2 April 2020 — Global Justice Now
As coronavirus gets a foothold in every country, governments in the global south are facing an appalling choice: pay for emergency healthcare, or pay off international debts.
Across Africa, Asia and Latin America, lower-income countries urgently need to scale up their health spending. But they’re due to spend over $25 billion on debt payments in 2020. This is money that could be used now to save lives as this terrible virus continues to spread.
2 April 2020 — Politics & Insights
Written by Kitty S Jones
The National Health Service (NHS) was born on 5 July 1948. It was the first time anywhere in the world that completely free healthcare provision was made available on the basis of citizenship rather than the payment of fees or insurance.
2 April 2020 — True Publica
By Manuel João Ramos, Centre of International Studies, ISCTE University Institute of Lisbon: The Big Smoke: that was the name given (another was the ‘great smog’) to the episode of atmospheric temperature inversion (ATI) in London in the winter of 1952-53, which, associated with a viral outbreak, caused the death of 6,000 people and acute respiratory disease in another 100,000. (1)
2 Aril 2020 — Jonathan Cook
Things often look the way they do because someone claiming authority tells us they look that way. If that sounds too cynical, pause for a moment and reflect on what seemed most important to you just a year ago, or even a few weeks ago.
1 April 2020 — Michael Roberts Blog
In the light of the current pandemic, here is a rough excerpt from my upcoming short book on Engels’ contribution to Marxian political economy on the 200th anniversary of his birth.
1 April 2020 — MROnline
Farooque Chowdhury and John Bellamy Foster
In the backdrop of the ravaging coronavirus pandemic, John Bellamy Foster, editor of Monthly Review, the famous socialist magazine, discusses the pandemic in relation to the present condition of capitalism and economic crisis in the following interview conducted by Farooque Chowdhury in late-March, 2020. Foster, professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, and author of numerous books on political, economic, and ecological issues, relates the pandemic to the capitalist economy, its crisis and climate change.
1 April 2020 — Indian Punchline
All through the recent weeks since US President Donald Trump coined the epithet “China virus” to rename Coronavirus, Moscow kept a deafening silence.
Finally, on Sunday, March 29, Moscow broke that silence. That the first Russian statement came at the level of the Russian foreign ministry makes this particularly significant.
1 April 2020 — Black Agenda Report
Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
Although the coronavirus provided the trigger for the current global shrinkage, the economic crisis was already looming when the pathogen made its physical appearance.
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1 April 2020 — Anti-Capital
Yesterday, March 31, 2020, Donald Trump’s “task force” projected 100,000 to 240,000 deaths resulting from infection with the covid 19 virus in the United States. Their “chief” who loves to characterize awkward questions as “nasty,” had no trouble accepting that bit of nastiness.
1 April 2020 — Moon of Alabama
The anti-China campaign, which the Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger is running, presented its first of April joke. It leaked to Bloomberg that a secret U.S. Intelligence Report claims that China concealed the real numbers of its Covid-19 cases:
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1 April 2020 — FAIR
Why the market fails to provide life-saving goods is not a question the New York Times (3/26/20) will be asking.
Since the days of Adam Smith, capitalists have been arguing that unfettered markets are the best way to organize the economy. Smith famously said that the rich are “led by an invisible hand” to, “without knowing it, advance the interest of the society.” The rise of the welfare state in the wake of the Great Depression tempered such magical thinking for a few decades, but the ascent of neoliberalism in the last half century has brought a resurgence in market fundamentalism, in both theory (very much including the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post) as well as practice.
31 March 2020 — The Electronic Intifada
Workers for the United Nations agency UNRWA in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, prepare food rations to be delivered to the homes of Palestinian refugee families on 31 March, in an effort to avoid people congregating at distribution centers, as a measure to prevent an outbreak of COVID-19 in the densely populated territory. – Ashraf Amra APA images
Israeli occupation forces continue to attack Palestinian communities as they struggle to hold back the threat from the coronavirus pandemic.
1 April 2020 — Craig Murray
The brevity of this post is out of proportion to the enormous importance of the subject. But I want to let you know I am thinking and working on it.
It is a recognised pattern for dictatorship to commence with emergency measures designed to combat a threat. Those emergency measures then become normalised and people exercising arbitrary power find it addictive. A new threat is then found to justify the continuation.
1 April 2020 — Off Guardian
The initial, alarming estimates of deaths from the virus COVID-19 were that as many as 2.2 million people would die in the United States. This number is comparable to the annual US death rate of around 3 million. Fortunately, correction of some simple errors in overestimation has begun to dramatically reduce the virus mortality claims.
31 March 2020 — Global Research
By Stephen Lendman, March 31, 2020
According to a March 20 – 26 online survey of over 250 companies of varying sizes and business sectors, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that nearly half the number surveyed are likely to lay off workers over the next three months. Over one-third (37%) of companies instituted a hiring freeze. The St. Louis Fed projects unemployment potentially reaching 32% of the US workforce, a loss of 47 million jobs if things get this bad.
31 March 2020 — Craig Murray
The day after I publish my article accusing the corporate media of being an active part of the conspiracy against Alex Salmond, and of giving disgracefully selective, slanted and biased coverage of the evidence of his trial, the Daily Record has decided to investigate my home and personal finances. Is not life full of little coincidences?
1 March 2020 — Media Lens
In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, the most immediate objective is to slow its spread, minimise the death toll and help people through the crisis. But, despite government promises to support citizens who are now losing their jobs and income, the underlying establishment concern will be as it always has been: to preserve the global inequitable system of wealth and power.
31 March 2020 — MROnline
by Ajit Singh
For nearly four decades the United States and its Western allies have proclaimed to the world that “there is no alternative” to neoliberalism, maligning the state and public sector as inefficient and unproductive. If the 2008 financial crisis loosened this myth’s stranglehold on notions of what is possible, the current coronavirus pandemic has shattered it.
