Russia’s engagement in Asia Pacific is largely underrated

Yead Mirza

Although Russia had a significant military and economic engagement in the Asia Pacific region during the days of the Soviet Union, the demise of the union had significantly hampered Russia’s relations with the regional countries. However, Russia again wants to re-establish its lost military relations with the regional countries and has been trying to do so for the last one decade.

In recent times, Russia has been selling weapons and other advanced military technology to a number of Asia-Pacific countries in order to bring these countries into its geopolitical orbit.

Despite the existence of a geopolitical rivalry between China and India, Russia had successfully managed to keep close military relations with both these rival nations. Moreover, Russia is increasingly building good relations with many South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand.

Furthermore, Russia is on a spree of building certain infrastructures in several Asia Pacific countries, including a nuclear-powered plant in Bangladesh, a small country located in the intersection of South Asia and Southeast Asia.  These infrastructures would make these Asia Pacific countries dependent on Russia for the proper functionality and technological aspects of those infrastructures.

Russia has also been showing-off its muscle power in the region. Late last year, many regional countries were surprised by Russia’s large scale war game. The fact that the war game was conducted in the eastern part of Russia – which forms part of the Asia Pacific region, unlike Russia’s western part that forms part of Europe – raised many eyebrows in Western capitals who thought they now have a new competitor in Asia Pacific region.

The war game – namely Vostok-2018 or East-2018 – involved more than 300,000 troops, 36,000 tanks, 1000 aircraft, helicopters and drones and 80 warships and support vessels.

More surprising was the inclusion of the Chinese military into the war games alongside the Russians. Around 3500 Chinese troops were said to have taken part in the Russian war games. Troops from Mongolia too joined the drills.

Sergei Shoigu, Russian Defense Minister, boasted about the drills saying, “Imagine 36,000 military vehicles moving at the same time: tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles – and all of this, of course, in conditions as close to a combat situation as possible.”

It seems that although Russia’s military clout in Europe and Middle East are well understood and acknowledged, Russia’s growing engagement in the Asia Pacific region is largely underestimated and underrated.

Accordingly, the growing influence of Russia in the region finds less attention on the regional media outlets, the regional discussion platforms and the think tank papers produced across the region. This is a total contrast to Russian involvement in Europe and Middle East, something which receives huge coverage.

Despite the low coverage of Russian activities in the greater Asia Pacific, Russia’s growing military relations with regional countries and its large-scale drills suggest that Russia’s geopolitical presence is increasing in the region and it will soon become a potent regional power to reckon with.

Why India is turning into Rapistan? What measures we can take to control it?

Arshi Alvi

Time and again rape incidents stir our conscience and sends chills down the spine after listening to brutal,insensitive assault on girl/women & the mental trauma they must have undergone.

Although a crime like rape is nothing new but the rate at which it’s increasing in India is quite worrying &gives us goosebumps.

I feel we have become more of insensitive,morally bankrupt,emotionally drained out unsympathetic,uncompassionate unapologetic Society.

Its sad to see when we can’t even provide safety & freedom to a girl as young as 4 or 6yrs or as old as 70 yrs.Age is no bar for the rapists.

The world is too harsh for gentle souls ,which is full of monsters in shape of humans today.

Although we are in 21st century where girls are given education they happen to know more about their rights,they know how to keep a check on such flesh eaters,still many cases go unreported either due to the fear of society or family pressure..as if being victim to the rapists is a bigger sin than the one who does it.

And the misery caused to the victim is huge even after reporting and filing FIR,the accused are not arrested immediately and even though if they get arrested they get the bail.

After coming out on bail the risk of life of a victim and her family members increases manifolds ,as the accused if belongs to any political party or has influences in the govt threatens them to withdraw the case or attack them to harm them.

That’s the reason many cases of women abuse,molestation,child sex abuse,rape,eve teasing stalking etc goes unreported.

Rape is a severely under-reported crime with surveys showing dark figures of up to 91.6% of rapes going unreported.

As how many girls in India have courage to go through this journey of pain after physical &mental assault by the rapist during rape?

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) has released the annual Crime in India Report 2017 on October 28, after a delay of two years.

According to the report, a total of 3,59,849 cases were reported against women in 2017. In comparison, in 2016, 3.38 lakh cases of crime were registered against women, while 3.2 lakh cases were recorded in 2015. The number of cases reported has increased.

Looking at state-wise data, Uttar Pradesh has again topped the list with 56,011 cases of crime against women. It is followed by Maharashtra with 31,979 cases and West Bengal at 30,002.

The most disheartening to see that even after the rise in the cases the conviction rate is too low.
While the conviction rate for all crimes against women stands at a measly 19% across India as compared with an average conviction rate of 47% for all crimes.

A troubling observation is that while cases being reported have increased over the last five to six years, conviction rates, unfortunately, have remained stagnant to slightly falling.

For crimes against women overall, pending cases increased from 1,081,756 to 1,204,786. Of course, this is a consequence of the larger inefficiency in the judicial system which had pending cases increase from 9,012,476 to 9,703,482, a truly staggering number.

Although many amendments have been brought in India’s legal system, including the passing of stricter sexual assault laws,creation of fast-track courts for prosecution of rapes. Recent cases have also led to legislative changes. At least four states – Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh have introduced the death penalty for rapes of minors, defined as below 12 years of age. According to news reports, the Centre is also contemplating amending the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act to introduce the provision of the death penalty for raping minors aged below 12 years.

But then what’s stopping the fall of crime rate graph against women/girls?

Just making laws will not help unless there will be a strong will to execute those laws practically and unless authorities are made to be answerable for not solving the case in time.

All this makes me ponder more, Being a mother I fear for my child,I am more worried for the downfall of our society’s morality status.

More worried that when my daughter will grow up and will leave me for higher education,job or after marriage will people be considerate compassionate, empathetic and supporting towards her the way I am today for her?

Will they have a big heart to respect her difference of opinions the way I do ?

Will they forgive her for her immaturity,her faults,mistakes and follies without shaming her ?

Will she be able to enjoy her rights while she will be executing her duties in future?

Even after educating her about her rights,duties,responsibilities and making her empowered will she be able to break those shackles of patriarchy society?

Will she ever be free to express her views,emotions and expressions through her own ways without being judged?

Will she be able to enjoy the life of a free girl ,spirit of happy womanhood and not be dictated with rules,norms under the pretext of the fact that she belongs to the weaker gender?

Being a girl will she be needed to submit to the wishes ,choices and decisions of a male counterpart who is there in the form of friend,father,brother,husband or in laws or in any form of relation?

But worrying alone is not the way to find out the solution to a problem.

It needs to be tackled seriously and intellectually not alone for the happiness of our daughters but for the betterment of society and humanity.

To me there are various precautionary ways to check and keep a control on such incidents.

1.Parenting:

To start with I feel Parenting the child in the right way will make a healthier and most positive impact.Which will go long way.

Sadly but true ,as said_ “Too many of today’s children have straight teeth but crooked morals”

As a parent our job is not just to worry about their looks,their physical health, education,employment &marriage aspects.

The most important part in building up the personality of a child is their mental health, the morals we teach them right from the begining not just by telling but by practising them ourselves in a family.

A family is the smallest unit of the society.If a family will have mentally ,physically,morally healthy individuals only then it will help in making a better,positive society.

Children imbibe more from the surroundings ,rather than what they are told or dictated.

If a boy in a family will see how his father ,respects his mother,loves his daughter,gives equal rights and freedom to his wife.And ask his son to be compassionate towards one sister,mother or any female individual,it will become easier for him to follow this in his life and he will be equally well behaved when he will go out in the society with other girls when he grows up.

Teach your boys how to respect the girls consent, feelings, emotions &difference in opinions.

One must definetly learn to respect the difference without making it an ego clash.

One must learn gender sensitisation.

On the other hand educate your Girls ,empower them &make them emotionally strong to take control of themselves.

Along with that few rules must be followed in the family like:

*No abusing atmosphere,specially men should strictly avoid it in the house.

*In case maids have been beaten by their husbands after drinking ,try counselling them next day about its repercussion on their children.

*vulgar movies with rape scenes,vulgar comedy belittling women should not be seen either on TV or in movie hall,as things like that somehow normalises the gender biased environment.

*Treat your son and daughter equally.

*Teach your children virtue like modesty,which needs to be taught to both girls and boys.

*Drill the morals,good manners right from childhood.

*Pay attention to the grievances or worries of your child on urgent basis because if things not dealt in at the right time will lead to depression or mental ill health.

*Educate your child about Good touch and bad touch.

*Educate your child about the child sex abuse which might happen at school or at public places or may be at home by known people.

*Be open and frank with your children so that they don’t fear to report you in case they have been mishandled by someone outside.
Tell them it’s not their fault but the culprit is he who did the wrong thing.

2. Impact of Movies on our society :

Movies are a powerful medium to spread a message in the society.

Sometimes movies are made to inspire society like we had 3 idiots, Tare zameen par etc & sometimes movies conspires to pull it down.

Movies unknowingly or knowingly plays an important role in a country specially when illiteracy rate is high,where people are not able to distinguish between what’s wrong and right but copy their favourite actor character be it ethically or morally wrong from the screen.Forgetting that they are there just to play a role of a bad or good guy for which they are getting paid.

In India less educated people follow their movie icons blindly,sometimes to the limit of making them feel “God like”

In such a scenario the onus also lies on the film industry to use a decent language or dialogues which do not promote gender biasness and do not promote stalking,raping ,abusing language, belittling of women or to project them as sex symbol or as an object of the glamour world.

For instance these are the dialogues from a recent Akshay kumar’s film,called “Houseful 3 “,sadly it evokes cheap laughs.And the audience has no problem with it.

• “Uski ovaries nikal do. Na mamma banegi, na mia milega. Mamma Mia!”
• “Hey! Kya tum meri tawayaf, oh, wife banogi?”

Normalising every abusing word,every act of stalking,cheap commenting,vulgar comedy & then cheap laughs over it.

Talks about the mental status of the society.We need to take care of our mental faculty too.A healthy mind does not believe in negativity.

I think we should restrict such filthy or derogatory remarks to come out into the society through movies.We should have filters to control such things if a movie is getting “U” certification from the board.

3. Political scenario: (Talking in context with India )

One thing I don’t understand is how rapists,criminals and sex offenders in India get through the process of filing their nomination papers for elections in India?

How can a person who has in past done hate speeches based on raping dead bodies of a particular community get through as clean?

How come people with criminal backgrounds of rapes and murders,communal violence and abuse cases can file their papers so easily without any objection from the election commission?

They must be rejected then and there without any further explanations from them.Even if they have got the bail in such cases or if the cases are pending in the courts they are still the accused of such heinous crimes.

But in India getting in power absolves all your previous sins.

All the criminal records get rolled out.All the criminals be it even an accused terrorist like Pragya Thakur gets the clean chit. And they are again in a position to play their next innings of blood and lust.

And we the citizens are fool enough to vote them to power because they play with the mind set of the people,play hatred agenda against minorities and on that basis they get to power.

But are we so insane not to analyse the facts and figures in today’s situation where 49%(223) MPs are facing criminal charges with 29%(159) MPs facing serious charges (Rape, murder, crime against women etc)-BJP(87) ,CONG(19)

On one hand we vote for rapist and on the other hand we cry for justice.

How can we expect rapists to make rules and laws against themselves?

Do you really think they are bothered about girls/women safety?

“Beti Bachao” is another jumla for them.

Amongst many one latest case of Hyposcrisy from BJP party was hours after protesting for Hyderabad rape victim,BJP youth leader Ashish Goud was booked for sexual harassment. Ashish is also a member of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM). “The accused is absconding and we are yet to apprehend him,” said the police.

Many leaders and supporters from their party like Sengar, Chinmayanand,Sakshi Maharaj,Asaram Bapu,Ram Rahim,Nityaanand etc are either BJP leaders or fraudulent babas which under BJP cover are still roaming free even after facing serious charges of Rape or were brought to books when the public protested against them. Even BJP party was involved in child trafficking.

When an 8 year old girl Asifa from Kashmir was raped in the temple for couple of days and then murdered,then the public and the leader from BJP party marched in support of the rapists.

Many other rapist were also given power & position by the govt. This is the example they are setting for the rapists. In such conditions do you think there will be any fear of law and order in the hearts and minds of public for this crime?

So basically If we vote for a rapist then we are a supporter of rape.We are equally responsible for their crimes.And we have no right to make hue and cry if we send such criminals to the parliament to represent us.

What you sow,so shall you reap.

Yesterday it was someone else’s daughter,tomorrow God forbid it can be your sister or daughter.

Therefore start raising awareness,start asking questions to the leaders,police and set them accountable for the justice you want.

Media should play a responsible role by being a spokesperson of the public & victim instead of the leaders who are hand in glove with the criminals.

Let them feel the pressure of public to mend their ways.

In my opinion the severe punishments are the deterrent in the path of crimes.
Fast track hearing of such cases should be done and strictest punishments should be given to the criminals.

4. Rape Used as Fear Tool :

Some rapes are communal, which are difficult to forget and forgive because they are done with the agenda.

Political party like BJP used Rape as a fear tool against minorities ,this is the lowest anyone can get to.

Yes,this happened in 2002 Gujarat riots under Modi who was a CM then.It was a state sponsored Communal riots.

No one speaks about those 330 gang rapes during the 2002 Gujarat riots where one thing distinctly rotten about it was use of rape as a form of terror.

And all those rapists are living freely out there, most probably with an even higher position in society today.

Harsh Mander writes about women and children who were subjected to the most sadistic and vicious forms of violence during the 2002 massacre.

Even more horrifying than the use of sexual violence during #GujaratCarnage as a tool to subjugate, humiliate was to see how it was being ‘celebrated’ months later, when Modi took out his #GauravYatra stopping sometimes at sites of grave crimes. I wonder how do such people sleep at night and those cries of innocents and bloodbaths do not hunt them?

The man who used #Rape as a fear factor in #Gujarat is secretly applying same strategy in #Kashmir by either through army or through squads which he had sent to Kashmir.

Few activists have managed to get the ground reports from there which are disturbing.

The stories of humiliation are still under cover as Kashmir has been locked down from past 4months ,where net,mobiles and schools etc are all shut down.And people are not allowed to express their concerns.

So do we expect his govt to do justice to #DaughtersOfIndia ?

When he himself is partner in such crimes like rapes?

Ask your conscience.Think rationally and then come to the conclusion if I am wrong in judging him.

Conclusion:

Start Parenting your children with responsibility.Teach them the true meaning of morality empathy,compassion, consent and respecting of differences.

Society needs to be more responsible too about their surroundings.Help the girl/women if she is in need.Protect her like a brother or father,on the road,in public places etc.

Film industry and Media have to take a stand to make this society more positive and stop promoting patriarchy and negativity towards girls /women.

And If a society expects to have justice,it needs to stop voting such immoral,irresponsible,corrupt, criminal leaders into power.

Strict law and order needs to be set up by the Police. Judiciary needs to punish the rapists who so ever it may be irrespective of position and power.

And those markets and shops are needed to be raided where rape videos are widely sold out in markets. The availability of such videos on Whatsapp can boost the rape culture.So it needs to be dealt in with hard rules.

Be the change,you want to see in the world. Start from yourself.

Why Citizenship Amendment Bill be rejected?

 Aftab Alam

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led government at the centre is all set to introduce the controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) in the Parliament on December 9. The existing Citizenship Act was enacted in 1955 which along with articles 5 to 11 of the Constitution of India determines Indian citizenship.

The original Citizenship Act of 1955 has been amended several times in the past but it had never attracted such media and public galore as it has received this time. It is intriguing to explore as to what makes the current CAB so controversial. Is there anything serious in the proposed CAB that Muslims should be worried about? How CAB is linked with the National Register of Citizens (NRC) which BJP is planning to carry out at the national level?

The government had first introduced the CAB in 2016 after 2014 general elections but due to lack of a requisite number in the upper house it could not get through that time. This time, however, the government seems to be visibly more confident after Parliament’s nod to the triple talaq bill and abrogation of Article 370 with support from crucial alliance partners like Janata Dal (United) and some regional parties like AIADMK, BJD, TRS, YSRCP and some Independents.

The main provision which has made CAB a controversial legislation is the promise to grant citizenship on the basis of religion. The proposed CAB seeks to grant citizenship to all Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Christians, Jains and Parsis illegal migrants fleeing religious persecution from Muslim majority states of Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan if they had entered India on or before December 31, 2014. The existing laws debar illegal migrants from applying for Indian citizenship.

The CAB, however, palpably excludes Muslim migrants of these countries from acquiring Indian citizenship even if they had suffered similar religious persecution. There is no clear answer from the government as to why the CAB discriminates against Muslims.

If anyone wishes to understand the true motives behind the CAB one have to view it against the backdrop of recently concluded National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam wherein at least 19 lakh people, mostly Hindus, have been excluded from the final list.

Upset with NRC’s final list, BJP’s Assam unit quickly rejected it. Its leader and Assam’s Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma explained that his government had decided to reject it because it “included many who should not have been and excluded many who are genuine Indian citizens”.

The Assam NRC has exposed the BJP which has been falsely propagating that after the 1971 War a large number of Muslims, ranging between 4 million to 10 million, had illegally migrated to India from Bangladesh. This, according to BJP, has not only changed the demography of the some north eastern States particularly Assam but also seriously undermined the right of the local people over resources.

During the 2019 election campaign the Home Minister Amit Shah had even described the illegal immigrants as ‘termites’ who were eating the grain that should go to the poor, and are taking our jobs. Stoking the communal passion he also pledged that every single infiltrator from this country would be removed, except Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs.

This narrative has helped the BJP to gain power in the region but the Assam NRC has come as a huge disappointment to the party. Its bogey of illegal Muslims infiltration has not only fallen flat but has even backfired. The party is now being blamed for this humanitarian catastrophe of making 19 lakh people as stateless.  The BJP is facing stiff resistance in the region both from within and from the opposition parties after the NRC in Assam.

Upset with the developments in Assam, the BJP now wants to correct its political folly through CAB which it thinks will prove as a two–edged sword. Through CAB, BJP wants to give citizenship to all Hindus illegal migrants who have been excluded from the Assam’s final NRC list but at the same time, it can easily exclude Muslims out of it. It will help boost BJP’s image of a party that cares Hindus not only living in the country but also outside the state.

The RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had already announced that Hindus need not be apprehensive irrespective of whether their names feature in the NRC or not in Assam and elsewhere. The BJP president and the Home Minister, Amit Shah has also echoed the same view. Recently he stated that “I assure all Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain refugees they won’t have to leave the country, they will get Indian citizenship and enjoy all the rights of an Indian national.”

With the government’s proposal to conduct a nationwide NRC after CAB, Muslims seem to be worried. They fear that if their names are left out in this exercise, due to one reason or the other, they would eventually lose their citizenship but if non-Muslims are somewhat excluded they would always have a chance to get the citizenship back through proposed CAB.

While refuting the allegation of the opposition that the proposed CAB is communal legislation specifically targeting Muslims, the BJP has come out with the following arguments: Firstly, it claims that religion is not the basis of the grant of citizenship under CAB rather religious persecution. Secondly, BJP argues that while Muslims have many countries to seek refuge, Hindus have no other place to go except India. It further considers all Hindus as the natural citizens of India.

But it has no answer to the inclusion of Christians, Buddhists and Parsis as like Muslims they do have many alternative places to seek refuge. The rationale that BJP has given for the exclusion of Muslims from CAB is not only flawed and devoid of logic but also constitutionally impermissible and must be rejected in its present form.

Australian cities bathed in smoke from hundreds of bushfires

Martin Scott

The horror early start to Australia’s bushfire season has continued this week, with fires burning out of control in the states of New South Wales (NSW), Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria.

Sydney has been enveloped in toxic smoke for days on end as a result of blazes burning to the south, west and north of the city. The NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment reported that air quality was “hazardous” in the city on 12 days last month. At times, smoke haze has caused air quality in both Sydney and Brisbane to rank among the worst in the world.

In the latest flare-ups, the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) issued an emergency warning for a fire burning at Gospers Mountain, northwest of Sydney. The fire, which has already burnt more than 250,000 hectares, merged with two smaller blazes on Friday morning.

Southwest of Sydney, the Green Wattle Creek fire has consumed more than 45,000 hectares and jumped Lake Burragorang, Sydney’s main water supply reservoir. Three firefighters were injured fighting the blaze and had to be airlifted to hospital on Thursday. Press photographers and firefighters described witnessing a spontaneous explosion of bushland on Thursday night that was unlike anything they had seen before.

On the NSW South Coast, a fire originating near Currowan has threatened residents throughout the week. The fire crossed the main coastal Princes Highway on Monday, leaving residents of Depot Beach, Pretty Beach, Pebbly Beach and Bawley Point with no way to leave. The fire has spread over more than 70,000 hectares and destroyed at least one home. While it has been downgraded to “watch and act,” residents of the South Durras area have been encouraged to leave.

Less than 100 kilometres inland, a fire in the Tallaganda National Park burnt through more than 30,000 hectares in 10 days. Residents in Braidwood and surrounding areas, not far from Canberra, are still being told to monitor the situation carefully, as hot, dry and windy conditions are forecast for the coming days.

There are currently 100 bush and grass fires burning across NSW, 13 of which carry “emergency” or “watch and act” warnings. Since July, bushfires in the state have scorched more than two million hectares of land, and destroyed more than 680 homes. Six people have been killed.

In southeast Queensland, Cypress Gardens and Forest Ridge were evacuated on Wednesday, threatened by the worst of the 47 fires burning across that state. While the blaze continues, the warning has been downgraded to “watch and act.” So far, at least three homes have been lost.

There is no reported immediate threat to human lives from bushfires currently burning in Victoria, but fires in East Gippsland last weekend claimed the life of a 69-year-old worker assisting the firefighting effort when his vehicle rolled down an embankment.

The most serious fire in Western Australia is at Nambeelup, just south of Perth. Although the fire is currently contained, the weather forecast is for strong winds and high temperatures, raising concerns the fire may spread toward built-up areas.

The danger of bushfires is not limited to the immediate vicinity of the fire. Smoke from the fires has travelled as far as New Zealand and South America.

While the sight of ashes falling from the sky is a stark reminder of the ongoing catastrophe, the invisible components of the smoke present a greater threat. Tiny (smaller than 2.5 micrometres) particles in bushfire smoke cause irritation in the eyes and throat, and enter the bloodstream through the lungs.

The effects are unpleasant for otherwise healthy people, but for sufferers of respiratory illnesses, including asthma, lung cancer and emphysema, or those at risk of heart attack, this level of smoke pollution can be life-threatening.

In NSW, ambulance calls related to asthma or breathing issues are up 30 percent on the weekly average, and emergency presentations are up 25 percent due to the smoke haze.

Smoke-polluted air is also known to cause an increase in the number of people needing medical attention for deep vein thrombosis, complications of diabetes and neurological disorders including Parkinson’s disease.

A recent US study found that short-term exposure to fine particulate matter was positively correlated with an increase in deaths and hospital admissions resulting from conditions not previously thought to be related to air pollution, including septicaemia, fluid and electrolyte disorders, renal failure and intestinal obstruction without hernia.

The NSW government has denied reports that its fire services have suffered cuts of up to $40 million. But it is clear that spending on firefighting personnel and resources is not keeping pace with the impact of climate change, population growth and shoddy construction practises, including flammable cladding on apartment buildings.

Unlike police officers, firefighters are not designated “frontline workers” and are therefore not exempt from the NSW Labour Expense Cap, an austerity measure ordering government agencies to limit promotions, cut overtime payments through increased use of part-time and casual workers, and reduce staff numbers through “natural attrition.”

This means greater reliance on volunteers. The annual labour cost for the state’s RFS volunteer force is less than $120 million, in the form of insurance, workers’ compensation and a payroll tax exemption for employers while their employees are fighting fires.

As climate change increases the number and intensity of bushfires, and the length of fire seasons, ever-greater demands are being placed on volunteer firefighters. Former chief executive of the Country Fire Authority (CFA), the Victorian equivalent of the RFS, Neil Bibby, recently told reporters: “Disasters are becoming bigger and lasting longer, and starting earlier and finishing later in the year… [W]e’re coming to the tipping point where the ability to rest people and the ability to do the job the volunteers do is diminishing.”

The sustainability of volunteer-based fire services is being further undercut by the ageing of the population. This is exacerbated in rural areas by an exodus of younger people, driven by high unemployment, lack of educational opportunities and the consolidation of small family farms into massive agribusinesses.

Longer working hours, more families with both parents working full-time and increased commute times as a result of inadequate infrastructure and overpriced housing, also leave workers with little time to volunteer for fire fighting.

Nonetheless, thousands of workers still come forward, saving countless lives and homes. The bravery and generosity displayed by ordinary people in times of crisis stand in sharp contrast to the response of capitalist governments, which put the profit interests of big business and tax cuts for the wealthy ahead of the health and safety of people and the environment.

Australian governments reject calls for removal of armed police from Aboriginal settlements

Richard Phillips

Last month’s death of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker after being shot by police in Yuendumu is an inevitable product of ongoing government spending cuts and escalating police-state style repression of poverty-stricken Aboriginal communities. Yuendumu is a remote community about 300 kilometres northwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory (NT).

According to police, Walker was wanted for “outstanding offences.” He was shot three times inside his grandmother’s home at about 7.15 p.m. on November 9.

There will be a coroner’s inquest into Walker’s death, along with a NT Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry, an internal police probe and a police professional standards investigation. However, all previous official inquiries into “deaths in custody” have exonerated police.

There have been over 425 recorded Aboriginal deaths in custody since the Hawke Labor government’s 1987–91 royal commission into such killings, including 18 since August last year.

After being shot, the severely wounded Walker was taken to the Yuendumu police station where he is believed to have bled to death about two hours later, without receiving professional emergency care. The under-resourced local health clinic was not open at the time. NT health authorities had ordered medical staff to leave the area a day before.

Yuendumu in central Australia

Authorities claim the clinic’s staff had left because they feared burglaries. Whether this is true or not, government funding to remote community health and other basic social services has been systemically run down for more than a decade.

In October, the NT Labor government announced that clinics in the remote communities of Alcoota, Epenarra, Haasts Bluff and Yuelamu would be closed from mid-December, forcing residents to travel up to four hours for emergency health care. While the NT government, following Walker’s death, declared that the clinics would not close, residents are rightly suspicious that the reprieve is a temporary political manoeuvre.

Constable Zachary Rolfe, 28, a former Australian Army soldier and Afghanistan veteran, was charged with murder and quickly granted bail, following a special overnight phone hearing with the on-call judge on November 13. He has been suspended on full pay and permitted to travel outside the NT.

Procedural hearings on the murder case will be held on December 12 and 19 in Alice Springs to decide whether the trial should be heard in Alice Springs or Darwin and when it will begin. The Police Federation of Australia has condemned the charging of Rolfe as deleterious to “police morale.”

Northern Territory Supreme Court in Alice Springs

The immediate response of the NT police to the November 9 shooting was to provocatively dispatch 40 members of its Territory Response Group (TPG) to Yuendumu, which has about 700 residents. The TPG is a heavily-armed, military camouflage-wearing unit. Its officers are armed with Remington R5 rifles or Sig Sauer 716 semi-automatic weapons.

Frank Baarda, a long-time resident who writes a local news blog—“Musical Despatches from the Front”—described the mobilisation as “an organised display of force” and the “largest concentration of armed police” he had seen since visiting Mexico during the suppression of student protests in 1971.

“Why the overt display of weaponry?” Baarda asked on his blog. “Was it out of unwarranted fear? Or was it an insensitive display resulting from ignorance or arrogance or both?… Bureaucrats politicians and the media are complicit in spreading misinformation, which is once against portraying Yuendumu as this incredibly unsafe and dangerous place.”

On November 21, right-wing commentator Andrew Bolt published an inflammatory comment in the Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph entitled, “Was Constable Rolfe charged with being white?” Bolt insisted that a crowd of peaceful protestors in Yuendumu were being “primed for another riot” and inferred that Rolfe would not be given a fair trial. “Is justice being done? Or do I smell politics and the new tribalism?”

Five days after Walker’s death, and following protests across Australia, including a more than 1,000-strong demonstration in Alice Springs, Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt met with Yuendumu community leaders.

Part of the November 14 protest in Alice Springs

The Yuendumu elders are demanding the removal of armed police from their community, and other remote settlements, and called for support from Wyatt, the first Aboriginal to be appointed the Minister for Indigenous Australians. He refused to comment.

“He’s our representative, he’s a federal person, he should have given me something, but I wasn’t satisfied with his comments and with the way he was talking to me,” Ned Hargraves, one of the elders, told NTIV News.

Ned Hargraves

Yuendumu residents cannot “trust anybody right now,” Hargraves said. “We can’t trust the police. They are saying, ‘We are for you, we serve the country, we serve you, we protect you,’ [but] where is the protection for us? We are weeping. We are not happy with the whole situation.”

The day after the meeting with Wyatt, NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner declared that his Labor government would support all the “operational decisions” of the police. In other words, the repression and provocations would continue.

Nine days after Walker’s death, a 23-year-old Aboriginal man was hit by an unmarked police car and seriously injured on November 18 in Alice Springs. NT Police allege that he was armed with a knife and attempted to get away from officers who chased him on foot and in vehicles. Police told the media “the serious custody incident” would be investigated internally.

Over the past 12 years, Aboriginal communities in the NT have been the target of a sustained political assault—first by the federal Liberal-National Coalition government’s Northern Territory Intervention and then the Rudd and Gillard Labor government’s “Stronger Futures” program.

Thousands of Aboriginal workers and their families suffer horrendous poverty—unable to access decent housing, education, transport, safe drinking water and other rudimentary social needs—while millions of dollars are handed out to the police, the judiciary and other components of the state apparatus.

This is symbolised in Alice Springs by the recently completed $14 million NT Supreme Court, which towers over the city’s small shopping precinct.

In Yuendumu, where, according to recent figures, 52 percent of the working-age population is unemployed, residents suffer substandard and overcrowded housing, poorly-resourced schools and inadequate social facilities. The largest single amount of government money ever spent in the community was for a new $7.6 million police station.

With about 30 percent of its population being indigenous, the NT is Australia’s most heavily-policed state or territory. It has almost 700 police per 100,000 population—2.6 times more than the national average. The NT Southern Command, which covers the central Australia region, has three times the national average.

Aboriginal people confront scores of reactionary, anti-democratic measures, including mandatory sentencing laws for a range of social crimes.

Police have sweeping powers to raid people in their homes without search warrants and arrest individuals for so-called anti-social conduct. This year the NT government introduced a special app for reporting such behaviour.

Paperless arrest laws, introduced in 2014, give the police powers to arrest and detain a person for four hours, or, if deemed to be intoxicated, “for as long as they are judged to no longer be intoxicated.” Over 1,295 people were taken into custody in the first seven months after these laws were introduced, almost 80 percent of them Aboriginal people.

Police auxiliary liquor inspectors in Alice Springs supermarket

Last year, the NT government introduced a “police auxiliary liquor inspectors” program, employing over 100 officers. The armed police are stationed outside all stores selling alcohol and check all purchases. Aboriginal people are systematically targeted with fines and arrests.

Tangentyere Council CEO Walter Shaw, who lives in Mount Nancy, one of Alice Spring’s town camps, is currently taking anti-discrimination action against police over an incident in September.

Walter Shaw

After being blocked by police from purchasing a bottle of wine to have with dinner at a friend’s home in Alice Springs, Shaw requested a senior police officer come to the local bottle shop.

Senior police officers followed him and his wife to their friend’s house, and later back to his home, where they demanded to search his car. Confronted with Shaw’s barking dog, they responded by pepper-spraying the animal in full view of Shaw’s distraught children.

“I must be the only CEO in the world that’s been subjected to this. I’m a bit conflicted about taking legal action because there are Aboriginal people being treated far worse than me,” he told the WSWS last week.

“I can understand why a lot of Aboriginal people, particularly here in the Northern Territory, where authorities flout their basic rights and where they’re racially profiled, vilified and discriminated against, would be reluctant to challenge the authorities. The difficulties of steering your way through this are overwhelming—even the common person wouldn’t know how to navigate this repressive system—but there’s an issue of principle here.”

US farmer suicides on the rise as Trump’s trade war, extreme weather hit hard

Anthony Bertolt

Last month, the Washington Post profiled the suicide of farmer Chris Dykshorn in Platte, a rural farming town in South Dakota, in the context of the rising suicide rate among farmers in the US.

With $300,000 in debt, Dykshorn and his family were unable to sell their excess grain crop due to Trump’s trade war with China and record rains had flooded their fields, severely curtailing the growing season. Squeezed under this immense pressure, and not knowing how he could provide for his wife and children, Dykshorn used a gun to take his own life.

Chris Dykshorn and his children [Source: Gofundme/Amber Dykshorn]

While suicide is the tenth leading cause of death overall in the US, a recent study published by the University of Iowa found that the suicide rate for farm operators and farm workers has been more than three times higher than the national rate dating back to the 1990s and early 2000s.

Although the past two years have not yet been reported, mental health experts expect the numbers to be even higher for 2018 and 2019 as suicide hotlines have been receiving more calls in rural areas. This has prompted a limited response from federal and state agencies, including a $1.9 million US Department of Agriculture initiative to establish support groups for farms and ranches and $450,000 to train USDA employees in how to make mental health treatment referrals.

In an interview with Time, Mike Rosmann, a clinical psychologist and farmer from Iowa, reported that he was receiving seven calls per week from farmers with mental health problems usually resulting from their struggles with finances.

The death of Chris Dykshorn provides a glimpse into the devastation brought about by consecutive years of extreme weather that have cut the growing season short and destroyed crop yields, trade war, and the predation of financial institutions burying farmers in unbearable debts.

Compounding the already record rainfall from the previous year, this year saw historic floods in the Midwest from melting ice and snow from the record-breaking winter, devastating crop yields primarily for corn and soybean farmers. Farmers whose fields were less affected by the flooding were still cut off from roads and railways, limiting their ability to sell their crops and transport or feed livestock.

According to the USDA, only 30 percent of corn fields had been planted as of May this year, compared to the 66 percent average. In South Dakota, the amount of corn fields planted dropped to 4 percent compared to the average of 54 percent over the past five years, and 21 percent in Minnesota compared to the average of 65 percent.

In addition to abysmal crop yields for this year, Trump’s trade war has driven down the buying prices of crops as China has refused to buy any crops from American farmers, leaving soybean farmers without any buyers and unable to pay off massive debts. After Trump’s trade-war tariffs directed at China in August, China cancelled all purchases of US agricultural products in a retaliation against the Trump administration. The tariffs were 10 percent for all $300 billion in Chinese agricultural imports.

Farm debt in the US stands at a combined $416 billion, which is an all-time high, and more than half of all farmers have lost money every year since 2013. Like other areas of the economy, small farmers and farm workers are losing their jobs to technological advances that are mostly implemented by the largest corporate farms and too expensive for independent farmers to afford. While the US lost almost 100,000 farms from 2011 to 2018, the number of large farms with over 2000 acres has been steadily increasing.

Dean Foods, the largest milk producer in the country, has been shuttering processing plants, laying off hundreds of workers and leaving dairy farmers to sell their farms or go further into debt. A 26 percent decline in milk consumption in the US and the loss of contracts with Walmart and Food Lion cut into the company’s revenues, leading to its filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November.

The social crisis wrought by the economic pressure on farmers has resulted in increasing rates of death by suicide and homicide all across the United States but especially in the South and Midwest, where access to mental healthcare is limited.

The loss of a job for independent farmers often means losing a home which has been their family farm for generations. The likelihood of finding another job in rural areas is low with even department store chains, long the mainstays of small towns, shuttering in the face of competition from warehouse and delivery giants like Amazon.

Aware of the deepening impact of the tariffs, the Trump administration has attempted to placate farmers ahead of the 2020 elections with the institution of nearly $16 billion in bailout programs for farmers affected by the trade war.

However, most of the aid has gone to the largest farms, leaving independent farmers to fend for themselves. Over the course of this year alone, farm bankruptcies have increased by over 24 percent, jumping to the highest level since 2011.

Every aspect of the crisis this year was only made worse by the negligence of the ruling class. Farmers and workers were forced to deal with all of the preparations and cleanup after the floods in the spring, putting up sandbags to protect their homes and belongings, only to be left with little to no form of assistance after the floods.

Low crop yields, low buying prices for commodities and/or no buyers for crops due to Trump’s trade war with China have precipitated a major crisis for farmers in the US. There is extreme pressure on farmers, who find themselves unable to pay off massive loans or even sustain their own lives and those of their families. The crisis facing agriculture in the US will also drive food prices higher on the shelves of grocery stores, only adding to the misery of the same struggling rural farmers and working-class families.

Each aspect of the crisis facing American farmers serves as a damning exposure of the irrationality of the capitalist system, in which the ruling class finds a more lucrative opportunity in forcing independent farmers into financial ruin and personal despair than in meeting the needs of those who produce a significant portion of the world’s food supply.

Saudi airman kills four at US Naval Base in Florida

Bill Van Auken

An attack carried out by a Saudi air force pilot early Friday morning at the US Navy’s sprawling Pensacola, Florida Naval Air Station left at least four dead, including the shooter, and another eight wounded. Police and naval authorities reported that the attack was carried out with a handgun.

Aerial view of Naval Air Station Pensacola [Source: Wikimedia Commons]

The carnage spread across two floors of a classroom building at the base, which trains tens of thousands of pilots and airmen each year. Deputies from the Escambia County Sheriff’s Department were the first to respond to the incident, shooting and killing the Saudi officer.

He was identified by NBC News as Second Lieutenant Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani. The US Navy and police authorities were withholding the names of the victims pending notification of their families.

The mass shooting at the base in Pensacola was the second such incident at a US Navy facility in the space of barely 48 hours. On Wednesday, a 22-year-old sailor from Texas, identified as Gabriel Antonio Romero, opened fire at Pearl Harbor’s naval shipyard in Hawaii, killing two civilian workers and wounding a third, before shooting himself to death.

At a press conference held Friday afternoon at the Pensacola base, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suggested that the killings there may have been linked to terrorism. “There is obviously going to be a lot of questions about this individual being a foreign national, being a part of the Saudi Air Force and then to be here training on our soil,” DeSantis said, adding that the Saudi monarchy needed “to make things better for these victims” as “this was one of their individuals.”

At the same press conference, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan told the assembled media not to expect “quick answers” about the shooting, and that there were “aspects of the case that will never be public.” The government, he said, would “tell you what you need to know to keep our [communities] safe.”

Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, who represents the Pensacola area, tweeted Friday that “This was not a murder. This was an act of terrorism.”

US President Donald Trump struck a decidedly different tone, declining to answer if the attack was linked to terrorism. Instead, he cited a condolence call from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman. “The King said that the Saudi people are greatly angered by the barbaric actions of the shooter, and that this person in no way shape or form represents the feelings of the Saudi people who love the American people,” Trump tweeted.

Given Trump’s demonization of Muslims, it is hard to imagine such a response if the shooter had come from any other country in the Middle East than Saudi Arabia, whose monarchical dictatorship serves a lynchpin for US imperialist policy in the region and, in particular, for its drive for regime change in Iran.

With its vast oil wealth, the Saudi monarchy has also acted in US interest in stabilizing the global oil market, while its military contracts have been the source of multi-billion-dollar profits for Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and other US arms manufacturers. The shooting in Pensacola also came just one day after Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil monopoly ARAMCO staged the biggest initial public offering ever, with some $25.6 billion going for shares in the company.

Trump’s reaction to the Pensacola shooting was in line with his response to the grisly October 2018 assassination of dissident journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Then he cited $450 billion in arms contracts, Saudi collaboration against Iran and its having been “very responsive to my requests to keep oil prices at reasonable levels” as justification for turning a blind eye to the international crime.

At the press conference on Friday, the Pensacola base commander, Capt. Timothy Kinsella, estimated that “a "couple hundred foreign students” were training there at the time of the shooting. Saudis make up a significant portion of these trainees.

According to US Defense Department reports, some 1,753 Saudi military personnel were trained at US military facilities in 2018 at a cost of $120,903,786. For fiscal year 2019, it was projected that 3,150 Saudi military personnel would receive training in the US.

Friday’s shooting is not the first time that an act of terrorism by a Saudi national has been linked to the Pensacola Naval Air Base.

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, in which 15 of the 19 men involved in the hijacking of three passenger planes were Saudis, a report in Newsweek magazine stated that Saeed Alghamdi was one of three hijackers who had taken flight training at the Pensacola Navy Air Station. It was also reported that three of the hijackers had listed Pensacola Naval Air Station as their address on their Florida driver’s licenses.

The Pentagon responded by stating that, while the hijackers had “similar names to foreign alumni of US military courses,” discrepancies in birth dates and other biographical information indicated that they were not the same people. A public affairs officer at Pensacola said that the base had trained more than 1,600 people with the first name Saeed, spelled in various ways, and more than 200 with the surname Alghamdi.

The Saudi pilots being trained at Pensacola and other US bases have been deployed for the most part in the near-genocidal, four-year-old Saudi war against Yemen. The US-backed war has created the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet in what was already the poorest country in the Arab world. Air strikes and other combat operations carried out by Saudi-led coalition forces with US support have caused the deaths of some 80,000 people.