Australia: Thousands more jobs being destroyed

Terry Cook

The jobs crisis in Australia continues to mount, amid world stagnation and falling demand for commodities such as iron ore and coal, once the major mainstay of the economy’s growth. Major companies are restructuring their operations, destroying jobs and working conditions in a bid to slash costs as part of a ruthless fight for market share and profits.

During the July 2 federal election, the Liberal-National Coalition claimed it would create “jobs and growth,” while Labor promised it would generate “full employment.” The stark reality for thousands of workers is low-paid and insecure part-time or casual employment, or poverty-level social security payments.

The official Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) unemployment rate for August fell to 5.6 percent, the lowest level in three years, down from 5.7 percent the previous month. But the survey counts as employed anyone who has worked for more than an hour in the month.

Even on these figures, there are more than 720,000 unemployed workers, an average of 18 per known vacancy. As a result, thousands are dropping out of the workforce.

The drop in the official rate was largely attributable to a fall in the seasonally adjusted workforce participation rate from 64.9 last November to 64.7 percent last month. The number of people looking for work declined by more than 100,000 over that period.

While 11,500 full-time jobs were added in August, part-time positions fell by 15,400, an overall loss of 3,900 jobs. This does not alter the underlying shift toward casualisation of the workforce at the expense of full-time jobs. Over the past year to August, full-time jobs fell by 64,500, while 136,300 workers were pushed into part-time work.

The total number of hours worked in part-time jobs climbed 5.3 percent this year, whereas full-time hours worked increased by just 0.33 percent, well down from the more than 5 percent pace of five years ago, at the height of the mining boom.

According to the Roy Morgan employment survey, based on a broader interview process, the situation is far worse. Unemployment in August stood at 10.4 percent, with another 7.1 percent of workers under-employed, that is, looking for more hours. On this result, 2.249 million people were unemployed or under-employed, up by 132,000 since August 2015.

Young people are most affected. According to the ABS, the unemployment rate for 15- to 24-year-olds is 12.4 percent, more than double that for older workers. Young workers also make up a growing percentage of the casual and part-time workforce. The ABS estimates that their under-employment rate is five times that of the early 1980s.

Better-paying jobs are still being destroyed throughout mining-related and manufacturing industries, as commodity prices fall back from recent slight recoveries. More than 2,300 mining jobs have been axed this year as companies cut back workforces, suspend operations or close mines entirely.

Iron ore prices have dropped by more than 9 percent since August 23, down from almost $US62 per tonne to $US56.09 last week. Iron ore and coal prices are likely to remain low, because China has pledged to cut steel production by 150 million tonnes a year by 2020. Some 60 percent of Australia’s iron ore and coal is exported to China.

The Joint Coal Board statistics report for the New South Wales coal industry for 2014-16 shows that more than one in five coal mining jobs have gone since employment peaked four years ago. As of June 30, the equivalent of 19,388 full-time employees were working in or around a coal mine or coal washery, compared to 24,972 in June 2012. The number of operating coal mines in the state fell from 62 in June 2010 to 40 this June.

Retrenchments in the construction sector are mainly driven by the lack of investment in new LNG and other mining projects. According to ABS figures, the value of total construction on a seasonally adjusted base fell in the June quarter for the fifth consecutive quarter, dropping 3.7 percent to $47 billion, a level not seen since 2011. Over the year, construction was down 10.6 percent.

Major employers across a range of sectors recently announced further job cuts.

Oil and gas company Santos revealed it will axe 600 jobs across its Australian operations, mainly in Queensland, in a bid to rein in cash flow and pay down debt. Telecommunications provider Optus will eliminate over 90 jobs in its networks division, on top of the 480 to be cut from a range of areas announced in April. Competitor Telstra will slash over 50 jobs from its wideband design workforce.

News Corp announced it will axe 300 jobs when it takes over APM News and Media’s regional newspaper businesses across Queensland and northern NSW. Ship builder ASC will cut a further 175 jobs at its Port Adelaide shipyard in South Australia.

In the public sector, the State Library of South Australia will shed 20 jobs in a bid to save $6 million over three years following budget cuts. The state government also confirmed that 200 nursing positions will be cut fromSouthern Adelaide Local Health Network when the Repatriation General Hospital closes at the end of next year.

The New South Wales government plans to cut 132 full-time teaching positions from the state’s prison education program by December.

Unrest in the Congo: Political turmoil rocks Kinshasa

Eddie Haywood

Martial law was declared Monday in the capital city of Kinshasa, Congo, after Congo’s main opposition parties made a public call for mass demonstrations against the government, declaring their fears that President Joseph Kabila will refuse to leave office when his term ends in December.

The electoral commission was set to announce a date for elections on Monday, but has said that it will not be possible to hold them in November.

Kabila has been president for 15 years and has served the maximum of two terms allowed by the constitution. His presidency is set to expire on December 20. He took power in 2001, succeeding his father, President Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated.

Several headquarters of various political opposition parties were attacked with grenades and machinegun fire. The Union for Democracy and Social Progress, the largest political party opposing the current Kabila government, was set ablaze, incinerating several people inside alive.

Also attacked were the headquarters of the Forces of Union and Solidarity (Fonus) party and the headquarters of the Lumumbist Progressive Movement (MLP). Witnesses report the attackers were soldiers in uniform.

Several people have been reported killed in the unrest, and much of the city was smoldering, with buildings on fire, as well as scores of cars set ablaze. Hundreds of police were called out to quell the violence.

Opposition sources put the death toll at 50, while witnesses declared that police opened fire into crowds. There have been reports of mass arrests and beatings of demonstrators carried out by police.

On Thursday, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, condemned the Kabila government, stating that he was particularly shocked at reports that some men in uniform took a direct part in some of the attacks against the headquarters of six opposition political parties.

While it appears that that the unrest in Kinshasa has abated, the threat of renewed chaos has not been resolved.

The current political unrest is just the latest manifestation of deep going instability within the Congolese political setup. In May of last year, opposition political parties staged a rally in Kinshasa against the Kabila government, sparking a violent government crackdown and resulting in scores killed.

The political forces opposed to Kabila are led by various wealthy Congolese businessmen, former Kabila allies, and individuals who formerly served in the Mobutu Sese Seko dictatorship.

One of the leading candidates for president, Moise Katumbi, a wealthy businessman and former governor of Katanga, with previous close ties to the Kabila regime, called for demonstrations for Monday, stating on his Twitter account: “I call for peaceful demonstrations everywhere in the country to ask for elections!”

Katumbi fled the country last May after a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was a one-time confidante of Kabila, but the two have since had a falling out. He has been sentenced in absentia to three years in prison after being convicted of corruption in a land sale deal, a charge he denies.

Katumbi’s main claim to fame is as the owner of the Congolese football club TP Mazembe, which has won several championships and is a major source of pride for many Congolese. Katumbi is the most favored candidate from the main opposition parties.

Étienne Tshisekedi also backed the call for demonstrations. Tshisekedi is the leader of the presidential candidate of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress opposition party. Now aged 83, Tshisekedi has a long and sordid history; he served various ministerial positions in the reviled US-backed dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, including as Sese Seko’s prime minister, during the period of the regime’s worst crimes.

As finance minister for Sese Seko, Tshisekedi oversaw the expropriation of vast sums of wealth from the country that were funneled into the accounts of international financial interests exploiting the Congo as well as those of Sese Seko and his ruling clique. Tshisekedi also oversaw the savage repression of political opponents of the dictatorship.

Congo has had a long and brutal history, beginning with Belgian colonial rule in the 19th century. After a bloody and protracted fight, in 1960 Congo gained independence from Belgian colonialism. The leader of the anti-colonial struggle, Patrice Lumumba, emerged as Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister in 1960.

Less than satisfied with the election results, Belgium, with aid from Washington and the Central Intelligence Agency, set out to remove Lumumba from power. Lumumba’s demands that Congo’s significant mineral wealth be controlled by the Congo were considered his death sentence by Belgium and Washington.

After being arrested, Lumumba and two of his closest advisers were removed from their prison cell in the dark of night and shot to death by a firing squad.

This barbaric act brought to power the brutal dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, which received significant support and approval from Washington and Belgium. The Mobuto dictatorship carried out the some of the worst crimes of any post-colonial African regime. The dictatorship ruled the Congo until 1997, when Mobuto was forced to flee after a rebellion led by Laurent Kabila, then a rebel military leader. This led to the Congo War, which lasted from 1996 to 2003 and resulted in millions of deaths.

For its part, Washington indicated its displeasure with the Kabila regime in June when the Obama administration threatened to impose sanctions against the country if Kabila refuses to leave office. Washington has warned Kabila not to seek a third term, with the usual vacuous platitudes about “respecting the constitution.”

The real concern from Washington is for the vast mineral wealth of the Congo, and the maintenance of a reliable and pliant regime in Kinshasa to facilitate the exploitation of these resources. The chaos that would ensue from a recalcitrant regime that refuses to leave office is something Washington wishes to avoid, as this would disrupt the flow of resources and profits.

Another point of contention between Washington and Kinshasa is the Kabila government’s business dealings with China. By reaffirming it dominance through AFRICOM and US military alliances, Washington is aiming to halt the growing economic influence of China on the African continent.

China has invested heavily in Congo, particularly in the mining sector and copper.

Congo is the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa and one of the most socially and economically polarized. It is home to some of the largest deposits of mineral wealth in the world, including resources used in the manufacture of electronics such as computers and mobile phones, coveted by wealthy Western interests.

The Congolese economy has been drastically affected by the sharp drop in commodities indices on world markets in recent years; the fall in the price of copper (Congo is Africa’s largest exporter of copper) has left the Congolese economy reeling. The country’s oil and mining sectors account for some 98 percent of Congo’s exports. Claiming fears of hyperinflation, Kabila is projected to cut the budget this year by as much as 30 percent, slashing spending for public services and other essential government functions.

Congo is controlled by a wealthy corrupt ruling class, while the vast majority of Congolese live in dire poverty, with millions across the country having no access to clean water and enough food to eat. The total mineral wealth and natural resources of the Congo are estimated to be worth some $24 trillion, but this vast wealth is completely out of reach for the majority of Congolese.

The living conditions are miserable for the masses of Congolese. Fewer than 25 of the population has access to sanitary facilities, and fewer than half access to clean water. This lack of basic sanitation results in annual outbreaks of cholera and other air and water borne diseases, such as dysentery, which affect millions of people. Two out of every five child deaths are caused by malaria, which afflicts nearly 7 million Congolese.

The prevalence of these conditions and the widespread misery for the majority of the population in a country with such vast wealth and resources stands as an indictment of both world capitalism and Africa’s national bourgeoisie.

Puerto Rico hit by nationwide blackout

Kevin Martinez

The entire US territory of Puerto Rico suffered a blackout beginning Wednesday night after a fire caused a substation to break down. The plant had not been repaired in decades and the cause of the fire is unclear, although a lightning storm is thought to be responsible.

Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla told reporters Friday morning that 75 percent of the island’s 1.5 million homes and businesses had electricity restored, and that the entire system would be returned to normal only by Saturday, 72 hours after the power went out. During the press conference at the island’s emergency management center, the lights went out briefly prompting laughter from the assembled reporters. Padilla was forced to admit that periodic blackouts and shortages would still occur as the demand for electricity increases.

The blackout shut down the entire island of 3.5 million people, who are already struggling with an economic crisis and forced bankruptcy analogous to the city of Detroit, Michigan. Residents are angry that they are being forced to pay for electric utilities that are already charge double the rates in the United States.

Governor Padilla called out the National Guard and declared a state of emergency, shutting down all public schools and government buildings for the week. Authorities warned that tropical storms could still knock out power lines and black out areas that had power restored. An estimated 250,000 people don’t have access to water.

Temperatures were recorded at 100 degrees Fahrenheit on Friday, causing many Puerto Ricans to sleep outdoors for the third night in a row. Residents formed long lines outside of grocery stores to get ice, a precious commodity, and recharge their cell phones.

Hotels in the capital San Juan offered special rates to island residents but were soon booked up. At least one person died from carbon monoxide poisoning after fixing up a personal power generator in their home. An elderly man was also taken to the hospital after spending the night in a stuck elevator, and at least four police officer were hit by cars while trying to direct traffic; they are all expected to recover.

While local power outages are common in Puerto Rico, an island-wide blackout is extremely rare. Authorities have since traded blame for the failure to maintain the island’s outdated and grossly unmaintained infrastructure.

The Electric Power Authority, which oversees the Aguirre power plant in the southern town of Salinas, is still investigating what caused the fire. Two transmission lines were knocked down, causing circuit breakers to automatically shut down as a safety measure, affecting the broader power grid. The authority’s executive director, Javier Quintana, said that the preliminary investigation suggested that lightning might have struck a transmission line, causing the switch to explode.

Governor Garcia, for his part, denied that the blackout was the result of the country’s decade long economic slump. He insisted that the switch at the power plant was not properly maintained. Puerto Rico’s electric company faces a $9 billion deficit and numerous allegations of corruption.

These corruption charges are not confined to the utility companies by any means. Garcia’s own campaign manager has been accused of illegally soliciting cash donations, and the president of the House of Representatives was forced to resign.

Puerto Rico is now undergoing massive austerity on behalf of Wall Street banks and hedge funds that are demanding the former US colony “restructure” $70 billion in public debt, $20,000 for every man, woman, and child on the island. The country's gross national product has contracted in eight of the last nine years. Government corruption has diverted public funds from going to socially useful projects to wasteful ones.

As Emilio Pantojas Garcia, professor of Sociology at the University of Puerto Rico wrote in an article titled, “Is Puerto Rico Greece in the Caribbean?” published in the Winter 2016 edition of the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, the government used bonds starting under the governorship of Pedro Rossello (1993-2001) to finance “mega public works projects.”

“Examples of major projects undertaken with bond issues guaranteed with future income to be realized from the fees of [the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority] include the ‘Super Aqueduct’ of the PRASA and two natural gas pipelines … of PREPA, which were intended to deliver natural gas from ports to various power plants. Other projects included the ‘Urban Train’ subway, a multi-purpose coliseum, and various municipal projects.

“Of these the ‘Super Aqueduct’ was the only functional project. The urban train operates with a large deficit, and the two gas pipelines were never completed, although the materials were bought and contracts to develop them were issued, as a rule to party donors and affiliates.”

Pantojas Garcia continued, “As a result, 33 members of the Rosselló administration were later indicted and convicted of corruption by U.S. Federal Prosecutors in Puerto Rico. In general, these projects established a 'pay-for-play' scheme, requiring contractors to kick back 10% of the contracts to the ruling party, a practice that became known as 'tithing' (el diezmo).”

Puerto Rico’s economy has stagnated over the last decade, particularly after the 2008 crash. The population has declined every year since 2005 according to the Census Bureau. Last year saw the population decline by 1.7 percent, the biggest drop since at least 2000.

The exodus of Puerto Ricans abroad is the result of no jobs at home. About 46.2 percent of the island lives below the poverty line, compared to 14.8 percent in the US. Puerto Rico’s unemployment rate is at 11.7 percent, down from a high of 16.9 percent after 2008, though more than double the “official” US unemployment rate of 5 percent.

Of course, these figures are an underestimation of the real unemployment rate, which would include those who have stopped looking for work entirely. Puerto Rico’s labor force participation rate has fallen about 9 percentage points since 2007 to 40.6 percent. This is triple the decline in the US, where it fell from 66.4 to 62.8 percent in the same period.

Total employment in Puerto Rico stands at roughly one million, down nearly 300,000 from 2007. Government employment accounts for 70,000 lost jobs. Tourism, one of the few employers on the island, is now threatened with the outbreak of the Zika virus.

Such conditions are what produced this week’s ongoing blackout, the combination of a rotten government infrastructure and over a century of American colonialism.

Yahoo reports 500 million user accounts were hacked in 2014

Kevin Reed

Internet service provider Yahoo acknowledged on Thursday that the account information of at least 500 million users was hacked and stolen in late 2014. According to a press release posted on Yahoo’s investor relations page, the information theft “may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers.”

Hashing refers to server-level conversion of passwords into strings of unreadable characters that are difficult to convert back into their original form. Bcrypt is a specific password hashing method that is used in Linux-based on other open source computing environments.

The Yahoo announcement, written by Chief Information Security Officer Bob Lord, also said the company’s investigation shows that the copied data does not include unprotected passwords or users’ bank account information or payment card data. The statement went on, “the investigation has found no evidence that the state-sponsored actor is currently in Yahoo’s network.”

Although Yahoo’s assertion that the breach was the work of a state-sponsored hacker has been repeated widely in news reports, no facts have been presented to substantiate the claim. The only additional information that has been reported is that Yahoo is working “closely with law enforcement” in their investigation. This follows the pattern set when Democratic Party mail servers were hacked and material delivered to WikiLeaks. This was subsequently blamed on Russian intelligence by unnamed FBI sources without any evidence ever being presented.

Meanwhile, the announcement that the hack took place two or more years ago also places a number of question marks over the Yahoo revelation. While large-scale hacking of user information has been on the increase and has become more sophisticated in recent years, it defies logic that no one at Yahoo—the company is a pioneer of the World Wide Web technology—knew that their security had been breached until 24 months after the event occurred.

It should not be ruled out that the timing of the hacking report is related to the pending purchase of Yahoo by Verizon for nearly $5 billion. The mega-merger was announced on July 25 following more than a decade of stagnation at Yahoo since the collapse of the dot-com bubble on Wall Street in 2001. As the stock market value of Yahoo has been sliding in the wake of the hacking announcement, the Verizon deal will most certainly be impacted. According to Verizon officials, they only found out about the Yahoo security issue two days before the public announcement.

The massive Yahoo data breach is the biggest ever, eclipsing those of LinkedIn in 2012 and MySpace last May, in which 164 million and 359 million accounts were hacked, respectively. Cyber security experts are saying that the impact of the Yahoo attack will be felt for years to come as the information that was stolen contains a “treasure of secrets” that can be used to gain access to other online accounts of those affected.

For example, illegal access to an individual’s email account can be used as a “stepping stone” to gain entry into other sensitive information through commonly used username and password resetting methods. The same kind of access can be gained with answers to online security questions such as “What is your mother’s maiden name?” and “What is the make and model of your first car?”

The Yahoo press announcement included a list of steps the company is now taking to secure customer data along with steps users need to take to protect their accounts and other private information. The Yahoo announcement also contains a link to a public security page where FAQs are being published about the issue.

Police violence and the social crisis in America

Joseph Kishore

In Charlotte, North Carolina, protests continued on Friday over the brutal police killing of Keith Lamont Scott, 43. Local and state officials announced a curfew earlier this week and have deployed riot police using tear gas and the National Guard against demonstrators.

As political officials and the city’s police department debate whether or not to release police video of the shooting in an effort to defuse social tensions, a nail in the coffin of official lies came Friday with the release of cell phone video shot by Scott’s wife. Rakevia Scott can be heard pleading with police not to shoot her husband, shouting that he does not have a weapon, that he had a traumatic brain injury, and had just taken his medication. The video also shows Scott after the shooting, prone on the ground, without a gun at his feet as appeared in subsequent photos, suggesting that police may have planted evidence.

Both the killing of Scott and the protests in response to this killing starkly expose the deep social tensions and class divisions in America. The fact that these demonstrations erupt only six weeks before the presidential election underscores the deep alienation of masses of workers and youth from the entire pseudo-democratic electoral charade. Hundreds of workers and youth would not be in the streets if they believed that the upcoming elections will lead to a more just society.

Conditions in Charlotte are a microcosm of America as a whole. The “Queen City”—a main corporate center for Bank of America, Wachovia bank, Duke Energy and other companies—has been listed as among the “best places to live,” celebrated as a beacon of progress and “growth” in the US South. However, this applies only to the rich and the privileged upper middle class.

Since 2000, the number of people in Charlotte living in poverty has doubled, from 159,000 to 314,000 (out of a total Metropolitan area population of 2.4 million). It is among the cities with the highest growth of concentrated poverty, with the census tracts deemed high poverty (poverty rates of more than 20 percent) rising from 19 percent in 2000 to 34 percent in 2014. A quarter of all children in the city are poor, and a Harvard study found that poor children in Mecklenburg County have one of the lowest chances of escaping poverty of any county.

Similar conditions exist in cities throughout the United States. Eight years after the financial collapse of 2008, social inequality is at record levels. The Obama administration has overseen the funneling of trillions of dollars to the banks, with a corresponding inflation of the wealth of the super-rich. Millions of workers and young people face a future of unemployment, low-wage work, and soaring costs for housing, rent and other basic necessities.

In the two years since the killing of Michael Brown led to protests and a brutal crackdown by militarized police forces in Ferguson, Missouri, more than 2,000 people have lost their lives to police violence. Even the most casual interactions with police can end in violent arrest or death.

Despite all the protests, and despite nervous appeals from sections of the political establishment and media for some restraint to forestall social unrest, the killings continue, day after day, week after week. It becomes difficult to keep track of all the names added to the list of victims. This only demonstrates that there is something deep and organic involved, embedded in the structure of American society and politics.

Media commentators and Democratic Party officials proclaim that Scott’s killing is another expression of the immense racial divide in America, with police killings a subset of the broader conflict between “white America” and “black America,” between police departments and “communities of color.”

Racism exists and, of course, frequently plays a role in police violence. However, those who seek to enforce a racialist narrative ignore basic facts. To a degree unknown during the heyday of the civil rights movement a half-century ago, police departments and state institutions are racially integrated. The cop who allegedly shot Scott is African-American, as is the city’s police chief, who has opposed calls for the release of the video. Many of the political officials who run cities with the most brutal police violence (like Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the mayor of Baltimore who chaired the Democratic National Convention and called protesters against the killing of Freddie Gray “thugs”) are African-American. And is it necessary to call attention to the racial background of the individual who has served as US president during the past seven and a half years of escalating police violence?

In the final analysis, police violence is a class issue. Consider some of the recent killings tabulated by the Guardian newspaper, one of the few media sources that have kept a systematic record of police violence in America. Each tells a story of social breakdown in one form or another, with the tragedies charting similar paths regardless of the race of the individual killed.

A disproportionate number of African-Americans are victims of police killings, but approximately one-half of the victims of police violence are white. To cite several cases that have occurred in the past ten days alone involving members of this supposedly “privileged” white demographic:

* Joshua Scott, 22, from Port St. Lucie, Florida, was killed on September 20 when police officers sought to involuntarily commit him for mental health treatment. He reportedly armed himself with a gun and was shot after a six-hour standoff.

* Jeremy Swenson, 30, from Logan, Utah, was killed on September 19. He was reportedly suicidal and was making “threatening actions” against another person, prompting police to shoot him dead.

* Jesse Beshaw, 29, of Winooski, Vermont, was shot seven times on September 16 by police who were serving him an arrest warrant. He was unarmed, but police claim he advanced toward them with an arm behind his back.

* Joseph Schlosser, 69, of Weeki Wachee, Florida, was killed on September 15. Police officers were responding to a 911 call from a health care worker who said that Schlosser, a military veteran, was suicidal. He was shot and killed in his home.

* Timothy McMillan, 38, of San Gabriel, California, was killed on September 14. McMillan was homeless and allegedly stole a police car. Unarmed, he died after being accosted and restrained by police at a McDonald’s restaurant.

The list goes on and on. Each of these stories, and many more like them, could be the subject of novels exploring the horrific consequences of social dislocation, inequality and war.

Police violence—like unemployment, poverty and all the consequences of capitalism—affects workers of every race and background. It is this basic fact the purveyors of identity politics seek to cover up. Those who talk about “white privilege,” or claim that the United States is convulsed by racial hatred, are engaged in a conscious political fraud, aimed at concealing the class nature of the state and blocking what is the necessary precondition for any fight against police violence: the unity of the working class.

The epidemic of police murders is one symptom of a deeply dysfunctional society. The homilies of Obama and other government officials about American “democracy” cannot cloak the reality of a ruling class that operates with unparalleled violence at home and abroad. The United States is in the midst of an election campaign between a fascistic demagogue and a right-wing representative of the military-intelligence apparatus, competing with each other over who will represent the interests of the ruling class most ruthlessly. The contest between Trump and Clinton, as with the political establishment as a whole, appears separated by a vast gulf from social reality.

The global predations of the American ruling class have innumerable consequences, from the bombings carried out last weekend in New York, to the practice of torture and assassination, to the increasingly violent character of the political process itself.

In the videos that have come out of police killings, beatings and other atrocities, one is struck by the inhumanity of it all, the indifference to human life. It is not a matter fundamentally of individuals, but of the institutions of the state, that “body of armed men” acting in defense of the ruling class, in which the combination of war and social inequality is expressed in homicidal behavior.

The events in Charlotte over the past several days point to the social upheavals that are to come. The same capitalist crisis that produces war and social counterrevolution also produces class struggle. A way forward, however, can only be found through a conscious fight to unify all sections of the working class, of all races, to connect the fight against police violence to the fight against war, unemployment, poverty, inequality and the capitalist system that underlies it all.

New Australian “anti-terror” laws overturn basic legal rights

Mike Head

Among the first bills to be tabled in the Australian parliament after the Liberal-National Coalition government barely survived the July 2 election are two “anti-terrorism” laws that contain serious attacks on fundamental democratic and legal rights. Significantly, both bills have bipartisan support, with the Labor Party already pledging in-principle backing.

The political establishment is moving, as a matter of high priority, to bolster the repressive police-intelligence apparatus with measures that can be used to target political opponents, not just a relatively small number of Islamic extremists. This is under conditions of mounting war in the Middle East, growing tensions with China and a deepening domestic offensive against welfare, essential social programs and the living standards of the working class.

Both bills go well beyond what the government has publicly acknowledged. In a media release, Attorney-General George Brandis presented the bills as providing for the “ongoing detention of high risk terrorist offenders” and reducing the age from 16 to 14 for control orders to be imposed on teenagers.

But the details of the first bill show that the convictions for which prisoners could be detained indefinitely, even after serving their sentences, extend beyond terrorist-related offences to others that could be used against opponents of the government and its escalating involvement in US-led wars, including the air force bombings in Syria.

The Criminal Code Amendment (High Risk Offenders) Bill violates the core principle of habeas corpus—no detention without a criminal trial. It allows for prisoners to be incarcerated indefinitely, using renewable three-year detention orders. This means locking prisoners away for life, regardless of their original terms of imprisonment.

Such orders require no proof of any intent to commit a further offence—just a “high degree of probability” that a crime could occur. This standard of proof is much lower than the criminal one of “beyond a reasonable doubt of guilt.”

In deciding to issue orders, the courts are instructed to consider reports provided by “relevant experts” on the “unacceptable risk” of the prisoner committing a terrorist-related offence if released. The prisoner’s “criminal history” can be taken into account—reversing the legal principle of excluding prior convictions from decisions about guilt.

The “relevant experts” must say whether the prisoner has “actively participated in any rehabilitation or treatment programs.” Any prisoner who refuses to cooperate with the authorities, such as by becoming an informer or undercover agent, is likely to remain incarcerated.

The bill has been approved unanimously by the state and territory governments, Coalition and Labor alike, which will adopt matching legislation. Such state laws are being used to evade the Australian Constitution, which has no bill of rights but does effectively prohibit punishment, including detention, by the federal government except via conviction by a court.

Brandis described the bill as dealing with “terrorist offenders” who pose an “unacceptably high risk” to the community if released. But, firstly, the official definition of terrorism is wide enough to cover political acts of protest that cause any injury or property damage.

Secondly, the crimes for which prisoners can be incarcerated include many loosely-defined offences, such as “providing or receiving training” or “possessing things” connected with terrorist acts, or “collecting or making documents likely to facilitate terrorist acts.” On the list as well is membership of, or raising funds for, an organisation declared by decree to be terrorist, and “providing support” to such a “terrorist organisation.”

Also covered are prisoners convicted of treason or “foreign incursions.” Treason includes “assisting enemies at war with the Commonwealth” and “assisting countries or forces engaged in armed hostilities against the Australian Defence Force”—which could mean opposing wars and other military interventions.

“Foreign incursions” include entering areas declared by the government, such as Syria, or preparing to engage in “hostile activities” (including damaging government property) in a foreign country. The bill extends to allowing the use of a building to facilitate recruitment to “serve in or with an armed force in a foreign country.”

The second bill, the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill, not only allows 14-year-olds to be placed under control orders—a form of house arrest, or curfew and tracking. It also targets supposed “hate preachers,” who could be jailed for seven years for a vague new crime of “advocating genocide.”

“Advocating genocide” is a deceptive term. It can be committed by “counselling, promoting, encouraging or urging” a broad range of conduct, such as inflicting “destructive” conditions of life.” A person can be convicted simply on the basis of comments they make, publicly or privately, that are deemed to be “reckless as to whether another person will engage in genocide.”

The bill’s explanatory memorandum states that the offence is directed against the use of social media by “hate preachers” who supposedly choose their words carefully so that there is insufficient evidence of incitement, urging or intention to cause harm.

The 142-page bill boosts an entire range of police and intelligence powers of entry, search, surveillance and electronic tracking. It also extends the use of preventative detention orders beyond alleged “imminent” threats of terrorism to where there are “reasonable grounds to suspect” that a terrorist act could occur within 14 days.

As well, there are wider powers to close court proceedings and prevent disclosure of “national security information,” including in control-order hearings. Jail terms of up to 10 years can be imposed for disclosing, even recklessly, information about Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) activities, if that disclosure “endangers the health or safety of any person or prejudices the effective conduct of a special intelligence operation.”

The two bills add to the more than 60 laws introduced under the banner of the “war on terrorism” by Coalition and Labor governments over the past 15 years. Sweeping precedents have been set, such as detention without trial, that erode essential legal and democratic rights. This barrage is accelerating. The latest bills constitute the sixth major tranche of such laws since the Coalition took office in 2013.

US-led invasions and wars, in which Australia has participated, have devastated the Middle East, killing hundreds of thousands of people and sending millions fleeing their homes.

Now, with Labor’s backing, and assisted by the corporate media, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s unstable government is seizing upon overseas terrorist attacks and whipping up local terrorism scares to justify erecting a police-state framework in the face of rising social and class tensions. Two recent “terrorism” arrests, one against a right-wing activist and the other against a Kurdish journalist, highlight the capacity of the laws to be used against political opponents, particularly anti-war and socialist organisations.

These measures, accompanied by intensifying witch-hunting of Muslims, seek to divide the working class along communal and ethnic lines, and create the ideological conditions for escalating Australian participation in the widening war provoked by the US in the Middle East.

ECB signals more austerity amid mounting economic divisions in Europe

Alex Lantier

Speaking yesterday in Frankfurt, European Central Bank (ECB) chief Mario Draghi signaled that the ECB would continue with austerity and massive handouts to the banks. Despite the deepening slump in Europe and internationally, he proposed no change in the financial aristocracy’s irrational, economically destructive policies.

A day before, the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan (BoJ) said they would continue similar policies of ultralow interest rates and so-called “quantitative easing” (QE). Under QE programs, the Fed, the BoJ, and the ECB printed trillions of dollars worth of their respective currencies. This money was handed to the banks, which bought up stocks, government bonds, and corporate debt, inflating the value of assets held by the super-rich and the top 10 percent of society, while masses of workers were plundered with austerity and social cuts.

Draghi’s announcement testifies to the perplexity and panic gripping the ruling class, faced with crises for which it has no solution. Before Draghi spoke, some expected that he would shift policies widely seen as having failed to revive Europe’s economy, and that face growing media criticism.

“The euro zone should have reached economic ‘escape velocity’ by now after a potent brew of stimulus starting last year,” wrote columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, citing cheaper oil, a lower euro, and the printing of €80 billion per month in ECB QE programs.

Despite this injection of financial steroids into the heart of Europe’s financial system, however, the continent’s economy is still flat lining, nearly a decade after the 2008 crash. The euro zone is growing at 0.3 percent per quarter, with France and Italy stagnant. Purchasing power is so low in Italy that prices for many consumer items are falling, threatening to trigger full-blown deflation.

Deutsche Bank chief economist David Folkerts-Landau attacked the ECB for undermining the euro currency: “Central bankers can lose the plot. When they do, their mistakes can be catastrophic. After seven years of ever-looser monetary policy, there is increasing evidence that following the current dogma risks the long-term stability of the euro zone.”

At yesterday’s European Systemic Risk Board (ERSB) meeting, Draghi responded with a blanket defense of low, even negative interest rates. That the ECB has had to resort to such policies testifies to the breakdown of the basic financial mechanism of capitalist production: the ability to invest capital, generate a profit, and from this profit pay a positive rate of interest to the original investor on his capital. Private banks have criticized the policy, moreover, for decimating their profits by keeping them from lending at high interest rates.

“A number of reasons have been mooted as the causes of this low profitability, including low interest rates,” Draghi said. “Long-term real interest rates have been falling in the major advanced economies for two decades. Technological change, demographics, income inequality and safe asset scarcity are just a few of the factors exerting downward pressure on long-term real rates.”

This appraisal of Europe’s problems constitutes a devastating self-indictment by financial officials. Rising inequality—that is, the impoverishment of the masses and the enrichment of a small layer at the top—like collapsing demographics, amid broad cuts to living standards and family benefits, are due to reactionary EU austerity policies. These have thrown tens of millions of workers out of work since 2008 and imposed deep wage cuts in country after country.

While the ECB pours cash into the financial markets, the underlying real economy is so depressed by austerity, with corporations and governments facing recurring debt crises, that Draghi admits bankers still cannot find “safe” financial assets to buy. The ECB increased its balance sheet from €1 trillion in 2005 to over €2.5 trillion in 2015, buying up various forms of debt. However, Draghi’s remarks show that it was just inflating other, even larger bubbles involving risky assets.

Nonetheless, Draghi stayed the course with the current policies, calling to boost bank profits by restructuring the financial industry to cut the number of large firms. “Overcapacity in some national banking sectors, and the ensuing intensity of competition, exacerbates this squeeze on margins,” he said, also calling for regulating “shadow banking” operations like hedge and money market funds.

He said that in this depressed environment, financial institutions should pay smaller rates of return to depositors: “banks will need to review their business models to bolster profitability. Other financial institutions also face challenges to their business models in this environment. In particular, institutions providing longer-term return guarantees—notably guaranteed-return life insurers—face a future of weak profitability unless they adapt their business models to a changing world.”

What is emerging is the failure of the capitalist system and of the European political establishment. None of the problems that led to the 2008 economic crisis have been resolved; indeed a decade of intense austerity has worsened them. Even as a new crisis builds, the ruling elite has nothing to propose except more attacks on the working class, and intensifying competition.

After the British vote to exit the EU underscored intractable international tensions building up inside Europe, moreover, the debate over Draghi’s policies is stoking conflicts that threaten to blow apart the euro currency and the EU.

German officials vocally criticized ECB policy, demanding higher interest rates to boost German bank profits. French, Italian, and other weaker southern European economies profited from Draghi’s looser monetary policies, however, and still support them—praising them cynically as pro-growth policies at an Athens summit this month to which German officials were pointedly not invited.

In April, after the IMF warned of the weakness of EU banks like Deutsche Bank and Crédit Suisse, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble denounced the ECB for damaging Germany’s economy. He said ultralow rates created a “gaping hole” in investors’ and pensioners’ finances. “It is indisputable that the policy of low interest rates is causing extraordinary problems for the banks and the whole financial sector in Germany,” he said. “That also applies for retirement provisions.”

Among the major powers and banks, the knives are out. As the Italian state and banks face financial collapse, with bad loans totaling €360 billion or 17 percent of total Italian bank assets, German officials are suing the ECB to cut off financing to indebted euro zone countries.

Yesterday, conservative German politicians spoke to the Financial Times to denounce QE policies. Peter Gauweiler said it “already violates rules on the prohibition of monetary financing [of euro zone governments] by the ECB,” adding that further loosening of QE rules would be “clearly incompatible with European law.”

While Germany’s Constitutional Court has not yet decided to hear his suit, Hans-Olaf Henkel of Germany’s Alfa party said, “If the ECB would blatantly and openly finance states such as Italy, it would provide us with additional ammunition in our court case… This the Court cannot ignore.”

Other officials retaliated, demanding that Germany cut its trade surplus and stimulate Europe’s economy by importing more goods from the rest of Europe. Speaking to L ’ Opinion on Wednesday, Belgian ECB board member Peter Praet said: “Germany’s enormous current account surplus, at almost 9 percent of Gross Domestic Product, is an anomaly. German growth is too dependent on external demand. Germany has the budgetary resources to develop its internal demand.”

The New York bombings: Feeding the “war on terror”

Bill Van Auken

Ahmad Khan Rahami was charged Tuesday night with nine counts of attempted murder and using weapons of mass destruction in connection with last weekend’s terror bombings in New York City and New Jersey,

As more details emerge, it is becoming clear that these bombings are part of a disturbing and ever more familiar pattern that dates back at least to the 9/11 attacks on New York City and Washington in 2001. In virtually every terrorist act carried out on US soil, the perpetrator is someone who is known by and previously identified to the FBI or other US police and intelligence agencies.

On the other hand, with those “terrorist plots” that are “foiled,” also almost invariably, those charged are patsies, set up in sting operations by federal agents who in many cases provide weapons, money and targets to individuals who would never have embarked on such operations on their own.

Rahami, a naturalized American citizen who immigrated to the US with his family from Afghanistan at the age of seven, is charged with planting explosive devices—pipe bombs and pressure cooker bombs—one of which injured 31 people on a street in Manhattan. He was arrested after being shot in a gunfight with police that also left two cops wounded.

In the immediate aftermath of the bombings, authorities issued statements declaring that there was no link between the attacks and “international terrorism.” It would now appear that this story was floated by officials who were well aware of such connections and concerned about the record of their own decisions to ignore them.

The New York Times revealed Thursday that Rahami’s father, Mohammad Rahami, gave a detailed warning to the FBI in 2014, saying that his son represented a threat and was increasingly attracted to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Federal agents spoke to the elder Rahami during a police investigation following his son’s stabbing of a sibling in a domestic dispute.

“I told the FBI to keep an eye on him,” he told the Times. “They said, ‘Is he a terrorist?’ I said: ‘I don’t know. I can’t guarantee you 100 percent if he is a terrorist. I don’t know which groups he is in. I can’t tell you.’”

The father added that the FBI never followed up by interviewing his son.

This contact was not the only one between Rahami and federal intelligence agencies. Only five months before his father’s discussions with the FBI, Rahami returned from a yearlong visit to Pakistan, where he visited Quetta, the capital of Pakistani Baluchistan, which is the headquarters of various Islamist factions. The trip prompted a secondary screening by customs officials, who were concerned enough to notify the National Targeting Center, a division of the Homeland Security Department that is supposed to assess potential terrorist threats. This prompted a notification to the FBI and other agencies.

It has further emerged since the bombings that federal officials were aware that Rahami may have made another trip to Ankara, Turkey, apparently with the aim of joining the Islamic State (ISIS) or one of the militias connected to Al Qaeda that are engaged in the US-backed war for regime change in Syria.

Finally, federal authorities were informed of Rahami’s purchase last July of a Glock 9mm handgun, the weapon he is charged with using in shooting two Linden, New Jersey policemen as they tried to take him into custody.

Once again, the refrain made famous in the wake of 9/11is being heard again: there was a failure to “connect the dots.”

In some cases, the similarities to previous incidents are stark. As in Rahami’s case, the father of Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to bring down a Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Eve 2009 with a bomb hidden in his underwear, also warned US authorities of his son’s terrorist ties, but was ignored.

Then there was the case of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, in which the principal organizer was Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Russian intelligence had identified Tsarnaev to US authorities in 2011 as a suspected radical Islamist who was seeking to link up with armed groups in the Northern Caucasus. He was subsequently interviewed by the FBI and then allowed to travel to the Caucasus and return, with no questions asked.

Given the vast intelligence apparatus maintained by the US state and the sweeping mass surveillance it conducts, the failure to pursue such leads does not lend itself to innocent interpretation or a mere failure to “connect the dots.”

On the one hand, the decision not to impede the travel of individuals identified as “terrorists” stems from the fact that the US government is utilizing such elements in pursuit of its foreign policy aims. It has done so at least since the late 1980s, when Rahami’s father fought with the Afghan mujahedeen in the CIA-orchestrated war against the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan. Foreign Islamists have been the backbone of the proxy forces fighting the US war for regime change in Syria, as they were in Libya, and US intelligence has long had relations with similar forces in both Russia and China.

On the other hand, giving a free rein to those identified as potential terrorists and letting nature take its course serves a definite political agenda, providing grist for the mill of the “global war on terror.” This “war” has provided the pretext for both unending bombings and invasions to further the strategic interests of US imperialism, and the escalating repression within the US itself.

Terrorist acts are also magnified and endlessly sensationalized by the corporate media as a means of undermining the broad popular opposition to war.

Finally, such acts can be exploited to further the aims of one faction within the state apparatus against another. The bombings in New York and New Jersey coincided with evidence of just such divisions within the Obama administration, as sections of the military brass have recently made statements approaching insubordination in relation to the abortive ceasefire deal in Syria.

It is impossible to say at this early stage what relation these bombings have to the murky and sinister world in which US intelligence agencies and Islamist terrorist groups intersect.

Nor are the precise motivations of Rahami known. Sections of a notebook in his possession at the time of his arrest include praise for Osama bin Laden; Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born, Al Qaeda-linked cleric assassinated in a US drone strike; as well as an ISIS leader.

Rahami’s alleged act may have been the product of his own emotional or mental distress, or psychological factors combined with what the state and the media habitually refer to as “homegrown terrorism” or “self-radicalization.” Whatever the case, the state of American society on the eve of the 2016 elections provides fertile ground for such violence.

Over 15 years of uninterrupted US wars, with over a million killed, many millions more driven from their homes and entire societies left in shreds, cannot help but produce deadly consequences within the US itself. Bloodshed abroad is combined with the ceaseless brutalization of society at home. Rahami grew up in Union County, New Jersey, where the poverty rate is over 27 percent and the social inequality between its working-class residents and the concentration of billionaires and multimillionaires in nearby New York City could not be starker. The pervasive social alienation among broad layers of society is intensified by the continuous demonization of Muslims.

The existing political setup, moreover, provides no progressive outlet for the increasingly explosive buildup of social discontent. The pseudo-left elements who, in an earlier period, protested against US wars are now to be found among their most enthusiastic supporters.

Less than seven weeks before the election, these latest bombings are being utilized to shift the political debate within the two major parties even further to the right, with the fascistic Republican candidate Donald Trump and the Democratic favorite of the military and intelligence apparatus Hillary Clinton vying with each other over who is best prepared as “commander-in-chief” to escalate war abroad and intensify repression at home.

The reactionary and noxious atmosphere of American politics will only ensure further attacks like that which occurred last weekend.

Sri Lanka: Fault-lines in the Transitional Justice Process

Aaranya Rajasingam

Sri Lanka is ranked 43rd (out of 178 countries) in the 2016 annual Fragile States Index, pointing to an improving trend in the country. The country has been moved from the “Alert” category to “High Warning” – a welcome improvement for people recovering from a three-decade long war. How much of this, however, is substantial and sustainable change, is yet to be seen.

 

It is one of the 78 countries to show improvement and the most improved country in 2015-2016. These uplifting numbers, however, belie the actual changes taking place within the country. As demonstrated by the graphs, group grievances remain largely unchanged and political elites are still old wine in new bottles.

 

Given that these factors are recognised by many analysts as the main sources of the conflict, it is difficult to begin celebrating immediately. Additionally, the rising brain drain from the country will continue to have significant adverse impacts on the overall growth in Sri Lanka.

 

In its brief analysis, the Index does acknowledge that though political and economic stability has improved the country’s ratings, “deep schisms within society, remain perilously high.” This schism is especially relevant when observing the ongoing reconciliation process in the country. The new government has been on a fast-track for Transitional Justice. The troubling methodology and the short time frame indicate that there are many reasons to remain cautious while welcoming this process.

 

At the core of these doubts lies the fact the Government of Sri Lanka has so far not undertaken meaningful steps to outline a coherent policy for Transitional Justice. On the one hand, while Tamil and Muslim minorities remain doubtful regarding any tangible outcomes (given failures of past processes), the Sinhala majority community identifies the process itself as an initiative for Tamils and not a process that affects the whole country. This has serious consequences for the legitimacy of the process. While the Public Representations Committee made commendable efforts to reflect the desires of the Sri Lankan polity within a short time-frame, the subsequent rush to bring out a new constitution indicates that it may not be as inclusive as Sri Lankans would have wanted it to be.

 

The lack of institutional will is further revealed when critiques of the constitutional process are warned that trying to change structural issues of governance or justice will jeopardise the passing of a constitution of the country. Statements by executives in their refusal to make linkages between transitional justice mechanisms and judicial mechanisms (such as showing linkages between the Office of Missing Persons with criminal proceedings) results in the creation of a false dichotomy between justice and peace. As the Bill for the controversial Office of Missing Persons was being passed, the independent Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms was still in the process of getting community feedback on what they thought of the bill. These contradictions are certainly not promising. Furthermore, many submissions to the Task Force had criticised the title that refused to encompass the reality of enforced disappearances or bother to consult families of those disappeared, before it was passed. Such instances continue to alienate those most affected by the war and reveals that perhaps the process itself has become more of a foreign policy tool rather than a significant step towards reconciliation.

 

According to the IMF and the World Bank, Sri Lanka has recently reached the “middle-income country” status. While this may encourage investment, it cannot hide the challenges the country faces in – on one hand, providing basic services to marginalised communities and regions; and on the other, in curbing corruption and strengthening governance institutions. These are challenges that are not new in any way for the island state. While the end of military conflict provides opportunities, we certainly do not want it to be termed as “missed opportunities” after ten years.

 

In Sri Lanka, the drive for development, particularly the increase in infrastructure development, at the cost of forming a consensus – on how economic benefits can be equally divided between different groups and communities – is a serious problem. Additionally, Sri Lanka has still not devised a clear long term economic development strategy that takes into account the failed aspects of Western financial models (post the financial crisis in 2008). The FSI states that “weak and failing states” pose a serious challenge to the international community. Perhaps what the FSI fails to mention is that sometimes, standards imposed by the global community and financial instruments can seriously undermine small, developing states. Sri Lankans are at present only more in debt, and government deficits are continuing to increase (as more loans need to be paid back and grace periods end) – a fact that is only too apparent for its citizens in the form of growing taxation in the country.

 

Other than weaknesses in institutions and the prevalent political culture, another important determinant of struggles of the country is the inability to channel a wide scale grassroots movement for good governance and accountability. A meaningful, open and inclusive conversation between all parties is the first step towards this. In the Transitional Justice and Reconciliation environment, the trend towards consultations has certainly begun to provide space for this shift. More Commissions and Tasks Forces have helped bring stakeholders together to have this critical conversation.

 

It is now left to be seen whether the people’s voices are heard.

Encirclement of the Arctic Circle: The Russian Military Buildup

Adarsh Vijay

The equations of geopolitical rivalry in the Arctic region are undergoing a paradigm shift with the ongoing military buildup by Russia. The Arctic has been accorded due importance as per the revised doctrine of the Russian Navy and Moscow is eyeing a permanent presence in the region to reclaim its historical dominance in the Arctic.  Russia’s ongoing attempts in this direction have become a cause for friction among the other stakeholders in the North Pole. The pressing issues that need to be addressed are: Why is Russia heading to the Arctic? How do the other players view the Kremlin’s move? Is the strategy restricted to regional implications or does it go beyond them? 

What’s in the Arctic?

Russia is one of the eight countries, along with the US, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, to have territory in the Arctic Circle. They are also the members of the Arctic Council, which was formed in 1996 as per the Ottawa Declaration. The oil and mineral resources under the seabed and the strategic importance of the region has so far guided the Kremlin’s policy in the Arctic. The race for the control of oceanic resources necessitates a strong military backing to guard the maritime interests in the northern waters. Moscow had already established the 45th Air Force and Air Defense Army for its Northern Fleet by the end of 2015. However, the present military outreach that gained momentum in the far north is a response to the increasing defense modernisation by the US and the Scandinavian countries in the recent past. The Kremlin seeks to have a strong foothold in the North Pole with a permanent military base name Arktichesky Trilistnik (Arctic Trefoil), which was set up in 2015. The base, which can house approximately 150 military personnel, is situated at the 80th parallel. They have also built another base named Northern Shamrock on the Kotelny Island in the East Siberian Sea at the 75th parallel. Besides the construction of new military infrastructures, the reopening of the various abandoned air strips and bases across the Franz Josef Land, New Siberian Islands, Novaya Zemlya and Severnaya Zemlya archipelagos is also underway.

 

Arctic: A Grand Strategy

What makes the Arctic region strategically important for Russia is primarily its geographical proximity to the North American continent. It ensures Moscow within a short-distance and an early strike capacity against the West and this strengthens its nuclear deterrence at large. The Kremlin is also enjoying better operational autonomy in the High North as compared to the fleets stationed at the Black and Baltic Seas as the maneuver of the Northern Fleet is undisturbed by the NATO members. Russia is currently focusing on the deployment of nuclear-powered icebreakers, additional submarines, patrol vessels, military aircrafts, anti-aircraft systems and intends to conduct unannounced military exercises in the Arctic Ocean. The secondary factor that pushes the Russians to the Arctic waters is the promising oil and mineral resources. Due to climate change there is expected to be a continuing retreat of ice from the ocean, which would make the seabed mining viable and cost-effective in due course.

Norway, a NATO member and a neighbor of Russia in the north-western border, is cautious of Russian advancements in the Arctic sphere. Besides Norway, other members of the Arctic Council also perceive Russia’s activities in the North Pole as a threat. Washington's reaction was predominantly naval oriented in terms of the dispatch of submarines and icebreakers across the Arctic. An exclusive stealth-aircraft fleet is also under process for the High North in order to meet the challenges of the prevailing geopolitical conundrum.

 

The Road Ahead

The Kremlin intends to take the Arctic policy forward as a global strategy. The regional repercussions, as projected by Russia, are just a cover to hide the grand reverberations that are yet to unfold. Hence, an analysis of Moscow’s actions in the Arctic is just the tip of the iceberg. The High North is a significant element of Russia’s foreign and security complex, which is being built upon the Cold War legacy. Russia’s traditional need for superiority in the international system with immense control over natural resources, supported by an unparalleled military supremacy, lies behind the whole game. Thus, the Arctic Circle is a great catalyst for Moscow to alter and tilt the balance of power in its favor. Nevertheless, the escalating US presence in the Arctic acts as a deterrent against the Russian aggressions and neither does Russia seem interested in engaging in a direct confrontation in the near future. Though cooperation in place of competition is an option that can be explored, however, pragmatism is far more distant than dreams. The emerging trends in the Arctic are highly unpredictable which make a strategic forecast difficult, if not impossible. However, the only optimism that remains at the core of the dynamics in the region is the sustaining self-restraint in terms of abstinence from an armed rivalry at present.