Wake Up Bangladesh, It’s Time For A Foreign Policy!

Taj Hashmi

To some, the title of my column today might be utterly ridiculous, as it suggests it’s time for Bangladesh to have a foreign policy. They might raise eyebrows at my suggestion that, Bangladesh is going without any foreign policy, since 2009. To them, Bangladesh has a sound foreign policy under a seasoned career diplomat as Foreign Minister, and an internationally renowned scholar as the Prime Minister’s Adviser in international affairs. So far so good! However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

The subservience of Bangladesh to India, and its unconditional surrender to Myanmar, which has forced about a million Rohingyas as refugees into Bangladesh since 2012, don’t make the pudding any edible! Bangladesh is almost totally friendless. Most of its trading partners, China, Japan, Russia, and even India have been openly siding with Myanmar, the main adversary of Bangladesh. Whatever the Bangladesh Government sells as its foreign policy is something phony, not indigenous or made in Bangladesh. It has the fingerprints of the “smooth operators” at the South Block of the Secretariat Building in New Delhi, which houses India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

The laundry list of failures in Bangladeshi diplomacy is long. I’m going to mention some unresolved issues between Bangladesh and two of its immediate neighbours, India and Myanmar, in this regard. It’s strange but true, not only its powerful immediate neighbour India frequently coerces Bangladesh into submission, but of late, its not-so-powerful neighbour Myanmar has also started browbeating Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has nothing to be proud of its relationship with India, which is both a bully, and an undesirable hegemon for it. However, sections of Bangladeshis, who don’t believe in independent Bangladesh and want its merger with India, consider India as the Bandhu Rashtro (The Friendly Country). The rationale for their unconditional support for India is possibly also because of the latter’s support for the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971. Nevertheless, the Indian support was never unconditional or altruistic, as it also benefitted from the disintegration of Pakistan.

The avowedly pro-Indian elements never mention India’s hegemonic and intrusive behavior, and its ulterior motives against Bangladesh. The pro-Indian elements in Bangladesh enjoy the best of times when people and parties of their liking are in power. These parties and individuals at times suspend the Constitution, and depend on the South Block of New Delhi to run the “foreign policy” of Bangladesh. Whenever such people are in power, the country of 160 million people behaves like tiny, land-locked Bhutan vis-à-vis India. This happened during General Ershad’s illegitimate rule, and is happening again since 2009.

Despite many blunders and hiccups during the formative phase of Bangladesh in the early 1970s, the Founding Father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was brave and wise enough not to allow India a freehand in running the foreign and domestic policies of Bangladesh. Soon after his freedom from Pakistani incarceration in January 1972, he made it clear to the Indian PM Indira Gandhi that Indian troops must leave his country, as soon as possible. Although Henry Kissinger used obnoxious expressions against Bangladesh and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – he called the country a “basket case”, and its leader “an inordinate fool”, but for Mujib’s assertive and bold foreign policy, Bangladesh earned some respectability in the arena of international politics.

One admires Mujib’s mottoes with regard to Bangladesh’s foreign policy: a) “Friendship to all, and malice to none”; and b) “Bangladesh will be the Switzerland of Asia”, in regards to maintaining a positive neutrality in the arena of international politics. However, thanks to the exigencies of the Cold War, and Bangladesh’s over-reliance on the geo-politically inept and economically bankrupt Indo-Soviet block to formulate its foreign and domestic policies during the tenure of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country was not in the good books of the West, the Muslim World, and China. China and Saudi Arabia did not recognise Bangladesh up to August 1975.

After August 1975, it was time for Bangladesh to face the hostility of the behemoth India, which not only sheltered and armed hundreds of Mujib loyalists under Kader Siddiqui, who regularly attacked Bangladeshi border outposts from across the border, but it also started depriving Bangladesh of its due share of the Ganges waters. Until Morarji Desai became the Prime Minister in March 1977, at times it appeared that India would turn Bangladesh into another Kashmir or Sikkim. Meanwhile, through adept diplomacy under the leadership of President Ziaur Rahman, Bangladesh defied Indian hegemonic design and became friends with the West, China, and the Muslim World.

However, the rot in the realm of Bangladeshi diplomacy set in with the illegitimate military takeover of General Ershad in 1982, which was definitely a handiwork of the hegemonic Indira Gandhi regime. The end of pro-Indian Ershad regime in 1990 didn’t signal the end of Indian quest for establishing its hegemony in Bangladesh. Up to the election of Sheikh Hasina as the Prime Minister in 1996, India ceaselessly tried to destabilize Bangladesh by stirring up some “Hill Tribes” in Chittagong Hill Tracts. It armed, trained, and infiltrated members of the so-called Shanti Bahini into Bangladesh to “liberate” Chittagong Hill Tracts in the name of creating a homeland for the Mongoloid Chakma, Marma, and Larma people, touted as the subjugated aborigines of Bangladesh. The “Hill Tribes” of Bangladesh are the descendants of Myanmar refugees who came to the country after 16th century. Most definitely, they aren’t Adibashis or aborigines of Bangladesh, from any stretch of the imagination.

As if Farakka wasn’t bad enough for Bangladesh, India erected another barrage across the Teesta! And yet another (Tipaimukh) is under construction across the Barak. Nothing could be more abysmally erratic than Bangladesh’s disastrous “foreign policy” since 2009. The Government since 2009 is unwilling even to protest India’s taking undue advantages from Bangladesh. India’s successful arm-twisting of Bangladesh – which seems to be the most willing victim – is worse than America’s gunboat diplomacy in the Third World. Thanks to Bangladesh’s “foreign policy” India unilaterally enjoys transit rights through Bangladesh territory; denies Bangladesh similar rights to trade with Nepal and Bhutan; its BSF kills Bangladeshi nationals at the border with impunity; and last but not least, India denies Bangladesh its due share of the Teesta waters.

Both Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi not only duped Bangladesh by lying in defence of New Delhi’s bona fides, but they also coerced the latter into submission. In late 2011, PM Hasina’s International Affairs Adviser told me about the “impending” signing of the Teesta waters sharing agreement between India and Bangladesh. In hindsight, it appears that Oxford-educated Manmohan Singh simply duped Oxford-educated Gowher Rizvi! Manmohan Singh conveniently singled out Paschim Banga’s Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee as the main obstacle to the free flow of Teesta waters into Bangladesh. Same theatrics happened again under Narendra Modi, who also used Ms. Bannerjee as the scapegoat.

So much so that PM Hasina, who Modi outwitted totally, out of sheer frustration said something publicly in New Delhi – which was grossly unbecoming for a head of government: “Didi se pani manga, pani nahi mila, bijli mila. Chalo achcha hi hua, kuchh to mila” (“We asked for water to Sister [Mamata Bannerjee], but only got electricity. Anyway, it’s not that bad, we at least got something”)! Despite Bangladesh PM’s stooping down to the level of an Indian chief minister, her “foreign policy” or “Hilsa Diplomacy” (she carried Bangladeshi hilsa fish as gift for Ms. Bannerjee) didn’t work at all.

Last but not least, not only an Indian chief minister became an imaginary adversary of Bangladesh or an important factor in Indo-Bangladesh relationship, but in the recent past, India’s foreign secretary Sujata Singh – who was a government servant, not a politician – also played a decisive role in legitimizing the farcical Parliamentary Elections of January 2014 in Bangladesh. She came to Dhaka, met Ershad (who had earlier said he wouldn’t take part in the Elections) and soon afterwards, like a tame circus animal the latter changed his mind, took part in the so-called election, and legitimized the Hasina Government.

Bangladesh Government’s latest ambivalent statements, gimmicks, and self-congratulatory delusional assertions can make people laugh and cry at the same time. Soon after the Myanmar Government’s crackdown on Rohingya minorities in Arakan on 25th August, which soon turned genocidal, forcing more than half a million Rohingyas to flee to Bangladesh, the Hasina Government behaved in the most unbelievable manner. Sheikh Hasina offered Aung San Suu Kyi, her Myanmar counterpart, joint Bangladesh-Myanmar military operation against Rohingya “terrorists”, and instructed the BGB not to let any Rohingya enter Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, various ministers in charge of Foreign Affairs, Finance, Roads and Bridge, Industries, and even the DIG Police of Chittagong Division have come up with some weird suggestions/opinions about the Rohingya Crisis. While Foreign Minister Mahmud Ali has considered the Rohingya refugees a terrorist threat to Bangladesh, the Finance Minister has blamed Myanmar for waging an “undeclared war” against Bangladesh. The DIG beat them all. In his speech at a public gathering in Chittagong he singled out Pakistan’s military intelligence ISI for stirring up Rohingyas against the Myanmar government. His version isn’t that different from the Myanmar government’s wild allegations against outside forces for the ongoing carnage in Arakan. It might be unthinkable elsewhere, but police officers in Bangladesh also give speeches in public rallies, and give their opinion on various domestic and external issues, well-beyond their expertise and jurisdictions!

Surprisingly, there is no signs of Bangladesh Government’s taking any concerted and cohesive policy to address the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh. Soon after PM Hasina had abruptly “met” President Trump on the floors of the UN General Assembly on September 18th and talked with him for less than 20 seconds, Bangladesh’s Foreign Secretary told the press: “Trump told Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, on Myanmar issue (Rohingya issue) we’re with you”. And we know he didn’t tell the truth, because soon the PM told the press in the most undiplomatic language: “Trump is not going to help Bangladesh to resolve the Rohingya problem”.

Now, Bangladesh seems to have no Myanmar/Rohingya Policy, which would have been there had the country formulated a foreign policy of its own, in accordance with its own needs and priorities, not something made by the Indian Government. Bangladesh was never in such a dire situation diplomatically – totally friendless in its immediate neighbourhood and abroad – not even during the turbulent days of early 1970s, when not only Kissinger but others also considered the country a “basket case”. Bangladesh government’s over-reliance on India at the cost of not maintaining a balanced relationship with the US, Western Europe, China, Pakistan, Japan, and the Middle East since 2009 is mainly responsible for this awkward situation. It’s time to have a foreign policy for Bangladesh, run by professionals keeping in view the best interests of the country, not for the benefit, and at the dictates of its malevolent and hegemonic neighbour, India.

Are Rohingyas A Threat or Victims Of Hatred?

T Navin

In the recent past, Government of India has tried to construct an argument that Rohingyas are a security threat to the Nation. Home Ministry has tried to indicate that Rohingyas pose security challenge and are recruited by terror groups. This point has been used to state that they need to be deported. RSS chief Mohan Bagawat the ideological mouthpiece of the present regime declared that Rohingya crisis should be dealt “keeping in mind threat to national security”. It was also
pointed that they are being driven out from Myanmar for their linkages with terrorist groups.

Constructing an image of Rohingyas as a security threat while on the one hand tries to create a faulty picture and an Islamophobia around the same, on the other hand hides the victimisation of Rohingyas. The reality of Rohingyas offers a different narrative.

Rather than a threat, Rohingyas are victims of hatred in Myanmar. Rohingyas have been described as “the world’s most persecuted minority”. Though predominantly Muslims, there are also Hindus within Rohingyas. Despite Rohingyas having lived in Myanmar for centuries, they are not considered as one of the 135 ethnic groups in Myanmar deserving citizenship. They have been denied citizenship in Myanmar since 1982. The provisions of 1982 citizenship law deny them the rights to study, work, travel and access health services. They are denied voting rights. Even if ‘naturalised’ citizenship is proved, limits are placed on them in entering professions like medicine, law or running for office.

Even before this, following Myanmar’s independence from British rule in 1948, Rohingyas were not considered as one of the ethnicity that could gain citizenship. Only those Rohingyas with proof of their two previous generations having lived in Myanmar were to be considered as its citizens. Following the 1962 Military coup, all Rohingyas were to obtain national registration cards. Rohingyas in reality only got foreign identity cards. The 1982 citizenship law delegitimized them as citizens of the country.

Rohingyas are thus effectively stateless with citizenship rights denied to them. Living in one of the poorest regions of Myanmar namely Rakhine state, they receive apartheid like treatment, living in ghetto like camps with lack of basic services and opportunities.

Being at the receiving end of the state persecution since the 1970’s, Rohingyas have been forced to flee. They are victims of human rights abuses, extra judicial killings, rape and arson. Many of their homes were also burnt during the persecution. They have fled to countries namely Saudi Arabia (2 lakhs), Bangladesh (8.9 lakhs), Pakistan (3.5 lakhs), Malaysia (1.5 lakhs), UAE (10 thousand), Thailand and Indonesia (six thousand) and India (40 thousand).

There are about 40,000 Rohingyas living in India. About 16,500 have identity cards issued by UNHCR. Rohingya refugees are living in Jammu, Hyderabad, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi-NCR and Rajasthan. They are living in UNHCR supported camps and receiving relief services. They are placed in a situation whereby they cannot return back to their countries till the persecution ends and the situation normalizes. The state in India needs to assume a responsibility to
provide relief to the victims as per internationally accepted norms. On the contrary, Government of India has resorted to use this as an opportunity to carry out propaganda war. Fake news is being used to legitimise their intent of deporting 40 thousand Rohingyas. They are being demonized and being linked with Islamic terrorism when no such evidence exists. One of these is through the use of fake news of Rohingyas killing Hindus. Tweets by twitter account holders of those
associated with party in power have tried to indicate that many Hindus were killed by Rohingya Islamic Terrorists and that their homes were burnt, Hindu temples destroyed in Rakhine. Another tweet indicated that Islamic Rohingya terrorist were burning down Buddhist temples in Myanmar. The origin of the images in each of these was in reality from Bangladesh. They had no connection with Rohingyas. The images from Bangladesh were manipulated to spread the propaganda of Rohingya violence in Myanmar against other religious groups.

In the process of giving Rohingya issue a religious cover and the cover of Islamic terrorism, a fact not stated is that there are also Hindu Rohingyas who have been forced to flee from Myanmar. On 4th September 2017, about 500 Hindus fled to Bangladesh’s Cox Bazaar.

The depiction of the ‘world’s most persecuted minority’ as an aggressor and terrorist when in reality, they are only victims of hate only serves the ideological propaganda of the Political party in power. They also represent a step by the state in abandoning its responsibility towards the refugees and those displaced due to conflicts.

Standing For Media’s Rights In India

Nava Thakuria

India, largest democracy of the globe, remains a bad place for working journalists irrespective of the regimes in power at New Delhi or any province capital. The populous country witnesses the murder of around five media persons on average in a year and that has not been changed for decades. The land of Bishnu, Buddha and Bapu has however hardly succeeded in resolving any of those journo-murder cases logically and legally.

The media fraternity of the south Asian nation now plans to observe the birthday of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a lawyer turned journalist turned India’s Father of the Nation, on October 2 with the countrywide demonstrations. The participants thus would commit to maintain their defiance to all mental and physical challenges in their professional lives.

The month of September poured three shocking news of journo-murders from different parts of India and the media fraternity has seemingly discovered again the vulnerability for those who pursue serious journalism. The year 2017 also witnessed the killing of eight journalists in nine months, but as usual the reactions to those killings from the authority and the public remained almost lukewarm. It was only Kannada editor-journalist Gauri Lankesh’s murder on September 5 at her Bangaluru (earlier known as Bangalore) residence that aroused massive protests across the country. Publisher of Gauri Lankesh Patrike, a Kannada language newspaper in Karnataka of central India, Ms Gauri was shot dead by unidentified gunmen, following which strong reactions were observed not only from inside the country but also various international organizations.

A Left ideology inclined journalist Ms Gauri’s assassination tempted more civil society groups, which are predominantly anti-Hindu nationalist ideologue like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha (RSS) and also Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), to come to streets demanding justice. They were in hurry to make statements that the outspoken journalist was targeted by the ruling political elements as she used to criticize both RSS and BJP absolutely.

However, the Congress ruled Karnataka province government and its chief minister Siddaramaiah had a cordial relationship with Ms Gauri. Soon after her assassination, the province government chief announced her demise as a personal loss. But for reasons, best known to Siddaramaiah only, the chief minister’s reactions against the killer(s) of Ms Gauri, 55, were soft. So does the investigation process!

Protest-demonstrations were so loud that it inspired a Communist Party of India (Marxist) run Tripura government chief to personally join in a demonstration at Agartala. The chief minister Manik Sarkar’s participation in the protest program encouraged the media fraternity of northeast India and he was thoroughly appreciated for the gesture. But when a young television scribe of Tripura itself was beaten to death by a mob, the same CPI (M) chief minister remained silent. The Agartala based journalists, while condemning the murder of Shantanu Bhowmik on September 20, had to raise voices for getting reactions from Sarkar. Even then the chief minister, also in charge of home portfolio, pronounced a spongy reaction towards the incident. However, the condemnations from various national and international bodies were pouring against the brutal murder of Shantanu, 29, who used to work for an Agartala based Bengali-language cable news
channel named Din-Raat. A series of protest programs were organized by various Indian media bodies across the country demanding justice to Shantanu’s bereaved mother and sister.

On the fateful day, Shantanu went to cover a program of Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), which was protesting against the ruling CPI (M) and slowly it turned violent. Claimed to have supports from the tribal population of Tripura, the IPFT maintains its demand for a separate homeland (read Twipraland) for the tribal people out of Tripura. The party, which has seemingly a political understanding with the BJP, continued its violent protests since the last few years. The IPFT protest program at Mandwai of west Tripura, bordering Bangladesh, soon witnessed the arrival of many cadres belonged to the CPI (M)’s tribal wing Tripura Rajya Upajati Ganamukti Parishad (TRUGP) at the location. Both the parties had already engaged in violent clashes on the previous day at the same location.

So the situation got charged and finally members of both IPFT and TRUGP turned aggressive and later violent. Shantanu started shooting the violent activities with his mobile phone, as his lens-man avoided the professional camera for fear of abusive reactions from the agitators. As Shantanu started capturing the visuals of IPFT members attacking the opponent & police and also damaging vehicles on the roadside, he was asked initially to stop recording.

Later the protesters chased him for the phone and some of them turned unruly to finally attack Shantanu with stick-rods and other sharp items. Blood soaked Shantanu was rescued and sent to the hospital by the police, but till then he stopped breathing. His phone was however missing, which was also revealed by the State police chief Akhil Kumar Shukla.

According to the Paris based Reporters sans/without Borders, India is ranked 136th among 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index (2017) barometer, which is just ahead of its neighbors like Pakistan (139th), Sri Lanka (141), Bangladesh (146) and China (176). Norway topped the list where India’s neighbors including Bhutan (84), Nepal (100), Maldives (117), Afghanistan (120), Burma (131) etc are ahead of it. One party ruled North Korea (180) is at the bottom of the list, where Vietnam and China were placed at 175th and 176th positions respectively.

Meanwhile, Shantanu’s killing was condemned and condoled by various international forums like the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the Pars based Reporters sans/without Borders (RSF), the Brussels based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) etc, where everyone asked the Tripura government to go for a ‘thorough investigation’ into the death of Shantanu to bring those responsible to justice and also ensure the future safety of journalists.

Amnesty International, in its condemnation statement pointed out that the killing of journalists cannot become the order of the day. State governments in India must do everything in their power to prevent journalists from becoming targets for their viewpoints or affiliations. Authorities must end impunity for these killings, it added.

Condemning the killing of Shantanu, UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova said, “I trust the authorities will conduct an investigation into this killing and bring its perpetrators to justice. It is essential that journalists be able to keep us informed of events without fearing for their lives.”

In India, all influential media bodies like Indian Newspaper Society, Editors’ Guild of India, Broadcast Editors’ Association, Press Club of India, Indian Women’s Press Corps, Federation of Press Clubs in India besides various journalist unions strongly condemned the murder of Shantanu and urged the Manik Sarkar government help delivering justice. Even the Press Council of India, a quasi-judicial body, took note of Shantanu’s killing and sought a report from the Tripura government.

All media bodies of northeast India came put with the protest demonstrations against the killing of Shantanu and demanding a high level probe (preferably by Central Bureau of Investigation). Extending moral supports to the Tripura journalists for justice, the North East Union of Working Journalists (NEUWJ) also asked the local government to compensate the family of Shantanu adequately. Condemning the murder of Ms Gauri and Shantanu, the newly launched forum urged the Union government in New Delhi to formulate a national action plan for delivering earliest justices to journo-victim families. It also fervently appealed to the media fraternity of the country to get united on demanding safety & security measures for working journalists across India.

For records, Shantanu was the seventh Indian journalist to be killed this year. The string of killings began with Hari Prakash, 31, whose dead body was recovered in Hazaribag locality of Jharkhand on January 2. Then came another bad news from Bihar, where unidentified goons shot dead Brajesh Kumar Singh, 28, at Samastipur locality on January 3.

The third and fourth incidents involving the murder of working journalists were reported from Madhya Pradesh, where Shyam Sharma, 40, was stabbed to death by miscreants at Anshul locality on May 15 and Kamlesh Jain, 42, was shot dead in Pipliyamandi locality May 31. Later a Haryana based television journalist (Surender Singh Rana, 35) was shot dead on July 29 and a Mohali (Punjab) based senior editor (KJ Singh, 66) along with his old-age mother was found murdered on September 23.

India lost six journalists to assailants in 2016, which was preceded by five cases in 2015. It witnessed murders of two scribes in 2014, but the year 2013 reported as many as 11 journalists’ murders, where three northeastern media employees also fall victims to the perpetrators. The killing of Sujit Bhattacharya, Ranjit Chowdhury and Balaram Ghosh at Agartala broke as sensational news as Tripura had no recent record of journalist-murders.

Soon after Shantanu’s killing, blame games started as the BJP accused the Left government at Agartala of failing the law & order situation. The saffron party also demanded Sarkar’s resignation. The Congress leaders criticized both the ruling CPI (M) and the BJP for triggering communal violence dividing the population with tribal-nontribal (read Bengali) divides ahead of early next year’s Assembly polls. Lately after lot of hue & cries, the Tripura government decided to constitute an SIT to probe into the astonishing murder, where DGP Shukla claimed that the police had identified the culprits involved with the slaughtering of Shantanu besides three persons already been arrested. Following the demand of compensations raised by the Tripura based journalists, the State government also agreed to offer rupees one million to the bereaved family.

Zionism: The Ideological Cover-Up To Jewish Supremacy

Rima Najjar

The benign-sounding term “settler” or “settlement” is used so often in the news without reference to Jewish colonization of Palestine that the world often loses sight of the immoral nature of the Zionist project in Palestine. The term is used to describe Jews moving illegally to the West Bank, and commandeering land that belongs to Palestinians. Waves of Jews moving to Israel are no longer called colonists or even settlers in the news media, but rather immigrants.
Palestine is the only and last active act of settler colonialism. Since the creation of the UN, “more than 80 former colonies [including several in the Arab world] comprising some 750 million people have gained independence since the creation of the United Nations.”

Why the exception in the case of Palestine? Because the ideological driving force behind the process, Zionism, is the most virulently and insidiously powerful force on the planet. Over the course of the past one hundred years — i.e., since the Balfour Declaration, Zionism has successfully manipulated imperial powers, first Britain and now the United States, and also instrumentalized Christianity, as well as Judiasm, to serve its political purpose.

As John Berger put it: “Certain voices across the world are raised in protest [against the Jewish state]. But the governments of the rich, with their world media and their proud possession of nuclear weapons, reassure Israel that a blind eye will be cast on what its soldiers are perpetrating.”

Colonialism justifiably has a bad name. When Third World Quarterly published an article titled “The Case for Colonialism”, voices rose sharply demanding “retraction, to fire the journal editors, even to fire author and to revoke his PhD.” In that piece, Bruce Gilley argues controversially that Western colonialism was, “as a general rule, both objectively beneficial and subjectively legitimate in most of the places where it was found.”

Because of the moral questions raised by Western colonialism, the truth about the colonial nature of the Zionist project in Palestine has long been suppressed — consider, for example, the repulsion generated when a course was proposed at UC Berkeley titled “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis”.

But despite the strong veil of Zionist hasbara that shielded the moral degeneracy of Zionism from view, the paradigm of Israel as a settler-colonial project did gain traction. When that happened, the attitude among pro-Israel and Zionist voices took on the same point of view as that expressed in the Third World Quarterly article.

“Settler colonialism conveys an unarguable sense of delegitimization, racial exclusion and financial exploitation”, wrote ArnonDegani in a Sep 2016 Haaretz opinion piece, titled: “Israel Is a Settler Colonial State — and That’s OK.”

…arguing for the comparability of Israeli history to that of the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, pulls the rug from under the agenda of singling out Zionism and its deeds as particularly evil… Israel, though, is probably heading more towards an arrangement similar to that of South African settler colonialism: a consolidation into a democratic republic in which the Whites are recognized as sons of the land and yet still enjoy many of the privileges they accumulated during Apartheid. In Israel, from the left (Haaretz’s own Gideon Levy and RogelAlpher) and right (President Reuven Rubi Rivilin, MK Yehuda Glick), there is growing sentiment in favor of pursuing this particular one state settler colonial road.

The case being made here by Degani and his ilk is that Israeli Jews will still come out on top if Israel pursues the “one state settler colonial road”. They will be recognized as “sons of the land”, just as white settlers are in the U.S. or Canada, etc. have been, and “yet still enjoy many of the privileges they accumulated during Apartheid.” Clearly, this is a contention filtered through a Jewish supremacist ideology that is dismissive of the human rights of non-Jews.

BDS, on the other hand, is aimed at ending the three-tiered regime of injustice that has ruined Palestinian society since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948: 1) the military occupation and colonization of the Palestinian — and other Arab — territory occupied by Israel in 1967; 2) the system of institutionalized and legalized racism within Israel against non-Jews, and 3) the persistent denial of the internationally-sanctioned rights of the Palestine refugees, especially their right to return to their homes of origin and to reparations.

As Omar Barghouti observes, “Moral reconciliation between conflicting communities is impossible if the essence of the oppressive relationship between them is sustained.” And, in the case of Palestine, not even recognized.

And as long as the fundamental racism and moral blindness of Zionism continues to be obscured – as in negative references to “right-wing Zionism” rather than to plain Zionism or Jewish supremacy – the monumental ideological cover-up to Israel’s crimes against Palestinians will endure.

A Cuban Mystery: The US Embassy in Havana

Binoy Kampmark 

Cuba has, for decades, been a form of political pathology for US political consciousness. Fidel Castro loomed in his indestructible guise, tormenting a succession of American presidents with his seeming indestructibility. Efforts at deposing and assassination had conspicuously failed.  It was left, then, to Washington to insulate, seal off and keep Cuba as an infectious patient of international relations, fearing its global reach and influence.

With the softening of this manic stance under the Obama administration, Cuba ceased being the incurable. It even had promise. US business officials were smacking their lips and rubbing hands.  The new Cuba might well return to the Cuba of old, one more open to reverie, smut and cash.  The diplomats would return; the US embassy would reopen in Havana.

Then, Donald Trump happened.  A new administration, the government of 140 character messages, roars and expectoration.  The cool seemed likely to return in the heat of intolerance and misguided encounters.  In June, Trump announced that limitations on trade and tourism with Havana would be imposed.  It was a corrective of sorts to yet another “one-sided deal” and halted people-to-people exchanges.

Since the fall of 2016, staff at the US embassy have been troubled.  Up to 21 diplomats have been affected by what is now being considered an attack.  (These had been previously deemed, in State Department speak, “incidents”.)  American media outlets, from the Old Grey Lady onwards are unanimous.  “It started as a medical mystery,” went the New York Times.  “It then was determined to have been the result of a mysterious attack.”

The symptoms cover a considerable range: nausea, dizziness, tinnitus, difficulty with sleeping, deafness, even mild brain trauma.  That these might have arisen from a sonic attack has been suggested.  But speculation is rife as the coterie of experts in the field of bio-electromagnetics are entertained. What sort of weapons might have been behind this?

One such figure is Denis Bedat, who made his splash for the AFP new agency.  “Ultrasonic waves, beyond the acoustic capacity of humans, can be broadcast with an amplifier, and the device does not need to be large, or used inside or outside the house.” Weapons such as the anti-riot gun in the employ of the US police forces, otherwise known as the Active Denial System (ADS), are exponents of such waves.

The Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has been cautious in according blame, despite also pouring over a proposed plan to close the embassy in Havana.  “We have it under evaluation.  It’s a very serious issue with respect to the harm that certain individuals have suffered.  We’ve brought some of those people home. It’s under review.”

Havana, in turn, has urged caution and restraint, expressing official bafflement at the cases.  “Cuba has told us it will continue to investigate these attacks, and we will continue to cooperate with them in this effort.”  This policy of cooperation is typically troubled, an appellation of suspicion and masochism.

Given that two Cuban diplomats have suffered expulsion as a result, the finger pointing is being presumed, even if those fingers are slightly askew.  Punish, but not abolish; tell those in Havana that this is not the sort of thing the US will tolerate, but still keep doors open, if only slightly ajar and barely operating.

On Friday, the State Department did announce a suspension of routine visa operations, giving no clue when they would resume, while limiting official travel to Cuba by US officials, excepting those connected with the investigation or those in need of travelling to the country.

The sting in the tail, however, was a travel warning for Americans in general, suggesting danger to visitors from the US.  As “our personnel’s safety is at risk, and we are unable to identify the source of the attacks, we believe US citizens may also be at risk and warn them not to travel to Cuba.”

Tillerson is exercising caution, and the theory that a third party may well be up to mischief is being floated.  Officials have spoken about taking measures of protection in the name of prudence.  Ambassador Barbara Stephenson, president of the American Foreign Service Association, has expressed concern that the US is prizing itself out of the diplomatic game in taking them.

“We’ve got a mission to do,” she explained to The Atlantic.  “We operate all over the world, in places with serious health risks… The answer can’t be we just pull the flag down and move American presence from the field.”

Havana has expressed consternation at the moves by the Trump administration, but is still hopeful in cooperation.  But all this signals, yet again, the odd mix of machismo mixed with caution; bluster with a U-turn and summersault in Trump’s version of foreign policy.

Australian job figures cloak reality

Terry Cook

Figures released by the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for August show that the official unemployment rate remained at 5.6 percent, in line with the previous two months. According to the agency, 40,100 full-time jobs were added last month, along with 14,100 part-time positions. 

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash claim the result highlighted “the success of the Turnbull government’s comprehensive economic plan.”

For tens of thousands of ordinary people forced to eke out an existence in precarious part-time and casual employment, however, there is little to celebrate.

The ABS figures always cloak the real level of unemployment by counting anyone who has worked for as little as one hour a week as employed. Even by that measure, around 730,000 people are without work of any kind. This level has persisted on average since the Liberal-National Coalition government took office in 2013.

A more accurate assessment is provided by the Roy Morgan survey, which shows that unemployment in August stood at 10.2 percent, meaning 1.324 million people were jobless. Underemployment—those wanting or looking for more work—stood at 9.5 percent, or 1.241 million people.

The Morgan survey reveals that the trend to ever-greater casualisation has persisted. The small increase in employment over the past year was driven by a large jump in part-time employment, which rose 535,000 to 4,247,000, offsetting a decrease in full-time employment, which fell 373,000 to 7,438,000.

Roy Morgan chairman Gary Morgan noted: “The Australian economy has generated new jobs over the past year with a net 162,000 new jobs created since August 2016—however the large increase in part-time jobs (up 535,000 or about 45,000 per month) obscures the loss of full-time jobs (down 373,000, just over 30,000 per month).”

Stephen Koukoulas, a research fellow at the Per Capita think tank, dismissed the government’s claims that over 700,000 jobs have been created since it took office in 2013 as a “statistical fraud.”

“While the number of people in employment in Australia has increased by 701,100 since the 2013 election, the number of people unemployed has also risen, by 38,900,” Koukoulas said.

Persistent high unemployment is leading to stagnant or falling real wages, as workers are forced into lower-paid and insecure work. Moreover, employers, with the assistance of the unions, are using the situation to impose below-inflation pay increases, wage freezes or direct pay cuts.

Another recent ABS report revealed that wages for all categories of workers grew by a record low of just 1.9 percent in the past year, just level with inflation. Wages in the private sector grew by only 1.8 percent.

In the June quarter, private sector wages grew by just 0.4 percent, the 10th consecutive quarter of pay growth below 0.5 percent. This result has been recorded only once before, during the September quarter of 2009 following the global financial crisis.

Coming weeks will see one of Australia’s largest-ever waves of job destruction, produced by the final closure of the entire car-making industry.

The GM Holden car factory at Elizabeth in Adelaide’s north will close by October 20, destroying the remaining 1,000 jobs. Toyota will also cease manufacturing at its Altona car plant in Victoria in October at the cost of 2,500 jobs. Ford Australia ended all production last October, axing the remaining 600 jobs at its Geelong and Broadmeadow plants.

As a result, thousands of jobs are being destroyed across the auto-component and vehicle manufacturing sector.

Car components manufacturer Tenneco Australia revealed it will cut 70 jobs at its Monroe shock absorbers plant at Clovelly Park in Adelaide’s south. Just weeks before, the company announced it would shut its Walker exhaust plant at O’Sullivan Beach, South Australia, costing another 128 jobs.

During August and September other employers have continued to slash jobs and shutter plants to further cut costs and boost profits.

Churchill Abattoir will close its plant in the Queensland city of Ipswich by the end of September, destroying 500 jobs. Also in Ipswich, Baiada Poultry will shutter its Steggles Wulkuraka chicken plant by January at the cost of 400 jobs.

JBS Australia, the country’s largest meat processor, will cut a total of 190 at its plants in Cobram in northern Victoria and Longford in Tasmania.

Nannup Timber Processing in Western Australia shut its green timber processing mill in early September, axing 30 jobs or around half its workforce. Bendigo Woollen Mills announced it will close the Australian Country Spinners (ACS) plant in the rural city of Wangaratta in northeast Victoria in October, destroying 80 jobs. Fuel retailer Caltex Australia will cut 120 jobs as part of a restructure to deliver initial cost savings of around $60 million.

Confectionary manufacturer Cadbury will axe 50 jobs from its 450-strong workforce at its Hobart plant in Tasmania by the end of this year. One of Australia’s largest wine companies, Accolade, released plans to cut 35 jobs at its Berri Estates operation in South Australia’s Riverland.

Major bank Westpac will close another nine branches in its retail network nationally, a move that will eliminate 39 positions. Law firm Slater & Gordon announced plans to sack around 85 of its 1,210 staff as part of a cost-cutting plan in which a consortium of hedge funds will take control of the company.

The government scientific research agency CSIRO plans to cut a further 60 jobs from its mineral research unit and Sydney laboratory. More than one in every five CSIRO jobs has been axed since 2013.

Bailed out in 2008 crash, AIG now out of government oversight

Nick Beams

The insurance giant American International Group (AIG), which was at the centre of the financial meltdown of September 2008, has been taken off the “too big to fail” list. This is another move by the Trump administration to cut back even the limited regulation introduced in the wake of the crisis.

The collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers is the event most closely associated with the meltdown. However, it was the subsequent impending demise of AIG which led to the direct intervention by the Fed and the US government to bail out the banks and finance houses.

Such were its connections with the entire financial system, mainly through the use of derivatives, that there were fears that had AIG gone down it would have taken the global financial system down with it. This was summed up in President Bush’s remark, “this sucker’s going down.”

On Friday, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the body that decides which non-bank financial companies are “systemically important,” decided to remove AIG from its list. The vote, carried by six votes to three, came after what the Financial Times were bitter divisions on the council.

AIG, which was bailed to the tune of $185 billion in the financial crisis, came under the jurisdiction of the council in 2013 as part of the limited regulations introduced by the Obama administration. Trump appointees to the committee, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, were supportive of AIG’s submissions that it be taken off the list. They also received backing from Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen who was involved in the supervision of the bank following her appointment by Obama in 2014.

The decision is a significant one, not only for AIG, but for the administration of the financial system as a whole. It follows Trump’s order last April for a review of the FSOC’s powers.

The Financial Times commented: “The decision makes the insurer arguably the biggest winner to date in the Trump administration’s drive to deregulate the US economy, liberating the group from proposed capital surcharges and other restrictions on its business.”

The decision came after intense lobbying by the so-called “activist investor” Carl Icahn, who had been pushing for the removal of the “systemically important” designation since he acquired a significant stake in the company two years ago. Icahn is now its fourth-largest shareholder, according to calculations by Bloomberg, with almost 5 percent of the stock.

Previously, Icahn had sought to have the company broken up in order to have the designation removed. But he backed off those demands earlier this year, coinciding with the coming to power of the Trump administration, as AIG became more confident that restrictions would be removed. At one point Icahn was a special adviser to Trump on regulations, only quitting the post in August as a result of questions about potential conflicts of interest.

The position of Icahn was only one expression of the incestuous relationships which characterise the administration of the financial system. A meeting of the FSOC last week broke down without agreement because of a dispute over how to deal with the non-vote by the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Jay Clayton.

Clayton was recused because he had previously worked for a law firm that has ties to AIG. The dispute centred on the stipulation that decisions by the FSOC require a two-thirds majority—that is a vote of seven out of a membership of ten. However, the treasury argued that with Clayton’s recusal there were now only nine votes, thereby reducing the threshold for the removal of the designation to six.

The argument advanced by treasury officials was that AIG was a very different company from that which required the bailout in 2008. While it has been forced to divest itself of some of its asset holdings, AIG has the immediate goal of getting bigger now that the FSOC restrictions on its activities have been lifted.

Up to now, AIG had been pursuing share buybacks to maintain its market value but the new CEO Brian Duperreault, who took office in May, has made it clear he wants to pursue mergers and acquisitions. Last month in a conference call, he said AIG had “lots of potential” for growth through deals or organic expansion.

The decision to remove the “too big to fail tag” from AIG brought a protest from Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren who likes to pose as an opponent of Wall Street.

Warren said the decision showed once again “that the Trump administration cares more about rewarding Wall Street executives that protecting Americans from another financial crisis. AIG got a $180 billion taxpayer bailout less than a decade ago and, without proper oversight it still remains a huge and interconnected company that could bring down the financial system again.”

These protests are aimed at trying to create the illusion that legislation and regulations implemented under the Obama administration have somehow lessened the risk of another financial meltdown. In fact, the changes have proved at most a minor inconvenience, as evidenced by the nearly 300 percent rise in the stock market since its low point in March 2009, most of which took place under Obama.

Warren’s specific warnings about AIG are beside the point. It is highly unlikely that a new financial crisis will take the same form as in 2008. But all the objective conditions which led to that crisis are developing within the present situation—most sharply expressed in the rise and rise of the stock market and its ever-widening divergence from the state of the real economy.

Notwithstanding Warren’s “protests,” the AIG decision, which gives it the green light to resume the kind of speculative activities that led to the 2008 meltdown, is yet another expression of how the US financial system functions by and for the ruling financial elites, administered by the two parties of Wall Street.

UK public sector employment at record low

Margot Miller

The loss of a million public sector jobs since 2010 has reduced the public sector share of total employment to just 16.9 percent. This figure, published by the GMB trade union, was down from 17.1 percent in 2016, 22 percent in 2009 and an all-time high of 30.6 percent in 1977. The estimate is derived from a report compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS)—Public Sector Employment June 2017.

Seven years ago there were 6.4 million employed in the public sector. Today the figure is down to 5.33 million. Most jobs lost are from local government, which provides essential services including education, transport, planning, fire and public safety, social care, libraries, waste management and trading standards.

According to the ONS, local government jobs fell to 2.115 million, the lowest figure since records began in 1999. The national civil service had 423,000 employees as of June 2017, which the GMB calculated as an 18.2 percent drop from 517,000 in 2010.

The scale of austerity imposed in the last decade is evident in the fact that even under the Conservative Thatcher government of the 1980s—which privatized swathes of industry including the major utilities, car production, shipbuilding and steel—the share of the public sector was never lower than 20 percent.

The ruling elite are seeking to return social conditions to the Victorian era, pre-dating the introduction of the post-World War II welfare state. How far this has gone is indicated in the fact that public sector employment is now at its lowest since 1947, the year before the foundation of the National Health Service (NHS).

The jobs have mostly gone in councils in the main towns and cities nationwide. These are run, in the majority, by the Labour Party. Labour has imposed billions of pounds in austerity since the Brown Labour government bailed out the banks to the tune of around £1 trillion after the 2008 crash.

Labour-held Birmingham city council, for example, has announced further cuts of £113 million for the current 2017/2018 budget. Since 2010, the council has cut services by £650 million.

By 2018, 13,000 public sector jobs will have been slashed in Birmingham, the UK’s second largest city. The council is currently engaged in a long running dispute with striking refuse workers, responsible for ensuring the safety of refuse collection, over a planned 120 redundancies.

In just the four years to 2014, the councils comprising the region of Greater Manchester, with a population of 2.5 million people, imposed cuts—including thousands of job losses—of £1.2 billion. Nine out of ten of the councils are Labour-run.

This is entirely in line with Labour Party policy. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell wrote to Labour councils last year instructing them to set legal budgets—i.e., impose cuts. He recently addressed a meeting of leading financiers and business magnates in the city of London, reassuring them that business has no need to fear a Labour government.

After a decade of cuts and losing more than £40 billion of its budget, the NHS is plagued with staff shortages among frontline staff, including doctors, nurses and midwives. Between January 2017 and March 2017, there were 86,000 vacant posts. This is expected to worsen due to the Brexit vote and the insecurity for EU workers it implies.

While the public sector has been haemorrhaging vital jobs and services, there has been a growth in employment overall. But the growth has been confined mainly to low-paid, temporary, and zero hours contacts jobs in what is known as the “gig” economy.

The ONS reports a rise in the private sector share of employment—up 167,000 from the previous quarter to 26.696 million, the highest since 1999 when comparable records began.

The move away from the public to the even worse paid private sector employment is having a knock-on effect in relation to poverty. Of the 30 percent of UK children classified as poor, two thirds live in working households dependent on benefits to supplement their income.

The decline in public sector jobs has not been caused by austerity cuts alone but though a parallel process of privatisation and outsourcing. This has resulted in private companies raking in handsome profits at the expense of deteriorating services.

A recent programme on BBC Radio 4, You and Yours, aired an item on Homecare—care in the community for the elderly, disabled and vulnerable. Once provided by local authorities, this is now outsourced to private companies. According to Richard Whittell, who works for Corporate Watch, Home Care was privatised and run “increasingly by big corporate players. He said that councils have handed over “huge amounts to corporate players, to the tune of “£70m in the last five years.”

After the Thatcher years, privatization and the redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich continued unabated under the government of New Labour, led first by Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown. Much of this was bound up with the introduction of the Tories’ Public Private Partnership (PFI) into hospitals, schools and the London Underground.

Under PFI, the public-sector leases assets built and owned by private companies, which make staggering profits out of the contracts. According to the website FullFact, in 2016/2017 the NHS alone paid £2 billion for past and present PFI contracts. The latest figures as of 2015 show the NHS will have to continue paying for 105 projects until 2050.

Labour also introduced Foundation Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups into the NHS, laying the ground for the introduction of the market into health provision. These initiatives were taken up and expanded under the Conservative governments that came to office after Labour was ousted in 2010.

Commenting on the GMB report, the union’s national secretary, Rehana Azam, said, “funding reductions are cutting into sheer bone.” Not only are public sector employees “being denied fair pay rises” [capped at one percent for the past seven years] but the “vital services they deliver are being stripped back and hollowed out and denied the resources they need.”

The catastrophic decline in public sector is an indictment of the trade unions. Unison, the GMB and others including the health and education sector unions, with a membership of around 3.5 million—have sabotaged all struggles against austerity. Admitting the compliance of the unions with the cuts already imposed, Azam is quoted in the GMB report saying, “Any sensible opportunities for efficiencies are long gone,” and that in order to provide services “GMB’s members are performing miracles.”

This elicited the comment from a reader on the LocalGov website, who said, “About time the unions told members to stop performing miracles and start working to contract, hours and health and safety rules.”

CDC report finds large increase in sexually transmitted disease across the US

Matthew Taylor

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2016 Sexually Transmitted Diseases Surveillance report, released last week, revealed that rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are rising across the United States. The rise in these preventable and treatable diseases has coincided with the slashing of funding for public health programs and clinics which provide accessible testing and treatments.

Notably, the report points to the social roots of the crisis and the entirely preventable rise in infections: “STD public health programs are increasingly facing challenges and barriers in achieving their mission. In 2012, 52% of state and local STD programs experienced budget cuts. This amounts to reductions in clinic hours, contact tracing, and screening for common STDs. CDC estimates that 21 local health department STD clinics closed that year.” The annual estimated cost of treating STDs in the US was nearly $16 billion dollars last year.

The report found an increase in a host of common STDs including gonorrhea and chlamydia as well as the now less common syphilis, a disease which was at record low rates of infection at the beginning of the century

New cases of syphilis increased by 27,814, or a 17.6 percent increase from 2015. Reported cases of gonorrhea increased by 468,514, or 18.5 percent. There were also 1.59 million new cases of chlamydia reported, representing an increase of 4.7 percent.

Altogether, from 2015 to 2016, new cases reported for the three diseases were over 2 million, a new record according to the CDC. All three diseases are treatable with antibiotics, but if they are not diagnosed early can lead to multiple health problems, including stillbirth in infants, infertility, and an increased risk of HIV infection.

Young people between the ages of 15-24 make up over half of new cases of STDs. In the period between 2012 and 2016 rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea infections amongst males in this age group increased by 14 percent and 29.9 percent respectively, while decreasing only slightly for females. During the same time period, syphilis infections increased by 54.2 percent for males and 64.5 percent for females.

There are an estimated twenty million new cases of STDs in the US reported each year, and a total of 110 million cases at any given time. The report notes that certain demographic groups are at particularly high risk of contracting STDs. These include gay and bisexual men, pregnant women and especially young people between the ages of 15-24, who make up approximately half of all new cases each year.

Pregnant women and their children are at especially high risk. Many cases, both gonorrhea and chlamydia are asymptomatic in women, and the lack of treatment can cause Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, which can lead to damage to the reproductive system, including infertility. Other consequences of the lack of treatment of these two diseases can include “stillbirth, low birth weight, and premature rupturing of the membranes.”

The report also takes note of the many secondary health problems caused by STD infection, including “ocular and neurosyphilis, pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, infertility, HIV, congenital syphilis, and neonatal herpes.”

Rates of chlamydia infection increased across all regions in the US between 2015 and 2016. The highest reported cases of infection are amongst younger women, who are more widely tested. The overall rate of infection is 497.3 per 100,000 people.

Gonorrhea, which saw the largest year over year increase of any of the three STDs, had previously reached a historic low in 2009 of 98.1 per 100,000 people. Since that time, rates of infections have steadily increased. Today that figure is 145.8 per 100,000 people.

The increase in infections has occurred across ethnic lines, with African Americans hit hardest at a rate of 481.2 per 100,000, followed by Native Americans at a rate of 242.9 per 100,000. The rise in gonorrhea is especially troubling due to the fact that the disease has evolved to become resistant to many common antibiotics, such as penicillin and tetracycline. It is now routinely treated with two antibiotics simultaneously.

Syphilis had steadily been in decline for many years and reached a low of 2.1 per 100,000 people in 2000/2001, the lowest rate since testing began in 1941. That figure has increased to 8.7 per 100,000 in 2016. The increase has occurred across every region of the US and across all ethnic groups, with African Americans having the highest rate of infections at 23.3 per 100,000 followed by Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders at 13.9 per 100,000. The infection rate also increased across all age groups, with those between the ages of 20-29 hit the hardest.

The human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common STD in the US and worldwide. There are more than forty different types of the virus that have been identified, many of them asymptomatic. In fact, a study conducted in 2013-2014 found that 42.5 percent of American adults aged 18-59 years carried some form of HPV.

The majority of diseases caused by HPV are the result of only a few varieties of the virus. As the report notes: “HPV types 16 and 18 accounts for approximately 66 percent of cervical cancers in the United States, and approximately 25 percent of low-grade and 50 percent of high-grade cervical intraepithelial lesions, or dysplasia. HPV types 6 and 11 are responsible for approximately 90% of genital warts.”

Several vaccines have been developed that target the most dangerous strains of HPV, and since the mid-2000s have become more widely used. The CDC has recommended that all children be vaccinated. A national survey in 2015 found that 63 percent of girls age 13-17 had taken at least one dose of the vaccine, with 42 percent having completed the entire series of vaccinations. Amongst boys, the number was lower with just 50 percent of boys in the same age group taking the initial dose and 28 percent completing all recommended doses.

Tom Price resignation highlights corruption in Trump’s cabinet

Shelley Connor

Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Tom Price resigned on Friday, amid mounting criticism of his use of chartered jets and the apparent use of these government-funded trips as personal outings with his wife.

Between May and September, Price’s travels aboard private jets had cost the Treasury about $400,000, according to Politico. Moreover, many of Price’s trips had been of a personal nature: in June, for example, the HHS chartered a jet to Nashville, where Price owns a condominium. He spent the day touring a medicine dispensary, giving an extemporaneous speech at a health care summit, and having lunch with his son. On another occasion, he and his wife flew to St. Simons Island, Georgia to visit a resort where they own property, making an appearance at a medical conference.

Price stated on Thursday that he would reimburse the government for his travel fees. Significantly, he only offered to pay for his seat, which, according to an HHS spokesperson, cost $51,887.31. That Price could write a personal check for a sum that exceeds an average worker’s annual wage is no surprise, since he is a multi-millionaire. But the amount falls well under Politico’s $400,000 figure. It does not include the seats for Price’s staff, who traveled with him on his many jaunts to physicians’ conferences and pharmaceutical company gatherings.

Price issued a four-paragraph resignation letter on Friday in which he expressed “regret” for having “created a distraction” from the administration’s mission—which, it should be pointed out, is to strip healthcare from millions of Americans in the service of insurance and pharmaceutical executives. He made no apology for his actions.

Several other members of Trump’s cabinet have incurred scrutiny over their travel expenses. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, and Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin are all being investigated for their use of privately chartered jets or government planes, or for combining official travel and plush holiday trips.

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin requested the use of a military jet—at a cost of $25,000 an hour—to transport him and his new wife, Louise Linton, to their European honeymoon. After questioning by Treasury officials, he rescinded the request. A few weeks later, he and Linton traveled by military jet to Kentucky, taking advantage of the trip to view the solar eclipse in the path of totality. Linton posted a photo of the couple deplaning, tagging the expensive, designer brands she was wearing to Instagram.

In July, Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin issued a memo demanding that Veterans Affairs staffers curb their travel expenses. Less than two weeks later he took his wife to Europe at the public’s expense. The pair attended a championship tennis match at Wimbledon, took a cruise down the Thames, shopped, and toured historical sites. They were accompanied by Shulkin’s acting undersecretary, Poonam Alaigh, and her husband, as well as Shulkin’s chief of staff and an aide. A security retinue of six also accompanied the delegation.

Ostensibly, the trip was official government business. However, at least half of their time was spent on recreation, and Shulkin’s wife, who is not a government employee, had her flight paid for and was given a per diem reimbursement for expenses by the Department of Treasury.

As Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke is responsible for public lands coveted by oil and gas industries and their shareholders. Zinke took multiple flights aboard a privately chartered jet owned by Nielson and Associates, an oil and gas exploration company based in Wyoming. One such trip cost $12,375. For most of these flights, there were commercial options available for a few hundred dollars. Jay Nielson, executive vice president of Nielson and Associates, feigned ignorance about Zinke’s travels on his company’s jets, saying, “Part of why people charter planes is they like to remain somewhat private.”

Scott Pruitt, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, is widely known for his extravagant use of federal funds. Congressional inquiries have focused on his 18-person, 24-hour security detail, the $25,000 “secure” phone booth he had built for himself, and his frequent flights from Washington, DC to his home state of Oklahoma. Pruitt has also cost the federal purse an estimated $58,000 for private jets he has used to travel the country in support of the sweeping cuts he plans to make to the EPA.

Tom Price is thus far the only cabinet member to have drawn Trump’s ire over travel expenses. For Trump, the primary concern was the “optics” of Price’s use of public resources. Furthermore, Price had already found himself in Trump’s crosshairs when the administration met resistance for its efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Trump had jibed at Price in July, during a speech at a Boy Scout Jamboree. In reference to the healthcare plan Price had presented to congress, Trump threatened; “He better get the votes. Otherwise I will say, ‘Tom, you’re fired.’”

The Trump cabinet’s eye-popping travel expenses have highlighted the gulf between his demagogic campaign promises to “drain the swamp” and end government waste, and the reality of the open oligarchic rule in the capital.

Aristocratic arrogance and contempt also finds expression in the various responses of administration officials to criticism. Zinke has referred to the investigation into his travels as “a little BS.” Louise Linton, upon receiving a critical comment on her preposterous Instagram photo, unleashed a snide tirade against the commenter, demeaning the woman’s income and lifestyle. Linton’s response inspired comparisons to Marie Antoinette, whom she once portrayed on television.

Speaking to the Washington Post, Poonam Alaigh dismissed concerns that the VA delegation’s trip to Europe represented wasteful spending. “Were there some breaks we got? Sure. But they were reasonable,” she said.

The Trump administration has ruthlessly worked to dismantle programs to provide working Americans clean air, unpolluted drinking water, healthcare and education. It has portrayed American workers as lazy and irresponsible, and therefore undeserving of assistance. At the same time, Trump appointees have plundered the Treasury to maintain their positions among the financial aristocracy, traveling with unwarranted security details aboard luxury flights to protect themselves from the public they so clearly abhor.

Of course all the tone-deaf assertions and actions of the Trump cabinet pale by comparison to the privileged existence of Trump himself, who has spent more than a quarter of his presidency at his own hotels, golf clubs and other resorts, including the “winter White House” at his Mar-e-Lago estate, at a total cost to the Treasury that dwarfs all the boondoggles enjoyed by all other administration officials combined. It is likely that Trump’s sensitivity to the exposure of Price’s high-cost travel was sparked, not only by the administration’s failure to repeal Obamacare, for which he held Price partly responsible, but by concern that Price’s lifestyle would draw unflattering attention to the far more lavish perks enjoyed by the “commander-in-chief.”

Trudeau rushes to declare Edmonton attack a “terrorist” act

Roger Jordan 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement early Sunday morning claiming that an incident in which a 30-year-old man attacked a police officer, then hours later struck several pedestrians during a high-speed police chase, constituted a “terrorist attack.”

Police have yet to officially identify the alleged assailant, who was taken into custody after the police-chase culminated in the van he was driving overturning. However, the CBC, based on police sources, is reporting that he is a Somalian refugee claimant named Abdulahi Hasan Sharif.

Public Security Minister Ralph Goodale has said the Edmonton assailant was on a terrorism watch-list, while the RCMP has revealed he was interviewed by the Canadian police and intelligence services’ Integrated National Security Enforcement Team in 2015.

According to the media, authorities are planning to charge the assailant with five counts of attempted murder and terrorism offences. The latter would make him liable to significantly harsher punishment.

Much about what happened on Saturday night remains unclear. Even as police and senior government officials have rushed to label the incident a “terrorist attack,” they admit that all evidence points to this having been the act of a single individual or, to use the words of Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson, a “lone wolf.”

The incident began at around 8:15 p.m., when the assailant rammed his car into a barricade behind which stood a police officer who was providing security for an Edmonton Eskimos football game at which there was to be a ceremony honouring Canada’s military.

The officer was thrown several meters on impact. The assailant reportedly jumped from his car and attacked the cop with a knife but his assault was repelled and he then escaped on foot.

Police claim that they subsequently found an Islamic State flag in the assailant’s abandoned car.

The police officer, Constable Mike Chernyk, was not seriously injured in the attack, and approximately 90 minutes later authorities held a press conference at which they declared that while a manhunt was under way, the public was not at risk.

Two hours later, at around midnight, officers stopped a white U-Haul van at a traffic checkpoint. When an officer recognized the driver’s ID as being that of the man police were looking for and challenged him, the suspect allegedly drove away at high speed. Around 20 police cars then gave chase through downtown Edmonton at speed of 80 miles per hour, sending pedestrians and automobiles scurrying for safety.

Police claim that during the chase the suspect deliberately struck four pedestrians. None suffered serious injury.

One passer-by who witnessed the chase expressed the feelings of many when he commented to CBC, “That high-speed chase should have never, ever, in a million years have happened downtown.”

At a 3 a.m. press conference, Edmonton Police Chief Rob Knecht declared that the assailant was in custody and that the incident was being treated as a terrorism investigation.

The attack, like similar incidents which have targeted innocent people around the world, is deeply reactionary. But the narrative of Saturday night’s events the authorities and media are now developing should be treated with extreme caution and skepticism.

According to Public Safety Minister Goodale the fact the assailant was known to the authorities and on Canada’s terrorism watch list “is a detail of the investigation that the authorities will pursue in the appropriate way.”

Far from being a mere “detail” Sharif’s presence on a watch list raises serious questions about the authorities’ response. If his identity was known, why did police declare there to be no threat to public safety at 10 p.m. Saturday, almost two hours after the attack on the police officer? And since authorities considered him to be a terrorist threat, why did police engage in a high-speed chase through streets packed with football fans and local residents, giving him added opportunity and motive to strike passers-by with his vehicle?

These issues cannot be brushed aside, especially given the fact that in virtually every other attack of a similar character in recent years, it has later emerged that the perpetrators were well-known to the authorities.

For example, both of the assailants who carried out a similar attack last June on London Bridge and at Burgh market in Britain’s capital were known to police as Islamist extremists. One of them had even appeared in a televised documentary about jihadis. In that attack, the assailants rammed pedestrians with a van before exiting the vehicle and attacking them with knives, leaving seven dead.

None of the discrepancies in the official narrative were reflected in the response from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who labelled the incident an act of terrorism before any evidence had been made public.

“The Government of Canada and Canadians stand with the people of Edmonton after the terrorist attack on Saturday,” declared Trudeau in his Sunday morning statement.

Echoing the stock-lines governments all over the world have employed in promoting a phony “war on terror” that has been used to justify imperialist war and sweeping attacks on democratic rights, Trudeau continued, “We cannot—and will not—let violent extremism take root in our communities. We know that Canada’s strength comes from our diversity, and we will not be cowed by those who seek to divide us or promote fear.”

In evaluating Trudeau’s statement, it is important to note that in October 2014, he and his Liberals, as well as the New Democratic Party, did not join Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper in claiming that Canada was under terrorist attack, even as they forthrightly condemned the murder of an unarmed soldier in Ottawa and the attack on the Parliament complex carried out by a lone, psychologically disturbed gunman.

Harper exploited the Ottawa attack to ram through his Bill C-51, giving vast new powers to the national security apparatus. These included virtually unlimited access to government information on Canadians and the right of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the country’s premier spy agency, to break virtually any law in actively “disrupting” vaguely defined “threats” to national security.

Trudeau’s response to the Edmonton events underscores his government’s sharp shift to the right and should cause workers and youth to beware of Liberal attempts to stoke public fear over terrorism to justify further attacks on democratic rights and closer collaboration with Washington, both in aggression in the Middle East and in “policing” North America, including attacks on the rights of refugees and migrants.

The claims of Trudeau and his Liberals to represent a “progressive” alternative to Harper—claims that were eagerly promoted by the trade union bureaucracy—were always bogus. The Canadian elite’s traditional party of government, the Liberals, implemented the greatest social spending cuts in Canadian history when they last held office, as well as joining US-led wars in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan and in the wake of 9/11, dramatically expanding the powers and reach of the national security agencies.

That said, the Trudeau government is more and more openly embracing and expanding the reactionary agenda of its Conservative predecessors.

In June, Trudeau’s Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, delivered a bellicose address in which she argues that “hard power,” i.e. war, had to be a key part of Canada’s foreign policy in the 21st century. This was swiftly followed by the release of a new defence policy that calls for military spending to be hiked by 70 percent to $33 billion per year over the next decade.

The same month, the Trudeau government unveiled its draconian Bill C-59, which in the name of “reforming” Bill C-51, makes a few cosmetic changes to Harper’s police-state law, while enshrining its vast expansion of the powers of the country’s intelligence agencies.

The Liberals’ bill also mandates Canada’s signals intelligence agency, the Communications and Security Establishment (CSE), to conduct offensive cyberwarfare operations. This will be done in conjunction with the military, which under the new defence policy has been given additional possibilities to cooperate with the intelligence agencies in this area thanks to the boosting of the Canadian Armed Forces’ cyberwarfare budget.