New Questions About Ritual Slaughter as Belgium Bans the Practice

Martha Rosenberg

No, Animal Welfare is Not Religious Bigotry

Another country has banned the cruel practice of ritual slaughter––kosher slaughter, sanctioned by Jewish law and halal slaughter, sanctioned by Islamic law. In both practices, cattle, sheep, goats and poultry have their throats cut while they are fully conscious and capable of experiencing great fear and pain.

Starting in 2019, Belgium will no longer grant exemptions from humane slaughter laws (that require an animal be stunned before it is killed) for ritual slaughter, joining Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Slovenia which also outlaw the practice.

Other European countries are considering tightened slaughter laws. The Netherlands, for example, has considered a law that states that no more animals can be killed for kosher and halal meat than “necessary to meet the actual need of the religious communities present in the Netherlands” and that if an animal is not “insensitive to pain” within 40 seconds of slaughter, it must be put out of its misery and shot.

The US Humane Methods of Slaughter Act

In the US, humane slaughter, requiring that an animal be stunned before it is killed, became the law of the land (the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act) a year after a disturbing film of hog slaughter was shown to Congress in 1957. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the act and remarked that “if I depended on my mail, I would think humane slaughter is the only thing anyone is interested in.”

The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act was opposed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) who last year allowed US slaughterhouses to kill 175 chickens per minute, up from 140 birds per minute––a move that greatly pleased industry. Even without the increased speeds, chicken kill lines in the US move so fast that 700,000 chickens a year miss the stunner (to render them insensitive to pain) and are boiled alive.

In 1978, former Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) introduced amendments to strengthen the Act, which had originally only applied to suppliers of meat to the federal government. Also added were methods for enforcement.

Still, the US allows ritual slaughter––religious exemptions to the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act––and according to one USDA administrator I spoke to, regulation can be almost non-existent. One halal slaughter facility, says the administrator, was not visited by a religious figure for six years, though a visit is required every year.

Ritual Slaughter is Falsely Believed to be More Humane

It is ironic that many believe ritual slaughter to be “more humane” than traditional slaughter when it is just the opposite.  In 2004, undercover video at the Agriprocessors’ kosher slaughterhouse surfaced, showing cows that did not die from having their throats cut but got up and thrashed around in heartbreaking agony. The video led to a USDA investigation that reported many violations of animal cruelty laws at the plant. (US President Trump commuted the sentence of an Agriprocessors’ owner for financial wrongdoing late last year.) The undercover activists who shot the video were later identified as Hannah and Philip Schein, a married couple who keep kosher themselves, dispelling charges that their motives were anti-Semitic.

When the grisly video surfaced, a coalition of rabbis and kosher certifying agencies in the United States was quick to defend the images. “After the animal has been rendered insensible, it is entirely possible that it may still display certain reflexive actions, including those shown in images portrayed in the video,” they wrote on a kosher-certification website.

“These reflexive actions should not be mistaken for signs of consciousness or pain, and they do not affect the kosher status of the slaughtered animal’s meat.  There may be exceptional circumstances when, due to the closing of jugular veins   or a carotid artery after the shechita cut, or due to the non-complete severance of an artery or vein, the animal may rise up on its legs and walk around. Cases when animals show such signs of life after the slaughter process are extremely rare, and even such an event would not invalidate the shechita if the trachea and esophagus were severed in the shechita cut.”

Animal Expert Weighs In

Temple Grandin , Professor of animal science at Colorado State University, disagrees and contends that ritual slaughter is capable of causing great suffering. “Some plants use cruel methods of restraint, such as suspending a conscious animal by a chain wrapped around one hind-limb,” she writes. “They persist in hanging large cattle and veal calves upside down by one hind-leg. There is no religious justification for use of this cruel method of restraint. The plants that suspend cattle/calves by one hind-leg do so in order to avoid paying the cost of installing a humane restraint device. Humane restraint devices can often pay for themselves by improving employee safety.” The cries of agony can be heard outside the plants writes Grandin.

“At no time, either during or after stunning should the animal vocalize (squeal, moo or bellow). Vocalization is a sign that a sensible animal may be feeling pain,” continues Grandin. “It is easy to evaluate insensibility after an animal is hanging vertically on the bleed rail; it should hang straight down and have a straight back, and the head should be limp and floppy. If the stunned animal has kicking reflexes, the head should flop like a limp rag. If the animal makes any attempt to raise its head, it may still be sensible. An animal showing a righting reflex must be immediately re-stunned. There should also be no rhythmic breathing and no eye reflexes in response to touch. Blinking is another sign of an animal that has not been properly stunned and thus may still be sensible. As slaughterhouses are increasingly privatized with no federal inspectors these humane guidelines are thrown out the window.”

It is important to note that halal and kosher slaughter do not represent the only time animals experience terror and pain at the end of their lives because they have not been stunned before slaughter. In 2001, the Washington Post ran a shocking expose of fully conscious animals routinely killed at traditional US slaughterhouses.

Ritual Slaughter Holidays

Animal rights advocates are especially strong critics of ritual slaughter when it comes to the holiday of Eid al-Adha during which Muslims ritually slaughter sheep and other animals, often in public.

Turkey, particularly, has had a hard time with the Eid al-Adha animal sacrifice holiday. In 2017, Forestry and Water Affairs Minister Veysel Eroğlu finally announced that animals should “be slaughtered rapidly” to prevent recurring images of suffering animals fighting for their lives that have horrified Western tourists.

Eid al-Adha is not a sight for the squeamish writes Gamal Nkrumah on the Egyptian website Al-Ahram. “One can tell from the nervous restlessness that the defenseless animals sense danger. The darting eyes and incessant bleating are tell-tale signs.” The “look of absolute terror in the eye of the beast is hard to miss” and some “streets are awash with blood,” writes Nkrumah.

Religious Persecution or Animal Protectionism?

After the Netherlands sought to tighten its ritual slaughter laws, Joe M. Regenstein, a professor of food science who runs a kosher and halal food program at Cornell University said, “This is not about animal rights”––”It’s an invitation to Jews and Muslims to leave.”

The Belgian decision has raised similar ire. Such animal protection laws are a disguised attempt to stigmatize or even drive out religious minorities, some claim. The ban violates “the Belgian freedom of religion” says Joos Roets, a lawyer representing Islamic institutions. “The government could take other steps to reduce animal suffering.”

The new law has the effect of making it difficult for observant Jews to live according to their traditions said Rabbi Schmahl of Belgium whose duties include fielding halachic queries and certifying kosher restaurants. Belgium has roughly 500,000 Muslims and 30,000 Jews.

Even the New York Times, in an editorial, called bans on ritual slaughter possible “smoke screens for bigotry against Jews and Muslims.” It warned that “those who really care about the welfare of animals should be wary of making common cause with right-wing nationalists whose hostile intent is to make life more difficult for religious minorities.”

Charges of religious persecution might be heightened as they come on the heels of “cow protection” laws passed by India’s Hindu nationalist party in 2018 through which hundreds of Muslims in the meat trade industry lost their jobs.

Yet animal lovers contend there are ways to preserve the intent of ritual slaughter––that an animal is in perfect health and disease-free––without inflicting such suffering. They also question where religious boundaries end and secular laws begin. “If a religious practice specified beating a child would it prevail?” asked one animal rights activist.

There is a final irony in this battle between the religious practice of ritual slaughter and animal protection. Kosher and halal slaughter are so similar to each other that Muslims often substitute kosher foods when their own ritually produced and certified halal foods are not available. Yes–slaughter is one of the few precepts that fundamentalism Islam and fundamentalism Judaism agree upon.

A Saudi Teen and Freedom’s Shining Moment

Kani Xulam

The first Saturday of 2019 didn’t start well for Rahaf al-Qanun, the Saudi teen, who wanted to make a dash for freedom in Australia via Thailand.

The forces of “order” blocked her path in the Thai capital.

On the second Saturday, January 12, she landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport in Ontario. Chrystia Freeland, the foreign minister of Canada, was among those who welcomed her to her new homeland.

What catapulted this unknown Saudi teen into stardom is an incredible story of freedom and its glorious victory with the help of Twitter, journalists and ordinary people with smartphones all over the world.

Steve Jobs, the child of a Syrian immigrant, can rest in peace for gifting humanity a splendid invention. If awards were given to gadgets, his would have garnered the liberty’s highest honor.

Rahaf al-Qanun, the daughter of an Arab governor in Saudi Arabia, grew up in the lap of luxury and took advantage of what the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia offers to its privileged youth: education.

But the more she expanded her mind, the less she liked her country. Wealth had put her in a class of its own with severe restrictions, but she wanted to be free—and if needed poor.

Her sex was a liability. She refused to accept her lot.

She plotted an escape plan and as luck would have it, her family went on a trip to Kuwait. In the more liberal Arab state, she was able to board a plane for Australia via Thailand and landed in Bangkok on January 5.

In the Thai capital, her passport was confiscated. She was placed in a hotel room and told: she would have to wait till the notification of her relatives.

Rahaf al-Qanun was trying to put a distance between herself and her relatives in Saudi Arabia. She had already violated her country’s strict laws by flying solo. She was not a masochist and was not going to volunteer for it.

In her hotel room, she set up a Twitter account and began tweeting—first in Arabic and then in English—that her life was in danger and she didn’t want to do anything with the country of her birth.

Those who received her tweets and re-tweeted them to journalists didn’t need convincing that her life was indeed in danger. The stories of Dina Ali Lasloom and that of Jamal Khashoggi were still fresh on their minds.

Dina Ali Lasloom, a Saudi woman, had also wanted to make a dash for freedom in Australia via Philippines. Arrested in Manila, she was flown back to Riyadh, a day later, with her mouth taped and arms and legs bound like some wild animal.

That was 20 months ago—and no one has heard from her since.

Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, had met a violent end at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

That was three months ago—and his loved-ones are still waiting to bury his missing corpse.

That savage act had galvanized the world public opinion against the kingdom and it looked like, Rahaf al-Qanun, might, with a bit of luck, become its first deserving beneficiary.

The tipping point came when Sophie McNeill, an Australian reporter, saw one of her distressing tweets and flew to the Thai capital and offered to barricade herself in the same hotel room with her.

With a lover of their common sisterhood on her side, her tweets became more potent, and the photos and videos more graphic.

In a ten-second video soon seen by more than a million people, an anxious Rahaf al-Qanun looks into her smartphone’s camera—held by her new sister Sophie—and eloquently states:

“I am not leaving my room till I see someone from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). I want asylum.”

With thousands following her case live, the Thai officials were compelled to let the UNHCR personal meet with her. Well versed with the plight of women in the kingdom, they took her into their custody, as was their mandate.

They appealed to the Australian government on her behalf, but were told she would not be treated differently and must get in line behind 25.4 million other asylum seekers in the world.

Meanwhile, the Saudi Chargé d’affaires in Bangkok was doing his best to thwart the plans of Rahaf al-Qanun. He conceded to one huge blunder on the part of his hosts: “They should have taken her smart phone instead of her passport.”

Not wanting to take chances with the life of Rahaf al-Qanun in Thailand, the UNHCR personal reached out to the other embassies for help. Canada offered to process her paper work right away, enabling her to fly to Canada one week after landing in the Thai capital.

An Egyptian journalist, Mona Eltahawy, said of the climactic moment, “Mark my word: Rahaf al-Qanun is going to start a revolution in Saudi Arabia.”

Will she?

I don’t know. What I do know is this: if you are a female Muslim and feel the oppression of the male members of your family and society, invest in a smartphone and befriend a smarter journalist like Sophie McNeill.

They are your tickets to freedom, for now that is, until we make the Middle East safe for all its children.

Top 10 Reasons Not to Love NATO

David Swanson

Judging by comments in social media and the real world, millions of people in the United States have gone from having little or no opinion on NATO, or from opposing NATO as the world’s biggest military force responsible for disastrous wars in places like Afghanistan (for Democrats) or Libya (for Republicans), to believing NATO to be a tremendous force for good in the world.

I believe this notion to be propped up by a series of misconceptions that stand in dire need of correction.

1. NATO is not a war-legalizing body, quite the opposite. NATO, like the United Nations, is an international institution that has something or other to do with war, but transferring the UN’s claimed authority to legalize a war to NATO has no support whatsoever in reality. The crime of attacking another nation maintains an absolutely unaltered legal status whether or not NATO is involved. Yet NATO is used within the U.S. and by other NATO members as cover to wage wars under the pretense that they are somehow more legal or acceptable. This misconception is not the only way in which NATO works against the rule of law. Placing a primarily-U.S. war under the banner of NATO also helps to prevent Congressional oversight of that war. Placing nuclear weapons in “non-nuclear” nations, in violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty, is also excused with the claim that the nations are NATO members (so what?). And NATO, of course, assigns nations the responsibility to go to war if other nations go to war — a responsibility that requires them to be prepared for war, with all the damage such preparation does.

2. NATO is not a defensive institution. According to the New York Times, NATO has “deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years.” This is an article of faith, based on the unsubstantiated belief that Soviet and Russian aggression toward NATO members has existed for 70 years and that NATO has deterred it rather than provoked it. In violation of a promise made, NATO has expanded eastward, right up to the border of Russia, and installed missiles there. Russia has not done the reverse. The Soviet Union has, of course, ended. NATO has waged aggressive wars far from the North Atlantic, bombing Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya. NATO has added a partnership with Colombia, abandoning all pretense of its purpose being in the North Atlantic. No NATO member has been attacked or credibly threatened with attack, apart from small-scale non-state blowback from NATO’s wars of aggression.

3. Trump is not trying to destroy NATO. Donald Trump, as a candidate and as U.S. President, has wondered aloud and even promised all kinds of things and, in many cases, the exact opposite as well. When it comes to actions, Trump has not taken any actions to limit or end or withdraw from NATO. He has demanded that NATO members buy more weapons, which is of course a horrible idea. Even in the realm of rhetoric, when European officials have discussed creating a European military, independent of the United States, Trump has replied by demanding that they instead support NATO.

4. If Trump were trying to destroy NATO, that would tell us nothing about NATO. Trump has claimed to want to destroy lots of things, good and bad. Should I support NAFTA or corporate media or the Cold War or the F35 or anything at all, simply because some negative comment about it escapes Trump’s mouth? Should I cheer for every abuse ever committed by the CIA or the FBI because they investigate Trump? Should I long for hostility between nuclear-armed governments because Democrats claim Trump is a Russian agent? When Trump defies Russia to expand NATO, or to withdraw from a disarmament treaty or from an agreement with Iran, or to ship weapons to Ukraine, or to try to block Russian energy deals in Europe, or to oppose Russian initiatives on banning cyber-war or weapons in space, should I cheer for such consistent defiance of Trump’s Russian master, and do so simply because Russia is, so implausibly, his so-inept master? Or should I form my own opinion of things, including of NATO?

5. Trump is not working for, and was not elected by, Russia.According to the New York Times, “Russia’s meddling in American elections and its efforts to prevent former satellite states from joining the alliance have aimed to weaken what it views as an enemy next door, the American officials said.” But are anonymous “American officials” really needed to acquire Russia’s openly expressed opinion that NATO is a threatening military alliance that has moved weapons and troops to states on Russia’s border? And has anyone produced the slightest documentation of the Russian government’s aims in an activity it has never admitted to, namely “meddling in American elections,” — an activity the United States has of course openly admitted to in regard to Russian elections? We have yet to see any evidence that Russia stole or otherwise acquired any of the Democratic Party emails that documented that party’s rigging of its primary elections in favor of Clinton over Sanders, or even any claim that the tiny amount of weird Facebook ads purchased by Russians could possibly have influenced the outcome of anything. Supposedly Trump is even serving Russia by demanding that Turkey not attack Kurds. But is using non-military means to discourage Turkish war-making necessarily the worst thing? Would it be if your favorite party or politician did it? If Trump encouraged a Turkish war, would that also be a bad thing because Trump did it, or would it be a bad thing for substantive reasons?

6. If Trump were elected by and working for Russia, that would tell us nothing about NATO. Imagine if Boris Yeltsin were indebted to the United States and ended the Soviet Union. Would that tell us whether ending the Soviet Union was a good thing, or whether the Soviet Union was obsolete for serious reasons? If Trump were a Russian pawn and began reversing all of his policies on Russia to match that status, including restoring his support for the INF Treaty and engaging in major disarmament negotiations, and we ended up with a world of dramatically reduced military spending and nuclear armaments, with the possibility of all dying in a nuclear apocalypse significantly lowered, would that too simply be a bad thing because Trump?

7. Russia is not a military threat to the world. That Russia would cheer NATO’s demise tells us nothing about whether we should cheer too. Numerous individuals and entities who indisputably helped to put Trump in the White House would dramatically oppose and others support NATO’s demise. We can’t go by their opinions either, since they don’t all agree. We really are obliged to think for ourselves. Russia is a heavily armed militarized nation that commits the crime of war not infrequently. Russia is a top weapons supplier to the world. All of that should be denounced for what it is, not because of who Russia is or who Trump is. But Russia spends a tiny fraction of what the United States does on militarism. Russia has been reducing its military spending each year, while the United States has been increasing its military spending. U.S. annual increases have sometimes exceeded Russia’s entire military budget. The United States has bombed nine nations in the past year, Russia one. The United States has troops in 175 nations, Russia in 3. Gallup and Pew find populations around the world viewing the United States, not Russia, as the top threat to peace in the world. Russia has asked to join NATO and the EU and been rejected, NATO members placing more value on Russia as an enemy. Anonymous U.S. military officials describe the current cold war as driven by weapons profits. Those profits are massive, and NATO now accounts for about three-quarters of military spending and weapons dealing on the globe.

8. Crimea has not been seized. According to the New York Times, “American national security officials believe that Russia has largely focused on undermining solidarity between the United States and Europe after it annexed Crimea in 2014. Its goal was to upend NATO, which Moscow views as a threat.” Again we have an anonymous claim as to a goal of a government in committing an action that never occurred. We can be fairly certain such things are simply made up. The vote by the people of Crimea to re-join Russia is commonly called the Seizure of Crimea. This infamous seizure is hard to grasp. It involved a grand total of zero casualties. The vote itself has never been re-done. In fact, to my knowledge, not a single believer in the Seizure of Crimea has ever advocated for re-doing the vote. Coincidentally, polling has repeatedly found the people of Crimea to be happy with their vote. I’ve not seen any written or oral statement from Russia threatening war or violence in Crimea. If the threat was implicit, there remains the problem of being unable to find Crimeans who say they felt threatened. (Although I have seen reports of discrimination against Tartars during the past 4 years.) If the vote was influenced by the implicit threat, there remains the problem that polls consistently get the same result. Of course, a U.S.-backed coup had just occurred in Kiev, meaning that Crimea — just like a Honduran immigrant — was voting to secede from a coup government, by no means an action consistently frowned upon by the United States.

9. NATO is not an engaged alternative to isolationism. The notion that supporting NATO is a way to cooperate with the world ignores superior non-deadly ways to cooperate with the world. A nonviolent, cooperative, treaty-joining, law-enforcing alternative to the imperialism-or-isolationism trap is no more difficult to think of or to act on than treating drug addiction or crime or poverty as reason to help people rather than to punish them. The opposite of bombing people is not ignoring them. The opposite of bombing people is embracing them. By the standards of the U.S. communications corporations Switzerland must be the most isolationist land because it doesn’t join in bombing anyone. The fact that it supports the rule of law and global cooperation, and hosts gatherings of nations seeking to work together is simply not relevant.

10. April 4 belongs to Martin Luther King, Jr., not militarism. War is a leading contributor to the growing global refugee and climate crises, the basis for the militarization of the police, a top cause of the erosion of civil liberties, and a catalyst for racism and bigotry. A growing coalition is calling for the abolition of NATO, the promotion of peace, the redirection of resources to human and environmental needs, and the demilitarization of our cultures. Instead of celebrating NATO’s 70^thanniversary, we’re celebrating peace on April 4, in commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech against war on April 4, 1967, as well as his assassination on April 4, 1968.

‘Broken extended ‘ families and their significance

Sheshu Babu

Though the trend towards ‘ nuclear’ families where the family unit is mainly parents and children is increasing, there are indications of increase in families which are neither nuclear nor joint. These may be called ‘broken extended ‘ families.

Modern trends

Over half of India’s households have been recorded as nuclear families since 1990s. Joint families make just 16% of all house – holds. About a third of households are neither ‘ nuclear’ nor ‘ joint’ . Recently released 2011 census data shows that there is a whole range of households between nuclear and joint.

Numerically biggest among these is ‘ supplemented nuclear’ households making up 16% of the 25 crore families in India (‘ Supplemented nuclear’ families make 16% of Indian households, by Subodh Verma, published on Jul 5, 2017 , timesofindia.indiatimes.com). These house holds are households where an unmarried relative of husband or wife or an elderly aunt stays along with them. But the curious fact is that share of ‘ broken extended’ house holds in terms of total households. It is 4% or 1 crore households. These have grown about 180% in a decade. ‘Broken extended’ households are defined as those with a head of the household without a spouse, and some other relatives in residence, not more than one of whom is married. For example, an elderly widowed woman staying with her elderly widowed sister-in-law and their married nephew and spouse. Female headed households of such types have increased seven times in the past decade. This may be due to increased life expectancy of women and people migrating to work.

The total number of households increased by 29% between 2001- 2011 while joint family system had only 9% increase. This may indicate breakdown of joint family system .

Significantly, joint families are increasing in cities and reducing in rural areas. They rose by 29% in urban areas and just 2% in rural areas in the decade.

Factors

Economic factors are mainly responsible for increase of such families. The young are migrating to cities in search of jobs as the agriculture sector is declining due to lack of proper policies that assist growth of this sector. Alongwith the young, their family members who depend economically are forced to migrate. The expensive urban life in urban areas is also contributing for the rapid increase of combined living. Housing facilities in urban areas are lacking and thus, nuclear families are forced to accommodate other members or relatives

More women working in urban areas may also contribute to rise in some form of joint families in cities. But data shows women participation in work is pathetic. Despite higher education levels, women drop out from work after marriage. A survey of 1,000 women in Delhi found that 18-34 percent women work after having a child. (Where are Indian Working Women, by Mandakini Devasher Surie , March 9, 2016, asiafoundation.org). According to statistics of government, women labor participation rate fell from 29.4% from 2004-2005 to 22.5% in 2011-12. But analysis shows that women participation in work in urban areas is on the rise.( Urban India and its Female Demographic Dividend, Shriya Anand and Jyothi Koduganti, July 30, 2015, indiaspend.com). The number of women working and seeking work grew 14.4% annually between 1991 and 2011 even though the population of urban wonen grew at only 4.5% during the same period.

Future

The trend of extended families in urban area and towns may rise due to various factors. Cities are becoming overpopulated as people are deserting villages in search of jobs. The agriculture sector is being slowly wiped out due to fast growing industrialisation. Hence, rural employment should be addressed so that migration might be reduced. The cities are becoming cramped and environmentally hazardous. Balanced development is crucial for preservation of healthy family system in the country.

Is US Hubris Taking The World To The Edge?

Askiah Adam

Another US regime change undertaking is about to begin. Meanwhile, the Syrian misadventure will, hopefully, end soon and Bashar Al Assad’s enduring presence in Damascus is Washington’s failure writ large.

But that is not stopping the neoconservatives. Washington is beating the war drums again, this time in Latin America.

Venezuela, and its Bolivarian socialist revolution has long irked the United States. And, when on 10thJanuary last the re-elected Nicolas Maduro was sworn-in for his second six-year term as President, US imperial vitriol was unleashed, unfettered.  The pomp and ceremony was attended by 94 international delegations — among them Russia and China — and the presidents of Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba, and too the celebrating crowds of Venezuelans. Obviously, neither Maduro nor Venezuela is isolated.

The US National Security Advisor, John Bolton, declared that Washington is not recognising President Maduro whose claim to power the US considers illegitimate. As has become the norm this decision was based on lies. Bolton claims the latter’s election was “not free, fair or credible” but the international Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America found it to be perfectly legitimate despite US meddling. The same tact is being voiced by the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.For his part he promises that “the United States will work diligently to restore a real democracy to that country.”

Given the news blockade imposed on Venezuela there is no way mainstream media reporting on the country can be balanced and fair. With regard the 20th May 2018 elections, mainstream media reported it as heavily rigged to favour Maduro, the dictator. However, former president Jimmy Carter whose Carter Centre has a Democracy Programme said, “As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”

If then a resounding victory over his opponent does not make Maduro the winner, what does? Over 60 per cent of a turnout of 46.02 per cent of eligible voters cast their votes for him. Even Donald Trump won the US presidency on a minority vote smaller than that commanded by Maduro. In today’s democracies, with the exception of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who can claim otherwise?

That it is mere pretext used to destabilise Venezuela further cannot be denied. A US-led economic war against Venezuela has been on-going. A financial blockade is already in place leaving the Venezuelan economy vastly weakened with inflation spiraling out of control. The blockade has crippled its oil industry, the country’s main foreign currency earner. All this to facilitate US multinational corporations like Exxon-Mobil. Meanwhile the people suffer. And yet, Nicolas Maduro is returned to power peacefully via the ballot box because his policies ensure that the ordinary Venezuelan is fed, schooled and employed: the CLAP Boxes programme distributes food boxes to households; there is free healthcare and education; and, wages are protected.

Unfortunately, regime change is already underway. The US is supporting a move by the leader of the National Assembly to step in as interim president. But the National Assembly is held in contempt by the country’s Supreme Court for swearing-in three deputies under investigation for election irregularities. And the former has been unwilling to accept the judgement until today, making all its actions null and void. Such a move by the US is nothing short of contemptuous. Furthermore, the needs of governance forced Maduro to convene another elected assembly, the National Constituent Assembly, a move provided for by the Venezuelan Constitution, meaning that democracy is alive and well.

In the meantime, the US ambassador to Germany is throwing his weight around, behaving as if he’s the colonial master, threatening German companies involved in the Nord Stream2 project with sanctions. Prior to this he openly supported the right wing, anti-immigration party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), to the point where he was accused by the German media of attempting a “regime change”. However, this interference is not new. Under President Obama America’s intelligence tapped into the personal phone calls of Chancellor Merkel.

If an ally is treated with scant respect, what more a government unwilling to acquiesceto Washington’s will?

However, the signals emanating from Washington, at the moment, are conflicting. President Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria was vociferously attacked, not by a handful, but nearly everyone who matters in Washington including Bolton and Pompeo who were desperately trying to walk back that decision. And, if reports are to be believed the President has again reaffirmed his wish to withdraw from Syria thus negating his own advisors.

Several instances suggest that he is being actively subverted by his own administration and that the Democrats’ call for his impeachment could be bipartisan and is being stage-managed by the Deep State.

In Venezuela, however, he appears to be at one with them and has yet to repudiate the threats made by both Pompeo and Bolton to change the elected government in Caracas. This is true also with regard Ukraine where the failed regime, actively backed by the US, is acting as its proxy. The overt provocations against Russia, as in the recent Kerch Strait incident, is proof.

How does one explain Washington’s bizarre foreign policy, one that has resorted to nabbing individuals almost literally off the streets and holding them in detention, the latest being the Press TV anchorwoman and journalist Marzieh Hashemi? At the time of writing she has been held for some 48 hours with no reasons given.

A nuclear superpower going rogue is a frightening spectacle. What more when its chief executive appears to be finding it near impossible to assert his authority. And, not forgetting, too, the flagrant violations of international law by the US. Is the world helpless to defend itself against such unpredictable volatility?

Signs of slump in Australia overshadow looming election

Mike Head

Economic indicators are pointing to a sharp downturn in Australia, driven by the intensifying global turmoil, that will shatter all the promises being made, including by the opposition Labor Party, in the lead-up to a general election that must be held by May.

Reports have emerged in recent days of poor retail sales, more closures and job losses, plunging consumer and business confidence and rising bank interest rates. These indices have added to the concerns generated by the collapse of the property market bubble that largely propped up Australian capitalism after the implosion of the mining boom in 2012.

The trends are further signals of the Australian economy’s exposure to the growing impact of the US-China trade war and underlying economic conflict. This is adding to a growth reversal in China—Australia’s largest export market—plus the uncertainty produced by the Brexit crisis, plunges on world share markets and signs of political instability and recession in Europe.

Adding to the nervousness in the corporate elite is the brittleness of the political situation in Australia itself. The Liberal-National Coalition government has continued to be wracked by factional warfare since last August’s backroom coup that installed Scott Morrison as the seventh prime minister since 2007. The Labor Party and trade union leaders sounded alarms at last month’s Labor Party conference about explosive discontent in the working class because of years of falling wages, attacks on working conditions and deteriorating social services.

Yet all the deceptive pre-election pledges being made by the Coalition, Labor and a plethora of other parties are predicated on unreal assumptions of strong global and domestic economic growth. Once the election is out of the way, whichever party heads the next government will seek to impose yet another wave of austerity measures and job-shedding.

“The latest sharp decline in consumer confidence highlights the fragile nature of the national economic outlook as well as domestic and global political uncertainty,” warned Thursday’s editorial in the Australian.

“A fall of 4.7 percent from last month—and more than 5 percent from the same time last year—is the largest drop in the Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment for more than three years. It marks a tipping point from cautious optimism to a clearly pessimistic outlook and it is mirrored by anecdotal evidence of softness in the retail sector.”

That index’s fall to 99.6—below 100 indicates pessimism—followed what the Australian Financial Review termed “soft economic data in recent weeks.” These included weak housing credit, further falls in home prices, a plunge in residential building approvals—pointing to falling dwelling investment, continuing weakness in car sales, a downturn in job ads and vacancies, and falls in business conditions.

Perhaps the sharpest recent signs are those in the retail sector. The 87-store menswear chain Ed Harry went into administration on Tuesday following “particularly tough” Christmas trading, threatening about 500 jobs. Analysts expect more retailers to collapse this year.

According to ShopperTrak, which measures visits to shopping centres, customer traffic year-on-year fell 15 percent in the week ending December 23 and 23 percent in the week ending December 30, dragging the result for December down 12.2 percent. This cannot simply be accounted for by the growing shift to online shopping which has produced a 12-month average decline of just 2.2 percent.

Shares in Wesfarmers, the country’s largest retail and supermarket conglomerate with about 220,000 employees, fell on January 14 after the group said earnings from its department stores division would fall about 7 percent in the December-half to between $385 million and $400 million, with especially weak Christmas trading at Kmart.

The negative Kmart trading update followed profit warnings from two prominent retailers, Kathmandu and Costa Group. More such reports are likely to come. Deutsche Bank last week said several retailers had described recent trading as the “worst Christmas in a number of years.”

The Ed Harry liquidation adds to a list of high-profile closures that have destroyed thousands of jobs over the past two years. These included Herringbone, Rhodes and Beckett, Top Shop, Dick Smith, Oroton, Marcs, David Lawrence, Pumpkin Patch, Payless Shoes, Live Clothing, Maggie T, Metalicus, Esprit, Roger David and Toy ‘R’ Us. Major retail chains, such as Premier Investments, Myer and David Jones, are also shutting down stores.

Homewares retailers in particular face difficulties, with house prices tipped to fall another 5 percent in 2019, on top of 6.1 percent in 2018, cutting the capacity of debt-laden households to borrow on the basis of inflated values. Dwelling commencements dropped 5.7 percent in the third quarter of 2018.

The retail bankruptcies are adding to the pressure on the banks, already facing the prospect of rising mortgage defaults. Australia’s four big banks rely on home mortgages for up to 70 percent of their loans and profits, with commercial business lending accounts for most of the remainder.

Also experiencing rising interest rates in the global financial markets on which they depend for their lending funds, the banks have begun lift mortgage rates, and this will add to the likelihood of household defaults.

National Australia Bank’s digital bank UBank raised rates on a range of fixed-interest products by 20 basis points this week, following similar moves by Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s subsidiary Bankwest and Bank of Queensland’s Virgin Money. Other lenders are expected to do the same.

AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver told the Australian Financial Review this week that rising funding pressure and deteriorating economic conditions would force the central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), to cut official cash rates, which have been held at an “emergency” low of 1.5 percent for a record 28 months.

This would be a stark turnaround. The RBA previously indicated that it would soon start to follow the US Federal Reserve and other central banks in increasing interest rates to “normal” levels after a decade of pumping cheap money into financial markets since the 2008 global breakdown.

The January 17 Australian editorial pointed to preparations being made in corporate ruling circles for an election defeat of the Coalition government, saying there was evidence that “consumers and businesses already may be factoring in a change of government in Canberra.”

The editorial demanded a political focus on the economic fragility, instead of the “leadership rivalries, personality feuds, and sex and entitlements scandals” that have erupted within the Coalition government. “Repairing our fiscal position” had to be a central issue in the election.

In line with such demands from the ruling class, Labor has vowed to deliver bigger budget surpluses than the Coalition, while still making populist pitches to address the deepening social inequality, and matching the government’s massive boost to military spending.

Eliminating the multi-billion dollar budget deficits that have prevailed since 2008 will mean intensifying the attacks on essential social programs, such as health, education, housing and welfare, regardless of all the election promises.

Extreme heatwave hits Australia

Frank Gaglioti

While Germany, Austria, Serbia and other parts of Central and Eastern Europe face one of their coldest January in recent years, the Australian continent is experiencing record heatwaves. Scientific evidence indicates that global warming is exacerbating the extreme conditions around the world.

The extended period of high temperatures in Australia is having serious impacts on people’s health, as well as agriculture and wildlife. On January 16, for example, some towns recorded temperatures just below 50C (122F).

Tarcoola in the middle of South Australia had the highest temperature at 49.1C. Swathes of central Australia, New South Wales (NSW) and northern Victoria recorded temperatures of around 46C.

The intense heat is expected to continue across the continent into this weekend, with Canberra, the national capital, suffering four consecutive days above 40C (104F), a record.

“Certainly the duration of this event and the spatial extent of the heatwave across the southern half of Australia seems to be quite significant,” Weatherzone senior meteorologist Jacob Cronje told the media. “By the end of the week, we should see many records broken across NSW.”

The heatwave started on December 25, when Marble Bar in the Pilbara mining region of northwest Western Australia reached 49.3 degrees. According to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), this was the third-highest December temperature ever recorded anywhere in the country.

The BOM said the heatwave emanated from the Pilbara and extended across the country. The severe heat was intensified by the failure of monsoonal rains, making the region extremely dry. These weather systems moved east across the country. According to Cronje, temperatures may exceed 50C as the heatwave continues.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported a spike in cardiac arrests and people presenting to emergency departments and ambulance callouts.

NSW Health warned of heightened levels of ozone, resulting from pollution from vehicles and air conditioners interacting with sunlight. Ozone is known to be an irritant to people with respiratory conditions such as asthma.

Heatwaves are one the biggest killers in Australia. People suffering chronic conditions, such as heart disease and asthma, are the most vulnerable. The elderly and very young are at very high risk also. Medical researchers estimated that over 430 people died from the extreme heat during the January–February 2009 heatwave, when temperatures climbed to 46C.

Stone fruit farmers are losing their crops as the heat literally cooks the fruit in their skins. Dried Tree Fruits Australia chairman Kris Werner told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “The stone burns them, which means they burn on the inside, they become squashy and you can’t use them.

In December the BOM and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) issued their joint biennial assessment of Australia’s climate. The State of the Climate 2018 report pointed to the increasing impact of global warming on the world’s climate.

This year was the third warmest on record in Australia, with the annual mean temperature 1.14 degrees above average. Globally, 2018 was the fourth warmest on record. Eight of Australia’s hottest years on record have occurred since 2005.

“The shift to a warmer climate in Australia is accompanied by more extreme daily heat events,” the report stated.

The drying of southern Australia is one of the most important shifts in climate, impacting on agriculture and lengthening the bush fire season. Weather patterns are changing, with a reduction in the number of cold fronts and a decrease in the number and intensity in cut-off lows in south-eastern Australia. Such systems bring most rainfall to the region.

The El Niño, La Niña and the Indian Ocean dipole weather systems are variations in ocean temperatures in the Pacific and the Indian Oceans that influence Australia’s climate. El Niño and La Niña are currently very weak, with little impact on climate, while the Indian Ocean dipole is producing drier conditions across Australia, particularly in spring.

Scientists now understand that ocean temperatures have an enormous effect on climate. Measurements show that the sea has heated by one degree since 1910, similar to the warming taking place on land. Preliminary data for 2018 show the sea surface temperature around Australia was the tenth highest on record. Intense heatwaves have been measured in the Tasman Sea off southeast Australia and Tasmania. Such heat is also known to be a significant cause of the Great Barrier Reef’s bleaching events.

The State of the Climate 2018 report indicated that the world’s oceans absorb more than 90 percent of the extra energy from greenhouse warming. The rate of heating on the earth’s land surfaces has slowed as a result of this warming of the oceans, although what is occurring at deeper levels is not very well known.

Global warming is driven primarily by the increase in greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. There are three key global monitoring stations located around the world where the air is cleanest, with the Australian station located at Cape Grim on the northwest tip of Tasmania. These stations have been continuously monitoring for 42 years. Cape Grim has shown an upward trend, passing 400 parts per million of air (ppm) in May 2016 and remained above this level ever since, with 2017 levels at 402 ppm.

The State of the Climate 2018 report warns that the last time carbon dioxide levels were at this level or higher was during the Pliocene epoch, 5.3 million to 2.6 million years ago, when temperatures were generally 10 to 20 degrees hotter than today.

The report assessed that emissions from fossil fuels continued to rise during 2014–2016. It concluded that “the amount of climate change expected in the next decade or so is similar under all plausible global emissions pathways. However, by the mid-21st century, higher ongoing emissions of greenhouse gasses will lead to greater warming and associated impacts, and reducing emissions will lead to less warming and fewer associated impacts.”

In the measured language used by scientists this amounts to a stark warning that time is running out.

Significantly none of the leaders of Australia’s major political parties have uttered a word on these scientific reports.

Liberal-National Coalition Prime Minister Scott Morrison, an advocate of the coal industry, rejected calls by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last October for the phasing out of coal.

Asked if Australia would be held to its target to reduce emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent from 2005 levels, Morrison contemptuously replied: “No, we won’t … Nor are we bound to go and tip money into that big climate fund. We’re not going to do that either. I’m not going to spend money on global climate conferences and all that nonsense.”

Both the Labor Party and the Greens claim they will cut greenhouse gasses but when Labor was last in office greenhouse emissions continued to rise. The Greens falsely insist that the problem of global warming can be resolved without tacking its underlying source, the capitalist profit system.

Climate scientists understand the measures needed to drastically cut greenhouse gasses and curb global warming. The resources necessary for this, however, cannot be mobilised unless the profits of the banks and super rich are expropriated and used for the needs of humanity.

Indian government foreshadows harsher internet surveillance and censorship

Wasantha Rupasinghe

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has announced that it is planning to introduce even more intrusive social media censorship and internet surveillance laws.

The new measures, which are in still in draft form and open for “public comment” until January 31, were announced by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on December 24. The laws are in response to widespread popular opposition, particularly amongst young people, to the escalating anti-democratic attacks and austerity measures by Modi’s Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP)-led government.

Under Delhi’s planned laws, social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and others, must remove within 24 hours “any unlawful content” that might impact on the “sovereignty and integrity of India.” In other words, anything expressing its opposition to the political establishment could be banned, a clear sign that the Modi government is preparing a wider crackdown against its political opponents.

India’s telecommunication authorities also want Facebook, and other social media, to allow them to trace and read encrypted messages. WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, has more than 200 million users in India.

The Indian government’s attempt to police the internet is in line with laws by governments everywhere to censor and monitor millions of internet and social media users. The US government, particularly since early 2017, has collaborated with tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter, transforming them from tools for communication and the free exchange of information into massive data dragnets for policing what their users say, do and think.

India, which has nearly 500 million internet users, has been in the forefront of internet crackdowns that target political dissidents. Previous measures taken by Indian Internet Service Providers (ISPs), following demands from government authorities, included filtering systems that block the web pages of human rights organisations, feminist groups and political activists.

According to a recent report by Freedom House, a US-based internet monitoring agency, India leads the world in internet shutdowns with federal, state and local authorities ordering service providers to restrict cellphone, messaging and other services at least 96 times, between January and mid-August last year.

On December 18, Kishorechandra Wangkhem, a journalist in Manipur, was jailed for 12 months under the “preventive detention” clauses of the National Security Act, 1980. He had been arrested on November 21 for sedition and attempts to create enmity between groups after he posted a video on social media criticising the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Manipur state government and Prime Minister Modi.

Two days later on December 20, the Modi government authorised ten law enforcement, intelligence and tax agencies, as well as the Cabinet Secretariat, the Delhi commissioner of police and the Directorate of Signal Intelligence, to “intercept information, generated, transmitted, received or stored on any computer, smartphone, tablet or other computing device.”

In a crude attempt to deflect widespread opposition to the announcement, the minister of home affairs claimed no new powers had been given to these agencies in the December 20 order. “Each case of interception, monitoring, decryption is to be approved by the competent authority, i.e., Union Home Secretary.” In others words, the surveillance of any perceived opponent can be determined at any time by the government.

As one unnamed senior government bureaucrat admitted in an interview with the NDTV network: “For the first time, powers of scanning data at rest have been given to various agencies… Earlier, only data in motion could be intercepted. But now data revived, stored and generated can also be intercepted because the powers of seizure have been given.”

The draft law also compels the subscriber or service provider and any individual in charge of the computer resource to extend all facilities and technical help to government agencies if requested. If they fail to do so they face seven years in jail and a fine.

Arun Jaitley, India’s finance minister, attempted to deflect criticism by pointing out that computer monitoring regulations had existed since 2009 and were authorised by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

Notwithstanding the fact that the UPA introduced this anti-democratic legislation, Congress Party politicians have hypocritically denounced the current government’s new measures and postured as champions of democracy.

Congress Party spokesperson Anand Sharma told a December 21 press conference that the Modi government was “converting India into surveillance state” and that the draft laws were an “assault on the fundamental rights and the Rights to Privacy.” Sharma did not say a word about Congress’s duplicitous political record on internet surveillance.

No less hypocritical has been the response of the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPM, to the proposed censorship and surveillance laws. On December 21, the CPM issued a statement denouncing the planned measures as a “blatant attack on fundamental right to privacy given to every citizen by our constitution” and called for them to be “rescinded immediately.”

The CPM kept its mouth shut about the fact that it was a partner of the UPA government from 2004 to 2008. The Stalinist party is currently working for an “electoral understanding” with Congress in the next general elections to be held in April-May.

India’s ruling elite, which confronts growing working-class opposition to government attacks on jobs, wages and working conditions austerity, is determined to establish a massive censorship and surveillance regime. Congress and the CPM posturing over the new laws are entirely tactical and centre on how best to control and dissipate this rising mass movement.