Italian court sets out evidence of Egypt’s state torture and murder of Giulio Regeni in 2016

Jean Shaoul

Eight years after 28-year-old Italian doctoral student Giulio Regeni was kidnapped, tortured and killed after disappearing in Cairo on January 25, 2016, four Egyptian security officials have gone on trial in absentia in Rome on charges related to his killing.

Regeni had been carrying out research in Egypt for his doctoral thesis at Cambridge University about independent trade unions. He was found tortured to death nine days after disappearing on the anniversary of the 2011 revolution that toppled the dictator Hosni Mubarak, when security forces were out in force in central Cairo.

Giulio Regeni [Photo by Asiaecica / CC BY-SA 4.0]

It was clear that the top echelons of President Abdel Fattah’s al-Sisi’s brutal dictatorship were involved in a state abduction and murder. But the imperialist powers, including Britain where Regeni was studying, largely remained silent on his death. They view the junta as a bulwark against another uprising by the Egyptian working class that would trigger mass unrest across the resource-rich Middle East.

The European Union recently granted Egypt an $8.1 billion “aid package” alongside an additional $5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to shore up the economy of the most important Arab country amid concerns over its “security” and in recognition for his complicity in the genocide of the Palestinians.

Regeni’s murder came as the regime prepared to legislate against “independent” unions, with the official state unions—many of them connected to Washington—filing a lawsuit to criminalise unofficial unions, as part of a broader crackdown on workers’ rights. The government was also seeking to shut down NGOs receiving overseas funding. Unknown to Regeni, his contacts were secretly reporting back to the local security forces. Prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco said, “Because of this activity, the defendants were erroneously convinced that Regeni was an English spy, sent to give financing to unions close to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Medical evidence presented at the court detailed the horrific torture he had been subjected to, including cuts and bruises from severe beatings and more than two dozen bone fractures to his ribs, fingers and toes, as well as legs, arms and shoulder blades. Regeni had multiple stab wounds on the soles of his feet, slices in his skin made from a sharp object such as a razor blade and several cigarette burns. His shoulder blades bore signs that he had been branded with a large, burning object. He had suffered a brain hemorrhage and a broken cervical vertebra after having his neck twisted or struck, which led to his death.

Regeni was tortured so badly that his mother Paola Deffendi could only recognise him “from the tip of his nose”, adding that “all the evil in the world” was inflicted upon her son’s body.

The four defendants were named in original court documents as General Tariq Sabir, Colonels Athar Kamel and Uhsam Helmi, and Major Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif. While they all face charges of kidnapping, Sharif is also charged with inflicting the fatal injuries.

Prosecutors said in their opening statements when the trial began in February this year, before being adjourned for several weeks, that they had evidence that Major Magdi Sharif, from Egypt’s General Intelligence, had sent informants to follow Regeni and eventually had him arrested in a Cairo metro station. According to the charge sheet, the Egyptian government admitted to having put the student under surveillance and Sharif, and other unidentified Egyptian officials, then tortured Regeni over several days, causing him “acute physical suffering”.

This is the second attempt to try the four men in absentia. Italian judges threw out the first trial in October 2021 on the first day because prosecutors had not officially informed the four suspects of the proceedings. But last September, the constitutional court ruled that the trial could go ahead even without formal notification to the accused, as Egyptian authorities had refused to cooperate with the court. Tranquillino Sarno, the defence lawyer appointed to represent Kamel, one of the defendants, said, “They are absolutely untraceable.” As a result, he said, even if they were convicted, they would “certainly not serve their sentences.”

That the trial has gone ahead is only due to the perseverance of Regeni’s family and friends, who faced enormous opposition from the Egyptian authorities which presented six different explanations of his death, all equally ludicrous and implausible. The family organized a petition demanding an investigation into Giulio’s murder that was signed by nearly 5,000 academics internationally, and rallies in Italy including blockades held in front of the Egyptian embassy, putting the Italian authorities under pressure to investigate.

El-Sisi’s murderous regime has killed hundreds of political opponents, incarcerated 65,000 political detainees in Egypt’s jails, many without charge or trial, where they are subject to torture, and recently sentenced eight senior opposition leaders to death. Independent media is censored, and international journalists subject to arrest, with Al Jazeera journalists detained for years without charges. Above all, it has brutally suppressed all strikes and protests opposing its rule in the service of Egypt’s financial elite.

The Egyptian authorities blocked Italian prosecutors’ efforts to investigate Regeni’s murder at every turn. When Italy sent a team of investigators to Cairo in January 2016, they were forced to run their own investigation rather than work with their Egyptian counterparts. The first autopsy on Regeni’s body in Egypt was conducted without any Italian officials present. CCTV footage from the Cairo metro on the day Regeni disappeared, when eventually released, contained so many gaps as to be useless. In December 2020, Egypt’s prosecutor cleared all four suspects as well as a fifth of responsibility for Regeni’s murder and dropped the case.

Weeks after the first Italian trial was thrown out in 2021, an Italian parliamentary commission found that Egypt’s security agency was to blame for Regeni’s death and accused Egypt’s judiciary of acting in an “obstructive and openly hostile manner” by failing to disclose the whereabouts of the defendants.

When the trial finally began in February, Regeni’s parents and sister stood outside the courtroom with a yellow poster calling for “Truth for Giulio Regeni.” Regeni’s lawyer, Alessandra Ballerini, told reporters, “We had been waiting for this moment for eight years,” adding, “We hope to be able to finally have a trial against those who have done all the harm in the world to Giulio.”

Regeni’s murder was not the only case to roil Egypt’s relations with Italy, its most important European trading and investment partner. In February 2020, Patrick Zaki, an Egyptian student enrolled on a postgraduate degree at the University of Bologna, was detained on his return to Cairo for a family visit and interrogated under torture about his human rights activities. He was held in Tora Prison and sentenced to three years in jail for “disseminating false news” and “inciting to protest” in July 2023 before being given a presidential pardon by el-Sisi and released the following day.

El-Sisi’s pardon was aimed at securing new trade and investment deals with Italy. Immediately afterwards, fascist Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni telephoned him to “explore some bilateral issues,” following this up with a visit to Cairo last March. The two countries have agreed a $350 million debt swap programme and an $89 million partnership investment for agriculture and small-scale projects, as well as signing off on a centre for artificial intelligence (AI) in Cairo, as a jumping off point for AI development and use across Africa.

Last September, Italian energy giant ENI, which operates the offshore Zohr gas field in Egyptian waters and is the largest energy producer in Egypt, announced plans to invest $7.7 billion in the Egyptian energy sector over the next four years. It follows a pledge by BP to invest $3.5 billion in Egypt over the next three years, along with its partners.

Another Boeing whistleblower dies, the second in two months

Bryan Dyne

Joshua Dean, a whistleblower at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, was reported dead after a brief illness on Wednesday. Dean, a former quality auditor at Spirit, had given a deposition against Spirit, alleging “serious and gross misconduct by senior quality management of the 737 production line.”

Boeing Spirit AeroSystems whistleblower Joshua Dean [Photo: Facebook/Carol Dean Parsons]

The 45-year-old’s death came suddenly—the Seattle Times reported that he began having trouble breathing two weeks ago and was hospitalized and intubated. He reportedly developed pneumonia and a bacterial infection of MRSA. He was ultimately put on machines to circulate and oxygenate his blood in the face of heart and lung failure before he died.

Dean’s claims against Spirit first emerged after the midair blowout of a 737 MAX 9 jet, Alaska Flight 1282, in January, which injured dozens. An ongoing federal investigation has provided evidence that production issues for the MAX 9, in this case missing bolts on a door plug, are the immediate reason for the disaster.

Since then, Boeing planes have suffered numerous incidents, from panels falling off to sudden drops in altitude while in flight. Each individually is a major issue and taken together speak to the underlying drive for profits at the expense of quality and safety that dominates the company.

Dean worked for Spirit from 2019-2020, and then from May 2021 to April 2023. He was laid off in the interim as a result of pandemic-related job cuts, despite Spirit getting $75.5 million in bailout money from the federal government.

During his second tenure, Dean uncovered improperly drilled holes in the aft pressure bulkhead of the 737 MAX jetliners being produced by Spirit. He informed management of the issue, which did nothing to correct the problem.

Instead, Spirit focused on a different error involving flawed fittings between the vertical tail fin and the fuselage, which Dean missed, and used it as an excuse to fire him in April 2023.

When Dean was interviewed about his firing by NPR in February, he told the outlet that he felt he was fired to send a message to other potential whistleblowers. “If you are too loud, we will silence you.”

It was only in August that Spirit was forced to acknowledge the problem Dean first raised, noting that it was a flaw in the MAX aircraft going back as far as 2019.

It should be noted that around that time, in October 2018 and March 2019, two Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft crashed, caused in part by flawed and undocumented software, which resulted in the deaths of a total of 346 passengers and crew for both planes. While subsequent reports on the crashes did not make much note of deficiencies in the body of the aircraft, the fact that they existed speaks to the generally unsafe production practices surrounding the 737 MAX project as a whole.

Dean’s death comes less than two months after the purported suicide of another Boeing whistleblower, John “Mitch” Barnett. Barnett, who had been fired from Boeing in 2017, was giving a deposition in a lawsuit for Boeing’s retaliation against him for warning about a different set of quality issues, these at Boeing’s 787 plant in Charleston, South Carolina.

On what was scheduled to be his third consecutive day of providing information about his case, Barnett was found in his rental car in his hotel’s parking lot with an apparent “self-inflicted gunshot wound,” according to the Charleston County Coroner’s Office.

Both whistleblowers were represented by the same law firm in South Carolina. In the wake of Dean’s death, Brian Knowles, one of the firm’s lawyers, stated, “Whistleblowers are needed. They bring to light wrongdoing and corruption in the interests of society. It takes a lot of courage to stand up.”

The most significant aspect of both deaths, however, is the lack of any significant corporate media attention on either.

If two whistleblowers at the same major company or industry, using the same law firm to file lawsuits, died within two months of each other in Russia, Iran or China, the US media would have immediately asserted a conspiracy was afoot to silence dissent. It’s also more than likely the Biden administration itself would get involved, possibly claiming that Russian president Vladimir Putin, Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei or Chinese president Xi Jinping were directly involved.

The silence is especially telling given the timing of both deaths and how suspect each has been. In the aftermath of Barnett’s death, a family friend told an ABC affiliate that Barnett had warned her, “If anything happens to me, it’s not suicide.” Vicky Stokes, Barnett’s mother, when asked if she blamed Boeing for her son’s death, responded, “I do.”

Regarding Dean’s death, the symptoms and speed at which he died could very well indicate he was poisoned.

There should be no doubt elements within Boeing or Spirit are capable of such acts. Spirit is Boeing’s main supplier, a spin-off of the aerospace giant created two decades ago to cut costs. Since then, both have proven to be key components in the operation of American imperialism, including the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Boeing produces Apache helicopters and F-15 fighter jets, both of which have been used by the Israeli military as it has laid waste to the enclave and killed more than 34,568 Palestinians since last October.

Boeing and Spirit are also emblematic of the revolving door between US defense companies and the US military. Spirit’s current CEO is Patrick Shanahan, who worked for Boeing from 1986 to 2016, when he became a senior vice president. He left in 2017 to become Deputy Secretary of Defense for ex-President Donald Trump, and was elevated to Acting Secretary of Defense in 2019.

He then left the government for the private sector and served on the boards of directors for various companies before being appointed interim President and CEO of Spirit in October 2023. Shanahan’s net worth is currently estimated at $6.9 million.

Dean’s exposures, as well of those of Barnett and the numerous other whistleblowers who have come forward in recent months, must be taken as serious warnings. Boeing’s focus is above all on profits for its executives and shareholders, and to continue its support of the US government’s wars abroad. The safety of the flying public is at best a tertiary concern.

American University Online Scholarship 2024

Application deadline: Not specified.

SUMMARY OF THE 2024 AMERICAN UNIVERSITY ONLINE SCHOLARSHIP

• Host Country: USA
• Study Abroad: Study in USA 
• Category: Postgraduate Scholarships | Masters Scholarships 
• Eligible Countries: All Counties
• Reward: $14,000
• No IELTS is required. 
• Deadline: Not Specified

DETAILS OF THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY ONLINE SCHOLARSHIP

All accepted students at American University are given consideration for any scholarships for which they qualify.

Students with outstanding academic records and outstanding leadership qualities are given scholarships.

The following scholarships will be provided by American University in recognition of our graduates who pursue graduate studies virtually.

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY ONLINE SCHOLARSHIP 2024

To be considered for the American University Scholarship, you must meet the following criteria:

• Entry Period: The first course required for the Online Merit Scholarship must be taken online at American University.
• Students who took courses prior to this date, regardless of modality or enrollment status, are not eligible to apply.
• Eligible students must be accepted into the online format of the Online Merit Scholarship by the time the first course is taken.
• Academic Performance: Eligible students must have graduated with a cumulative GPA as outlined above in undergraduate at the time of application.
• Students also must remain in good academic standing, retaining a 3.0 GPA or higher while in the program.
• Completion Period: The funds will be applied to the student’s accounts as outlined above.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY ONLINE SCHOLARSHIP?

• The listed scholarship amount is ($14,000) the maximum value of the scholarship awarded to an individual student.
• The scholarship will be awarded in the form of waived tuition and applied to the Scholarship Course(s) taken as part of the Online Merit Scholarship.

HOW TO APPLY FOR THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY ONLINE SCHOLARSHIP (STEP BY STEP)

To apply for the American University Online Scholarship, interested and qualified applicants should follow the procedures below;

• Click on the button below to visit the scholarship application portal
• Apply for any of the eligible courses for the American University Scholarship
• American University staff will make the Online Merit Scholarship decision and will notify students at the time they are admitted or shortly thereafter.

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

America’s National Security Future is Looking Dismal

Melvin A. Goodman

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

The post-World War II situation is replete with bipartisan examples of failed national security decisions:  John F. Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961; Lyndon B. Johnson’s Americanization of the Vietnam War; Richard Nixon’s secret invasion of Cambodia in 1970; Ronald Regan’s stationing of Marines in Lebanon and Iran-Contra; George W. Bush’s abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Global War on Terror, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq; Barack Obama’s regime change policy in Libya; Donald Trump’s abrogation of the Iran nuclear accord and the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty; Joe Biden’s complicity in Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.  Currently, Biden’s pursuit of dual containment of Russia and China is doomed to fail, and the United States will be dealing with the detritus of that policy.

Many of these failures were brought about by so-called “thinking in time” as decision-makers drew on past experience of their own or others to justify the use of force or coercive diplomacy.    Dwight D. Eisenhower’s successes in regime change in Iran and Guatemala led to Kennedy’s decision to invade Cuba.  One of the worst examples of “thinking in time” is the notion that the policy of “containment” worked against the Soviet Union, that it led to the collapse of the regime and the nation itself, and that it therefore will work against China.  The deputy national security adviser and senior Sinologist in the Trump administration, Matt Pottinger, wrote in this month’s Foreign Affairs that an “effective” containment policy against China will lead to “regime change.” This is an absurd notion.

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and the decade of the 1980s saw an extremely weak and virtually irrelevant regime in Moscow that played no international role in terms of economics, politics, and diplomacy.  Conversely, China is a global leader in manufacturing, trade, and renewable energy, and its budget for science and technology increases annually as the U.S. S&T budget declines.  China outpaces the entire global community in transportation, the production of electric vehicles, and clean energy technology.  China is a leader in STEM education, graduating 3.5 million STEM students annually.  Last year, the United States graduated 820,000 STEM students.

Like Donald Trump, President Biden pursues a Cold War strategy vis-a-vis China, but the nations of Asia—with the exception of Japan—do not want to be part of a Cold War between Washington and Beijing.  Both administrations have made life difficult for Chinese scientists and engineers in the United States; as a result of this “Red Scare,” many Chinese technicians are returning to China.  The Trump administration walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership; as a result the United States left Asian markets to China, particularly in the construction field.

On his trip to China last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that “If China doesn’t address this issue [supply of military aid to Russia for its war against Ukraine}, we will.”  It isn’t clear what Blinken is threatening, but his aggressive comments point to increased aid to Ukraine in order to strike Russia itself or increased tariffs and sanctions against China for its aid deliveries.  Instead of emphasizing those key areas that demand greater Sino-American communication such as talks on AI; greater military-to-military dialogue, environmental issues, and greater cultural exchanges, Biden has chosen to threaten China over “cheap imports;” greater military cooperation with Japan and the Philippines; and “massive” tariff increases. Biden and Blinken appear to agree with Pottinger that it isn’t enough to “manage” relations with China; we need victory in our relations with China.

The Biden administration is engaged in wishful thinking in regard to relations with Russia as well.  It appears to believe that the Soviet system could not survive the death of Josef Stalin, and that the Russian system will not survive the loss of Vladimir Putin.  There is no sign that President Vladimir Putin is about to be toppled, but Biden can’t stop swinging at him as in his State of the Union address.  Biden argues that all of Europe “is at risk” from Russia, but it’s the possible return of Trump to the White House that has Europe discombobulated, not only Vladimir Putin.

On their domestic front, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping occupy secure positions while democracy in America is being threatened.  More than 75 percent of Russians turned out for the presidential election in March, and more than 85 percent of them, who had little choice, voted for Putin to remain in office. Meanwhile, bitter partisanship hampers policymaking in the United States, and the Republican Party is compromised by a “cult of personality” in the name of Donald Trump.  The direction and composition of the Supreme Court is particularly worrisome.   As a result of the domestic and international turmoil, Biden’s chances of remaining in office after the November election have worsened.

The greatest uncertainty in the near term is the worsening nuclear uncertainty.  U.S. relations with both Russia and China have worsened, and the nuclear competition has worsened as well.  The Bush and Trump administrations have abrogated nearly all of the key arms control treaties, and the Biden administration has demonstrated no interest in reviving any of them.  The size and quality of the nuclear arsenals in Washington, Beijing, and Moscow are growing without limitations: the United States is engaged in a $1.5 trillion makeover of its nuclear arsenal; China may triple its nuclear warheads by the end of the decade; and Russia has resorted to nuclear threats to deter greater Western involvement in Ukraine.

Cold Warriors in the United States, such as Pottinger, are already lobbying for the doubling of our nuclear forces to compensate for worsened U.S. relations with both Beijing and Moscow.  Last year, Russia withdrew from the inspection regime of the only remaining disarmament treaty, the START agreement.  The expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal coincided with the emergence of Xi Jinping’s leadership in 2012. The thought of Donald Trump inheriting this scenario and becoming the sole legal authority to order the use of nuclear weapons after January 25, 2025 couldn’t be more frightening.

Fed says interest rates to stay higher for longer

Nick Beams

The US Federal Reserve has signaled that its interest rate will remain higher for longer—at present it is around 5.25 percent, the highest for two decades—because it has less confidence that inflation is coming down to its target level of 2 percent.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell [AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin]

At his press conference announcing the decision to keep interest rates on hold, Fed chair Jerome Powell said: “We do not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range for the federal funds rate until we have greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent. So far this year, the data have not given us that greater confidence.

“It is likely that gaining such greater confidence will take longer than previously expected.”

In response to a question, Powell said he expected inflation would resume its decline later this year, but added, “My confidence is lower than it was.”

The latest decision is in marked contrast to “market expectations” at the start of the year which were that there could be as many as six interest rate cuts this year, or at least three. Now there are doubts there will even be one, with some options markets pricing in the possibility of a rate hike.

To reassure financial markets, Powell added it was “unlikely” the next policy move would be a hike.

Asked whether stronger US economic growth and wage increases would affect policy, Powell said the Fed did not “target wages” but then added that it would like to see wage increases move down to more “sustainable levels.”

Another significant decision was to slow down the reduction of the Fed’s balance sheet. This rapidly expanded because of the massive injection of money into financial markets when the Treasury market froze in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic.

As of June 1, the Fed will slow the reduction of its Treasury bond holdings from $60 billion a month to $25 billion—the effect of which is to lower the price of bonds and increase interest rates.

Under conditions where US debt is rising rapidly, there are constant fears that not enough buyers for bonds can be found. Powell pointed to this in his opening remarks, saying slowing the pace of the reduction would ensure a smooth transition and reduce “the possibility that money markets experience stress.”

He was more direct in response to a question on the subject, saying it was to avoid “financial market turmoil” as had been experienced in 2019, the last time the Fed tried to reduce its balance sheet.

The effects of the Fed interest rate decision will not only be felt in the US where it will add pressure on finance houses and corporations that gorged themselves on cheap money from 2008 until 2022. It will also have significant international ramifications.

Its immediate effect will be to raise the value of the dollar against other currencies adding to the prospect of currency market turmoil, particularly as regards the Japanese yen.

On Monday the value of the yen briefly touched 160 to the dollar, its lowest point in 34 years—at one point it was described as “dropping like a stone”—before an intervention by the Bank of Japan (BoJ), estimated at $35 billion, pushed it to 155.

The trigger for Monday’s fall was the decision by the BoJ last Friday not to move its interest rate further into positive territory. It was only in March that it scrapped its negative interest policy and end yield curve control on 10-year government bonds.

Japan has moved to “normalise” policy but wants to do so at a slow pace. However, its plans are being disrupted by the surge in the US dollar which is putting heavy downward pressure on the yen.

A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial earlier this week noted that the yen’s decline had been an “economic dilemma for some time. But now it risks becoming a political and financial problem beyond Japan.”

The falling yen is very much a two-edged sword. It raises the costs of imports and the level of inflation, meaning the BoJ may have to lift interest rates faster than it would like.

It also improves the competitive position of Japanese firms in global markets because it lowers the cost of their exports. But this raises the risk that, under conditions of a weakening global economy, countries may introduce tariff barriers against Japanese goods.

These same companies are also hit by the rising cost of their imports and are complaining that the fall in the yen has gone too far.

South Korea is also being affected by the dollar’s rise. Last month US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the finance ministers of Japan and South Korea issued a rare joint statement that expressed the “serious concerns of Japan and the Republic of South Korea about the sharp depreciation of the Japanese yen and the Korean won.”

After a trilateral meeting in Washington, they said they would “consult closely on foreign exchange market developments.”

On Monday, Masato Kanda, a leading Japanese government official, offered an usually frank admission of the extent of the problems.

“It is difficult to ignore the bad effects that these violent and abnormal movements will cause for the nation’s economy,” he said.

One of the fears is that the dollar’s rise and the depreciation of other currencies will exert downward pressure on the Chinese currency, the renminbi, and lead a further cheapening its exports in global markets.

The pressure on the yen could be eased somewhat if the BoJ proceeded more rapidly with interest rate “normalisation” policy, pushing it further into positive territory from its very low rate of just 0.1 percent.

However, as the WSJ editorial pointed out, the reluctance of BoJ governor Kazuo Ueda to do that is driven by “concern about the fragility of Japan’s financial system after a long period of negative rates. You can understand his caution after he witnessed the British gilt fiasco in September 2022 and Silicon Valley Bank’s failure in March 2023, both of which highlighted the risks when interest rates are too low for too long.”

The concern of the US, as indicated by its involvement in the joint statement with South Korea and Japan, is that if the rapid fall in the yen leads to significant increases in Japanese interest rates this could affect the US Treasury market.

Japan is now the leading foreign holder of US debt and an outflow of money back to domestic financial markets, drawn in by rising rates, could cause problems in financing the growing mountain of US public debt, already regard as being at “unsustainable” levels.

Currency markets are not the only area where higher for longer US interest rates threaten significant problems. Another is their effect on the private credit market, outside the banking system and largely outside the purview of financial regulators.

A report issued by the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) last week said assets under management in the global private equity (PE) sector had risen from $2 trillion to $8 trillion over the past decade.

In March, the BoE’s financial policy committee warned that finance for riskier corporates would be vulnerable to a “significant deterioration in investor risk sentiment.”

In its report on the assessment, the Financial Times said: “Higher interest rates are already hitting private equity firms’ ability to finance new deals for companies and have also increased borrowing costs at some businesses they already own.”

The BoE noted that the lack of transparency around “asset valuations, overall levels of leverage, and the complexity and interconnectedness of the sector make assessing financial stability risks difficult.”

Its report on the PRA assessment was headlined “Lenders flying blind of private equity risk, Bank of England warns.”

In a letter to lenders’ chief risk operators on April 23, Rebecca Jackson, a BoE executive director, called on them to take “measures that ensure they are able to take a consolidated view” of their exposure to credit risk.

She was more direct in a speech, saying that many banks were unable to measure “their combined credit and counterparty risk exposures to the private equity sector.”

This lack of knowledge recalled the collapse of the private equity family company Archegos Capital in March 2021 which cost six banks more than $10 billion and was a factor in the downfall of Credit Suisse last year.

She warned that higher interest rates and a worsening macroeconomic environment, could pose new risks.

“The prospective correlations are everywhere,” she said, “and it’s not difficult to imagine a scenario, such as malpractice at a financial sponsor or the bankruptcy of multiple portfolio companies, where risk correlations increase significantly, and liquidity evaporates, leaving banks open to severe, unexpected losses.”

New Zealand public health agency imposes sweeping budget cuts in hospitals

John Braddock

The agency that runs New Zealand’s public health system, Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora, has ordered a raft of “emergency measures,” to clamp down on expenditure, claiming it cannot go into the new financial year operating in deficit.

Health workers protest in Wellington, May 16, 2022. [Photo: Public Service Association]

Last Friday, Health NZ said the country’s public hospitals have been told to save a total of $NZ105 million by July. The announcement was forced by media leaks revealing that 12 districts had to reduce a collective “overspend” of $80 million.

The cost-cutting is being instigated amid a sweeping assault on the public sector as part of the far-right National Party-ACT-NZ First government’s austerity agenda. Over 3,500 public service jobs have been axed in a matter of weeks as Finance Minister Nicola Willis imposes annual spending cuts of $NZ1.5 billion, up to 7.5 percent in each government department. The Ministry of Health has already cut 134 administration jobs from a staff of 800.

The public health system, which has been grossly underfunded and under-staffed for years, is particularly vulnerable. Health NZ is imposing immediate measures in hospitals to address “personnel related costs,” outlined in a letter to the senior doctors’ union, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS).

The fourteen demands include an end to double shifts and limitations on replacing sick staff. Every shift must include two people on annual leave “with minimal backfill,” to force people to use their leave before the end of the financial year. This will reduce the ballooning debt, but without adequate staffing it creates a grave threat to patient safety. Leave is often declined due to a lack of staff to cover.

Under the Care Capacity Demand Management system, data collected by staff at the start of a shift predicts the amount of nursing hours required to safely look after a group of patients. If there is a deficit, nurses can theoretically be “borrowed” from other areas to fill gaps, but this rarely happens. Staffing shortages mean wards are often in deficit even without people being on leave.

Among other provisions, no new hires are to start in non-clinical roles without top-level approval, and only at existing pay rates. Vacant roles are to be closed permanently unless they are part of a confirmed “new structure.”

One leaked document revealed the Canterbury/Waitaha region is scrambling to save $13.3 million by July. Consultants PwC have been engaged to implement a “financial sustainability target,” even as the government boasts it is slashing spending on consultants and contractors by $400 million.

While short-term savings of $13.3 million are required immediately, “continued performance improvement” is also demanded. “Focus areas” for savings included “prosthetic cost reviews,” doing away with “unnecessary procedures and tests,” and the use of artificial intelligence.

A recent PwC workshop with the hospital’s leadership team brainstormed 71 cost saving ideas, “36 of which have potential efficiency impacts.” “Optimising resources” such as hospital beds, operating rooms, and outpatient clinics would “minimise idle time and maximise productivity,” the document claimed, while a similar exercise with staff would result in “improved productivity and reduced cost.”

Newsroom reported that in 2020, under the previous Labour government, “relentless demands for cost-cutting” at the former Canterbury District Health Board led to the exodus of seven of the 11-strong executive team, including the chief executive.

Carolyn Gullery, a planning and funding director, told Newsroom at the time: “If you’re asking for the impossible, which is to strip more than $90 million out without dropping any services and without dropping any staff, you’re kidding.” A departing chief medical officer, declared “If you sack us all, which does look like the agenda, as you are trying to make us do something impossible, these problems will not go away.”

Christchurch surgeon Professor Frank Frizelle recently told Stuff that the “whole pipeline” is challenged from anaesthetic technicians, to nurses, to operating space and doctors due to chronic underfunding by successive governments. “You can withdraw some services a little bit, [but] at some point you fall off the cliff. That’s where we are now.” he said.

The decision by the last Labour government to end its COVID-19 elimination strategy in late 2021 and adopt a policy of mass infection, has so far led to more than 4,000 avoidable deaths and 39,000 hospitalisations, exacerbating the crisis of unmet need across the health system.

Official figures show that in December 2023, 68,179 people were waiting longer than four months for a first specialist appointment—the number had almost doubled since September 2022—and 30,757 were waiting longer than four months for a procedure. One patient, 72-year-old Bob Menzies from south Auckland, told the New Zealand Herald on Saturday he had been waiting “in absolute agony” for over four years for knee surgery.

Striking doctors in Auckland, September 5, 2023. [Photo: X/Twitter @fionam_miles]

Emergency clinics are on the verge of collapse. Radio NZ reported last week that in one eight-month period last year 24 facilities reduced hours or closed due to critical staff shortage and cost pressures. In Porirua, home to 100,000 mainly working-class people north of Wellington, the overnight doctor at Kenepuru Community Hospital’s accident and medical centre faces being replaced with a telehealth service.

Claiming that the latest cuts are “operational decisions made by Health NZ, not the government,” Health Minister Shane Reti flatly declared that none will impact the level of care patients receive. “I have been assured that managing clinical risk and sustaining services is always Health NZ’s top priority,” he said.

Health sector unions rubbished the claims. ASTMS executive director Sarah Dalton said the cuts will “totally” affect the frontline—already in disarray because of “massive junior doctor gaps.” “While we’re still in a system that’s underfunded, this pressure to make cuts is borderline immoral,” she declared. NZ Nurses Organisation (NZNO) president Anne Daniels told Radio NZ that measures such as clamping down on overtime were “laughable.”

The deepening crisis is, however, one in which the unions are entirely complicit. Over decades they have collaborated with governments to enforce spending and staffing cuts and impose sell-out contract deals.

From 2018, the Labour-led government was confronted by a series of strikes by nurses, doctors and healthcare workers, as well as teachers and firefighters, demanding decent pay and safe working conditions. While these were systematically betrayed by the unions, they resurfaced amid the escalating cost-of-living crisis and desperate working conditions exacerbated by the COVID pandemic.

Following what one former nurse told the WSWS was a “measly” pay increase in 2021, last August the NZNO pushed through another below-inflation settlement after cancelling a one-day strike. The union’s CEO Paul Goulter admitted the deal did not “provide a wage rise that meets the cost of living” nor address critical nurse shortages. “It is pretty light on important issues such as health and safety at work and minimum staff to patient ratios,” he said.

Last September, after 5,500 senior doctors and dentists held part-day strikes—their first ever—further action was cancelled by the ASMS which recommended that members accept a settlement negotiated with the government’s Employment Relations Authority. Executive Director Dalton admitted to Radio NZ that the union’s claim for a pay increase that barely met inflation was “pretty conservative.” She declared that this was because of “the climate that we’re in.”

In a sign that struggles of health care workers are ready to erupt again, 2,500 junior doctors will strike next month after voting to reject the latest pay offer from Health NZ. It is the first junior doctors’ strike in five years, and will see a full withdrawal of labour for 25 hours on May 7.

The NZ Resident Doctors Association issued the strike notice after saying bargaining had reached an “impasse.” While the offer contained a pay rise of up to 25 percent for some resident doctors, Health NZ’s proposals included pay cuts or a freeze for nearly 600 registrars, including 300 GP trainees. The resident medical officer workforce currently has 500 vacancies.

The new law on mobilization: Is Ukraine turning into a giant prison?

Maxim Goldarb

“The Ukrainian people are doing the dirty work of what we never wanted to do here in the United States.”

—Mark Esper, former US Secretary of Defense                                                     

A major recent event, both for the tens of millions of Ukrainian citizens in Ukraine itself and for the millions of Ukrainian refugees in other countries, was the adoption of a new mobilization law by the government of Volodymyr Zelensky. 

Any literate lawyer will tell you that in law school they were taught to always, when studying this or that law, to look in depth, to understand the logic of the legislator, his goals in creating the law. The goals of this law officially declared by the authorities—“to put in order the registration of Ukrainians liable for military duty, to level the gaps in the legislation on military registration, dealing with available human resources, etc.”—appear to be at most of secondary significance. The main goal, which clearly shines through all the verbal legislative wisdom, political aplomb and quasi-patriotic slogans, seems to be the government’s inexorable desire to maximize the fulfillment of the formula of exchanging money and weapons for lives. 

It is hardly a coincidence that almost immediately after Zelensky signed this law, the US authorities very quickly resolved the issue of allocating $61 billion in military funds for Ukraine, which had been stalled for a year.

But let’s get to the point. The new “mobilization” law, which comes into force on May 18 of this year, sharply tightens the rules of compulsory mobilization. The law introduces stricter registration of persons liable for military service. Virtually every man between the ages of 18 and 60, no matter where he is or how he feels about the war being waged in Ukraine, will have to report himself to the military authorities, as well as to carry a military ID card with him at all times.

In addition, the draft age for mobilization has been lowered from 27 to 25.

From the moment the law enters into force, Ukrainian men have 60 days to update their data in territorial manning centers (TMC). If the data is not updated within this period, administrative liability will be imposed in the form of heavy fines. Think about it: in a country with an average salary of 400 euros, the “mobilization” fine will range from 400 to 600 euros! If the fine is not paid, it opens the way to blocking the accounts and further seizure of their property by the authorities.  

These are are some of the main innovations of the law. According to the authorities, they will allow to take many conscripts who do not want to fight out of the “shadows,” will put these people on the other side of life, will make them outlaws. After all, they will be banned from public service, and service in municipal institutions. What’s more, simply because they don’t have military registration documents, these Ukrainians will be easy and desirable prey for all sorts of patrols, police and informers. According to rough estimates, there could be about a million of them in Ukraine right now.

Before the adoption of this law, the detention of people in the streets, although it happened often enough, was still an illegal action on the part of the authorities. This gave Ukrainians a chance to protect themselves through legal mechanisms. Now this legal path to protect themselves from the arbitrary actions of the authorities has been effectively abolished.

At the same time, the authorities are no longer obliged to actually serve a summons to make a person come to the TCR [Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support, the agency that enacts the mobilization]. Now its non-delivery is legalized: the postal service marking it as “not served” will officially mean that the citizen has received the summons! 

People who fail to comply with the requirements of the new law can be deprived the right to drive a car, forcibly detained by the police and taken to the TCR, and  fined. At the same time, the filing of an appeal by a citizen against a court decision on his punishment does not suspend the effect of the appealed decision! This is an obvious legal absurdity, the consequence of which will be the shattered fates of people due to what are often unlawful and, moreover, unenforceable judicial decisions: in essence, this law has abrogated the right to a fair trial and the right to file an appeal!

Moreover, without a military ID card, military conscripts will not be issued a passport abroad. This also applies to young men who are 18 or older, and who had been able to leave Ukraine even before coming of age. That is, in order to be able to receive Ukrainian documents abroad, they will have to go back to Ukraine for a military registration document. But since they won’t be allowed to leave Ukraine again after that, this makes no sense. Moreover, in the new law it is stipulated that not only passports, but also all consular services abroad for all men from 18 to 60 years of age will be provided only upon presentation of a military ID card.  

Thus, for tens of thousands of Ukrainians who do not have military IDs, obtaining consular services has become impossible without returning to Ukraine.

Even before the law was passed, thousands of them had applied to consulates and other state bodies abroad to obtain consular services in advance, without which their legal status in EU countries becomes problematic. This has created huge queues in countries where there are many refugees from Ukraine: Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany and others. People hoped that if they applied for the documents before the law came into force, a passport could be issued without presenting a military ID. 

However, already on April 23, the Ukrainian authorities imposed a ban on issuing documents by consulates even before entry into force of the law: an order of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine “temporarily suspended the performance of consular actions on the applications of Ukrainian male citizens aged 18 to 60 years old.” This is the clearest litmus test of the meaning of the new law on mobilization: the forced return and sending of thousands of Ukrainians into a war in which they do not want to participate. 

More and more Ukrainian men are desperately trying to flee the the country, unwilling to die for someone else’s selfish purposes.

In 2023 alone, according to the BBC, more than 90 Ukrainians died in the mountains of Romania while trying to to illegally cross the Ukrainian-Romanian border to escape the war. Twenty-four died trying to escape by swimming across the border river Tisa. The number of those who managed to leave Ukraine is estimated in the tens of thousands. 

Fulfilling the “precepts” of NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg that the war in Ukraine would “take years,” the Ukrainian authorities has also targeted with this law the younger generation, those under 18 years of age: according to the most conservative estimates, there are about half a million 15-18 year olds left in Ukraine today. In addition, several hundred thousand Ukrainian students are also taken into account. Thus, we are talking about the immediate future of almost one million young Ukrainians, still potentially a “living force,” which, according to the authorities, will be used together with the weapons supplied to the country. 

The country is today becoming more and more like a giant prison for its own trapped and disenfranchised population. Now, the authorities even seek to force those back inside who had used any means necessary to escape.

But like any prison, it has its own commandant’s office, guards and a privileged few “inmates.” A very important point in the law is that it actually openly divides men of draft age into “two sorts”: those who are protected from mobilization, and... everyone else. 

Thus, exemption from mobilization is granted to all members of the police, special services and other law enforcement agencies—that’s at least 300,000 armed adults, who are mostly engaged in hunting down their fellow citizens, suppressing dissent, and performing punitive police functions.

In addition to them, all heads of state authorities, including deputies, ministers, their deputies and so on, as well as not only employees of strategically important enterprises, but also their owners (in Ukraine, as a rule, these are oligarchs) will not be mobilized. It is all too obvious who such a norm was written for: the ruling oligarchic regime has exempted itself from mobilization, its top officials and oligarchs, as well as its armed support in the form of police and special services.  

One important point: while granting protection from mobilization to judges, investigators and prosecutors, the legislators somehow did not do the same for lawyers. Why? The answer is simple: the authorities do not need those who should and can protect people from arbitrariness; the authorities need the fear and helplessness of the people.

It is not the rich minority, but the poor majority—the unemployed, workers, peasants, teachers, doctors, office workers—that will be sent into the bloody meat grinder. Now, with the adoption of the new law, the number of men deprived of basic human rights, who will be captured and hunted down like animals and sent to the front, will increase many times over.

The profits of those who benefit from this war will also increase many times over, as I have already written about many times. These huge profits will be divided up between the military-industrial complex, its lobbyists in the American and European establishment, and the Ukrainian oligarchic top brass.  

Roger Waters, leader of Pink Floyd, said the following on the reasons for the war: “The best thing that’s happened to them in the last 10 years is the conflict in Ukraine. Because it’s good for business. Part of the business is making money which they make through war, through the production of weapons, selling them and making profit. It is not you and me, it’s not you, ordinary people who invest in the war industry, but only the bigwigs. And in wartime, their profits skyrocket.”

Ordinary Ukrainians will get only another round of new deaths and misfortune.