Venezuela has finally been able to make the down payment required for developing countries to begin to receive their allocations of COVID-19 vaccines from the international COVAX facility, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez announced on April 9. But Rodriguez reported that the government was only able to do so through elaborate maneuvers to secure Swiss francs for the purchase. President Nicolas Maduro explained the next day, that Venezuela could only do this by “liberating some resources which had been kidnapped by the U.S. and deposited in Swiss francs, because if it had been done in dollars, the U.S. Federal Reserve would have stolen it.”
That Venezuela was forced to go through such maneuvers to be able to purchase vaccines, exposes the lie by successive United States administrations, that U.S. economic sanctions do not affect humanitarian aid or the people of the dozens of nations on which sanctions have been imposed. Neither the President or Vice President gave any details, but Maduro said “at the right time,” people will find out how they had freed up a tiny portion of the country’s own reserves to make the needed payment to COVAX. (The 59.2 million Swiss francs paid equal a little over half of the $120 million cost of nearly 11.4 million vaccine doses.)
Led by Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, the Trump administration enacted sanctions against Venezuela which are nothing less than an economic blockade, a blockade which Biden’s Secretary of State Tony Blinken has reaffirmed. Under the sanctions, Venezuela’s foreign reserves held abroad have been seized by the Federal Reserve, Bank of England, and other banks. At the same time, Venezuela is prohibited from selling its oil on international markets—a measure enforced by U.S. navy gunboats as well as legal threats—thus shutting down its primary means of earning new dollars to cover vital imports, including food, medicines—and vaccines.
President Nicolas Maduro reported on April 10th that a great diplomatic and legal effort had been required to access enough of Venezuelan government funds which had been “kidnapped by the Federal Reserve” under the “criminal financial sanctions” to make the payment. The Biden administration had refused the government’s appeal for some of its frozen reserves to be released for the Venezuelan government to purchase vaccines, driving Maduro to even offer “oil for vaccines” on March 29—although, that, too, would be “illegal” under U.S. sanctions.
Venezuela is one of the South American countries where the coronavirus is surging right now, and particularly the Brazilian variant, yet until now, the only vaccine commitments the government has been able to line up were for Russia’s Sputnik V and EpivacCorona (for which payment arrangements were made), China’s Sinopharm (donated), and Cuba’s yet-to-be approved Abdala.
Afghanistan’s Drought and Water Crisis Are Worsening; 2,000 Health Facilities Close –
Oct. 25, 2021 (EIRNS)–Afghanistan’s collapse in physical economic and agricultural production, the implosion of its health system, as well as the threat to human life, has gotten worse over the last two months. The nationwide drought is intensifying, while the West applies a tourniquet to the flow of necessary funds.
Physical economic conditions never stay in a “metastable state;” they either get better or worse.
In June of this year, then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani officially declared a drought in Afghanistan. This was based on information from several agencies, including the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which declared that “80% of Afghanistan is exposed to serious drought”—30% to “severe drought,” and 50% to “serious drought,” comprising 80%—and the remaining 20% part of the country was exposed to “moderate drought.”
Richard Trenchard, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization director for Afghanistan, stated in late September, “This is the worst drought in 35–36 years. Many public institutions which provide a safety net, have ceased to function. Farmers have very little to fall back upon.”
Farming is being destroyed. The UN reported August 25, “Some 40 percent of [Afghanistan’s] crops have been lost to drought in the second massive water shortage in three years—further heightening food insecurity.” The World Food Program already reported that 14 million people in Afghanistan are food insecure, a number that is doubtless rising.
But the shortage of water is affecting not only agriculture, but the whole economy and society, which depends on water. A 2008 report reported “that drinking water supplies reach only 23 percent of Afghanistan’s total population… The country’s total sanitation coverage [is] only 12 percent.”
Two critical infrastructural sectors expose some of the crisis.
Afghanistan has only a combined approximately 100 private and public hospitals for a nation of 40 million people, a meager amount. The nation’s health system is run through a network of 2,200 “health facilities,” about 200 of which appear to be primary health clinics; it is not clear how large the other facilities are. These 2,200 facilities are run through an institution called Sehatmandi which is administered by the World Bank through the Afghanistan Reconstruction Fund and the Afghan Ministry of Public Health. It is funded through the World Bank, the European Union, Canada and Global Financing Facilities.
When the Taliban came to power in the period of August 17–18, these funding institutions cut off money. On September 30, Alexander Matheou, the Asia Pacific director of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies stated that “over 2,000 health facilities have closed.” He added that more than 20,000 health workers in the country were no longer working or were working without being paid; more than 7,000 of them are women. “People might agree to work without salaries for a few more weeks,” Matheou stated. “But once medicines run out totally, if you can’t switch on the lights, if you’ve got nothing to offer somebody who comes to your clinic, then they’ll shut the doors.”
Under intense pressure, on September 20, the Global Fund and the United Nations Development Fund signed an agreement to supply $15 million to the 2,200 health facilities. This is a drop in the bucket.
International donors pledged in October $1.2 billion to Afghanistan. But there are three roadblocks: 1) it is not clear how much of the pledged money will be really delivered; 2) it takes sometimes months for the money to get into the system; and 3) above all, the clinics are greatly inadequate, Afghanistan needs hundreds of new advanced hospitals, tens of thousands of skilled doctors and nurses, and so forth.
In the meantime, COVID is looming. Nine of Afghanistan’s 37 COVID hospitals have closed. Afghanistan has put a reported only 2.2 million COVID jabs into people; it has 1.2 million doses of vaccine waiting to be distributed, that haven’t been. They will expire by the end of the year.
This is pure and simple genocide.
As for water, Afghanistan has an annual surface water runoff water volume of 57,000 million cubic meters per year, which comes out to approximately 1,425 cubic meters/year per capita. This is insufficient, but would be a start. However, Afghanistan does not have an adequate water basin catchment system, and precipitation is not evenly distributed geographically.
In 2016, India spent $275 million to complete what is now called the “Afghan-India Friendship Dam” in Herat province on the Hari River. It will irrigate 75,000 hectares of land. But otherwise, new dam construction and broader water management hardly exists.
The U.S. is blocking more than $9 billion in Afghanistan’s central bank that belong to the Afghan people. The World Bank, IMF, and EU are blocking hundreds of millions more. (See the Schiller Institute’s demand for release of the Afghans’ funds at this link.)
These more than $10 billion, were they deposited in a fund under sovereign Afghan control, could be used to build hospitals, administer the COVID-19 vaccine; begin emergency food and water distribution; make down payments on dams and water management projects; build power stations, etc. Immediate building in Afghanistan must start.
Sept. 18 (EIRNS)–The Executive Director of the World Food Program’s David Beasley has been in Haiti for several days to work with aid teams and publicize the need to take action. On Sept. 16, he sent a video tweet from Maniche, showing how “house, after house, after house, after house in Maniche was completely destroyed… you can see how bad it is, and we’ve got to help these people.” There have been four weeks of clean-up, but there is destruction all over the place. He wrote, “This is why these families need our support to recover and rebuild.” On Sept. 17, he visited a cooked-meals operation run by the World Central Kitchen.
Brazil: Will the Next Coronavirus Variant Be Vaccine-Resistant?
April 15, 2021 (EIRNS) – Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) sub-director Jarbas Barbosa warned in remarks this week that, if COVID-19 is not controlled across the world, there exists a worst-case scenario in which a new vaccine-resistant variant emerges. One of the likely places that could happen is Brazil, where the already dangerous P1 Brazilian strain, which is believed to be as much as 2.5 times more contagious than the original coronavirus and more resistant to antibodies, has wreaked havoc in the country and brought the country’s public health system to near-breakdown.
New research conducted by Brazil’s public health institute, Fiocruz, is focusing on an even newer variant. “We believe it’s another escape mechanism the virus is creating to evade the response of antibodies,” said Felipe Naveca, one of the authors of the Fiocruz study. “This is particularly worrying because the virus is continuing to accelerate in its evolution.”
On Tuesday, France suspended all flights to and from Brazil to try to stop the new Brazilian strains from spreading into that country.
Apr. 30 (EIRNS)–Friday was yet another new record with over 386,000 official new cases. New Delhi hospitals are beyond capacity and patients are sharing beds and using the floors of corridors. In the next two weeks, 1,200 more intensive care beds are to be added, but New Delhi has about 24,000 new cases/day with approximately 3,600/day needing hospitalization. The Army Chief, M. M. Naravane, opened the military hospitals and invited those in distress to approach a military base. One military hospital with 500 beds was opened, and three hours later was all filled up.
Also on Friday, two planeloads of equipment arrived from Russia, including 20 oxygen concentrators, 75 ventilators, 150 bedside monitors and 22 tons of medicine. The first U.S. shipment arrived with some oxygen cylinders, N95masks, and rapid antigen tests. Bangladesh provided 10,000 vials of anti-virals and 30,000 PPE kits. On Saturday, the German Air Force will arrive with supplies, and Taiwan is delivering 150 concentrators this weekend. Finally, Friday also saw China’s head, Xi Jinping, call India’s Prime Minister Modi, offering condolences and expressing willingness to strengthen cooperation with India. Global Times reports that China has sent 26,000 ventilators and oxygenators, 15,000 patient monitors and about 3,800 tons of medicine to India so far this month.
Drumbeat Grows for Release of Afghan Funds As Economy Falters—
As Afghanistan’s Chamber of Commerce and Investment warned on September 13 that the country would plunge into an economic crisis unless frozen international reserves were released by the U.S. Treasury, there is a growing cascade of voices calling on the U.S. to do just that. These private sector representatives charged that the U.S. Treasury’s freezing of reserves is a violation of humanitarian law and reported that since the reserves were frozen, all transactions between Afghan and international banks have been halted.
Unless this situation is reversed, the country won’t avoid a deep recession, the representatives warned, according to TOLO News. “We call on the United States and the world to solve the issue with the frozen assets, because that money belongs to the people of Afghanistan. If you have political issues with the government or some people, you should not take people’s money hostage,” ACCI acting director Yunus Mohmand said. A fellow member of the ACCI, Khan Jan Alokozay, said that most of the factories are facing serious financial shortages and raw materials because they are unable to withdraw money, adding that in the last month over one million laborers have not been paid.
In addition, Afghanistan’s Health Minister, Wahid Majrooh, who had stayed on from the previous government, said that the Afghan health system is teetering on the edge of collapse, “We are losing personnel, we are losing lives, and the morale and momentum we had,” Majrooh said. “The crisis is very, very extensive.”
Pressure is growing on the U.S. to release the funds. On September 15th, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijjan said that the U.S. should release those Afghan Government assets which they have been holding in abeyance as the new Afghan government was in the process of formation. Zhao was replying to a question regarding the Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen’s call for release of the funds. “Shaheen is right,” Zhao said. “The assets belong to Afghanistan and should be spent for the Afghan people. The U.S. should not freeze them without justification. The U.S. should face up to the legitimate demand of Afghanistan, abandon pressures and sanctions, and stop creating obstacles to the economy, livelihood and peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan.”
One can also expect a clear statement from the upcoming SCO meeting as both Russia and China have indicated that the U.S. which is responsible for the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan have got to take the primary responsibility for resolving the crisis. A first step in that direction would be releasing the funds to the present interim government before it is too late.
Oct. 18 (EIRNS)–A Dominican friend of the Schiller Institute who has been discussing the plan for reconstruction and development of Haiti, made a number of specific proposals on emergency measures he feels should be taken right away, in the context of the broader strategic program to transform the nation. While he took issue with the Institute’s proposal to solve Haiti’s vast energy deficit with nuclear energy, and only addressed the security situation in a general way, his proposals overall are serious and excellent. He emphasizes the Dominican Republic’s crucial role in developing Haiti and the whole island of Hispaniola. He writes:
“I want to make a couple of comments regarding the program to develop and save Haiti as well as my own country, because we are inextricably linked to the same consequences as this is one island and neither of our nations can relocate ourselves. I think that the program should be divided into two main parts:
1) A comprehensive emergency program to mitigate hunger, disease, uncertainty and the dissolution of the country. This would include:
–massive and sustained distribution of cooked, canned or fresh foods—cooked on the spot on stoves on trucks (many of these are already used in my country in disaster zones).
— set up mobile clinics on trucks that can reach poor neighborhoods in the cities or countryside;
—set up mobile schools, transported by truck, for basic education that can be located in rented locales;
—provide facilities, funding, tractors, consulting, etc., to small farmers who produce food, as well as to cattle ranchers and poultry farmers who raise cattle, pigs, chickens and eggs either at home or on farms;
–provide specialized machinery and personnel to build basic access routes, indispensable neighborhood roads or trunk routes, and small bridges
–provide large quantities of construction material to build low-cost houses, preferably prefabricated, and furnish them with household goods;
–build mobile government offices that would be used primarily for dealing with civil matters;
— identify sources of water to be made potable through chemical processes and osmotic filtration (in which I am a specialist).
–provide large quantities of clothing, shoes, sheets, mattresses, folding beds, mosquito netting and insect repellent;
–massive distribution of vitamins, minerals, painkillers, medicines to treat parasites and diarrhea, mobile laboratories for basic analyses of fluids, and dental clinics;
2) A strategic program like [the Schiller Institute’s Haiti program,] with which I fundamentally agree. We have to see how a mechanism for directing the process can be created without interference—so that everything can be monitored and be above board, because the whole [Haitian] government is illegitimate, and no one knows for sure what its plans are nor to whom it really answers. As I mentioned, the Dominican Republic can play a crucial role in the carrying out of any plan, as we’ve already done this [before] without international aid.
Sept. 14, 2021 (EIRNS)—The Sept. 13, United Nations conference in Geneva on aid to Afghanistan succeeded in raising $1.1 billion, beyond the original target of $606 million. But given the dramatic reports by speakers on the dire humanitarian crisis and the urgent need for food and medicine to avert imminent starvation of tens of millions of people, the $1.1 billion won’t suffice. The situation is so fragile that 1 million children are at immediate risk of starvation if their immediate needs are not met, the New York Times reported Sept. 13. “At least 10 million children depend on humanitarian aid just to survive,” UNICEF’s executive director Henrietta H. Fore told the Times*. The World Food Program (WFP) estimates that 40% of Afghanistan’s crop has been lost this year, and the prices of basic food items are soaring. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is taking steps to help farmers so that they don’t miss the upcoming winter wheat planting season, and to keep life-sustaining farm animals alive, but the situation has been complicated by a severe drought. Over half of an average Afghan’s daily caloric intake comes from wheat, most of which is domestically grown, FAO director general Qu Dongyu, told the meeting.
World Food Program director David Beasley starkly warned that “14 million people—1 in 3—are marching to the brink of starvation…. On top of that, you have 14 million people in IPC2”—a category of acute food insecurity—“that are knocking on the same door, so if we’re not very careful, we could truly enter the abyss and see catastrophic conditions, worse than what we see now.” WFP estimates that 40% of Afghanistan’s crops have been lost for this year; the price of wheat rose by 25%, and the price of flour has doubled at local markets. Beasley stressed that a major concern is that 4 million people live in hard-to-reach areas, for whom, if food isn’t prepositioned before winter, “we will face a catastrophe. The time is now. We can’t wait six months. We need the funds immediately so we can move the supplies.”
Like other speakers, Beasley also warned, “if we’re not careful, and we’re not strategic, we could face mass migration, destabilization in the region, and for certain starvation for millions of Afghan people.” Beasley’s full remarks can be found here.
Making the same point, Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s permanent representative to the Geneva UN office, stressed that “Kabul’s traditional Western sponsors must provide active help to the country’s population to reduce or stop migration flows,” according to TASS.
Sept. 14, 2021 (EIRNS)—In an interview with TASS published Sept. 13, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council Andrey Kortunov warned that, due to both U.S. and UN sanctions, Afghanistan faces the threat of famine. The country is now “on life support,” he said, because it depends entirely on assistance from international development institutes, the UN, the EU, and the U.S. In fact, David Beasley, director of the World Food Program, reported during yesterday’s UN conference in Geneva on aid to Afghanistan that 40% of its GDP comes from foreign aid, and 75% of its public spending from international funding. Kortunov admonished that, if the Taliban coming to power means there will be more sanctions placed on the country, it could jeopardize food deliveries. He told TASS that it will take an estimated $1 billion a month, minimally, to maintain basic social institutions and avoid hunger in certain regions—that is, $12 billion yearly.
Kortunov also highlighted the issue of who will control distribution of humanitarian and food assistance to Afghanistan. Take the case of Syria, he said, where the West claims that President Bashar al-Assad can’t be trusted to handle this task, so it’s left in the hands of international agencies and aid groups. “It is not to be ruled out that the same position will be taken in respect of the Taliban,” Kortunov said, explaining it would lead to a situation where the international community “will be ready to provide food assistance but on the condition that unimpeded access will be granted to the areas in need,” and the Taliban excluded from any decision-making as to whom aid should be delivered. In the Syrian case, Western arguments are simply a pretext for curtailing Syrian sovereignty under the guise of “humanitarian” protection. How this plays out in Afghanistan—a more complex situation—remains to be seen. The TASS article can be found here.
April 28 (EIRNS)—President Vladimir Putin personally informed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi today that Russia will send equipment urgently-needed to care for Indians infected with COVID-19 to India, starting with flights today by the Russian Emergencies Ministry delivering over 22 tons of equipment, including 20 oxygen production units, 75 lung ventilators, 150 medical monitors and 200,000 packs of medicine. The two leaders spoke by telephone, with Putin assuring Modi of his support in this difficult period, and Modi “warmly thank[ing] the President of Russia for the assistance provided, which is largely high-tech and is in great demand in the country,” the Kremlin reported. They also discussed that Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has also now been registered in India, and both are satisfied that the Russian Direct Investment Fund had reached an agreement with Indian companies to produce 850 million doses of Sputnik V, production of which is to begin in May.
