A Milestone for America’s Culture

James Haught

Slowly, relentlessly, America’s culture is undergoing profound change.  But the transformation mostly is under the radar, hardly noticed.

A new study by the Public Religion Research Institute and Religion News Service finds that the largest faith category in the United States now is people who say their religion is “none.” Apparently, this marks the first time in U.S. history for the churchless to reach top status.

Specifically, the PRRI-RNS report says the three chief groups among all ages in 2016 are: nones, 25 percent; Catholics, 21 percent; and white evangelicals, 16 percent.

Among young adults under 30, the gap is enormous:  Nones, nearly 40 percent; Catholics, 15 percent; white evangelicals, 9 percent; white mainline Protestants, 8 percent; black Protestants, 7 percent; other nonwhite Protestants, 11 percent; and non-Christian faiths, 7 percent.

Many of the unaffiliated young adults say they simply don’t believe church dogmas.

As these younger Americans advance to middle age, the churchless segment is expected to increase. It surely will alter U.S. society.  It has snowballed rapidly, unexpectedly.  The report says:

“One of the most consequential shifts in American religion has been the rise of religiously unaffiliated Americans.  This trend emerged in the early 1990s.  In 1991, only 6 percent of Americans identified their religious affiliation as ‘none.’ … By the end of the 1990s, some 14 percent of the public claimed no religious affiliation.  The rate of religious change accelerated further… reaching 20 percent by 2012.”

For senior West Virginians like me, who came of age after World War II, this secular tide is astounding.  The world of our youth has been turned upside-down.

When I was a young adult, the only Americans who mattered were WASPs (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants). They were the overwhelming majority.  Their laws and customs dominated everything. But now, they’ve dwindled to just 16 percent among those under 30, according to the PRRI-RNS figures. And they’re destined to keep shrinking as nonwhite Americans rise, the Census Bureau projects.

Politically, the situation is a mess.  The “nones” strongly hold liberal, conmpassionate, progressive, Democratic values — but they tend to avoid voting.  They shun politics as much as they shun church. The report says:

“By the last presidential election in 2012, religiously unaffiliated Americans had grown to comprise 20 percent of the public, but… comprised 12 percent of voters. By way of comparison, in 2012 white evangelical Protestants also comprised 20 percent of the public, but they accounted for more than one in four (26 percent) voters.”

While other American groups are more committed to political action, about one-fourth of “nones” aren’t even registered to vote.

“At the start of the 2016 general election season in early August,” the study says, “religiously unaffiliated voters expressed a strong preference for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump (62 percent vs. 21 percent).”

Despite their low voting rate, “nones” have become the largest segment in the Democratic Party base.  The report says:

“Among Hillary Clinton’s supporters, 7 percent are white evangelical Protestant, 12 percent are white mainline Protestant, 11 percent are white Catholic, 30 percent are religiously unaffiliated, and 15 percent are black Protestant.” (That’s only 75 percent of her backers.  Perhaps the others are supporters whose religion isn’t known.)

It’s fascinating to watch the culture evolve. It’s tantalizing to wonder where America is heading.  Keep reading the news and try to find clues about the transformation that is in progress.

Cuba: Rejecting Sanctions, Sending A Message

Chandra Muzaffar

President Barack Obama’s official visit to Cuba in March 2016 has deluded a lot of people into believing that relations between the United States and Cuba are now normal. They do not realise that the severe US economic sanctions against Cuba are still in force.

Of course there have been slight improvements in the application of some of the procedures pertaining to sanctions. Some travel restrictions have been eased and Cuba is no longer in the US list of states allegedly sponsoring “international terrorism,”an allegation that was utterly ludicrous from the very outset given the number of occasions Cuba and Cubans were subjected to acts of terror since the Cuban Revolution of 1959.

Sanctions continue to impede imports of critical goods and equipment from the US just as Cuba is prevented from exporting products and services to the US. Cuba has no direct banking relations with the US. US corporations cannot invest in the Cuban economy, except in the telecommunications industry.

The transfer of funds to Cuba is still being blocked. Payments even in currencies other than the US dollar are often withheld. Foreign banks and other corporations with links to Cuba continue to be fined. In February 2016 for instance a fine was levied on CGG Services S.A. of France for violating the blockade on Cuba. In May 2016 “the Royal Bank of Canada refused to transfer payment in Canadian dollars corresponding to Cuba’s membership fee of the Association of Caribbean States.”   In the same month, a bank in Spain closed the current accounts of a business group “due to the group’s operations with Cuba.”

It has been estimated that the sanctions have cost Cuba billions of dollars just in the course of the first six months of 2016. The impact upon the public health sector — the comprehensiveness and affordability of public health care being one of the greatest achievements of the Cuban Revolution — has been dire. Between April 2015 and April 2016, the accumulated monetary repercussions of the sanctions policy amounted to some 82.7 million dollars. Cuba is compelled to purchase medicines, “spare parts for diagnostic and treatment equipment, medical instruments and other supplies necessary for (the health) sector to function” from distant markets when it would have been so much cheaper to obtain them from the US itself.

It is not just the health sector that has suffered from sanctions. The food sector, education, sports and culture have all had to pay the price. Even biotechnology, a field in which Cuba has registered excellent progress, has had to bear the adverse consequences of the unjust and vicious US policy.

It is widely known that it is the US Congress more than the White House that is determined to perpetuate sanctions against Cuba. While some members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives feel that the sanctions should be lifted, the lobbies and special interests that want to continue to punish Cuba remain formidable. It is significant that Congress has received 51 legislative initiatives that seek to reinforce the sanctions. Obama cannot afford to ignore this. Nonetheless, he has executive powers that can circumvent some of the hurdles erected by the pro-sanctions groups.

This is why pro-justice citizens’ groups in the US and from around the world should intensify their efforts to persuade the powers-that-be in the US to eliminate the sanctions totally. Voices from within the US are critical; more human rights advocates, academics and representatives of the different religious communities should speak up. They should also counter the untruths, the half-truths and the outright lies about Cuba, the sanctions and the “security of the American people”.

People outside the US should also play their role. They should remind their governments to stick to their anti-sanctions position when the issue comes up again before the UN General Assembly on 26 October 2016. For the last 24 years, the vast majority of UN member states have voted to end the US sanctions regime. The last UN General Assembly vote on 27 October 2015 was the most convincing ever. 191 out of the 193 member states of the UN demanded that the sanctions be lifted. The only two states that voted against the resolution were the US and Israel.

Near unanimous support for Cuba from the nations of the world is not enough. Their vote should be translated into action. I had suggested last year that the General Assembly should form a multi-national panel comprising various governments from the different continents which as the representative voice of the world would seek a formal meeting with the Speaker of the US House of Representatives and the majority leader of the US Senate to convey to them the strong feelings of the people of the planet that sanctions against Cuba should be lifted at once. It is important for the UN to convey this message to the US leaders especially at this moment because there would be some changes in the US Congress and a new President in the White House after the 8 November 2016 election.

There is a larger meaning to this proposal. By telling US leaders how the peoples and the governments of the world feel about an arrogant punitive action that has caused so much pain and suffering to a small nation of 11 million citizens, we would be expressing our total rejection of global hegemony and a unipolar system where might is right. We would be asserting the right of nations and peoples to determine their own destiny. At a time when the hegemon is in decline and is doing all it can to perpetuate its dominance there is no message that is more important than this.

Maldives Leaves Commonwealth On The Issue Of Human Rights Violations

Vivek Kumar Srivastava

Maldives has finally decided to quit the Commonwealth, the oldest political organization, an organization of 53 countries and presently a transformed institution since the time of imperialism , a group of voluntarily organized nations about which Pt. Nehru had said that ‘it is an organization which we can join or leave at our own free will.’ Maldives perhaps had learnt this statement of Indian Prime Minister and has now decided to leave London based organization which had its premium value during the time of the colonial ages but time has changed now and the former colony now challenge the noble values and the Commonwealth.. The government of Abdulla Gayoom in Maldives has now acted in defiance to the wishes of the organization.

The reason of leaving the organization is just only to save the faded face. The Maldives was being accused by the Commonwealth for the poor records of the human rights in the small coral island by the government. The government went in angry mood and rejected the accusations and called it interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation and violation of the UN charter. The accusations although have stood the test of time and even a casual watcher can easily understand the level of the governance in this tiny island nation which is under the maximum climate change threats due to its low lying condition in the sea. In fact has exhibited the massive human rights violation in the recent time when the democratic system in the country has come under grave threats; ex President Nashhed was ingloriously exited from the political scene and was compelled to leave the political space in the country, albeit Indian interest lied with Maldives and India tried to convince the Maldivian government to take a positive and lenient view about him but it was mot honoured. The political disturbances in the country have several ripples which are difficult to be counted.

Being predominantly a conservative state the Maldives attract the global tourist due to its beauty and a close encounters with the different facets of the nature , the beauty brings a lot of foreign tourists to this mystic land but at the deep level under these beauties and the ripples lie the dark side of the Maldivian political culture and the real suppressed status of several fellows in the country, a fact which was in the mind of the Commonwealth when it had warned it about its human rights violations. Maldivian society is strictly not much developed, in economic as well at the social realms it exhibits several of the deficiencies which has been accounted by commonwealth and several of the other countries. The Amnesty International Report 2015-16 on global human rights stated that independence of Human Rights Commission was breached and government could not defend it. It was in fact the result of the judicial overreach.

Under the new penal code the two women were given punishment of 100 lashes and several months house arrest because they had given birth to child without being married. This is a grave human rights violation as the state as an oppressive agency try to decide the morality of the people and the society. The individual is put at the lowest level and Maldives did the same.

The report further stated that political opponents were not given the fair trial and the constitutional safeguards were eroded. Though government maintained that it had followed the due process of law but it was not so in reality. The former President Nasheed was given 13 years imprisonment which was widely condemned. All the countries were aware that political activism of the government in the Maldives was not in consonance to the basic constitutional and political rights. Thus a kind of dictatorial method was in full sway in the country. The Commonwealth and other institutions were aware about such developments which were not to the liking of the Maldivian government. The report also highlighted three major issues which included the question on the judicial impartiality; it is a fact that in such dictatorial countries which call themselves as the democratic ones, such neutrality at the judicial level is highly eroded. This is a common feature of such regimes. The verdict given against Z A Bhutto in Pakistan for death penalty was controlled by the then Pakistan leader Zia ul Haq and the judiciary was seen under control. In Maldives similar conditions prevail.

Freedom of assembly and the peaceful protests have been widely curtailed in the Maldives. There are arrests and detentions. Another serious issue relates to the flogging of the women, how can any sane people or any democratic order or developed intellectual society can accept such flogging?; but it has taken place. A shame to the modern society where so many developments in different fields have taken place but women are treated in such vulgar form. Big South Asian states like India should take note of these and should warn the tiny nation Maldives that it should not be indulged in such activities but all the noble and lofty talks at different platforms by the leaders are just empty rhetoric.

The resignation of Maldives from commonwealth should be welcomed and there is need to isolate in complete manner at the global level but it is not going to be possible because its one patron China is on the same and big boat of violations. The world is thus in chaos when the issue of human rights are raised and the tunnel of pains is too long and only solution lies in the individual and collective efforts when the states and the governments fail then it is essential that common people should ponder over the painful situations and try to resolve these with the collective efforts.

Healthcare costs a growing barrier to treatment for Australians

Michelle Stevens

Recent statistics on “out of pocket” expenses incurred by patients under Australia’s publicly-funded Medicare insurance scheme show that a “two-tier” healthcare system exists, with almost half those suffering some chronic health conditions skipping treatment because of the costs.

Those who have the financial means to purchase expensive private health insurance can generally ensure their healthcare needs and those of their families are adequately met. But those unable to afford private cover are left stranded on public health waiting lists, suffering unnecessary pain and delay in treatments, or cannot obtain appropriate healthcare at all.

Medicare is meant to ensure universal access to “essential” healthcare services. Introduced in 1984, it was a re-branding of the previous Medibank scheme introduced in 1975 under the Whitlam Labor government. It was supposed to provide the “most equitable and efficient means of providing health insurance coverage for all Australians.”

In reality, Medicare has never provided “equitable” healthcare, with the public health system chronically under-funded and under-resourced for decades by successive state and federal governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike.

What is deemed “essential” can be seen by examining which services are provided, and which are not, under the Medicare system.

Public hospitals, including emergency departments, are funded. However, lack of resources results in excessive waiting times, including for outpatient and specialist appointments. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of people sit on waiting lists of 12 to 18 months for dental care and “elective” surgeries such as hip and knee replacements.

Despite the myth that healthcare in Australia is free, many services, tests, treatments or consultations are not fully funded by Medicare. The fees charged may be higher than the rebates paid by Medicare and some services have a “capped” number of uses in a given time period.

This results in patients being forced to make co-payments, referred to as “out-of-pocket expenses.” Other services are not covered by Medicare, so that patients must pay full fees.

Annual Medicare statistics show that the national average out-of-pocket expenses for Medicare services increased from $3.95 in 1984–85 to $54.60 in 2014–15. There were sharp increases in the average co-payments for key services:

• General practitioner (GP) visits from zero to $31.36

• Specialist attendances from $5.67 to $65.73

• Obstetrics from $11.42 to $233.10

• Anaesthetics from $8.62 to $126.20

• Pathology services from $2.39 to $24.35

• Diagnostic imaging from $7.40 to $94.19

This year the Liberal-National government extended a freeze on the General Practitioner (GP) Medicare rebate until 2020. Instigated by the previous Labor government in 2013, this freeze functions as a “back door” GP co-payment. It is forcing doctors to gradually charge patients upfront at a higher rate, rather than “bulk-bill” the government just for the standard Medicare rebate. Freezing the rebate has been estimated to cost GPs approximately $15,000 a year each as they face the rising costs of running a medical practice.

A study titled Out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure and chronic disease–do Australians forgo care because of the cost? published in the Australian Journal of Primary Health in July, confirmed that out-of-pocket costs act as a barrier to treatment for people with chronic health conditions.

Over 40 percent of people with depression, anxiety and other mental health conditions, and over one-third of people with asthma, emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) reported they skipped healthcare treatment because of the cost.

The researchers, from James Cook University, the Bureau of Health Information and the University of New South Wales, found that Australians with chronic health conditions were more likely to forgo care because of cost than those in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

The study reported staggering out-of-pocket expenditure for patients with certain chronic health conditions. Stroke survivors were spending on average of $1,110 per year on healthcare, and up to $32,411 in the 12 months following their stroke. For an arthritis sufferer, the mean out-of-pocket spending was $1,513 per year, with amounts ranging from $49 to $20,527.

In rural areas, the expenditure was higher, with cancer patients treated in northern Queensland spending an average of $4,311 since diagnosis, while those who lived more than 100 kilometres from their hospital spent an average of $7,752.

Those surveyed reported spending an average of $986 per year on household out-of-pocket costs. In total, 14 percent reported expenditure over $2,000. Out-of-pocket spending was on average 9 percent of total household expenditure for an older household and 5 percent for a younger household.

The political establishment is well aware that patients are being compelled to pay billions of dollars per year. A Senate committee report completed in 2014, Out-of-Pocket Costs in Australian Healthcare, stated that “out-of-pocket expenditure by individuals accounted for 57.2 percent of the estimated non-government funding of health goods and services in 2011–12. The contribution by individuals accounted for 17.3 percent of the total health expenditure (government and non-government). In 2011–12, individuals spent approximately $24.3 billion on out-of-pocket health expenses.”

It is a well-established fact internationally that those with chronic health conditions have lower incomes, less wealth and are more likely to be in poverty.

In its 2014–15 budget, the Liberal-National planned to gut health funding by an estimated $1.8 billion over four years, and $57 billion over a decade. During the recent election campaign, the Labor Party abandoned its promise to restore the $57 billion, while attempting to portray itself as the “great protector” of Medicare.

The historic record demonstrates that the Labor Party has orchestrated and implemented major attacks on health funding. Most recently, the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments between 2007 and 2013 imposed a new Activity Based Funding system for public hospitals, whereby hospitals no longer receive basic funding. Instead, they are paid only a “national efficient price” for each procedure they deliver.

Driven by a worsening global economic crisis, the corporate and financial elites are demanding intensifying austerity measures, with public health spending always a central target. This will mean further devastating cuts to the healthcare system, with low income earners and the most vulnerable members of society affected the most severely.

Access to free, high quality healthcare is a basic social right. The only means to achieve it and build appropriately resourced services is for the entire healthcare system, along with the multi-billion dollar corporations and banks, to be placed under the democratic control of the working class, as part of the socialist transformation of society to meet the needs of all, not satisfy the profit demands of the wealthy few.

Australian government seeks to gag top legal official

Mike Head

An acrimonious public conflict has erupted between Australia’s two top legal officials over a bid by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government to bar the release of official legal advice that could potentially expose the illegality of government proposals.

The dispute has worsened since May, when Attorney-General George Brandis, without notice, issued a “Legal Services Direction” barring Solicitor-General Justin Gleeson from giving a formal legal opinion to anyone else without Brandis’s written, signed consent.

At stake in this clash are not simply fine legal distinctions, or personal disputes. Essentially, via the attorney-general’s decree, the Liberal-National Coalition government is seeking to free itself to act lawlessly, in violation of any constitutional or legal constraint.

During a heated Senate committee hearing yesterday, under hostile questioning from government senators, Gleeson stated his intention to defy the “unlawful” directive. He said that if the July 2 federal election had resulted in a hung parliament, the order would have barred him from giving legal advice to the governor-general, who has the power to decide who should be asked to form a government.

Earlier, Gleeson released a detailed 48-page submission to the Senate legal and constitutional affairs references committee, insisting that the directive be withdrawn and that Brandis did not consult him before issuing it. Gleeson’s submission, containing the correspondence between the pair, effectively showed that Brandis misled parliament by falsely declaring that Gleeson was consulted.

Gleeson also quoted a letter he wrote to Brandis last November 12, objecting that he was not consulted on three key moves by the government. These were legislation to allow citizenship to be stripped from people by executive decree, a proposed plebiscite on same-sex marriage and the release of sensitive correspondence between Governor-General Sir John Kerr and the Queen before Kerr dismissed the Whitlam Labor government in the “Canberra Coup” of 1975.

This lack of consultation clearly violated long-established legal norms. The solicitor-general, who is officially designated “the second Law Officer of the Commonwealth,” is meant to be an independent officer, appointed for up to seven years, and who cannot be removed except for incapacitating illness or “misbehaviour.”

Under the Legal Officers Act, the solicitor-general must “act as counsel”—give legal advice and representation—to the government and federal agencies. He or she is also required to “furnish opinions” to the attorney-general, but there is no provision saying that the attorney-general could ban advice being given to other officials.

Testifying at the Senate committee hearing yesterday, Gleeson declared: “What is currently contained in the direction issued on 4 May has never previously existed between attorney-general and solicitor-general in Australia since 1916. It is a radical change in the practice, whereby a solicitor-general can do nothing; cannot even speak to a lawyer until he has received a brief with a signed consent.”

The far-reaching implications of silencing the solicitor-general can be seen from Britain, where the Blair Labour government in 2003 blocked and then lied about a law officers’ opinion casting doubt on the legality of the US-led invasion of Iraq. This year’s report of the official Chilcot inquiry confirmed the war’s utterly illegal character and the criminal role of those officials, American, British and Australian, who organised and led it.

That such gagging could occur again has been demonstrated by the suppression by Brandis of Gleeson’s advice that last year’s citizenship bill, which was dressed up as a counter-terrorism measure, was probably unconstitutional.

Fully supported by the Labor Party opposition, this law is a serious attack on the fundamental democratic right of citizenship. A government can now arbitrarily strip citizenship from people, removing core democratic rights, including to vote.

These powers, which can be exercised without any trial or judicial process, go far beyond targeting alleged terrorist suspects. They can be used against a wide range of people deemed to be opponents of the political, corporate and military establishment.

The government and its Labor Party partners defied warnings by legal experts that the bill was most likely unconstitutional, primarily because a government minister could severely punish citizens, by depriving them of their citizenship, without any judicial process, violating the separation of powers in the Australian Constitution.

Labor voted for the bill after complex last-minute amendments were tabled trying to dodge a High Court challenge, even though the government refused to release its legal advice—two letters from the solicitor-general.

At the time, Brandis declared there was “a good prospect that a majority of the High Court would reject a constitutional challenge to the core aspects of the bill.” Prime Minister Turnbull made similar statements.

In his November 12 letter to Brandis, attached to his Senate submission, Gleeson objected to these statements, saying they were “capable of being understood as statements about the solicitor-general having advised on the current bill, and about the content of that advice.”

Gleeson said he had seen a draft of the bill two days before it was introduced to parliament, but was surprised the final bill retained ministerial discretionary powers to revoke citizenships and removed any requirement for natural justice—that is, for citizens to have any opportunity to challenge the loss of their basic rights.

Labor has called on Brandis to resign for misleading parliament, but its main concern, expressed in a Senate motion, is that he undermined “public confidence within legal administration within the government.”

Appearing before the Senate committee yesterday, Brandis stepped up the government’s offensive, accusing Gleeson of instigating a “confected controversy.” Brandis insisted that his directive, “far from being a grab for power, merely gives effect to the existing law.”

Meanwhile, Turnbull backed Brandis, saying he did not believe the solicitor-general’s independence had been compromised.

This is an unparalleled rift at the highest echelons of the Australian state. On the Conversation web site, a legal expert, Associate Professor Gabrielle Appleby, said the conflict “demonstrates an unprecedented, very public breakdown in the relationship between the two officeholders.”

In a scathing submission to the Senate inquiry, former Solicitor-General Gavin Griffith denounced Brandis for seeking to reduce the solicitor-general’s role to a “shackled office” like “a dog on a lead.” He said the “content and intent” of Brandis’s directive was “the practical destruction of independent office of second law officers within the Australian constitutional context.”

Labor Senator Penny Wong gave notice of a motion to disallow Brandis’s legal directive. Regardless of whether the directive is overturned, the government’s actions show a determination to operate without any legal or constitutional restraint on critical issues, which could include going to war and further overturning fundamental democratic rights.

Are German authorities covering up for the death of Jaber al-Bakr?

Ulrich Rippert

Jaber al-Bakr, the 22-year-old Syrian arrested Monday on suspicion of terrorist activity, was found dead in his cell on Wednesday evening. On Thursday, the prison management in Leipzig declared that the detainee used his prison clothing to hang himself from one of the cell’s bars.

At a hastily convened press conference, Saxony’s justice minister Sebastian Gemkow (Christian Democrats, CDU) rejected any suggestion that the authorities were responsible for the prisoner’s death. It was disappointing and “should not have been allowed to happen,” Gemkow said, but according to his information, everything had been done by authorities to avert suicide. On Wednesday, experts had not identified any immediate suicide risk.

Al-Bakr’s public defender contradicted this and sharply criticised the authorities responsible. “I am incredibly shocked and speechless that something like this can happen,” said lawyer Alexander Hübner in several interviews. He spoke of a “judicial scandal.” The suicide risk posed by the accused was recognised by those responsible at the judicial facility and noted in the protocol.

The crisis situation facing his client was obvious, Hübner noted. “He had already destroyed lamps and manipulated an electric socket.” The deputy head of the detention centre reassured him on Wednesday afternoon by telephone that al-Bakr, who was being kept in solitary confinement, would be “watched constantly.” According to Hübner, the terrorist suspect had been on a hunger strike since his detention. He had eaten and drunk nothing since Sunday.

The circumstances surrounding Jaber al-Bakr’s death raise a number of questions. Al-Bakr was not a normal prisoner, but rather a terrorist suspect accused of possessing highly explosive materials, maintaining ties with Islamic State and having planned horrific attacks on airports with a similar impact as the attacks in Paris and Brussels in which over 150 were killed.

Despite this, no interview was conducted when he entered prison, allegedly because no interpreter could be found. He was not brought into a communal cell, as is the case with others showing a suicide risk, but detained in solitary confinement.

After a discussion with a “very experienced psychologist” the following day, the suicide risk was deemed to be low and observations were reduced to once every 30 minutes. Despite this, according to reports at the press conference, the officer on duty repeated the checks every 15 minutes, during one of which he found the dead man.

It remains entirely unclear how a prisoner, who no longer had possession of any dangerous objects, could hang himself in an almost empty cell in a matter of minutes without any possibility of reviving him. Many sources are contradictory and lack credibility. But they cannot be explained by mere incompetence on the part of the Leipzig judicial system, as politicians and the media are currently trying to do.

The much more important question that must be asked is: did the intelligence services have something to conceal at the highest levels? Did an interest exist within the security apparatus to prevent proceedings in court and a public statement by al-Bakr? Was his desire to commit suicide accepted as a price worth paying or even actively encouraged?

It is a fact that not only the death of al-Bakr, but also his ties to the intelligence services are very mysterious. According to his own account, the domestic intelligence agency had been watching him for a long time.

Al-Bakr was registered as a refugee in Munich in February 2015 and applied for asylum. In June 2015, he received asylum for a period limited to three years. The domestic intelligence and foreign intelligence agencies placed him under observation, reportedly because he searched online for a recipe to make a pipe bomb.

But despite being under observation, he was able to cross borders without difficulty. He returned to Syria on numerous occasions and stayed for a time in Turkey.

It remains unexplained how he was able to procure the highly explosive materials under conditions of this surveillance. According to Saxony’s Justice Minister Markus Ulbig (CDU), the same explosives “as in Paris and Brussels” were involved. The president of the state criminal agency in Saxony, Georg Michaelis, added that many things pointed to an IS connection.

On 8 October, the police tried to detain al-Bakr in Chemnitz as he left his home in the morning. The police called his name and fired a warning shot, but then allowed him to escape. The police subsequently began a high-profile public search, releasing photos and warnings that the man being sought was extremely dangerous and potentially armed.

The apartment under observation in Chemnitz was stormed by special forces units, and the explosives found were widely publicized in the media. On Sunday night, al-Bakr was arrested. He was unarmed. At Leipzig train station Al-Bakr had asked two fellow Syrians for a place to sleep. The pair took him home with them and then handed him over to the police after tying him up.

According to statements by intelligence agency head Hans-Georg Maaßen, an attack on a Berlin airport was in the advanced stages of preparation and could have been carried out in a matter of days. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU) compared the case to the attacks in Paris and Brussels and stated that the 22-year-old Syrian had ties to IS, according to information from the domestic intelligence service.

In this context, it is worth noting that the attackers in Paris and Brussels were also known to the security authorities, could travel virtually unhindered and prepared their attacks under the noses of the intelligence agencies.

German think tank warns of growing nuclear war danger

Peter Schwarz

In September, the German pro-government think tank “Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik” (SWP) published a study on the implications of US policy towards Russia and European security. The 28-page document is aimed at a professional audience and is written in political and military jargon that couches the annihilation of millions of human lives in matter-of-fact terms, as if dealing with the solution to a technical problem.

But this prosaic language conceals a nightmare scenario. American policy towards Russia, as described by the SWP study, focuses primarily on preparation for a nuclear war, which would involve large parts of Europe. If the results of the study are to be taken seriously, then the risk for the present generation dying in a violent atomic storm is alarmingly high.

The study’s author, Dr. Peter Rudolf, an SWP employee, not only provides his own assessment, but references every paragraph with other sources. The text contains 118 footnotes, each of which refers to multiple articles in foreign policy and military journals and statements by leading politicians. The study summarizes the debate that is currently taking place in leading circles of the military and political establishment.

At its very beginning, the study stresses that the nuclear war danger is not an abstract, hypothetical risk. As “the first and most important structural feature” of US-Russian relations, the study names the “mutual nuclear annihilation capability”.

Even 25 years after the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia, who together possess “approximately 90 percent of all nuclear weapons in the world”, maintain their strategic nuclear weapons “in constant combat readiness.” “They want to guarantee,” the study says, “if necessary under extreme time pressure, that they are able to make the decision to use nuclear arsenals... This is to prevent one’s own nuclear weapons being eliminated by a first strike.”

The study points to the very short time frame for decisions as “anything but conducive” to “crisis stabilization”. The flight times of ballistic missiles between the two countries run to “11 minutes for sea-based and 30 minutes for land-based missiles”.

The risk that a political crisis could “accidentally” result in a nuclear exchange due to these short reaction times is thus extremely high. This risk is further elevated by the ruthlessness with which the US and its NATO allies are escalating the conflict with Russia in Eastern Europe and Syria, and by the advanced planning for a nuclear war.

According to the SWP study, “a reinvigorated Russia, at least from the perspective of military planners in the Pentagon,” is regarded “as a potential enemy in a time of newly unfolding great power conflicts, as an enemy, who—like China—needs to be deterred by the capacity for conflict dominance”. For this deterrent, according to the study, there are three strategic approaches in the US.

The first school of thought, which the study refers to as “confrontational, ’Neo-Containment’”, focuses on unconditional confrontation. It regards “consideration of alleged or actual Russian security interests” to be inappropriate. “Rather, external pressure should be increased and Russia forced into an arms race, in the opinion of this school.”

The second school advocates a “realpolitik approach to the management of US-Russian relations.” It proposes to recognize Russia’s claim to spheres of influence on its periphery, “in the interests of a regulated power rivalry”, while “at the same time signaling clearly that any aggression against a NATO member would be answered militarily”.

And finally, there is the school of thought that takes a “cooperative and inclusive approach”. It postulates self-critically, “that the US bears a share [of the blame] in the deterioration of bilateral relations, especially through the expansion of NATO in a period of Russian weakness, and by promoting missile defence”, and advocates “a differentiated approach, combining a readiness to cooperate and risk mitigation”.

The study counts the Obama administration as part of this third, “cooperative-integrative”, school. This is remarkable, when one considers that Barack Obama is the first American president during whose entire eight years in office the country has continuously waged war. Obama’s political record includes: supporting the right-wing coup in Kiev directed against Russia; the massive deployment of NATO troops to Russia’s western border; the unconditional guarantee of military assistance for the aggressive Baltic states and the escalation of the Syrian war, which could provoke direct confrontation between the Russian and American military.

One can easily imagine, therefore, what would happen if one of the two other, more confrontational schools of thought prevailed, in which the most likely contender for the American presidency, Hillary Clinton, holds considerable sway. In this matter, Clinton attacks her semi-fascist challenger Donald Trump from the right by accusing him of weakness towards Russia.

How far the plans and preparations for a nuclear war against Russia (and China) are already advanced in the strategic think tanks and leading military circles is made clear in the SWP study’s chapter, “New confrontation and its consequences”. The risks of a nuclear escalation of the conflict with Russia are now higher than during the Cold War and continue to increase.

The “informal rules and regimes” that could moderate the ever-present risk of a military escalation of the East-West conflict at that time, have been lost, according to the study. “What has disappeared is also the political sensitivity in dealing with military risks, and precisely the risk of a potential nuclear escalation, should deterrence fail.”

The study comprehensively shows how “the strengthening of conventional deterrence” by NATO—i.e., the stationing of troops on the Russian border, the plans for bringing in reinforcements, etc.—sets in motion an arms dynamic that inevitably leads to nuclear escalation. “The new policy of deterrence in Europe will hardly, as is sometimes assumed or hoped, be restricted to the conventional level”, it states. “The credibility of extended deterrence always rested on the nuclear escalation option.”

It is in this context that the final document of the Warsaw NATO summit in July 2016 should be understood. “It says, NATO remains a ‘nuclear alliance’, and in the case of a threat to the fundamental security of a member state, has the capability and determination to impose unacceptable costs on an opponent.”

“For the first time since the end of the East-West conflict,” the study continues, “there are again in NATO considerations to conduct exercises with a view to scenarios where there could be a nuclear escalation. The danger of nuclear war in Europe as a result of an escalating crisis threatens to return.”

Among the texts to which the study refers on this issue is the essay, “Why a nuclear war would most likely begin in the Baltic states”, which appeared in the conservative foreign policy US journal the National Interest on July 20, 2016.

The article accuses the US government of not taking the possibility of a nuclear war between America and Russia seriously enough following the end of the Cold War, and of having neglected atomic weapons capabilities. In reality, it says, such a possibility not only exists but is becoming more likely. Then the article lists eight reasons why the greatest danger for such a war exists with regard to the three Baltic states.

It refers to the statement of President Obama during a visit to Estonia two years ago, that the defence of the capitals of the three countries was “just as important as the defence of Berlin and Paris and London.” This is “an extraordinary assertion”, when one considers that “the population of metropolitan London (about 8 million) is greater than that of all three Baltic states combined (about 6 million), and that the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea is so close to the Russian heartland.”

It then argues that, due to the superiority of conventional Russian forces in the region, compliance with the guarantee of security for the Baltic states would almost automatically lead to a nuclear escalation.

“The bottom line is that all the ingredients are present in the eastern Baltic area for an East-West conflict escalating to nuclear weapons use,” the article concludes. This is a “prescription for catastrophe”.

The study of the SWP, which generally promotes a pro-US line, does not delve into the causes and the background of the US drive towards war. Only at one point does it hint that this has to do with the quest for world domination. The US see itself “in a time of renewed great power conflict,” it says. “Russia and China are the potential enemies that must be deterred by superior military power—and through the ability for conflict dominance”.

The changes in the international security situation have “activated the old, never vanished but seldom openly articulated core power interests of the USA, which, in the 1940s, under the influence of geo-political thinking ... developed and were since followed: namely, to prevent one or more hostile great powers controlling the resources of Eurasia and acquiring a power potential that could endanger American supremacy”.

The SWP study does not deal with European reactions, although the openness with which it addresses the danger of a nuclear war expresses a certain concern regarding the consequences of America’s Russia policy. One might have expected the European governments to show more restraint in face of this imminent danger threatening to incinerate large parts of Europe. However, the opposite is the case.

While Germany and France refused to actively support the Iraq war in 2003, and Germany stood aside in the 2011 Libyan war, Paris and Berlin, like London, are now participating in both the escalation of the conflict with Russia in Syria and the NATO deployment to the Russian border.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has publicly accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of war crimes. President François Hollande has cancelled a meeting with Putin in Paris. British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson is calling for demonstrations outside the Russian embassy. Berlin has increased its troop contingent in the Middle East. And the German media are full of inflammatory articles against Russia.

That does not mean that political agreement exists between Europe and the United States—in fact political and economic tensions are growing. But Europe’s ruling classes are reacting to the same objective developments that prevail in the US. In response to the global financial and economic crisis, unresolved since 2008, growing social tensions at home and the risk of violent class struggles, they react by turning to militarism, war and authoritarian forms of rule.

The danger of nuclear annihilation will not deter them from this course, just as the foreseeable catastrophe did not stop them in 1914 and in 1939 from plunging humanity into the inferno of the First and the Second World War. Only an independent, international movement of the working class against war and its cause, capitalism, can prevent a nuclear catastrophe.

Western foreign ministers to meet in London to discuss Syria intervention

Robert Stevens

UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson has called a meeting of European Union foreign ministers Sunday to discuss the “military options” of the imperialist powers in Syria’s civil war. Also attending will be US Secretary of State John Kerry, who travels to London after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Switzerland.

Johnson confirmed the London meeting when questioned Thursday by parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee. He said it would also discuss plans for the planned military assault on Mosul that is being prepared by the imperialist powers. Mosul is the main Iraqi city controlled by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) militia.

On Syria Johnson said, “It is right now that we should be looking again at the more kinetic options, the military options.”

Sunday’s meeting is extraordinary given that Johnson was amongst the leading proponents of quitting the EU in the June referendum on UK membership. But the surprise 52 percent vote to leave has only intensified the efforts by Britain’s ruling elite to convince Washington that it can still play a lead role in bringing the European powers into line. “Certainly you can’t do anything without a coalition with the Americans,” Johnson stated. “I think we are still a pretty long day’s march from getting that, but that doesn’t mean that discussions aren[t going on, because they certainly are.”

Before the Brexit vote, Johnson was speaking in favour of a US-Russian brokered alliance to bring about a ceasefire in Syria. Now he is bellicose in condemning Moscow for “war crimes”. Backing US efforts to isolate Russia and its ally—the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad—he told the parliamentary committee that the US and its allies were preparing to end participation in the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), which currently includes Russia and Iran.

“It [the ISSG] has not worked. The last session was extremely acrimonious. It turned into a slanging match in which the Iranians came to the assistance of the Russians. The conversation got nowhere,” said Johnson.

However, Johnson did not openly support demands for imposing a no-fly zone in Syria. A spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said that all options under discussion came with “lots of issues... There are no plans for military action.”

For such plans to be openly tabled requires a major political effort to shift public opinion from the present overwhelming hostility to what would involve a direct confrontation with a nuclear power.

How close such a confrontation is was confirmed by two related admissions this week. The Ministry of Defence said it had conducted 1,066 strikes against ISIS in Iraq over the past two years and in Syria since December, while an anonymous source from the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters told the Sunday Times that UK Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots over Syria have been instructed to shoot down “hostile” Russian warplanes if necessary. “If a pilot is fired on or believes he is about to be fired on [by a Russian jet], he can defend himself,” the source said. “We now have a situation where a single pilot, irrespective of nationality, can have a strategic impact on future events.”

Johnson said the British parliament took a “big step backwards from intervention when it voted against military action in 2013. We vacated the space that has been occupied by the Russians.” That vote was taken under conditions of huge opposition to war in Syria and warnings by senior military figures as to its efficacy, which scuppered plans by the US for direct military intervention against the Assad government.

The 2013 decision had to be reversed, said Johnson, stating, “Most people—I think including John Kerry—feel that the process of discussion with the Russians has basically run out of road... The mood of the House of Commons has changed from 2013. Whether that means we can get a coalition for a more kinetic action now I cannot prophesy.”

Johnson’s statement was intended as an appeal to Labour’s right wing. Following their unsuccessful putsch against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his anti-militarist stance, Johnson was demanding that they play the lead role in whipping up support for military intervention in Syria.

This was the occasion for a carefully choreographed exchange between Johnson and Labour Party MP Ann Clwyd in parliament. Clwyd was among the staunchest advocates of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2011, she voted for the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya, which was utilised by the imperialist powers to topple the government of Muammar Gaddafi, culminating in his brutal murder. She is now calling for protest demonstrations to be held outside the Russian Embassy in London on the basis that Moscow is responsible for the Syrian crisis.

In response to one question from Clwyd, Johnson said that Assad, Russia and Iran were perpetrating a “gross crime against humanity,” in Aleppo. Asked by Clwyd which “policy options” were open to the UK in Syria, Johnson invoked the “humanitarian” crisis in Aleppo, saying it was necessary to “intensify actions on some of the key players in the Assad regime and on the Russian as well.”

Labour’s right wing has lined up to condemn Corbyn for his failure to sanction military action against Assad. This is despite Corbyn authorising a free vote on British military air strikes on Syria last December, with 66 Labour MPs voting with the government. Last week Corbyn described the actions of Russia in Syria as “war crimes”.

However, on Tuesday Corbyn’s closest adviser, Seamus Milne, stated, “The focus on Russian atrocities or Syrian army atrocities, which is absolutely correct, sometimes diverts attention from other atrocities that are taking place. Independent assessments are that there have been very large scale civilian casualties as a result of US-led coalition bombing.” He added, “There are several cases of large numbers of civilian deaths in single attacks and there hasn’t been so much attention on those atrocities.”

In response, the Blairites and government representatives denounced Milne and Corbyn. Labour MP Kevan Jones, a former shadow defence minister and supporter of the Iraq War, said, “Corbyn should completely distance himself from this,” adding that Milne was “clearly an apologist for Putin and his regime.”

John Woodcock, another Blairite and a leading figure in the recent attempted coup against Corbyn, said, “This absurdity seems like a deliberate provocation, unworthy of our leader and our party.”

It is under these conditions that a broad swath of the pseudo-left has moved to demand that Corbyn reverse his opposition to stepped up military action. Around 180 members of the Corbyn-supporting Momentum activist network, other Labour members, trade union officials and the Alliance for Workers Liberty group issued an open letter demanding that the Labour leader “say clearly and unequivocally that the actions of Assad and Russia in Syria are barbaric war crimes, and that you will seek to end them, and to hold their perpetrators to account.”

The letter demands that Corbyn “lend your wholehearted support to practical measures to support civilians and pressure the regime to end its attacks, such as airdrops of aid to besieged civilians by British military forces... ‘Food not bombs’ should be the rallying cry, not ‘Hands off Syria’.”

Citigroup chose Obama’s 2008 cabinet, WikiLeaks document reveals

Tom Eley

One month before the presidential election of 2008, the giant Wall Street bank Citigroup submitted to the Obama campaign a list of its preferred candidates for cabinet positions in an Obama administration. This list corresponds almost exactly to the eventual composition of Barack Obama’s cabinet.

The memorandum, revealed by WikiLeaks in a recent document release from the email account of John Podesta, who currently serves as Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, was written by Michael Frohman, who was then an executive with Citigroup and currently serves as US trade representative. The email is dated Oct. 6, 2008 and bears the subject line “Lists.” It went to Podesta a month before he was named chairman of President-Elect Obama’s transition team.

The email was sent at the height of the financial meltdown that erupted after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15. Even as Citigroup and its Wall Street counterparts were dragging the US and world economy into its deepest crisis since the 1930s, they remained, as the email shows, the real power behind the façade of American democracy and its electoral process.

Frohman’s list proved remarkably prescient. As it proposed, Robert Gates, a Bush holdover, became secretary of Defense; Eric Holder became attorney general; Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security; Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff; Susan Rice, United Nations ambassador; Arne Duncan, secretary of Education; Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services; Peter Orszag, head of the Office of Management and Budget; Eric Shinseki, secretary of Veterans Affairs; and Melody Barnes, chief of the Domestic Policy Council.

For the highly sensitive position of secretary of the Treasury, three possibilities were presented: Robert Rubin and Rubin’s close disciples Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner. Obama chose Geithner, then president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Geithner, along with Bush Treasury Secretary (and former Goldman Sachs CEO) Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, had played the leading role in organizing the Wall Street bailout.

Rubin had served as Treasury secretary in the Bill Clinton administration from 1995 until 1999, when he was succeeded by Summers. In that capacity, Rubin and Summers oversaw the dismantling of the Glass-Steagall Act (1933), which had imposed a legal wall separating commercial banking from investment banking. Immediately after leaving Treasury, Rubin became a top executive at Citigroup, remaining there until 2009.

A notable aspect of the Frohman memo is its use of identity politics. Among the Citigroup executive’s lists of proposed hires to Podesta were a “Diversity List” including “African American, Latino and Asian American candidates, broken down by Cabinet/Deputy and Under/Assistant/Deputy Assistant level,” in Frohman’s words, and “a similar document on women.” Frohman also took diversity into account for his White House cabinet list, “probability-weighting the likelihood of appointing a diverse candidate for each position.” This list concluded with a table breaking down the 31 assignments by race and gender.

Citigroup’s recommendations came just three days after then-President George W. Bush signed into law the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which allocated $700 billion in taxpayer money to rescue the largest Wall Street banks. The single biggest beneficiary was Citigroup, which was given $45 billion in cash in the form of a government stock purchase, plus a $306 billion government guarantee to back up its worthless mortgage-related assets.

Then-presidential candidate Obama played a critical political role in shepherding the massively unpopular bank bailout through Congress. The September financial crash convinced decisive sections of the US corporate-financial elite that the Democratic candidate of “hope” and “change” would be better positioned to contain popular opposition to the bailout than his Republican rival, Senator John McCain of Arizona.

As president, Obama not only funneled trillions of dollars to the banks, he saw to it that not a single leading Wall Street executive faced prosecution for the orgy of speculation and swindling that led to the financial collapse and Great Recession, and he personally intervened to block legislation capping executive pay at bailed-out firms.

The same furtive and corrupt process is underway in relation to a Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump administration. Frohman’s email is one of many thousands released by WikiLeaks from the account of Podesta. Those communications, such as the Frohman email, which expose who really rules America, have been virtually ignored by the media. The pro-Democratic PartyNew Republic called attention to it in an article published Friday, but the story has received little if any further coverage.

The media has instead focused on salacious details of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s sexual activities, designed, in part, to divert attention from the substance of the Clinton campaign-related emails being released by WikiLeaks and other sources.

The New Republic drew attention to the Frohman memo not because it opposes such machinations, but as a warning to the interests it represents that they must move now to influence the eventual composition of a Hillary Clinton administration.

“If the 2008 Podesta emails are any indication, the next four years of public policy are being hashed out right now, behind closed doors,” wrote New Republic author David Dayen. “And if liberals want to have an impact on that process, waiting until after the election will be too late.”

Radboud University Scholarships for International Students 2017/2018 – The Netherlands

Application Deadline: 1 April 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International (Non EEA)

To be taken at (country): The Netherlands

Eligible Fields of Study: Eligible English-taught Masters Degree Programme offered by the Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Philosophy, Theology & Religious Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Medical Sciences, and Faculty of Law.

About the Award: The Radboud Scholarship Programme is very selective and is only intended for talented students who have obtained outstanding study results and are highly motivated to pursue a Master’s degree programme at Radboud University.

Type: Masters taught

Eligibility: A candidate will only be eligible to obtain a Radboud Scholarship if they:

1. hold a non-EU/EEA passport
2. are not eligible for the lower EEA tuition fee for other reasons
3. have (will obtain) a Bachelor’s degree achieved outside the Netherlands and have no degrees achieved in the Netherlands
4. have been fully admitted to the English-taught Master’s degree programme starting September 1, 2016 as stated in the formal letter of admission
5. are able to comply with the conditions for obtaining a visa for the Netherlands
6. are enrolled at Radboud University as a full-time student for the academic year and Master’s degree programme for which the scholarship will be awarded

Selection Criteria: From the eligible candidates the Radboud Scholarship holders will be selected based on the following criteria:

1. Talent: this means that you must have outstanding study results in your present field of study
2. You are expected to be a promising student in your desired field of study at Radboud University
3. Proven academic quality and good results of your prior education for example through grades, test scores, publications
4. Quality of the recommendations in the two reference letters
5. Motivation: based on your motivation letter for the Master’s progamme

Number of Awardees: 30

Value of Scholarship: The tuition fee will be waived to the level of an EEA student. For example: a grant holder in 2015/2016 will pay a tuition fee of only €1,951, instead of €9,685 or €10,633. In addition the Radboud University Scholarships also cover costs such as those for visa, residence permit, health insurance and liability insurance. This amounts to about €700.

Duration of Scholarship: 1 year. In the case of a two-year programme: to qualify for the grant during the second year, you need to have passed all courses in the first year.

More detail on the Deadline: You must have finalized your request for admission via our online application system OSIRIS Incoming Students before 1 April 2017.
For students that like to study at the Faculty of Medical Sciences (Master’s programme in Biomedical Sciences or Molecular Mechanisms of Disease), the deadline is 1 March 2017.

The faculty selects the grant recipients. You will be informed about the final decision by the International Office with respect to your application for a Radboud Scholarship before the end of May 2017. (date subject to change)

How to Apply: The application for admission and the application for the scholarship is fully integrated, there is no separate application procedure for the scholarship. However, the selection for RSP and the admission to the Master’s degree programme are two separate processes. Admission to the programme does not imply selection for RSP.
You apply for a Radboud University Scholarships by indicating during your application for admission that you wish to apply for a Radboud Scholarship. You will then be requested to upload three additional documents: two reference letters and a curriculum vitae.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Radboud University.