimate that the observable universe contains 200 billion galaxies.

The first proposal to use a rocket to put a telescope in space was published by the German physicist Hermann Oberth in 1923. In his work Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (“The Rocket into Planetary Space”), which was previously a doctoral dissertation rejected as “utopian”, he suggests that rockets could eventually lift telescopes into Earth orbit. His work, alongside that of Robert Goddard, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Oberth’s assistant Wernher von Braun founded modern rocketry and paved the way for every space telescope that has flown.

Hubble’s origins date back to 1946, when the astronomer Lyman Spitzer published the paper “Astronomical advantages of an extraterrestrial observatory,” which first laid out the scientific justifications for putting an observatory above the atmosphere. Spitzer argued that if the best telescopes of the day could have been placed where there is no air, the lack of turbulence would increase the angular resolution of each by at least ten-fold. Moreover, they would also be able to observe infrared and ultraviolet light, which are largely blocked by Earth’s atmosphere.

The uncoated backup mirror for the Hubble Space Telescope produced by Kodak. When the aberration in Hubble’s primary mirror was discovered, NASA realized that they had launched a flawed mirror while a perfect one remained on the ground. This mirror has never been used and currently resides at the Smithsonian Institution Aerospace Museum.

After a series of small-scale instruments designed to show that infrared and ultraviolet astronomy could in fact be successfully done in space, NASA approved the plans for a space-based 3-meter reflecting telescope in 1968. It was provisionally known as the Large Space Telescope (LST) and first slated to launch in 1979.

Though the astronomical community fully backed the creation of the instrument, NASA faced funding hurdles from a recalcitrant Congress and public spending cuts instigated by President Gerald Ford. Now that the geopolitical impetus for space exploration had vanished—after the United States beat the Soviet Union to the Moon—there was little interest in providing money for spaceflight, especially for missions that had no military purpose, only scientific knowledge. Funding for the project was deleted in 1974. It was only after a Herculean effort by astronomers campaigning for the LST that funding was restored, and even then it was four years later at only half the original budget. As a result construction of the primary mirror and other instruments began the year the telescope was originally slated to launch.

Here, NASA ran up against the US military. The company commissioned to build the mirror, Perkin-Elmer, was well known to the US government for its development of the optics used on the Keyhole-9 HEXAGON spy satellites. Soon after it was announced that Perkin-Elmer would be producing the mirrors for LST, the US Air Force demanded that the experience, techniques and personnel involved in making the KH-9 satellites not be used in the development of the LST because those resources were classified. As a result, Perkin-Elmer was forced to develop the team and facilities to design the mirror from scratch, causing the scheduled launch date of 1983 to slip to 1986.

The spiral galaxy M100, imaged before and after Hubble’s corrective optics were installed. The dramatic improvement in image quality has allowed the telescope to obtain images of both the formation of stars and the collisions of distant galaxies.

Further delays were caused by the Challenger disaster in 1986, which grounded the shuttle fleet. The newly renamed Hubble Space Telescope, designed to be carried into space by a shuttle, was forced to wait in a clean room purged with nitrogen until its launch could be rescheduled. The cost of the wait was approximately $6 million a month, but it did allow engineers to make improvements such as replacing a possibly failure-prone battery. It also allowed the computer experts to further develop the software needed to control Hubble, which was not ready in 1986 and only just completed when Hubble finally launched in 1990.

Almost immediately, a flaw potentially fatal for the scientific usefulness of Hubble was discovered. The first light images from the telescope were of drastically lower quality than expected. An investigation into the problem indicated that Perkin-Elmer had ground the mirror precisely, but 0.002 millimeters out of shape. This error had actually been caught during mirror development by one of the testing procedures. However, a second test did not show the spherical aberration and that measurement was adopted as the more valid as a cost-cutting management decision.

However, Hubble was designed to be repaired and to have instruments replaced during subsequent shuttle missions. A plan was drafted to bring a corrective mirror to the telescope during Service Mission 1 scheduled for December 1993. During five space walks, clocking in at 35 hours and 28 minutes, astronauts took out the High Speed Photometer and installed the COSTAR device, a robotic assembly of 5,300 parts which deployed six adjustable corrective mirrors in the optical paths of the other scientific instruments.

Astronauts also used the mission to replace wobbly solar arrays and defective gyros as well as install the second generation Wide Field Planetary Camera. On February 21, 1994, the newly repaired Hubble released the most detailed image yet of Pluto and its moon, Charon, beginning a career for which it has become internationally famous.

NGC 5257 and NGC 5258, two spiral galaxies in the constellation Virgo. Both are distorted by their mutual gravitational interaction and are connected by a thin bridge of matter shared between the two. This sort of imagery would have been impossible if Hubble’s optics had not been corrected.

Despite the colossal success of Hubble, NASA has made plans to end the mission. As the shuttle program was close to ending, the 2009 service mission to the telescope included installing a ring on the outside of Hubble, allowing future missions—manned or robotic—to more easily capture the telescope. The intention is not—as would be logical—to attach a rocket that would boost its orbit in an effort to combat the slow orbital decay caused by atmospheric drag. Instead, in what can only be described as an act of anti-scientific vandalism and a deliberate coup de grâce, NASA plans to attach a rocket to guide Hubble towards the Earth, burning up the telescope during re-entry.

The justification for this is that the next generation James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be Hubble’s successor. In any scientific sense, this is not true. The JWST will complement the Hubble space telescope, looking more towards infrared rather than ultraviolet light. This will allow a greater focus on objects more distant and colder than what Hubble is optimized to study. It is expected to be able to detect stars in the early universe 280 million years older than Hubble.

However, the launch of the JWST has been pushed back from an initial date sometime in 2011 to October 2018. Primary responsibility for this rests with the constant threats by congressional Republicans, particularly those on the House Appropriations Committee, to end the project. In fact, in 2011, they did fully cancel the project, though funding was later restored after an international scientific appeal. For its part, the Obama administration ensures that funding levels remain as low as feasible.

As such, there is no replacement for Hubble. At a cost of $10 billion (a pittance compared to what the US spends on wars abroad or surveillance at home), after two and a half decades of groundbreaking scientific discoveries and a generation of being the fuel for excitement of scientific discovery, Hubble is expected to be forcibly de-orbited in 2024 as its orbital decay brings to a close its scientific observations. JWST, which is not serviceable in orbit, is expected to live only another four years beyond that. No credible plans exist for a successor mission. One begun in earnest right now, developed at the same pace as JWST, would begin observations in 2037.

Argentine unions and employers agree to wage cuts pushing millions into poverty

Rafael Azul

The administration of President Alberto Fernandez (Peronist) is responding to the COVID-19 crisis in Argentina with mandatory quarantines, subsidies to big business, and wage cuts, affecting hundreds of thousand workers.

This week, the Federation of Commercial Workers negotiated with the Chamber of Commerce a 25 percent wage cut for April and May for about half of its 1.2 million members. At the same time, the Metalworkers Union (UOM) negotiated a six-month wage cut of 30 percent for workers laid off by the companies of the Industrial Metals Association, and other employers, affecting 60,000 members of the union, including workers past the age of 60, who are at high risk and are not allowed to work. This agreement will remain in effect even in cases in which wages are partially subsidized by the state. Following an agreement with the Mechanics Union, auto dealers and repair firms will pay 25 percent of wages; 50 percent will be paid by the Fernandez administration.

Supposedly, a recent presidential decree prohibits layoffs, except when there is less demand, a gigantic loophole during the pandemic. According to Armando Cavalieri, who heads the Commercial Workers union, and Jorge Di Fiori of the Argentine Chamber of Commerce, the 60-day agreement was the result of a “social dialogue” with the goal of “saving jobs.” The agreement with the metal workers’ union is scheduled to last 120 days. The pretext for this second agreement is the “critical situation” that those companies face, following a 22 percent fall in production since 2018 for auto and other industries.

These sell-out “express” agreements by the Argentine trade unions and management are taking place with no consultation with workers, and under conditions in which there is increasing hunger and destitution across this South American country.

Currently, for a family of two adults and two children not to be classified as “indigent,” it would have to earn a monthly income of 17,353.25 pesos (little more than US$240), an income that would barely cover food expenses. Similarly, the poverty line (covering food, services and clothing) now stands at 41,994.86 pesos, up from 11,640.06 and 28,750.94 a year ago. Not included in these numbers are housing costs.

The latest official statistics (December 2019) show that nearly 38 percent of the population are now under the poverty line (16 million people), compared to 32 percent in 2018. For indigence, the numbers are equally dramatic, 8 percent of Argentina’s households can barely afford to feed themselves, up from 6.7 percent in 2018.

Including those workers with pending sell-out agreements, such as hotel and restaurant employees, the wage cuts could easily add up to 1 million workers, out of a labor force of 6 million.

In the last few years of austerity measures, workers’ wages have not kept up with inflation of prices for food and basic necessities, reducing the gap between workers’ household incomes and the poverty line. Last December, the country entered a food crisis.

President Fernandez decreed on Thursday price controls on milk and milk products until 2022. In the past, in the face of massive inflation, such price controls have been easily ignored.

Average real wages have lost 15 percent of their purchasing power, as the Argentine economy collapsed. An additional 25 percent is equivalent to a 40 percent total in terms of the reduction in income, according to calculations published this Thursday in Clarín, a Buenos Aires daily.

Half of the wage earners in the private sector (3 million) receive 45,000 pesos, barely above the 41,994.86-peso poverty line for a family of four.

The government measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic mean that the number of those below the lines of poverty and indigence will now explode.

For workers in the informal sector, including street vendors and contingent workers, conditions will be much worse.

The shock of the COVID-19 pandemic has hit Argentina at a critical political and economic juncture. Years of austerity measures that have sunk over a third of the population into poverty and hunger, combined with an incapacity to pay debt to Wall Street banks and vulture funds, place severe constraints on the recently installed Peronist government of Alberto Fernandez and Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Even before the pandemic hit, hundreds of thousands of Argentines were facing food insecurity. Throughout 2018 and 2019, the previous administration of president Mauricio Macri had imposed draconian austerity measures, while borrowing from the International Monetary Fund in order to pay off Wall Street creditors, effectively piling on new debt to pay off old debt to banks and hedge funds.

This week, Argentina, a nation of nearly 40 million, has reported more than 4,000 COVID-19 infections and over 200 deaths. In response, the Fernandez administration has imposed stringent social isolation measures. On the economic front, the government has resorted to the printing of paper money, while it attempts to postpone resolution of its $64 billion debt to Wall Street.

While the Fernandez administration allegedly has upped targeted “counter-cyclical” welfare payments by 1.7 trillion pesos for the second quarter of the year (April through June), this is a drop in the bucket compared to the cumulative effect of the attacks on wages.

Following the lead of the United States and Europe, Fernandez is allocating trillions of pesos in debt to big business; already many of those firms are purchasing dollars and dollar-denominated securities as part of a capital flight to offshore banks and Wall Street. The Argentine ruling class and Wall Street will surely demand that this massive debt be paid by the working class.

While the Argentine Central Bank has supposedly “placed filters,” the flight of corporate dollars out of the country has accelerated.

Fearing another massive dollar-flight, similar to the one that took place in 2001, many Argentines are closing their bank accounts and buying dollars, weakening the peso and putting pressure on domestic prices (the current annual inflation rate is 48 percent).

When it took power in December 2019, the Alberto Fernandez administration banked on the export of mineral products, primarily oil, together with a renegotiation of Argentina’s multibillion debt, in order to get the country out of the 2019 recession.

The COVID-19 pandemic, with its deflationary effect on the demand for fuels, combined with the global oversupply of oil, and Wall Street’s resistance to the renegotiation of Argentina’s $300 billion debt, have pushed those plans aside.

Throughout the month of April, nearly every sector of Argentina’s working class has protested against the layoffs, wage cuts and the lack of adequate health measures against the pandemic that threaten to spread the deadly virus among workers and their families. This includes protests and plant occupations by health workers, teachers, transit workers, meatpackers, miners, government workers, paper workers and newspaper employees.

Trump blocks federal funeral aid to families of COVID-19 victims

Jacob Crosse

Demonstrating that there is no expense the criminal oligarchy will not foist onto the back of the working class, President Donald Trump has barred the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from using any of the $45 billion Congress appropriated to the agency through the CARES Act to help families and relatives pay for funerals costs incurred due to COVID-19.

While an ocean of new funds have been made available to the agency, an April 28 White House memorandum directed to the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Administrator of FEMA, sharply curtailed how the funds could be appropriated. Language within the memo prohibits “individual assistance,” that is funds provided to the states and then distributed to individuals through FEMA assistance programs, except for “crisis counseling services.”

On April 18 the Trump administration declared that a “major disaster exists in all States and territories as a result of the virus” and authorized “Emergency Protective Measures.” However, the only “protective measures” for individuals and families approved have been the aforementioned “crisis counseling services.”

Leaving no doubt of the administration’s intentions to limit aid to victims of the pandemic, the memo states, “authority vested in the Secretary, acting through the Administrator… shall not be construed to encompass any authority to approve other forms of assistance.” FEMA operates several aid programs which could be used to facilitate unemployment assistance, as well as crisis counseling and reimbursement or vouchers for funeral costs.

Over the last 30 years, the average funeral cost in the US has skyrocketed by over 227 percent when adjusted for inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics . Government researchers found that caskets alone ballooned in price by 230 percent compared to a 95.1 percent rise for all other commodities tracked over the same time.

In the epicenter of the pandemic, New York City, funeral parlors and mortuary centers have been unable to keep up with the deluge of corpses, in some cases resorting to storing bodies in unrefrigerated trailers, stacking them in storage closets or shamefully piling the dead in unoccupied rooms.

The ghastly situation in New York is compounded by the lack of dignity many will be able to offer their loved ones in their final remembrance. Compounding the emotional trauma of an unexpected and preventable death, is the economic calamity millions are already facing. With over 30 percent of the country unemployed and millions unable to collect or file for unemployment insurance or waiting on as-yet-to-be-delivered stimulus checks, the added burden of funeral expenses, which in New York City can exceed $11,000 per burial, is too much for many to bear.

Representatives from approximately 30 states and US territories, according to ProPublica , have appealed to FEMA for “the full suite of individual assistance declarations,” which includes burial services. Not a single one, as of this writing, has received a positive response. Instead many, including Armand Randolph, a spokesman for the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency, have only received a perfunctory letter informing them that their request was “under review.”

In previous “disaster” situations such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy in 2005 and 2012 respectively, FEMA, at the direction of the president, had provided meager assistance to help defray the costs of funerals. A September 2019 report from the Government Accountability Office revealed that the agency paid out approximately $2.6 million in funeral costs for just under 1,000 applicants for three 2017 hurricanes—Harvey, Irma and Maria—paying out roughly $2,700 per applicant.

Or to put it other terms, flying 6 F-16C/D Fighting Falcons and six F-18 C/D Hornets for an hour over the New York City skyline the same day the White House issued its memo denying funeral aid, cost roughly $245,076, or enough to pay costs for the “dozens of corpses” discovered in U-Haul trucks in the city two days later.

The average disbursement of $2,700, an insulting amount, is not even enough to cover the costs of a traditional funeral, according to 2019 figures compiled by Anthony Martin, editor of ChoiceMutual.com. Martin reported that the cheapest city in the US “to die in,” is Las Cruces, New Mexico, with an average funeral cost of $4,560.

The FEMA operated Disaster Relief Fund has fluctuated wildly in funding in recent years with between $7 and $13 billion available, however with the passage of the CARES act an extra $45 billion was allocated by Congress. Every Democratic Senator voted for the CARES act, providing no-strings-attached funding to FEMA without bothering to write in any provisions guaranteeing the money would actually go to those who need it. As with the “corporate welfare” Senator Bernie Sanders and the rest of his party knew was in the CARES Act, the Democrats were fine with the Trump administration having sole discretion in how to use, or withhold, these funds as it pleases.

As in previous disasters the ruling class will use the pretext of the pandemic, and agencies such as FEMA, to enrich themselves. Carnival Cruise Lines, the recent beneficiaries of between $4–6 billion in Federal Reserve guaranteed loans, also profited tremendously from previous disaster declarations.

During the Obama administration, according to a charter agreement between Carnival and FEMA, obtained by Jim Walker at cruiselawnews.com, the government agency paid Carnival a staggering $74.7 million for use of one ship over a four month period in 2017. The ship was used to house relief workers off the Caribbean island of St. Croix following a series of hurricanes that struck the region.

During the six-month stretch following Hurricane Katrina, Carnival once again, in a no-bid deal with George W. Bush’s FEMA, chartered three ships to the Gulf of Mexico to provide space for the tens of thousands of residents stranded inside the flooded Louisiana Superdome. Over the next six months FEMA paid Carnival a total of $236 million, which the Washington Post reported at the time would have been over twice the cost paid per passenger if the ship was full and actually moving.

Navajo Nation COVID-19 cases rise while emergency federal aid remains delayed

Evan Cohen

Native American tribes are being starved of federal aid more than a month after the Coronavirus Aid, Recovery and Economic Security (CARES) Act was signed into law even as COVID-19 infection rates on tribal lands across the United States are continuing to rise. On a per capita basis the outbreak among the Navajo Nation across the US Southwest is almost as severe those of New York and New Jersey.

The CARES Act, the largest stimulus package in American history with about $2.5 trillion set for allocation, will act as a slush fund for the country’s corporate and financial aristocracy to continue to loot the working class to prop up Wall Street. As the World Socialist Web Site has noted, the “wolves guarding the hen house” will oversee a vast transfer of wealth to the ruling class, eclipsing that of the 2008 bailout.

Of the $2.5 trillion, tribal governments around the country were allocated $8 billion in “direct emergency relief funds.” Tribal governments have sued the US Treasury Department over the inclusion of corporations under the definition of “Indian Tribe” in the CARES act, worrying that corporations will receive disproportionate aid. The corporations in question are Alaska Native corporations, which own most of the native land in Alaska, controlling employment, land management and building, including the building of health facilities.

This week, a US district judge ruled in favor of federally recognized tribes and against Alaska Native corporations, but the Treasury Department has not begun to disburse payments to tribes and, according to the Huffington Post, has refused to comment on the delay.

Reflecting the political infighting wracking the US ruling class, House Democrats on Wednesday issued a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt requesting a distribution of the funds, citing the “negative impact that every day of delay has on Tribes.” The $8 billion which the tribes are seeking to get disbursed—which will be monopolized by a narrow wealthy elite layer of tribal leaders—is a pittance compared to the trillions doled out to Wall Street, and the weeks of delay have cost untold lives.

In fact, the conditions of deep impoverishment and a lack of critical infrastructure imposed on Native Americans by the federal government have contributed to some of the worst coronavirus infection rates in the country. Native American tribes continue to face a crisis of overcrowded hospitals, with entire families infected with COVID-19.

The Navajo Nation, which covers 17.5 million acres of territory across Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, tops 2,141 cases of COVID-19 and 71 deaths as of May 1, according to the Navajo Times. These cases likely under-represent the true number of cases throughout Navajo Nation, as just over 12,000 tests have been administered to a population of over 300,000 spread over an area the size of West Virginia.

COVID-19 infection rates on Navajo Nation are among the highest in the Southwest. In Arizona, while Phoenix’s Maricopa county has 93.4 cases per 100,000 people, counties on Navajo land have cases as high as 655 per 100,000 people. In New Mexico, where Santa Fe County has 67.2 cases per 100,000, McKinley County, a population center for Navajo and Zuni Pueblo peoples, has 1409 cases per 100,000 people.

Meanwhile in Utah, as multimillion-dollar F-35 jets flew over the state on Wednesday ostensibly to honor health care workers, Salt Lake County reached 217.5 cases per 100,000 people, and the rural San Juan county, bordering Monument Valley, reached 301 cases per 100,000 people.

As states in the Southwest continue to reopen state and national parks, many of which sit on tribal land, tourism will again bring new cases to already overwhelmed rural areas.

Writing for the New England Journal of Medicine, Heather Kovich, a medical professional working on the Navajo Nation in northwest New Mexico, characterized the situation in tribal hospitals as a deepening crisis: “A month ago, our first cases alarmed us; a week ago, our hospital was at surge level three: a series of tarps separated our Covid ward from the rest of the hospital. Now we are at level five: the whole hospital is essentially the Covid ward. At level six, we may expand to a school gymnasium.”

The pandemic, which spreads mainly among families under the same roof, has decimated generations of Native Americans who live in high-density housing with multiple generations under the same roof. Kovich explained:

“The virus landed in the middle of the reservation and exploded outward, from a remote region with an emergency department but no hospital. Many patients were transferred 100 miles east to our facility, but others were sent equally far in the opposite direction. Some were transported south to Albuquerque or Phoenix. Over the ensuing weeks, these families have had sick and dead members spread along an 800-mile circuit. Family members who are healthy enough are trying to coordinate hospital discharges, home oxygen delivery, transport of bodies, and memorials, all while grieving the loss of multiple relatives, young and old. The impact of this collective trauma is hard to grasp.”

The Navajo Nation, and Native American tribes across the country, have the highest rates of poverty and malnutrition in the US, leading to an endemic health crisis that has left these communities vulnerable to pandemics like coronavirus. This federally enforced generational poverty is the result of US imperialism’s centuries long mission to exterminate and then assimilate Native Americans.

The coronavirus pandemic—and the malign negligence of the ruling class—are global phenomena, decimating vulnerable Native American communities across North America and indigenous populations around the world.

Last week, the Oglala Sioux Tribe president issued a letter petitioning South Dakota’s governor, who proposed that 70 percent of South Dakota’s population would be infected, to impose a stay-at-home order and suspend construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to tribal lands.

In Canada, the Gull Bay First Nation in northwest Ontario is attempting to fight an outbreak of coronavirus after six people tested positive with COVID-19. That country’s territory of Nunavut, which is majority Inuit, recorded its first case of the disease Thursday in the remote community of Pond Inlet.

In Peru’s Amazon, indigenous tribes have accused the government of “ethnocide by inaction” in a formal complaint to the United Nations. In Brazil last month, a 15-year-old boy from the remote Yanomami tribe died of COVID-19; he had no known contact with a coronavirus carrier, indicating the possibility of community spread.

Russia: Two ministers, one deputy test positive for COVID as workers’ protests grow

Clara Weiss

On Friday, just one day after Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin was hospitalized for COVID-19, the minister for construction, housing and communal services, Vladimir Yakushev, and his deputy, Dmitry Volkov, tested positive for COVID. Yakushev was hospitalized, and his post will be filled by Nikita Stasishin.

Mishustin’s hospitalization sent political shockwaves through the government, which still refuses to either publish details about his health or the politicians that he had been in contact with in recent weeks. Mishustin temporarily resigned the same day. Both he and President Vladimir Putin nominated Andrey Belousov as acting prime minister.

Only in January, Mishustin was installed as prime minister, replacing Dmitry Medvedev, in a surprise reshuffle of the Russian government. The previous government had become extremely unpopular in particular after raising of the retirement age against the opposition of 90 percent of the population. He was praised as a technocrat who, unlike Medvedev, would be able to better oversee an escalated assault on the living standards of the working class.

According to the liberal outlet Meduza, it is unclear whether Mishustin will return as prime minister if and when he recovers. Putin reportedly signed an executive order naming Belousov as acting prime minister even though this would not have been legally necessary as Mishustin went on sick leave. A presidential executive order de facto signifies the dismissal of the head of government. The order was titled, “On the prime minister’s performance duties,” lacking the word “temporary.”

In another sign of frictions within the government, on Thursday, the head of the press department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, invited the right-wing US-backed opposition leader Alexei Navalny to a public debate, an unprecedented move for a high-ranking state official. She withdrew the invitation hours before the scheduled debate on Friday took place.

Underlying the sharp political crisis of the Kremlin is the enormous escalation of class tensions internationally and in Russia amid the pandemic. According to a March poll by VTsIOM, the confidence rating for Vladimir Putin has plunged to 28.3 percent, the lowest rating recorded since 2006 when such polling started. Another poll showed that 48 percent of the population disapprove of the government’s handling of the crisis, with only 46 percent supporting it.

In recent weeks, infections and deaths have skyrocketed under conditions where the government has tried to push for a reopening of the economy in several regions.

There are now 114,431 confirmed cases, placing Russia ahead of China, Brazil and Iran, and among the seven countries worldwide with the highest numbers of infections. The official figure is that 1,169 people have died of COVID-19. However, these numbers, horrific as they, are but a pale reflection of reality. Testing remains limited and faulty. There have been several reports about people with comorbidities who died after having been infected with COVID. However, the comorbidity, not COVID, was indicated as the cause of death.

As a result of decades of massive cuts to health care in the wake of the destruction of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism, hospitals have emerged as the main hotspots for infections. A state official recently acknowledged that out of 285 hotspots that the government is trying to contain, 64 percent are in hospitals. According to CNN, at least 23 wards were shut down nationwide for quarantine in April.

Many hospitals are completely dilapidated, with unhygienic conditions prevailing and often a lack of even basic things like running water. As is the case in most countries, health care workers are forced to work without basic personal protective equipment (PPE) and have a hard time getting tested. Many health care workers also report having to work even though they were sick.

One nurse at the Vreden Institute in St. Petersburg told CNN, “All my friends there are sick … 80 percent of my colleagues. [Nurses] are sick but still have to be there and change IVs for the patients.” Three weeks ago, the Institute had gone into lockdown after about 500 patients and medical personnel had tested positive. A health care worker on YouTube issued a cry for help stating, “I'm coughing, my chest hurts but there is no one to look at it ... there is no treatment and no medicine. No one came to check on us, how we feel, what is the plan for us ... when will this end?"

Recent weeks have seen growing working class protests in opposition to the government’s handling of the crisis as internationally. Russian doctors and nurses started protesting and walking out off their jobs in late March. This week, thousands of workers at the Gazprom oil and gas condensate Chayanda field in the Yakutia region in Siberia have staged a major protest against atrocious working conditions, and the lack of testing and medical care as the virus has spread among workers. The Chayanda field feeds into the Sila Sibiri (Power of Siberia) pipeline, which delivers gas to China.

From at least Wednesday to Friday, workers also blocked a road. While the numbers in media reports have differed, thousands of the 10,500 workers employed on the field may have joined the protests. YouTube videos of the protests were watched by hundreds of thousands of people, and thousands have left comments supporting the workers. The governor of Yakutia has since acknowledged that over 1,000 workers may have been infected on the field. The official number of COVID cases in the region is just 183. So far 50 of the workers have been hospitalized.

In addition to the Chayanda field, six other major oil and gas fields operated by Gazprom and other companies have recorded COVID 19 infections. The protests at Gazprom are of particular significance as the company, Russia’s largest, accounts for about a fifth of state revenues.

The nation’s economy has been severely hit by the historic collapse of oil prices. The Russian state budget relies for about half of its revenues on oil and gas exports. The government officially expects a decline of GDP by 5 percent and an increase in homelessness from officially 2.5 million at the moment to 8 million. However, the actual economic collapse will likely be much more severe, as the global economy is entering a recession. In a recent poll, two-thirds of companies indicated that they were planning cuts and layoffs.

Already, thousands of workers are effectively working without getting paid. A recent report by Li fe.ru entitled “Siberian slavery” shed light on the situation of 2,400 miners in Polysaev in the Kemerovo region in southern Siberia.

Polysaev is a mono-town, that is, a city where almost the entire social and economic infrastructure depends upon one or two companies. After a devastating decline following the dissolution of the USSR, there are still 300 such mono-towns in Russia, and they remain home to a substantial portion of the industrial working class. The Polysaev miners have not received pay in three months and are all in debt. One miner told the newspaper, “A manager with whom the workers had met tested positive for COVID-19. The entire management was sent into quarantine. Now there is basically no management at the company. Everything is unclear. They said they would fire 2,300 people if they cannot sell the mine.”

Layoffs of thousands of workers at chemical and other companies were announced in other regions as well. These layoffs will hit an already severely impoverished working class population. In the past five years, Russian real incomes have continuously declined and the number of those counting officially as “extremely poor” has risen to about 20 million, out of a population of 140 million. Meanwhile, the combined wealth of the 10 richest Russians in 2019 amounted to $178.5 billion.

UK government mandate delays to medical treatment during pandemic will cost thousands of lives

Jean Gibney

Thousands of deaths are expected due to delays in referrals and treatment for cancer and other life-threatening illnesses in the UK, as the National Health Service (NHS) is overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases. Referrals, scans, diagnoses and urgently needed treatments are being postponed, putting more lives at risk on top of the devastating coronavirus toll.

New research by the University College London and Data-Can—a health data research hub for cancer diagnosis and treatment—suggests that more than 107,400 people will die from cancer over the next year, almost 18,000 extra cancer deaths than would be expected without the pandemic. These include vulnerable patients contracting COVID-19, and those dying due to treatment delays.

Researchers analyzing data from cancer centres nationwide found that there had been a 76 percent fall in urgent referrals from GPs for suspected cancer patients compared with pre-COVID-19 levels. The conclusions were based on data from the health records of more than 3.5 million patients in England.

Specialized health services are being forced to postpone referrals, scans, diagnoses and urgently needed treatments, putting more lives at risk on top of the devastating coronavirus toll.

The NHS has suffered decades of cuts and the privatisation of services by Labour and Conservative governments. Coupled with the criminal lack of preparation for the pandemic, this has led to over 27,000 deaths from COVID-19. The true figure is more likely well over 40,000 due to systematic under reporting of coronavirus related fatalities by the Johnson government.

The UK is one of several countries to have suspended elective treatments as severe shortages of Intensive Care Units [ICU] have resulted in operating theatres being used as ICUs to cope with the influx of COVID-19 patients.

According to the Royal College of Surgeons more than 2 million operations were cancelled as the NHS released 12,000 beds for patients struck down by COVID-19.

One hospital trust in Berkshire issued a statement postponing all non-COVID-19 related treatments including surgery and chemotherapy. The suspension included urgent face-to-face and phone consultations.

Queen’s Hospital in east London issued a statement suspending all routine cancer surgery and chemotherapy for a minimum of two weeks.

Speaking to ITV News, cancer patient Beth Purvis expressed the anguish of all those whose life-saving surgery has been cancelled and now face a long wait for treatment. She said, “The uncertainty with cancer is bad enough, and then having this thrown into the mix. I just feel completely lost and totally in limbo right now.”

Gethin Williams, a colorectal surgeon at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport, Wales, told the Lancet medical journal that cancer treatments were being put on hold, and that “without treatment some cancers could obstruct, and some metastasize.’

National Health Service England warned about the impact of COVID-19 on patients undergoing chemotherapy and radical radiotherapy. For people with cancers including lung blood cancers, should they become infected with the coronavirus, “Different cancers produce immune suppression to different extents.”

As referrals and treatments are delayed, doctors fear that lives which could have been saved will be lost. Dr Clive Peedell, NHS Consultant Clinical Oncologist, told ITV News, “The mortality rate from cancer will go up, what percentage I can’t say, I would say a minimum of 5 percent increase in cancer mortality...”

Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust that manages King George Hospital in Goodmayes, and Queen’s Hospital in Romford, all stopped non-COVID-19 treatments and referrals for up to two weeks.

A report in the Daily Mail stated that as hospitals in the area became overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, the NHS trusts were told to prioritize which patients to consider for chemotherapy and surgery lists according to estimated life span and best survival rates. Those patients deemed to have a very limited lifespan or low survival chances are to be placed at the end of the list.

Patients who would benefit from surgery are being denied it due to the lack of recovery beds and ICU beds with ventilation. Sara Hiom, Director of Cancer Intelligence early diagnosis and clinical engagement at Cancer Research UK, warned that the disruption to cancer screening across the UK will have a disastrous impact on survival rates. Hiom raised the necessity of “post peak planning” in order “to deal with the huge backlog across cancer and all serious diseases after the first COVID-19 peak.”

Professor Richard Sullivan, Director of the Institute of Cancer Policy at Kings College London, recently advised that “the number of deaths due to the disruption of cancer services is likely to outweigh the number of deaths from the coronavirus itself over the next five years.”

The mass deaths that will occur as the result of the postponement of treatment is compounded by the hypocritical and criminally dangerous mantra of the government to “Save lives, Stay home, Protect our NHS.” As the pandemic began to spread, the government instructed the population that there was no need for mass testing and that anyone who had coronavirus symptoms should stay at home and “self-isolate”

This has resulted in many people, including those who are gravely ill, not going to hospital for treatment for non-COVID-19 issues. March saw 1.53 million people attending Accident and Emergency (A&E) units nationwide. This was the lowest attendance since records began and a 29 percent drop on 2.17 million attendances in the same month last year.

Some potential heart attack and stroke sufferers are not seeking medical help because of not “wanting to bother the NHS,” according to Stephen Powers, NHS England Medical Director. A&E attendance figures included a 50 percent drop in heart attack attendances.

Last month, the Guardian revealed, based on access to the minutes of a meeting of London A&E leaders, “that on the weekend of 4-5 April the number of 999 calls in which someone had had a cardiac arrest rose from 55 a day in normal times to 140.”

“Most of the people concerned died.” said the newspaper citing doctors. Professor Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs, “said that doctors were noticing a spike in the number of people dying at home, paramedics across the country said in interviews that they were attending more calls where patients were dead when they arrived.”

According to the Manchester Evening News , cancer referrals were down by two-thirds since the COVID-19 outbreak. Attendance at A&E units at North Manchester General Hospital and the Royal Oldham hospital showed an 80 percent drop.

Some people heeding government advice are not taking their children to hospital for fear of overwhelming the NHS. Professor Russel Viner, president of the Royal College of Pediatric Health, said, “We’ve recently heard reports of a small but worrying number of cases where children may have become very unwell or even died because they weren’t seen early enough.”

Suspension of screenings and routine appointments is hitting all sectors of health care, including dentistry. NHS England announced the opening of 50 urgent dental care centres. The General Dental Practitioners warned that “some patients who do not qualify for referral could be at risk of developing life-threatening symptoms.”

Many workers are concerned about overburdening an underfunded and massively overstretched NHS, while the private health care sector is doing everything to profiteer from the crisis. Much of the paltry £5 billion extra funding to the NHS and other services provided by the Tory government during the COVID-19 pandemic is being spent on beefing up the profits of the private sector.

The Health Service Journal reported that NHS England had block-booked almost all of the private health sectors’ resources, including staff and equipment, to fight the pandemic. The total cost to the NHS has not been published.

The Metro noted that the cost of renting beds from the private sector could be as much as £2.4 million a day. There are reports of private health firms inflating the costs of COVID-19 home testing kits by as much as 67 percent.

Social media platforms abound with comments condemning the profiteering by the private sector. One comment read, “this crisis has revealed the huge profiteering that has gone on at the publics expense for years.”

Another said: “Socialism for the companies, capitalism for the many.”

Liz Alderton, a district nurse team leader and Queen’s Nurse, tweeted, “Assessed 3 patients today, all newly diagnosed with cancer and all told they will not be considered for treatment because of COVID. All will die sooner than they would have. These are the figures that are not recorded.”

***

A reader sent the following letter to the WSWS on the delay in cancer treatment resulting from government policies over the coronavirus.

I’d read on social media that [Health Secretary] Matt Hancock was saying no cancer treatment would be affected by coronavirus measures. That’s an outright lie. It’s already happened.

My brother-in-law, Adrian, was scheduled for a laryngectomy on March 24, to take out his voicebox, thyroid and a lymph gland. So, it wasn’t an emergency, but it was critical. The consultant rang five days before the surgery to tell them Northwick Park Hospital [in London] had gone into shutdown because of coronavirus cases and all cancer surgery had been cancelled. At that point they just couldn’t tell them what the next step was going to be.

They couldn’t reschedule the surgery, they couldn’t transfer him anywhere else in London, they wouldn’t put in a tracheostomy tube to help his breathing in the meantime because of the increased risk of coronavirus infection, and they couldn’t just leave him be because the tumour was still growing and blocking his airway.

Eventually they decided to give him a course of radiotherapy to hopefully keep the tumour at a manageable size until they could operate. It’s obvious the surgical team have been desperately trying to find a way around all this, and my sister and brother-in-law have had nothing but praise for them and for all their efforts. Everybody knows that these are impossible conditions imposed on them by a lack of preparation and funding, but that doesn’t make it any easier for patients to deal with the stress of having appointments and treatment cancelled, while they’re getting worse.

Adrian’s tumour’s kept growing, and his speech is badly affected. They’ve finally been able to organise a cancer hub at a completely different hospital, and his surgery is now scheduled there, but it does mean that all patients have to be tested for COVID-19 to keep it coronavirus-free. Watching how they’ve gone about this, it’s clear that with the resources medical professionals can organise an efficient and functioning healthcare system: the problem is getting those resources from a government that’s been systematically starving and depriving the National Health Service.

Germany’s Lufthansa: Billions in state aid and mass layoffs

Peter Schwarz

Lufthansa and the German federal government are currently negotiating over state aid for the struggling airline. The sum of €9 billion is being discussed. Assistance for Lufthansa's subsidiaries in Austria, Switzerland and Belgium is also being discussed in Vienna, Bern and Brussels. According to press reports, the Swiss government has already committed to providing €4 billion in loan guarantees.

Lufthansa A388 airplane [Source: Wikimedia Commons]

The main issue in dispute is how much influence over the company the state will enjoy. The state could purchase the struggling company twice over for €9 billion, according to its current market value. If the German state participates in Lufthansa through the purchasing of shares it would enjoy significant influence over decision-making. By contrast, if it packages the assistance as loans, this would not be the case.

Lufthansa chief executive Karsten Spohr wants to limit state influence as much as possible. In an interview with the news magazine Die Z eit, he said, “If the Federal Republic wants to have too much influence over operational business matters, it could perhaps force Austria, then Switzerland and Belgium, and Bavaria and Hesse to get involved.” It would then be extremely hard to direct the company, he added. If Lufthansa wants to continue to be successful in the future, it must “still be able to decide its fate in a corporate manner.”

To avoid state intervention, Lufthansa is threatening to declare insolvency. Such a procedure would allow the current management to restructure the company at the expense of existing collective agreements and pension commitments, suppliers and creditors. At the beginning of the month, Lufthansa announced up to 18,000 job cuts. This number would be increased significantly with a declaration of insolvency.

The international air travel industry has come to a virtual standstill due to the coronavirus crisis. Instead of transporting 350,000 passengers per day, Lufthansa was carrying just 3,000 in early April, as Spohr stated in a video message to the company's 138,000 employees. The number of flights has been cut by 97 percent. The airline is losing €1 million per hour, even though most workers are receiving short-time work payments from the state. Spohr estimates that it will take several years for air travel to return to pre-crisis levels.

The situation is similar for Lufthansa's European competitors. British Airways plans to eliminate 12,000 jobs, almost one third of its 42,000 employees. Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) plans to reduce its workforce by half and cut 5,000 full-time jobs. Norwegian Air expects that most of its fleet of planes will be grounded for at least 12 months. Air France will receive a €7 billion bailout, while KLM will get between €2 billion and €4 billion. Due to the fact that the governments in Paris and The Hague disagree over the details, the airlines, which have been merged since 2004, could separate.

The main issue in the scramble for state aid is ultimately who will emerge from the crisis strongest and secure market share from its competitors. Although almost all state-owned airlines are now privatised, the existence of a national airline still remains an advantage for each country’s ruling elite in global competition.

In this struggle, which is being waged at the expense of the working class, the trade unions are proving themselves to be loyal advocates of their “own” national interests. They are appealing for state aid, playing off workers and companies from one country against another, and are prepared to sacrifice the interests of union members for “their” company.

In Germany, this course is being pursued by the service trade union Verdi, whose member Christine Behle is deputy chairwoman of Lufthansa’s supervisory board, and the profession-based unions Cockpit Association and Organisation of United Cabin Crew (UFO).

A petition directed to the federal government, which was initiated by Verdi and Cockpit, and signed by numerous works councillors and staff representatives, states: “If Germany as a centre of air travel is to have a future, the air travel industry needs state aid.”

The petition links the demand for state aid with job guarantees for employees: “We expect the securing of jobs and incomes with state aid for the air travel industry. State aid is: when it protects everyone.” But this is empty rhetoric. Verdi in particular has repeatedly shown its readiness to support all attacks on its members, including most recently the shutting down of the Lufthansa subsidiary GermanWings earlier this month.

The UFO addressed a letter to “Dear Federal Chancellor, dearest Mrs. Dr. Merkel.” In it, the union strongly advocates for state aid, writing: “The survival of the crane airline [Lufthansa’s corporate logo] depends to a large extent on whether and how the federal government is prepared to strengthen our wings.”

Unlike Spohr, UFO is urging the state to intervene as a shareholder. The trade union says it expects the government to stand up for the interests of the workers, writing to Merkel, “A rescue of Lufthansa that only serves to enforce long-demanded concessions on worker rights, social security and collective agreements cannot be in the interest of the government, and certainly not in your interest.”

The union urgently appeals to the chancellor “not to leave the social security of the workers during and after the pandemic to company management and the supervisory board alone, but to participate actively in Lufthansa.” It pledges to help Lufthansa become profitable again in the future, writing: “As a trade union, we will take our role in this very seriously and always keep an eye on business performance.”

The fact that UFO is begging to the federal government for it to fulfil the interests of its members is a sign of its utter bankruptcy. Merkel and the governments she has led have ensured in Germany and throughout Europe that wages were cut, health services slashed to the bone, and the rich made richer. Their austerity programmes have ruined countries like Greece. They do not represent the interests of the workers, but of capital.

UFO attached its pleading letter to a detailed “position paper on possible state aid in the air travel industry,” which calls on the government to “assume an active role,” and describes the “reconstruction of air travel” as a “chance for reform in transport infrastructure.”

Among UFO's goals is “climate change targets,” and “a new balance between air, rail and road travel” and the reduction of traffic on “unprofitable, short routes.” All in all, this amounts to a plea to strengthen Germany and Lufthansa at the expense of its European competitors and their workforces.

The position paper states, “The chance is on offer at the international level to strengthen Germany as a hub for air travel by supporting domestic carriers against competitors. In the long-term, Germany could be strengthened as a location for air traffic, trade and tourism.”

The main reason for UFO's desire to end short-haul flights is because they are a loss-making business for Lufthansa and served by competitors at lower prices. Lufthansa makes its profits on mid-range and long-haul routes. Climate change is merely a useful pretext to this end.

The economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic are threatening hundreds of millions of workers around the world. The air travel industry in particular is being hit especially hard. But the deadly virus is not the cause of this crisis. It was recognised in time and could have been contained. But it struck a capitalist society whose ruling elite is only interested in rising stock markets and the plundering of all existing resources.

Airline workers can only defend themselves if they unite internationally and take up the struggle for a socialist programme. The billions in state aid now flowing into the accounts of the corporations and banks must be deployed to contain the pandemic and overcome its social consequences. The airlines must be expropriated and placed under workers’ control. The same applies to the banks, hedge funds and the wealth of the super-rich. Only in this way can all of the available resources be used to meet urgent social needs.