World Bank economist warns of worsening crisis in Sri Lanka

Saman Gunadasa

Hans Timmer, the World Bank’s chief economist for South Asia, has warned that promised tax cuts by the new minority government of President Gotabhaya Rajapakse could destabilise the economy and deepen the island’s financial crisis. His comments were made at a December 3 public lecture hosted by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in Colombo.

Gotabhaya Rajapakse [Credit: AP Photo]

Timmer acknowledged that the government’s plan to boost the economy in the lead up to the forthcoming general election but cautioned that its “stimulation package” was risky and insisted on the full implementation of the “structural reforms” demanded by International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“Sri Lanka may not have the needed fiscal space for an ambitious stimulus,” he said. Fitch Ratings, the global ratings agency, had previously warned that new tax concessions would derail budget discipline. Imposition of “fiscal discipline” means slashing the country’s budget deficit as demanded by the IMF. The IMF wants the Sri Lankan government to reduce the deficit, which has risen to 7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, to 3.5 percent.

The minority government’s recent concessions include a reduction of individual income tax rates from 24 to 18 percent; abolition of the 5 percent withholding tax on dividends and interest; abolition of the Nation Building Tax; exempting agriculture, fishing, livestock and information technology services from income tax; and a reduction in the Value Added Tax (VAT) from 15 to 8 percent. The previous government, on IMF orders, had increased VAT.

The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) government and the media have insisted that the tax reductions will boost business and the ailing economy and increase consumption.

Moody’s Investors Service, however, has predicted that the tax cuts will reduce government income by between 1 and 1.5 percent of GDP. The government estimates a 500- to 550-billion rupee ($US3 billion) annual decrease.

Timmer noted that South Asia, after five years of being the fastest growing region in the world, was experiencing a steep reduction in growth projections. India’s GDP growth, previously considered one of the engines of the global economy, is expected to decline this year to less than 5 percent. Sri Lanka’s growth has been projected to fall to 2.7 percent.

The World Bank economist said that “huge uncertainties in growth markets with trade wars, policy uncertainties [and] political tensions” would exacerbate economic difficulties in South Asia. “The big problem in South Asia is that there is no fiscal rule which impacts on the macroeconomic environment” and added that “crony capitalism” was a common problem across the region.

Timmer called for increased “formalisation” of the economy, noting that 80 percent of South Asian workforce was in the informal sector and there was an “underutilization” of women workers. The World Bank, he continued, was focused on bringing the informal sector into the formal sector so that tax income could be increased. In other words, to create the conditions to further reduce business and investment tax rates.

Timmer warned that unless Sri Lanka reduced protectionism the country’s growth prospects were bleak. The structural changes required, he said, included broadening the tax base and reducing government spending—i.e., further cuts to health and education and rural subsidies.

The business environment would be developed, he continued, through a “private investment-tradeable sector-led growth model” to “improve governance and performance of state-owned enterprises.” This implies cutting funds to the state-owned enterprises, forcing them to become profitable and privatising them.

Timmer called for the “underemployed” or “unutilised labour” to be fully utilised and said the aging population was a burden on the economy. He said arrangements were needed to boost skill levels, improve productivity and encourage “longer working lives.”

Timmer’s remarks were delivered as the Sri Lankan economy confronts a severe crisis with the foreign and domestic debt burden now at 85 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and the country’s growth rate dropping to similar levels as Pakistan and war-torn Afghanistan.

Central Bank governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy recently warned that Sri Lanka would face the same situation as Greece if it failed to raise the required funds to service its debts. Colombo currently needs about $US4 billion per year, until 2022, to pay its debt.

President Rajapakse hopes to consolidate his regime by obtaining two-thirds majority in parliament by holding a snap general election in April.

While Rajapakse is desperately attempting to generate some positive economic news and win electoral support, the government has announced initial expenditure cuts to all government ministries, departments and statutory boards and agencies.

On December 3, the finance ministry said that the estimated fiscal deficit for 2019 would be 7 percent of GDP and the government would “make a concerted effort to recalibrate its operations along a sustainable deficit reduction path towards 4 percent of GDP in the medium term.” The next day, the finance ministry issued a circular that said “all non-essential and non-priority expenditure” was to be curtailed at the request of the president.

Rajapakse’s government has also indicated that it will need the last instalment of the IMF bailout loan negotiated by the previous government. The IMF will no doubt insist that the new regime sharply reduce the fiscal deficit and implement its austerity program.

While Rajapakse is hoping to win a two-thirds majority in an early general election his government will soon confront a combative working class that will not tolerate further attacks on its living and social conditions.

New doping provocation against Russia prior to 2020 Olympics

Kevin Reed

The Executive Committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) issued a new provocation against Russia on Monday by ruling that its athletes will be banned from participating in international competition for four years because data about the country’s anti-doping program was found to be “neither complete nor authentic.”

A press release issued by WADA said the committee “unanimously endorsed the recommendation made by the independent Compliance Review Committee (CRC) that the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) be declared non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code (Code) for a period of four years.”

The CRC is a six-member subcommittee within the WADA set up in 2015 to monitor the compliance of each country’s anti-doping organization with the 2015 Anti-Doping Code. The CRC submitted a 26-page report to the WADA executive committee on November 25 that outlined its evaluation of the RUSADA data and the ban proposal. The basic claim is that the RUSADA falsified athlete test results submitted to the WADA as part of a previous compliance agreement stemming from doping charges in 2018.

Craig Reedie, President of the World Anti-Doping Agency [Credit: Graham Hughes/Canadian Press via Associated Press]

At a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, the 12-member WADA executive committee voted unanimously to approve the ban which “includes a series of strong consequences and conditions of reinstatement in accordance with the International Standard for Code Compliance by Signatories (ISCCS).” Among the consequences are that Russian athletes and sports officials will be banned from participating in the upcoming Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 2020, the 2022 World Cup and the Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022.

The anti-Russia character of the WADA decision was expressed directly by the president of the organization, Sir Craig Reedie, who said, “For too long, Russian doping has detracted from clean sport.” As though the international epidemic of athletic doping is exclusively a Russian problem in an otherwise pure and honest environment, Reedie said, “Russia was afforded every opportunity to get its house in order and re-join the global anti-doping community for the good of its athletes and of the integrity of sport, but it chose instead to continue in its stance of deception and denial.”

In response, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the decision would be appealed and charged the WADA with “an endless anti-Russian series” of accusations and hiding other countries’ violations “under the table.”

It should be pointed out that, although the WADA stands for the “World” Anti-doping Agency, one of the only athletic associations in the world that continues to block doping oversight and testing by the global organization is the American National Football League located in New York City. The NFL has refused to allow blood-testing for human growth hormones (HGH) among players and contact with the WADA was at stalemate as of September 2013.

The WADA decision contains provisions that will permit Russian athletes to participate in competition once they prove they are “clean.” However, these athletes will not be permitted to represent any country or flag and must participate as “neutral” competitors. The WADA rules also allow the RUSADA to dispute the decision within 21 days. If Russia appeals, the final decision will be placed in the hands of the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The WADA decision to ban Russian athletes for four years is an extension of a non-stop campaign against Russian participation in international sporting events going back to the organization’s founding in 1999. This campaign has particularly intensified over the past four years with charges emerging in 2015 that banned Russia from track and field events in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio and the entire team from the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

The most vociferous promoter of the campaign to ban Russia from international sports competition is the New York Times. On the day of the WADA announcement, the Times encouraged and amplified the anti-Russian campaign over the fact that the committee was going to allow some athletes to compete.

Under a headline of “What the Russia Global Sports Ban Means, and What It Doesn’t,” the Times wrote, “So Russia’s flag, name and anthem will not be allowed at the Tokyo Summer Games and other events, but athletes from Russia not implicated in doping can still compete.”

The latest provocation by the IOC and WADA against Russia—abetted by anti-Russia mouthpieces of the US military-intelligence apparatus like the New York Times —must be viewed within its broader geopolitical context. Under conditions of an imminent impeachment by congressional Democrats of President Donald Trump for endangering the national interest vis a vis the “hot war” between Ukraine and Russia, the banning of Russian athletes is an overt political act.

As the World Socialist Web Site stated two years ago about the IOC’s banning of Russia in the lead up to the 2018 Olympics, “The decision is a political provocation. It has much less to do with steroid use by Russian athletes than with US imperialism’s aim to humiliate and isolate Russia.... The purpose of all of this is to project an image of Russia as the ultimate pariah state.”

Turkey’s Erdoğan threatens to send troops into Libya

Bill Van Auken

Turkey is prepared to send troops into Libya should the war-ravaged north African nation’s besieged government in Tripoli ask for Ankara’s aid, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warned Tuesday.

The threat of intervention came as the Libyan capital, a metropolitan area comprising some two million inhabitants, appeared to be on the brink of an all-out battle between the collection of militias supporting the Tripoli-based, UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj and the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), which is aligned with a rival government based upon the Libyan House of Representatives in the eastern port city of Tobruk.

Libya, once the wealthiest country in Africa, boasting the continent’s largest oil reserves, was transformed into a so-called failed state and plunged into a permanent state of chaos and bloodshed by the 2011 US-NATO war for regime change. A seven-month-long bombing campaign was launched in support of CIA-backed Islamist militias to destroy Libya’s security forces and vital infrastructure and overthrow the government of Muammar Gaddafi, who was tortured and murdered by an Islamist lynch mob.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan [Credit: State Department]

Turkey is the sole power providing significant material support to the GNA of Prime Minister al-Sarraj in Tripoli. The Tobruk government and the LNA, which is commanded by the 76-year-old “Field Marshal” Khalifa Haftar, has won backing from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, France and Russia.

Washington’s attitude toward the conflict has been ambiguous. While the US formally recognizes the GNA in Tripoli and has called for a ceasefire, President Donald Trump spoke personally to Haftar last April as his forces were mounting a previous siege of Tripoli and, afterwards, praised him for playing a “significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya’s oil resources.”

A former Gaddafi general turned CIA asset, Haftar spent two decades living near the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, collaborating in US plots against the Gaddafi government, before returning to Libya shortly after the NATO war began in 2011 to lead NATO-backed “rebels.”

Haftar’s forces have appeared to gain the upper hand amid reports of Russian aid in the form of military contractors as well as warplanes and air defense systems that have given them control of Libyan airspace.

Washington’s standpoint has appeared to shift in opposition to the increased Russian role. Last month, the chief of the US military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM), Gen. Stephen Townsend, said that a Russian air defense battery had shot down a US military surveillance drone near Tripoli. He acknowledged that the US drone may have been mistaken for one of the Turkish drones used by the GNA militias to attack Haftar’s forces. He added, “But they certainly know who it belongs to now and they are refusing to return it. They say they don’t know where it is, but I am not buying it.” US officials also suggested that Russia was “exploiting” the crisis created by US imperialism’s destruction of Libya’s government and society eight years ago.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that he had discussed Libya the day before with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Washington, and had insisted that there was “no military solution.” He also reiterated US support for an arms embargo imposed against Libya in 2011, an embargo that was blatantly violated by the CIA in supplying arms to the Islamist militias in the country, weapons that later found their way to Al Qaeda-linked forces in Syria and elsewhere.

Whether such negotiations will take place is far from clear. Haftar and his cohorts have declared that they will take Tripoli before the end of the year. The LNA forces are reportedly just two miles from the Libyan capital, having taken control of most of the Salah el-Deen district just south of Tripoli. The LNA’s entry into the city would almost certainly trigger bloody street fighting and the displacement of a population that already includes large numbers of both internal and external refugees.

Erdoğan’s suggestion that Turkish soldiers could be sent to prop up the GNA came on the heels of the signing of an agreement between the Turkish government and the regime in Tripoli providing not only for security assistance, including the right to build Turkish bases in Libya, but also a Memorandum of Understanding delineating a supposed diagonal maritime boundary between the two countries.

The agreement lays claim to a vast stretch of the eastern Mediterranean separating Libya from Turkey, including waters off the Greek island of Crete, Cyprus and Egypt, along with off-shore reserves of oil and natural gas whose worth is estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Greece expelled the ambassador of the Tripoli government after the signing of the deal and went to the United Nations to challenge the agreement as a violation of international law. The government of Cyprus said it was launching a legal action at the International Court of Justice at the Hague against what it said was Turkey’s violations of its sovereign rights.

Turkey’s deal with a regime that appears to be on its last legs in Libya is aimed at bolstering its claims over drilling rights in the area.

“With this new agreement between Turkey and Libya, we can hold joint exploration operations in these exclusive economic zones that we determined. There is no problem,” Erdoğan said Tuesday.

“Other international actors cannot carry out exploration operations in these areas Turkey drew [up] this accord without getting permission. Greek Cyprus, Egypt, Greece and Israel cannot establish a gas transmission line without first getting permission from Turkey,” he added.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the pro-government A Haber news network Wednesday that Ankara “has the right to prevent” any unauthorized drilling in the waters that it has claimed. Asked if Turkey would resort to military force to prevent such drilling, he replied, “Of course.”

Cyprus has struck deals with France’s Total and Italy’s ENI energy conglomerates to carry out joint drilling operations in waters that are now claimed by Turkey. Last July, Turkey sent drilling vessels escorted by Turkish warships to carry out exploratory drilling in what Cyprus regards as its exclusive economic zone. Last year, Turkish warships blocked a drill ship leased by ENI from entering waters southeast of Cyprus. Turkey does not recognize the country, claiming a large part of its economic zone as its own based on what it says is its protection of Turkish Cypriots in a breakaway statelet in the island’s north.

The conflict over energy reserves in the eastern Mediterranean and the bloody war in Libya are part of an increasingly unstable situation throughout the region that poses the threat of a region-wide and even global military conflagration.

French prime minister vows to impose pension cuts despite growing strikes

Anthony Torres & Alex Lantier

Since December 5, French public sector workers have been on strike against planned pension cuts opposed by two thirds of the population, shutting down mass transit, train transport and education. Yesterday, before trade unions and employers’ groups at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE), Prime Minister Edouard Philippe spoke and announced that he would ram the cuts through despite growing opposition. He demanded an end to strike action and stepped-up talks with the trade unions, who have been negotiating the cuts with Macron since 2017.

Philippe provocatively rejected all the strikers’ main demands outright, vowing to impose a system of pensions “by points,” eliminate special pension systems in the public sector, and increase the legal retirement age from 62 to 64.

He told the CESE, “I am determined to pass this reform. We will gradually transform the pension system… We will place a fairer system on solid financial bases, by working somewhat longer and ending the special pension systems.” He would prepare a draft bill for the end of this year, submit it to the council of ministers on January 22, and to the parliament in February.

This confirms that the French government has no intention to compromise, and that the confrontation between the working class and the financial aristocracy represented by Macron will continue and escalate.

There is nothing to negotiate with President Emmanuel Macron’s government. Behind the talks that it holds with the unions, the government is planning to unilaterally slash pensions via a reform that faces overwhelming popular opposition, especially among workers. Strike action must be escalated, based on the perspective of bringing down the Macron government.

Macron is determined to cut the total sum retirees obtain from the French state by tens of billions of euros per year, massively redirecting wealth from the workers to the wealthiest in society. Bernard Arnault, now the world’s wealthiest man, saw his net worth increase by €23 billion last year alone. This would be enough by itself to fill the projected deficit of the pension system, which could grow to €8 to €17 billion by 2025. However, while it gives vast tax gifts to the super-rich, it plans deep cuts to pensions that would devastate tens of millions of workers.

The system of pensions “by points” does not attribute a future monetary value to the pension a worker will receive in exchange for helping pay for current retirees’ pensions during his working life, but a vague number of “points.” A 2016 video of ex-Prime Minister François Fillon, now gone viral, explains the content of this change. He says that such a system “allows something that no politician will admit, to reduce each month the size, the value of the point and so to diminish the value of the pensions.”

Another key part of the reform is Macron’s attempt to buy off the security forces so that they will continue to try to crush growing social opposition to the diktat of the banks. Philippe announced that police, fire and military personnel will get an exception and be allowed to retire at 62.

Philippe’s made claims about the pension reform to calm popular opposition that did nothing to change its reactionary character. He promised that the first generation of workers affected by the reform would be those born in 1975 rather than 1963. For public schoolteachers, “the mechanical application of the new rules would lead to a substantial loss of their future pensions. We will inscribe in the law a guarantee that the level of teachers’ pensions will be comparable to the level in the public service.”

This is a crude attempt to mislead the public, however, as Macron’s reform would slash pensions in the public service as well.

Philippe claimed that this pension reform is a necessary response to the growth of mass unemployment and precarious working conditions of workers in France and internationally, which he presented as logical and inevitable. “France has been characterized by a high level of unemployment for a long time. Studies last longer, careers are interrupted, part time work has grown. That is simply the world we live in,” he said.

These conditions underscore the bankruptcy of capitalism internationally and in France. According to Philippe, however, this shows the necessity of ending the current pension system, closely connected to a job that workers would hold their entire lives, to a more flexible points system that allows pension benefits to be slashed.

Macron is working closely with international financial corporations that would reap enormous profits from the slashing of the current system and the introduction of private retirement accounts. In 2017 the satirical weekly Canard enchaîné revealed that Macron had met with management of BlackRock, a US-based global investment fund that is “highly interested in opportunities raised by the reform of French retirement system that are potentially worth several trillion.”

This underscores that workers who have mobilized in struggle against Macron’s cuts face a struggle against both the French and the international financial aristocracy. In this struggle, which has seen broad sections of rail and transit workers, refinery workers, public school and airport workers take strike action and shut down large parts of France, the key ally of French workers is the international working class.

A powerful international upsurge of the class struggle is underway. Strikes are mounting in protest against the December 12 elections in Algeria, following walkouts by autoworkers and teachers in the US, and a wave of mass protests from Lebanon and Iraq to Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador. This is the social force that can be mobilized against Macron, the financial aristocracy and its program of precarious employment and endless austerity for workers internationally.

For this the struggle must be taken out of the hands of the unions, who work closely with Macron and are seeking to negotiate a deal with him. Workers need their own committees of action, as places where they can plan, discuss, and coordinate strikes and political opposition to the Macron government, and coordination with workers in struggle internationally.

The unions are financed by and deeply integrated into the state and the ruling elite, and while they continue to pledge strike action against the law, Philippe has made clear that he planned to rely on the unions to manage and oversee his pension cuts:

“We will put into place starting next year a governance program that will give to the social partners (i.e. the unions and employers federations) the main management tools. They can then work out a way to return to budgetary equilibrium.”

The same unions who are negotiating the reform with Macron and dictating the pace of strike action will then receive a substantial payoff to work with the state to cut pensions in order to ensure the program remains on a balanced budget.

On this basis, Philippe concluded by asking the trade unions to end the strike: “From today, I would like the presidents of state-owned enterprises begin a dialog with the trade unions to stop these strikes.”

Conscious that Philippe’s speech will not calm but rather inflame workers’ growing anger, the unions have issued a few hypocritical criticisms. On TF1 television, General Confederation of Labor (CGT) leader Philippe Martinez said, “Clearly, two very different visions of society are competing here, his and that of the CGT… I don’t think, given the anger in the country, his will be accepted.”

Laurent Berger of the traditionally pro-government French Democratic Labor Confederation (CFDT) objected to Philippe’s raising of the retirement age with a full pension to 64. On LCI, he invited “workers to join on December 17 an all-trade-union protest we have proposed.”

While the trade unions call protests, all are seeking to formulate sort of agreement acceptable to the Macron government to present to the workers and justify a sell-out. The decisive question in the struggle against Macron’s cuts remains organizing workers independently of the unions and arming them with an international, socialist perspective to oppose austerity.

The impeachment crisis and its political consequences

Andre Damon

On Tuesday, congressional Democrats published two articles of impeachment against US President Donald Trump, centering on claims that the president “compromised the national security of the United States.”

The fascist in the White House is being impeached not for ripping thousands of immigrant children from the hands of their parents, persecuting political dissidents Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, or presiding over a global apparatus of extrajudicial murder. Rather, the impeachment is over Trump’s failure to pursue with sufficient vigor the conflict with Russia.

President Trump speaks to the press in November [Credit: White House]

The document argues that the American president “betrayed the Nation” by delaying “the release of $391 million of United States taxpayer funds that Congress had appropriated… for the purpose of providing vital military security assistance to Ukraine to oppose Russian aggression.”

This is the first impeachment of a sitting president on the claim that he is a “threat to national security.” The types of extra-constitutional arguments used by the US intelligence agencies to justify mass warrantless wiretapping, torture, “rendition,” and the assassination of an American citizen, within the framework of the “war on terror,” are now being used in an effort to remove a president.

The impeachment drive and the anti-Russia campaign that predated it have involved an enormous intervention by the CIA and FBI in domestic politics. The impeachment inquiry was itself triggered by a CIA agent working at the White House, while a recently-released report shows that the FBI justified a wiretap of a former Trump aide by citing a Ukraine policy change in the Republican Party’s platform.

This process is the first time—with the possible exception of the dark and murky events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy—that the CIA and associated intelligence agencies have sought to remove a sitting president.

Anyone who supports the Democrats’ impeachment operation, in the hope that removing Trump on these grounds can have some sort of progressive consequence, is simply ignoring everything the Democrats and their CIA allies have done and said.

The most extraordinary element of the impeachment proceedings was its almost complete domination by US policy in Ukraine. It is of the greatest political significance, not to mention strangely ironic, that the United States’ instigation of the 2014 fascist-led coup in Kiev has had far reaching consequences for political life in the US. In order to carry through the implementation of the confrontation with Russia, which was the rationale behind the coup, the intelligence agencies that determine the policy of the Democratic Party have been compelled to seek the impeachment of Trump.

In 1986, the Iran-Contra scandal was triggered by the revelation that the Reagan administration had concocted a scheme to sell arms to Iran, in order to buy weapons to finance an illegal war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. That investigation revealed that the Reagan administration flagrantly violated the Boland Amendment, passed by Congress to prohibit US government assistance to the Contras.

But in this case, the main charge is that Trump held up the disbursing of money that was allocated by Congress to promote a war that is being planned entirely behind the backs of the American people.

The antidemocratic impulses behind the impeachment drive were summed up by the comments of the arch-warmonger Thomas Friedman, who wrote in the New York Times yesterday, “Generally speaking, I believe presidents should be elected and removed by the voters at the polls. But when I hear Trump defenders scream, ‘Impeachment subverts the will of the people,’ I say: “Really?”

To say that “generally speaking” the leadership of the country should be selected by voters, is to say that this should only be the case when it suits the CIA, FBI, and the military.

Friedman’s real complaint is not that Trump was subverting “the will of the people,” but that he was subverting what dominant factions of the intelligence agencies consider the geostrategic imperatives of the American ruling class.

For all the Democrats’ talk of “corruption,” “obstruction of justice,” “bribery,” and an “organized crime shakedown,” the real reasons for the impeachment stand starkly revealed as differences over how best to conduct the predatory policies of American imperialism.

Both the Trump presidency and the impeachment campaign of the Democrats are different manifestations of the deep and intractable crisis of American democracy. Trump has threatened to turn the impeachment struggle into a “civil war,” implying that he could appeal to his armed, far-right supporters to defend him against what he has called a “deep-state coup.”

The Democrats’ campaign against “foreign meddling” that framed the impeachment drive has provided the framework for imposing domestic censorship measures, with the intelligence agencies and representatives of both parties recruiting Google, Facebook and Twitter to demote and delete left-wing, anti-war and socialist publications, pages, and groups.

But even as Trump and his Democratic opponents frantically denounce one another as traitors and demand each other’s prosecution, there has, at the same time, emerged a remarkable bipartisan unity on fundamental issues facing US imperialism.

This was made perfectly clear this week with the rapid-fire announcement, by congressional Democrats, of agreements on two landmark pieces of legislation: The USMCA anti-China trade deal and the passage of the biggest military budget in US history.

The military budget, passed overwhelmingly by the House of Representatives yesterday, establishes a new branch of the US armed forces, the Space Force, while leveling sanctions against Russia, China, Turkey and North Korea.

“Wow! All of our priorities have made it into the final NDAA,” Trump gloated, noting in particular the removal of language preventing Pentagon funds being used for his immigration crackdown. Amid soaring social inequality, all factions of the American ruling elite are dedicated to war abroad and attacks on democratic rights at home.

The political crisis in Washington is framed by the global upsurge of the class struggle and the deepening crisis of US imperialism.

The past six months have seen an unprecedented expansion of the class struggle all over the world. Mass protests against inequality have broken out from Chile, to Puerto Rico, to Lebanon and Iraq. Autoworkers have gone on strike in Mexico and the United States, while much of the Paris Metro remains shut down, amid a strike wave throughout France. A recent issue of Time magazine, entitled “How America’s Elites Lost Their Grip,” notes with concern the growing audience for socialism throughout the country.

Just as important is the series of setbacks for US imperialism’s efforts, in the wake of the dissolution of the USSR, to preserve its global hegemony through military violence.

In 2003, when the US invaded Iraq, the World Socialist Web Site noted, “Whatever the outcome of the initial stages of the conflict that has begun, American imperialism has a rendezvous with disaster. It cannot conquer the world. It cannot reimpose colonial shackles upon the masses of the Middle East. It will not find through the medium of war a viable solution to its internal maladies. Rather, the unforeseen difficulties and mounting resistance engendered by war will intensify all of the internal contradictions of American society.”

More than fifteen years later, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are universally seen as debacles. The US-backed regime change operations in Syria and Libya have produced nothing but bloodbaths. And the 2014 US-backed coup on Ukraine, which started as an effort to bring Ukraine into NATO, has not succeeded in its fundamental aims.

Within this context, Foreign Affairs noted that it was “not surprising” that “Ukraine is at the center of this storm.”

“Over the past quarter century,” all efforts by the United States to impose its hegemony on the “Eurasian continent have foundered on the shoals of Ukraine. For it is in Ukraine that the disconnect between triumphalist end-of-history delusions and the ongoing realities of great-power competition can be seen in its starkest form.”

But faced with this enormous series of setbacks and debacles, US imperialism is doubling down, replacing the “war on terror” with preparations for “great-power conflict.”

The intractable crisis of American imperialism has generated deep conflicts within the ruling class.

But the relative disinterest in the proceedings among the broad mass of the population underscores the fundamentally undemocratic and reactionary character of the operation. Regardless of its outcome, the results will be a further shift to the right. Its success will intensify the confrontation with Russia, with incalculably dangerous consequences. Its failure could actually strengthen Trump.

The fight against the Trump administration is inseparable from the struggle against the capitalist system and the war plots of both parties. It must be conducted completely independent of and in opposition to the Democratic Party.

The objective social basis for the fight against the Trump administration is the global upsurge of the class struggle. The growing wave of strikes and protests by the working class, if united internationally and armed with a socialist perspective, is the means of opposing not only the Trump administration, but the capitalist system, of which it is the corrupt excrescence.

Government of Azerbaijan Undergraduate, Masters and Doctoral Scholarships 2020/2021 for International Students

Application Deadline: 15th February 2020.

Eligible Countries: Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) & Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries  

To be taken at (country): Azerbaijan

 About the Award: The Educational Grant Program for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation” and “The Grants Program for the Citizens of the Non-Aligned Movement” were approved by the President of the Republic of of Azerbaijan on December 6, 2017 and on January 10, 2018, respectively. The Educational Grant (hereinafter referred to as “scholarship”) Programs provide a pre-requisite course for undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, general medicine / residency programs.
Programmes provide an opportunity for selected 40 candidates on annual basis to study in the leading universities of Azerbaijan at • Preparatory courses • Undergraduate, graduate • Doctoral • General medicine/residency programmes

Type: Undergraduate, Masters, Doctoral 

Eligibility:

• Citizens of the OIC and the NAM member countries
• For undergraduate and general medicine programmes – citizens younger than 30
• For graduate and residency programmes – citizens younger than 35
• Review of the relevant documents
• Interviews (online/Skype) 

The candidates will be informed about the results by early July, 2019 Note: only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Number of Awards: 40

Value of Award: 

• Tuition fee 
• International flight 
• Monthly stipend for meals, accommodation and utility costs ($ 800) 
• Medical insurance 
• Visa and registration costs

How to Apply: 
Application form
Call for application 2020
List of eligible countries
List of diplomatic missions of the Republic of Azerbaijan
List of participating universities
Guidelines for International Students
Frequently Asked Questions – FAQ

• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage see link below) before applying

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

How Africa Could Power a Green Revolution

William Minter

Just before this year’s global climate summit opened in Madrid recently, researchers announced that emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels will hit a record high in 2019.

Although the 0.6 percent rate of growth is less than last year’s 2.1 percent, the total which must be cut to prevent the most catastrophic and irreversible scenarios is still increasing. Deeper and faster cuts are needed immediately and over the next 10 years. The primary responsibility to cut fossil-fuel emissions falls to developed countries that bear the greatest historical responsibilities, as well as to countries with large populations such as China and India that are also now among the top in global emissions.

However, from off-grid solar home systems to utility-scale solar and wind, the potential for major advances in the use of renewable energy is also growing rapidly on the African continent.

With stepped-up adoption of these technologies, African countries could contribute significantly to mitigating the global climate crisis. This would also reduce the ongoing damage to the health of their citizens, whether from kerosene lamps in rural areas, gasoline generators to backup unreliable power grids, or massive coal pollution in South Africa.

Driven by technological innovation, steadily falling costs, and the visible effects of the climate crisis, this transition is still hampered by vested interests in fossil fuels and by foot-dragging on the part of government planning agencies. But there is more and more evidence that renewable options are not only better for the climate and for health, but also the least expensive path. There is much untapped potential for replacing kerosene lamps, backup power generators, and coal power plants with cost-effective renewable alternatives. Innovative energy companies and investors are taking note.

East African countries have pioneered off-grid solar, laying out a model that other African countries could follow. While rural areas are still the primary markets for solar home systems, power grids in most African countries are so prone to power outages that many homes and businesses on the grid must rely on gasoline or diesel generators for backup. Solar systems can already begin to replace smaller generators, and further technological progress could make even larger systems cost-effective.

South Africa is still overwhelmingly dependent on expensive and unreliable coal-fired power plants, which supply 77 percent of the country’s electricity. Recent studies show that for new energy installations, renewable energy is already the cheapest. But such a shift faces enormous obstacles, not least the multiple dysfunctions and effective bankruptcy of Eskom, the scandal-ridden state-owned electricity agency.

Off-Grid Solar

Rapid expansion in solar home systems has been well documented as feasible.

In September 2019, the Global Off-Grid Lighting Association (GOGLA) reported on research in Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda with customers of seven off-grid solar companies. Researchers tracked 1,419 customers who bought solar home systems, with interviews at 3 months and 15 months after purchase. Ninety-five percent of respondents reported significant improvement in quality of life, with 95 percent saying they would recommend their product to a friend or relative.

According to Forbes, there are 600 million people without access to electricity in Africa, 71 million of them in Nigeria. “At this point, we are barely scraping the surface” of potential demand, said Alistair Gordon, chief executive of Lumos, the largest provider of off-grid solar in Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire. The company currently has 100,000 customers and expects to provide solar power to 100 million people in the next 5-7 years.

There is also the potential to replace backup generators, notes the International Finance Corporation.

“With rapid improvement in efficiency, performance, and economies over recent years, distributed solar and storage technologies now offer a superior and effective alternative to the backup generators that are proliferating across much of the developing world.” In Nigeria alone, an estimated 22 million small gasoline generators (excluding larger diesel generators) are reported to have a collective capacity as much as 8 times the capacity of the electric grid. They are essential to many small businesses as well as to households.

According to the Access to Energy Institute, “An effective substitute for small gasoline generators, such as solar systems, can tap into a $12 billion-a-year market in Nigeria alone.” Upfront costs are still high, but savings come from eliminating the need to buy fuel. Further research on more efficient systems, they calculate, has the potential to reduce the break-even period to 5-7 years. And while gasoline generators last approximately 5 years, solar systems have a life span of approximately 20 years.

Trapped in Coal in South Africa

The release of South Africa´s Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) in October 2019 was preceded by considerable optimism among renewable energy advocates. The government promised to “articulate the lowest-cost option for the future energy mix for South Africa, with increased contributions from renewable energy sources.” And President Ramaphosa spoke of an $11 billion green-energy initiative.

But when the IRP was announced, the plan called not only for decommissioning 10,500 MW of aging coal plants, but also for launching 1,500 MW of new coal plants. This was inconsistent with the least-cost path scenario detailed by the government Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in November 2018. And it was vigorously criticized by South African environmental justice organizations.

“There is no reasonable basis for building new coal plants when the technology and costs are clearly in favour of renewables and flexible generation,” says Makoma Lekalakala of Earthlife Africa. Coal plants built in the 2020s are likely to be abandoned long before they are paid off, the coalition of environmental groups noted.

The South African Parliament has approved a $4 billion bailout for Eskom’s debt, much of it due to cost overruns of $20 billion on the giant Medupi and Kusile coal plants.

And a devastating report by an outside corporate consulting firm concluded that Eskom has become ”an operationally dysfunctional, financially insolvent, unreliable, and corrupt entity,” arguing that urgent attention to fixing these basic problems must take priority over renewable energy. Renewable energy advocates agree that implementation of any plans, including integration of renewables into the grid, requires fundamental reform in Eskom’s management. But, they say, doubling down on coal will worsen rather than improve the situation.

Unless South Africa’s policies change, therefore, the potential for advance in renewable energy is likely to be realized more rapidly by hundreds of thousands of off-grid consumers around the continent than by entrenched power companies such as South Africa’s Eskom.

White Helmets Founder was Allegedly Assassinated, Turkish Report

Nauman Sadiq

Speculation is rife in the local Turkish media that the founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, might have been running away from someone before he fell or was pushed to his death in a case that was initially ruled as a suicide.

Reputed Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reported on Tuesday: “The biggest question is why Le Mesurier committed suicide from a height of 7 meters and after walking for 10 meters on a lean-to roof. A possible answer is he was running away from someone who broke into his house and tried to leap on the roof of a building across the street.”

James Le Mesurier was found dead on November 11 in suspicious circumstances after falling off a two-story apartment building in downtown Istanbul. He was alleged to have committed suicide by jumping off the second floor of the building, though the latest findings cast aspersions over the suicide theory, as the circumstances of the inexplicable death indicate likely homicide.

The report further states: “Security camera footage from the last hours of Le Mesurier as he was shopping, the first photos from the scene and contradicting statements of his wife Emma Winberg may change the course of the investigation.

“Winberg said she looked for her husband inside the house and saw his lifeless body when she looked out of the window. Police are investigating now how she was able to wake up about half an hour after she took a sleeping pill and why she stacked a large amount of money inside the house into bags immediately after Le Mesurier’s body was found.”

Despite his “humanitarian credentials,” the founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, was a shady character, alleged to be a covert British MI6 operative by Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova days before his death.

Before taking up the task of training Syrian volunteers for search and rescue operations in 2013, Le Mesurier was a British army veteran and a private security contractor from 2008 to 2012 working for Good Harbor, run by Richard Clarke, the former Bush administration counter-terrorism czar.

Much like Erik Prince of the Blackwater fame, Le Mesurier’s work included training several thousand mercenaries for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) oil and gas field protection force, and designing security infrastructure for the police state of Abu Dhabi – a job description that helped him recruit Syrian volunteers from refugee camps in Turkey willing to do dirty “humanitarian work” in enclaves carved out by militant factions in Syria’s war zones.

In this line of work, one is likely to make powerful enemies, including intelligence agencies and militant groups. He could have been killed by anyone of them. In particular, the White Helmets operate in al-Nusra Front’s territory in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province and are known to take orders from the terrorist outfit.

The assassination of James Le Mesurier should be viewed in the backdrop of the killing of the Islamic State’s chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on October 27 in a US special-ops raid. It’s important to note in the news coverage of the killing of al-Baghdadi that although the mainstream media was trumpeting for the last several years that the Islamic State’s fugitive leader was hiding somewhere on the Iraq-Syria border in the east, he was found hiding in the northwestern Idlib governorate, under the control of Turkey’s militant proxies and al-Nusra Front, and was killed in a special-ops raid five kilometers from the Turkish border.

The reason why the mainstream media scrupulously avoided mentioning Idlib as al-Baghdadi’s most likely hideout in Syria was to cover up the collusion between the militant proxies of Turkey and the jihadists of al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State. Unsurprisingly, the White Helmets area of operations is also Idlib governorate in Syria where they are permitted to conduct purported “search and rescue operations” and “humanitarian work” under the tutelage of al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.

In fact, the corporate media takes the issue of Islamic jihadists “commingling” with Turkey-backed “moderate rebels” in Idlib so seriously – which could give the Syrian government the pretext to mount an offensive in northwest Syria – that the New York Times cooked up an exclusive report, on October 30, a couple of days after the special-ops night raid, that the Islamic State paid money to al-Nusra Front for hosting al-Baghdadi in Idlib.

The morning after the special-ops night raid, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on October 27 that a squadron of eight helicopters accompanied by warplanes belonging to the international coalition had attacked positions of Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, in Idlib province where the Islamic State chief was believed to be hiding.

Despite detailing the operational minutiae of the special-ops raid, the mainstream news coverage of the raid deliberately elided over the crucial piece of information that the compound in Barisha village five kilometers from Turkish border where al-Baghdadi was killed belonged to Hurras al-Din, an elusive terrorist outfit which has previously been targeted several times in the US airstrikes.

Although Hurras al-Din is generally assumed to be an al-Qaeda affiliate, it is in fact the regrouping of the Islamic State jihadists under a different name in northwestern Idlib governorate after the latter terrorist organization was routed from Mosul and Anbar in Iraq and Raqqa and Deir al-Zor in Syria and was hard pressed by the US-led coalition’s airstrikes in eastern Syria.

It’s worth noting that although the Idlib governorate in Syria’s northwest has firmly been under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led by al-Nusra Front since 2015, its territory was equally divided between Turkey-backed rebels and al-Nusra Front.

In a brazen offensive in January, however, al-Nusra Front’s jihadists completely routed Turkey-backed militants, even though the latter were supported by a professionally trained and highly organized military of a NATO member, Turkey. And al-Nusra Front now reportedly controls more than 70% territory in the Idlib governorate.

The reason why al-Nusra Front was easily able to defeat Turkey-backed militants appears to be that the ranks of al-Nusra Front were swelled by highly motivated and battle-hardened jihadist deserters from the Islamic State after the fall of the latter’s “caliphate” in Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

In all likelihood, some of the Islamic State’s jihadists who joined the battle in Idlib in January were part of the same contingent of thousands of Islamic State militants that fled Raqqa in October 2017 under a deal brokered by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The merger of al-Nusra Front and Islamic State in Idlib doesn’t come as a surprise, though, since the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front used to be a single organization before a split occurred between the two militant groups in April 2013 over a leadership dispute. In fact, al-Nusra Front’s chief Abu Mohammad al-Jolani was reportedly appointed the emir of al-Nusra Front by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the deceased “caliph” of the Islamic State, in January 2012.

Al-Jolani returned the favor by hosting the hunted leader of the Islamic State for months, if not years, in a safe house in al-Nusra’s territory in Idlib, before he was betrayed by an informant within the ranks of the terrorist organization who leaked the information of the whereabouts of al-Baghdadi to the American intelligence, leading to the killing of the Islamic State chief in a special-ops raid on October 27.

Finally, regarding the death of the founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, in downtown Istanbul, it’s worth pointing out that Turkey has been hosting 3.6 million Syrian refugees and myriad factions of Ankara-backed militant proxies.

It’s quite easy for the jihadists of al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State to intermingle with Syrian refugees and militants in the Turkish refugee camps, and no town or city in Turkey, including the capital Ankara and the metropolis Istanbul where James Le Mesurier was murdered, is beyond the reach of Turkish-backed militant factions and Syrian jihadists, particularly the fearsome and well-connected al-Nusra Front that has patrons in the security agencies of Turkey and the Gulf States.

Plausibly, one of the members of the White Helmets operating in al-Nusra’s territory in Syria’s Idlib betrayed his patrons for the sake of getting a reward, and conveyed crucial piece of information regarding the whereabouts of al-Baghdadi to the founder of the White Helmets, Le Mesurier, who then transmitted it to the British and American intelligence leading to the October 27 special-ops raid killing al-Baghdadi.

In all likelihood, the assassination of the founder of the White Helmets was Islamic jihadists’ revenge for betraying the slain chief of the Islamic State. What lends credence to the theory is the fact that according to local media reports, a turf war has begun in Idlib governorate after the killing of al-Baghdadi in the October 27 special-ops raid and several militant leaders of al-Nusra Front have been killed by jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State.

How To End Rapism In India?

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

The culture of raping women both for personal gratification of persons involved or as a weapon of oppression is killing the public morale of the nation within and globally. The brutal gang rape of Disha at Hyderabd on 27 November, 2019 re-enacted the worst case of Nirbhaya in Delhi seven years ago. In Delhi it was a gruesome killing of the victim within the bus and in Hyderabad it was a brutal burning of her almost alive in open field, after gruesome gang rape . These are only most protested and sensationalized cases but similar cases are happening in many parts of the country. In Disha case the rapists were shot dead. Nirbhaya murderers are still awaiting the hanging. There are many such gang rapes which do not even get media attention.

The news of raping small kids on daily basis is also killing our public sensibilities making the nation think that this is one more bad news and leave at that. Teachers raping their own students in the schools, religious preachers raping their followers is yet another aspect which makes our educational and spiritual institutions fearsome places.

Gang rapes and murder of the victims indicates that it is not lack of self control of an individual and aggrandizing any woman on whom the he could lay hands. It is an expression of cultural brutalization of several layers of our society, the roots of which are in the present family, school, religious structures and civil society, as the gang rapists come from different families, castes and so on. Even our universities are not out of this kind of barbaric rapism. I call it rapism because it has become a social ideological trend, particularly in India.

From village to city, from family to school, college, temple, Masjid, church we must re-think about our man-woman relationship and launch a massive cultural campaign leaving no religion, no school or no family to itself. This disease is presenting itself as ‘Indian’ hence we must tackle it as Indians with a new vision. Both men and women should be fully involved in this cultural campaign of rape free India.

Caste system and dehumanized patriarchal relations brutalized the Indian man-woman relations in a manner that no other society in the world got brutalized. The issue has to be tackled holistically but not just case by case.

If we start from our village family system move upwards into the towns and cities our families use a lot of abusive language at home. Most of the abuses are women centrist. This language certainly gets internalized from childhood stage as father, mother and grand parents use very abusive language as common acceptable idiom. This passes on from generation to generation.

In our society the so called manhood is defined by the amount of control and abusive power that a man has over the women. A man who treats a woman as his equal in everyday life is treated as impotent. This is a very barbaric cultural notion but it is very prevalent. We must fight it out.

Our books are more around romance and sex than around production, science, nature and co-operative man-woman relations. The schools, colleges feed anti-women cultural idiom as an extended language from home to school.

Our police stations are known for using very abusive language and our cinemas are full of violence and sex both rapist and consented. No cinema without vulgar sex and violence can run in the theater for a day. Both the mind of viewer and the producer and the actor is geared to negative sex of violence or heroic physical violence, which is again very brutalizing. All this goes against women.

Rapism of human beings in India or anywhere does not even match the behavior of female and male animal sexual engagement practices. Among animals and birds without the consent of the female the male cannot indulge in forceful sex. The Indians need to be taught of animal behavioral science more and more as the cultural man-woman oppressive relationship is worse than even than that of animals. Of course, the Indian kind of rapism of men does not match with that of other societies. Because gang rapes and killings are very rare in any other society, except in war situations.

In normal situations any personal touch of a female body by a male person her consent is a precondition. In India by and large that is not considered necessary. This is a big challenge to our family and education system. We must admit this weakness of the society and nation and think of a civilizational shift.

The solution is not just more policing and fast track court judgments. It is certainly not encounter killing of the rapists. Since the problem is in our anti-women abusive culture, we must think of man-woman equal rights culture at home and in the public domain. That involves developing a culture of zero tolerance of abuse of women at home, in the field of agrarian or industrial production places or in the school, college or office, even verbally. In every home language has to be monitored by neighbors and any use of abusive language at home and outside should be condemned and shamed.

By and large we have overcome woman or wife beating even in villages with such social shaming and women assertion. Not that no woman beating within the family or outside takes place. However, rampant woman beating has come down. Similarly woman abuse, rape and murder will come down and over a period of time will stop provided we inject a culture of deep respect for women at every place.

Family, school, religious institutions and market places must adopt a cultural practice that woman and man are equal and their self respect needs to be kept up. The school plays a more critical role than any other institution. Our syllabus component about dignity of woman and dignity of labour must increase enormously. If we do not teach children in the schools that woman’s labour and creativity is foundation of advancement and development of the nation we will suffer such maladies more and more in future.

Let us start a cultural revolution for man-woman equality and the first step is opening up a discussion on this issue everywhere–at home, in the school, college, temple, masque, church, office and in the shops.