Anti-protest laws attack democratic rights in Australia

Mike Head

Facing a worsening economic slump, governments in three Australian states have brought forward sweeping laws that criminalise protests or any other activities that are alleged to disrupt business operations.

The laws impose draconian punishments and boost police powers that can be used to suppress opposition, including industrial action by workers, to the deepening assault by governments and the corporate elite on jobs, living standards and social and environmental conditions.

In New South Wales (NSW), the most populous state, legislation was pushed through parliament this week that imposes fines of up to $5,500 for entering a property with the “intent” of interfering with the conduct of a business, and jail terms of up to seven years for hindering the operation of a mining-related project. The bill was passed on Wednesday, despite a protest by hundreds of people outside parliament on Tuesday.

On the other side of the country, in the former “mining boom” state of Western Australia, laws are being pushed through parliament that outlaw the possession of “things” or the erection of “barriers,” including picket lines, that could prevent “lawful activity.” In the island state of Tasmania, arrests have already been made under laws, first introduced in 2014, that prohibit protests that hinder business operations.

These laws blatantly attack fundamental democratic rights, including free speech, free movement and freedom to associate. Governments are pursuing the measures despite legal challenges being mounted on the grounds that they infringe the implied right to freedom of political communication that the courts previously found to exist in the Australian Constitution.

The NSW legislation delivers on undertakings by Premier Mike Baird, like those he made at a mining industry dinner in late 2014, where he said his Liberal-National government would “crack down” on civil disobedience and “throw the book” at people who “unlawfully enter mining sites.”

There have been numerous protests in recent years against mining projects, particularly coal seam gas operations. However, the Inclosed Lands, Crimes and Law Enforcement Amendment (Interference) Bill 2016 goes well beyond outlawing demonstrations at mining-related sites.

The new “aggravated offence” of “unlawful entry on inclosed lands,” with a maximum penalty of $5,500, will apply to any land on which a business or business-like undertaking is being conducted and where an individual allegedly interferes, attempts or intends to interfere with the business or undertaking. The inclusion of “intends to” amounts to the creation of a thought crime—a crime of thinking of interfering with a business.

Likewise, the police will have new powers of search and seizure where they suspect a person possesses “anything intended” to lock onto equipment or a structure for the purpose of interfering with a business. Police will also have wider powers to issue “move on” and other directions to people participating in demonstrations, protests, processions or organised assemblies if the police allege obstruction of people or traffic, or intimidation of other people.

The existing offence of intentionally or recklessly interfering with a mine, which carries up to seven years’ imprisonment, will be extended to cover mining exploration and construction sites. Almost simultaneously, the state government promulgated regulations to reduce the penalties that could be issued against mining companies that explore or mine illegally from a maximum of $1.1 million to just $5,000.

Introducing the anti-protest bill last week, NSW Industry Minister Anthony Roberts claimed that the provisions only sought to ensure the safety of businesses, the public and protesters, and to “balance” the democratic right to protest with the rights and interests of “the community as a whole.” In reality, the bill directly attacks the right to protest in order to protect the interests of the financial elite.

The Tasmanian laws are even more explicit in targeting basic democratic rights. A protestor is defined as someone who engages in an activity “for the purposes of promoting awareness of or support for an opinion, or belief, in respect of a political, environmental, social, cultural or economic issue.”

The Workplaces (Protection from Protest) Act imposes on-the-spot fines and escalating penalties—up to five years’ jail—for protestors who hinder access to premises, disrupt or damage the operations of a wide range of businesses, including manufacturing, construction, retail, forestry and mining.

The Act gives police extraordinary pre-emptive powers to “move on” a person they believe is about to commit an offence. These powers extend to entire organisations, such as environmental groups, trade unions or rank and file workers’ committees. It is then an offence for an individual or organisation to return to the area within four days.

Tasmanian Greens leader Cassey O’Connor said the legislation was driven by an anti-environmentalist ideology. But in introducing the bill, then Tasmanian Resources Minister Paul Harriss spelled out its wider pro-business and anti-democratic purposes. He said: “The central objective of the government is to ensure wealth-creating businesses can develop and grow free from disruptive protest action that prevents them from operating on a normal commercial basis.”

The Western Australian legislation overturns another democratic right—the onus on the police to prove guilt. The police need only suspect that a “thing” possessed or a “physical barrier” erected may be used “for the purpose of preventing a lawful activity” and the accused person must prove otherwise. If they cannot, they face up to two years in prison or a $24,000 fine.

Picket lines and other forms of industrial action are clearly covered by the legislation, because they can involve creating a physical barrier to prevent a “lawful activity.”

Former Greens federal leader Bob Brown last week issued a High Court constitutional challenge to the Tasmanian laws after being arrested in January, along with others, for protesting against the logging of a forest. The Act “impermissibly burdens the implied freedom of communication on government and political matters,” according to a writ filed by Brown’s solicitor. In NSW, Unions NSW, the state’s trade union federation, has threatened to mount a similar challenge.

However, the High Court, Australia’s supreme court, has in recent years eviscerated the so-called implied freedom of political communication in the Australian Constitution. The constitution contains no bill of rights, or any other guarantee of basic democratic rights. During the 1990s, the court declared that the document implicitly prohibited laws that blocked political discussion, provided it occurred within the framework of the current parliamentary order, unless the legislation served a “legitimate end” of government.

Even that limited freedom has since been substantially nullified. In 2013, the High Court handed down two decisions that permitted governments to impose laws that override free speech if the measures sought to protect the public from “offensive material” or ensure that people could “go about their business unimpeded and undistracted.”

No section of the ruling establishment, including the courts, can be relied upon to defend even the most essential democratic rights. The anti-protest laws add to the vast framework of police state-style measures—such as detention without trial, mass surveillance and the outlawing of organisations—that has been erected by successive governments since 2001 on the pretext of combatting terrorism.

None of these measures is aimed at protecting the public, whether from terrorism or “unsafe” protests. Rather they are preparations to suppress the growing disaffection and unrest being produced by the assault on jobs and social conditions, and the accompanying US-led drive to war in the Middle East and against China.

Australia: Fairfax journalists strike over job cuts

Richard Phillips

Over 500 journalists at Fairfax Media’s Sydney Morning Herald, Age and Australian Financial Review walked out on strike yesterday after the company suddenly announced it would axe the equivalent of up to 120 editorial jobs, or about a quarter of the journalist positions at the newspapers.

The newsroom staff, who will remain on strike until Monday, were informed about the job destruction via email from the company’s editorial director Sean Aylmer at 11 a.m. on Thursday. He foreshadowed “redundancies, tightening contributor budgets and reducing travel costs and expenses.”

Striking Fairfax journalists in Sydney

Outraged by the cuts, Fairfax Media workers decided to defy Australia’s industrial relations laws, introduced by the last federal Labor government, which declare stoppages “unlawful” except during enterprise bargaining periods. Today, journalists at other Fairfax mastheads, the Canberra Times,Brisbane Times, Newcastle Herald and the Illawarra Mercury, decided to strike for 24 hours in solidarity with their Sydney and Melbourne colleagues.

Fairfax Media CEO Greg Hywood said the company, one of Australia’s largest media corporations, faced an “an ever-changing highly competitive media environment which involves rapid evolution of our publishing model.” The job cuts, he said, were “necessary to sustain high quality journalism.”

The job cuts have nothing whatsoever to do with “quality journalism.” Their purpose is to drive down costs, eliminate hard-won working conditions and increase the exploitation of the remaining workforce. They are part of a decade-long process of ruthless restructuring and job destruction to drive up profits. Fairfax recently announced a $24.7 million profit for the first half of the financial year, despite falling advertising revenue and declining newspaper circulation.

More than 2,500 journalist and printing industry jobs have been axed by Fairfax Media in the past eight years. In 2008, it cut 500 editorial positions, including journalists, editors, sub-editors and proofreaders; in 2011, 90 jobs; in 2012, 1,900 editorial and print positions; and in 2014, over 80 editorial jobs, including 30 photographers. The company shut down its print facilities at Chullora in Sydney and Tullamarine in Melbourne in 2014. In 2015–16, it destroyed over 160 editorial jobs at its regional newspapers in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia.

Like the unions in the car, steel, engineering and mining industries, which have rubber-stamped the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) has not opposed the job destruction, but instead assisted the company to achieve its cost-cutting requirements.

The MEAA has also helped the Murdoch-owned News Corp axe hundreds of jobs during the same period. This has included the elimination of over 1,500 editorial and printing jobs at the Australian, Daily Telegraph and Herald Sunin 2012 and the destruction of 55 journalists’ positions in 2015.

Rather than oppose the media corporations, the MEAA has diverted journalists’ anger into limited strikes and other harmless protests. This action has not been aimed at defending jobs but appealing to media management to involve the union in negotiating redundancies, new work schedules and various cost-cutting “alternatives.”

Addressing a rally of about 100 journalists outside Fairfax’s Sydney office today, MEAA chief executive officer Paul Murphy urged those in attendance to sign a union petition. The petition appeals to Hywood to “reconsider” the job cuts and “engage with your staff to find smarter, alternative ways to stay competitive and reduce costs without undermining these [newspaper] mastheads.”

In other words, management should work with the union, which will produce the required cost-savings.

Others addressing the rally included state Labor Party leader Luke Foley, state Greens MP David Shoebridge and UnionsNSW secretary Mark Morey. All feigned support for the striking journalists while appealing to the media corporation to “reassess” the job cuts because it was damaging its newspapers’ reputations. Shoebridge hailed the striking journalists for “standing up for the best interests of your employer.”

Despite the defiant stand of the journalists, underscored by those who spoke to the World Socialist Web Site, the struggle to defend jobs cannot advance if it remains under the grip of the MEAA, which will do whatever is necessary to impose the company’s requirements as has been repeatedly demonstrated over the past decade.

The defence of jobs and conditions requires the establishment of genuine rank-and-file committees, completely independent of the MEAA, and a turn to all the journalists, media workers and other sections of the working class in Australia and internationally facing similar attacks. Such a fight can only succeed if it is guided by a socialist perspective aimed at the complete reorganisation of society in the interests of all, not the profits of the media proprietors and other wealthy elites.

Germany: Siemens cuts another 2,500 jobs

Elisabeth Zimmermann

Siemens announced its latest round of job cuts on March 9. A total of 2,500 job cuts, including 2,000 in Germany, will take place globally in its engine division (process industries and engines). The greatest impact will be on workers at production sites for motors in Bavaria.

In Nuremberg, 700 jobs will be cut and in Ruhstorf, near Passau, half of the 1,300 jobs will go. In Bad Neustadt, 350 jobs will be cut and 150 are threatened in Erlangen. Between 20 and 30 jobs in this division will be cut in Berlin.

The destruction of these jobs comes on top of the 13,000 job cuts already announced by Chairman of the Board Joe Kaeser within the framework of the company’s restructuring last year. In addition to administration, the energy sector has been the main victim of this programme of cost-cutting and job losses.

Like last year, the reasons given for the measures were the “decline in oil prices,” “deepening global crisis,” “decreased demand for equipment and engines in the oil and gas industry” and “increased international competitiveness.”

Under these conditions, shareholders are demanding drastic cost-cutting measures, an intensification of exploitation, as well as the outsourcing of jobs to cheap labour countries in Eastern Europe and Asia.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung cited Jürgen Brandes, the head of the process industry and engine division: “As a result, we have to optimise our production network and reduce the number of production locations for products which are similar or the same.” Currently, with a turnover of €9 billion, Siemens employs 46,000 workers globally in this sector, 16,000 of whom work in Germany. Overall, Siemens employs 348,000 workers globally, 114,000 in Germany as of October 30, 2015.

When the massive job cuts were announced at factory meetings in the affected locations last Thursday, workers responded with outrage and anger. Many of them have worked in Siemens factories for decades, sometimes including entire families.

Many workers suspect that behind the announcing of new job cuts in stages lies divide-and-rule tactics. The fear is widespread that the factories in Nuremberg and Ruhstorf, which are heavily impacted by the latest cuts, could soon be shut down completely.

In Nuremberg and Bad Neustadt, protests were held in front of the factories. According to a report in the Passauer Neue Presse, booing, whistling and angry shouts could be heard through the closed doors of the Lower Bavaria hall in Ruhstorf, where security guards guarded the door.

Representatives of the IG Metall trade union and works council responded as they always do. They acted as if they were surprised and outraged, claimed not to have been informed about the latest measures and assumed a combative pose. According to the online edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Siemens Central Works Council Chairwoman Birgit Steinborn had announced her intention to fight for every single job.

Steinborn is deputy chair on the supervisory board and it is well known what she means by “defence of jobs in Germany.” Early last summer, the works council and IG Metall organised a day of action under the reactionary slogan “Strengthen our Germany location.” The entire action served to divide the workers of the global company and mobilise them against each other.

IG Metall wants at all costs to prevent a joint international struggle by all Siemens employees. Steinborn now declares again, “Outsourcing puts the industrial and innovation location Germany at risk. Siemens has a special responsibility here.”

At many levels, IG Metall and the works council are part of Siemens’ leadership and management. In the name of competitiveness, they call for rationalisation measures and propose their own cuts.

The deceitful character of Steinborn’s statement that she intends to fight for every single job is made clear by a report on the web site of Bavarian state radio (BR). On the basis of information from works council sources, the report details problems with the production of large motors. “The 28 global locations of the process industry and engine division are, according to BR information, only working at half capacity.”

The report continued by noting that the division was “the company’s second weakest,” which was “with a margin of almost 6 percent far from the stipulated 12 percent.” In justification of the job cuts, BR cited Works Council Chair Steinborn, “Even Siemens central works council chairwoman Birgit Steinborn acknowledges that the business area is ‘in a very challenging position.’”

With reference to the situation in Bad Neustadt, BR reported, “Last year, the atmosphere was already tense and IG Metall expected that the next wave of personnel cuts could hit Bad Neustadt.”

IG Metall and the works council function as co-managers and a factory police force in order to force through the job cuts and attacks against the workforce. They intend to smother all resistance to this as quickly as possible.

An internationalist, socialist perspective is thus even more urgently needed to defend jobs, whether at Siemens, VW or Bombardier, to name only a handful of the global firms that have announced massive job cuts recently.

Living standards fall and discontent rises in Russia

Vladimir Volkov

Both official statistics and recent public opinion polls in Russia show a sharp fall in income levels and living standards.

In 2015, for the first time in many years, Russian citizens spent more money than they earned. The difference between the population’s incomes and expenditures amounted to 420 billion rubles ($5.5 billion), the first deficit in 18 years. Experts with the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis told the newspaper Kommersant, “the results of 2015 were really extraordinary for the overwhelming majority of the fifty million Russian households.” In an article entitled, “Citizens lose their liquidity,” the newspaper described a “shocking restructuring of household economic strategy.”

The last time the economy experienced something similar was in 1998, when Russia defaulted on its debt and its currency collapsed to one fourth of its previous level. When account is taken of the fact that over the past two decades much of what remained of the Soviet-era infrastructure and social services has been eradicated, the situation facing the population is now much bleaker.

According to the figures of the state agency Rosstat, the population’s real incomes have decreased by 4 percent compared to a year ago, and pensions have fallen by 3.8 percent.

The Russian Ministry of the Economy recently reported that in 2015 the volume of retail trade in the country fell by 10 percent compared to the previous year. It is now lower than it was in 1970. The “depth of decline of foodstuff purchases in 2015 is unprecedented. It did not fall as much even during the crisis of 1998-1999, when the average income fell much more precipitously. This tells us that the present crisis, because of the Russian government’s retaliatory sanctions, has hit particularly the poorest layers of population, those, whose share of food expenditures is the highest,” it observed.

The portion of the Russian population with incomes below the “official minimum” has increased to 13 percent. Citizens have stopped consuming and “are passive observers of the process of trade,” says the Ministry. They save their money and spend it only for absolute necessities.

An investigation by the Higher School of Economics has shown that 12 percent of the population lives at or below the level of extreme poverty. Only a quarter of Russia’s citizens earn more than twice the subsistence minimum.

In a February article, the online publication Gazeta.ru pointed to a sharp increase in outstanding debt. During the past year, 40 million people—more than half the economically active population—have borrowed 11 trillion rubles ($142 million) in new debt. Only 8 million of them are able to pay their interest in a timely manner.

International rating agencies have again cut their economic outlook for Russia. According to a new assessment by Moody’s, in 2016 the country’s economy will contract by 2.5 percent, instead of an earlier forecast of 0.5-1 percent.

Standard & Poor’s has continued to keep the rating of Russian long-term foreign currency obligations at BB+ level. Reaffirming its “negative” outlook for the economy, the agency expects the situation to worsen.

For its part, the Russian government does not anticipate any significant improvement in the next few years. According to an estimate prepared by the Ministry of Finance, the economy will be growing at an annual rate of 1-1.3 percent from now until 2030. Overall, between 2014 and 2030 the Russian economy will grow by just 13 percent. This is the same increase it experienced during the three year period from 2011-2013.

The ministry also expects real wages to decline during 2015-2016 by 13 percent, and will not recover to the level of 2014 until the year 2025.

The rapid decline in the situation facing the majority of the population is accompanied by a further growth of social inequality. Every member of the governing board of the Rosneft oil corporation averaged a salary in 2015 of 336 million rubles ($4.3 million). At the same time, the average wage in Russia stood at 33,000 rubles ($425), or 1/850th of the income of the oligarchs running the state-controlled energy giant.

An ever growing number of the country’s inhabitants views the Soviet period positively. According to a recent survey by the Levada Center, when indicating their preferred economic model, 52 percent of respondents chose “state planning.” Only 26 percent chose a market economy based on private property, while 22 percent could not make up their minds.

Levada Center Director Lev Gudkov observed, “The guaranteed modest prosperity of the Soviet system has taken on a function of a past ‘normal.’ The contemporary situation is evaluated in comparison with the popular impressions of that memory.”

Another notable feature is a growth of moods of protest, which, while not yet taking on a political character, are attracting wider layers of the population and “gathering strength in the provinces,” according to a leading expert of social and economic programs of the Center of Social and Labor rights, Petr Biziukov.

“The two capitals [Moscow and Petersburg],” he notes, “account for just 15 percent of all protest actions. Regional centers [account for] another 40 percent. Oblast centers [account for] 27 percent, and small towns and villages [account for] 13 percent. This means that labor conflict is moving from the center to the periphery. In the past, strikes in the provinces were unusual. People in small towns were afraid to get the reputation of a scandal-monger or lose their jobs. The fact that they have begun to act tells us that they have overcome a certain amount of restraint.”

Biziukov went on to note that strikes are no longer just local. “The movement is changing form. In the past, the protests were very isolated. But last year we recorded a number of inter-regional actions. The most notable such action [was] the protests of long distance haulers. According to our data, 45 regions were affected by it. In May, there were the teachers’ strikes in 20 regions. Inter-regional protests are gaining ground. Whereas before, they involved at most 9 regions. Now, the number of simultaneously protesting regions is growing.”

US drug prices doubled since 2011

Brad Dixon

According to a new report by the pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts, the average price of brand-name drugs increased by 16.2 percent last year. Between 2011 and 2015, branded prescription drug prices have nearly doubled, rising 98.2 percent. Since 2008, the prices have increased by a whopping 164 percent.

Drug spending rose by 5.2 percent in 2015. This was about half the increase seen in 2014, the year of the largest hike since 2003.

The report is based upon prescription use data for members with drug coverage provided by Express Scripts plan sponsors. In assessing changes in plan costs, the report distinguishes between the relative contributions from changes in patient utilization (e.g. more patients being prescribed the drug) and changes in the unit price of the drug (e.g., price hikes).

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, most drug spending was on traditional drugs (small-molecule, solid drugs) to treat conditions such as heartburn, depression and diabetes. The recent trend has been a shift to specialty drugs. Still, within traditional therapy categories there were significant increases in spending on medications to treat diabetes, heartburn and ulcers, and skin conditions.

Diabetes medications remain the most expensive of the traditional drug categories. Drug spending in this category increased by 14 percent, with the hike being equally influenced by increased utilization of the drugs and rise in unit cost. Three diabetes treatments—Lantus, Januvia and Humalog—were among the top five drugs in terms of spending across all traditional therapy classes.

Although not discussed in the report, an investigation by Bloomberg News last year found evidence of “shadow pricing” by drug manufacturers, where companies raise their prices immediately after their competitors do so. The investigation found that the prices of diabetes drugs Lantus and Lemivir had increased in tandem 13 times since 2009, and evidence of similar shadow pricing for the drugs Humalog and Novolog.

Heartburn and ulcer drugs saw a 35.6 percent increase in spending, almost solely due to the rise in unit cost. Although 92.3 percent of the medications filled in this category were generic, the price unit trend was heavily influenced by the increase in prices of branded drugs such as Nexium, Dexilant and Prevacid.

Treatments for skin conditions also saw a significant increase of 27.8 percent in spending, again due almost completely to rises in the unit costs of the medications. The report notes that these increases occurred for both generic and branded therapies, largely due to industry consolidation through mergers and acquisitions leading to less competition in the market. While 86.3 percent of the drugs filled were generic, many of the generic versions saw sharp increases in unit cost, including the two most widely used corticosteroids, clobetasol (96.2 percent) and triamcinolone (28 percent).

While the overall spending increase for traditional therapy classes was nominal (0.6 percent), the primary factor for the increase in spending came from specialty medications. Specialty medications require special education and close patient monitoring, such as drugs to treat cancer, multiple sclerosis or cystic fibrosis. Spending on specialty drugs rose by 17.8 percent in 2015. The report found that 37.7 percent of drug spending was for specialty drugs in 2015, and the figure is expected to rise to 50 percent by 2018.

Spending in this category was topped by inflammatory conditions—such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel diseases and psoriasis—which rose by 25 percent, driven by a 10.3 percent increase in utilization and 14.7 percent rise in unit cost. The average cost per prescription in 2015 was $3,035.95. The medications Humira Pen and Enbrel, which captured more than 66 percent of the market share for this class, saw unit cost increases of more than 17 percent.

Spending on oncology therapies increased by 23.7 percent, due to both increased use (9.3 percent) and increased unit cost (14.4 percent). New cancer therapies average $8,000 per prescription and the average cancer regimen is around $150,000 per patient. Between 2005 and 2015, the anti-cancer drug Gleevec, manufactured exclusively by Novartis, has seen its price more than triple, with an annual cost of $92,000. In 2015, the year prior to the drug’s patent expiration, Novartis increased the unit cost of the drug by 19.3 percent. This is a common practice for companies facing patent expiration.

Drug spending on cystic fibrosis treatments rose by a significant 53.4 percent, largely based on increases in unit cost (40.9 percent vs. 13.3 percent from patient utilization). This rise was largely due to use of the new oral combination therapy, Orkambi, which became available in mid-2015. The drug costs more than $20,000 per month.

The report forecasts that between 2016 and 2018 spending will increase annually by 7-8 percent for traditional drugs and around 17 percent for specialty drugs.

The prices of generic drugs have on average decreased, although there are notable exceptions. Pharmaceutical companies like Horizon Pharma, Turing Pharmaceuticals, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals have purchased generic drugs and then significantly hiked their prices.

The report notes the emergence of “captive pharmacies” in 2015 as another factor responsible for higher drug spending. Captive pharmacies are owned or operated by pharmaceutical manufacturers and tend to promote their manufacturer’s drugs, rather than generic or other low-cost alternatives. The report gives as examples the arrangements between Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Philidor Rx Services, and between Horizon Pharma and Linden Care Pharmacy.

The Express Scripts data matches the findings released earlier this year by the Truveris OneRx National Drug Index, which found that branded drugs rose by 14.8 percent in 2015.

Despite the widespread media publicity of the notorious drug price hikes by companies like Turing and Valeant, pharmaceutical companies have continued to inflate prices in 2016, with Pfizer leading the way with an average price hike of 10.6 percent for 60 of its branded drugs.

Workers are rightly outraged at the skyrocketing price of drugs. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted last year found that 74 percent of respondents felt that the drug companies put profits before people.

The political establishment, however, has sought both to exploit this anger for electoral support and to direct it into safe channels that do not disrupt the status quo.

A congressional hearing held in January placed a spotlight on the price-gouging practices of HYPERLINK Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Turing Pharmaceuticals, whose dubious activities were highlighted in a pair of congressional memos. The purpose of the hearing, however, was not probe the underlying causes of the sharp rise in drug prices. Instead, legislators sought to safeguard the profits of the pharmaceutical industry as a whole through a verbal lambasting of the industry’s most notorious culprits.

Drug prices have also been a theme in the presidential campaign. The Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, for example, released a campaign advertisement earlier this month attacking the “predatory pricing” of Valeant Pharmaceuticals. Like the congressional hearing, this is all for show. Of all the presidential candidates, Clinton is the top recipient of donations from the pharmaceutical and health products industry, taking in $410,460 according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Clinton’s rival, Bernie Sanders, who has stated that he will support Clinton if he loses the Democratic nomination, received $82,094 in donations from the industry. Sanders has proposed a series of minor reforms to address drug prices, such as the re-importation of drugs from Canada, allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with drug manufacturers, and decreasing the patent life of branded drugs.

None of the candidates, including the “democratic socialist” Sanders, challenge the private ownership of the pharmaceutical industry in which everything from research and development and clinical testing to drug pricing and promotion are subordinated to the profit interests of corporations.

Syrian war enters sixth year with graver dangers still ahead

Bill Van Auken

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the war in Syria that has claimed well over a quarter of a million lives, and, between turning nearly five million into refugees and internally displacing another seven million, has driven more than half the country’s population from their homes.

The national economy has been shattered, with over half of Syrians unemployed and 85 percent living in poverty. Much of the country has been plunged into darkness after continuous attacks on power stations and other electricity infrastructure.

Perhaps most staggering of all, the unrelenting violence combined with the destruction of the country’s health care system and other social infrastructure as well as the plummeting of living standards has driven down life expectancy in Syria from 70.5 years in 2011 to just 55.4 years in 2015.

The rape of Syria, alongside the decimation of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, constitutes one of the great crimes of imperialism in the 21st century. What is commonly referred to by the media as the Syrian civil war or “uprising” has in fact constituted a massive “regime-change” operation carried out by Washington and its regional allies with complete contempt for the lives and well-being of the Syrian people.

This proxy war has been waged almost entirely by Al Qaeda-linked militias armed and funded by the CIA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, which all collaborated to funnel in tens of thousands of so-called foreign fighters.

The attempts to sell this war to the American people, as a “humanitarian” intervention by the Obama administration and its media accomplices, and even—by various pseudo-left organizations—to portray it as a “revolution” have fallen totally flat.

As the anniversary fell this week, the level of fighting had diminished significantly under a “cessation of hostilities agreement” brokered by Washington and Moscow. The United Nations has brought together representatives of the Syrian government together with the collection of Islamist fanatics and foreign intelligence assets united in the Riyadh opposition in a third attempt to negotiate a cease-fire and “political transition.”

Meanwhile, the government of Vladimir Putin announced on Monday that it was withdrawing the majority of its military forces from Syria, while maintaining its naval facility in Tartus and its air base in the western province of Latakia.

In less than six months, the Russian intervention enabled Syrian government troops to regain some 4,000 square miles of territory and 400 towns, solidifying their grip over the western part of the country which includes the major population centers, while cutting off the main supply routes from Turkey for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the al-Nusra Front, Syria’s Al Qaeda franchise.

The Russian intervention only underscored the phony character of the “war on ISIS” waged by the US, which was calibrated not to weaken the “rebels,” among whom ISIS and al-Nusra counted as the most potent contingents.

The recent turn of events prompted angry and sarcastic editorials from both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, both of which from the outset have reflected the views of those within the US ruling establishment and the Obama administration itself who have pressed for a more direct US military intervention. Both papers ridiculed Obama for suggesting that the Putin government’s Syrian intervention would lead it into a “quagmire.”

“As quagmires go, Mr. Putin will take it,” the Journal commented. “On Monday he announced that Russia will begin withdrawing the ‘main part’ of its forces in Syria having accomplished his strategic goals at little cost.”

Similarly, the Post editorialized that far from landing in the quagmire, “Mr. Putin has accomplished quite a lot, and his gains have come at the expense of US interests and of Mr. Obama’s stated goals in the region.”

It would be a serious mistake to interpret the immediate conjuncture and the bitter recriminations over Putin’s supposed victory as a signal that Washington has thrown in the towel over its Syrian intervention. US imperialism is not about to accept the consolidation of a regime in Syria allied to Moscow, any more than it will countenance the rise of Russia as a regional, much less global, rival.

For the moment, the Obama administration will seek to exploit the UN-brokered “peace talks” and any concessions that it can wring from Moscow, Tehran and the government of President Bashar al-Assad itself to pursue the regime change that it has been unable to bring about by force.

After the election in November, however, it may rapidly turn to new tactics. It is a longstanding practice of the US government to delay as much as possible the launching of new wars in election years until after the vote in order to prevent militarism from becoming a subject of popular political debate.

Within the Obama administration, there is a substantial faction that has consistently pressed for more direct US military intervention, as was highlighted by the recent article published in the Atlantic magazine, headlined “Obama’s doctrine.” It quoted figures like current Secretary of State John Kerry, former secretary of state and Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton, former defense secretary Leon Panetta and others criticizing Obama for failing to launch missile strikes in September 2013 over the fabricated charges that the Syrian government had carried out chemical weapons attacks.

Current Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is quoted explaining that Obama’s view is that Asia “is the part of the world of greatest consequence to the American future.” He is therefore loathe to have another US war in the Middle East distract from preparations for a military confrontation with China.

Regime change in Syria was always for US imperialism a means to an end. It was aimed at preparing for confrontations with both Russia and Iran by depriving them of a key regional ally.

That the US military is preparing for such a wider conflict found fresh and ominous confirmation in testimony given this week by the uniformed commander of the US Army.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley warned the House Armed Services Committee that, while his troops were prepared to conduct “counterterrorism” and “counterinsurgency” missions, fighting “ISIS, Al Qaeda, al-Nusra and any other terrorist groups,” he had “grave concerns” about their readiness to engage in a “great-power war” with an enemy such as China, Russia or Iran.

“There is a high level of risk associated with those contingencies right now,” he added, arguing that failing to build up US troop strength would be to “roll the dice.” After testifying, General Milley and other service commanders gave the congressional committee “risk assessments” for another major war in a closed session.

For all of the immense carnage suffered by the Syrian people, the dangerous spread of the conflict regionally and the massive flow of refugees into Western Europe, it is becoming increasingly clear that the criminal war for regime change in Syria represents only the antechamber of far bloodier and indeed global military conflagrations.

Russian De-Escalation in Syria and the Future Shape of the Middle East

Omar Kassem

Obama’s withdrawal from the Middle-East after the failure of the policy initiated in 2009 of overthrowing Bashar al-Assad in order to isolate and destroy Hezbollah, was grasped by the Iranians with both hands. They were quick to reinforce Assad as their guarantee of their link with Hezbollah’s territories in Southern Lebanon. Qasim Suleimani, the supreme commander of Iranian strategy in the Arab world, visited Moscow covertly in August 2015. He studied the possibilities with the Russians of redressing the situation in Syria, and this Vladimir Putin quickly saw as an opportunity to reinforce the Russian navy base in Tartus, as well as acquire a new airbase near Latakia.

The DAESH/ISIL threat was used by Putin as an excuse for the prospective intervention to give to the Americans and Europeans, who were in no position to put up resistance to the idea. Russia decided on its action under the guise of joining the ‘fight against terror’ full-time and the US, facing the contradictions inherent in its policies in the Middle-East, had no choice but to welcome the idea.

The collapse of US foreign policy in the Middle-East

A US plan had been in place for régime change in Syria ever since 2006, in order to break the Iran-Damascus-Hezbollah axis by proxy, with the help of Saudi Arabia and Egypt in fomenting sectarian divisions in the country (Assange 2015: 267). Hezbollah was a central piece of Iran’s strategy of asymmetric warfare across the region, and a prime example of Iran’s cultivation of ideologically-motivated militias, of which the Houthis in Yemen and the Badr brigades in Iraq would be other examples, to extend its influence. Hezbollah had demonstrated itself to be a formidable opponent against Israel in the 2006 Lebanon War, launching thousands of rockets into Israel territory during the conflict and surviving a ferocious air attack by what was supposed to be one of the world’s most powerful air forces.

By the time Barak Obama became President in 2009 and Hillary Clinton his Secretary of State, the policy was formally articulated to topple Assad and install a régime in his place, using jihadi forces. When Hillary Clinton was revealed by WikiLeaks saying that donors in Saudi Arabia constituted the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide (Wikileaks Embassy Cables:30Dec2009), this was not to be a prelude for dismantling these connections, but for gaining control of them to serve the new Obama doctrine of achieving the same imperial aims which had eluded G W Bush II, only this time by proxy (DOD Aug2012).

In 2009, Inderjeet Parmar predicted that Obama’s foreign policy wouldn’t differ much from that of G W Bush, irrespective of his much-vaunted vocal opposition to the Iraq War and his Senate vote against the ‘Petraeus surge’ in 2004. Parmar wrote that the liberal internationalists in the Democratic Party’s Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) – often known as Clinton’s think tank – were at one with neo-conservatives from the Iraq War onwards, and  demanded that America “rally the forces of freedom and democracy around the world to defeat [the] new menace and build a better world” (Parmar 2009:4).

But just as the democracy-promotion myth would be shown up to be the malformed abortion that it was under Bush when Hamas won their elections in Gaza 2006, US policy in Syria would soon have face up to the fact that the Muslim Brothers would become a major player in the Syrian National Congress (SNC), the Syrian opposition group established in Istanbul in 2012. It was Hillary Clinton who killed off any chance of making a success of the SNC because of her outright opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, calling the it a waste of time and a mere ‘talking-shop’. The U.S. State Department’s policy opposition to the freely and fairly elected Egyptian Muslim Brothers would also later become clear (House Foreign Affairs Committee 29 Oct 2013), consistent with Jason Browlee’s assessment of overall US policy against the Muslim Brothers of “keeping critics of their [U.S.] Middle-eastern policies out of power” (Brownlee 2012: 10).

Once again, the Emperor had no clothes. Democracy and freedom was clearly not the principle on which the US could conduct itself abroad in any systematic way. These contradictions would short-circuit spectacularly with the Ghouta chemical attack in August 2013, when Obama showed himself unwilling to act even on his own red lines with respect to Assad’s crimes, now that the US had become conflicted over the need for his removal. And there is little doubt that it was Assad who committed this war crime, if one follows UN Chief Weapons Inspector Ake Sellstrom’s arguments. Israeli army sources had reported at the time that Assad’s forces had launched the heinous attack, although the irony always is with Israeli reports that they are rarely believed. Seymour Hersh, however, subsequently reported that the finger of blame should have been pointed at Turkish Intelligence, but Hersh’s single source method of reporting seems to have let him down.

The quick reaction of the Russians, anxious to protect Assad, and offering to defuse the situation by having Assad surrender his arsenal of chemical weapons, should have told us everything we needed to know at the time about the real culprit. Obama was off the hook, thanks to Putin.

The Iran Nuclear Deal

On invading Iraq, G. W. Bush had threatened Iran and Syria that they were next on his list.  Both countries understandably then backed the Sunni insurgency which scuppered the US army’s occupation. This lead to David Petraeus’ call for the 2004 surge (which Obama voted against), which eventually only succeeded through the payment of massive bribes to the Sunni tribes. As Dexter Filkins would later report in the New Yorker Magazine in 2013, Qasim Suleimani actively organised Sunni jihadi groups that became al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the Assad régime in Damascus also became a staging post for European jihadis travelling to Iraq. It should hardly have been surprising when Hassan Abboud, the leader of the jihadi group Ahrar el-Sham in Syria, up until he was killed in September 2014, accused the Iranians of having created DEASH/ISIL. Assad himself would militarise the 2011 Arab Spring by releasing incarcerated jihadis from Sednaya prison into the swelling crowds of protesters.

Iran’s strategy for survival against US threats using asymmetric warfare didn’t rely only on the creation of militias around the Arab World with ideological fealty to the Iranian régime, which harked back to the policies of Shah Ismail I Safavi against the Ottomans in the 1500s. It also clearly promoted groups with opposite ideologies, as and when they were needed in order to destabilise the US hegemon’s grip on the region. Iran thus didn’t rely only on its control of the Straights of Hormuz, on developing ballistic technology, and on creating a ‘nuclear problem’, to dissuade the US from military action against it, but actually also posed a serious region-wide threat through its octopus-like presence across the region.

Clearly, Iranian policy succeeded, which is why by March 2013 Obama had begun conducting secret negotiations with Iran in order to unwind the ‘nuclear problem’. The current shape of the Middle-East can be said to have resulted in large measure from Iran’s strategy during the years of siege. Iran in its new phase, on the other hand, faces the entirely new problem of how to deal with the consequences of its actions, in the face of Saudi Arabian reaction.

The Iran deal set a course for US-Russian relations prior to the Ukraine/Crimea crisis, which was difficult if not impossible to change. The Russians were crucial to Obama’s plans to manage Iran’s stockpile of nuclear material and central, therefore, to achieving a deal with Iran. This deal was intended by Obama to be the final legacy of his second term in office. In any event, whatever other problems such as Ukraine there might have arisen in US-Russia relations, both powers always have had the common interest of working to monopolise nuclear power and to control its proliferation. Russia entered Syria confident that the US couldn’t object.

The Russian interest in Syria

The Russian interest in Syria is entirely a matter of energy policy, which required developing a strong military presence in Syria. The Tartus naval base would need to be complemented with the new Latakia airbase whilst, in order to fully reinforce the new air capacity for the long term, the airbase would need to be equipped with its state of the art S-400 air defence system. This would give it unquestioned air superiority in the region.

However, the S-300 and the S-400 have been the subject of much diplomatic manoeuvring by the US and Israel over the years. It would have been difficult to justify transferring this system to Syria in normal circumstances, and some kind of military escalation on the conventional front would be necessary to provide the grounds for such a move. The constant incursions into Turkish airspace by Russian warplanes during October/November 2015, together with ferocious airstrikes against Turcoman tribesmen seem to have been devised to solicit a reaction from the Turks and thus enable Russia to act as it wished. The result sought was forthcoming when the Turks downed a Russian warplane on November 24, during yet another incursion into Turkish airspace.

No other possible explanation exists for Russia engaging in intensive activity military activity in western Syria right on the Turkish border, 350 km away from Raqqa, the Syrian base of DAESH/ISIL, the ostensible target of the Russian campaign if Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was to be believed. Putin thus sacrificed a Russian warplane to achieve his military strategy. Claims that the warplane hadn’t violated airspace were discredited and finally put to rest in the course of Putin’s theatrics over the downed jet’s black box. The withdrawal now of the majority of Russian forces on the basis of ‘mission accomplished’, leaving behind re-equipped naval and air bases in Northern Syria, without a dent having being made in  DAESH/ISIL forces in Northern Syria, presents us with an overwhelming circumstantial confirmation of the narrow Russian objectives in Syria described here.

Although one could call the Tartus/Latakia military objective narrow, an important strategic objective results from it in respect of Russian energy strategy.

Up until the Russian incursion into Syria, Turkey had gained an important strategic position in respect of energy supplies to Europe as a result of the conflict in Ukraine and the cancellation by the EU of the South Stream gas pipeline project to Europe through Bulgaria. Turkey was open to Russia’s idea of diverting South Stream through Turkey. However, Turkey was also building the Trans-Anatolian pipeline  (TANAP) to Azerbaijan through Georgia, which would supply Turkey and Europe with Caspian and Iranian gas. Furthermore, Syria and Southern Turkey provide the main routes for the supply of oil to the refinery hub at the port of Ceyhan, from Iraqi Kurdistan (KRG). These routes would be those that would also be used for any prospective land route for pipelines carrying Qatari gas. This would become a serious competitor for Russian gas to Europe, if supplied more cheaply overland, rather than by sea using the current LNG conversion system.

The recurrent Middle-eastern nightmare thus repeats itself, as Syrian civilians killed and wounded in Russian airstrikes since September 2015 have paid the price for a foreign power’s energy strategy. Russia has sought in the period up to the current disengagement to apply leverage to Turkish decision-making on energy flow to Europe, standing as it does now in the way of the close Turkish Qatari alliance becoming realised in the form of an overland gas pipeline, and even warning Israel over a possible rapprochement with Turkey, which would see yet another source of gas open up for Turkey. The Russian intent so to encircle Turkey was not only evident in its Syria policy, which included support for the Syrian-Kurdish (PYD) branch of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), plainly and actively involved in terrorist action in Turkey at the time, but also in openly reinforcing its Armenian  military base at Gyumri with a squadron of attack helicopters, to shadow the development of TANAP.

It is clear, however, that the energy trading hub that Turkey represents is only half the story. The current price of energy is a major problem and Russia’s economy is in recession as a result of a combination of EU sanctions, and the sharp drop in government revenues resulting from oil and gas prices.

It isn’t enough for Russia to ensure priority for its gas transfers through Turkey through its strong-arm tactics. It is also necessary for it to try to manage the energy markets in order to organise an orderly rise in prices, for which coming to an agreement with Saudi Arabia is an absolute necessity. The current disengagement in Syria was a foregone conclusion ever since energy negotiations began with Saudi Arabia in early February. Leaving Assad now to his own devices, although in a stronger position than had been, is a precursor to an important state visit by King Salman of Saudi Arabia, whose policy is unbendingly one of removing Assad from power. Russia’s disengagement was a condition of improving relations with Saudi Arabia.

The current oil and gas markets are clearly problematic for producers. Although downward price movements in these markets are traditionally reinforced by increased production as producers seek to capture more revenue, and although the US shale overhang will remain in place for decades to come to form a price ceiling for these markets, it is clear that Russia and Saudi Arabia see the possibility for collaboration on achieving a middle-of-the-road solution from their perspective within the shadow of the shale overhang somewhere around the $50-$60 p/b range. This is significant, as it would represent almost a doubling of current prices.

It is crucial for these calculations that Iranian energy production policy can now by influenced by Russia and that Iraq in turn can be influenced by Iran, contrary to the judgement of some analysts. Not only does the new regional political set-up permit a scenario where Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq cooperate, it makes eminent commercial sense for them to do so.

The future shape of the Middle-East

The new phase will have crucial implications for political developments in the region, especially in regard to the Kurdish question. The head of steam that the PKK and YPD built up as a result of the possibilities for them to exploit the Syrian chaos to their advantage has not only clearly unsettled Turkey, but also Iran. Just as Turkey seeks to maintain the integrity of the Syrian state in order to avoid increasing secessionist demands by Turkish Kurds, Iran has always sought to maintain the integrity of the Iraqi state to avoid just such a fate with respect to its own Kurds. The Russian rapprochement with Iran culminating in the Syrian intervention is now strained because of Russian backing of the PKK/YPD in the context of its encirclement policy of Turkey, setting off processes which Iran views with horror.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey has in fact formally pursued a policy of democratic pluralism ever since 2009, when the Kurdish language was accepted as an official language in the educational system, and Kurdish culture promoted across schools and universities with the launch of new degree courses. The Turkish political process also became wide open to Kurdish parties, and the Kurdish Democratic Party (HDP) in fact made substantial gains in the first of the two sets of parliamentary elections that took place in 2015 (June). This, however, did not stop the PKK from engaging in a series of violent acts of terror, and the HDP to publicly back these actions, with the aim of achieving an independent state under its rule in South-Eastern Turkey.

The PKK and the HDP are unlikely to succeed in their efforts. With the second set elections in 2015 (October), and after the PKK had aggressively re-launched its terror campaign, two million Kurdish voters instantly switched allegiance from the HDP to the AKP, with the AKP ending up with well over three times the number of Kurdish MPs than the HDP. What, therefore, will defeat extremism in Turkey is an open democratic system and a fast-growing liberal economy that seems to be able to absorb even millions of Syrian refugees into its cities (three-quarters of these refugees are housed in towns and cities and only a quarter in camps). This capacity is not necessarily available in Iran as its polity is currently constituted. Therefore, although Turkey is suffering terribly from the effects of the Syrian civil war, fomented originally by US foreign policy decisions and then exacerbated by US foreign policy indecision, it is a country which is more likely than Iran to return to a state of peaceful growth. Iran, faced now with its new opening, will have to deal with a whole host of problems that this will bring.

In addition, Iran has to deal with the Saudi Arabian reaction to the past policies of regional militia-promotion, no longer appropriate to the new phase. The Rouhani régime is particularly embarrassed by the recent fall from grace of Hezbollah on the Arab street, changing as it has done from Arab hero to regional pariah, as a result of its support of the Assad régime, and it role in the particularly gruesome siege of Madaya and the starving of its people.

Implicit in the Russian disengagement implicitly is an acceptance of the new difficulties that will begin to beset its Iranian ally. Continued intervention in Syria would also damage its own prospects for limiting the spread of DAESH/ISIL through a pro-Kurdish stance, as Sunni rebels began to threaten to make common cause with DAESH/ISIL against a coalition of Assad and Kurdish forces. The fluidity of the jihadi phenomenon means that such a policy will backfire on Russia itself as DAESH/ISIL enters Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Clearly supporting the integrity of all states in the region, especially Syria, and putting its weight behind a political solution, is seen by Russia now as the only way of eradicating the extremism.

Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia are the three powers that will determine the future of the region east of Suez, and all three are committed to the territorial integrity of both Syria and Iraq. Iran and Saudi Arabia will clearly differ as to the nature of the régime that should rule in each capital, however. The likely result of this is likely a stalemate, with the situation de juro in each country showing a different de facto reality on the ground. This will not be to the disadvantage of those three powers, who will each have their clients and their spheres of influence, more than likely displacing the traditional influence of the US, UK and France, in Syria and Iraq.

In contrast with these prospects for the region east of Suez, great uncertainty will continue to cloud the future of Egypt and Libya. While Egypt was put under the rule of a strongman in order to protect Israeli interests, and democracy scuppered, like everything else in the region that the US has done in this century, the eventual outcome will be the opposite of what is intended. The descent of the country into economic and financial chaos, and the rise of extremism as a result of the persecution of moderates, could have consequences far worse than the experience in Syria so far unless the moderates return to power. There is no other option: all the ageing cadres surrounding the Egyptian régime have become as threadbare are the country itself, and could not possibly redress its economy.

The greatest disservice the US has done to its policy of dictator-promotion is to have completely discredited the military as a political and even as a technocratic actor on the Egyptian stage. It is only the arrogance of US and Israeli élites that makes them unable to see that the descent of Egypt on their watch into what can only be described as a circus, and a bloody one at that, will backfire on them.