US special forces flee “moderate” rebels in Syria

Bill Van Auken

US special operations troops were compelled to flee from a village in northern Syria Friday after their lives were threatened by elements of the so-called Free Syrian Army, the amorphous group of Islamist militias that Washington has backed in its five-year-old war for regime change.

A video posted online showed a column of vehicles carrying the American special forces operatives speeding out of the village as a crowd of Islamist jihadis waving automatic weapons chanted anti-American slogans and death threats.

“We’re going to slaughter you,” the so-called “moderate rebels,” shouted. “Down with America. Get out you pigs.”

An individual who appeared to be leading the demonstration shouted, “The collaborators of America are dogs and pigs. They wage a crusader war against Syria and Islam.” Another man shouted, “Christians and Americans have no place among us.”

The appearance of the video coincided with the first report carried by theWall Street Journal that the Pentagon had deployed a unit of 40 special forces troops to assist the Turkish army, which invaded Syria last month in an operation dubbed Euphrates Shield. It marks the first such direct attempt at US-Turkish collaboration in Syria since the Obama administration ordered the deployment of several hundred special operations troops in the country last spring.

While ostensibly the joint operation is aimed at routing the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) from towns it has occupied in northern Syria, Ankara’s overriding aim is to drive back Syrian Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and prevent them from consolidating an autonomous Kurdish entity on Turkey’s border.

The videotaped incident took place outside the village of al-Rai near the Turkish border. It is on the road leading south to the ISIS-held town of al-Bab, which is seen as a strategic link between the predominantly Kurdish cantons of Kobani and Afin. The YPG Kurdish forces are determined to take the town, while Turkey is determined to deny it to them.

Until recently, the YPG has served as the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the principal US proxy ground forces in the war against ISIS, and had been armed, trained and supported by US special forces “advisers.” The attempt to deploy American special operations troops with the Turkish-backed militias raised the real prospect of US soldiers confronting each other on opposite sides of the battlefield.

The US alliance with the Kurdish forces was undoubtedly a factor in the anger of the so-called FSA fighters depicted in the video. These Sunni sectarian militias, however, are not only hostile to the Kurds, but also share the essential ideology of Al Qaeda.

The confrontation, which was largely blacked out by the US media, exposes the real character of the so-called “moderate opposition” backed by Washington and its regional allies—principally Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar—as well as the intractable contradictions created by the criminal and reckless policy pursued by Washington over the past five years in its systematic destruction of Syria.

The episode also provided embarrassing—from the Obama administration’s standpoint—confirmation of the charge levied by Russia that Washington is either unable or unwilling to pressure the Islamist militias that the CIA has armed and paid to abide by the terms of a ceasefire agreement reached last week between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“Despite the fact that the ceasefire regime in Syria envisaged by the Russian-US agreement has lasted for four days now, the issue of the general ability of the ‘moderate opposition’ to observe it remains open,” Russian Defense Ministry representative Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said on Friday. “All attempts by our American partners to demonstrate to the world at least some manageability of their opposition activists in Syria have now failed,” the general added.

Vladimir Savchenko, the chief of Russia’s center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria, reported Friday that over the previous 24 hours there had been 39 separate instances of the so-called rebels shelling government positions and civilian areas. He said that the attacks indicated that the US-backed armed opposition was “once again using the ceasefire regime to restore its combat capabilities and regroup its forces.”

Russian officials have expressed particular frustration over Washington’s failure to provide information on the exact locations and the numbers involved of the so-called “moderate rebels,” which under the ceasefire agreement are supposed to separate themselves from the Al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, which recently renamed itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.

The reality is that the Al Qaeda forces are the dominant armed militias attacking the Syrian government of President Bashir al-Assad, and the existence of a “moderate,” much less secular, opposition is a propaganda invention of the US and its allies. The CIA-supported militias are largely integrated with the Al Nusra forces and could not survive independently of them.

Meanwhile, the US has attempted to foist the blame on the Syrian government and its ally, Russia, for the failure of a column of trucks bearing relief supplies to reach the besieged city of Aleppo. US officials have made it clear that Washington is prepared to utilize the delay as a pretext for abrogating the ceasefire deal, including most critically, the creation of a “joint implementation center” to coordinate US and Russian military operations in Syria.

“If, by Monday we have continued to see reduced violence and no humanitarian access there will be no Joint Implementation Center,” State Department spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Friday.

The blocking of the aid column is bound up with the security of the road leading from the Turkish border into “rebel”-held eastern Aleppo, which has been repeatedly shelled by the US-backed militias. The al-Nusra forces that predominate in the area, moreover, have held public demonstrations vowing to block any UN aid in protest against the ceasefire agreement.

The Obama administration has also resisted Russian proposals that the terms of the ceasefire deal be made public and be presented to the United Nations Security Council for its endorsement.

Underlying this reticence are deep divisions within the US state itself over the agreement with Russia. Pentagon officials, including the top uniformed commanders in the Middle East, have publicly expressed reservations over the agreement, indicating that they are not committed to implementing it, despite its having been approved by the US president.

Obama met Friday with Kerry, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who reportedly opposed the ceasefire, and other top security officials.

Underlying the political divisions within the US government and statements by top generals bordering on insubordination are not only differences over the crisis-ridden US strategy in Syria. More fundamentally, the US military brass is focused increasingly on a direct military confrontation with Russia, the world’s number two nuclear power, and sees the ceasefire as cutting across the preparations for such a catastrophic conflict.

The international significance of the Berlin election

Peter Schwarz

In Germany, the Berlin state elections on Sunday are being held under conditions of a dramatic international crisis. The consequences of the 2008 financial crash remain unresolved; the European Union, which since the Second World War has formed the basis of relative stability in Europe, confronts an existential crisis; the conflict with Russia and the war in Syria are escalating; and inside Germany, social tensions are growing as more and more people work in precarious conditions for low wages.

The ruling class has responded to this crisis with the promotion of militarism and by building up the repressive apparatus of the state. Since leading representatives of the government announced the “end of military restraint” two years ago, German soldiers, tanks and warplanes are engaged have been deployed to NATO’s border with Russia for the first time since the Second World War. The German Armed Forces train and arm Kurdish fighters in Iraq and fly reconnaissance missions over Syria. The military and defence budget has been increased by billions of euros.

The government has massively expanded the police and surveillance apparatus. The threat of terrorist attacks and the propaganda campaign against refugees and Muslims, fuelled by the media, serve as the pretext.

This policy is supported by all the parliamentary parties. The call for security, more police and increased monitoring has been the focus of their Berlin election campaign. The widespread opposition to this policy has deeply discredited these parties. The times when the so-called “people’s parties” – the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) – could win 40 percent or more of the vote are long gone. In Berlin, where polls place the SPD as the strongest party, it is polling at just 23 percent. The CDU, the Greens, the Left Party and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) are polling between 18 and 14 percent.

Amid the broadening hatred of the political establishment, it is mainly the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) that has profited from the growing anger and indignation with the establishment parties. In the last nine state elections, the AfD has managed to enter each state parliament on its first attempt, exacerbating the crisis of the old parties. While in times of political crisis, the ruling class has previously been able to rely on a “grand coalition” of the SPD and CDU to ensure stable majorities, these parties are now viewed with such widespread contempt that they are no longer capable of securing a governing majority together.

Under these circumstances, the ruling class is seeking new political props to protect its power and suppress the opposition to militarism and social austerity. This is why the outcome of the election may be the formation of a “Red-Red-Green” government, that is, a coalition consisting of the Social Democrats, the Left Party, and the Green Party. This combination on the state level may well prove to be a test run for a coalition of the SPD, Left Party and the Greens at the federal level. Berlin SPD leader Michael Müller, who serves as governing mayor of Berlin in a coalition with the CDU, has expressed his support for such a “Red-Red-Green” alliance.

In one year, in September 2017, the next Bundestag (federal parliament) will be elected. State elections in Germany have always been seen as a trial run for the federal election. So far, the SPD and the Greens have refused an alliance with the Left Party at the federal level and in western States. Only in the east, where the Left Party, as successor to the old ruling state party in the former East Germany enjoys greater influence, has it been included in government at the state level. This is now changing as a result of the deepening crisis. SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel has indicated that he would now be ready for such a government.

In the Berlin election campaign, the Left Party has done everything possible to prove its reliability to the ruling class and its support for increased state powers and militarism. In its Berlin manifesto, it calls for a massive increase in police personnel and the expansion of police powers. Last week, the Left Party’s parliamentary leader in the Bundestag, Dietmar Bartsch, attacked the Merkel government from the right on this issue. He called for “a state that has the capacity to act”, and accused the federal government of having “weakened, humiliated and neglected the police.” Addressing the SPD, Bartsch added, “Yes, the Left Party wants to take responsibility for this political change in government.”

However, the Left Party has a problem. It, too, has massively lost credibility because of its right-wing policies. It is highly discredited in Berlin, where it spent ten years in the state administration between 2002 and 2011 implementing a policy of social austerity. For this reason, it is mainly pseudo-left groups like SAV and Marx21, which have found a home and a livelihood inside the Left Party, that have carried out the leg work in its election campaign. The co-thinkers of the American International Socialist Organisation, the British Socialist Party and Socialist Workers Party and the French New Anti-Capitalist Party, are all active in Germany’s Left Party, energetically promoting it and seeking to provide it with a left fig leaf.

Increasingly, these groups, which are based on affluent sections of the middle classes, the trade union bureaucracy and other better-off layers, reveal themselves for what they really are: a crucial prop of bourgeois rule.

In the United States, these political outfits promoted the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, who described himself as a socialist and won 13 million votes in the primaries, only to then support the candidate of Wall Street and the military, Hillary Clinton. In Britain, they act as cheerleaders for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is encouraging hopes of a shift to the left by the Labour Party, but refuses to fight against its right-wing parliamentary faction, which is plotting to bring him down.

The election campaign carried out by the Partei für Soziale Gleichheit (PSG) in Berlin is of great significance. As the German section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the PSG has placed the building of an international movement against war at the centre of its campaign, of a movement that is based on the working class and combines opposition to war with the struggle against capitalism and for a socialist society.

It has stressed that the working class cannot take a step forward without breaking with the SPD, the Greens, the Left Party and their pseudo-left coterie. The PSG campaign is aimed at raising the political consciousness of the working class, and preparing for the future, when growing sections of the working class will come into sharp conflict with the ruling parties.

Death toll rises in Bangladesh factory fire

Sarath Kumara

In another industrial tragedy in Bangladesh, the Tampaco Foils factory near Dhaka caught fire on Saturday, and then collapsed. The number of workers killed had risen to 34 by yesterday. With around 50 people injured and six still missing, the death toll may further increase.

This disaster highlights the unsafe conditions and shoddy construction for which Bangladesh is now notorious. It is the largest factory fire in the country since the Tazreen Fashions fire in November 2012, in which 112 workers were burnt to death. In another catastrophe, the Rana Plaza building collapsed near Dhaka in April 2013, killing around 1,200 apparel workers.

The blaze engulfed the multi-storey Tampaco Foils factory in the Tongi industrial zone, killing 23 workers immediately. Because inflammable chemicals were stored in the food and cigarette packing factory, the inferno spread quickly. An explosion occurred around 6 a.m., when workers were nearing the end of the overnight shift. A boiler eruption was suspected but investigators said they were also examining whether a gas leakage caused the blast.

The initial rescue operations were difficult because there were “still flames here and there as there are a lot of chemicals in the factory,” senior fire service official Masudur Rahman told Reuters on Sunday. Ajit Kumar Bhoumik, a senior fire department official, added: “We do not know when the search will be completed as it is a huge task.” He said more excavators and trucks were needed to clear debris, as well as “more manpower and other resources.”

In a show of support and force, the army was called into work with civil defence and police personnel, who used cranes and other equipment to pull away rubble and remove slabs of the collapsed building.

Thirteen people were treated at the Dhaka Medical College hospital, including six in critical conditions. Victims’ families were devastated. Mina Rani Dey, the mother of a missing cleaning worker, Rajesh Babu, told reporters: “He came to work early in the morning on Saturday. He has not returned. His father has become sick because our son has not returned.”

The plant was congested because production had been expanded to meet rising orders. The factory owner, Syed Mokbul Hossain, a former member of parliament, claimed it was “fully compliant” with safety standards. However, police later told Reuters that the factory owner and seven other top managers went into hiding as the death toll rose.

Farid Ahmed, deputy inspector general of the country’s factory inspection department, said police had filed a case by the family of one of the victims, and expected to receive more complaints.

In a display of official concern, Mikail Shipar, secretary of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, said: “We checked the design of this factory and initially it is our understanding that it was a one floor building and later the floor had been raised, similar to [the] case of Rana Plaza.”

Knowing that the disaster will again raise the issue of the lack of industrial safety in Bangladesh, Shipar claimed that the ministry would investigate the safety measures of all factories in the Tongi industrial zone. It would also “formulate a project to inspect all the factories in all four industrial zones in the country.”

Such pledges are made after every tragedy. The obvious question is why the government had not previously scrutinised the safety of the factories.

As with previous disasters, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Bangladesh Awami League-led government is looking for scapegoats. Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu told reporters on Sunday: “Stern action will be taken against those responsible for the fire. No one will be spared.”

This is just rhetoric to deflect the mass anger, locally and internationally, over the government’s callous attitude toward those toiling in poor working condition in such factories.

The factory made food and cigarette packaging for local and global brands, including British American Tobacco, Nestlé and Nabisco Biscuit & Bread, a unit of food giant Mondelez International.

In a bid to cover-up its responsibility for the disaster, according to one report, Nestlé said it was “shocked and saddened” by the deaths and the injuries, and its thoughts were with those affected. But such conglomerates make use of such factories, precisely because of the low costs, which necessarily entails, shoddy construction and appalling working conditions, as well as poor wages.

It was likewise with Bangladesh agro-processed food products chain Pran, which conceded that it is a customer of Tampaco, which supplied it with flexible packaging material for snacks and confectioneries. A spokesman said: “After this fire we will meet our other suppliers and review their safety measures as well … Our supply management team does routine visits to all our suppliers’ plants and we will strengthen these more now.”

Government officials said they had mainly focused on safety in garment factories but were now going to consider other industries as well. This is another pretence. The editorial of the Bangladeshi newspaper, New Age commented on Tuesday: “[T]here has so far hardly been any example in which errant owners or government officials were punished, although the country witnessed several hundred such disasters in different industrial sectors in the past few decades.”

Referring to the Rana Plaza case, the newspaper noted: “[I]t is also true that as the trial has already taken several years to start for various reasons, none can say for certain the victims will get justice, at least, in near future.”

The Awami League-led government is determined to keep production costs low, particularly via cheap labour conditions, in order to attract foreign investment, regardless of the cost in workers’ lives. Whatever cosmetic changes are made in the industrial sector, there will be no genuine improvement of workers’ safety conditions and living standard under the corporate profit system.

Right-wing campaign after anti-terror operation in Germany

Katerina Selin

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière ordered the arrest of three terrorist suspects on Tuesday morning in a major police operation in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. More than 200 officers from the Federal Criminal Agency (BKA), the federal police and police from several states participated in raids on three refugee accommodation centres and a number of apartments.

The special forces unit GSG9 arrested three men, aged 17, 18 and 26, all of whom turned out to be Syrians, in Ahrensburg and Großhansdorf, east of Hamburg, and in Reinfeld near Lübeck. The authorities allegedly secured thousands of dollars, false passports and mobile telephones from the suspects. The accused are now in investigative detention.

The operation was immediately exploited by politicians and the media to encourage xenophobic sentiments and to campaign for a strong state.

De Maizière declared to the media, “According to what is known so far, information from the BKA suggests the perpetrators had connections to the Paris attackers.” There was the “suspicion that the detainees came to Germany on behalf of Islamic State.” Their passports were produced in the same workshop of a smuggling organisation that produced those for the Paris attackers, who killed 130 people last November. The three allegedly passed themselves off as refugees in November 2015 to travel through Greece and the Balkan route to Germany.

Although de Maizière added the obligatory sentence that one could not place all refugees under suspicion, this is merely a cynical cover for his right-wing rhetoric. He immediately added that there were “refugees who sympathise with terrorism.”

Bavaria’s interior minister Joachim Hermann (Christian Social Union) spoke out and demanded “strict border controls and clear identification of those who come to us in this country.” Hermann claimed, “The obvious gaps in control of the immense influx of refugees, above all last autumn, has had dire consequences.” ISIS was exploiting “the security gaps deliberately” to “smuggle attackers to Europe concealed as refugees.”

The ruling class is using the same propaganda methods that dominated the media in the wake of the New Year’s Eve events in Cologne. While at the beginning of the year, they associated foreigners and refugees with “criminals” and “rapists,” they are now trying to stigmatise refugees as terrorists. This campaign plays directly into the hands of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which commented confidently on its web site, “Once again, the warnings of the AfD Schleswig-Holstein have been confirmed by reality.” Chancellor Merkel had “opened the borders of the federal republic and has left our country in a virtually defenceless state.”

The same message was taken up by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an article by Reinhard Müller, headlined, “The consequences of openness without limits.” Müller asserted that there was a “high abstract risk from fundamentalist attackers,” and called on the federal government to speak out clearly about “what the result of openness without limits is.” The “opening of the borders” remained a “big experiment with literally many unknowns.” His solution was a stronger state: “In the Middle East, in the core area of the Islamist terror organisation, Germany’s influence is limited. But hopefully not here at home,” according to Müller.

The jurist Reinhard Müller was among those journalists calling last year for a military intervention in Syria. In a piece titled “Need of the hour” he called not only for an intervention in Syria, but also for the deployment of the German army domestically.

The limited information surrounding the anti-terror intervention in Schleswig-Holstein leaves open many questions. As the interior minister himself had to admit, there was, “according to the current stage of the investigation,” no “evidence of concrete plans for an attack.” At no point had any risks been associated with the people involved. The domestic intelligence agency had been spying on the men for nine months. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a foreign intelligence agency cracked their coded chat messages with ISIS.

Why would such a suspected “terrorist group” be taken out in a major police operation now? The timing of the operation has clearly been guided by political motives. Days before the Berlin election, in which the CDU has led the way with a law-and-order campaign, the federal government wants to create an hysterical atmosphere and demonstrate the strength of the state.

Several government representatives and politicians praised the actions of the security forces. They were “alert and acted decisively,” according to de Maizière. Federal justice minister Heiko Mas (Social Democratic Party, SPD) declared that the arrests showed “that our authorities act decisively against suspected terrorists.” And the interior minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Stefan Studt (SPD), praised the cooperation between federal and state police officers.

The true circumstances and background surrounding the “anti-terror operation” in Schleswig-Holstein remain unclear for now. But all politicians and journalists are silent on the real origin of terrorism. The imperialist wars in the Middle East, in which Germany actively participates, have not only destroyed entire societies and created the conditions that nourish terrorism. At the same time, the major powers, above all the United States, have armed and funded Islamist organisations to enforce their interests in the region.

In the Syrian civil war, they support so-called rebels, made up chiefly of the former al-Nusra Front, which are composed of Islamist jihadis fighting for the overthrow of the government.

The World Socialist Web Site has pointed to the connection between war policies and the domestic buildup of the state, writing, “The Western powers are cooperating in Syria with the same forces which serve at home as the pretext for constructing a police state and for military interventions in the name of the ‘war against terrorism.’”

Child poverty continues to grow in Germany

Dietmar Henning

Almost 2 million children and young people grew up in poverty last year in Germany. Children are considered in poverty if their parents are dependent upon social welfare under the social welfare code II, better known as Hartz IV.

The percentage of children under the age of 18 in families claiming Hartz IV rose to 14.7 percent, 0.4 percent more than in 2011. The main centre of child poverty is Berlin. No other city has as many impoverished children or young people. This is based on findings published Monday in a Bertelsmann Foundation study.

The poverty rate in Berlin declined marginally over recent years, from 33.7 to 32.2 percent. “But at the same time, the total of poor children grew because more children moved to the capital city,” according to the study’s authors. Almost one in three children under the age of 18 lives in a family claiming social welfare.

The data for the study was taken from statistics from the federal agency of labour and a long-term study on the impact of poverty on children and young people.

If one considers the regional poverty levels, there continue to be significant disparities. The poverty-stricken eastern parts of Germany maintain much higher levels. Although the poverty rate dropped there since 2001 by 2 percentage points, it still stood at 21.6 percent. This means one in five children lives in poverty here.

In the western German states, the rate of Hartz IV claims rose to 13.2 percent from 12.4 percent in 2011. “The sharpest rise came in Bremen (plus 2.8 percentage points), Saarland (plus 2.6 percentage points) and North Rhine-Westphalia (plus 1.6 percentage points).” Even in the states with the lowest levels of child poverty the rates grew, in Bavaria by 0.4 percent, in Baden-Württemberg, 0.6 percent, and in Rhineland-Palatinate, 0.9 percent.

Other cities along with Berlin have high levels of children under 18 living in poverty, including Bremerhaven (40.5 percent), Offenbach (34.5 percent) and Halle (33.4 percent). Bremerhaven had the highest rate of children reliant on social welfare, followed by Gelsenkirchen in the Ruhr region, at 38.5 percent. But close by in other cities in the Ruhr the picture is not much better. In Essen, the percentage of children living in poverty is 32.6 percent, in Dortmund, 30.3 percent, and in Duisburg, 30 percent.

According to the Bertelsmann study, children with only one parent or with two or more siblings are especially likely to live in poverty.

“Of the total of children reliant on state welfare benefits, 50 percent live with a single parent and 36 percent live in families with three or more children.”

For many children, poverty is a permanent state of affairs. Fifty-seven percent of children aged 7 to 15 claimed social welfare benefits for three years or more.

This has wide-ranging consequences for children. A metastudy co-authored by the Institute for Social Work and Social Pedagogy (ISS) showed, “Compared with children of the same age in families with a secure income, impoverished children are more frequently socially isolated, lacking in material resources and are in poorer health.”

They often do not have their own room to relax in or complete schoolwork undisturbed. Poor children eat less fruit and vegetables and have poorer health in general, particularly with regard to the health of their teeth. There is rarely money available for monthly passes on public transport, let alone extracurricular activities or hobbies like sport associations or music classes. A holiday is a luxury.

It is no surprise that the education prospects for poor children are much more challenging. “The longer children live in poverty, the greater the risk that their fate will be negatively influenced,” said Annette Stein from the Bertelsmann Foundation. Children from households claiming Hartz IV seldom make it to university.

The Bertelsmann Foundation and many media outlets have pointed out that the growth in child poverty does not fit with reports of economic growth in Germany and an increase in the number of people in work.

The Bertelsmann experts account for this by referring to missing data. “Due to missing data, we cannot explain why, in spite of growth in the economy and employment figures, increasing numbers of children rely on Hartz IV,” said Sarah Menne, project head of family policy at the foundation.

This is absurd. Firstly, there are a number of studies demonstrating that higher employment figures do not result in a rise in gross economic output—i.e., the available work is divided up among more people; poorly paid, part-time jobs are expanding.

Secondly, the “economy” is not directed towards reducing poverty and meeting the needs of the population for education, health care and leisure. The major concerns seek profits and look out for interests of their shareholders. And here the rule applies: the smaller proportion of turnover received by the workers, the greater the profit. The wealth of shareholders at the one pole of society determines the poverty at the other pole.

The increase in child poverty is also not a result of “mistaken or bad family policy,” as those responsible for the study at the Bertelsmann Foundation or in the opposition parties claim. Sabine Zimmermann from the Left Party said, “The problem of child poverty has been known for years, but the federal government remains inactive.” The social policy spokesperson for the Green Party parliamentary group, Wolfgang Strengman-Kuhn, raged, “It is a scandal that 2 million children in Germany are reliant on Hartz IV.”

This is disingenuous. Child poverty is the result of a deliberate policy of redistribution from the bottom to the top in which the Left Party and Greens have been deeply implicated. The Hartz laws and “Agenda 2010,” which the federal SPD/Green government of Gerhard Schröder and Deputy Chancellor Joschka Fischer implemented 14 years ago with the full support of the trade unions, introduced the greatest social attacks in Germany since the Second World War.

The Hartz laws have now become a model for the whole of Europe. In France, the Socialist Party government is in the process of imposing a comparable labour reform, which was also drafted with the assistance of Peter Hartz.

That Berlin is the main centre of poverty is the result of the policies pursued by the SPD/Left Party state government from 2001 to 2011. The government cut wages, privatised public assets and hived off state-owned properties to investors.

The reaction of federal families minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) to the study was just as cynical as that of the Left Party and Greens. Schwesig pointed to some of the alms handed out by the government in recent times. She included the increase in the child allowance for low-earning parents, the introduction of the minimum wage (of €8.50 per hour) and the parental allowance plus (parents who work part-time after the birth of a child can extend the period of entitlement to parental allowance).

But neither the parental allowance nor the parental allowance plus benefits the poorest. Families claiming Hartz IV have the allowance included in their benefit, so get nothing. The same applies to child benefit, which Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is considering raising to €2 (per month!)

Many UK museums face closure due to funding cuts

Barry Mason

The National Media Museum (NMM) in the northern city of Bradford experienced a 40 percent drop in the number of visitors last year, compared to 2008, the time of the financial crisis.

In 2001, nearly a million people visited the attraction, but by 2012 this had more than halved. However, the museum is beginning to see a recovery in the number of visitors, recording an 11 percent increase for the year 2015/2016 compared to the previous year.

The NMM is part of the Science Museum Group (SMG), which also includes the Science Museum in London, the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester (MOSI), the National Railway Museum (York) and the National Railway Museum (Shildon). Overall, the SMG saw a 4 percent increase in the number of visits to its museums for the year 2015/2016.

Museums in the SMG group receive around two thirds of their funding from the government Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS). The previous Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government threatened to cut the budget for the group’s museums, and proposals were made that one of SMG museums, though not London’s Science Museum, would have to close. It triggered off a campaign in which each museum had to try to justify why it should not be the one to be closed. It also fuelled a reactionary north-south divide over the fight for dwindling cultural resources.

A campaign to save the NMM, which attracted the support of well-known figures such as Martin Scorsese, Michael Palin and David Hockney, led to over 40,000 signatures on a petition. The petition was handed in to the Science Museum in South Kensington. In the end, the proposed closure of one of the SMG museums was averted. The DCMS budget cut of 8 percent overall went ahead, but the burden on museums was reduced to a 5 percent cut which came into effect in 2015 and has impacted staffing.

As part of the deal to keep the NMM open, it had to emphasise the science aspect of the exhibits and downplay its artistic character. A Guardian article on February 7 of this year noted that minutes of an SMG board meeting stated that “proposals to ‘re-vision’ the National Media Museum began as long ago as September 2013. … At the same meeting, trustees discussed changing the museum’s name. The Guardian has since learned that Science Museum North is one of the names under consideration.”

In line with this, it was announced at the beginning of the year that the NMM would no longer host the Bradford International Film Festival. In the past, this event attracted prestigious figures from the film industry, such as Kenneth Branagh, Alan Bennett and John Hurt, to the city. Film industry insiders fear that this could threaten Bradford’s status as a UNESCO city of film.

Speaking to the Bradford local paper, the Telegraph and Argus, museum director Jo Quinton-Tulloch explained that the museum was developing a festival based on computer games.

She explained, “Film remains a very important part of our future plans, but the festival programme needed changes to make it more sustainable and aligned with the museum’s new focus on the science and culture of light and sound technologies. … [W]e are working towards a festival looking at games and gaming.”

The announcement confirmed the fears of those who believed the cancellation of the festival last year was just the prelude to it being abandoned altogether.

The decision follows on from the earlier decision to move the 400,000 objects comprising the Royal Photographic Society held in Bradford to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The collection includes photographs by the pioneer William Henry Fox Talbot, around 8,000 cameras and the first-ever negative image.

In a Yorkshire Post article of February 2, the renowned international photographer, Ian Beesley, whose works are part of the museum’s collection, opposed the decision to move the collection:

“As a photographic resource it’s second to none. It’s well used by students across the north. … I can’t help but feel that once a museum starts shipping off its crown jewels, the end is really nigh.”

In line with the SMG’s policy of narrowing the focus of the media museum, Quinton-Tulloch told the Yorkshire Life magazine, “This refocus means concentrating our resources on what we do best. … In a time of limited resources and as we refocus our mission, we can no longer do everything we once did.”

The renewed threat to the NMM is part of the ongoing onslaught on museum and art gallery provision. Local Authority cultural resources are at the sharp end of this, as councils are faced with ever increasing government spending cuts.

An article on the Museums Association (MA) web site on July 6 was titled “Museums across the UK face closure threat—MA voices concern about ‘disturbing’ number of venues at risk.”

Highlighting just some of the museums under threat due to the government’s cultural vandalism, it noted that Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire was proposing to halve the museums it runs, including the Red House Museum, which has connections with Charlotte Bronte and is featured in her novel Shirley. It also proposes to close the Tolson Museum, which houses world-class collections.

The article also mentioned the plans to close the Dudley Museum and Art Gallery in the West Midlands as well as plans by Shropshire County Council to slash its £800,000 tourism and museum budget to zero by next year.

The MA director, Sharon Heal, said, “While we recognise that local authorities are under pressure and have to make tough spending decisions, there is a danger that whole communities will be left without museums and the rich and diverse stories they can tell.”

Responding to the autumn statement in November of last year by then-chancellor George Osborne, the director of the Art Fund, Stephen Deucher, told the Museums Association, “Today’s statement is just the beginning, as it is forthcoming local authority settlements that will determine the fate of the majority of the UK’s museums and galleries—the hundreds of installations across the country that are already under-resourced and vulnerable. … [W]e must work hard to ensure the survival of free cultural provision on everyone’s doorstep—beyond the protected nations museums and galleries.”

In a commentary on the future of what museums should look like in 2020 in a Guardian article dated March 2015, cultural historian Robert Hewison noted: “National museums are now having to absorb cuts of a third in public funding. Some of those funded by local authorities are suffering even more. Some may not survive. … [T]he outlook is bleak. ...”

Pacific forum reveals regional geo-strategic tensions

John Braddock

The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) summit at Pohnpei in Micronesia last weekend agreed to admit the French colonies of New Caledonia and French Polynesia as members of the organisation. Wallis and Futuna, another French territory, retains observer status. French Polynesian President Edouard Fritch called the decision “historic,” declaring it would see greater involvement of the territories in regional affairs.

In reality, the move is another sign of deepening geo-strategic tensions as the imperialist powers seek to counter Beijing’s growing influence in the southwest Pacific. France, a major imperialist power, is being brought forward to buttress the position of the US and its local allies, Australia and New Zealand.

The French territories are strategically significant. New Caledonia has a key military base and is one of the world’s largest suppliers of nickel, an essential element in armaments manufacture. French Polynesia was the site of France’s nuclear testing program at Mururoa Atoll from 1966-1996.

Since the forum’s founding in 1971, Canberra and Wellington have used the 16-member body as a vehicle for their own neo-colonial interests. Their dominance began to break up after they imposed sanctions on Fiji following its 2006 military coup. Fiji’s regime turned elsewhere, primarily to China and Russia, for trade, aid and military equipment.

Frank Bainimarama, Fiji’s military leader, who was elected prime minster in 2014, has encouraged other Pacific nations to take a more “independent” stance. In 2012, Fiji set up the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) as an alternative to the PIF. While Fiji was readmitted to the PIF two years ago, Bainimarama boycotted the summit, sending his foreign minister in his place.

Last weekend, as the forum was sitting, Bainimarama reshuffled his cabinet, relieving Foreign Minister Ratu Inoke Kubuabola of his job and taking it on himself. Australia’s ABC political editor Chris Uhlmann described the sacking as “a calculated slap down of the forum, aimed at showing Australia and New Zealand that Fiji does not need them to make its way in the world.” Noting that the summit was being held in a sports centre financed by China, Uhlmann warned that while China had been “making friends in the Pacific,” Australia had been “making enemies.”

Fiji’s trade minister Faiyaz Koya last week announced Fiji was withdrawing from talks on a Pacific-wide trade deal, the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (Pacer Plus), citing backtracks on key commitments by Australia and New Zealand. Papua New Guinea has also withdrawn from the agreement.

At last year’s PIF meeting, Tony Abbott, then Australian prime minister, and New Zealand’s John Key tried to strong-arm the Pacific states, prior to the ecological summit in Paris, into accepting lower carbon emission targets even though rising sea levels threaten their survival. Bainimarama led a rebellion by the Pacific countries in Paris, declaring the Pacific was “bearing the brunt” of climate change.

This year, after lobbying by France, New Zealand and Australia, the vote to admit New Caledonia and French Polynesia to the PIF was unanimous. France has been pushing for membership for its territories since 2003. Their inclusion was resisted by the other island states because the forum is meant to be for “independent” countries, even though their own “independence” has always been extremely limited, largely because of the ongoing domination of the former colonial powers, Australia and New Zealand.

The legacy of France’s nuclear testing has long fuelled opposition to the encroachment of France into regional policy. Canberra and Wellington have always viewed France as an imperialist competitor. New Zealand’s “anti-nuclear” stance in the 1970s and 1980s sought to diminish French influence. Mutual antagonism reached fever pitch in 1985 when the French secret service bombed the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour.

Opening the door to wider French influence in Pacific affairs is therefore a significant shift. According to Radio NZ, France had been able to “defy the forum for decades and now [it] gets to sit—indirectly—at the Forum table.”

The decision coincided with an anti-China witch-hunting campaign by the Australian media and political establishment aimed at ramping up an atmosphere for war preparations with China. On August 29, analyst Hugh White told the ABC’s “Pacific Beat” program that China was seeking to become “perhaps the leading power” in the western Pacific. It was cultivating closer relationships with “even the smallest and most remote” countries. Any improvement in China’s position, he declared, would be a “negative for Washington.”

In fact, China’s expansion into the Pacific has been primarily in response to the Obama administration’s aggressive “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific. Within the next five years, 60 percent of the US Navy’s warships will be operating in the Pacific. Military facilities in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Singapore are being upgraded, along with the expanded use of Australian ports and bases. In a break with New Zealand’s longstanding “anti-nuclear” policy, a US warship is to visit the country in November.

According to the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, China has overtaken Australia as the biggest source of aid to Fiji, and will soon surpass Canberra’s aid to Samoa and Tonga. Beijing’s aid exceeds that from New Zealand and Japan and, at $US1.8 billion, is on the verge of overtaking the US in terms of total aid delivered to the Pacific islands since 2006.

Trade between China and the Pacific doubled last year. The ABC reported that in 2015 total trade reached $US7.5 billion, up from $4.5 billion in 2014. Most of the growth has come from China’s exports to the region, but the Pacific’s exports to China are also expanding, led by the Papua New Guinea’s liquefied natural gas projects. Fish products and timber are the other major exports. More than half of Solomon Islands’ total export income comes from logs sent to China.

The Chinese technology giant Huawei has a major regional presence, working with Pacific telecommunications providers, governments, and businesses to develop subsea cables, networks and datacentres. In 2013, the Australian government stopped Huawei being awarded contracts for a major fibre-optic Internet infrastructure project. The ban was imposed, on bogus “security” grounds, at the behest of Washington. Documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden confirmed that the US engaged for years in a campaign of industrial espionage against Huawei.

The expansion of France, a European imperialist power, into the Pacific is a sharp warning of the deepening tensions and march to war. In his ABC interview last month, White warned that the growing pattern of rivalry in the Pacific is “what you would expect to see in the lead-up to conflict.”

The true cost of the American gulag: $1 trillion a year

Catherine Long

A new report from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri details the social and economic cost of imprisoning 2 million people in the United States. The study, “The Economic Burden of Incarceration,” from the university’s Concordance Institute for Advancing Social Justice, assesses the economic costs to individuals, families, and communities.

The United States imprisons more people than any other country on earth, per capita and in absolute numbers. The increase in incarceration since 1980 is staggering, from approximately 490,000 in all institutions to 2 million by 2014. The budgeted cost of US federal and state prison systems is $80 billion per year.

The Washington University study rejects that figure, saying the actual cost, when considering all the social impacts of removing so many people from economic and social life for such long periods of time, is closer to $1 trillion (1,000 billion dollars).

The authors introduce their study by stating, “Estimating social costs of incarceration is problematic because it is difficult to disentangle the effects of incarceration from the effects of poverty.” The “burden,” in any case, is the mass poverty of millions of people. The social consequences of imprisonment—lifetime earnings loss due to lower chance of employment, erosion of work-related skills, and loss of social capital—are estimated at $1.9 billion to $4.9 billion per year, depending on education level.

For the sake of the study, figures were underestimated so the social costs may be much higher than $1 trillion. The statistics generated in this study are shocking. Having one parent in prison increases infant mortality by 40 percent. The cost, in extra child lives lost per year, is estimated at $1.2 billion per year. Having one parent in prison increases high school dropouts by 10 percent—by the numbers, 62,731 children per year. Thirty percent of the new foster care cases are due to the higher incidence of women in prison, a mind-boggling 716 percent increase since the 1980s.

Costs borne by families through monthly visits, evictions, moves and divorces are all discussed in the study. The cumulative costs to families is over $27 billion a year. The economic cost of the psychological effects of imprisonment are also tallied. Lifelong financial losses due to depression, PTSD, and anxiety suffered by prisoners are totaled at $10.2 billion per year.

These cumulative totals demonstrate in financial terms the human cost of incarceration. Although the average prison term is 2.25 years per this study, racial and economic disparities in sentencing shift this figure significantly. Sentences for “white collar” crimes are commonly served in minimum security detention for short periods of time. According to the Transactional Records Clearinghouse (TRAC), the Justice Department’s white collar prosecution rate is down 92 percent from 20 years ago. Judges adjudicating white collar crimes have “discretion” over sentencing guidelines and frequently give much shorter sentences.

Poor defendants, lacking adequate representation, plead guilty more often in hopes of leniency. A study by Megan Stevenson in Baltimore found “only 51 percent of those charged with bail of $500 or less were able to pay the minimum 10 percent required to go free within three days.” Sentences for minor crimes like drug possession can turn into life sentences with current mandatory minimum sentences and “three strikes” laws. In Louisiana, one of the poorest states, 91.4 percent of the nonviolent black prisoners serving life without parole are doing so because of such laws.

Hyperincarceration, as it’s termed in the study, is criticized for being “unnecessary, counterproductive, and prohibitively expensive.” The financial crash of 2008 “highlight[s] the fiscal unsustainability of hyperincarceration,” i.e., the federal and state burden of continued funding for jails and prisons. These costs are delineated by Henrichson and Delaney, a reference cited for the “Economic Burden” study, as budget items such as “employee benefits, capital costs, in-prison education services, or hospital care for inmates.” Giving the incarcerated housing, education, and health care is considered too costly. For the ruling class, every bit of capital that is not returning to Wall Street is considered a burden.

Why have incarceration rates gone up so much in the last 40 years? Since the 1980s, workers have seen an assault on living standards from all sides: deindustrialization, globalization, and the financialization of the economy; Clinton’s welfare reform; Bush’s repeated budget cuts in social programs; Obama’s cuts to federal assistance in housing and food stamps; and the nationwide erosion of funding for public education.

Persistent unemployment continues. As of July this year, the level of long-term unemployment remains at more than 25 percent of total unemployment. The desperation among the poor is explained by the economic and social conditions they have been subject to for generations.

Crime itself is a social phenomenon. Petty crimes of theft, gangs and criminal enterprises, all are a direct result of capitalist exploitation in destroying “legitimate” and sustainable jobs. When people can’t find legal work, they turn to the alternative economy for subsistence. Once in it, they enter a vicious cycle, going through courts, jails and prisons, being further brutalized and alienated.

Like most such academic studies, however, the report on the economic burden of incarceration offers no broader insights into the meaning of its findings. Its conclusion offers a passing criticism that the US prison system is perhaps too large, “beyond that which is socially optimal.” This soporific phrase testifies to the political blinders on the report’s authors, who have documented the vast extent of an American gulag, apparently without ever questioning what vast, hidden social tensions require such a hideous apparatus of coercion and repression.

60 Max Weber Post-Doctoral Fellowships for International Scholars 2017 – Florence, Italy

Application Deadline: 25th October, 2016

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All countries

To be taken at (country): Italy

Eligible Fields of Study: Economics, History, Law and Social and Political sciences. All areas and types of research within these fields are considered.

About the Award: Amongst the largest, most prestigious and successful post doctoral programmes in the historical and social sciences, and located in one of the most beautiful settings, with truly outstanding research facilities, we offer from 50-60 fully funded 1 and 2 year post doctoral fellowships to applicants from anywhere in the world in the fields of economics, history, law and social and political sciences. All areas and types of research within these fields are considered. Last year 98% of Fellows found an academic position on completing the Fellowship.

Type: Research Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• Candidates must have received their Ph.D within the past 5 years or have official approval to defend their thesis by the time of the start of the programme (1 September). Therefore, to apply for 2017-18 they should have received or submitted their Ph.D. between 1/9/2012 and 1/9/2017 and the Ph.D defence should take place no later than 31/12/2017.

• Extensions to the five-year rule are allowed for applicants whose academic career has been interrupted for maternity or paternity leave, illness or mandatory military service. Cite circumstances in the application form in the field ‘Additional Notes’. Successful candidates will be asked to provide supporting documents.

• EUI graduates can only apply for a Max Weber Fellowships after having been away from the EUI and in a full-time occupation or another fellowship for at least a year after defending their Ph.D

• Candidates of any nationality are eligible for the Max Weber Fellowships.

• The expected level of English proficiency is level C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR).Successful candidates will be requested to provide a certificate/supporting document on registration. This can be one of the international certificates listed below, or a supporting document showing that the candidate has written the doctorate, or published an article or a book chapter of at least 6000 words in English, or has studied and hold a qualification from a University where the language of instruction and assessment was English. Native English speakers are exempt of proof.The following international certificates of English proficiency are recognised by the EUI:
  • IELTS
  • TOEFL (IBT)
  • Cambridge Proficiency
  • Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE)

Selection Criteria:

• Academic accomplishments and potential: Academic excellence is assessed on the basis of the candidate’s contributions (publications, PhD thesis, etc. as outlined in the CV), their plans and commitment to an academic career as outlined in their ‘Research Proposal’ and ‘Academic career statement’, and other supporting evidence (i.e. two letters of reference). Preference is given to applicants in the early stages of their post-doctoral career, who can gain most from the programme.
• Research Proposal: the proposal must be clear and well structured, with well-defined and realistic goals that can be achieved within the duration of the fellowship.
• Mentorship: The capacity and availability of EUI faculty, be it in the departments or the RSCAS, to provide mentorship is taken into account; however, while having common research interests may be helpful, it is not a necessity for mentorship

Number of Awardees: 50 to 60 candidates

Value of Fellowship:

• The Fellowship provides a grant of 2000 euro per month plus – when appropriate – a family allowance.

• The Max Weber Fellows enjoy the superb research facilities of the European University Institute (including an outstanding library, a shared office space, and a personal research fund of 1000 euros).

• The MWP is unique among postdoctoral programmes in helping Fellows to become full members of a global academic community.

• Fellows are given training and support in all aspects of an academic career – from publishing and presenting, teaching, applying for research grants and jobs. A particular focus is placed on communicating effectively in English to different kinds of academic audiences.

• Its placement record is second to none: most Max Weber Fellows secure an academic position in the finest institutions around the world upon completion of the Programme.

Duration of Fellowship: 1 and 2 year post doctoral fellowships

How to Apply: The annual deadline is 25 October, but applications for self-funded fellowships will be considered until 25 March. Visit Fellowship Application Webpage to apply

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: The Max Weber Fellowship

PEO International Peace Scholarships for Women to Study in USA and Canada 2016/2017

Application Timeline: 

• Application Opens: 15th September, 2016
• Application closes: 15th December, 2016
• March 1, 2017: Last day to submit completed application materials from applicants already enrolled in the graduate program and school for which their scholarship is intended.
• April 1, 2017: Last day to submit completed application materials from applicants not yet enrolled in the graduate program or school for which the scholarship is intended. Last day to submit completed application materials for applicants who will be attending Cottey College
• May 2017: Notification of scholarship awards
• June 1, 2017: Last day for students to accept IPS scholarships

Offered Annually: Yes

About Scholarship: Members of P.E.O. believe that education is fundamental to world peace and understanding. The scholarship is based upon demonstrated need; however, the award is not intended to cover all academic or personal expenses.

Eligibility and Criteria

• An applicant must be qualified for admission to full-time graduate study and working toward a graduate degree in an accredited college or university in the united States or canada.
• A student who is a citizen or permanent resident of the United States or Canada is noteligible.
• Scholarships are not given for research, internships, or practical training, unless it is combined with coursework. Awards are not to be used to pay past debts.
• In order to qualify for her first scholarship, an applicant must have a full year of coursework remaining, be enrolled and in residence for the entire school year.
• Doctoral students who have completed coursework and are working only on dissertations are not eligible as first-time applicants.
• international students attending cottey college are eligible to apply for a scholarship.

Scholarship Worth

The maximum amount awarded to a student is $12,500. Lesser amounts may be awarded according to individual needs.

The scholarship is based upon demonstrated financial need; however, the award is not intended to cover all academic or personal expenses. At the time of application, the applicant is required to confirm additional financial resources adequate to meet her estimated expenses. Additional resources may include personal and family funds, tuition waivers, work scholarships, teaching assistantships, study grants and other scholarships.

Awards are announced in May. The amount of the PEO International scholarship will be divided into two payments to be distributed in August and December

Application Guideline and Procedures

• Information concerning the international peace Scholarship program is available from the P.E.O. Executive Office or from the website at peointernational.org.
• Eligibility must be established before application material is made available. Eligibility information and application deadlines can be found at any time on the P.E.O. website.
• Information concerning admission to Cottey college may be obtained by writing to the coordinator of Admissions, Cottey College, Nevada, Missouri 64772, or visit them at cottey.edu.

Awards are announced in May. The amount of the scholarship will be divided into two payments to be distributed in August and December.

Visit P.E.O. International Peace Scholarship Fund Information