Huge increase in hospital admissions for malnutrition in Britain

Jean Gibney

A recent Department of Health (DoH) report found a 44 percent rise in UK hospital admissions related to malnutrition over the past five years.

The DoH revealed the number of bed days accounted for by someone with a primary or secondary diagnosis of malnutrition rose from 128,361 in 2010/11—the year the Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition came to power—to 184,528 last year.

Malnutrition as the main cause of hospital admissions has more than doubled over the past decade. From 65,048 bed days in 2006-2007, the total surged to 184,528 hospital bed days last year.

Each bed costs the National Health Service (NHS) on average £400 a day to staff and a spell in hospital because of malnutrition averages between 22 and 23 days. Information supplied by the House of Commons library shows that 57 percent of the patients involved were women and 42 percent were aged over 65.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) classes someone as malnourished if they have a body mass index of less than 18.5, or have suffered the unintentional loss of more than 10 percent of their weight over the last three to six months, or have both a body mass index under 20 and have unintentionally seen their weight drop by more than 5 percent over the previous three to six months.

According to NHS statistics, 3 million people are at risk of malnutrition, with 7,366 of these admitted to hospital with the condition between August 2014 and July 2015, a 51 percent increase since the corresponding period from 2010 to 2011.

Speaking about the increasing numbers of elderly people being admitted to hospital with malnutrition, Simon Bottery, director of policy at the Independent Age charity, said, “These new figures on malnutrition are genuinely shocking. As a society there is no excuse for us failing to ensure that older people are able to eat enough food, of the right quality, to stay healthy.”

He continued, “Yet we have been cutting back the meals on wheels services and lunch clubs on which so many vulnerable elderly people relied and reducing the numbers who receive home care visits.”

Research by the National Association of Care Catering found that only 48 percent of local councils still provided meals on wheels, compared to 66 percent in 2014. Freedom of information requests submitted to local councils in England found that 220,000 fewer people were receiving meals on wheels in late 2014 than in 2010, a fall of 63 percent. Only 17 percent of councils in the northwest of England still do so, and 91 percent of providers expect the provision to fall further in the next year.

The response of the Department of Health to the findings was not to address the causes of malnutrition, but to glibly suggest that better data collection, more training and a paltry £500,000 to Age UK would assist in the spotting and reduction of malnutrition in the elderly.

Malnutrition is not only confined to the elderly. The figures for the rise in cases of malnutrition and other health issues show the impact of increasing poverty is widespread among all age groups. It is linked to cuts and sanctions to welfare benefits, cuts to and privatisation of health and social care services, unemployment and low pay. This is seen in the massive rise in people who now regularly depend on charities for basic food supplies.

Recent figures by the Trussell Trust, an anti-poverty charity, report a huge uptake in emergency food supplies between April 2016 and September 2016. Across the UK, they distributed 519,342 three-day emergency food supplies to people in crisis, compared to 506,369 during the same period last year. Of these, 188,584 went to children. The staggering number means that the food bank network is on course to distribute the highest number of food parcels in its 12-year history during 2016-17.

The Trust cited changes to the benefits system and low pay and unemployment as the main causes of the rising use of food banks. It said, “Benefit delays and changes have been the biggest reasons for food bank use, accounting for 44 percent of referrals to Trussell Trust food banks (27.4 percent benefit delay; 16.6 percent benefit changes). Low income was the second largest cause of a crisis, accounting for nearly one in four of all referrals to Trussell Trust food banks, driven by problems such as low pay, insecure work or rising costs.”

A long-term study into increasing levels of deprivation and social and economic inequality since 1983, “Breadline Britain: The Rise of Mass Poverty,” by Joanna Mack and Stewart Lansley, revealed poverty levels have soared, with the current figure standing at 20 million people (around a third of the population). Lansley, the co-author of the 2015 report, stated, “This study paints the most appalling picture of levels of deprivation across the country and of how generations are being denied opportunities.” He added, “It is horrifying and appalling to me that we have a society that has built into its DNA growing levels of poverty. It is completely unjust and completely unnecessary.”

Lansley warned, “You have a situation where levels of poverty will already be rising significantly and the picture can only get bleaker as people become more desperate. On current trends, the next five years will see more people in the UK in poverty, more often and for longer. Despite falling unemployment, the combination of an increasingly polarised labour market, rising housing costs and a continuing squeeze on benefits will put further pressure on low incomes.”

Linking increasing levels of poverty with economic and social inequality, the Oxfam charity revealed that in Britain millions of workers are struggling to cope to put food on the table, let alone maintain a healthy nutritious diet: “The UK is one of the richest countries in the world, but it’s a nation divided into the ‘haves’ and have-nots.’ While executive pay soars, one in five people live below the poverty line and struggle to pay their bills and put food on the table.”

Jonathon Ashworth, Labour shadow health secretary, expressed dismay at the DoH malnutrition figures, stating, “Real poverty is causing vulnerable people, particularly the elderly, to go hungry and undernourished so much so that they end up in hospital.” The research, he said, “reveals a shocking picture of levels of malnutrition in 21st century England and the impact it has on our NHS. This is unacceptable in modern Britain.”

Ashworth did not address the previous Labour government’s systematic assault on the living standards of the working class in the wake of the 2008 economic crash. He also omitted to mention that while in opposition Labour has supported every cut to welfare benefits and public services. Nor did Ashworth mention the role of Labour councils that have carried out every single cut to services and, along with the trade unions, have supported the assault on the living standards of millions of workers and the decimation of the welfare state.

European Union and IMF demand new austerity measures in Greece

Christoph Vandreier

At a joint press conference in Berlin on Friday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras made a show of unity. Greece no longer wanted to be seen as “part of the crisis but part of the solution,” said Tsipras. There were large budget surpluses and the targets set had been surpassed, he added, in summarising his government’s austerity policies.

In the lead-up to the conference, conflicts erupted between Greece on one side and the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the other. Both institutions imposed a brutal programme of austerity on Greece over recent years and supplied it with bailout loans. They are now demanding an intensification of attacks on the working class.

A dispute emerged last week after Tsipras announced a plan, during a live speech on television, to pay 1.6 million especially needy retirees Christmas benefits totalling €617 million, equivalent to €380 per person. The measure was passed by parliament on Thursday. In addition, sales tax increases for the islands in the eastern Aegean were suspended. The islands have spent additional funds over recent years for the confinement of refugees.

Part of the primary surplus achieved in the Greek budget this year will be used to finance the measures. Due to the Greek government’s enforcement of brutal austerity and privatisation measures, a budget surplus of €1.9 billion was reached, rather than the €500 million agreed with Greece’s creditors in the memorandum of understanding.

These figures make clear that no retreat from the austerity measures is involved, but merely a symbolic gesture. Tsipras hopes to be able to stabilise his deeply despised government and hold onto power. In the course of its first year in government, Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) has seen its support collapse due to its austerity policies from 35.5 percent in the September 2015 election to 14.1 percent in the latest polls.

The government has already imposed pension cuts of €230 million this year. Further cuts of €439 million in top-up pensions are planned for next year. This is in spite of the fact that 45 percent of pensioners currently receive monthly payments placing them below the poverty level of €665, according to government figures. The real number of impoverished pensioners is much higher, because in Greece, where there is virtually no social welfare system, the unemployment rate of 22.6 percent means that entire families are dependent upon the pensions of the grandparents.

Prior to Syriza assuming power, pensions dropped by 50 percent due to cuts. Syriza actually promised an end to pension cuts during the election campaign and to oppose the EU’s austerity demands. But once elected, they bowed to the EU’s dictates, emerging as the government most capable of enforcing the austerity drive. Only two months ago, the Syriza government attacked pensioners with tear gas.

In the face of these austerity measures, the millions for pensioners amount to a drop in the bucket. It will include one-off payments that will do nothing to change the character of the cuts implemented and those to come. In comparison with the more than €40 billion in austerity measures since 2009, the hand-out to pensioners does not even amount to 1.6 percent of the total.

But even these cosmetic measures were too much for the EU and IMF. “The institutions have decided that the actions of the Greek government do not correspond to the terms of the loan agreement,” stated euro group head Jeroen Dijsselbloem. The European Stability Mechanism (ESM), through which the previous loans were organised, reacted to Tsipras’ Christmas policy by freezing previously approved debt relief measures, including interest rate cuts and debt moratoriums. These measures will now be discussed further at the euro group meeting on 26 January.

According to news portal Spiegel Online, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble encouraged the ESM to take this step. The German government has responded to the Brexit victory in Britain and Donald Trump’s election in the United States by stating its intention to consolidate its domination in Europe and impose austerity with even more ruthlessness. At the beginning of the month, Schäuble stated to the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that Greece had to impose all reforms if it “wants to stay in the euro—regardless of its debt position.”

The background to the latest dispute is the ongoing negotiations over the budgetary goals that should be imposed on Athens for new loans. The majority of the euro group members demanded a budget surplus of 3.5 percent in the year 2019-20 so that Greece can begin paying off its massive debt burden.

IMF Europe chief Poul Thomsen and chief economist Maurice Obstfeld proposed in a submission on Monday that the target be reduced to 1.5 percent. This would, however, mean that the debt would have to be restructured and partially written off so as to avert state bankruptcy. French President François Hollande also spoke out in favour of treating Greece more moderately.

But neither Hollande nor the IMF representatives are concerned about halting austerity measures in Greece. The authors of the submission explicitly call for further “structural reforms,” including making it easier to impose mass layoffs. They state that Greek pensions remain too high and mass taxes are too low. The conflict is merely over the best methods to squeeze the billions of bailout loans from the Greek working class and who should profit from this the most.

The Syriza government has more than made clear over the past year that it is also committed to this goal. For the first time since the outbreak of the debt crisis, a government has surpassed the terms of the creditors and saved more than had been dictated. That it is paying out a fraction of the additional savings, and in a one-off measure to boot, is a hollow gesture.

Shortly before Tsipras’ joint press conference with Merkel, Finance Minister Euklides Tsakalotos had spoken of errors in communication with regard to the Christmas measures in a meeting with German parliamentarians. One ought to have informed the creditors in advance, the Finance Minister stated, according to Spiegel Online.

EU summit lines up against Russia

Peter Schwarz

On Thursday, the 28 leaders of the European Union gathered in Brussels at their final summit of the year. The EU is in deep crisis. Following the British decision to leave the EU, the election of Donald Trump as US president, and the rise of right-wing nationalist forces in many European countries, it is paralyzed and divided.

The member states are hopelessly divided over many issues--the distribution of refugee quotas, the attitude towards Turkey, the austerity policy dictated by Berlin and Brussels, the creation of a European army, the response to incoming President Trump, and, above all, the stance towards Russia.

In addition, the leaders of the larger member states, who have thus far set the course in the EU, have been weakened by internal political crises.

Britain is on its way out of the EU and its government is arguing over what Brexit means. French President Francois Hollande leaves office in May. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigned last week and his successor, Paolo Gentiloni, is at best a transitional figure. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy rests on an uncertain majority. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is seeking her fourth term in office next year, confronts growing resistance both within her own Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and within its coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Shortly before the summit, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker described the situation in the EU with the words: “This time we are dealing with a multiple crisis. It is burning all over, not just in Europe. But wherever there is fire outside Europe, the conflagration moves toward Europe.”

For these reasons, the summit was to be limited to a few hours on Thursday. To avoid intensifying the crisis, the discussion was supposed to avoid controversial issues. Over dinner, the participants planned to discuss preparations for the Brexit negotiations in the absence of British Prime Minister Theresa May.

But things turned out differently. Council President Donald Tusk decided “spontaneously” to invite a Syrian anti-Assad activist--something unprecedented in the history of the EU--and the summit was extended by hours. Brita Hagi Hasan, introduced as the “mayor of Aleppo,” described the situation in the east of the city in dramatic terms. Speaking to the assembled heads of government, he claimed 50,000 civilians were “soon to be massacred.”

Hasan is one of those Syrian “oppositionists” who travel round the world promoting imperialist military intervention and are dragged into the limelight for that purpose. He has met several times with the French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, most recently at the end of November.

During the summer, he attended a meeting in Paris together with Maryam Rajavi of the Iranian People’s Mujahedin and Michel Kilo, another Syrian regime opponent, who three years ago called for an American military strike against Syria. The People’s Mujahedin are fighting the regime in Tehran from abroad and have been listed by the EU up to 2009 as a terrorist organization.

Tusk, Hollande and Merkel used Hasan’s appearance to call for the fractious EU members to unite on an anti-Russian line. While in US ruling circles there is fierce struggle over relations with Russia, the EU is siding with that wing which is pushing for a confrontation with Russia. Merkel and Hollande fear that the new president, Donald Trump, is moving closer to Moscow at the expense of the Europe, and that the EU, and possibly NATO as well, could break apart as a result.

In an editorial just before the summit, the Financial Times wrote: “Europe’s diplomats are at a loss over how to prepare for his [Trump’s] incoming administration.... With any US pivot on Russia policy, the bloc’s hard-won consensus on how to respond to Moscow could change, tipping the balance between the EU’s hawks and doves.”

The European leaders did not waste any words talking about Mosul or Yemen, where they, the US and Washington’s regional allies are bombing civilians as ruthlessly as the Russians and the Syrian army in Aleppo. But they shed buckets of crocodile tears over the fate of the civilian population of Aleppo--and this on the day when the fighting there had stopped.

Chancellor Merkel said the report delivered by Hasan was “very depressing.” She accused Russia and Iran of responsibility for crimes against the civilian population in Aleppo and demanded that they be punished. She accused the United Nations Security Council of “failure.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke in identical terms. “We must ensure that those who are responsible for these atrocities will be held accountable,” she said.

President Hollande said the EU’s raison d'être was in question if it could “not even unite on something as basic” as “condemning the massacres that are being initiated by the Syrian regime and its supporters.”

The cynicism of this feigned indignation was underscored by the fact that just hours before, Merkel’s government had begun the first mass deportations to Afghanistan. This initiates a process that will result in forcibly ejecting up to 12,500 refugees from Germany and sending them back to a country reduced to rubble by war and civil war.

Based on the surge of emotions that was staged with Hasan’s appearance, the summit agreed a number of controversial decisions either directed against Russia, providing for an accelerated military buildup, or serving to repel refugees.

The summit decided that despite billions in losses for various European countries, the sanctions against Russia for the Ukraine conflict should be extended until at least July 31 of next year. The day before the summit, the Slovak prime minister and current EU council president, Robert Fico, had described the sanctions as nonsense.

At the same time, the summit paved the way for the ratification of the partnership agreement with Ukraine, whose rejection by then-Ukrainian President Yanukovych had led to the 2014 putsch. This past spring, the agreement was blocked by Dutch voters, who rejected it in a referendum. The summit adopted a legally binding supplementary declaration allowing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to submit it again to parliament. All other EU countries have already ratified it.

The summit also agreed on closer military cooperation. It ratified the construction of a centre for the planning of civil and military missions. The British government, which previously blocked all moves toward a European army, dropped its resistance.

The summit also welcomed the Commission’s plans for a multi-billion-euro fund to finance military research. Decisions about it are to be made in the first half of next year.

While the summit huffed and puffed about the misery in Aleppo, Merkel, Hollande, Gentiloni and Rajoy met with the president of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, and other African leaders to persuade them to halt the flow of refugees and keep them in camps, in return for large sums of money.

Officially, this project is called “Migration Partnership.” For the sum of 100 million euros, half of which will come from Germany, camps are to be built along the escape routes where up to 60,000 people can be detained.

Berlin also prevailed at the summit when it came to dealing with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The German government refuses to cool relations with Ankara as a result of Erdogan’s authoritarian methods of rule because it fears a failure of the refugee deal the EU struck with Ankara to prevent refugees travelling on to Europe.

Now the EU has taken a step toward Erdogan by holding out the prospect of a refugee summit in the spring of 2017, with the participation of Commission President Juncker and EU President Tusk.

Facebook’s “fake news” measures: A move toward censorship

George Gallanis

On Thursday, the global social media giant Facebook announced new measures it said were designed to limit the spread of “fake news” from hoax web sites. The measures, however, are part of a broader corporate media campaign to clamp down on independent and alternative news organizations.

Facebook’s announcement is in response to criticism it received from major corporate news outlets such as the New York Times alleging that fake news articles shared on the social media platform played a major role in altering the outcome of the 2016 elections. Facebook’s CEO and founder, Mark Zuckerberg, first called such allegations “crazy” but has shifted to accommodate the demands.

In a news post on Facebook titled “News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News” by Adam Mosseri, vice president of product management, Facebook laid out the four components of its new policy.

Under the headline “Easier Reporting,” Facebook will streamline the way people can report an alleged fake news site by implementing new features. Under “Disrupting Financial Incentives for Spammers,” Facebook plans to financially hurt “fake news” sites by limiting their ability to purchase ads by making it more difficult to use fake domain sites when posting ads.

This is followed by the measure called “Informed Sharing.” If an article is read multiple times and it is not shared afterwards, according to Facebook this may be a sign that the article is “misleading.” If Facebook deems this to be the case, then the article will receive a lower ranking on Facebook’s newsfeed, making it less visible and available for reading.

In practice, this means that if an article, whether it is telling the truth or not, is not shared, then it may be demoted and become less likely to be read. An analysis by BuzzFeed News found that during the 2016 presidential election campaign, news posts considered fake were in fact more widely shared than those considered real.

Most significant, however, is a policy under the headline “Flagging Stories as Disputed.” Facebook will catalog reports of alleged fake news from users, along with other vague data it only describes as “signals,” and will send them to a third-party fact checker for arbitration. If a story is deemed fake, then Facebook will mark it as such with an attached explanation as to why. Such stories will then appear lower in Facebook’s newsfeed.

Facebook’s “third party” reportedly consists of five news organizations acting as fact-checkers. These are: ABC News, Politifact, FactCheck, Snopes and the Associated Press. According to Facebook, these organizations are also signatories of The Poynter Institute’s International Fact Checking Code of Principles, which are: 1) “a commitment to nonpartisanship and fairness”; 2) “a commitment to transparency of sources”; 3) “a commitment to transparency of funding and organization”; 4) “a commitment to transparency of methodology”; and 5) “a commitment to open and honest corrections”.

Poynter, a self described “global leader in journalism,” receives funding from, amongst others, Google, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and most notably the National Endowment for Democracy, a front for the US Department of State that has intervened in elections all over the world in the interest of US imperialism.

The implications of Facebook’s moves to limit “fake news” are ominous. It takes place in the context of an effort by the corporate media to create an amalgam between clearly manufactured content and articles and analysis that it brands “Russian propaganda” because they are critical of US foreign policy.

Last month, the Washington Post published an article, “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say,” which referred to an organization, PropOrNot, that had compiled a list of web sites that are declared to be “peddlers of Russian propaganda.” The site includes WikiLeaks, Truthout, Naked Capitalism and similar publications.

Amnesty International reports Fiji’s police and military using torture

John Braddock

Fiji’s police, corrections and military officers are committing torture against people accused of crimes or in custody, according to an Amnesty International report released on December 4. The report, Beating Justice: How Fiji’s Security Forces Get Away with Torture, details repeated violations of international law by the security forces, including beatings, rape, sexual violence, attacks by police dogs and murder.

Amnesty charges the Fijian authorities with acting with impunity, their brutal activities condoned at the highest levels. Security forces personnel who commit abuses rarely face sanction and even when officials are convicted of crimes, they are usually quickly pardoned and released from prison.

Fiji’s 2013 constitution entrenches “absolute and unconditional immunity” for any government actions between the 2006 military coup and 2014, when a so-called democratic election installed Frank Bainimarama, the coup leader and military head, as prime minister. The election was held under conditions of press censorship, military provocations and severe restrictions on opposition political parties. The authoritarian, anti-working class regime continues to rule through fear and intimidation, using draconian anti-democratic laws and restrictions on the right of assembly and the media.

In a state visit to New Zealand in October, Bainimarama insisted that the institutions of the Fijian state are “functioning properly” and are “truly independent and free from personal and political influence.” New Zealand’s then prime minister, John Key, downplayed any criticisms. He told the media that “human rights” were an area where “discussion and engagement” was needed. “I have always said the restoration of democracy in Fiji was a good and important step, but it does evolve over time,” Key declared.

The Amnesty report observes that the military continues to play a direct role in all levels of government, as well as in civilian policing. Military officers are routinely appointed to senior government roles, including head of corrections and head of police, effectively militarising the posts and making it impossible to hold officers accountable for their violations of international law.

According to the report, police “are effectively left to police themselves,” while the military brass has frequently interfered in investigations involving military officers. In a few cases where perpetrators have been successfully prosecuted, custodial sentences were reduced under “Community Supervision Orders,” allowing them to be released within weeks of being convicted and return to their previous posts. Bainimarama and Police Commissioner Brigadier-General Qiliho have both expressed support for military and police officers when allegations of torture have come to light.

The brutality routinely handed out by the security forces, dating back at least to the 2006 coup, is ongoing. In a video clip circulated online from October, three police officers are shown beating suspects on the side of the road. In September, Isaac James was taken in for questioning at Nakasi police station, where he was allegedly denied food and water for two days, beaten by police using sticks, a belt and a screwdriver. He escaped custody, fearing for his life, and remained in hiding for most of October.

On November 29, Ricardo Fisher was beaten unconscious by five police officers while in custody. Fisher, who was hospitalised with fractured ribs, claimed that police have not followed up his official complaint. The secretary of the Coalition for Human Rights, Monica Waqanisau, told Radio New Zealand that Fisher’s case showed “little is changing.”

Fijian human rights lawyer Aman Ravindra-Singh told Radio NZ that state-sponsored torture is still happening despite Fiji signing a UN anti-torture treaty earlier this year. He said there had been no progress on prominent cases, including the alleged 2011 torture by a military officer of trade unionist Felix Anthony and the alleged police beating of businessman Rajneel Singh a year ago. Ravindra-Singh said the police stonewall by claiming investigations are “continuing” when there is ample evidence to prosecute.

The Amnesty report cites other videos of police assaults on civilians circulated on social media, including footage shot in November 2012 that shows a half-naked man being beaten and sexually assaulted by police and military officers, while another man has a police dog set upon him.

Police regularly torture suspects in order to obtain confessions. In August 2014, robbery suspect Vilikesa Soko died, four days after being arrested, from a blood clot on his lungs after a sustained physical and sexual assault. His autopsy showed multiple traumatic injuries. The report cites another case of a person having a leg amputated. Witnesses and lawyers also raised concerns about threats and intimidation against them.

At least five people have been beaten to death in police or military custody since 2006, including 19-year-old Sakiusa Rabaka who in 2007 was beaten, sexually assaulted and forced to perform military exercises. He died from his injuries on a military base in Nadi. Eight police officers and one military officer were ultimately convicted over his death and sentenced to prison terms. All were released within a month.

Kate Schuetze, Amnesty International’s Pacific researcher, said that in Fiji “accountability for torture is the exception rather than the rule,” “This amounts to a climate of near impunity. It is the result of the fact that torture is poorly defined in law, immunity is granted, there are few legal safeguards and there is no independent oversight.”

Amnesty has called on Bainimarama’s regime to make limited changes, such as to withdraw the armed forces from policing tasks. But Fiji Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum rejected the Amnesty report out of hand, branding it “biased and selective.”

Moreover, the local imperialist powers, Australia and New Zealand, have never been concerned about democratic rights in Fiji. After the 2006 coup, fearing that political instability in the region would open the door to China and other countries, wide-ranging international sanctions were imposed. This backfired, with Bainimarama gaining aid and investment from Beijing under his “look north” policy.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with representatives of the regime in 2010, signalling an end to Australian-led efforts to force it into submission. In 2014, Washington, Canberra and Wellington all rushed to endorse the bogus election and re-forge ties with Fiji.

Bainimarama has bluntly called any criticism of Fiji hypocritical. In a speech in October, Bainimarama admitted torture remained an “issue” in Fiji, but claimed there were only “isolated incidents.” He pointed to the US, which uses torture under the guise of combating terrorism, and to Australia’s detention of asylum seekers in “cruel, inhumane or degrading circumstances” as examples of state-sanctioned policies that, he claimed, were “vastly different” from the situation in Fiji.

Corporate tax-dodging in Australia costs billions

Mike Head

Two reports on company taxation show that more than a third of the largest companies operating in Australia paid no tax in 2014–15 and that multinational tax evasion cost an estimated $4.8 billion that year. These reports show the fraud of the claims being made by the Australian government and corporate media that Donald Trump-style tax cuts will boost plummeting investment and benefit the country’s population.

Addressing a business dinner last month, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull renewed his call for the company tax rate to be reduced from 30 to 25 percent in an attempt to meet the demands of the financial elite for his government to match the unprecedented cut from 35 to 15 percent promised to the US ruling class by President-elect Trump.

Turnbull insisted that investment would flood out of the country and into the US and other lower-taxing countries, unless the population accepted tax cuts for the corporate giants and other pro-business “reforms” to boost profits. “Hard decisions” required “winners and losers,” he declared.

Yet billions of dollars in corporate tax concessions—all permitted by the law—have failed to halt the slump overtaking Australian capitalism. Far from using tax windfalls for investment, major corporations have continued to boost their profits and reward their wealthy shareholders while restructuring their operations at the cost of workers’ jobs and conditions.

In the most recent result, the Australian economy contracted by 0.5 percent in the September quarter, driven by an ongoing collapse in business investment—down 9.7 percent over the past year.

Almost 700 of Australia’s largest 1,904 companies paid nil tax in the 2015 fiscal year, according to an annual corporate tax transparency report issued by the Australian Tax Office (ATO) this week. It showed that 36 percent of the companies—whether locally-listed, private or foreign-owned—paid no tax. But the ATO insisted that this was perfectly legitimate and not a sign of tax evasion or avoidance.

Of the companies that paid no tax, 291 reported an accounting loss. Another 125 reported an accounting profit but reconciliation items (for example, tax deductions allowed at higher rates than accounting permits) resulted in a tax loss. A further 128 reported a taxable income but prior-year losses were available to deduct against that profit so no tax was payable. Lastly, 135 reported a taxable income but were entitled to offsets (such as research and development incentives) at least equal to the tax otherwise payable.

One reason that the ATO cited for the outcome was the collapse in commodity prices, which continued into the 2016 fiscal year. In all, energy and resources corporations paid $3.2 billion less tax to the government during fiscal 2015, with almost 60 percent of the companies in this sector paying no tax at all.

The world’s biggest mining company, BHP Billiton, more than halved its tax bill from $3.95 billion in 2014 fiscal year to $1.7 billion after its taxable income fell from $40.4 billion to $33 billion. Its effective tax rate fell from less than 10 percent to about 5 percent.

Mining giants were not the only tax-dodgers, however. Among the big names that paid nil tax, IBM paid nothing despite recording $3.6 billion in total income and $49.3 million in taxable income. Amazon Corporate Services paid just $4.3 million on $148.3 million in revenues and $14.2 million in taxable income.

Apple and Google increased their tax payments a little in 2014-15, after coming under public fire for global tax evasion. Apple’s tax bill almost doubled to $146.3 million, on the basis of local income of $8.4 billion. That is an effective tax rate of less than 2 percent. Google’s tax bill lifted $3 million to $12.2 million, on reported income of $438.7 million—a rate of under 3 percent.

The Business Council of Australia, representing the largest firms operating in Australia, backed the ATO’s declaration that nil tax returns were not a sign of tax evasion or avoidance. “This includes 109 companies that paid no tax, despite reporting more than $1 billion in total income,” BCA chief executive chief executive Jennifer Westacott said.

Westacott claimed the discrepancies could be explained by the fact that companies only pay tax on their profits, “after paying all expenses including wages, capital replacement, supplier costs, fleet costs and other operating expenses.” Such items, however, often allow companies to reshuffle their results to minimise tax liabilities.

An Oxfam report on global tax evasion, due out next Monday, estimates that Australia loses more than $4 billion a year due to the use of 15 of the worst global tax havens by multinationals.

The top three offshore financial centres used by those multinationals operating in Australia were Switzerland, Singapore and the Netherlands. On a global basis, Bermuda topped the list as the most serious tax haven, with 0 percent corporate income tax, 0 percent withholding taxes, evidence of large-scale profit shifting and a lack of transparency.

The charity’s report implores the government not to join the “race to the bottom” on corporate tax rates. Oxfam notes the average corporate tax rate across G20 countries was 40 percent 25 years ago. Today it is less than 30 percent.

Despite net profits by the world’s largest companies tripling in real terms over the past 30 years, from $US2 trillion in 1980 to $7.2 trillion by 2013, tax contributions of large corporations were diminishing, the report says. On top of that, Oxfam says 90 percent of the world’s biggest companies had a presence in at least one tax haven.

Oxfam’s report appeals to the Australian government to ensure that companies pay their “fair share” of taxes, so that money is available for schools, hospitals and other social services. In reality, as the record of the past 30 years demonstrates, what the financial elites regard as “fair” is determined purely by their capacity to keep ramping up profits and dividends via a combination of tax-dodging, cheap labour exploitation and free-market deregulation.

In this process they constantly play one country, and one section of the working class, off against the others, shifting production and financial operations to wherever they can extract the lowest costs and biggest margins. As a result, social inequality has widened immensely, and even more so since the 2008 global financial breakdown.

Trump’s tax cuts and “America first” economic program will only heighten this endless international “race to the bottom” at the expense of workers and young people, who face further job destruction, the driving down of wages and conditions and the devastation of essential social services.

While Turnbull’s Liberal-National government is under immense corporate pressure to accelerate this offensive, it has long had bipartisan support in the political establishment. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Labor governments of Hawke and Keating began the assault, lowering the corporate tax rate from 49 to 30 percent, and the top marginal personal tax rate from 60 to 49 percent. Even so, as the latest reports confirm, major corporations and the wealthy often pay little or no tax.

Social Democratic Party wins Romanian elections

Andrei Tudora & Tina Zamfir

Romanian elections held December 11 were won by the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which gained 45.5 percent and will be able to form a government alone or with its neo-liberal ally Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE), which won 5 percent. Voter turnout, at 39.49 percent, was one of the lowest in the country’s history.

The vote represented broad rejection of the technocratic government headed by former EU Commissioner Dacian Ciolos. The government was imposed last November by conservative President Klaus Iohannis, a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, after the ouster of the Social Democratic government headed by Victor Ponta.

The vote for the conservative National Liberal Party, which supported a second Ciolos government, collapsed, standing at little over 20 percent, with the party facing a protracted internal crisis including the risk of breaking up. Another party that supported Ciolos was the Save Romania Union (USR), formed in February this year on an anti-corruption platform by various civil society organizations, ranging from free-market NGOs to pseudo-left “activists.” The party expected to play a major role in a new governing coalition, but only managed to pick up 8.83 percent of the vote.

The Social Democrats, running in the election as an opposition party, had in fact supported the formation of the technocratic government and backed it in parliament for the past year. The PSD is preparing to take power at a time when the European Union (EU) is in rapid disintegration and the country finds itself at the forefront of the war drive led by Washington against Russia.

The Social Democratic Party, formed from the remnants of the former ruling Stalinist Communist Party, has acted as the main pillar of capitalist rule in Romania. Backed to the hilt by the trade unions, it has presided over the privatization of state-owned enterprises in the early 1990s and the implementation of the savage attacks on workers’ rights demanded for entry into the EU. Its ruthless bureaucrats have admitted to complicity in crimes against humanity perpetrated by the CIA, and justified them with the “success” of accession to NATO.

The right-wing, anti-working class character of the new administration is evident in its election program. While attempting to cultivate a basis among sections of the middle classes with nationalist rhetoric and measures to prop up small entrepreneurs, the Social Democrats aim to prop up big business by drastically slashing taxes and contributions to social funds.

The Social Democrats were supported in the campaign by the trade unions, who tried to sell for good coin their election promises to increase pensions and salaries for state employees and increase the minimum wage from €277 to €321. The union bosses showed signs of nervousness when, after the elections, it became obvious the promises were not destined for the 2017 fiscal year. Dumitru Costin, leader of the National Union Bloc for the past 25 years, said, “We are not talking here about questioning in the first day after the election a promise of President [Liviu] Dragnea [PSD leader], we’re becoming slightly ridiculous. Mr. Dragnea was more than exact in his words; we have the documents.”

After the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, the PSD was also the main political driving force of the militarization of the country. In January 2015, then prime minister Victor Ponta met President Iohannis and the leaders of the other parliamentary parties to sign a political agreement that whoever came to power would uphold an increase in military spending of at least 2 percent of GDP beginning next year.

On December 1, RomanianNews.ro cited a report delivered by the British trust Jane’s Information Group, that showed that Romania’s military spending has surpassed for the first time the sum of US$3 billion. This is, the report shows, the second highest spending in Eastern Europe, surpassed only by Poland.

PSD leader Dragnea, likely to become the new prime minister, reiterated his unwavering commitment to the EU and NATO immediately after the first exit polls came out.

Although the European press largely focussed on the corruption allegations associated with the PSD, more astute bourgeois commentators recognize in the Romanian PSD a valuable ally of the imperialists’ interests. Writing for the Euractiv web site, Nicolas Tenzer complained: “Russia now encircles Romania with new puppet presidents and Russian troops stationed in Crimea are just 250 kilometres from Romania’s Black Sea coast.” Tenzer notes that “Due to his former position, Ciolos is very popular among his fellow European leaders. The rest of the Union, however, should not overlook the strong pro-European stances of the rest of Romania’s political sphere as well.”

Significant rise in UK homelessness

Joe Mount 

Shelter has revealed that the number of homeless people in England has risen to over 250,000.

The homelessness charity included the following sources in order to record an accurate figure: national government statistics on rough sleepers, statistics on those in temporary accommodation, the number of people housed in hostels, and those waiting to be housed by social services departments (obtained through Freedom of Information requests).

Of these homeless people, almost half are children.

Shelter released the new figures to mark the 50th year since it was founded in response to the appalling social conditions of post-war Britain. Shelter chief executive Campbell Robb explained, “Shelter’s founding shone a light on hidden homelessness in the sixties’ slums. But while those troubled times have faded into memory, 50 years on, a modern-day housing crisis is tightening its grip on our country.”

Shelter explained that their analysis gives a conservative, lower-end estimate and real homelessness figures are much higher. They report that calls to their helpline are up by 50,000 since last year, so they now receive one call every 30 seconds. The number of families living in temporary accommodation rose by 15 percent. Further thousands do not qualify for formal housing assistance.

The geographical breakdown of the figures reveals homelessness hotspots in the urban centres. London is worst affected, with a shocking 2 percent of people facing housing insecurity. Here, the number of people sleeping rough has doubled in five years from 3,673 in 2009-10 to 7,500 last year. The city hosts widespread social deprivation alongside incredible wealth as one of the world’s major playgrounds for the corporate and financial oligarchy.

In Birmingham, Britain’s second-largest city, 9,650 people lack proper accommodation each night and dozens are forced to sleep on the street. At the end of last month Chiriac Inout was found dead after sleeping rough when temperatures plunged to six degrees below freezing.

The next worst affected cities are Luton, where one in every 63 people are housing insecure, Brighton (one in every 69), Slough (one in 164), Bristol, Coventry (one in 204), Reading (one in 170) and Manchester (one in 266).

Around 3,600 people sleep on the streets each night in England. Precise figures are not available and the real number is likely to be much higher. These numbers have doubled since 2010.

Homelessness is a frightening and isolating experience that causes difficulties finding employment and has a massive impact on mental and physical health. The life expectancy for homeless people is only 47 years of age, dramatically lower than the national average of 81. Rough sleepers are 35 times more likely to commit suicide and are extremely prone to mental health and drug problems. Homelessness causes permanent psychological damage to the children it affects.

Thousands are being forced out of their homes by rising rents and cuts to housing benefit. The biggest immediate factor is eviction from accommodation in the private rented sector, as many face tighter budgets and insecure tenancies. This causes two-fifths of homeless cases in London and the figure nationally has risen fourfold between 2010 and 2015, according to homelessness charity Crisis. The financial issues are often compounded by social problems, mental health disorders or relationship breakdown.

Existing state aid for homelessness is barely adequate, with hostels or bed-and-breakfasts often run-down and at a large distance from schools and local connections. Councillor Martin Tett of the Local Government Association stated, “Funding pressures are combining with housing and rents continuing to rise above household incomes to leave many councils struggling to cope with rising homelessness across all areas of the country.”

Tett is leader of the Conservative-led Buckinghamshire County Council and neglects to mention that his party has vastly exacerbated the homelessness crisis over the past seven years with its imposition of over £100 billion in austerity cuts to services and job losses.

Local authorities of all political stripes are imposing harsh measures affecting the homeless following central government spending reductions. Labour-run Birmingham City Council is cutting its “supporting people” budget, which covers homelessness among other social problems, by £10 million over two years. Another Labour-run authority, South Tyneside, recently imposed £100 fines, under draconian Public Spaces Protection Orders, on homeless people who accept food and drink from members of the public.

Fully 1.5 million private renters rely on some form of welfare benefits, rising to 4.6 million, including social housing tenants. Around 500,000 are in paid work but still rely on such support—a figure that has almost trebled since 2009. The Tory government freeze means that housing benefits are falling in real terms due to rising rents, affecting over 300,000 of the poorest households. The government’s £25 billion housing benefits budget has been cut by £7 billion in recent years. According to Shelter, by 2020 four-fifths of local councils will not be able to provide housing benefits sufficient to afford even the cheapest accommodation.

More broadly, a dearth of affordable housing has developed over the past few decades due to the anti-working class policies of consecutive Labour and Conservative governments. Council housing has been privatised and no new stock has been constructed to replace it. In 2013-14, only around 140,000 new houses were built, far below the 250,000 required to meet demand.

It is notoriously difficult to be accepted for homelessness assistance. Local authorities are only obliged to assist those who fulfil a strict set of criteria. Of the 275,000 people that applied for local authority support last year, only half were accepted, according to research by several homelessness charities. As Matt Downie of Crisis explained, “It’s only half a safety net.” In Wales, the proportion of accepted applications is only 36 percent.

Most single homeless people are not entitled to assistance and form many of the “hidden homeless” getting by in hostels and staying with friends. There are around 35,000 hostel beds for single homeless people nationally—down 4,000 since 2012—due to funding cuts.

The government denied the new figures, with the Department for Communities and Local Government claiming that rough sleeping had fallen to half its peak figure in 2003.

In reality, economic stagnation and government austerity measures are driving hundreds of thousands into poverty. The bourgeoisie requires that the bank bailouts that followed the 2008 global financial crisis be paid off by the working class through a new “age of austerity.” This agenda could only be imposed with the complicity of the Labour Party and the trade unions.

Alongside years of cuts to welfare entitlements, last month the Conservative Government of Prime Minister Theresa May imposed a draconian welfare cap, agreed by her predecessor David Cameron. This massively reduces the income of the most vulnerable layers of society.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond promised an additional £1.4 billion for housing in England in his Autumn Statement—enough to construct just 40,000 homes. Even if these houses are built, it is far below what is required to meet the real scale of the housing crisis.

Massive protests in Germany against deportations to Afghanistan

Marianne Arens & Martin Kreickenbaum

On Wednesday, 34 Afghan refugees were forcibly deported to Kabul from Frankfurt on a charter flight from the Frankfurt-Rhein-Main Airport. This is the first time such a mass deportation has taken place in Germany. A spontaneous demonstration at the Frankfurt airport involved about a thousand people, including many young people. They wore stop signs and chanted slogans such as “Deportation is torture, deportation is murder. A right to stay for all, immediately!”

Protests and demonstrations have already taken place. On Saturday, the “International Day of Human Rights,” thousands of people in Berlin participated in a demonstration to stop deportations to Afghanistan.

In spite of these protests, the German government went ahead with the deportations using extreme brutality. It is deporting refugees, many of whom have been tolerated for many years, back to a country where war rages and basic human rights are nonexistent.

In October, the EU agreed a repatriation agreement with the puppet government in Afghanistan and assured the payment of €1.7 billion when the Afghan government accepts refugees in return. The driving force behind the shabby deal was the German government. On this basis, the German Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Maizière (CDU), wants to expel up to 12,500 people from Germany to Afghanistan whose asylum applications have been rejected and only have “toleration” status.

It was originally planned to deport 50 Afghan refugees on Wednesday. Fifteen people had gone underground, however, de Maizière explained. He announced that “in future families and women would also be deported.”

The deportees were by no means “criminal asylum-seekers,” as had been claimed earlier. Most of them were refugees who had lived in Germany for years and were now being deported overnight. Twenty-two-year-old Babur Sedik told the Frankfurter Rundschau that he had been in Germany for four years and had lived exclusively in refugee homes and camps. Rahmat Khan, also 22, had fled from the fiercely contested region of Paktia and has now been deported.

The Bavarian refugee council reported that an Afghan refugee from Dingolfing had jumped out of the window at 3 a.m. when police sought to arrest him. He was taken to a clinic and apparently placed on the plane after short-lived treatment.

The ruthlessness of the security authorities against Afghan refugees is also shown by the case of 24-year-old Samir Narang from Hamburg, who went to the Aliens Office to extend his toleration status. Instead of the extension of his residence permit, however, he received an expulsion permit and was put into the deportation prison in Büren, and has now been deported to Kabul. Samir Narang is a Hindu and belongs to a persecuted religious minority in Afghanistan, and who now has to fear for his life there.

The deportation of one 29-year-old Afghan was stopped at the last minute by the Federal Constitutional Court, because he was still pursuing an asylum procedure. This means that the authorities planned to deport refugees whose asylum applications had not yet been finally rejected.

The Federal Constitutional Court reported that the question of whether deportations to Afghanistan were constitutional had been expressly left open. Despite the obvious concerns of the highest German court, the deportations on Wednesday were carried out in a hurry.

The collective deportation is a clear violation of human rights. This is also the position of the international medical organization IPPNW (Doctors for social responsibility). According to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which is also applicable in Germany, deportations of refugees to countries where they are threatened with death, persecution or torture are illegal.

But that is exactly the situation in Afghanistan. Even the guidelines of the Federal Office for Migration, which serve as the basis for asylum decisions, leave no room for doubt. “In all parts of Afghanistan there is a domestic armed conflict in the form of civil war and guerrilla fighting between Afghan security forces and the Taliban, as well as other opposition forces.” Human rights violations are widespread, food supplies are scarce and half of all children in Afghanistan are “endangered by long-term malnutrition.”

The security situation has dramatically intensified in the last 18 months. The UN mission to Afghanistan reported more civilian casualties in the first nine months of this year than since censuses began in 2009. The New York Times reported recently that Taliban militias killed 30 to 50 Afghan security forces every month. They have also increased their attacks on provincial capitals, destroyed roads and infrastructure. The government in Kabul is losing control in more and more parts of the country. According to data from the US government, Islamic groups are increasingly filling the power vacuum.

A commentary on German TV by the journalist Georg Restle described the deportations as a “Christmas present for the extreme right.” He demanded an immediate stop to the deportations.

Restle went on: “The truth is: Germany is safe, Afghanistan is by no means safe. Also because we have fought a war there, which has made things much worse, rather than better. This is why the federal government has a special responsibility for this country and the people who flee from it. That is why the deportations to Afghanistan have to be stopped. And now, immediately!”

The brutality with which the federal government is enforcing illegal deportations in the dead of night and fog recalls some of the worst crimes of German history. The Nazi deportations also began with resettlement, long before the trains rolled into the extermination camps.

As was the case in those days, racist attacks are a reaction to the growing economic and social crisis. The ruling class is trying to divert the growing opposition to unemployment, poverty and distress with racism. This is why xenophobia is systematically encouraged to incite workers against one other. The attacks on asylum law in Germany and the brutal deportation measures are the prelude to massive attacks on all workers.

The choice of the right-wing demagogue Donald Trump in the US has also given rise to a sharp turn to the right in European and German politics or, more accurately, accelerated the turn to the right. Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer (Christian Social Union, CSU) commented on the deportations on television: “I hope this is not a one-time action.” Hundreds of thousands more people would still have to be deported. He based his comments on Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had said that now “return, return, return” was the order of the day.

Just last week a conference of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) took up the main slogan of the far-right Alternative to Germany, “Foreigners Out!” in its main motion.

In the implementation of this policy, the federal government works closely with all other parties, which are governed by different coalitions at a state level. The states of Hesse, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hamburg, Saarland and North Rhine-Westphalia all participated in the collective deportation. The main responsibility fell to the Hessen state government, a CDU-Green coalition, which has ultimate control over the Rhein-Main airport and the deportations, which are decided upon at state level. The Greens in Hesse expressly agreed to the deportations.

In the Hessen parliament, Green Party chair Mathias Wagner declared the deportations to Afghanistan “difficult to bear,” but that the state parliament could not assess the security situation there and it was necessary to rely on the judgement of the federal authorities.

In Baden-Württemberg, Green Premier Winfried Kretschmann is working closely with Thomas Strobl (CDU). Strobl is the son-in-law of the federal minister of finance, Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) and a right-wing rabble-rouser, who represents the politics of the AfD in the CDU. Green politician Boris Palmer, the mayor of Tübingen, also recently called for deportations to Syria.

As usual, the Left Party plays a miserable double game. It was involved in protests at the airport, but is careful not to jeopardize its coalition with the Social Democratic Party and Greens. In Berlin, it has recently formed a coalition with the SPD and Greens and is also preparing deportations.

In Thuringia, Premier Bodo Ramelow (Left Party) has boasted of his success in deportations. Apparently, deportations to Afghanistan are not taboo. In an appeal issued on the “Day of Human Rights” the Thuringian Refugee Council pointed out: “Many refugees living in Thuringia come from Afghanistan. Very long waiting times for a decision on their asylum application and more and more refusals lead to anxiety about their future among Afghan families, unaccompanied minors, women and men.”

Tennessee wrongfully imprisoned man for three decades, provided only $75 compensation

Shelley Connor 

Lawrence McKinney was imprisoned by the state of Tennessee for 31 years for a rape and burglary he did not commit. Under Tennessee law, McKinney could be compensated $1 million.

However, the Tennessee Parole Board has refused to grant him an exoneration hearing, and the only compensation he ever received was the paltry $75 given to him when he was released from prison in 2009. McKinney has now been forced to bring his case before Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, whose office received the application for executive clemency on November 21.

McKinney was charged in October of 1977 with having raped a Memphis, Tennessee woman and burgling her apartment. Six months later, he and his codefendant were found guilty after the victim identified them in court as her attackers. McKinney, then 22 years old, was sentenced to 115 years in prison for the crime. In 2009, DNA evidence from the victim’s bed sheets demonstrated that McKinney had not been present at the crime scene. He was then released from prison; the state issued him the $75 and the crime was expunged from his record.

Tennessee is one of 31 states with compensation statutes for the wrongly accused. It is also one of many states that complicate the compensation process. McKinney was forced to go before the Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole to seek compensation and exoneration, even though he was released from prison and the crime had been expunged from his record. The board voted 7-0 to deny his exoneration in November.

Patsy Bruce, who sat on the parole board that denied his first exoneration hearing, has stated that she is not convinced that McKinney is innocent, despite DNA to the contrary. She also claimed that the judge and the District Attorney failed to provide properly tested evidence to support McKinney’s innocence.

In the United States DNA evidence was used to exonerate a wrongfully-convicted inmate for the first time in 1989. Since then, nearly 350 people, including McKinney, have been freed on the basis of DNA evidence.

The states, however, have been criminally remiss in responding to the life-changing implications of this technology. Nineteen states—Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming—have yet to enact statutes providing compensation for those exonerated of crimes.

In the 31 states where compensation laws do exist, the processes to obtain compensation can be prohibitively time consuming and expensive. In New York, an exoneree has only a two-year window to file civil cases against state and municipal governments to receive compensation. These cases can take years to adjudicate, as demonstrated by the ongoing case of Alan Newton.

In 2010, Newton successfully sued New York City for $18.5 million after his exoneration. Newton had been convicted of rape, robbery, and assault in 1985 in a case that prosecutors had built around eyewitness testimony. He had requested DNA testing of evidence in 1994 and was denied; in 2006, after serving over 20 years in prison, he was finally released on the basis of such evidence.

The city appealed the judgment. In 2011, United States District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin set the judgment aside. Newton appealed Scheindlin’s decision. In 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated Scheindlin’s ruling and turned the case back over to her.

In March of this year, Scheindlin reduced the award to $12 million, claiming that the previous amount was excessive. If Newton did not accept the reduced amount, Scheindlin said, he would have to suffer another trial. She also cited the fact that Newton had been accused of a separate rape, although he maintains his innocence and no judgment has been made.

In another case, David Ayers, a Cleveland, Ohio man, served 11 years for a murder he did not commit. He was exonerated by DNA evidence in 2011, and two years later, he sued the two Cleveland detectives—Michael Cipo and Denise Kovach—upon whose manufactured evidence he had been incarcerated. The city of Cleveland was originally named in the suit, but was removed before it went to trial. The appellate court judge in the case stated that there was sufficient “evidence that Detectives Cipo and Kovach conspired to violate [Ayers’] civil rights.” Ayers was awarded $13.2 million by the jury.

Three months after the verdict in Ayers’ favor was delivered, Cleveland Law Director Barbara Langhenry helped Kovach and Cipo obtain a bankruptcy attorney. The city contracted to pay the attorney $1000 for each bankruptcy judgment, as well as the filing fee for the bankruptcies. The contract also stipulated that the attorney was required to obtain permission from the city’s law department to undertake legal research into the cases, effectively discouraging the officers and the attorney from exploring alternatives to bankruptcy. Cipo died a few months after Cleveland contracted with the attorney. Kovach declared bankruptcy. Ayers, now over 80 years old, fights on for his compensation.

McKinney, Newton, and Ayers all live in states where statutes provide for compensation for those exonerated of crimes. In each case, though, state and municipal governments have exploited loopholes designed to reduce payment to those they have incarcerated or avoid payment altogether. In some states, someone who has lost years in prison on false murder charges can lose compensation if they are later convicted of another, unrelated crime. As evidenced in McKinney’s case, a parole board can decide that it is not satisfied with exonerating evidence that has already been recognized by courts.

Those exonerated of wrongful convictions spend, on average, 14-15 years in prison. They are released into a society that has changed drastically, after enduring the myriad stressors and threats inherent to prisons. Parents and other loved ones die during their incarceration.

There is no uniform provision that would allow those exonerated to secure housing, employment, health care, or counseling so they can re-enter society successfully. To the contrary, the governments that energetically and enthusiastically prosecuted and imprisoned them expend just as much energy to avoid paying for the damage they inflict upon these exonerees.

Dylann Roof convicted on all counts in Charleston church massacre

Patrick Martin

After a week-long trial in which evidence of his guilt was undisputed, white supremacist Dylann Roof was convicted of all charges in his federal murder and hate crimes trial. A jury of nine whites and three blacks took only two hours to approve 33 counts against him, 18 of which carry the death penalty.

Family members of the victims sat in the courtroom holding hands as the verdicts were read out, with “guilty” sounded after every one. There had been little doubt about the verdicts, since video footage of Roof confessing to the massacre was played to the jury, and even his own attorneys did not suggest he was innocent.

The defense did not call a single witness, but was entirely focused on laying the groundwork for the sentencing phase, in which Roof declared he intended to represent himself. Federal prosecutors have said they will seek a death sentence. The sentence will be decided by the same jurors who heard the evidence in the trial, and that phase of the proceeding will begin on January 3.

The trial included not only Roof’s videotaped confession, but graphic testimony from the three survivors of the massacre, in which Rev. Clementa Walker and eight parishioners, all African-Americans, were slaughtered, as well as excerpts from Roof’s journal, including a list of churches he was considering as possible targets, and an online manifesto he posted, declaring his desire to trigger a race war.

On the second day of the trial, Roof’s mother Amelia Cowles suffered a heart attack after saying “sorry” out loud several times. She was hospitalized and survived. The 22-year-old defendant’s grandmother also attended the trial.

Defense attorney David Bruck, who specializes in death-penalty cases, told the jury in his closing argument that even though Roof was clearly motivated by racial hatred, he was also mentally ill. He called his client an immature young man who embraced the “mad idea that he can make things better by executing those kind, virtuous people.”

Roof apparently planned to kill himself or force police to shoot him to death in a final confrontation after the massacre, and he left one elderly black woman in the church alive, telling her that he needed her to be the only witness to his murders. In the event, however, he was taken without resistance the next day, after police pulled his vehicle over in Shelby, North Carolina, more than 200 miles from Charleston.

Media coverage of the trial has been completely superficial, repeatedly characterizing Roof as “evil,” without attempting to explain the deeper social roots of his terrible crime. The bloodbath in Charleston is only one of a seemingly endless series of such violent mass killings, many of them motivated by confused right-wing and racist sentiments, others without any discernible rationale except despair and alienation from society.

There has been zero mention in current media reports about the trial of Roof’s connections to ultra-right political circles in South Carolina, a hotbed of what is now termed the “alt-right,” or his “white nationalist” sentiments. Roof cited the web site of the Council of Conservative Citizens as crucial to his own development as a white supremacist.

The president of the Council of Conservative Citizens, which calls for opposition to “all efforts to mix the races of mankind,” gave $65,000 to Republican campaigns over the past few years, including the presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum.

Roof cited the group’s web site as a source of his becoming “truly awakened” about racial tensions in the United States, particularly its commentaries on “brutal black on white murders,” justifying the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black youth killed by vigilante gunman George Zimmerman.

The Council of Conservative Citizens has high-level connections in the Republican Party. One of its members, Roan Quintana, was a co-chair in the 2014 re-election campaign of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley—chosen by Donald Trump to be his ambassador to the United Nations.

Worse than that, Steven Bannon, former head of the ultra-right Breitbart News, has been named by Trump as his senior policy adviser at the White House, co-equal with chief of staff Reince Priebus in the inner workings of the new administration.

Breitbart, considered a major forum for the alt-right, went on the warpath after the Charleston massacre to defend the Confederate flag, after Haley and other Republican politicians decided that the emblem of the old slavocracy had to be removed from the state capitol in Columbia in the wake of Roof’s racist massacre.

Two weeks after the massacre, Breitbart carried a commentary headlined, “Hoist It High And Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims A Glorious Heritage,” effectively declaring its solidarity with the racist murderer.

Beyond the overt white racist motivation of the massacre, the killings in Charleston followed in a long line of such atrocities, most involving young, alienated and deeply troubled young men.

As the World Socialist Web Site noted at the time, “What psychological and sociological features do the various perpetrators share in common? A highly advanced state of social alienation, great bitterness at other human beings, self-hatred, isolation, general despondency and the recourse to extreme violence to solve their real or imagined problems.

“These tendencies recur too often and too devastatingly to be mere personal failings; they clearly come from the broader society. They reflect a terrible malaise, the mentality of individuals living perpetually under a dark cloud, who have no hope for the future, who can only imagine that things will get worse. Only look at the Facebook photograph of Dylann Roof if you want some idea of this bleakness and despondency!”

The militarism, bullying and celebration of wealth and privilege that characterize the incoming Trump administration will only insure that such tragedies occur with even greater frequency and ferocity.