New Japanese PM dissolves parliament, calls snap election

Ben McGrath

New Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba dissolved the lower house of parliament on Wednesday to call a snap general election for October 27. None of the major issues affecting the Japanese working class will be addressed by the parties in their campaigns, least of all Tokyo’s growing preparations for war with China. Official campaigning will begin on October 15.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a news conference in Tokyo, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024 [AP Photo/David Mareuil]

Ishiba took office on October 1 after being elected president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) a few days earlier. He replaced outgoing PM Fumio Kishida, who stepped down after three years in office as his government’s popularity fell amid scandals and growing opposition to Tokyo’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Having come to power in a party vote dominated by the LDP’s parliamentary members, Ishiba hopes the general election will provide a “mandate” for his government’s far-right and pro-war agenda. He stated on October 7, “Since the new Cabinet was formed, I judge it necessary to dissolve [the lower house] to confirm the will of the people.” The next election was not due until October 2025.

The lower house of the National Diet, or parliament, consists of 465 seats. The ruling coalition of the LDP and its junior partner Komeito currently have control over 255 seats and 32 seats respectively and are supported by three “independents.” On Wednesday, the LDP announced that it had endorsed 279 candidates for the upcoming election. Komeito is a right-wing Buddhist party that has served in LDP-led coalition governments since 1999.

Mass support for the LDP’s policies does not exist in Japan. Kishida’s government backed Israel’s genocide against Gaza, which is now expanding into Lebanon, and Ishiba will continue to do so. The genocide and Tokyo’s support for it have been met with protests since last year. Furthermore, workers are opposed to the government’s economic policies as real wages continue to decline due to inflation. Wages rose slightly in June and July, an effect of summer bonuses—the first increases in 27 months—then fell again by 0.6 percent in August.

Ishiba has placed a heavy emphasis on Japan’s remilitarisation, which is aimed at China—a policy that also lacks public support. He has continuously echoed Kishida, claiming, “Today’s Ukraine may be tomorrow’s East Asia,” a phrase Ishiba repeated in his first parliamentary speech as prime minister last Friday. In other words, he is promoting the lie that Beijing is planning an “unprovoked” war against Taiwan, in order to justify the US-led military build-up throughout Asia against China and to goad Beijing into a war over the island.

Ishiba no doubt assumes the LDP will easily coast to victory in the upcoming election. While the LDP is unpopular, the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), which currently holds 98 seats, is even more so. The working class has not forgotten the three years the Democrats were in office from 2009 to 2012, during which they reneged on all major social pledges, while similarly supporting the US-led war preparations against China. Since then, the Democrats have put forward no serious opposition to the LDP.

A CDP victory would not block Japan’s remilitarisation. Despite the party’s posturing, the Democrats have backed both the US/NATO war against Russia in Ukraine and Israel’s genocide against Gaza. Pledges to repeal the highly unpopular 2015 military legislation, which allows Japan to take part in military conflicts overseas in the name of so-called “collective self-defence,” are also not worth the paper on which they are printed. Newly elected CDP head Yoshihiko Noda stated while campaigning for party leadership last month that a potential CDP government would not repeal the laws.

Other so-called “left-wing” parties, such as the Stalinist Japanese Communist Party (JCP), do little more than act as appendages of the CDP, providing it with a phony “progressive” veneer.

None of these parties will offer any resistance to Ishiba’s new cabinet, which consists of four former defence ministers. This includes Ishiba himself, whose career has been focused on the military. Yoshimasa Hayashi, who remains chief cabinet secretary from Kishida’s cabinet, briefly served as defence minister in 2008.

New Defence Minister Gen Nakatani previously served in the role under former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from 2014 to 2016 and oversaw the ramming through parliament of the 2015 military legislation. As part of a delegation led by Ishiba, Nakatani visited Taiwan in August, meeting with President Lai Ching-te and expressed his support for Taipei in a war against Beijing.

New Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya also served as defence minister under Abe, from 2018 to 2019. Iwaya fully backs strengthening bilateral military ties with South Korea and trilateral ties between the two countries and the United States. In August 2023, Fumio Kishida established a de facto trilateral military alliance during a meeting with US President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol at Camp David near Washington. Ishiba will undoubtedly maintain this relationship.

Ishiba has also pledged to revise the US-Japan security treaty to give Tokyo more of an independent military role in the Indo-Pacific, called for US nuclear weapon sharing with Japan, and the formation of an “Asian NATO” which would be directed against China.

The idea of an “Asian NATO,” however, has received pushback in Washington, as it would cut across the fraudulent US claims to defend the “free and open” Indo-Pacific while not explicitly targeting China. Katrin Fraser Katz, an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), complained that Ishiba’s proposal did not match the policies of Abe or Kishida. She claimed of US strategy at an October 3 seminar, “The beauty of it, the flexibility of it, is ‘We’re not anti-China.’”

The comment is absurd. Washington has continuously goaded Beijing over Taiwan, challenging the One China policy stating that Beijing is the legitimate government of all China including the island. The US and Japan have de facto recognised that policy by maintaining formal diplomatic relations with Beijing alone. The US military has encouraged and overseen Philippine naval operations in the South China Sea that have led to clashes around disputed features, disputes that have been whipped up over the last 15 years by Washington. All of this is aimed at making Beijing “fire the first shot.”

Ishiba was quick to reassure Washington. Speaking with Biden by phone on October 2, he emphasised that his administration would work to strengthen the US-Japan military alliance along the lines established first by Abe and furthered by Kishida. This includes increasing military spending to two percent of GDP by 2027 and amending Article 9 of the constitution, which formally bars Japan from going to war overseas or maintaining a military.

Plans for rewriting Article 9 have been in the works for years, with the supporters of Abe proposing that a new paragraph be added to explicitly recognise Japan’s military, the Self-Defence Forces. However, Ishiba wants to go further and supports removing Article 9 altogether.

Autumn COVID wave develops in Germany

Tamino Dreisam

An autumn coronavirus wave has been developing in Germany for several weeks, as is shown by all indicators. The German government’s infection radar, which analyses the viral load in wastewater based on data from over 100 sewage treatment plants, shows that the incidence of infection had only fallen minimally compared to the summer wave. In recent weeks, the numbers have risen again significantly.

A woman walks past an abandoned coronavirus test center in Frankfurt, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021. Numbers of coronavirus infections are rising again in Germany. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

At the peak of the summer wave in July, the viral load was 118,000 gene copies per litre of wastewater. At the beginning of August, it fell to 103,000 and is currently at 163,000 gene copies. Overall, the viral load was therefore more than twice as high throughout the summer as the previous year.

According to estimates by GrippeWeb, a portal of the Robert Koch Institute public health body, the current COVID-19 incidence rate in the population is around 1,400 per 100,000 inhabitants. This means that 1.4 percent of the German population is infected with the virus every week. The increase is steep. The previous week the incidence was 1,200, at the beginning of August it was 600.

In Bavaria, wastewater monitoring shows an even more significant increase. In Munich, for example, the viral load in wastewater has more than doubled compared to the previous week and is thus higher than it has been since the beginning of the year. The Oktoberfest, which, with its 6.7 million visitors, served as a two-week-long superspreader event, bears central responsibility for this. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the State Investigation Office reported a 78 percent increase in the number of cases compared to the previous week.

Various other indicators from the federal government’s infection radar also show a sharp rise in the number of infections. For example, the number of visits to the doctor due to acute respiratory illnesses with COVID-19 is two to three times higher than in the summer, at 89 per 100,000 inhabitants per week.

The number of hospitalisations due to severe respiratory illness with COVID-19 stands at a seven-day incidence of 2.2, which is three times higher than at the beginning of July. The number of deaths, which currently stands at 80 per week, has also tripled compared to the beginning of July.

Virologist and specialist in microbiology and infection epidemiology Timo Ulrichs told Focus Online: “An autumn wave could well be imminent, and the new fitness of the sub-variant KP.3.1.1 could also contribute to this.”

KP.3.1.1, a successor to the JN.1 lineage, is already dominant in several countries and does, indeed, play a central role in the current autumn wave in Germany.

A new study by Japanese scientists published in the medical journal The Lancet states: “KP.3.1.1 has a significantly higher reproduction number than its predecessors KP.2, KP.2.3 and KP.3.” The predecessor variants KP.2 and KP.3 had already led to an increase in infections in the summer months, although the weather conditions are less favourable for the spread of the disease in summer than in winter.

In Germany, KP.3.1.1 currently accounts for 43 percent of infections and is therefore predominant. At the same time, the recombinant subline XEC has a share of 28 percent—and the trend is rising. XEC was first discovered in Germany in June and has spread from there to 27 countries. Virologists estimate that it has around twice the growth advantage of KP.3.1.1 and will be the dominant variant in winter.

Above all, the emergence of new variants disproves the lie that the pandemic is over. In fact, the pandemic is not over, and it is only a matter of time before an even deadlier variant emerges. Contrary to the claims made by politicians and the media, COVID-19 is therefore in no way comparable to influenza.

The State Statistical Office of Baden-Württemberg recently published figures investigating precisely this. It concluded that a total of 186 people died from influenza in Baden-Württemberg in 2023. At the same time, 3,343 deaths from coronavirus were recorded, i.e. almost 18 times as many. And this in the year in which all protective measures were ended with the argument that the pandemic was over.

In the summer months, the difference in the number of deaths was even more pronounced. While five people died of the flu in Baden-Württemberg from June to August 2023, there were 128 coronavirus deaths, 25 times as many.

Currently, around 12 percent of all people who have to be treated in hospital for a respiratory illness are there because of a coronavirus infection.

The director of virology at the Technical University of Munich, Ulrike Protzer, said: “Coronavirus is not a cold, and it won’t become one. Just like RSV and influenza, the virus penetrates particularly deep into the lungs, attacks the respiratory tract more strongly and can also affect other organs in the body.”

Unlike RSV and influenza, coronavirus also carries a high risk of long-term effects that can impact almost any organ and can also have a devastating impact on basic abilities such as moving, seeing or working. The probability of acquiring Long COVID is around 10 percent with the first infection and increases with each subsequent infection.

Exposing the population to the coronavirus forever and allowing the people to be infected again and again can therefore only mean degrading and destroying the health and lives of millions of people in the long term.

Pakistan uses “anti-terrorism” law to ban Pashtun group protesting military’s manifold crimes

Zayar

Pakistan’s government has proscribed the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (Pashtun Defence Movement)—a Pashtun nationalist organization that has led mass protests against military repression—under the country’s draconian anti-terrorism laws.

Pakistani authorities are now mounting a sweeping and increasingly violent crackdown to prevent the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement or PTM from convening a three-day Pashtun National Jirga (assembly) at various sites in the predominantly Pashtun province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, starting this Friday, Oct. 11.

According to the PTM, three of its activists were killed and dozens more injured Wednesday when police attacked and opened fire on people at a Jirga campsite.

Hundreds more have been arrested and roads blockaded as security forces attempt to prevent PTM supporters and others wishing to participate in the Jirga from reaching Bannu and other Jirga sites. The full extent of the repression cannot be known because the authorities are disrupting cell phone and internet services.

However, it is highly likely that there will be further violent clashes.

PTM leader Manzoor Pashteen addressing a rally in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's capital and largest city, in 2018 [Photo: Pashtun Tahaffuz/Facebook]

On Sunday, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz)-led federal government declared the PTM an “unlawful” organization under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997. The Interior Ministry order announcing the outlawing of the PTM claimed that it was engaged in “activities which are prejudicial to the peace and security of the country.”

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and Amnesty International have condemned the ban on the PTM. In its statement, the HRCP said that the PTM “is a rights-based movement that has never resorted to violence … This extreme decision was neither transparent nor warranted.”

Even before the imposition of the ban, the authorities were engaged in sweeping repression against the PTM. Last week security forces carried out multiple raids on Jirga campsites to make arrests, and set one campsite on fire.

PTM leaders have been repeatedly detained. Now, under the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act, several PTM office-bearers and activists have had their bank accounts frozen and been stripped of the legal right to travel outside the country.

PTM leader Manzoor Pashteen announced the convening of the Jirga at the conclusion of a days-long funeral procession, in which tens of thousands participated, for Gilaman Pashteen Wazir, a Pashtun nationalist poet and acerbic critique of the Pakistani military and state. On July 11, Wazir succumbed to the head injuries he suffered during a savage beating believed to have been carried out by, or at the instigation of, the security forces.

The murdered Pashtun nationalist poet Hazrat Naeem, who used the pen name Gilaman Pashteen Wazir. Gilaman is the Pashtun word for "complaint." [Photo: Wikipedia]

Founded in 2018, the PTM has won a mass following by criticizing the brutal and patently illegal methods the Pakistan security forces have used in waging their dirty war against Islamist insurgents. That is, to suppress forces that were nurtured—organized, financed and armed—by Pakistani military-intelligence in alliance with US imperialism to overthrow the Soviet-backed government of Afghanistan, and that the Pakistani ruling class has long used as instruments of its predatory foreign and domestic agendas.

For more than two decades, particularly in what was known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas till it was incorporated into Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in 2018, the security forces of the Pakistani state and their US allies have run amok in the name of suppressing the Pakistan Taliban.

Numerous villages in North and South Waziristan have been destroyed in scorched-earth military operations, the population terrorized by US drone strikes, and tribes and villages subjected to various colonial-style forms of collective punishment. As is their practice across Pakistan, the security forces have also made frequent use of forced disappearances and summary executions against those deemed government opponents.

These atrocities caused millions to migrate to urban areas, with many forced to take refuge in poorly equipped, makeshift internal displacement camps. Although no longer in danger of being caught in the cross-fire, the internally displaced Pashtun have continued to be viewed suspiciously by the authorities and subject to state surveillance and harassment.

Popular anger against the government and military in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has increased still further over the past year. Key reasons for this are: the Pakistani authorities’ reactionary campaign to expel Afghan refugees; their disruption of cross-border travel and trade with Afghanistan (many Pakistani Pashtuns have family in Afghanistan’s predominantly Pashto-speaking south); and, last but not least, their launching of yet another military campaign to eradicate the Pakistan Taliban insurgency.

As a result, prior to the PTM’s designation as a “terrorist” organization, a wide range of political forces had said they would participate in this week’s Jirga. Some continue to vow they will do so.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI, Pakistan Movement for Justice) of jailed opposition leader and former Prime Minister Imran Khan, forms the government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

Initially it tried to disassociate itself from the repression directed against the PTM. But this has changed dramatically in recent days and is no doubt connected to last weekend’s 24-hour “disappearance” (detention by the military) of the PTI Chief Minister of KP, Amin Gandapur. He and several other PTI leaders were seized while leading a protest in the national capital, Islamabad, demanding Imran Kahn’s release.

On Tuesday, the KP government prohibited all government officials and employees from participating in the Jirga and warned that they and any members of the public who do so will be subject to criminal prosecution. Although the PTM leadership is opposed to the Pakistan Taliban (TTP)—indeed, it accuses sections of the military-intelligence apparatus of colluding with it—the KP government order claimed that the TTP is supporting the Jirga and “therefore any participation, overt or covert, will make the individual so participating [a] facilitator/supporter of a terrorist organisation.”

The false claim that the PTM is in cahoots with the TTP is also being made by the federal government.

Separately, KP government spokesman Barrister Saif gave full support to the ban on the PTM, and the brutal and criminal methods the military employs in defending the capitalist state. “The federal government,” he proclaimed, “has declared an organisation as proscribed. We are the defenders of Pakistan and its flag and Constitution. We are proud of the actions and sacrifices of the defence agencies against terrorism.” 

The multi-dimensional crisis roiling Pakistani capitalism

The violent suppression of the PTM and its Pashtun National Jirga is the product of a multi-faceted crisis of the Pakistani bourgeoisie and it state.

To avert state bankruptcy, the PML (N) federal government is having to implement yet another round of savage International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity and accelerate a sweeping privatization drive.

Having been brought to power through an election last February manifestly manipulated by the military and state bureaucracy to prevent Imran Khan and his right-wing Islamic populist PTI from returning to power, the government is widely viewed as illegitimate. It and the ruling class as a whole fear the sudden eruption of mass popular opposition, above all from the working class, as chased Gotobaya Rajapakse from the Sri Lankan presidency in 2022 and toppled Bangladesh’s Awami League government at the beginning of August.

Meanwhile, the military, long the bulwark of the state and the US-Pakistani strategic partnership, is popularly reviled for its corruption, ill-gotten wealth and power, hostility to democracy, systematic human rights abuses and reactionary intrigues with US imperialism.

In addition to the simmering Pakistan Taliban insurgency, the Pakistani state is being roiled by a longstanding and increasingly audacious nationalist insurgency in its resource-rich, yet poorest province, Balochistan. This insurgency is fueled by genuine and deep-rooted popular grievances, but is based on a reactionary, pro-imperialist and ethno-exclusivist program. With the aim of securing US imperialist patronage, the Balochi insurgents are targeting Chinese workers and infrastructure. In the latest attack carried out by the Baloch Nationalist Army, two Chinese workers were killed Sunday in a Karachi airport bus bombing.

Even more destabilising is the global geopolitical situation, as US imperialism pursues global war. Pakistan’s neighbours China and Iran are two of Washington’s principal military-strategic targets, and India, Islamabad’s historic arch-rival, is being lavished by the US with advanced weaponry and other strategic favours in return for it harnessing itself ever more fully to the US war drive against China.

The PTM’s nationalist program and the aim of its “Pashtun National Jirga” initiative

While the emergence of the PTM is indicative of growing popular disaffection with the political establishment and especially its bloated, US-trained military-security apparatus, its Pashtun nationalist politics offer no way forward for Pakistani workers and toilers.

The PTM promotes the reactionary conception that Pashtuns are victims of “Punjabi oppression” and counterposes to it the unity of all Pashtuns, that is the subordination of the workers and toilers to the Pashtun bourgeoisie.

Thus, it is actively encouraging participation in its Jirga of right-wing Pashtun politicians and parties that supported the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and have participated in governments that have imposed IMF austerity.

Although the PTM denounces the human rights abuses of the Pakistani military in blunt terms, it says little about the role of US imperialism in transforming Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas into killing fields.

It does not call for an end to the Washington-Islamabad military-strategic alliance, let alone the development of a global anti-war movement against imperialism and the predatory designs of all the great powers.

Hitherto, the PTM has focused on demands relating to “forced disappearances” and other abuses of the military, and, along with a wide swathe of opposition parties, from the Islamicist JIU-F to the Baluchi nationalists, opposed the military’s new anti-insurgency offensive.

With the Jirga, however, it aimed to begin discussion on a broader political agenda, including—if not yet fully articulated—for a Greater Pashtun nation, whether within or without Pakistan.

According to the publicly announced agenda, its first day is to be devoted to a “Presentation of data on war damages, military operations, and live testimonies from affected communities.” The second day, which would be closed to the public, calls for “delegates from 80 camps” to “engage in discussions on governance, human rights, and socio-economic conditions,” and during the third day a “Pashtun National Jirga Organizing Committee” is to be elected and ”resolutions for collective action” presented.

The agenda further explains that the Jirga will deliberate on how to advance “the self-governance of Pashtun lands,” “protect the right of Pashtuns to make decisions about their own future,” and safeguard “the territorial integrity of Pashtun lands.”

In a statement that is clearly indicative of the latent anti-imperialist sentiment among the Pashtun and Pakistani masses as a whole, the explanation notes add, “A core objective of the Jirga is to prevent the recurrence of foreign-imposed conflicts, especially the specter of a renewed “Dollar-sponsored war” on Pashtun soil. After decades of suffering from wars that have caused devastation and displacement, the Jirga will offer a unified Pashtun response to external forces seeking to destabilize the region once again.”

The crisis that faces the masses of Pakistan and Afghanistan irrespective of ethnicity or religion is the outcome of: 1) a systemic crisis of global capitalism; 2) continuing imperialist oppression, and 3) the reactionary communalist Pakistan project. Its realization was the outcome, through the joint actions of the rival factions of the colonial bourgeoisie represented by the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, of the suppression of the mass anti-imperialist movement that convulsed the subcontinent for three decades beginning in 1917.

The very real threat that South Asia and the world will be dragged into a “dollar-sponsored” war, that is a war triggered by the drive of a crisis-ridden US imperialism to reassert global hegemony, cannot be opposed on a nationalist-capitalist basis.

US Department of Justice investigation finds Texas juvenile detention system tortures children

Chase Lawrence

The US Department of Justice released a devastating report on August 1 on the juvenile detention system in Texas, which is maintained by the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD), detailing rampant and systemic physical, sexual and psychological abuse of children by TJJD staff under the guise of rehabilitation and reintegration.

A little over two months after the report was released, Shandra Carter, executive director of the TJJD, was given a $34,000 pay raise by the TJJD board, resulting in a total salary of $261,352, confirming the abuse is in fact the policy of the government. The agency houses 66 percent of incarcerated children in the state.

The children against whom the state government commits these crimes are some of the most vulnerable in society, who are, on average, seven grades behind their peers. Ninety-one percent of the girls incarcerated are identified as clear or possible concerns for being victims of sex trafficking.

The titles of the report’s chapters give an idea of the crimes committed by the TJJD against these children.

The first chapter is titled, “TJJD uses excessive force on children,” and it has the subchapters “1.1 TJJD harms children by using pepper spray excessively and without adequate decontamination procedures,” and “1.2 TJJD harms children by using excessive physical force and dangerous  restraint techniques.”

The Justice Department report says that the TJJD uses force that causes “the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain,” which it correctly states “violates the Constitution.”

A review of video footage and incident reports revealed staff routinely use force that causes “the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain” and is “excessive to any legitimate government purpose. This violates children’s constitutional rights.” Staff used pepper spray on numerous occasions in 2022 on children, with little to no attempt to “engage verbally” with the children in question. Some of the children were handcuffed at the time.

More recently, former TJJD staff Ron Jackson was charged with assault and indicted on the charge of official oppression in February 2024 after both surveillance camera and body camera footage showed him “lift a child up and slam him to the floor, causing a laceration above the child’s eye and a concussion.”

In another instance, two Evins [Regional Juvenile Center in Edinburg] staff were charged with criminal offenses after body cam and surveillance footage showed them “slamming a child’s head into a brick pillar, knocking him unconscious.” The child was handcuffed with his hands behind his back. To add insult to injury, one of the staff allegedly turned off their body cameras and spat on the child before they dragged the boy to solitary confinement (called RSU).

Other instances of physical abuse include the use of dangerous physical restraint typically used by police forces, such as kneeling on children's backs and torsos, which can easily lead to cardiac arrest. Numerous people are killed each year in such a manner by police in the US, such as in the infamous case of George Floyd in 2020 by Minneapolis police in Minnesota and Kenneth Knotts in 2023 in Texas.

Chapter 2 is titled “TJJD harms children through excessive use of isolation.” Its subchapters include “2.1 Children spend excessively long periods in RSU under unnecessarily restrictive conditions.” Subchapter 2.2 reads “Children are isolated for excessively long periods of time in the general population units.”

The report cites from the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, which stated in a 2016 position statement that for children, “time spent in solitary confinement [is] even more difficult and the developmental, psychological, and physical damage more comprehensive and lasting. They experience time differently—a day for a child feels longer than a day to an adult—and have a greater need for social stimulation.”

Of note is a section of the report which states that “Although TJJD policy appropriately limits most initial RSU admissions to one to two hours, we found many instances where children spent days or weeks in the RSU. In some cases, TJJD placed children there for non-behavioral reasons.” It further notes that children typically spent “22-23 hours a day in their cells, with some children spending twenty-four hours a day there.” Children are regularly spending 17-22 hours per day alone locked in their cells in general population units as well.

It is worth citing an excerpt from the United Nations Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on this specific part: 

The Mandela Rules, updated in 2015, are a revised minimum standard of UN rules that defines solitary confinement as “the confinement of prisoners for 22 hours or more a day without meaningful human contact.” Solitary confinement may only be imposed in exceptional circumstances, and “prolonged” solitary confinement of more than 15 consecutive days is regarded as a form of torture.

Under the definition provided by OHCHR and the Justice Department’s findings, it can be reasonably said that the Texas government is routinely and consistently torturing children in its detention centers.

Chapter 3’s title reads “TJJD fails to adequately protect children from sexual abuse” with 3.1 reading “TJJD fails to prevent staff from sexually abusing children.”

There are extensive details from the TJJD’s Office of Inspector General on the numerous cases of sexual abuse of children by TJJD staff, including inappropriate relationships, “grooming and predatory behavior,” “kissing,” some of which have led to prosecutions.

This includes the case of an Evins staffer who was “indicted on charges of indecency with a child, improper sexual activity with a person in custody, and violation of the civil rights of a person in custody” in April 2024, for an incident in July 2021. The report notes that on-site observers from the DOJ are “consistent with the Office of Inspector General’s findings about inappropriate relationships between staff and children.”

The report also notes that the TJJD fails to “provide adequate mental health care” despite most children in the facility having “serious mental health needs, including histories of trauma, requiring treatment.” The inadequate mental healthcare puts them at “serious risk of harm” according to the report.

Children are also treated with a “one-size-fits-all” suicide prevention program which the report says “increases the risk of harm to children.”

Children with disabilities are also not evaluated for said disabilities, and TJJD “systematically reduces, changes, or eliminates special education and related services, ignoring children’s individualized needs.”

That the US ruling class engages in such barbaric treatment of children betrays its fraudulent claims to be fighting for so-called “freedom” and “democracy” in Ukraine, the Middle East, China or anywhere else for that matter, and demonstrates that capitalism is incompatible with the defense of basic democratic rights.

Mountain Top Fellowship Program 2025

Application Deadline:

The application deadline for the Mountain Top Fellowship Program 2025 For Leaders is November 8, 2024.

Tell Me About The Mountain Top Fellowship Program:

The Mountaintop Fellowship is a prestigious, paid, one-year, full-time fellowship designed for emerging leaders who aim to drive systems change in lower-income communities worldwide. Fellows receive a $3,600 grant, paid in monthly instalments, and participate in a fully funded two-week Leadership Institute hosted at Harvard University’s Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics. The Leadership Institute provides skill-building workshops, small group activities, and personalized coaching, along with excursions to high-impact organizations. In addition, fellows benefit from monthly one-on-one mentorship, access to world-renowned experts, and eligibility to apply for the Catalyst Fund, which offers up to $2,500 for community projects. With ongoing support, two virtual retreats, and a lifelong community of peers, the Mountaintop Fellowship equips promising leaders with the tools and connections to create transformative change in their home communities.

Which Fields are Eligible?

All fields 

Type:

Fellowship

Who can Apply for The Mountain Top Fellowship Program 2025 For Leaders?

Also, applicants are to ensure they meet the following criteria:

• Committed to serving their home country, community, or state/province throughout their career.
• Committed to attending a two-week, full-time, in-person training at Harvard’s campus in Cambridge, USA, July 12-23, 2025 (Mountaintop covers all costs, including flights, lodging, meals, ground transportation, and visa fees).
• Committed to dedicating 40 hours per week to the fellowship project​
• Committed to 5 additional hours per week spent on virtual activities, including mentorship sessions, monthly speaker sessions, and peer troubleshooting meetings. 

Which Countries Are Eligible?

All countries

Where will the Award be Taken?

USA/Home countries 

How Many Awards?

Not specified

What is the Benefit of the Award?

Furthermore, applicants will also benefit the following:

• A $3,600 grant, paid in 12 monthly installments of $300.
• Full coverage of travel, lodging, meals, ground transportation, and visa fees for the two-week Leadership Institute at Harvard University.
• Access to small group activities, custom coaching sessions, skill-building workshops, and excursions to high-impact organizations.
• Monthly one-on-one mentoring sessions with an expert in your field and additional access to Mentorship Office Hours with leading social impact experts.
• Eligibility to apply for the Catalyst Fund, which provides up to $2,500 for implementing a community project.
• Additional leadership coaching, on-call support, two virtual multi-day leadership retreats, and access to a monthly speaker series.
• Inclusion in a lifelong, supportive community of inspiring peers, fostering friendships, professional networking, and mental resilience.

How Long Will the Award Last?

One year

How to Apply:

To apply, fill out the application form here.

Visit the Award Webpage for Details

The role of Iran’s oil and gas in US war plans against China

Gabriel Black

The United States and Israel are on the brink of war with Iran. While the Biden administration has publicly stated that it does not want “escalation,” it has made clear that it will support Israel regardless of what Netanyahu does. Nearly every bomb dropped on Gaza and Lebanon was made in the US and given for free to Israel by the Biden-Harris administration.

A natural gas refinery in the South Pars gas field in Asalouyeh, Iran, on the northern coast of Persian Gulf. November 19, 2015 [AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi]

For Netanyahu, who faces multiple criminal indictments once he leaves office, this moment presents an opportunity to realize the long-held, grotesque ambitions of the Israeli ruling class: to destroy the Iranian regime through war. As the Financial Times warned this past weekend, “the chances of an Israeli attempt to topple the Iranian regime cannot be fully discounted.” The paper noted that last week Netanyahu declared, “When Iran is finally free—and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think—everything will be different.”

The Trump faction of the American ruling class has expressed its full backing for such a war. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former Middle East adviser, wrote a long post on X arguing for Israel and the US to topple the Iranian regime. He stated, “Iran is now fully exposed. … Failing to take full advantage of this opportunity to neutralize the threat is irresponsible.”

Though other sections of the ruling class have voiced concerns about the spiraling situation, the logic of their position—unconditional support for Israel’s actions—puts them on the same road toward war with Iran. The Democrats may have tactical differences with Trump about how to overthrow the Iranian regime but both salivate at the prospect of doing so.

The removal of the Iranian regime, while a geopolitical end in itself for American imperialism, is also a critical steppingstone in its economic and military confrontation with its chief adversary: China. All factions of the American ruling class unconditionally support Israel because they know that controlling the resource-rich Middle East—and ending the Ayatollah’s power—will significantly increase their power and flexibility in a war with China.

The importance of Iranian hydrocarbons

Iran is a large country, roughly the size of Spain, Ukraine and France combined. Eighty-nine million people live there. Compared to Iraq, its neighbor, which was invaded by the US in 2003, Iran has almost four times as many people and a far more sophisticated military and economy.

Iran has a long history of colonial subjugation, including British control over its oil industry in the first half of the 20th century, the CIA-MI6 coup in 1953 to prevent the nationalization of its oil industry and several decades of bloody rule by the US-backed Shah.

Everyone knows that Iran’s wealth primarily comes from its oil. Iran produces a little more than 3 million barrels of oil per day, about 3 percent of the world’s total. What is not as well understood, however, is the potential for Iran’s oil production to expand. Only three other countries in the world have larger reserves of commercially realistic oil (Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq). Additionally, Iran has the second-largest reserve of natural gas in the world after Russia.

Oil and natural gas remain the energetic bedrock of the global economy. Despite efforts to promote new alternative energies, the “energy transition” under capitalism remains a half-hearted and contradictory affair. The principal concern of the US and Europe with their investment in EVs and critical minerals is not stopping global warming but ensuring their economic and geopolitical supremacy vis-à-vis China, which has excelled in this area. Fifty-seven percent of the world’s energy comes from oil and gas, another 27 percent from coal, and just 1 percent comes from solar, a record high.

Given the enduring supremacy of oil and gas, countries holding large, cheap reserves of the commodity remain essential to geopolitical calculations. It is striking that Russia, Iraq and Iran—after Saudi Arabia—are the world’s largest holders of cheap oil reserves. Each country has been a principal target of US imperialism over the last quarter-century. The US invaded Iraq and is now on the brink of war with both Russia and Iran, the second and third largest holders of oil and gas reserves.

What is more, each of them—partially due to being squeezed and sidelined by economic sanctions—has a relatively underdeveloped oil industry, deprived of vital streams of capital and advanced technology required for production. This is evident in the case of Iraq, where after the US’s brutal invasion, American and European oil companies significantly raised production, increasing output from 2 million to almost 5 million barrels per day today.

The US oil boom’s role in imperialist strategy

Were the current US-Israeli onslaught taking place 10 or 15 years ago, the impact on global markets would be significantly worse. In the last few days, oil prices have risen by about 10 percent, the largest increase in two years since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, a dramatic shift in global oil and gas markets has tempered the effect.

In the last 15 years, the US has experienced the largest oil and gas boom in world history through hydraulic fracturing. This method allowed the US to grow from about 5 million barrels of production per day (mb/d) to over 13 mb/d. This represents about 15 percent of the world’s oil supply and is the only major source of supply growth internationally during this time.

The US ruling class is in an entirely different situation today regarding controlling global oil and gas production than when it was planning the Iraq invasion in the late 1990s and early 2000s. By being able to put a lid on oil and gas prices through fracking, US imperialism has been able to afford the loss of oil from Libya, Russia and Iran on the world market, allowing the US and its NATO allies to squeeze these countries and make plans for their regimes’ overthrow. (In Libya’s case, a “successful” plan that has led to a permanent state of civil war.)

The US oil boom, however, will not last forever. Generous estimates give it another 10 years, after which it will precipitously fall.

In his critical work Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism written in 1916, Lenin explained the importance of imperialism remaining one step ahead of its current needs. He wrote,

The more capitalism develops, the more the need for raw materials arises, the more bitter competition becomes, and the more feverishly the hunt for raw materials proceeds all over the world, the more desperate becomes the struggle for the acquisition of colonies.

To this, one could add that resources also deplete, and as they deplete, this “feverish hunt” further intensifies.

Where are the future supplies of oil and natural gas—so vital to the global economy—that will persist as other sources dry up, such as US fracking? They remain in the Middle East and Russia, with Iran, Russia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia being some of the most important future sources.

China and the US

It is important to stress that a key driver of US imperialism is the growing military and economic collision with China’s development. The US and its allies are fundamentally opposed to giving Chinese capitalism a “seat at the table” of the most advanced capitalist countries.

For several decades, China served as the cheap goods platform for the world’s major companies. But due to its own internal development—particularly in education and more advanced manufacturing processes—China has now created domestically controlled industries that seriously challenge US and European companies.

This is most obvious in the realm of automobiles, where Chinese EVs, advanced and cheaper than those of the US, have experienced rapid growth. In just a few years, China’s auto exports have gone from being a small fraction of those of Japan, the US and Germany to now overtaking all of them.

Having completely jettisoned past rhetoric of “free trade,” the US and its allies seek to prohibit Chinese corporations from playing a major role in the global economy at all costs. Confronting its own deepening economic and social contradictions, the US seeks to use its still dominant military and financial power to undermine the economic rise of China.

A central reason to control geostrategic resources like oil and minerals is not simply to profit from them but to pressure countries by denying access to this vital supply of energy and resources.

China, for its part, has much of the world’s critical mineral processing located inside the country, posing a problem for US imperialism’s war plans. However, while China has a relative advantage in critical minerals and batteries, the US has the advantage in oil and gas, at least for the next five to 10 years.

A RAND Corporation study on how the US could win a war against China noted, “If China is vulnerable to critical shortages in a war with the United States, it could be … in oil supplies, of which it imports about 60 percent and has a declared strategic reserve of just ten days.” Indeed, it is likely that one of the key reasons China was so quick to pioneer EV technology was its ruling class’s awareness of this serious weakness.

Almost all the oil China imports comes from the Middle East. Now that that oil no longer flows to the US, due to the fracking boom, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, Iraq and the UAE send their oil east to China. China imports a staggering 11.4 mb/d of oil, making it the largest importer of oil in the world. China is the top recipient of Iranian oil.

Oil and World War III

Taking the geopolitical situation as a whole:

• The US currently has control over global oil and gas markets more than any other country.

• This level of dominance, however, has a limited window of about five to 10 years before that control significantly erodes due to the eventual decline of fracking.

• The US, economically threatened, plans for a military confrontation with China centered around Taiwan.

• China is strategically vulnerable when it comes to oil, relying on massive daily flows of oil from the Middle East. Iran’s largest oil export partner is China.

• The Middle East and Russia, in the long term, will be the principal sources of the world’s remaining oil and gas. Iran is one of the single largest sources of undeveloped oil and gas reserves.

Taking these components together, it is evident that Iran’s oil and gas are of great interest to the United States and its partners. While many other factors go into the consideration of war, it is no accident that the principal targets of US imperialism are the most resource-rich countries in the world.

Netanyahu’s threats that Iran will “soon be free” reflect the fact that Israel, acting as a US attack dog, has been given a blank check to restructure the Middle East. The Israeli ruling class has its own distinct set of interests, but the Israeli war machine is ultimately funded, armed and driven by US geostrategic interest in the region.

This is the cold geostrategic logic that underlies the US-Israeli war against Iran and its proxies in the Middle East. The US seeks to strengthen and deepen its hold over this vital region as it prepares for a potential war against China.

For those who are disgusted by the rampage of Israel in the region and the blood-soaked, hypocritical role of the US, it is essential to understand that this war is not a “policy choice.” Capitalism, in its nationalist pursuit of profits at all costs, drives American imperialism toward a conflict that threatens the lives of billions of people. However irrational and dangerous, the American ruling class sees no other way out to its deepening spiral of economic, social and political crisis.

Deutsche Bahn plans further major cutbacks and redundancies

Marianne Arens

In September, the CEO of Deutsche Bahn (DB) Richard Lutz presented a new “General Renovation Programme” to the company’s supervisory board. The intention of the so-called S3 programme is to restore the fortunes of the ailing German rail system within three years in three different areas: infrastructure, rail operations and economic efficiency.

Rail workers in Germany [Photo by to.wi / flickr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]

The details of the 110-page plan remain unknown and have only been made available to selected media editorial offices. The Süddeutsche Zeitung comments that the latest plan is “neither new nor realistic.” Lutz made the same promises five years ago for 2024, but failed to keep them.

The third goal is evidently at the centre of the plan: i.e. profitability. By 2027, the railway is to return to profitability and generate an operating profit of €2 billion. To achieve this end, further cuts are to be made, more outsourcing will take place and even more pressure put on employees.

In the spring of this year, Lutz, (annual income €2.2 million) announced the first measure to be implemented, namely the loss of 30,000 jobs. Now his new restructuring programme explicitly confirms that 10,000 to 15,000 full-time positions are to be cut by 2027, with more than 15,000 jobs to go in the following years.

This alone makes clear that the new restructuring plan will intensify attacks on the workforce. Management is acting in the interest of the German government—the sole owner of Deutsche Bahn AG. In order to comply with the government’s debt brake and finance its rearmament and war plans, the government is tightening the screw on all spheres of social infrastructure. To this end the two main rail unions, the EVG and GDL, fully support the cuts at Deutsche Bahn.

The Rail Action Committee in Germany has warned that the cutbacks will further increase work pressure, ruin the health of employees and increase the risk of catastrophic accidents for employees and passengers. Even prior to the planned cuts, serious, life-threatening and fatal occupational accidents have taken place on the railways.

In an interview with the FAZ newspaper on September 20, Lutz explained that the backlog of maintenance work now amounts to more than €90 billion. He said that “around 80 percent of this unpunctuality can be attributed to the state of the infrastructure.” In this situation, the new S3 programme, which is supposed to provide the basis for the renovation of large sections of track, bridges, junctions and signal boxes, is at best a drop in the ocean. Transport Minister Volker Wissing (Free Democratic Party, FDP) has promised a mere €27 billion for the renovation between now and 2031.

Deutsche Bahn faces enormous problems: more than 200 signal boxes are in disrepair, according to the rail union EVG. Forty-one busy railway lines are in urgent need of renovations. In an interview with the FAZ, Lutz admitted that “the capacity utilisation on highly used lines and junctions is sometimes more than 125 percent: With unplanned construction sites, we quickly reach critical levels.” That is why “traffic jams and congestion are a constant occurrence.”

Some of the measures envisaged in the plan are simply stopgaps to circumvent acute problems that have been accumulating for years. According to RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND), the S3 programme envisages withdrawing more long-distance trains from overloaded main stations in Frankfurt/Main and Berlin and having them start and end at Frankfurt Airport or at the local Berlin station Gesundbrunnen.

One controversial cost-cutting measure is already partially in place on trains: in addition to the driver, there is to be only one attendant for over 900 passengers in a high speed, 400-metre-long ICE train.

Other measures planned are simply counterproductive. In order to comply with the debt brake, the government and DB are sticking to the decision to sell the DB subsidiary Schenker to the Danish logistics company DSV. The sale means that new job cuts are inevitable. Despite DSV’s promise to respect existing employment contracts for two years, a programme to cut around 1,000 jobs at Schenker has already been launched. So far, the freight forwarding company employs 15,000 people in Germany and more than 70,000 worldwide.

The plans for DB Cargo transport, based on recommendations by the Roland Berger management consultancy, also amount to a devastating cutback.

The monthly €49 ticket (Deutschlandticket), which was originally available for €9, will cost €58 in future. Not only is the ticket constantly becoming more expensive and thus excluding those in need; it is also no longer available as a plastic chip card, thereby excluding anyone who does not have an e-ticket-compatible mobile phone. It is another example of how the DB management and the government are dismantling popular measures aimed at encouraging environmentally friendly means of transport.

As far as digitalisation at Deutsche Bahn is concerned, the management plans are simply risible. On September 6, the SWR media outlet reported on an internal paper, according to which Deutsche Bahn plans to save money by refraining from equipping digital signal box technology by 2028. The only exception is the new Stuttgart station, which will have digital technology.

The internal DB paper states that the “faulty old signal boxes” will initially be equipped with conventional and therefore “quickly available” technology from the 1990s. This means that trains passing through Stuttgart will have to be equipped with both digital and analogue technology in future.

Such a decision underlines the narrow-minded, nationalist approach of the DB management and the German government. Stuttgart is already integrated into the European Train Control System (ETCS). This system is intended to coordinate more than 20 different train systems in Europe as a standardised Europe-wide train control system. Two years ago, Deutsche Bahn management hired a special digitisation officer with ETCS in mind. Now, however, the Deutsche Bahn wants to do without ETCS for all areas except Stuttgart and has apparently recently dismissed its digitisation officer.

In a recent mocking commentary on the Deutsche Bahn, the FAZ asked: “Can the traffic gridlock still be averted?” The frustration has “reached historic proportions” and will “continue to grow due to cuts in funding, which are hardly reducing congestion.” The newspaper, which advocates staff cutbacks, points out the contradiction that Deutsche Bahn is cutting staff in the name of digitalisation, while at the same time refraining from providing any new modern technology.

The management plan highlights the major dangers facing train drivers, rail workers and other employees: every possible advance is being reversed. Modern technology, which would actually make it possible to ease heavy and dangerous work processes, reduce long working hours and make the railway profession attractive once again, is being cynically abused to worsen conditions for employees and customers.