A Shift: Repudiating War on Yemen

Kathy Kelly

Twenty years ago, a small delegation organized by Voices in the Wilderness lived in Baghdad while U.S. cruise missiles attacked more than 100 targets in Iraq. Following four days of bombing, known as “Operation Desert Fox,” our group visited various Iraqis who had survived direct hits. One young girl handed me a large missile fragment, saying “Merry Christmas.”

An engineer, Gasim Risun, cradled his two-week old baby as he sat in his hospital bed. Gasim had suffered multiple wounds, but he was the only one in his family well enough to care for the infant, after an unexploded missile destroyed his house. In Baghdad, a bomb demolished a former military defense headquarters, and the shock waves shattered the windows in the hospital next door. Doctors said the explosions terrified women in the maternity ward, causing some to spontaneously abort their babies while others went into premature labor.

In December 1998, U.S. news media steadily focused on only one person living in Iraq: Saddam Hussein. With the notable exception of Stephen Kinzer of The New York Times, no mainstream media focused on U.N. reports about the consequences of U.S. economic sanctions imposed on Iraq. One of Kinzer’s articles was headlined: “Iraq a Pediatrician’s Hell: No Way to Stop the Dying.”

The hellish conditions continued, even as U.N. officials sounded the alarm and explained how economic sanctions directly contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children under age five.

Now a horror story of similar proportions is playing out in Yemen.

In November 2018, The Guardian reported that up to 85,000 Yemeni children under age five  have died from starvation and disease during the last three years. Mainstream media and even governments of large and wealthy countries are finally beginning to acknowledge the anguish suffered by Yemeni children and their families.

Stark and compelling photos show listless, skeletal children who are minutes or days away from death. Reports also show how war plans have deliberately targeted Yemen’s infrastructure, leading to horrifying disease and starvation. Journalists who have met with people targeted as Houthi fighters, many of them farmers and fishermen, describe how people can’t escape the sophisticated U.S. manufactured weapons fired at them from massive warplanes.

One recent Associated Press photo, on page one of The New York Times for December 14, shows a line of tribes people loyal to the Houthis. The youngest child is the only one not balancing a rifle upright on the ground in front of him. The tribes people bear arms, but they are poorly equipped, especially compared to the U.S.-armed Saudis.

Since 2010, according to The New York Times, the United States has sold the Saudis thirty F-15 multi-role jet fighters, eighty-four combat helicopters, 110 air-to-surface cruise missiles, and 20,000 precision guided bombs. Last year, the United States also sold the Saudis ten maritime helicopters in a $1.9 billion deal. An American defense contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton, “earned tens of millions of dollars training the Saudi Navy during the past decade.”

Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—along with his counterpart in the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed—seemed untouchable. He was feted and regaled by former Presidents, Oprah, Hollywood show biz magnates, and constant media hype.

Now, the U.S. Senate has passed a resolution holding him accountable for the gruesome murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Several U.S. Senators have said they no longer want to be responsible for bloodshed he has caused in Yemen. U.N. negotiators have managed to broker a fragile ceasefire, now in effect, which will hopefully stop the fighting that has raged in the vital port city of Hodeidah. One message which may have prompted the Saudis to negotiate came in the form of a Senate vote threatening to curtail the support of U.S. armed forces for the Saudi-led Coalition’s war on Yemen.

I doubt these actions will bring solace or comfort to parents who cradle their listless and dying children. People on the brink of famine cannot wait days, weeks, or months while powerful groups slowly move through negotiations.

And yet, a shift in public perception regarding war on Yemen could liberate others from the terrible spectre of early death.

Writing during another war, while he was exiled from Vietnam, Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh imagined the birth of a “Peace Child.” He ends his poem by calling on people to give both their hands for the chance to “protect the seeds of life bursting on the cradle’s rim.”

I think of Iraqi mothers who lost their babies as bombs exploded just outside their maternity ward. The shift in public perception is painfully too late for innumerable people traumatized and bereaved by war. Nevertheless, the chance to press with all our might for a continuing and growing shift, repudiating war, could point us in a new direction.

The war in Yemen is horrific and ought to be ended immediately. It makes eminent good sense to give both our hands and all the energies we can possibly summon, to end the war in Yemen and vow the abolition of all war.

Groomed to Consume

Anja Lyngbaek

With Christmas coming up, household consumption will soon hit its yearly peak in many countries. Despite homely pictures of tranquility on mass-produced greeting cards, Christmas is more about frenzied shopping and overspending than peace on earth or quality time with family and friends. As with so much of our lives, the holidays have been hijacked by the idea that satisfaction, even happiness, is only one more purchase away.

Two generations ago, my Norwegian grandmother was overjoyed as a child when she received one modest gift and tasted an imported orange at Christmastime. In the modern era of long-distance trade and excess consumption, nobody gets even mildly excited by tasting a foreign fruit or receiving a small gift. Instead, adults dive into a cornucopia of global food (typically followed by a period of dieting) while children expect numerous expensive gifts – with designer clothes and electronic toys, games, and gadgets topping the list.

This comparison is not meant to romanticize the past or demean the present: it’s just a small example of how consumption has come to replace the things that give real meaning to our lives– like creating something with our own hands, or sharing and interacting with others. In the process, we have been robbed of the ability to take pleasure from small wonders.

Most of us are aware that excessive consumption is a prime feature of modern life, and that it is the cause of multiple social and environmental problems. We are living in a so-called “consumer culture” – a rather fancy title for something that has more in common with an abusive affliction, like bulimia or alcoholism, than it does with real living culture.

Rampant consumerism doesn’t happen by itself: it is encouraged by an economic system that requires perpetual economic growth. When national economies show signs of slowing down, citizens are invariable called upon to increase their consumption, which in a country like the US represents 70 percent of GDP. Curiously, when talk turns to the downside of consumerism – resource depletion, pollution, or shoppers trampled at Wal-Mart – it is the greed supposedly inherent in human nature that gets the blame. Rather than look at the role of corporate media, advertising, and other systemic causes of over-consumption, we are encouraged to keep shopping – but to do so “responsibly”, perhaps by engaging in “green consumerism”, a galling oxymoron.

I have no doubt that consumerism is linked with greed – greed for the latest model of computer, smartphone, clothes or car – but this has nothing to do with human nature. This sort of greed is an artificially induced condition. From early childhood our eyes, ears and minds have been flooded with images and messages that undermine our identity and self-esteem, create false needs, and teach us to seek satisfaction and approval through the consumer choices we make.

And the pressure to consume is rising, along with the amount of money spent on advertising. It is forecast that global advertising expenditure will hit $568 billion for 2018, a 7.4 percent increase over 2017. According to UN figures, that amount of money would be sufficient to both eradicate extreme poverty and foot the bill for measures to mitigate the effects of climate change worldwide.

Instead, we are “groomed to consume”. In the US, this means that the average young person is exposed to more than 3,000 ads per day on television, the internet, billboards and in magazines, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. While the figure may be lower in other countries, people everywhere are increasingly exposed to advertising – particularly through the internet, which now has over 4 billion users globally. In fact, half of the global “consumer-class” can now be found in the developing world. Although per capita consumption in China and India remains substantially less than in Europe, those two countries now consume more in total than all of Western Europe.

Marketing strategies – advertising, celebrity trend-setting, product placement in movies and TV shows, marketing ties-in between media and fast food franchises, etc. – have evolved to target an ever younger audience, all the way down to the one-year old, according to sociologist Juliet Schor. In her book Born to Buy, she defines “age compression” as the marketing to children of products that were previously designed for adults. Examples include makeup for young girls, violent toys for small boys, and designer clothes for the first grader. Schor’s research shows that the more children are exposed to media and advertising, the more consumerist they become; it also shows that they are more likely to become depressed, anxious and develop low self-esteem in the process.

However, children can become victims of the corporate-induced consumer culture even without direct exposure to advertising and media, as I learned during a year spent in my native Denmark, together with my then 12-year old son. Prior to our stay in Denmark, we lived in rural Mexico with limited exposure to TV, internet and advertising, and surrounded by children from homes with dirt floors, wearing hand-me-down clothes. The need for designer wear and electronic gadgets had therefore never entered my son’s mind.

However, after a few months of trying to fit in with Danish children, he became a victim of fashion, exchanging his usual trousers for the trend of the time – narrow sleek pants with diaper bottoms that impeded proper movement. Soon, style alone wasn’t enough: the right brand name of clothes was added to the list of things required for happiness. The same process was repeated in other parts of life: in Mexico, play would consist of an array of invented games, but a month in Denmark was sufficient for my son to feel too ashamed to invite anyone home because he didn’t own an Xbox. During that year, he cried bitter tears over the absence of things that he had never lacked before – video games, Samsung galaxies, iPads and notebooks.

This rapid conversion of a unique individual into a global consumer wasn’t a direct result of advertising, but of the indirect influence of corporations on our minds and lives. The other children were as much victims as my own child, having to a large extent been robbed of the possibility to develop their own (corporate-free) identity and the imagination and creativity that comes with childhood.

Shifting away from a model based on ever increasing consumption is long overdue. On a personal level, we can take positive steps by disengaging from the consumer culture as much as possible, focusing instead on activities that bring true satisfaction – like face-to-face interaction, engaging in community and spending time in nature.

In our very small rural community in Mexico, we have tried to do just that in our daily lives. Christmas for us is a communal celebration running over several days, which includes lots of homegrown, cooked and baked foods, music, dancing and playing, both indoors and outdoors. A major part of the celebration is a gift exchange that celebrates our skills and creative powers. Rather than buying a multitude of gifts, we make one gift each to give to another person. Who we give to is decided in advance in a secret draw of names, not revealed until the exchange. For a month in advance, our community is buzzing with creative energy, as everybody – children and adults alike – is busy planning and making amazing gifts. Presenting our gift is the highlight of our celebration, even for the youngest. Thus the coin has been flipped from consumption to creation and from receiving to giving.

However, while personal changes like this matter, it is not enough to turn the tide: structural changes are also required.

Despite dwindling natural resources, increasing levels of pollution and CO2 emissions, and the many social costs of consumerism, no nation-state has yet been willing to renounce the economic growth model. This will not change until people pressure their governments to disengage from this economic model and to put the brakes on corporate control. This may sound undo-able, but the current system is man-made and can be unmade. The trade treaties and agreements that favor corporations over nations, global over local, profit over people and planet, can be revoked and transformed. All it may take is an alliance of a few strategic countries willing to say “STOP”, to start a movement of nations willing to reclaim their economies.

When Jorge Mario Bergoglio was ordained Pope Francis, he came out with a public critique of the prevailing economic system that still rings true:

“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world… This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.”

Yet, the blind belief in the economic growth model is waning, as ever more people realize that the present economic model is playing havoc with people and planet. Even the strongest proponents of the current system are finding it harder to repeat the “more economic growth is the solution” mantra.

So let’s downscale consumption this Christmas and celebrate creativity, community and our shared home – planet earth. Rather than commit to dieting in the new year, let’s commit to joining the call for systemic change – away from a destructive global casino economy that concentrates power and wealth, towards place-based economies operating under democratic control and within ecological limits, with global well-being in mind.

Anti-government protests continue in Hungary

Markus Salzmann

Protests against the right-wing government of Premier Victor Orbán have continued this week. Thousands had taken to the streets in Budapest and other big cities last week. The demonstrations were triggered by a new law that increases the number of overtime hours that employers can demand from their workers from 250 to 400 per year.

The protests are also directed against a judicial reform decided at the same time, which opens the way for new government-controlled administrative courts. Another target of the protests are the xenophobic and antisocial policies of the Fidesz government.

Last Sunday witnessed the largest demonstration so far, with 15,000 protesting against the government’s “Slave Law.” Slogans on banners included “Orbán, get lost!” “Strike, strike, strike” and “We have had enough!” The protests drew from virtually all layers of the population, with more and more students taking part. The initial protests were met with the widespread use of tear gas by the police, but the more recent protests have remained largely peaceful.

On Sunday, demonstrations took place outside the main building of the state television station, MTV. The broadcaster is under government control and is known for its one-sided government propaganda. A group of opposition MPs had gained access to the building Sunday night and occupied it for 24 hours.

In Szombathely, western Hungary, 1,000 people marched to the editorial offices of the local newspaper, Vas Nepe, to protest against the pro-government line taken by the paper. In Hungary, the government controls a large part of the press and independent media outlets are muzzled.

The government has maliciously denounced the demonstrators. Zoltan Kovacs, a spokesman of Fidesz, claimed in the New York Times that the protests have “no popular support.” The leaders of the protests are “desperate” opposition politicians and “celebrity activists,” he said.

In reality, support for Orbán is plummeting. According to a new poll, 80 percent reject the new labour law. Two thirds of those who formerly voted for Orbán oppose the law, with workers fearing layoffs if they refuse to work overtime.

Orbán has governed the country with an absolute majority since 2010 and gradually erected authoritarian state structures in Hungary. He owed his majority not to any broad support on the part of the population but rather to profound discontent with all the other establishment parties, most notably the Socialist Party (MSZP). Last Wednesday, when parliament passed its labour law, the pent-up anger spilled out onto the streets.

According to a poll by IDEA this month, only 34 percent support the governing party. That is 3 percent less than in the previous month. According to the same poll, the second-ranked party in parliament, the far-right Jobbik, is only supported by 8 percent. In 2014, Fidesz was polling at over 50 percent. This means that support for these two parties has almost halved since 2014. In 2019, European and local elections will be held in Hungary, and all of the parties fear massive losses, especially Fidesz.

The reformed labour law primarily serves the interests of international corporations, in particular the European auto industry. At the beginning of his term in office, Orbán restricted the right to strike, and Hungary now has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the EU. Until now, Orban could rely on the tacit support of the trade unions, but they are currently threatening to call a general strike in the new year.

“We say yes to the general strike. This is our last chance to demonstrate our power,” a union representative told the German Handelsblatt newspaper. He made clear that this was solely due to massive pressure from the workforce. “Some of our members are asking us to shut down the country,” he admitted. Workers in the auto industry earn on average between €900 and €1,000 per month for a working week of over 40 hours.

The unions are growing increasingly fearful that the protests could spread to the factories and lead to strikes. The rate of trade union organisation in the factories is traditionally low, averaging between 10 and 20 percent. Hungary is a favoured location for the auto industry. In addition to low wages and low taxes, the trade unions have always faithfully followed the line of government and big business.

The German carmaker BMW recently announced plans to build a new auto factory in the eastern region of Debrecen, where more than 1,000 employees are expected to produce up to 150,000 cars each year. It is understandable that some critics have called the new labour legislation the “BMW law.”

Sixteen different unions are currently discussing a possible strike in January. Last year, workers at Tesco stores went on strike in Hungary and there were strikes in the car industry in other parts of eastern Europe, including Volkswagen in Slovakia and Fiat in Serbia.

The Hungarian economy is currently growing due to the activities of these international companies and a gross domestic product increase of 3.8 percent is expected this year. The Hungarian government has predicted annual growth of between 4 and 4.2 percent by 2022. However, this has brought little in the way of benefits for the vast majority of the Hungarian population.

Both the government and opposition parties fear that the current protests could spread. While the opposition MSZP is teaming up with the far-right Jobbik, the government is preparing a brutal crackdown on the protests. Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, accused protesters of showing “open anti-Christian hatred.” He said that citizens had the right to protest only as long as no laws are broken. At the same time, the government announced Wednesday that it would make no concessions regarding its “Slave Law.”

UK government announces draconian Brexit immigration policy and deployment of troops

Robert Stevens

The day after the government announced it was putting 3,500 troops on standby, amid business organisations saying they were “watching in horror” at the implications of a no-deal Brexit, proceedings in Parliament Wednesday descended into farce.

Rather than debating the crisis wracking Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government, and an emergency motion to discuss the government’s plans to accelerate planning for a “no-deal” Brexit, priority was allotted to debating whether or not Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had called May a “stupid woman” under his breath during Prime Minister’s Question time.

Instead of refusing to entertain an entirely choreographed debate on this, Corbyn returned to Parliament at the request of the Speaker to make a pathetic statement: “I did not use the words ‘stupid woman’ about the Prime Minister or anyone else and am completely opposed to the use of sexist or misogynist language in absolutely any form at all.”

The farcical events in Parliament were meant to conceal the extraordinarily dangerous and reactionary course being pursued by the government. The possibility of mobilising troops on the streets is justified by reference to the uncertainties posed by a no-deal Brexit and their remit is being kept deliberately vague. But this is a response to heightened political and social tensions in the UK that exist independently of whatever course is taken by Brexit negotiations. And the chief target of any such deployment is the working class, with the aim of quelling the social unrest provoked by worsening austerity.

Underscoring the contempt for any democratic accountability, the government said the Cabinet had agreed to ready the troops, with Defence Minister Gavin Williamson telling Parliament only that the government “will have 3,500 service personnel held at readiness, including regulars and reserves, in order to support any government department on any contingencies they may need.”

The Financial Times noted that the 3,500 have been “set aside for no-deal contingencies under a plan code named ‘Operation Yellowhammer’” and are “in addition to 5,000 troops kept on standby to help cope with a UK terror attack…”

While the government have refused to divulge details as to what end the troops are to be used, senior figures within the police and military have acknowledged in recent months that industrial action by workers is specifically being targeted. In September, a leaked document from the National Police Co-ordination Centre warned that there was a “real possibility” that soldiers would be deployed and that police leave would have to be cancelled around the Brexit exit date next year. It warned that a shortage of medicine could “feed civil disorder” and a rise in the price of goods could see “widespread protest which could then escalate into disorder.”

Last month, head of the Armed Forces General Sir Nick Carter told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that plans were being developed to deploy the military, “Whether it’s a terrorist attack or whether it’s a tanker drivers’ dispute, industrial action or whatever else it might be.”

Corbyn, busy giving pathetic statements in Parliament refuting accusations that he was a misogynist, has said nothing about the plans to mobilise thousands of soldiers to be used against the working class.

It was left to pro-EU Blairite provocateur Ian Austin to respond to the government. While stating, “This is the reality of a no-deal Brexit: soldiers on the streets; medicines being stockpiled in the NHS; and airports and ferry terminals grinding to a halt. This is scary tactics, pure and simple.” He did not oppose the mobilisation in any way.

Ever since the referendum vote, everything has been done by the contending pro- and anti-Brexit factions of the ruling class to exclude the interests of the working class, as they have fought out their opposing programmes as how best to further the strategic global interests of British imperialism.

With the working class unable to articulate its own independent interests, a crisis-ridden government is moving to rapidly enact its reactionary Brexit agenda.

On Wednesday, just 100 days from the date of Brexit, the government announced a white paper on an immigration policy to be enacted following the Brexit transition period, currently set as January 2021. However, the policies could be imposed as early as next April if May fails to get her EU exit deal agreed by Parliament.

Proposed is a permanent end to the free movement of people to the UK, as “Everyone will be required to obtain a permission if they want to come to the UK to work or study.” The UK will introduce a new temporary 12-month visa for EU nationals of all skill levels and a proposed minimum salary threshold of £30,000 for “highly skilled” migrants. To enter Britain they will also need to be sponsored by an employer.

Low-skilled workers will be banned from applying for visas and will only be able to enter the UK from a “low-risk country” for a maximum of 12 months. There will be a cooling-off period of a further 12 months, aimed at preventing these workers from having the opportunity of working in the UK permanently.

All migrants to the UK are to be refused access to free National Service Health care and social services. Home Secretary Sajid Javid said that no one allowed to enter the UK under the new system will have the “right to access public funds, or to settle permanently in the UK.”

EU citizens already settled in the UK and who wish to stay will be forced to register for a new “settled status.” EU nationals who wish to join family members in the UK post-Brexit “will need permission to do so, normally in the form of an electronic status, which must be obtained before coming to the UK.”

Sections of business are opposed to such a high pay threshold, fearing it will deny them access to a vital low-paid workforce. Mike Cherry, the national chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said, “A £30,000 threshold for those coming to the UK could severely restrict access to the right skills in many sectors: construction, retail and care to name just a few.”

Labour, whose official immigration policy is opposing the free movement of labour and support for “managed migration” did not oppose the white paper in principle, but on the basis that it would damage an economy heavily reliant on millions of poorly paid workers.

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott complained, “The Government has disgracefully labelled workers on less than £30,000 as low-skilled. Our economy and public services are kept ticking by this majority of workers.”

The government, she added, were not prioritising “our economy and our society,” but “using an income-based system which allows derivatives traders free movement but which excludes nurses, social care workers and other professions in which we have severe skills or labour shortages.”

Abbott saw no reason to be embarrassed by such an admission that vital sectors of the economy, including healthcare, would collapse without continued low pay. But it is the political responsibility of Labour and the trade unions that the employers and the state have been able to create a society in which social inequality and super-exploitation are the norm.

US steps up offensive against China with more “hacking charges”

Mike Head

Further escalating its economic and strategic offensive to block China from ever challenging its post-World War II hegemony, the US government yesterday unveiled its fifth set of economic espionage charges against Chinese individuals since September.

As part of an internationally-coordinated operation, the US Justice Department on Thursday published indictments of two Chinese men who had allegedly accessed confidential commercial data from US government agencies and corporate computers in 12 countries for more than a decade.

The announcement represents a major intensification of the US ruling class’s confrontation against China, amid a constant build-up of unsubstantiated allegations against Beijing by both the Republican and Democrat wings of Washington’s political establishment.

Via salacious allegations of “hacking” on a “vast scale,” every effort is being made by the ruling elite and its media mouthpieces to whip up anti-China hysteria.

The indictment’s release was clearly politically timed. It was accompanied by a global campaign by the US and its allies, accusing the Chinese government of an illegal cyber theft operation to damage their economies and supplant the US as the world’s “leading superpower.”

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen immediately issued a statement accusing China of directing “a very real threat to the economic competitiveness of companies in the United States and around the globe.”

Within hours, US allies around the world put out matching statements, joined by declarations of confected alarm by their own cyber-warfare and hacking agencies.

The Washington Post called it “an unprecedented mass effort to call out China for its alleged malign acts.” The coordination “represents a growing consensus that Beijing is flouting international norms in its bid to become the world’s predominant economic and technological power.”

The Australian government, the closest ally of the US in the Indo-Pacific region, was in the forefront. Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton explicitly accused the Chinese government and its Ministry of State Security (MSS) of being responsible for “a global campaign of cyber-enabled commercial intellectual property theft.”

Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, called the Chinese cyber campaign “shocking and outrageous.” Such pronouncements, quickly emblazoned in media headlines around the world, destroy any possibility of anything resembling a fair trial if the two men, named as Zhu Hua and Zhang Shilong, are ever detained by US agencies and brought before a court.

The charges themselves are vaguely defined. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan accused the men of conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Zhu and Zhang acted “in association with” the MSS, as part of a hacking squad supposedly named “APT1o” or “Stone Panda,” the indictment said.

FBI Director Christopher Wray called a news conference to issue another inflammatory statement against China. Pointing to the real motivations behind the indictments, he declared: “China’s goal, simply put, is to replace the US as the world’s leading superpower, and they’re using illegal methods to get there.”

Coming from the head of the US internal intelligence agency, this further indicates the kinds of discussions and planning underway within the highest echelons of the US political and military-intelligence apparatus to prepare the country, ideologically and militarily, for war against China.

Washington is determined to block President Xi Jinping’s “Made in China 2025” program that aims to ensure China is globally competitive in hi-tech sectors such as robotics and chip manufacture, as well as Beijing’s massive infrastructure plans, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, to link China with Europe across Eurasia.

The US ruling class regards these Chinese ambitions as existential threats because, if successful, they would undermine the strategic position of US imperialism globally, and the economic dominance of key American corporations.

Yesterday’s announcement seemed timed to fuel tensions between Washington and Beijing, after the unprecedented December 1 arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, in Canada at the request of the US.

Last weekend, US Vice President Mike Pence again accused China of “intellectual property theft.” These provocations came just weeks after the US and Chinese administrations agreed to talks aimed at resolving the tariff and trade war launched by US President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration is demanding structural changes to China’s state-led economic model, greater Chinese purchases of American farm and industrial products and a halt to “coercive” joint-venture licensing terms. These demands would severely undermine the “Made in China 2025” program.

Since September, US authorities have brought forward five sets of espionage allegations. In late October, the Justice Department unsealed charges against 10 alleged Chinese spies accused of conspiring to steal sensitive commercial secrets from US and European companies.

Earlier in October, the US government disclosed another unprecedented operation, designed to produce a show trial in America. It revealed that a Chinese citizen, accused of being an intelligence official, had been arrested in Belgium and extradited on charges of conspiring to commit “economic espionage” and steal trade secrets.

The extradition was announced days after the Pentagon released a 146-page document, titled “Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States,” which made clear Washington is preparing for a total war effort against both China and Russia.

Trump, Pence and Wray then all declared China to be the greatest threat to America’s economic and military security. Trump accused China of interfering in the US mid-term elections in a bid to remove him from office. In a speech, Pence said Beijing was directing “its bureaucrats and businesses to obtain American intellectual property—the foundation of our economic leadership—by any means necessary.”

Whatever the truth of the spying allegations against Chinese citizens—and that cannot be assumed—any such operations would hardly compare with the massive global intrigue, hacking, regime-change and military operations directed by the US agencies, including the National Security Agency (NSA) and its “Five Eyes” partners.

These have been exposed thoroughly by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Leaked documents published by WikiLeaks revealed that the CIA has developed “more than a thousand hacking systems, trojans, viruses and other ‘weaponized’ malware,” allowing it to seize control of devices, including Apple iPhones, Google’s Android operating system, devices running Microsoft Windows, smart TVs and possibly the control of cars and trucks.

In an attempt to broaden its offensive against China, the US government said that along with the US and its Five Eyes partners, such as Britain, Canada and Australia, the countries targeted by the alleged Chinese plot included France, Germany, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland.

Chinese hackers allegedly penetrated managed services providers (MSPs) that provide cyber-security and information technology services to government agencies and major firms. Finance, telecommunications, consumer electronics and medical companies were among those said to be targeted, along with military and US National Aeronautics and Space Administration laboratories.

Sections of the Chinese regime responded belligerently to the accusations. An editorial in the state-owned Global Times branded them “hysterical” and a warning sign of a “comprehensive” US attack on China.

The editorial asked: “Assuming China is so powerful that it has stolen technological information for over a decade that is supposedly worth over a trillion in intellectual property, as the US has indicated, then how is it that China still lags behind the US in so many fields, from chips to electric vehicles, and even aviation engines?”

The Global Times declared that “instead of adhering to a low-profile strategy, China must face these provocations and do more to safeguard national interests.”

The promotion of Chinese economic and militarist nationalism by a mouthpiece of the Beijing regime is just as reactionary as the nationalist xenophobia being stoked by the ruling elite of American imperialism and its allies. The answer to the evermore open danger of war is a unified struggle by the international working class to end the outmoded capitalist profit system and nation-state divisions and establish a socialist society.

ENS de Lyon Ampère Scholarships 2019/2020 for International Students – France

Application Deadline: 10th January, 2019 11.59 pm (Time at Lyon – France)

Offered Annually?  Yes

Eligible Countries: Countries where the CEF procedure applies (See list below)

To Study at (Country): France

Field of Study: All Masters programs in the Exact Sciences, the Arts, and Human and Social Sciences (except FEADép Master’s programs).

Type: Masters

Eligibility: Eligible candidate must:

• be a foreign national
• be 26 years old maximum at the application deadline (born after 11 January 1992).
• Candidate for admission in Masters Year 1: provide proof that you have obtained a Licence (equivalent to 180 ECTS European credits) or an equivalent diploma/level recognized by the ENS deLyon.
• Candidate for admission in Masters Year 2: provide proof that you have successfully reached Masters Year 1 level (equivalent to 240 ECTS European credits) or have attained an equivalent diploma/level recognized by the ENS de Lyon (e.g. MPhil).

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship:  1,000€ a month during one or two academic years

List of Eligible Countries: Algeria, Argentina, Benin, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo (Brazzaville), Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Gabon, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Lebanon, Madagascar, Mali, Marocco, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Peru, Senegal, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, USA, Vietnam.

How to Apply: Interested candidates are to complete and submit the online application forms and upload supporting documents by

January 10, 2019 11.59 pm (Time at Lyon – France)

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

RUFORUM MasterCard Undergraduate & Masters Scholarships 2019/2020 for African Students

Application Deadline: 31st March 2019 at 17:00 Hours (GMT+3).

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: African countries. 70% will be for Kenya and Uganda nationals.

To be taken at (Universities): Gulu University and Egerton University.

About the Award: The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation, Gulu University and Egerton University are implementing an eight year program aimed at transforming African agricultural universities and their graduates to better respond to developmental challenges through enhanced application of science, technology, business and innovation for rural agricultural transformation. This is eight year program (2016-2024) and will be supporting students that are economically disadvantaged, those from post-conflict and conflict affected areas of Africa.
Students who are economically disadvantaged, and students from post-conflict and conflict-affected areas of Africa, are welcome to apply for admission and financial support at Gulu University (Uganda) or Egerton University (Kenya). The announcements lists the available academic programs at each university.

Type: Undergraduate, Masters

Eligibility: 

• This scholarship opportunity is open to African students of all race, colour, dissent and who in particular are economically disadvantaged and those coming from conflict and post-conflict areas of Africa.
• The applicant has to be in position to qualify for admission into undergraduate and/or postgraduate programs at Gulu University and/or Egerton University as listed above.
• Students already having a scholarship of any kind are not eligible to benefit this scholarship opportunity anyone with a double scholarship if found will automatically be discontinued.

Females are particularly encouraged to apply

Number of Awardees: 50 Undergraduate and 20 Masters Scholarships

Value of Scholarship: Fully-funded

How to Apply: Applicants should obtain application forms for both the scholarships and admission from the university of choice. Applicants shall only apply to one university of choice. Application forms can also be downloaded from the Scholarship Webpage link below.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Recession Risks for the United States in 2019

Dean Baker

As we reach the end of the year, the economic recovery in the United States is approaching a new record for duration. In June, it will have its tenth birthday, passing the 1990s recovery as the longest one in US history. While recoveries do not die of old age, they do die. The length of this recovery has many looking for recession prospects on the horizon. At the moment, they are not clearly visible.

Before examining the risks, it is worth saying a bit about the good news. The length of the recovery has allowed the unemployment rate to fall to 3.7 percent, the lowest rate in almost 50 years.

It is important to remember that many people, including many in policymaking positions at the Federal Reserve Board, did not want the unemployment rate to fall this low. They argued that the inflation rate would begin to spiral upward if the unemployment rate fell below 5.0 percent.

We hit the 5.0 percent level in September of 2015. The world would look very different today if the inflation hawks had carried the day and the Fed raised interest rates enough to prevent the unemployment rate from dipping below this 5.0 percent mark.

If we flip the story and looked at employment rates, the employment rate for prime-age workers (ages 25 to 54) was 2.5 percentage points lower in September of 2015 than it is today. That translates into another 3.2 million people with jobs.

Furthermore, the beneficiaries have been overwhelmingly the most disadvantaged in the labor market. The unemployment rate for African Americans has fallen by 3.3 percentage points in the last three years. For Hispanics, the drop has been almost 2.0 percentage points. For workers with just a high school degree, the drop was 1.7 percentage points, and for workers without a high school degree, the drop was 2.3 percentage points.

The tighter labor market has also meant rising wages for those at the middle and bottom of the income ladder. The average hourly wage was rising at just over a 2.0 percent annual rate in the fall of 2015. In the most recent data, it was rising at a rate of slightly more than 3.0 percent.

Based on this acceleration in wage growth, it reasonable to speculate that wages for workers at the middle and bottom end of the labor market are 1.0-1.5 percent higher than they would have been if the Fed had slammed on the breaks back in 2015. While that may not sound like a big deal, for a worker earning $40,000 a year, that could be another $600 a year in wage income.

In aggregate, if a tighter labor market raised wages for the bottom half of the workforce by 1.5 percentage points, this translates into roughly another $50 billion a year in higher wages for this group. If we assume that most of the 3.2 million new jobs went to people in the bottom half, that amounts to another $90 billion in wage income. It is very hard to envision a new or expanded social program that gives $140 billion a year to people in the bottom half of the income distribution.

But enough of the good news, what about the next recession? Everyone keeps looking back to the last recession and trying to identify a bubble that will burst, causing another financial crisis and sinking the economy. Fortunately, there is no serious story here.

Many analysts point to the corporate bond market where there has been a large expansion of risky debt. While it is totally plausible that much of this debt will default if the economy slows, there is just not the same basis for the sort of downward spiral we saw with the collapse of the housing bubble.

In worst case scenarios, the holders of this debt take a hit of $300-$400 billion. That’s bad news for them, but in an economy with close to $100 trillion in assets, that is not the stuff of recessions, much less major financial crises.

The stock market continues to be high by historical standards and could quite plausibly drop another 10 percent. This would be a hit to the wealth of many high- and upper middle-income people. But unlike the late 1990s, the stock market is not now driving the economy. The lost consumption as a result of diminished stock wealth would dampen growth by perhaps 0.5 percentage points at the low end, to 1.0 percentage points at the high end. Such loss would not drop the economy into a recession.

Housing prices are high, as I have noted in the past, but they seem driven by the fundamentals in the market, which are also driving up rents. Furthermore, construction has remained weak in this recovery, so there is not much room to fall, unlike in the bubble years.

With no obvious bubbles to burst, this leaves rate hikes from the Fed as the most likely source of the next recession. The Fed’s rate hikes to date have undoubtedly had the effect of slowing growth. This is most evident in the housing market where most data on sales and construction are down from year-ago levels.

The Fed’s rate hikes have also helped to push up the value of the dollar, which has increased the trade deficit. Higher rates have also played some role in dampening private investment as well as infrastructure investment by state and local governments.

The Fed has been reasonably cautious to date. Past rate hikes are unlikely to sink the recovery. Hopefully its caution will continue and it will allow workers to get further gains from a tight labor market. But if I had to take a bet as to what would be the cause of the next recession, it would be the Fed. After all, excessive rate hikes by the Fed have been the cause of most prior post-war recessions. They will also be the most likely cause of the next one.

Colombia’s Killing Fields

Eric Draitser

In Colombia, the last week has been a particularly bloody one for indigenous leaders. In the state of Cauca, just south of the major city of Calí, the indigenous governor Edwin Dagua Ipia was assassinated after having received numerous death threats from paramilitaries in the area. He is one of at least ten indigenous people murdered in the country just in the last week.

In fact, according to the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), more than 100 assassinations of human rights advocates and members of marginalized and oppressed communities have taken place just in 2018. There is a sense among observers that the killings have escalated since the election of Ivan Duque, the young right wing president and close ally of former president and international criminal Alvaro Uribe.

In a damning report published by the Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), the human rights NGO noted that 35% of the social leaders and activists murdered belonged to ethnic minorities (19% Afro-Colombian, 15% indigenous), a staggering figure which demonstrates just how targeted those groups are, considering the proportion of violence with which they’re targeted versus their total share of the national population. Moreover, CODHES indicated that:

“Approximately 50 percent of the victims were authorities or representatives of ethnic territories and organizations. Another 36 percent were community or union leaders, 8 percent land rights claimants and 6 percent are members of the family of women social leaders. The worst affected regions in order of total numbers were Cauca, Valle del Cauca, Antioquia, Chocó, and Córdoba.”

The continued killings have drawn the attention of the United Nations, though little has been done to stem the tide, particularly as the government of Ivan Duque has slithered into power. Luis Guillermo Pérez Casas, a lawyer with the Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo (CCAJAR), explained in a report jointly submitted with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, that the killings, and total impunity due to government inaction, rise to the level of crimes against humanity.

He told the Guardian that:

“The murders of our colleagues must stop…We hope the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC will warn the Colombian government that if the impunity persists, they will be forced to open an investigation into those responsible, at the highest level… The peace process is failing because there’s a lack of implementation of the agreement. The process that was agreed upon has not been delivered.”

International human rights organizations have also raised the alarm about the violence and assassinations in Colombia. In early 2018, after the killing of 10 human rights activists, Amnesty International issued a report which called on the Colombian government to protect at-risk activists, especially those in remote parts of the country, who face extraordinary risks from paramilitaries and contract killers. Similarly, Human Rights Watch called on the Colombian government to do more to protect activists after a very bloody 2016. Sadly, the situation has only gotten worse.

Brazil’s War on Activists

The election of the fascist Jair Bolsonaro, the man who as candidate promised to open up the Amazon to mining and other environmentally harmful, extractive industries, has sent a very dangerous signal to indigenous and peasant groups in Brazil that the impunity that has long existed will only expand further while their rights are curtailed.

Bolsonaro represents a unique threat to activists from all spheres, especially indigenous and peasant communities who stand in the way of the right wing goal of stripping land rights from those groups in the interests of corporate investors and international financiers. And unlike the somewhat more muted (though no less destructive) rhetoric from the traditional neoliberal right, Bolsonaro and his far right, fascist politics will likely escalate the war on oppressed groups from simmering to white hot.

Speaking of the potential impact of Bolsonaro on the already ghastly violence against activists, Brazil-based independent journalist Michael Fox explained to me that:

“It’s still very early to tell the effect his election has had. Violence spiked in the lead-up to the second round vote, but there has been a lull since the election while people regroup The recent killing of [two] Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) leaders was very likely a sign of things to come.”

Fox’s analysis, which is no doubt accurate, reflects the general sense of anxiety about the future, especially in the wake of the most recent assassinations which he referenced.

On the night of December 8, 2018 two leaders of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) were assassinated in the state of Paraiba in the Northeast of the country. Their deaths, in an area regarded as a traditional stronghold of the left, have left many asking just what the future holds for activists in Brazil.

The assassinations are certainly not the first high-profile killings of social movement activists in Brazil in recent years, though they have received some added attention given that they come on the heels of the Bolsonaro victory – a worrying signal for some that the horrendous violence is only going to escalate.

To put it in perspective, the Brazilian religious advocacy group Comissão Pastoral da Terra – CPT (Pastoral Land Commission) released a thorough report which found that:

The brutal reality of Brazil’s rural areas has become increasingly harsher since 2013, back when 34 murders were recorded. In four years, these figures have increased by 105%, reaching 70 executions in 2017 –  a 15% increase over 2016.

It should be noted that, of course, this shocking rise in violence cannot be attributed to Bolsonaro himself, but rather to deeper structural and economic factors, in particular corporate privatization. As CPT coordinator Ruben Siqueira explained to Brasil de Fato:

We see this as a new land rush, in which land is a means of production, a store of value, like wood, water, ore, agribusiness, expansion of land-based businesses. This has to do with the financial crisis that started in 2008 with the speculative bubble. Since then, the hegemonic capitalist sector, which is financial capital, is looking for backing, something that can support this international speculative game

Indeed, it seems the escalation of violence against indigenous and peasant activists is directly connected to the growing need for consolidation of land and natural resources resulting from the economic downturn of the last ten years. However, it is perhaps even more precise to pinpoint the drop in commodity prices, most conspicuously the collapse of oil prices in 2014-2015, as one of the primary drivers of this renewed push for capital accumulation.

And though this process was jumpstarted during the tenure of Dilma Rousseff and the Workers’ Party (PT), it has picked up momentum under the right wing Temer government. And it’s about to go into overdrive with Bolsonaro taking power. For it is Bolsonaro himself who has promised to open up as much protected land as possible to big business.

Indeed, within days of Bolsonaro’s victory, reports began to circulate that indigenous lands were being invaded and/or seized, with all the attendant violence one would expect. As Beto Marubo, a native leader from the Javari Valley Indigenous Land in Brazil’s far west, explained to National Geographic, “Many brothers tell us there are invasions, people entering the territories with no regard for the rules and no fear of the authorities.” This final point is critical because while impunity has long been the norm in Brazil, the utter disregard for any semblance of governmental or law enforcement oversight will likely increase under Bolsoanro who has all but given his blessing to displacement and violence against these groups.

Ultimately, the struggle is about land rights, especially for the indigenous peoples who have fought for official demarcation of lands for decades.

Dinamã Tuxá, Coordinator of Brazil’s Association of Indigenous Peoples (APIB) summed it up neatly:

This scenario is totally heartbreaking. Bolsonaro has made clear and consistent declarations about ending the titling of indigenous lands, which are completely opposed to our rights. His racist, homophobic, misogynist, fascist discourse shows how Brazilian politics will be in the coming years… His discourse gives those who live around indigenous lands the right to practice violence without any sort of accountability. Those who invade indigenous lands and kill our people will be esteemed. He represents an institutionalization of genocide in Brazil.

Of course it must be remembered that Afro-Brazilian communities will be targeted as well. Marielle Franco’s assassination in March 2018 was in many ways a watershed moment for the social movements in the country. However, rather than driving positive political change on the national level, Brazil has instead elected a fascist leader who praises the extrajudicial methods historically employed by the dictatorship and its enablers in the country.  It remains to be seen how the left can regroup, respond, and reestablish its political power.

One thing is certain in both Brazil and Colombia: the far right is in power, and that means the war on social movements and activists is only just getting started.

And while it may seem bleak as we read about seemingly daily atrocities visited upon the indigenous and poor of these (and other Latin American) countries, we cannot simply despair. Instead, we must organize and mobilize. For those of us in the Global North, that means doing what we can to be in solidarity with these activists, helping to build power internationally.

Duque, Bolsonaro, and the far right of Latin America may have ascended to power, but they are not omnipotent.

Now is the time for organizing; the time for struggle; the time for resistance.