As toll from Peru’s storms mount, capitalists see new source of profits

Cesar Uco

As the death toll and the mass misery inflicted predominantly upon the poorer section of Peru’s population by the torrential rains, flooding and landslides caused by the climatic phenomenon known as El Niño mount, sections of the country’s ruling class are seeing the disaster as a golden opportunity to reap new profits.

According to the latest figures from Peru’s National Emergency Operation Center (COEN), at least 97 people have lost their lives and hundreds of thousands have been left homeless. Bridges, water supplies, schools, hospitals and other facilities have been destroyed or severely damaged, and large sections of the population are threatened with the spread of disease. Dengue outbreaks in the worst hit region of Piura, in northwestern Peru, have increased by 30 percent. The cost of the damage is estimated in the billions of dollars.

Above all, the ravages of El Niño have exposed the stark social inequality that pervades Peruvian society and the utter indifference of the country’s ruling elite to the conditions of the masses of workers and poor as well as to the social infrastructure upon which they depend.

“This is not a natural disaster, but a natural phenomenon that has led to disaster because of the informal way this country has developed,” Gilberto Romero, the head of Peru’s Center for Disaster Research and Prevention, told the Economist magazine.

While feigning sympathy for the suffering that has been inflicted on the population, Peru’s rapacious ruling class is pushing aggressively to turn the disaster into a new stream of wealth.

In its March 24 edition, the Peruvian business daily Gestion led with the headline, “Entrepreneurs demand plan for quick reconstruction.” These “entrepreneurs” are confident in securing the support of President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski—a former Wall Street banker—and his pro-business cabinet for “reconstruction” funds that will flow into the private sector.

The president, whose approval rating has continued to fall throughout the disaster, has refused to name a “tsar” for reconstruction, an indication of his policy of relying almost entirely on private financial firms and construction companies.

To put pressure on the government to release billions of dollars and to borrow similar amounts from the financial sector, Roque Benavides, president of the National Confederation of Private Enterprise Institutions (CONFIEP in Spanish) said: “The lack of solidarity with the people is a shameful act.”

Benavides is the main owner of Minas Buenaventura in the Cajamarca region of Peru’s northern highlands. For him to talk of “solidarity with the people” is an obscenity. Over the past decades, he has become a multimillionaire, exploiting miners and peasants, destroying the environment and trampling over the rights of the native population. In spite of holding large deposits of precious metals, Cajamarca remains one of the three poorest departments in Peru, out of a total of 24.

The truth is that the natural disaster affecting Peru couldn’t have come at a more opportune time for Peru’s capitalists, with the country’s economy rapidly decelerating.

GDP projection has dropped to less than 2.8 percent. Until recently, Barclays and J.P. Morgan had it at 3.4 and 3.5 percent. Inflation is estimated at an annual rate of 3.7 percent, that is, higher than GDP growth.

Perhaps the most significant figure of economic deceleration is the fall of 24 percent in foreign investment this year, hitting its lowest level since 2009.

The entrepreneurs incorporated into business institutions: Confiep, AFIN (National Infrastructure Development, Capeco (Peruvian Chamber for Construction) and SNP (National Fishing Society), have taken a joint stand demanding the government “must act fast and begin reconstruction as quickly as possible.”

In their frantic call for action, one can perceive a sense of fear that this catastrophe, if the government fails to respond quickly—relying, of course on the private enterprise—may trigger uncontrollable social unrest. Already in Piura, people have blocked roads in protest over the lack of aid. In Lima, food price increases were met with angry threats of supermarket takeovers.

Given the predictability of El Niño, the government should have prepared for a potential disaster by creating a substantial reserve fund. It not only failed to do so, this week it came to light that in May 2016, then-President Ollanta Humala, who came into office on the basis of populist and nationalist rhetoric with the backing of Peru’s pseudo-left elements, suspended funding dedicated to preparing for the potential ravages of El Niño. Instead of financing disaster prevention, his administration reassigned most of the US$923 million in funding to other infrastructure activities and preparations for the 2019 Pan American Games, leaving only 5 percent of the original amount.

Now, Peru’s Central Reserve Bank (BCR) estimates that rebuilding bridges and highways nationally will cost more than US$3.8 billion.

According to the official government newspaper, El Peruano, “By means of a supreme decree, the Executive has allocated 1.5 billion nuevos soles [US$462 million] in addition to the original budget of 1 billion, and has determined that this amount is available from the moment in which the legal provision was published, in such a way that its use is immediate at the three levels of government.”

The 2.5 billion nuevos soles, or US$ 730 million decreed by the government, adds up only to 19 percent of the required amount just to repair bridges and highways estimated by the BCR. So, where will the rest of the money come from? While no doubt the national and regional governments can draw upon some additional funding for disaster relief, it will come nowhere near the amount needed.

The Peruvian financial sector, via a Gestion columnist, has made explicit its determination to “save” the country’s economy “with a strategic vision and in an orderly way” in part through “the reprogramming of numerous credits.”

Experience shows that when capitalists lend under conditions of crisis they exact profits far above the average, claiming they are making risky investments.

Nowhere are the predatory aims of the Peruvian ruling elite to enrich themselves off the tragedies inflicted by El Niño expressed more clearly than in their ruthless exploitation of the working class.

The initial “reconstruction” plan contemplates hiring 40,000 laborers to work on projects lasting two to five months, including the building of retaining walls, shore defenses and other protections against floods. The workers will be paid a meager 30 nuevos soles for eight hours of hard and dangerous work; that is US$1.15 per hour, less than the Peruvian minimum wage of 850 nuevos soles per month or US$1.50 per hour.

German air force provides target coordinates for massacre of civilians in Syria

Johannes Stern 

Earlier this week, the German media reported that the number of civilian victims of American air strikes in Syria had risen dramatically. It has now been revealed that the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) have played an important role in “Trumps deadly offensive” (Spiegel Online).

According to reports by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and broadcaster ARD, the Luftwaffe (Air Force) supplied the reconnaissance data for an air attack by the so-called anti-IS coalition on March 21, against the Syrian village of al-Mansoura near Raqqa.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 33 civilians were killed in the attack, while Airwars.org reported up to 420 dead. According to the website, up to 100 refugee families were being accommodated in the Badiya School in Mansoura. The attack apparently claimed the lives of many women and children.

The military blog Augen Geradeaus! (Eyes Forward!) writes: “The Luftwaffe’s reconnaissance Tornados had flown over the building in question two days earlier, and then a few days later to assess the impact of the raid.” The parliamentary Defence Committee, composed of representatives of all parliamentary parties, was informed of the Luftwaffe’s role in a secret meeting on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Defence does not usually comment on “concrete data and targets,” the blog said. Fundamentally, however, Tornado aircraft routinely take pictures of possible targets. These are then passed on to the armed forces of the United States, France, Britain and several Arab states, which use them to determine their targets.

In other words German fighter jets are involved in the devastating coalition air strikes that are claiming the lives of more and more innocent people.

The massacre of Mansoura recalls the criminal history of the Luftwaffe. During the Second World War, it played a significant role in the Nazi war machine.

Guernica, the town destroyed by 1937 German aircraft during the Spanish Civil War, still stands as a symbol for the ruthless bombing of civilians. During the Second World War, the Luftwaffe rained down its terror over Europe, the Soviet Union and North Africa, and destroyed cities such as Warsaw, Stalingrad, Rotterdam and London.

The return of German terror from the air is a direct result of the new superpower appetites of those in power in Berlin. At the Munich Security Conference in January 2014, the then Federal President Joachim Gauck, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (Christian Democratic Union) and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democratic Party) announced “the end of [Germany’s] military restraint.” At the end of 2015, the Luftwaffe then entered the war in Syria, accompanied by up to 1,200 soldiers and a frigate.

In an article in the anthology “Germany’s new foreign policy,” published by Wolfgang Ischinger for this year's Munich Security Conference, current President Frank-Walter Steinmeier repeated his previous demand that Germany intervene “earlier, more decisive and substantially” in foreign policy. There was a “fierce competition for the supposedly correct social order [...] and for geopolitical spheres of influence.” By the “timely setting of the agenda” in “shaping the future order,” he said, Germany could “often be more effective than extinguishing fires later.”

Mansoura shows the horrific consequences of such a policy. The fact that the German ruling class is responsible for the worst crimes in the history of mankind will not stop it from committing new ones to enforce its geopolitical and economic interests worldwide.

Another contribution in the anthology puts this matter bluntly. Under the title, “Foreign policy as moral ordeal,” Jan Techau, director of the Richard C. Holbrooke Forum at the American Academy in Berlin, complained that in Germany, the “neurotic desire to remain 'morally clean' runs through almost all domestic and foreign policy debates.” It is clear, he insisted: “Whoever goes to war, must, as a rule, take responsibility for the deaths of people. Even the deaths of uninvolved and innocent people.”

More than 52,000 in the US died from drug overdoses in 2015

E.P. Milligan

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 52,404 people in the US died from drug overdoses in 2015. Sixty-three percent of overdoses were due to opioids.

Drug overdoses now account for more deaths than from guns or car accidents. The 2015 death rate is significantly higher than the rate during the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 1995, in which 43,115 succumbed to the illness.

Since 1999, opioid overdose numbers have quadrupled. One in four overdose deaths in the US is now due to heroin in particular. Prescription opioids such as oxycodone and hydrocodone also factor in prominently.

The journal JAMA Psychiatry, published by the American Medical Association, has issued a new study that details changes in patters of heroin use since 2001. It concluded that the number of people who have used heroin at some point in their life has increased five times, and the number of heroin abusers has roughly tripled. Some 3.8 million Americans—1.6 per cent of the population—claim to have used heroin at least once.

The sharpest increase in heroin use of all demographic groups has occurred among white males.

The report’s authors compiled survey data from 79,402 individuals between the periods between 2001-2002 and 2012-2013. The responses were collected from the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, a study made by the National Institutes of Health to evaluate substance use and abuse.

Heroin use levels between whites and non-whites were similar in the 2001-2002 figures, at 0.34 percent and 0.32 percent. By 2012-2013, those figures jumped to 1.90 percent among whites—an almost sixfold increase—as opposed to 1.05 percent among non-whites. Use greatly increased among those with a high school education or less in addition to those who lived under the federal poverty line.

Alluding to the deepening social crisis in the United States, the report states “these trends are concerning because increases in the prevalence of heroin use and use disorder have been occurring among vulnerable individuals who have few resources to overcome problems associated with use.”

According to a 2016 Surgeon General’s report on alcohol and drug abuse, only one in 10 individuals that struggle with substance abuse disorders receive treatment.

The study provides further evidence to the culpability of the pharmaceutical industry, which has generated immense profits by flooding the medical market with prescription opioids like oxycodone and hydrocodone. According to survey data, many respondents claimed that they started using heroin after using prescription opioids.

Around one-third of all white heroin users had used prescription drugs in 2001-2002. In 2013, more than half of all white heroin users began with prescription drug abuse. Over the past 20 years, the number of opioid prescriptions has grown threefold.

Heroin use has spread more or less evenly across all age groups. Heroin addiction, however, has grown disproportionately higher amongst those under 45 years of age.

A county by county study published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on Wednesday shows that drug overdose deaths have resulted in 778 years of potential life lost for every 100,000 people. It also notes that the increase in premature deaths among 15- to 44-year-olds is largely from drug overdoses.

A particularly striking development is the growth of drug overdoses in suburban and rural communities. Suburbs, which previously saw the lowest rates of premature death from overdoses, now have the highest.

Confronted with decades of deindustrialization, rising social inequality and debt, housing insecurity, lack of access to decent education and other much-needed social programs, growing layers of working-class populations in suburban and rural communities have turned to substance abuse. These same stresses have given rise to mental illness, with rates of depression and suicide finding a particularly high expression among white male workers.

The so-called “rust-belt” and former coal mining regions of the United States have seen a concentrated expression of these processes. What were once thriving industrial and mining towns have been transformed into desolate, rusting shells of their former selves. Places like Pontiac, Michigan; Akron, Ohio and Huntington, West Virginia have little in the way of decent-paying jobs, while schools and community centers have been shuttered.

The rate of drug overdose deaths in West Virginia has spiraled out of control to the point that the state’s Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) funding for its Indigent Burial Program has run out with five months left in the fiscal year.

The shocking rise of drug use is an ugly expression of the social crisis in America, particularly amongst young people who see no future and no way out from such a desperate predicament.

On Wednesday, President Trump announced the formation of a high-profile group he claims will formulate a strategy to curb the country’s opioid epidemic. This group includes New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. Officials from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have been deliberately left out.

The decision not to include the FDA in this group has sparked criticism from opioid addiction experts, who claim that the agency is an integral part of addressing the epidemic by introducing much-needed regulations on the sale of prescription opioid drugs.

Regardless, Trump’s nominee to head the FDA, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, has deep ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Gottlieb serves on the boards of three drug companies and has a venture capital firm which funds no less than 150 others. It is inconceivable to think that such a pro-corporate administration will lift a finger to alleviate the country’s drug epidemic.

The FDA has been accused of expediting the approval of opioid pain killers for some time now. In 2013 under the Obama administration, the FDA approved Zohydro, the first extended-release pure form of hydrocodone. Ignoring its own advisory panel, which voted 11-2 to reject the drug entirely, the agency approved it without tamper-resistant protections. This allowed the drug to be easily crushed to maximize potency, creating greater potential for abuse.

Japan’s ruling party calls for military to have offensive weapons

Peter Symonds

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has called on the government to boost the country’s anti-ballistic missile systems and to consider acquiring, for the first time, weapons capable of carrying out attacks on enemy bases. The recommendations are another step towards the remilitarisation of Japan pressed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that is adding to sharp regional tensions.

The LDP’s defence policy council handed a report to Abe on Thursday which claimed that North Korea represented a “new level of threat” after it test fired four ballistic missiles last month towards Japan. The launches took place as the US and South Korea engaged in massive annual military drills involving more than 320,000 troops, stealth warplanes and an entire aircraft carrier battle group.

“North Korea’s provocative acts have reached a level that Japan absolutely cannot overlook,” the council stated. “We should not waste any time to strengthen our ballistic missile defense.”

The body, which is headed by former Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera, suggested that Japan acquire weapons such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system that the US is currently installing in South Korea as well as a shore-based Aegis anti-ballistic missile system.

The LDP defence policy council also proposed that Japan consider possessing “our own capability of striking back at an enemy base, with cruise missiles for instance, to further improve deterrence and response as part of the Japan-U.S. alliance.”

Successive Japanese governments have baulked at possessing offensive weapons such as cruise missiles, long-range bombers and aircraft carriers. Not only would such weapons openly flout the country’s constitution but would also provoke widespread opposition from workers and young people.

In a bid to head off opposition, Onodera couched the proposal as acquiring a “counter-attack” capability. “Our proposal,” he said, “is about how we can fight back and stop the other party from firing a second missile, instead of making a pre-emptive strike.” Having such weaponry, however, means that the Japanese armed forces would be able to carry out “pre-emptive” acts of aggression.

Abe’s remilitarisation of Japan is primarily aimed against China, not North Korea. China defense ministry spokesman Wu Qian on Thursday criticised the LDP panel’s recommendations, saying: “China is opposed to any actions by other countries to take the [North Korean] nuclear issue as an excuse to compromise the security of other countries.”

Beijing has repeatedly opposed the US installation of a THAAD anti-missile battery in South Korea saying that its powerful associated radar would be able to spy on the Chinese military and give advanced warning of any Chinese missile launches. The THAAD system is not “defensive” but is part of the Pentagon’s planning for war with China.

Abe fully supported the LDP panel’s report, declaring, at a ceremony to hand it over, that “we intend to grasp today’s proposal firmly.” Since coming to office in 2012, he has taken major steps towards rearming Japan and freeing its military apparatus from legal and constitutional restrictions. His program of making Japan “a normal nation” with “a strong military” is nothing less than ensuring that it can assert its imperialist interests through military means.

The Abe government has boosted the military budget, established a US-style National Security Council and passed legislation allowing for so-called “collective self defence”—that is, participation US-led wars—in clear breach of the constitution.

In a highly significant, but little publicised, move on March 3, Abe announced in the Diet or parliament that his government would no longer abide by the restriction on military spending to less than one percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While not enshrined in legislation, the limit has been in place since 1976 and has always been touted as evidence that Japan is not remilitarising.

Under Abe, the Japanese military, termed Self Defence Forces, has pressed ahead with building up its weaponry. These include F35A advanced fighter aircraft, V-22 Osprey vertical take-off and landing aircraft, amphibious assault vehicles, and Global Hawk long-range drones.

Last week, the huge helicopter carrier, the JS Kaga was officially commissioned by the Japanese navy, joining the JS Izumo, which is a similar vessel. The military deliberately did not build aircraft carriers so as to avoid opposition to the acquiring of weapons that are offensive in character. The two warships, however, are larger than the aircraft carriers of many countries, capable of carrying V-22 Osprey aircraft and could be modified to accommodate fighter aircraft.

The helicopter carriers could also potentially carry Marine-type ground forces that Japan is in the process of training, with US assistance. US Marines practiced landing Ospreys on the helicopter destroyer JS Izumo during an exercise last July. The Japanese navy is provocatively sending the Izumo on three-months of operations, including in the South China Sea which has become a dangerous flash point between the US and China.

In the wake of “collective self-defence” legislation, the US and Japan have deepened their military collaboration and integration. In the first instance, the change will allow Japanese warships to act together with their US counterparts in combat situations. As of last December, the Japanese defence minister can respond to a US military request and authorise the Japanese navy to provide protection for a US destroyer equipped with the Aegis anti-ballistic missile system.

The US and Japan also signed a new acquisition and cross-servicing agreement in September 2016 that will enable Japan to provide logistical support, including ammunition and fuel, to the US military. The government is now pressing for its ratification in the current parliamentary session.

The rapid build-up of the Japanese military over the past four years has nominally taken place under the umbrella of the US-Japan Security Treaty. However, amid sharpening geo-political tensions globally, the Abe government is determined to be able to prosecute Japanese economic and strategic interests by all means, including military.

Greek Syriza government and European Union finalise more brutal austerity

John Vassilopoulos

Greece’s Syriza-led government has reportedly reached an informal agreement with the European Commission (EC) on imposing further austerity measures. An agreement is yet to be officially confirmed by the EC—the executive arm of the European Union (EU)—or Greece.

Greek daily Kathemerini announced Friday, “[T]he framework for an agreement could be presented at the next scheduled Eurogroup meeting on April 7,” in order to “allow officials to draft all the measures that Greek MPs must legislate by the next scheduled Eurogroup on May 22…”

Various media reported this week that measures agreed include further crippling cuts to the pensions of 900,000 retirees, worth 1 percent of GDP. Another austerity measure is the reduction of the tax-free threshold to €5,900 from the current €8,636. This will result in many more poorly paid workers, earning as little as €500 a month, being forced to pay tax. The minimum wage in Greece remains at just €683 per month, as Syriza reneged on its pledge to restore it to what is a still paltry figure of €751.

The tax increases are worth a further 1 percent of GDP and, as with the pension cut revenue, will go towards paying off Greece’s near €300 billion debt to global financial institutions.

Syriza and the EU are set to adopt most of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) labour reform proposals, with the exception of collective dismissals. In addition, the privatisation of Greece’s energy sector is to be intensified with the sale of 40 percent of the Public Power Corporation’s (PPC) lignite and hydroelectric power plants, and Thessaloniki port.

Syriza and EU officials have been in talks for months as to how Greece should implement the country’s third austerity memorandum, signed in July 2015, in which Greece is to receive €86 billion to pay off debts. The austerity measures are stipulated as a precondition for the next tranche of aid to be unlocked, as well as any future discussions on debt relief.

In recent weeks, the spectre of Greece defaulting on its debt and a subsequent Grexit (Greek exit from the EU and eurozone) has again raised its head. This is due to the bankrupt Greek state having to meet a debt repayment on €7 billion worth of bonds that mature in July.

An agreement should have been finalised by the end of last year, with the delay mainly due to disagreements between the EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF) regarding how Greece is to be bled white.

The IMF considers Greece’s current debt level as unsustainable and is in favour of some form of debt relief, in return for even more draconian measures being imposed. The role of the IMF in Greece’s on-going austerity programme has yet to be formalised.

It is, however, relentlessly demanding further attacks on workers’ rights. An IMF report published February complained that Greece’s trade union laws “have not been reformed since the 1980s” and that “[t]his could explain the large number of strikes in Greece, which even prior to the crisis far exceeded levels seen elsewhere.”

The report called for Greece’s “industrial action framework” to be aligned “with best international practice by setting appropriate quorum requirements for trade unions calling a strike and by allowing for defensive lockouts by employers.” This would in turn “help support investment by limiting costs associated with prospective strikes that may result in the stoppage of production.”

The IMF complained about what it considers to be too restrictive guidelines regarding collective dismissals of workers, which “makes downsizing operations in Greece very costly, with many firms forced to relocate, enter bankruptcy, or implement costly voluntary exit schemes.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, consider the IMF’s participation as politically crucial if Greece’s bailout programme is to continue. According to a report in the German financial journal Handelsblatt, “[S]chäuble only wants to pay the next instalment if and when the IMF agrees to get back on board as it had been during the first and second programs. Otherwise, he fears that a rebellion could break out within the ranks of his Christian Democrats’ parliamentary group, which expects the IMF to participate in the Greek bailout.”

However, Handelsblatt cites Berlin’s intransigence on the issue of debt relief, stating that the “German finance minister is likely to respond to [the IMF’s] plea with a resounding ‘nein.’ ” Of great concern is that any debt relief will hit the German ruling elite hardest, since it owns the majority of Greece’s debt.

A further obstacle that could prevent the IMF’s participation in the Greek austerity for loans programme is US President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy. This calls into question the entire post-war global capitalist framework, of which the US-dominated IMF was an integral part. Trump recently nominated Adam Lerrick—a vocal critic of the IMF—as undersecretary for international finance at the US Treasury.

Fear of Grexit has already prompted a capital outflow from Greece of €2.8 billion this year. According to the Financial Times, this was “the worst two-monthly outflow since the country was bought to the brink of a eurozone exit nearly two years ago.”

The escalating financial crisis forced EU officials to intensify talks aimed at meeting some of the IMF’s demands. Speaking to the Greek online news website Euro2day, an unnamed official said last Tuesday, “The ECB [European Central Bank] has made a sudden turn in its talks with Athens and is now veering towards the demands of the IMF, especially on labour reform.”

The fact that Syriza is once again called upon to oversee a new round of savage cuts is testament to how far to the right the pseudo-left party has travelled since coming to power in January 2015 on an anti-austerity ticket.

Since then Syriza—with its junior coalition partner, the far-right Independent Greeks (ANEL)—has spearheaded the EU and IMF diktats. This culminated in the signing of Greece’s third bailout package in the summer of 2015, following Syriza’s betrayal of the July 2015 referendum result, which overwhelmingly rejected the austerity policies that had been pursued by successive governments since 2010.

Syriza is now widely despised and currently polling at just 15 percent, trailing around 15 points behind the conservative New Democracy (ND).

The hostility of the working class to Syriza is expressed in a wave of recent strikes and protests. On March 15, hospital nurses and doctors staged a 24-hour strike demanding universal, free healthcare, the hiring of more staff and the repayment of wages that have been cut. The strike was accompanied by an anti-austerity rally staged by hospital workers outside the Finance Ministry, which was attacked by riot police.

Other s protest ing include local government workers, dockworkers and tax authority employees.

The previous week, a protest by Greek farmers opposing tax hikes and pension cuts turned violent after officials from the ministry of agriculture refused to meet delegates. After an altercation, riot police dispersed crowds into side streets by using tear gas.

So thorough has been Syriza’s enforcement of austerity that one of the protests even involved a delegation of blind people, protesting cuts in their disability benefits.

A nationwide movement to prevent home foreclosures has sprung up in opposition to Syriza’s ditching of a pre-election promise to prevent the banks from seizing and auctioning the homes of working-class people.

Syriza is working to deepen its collaboration with the unions in order to suppress growing opposition to its austerity programme. The government ensured the reinstatement of collective bargaining was on the agenda of the negotiations with the EU and IMF.

The pro-capitalist rationale for this was underscored by Syriza Labour Minister Effie Achtioglou in an article she penned for the Huffington Post. Achtioglou said that collective bargaining restoration would result in “the reduction of transaction costs, and the creation of a level playing field for companies in terms of wages, in effect allowing them to focus on issues of productivity, tackling undeclared work, and fostering social dialogue and social peace.”

The UK’s Great Repeal Bill: A bonfire of workers’ rights

Julie Hyland

On Thursday, the Conservative government published its Great Repeal Bill to give effect to Prime Minister Theresa May’s triggering of Article 50, beginning Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU).

There is now a two-year cutoff before Brexit fully takes effect, on March 29, 2019. The bill, to be brought forward next year, states its objective is to “provide maximum certainty as we leave the EU.”

But the claim made by the Leave campaign in last June’s referendum, that the UK could disentangle itself from the EU with minimum disruption, was always a lie. Over four decades, the UK has become closely integrated into the EU, in line with the globalisation of capitalist production and trade. Every aspect of British life—from customs, law, working conditions, education, health, transport and the environment—is interwoven with the European and global economy.

That is why the 37-page bill is so short on detail. No country in the modern period has attempted such a course. No one, least of all the ruling elite which is now largely behind Brexit, has any grasp of its consequences. Even the most confirmed advocates of withdrawal—led by right-wing, neo-liberals—are anxious to conceal the real implications of their agenda.

The flimsy nature of the bill notwithstanding, it does indicate the vast scale of what is underway, which is described as the largest legislative venture undertaken in British history.

At its centre is the overturning of the European Communities Act (1972) that gave effect to European law in the UK, as the prerequisite for its joining the European Economic Community—the forerunner of the EU.

Subsequently, the UK adopted a number of treaties including the Single European Act (1987), which provided for the completion of the single market and free movement of goods, capital and persons; the Maastricht Treaty (1993), that incorporated a common foreign and security policy and cooperation in justice and home affairs; the Treaty of Amsterdam (1999) and the Lisbon Treaty (2009) which brought all 28 member states in to a single European Union.

The bill acknowledges that there is no precise figure for the number of EU directives and legislation incorporated into UK law through these treaties. It tentatively identifies at least 12,000 EU regulations currently in force and 7,900 statutory instruments, which have implemented them. However, this does not include all the acts of legislation made by the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. According to the House of Commons Library, more than 14 percent of the 1,302 UK Acts implemented between 1980 and 2009 “incorporated a degree of EU influence.”

Moreover, EU treaties apply in various aspects to the Crown Dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man, and to a lesser degree among several of the UK’s Overseas Territories, most notably Gibraltar and Cyprus (home to UK military bases).

That is why, despite its title, the Great Repeal Bill will “convert EU law as it applies in the UK into domestic law on the day we leave—so that wherever practical and sensible, the same laws and rules will apply immediately before and immediately after our departure.”

This is necessary in order to “provide for a smooth and orderly exit,” Brexit Secretary David Davis writes in its foreword. At first glance, this is at odds with Davis’ other claim that the referendum was driven by a “desire to take back control” and restore British “sovereignty.” In reality, it expresses the interests of the banks and big business that oppose any regulatory disruption to their access to trade and the European single market.

According to the Financial Times, efforts to replicate EU regulatory agencies at a domestic level—especially in the field of aviation, nuclear technology, pharmaceuticals and financial services—will “be expensive and laborious to create,” which is why the government “has signalled that it will remain under the regulation of EU authorities where necessary during any transition period after Brexit.”

However, EU leaders have already rejected the government’s demands that talks on the terms of Britain’s exit run parallel with negotiations on its future relations with the bloc. They accuse the government of wanting to “have its cake and eat it” in its demands for continued access to the Single Market—reflecting the reality that, having left the EU, Britain becomes a de facto competitor.

The EU’s draft negotiating position governing Brexit, unveiled Friday by European Council President Donald Tusk, “excludes participation based on a sector-by-sector approach.” It warns, “A non-member of the union… cannot have the same rights and enjoy the same benefits as a member.”

In keeping with the hardline Brexit position of eurosceptic Tories, the bill acknowledges that no agreement may be reached and reiterates that “no deal for the UK is better than a bad deal for the UK.”

In the event that it fails to get its way, the government is preparing separate bills including the establishment of a UK customs regime and new immigration regulations. Anti-immigrant propaganda played a key role in the referendum campaign and has now largely been adopted by both the Leave and Remain camps.

The bill states that new immigration legislation will not change anything for “any EU citizen” already resident or moving to the UK, “without Parliament’s approval.”

This means nothing given that parliament, with Labour’s support, refused to guarantee the rights of EU citizens currently residing in the UK—using them as a bargaining chip in negotiations.

More fundamentally, it provides for so-called “Henry VIII clauses.” These parliamentary procedures date back to the 16th century, when King Henry VIII effectively gave himself the powers to rule by decree. All powers “contained in EU-derived law and which are currently exercised by EU bodies” will be transferred to “UK bodies or ministers,” enabling ministers and civil servants to decide which aspects of EU legislation and regulation can be kept, amended or discarded without recourse to parliament.

Leading eurosceptics and big business figures have made no secret of their plans to make a “bonfire” of workers’ rights. Targets include regulations on the maximum working week, the Temporary Agency Workers Directive (giving agency employees the same rights as other workers in similar fields) and holiday pay entitlements.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, John Longworth, former director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, urged the government to set up a “Star Chamber” of MPs, economists and businessmen to oversee this process who are “not frightened to think the unthinkable.”

The bill also removes the UK from the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). This has been a route for many attempting to challenge the UK government in the field of employment and human rights. The bill argues that this will not affect the “substantive rights that individuals already benefit from in the UK.”

Given that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights will also be invalidated on the day Britain quits the bloc—another central demand of the eurosceptics—such assurances are also meaningless. Sir Bill Cash MP, Tory chairman of the Commons European Scrutiny Committee, has said the Charter “provides protection for people who have no right to be protected,” thereby overturning the concept of inalienable rights, common to all and free from bureaucratic or ministerial fiat.

Finally, the bill intensifies the UK’s own constitutional crisis. The current framework for the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are predicated on EU membership, which have responsibility for implementing EU policy in areas of their competence—such as agriculture, transport and the environment.

The bill stipulates that all powers “exercised by the EU will return to the UK government.” This conflicts with the convention that Westminster will not legislate “with regard to devolved matters in Scotland without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.”

The Scottish parliament, which is overwhelmingly opposed to Brexit, has already passed a resolution demanding a second referendum on independence from the UK, while Scottish National Party leader and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has threatened to block the Repeal Bill.

For its part, the EU has already indicated it will side with the Irish nationalist parties in rejecting the re-establishing of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, following Brexit. Upping the ante, the EU’s draft negotiating position appears to back Spanish claims to the British territory of Gibraltar on the Iberian peninsula, which voted 97 percent to remain in the EU. It stipulates that any agreement reached between the EU and UK will not apply to Gibraltar without the agreement of Spain.

Why the European Dream of Integration Won’t Die

John Wight

Though the EU is currently embroiled in an enveloping crisis, with centrifugal political parties growing in strength across its member states, and despite Brexit delivering the EU’s permanence an ontological blow, the concept of a united Europe will continue to be an attractive one on both historical and philosophical grounds.

The idea of uniting Europe, or forging a united Europe, has tantalized philosophers, emperors, dictators, revolutionaries, and figures on both the left and right of the political spectrum for centuries. With so many different nation states occupying a relatively small part of the world, each with their own unique culture, language, history, and story, Europe has been at the centre of historical events since the Renaissance of the 15^th century triggered the continent’s emergence from the Dark Ages, which ensued following the collapse of the western Roman Empire around 500 CE.

The first serious proponent of a European continent bound by common laws and a uniform economic system was Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France and military genius, whose attempt to spread the ideas and values of the French Revolution at the end of bayonets was finally crushed at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Napoleon with his Grande Armee was committed to sweeping the detritus of European feudalism – autocracy, aristocracy, and monarchy – into the dustbin of history. He intended to replace them with revolutionary France’s Code Civil (Napoleonic Code), a uniform legal code established with the objective of replacing the divine right of kings and feudal privileges, both of which were still very much in in place across Europe at the time. As he lamented after his attempt to conquer Europe failed, “I wished to found a European system, a European Code of Laws, a European judiciary: there would be but one people in Europe.”

Holding to a similar objective half a century after the end of Napoleonic Wars, and after the industrialization of Western Europe had given birth to the modern age of capitalism, the great philosopher, economist, social critic, and revolutionar, Karl Marx, outlined his vision of a Europe and world in which the nation state would give way to the international brotherhood of the workers of the world. Marx held economic and social class rather than nation as the defining separation under capitalism.

The Russian Revolution of 1917, led by Lenin and his Bolsheviks, was committed to bringing Marx’s vision to pass. The ultimate goal of the Bolsheviks was to spread the revolution over Russia’s border to the rest of Europe, where economic and social conditions were more advanced and propitious when it came to communism taking root. They failed in that endeavor, just as Napoleon had failed, providing further evidence of the enduring strength of national consciousness even among a given nation’s most impoverished and marginalized.

After a First World War that was so brutal and destructive of human life it was considered to be ‘the war to end all wars’, a chorus of voices across Europe began making the case for a united Europe in order to prevent the possibility of such a calamity occurring again. None was more vocal in this cause than the Austrian writer and novelist Stefan Zweig. In 1934, amid the Great Depression and, with it, the alarming rise of extreme nationalism and fascism across Europe, Zweig wrote, “The European idea is not a primary emotion like patriotism or ethnicity; it is not born of primitive instinct, but rather of perception; it is not the product of spontaneous fervor, but the slow-ripened fruit of a more elevated way of thinking.”

History records that the primitive instincts driving nationalism and patriotism proved stronger than Zweig’s “elevated way of thinking” during the 1930s. Hitler’s vision of a united Europe, however, was of an entirely different order from that of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, or for that matter Stefan Zweig’s.

The fascist dictator rose to power in Germany obsessed with gaining vengeance for a German people that had been “stabbed in the back” during the First World War. He blamed a “Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy” that was intent on destroying the nation state and taking over Europe and the world. Combined with his belief in the need for lebensraum (living space) for Germanic race that was superior to every other, he embarked on a campaign to colonize Eastern Europe in a war of annihilation against Slavs, Jews, Gypsies, and others – peoples and groups considered Untermenschen (subhuman) in his perverse worldview.

Interestingly, Hitler was an admirer of the British Empire, specifically its success in controlling such a large swathe of the world, and harbored dreams of emulating it in Europe. The Nazi dictator’s conception of a united Europe was in truth a Europe enslaved and ruled by a new Germanic/Aryan order, a Third Reich that would last for 1000 years. It lasted just eleven before it was destroyed.

After the war Winston Churchill, Britain’s legendary wartime Prime Minister, also mooted the possibility of a united Europe – a United States of Europe, which together with the British Commonwealth and the United States would forge a world underpinned by peace and security. He outlined his idea in a speech in Zurich in September 1946. “The structure of the United States of Europe, if well and truly built, will be such as to make the material strength of a single state less important. Small nations will count as much as large ones and gain their honour by their contribution to the common cause.”

This brings us to the forerunner of today’s European Union, which as with Churchill’s vision was born out of the devastation of the Second World War. French diplomat and businessman Jean Monnet is credited with being the father of what became the EU. It started life with the Treaty of Rome in 1951, which gave birth to the establishment of a European Coal and Steel Community (ECSE) made up of Belgium, France, West Germany, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

As Monnet had it, “There will be no peace in Europe if the States rebuild themselves on the basis of national sovereignty, with its implications of prestige politics and economic protection (…). The countries of Europe are not strong enough individually to be able to guarantee prosperity and social development for their peoples. The States of Europe must therefore form a federation or a European entity that would make them into a common economic unit.”

The idea of sacrificing some sovereignty in the interests of peace and security, with the objective of avoiding anything like the 20^th century conflagrations of the First and Second World Wars occurring again, is the philosophical cornerstone of European unity in our time. However the this current model of European unity has developed within the strictures of a cold war paradigm, ideologically committed to isolating Russiam the largest country in Europe.

The result, in recent years, has been an increase rather than lessening of tension across Europe. Combined with the economic and financial crash of 2008, and the EU’s introduction of harsh austerity measures in response, it has turned the very concept of European unity into something ugly and unwelcome. The recrudescence of nationalism and emergence of centrifugal political parties committed to breaking up the EU has given us a Europe more divided than at any time since the 1930s.

A divided Europe, as the last century has shown, is in the last analysis a Europe at war. However if European unity is to succeed, it has to be on the basis of equality between states, respect for cultural differences, and underpinned by an economic system that serves the masses of the people instead of a small elite. It must also, by necessity, include rather than exclude Russia.

It is why the EU in its current form is not fit for purpose.

The Beneficiaries of Conflict With Russia

Brian Cloughley

On  January 30 NBC News reported that “On a snowy Polish plain dominated by Russian forces for decades, American tanks and troops sent a message to Moscow and demonstrated the firepower of the NATO alliance. Amid concerns that President Donald Trump’s commitment to NATO is wavering, the tanks fired salvos that declared the 28-nation alliance a vital deterrent in a dangerous new world.”

One intriguing aspect of this slanted account are the phrases “dominated by Russian forces for decades” and “vital deterrent” which are used by NBC to imply that Russia yearns, for some unspecified reason, to invade Poland. As is common in the Western media there is no justification or evidence to substantiate the suggestion that Russia is hell-bent on domination, and the fact that US troops are far from home, operating along the Russian border, is regarded as normal behaviour on the part of the world’s “indispensable nation.”

Then Reuters recorded that “Beginning in February, US military units will spread out across Poland, the Baltic states, Bulgaria, Romania and Germany for training, exercises and maintenance. The Army is also sending its 10th Combat Aviation Brigade with about 50 Black Hawk and 10 CH-47 Chinook helicopters and 1,800 personnel, as well as a separate aviation battalion with 400 troops and 24 Apache helicopters.”

As the US-NATO military alliance continues its deployments along Russia’s borders, including the US-UK supported Joint Viking 2017 exercise in Norway that began on March 1 and the deployment of  more US troops in Poland “from the start of April, as the alliance sets up a new force in response to Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea,” the campaign by the US and British governments against alleged “Russian Aggression” continues to increase in volume and intensity, aided by an ever-compliant media.

During his visit to Washington on March 6-7 Ukraine’s foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin met with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Senator Marco Rubio of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and received assurances of US support in “confronting Russian aggression” while in Britain it was announced that its foreign minister, Boris Johnson, the “mop-haired buffoon” was about to visit Russia in to tell it to “keep its nose” out of western affairs. Mr Johnson declared that Russia “was up to all sorts of no good” and “engaged in cyber-warfare.”

The splendid irony of the Johnson allegation about cyber warfare is that it came just before the revelation that Britain’s intelligence agencies were deeply involved with those of the United States in cyber-chicanery on a massive scale. WikiLeaks once again showed the depths of deceit and humbug to which the West’s great democracies submerge themselves, and revealed that leaked files “describe CIA plans and descriptions of malware and other tools that could be used to hack into some of the world’s most popular technology platforms. The documents showed that the developers aimed to be able to inject these tools into targeted computers without the owners’ awareness . . . the documents show broad exchanges of tools and information between the CIA, the National Security Agency and other US federal intelligence agencies, as well as intelligence services of close allies Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.”

ABC News then announced, without a shred of proof, that “Julian Assange, the man behind WikiLeaks, appears to have a strong relationship with Russia” but could not disguise the report by CNN that the documents disclosed that “to hide its operations, the CIA routinely adopted techniques that enabled its hackers to appear as if they were Russian.”

There has been no comment on the WikiLeaks revelations by such as US Senator Amy Klobuchar who declared in January that “Russia used cyberattacks and propaganda to try and undermine our democracy. We are not alone. Russia has a pattern of waging cyberattacks and military invasions against democracies across the world.”  She was echoed by Senator Ben Sasse who declared that increased US sanctions would “upend Putin’s calculus and defend America from Russian cyberattacks and political meddling.”

Of course it would be impossible for the Senators to revise their rabid hatred of Russia and overcome their dismal pride to acknowledge that on March 1 the US National Reconnaissance Office launched a spy satellite carried by an Atlas V rocket that was powered by a Russian RD-180 engine. In an astonishing example of petty-minded obfuscation, the 1,500-word official report on the launching mentioned RD-180 three times — but failed to state its country of manufacture. The mainstream media followed suit.

There was to be another Atlas V launch in March, carrying supplies to the International Space Station, but it was delayed by “a hydraulic issue that was uncovered on ground support equipment required for launch.” Had it been deferred because of malfunction of the Russian engine that powers it, there would have been gloating headlines.

Reaction by the US government to the WikiLeaks disclosures has been to denounce them because they supposedly “not only jeopardise US personnel and operations, but also equip our adversaries with tools and information to do us harm.”  Predictably, Senator Sasse tweeted that “Julian Assange should spend the rest of his life wearing an orange jumpsuit. He’s an enemy of the American people and an ally to Vladimir Putin.”

There should be no surprise about the activities of US and British intelligence agencies, because they already have a proven record of spying on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Chancellor Merkel of Germany, French Presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, to name but a few world leaders subjected to the indignity of greasy little eavesdroppers sniggering at their private conversations.

In June 2013 it was revealed that the United States of America had been spying on European Union computer networks in the EU offices in Washington and New York. According to Germany’s Der Spiegel a document of September 2010 “explicitly named the Union’s representation at the UN as a ‘location target’.” Der Spiegel discovered  that “the NSA had also conducted an electronic eavesdropping operation in a building in Brussels where the EU Council of Ministers and the European Council were located.”  Together with their British colleagues, the techno-dweebs of Government Communications Headquarters, the US agencies have been having a ball — but have been unable to prove that Russia “used cyberattacks and propaganda to try and undermine our democracy.”

The faithful CIA mouthpiece, the New York Times, stated in December that “American spy and law enforcement agencies were united in the belief, in the weeks before the presidential election, that the Russian government had deployed computer hackers to sow chaos during the campaign.”  Not only this, but “CIA officials presented lawmakers with a stunning new judgment that upended the debate: Russia, they said, had intervened with the primary aim of helping make Donald J Trump president.”

But there is no evidence whatever that there was election-time hacking by Russia, and now there is proof that “to hide its operations, the CIA routinely adopted techniques that enabled its hackers to appear as if they were Russian.”

Although none of the assertions that Russia has been conducting a cyber war against America can be substantiated, Washington’s anti-Russia propaganda campaign will continue for the foreseeable future, while President Trump’s initial intentions to enter into dialogue with his counterpart in Moscow wither away to nothing. Even if he does resurrect the sensible policy he seemed to endorse, his acolytes in Washington will do their best to maintain confrontation by spreading more allegations of Russian “aggression” and “cyberattacks.”  The anti-Russia campaign is gathering force, and it is not difficult to put a finger on why such a counter-productive crusade appeals to so many in the West.

The US arms and intelligence industries are the main beneficiaries of confrontation with Russia, closely followed by the hierarchy of the defunct US-NATO military alliance who have been desperately seeking justification for its existence for many years.  For so long as the military-industrial complex holds sway in Washington, there will continue to be sabre-rattling and mindless military posturing.

But the International Space Station will continue to be resupplied by rockets powered by Russian engines.