Protests continue against corruption in Romania

Peter Schwarz

Tens of thousands have been taking to the streets each day in Romania to protest against a relaxation of anti-corruption laws.

On Tuesday evening, the government used an emergency decree to implement legal changes protecting corrupt politicians from prosecution. It also submitted a law to parliament that would grant amnesty to criminals who have been sentenced to less than five years in prison. As a result, several politicians sitting in prison for corruption will benefit.

There were fierce protests on Wednesday in the capital Bucharest and 55 other cities. According to the police, some 250,000 people participated in the demonstrations, while others put the figure at 300,000. The protests continued on Thursday and Friday. According to participants, the protests will continue for 10 days. The new regulations will then come into force, if the government does not retreat.

Corruption is endemic in Romanian politics. Many leading politicians are under investigation, have criminal records or are in custody. According to the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA), there are currently 2,150 facing charges of misconduct in office. Those affected include not only the ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD), but also all the other bourgeois parties.

The protests are only superficially about corruption, which is seen especially by younger representatives of the middle class as an obstacle to their own social advancement. Behind this is a power struggle within the ruling elite that has been raging for years over foreign policy orientation and the allocation of sinecures.

NATO member Romania, with its proximity to Russia and border with Ukraine and the Black Sea, plays a key role in the efforts of the United States to encircle Russia militarily. It is the location of the US missile defence shield and is striving—together with Bulgaria and Turkey—to establish a permanent NATO fleet in the Black Sea, the most important base of the Russian Navy.

Tensions between the US and Europe always find a direct echo in Romanian domestic politics. With the intensification of tensions as a result of the new administration of Donald Trump, the trench warfare in Romania is taking on more aggressive forms. This is the main reason for the flare-up of the protests.

It is significant that the European Union is openly standing behind the demonstrations. In a joint statement, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and his deputy Frans Timmermans expressed their “deep concern about the recent developments in Romania.” They demanded: “The fight against corruption must be taken forward, not be undone.”

The spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry, Martin Schaefer, also explained that the Romanian government’s decree was “not a good and proper sign.”

Romanian President Klaus Johannis has openly sided against the government’s plans. On the very night the government agreed the legislative change, he wrote on his Facebook page that it was a “day of mourning for the rule of law,” which had received a “powerful blow by the opponents of justice, equity and the fight against corruption.” Johannis described it as his mission to restore the rule of law.

On January 22, when the first plans about the law change were leaked, the president had participated in street protests against them. As a result, the PSD chairman, Liviu Dragnea, accused him of wanting to take part in a coup.

Johannis, regarded as a follower of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, was elected as president of Romania at the end of 2014. The most important opposition candidate was the then Prime Minister Victor Ponta of the PSD. A year later, Ponta resigned following a wave of protests, which bear a great similarity with the current ones.

At the time, the WSWS characterized the protests as follows: “The demonstrations, styled in the media as a ‘popular revolution,’ represent the efforts of the imperialist powers and local elites to cultivate a layer of the upper middle class as a constituency for their policies of war and austerity.”

Johannis utilised Ponta’s resignation to install a technocrat government under the non-party former european commissioner Dacian Ciolos, who was responsible for ruthlessly implementing Brussels’ austerity diktats.

The consequences for the working class were devastating. More than 25 years after the fall of the Stalinist Ceausescu regime and 10 years after Romania’s accession to the EU, it remains the poorhouse of Europe. According to the EU Social Justice Report by the Bertelsmann Foundation, it stands in 27th place. Only Greece is worse. The average wage is €400 (US$430) a month; 40 percent of the population and 48 percent of young people under 18 are at risk of poverty; 28 percent of the population suffer from severe material deprivation.

In the end, the policies of the Ciolos government were so hated that the PSD won over 45 percent of the vote in early elections last December. However, turnout was below 40 percent. At the beginning of this year, the PSD formed a new government under Sorin Grindeanu, which is now the focus of the protests.

Since the fall of Ceausescu, the PSD and its predecessor organization have been reliable pillars of capitalist rule in Romania. Closely associated with the trade unions, it supported ferocious attacks on the working class, the privatization of state enterprises and accession to NATO and the European Union. The successor organization of the former Stalinist state party, it always encountered a certain mistrust from Washington, Brussels and Berlin. The accusation of corruption has always been a synonym for the suspicion it was being influenced by Moscow.

Now that the conflicts between Brussels and Washington are escalating, the PSD is trying to curry favour with the Trump administration. Party chairman Liviu Dragnea and premier Grindeanu have publicly boasted that they participated in a private dinner during Donald Trump’s inauguration, at which the new president was present.

Dragnea published photos on Facebook, claiming he told Trump he wanted to take the strategic partnership between Romania and the US to a new level. Trump replied, “We will make it happen! Romania is important for us!”

They also met with Michael Flynn, national security adviser, and discussed “the excellent perspectives of the strategic partnership between Romania and the United States.” He had assured Flynn that the new government would respect Romania’s commitment to allocate 2 percent of GDP to defence.

President Johannis responded immediately. His office issued a statement saying that the Romanian ambassador to the US was the country’s only official representative at the inauguration ceremony. “Delegations made of representatives of some institutions or political parties, who take part in events organized in the margins of the official inauguration ceremonies, do not represent the Romanian state.”

FBI secret manuals allow for warrantless stalking of journalists

Zaida Green

More than 1,000 pages of FBI policy manuals recently leaked by The Intercept detail the agency’s secret powers, which were massively expanded under the Obama administration. These include the power to send armed surveillance teams to stalk journalists without a warrant, to coerce potential informants (including minors) with deportation, and to extensively infiltrate campus, ethnic and political organizations. The leaked manuals are the subject of an 11-part report by the online journal.

The biggest document obtained by The Intercept is the 2011 edition of the agency’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG), a 656-page policy manual, in unredacted form for the first time. The rulebook governs all of the agency’s activities, including infiltration, surveillance, and electronic information collection.

Infiltration and surveillance

One category of investigation outlined by the DIOG is the “Assessment,” created in December 2008, which codifies warrantless stalking. Assessments do not need the authorization of a court, nor do they need to be based on any evidence—“particular factual predication” in the manual’s bureaucratic jargon—let alone the suspicion of any wrongdoing. Certain types of assessments may be “proactively” initiated by individual agents on their own. Most other assessments need only the rubber stamp of a supervisor, the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the field office, in order to proceed.

An FBI agent may request from an Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) the deployment of a mobile surveillance team—including armed teams—to physically stalk the subject of an assessment, including (but not limited to) journalists, religious figures, elected officials, potential informants, and individuals who are not the subject of any investigation. The manual’s 2011 revision removed the restriction of only one surveillance team per assessment.

Agents may also request authorization to aerially surveil the land around a target’s home, including with thermal imaging cameras. The manual asserts that people’s yards “do not enjoy Fourth Amendment protection from aircraft-mounted surveillance” and thus do not require search warrants authorized by a judge. In assessments related to counterterrorism, the “best practices” outlined in the FBI’s Counterterrorism Policy Guide directs agents to cross-reference the agency’s databases and other systems with information such as the subject’s phone numbers.

Assessments can be used to map and collect information on populations with potential informants and on other communities of interest, including demographic data, religious affiliations, community dynamics, and businesses. FBI memoranda obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) revealed that the FBI mapped Chinese neighborhoods in San Francisco because “[w]ithin this community there has been organized crime for generations.”

Data collected by an assessment can be retained for decades and queried by various law enforcement agencies for years, even when the assessment never leads to an investigation.

FBI infiltration of any group, both “sensitive” (e.g., religious, political, ethnic) and “non-sensitive” (e.g., business, recreational) also does not need the approval of a court. The unredacted form of the DIOG reveals loopholes exploited by the agency to jump over the already threadbare safeguards against infiltration. By labeling groups with majority non-citizen memberships as acting on the behalf of a foreign power, and labeling any group “illegitimate,” agents can avoid the apparently onerous burdens of fetching the rubber-stamp of an SAC, and the go-ahead from their division’s head legal adviser if the group is sensitive.

If a group is not related to “sensitive investigative matters,” then, with the approval of the division’s head legal adviser, FBI infiltrators may “substantially affect” the group’s agenda on social, religious, or political issues.

A report issued by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2010 revealed that the FBI had illegally infiltrated left-wing groups, spying on an antiwar rally for the concocted purpose of investigating “international terrorism subjects” (and lying about it at a congressional hearing), and labeling nonviolent acts of civil disobedience as “acts of terrorism” so as to place activists on federal watch lists.

FBI use of informants

The 2015 edition of the FBI’s Confidential Human Source Policy Guide expands the powers afforded by the manual’s 2007 edition on how the FBI handles informants. The new policies, with an entire chapter devoted to “Immigration Matters,” allow the agency to threaten potential informants—including minors—with deportation if they don’t cooperate with the agency.

The FBI works closely with the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency to identify potential informants whose immigration status they can use as leverage, then petitions Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to allow the informants and/or their dependents temporary relief from deportation—but only as long as they remain useful to the FBI. As soon as an informant loses value, the FBI is obligated to report them to ICE and to have their relief terminated. A presentation obtained by The Intercept and drawn up by the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force refers to these coercive methods as “immigration relief dangle.”

In the case of Moroccan citizen Yassine Ouassif, border agents seized his permanent residency card as he was crossing from New York to Canada, forced him onto a bus back to San Francisco, and instructed him to contact an FBI agent. The agent offered him a choice: become an informant so that he and his wife can stay in the United States, or be deported to Morocco.

With permission from an SAC, FBI agents may recruit minors, emancipated or not, as informants, with or without their caretakers’ consent. With the permission of the DOJ, the FBI may also recruit clergy, lawyers and journalists. Informants can operate in other countries and the FBI is not required to notify the host countries.

One of the FBI documents obtained by The Intercept is an educational pamphlet on cultivating informants and how to build effective dossiers. These “source identification packages” identify, among other things, informants’ motivations, vulnerabilities, family relations, financial goals and psychological characteristics. Today, the FBI has more than 15,000 informants—over ten times the number the agency had in the 1970s—and has built software dedicated to tracking and managing said informants.

The FBI’s online activities are now coordinated under the Net Talon National Initiative, first established in 2008. The agency’s online operations are so ubiquitous that internal documents complain of resources accidentally wasted on investigations of personas created by its own agents.

FBI agents may converse with someone who has nothing to do with any investigation, and then decide that person should be the subject of an investigation. Agents can target any web site, forum or online network that the FBI believes terrorists are using “to encourage and recruit members” or to spread propaganda.

The FBI has a long and sordid history of entrapping socially isolated, often mentally ill individuals in terror plots that they would otherwise have no capacity to enact. In the case of 29-year-old Basit Javid Sheikh, the FBI created a fake Facebook profile of a female Syrian nurse whom Sheikh became infatuated with. After Sheikh confessed to the “nurse” that he wanted to travel to join an Islamist militia, the nurse suggested he join the US-backed al-Nusra Front and another undercover FBI agent promised Sheikh a way in. Sheikh agreed, purchased a plane ticket to Beirut, and was arrested at Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina. A federal judge later ruled that Sheikh was mentally ill and not competent to participate in his hearing.

Phone surveillance and warrantless search requests

The DIOG also details the use of “pen register” and “trap and trace” devices, which disrupt a phone line’s service as it tracks the numbers dialed into it. Judges can grant the FBI and other law enforcement agencies pen register orders without the need for officers to establish probable cause. These orders not only authorize the use of these recording devices, but also can be used to demand that the subjects’ telecom provider immediately hand over any and all telephone numbers, email addresses, and other dialing, routing, addressing or signaling information that the agent deems “relevant” to the investigation.

National Security Letters (NSLs) function as another type of warrantless search request that may be issued to telecom providers and other financial institutions. NSLs can be issued by a variety of FBI leadership personnel. Over 300,000 NSLs have been issued in the past 10 years, with an average of over 35 a day in 2015.

The scope of NSLs issued to Internet companies is limited to basic subscriber information: name, address, length of service. But FBI internal guidelines reveal that the agency has standard templates for requesting email transaction information, such as email headers and activity logs, which are beyond the scope of what an NSL can be used to obtain. The DIOG also reveals that the agency uses NSLs to obtain “second generation” call records of multiple individuals en masse. The FBI may label journalists as foreign spies to sidestep the required DOJ approval of NSLs targeting journalists.

The ACLU chief technologist Chris Soghoian, speaking to The Intercept, explained that the FBI routinely asks for information it is not legally entitled to “because it is banking that some companies won’t know the law and will disclose more than they have to … The FBI is preying on small companies who don’t have the resources to hire national security law experts.”

With the monstrous expansion of the FBI’s spying powers under Obama, the Trump administration, the most right-wing government in American history, now holds the reins of a domestic intelligence agency with the freedom to spy on masses of people without so much as a rubber stamp.

Trump threatens to send US troops to Mexico in conversation with Peña Nieto

Clodomiro Puentes 

According to a short excerpt of a telephone conversation between US President Donald Trump and his Mexican counterpart Enrique Peña Nieto, leaked by an anonymous White House official, the US head of state threatened to send US troops south of the border because of the Mexican military’s supposed reluctance in prosecuting a bloody “war on drugs.”

“You have a bunch of bad hombres down there,” Trump told Peña Nieto, according to the excerpt given to AP. “You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.”

The Associated Press claims the leaker provided only that snippet of the conversation to the news agency on condition of anonymity because the administration did not make the details of the call public. Mexico’s Secretariat of Foreign Affairs denies the veracity of what was leaked of Trump’s bellicose and inflammatory remarks.

Eduardo Sánchez, spokesman for the Mexican president, asserted that Trump’s threat, “did not happen during the call.” According to this account, Peña Nieto had first posed the matter of cross-border arms trafficking. Sánchez claimed he was not in a position to confirm the content of Trump’s response.

However, a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, subsequently told the media that Trump had made the remark, but claimed that it was “lighthearted.”

News of the exchange last Friday comes alongside a similarly tense conversation between Trump and Australian Prime Minister John Turnbull over a refugee-swap deal brokered during the Obama administration.

Given both the Australian and Mexican governments’ efforts to downplay the tenor of the discussions, there is the likelihood that the leaks were calculated to send a message to ruling classes around the world as to the “new political order,” to use Stephen Bannon’s ominous phrase, represented by the “America First” orientation of the Trump administration.

The exchange between Trump and Peña exposed the historical character of the relationship between the two countries—that is, one of imperialist exploitation of Mexico by Washington. Trump’s crude bullying, his addressing of a head of state as though a colonial administrator to a coolie, would simply be the slipping away of the mask of diplomatic civility hitherto concealing the ugly face of US imperialism.

In looking at the social devastation wrought by Mexico’s War on Drugs, including over 166,000 dead and some 28,000 disappeared in the past decade alone, and from there to draw the conclusion that the Mexican military is operating with an excess of timidity, only points to the barbarous and fascistic outlook prevalent at the summits of power.

Of course, this outlook is not unique to the Trump administration. The Democrats have no serious differences with the Trump administration’s current approach to the long and predatory relationship of the American ruling class towards Mexico. After all, Vermont senator and “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders voted to confirm former Marine General and commander of US Southern Command John F. Kelly as secretary of Homeland Security.

That Kelly, who has voiced his opposition to sanctuary cities and his support of the recent immigration ban, is held by Democrats and their coterie of pundits to be a “moderating influence,” exposes as a fraud their feigned commitment to immigrants and refugees currently facing the threat of deportation.

Far from an isolationist strategy, Trump’s “America First” policy would mean further stacking the terms of US-Mexico trade in Washington’s favor. Taken to its most extreme conclusion, it also signals to the Mexican ruling elite the willingness of the present administration to employ military force in pursuit of US profit interests.

In response to the growing economic and political threats from the north, the Mexican bourgeoisie is attempting to lessen its dependence on US-Mexico trade, whose balance is decidedly in US imperialism’s favor, contrary to Trump’s bald-faced lie that the US is “being taken advantage of.” While 80 percent of Mexican exports head to the US, by comparison, only 15 percent of US exports go to Mexico.

Mexico has recently moved to fast-track a “modernized” trade agreements with the EU, with the next rounds of negotiations scheduled for April and June in Brussels and Mexico, respectively.

The Peña Nieto government has also sought to strengthen economic ties along the Pacific and in the Americas. Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Videgaray has highlighted in particular the revisiting of trade relations with the countries of the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) and South America, alongside China, South Korea and Japan.

In particular, Mexico and China have announced a $212 million deal, brokered by multibillionaire Carlos Slim, to begin assembling cars for the Chinese state-owned automaker JAC Motors in the state of Hidalgo, with hopes of catering to domestic and Latin American markets.

Despite the open threats, Peña Nieto and the Mexican ruling establishment will undoubtedly continue efforts to curry favor with the Trump administration.

From the role of the CIA in assisting previous PRI governments in carrying out a “dirty war” against leftists and guerrillas, to the current funding of the Mexican repressive apparatus through agreements such as the Merida Initiative in order to brutalize and deport Central American immigrants, the Mexican ruling elite has a long and bloody history of close collaboration with Washington.

EU summit marks escalation of conflict between Europe and US

Johannes Stern 

The European Union summit in Malta on Friday was held in the context of growing tensions between Europe and the United States. Although the official topics of discussion were the exclusion of refugees from the EU, the future of the EU after Brexit, and preparations for the 60th anniversary in March of the Treaty of Rome, many European leaders used the occasion to sharply criticize the policies of the new US government.

“It is unacceptable that the president of the United States should make a series of statements pressuring Europe on what it should or should not be,” said French President François Hollande upon his arrival in Valletta, the capital of Malta.

German Chancellor Angel Merkel called for a strengthening of Europe’s international role in response to Donald Trump’s policies. She said that in view of the new US president, the more clearly Europe defines its role in the world, “the better we can maintain our transatlantic relationships.” She repeated her statement from the middle of January that Europe has “its fate in its own hands.”

This did not go far enough for Martin Schulz of the Social Democratic Party, who is a candidate for German chancellor and the former president of the European Parliament. In an interview with Der Spiegel, he demanded that Merkel adopt a tougher attitude toward Washington.

The chancellor must not “keep quiet about behaviour we cannot accept,” he said. “If Trump sends his wrecking ball through our set of values, one must say clearly: that is not our policy.” Schulz declared the new US president to be “extremely dangerous to democracy.” He accused Trump of playing with “the security of the Western world” and beginning “a culture war.”

Even before the summit, EU Council President Donald Tusk of Poland spoke of “worrisome declarations by the new American administration,” and characterized the US as an external “threat” along with “Russia’s aggressive policy,” an “increasingly, let us call it, assertive China” and the “wars, terror and anarchy in the Middle East and in Africa.” He said that “particularly the change in Washington” is placing the EU “in a difficult situation,” since the “new administration [is] seeming to put into question the last 70 years of American foreign policy.”

Tusk called on the 27 leaders of the countries that will remain in the EU after Brexit to implement a new common European foreign and defence policy to secure their global geo-strategic and economic interests, if necessary in opposition to Washington.

To master the “most dangerous challenges since the signing of the Rome Treaty,” he said, it is necessary “to take decisive, spectacular measures.” The aim must be “to use the changes in the trade strategy of the US to the advantage of the EU by intensifying our discussions with interested partners.”

This requires “a definitive strengthening of the external borders of the EU, improved collaboration between agencies that are responsible for combating terrorism and protecting peace and order within the border-free zone, an increase in defence spending, and a strengthening of the foreign policy of the EU as a whole.”

After the initial shock, the EU is reacting with aggressive countermeasures to what Tusk called the “new geopolitical situation” brought on by Trump’s nationalistic and militaristic foreign policy, which has in its crosshairs Germany and the EU as well as Iran, Russia, China and Mexico.

The Handelsblatt responded enthusiastically on Wednesday in an article entitled “The EU fights back.” It wrote, “After initial speechlessness, the EU has reacted fiercely to Trump’s attacks and decisions.”

In addition to Tusk’s declaration, the German business newspaper hailed the decision of the EU “to put the US on the planned tax haven black list.” Green Party member of the European Parliament and cofounder of Attac-Deutschland, Sven Giegold, said it is “right that the EU Commission is targeting the US tax system.”

On Thursday, other leading members of the European Parliament opposed the expected appointment of Ted Malloch as the new American ambassador to the EU. Malloch openly questions the existence of the EU and has indicated that his aim is its destruction. In an interview conducted in January, he told the BBC why he wanted to become the US ambassador in Brussels. “I took a diplomatic post that helped to destroy the Soviet Union,” he said. “Perhaps there is another union that needs taming.”

In an open letter to Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, the factional heads of the Liberals (ALDE) and the conservatives (EVP) in the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt and Manfred Weber, said, “These statements demonstrate outrageous malice toward the values that constitute the EU. If an official representative of the US were to say something like this, it could seriously damage the transatlantic relationship that has been an essential contribution to peace, stability and prosperity on our continent.”

The deeper cause of the worsening of the transatlantic relationship as well as growing tensions within the EU itself is, however, not Malloch’s statements, or Trump’s actions, but the fundamental contradictions of the world capitalist system: the contradiction between the global integration and interconnection of the economy and its division into national states with opposed interests, and the contradiction between the social character of global production and its subordination to private ownership of the means of production and the accumulation of private profit by the ruling class.

Twenty-five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, these contradictions, which in the last century led to two world wars but also the October Revolution in Russia, are emerging once again and driving the ruling class on both sides of the Atlantic to ever more aggressive measures. While Trump’s “America First” policy is aimed at offsetting the economic decline of US imperialism by military means, the EU is reacting to the deep political, economic and social divisions in Europe with the militarization of the continent in both domestic and foreign policy.

Like few EU summits before it, the meeting in Malta contributed to the exposure of the rhetoric of democracy and human rights that is being used to mobilize the widespread outrage over Trump behind the realization of European great power fantasies.

The so-called “Declaration of Malta” prescribes the brutal sealing off of the central Mediterranean route against refugees from Africa. This involves the arming and training of the Libyan coast guard, which is infamous for its brutality, to capture refugees when they are still in Libyan territorial waters and bring them back to the African coast.

During her visit to Ankara on Thursday, Merkel supported the dirty refugee deal between the EU and Turkey, which aims to keep out refugees from the war-torn regions of the Middle East.

US defence secretary threatens North Korea with “overwhelming” force

Peter Symonds

US Defence Secretary James Mattis, who is currently touring North East Asia, warned North Korea yesterday that any attack on the United States and its allies would be defeated. And any use of nuclear weapons would be met with an “effective and overwhelming” response.

This bellicose threat only has one meaning: the obliteration of the North Korea’s regime, as well as its military, industry and infrastructure, with the loss of countless lives. It is a message that is aimed not only at North Korea, but also China, Pyongyang’s only ally and economic lifeline.

In the first instance, Mattis’s comments were aimed at reassuring South Korea and Japan. During last year’s presidential election campaign, President Trump threatened to walk away from the US alliances with Japan and South Korea if they did not pay a far greater share of the costs of the extensive American military bases in their countries.

On his flight to South Korea, Mattis declared that the alliance between the two countries as “enduring.” He met with South Korea’s acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn on Thursday and pledged that the US intended to stand “shoulder to shoulder” against any North Korean threat. After meeting with the US defence secretary on Friday, South Korean Defence Minister Han Mikoo welcomed Mattis’s threat to North Korea as evidence of the allies’ close military cooperation.

For all the public reassurances, Mattis is likely to have discussed South Korea paying a greater share of the ongoing costs and restructuring of US military bases. The Pentagon has been engaged in a major reorganisation of its presence in South Korea as part of the Obama administration’s military build-up throughout the region in preparation for war with China. The US has some 28,500 military personnel in the country.

Mattis’s immediate priority was to secure the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) battery to South Korea. The South Korean government, under pressure from the Obama administration, agreed last year to install the sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system despite widespread local opposition.

Mattis repeated the claim that the THAAD battery in South Korea, part of an extensive and growing anti-missile system in Asia, is aimed against North Korea. “If it were not for the provocative behaviour of North Korea, we would have no need for THAAD out here,” he said.

The prime target of the US anti-missile network is not North Korea, but China, which has protested against the planned THAAD installation in South Korea. The THAAD system, which is capable of shooting down nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, is not primarily for defence, but to neutralise China’s ability to retaliate in the event of a US first nuclear strike.

Mattis and his South Korean counterpart announced that the THAAD system would be deployed by the end of 2017. The South Korean government, however, is mired in political crisis after the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. Her future is now in the hands of the Constitutional Court. If she is removed from office, a fresh presidential election will be held.

South Korean opposition parties have no opposition in principle to the THAAD deployment but are seeking to capitalise on mounting public opposition. The Los Angeles Times reported: “A large group gathered in a central square [in Seoul] Thursday to protest Mattis’ arrival. One held a sign that read, ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis—Not Welcome in Korea. More protesters were expected Friday.”

“Mad Dog” Mattis is a former Marine general and head of US Central Command notorious for his murderous language and methods in the Middle East. The fact that he chose to make his first overseas trip as defence secretary to North East Asia is another sign that the Trump administration has put a confrontation with China at the top of its agenda.

Trump’s threats of trade war measures against have gone hand-in-hand with bellicose statements on China’s activities in the South China Sea and North Korea. Trump has repeatedly accused Beijing of failing to use its economic muscle to force Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear weapons and programs.

Trump responded last month to North Korea's claims that it was preparing to test an intercontinental ballistic missile by flatly declaring that it “won’t happen.” While he gave no indication how the US would prevent such a test, the implication was that the North Korean missile would either be destroyed on the ground or shot out of the sky by an anti-missile system.

Trump’s belligerent comments toward North Korea coincide with a debate in US foreign policy and military circles over the danger that Pyongyang will soon have nuclear-armed missiles. Patrick Cronin, from the Centre for a New American Security, for instance told the Washington Post that North Korea was “on the cusp of being able to demonstrate and deploy all the sinews of a nuclear-weapon state.”

Prior to Mattis’s trip, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford spoke by phone with his South Korean counterpart to discuss the “acute security situation” posed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. The two reaffirmed the strong commitment of the two countries to building up a joint defence posture.

Under the Obama administration, the US and South Korean militaries agreed to new joint operational plans—OPLAN 5015—that shifted from a defensive posture in the event of a war with North Korea to an offensive one, including pre-emptive strikes on North Korean missiles and nuclear weapons, and “decapitation” raids on the Pyongyang regime.

In an article this week in the Joint Forces Quarterly, Dunford indicated that any war with North Korea would not be limited to the Korean Peninsula. “Today, North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile, cyber, and space capabilities could quickly threaten the homeland and our allies in the Asia-Pacific region,” he wrote.

“Deterring and, if necessary, defeating a threat from North Korea requires the Joint Force to be capable of nearly instant integration across regions, domains and functions,” Dunford stated.

These comments make clear that the Pentagon is preparing for a conflict that would rapidly draw other powers, including China—a new world war that would range across the world and into outer space.

Mattis left South Korea last night for further talks in Japan over the weekend.

Trump issues orders to roll back bank regulations

Barry Grey 

President Donald Trump signed executive directives on Friday initiating a sweeping rollback of regulations on banks and financial brokers enacted under the Obama administration following the Wall Street crash of 2008.

Trump’s actions target in particular the 2010 Dodd-Frank bank regulations and a Labor Department rule set to take effect in April requiring financial advisers to put the interests of retired clients before their own monetary rewards.

The billionaire president seemed to flaunt his promotion of Wall Street’s interests, signing the two measures after meeting in the White House with his business council. The council is chaired by Stephen A. Schwarzman, the multi-billionaire chief executive of the private equity giant Blackstone Group.

Among the dozen or so corporate executives in attendance were Jamie Dimon, another billionaire, who heads JPMorgan Chase, the largest US bank, and Laurence D. Fink, the mega-millionaire chief of the investment firm BlackRock.

“We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank because frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine that had nice businesses, they can’t borrow money,” Trump said during his meeting with the corporate bosses. He praised Dimon, who has bitterly campaigned against the Dodd-Frank law. JP Morgan Chase was fined billions of dollars in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis for multiple violations of bank regulations and laws, including fraudulent sub-prime mortgage deals that contributed to the collapse of the US housing market in 2007. A frequent visitor to the Obama White House, Dimon was for a time known as “Obama’s favorite banker.”

“There’s nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie,” Trump declared.

Trump also had high praise for Fink, touting BlackRock’s management of Trump money for earning “great returns.”

Nothing could more clearly expose the farce of Trump’s pretensions to be a champion of the American worker.

Wall Street celebrated the attack on financial regulations with a stock buying spree focused on bank and financial shares. The biggest winners were JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Visa on a day that saw the Dow surge 186 points to recoup recent losses. It closed once again above the 20,000 mark, ending at 20,071. The Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq indexes also recorded big gains, with the Nasdaq ending the trading session in record territory.

Trump’s assault on bank regulations is of a piece with his moves to gut all legal and regulatory restrictions on corporate profit-making. Since taking office two weeks ago, he has signed executive orders mandating the lifting of regulations across the board, removed obstacles to the construction of the Keystone and Dakota Access oil pipelines, and picked long-time opponents of the Environmental Protection Agency, occupational health and safety rules, and limitations on industrial and mining pollution to head the federal agencies tasked with overseeing these activities.

The White House economic program—including sharp tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, an infrastructure program that amounts to a tax windfall for private investors, a hiring freeze for federal workers, and historic cuts in social programs such as Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security—is the fulfillment of the wish list of America’s financial oligarchy.

Trump and his aides have denounced the 2010 Dodd-Frank law as a “disaster” and an “overreach” of government authority, and they have questioned its constitutionality. In fact, it is a largely token measure passed mainly to provide political cover for Obama’s multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street and the financial elite.

Under Obama, not a single leading banker was prosecuted for the criminal activities that led to the biggest financial disaster and deepest slump since the 1930s, destroying the jobs, life savings and living standards of tens of millions of workers in the US and around the world.

Despite the minimal restraints imposed by Dodd-Frank, during the Obama years bank profits soared, the wealth of the richest 400 Americans increased from $1.57 trillion to $2.4 trillion, the Dow rose by 148 percent, and the concentration of income and wealth in the hands of the top 10 percent, and above all the top 1 percent and 0.01 percent, reached historically unprecedented levels.

But the financial oligarchy, whose grip on the country increased under Obama, will brook not even minor limitations on its “right” to plunder the American and world economy. The Obama years paved the way for the emergence, in the Trump administration, of a government that embodies the oligarchy not only in its policies, but also in its personnel, beginning with the billionaire real estate speculator and reality TV star at its head.

Besides Trump, at least three multi-billionaires will occupy high posts in the administration, including Wilbur Ross, Betsy DeVos and Carl Icahn. Mega-millionaires will include Stephen Mnuchin, Rex Tillerson, Andrew Puzder, Elaine Chao and Gary Cohn, who gave up his number two post as president of Goldman Sachs to become the director of Trump’s National Economic Council.

Overseeing Wall Street as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission will be the longtime lawyer for Goldman Sachs, Jay Clayton. In addition to Cohn, other Goldman alumni include Mnuchin and Trump’s top political adviser, Stephen Bannon.

On Friday, Cohn told Bloomberg Television, “We’re going to attack all aspects of Dodd-Frank.” He absurdly accused the law of “shackling” US banks.

The White House could do “quite a bit” on its own, he said, while making clear that the administration would work with the Republican-dominated Congress to finish the job of ripping up bank regulations. House Republicans are preparing to put forward a bill to replace Dodd-Frank in the coming weeks.

Cohn singled out two provisions of the Dodd-Frank law for particular attack. The first is the so-called Volcker Rule, which restricts the ability of federally insured banks to make financial bets on their own behalf, in what is known as “proprietary trading.” Such gambling, including with depositors’ money, played a major role in the collapse of the banking system in 2008. Wall Street banks, led by Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, have pushed relentlessly for the elimination of this provision.

The second provision is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a largely toothless body under the aegis of the Federal Reserve Board that is tasked with shielding the public from the depredations of the banks, credit card companies and other financial firms. Cohn indicated that the White House might demand the resignation of its director, Richard Cordray, as the first step in the bureau’s evisceration or outright elimination. “Personnel is policy,” he said.

The second action Trump signed was a memorandum instructing the labor secretary to delay implementation of the rule banning financial advisers and brokers from recommending to their retired clients more expensive investments for the purpose of generating greater returns to the advisers. A 2015 report from the Obama administration concluded that “conflicted advice” costs retirement savers $17 billion a year.

Even as Trump was issuing his executive directives on Friday, Senate Republicans were voting to repeal a rule linked to Dodd-Frank that requires oil companies to publicly disclose payments they make to governments in connection with their business operations around the world. Among those who lobbied against the Securities and Exchange rule was the new secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, in his capacity as CEO of Exxon Mobil.

This amnesty for corporate bribery and criminality reveals the essence of the Trump administration’s scorched earth campaign against business regulations.

The Democrats will do nothing to oppose these policies. Their opposition to Trump is focused on differences over US imperialist foreign policy, not opposition to his assault on the democratic and social rights of working people.

But workers looking for an alternative to the political establishment who may have entertained hopes in Trump’s promises to restore decent-paying jobs will be rapidly disabused. The realization that they have once again been conned will have socially explosive consequences.

Atlas Corps Fellowship for Young Leaders in Non-Profit 2017

Application Deadline: 15th March, 2017

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Various host countries

About the Award: Atlas Corps is an overseas fellowship for the world’s best nonprofit leaders. Our mission is to address critical social issues by developing leaders, strengthening organizations, and promoting innovation through an overseas fellowship of skilled nonprofit professionals. The Atlas Corps Fellowship typically lasts 12-18 months. (For those serving in the United States, opportunities start in January, May, September.) Fellows serve full-time at Host Organizations, develop leadership skills, and learn nonprofit best practices through the Atlas Corps Global Leadership Lab professional development series and networking opportunities with other Fellows who are skilled nonprofit professionals from around the world. This prestigious fellowship includes health insurance, enrollment in Atlas Corps Global Leadership Lab, flight and visa costs, and a living stipend to cover basic expenses (food, local transportation, and shared housing).

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• Two or more years of relevant experience
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• English proficiency (oral, writing, reading)
• Age 35 or younger
• Apply to serve in a country other than where you are from (U.S. citizens are not eligible for the U.S. Fellowship)
• Commitment to return to your home country after the 12-18 month Fellowship
• Commitment to living on a basic stipend that only covers food, shared housing, and local transportation

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Fellowship: This fellowship includes health insurance, enrollment in Atlas Corps Global Leadership Lab, flight and visa costs, and a living stipend to cover basic expenses (food, local transportation, and shared housing).

Duration of Fellowship: 12-18 months

How to Apply: Apply via the Fellowship Webpage

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Atlas Corps

Coimbra Group Scholarship Programme for Young African Researchers 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 31st March 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be taken at (Country): The following Coimbra Group universities are participating in the 2017 edition of the scheme:

• University of Barcelona (Spain)
• Eötvös Loránd University Budapest (Hungary)
• University of Granada (Spain)
• University of Graz (Austria)
• University of Groningen (The Netherlands)
• Jagiellonian University of Krakow (Poland)
• KU Leuven (Belgium)
• University of Padova (Italy)
• University of Pavia (Italy)
• University of Poitiers (France)
• University of Salamanca (Spain)

About the Award: Universities of the Coimbra Group offer short-term visits (generally 1 to maximum 3 months) to young African researchers from higher education institutions from Sub-Saharan Africa. The main aim of this scholarship programme is to enable scholars to undertake research in which they are engaged in their home institution and to help them to establish academic and research contacts. The scholarships are financially supported by the Coimbra Group member universities participating in this programme, while the Coimbra Group Office is in charge of the administrative management of the applications.

Type: Research

Eligibility: Applicants should be:

• under the age of 45
• nationals of and current residents in a country in Sub-Saharan Africa
• current staff members of a university or an equivalent higher education institution in Sub-Saharan Africa
• of doctoral/postdoctoral or equivalent status.

Female candidates are encouraged to apply and will be prioritised.

Selection: The administrative check of applications will be undertaken by the Coimbra Group Office in order to select candidates who meet the eligibility criteria. The selection of candidates will be undertaken by the host universities. When selection has been agreed upon, the host university may send a letter of invitation directly to the successful candidate. The Coimbra Group Office will contact all candidates and inform them about the result of their application. Successful candidates currently employed by a University are responsible for ensuring that their home institution will grant them leave of absence to undertake the proposed visit.

Number of Awardees: Limited

Value of Scholarship: Successful candidates will have access to excellent academic knowledge in quality facilities. The scholarships include financial support for tuition, living costs, airfares etc.

Duration of Scholarship: From 1 to maximum 3 months. The dates of candidate’s stay should be agreed upon between the candidate and the academic supervisor at the Coimbra Group University. Typically this will be during the academic year 2017/2018.

SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION HERE

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Coimbra Group

Important Notes: Candidates will be able to select one university only. Multiple applications will not be considered valid.

Nordic Africa Institute Guest Researchers’ Scholarship Program 2017. Fully-funded to Uppsala, Sweden

Application Deadline: 1st April 2017.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be taken at (country): Uppsala, Sweden

About the Award: The purpose of the Guest Researchers’ Scholarship Programme is to provide opportunities for postdoctoral researchers in Africa to pursue their own research projects, thereby indirectly strengthening the academic milieux in African countries. The scholarship offers access to the Institute’s library and other resources that provide for a stimulating research environment. Through the programme, the Nordic Africa Institute can establish and maintain relations with and between African and Nordic research communities.

Type: Research

Eligibility: The scholarship programme is directed at postdoctoral researchers based in Africa and engaged in Africa-oriented research within the discipline of Social Sciences and Humanities. The applicant should be affiliated to an African university/research center and have a proven track record of extensive research experience.

The Institute strives to achieve a fair distribution of scholarship positions in regards to gender and geographic focus.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The scholarship includes a return air-fare (economy class), accommodation, a subsistence allowance of 300 SEK (approx. 34 USD) per day plus an installation grant of 2,500 SEK (approx. 280 USD) and access to a computer in a shared office at NAI.

The Institute’s library is specialized in literature on contemporary Africa and focuses on Social Sciences. Guest Researchers also have access to the Uppsala University Library, including their online resources, and to the Library of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Guest Researchers have the possibility to present their research at the Nordic Africa Institute and to visit other institutions in the Nordic countries.

Duration of Scholarship: The maximum duration of the stay is 90 days, minimum is 60 days.

• Application form
• Up-to-date CV, including list of publications (if available online, please include links)
• Outline of research project, 5 pages:
  – A well elaborated research proposal; the research topic must relate to the research themes of the Institute
  – A work plan, including expected results, specific for the time spent at the Institute
• Reference: A signed letter of support from the applicant’s Head of Department or other senior scholar in the same field, which confirms current affiliation and field of research. (Scanned versions of signed support letters can be emailed by the applicant.)

Applications can be sent by post/airmail or by email. Applications sent by post/airmail should contain 2 copies of each document. Applications sent by email should contain only 1 copy of each document.

Applications sent by post/airmail should be addressed to
The Nordic Africa Institute
Marie Karlsson
P.O. Box 1703
SE-751 47 Uppsala, Sweden.

Applications sent by email should be addressed to
Marie Karlsson, Research Administrator, email: marie.karlsson@nai.uu.se

Please note: On the subject line of your email, write: “Application: Guest Researchers’ Scholarship Programme”. Scanned versions of signed support letters can also be sent to the above email address.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Nordic Africa Institute

Important Notes:  Please note that the subsistence allowance will be provided only for the days spent in Uppsala. Also note that most academic institutions in the Nordic countries, including the Nordic Africa Institute, are closed or at least running at a reduced capacity during the periods 15 June–15 August and 15 December–15 January. Applicants are thus asked not to choose these periods for their visit.

IBM Great Minds Student Internships 2017 for African Students. Pitch your vision and win an internship

Application Deadline: 20th February 2017

Eligible Countries: African countries, central and eastern Europe, the Middle Eastern countries

To be taken at (country): Zurich, Dublin, Nairobi and Johannesburg

Field of Study: The program is open to all full-time students enrolled in a Master’s program in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Software Engineering, Industrial Engineering or Service Science at a recognized university or college in central and eastern Europe, the Middle East or Africa.

Type: Internship

Eligibility:

• The students must have a solid command of the English language in both written and spoken form.
• IBM is an equal-opportunity employer and encourages applications from both genders as well as minority groups.
• We would especially like to encourage qualified women to participate in this competition.

Value of Internship: IBM will pay the winners a lump sum towards travel expenses as well as compensation that covers adequately the cost of living in Switzerland, Ireland, Kenya or South Africa, respectively. IBM will also obtain the necessary visa and work permits for the successful candidates.

Duration of Internship: 3 – 6 months. The internships will take place in 2017. The exact starting time and duration will be agreed upon with the winning students individually, taking into account their academic commitments and the availability of IBM staff.

How to Apply: Participants must be nominated by a faculty member. A recommendation letter from a faculty member is mandatory.

To participate in the Great Minds competition, see the detailed instructions for students in the link below.

Visit Internship Webpage for details

Award Provider: IBM

All the Government Men are Smiling: the Political Climate in Puerto Rico

GUILLERMO R. GIL

A labor reform was signed into law last week in Puerto Rico.

The signing, for media purposes, was held at a locally owned laundromat in the gentrified Santurce sector of the capital.

Thanks to the labor reform, the owner of the laundromat hopes to be able to create “2 or 3 jobs.”

Thanks to the labor reform, new workers will be subjected to longer probationary periods and will have to work more hours per month in order to classify for sick leave and (less) vacation time.

In the picture, all the government men are smiling.

The present governmental administration boasts of having 40% of its cabinet seats filled by women.

In order to be confirmed by the Senate as Education Secretary, Julia Keleher had to swear to be against dual gender bathrooms and a gender responsive curriculum in public schools.

In one of her first actions as Police Superintendent, former Army Colonel Michelle M. Hernández de Fraley decreed a gag order for the entire police force, thus impinging on people’s access to information. This was later overturned.

In response to questions regarding what Trump’s administration might mean for the socio-political conditions of life on the island, Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative in US Congress, Jennifer González, stated that she’s hopeful about what the island might get.

Under Trump, the administration hopes to get the opportunity to negotiate the terms for Puerto Rico’s statehood.

The administration, it appears, is oblivious to the terms of what now constitutes an ‘American’ under Trump.

What now constitutes a ‘good job’ in Puerto Rico depends on whether you ask the owner of the laundromat or the 2-3 people he might be able to hire with less rights and benefits.

In the picture, all the government men are smiling. There are no workers present.

Do the people who work at the highest levels of government classify as workers?

Do the people who are willing to negotiate statehood for Puerto Rico under Trump accept the socio-political implications of Americanness under Trump?

At this time, the people in government are unable to state how many new jobs will be created under the terms of the labor reform. They only emphasize that the labor reform makes for a better climate of negotiation.

At this time, the climate in Puerto Rico is somewhat hot and humid.

In the picture, if you look closely, all the government men are trying really hard not to sweat.