Mass job losses loom in Scotland

Stephen Alexander

On the back of thousands of job cuts in the UK steel industry, winding up 150 years of steel production in Scotland, mass job losses have been announced by major employers.

Workers in the North Sea oil and gas industry and across local government and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) tax offices will be among the worst hit.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics recorded an 11,000 hike in unemployed between July and September. Scotland’s unemployment rate now stands at 6 percent—double its pre-recession low—compared to 5.3 percent for the UK as a whole. Economic growth has also begun to lag behind the UK rate, which also slowed dramatically.

Higher unemployment and slower growth in Scotland are being driven by the crisis of the UK offshore oil and gas industry, which accounts for a much greater portion of the economy than any other UK region. With some of the highest exploratory costs of any offshore site in the world, British fields, based predominantly off the coast of Scotland, have been hit severely as crude values have tumbled by 60 percent in the past year.

As energy firms have moved to shore up profits by slashing investment and operational costs, employment in the sector has fallen by 65,000 to 375,000. Prior to the oil slump, some 225,000 of these posts were based in Scotland, equivalent to one in 12 jobs north of the border. The Aberdeen Press and Journal reports “up to 20,000 more positions are expected to go before 2020.”

Recently, Chevron, which axed 225 jobs in Aberdeen last July, announced another 140 posts are at risk in Aberdeen, London, Norway, Denmark and the United States. Danish giant Maersk Oil has initiated 220 redundancies as part of the retirement of its Janice oil installation. Royal Dutch Shell is to withdraw from the majority of its operations in the North Sea. According to Swift Worldwide resources, some 233,000 oil jobs have been stripped globally since 2014 and this figure is projected to top 250,000 by the end of 2015.

Hundreds of redundancies are filtering through the oil and gas supply chain, which supports around 2,000 companies across Scotland. To name but a few: US electronics manufacturer Plexus is downsizing production in Bathgate at the expense of 50 posts. Howco, a supplier of specialist alloys, is shedding a similar number from its 167-strong workforce in Irvine. And around 260 jobs are imperilled in the Shetlands, where the Wood Group PSN and Bilfinger are reducing the workforce refurbishing the Sullom Voe oil terminal.

The City of Aberdeen in the northeast of Scotland, the UK oil capital, is in deep crisis. The numbers claiming out-of-work benefits increased by 39 percent in October, compared to the same month last year. Shockwaves have been felt across the wider region where house prices and businesses have begun to stagnate. A 66 percent spike in claimants was recorded across Aberdeenshire and 25 percent in the neighbouring Highlands.

The oil slump has exposed the fraudulent nature of the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) referendum campaign last year, which hinged on the promise that an independent Scottish state would utilise oil revenues to eliminate austerity. This was always a cynical fraud aimed at marketing its right-wing separatist agenda to the working class. Demonstrating the party’s true constituency, the devolved SNP administration worked with the Conservative government of Prime Minister David Cameron to arrange £1.7 billion of additional tax breaks for energy conglomerates. The industry now contributes less to government revenues than it receives.

A similar pro-corporate alliance between the nationalists and the Conservatives is on display over the crisis in the British steel industry, where 4,000 jobs have gone since the summer. Both are united in a strategy of securing the profit interests of the industry by offering up tax breaks and subsidised energy costs. Both have sought, alongside the Labour Party and the trade unions, to stifle the resistance of the working class by promoting anti-Chinese chauvinism, blaming China for the “devastating impact that steel dumping has on the Scottish industry.”

So much for the SNP’s “civic” brand of nationalism.

The move by Tata Steel to close the last remaining steel plants in Scotland, at Dalzell in Motherwell and Clydebridge in neighbouring Cambuslang, will erase 400 relatively high paid jobs and further impoverish working class communities devastated by decades of deindustrialisation. Motherwell and the surrounding area never recovered from the shutter of the sprawling integrated steel factory at Ravenscraig in 1992, which cost 10,000 jobs. Today, North Lanarkshire accounts for 23 of the most deprived regions in Scotland, second only to the Glasgow City Region.

Many more workers will be pitched into destitution after North Lanarkshire council, based in Motherwell, unveiled plans to slash 1,095 full-time posts, approximately 10 percent of its workforce. Similar measures are being carried out with the backing of all the major parties across Scotland’s 32 local authorities: 8,000 redundancies have been initiated, including 3,000 at Glasgow City Council and 2,000 at Edinburgh.

Approximately 40,000 public sector jobs, primarily at local authorities, were cut in Scotland in recent years. This figure could rapidly double as councils face a combined financial shortfall of £1 billion despite repeated rounds of brutal budget cuts.

This is before the impact of the unprecedented austerity cuts tabled by Chancellor George Osborne in his Autumn Statement is factored into the Scottish budget. According to the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), non-protected Scottish government departments, including local government, will see budgets fall by between 9.5 and 13.5 percent

Cuts to departments directly managed by Westminster will also result in mass job losses. The HMRC has outlined more than 2,000 redundancies in Scotland, as part of plans to close 137 offices across the UK over the next decade.

The official employment statistics conceal the full scale of the assault on the social position of working class at the hands of the SNP and successive UK governments. While Scotland’s unemployment rate has recovered somewhat from its 9 percent peak following the 2008 financial collapse, most employment is in generally low paid and insecure jobs. Last month, Bank of England Chief Economist Andy Haldane characterised the years since 2008 as “one of the largest and longest squeezes on wages since at least 1850.”

A recent study commissioned by global financial services company KPMG found that 450,000 workers, one in five, earn less than the miserly Scottish Living Wage of £8.25. This is an increase of 27,000 people over the last year. The figures include 72 percent of young people aged 18-21 years, who are the most poorly paid group, alongside women (29 percent) and part-time workers. With a median hourly wage of just £11.76, low pay is the norm for the majority of Scottish workers.

At the opposite pole of society, Scotland’s four richest families are now worth £1 billion more than the combined wealth of the poorest 20 percent of society—one million people. Annual figures published by the High Pay Centre indicate that the median pay of executives of Scotland’s largest businesses stands at £1.1 million or 77 times the earnings of a minimum wage worker.

India: Hundreds die in Tamil Nadu floods

Deepal Jayasekera

Massive flooding across southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu has taken the lives of 280 people since early November and effectively cut off Chennai, the state capital and the country’s fourth largest city. Over 50 people have been killed in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh and two in Puducherry.

More than a million people have been affected by the heaviest rainfall in the state in over a century with the Indian Meteorological Department on Thursday predicting three more days of torrential rains. Damage is estimated so far at over $US3 billion.

Currently more than 164,000 people are homeless and sheltering in 460 camps in Chennai, Cuddalore, Thiruvallur and Kanchipuram. Emergency assistance has yet to reach some parts of the state. In many areas, only the roofs of houses are visible and where the water has subsided there is thick black mud and garbage.

Much of Chennai and its suburbs remain submerged for the fourth consecutive day under up to two-and-half metres of water. Schools, hospitals, factories and other facilities in and around the flat coastal city have been shut down. This includes the Ford, Renault, Daimler, Hyundai and Nissan auto plants, the Royal Enfield motorcycle company, the Indian Oil Corporation and three commercial television networks.

Yesterday the media reported that at least 18 patients in intensive care at MIOT International, a Chennai private hospital, have died since December 2 after floods flooded the power generators that maintain critical life-support systems.

All highways to the city are closed with most mobile telephone networks in Chennai down. The city’s central railway station was shut on Wednesday and on Thursday Chennai airport was closed. Over 1,500 stranded passengers had to be rescued from the international airport on Wednesday. The Airport Authority of India has announced that the facility may be able to start partial operations today.

The majority of those affected are working-class families and the poor. The cost of basic items—milk, vegetables and drinking water—has skyrocketed. A two-litre bottle of mineral water, normally available for 30 rupees, now costs 150 rupees while a one-litre packet of milk, usually 20 rupees, is being sold in some places for 100 rupees.

D.K. Sharma, medical superintendent at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, told the Indo-Asian News Service on Friday: “The situation will become critical now and there are possibilities that diseases like cholera, diarrhea would spread and various types of infections would increase. The intake of safe and clean water at this time is very important to avoid any disease.” He also warned that stagnant water contaminated by bacteria could result in several types of severe skin and throat infections.

In some areas Chennai authorities gave no warning to local residents before opening flood gates on some of the city’s 30 waterways. One South Chennai resident told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that he was not given adequate information about water being released from a nearby lake. The Tamil Nadu public works department claimed that it had issued warnings but there had been a breakdown in media and phone communications. In North Chennai, residents held protests denouncing the state government for its lack of any rescue response in their locality.

An Indian home ministry official said that the central government would be sending “technical experts and engineers who will find a solution to flush out all the flood water. It has to be drained out soon, but we don’t know how.”

Addressing the Indian parliament on Thursday, Home Minister Rajnath Singh described the situation in Tamil Nadu as “alarming” and said that Chennai had been “turned into an island.”

On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the release of 10 billion rupees ($US154 million) for flood relief in Tamil Nadu. Indian government officials claimed that this was on top of 9.4 billion rupees ($145 million) previously announced. These amounts are a pittance compared to the magnitude of the devastation, not just in Chennai but across the state. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa Jayaram has called on the Indian government to provide 80 billion rupees in floor relief assistance.

Contrary to government claims that authorities are providing “all possible help” for flood victims, the official relief operations are very limited. While over 4,000 military personnel have been deployed, on Thursday only four helicopters were involved in dropping food, water and medicines. In Chengalpattu, near Chennai, residents have told the media that they have not received any government relief and that food parcels are only being distributed by NGOs and local organisations.

Indian authorities have attempted to blame climate change for the flooding but according to weather experts, the seasonal north-east monsoon, worsened by the El Nino effect in the eastern Pacific Ocean, was mainly responsible for the unprecedented rainfall.

The flooding is an indictment of all levels of government—central, state and city—that have been promoting Chennai as a “developed” metropolis in order to attract investors and allowed uncontrolled and unsafe development throughout the city.

In fact, one of the principal reasons for the devastation in Chennai is government endorsement of major building projects without proper planning and lack of serious flood-precaution measures. The construction of high-rise buildings on wetlands and marshes that previously absorbed heavy rain has led major to flooding even during normal monsoon periods. The absence of effective storm-water drainage systems means that the water has nowhere to go and quickly inundates low-lying areas and roads throughout the city.

Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) director Sunita Narain told the Hindu on December 3 said that the Chennai floods were the direct result of unregulated urbanisation. “Urban sprawls such as Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Srinagar, have not paid adequate attention to the natural water bodies that exist in them. In Chennai, each of its lakes has a natural flood discharge channel which drains the spillover. But we have built over many of these water bodies, blocking the smooth flow of water.”

According to CSE research, Chennai had over 600 lakes in the 1980s but by 2008 only a fraction were in healthy condition. State records also indicated that the total area of 19 major lakes, which provide storage, shrank from 1,130 hectares in the 1980s to around 645 hectares in the early 2000s. The CSE said that drains carrying surplus water from lakes to other wetlands area had also been reduced and hundreds of city storm-water drains required immediate de-silting.

Number of US investable wealth millionaires grew by 8.6 percent in 2014

Andre Damon

The number of “high net worth individuals” in the United States increased by 8.6 percent in 2014, according to a report released Wednesday by consulting firm Capgemini.

The firm’s 2015 US Wealth Report showed that the number of such “high net worth individuals” (HWNI), or those with $1 million or more in investable assets, grew to 4.4 million, and that their overall wealth grew by 9.4 percent to $15.2 trillion.

Significantly, the enrichment and expansion of this social layer, which makes up slightly more than 1 percent of the population, took place even as the earnings of a typical household continued to decline. The Census Bureau noted earlier this year that the median household income in the US fell from $54,462 in 2013 to $53,657 in 2014, and that this figure is down by 6.5 percent since 2007, the year before the official start of the 2008 recession.

Despite six years of what the Federal Reserve and the White House have termed an economic “recovery,” in which the official unemployment rate has returned to the “normal” level of 5 percent, the incomes of a typical household have fallen year after year during the Obama presidency.

The Capgemini report noted that the US continues to create more wealthy, rich, and super-rich people than any other country. The US accounted for 28.6 percent of all wealth created for HWNI since 2007, despite having only 5 percent of the world’s population.

But even the US’s sharp increase in millionaires was dwarfed in percentage terms by China, whose population of HWNI grew at a rate of 17.5 percent as a result of the country’s speculative run-up in stock prices.

Both the US and China created millionaires more quickly than the rest of the world, whose population of HWNI increased by 6.7 percent, while their wealth increased by 7.2 percent last year, according to the firm.

The rise in the numbers of investable wealth millionaires paralleled the continued growth in stock values, which rose 11 percent last year. This process had in turn been fueled by seven years of bank bailouts, zero interest rates and quantitative easing carried out by global central banks, with the leading role played by the US Federal Reserve.

Despite the Federal Reserve’s intention to begin raising rates slowly, these policies continue to expand and intensify worldwide. On Thursday, Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, announced a further reduction of one of the bank’s benchmark interest rates. Global financial firms, who expected that Draghi would announce another expansion of “quantitative easing” asset purchases, responded with a stock selloff.

Draghi, whipped into line by the response of financial markets, clarified Friday that the ECB stands ready to carry out further quantitative easing in the future, prompting global stocks to rally in response.

The Capgemini report only hinted at the sharp disparity between the relative social weight of “millionaires next door” and so-called ultra-high net worth individuals, or those with $30 million or more in investable wealth.

But another report, published this week by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), pointed to the vast amount of US and global wealth dominated by a handful of super-rich oligarchs.

“America’s 20 wealthiest people—a group that could fit comfortably in one single Gulfstream G650 luxury jet—now own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population combined, a total of 152 million people in 57 million households,” noted the report.

The IPS report is an analysis of figures published by Forbes magazine in October that showed that the 400 richest people in the US had their wealth grow to a record $2.34 trillion.

The IPS added, “The Forbes 400 own more wealth than the bottom 61 percent of the country combined, a staggering 194 million people,” a figure larger than the combined populations of Canada and Mexico.

But even the Forbes figures are likely to underestimate the true scale of social inequality in the US. Researcher Gabriel Zucman has computed that some 8 percent of personal wealth is held in offshore tax havens, and hence untaxed.

This enormous concentration of wealth has been significantly accelerated under the Obama administration, whose policies have been aimed at protecting and expanding the wealth of the financial oligarchy that dominates American society, at the expense of the working population.

After making its first order of business upon assuming office the extension and expansion of the Bush administration’s taxpayer-funded bailout of Wall Street, the Obama administration made the proliferation of poverty-wage jobs the precondition for its restructuring of the US auto industry. It worked with congressional Republicans to impose sweeping cuts to social programs benefiting poor and low-income households.

As a result of these policies, the social legacy of the Obama administration has been a vast increase in the wealth of the financial oligarchy on one pole of society, and the impoverishment of the great majority of working people on the other.

Do Mass Killings Bother You?

David Swanson

We now know this. A young man who had successfully killed on a large scale went to his religious leader with doubts and was told that mass killing was part of God's plan. The young man continued killing until he had participated in killing sprees that took 1,626 lives -- men, women, and children.

I repeat: his death count was not the 16 or 9 or 22 lives that make top news stories, but 1,626 dead and mutilated bodies.

Do such things bother you?

What if you learned that this young man's name was Brandon Bryant, and that he killed as a drone pilot for the U.S. Air Force, and that he was presented with a certificate for his 1,626 kills and congratulated on a job well done by the United States of America? What if you learned that his religious leader was a Christian chaplain?

Do such things still bother you?

What if you learned that most of the people killed by U.S. drones are civilians? That the pilots "double-tap," meaning that they send a missile into a wedding party or a house and then wait for people to try to help the injured and send a second missile into them? That as a result one hears the injured screaming for hours until they die, as no one comes to help? That a drone pilot sent a missile into a group of children from which three children survived who recognized their dead brothers but had no idea that various pieces of flesh were what was left of their Mom and Dad and consequently cried out for those now gone-forever individuals?

Is this troubling?

What if President Obama's claim of few or no civilian deaths was proven false by well-documented reporting? And by the fact that most victims are targeted without even knowing their names?

What if a leading candidate for president in the past week were to both declare that the way to win a war is to start killing whole families, and stage a public Christian prayer session in order to win over a certain demographic of voters?

Is that bothering?

What if it became clear that police officers in the United States have been murdering people at a higher rate than drone pilots? Would you want to see police videos of their killings? Would you want to see drone videos of their killings? We have thus far gained limited access to the former and none to the latter.

What if it were discovered that gun murders in San Bernardino are almost routine. Would they all be equally tragic?

My point is not to cease caring about the tragedy that the television stations tell you to care about. I wish everyone would care 1,000 times more, and even better do something to take away the guns and the hatred and the culture of violence and the economic injustice and the alienation.

My point is that there are other tragedies that go unmentioned, including larger ones. And exploiting one tragedy to fuel hatred toward a large segment of the human population of earth is madness.

Rolling Back The Destructive Influence of The Global Agribusiness Cartel

Colin Todhunter

And now for the good news.

As the rest of the world eats denutrified, poisoned 'food' and capitulates to the criminal cartel of US agribusiness, as India destroys its soils with petrochemical-monocrop agriculture and looks to GMOs, as corrupt governments and regulatory bodies do the bidding of Monsanto, Russia is committed to not selling out the health of millions, the fertility of the land or the food security of the nation to a handful of criminals in the West who have destroyed indigenous agriculture across the planet.

Russia could become the world's largest supplier of ecologically clean and high-quality organic food. On Thursday, President Vladimir Putin while addressing the Russian parliament called on the country to become completely self-sufficient in food production by 2020:

"We are not only able to feed ourselves taking into account our lands, water resources – Russia is able to become the largest world supplier of healthy, ecologically clean and high-quality food which the Western producers have long lost, especially given the fact that demand for such products in the world market is steadily growing."

Russia is already developing a strategy to build up its domestic food production and is in a good position given its extremely fertile soils.

The government has already banned the import and planting of GM food and crops, and, according to Willian Engdahl, the language on Russian media news sites that punishment for knowingly introducing GMO crops into Russia illegally should have a punishment comparable to that given to terrorists for knowingly hurting people.

The other good news is that on the same day that Putin made his statement, the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), IFOAM International Organics, Navdanya, Regeneration International (RI) and Millions Against Monsanto, joined by dozens of global food, farming and environmental justice groups, announced that they would be putting Monsanto on trial for crimes against nature and humanity, and ecocide, in The Hague, the Netherlands, next year on World Food Day, October 16, 2016.

According to the Monsanto Tribunal website, the company promotes an agro-industrial model that:

· contributes at least one third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions

· is largely responsible for the depletion of soil and water resources, species extinction and declining biodiversity and the displacement of millions of small farmers worldwide

· is a model that threatens peoples’ food sovereignty by patenting seeds and privatising life

For many decades, Monsanto has developed a steady stream of highly toxic products which have permanently damaged the environment and caused illness or death for thousands of people. It has indulged in numerous acts of criminality, cover ups and duplicitous practices over the decades.

Relying on the “Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights” adopted by the UN in 2011, an international court of lawyers and judges will assess the potential criminal liability of Monsanto for damages inflicted on human health and the environment. The court will also rely on the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2002, and it will consider whether to reform international criminal law to include crimes against the environment, or ecocide, as a prosecutable criminal offense.

The International Criminal Court, established in 2002 in The Hague, has determined that prosecuting ecocide as a criminal offence is the only way to guarantee the rights of humans to a healthy environment and the right of nature to be protected.

The announcement was made at a press conference held in conjunction with the COP21 United Nations Conference on Climate Change, November 30 – December 11, in Paris.

Speaking at the press conference, Andre Leu, president of IFOAM and a member of the RI Steering Committee, said:

“Monsanto is able to ignore the human and environmental damage caused by its products, and maintain its devastating activities through a strategy of systemic concealment: by lobbying regulatory agencies and governments, by resorting to lying and corruption, by financing fraudulent scientific studies, by pressuring independent scientists, and by manipulating the press and media. Monsanto’s history reads like a text-book case of impunity, benefiting transnational corporations and their executives, whose activities contribute to climate and biosphere crises and threaten the safety of the planet.”

Vandana Shiva, founder of Navdanya (India) added:

"Monsanto has pushed GMOs in order to collect royalties from poor farmers, trapping them in unpayable debt. Monsanto promotes an agro-industrial model that contributes at least 50 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Monsanto is also largely responsible for the depletion of soil and water resources, species extinction and declining biodiversity, and the displacement of millions of small farmers worldwide."

Visit the Monsanto Tribunal site here

Is There A Future For Our Species

Gunther Ostermann

The leaders of European countries are facing massive political, economic and social problems, with no real solutions in sight. But those very serious issues actually pale to global once,

Consider the following statements from five famous people: “We’re a plague on the world.” Filmmaker Sir David Attenborough... "How can the human race sustain another 100 years?" Physics professor Stephen Hawking... “Can human beings survive the 21st century?” American linguist, cognitive scientist and philosopher Noam Chomsky...“The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth." Pope Francis... “What is at stake is whether we have a future at all."U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.

In view of their statements, I would like to share some ideas I’ve collected in my 80 journeys around the sun. But first, please watch Carl Sagan's video, A Pale Blue Dot. (Please Google it)

This puts our life on that tiny planet in perspective -- how insignificant we are, and how utterly stupid we humans behave. Planet Earth is beautiful, still, and the only planet we know of, so far, that is habitable.

Since newspaper space is limited, I would like to share some thoughts from previously written letters. The following key words will open them using Google: "KyivPost, Ostermann, protecting environment."... "I'm appealing on behalf of those who cannot speak."... "Utopia or Oblivion, Ostermann"..."Could we be, or are we, potential mind-substance beings?"... “Is there no alternative? Countercurrents, Ostermann.”... “In the light of our present understanding I would call it software. Kelownacapnews."..."Letter to Bill Gates from modern day Galileo. Sky Valley Chronicle.”

Since people of all ages are disillusioned and left traditional religion, there is a need for a new vision which needs to be created by open-minded thinkers, based on the latest scientific discoveries. Sadly, lack of imagination by our scientists and philosophers resulted in ISIS, who filled that vacuum.

In Bill Nye’s book Undeniable (2014) he quotes what Charles Darwin said in the last chapter of Origin of Species: "Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this Earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed.”

Why has the plain admission by Darwin, that he believed in a breath giver, been ignored all this time, which should have, and still can, change the world?

Only with honesty, truth and justice can there be a future for our species, and I don’t see any of it, anywhere.

'Deadliest Terror In The World': The West's Latest Gift To Africa

Dan Glazebrook

Nigeria’s Boko Haram are now officially the deadliest terror group in the world. That they have reached this position is a direct consequence of Cameron and co’s war on Libya – and one that was perhaps not entirely unintended.

According to a report just released by Global Terrorism Index, Boko Haram were responsible for 6,644 deaths in 2014, compared to 6,073 attributed to ISIS, representing a quadrupling of their total killings in 2013. In the past week alone, bombings conducted by the group have killed eight people on a bus in Maiduguri; a family of five in Fotokol, Cameroon; fifteen people in a crowded marketplace in Kano; and thirty-two people outside a mosque in Yola.

In 2009, the year they took up arms, Boko Haram had nothing like the capacity to mount such operations, and their equipment remained primitive; but by 2011, that had begun to change. As Peter Weber noted in The Week, their weapons “shifted from relatively cheap AK-47s in the early days of its post-2009 embrace of violence to desert-ready combat vehicles and anti-aircraft/ anti-tank guns”. This dramatic turnaround in the group’s access to materiel was the direct result of NATO’s war on Libya. A UN report published in early 2012 warned that “large quantities of weapons and ammunition from Libyan stockpiles were smuggled into the Sahel region”, including “rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns with anti-aircraft visors, automatic rifles, ammunition, grenades, explosives (Semtex), and light anti-aircraft artillery (light caliber bi-tubes) mounted on vehicles”, and probably also more advanced weapons such as surface-to-air missiles and MANPADS (man-portable air-defence systems). NATO had effectively turned over the entire armoury of an advanced industrial state to the region’s most sectarian militias: groups such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram.

The earliest casualty of NATO’s war outside Libya was Mali. Taureg fighters who had worked in Gaddafi’s security forces fled Libya soon after Gaddafi’s government was overthrown, and mounted an insurgency in Northern Mali. They in turn were overthrown, however, by Al Qaeda’s regional affiliates - flush with Libyan weaponry - who then turned Northern Mali into another base from which to train and launch attacks. Boko Haram was a key beneficiary. AS Brendan O’ Neill wrote in an excellent 2014 article worth quoting at length: “Boko Haram benefited enormously from the vacuum created in once-peaceful northern Mali following the West’s ousting of Gaddafi. In two ways: first, it honed its guerrilla skills by fighting alongside more practised Islamists in Mali, such as AQIM; and second, it accumulated some of the estimated 15,000 pieces of Libyan military hardware and weaponry that leaked across the country’s borders following the sweeping aside of Gaddafi. In April 2012, Agence France-Presse reported that ‘dozens of Boko Haram fighters’ were assisting AQIM and others in northern Mali. This had a devastating knock-on effect in Nigeria. As the Washington Post reported in early 2013, ‘The Islamist insurgency in northern Nigeria has entered a more violent phase as militants return to the fight with sophisticated weaponry and tactics learned on the battlefields of nearby Mali’. A Nigerian analyst said ‘Boko Haram’s level of audacity was high [in late 2012]’, immediately following the movement of some of its militants to the Mali region.”

That NATO’s Libya war would have such consequences was both thoroughly predictable, and widely predicted. As early as June 2011, African Union Chairman Jean Ping warned NATO that “Africa’s concern is that weapons that are delivered to one side or another…are already in the desert and will arm terrorists and fuel trafficking”. And both Mali and Algeria strongly opposed NATO’s destruction of Libya precisely because of the massive destabilisation it would bring to the region. They argued, wrote O’Neill, “that such a violent upheaval in a region like north Africa could have potentially catastrophic consequences. The fallout from the bombing is ‘a real source of concern’, said the rulers of Mali in October 2011. In fact, as the BBC reported, they had been arguing since ‘the start of the conflict in Libya’ – that is, since the civil conflict between Benghazi-based militants and Gaddafi began – that ‘the fall of Gaddafi would have a destabilising effect in the region’.” In an op-ed following the collapse of Northern Mali, a former Chief of Staff of UK land forces, Major-General Jonathan Shaw, wrote that Colonel Gaddafi was a “lynchpin” of the “informal Sahel security plan”, whose removal therefore led to a foreseeable collapse of security across the entire region. The rise of Boko Haram has been but one result – and not without strategic benefits for the West.

Nigeria was once seen by the US as one of its most dependable allies on the African continent. Yet, following a pattern that is repeated across the entire global South, in recent years the country has been moving ever closer to China. The headline grabbing deal was the $23 billion contract signed in 2010 with the Chinese to construct three fuel refineries, adding an extra 750,000 barrels per day to Nigeria’s oil producing capacity. This was followed up in 2013 with an agreement to increase Nigerian oil exports to China tenfold by 2015 (from 20,000 to 200,000 barrels per day). But China’s economic interests go far beyond that. A Nigerian diplomat interviewed by China-Africa specialist Deborah Brautigam told her that “The Chinese are trying to get involved in every sector of our economy. If you look at the West, it’s oil, oil, oil and nothing else.” In 2006, China issued an $8.3billion low-interest loan to Nigeria to fund the building of a major new railway, and the following year China built a telecommunications satellite for Nigeria. Indeed, of last year’s $18 billion worth of bilateral trade between the two countries, over 88% was in the non-petroleum sector, and by 2012 Nigerian imports from China (it’s biggest import partner) totalled more than that of its second and third biggest import partners, the US and India, combined. This kind of trade and investment is of the type that is seriously aiding Africa’s ability to add value to its products – and is thereby undermining the Western global economic order, which relies on Africa remaining an under-developed exporter of cheap raw materials.

Not has China’s co-operation been limited to economics. In 2004, China supported Nigeria’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council, and in 2006, Nigeria signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Establishment of a Strategic Partnership with China – the first African country to do so. It is a partnership with a solid base of support – according to a BBC poll conducted in 2011, 85% of Nigerians have a positive view of China; perhaps not surprising when even pro-US security thinktanks like the Jamestown Foundation admit that “China’s links with Nigeria are qualitatively different from the West’s, and as a result, may potentially produce benefits for the ordinary people of Nigeria”. Symbolising the importance of the relationship, current Chinese Premier Li Keqiang made Nigeria his first foreign destination after taking up the role in 2013.

This growing South-South co-operation is not viewed positively by the US, which is witnessing what it once saw as a dependable client state edge increasingly out of its orbit. The African Oil Policy Initiative Group – a consortium of US Congressmen, military officials and energy lobbyists – had already concluded in a 2002 report that China was a rival of the US for influence in West Africa that would need to be deterred by military means, and China has been increasingly viewed by US policymakers as a strategic threat to be contained militarily ever since. A report by US Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey just this July highlighted China as one of the major ‘security threats’ to US domination, for example - although Obama’s ‘Pivot to Asia’ policy had already made this clear back in 2013.

Is it such a stretch, then, to think that the US might actually want to cripple its strategic rival, China, by destabilising her allies, such as Nigeria? After all, despite continued US links to Nigeria, it is China, more than any other foreign partner, who has the most to lose from the Boko Hara insurgency, as the Jamestown Foundation makes clear: “Unlike most other foreign actors in the country, [the Chinese] are investing in fixed assets, such as refineries and factories, with the intention of developing a long-term economic relationship. Consequently, stability and good governance in Nigeria is advantageous for Beijing because it is the only way to guarantee that Chinese interests are protected”. If the US increasingly sees its own strategy in terms of undermining Chinese interests – and there is every sign that it does – the corollary of this statement is surely that instability in Nigeria is the only way to guarantee that Chinese interests are threatened – and, therefore, that US strategic goals are served. The US’s lacklustre efforts in backing Nigerian efforts against Boko Haram - from blocking arms deliveries last year, to funding the fight in all of Nigeria’s neighbours, but not Nigeria itself – as well as its suspension of Nigerian crude oil imports from July 2014 (“a decision that helped plunge Nigeria into one of its most severe financial crises”, according to one national daily) would certainly indicate that.

Forcing Greek Women Into Prostitution: Capitalism At Work

Paul Craig Roberts

Demonstrators protest against government austerity measures outside the Greek Parliament in Athens

Zero Hedge reports a story from “Keep Talking Greece” that first appeared in The Times http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4624755.ece

According to the story, the plummeting living standards forced on the Greek people by German chancellor Merkel and the European banks have forced large numbers of young Greek women into prostitution. The large increase in the supply of women offering sexual services has dropped the price to 4 euros an hour. That’s $4.24, enough for a cheese pie or a sandwich, the value that bankster-imposed austerity has placed on an hour’s use of a woman’s body. The half hour price is $2.12. They don’t even get the minimum wage.

When one reads a story such as this, one hopes it is a parody or a caricature. Although the London Times has fallen a long way, it is not yet the kind of newspaper that can be purchased at grocery store checkout counters.

The story gains credence from the websites in the US on which female university students advertise their availability as mistresses to men who have the financial means to help them with their expenses. From various news reports, mistress seems to be a main occupation of female students at high-cost universities such as NYU.

The NYU girls have it far better than the Greek ones. The mistress relationship is monogamous and can be long-lasting and loving. Prudes make an issue of the disparity in ages, but disparity in age was long a feature of upper class marriages. Prostitutes have large numbers of partners, each possibly carrying disease, and they receive nothing in return except cash. In Greece, if the report is correct, the payment is so low that the women cannot survive on the money beyond lunchtime.

This is capitalism at work. In the US the hardship comes from escalating tuition costs, with 75% of the university budget spent on administration, rather than on faculty or student aid, and from the lack of jobs available to graduates that pay enough to service the student loans. These days your waiter in the restaurant might be an adjunct or part-time university professor hoping to get a full-time job as an actor. As mistresses, the NYU girls will be doing better.

In Greece the hardship is imposed from outside the country by the European Union, which Greece foolishly joined, giving away its sovereignty in exchange for austerity. The banksters and their agents in the EU and German governments claim that the Greek people benefitted from the loans and, therefore, are responsible for paying back the loans. But the loans were not made to the Greek people. The loans were made to corrupt Greek governments who were paid bribes by the lenders to accept the loans, and the proceeds often were used for purchases from the country from which the loan originated. For example, Greek governments were paid bribes to borrow money from German or other foreign banks in order to purchase German submarines. It is through this type of corruption that the Greek debt grew.

The story told by the financial media and neoliberal economists who shill for the banksters is that the Greek people irresponsibly borrowed the money and spent it on welfare for themselves, and having enjoyed the fruits of the loans don’t want to repay them. This story is a lie. But the lie serves to ensure that the Greek people are looted in order to make good the banks’ own mistakes in overlending. The banks got both the loan fees and the kickbacks from the submarine producers. (I am using submarine producers as a generic for the range of outside goods and services on which the loans were spent.)

In Greece the loans are being paid by money “saved” by cutting Greek pensions, education and social services, and public employment, and by money raised from selling off public assets such as ports, municipal water systems and protected islands. The cutbacks in pensions, education, social services and employment drain money from the economy, and the sale of public assets drains money from the government’s budget. Michael Hudson tells the story brilliantly in his new book, Killing The Host.

The result is widespread hardship, and the result of the hardship is that young Greek women have to sell themselves.

It is just as Marx, Engels, and Lenin said.

One would think that people everywhere would be outraged. But to most of those who commented on Zero Hedge it is just something to make crude jokes about—“think about it, Viagra costs 4x the cost of pussy.” “Sure beats dating and taking a girl to dinner.” Those who represent the vaunted “Western Values” see nothing to be outraged about.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-28/meanwhile-greece-price-prostitute-drops-€4-hour

The percentage of pro-Western Russians who look to the West for leadership must be rapidly approaching zero.

What’s more important? The dignity of women or another billion dollars for the banksters?
Western “civilization” has given its answer: Another billion dollars for the banksters.

Why Are Muslims So Angry?

Alan MacLeod

Why are Muslims so Angry? The Real explanation for the rise of Radical Islam has more to do with history and politics as it does with religion.

The world was shocked by the brutal Paris attacks on November 13th. The group calling themselves ISIS took responsibility for them. Coming just months after the Charlie Hebdo shooting by individuals linked to Al-Qaeda, it left millions wondering what explained the wave of radical Islamist terror in the West. Why are Muslims so angry?

For many commentators in the West, such as Bill Maher and Sam Harris, the explanation is simple: Islam as a religion is fundamentally backward and violent and therefore must be confronted with force in order to save Western values such as freedom and democracy. In this sense, it is little more than a rehashing of Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” theory, or even the much older “White Man’s Burden.”

The real explanation owes much more to the Middle East’s history and politics than it does to badly thought out, Islamophobic theories on religion. As early as the 1940’s, Western governments had identified Middle Eastern oil as a “stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history.” We would do well to underline the strategic power of oil. It is the keystone resource of the world. Without oil there is no transport, obviously. But there is also no agriculture, as it has been mechanized and oil is used in fertilizers. There would be no electricity, and therefore, no functioning offices, schools, or factories. There would be no plastics, nor any other materials with which to build. In short, who controls oil controls the world.

Western powers, particularly the US, UK and France, have been dedicated to controlling the Middle East and opposing any independent, nationalist or democratic movement that would challenge Western corporations’ right to siphon off trillions in exorbitant profits into Swiss banks. In order to oppose these secular, democratic movements, the West has found some willing allies: radical Islamist groups.

In his book “Secret Affairs: Britain’s Secret Collusion with Radical Islam”, Mark Curtis recounts the history of the region and found that, far from being enemies, these powers have funded, trained and supported virtually every extremist Muslim in the region group for five reasons:

1. “As a global counterforce to the ideologies of secular nationalism and Soviet communism”
2. “As “conservative muscle” within countries to undermine secular nationalists and bolster pro-Western regimes”
3. “As “shock troops” to destabilise or overthrow governments”
4. “As proxy military forces to fight wars”
5. “As political tools to leverage change from governments”.

The two British objectives in installing or maintaining radical Islamists in power are:

1. “Influence and control of key energy resources, always recognised in the British planning documents as the number one priority in the Middle East.”
2. “Maintaining Britain’s place within a pro-Western global financial order.”

In Egypt, the UK and France supported the Muslim Brotherhood in an attempt to overthrow the passionately secular and independent nationalist President Nasser. They even invaded the country in 1956.

In Iran, the CIA overthrew the progressive nationalist Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh had dared to nationalize the oil industry, much to the chagrin of the Anglo-Iranian oil company. He was replaced by the brutal Shah of Iran. His repressive regime directly led to the 1979 revolution.

In Palestine, Israel and its Western backers nurtured the extremist Islamist party HAMAS in the hopes that it would be a counterweight to the secular, popular, and, therefore, dangerous Fatah party of Yasser Arafat.

In Afghanistan, the West backed the Mujahedeen against the Soviets, Margaret Thatcher calling the organization “genuine freedom fighters.” The Independent called Osama Bin Laden an “anti-Soviet warrior” who was putting the country “on the road to peace.”

In Libya, the West armed and supported Al-Qaeda, the organization that bombed the World Trade Center in 2001 in an effort to destroy the independent and secular strongman Colonel Gaddafi.

And the most radical, regressive Islamist regime of them all, Saudi Arabia, is the West’s key ally in the region, making a mockery of any ideas of “clash of civilizations.” The US in particular takes particular care to make sure their client state does not fall to democratic protestors. The Saudi regime trains thousands of clerics in the most radically regressive interpretation of Islam and sends them throughout the Muslim world. It also funds a myriad of television, pumping out similar messages, all with the tacit approval of Washington, London and Paris. With Saudi funding, General Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan carried out a program of radical Islamisation of his country. President Reagan shared nuclear technology with the dictator.

The great irony is that Western governments fund and support groups that seek their destruction. It highlights just how low a priority keeping their citizens safe is. Much more important is increasing the wealth and power of their elites.

Fifty years ago much of the Muslim world was decidedly secular and relatively progressive. But any hope of a return to a moderate age was crushed in the 1990’s, 2000’s and 2010’s with a succession of Western wars of aggression that obliterated much of the region. Afghanis, Iraqis, Libyans and Syrians have witnessed devastation, and the destruction of their societies. The US even helped incubate ISIS in Iraq and Syria in order to undermine the Assad regime. It should be noted that pre-war Iraq and Syria were famously secular societies, yet now they are the center of the Islamic State. If you’d seen your family killed and your town destroyed, you might be radicalized too.

In short, for decades, the Western powers have stamped out any secular, nationalist alternative to their rule by proxy with the help of jackbooted Islamist militants who are then given free reign to build up their power and influence in the vacuum. This history is not hidden from Muslims. And it has built up huge anger and resentment of Western governments. It is not because Muslims in the Middle East hate “Western” values of freedom and democracy that there is so much resentment of the West. Rather, it is precisely because they share those same values and are denied them by Western-backed dictators and radical groups that there is such resentment. As far back as 1958, the Eisenhower administration reported that there is such resentment of the US in Egypt because the US “is seeking to protect its interest in Near East oil by supporting the status quo and opposing political or economic progress” and “desires to keep the Arab world disunited and is committed to work with “reactionary” elements to that end.” Some things never change.

But the attackers were European, not Asian. They were people who had been shunned by an increasingly intolerant society.Comparing Muslim refugees to cockroaches has become mainstream in Europe while the Washington Post reported that Americans see Muslims as apes, or worse. With little economic prospects they were forced to live in ghettoized communities in the dingy suburbs, constantly told they have no place in Western society. Outcasts, they were easy fodder for Islamist groups preaching hate.

This is exactly what ISIS wants. ISIS wants Westerners to hate refugees. ISIS’ goal is to create a real “clash of civilizations” in order to drive more Muslims into its arms. The only two groups who wish for this scenario to be a reality are Islamic extremists and Western governments.

The social science on countering extremism in the West is clear. Providing young Muslims chances of a life of dignity and opportunity is key, as is the secession of wars in the Middle East and support for radical Islamist regimes.

So, far from being enemies, the Western powers and radical Jihadist groups share similar interests. For every terrorist bombing the Islamic State commits in the West, governments can introduce new rounds of repressive measures. The anti-terrorism act was passed in the wake of the September 11th bombings and was used to arrest occupy and student protestors in England. Today, the Paris shootings serve as an excuse for the US government to ban encryption, which had nothing to do with them. Ahead of the Paris Climate Conference, the French government has used emergency laws to arrest climate activists. They also serve as justifications for more invasions and more wars in the Middle East. The British government is currently trying to stir up support for bombing Syria. These wars then further provoke anger and a terrorist backlash, as governments concede. It is a vicious circle. Western governments are continuing to wage war in the Middle East and to promote radical Islamists in order to control the oil of the region, despite the fact that this makes its citizens exponentially less safe. To their governments, a few dozen, or even a few thousand deaths is a small price to pay to control the most stupendous source of strategic power.

Until we realize that we have more in common with ordinary Muslims and confront the reasons for their anger, the cycle of violence will continue.

Heaven or Hell On Earth: A Human or Planetary-Made Crisis?

Jerome Irwin

This is the question that lies at the heart of many political-economic-environmental crises in today’s world. Whatever the source, it always has something to do with humans not living within their means in harmony with other humans and the natural world around them. The very nature of humans is corrupted by the seven hellish sins of: pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony and sloth; engaged in perpetual conflict with their opposites among the seven heavenly virtues of: humility, generosity, kindness, patience, charity, temperance and diligence. It’s a perpetual Ying/Yang that seeks the creation of either a Heaven or Hell on Earth.

The crisis at the heart of the upcoming Paris Climate Conference is no different. All the lofty goals, hopes and expectations yet to be drafted by well-meaning humans will inevitably remain fraught with many such Ying/Yang frustrations and acrimonies.

Given the scale of the multitude of problems in the world – fueled by a constant out-of-control population explosion and neoliberal, fascistic war of economic-political-military-environmental terror - unless the human nature of Homo sapiens can demonstrate rapid, radical, positive change, nothing will fundamentally reduce the human or planetary crises at hand. So, unless and until some remarkable new balance or homeostasis somehow is struck between these seven sins and virtues, the Hell on Earth humans seem intent upon constantly creating for its own and other species will simply continue to escalate.
As the 2015 Climate Conference convenes in Paris, amidst on-going war tensions that threaten to engulf the world, the French government’s decision to ban civil society protests, marches and rallies around the conference, or the daily skewed spins created by the world’s mainstream press that constantly subvert the truth about so much, are reminders of what forever lies behind the catastrophe of the human crises and their parallels in the natural world. Since many of the world’s best and brightest will be prevented from convening in Paris or muzzled from discussing the real source and solution to so many perplexing human dilemmas and impasses, the real core question is whose values, ultimately, will be given the greatest precedence in the increasingly chaotic world in which the human species finds itself enmeshed?

No matter what comes out of Paris, life will go on as it always must, whether human crises manifest through further horrific events like: the Paris Tragedy of November 13th; the Syrian Civil War; mass exodus of displaced Middle Eastern, African, South American peoples, or; the endless ‘War of Terror’ waged against both humans and the planet. Yet as life goes on, will it reflect ever more corrupt-anarchic-elitist-fascist values, morals and principles that are bringing the world to its knees due to too little propensity for making positive, life-giving changes?

The physical outer world is always a mirror reflection of the inner spiritual world. The mounting planetary climate change simply an extension of escalating climatic conditions among humans that only ever seem to change in the degree of intensity and amount of violence that is perpetrated against the earth or humanity, whether the violence is: some monstrous civil war; an ignorant, mean-spirited political harangue against raising the minimum wage of the average worker, irrespective of how much obscenely more their CEO counterparts receive, or; corporate monsters like Monsanto, Pfizer, Lockheed Martin or Raytheon, to name but a tiny few; and rogue countries like Saudi Arabia, Israel, United States, amidst a rogues gallery of still unnamed others, who constantly destroy the welfare and well-being of the planet and humans alike.

Some new all-encompassing word must be found for the human tongue that can succinctly communicate for the marginalized masses and their leaders the real dimensions of this violent human-climatic crisis that, once uttered, as if by magic, will everywhere cause the penny to drop and bring about a much-needed 180 degree sea change within the affairs of the human species and its tiny planetary home hurtling together through endless unchartered space.

Yet, one way or the other, with or without we humans as fellow travelers, our Planet Earth will continue, undeterred, on her cosmic journey towards whatever unknown destination.

Nameless Heroes: The Untold Tale of Everyday Sufferers

Qazi Shibli

The catalyst for what I write now – for helping people and causes do less Good Work and more Great Work – came when I rediscovered a scrap of paper in my subconscious self. It was a photocopied page from a memory of the past and it suddenly crystallised what I was trying to do. It was one of those moments when “inspiration is when your past suddenly makes sense and you feel proud of it.

But that makes it sound like one flash of light and ta-da! it’s all sorted out. But more accurately for me, the entire process was much closer to those beautiful sand mandalas you see Tibetan monks painstakingly create. For years I have been probing, pushing, checking, trying, exploring, stumbling, feeling and trying to get closer to what I stand for, what I want to do and who I want to be. The chaotic and troublesome ruins of the world lie in the universalisation of definitions, Success, fame, respect. But somehow, these pieces of papers helped me rediscover the definitions, Look into their focal facet. Heroes always do not have a massive support. Successful do not always come down from a bungalow or a car.

With a bare Bandaged foot, this tall, brawny bearded Guy who barely can walk welcomes us near the gate to his sisters wedding. A combined queue of Pro Resistance activists from all schools of thought and ideology working enthusiastically greet us and click photographs and post it to their Facebook timelines. The host who can barely sit with his plastered foot with a mouth closed illustrates his story of pain and anguish.

Ordinary people turn inspirational, by being extraordinarily thoughtful, intelligent, resistive, kind, and honourable by questioning the traditions, observing contradictions, and refusing to accept what they have been told when their experiences tell them something different. We often have no record, however, of most of these everyday folks. For many, an essay gives life to those men and women who did remarkable things without becoming famous for doing them, who doubted and wondered and empathised and made decisions for themselves.

Shobu kotwal’s house is located in one of the posh areas of the South Kashmir township, Islamabad. He owns a shop at the bustled main town square. Shobu boards a vehicle outside his house which drops him near his shop, though he prefers to walk most of the times owing to his fascination to interact with people. Even though he leaves early up but is often late to the shop to the routine timing of the market opening.

The less known fact is that Shobu Kotwal was arrested first time in 96 when he was 13 years old and interrogated and tortured for several days inside an Army camp. After 2008 he has been arrested several times till 2009 when Indian CRPF men beat him to pulp. He was admitted in SKIMS in a state of coma which continued for next couple of months. Discharged from the hospital, within a gap of one month he was arrested once again. He has been arrested man times since, 32 if his own words were a testimony. He was beaten ruthlessly, hit with rubber bullets, cane charged, tear smoke shells on many occasions resulting to serious injuries all over his body. He has spent months together in Jails. And continues to be arrested in old, fresh cases and subsequently finds his involvement in the Anti State activities through the court.

He wears a bag that folk earlier mistook for a bag that most of the shopkeepers would keep laden on their shoulders carrying cash and important documents. Upon being frequently asked what he carries in the bag even during cricket matches, often drove him agitated. Finally one day the mystery stood unfolded, he carries a calendar with most of the dates encircled, documents, a lot of them, bundled together, some folded, some wrinkled, some pasted together, some torn, a single thing in common, they all carried the court documents and the case papers, more than 50 in count which stand a sole testimony of his alleged involvement in “Anti-State” activities. He spends most of his time in the courts and rest arrested in the Police stations. He has found the best mates in the “Case-mates”. He spends most of the time with these “Children of the Dark.” The lawyers in the court, most of them are his good friends. Though most of the times, he finds himself arguing with the lawyers owing to the difference in ideologies. One who suffers is synonymous to “theory in practise” and one who only destines is just “theory.” The one who suffers witnesses it closely looks for a solution unlike the other group that believes in suggestions. Back to the subject, A peaceful day to him, is Police waiting outside his shop to arrest him which he evades most of the times, result, he stands economically fractured. His family is on all time low, economically.

The uprising in the valley in 2008 saw fresh faces, youngesters drove to streets protesting the human rights violations. Pertinently , thousands of youth were booked under draconian Public safety act (PSA) and other unlawful activities for protesting against the Amarnath land transfer 2008, killing of two school going children that led to the mass uprising in 2010 which left hundreds dead and more importantly devastated the career of hundreds of school going children and young men. These children, most of them have been pushed to anarchy wherein the self stands taller than all and hence they look to solve each matter, trusting no institution which may have hazardous outputs in any democratic setup owing to their alleged involvment in Anti State activities and them subsequently being booked under frivolous charges.

When the psychological process of the involvement in an “Anti-state”activity unfolds. The subject involves himself in the mechanisms of "Denial" and "repression." Questions which he cannot resolve well up in being an alleged “criminal”, feelings he had not foreseen or suspected torment his heart. God's truth and earthly law take their toll, and the "Criminal" is pushed to give up, forced, even if it means dying in prison, so that he may once again be part of the people, involve himself in the daily choruses. The feeling of separation and isolation from mankind, the daily chorus take it's toll. The man decides to accept suffering to redeem himself, he believes it is the way to end isolation.

The old hags, society, at the very initiation, alienates, dubs them as “criminals” which neither the law of land claims neither does the law of God that the society claims to be their moral code of conduct. In the former case, The law has to prove the charges laden against the accused while in the latter, a person stands innocent till proven guilty.

Shobu is a name to hundreds of such nameless heroes who suffer day in and day out, who are alien to empathy and sympathy from the ones whom they allege to be resisting for, who claim to be their representatives.