Nigeria: The infamous 1996 Pfizer trial driving anti-vax feelings today

BY MAHDI GARBA & MODUPE ABIDAKUN

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

For those affected by the devastating drug trial, vaccine hesitancy is not only driven by conspiracy theories or mistrust but lived experience.

Illustration by Antoine Bouraly

A version of this piece, edited by Mercy Abang, was originally published by Unbias The News. 

“It’s strange that I still remember everything, even the colour of the nurse’s uniform. There was a white nurse who was in a brown skirt and green blouse, who directed the Nigerian nurse to give him three injections at a time and he did exactly that while my son was on my shoulders,” says Hajiya Maryam*, speaking in Hausa. 

“Immediately after receiving the drugs, he became unconscious for hours. On waking up, I noticed that he couldn’t hear anything again. I knew that it was Pfizer who gave him the drugs.”

Maryam’s son, Zakari, was six at the time and ill with fever and headache. She had thought he had meningitis. She took him to Asibitin Zana, a clinic in Kano, where he was treated with drugs. The drugs, part of a Pfizer trial, left Zakari with a hearing and speech impediment. Maryam insists no one told her that Pfizer was testing out a new drug. 

The aftermath of Pfizer’s drug trial in 1996 is linked to the current COVID-19 vaccination boycott in communities within Kano State. Here, vaccine hesitancy is not only driven by conspiracy theories or mistrust in science but lived experience. 

Drug trials during an outbreak

In 1996, a severe meningitis outbreak spread through Nigeria, causing inflammation of the brain and spinal cord linings. By March of that year, the infection had spread to 12 states, leading to over 100,000 cases with a fatality rate of 10.7%. It was the most severe epidemic of the illness ever recorded in Nigeria. 

The outbreak, which lasted over three months, required the combined efforts of a National Task Force, the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF, UN Development Programme (UNDP), Médecins Sans Frontières, the International Red Cross and several other NGOs to bring the epidemic under control, but not without scars left behind for families in Kano State. 

In addition to the international task force, the US-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer was in Kano at the time with an antibiotic drug called Trovan, expected to potentially treat meningitis, but not yet approved for that use or for treatment of children by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company administered a drug trial of Trovan and a second drug, Ceftriaxone, then a standard treatment for meningitis, to some 200 children.

Pfizer has maintained that they obtained prior verbal consent from all parents for the experiment, but those like Maryam and 29-year-old Bala Bello tell a different story. Bello was four-years-old during the meningitis outbreak. 

“I was ill and taken to the Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH), popularly known as ‘Asibitin Zana’,” Bello recounted. “I was given some drugs, which no one explained to [my mum] what the said drugs were meant for.”

Shortly after the drugs had been administered, he developed an unexpected side effect.

“We didn’t even leave the hospital before a reaction manifested. Soon after, I developed paralysis in my legs,” Bello says while struggling to maintain a stable sitting position. “Soon after I was paralysed…my mother got to know that it was Pfizer who had given her the drugs from their experiment.”

Of the trial participants, 11 died and dozens of others were left with debilitating injuries: blindness, paralysis, deafness, and neurological deficits, which the company maintains are the result of meningitis, not the drugs they administered. (Pfizer did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.) 

In 1998, the license for Trovan for use by adults was withdrawn from the European Medical Agency because of concerns over serious medical problems and multiple deaths. It was withdrawn from the US market in 1999 for the same reasons, though at the time Pfizer said trials had revealed no side effects. It appears results from the trial in Kano State were never published.

In 2007, the Nigerian federal government and Kano State government filed criminal and civil suits against Pfizer and eight other defendants, asking for $7 billion in damages. The suit charged that the company had tested an unapproved and experimental drug on children with neither informed consent from parents nor approval from the Nigerian government. Pfizer countered that such approval wasn’t necessary. In 2001, an investigation by the Washington Post had uncovered that a document Pfizer claimed to prove ethical approval by Nigerian authorities for the trial appeared to be falsified and back-dated. 

In 2009, Pfizer and Kano State officials, along with representatives of the children’s families, agreed a confidential out-of-court settlement for $75 million. This conclusion led to compensation for some of the families affected, but Pfizer never admitted to wrongdoing and maintains to this day that the trial was proper and life-saving.

A legacy of scepticism

Many years later, the memory of the Trovan drug trial remains. The COVID-19 vaccine recalls doubts over the ethics of big pharmaceutical companies.

“I won’t advise, I won’t allow and I won’t tolerate seeing my son, myself or any of my relatives to receive the COVID-19 vaccine,” Maryam maintains. She vows to discourage anyone she knows from taking the vaccine and inform them about the 1996 meningitis outbreak. “I will educate them on that. My son is now living in agony despite the so-called compensation…He is neither in school nor into business. He is living a miserable life.”

Maryam is not alone in her doubts. From Congo to Malawi and South Sudan, doses of the expired vaccines have been destroyed, a development that raises concerns for vaccine equity and the effectiveness of a global vaccination effort that requires mass participation to be effective.

Dr Samaila Suleiman, a lecturer of History at the Bayero University Kano, argues that scepticism over the COVID-19 vaccine can be traced to historical cynicism against the motives of Western powers in Africa. 

“It is important to also note that the COVID-19 vaccine scepticism is not peculiar to the uninformed members of the community. There are highly placed members of the elite and political class who have refused the COVID-19 vaccine, citing a Western conspiracy to decimate the African population,” he says. 

Fighting hesitancy

“As public health experts, we must do more than offer the vaccine,” says  Dr Faisal Shuaib, head of the Nigerian National Primary Healthcare Development Agency. “We have to also put in the hard work of providing the correct information about the safety, effectiveness of vaccines and clear the doubts and misconceptions that exist.”  

These doubts may be difficult to disprove when pharmaceutical companies remain unrepentant for previous actions, settling disputes with out-of-court payments cloaked in secrecy. However, countries can take measures to hold them to account. In Uganda, the high court recently set out guidelines for obtaining informed consent from the subjects of human clinical drug trials in the case of Mukoda v International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. 

For Bello and Maryam, intense scepticism about the COVID-19 vaccine and the pharmaceutical industry in general remain. “I won’t take COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer or a different pharmaceutical company,” Bello reiterates. 

As health advocates struggle to fight disinformation and conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccines, it is important to remember that in some countries distrust stems not only from ignorance but experience. 

 

Unbias The News is a feminist, all-women crossborder newsroom by Hostwriter, seeking to actively fight against the perpetuation of racist, sexist, or ableist stereotypes. 

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 

Elizabeth Holmes: Has the Theranos scandal changed Silicon Valley?

By James Clayton

BBC
North America technology reporter



For years Elizabeth Holmes was the darling of Silicon Valley, a woman that could do no wrong.


The start-up she founded, Theranos, attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in investments.


Yet the company she had built was based on fantasy science.


The technology Theranos was producing - supposedly testing for hundreds of diseases with a pin prick of blood - seemed incredible. And it was.


Millions of dollars were squandered and some who used the company's tests, including a cancer patient, say they were misdiagnosed.

Theranos founder 'lied and cheated', trial hears


Now, years after Theranos collapsed, Ms Holmes is on trial in California for fraud (she has pleaded not guilty).



For an outsider to Silicon Valley the story sounds nonsensical. How were so many people taken in?


Yet in Silicon Valley, many believe that Theranos - far from being an aberration - speaks of systemic problems with start-up culture.

Faking it until you make it


In Silicon Valley, hyping up your product - over-promising - isn't unusual, and Ms Holmes was clearly very good at it.


A Stanford University drop-out, she was, by all accounts articulate, confident and good at presenting a vision - a mission as she described it - to revolutionise diagnostics.

Sceptical experts told her that her idea was just that - an idea - and wouldn't work.

But she projected an unfaltering confidence that the technology would change the world.


PROFILE - Who is Elizabeth Holmes?


"It's baked in to the culture" said Margaret O'Mara, author of The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America.


"If you are a young start-up in development - with a barely existent product - a certain amount of swagger and hustle is expected and encouraged" she said.


Particularly at an early stage, when a start-up is in its infancy, investors are often looking at people and ideas rather than substantive technology anyway. General wisdom holds that the technology will come with the right concept - and the right people to make it work.


Ms Holmes was brilliant at selling that dream, exercising a very Silicon Valley practice: 'fake it until you make it'.


Her problem was she couldn't make it work. Her lawyers have argued that Ms Holmes was merely a businesswoman who failed, but was not a fraudster.


The problem in Silicon Valley is that the line between fraud and merely playing into the faking it culture is very thin.

"Theranos was an early warning of a cultural shift in Silicon Valley that has allowed promoters and scoundrels to prosper," said tech venture capitalist Roger McNamee, who is critical of big tech and did not invest in Theranos.


He believes that a culture of secrets and lies in Silicon Valley, a culture that allowed Theranos' tech to go un-analysed, is "absolutely endemic".


Ambition can be good. Promising a brighter future, and then trying to realise that vision, brought about computers and smartphones.


But for investors, trying to separate the charlatans from the revolutionaries is a constantly evolving challenge.


Last month, Silicon Valley phone app start-up HeadSpin's CEO and founder, Manish Lachwani, was arrested for allegedly defrauding investors. For people putting money on the line, there are great fortunes to be made and lost.

Silicon Valley

Keeping the 'secret sauce' secret


In Silicon Valley intellectual property is closely guarded. The 'coke' recipe, the secret sauce, is often the thing that gives a company value, and new technology firms are particularly sensitive to having their ideas copied or stolen.


Secrecy is important for these companies to succeed - but that culture of secrecy can also be used as a smoke screen, particularly when even employees and investors don't understand or aren't given access to the technology itself.


This is what happened at Theranos. Journalists, investors, politicians, you name it, were all told the science was there. Yet when questions were asked they were told the technology was so secret that it could not be fully explained, analysed or tested.


Walgreens, a major client of Theranos, became exasperated with the lack of information given by the company about how the system worked.


There are many Silicon Valley companies I've reported on that will not fully explain how their tech actually works. They claim to have "proprietary" systems that cannot yet be revealed or peer-reviewed.


The system is based on trust, yet it is fundamentally at odds with a culture of "faking it" and creates the perfect environment for Thernanos-type scandals, where claims that aren't true are left unchallenged.

Borrowing from the CIA playbook


A system that places so much emphasis on secrecy needs lawyers, and lots of them. Companies don't want their employees running off with ideas. Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are endemic in the start-up world - and by no means confined to tech.


But Silicon Valley's culture of secrecy makes it notably difficult for whistle-blowers.


After the company's collapse, former Theranos employees spoke of intense pressure to withdraw negative public remarks or stay quiet altogether. The company hired aggressive, expensive and very active lawyers to protect Theranos's reputation.


This is not uncommon in Silicon Valley, says Cori Crider from Foxglove, a group that helps whistle-blowers come forward.


"I spent more than a decade working in national security and I very often feel like Silicon Valley types play from the playbook of the CIA on this stuff", she said.


"They have managed to scare people and make them think they don't have the right to raise legitimate issues."


If founders and chief executives aren't being honest, employees need to feel comfortable raising the alarm. All too often they don't.

Rupert Murdoch invested in Theranos

A wild west of money and ambition

Amid the hype, it can be easy to forget that many investors looked at Theranos and passed - especially those with a knowledge of healthcare.


Among those who were notable investors were people and groups without expertise in health, such as the media mogul Rupert Murdoch.


For these investors with capital, often their decision to put in a stake assumes that smaller early stage funders have done their homework on the tech.


"They're kind of taking third party validation at its word," said Ms O'Mara.


Once again, it's a system based on trust - later investors trusting that earlier ones know what they're doing. The problem here is, with so much money sloshing around, that is not a given.


In the end, Theranos got caught. As a health technology company doing real life diagnostics, results and regulators would eventually prove it real or fake.


But with many Silicon Valley companies selling the supposedly new and the cutting edge in fields far less tightly regulated, scrutiny is more lax.


Today, the 'fake it until you make it' culture is still alive and well - as is the repressive culture of secrecy and the aggressive use of NDAs for employees. It's a model that has its advantages - and helps churn out extremely valuable and sometimes innovative companies.


But it also means the ingredients are still in place for another Theranos scandal.

THE HORROR OF GENOCIDE BY SPECIES CHAUVINISTS
Faroe Islands: Anger over killing of 1,400 dolphins in one day

By Joshua Nevett
BBC NeWA

The hunting of whales is a traditional practice in the Faroe Islands (file image)

The practice of dolphin hunting in the Faroe Islands has come under scrutiny after more than 1,400 of the mammals were killed in what was believed to be a record catch.

The pod of white-sided dolphins was driven into the largest fjord in the North Atlantic territory on Sunday.

Boats herded them into shallow waters at Skalabotnur beach in Eysturoy, where they were killed with knives.

The carcases were pulled ashore and distributed to locals for consumption.

Warning: This article contains graphic details and images some may find distressing.

Footage of the hunt shows dolphins thrashing around in waters turned red with blood as hundreds of people watch on from the beach.

Known as the grind (or Grindadrap in Faroese), the hunting of sea mammals - primarily whales - is a tradition that has been practised for hundreds of years on the remote Faroe Islands.


The Faroese government says about 600 pilot whales are caught every year on average. White-sided dolphins are caught in lower numbers, such as 35 in 2020 and 10 in 2019.


Supporters say whaling is a sustainable way of gathering food from nature and an important part of their cultural identity. Animal rights activists have long disagreed, deeming the slaughter cruel and unnecessary.

The BBC's Stacey Dooley investigates whale hunting

Sunday's hunt was no different, as international conservation groups rounded on the hunters to condemn the killing.

But the scale of the killing at Skalabotnur beach has shocked many locals and even drawn criticism from groups involved in the practice.

Bjarni Mikkelsen, a marine biologist from the Faroe Islands, put the reported death toll into perspective.

He said records showed that this was the largest number of dolphins ever killed on one day in the Faroe Islands, a autonomous territory of Denmark.

He said the previous record was 1,200 in 1940. The next-largest catches were 900 in 1879, 856 in 1873, and 854 in 1938, Mr Mikkelsen said.





The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter


In an interview with the BBC, the chairman of the Faroese Whalers Association, Olavur Sjurdarberg, acknowledged that killing was excessive.

Why were that many dolphins killed, then?

'People are in shock'

IT WAS AN OPPS BUT HEY DID THEY STOP THE KILLING, OF COURSE NOT

"It was a big mistake," said Mr Sjurdarberg, who did not participate in the hunt. "When the pod was found, they estimated it to be only 200 dolphins."

Only when the killing process started did they find out the true size of the pod, he said.

"Somebody should have known better," he said. "Most people are in shock about what happened."

Even so, according to Mr Sjurdarberg, the catch was approved by the local authorities and no laws were broken.

Such hunts are regulated in the Faroe Islands. They are non-commercial and are organised on a community level, often spontaneously when someone spots a pod of the mammals.

To take part, hunters must have an official training certificate that qualifies them to kill the animals.

'Legal but not popular'

Killing white-sided dolphins is "legal but it's not popular", said Sjurdur Skaale, a Danish MP for the Faroe Islands.

He visited Skalabotnur beach to speak to locals on Monday. "People were furious," he said.

WE SLAUGHTERED THEM HUMANELY FATHERS, MOTHERS, CHILDREN
Still, he defended the hunt, which he said was "humane" if done in the right way.

That involves a specially designed lance, which is used to cut the spinal cord of the whale or dolphin before the neck is cut.

Using this method, it should take "less than a second to kill a whale", Mr Skaale said.

Whale hunts - such as the one pictured here in Torshavn in 2019 - are organised by communities

"From an animal welfare point of view, it's a good way of killing meat - far better than keeping cows and pigs imprisoned," he said.

Campaign group Sea Shepherd has disputed this, arguing that "the killing of the dolphins and pilot whales is rarely as quick as Faroese government" makes out.

"Grindadrap hunts can turn into drawn-out, often disorganised massacres," the group says.

"The pilot whales and dolphins can be killed over long periods in front of their relatives while beached on sand, rocks or just struggling in shallow water."

Braced for 'a big backlash'

Surveys suggest that most people are opposed to the mass slaughter of dolphins in the Faroe Islands.

On Sunday, the national reaction was "one of bewilderment and shock because of the extraordinarily big number", said Trondur Olsen, a journalist for Faroese public broadcaster Kringvarp Foroya.

"We did a quick poll yesterday asking whether we should continue to kill these dolphins. Just over 50% said no, and just over 30% said yes," he said.

In contrast, he said, a separate poll suggested that 80% said they wanted to continue with the killing of pilot whales.

The polls provide a snapshot of public opinion towards the killing of sea mammals.

Animal rights activists have long criticised whaling in the Faroe Islands (file image)

Criticism of the Faroese hunt has ebbed and flowed over the years. The hunt is brought to wider attention from time to time, as it was by the popular Seaspiracy documentary on Netflix earlier this year.

This time, though, locals say the reaction - especially within the whaling community - has been unusually damning.

"There's been a lot of international attention. My suspicion is that people are bracing themselves for a big backlash," Olsen said.

"This is a good time for campaigners to put even more pressure on. It will be different this time because the numbers are very big."

 

Then-CIA director Gina Haspel said the US was 'on the way to a right-wing coup' after Trump lost the election: book

Sonam Sheth

Tue, September 14, 2021, 

Trump and Gina Haspel. SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

• Trump's CIA director believed the US was headed toward a "right-wing coup" after he lost the election.

• That's according to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa's upcoming book, "Peril."

• Then-CIA director Gina Haspel was one of several top officials who were afraid of what Trump might do.

• See more stories on Insider's business page.

The former CIA director expressed concern that the US was headed toward a right-wing coup after then President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, according to a new book obtained by The Washington Post.

The book, "Peril," by The Post's Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, is set to be released next week and documents the chaotic final months of Trump's presidency and the beginning of Joe Biden's term.

The Post reported that the top officials in the US military and intelligence apparatus were afraid of what Trump might do in his quest to overturn the election results and the effect that his lies about the election could have on his agitated base.

Two of those officials were Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gina Haspel, the CIA director. In one conversation, the book said, Haspel told Milley, "We are on the way to a right-wing coup." It's unclear when during the transition period the conversation took place, but it came as Trump and his loyalists were pushing the lie that the election had been "rigged" and stolen from him.

Trump's bogus conspiracy theories grew so frenzied that Milley started thinking the president was suffering a mental decline after losing the election, the book said, according to The Post.

The president's actions also sparked concerns overseas about how far he would go to regain control of the White House. Those concerns persuaded Milley to call his Chinese counterpart on two occasions - once before the election and once after the Capitol riot - to reportedly assure him that Trump would not start a war with the country.

In another phone call on January 8, two days after the failed insurrection, Milley told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that he agreed with her when she called Trump "crazy," the book said.

This story is developing. Check back for updates.

The top US general 'was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline' after the 2020 election, book says

Oma Seddiq

Then-President Donald Trump speaks as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Army Gen. Mark Milley looks on, on October 7, 2019. 

Mark Wilson/Getty Images


A top US general was "certain" Trump's mental state declined after the 2020 election, a new book says.

Gen. Mark Milley thought Trump was "all but manic" in the days following the Capitol riot.

The reporting comes in a new book by legendary journalist Bob Woodward and Washington Post reporter Robert Costa.

Top US Gen. Mark Milley thought then-President Donald Trump's mental state deteriorated after the 2020 election, according to a new book.

Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election," authors Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of the Washington Post write in their forthcoming book, "Peril," set for release on September 21.

Peril By Bob Woodward


The Post and CNN obtained early copies of the book and published excerpts of Milley's reported reaction to Trump's behavior in the wake of the presidential election that Trump falsely claimed was stolen from him.

In the days after the January 6 riot, Milley believed that Trump was "all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies" and feared that the president would "go rogue," per the book.


At the time, Trump had refused to accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election and amplified debunked claims that the race was rife with voter fraud. On January 6, pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of President Joe Biden's election win.

Worried over what Trump might do, Milley warned military officials to follow procedures to the letter in carrying out any orders, including involving him in the process. Military officers gave Milley their word, in what he considered to be an "oath," the book says.

"You never know what a president's trigger point is," Milley had told his senior staff at the time, according to the book.

These reports suggest that Milley may have over-stepped his role as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a role that advises the president and defense secretary but is not part of the chain of command for operational decisions like the launching of nuclear weapons.

Milley was so concerned that Trump might start a war with China, he privately called his Chinese counterpart twice to assure him that the US would not strike, per the book.

Milley had also grown anxious that Trump would take military action against Iran and warned him not to, according to another forthcoming book by the New Yorker's Susan Glasser and New York Times' Peter Baker, slated to come out next year.

Since leaving office, Trump has attacked Milley and called for his resignation in June after the top general supported the military studying critical race theory. Republicans have clamored for a ban on teaching the subject — a major talking point in the so-called culture wars. Milley defended his stance, arguing that the military should learn about the history of racism in the US.

THE END OF PRIVATIZATION IN A WHIMPER

UK

Half a million homes to be given new energy supplier after two more go bust


Utility Point and People’s Energy are the latest of seven companies to fail in the past year amid record energy market prices

People’s Energy, based in London, supplied gas and electricity to about 350,000 homes. Photograph: True Images/Alamy


Jillian Ambrose
Tue 14 Sep 2021 

About half a million households will be moved to a new energy supplier after Utility Point and People’s Energy became the latest energy companies to go bust amid record energy market prices.

The latest casualties bring the total number of failed energy suppliers to seven in the past year, including five within the past five weeks, as the market price for gas and electricity has reached new all-time highs.

Bournemouth-based Utility Point supplied gas and electricity to about 220,000 homes, while People’s Energy, based in London, supplied gas and electricity to about 350,000 homes and about 1,000 non-domestic customers. In total, about 2 million people have been affected by the seven supplier failures.

The regulator, Ofgem, will appoint new suppliers to take on the households and companies left stranded by the latest market failures through a “safety-net” process which protects customers outstanding credit balances.

Neil Lawrence, Ofgem’s retail director, said it “can be unsettling” to hear that an energy supplier has gone out of business but customers do not need to worry.

“Ofgem will choose a new supplier for you and while we are doing this our advice is to wait until we appoint a new supplier and do not switch in the meantime. You can rely on your energy supply as normal,” he said.

The latest collapses come less than a week after PfP Energy and MoneyPlus Energy ceased trading, leaving about 100,000 customers without a supplier. Ofgem has since appointed British Gas to take over the customer accounts from both failed companies.

The first energy supplier to go bust as market prices reached historic highs was Hub Energy. It called in administrators in mid-August, and the regulator appointed E.ON Next, a division of E.ON UK, to take on Hub’s 17,000 customers within days.

The record market prices over recent weeks are expected to lead to hikes in household energy bills until 2022, rising levels of fuel poverty and the collapse of many small energy suppliers.

Rare snow surprises residents in west Cameroon
CGTN

14-Sep-2021


Rare snow in the tropical country of Cameroon near the equator, has surprised many residents who took to social media to share their excitement.

The snowfall disrupted traffic and destroyed crops on some plantations in Bana, a sub-prefecture in the West Region of the country, according to reports.

Bana's mayor Jean Baptiste Sanga attributed the snowfall to climate change.

Cameroon, located in West Africa, lies between 1 and 13 degrees north latitude. Its natural landscape consists of beaches, mountains, rain forests and savannas. It has an annual average temperature of about 24-28 degrees Celsius.

(Cover image via video screenshot)

VIDEO: Rare snow surprises residents in west Cameroon - CGTN

Washington Is Shedding Crocodile Tears for Afghan Women

War hawks constantly cite women’s liberation in support of the US occupation of Afghanistan. That’s transparent hypocrisy: during the Cold War, the US supported patriarchal fundamentalists against a party dedicated to advancing the cause of Afghan women.

Women fighters from the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) demonstrate in Kabul during the Soviet troop withdrawal in February 1989. (Patrick Robert / Sygma via Getty Images)

BY GILBERT ACHCAR

JACOBIN
09.14.2021

The entire US political class is shedding warm tears for Afghan women’s fate under renewed Taliban rule. These tears are consistent with a twenty-year-old discourse that presented the desire to liberate Afghan women from Taliban yoke as a key motivation of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, second only to the immediate goal of extirpating al-Qaeda in response to the 9/11 attacks.

This pretense is very hypocritical indeed. The insincerity is especially transparent in light of the Cold War, when the US supported patriarchal fundamentalists against a party dedicated to advancing the cause of Afghan women.

The claim of acting on behalf of Afghan women could have been used likewise, if not more convincingly, to justify the ten-year-long Soviet occupation of their poor country. After all, under the Soviet-sponsored government of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), crucial measures were taken in trying to emancipate Afghan women from traditional patriarchal shackles. A 2003 report by the NATO advisory International Crisis Group (ICG) detailed these measures enforced by the PDPA regime and the harsh regression in women’s condition that prevailed after its fall. As summarized ten years later in a 2013 report by the same ICG:

Ousting Daud in a military coup, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) promised women equal rights, compulsory education and protection against forced, arranged and child marriage. Successive PDPA regimes also encouraged female employment. By the time the Taliban took over in the mid-1990s, 70 per cent of teachers, about half of all civil servants and 40 per cent of doctors in Afghanistan were women.

To be sure, the ICG did criticize the PDPA regime and the Soviet occupation for their brutality and the heavy-handed imposition of measures such as ending segregation in schools, but there’s no question that the PDPA years saw a major effort toward improving the condition of Afghan women in the areas (especially urban) under regime control. Meanwhile, the Islamic opposition to the PDPA regime, dominated by hardline fundamentalists, was heavily anti-women: the difference between the mujahidin of the 1980s and early 1990s and the Taliban is one of shades on the same end of the color spectrum — not a qualitative difference. As the 2013 ICG report noted: “The mujahidin used their control over camps in Pakistan to impose their idiosyncratic interpretation of the role of women on the refugee population, supported by General Zia-ul-Haq’s regime, which shared their puritanical version of Islam.”

A demonstrator in support of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in Kabul during the Soviet troop withdrawal, 1989. (Patrick Robert / Sygma via Getty Images)

In addition to the Pakistani military dictatorship, the mujahidin were supported by the oldest and closest US Muslim ally, the Saudi kingdom, likewise known for its appalling treatment of women. And yet it was this arc of forces that Washington chose to support in their fight against the PDPA regime and its Soviet backers.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981, made a lot of noise with the interview he gave to a French magazine in 1998, two years after the Taliban seized power in Kabul. After boasting that his administration had given the USSR “its Vietnam war” that “brought about the breakup of the Soviet empire,” he was asked if he regretted “having supported Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists.” Brzezinski cynically replied: “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”

Brzezinski at least did not attempt to excuse the Taliban — unlike Zalmay Khalilzad, who, after having served in the State and Defense departments in the Reagan and Bush Sr administrations, became US ambassador to Iraq and then to Afghanistan under George W. Bush. He was later put in charge of US negotiation with the Taliban by Donald Trump and played that role until the completion of the US withdrawal last August. In 1996, Khalizad argued the following in the Washington Post: “Based on recent conversations with Afghans, including the various Taliban factions, and Pakistanis, I am confident that they would welcome an American reengagement. The Taliban does not practice the anti-U.S. style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran — it is closer to the Saudi model.”

Feminists will appreciate Khalilzad’s high concern for women’s rights, which is but a sample of Washington’s long-standing double standard in bashing Iran’s Islamic fundamentalism while excusing the Saudis’ — even though, compared to the latter, the former looks like a beacon of democracy and women’s emancipation. What prevented the reengagement that Khalilzad had recommended from taking place wasn’t the fate of Afghan women in the least. It was solely the increase in Al-Qaeda’s attacks on US targets, which led Bill Clinton to order a missile strike on Osama bin Laden’s bases in Afghanistan in 1997. The rest of the story is well known: 9/11 and the twenty-year US involvement in that war-torn country, ending in the catastrophic outcome that the whole world has witnessed in August.

Whether the condition of women was overall more advanced under the US-sponsored Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2004–2021) than it was under the PDPA regime is debatable. Unlike the latter, however, the US-sponsored regime had to accommodate the patriarchal tradition embodied by Washington’s old Afghan allies, the mujahidin who had fought the PDPA and the Soviet occupation and maintained their dominance over the new regime (see the sections on women’s and girls’ rights in the successive annual Human Rights Watch reports on Afghanistan).

Moreover, women in rural areas, where the vast majority of Afghans live, have borne the brunt of the US-led war and endured huge suffering as a result of it. The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) has denounced this situation in strong terms. And despite pleas for the inclusion of women in the peace process that Washington conducted with the Taliban under Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, women’s participation remained marginal. The claim that the US obtained promises of moderation from the Taliban has already proven to be a joke — which would have been risible had the situation not been so tragic.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gilbert Achcar is a professor at SOAS, University of London. His most recent books are Marxism, Orientalism, Cosmopolitanism (2013), The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (2013), and Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising (2016).

Is the world ready for the continued decline of the West?
By Song Luzheng

Published: Sep 12, 2021 

OPINION / VIEWPOINT

G7 Photo: VCG

What happened in Afghanistan last month has twice shocked the world - the Taliban's rapid victory and takeover of Afghanistan, and the US' chaotic withdrawal from the country.

Both events have proved the failure of the US. The country could no longer afford the war in Afghanistan and had no choice but make peace with the Taliban. This has kicked off unimaginable dominoes. The US' final withdrawal would have been an even greater calamity had the Taliban not kept their word.

The decline of the US-led alliance is not a new topic. Following the 2008 global financial crisis, Brexit, Donald Trump's election as president, and Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan, the West has shown one thing in common: It is ready to abdicate responsibility. What has happened in Afghanistan reinforces it.

The UK has turned its back on a troubled EU to fend for itself. Trump has turned its back on the world by quitting international groups to shore up his "America First," or even "US only." US President Joe Biden has categorically abandoned Afghanistan by insisting on the withdrawal.

Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the West scrambled for anti-epidemic materials around the world in the early stage by making use of their financial advantages. Later they rushed to stockpile vaccines. Some of them were found to have illegally intercepted masks that were planned to be transported to third countries. Canada ordered vaccines for more than twice its population. Now the West has begun to promote a third dose of vaccine despite the protests of the WHO. However, only around 3 percent of Africa's population is fully vaccinated.

During its decline, the US-led alliance has worried the world by abdicating its responsibility. More importantly, it has also been unwilling to share power with the vast number of developing countries. This is utter selfishness. More than that, it has even clamped down on high-performing emerging countries.

China's Huawei is a typical example of this. The US government has cracked down on Huawei baselessly. This seriously violates the principles of market and rule of law broadly advocated by the West.

The US' crackdown on Huawei is an assault on China's tech industry. Its attempt to lure and divide developing countries while playing geopolitical game with China has destabilized the world order and also endangered world peace. For example, the world has seen the US actively involved in the South China Sea. It has courted China's neighboring countries, but everyone knows that US' move is only to serve its own interests. It will abandon the region if needed, just as it did in Afghanistan.

The current West-dominated international order is unsustainable with the West's continuing move of shifting responsibility. It is refusing to share power with developing countries.

For that, the world needs to make some preparations.

The first thing for the developing countries is to give up the illusion of the West. They need to develop and improve the ability to solve problems on their own. Third world countries have rich natural resources, young populations and abundant labor forces. It is entirely possible for them to create a new economic miracle as long as they find a development path suitable for their own conditions.

China faced enormous difficulties at the beginning of reform and opening-up - backward economy, huge population and a planned economy. But it became the world's second largest economy in just four decades through peaceful development. If China can do it, other countries can do it as well.

Second, the developing countries need to join hands to cope with the challenges brought by the decline of the West. They need to urge the West to stop shifting responsibility, refusing to share power, and destroying the unity of developing countries. Only in this way can the world effectively transform the old international order into one that is as peaceful and secure as possible.

The author is a research fellow at the China Institute, Fudan University.

 opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

The Decline of the West - LibertyGalaxy.com

libertygalaxy.com/videos/DeclineOfTheWestSpengler.pdf · PDF file

the decline of the west form and actuality by oswald spengler authorized translation with notes by charles francis atkinson mcmxxvii: alfred • a • knopf: new york …

Activision Blizzard’s Labor Woes Grow on Union Complaint to NLRB

Josh Eidelson
Tue, September 14, 2021


(Bloomberg) -- A union has filed a federal labor board complaint against Activision Blizzard Inc., opening a new front in the legal battle over workplace rights at the video game maker.

The U.S. National Labor Relations Board complaint, filed by the Communications Workers of America, accuses Activision of violating federal labor law through coercive rules, actions and statements.

“The employer has threatened employees that they cannot talk about or communicate about wages, hours and working conditions,” according to a copy of the complaint obtained through a public information request. The document also accuses Activision of illegally telling staff they can’t discuss ongoing investigations; threatening or disciplining employees because of their activism; deploying surveillance and interrogations targeting legally protected activism; and maintaining a social media policy that infringes on workers’ rights.

The agency’s docket shows that CWA’s complaint was filed Sept. 10. Activision didn’t reply to requests for comment Tuesday.

Activision Blizzard, which creates games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, is embroiled in controversy over its treatment of employees. California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued Activision in July, alleging the company fostered a “frat boy” culture in which female employees were subjected to sexual harassment, pay inequality and retaliation. Days later, an employee walkout drew hundreds of demonstrators to the sidewalks of the company’s corporate campus in Southern California.

In a July email to employees, Activision’s chief compliance officer, who served as Homeland Security Advisor to President George W. Bush, called the California agency’s claims “factually incorrect, old and out of context.” Activision has also said that the picture painted in the lawsuit “is not the Blizzard workplace of today” and that the company values diversity and strives to “foster a workplace that offers inclusivity for everyone.”

Complaints filed with the labor board are investigated by regional offices and, if found to have merit and not settled, can be prosecuted by the agency’s general counsel and heard by administrative law judges. The rulings can be appealed to NLRB members in Washington, D.C., and from there to federal court. The agency can require remedies such as posting of notices and reversals of policies or punishments, but has no authority to impose punitive damages.

CWA, which has increasingly focused in recent years on organizing non-union video game and tech workers, said in an emailed statement that it was “very inspired by the bravery” of Activision employees and that it filed with the labor board to ensure that violations by the company “will not go unanswered.”

Activision Blizzard workers accuse company of violating federal labor law

Jon Fingas
·Weekend Editor
Tue, September 14, 2021


Activision Blizzard is facing still more legal action over its labor practices. As Game Developer reports, Activision Blizzard workers and the Communication Workers of America have filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board accusing the game developer of using coercion (such as threats) and interrogation. While the filing doesn't detail the behavior, the employee group ABetterABK claimed Activision Blizzard tried to intimidate staff talking about forced arbitration for disputes.

Companies sometimes include employment clauses requiring arbitration in place of lawsuits. The approach typically favors businesses as arbitrations are often quicker than lawsuits, deny access to class actions and, most importantly, keep matters private. Work disputes are less likely to reach the public eye and prompt systemic change. Tech firms like Microsoft have ended arbitration for sexual harassment claims precisely to make sure those disputes are transparent and prevent harassers from going unchecked.

It's not clear how Activision Blizzard intends to respond. We've asked the company about the complaint. The NLRB has yet to say if it will take up the case.

The gaming giant has taken some action in response to California's sexual harassment lawsuit, dismissing three senior designers and a Blizzard president after they were referenced in the case. It has so far been reluctant to discuss structural changes, though. The NLRB complaint might intensify the pressure for reform, and certainly won't help Activision Blizzard's image.



Activision Blizzard Hires Disney’s Julie Hodges as HR Chief in Wake of Sex Harassment Scandal

Todd Spangler
Tue, September 14, 2021



Activision Blizzard has hired Julie Hodges, a 32-year veteran of the Walt Disney Co., as its chief people officer.

Hodges joins the games giant effective Sept. 21, replacing Claudine Naughton, whom Activision Blizzard said is “leaving the company.” The change in HR leadership at the company comes two months after it was hit with a lawsuit from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, alleging that Activision Blizzard allowed a “pervasive frat boy workplace culture” to thrive that resulted in women employees being continuously subjected to sexual harassment and being paid less than men.

Other senior execs who have exited Activision Blizzard in the wake of the lawsuit included Blizzard Entertainment president J. Allen Brack, who was named in the California DFEH complaint as among company leaders who were allegedly aware of the misconduct and — despite repeatedly being informed of the problems — “failed to take effective remedial measures in response to these complaints.”

In announcing Hodges’ hire, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said that “Julie is the seasoned leader we need to ensure we are the most inspiring, equitable and emulated entertainment company in the world.”

Meanwhile, on Sept. 10, the Communications Workers of America’s Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against Activision Blizzard on behalf of company employees, alleging it illegally used “coercive tactics” to try to prevent workers from organizing a union following the California DFEH lawsuit, per Protocol.

In addition, Activision Blizzard on Tuesday said Sandeep Dube, formerly SVP of revenue management at Delta Airlines, will become chief commercial officer, effective Sept. 27. He is filling the role left vacant after Armin Zerza was promoted to CFO earlier this year.

“These two outstanding leaders from companies with exceptional reputations will help us achieve our goal of becoming the best company to work for in the entertainment industry while growing our reach, engagement and player investment,” Kotick commented.

In her 32 years at Disney, Hodges led HR for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, the company’s Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence, HRBP for Worldwide Operations, and Disney University/Learning and Development, Organization Development and Cast Research. Hodges earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

At Activision Blizzard, Hodges will be responsible for the company’s global talent organization, with the mission of making the company “the destination for top talent.” In her role, she will lead all aspects of human resources, including diversity, equity and inclusion, talent acquisition, employee experience, learning and development, compensation and benefits, and workforce planning.

The Next South American Oil Giant







Editor OilPrice.com
Tue, September 14, 2021

The COVID pandemic has wreaked considerable damage on the economies of South America’s smaller fiscally fragile countries, with the former Dutch colony of Suriname hit especially hard.

During 2020 the impoverished South American nation’s gross domestic product shrank by 13.5%, the continent’s worst performance after Venezuela. A deeply impoverished Suriname now finds itself mired in a severe economic crisis that is threatening an already fragile state that only emerged from an intense political impasse during July 2020.

The depth of Suriname’s economic problem is reflected by the former Dutch colony defaulting on scheduled debt service payments for $675 million of sovereign debt during 2020. Since then, Paramaribo has been negotiating with creditors to cure the default. That resulted in international credit agencies Fitch Ratings and S&P Global Ratings downgrading Suriname’s credit rating.

President Chan Santokhi, who won the tiny South American country’s top office in the July 2020 election, is battling to resurrect a flailing economy and cast off the corruption as well as the malfeasance of the Bouterse administration. Like in neighboring Guyana, Santokhi’s government plans to exploit what appears to be Suriname’s considerable offshore petroleum wealth to revitalize the economy, bolster government finances and return the former Dutch colony to growth.

Despite Suriname only possessing oil reserves of 89 million barrels, the tiny South American nation possesses enormous oil potential. The impoverished country shares the Guyana Suriname Basin, which the U.S. Geological Survey estimates contains up to 35.6 billion barrels of undiscovered oil resources. Already, neighboring Guyana is experiencing a massive oil boom that saw its GDP expand by an exceptional 43% during 2020.

Exxon’s slew of quality oil discoveries in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana, with the latest at the Pinktail well, point to even greater petroleum potential. Exxon along with partner Malaysian national oil company Petronas, which is the operator, found the presence of hydrocarbons at the 15,682-foot Sloanea-1 exploration well in offshore Suriname Block 52. The 1.6-million-acre Block 52 and neighboring 1.4-million-acre Block 58 are believed to lie on the same hydrocarbon fairway as the prolific Stabroek Block.

That proposition is supported by the five quality oil discoveries made by Apache and TotalEnergies, the operator, in Block 58 where they both hold a 50% interest.

Investment bank Morgan Stanley in 2020 announced that it had modeled the oil potential for Block 58 and determined that it could contain oil resources of up to 6.5 billion barrels.

Industry consultancy Rystad Energy estimates that the five discoveries made in offshore Suriname up until the end of June 2021 hold recoverable oil resources of up to 1.9 billion barrels of crude oil.

At the June 2021 Suriname Energy, Oil and Gas Summit Apache’s Vice President Global Geoscience and Portfolio Management Eric Vosburgh stated; “What I would say is that the ultimate scale of the resource and production potential is big. I think I need a word bigger than big, but it’s big.”

Apache and partner TotalEnergies are committed to developing Block 58. At the start of 2021, Apache announced that most of its annual $200 million exploration budget will be directed toward drilling in Suriname. TotalEnergies set a 2021 exploration budget allocated $800 million with the energy supermajor devoting a third of its exploration appraisal activities to Block 58.

While plans to develop the block have yet to be released TotalEnergies and Apache are expected to make their final investment decision during mid-2022 and work toward first oil by 2025. Suriname’s national oil company and industry regulator Staatsolie has the right to farm into Block 58 and take up to a 20% stake, which would see it liable for $1 billion to $1.5 billion in development costs. Paramaribo is also focused on attracting further energy investment in Suriname recently awarding three shallow-water blocks to foreign energy supermajors. TotalEnergies and partner Qatar Petroleum won Blocks 6 and 8, which are adjacent to Block 58, and Chevron was awarded Block 5. That region is underexplored and thought to possess considerable petroleum potential.

The medium and light crude oil found in Block 58 has similar characteristics to the Liza grade crude oil being pumped from the neighboring Stabroek Block. When that is combined with a low estimated breakeven price of around $40 per barrel Brent it is easy to see why offshore Suriname is especially attractive for international energy companies.

As further petroleum discoveries are made, oilfields developed and infrastructure built the breakeven price for offshore Suriname will fall to under $40 per barrel, making the region competitive with neighboring offshore Guyana and Brazil.

The downgrades to Suriname’s credit rating will make it difficult for Paramaribo to raise urgently needed capital including that required by Staatsolie to exercise its farm in option for Block 58.

International ratings agency Fitch in April 2021 announced it had downgraded Suriname to restricted default (RD) after the government failed to make $49.8 billion of payments on its 2023 and 2026 notes. That event according to the ratings agency was Suriname’s third default since the pandemic began in March 2020.

Those events highlight why Paramaribo must resolve the negotiations with creditors and the potential for a sovereign debt default if it is to build further momentum for the exploitation of Suriname’s vast offshore petroleum resources.

The current economic crisis coupled with the economy shrinking by nearly 14% last year emphasizes why Paramaribo must attract further investment from foreign energy companies so it can experience a massive economic boom like the one underway in neighboring Guyana. It is French oil supermajor TotalEnergies which is positioned to become a leading player in Suriname’s emerging offshore oil boom.

By Matthew Smith for Oilprice.com