Australian PM prejudices rights of terrorist suspects to fair trial

Will Morrow

Two days after the police raid and arrest of two young men on allegations of terrorism, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott used his parliamentary privilege on Thursday to make deeply prejudicial statements about the case and attempt to stoke an atmosphere of fear and hysteria over “home-grown” terrorist threats.

Responding to an already prepared question by a member of the Coalition government, Abbott gave lurid details of what he claimed was a video seized from the home of the two men, 25-year-old Kuwaiti Mohammad Kiad, and 24-year-old Iraqi Omar al-Kutobi.

Abbott said that he had been shown the “pre-attack” video by police that proved the young men were acting in the name of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—which Abbott has taken to referring to as “the death cult.”

Abbott claimed that one of the arrested men was shown “kneeling before the death cult flag with a knife in his hand and a machete before him.” Abbott read out what was purportedly an English translation of the man’s statements in Arabic: “I swear to almighty Allah, we will carry out the first operation for the soldiers of the caliphate in Australia. I swear to almighty Allah, blond people, there is no room for blame between you and us. We owe you only stabbing the kidneys and striking necks.”

Abbott asserted: “I do not think it would be possible to witness uglier fanaticism than this, more monstrous fanaticism and extremism than this, and I regret to say it is now present in our country.”

Police have claimed that the video provides evidence that a so-called “lone-wolf” terror attack was imminent. The video, however, has not been made public, and there has been no verification of the government’s claims or of the accuracy of the English translation. As with every purported terrorist incident, the official version presented by the state cannot be taken at face value. In case after case, in Australia and internationally, it has later been exposed as riddled with falsifications and distortions.

After massive police raids in Sydney and Melbourne last September, assertions of a plot to publicly “behead” someone, made on the basis of a phone-call intercept, later proved to be baseless. The word “behead” was never actually been used, and the “weapon” turned out to be a plastic ornament owned by an individual who was not even charged.

A hostage incident in Sydney at the Lindt Café in December was blown up by the government, police and media into a national terrorist crisis. It rapidly emerged that the hostage-taker, Man Haron Monis, was a disturbed man who was well-known to police and had no connection to ISIS or terrorist organisations. No attempt was made to negotiate a peaceful conclusion and it ended with police storming the café and the death of Monis and two hostages (see: “The Sydney siege: Official lies and contradictions”).

Several lawyers have publicly condemned Abbott’s comments on the latest incident as outrageous and deeply prejudicial. Having publicly read out evidence that would be used in the trial of the two young men, and effectively declared them guilty, Abbott has ensured that they will be unable to receive a fair trial.

Prominent Australian barrister Robert Richter QC said that if Abbott had made his statements outside of parliament, he could have been held in contempt of court. “To make those sorts of inflammatory utterances is calculated to influence the judicial process, and it’s being done for a political purpose,” he said.

Criminal lawyer Adam Houda also pointed to the political calculations underlying Abbott’s statements and the timing of the police raid itself. He suggested it was aimed at diverting attention from the deepening crisis facing Abbott’s government. The raid took place in the immediate aftermath of a leadership challenge to the prime minister last Monday, and ongoing opposition to Abbott in the Liberal Party.

“He wants to milk this situation politically for all it’s worth,” Houda said. “And the unfortunate result is that it will also bring unfair prejudice to the matters now before the court and also undermine the court process.” He added: “Is it coincidental that every time the Prime Minister is in the sh**, his mates find him a terrorist?”

Abbott’s comments are part of a broader agenda of the government, Labor opposition and media to use the alleged threat of terrorism to justify their reactionary program of war abroad and the tearing up of democratic rights at home.

The massive “anti-terror” raids last September were timed to coincide with the Abbott government’s announcement that it was sending fighter jets and Australian combat forces to join the renewed US-led war in Iraq. This week’s widely-publicised arrests come amid preparations by the Obama administration to further escalate US military operations in the Middle East.

Australian forces are an important component of Washington’s military strategy and planning in Iraq and Syria. In a speech on Thursday, Vice-Admiral David Johnston, the head of the Australian Defence Force’s Joint Operations Command, stated that the coalition had conducted 2,000 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since August, 13 percent of these were carried out by six Australian F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter-bombers. Johnston alleged that 8,000 ISIS fighters had been killed, mostly from airstrikes, and that Australian planes had killed “hundreds.”

The Abbott government also dispatched 200 special forces commandos to Iraq, who have been attached to three brigades of the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS). The CTS forces have a documented record of functioning as sectarian Shiite death squads. They stand accused of murdering numerous perceived opponents of the US-backed puppet Shiite government in Baghdad (see: “Australian special forces working with sectarian Shiite troops in Iraq”).

The Abbott government has used the latest police raid to justify a series of draconian laws passed in the wake of the September raids, and to call for an even greater build-up of state powers. During his speech on Thursday, Abbott declared that “the anti-terror legislation recently passed by the parliament was helpful in securing this arrest.” Along with many other anti-democratic provisions, the legislation lowered restrictions on the power of police to make arrests, by requiring that they only “reasonably suspect” someone of having committed a crime, rather than the previous legal standard of “reasonably believes.”

Abbott explicitly tied the arrests to another tranche of the government’s anti-democratic legislation, which will soon come before parliament. Thelegislation will require Internet providers and social media platforms to hold metadata of all their users for two years, allowing intelligence agencies to trawl through it and build up a detailed profile of anyone’s life. Abbott declared that the bill “must be passed if our community is to be as safe as it should be in these difficult times.”

The latest arrests are also being used to fan anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant xenophobia, which is aimed at diverting growing social tensions in Australia into reactionary nationalist channels. In response to another staged question about how al-Kutobi was allowed to enter Australia, Minister of Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton declared that intelligence agencies had been “pushed to the limit and beyond” by the influx of refugees to Australia. He has foreshowed a review aimed at even tougher anti-immigrant measures.

The Labor opposition has given its unequivocal backing to the Abbott government’s anti-terror campaign and the deployment of the Australian military into Iraq. In comments to reporters following Abbott’s parliamentary speech on Thursday, Opposition leader Bill Shorten attacked Abbott, not for undermining the legal rights of the two suspects, but for compromising their conviction. He declared that it would be “terribly concerning if we’ve compromised a national security trial because the prime minister’s just gone too far.”

Siemens unveils another round of job cuts in Germany and worldwide

Elisabeth Zimmermann

The German electronics firm Siemens announced February 5 it was slashing 7,800 jobs globally. Most of the job losses will occur among white collar administrative workers, while 1,200 positions in the company’s energy sector will be eliminated. Of the total, 3,300 jobs are to be shed in Germany.

One of the main targets of the latest cuts is the Siemens site in Erlangen, Germany, where 900 jobs are to be cut. Three of the firm’s four departments have their headquarters in Erlangen. In Nuremberg, 300 jobs are to be cut, 500 at the corporate headquarters in Munich, and 300 in North Rhine-Westphalia. The remaining 1,300 job cuts in Germany are spread across the rest of the company’s locations.

Already at the end of May last year, company CEO Joe Kaeser announced at an investors’ conference in New York that a total of 11,600 jobs would be affected by the company’s restructuring. The latest decision from company management fulfills this announcement. It does not include the jobs that are no longer at Siemens due to the sale or outsourcing of entire departments.

The latest job cuts were prepared in close cooperation with the IG Metall trade union and the works council. Prior to the announcement of the figure, the Siemens business committee met for two days during the first week of February.

The committee, with equal representation from union and management, was led by the new human resources chief Janina Kugel, who is a close associate of CEO Kaeser. She collaborated closely with Birgit Steinborn, who took over the chair of the central works council a year ago and has been deputy chair of the board of directors since the end of January.

Steinborn assumed the leading position on the board from former IG Metall head Berthold Huber. The great value the company places on the collaboration of IG Metall was shown by the selection of Huber for the prestigious post of president of the Siemens Foundation.

Steinborn has worked hand in glove with the previous chairman of the central works council, Lothar Adler, over recent years. According to media reports, Adler earned €360,000 annually from Siemens until his retirement last year. Like Adler, Steinborn has a direct financial interest in the exploitation of Siemens workers.

As deputy chair on the board, Steinborn will make more than €300,000 annually. In total, “worker representatives” on the Siemens board received over €1.8 million, according to a company report.

The trade union board members are supposed to give the majority of these payments to the Hans-Bückler Foundation, run by the German trade union confederation (DGB). The representatives are allowed to retain €33,000 apiece. Due to this rule, the so-called meeting payments for board members, which the trade unionists are allowed to keep for themselves, have increased drastically. For Steinborn, this will amount to another €30,000 annually.

A large portion of the restructuring was directly planned and proposed by the works council and IG Metall. In order to cover up their role as co-managers, some union officials beat the protest drum from time to time.

Thus the IG Metall regional head for Bavaria, Jürgen Wechsler, stated the trade unions were not against “the reduction of superfluous bureaucracy and the slimming down of unnecessarily complicated processes.” But they emphatically opposed “a restructuring which, as always, is combined with employee reductions.”

Birgit Steinborn also sought to cover her tracks. She said that she expected difficult negotiations. She said, speaking in Munich February 6, that everything now had to be done “to further reduce the total of around 3,300 affected workers, whose posts are being eliminated, by deploying them somewhere else … I am fed up with job losses always being presented as the only solution.”

Who is Steinborn trying to fool? One cuts programme has followed another at Siemens for years, and on each occasion the IG Metall and works council played a key role in implementing job cuts.

In just the six years that Kaeser’s predecessor, Peter Löscher, led the company, the Siemens workforce was reduced from 475,000 to 370,000. The cuts were carried out through savings programmes, as well as the sale of entire departments. At the end of March last year, Siemens still employed 359,000 workers, of whom 117,000 worked in Germany. Today, with the announcement of the next round of cuts, the total workforce stands at 343,000, and 115,000 in Germany.

The latest announcement is only the beginning of another round of cuts and the destruction of jobs. The former medical technology department with around 50,000 workers has been outsourced and will be run as a legally independent company. At a later point it may be floated on the stock market.

Workers affected by such outsourcing have seen the results of previous outsourcings, sales and fusions, which have all led to further job cuts, as in the cases of Osram and Nokia-Siemens Networks. The sale of the mobile telephone division to BenQ resulted one year later in the bankruptcy of the company and the loss of all jobs.

Beyond the already announced 1,200 job losses, the Siemens energy department will bear the brunt of future restructuring measures and cuts. It has already been confirmed that 300 jobs will be cut at the steam turbine and generator plant in Müllheim in the Ruhr region, where 4,800 workers are employed.

Last year, Siemens purchased the American compressor producer Dresser-Rand for $7.6 billion, intending to profit from the fracking boom in the US. At the time, the price of oil was above $90 per barrel. The oil price has now fallen to below $50 per barrel, in part due to the economic warfare by the US, Europe and Saudi Arabia against Russia. Many suppliers for the oil industry have already announced thousands of layoffs as a result.

While workers at Siemens worry over the future of their jobs, the business press is demanding an acceleration of the social attacks and job cuts. As a comment in daily Die Welt February 7 stated, “If Siemens was an American company, everything would move faster.” Layoff protections and co-determination were putting the brakes on the cuts, the newspaper said, warning, “The major American competitor General Electric can only laugh at such blockages.”

Japanese PM calls for constitutional change in keynote speech

Peter Symonds

In a keynote policy speech on Thursday to the Japanese parliament or Diet, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe laid out his agenda of militarism, austerity and pro-market restructuring. “A rocky road lies ahead of all of these goals—the greatest reform effort since the end of the war,” he declared. “However, we must undauntedly make progress in carrying out these reforms.”

Central to Abe’s “reforms” is the revision of the country’s constitution, especially Article 9 that places constraints on the use of the military to prosecute the economic and strategic interests of Japanese imperialism overseas. Abe used his speech to launch a public campaign for constitutional change, exploiting the recent barbaric killing of two Japanese hostages by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militias.

The New York Times highlighted Abe’s “impassioned plea for change” explaining that at times he seemed “to shout at the chamber.” He exclaimed: “People of Japan, be confident! Isn’t it time to hold deep debate about revising the constitution? For the future of Japan, shouldn’t we accomplish in this parliament, the biggest reform since the end of the war?”

Since coming to power in December 2012, Abe’s right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government has, under the fraudulent banner of “pro-active pacifism,” taken far-reaching steps to remilitarise. With the encouragement of the United States, it has expanded the military budget, adopted a more confrontational posture towards China, established a national security committee and last July “reinterpreted” the constitution to allow for so-called “collective self-defence”—that is, Japan’s participation in US-led wars and military operations. At the same time, Abe is waging an ideological campaign to whitewash the crimes of the Japanese military during the 1930s and 1940s.

The constitutional “reinterpretation” is an outright negation of Article 9, which formally renounced war and declared that land, air and sea forces would never be maintained. Since the 1950s, successive Japanese governments have subverted the post-war constitution by establishing substantial “self-defence” forces that have been deployed to support the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Abe has long regarded Article 9 as an intolerable restriction on the ambitions of Japanese imperialism and called for an end to the “post-World War II regime” and Japan’s transformation into a “normal nation.” However, the chief political obstacle to constitutional revision is the deep-seated hostility of the working class to war and militarism, which is reflected in consistent opinion polling showing a majority of voters oppose any changes to Article 9. While the LDP won a snap election called by Abe last December to consolidate his hold on office, a Kyodo News opinion poll, taken just days later, found 55 percent of respondents did not support Abe’s military and security policies.

Under the existing constitution, any amendment requires a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Diet as well as a majority vote at a subsequent referendum. Since its adoption in 1947, no amendments have been made to the Japanese constitution. The LDP and its coalition partner New Komeito have a two-thirds majority in the lower house, but not in the upper house where the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is likely to block changes.

Nevertheless, the Abe government is determined to press ahead. The LDP’s sweeping plans for constitutional change have already been presented in 2013 in the form of a new draft constitution that eliminates key democratic rights, restores the emperor as head of state and drastically modifies Article 9.

Since winning last December’s election, Abe has repeatedly made statements calling for changes to the constitution. Following the execution of two Japanese hostages, he told an upper house committee on February 3 that amending Article 9 was necessary “to carry out our duty of protecting the lives and assets of Japanese citizens.” He has foreshadowed changes to allow the Japanese military to carry out rescue operations of hostages, including through the use of force.

A day later, Abe met with Hajime Funada, head of the LDP’s Headquarters for the Promotion of Revision to the Constitution, to discuss plans for constitutional revision. Funada reportedly recommended that concrete amendments be timed to take place after upper house elections due in mid-2016. He also suggested that the LDP propose amendments on “environmental rights,” “a provision to deal with emergency situations” and “a provision to maintain fiscal discipline” to garner wider support from opposition parties, before pressing ahead with deeply unpopular changes to Article 9.

While the opposition DPJ, Japanese Communist Party as well as the LDP’s New Komeito ally declare themselves formally opposed to changes to Article 9, all of these parties have joined in the government’s confrontational stance towards China, particularly over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea. The previous DPJ government was responsible for dramatically escalating tensions with Beijing by “nationalising” the rocky outcrops in 2012.

Abe’s speech to the parliament on Thursday not only threw down the challenge on constitutional revision, but foreshadowed legislation to give legal force to last year’s constitutional “reinterpretation” and laid out an extensive domestic agenda aimed at carrying through pro-market restructuring. These measures included changes to labour laws that will undermine working conditions and jobs, and “all-encompassing agricultural reform” that will impact heavily on the LDP’s own base of support in rural areas.

Abe’s speech was covered in markedly different ways in the media. While the Japanese press paid little attention to Abe’s remarks on the constitution, they were centrally featured in the report in the New York Times, which in recent months has been paying more attention to the Japanese government’s military policies. While not critical of Abe’s militarist orientation, the articles do suggest a growing unease in American ruling circles over its implications for US interests.

As part of its “pivot to Asia,” the Obama administration has been actively encouraging Japan to take a more aggressive approach to China, to expand its military capacities and to end legal and constitutional restrictions on taking part in US-led wars. In its preparations for war against China, the Pentagon envisages Japan as one of its key allies. While it is fully committed to the US alliance at present, the Abe government is pressing ahead with remilitarisation in order to prosecute the interests of Japanese imperialism, which could, in the future, come into conflict with those of the United States.

House fires kill 71 people in the US during the first week of February

Samuel Davidson

At least 71 people in the United States were killed in house fires during the first week of February. This comes on top of a January death toll of 298, as sub-freezing temperatures and soaring utility costs force many people turn to dangerous space heaters.

Missouri had the highest number of people killed, 11, in home fires during the week. Three people were killed in each of three fires and one person died in each of two others.

On February 1, two boys, 7 and 10, died along with their 47-year-old grandmother in Poplar Bluff, a rural community about 150 miles south of St. Louis. The small wood-frame house was already engulfed in flames when rescue workers arrived. Fire officials have not yet released a cause for the fire, but they have said that the blaze was fueled by propane bottles that were inside the house. Propane is commonly used for portable heaters.

On February 4, a 78-year-old woman and her 8-year-old great-granddaughter and 4-year-old great-grandson died in a house fire in University City, a suburb of St Louis. The fire was caused by an electric space heater. Four other people living in the home were able to escape.

On February 7, a 9-month-old baby, a 2-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl died when fire tore through the 100-year-old home in the farming community of Jameson, north of Kansas City. A 20-year-old man and two other children were able to escape although they were all hospitalized, one of the children critically.

The fire is believed to have started in the living room where the children were sleeping. The rented house had a wood-burning stove for heat and officials did not report hearing any smoke detectors when they arrived a few minutes after the fire began.

The single deadliest fire took place February 4 in the rural community of Spurger, Texas, in which four children, two boys and two girls aged 4 to 8, lost their lives when the mobile home they were living in erupted into flames at 2:30 a.m. The children’s parents along with two other children were able to escape.

Investigators have not yet determined the cause of the fire. Mobile homes, generally cheaply made, are some of the most dangerous dwellings. Often their electric wiring is faulty or overloaded, causing fires.

Their small size makes safe use of space heaters almost impossible, since the heater can’t be placed the necessary distance from flammable materials. Once a fire starts, the inferior quality of the construction means the entire home is usually consumed in flames in just a few minutes.

Of the 298 fire deaths in January, Ohio had the highest number with 25, followed by Texas with 23, Pennsylvania with 21 and Michigan with 16.

The number of house fires rises during the winter months as people are forced to use space heaters and take other risks to stay warm. In addition, millions of families are living in substandard homes and often in very overcrowded conditions as a greater number of extended families are forced to live together.

Millions of low income and poor families are struggling to pay for both heat, housing and food, as the drop in crude oil prices has not been reflected in a corresponding fall in home heating costs.

At the same time, the Obama administration has continued deep cuts to the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which has been cut by 30 percent since the official end of the great recession in 2009. LIHEAP funding stands at just $3.4 billion. Obama proposes to freeze LIHEAP funding in next year’s budget at its current level.

Benefit levels and eligibility vary by state, but are usually only about $400 per household, which is only a fraction of the cost of home heating during the winter, especially in the coldest states of the Northeast and Midwest.

Last year many states ran out of funding for heating assistance and many states are already reporting that they are running out of funds with the winter not yet half over. Last year, the state of Missouri, where 11 people died last week, didn’t pay benefits to 22,000 families that applied. Nationwide, only about one third of families eligible for the benefits actually receive them.

As the Missouri and Texas examples detailed above suggest, large numbers of fire victims are small children. More than half of US children live in poverty and few wealthy people die in house fires.

Fresh talks begin on forcing Greece to accept austerity package

Robert Stevens

Representatives of Greece’s Syriza-led government began three days of talks in Brussels on Friday with negotiators from the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—the so-called “troika.” The talks followed the failure of Syriza Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis to reach agreement with European finance ministers Wednesday on a plan for Greece to repay its foreign debt of nearly €320 billion.

The new talks will extend to the eve of the February 16 deadline set by the Eurogroup, at which time euro zone leaders are scheduled to meet once again to discuss the Greek debt crisis. Greece’s current agreement with the troika, which Syriza says it will not renew, expires on February 28. If there is no agreement with Greece’s creditors by that time, the Greek government will have no source of external funding to service its debt.

The Greek negotiating team is led by Professor Giorgos Chouliarakis, who teaches at the University of Manchester. He is working with debt restructuring advisers from Lazard, a US investment bank. Greece’s main creditors are represented by Declan Costello of the European Commission, Klaus Masuch of the ECB, and Rishi Goyal of the IMF. The troika’s team is led by Thomas Wieser of the Euroworking Group, a hard-line proponent of austerity. Times Of Change noted that the talks will cover “the poor trajectory of the 2015 budget so far (with a ‘hole’ of about 1 billion euros in January alone due to poor revenue collection), the fiscal shortfall that had been projected by the troika before the elections, and the cost of the measures announced by the government during its policy statements in parliament.”

“A key element of the three-day technical negotiations will be how the country will cover its funding needs until August,” the newspaper added. By then, the Greek state is obligated to pay back some €7 billion.

According to a source close to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the purpose of the 72-hour discussion will not be to “negotiate or engage in critiques of positions.” Instead, the talks will “register the points where there is convergence and identify divergences.”

The Greek government will outline its “red lines,” demanding an end to the current arrangement whereby the troika directly formulates and monitors the austerity program. Another demand is a reduction of Greece’s primary surplus target from 4.5 percent to 1.5 percent. Times Of Change claimed that labour deregulation and privatizations would not be discussed, but “broad agreement is expected to be found in the areas of combating corruption, tax evasion and public sector reform.”

A senior EU official close to the talks told Kathemerini, “[N]ow we need to get down to the hard facts, explaining what is in the (bailout reform) agreement and what are the quantified results of the new Greek government’s program.”Kathemerini noted, “If Greece wanted to remove a certain reform from the list agreed under the bailout, it would have to propose in its place a measure that would have a similar fiscal effect.”

Since it was elected on January 25 on an anti-austerity ticket, Syriza has made one concession after another, including ditching pre-election pledges to write off a large part of the debt, in an attempt to reach an agreement with the EU states, which hold 60 percent of the Greek foreign debt. Now it is meeting with representatives of the troika, which it had previously ruled out doing.

It is not certain that an agreement will be reached on Monday.

Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, leaving a summit of EU leaders Friday, said, “At this stage I’m very pessimistic about it. The possibilities, given the state of the Greek economy, are limited. I don’t know if we’ll get there by Monday. The Greek government has made it clear that they don’t want to carry on with the programme as it currently stands. The Eurogroup has made it clear that there are possibilities for change only as long as the programme remains on the rails.”

He warned, “We lend out money only when there’s real progress and when new reforms are being carried through. For months, this has not been the case.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, along with her finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has insisted that the Syriza-led government adhere to austerity measures agreed by previous Greek governments. She said she hoped an agreement was reached, but added, “Compromises are agreed when the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.”

German Finance Ministry spokesman Martin Jäger said sarcastically at a Berlin press conference, “Out of consideration for our Greek friends, we are not calling the troika the troika anymore, but ‘the institutions.’” He went on to say, “It doesn’t mean the assessment function of the three institutions is affected in any way whatever.”

Syriza’s newspaper Avgi (The Dawn) published a cartoon Friday portraying Schäuble as a Nazi. This is a reflection both of the tension between Germany and Greece and of Syriza’s efforts to disorient and divert internal social opposition to austerity by playing on anti-German sentiment to whip up Greek nationalism. The German Finance Ministry responded by lodging an immediate complaint.

In a reference to the Holocaust, the cartoon featured Schäuble saying, “Negotiations have begun. We insist on soap from your fat,” and “[W]e are discussing fertilizers from your ashes.” Another cartoon in Avgi portrayed Schäuble in a German military uniform.

Whatever the outcome of the talks and the euro zone finance ministers meeting Monday, nothing will be resolved regarding either Greece’s debt or the crisis in the euro zone as a whole.

On Friday, the US government again expressed disapproval of the handling of the Greek debt crisis by euro zone leaders. Caroline Atkinson, the US deputy national security adviser, said, “Greece has moved into primary surplus. How much more fiscal consolidation is necessary?”

She added, “The global economy is falling short and this is of deep concern to the US, and a key part of that weakness is tepid growth in the euro zone.”

This week’s Economist magazine wrote: “At its root, the problem is simple: Greece does not have enough income to pay its bills. Since the financial crisis began, its economy has shrunk by more than any other rich country’s.”

The magazine did not note that the savage austerity measures imposed by the European Union in behalf of the banks contributed massively to the contraction in the Greek economy.

Over this period, Greece’s foreign debt has rocketed. From a debt of €301 billion (127 percent of gross domestic product) owed largely to the private sector, the Greek state now owes some €320 billion (175 percent of GDP), with the vast majority of the debt (€195 billion) held by European states and the ECB.

The Financial Times was blunter still in summing up of the implications of the still deeper attacks on the Greek working class demanded by the European ruling elite immediately after Syriza’s election. “To service its debt burden would require Greece to operate as a quasi-slave economy, running a primary surplus of 5 percent of GDP for years, purely for the benefit of its foreign creditors,” the newspaper wrote.

Virtually all of the €226 billion loaned to Greece since 2010 as a so-called “bailout” has gone to paying off global banks. A recent study by the GreekMacropolis web site concluded: “Combined with some other government financing needs (mostly relating to repayments of arrears that accumulated in the first two years of the crisis), the combined allocation to the Greek state’s operating needs was just 11 percent of the total funding, circa 27 billion euros.”

In the euro sceptic Daily Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard said that not only Germany, but also other European countries, have a “very strong incentive to make Greece suffer.” He went on to warn that “to act on this political impulse risks destroying the European project.”

US threatens military intervention as UN warns of “disintegration” in Yemen

Thomas Gaist

Yemen faces “civil war and disintegration” in the wake of the overthrow of the US-backed government by a Houthi insurgency, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon declared Thursday.

“Yemen is collapsing before our eyes. We cannot stand by and watch. The current instability is creating conditions which are conducive to a reemergence of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP),” Moon said.

The comments from Moon come in the aftermath of moves by the Houthis to take over the presidential palace last week, formally dissolving the US-backed regime of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The Houthis have simultaneously launched new invasions of provinces to the south of Sanaa, in an effort to bring larger sections of the country under the direct control of their new regime.

This has been accompanied by reports of the seizure of a major government military installation, manned by some 2,000 troops, by Sunni militants affiliated with AQAP.

Comments from US officials late this week suggested that the US ruling elite is preparing to respond to the breakup of the Yemeni state with a new military escalation, ostensibly directed at combatting AQAP, but aimed more broadly at asserting control over the geostrategically key country.

“The bottom line is increased danger to the United States homeland,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, a Republican, said in comments cited by Fox News. The Houthi takeover “makes it easier for them [AQAP] to plot and plan against us,” Thornberry said.

The rapid military successes of Houthi and AQAP militants took the US by surprise, a top counterterrorism official said Friday, comparing recent developments to the rise of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “The situation deteriorated far more rapidly than we expected,” National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen said in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany have closed their embassies, joining the US, Britain and France. Houthi leaders have protested against the embassy closures, saying they are unnecessary and making clear their readiness to negotiate with the US and other foreign powers.

The central aim of the US is to ensure that its extensive military and intelligence operations in Yemen and throughout the region are maintained. US ground forces, acknowledged by the Pentagon to be operating from bases in Aden since 2012, will continue to carry out missions against AQAP and other groups, the Obama administration has confirmed.

“There continue to be Department of Defense personnel … on the ground in Yemen that are coordinating with their counterparts,” White House representative Josh Earnest said.

At the same time, the Central Intelligence Agency has been forced to withdraw dozens of agents and senior officers previously operating out of the US embassy, according to the Washington Post.

The deepening civil conflict in Yemen also threatens to draw in regional powers, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. At least four governors in southern provinces have declared their opposition to the new Houthi government, while Saudi leaders have announced their intention to arm anti-Houthi forces in the resource-rich western province of Marib. Secessionist militants affiliated with the Southern Movement already began seizing checkpoints in southern cities last month.

Egypt has assembled a special expedition force to deploy to Yemen if there are threats to close the Bab al-Mandab straight, which controls the southern entrance to the Red Sea. “Egypt will not accept the closure of the strait in any way, and would intervene militarily if needed. … This action affects Egyptian national security, and has a direct impact on the Suez Canal,” Egyptian Suez Canal Authority official Mohab Mamish said last week.

Yemen’s fate underscores the ongoing fragmentation of the nation-state structure throughout the Middle East and large sections of Africa, with civil war conditions emerging as tribal and sectarian factions vie to fill the developing power vacuum.

The US government is responding to these conditions—a product of US machinations throughout the Middle East, including the promotion of sectarian tensions—with a massive expansion of its military operations throughout the region. This includes the escalation of its bombing campaigns in Iraq and Syria, drone war in Somalia and special forces operations in West Africa.

The pseudo-legal foundation for a large slate of new wars is to be supplied by the latest Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) sought by the Obama administration—which ostensibly targets ISIS but in reality empowers the president to wage endless war around the globe.

Ukrainian government moves to stifle dissent as military morale plunges

David Levine

The Ukrainian military is showing signs of severe decomposition and demoralization, as antiwar sentiment rises to the surface among Ukrainians in Kiev-controlled territories. In response, the government of Petro Poroshenko is cracking down on dissent.

On January 28, Ukrainian “hacktivist” group CyberBerkut published on its website documents obtained from the computer of Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor Anatolii Matios. According to the documents, during the preceding two weeks, 1100 members of Ukraine’s armed forces lost their lives, over 100 damaged tanks were left on the battlefield, and tens of Ukrainian soldiers and officers were taken prisoner.

The hacked documents indicate that, contrary to the affirmations of leading Ukrainian politicians, the military is disintegrating. New recruits are deserting and fleeing to Russia and other countries. Servicemen have been putting their weapons and ammunition up for sale. Commanders are the first to desert their units. Young and inexperienced fighters are being ordered into senseless attacks against rebel forces. Residents of areas near the battlefields are reportedly being terrorized by plundering deserters and “homicidal maniacs in uniform.”

The documents include an order that information on war losses is to be kept secret and reported to the counter-terrorism center of the Ukrainian Security Service only. This document, as well as the figure of 1,100 servicemen lost in the second half of January, lend additional credibility to the rebels’ estimates of war casualties, which thus far have exceeded those of the Ukrainian government and United Nations by approximately a factor of ten. The UN’s most recently published figure was 5,400 civilians and military personnel killed since the start of the conflict.

The higher figures received further support on February 8 from the GermanFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). Citing anonymous sources in the German intelligence establishment, the FAZ estimates 50,000 dead. It asserts that the Ukrainian government and UN figures have been greatly understated.

Matios was quoted in Ukrainskaya pravda on February 10 as saying that the prosecutor’s office is currently investigating the desertion of 10,266 servicemen. “It is particularly offensive that we have had desertions not just among the rank and file, but among generals as well. We just filed in court charges of desertion against a brigadier general of the Foreign Intelligence Service.”

Matios added that his agency does not have information on desertion and other crimes committed by members of volunteer battalions.

The Ukrainian parliament adopted a law on February 5 that creates “barrier detachments” to enforce military discipline and empowers commanders to use their weapons against deserters and other subordinates engaged in criminal activities. Another law adopted on February 3 introduces secret investigative proceedings against draft dodgers. President Petro Poroshenko has called for a law to prevent draftees from leaving the country.

Earlier, on January 29, Donetsk People’s Republic Ministry of Defense Deputy Commandant Eduard Basurin made an announcement regarding prisoners of war. “[They come to us] hungry, freezing cold, and demoralized. The only thing they ask for is not to be shown on camera and for their names not to be disclosed, so that their family members who remain at home will not come under attack.” Basurin insisted that the prisoners are safe, their lives are guaranteed, and they will be released after investigations are completed.

On February 11, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a think-tank based in London, England, published its annual “Military Balance.” The report indicates that the Ukrainian army is not prepared for the conflict with the rebels. It is using obsolete equipment and is experiencing a shortage of armored vehicles, artillery, and missiles.

The Ukrainian military mobilization, a large-scale program that includes conscription, began on January 20. With a number of exceptions, men up to age 60 are subject to the draft, which is to include up to 104,000 personnel, including women.

The mobilization thus far has been massively unpopular and has provoked extremely high rates of abstention. Recruiters have been chased away by residents from the villages of Dmytrivka and Kulevcha in Odessa Province. There have been reports of employers in Kharkiv refusing to distribute draft notices to employees. There have been demonstrations against the mobilization, particularly in Zaporizhia Province. Videos have appeared on the Internet showing women speaking before crowds of people, vehemently denouncing the Kiev regime and calling for peace (see, for example: here,here, here and here).

Ukrainian journalist Ruslan Kotsaba was arrested on February 8 for treason and espionage after publicly calling for resistance to the mobilization. Kotsaba had also asserted that the rebel fighters are not “terrorists,” that they do not consist of regular Russian forces, and that the majority of the population in the rebel territories do support them.

Subsequently, on February 11, Poroshenko announced that criticism of the mobilization “has no relation to democracy and the freedom of speech” and qualifies as “anti-state activity.” He said that the Ukrainian Security Service had already identified 19 people who had conducted a campaign to undermine the mobilization.

Draft legislation currently on review in parliament would make “public denial of or support for Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014-2015” a crime punishable by up to three years of imprisonment.

The most intense fighting in recent weeks has centered around the town of Debaltseve, where Ukrainian forces had concentrated during the “truce” that ended last month. The town is located roughly at the midpoint between the rebel centers of Donetsk and Luhansk and occupies a strategically crucial location for the warring armies. Since February 9, rebel forces have been claiming control over the village of Logvynove on the main Debaltseve-Artemivsk road.

If the rebels manage to take control over country roads and field roads as well, then the thousands of Ukrainian troops in Debaltseve will be trapped without any supply lines. As of this writing, fighting continues as the Ukrainian army attempts to reassert control over the Debaltseve-Artemivsk road.

Under the ceasefire agreement signed in Minsk on February 12, which is supposed to go into effect at midnight on February 15, Debaltseve is to remain under Kiev’s control. However, the rebel republics’ leaders insist that their forces have practically surrounded Debaltseve and are simply waiting for the Ukrainian forces that remain there to surrender.

The drive to dismantle pensions in the United States

Andre Damon

States and municipalities throughout the United States are engaged in a frontal assault on the pension benefits of current and retired public employees. These attacks are proceeding with complete disregard for the law, riding roughshod over state constitutional protections safeguarding pension benefits that employees have earned over decades of toil.

Earlier this month, Judge Christopher Klein signed a confirmation order allowing the city of Stockton, California to go ahead with its plan to slash workers’ retirement benefits as part of a deal to exit bankruptcy. The agreement will eliminate health care benefits for municipal retirees while cutting pension benefits for new-hires and increasing employee pension payments.

In ruling that bankruptcy courts have the authority to slash current retirees’ pensions, Klein could not hide his enthusiasm. He declared that CalPERS, the state’s public employee pension system, “has bullied its way about this case with an iron fist.” But, he gloated, the pension fund “turns out to have a glass jaw.”

In Illinois, where Circuit Judge John Belz last year struck down a 2013 law that cut pensions for state workers, state officials are once again on the war path. Attorney General Lisa Madigan, a Democrat, is preparing to appear before the Illinois Supreme Court to argue that, even though the state constitution explicitly declares that public employee pensions “shall not be diminished or impaired,” the state’s “police powers” allow it to slash the benefits of current retirees in the name of “public safety.”

The argument is based on an authoritarian and absurd reading of the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which states “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Illinois Democrats are arguing that this amendment allows the state to gut constitutionally protected pension benefits without even going through a bankruptcy court.

If this claim is accepted by the Illinois Supreme Court, it will set a precedent for every state in the US to go after the pensions of public employees.

In Pennsylvania, the state legislature is debating a bill that would freeze pension benefits for current and future retirees and replace pensions for new-hires with 401(k)-style pension plans. In Jacksonville, Florida, the state is planning major cuts in pensions for future retirees.

These moves—and similar actions in other states and cities—have followed from the precedent set by the Detroit bankruptcy, which began in July of 2013 and was completed last November. They vindicate entirely the warnings made by the World Socialist Web Site at the time of the bankruptcy filing.

On July 20, 2013, two days after the city filed for bankruptcy, the WSWS wrote:

The bankruptcy filing has national and international implications. Detroit will serve as a precedent for other cities across the country that have been financially crippled by the economic crisis. The use of the bankruptcy court to rip up pensions and health benefits will open the floodgates for similar attacks on millions of teachers, transit workers, sanitation workers and other municipal employees.

Just as Greece became the model for attacks on workers throughout Europe and beyond, the Detroit bankruptcy—which goes beyond even the brutal measures carried out in Greece—will set the pattern for the next stage in the attack on the working class in the US and internationally. At stake is every gain won by the working class through immense and often bloody struggle and sacrifice in the course of more than a century.

The attack on public employee pensions at the state and local level has been accompanied by a drive to dismantle what remains of pensions in the private sector. In December, Congress passed a law allowing multi-employer pension funds to slash benefit payments to current retirees, reversing decades of federal precedents dictating that the pensions of current retirees could not be cut.

The assault on pensions is entirely bipartisan, with Democrats and Republicans equally ruthless in attacking the working class. It is being coordinated by the Obama administration, which played a critical role in the Detroit bankruptcy.

The drive to dismantle pensions is one component of the Obama administration’s attack on workers’ wages and benefits, which includes the dismantling of employer-provided health benefits under the auspices of the Affordable Care Act and a systematic assault on wages that was launched with the restructuring of the auto industry in 2009.

The constant refrain is the claim that there is “no money” to pay for pensions. This is a lie.

Even the Washington Post—which noted the “change in the social contract” as “employers, private employers as well as governments, increasingly view the mushrooming cost of pensions as unbearable”—felt obliged to point out that “the push to reduce retirement benefits is coming despite not just a long run of robust stock market returns, but also a real estate rebound that is projected to fuel strong city revenue growth.”

The spectacular rise in stock prices has been fueled by the handout of trillions of dollars to the banks, which have been provided with an endless stream of virtually free money. At the same time, hundreds of billions have been made available to fund military operations around the world in the American ruling class’ relentless and reckless pursuit of global hegemony. This is to be paid for through a historic reversal in the social position of the working class.

As far as the ruling class is concerned, young people should have no future, workers should live on poverty wages, the unemployed should be left to starve, and the elderly should be pushed into an early grave.

What is most extraordinary is the absence of organized resistance. Here, the trade unions, which long ago transformed themselves into business enterprises, have played a critical role. At every step, they have collaborated with the Democrats and Republicans in undermining and attacking pensions. The Teamsters, for example, gave their full support to the federal law allowing pension funds to slash benefits. A host of unions in Illinois are supporting the Democrats’ suit to slash pension benefits. The unions played the critical role in suppressing opposition to the Detroit bankruptcy.

These right-wing organizations and the corrupt executives who control them are concerned only with protecting their financial interests as pension fund administrators. They are more than willing to slash the benefits of union members to keep the funds afloat.

Social tensions are building to the breaking point. The strike by US oil workers, despite the efforts of the United Steelworkers union to isolate and betray it, points to the growing militancy and combativeness of American workers, who have had it with decades of cuts in jobs, wages and benefits. To take forward this and the many other struggles to come, workers must be armed with a new political strategy, based on their independence from the pro-corporate trade unions, a break with the Democrats and the two-party system of American capitalism, and a socialist program of reorganizing society to meet social need, not private profit.

US and Ukrainian officials seek to torpedo Minsk cease-fire agreement

Niles Williamson

American and Ukrainian officials issued provocative threats and accusations against Russia less than 48 hours after German, French, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators reached a cease-fire agreement following marathon talks in the Belorussian capital of Minsk.

The statements of Obama administration officials and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko were designed to create a pretext for scuttling the cease-fire deal and escalating the assault on pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine along with the diplomatic, economic and military campaign against Russia, while attempting to foist the blame on Moscow.

Washington and Kiev did not wait for the truce to take effect on Sunday to launch new charges of Russian military aggression, none of which were substantiated. Meanwhile, fighting in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian separatists and government forces intensified.

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki accused Russia of violating the cease-fire agreement by massing military equipment around the Ukrainian-held city of Debaltseve, which is currently under siege from pro-Russian forces. “The Russian military has deployed a large amount of artillery and multiple rocket launcher systems around Debaltseve, where it is shelling Ukrainian positions,” she told reporters, adding, “We are confident that these are Russian military, not separatist systems.”

Psaki also charged that Russia was preparing a large shipment of supplies to pro-Russian forces. She provided no evidence, however, to back up her charges.

US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters that even with the new agreement, there would be “a long road ahead before achieving peace and the full restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty.” He said, “We will judge the commitment of Russia and the separatists by their actions, not their words.”

In a statement Thursday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest coupled tepid praise for the cease-fire as a “potentially significant step toward a peaceful resolution” with the demand that Russia remove its soldiers and military equipment from eastern Ukraine. Moscow denies having any active troops in the separatist-controlled regions of Ukraine.

Repeated claims by European and American officials of Russian troops directly assisting the pro-Russian separatists have never been substantiated. Recent photographs presented by a delegation of Ukrainian politicians to Republican Senator James Inhofe as evidence of Russian involvement were quickly exposed as a fraud. They turned out to be photographs of Russian military equipment during the 2008 Georgian war.

Earnest concluded his remarks by insisting on the “full and unambiguous” implementation of the agreement, including the “durable” cessation of fighting and the restoration of Kiev’s control of Ukraine’s border with Russia.

The talk of stepped-up Russian military involvement in eastern Ukraine suggests that the Obama administration, perhaps following a brief respite for Ukrainian forces that have been battered by rebel militias in the east, may be planning to use Russia’s supposed violation of the cease-fire to justify a decision to directly arm the Kiev regime with advanced US weapons, a step that has been described by European politicians and media outlets as tantamount to a declaration of war on Russia.

The Minsk deal was not negotiated by Washington, but under the aegis of Germany and France. Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande launched a diplomatic effort to halt the fighting after reports emerged that Washington was considering arming the Ukrainian regime.

Other US politicians directly attacked the cease-fire. Republican Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released a statement denouncing the agreement as a sellout to the pro-Russian separatists and Russian President Vladimir Putin and called on the Obama administration to move forward with arming Ukraine.

McCain declared: “The agreement reached in Minsk freezes the conflict at a time of separatist advantage, solidifies the gains of Russian aggression and leaves Ukraine’s borders with Russia firmly under Moscow’s control pending a comprehensive political settlement whose content is unknown and feasibility is unclear.” He added that the cease-fire should not be “an excuse to delay sending defensive lethal assistance to Ukraine.”

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, during a visit to a military training center outside Kiev on Friday, came close to repudiating the agreement he had signed the previous day. “I want nobody to have any illusions,” he told reporters. “We are still far away from peace, and nobody is fully convinced that the conditions for peace signed in Minsk will be firmly implemented.”

Ukrainian fascist forces, which have operated as the military spearhead of the Kiev regime’s assault on the separatists in eastern Ukraine, also rejected the accord. On Friday, the head of the fascist Right Sector, Dimytro Yarosh, who is also a member of the Ukrainian parliament, denounced the cease-fire in a statement published on his personal Facebook page.

Calling the pro-Russian separatists terrorists, Yarosh insisted that any agreement with them had “no legal standing.” He declared that the Right Sector militia “reserves the right to extend the active hostilities under its own operational plans.”

The agreement, slated to take effect at 12:01 AM Sunday, calls for the pulling back of artillery and other heavy weaponry so as to create a buffer zone along the current lines of fighting. Other key points are the removal of all foreign fighters and weapons from eastern Ukraine and the release of all prisoners of war. The agreement also calls for constitutional changes to grant greater autonomy to rebel-held areas, while requiring the separatists to return control of the border between eastern Ukraine and Russia to the Kiev regime.

Thursday’s Minsk II agreement replaces the Minsk Protocol cease-fire signed last September, which was repeatedly violated by both sides and fell apart completely in January. Fighting escalated last month after the Kiev government launched an offensive against rebel-held positions in the eastern Donbass region. Kiev forces suffered sharp reversals when pro-Russian separatists launched a counteroffensive, capturing significant amounts of territory and gaining control over the Donetsk airport.

Following the announcement of the new truce, both sides stepped up the fighting in an effort to make last-minute territorial gains before the cease-fire is scheduled to take effect. Debaltseve, the site of a key rail hub between the rebel-held cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, saw the most intense fighting Friday. As many as 8,000 Ukrainian troops are surrounded by pro-Russian separatist militia fighters.

Andriy Lysenko, a Ukrainian military spokesman, reported Friday that at least 11 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and a further 40 wounded in fighting since the agreement was signed.

Artillery shells struck a school in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Artemivsk, killing two civilians, including a seven-year-old child. At least five other civilians, among them three children, were injured in the shelling.

Donetsk People’s Republic Defense Ministry official Eduard Basurin told reporters Friday that shelling of the rebel-held cities of Horlivka, Donetsk and Luhansk since Thursday had killed ten civilians and wounded nineteen others, including three children.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) released a report Friday stating that illegal cluster bomb munitions had been deployed in the shelling of Luhansk on Thursday.

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The 9 Secrets of a Happy Marriage

Mark Tyrrell

He looks wearily at her, shakes his head, and asks: "Whatever happened to us? We don't laugh any more; we used to always be laughing!"

She looks at him, contempt leaking like a North Sea oil spill: "Yes, but not at the same time."

This one line of comedy within a classic moment from the British sitcom Fawlty Towers illuminated an entire relationship.

A happy long-lasting marriage: Really? Is it still possible? Well, I guess we'll have to wait fifty years to find out. Of course, no one should stay in an abusive marriage. If you're being abused and bullied then your spouse has defaulted on 'the deal' anyway (remember the 'to love and to cherish' part of the vows?). But our 'throw away society' may mean that perfectly good relationships are too quickly discarded because they don't seem ideal.

The irony is that the modern obsession with 'personal fulfilment' - the importance of the self at the expense of the other - has left more people unfulfilled, sad, and lonely. Marriages crash and burn as spouses are updated for newer, 'better' ones. Have the ideas of commitment, duty, and responsibility been ditched at the expense of happiness?

A happy marriage is healthy

Marriage may seem as old-fashioned as sepia tone, but repeated research shows that people who remain married to one partner are the happiest (1) and that married people are statistically happier and live longer (2) than their non-married counterparts. Do we even know why some marriages work and some don't? Fortunately for this article, we do. We now know what happy marriages should avoid and also what needs to be encouraged to make marriages healthier and happier.

Of course no marriage is perfect, but many are happy. Happy marriages have difficulties, but there is an abiding sense of 'us', not just 'you and me'. Follow these strategies (both of you) and who knows - maybe you'll be telling me fifty years hence of all the health, psychological benefits, and happiness you've enjoyed.

So first:

1) Be realistic with your relationship expectations

Romance is wonderful and seeing the best in your partner is a sure way to maintain love and intimacy. But you are going to have years with your spouse, so you need to be able to except some imperfections. In the first throes of passion, the object of our romantic focus may seem perfect but then we discover their 'feet of clay'. At this point, for the marriage to last we need to see beyond personal weaknesses and foibles - after all, no one is perfect. All marriages need work sometimes; expecting it all to be effortless or that it 'should' always be perfect creates disappointment (as unrealistic expectations always do).

Idealize your partner, by all means - but remember they are human.

2) Sorry should not be the hardest word

Ever noticed how some people can never apologize, never admit they were wrong, never say, "Sorry"? Yes? Well, those are the ones who are much less likely to become or stay married

A survey conducted in San Francisco (3) found that people who stay happily married are twice as likely to be able and willing to apologize to their partners as divorced or single people are. The survey found happily married people are 25% more likely to apologize first, even if they only feel partially to blame. The harder divorced and single people found it ever to apologize or make conciliatory gestures, the more likely they were to stay single.

Romance and passion may bring couples together, but compromise and respect will keep them there. Learn to say sorry.

3) Drive those relationship-ruining riders out of town

Some couples argue passionately but still have a happy marriage. Others argue less but when they do, the relationship is severely damaged. What's the difference?

It's not whether you argue but how you argue that determines the likelihood that your marriage will survive long-term. US psychologist John Gottman has spent almost two decades studying the interaction of couples. He can now reliably tell (with up to 95% accuracy!) which couples are destined for relationship breakdown and which are likely to stay together by listening to the first five minutes of a contentious discussion.

Gottman highlights four factors that rot relationships. He calls these (dramatically) the 'Four Riders of the Apocalypse'. They are:

1) Contempt: Name calling, face pulling, cursing at and insulting your partner, and basically behaving as if you are revolted is 'contempt'. Gottman and his researchers in Seattle (4) found that if this was a regular feature in the start-up phase of a disagreement, then the relationship's days were very likely to be numbered. Women who looked contemptuous whilst their husband was talking were six times more likely to be divorced two years later.

2) Defensiveness: "Why are you picking on me? Don't look at me like that! What's your problem?!"

"But I was just offering you a cup of tea!"

Another major predictor of eventual relationship breakdown is over-defensiveness. If someone begins yelling as soon as their partner broaches a subject and feels overly threatened or attacked, and this is a continuing and regular feature of the couple's interactions, then the relationship is in crisis. Being defensive blocks communication and severs intimacy.

3) Don't criticize but do compliment

Partners who criticize one another risk damaging their relationship beyond repair... This doesn't mean you should never complain if your spouse upsets you, but a criticism is much more damaging than a simple complaint.

When you criticize, you attack the whole person (even if that's not what you mean to do); a complaint is directed at one-off behaviours rather than the core identity of the person. For example: "You are such a lazy £"*tard!" implies they are always like that and that it's a fundamental part of who they are. It's not specific or time-limited as is "I thought you were being a bit lazy today! That's not like you!"

Some partners feel they are trying to 'improve' their spouse by constantly pointing out what is wrong with them. Even if the intention is good, the consequences are not. Criticizing partners publically is humiliating (for both partners), but saying nice things about them when in company is a wonderful thing to do.

People in happy marriages feel appreciated, loved, and respected. Remind your spouse of their talents, strengths, and what you love and like about them much more. No one likes to feel they are under constant attack.

4) Withdrawal or 'stonewalling'

Emotionally withdrawing or stonewalling, 'closing your ears' or 'shutting off' when a partner is complaining is another huge predictor of breakdown. Whilst criticizing was generally more of a female trait, men used stonewalling more. Men's biology is less able to cope with strong emotion than women's, so men may instinctively try to avoid entering arguments or becoming highly aroused by stonewalling.

The partner may withdraw during conversations by 'switching off' or ultimately spend more and more time away from the relationship as a way of 'escaping'. The danger is that the stonewalling pattern will become permanent and the partner using this strategy will use it to isolate themselves from potentially positive parts of the relationship.

Everyone needs space, but never responding to an emotional issue leaves the other partner out in the cold.

Rather surprisingly, if even just one of these factors or 'riders' is present regularly in disputes, the outlook for the relationship is poor. Does your marriage contain any of these 'riders'?

And how else can you make your marriage happier?

5) Know what not to talk about in your marriage

Younger couples often want to 'dig deep' to unearth all their 'issues', to be entirely open with one another, and to 'talk everything through'.

But studies of elderly couples who have been happily married for decades show that these couples often don't listen very carefully to what the other is saying when expressing negative emotion. They also tend to ignore their own feelings about the relationship unless they consider that something absolutely must be done. This threshold is set much higher than in younger couples.

So the typical advice of agony aunts to 'air issues' and get 'everything out in the open' doesn't, after all, make for healthy long-term relationships. Agreeing to disagree and knowing which subjects to steer clear of is a key relationship skill.

6) Work out problems but keep a lid on them

Another key factor in arguments within relationships that survive is the habit of changing the subject once the discussion has 'run its course'. This 'quick shift' lessens the amount of negative emotion experienced and decreases the likelihood of later rumination. It also conveys the message, "We can argue, and still get on with each other." Thus, the argument is contained and does not contaminate the whole relationship.

Disagreements need to be 'one-off specials', not long-running serials. But fun is vital, too...

7) Laugh together, stay together

Regularly revisiting romantic times from the past and alluding to them in conversation - "Wasn't it wonderful when we..." and "Do you remember..." - is a powerful way of staying bonded. But regularly laughing together may be even more powerful.

According to recent research, couples who laugh together and regularly reminisce about funny times tend to be much more satisfied with their relationships (5). Create a reservoir of funny times and re-visit them often. Lack of fun can wilt a marriage like a flower denied water.

8) Ensure 5 good times for every bad time

According to Dr Gottman, stable marriages need five good interactions for every not-so-good one. 'Good' could mean a loving hug, a fun afternoon spent together, or a nice chat about a movie, anything positive. A 'bad' interaction may be a row, disagreement, or disappointment.

So make efforts to keep to the 5/1 rule. This will work even better if you follow the next tip.

9) Can you read (love) maps?

Remember the old Mr. and Mrs. TV show? (I think it may have been updated.) Anyway, the idea was basically this: The host would ask one partner to go behind a soundproof screen whilst the remaining partner was asked questions about their partner's life and preferences. For example: "Where in the world would your wife most like to travel?" or "What drink would your husband most likely order in a restaurant?" The idea was that the more correlated the answers, the stronger the relationship. And research seems to bear this out:

The more you know your partner's tastes, aspirations, whom they like and dislike at work, and so on, the better 'love map' you have. Knowing the details of your partner's inner and outer life (whilst allowing for some privacy) makes for a stronger bond. One woman I worked with didn't know the name of her (underappreciated) husband's company and one husband couldn't tell me the name of their family dog! (Much to his wife's consternation: "He shows no interest!")