Italian soldiers fighting in Libya

Marianne Arens

Without the consent of parliament, the government of Matteo Renzi (Democratic Party) is deploying Italian soldiers to Libya. It is basing itself on a new law which allows it to carry out the “the fight against terror”, even without parliamentary approval.

All parties, from the left to the right, have endorsed this course of action and contributed to its secrecy. It is a genuine conspiracy, and only rarely does the official media grant a brief glimpse into its actual operations.

What is known is that the US Air Force has been using Sicilian bases to carry out bombing runs against the Libyan city of Sirte since the beginning of August to drive out the Islamic State (IS). Italy also wants to reopen its embassy in Tripoli in the near future.

Now, however, it has been revealed by reports appearing in several newspapers on August 10 and 11 that Italian soldiers have been on the ground fighting at the side of militias in Misrata for several weeks. The Misrata militias are under orders to liberate the coastal city of Sirte from IS and consolidate control by the Tripoli-based “Government of National Accord.”

Apparently, several dozen members of the Italian secret service and Carabinieri are active in the protection of Tripoli, along with 50 individual soldiers belonging to the 9th Parachute Assault Regiment Col Moschin. They are under the direct command of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

Col Moschin are a special forces unit named after a hill that the unit defended against Austrian forces during the First World War. Nicknamed “Arditi” (The Daring), they quickly took on a prominent position in the Italian armed forces and later played a role in the seizure of power by the Fascists. In the 1980s, they were deployed in Lebanon, and in the 1990s in Somalia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Albania, East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan. In Libya, these elite soldiers, trained in the deactivation of mines, are to be tasked with disarming explosive traps left by IS in Sirte.

Up to now, the Western powers have been working closely with Fayez al-Sarraj’s Government of National Accord (GNA), which they installed as a puppet regime in Tripoli, and through which Sarraj officially requests imperialist aid. On August 21, the counter-parliament in Tobruk (House of Representatives, HoR) refused to support Sarraj, robbing him of any legitimacy. On August 24, Sarraj declared his readiness to accept the decision of the HoR and said that he viewed his own cabinet as a purely transitional government.

Nevertheless, the US, Italy and Germany continue to base their intervention on Sarraj’s government. France and Egypt are also working with Khalifa Haftar’s rival Libyan National Army in the East.

According to a Stratfor report, representatives of the EU Mediterranean operation “Sophia” signed an agreement on a joint training programme with the Sarraj government in Rome on August 23. The agreement is primarily intended to enable the Libyan coast guard to curb the flow of refugees from Africa to Italy. Approximately 100,000 refugees have already taken the route across the Mediterranean this year. Almost 5,000 of them have drowned in the attempt.

The legal foundation for the military operation in Libya was created last November, shortly after the terror attack in Paris, when the Italian government modified its law on participation in international missions. The new regulation permits Matteo Renzi to send military special forces abroad without parliamentary consent, as long as they are under the command of the foreign intelligence service rather than under the control of Italian troops.

The law on “Italy’s participation in international missions” was first adopted by parliament on July 14, 2016. It met with the approval of practically every party. The Five Star Movement and Nichi Vendola’s Left Ecology Freedom party (SEL) facilitated the law with their abstention from voting and their public silence on its consequences.

According to one plan published by the Corriere della Sera on April 25, the government next wants to deploy between 600 and 900 soldiers to Libya, “to protect certain sensitive points, including the oil wells, and to train local forces.”

The reference to oil is revealing. In fact, the main objective of combat is to gain control over the lucrative oil resources of the north-African country. The Western governments hasten to gain a footing in Libya so they can bring the oil and natural gas facilities and the oil terminals in the Mediterranean under their control. That is why the Col Moschin troops in Libya have explicitly been given the task of keeping IS militias, driven from Sirte to the interior of the country, away from the oil fields further south.

Under the headline “Renzi’s secret war in Libya,” the Il tempo newspaper reported on August 10: “Italian special forces operate under direct control of the Prime Minister. However, the battle for Sirte goes on … Italy has begun its fight in Libya, but it’s supposed to be a secret.” The report continues: “Together with Germany, the US, France, Britain, and Spain, Italy is now taking part in the situation centred on the oil terminal in Zuwaytina.”

Zuwaytina is an important port for the transportation of oil south of Benghazi. Its current potential of 70,000 barrels per day could increase substantially at full capacity. As an August 19 Stratfor report explained, Zuwaytina is more and more in the focus of the rival governments, the GNA in Tripoli and the HoR with its Libyan National Army under Haftar. Stratfor writes that it is certainly possible to get oil production at all three Eastern oil terminals—Zuwaytina, Ras Lanuf and as-Sidra—back on track. But five years of war and civil war have clearly left their mark on Ras Lanuf and as-Sidra. Stratfor reports, “Zuwaytina is the best option for the immediate exportation of oil on a large scale.”

To satisfy their greed for these valuable resources, the Western governments—as in Syria and Iraq—haven’t the slightest problem collaborating with Islamists. The militias in Misrata, on whose side Italian special forces now fight, are made up of Islamists. They belong to an organisation associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Renzi government is obviously attempting to banish this topic as quickly as possible from the headlines. As several reports revealed the presence of Italian soldiers in Libya on August 11, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni attempted damage control: “We do not have a military mission in Libya. If we did, Parliament would have been informed.” Asked about secret service missions in Libya, Gentiloni replied, “By definition, I do not comment on operations of a classified nature.”

From Renzi’s seat of government, the Palazzo Chigi, came the succinct statement: “The participating Italian structures are authorised by parliament. We can neither confirm nor deny a military presence in Libya because they belong to the secret service and not to the army.”

A foreign military intervention, and particularly one launched without parliamentary consent, would be deeply unpopular in the Italian population. It would also contradict Article 11 of the Italian constitution which forbids war against another nation. An intervention in Libya, in particular, would meet with outrage and opposition. The Fascist Mussolini regime established a brutal colonial rule over Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, the region today known as Libya.

Taliban captures key Afghan district in fierce fighting

Peter Symonds

Taliban insurgents last Friday overran the district of Jani Khel in the southeastern Afghan province of Paktia in the latest of a series of defeats for the US-backed regime in Kabul. Control of Jani Khel, which is strategically placed on the crossroads of a major route from Pakistan, opens the way for the Taliban to threaten areas of neighbouring districts and provinces.

Abdul Rahman Zurmati, Jani Khel’s governor, told the New York Times his troops were under siege for nine days and the district only fell because of the lack of ammunition and reinforcements. “We were 90 people, and we had to fight against 1,200 Taliban,” he said, adding that 27 of his soldiers were killed.

Zurmati had warned some three weeks ago that the district would fall to the Taliban without extraordinary measures. Janat Khan Samkanai, deputy head of the Paktia provincial council, blamed the lack of support for the defeat and said the Taliban seized dozens of vehicles, along with weapons and ammunition.

Samkanai said the Haqqani network based in the border areas of Pakistan was responsible for the attack and warned that its fighters would now focus on Samkani and Patan districts to create a secure base inside Afghanistan. The Haqqani network has assumed growing importance within the Taliban. Its leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, was named as deputy to the Taliban’s current supreme leader, Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada.

Government forces have launched a counter-offensive to take back the area. Afghan officials claimed on Tuesday that US air strikes killed four commanders of the Haqqani network—a claim the Taliban denied.

The Taliban’s capture of Jani Khel took place amid heavy fighting in other parts of Afghanistan, including in the southern province of Helmand, where 100 US military advisors have been dispatched to shore up pro-government forces, and around the northern city of Kunduz, which fell to the Taliban last year before being retaken.

In mid-August, the Taliban captured the key district of Dahana-e-Ghori in the northern province of Baghlan, threatening to cut the main highway to nine other provinces in the north and northeast of the country.

Al Jazeera noted that the “security problems” were being “compounded by a growing political crisis within the Afghan government,” produced by conflicts between the Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and President Ashraf Ghani.

Attacks continue in the capital, with 16 people killed last week when the American University of Afghanistan was subjected to a nine-hour assault. The walls around the heavily-fortified complex were breached with a truck bomb, allowing fighters to enter. No one has claimed responsibility. More than 50 people, mainly students, were injured.

According to a recent report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the government has lost control of nearly 5 percent of its territory to the Taliban since the beginning of the year. Some 36 of the country’s 407 districts were deemed under insurgent control or influence, while another 104 were regarded as being “at risk.”

The ability of the reactionary Islamist Taliban to gain influence and establish bases inside Afghanistan is a product of the social and physical devastation wrought by 15 years of US-led military occupation. The puppet regime in Kabul, which is propped up by military aid from Washington and its allies, is widely despised throughout the country. The UN ranks Afghanistan at 171 out of 188 countries on its human development index.

The victory of the Haqqani network in Paktia province points to another significant factor tearing Afghanistan apart. The Diplomat noted that the network was thought by provincial authorities to have been “assisted by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the formidable spy network that many believe is responsible for Pakistan’s defence policy of strategic depth.”

The possible involvement of Pakistan’s notorious military intelligence highlights the fact that Afghanistan is once again being turned into a battleground on which geo-political rivalries are being fought out. The Pakistani military has long regarded influence and control in Afghanistan as crucial for “strategic depth” in a war with India, shoring up its western flank while fighting Indian forces on its eastern borders.

For its part, India, increasingly backed by the US, has sought to expand its influence in Afghanistan over the past 15 years, providing nearly $2 billion in aid, including military assistance.

In New Delhi yesterday, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced trilateral talks with Afghanistan and India at next month’s UN meetings to cement strong military ties under the phony banner of the “war on terror.” He pointedly suggested that Pakistan would be isolated if it did not “join other countries in tackling this challenge.”

Washington has long demanded that Pakistan take far tougher measures against the Taliban sheltering in areas bordering Afghanistan. The Pakistani military has waged brutal offensives over the past decade in what are known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) but has moved only reluctantly against the Haqqani network.

China is also intervening in Afghanistan with investment and aid, including military assistance. The first cargo train from China is due to cross the border from the central Asian republic of Uzbekistan into Afghanistan in September. The rail link is part of Beijing’s efforts to tie Kabul into its ambitious One Belt One Road (OBOR) plans for infrastructure to link the vast Eurasian landmass more closely with China.

China’s focus on Afghanistan is not only aimed at trade, including in minerals, but is part of its attempts to counter the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” aimed at undermining Chinese influence and militarily encircling it. Beijing fears that the US will exploit Afghanistan as a base of operations for staging military and covert operations both in the Central Asian republics bordering China, and in western China itself, where there is a festering separatist movement.

General Fang Fenghui, a member of China’s Central Military Commission, met with the Afghan army’s chief of staff, General Qadam Shah Shahim, earlier this month. According to the China Military Online web site, Feng called for more high-level exchanges and deeper “pragmatic cooperation in intelligence sharing, personnel training, military capacity building and other areas under the framework of the ‘quadrilateral mechanism’” between China, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Pakistan has long had close ties with China.

The latest Taliban attack in Paktia province takes place against the backdrop of this geo-political scheming and rivalry, which is drawing the entire region, including Afghanistan, into US planning and preparations for war against China.

Tens of millions of Indian workers to join one-day protest strike

Sathish Simon & Kranti Kumara

Tens of millions of workers are expected to heed the call of a Joint Trade Union Committee (JTUC) and join a one-day, all-India general strike this Friday to protest the “anti-labour and anti-people” policies of the right-wing, Hindu communalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.

The widespread support for the September strike 2 is an expression of mounting working-class anger and militancy. But the JTUC is comprised of ten pro-capitalist union federations, virtually all of them like the Congress Party-allied Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) that are directly tied to political parties that over the past quarter-century have implemented the Indian bourgeoisie’s agenda of privatization, deregulation, social spending cuts, and tax breaks and other concessions for investors.

This is true of the union federations that are effectively providing the strike’s political leadership—the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), which is the trade union wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM, and the Communist Party of India (CPI) aligned All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC.) Since the Indian elite repudiated its bankrupt national capitalist development strategy in 1991, the twin Stalinist parliamentary parties have repeatedly propped up governments at the Centre, most of them Congress Party-led, that have pursued neoliberal policies with the aim of making India a cheap-labour haven for world capital. And in the states where the Stalinists have formed the government, they have implemented what they themselves term “pro-investor” policies.

The JTUC has submitted a 12-point charter of demands to the government, which it not surprisingly has rejected out of hand. The demands include “urgent measures for containing price rise,” a “reduction of unemployment through employment generation,” “strict enforcement of all basic labour laws,” “universal social security cover,” “stopping disinvestment in central/state public sector units,” and a “minimum wage of not less than 18,000 Rupees (about $260) per month”.

The two-year-old BJP government has slashed social spending, including funding for the country’s dilapidated public health care system and the National Rural Employment Guarantee program, which is supposed to provide at least 100 days of work per year to one member from every rural household that requests it. At the same time, the BJP government has hiked military spending, accelerated disinvestment (privatization), and reduced or eliminated caps on foreign investment in numerous economic sectors.

Recently it rammed through an 18 percent national Goods and Services Tax (GST) that will be used to further shift the burden of taxation onto working people. It has also brought forward legislation to gut restrictions on layoffs and plant closures in factories employing less than 300 workers and, pending passage of this “reform,” it is encouraging BJP state governments to introduce laws circumventing national labour regulations.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley boast about having restored India to 7 percent-plus growth, the reality is the incomes of workers and toilers are being squeezed by food price rises and a colossal jobs crisis. Although some 10 million young people are entering India’s labour force yearly, an economic report found that in a recent 12-month period little more than a hundred thousand jobs were created in 8 key, especially labour-intensive, sectors. According to the 2016 Asia-Pacific Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Program, of the 300 million Indians who entered the job market between 1991 and 2013, only 140 million were able to find jobs.

So grave is the jobs crisis that when the Amroha Municipality in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh advertised for 114 street-sweeper jobs that required no educational qualifications, 19,000 people, many of them with Engineering, Bachelor of Science, MBAs, or other college degrees, applied.

Hunger stalks rural India where more than sixty percent of the country’s 1.2 billion people reside. Almost half of all Indian children under five are stunted, a condition rooted in chronic malnutrition and that adversely impacts physical and cognitive development. According to a recent government survey, rural caloric consumption has fallen sharply. The average rural person now consumes 550 calories less than they consumed in 1975-79, including 13 grams less of protein, 5 mg. less of iron, 250 mg. less of calcium and about 500 mg less of vitamin A.

For the unions and the political parties with which they are allied, Friday’s strike is a maneuver aimed at burnishing their oppositional claims in the hopes of securing more votes and at dissipating rank-and-file anger.

On the part of the Stalinists such one-day strikes have taken on something of a ritual character. Since the early 1990s, they have organized one such national protest strike virtually every year. This is true even of the period between 2004 and 2008, when they were effectively the Congress Party’s most important coalition partner, although they did not formally join the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.

In the run-up to last year’s strike, also held on September 2, the CITU and AITUC courted the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the union federation affiliated with the fascistic RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), which for decades has provided the BJP with most of its leading cadre and both its prime ministers. The Stalinists claimed it would be a major advance in working class “unity” if the BMS joined the Congress-affiliated INTUC in supporting the one-day protest. Predictably, the BMS withdrew its support for the strike after the leaders of the various union federations met with the government in the run-up to last year’s walkout.

This year, the JTUC announced its plans for a one-day strike on September 2 at the end of March. It did so with the hope of pursuing negotiations with the government, but the BJP ignored their pleas for consultation. On August 18, the JTUC issued a statement that expressed outrage that the big-business, virulently anti-working class BJP had spurned their calls for talks and that “during the past one year, the group of ministers appointed for discussion with (the unions) on (their) 12-point charter has not convened a single meeting.” The government did make a show in recent weeks of meeting with the BMS leadership, then this week announced a series of ostensible “pro-worker” measures, which are either outright hoaxes or derisory.

The BJP leadership knows full well that the Stalinists are an integral part of the political establishment, who can be counted on to deflect social anger into parliamentary channels and impotent protests. Asked this week about the impending strike, Jaitley said, “I think we have responsible trade unions.”

Nevertheless, there is apprehension within the ruling elite about the strike’s economic impact, as wide sectors of the economy including coal mining, the auto industry, banks, and most public sector enterprises and central and state government services will be impacted, and more fundamentally about the growth of oppositional sentiment within the working class.

All sections of the establishment were stunned last April when tens of thousands of garment and other workers in the southern city of Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) mounted a strike, outside of union control, to oppose the BJP government’s attempt to restrict their right to withdraw money from their pension funds and for several days defied attempts to break their strike through police violence.

France demands end to trade talks with US amid rising US-EU tensions

V.Gnana & Alex Lantier

Deep economic tensions between the United States and Europe erupted to the surface yesterday, as Paris demanded a cutoff of trade talks between the US and the European Union (EU), and the EU demanded that US tech giant Apple pay billions in back taxes.

Two days after German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel criticized the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), French officials called for suspending talks on Washington’s flagship free-trade deal with Europe, bitterly attacking US negotiating tactics.

French President François Hollande said he saw no prospect of concluding the talks. He declared, “The current discussions on the treaty between Europe and the United States will not be able to reach a conclusion before the end of the year. France prefers to speak frankly on the situation and not to cultivate illusions that it will be possible to reach an agreement before the end of the American president’s term... The negotiations are bogged down, positions have not been respected; it’s clearly unbalanced.”

“There is no more political support in France for these negotiations,” French Minister for External Trade Matthias Fekl told RMC. “The Americans are giving nothing or just crumbs… That is not how one negotiates with an ally.”

“Relations are not where they should be between Europe and the United States; we will have to resume talks later on the right basis,” he added. “We have to put a clear and definitive end to these negotiations in order to resume talks on the right basis.”

As Hollande and Fekl spoke, the EU announced it would fine Apple up to €13 billion (US$14.5 billion) for failing to pay taxes at its European corporate headquarters in Ireland, prompting angry reactions from US officials and the US Treasury. Apple and Ireland have said that they will appeal.

The EU Commission accused Ireland of illegally letting Apple shelter tens of billions of dollars in profits from taxation, in return for keeping jobs in Ireland. Though Ireland’s corporate tax rate is 12.5 percent, Apple allegedly paid a 1 percent tax rate in 2003 and 0.005 percent in 2014.

There is little doubt that Apple is involved in the large-scale tax evasion that is typical of the entire international financial aristocracy, as revealed recently in the Panama Papers. It has amassed a cash hoard of over $230 billion and dodged US taxes on an estimated $181 billion in profits. What is driving the EU ruling, however, is not fiscal rectitude—European firms are also very familiar with Europe’s multiple tax havens, including Ireland, Luxembourg, and Switzerland—but growing US-EU tensions.

The US Treasury said the Apple ruling could damage “the important spirit of economic partnership between the US and the EU.”

Calling the EU ruling “just the tip of the spear—an enormously important ruling,” Peter Kenny of Global Markets Advisory Group told the British Guardian that the Apple ruling could affect many US corporations that headquarter key operations in Europe to avoid US taxes. He said, “There’s no telling whether the verdict will stand on appeal, but we know that the landscape is changing for US corporations in the EU.”

Powerful inter-imperialist rivalries rooted in the structure of international capitalism itself, which twice in the last century erupted into world wars, are reemerging. Nearly a decade after the outbreak of the US subprime mortgage crisis and the ensuing 2008 global economic collapse, there are no prospects for a real economic recovery. With Europe beset by stagnation, mass unemployment and a wave of banking crises now centered in Italy, the European bourgeoisie is increasingly unable to negotiate a deal with the American ruling class on how to divide the profits.

The joint US-EU war drive, though it masked for a time the underlying economic contradictions between the Washington and the European powers, increasingly intensifies rather than suppresses trans-Atlantic conflicts.

After Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway in 2009, the European powers embarked on joint interventions with the US: wars for regime change in Libya and Syria, a war in Mali, and the toppling of a Russian-backed government in Ukraine. Though EU countries did not have the means to aggressively participate in the US “pivot to Asia” against China, the EU initially gave no indication of hostility to it.

As the war drive escalated into a confrontation with Russia and China, however, economic tensions over the war drive increasingly emerged between the United States and the EU. EU sanctions against Russia demanded by Washington cut across tens of billions of euros’ worth in EU-Russia trade, and last year, the major EU powers defied Washington’s demands that they not join China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Conflicts over ties with Russia and China could cost corporations in France alone tens of billions of euros. After the sanctions on Russia forced Total to refinance its Russian oil and gas operations last year, resorting to Chinese funding, this year Électricité de France faced a sudden decision by the British government to halt a Franco-Chinese project for a nuclear plant at Hinkley Point.

Such conflicts are now intensifying, amid uncertainty over the outcome of the US presidential elections in November, and in the wake of Britain’s vote in June to exit the EU.

The Brexit vote removed Washington’s closest major ally inside the EU from the TTIP talks. Gary Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics told Reuters, “In my view, TTIP is either dormant or dead in the wake of Brexit.”

Economic conflicts between Washington and London on the one hand, and a German-dominated EU on the other, are now increasingly becoming entwined with bitter diplomatic and even military rivalries. After Brexit, the French and Italian governments and forces around Gabriel in Berlin called for punishing Britain by denying it access to EU markets, and also developing foreign policies and defense industries that are more independent from Washington.

Significantly, the forces that have called for a hard line on Brexit and a more independent EU foreign and military policy are also those that are insisting that talks on the TTIP have failed.

Gabriel was the first top official to publicly state this weekend that the TTIP talks were in trouble, saying that Washington and the EU had not agreed on a single item in the 27 TTIP chapters being discussed, after 14 rounds of talks. He said, “in my opinion, the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it… The US has balked at accepting minimum EU standards in the talks, and unless that stance changes, I can’t see that it’s possible to seal the accord.”

Italian officials also expressed their pessimism on the TTIP talks. Last month, Italian Economic Development Minister Carlo Calenda told Il Corriere della Sera: “the [TTIP] talks will take more time than originally expected… it would be difficult to reach a deal before US President Barack Obama leaves office at the end of the year.”

In these same circles, there are continuing calls for taking a harsh line to crush Britain economically and force it into a subordinate position to the EU within Europe. Gabriel said that the EU should not “allow Britain to keep the nice things, so to speak, related to Europe while taking no responsibility.”

These sentiments were echoed in Stefan Kornelius’ column yesterday in Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung: “So why not make an example of Britain, even if it is for egotistical reasons? ... Harshness against London will show the wisdom of the old schoolyard rule that it is wiser to stand with the strongest. And the EU is stronger, there is no question about it. That is why its sense of dominance is stirring.”

EpiPen price gouging: Capitalism and the US health care crisis

Kate Randall

Mylan Pharmaceutical’s enormous price hikes for EpiPen, an emergency drug for life-threatening allergic reactions, highlight both the outrageous practices of the US pharmaceutical industry and the deplorable state of health care in America.

A two-pack of EpiPen Auto-Injectors, which cost about $100 in 2004, adjusted for inflation, now costs over $600, putting the life-saving device out of reach for many adults and children. The device quickly delivers a controlled dosage of epinephrine to treat anaphylaxis, a potentially deadly allergic reaction to medication, food or insect bites.

Mylan’s price gouging has become a focal point of anger over the complete subordination of health care to huge corporations that are driven by an insatiable quest for profit. On a daily basis, working people see reports of multimillion-dollar bonanzas for executives at giant pharmaceutical and insurance companies, while tens of millions of people struggle to pay for essential prescription drugs and medical treatments because of ever-higher deductibles, co-pays and premiums.

Mylan’s price gouging is a particularly disgusting example of profiteering in the health care industry. A 2011 survey found that 8 percent of US children had a food allergy and nearly 40 percent of these individuals had a history of severe reactions. With the six-fold increase in price, families are gambling on not purchasing EpiPens or paying for the auto-injectors by going deeper into debt and forgoing other necessities.

Mylan is the second-largest generic and specialty drug company in the world, with about 35,000 employees, more than 1,400 products, and customers in more than 150 countries. Mylan obtained the EpiPen franchise through its 2007 purchase of the generic division of Merck, another pharmaceutical giant.

To generate sales, Mylan has spent tens of millions on EpiPen TV ads. This includes $1.7 million on ads broadcast during the Rio Olympics that show a teenager mistakenly ingesting peanut butter at a party and losing consciousness while her friends frantically call 911.

Forty-seven US states now require public schools to stock the devices. Its use has grown by 67 percent since 2008, and over 3.6 million prescriptions were written for EpiPens last year. Sales of the device have generated annual revenues of $1 billion, accounting for 40 percent of Mylan’s profits.

Mylan CEO Heather Bresch’s total compensation went from $2.4 million in 2007 to nearly $19 million in 2015. When questioned in an interview about the EpiPen price hikes, she said, “Look, we’re going to continue to run a business.”

But Bresch and Mylan, contrary to the media presentation, are not aberrations. Drug companies across the board are raising prices for both generic and brand name drugs. Here are some of the biggest recent price hikes:

• Between 2002 and 2013, the cost of insulin for treatment of diabetes rose nearly 200 percent, from $4.34 per milliliter to $12.92.

• Gilead prices a single course of treatment with Sovaldi, a hepatitis C drug, at $84,000, or $1,000 per pill.

• Turing Pharmaceuticals last year acquired US marketing rights for Daraprim, used to treat the parasitic disease toxoplasmosis, and raised the price from $13.50 to $750 a tablet.

A 2015 report found that prescription drugs cost up to 10 times more in the US than they do in other countries. The EpiPen is a case in point. Meda sells a two-pack of EpiPens in France for about $85, while the price for the antidote syringes in Canada is about $100.

An article in Tuesday’s New York Times pointed indirectly to the involvement of a whole network of corporate players in the profiteering that rests upon the inflation of prescription drug prices. It quotes the head of a consulting firm for the drug distribution industry as saying that “if Mylan had simply lowered the price, it would have risked angering all the parties in the distribution network, including pharmacy benefit managers, wholesalers and pharmacies, which take a piece of the total amount spent on the drug.”

Commenting on Mylan’s decision, in the face of a sharp fall in its stock price last week, to offer a generic version of EpiPen at a price of $300, half that of the brand-name version, the drug industry expert said that introducing a generic was “a way to do it without making enemies with a bunch of Fortune 25 companies who control your fate.”

In other words, health care provision in capitalist America is a racket in which the spoils are divided among a number of corporate players, at the expense of the health and lives of the general population.

Another industry analyst noted on Monday that even at the “bargain” price of $300, Mylan’s overall revenue per prescription would be about $280.

The Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature domestic program, is not aimed at shaking up this state of affairs, but at entrenching and deepening it. The legislation’s central provision, the “individual mandate,” compels individuals and families without insurance to purchase policies from private insurers under threat of a stiff tax penalty.

In the fourth year of Obamacare, it is a scandal in itself that some 27 million people in the US remain uninsured, as many people are too poor to buy coverage, even with the plan’s modest government subsidies. Most of the least expensive ACA plans come with deductibles in excess of $5,000 and other outrageous out-of-pocket costs that render the plans virtually useless in covering medical costs, forcing people to self-ration their medical care.

Obamacare, a plan devised by and for the insurance industry, places no serious limits or requirements on the corporations. They can do as they please, jacking up premiums, co-pays and deductibles, or pulling out of the program altogether if the profits are not sufficiently high. That is precisely what the biggest insurers are now doing, with the result that next year nearly one-third of counties in the US will have only one insurer under Obamacare.

From the insurance leviathans, to the pharmaceutical firms, to the giant hospital chains, to the drug store chains—the entire health care system in America is dominated by huge corporations in operation for one reason: to make a profit. The needs of people for medical treatments, tests and prescription drugs are entirely secondary.

Quality health care for everyone is a basic social right. But it is incompatible with a system based on the capitalist market.

The Socialist Equality Party calls for an end to medicine-for-profit and the establishment of free, high-quality, state-run health care for all. In opposition to the corporate-controlled health care system, we call for the nationalization of the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical giants and the hospital and drug store chains and their transformation into publicly owned and democratically controlled institutions.

Socialized medicine as part of a socialist economy is the only basis upon which a rational, humane and egalitarian health care system can be developed.

Leakey Foundation Fellowship for Developing Countries Students 2017

Scholarship Name: The Franklin Mosher Baldwin Fellowship

Brief description: The Leakey Foundation offers the Fellowship Research Grants/training for the applicants from developing countries in the field of human origins, including paleoanthropology, primate behavior, and studies of modern hunter-gatherer groups to study at Home and host institutions. Eligible countries include Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia and the Republic of Congo

Application Deadline: There are two different deadlines depending on whether you have previously recieved a Baldwin Fellowship:

New Applicants: 15th February 2017

Returning Applicants: 1st March 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Accepted Subject Areas: Human origins, including paleoanthropology, primate behavior, and studies of modern hunter-gatherer groups

About Scholarship: The Franklin Mosher Baldwin Fellowship program for developing countries is based on a realistic assessment of needs and priorities. Many developing nations possesses extraordinary resources in the field of prehistory. The stewardship and careful use of these assets is a task of international importance. By enabling bright young scholars to obtain graduate education, the Leakey Foundation is helping to equip these individuals to assume a leadership role in the future of paleoanthropology.

Scholarship Offered Since: 1978. More than 70 Baldwin Fellowships have been awarded.

Scholarship Type: This award is for a program of approved, advanced special training or studies leading towards an MA or PhD.

Selection Criteria: Candidates must be prepared to demonstrate:

• Affiliation and/or employment with an institution in their home country.
• Provisional acceptance (or evidence of application) to the host institution.
• Financial assistance from the host institution.
• Intention to return and work in the home country upon completion of training.

Eligibility: Human origins scholars from developing nations seeking advanced degrees (M.A./M.S. or Ph.D.) are eligible for Baldwin Fellowships.

If you are thinking of applying for a Baldwin Fellowship ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I enrolled in a M.A., M.S., Ph.D. or equivalent program related to the study of human origins or evolution?
• Have I been accepted or have a provisional acceptance to a host institution?
• Do I have financial assistance from the host institution?
• Do I intend to return and work in my home country upon completion of training?

If your answer is “Yes” to all of the above questions, you’re likely to be eligible to receive a Baldwin Fellowship.

If you are concerned as to whether your research topic is eligible, contact the Foundation at least a month ahead of the application deadline.

Number of Scholarship: Several

Scholarship Worth: Awards are limited to two years. The maximum award is limited to $15,000 per year.

Duration of Scholarship: This award is limited to a program of two years.

Eligible Countries: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Republic of Congo and other developing countries

How can I Apply? Please review the general instructions available here on how to apply.

Sponsors: The Leakey Foundation

Important Notes: If you are wondering whether your research topic is eligible, contact the Foundation at least a month ahead of the application deadline. Email grants (at) leakeyfoundation.org

China Government Masters Scholarships for African Students 2016/2017 – Fully-Funded

Brief Description: The Government of The People’s Republic of China has made scholarship offers to the African Union Commission, through the Department of Human Resources, Science and Technology, to enable African students study in China in the 2016-2017 Academic Year.

Application Timeline: 26th August, 2016 to 9th September, 2016

Offered annually? Yes

Type: Masters taught

Eligible Areas of Study: 

• Public Administration
• Public Health
• International Communications

About the Scholarship: The Department of Human Resources, Science and Technology of the African Union Commission has the role to ensure the coordination of AU programmes in education and human resource development; science, technology and innovation; and youth empowerment. The Department provides technical support to Member States in the development and implementation of policies and programmes towards harmonisation, intra-African collaboration and experience sharing, as well as quality assurance in these fields, as contribution to attainment of the AU vision of integration, peace and prosperity of Africa.

Eligibility: The scholarships are open to all qualified African Nationals who meet the admission requirements set forth below:

Candidates with potential, motivation and desire to play transformative leadership roles in Africa are particularly encouraged to apply.

Admission Requirements: Candidates applying for Masters’ programmes must satisfy the following requirements:
• Undergraduate degree from a recognized university, with at least a second class upper division or its equivalent, in a relevant field.
• Maximum age of 32 years
• Fluency in the English language, as it is the teaching language

Candidates may be required to undergo a written or oral examination after pre-selection.

Full Scholarship covers: tuition waiver, accommodation, stipend, medical insurance

How to Apply: Applications must be submitted with a cover letter stating motivation for applying and how the qualification will enable you to serve the continent.

Applications must also be accompanied with the following:

• Curriculum Vitae including education, work experience and publications if any;
• Certified copies of relevant certificates, transcripts, and personal details page of national passport (at least six month validity)
• Clear colored passport size photograph (3*4)
• Recommendations from two academic referees and one personal referee
• Health Certificate

Applications should be sent by email to Ms. Ikunda Mtenga Leon on: LeonI@africa-union.org

Learn more about the Chinese Government Scholarship

Fully-funded Government of Iran Masters and PhD Scholarships for African Students 2016/2017

Brief description: The Government of Iran has made scholarship offers to the African Union Commission, through the Department of Human Resources, Science and Technology, to enable African students study in Iran in the 2016-2017 Academic Year.

Application Deadline: 9th September, 2016

Eligible Countries: All African countries

To be taken at (country): Iran

Eligible Fields of Study: The scholarships are intended for studies leading to the award of Masters (MSc), or Doctorate (PhD) degrees in the following Engineering, Science and Mathematics fields:
• Biology
• Biochemistry
• Biotechnology
• Chemistry
• Civil Engineering
• Computer Science (Hardware Engineering)
• Computer Science (Software Engineering)
• Electrical Engineering
• Geo Sciences (Mineral Exploration)
• Geo Sciences (Petroleum Geo Sciences)
• Information and Communications Technologies
• Information Technology
• Mathematics
• Mechanical Engineering
• Medicine and Health Sciences
• Molecular Biology
• Space Sciences
• Statistics

About the Award: The Department of Human Resources, Science and Technology of the African Union Commission has the role to ensure the coordination of AU programmes on human resource development matters. It also has the mandate to promote science and technology in the continent. The Department encourages and provides technical support to Member States in the implementation of policies and programmes in the above fields. It promotes research and publication on science and technology, promotes cooperation among Member States on education and training as well as youth participation in the integration of the continent; and acts as the Secretariat for the Scientific Council for Africa.

Type: Masters and PhD

Eligibility: The scholarships are open to:

All qualified African Nationals who meet the admission requirements set forth below.

Candidates with potential, motivation and desire to play transformative leadership roles in Africa, especially as academics, professionals, industrialists, innovators and entrepreneurs are particularly encouraged to apply.

Admission Requirements for Masters Programmes
Candidates applying for MSc programmes must satisfy the following requirements:
• Undergraduate degree from a recognized university, with at least a second class upper division or its equivalent, in a relevant field.
• Maximum age of 26 years.

Selection Criteria: Candidates may be required to undergo a written/oral examination after pre-selection.

Admission Requirements for PhD Programmes
Candidates applying for PhD programmes must satisfy the following requirements:
• A Masters degree in a relevant field from PAU or any internationally recognized university
• Maximum age of 31 years.

Value of Scholarship: Fully-funded. Tuition waiver, accommodation, stipend, medical insurance

Duration of Scholarship:  Duration of programme

How to Apply: Applications must be submitted with a cover letter stating motivations for applying. Applications must also be accompanied with the following:

• Certified copies of relevant certificates, transcripts, and personal details page of national passport (at least six month valid)
• Clear colored passport size photograph (3*4)
• Recommendations from 3 Professors
• Health Certificate
• Completed Application Form
• Applicants for PhD programmes are required to send in a 3 to 5 page research concept note

Applications should be sent by email to Fattya@africa-union.org

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Government of Iran

Important Notes: Applications received after this deadline will NOT be considered.

The Anthropocene Is Here: Humanity Has Pushed Earth Into A New Epoch

 Deirdre Fulton


The Anthropocene Epoch has begun, according to a group of experts assembled at the International Geological Congress in Cape Town, South Africa this week.

After seven years of deliberation, members of an international working group voted unanimously on Monday to acknowledge that the Anthropocene—a geologic time interval so-dubbed by chemists Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000—is real.

The epoch is thought to have begun in the 1950s, when human activity, namely rapid industrialization and nuclear activity, set global systems on a different trajectory. And there’s evidence in the geographic record. Indeed, scientists say that nuclear bomb testing, industrial agriculture, human-caused global warming, and the proliferation of plastic across the globe have so profoundly altered the planet that it is time to declare the 11,700-year Holocene over.

As the working group articulated in a media note on Monday:

Changes to the Earth system that characterize the potential Anthropocene Epoch include marked acceleration to rates of erosion and sedimentation; large-scale chemical perturbations to the cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other elements; the inception of significant change to global climate and sea level; and biotic changes such as unprecedented levels of species invasions across the Earth. Many of these changes are geologically long-lasting, and some are effectively irreversible.

These and related processes have left an array of signals in recent strata, including plastic, aluminium and concrete particles, artificial radionuclides, changes to carbon and nitrogen isotope patterns, fly ash particles, and a variety of fossilizable biological remains. Many of these signals will leave a permanent record in the Earth’s strata.

“Being able to pinpoint an interval of time is saying something about how we have had an incredible impact on the environment of our planet,” said Colin Waters, principal geologist at the British Geological Survey and secretary for the working group. “The concept of the Anthropocene manages to pull all these ideas of environmental change together.”

Indeed, the Guardian compiled more “evidence of the Anthropocene,” saying humanity has:

• Pushed extinction rates of animals and plants far above the long-term average. The Earth is now on course to see 75 percent of species become extinct in the next few centuries if current trends continue.
• Increased levels of climate-warming CO2 in the atmosphere at the fastest rate for 66m years, with fossil-fuel burning pushing levels from 280 parts per million before the industrial revolution to 400ppm and rising today.
• Put so much plastic in our waterways and oceans that microplastic particles are now virtually ubiquitous, and plastics will likely leave identifiable fossil records for future generations to discover.
• Doubled the nitrogen and phosphorous in our soils in the past century with our fertilizer use. This is likely to be the largest impact on the nitrogen cycle in 2.5bn years.
• Left a permanent layer of airborne particulates in sediment and glacial ice such as black carbon from fossil fuel burning.

Now, scientists must commence their search for the “golden spike”—explained in theTelegraph as “a physical reference point that can be dated and taken as a representative starting point for the Anthropocene epoch.” This could be found in anything from layers of sediment in a peat bog to a coral reef to tree rings.

“A river bed in Scotland, for example, is taken to be the representative starting point for the Holocene epoch,” the Telegraph reports.

The Guardian points out: “For the Anthropocene, the best candidate for such a golden spike are radioactive elements from nuclear bomb tests, which were blown into the stratosphere before settling down to Earth.”

However, Jan Zalasiewicz, a geologist at the University of Leicester and chair of the working group, told the paper that while “the radionuclides are probably the sharpest—they really come on with a bang,” humanity has left no shortage of signatures.

“We are spoiled for choice,” he said. “There are so many signals.”

According to the Telegraph, once one or more golden spike sites have been selected, a proposal for the formal recognition of an Anthropocene epoch will be made to a series of commissions, culminating at the International Union of Geological Sciences. The process is likely to take at least three years.

Prejudice Against Atheists Troubling

Kristin Christman


The Democratic National Committee’s conspiring to sabotage Bernie Sanders’ campaign is disturbing on many levels, but what makes me livid is that the DNC was hoping to portray Bernie Sanders as an atheist. What’s worse than the intended smear is the belief that branding someone an atheist is a smear.

So what if he were atheist? Does this make him less qualified? And why would the DNC consider encouraging the notion that atheism is shameful? Atheists deserve as much respect as anyone else. Thinking otherwise is bigotry.

Atheists belong to the category “freethinkers,” which ranges from the anti-religious, who perceive religion as harmful, to atheists, agnostics and deists, to those with unconventional religious beliefs.

An atheist is not a God hater or Satan worshipper. Nor is an atheist a worshipper of money, selfishness or valueless culture. Like Christianity and Islam, atheism covers a vast range of personalities.

Atheists may revere love, gratitude, generosity, respect, responsibility, and morality. Atheists may believe in the mind’s power to tap into deeper aspects of life.

What they don’t believe in is supernatural beings. Atheists may admire Jesus’ words but not believe he was resurrected. Atheists don’t envision God’s hand in suffering and war. Atheists are motivated neither by selfish hope for heavenly rewards nor fear of hell’s punishment but by the wish to help life and Earth. Atheists may be inspired by the music of hymns but not by their lyrics.

Hating atheists allows people to hate and feel divine about it. Yet if God is love, it shouldn’t matter if one worships God and another worships love.

A giant Independence Day ad in the Times Union submitted by Hobby Lobby featured cherry-picked quotes to suggest America was founded as a Christian nation. Quoting George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and others, the ad implied that Christianity belongs conspicuously in our government and schools. You get the feeling that non-Christians are expected to crawl in a box and lay low.

Yes, the nation’s founders believed in God and admired principles of Jesus. But the ad’s propaganda omits three-quarters of the truth:

Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin resolutely advocated freedom of conscience and complete separation of church and state. Some of them believed Jesus wasn’t divine. And while most believed that a moral society is prerequisite for democracy, none believed that any particular religion is prerequisite to possessing that morality.

Washington believed all religions are beneficial and even assured a Rhode Island Jewish community that the U.S. “gives to bigotry no sanction.” Franklin, a deist-Christian blend, stressed religious pluralism and good deeds rather than doctrine. He even wrote an additional chapter to Genesis, in which God teaches Abraham the value of religious tolerance.

The ad’s quoting of Thomas Jefferson is particularly misleading since Jefferson was repulsed by Christian theology and solely revered the words of Jesus himself. Jefferson made his own Bible by purging sections he deemed too supernatural or corruptive of Jesus’ message. With Greek-like open-mindedness, he remarked, “it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god.”

These secularist framers of the U.S. Constitution were Enlightenment rationalists. They believed human reason and deliberation, not heaven-sent authoritarian leaders, could create benevolent, effective government.

U.S. founders had no intention of repeating Europe’s bloody history in which power and religion had united to breed cruelty and religious wars. In essence, Christianity had been hijacked: Jesus’ priority of love and distaste for wealth and power had been displaced by church and royalty preoccupations with rivalry, control, wealth and dogma.

To separate church ideology from state weapons, power, and wealth, the word “God” was deliberately omitted from the U.S. Constitution, and Article 6 was included, stating “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

In 1791, the First Amendment was ratified, allowing for the free exercise of religion and forbidding the establishment of a national religion. In 1864, Abraham Lincoln shelved lobbyists’ petition to Christianize the Constitution, but Congress added “In God We Trust” to coins. In 1954, countering atheist communism and secular democracy, “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Lincoln never attended church, and some feel it’s therefore unlikely he’d be elected if campaigning today. But for an officeholder, being a Christian is as much a liability as an asset. For what kind of Christian is she?

Does she believe radical Muslims are demons and the U.S. has a divine destiny to rule the world? Does she want to jump-start a holy war to usher in a vengeful Judgment Day?

Does he believe in hierarchy of males over females, adults over children, rich over poor, Americans as exceptional, white Christians as supreme, and humans overpopulating and abusing the subservient planet? Or does he believe in equality and mutual caring?

These labels — Christian, freethinker, Jew, Hindu, Muslim — just scratch the surface of one’s being. What matters isn’t the label but how the individual bends the ideology to fit his own brain. As Lincoln said, the Bible was quoted just as often to uphold slavery as to advocate its abolition.

In fact, it was freethinkers who could more readily perceive inequality as contrary to natural rights, rather than as divinely ordained hierarchy. As Susan Jacoby describes in “Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism,” Thomas Paine, a deist, helped found the first American anti-slavery society.

Meanwhile, women were disparagingly called “atheist” merely for speaking in public. Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s 1848 Women’s Convention was branded “atheist” and she was called “infidel” for her Woman’s Bible, which criticized misogynist biblical verses. Some found religion squarely to blame for women’s subjugation.

Religious labels reveal little, for virtues and vices cross lines of belief. Yet other words are also merely surface deep. On the surface, we have neither an “established religion” nor “religious tests”. But why must successful presidential candidates always have great wealth and believe in war? Why, starting with our aggression toward Native Americans, have greed and war been considered appropriate characteristics of foreign policy, even while trampling beliefs of Christians, freethinkers, Jews, and all who believe in generosity and nonviolence? Is an ideology of wealth and war behaving as an established religion?