Italy assists in illegal mass repatriation of refugees to Libya

Martin Kreickenbaum

On July 30, 108 refugees rescued at sea by an Italian merchant vessel were returned to Libya in a flagrant violation of international law. According to multiple media reports, the Italian maritime rescue centre in Rome, the Libyan Coast Guard—dominated by militias—and representatives of Eni, the Italian oil and gas company operating off the Libyan coast, collaborated in this illegal mass repatriation.

The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR posted on Twitter that details relating to the case were being examined. “Libya is not a safe harbour and this action could have violated international law,” wrote the UNHCR. A mass repatriation of refugees without prior examination of their right to asylum is also a violation of international law.

On July 30, the Italian tugboat Asso 28 brought 108 refugees on board, including children and pregnant women, whose inflatable raft was in distress some 60 nautical miles off the Libyan coast, near the offshore platform “Sabratha.” The platform belonged to the Mellitah Oil & Gas joint venture, in which the Italian company Eni as well as the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) are participants.

According to information provided by the Eni corporation, a representative of the Libyan Coast Guard stationed on the platform boarded Asso 28 and led the rescue operation. Later, a boat from the Libyan Coast Guard led Asso 28 to port in Tripoli, where the refugees were brought ashore.

In the course of these activities, the Italian captain not only repeatedly violated international law, apparently in coordination with the Italian maritime rescue centre, he also set a precedent for further illegal mass repatriations.

The Italian Coast Guard claims the rescue “was coordinated by the Libyan Coast Guard, which also led the entire operation.” This raises the question, however: Who informed the Libyan Coast Guard about a refugee boat in distress in international waters? Refugees are generally found to have satellite phones on board in which the number of the Italian maritime rescue centre is already saved.

Riccardo Gatti, who heads the operations of the private rescue ship Proactiva Open Arms, said the first report about the raft in distress came from the Italian rescue centre. The Proactiva Open Arms set course for the raft, but the Italian Coast Guard refused every attempt to contact it. Through its inaction, the Italian coast guard is complicit in this illegal mass repulsion of refugees.

It remains unclear who instructed the captain of Asso 28 to bring the refugees to Libya. The Libyan Coast Guard has no authority over an Italian ship in international waters. Gatti claims to have intercepted a radio message saying Asso 28 had to follow the “instructions of the platform.” If that is the case, it would mean that the Eni corporation ultimately ordered the mass repatriation.

Eni has since 2015 worked closely with militia leader Ahmed Dabbashi in the Melittah gas field off the Libyan coast. The United Nations is taking action against Dabbashi for severe human rights violations against refugees. One year ago, several media outlets reported that the then-government in Rome had agreed to pay Dabbashi millions to keep refugees from the Libyan port city of Sabratha from reaching Italy and detaining them in Libyan internment camps.

One can assume that the current illegal repatriation of refugees is a direct consequence of this dirty arrangement.

Libya is not a signatory to the Geneva Refugee Convention and is therefore not considered a safe harbour for refugees. In returning the refugees in question, the captain of Asso 28 has made himself liable for prosecution under international law.

The refugees aboard Asso 28 should not have been denied the right to apply for asylum. As Marina Castellaneta, professor for international law at the University of Bari, explained to Spiegel Online: according to all international conventions, states must grant everyone the opportunity to request asylum and protect these persons for as long as asylum proceedings are underway. The state has the obligation to prevent ships operating under its flag from simply repatriating such people.

In 2012, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Italy for its illegal repatriation of refugees to Libya. Now the European Union and the United Nations are themselves involved in these inhumane and illegal actions.

In a hypocritical press release, the EU Commission condemned the mass repatriation. Libya has not met “international standards for taking in refugees,” explained commission spokesperson Natasha Bertaud last Tuesday. In fact, the EU has in recent months supported the large-scale repatriation of refugees to Libya and backed the Italian and Maltese governments in their effort to block access to their ports for refugees stranded at sea.

As part of the “Operation Sophia” initiative in the Mediterranean, the EU trained the Libyan Coast Guard and provided it with 16 ships. At the end of June, Libyan authorities, with the support of the EU, established their own search-and-rescue zone, which extends far beyond 12 nautical miles from shore, the internationally recognized distance at which territorial waters end and international waters begin. This search-and-rescue zone has been recognized by the International Maritime Organization, an agency of the United Nations, although the Libyan control centre is not staffed 24 hours a day and not all of its staff speak English.

The Libyan Coast Guard has access to satellite data for the tracking of refugee boats, while the Moonbird plane operating out of Malta by the private relief organization Sea-Watch is no longer permitted to search for people in distress.

In the haphazard search-and-rescue zone, the Libyan Coast Guard regularly demands the handing over of rescued refugees. It does not shrink from the use of firearms to enforce this demand. Despite this, the Libyan government receives backing from Italian prosecuting authorities. They seized the rescue ship Proactiva Open Arms because it refused to hand over refugees to the Libyan Coast Guard.

One year ago, more than a dozen private rescue ships still operated on the central Mediterranean route and saved tens of thousands of refugees from drowning. Now most of them are docked, having been seized by Italian and Maltese authorities. Their operational possibilities have been drastically limited by the Italian government.

This has resulted in a humanitarian disaster. In July of this year, only 1,972 refugees made it to Italy. In the same month the previous year, there were 23,552—more than ten times the current number. The number of causalities on this route stood at 68 in July of last year. It more than doubled to 157 by July of this year.

To this must be added an untold number of drowned refugees, whose calls for help no one could hear. More than 12,000 refugees have been taken back to Libya, where “Hell” awaits, as Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, has himself been compelled to admit.

In the Libyan ports, refugees are generally received by UN representatives who then pass them on to the authorities. They are then brought for an indefinite period of time to internment camps where inhumane conditions prevail.

Hanan Salah of Human Rights Watch reported on the conditions at one such camp following an inspection visit:

“As we opened the gate to a corridor in one prison, we almost stumbled over several people who sat pressed against one another on the floor. They had come out of their cells to get some air in the hallway, but even there they sat packed side by side. There must have been hundreds of them. Many gasped for air because it was so suffocating.

“Many of the toilets and showers are broken. It is very hot and there are no fans. The people there have no freedom of movement. They spend almost the entire day in their cells. Even the many children are not allowed to go out. Even more disturbing was the terrible abuse of the immigrants and refugees by the guards. We observed that some immigrants are sold off from one trader to another and are forced to work without pay for smugglers, militias or private business people. They beat people, imprison them and treat many immigrants like slaves.”

Chinese president under pressure over trade war with US

Peter Symonds

Days after completing a trip to Africa and the Middle East, Chinese President Xi Jinping convened a meeting of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 25-member Politburo on Tuesday to determine policy on a range of economic issues. Xi held the meeting amid the mounting threat of a US-China trade war and signs he is coming under pressure from critics and factional opponents within China.

The statement released after the Politburo referred to “new problems and new changes” facing the Chinese economy, including “obvious changes in the external environment”—that is, US trade measures and threats against China in particular.

The following day, the Trump administration confirmed it was actively considering raising proposed tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent. Beijing responded on Friday by threatening another $60 billion in tariffs on US products. 

The Politburo meeting followed an executive meeting on July 23 of the State Council, often referred to as China’s cabinet, that oversees economic matters. In May, China reported its first current account deficit in years, and the latest purchasing managers’ index fell to a five-month low of 51.2 in July (above 50 indicates growth). In response to these signs of a slowing economy, the Politburo indicated that measures would be taken to boost infrastructure spending and encourage corporate research and development.

The Trump administration’s trade war measures are not simply aimed at forcing Beijing to cave in to Washington’s economic demands, but are more broadly aimed at ensuring US dominance in Asia and internationally by undermining the CCP regime. Given this agenda, the prognostications on the Xi leadership by analysts in the US and its allies need to be treated with caution.

Nevertheless, while not suggesting that he is about to be ousted, several recent articles point to internal criticism of Xi, just months after he cemented his hold on power. In March, China’s National People’s Congress rubberstamped constitutional changes that ended the two-term limit for the post of president, potentially allowing Xi to stay in office indefinitely.

A comment published on July 27 in the Australian Financial Review by Lowy Institute analyst Richard McGregor asked the question: “Has China’s leader Xi Jinping now passed his peak?” Suggesting that there were “signs of a nascent pushback against Xi’s absolute power,” it said “whisperings emanate from a variety of sources—retired leaders, rival factions within the CCP, the intelligentsia and the economic policy making apparatus.”

McGregor noted that Xi was under pressure as a result of Trump’s aggressive trade measures. “Xi can scarcely be blamed for Trump,” he commented. “His rivals, nonetheless, have latched onto deteriorating relations as a stick to beat Xi over the head with. Trump often talks about his ‘good friend’ Xi. But the US president is in fact behaving anything like a friend to his peer in Beijing.”

In a similar vein, the New York Times this week cited the remarks of Jia Qingguo, a professor of international relations at Beijing University. “China should adopt a lower profile in dealing with international issues. Don’t create this atmosphere that we’re about to supplant the American model,” he told a recent forum.

In an article on August 1, entitled “Xi’s Grip Loosens Amid Trade War Policy Paralysis,” Jamestown Foundation analyst Willy Wo-Lap Lam suggested that while Xi’s position was not under challenge, “his authority seems somewhat diminished.” He continued: “Xi is widely seen as failing to thwart what the Chinese Foreign Ministry calls Trump’s ‘hegemonic’ and lingba (‘bullying’) tactics.”

Despite Xi’s robust rhetoric and announcement of retaliatory tariffs, Lam noted a series of steps indicating moves by the Chinese regime to adopt a more cautious approach since June. He pointed out that Beijing had ordered a halt to media references to the “Made in China 2025” strategy to develop cutting-edge technologies to compete globally, to which Washington has objected. He also noted that in mid-July, the CCP Propaganda Department banned media use of the phrase “trade war,” in a bid to tone down tensions with the US.

The CCP leadership is clearly concerned about the economic impact of escalating tit-for-tat trade penalties with the US. The Chinese economy has already slowed significantly, with an official growth target for 2018 of just 6.5 percent. Even though the figures for the second quarter recorded 6.7 percent annualised growth, the pattern is uneven across the country. More depressed regions, such as Jilin in the northern “rust belt,” reported growth of just 2.5 percent for the first half year.

Low growth and rising unemployment will exacerbate social tensions and undermine the political authority of the CCP regime. Having all but abandoned any socialist pretensions, it has relied on high growth figures and whipping up Chinese nationalism to appeal to sections of the middle classes in particular.

The consolidation of Xi as bureaucratic strongman, constantly referred to as the “core” of the party and the state, is not a sign of strength but of the regime’s brittleness. He is being built up to contain factional infighting within the CCP and also to try to suppress mounting class tensions through the use of police-state methods.

While capitalist restoration in China since 1978 has led to rapid economic growth, it has also led to a widening social gulf between rich and poor. The 2018 World Inequality Report pointed out that 1978, the share of national income of the top 10 percent of the population and the bottom 50 percent was roughly equal. By 2015, however, the top 10 percent took 42 percent of national income, compared to just 15 percent for the bottom half of the population.

The CCP regime is acutely aware of the potential for a social explosion, despite the China’s extensive repressive apparatus, as the living standards of the working class deteriorate. The US threats of trade war and a further economic slowdown are fuelling factional differences within the CCP bureaucracy over how to counter that danger, and this is undermining Xi’s position as political strongman.

China threatens tariffs on $60 billion of US goods

Nick Beams

China has announced that it will impose tariffs on an additional $60 billion of US exports if the Trump administration goes ahead with its threat to strike a 25 percent levy on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports.

The measures were decided at a meeting of China’s State Council on Friday. The Commerce Ministry said the implementation and date of the tariffs depended on US actions. Coming on top of the tariff already imposed on $34 billion of US goods, the new measures would mean that around 85 percent of US exports to China would be affected.

The proposed tariffs cover more than 5,000 goods from the US and the duties range from 5 to 25 percent. Among the most critical targets are aircraft and liquefied natural gas (LNG). China is the world’s second-largest importer of LNG and the third largest market for US LNG exports, with expectation that it will be the most significant source of additional demand in the future.

The State Council said that in addition to the tariffs “China reserves the right to introduce other counter-measures.” It did not specify what they might be, but could include increased checks on US products, delays in approvals for US firms seeking licenses and other business requirements. The most significant counter-measure so far, though it was not labelled as such by China, was the blocking of the $44 billion Qualcomm takeover of the Dutch semiconductor firm NXP.

The intensification of the trade conflict has been accompanied by an escalation in the aggressive rhetoric emanating from the Trump administration.

Speaking after China had announced its new tariff move, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow warned that Beijing should not underestimate the determination of Trump.

The administration is drawing strength from a rise in the US growth rate and signs of a slowdown in China’s growth as the value of the yuan continues to fall.

“Their economy’s weak, their currency is weak, people are leaving the country. Don’t underestimate President Trump’s determination to follow through,” Kudlow said in a Bloomberg Television interview.

In another television interview, Kudlow laid emphasis on the agreement between Trump and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker for joint action in the World Trade Organisation over China’s alleged technology theft and the subsidising of key industries. The “best news,” he said, was that “we are coming together with the European Union to make a deal with them. So we’ll have a united front against China.”

Kudlow has said while talks have stalled in recent days there had been some communication at the highest level between the US and China. But there are major obstacles in the way of further negotiations.

Officials in Beijing are reported to be unwilling to commit to any further discussions unless the White House can decide on who is the point person in charge. Last May, when talks were held in Washington, China agreed to increase its imports from the US by up to $100 billion in return for at least a suspension of hostilities. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin duly declared that the trade war had been “put on hold,” but this was overturned in a matter of a few days.

The issue of who is to take charge of US policy if negotiations do take place is bound up the question of what are the central objectives of the trade war. Mnuchin is more in favour of coming to an agreement that would bring about a reduction in the US deficit.

Others, including the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, insist that the reduction in the US trade deficit while necessary is by no means sufficient. For them, the central objective is to block China’s economic and technological development under its “Made in China 2025,” plan which they regard as the most significant threat to the economic, and ultimately military, supremacy of the US.

Therefore, the US needs to continue escalating tariffs against China in order to secure concessions. This outlook was reflected in the statement issue by White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters who said that “instead of retaliating, China should address the longstanding concerns about its trading practices.”

Those “longstanding concerns” centre on two key issues: the acquisition and development by China of advanced technology in the fields of communications, robotics and artificial intelligence; and the state subsides provided to companies.

But for the Chinese regime, Washington’s demands mean that it should cease its efforts to move up the industrial and hi-tech ladder and take a subservient position in relation to the US, something which it regards as intolerable.

The essential objective foundations of the trade war are now emerging more clearly into the open. As the Financial Times noted, the fight has “become about the two countries’ economic futures, with US officials portraying their aggressive approach to Beijing as a way to protect America’s economic future from a China that is intent on leading the world in areas such as artificial intelligence and robotics.”

On the other side, it said, “Chinese policymakers had arrived at the conclusion that … Trump’s trade challenge was aimed at thwarting China’s technological development.”

The irresolvable nature of these positions means that whatever talks, negotiations and manoeuvres may take place, the objective logic of events is towards intensification of the trade war and ultimately military conflict.

Sixty dead, over 100 wounded in Saudi air strikes on Yemeni port city

Alec Andersen

The toll from US-backed Saudi coalition air strikes on a fish market and hospital in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah Thursday has risen to at least 60 people dead and 130 others wounded. The bombardment, which has been all but ignored by the establishment press, comes amid a weeks-long siege of the western city and coalition efforts to destroy vital civilian infrastructure, threatening to sharply escalate the world’s most dire humanitarian crisis.

Saudi coalition warplanes struck a crowded Hodeidah fish market as throngs of residents packed in to purchase one of Yemen’s only abundant domestic sources of food. Witnesses report a chaotic scene as a warplane overhead fired upon the packed market, then continued to linger above the city. As people rushed the dead and injured to the al-Thawra hospital just 20 meters (60 feet) away, the warplane began bombing the entrance to the hospital, apparently to prevent the injured from receiving treatment.

By all accounts, there were no military targets in the surrounding area, nor even a noticeable presence of armed men. Rather, rights groups and witnesses argue that bombing of the fish market and the follow-up attack on the hospital served no apparent purpose other than to spread terror within Yemeni society following a series of attempts over recent weeks to recapture the city that have all ended in defeat or stalemate for the invading forces. These are comprised primarily of mercenaries from Central America and members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula from the country’s east and south.

A 38-year-old Hodeidah resident, Alaa Thabet, told Middle East Eye that he was on his way home when, “I heard a warplane hover over Hodeidah. Then I heard an air strike target the fish market and the buzzing of the warplane was clearer after the attack. After that people went to take the casualties to several hospitals, including al-Thawra Hospital, but the warplane returned to hover again.”

Dr. Yaser Nour was working in the oncology center at al-Thawra Hospital when he heard the sound of air strikes and “saw the smoke rising in front of the gate.” He continued: “I was in a state of severe panic. Everyone was running scared while I was heading towards the emergency gate. I saw more than 10 bodies, including four women and a young girl.”

The Saudi-led coalition began its offensive against Yemen in March 2015 following the overthrow of the corrupt puppet regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh by Houthi rebels in 2014, leading to a political settlement that installed his protégé, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, before the settlement collapsed and Houthis captured the capital Sanaa once again.

The Houthis, a militant political movement based on the Zaidi branch of Shia Islam, today controls the city and most of the country’s densely populated north, including the capital of Sanaa.

The Saudi-led campaign—which could not be waged without vital support from the United States in the form of intelligence, logistics and weaponry—has killed tens of thousands of people in the poorest country in the Arab world due to the indiscriminate targeting of civilians and deliberate destruction of infrastructure. Over the past month, the coalition has targeted water treatment facilities that serve the 600,000 residents of Hodeidah, leading to fears of a deepening cholera outbreak that has already infected over one million, as sanitation is shut off.

The suffering of the Yemeni people at the hands of the Saudis has been compounded by a US-enforced blockade of the nation, which relies on imports for over 90 percent of its food supply, 70 percent of which flows through Hodeidah. This has led to more than one-third of the population of 22 million being at risk of starvation.

Ontario’s Tory government slashes welfare benefits, vows further cuts

Roger Jordan

Just weeks after taking power, Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government, led by the right-wing populist Doug Ford, has launched a major assault on welfare recipients, society’s most vulnerable and impoverished.

Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod announced Tuesday that the 3 percent increase in welfare benefits adopted by the previous Liberal government will be slashed to just 1.5 percent. The cut affects both those deemed “employable,” who are enrolled in the Ontario Works program, and those receiving disability payments.

The government is also canceling a three-year, $150 million pilot project to test replacing the current welfare system with a “basic income” payment. Under the pilot project, which began last year and involved 4,000 low-income people, a single person was to receive up to $16,989 in provincial assistance annually—still far below the poverty line.

Under conditions where rents, food and other costs are rising rapidly, the planned 3 percent increase would have at best meant that welfare recipients in Canada’s most populous province were treading water.

But, taking a page from the playbook of Mike Harris, who on becoming Ontario premier in 1995 cut welfare benefits by more than 21 percent, MacLeod and Ford are planning to eviscerate the current social assistance program.

Speaking at a press conference Tuesday, MacLeod declared the current welfare system irretrievably broken and announced that the government has set a 100-day deadline for coming up with a plan to transform it, from one that gives “handouts that do little if anything to break the cycle of poverty,” into one that is “sustainable.”

Indicating that the government intends to dramatically expand “workfare” schemes under which benefits are tied to enrollment in cheap-labor, job-training programs, Macleod pontificated that, “The best welfare measure is a job.” She also said that she has asked the province’s auditor-general to investigate what she called “hundreds of millions of dollars” in fraudulent social assistance payments.

Ford ran a hard-right, Trump-style campaign in which he railed against the “waste” of tax-payer dollars, public sector workers and the traditional political establishment. He also vowed that his government would find $6 billion in annual savings, of which the latest attack on welfare is only a small fraction.

The next volley of social spending cuts is likely to be launched at the end of August, when a commission appointed by Ford in mid-July to review Ontario’s finances is scheduled to present its report. To head the commission, Ford chose former British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell, whose Liberal government provoked widespread strikes and popular protests with savage attacks on public spending and workers’ rights during the 2000s.

The Ford government is already preparing the groundwork to use the report’s results to justify a massive assault on public services. Finance Minister Vic Fedeli declared that the government is “prepared for the likelihood that we might not like what we see. But unless we accurately diagnose the sickness we will not be able to prescribe the right cure.”

The claim that there is no money for vitally-needed public and social services is a flat-out lie.

Under more than 15 years of Liberal Party rule, the trade union-backed governments of Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne waged war on the wages and working conditions of workers, privatized public assets such as Hydro One, and slashed public spending, including for health and education, to the bone.

These policies were aimed at redistributing wealth upwards to the rich and super-rich, including by cutting tax rates for big business and those in the highest-income brackets to record lows.

Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberal government is pursuing the same agenda. It has maintained the ultra-low corporate tax rates introduced by the Harper Conservative government; established, with its new Canada Infrastructure bank, a mechanism for privatizing public infrastructure; announced a 70 percent hike in military spending over the next decade; and further expanded Canada’s involvement in the major US military-strategic offensives, in the oil-rich Middle East and against Russia and China.

Earlier this week, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a left-liberal think tank, published a report that showed the country’s wealthiest 87 families now own more wealth than the poorest third of Canadians—12 million people.

Ford’s bluster about speaking on behalf of the little guy against the political elite notwithstanding, he is a ruthless representative of this super-rich oligarchy. His rise to the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives by means of a bogus sex scandal and his subsequent populist election campaign were promoted by a pliant corporate media and powerful sections of big business which see him as a useful instrument for shifting politics, in Ontario and across Canada, sharply right. In line with this, Ford has already outlawed a four-month strike by teaching and research assistants at Toronto’s York University.

Ford and his Conservatives are seeking to divert attention from their pro-corporate agenda, incite reaction, and split the working class by whipping up hostility to refugees fleeing Trump’s anti-immigrant witch hunt. This has included blaming refugee claimants for a housing shortage that is the result of decades of cuts to social housing carried out by all three levels of government and all three parties, the Liberals, New Democrats (NDP) and Conservatives.

In anticipation of mounting social opposition, the Ford government is also mounting a right-wing “law and order” campaign and courting the police, with promises of increased spending, tougher laws and by suspending application of a law providing for greater civilian oversight of the police.

The Ford government’s initial weeks in power have provided a devastating exposure of the impotence, cowardice, and complicity of the trade union bureaucracy, which for over a decade helped prop up successive Liberal governments as they enforced austerity measures and criminalized strikes. As Ford took office, Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) head Chris Buckley and other top union bureaucrats appealed for a meeting with the new premier, holding out the hope that the unions could collaborate with the new government.

At the same time, the unions are doing all that they can to restrain the groundswell of popular anger that is building. The only protest sanctioned thus far by the OFL came on June 16, where Buckley shared the platform with newly-elected NDP MPPs. He and other speakers asserted that workers could resist the Ford government’s attacks by working in tandem with the rightwing social democrats of the NDP—a party which between 2012 and 2014 propped up a Liberal minority government as it imposed austerity and broke strikes; and which, the one and only time it ever held office in Ontario (1990–95), implemented a job and wage-cutting “social contract.”

After weeks of virtual silence in the face of non-stop provocations by the Ford government, the OFL finally bestirred itself this week, not to protest the vicious attacks on welfare recipients, but to denounce Ford’s decision to cut the number of Toronto City Council seats from 47 to 25, less than 90 days before the Oct. 22 municipal election.

In a statement, the OFL provided a model letter for its members to sign and send to Ford, asking him politely to reverse course.

Ford’s move is an attack on democratic rights, deliberately aimed at weakening his bourgeois political rivals—the Liberals and NDP—who enjoy more support in Toronto than do his Tories. However, workers cannot beat back such attacks if they appeal, as the unions propose, to the alleged democratic sensibilities of the Toronto City Council, which is staffed by bourgeois politicians subservient to the interests of the corporate elite and aligned with the establishment parties.

Rather the working class must meet big business’ class-war assault by mobilizing its industrial strength and transforming itself into a political force. To defend their social rights, workers and youth in Ontario must spearhead a cross-Canada counteroffensive of the working class, directed against the Ford and Trudeau governments and the ruling-class agenda of austerity and war, and at developing a mass movement for a workers’ government committed to the socialist reorganization of socio-economic life.

Hundreds of asylum seekers face imminent eviction in Glasgow

Stephen Alexander

UK-based outsourcing multinational Serco has initiated plans to evict and change the locks at the residences of 330 asylum seekers in Glasgow, as part of its callously named “Move On” programme.

The firm is contracted by the UK Home Office to run “asylum dispersal” in Scotland alongside other areas of the country. It addressed a letter to Glasgow City Council and local charities last Friday detailing plans to terminate housing services for “former Asylum Seekers who do not wish to engage in voluntary return, and who the Home Office have determined have no legal right to remain in the UK.”

Serco claims that it has incurred unsustainable losses on the asylum dispersal contract tendered by the Conservative government in 2012—worth hundreds of millions of pounds each year—because of a surge in applications and growing numbers of what it terms “overstayers” who remain in the UK after being rejected for residency status.

This is primarily a result of the expedited application procedure, which was brought in as part of the government’s “hostile environment” immigration strategy, personally overseen by Prime Minister Theresa May in her previous role as home secretary.

Serco, which has a long record of holding refugees in dilapidated, vermin-infested housing as well as abusive, prison-like detention facilities, is now threatening hundreds of refugees with homelessness. This is in a bid to encourage the May government to escalate its policy of “deport first, appeal later” and to extract higher fees as asylum contracts come up for renewal next year.

Company officials say that they receive no Home Office funding for those who receive a “negative asylum decision” and that “Serco is now consistently accommodating approximately 250–300 former asylum seekers … at our own expense.”

“For such cases,” they complain, “There is effectively no next step in terms of their move on from Serco accommodation aside from engaging with UKVI [UK Visas and Immigration] under the voluntary returns programme.”

In the Orwellian language of UK immigration policy, “voluntary returns” is a category of “enforced removal” or deportation.

According to the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, the number of people deported or pressured to leave the UK annually under various “voluntary” return programs has ballooned from approximately 3,500 in 2004 to nearly 30,000 in 2016.

Serco has already issued six initial “lock change notices,” giving asylum seekers just seven days to vacate its property. It plans to evict roughly 10 households per week for the foreseeable future.

Those threatened with eviction include lone individuals as well as families with young children. The majority have fled social collapse and persecution in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, caused by ongoing imperialist wars and intrigues in which the British ruling elite plays a central role.

According to the Glasgow Herald, approximately 100 of those issued “lock change” notices have already been granted leave to remain in the UK but will be turned out onto the street regardless. The remainder are navigating the notoriously complex and difficult process of gathering evidence to appeal Home Office judgements on their residency status.

Charities have warned of a looming “humanitarian crisis” in the city, as the resources of refugee and homelessness charities are already “dangerously low” and ill-equipped to deal with hundreds of asylum seekers being forced onto the streets at once.

Zoe Holliday, coordinator of the Refugee Survival Trust, told STV News: “We have seen applications to our emergency destitution grants programme reach an all-time high over the past year, with no signs of abating … there is a very real possibility that funds will run out in the near future.”

“It does not bear thinking about what compromising situations these individuals and families may be forced into, without this important safety net,” Halliday said.

Robina Qureshi, the director of Positive Action in Housing, issued a searing rebuke to Serco and its “multimillionaire aristocrat” CEO, Rupert Soames, in a statement condemning the firm for turning “war refugees and their children out on to the streets because they no longer turn a tidy profit.

“Today’s refused asylum seeker could be granted leave to remain tomorrow. Only three weeks ago, a Glasgow hunger strike family from Iraq who had waited 18 years for a decision were handed status within hours of the Home Office getting wind of the potential public embarrassment.

“Serco has no right to pass comment on the legal status of its residents. It is a landlord not an immigration officer. Many residents have developed severe mental health problems, are self-harming or are close to the brink of suicide.”

In a separate comment, Qureshi told the press: “It is a chilling reminder of the triple suicide of an asylum-seeking couple and their son at Glasgow’s Red Road flats in 2010, on the day they were told they had to get out of their Home Office flat.”

Serco’s plans have met with broad public opposition. A rally organised at short notice on Tuesday, at the steps of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on Buchanan Street, attracted around 300 protestors. Many carried homemade banners and placards with messages of solidarity, such as “Hospitality Not Hostility,” “Change The System Not The Locks,” and “Refugees Welcome.”

Two Afghan refugees, Mirwais Ahmadzai, 27, and Rahman Shah, 32, began a hunger strike outside the Brand Street headquarters of the Home Office on Wednesday to protest the length of time it has taken to process their paperwork. A further protest is planned for Brand Street on Saturday, August 4 at 11 a.m.

While feigning solidarity for refugees, the devolved Scottish National Party (SNP) government, together with the Scottish Labour Party and the Scottish Greens, are leading efforts to contain and channel opposition behind bankrupt appeals for Conservative Home Secretary Sajid Javid to intervene to halt Serco’s eviction plans.

None of the major parties, whether at the local, regional or national level, have any principled differences over the persecution of asylum seekers. They each share responsibility with the May government for the imperialist wars and pro-big business policies that have ravaged one country after another in the Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia—causing the most severe global refugee crisis since the Second World War.

A letter of protest addressed to Javid by Susan Aitken, the SNP leader of Glasgow City Council, signed by several SNP, Labour and Green councillors and Members of Parliament, merely warns that the eviction “is far less likely to lead to their [the asylum seekers] voluntarily leaving the UK than it is to their joining the city’s homeless and rough sleeper populations.”

While Glasgow City Council claims it was “blindsided” by Serco and calls instead for “a fair, appropriate and measured way” to dispense of asylum seekers, officials at the company have insisted that the “lock change” policy emerged out of a protracted consultation with Glasgow City Council.

According to Serco, the consultation was dedicated to the development of a new “pathway/protocol” to “eliminate or drastically reduce the rates of over staying of former asylum households who should no longer be residing within the asylum system.”

Class exploitation and the market: The secret of the $1 trillion corporation

Andre Damon

On Thursday, Apple Inc. became the first US corporation to reach a market capitalization of one trillion dollars. Its rival technology giants, however, are not far behind. Amazon, the online retail monopoly, is valued at $883 billion. The market capitalization of Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, stands at $854 billion, followed by Microsoft with a valuation of $821 billion.

The rise of the trillion-dollar corporation points to the most fundamental characteristic of contemporary capitalism: the degree to which the inflation of stock values has become an instrument for the upward redistribution of wealth, through share buybacks and capital gains on one pole of society and the forcible suppression of wages on the other.

When workers throughout the world dare to question why they are forced to toil in poverty, they are universally told: there is no money. But this is nothing but an absurd and transparent lie.

Apple’s profits are extracted through a coordinated and systematic process of exploitation on a global scale.

Apple spent $43.5 billion on stock buybacks in the first half of this year, 40 times more than it paid its iPhone assembly workforce in China over the same period. Its cash hoard, meanwhile, stands at $250 billion, and the company’s bottom line has been swelled further with the Trump administration’s offshore tax repatriation scheme.

While Apple is only the world’s third-biggest smartphone maker by volume, it is by far and away the most profitable, as its products command a massive price premium over other brands. The company produces just 18 percent of the world’s smartphones, but it receives 90 percent of the profits in the sector.

According to one study, labor costs account for only five percent of the retail price of an iPhone, with Apple retaining 60 percent of the sale price as profits.

The iPhones are assembled in massive facilities on the Chinese mainland, such as Pegatron Corp.’s factory in the outskirts of Shanghai, employing up to 50,000 people at any one time, and Foxconn’s factory in Zhengzhou, China, which can produce 500,000 iPhones a day.

At these secretive factories, workers regularly work 60-hour workweeks, earning between $2 and $3 per hour, including overtime. At the beginning of every shift, they have their faces scanned, pass through metal turnstiles, and line up in military-style formation before working 12-hours at a time. The ledges of their dormitories are lined with netting to prevent workers from committing suicide by jumping off the roofs.

In vast assembly lines, the workers combine parts from up to 200 suppliers from throughout the Asia-Pacific, North America and Europe, with each factory capable of producing up to 350 phones per minute.

Once assembled, each phone passes, on paper, through a byzantine array of customs procedures, whose net result is the funneling of profits through Ireland, an offshore tax haven, allowing the company to avoid paying most taxes.

Three-quarters of Apple’s phones are destined for export from China. Phones bound for the United States are flown by United Parcel Service (UPS) and FedEx to Anchorage, Alaska, and then to Louisville, Kentucky, before being distributed throughout the country. Along their journey, the phones are sorted and tracked by UPS package handlers earning between $9 and $15 per hour.

Some are bound for Apple’s retail stores, where sales associates sell over $300 in products per hour and receive an hourly wage starting at just $13. Others will be shipped out by Apple’s online store or by mobile phone carriers, for delivery by UPS drivers whose starting wage, if the contract demanded by the Teamsters union is passed, will be $20 per hour.

Out of this mass of labor, of human beings regularly working 60 or more hours of repetitive, back-breaking work each week, most of whom can be fired at any time and have little if any health and retirement benefits, emerges the one-trillion-dollar company.

While no one can deny that Apple and Google have introduced substantial technical innovations, the technologies underlying their products, from the graphical user interface to the World Wide Web, were developed in the public sector or in research institutions financed at state expense. One need look no further for proof than the fact that both Apple’s mobile operating system (iOS) and Google’s (Android) are derived from free and open source software.

Apple’s sales have grown ten-fold since 2009, but its share price has shot up eighteen-fold. After hitting a low of just over $11 per share in 2009, its stock price closed at $207 at the end of this week. These increases far eclipsed the rise of the Dow Jones Industrial Average as a whole, which quadrupled over the same time.

While the latest jobs figures released Friday showed that workers’ wages fell, in real terms, by 0.2 percent over the past year, the roaring stock market has brought annual investment returns of 20 percent for the world’s ultra-rich.

Apple has been a cash cow for this financial oligarchy. Nearly two thirds of the company’s shares are owned by institutional investors like Vanguard, Blackrock and Berkshire Hathaway, where millionaires and billionaires park their wealth to have it double every five years or so.

These massive earnings of the financial oligarchy are the direct consequence of the 2008 bailout of Wall Street, in which trillions of dollars in public funds were funneled by the Obama administration into the balance sheets of the major banks, orchestrating the largest, most sustained global stock market rally in world history.

The semi-official mantra of post-war American capitalism has been that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” To the extent that corporations were profitable, these gains would supposedly be spread to all sections of society, including the working class.

The most notable characteristic of the stock market rally engineered after the 2008 crisis, however, is the degree to which the endless rise in share prices has been underwritten by the suppression of wages.

This explains the seemingly mysterious breakdown in the normal operation of the labor market. By some measures, there is a greater shortage of workers than at any time in the past half century. And yet, month after month, year after year, wages keep falling.

Ten years after the 2008 financial crash, the working class faces a turning point. This year has already seen significant signs of the eruption of class struggle. This month, 250,000 workers at UPS will vote on a contract pushed through by the company and the Teamsters union that will slash the average wage paid to current employees through the creation of a new category of “flexible” workers. In Europe, workers at Ryanair have launched an international strike movement. In Britain, workers at the National Health Service are demanding the repayment wages swindled from them.

The coming period will see many expressions of growing working-class resistance to exploitation and inequality. These struggles can only succeed if workers understand that they are confronting not just one company, union or government, but the entire capitalist system, whose basic operation is predicated on the continuous suppression of workers’ wages for the enrichment of the financial oligarchy.

Research For Cure Academy Fellowships for Talented HIV Advocates (Fully-funded to Workshop in South Africa) 2018

Application Deadline: 12th August 2018, 23:59 CET

To Be Taken At (Country): South Africa

About the Award: The Academy will award fellowships to approximately 25 talented early to mid-career investigators and clinical scientists who are conducting HIV research in resource-constrained settings to participate in the interactive 3-day workshop. The workshop faculty will comprise internationally renowned scientists from across the world, led by the co-chairs Prof. Sharon Lewin, The Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia and Dr. Steven Deeks, UCSF, United States.

Type: Workshop

Selection Criteria: Selection criteria are designed to ensure the academy builds on the candidate scientists’ capacity by providing them with an environment for national and international scientific collaboration and exchange, while ensuring maximum impact on their own careers and on the field of HIV cure research. The selection committee will therefore take into account the candidates’ current field of research and their affiliation to an institution or university in a developing country.

Number of Awards: 25

Value of Award: Selected fellows will be awarded:

• Enrollment to the Research Academy
• Travel to South Africa
• Accommodation and meals
• Ground transportation
• Course materials

Duration of Programme: 31 October – 2 November 2018

How to Apply: APPLY HERE

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Towards an HIV Cure initiative of the International AIDS Society (IAS)

Media Legal Defence Initiative (MLDI) Digital Rights Advancement Grants for Sub-Saharan African Countries 2018

Application Deadline: 9th August 2018 at 23h59 (GMT+1).

Eligible Countries: Sub-Saharan African Countries

About the Award: As part of this project, we are offering one-off 6-8 month grants of up to between GBP14,000 and GBP16,000 to organisations with backgrounds in defending and supporting the right to freedom of expression. The objective of the grants is to improve local access to legal assistance for online media and bloggers in order to advance digital rights and standards in online freedom of expression. The grants can be used for the following types of projects in East, West or Southern Africa:

• provide legal advice or support services;
• undertake advocacy activities on laws and/or policies that limit freedom of expression online, advocate for the implementation of court rulings that promote digital rights, or publicise new legal standards on digital rights;
• develop or advance an advocacy and/or strategic litigation coalition to reform laws and/or policies which limit freedom of expression online;
• build or strengthen regional relationships with digital rights advocacy groups;
• analyse laws, policies, and practices that infringe on journalists’ right to freedom of expression online and/or provide training in online freedom of expression and digital rights to journalists, bloggers, and independent media;
• research on, or monitoring of, violations of the right to freedom of expression online;
• other projects and activities may be considered but should be discussed with the Project Coordinator before application (see contact details below).

If required, MLDI can provide legal mentoring, and other forms of non-financial organisational support.

Type: Grants

Eligibility: To be considered, organisations must meet the following criteria:

• The grant is open to NGOs, law centres and independent media outlets registered in East Africa, West Africa, or Southern Africa;
• The organisation must have a background or demonstrable interest in advocacy, litigation, and/or provision of legal support;
• The organisation should have previous experience in the advancement and protection of freedom of expression in the country or region where it operates; and
• The organisation must have sufficient administrative and financial capacity to comply with MLDI’s reporting requirements.

Number of Awards: Limited

Value of Award:  up to between GBP14,000 and GBP16,000

Duration of Programme: one-off 6-8 month grants. Grants will start on 1 November 2018

How to Apply: Interested organisations are encouraged to submit a concept note though MLDI’s grant application portal. 
Applicants will be asked to provide the following information:

• Organisation’s name and address;
• The names of the head of the organisation, board chair, and treasurer;
• The total amount of money requested from MLDI;
• The organisation’s annual budget;
• A summary of expected outcomes; and
• A summary of proposed activities and outputs.

Shortlisted organisations will be invited to submit a full proposal.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers: MLDI

NED Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellowship for Developing Countries 2019

Application Deadline: 15th October, 2018.

Offered annually? Yes

To be taken at (country): Washington, D.C., USA

Eligible Fields of Study: Topics focusing on the political, social, economic, legal, or cultural aspects of democratic development

About the Award: The Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program offers five-month fellowships to practitioners to focus on strategies and best practices for developing democracy in their country of interest; and to scholars to conduct original research for publication. Projects may address the economic, political, social, legal, or cultural aspects of democratic development and include a range of methodologies and approaches.
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a private, nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world. Established in 1983 with funding from the U.S. Congress, the Endowment makes hundreds of grants each year to support pro-democracy groups in Africa, Asia, Eurasia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Two different Tracks exist for participants: Practitioner Track and Scholarly Track

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Proficiency in the English language. Eligibility differs according to the Track an interested candidate may belong:

1. Practitioner Track:
The Reagan-Fascell program was established with the primary purpose of supporting democracy activists, human rights advocates, journalists, and others who work on the frontlines of building democracy in emerging and aspiring democracies. The program provides practitioners with a needed break from their daily routine so that they may reflect on their work, exchange ideas and experiences with counterparts in the United States, and reevaluate techniques for building democracy in their country of origin.
Practitioner fellowships are typically five months in duration and culminate in a report, short article, op-ed, handbook, or another product, as well as a formal presentation of the fellow’s analysis and ideas.
Eligibility
Applicants interested in the practitioner track are expected to have substantial practical experience working to promote democracy or human rights in their country of origin or interest. There are no specific degree requirements for the practitioner track. A Ph.D., for instance, is not required of practitioner applicants. While there are also no age limits, applicants on the practitioner track are typically mid-career professionals with several years of professional experience in the field of democracy and human rights.
Examples of eligible candidates for the practitioner track include human rights advocates, lawyers, journalists, labor leaders, political party activists, diplomats, professional staff of civic or humanitarian organizations, and other civil society professionals from developing and aspiring democracies.

2. Scholarly Track
In recognition of the importance of intellectual contributions to the theory and practice of democracy, the Reagan-Fascell program offers a scholarly track for scholars, professors, and established writers. Applicants for this track may be scholars from emerging and aspiring democracies or accomplished scholars from the United States and other established democracies.
Fellowships on the scholarly track are typically five months in duration. Scholars make at least one public presentation of their work and complete a substantial piece of writing (typically an article or book) for publication.
Eligibility
Applicants interested in the scholarly track are expected to possess a doctorate (a Ph.D., or academic equivalent) at the time of application, to have a proven record of publications in their field, and to have developed a detailed research outline for their fellowship project.
Examples of eligible candidates for the scholarly track include college and university professors, researchers, journalists, and other writers from developing and aspiring democracies. Distinguished scholars from the United States or other established democracies are also eligible to apply. Occasionally, a professional who is planning to write a book or other scholarly publication may qualify to apply on the scholarly track.

Eligibility Requirement for all Applicants

• Citizens of any country may apply
• Proficiency in the English language
• Topics focusing on the political, social, economic, legal, or cultural aspects of democratic development
• Availability to be in residence at the International Forum for Democratic Studies in Washington, D.C., during the year for which candidates are applying for a fellowship

English Language Requirement: Under new visa regulations, exchange program sponsors are required to ascertain prospective J-1 exchange visitors’ proficiency in the English language prior to their arrival in the United States. In compliance with these regulations, fellowship finalists seeking J-1 visa sponsorship will be invited to participate in brief video interviews via Skype with Reagan-Fascell staff.
All application materials must be submitted in English. While fellows’ primary product may be in their native language, they should have a solid command of written and spoken English for general communication purposes.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Fellowship: Fully-funded

• Research
• Capacity Building
• Impact
• Exchange

Duration of Fellowship: Five (5) months.  Fall 2019 (October 1, 2019-February 28, 2020) and 
Spring 2020 (March 1-July 31, 2020)

How to Apply: There are five steps to the online application process:
Step 1: Applicant Information
Step 2: Project Proposal for the Practitioner Track or for the Scholarly Track
Step 3: Letters of Recommendation
Step 4: Resume/CV and Biography
Step 5: Certification

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) Foundation

Important Notes: The Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program does not award scholarship funds, loans, or any other type of financial aid to university students, graduate students, or postdoctoral researchers. In addition, our fellowship program is not an educational or training program leading toward an academic degree.

Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships for Foreign Students and Artists 2019/2020

Application Deadline: (Varies by countries, generally 30th November). Submission to Swiss Representation is from Sept to Dec. However, be sure to check the application deadline of your own country.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International students from more than 180 countries.  See the official website for complete list of eligible countries.

To be taken at: Any of the ten (10) Swiss Public Universities, the two (2) Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, the public teaching and research institutes and the Universities of applied sciences

Eligible Field of Study: All academic fields

About Scholarship: The Swiss government, through the Federal Commission for Scholarships for Foreign Students (FCS), awards various postgraduate scholarships to foreign scholars and researchers:

• The research scholarship is available to post-graduate researchers in any discipline (who hold a master’s degree as a minimum) who are planning to come to Switzerland to pursue research or further studies at doctoral or post-doctoral level.
  Research scholarships are awarded for research or study at all Swiss cantonal universities, universities of applied sciences and the two federal institutes of technology. Only candidates nominated by an academic mentor at one of these higher education institutions will be considered.
• Art scholarships are open to art students wishing to pursue an initial master’s degree in Switzerland. Art scholarships are awarded for study at any Swiss conservatory or university of the arts. Only those who have already been awarded a place to study may apply. This scholarship is available to students from a limited number of countries only.

These scholarships provide graduates from all fields with the opportunity to pursue masters, doctoral or postdoctoral research in Switzerland at one of the public funded university or recognised institution.

Type: Masters (for the arts scholarship), PhD, Postdoctoral and Research Scholarships

Selection Criteria and Eligibility: The FCS assesses scholarship applications according to three criteria:
a) Candidate profile
b) Quality of the research project or artistic work
c) Synergies and potential for future research cooperation
The FCS will select scholarship holders for the 2019/2020 academic year by the end of May 2019.
Applications are subject to preliminary selection by the relevant national authorities and/or the Swiss diplomatic representation. The short-listed applications are then assessed by the Federal Commission for Scholarships for Foreign Students (FCS) which subsequently takes the final decision.
The FCS is composed of professors from all Swiss public universities. Scholarship awards are decided on the basis of academic and scientific excellence.
Candidates for the University Scholarships must;

• hold a university degree (Bachelors/Masters) on commencement of the scholarship.
• be able to demonstrate their academic abilities and what they aim to achieve.
• contact the institution and/or the professor supervising their period of research. Universities may request supplementary information and/or set certain additional conditions to determine whether or not you qualify for admission.
• be under the age of 35 (born on or after 1 January 1977).
• be suitably proficient in the language of instruction (French, German, Italian or English) in order to draw full benefit from their studies in Switzerland.

Please refer to the country-specific fact sheets for general and specific eligibility criteria.

Number of Scholarships: not specified

Value of Scholarship: The scholarship covers a monthly payment , exemption of tuition fees, health insurance, air fare, special lodging allowance, etc. See the fact sheets for exact scholarship benefits.

Duration of Scholarship: for the period of study

How to Apply: Visit the scholarship webpage and select your country for country-specific application instruction.

Sponsors: Swiss Government, through the Federal Commission for Scholarships for Foreign Students (FCS).

The Organic Food Industry Thrives on Regulation

Jill Richardson

Strangely enough, sometimes industries want regulation.

Obviously, this is not true of all (or perhaps even many) industries, and it’s certainly not true of all regulations. However, the organic food industry thrives on regulation — and for good reason.

Organic producers can charge a premium for their products. The reason why consumers are willing to pay higher prices for ostensibly the exact same products they could get for cheaper is because they have confidence that organic food is, in some way, better.

Organic foods are produced without chemical fertilizers, sewage sludge, genetically engineered seeds, antibiotics, and synthetic pesticides.

For farmers, becoming organic is purely optional. Yes, the government regulates organic standards, but no farmers are required to become organic.

Those who become certified organic do so for a reason. Maybe they believe organic agriculture is the best way to grow food, or maybe they simply see it as a clever business strategy. Either way, becoming an organic producer opens the door to getting paid higher prices for your products.

For consumers, it’s only worth paying extra for organic food if you believe you’re getting something extra. Does that organic label mean anything? Or is organic food basically the same as the non-organic food that costs less?

That’s where the regulations come into play. The rules for organic agriculture must be strict enough to convince consumers that they’re getting a product worth paying extra for, but not so strict that no farmers can ever achieve them.

Yet the Trump administration is pulling the plug on regulations that the organic agriculture industry wants.

One proposed rule they’ve withdrawn was a requirement that organic hens had to have access to an outdoor space with soil, and not just an enclosed porch with concrete floor.

The proposed rule speaks to a longstanding difficulty in organic agriculture: It’s difficult to profitably raise livestock, particularly in a large operation, while providing the animals with living conditions that organic consumers may wish for.

Access to an outdoor area with soil doesn’t go far enough for many organic consumers, who would no doubt prefer the hens also have access to grass. Chickens enjoy eating grass, and they especially love scratching in the dirt for tasty bugs. The chickens’ diet affects the flavor and nutrition of the eggs, too.

For a farmer, the problem is scale. If you put too many chickens in too small a space, they’ll eat every blade of grass in no time at all. Given the tiny profit margins on each egg laid and the enormous number of laying hens required for a farm to turn a profit, it’s hard to imagine any large egg operation having enough space to allow hens access to grass.

Allowing chickens outdoor access to soil, on the other hand, is more doable. This is one of several proposed organic rules that the industry actually wants, but the Trump administration has canceled.

If you ask me, the deregulatory zeal of the Trump administration has gone too far.

The entire value of the organic label is in the stringency of organic standards. Without regulations, the organic label would become worthless. Consumers would lose their reason to pay more for organic food.

One cannot help but wonder if gutting the organic program is actually the intent of Trump’s Department of Agriculture. Or are they simply so accustomed to opposing regulations that they can’t conceive of an industry actually finding them beneficial?

The Trump administration should leave well enough alone when it comes to organics. If both industry and consumers prefer the regulations, there’s no reason whatsoever to get rid of them.