Leaked documents detail how Wall Street bought the Clintons

Patrick Martin

Documents released by WikiLeaks Wednesday give the fullest picture so far of the way that Bill and Hillary Clinton built up their private fortune during the years after they left the White House in 2001. Hundreds of memos and emails detail how corporations and banks were recruited to funnel millions into the for-profit activities of the enterprise that a top aide, Douglas Band, called “Bill Clinton Inc.”

As detailed in a devastating 12-page memo written in November 2011, Band established a consulting firm called Teneo to recruit corporate CEOs and bankers to give large donations to the Clinton Foundation. At the same time, he would urge them to provide lucrative speaking fees for an address by the former president, usually in the six-figure range.

As the Washington Post described it in its front-page report Thursday, the Band memo “detailed a circle of enrichment in which he raised money for the Clinton Foundation from top-tier corporations such as Dow Chemical and Coca-Cola that were clients of his firm, Teneo, while pressing many of those same donors to provide personal income to the former president.”

Band wrote the detailed memorandum, supplying precise figures for the flow of funds into the pockets of Bill Clinton, as the result of a bitter internal feud inside the Clinton camp. Chelsea Clinton, who married hedge fund executive Marc Mezvinsky in 2010, after working on Wall Street, became a board member of the Clinton Foundation in 2011 and began to question Band’s activities.

According to the email exchanges made public over the past month, Chelsea Clinton accused Band and his business partner, Declan Kelly, of profiting personally from Band’s longstanding connection with her father—he was Clinton’s personal aide, who travelled with him everywhere, during the final years of his presidency.

Band drafted the memo to the law firm of Simpson Thacher, which had been called in to conduct an internal review of the Clinton Foundation’s operations, in an effort to refute the charge of profiteering. He even turned it back on the Clintons, pointing out that Bill Clinton had made far more money on his own account than Band or Teneo.

Band complained that he was required to sign a conflict of interest document for the Clinton Global Initiative, disavowing any personal profit from the charity’s activities, but “Oddly, WJC [William Jefferson Clinton, the ex-president] does not have to sign such a document even though he is personally paid by 3 cgi sponsors, gets many expensive gifts from them, some that are at home etc.”

More important than the large sums Band helped to raise for the Clinton Library and the Clinton Foundation were the companies he recruited to direct a portion of their funding to Bill Clinton personally.

The CEO of UBS Wealth Management, Bob McCann, was a longtime client of Declan Kelly, Band’s partner. According to the Band memo, Kelly “introduced Mr. McCann to President Clinton at an American Ireland Fund event in 2009. Mr. Kelly subsequently asked Mr. McCann to support the Foundation, which he did via the Clinton Economic Opportunity Initiative. Mr. Kelly also encouraged Mr. McCann to invite President Clinton to give several paid speeches, which he has done.”

According to press reports, UBS paid Clinton about $2 million in speaking fees between 2011 and 2015, frequently pairing him with his Republican successor, former president George W. Bush. UBS paid Hillary Clinton $225,000 for a 2013 speech.

The most lucrative single relationship brokered by Band was with Laureate International Universities, the largest for-profit chain of private colleges worldwide. Laureate was the only institution that actually paid more to Bill Clinton personally—a whopping $3.5 million a year to “provide advice and serve as their Honorary Chairman”—than it donated to the Clinton Foundation.

One section of the Band memo is headlined, “Independent For-Profit Activity of President Clinton ( i.e., Bill Clinton, Inc.)” The former Clinton aide writes, “In that context, we have in effect served as agents, lawyers, managers and implementers to secure speaking, business and advisory service deals. In support of the President’s for-profit activity, we also have solicited and obtained, as appropriate, in-kind services for the President and his family—for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like.”

All told, this amounted to “more than $50 million in for-profit activity” and “$66 million in future contracts, should he choose to continue with those engagements.” This included four business deals in effect for the former president at the time the memo was written, in late 2011, as well as numerous paid speeches and appearances.

What Band outlines in the memo is the real substance of capitalist politics. Bill Clinton, as a former president, was being richly rewarded for his services to the American capitalist class. At the same time, the business connections facilitated the political career of Hillary Clinton, who was a U.S. Senator from New York from 2001 until 2009, an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2008, and Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.

All the information made public by WikiLeaks on the Clinton campaign comes in the form of emails and attached documents sent to and from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. A fixture in the Democratic wing of the political establishment, Podesta was White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001, founded and ran the Center for American Progress, a Democratic Party-aligned think tank, from 2002-2011, and returned to the White House as counselor to President Obama in 2014-2015.

The Clinton campaign has made no response to the latest WikiLeaks revelation, other than to reiterate its denunciation of all the leaked documents as material “hacked by the Russian government and weaponized by WikiLeaks.”

Both the US government and the Democratic campaign have claimed Russian responsibility for the hacking, without offering the slightest evidence. Instead, the presumed Russian “interference” in a US election campaign is being incorporated into the overall campaign to demonize Russian President Vladimir Putin over the civil war in Syria, the conflict in east Ukraine, and the mounting tensions between NATO and Russia all along Russia’s western border.

Perhaps the most explosive aspect of the latest WikiLeaks documents is the suggestion, for the first time, of concrete evidence of a link between fundraising for the Clinton Foundation and payments to Bill Clinton personally, and Hillary Clinton’s actions as Secretary of State.

One of Teneo’s main customers, Dow Chemical, carried out a major investment in Northern Ireland during Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department. Clinton named Declan Kelly, the partner of Douglas Band in fundraising for “Bill Clinton Inc.” as a State Department representative for encouraging US investments in the British-controlled territory. Dow paid Teneo $2.8 million in 2011, soaring to $19.4 million in 2012, according to internal Dow documents reported by the Washington Post. An investigator hired by the company later wrote, “It appears Dow is paying Teneo for connections with Clinton.”

Aleppo, Mosul and “war crimes”

Bill Van Auken

The United Nations Security Council was the scene Wednesday of a bitter exchange over the ongoing war in Syria, with the Western powers indicting Russia for war crimes over its operations in the northern city of Aleppo.

The UN aid chief and former Tory member of the British parliament Stephen O’Brien set the tone by declaring himself “incandescent with rage” over the inability of the Security Council to take action. “Aleppo has essentially become a kill zone,” he said.

The fact that both Russian and Syrian warplanes have halted their strikes against the Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamist militias that control eastern Aleppo for the past 10 days was brushed aside by Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, who represents the living embodiment of imperialist “human rights” hypocrisy.

Taunting Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin, she declared. “You don’t get congratulations and credit for not committing war crimes for a day or a week.” Continuing her tirade, Power asked, “Does Russia believe that all of the children in eastern Aleppo are Al Qaeda members?”

Such outrage over the fate of civilians and children is highly selective. None of the representatives of US imperialism and its allies evinced even a spark of rage over the killing of men, women and children in government-controlled western Aleppo, which is regularly bombarded by mortars and rockets provided to the Al Qaeda “rebels” by the Pentagon and the CIA.

On Thursday, rocket fire claimed the lives of six children in the west of the city, where the vast majority of the population lives. Three Syrian children died at their school, where 14 other students were wounded. In a separate attack, three young brothers died when a rocket struck their home.

Nor for that matter, as far as the human rights imperialists are concerned, can the slaughter of civilians in US air strikes elsewhere in Syria be compared in any way to the deaths caused by Russian bombs in Aleppo.

Amnesty International issued a report Tuesday on 11 separate strikes by the US-led “coalition” in which it said some 300 civilians were killed. The Pentagon has acknowledged only one death in these bombing raids. Other monitoring groups have put the civilian death toll inflicted by the US air war in Syria at well over 1,000. All told, the Pentagon admits to killing only 55 civilians in two years. Power’s jibe that the Russians view every child in Aleppo as a member of Al Qaeda applies with equal force to the Pentagon, whose bombs apparently kill only members of ISIS.

Power is herself a veteran practitioner of this kind of grotesque double standard. This crusader for human rights took the effective position that “every child in Gaza was a member of Hamas” during the 51-day Israeli siege of 2013 that killed over 2,100 Palestinians and wounded another 11,000. During this one-sided slaughter, the US ambassador used her post at the UN to relentlessly proclaim Israel’s right to “defend” itself.

Waving the filthy imperialist human rights banner, she was also one of the leading proponents of the US-NATO war in Libya that killed tens of thousands and left the country in ruins, as well as the war for regime change in Syria, which has killed over 300,000 and driven millions from their homes.

The hypocrisy and double standard of the war crimes denunciations against Russia over Aleppo emerges most starkly in relation to the launching earlier this month of a US-led siege of the Iraqi city of Mosul, just over 300 miles to the east, which was overrun by ISIS in 2014.

While the Russians are indicted for turning Aleppo into a “kill zone,” the Western media routinely refers to the American onslaught as the “liberation” of Mosul. To that end, US warplanes, rocket launchers and heavy artillery are relentlessly pounding the city of over a million, which analysts acknowledge will be reduced to rubble. The head of the US military’s Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel, boasted in an interview with AFP that his forces had killed “800 to 900 Islamic State fighters.” He said not a word as to how many civilians had died under the US bombardment; nor has the US corporate media shown any interest in that subject.

When one horrific incident did come to light--the bombing of a Shia mosque near Kirkuk last Friday in which 17 women and children lost their lives and scores were wounded--the Pentagon brushed it aside and the media largely ignored it.

Even as US officials, parroted by the press, indict ISIS for using Mosul’s population as “human shields”--a timeworn alibi for the slaughter of civilians--they ignore and tacitly support Al Qaeda’s use of terror and violence to prevent civilians from fleeing from the besieged neighborhoods of eastern Aleppo.

While the actions carried out by the Russian military against the civilians trapped in eastern Aleppo are no doubt reprehensible, they are not the real concern of those screaming about war crimes. Their fear is that the Al Qaeda-linked militias that serve as the principal proxy force in the war for regime change are facing a final rout.

More fundamentally, the crimes of Russia in Aleppo pale in comparison to those carried out by Washington in the region, and for that matter, around the globe.

Have those who feign shock and rage over the Russian bombs dropped on Syria forgotten “shock and awe?” The US invasion and occupation of Iraq took an estimated 1 million Iraqi lives.

Are these champions of human rights unaware of the ongoing slaughter in Yemen, where over 10,000 people have died under Saudi airstrikes carried out with US supplied bombs and missiles and made possible by extensive intelligence and logistical aid from the Pentagon? Why is there no rage over a war by the ruling monarchy of the Middle East’s wealthiest nation against the region’s poorest, in which the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and a blockade imposed with the aid of US forces is threatening the population with starvation?

When it comes to war crimes, the Kremlin oligarchy represented by Vladimir Putin is in the minor leagues. Since the end of World War II, and the US atomic bombs that killed some 200,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, virtually every US president has engaged in wars of military aggression that entailed war crimes, many of them on a scale surpassed only the atrocities carried out by Hitler’s Third Reich.

The Korean War resulted in 3 million civilian deaths; in Vietnam, the US killed some 3 to 4 million civilians. Afghanistan’s tragic and protracted encounter with US imperialism, dating back to the CIA-orchestrated war of regime change of the 1980s, claimed the lives of between 1.5 and 2 million more.

Meanwhile, Washington remains at war in at least seven different countries, where civilian deaths continue to mount daily: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.

The source of the feigned rage and tears over Aleppo is the fact that the US war for regime change in Syria has turned into a debacle. Moscow launched its intervention in defense of the interests of Russia’s ruling capitalist oligarchy, not those of the Syrian masses. Nonetheless, it has presented an obstacle to the US drive to assert its hegemony over the entire oil-rich region of the Middle East.

The unrelenting “human rights” propaganda and demonization of Russia over Aleppo stands as a warning. US imperialism is preparing a major escalation, not only of the US intervention in Syria, but of its confrontation with Russia itself, carrying with it the real and present danger of a nuclear war.

Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters Scholarship in Coastal and Marine Engineering and Management (COMEM) 2017/19

Application Deadline: 1st December 2016

Offered annually? Yes

To be taken at (Universities): During the programme, students study in two or three different countries depending on the individual track of study.

• Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
  Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Department of Hydraulic Engineering
• Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
  Faculty of Engineering, Science and Technology, Department of Civil and Transport Engineering
• Catalunya University of Technology, Barcelona, Spain
  Department of Hydraulic, Maritime and Environmental Engineering
• University of Southampton, Southampton, U.K.
  School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, and the School of Ocean and Earth Science
• City University London, London, U.K.
  School of Engineering and Mathematical Science

Eligible Field of Study: BSc Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering and other related fields.

Field of Study (to be taken):  Coastal and Marine Engineering and Management (COMEM).

About the Award: The students will familiarise themselves with key issues involved in providing sustainable, environmentally friendly, legally and economically acceptable solutions to a variety of challenges related to the CoMEM field.

Studying in multiple European countries will enable students to meet and work with professionals from various backgrounds, gather knowledge on a wide range of issues and a comprehensive EU perspective on CoMEM related challenges. This will enable students to develop a coherent and integrated approach that is applicable in a global perspective as well.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: To be eligible, candidate must

• not have been a resident of  nor have carried out their main activity (studies, work, etc.) for more than a total of 12 months over the last five years in Programme Countries. If the student has then their application will be considered as a Programme country applicant.
• A university BSc degree in civil engineering, environmental engineering or degree in a subject relevant to the CoMEM Programme.
• A BSc Cumulative Grade Point Average (GPA) of at least 75 % of the scale maximum.
• Proof of English language proficiency:
• A clear and CoMEM relevant essay in English

Selection: A limited number of Erasmus+: Erasmus Mundus scholarships are available for students accepted to CoMEM. The CoMEM universities select candidates in a competitive process from among eligible applicants, and forward the names to the European Commission for approval under the Erasmus+ Programme. Please note that candidates DO NOT apply directly to the Commission for funding. All applications are to be made directly to the CoMEM programme through the Coordinating University, NTNU. The process and basis for a receiving a scholarship is: 1) application 2) acceptance to the programme and then 3) selection for a scholarship.

Number of Awardees: 15-17 selected third-country graduate students will be available for CoMEM MSc.

Value of Scholarship: €47 000 / €49 000 (Fully-funded for study in different universities)

Duration of Scholarship: 2 years

How to Apply: The joint student application is centrally administered by the coordinating university (NTNU).

• Candidates who wish to be considered for an Erasmus+ scholarship must indicate this in both the online application form and the additional CoMEM specific pdf application form.
• Scholarship applicants must provide all relevant information for the consortium to determine scholarship category, particularly information on citizenship and residence in the past five years.
• Applicants to be considered for an Erasmus+: Erasmus Mundus scholarship may apply for no more than two other Erasmus+: Erasmus Mundus programmes in addition to CoMEM. In case a student applies to more than three Erasmus Mundus programmes he/she will be excluded from the selection for an Erasmus+ Scholarship.

View your Application forms here. Please go through the Application Procedure carefully before applying.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: European Commission

275 Swedish Institute Study Scholarships for Developing Countries 2017

Application Deadline: The scholarship application consists of two steps, the first step will be open 1st December 2016 – 16th January 2017, followed by a detailed second step for successful candidates from the first step, 1st – 10th February 2017. 

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible countries: International students especially from developing countries

To be taken in (country): Sweden

Accepted Subject Areas: About 600 different study programs at Swedish universities are eligible for a scholarship. Priority will be given to applicants choosing study programmes with an emphasis on gender equality, sustainable development, democracy, human rights or poverty reduction.

About Scholarship: The Swedish Institute Study Scholarships – SISS is the Swedish government’s international awards scheme aimed at developing global leaders. It is funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden and administered by the Swedish Institute (SI),

The Scholarships target highly-qualified students and are awarded for studies in Sweden starting in an autumn semester. The scholarships are intended for full-time master’s level studies in Sweden and cover both living costs and tuition fees.

The Swedish Institute is looking for applicants who display both intellectual ability and leadership potential and welcome applications regardless of age, gender and religious beliefs.

Eligibility Criteria: Applicants must

• be from an eligible country
• have at least 3,000 hours of experience from full-time/part-time employment, voluntary work, paid/unpaid internship, and/or position of trust.
• display academic qualifications and leadership experience.
• In addition, applicants should show an ambition to make a difference by working with issues which contribute to a just and sustainable development in their country, in a long term perspective.
• Read more about the selection criteria, target countries, and eligible master programmes (in link below) before applying.

Number of Scholarships: Approximately 275 scholarships will be awarded

Scholarship Value: 

• The scholarship covers both tuition fees (paid directly to the Swedish university/university college by the Swedish Institute) and living expenses to the amount of SEK 9,000 per month.
• Scholarship holders from developing countries will receive a travel grant in connection with their scholarship. The travel grant is a one-time payment of SEK 15,000.
• Scholarship holders are insured by the Swedish State Group Insurance and Personal Insurance against illness and accident during the scholarship period.
• All SI scholarship holders become members of the SI Network for Future Global Leaders (NFGL) – a network which offers exclusive opportunities for SI scholarship holders during their stay in Sweden. Together with other talented people from all around the world, the scholarship holders take part in and organise a variety of events, exchange ideas and create networks beneficial both to career and personal development. Scholarship holders are expected to be ambassadors for their country, and to demonstrate leadership skills and cooperation within the NFGL. When the scholarship holders return to their home countries they become part of the SI Alumni Network.

Duration of Scholarships: The Swedish Institute Study Scholarships is intended for full-time master’s level studies of one or two years, and is only awarded for programmes starting in the autumn semester. The scholarship is granted for one academic year (two semesters) at a time. It will be extended for programmes longer than two semesters, provided that the student has passed his/her courses/credits.

How to apply: The application process consists of two steps.

To be considered for a scholarship, you must first complete your separate application to the master’s programme(s) before the university deadline of 16 January 2017. To be considered for a scholarship in the second step, you must pay your university admissions application fee (SEK 900) to University Admissions before 1 February 2017 (deadline for receipt of the fee). There is no application fee for applying for SI scholarships.

For the second step of the scholarship application you will be required to submit a Motivation letter, a Europass CV, a passport copy, one letter of reference and one proof of work experience. The documents must be in English. If any mandatory document is not used or completed in English the application is deemed ineligible.

Click Here for details to how to apply

Sponsors: The Swedish Institute

Security Politics and the Closing of the Open Society

Jan Oberg

The increasing symbiosis between the political and the leading mainstream media of the Western world implies that, grosso modo, Russia is blamed for having caused this new situation. While Russia is certainly not innocent and it usually does take two to conflict this blame is rather a sign of diminishing capacity (knowledge) and will (economic and intellectual independence and courage) to ask critical questions that now characterise the corporate media.

Defence and security political news coverage, journalistic processing, editing and commentaries have sunk to an intellectual level that is considerably lower than during the first Cold War. The entire field is given low priority by editors. Domestic issues, sports, entertainment, lifestyle etc. have made it to the top.

Out of sync with the globalising world, most media do with 1-2 pages about global affairs out of, say, 40-50 pages and they base this material on the same handful of Western news bureaus.

The double checking of a variety of sources, versatility and multi-perspective coverage are things of the past and we see more uniformity and more subjectivity in the news media coverage than ever.

Add to this that both Russia and NATO countries engage in media management, or propaganda (tax payers footing the bills) which squeezes out comprehensive knowledge and unbiased analyses as well as critical angles on one’s own policies and actions.

Like hot wars, Cold Wars are fought not only on the battle fields but also in the media, about the souls of the citizens. Fearology, therefore, has become a dominant ingredient in this war as well as in the other – equally counterproductive and self-defeating – war, the War On Terror.

The more people are made to fear, the more they submit to surveillance, authoritarian laws, self-censorship etc and turn away from democratic debate and activism – a trend that will eventually lead to the dissolution of democracy itself.

In short, these international trends and tension-increasing confrontations boomerang back on our societies in ways that are as frightening as under-stated in the debate.

To put it crudely: the new Cold War and the War on Terror both have significant, destructive effects on society, diminish its democracy and creativity, narrows the spectrum of opinions and bring us further and further away from the globally desired goals of freedom, democracy and of living in a more peaceful world.

Security politics has come to mean destruction of the core fibres of what was to be secured. Paradoxically, it promotes the closing of the once open society.

In addition, that is, to squandering absurd US $ 1700 billion (or about 30 times the entire UN budget) worldwide on one more destructive, failed war after the other.

These are issues of the greatest importance for humanity’s future, even survival.

Lower Yields And Agropoisons: What Is The Point Of GM Mustard In India?

Colin Todhunter

The decision whether to allow the commercialisation of the first genetically modified (GM) food crop (mustard) in India rumbles on. As I have previously discussed here, the bottom line is government collusion over GM crop technology (that is not wanted and not needed) with transnational agribusiness, which is trying to hide in the background.

The real story behind GM mustard in India is that it presents the opportunity to make various herbicide tolerant (HT) mustard hybrids using India’s best germ plasm, which would be an irresistible money spinner for the developers and chemical manufacturers (Bayer-Monsanto). GM mustard is both a Trojan horse and based on a hoax.

Various high-level reports (listed here) have advised against introducing GM food crops to India. Allowing for not one but three GMOs (which is what the GM mustard in question constitutes, when we include its two crucial GM parental lines) is according to campaigner Aruna Rodrigues a serious case of regulatory ‘sleight-of-hand’, permissible due to diluted rules to ensure easy compliance.

If allowed to go through, India will be forced to accept a highly toxic and unsustainable technology suited to monocropping. HT GM crops would be particularly unsuitable for its agriculture given the large number of small farms growing a diverse range of crops alongside mustard that contribute towards agricultural biodiversity and, in turn, diverse, healthy diets.

The processes being used to push through GM mustard are, according to this writ by Rodrigues, based on fraud and unremitting regulatory delinquency. She argues that the whole system is in addition being protected by a subterranean process of regulation that has also broken India’s constitutional safeguards by keeping the biosafety data hidden from the nation.

Rodrigues says, “These matters require criminal prosecution.”

New development

The government has now told the Supreme Court (SC) that it won’t release GM mustard without the court’s say so. At the same time, however, it strongly opposes the writ filed by Rodrigues.

In an affidavit response to Aruna Rodrigues’ writ, however, the Union of India revealed something that merited a press release from the civil organisation Navdanya and Aruna Rodrigues (presented in full below this article).

According to the press statement, the government’s response contained an admission by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) itself that no claim had been made in any documents submitted to it that HT Mustard DMH 11 out-performs non-GMO hybrids.

So then, what is the point of GM mustard? And what were all the claims being made in media about GM mustard outperforming non-GMO hybrids by 25-30% in yield?

According to the press statement, that claim was also made by the developers (Dr Pental and his team at Delhi University) and is clearly recorded by the media. It also notes that the claim of superior yield was implied in the Supreme Court (SC) during a ‘hearing’ (24 October) on India’s import bill for edible oil.

The press statement says:

“It is now clear, by the GEAC’s own admission, that DMH 11 does not out-yield India’s best non-GMO cultivars and this includes hybrids against which this mustard was not tested.”

Navdanya and Aruna Rodrigues ask:

“Therefore, what is the Union of India’s point? Is this HT mustard being introduced because of its ability to just make hybrids? Given that it does not outperform our non-GMO hybrids, the argument collapses on its essential lack of science and reasoned thinking.”

They conclude that this HT Mustard DMH 11 is not needed – which is in fact the first step of a risk assessment protocol for GM crops!

HT mustard DMH 11 will make no impact on the domestic production of mustard oil, which was a major reason why it was being pushed in the first place. The argument was that GM mustard would increase productivity and this would help reduce imports of edible oils. Implicit in this was that India’s farmers were unproductive and GM would help overcome this.

While it is clear that India’s imports of edible oils have indeed increased, this is not as a result of an underperforming home-grown sector. India essentially became a dumping ground for palm oil. Until the mid-1990s, India was virtually self-sufficient in edible oils. Then import tariffs were reduced, leading to an influx of cheap (subsidised) edible oil imports that domestic farmers could not compete with.

This was a deliberate policy that effectively devastated the home-grown edible oils sector and served the interests of palm oil growers and US grain and agriculture commodity company Cargill, which helped write international trade rules to secure access to the Indian market on its terms. It therefore came as little surprise that in 2013 India’s then Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar accused US companies of derailing the nation’s oil seeds production programme.

Supporters of GM twisted this situation to call for the introduction of GM mustard to increase productivity.

Now their arguments on virtually each and every count have been shown to be erroneous and constitute little more than a cynical ruse to facilitate Bayer-Monsanto GM food crops and associated agropoisons entry into India.

PRESS RELEASE

UNION OF INDIA REPLY AFFIDAVIT 20/21 OCT 2016

GEAC STATES: “NO CLAIM MADE THAT DMH 11 OUTPERFORMS NON-GMO HYBRIDS”

“No such claim has been made in any of the submitted documents that DMH 11 out-performs Non-GMO hybrids. The comparison has only been made between hybrid DMH 11, NC (national Check) Varuna and the appropriate zonal checks — MSY of 2670 Kg/ha has been recorded over three years of BRL trials which is 28% and 37% more than the NC & ZC respectively”. (Ref. U of India Reply Pg 55 point 86-88)

Petitioner Comment:

With this statement, the Union of India effectively buries its own ‘raison d’être’ for its HT Mustard DMH 11. The following points may be noted:

(a)   The claim of a 25-30% increase in yield may not have technically been made in the SC. This adherence to a technicality is mischievous to the extreme, but much more moot is that the Regulators by this argument cut the grass from under their own feet.

The above yield is indeed the claim by the Developers, clearly recorded by the Media and strangely in the SC by implication, by bringing in the issue of our import bill for edible oil in the ‘Hearing’ of the 24th. The claim is:

• That the superior yield of this HT mustard DMH 11, (that despite there being NO TRAIT for YIELD in the Barnase-Barstar system with the Bar gene glufosinate), through its HYBRID-MAKING capability is superior to Non-GMO cultivars in the Country.

(b)   The Petitioners’ have proven without doubt based on RTI data that DMH 11 field trials were fraudulent, and specifically  on the question of DELIBERATELY poor-yielding Comparators used in the field testing of  HT Mustard DMH 11  in the BRL I & II field trials .

NOTE: By this statement the Government concedes the argument that DMH 11 does not out-yield India’s best NON-GMO cultivars and this includes HYBRIDS against which this mustard was not tested in BRL I &II trials (2010-11 onwards).

Therefore, what is the Union-of India’s point? Is this HT mustard being introduced because of its ability to JUST make HYBRIDS? Given that it does not outperform our Non-GMO hybrids, the argument collapses on its essential lack of science and reasoned thinking.

CONCLUSION

• This HT Mustard DMH 11 is NOT NEEDED (the first step of a risk assessment protocol for GM crops )

AND

• This HT mustard DMH 11 will make no impact on DOMESTIC production of Mustard Oil leave alone the import oil bill of which mustard and Rape together are less than 2% of the total oil import (of 14.3 million Metric Tonnes in 2015-16)

Aruna Rodrigues: Petitioner GMO PIL Mo: 098263 96033

Indra Shekhar Singh, Media Spokesperson, Navdanya

Renewables Just Passed Coal As The Largest Source Of New Electricity Worldwide

Samantha Page


It’s been a long run, coal, but your reign is over.

Renewable energy sources have passed coal as the largest new source of electricity in the world, according data released Tuesday by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The transition of the world’s energy sources is critical for avoiding a 2°C rise in global temperatures. Coal, for instance, represented about a quarter of U.S. CO2 emissions in 2012.

Solar and wind account for almost two-thirds of the growth in renewables, which is coming from industrialized and developing nations alike.

The agency also announced it has revised its forecast for renewable energy, “significantly increasing” the amount of green energy it expects to come online in the next five years. In addition to pro-renewable policies (such as the Paris climate agreement), a significant price decline is driving growth.

Over the next five years, IEA expects costs for solar to drop by a quarter; for onshore wind, costs will fall another 15 percent.

Renewable energy is going to continue to be the fastest-growing source of electricity, IEA says. CREDIT: International Energy Agency

IEA’s Medium-Term Renewable Market Report shows that the United States is adding renewables at a faster rate than demand is growing — which means that renewables are not only covering the increase in demand, but also supplanting some fossil fuel electricity. Overall, though, wind and solar still only make up a small portion of the U.S.’s electricity.

In the developing world, where industrialization is fueling a rapid increase in demand for electricity, renewable energy accounts for roughly half of new electric power.

The rise in renewable energy has implications for the economy. While coal companies are facing enormous struggles — due to a variety of factors, including low natural gas prices, increased regulation, and financial mismanagement — solar in the United States is doing remarkably well. Last year, solar accounted for one out of every 83 new jobs across the country.

One sticking point that IEA noted for the renewable energy transition is the “persistent challenges” of heating and transportation energy. However, the agency only tracks the transition from oil and gas to biofuels. As electric vehicles increase worldwide, those vehicles will tap into the same grid that is steadily getting greener.

Legal bid to obtain palace letters on Australia’s 1975 “constitutional coup”

Mike Head

History professor Jenny Hocking last week launched a Federal Court application for the release of secret letters between the British Queen and John Kerr, the Australian governor-general, in the lead-up to Kerr’s dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam on November 11, 1975.

The correspondence could reveal further details about the role of the royal family and perhaps other elements within ruling circles—including the Australian, British and US intelligence agencies—in the “Canberra Coup” that removed the Labor government.

Hocking, a biographer of Whitlam, is challenging the National Archives of Australia’s decision to withhold the palace letters by classifying them as “personal and private” correspondence between Kerr and the Queen. This designation took them outside the reach of the Archives Act, which requires all “Commonwealth records” to be made public after 30 years, although always subject to vetting by the intelligence agencies.

According to Hockey, she was given two conflicting reasons for denying access to the letters. The National Archives referred to Kerr’s “Instrument of Deposit,” in which he set out the conditions of access to his records.

However, when Hockey made a separate freedom of information application last year directly to the governor-general’s office, she was told the letters were “under strict embargo,” not at Kerr’s request but “at Her Majesty The Queen’s instructions.”

The embargo was for 50 years after the end of Kerr’s term of office, that is, until 2027. Even then, Hockey was informed, any release would be “subject to consultation” with the British monarch’s private secretary and the governor-general’s official secretary. In other words, the letters might never be disclosed.

Last year, on the 40th anniversary of Whitlam’s dismissal, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he would ask the palace to release the letters. He told the Australian he had consulted with Attorney-General George Brandis and concluded the letters could not be described as “personal.”

The Australian’s editor-at-large Paul Kelly reported that Turnbull’s request would “probably involve the prime minister giving formal advice to the Queen.” It would be “extraordinary” for the Queen to rebuff advice, Kelly insisted.

Since then, however, Turnbull and Brandis have said nothing publicly on the issue, and the ban on the letters’ release remains in place. High-level authorities in London and Canberra are clearly intent on blocking public access to the correspondence.

This cannot be explained simply by a desire to cover-up the role of the royal family. As a result of other documents released in recent years, it has already been established that the Queen was personally involved in Whitlam’s removal, contrary to official denials.

In a book published last year, The Dismissal Dossier: Everything you were never meant to know about November 1975, Hocking cited six “extracts from letters” found in Kerr’s private papers. They indicated that Kerr wrote “regular and extended” letters to the Queen and her private secretary Sir Martin Charteris during the period leading up to the dismissal.

Written from early September 1975 onward, the letters reported to London that Kerr was considering ousting Whitlam, using the “reserve powers” of the monarchy, which are embedded in the Australian Constitution. In fact, Kerr wrote up to three times a day on the issue, raising the danger that Whitlam could seek his removal from office before he could dismiss Whitlam.

Just one week before the dismissal, Charteris informed Kerr of the Queen’s intentions if Whitlam asked the palace to eject Kerr from his vice-regal post. Charteris told Kerr that should this “contingency” occur, the Queen would “try to delay things” for as long as possible.

In other words, the Queen would pause any request from Whitlam to dismiss Kerr until after Kerr appointed a new prime minister to replace Whitlam. It was, in effect, a green light for Kerr to proceed.
In 2012, other documents revealed that Kerr also spoke to Prince Charles, the Queen’s son, in September 1975 about the prospect of dismissing Whitlam. The two men discussed the issue in Papua New Guinea, during ceremonies for that former colony’s formal independence from Australia.

Even if the palace letters are reclassified as public records as a result of Hocking’s law suit, there is no guarantee they will be released. Under the Archives Act, access can be banned permanently to “exempt documents” that might “cause damage to the security, defence or international relations of the Commonwealth.”

Whitlam’s dismissal remains a sensitive issue to this day precisely because it involved more than the machinations of Kerr and the palace. Every key state institution was implicated in the removal of an elected government: the judiciary, the intelligence agencies, the military, the public service chiefs and the corporate media.

Kerr himself had intimate links with Australian, US and British intelligence agencies, dating back to World War II. The governor-general secretly conspired with at least two members of the High Court, Australia’s supreme court, before making his move, and the military was placed on alert to deal with the anticipated public opposition.

It is inconceivable that the Queen would not also have collaborated with key figures in Britain’s intelligence and military apparatus, which has close ties to Washington. There is no doubt that the CIA was actively involved in the intrigues, as revealed by US intelligence whistle-blower Christopher Boyce, who reported that senior CIA officials referred to Kerr as “our man Kerr.”

Whitlam was a loyal supporter of the US alliance and the capitalist profit system itself, but he was removed because of the concern in ruling circles, both in Australia and the US, that his government had failed to stem the powerful movement of the working class that had brought it to office in 1972, after 23 years of conservative party government.

The unstable political conditions in Australia were part of the international upheavals that erupted between 1968 and 1975, shaking the foundations of capitalist rule. Amid a global upsurge of the working class, which had begun in France with the May–June general strike in 1968, strikes and social struggles erupted in Australia in 1973–74, just as the US defeat loomed in Vietnam and US President Richard Nixon faced impeachment over the Watergate affair.

After the Murdoch media launched a campaign to discredit and destabilise the government, the Liberal-National opposition, led by Malcolm Fraser, used its majority in the Senate to block financial supply to the government, creating a political and constitutional crisis. This provided the pretext for Kerr to invoke the royal powers to dismiss Whitlam and his government.

The lengths to which the ruling class is going to prevent any access to the 1975 palace letters is another warning that, just as four decades ago, it is prepared to resort to authoritarian methods when its interests are directly threatened. Another convulsive period has begun, with youth and working people worldwide coming into struggle against the worsening social and economic conditions, violation of basic democratic rights and threat of war.

New Zealand: The US warship visit and the fraud of Peace Action

Tom Peters

Prime Minister John Key confirmed on October 18 that the United States navy guided missile destroyer USS Sampson will take part in the New Zealand navy’s 75th anniversary celebrations in Auckland in mid-November, along with vessels from 32 other countries including France, Britain, Australia, Russia and China. Naval exercises will be held off the Auckland coast, while a parade and other festivities surrounding the anniversary will glorify militarism and promote recruitment into the navy.

The first visit by a US warship in more than three decades is intended to cement New Zealand’s alliance with the US. It follows the announcement in June of $20 billion in military spending to upgrade navy vessels and warplanes and improve the “interoperability” of New Zealand’s armed forces with its allies. This is needed to prepare NZ troops to join bloody US-led interventions in the Middle East and potentially all-out war against Russia and China.

The anniversary celebrations have served to expose the reactionary and pro-war positions of a whole layer of middle class ex-protesters, who have shifted sharply to the right. The US navy visit has been warmly welcomed by the Green Party along with prominent ex-Green MP Keith Locke and Greenpeace leader Russel Norman; Nicky Hager, a former organiser of the Campaign Against Nuclear Warships (Canwar); and Rob Green and Kate Dewes from the Foundation for Peace Studies (FPS).

Greenpeace, Canwar and the FPS organised numerous protests against US warship visits and nuclear weapons testing during the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, in line with similar groups internationally, their leaders have become integrated into the political establishment, academia, the media and the state and now openly defend New Zealand’s military alliance with the US. The Greens offer the spurious justification that Washington should be allowed to send a warship because it has accepted New Zealand’s ban on nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed vessels. In fact, US officials have repeatedly said, in line with longstanding policy, that the nuclear status of the USS Sampson will not be publicly revealed.

One group that has received considerable media attention, which purports to oppose the NZ-US military alliance, is the pacifist organisation Peace Action Wellington (PAW) and its recently-formed offshoot Auckland Peace Action (APA). These outfits have criticised the US warship visit and a weapons manufacturers conference, sponsored by Lockheed Martin, taking place at the same time. The groups’ main spokesperson Valerie Morse wrote an article for the New Zealand Herald on June 14 opposing Hager’s endorsement of the event.

PAW and APA, however, are hostile to the development of a genuinely anti-war movement, based on a socialist program to unite the working class internationally against the capitalist system, the root cause of war. Under conditions where the old protest organisations have discredited themselves, Peace Action is seeking to steer workers and youth who are becoming radicalised by the drive to war into channels that pose no real threat to militarism and the capitalist order.

PAW was founded in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It is a loose alliance of politically heterogeneous forces, united by their hostility to the fight for revolutionary socialist leadership and the political independence of the working class from all capitalist parties and organisations. It includes anarchists such as Morse, trade union officials, academics, and it collaborates with the pseudo-left groups, the International Socialist Organisation, Fightback and Redline.

Like the Greens and the entire political establishment, PAW and APA are silent on the US encirclement and increasingly reckless threats of war against Russia and China, over the war in Syria and disputes in the South China Sea. Morse’s Herald article and an online petition by the APA criticise the NZ government’s “planning for war” and glorification of the navy. But they do not mention the two nuclear-armed countries which are the main targets of US war plans.

The reason for this silence is that Peace Action has no intention of carrying out a political fight against the Greens and its allies, the Labour Party, the Maori nationalist Mana Party, the anti-immigrant New Zealand First and the trade union bureaucracy. All these organisations have assisted New Zealand’s integration into the US build-up to war against China by whipping up anti-Chinese xenophobia, blaming Asian immigrants generally for the housing shortage and lack of jobs.

Peace Action’s entire perspective is summed up in its petition against the warship visit, which aims to “bring pressure on the government” to cut the Defence Force budget, fund social programs and “support a strong stand for peace.” It promotes the absurd notion that the government can be pressed to cut military ties with its main ally and adopt a peaceful national-isolationist policy.

New Zealand’s alliance with US militarism, however, is not a misguided policy; it is bound up with New Zealand’s status as a minor imperialist power, whose ruling class profits from exploiting resources and labour in countries such as Samoa, Tonga, Nauru and the Solomon Islands. To secure support for its predatory neo-colonial interests, the NZ ruling elite has maintained alliances, first with Britain and, after World War II, with the United States.

In her Herald article, Morse glorified and distorted the history of the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s and 1980s, writing that it “demanded a different kind of world … one in which New Zealand set an example as a neutral, non-aligned, peacemaking country.”

She did not mention that organisations such as Canwar and Greenpeace limited their campaign to placing demands on the Labour Party, which was in office from 1984–1990. Labour exploited the anti-nuclear campaign to posture as pacifist to provide a “progressive” mask for its ruthless drive to privatise state assets and drive down workers’ living conditions. Labour’s anti-nuclear policy of 1985 caused a partial rift with Washington, but at the same time Prime Minister David Lange appeased the US by constructing the Waihopai spy base in the South Island, to boost New Zealand’s contribution to the US-led Five Eyes spy alliance. At no point did Labour pursue a “neutral” or “non-aligned” policy.

The Labour governments of the 1970s and 1980s were not concerned about “peacemaking.” Their opposition to nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific was bound up with the determination of Australia and New Zealand to maintain hegemony in the region, particularly in opposition to France, which was conducting nuclear tests in the South Pacific, and other competing imperialist powers.

The fraud of Peace Action’s opposition to war is revealed most clearly in its embrace of the Greens. PAW worked closely with the Greens during the 2003 protests against the invasion of Iraq, helping it to pose as an anti-war party. The Greens opposed the Labour government’s deployment of NZ troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. By 2010, however, the Greens had embraced the occupation of Afghanistan, describing the war as a “peacekeeping” operation. The party also supported New Zealand’s participation in the Australian-led interventions in the Solomon Islands and East Timor.

The Greens’ ever more blatant support for imperialism—including the US warship visit and the National Party government’s massive military spending—has not deterred PAW and APA from supporting the party. Green MP Marama Davidson has been invited to speak at APA’s Peace Conference on November 5 about her recent attempt to enter Gaza by boat to protest against Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian enclave.

The expedition, which ended with Davidson and 12 other protesters being briefly detained by Israeli forces, was heavily publicised in the media and by APA in order to paint the Greens in progressive colours. The aim of such aid flotillas is to bring “pressure” to bear on bourgeois governments to “isolate” Israel—a bankrupt perspective based on acceptance of the legitimacy of the Zionist state and calls for a “two-state solution” which would maintain the oppression of the Palestinian people by imperialism.

Report finds that more than 40 percent of British housing is substandard

Barry Mason

Housing charity Shelter has marked the 50th anniversary of its founding by issuing a report on the standard of housing in Britain today.

In the introduction to “The “Living Home Standard,” Campbell Robb, Shelter chief executive, writes: “[T]he housing crisis facing this country is as challenging and as far from fixed as it was in 1966. Fewer houses are being built, there are too many families in temporary accommodation, house prices continue to rise and conditions in parts of the private rented sector are as bad as we have seen in decades. These are just some of the consequences of decades of failure by successive governments to address the root of these problems, to build more truly affordable homes and to provide a comprehensive housing safety net.”

At the beginning of the year, Shelter, working with British Gas, set out to define what attributes should be taken into consideration to establish an adequate housing standard, known as the Living Home Standard. The market research company Ipsos MORI was commissioned to survey a cross-section of people to ask them what should constitute a good standard of housing. They did this through discussion groups, surveys and workshops over a period of nine months.

They came up with five basic parameters or “dimensions”: affordability, decent conditions, space, stability and neighbourhood. The five dimensions were then subdivided into a total of 39 attributes, some classed as “essential” and some as “tradable.”

For example, under affordability, an essential attribute was that the occupant would not have to worry that the rent or mortgage payments would rise to a level that would be difficult to pay. Included in the definition of decent conditions were that the house could be heated safely and effectively and was free of mould or damp. Regarding space, it was considered essential for all members of the household to be able to have privacy. Under the heading of stability, the people surveyed considered it essential that those living in the house had control over how long they could live in it. It was also felt essential that people should “feel reasonably safe and secure in the local neighbourhood.”

Shelter described the result as a standard, “split between essentials that all homes must meet and tradables which take account of differing needs and priorities between households. It is a standard that applies to all homes, irrespective of their tenure, size or age.”

Using these definitions of a good standard of housing, Shelter set out to measure how the housing stock in Britain measured up. It surveyed nearly 2,000 people across the country to see how their homes compared to the Living Home Standard. Its conclusion was that 43 percent of people in Britain did not live in a home that matched up to the Living Home Standard.

Commenting on the number of homes not meeting the standard, Shelter’s director, Roger Harding, writing in iNews said: “Although these seem like not much to ask for, the huge number of homes that fail to this Standard is a sad reflection of just how wide-spread our housing problem has become.”

The highest proportion of homes failing to meet the standard were in London, where nearly three quarters of residents classed their home as being below it, followed by Wales and the East Midlands, where just below half said their homes did not match the standard.

The criteria most mentioned by respondents was that of affordability, with just under 30 percent citing it, followed by decent conditions, which was cited by nearly 20 percent.

For those owning their homes but paying a mortgage, the figure was nearly 40 percent. Among those renting their homes—whether from the local authority, privately or from a housing association—around two thirds considered their homes below the standard.

Speaking to the Metro newspaper, Shelter executive Robb explained, “Every day we hear from young people and families who scrape by each month in a struggle to meet their rents, living from one short-term contract to the next, and often coping with poor conditions. With our ever-growing housing crisis forcing millions into private renting, it’s simply not right that so many of these are failing to meet their needs. … A home should be a place where you can build a foundation for your life.”

BBC’s “Newsnight” programme featured an item marking the 50th anniversary of the showing of the play Cathy Come Home on the channel’s then “Wednesday Play”  slot. It was written by Jeremy Sandford, produced by Tony Garnett and directed by Ken Loach. The play highlighted the plight of families facing eviction and homelessness and the devastating impact on their family lives. It had a huge impact on public consciousness. The housing charity Shelter was founded shortly afterwards, reflecting the concerns of much of the population towards the issue of homelessness.

“Newsnight” noted the enormous decline in the supply of social housing provision over the last 60 years. In 1954, the provision of social housing peaked with nearly 208,000 homes built. In 1966—when Cathy Come Home was first broadcast and Shelter founded—some 140,000 social housing homes were built. By 2015, the figure had fallen to a mere 24,610.

Speaking to “Newsnight,”  Jon Sparkes, the chief executive of homeless charity Crisis, highlighted the figures on homelessness for England, explaining 73,000 households are in temporary accommodation and an average of 3,500 sleep on the streets each night.

Writing in the architecture and design online magazine Dezeen, on September 30, Phineas Harper, deputy director of the Architecture Foundation, wrote, “The housing crisis isn’t a crisis. … ‘Crisis’ suggests a natural disaster, something beyond human control that serves nobody’s interests. The housing crisis is none of these things—it has been carefully planned, orchestrated over several decades, and is now delivering exactly the economic and social conditions it was intended to, making some people a lot of money in the process. … London has become an urban basket case in which the average rent can gobble up three quarters of the average post-tax salary. … The housing shortage has been created and sustained by a political strategy unfolding over nearly 40 years. It is no more unseen than a hangover after a wild night of drinking. To call it a crisis misses the point: we have created a monster, now we must kill it. Four decades of inflating property prices while failing to build significant numbers of new homes has delivered exactly what is was designed to—inequality.”

Access to decent affordable housing is a basic human right, but under capitalism it is becoming increasingly unavailable. The austerity programme, which has plunged millions into poverty over the last decade, exacerbating the housing crisis, must be reversed and billions poured into the economy to provide decent-paying jobs, free and high-quality health care, housing, education and social services for all.

The wealth must be taken from the billionaires and used to meet essential social needs. Only a socialist reorganisation of society can satisfy the desperate and growing need for decent housing for all.