German chemical giant Bayer slashes 12,000 jobs

Dietmar Henning 

Bayer AG has announced plans to cut a tenth of its workforce worldwide and divest parts of its corporate conglomerate. Last Thursday, the Bayer supervisory board unanimously approved the plan announced by the company CEO, Werner Baumann. Half of the seats on the supervisory board are filled by representatives of the trade unions and works council officials who all voted to support the job cuts.

A written communication from the company has made clear that the main objective of the job cuts was to increase shareholder revenue. The intended sell-off of the company’s veterinary medicine section, its health products Coppertone (sun protection) and Scholl’s footwear, plus its 60 percent share in the German service provider Currenta, are all aimed at generating fresh capital. Bayer plans to invest around €35 billion through 2022, with around two-thirds in research and development.

The multinational chemical-pharmaceutical giant is one of the highest rated Dax companies. In mid-2018, its stock market value was around €92.3 billion (US$105 billion). Last year, the Bayer Group had a turnover of around €35 billion with a profit of €7.3 billion. Last year, Bayer became the world’s number one in the agricultural chemicals business following its acquisition of the US chemical concern, Monsanto for €60 billion (US$66 billion).

Bayer AG employs almost 120,000 people in more than 300 companies on all continents, with more than half of this total employed in Europe. In Germany, the workforce totals 31,620 (2017) at 10 locations. Most are employed at the company’s headquarters in Leverkusen, a city between Düsseldorf and Cologne. In Germany, the majority of the 12,000 jobs are to be slashed by the end of 2021.

According to the Bayer announcement: “There are plans to reduce approximately 900 jobs in research at pharmaceuticals, around 350 at the Factor VIII factory in Wuppertal, approx. 1,100 through the re-organisation of the Consumer Health organisation, 4,100 at Crop Science through the integration of the acquired agricultural business and another 5,500 to 6,000 in cross-division functions, business services and state platforms.”

The company is under pressure from investors due to the numerous ongoing lawsuits in the US against Monsanto’s weed killer Glyphosate. The plaintiffs accuse Bayer/Monsanto of selling a carcinogenic agent in glyphosate and of failing to warn against its harmful effects. Bayer stock plummeted after the company lost its first glyphosate litigation in August.

“With these measures we are creating the conditions needed to sustainably increase Bayer’s performance and profitability,” declared Bayer CEO Baumann. All of the planned efficiency and structural measures, including the synergies arising out of the Monsanto takeover, are expected to yield “annual contributions of €2.6 billion from 2022 onwards.”

Bayer expects a significant profit increase next year. Despite billions invested in research and development, its adjusted earnings (i.e., profits) are expected to rise from €5.70 to €5.90 per share in the current year to €6.80.

The German trade union IG BCE (Mining, Chemicals, Energy) and the works council fully support these plans—i.e., job cuts to increase profits. The 20-member supervisory board, which has been working on this job massacre for the last weeks and months, comprises 50 percent trade union representatives. The most prominent member of the board is the chairman of the German trade union federation (DGB), Reiner Hoffmann. The deputy chairman of the Supervisory Board is the Bayer general works council chairman, Oliver Zühlke. Hoffmann received €130,000 in compensation and attendance fees for his participation in meetings of the supervisory board last year. Zühlke’s income as deputy AR chairman was more than double this sum.

Zühlke and all the other union and works council representatives on the supervisory board expressed their support for the destruction of every 10th job in an agreement titled “Securing the Future of Bayer 2025.” In an attempt to mute opposition the union bureaucrats applauded the agreement’s “socially acceptable design.”

The company and unions maintain that forced redundancies are basically excluded up to the end of 2025. In fact, the phrase “socially acceptable design” is always used to enforce job cuts. This time, however, the alleged ban on redundancies applies only to Germany and does not apply to workers employed in the company units up for sale. Instead, “possible buyers” are advised to “enter into negotiations” with the works councils “with the aim of discussing employment-security measures for the workforce.”

At the same time, IG BCE and the works council feverishly seek to play off German workers against those employed by the other international branches of the company.

“Germany as our home base has an essential meaning for Bayer AG,” reads the agreement drafted by the union. “Despite considerable consequences from the package of measures, Germany will continue to retain its outstanding significance in the future.” Significant “forward-looking developments are initiated and driven for Bayer from Germany.”

The executive has agreed that the corporate headquarters of the company will remain in Germany and that “management of the pharmaceutical and crop science divisions as well as global functions and business services will continue to be based in Germany. … The continuation of the German locations remains secured despite necessary adjustments over the term of the agreement. In the case of decisions related to production capacities, the option of awarding contracts to German sites is to be regularly reviewed.”

According to works council chairman Zühlke, “securing of employment and the future viability of jobs have the highest priority. … The Joint Declaration has succeeded in creating good conditions to this end.”

This is the typical trade union newspeak with which the works councils and trade unions garb their support for wage and job cuts. The designation “employee representatives” is completely false. It is the unions who draw up and implement the attacks agreed by the supervisory boards and other corporate entities in order to secure and increase company “competitiveness.” The IG BCE has even failed so far to call any of its usual ritual and toothless pseudo-protests to feign outrage over the job cuts.

This leads to one important conclusion: the defence of jobs is only possible in a struggle against the union and its functionaries in the factories.

Bayer employees who are not prepared to sacrifice thousands of jobs in the interests of profit and shareholder enrichment must join forces in independent factory committees and reject the allegedly necessary job losses, plus all other attacks to increase “performance and earning power” (Baumann) and safeguard “future viability” (Zühlke).

The right of workers to a job takes priority over the greed of shareholders. The factory committees must prepare combative measures to defend all jobs at all locations. This is the first step in organising production in the interests of the 120,000-strong workforce around the world and opposing the profit logic of the board and its stalwarts in the works council and unions.

The factory committees must unite workers across all national borders, not just those at Bayer but in all other industries, mobilising them for a common struggle. This requires a political struggle: The working class confronts not just individual companies, but the entire capitalist system.

Washington’s ultimatum on INF treaty heightens threat of nuclear war

Bill Van Auken

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a blunt ultimatum to Moscow Tuesday, vowing that the US will unilaterally abrogate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, one of the last remaining arms control agreements from the Cold War, within 60 days unless Russia submits to what Washington defines as compliance with the pact. The move represents a major escalation of the threat of global nuclear war.

The 60-day period was a concession of sorts to the European powers and in particular Germany, whose Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed US President Donald Trump at the recent G20 summit in Buenos Aires not to follow through with plans to summarily upend the INF Treaty.

Signed in 1987 by the US and the former Soviet Union, the accord banned both nuclear and nonnuclear land-based missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (about 310 to 3,400 miles).

Accepted by Moscow under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, who was embarked upon a program of capitalist restoration, the treaty represented a strategic concession to the United States, which far outstripped the Soviet Union in airborne and sea-launched missiles.

A secret memo drafted by Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton and obtained by the Washington Post instructed the US secretary of state to “make all necessary arrangements” to withdraw from the treaty “no later than December 4, 2018,” and the US defense secretary to “develop and deploy ground-launched missiles at the earliest possible date.”

While Washington succeeded in pressuring NATO into supporting its ultimatum to Russia, there is deep disquiet in Europe over the scrapping of the agreement, which poses the return of US short and medium-range missiles to the continent and the redoubled threat that it will become a principal battlefield in any nuclear exchange between the US and Russia. The deployment of US Pershing II missiles in Germany in the 1980s triggered mass popular protests against the threat of war.

According to the Washington Post, Merkel and other European officials told Trump that an immediate withdrawal from the treaty would “not give them enough time to explain the policy change to domestic audiences.”

“European leaders fear that their voters could be sympathetic to a Kremlin argument that the United States is tearing up one international agreement after another, after Trump’s decision to leave the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal,” the Post reported.

In other words, European leaders fear that their populations will see the move for what it is, a ratcheting up of US imperialist aggression, and popular antiwar sentiment will become fused with already escalating class tensions like the ones that have played out in clashes across France in recent weeks.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, a reliable stooge of US interests, nonetheless responded to the development by stating, “I regret that we now most likely will see the end of the INF Treaty. We really felt that the world was moving forward when the Soviet Union and the United States in 1987 agreed.”

The 60-day countdown to the US formal repudiation of the treaty is supposed to provide time for Russia to cease its alleged violations of the pact. There is no indication, however, that Moscow can do anything to satisfy Washington demands—Russia insists that it is already in compliance. For that matter, it is clear that the Trump administration has no desire to reach an agreement that would keep the agreement in place.

In announcing the US decision to a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers, Secretary of State Pompeo made it clear that Washington’s scrapping of the accord is aimed not at punishing some alleged Russian transgression, but rather at bolstering US strategic advantage in any future war with both Russia and China.

“There is no reason the United States should continue to cede this crucial military advantage to revisionist powers like China,” Pompeo said.

China, which was not a party to the bilateral 1987 treaty, has developed its own land-based short- and medium-range missiles to counter US attempts to militarily encircle the country in its “Pivot to Asia,” which has included a massive redeployment of US armed forces to the Pacific and East Asia.

Russia has repeatedly denied that its missile systems are in violation of the INF Treaty. It has countercharged that US Aegis missile defense systems deployed in Romania and Poland constitute a violation because they are easily adaptable for the launching of offensive cruise missiles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin Wednesday mocked Pompeo’s announcement, stating that it was “a bit late” in announcing Washington’s intentions.

“First the American side said it’s determined to withdraw from the treaty on intermediate- and shorter-range missiles, then they started to look for reasons why they should do this,” he said. “As usual they’re not providing any evidence of these violations by us.”

Putin added that if the US sought to develop such weapons, Moscow’s response would be “simple.” “We will also do this,” he said.

There is an element of madness in Washington’s headlong rush toward deployment, which would effectively place nuclear conflagration on a hair trigger by relying on weapons that take only minutes to reach their targets.

The reckless drive toward a nuclear arms race is unfolding in the context of multiple military flashpoints that could erupt into war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. These include the provocation staged by Ukraine in the Sea of Azov last week, which brought Russian and Ukrainian forces into direct confrontation for the first time since the US-backed, fascist-led coup in Kiev in 2014. This has been followed by a provocative “freedom of navigation” exercise Wednesday, sending a US guided-missile destroyer into the Peter the Great Gulf, the base of the Russian Navy’s Pacific fleet.

The decision on the INF, like all of Washington’s war policy in the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe, is driven by the crisis of the capitalist system, characterized by the ever-sharpening contradiction between a global economy and an outmoded nation-state system and expressed most acutely in the attempt by US imperialism, in the aftermath of the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union, to overcome the protracted decline of its economic position by means of military force.

One significant response to the announcement on the countdown to the end of the INF treaty came from the magazine National Defense, a trade publication for the military-industrial complex, which speculated on the profits that would flow to arms manufacturers once production of new short- and medium-range missiles resumed.

It pointed out that the “Pershing II program cost $692 million for research, development, testing and evaluation, and $1.76 billion to procure 247 missiles, according to the Government Accountability Office. A conventional ground-launched cruise missile, the GLCM, that was deployed at that time cost $383 million for RDT&E, and $2.72 billion to procure 442 missiles.”

Given rising costs, tens of billions of dollars more are to be made in the rush toward nuclear war. Even before the abrogation of the treaty, US nuclear weapons spending was projected to reach $1.7 trillion over 30 years. These vast sums are to be extracted from the working class, diverted from social resources needed to provide jobs, housing, health care, education and other vital needs for the masses of the population.

Ranking Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations, Armed Services and Intelligence committees sent Trump a letter on Monday questioning whether the way in which he was scuttling the treaty served to take “the focus away from Russia’s transgressions and malign behavior” as well as the failure to consult with Congress and the lack of what they termed a “strategic alternative.”

But Trump announced his decision to terminate the INF treaty on October 20 in the heat of the midterm elections. No Democratic candidate nor the leadership of the party chose to make this move, which threatens the survival of the entire population of the US and the world, an issue in the campaign. On the contrary, the Democrats have centered their opposition to the Trump administration on allegations of “collusion” with Moscow in the 2016 presidential campaign and charges that Trump has been too “soft” on Russia.

Likewise the major media has given scant attention to the scrapping of one of the last remaining agreements restricting an all-out arms race and headlong rush to nuclear war. Neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post published any front-page article or editorial on the subject Wednesday.

There is no antiwar faction within the US ruling establishment, nor any interest on the part of the Democrats or the corporate media in alerting the American people to the growing threat of a global nuclear conflagration.

This threat can be answered only through the construction of a new mass antiwar movement based on the struggle for the unification of the international working class in the struggle against capitalism.

International Society for Applied Ethology (ISAE) 2019 Developing Countries Congress Attendance Fellowship – Norway

Application Deadline: 15th February 2019

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To be taken at (country): Norway

About the Award: To foster the advancement of farm animal welfare in developing countries by supporting animal behavior and welfare scientists and others from emerging economies to attend a one-day pre-congress workshop on animal welfare concepts (to be given by internationally-recognized leaders in animal welfare science), the four-day ISAE annual congress, and a one-day post-congress farm tour (including fish, cattle, pig, poultry and sheep farms). The allocation will be the full sum equivalent to the cost of the registration, accommodation, reasonable travel expenses, visa fees and subsistence.

Type: Fellowship, Conference

Eligibility:

1. The person must be active in farm animal welfare science (e.g. active in one or more of research, teaching,
   education, policy, standard setting and outreach), in or from a developing country.
2. The person must be able to travel freely to Norway for the ISAE Congress and other activities between
   4th-11th August 2019, with approved visa if required.

Selection Criteria: Applications for funding will be reviewed by the Developing Countries Congress Attendance Fund Committee, and will be prioritized on the basis of financial need and potential for impacting farm animal welfare in the home country.

Number of Awards:  12-15

Value of Award: The fund will be allocated to cover the full sum equivalent to the cost of the registration, accommodation, reasonable travel expenses, visa fees and subsistence.

Duration of Programme: 4th-11th August 2019

How to Apply: The application must contain all of the following information:

1. Name of applicant
2. Postal address and email address (or fax number)
3. Your occupation or position, e.g. student, active researcher, government employee, official veterinarian, past researcher etc. and brief summary of duties associated with that position
4. A brief characterization of animal agriculture in your home country (for instance, proportion of smallholder compared to industrialized systems, growth within different sectors and some of the main animal welfare challenges)
5. A justification for why the award should be received. What you hope to gain from attending the conference and how you expect to apply the new knowledge to improve farm animal welfare in your home country?
6. A budget, including the total cost of congress attendance (registration, accommodation, travel, visa fees and subsistence)

The application information requested above should not be more than 2 pages. It should be accompanied by a brief CV of up to 4 pages, including major accomplishments, a list of publications and/or presentations by the applicant (if applicable), and a copy of any abstract that may have been submitted to the congress.
If you wish to submit an abstract please follow the directions on the Congress website, though this is not a requirement.
Applications should be sent to Jeremy Marchant-Forde, at Jeremy.marchant-forde@ars.usda.gov
For additional information or questions, please also contact Jeremy Marchant-Forde,
at  Jeremy.marchant-forde@ars.usda.gov

• GOODLUCK!

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Global Health Corps Paid Fellowship 2019/2020 for Young African Professionals

Application Deadline: 16th January 2019 at 12:00PM (noon) EST / 7:00PM CAT / 8:00PM EAT.

Eligible Countries: All African countries and other regions

To be taken at (country): USA

About the Award: Global Health Corps is building the next generation of diverse health leaders. We offer a range of paid fellowship positions with health organizations in Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, the United States, and Zambia and the opportunity to develop as a transformative leader in the health equity movement. Everyone has a role to play in the health equity movement.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Global Health Corps Fellowship is looking for a global and diverse group of passionate and talented emerging leaders who:

• Are willing to push themselves outside their comfort zones, to embrace failure, and to approach a personally transformative year – with many challenges in the day-to-day – with integrity, humility, and self-reflection.
• Are ready to strengthen and use their voice — the most powerful tool for change that you have — in order to engage others, create space for critical conversation, and effect meaningful social change in global health.
• Are excited by a design-thinking approach to building a better world, creatively embracing wicked problems and ready to embrace failure as learning.
• Are committed to bringing your best and doing the work in the day-to-day, showing up as a critical part of the global health equity movement.
• Are passionate about social justice in global health and about finding and building their voices to effect health impact.
• Are committed to inclusivity and collaboration across sectors, cultures, and borders of all kinds, while investing in and supporting others.

Selection Criteria: By the start of the fellowship, June 24, 2019,  fellows must:

• Be 30 years or younger.
• Hold a bachelor’s or undergraduate university degree.
• Be proficient in English.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Fellowship: Yearlong paid placements (June 24, 2019 – July 6, 2020) within partner organizations in Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, the US, and Zambia to address real-time capacity gaps and strengthen health systems.

• In addition to on-the-job training, we engage fellows in a comprehensive leadership training curriculum to build effective, empathetic, and innovative leaders of tomorrow. The fellowship starts at our Training Institute at Yale University from June 24, 2019 – July 6, 2020.
• Fellow receive additional logistical and financial support during the year, including:
  • Monthly living and utilities stipend
  • Housing
  • Health insurance
  • Professional development grant of $600 and completion award of $1500
  • Travel coverage to and from placement site, all trainings, and retreats

Duration of Fellowship: 1 year

How to Apply:

• Apply here
• It is important to go through the Application Requirements before applying.
• GOODLUCK!

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Global Health Corps

From Central America to Syria: The Conspiracy against Refugees

Ramzy Baroud

Watching the ongoing debate between US liberal and right-wing pundits on US mainstream media, one rarely gets the impression that Washington is responsible for the unfolding crisis in Central America.

In fact, no other country is as accountable as the United States for the Central American bedlam and resulting refugee crisis.

So why, despite the seemingly substantial ideological and political differences between right-wing Fox News and liberal CNN, both media outlets are working hard to safeguard their country’s dirty little secret?

In recent years, state and gang violence – coupled with extreme poverty – have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras, among other countries in Central and South America.

US mainstream media, however, is rarely interested in the root cause of that reality.

Fox News is tirelessly peddling the offensive language used by President Donald Trump, which perceives the refugees as criminals and terrorists, who pose a threat to US national security.

At a press conference last October, Trump urged a reporter to take his camera into ”the middle” of a caravan of migrants on the treacherous journey through Mexico, to locate ”Middle Eastern” people that have infiltrated the crowd. In Trump’s thinking, ‘Middle Eastern people’ is synonymous with terrorists.

CNN has, on the other hand, labored to counter the growing anti-immigrant official and media sentiments that have plagued the US, a discourse that is constantly prodded and manipulated by Trump and his supporters.

However, few in the liberal media have the courage to probe the story beyond convenient political rivalry, persisting in their hypocritical and insincere humanitarianism that is divorced from any meaningful political context.

The fact is the Central American refugee crisis is similar to the plethora of Middle East and Central Asian refugee crises of recent years. Mass migration is almost always the direct outcome of political meddling and military interventions.

From Afghanistan, to Iraq, Libya, Syria, millions of refugees were forced, by circumstances beyond their control, to seek safety in some other country.

Millions of Iraqis and Syrians found themselves in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, while a far smaller number trickled to Europe, all seeking safety from the grinding wars.

Political opportunists in Europe are no different from their American counterparts. While the former has seized on the tragedy of the refugees to sow seeds of fear and hate-mongering, Americans, too, have blamed the refugees for their own misery.

Blaming the victim is nothing new.

Iraqis were once blamed for failing to appreciate Western democracy, Libyans for their failed state, Syrians for taking the wrong side of a protracted war, and so on.

Yet, the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Libya and Syria are all, in varied degrees ,outcomes of military interventions, a truth that does not seem to register in the self-absorbed minds of both right-wing and liberal intellectuals.

The irony is that the hapless refugees, whether those escaping to Europe or to the United States, are perceived to be the aggressors, the invaders, as opposed to the US and allies that had, in fact, invaded these once stable and sovereign homelands.

Trump has often referred to the Central American migrants’ caravan as an ‘invasion’.  Fox News parroted that claim, and injected the possibility of having the refugees shot upon arrival.

If Fox News lacked the decency to treat refugees as human beings deserving of sympathy and respect, CNN lacked the courage to expand the discussion beyond Trump’s horrid language and inhumane policies.

To expand the parameters of the conversation would expose a policy that was not introduced by Trump, but by Bill Clinton and applied in earnest by George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Media grandstanding aside, both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for the current refugee crisis.

In 1996, Democratic President Clinton unleashed a war on refugees when he passed two consecutive legislations: the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.

Millions of people – who had escaped US-instigated wars and military coups –were deported back to Central and South America. While 2 million people were deported during the Bush terms, 2.5 million were deported under Obama.

A terrible situation was exacerbated. Violence and want flared even more.

To rally his angry and radicalized constituency, Trump waved the migrant card once more, threatening to build a “great wall” and to close “loopholes” in the US immigration law.

Like his predecessors, he offered little by way of redressing an unjust reality that is constantly fomented by destructive US foreign policy, stretching decades.

But the refugees kept on coming, mostly from Central America’s Northern Triangle region. Without proper political context, they, too, were duly blamed for their hardship.

Considering Fox News and CNN’s lack of quality coverage, this is not surprising. Few Americans know of the sordid history of their country in that region, starting with the CIA-engineered coup d’état in Guatemala in 1954, or the US support of the coup against the democratically-elected President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, in 2009, or of everything else that happened in between these dates.

The unhealthy relationship between the US and its southern neighbors goes back as early as 1904, when President Theodore Roosevelt declared the ‘right’ of his country to hold “international police power” in Latin America. Since then, the entire region has been Washington’s business.

The free trade agreement (CAFTA-DR) signed between Central American countries and the US has done its own share of damage. It “restructured the region’s economy and guaranteed economic dependence on the United States through massive trade imbalances and the influx of American agricultural and industrial goods that weakened domestic industries,”wrote Mark Tseng-Putterman in Medium.

Acknowledging all of this is threatening. If US mainstream pundits accept their country’s destructive role in Central and South America, they will be forced to abandon the role of the victim (embraced by the right) or the savior (embraced by the left), which has served them well.

The same stifling political and intellectual routine is witnessed in Europe, too.

But this denial of moral responsibility will only contribute to the problem, not to its resolution. No amount of racism on the part of the right, or crocodile tears of the liberals, will ever rectify this skewed paradigm.

This is as true in Central America as it is in the Middle East.

Australian government censors university research funding

Mike Head

Research at Australian universities increasingly is being placed under government control and surveillance, seeking to more closely integrate it into the requirements of the corporate elite, clamp down on criticism and prepare for war-time conditions.

As well as vetoing peer-reviewed research grants, the federal government has imposed a more stringent “national interest” test for future grants and cut overall research funding, except in military-related fields.

Further light was shed on these issues last month, when it was revealed that the Liberal-National Coalition government had secretly overturned 11 Australian Research Council (ARC) arts and humanities grants.

Without notifying the public, or even the research teams involved, that he vetoed the grants, the then Education Minister Simon Birmingham effectively engaged in political and cultural censorship. He rejected grants that had been recommended by the ARC after an intensive selection process. News of his interventions only emerged many months later.

One of the projects was a study of the social impact of the 2017 closure of the General Motors plant at Elizabeth in northern Adelaide, which destroyed thousands of jobs at the factory and related auto industries. The ARC had agreed to fund a project “looking at how an industrial suburb deals with industrial closure and the role of music in that.”

The Elizabeth closure was just part of a wider destruction of full-time employment, which included the shut down of the country’s entire car industry by GM, Ford and Toyota.

Other vetoed grants with political themes included “Rioting and the literary archive,” “Soviet cinema in Hollywood before the Black List 1917-1950” and “Legal secularism in Australia.”

Among the overturned grants for historical studies was “Double Crossings: post-Orientalist arts at the Strait of Gibraltar.” It proposed to examine “the way painters and photographers crisscrossed the 15 kilometres of the most politically contested water in the world—Europe to Africa, Muslim to Christian worlds—in search of arresting images of other cultures.”

In recent months, government figures and media commentators have accused universities of inadequately teaching “Western civilisation.” Yet one of the pillars of modern civilisation is the secular Enlightenment, which encouraged debate and criticism of established ideas.

Because of the secrecy surrounding ministerial rejections, the only previous known veto was in 2005 by Brendan Nelson, the then Coalition education minister. The ARC Act, introduced in 2001, places no obligation on ministers to explain, or even announce, vetoes.

This is despite the fact that ARC grants are highly-competitive. In 2017, the ARC approved only 18 percent of discovery grant applications, and 17 percent of Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards. Only 20 percent of Future Fellowships were awarded in the 2018 round.

Each application is assigned two general assessors—experts from the relevant field of research—then sent to up to six reviewers, who provide anonymous comments and ratings.

Birmingham’s successor as education minister, Dan Tehan, last month belatedly reversed three of the vetoes, insisting the projects were “now markedly different.” At the same time, he delayed this year’s round of ARC grants to allow Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government to draw up its national interest test.

Tehan announced: “Applicants will be asked to explain the extent to which the research contributes to Australia’s national interest through its potential to have economic, commercial, environmental, social or cultural benefits to the Australian community.”

Previously applicants were asked to state the “benefit and impact” of their research. Now they would be required to provide a 100- to 150-word statement in “plain English” against those criteria, the minister said.

While presented in vague language, the test essentially means tailoring all research to meet the requirements of the Australian financial and business establishment, at the expense of broader and deeper social and historical inquiry.

It is also part of an underlying process of elevating nationalism to the centre stage of all political, social and legal affairs—from demanding that all members of parliament must owe “sole loyalty” to Australia to requiring all immigrants to pass English language examinations and tests of their agreement with “Australian values.”

Moreover, the strengthened “national interest” test was unveiled against a backdrop of a two-year drumbeat of propaganda produced by the “national security” establishment and the corporate media, accusing China of espionage and aggression.

Evidently briefed by the government, Fairfax Media outlets reported on November 10: “Fairfax Media understands the test announced by federal Education Minister Dan Tehan last week has been designed with one eye squarely on China and its growing influence at Australia’s major research universities.

“A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) released last week pointed to the booming collaboration between Australian universities and Chinese military scientists.”

This was a reference to a recently-published report by the government-funded thinktank, which has close connections to the US military and intelligence network. Based on unsubstantiated assertions and unclear estimates, ASPI hysterically alleged that Chinese military-linked researchers were working “undercover” in universities in Australia and other US allied countries.

The report received wide coverage around the world, including in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN, Financial Times and Canada’s Globe and Mail, as well as across Australia.

Despite criticising the government’s grant vetoes, the opposition Labor Party insisted that a Labor government would retain the power to overrule research grants. That is because Labor backs the underlying thrust of the Coalition government’s measures.

Likewise, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), which covers academics and other university workers, denounced the government’s vetoes but remained silent on Labor’s determination to have same power.

With Labor’s support, the government has been integrating universities into US-linked military research, and seeking new provisions to block collaboration with overseas researchers, especially from China. The Australian Department of Defence (DoD) has requested sweeping powers over research, whether directly related to military purposes or not.

Under the Defence Department blueprint, universities, in particular, would be placed under wartime-style scrutiny, prohibited from undertaking collaborative research with countries regarded as US enemies, especially China, while being drawn more tightly into research jointly funded by the Pentagon.

These moves depict Australia as already being on the front line of a battle against Chinese “interference” and plans for war. These scare campaigns are conducted amid the Trump administration’s increasingly overt trade war and military moves to confront China and prevent it from challenging the global hegemony established by the US capitalist class after World War II.

The new “national interest” test also is being imposed amid an intensifying squeeze on research and other university funding. In the latest move, the government recently cut $134 million from the Research Support Program, which funds researchers’ salaries, laboratories and libraries, supposedly to divert the funding to universities in regional areas. This was on top of the second year of a funding freeze on domestic student places, which is driving a new round of wage, job and course cuts by the chronically-underfunded public universities.

The Maldives: Pro-US President Solih sworn in

Rohantha De Silva 

Ibrahim Solih, 54, was sworn in as the Maldives’ seventh president at a special parliamentary assembly at the national football stadium in the capital Male last month.

Solih replaced former President Abdulla Yameen following elections in September and a lengthy regime-change operation conducted by the US and India. Washington and its strategic ally New Delhi were hostile to Yameen’s close economic and military ties with Beijing.

Over the past five years the US and the European Union placed increasing pressure on the Maldives, supporting the parliamentary opposition, accusing Yameen of human rights violations and threatening international sanctions if the presidential election was not conducted “fairly” and democratically.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the most senior foreign leader attending Solih’s swearing-in ceremony. Last year Modi cancelled a visit to the Maldives during his tour of the region in a clear snub to Yameen.

Addressing about 12,000 people at his swearing-in ceremony, Solih demagogically declared that he would end corruption and theft, establish justice and equality, and investigate alleged human rights abuses under Yameen.

Solih’s promises are bogus and aimed at covering up the fact that his administration will bring the Maldives into line with Washington’s military preparations for war against China and reorient the island-nation towards India.

In a political jab at former President Yameen and China, Solih claimed the Maldives was in a “precarious financial situation” caused by “reckless mega-development projects undertaken purely for political gain.”

The US has accused China of “debt trap diplomacy” to secure regional influence, citing the Maldives and Sri Lanka as examples. The Maldives has been heavily dependent on Chinese investment and concessionary financing, including a $737 million loan from Beijing.

Former opposition politicians claim the previous government was given more than $US1.5 billion to finance massive infrastructure development. The Solih government has issued appeals to various Western countries and international aid organisations for economic assistance.

During his five-year term Yameen cracked down on the US- and India-backed political opposition. Former President Mohamed Nasheed and leader of the Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) openly called for Yameen’s ousting and was directly involved in the regime change operation.

Yameen banned protests, jailed or forced into exile nearly all the opposition leaders, detained Supreme Court judges, including the former pro-Indian Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed, and suspended parliament for long periods.

Solih, who criticized these repressive measures while in opposition, has made clear that he will crack down against supporters of the previous administration. The new government, he said, will seek “justice for those subject to abuse and unfair treatment” and investigate unaccountable “deaths and disappearances.”

The US and India claim that China plans to use the strategically located the Maldives as a key component in its massive Belt and Road Initiative plans for infrastructure development linking the Eurasian landmass and Africa by both land and sea.

The Maldives is southwest of India near important Indian Ocean sea lanes from the Middle East and Africa to South East Asia and East Asia. Diego Garcia, the principal US military base in the Indian Ocean, is some 1,200 kilometres south of Male.

Former President Nasheed, who is now serving as a senior advisor to Solih, has attempted to whip up anti-China sentiment. He claims that the Chinese ambassador to the Maldives, Zhang Lizhong, handed the new Solih government a $3.2 billion invoice, or around $8,000 for every person in the country, when it came power. Beijing immediately rejected this allegation, describing it as “deeply exaggerated.”

Notwithstanding Solih’s promises, his government will reorient its foreign policy towards the US and India, and impose the pro-market reforms and austerity measures demanded by the banks and international financial capital. Predictably, Solih now claims that the Maldives are in worse shape than anticipated. A senior unnamed government official declared last month the country could default on debt repayments.

Underscoring its moves to strengthen relations with India, Solih released a joint statement with Indian prime minister Modi following the presidential swearing-in ceremony. The statement “expressed confidence in the renewal of the close bonds of cooperation and friendship” and emphasised, the “importance of maintaining peace and security in the Indian Ocean and being mindful of each other’s concerns and aspirations for the stability of the region.”

In 2012, the former Maldives government cancelled a $US271 million contract with India’s GMR group to develop and operate the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport. Although New Delhi and Male signed a defence pact, “Action Plan for Defence Cooperation” in April 2016, India made little progress in bringing The Maldives under its orbit.

Late last month, however, the Indian Coast Guard as well as Sri Lankan forces held security threat exercises with the Maldives. Indian Coast Guard chief Rajendra Singh will also visit Male with advanced offshore patrol vessel ICGS Samar and fast patrol ICGS Aryaman.

Washington’s approval of Solih and his administration was indicated in comments by Alaina Teplitz, the US ambassador for Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Teplitz attended Solih’s swearing-in ceremony and described it as a “historic moment for Maldives.”

The Maldives’ Raajje TV network reported that Teplitz said the US “wishes to renew its friendship with The Maldives and discuss topics of mutual interest and cooperation such as a free and open Indo-Pacific region, security, and economic interests, in particular, public financial management.”

Teplitz’s comments follow Washington’s standard script to justify its military build-up against China in the Indian Ocean region. The regime change operation that brought Solih to power will deepen the geopolitical tensions between major powers in Asia and internationally.

Britain’s highest paid CEO built fortune on online gambling

Jean Shaoul 

Years of preying on the despair of millions of workers have enabled Denise Coates, the CEO of the online gambling site Bet365, to not only become Britain’s most well-paid boss, but also the highest paid businesswoman in the world.

Last year, Coates raked in an obscene £265 million, up from £199 million the year before, based on salary and perks, nearly 10,000 times more than the average UK salary.

The company, a privately-owned business based on sports betting, poker, casino games, and bingo, also paid out £90 million in dividends to its shareholders, of which fully £80.7 million went to Coates and her family. Coates’ brother John and father Peter are also directors at the company.

Even before she received the £265 million, Coates and her family were one of Britain’s richest with an estimated “worth” of £5.8 billion, according to the Sunday Times’ rich list, which ranks them at 21st. Coates has a personal fortune estimated at around £4.6 billion.

Those gambling on the site wagered £47 billion in the year ending March 2018, generating revenues of £2.9 billion for the company, up 28 percent on the previous year, and a massive £661 million profit—an eye-watering 20 percent profit margin.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat government of David Cameron appointed Coates a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to the community and business in 2012. There could be no more fitting indictment of the parasitism of British capitalism than to commend someone who has grown rich by impoverishing millions for services to “the community.”

Coates’ parents and grandparents were bookmakers. Her innovation in 2000 was to spot the potential of online gambling, purchasing the domain name Bet365.com for £1,950—an indication that her business was not going to be limited to normal business hours. Today, some 70 percent of the firm’s income is derived from betting placed on phones and tablets, much of it overseas—particularly China—rather than in betting shops.

Gambling revenues are overwhelmingly based upon the exploitation of the poor as well as those on the threshold of poverty, for whom the dream of winning provides a means of escaping a world of constant nagging worry over how to make ends meet, horrendous journeys to work and then being exploited in low-wage jobs by highly paid bosses.

General statistics for gambling, including online betting, show that just under half the UK’s population (48 percent) participate. After this, breakdowns focus on gender and age, rather than income and social class. However, betting shops are most likely to be found in Britain’s poorest communities, with the east London borough of Newham hosting 86 shops, including 18 on one high street, each with their permitted maximum of four fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) that can take £100 bets every 20 seconds. This contrasts with 56 in the south-west London borough that has a similar population but is considerably wealthier.

The scale of the punters’ losses and the bookies’ revenues is colossal. Just five £10 stakes on a game of digital roulette vanish within minutes, yielding £32, a sum equal to four hours work at the minimum wage of £7.50 an hour. No wonder the bookmakers generated some £1.8 billion in profits from FOBTs last year.

Last year’s report by the Gambling Commission, the industry’s tame regulator, estimates there are now two million people in the UK who have problems with gambling or are at risk of addiction, making them prone to running up large debts, damaging their relationships, succumbing to depression and even killing themselves. Of these, some 430,000 were addicts, with 25,000 under 16 years of age.

Addiction had increased among those playing the FOBTs, with around 11.5 percent of people using the machines believed to be problem gamblers, up from 7.2 percent in 2012. The Commission found that the rate in online casino and slots gaming, one of the fastest-growing forms of gambling, was 10.6 percent.

The betting industry has done much to stoke this addiction with massive advertising campaigns. According to the Guardian’s research, viewers were exposed to almost 90 minutes of betting adverts during last summer’s World Cup.

Such has been the public concern over the scale of gambling addiction and the devastating effect it has had on gamblers and their families that the government has reluctantly agreed to limit the maximum stake on a FOBT to £2 (down from £100), as from next April.

Bet365’s business practices have not been without controversy.

In 2009, Coates’ brother Peter—who is also a director of the company and has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Labour Party over the years—made a particularly generous gift around the time when the Labour government did much to liberalise Britain’s gambling legislation, including lifting restraints on the opening of betting shops on the high street and the ban on television advertising.

According to the Guardian, in 2014 the company had been taking bets from Chinese citizens by using obscure and frequently changing domain names to avoid a government ban on online gambling by operators based in China.

In 2016, the Australian authorities fined Bet365 AUD$2.75 million for advertisements that falsely promised “free bets” to customers, when in fact new customers had to deposit and then gamble $200 of their own money before they could receive their $200 free bet.

Gambling is an unhealthy industry that emphasizes social inequality, acting as a cash nexus, transforming everyone and everything into a commodity. Its growth provides yet another example of social decay, a parasitic enterprise that appeals to the worst instincts: greed, individualism and indifference. Such diseased enterprises are the norm today, with governments embracing gambling at the same time as profits of the banks and other financial institutions have become ever more reliant on forms of speculation, divorced from the creation of social wealth, such as trading in currency futures.

The Labour government lifted restrictions on the betting industry in 2008, while it was the Conservative government that established the National Lottery in 1994 as a weekly national punt—normalizing betting as an activity and a hidden form of taxation on the poor not the rich. While around 53 percent goes to the prize fund and 25 percent to “good causes” as determined by Parliament, 12 percent goes to the government as lottery duty, currently worth £1.7 billion. This and the various gambling taxes bring in some £12.6 billion.

No amount of controls and regulations can rectify this situation because the processes that gave rise to it are no longer peripheral but central to the functioning of the capitalist economy. Today, the political task is not a futile attempt to reform the present social order, but rather its complete transformation. The needs of working people—the producers of all wealth—are subordinate to the ever-more frenzied process of profit accumulation for the benefit of the enriched few. Living conditions for the majority have become intolerable. Society must be reorganised along socialist lines, so that the accumulation of wealth is subordinated to the needs and requirements of its producers and users, controlled and regulated by them.

Peru’s president prepares to attack workers’ living standards

Cesar Uco

Peru’s annual Conference of Executives (CADE-Executives 2018) ended last Saturday after three days of discussion between government officials, business executives, academics and politicians.

The purported aim of the annual event is to seek solutions to economic and social problems affecting Peru. Not mentioned in the conference’s “brochure” is the conference’s real purpose: engaging in strategic thinking about how to deal with the working class.

In closing CADE 2018, Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra spoke of the importance of winning a yes vote for his four-point referendum to be held on December 8.

The referendum was introduced in an attempt to save Peru’s crisis-ridden bourgeois state from collapse. Vizcarra is using it in a cynical attempt to capitalize on Peruvians’ general hatred and disdain for government institutions and anger over revelations of the deep systemic corruption that has characterized every recent government and virtually all political parties.

The four points upon which Peruvians will be asked to vote yes or no include: 1) a reform of the country’s corrupt judiciary, which has 59 percent support in recent polls; 2) a constitutional reform restricting campaign financing, with 62 percent backing; 3) a constitutional reform barring the immediate re-election of members of Congress, with 68 percent, and 4) a constitutional amendment splitting the national legislature into two houses, which is opposed by 54 percent in the polls.

Vizcarra took office in March after his predecessor, former Wall Street banker Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, resigned to avoid impeachment on graft and vote-buying charges. The referendum is aimed at substantiating the new president’s posturing as an anti-corruption reformer.

Behind this supposed crusade against corruption and reconfiguring of the elements of the Peruvian state, however, the Vizcarra government is pursuing another more pressing agenda, which was spelled out at the meeting of business executives.

Vizcarra’s appeal to the business summit was for a united front against the working class in seeking to drive down a wide range of labor costs, including health care, vacation pay, bonuses and seniority compensation.

He presented a government-business National Competitiveness Plan as the necessary remedy to the staggering growth of the informal sector in Peru’s economy, which according to the National Institute of Statistics and Information now accounts for fully 72 percent of the workforce.

“One of the factors that elevate informality is the high cost of labor, which has tripled. ... As a consequence, the employer chooses temporary contracts.” In other words, the cure for informality is to bring the compensation of workers with full-time jobs with benefits down to that of those working as temporary and casual labor.

According to a poll done at the conference, Vizcarra enjoys a 76 percent approval rating among CADE members, an indication that the ruling class sees the need to close ranks in order to squeeze more profits from the labor of Peruvian workers.

The Peruvian president also used his closing speech to CADE 2018 to refute charges by Roque Benavides, chairman of Mina Buenventura, one of the largest gold mines in the world. Benavides, whose mines are notorious for polluting the fields used by peasants to cultivate and raise animals, is also president of Confiep (National Confederation of Private Enterprise Institutions). On the eve of the conference, he claimed that the judiciary was persecuting big business.

Whatever friction exists between the president and the most right-wing sections of the Peruvian bourgeoisie who want carte blanche to carry out illegal practices, there is no serious disagreement on basic strategy. In answering Benvides, Vizcarra adopted the most conciliatory language, insisting,”We propose to businessmen to engage in a joint agenda. …”

The assault being prepared by Vizcarra and big business is being driven by the decline of the Peruvian economy. The rise in US interest rates and consequent upward movement of the dollar have hit Peru just as it has all the so-called “emerging market” economies, while exports, including in the dominant mining sector, have undergone a recent sharp decline.

To achieve the aims of his government and the Peruvian capitalist ruling class to drive down labor costs, Vizcarra will need the backing not only of the country’s traditional bourgeois parties, but also of the corrupt, criminal-infected labor organizations and the bourgeoisie left parties, Frente Amplio of Marco Arana, and Nuevo Peru of Veronika Mendoza.

Following Vizcarra’s announcement of his planned referendum, Frente Amplio quickly moved to endorse it. Frente Amplio Congressman Justiniano Apaza responded, “…the announcement to initiate the procedure means convoking the citizens and institutions involved and initiating a great national debate on the necessary reforms.”

The referendum also enjoys the support of bourgeois left politician and former presidential candidate Veronika Mendoza: “From the first moment, Nuevo Peru supported the referendum because we firmly believe that, in democracy, the people are sovereign and should be heard.”

Contrary to the illusions promoted by these bourgeois left elements, the referendum will serve as a cover up for the implementation of the National Competiveness Plan—a frontal attack on working class rights to meet the demands of both foreign capital and the Peruvian bourgeoisie.

More people with mental illnesses seeking treatment from US emergency rooms

Alex Johnson

The lack of appropriate mental health services in the United States has led patients to increasingly seek care in hospital emergency rooms—a practice known as “psychiatric boarding.” Others only receive mental healthcare within the confines of jails and prisons, often incarcerated for crimes associated with their mental illness.

The bleak situation faced by millions of Americans with mental health problems was highlighted in a recent article by Dr. Anne Zink, published by STAT, an online health publication produced by Boston Globe Media. Dr. Zink is the medical director for emergency medicine at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center in Palmer, Alaska.

According to the article, nearly 1 in 5 adults, some 44 million people, experience mental illness every year, a figure that is projected to increase in the coming years. Every year approximately 1 in 25 adults, 9.8 million people, experience a serious mental illness that severely interferes with their major life activities.

Homeless people make up one of the largest populations suffering serious mental health problems. According to the National Alliance on Mental Health, an estimated 26 percent of homeless adults who stay in shelters have a serious mental illness. Forty-six percent of the homeless live with severe mental illness and/or drug use disorders.

The United States’ homeless population expanded in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, with the population increasing in 2016 for the first time since 2010. Rent prices soared beyond what the average worker could pay, while mental health services became less affordable and accessible. There is no doubt that the growth of underemployment and unemployment has contributed significantly to the psychological distress among workers and youth.

Another manifestation of the mental health crisis is the perpetual shortage of trained psychiatrists. The annual rise in mental illness has created an atmosphere where, according to Zink, “the demand for mental health professionals is outstripping supply.” A 2017 report from the National Council for Behavioral Health estimated that the psychiatric deficit will be between 6,100 and 15,600 by 2025.

The shortage of psychiatric professionals is particularly acute in Alaska. The only psychiatric hospital in the state is the Alaska Psychiatric Institute. In 1990, the hospital maintained 160 beds. That number has since decreased to 80, with only 50 beds available for patients experiencing severe mental breakdowns.

The article acknowledges that the final result of the grossly inadequate funding for mental health treatment, exacerbated by corporate downsizing among the large hospital chains, is that patients swing indiscriminately from poorly-equipped group home facilities to emergency rooms—and, ultimately, jails and prisons.

As Zink points out, “jails and prisons are now among the largest settings for mental health services, a final destination for individuals failed by the medical system.” Indeed, the largest mental health hospital in America is Cook County Department of Corrections in Illinois. A third of those incarcerated in the jail suffer from psychological disorders.

The source of the crisis of mental health as well as healthcare in general lies not simply in the incompetence or negligence of this or that psychiatric institution, but in the very nature of the capitalist system, which subordinates all aspects of social need to the profit interests of the ruling class.

The explosion of psychiatric disorders has coincided with the proliferation of “deaths of despair” from opioid overdoses and suicides. Pharmaceutical conglomerates have made a fortune in recent years by pushing doctors to over-prescribe highly addictive painkillers, flooding communities and the black market with opioids and then dramatically hiking the price of the drug used to treat overdoses, naloxone. According to the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC), more than 72,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2017 alone.

According to the latest annual mortality report by the CDC, the suicide rate in 2017 rose to its highest level in 50 years, with suicide being the second leading cause of death for those ages 10 to 34.

These disturbing trends are the predictable outcome of the austerity agenda pursued by both Republicans and Democrats, including reactionary tax cuts for the rich, attacks on social programs, the neglect of infrastructure, and healthcare policies designed to cut costs and increase profits for corporations by rationing care for working people.

The Trump administration’s 2018 budget cuts are a sign of an accelerating attack on mental health programs and support. The 2019 fiscal year budget for the Department of Health and Human Services saw a 21 percent cut in its funding from 2017. Trump’s budget reduced funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and its affiliated programs by $600 million. It also eliminates $451 million in other health professional and training programs.