The Soviet Victory over Nazism 75 Years Ago and Covid-19

by Andre Vltchek

How could the Great Patriotic War in which the Soviet people (including many members of my own family) lost at least 25 million lives, have anything in common with the latest outbreak of the novel coronavirus?

You think this is an absolutely insane question?

However, before you dismiss it, think twice. There are similarities how they are being portrayed. There is a dangerous, even deadly, pattern.

The storylines of both monumental events have been shamelessly kidnapped and perverted by Western propaganda!

The Power of Propaganda: Americans Think Trump’s COVID-19 Performance Better than China’s

by Alan Macleod

MintPress News | May 22, 2020

A new poll published yesterday by the Pew Research Center found that Americans rate their government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as better than China’s. This is despite the United States having 20 times the number of infections and deaths as the Asian nation, the epicenter of the outbreak. Unlike Chinese authorities, the Trump administration had months of notice to formulate a response. Overall, 47 percent of Americans judged the Trump administration’s reaction as either good or excellent, compared to 33 percent for China’s.

While China is reopening safely, there is no end in sight for the United States, where the virus is still running rampant. There were 28,179 confirmed new U.S. cases of COVID-19 yesterday, more than the worst week of the outbreak across China, a country with well over four times the population. Despite this, Americans appear to believe this could be the end for China as a power; 50 percent claimed that it would have less power on the world stage after the outbreak, compared to just 17 percent who said they would have more.

Vietnam marks Ho Chi Minh’s 130th birthday; prepares for victory over COVID-19

by Steve Sweeney

People’s World  | May 20, 2020

Teachers and students stand up for the Vietnamese national anthem as they start a new week in Dinh Cong Secondary School in Hanoi, Vietnam, May 4, 2020. Much of public life is returning to normal across Vietnam as the country prepares to declare the worst of the coronavirus pandemic at an end, though the government says it will remain diligent. | Hau Dinh / AP

Vietnam celebrated the 130th anniversary of the birth of Ho Chi Minh Tuesday by announcing the imminent end of its COVID-19 outbreak, with no locally transmitted cases reported for 33 consecutive days.

Despite bordering China, where the outbreak began, Vietnam has recorded no deaths from the virus. It attributes its success to preventative measures such as early testing, contact tracing, and the quarantining of entire cities when cases were detected.

According to its Law on Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases, Vietnam can declare the end of a pandemic when 28 days pass without any new cases being recorded in the community.

Resurrecting glory of the Peruvian Peoples War on 40th anniversary

by Harsh Thakor

Frontier | May 22, 2020

On May 17th we commemorated the 40th anniversary of the launching of the peoples War in Peru led by Chairman Gonzalo, known as the ‘Shining Path. In the annals of revolutionary history its progress from 1980-92 will be inscribed in letters of gold. It marked new epoch in the revolutionary movement on the Latin American continent by launching the first Maoist peoples War in that region.

Since the 1949 Chinese revolution no movement came so close to toppling the state or took intensity or creativity in people’s war to such a height. After the fall of the last citadel of Socialism with the Dengist regime triumphant in China. The ‘Shining Path’ movement resurrected and shimmered its torch of Maoism like no movement worldwide, after it was dead and buried in China after 1978.Revolutionaries must dip their blood in memory of the thousands who laid down their lives and resurrect their spirit to enable new roses to bloom. For over a decade it was a virtual model for ‘people’s war’ in all third world countries. I can’t forget a Comrade in a public meeting in Mumbai summarising its developments on a blackboard accurately, giving vibrations that it would turn the world upside down. The PCP revealed the remarkable mastery of Chairman Mao in turning a spark into a prairie fire when extinguishing the flame of peoples War in 1980, after a prolonged period of preparation. Several reports of the bourgeois media also depicted the deep penetration the party had made into the very heart of the masses and the depth to which they challenged the state power. The first spark that triggered of the people’s war was ignited with the burning of ballot boxes in the town of Chuschi. The Party writes that the most outstanding actions out in the field, was the guerilla actions in Ayrabamba and Aysarca (areas in Ayacucho), and the arson of the Municipal Building in San Martín. (a district in Lima).

50th anniversary of CPI (ML) Congress

by Harsh Thakor

Frontier | May 18, 2020

FROM 14TH -16TH MAY WE COMMEMORATE THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1ST CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST-LENINIST) HELD ON MAY14-16TH IN KOLKATA. IT WROTE A NEW EPOCH IN THE HISTORY OF INDIA SOWING THE SEDS OF MAOISM IN INDIA.ITS LIGHT SHIMMERS TILL TODAY IN DANDAKARANYA AND JHARKHAND WITH NEO-FASCISM AT A CRESCENDO.

On May-15-16th 2020 we commemorate 50 years since the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) had its founding Congress to shimmer the first spark of the Chinese path of protracted peoples War in India which turned into a prairie fire.

The 1970 party Congress was the most defining event in India’s revolutionary history from a theoretical viewpoint. No event demarcated or distinguished from revisionism in such depth as USSR was still Socialist when Telengana Armed struggle was going on. For the 1st time path of Naxalbari and Great proletarian Cultural revolution demarcating from revisionism was formally acclaimed at an All-India scale. Path of protracted people’s war was adopted for the 1st time on an All-India basis. The architect of the path was none other than the legendary Charu Mazumdar. Contradiction between feudalism and masses was analyzed as the principal one and the state described as semi-colonial. In meticulous depth the formation of red army was dealt with. The 8th Congress was recognized by the communist revolutionaries in India and by the CPC under comrade Mao Tse-tung. Legendary Comrade Charu Mazumdar was elected general secretary. A truly historic event in the annals of Indian revolution.

COVID-19 tanked India’s carbon emissions, but stimulus will drive them up again

by Tarun Gopalakrishnan

Down To Earth | May 15, 2020

Economic slowdown and restricted activity to control the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak resulted in reduction in carbon dioxide emissions for the first time in nearly four decades in India, according to an analysis of fuel consumption by Carbon Brief. The emissions dropped 30 per cent in April 2020 as compared to March, according to the analysis.

While this may seem like a good news for climate, it is not. Climate policy seeks welfare benefits from decarbonisation; emissions reduction from an economic crash does not fall within this worldview.

Re-imagining food systems crucial for climate, economic resilience: Nutrition report

by Chinmayi Shalya

Down To Earth | May 15, 2020

Food systems must be inclusive, local and diverse to address food security and malnutrition and build economic and climate resilience, according to the latest 2020 Global Nutrition Report. The report — released by the Stakeholder group — placed equity as the cornerstone of all efforts to overcome global malnutrition and insisted on policy changes and financial support as critical measures to ensure food systems improve the well-being of the marginalised and are sustainable environmentally.

A food system is a composite of the environment, people, inputs, processes, infrastructures, institutions, etc. Production, processing, distribution, preparation and consumption of food are a part of food systems. They also include the outputs of such activities, including socio-economic and environmental outcomes.

COVID-19, school closures, and child poverty: a social crisis in the making

by Wim Van Lancker and Zachary Parolin

The Lancet | April 07, 2020

While coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to spread across the globe, many countries have decided to close schools as part of a physical distancing policy to slow transmission and ease the burden on health systems. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization estimates that 138 countries have closed schools nationwide, and several other countries have implemented regional or local closures. These school closures are affecting the education of 80% of children worldwide. Although scientific debate is ongoing with regard to the effectiveness of school closures on virus transmission,

¹

the fact that schools are closed for a long period of time could have detrimental social and health consequences for children living in poverty, and are likely to exacerbate existing inequalities. We discuss two mechanisms through which school closures will affect poor children in the USA and Europe.

Leveraging Africa’s preparedness towards the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic

by Madikay Senghore, Merveille K Savi, Bénédicte Gnangnon, William P Hanage and Iruka N Okeke

The Lancet | May 14, 2020

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) response in many African countries has been swift, progressive, and adaptable, despite resource limitations.

¹

As the novel coronavirus infection spread through Wuhan (China) in January, 2020, African countries rapidly acquired de novo severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) testing capacity so that by March, most could confirm COVID-19. Airport screening began early and efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 have typically emphasised case identification, contact tracing and isolation, handwashing and hand hygiene, and several social distancing and stay-at-home measures with, in some cases, lockdowns of exceedingly high risk areas (appendix). These strategies are likely to remain integral to disease mitigation until an effective vaccine is deployed or population immunity is sufficient to slow transmission. However, the application of COVID-19 mitigation strategies in sub-Saharan Africa needs careful and continued deliberation because of the unique socioeconomic dynamics in this region. In this Comment, we discuss some of these challenges and suggest potential, non-resource-intensive solutions.

Science Fiction and Climate Change

A Sociological Approach

 

by Milner, Andrew and Burgmann, J.R.

Liverpool University Press 

Details

ISBN

978-1-789-62172-3

Pages

248

Format

Hardback

Other Formats

• 9781789627527 (eBook)

Description

Despite the occasional upsurge of climate change scepticism amongst Anglophone conservative politicians and journalists, there is still a near-consensus amongst climate scientists that current levels of atmospheric greenhouse gas are sufficient to alter global weather patterns to disastrous effect. The resultant climate crisis is simultaneously both a natural and a socio-cultural phenomenon and in this book Milner and Burgmann argue that science fiction occupies a critical location within this nature/culture nexus. Science Fiction and Climate Change takes as its subject matter what Daniel Bloom famously dubbed ‘cli-fi’. It does not, however, attempt to impose a prescriptively environmentalist aesthetic on this sub-genre. Rather, it seeks to explain how a genre defined in relation to science finds itself obliged to produce fictional responses to the problems actually thrown up by contemporary scientific research. Milner and Burgmann adopt a historically and geographically comparatist framework, analysing print and audio-visual texts drawn from a number of different contexts, especially Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Japan and the United States. Inspired by Williams’s cultural materialism, Bourdieu’s sociology of culture and Moretti’s version of world systems theory, the book builds on Milner’s own Locating Science Fiction to produce a powerfully persuasive study in the sociology of literature.