A wave of summary executions following the Philippine election

Dante Pastrana

Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte, the head of death squads in Davao City in the Southern Philippines where he has been the long-time mayor, vowed during his campaign to kill and dump over a hundred thousand alleged criminals in Manila Bay within six months of his election. Less than a month before his presidential inauguration, police and vigilantes have already launched a murderous campaign against alleged criminals throughout the country.

Duterte announced on May 31 that he would be paying bounties for every person killed who was alleged to be in the drug trade. He also announced the value which he would assign to every human life taken, promising up to 3 million pesos ($US64,000) for every “drug lord,” 2 million for those deemed to be in charge of distribution, 1 million for “syndicate members,” and 50,000 for “ordinary” drug peddlers.

Duterte further stated that he would begin making payments for those killed prior to taking office, stating that he had enough money left in his campaign funds to pay for “100 persons dead.” He explicitly included in his bounty offer a reward for lives of inmates within the prison system who were alleged to be dealing drugs.

Since his election, a wave of executions of alleged criminals carried out both by vigilantes and the police has swept the country.

On May 19, vigilantes executed an alleged drug pusher in Bulacan province on the island of Luzon. According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the vigilantes abducted Ramonito Nicolas Mendoza immediately following his court hearing on drug charges and release on bail. Mendoza’s dead body, riddled with bullets, was later found with his hands and feet hogtied, his head wrapped with packaging tape and a sign on his neck stating “Huwag akong tularan. Drug Pusher Ako.” (Don’t be like me. I’m a drug pusher).

On May 25, according to the South China Morning Post, five motorcycle-riding gunmen shot dead three alleged petty thieves in Davao city.

“Police records show these men were pickpockets and burgled cars,” the city’s police spokeswoman, Senior Inspector Milgrace Driz, told the newspaper. She then added the well-worn rationale of the city’s police for such assassinations, claiming that they were “due to gang warfare” and insisting that the Davao Death Squads were a “myth.”

“They don’t exist, it is only you journalists who say they exist,” she said. Duterte himself has repeatedly acknowledged the existence of these death squads, as well as his direct oversight of them.

Three days later, unknown gunmen shot and killed two other suspected drug dealers in the same city. One victim, attacked at an Internet shop on Wednesday, had been out on bail on a drug-related offence.

The police have not been far behind in racking up kills. Two suspected illegal drug traders died in a shootout with police during a sting operation in Biñan City, in the province of Laguna on Luzon, in the early morning of May 20.

On May 26, police in Bulacan killed four alleged drug dealers in a gun battle in the town of Norzagaray town. The next day, another four drug suspects were killed after allegedly trading shots with the police in General Santos City on Mindanao Island.

Over the weekend, police shot and fatally wounded Rowen Secretaria and three others in a shootout at Banacon Island, 33 kilometres from Cebu city, the second largest city in the country. The police accused Secretaria of ranking “third among the top drug personalities in Cebu City.”

The police killings follow the explicit instruction of Duterte’s new national head of the police, Superintendant Ronald de la Rosa. Speaking to the press last month, de la Rosa exhorted his men to “shoot-to-kill if the criminal fights back or is armed.” When asked by reporters what police should do if the criminals did not fight back, de la Rosa responded, “Make them fight back.” He thus publicly green-lighted extra-judicial killings on the pretext of resisting arrest.

This spate of killings is unfolding as the entire Philippine political establishment is rapidly shifting to the far-right. From city mayors to congress, under the banner of an “all-out war against crime, drugs and corruption,” the pretence of adhering to democratic rights and due process is being discarded.

In Tanauan city, the newly-elected mayor twice forced suspected drug pushers to parade through the streets in a so-called “Walk of Shame” with signs on their chests stating “Ako’y Pusher, Huwag tularan” (I’m a drug pusher, Don’t be like me.). The local police have admitted formal charges have yet to be filed as their investigations have not been completed.

In Cebu City, days after gaining the mayoralty, Tomas Osmeña announced a $US1,000 dollar bounty to the police for every suspected “drug lord” or petty criminal killed or wounded. “It can be their extra source of livelihood,” Osmeña told the Cebu media.

Last week, the mayor-elect awarded the bounty to a police team for killing Teodoro Cabriana, suspected of drug pushing, after he allegedly tried to shoot it out with the police. The previous week, Osmeña handed over a bounty to an off-duty policeman for shooting and wounding two suspected robbers alleged to have held up a public utility Jeepney.

Underscoring his murderous intent, the mayor-elect handed out only $US427 dollars, explaining that the suspects “were injured and were not shot dead.”

In the Philippine congress, with even nominal opposition to Duterte expected to be just 20 congressional representatives out of 300, a repressive legislative agenda of “all-out war against crime, drugs and corruption,” including the return of the death penalty and the reduction of the age of criminality, will be rapidly advanced under the guise of a national crisis of drug addiction and drug-related crimes.

Even more ominously, Duterte announced plans to add two divisions to the military, recruit 3,000 new police and to organize and arm militias down at the barangay level, the smallest local government unit.

Justice in the Philippines, designed under US colonial rule, has always been a repressive and corrupt affair. There is no trial by jury. The state security forces, in general, and the police in particular, are brutal, corrupt and have a well-earned reputation of torturing suspects and conducting extra-judicial executions.

Moreover, according to Human Rights Watch, between 85 and 90 percent of the more than 94,000 inmates in the penal system are still awaiting or undergoing trial. The Philippines is the Southeast Asian country with the highest number of pre-trial and remand detainees and the second highest in all of Asia.

Duterte’s so-called “war on drugs” is aimed at the working class. The main victims of drug addiction in the Philippines are workers, the poor and the youth, who have also been the main victims of Duterte’s death squads in Davao.

The summary executions across the country which Duterte is calling for and rewarding, and which have already commenced, are intended to dramatically increase repression in the face of a mounting social crisis and to prepare to brutally crackdown on any resistance from the working class.

Turkey seeks increased presidential powers amid rising social tension

Jean Shaoul

Fierce clashes broke out between armed police and a few hundred demonstrators commemorating the third anniversary of the May 31 Gezi protests this week.

Beginning Monday, hundreds of armed police, as well as riot control vehicles and water cannon, were deployed to Taksim Square to bar people from entering the square. Police fired tear gas and detained more than a dozen activists. In a separate incident, police detained 16 activists at the offices of the city’s architects’ chamber near the Yildiz Palace.

The heavy-handed response to a small demonstration testifies to the extraordinarily tense social relations in Turkey. Since 2013, the authorities, particularly President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was prime minister at the time, have used every opportunity to demonise the Gezi protests—and any other protest movement--as an attempted coup orchestrated by Turkey’s domestic and foreign enemies, with Washington’s backing.

Thus far, Erdogan’s government has focused repressive measures on supporters of the opposition Gulenist movement founded by US exile Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

While Gulen is a convenient scapegoat, the AKP government’s increasing repression is fundamentally driven by fear of working class opposition to the deeply unpopular domestic and foreign policies implemented by Ankara in response to the 2008 global financial crisis.

Erdogan is seeking to side-line his political rivals, most recently the former president and co-founder of the AKP Abdullah Gul, and his former foreign minister and handpicked prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, whom he has replaced with the loyalist Binali Yildirim.

Erdogan is developing closer relations with the military, which he long viewed as a threat to his rule. Since 2007, the Erdogan government has tried hundreds of current and former military officials on charges of attempting to overthrow the government, when military leaders threatened to intervene if Turkey’s secular character was diluted by the Islamist AKP.

Last month, Erdogan invited Turkey’s top general to his daughter’s wedding, evoking a storm of criticism in the opposition press and on social media. In April, a court overturned the convictions of 275 people in the 2008 case, including those of top generals.

The government is to introduce a constitutional amendment to parliament to allow Erdogan to become a “party affiliated” president, enabling him to resume his leadership of the AKP, which he was obliged to give up on assuming the presidency, a largely ceremonial position, in August 2014. This will enable him to more directly control the AKP and the government. It forms one of a series of changes that Erdogan is determined to force through in order to create a more dictatorial presidential system. Other constitutional amendments are to be introduced that will consolidate his position as an executive president.

This follows the passage of a sweeping anti-terrorism law that enables people who merely express opinions to be investigated or tried on the grounds of aiding terrorism. Erdogan is using the anti-terrorism law to eliminate opposition politicians and journalists, targeting those critical of the army’s brutal crackdown on the Kurds, and operations aimed at toppling the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Anti-terror statutes are also being employed for repression against ethnic Kurds, aimed at preventing the establishment of an autonomous Syrian Kurdish entity on Turkey’s borders, an objective which Ankara has pursued through backing Islamist forces such as ISIS and the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra.

Erdogan’s aggressive Syrian policy has already brought Ankara to the brink of war with Russia, after the Turkish military provocatively downed a Russian fighter jet for allegedly straying into Turkish airspace. Moscow has retaliated by cutting its commercial links with Ankara, leading to a dramatic fall in investment, trade and tourism that has reverberated throughout the economy and accelerated the decline of the Turkish lira. So bad is the situation on Turkey’s south coast that Antalya has placed large colour brochures in the travel sections of foreign newspapers to bring tourists to its shores.

Last month, the Turkish parliament agreed to the AKP’s demand to lift the immunity of a quarter of its deputies, predominantly members of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), ostensibly for aiding and abetting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The government is waging war at a far greater level of intensity than that of the 1990s war. It has locked down towns, devastated cities, including much of the historic old city of Diyarbakir, capital of the largely Kurdish province, which contains UNESCO world heritage sites, displaced more than 350,000 civilians and killed more than 1,000 people. The entire region, already the poorest in Turkey, home to waves of refugees from Syria and prey to ISIS bombings, faces an economic disaster.

HDP legislators can now be brought before the courts and lose their mandate if convicted. In this way, Erdogan could establish the two-thirds parliamentary majority he requires to legitimise the presidential dictatorship, which is already functioning in practice, constitutionally.

The Turkish press has been brought to heel with the AKP-led drive for dictatorship. The only news media widely available are those that toe the government line. To step outside the boundaries of what the government deems acceptable means imprisonment.

Erdogan, who served a jail term in 1999 for reciting, while mayor of Istanbul, a nationalist and Islamist poem that was deemed guilty of “inciting violence and religious or racial hatred,” is now imposing similar treatment on those who dare to criticise him.

The Turkish authorities have jailed two leading journalists, Can Dündar and Erdem Gül of the Cumhuriet newspaper, for “disclosing state secrets” and aiding “an armed terrorist group”, after they showed pictures of the security forces handing over weapons to ISIS and other Islamist groups. They have raided the weekly news magazine Nokta, opened a case against Hurriyet’seditor-in-chief Sedat Ergin for insulting the president, and appointed state-trustees to run the Koza İpek Media Group, Zaman newspaper and Cihan News Agency. Numerous foreign journalists have been deported, usually on the grounds of aiding the PKK.

At the end of 2015, more than 100 journalists remained either imprisoned or on trial, mostly for “national security” offences, making Turkey the fifth worst jailer of journalists globally in 2015.

Around 2,000 journalists and ordinary citizens have been prosecuted for insulting Erdogan since he became president, the latest being Merve Buyuksarac, a former Miss Turkey, who was given a year-long suspended sentence for reposting a satirical poem insulting the president on social media. Barış İnce, former editor of the leftist daily Birgün, which faces another 40 similar investigations, was given a 21-month prison term for “insulting” the president.

UK firms use new regulations to cut pay and conditions

Danny Richardson

In October 2015, the hourly adult rate of the UK’s National Minimum Wage (NMW) rose from £6.50 to £6.70. From April this year, all workers aged 25 were legally entitled to at least £7.20 per hour under a new National Living Wage (NLW).

Despite being handed a £15 billion cut in corporation tax in Conservative Chancellor George Osborne’s budget to fund NLW and NMW pay increases, many firms are in fact cutting other workers’ pay rates and terms and conditions supposedly to offset the cost.

Supermarket chain Waitrose responded to the legislation by ending the payment of Sunday and overtime rates for new shop workers. Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket chain, reduced Sunday rates from double time to time and a half, while Morrisons cut Sunday pay rates. Retail chains B&Q and Wilko cut Sunday and overtime pay.

Many of the attacks on wages and conditions began within the UK food industry, which is heavily reliant on the use of agency workers as cheap labour. Agency workers are not entitled to the same pay and conditions as full-time workers.

This has only been possible through agreements with the trade unions, notably the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) and the UK’s biggest union, Unite. These unions are involved in a number of disputes, including with the £1 billion-valued 2 Sisters Foods group, which is part of Boparan Holdings, valued at £3.5 billion and chaired by Labour Party Peer Charles Allan.

The unions claim the firm is reducing established enhancement pay to compensate for the cost in implementing the rise in the minimum wage. Enhancement pay is paid for work performed outside agreed normal hours and for working during weekends and holidays (commonly known as overtime). The unions say the loss of earnings to full-time workers far outstrips the cost to the company of applying the new wage regulations.

On May 19 and 20, 400 workers at the Pennine factory of 2 Sisters Foods in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, struck for 48 hours against proposed wage cuts. Some workers could lose up to £5,000 as part of plans to remove extra weekend pay and lieu days for working weekends and bank holidays.

Following the Pennine strike, a 2 Sisters spokesman said, “We are disappointed some colleagues have decided on industrial action, given the union leadership’s acceptance of our new terms in February.” The firm claims the BFAWU agreed to recommend the deal to their members.

At the 2 Sisters-owned RF Brookes factory at Rogerstone in Newport, Wales, 100 workers are to strike for 48 hours between June 2 and 4. They are protesting the removal of night shift allowance, having to work more bank holidays, proposed lower overtime rates and the fact that the lowest hourly rate is being increased for workers over 25 only—in line with the national living wage. Interviewed by the BBC, an RF Brookes worker said he would lose £2,800 a year and some of his colleagues would lose up to £5,000. RF Brookes employs 800 workers, of which 420 are in the BFAWU.

A spokesman for the 2 Sisters Food Group said, “To connect this to the living wage would be totally inaccurate and misleading. Negotiations are all part of standard annual talks we have with unions at all our sites over the UK—Rogerstone is no different.”

Unite is balloting its 440 members at the 2 Sisters Foods Pizza Factory in Nottingham regarding changes to agreed terms and conditions. In a May 24 statement, Andy Shaw, a Unite regional officer said, “Any attempts to cut workers overtime, holiday and weekend pay to offset the government’s new National Living Wage or to impose changes without negotiating with the workers union will be strenuously challenged by Unite... Unite submitted its pay claim back in September, seeking a modest 3.1 percent pay increase but rather than honour the annual pay anniversary the company has been refusing to negotiate.”

Unite wants the dispute brokered by the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS). ACAS is headed by former Trades Union Congress General Secretary Brendan Barber. During his tenure, he did not lift a finger to oppose agency workers being on lower pay and worse conditions than those on permanent contracts.

Unite’s claims that it will “strenuously” defend its members’ pay and conditions is contradicted by its record. Last year, a 2 Sisters poultry planning site in Llangefni, Anglesey Wales announced 270 job cuts as part of a plan to “simplify” its business. The company announced that compulsory redundancies were restricted to 14, and that 37 workers had taken voluntary redundancy. The bulk of the job losses were made by 170 agency workers not having their contracts renewed. The union involved was Unite, which the company refer to as “our colleagues.” With their collaboration, the firm said it had moved “to the proposed operating model which the business presented two months ago.”

The unions have allowed food industry companies, including 2 Sisters Food Groups, to take on workers at rates of pay and conditions well below the existing basic level. Established workers are now being pushed towards accepting inferior terms on the same level as the agency/temp workers. For agency workers, enhanced payments are nonexistent.

At the Hovis factory in Wigan in September 2013, the BFAWU agreed to allow management to bring in zero-hours workers, replacing permanent workers made redundant. In an attempt to claim a historic “victory”, the union claimed the agreement reached scrapped the company’s attempts to use the “Swedish derogation.” This is an opt-out used by employers to deny agency workers their rights under the Agency Workers Regulation, which grants comparative pay and leave entitlements after 12 weeks on an assignment. However, the provision did not apply to zero-hour “on call” contracts.

A BFAWU press release described the settlement as “satisfactory for all concerned,” saying that the union has “worked together with the company in order to minimise the use of agency labour at the Wigan site [which] will only be used where there is insufficient commitment by employees to work overtime and banked hours.”

This sellout laid the basis for further attacks on the workforce by management. In July 2015, 40 jobs were lost when one of the two bread lines was shut down. Later, in November, the second bread line was shut down, and 111 jobs threatened overall. The bread-making lines ended entirely in March this year, with crumpet making the only production remaining at the plant. In response, BFAWU regional secretary Geoff Atkinson said the plant had suffered a “managed decline and a scaling back of jobs and skills, resembling nothing more than the business equivalent of a death of a thousand cuts, which I fear may lead to the eventual total closure of the bakery.” He didn’t mention the role of his union in this process.

More than 2,500 refugees drowned in Mediterranean so far this year

Martin Kreickenbaum

The mass deaths of refugees in the Mediterranean Sea has reached a new, grim record over the first five months of 2016. According to the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR), at least 2,510 refugees drowned between January and May during their attempts to cross to Europe. The European governments and European Union bear full responsibility for turning the Mediterranean into a mass graveyard for refugees.

Credit: Italian Navy

By questioning the survivors of recent accidents, the UNHCR estimated the number of victims. According to this, 880 refugees lost their lives in the Mediterranean in the last week of May alone. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) even suggests there could have been more than a thousand drowned refugees.

Previous estimates put the number at 700 victims from three capsized boats, but refugees reported many more were confined in the holds of the boats. In addition, 47 refugees are missing after a lifeboat with at least 125 on board deflated and capsized.

“For so many deaths to have occurred just in a matter of days and months is shocking and shows just how truly perilous these journeys are,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. Compared to the same period last year, when 1,855 refugees lost their lives in the Mediterranean, the number of deaths has increased by 35 percent.

According to UNHCR figures, 203,981 refugees have been registered after successfully surviving the crossing to Europe to seek protection there. Of these, 46,714 came to Italy, about the same number as last year.

Particularly in the months January to March, the overwhelming majority came via Turkey through Greece. In the process, 376 people drowned. But since the so-called Balkan route has been closed by means of the dirty deal between the EU and Turkey to ruthlessly deport refugees, the numbers of deaths on the much longer and riskier route from Libya to Italy has risen dramatically.

“The North Africa-Italy route is dramatically more dangerous: 2,119 of the deaths reported so far this year are among people making this journey, making for odds of dying as high as one in 23,” explained UNHCR spokesman William Spindler.

In other words, out of every 100 refugees starting their journey in Africa, four die in the attempt. The Mediterranean, directly adjacent to the rich countries of Europe and a popular tourist destination, is thus by far the most dangerous sea route for refugees in the world. According to official estimates, at least 30,000 refugees have drowned there in the last fifteen years.

The EU has responded with indifference to the rapidly rising number of victims. When the refugee assistance organisation SeaWatch, which supports rescue efforts in the Mediterranean, recently published a picture of a volunteer holding a dead baby in his arms, it provoked no outrage about the European governments’ inhumane policy of sealing off Europe’s borders.

When in September 2015 the picture of the drowned Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi lying on a Turkish beach was prominent in the media, empty promises and hypocritical phrases of sympathy were heard from Berlin and Brussels. However, the latest refugee tragedies in the Mediterranean have been virtually ignored. “The mass deaths of refugees on Europe’s borders are being accepted as collateral damage,” wrote Spiegel Online.

The deaths in the Mediterranean are part of the logic of the EU’s refugee policy, calculated to act as a deterrent. When, on October 3, 2013, 366 refugees horrifically drowned off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa, then Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta launched Operation Mare Nostrum. Originally intended as a mechanism to force boats back to the Libyan coast, it was unwillingly transformed into a sea rescue mission, since the rescue of people from shipwrecks is a central tenet of international law. Almost 150,000 refugees were thus saved from drowning.

But the rescue of refugees was an irritant for the EU, and above all for the German government. With the absurd argument that Mare Nostrum was encouraging more refugees to set off for Europe, German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere called a halt to it. Instead, on November 1, 2014 the EU adopted the much smaller Operation Triton, which was concentrated on a limited coastal area of sea, and led to the resumption of the mass deaths in the Mediterranean.

In early 2015 almost 1,500 refugees died within a few weeks, as the EU and its border protection agency Frontex looked on. “It is not enough to cry in front of the television in the evening when refugees are drowning in the Mediterranean, and hold a moment of silence in council the next morning,” EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said at the time. The EU’s response consisted in the militarisation of the Mediterranean.

Since then, two dozen warships from the European states have been patrolling the Mediterranean between Libya and Italy as part of Eunavfor Med (European Naval Force—Mediterranean) Sophia. But their goal is not the rescuing of shipwrecked passengers, but rather the combatting of smugglers, whose boats are to be captured and destroyed. The mission has just been extended for a further year and is to be stepped up along the Libyan coast.

In order to obtain a mandate from the UN, the Libyan puppet government of Fayez al-Sarraj imposed by the US and European powers has requested support in building up the coastguard and the combatting of the arms trade. In truth, the al-Sarraj government has no power in the North African country, and is merely in place to follow the orders of the western powers and sign off on a new NATO intervention.

Since the NATO war of 2011 to topple the Gaddafi government, Libya has been destroyed and is engaged in a bloody civil war. Hundreds of thousands of people were either slaughtered or driven from their homes. The countless refugees from African countries to the south were treated arbitrarily and are now confined to internment camps, where they have been tortured and abused.

Despite this, the EU is pushing for close cooperation with Libya to prevent refugees from travelling to Europe. “Now the task before us is to agree such a cooperation with Libya,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel in March, following the conclusion of the deportation agreement with Turkey.

The European Union has no qualms about working together with despotic regimes in Africa. The Eritrean government, which tramples human rights underfoot, received €200 million from the EU to detain refugees. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has been charged by the International Criminal Court in The Hague with genocide and crimes against humanity, has received technical equipment for border surveillance from the EU.

In addition, the EU is supporting the construction of refugee camps in Sudan. The regimes in Egypt and Morocco are also being provided by European arms concerns with border surveillance and military equipment. The goal of the EU’s policy is to prevent refugees from reaching the Mediterranean coastline at any price and to detain refugees in far off camps in Africa and Asia.

More than 14 million refugees are already confined to camps in Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Lebanon. They are victims twice over of the criminal policies of the imperialist powers. The top ten list of countries with the highest number of refugees is practically identical with a list of the countries that have been the victim of a military intervention, proxy war or orchestrated regime change operation which have been initiated over the last twenty years by the US and its European allies.

The list includes Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Iraq. More than 60 million people around the world are refugees, and half of these are under 18.

In Africa, an additional factor driving hundreds of thousands to flee is the brutal neocolonial policy of the EU, which ruthlessly exploits the continent’s natural resources and completely destroys the standard of living of the populations by structural adjustment programmes and dictated trade regulations. These people place all their hopes in finding work in Europe.

But Europe hermetically seals itself off from the wave of refugees it has itself produced, and allows them to drown miserably in the Mediterranean, vegetate in huge refugee camps under outrageous conditions, and be shot on the Turkish-Syrian border, where the Turkish government has allegedly established automatic firing posts. As the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungreported, “intelligent” surveillance towers are involved, with heat-sensing cameras and machine guns, in the regions of Hatay, Gaziantep, Sanliurfa and Marden.

US death rate rose in 2015

Niles Niemuth

The death rate in the United States increased across the board last year for the first time since 2005 according to preliminary figures released this week by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The report provides yet another piece of information documenting the deep social distress which is fueling the growth of social opposition in the working class.

Earlier this year the CDC reported that life expectancy at birth for white Americans had fallen between 2013 and 2014 from 78.9 years to 78.8 years, after remaining flat between 2012 and 2013.

Not all Americans are being affected equally, with income and social class overwhelmingly determining the quality of an individual’s health and the length of their life. A report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in April found that income was the most critical factor in longevity and that the life expectancy gap between the richest and poorest is widening.

Growing mortality rates for working people are not the outcome of accidental or unavoidable processes, but rather a social counterrevolution which has been consciously directed at dramatically lowering the living standards of the working class. The impact of the implementation of multi-tier wage structures, the elimination of employer-paid health care, the eradication of defined-benefit pensions and the slashing of retiree pension benefits is finding expression in these statistics.

Policymakers have been quite open about their desire to drive down the life expectancy of the working class and poor. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the leading architects of the Obama administration’s health care overhaul, has called for the rationing of health care based on income and has discouraged people from getting potentially life-saving medical screenings. On Tuesday, the day before the CDC’s figures were released, Emanuel called for raising the cost of prescription antibiotics, nominally in the name of halting over-prescription. “Low prices reduce the barrier to prescribing antibiotics, while high patient demand fosters overprescribing,” Emanuel declared.

In reality, Emanuel and his co-thinkers would be more than pleased if the rise in the death rate continued in the coming years and decades. While its full impact has yet to be felt, one of the unstated goals of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act is to reduce workers’ access to health care, reducing the life expectancy for all those who cannot afford to pay in order to pad the profits of health insurers and corporations.

Decades of deindustrialization and austerity, accompanied by a dramatic rise in economic inequality and associated social ills, are finding expression in the broadest of social indicators: mortality and life expectancy.

In its latest estimates, adjusted to account for an aging population, the CDC found that the death rate was 729.5 per 100,000 in 2015, up from 723.2 in 2014. The leading causes of death following heart disease were cancers, lung disease, accidents (including automobile crashes, falls, shootings and drug overdoses) and stroke.

The national mortality rate has declined significantly and almost continuously since 1940, when the rate was 1,785 per 100,000. Above all the growth in life expectancy was the outcome of fierce struggles waged by the working class in the first half of the 20th century for better wages; shorter working hours; company-paid pensions, to provide for them in old age; and health care, which gave them access to revolutionary new medicines and treatments. Workers also fought for the implementation of safety standards and regulations which dramatically decreased the number of people killed or sickened on the job.

Yearly increases in the overall mortality rate have been relatively rare: last year was only one of seven instances in the last 36 years in which the national rate ticked upwards.

According to the CDC, the rate was driven upwards last year by an increasing rate of death from Alzheimer’s, drug overdoses and suicides. At the same time, the rate of death from heart disease, the leading cause of mortality in the US, on the decline for decades, edged up slightly.

The suicide rate in the US increased from 12.7 in the third quarter of 2014 to 13.1 in the same quarter of 2015. The rate has increased more than 24 percent since 1999, with much of the increase coming since 2006. The biggest surge in the suicide rate has occurred among young girls between the ages of 10 and 14 and men between 45 and 64.

The rate of deaths from drug overdoses also increased substantially, from 14.1 in the second quarter of 2014 to 15.2 last year. A majority of drug overdose deaths were unintentional, and opioids, including prescription pain medication and heroin, accounted for an increasing share of these deaths. The number of opioid overdoses and deaths has exploded in the last few years, an ongoing epidemic impacting cities and counties in every part of the country.

The long-term reversal of the social gains made by the working class has only accelerated in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis. President Obama has overseen one of the greatest transfers of wealth from the working class to the rich in world history.

Obama’s much-hailed economic recovery has seen 95 percent of all income gains go to the top 1 percent and all job growth over the last decade has come from people working as independent contractors, temps through contract agencies or on-call. Median household income has declined as workers have seen their wages and benefits stagnate or decline.

These are the objective social conditions which are driving the anger and discontent that has found an initial expression in the 2016 presidential primaries.

The fascistic and xenophobic Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has found support posing as an opponent of the political establishment and tapped into social anger over the decline of living standards, promising to “Make America Great Again.”

Under conditions where the leading Democratic presidential candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is the favored candidate of Wall Street and the corporations that have immiserated the working class, millions of workers and young people have cast their ballot for Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders.

While the ultimate purpose of Sanders’ campaign is to direct workers and young people back into the Democratic Party, he has garnered substantial support because he promotes himself as a socialist and a staunch opponent of the “billionaire class” and the status quo which has contributed to the dramatic decline in living standards.

Growing opposition to the political establishment has been accompanied by the eruption of social struggles, including the recent strike by 39,000 communication workers at Verizon; mass protests against the poisoning of residents in Flint, Michigan; and opposition to the destruction of public education in Detroit, Michigan, the historic center of the US auto industry.

Entry into the NSG: Getting Past the Doorman

Manpreet Sethi

Doormen – big, burly individuals – at entrances of exclusive clubs impose entry regulations. They could deny you entry for not carrying the correct identity card, or for not entering as a couple. One particular country has assigned itself this role at the NSG door. Set and resolute, it has declared that you are not carrying the required NPT identity card and worse still, you are not ready to enter with a partner. So, China insists that India cannot be allowed entry into NSG, certainly not without Pakistan.

For a few NSG plenary meetings now, India has been hopeful that a decision on its membership would be taken, nearly eight years after the exceptionalisation was made for it to engage in international nuclear commerce. This task yet remains pending though the US agrees that India has the requisite credentials to join the NSG. Standing up to the US on its position, China thinks otherwise. Interesting insights can be gleaned from the Chinese position.

Firstly, this is a rare occasion that China has openly declared its objection to India’s entry and has dared to stand alone on this. Beijing has traditionally been shy of taking a position where it would have to stand singly. It prefers instead to hide behind objections being made by others, giving them tacit support without being identified itself as the primary obstructionist. It consciously avoids being called a spoiler. This seems to have changed, perhaps for two reasons. One, China has perceived that the bulwark of states that it was banking upon to stop India’s entry into the NSG is about to give up. So, it feels the need to step up itself. The other reason is that China’s confidence in its own clout and influence has grown. Having amassed economic and military strength with the accompanying political weight, it believes it can afford to assert its position and get away with it. Consequently, it is no longer chary of standing alone.

Secondly, China’s sense of assertiveness rises from the knowledge that its economic power is far above that of most of the NSG members. In fact, neither US, nor Russia can afford to offend the new China, and certainly not on the nuclear issue. Undertaking simultaneous construction of 22 nuclear power plants (accounting for more than one third of all reactors being built globally), China has deep nuclear pockets. Nearly every major nuclear supplier has a hand in it. China is importing from, as well as co-developing nuclear reactors with France, Russia, and the US. It is building nuclear reactors in the UK and Argentina. The nuclear industry of each of these states is invested in China, currently the largest nuclear market. Given the downturn in the fortunes of the nuclear industry after Fukushima, the nuclear marketplace today belongs to the buyer, not the seller. And China is the biggest buyer on the block. Who then can afford to upset it?

Thirdly, China’s objection to India’s entry into the NSG is because of India, and not because it necessarily wants its all-weather friend to be an NSG member too. It is only using Pakistan as a proxy, as China always has, to box India in. What China finds difficult to digest is the accommodation of India that would, in its eyes, make it its nuclear equal. Given that Beijing still insists on UNSCR 1172 of 1998 that called for a roll back and elimination of an ‘illegitimate’ nuclear weapons programme, it cannot brook the idea of any semblance of ‘legitimacy’ being granted to India. Sharing space as a nuclear rule-maker with India is anathema to China.

So, what should India do to get past the self-appointed doorman? For one, Indian nuclear diplomacy will have to work harder to chip away at the objections being raised by China or its proxies. Secondly, the Indian nuclear market must once again appear to look lucrative. When it did so in the mid-2000s, President Bush (actively supported by the nuclear industry) managed to engineer the huge transformation in the US’ nuclear relationship with India, including convincing others to make the NSG exceptionalisation possible. Since then, and especially after Fukushima, the Indian nuclear market has started to look dull.

The nuclear liability law perceptibly weighed against the supplier, public acceptance stalemates etc have taken the sheen off India’s nuclear ambitions. Of the two poster boys of the nuclear industry, China is shining, while India appears to be falling behind. Thirdly, India should seriously consider entering the nuclear market as a supplier itself. It has the capability and the capacity to do so. And once that happens, it would change India's de facto position. Fourthly, for China, its ‘face’ is very important. India needs to look for concessions that it can make to provide China the face saving to back off from its strident position. One idea here could be to take up China’s offer of nuclear cooperation made by Premier Xi Jinping on a visit to India. This cooperation could take many forms - R&D on new generation of reactors, between their nuclear Centres of Excellence, nuclear safety and security, etc. Such collaborative ventures could be one way of subtly introducing it to India's strengths in the nuclear power sector.

Education Reform in India: Emerging Trends

Sarral Sharma

The renewed focus on ‘Indianisation’ begs the question — how does the current component of Indianisation translate into education policy? This commentary will attempt to show the translation of rhetoric into policy in the states ruled by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) — such as Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra — and try to assess its overall impact on the New Education Policy (NEP).

The term ‘Indianisation’ suggests that indigenous culture, customs and history are emphasised over 'Westernised' aspects of Indian education inherited from the British Raj. During the first few years succeeding the Independence of India, the social studies discipline was suitably decolonised in order to buttress the national myth associated with the newly formed Indian Union. Is the current process of Indianisation buttressing that national myth?

Early this year, the Rajasthan Secondary Education Board omitted works of Western poets like John Keats, William Blake, and others from the Class VIII English textbooks. These poets have been replaced by indigenous writers such as Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore in order to highlight the richness of Indian literature. Prominence (or textual space) has been given to the ancient, yet vital, scientific discoveries made by Aryabhatta and Bhaskaracharaya — credited with the discovery of zero (or shunya) and contribution to calculus respectively — over western scientists such as Pythagoras and Newton. Similarly the social science curriculum has also been revised. A chapter dedicated to the South African Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela has been replaced with an essay on India's tribal communities.The biographies of local figures such as Hemu Kalani, Maharaja Dahrsen, Saint Kanwar Ram, and Swami Tauram have also been given space in the revised curriculum.

Gujarat has seen a similar but differentiated trend. One of the compulsory school text books in Gujarat, Tejomay Bharat (Shining India), mentions the concept of Akhand Bharat (or undivided India), which emphasises the cultural unity of countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and  Myanmar. Similarly, another primary school book, Shikhan nu Bhartiyakaran (Indianisation of Education), under the chapter Samajik Chetna (Social Awakening), advocates that, “Birthdays should be celebrated by shunning the western culture of blowing candles. Instead, we should follow a purely Indian culture by wearing swadeshi clothes, doing a havan [prayer to a sacred fire] and praying to Ishtadev [preferred deity], reciting the Gayatri mantra, distributing new clothes to the needy, feeding cows, distributing prasad [libation] and winding up the day by playing songs produced by Vidya Bharati.” Recently, the Gujarat Education Board introduced a chapter on economic thought in the economics textbooks for higher secondary students which include the economic formulations and biographies of local figures such as Chanakya, Mahatma Gandhi and Deendayal Upadhyay.

On similar lines, the Maharashtra government recently announced that Maharashtra’s role in the freedom struggle would be made compulsory in schools affiliated to various educational boards. The education minister Vinod Tawde justified this saying, “Schools set up in the state need to teach the history and geography pertaining to the state.” 

These examples though different, point to a twin trend. There is a definitive trend both at localising the social sciences syllabus as well as Indianising it. While there seems to be almost no attempt at localising the sciences and geography however there is a tendency to Indianise the sciences as far as historical contextualisation goes. The question that then arises is— what does this trend mean at the level of the Government of India in the formulation of the NEP? Organisations such as Vidya Bharati, et al have proposed the inclusion of vedic maths in schools, Sanskrit in middle-level school, and a three-language formula according to which schools located in states that do not have a Hindi-speaking majority will be under compulsion to teach the local language, English, and Hindi. These organisations have also proposed mandatory foundation programmes on ancient Indian history, philosophy, values for students in central universities among other things, in order to promote national unity and a composite Indian culture.

Y Sudershan Rao, the chairperson of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), defines 'Indianisation' as a process, in which, he believes, "Every nation has the right to write its own history from its own perspective, with certain national objectives." Clearly then the process of Indianisation and localisation of education are perceived by the government in the context of buttressing the national myth and making parochial identities such as the states feel more connected to this national myth. At some level it betrays a certain lack of confidence within the government’s educational apparatus in the foundations of the Indian myth that requires corrective action. However there is a worrying trend here. The attempt to generalise local customs such as a particular way of celebrating birthdays cannot in any way bolster the national myth of a heterogeneous country.  

It is highly likely that the Indianisation trend will be enshrined in the NEP, however it will be a major mistake on the part of the government to impose localised interpretations on the population at large. 

Iran’s Economic Renaissance: Will the IRGC Profit?

Samanvya Hooda


Since 2006, Iran’s economy had grown more isolated following the imposition of sanctions related to its nuclear programme. The economic dynamics of sanctions forced Iran to restructure the economy in a way that minimised criminalisation. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was the biggest beneficiary of this policy. How will President Hassan Rouhani’s planned reforms affect the IRGC’s economic clout they have gained and their relative strength within the system?

The power of the IRGC – a weighty entity since its inception – increased manifold during the terms of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, himself an ex-IRGC officer. This power was consolidated by granting no-tender contracts in construction, oil, natural gas and infrastructure projects. The IRGC is also believed to operate Iran’s shadow economy involved in smuggling and sanctions busting; and its fronts control all major sectors of the economy, including banking, mining, shipping, aviation, electronics, etc.

The post-sanctions withdrawal of foreign companies created a vacuum in the economy that businesses affiliated with the IRGC filled. This kept Iran’s oil-dependent economy running, but also ensured a monopoly in the energy sector for IRGC affiliates. For instance, the IRGC owned Khatam al-Anbiya was awarded a no-tender contract to develop the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, the largest in the world. Other IRGC firms provide ancillary services in these sectors. Any competition was swiftly annexed by the Corps itself. The Oriental Oil Kish, Iran’s first private oil drilling company is an example. Effectively, the IRGC monopolised the oil and gas industry by stifling private sector participation.

Telecommunications is the largest non-oil sector in the Iranian economy. This too is controlled by the IRGC. The Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI) has a monopoly over fixed-line infrastructure, and until recently, was the largest Internet Service Provider in the country. The IRGC-linked Mobin Trust Consortium (MTC) owns 90 per cent of the TCI’s shares. TCI’s subsidiary, the Mobile Communication Company (MCI) has the largest market share of mobile services in Iran, and is valued upwards of US$4 billion. The TCI also controls bandwidth allocation for data services, ensuring IRGC dominance in the telecommunications industry.

The bulk of the IRGC’s economic clout comes from its presence in large-scale development in the country. This sector is also dominated by Khatam al-Anbiya, which along with its subsidiaries, executes contracts in large development projects such as dams, highways, railways, mining, offshore construction, pipelines, and even parts of the Tehran Metro.

Post Sanction ReliefEconomic liberalisation therefore threatens entrenched economic interests and has a knock down effect on the power dynamics of the political system. Reintegration with the world economy imposes a dilemma. Iranian investment laws require international companies to operate in joint ventures with domestic companies in key sectors and involve significant technology transfer. While the IRGC controls most of the investment eligible sectors, sanctions specifically exclude the IRGC and affiliates from receiving any foreign investment. For example, EU sanctions on most IRGC affiliates and personnel will be lifted in 2024, but US sanctions will continue.

The current situation therefore creates a huge window of opportunity for the Iranian private sector. It is precisely for this reason that the private sector will become a potent threat to the income of the IRGC, now more than previously. In fact, foreign investment and new technology will almost certainly give the private sector a decisive edge over the IRGC companies. The IRGC’s woes are compounded by the fact that it does not have new markets, since most petroleum contracts are on a long-term basis (20-25 years), limiting its opportunities even post the lifting of sanctions.

In the telecommunications industry, the MCI leads the sector with a very slim margin; it is closely followed by a joint venture between the South Africa-based MTN group and a consortium with indirect ties to the IRGC. Foreign investment with rival groups will threaten the IRGC’s monopoly, but not to the extent it will in the energy sectors. The MTC announced their intention to sell all their shares in TCI in 2015, allowing further foreign investment that will lead to a reduced IRGC role in the industry.

The IRGC’s economic activities face competition and the erosion of its market share across several sectors will result in significant loss of income. This income, currently estimated at several billion dollars annually, funds several of its security initiatives, including power projection in Syria and other parts of West Asia. This loss of revenue makes the IRGC more dependent on the presidency and legislature for funding. Compounding this, moves are afoot to drastically reduce state funding of the IRGC. For instance, President Rouhani slashed the IRGC’s funding by 16 per cent just one day after the lifting of sanctions. The February 2016 parliamentary elections produced a legislature no longer controlled by radical conservatives, further diminishing institutional opposition to IRGC budget cuts.

Far from the IRGC profiting from sanctions relief, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) will diminish its economic and systemic clout, and possibly herald an irreversible shift in the power dynamics in Tehran.

Wolfson Full Postgraduate Scholarships in UK 2016/2017

Application Deadline: Autumn round
Stage 1 applications deadline: accepted no later than 1st July, 2016
Stage 2 applications deadline: 1st September, 2016

Offered Auunally? Yes

Brief description: Doctoral (DPhil) research Scholarships in Humanities for students of all nationality to study in one of nine selected UK Universities including University College London, University of Cambridge, University of Edinburgh, University of Oxford, University of Sheffield, University of Southampton, University of Warwick, University of York, School of Oriental and African Studies.

Eligible Subject Areas: The Wolfson Postgraduate Scholarships will fund doctoral research in three disciplines that align closely with the Foundation’s interests: history, literature and languages.

About Scholarship

The Wolfson Postgraduate Scholarships in the Humanities programme awards funding to support doctoral studies at nine carefully selected universities. The initiative reflects our concerns about funding for the humanities and the potential impact of increased undergraduate student debt on postgraduate studies. Our aim is thus not only to support some of the most exciting students, but also to make a statement about the value of the humanities. We believe that high quality academic research in this field is of critical importance to British society. We hope that this programme might help to attract further funding to the sector.

Scholarship Offered Since: Not Specified

Selection Criteria

Wolfson Scholarships are awarded to outstanding students who demonstrate the potential to make an impact on these fields and to be future academic leaders. They are awarded solely on merit to students aspiring to an academic career.

Eligibility

Candidates should be applying to start a new doctoral course at one of the participating universities.

Please ensure you meet the requirements for entry to your course, including English language requirements.

The Scholarships are available in three disciplines that align closely with the Foundation’s interests: history, literature and languages. The Scholarships are available for doctoral research only and will be paid over three years. For full-time students, it is expected that students complete their doctorate in three years.

Number of  Scholarships: Twenty seven scholarships are funded each year at nine universities across the UK

Scholarship Benefits: The scholarships are worth some £27,000 each year (over three years), and cover fees, provide a maintenance stipend, and provide for some research and training costs.

Duration of Scholarship: Three (3) years

Eligible Countries: The scheme is open to all nationalities including African countries. Applicants should be intending to return to their country of ordinary residence following their studies.

To be taken at (country): The participating universities are selected using a formula based on their research record. Institutions currently involved in the programme are: University College London, University of Cambridge, University of Edinburgh, University of Oxford, University of Sheffield, University of Southampton, University of Warwick, University of York, School of Oriental and African Studies. Individuals should apply directly to the university and not to the Foundation.

How to Apply

Candidates should apply for graduate study to any of the participating institutions. The recipients are nominated by their host university, and enquiries should be directed to the relevant university in the first instance.

Visit scholarship webpage for details

Scholarship Provider: Wolfson Foundation UK: The Wolfson Foundation is a charity that awards grants to support and promote excellence in the fields of science and medicine, health, education, and the arts and humanities.

Jane M Klausman Women in Business Scholarships for international students 2016/2017

Application Deadline: Applications must be completed and presented to Zonta clubs according to the club’s assigned deadline. A club recipient is selected, and the application is presented to the governor/regional representative by 1st July, 2016. The district/region recipient is selected, and the application is presented to Zonta International Headquarters by 1 September 2016. International recipients will be contacted by their Zonta club leader by mid October 2016.

Offered annually? Yes

Brief description: The Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarship is offered annually by the Zonta International Club for women in different parts of the world

Eligible Countries: Any country where Zonta international club has presence.

Eligible African Countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Mongolia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo

Eligible Field of Study: Buisness related courses

About Scholarship: Because Zonta International believes in gender equality, the Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarship program helps women pursue undergraduate and master’s degrees in business management and overcome gender barriers from the classroom to the boardroom. The Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarship was established in 1998 from a generous bequest by Jane M. Klausman, a member of the Zonta Club of Syracuse, New York, USA, and the 1990-1995 Zonta International Parliamentarian. Since the program’s inception, Zonta has awarded 399 Scholarships to women from 50 countries.

Scholarship Offered Since: 1998

Scholarship Type: Scholarships for women in business

Selection Criteria and Eligibility: Women pursuing a business or business-related degree who demonstrate outstanding potential in the field are eligible.  Online students are also eligible.  Members and employees of Zonta International or the Zonta International Foundation are NOTeligible to apply for the Scholarships.

Number of Scholarships: Up to 32 scholarships

Value of Scholarship: Zonta International awards scholarships of US$1,000 each at the district/region level and twelve international scholarships in the amount of US$7,000 each.

The Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarships are awarded annually and may be used for tuition, books or living expenses at any university, college or institution offering accredited business courses and degrees.

Duration of Scholarship: Onetime financial grant

To be taken at (country): Any country

How to Apply

The Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarship program operates at the club, district/region and international levels of Zonta International. To apply, please contact the Zonta club nearest you.  Applicants must be nominated by a local Zonta club. Applications selected by Zonta clubs are sent to their respective Zonta Governors/Region South America Representative. A district/region evaluating committee selects one applicant per district/region to submit to Zonta International Headquarters.  The Zonta International Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarship Committee selects twelve international recipients from the district/region applicants.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Sponsors: Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarships are made possible through investment income generated by the Klausman bequest, and by generous contributions from Zontians, Zonta clubs and friends of Zonta.