USA Moves Toward Major Intervention In Yemen

Thomas C. Mountain

The USA, according to Defense Secretary “Mad Dog” Mattis, he who ordered the use of chemical weapons in Fallujah, Iraq, is about to take a major step towards direct intervention in support of the Saudi Arabia war on the Yemeni people.

According to Jeffrey St. Clair, Editor of Counterpunch, this war has already seen 90,000 Saudi airstrikes on Yemen, or one every 12 minutes, 123 a day for two years now. With direct US military involvement it will only get worse for the USA has been limiting its involvement to fueling, arming and target selection for the Saudi military.

The UN and the international media claim only 12,000 or so deaths in Yemen but this just doesn’t add up. If there have been 90,000 airstrikes that means that only one Yemeni is killed for every 8 strikes? They must take us for idiots, or more likely, just to ignorant and brainwashed to know better.

One airstrike is a big deal, for it involves the use of several thousand kilograms of high explosives, enough to incinerate an entire village. And then there are the cluster bombs in their thousands, and the hundreds of markets bombed…so if only 3 Yemenis have been killed per air strike then we are talking upwards of 250,000 dead Yemenis and counting.

Doesn’t this match the toll for the first two years of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and isn’t just going to get worse with US involvement? There is a huge crime being committed in Yemen and the UN and its cronies in the so called “human rights movement” are helping cover it up with their ridiculous death statistics.

Never mind the tens of thousands of Yemeni children already dead and buried from the US backed Saudi enforced starvation blockade of food and medicine to the Houthi homeland.

The US has to protect its national interests in controlling the Bab Al Mandab chokepoint between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean through which passes the trade of the two biggest international partners, Europe and Asia.

The US may have become a second tier trading partner but militarily “Mad Dog” Mattis is not going to sit by and lose control of the region. The US has a airbase in near by Djibouti and most likely planning permanent bases in Yemen to aid the incoming onslaught of US military might.

Already moves are underway to increase direct US military involvement in Somalia, the other key link in controlling the “Gate of Tears”. First comes Mad Dog Mattis calling for an increase in airstrikes, then on the ground coordinators, “training officers” and in the end, direct military intervention by the US, as Somalia itself continues to be rocked by insurgency and famine. What possible good can come from an aerial onslaught on the Somali people by the American Luftwaffe, whose so called “smart bombs” seem to inevitably find targets containing Somali women and children.

Famine to the left of Bad Al Mandab, famine to the right of Bad Al Mandab, it seems a famine policy is being enacted by Pax Americana and its lackeys at the UN when it comes to the Horn of Africa.

So expect no mercy when it comes to the US military directly involving itself in Yemen. Drone strikes will continue, with some most likely based directly in Yemen, though does Pax Americana really want to give ISIS and Al Qaeda an available target by putting American boots on the ground in Yemen?

And always off shore lurks the the US Navy’s Indian Ocean Fleet supported by its base at Diego Garcia, striking without warning anywhere they choose in Yemen, never mind the dead women and children by now in the hundreds of thousands. Many tens of thousands of new airstrikes, so many that the munition makers in the US are putting on 24 hour shifts. The US airbase at Camp Lemonierre in Djibouti will be ramping up operations and the US will be taking out of mothballs their bases in Saudi Arabia. It is as if the War on Iraq is being fought all over again, except this time against the poorest, hungriest of the Arab peoples, the Yemenis.

Saudi Arabia is stuck in a quagmire in Yemen, easy to get into and very difficult to get out of, just as Egypt did in the 1960’s, what President Nasser was to call “Egypts Vietnam”. The US recognizes the fact that the Saudi war is going nowhere, with out a single major objective recaptured since the start of the war. Al Qaeda and ISIS are growing in strength, taking advantage of the vacuum of power existing in the Sunni communities in Southern Yemen who are actually fighting for independence. The so called “Government” of Yemen, if you can call a government based in a foreign country any such thing, is little more that a mouthpiece, with no effective fighting forces on the ground in southern Yemen thanks to the Saudis failing to provide the salaries of its fighters. No pay, no way, their families have to eat so its back to doing whatever it takes to buy food for their wives and kids and that was the end of “Governments” army.

So its South American mercenaries guarding the UAE facilities, Saudi troops and a handful of Sudanese troops caught between the battle hardened Houthi fighters and their allies in the Yemeni army loyal to former President Saleh and Al Qaeda and ISIS with all hell to pay.

What is the US going to do, sit back and watch their strategic partner in West Asia, or asset really, the Saudi’s, stuck in a swamp of their own making with no apparent way out?

The USA seems intent on going where history has proven only catastrophe awaits, into the tribal conflict in Yemen. As a result the world should expect half a million or more dead Yemenis in this war against the Houthi tribes and their supporters as well as untold starvation deaths of Yemeni children.

But no matter the unimaginable suffering the Yemen people suffer, their tribal differences must be put aside, as in reunification in 1990, and lift themselves out of the failed state they exist in today. There are those who do not want this to happen, for crisis management is the policy of the USA when it comes to the Horn of Africa, as in help create a crisis the better to manage control of such an international critical choke point, the Bab Al Mandab. As in Somalia, the USA prefers chaos to a strong, independent Yemen able to interfere in Pax Americana’s control of the Gate of Tears.

Papua New Guinea soldiers attack refugees in Australian-run prison camp

Max Newman 

Escalating tensions at the Australian refugee detention centre on Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) Manus Island erupted last Friday when armed soldiers fired shots into the camp and assaulted detainees. Videos posted on-line showed terrified asylum seekers seeking shelter as gunfire peppered the centre.

Eye-witness accounts indicate that a vehicle rammed the entrance gates, and rocks were thrown at refugees. Anxious to whitewash the assault, the Australian government continues to claim that only a single shot was fired, into the air, despite photos and videos showing multiple bullet holes.

The violence highlights the mounting dangers confronting the nearly 900 refugees who have been incarcerated on the remote island for four years. Those classified as entitled to asylum face being dumped permanently in PNG, an impoverished former Australian colony, when the Australian government officially closes the prison camp in October. Other detainees, arbitrarily denied refugee status, are threatened with deportation back to the countries they fled.

According to initial statements by the PNG defence force, Friday’s incident was triggered over the use of a football field on the naval base that surrounds the detention facility. Colonel Ray Numa said asylum seekers were told to vacate the oval at 6pm but some refused to leave. In a statement on Sunday, the PNG Constabulary claimed that drunken soldiers retaliated by entering the detention centre.

Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian-born journalist imprisoned in the compound, reported on Facebook that three asylum seekers and some Australian staff members were seriously injured. Two Sudanese asylum seekers were injured, one from a rock thrown at his head and the other in his chest, and a Pakistani man was badly injured in the stomach, causing him to urinate blood.

As of last month, Manus Island held 888 male asylum seekers, many of whom have been imprisoned there since the detention centre was reopened in 2012 by the Labor government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard, which was kept in office by the Greens. In 2013, Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that no asylum seeker who tried to arrive by boat would ever be permitted to settle in Australia, effectively permanently barring all the refugees locked up in Manus and Nauru, Australia’s other Pacific detention camp.

The Manus camp has a history of inhumane living conditions, inadequate health care and violence. In February 2014, during a protest by detainees, in what had all the hallmarks of a calculated provocation by the Australian government, Kurdish-Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati was murdered. The investigation into the death of the 23-year-old was deliberately obstructed by the Australian government, which blocked the return of expatriate staff members to give evidence during the trial.

Hamid Kehazaei, another Manus Island victim of Australia’s refugee regime, died in August 2014 from a preventable bacterial infection from a small cut in his leg. During a coronial inquest it was revealed that the sub-standard medical facilities on the island, coupled with the government’s refusal to fly him back to Australia, resulted in his preventable death.

Last April, the PNG Supreme Court ruled that the centre was unconstitutional because of its unlawful deprivation of personal liberty and ordered its closure. Together with the PNG government, the current Turnbull Liberal-National government effectively defied the ruling, kept the centre running under slightly modified conditions and reiterated that no asylum seeker on the island would come to Australia.

Earlier this month, however, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said the centre would be closed by October, while the Nauru camp would remain open. He said those imprisoned would be “resettled” in PNG, returned to their country of origin or transferred to the US under the refugee-swap deal announced last year.

Contemptuously defying the widespread popular opposition in Australia to the prison camps, Dutton declared: “They [the detainees] are not coming to Australia and the advocates can bleat all they want, they can protest all they want, we have been very clear.” He was reinforcing the bipartisan policy adopted by Labor in 2013.

Over the past year, the Australian and PNG authorities have rapidly determined the refugee status of most of those in the camp via a limited vetting process. It was found that of the 888 asylum seekers, 614 were “genuine” refugees and 205 were “non-refugees,” with 69 “awaiting processing.”

Fearing deportation to their countries of origin, where they would face torture, imprisonment and death, Boochani and 730 other applicants launched an application to the PNG Supreme Court last November, seeking interim orders to restrain the PNG government from deporting them.

The Supreme Court rejected the application, declaring that the PNG government had “complied with the [April 2016] Court order and closed the MIRPC (Manus Island Regional Processing Centre).” The basis for this ruling was that those imprisoned could now move freely in and out of the facility, which had become part of the adjacent naval base.

In reality, the prisoners are still living in the same housing units as before, now enclosed by the navy base, with permission to enter the nearby town of Lorengau during daylight hours, where local officials have whipped up antagonism against the detainees.

Last Friday’s incident appears to be a product of the resulting pressures on both the refugees and local residents. The bloody attack by military personal also further highlights the repressive conditions of the continuing incarceration. The political responsibility for the cruel treatment of these asylum seekers rests with successive Australian governments and the entire political establishment, including the Greens, who support the underlying anti-refugee framework.

Latest cuts plan at ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe threatens 4,000 jobs

Elisabeth Zimmermann

ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe has adopted a new program of jobs and cost cutting. An additional €500 million is to be saved over the next three years in its steel sector, which currently has around 26,000 employees (almost 22,000 in North Rhine-Westphalia). The program was announced on April 7 after a meeting of the Economic Committee of the steel group in Duisburg, at which representatives of management and the works councils held discussions.

As has been the case with all former cuts programs, the representatives of the IG Metall union and the works council have assumed the task of enforcing job cuts, the decommissioning of plants and the rundown of working conditions for those who keep their jobs.

The union representatives and works councils have complained that the ThyssenKrupp board of directors and Andreas Goss, the head of the steel section, have failed to sufficiently inform them of the extent of the cuts and the future for the steel sector. Workers doubt this version of events under conditions where the union reps sit with management on numerous committees. What is clear is that the workforce receives barely any information about what has been decided.

On April 7, Günter Back, the chairman of the joint works council of ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe, told the press that the plants for the processing of heavy plate in Duisburg-Hüttenheim and Bochum are threatened with imminent closure. It is estimated that between 300 and 400 jobs will be affected, but this is probably only the start, Back stated.

Just two days later IG Metall, after meeting with the works councils, announced a more realistic scenario. On April 11, Dieter Lieske, the representative of IG Metall Duisburg-Dinslaken, told Reuters: “It’s about 4,050 jobs. That is the most likely outcome.” According to management documentation, about 15 percent of the approximately 27,000 jobs at ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe are to be eliminated.

The workers in Duisburg-Hüttenheim are not only concerned about the 350 jobs directly threatened, they fear for the survival of the factory, which currently has more than 1,000 employees. The situation is similar at the ThyssenKrupp steel works in Bochum and Dortmund and other sections threatened by job cuts and closure.

ThyssenKrupp itself has not released information on the number of jobs affected by the savings measures. The company said the savings should be achieved over the next three years via cost reductions in personnel, maintenance and repair, logistics, distribution and administration.

IG Metall confirmed to Reuters that it would support the planned restructuring. Before doing so, however, it would have to be clear whether Thyssen-Krupp planned to merge its steel division with Tata Steel. “We strongly reject such a merger,” Lieske told Reuters.

Both ThyssenKrupp works council chairman, Wilhelm Segerath, and the works council chair for the steel section, Günter Back, have repeatedly stated that they would only seriously discuss the new restructuring measures in the steel sector when management made clear that no deal with Tata Steel was planned.

In January of this year, Segerath said, “We will not accept that our locations are threatened in the event of a consolidation.” He attacked Tata in particular for offering a five-year pledge of continued operations to the unions at the British steelworks in Port Talbot, in exchange for shutting down the existing pension fund. Segerath said: “If they get five years, we want at least 10 years.”

This nationalist double game makes clear that the union and works councils have no principled opposition to a merger, as long as workers in Britain pay the price with their jobs.

Heinrich Hiesinger, the CEO of ThyssenKrupp, declared that the new savings program was necessary, regardless of whether or not a merger with the European steel sector of the Indian Tata Group took place.

The works council and trade union officials will decide in the coming weeks and months on how best to implement the restructuring and the reduction of thousands of jobs. Their tactic is already well known. First of all they feign indignation, then a few harmless protests are organized, prior to the union bosses giving their signature to the closure of entire factories and the loss of thousands of jobs.

The works council of ThyssenKrupp’s heavy plate factory in Duisburg-Hüttenheim made an initial start with this process with meetings held at the beginning of shifts and during shifts. The works council chairman of the factory, Werner von Häfen, warned of “significant restrictions” in production and threatened “further industrial action.”

On May 3, one day before ThyssenKrupp Steel’s next supervisory board meeting, the IG Metall and works council plan to hold a demonstration in Duisburg. One day before, management will inform the works councils of the executive’s plans.

According to a report in Wirtschaftswoche the “Taskforce” will meet at this point. The Taskforce is a body consisting of management and works councils, which convened after the last IG Metall action day in front of the ThyssenKrupp Steel headquarters in Duisburg on August 31 last year. Since then nothing more has been heard from this taskforce. During last year’s IG Metall and company day of action, demands were raised for measures to be taken against Chinese “dumping steel.”

The IG Metall and works councils are particularly prominent in the campaign against Chinese steel imports. Once again they try to split workers along nationalist lines. Although it is clear that protectionism and economic nationalism are the precursors to military interventions and open war, the union demands higher import tariffs and punitive duties against steel from China.

Segerath praised the US government last year because it was quicker to impose higher import duties against Chinese steel than the EU Commission. Since then the German steel group Salzgitter has been hit by US import duties. Since the end of March it has had to pay a tariff of 22.9 percent on heavy plate and other export products.

The nationalist policy of the trade unions is supported by the Left Party. On March 24 it organised a “steel conference” in Duisburg, involving the participation of 35 “interested” parties from pseudo-left organisations. Among them was the managing director of IG Metall in Kaiserslautern, Alexander Ulrich, who sits in the Bundestag as a deputy for the Left Party.

According to a report from the conference, Ulrich “was committed to carrying out joint action with the employer, as was the case last year at the steel day of action.” The former Social Democrat and Opel works council member pointed “to the competition coming from cheap steel from China” and “defended the protective customs policy of the EU against China resulting from the successful actions of steel workers.”

Similar remarks were made by the Duisburg City Councillor Mirze Edis, who is also deputy chair of the works council at Hüttenwerke Krupp-Mannesmann in Duisburg.

Not a single job is safe on the basis of such a nationalist policy. The allies of steelworkers in Germany are steelworkers in China, the UK and the rest of the world—not their respective managements. The price for the policy of class collaboration is paid by workers, in the form of job losses and constantly worsening working conditions.

The tragic consequences of this policy were demonstrated by the two deadly accidents at steelworks this month. On April 4, a 44-year-old locomotive driver in the Oxygen steel mill 1 of ThyssenKrupp Steel in Bruckhausen was trapped between two trains and died on the spot. A week later a 30-year-old worker died during repair work at the Deutsche Edelstahlwerke in Witten. The electrician was crushed by a stamping machine and died soon after in hospital.

In such cases, little information is released about the background of the incidents. But it is obvious that increased work pressure and insufficient staff working in difficult and hazardous jobs play a major role in such horrific accidents.

Trade spat precedes IMF meeting

Nick Beams 

As the International Monetary Fund prepares for its Spring meeting next weekend, a conflict has broken out between the IMF head Christine Lagarde and a leading member of the Trump administration over the question of protectionism.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross took issue with veiled warnings from Lagarde over the dangers of protectionism emanating from the US.

In comments last week, previewing the IMF meeting, Lagarde said that after six years of disappointing growth, the world economy was gaining momentum through a “cyclical recovery.”

But she warned of “downside risks,” including political uncertainty, “the sword of protectionism hanging over global trade,” and tighter financial conditions, that could set off capital outflow from emerging market economies.

While Lagarde named no names, the reference to the danger of protectionism was clearly aimed at the US. At last month’s meeting of G20 finance ministers, a phrase referring to the need to “resist protectionism” was dropped from the communiqué at the insistence of Washington.

In his interview, Ross said his response to the implied criticism of the US by Lagarde and others was “very simple.”

“We are the least protectionist of the major areas. We are far less protectionist than Europe. We are far less protectionist than Japan. We are far less protectionist than China.”

Ross developed on a theme which has characterised remarks by members of the Trump administration on the issue of “free trade”—that those who are most vociferous in its defence are the chief beneficiaries of the US trade deficit of $500 billion.

This argument echoes previous remarks by Ross and other members of the Trump administration that it is not a question of a trade war breaking out—it has already begun and the US is losing.

In his Financial Times interview, Ross said the US had deficits with Japan, Europe and China. “So they talk free trade. But in fact what they practise is protectionism. And every time we do anything to defend ourselves, even against the puny obligations that they have, they call that protectionism. It’s rubbish.”

The central theme of Lagarde and other defenders of the present global trade order is that it has played a key role in ensuring economic growth and to endanger it would have major consequences.

However, Ross and others in the Trump administration, including the head of the National Trade Council, Peter Navarro, assert that the system has contributed to the growth of US trade deficits, now roughly equal to surpluses generated elsewhere, and has had played a significant part in weakening its economic position.

“Our tolerance for continuing to be the deficit that eats the surpluses of the whole rest of the world—the president is not tolerant of that any more,” Ross said.

The Trump administration, however, is something of a battleground between those like Navarro and Ross, who favour stronger protectionist measures and others who are somewhat reluctant to go completely down that road.

The conflict saw the US Treasury last week decline to label China a “currency manipulator” even though Trump as recently as February had branded China as a “grand champion” of currency manipulation.

But the designation has not been completely put aside. In its twice-yearly report, the Treasury hit out at China for its “long track record of engaging in persistent, large scale, one-way foreign exchange intervention” before stating that in the recent period Chinese authorities had been undertaking measures to prevent a depreciation of the currency.

Trump indicated that political considerations, most notably the push to have China take stronger action against North Korea, were also a factor in his acknowledgement that Chinese policies had changed.

The Treasury report called on China to prove that the change represented a “durable policy shift” adding that China continued to pursue a range of policies limiting market access for imported goods and services. “Treasury is concerned by the lack of progress made in reducing the bilateral trade surplus with the United States,” the report stated.

At the meeting between Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping earlier this month, China sought to ease pressure from the US by putting forward a 100-day plan aimed at providing greater markets for American exports.

However, the Trump administration is not only concerned about the Chinese surplus, currently running at $347 billion a year. It has other countries in its sights as well.

The Treasury report maintained six countries on a list for close monitoring: China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Switzerland and Germany.

“The current global configuration of external positions, in which there are pockets of extremely large trade and current account surpluses, is untenable,” it said. The United States “cannot and will not bear the burden of an international trading system that unfairly disadvantages our exports and unfairly advantages of the exports of our trading partners through artificially distorted exchanges rates.”

Besides China, Germany is also a target. Navarro has said that Germany benefits from a “grossly undervalued” euro and the Treasury report stated that Germany’s bilateral surplus with the US was “very sizeable and a matter of concern.”

There also appear to be some differences within the Trump administration over the issue of the US dollar. In the same interview with the Wall Street Journal in which he stated that China was not a currency manipulatory, Trump said the dollar was “getting too strong” claiming that it was partially his fault because “people have confidence in me.”

There were some “good things” about having a strong dollar but “it’s very, very hard to compete and other countries are devaluing their currency.”

However, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has so far adhered to the “strong dollar” policy that has been the traditional mantra of successive US administrations.

The tensions over trade between the US and other major powers may not directly emerge at the IMF meetings later this week. But they will be not far below the surface.

The reason is that despite evidence of a “cyclical recovery,” underlying growth rates remain low, intensifying the global struggle for markets and profits.

One of the IMF’s chief concerns is continued low productivity growth, which is impacting on trade. According to the World Trade Organisation, last year trade volumes grew more slowly than the increase in global economic output for the first time since 2001.

The IMF has calculated that with the fall in productivity growth since the financial crisis of 2008, the output of the advanced economies has been 5 percent below what it would have been had previous levels been maintained. This is the equivalent of losing an economy the size of Germany’s.

Trump administration announces new military operation in Somalia

Eddie Haywood

The Pentagon announced the deployment of dozens of US troops to Somalia last week, the first deployment of regular infantry since 1994, to assist the Somali military in the fight against Al Shabaab militants. Coincident with the announcement of the US deployment, a combat contingent from Uganda arrived in Somalia’s capital city Mogadishu on the weekend.

The Ugandan military contingent, which is one part of a multi-country cooperative offensive, replaces a group of Ugandan forces after that group’s one-year tour of duty ended. The Ugandan troops are to augment the US-backed African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) against the Islamist militants.

The Ugandan troops are culled from the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF), that country’s military, and are largely funded by Washington, which has funneled billions of dollars to regional governments in its imperialist effort to secure the installation of a puppet government in Mogadishu. Uganda, along with several East African countries including Ethiopia and Kenya, are key allies in Washington’s efforts.

AMISOM, the multi-country military force operating in Somalia and administered by the African Union with the full backing of the United Nations, is made up of combat forces from Kenya, Burundi, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Djibouti, Nigeria, Zambia, and Sierra Leone. The bulk of its troops come from Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti and Sierra Leone. More than 22,000 combat forces are currently deployed to the war-torn Horn of Africa nation. Additionally, the US already has a contingent of Special Forces personnel operating within Somalia.

The increased military offensive in Somalia is being carried out with the aim of supporting the government of Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and its Transitional Federal Government, and neutralizing Al Shabaab, the Somali Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist militia.

The US eyes the Horn of Africa as a geopolitical prize due to its strategic importance fronting the waterway for the world’s oil traffic through the Gulf of Aden from the Red Sea in the Middle East.

Al Shabaab, perceived by Washington as a roadblock for its imperialist objectives in dominating Somalia, has vowed to “double its response” to the increased US military offensive in a statement by the militant organization’s news agency Shahada.

On April 9, Somalia’s military chief General Mohamed Ahmed Jimale survived a car bomb attack, for which Al Shabaab has claimed responsibility. The attack came after the newly sworn-in military chief’s recent declaration he would “launch a new offensive” in cooperation with Washington targeting the militia. Fifteen people were killed in the attack, including several civilian passengers on a minibus in the vicinity.

A day later, the militant group bombed a military academy in Mogadishu, killing five Somali soldiers.

The increased US offensive follows a sordid and bloody history of Washington’s involvement in the severely impoverished nation, most notably the infamous 1993 US operation on Mogadishu to neutralize Islamist militants which resulted in a debacle for the Clinton administration and culminated in the shooting down of two US helicopters in Mogadishu. Eighteen US Special Forces personnel and hundreds of Somalis were killed in the 15-hour offensive.

Since its rout in 1993, Washington has largely relied on drone and missile attacks on the country, resulting in scores of deaths of civilians, including women and children.

The humiliating 1993 defeat came in the aftermath of the violent US-backed overthrow of the Mohammed Siad Barre government in 1991, which was aligned with the former Soviet Union. Consequently, Somalia fell into complete disarray, with no central government, and the country fractured into various tribal factions.

Washington was irked by the formation of the Islamic Courts Union in 1991, set up in the chaotic aftermath of Siad Barre’s overthrow as a rival to the US-backed Transitional National Government.

The Islamic Courts Union controlled much of Southern Somalia and Mogadishu until 2006, with its defeat following years of bloody conflict with tribal warlords and US-backed forces supporting the Transitional Federal Government which replaced the Transitional National Government. Al Shabaab grew out of this chaotic stew.

The Transitional Federal Government formed in 2004 and based in Mogadishu is packed with US-backed technocrats and protected by a coterie of East African US-allied military forces. It has never had any popular support in the country.

Since the fall of the Siad Barre government in 1991, the social conditions in the country have deteriorated dramatically, Somalia is today one of the most impoverished nations in the world. In a country which 70 percent of the population is aged 30 and under, youth unemployment is at 67 percent, according to UN figures. The poverty rate for the Somalian masses is at a shocking 73 percent, and life expectancy is 55 years. More than half the population does not have access to clean water sources, resulting in elevated levels of disease.

Decades of war and conflict stoked by US imperialism have taken its toll on the Somalian masses, with thousands left maimed.

Escalating military operations in Somalia also come amidst a devastating famine currently sweeping across Somalia and Eastern Africa, which is expected to afflict tens of millions. The US-backed imperialist violence will only exacerbate the intolerable social crisis afflicted on the Somalian masses and the surrounding region.

The US troop deployment to Somalia follows Washington’s increasing turn to the use of its massive military power to solve the crisis of the capitalist system, not only in Africa, but across the globe. From the standpoint of the ruling class, they will be satisfied with nothing less than the complete subjugation of the African continent’s economies under the total hegemonic control of US corporate and banking interests.

With the election of a nationalist figure in Donald Trump to the White House, the US ruling class is turning to ever more aggressive and reckless means to hold onto the massive amounts of wealth it has accumulated at the expense of the world’s working class.

Rivals to US domination across the globe such as China and Russia, and increasingly, France and Germany, constitute the ultimate targets in Washington’s drive for global domination of economic resources and markets in order to rid itself of the crisis of capitalism.

Severe humanitarian crisis in Iraq with 800,000 going to bed hungry

Jean Shaoul 

More than half of Iraqi families—around 20 million people—are at risk of food insecurity and cannot withstand any further shocks such as conflict or increases in basic food prices, warned a joint report by the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) and the Iraqi government.

It follows nearly four decades of wars, sanctions, occupation and civil war, instigated by Washington, that have devastated this once prosperous country.

It is American imperialism, and its European allies—who invaded the country in 1991 and again in 2003—that are principally responsible for the growing danger of a colossal humanitarian disaster now confronting Iraq.

Operations by US forces still range throughout the country. Their drone missile strikes and bombings of residential areas at a rate of 200 to 300 a month have slaughtered hundreds, if not thousands, of civilian men, women and children.

The March 17 bombing of the Jadida neighbourhood in the densely populated western part of Mosul that killed at least 531 people, according to the Iraqi Civil Defence Department, is only the bloodiest in a series of attacks carried out by US forces resulting in mass civilian casualties. The Iraq Body Count group estimates that air strikes have killed more than 5,000 people since the beginning of the year.

The WFP study, carried out in December, before the recent offensive on west Mosul that started February 18, was based upon surveys of 20,000 families in urban and rural areas across the country. Since then, the scale of the crisis has intensified as people flee the conflict.

The report notes that even before the assault on Mosul, around 2.5 percent of Iraqis were “food insecure.” That is, more than 800,000 people were going to bed hungry every night.

More than 3 million people have been displaced from their homes since 2014, when Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) took over one third of the country. The report estimates that two thirds of the internally displaced, some 2 million people, and more than half of Iraqis living in their own homes have barely enough food to feed themselves. The situation is so bad that almost 75 percent of children under the age of 15 are working to help their families put food on the table instead of going to school.

The survey, the most comprehensive ever carried out in Iraq, found that 53 percent of residents and 66 percent of internally displaced people are vulnerable to food insecurity. Food insecurity was twice as high among internally displaced families, compared to those still living in their own homes.

The highest concentration of food-insecure families was found in the long-neglected Muthanna governorate in southwest Iraq, on the border with Saudi Arabia. Other high concentrations were in parts of the largely Sunni governorate of Salah al-Deen, whose capital Tikrit was Saddam Hussein’s hometown and support base.

The WFP currently provides monthly food assistance to 1.5 million of the most vulnerable displaced people in Iraq’s 18 governorates, through a system of cash hand-outs and monthly family rations. In January, it was forced to halve the food rations because donors had failed to deliver on their pledges. The WFP warned that even these are now at risk, as it needs to raise $113 million to cover costs until the end of September 2017.

Such a sum is loose change compared to the resources squandered by the major powers on war and militarism. The US Pentagon war machine alone spends more than $10 billion a week.

Even the devastating figures compiled by the WFP pale into insignificance when one considers the impact of the vast numbers displaced by the attempt to retake Mosul from ISIS, in one of the largest urban military operations since World War II.

By the end of January—in a city once home to 1.8 million people—at least 160,000 out of 400,000 people living in eastern Mosul had fled their homes after the military campaign to take the eastern part of the city began.

The assault by Iraqi forces, under cover of air strikes by US-led forces, led to a huge number of civilian casualties. They comprised nearly half of all casualties, far higher than the 15-20 percent expected in such a conflict. This was despite a promise by the Iraqi security forces to adopt a plan prohibiting artillery strikes, requiring civilians to remain in their homes, and providing humanitarian exit corridors wherever necessary.

The situation has hardly improved in the months since the recapture of eastern Mosul. While booby-traps are being removed and some people have returned to their homes, water, electricity and food are in short supply. Schools remained closed for two months because of delays in paying teachers.

Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Iraq, told the website Middle East Eye, “ Worryingly, large numbers of people are actually leaving eastern Mosul. People tell us that they are leaving because not enough food is being distributed and because they are being harassed—some even feel threatened.”

In fact, the Iraqi authorities are targeting households whose family members are thought to have supported ISIS. This is giving rise to fears that Mosul will experience the same horrendous sectarian abuse and corrupt governance that befell Fallujah and Ramadi after their recapture. Mosul’s governor, Nofal Hammadi al-Sultan, remains in Erbil, not even visiting the city until February, even though eastern Mosul was recaptured in December.

The bitter sectarian conflict that threatens to explode is directly linked to Washington’s criminal policy of divide and rule pursued in the years following the Iraq war. Support for reactionary ISIS only emerged under conditions where the Sunni population was sidelined and suffered sectarian violence at the hands of the Shia-dominated Baghdad government.

Moreover, at least 355,000 Iraqis are believed to have fled the battle to retake the western part of the city, which began in February, with 15,000 fleeing every day. Grande said, “Hundreds of thousands more may [flee] in the days and weeks ahead.”

Those internally displaced face dire conditions in squalid camps, sometimes with three or four families crammed into one 10-by-4-metre tent, where they wait in massive queues to get a helping of rice and sauce.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently issued an urgent call for the major powers to increase aid to help people fleeing the city. He said, during a visit to Hassan Sham camp, one of a number of camps for displaced people, “We don’t have the resources necessary to support these people,” adding, “Unfortunately our programme is only 8 percent funded.”

While Iraqi forces have recaptured parts of the city, at least 400,000 people remain trapped inside the densely populated Old City, the scene of weeks of street battles. While many of the ISIS leaders are thought to have left Mosul, the US believes around 2,000 fighters are still in the city, resisting Iraqi ground forces with snipers, car bombs and suicide attacks.

The UN humanitarian coordinator said, “The level of damage in western Mosul is already far greater than in the east, even before the battle to retake the Old City begins” [emphasis added]. Homes have been destroyed, schools and health centres damaged and crucial public infrastructures including electricity and water stations lie in ruins.

The media has largely ignored the death and destruction wreaked by US bombs and missiles upon the people of Iraq, rarely giving it any significant coverage. This contrasts starkly with the moral outrage of those crying crocodile tears over the victims of the alleged chemical attack for which the Syrian government has been framed.

Mounting political tensions in aftermath of Turkish referendum

Halil Celik

Sunday’s constitutional referendum in Turkey, which saw the passage by a razor thin margin of amendments giving President Recep Tayyip Erdogan quasi-dictatorial powers, has intensified the political crisis within the country and further complicated Ankara’s already tense relations with Europe.

Widespread voting irregularities have provoked protests in some Turkish cities as well as sharp criticism from the European Union.

On Sunday night and Monday, thousands of “No” voters took to the streets in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Samsun to protest the result, while pro-Erdogan crowds chanted the president’s name and shouted “God is great!”

At a press conference Monday, Bulent Tezcan, deputy chairperson of the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), confirmed that his organization would lodge an appeal with the Turkish Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights citing breeches of voting laws. “The only way to end ongoing discussions on the referendum’s legitimacy is to annul it,” he said.

Also on Monday, representatives of both the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe told a press conference in Ankara that the referendum did not conform to the standards set by the Council of Europe. The two vote monitoring organizations noted the widespread state pressure against the “No” campaign in advance of referendum day.

President Erdogan quickly rebuffed the OSCE statement. “First, you should know your place!” he declared, adding, “We will not consider, see or recognize your political report. We will go our own way.”

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said the result was a “clear signal against the European Union” and called for an end to the “fiction” of Turkey’s bid to join the EU. Julia Klöckner, a member of German Prime Minister Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, said the door to EU accession for Turkey was “well and truly shut.”

Speaking to supporters at the Ankara airport, Erdogan responded to these critics by declaring, “The crusader mentality in the West and its servants at home have attacked us, but we have not grown weary or lost heart. We have stood tall as a nation because we bow only before our Lord in prayer.”

During the referendum campaign, held under a state of emergency, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) mobilized all of the resources of the government, including its financial resources and its power over the media, to promote the “Yes” campaign, while working to intimidate and disrupt the opposition. Over the course of the nine months since the state of emergency was imposed following the failed coup of July 2016, the AKP government has shuttered scores of opposition media outlets and jailed thousands of people, including 13 MPs of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and some 150 journalists for suspected “links to terrorist organizations.”

Another issue increasing tensions between Ankara and the EU is the possible reinstatement of the death penalty, which would formally disqualify Turkey from becoming an EU member. In response to fascistic supporters who constantly demand the reinstatement of capital punishment, Erdogan said Monday that “if passed and sent by parliament,” he would approve it. He also suggested that a referendum could be held on the issue.

This provoked a warning from the office of the French president that any referendum on restoring the death penalty would “obviously mark a break with the values” Turkey had accepted in joining the Council of Europe.

In a joint statement, German Chancellor Merkel and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said, “The German federal government respects the right of Turkish citizens to decide on their own constitutional order.” The statement went on to call for political dialogue to address European concerns over the transition to a presidential system in Turkey. “The [German] federal government expects that the Turkish government will seek a respectful dialogue with all political and social actors after a tough referendum campaign,” it added.

US President Donald Trump called Erdogan to congratulate him on the referendum victory. According to the pro-government Daily Sabah, Trump and Erdogan had a 45 minute-long “pleasant” call, during which they discussed the Syrian crisis and reiterated their “willingness to cooperate in the fight against the Islamic State.”

Reflecting a cooling of relations between Ankara and Moscow following Erdogan’s “full support” for the US missile attack on a Syrian air base last week, there has thus far been no congratulatory call from Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to the Russian news agency TASS, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a news conference Monday that the Turkish referendum results were “Turkey’s sovereign business.” Peskov added, “We believe everyone should respect the Turkish people’s will.”

Later on Monday, addressing his supporters outside the presidential complex in Ankara, Erdogan accused European countries of campaigning for a “No” vote “harder than opposition parties in Turkey.” He added that the EU’s “threats of suspending membership talks don't mean much to Turkey.”

In an interview with pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat the previous day, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had spoken of Turkish-EU relations passing through a difficult phase due to European positions in the run-up to referendum and the aftermath of the July 15 coup attempt. “Instead of receiving solidarity and support, Turkey has faced unfair criticism concerning measures it took in the aftermath of the aborted coup,” he said.

However, Cavusoglu reasserted that EU membership remained a priority for the Turkish government. “There is a loss of trust towards the EU in Turkey, stemming from the EU’s latest attitude,” he declared. “But we are still expecting positive concrete steps to overcome the confidence crisis.”

Along similar lines, Mehmet Simsek, deputy prime minister for economy, in an interview on a private TV channel emphasized that “necessary structural reforms” would be “strongly implemented in the medium-run.”

Another deputy prime minister, Nurettin Canikli, said that economic relations with the European Union would improve. He called the current acrimonious rhetoric between Turkey and the EU “temporary” and cautioned that it “should not be given too much attention.”

The statements of two ministers reflect the traditionally pro-European views of the dominant sections of the ruling class, which have called for “the restoration of national unity” in order to push through pro-market economic reforms. On Sunday, the Turkish Industry and Business Association declared in a written statement: “Now it is time to make progress by maintaining freedoms, pluralism and solidarity. We urge the government and the parliament to prioritize the reform agenda.” The organization also called on the government to seek closer relations with the EU on issues such as customs duties, media and Internet freedom, security cooperation on refugee policy, visa-free travel, a political solution in Cyprus and a resolution to the war in Syria.

Meanwhile, the National Security Council convened in Ankara Monday evening, presided over by Erdogan. It advised the government to extend the state of emergency for another three months.

Washington pushes world to brink of nuclear war

Bill Van Auken

The repeated statements by US Vice President Mike Pence and other Trump administration officials Monday that the “era of strategic patience” with North Korea is over and “all options are on the table” have laid bare the mounting threat that Washington will provoke a war on the Korean peninsula involving the use of nuclear weapons and the deaths of millions.

“Just in the past two weeks, the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and Afghanistan,” Pence declared during a provocative visit to South Korea that brought him to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) on the North Korean border. “North Korea would do well not to test his resolve or the strength of the armed forces of the United States in this region,” Pence said.

This boasting about the reckless acts of military aggression—first, the cruise missile attack on Syria on April 7 and then, a week later, the use in Afghanistan of the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, the most destructive weapon unleashed anywhere since the US incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—cannot be read by the government of North Korea as anything other than an ultimatum to accept US demands or expect to be on the receiving end of far greater violence.

With the naval strike group led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson set to take up a position off the Korean peninsula, the means of inflicting such violence are being put into place. The global implications of this buildup were underscored Monday with the report that both Russia and China have dispatched spy ships to trail the Vinson battle group. For these two nuclear-armed countries, Washington’s launching of a war against North Korea poses an existential threat.

The drive toward a military confrontation in Asia that could lead to a nuclear third world war has unfolded largely behind the backs of the people of the United States and the entire world. Neither the politicians of the two big business parties in the US nor the corporate-controlled media have so much as hinted to the public the horrific consequences of even a “limited” nuclear exchange on the Korean peninsula, nor the likelihood that such a catastrophe would draw all of the major nuclear powers into a global conflagration.

The recklessness of the path being pursued by Washington is staggering. Why the “era of strategic patience” has ended is not explained, nor are the conclusions drawn from this declaration even challenged. There are a whole number of states that now have nuclear weapons. North Korea’s pursuit of such arms does not represent a credible threat to the US.

“All options are on the table” can only mean that Washington is prepared to launch an unprovoked first strike against North Korea. Yet, within the media, there is barely a mention that such a course involves the threat of nuclear war. Nor is there the slightest suggestion that the US Congress should convene to vote on whether to authorize an attack that could produce casualties in the millions. The accepted wisdom is that Donald Trump doesn’t have to tell anyone what military action he will take until after the attack is executed. The only hint Trump gave of his intentions was at a Monday Easter egg-rolling event on the White House lawn, where he declared that North Korea has “gotta behave.”

The real character of the policy being pursued by Washington was indicated by John Bolton, the Bush administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, who told Fox News that the “way to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is to end North Korea,” i.e., topple the government and militarily smash the country.

The real and growing danger posed by Washington’s reckless policy is beginning to be registered, if only in the mildest form.

The New York Times, which had previously celebrated the Trump administration’s turn toward stepped-up militarism against Syria and Russia, proclaiming its feeling of “emotional satisfaction and justice done” over the cruise missile strike of April 7, has become somewhat nervous that things are spinning out of control.

The newspaper, which increasingly functions as the house organ of the CIA, expressed concern Monday that Trump’s “intemperate talk is adding to regional tensions, unnerving allies and likely reinforcing North Korea’s longstanding fear that it could one day be attacked by America—the very reason North Korea invested in a nuclear arsenal in the first place.” It warned that the US president’s bellicose threats served to “box him into some kind of showdown” and paved the way for a “devastating miscalculation.”

Gideon Rachman, the chief foreign affairs columnist of the Financial Times, wrote in a piece posted Monday that if North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un “concludes that the US is indeed poised to attack his regime, he will be tempted to attack first. His incentive to move fast will only have been increased by stories in the media that the US’s war plans involve an early attempt to kill the North Korean leadership.” In fact, the same US Special Operations unit that carried out the 2011 assassination of Osama bin-Laden has been reported carrying out exercises in South Korea.

While Trump’s intimidation and threats could produce a capitulation by Pyongyang, Rachman continues, “... It is more likely that North Korea will not back down--and that the Trump strategy will therefore fail. In that case, the US president is faced with a dilemma. Does Mr. Trump’s ‘very powerful armada’ steam away from the Korean peninsula with its mission unaccomplished?”

To ask the question is to answer it. Neither Trump nor the cabal of active duty and retired generals who are setting his foreign policy are inclined to back down from the brink of war without having achieved the objectives over which such a war would be fought, i.e., the complete capitulation and disarmament of North Korea.

After 25 years of waging continuous war against largely unarmed oppressed countries and killing millions, while suffering relatively few consequences, US imperialism is now being driven by its own internal crisis and contradictions to an entirely different level of military confrontation.

More and more the situation resembles that which prevailed in the late 1930s on the eve of the Second World War. If Adolf Hitler had possessed a Twitter account, it is hard to imagine how he would have used it much differently from the way the US president is using his own.

“Our military is building and is rapidly becoming stronger than ever before. Frankly, we have no choice!” Trump tweeted Sunday.

Three days earlier: “I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. If they are unable to do so, the US, with its allies, will! USA.”

Trump’s rhetoric echoes that employed by Hitler in the run-up to Germany’s march into Czechoslovakia and Poland. The Nazi leader proclaimed of the Czechoslovak “problem” that it “must be solved.” Then it was the Polish “problem” that “must be solved.” He deliberately created crises as pretexts for military action.

Trump employs similar rhetoric, describing an entire nation, North Korea, as a “problem,” and then warning menacingly that “it will be taken care of.” Why this problem is now so urgent, no one explains, and, as far as the media is concerned, virtually no one asks.

What could Pyongyang possibly do to satisfy Washington? It would have to renounce its nuclear program and open itself up to an inspections regime, going down the same road traveled by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, ending in their nations’ destruction and their own violent deaths.

The assumption that China can be pressured into imposing Washington’s diktat in relation to North Korea is without foundation. China was compelled to go to war in 1950 when US troops reached the Yalu River, sacrificing hundreds of thousands to drive the American army back. Now Washington wants China to intervene to hand the US and South Korea what they were unable to achieve half a century ago through war. If Beijing were to accede to these demands, it would have immense strategic implications for China as well as major internal political consequences.

There are already indications that tensions between Beijing and Washington are escalating on the Korean peninsula after Seoul’s announcement that it intends to move ahead rapidly with the installation of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, which the US claims is designed to defend against North Korean missiles, but which China recognizes as a means of assuring the US a nuclear first-strike capability.

Twice in the 20th century, the crisis of world capitalism drove capitalist heads of state and their general staffs to seek a way out through war, leading to the deaths of tens of millions. Today, similar pressures are unleashing a drive toward a nuclear confrontation that could lead to the destruction of life on the planet.

Everything that is being done by the US government involves astonishing levels of risk, including that of a nuclear war. Whether it happens in the immediate confrontation with North Korea cannot be predicted, but that this is the course Washington is prepared to pursue all over the world is undeniable.

No one can afford the illusion that today’s capitalist governments, unlike those of 1914 and 1939, will not risk war because of the threat of nuclear annihilation. If anything, they are far more reckless than their predecessors. Confronted with deepening economic and social crises for which they have no progressive solution, they are even more prone to dragging humanity to the brink of destruction.

The present crisis is characterized by a terrible chasm between the scale of the danger of war and the absence of any organized movement against it. There is no way to stop the drive toward war outside of the politically conscious intervention of the working class within the United States and internationally.

Canadian University Dubai Undergraduate Scholarships for International Students 2017/2018

Application Deadlines:

• 15th June 2017
• 20th December 2017

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Dubai, UAE

Eligibility: 

• Scholarships are open to all students of any citizenship who have met all the admission requirements.
• Scholarships are awarded to full-time students enrolled in four academic courses or more per semester. For financial hardship and special needs scholarships, the number of academic courses students must enroll in will be considered on a case-by-case basis, although, where possible, a minimum of four academic courses is recommended. Please note that scholarships can be granted for credit-bearing courses only.
• Students must maintain the cumulative grade point average (CGPA) necessary in order to continue their scholarship. For special needs scholarships, the cumulative grade point average (CGPA) necessary in order to continue their scholarship will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
• Students can apply in successive years, but scholarships are only valid for two successive semesters, i.e. Fall and Spring. Scholarships are not valid for Summer semesters.
• Scholarships are only valid for current tuition fees.
• You can apply for more than one scholarship, provided you meet the eligibility requirements. In case a student qualifies for more than one reduction, scholarship or discount, the student will be given the chance to choose the benefit with the highest value.
• All remaining fees (tuition and housing) must be paid promptly in order to receive and maintain your scholarship.

Selection Criteria: 

UP TO 100% TUITION WAIVER

• You should have an academic average of 98%* or above to apply.
• For students renewing their scholarship, the second semester CGPA must be 3.90 or higher for the scholarship to continue.

UP TO 50% TUITION WAIVER

• You should have an academic average of 95%* or above to apply.
• For students renewing their scholarship, the second semester CGPA must be 3.85 or higher for the scholarship to continue.

20% TUITION WAIVER

• You should have an academic average of 85%* or above to apply.
• A 20% tuition waiver is awarded automatically to all new students with a high school average of 85%* and above. This Award grants a 20% waiver on tuition only for the first semester.
• Students who were granted an automatic 20% tuition waiver on their first semester and have maintained a 3.85% CGPA, may be eligible for a 10% tuition waiver on their subsequent semester.

The Guiding Principles for Canadian University Dubai scholarships (See in Scholarship Webpage Link below) must be met.

Number of Scholarships: Not specified

Value of Scholarships:

• 100% Tuition Waiver
• 50% Tuition Waiver
• 20% Tuition Waiver

How to Apply: 

• late or incomplete scholarship applications will not be considered by the scholarship committee.
• Applicants must email their scholarship application forms (or visit the scholarship section of Student Affairs), along with all supporting documents (as detailed in the relevant sections on the different scholarship types) to scholarship@cud.ac.ae

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Canadian University Dubai

Important Notes: Please note that the number of scholarships awarded is limited and you must meet the minimum selection criteria for the relevant category in order for your application to be considered by the scholarship committee. The amount to be awarded depends on the financial need and/or academic qualifications of the applicant.