Australian central bank joins “quantitative easing” as global crash deepens

Mike Head

The Reserve Bank of Australia yesterday entered uncharted waters. It announced unprecedented steps to slash official interest rates to near zero and to formally join other central banks internationally in pumping billions of dollars into the financial markets via “quantitative easing.”

The RBA issued a revealing warning of a “downside risk to the outlook” because of the worsening COVID-19 pandemic, “particularly in Europe.” This statement undercut its own anxious efforts, and those of the federal government, to talk up prospects of an early recovery in Australia from the most serious economic breakdown since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg declared that the RBA had “confirmed that Australia’s economic recovery is well under way.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe in 2017 [Credit: Crawford Forum, WikiMedia Commons]

In fact, RBA governor Philip Lowe said the bank board did not expect it would raise interest rates for “at least three years” and might not do so for the next five years. Giving a rare media conference, Lowe said: “We’ve been hit by the biggest economic shock in 100 years. We need to recognise that the pandemic has inflicted significant damage on our economy.”

These remarks are another telling indicator of the depth and long-term nature of the pandemic’s social and economic impact internationally, and therefore in Australia.

Never before, not even in the 1930s, have interest rates been reduced to such low levels—down from an already record low of 0.25 percent to 0.1 percent, and zero for interbank transactions. This is a feverish effort to supply the corporate elite with mountains of more cheap money, on top of the billions already supplied in federal and state “stimulus packages.”

Nor has the RBA ever resorted to such large-scale government bond purchases, saying it will purchase $100 billion worth of five- to ten-year federal and state government bonds over the next six months. This rapid injection of cash is in addition to the more than $63 billion the bank has spent since March on buying three-year government bonds.

Yesterday’s measures are also on top of the RBA’s “Term Funding Facility” to supply big business, via the banks, with low-cost credit. Lowe reported: “To date, authorised deposit-taking institutions have drawn $83 billion under this facility and have access to a further $104 billion.”

A major element in the decision to resort to quantitative easing (QE), as Lowe acknowledged, is to try to drive down the value of the Australian dollar. That requires matching the escalating measures by the US, Japanese and other central banks to lower the values of their currencies.

As market commentators noted, by turning to QE, after months of denying it would go down that path, the RBA has “crossed the Rubicon” and joined the decade-long worldwide “currency wars.” In response to the global crisis, each national-based capitalist elite is seeking to beat down its rivals.

The Australian dollar has fallen in recent weeks in anticipation of the RBA’s moves and was hovering around US70 cents on Monday. A weaker currency should, in theory, prop up export and import-competing industries as local goods and services become relatively cheaper. But the currency wars will only intensify.

Domestically, the RBA is, in effect, printing money to temporarily finance huge deficits incurred by the federal and state governments through their pro-business spending. That is, until these governments can claw back the cost of their corporate handouts from the working class via cuts to jobs, wages and social services. Lowe denied that the bank was directly underwriting government expenditure. Instead, it was “lowering the cost of government finance.”

Regardless of RBA, government and media claims that the lower interest rates will help home buyers, yesterday’s measures will be of little or no benefit to the millions of working class households paying off mortgages. Even if the rate cut were passed on in full by the commercial banks, which is highly unlikely, a household with a $300,000 mortgage would save only about $23 a month.

An even greater fraud is Lowe’s claim that the RBA is “addressing the high rate of unemployment as a national priority.”

In reality, yesterday’s announcement will do nothing to ease the plight of the nearly five million workers who are officially unemployed or underemployed, or trying to survive on meagre JobKeeper wage subsidy payments or JobSeeker welfare benefits. Rather, the funds will be poured into corporate pockets, financing higher profit dividends, share buy-backs and stock market speculation.

The RBA cut its forecast peak for the (vastly understated) official unemployment rate to “a little below 8 percent,” from the 10 percent it previously expected, and predicted a return to growth in the December quarter. But Lowe said the economy was “not out of recession.”

Given the resurging global pandemic and intensifying currency and trade wars, none of the bank’s revised forecasts are any more reliable than the previous ones.

In an effort to revive business and consumer confidence, the RBA said: “Encouragingly, the recent economic data have been a bit better than expected and the near-term outlook is better than it was three months ago.” However, it added: “Even so, the recovery is still expected to be bumpy and drawn out and the outlook remains dependent on successful containment of the virus.”

Long before the pandemic, the RBA had already slashed interest rates to record lows, far below the “emergency” level of 3 percent it set during the global financial crisis of 2008-09. These moves failed to lift the economy out of a deepening slump. Once the pandemic broke out in March, the bank cut its rates from 0.5 percent to 0.25 percent.

Lowe said it was “extraordinarily unlikely” the RBA would follow Switzerland, Denmark, Japan and others down the path of “negative official interest rates,” but that could change too. As recently as last November, Lowe said “I don’t expect” the “threshold” for QE to be reached in the “near future.”

Now, by the middle of next year, the RBA’s holding of federal and state government bonds will have doubled to about 15 percent. Lowe said that was still below the 20 percent of government bonds held by the US Federal Reserve and 30 percent held by the European Central Bank.

Yet, the latest measures are expected to triple the RBA’s holdings of government bonds from about $180 billion before COVID-19 to $550 billion, or 27.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Westpac Bank economist Bill Evans described the increase as “stunning.”

Evans said the RBA was “rapidly closing in on” the US Federal Reserve, which had increased its balance sheet since COVID-19 by 85 percent, from $3.8 trillion to $7.05 trillion, and is now on about 33 percent of GDP.

There is some alarm inside the financial elite about the uncertain fallout from such measures. Ultra-low interest rates push investors away from productive ventures into riskier territory, creating asset price bubbles and accelerating the “search for yield” in murky financial products.

Today’s Australian Financial Review (AFR) editorial asked: “[H]ow does the Reserve Bank ever get out of the whacky world of fixing a near-zero price on money?” It concluded: “Regrettably, this is unlikely to play out smoothly.”

The editorial demanded faster moves to restructure workplace relations, cut jobs, wages and conditions, and reduce social spending to impose the burden of the breakdown on the working class.

At the same time, there is concern in ruling class circles that the RBA’s billions will not be enough to avert a financial crisis. The economy was already sliding into recession before the pandemic. Then it recorded a 0.3 percent contraction in the March quarter and a record 7 percent fall in the June quarter.

An earlier AFR article warned: “There are about 4 million people either on the JobKeeper wage subsidy or JobSeeker unemployment benefit, and a wave of business bankruptcies is about to hit as government supports and insolvency shields phase out.”

In a speech last week, RBA assistant governor Michele Bullock said banks could face losses due to inevitable business failures and mortgage defaults. “There is going to be further pressure on banks’ profits and capital over the coming year,” she warned.

“Business failures are currently much lower than usual because of income support, loan repayment deferrals and temporary insolvency relief. But this can’t last and we expect to see failures rise.”

What this means, in real terms, is that millions of people, including workers and small business operators, are expected to be thrown into financial ruin and poverty, even as the RBA pumps more billions into the hands of the wealthiest layers of society.

According to recent modelling at the Australian National University, the number of people in poverty, after housing costs are included, is set to rise to 5.8 million, or about a quarter of the population, by March.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald resigns from the Intercept in protest against censorship

Andre Damon

Glenn Greenwald, the most prominent collaborator of whistleblower Edward Snowden and a world-renowned critic of the US media and intelligence agencies, has resigned from the Intercept, the publication he founded in 2013, in protest against its attempts to stifle his reporting critical of the Democratic Party.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald attends a press conference before the start of a protest in his support in July 2018 [Credit: AP Photo/Ricardo Borges]

According to Greenwald, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, the Intercept “in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression.”

He continued:

The censored article, based on recently revealed emails and witness testimony, raised critical questions about Biden’s conduct. Not content to simply prevent publication of this article at the media outlet I co-founded, these Intercept editors also demanded that I refrain from exercising a separate contractual right to publish this article with any other publication.

The Intercept refused to publish an article by Greenwald that discussed the contents of the hard drive allegedly dropped off at a computer repair store in Delaware and abandoned by Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son.

The files document Hunter Biden’s business affairs, which often reference his father, directly or indirectly. The files also include compromising personal photos and video of Hunter Biden. The files’ authenticity has not been denied by the Biden campaign.

Commenting on the resignation, journalist Matt Taibbi wrote: “The key fact of the Greenwald episode: the Intercept uncritically took dictation from John Brennan, Jim Clapper, and Michael Hayden, and killed a piece by their Pulitzer-winning founder because it was critical of the probable next president.”

Greenwald co-founded the Intercept in 2013 to help disseminate information suppressed by the mainstream press. But, according to Greenwald’s account, the newspaper has since shifted its position to become part of the political establishment in the orbit of the Democratic Party.

Greenwald wrote in his resignation letter:

When I left the Guardian at the height of the Snowden reporting in 2013 in order to create a new media outlet, I did not do so, needless to say, in order to impose upon myself more constraints and restrictions on my journalistic independence. The exact opposite was true: the intended core innovation of the Intercept, above all else, was to create a new media outlet where all talented, responsible journalists would enjoy the same right of editorial freedom I had always insisted upon for myself. As I told former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller in a 2013 exchange we had in the New York Times about my critiques of mainstream journalism and the idea behind the Intercept: “editors should be there to empower and enable strong, highly factual, aggressive adversarial journalism, not to serve as roadblocks to neuter or suppress the journalism.”

He added a scathing indictment of his former employer:

The current iteration of the Intercept is completely unrecognizable when compared to that original vision. Rather than offering a venue for airing dissent, marginalized voices and unheard perspectives, it is rapidly becoming just another media outlet with mandated ideological and partisan loyalties, a rigid and narrow range of permitted viewpoints (ranging from establishment liberalism to soft leftism, but always anchored in ultimate support for the Democratic Party), a deep fear of offending hegemonic cultural liberalism and center-left Twitter luminaries, and an overarching need to secure the approval and admiration of the very mainstream media outlets we created the Intercept to oppose, critique and subvert.

Indeed, the Intercept in recent years served as a clearinghouse for the Democrats’ false claims that Russia “meddled” in the 2016 presidential election, which was used to claim that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange entered into a conspiracy with the Russian government. In 2018, the Intercept smeared Assange, claiming he spoke “in a sexist manner” and expressed, according to the headline of an article, a “preference for GOP over Clinton.”

Greenwald says he intends to continue publishing on Substack, used by reporter Matt Taibbi and other publishers.

The response by Intercept Editor-in-Chief Betsy Reed was duplicitous and vindictive, claiming the veteran journalist was “a grown person throwing a tantrum.”

She wrote:

Glenn demands the absolute right to determine what he will publish. He believes that anyone who disagrees with him is corrupt, and anyone who presumes to edit his words is a censor. Thus, the preposterous charge that the Intercept ’s editors and reporters, with the lone, noble exception of Glenn Greenwald, have betrayed our mission to engage in fearless investigative journalism.

By failing to contradict Greenwald’s statement that the Intercept was contractually obligated not to censor his articles, the Intercept is implicitly admitting that it is true.

Greenwald is one of the most respected journalists in the world. His reporting has become a target of Brazil’s autocratic President Jair Bolsonaro. In January, Brazil’s attorney general brought criminal conspiracy charges against Greenwald for exposing government wrongdoings.

Greenwald’s 2013 articles, based on documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, won a Pulitzer Prize. He played a key role in initiating Snowden’s exposures of wholesale and unconstitutional spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on the US and world public. The NSA whistleblower has been charged under the Espionage Act, potentially facing the death penalty, for exposing the government’s criminal acts. He has been living in forced exile in Russia for over six years.

While Trump has repeatedly sought to use Hunter Biden’s business dealings to his own political advantage, the Democrats have claimed that any critical evaluation of the issue is impermissible, claiming that the story is “Russian propaganda.”

“We know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin,” said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. “That’s been clear for well over a year now that they’ve been pushing this false narrative about this vice president and his son.”

Last month, Twitter and Facebook blocked the distribution of a New York Post story reporting on the contents of the laptop. Users attempting to tweet the link were served a notice that said, “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.”

Anyone who attempted to view or retweet already existing shares of the link were given a warning that said, “link may be unsafe.”

Serious Threat to Food and Farming – GM Lobby Plans New Offensive With Gene Edited Crops

Bharat Dogra

As these are increasing warnings of distinguished scientists against Genetically Modified (GM) crops, the strong GM lobby led by some of the biggest corporate interests (who are bent on dominating world food system using GM technology) is now using several tricks to find a way past these warnings based on growing scientific evidence against GM crops.

Dr. Pushpa M. Bhargava was the founder of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and in addition he was also the Vice Chairperson of the National Knowledge Commission. Many people’s science movements looked upon him as their mentor. He had been appointed by the Supreme Court of India as an observer in the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee as he was widely perceived to be not only a very accomplished expert on this issue and that too of the highest integrity but in addition he was also seen on the basis of his past record as a very strong and persistent defender of public interest.

Therefore it is very useful and interesting to see what this very senior scientist with a comprehensive understanding of this issue had to say about GM crops. First of all he made a strong and clear effort to break the myth which had been created by relentless manipulation by the very powerful forces trying to spread GM crops In India. According to this myth most scientific research supports GM crops. While demolishing this myth Dr. Bhargava wrote, “There are over 500 research publications by scientists of indisputable integrity, who have no conflict of interest, that establish harmful effects of GM crops on human, animal and plant health, and on the environment and biodiversity. For example, a recent paper by Indian scientists showed that the Bt gene in both cotton and brinjal leads to inhibition of growth and development of the plant. On the other hand, virtually every paper supporting GM crops is by scientists who have a declared conflict of interest or whose credibility and integrity can be doubted.”

Elsewhere in this article he commented, “ The central government departments that have been acting as peddlers of GM technology-probably in collusion with MNCs marketing GM seeds—have shown little respect for law.”

In a review of recent trends titled ‘Food Without Choice’ (published in the Tribune) Prof. Pushpa M. Bhargava , who was an internationally acclaimed authority on this subject, drew pointed attention to the “attempt by a small but powerful minority to propagate genetically modified  crops to serve their interests and those of multinational corporations  (read the US), the bureaucracy, the political setup and a few unprincipled and unethical scientists and technologists who can be used as tools.” Further he  warned, “The ultimate goal of this attempt in India of which the leader is Monsanto, is to obtain control over Indian agriculture and thus food production. With 60 per cent of our population engaged in agriculture and living in villages, this would essentially mean not only a control over our food security but also over our farmer security, agricultural security and security of the rural sector.”

The strong stand of Dr. Bhargava against GM crops is supported by other eminent scientists in various parts of world. A group of eminent scientists organized under the Independent Science Panel have stated in very clear terms, “GM crops have failed to deliver the promised benefits and are posing escalating problems on the farm. Transgenic contamination is now widely acknowledged to be unavoidable, and hence there can be no co-existence of GM and non-GM agriculture. Most important of all, GM crops have not been proven safe. On the contrary, sufficient evidence has emerged to raise serious safety concerns, that if ignored could result in irreversible damage to health and the environment. GM crops should be firmly rejected now.”

The Independent Science Panel (ISP) is a panel of scientists from many disciplines and countries, committed to the promotion of science for the public good. In a document titled ‘The case for a GMO-free Sustainable World’ the ISP has stated further, “By far the most insidious dangers of genetic engineering are inherent to the process itself, which greatly enhances the scope and probability of horizontal gene transfer and recombination, the main route to creating viruses and bacteria that cause disease epidemics. This was highlighted, in 2001, by the ‘accidental’ creation of a killer mouse virus in the course of an apparently innocent genetic engineering experiment. Newer techniques, such as DNA shuffling, are allowing geneticists to create in a matter of minutes in the laboratory millions of recombinant viruses that have never existed in billions of years of evolution. Disease-causing viruses and bacteria and their genetic material are the predominant materials and tools for genetic engineering, as much as for the intentional creation of bio-weapons.”

At a time when more and more people in the world are becoming concerned about the serious health risks and numerous other adverse impacts of genetically modified (GM) crops and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the enormously powerful  billion dollar GMO multinationals have tried once again to introduce confusion and uncertainty in public mind by coming up with the concept of gene-edited crops and claiming that these should not be subject to the same restrictions as GM crops. However in July 2018 the highest court in Europe ruled that gene-edited crops should be subject to the same strict rules and regulations as GM crops.

Earlier a review of the legal and scientific facts surrounding this debate by Dr. Janet Cotter and Dr. R. Steinbrecher ( published in the Ecologist) had concluded, “ It is clear that gene-edited crops and animals need to be assumed as GMOs in the same way as current GM crops.” The court verdict is along similar lines.

With gene editing researchers can add, delete or modify bits of an organism’s genome. The European Court has said that any crops edited using CRISPR or other gene-editing techniques must abide by the same laws restricting the use of GMOs. More specifically the Court  concluded it “ considers that the risks linked to the use of these new mutagenesis techniques might prove to be similar to those that result from production and release of a GMO through trans-genesis ,since the direct modification of the genetic material of an organism through mutagenesis makes it possible to obtain the same effects as the introduction of foreign gene into the organism (trans-genesis) and these new techniques make it possible to introduce genetically modified varieties at a rate out of all proportion to those resulting from the application of conventional methods of mutagenesis.”

Welcoming the court verdict Franziska Achterberg , Greenpeace EU’s food policy director said, “ Releasing these new GMOs into the environment without proper safety measures  is illegal and irresponsible, particularly given that gene editing can lead to unintended side-effects… The European Commission and the European governments must now ensure that all new GMOs are fully tested and labeled, and that any field trials are brought under GMO rules.”

A spokesperson of Friends of the Earth said, “We applaud the European Court of Justice for this forward looking decision.”

There is need for a lot of caution in India as very powerful interests are promoting the possibilities of introduction of several GM food crops and they are also trying to use gene-editing as a means of getting approval.

Drug Abuse In Kashmir

Shefan Jahan

The last three decades of conflict have seen decadence as political instability plagues the society in J&K. People are upfront against manifold problems. The conflict has had huge human costs. Life has lost its value and we are surviving mechanically. This low cost conflict has consumed our generations and still there is no hope of any resolution. Kashmir conflict has become so convoluted that the politicians now fancy China acting as a savior. Economic development is absent, political situation is vague and socially we are a rout. Where to start? How to start? Every idea of ameliorating and salvaging from this chaotic situation vaporizes as volatile camphor-a good feeling that just doesn’t last long. I sound cynical but over the years it got ingrained in us.

Health is wealth, a state of mental well being. An acute craving for this ‘feeling good’ can become an addictive habit for which we seek various ways and means. Technically addiction is of two types viz; behavioral addiction and substance addiction. The former is an inability to stop indulging in activities such as excessive eating, working, gambling etc. resulting in various lifestyle diseases, stressful life and even economic instability. While substance addiction is an inability to stop consuming a drug, a chemical, or any substance which can cause both psychological and physical harm besides pushing the user towards criminality. The substances include the psychotropic drugs, opioids like codeine, tobacco and alcohol.

However, there is a difference between addiction and misuse which results from the incorrect, excessive or non-therapeutic use of body and mind altering substances such as painkillers. People who misuse such substances may or may not become addicts either due to the side effects of such usage or by discontinuing the same. However, addicted persons will continue such misuse inspite of the harmful effects.

These psychotropic substances produce an intense sensation by the release of dopamine in the neuron cells of the brain whereby a person feels euphoria stimulating pleasure experiences. Hallucinations and this feel good sensation acts as mood enhancer, makes a person more talkative, and gives a false feeling of confidence relieving stress or anxiety. Sometimes curiosity induces many a people to try these substances. Performance enhancers boost sports persons’ efficiency temporarily but can become addictive. The euphoria is but a momentary reflex of the brain that grips the user and addicts him/her to prolonged usage of the substance. Once addicted a chronic user becomes an abuser.

Substance abuse is said to have a two way relationship with ‘mental health’. Mental health issues such as loneliness, guilt, stress, anxiety and depression can push a person towards addiction. However, even prolonged use of therapeutic drugs can also cause addiction unless a person is discouraged by their side effects such as dizziness, vomiting or hangover from alcohol. Such an excessive use can cause psychosis. Other way round the continuous usage of these substances can lead to similar mental health issues.

Symptomatically a person who has become habitual seeks such substances uncontrollably. He/she becomes neglectful and loses interest in all kinds of activities; they are often irritable in relationships, become fearless, paranoid, secretive and have personality issues. Chronic addiction causes violent behavior and has damaging effects on health, loss of appetite to irregular coital activity. Parents should watch out for all these traits; strange friends and phone calls at odd hours.

The substances have a disastrous effect on the health of a person. Medicos opine that snorting which means taking in the cocaine through the nose can damage the nasal cartilage. Opiates can induce constipation which may result into chronic bowel gangrene and prove potentially fatal if a person does not receive treatment. Smoking met amphetamine causes severe form of dental decay known as ‘meth mouth’.

Tobacco use is also addiction and can cause a wide range of cancers. Injecting substances like cocaine and heroin can cause allergic reactions, skin and muscle damage. Various diseases like HIV and Hepatitis-C get transmitted by the use of non-sterilized or reused syringes. The brain system gets completely rewired and often co-ordination and balance is impaired leading to falls or accidents.

The sustained and addictive use of substances also spikes the blood pressure and heart rate, strains the heart and blood vessels increasing risk of heart attack and even death. In case of pregnancy in a female it can lead to congenital anomalies or even death of the fetus. An overdose by taking one or mixing substances such as opioids/painkillers, alcohol and cocaine together to get a more intense feeling of euphoria can result in seizures, cerebral hemorrhage and respiratory failure, lung trauma, bleeding from the nose, coma and death.

It has been observed that the opiate and heroin abusers who use injections to get a longer intense rush are more prone to suicide because as the effect wanes out the user has heightened dependency on the substance and becomes drug tolerant/resistant.

It is significant to note here that the body builders take mass increasing steroids and face high risk of addiction if not properly managed under expert dietician’s advice. Doctors who prescribe painkillers and anesthetic/tranquilizing drugs should make it a point to issue minimal such prescriptions. In Kashmir we have a habit of self medication which should be desisted from.

There is a two pronged strategy to treat the substance abusers viz; counseling and behavioral therapy by mental health experts and psychiatrists and substance specific medication to prevent the users from a relapse. A relapse means returning back to consuming drugs. Significantly there is no specific medication for drug de-addiction nor are any medical devices available to treat or gauge withdrawal symptoms a person undergoes as he/she forgoes the habit. Sometimes even withdrawal symptoms can be fatal. The patients need very personalized care and strict management.

In our parts talking about mental health, stress related issues or depression is a taboo which is a reflection of our cultural lag. Drug addiction is also just like any other illness. It is a brain disease and needs to be understood in a correct perspective rather than superstitiously which has been our traditional approach. The disease becomes serious and cannot be ignored.

Its treatment happens in phases: when the patient has to quit-a different set of medication is provided to help him control the craving and minimize the withdrawals; if the patient is having excessive withdrawal symptoms the family is psycho-educated for the same and also proper medication is given to control it. Drug rehabilitation centers also provide some kind of respite, they admit the patients for months altogether; the government hospitals have proper and adequate facilities both OPD/IPD services available that can be availed by such patients.

There has to be more awareness of psychotropic and narcotic drugs, their harmful consequences and how they can be overcome. De-addiction therapy necessarily involves the family of the addicts. They are the first line of support for their re-socialization. Necessarily, drug addiction involves criminal activity like theft, peddling, prostitution, etc. But these addicts need compassion and empathy from all members of the society more than any punishment; above all social acceptance and encouragement to become productive useful members again rather than shun and shame them which will result in their severe relapse and make their recovery impossible.

A deviant or a drug addict may have the will to revert back. The families need to rectify them rather than disowning them. They may emerge from the crisis with help but disowning makes them forever guilty and lonely even if surrounded by well wishers.

Drugs are a hideous mask to cover a demented personality, depression or behavioral deviancy, therefore needs to be talked about unrestricted and appropriate guidance can be sought from the specialist doctors. Counseling is a pre-requisite for any medical therapy.

It is a common proverb, ‘Curiosity killed the cat”. Therefore, overcome the instinct and desist from trying drugs even if in small quantity. The dose will grow and shorten your life. Refuse this kind of recreation which is but a momentary distraction.

Don’t be perfectionists because nobody is perfect. Children need to grow according to their times and parents need to evolve with them. But that surely doesn’t mean that values need to be compromised. No luxuries or gadgets can compensate for parental care and affection. The void remains there all through the life. Therefore, spend more time with your children, hold their hands; involve yourself in family activities to shrink that space created by loneliness and seclusion. Strong values and family bonds go a long way in deterring a person from using these destructive substances. Once an addict is not always an addict, they recover as they overcome the dependency. Addicts who have recovered can contribute significantly by counseling other addicts and their families.

Educate children and friends about the ill effects of their usage. Our social structure is in shambles, let’s start talking about it and doing our bit.  Bit by bit we will put the ruins together. (An awareness IMPACT INITIATIVE by SPARK-The Peace Builders)

What do ‘God’s goons’ think?

Mujeeb Rahman Kinalur

Terrorism has struck France again in the wake of the ongoing cartoons’ controversy. In a terrorist attack some years ago on the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo magazine following the publication of the controversial cartoons, several people were killed. And now, in a recent terrorist attack, yet more people have lost their lives.

There can be no justification for committing acts of terrorism in the name of supposedly defending religion or God from insult. Those who try to counter blasphemy with blood have a primitive attitude that does not embody the etiquette of the modern world. Human beings will not be able to live in peace if they support extremists who do not embody the values ​​of the civilized democratic world and who play on religious sentiments in order to whip up hate and violence. In fact, such extremists are working against the very religion they claim to believe in and are giving it a very bad image.

What do those who pretend to be ‘God’s goons’ think? Do they think that the glory of the prophets can be tarnished by opposition or criticism? How weak it would be if God, His words and prophets were to be shattered by human reproach! Can anyone with a modicum of commonsense think that a merciful God and a glorified prophet can be intolerant towards their critics and accusers just as ordinary people often are?

When the Prophet Muhammad approached the Arabs of his time with the verses of the Qur’an, he was met with sharp criticism. The Qur’an itself makes it clear that the Arabs of Makkah objected to and criticized it. They claimed that the verses were myths of the ancients. The Qur’an replied, “Or do they say, “He made it up”? Rather, they do not believe. So let them produce a discourse like it, if they are truthful..”(52:33,34). Here we find an appropriate example of how to deal with criticism. Once, while the Prophet was praying, an old lady came and she placed a camel’s intestines around his neck. Still, he did not retaliate with violence.                                                         *

Recent events show that the majority of those who are involved in religious extremism are young people. They are superficial believers who have a very superficial, grossly inadequate and deeply faulty understanding of the Qur’an and the life of the Prophet. The speeches of highly conservative preachers are often the only source of their religious knowledge. They do not know how to read religious texts in the right manner or the importance of interpretation in understanding the texts. To them, religion is just extreme emotions.

The task of interpreting and understanding the scriptures in terms of the occasions of their revelation and their historical context has not been sufficiently developed among Muslim scholars. Understanding religious texts as a source of codes, rules and laws, instead of treating them as a source of values, leads to dangerous thinking. Medieval literalist interpretations of religious beliefs and practices are often thoroughly insufficient to enable believers to negotiate with life in the modern world. What is required are understandings that go beyond dogmatic externalism and dry literalism and that truly uphold the essence and spirit of religious teachings.

Interpretations that seek to take modern-day man back to antiquity are still a dominant current in Islamic theology. This is a blind and irrational interpretational method. Religious fundamentalists and those who view religion as a mere political ideology follow such interpretations. These interpretations become the inspiration for religious extremists and terrorists. There is now an urgent need for Muslim scholars to interpret religious teachings with an emphasis on modern political values ​​such as democracy, respect for religious and ideological pluralism, civil liberties, individual liberty and freedom of expression.

It is a positive thing that many Muslim countries have come forward to denounce religious terrorism. Referring to the recent events in France, the Saudi Foreign Ministry stated that it rejects extremist activities that are not in line with all religions, creeds and commonsense. Likewise, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation has strongly condemned such actions. Countries such as Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain have strongly condemned the incident in France.

Muslim countries and Muslim communities must come forward to plan and implement programmes to prevent the recurrence of such attacks, not just through statements but also through practical actions. It is important to lift the religious community out of conservative attitudes. It is also necessary to reclaim their many youngsters who have lost their sense of reality through emotionalism.

Ukraine, Turkey deepen military alliance in Black Sea region

Jason Melanovski

Ukraine and Turkey have moved further this past month to strengthen a rapidly growing military alliance that is aimed at cornering Russia out of the Black Sea region.

Meeting in Istanbul on October 16, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky publicly posed for photos while they happily signed a “goodwill” agreement between the two countries’ defense industries as well as a “military framework” agreement. Details of the agreements are not publicly known. However, it was widely reported that the deals will involve large-scale technology transfer that will aid both countries in confronting Russia in any potential war.

Map of the Black Sea region

Following the signing of the agreement, Erdogan made clear that Ukraine was quickly becoming a significant ally of Turkey in the region, stating, “Turkey sees Ukraine as a key country for the establishment (of) stability, security, peace and prosperity in the region.”

The agreement is a sign of an increasingly complicated and intertwined system of military alliances in the region which threaten the world’s working class with the outbreak of a major world war. Ever since the dissolution of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy in 1991, the Black Sea region has become a focal point of the efforts of US imperialism to establish full control over the resources of the vast landmass that had previously been controlled by the USSR, and to encircle Russia. With the exception of Russia itself, every state bordering the Black Sea has been turned into a member of NATO or is working closely with the alliance.

NATO recognized Ukraine as an Enhanced Opportunities Partner earlier this year. In September, US and British troops, together with German, Polish and Lithuanian advisers, conducted joined exercises with Ukraine across the Black Sea.

The meeting between Zelensky and Erdogan occurred amid the ongoing war between a Russian-backed Armenia and a Turkish-backed Azerbaijan over the Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Moreover, Turkey has been engaged in an increasingly heated conflict with fellow NATO member Greece over territorial and energy rights in the Aegean Sea in the Eastern Mediterranean, which is connected to the Black Sea through the Sea of Marmara. In the civil wars in Libya and Syria, Russia and Turkey are backing opposing sides.

In his remarks, Erdogan explicitly took Kiev’s side against Moscow in the conflict over Crimea, a peninsula in the Black Sea. He bluntly stated, “Turkey has not recognized Crimea’s illegal annexation and it never will.” The peninsula was annexed by Russia in 2014 following a right-wing United States-backed coup that threatened to completely cut Russia’s naval forces out of the Black Sea.

Crimea, which was previously a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire prior to being annexed by the Russian Empire under Catherine the Great in 1783, is home to a population of approximately 250,000 Crimean Tatars who share linguistic and cultural ties with Turks.

In 2016, Erdogan made clear that he views Crimea as part of a “Greater Turkey,” stating, “Turkey cannot disregard its kinsmen in Western Thrace, Cyprus, Crimea and anywhere else.”

The public summit in Ankara is the culmination of growing economic and military ties between the two countries, which have grown rapidly since the election of President Volodomyr Zelensky in April 2019. Immediately following his election, Zelensky, as president-elect, took an unofficial two-week “vacation” to Turkey but released no details of his actual activities or meetings there.

Later in February 2020, Erdogan visited Kiev where he met with Zelensky at the Maryinsky Palace and pledged $36 million in military aid to Ukraine. The two leaders also set a goal of doubling bilateral trade to $10 billion a year by 2023.

While the relationship between Turkey and Ukraine grew much closer under Zelensky, prior to his election in 2019 Turkey sold six Bayraktar TB2 aerial drones to Ukraine for $69 million and Ukraine agreed to purchase six more. The drones at the time had been heavily used by Turkish-backed forces against Russian-backed troops of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the forces of General Khalifa Haftar in the civil war in Libya.

Turkey has significantly expanded its military aerial drone industry in recent years and is now widely considered by military experts to only be behind China, Israel and the United States in terms of drone technology. Between 2012 and 2019 the country more than doubled its defense and aviation exports from approximately $1.25 billion to more than $2.5 billion.

In Azerbaijan, videos of Turkish drones attacking Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh have circulated widely on social media. Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of violating several Russian and US-negotiated cease fires with the use of Turkish drones. Greek military experts likewise have warned that Turkish drones could play a decisive war in any potential war between the two NATO-member countries.

Despite its advances in drone technology, Turkey still lags behind its rivals in both engine and missile technology, sectors in which Ukraine still possesses significant advantages due to its former position as the major research and production center for the Soviet military. Accordingly, in 2019 in exchange for Turkish drones, Ukraine agreed to supply Turkey with $600 million worth of cruise missile engines.

In the run-up to this past month’s summit in Istanbul, reports surfaced that as part of the military agreement Ukraine would purchase 50 more Turkish drones and even had plans to set up a large-scale assembly plant within Ukraine with an agreement to export the drones to solely joint allies of both Turkey and Ukraine.

The Ukrainian government has been mired in an over six-year-long civil war in eastern Ukraine that has claimed the lives of over 14,000, displaced 1.4 million and left 3.5 million in need of humanitarian assistance. Kiev views the possession of advanced aerial drones as an equalizer in its war against Russian-backed separatists.

The alliance between Turkey and Ukraine has not gone unnoticed by Moscow, which has had an ambivalent relationship with Ankara over Idlib in Syria, the Turkish backing of Azerbaijan in the war against Armenia, and its growing influence in the Black Sea region. Now, fears have been raised in Russia about a joint Turkish-Ukrainian naval force.

Writing in Russia’s Gazeta.ru on the growing Turkey-Ukraine alliance, an unnamed Russian foreign policy expert warned, “This is a very serious challenge for Russia.” Referring to the Ukrainian provocation in the Azov Sea in 2018, he noted, “It should be understood that a repetition of the Kerch incident [in the Azov Sea] is possible in the medium term. However, then [in 2018] there was no one behind Ukraine. And what if next time, not just a Ukrainian, but a joint Ukrainian-Turkish fleet maneuvers dangerously off the Russian coast? And Turkey, after all, is a NATO member.”

The systematic NATO encirclement of Russia has turned seemingly isolated conflicts in the region into dangerous flashpoints that threaten to spark a major war involving the US, nuclear-armed Russia and countries such as Turkey.

A recent report by the RAND Corporation, “Russia, NATO and Black Sea Security,” which was co-funded by the US military, warned that the “Black Sea region is a central locus of competition between Russia and the West for the future of Europe.”

While the report criticized Erdogan for failing to sufficiently follow the dictates of the United States and NATO, it recommended a more “proactive approach” by the United States to win over Turkey and other “allies” in the Black Sea region in order to counteract Russian influence.

Tellingly, the report offered no possibility for a peaceful resolution of the conflicts between NATO and Russia in the region. Rather, it concluded by calling for more prudent “military planning, operations, and investment” by the United States and European NATO-member states.

National Education Union belatedly begs Johnson government to close UK schools during lockdown

Robert Stevens

The National Education Union (NEU), the UK’s largest teaching union, has called for a temporary closure of schools.

A few hours before Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s widely trailed announcement last Saturday of a month long lockdown, the NEU put out a press release, “Close schools and colleges as part of national lockdown”.

Johnson continues to insist that all nurseries, schools, further and higher education must remain open during the lockdown.

Year seven pupils are directed to socially distance as they arrive for their first day at Kingsdale Foundation School in London, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020. Schools in England are starting to reopen with special measures in place to deal with Coronavirus. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

The NEU advised the Tories, “Ignoring the role of schools and colleges in the spread of the virus is likely to lead to the need for even longer lockdowns in future.” Joint General Secretary Kevin Courtney said, “It is clear from ONS [Office for National Statistics] data that schools are an engine for virus transmission. It would be self-defeating for the government to impose a national lockdown, whilst ignoring the role of schools as a major contributor to the spread of the virus.”

The NEU itself envisages only a temporary closure of schools, calling for “rotas to be introduced at the end of the lockdown period.” The union even offered the government an alternative if they still refused to shut schools during the four-week lockdown. In that case the Tories should “as a minimum be preparing for school rotas at the end of that period…”

As infections rocketed in schools, the NEU did nothing for weeks, leaving its members at the mercy of the Tories herd immunity agenda. Only in the last few weeks, with infections at thousands of schools and with hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren having to be sent home to self-isolate, did the NEU called for “a two week circuit break over half term to include schools.” It stated that the Wales Government and the Northern Ireland assembly had carried this out, “but the Government in Westminster has ignored this call. More severe measures are now called for as a result, the Government should not make this mistake again.”

Schools and campuses have been turned into a battleground in which the lives of pupils, students, teachers, and parents are at stake.

The NEU cites estimates from the ONS “that 1% of primary pupils and 2% of secondary pupils have the virus and that these levels have increased dramatically since wider opening in September.” The union notes that a 2 percent virus level “means that in ever three secondary classes, on any given day, you can expect two of the students to have the virus.”

Its analysis of ONS figures revealed that “virus levels are 9 times higher amongst primary pupils and an astonishing 50 times higher amongst secondary pupils.”

To put that level of infection into context, there are 8.89 million pupils in 24,360 schools in England. The number of pupils in state-funded primary schools is 4.71 million, with a 1 percent infection rate equating to 47,100 with the virus among that age group. A 2 percent infection rate among the 3.41 million pupils in state-funded secondary schools means another 68,200 children are infected. This means that in English primaries and secondary schools total infections are over 115,000.

In the London borough of Havering, parents of a child at one school were informed Sunday that “over 50 schools have been affected by the impact of the virus and many more than once.” This is the majority of schools in the borough with a population of nearly 260,000.

The NEU call has nothing to do with organising a genuine fight aimed at keeping schools closed in the middle of a pandemic. The union bureaucracy fears above all that it will no longer able to control the disaffection that has building for months among teachers and other education staff opposed to being railroaded to work in unsafe schools.

An indication of the strength of feeling is the massive response to the NEU’s petition campaign calling for school closures, launched along with its press release. The petition was signed by 150,000 teachers and support staff in less than 48 hours. Another petition created September 22 demands, “Reclose schools and colleges due to increase in COVID-19 cases,” aiming “To protect teachers and pupils and their families,” passed 334,000 signatories on Monday.

The other main teaching unions, NASUWT (313,565 members), National Association of Head Teachers, and the Association of School and College Leaders, continue to back the government keeping schools open--with the caveat that there should be a few safety measures in place.

Teachers and parents have taken to social media to vent their anger. One teacher posted a Twitter comment Saturday, “I am a member of @NASUWT and I have zero faith in them or any other union as they have proven to be completely ineffective against our ridiculous government.”

The unions have been aware since the start that schools are an “engine for virus transmission” and that the government has ignored every request to make schools safe. This exposes the fraud of the NEU campaign, which is opposed to mobilising the collective strength of its more than half a million members. It instead centres on “calling for an amendment in Parliament to the lockdown bill to include schools and colleges.”

Those signing up to the NEU’s petition are invited as the next step to write to their MPs, i.e., the government and the Labour Party opposition, who both insist that schools remain open!

The NEU continue their treacherous role in propping up the government, albeit with a change in rhetoric. The Tories could never have enforced their schools reopening plan—to get parents back into workplaces as the basis to reopen the wider economy—had it not been for the role of the education unions. As the pandemic hit, opposition among millions to schools staying open forced their closure even before the national lockdown was imposed March 23.

In May, the NUE, in line with government moves to lift the lockdown, wrote, “We want to begin to reopen schools and colleges as soon as we can”. But the union had to respond to teachers and staff, who knew schools were unsafe. The NEU called for “Five tests for Government before schools can re-open”, which included the R rate being below 1, and testing, track and trace being fully operational. These conditions were all junked.

The NEU has been forced to call for school closures not only as a result of the pressure of their own members, but due to the fight waged by the Educators Rank-and File-Safety Committee and campaigns waged by parents and teachers. The committee, founded in September and initiated by the Socialist Equality Party, has given a political voice for teachers, parents and students who are demanding the closure of unsafe schools.

Educators and parents cannot entrust the trade unions with their fate and lives of their families.

All non-essential production must cease during lockdown. Children of key workers and vulnerable children remaining in schools during this period must be provided with full protection, with the necessary levels of social distancing imposed. Parents must receive full wage replacement while they care for their children. Poorer families must be given special support and receive high-quality equipment for digital learning.

Australian government uses bushfire report to demand emergency powers

Mike Head

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government is exploiting the report of its royal commission into last summer’s catastrophic bushfires to rapidly legislate a “state of national emergency” power. This would allow a federal government to deploy troops for any kind of emergency without a request from the states.

As soon as the report was made public last Friday, the government said it would adopt the recommendations, while making the emergency and military call-out proposals its first priority. This has nothing to do with a genuine response to the catastrophe.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks with Australian Army soldiers in Queensland (Credit: defence.gov.au)

Creating the unprecedented emergency power was always the government’s intended primary outcome from the inquiry—headed by a former armed forces chief—not any proposals to address climate change or the lack of civil resources and planning exposed by the months-long disaster.

Last year’s infernos affected millions of people and left a terrible toll. The report states: “Tragically, 33 people died and extensive smoke coverage across much of eastern Australia may have caused many more deaths. Over 3,000 homes were destroyed. Estimates of the national financial impacts are over $10 billion. Nearly three billion animals were killed or displaced and many threatened species and other ecological communities were extensively harmed.”

According to evidence given to the inquiry, more than 450 people died as a result of the toxic smoke. Thousands of people remain homeless, despite promises of government assistance.

The report refers to a serious lack of civilian resources, including a shortage of “aerial firefighting capability,” during the disaster. And it warns that the “increasing complexity of disaster risks” has “the potential to overwhelm the capabilities of our fire and emergency services.”

But there is no recommendation for the allocation of the necessary billions of dollars to address this threat. Instead, the central axis of the report is to justify Morrison’s demand—first issued in a National Press Club speech in January, at the height of the calamity—for national emergency and military powers.

These powers will not be confined to bushfires, or any other natural disaster. That is confirmed by the words of the report itself. “The risks posed to Australia are, of course, broader than those posed by natural disasters,” it states. “They extend to the risks posed by events such as pandemics, cyber-attacks, terrorism and war.”

In fact, the words “natural disaster or other emergency” are contained in a bill already tabled in parliament to expedite the compulsory call-out of thousands of military reserves. That language can extend to anti-war protests, civil unrest, industrial action or any other development regarded as a threat to the existing economic and political order.

There is no mention of national emergencies or natural disasters in Australia’s 1901 Constitution, thus leaving these powers in the hands of the states. Yet, according to the report’s “legislative model,” this constitutional framework would be overridden. The federal government would gain the power to take unilateral action, without a request for support by a state or territory, in vaguely defined crises.

The prime minister would only have to declare that an emergency posed “significant risk to lives or property,” “the affected state or territory cannot take action” and “it is necessary to take action in the national interest.”

The report rejects the option of asking the states to refer these powers to the federal government, as occurred in handing over “counter-terrorism” powers in 2002. The report claims that negotiating with the states would take too long “in the face of increasing disaster risk.”

Rather, the report proposes relying on a dubious combination of various federal legislative powers, such as defence, plus the “executive power of the Commonwealth.”

The report acknowledges that the federal government already has extensive emergency powers, including to declare a biosecurity emergency, and that the states and territories have “state of emergency” powers. These powers have been invoked, via the “national cabinet,” to rule by decree during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, the report declares that these vast powers are insufficient.

The report also notes that, despite the lack of any clear constitutional or legal authority, the Morrison government deployed the military on an unprecedented scale during the bushfires. A total of 8,236 Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel were mobilised, including 2,556 Reservists. For the first time ever, a compulsory call-out of the Reserves was made under the Defence Act 1903.

This was designed to condition the population to the use of troops and military hardware on home soil, while covering up the official failure to prepare for such long-predicted bushfire tragedies.

According to the report, the current Defence Assistance to the Civil Community (DACC) manual, which is meant to govern such deployments, does not authorise the use of force by the ADF. But this could change. The report opposes incorporating the manual in any legislation, in order to give the ADF “flexibility.”

Moreover, the planned legislation is in addition to laws passed since 2000, and further expanded in 2018, to allow government ministers or the ADF chief to call-out armed troops, with shoot-to-kill powers, to suppress “domestic violence.”

Significantly, the report’s only concern about mobilising the military for disasters is that it could divert resources away from the ADF’s war-fighting capacity.

The Labor Party opposition was quick to pledge its support, as it has on every previous move to expand the military and its domestic powers. Labor’s emergency management spokesman, Murray Watt, urged the Morrison government to implement all the inquiry’s recommendations “immediately.”

An internal ADF briefing from 2018, published today by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, reveals high-level discussions about needing to prepare the military to intervene in response to a drastic rise in popular unrest.

The document, written by the ADF’s climate and security adviser, Ian Cumming, said the ADF had to “prepare for significantly more disaster support operations and potential operations involving support to the civil power such as policing of population under exaggerated stresses such as food and water shortages.”

The past two decades have produced a growing militarisation of society, initially under the cover of the “war on terrorism” declared by the US Bush administration and its allies internationally.

That process is now being taken to a new level, driven by the rising class tensions generated by the catastrophic official response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ever-widening social inequality, deteriorating social and environmental conditions and the rising danger of US-led wars.

As with the bushfires, governments have seized on the pandemic to dispatch troops across the country. So far, up to 3,500 military personnel have been mobilised for “Operation COVID-19 Assist.” Soldiers have patrolled streets, enforced curfews, door-knocked houses, manned checkpoints, airports and hotel quarantines, and conducted contact tracing.

These are further signs that, fearing mass unrest, the ruling class is preparing and trialing military measures, and seeking to accustom people to the sight of troops on the streets.

Bangladeshi jute mill workers demand reopening of closed mills

Wimal Perera

Workers retrenched from state-run jute mills in Bangladesh held a protest demonstration on October 19 demanding the reopening of the factories closed by the government. This was the latest in a series of protests by jute workers against closures.

In July, the Awami League government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina shut down all 25 remaining state-owned jute plants of the Bangladeshi Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC), laying off more than 50,000 workers, including about 25,000 permanent employees. The decision was part of the government’s market reforms and privatization of state utilities dictated by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Protests have been triggered by the intolerable living conditions that have deepened as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the fact that the closures occurred months ago, the Daily Star reported on October 22 that nearly 35,000 workers—both permanent and retired—had not received their compensation .

About 1,000 laid-off workers demonstrated in Khulna and Jashore on October 19. They made 14 demands, including the immediate payment of dues, arrears and gratuities for all workers, the modernization of state-owned jute mills and an end to corruption and looting.

The police attacked the protesters with batons and tear gas, injuring 22 workers including 12 women. Kudrat-e-Khuda, convener of Citizens’ Combined Forum (CCF) for protecting jute mills, told the Daily Star that the police attacked workers without any provocation. Nine leaders were detained, including Kudrat-e-Khuda, and another five workers picked up and arrested from their homes.

On October 4, workers organized a protest in the Khalishpur area in Khulna and carried a coffin in a march to demand the reopening of jute mills. Prior to the protest, the police detained three of the main organisers of Jute Mill Protection Workers-Farmers-Students-Janata Oikya Parishad.

On September 27, hundreds of jute mill workers demonstrated in Khulna and Sirajganj voicing similar demands.

On August 24, hundreds of workers staged demonstrations in Khulna and Tangail. In Tangail, workers and farmers formed a human chain in front of the Tangail Press Club to demand the protection of jute farmers and reasonable prices for jute.

The jute workers’ struggles have radicalized jute farmers whose lives depend on the industry. Many farmers participated in the recent demonstrations . At least 4 million farmers cultivate jute, which contributes 0.26 percent of the country’s GDP and makes up 1.4 percent of agricultural output.

The growing unrest compelled Textiles and Jute Minister Golam Dastagir Gazi to announce on October 21 the payment of all compensation by November had been assured by Prime Minister Hasina. Previously, Hasina had only pledged compensation in three years.

Among the organisations involved with jute workers are the Jute Mill Protection Workers-Farmers-Students-Janata Oikya Parishad, Revolutionary Students Youth Movement and United Front of Workers and Employees (SKOP). These are affiliated with various Stalinist parties including the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), Socialist Party of Bangladesh and Workers Party of Bangladesh (WPB). Their role has been to prevent the opposition of workers from challenging the Hasina government. The WPB is a partner in the ruling coalition.

When the jute workers staged a three-day strike in June against plant closures and privatization, the unions and the CPB ended the struggle on the basis of a worthless government “promise” to reconsider its plans. Prominent in this betrayal was Patkal Sangram Parishad, the main jute mill union. Its convener was Shahidullah Chowdhury, who is also president of the CPB-controlled Garment Workers’ Trade Union Centre.

The government later announced a so-called “golden handshake” for laid-off workers, allocating 50 billion taka ($US590 million) in compensation—40 billion taka for permanent workers and 10 billion taka for workers who had retired after 2013. The prime minister’s principal secretary Ahmad Kaikaus declared the money would be paid in “the quickest possible time.”

On average, each worker was supposed to get 1.39 million taka ($16,360)—half in cash and the remaining amount through savings certificates.

More than 32,000 substitute workers (those recruited to fill temporary absences) and temporary contract workers have been deprived of any compensation. Some of these workers have been working in mills for over a decade and have still not been made permanent.

On condition of anonymity, a BJMC official told the Daily Star how the jute industry breached workers’ rights: “We used to sack these workers just several days prior to completion of their three-month probation. Then we would reappoint them after a gap of several days… they would never get permanent status.”

Imposing further burdens on workers, Bangladesh Jute Mills Limited, one of the closed mills in Ghorashal, has sent eviction notices claiming they have “built shanties illegally on the mills’ property.”

The closure of jute mills has been done under consecutive governments. Adamjee jute mill—once Asia’s biggest—was closed in 2002 by Khaleda Zia’s Nationalist Party government, sacking 40,000 workers.

Jute workers protests indicate the explosive social opposition developing in Bangladesh against the Hasina regime, which is rapidly entrenching authoritarian rule.

Workers at state-owned sugar mills staged a protest on October 7 in Dhaka and other places against the government’s threat of privatization. The Workers Party of Bangladesh, which was involved in the protest, submitted petitions to the government authorities.

Workers at the Diganta Sweater Factory in Gazipur protested on October 28 against management’s decision to retrench workers. They blocked the Dhaka-Tangail Highway for an hour in the morning.

Workers told the media that when they had entered the factory some lights and machinery had been damaged to try and implicate them. In response the workers held a march. The police were called. Other factories in the area declared a holiday fearing the protest would spread.

In the midst of the pandemic, many garment factories have been closed. One estimate predicted that about one million garment workers would lose their jobs by December.