Sri Lankan cabinet tables repressive “rehabilitation” bureau bill

Naveen Dewage

President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government released a new repressive Bureau of Rehabilitation bill last month. The legislation was approved by cabinet and presented to parliament by Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, the minister of justice, prison affairs and constitutional reforms, on September 23.

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe arrives at the parliamentary complex in Colombo, Sri Lanka on Aug. 3, 2022. [AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena]

On Monday, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court began hearings on six petitions filed by civil society activists and parliamentary opposition MPs arguing that the bill is unconstitutional.

Sri Lanka initially established a Commissioner-General of Rehabilitation under its Public Security Ordinance and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) in the early 1980s. Several centres were established to supposedly rehabilitate “misguided combatants, individuals engaged in extreme or destructive acts of sabotage” and drug addicts.

These repressive measures were used during the 26-year bloody communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam with many of those arrested declared “ex-combatants” and sent to rehabilitation centres. This included 11,000 young people who were transferred from military-run camps in Vavuniya holding hundreds of thousands of civilians following the LTTE’s defeat in 2009. Some of those arrested simply disappeared, others were tortured. Those that were released have been under constant surveillance by intelligence agencies.

While Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe will have full control of the modified bureau, its governing council includes the Defence Secretary or his representative, and the inspector general of police or his representative, who will determine its operations. All previous commissioners-general have been senior military officers.

The current bill widens previously existing powers of the bureau, declaring its role to be of “national importance.” Its duties and functions are to “rehabilitate ex-combatants, members of violent extremist groups and any other group of persons who requests treatment and rehabilitation or is required by law to be provided with treatment and rehabilitation.” In other words, any individual from a broad range of political parties or groups, including those fighting for social and democratic rights, could be incarcerated in the rehabilitation centres.

Civil rights lawyers opposing the bill say that it does not include any judicial processes and point out that police could arrest anyone and directly send them to the rehabilitation camps. Other components of the bill include:

* The “powers, duties and tasks” of the rehabilitation camps will be “empowered to members of the tri-forces” [the military] with secret records kept on the detainees.

* The duty of all those employed in these facilities is “to preserve order and discipline among the persons undergoing rehabilitation” and that is lawful “to use all such means, including minimum force, as may reasonably be necessary to compel obedience to any lawful directions given by him.”

* There is no civil or criminal liability “for any officer of the Bureau or to any officer authorised by such officer, for anything done in good faith in the exercise, performance or discharge of any power, duty or function imposed or conferred on the Bureau under this Act.” This means blanket “immunity” for the military officers in charge of these camps, allowing them to use physical violence and torture on detainees.

In a recent case, a 36-year-old man accused of being a drug addict and held in the Kandakadu rehabilitation centre was beaten to death by soldiers during a protest by inmates over unsafe COVID-19 conditions in the camp. While some soldiers were arrested over the incident, under the new law any officer using violence against inmates will have complete immunity.

* “Obstruction” or “attempted to obstruct of officers” in the centres is punishable. Suspects will be brought before a magistrate who can impose a 50,000-rupee fine, a six-month imprisonment, or both.

* Individuals undergoing treatment and rehabilitation can be “used productively to enhance the economy”—i.e., the camps will also become forced labour centres.

These repressive measures, and the further bolstering of the state apparatus, is in response to the eruption of mass anti-government protests, which began in April involving millions of workers and rural poor. President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government were compelled to resign. A longtime stooge of the US imperialism, Ranil Wickremesinghe, Rajapakse’s successor, has stepped up these anti-democratic attacks.

Thus far, over 4,000 people have been taken into custody by police since April, with nearly 2,000 still being held in remand prisons, including hundreds detained by the Wickremesinghe government.

In August, police arrested Inter-University Student Federation convenor Wasantha Mudalige and two other activists. Wickremesinghe ordered them to be held under the PTA for 90 days. These individuals could be the first victims of the new rehabilitation bureau law.

Inter-University Students Federation convener Wasantha Mudalige. [Photo: WSWS]

On September 24, Wickremesinghe issued a gazette designating parts of Colombo and its outskirts high security zones (HSZ), similar to war time measures, and outlawing protests in these areas.

Confronted with widespread opposition and challenges to its legality, Wickremesinghe was compelled to back off and withdraw the gazette on Monday. Cabinet spokesman Bandula Gunawardena later said that the laws could be changed to implement the high security zones.

A few days later, on September 27, the public administration secretary, following a government directive, issued a circular banning state employees from criticising the government on social media platforms.

Wickremesinghe’s repressive measures are in preparation for the inevitable re-emergence of the mass struggles in response to a new round of International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity. This includes higher taxes, the destruction of tens of thousands of public sector jobs, cuts in social spending, and higher prices for essential goods.

As in every other country, the COVID-19 pandemic and the US-NATO war against Russia has intensified Sri Lanka financial crisis to an unprecedented level. Inflation in Colombo skyrocketed to 70 percent in September, with food inflation hitting 95 percent. Hyperinflation across the island is creating unbearable living conditions, with many facing starvation or skipping meals.

Sri Lanka’s parliamentary opposition parties are desperately trying to contain the rising anger against Colombo’s attacks on the social conditions and democratic rights of workers and the poor.

One of those who has filed a petition against Wickremesinghe’s rehabilitation bill is S.M. Marrikkar, a Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) parliamentarian. The SJB’s “democratic” posturing is bogus. The leaders of this right-wing bourgeois party, which has consistently backed IMF austerity, have a long history of supporting repression and anti-democratic measures.

Tamil National Alliance MP, M. A. Sumanthiran, told the media that the new law “blatantly violates the fundamental principle that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.” But this capitalist party also supports the IMF program and is cynically attempting to convince people that they can pressure government to repeal its repressive laws.

Australia: Optus data breach highlights widespread security vulnerabilities

Martin Scott

Millions of Australians face an increased risk of identity theft after their personal data was exposed in a massive online security breach at Optus last month.

The so-far unidentified hacker obtained sensitive details, including passport, drivers’ licence and medicare numbers, of around 10 million current and former customers of Australia’s second-largest telecommunications provider.

Screenshot from email sent to customers

While Optus insists that 7.7 million of the victims need not take action, this may only mean that the information of theirs that was compromised is impractical to change, such as their full name, home address and date of birth.

The company reports that of the 2.1 million customers who had at least one identifying document number stolen, 1.2 million had current, valid identification numbers exposed. In most cases this included drivers’ licences, while around 150,000 passports and 37,000 Medicare cards were also compromised.

While an online forum poster using the name “Optusdata,” thought to be the hacker, claims to have deleted the stolen data, there is no guarantee that this is true. As a result, almost 40 percent of the Australian population, along with international visitors who registered for Optus services since 2017, confront an enhanced likelihood of fraud.

At minimum, more than 10,000 Optus customers are at risk, as they were in included in a sample posted online by “Optusdata” to prove they had access to the data. This data has been reposted and remains readily accessible.

Stolen identity documents could be used to establish fraudulent bank and credit card accounts, allowing criminals to launder money or rack up huge debts against the names of the Optus breach victims.

Basic information like that stolen from customers, that Optus says should not be of concern, such as addresses, phone numbers, full names and dates of birth, could be used in social engineering attacks to gain access to existing accounts with other companies.

The Optus hack was reported in the media on September 22, the day after the company detected unusual data traffic on their networks.

While the company initially claimed it had been the victim of a “sophisticated” attack, the consensus among security experts, backed up by the claims of the purported hacker, is that it was anything but.

“Optusdata” told Information Security Media Group reporter Jeremy Kirk they had acquired the data through an unsecured Application Programming Interface (API), which allowed access to Optus’s customer database from devices anywhere on the public internet.

The hacker was able to access the information of all of the company’s customers by running an automated script that asked for database records one-by-one, simply increasing the “contactId” index number by one with each request.

“Optusdata” explained that no username, password or authentication token was required, writing to Kirk: “No authenticate needed. That is bad access control. All open to internet for any one to use.”

APIs are used extensively to allow communication between different pieces of software, within a single device or across networks. When Optus customers view their account via a mobile app or the web, a similar API to the one that was breached is used to retrieve and display their own information. Properly implemented, this is only possible after logging in, and cannot be used to display the details of other customers.

Security experts have speculated that the exploited API was a new version that was being tested and was not intended to be accessible from the public internet. To protect security, such an API should have used test data rather than actual customer details.

Kirk’s analysis of public Domain Name System (DNS) records—essentially the internet equivalent of a phone book—suggests that the unsecured API may have been accessible for up to three months.

The massive breach points to the danger of placing sensitive data in the hands of vast corporations, whose only concern is profit. While the Optus data breach is notable for its vast scale, hacks accessing substantial amounts of personal data are increasingly common.

Last month, American Airlines revealed that personal data including drivers’ licences, passport numbers and “certain medical information” of more than 1,700 employees and customers had been stolen in a phishing attack in July.

Last week, Uber’s former security chief, Joe Sullivan, was found guilty of covering up the 2016 exfiltration of 50 million customers’ and 7 million drivers’ personal data. The court heard that Sullivan paid the hackers $US100,000 in Bitcoin in exchange for their silence on the breach, which was only revealed more than a year later when Sullivan was fired.

In 2020, Australian logistics giant Toll was hit by a ransomware attack that compromised workers’ personal and financial details and prevented them from being paid correctly. The email addresses and full names of 139 million users of graphic design software company Canva were stolen in 2019.

One of the largest ever breaches of sensitive data was the 2017 exploitation of a “website application vulnerability” at credit reporting agency Equifax, in which the personal and credit information of 143 million was stolen over a period of more than two months. The company had failed to install a patch for a well-known bug in their Apache web server.

This is particularly notable because Optus is offering customers affected by last month’s hack a 12-month subscription to Equifax’s credit monitoring service.

In response to the Optus attack, federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland today announced changes to the Telecommunications Act to “facilitate targeted data sharing between telcos and financial institutions.”

For “security reasons,” Chalmers claimed, the identity of these financial institutions could not be disclosed. In other words, some 10 million Optus customers, whose personal information may already be being traded on the online black market, now face having it shared further between unidentified institutions.

The announcement marked a shift from Labor’s earlier denunciations of the lax security at Optus. Now, the government’s clear priority is to work closely with the multi billion-dollar company to salvage its reputation.

The latest regulatory change is in line with years of prior legislation, passed with bipartisan support, that imposes few responsibilities on corporations to protect user data, and minimal penalties for the failure to do so.

Legislation regarding the telecommunications industry has instead been focused on increasing the scope of data that must be retained, in order to facilitate greater surveillance by the state. The very fact that Optus had passport and drivers’ licence numbers recorded, and therefore vulnerable, is a result of such laws.

In addition to identity information, Australia’s data retention laws require telecommunications providers to keep records of source and destination phone numbers, email addresses and IP addresses for all communication except web browsing, as well as the location of the user at the time of the transmission.

Amendments to the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 passed in 2021 allow the Australian Signals Directorate to take control of “critical infrastructure,” the definition of which has been expanded to include supermarkets, banks, financial markets, education and transport, in the event of a “cyber security incident.”

Law firm Corrs, Chambers and Westgarth noted last year: “The new government response powers go beyond the measures other members of the ‘Five Eyes’ alliance have implemented.”

These regulatory changes have nothing to do with protecting ordinary Australian people from the growing threat of cyber attack. Despite the propaganda campaign employed to justify ever more draconian surveillance measures, digital attacks are mostly opportunistic exploitations of vulnerabilities that exist due to the profit-led priorities of business.

Poland discusses hosting American nuclear weapons as US buys up anti-radiation drugs

Andre Damon

Amid growing warnings that the war between Russia and NATO in Ukraine could turn nuclear, Polish President Andrzej Duda said Wednesday that he has spoken to Washington about stationing American nuclear weapons in the country.

Poland shares a 120-mile border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

“The first problem is that we don’t have nuclear weapons,” Duda told Gazeta Polska. “There is always a potential opportunity to participate in the Nuclear Sharing program. We spoke to American leaders about whether the United States was considering this possibility.”

This photo taken from video provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Feb. 19, 2022, shows a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile being launched from an air field during military drills. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

The announcement comes as authorities in Kiev have started distributing potassium iodine tablets—used to protect from radiation exposure from nuclear detonations—in evacuation centers throughout the city.

On Thursday, the department of health and human services announced that it has purchased more than $290 million worth of Nplate, “for use in radiological and nuclear emergencies.”

According to the National Institutes of Health, Nplate has “expanded the toolbox of medical countermeasures available in case a catastrophic event exposes people to high doses of radiation. Such an event could be a nuclear explosion, an accident at a nuclear reactor, a radiotherapy accident, or the escape of radioactive waste”

Earlier this week, the Times of London reported that

President Putin is set to demonstrate his willingness to use weapons of mass destruction with a nuclear test on Ukraine’s borders, Nato is believed to have warned its members.

The report continued,

Sources said Nato had sent an intelligence report to its members and allies alerting them to the fact that Russia is expected to test its nuclear-capable torpedo drone Poseidon, possibly in the Black Sea, which it controls. As officials in Washington draw up possible scenarios for a response, Nato is thought to have reported that the nuclear submarine K-329 Belgorod is headed to the Arctic, having become operational in July.

Additionally, the Times reported that a train operated by the division of the Russian armed forces responsible for nuclear weapons had been spotted advancing toward the front.

Notably, when asked about those reports during a background press briefing Monday, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed seeing the reports but refused to comment on them.

The growing warnings of a nuclear escalation came as Ukraine continued its offensive along large portions of the front, as Russian forces continued to retreat in the face of Ukrainian advances.

For the first time, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the destabilization of the Russian line, telling reporters he expected the situation to “stabilize.”

“We are working on the assumption that the situation in the new territories will stabilize,” Putin said.

On Wednesday, Putin signed four laws ratifying Russia’s  annexation of four Ukrainian provinces, even as Russian officials could not exactly explain what territory they had annexed.

Ukrainian officials said they have taken thousands of square miles of territory since last month, and have captured dozens of towns and villages in recent days.

The UK ministry of defense reported that “Ukraine continues to make progress in offensive operations along both the north-eastern and southern fronts. In the north-east, in Kharkiv oblast, Ukraine has now consolidated a substantial area of territory east of the Oskil River.”

Ukrainian forces appeared to be moving their offensive into the province of Luhansk. “The de-occupation of the Luhansk region has already officially started,” Serhiy Haidai, the head of the Ukrainian regional government of Luhansk, wrote on Telegram.

Putin also announced that he had made a series of “corrections” to Russia’s mobilization drive, exempting a broader range of students from being called up.

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss declared Wednesday that Ukraine “will win.”  She stated, “We will stand with our Ukrainian friends, however long it takes. Ukraine can win. Ukraine must win. And Ukraine will win.”

The statement appeared to be an endorsement of Ukraine’s stated aim of retaking all of the Donbas and Crimea.

Even as Russian forces continued their retreat, Russia apparently carried out a strike 50 miles south of Kiev using a swarm of kamikaze drones, according to Ukraine officials.

Amid the growing debacle for Russian forces, US officials are becoming more explicit in stating the goals of their intervention in the conflict.

One senior US official told the British Telegraph that “the recapture of Crimea by Ukraine is now a distinct possibility and can no longer be discounted.”

He continued, “It is clear that Russia no longer has the ability or willpower to defend key positions, and if the Ukrainians succeed in their goal of recapturing Kherson, then there is a very real possibility that it will ultimately be able to recapture Crimea.”

Meanwhile John Bolton, former UN ambassador under George W. Bush and National Security advisor under Donald Trump, has called on the United States to formally state its implicit goal of regime change in Russia.

“There is no long-term prospect for peace and security in Europe without regime change in Russia,” Bolton wrote in an article for an online journal, declaring, “The whole regime must go.”

Bolton praised the call for the ouster of Putin made by Biden in March, and condemned efforts by the White House to distance itself from Biden’s remark.

Bolton wrote, “Why the angst? There is no long-term prospect for peace and security in Europe without regime change in Russia. Russians are already discussing it, quietly, for obvious reasons. For the United States and others pretending that the issue is not before will do far more harm than good.”

He continued, “Carefully assisting Russian dissidents to pursue regime change might just be the answer. Russia is, obviously, a nuclear power, but that is no more an argument against seeking regime change than against assisting Ukrainian self-defense.”

Bolton added that “it must involve far more than simply replacing Putin. Among his inner circle, several potential successors would be worse. The problem is not one man, but the collective leadership constructed over the last two decades. No civilian governmental structure exists to effect change, not even a Politburo like the one that retired Nikita Khrushchev after the Cuban missile crisis. The whole regime must go.”

He concluded, “It is from the colonels and one-star generals, and their civilian-agency equivalents [in Russia], where the most-likely co-conspirators to take matters into their own hands [will come].”

Truss’s mini-budget debacle costs UK economy £300 billion

Thomas Scripps

The fallout from UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s September “mini-budget” threatens the survival of the Tory government. £300 billion have been wiped off the country’s stock and bond markets in the month since she came to power, mostly in the past two weeks.

The Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng (third from left) meets retail and challenger bank leaders at the Treasury [Photo / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0]

With the markets in turmoil and the Bank of England hiking interest rates, mortgages have become far more expensive. The rate for a two-year fixed deal topped 6 percent Wednesday for the first time since 2008, in the wake of the financial crash. This is an extraordinary rise. Just two weeks ago the average was 4.7 percent. Last December it was 2.3 percent.

Five-year deals are also nearing 6 percent, the highest since 2010.

Bloomberg estimates that if rates settle at this level, the average monthly mortgage repayment on a two-year deal will climb from £725 to £1,325. The average household with a mortgage would go from spending 17.7 percent of their income on repayments to 27.2 percent.

Amid an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis centred on the price of essentials like fuel, energy and food, many will not be able to keep up. Oxford Economics Chief UK Economist Andrew Goodwin warned this week, “A scenario whereby house prices crash, adding to the already-strong headwinds on consumer spending, is looking increasingly likely.”

This morning Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng held an urgent meeting with the chief executives of high street banks including, NatWest, Lloyds, HSBC, Santander an TSB.

It has emerged that the trigger for this housing bomb—Truss and Kwarteng’s £45 billion in tax giveaways—will see every income decile in the UK lose out.

The Tories’ tax cuts were deeply regressive on their face—giving the poorest 10 percent of households an extra £13 a year, the average £700 and the richest £2,290—but the reality is worse.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, “for every £1 given to households through headline cuts to taxes, £2 is being taken away in stealthy freezes.” A host of tax and welfare benefit thresholds are being fixed. As inflation rises, more people will end up paying more tax and receiving fewer benefits each year.

Instead of gaining £700 a year through the Truss government’s tax regime, the average household will lose £750 a year up to 2025-6. The poorest will still suffer the sharpest fall in income (2.8 percent), but even the richest 10 percent of households lose 1.1 percent. Each year, the gap widens, with the poorest losing 4.7 percent by 2030-31 and the richest just 1.3 percent.

Truss is now pursuing massive social spending cuts to underwrite a budget that leaves the vast majority of the country, including key Conservative government held constituencies, worse off and which has savaged mortgage-holders. The Daily Mail wrote today that it “understands she remains determined to press ahead with uprating benefits in line with earnings” as opposed to inflation. Truss has also refused to rule out a further raise in the state pension age.

The situation is likely to get worse. A run on the pound and firesale of UK bonds after the mini-budget was averted when the Bank of England promised to set aside £65 billion to prop up the UK bond market in the 13 days to October 14. This is only a temporary fix.

Since then, the Bank has spent just a small portion of that fund. But after making no purchases on Tuesday and Wednesday, the pound wobbled and yields began to climb. The Times reported, “Investors responded to the lack of purchases by sending yields on 30-year government bonds as high as 4.328 percent yesterday, to touch their highest level since the Bank staged its intervention on Wednesday last week. Sterling also slid 1.4 per cent”.

Yields also rose when international ratings agency Fitch downgraded the UK’s credit rating outlookto “negative”, following the same move a last week by Standard and Poor’s.

Louis Ashworth wrote in the Financial Times this week, “it’s really not clear that markets are anywhere near being out of the woods,” warning that the “death throes” of the UK’s pension funds “may not yet have begun.” The Bank revealed today that funds managing £1 trillion came under strain after the budget, with a “large number” in danger of going bust before its intervention.

Ashworth adds that “there’s a clear cliff-edge ahead: the BoE has said it will wind up its operations on October 14th, i.e., next Friday.”

Truss is courting economic ruin and inflaming social opposition—she has a personal approval rating of minus 59, the Tory Party’s is minus 50—at a time when the government confronts a determined offensive by the working class. Today the Royal College of Nursing union began balloting its 300,000 members for strike action in the health service. They would join ongoing action by 170,000 rail, post and communications workers.

In this acute crisis of class rule, the Labour Party is playing a vital role in helping the ruling class in its efforts to keep events under control. Truss was foisted on British capitalism by the most rabidly right-wing sections of the Tory Party and has proved to be a disaster. There are now intense discussions taking place within and around the Tory Party about whether she can be brought into line or replaced.

The former depends on Kwarteng’s spending review—brought forward from November 23 to later this month—presenting an ironclad plan for spending cuts and wage suppression. If this is a failure, sections of the Tory Party are advocating another palace coup.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is giving the Tories the political space they need to consider their options. Labour’s lead in the polls is immense, yet Starmer will not raise the subject of a general election, instead presenting himself to the major corporations and the super-rich as the adult in the room.

Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of Britain's Labour Party makes his speech at the party's annual conference in Liverpool, England, September 27, 2022. [AP Photo/Jon Super]

His appeal is to the One Nation faction of the Tory Party to deal with Truss. If they cannot succeed in managing the crisis over Truss for the ruling class, then he advances the Labour Party as an alternative mechanism for suppressing the working class.

He told regional radio shows today in response to the RCN ballot, “I don’t want the strikes to go ahead. We want to be in government; in government you resolve issues.” The Labour leader also refused to back wage rises in line with inflation.

In Germany, more and more depend on food banks

Elisabeth Zimmermann

As more and more people in Germany now need support from Tafeln (food banks), food donations are declining. A study shedding light on this increasingly precarious situation is already outdated. As a result of war, inflation and the energy price explosion, the number of people seeking help has doubled in two years from 1.1 million to more than 2 million.

The DIW (German Institute for Economic Research) study examined who and how many people use food banks in Germany. The results cover the first half of 2020, during which time 1.1 million people who did not have enough money to provide themselves with food used food banks.

In the meantime, this number has already doubled. In mid-July 2022, Jochen Brühl, chairman of the umbrella organization Tafel Deutschland, was already talking about a new record level. According to him, as more people are affected by poverty that ever before, “well over two million” are using food banks, which are increasingly unable to cope with the onslaught.

The DIW study by Markus M. Grabka and Jürgen Schupp is titled “Around 1.1 million people in Germany visit food banks—especially single parents and separated couples.” It is based on the longest-running survey of households in Germany by the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).

In 2020, a question was added to the annual household questionnaire for the first time asking whether at least one household member had used a food bank in the last 12 months. Based on this, DIW researchers arrived at the following findings:

In 2019-2020, 1.1 million people visited food banks to have enough to eat. That is about 1.3 percent of people in private households. Residents of homes for the elderly, nursing homes, students and refugee shelters were not included in the survey, indicating that the numbers underestimate the true extent of poverty.

Three-quarters of food bank users receive basic welfare benefits, and more than two-thirds live in poverty. The official poverty rate has risen to 16.6 percent in 2021, which corresponds to 13.8 million poor people. This means that even last year, for more unemployed people, single parents, low-wage workers and pensioners, their income was no longer enough to live on.

According to the DIW, many food bank users suffer from health problems; 32 percent are disabled, receive a poverty pension due to inability to work, or are severely disabled.

One group of people who are particularly affected by poverty, according to the DIW study, are those caring for relatives. In Germany, one in five such caregivers are affected by poverty or is at risk of poverty. For women carers, the figure is as high as one in four. These caregivers sink into poverty because they either no longer work or can only work part-time. As a result, they also cannot afford to make adequate pension contributions and old-age poverty is pre-programmed for them.

Overall, food bank visitors spend one fifth of their net income on food. This is well above the average for the rest of the population. Vulnerable social groups are dependent on food banks to be able to feed themselves at all.

The study examined food bank users by employment status and household type, this showed 76 percent of users were not employed. Three percent of food bank users work part-time, 3 percent are in training and 7 percent are in irregular, marginal employment. Eleven percent must use a food bank even though they are fully employed!

These figures are particularly alarming, showing that despite having a job, these working poor earn so little that it is not enough to adequately feed themselves. Undoubtedly, their numbers, like those of food bank users, have increased sharply in the last two years as more workers can only find temporary employment and at low wages.

In terms of household type, 33 percent of food bank users live in a one-person household and 27 percent are single parents; 19 percent are couples with children under age 17, 12 percent are couples without children, and 8 percent are couples with children ages 17 or older. One percent is distributed among “others.”

The number of children dependent on food bank assistance is particularly striking. According to the DIW study, by age group, no less than 25 percent were children in 2019-2020. 28 percent were 30-44 year’s old (including the parents of the children concerned), alongside 12 percent over 65 and older.

In the 2021 Tafel Deutschland annual report, children comprised 28 percent of recipients, in addition to the 48 percent of working-age adults and 24 percent of pensioners and retirees.

On September 20, World Children’s Day, broadcast news programme Tagesschau reported that child poverty in Germany was at its highest level in years. In 2021, child poverty stood at 20.8 percent, meaning that more than one in five children in society is affected by poverty. In Germany’s most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia, for which only 2018 figures are available, the poverty rate of children and young people was as high as 22.6 percent.

In Schleswig-Holstein, 100,000 children and young people lived in poverty last year (20.8 percent). And the numbers keep rising. As the Schleswig-Holstein Child Protection Association reports, the current energy crisis has already dramatically exacerbated the situation in some cases. Some of the first families have already had their power turned off. For these families, money is often “already so scarce from the second half of the month that those affected only put noodles with ketchup and toast in their shopping cart when they go grocery shopping.”

There are currently around 960 food banks in Germany. Sixty thousand helpers, 90 percent of them volunteers, take care of collecting food and distributing it to neighbourhoods. 26 percent are themselves customers of food banks, from which only designated needy people are allowed to receive help. In Germany, the poverty line is 60 percent of average income. This was €1,266 per month for a one-person household in 2019, but many pensioners and the unemployed bring in far below that figure.

The minimum hourly wage has since been raised to just €12. The Hartz IV welfare rates, which will be renamed “citizen’s income” from the beginning of next year, are then to be increased by €53 to €502. These are pittances and have long since failed to compensate for inflation and the explosion in energy prices.

With the growth of poverty in Germany, the number of food banks has risen sharply in the last 20 years. The Hartz “reforms” of the Social Democratic/Green government (1998-2005) contributed significantly to their spread. The Schröder-Fischer government ensured the growth of a huge low-wage sector with the introduction of Hartz IV welfare as a subsistence minimum, which in reality was never sufficient, and directed job centres to use punitive measures to put pressure on the unemployed to accept any job offered.

To make ends meet, both Hartz IV welfare recipients and low-wage workers are increasingly forced to resort to food banks.

As a result of the NATO proxy war in Ukraine, inflation and the explosion of energy prices, even middle-income households are now increasingly pushed to their limits and unable to continue paying electricity, gas, and heating costs, which have doubled or quadrupled. DIW President Marcel Fratzscher said in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung over the weekend: “A household of four with an annual income of €35,000 has up to €5,000 in additional costs.”

Everywhere, social welfare associations, consumer protection agencies, debt counselling centres and the hotlines of municipal utilities and other electricity and energy producers are choked because there are so many inquiries and emergency situations due to the high bills and additional payments.

For poor households, actual inflation is 30 percent or more because they must spend almost all their disposable income on immediate living expenses such as rent, electricity and heating, and food.

As a result, the run on food banks continues to increase, while they are already barely able to cope with it. Food donations are decreasing because supermarkets are planning differently and, in some cases, reselling food that has almost expired. In addition, extremely high energy costs are also causing enormous problems for food banks. Food has to be transported and, in some cases, refrigerated until it is distributed to recipients.

As early as July, Jochen Brühl, the head of Tafel Deutschland, pointed out that food banks were reaching their limits. “The Tafelnare at their limit and report to us that many people come to them who have so far just managed to make ends meet and have to call on help for the first time,” Brühl said. According to him, one in three food banks was already having to turn away new referrals.

As a result, and as the colder months approach, more and more people are being faced with the alternative of either freezing or starving—or both. Many who cannot pay their bills will have their electricity and heating cut off. And still others are threatened with losing their homes because they can no longer afford to pay rent and utilities.

New Zealand nurses take action over staffing crisis and pay cut

Tom Peters

This week, nurses in public hospitals across New Zealand are refusing to work overtime shifts after the government agency Health NZ ended a temporary “winter bonus” payment of $100 per extra shift worked.

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) called upon its 35,000 members in hospitals to turn down extra work while stressing that this was not a strike, but merely a request to members. The union leadership clearly felt that it had to do something to maintain control over the increasingly outraged workforce who face a grossly understaffed and crisis-ridden system, as well as soaring living costs.

Nurses march through Wellington during June 9, 2021 strike. [Photo: WSWS]

Recent months have seen increasing strikes, including among healthcare workers, manufacturing workers and firefighters. Tomorrow, 7,000 university staff will strike for half a day to demand an above-inflation pay increase.

These actions are part of an international resurgence of class struggle in response to the worsening COVID-19 pandemic and out of control living costs. Rampant inflation is being fueled by the pandemic, government bailouts for corporations and the financial system, and the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine.

New Zealand hospitals, which were in crisis before the pandemic, were pushed to breaking point after Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party-led government abandoned its zero COVID policy last October. It did so on the instructions of big business, which demanded an end to all lockdowns and public health measures, which were denounced as obstacles to making money.

The government has now scrapped mask and vaccine mandates, bringing New Zealand into line with the homicidal “let it rip” policies adopted by governments in the US, Europe and elsewhere. This year, NZ’s COVID deaths have soared to more than 2,000, from just 30 last October.

According to official statistics, 13,900 people have been hospitalised for COVID-19, the vast majority during 2022. With estimates that half the country has been infected with COVID, hospitalisations have fallen somewhat, with 111 COVID patients in hospital as of Sunday. But Ardern’s claim that the worst of the pandemic is over is a lie. Already, a resurgence of cases can be seen in Europe, and another wave will likely begin soon in New Zealand, assisted by the complete removal of public health measures.

Health NZ introduced the $100 bonus in an attempt to push more nurses to work longer hours. In April, Health Minister Andrew Little told TVNZ there was a shortage of about 4,000 nurses nationwide.

A statement from Health NZ said the bonus payments “were an extraordinary step in response to an extraordinary situation, namely excessive staff shortages due to COVID-19 illnesses.” It claimed that “the need for additional hours is reducing as COVID-19 and flu infections drop,” adding that there were still “workforce pressures” in “some areas.”

In fact, there are many signs of a deepening crisis throughout the country. Peter Bramley, head of Health NZ in the Canterbury region, emailed staff this week saying despite the beginning of spring, there remains “unprecedented high demand for acute care throughout our health system.” On Monday, Christchurch Hospital was 92 percent full and last week it reached 100 percent occupancy, partly driven by a spike in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases amongst children.

On September 30, Health NZ reported that Taranaki Base Hospital’s emergency department, with just 23 beds, was regularly seeing more than 100 patients a day, “creating a difficult struggle to find beds for them in the hospital.”

Yesterday, Stuff reported that Whangārei Hospital is “dangerously” understaffed, according to nurse and NZNO delegate Rachel Thorn. The emergency department’s nursing roster had 214 gaps, totaling 1,700 hours. “I would definitely say public safety is being affected—it’s definitely more unsafe in the hospital than it should be,” Thorn said.

The overcrowding in hospitals is made worse by chronic under-resourcing of the broader health system. The College of General Practitioners told Radio NZ on Monday that people often have to wait between two and six weeks to see a doctor.

Meanwhile, according to the government’s Aged Care Commissioner, aged care facilities have a shortage of 1,200 registered nurses out of a workforce that should number 5,100. Simon Wallace, chief executive of the Aged Care Association, told the New Zealand Herald so far this year about 940 aged care beds had closed or were not operational, “and more are about to close.” Hundreds of elderly hospital patients cannot be discharged because they have nowhere to go.

The NZNO has refused to call strike action over the appalling conditions in hospitals or the latest pay cut. Along with all the other unions, it also ensured that there was no organised opposition to the government’s decision to scrap the previous COVID elimination strategy in favour of a criminal policy of mass infection.

Despite this, Health NZ’s Rosemary Clements wrote a threatening letter to the NZNO declaring that encouraging nurses to turn down extra shifts amounted to an illegal strike. For now, she said, Health NZ “do not wish to take a litigious approach to this issue.”

The letter provoked an outraged response from healthcare workers on social media, who denounced it as “BS,” “scare tactics” and “bullying.” On the NZNO Facebook page, one nurse wrote: “I’m sorry, how is it illegal to work only our contracted hours? My mental and physical health are not for sale.” Another said: “It’s not an exaggeration to say that most wards run short of staff every day, and every day someone is calling/texting staff begging them to come in on their days off or to do extra shifts. It’s not okay! Don’t take nurses for granted.”

Healthcare workers are being driven to fight, but they remain trapped by unions, staffed by a privileged bureaucracy whose function is to stop workers from taking action, divide different sections of the workforce from each other, and enforce the government’s disastrous austerity and “let it rip” policies. The NZNO has a long record of imposing sellouts, like the one pushed through in 2018, despite bitter opposition from the rank-and-file; the deal failed to address the staffing crisis and left hospitals completely unprepared for the pandemic.

NASA Hubble Fellowship Programme (NHFP) 2023

Application Deadline: 3rd November, 2022, 7:00 PM EDT.

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): USA

About the Award: The NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP) supports outstanding postdoctoral scientists to pursue independent research which contributes to NASA Astrophysics, using theory, observation, experimentation, or instrumental development.  The NHFP preserves the legacy of NASA’s previous postdoctoral fellowship programs. Once selected, fellows are named to one of three sub-categories corresponding to NASA’s “big questions”:

1. How Does the Universe Work? – Einstein Fellows
2. How Did We Get Here? – Hubble Fellows
3. Are We Alone? – Sagan Fellows

Type: Postdoctoral, Fellowship

Eligibility:

• The NASA Hubble Fellowship is open to applicants of any nationality who have earned their doctoral degrees in astronomy, physics, or related disciplines on or after January 1, 2019, or who will receive their degree before September 2023.  Applicants with a PhD award date prior to January 1, 2019 may be eligible in exceptional cases (see below). Graduate-student awardees who have not yet received their doctoral degree at the time of application must present evidence of having completed all requirements for the degree before commencing their fellowships.
• Eligibility of applicants for the 2022 class of NHFP Fellows may extend to those who received their PhD as early as January 1, 2019, if professional work was necessarily delayed by personal or family considerations. Such extended eligibility must be justified by emailing nhfp@stsci.edu at least 2 weeks in advance of the application deadline.  We realize that many applicants may have had their research programs disrupted by the pandemic. We will take this into account when granting extensions for next year (applicants for the 2023 class). Extensions this year are for people whose ability to put in a successful application last year was affected by their personal or family situation.
• NHFP Fellowships are open to English-speaking citizens of all nations. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, creed, color, age, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, veteran status, disability, or national origin. Women and members of minority groups are strongly encouraged to apply.

Number of Awards: Contingent upon NASA funding, 24 new fellowships will be awarded for 2023.

Value of Award: The NASA Hubble Fellowship provides salary support plus benefits for up to three years, and an additional allowance for travel and other research costs.

Duration of Programme: 3 years

How to Apply: Required application materials include the following:

Applicants must submit their materials via the web Application Form. These materials must include:

• Completed Application Form
• Curriculum vitae
• List of publications
• Summary of previous and current research (limited to three pages total).  Summary section references may be included in the references in the Research Proposal section.
• Research proposal, described below (limited to five pages total including references and figures).

Please do not attach anything not listed above (reprints, preprints, cover letter, etc.) to your application.

All materials submitted must be in at least 12-point font, single spaced, and all pages should be numbered.

Non-U.S. applicants should make sure that their applications will copy successfully onto 8.5 x 11 inch (21.6 x 28 cm) paper without loss (i.e., with 1-inch margins on all sides). Please keep each file to less than 2 MB.

When you fill out the application form you will be asked to specify the science categories and techniques that best match your proposed research. This is to help us match your proposal to reviewers. For a detailed listing and more information on how they are used in the review, see Science Categories and Techniques.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details