Since vaccination of children was completed, no Cuban boy or girl has died

Granma | January 26, 2022

More than 1.6 million children have been vaccinated against COVID-19 in Cuba, and since the conclusion of the campaign, no pediatric deaths have been reported

Social Sciences and the Colonised Mind

by Prabhat Patnaik

Peoples Democracy | January 23, 2022

A CRUCIAL component of the imperialist system is the colonisation of third world minds that helps to sustain it. This colonisation is pervasive, but here we shall discuss only academic colonisation and that too relating to the social sciences.

Social sciences are of critical importance because the problems of the third world are above all social problems, and since the colonisation of third world minds has the effect of inculcating in them the belief that imperialism in the colonial era had nothing to with these problems (on the contrary, if anything, it had a beneficial impact), and that imperialism in the current era does not even exist, it incapacitates thinking in the third world on how to resolve these social problems, i.e., how to go beyond the given situation.

At doom’s doorstep: It is 100 seconds to midnight

2022 Doomsday Clock Statement

Science and Security Board | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists | January 20, 2022

Editor, John Mecklin

Editor’s Note: Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The Doomsday Clock is set every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 11 Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies in other domains.

To: Leaders and citizens of the world

Re: At doom’s doorstep: It is 100 seconds to midnight

Date: January 20, 2022

Last year’s leadership change in the United States provided hope that what seemed like a global race toward catastrophe might be halted and—with renewed US engagement—even reversed. Indeed, in 2021 the new American administration changed US policies in some ways that made the world safer: agreeing to an extension of the New START arms control agreement and beginning strategic stability talks with Russia; announcing that the United States would seek to return to the Iran nuclear deal; and rejoining the Paris climate accord. Perhaps even more heartening was the return of science and evidence to US policy making in general, especially regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. A more moderate and predictable approach to leadership and the control of one of the two largest nuclear arsenals of the world marked a welcome change from the previous four years.

World Inequality Report: Class Divide Explains More than Regional Divisions

by Sanjay Roy

Peoples Democracy | January 23, 2022

WORLD Inequality Report 2022 underlines the sharp divide between the rich and the poor that occurred as a result of neoliberal policies pursued by global capital using the hegemonic and asymmetric architecture of global institutions. The report clearly shows how the class divide has become relatively more important than the regional divide in determining global inequality. This simply tells that in today’s world where one is born and brought up has relatively less impact than in which class the person belongs to in explaining relative earnings and wealth status. It however says further that even if inequality between countries shows a decline but still the difference continues to be high.