Boris Johnson’s Slo-Motion Coup Eerily Recalls the Rise of Erdogan

Patrick Cockburn

Britain is experiencing a slow-moving coup d’etat in which a right-wing government progressively closes down or marginalises effective opposition to its rule. It concentrates power in its own hands by stifling parliament, denouncing its opponents as traitors to the nation, displacing critics in its own ranks, and purging non-partisan civil servants.

Some describe this as “a very British coup”, which gives the operation a warmer and fuzzier feeling than it deserves. It is, in fact, distinctly “un-British” in the sense that the coup makers ignore or manipulate the traditional unwritten rules of British politics over the past 400 years whereby no single faction or institution monopolises authority.

What we are seeing has nothing to do with the British past but a very modern coup in which a demagogic nationalist populist authoritarian leader vaults into power through quasi-democratic means and makes sure that he cannot be removed.

This new method of seizing power has largely replaced the old-fashioned military coup d’etat in which soldiers and tanks captured headquarters and hubs in the capital and took over the TV and radio stations. Likely opponents were rounded up or fled the country. The military leaders sought popular passivity rather than vocal support.

I first witnessed the new type of coup in action three years ago in Turkey when it took place in reaction to an old-fashioned military coup. Part of the Turkish army tried to stage a military putsch on 15 July 2016 and provided the then prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan with what appeared to him to be a heaven-sent opportunity to install an elective dictatorship in which subsequent elections and the real distribution of power could be pre-determined by control of the media, judiciary, civil service, security services and, if people still stubbornly voted against the government, by outright electoral fraud.

I spoke to plenty of people in Istanbul in the days after the abortive military coup who saw clearly that its failure meant that they might have escaped rule by the army, but only at the cost of being gripped ever more tightly by civilian authoritarian rule.

“Erdogan’s lust for power is too great for him to show restraint in stifling opposition in general,” predicted one intellectual who, like almost everybody I was interviewing at this time, would only speak anonymously. This was certainly wise: TV stations, radios, newspapers, critics of all sorts were being closed down by the minute. When one small-circulation satirical magazine dared to publish a cartoon mildly critical of the government, the police went from shop to shop confiscating copies.

Some Turks comforted themselves by quoting the saying that in government “the worst politician is better than the best general”. Three years later, those not forced into silence, in exile or in prison may not be so certain that the difference between a civilian and a military dictatorship is quite so great.

Less than a year after the failed military coup, Erdogan held a blatantly rigged referendum which marginalised parliament and gave him dictatorial powers. Despite the harassment and silencing of critics, it passed by only 51.4 per cent in favour of these constitutional changes as opposed to 48.6 per cent against. Even this narrow majority was only achieved late on election night when the head of the electoral board overseeing the election decided that votes not stamped as legally valid, numbering as many as 1.5 million, would be counted as valid, quite contrary to practice in previous Turkish elections.

By the day of the referendum in 2017, some 145,000 people had been detained, 134,000 sacked, and 150 media outlets closed. No act of persecution was too petty or cruel: one opposition MP, who denounced the “yes” vote, found that his 88-year-old mother had been discharged by way of retaliation from a hospital where she had been under treatment for two-and-a-half years.

Turkish elections are not a complete farce as in Egypt and Syria, as was shown by the election of an opposition candidate as mayor of Istanbul earlier this year. But the political process as a whole is now so skewed towards Erdogan that it will be extraordinarily difficult to dislodge him. This is a feature of the 21st-century type coup: once in office, leaders are proving more difficult to evict than a junta of military officers a century earlier.

Could the same thing happen here in Britain? This is one of the strengths of the Johnson coup: many people cannot believe that it has happened. British exceptionalism means that foreign experience is not relevant. Few knew or cared that Turkey had a strong tradition of parliamentary democracy as well as a grim record of military takeovers. But it is these slow-burn civilian coups which are such a feature of the modern world that we should be looking at – and trying to learn from – and nor what happened in Britain in the 1630s when Charles I sought to impose arbitrary government.

Opponents of the suspension of the parliament have a touching faith that the present government will stick by the historic rules of the political game when everything it has done so far shows a determination to manipulate and misuse these rules to gain and keep political power.

Many in Britain are now springing to the defence of parliament and elected representation, but they should have sprung a bit earlier. Those in the Labour Party who were neutral about Brexit – or even saw it as a welcome disruption of the status quo and an opportunity for radical reform – only now seem to be noticing that Brexit was always a vehicle whereby the hard right could take over the government.

Progressive Turks have been down this road and knew all too well what lay at the end of it. Revolutionaries on the left suddenly discover that the right also stages revolutions and that there is virtue in a fairly elected parliament. “So here I am, gone from post-structuralist anarchist to ballot-box monitor,” tweeted one Turkish convert to this view as he vainly tried to thwart fraudulent elections.

The quote comes from How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, the compelling and instructive book by the Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran which forecast a year ago where the Brexit crisis was heading. Her work should be prescribed reading for anybody seeking to understand and resist the global trend she describes.

A weakness of such resistance is that its potential leaders, including supposed radicals like Jeremy Corbyn, really do look at Britain’s past as a guide. It is those who have been mocked for trying to recreate a fantasy England, such as Johnson and his chief lieutenants, who are much more in tune with the modern world and instinctively follow in the footsteps of Trump, Erdogan and their like from Washington to Sao Paolo and Budapest to Manila.

The annus mirabilis of the new populist nationalist authoritarians was 2016: the Brexit referendum took place in June, the Turkish military coup and Erdogan’s counter-coup in July, and Donald Trump’s election as president in November. Johnson, Erdogan and Trump are alike in specialising in aggressive patriotism, defence of an endangered national independence, and nostalgia for past glories.

Successful resistance to this toxic trend means learning from the fresh experience of other nations similarly blighted and not from British history.

Entitlement of the Gun

David Sparenberg 

I write these words in an agony of urgency.  Already this year, 2019, there have been 31 mass shootings in the USA; more than in any other nation.  Over half of these have been in the state of Texas.  At what is only temporarily the most recent crime scene, in Odessa, one of the victims was 17 months old. The gunman shot the infant in the face.

How and why have we come to value the gun more than life?  How and why to equate the gun with patriotism and accept the gun as the symbol of contemporary America?

War begets war, violence begets violence.  Politically we are a war making nation.  Culturally, ours is a culture of violence.  The blow back wind, as bloody social pestilence, breathes malignantly along city streets, across public places.  Who holds the power that dictates, “This is what is, and this is how it will continue to be?”  Who is responsible; who without responsibility?  Why?

Every time there is a mass shooting, motivated by the politics of prejudice and hatred, and by self-appointed vengeance, decency and democracy are shot down.  Ordinary folk are murdered in their everydayness while special interests (those who gain the most from war and violence) maintain prestige in their positions of power and profit.

Ask yourselves as I am asking: How have we come to this place, on the near side of hell and madness; where the general public momentarily stirs from sleepwalking normalcy, atrocity by atrocity, before falling again into hypnotic and impotent sleep?  No doubt this contributes to the malaise of simmering frustration and humanitarian decline. But there are alternatives.  Waking up, taking unified action and demanding accountability are essential to change.

Dr. Martine Luther King, Jr. had a dream, a dream still waiting to become the reality of racial equality and justice under law, regardless of race, gender or economic status.  Mahatma Gandhi chose the lowly spinning wheel of home industry over the emblems of empire, brutality, and dehumanization.  Both King and Gandhi prescribed unconditional love as the strength of moral character and as the touchstone of engaged citizenship.

Where are we now, we who await being nextat the next pornographyof bullet holes?  How and when do we emerge from this nightmare ofmass murder that we have stumbled into accepting and empowering?  How many more of us will be targets before the outcry “Enough is enough” is a guardian principle of reality and changes are achieved to reconstruct sanity and for the sake of life?

Whose eyes, do you think, are most watchful of the horror’s accelerating repetition? Certainly, those of the world. That is disgrace.  More certainly, those of our children. And that is sin.

The Global Green New Deal is a Plan for Genocide

Anandi Sharan

This article is a criticism and condemnation of a self-declared “major” “modern money theory – green new deal initiative” written by the economist Bill Mitchell and disseminated on his website. According to his wikipedia page William Francis Mitchell was born March 1952 and is a professor of economics at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia and a notable proponent of modern monetary theory. The page says that Bill Mitchell coined the term, “modern monetary theory”, also known as, “MMT”.

In a blog on September 1 2019, which is being shared across quite a few green leftist groups on social media in the Anglo-Saxon culture, he reported that he and others are “putting together a major MMT-green new deal initiative in Australia which will have global ramifications. It will bring together MMT with climate action and indigenous rights interests. .. we will issue a ‘white paper’ in the coming months to articulate what we conceive as a jobs-first, equity-first MMT-green new deal might look like.” (Reference 1)

His message is being shared amongst other places in a group called “The Gower initiative for modern money studies” who laud it because there is “the growing acceptance of the modern monetary theory (MMT) position that reliance on monetary policy has not been a success and that a period of fiscal dominance is emerging. Part of that shift in policy focus should be to frame the challenges of the green new deal in a much more sensible way – avoiding ridiculous questions such as ‘how are we going to pay for it’ and statements such as ‘we cannot afford it’ when the proponents are constructing those questions purely in terms of not having ‘enough currency’ to facilitate the required real resource shifts. #GreenNewDeal #ClimateCrisis #MMT.” (Reference 2)

Another group, the global institute for sustainable prosperity, avidly proposes that “it is possible to truly have a sustainable economy on top of improving basic social and health services throughout the United States. We are here to help encourage communities to take part in educating others. Lecture will begin with an introduction to understanding modern monetary theory (MMT) by Fadhel Kaboub. During the theory into action half of the presentation with Steven B. Larchuk, the focus will be on health care, infrastructure, education, climate change, and a proposal for breaking the ice through federal funding of 100% of Medicaid” (Reference 3).

They also recommend that people attend another economist Stephanie Kelton’s “sustainable prosperity conference” in Adelaide, Australia, sometime this year. (Reference 4)

Of course the most famous advocates of the global green new deal are politicians of the Democratic party in the USA including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and their advisors and supporters.

In his August 8 2019 blog entitled “[t]he green new deal must wipe out precarious work and underemployment”, Bill Mitchell says that “[i]n mapping out what I think are the essential aspects of a social transformation that we might call a green new deal, eliminating precarious work is one of the priorities – it is intrinsic to creating a more equitable society in harmony with nature.”

Though Bill Mitchell calls it a social transformation, one of my fundamental disagreements with Bill Mitchell and the Gower initiative for modern money studies and the other groups and economists and politicians mentioned, is their belief that whether or not there will be a social transformation, what is really needed more than anything else is a benign state with absolute sovereign power and agency.

That Bill Mitchell has such a belief is evident from the title of his book Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World (Pluto Books, 2017). I have not read it, but the existence of the sovereign state is clearly thus in his view a necessary precondition for implementing his “major” “MMT – green new deal”. He wants to reclaim the state. He needs a state in order to exercise absolute sovereign power over the citizens, in order that, amongst other things, his state can have monopoly control over the national currency, its creation and management. He says that “[t]he green new deal will require a massive fiscal stimulus and many new job categories created and filled.”

Before assessing the money part, – which I may not even do in this article, or at all, because why should I enter into a discussion on how much money and from where and for what should be made available by the various national and presumably international and possibly even global financial authorities for the global green new deal, when I consider this exercise a fundamentally genocidal proposition -, it is important to assess the ecological part.

No more money can be put into circulation than is feasible. There are resource limits. Even MMT economists accept that. And one resource limit for the global money supply is the stable atmosphere. Another is land. A third is population, a fourth is nitrogen, and so on.

The stable atmosphere is preserved if the activities of humans and animals are part of a flux of around 100 – 120 billion tonnes of carbon (360 – 440 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide) circulating in the biosphere every year.

As an aside we should mention that this flux has not much to do with the overall amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. Humans and animals breathe in the oxygen deposited in the atmosphere over a period of half a billion years or so. Sometime 55 million years ago the part of oxygen in the atmosphere stabilised at 21%. Even if all living beings on earth were burnt to cinders and there were no more plants exhaling oxygen, the part of oxygen in the atmosphere would barely change by a tenth of a percent or two. Like fossil fuels in the ground, the oxygen in the air was deposited there over half a billion years or so and is not likely to be affected by the annual carbon flux very much.

On the other hand, the short term average global temperature of the earth that is linked to the carbon dioxide concentrations and the methane concentration in the atmosphere is a different resource all together. This resource, the resource of a stable temperature, has been destabilised multiple times over geological time, but never so far terminally for humans, since the first appearance of homo habilis two point eight million years ago.

For the last 200’000 years the 360 – 440 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide that are exchanged between the atmosphere and the plants and animals and rocks and oceans every year have kept the concentrations in the atmosphere within the broad range of 180 – 300 parts per million. Then suddenly after the 19th century period of deforestation, industrialisation and the removal of fossil fuels from underground, the concentrations shot up to 350 ppm by 1988 and 415 ppm by 2019. The last time carbon dioxide concentrations and the matching methane concentrations in the atmosphere were at this level was 3.5 million years ago.

One may think a few parts per million here or there does not make much difference. But organisms whether they are small like humans or large like the biosphere are delicately balanced chemical systems. Police in the town of Riga in Latvia once picked up a man with 7.22 parts per million of alcohol in his blood. The report went on to say that an average person would vomit at around 1.2, lose consciousness at 3.0 and stop breathing at a level of about 4.0 parts per million. Thus if the norm for the biosphere is 180 – 300 ppm, and the present level is 415 ppm, and the projected levels are between two or three or up to five times this, this is a potentially lethal dose for those animals such as humans that are not made either for such levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere nor for the matching levels of methane to go with that or the potentially upto 10 degrees Celsius warming that goes with such levels too.

Assuming we as a human species do want to make a concerted effort to stop concentrations from going any higher than 415 ppm, and supposing we want to call into being a programme to bring the concentrations back down to between 180 and 300 ppm, would the continued emissions of carbon dioxide and methane that would be associated with manufacturing the machines needed for a global green new deal be part of any even half-way responsible plan? No. All emissions of carbon dioxide have to stop now. After all carbon dioxide molecules sit in the atmosphere for 100 – 200 years. There are still around 2000 billion tonnes of excess carbon dioxide, from burning fossil fuels since 1953, in the atmosphere, the impacts of which are yet to come.

I have published the calculations of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with the proposed global green new deal before, but I repeat them here.

In 2018 the total emissions from all companies and countries added thirty seven point one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This should be compared with the one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide every year in the two thousand years during the during the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum when temperatures shot up and stayed up for six million years after the event. Today our capitalist forest and fossil fuel burning event, that has been taking place since the 1750s or so, has a temperature rise of ten degrees Celsius programmed into the system. Not one of the two hundred odd fossil fuel companies that have been supplying this commercial energy since the beginning of the twentieth century has been closed down despite the fact that we know that it is very likely that ten degrees Celsius temperature rise due to their pollution will occur in the next one hundred years, possibly even sooner.

Now assuming that wind, solar, wave and other commercial renewable energy technologies are manufactured for the global green new deal using fossil fuels, and assuming a rate of sixty Watt hours of energy required for manufacturing and transporting every one thousand Watt hours of such renewable electricity generation, and assuming every one in the world is going get the green new deal implemented for them, we can calculate the global carbon dioxide emissions planned as a constituent element of this proposal.

I am assuming an installed capacity per person of two thousand Watt of wind and a net capacity factor for wind of fifty percent, and four thousand Watt of photovoltaic electricity generation capacity and two thousand sunshine hours for the solar electricity systems per annum, so annual electricity consumption per person in the world will be eight million seven hundred and sixty thousand Watt hours for wind and eight million Watt hours for solar electricity. So lets take eight million Watt hours consumption per person per year from electricity consumption supplied under the New Green Deal.

In this scenario we are leaving aside the fact that electricity is not as versatile a fuel as petroleum. We are assuming that the green new deal is going to supply eight million Watt hours per person per year for energy for cooking, heating, cooling, water pumping and charging an electric bicycle. This is seven times more than all the energy Indians are using today, ten times less than what Americans are using, five times less than energy consumption in the European Union, four times less than in the UK, five times less than in Switzerland and four times less than in China.

The global green new deal would involve a complete change in the kind of work a person does. Instead of working on machines powered by commercial energy, all human beings would be working in forestry and agriculture with just some small quantities of renewable energy for water pumping and cooking energy. However if we look at the plan in more detail, we find that, even if all excess consumption of commercial fossil fuel energy is given up, and even if we make these major changes to they type of work we all do, global green new deal will not keep emissions down enough.

This can be proved by calculating whether or not sources and sinks can be balanced. A sink is a plant or tree that absorbs carbon dioxide and gives out oxygen, and a source is an animal or water body or other ecosystem that is emitting carbon dioxide from breathing or methane and carbon dioxide from decomposing. We are assuming an emission factor of one gram of carbon dioxide emitted for every Watt hour of fossil fuel energy burnt. So the total carbon dioxide emissions from the global green new deal are calculated as eight million Watt hours per person per year multiplied by 60 Wh of petroleum or coal or nuclear based energy required for manufacturing and transporting this renewable energy infrastructure multiplied by 1 gramme of carbon dioxide which is 60 multiplied by eight million multiplied by one which is four hundred and eighty million grammes or four hundred and eighty kilograms of carbon dioxide per person per year. So if we multiply that by ten billion people that is four point eight billion tonnes of carbon dioxide every year from running electricity on the global new green deal. If we add our breathing of one kilogram of carbon dioxide every day per person from ten billion people, that adds up to a a total of five point one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted from the use of renewable energy every year.

Now what about the sinks? Agriculture, forestry and other land use activities were the source of between nine and fifteen billion tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere every year in the years from 2007 to 2016. The natural response of plants and forests and other land based sinks to this human-induced environmental change was to absorb in their sinks around eleven point two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in those same years. Thus there are between eight hundred thousand billion tonnes and three point eight billion tonnes of carbon dioxide sequestration missing in this system. And this is without taking into account the thirty seven point one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere every year from burning fossil fuels, which is not being absorbed by any plants or forests at all.

In fact land is simultaneously a source and a sink of carbon dioxide due to both human and natural activities and due to direct effects and positive feedback, and this makes it difficult to separate human from natural fluxes. Global models estimate that if all the oceans, forests and land are taken together, there were between two point six and seven point eight billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from land use and land-use change being added to the atmosphere every year from the year 2007 to 2016. These emissions are mostly due to deforestation, and they are only partly offset by afforestation / reforestation, and due to emissions and removals by other land use activities.

Thus even if the thirty seven point one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions this year from burning fossil fuels were stopped instantly next year, we would still be emitting between two point six and seven point eight tonnes of carbon dioxide too much globally every year from faulty land use practices.

Thus remembering that we want the biosphere to keep engaging in its natural system of homeostasis even now as we have already programmed ten degrees Celsius temperature rise in the next century into the system, can we really allow ourselves to add another five point one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere from some global green new deal?

And how can we, in addition, continue to use land in such a way as to cause additional emissions of between two point six and seven point eight billion tonnes every year, emissions that are destroying plants instead of growing them and thus destroying the sink capacity of the biosphere?

Leaving everything else aside, – for example, that plants grow faster with higher carbon dioxide concentrations, that this may only be in the longer term, that we do not even know whether sinks will persist at all or not, or what other natural feedback effects of temperature rise and continued deforestation will be, that therefore all calculations may be off completely, and that we humans have no idea how to reverse the ten degrees Celsius warming already programmed into the system but that the biosphere may have plans that we have no idea about, – the only sensible and sane course of action to adopt is to err on the side of caution and not emit any greenhouse gases of any kind any more into the atmosphere other than what we emit as part of the natural carbon flux between plants and animals of which we are a part.

A final nail in the coffin of the global green new deal idea is the slow rate at which the capitalist market installs renewable energy systems. Annual installation rates have never been more than one hundred and seventy-one thousand million watts capacity every year. Assuming one third new capacity is from wind and two thirds from solar under the global green new deal, we would need to install thirty four million million watts of renewable energy capacity under the global green new deal. For this the capitalist market would take one hundred and ninety eight years at existing rates of installation. And not only that. If we assume that business as usual continues under capitalism until everyone has eight million Watt hours of renewable energy 198 years from now, the corporations and their consumers will be adding at least the existing thirty seven point one billion tonnes carbon dioxide every year for 198 years into the atmosphere until every has completed the switch over. Thus the rate of increase of concentrations of carbon dioxide will continue rising for another one hundred and ninety eight years. Assuming a growth rate of one percent, the annual rate of increase will go up from two point one one parts per million in 2019 to fifteen parts per million per annum one hundred and ninety eight years from now. Over these one hundred and ninety-eight years the concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will add up to one thousand seven-hundred and forty five parts per million, a level not seen since the early Eocene fifty four to forty eight billion years ago, when levels were between one thousand and two thousand parts per million.

Trees such as birch, cedar, chestnut, elm, and beech flourished during the Eocene Epoch in some regions. In western India dipterocarp elements occurred along with taxa such as swintonia, pterospermum, diospyro and others. The earth must have been completely covered in forests. Aquatic and insect life were much the same as today. It is difficult if not impossible to know whether or how the human species or any other species will evolve and adapt to a temperature rise of ten degrees Celsius and to carbon dioxide levels of one thousand to two thousand parts per million as prevailed during the Eocene Epoch and as will prevail in the next century.

And it is even more difficult to know what will happen to the few remaining animal and plant species that humankind has not yet caused to go extinct. Will they survive in the coming years of rapid global heating? Will new species evolve or is the global heating caused by fossil fuel burning causing changes that are much too rapid for most species to adapt to in the short term? Could all living beings barring perhaps bacteria go extinct in the near future, until over millions of years the biosphere settles back into a new and different type of homeostasis with very different common species?

A worldwide mobilisation against the global green new deal is likely to bring out the stark and irreconcilable contradictions and conflicts and the inherent opposition between industrial workers on the one side and agricultural and forestry workers in the world on the other. It is a conflict between developed and developing countries, between urban and rural workers, and between god fearing realists and technological optimists. It is actually a conflict between those who trust in behaving like animals in the best possible sense, and those who are willing to continue on the genocidal path of runaway global heating by emitting man-made carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Strike wave paralyses transport system in Spain

Alejandro López 

Workers from the state-owned Renfe corporation, which operates freight and passenger trains, along with pilots from Ryanair and ground staff of Iberia airlines paralyzed Spain’s transport system over the weekend. There is deep, growing anger among workers over the massive growth of social inequality and worsening working conditions. An estimated 40,000 travelers were affected by strikes in the railways and airlines which began last Friday.

On Sunday, Renfe cancelled 170 trains on a new day of partial strikes called by the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), calling for an increase in Renfe’s workforce and, in addition, that the company apply the reduction of the workweek to 37.5 hours.

This is just the latest of five railway work stoppages this summer, adding to those that already took place. On August 1, Renfe had to cancel a total of 1,152 trains, followed two weeks later with the cancellation of 950 trains on August 14. Last Friday, it cancelled 360 trains.

Under the control of the acting Socialist Party (PSOE) government, Spain’s Public Works has imposed brutal minimum services to break the strike. The government demanded that workers must guarantee minimum services of 75 percent of commuter trains running during rush hours and 50 percent at other times. For long-distance high-speed trains, 78 percent of services had to be guaranteed and on mid-range, 65 percent of trains.

On the same day, Ryanair cancelled six flights in Spain due to a cabin crew strike protesting the Irish airline’s plans to close its bases next January in Las Palmas, Tenerife South, Lanzarote and Girona, as well as the Portuguese base of Faro. This will affect hundreds of jobs. It is the first of 10 strikes called by the unions. Meanwhile, the Spanish Ryanair pilots’ union has also announced strike action against the closure of Ryanair’s bases that could see 100 pilots lose their jobs.

The PSOE’s Public Works Ministry has also acted ruthlessly, setting minimum service levels of 60 percent of the flights to international destinations with a flight time of five hours or more, and 35 percent of flights within the Iberian peninsula with a flight time of less than five hours.

This weekend, ground crew from Spanish flag carrier Iberia and Vueling, a part of British Airways-owned International Airlines Group, launched planned strikes at Barcelona’s El Prat, Madrid’s Adolfo Suarez Barajas Airport, Bilbao Airport and Mallorca’s Palma Airport.

Workers are calling for an end to job precariousness and temporary work, which affects 50 percent of the workforce. They are also protesting staffing levels, which are not keeping pace with the growth of activity at the airport, a lack of permanent contracts, and work overload caused by the company’s abuse of mandatory overtime and the reorganization of shifts and schedules to prevent some employees working up to nine consecutive days.

Vueling had to cancel 92 flights at the Barcelona airport this weekend, with 14,000 passengers affected. The Ministry demanded 80 percent of Iberia Airport Services employees meet minimum service requirements.

The strikes across Spain’s transport system are part of a global upsurge of the working class. It includes mass strikes in Portugal and Poland, “yellow vest” protests in France, and mass movements calling to bring down military dictatorships in Algeria and Sudan, and a global wave of strikes and protests from Hong Kong to US teachers and autoworkers. In each case, the ruling class, isolated and deeply unpopular, is reacting to this upsurge by moving rapidly to the right, towards openly fascistic-authoritarian forms of rule.

The exorbitant minimum services imposed in Spain, amounting to a de facto ban on strikes, is an initial indication of the attacks the PSOE is preparing on workers and youth. The PSOE has already indicated that it is committed to strengthening the army and police-state machine and imposing further attacks on the working class.

The PSOE intends to abolish the annual automatic pension increase based on the consumer price index, setting the stage for the real value of pensions to be slashed by inflation over the years. In the next four years, the PSOE also intends to raise taxes disproportionately affecting the workers. It also wants to implement the “Austrian backpack,” forcing workers to pay into a “personal savings fund” instead of receiving severance pay from employers.

Russia and Turkey intensify military cooperation over US objections

Ulas Atesci

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s surprise visit to Moscow on August 27 marked growing bilateral military cooperation between Turkey, a NATO member state, and Russia. In Moscow, he advanced plans to buy Russian anti-aircraft missiles and, possibly, fighter jets, fueling tensions with Turkey’s imperialist allies in Washington and Europe.

Despite Erdogan’s trip, Turkish-Russian relations remain extremely tense. This unscheduled meeting between Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin came amid the confrontation in Syria between Turkish army forces and Russian-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad government’s forces in Idlib. Washington and Ankara are developing plans to violate Syria’s territorial integrity and invade northeastern Syria to establish a “safe zone” there.

On August 19, after the Assad regime accused the Turkish government of trying to save Al Qaeda-linked forces in Idlib province now under attack by Damascus and Moscow for weeks, a Turkish army military convoy came under Syrian air attack, allegedly for assisting the Islamists. While Syrian army forces recaptured the town of Khan Sheikoun from Al Qaeda-linked forces, Turkey’s Morek military base in southern Idlib was surrounded by forces loyal to Damascus. There are reportedly about 200 Turkish soldiers in the base.

In Moscow, however, Erdogan and Putin sought to downplay these differences. About the Idlib flashpoint, Putin said: “Russia and Turkey cooperate closely in the Astana format along with Iran. … The president of Turkey and I mapped out additional joint measures for neutralizing terrorist hotbeds in Idlib and normalizing the situation both in this zone and in the rest of Syria.”

Erdogan’s reply showed that differences between the two countries persist: “We can bring about our responsibilities concerning the Sochi agreement only if the regime halts its attacks. … The regime’s provocations have reached the level of putting the lives of our soldiers in the region at risk.” However, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported on Erdogan’s visit to Moscow that “a military source announced acceptance of a ceasefire in the de-escalation zone of Idlib as of Saturday morning.”

Nonetheless, Washington clearly views Ankara’s deepening relations with Moscow with alarm. Before Erdogan’s visit to Moscow, Washington issued an official statement withdrawing its offer to sell Turkey Patriot missile defence systems, after Turkey purchased Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles. “We have consistently told Turkey that our latest offer of PATRIOT would be withdrawn if it took delivery of the S-400 system. Our PATRIOT offer has expired,” a US State Department official told CNN on August 22.

On June 6, acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan wrote a letter to his Turkish counterpart, Hulusi Akar, threatening to break off military cooperation with Turkey, notably over the F-35 fighter program, and to subject Turkey to a wide range of sanctions.

After the shipment of the first batch of Russian-made S-400 air defence systems to Turkey in July, under a contract signed in December 2017, Washington suspended Turkish participation in the F-35 program. On Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper indicated that the only way Turkey was getting F-35s is if it returns its S-400 missile defence system to Russia.

Esper’s statement was a response to Erdogan’s comments on F-35 fighter jets as well as on Russian made planes. On the way back to Ankara from Moscow, asked if Turkey was interested in buying Russian Su-35 or Su-57 jets, Erdogan replied, “Why not? We didn’t come here for nothing.”

Erdogan and Putin attended the inauguration of the MAKS-2019 International Aviation and Space Salon near Moscow. The same day Erdogan and Putin met, a second batch of S-400 air defence systems had been delivered to Murted Airbase in Ankara. Significantly, Erdogan and Putin focused on consolidating bilateral military cooperation.

In this regard, Russian President Putin told Erdogan: “We have shown you various products, both military and civilian. They not only demonstrate Russia’s aerospace capability but also offer a variety of cooperation opportunities. We know about Turkey’s high-tech development plans,” he said. He added, “Of course, we could join forces in the areas where our capabilities are especially strong and sought after.”

Erdogan replied: “Today we have taken a closer look at Russia’s defence industry. I would like to express satisfaction at the fact that today we also saw Russian-made engines for passenger airliners, combat aircraft, helicopters and other aviation equipment. We also watched demonstration flights of combat aircraft, including the Su-34, Su-35 and Su-57. We have also been updated on Russia’s space activities and the measures you are taking to boost your space industry.”

British lawmakers win vote to debate bill authorising Brexit delay

Robert Stevens

MPs voted Tuesday evening to take control of parliament’s business and pursue the passage of a cross-party bill to prevent the Conservative government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson from leaving the European Union (EU) without a trade and customs deal.

MPs backed the motion to allow a debate on the bill today by 328 votes to 301, a majority of 27. Twenty-one Tory MPs rebelled despite threats to withdraw the party whip and prevent them from standing for re-election for the party.

Responding to the defeat, Johnson said he would table a motion Wednesday for a vote on holding general election before October 17—the final date that European Union (EU) leaders are able to agree a deal with the UK on its exit terms.

The emergency debate went ahead after the Speaker, John Bercow, allowed an application from Oliver Letwin, a fellow Tory Remainer. The bill, sponsored by Labour Blairite Hilary Benn would force Johnson to request that the EU agree to delay Brexit until January 31, 2020 unless MPs had approved a new deal, or voted in favour of a no-deal exit, by October 19. It also mandates the EU to dictate further Brexit delays. Benn stated, “If the European Council agrees to an extension to the 31 January 2020, then the Prime Minister must immediately accept that extension. If the European Council proposes an extension to a different date then the Prime Minister must accept that extension within two days, unless the House of Commons rejects it.”

Taking control of parliamentary business and passing the bill was the response of the “Rebel Alliance” of opposition parties, led by the Labour Party, to Johnson’s authoritarian move last week to prorogue parliament from September 9, 10 or 11 for five weeks. Johnson did this as opposition MPs made clear they would oppose a no-deal Brexit in this session of parliament.

The representatives of the Remain wing of the ruling elite have been plotting how to prevent a no-deal Brexit since Johnson replaced Theresa May as prime minister in July. On Monday evening, Johnson in a televised address from Downing Street reiterated that there were “no circumstances in which I will ask Brussels to delay.”

The debate took place in extraordinary circumstances, with the Tories losing their working majority of just one MP—even as Johnson made a statement to Parliament prior to the emergency debate on last week’s G7 Summit. Tory MP and former Justice Minister Phillip Lee crossed the floor of the House to join the Liberal Democrats.

On Sunday, a senior source in the whips’ office said, “The whips are telling Conservative MPs today a very simple message—if they fail to vote with the government on Tuesday they will be destroying the government’s negotiating position and handing control of parliament to [Labour leader] Jeremy Corbyn… Any Conservative MP who does this will have the whip withdrawn and will not stand as a Conservative candidate in an election.”

Among those threatened are Ken Clarke, the pro-EU Father of the House (its longest serving member) who has been an MP since 1970, May’s former Chancellor Philip Hammond and even the grandson of Winston Churchill, Sir Nicholas Soames.

Massive blast hits Kabul as US envoy announces draft deal with Taliban

Bill Van Auken

A massive truck bomb exploded Monday night outside of Kabul’s so-called Green Village, a fortified village housing foreign security contractors and NGOs. The suicide attack, which was claimed by the Taliban, came precisely as US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad was announcing a draft agreement with the Islamist movement in a broadcast on Afghan television.

The blast, which killed at least 16 people and wounded over 100, touched off an angry demonstration. Residents of nearby neighborhoods took to the streets demanding that the foreign contractors be moved out as their presence was leading to the deaths of Afghan civilians, who accounted for nearly all of the casualties, with the exception of three members of the country’s security forces killed in the blast

At one point, Afghan civilians scaled the walls of the compound, setting fire to armored SUVs parked inside. Others threw rocks and Molotov cocktails over the walls. Afghan riot police were brought in to suppress the “unauthorized demonstration,” wounding at least five protesters with live ammunition.

In taking responsibility for the bombing, the Taliban said that the attack was in reaction to bombing of Afghan villages and homes by US occupation forces and the Afghan security forces.

The tentative deal announced by Khalilzad would ostensibly end US imperialism’s 18-year-old intervention in Afghanistan, the longest war in US history. It was reached in nine rounds of negotiations between the US and the Taliban in Qatar’s capital of Doha beginning last January.

According to Khalilzad, it would result in the withdrawal of some 5,400 US troops from Afghanistan beginning roughly five months after the agreement is signed. In return, the Taliban is supposed to guarantee that it will not allow territory under its control to be used by Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and its Afghan affiliate or any other armed group to prepare or launch attacks on the US or any other country.

“We have agreed that if the conditions proceed according to the agreement, we will leave within 135 days five bases in which we are present now,” Khalilzad told Afghanistan’s Tolo television news.

The withdrawal of the remaining 8,600 US troops is to be “conditions-based,” tied to a subsequent round of negotiations between the Taliban and the US-backed regime in Kabul, which was excluded from the Doha negotiations. The Taliban agreed only to negotiate with Washington, and not with the regime headed by President Ashraf Ghani, on the grounds that it is merely a puppet of the US-led occupation.

The US agreement to exclude Ghani’s administration from the talks provided a concrete confirmation of the Taliban’s assessment of the regime. Before appearing on Afghan television, the US envoy Khalilzad showed Ghani the draft agreement that had been hammered out without his participation.

A subsequent round of “Afghan-Afghan” negotiations is supposed to be directed at bringing about a permanent cease-fire in the country’s protracted and bloody conflict, and creating the framework for an interim government that would include the Islamist movement that Washington intervened in October 2001 to topple.

The Taliban has insisted that the talks include the Afghan political opposition and other social groups, with representatives of the government representing only one faction.

For his part, Ghani is attempting to stage an election on September 28 in an attempt to secure some form of legitimacy before such talks. Both the Taliban and Khalilzad have opposed the move, with the latter referring to the US-backed government as “the biggest obstacle” to a peace accord. Ghani’s opponents, including Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, his chief rival in the last election in 2014 with whom he supposedly shares power, have signaled that they are prepared to scrap the vote in the interest of “peace.” No doubt, they are trying to keep their options open should the Taliban return to power.

In statements issued to their own followers, the Taliban leadership has portrayed the results of the negotiations with the US as the third historic triumph of the Afghan people against foreign occupation—following the driving out of the British in the 19th century and then the Soviets at the end of the 1980s. They have also suggested that the movement will be in a position to take Kabul.

According to a Reuters report citing a diplomat monitoring the Doha talks, the draft agreement would end US airstrikes on the Taliban, while the Islamist militia would halt all attacks on US-led occupation forces, including “insider attacks” in which Taliban sympathizers in the Afghan security forces have turned their guns on US “advisers.”

Without US air support, the Afghan security forces would be far less able to resist an offensive by the Taliban, which has already seized more Afghan territory than at any time since it was ousted from power by the 2001 US invasion, controlling or contesting control over nearly half the country.

Australia: Whistleblower trials proceed despite outcry

Mike Head

Australia’s government is pushing ahead with two major trials of military and intelligence whistle-blowers. It also intends to hold hearings behind closed doors, further defying widespread public opposition. Canberra’s authorities are determined to persecute and jail anyone who exposes the criminal activities of the country’s US-linked spy agencies and armed forces.

One case involves “Witness K,” an ex-intelligence officer who cannot even be named, and his former lawyer, Bernard Collaery. Together, they exposed the Howard Liberal-National government’s illegal bugging of the cabinet offices of the tiny state of East Timor during oil and gas treaty negotiations in 2004.

The other prosecution is of former military lawyer David McBride, who leaked documents showing the ongoing official cover-up by successive Liberal-National and Labor governments of war crimes and abuses committed by the Special Forces as part of the US-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

Both cases are proceeding despite protests outside the court hearings, condemnation on social media, anxious mainstream media commentary and a march last week through the streets of Timor’s capital, Dili, demanding the dropping of the charges against Witness K and Collaery.

Last Friday, during a brief visit to Dili, Prime Minister Scott Morrison dismissed calls by Timorese protesters and politicians to end the Witness K-Collaery prosecutions. “That’s a domestic matter for Australia. It’s currently before the courts. It’s not a matter I want to comment on,” Morrison said in response to questions at a media conference.

Morrison was in East Timor to celebrate the finalisation of a border treaty and revenue-sharing deal for the Greater Sunrise oil and gas fields that lie beneath the Timor Sea. He also rejected demands for Australia to pay $5 billion to compensate the impoverished statelet for the estimated revenue it has lost as a result of the previous agreements imposed on East Timor with the help of the information gleaned from the bugging.

Much is at stake in these trials. The Timor operation was carried out by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), which is part of the US-dominated global “Five Eyes” electronic surveillance network. Any revelations about its activities would cut across Australia’s integration into the escalating US drive to reassert its post-World War II economic and military hegemony over all its capitalist rivals, China in particular. Already, the huge caches of material leaked by former US National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden have shown that the Five Eyes network spies on millions of people around the world, as well as targeted government leaders.

Likewise, any exposure of the assassinations, civilian killings, torture and other atrocities committed by Australia’s Special Forces could damage the capacity of the commando units to keep providing the frontline troops for US-led neo-colonial military interventions, such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, the Special Forces have been tasked with suppressing domestic unrest, using the expanded military call-out laws that the government and the Labor Party pushed through parliament last year. How far the authorities are going in their vendetta against Witness K and Collaery was demonstrated last month. After six years of harassment, interrogation and mounting financial and personal pressure, Witness K reportedly agreed to plead guilty to certain charges relating to the leaking of classified material.

At a Canberra court hearing on August 22, Witness K’s counsel, Haydn Carmichael, told the judge his client had applied for legal aid more than a year ago but still lacked sufficient funding for his plea and sentencing hearing. This would include “significant disbursements” to bring witnesses from overseas and medical evidence.

Witness K’s case is scheduled to return for a mention on September 13 to see if the facts of the case are agreed with the prosecution, before a formal plea and sentencing at a later date. Even if a plea bargain is struck, Witness K could be jailed for up to two years.

Witness K’s former lawyer, Collaery, will plead not guilty and stand trial in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Supreme Court next year. However, the government has issued a certificate to conduct hearings in a closed court, supposedly to protect “national security information.” Collaery will face a three-day hearing starting on December 11 that will determine what, if any, evidence can be heard in open court.

Such secrecy is an attack on the fundamental democratic right to a public trial, an essential principle fought for centuries ago against arbitrary punishments by absolute monarchies. This is on top of Collaery’s prosecution violating another crucial protection—lawyer-client confidentiality.

Far-right Alternative for Germany makes gains in local German elections

Ulrich Rippert 

The parties that make up the ruling German grand coalition suffered a major electoral setback in Sunday’s state elections in Saxony and Brandenburg, amid popular hatred of their right-wing, antisocial policies. But the main beneficiary was the fascistic Alternative for Germany (AfD), which received wall-to-wall media coverage that sought to present it as the voice of opposition to the government.

In Saxony, ruled continuously by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago, the CDU lost 6.6 percent and saw its worst result in this state (32.8 percent), according to exit polls. Its coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), slumped to a historic low of 7.6 percent. The SPD’s already miserable result five years ago fell yet again by another 5 percent and is only just above the five percent hurdle for parliamentary representation.

The Left Party, which has led the opposition in Saxony so far, was unable to benefit from the decline of the governing parties but was the main loser of the state election. It slumped from just under 19 percent to 10.2 percent—a drop of 8.7 percent. The main winner in Saxony was the AfD, gaining 18 percentage points, with a vote share of 27.8 percent.

The election results in Brandenburg are very similar, where the SPD has held the state premiership since the fall of the Berlin Wall for ten years in an alliance with the Left Party.

The SPD lost 5.9 percent in Brandenburg and slipped to 26 percent. The Left Party fell from 18.6 percent five years ago to 10.8 percent; with losses of 7.8 percent in Brandenburg it was the largest loser. The opposition CDU lost 7.3 percent and with 15.7 percent scored its worst result in this state. The AfD vote rose by 11.3 percent and reached 23.5 percent.

The Greens saw their best result in both states but achieved far less than had been predicted. In Saxony they won 8.2 percent (+2.5), in Brandenburg 10.7 percent (+4.5).

In both states the AfD became the second strongest party and was the strongest party in some districts. Above all, the vote gains of the right-wing extremist party are a result of growing indignation and anger at the respective state governments—whether under social-democratic or conservative leadership—which have pushed through the same antisocial and reactionary policies. Both state governments approved the debt ceiling in the previous legislative period, which drastically reduced municipal borrowing, and agreed one budget cut after another.

The result is always the same. Large sections of the population live in poverty. Permanent social cuts have catastrophic effects. Rural areas are already completely deserted. School, sports, leisure and cultural facilities are closed one after another.

Because there was no party in the elections to counteract this social devastation, the AfD was able to channel part of the growing popular opposition to its benefit. It was striking that in addition to its racist agitation, the AfD also addressed certain social problems in both states. It also deliberately presented itself as an “Eastern” party and adopted slogans that recalled the events of 30 years ago, such as “We are the people!”

Trump administration to reverse methane rules for energy industry

Daniel de Vries

The Trump administration announced a plan Thursday to remove federal requirements for the oil and gas industry to control emissions of methane, the primary component of natural gas and a potent contributor to climate change. The move continues Trump’s reversal of climate policies enacted by the Obama administration, eliminating even the most minimal measures to address the unfolding climate catastrophe.

The proposal, which may be finalized as early as next year, aims to remove methane leakage limits for oil and natural gas drilling, processing, pipeline transportation and storage.

Releases of methane directly to the atmosphere already occur at an alarmingly high rate in the energy industry. According to a comprehensive study published in the journal Science last year, this leakage has roughly the same near-term impact on climate change as all the coal-fired power plants in the country.

On a global scale, methane is responsible for about 25 percent of the warming experienced today, second only to carbon dioxide. It has a shorter longevity in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, but when evaluated over 20 years, is 86 times more potent pound for pound.

Controlling methane pollution is crucial to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, especially in the near term. Recent climate-related developments, from the fires raging in the Amazon to the hottest ever monthly temperatures recorded in July, underscore the urgency.

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed not only scrapping controls on methane leaks—perhaps the easiest and least costly of all measures—but also reinterpreting the Clean Air Act to limit the agency’s authority to regulate these emissions by transmission and storage facilities. The proposal argues that a lengthy administrative process to declare that emissions from these operations endanger public health and the environment is needed before any regulations can be issued—potentially slowing any future administration’s attempts to reinstate rules.

The rollback plan drew mixed reaction from the oil and gas industry, with major transnationals Shell, BP and ExxonMobil distancing themselves from it or coming out against EPA’s proposal. These companies have been promoting natural gas in the US and around the world as a “bridge fuel” to replace coal and reduce greenhouse gases in the near term, while at some unspecified point in the future, natural gas itself would be replaced by renewables.

Now, with the government of the world’s largest natural gas producer removing controls on methane leaks, this marketing scheme is seriously undermined.

The pending reversal of the methane leakage rule also sparked concern over the level of regulatory uncertainty, with legal challenges likely when the regulation is finalized. Even if the rollback is upheld in the courts, the rule may well be reopened by a future government facing demands for more aggressive controls. In the meantime, producers face a patchwork of differing state regulations.

Germany: Xenophobic and anti-Semitic offences are rising sharply

Isabel Roy

In Germany, the number of right-wing extremist crimes has not diminished. The number of right-wing, politically motivated crimes has risen steadily since 2001, reaching a maximum of 23,555 in 2016. Since then, the numbers have declined only slightly and were significantly above 20,000 both in 2017 and 2018.

There was a dramatic year-on-year increase in anti-Semitic and xenophobic offences in 2018. Both rose by one-fifth—anti-Semitic crimes from 1,504 to 1,799 and xenophobic offences from 6,434 to 7,701. On average, there were 26 offences against immigrants or Jews each day. Well over 1,000 of the right-wing offences were violent crimes; over 500 were directed against politicians.

In addition, it has recently become known that in the first half of 2019, 8,605 criminal offences (including 363 violent crimes involving at least 179 injured) have already been committed, an increase of more than 900 compared to the same period in 2018.

Following the murder of Kassel district president Walter Lübcke on June 2, there was a bomb threat on June 23 to the headquarters of the Left Party in Berlin-Mitte and a day later, an attack on Left Party local politician Ramona Gehring in Zittau. The bomb threat in Berlin-Mitte was claimed by “Combat 18,” a right-wing terrorist network that is linked with the alleged Lübcke murderer Stephan Ernst.

The figures above are from the federal Ministry of the Interior (as of May 14, 2019) in answer to a parliamentary question tabled by the Left Party. Comparing the figures with data from independent victim counselling centres reveals a major discrepancy. In 2018, these organisations registered an increase in extreme right-wing violence from 1,394 in 2017 to 1,495 cases in 2018 in seven federal states alone (Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Pomerania, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia).

Berlin in particular is a hotspot of right-wing extremist crime. ReachOut, the Berlin counselling centre for victims of right-wing, racist and anti-Semitic violence, documents a total of 309 attacks in 2018. Those injured, threatened and stalked numbered at least 423 people, including 19 children and 47 adolescents. Most attacks resulted in personal injury (157) and grievous bodily harm (115). According to the organization, this is a “worrying increase” compared to the 267 attacks in 2017.

The Research and Information Centre Anti-Semitism Berlin (RIAS Berlin) registered a total of 1,083 anti-Semitic incidents in Berlin, an increase of 14 percent over the previous year. These included 46 attacks, 43 targeted property damage, 46 threats, 831 cases of injurious behaviour (including at 48 meetings) and 117 anti-Semitic letters.

It is particularly striking that the number of anti-Semitic attacks in the home area of those affected has more than doubled, which means that right-wing extremists are targeting the victims in their neighbourhoods.

The report also highlights the case of far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) member Andreas Wild, who was wearing a blue cornflower on November 9 at the commemoration ceremony of the Nazi attacks on Reichspogromnacht. This flower is a historical symbol of the anti-Semitic and extreme German nationalist “Schönerer movement.”

In Berlin-Neukölln there has been a sustained series of right-wing-extremist attacks since summer 2016. The Mobile Advice Centre Against Right-Wing Extremism Berlin (MBR) has recorded 55 attacks. Those affected include residents who engage and express themselves against the right-wing. These include threatening graffiti on and in residential buildings, throwing stones and paint bottles through windows, other property damage and arson attacks. In addition, the theft of 16 cobblestones has been attributed to the same circle of offenders but were not counted as attacks. Counselling staff also became a victim of threats in March of this year.

The most prominent victims of the series of attacks in Neukölln include:

* The Social Democratic Party (SPD) faction leader of the Neukölln district council, Mirjam Blumenthal, whose car was set alight on January 13, 2017.

* Left Party politician Ferat Kocak, whose car went up in flames on February 1, 2018.

* The bookseller Heinz Ostermann, whose car was also set on fire on February 1, 2018. This was already the third attack against the owner of the Leporello bookstore, where events against right-wing populism and racism take place. In December 2016, the windows of the bookstore were smashed and in January 2017 a car set on fire.

No one has been charged with any crime in this series of attacks in Neukölln. In some cases, including the attack on Mirjam Blumenthal, the investigation was even stopped.

Saudi airstrikes on Yemen prison kill more than 100

Niles Niemuth

Saudi coalition jet fighters carried out a series of airstrikes on a Houthi rebel-run prison in southwestern Yemen early Sunday morning, killing more than 100 and wounding another 40. The attack ranks among the worst in a long string of war crimes committed by Saudi Arabia, with the full backing of the American and British governments, in its four-year-long effort to reimpose a puppet government on the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula.

Residents reported that seven separate airstrikes slammed into a former university building in the southwestern city of Dhamar which had been converted into a detention center by the Houthis, obliterating the structure and killing or wounding every single detainee. Members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) rushed to the scene of complete devastation to search for possible survivors and comb through the rubble for the bodies of victims.

While the Saudi-led coalition justified the horrific attack by claiming the site had been used by the Houthis to store drones and missiles, the ICRC confirmed that the attack had in fact destroyed a prison where its representatives had previously visited detainees.

“It’s a college building that has been empty and has been used as a detention facility for a while. What is most disturbing is that [the attack was] on a prison. To hit such a building is shocking and saddening—prisoners are protected by international law,” Franz Rauchenstein, the head of the ICRC’s delegation in Yemen told the Guardian.

Bodies lie on the ground after being recovered from under the rubble of a Houthi detention center destroyed by Saudi-led airstrikes in Dhamar province, southwestern Yemen, Sunday (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)

The Saudi monarchy, given the green light by Obama in March 2015 and now with the unyielding support of Trump, has been waging a bloody assault on Yemen in an effort to return its puppet President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi back to power after he was forced to flee the country in the face of an advance by the Houthis. The US claims the Houthi rebels are backed by Iran and that the war is a critical component of its efforts to counter Tehran’s influence in the region. Despite repeated assertions, the Trump administration has yet to provide any evidence to back up its allegations.

Trump reaffirmed Washington’s support for the Saudi-led slaughter in Yemen in April when he vetoed a congressional resolution which would have required the Pentagon to end direct military support. Without enough votes to overcome the president’s veto, the bill was seen as an opportunity by a number of current Democratic presidential candidates to make a phony show of sympathy for the broad antiwar sentiments in the US population.

Saudi jets, armed with US and UK bombs and provided with targeting information by US military intelligence officers stationed in Saudi Arabia, have continued to carry out repeated attacks on civilian targets, including schools, hospitals, residential neighborhoods, mosques, funerals and markets. The US had provided coalition jets with mid-air refueling until the end of last year, ensuring maximum carnage.

An analysis of casualty and death toll data published earlier this year by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) found that the total number of people killed in direct political violence in Yemen is approaching 100,000, including 12,000 civilians, between January 2015 and June of this year. ACLED found the Saudi coalition responsible for 68 percent of all civilian casualties recorded.

These figures do not include those civilians, including children, who have died of cholera and malnourishment as a result of a naval blockade enforced by the Saudi-led coalition and the US Navy and airstrikes on critical infrastructure, including water, sanitation and electrical systems. Some 8 million Yemenis are currently living on the brink of starvation.