Did Assad Really Use Sarin?

Paul Gottinger

Almost immediately after video of the alleged chemical weapons attack in Idlib hit Western media, Assad was declared guilty by US news networks and political commentators. The front page of the New York Times on April 5^th showed a heartbreaking image of a child wounded in the alleged chemical attack with a headline claiming Assad was responsible.

By the afternoon of April 7, a US attack seemed inevitable as both Rex Tillerson and Trump said action would be taken.

Between Democrats and Republicans, a bipartisan consensus emerged, rare in the Trump presidency, whereby Assad was deemed guilty and Trump was goaded on to attack. The few voices of dissent seemed mostly concerned with the lack of constitutional approval for the strike

The night of the strike, US media snapped into DPRK-style, state media mode. TV pundits fell into a trance while expressing the “beauty” of American power being unleashed on a country already destroyed by 6 years of war.

Pundits described the attack as “surgical” despite the pentagon quietly admitting one of the missiles missed its target and they don’t know where it landed. My questions to both CENTCOM and the Secretary of Defense Office on the missing cruise missile have thus far gone unanswered. However, Syrian sources claim civilians were killed in the missile strike.

Trump justified the attack by invoking religiously themed buzzwords and unconvincing blather on the “beautiful babies” murdered in the chemical attack.

Following the attack, Trump officials’ statements indicated there was a shift towards regime change. UN ambassador Nikki Haley said Sunday that removing Assad is now a priority.

The Neocon sharks have started circling too. Bill Kristol tweeted that these strikes should be used to move towards regime change in Iran. Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain have all joined in too, their mouths watering at the thought of ousting Assad.

But was Assad really responsible for the attack?

To ask such a question is to be deemed an “Assadist” by pundits and discourse police across the political spectrum.

Neither the lack of an independent investigation, nor the fact that nearly all the information on the alleged attack has come from rebel sources, who stand to benefit from a US response, is deemed sufficient cause for skepticism.

In a civilized society an actor is be presumed to be innocent until proven guilty. If guilt is determined, a legally justified course of action is taken. In the US however, if the accused is a US enemy, no evidence is needed, and even deranged conspiracies are given play in mainstream media coverage.

The best recent example of this is the US media’s conspiracy about Russia stealing the US election and working for Trump. The US media has stooped so low as to even push bizarre conspiracies by Louise Mensch. She recently claimed the 2014 uprising in Ferguson was a Russian plot.

In the case of the alleged attack on Khan Sheikhun, US officials and pro-war experts immediately declared Assad’s guilty and then cheered on an illegal use of force. This is all very reminiscent of the lead up to the Iraq war.

In an eerie coincidence, Michael R. Gordon, who with Judith Miller helped sell the Iraq WMD story to Americans, coauthored the New York Times April 4th article on Assad’s alleged sarin attack at Khan Sheikhun.

To help sell the sarin narrative, the US media brought on a doctor to describe the alleged attack that has been accused of helping kidnap journalists in his work with extremists.

When the US investigated its own airstrike in Mosul this March, it took a number of days before it admitted it had killed hundreds of civilians. Yet, guilt was immediately assigned in the Khan Sheikhun attack.

In 2013, the US media also rushed to the conclusion Assad used sarin in a horrific incident in Ghouta. The US was on the verge of attacking Assad then, but Obama decided against it. Obama claimed he held off because US intelligence voiced skepticism about Assad’s guilt.

The UN investigation on the Ghouta attack took almost a month and even its conclusions have been disputed.

In December of 2013, Seymour Hersh published a lengthy investigation into the 2013 attack in Ghouta and found reason to doubt Assad’s responsibility for attack. He was forced to publish it in the London Review of Books after the New York Times and the Washington Post refused to run it.

He reported that classified US reports claimed that Syria’s al Qaeda affiliate had “mastered the mechanics of creating sarin”.

A month after Hersh’s piece appeared, a MIT study cast further doubt on the US government’s story by demonstrating that the rockets used in the Ghouta attack couldn’t have flown as far as the US government claimed.

Ted Postol, one of the authors of the study said, “We were within a whisker of war based on egregious errors.”

In this latest alleged gas attack, a few individuals have dared question the state narrative.

The journalist Robert Parry has recently claimed there is much to be made of the fact that Mike Pompeo, the CIA Director, wasn’t among those helping sell this latest sarin story to the American people. He believes it indicates doubt in the CIA over Assad’s involvement.

Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, has raised skepticism over Assad’s involvement. He says rebels have had chemical weapons facilities in Syria and some of the witnesses’ statements describe a strong smell during the attack, which indicates something other than sarin was used.

The Canadian government originally called for an investigation and stopped short of blaming Assad at the UN, but then later championed Trump’s strikes.

Groups like Organizations for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and Human Rights Watch are still investigating the alleged attack in Khan Sheikhun.

Whether these groups or others will be able to conduct an independent investigation is not known. But in usual fashion, the US had no interest in investigating facts, which may provide the wrong answers.

It’s possible that Assad carried out the attack, but just because he’s a reprehensible figure doesn’t mean there is no need to present evidence and conduct an independent investigation.

What’s clear now is that the US attack benefitted jihadi groups, has made further US military action more likely, and has increased the chances of a direct military confrontation with Russia. All of these results are very dangerous.

Future US military action in Syria should be resisted with popular pressure. History shows we can’t count on the media or pundits to act as the voice of reason.

Deadly Sins of Imperialism

Cesar Chelala

No one would have imagined that one of the greatest truths about American foreign policy would come from President Donald Trump during an interview with Fox News reporter Bill O’Reilly. When O’Reilly referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a killer,” Trump replied, “There are a lot of killers. We have many killers. Or do you think our country is so innocent?”

With these words Trump comfirmed what we have known for a long time about U.S. foreign policy: The United States has a dark history of involvement in in many countries’ politics, often economically or through direct murder or participation in the elimination of foreign leaders, including leaders of the U.S.

Patrick Lawrence, an American author and essayist, relates a conversation he had with an American whistleblower known for his denunciations against the establishment. He told Lawrence that, during a dinner to raise funds for the Democratic Party, one of the attendees asked President Barak Obama: “President Obama, what happened to your progressive foreign policy plans?” President Obama replied, “Do you want me to end up like John F. Kennedy?”

We now know that there are still serious doubts about the involvement of the CIA in both the death of John F. Kennedy and that of his brother Robert Kennedy, who was the Attorney General of the United States from 1961 to 1964. Robert Kennedy was murdered on June 6, 1968, still without total certainty (as in the case of his brother John F. Kennedy) about who was really his killer.

William Blum, an American historian and sharp critic of US foreign policy, denounced in his books and numerous articles U.S. intervention in other countries. Blum worked for the United States Department of State as a computer expert.

According to Blum, after the end of World War II, the United States:

Tried to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically elected.

Dropped bombs from the air on people from more than 30 countries.

Tried to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.

Tried to suppress popular or nationalist movements in 20 countries.

Interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.

In addition to these actions, the United States has practiced torture, as in the case of Guantánamo and in the other countries to which they sent their prisoners of war. This includes not only torture by Americans against foreigners, but also providing torture equipment and manuals, lists of persons to be tortured, and training in torture techniques by U.S. instructors.

Violent acts, murders and wars are not the only ways to intervene in other countries. In the book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, American author and consultant John Perkins details the techniques used by both the United States government and international banks and corporations to subdue countries through forced indebtedness and very high rates of interest on loans they impose on them, many of which enrich not only the lenders but the corrupt local elites.

Perkins’ testimony is especially valuable because he himself was an economic hit man on the payroll of large US corporations and banks. His work consisted precisely in forcing countries into debt and thus weakening their economies and their possibilities for independent development.

Not everyone, however, agrees with Perkins’ conclusions. Sebastian Mallaby, a Washington Post columnist and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations thinks that what Perkins says is exaggerated and cites improvements in global poverty and health levels despite his assertions about the harmful behavior of international banks and companies.

Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian-born African economist who worked for Goldman Sachs, the World Bank and many other international organizations says: “Rich countries money has trapped many African nations in a cycle of corruption, slow growth and poverty. Cutting the flow of aid would be much more beneficial.” In dozens of missions to developing countries, I have been able to verify the disasters caused by the interference of corporations, banks and other countries in the degree of corruption of governments and local economies.

These considerations should not ignore the responsibility that national elites have in enabling and benefiting from those policies that have a significant negative impact on the countries’ development. This is particularly relevant when one takes into account the forecast of the Intelligence Unit of The Economist. According to it, 65 countries out of 150 will experience significant social and political uncertainty in the near future.

For many decades, the U.S. has been intervening in other countries (mainly developing ones) through a variety of mechanisms that have led to their destabilization, the fall of democratic governments and encouraging widespread corruption. The more these countries become aware of these intervention policies the better they will be able to respond to them.

The Savings and Stability of Public Banking

Ralph Nader

As a society obsessed by money, we pay a gigantic price for not educating high school and college students about money and banking. The ways of the giant global banks – both commercial and investment operations – are as mysterious as they are damaging to the people. Big banks use the Federal Reserve to maximize their influence and profits. The federal Freedom of Information Act provides an exemption for matters that are “contained in or related to examination, operating, or condition reports prepared by, on behalf of, or for the use of an agency responsible for the regulation or supervision of financial institutions.” This exemption allows financial institutions to wallow in secrecy. Financial institutions are so influential in Congress that Senator Durbin (D, IL) says “[The banks] frankly own this place.”

Although anti-union, giant financial institutions have significant influence over the investments of worker pension funds. Their certainty of being bailed out because they are seen as “too big to fail” harms the competitiveness of smaller, community banks and allows the big bankers to take bigger risks with “other people’s money,” as Justice Brandeis put it.

These big banks are so pervasive in their reach that even unions and progressive media, such as The Nation magazine and Democracy Now have their accounts with JP Morgan Chase.

The government allows banks to have concentrated power. Taxpayers and Consumers are charged excessive fees and paid paltry interest rates on savings. The bonds of municipalities are are also hit with staggering fees and public assets like highways and public drinking water systems are corporatized by Goldman Sachs and other privatizers with sweetheart multi-decade leases.

Then there are the immense taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street, such as those in 2008-2009 after the financial industry’s recklessness and crimes brought down the economy, cost workers 8 million jobs, and shredded the pension and mutual fund savings of the American people.

Standing like a beacon of stability, responsiveness and profitability is the 98 year-old, state-owned Bank of North Dakota (BND). As reported by Ellen Brown, prolific author and founder of the Public Banking Institute (Santa Clarita, California), “The BND has had record profits for the last 12 years” (avoiding the Wall Street crash) “each year outperforming the last. In 2015 it reported $130.7 million in earnings, total assets of $7.4 billion, capital of $749 million, and a return on investment of a whopping 18.1 percent. Its lending portfolio grew by $486 million, a 12.7 percent increase, with growth in all four of its areas of concentration: agriculture, business, residential and student loans…”

North Dakota’s economy is depressed because of the sharp drop in oil prices. So the BND moved to help. Again, Ellen Brown:

“In 2015, it introduced new infrastructure programs to improve access to medical facilities, remodel or construct new schools, and build new road and water infrastructure. The Farm Financial Stability Loan was introduced to assist farmers affected by low commodity prices or below-average crop production. The BND also helped fund 300 new businesses.”

All this is in a state with half the population of Phoenix or Philadelphia.

A California coalition is forming to establish a state-owned bank for California. Coalition organizers say a California State Bank will cut the state’s long-term financing costs in half, compared to what avaricious Wall Street is charging. The nation’s largest state (equivalent to the world’s sixth largest economy) can free itself from massive debt accumulation, bid-rigging, deceptive interest-rate swaps and capital appreciation bonds at 300% interest over time.

What assets does the state have to make this bank fully operational? California has surplus funds which total about $600 billion, including those in a Pooled Money Investment account managed by the State Treasurer that contains $54 billion earning less than 1 percent interest.

Money in these funds is earmarked for specific expenditure purposes, but they can be invested – in a new state bank. To escape from a Wall Street that is, in Brown’s words “sucking massive sums in interest, fees and interest rate swap payments out of California and into offshore tax havens,” a state bank can use its impressive credit power to develop infrastructure in California.

Huge state pension funds and other state funds can provide the deposits. Each one billion dollar capital investment can lend $10 billion for projects less expensively and under open stable banking control by California. Presently, California and other states routinely deposit hundreds of billions of dollars in Wall Street banks at minimal interest, turn around and borrow for infrastructure construction and repair from the Wall Street bond market at much higher interest and fees.

This is a ridiculous form of debt peonage, a lesson Governor Jerry Brown has yet to learn. He and other officials similarly uninformed about how the state of California can be its own banker should visit publicbankinginstitute.org and read Ellen Brown’s book, The Public Bank Solution.

Legislation for public banks is being pursued in the states of Washington, Michigan, Arizona and New Jersey, as well as the cities of Philadelphia and Santa Fe. Look for county commissioners and state treasurers to come on board when they see the enormous safeguards and savings that can be secured through “public banks” in contrast to the convoluted casino run by unaccountable Wall Street gamblers and speculators.

A longtime backer of public banking, retired entrepreneur Richard Mazess, hopes that national civic groups like Public Citizen, Common Cause, People for the American Way and Consumer Watchdog can get behind the proposal. “Public, not private, infrastructure is essential for an equitable economy,” he says.

California already has a public infrastructure bank called the IBank. Mr. Mazess and others believe that expanding the existing IBank into a depository institution would be more likely to pass through the California legislature. The deposits would come from public institutions, and NGOs (not from private persons). These pension funds and other public deposits would become reserves and serve as the basis for safely leveraged loans to public projects at a conservative tenfold multiplier. No derivatives or other shenanigans allowed.

Before that proposal can be enacted, however, there needs to be much more education of state legislators and the public at large.

Such enlightenment would illuminate the enormous savings, along with the restoration of state sovereignty from the absentee, exploitative grip of an unrepentant, speculating, profiteering Wall Street that believes it can always go to Washington, DC for its taxpayer bailouts.

Australian PM accused of interfering in Papua New Guinea election

John Braddock

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has rejected claims that he interfered with domestic politics in Papua New Guinea (PNG) by visiting Port Moresby and praising Prime Minister Peter O’Neill on the eve of national elections. Nominations for the PNG elections open within two weeks, and polling starts on June 24.

Turnbull’s first official visit to Australia’s neighbour and former colony took place on April 7–9. Former PNG Prime Minister Mekere Morauta criticised the “insensitive” and “dangerous” timing of the trip and accused Turnbull of seeking to endorse O’Neill. “That is a very dangerous position for the Australian Prime Minister to put himself in, especially with the prospect of a new government just around the corner,” Morauta said.

Turnbull dismissed the complaint, saying the timing was “entirely unrelated” to PNG’s domestic political events. He claimed the visit would focus on “trade, security, economic growth and education.”

During a joint media conference, however, Turnbull praised O’Neill for his co-operation in the “vitally important fight against people smuggling” and commitment to “strengthening relations” between the two countries. Turnbull also deflected questions about PNG’s dire economic situation. Asked if it was a concern that the PNG government was “broke,” Turnbull said management of the finances of PNG was “a matter for the PNG government.”

Deepening social polarisation and resentment over grinding poverty and austerity measures are fuelling a political crisis in the Pacific nation. Earlier this month, a rift erupted between the two main partners in the ruling coalition, O’Neill’s People’s National Congress (PNC) Party and the National Alliance (NA), over the state of the economy.

Treasurer Patrick Pruaitch, leader of NA, attacked the PNC for “mismanaging” the country, noting that last year’s per capita income fell for the first time in 13 years and is expected to drop again this year and for at least another four years. Since the financial boost from ExxonMobil’s Liquefied Natural Gas project first came on stream in 2014 the economy had “fallen off the cliff,” Pruaitch declared.

Gross domestic product (GDP) growth plunged to 2 percent last year, significantly lower than the population growth rate of over 3 percent. The government has borrowed K13 billion ($US4.1 billion) to take the total debt this year to K21.6 billion, above the debt-to-GDP ratio of 30 percent set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

As in every country, the working class and rural poor are profoundly alienated from all the established political parties. Over the past 12 months, the O’Neill government has repeatedly mobilised the police and armed forces to suppress mounting unrest, firstly among students, then against villagers living near the $US19 billion ExxonMobil site.

Visits to PNG by Australian leaders are infrequent. Turnbull’s trip was undoubtedly motivated by concern over Australia’s commercial and strategic interests. Addressing an Australia-PNG Business Council breakfast on Sunday, Turnbull told local business leaders Australia had a “vested interest” in the PNG economy. “Almost 5,000 companies are doing business in PNG,” he pointed out, with total investments worth $A5.8 billion.

Turnbull emphasised that PNG also receives $A500 million ($US375 million) annually in aid. Signalling Canberra’s determination to dictate the terms of the relationship, the Turnbull government in March rebuffed a request by PNG to shift the aid away from traditional programs and into the PNG government’s accounts, in order to fund core services such as health and education. Australia’s Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, bluntly declared that the aid program was “not a charity.”

Canberra also made clear that its interests will prevail in the planned closure of Australia’s refugee detention centre on PNG’s Manus Island. Last year the PNG High Court ruled that the centre violates the refugees’ constitutional right to personal liberty. Turnbull dodged questions about where his government would send the detainees if the Trump administration does not accept all 900 under a deal previously struck under Obama.

Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told Sky News that any refugees not taken by the US would be settled in PNG, while non-refugees would be sent back to their home country. He said that under an agreement with the previous Australian Labor government, PNG had the “responsibility” to settle refugees not accepted by the US. “They are not coming to Australia,” Dutton asserted. “We have been very clear those people are not going to settle in our country because that would restart the people trade.”

Behind the scenes there is growing alarm over China’s influence in the region. The state-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported in February that Beijing is investing billions in infrastructure and business developments in PNG. The $A260 million Edevu Hydro Project is funded by the China Development Bank, while Chinese companies are building roads in the highlands and redeveloping Lae’s port. The Chinese government has loaned PNG hundreds of millions of dollars to build roads, create a National Broadband Network and a National Identity Card system.

In a bid to counter Beijing, the Australian government recently announced it will pay at least a third of the costs of PNG’s hosting of next year’s APEC summit. The commitments, including a two-year extension to the deployment of 73 Australian Federal Police officers, will exceed $A100 million. Security, diplomatic support, advisory roles, immigration and intelligence processes will all be provided by Canberra. According to the ABC, security and foreign policy advisers warned that leaving the PNG government to fund the summit “would risk China filling the breach.”

Canberra and Washington are particularly concerned about PNG’s growing defence ties with Beijing. Following a state visit there last year, O’Neill expressed his government’s “respect” for China’s “legitimate and lawful rights and interest” in the South China Sea. O’Neill also endorsed China’s “One Belt One Road” trade route system across the Asia-Pacific, designed to counter the aggressive efforts by the US to isolate China.

O’Neill’s predecessor, Michael Somare, was ousted in 2011 with the backing of the Australian government because he was seen as too close to Beijing. O’Neill, who assumed office through an illegal parliamentary manoeuvre, has relied on Canberra’s backing. He welcomed an expanded Australian police and “advisor” presence, while supporting Australia’s neo-colonial interests in the wider region.

Under conditions of intensifying geo-strategic tensions, Australia is determined to see this continue, whoever wins the forthcoming election. Turnbull used the occasion to remind the PNG ruling elite of the historical ties between the two countries, dating back to previous imperialist wars. He visited Isurava, a 1942 battle site where Australian forces fought Japanese troops in World War II and the Bomana War Cemetery, where 3,800 Australian soldiers are buried.

Turnbull noted that Bomana has the largest number of Australian war dead of any cemetery. “Australia’s freedom,” he declared, “depends on courage, endurance, mateship and sacrifice of those Australians and Papua New Guineans who stood together and held back the Japanese advancement.”

UK CEO pay skyrockets as workers’ wages continue to plummet

Barry Mason

Chief executive officers at the UK’s Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) firms are earning on average 386 times more than workers paid the national living wage.

In March, the Equality Trust issued its Pay Tracker report, comparing the pay of chief executive officers (CEOs) of the top 100 FTSE companies with workers on average pay and low pay in the UK.

The Equality Trust was founded in 2009, with a remit to reduce income inequality in the UK.

To produce its report the Equality Trust took the 2015 Annual Report and Accounts for the top 100 FTSE listed companies, with 2015 being the latest figures available.

It compared the total remuneration figure for each CEO against the annual UK figures for the average wage of £27,615, the National Living Wage (NLW) of £13,662 and the real living wage figure (outside London) of £16,034.

The average wage is based on of the median annual earnings of those in full-time employment for 2015. The living wage is the government set minimum wage for those over 25, due to rise to just £7.50 an hour from April 1 this year. The real living wage is a figure based on independent research arriving at a figure a worker and their family would need to earn in order to live. It is not a statutory figure and any employer paying it does so on a voluntary basis.

According to the report, topping the list of CEO remuneration packages is Martin Sorrell of the advertising and PR company WPP, with an annual income of over £70 million. It would take him about 20 minutes to earn what a worker on the national living wage earns in the course of a year.

The Equality Trust findings show that on average each CEO in the FTSE top 100 rakes in £5.3 million annually, representing 386 times the earnings of a worker on the NLW. In other words, the average top 100 FTSE CEO earns more in a day than a worker on the NLW earns for 365 days.

Two thirds of CEOs earn more than 100 times the average UK salary, while 90 percent of them earn at least 100 times more than the NLW.

Comparing the pay of CEOs with a series of job titles, the report highlights that the average top 100 CEO earns 165 times that of a nurse, 140 times that of teacher and a staggering 312 times the income of a care worker.

While the pay of top CEOs continues to rise, according to a recent Resolution Foundation report, the Equality Trust notes that the pay of public sector workers in real terms is set to fall. With increasing inflation and pay restraint, public sector pay will continue to fall over the next three years. The report notes that by the end of the parliamentary term in 2019/20, the real pay of public sector staff will be below 2004-2005 levels.

Commenting on the report, the Trust’s executive director, Dr. Wanda Wyporska, said, “The people who educate our children, look after our grandparents, and keep our families safe have seen their pay frozen, while fat cat CEOs continue to gorge themselves on obscene and undeserved rewards. They’re also stretching far away from their own employees. Being a top company CEO in the UK is like being a lottery winner—every year—guaranteed.”

Wyporska said the Equality Trust were “calling on Government to introduce mandatory reporting for large and medium businesses on the pay gap between their highest and average paid employee. Only then can we create a sense of trust and common purpose essential to build an economy and society that works for all.”

While the financial elite continues to rake in obscene amounts of wealth, conditions of poverty and social inequality prevail for the vast majority of Britain’s population. The pay of workers in the UK has seen a staggering decline since the imposition of mass austerity in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis.

The Equality Trust report follows the publication of research by the Trades Union Congress, based on figures issued by the International Labour Organisation. These were issued as part of its Global Wage Report 2016/15.

The TUC noted, “The UK ranks 103 out of 112 countries for pay growth since the financial crisis” and “while workers in most countries saw real terms pay increases between 2008 and 2015, UK workers saw the value of their wages fall.”

The TUC added, “The Office for Budgetary Responsibility and the Bank of England both expect real wages to continue fall. … [W]ith prices being pushed up in the shops by the falling pound, the threat of another living standards crisis has increased.”

A Resolution Foundation report “Living Standards 2017,” issued in January, highlighted the decline in living standards hitting workers—with those already at the bottom being hit the hardest.

It stated, “We project that income growth will slow to 0.3 percent a year for the typical working-age household over the next four years, once we account for housing costs. This overall weak growth also hides a division between growth for some and falling living standards for others.

“Our projections suggest that incomes will rise slowly for high income households, stagnate in the middle and fall at the bottom. Very significant cuts to working-age welfare of over £12 billion are a key component of what looks set to be falling living standards for almost the entire bottom half of the working-age income distribution between this year and 2020-21. The result is the biggest rise in inequality since the late 1980s.”

Former Chancellor George Osborne, who was replaced in the first cabinet announced by Prime Minister Theresa May upon her taking office last summer, wasted no time in cashing in.

Osborne is in all but name a full-time CEO and part-time MP.

Since his removal, he has taken up a £650,000 a year role as a consultant to US investment firm BlackRock. On top of this, he pulled in £786,450 from 14 speeches given mainly to banks and other City of London financial institutions. Osborne also has a £120,000 a year academic position as the first ever Kissinger Fellow at the Arizona-based McCain Institute for International Leadership. In May, he will take on the position of the editor of the main London newspaper, the Evening Standard, with his salary for that not made public.

As a backbench MP, Osborne continues to receive £75,000 a year, plus expenses.

Even taking into account so-called “shareholder revolts” against excessive CEO pay, the heads of the UK main conglomerate continue to rake in vast amounts. Despite a reported voluntary 40 percent cut in pay, BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley pulled in £9 million in 2016. Reuters reported Friday that Dudley’s pay level was set “after around 60 percent of shareholders opposed BP’s pay policy at last year’s annual general meeting.”

The overall pay deal for BP Chief Financial Officer Brian Gilvary was cut by 18 percent, but he still took home £4.2 million.

Reuters noted, “Even after a cut of nearly $8 million, Dudley’s pay remains well above that of rival European oil companies.” It cited the 2016 salary of Shell’s Ben van Beurden (€8.2 million and a 60 percent increase year on year, and Total’s Patrick Pouyanne—paid €3.8 million last year.

The Equality Trust calls on the government to make it mandatory for large and medium companies to highlight the pay gap between the highest and lowest paid employers. More “transparency,” however, can in no way alleviate the growing divide, a product of the capitalist mode of production that results in the accumulation of ever greater wealth at one pole of society and ever increasing social misery at the other.

Far from being a restraining influence on the further enrichment of the super-rich, the government is beholden to and increasingly part of these sated layers.

Workers in UK “gig economy” charged hundreds of pounds for taking sick leave

Alice Summers

The number of self-employed workers in the UK has skyrocketed over the last decade, reaching 4.7 million in 2016. Businesses often classify workers who are, to all intents and purposes, full- or part-time employees as self-employed so they can avoid paying sick pay, holiday pay and pensions. Self-employed workers also have far fewer employment rights than employees.

Self-employed workers are some of the worst paid and most exploited in the UK, with over half on low pay, compared to 30 percent of all employees. The low pay is not compensated for by providing pensions, savings or investments—64 percent of low-paid self-employed workers have none of these, compared to 36 percent of low-paid employees. Across the country, 80 percent of self-employed workers live in poverty.

Many of these workers are a component part of the international phenomenon known as the “gig economy.” Some 162 million individuals in the United States and the European Union, or 20 to 30 percent of the working-age population, engage in “independent work.” This work, as defined by the McKinsey Global Institute, involves a high degree of autonomy; payment by task, assignment, or sales; and a short-term relationship between the worker and the customer.

The most brutal forms of exploitation exist in this growing sector of the economy.

Last month, a courier working for delivery company UK Mail, Emil Ibrahimov, was charged nearly £800 by the company for the several days he was forced to take off work after being involved in a car accident while on duty.

Ibrahimov was taken into hospital by ambulance after he was hit by a car in east London while taking out parcels to be delivered from the rear of his van. He received injuries to his legs and was instructed by doctors to rest and move around only on crutches.

After telling UK Mail that the accident meant he would not be able to work, the company informed him that he would be charged £216 a day, supposedly to recoup the costs of finding a replacement courier. For Ibrahimov, this meant a total fine of £789 for the time spent off work.

In an interview with the Guardian about his treatment, Ibrahimov spoke of the appalling conditions faced by workers at UK Mail. “Every day they were calling saying come to work. … I would say I couldn’t and they would say I was going to be charged. So after a few days I had to go back. It was very painful but I had to go. It is inhuman because this happened while I was doing their job. The car accident didn’t stress me out as much as what UK Mail did afterwards.”

In a previous incident, Ibrahimov also received a heavy fine from UK Mail, when a doctor signed him off work for two weeks with sciatica and acute back pain caused by lifting heavy parcels at work. Despite giving his employers a doctor’s note, Ibrahimov was forced to return to work after two days, despite the doctor’s advice, in order to avoid further losses.

In the past year, Ibrahimov has lost around £1,800 from taking only seven days off work, when UK Mail’s fines and his lost earnings are combined. In a typical week he worked five 12-hour days, but after expenses this saw him earn the equivalent of less than £7 an hour. This is below the national minimum wage (NMW), which stands at £7.20 per hour for over-24s. The national minimum wage does not apply to self-employed workers.

UK Mail, which made a profit of £16 million last year delivering for major retailers including Tesco, Homebase and O2, classifies their couriers as self-employed contractors and pays them per delivery. The system of charges for missed work is written into their contracts, with drivers required to find cover for any time taken off sick, and incurring punitive fines if they are unable to do so.

The company is by no means unique in employing these abusive practices. Other delivery firms, such as DPD and ParcelForce, also charge their couriers—like those working for UK Mail considered to be self-employed—extortionate rates if they cannot find cover. According to the Guardian, DPD charges their drivers £150 a day, while ParcelForce can charge their drivers as much as £250 for each day spent off work.

Despite claims from DPD that their drivers “own their own franchise and run their own businesses,” workers at the company maintain that their jobs do not remotely resemble self-employment. DPD requires couriers to attend compulsory training, uses a rota system, as well as having a uniform and requiring drivers to use DPD’s handheld computers.

One worker stated, “It is not real self-employment, it is employment,” with another courier declaring, “We have to adhere to the same procedures as employed people. The only difference is that we don’t get any holiday pay or sick pay and we have no rights at all.” Self-employed couriers are also required to fund their own vehicle, fuel, insurance and uniform.

Around 460,000 out of the 4.7 million self-employed workers in the UK could be falsely classified, according to the charity Citizens Advice. In November, a UK employment tribunal ruled that the car-sharing company Uber had been falsely classifying their 1 million workers—40,000 of which work in the UK—as self-employed, after two Uber drivers took the company to court. The ruling pronounced that Uber should now pay its drivers the national living wage, and opens Uber to claims from its drivers for holiday pay, pensions and other workers’ rights. Uber has appealed the verdict.

Last year, couriers for the food delivery company Deliveroo staged a protest outside the company’s London office, campaigning against plans to pay workers £3.75 per delivery instead of an hourly rate of £7 plus £1 per delivery.

The prevalence of these super-exploitative contracts is the result of decades in which both Labour and Conservative governments have committed to the wholesale deregulation of the UK economy, in the name of creating a “globally competitive economy.” With the active encouragement of the government, many companies have moved towards this form of employment in recent years as a means of slashing labour costs and other overheads associated with jobs with decent terms and conditions.

Last year, Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May announced a review into such employment practices, supposedly with the aim of protecting self-employed workers. The review will do nothing to change the super-exploitative conditions faced by millions of workers in the gig economy. This is confirmed by May’s appointment of Matthew Taylor—a former adviser of Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair and an ardent proponent of the flexibilisation of the economy—to head the review.

After being appointed, Taylor declared, “New forms of employment have many advantages for workers and consumers, but there are challenges and risks. We need to approach this issue with an open mind, recognising that within our flexible system of employment the same type of contract can have a diverse range of impacts on the people who use them.”

The trade unions, for their part, offer no way forward in the fight against the super-exploitation rampant in the gig economy. Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the Trades Unions Congress (TUC), criticised the rapid rise of new, insecure forms of employment mainly from the standpoint of them being detrimental to the economy, with £4 billion a year in lost tax payments.

Fearful that the trade unions may lose their grip over the working class, and keen to reap the benefits of a potentially lucrative position managing this growing section of the labour market for the ruling class, she declared, “Getting more people into unions is key. Employees in unionised workplaces are twice as likely to be on better-paid, secure contracts.”

The reality is that the trade unions have carried out one betrayal after another of workers’ struggles over the past three decades, showing themselves to be completely unwilling to lift a finger in defence of the pay, terms and conditions of employed and self-employed workers.

Germany: Increased suicide rates among refugees

Carola Kleinert 

The brutal deportation policy of the central and state governments in Germany is driving more and more refugees to commit suicide.

In mid-March this year, WDR radio reported that, according to official figures, 433 refugees sought to commit suicide in the years 2014 to 2016, with 19 resulting deaths. In fact, the real figure for suicide deaths is undoubtedly many times higher. Only a few German states actually collect statistics on suicides and suicide attempts, and the data that is available is mostly based on individual case studies or on an evaluation of police statistics.

In the state of Bavaria alone, 162 refugees attempted suicide last year, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung in early April. Christine Kamm, the spokeswoman for asylum issues of the Green Party, said that this figure has tripled compared to previous years. Among those attempting suicide were 43 people from Afghanistan.

Last December, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière imposed compulsory deportations for refugees from war-ravaged Afghanistan. The result has been growing despair and fear on the part of thousands of Afghans living in Germany, who in the past had been given protection due to the war raging in their homeland.

The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) is now sending out a succession of deportation orders, irrespective of the problems or backgrounds of those affected. The deportations affect many Afghans who have been living in Germany for some time.

Immediately after receiving notice that his application to stay in the country had been rejected, a 20-year-old Afghan threw himself in front of an ICE high-speed train travelling in Haar near Munich. He had fled to Germany from the Afghan province of Kandahar 19 months ago and was reported to be severely traumatised and depressed.

Every day he had studied German for four to five hours, but had become increasingly reclusive in the past few weeks, a volunteer helper reported. “He had a huge fear of having to return,” she said. “The Afghans all receive negative decisions. Fear is spreading in the Afghans’ temporary collective accommodation.” The volunteer added angrily, “The rigid deportation policy of de Maizière killed him.”

Cologne-based lawyer Gunter Christ, a member of the Cologne Refugee Council, confirmed that the suicide risk had “dramatically increased” and condemned the refugee policy of the government. There were more and more people who would be hospitalised, he told Deutschlandfunk at the end of February. “To that extent, it is also a kind of suicide programme. Others do not kill themselves, but go completely insane and end up in psychiatry.”

The Bavarian refugee council also drew attention to two other cases: 24-year-old K. and 27-year-old S. had tried to take their own lives in a deportation prison.

K. had been living in Germany for six years. His planned marriage to a German woman was postponed due to a lack of confirmation of his status from the German Embassy in Kabul. K. then slit his wrists and swallowed a potion containing chlorine. After first aid at the deportation prison he was transferred to a psychiatric clinic in Wasserburg. His fiancée reported to the refugee council that the treating physician told the patient on the day of his arrival that he would be sent to a detention centre three days later (on March 27).

With the help of his lawyer, S. had been able to dispute the deportation detention order issued by Augsburg District Court. He was then, however, lured into the immigration office in Augsburg and arrested to await deportation.

Stephan Dünnwald, the spokesman for the Bavarian Refugee Council, condemned the cooperation between the government, doctors and magistrates: “A psychiatrist declares someone prepared to take his own life as healthy so the authorities can quickly put the person in question on a flight to Kabul. A judge at the District Court issued a detention order, well aware that only a few days previously a different magistrate had stated that there was no sufficient reason for deportation—these are the servile accomplices of the Bavarian minister for deportation.”

Dr. Tom Nowotny from the medical organisation IPPNW also criticised the doctors involved in the mass deportations, saying, “Refugees are declared fit for deportations to Afghanistan, although they are not.”

Refugees from other states are also affected. At the end of October 2016, the state of Thuringia, led by Left Party Premier Bodo Ramelow, hit the headlines when a highly depressed 15-year-old Somalian leapt off the top floor of a tower block building in Schmölln reserved for unaccompanied refugees. He had only recently been released from a psychiatric clinic.

On March 30, 28-year-old Pakistani Faisal Imran leapt from the roof of a hotel near Leipzig’s main station, as terrified passers-by looked on.

In some states, suicides by refugees are not recorded. This includes Thuringia, headed by the Left Party, and Baden-Württemberg, which is governed by the Greens. The red-red-green (Social Democratic Party, Left Party, Green Party) coalition in Berlin also does not yet provide statistics. Other states, such as Christian Democratic Union-ruled Saxony, record such numbers, but then play down their significance. The Saxony Interior Ministry recently declared that such figures had no “statistically conspicuous order of magnitude” and that “beyond existing measures” there would be no need for action.

Psychologists and social pedagogues reject this. The danger of a suicide attempt arises clearly from refugees’ experiences of war and flight from their country, which is then compounded by the surly treatment and inadequate housing they receive in their host country, Germany.

One psychologist, Corinna Klinger, told WDR the reasons behind suicide attempts were often “extreme fear of deportation and renewed confrontations with hostile forces back home. Lack of perspective, despair or the situation in an asylum shelter can be decisive.” Despite this crisis situation, adequate psychological care is lacking.

The Merkel government has long since turned its alleged “welcome culture” into a cold-blooded “deportation and isolation culture.” The opposition Green and Left parties are also involved in this policy at the local and state government level.

The tragic fate of Salah J. at the end of March exposed the cruel consequences of Germany’s refugee policies. The young Syrian father fled with his family to Turkey. He left his pregnant wife and little daughter back in Turkey because he wanted to secure their passage to Europe. In the meantime, the German government has suspended migration for the families of Syrian war refugees. His wife, no longer prepared to wait, drowned with their newborn child and daughter attempting the perilous passage across the Mediterranean.

US retail stores closing at record rate

Niles Niemuth

US retail store closures for 2017 are on pace to exceed 2008 when more than 6,000 locations were shuttered. In the first three months of this year 2,880 store closures were announced, compared to 1,153 in the same time period in 2008. If the current pace of retail bloodletting continues total store closures could top 11,000 by the end of the year, an unprecedented number.

Along with mounting store closures, retailers eliminated 30,000 jobs in March, with a similar number cut in February, making it the worst two-month period for workers in the retail sector since 2008, when the economy was in the depths of the recession caused by the bursting of the housing bubble and stock market crash.

According to Retail Metrics, the combined same-store sales for retailers in the first quarter of this year is expected to rise only 0.3 percent, the worst quarter in four years. Current expectations are well below the 0.8 percent growth in retail sales, which economists had predicted in February. Without positive sales growth posted by discount giant Walmart the retail industry would have posted negative figures. The dismal first quarter of 2017 follows poor in-store holiday sales at the end of 2016.

Traditional retailers are being slammed by competition from Internet retailers, in particular Amazon. Even as many companies are increasingly turning to online sales in an attempt to shore up their poor in store sales Amazon continues to dominate, accounting for 53 percent of all online sales growth in 2016.

Reviewing poor holiday sales figures last month Richard Hayne, the CEO of clothing retailer Urban Outfitters, told investors that too many stores had been built in the US inflating a massive financial bubble. “[L]ike housing, that bubble has now burst,” Hayne noted. “We are seeing the results: Doors shuttering and rents retreating. This trend will continue for the foreseeable future and may even accelerate.”

While market analysts point to the competition from Amazon as a key factor in retailer bankruptcies and store closures, another factor is the underlying weakness of the American economy and years of wage stagnation for the working class. Wage growth has been flat since the Great Recession and monthly year-on-year increases have not exceeded three percent since early 2009. According to the Economic Policy Institute average hourly wages are $3.22 behind where they would be if wages grew at 3.5 percent over the last decade.

Even as the stock market has boomed over the last nine years thanks to an infusion of unlimited cash through quantitative easing and other measures, the real economy has not recovered from the recession. The economic growth rate has not exceeded three percent in a decade and was a meager 1.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. Nearly all of the jobs created since 2008 have been either part time or temporary.

Retailers are shutting their doors and laying-off thousands of workers in predominantly poor and working class neighborhoods in both urban and rural areas. Nearly a third of US shopping malls will be hollowed out by store closures or lose a key anchor, with many of these threatened without outright closure without major department store locations and smaller chain retailers.

The last decade has seen a series of buyouts, mergers and acquisitions by private equity firms as part of last ditch efforts by retailers to avoid bankruptcy and outright liquidation by corporate raiders squeezing every penny before liquidating or reselling them.

An overview of the companies that have announced closing or filed for bankruptcy this year gives a sense of the current crisis.

Discount retailer Dollar Express will close all 323 of its locations, including a number which operated under the Family Dollar brand, eliminating almost 3,000 jobs, after being bought out by rival Dollar General.

Payless Shoes filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and announced plans to close 400 hundred stores, 10 percent of its stores nationwide. Rue 21, a clothing retailer targeting young adults, will soon file for bankruptcy, a few years after being bought by private equity firm Apax Partners

Indianapolis-based electronics and home appliance retailer HHGregg (liquidating all 132 stores), Omaha-based clothing retailer Gordmans (closing 48 stores) and St. Paul, Minnesota-based sporting goods retailer Gander Mountain (closing 32 of 162 locations) have filed for bankruptcy this year. Electronics retailer RadioShack has filed for bankruptcy for the second time in two years and announced the closure of 552 stores.

Major department stores Sears, Macys and JC Penney are on the verge of bankruptcy and are planning to close hundreds of locations.

Gamestop, which sells video games and consoles, is closing more than 150 stores in the US this year, nearly three percent of its locations worldwide. Office supply store Staples and the health goods and pharmacy chain CVS each announced plans to close 70 locations.

Family Christian bookstore, the largest Christian bookseller in the US, announced at the end of February it is closing all of its stores, more than 240 locations, two years after emerging from bankruptcy. Recent years have seen the failure and liquidation of most bookstore chains, including Borders and Walden Books, under pressure from Amazon and other online book retailers.

Hundreds of smaller clothing retail stores, mainstays of many shopping malls, are set to be closed this year, including Abercrombie and Fitch, Guess, Crocs, The Limited and Wet Seal locations. American Apparel is liquidating all 110 of its remaining stores and a factory in Los Angeles as the company completes the process of going out of business following years of legal and financial woes.