A further eruption of US militarism in the Middle East

Bill Van Auken

This week’s admission by the Pentagon that dozens of American troops are now on the ground in Yemen, ostensibly to assist troops of the United Arab Emirates in combating Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has laid bare the escalating eruption of US imperialist violence across the greater Middle East.

Nearly 15 years after the launching of the so-called “war on terror” and 25 years after the first US Gulf War against Iraq, American forces are carrying out lethal operations over a vast region ranging from Pakistan in the east to Libya in the west, and from the Turkish border in the north all the way to Somalia in the south.

In the name of fighting terror, US imperialism has terrorized a sizable portion of humanity. The net results are casualties now totaling in the millions, a refugee crisis that surpasses that of the Second World War, and a catastrophic deepening of human misery in every land where the US has placed its “boots on the ground.”

In Yemen, as elsewhere, US troops are engaged in a fight against forces that emerged directly out of Washington’s own interventions. As a direct by-product of the criminal war being waged by the Saudi monarchy and its Gulf oil sheikdom allies against Yemen, the poorest nation of the Arab world, AQAP has wrested control of a 340-square-mile area of the country’s southern coast and amassed a war chest of over $100 million in captured bank deposits.

This was not some unforeseeable side effect, but rather a direct result of Saudi Arabia’s—and Washington’s—reliance on Al Qaeda-linked forces to do their dirty work in a sectarian war that has killed at least 6,000 Yemenis, including 1,000 children, displaced 1.2 million people, and left half the population in danger of starvation.

The same essential story is unfolding in Iraq and Syria, only with far bloodier consequences. A US intervention that has seen some 5,000 US troops sent back into Iraq and hundreds more operating in flagrant violation of international law inside Syria is supposedly aimed at wiping out the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

ISIS, another Al Qaeda offshoot, had its origins in Iraq, the product of the war of sociocide waged by US imperialism between 2003 and 2010. It crossed the border into Syria, becoming one of the principal ground forces in the US-orchestrated war for regime change against the Assad government and the beneficiary of vast stocks of arms and supplies funneled in by the CIA and Washington’s regional allies, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. Immensely strengthened, ISIS crossed back into Iraq. Taking advantage of the deep sectarian divisions created by Washington’s policy of divide and rule, it overran much of the country in 2014, including Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, and routed US-trained and equipped Iraqi security forces.

In Afghanistan, 10,000 US troops remain, carrying out, as the massacre of at least 42 patients and medical staff at the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz reveals, combat operations that continue to claim civilian lives.

Finally, a meeting has been set for next week in Vienna to discuss another intervention by the US and the NATO powers in Libya, a country whose society was shattered by the US-NATO war of 2011, leading to ISIS forces seizing control of strategic areas on the Mediterranean coast.

This broad wave of US military violence is unfolding a century after the agreement reached during World War I that determined the imperialist carve-up and much of the subsequent history of the region. One hundred years ago, on May 9, 1916, British Middle East envoy Sir Mark Sykes and his French counterpart François Georges-Picot reached the infamous secret deal that bore their names. The Sykes-Picot agreement set the terms for the cynical post-World War I carve-up between Britain, France and, as a lesser power, Russia of the lands ruled by the Ottoman Empire.

Lines were drawn in the sands of the Middle East in utter disregard for the aspirations of the peoples of the region. This conspiracy became publicly known as a result of the October 1917 Russian Revolution, with then-Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs Leon Trotsky publishing the secret agreement in order to expose the crimes of the imperialist powers against the oppressed peoples of the region.

The war, Trotsky said, and been fought “for the ‘repartition’ of the Turkish lands between the banks, industrialists and merchants of the strongest capitalist powers.” Promises by the imperialists of Arab independence, he warned, would create territories “‘independent’ only of the Arabs and wholly dependent upon the bosses of international capital.”

The partition agreed to by Britain and France was imposed only through the bloody suppression of popular Arab insurgencies in territories that

are now divided between Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. With the decline of British and French imperialism in the aftermath of World War II and the subsequent decolonization, Washington became the principal guarantor of the nation-state system erected on the foundations of Sykes-Picot.

Despite the pretensions of Pan-Arab nationalism on the part of the Nasserites in Egypt, the Baathists in Iraq and Syria and other Arab regimes, the Arab bourgeoisie was never willing or able to supersede the boundaries drawn by the old colonialists, which marked out the lands ruled by the colonial states that they inherited. In the end, despite their conflicts with imperialism, they functioned as junior partners in the exploitation of the peoples they ruled.

The nation-state system erected on the basis of Sykes-Picot has been largely wrecked by a quarter century of unending military violence carried out by US imperialism to assert its own unfettered hegemony over the oil-rich region. In the course of Washington’s multiple wars, the Pentagon and the CIA have recklessly fomented sectarian conflicts to further their aims, tearing nations apart and creating conditions for a region-wide war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

While in an earlier epoch British and French imperialists attempted to impose a system of colonial rule, their American successors have specialized in smashing up existing states with the aim of denying the region’s energy resources to US imperialism’s rivals and assuring that no power emerges capable of challenging Washington’s regional hegemony.

The Obama administration, which is carrying out this reckless and destructive war policy, is riven with divisions. Military commanders are increasingly chafing at the administration’s pretense that US forces are not involved in combat, but merely acting as “advisors” in the multiple conflicts in which they are engaged. While the White House wants to limit the engagements in the Middle East in order to turn greater military force against US imperialism’s great power rivals, China and Russia in the first instance, the logic of military intervention is pushing the Pentagon to demand continuing escalation in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and beyond.

The bitter debates within the ruling establishment over how best to employ militarism to offset the economic decline of US capitalism are being carried out behind the backs of the American people. Both parties are rigorously excluding from the 2016 election campaign the preparations for a vast escalation of war in the Middle East and beyond. But one thing is certain: once the ballots are cast in November, there will be a dramatic expansion of global US military aggression, no matter who wins the White House.

The immense dangers that the war conspiracies of the ruling elite pose to people in the US and around the globe can be answered only through the building of an independent and international political movement of the working class against war and the capitalist system that produces it. This is what is being fought for by the Socialist Equality Party and its candidates in the 2016 election, Jerry White for US president and Niles Niemuth for vice president.

Mining a Heart of Gold? Slave Wages and Humanitarianism in Africa

Yves Engler

What do you call people who try to make people believe what they say but ignore the results of what they do? How about spin-sploiters?

After a few years of research I have come to realize that there is a long and ignoble history of Westerners exploiting Africans while touting humanitarian objectives. Unfortunately, this practice is not confined to the distant past.

A leading Canadian NGO official, who then founded Québec’s largest mining company, provides a recent example.

In a 2012 Gold Report interview titled “First, Do Good When Mining for Gold: Benoit La Salle” the President of the Société d’Exploitation Minière d’Afrique de l’Ouest (SEMAFO) boasted about the company’s social responsibility. La Salle said: “SEMAFO is not a company that mines gold, ships it out and, once that is done, breaks down camp and leaves. People see SEMAFO as being a very good corporate citizen. Today, many people believe that the CSR report is more important than our annual report.”  This is a startling claim for an individual obligated to maximize investors’ returns but a cursory look at the company’s record suggests it has little basis in reality.

Those living near SEMAFO’s Kiniero mine, reported Guinée News in 2014, felt “the Canadian company brought more misfortune than benefits.” In 2008 the military killed three in a bid to drive away small-scale miners from its mine in southeast Guinea. BBC Monitoring Africa reported “the soldiers shot a woman at close range, burned a baby and in the panic another woman and her baby fell into a gold mining pit and a man fell fatally from his motor while running away from the rangers.”  Blaming the Montréal-based company for the killings, locals damaged its equipment.”

In September 2011 protests flared again over the company’s failure to hire local young people and the dissolution of a committee that spent community development monies. Demonstrators attacked SEMAFO’s facilities, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.  Some also targeted a bus carrying company employees, prompting the authorities to evacuate all expatriate staff to Bamako in neighbouring Mali.

In 2014 the Guinean government’s Comité Technique de Revue des Titres et Conventions Miniers concluded that the Montréal firm evaded $9.6 million in tax.  The Comité Technique also found that the company failed “to produce detailed feasibility studies” and was not “in compliance with new measures in the 2011 mining code.”  The Comité Technique recommended that SEMAFO be fined and stripped of its mining rights in the country.

To the east, SEMAFO opened the first industrial scale gold mine in Niger. A 2007 Montreal Gazette business article headlined “Local Miner a Major Force in Niger: It’s not every day we receive a press release from a gold mining company that includes a warm personal message from the prime minister”, reported on the close ties between SEMAFO and Hama Amadou, then Prime Minister of Niger. “We work very closely with him,” said La Salle. “We’re part of his budget every year.”

La Salle described how the prime minister helped his company break a strike at its Samira Hill mine in the west of the country. “He gave us all the right direction to solve this legally,” La Salle said. ‘We went to court, we had the strike declared illegal and that allowed us to let go of some of the employees and rehire some of them based upon a new work contract. It allowed us to let go of some undesirable employees because they had been on strike a few times.” (In mid-2008 SEMAFO’s preferred prime minister was arrested on corruption charges stemming from two unrelated incidents.)

The bitter strike led to a parliamentary inquiry regarding environmental damage caused by the mine, lack of benefits for local communities and treatment of miners. Opposition politicians accused SEMAFO of paying “slave wages”.  “The wages are very low,” explained Mohammed Bazoum, deputy chairman of Niger’s main opposition party in 2009.

SEMAFO was also accused of failing to pay both taxes and dividends to the government. Despite owning a 20% share in the Samira Hill mine, the government received no direct payments from the Montréal-based majority owner between 2004 and 2010. “Since this company started its activities, Niger has not seen a single franc despite its being a shareholder,” noted Abdoulkarim Mossi, head of a government committee set up to tackle economic and financial irregularities in the country.

Next-door, the company was close to President Blaise Compaoré who seized power in 1987 by killing Thomas Ankara, “Africa’s Che Guevara”, who oversaw important social and political gains during four years in office. La Salle worked closely with Compaoré for nearly 2 decades, traveling the globe singing the Burkina Faso government’s praise. After leaving office the Prime Minister between 2007–2011, Tertius Zongo, was appointed to SEMAFO’s Board of Directors and at a September 2014 Gold Forum in Australia SEMAFO officials lauded the government as “democratic and stable”.  The next month Compaoré was ousted by popular protest after he attempted to amend the constitution to extend term limits.

After ending Compaoré’s 27-year rule community groups and mine workers launched a wave of protests against foreign, mostly Canadian, owned mining companies. In a Bloomberg article titled “Revolt Rocks Burkina Faso’s Mines After President Flees”, SEMAFO’s director of corporate affairs, Laurent Michel Dabire, said the company was looking to fund a new police unit that would focus on protecting mining interests in the country.

SEMAFO is an outgrowth La Salle’s work for Plan Canada, part of a $1 billion a year global NGO. La Salle said that SEMAFO “was created in 1995 during my first visit to Burkina Faso as part of a mission with the NGO-Plan. I am the president of the administration council of Plan Canada and a director of Plan International. So, after the Plan organized visit to Burkina Faso provided me an opportunity to get close with national authorities, I decided to create SEMAFO to participate in the development of Burkina Faso’s mining industry.” As Plan Canada’s designated Francophone spokesperson, La Salle got to know Compaoré. “The president turned to me,” La Salle told another reporter, “and said that I should come back to his country with Canadian expertise to help his country develop its mining sector.”

La Salle procured mining expertise while Compaoré granted the Canadian a massive stretch of land to prospect. “The land package we have is way beyond what you’d see anywhere else in the world,” La Salle boasted.

Compaoré was good to La Salle. The Canadian ‘humanitarian” made millions of dollars from Burkina Faso’s (and Niger and Guinea’s) minerals. When he resigned after 17 years as president of SEMAFO in 2012, La Salle received a $3 million departure bonus, which was on top of his $1 million salary.

La Salle is just one in a long line of Westerners who’ve asked the world to believe what they say but ignore the actual results of what they do — a “spin-sploiter” — publicly professing humanitarian ideals all the while exploiting Africa.

The Distortion of American Politics

Lawrence Wittner

Ever since the foundation of the American Republic, there has been both praise for and suspicion of the role the press plays in U.S. political life.  Thomas Jefferson famously remarked that, if it were left to him “to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I would not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”  And yet, Jefferson was also profoundly disturbed by the politically biased and inaccurate articles that he saw published in the press.  As he told James Monroe:  “My skepticism as to everything I see in a newspaper makes me indifferent whether I ever see one.”

Jefferson’s ambivalence about the press becomes understandable when one considers the distorted reporting that has characterized the current campaign for the U.S. Presidency.

Take the case of the Times Union, the largest newspaper in New York State’s heavily populated capital region.  With a circulation of 66,835 on weekdays and 128,565 on Sundays, the Times Union focuses on the city of Albany and its suburbs, but also covers the rest of the capital region, including the cities of Schenectady, Troy, and Saratoga Springs.  Although owned by the Hearst Corporation, the paper has a somewhat more centrist tone.  With the New York Presidential primaries looming, it endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination and John Kasich for the Republican.  This “moderate” stance meshes well with the politics of Albany, a city that, though overwhelmingly Democratic, has long been controlled by a rather conservative Democratic political “machine.”

Consequently, it must have come as an unpleasant shock to the Times Union’s editors when, in the April 19 New York State Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders emerged victorious not only in the city of Albany, but in the entire capital region.  Indeed, Sanders garnered 53.3 percent of the Democratic vote in New York’s 20th Congressional district (an area comprising all of Albany and Schenectady Counties, as well as portions of Rensselaer, Saratoga, and Montgomery Counties).  Having defeated Hillary Clinton by a healthy margin of almost seven percent, Sanders won four out of the seven delegates allocated to the district by the New York State Democratic Party.  The outcome of the race was a reversal of the results in the 2008 Democratic primary, when Clinton handily defeated Barack Obama in the capital region.

This could have provided quite a dramatic feature item for a local newspaper, especially given the fact that a ragtag, volunteer campaign had defeated the Clinton juggernaut–a juggernaut reinforced by Clinton’s eight years of representing New York State in the U.S. Senate, the backing of Clinton by every major Democratic politician in the state, and the loyal campaigning for Clinton by the Albany Democratic “machine.” The David versus Goliath aspects of this story were also strengthened by the contrasting delegate slates for the two rival candidates that appeared on the 20th Congressional district election ballot:  the top local elected public officials and Democratic Party leaders for Clinton and a group of obscure community members for Sanders.  Here, it seemed, was a newspaper’s dream story.

But it wasn’t printed.  In fact, the Times Union even failed to report that Sanders had won the race in the capital district.

The Times Union article posted on the night of the primary didn’t mention Sanders’s victory at all.  Instead, the article, headlined “Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton win in New York,” gave the impression of a Clinton and Trump sweep.  “New York,” it proclaimed, “turned out to be the state where the presidential front-runners regained their mojo.”  Although the article devoted a good deal of attention to the activities of primary voters in the capital district, it somehow omitted reporting on whom they had voted for.

An updated version of the article appeared the following day in the Times Union, after the five counties’ boards of election had posted the election results online. By this time it was clear that Sanders, though losing heavily to Clinton in the New York City metropolitan region, had defeated Clinton in most other areas of the state.  This included not only the 20th Congressional district, but the neighboring 19th and 21st which, all together, provided Sanders with 11 delegates to Clinton’s seven.  Even then, however, the writers of the article could not quite bring themselves to say that, in the capital region, where almost all the Times Union’s readers lived and voted, Sanders had won.  Instead, they confined themselves to declaring that “Sanders performed well in the more rural regions of upstate–and in the Capital Region.”  With a headline this time proclaiming “Big home-state wins boost front-runners,” the article once again left readers with the impression that Clinton had been victorious in the newspaper’s locale while, in reality, the clear victor was Sanders.

On the night of April 22, three days after the presidential primary, seven words buried at the very end of a Times Union blog finally let slip the fact that Sanders had won in the 20th Congressional district.

The reluctance of the Times Union to report on how residents in its own region had voted, like the negligible coverage the newspaper gave to the vibrant local Sanders campaign in the months leading up to the Presidential primary, is really quite remarkable.

But should it surprise us?  Probably not.  One wonders to what degree this treatment of Sanders’s campaign is a national phenomenon.

All Angles Covered: Is The EU Completely In The Pocket Of The Biotech Industry?

Colin Todhunter

“In less than a fortnight, EU Member States will take a decision on the re-approval of glyphosate. Genius [lobby firm] is working to get this toxic herbicide re-approved by communicating the industry's mantra that glyphosate is scientifically proven safe, sponsored by Monsanto, Dow and Syngenta. At the same time, they are being paid by German authorities and EU-funded projects to work on issues that are closely related to glyphosate, and that are key to the interests of the same corporations. Public authorities using the same lobby consultancies as the corporations they are supposed to regulate is highly problematic…” - Corporate Europe Observatory

Much of the following text is an edited version of key extracts taken from the article referred to below from Corporate European Observatory.

On 9 May, Corporate Europe Observatory posted an article on its website that described how Genius, a lobby consultancy firm based in Germany, has been employed to distort the debate on glyphosate in favour the biotech industry.

Research linking the use of glyphosate to various diseases is well documented, and the World Health Organisation has declared the substance as “probably causing cancer to humans.” Despite this, the European Commission is seeking to grant glyphosate re-approval for another ten years. The re-authorisation is being sought by the Glyphosate Task Force (GTF), an industry platform uniting producers of glyphosate-based herbicides, whose members include Monsanto, Dow Agrosciences, Syngenta, and Barclay Chemicals. Genius was used to run its website.

In addition to the Glyphosate Task Force (GTF), Genius has been hired by biotech lobby group EuropaBio, its German member organisation DIB and individual corporations including Bayer, BASF, and Syngenta. It also works for the Brussels-based corporate food think tank EUFIC (European Food Information Council).

Monsanto, Syngenta, and Dow (all members of the GTF), as well as BASF and Bayer coordinate a lot of their lobbying efforts via lobby associations like EuropaBio. All of them share a deep commercial interest in the re-approval of glyphosate and in the continued production of glyphosate-tolerant GM crops, also via the sales of other brands of pesticides used for the same crops.

In the case of glyphosate, Genius ‘translates’ the science on its toxicity for its clients from the pesticide industry by writing on the Glyphosate Task Force website that it does not cause cancer, and saying that the IARC “should withdraw the decision” to classify glyphosate as a Group 2A carcinogen.

However, Genius also lists public institutions as its clients, who are in charge of regulating the industry’s products, including the European Commission, the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) and 10 German federal and regional authorities, including the German risk assessment agency Bfr. This is important because Germany is the Rapporteur Member State for the re-approval of glyphosate, and Bfr is the agency in charge of the renewal assessment report.

Genius takes part in several EU-funded research projects that generally aim to help shape EU risk assessment requirements or increase communication activities on the supposed benefits of the biotech industry's products.

An important example is GRACE (GMO Risk Assessment and Communication of Evidence). Kristina Sinemus, Genius' Managing Director, and its co-founder Klaus Minol take part in this project. In fact, about half of the experts participating in GRACE have close ties to industry lobby groups like ILSI (International Life Sciences Institute), PRRI (Public Research and Regulation Initiative) and/or to industry-funded organisation ISBR (International Society for Biosafety Research). Genius is not the only lobby consultancy participating in GRACE; Belgium-based Perseus also works with companies aiming to get deregulation for new techniques of genetic engineering.

The GRACE project is important, since it feeds directly into the process by which the European Commission in 2016 will decide on further standards of risk assessment for GM crops.

Testbiotech warns that “there is a substantial risk that the EU Commission will come to false conclusions, and could fail to set sufficiently robust standards to maintain the precautionary approach as required by EU regulations.”

Between 2006 and 2009, Genius worked for EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority responsible for risk assessing the products of Genius' pesticides/biotech clients. Its role was to “support the European Food Safety Authority through editorial work and public relations tasks.” Tasks included the 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 annual reports, background texts for the website, and a newsletter, as well as doing communication work for a conference on GMO risk assessment for human and animal health and the environment that was held in Brussels in 2009.

Genius has been involved in numerous other EU funded projects in the same field, as detailed in the article by CEO. That article (containing all relevant links) should be read in full all links because it highlights how a failure and the complete lack of willingness by the EU to properly regulate lobbying in Brussels as well as conflicts of interest within public bodies have all but corrupted decision-making processes and have placed the health of 500 million Europeans at serious risk, while continuing to fuel an unsustainable model of corporate-controlled agriculture.

If the decision-making and propaganda surrounding glyphosate were made into a Shakespearean play, it would be based on tragedy. In the absence of Shakespeare, here's a short but excellent video by Pesticide Action Network Europe:

Drastic increase in far-right crimes in Germany

Elisabeth Zimmermann

The official report from Germany’s Federal Police Agency (BKA) for the first quarter of 2016 confirms a drastic increase in far-right motivated attacks on asylum seekers, refugees and their supporters.

According to the report, in the first three months of the year, there were 347 such attacks on asylum accommodation, including three attempted homicides, 37 arson attacks and 23 bodily injuries. Of the 347 attacks on refugee shelters, the BKA regards 319 as acts of right-wing violence.

In its report, the BKA warns for the first time that as well as physical attacks on refugees, “In addition to injury, homicides must be reckoned with in individual cases.” The BKA lists other potential targets of right-wing violence as refugee volunteers, politicians and journalists.

In addition to the attacks on refugee homes, the report lists a further 73 violent right-wing crimes against refugees. There were also 386 right-wing offences (propaganda offences, criminal damage and incitement) against refugees, 88 against politicians and 33 against volunteers, including two personal injuries.

The BKA report also warns about terrorist and criminal groups in the far-right spectrum. As evidence for this, it cites the build-up of offences in certain regions, the availability of explosives as well as the number of those the security authorities deem to be potential offenders on the far right.

Overall, the number of crimes with a right-wing extremist background rose from 10,541 (2014) to 13,846 (2015). This represents an increase of more than 30 percent.

Throughout 2015, there were 1,031 officially registered attacks on asylum seeker accommodation. Adding in the attacks that have occurred over the first three months of this year to the rest of 2015, there has been an increase of 25 percent.

In particular, there were many right-wing attacks on refugees and their accommodation in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. There were 92 since the beginning of this year, and 214 last year.

These high numbers are just the tip of the iceberg. As the WSWS has reported in previous articles on this subject, the official statistics only record crimes that are classified as being motivated by right-wing extremist sentiments. Countless attacks on refugee shelters or on political opponents are not registered because the police authorities conceal the extreme-right motivation.

In addition, only a fraction of these crimes are investigated and even fewer offenders are prosecuted and convicted. Investigations of the far-right terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU) have revealed that extreme-right offenders who work as undercover informants for the intelligence services or police have often had their crimes covered. The boundaries between the obstruction of justice and the immediate financial and logistical support of such right-wing groups are very fluid. The police and intelligence services are closely linked to the right-wing extremist scene via this network of undercover informants and agents.

The rise of extreme-right and xenophobic violence is a direct result of the brutal refugee policy of the German government, which aims only at sealing off borders and deterrence. This is supported by all the state governments and established parties in Germany.

The government has repeatedly tightened up the asylum laws in the past few months. With the support of the Green Party, the Bundesrat (second chamber of parliament) has declared all the Balkan states to be safe countries of origin, resulting in the deportation of thousands of people who have lived in Germany for many years. A hideous competition between the various state administrations can be witnessed as to who can be the “most effective” and most ruthless when it comes to deportations .

As a result of the European Union’s dirty deal with Turkey, which the German government largely negotiated, and the closure of the Balkan route, only a few refugees now manage to travel to Germany, where their treatment and accommodation breaches fundamental democratic rights. Hundreds of thousands of people are denied decent housing and proper treatment. This is meant to discourage others from coming to Germany, and at the same time is grist to the mill of the far-right parties and fanatics.

Trump’s rise causes disquiet in Australian ruling circles

Mike Head

Donald Trump’s emergence as the presumptive US Republican presidential candidate has been met with a mixture of consternation and nervousness in Australia’s media and political establishment, both for foreign and domestic policy reasons. Alarm over the implications of a Trump presidency for the Australian ruling elite’s long reliance on the US military alliance has been accompanied by anxiety over the popular discontent that Trump has exploited.

In his comments on foreign policy, Trump has combined “America First” isolationism, demanding that US allies ramp up their own military spending, with provocative denunciations of China and aggressive assertions of American might. Trump has declared he will stop China “raping” America, back the use of torture by US forces and encourage Japan and South Korea to acquire nuclear weapons.

Domestically, he has employed fascistic demagogy, seeking to divert the seething social discontent among working people by scapegoating immigrants and other minorities, and promoting extreme nationalism in economic and foreign policy. His rise marks the advanced decomposition of American democracy. As the WSWS has warned:

The impending nomination of Trump means that a substantial section of the American ruling class has concluded that the defense of its interests requires massive political repression within the United States and war against competitors and enemies beyond its borders.

During a radio interview last week, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sought to downplay the potential fallout. He insisted that he had “absolutely no doubt” Australia would “always have a very, very strong friend and ally in Washington,” regardless of who was elected president. “Our relationship with the United States is so deep—it’s based on thousands if not millions of individual relationships, it’s been built up over generations,” he said.

Turnbull’s remarks underscore the integration of Australia’s political, military and security elite into that of Washington since World War II, in order to secure the predatory interests of Australian imperialism in the Asia-Pacific region. Since taking office last September, Turnbull has been at pains to publicly maintain the commitment made by the previous Labor government to the Obama administration’s “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia to counter the rise of China and prepare for war against Beijing if necessary, despite China becoming Australian capitalism’s largest export market over the past decade.

At the same time, Turnbull voiced concern about Trump’s capacity to tap into the social “tension” produced by mounting inequality in the US, while trying to deny any such disaffection in Australia. “Income inequality is a big issue in the United States,” Turnbull said. “We have much more equality in incomes in Australia because we have a much better targeted social welfare system. But there are a lot of tensions there and I think support for Trump is clearly evidence of that.”

In reality, widening inequality—a global phenomenon—is also producing growing political unrest and volatility in Australia, as demonstrated by the inability of any prime minister to survive a full parliamentary term since 2007. Turnbull’s recourse to an unpredictable “double dissolution” election of all members of both houses of parliament on July 2, in an attempt to break through a Senate blockage of deeply unpopular key austerity measures, is further evidence of a similar underlying political crisis to that convulsing America.

Figures within the Australian security establishment, where there are close ties to Washington, have expressed alarm that a Trump presidency might signal a waning US commitment to Australia’s interests. Former Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director-general David Irvine told an Australian Strategic Policy Institute conference in Canberra last month that a Trump victory would “totally overturn the Asia-Pacific applecart, with a nuclear Japan or a nuclear South Korea.” The foundation of Asia-Pacific security would be “turned on its head” and Australia would have to significantly increase its own military capability.

Reflecting these concerns, former Labor Party leader Kim Beazley, who recently completed a six-year appointment as Australia’s ambassador to Washington, has warned that a Trump White House would have “devastating” consequences for relations with China and for US trade commitments, notably the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the proposed US-led economic bloc across the region.

“Were Trump to be elected, the impact on American positioning on global trade would be disastrous,” Beazley told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on May 5. “Visceral hostility to the American free trade position—that has been a lifetime Trump commitment.” In a lecture last month, Beazley declared that Trump had “no regard for alliances at all.” If Trump won the presidency, “it is certain the TPP would not go through” and “the effect would be potentially quite devastating.”

Beazley also represents the pro-Washington leadership that has long been entrenched inside the Labor Party. He strongly backed Hillary Clinton, a proven ruthless prosecutor of the military and economic interests of the US and its allies. Her victory would be “reassuring” because “she would be most likely to replicate in minds of friends and opponents of America what it has stood for traditionally,” including the “rebalance” toward Asia.

Similar anxieties have been voiced by another figure with close connections in Washington, the Australian’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan. “On the basis of declared policy, Clinton would be an infinitely better president for Australia than Trump,” he wrote on May 5. “Clinton values alliances, is widely experienced and works for stability.” But Sheridan noted that she was “by no means inspiring, to anybody,” giving Trump “burgeoning electoral plausibility.”

This posed an acute dilemma. “All my national security Republican friends in Washington detest Trump and many plan to vote for Clinton or not vote at all.” Perhaps, Sheridan suggested, they should “get close to his campaign to try to draw it into strategic reality and responsibility.” Sheridan gave voice to the perplexity in ruling circles. “Anything at all is possible now,” he concluded.

Mark Latham, another former Labor Party leader, has welcomed the Trump ascendancy, openly extolling his fascistic demagogy as a means of channeling social unrest, while promoting the illusion that Trump would be less of a “dangerous warmonger” than George Bush, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. In a March 29 column in Murdoch’s Sydney Daily Telegraph tabloid, Latham hailed Trump for advocating “bold solutions to longstanding problems, such as illegal immigration and deficit budgeting, backed by his personal story in building a lucrative business career.”

Clearly, Latham, who led Labor from 2003 to 2005, would relish playing a similar role to Trump. Revealing an abiding contempt for the working class, he declared that Trump appealed to voters not only because the billionaire was ostensibly anti-establishment, but shared their views. “Why shouldn’t they support a successful, down-to-earth candidate who talks their language and shares their values?”

Furthermore, Latham argued, Trump’s “foreign policy is in our national interest.” Trump, Latham claimed, “has been highly critical of Bush and the neo-con invasion of Iraq, which resulted in the death of 4,500 American servicemen and the rise of Islamic State—a truly vulgar outcome.” A Trump presidency “would mean no more fiascos like Vietnam and Iraq, sparing young Australian lives from the futile killing fields of US-led invasions.”

Far from opposing imperialist war, this view reflects essentially tactical divisions within both the American and Australian ruling classes provoked by the catastrophic outcomes of the interventions in Vietnam and the Middle East. Above all, Latham, like Trump, is looking to whip up nationalism as means of diverting the rising social discontent in a reactionary and violent direction that would inevitably entail war against foreign rivals as well as domestic repression.

The Sustainable Energy Transition: A "Back Of The Envelope" Calculation

Ugo Bardi

Image source. "Back of the Envelope" calculations are a tradition in science and often turn out to be able to provide
plenty of useful information, at the same time avoiding the common pitfall of complex models, that of being able to fit
anything provided that one has enough adjustable parameters.

The world's economy can be seen as a giant heat engine. It consumes energy, mainly in the form of fossil fuels, and uses it to produce services and goods. No matter how fine-tuned and efficient the engine is, it still needs energy to run. So, if we want to do the big switch that we call the "energy transition" from fossil fuels to renewables, we can't rely just on efficiency and on energy saving. We need to feed the big beast with something it can run on, energy produced by renewable sources such as photovoltaics (PV) and wind in the form of electric power.

Here are a few notes on the kind of effort we need in order to move to a completely renewable energy infrastructure before it is too late to avoid the double threat of climate disruption and resource depletion. It is a tall order: we need to do it, basically, in some 50 years from now, possibly less, otherwise it will be too late to avoid a climate disaster. So, let's try a "back of the envelope" calculation that should provide an order of magnitude estimate. For a complete treatment, see this article by Sgouridis et al.

Let's start: first of all, the average power generation worldwide is estimated as around 18 TW in terms of primary energy. Of these, about 81% is the fraction generated by fossil fuels, that is 14.5 TW. This can be taken as the power that we need to replace using renewable sources, assuming to leave everything else as it is.

We need, however, also to take into account that these 14.5 TW are the result of primary energy generation, that is the heat generated by the combustion of these fuels. A lot of this heat is waste heat, whereas renewables (excluding biofuels) directly generate electric power. If we take into account this factor, we could divide the total by a factor of ca. 3. So, we may say that we might be able to keep the engine running with 5 TW of average renewable power. This may be optimistic because a lot of heat generated by fossil fuels is used for indoor heating, but it is based on the idea that civilization needs electricity more than anything else in order to survive. In terms of indoor heating, civilization survives even if we turn down the thermostat, wear a multi-layer of wool, and light up a small wood fire.

Renewable installations are normally described in terms of "capacity", measured in "peak-Watt" (Wp), that is the power that the plant can generate in optimal conditions. That depends on the technologies used. Starting from the NREL data, a reasonable average capacity factor a mix of renewables can be taken as about 20%. So, 5 TW of average power need 25 TWp of installed capacity. We need to take into account many other factors, such as intermittency, which may require storage and/or some spare power, but also better efficiency, demand management, and storage. On the whole, we may say that these requirements cancel each other. So, 25 TWp can be seen as a bare minimum for survival, but still a reasonable order of magnitude estimate. Then, what do we have? The present installed renewable capacity is ca. 1.8 TWp; around 7%. Clearly, we need to grow, and to grow a lot.

Let's see how we have been doing so far. (The values in the figure below appear to exclude large hydropower plants, which anyway have a limited growth potential).

Image source

As you can see, we have been increasing the installed power every year. According to Bloomberg, the installed capacity reached about 134 GWp in 2015. If this value is compared with the IRENA data, above, we see that the growth of installations is slowing down. Still, 134 GWp/year is not bad. The renewable energy industry is alive and doing well, worldwide.

Now, let's go to the core of the matter: what do we need to do in order to attain the transition, and to attain it fast enough? (*)

Clearly, 130 GWp/year, is not enough. At this rate, we would need two centuries to arrive at 25 TWp. Actually, we would never get there: assuming an average lifespan of the plants of 30 years, after 30 years we would stabilize around 4 TWp and all the new installations would be used to replace the old plants as they wear out. But we could get to 25 TWp in 30 years if we could reach and maintain an installation rate of 800 GWp per year, about 6 times larger than what we are doing today. (note that this doesn't take into account the need of replacing old plants but, if we assume an average lifetime of 30 years, the calculation remains approximately valid from now to 2050.)

We may not need to reach 100% renewable power by 2050; 80% or even less than that may be enough. In such case, we could make it with something like 500 GWp/year; still a much larger rate than what we are doing today. And if we manage to arrive to - say - even just 50% renewable power by 2050, then we will have created a renewable juggernaut that will lead to 100% in a relatively short time. On the other hand, as I said before, 25 TWp may be optimistic. Therefore, we may need installation rates of the order of at least 1 TWp/year or even more. On the whole, I'd say that 1TWp/year is as good as it can be as an order of magnitude estimate of the energy needed for the survival of civilization as we know it. Approximately a factor of 8 higher than what we have been doing so far.

This back of the envelope calculations arrives at results compatible to those of the more detailed calculations by Sgouridis et al. That study makes more stringent and detailed assumptions, such as the need of increasing the supply of energy for a growing human population, a lower capacity factor, the need of a gradual build-up of the production facilities, the need of oversized capacity to account for intermittency, the energy yield of the plants (*) and more. In the end, it arrives at the conclusion that we need to install at least 5 TWp per year for a successful transition (and, by the way, that, if we do so, we can avoid crossing the 2 degrees C warming threshold). That's certainly more realistic than the present calculation, but let's stay with this scribbled envelope as a minimalistic approach. Let's say that, in order for civilization to survive, we need to install 1 TWp per year, how much would that cost?

Let's see how much we have been spending so far, again from Bloomberg:

Image from Bloomberg Global clean energy investment 2004-15, $bn

As you can see, investments in renewable energy were rapidly increasing up to 2011, then they plateaued with the value for 2015 only marginally higher than it was in 2011. However, if we compare with the previous figure, we see that we have been getting more Watt for the buck. In part, it is because of previously made investments, in part because of the improvements in renewable technologies that have reduced the cost per kWp. But note that technological improvements tend to show diminishing returns. The cost of renewable energy in terms of watt/dollar has gone down so fast and so much that from now on it may be difficult to attain the same kind of radical improvements, barring the development of some new, miracle technology. Take also into account that technological improvement may be offset by the increasing costs of the mineral resources needed for the plants.

We said that we need to increase the installation rate of about a factor of 8 in energy terms. Assuming that the cost of renewable energy won't radically change in the future, we need to increase monetary investments of about the same factor. It means that we need to go from the present value of about 280 billion dollars per year to some 2 trillion dollars/year. This is a lot of money, but not an unthinkable: investment rate. If we sum up what we are investing for fossils (about $1 trillion/year), for renewables ($300 billions/year) and nuclear (perhaps around $200 billions/year) we see that we are not far from there, as we can see in the image below. The total amount yearly invested in the world for energy supply is about 2% of the Gross World Product, today totaling about US$78 trillion.

And there we are. The final result of this exercise is, I think, to frame the transition as a "mind-sized" model (to use a term coined by Seymour Papert). Basically, it turns out that, barring technological miracles, a smooth transition from fossils to renewables is probably impossible; simply because the current way of seeing humankind's problems makes it impossible even to conceive such a massive shift of investments as it would be needed (noting also that investments in renewables have not been significantly increasing from 2011 - that's bad).

This calculation also tells us that it is not unthinkable to advance in the right direction and attain a transition that would allow us to maintain at least some of the features of the present civilization. That is, if we are willing to invest in renewable energy, our destiny is not necessarily that of going back to middle ages or to hunting and gathering (or even to extinction, as it seems to be a fashionable future in certain circles). The transition will be rough, it will be difficult, but it will not necessarily be the Apocalypse. Some kind of transition is unavoidable, anyway: fossil fuels just have no future. But civilization may still have a future: all the investments in renewable energy we can manage to make today for the transition will make the difference for the future. This is a choice that we can still make.

(*) Note: In this simplified calculation, I haven't specified where the energy needed for building the new infrastructure will come from and I haven't used the concept of EROEI (energy return on energy invested). It is taken into account in detail in the calculations by Sgouridis et al in terms of the concept of the "Sower's Strategy", that is assuming that fossil fuels provide the necessary energy during the initial stages of the transition, then they are gradually replaced by renewable energy.

IWC Masters Scholarships for International Students

International Water Centre
Masters (MS) Degree

Deadline: 1 Aug 2016 (annual)
Study in: Australia
Next course starts Feb 2017

Brief Description:

The IWC Masters Scholarships are prestigious scholarships awarded annually to high calibre candidates who clearly demonstrate potential to become future water leaders to study the IWC Master of Integrated Water Management (MIWM) at The University of Queensland in Australia.

Host Institution(s):

The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia

Level/Field of study:

Masters in Integrated Water Management (MIWM)

No. of  Scholarships:

Up to 3 – 2 for Type A scholarships and 1 for Type B scholarships

Target group:

A – Future water leaders from priority countries in Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Africa and the Middle-East.  One of these scholarships will be reserved and awarded to a female candidate.

B –  Future water leader from selected countries in North America, Europe, or Asia.

Scholarship coverage/inclusion:

A – Each scholarship is valued at approximately AU$ 92,645 and will cover full tuition fees, living costs, return air travel to Australia, student visa and overseas health cover.

B – The scholarship is valued at approximately AU$ 52,500 and will cover full tuition fees.

Eligibility:

To apply for a scholarship, you must have all of the following:

• A completed undergraduate degree in a related field of study from an internationally-recognised institution;

• At least two years of professional experience (paid work or volunteering experience) relevant to the program.

•  International candidates must also demonstrate English Language Proficiency (see UQ’s Policy including minimum scores for IELTS, TOEFL or PTE). A proof of English language proficiency needs to be uploaded with the online application form.

Application instructions:

To apply, you must complete an online application form by 1 August 2016.

It is important to read the IWC Scholarships Terms & Conditions and visit the official website to access the application form and for detailed information on how to apply for this scholarship.

Website:

Official Scholarship Website: http://www.watercentre.org/education/programs/scholarships/iwc-masters-scholarships-international

2016 NRF-TWAS Doctoral Scholarships / NRF-TWAS African Renaissance Doctoral Scholarships

Application Deadline: 29th of June 2016

Offered annually? No

Eligible Countries: Developing countries and Africa (Africans are ONLY eligible to apply for theNRF-TWAS African Renaissance Doctoral Fellowship)

To be taken at (country): South Africa

Brief description: The National Research Foundation (NRF) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), in partnership with The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) are offering combined scholarships in the following two(2) categories:

• NRF – TWAS Doctoral Fellowships
• NRF – TWAS African Renaissance Doctoral Fellowships

Eligible Fields of Study: Science, Engineering and Technology

About the Award: TWAS has been supporting scientists and institutions in developing countries through a wide range of programmes that focus on scientific capacity building. The core mandate of the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF) is to promote and support research through funding, human resource development and the provision of the necessary facilities in order to facilitate the creation of knowledge, innovation and development in all fields of research. In order to realise this mandate, the NRF has made great commitment and investment towards supporting “next generation” researchers and to intensify and strengthen African and global networks.

The partnership between The NRF and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) has led to the establishment of two Doctoral Scholarships namely; the NRF – TWAS Doctoral Scholarship and the NRF – TWAS African Renaissance Doctoral Scholarship. This award is strategically aimed at increasing and supporting Doctoral scholars from Africa and developing countries who will be funded per annum for a maximum of three (3) years to pursue full-time research training in South Africa. There will be an intake of 70 doctoral scholars each year for three (3) years, starting in 2017.

Offered Since: 2017

Type: Doctoral Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• The NRF-TWAS Doctoral Scholarship funding Instrument is open to citizens and permanent residents from developing countries outside Africa
• The NRF-TWAS African Renaissance Doctoral Scholarship funding instrument is open to citizens and permanent residents from Africa except South Africa
• No resident of South Africa or citizen of South Africa in any developed country who holds temporary residence permits (this includes study permits) is eligible to apply;
• Foreign citizens who were previously employed or studying towards a degree or undertaking research in South Africa, and have returned to their country of origin but have been in their country of origin for less than two (2) years are NOT eligible.
• Applicants must be thirty five (35) years of age on 31 December of the year of application for the doctoral scholarship ;
• Applicants must hold a university degree that will satisfy requirements for admission to doctoral studies at a South African public university, which is generally a Master’s Degree;
• Visa and immigration laws of the applicant’s home country and South Africa must be met by the applicant.
• Application Requirements: Applicants must provide an official letter from their host South African institution, department or laboratory and motivation from the applicant’s host.
• It is the responsibility of the applicant to contact the respective institution to apply for acceptance. In addition, it is also the responsibility of the applicant to secure a supervisor for the study;
• The research project must be registered and approved by the host institution (a letter of support from the prospective supervisor must be attached to the application;
• Applicants must have all foreign qualifications (obtained from non-South Africa universities) evaluated by the South African Qualification Authority (SAQA).
• A SAQA evaluation certificate must be submitted with the application, failing which the application will be rejected.
• The applicant must secure their own visa’s or study permits under the programme for study in South Africa.

Selection Criteria: 

• Scholarships may not be held simultaneously with another scholarship from any other TWAS, South African government or NRF administered source;
• Doctoral scholars may not concurrently hold the scholarship with any full-time employment position;
• Doctoral scholars can hold non-binding supplementary grants or emoluments to the institutional capped value.
• Applicant expertise/training that will enable the applicant to successfully undertake the proposed research.
• The applicant’s research track record which could include peer reviewed publications, conference proceedings, research prizes and awards.
• Scientific and Technical quality of proposed research Literature review with citations, significance of the research in terms of the problem statement, aims and objectives.
• Research design, methodology developed to address aims of the research.
• Alignment with national and institutional research priorities.
• Institutional support for the postdoctoral fellowship through infrastructure and facilities for an enabling environment.
• Potential Research Outputs and Impact of the research Details of envisaged realistic outputs of the research such as publications, conference proceedings, toolkits, policy documents.
• Contribution to postdoctoral research skills development in a priority research area (human capacity development of the applicant)
• Potential for socio-economic impact of the research in South Africa

Number of Awardees: 

• NRF – TWAS Doctoral Scholarship funding instrument: 20 scholars from developing countries outside Africa;
• NRF – TWAS African Renaissance Doctoral Scholarships funding instrument: 50 scholars from Africa.

Value of Scholarship:

• A single economy airfare to travel from home country to South Africa;
• A single economy airfare to return to home country upon completion of the doctoral degree.
• Non-taxable stipend of R110 000 per annum
• Local travel costs R25 000
• Maximum international travel costs R50 000

Duration of Scholarship: Up to three (3) years

How to Apply: Applications should be submitted via the NRF Online Submission System. Read further instructions on the Application Process Guides here and here

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: The World Academy of Sciences, National Research Foundation (NRF) and Department of Science and Technology (DST)

Important Notes: Applicants are advised to complete their applications soon after the call is open to prevent IT system overload nearer the closing date of Friday, 29 July 2016. The NRF will not process applications that are incomplete, contain insufficient or incorrect detail, or fail to comply with instruction as such applications will be rejected. The application must be completed in sufficient detail to allow for a comprehensive review and evaluation by external reviewers. In addition to the electronic application and required attachments, the NRF may request additional information or documentation to support an application if required. Failure to supply such information or documentation upon request may result in the rejection of the application.