US military forces are now waging simultaneous drone missile attacks, bombings, special forces assassination raids and ground combat in five separate countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Yemen.

President Barack Obama, who owed his 2008 election victory in large measure to the popular revulsion felt by millions of Americans toward the wars of aggression launched by the Bush administration in Afghanistan and Iraq, has more than fulfilled George W. Bush’s predictions concerning the “wars of the 21st century.”

He has gone his Republican predecessor at least one better. Bush proclaimed an infamous doctrine that asserted the right of US imperialism to wage war against any country that it perceived as a potential threat, now or at any time in the future. In doing so, he embraced the principle of “preventive war,” a form of aggressive war for which the surviving leaders of the Third Reich were tried at Nuremberg.

In justifying the war against Libya, Obama has promulgated his own doctrine, which dispenses with even the pretense of a potential threat as the justification for war. Instead, he claims that the US is within its rights to wage war wherever it deems its “interests and values” to be at stake, even if the targets for attack pose no conceivable threat to US security.

In his speech on Libya, Obama included among these inviolable American values “maintaining the flow of commerce,” i.e., the flow of profits into the coffers of US oil companies and other corporations.

Even as US cruise missiles rained down upon Libya nearly three months ago, Obama cynically asserted that Washington had launched the war for fear that repression carried out by the Libyan government of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi would extinguish the “Arab Spring.”

What hypocrisy! Washington’s real attitude toward the democratic aspirations of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa have found unmistakable expression over the past several days in a series of actions.

Obama welcomed to the White House the crown prince of Bahrain, a monarchical dictatorship which, with tacit US support and the open military backing of Washington’s principal ally in the region, Saudi Arabia, has ruthlessly suppressed a mass movement for democratic rights, killing hundreds, detaining thousands and routinely torturing detainees.

The prince arrived just days after the regime began a military trial of doctors and nurses. Arrested for treating protesters wounded by security forces, these medical workers have been compelled by means of electric shocks and beatings with boards embedded with nails to sign false confessions.

In an official statement, Obama “reaffirmed the strong commitment of the United States to Bahrain”—whose regime hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet—and praised its monarch for his embrace of “dialogue” and “reform.” The US president helpfully advised that “the opposition and the government”—the tortured and the torturers alike—“must compromise to forge a just future for all Bahrainis.”

On the other side of the Arabian peninsula it was revealed by the New York Times that the US is “exploiting a growing power vacuum” created by five months of mass upheavals against the US-backed dictatorship in Yemen to launch a new war in this, the most impoverished country of the region, using drone missile and jet fighter attacks.

While allegedly directed against Al Qaeda elements, there is every indication that the attacks are aimed at salvaging the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, even while easing the dictator out of the presidency he has occupied for 33 years.

The first reported strike in this new theater of war opened up by the Pentagon killed at least four civilians along with several alleged “militants.”

In Libya, the US-NATO war approaches the end of its third month with an intensification of the relentless terror bombings that have claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians and an untold number of Libyan soldiers. Launched under the cynical pretense of protecting civilians, Washington and its European allies make no bones about their real aim being “regime-change,” i.e., the installation of a puppet state that will ensure the domination of imperialism and the major Western oil companies.

This is the real response of US imperialism to the “Arab Spring”—an explosion of militarism in the Middle East and North Africa, a desperate attempt to bolster the dictatorships that serve its interests in the region, and a determination to strangle the revolutionary struggles of the Arab workers and youth.

These new military interventions come on top of the nearly decade-old wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, which, it becomes increasingly clear, are to continue indefinitely.

In a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, CIA Director Leon Panetta, who has been picked by Obama to replace the outgoing Pentagon chief, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, allowed that he had “every confidence” that the regime in Iraq will soon request that Washington keep tens of thousands of US troops on Iraqi soil after a December 31, 2011 withdrawal deadline.

Panetta made it clear that Washington is prepared to keep the troops in place “to make sure that the gains we’ve made in Iraq are sustained.” That the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people, for whom the American occupation has meant the death, maiming and displacement of millions, want all 47,000 US troops out of the country now is beside the point.

The man that Panetta is replacing, Defense Secretary Gates, has repeatedly stressed over the last several days that the July 2011 deadline that Obama set for beginning the withdrawal from Afghanistan should spell no significant reduction in the deployment of nearly 100,000 American troops.

After meeting with military commanders in Afghanistan over the weekend, Gates stressed that any drawdown would be “modest,” telling NATO defense ministers in Brussels that “there will be no rush for the exits on our part.” Meanwhile, every week brings new atrocities, with civilian casualties inflicted by bombings, special forces night raids and drone missile attacks across the border in Pakistan.

American workers, students and youth are increasingly forced to bear the burden of a policy of endless war aimed at forging a global empire to serve the interests of the US financial oligarchy. Election after election and poll after poll have demonstrated that a substantial majority of the population opposes these wars, yet this opposition finds no expression within the two-party political system or the corporate-controlled media.

Working people are well aware that trillions of dollars are spent on these wars and the US military-industrial complex, even as federal, state and local governments, led by Democrats and Republicans alike, declare that no money can be found to pay for jobs, decent wages, health care, education or other vital social services.

Moreover, the attempt by the American ruling elite to use militarism to offset the decline in US capitalism’s global economic position generates increasingly dangerous international tensions and the threat of far bloodier wars to come.

Even as mass hostility to these wars grows, antiwar protest has faded almost entirely from the scene, smothered by a middle-class ex-left layer that supports Obama and has largely integrated itself into the Democratic Party.

A new movement against war can be built only on the basis of an irreconcilable break with the Democrats and the independent mobilization of the working class against the Obama administration and the capitalist profit system, the source of war and militarism.

Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since the Soviet Union dissolved and the subsequent Russian Federation emerged. With nearly 20 million people living in poverty, the transition to a capitalist nation has certainly not been an easy one for Russia’s citizens. Before assessing the subject of elderly poverty in Russia, it may be helpful to explore some of the causes and consequences of pervasive poverty throughout the population.

Wealth Inequality is Rampant

While nearly 14% of its population lives below the poverty line, and 20-30% considers itself poor, Russia’s fiscal policy ultimately favors the rich. One may observe this in the fact that 50% of Russia’s pre-tax national income goes to the top 10%. Relative to the size of its economy, Russia has the highest number of billionaires compared to any other large country — its wealth stratification being the worst out of all the countries included in the World Inequality Database.

Russia is Relatively Unproductive

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Russia ranks 39th out of the 42 reported countries. One can attribute this to several consequences resulting from its state capitalism, which include weak institutions and corruption. Foreign direct investment (FDI) has fallen especially within the past few years after the implementation of sanctions following the annexation of Crimea. Moreover, Russia’s labor force is set to shrink between now and 2050 as a result of constraint in growth from its aging population — that being, more young people are leaving Russia while the elderly will require more comprehensive improvements in health care and long-term care.

Post-Soviet Hardship

After the economic collapses of 1991 and 1998, many Russians lost their life’s savings. The transition to a capitalist economic system has had a substantial negative effect on the older generation (age 50 and up), which represents nearly 35% of the population.

While much of the data reported on elderly poverty in Russia contradicts, reports have determined that upwards of 70% of aging couples are poor. Because of this, a justified concern exists around Russia’s consistently aging population, as it faces an even higher risk of poverty – invoking a necessity to investigate and address the country’s aging issue and economic instability.

Limited Public Assistance

According to the Global AgeWatch Index, Russia ranks 65th out of 96 countries when considering the population’s well-being, life expectancy and mental health. Furthermore, the pensions have neither kept up with inflation nor the country’s average earnings, as the average pensioner in Russia receives the equivalent of €180 per month – barely enough to live on.

Unfortunately, Russia has limited resources for the elderly who are either disabled or suffering from dementia and other ailments. Social services and state aid are often expensive and inaccessible to the older generation – wrapped up in a multitude of bureaucratic requirements. Those who do not have a family to receive care from often end up homeless or in nursing homes with “warehouse” conditions.

Bettering Conditions

Fortunately, organizations exist that are continuously working to improve the consequential conditions of elderly poverty in Russia. One such organization is Enjoyable Aging. The depressing conditions of poverty and loneliness in nursing homes in Russia struck Lisa Oleskina, who started the organization in 2006.

Today, Enjoyable Aging employs nurses who adopt a standard of individual care for elderly patients living in nursing homes. Loneliness is a serious concern for Russia’s elderly, and poverty can certainly exacerbate this issue. Enjoyable Aging combats loneliness through organizing events and regular correspondence with facility residents in more than 120 nursing homes in Russia.

Further Signs of Improvement

As with the rest of the world, Russia has faced an economic downturn amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, with the nation’s unemployment rate increasing to its highest in eight years (6.3%). A recent spike in cases could potentially push the country into further economic turbulence that will have a substantial impact on the older generation. However, prior to the pandemic, Russia was on track to see long-term economic growth.

Although progress had been slow, the World Bank reported as recently as September 2020 on Russia’s promising improvements in its human capital development – most notably, the country’s reductions in adult and child mortality rates. Nevertheless, as the population’s average age continues to rise, a necessity to significantly improve funding for the country’s public health care remains. Prioritizing long-term physical and mental needs is essential to lift up the most vulnerable within a developing economy.

For many foreigners, Ukraine is still an undiscovered land with a rich history, culture, nature, and politics. Although the government officials claim that the country has tremendous tourism potential, in reality even sex tourism is no longer an issue in Ukrainian society.

In 2012 during the European Football Championship co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland, several Ukrainian cities were hit by the tourist boom. The vast majority of tourists were football fans who, apart from cheering and watching matches, made a significant contribution to the country’s sex industry. Pimps, often linked to organized crime, were the ones who managed to maximize their profits the most by selling prostitutes’ services to as many men as possible. In 2012, Ukraine had the highest rate of HIV infection rates in Central Asia and Eastern Europe with at least 350,000 people living with HIV. Sexual intercourse has overtaken drug injection as the number one form of transmission.

At the present time, many sex tourists reportedly fear they could be ambushed by right-wing thugs who became part of the political mainstream after violent protests in Kiev’s Maidan Square in 2013/2014, which resulted in overthrowing of the President Viktor Yanukovych. Ever since, Ukraine has become a lot cheaper in dollars, especially after the currency collapsed in 2014. In spite of that, fear is keeping sex tourists at a distance.

Sex workers, on the other hand, started traveling to the war-hit Donbass region to work for soldiers on both Ukrainian and pro-Russia sides. Reportedly, cities further from the frontline, where infrastructure still exists, are places full of soldiers where women, who sometimes come from nearby towns, provide sexual services. Since prostitutes in Ukraine are often victims of violence, they are trying to find underground ways to bring the abuse out of the shadows and to protect each other.

The majority of the Ukrainian sex-industry exists underground and prospers due to poor law enforcement and widespread corruption. There are between 52,000 to 83,000 women working as prostitutes in Ukraine, according to the International HIV and Aids Alliance. About 11,000 prostitutes work in the capital Kiev. The so-called VIP sex workers in the country who are able to speak a foreign language charge customers between $124 to $248 for sex. Corrupt police charge brothel owners up to $1,000 for each phone line that is used for clients to arrange for sexual encounters.

Officially, prostitution is still criminalized in Ukraine, even though some senior country’s officials support the idea of legalization of the sex industry. Presently, a woman, or a man, waiting for a client in the street can be apprehended by the police and given a small administrative fine up to $10. A conviction for pimping is a criminal offence and carries a prison term. According to Legalife – charitable that advocates for sex workers’ rights – Ukraine’s criminal legislation against pimping is seldom applied to pimps themselves, and more often used to punish sex workers.

Apart from being legally persecuted, over 500,000 Ukrainian women have been exploited with trafficking to the West since its independence in 1991 up to 1998, as stated by the International Organization for Migration. According to multiple reports, the Ukrainian sex-workers are the second largest group of foreign women involved into prostitution outside the US military bases in South Korea. They are also one of the largest group of foreign women in Turkey involved into prostitution. At the same time, Ukraine became a very popular destination for Turkey’s middle-class visitors, who have a special predilection for Slavic beauties, as Ukrainian women have an unfortunate reputation as beautiful, cheap sex dolls.

Due to such reputation, male tourists from all over the world used to visit Ukraine in order to find a wife or to date Ukrainian women. A great part of sex tourism in Ukraine is related to the business of marriage. The marriage agencies run scams throughout the country, emptying visitor’s wallets as they go. Also, a chronic lack of money often leaves no other options for Ukrainian women except providing sex services for rich and impressive foreign guests.

When the country stabilizes and Kiev eventually makes peace with Russia, the sex tourists may well return in large numbers. It remains to be seen if that will affect country’s tourism which directly contributed just 1.5 percent of Ukraine’s gross domestic product in 2017, putting it at the lower end of the World Travel and Tourism Council’s global rankings.

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Baleen whales comprise the Mysticeti, one of two suborders of the mammalian order Cetacea, the other suborder being the Odontoceti, or toothed whales (dolphins, porpoises, and various whales). Baleen whales are characterized by having baleen plates for filtering food from water, rather than having teeth. They also differ from toothed whales in that they have two blowholes rather than one. Baleen whales also are known as whalebone whales or great whales.

Baleen whales are the largest whales, and include the world’s largest animal, the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus). Filter feeders, they are generally seen as gentle animals, a sighting of which adds to the wonder of nature for humans. Their grace, intelligence, and massive size has led to their being celebrated in art, music, and literature. Yet, they have also been hunted excessively and have greatly declined. For example, blue whales were abundant in nearly all oceans until the beginning of the twentieth century, but over the course of forty years, were hunted nearly to extinction. Pressures continued to harvest whales even when the numbers were severely declined, but the human responsibility to better understand and conserve these animals had led to various protective measures by the late twentieth century.

The suborder Mysticeti contains four families and fourteen or fifteen species. The scientific name derives from the Greek word mystax, which means “mustache.”

Overview

Whales are members of the order Cetacea, which also includes dolphins and porpoises. Whales are the largest mammals, the largest vertebrates, and the largest known animals in the world. Like all mammals, whales breathe air into lungs, are warm-blooded, breast-feed their young, and have hair (although very little). Unlike fish, which breathe air using gills, whales breathe air through blowholes that lead into their lungs.

Cetaceans are divided into two suborders:

The baleen whales (Mysticeti) are characterized by baleen, a sieve-like structure in the upper jaw made of the tough, structural protein keratin. The baleen is used to filter plankton from the water. Baleen whales are also characterized by two blowholes.

The toothed whales (Odontoceti) have teeth and prey on fish, squid, marine mammals, and so forth. This suborder includes dolphins and porpoises as well as whales. An outstanding ability of this group is to sense their surrounding environment through echolocation. Toothed whales have only one blowhole. In addition to numerous species of dolphins and porpoises, this suborder includes the Beluga whale and the sperm whale, which may be the largest toothed animals to ever inhabit Earth.

Living Mysticeti species have teeth only during the embryonal phase. Fossil Mysticeti had teeth before baleen evolved.

Anatomy

Baleen whales are generally larger than toothed whales, and females are larger than males. This group comprises the largest living known animal species, the blue whale.

As in all whales, the body is fusiform, resembling the streamlined form of a fish. The forelimbs, also called flippers, are paddle-shaped. The end of the tail holds the fluke, or tail fins, which provide propulsion by vertical movement. Although whales generally do not possess hind limbs, baleen whales sometimes have rudimentary hind limbs; some even with feet and digits. Most species of whale bear a fin on their backs known as a dorsal fin.

Beneath the skin lies a layer of fat, the blubber. It serves as an energy reservoir and also as insulation. Whales have a four-chambered heart. The neck vertebrae are fused in most whales, which provides stability during swimming but at the expense of flexibility.

Baleen whales have two blowholes, causing a V-shaped blow. The shapes of whales’ spouts when exhaling from the blowholes after a dive, when seen from the right angle, differ between species. Whales have a unique respiratory system that lets them stay underwater for long periods of time without taking in oxygen.

Ecology

In spite of their enormous mass, baleen whales are able to leap completely out of the water. Particularly known for their acrobatics are the humpback whales, but other baleen whales also break through the water surface with their body or beat it loudly with their fins. The reason for these habits is not known for certain.

In contrast to toothed whales, baleen whales are unlikely to echo-locate. Instead, they are able to produce high volume sounds in the infrasonic range. The calls of the largest whales can be heard several hundred kilometers away. Unique are the songs of the humpback whales, consisting of complex sequences that may slowly evolve over years. They are probably used for courting.

From the eleventh to the late twentieth centuries, baleen whales were hunted commercially for their oil and baleen. Their oil can be made into margarine and cooking oils. Baleen was used to stiffen corsets, as parasol ribs, and to crease paper.

Evolutionary history

Early baleen whales first appeared as far back as the Early Oligocene, or perhaps the latest Eocene (39-29 million years ago). Early baleen whales did not have (or had very little) baleen, and still had teeth obtained from their ancestors. Among them was Janjucetus, a baleen whale with sharp teeth that hunted fish, squid, large prey such as sharks, and probably dolphin-like cetaceans. This hints that early baleen whales were predatory and eventually evolved into the gentler, toothless whales known today. The first toothless baleen whales probably appeared in the Early or Middle Miocene, from a toothed ancestor that adapted from eating small fish or other creatures to, eventually, feed by filtering.