Spain’s PSOE-Podemos regime intensifies expulsions of refugees to Morocco

Alejandro López

After Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez deployed the army, special forces and thousands of police to Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, bordering Morocco, a savage manhunt of refugees is underway. Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government is rounding up and deporting thousands of desperate men, women and children after denying them food and medical care.

A map of Spain, Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in north Africa. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Spanish security forces are throwing migrants into the sea and marching through streets, parks and warehouses to search for migrants who may have escaped. Once they are found, migrants are forced into police vans and then taken to detention centres for deportation. A record 5,700 migrants in 24 hours were deported earlier this week as Spanish forces now expel 50 migrants every 2 hours.

The PSOE-Podemos government is acting in blatant violation of Spanish law, which grants migrants the right to be processed individually, so they have the opportunity to claim the right to asylum. Summary deportations, or “hot returns”—a reactionary measure the PSOE and Podemos earlier promised to revoke once in power—were legalised by Spain’s Constitutional Court last year. However, even this reactionary law does not allow for mass expulsions from Ceuta, but only for migrants captured at the border fence separating Moroccan and Spanish territory.

The border fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in north Africa. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The PSOE-Podemos government is detaining and expelling refugees, including children, in conditions that amount to a horrific violation of elementary human rights. They are effectively working in tandem with the fascistic Vox party, whose leader Santiago Abascal visited Ceuta on Wednesday to receive military salutes and whip up anti-immigrant hatreds.

One widely circulated video shows a Moroccan boy swimming with empty plastic bottles to Ceuta, saying he would rather die than go back to Morocco. He is shown crying as he reaches the beach, only to be led away by soldiers and thrown back on the other side of the border. The young Spanish soldier, speaking the local Arabic dialect, said: “He didn't want to go back, he didn't have any family in Morocco, he didn't care if he died from cold; he preferred to die … than go back to Morocco.” He added, “I never heard that from someone so young.”

Hundreds of hungry minors continue are now roaming and sleeping on Ceuta’s streets. Others are in a large warehouse, with excessive crowding and broken toilets. Al Jazeera interviewed a 14-year-old boy who fled this warehouse. He said his parents had agreed to his attempt to cross into Spain. “They see that if I come here I can have a future,” the boy, “You see your parents can’t work, the education system is very weak. What can I say? I cannot even tell you what people eat.”

A policeman deployed to Ceuta who spoke to El País on condition of anonymity reported the horrific conditions endured by children in the warehouse. “I am also a father,” he said, noting that many were kept over 15 hours without any food. “Some were diabetic, I found them fainting, literally. I had a few nuts on me, and we had to give them food and water ourselves.”

These illegal mass deportations testify to the breakdown of democratic rights across Europe. The ruthlessness with which Madrid tramples basic democratic rights underfoot, with the full support of the European Union, is a warning to the working class. Faced with the deepest crisis of capitalism since the 1930s and amid millions of preventable deaths due to capitalist mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ruling class is rapidly turning to dictatorship.

Spain’s barbaric treatment of refugees testifies to how the fascistic Vox party increasingly sets the policy of the PSOE-Podemos government. In December, Vox reacted to the arrival of migrants in the Canary Islands by calling the PSOE-Podemos government to send in the army to block the arrival of refugees in make-shift boats. Now, in Ceuta, the PSOE carried out the exact policy Vox had demanded that they implement in the Canary Islands.

Vox leader Santiago Abascal travelled on Wednesday to Ceuta, where he was welcomed by his sympathisers. Aiming to stoke an atmosphere of murderous hatred of refugees, Abascal told the press that this “is not a migratory crisis. It is a genuine invasion of Spain’s national territory of the neighbouring country. Many of them are men of military age and we see how Morocco is also throwing minors, children and women, being used as human battering rams.”

Abascal then travelled to the border fence where he met with soldiers who stood firm to salute him as if he was a higher-ranking officer and took selfies. Soldiers were heard saying, “Long live Spain.”

Abascal has called a demonstration in Seville tomorrow to agitate against the region accepting 13 refugee children from Ceuta. He has already threatened to withdraw Vox’s support from the regional government if it proceeds to accepting the children.

His activities are a further warning of the financial aristocracy’s rapid turn to dictatorship. Eighty-five years since the fascist coup hatched in Spanish Morocco by General Francisco Franco launched the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Abascal, who defends that coup, is being saluted by soldiers and police. Abascal also talks with fascist retired generals who have discussed killing “26 million” leftists and their families in a coup amid strikes against the PSOE-Podemos government’s pandemic policies.

A class gulf separates the sympathy towards the migrants felt by millions of workers from the anti-refugee policy of the PSOE-Podemos government and the European ruling class. On Wednesday, the hashtag #GraciasLuna (Thank you, Luna) became a trending topic, after Luna Reyes, a 20-year-old Red Cross volunteer, hugged an exhausted Senegalese man moments after he arrived on the beach. Tens of thousands thanked Luna for her humane gesture after Vox supporters targeted her with a torrent of abuse, forcing Luna to delete her social media accounts.

Nothing could be more disgusting than feigned support of PSOE-Podemos officials for Luna’s actions. Spanish Economy Minister Nadia Calviño, busy drafting mass austerity measures against workers, tweeted, “Thank you Luna for represent the best value of our society.” As for Podemos, its de facto leader since the recent retirement of its former General Secretary Pablo Iglesias, Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz, commented: “Much more than a photo. A symbol of hope and solidarity.”

These ministers are responsible for implementing the EU’s politically criminal Fortress Europe policy, that is, sealing the EU’s borders to force desperate migrants to risk their lives to travel to Europe. Tens of thousands have died making this risky journey. Last year, over 2,000 migrants died trying to reach the Canary Islands. For those who reach the islands, they are interned in concentration camps built by the PSOE-Podemos government.

The barbaric treatment of refugees is an unanswerable political indictment in particular of Podemos. This petty-bourgeois party, promoting postmodernism and “populist” politics and rejecting socialism and the working class, was launched in 2014, promising “radical democracy.” After implementing austerity and war and opposing a scientific social-distancing policy during the pandemic, costing over 100,000 lives in Spain, their savage abuse of defenceless refugees in alliance with Vox shows how they ended up also trampling up democracy and elementary decency underfoot.

US military running a massive undercover army and conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans

Kevin Reed

Two reports over the past week have revealed that the Pentagon is carrying out secret operations within the US and internationally without congressional oversight and in violation of basic constitutional rights.

The Pentagon [Source: Wikimedia Commons]

An exclusive report by Newsweek on Monday explained that the US military is operating “[T]he largest undercover force the world has ever known.” The secret army of 60,000 people works under “masked identities and in low profile” and is part of a special program called “signature reduction.”

The Newsweek report—written by journalist William M. Arkin following a two-year investigation of the program—says that the secret military force is “more than ten times the size of the clandestine elements of the CIA, carries out domestic and foreign assignments, both in military uniforms and under civilian cover, in real life and online, sometimes hiding in private businesses and consultancies, some of them household name companies.”

Arkin examined “over 600 resumes and 1,000 job postings, dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests, and scores of interviews with participants and defense decision-makers” to uncover the “completely unregulated practice” of the US military. The giant clandestine operation has never been the subject of a hearing in Congress, and Arkin says that it “challenges U.S. laws, the Geneva Conventions, the code of military conduct and basic accountability.”

The infrastructure of the Pentagon’s covert “signature reduction” program is based upon 130 private companies with the support of dozens of “little known and secret government organizations” that award “classified contracts” and “oversee publicly acknowledged operations.”

Among the functions of these private businesses are creating false documentation; paying the taxes of individuals operating under assumed identities; manufacturing disguises and other devices used to avoid identification; building invisible devices used to photograph and listen in on the conversations and activity of people around the world.

Over half of the signature reduction army is made up of special operations forces who Arkin says, “pursue terrorists in war zones from Pakistan to West Africa but also increasingly work in unacknowledged hot spots, including behind enemy lines in places like North Korea and Iran.”

The second largest group is made up of military intelligence specialists, “collectors, counter-intelligence agents, even linguists,” who are deployed with assumed names in order to conceal their true identities.

Arkin explains that the secret force has been built up “over the past decade” and is in part a response to the growth of cyberwarfare internationally. He writes that the fastest growing group within the secret army are those who never leave their keyboard. “These are the cutting-edge cyber fighters and intelligence collectors who assume false personas online, employing ‘non-attribution’ and ‘misattribution’ techniques to hide the who and the where of their online presence while they search for high-value targets and collect what is called ‘publicly accessible information’—or even engage in campaigns to influence and manipulate social media.”

Although it is well known that the US military-intelligence apparatus is responsible for the transmission of the greatest number, most invasive and most deadly malware and spyware of any country in the world, the Newsweek journalist and editors express surprise that the Pentagon operation has “led to thousands of spies who carry out their day-to-day work in various made-up personas, the very type of nefarious operations the United States decries when Russian and Chinese spies do the same.”

A former military officer, who oversaw supersecret “special access programs” of the signature reduction operations, spoke to Newsweek on condition of anonymity. The officer said that “no one is fully aware of the extent of the program, nor has much consideration been given to the implications for the military institution.” He added, “Everything from the status of the Geneva Conventions—were a soldier operating under false identity to be captured by an enemy—to Congressional oversight is problematic.”

The Newsweek report includes details about the activities of several individuals in the signature reduction operations, most of which involves providing fake identity materials and methods for preventing their cover from being blown. Other details are regarding the electronic eavesdropping techniques—such as placing “secret listening devices into everyday objects”—used to monitor the activities and communications of individuals both inside and outside the US.

The fact that the Pentagon has been conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans was exposed in a May 13 letter from Senator Ron Wyden (Democrat from Oregon) to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that was published by Vice’s Motherboard Tech.

Wyden asked the Department of Defense (DoD) for detailed information about its data purchasing practices after Motherboard revealed special forces were buying location data last February. The initial DoD responses—which revealed that the military or intelligence agencies were using internet browsing and other types of data—prompted Wyden to demand more answers about warrantless spying on American citizens.

Wyden wrote that his investigation had confirmed that the Internal Revenue Service, Customs and Border Protection, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency were all purchasing from private companies the location data of Americans without a warrant.

The Oregon Senator also wrote that he had requested answers to his questions in February and that the DoD responded to the first group of question in March and then the remaining questions in April. Among Wyden’s questions was for the DoD to explain its legal position with regard to the DIA’s argument that the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures “do not apply to data about Americans that the government buys, and only apply to data that the government acquires via compulsion.”

In typical evasive language the DoD responded that each of its intelligence departments is responsible for ensuring that “intelligence activities are carried out in accordance with existing law (including the Fourth Amendment as understood through the Carpenter opinion [of the Supreme Court] and other relevant case law), regulation, and policy. In this case, DIA’s Office of General Counsel provided the legal support for the DIA activity.”

Wyden explained in his letter that four of the responses by the DoD were designated Controlled Unclassified Information and another was labelled classified. These questions deal with specifics about which agencies are using purchased location data and internet metadata, including “netflow” and Domain Name System (DNS) records in communications where both ends are within the US and communications where one end is within the US and the other is outside the US. Wyden has requested that the responses to these questions be released to the public by June 15.

The Crisis of the Natural World

Reynard Loki

The natural world is in a state of crisis, and we are to blame. We are in the midst of the Sixth Extinction, the biggest loss of species in the history of humankind. So many species are facing total annihilation. Nearly one-third of freshwater species are facing extinction. So are 40 percent of amphibians; 84 percent of large mammals; a third of reef-building corals; and nearly one-third of oak trees. Rhinos and elephants are being gunned down at rates so alarming that they could be completely wiped out from the wild by 2034. There may be fewer than 10 vaquita—a kind of porpoise endemic to Mexico’s Gulf of California—due to illegal fishing nets, pesticides and irrigation. There are 130,000 plant species that could become extinct in our lifetimes. All told, about 28 percent of evaluated plant and animal species across the planet are now at risk of becoming extinct.

The rapid decline in species has occurred in recent years: 60 percent of the planet’s wildlife populations have been lost in just the last 50 years. Scientists warn that in the coming decades, if we don’t take action, more than 1 million species may vanish from the Earth forever.

Our fellow Earthlings are being overhunted, overfished and overharvested for our food, clothing and medicines. And the ones that we don’t kill are losing their homes as we destroy their natural habitats to make space for our farms and cities and to extract fuels, minerals, timber and other resources for human society. And the habitats that we don’t completely eradicate we pollute with a vast array of toxic elements, from pesticides and plastics to carbon dioxide, fracking chemicals and invasive species. We are even polluting wildlife habitats with our light and noise. And scientists fear that the worst is yet to come. As the International Union for Conservation of Nature warns, the worldwide extinction crisis is “expected to worsen as the human population grows.” According to the Population Reference Bureau, the world’s human population is expected to reach 9.9 billion by 2050. That’s more than 25 percent more people on the planet than the 7.9 billion people currently living on the Earth. Other species will certainly be squeezed out.

Biodiversity isn’t just nice to have—it’s essential to the health and maintenance of the planet’s ecosystems, which, in turn, are critical to human health. In addition to providing sustenance, medicines and livelihoods to billions of people, biodiversity helps maintain the Earth’s basic life-supporting elements like clean water, clean air and crop pollination, as well as critical ecosystem services like soil fertility, waste decomposition and recovery from natural disasters.

“Whether in a village in the Amazon or a metropolis such as Beijing, humans depend on the services ecosystems provide,” writes Julie Shaw, the director of communications for the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, a biodiversity conservation joint initiative of the French Development Agency, Conservation International, the European Union, the Global Environment Facility, the government of Japan and the World Bank. “Ecosystems weakened by the loss of biodiversity are less likely to deliver those services, especially given the needs of an ever-growing human population.”

There is also a massive economic benefit to biodiversity. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)—a three-decade-old international treaty adopted by 193 countries (not including, most notably, the United States)—points out that “at least 40 percent of the world’s economy and 80 percent of the needs of the poor are derived from biological resources.” Damian Carrington, the environment editor of the Guardian, writes that ecosystem services are “estimated to be worth trillions of dollars—double the world’s GDP. Biodiversity loss in Europe alone costs the continent about 3 percent of its GDP [$546 million] … a year.”

So what can be done to prevent the rapid extinction of species and protect the world’s biodiversity? In April 2019, a group of 19 prominent scientists answered that question when they published the “Global Deal for Nature” (GDN), a “time-bound, science-driven plan to save the diversity and abundance of life on Earth,” which, when paired with the Paris Climate Agreement, is meant to “avoid catastrophic climate change, conserve species, and secure essential ecosystem services.” To achieve its goal of “ensuring a more livable biosphere,” the GDN’s main objective is crystallized in its “30×30” proposal: Conserve 30 percent of the Earth in its natural state by 2030. The idea has taken off, with 50 nations led by Costa Rica, France and the United Kingdom joining the movement to realize the 30×30 vision of defending big swathes of intact ecosystems from exploitation.

“Protecting 30 percent of the planet will undoubtedly improve the quality of life of our citizens, and help us achieve a fair, decarbonized and resilient society,” said Andrea Meza, Costa Rica’s environmental minister. “Healing and restoring nature is a key step towards human wellbeing, creating millions of quality green and blue jobs and fulfilling the 2030 agenda, particularly as part of our sustainable recovery efforts.”

Nongovernmental organizations have answered the rallying cry as well. The Wyss Foundation, a private charitable foundation based in Washington, D.C., “dedicated to… empower[ing] communities… and strengthen[ing] connections to the land,” has joined forces with National Geographic to launch the Wyss Campaign for Nature—“a $1 billion investment to help [nations,] communities, [and] Indigenous peoples” mobilize to achieve the 30×30 goal. The campaign has launched a public petition urging immediate action to protect those ecosystems that have not yet been completely despoiled by the unrelenting expansion of humanity. “Protecting 30 percent of our entire planet by 2030 (30×30) is an ambitious but achievable goal,” asserts the campaign. “To achieve it, all countries must embrace the goal and contribute to it; Indigenous rights must be respected; and conservation efforts must be fully funded.”

And while the U.S. is not a signatory of the CBD treaty, President Biden can take unilateral action by declaring the wildlife extinction crisis a national emergency. “The declaration, under the National Emergencies Act, isn’t just symbolic,” says the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation nonprofit based in Tucson, Arizona, which has launched a public petition urging the president to take this important and powerful step. “It will unlock key presidential powers to stem the loss of animals and plants in the United States and beyond,” the group says.

Biden’s declaration would marshal the federal resources necessary to start safeguarding the hundreds of species—including the monarch butterfly, eastern gopher tortoise and northern spotted owl—that have been languishing on the waiting list to receive protection under the Endangered Species Act. Those actions could include directing federal agencies to rein in wildlife exploitation, defend critical wildlife habitat on federal land and use the nation’s economic influence to help protect wildlife habitat around the world from deforestation and environmental damage caused by the private sector.

Thankfully, there is international traction to make the 30×30 vision a reality. When the 15th Conference of the Parties to the CBD convenes in October in Kunming, China, chances are good that delegates will secure a firm multilateral commitment: The current “zero draft” of the global framework meant to steer conservation efforts through 2030 includes the 30×30 vision as an explicit aim.

“We lose a species to extinction every hour, but extinction is not inevitable,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, in December. “We can end extinction with funding and political will. We need to stop making excuses and take the bold policy actions necessary to save life on Earth.”

Africa’s Role Model; Eritrea’s 30 Years of Independence

Thomas C. Mountain

Africa’s role model, Eritrea, located on the Red Sea will mark 30 years of independence this coming Monday, May 24. When a rag tag band of afro coiffed Eritrean rebels drove captured Ethiopian tanks into the streets of our capital Asmara thirty years ago it marked the first successful armed struggle for national liberation on the continent. Others had fought but only Eritrea took it all the way, defeating the occupying colonial army of Ethiopia and winning power “by the barrel of a gun”.

This Independence Day has seen Eritrea overcome many obstacles to name and not only preserved our national sovereignty but build a Pan Africanist unity here in the Horn of Africa that is threatening the very basis of neo-colonialism’s continued exploitation of Africa’s people and resources.

Eritrea, under the leadership of President Issias Aferwerki has brought about a remarkable transformation in our erstwhile enemy, Ethiopia, next door. Where once the gangster government of Ethiopia, the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front, were our sworn enemy all the while brutally repressing the Ethiopian people, today Ethiopia has destroyed the TPLF and begun to move away from its history of famine and war towards a self sufficient, independent and peaceful country.

And this was all brought about by almost two decades of behind the scenes diplomacy and trust building with the new government lead by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. When in 2018 Issias Aferwerki announced at our Martyrs Day program that it was “ game over” for the TPLF in Ethiopia we were all shocked. It had all been done secretly and when PM Abiy flew into our capital Asmara a short time later he had a lot of very positive things to say about Eritrea. How he wanted to emulate Eritrea’s self sufficiency and independence to the point where he said he would be our “unofficial foreign minister…so he could help fight the lies being told about Eritrea”.

This wasn’t the end of the TPLF, it wasn’t until November of 2020 that following a desperate attempt to regain national power via a coup and the subsequent final destruction of the TPLF on the field of battle that the next chapter of Ethiopian freedom and prosperity was begun.

Of course there are still major problems in Ethiopia, daunting challenges to those without a firm grasp of what is really going on. But as PM Abiy said when President Issias first visited Ethiopia on July 8, 2018, (to paraphrase the Amharic spoken by Abiy Ahmed) “ we have a lot of problems in Ethiopia to overcome but don’t worry Issias [Aferwerki] is leading us”.

Straight from the horses mouths so to speak, this statement couldn’t be denied only ignored, which of course it was. But there was no ignoring the new, close friendship and solidarity that has been growing between Ethiopia and Eritrea. PM Abiy credited Eritrea with playing “a crucial role” in defeating the TPLF coupsters and thanked us publicly for our support in this speech to the Ethiopian Parliament days after the final battle that finished off the TPLF army.

Ethiopia is about to hold an election and all signs indicate a landslide by Abiy Ahmed and his supporters. PM Abiy has promised to write a new constitution for Ethiopia that will include the nationalization of all the land in Ethiopia and thus lay the basis to end the centuries old ethnic based violence over land ownership. If the government owns all the land how can they fight over what land belong to what ethnic group. The land will be assigned by the government to those that will use it and to hell with all the foreign bloodsuckers that have been ripping off Ethiopians wealth under the TPLF.

Nationalizing the land, which is what Eritrea did upon winning independence on the battle field thirty years ago is a major change in Africa, and when adopted by the rest of the continent after they see just how important it was to do this by Ethiopia, how it lead the way in transforming Ethiopia from a backward, war and famine blighted country to the beginnings of a modern, self sufficient independent country similar to Eritrea, a major step will have been taken in the critical move away from western, mainly EU theft of African wealth and the beginning of a new truly Pan Africanist continent.

Land nationalization is the first step in ending the bloodthirsty grip of neo-colonialism on our continent and this is what has got the western imperialist so upset, upset to the point where they have launched a vicious slander disinformation campaign about what is really going on in Ethiopia today, especially in the former stronghold of the TPLF, Tigray.

Expect a lot of lies and slander about the upcoming election in Ethiopia to try and denigrate PM Abiy’s upcoming landslide. The TPLF regime was overwhelming hated by all Ethiopians and the destruction of the TPLF has been cheered by Ethiopians at home and in the diaspora. The popularity of PM Abiy and his program for change in Ethiopia will be demonstrated conclusively in this upcoming election so all the western banksters and their lackeys in the UN and the human rights mob will be able to do is try and spread disinformation and slanders in an attempt to taint the legitimacy of the election.

The role model Eritrea has been for the last 30 years has begun to be noticed in Africa and the new government in Sudan is just one example of how Eritrea is leading the way in bringing peace to what used to be known as the Horn of Hunger in Africa.

The end of the TPLF was publicly welcomed by all of the nations comprising the Horn of Africa, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti and others as well. While the future is still fraught with challenges and difficulties there is a role model for our neighbors, and eventually the rest of Africa to follow. Eritrea is Africa’s role model and has 30 years of independence proving it.

Russia, China, Iran criticize Israeli onslaught against Gaza

Ulaş Ateşçi & Alex Lantier

The Israeli armed forces’ bloody slaughter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip has provoked criticisms in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran. These statements, however, only underscore the class gulf separating the sentiments of billions of workers, horrified at the Israeli onslaught against the defenseless enclave, and the mealy-mouthed positions of capitalist regimes across Eurasia.

The Kremlin, which has close ties with Israel, struck a hypocritical pose of neutrality between Israel and Gaza, calling for the so-called Middle East Quartet—comprised of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia—to negotiate a peace deal.

Children wave Palestinian flags during a protest supporting the children in Gaza, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Thursday, May 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “We condemn attacks from both sides, targeting residential areas. … We believe the international community must not be indifferent to what is happening. There is the Quartet of international mediators who are directly obliged to contribute to the solution of the Palestinian question.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that the Israeli attack could trigger a broader war. Stating that Moscow is “extremely concerned about the increasing number of human casualties,” he euphemistically declared, “In general, the region has a rather fragile security system, a huge lack of mutual trust, and a long-standing potential for regional conflicts, which does not contribute to stabilization.”

Israel dismissed an announcement by the Russian foreign ministry that it had called in Israeli diplomats on Wednesday to say that further civilian casualties in Gaza are “unacceptable.” It responded with a statement that it would set no timeframe for ending the attacks on Gaza.

As for Beijing, it appealed to Washington to negotiate with Israel. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi asked Washington “to shoulder its responsibilities, taking a just position” in Sunday’s UN Security Council debate on Palestine. Yi also warned against military escalation, calling “to prevent the situation from further deteriorating, to prevent the region from falling again into turmoil.”

Significantly, Yi also indicated that China could host Israeli-Palestinian talks, stating: “China reiterates its invitation to peacemakers from Palestine and Israel to come to China for dialogue, and welcomes negotiators from Palestine and Israel to hold direct talks in China.”

Yi refrained from asking Israel to immediately halt the slaughter, however, only asking that it “end the blockade and the siege of Gaza as soon as possible, guarantee the safety and rights of civilians in the occupied Palestinian territory, and provide access for humanitarian assistance.”

When Beijing’s appeals to Washington failed, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian complained Tuesday that US vetoes paralyzed the Security Council. “People cannot help asking whether this is the diplomacy of values and human rights the US government has announced. Why has the US been so callous about the Palestinian people’s human rights while it keeps talking about upholding Muslims’ human rights?”

This was apparently a discreet reference to the staggering hypocrisy of Washington’s backing for Israel’s war on Gaza, while it mounts a campaign of lies accusing Beijing of carrying out a “genocide” of Muslim Uyghurs in western China.

Complaining that the “US focus has completely shifted to major-power competition,” China’s state-run Global Times criticized Washington, remarkably, for not being involved in the Middle East: “In order to focus on China and Russia, Washington is eager to retreat from the Middle East and does not want to invest in new energy and resources for the sake of Palestine-Israel peace. … But Washington must be made to know that justice cannot be buried alive.”

In fact, imperialist wars in the Middle East in the three decades since the Soviet and Chinese Stalinist bureaucracies restored capitalism in 1989-91 have made one thing clear. It is pointless to appeal to US or European imperialism for “justice.” Since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union removed the main military counterweight to Washington, they have waged aggressive wars for regime change, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, leaving millions dead and entire societies shattered.

In particular, they have repeatedly given unstinting support to one-sided Israeli massacres in Gaza in 2009, in 2012, in 2014 and now in 2021.

China’s economic rise as a cheap-labor haven for transnational corporations has of course increased its influence in the region. The Global Times reported that China is now the Arab countries’ largest trading partner, with a yearly trade volume of nearly $240 billion, as China imports 250 million tons of crude oil from them. The Jerusalem Post called China-Israel trade “a marriage made in heaven,” growing “from $50 million to $13.1 billion from 1992 to 2017,” making China Israel’s third-largest trading partner. China even recently signed a $400 billion, 25-year trade deal with Iran.

US imperialism remains the dominant financial and military power in the region, however, and it has backed Israeli attacks against Gaza. This underlies the bankruptcy of any perspective to defend Gaza that does not rely on mobilizing international opposition in the working class to imperialism and war.

While there is deep opposition in the Israeli, American and international working class to social inequality and the politically criminal official handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Moscow, Beijing and Tehran are incapable of and hostile to appealing to such sentiments.

The Russian, Chinese and Iranian regimes fear growing working class opposition at home. Beijing is preparing a deeply unpopular increase in the pension age, even as over 400 billionaires in China have collectively amassed over US$2 trillion in wealth. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani noted that his regime is terrified that amid the pandemic, “people, facing hunger, poverty and unemployment, would go into the streets.”

The Iranian regime felt compelled to make more critical statements on Gaza, amid pro-Palestinian protests in Tehran and mounting anger across the Middle East. The war in Gaza follows US and Israeli provocations against Iran, including murderous sanctions on critical health supplies amid the COVID-19 pandemic and Israel’s criminal attacks on Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

After Israelis struck the Qatari Red Crescent building in Gaza, the Qatari Foreign Ministry condemned Tel Aviv on Monday. Moreover, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported that its photojournalist Mohammad Dahla was injured on Wednesday by an Israeli missile in Gaza, after “two Anadolu Agency journalists were injured while covering Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip last week.” Israel also bombed a media center housing AP and Al Jazeera operations in Gaza.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that “Palestine is the most important common issue of the Islamic community” in a Sunday phone call. According to the IRNA news agency, he said that “confronting the crimes against Palestine and immediately stopping killing oppressed and defenseless people is critical,” adding, “Islamic states should cooperate to utilize the capacity of international bodies such as the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to confront the Zionist regime’s aggression.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif reportedly canceled a scheduled visit to Vienna after Israeli flags were hoisted on government buildings to show support for the Israeli war. He tweeted: “As US-made munitions rain down on innocent Palestinians, US gives another $735M in ‘precision’ missiles to Israel to kill more children with more precision.”

Zarif also criticized reactionary regional regimes, including Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, who have “normalized” relations with Israel, saying: “The massacre of Palestinian children today follows the purported normalization.”

Tehran is, however, in talks to restore relations with Saudi Arabia, a key architect of this “normalization” and a leading ally of the Israeli government. This underscores the cynicism of Iranian policy and the urgent necessity of building an international antiwar movement based on a socialist program in the international working class to halt the attacks on Gaza.

China successfully lands rover Zhurong on Mars

Bryan Dyne

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has successfully landed and deployed the rover component of its Mars mission Tianwen-1. The lander and rover safely touched down on Mars during the early hours of May 15, China time, according to China’s state media. The rover, named Zhurong, was brought online in the following days, and its first images were released by the CNSA on May 19.

The first two images from the Zhurong rover released by the CNSA show the rover still sitting on its lander waiting to be deployed, and on the surface of Mars with its solar panels and antenna extended. Credit: China National Space Administration

The landing makes China the third country to achieve a soft landing on the Red Planet, after the Soviet Union and the United States, and second after the US to land and deploy a rover on the Martian surface. The CNSA also achieved a new landmark in planetary exploration—having a successful orbiter, lander and rover as part of the agency’s first mission to Mars, an immense scientific and technical achievement.

Tianwen-1 also deployed a small camera during its cruise to Mars to take a self-portrait of the spacecraft en route to its final destination, another first. The ejected camera took several photographs of its parent ship and transmitted them to Tianwen-1 via radio, which were then sent back to Earth by the spaceship.

Zhurong is a bit larger than the extraordinarily successful Spirit and Opportunity missions launched by NASA in 2003 and is of similar design. It has six articulated wheels to overcome small obstacles on the Martian surface, is powered by solar panels and communicates back to Earth using Tianwen-1 as a relay (with Europe’s Mars Express as a backup). The rover is slated for 90 sols (Martian days) of operations, and one hopes for a longevity and legacy to match or exceed that of its US-built predecessors.

The Tianwen-1 mission (“heavenly questions”) was launched last July on a Long March 5 heavy launch vehicle, which has a comparable thrust-to-weight ratio to the Soviet Proton-M, the European Ariane 5 and the American Delta IV. The mission’s ongoing accomplishments are a credit to the hundreds of operators in China, as well as those assisting from Argentina, Austria, France and the European Space Agency.

A self-portrait of the Tianwen-1 in deep space from an ejected camera while the spacecraft was cruising to Mars. Credit: China National Space Administration

The probes were launched during the same launch window used by the United Arab Emirates Hope spacecraft and NASA’s Perseverance rover, a space flight path which takes advantage of the orbits of Earth and Mars to minimize the fuel needed to reach the fourth planet from the Sun. All three missions arrived at Mars this past February within a few weeks of each other.

Instead of immediately deploying the rover, however, the controllers of the Tianwen-1 elected to use the orbiter to more carefully map out potential landing sites for Zhurong. The landing itself took nine minutes, and as is characteristic of Mars missions, because of the vast distance between Earth and Mars, had to be entirely automated. Comments from CNSA officials indicate the rover is operating as designed.

The science objectives for both the rover and orbiter are extensive and ambitious. Like all Mars missions, the overall goals are a deeper understanding of Mars’ geological history and ongoing searches for signs of extraterrestrial life. In particular, both Tianwen-1 and Zhurong will use a combined 13 cameras and other scientific instruments to study the chemical composition of the Martian soil and atmosphere, get detailed topological characteristics of dry riverbeds, volcano reliefs, glaciers and areas where wind erosion is prominent, analyze the climate and magnetic field of the planet, and use ground-penetrating radar from both vehicles to map subsurface water ice.

The landing site is in the southern portion of Utopia Planitia, a massive basin in Mars’ northern hemisphere which is thought to have once been under water billions of years ago. Indeed, data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed in 2016 that there is a great deal of ice underneath the surface—about as much water as contained in Lake Superior. One of the goals of Zhurong and Tianwen-1 will be to more accurately map this ice.

There are many other intriguing geological features in the region, including cone-shaped features that were likely formed from volcano lava, or even mud. On Earth, so-called mud volcanoes are associated with methane production by bacteria. While that is much more unlikely on Mars, scientists from both China and the United States have expressed a great deal of enthusiasm for an up-close study by Zhurong of these cones, which have so far only been imaged from orbit.

Of course, such scientific and technological achievements by China bring with them a great deal of geopolitical baggage. After the release of the first Zhurong photos, NASA Administrator (and former US Senator from Florida) Bill Nelson offered, “Congratulations to the China National Space Administration on receiving the first images from the Zhurong Mars rover!” The statement continued, “I look forward to future international discoveries, which will help inform and develop the capabilities needed to land human boots on Mars.”

His tone was much more confrontational toward China, however, in testimony before the House Appropriations Committee’s commerce, justice and science subcommittee that occurred at the same time NASA released his official statement. “[China] is a very aggressive competitor,” he proclaimed. “They’re going to be landing humans on the moon. That should tell us something about our need to get off our duff and get our Human Landing System program going vigorously.”

Underlying such comments are worries that China’s rocket technology could eclipse that of the United States, which is seen by the Biden administration as a mortal threat to its continued military build-up against China in the Indo-Pacific region. This “pivot to Asia” began under the Obama administration and was continued under Trump as an attempt by American capitalism to force China to bow to the “international rules-based order,” the post-World War II economic and security framework dominated by US imperialism.

Moreover, the Space Force created by then-US President Donald Trump is directly aimed at ensuring US military dominance in all spheres, especially outer space. The US has also announced plans for a space station orbiting the Moon, which would inherently militarize not just orbits around the Earth and Moon, but also the space lanes between them.

While there is no concrete evidence that China is using its space program to develop new military hardware, the launch vehicles, guidance systems and communications networks needed to land on Mars have obvious potential military spin-offs. And these technologies are being further developed. China has announced many more Mars missions in the near future, as well as others to the Moon, including lunar missions that may be crewed.

The country has also launched the first module of its own space station, the Tiangong, which will be about the size of the decommissioned Soviet/Russian space station Mir. It did so isolated from virtually every other country’s space program, particularly the US-led International Space Station. Under 2011 legislation, NASA is forbidden from any technology or knowledge exchanges with China. Its sponsor, Republican Frank Wolf, declared, “We don’t want to give [China] the opportunity to take advantage of our technology, and we have nothing to gain from dealing with them.”

In a rational world, such comments would be laughed at as parochial at best, if they were noticed at all, overshadowed by celebrations at the CNSA’s triumphs. The agency’s further missions would not be hidden behind a shroud of secrecy cast by the Chinese government and viewed with hostility by the American government, but fully integrated into a globally coordinated space program to understand Mars and the Solar System as a whole.

Such a vision of unified space travel, however, will never manifest as long as the world is divided up into rival capitalist nation-states.

New Zealand Labour government targets rich investors in immigration “reset”

John Braddock

New Zealand’s Labour Party-led government, which includes the Greens, has escalated its attacks on the working class with an impending “reset” of immigration policy to target wealthy investors while limiting entry for those classed as “low-skill” and low-wage workers.

In a May 17 speech setting out the government’s intentions for immigration, Economic Development Minister Stuart Nash said its policies would include making it harder for employers to take on workers from overseas, other than in areas of “genuine skills shortages.”

A participant in a Wellington protest last week opposing the government’s immigration policies (Credit: WSWS)

Nash, who was filling in for Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi, said once the borders fully open after COVID-19 shutdowns there will be no return to previous immigration settings. “That path is a continuation of pressures on our infrastructure, like transport, accommodation, and downward pressure on wages,” he declared. The government would “encourage employers to hire, train and upskill more New Zealanders to fill skill shortages.”

The move is in line with Labour’s 2017 immigration policy, carried through with its then-coalition partner, the right-wing anti-immigrant NZ First Party, to slash net migration—at that time around 70,000 a year—by up to 30,000 by cutting back on international students and “low skilled” workers. Labour has simultaneously kept New Zealand’s annual refugee intake at just 1,500, one of the lowest in the world.

In October 2019, Labour introduced new class-based restrictions on immigration, blocking thousands of parents from joining their adult children in New Zealand. Under changes to visa requirements, a resident or citizen must now earn over $106,000 a year to bring one parent, or $159,000—more than three times the median salary—to bring two. Officials estimated that 85 percent of parents on the waiting list were ineligible for residency under the new rules.

Until the border closed in March 2020, there was a policy in place to import temporary workers and fee-paying students while making it much harder for migrants to gain permanent residency. In the past decade, the number of people on temporary work visas doubled from fewer than 100,000 to more than 200,000. There was a huge increase in demand for residency, with around 80 percent of applications under the Skilled Migrant Category coming from onshore applicants.

While tightly controlled, immigration has contributed to 30 percent of the total population growth since the early 1990s. Currently one in four New Zealand residents was born abroad. Temporary migrant workers make up almost five percent of New Zealand’s labour force—the highest share compared to other OECD countries. Entire industries, such as tourism, retail, hospitality and agriculture, have become dependent on these highly-exploited workers, who have no rights to unemployment and other benefits.

COVID-19 has seen immigration grind to a halt. The country had a net migration gain of just 6,600 people last year. This has, according to Nash, given a “once-in-a-generation” chance for sweeping policy change. The “reset” threatens to force thousands of visa holders and current residents into a no-man’s land. Those targeted for restrictions are on the two lowest “skill level” bands. The only ones unaffected are low paid “fly-in-fly-out” seasonal workers from Pacific island countries.

Like governments internationally, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s government is responding to the social crisis triggered by COVID-19 by scapegoating immigrants and stoking nationalism. The economy’s “reliance” on low-wage workers is presented as the fault of immigrants, when in fact it is due to policies imposed by successive governments and trade unions, who have suppressed wages and attacked living standards over the past three decades.

On May 12 and 13 hundreds of migrants rallied in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch and regional centres to protest their dire situation. Many have relatives who have been stranded for more than a year outside the country, separated from their families, jobs and homes. Thousands, including many designated as skilled workers, are facing delays of two years or longer after applying for residency. Those who are turning eighteen face losing their current status and becoming non-persons in the complex immigration system.

Many migrants hit back publicly at the government. Aeron Davis, a doctor who moved from London last year, told Radio NZ he feared it would take years to obtain permanent residency. His two teenage children cannot get jobs or go to university without paying exorbitant international fees. Davis fears thousands of families are similarly waiting in limbo with fewer employment rights, social benefits and less security.

The government has already created border exceptions to allow more than 200 wealthy international investors to enter the country over the next 12 months. Under the so-called Innovative Partnerships Programme and Trade and Enterprise Investor Programme, representatives from global companies are given open entry, purportedly to encourage “direct investment, job creation and skills.”

Defending the new immigration regime, Ardern said the use of migrant labour had been “a type of exploitation by some employers” and served to suppress wages, which was “unfair to migrants and New Zealander workers.”

The line was echoed by the trade union funded Daily Blog, which declared that “mass immigration… has undermined domestic wages, created a housing crisis and put enormous stress on our infrastructure while contributing to climate change and migration worker exploitation.” Fewer migrants “means less competition for jobs and houses for the domestic working classes,” it falsely claimed.

In fact, the move has nothing to do with eliminating rampant exploitation but is aimed at dividing workers and suppressing resistance to deepening austerity measures. The Labour government has just imposed a three-year wage freeze across the public sector and changed industrial laws to put the trade unions at the centre of policing the lowest paid workers, including tens of thousands of non-union members, through mis-named Fair Pay Agreements.

Anti-immigrant demands have been a cornerstone of the Labour Party and the trade unions for over a century. From its founding in 1916, Labour was fiercely nationalist and stoked divisions in the working class by encouraging racism and xenophobia. Like its Australian counterpart, Labour supported what was widely known as the “white New Zealand” policy, which imposed drastic restrictions on immigration from China and other Asian countries. The restrictions remained, in one form or another, until the 1970s.

The trade unions continue to agitate against foreign workers. The Maritime Union and E tū have both used the COVID-19 pandemic to insist on protecting the jobs of New Zealanders “first.” In 2018, Unite applauded a government decision to temporarily ban migrants from working at Burger King. Last year, FIRST Union sought to divert attention from its role in defending the company in a pay dispute by criticising the government for allowing NZ Bus to bring in foreign drivers.

Anti-China rhetoric is meanwhile being stepped up to prepare the population for a looming US-led war against China. Between 2017 and 2020, Labour and the Greens were in government with the NZ First Party, which regularly demonised Chinese, Indian and Muslim immigrants. This year has seen a sharp increase in attacks against Asian immigrants, amid a propaganda offensive over Beijing’s purported “influence” in the country’s politics, businesses and academia and bogus claims that China’s Wuhan laboratory was responsible for the outbreak of COVID-19.