Australian government claims refugee policy “best in the world”

Max Newman

Despite continued revelations of abuses inflicted on incarcerated asylum seekers who sought protection in Australia, the Liberal-National government has not only maintained its stance of refusing entry to all refugees, but proclaimed its “border protection” regime as a model for governments to adopt worldwide.

Invited to address the United Nations summit on refugees in New York this week, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull claimed that only by “addressing irregular migration through secure borders” could governments “focus humanitarian assistance on those who need it most.”

Before his speech, Turnbull touted Australia’s refugee policy as the “best in the world.” He sought to justify the indefinite detention of nearly 2,000 asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island by declaring that “public opinion will not accept a generous humanitarian program… unless the government is seen to be in command of its borders.”

By generous, Turnbull evidently meant his government’s pledge to grant humanitarian visas to 18,750 carefully-selected people annually. This is a drop in the ocean compared to 65 million displaced people across the globe, most of them fleeing the horrific wars triggered by the US and its allies, including Australia, in the Middle East.

Tacitly, Turnbull criticised the governments of Europe for not yet following Australia’s lead and totally shutting their borders to the desperate people trying to escape war and impoverishment—which would leave millions of people languishing in over-crowded refugee camps in some of the world’s poorest and most war-torn countries.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, who was also invited to the UN summit, sought to defend the appalling conditions in the Australian-controlled Pacific island camps by claiming they were better than those in countries such as Syria and Jordan. But the conditions in the Australian camps, which were re-established by the previous Labor government, are deliberately punitive, precisely to deter refugees from trying to leave camps in the Middle East and seek protection in Australia.

In reality also, governments internationally are vilifying refugees in order to curb popular support for the displaced millions and to justify shutting borders, imposing police-state measure and continuing the wars and regime-change operations that have fuelled the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

The “Australian model” is one of cruelty and inhumanity. The recent leak of over 2,000 incident reports from Nauru, dubbed the Nauru Files, provided a picture of the violations of basic legal and democratic rights that occur daily in Australia’s “offshore processing centres.” Former staff members have spoken out bravely against the abuses, defying the threat of being jailed under the government’s secrecy provisions.

Speaking at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute recently, Dutton boasted of maintaining the camps in the face of “sustained activist opposition.” Dutton insisted that the government’s “relationship in this regard with Nauru will continue for decades.” In other words, despite the overwhelming evidence of violations, the camps while remain open indefinitely.

The Labor Party and the Greens attempted last week to distance themselves from their own role in imposing these policies by co-sponsoring a motion in the Senate for a committee inquiry into the leaked reports. It was the 2010–13 minority Labor government, kept in office by a formal agreement with the Greens, that re-opened the Nauru and Manus facilities, for the express purpose of ensuring that detainees would have “no advantage” over the millions of refugees trapped in camps elsewhere.

Labor and the Greens are working together to try to head off the mounting disgust among broad layers of people and promote political illusions that some modification of the “border protection” regime can be made within the parliamentary framework.

The motion was tabled by Labor Senator Murray Watt without any Greens or Labor senator speaking. The only speaker was Liberal Senator James McGrath, who declared that the “government will not waver in our commitment to the strong and consistent border protection policies.” Despite the motion, the government’s policy would not change and “no-one in regional processing centres will be resettled in Australia.”

The truth is that the Senate inquiry will seek to whitewash the political responsibility for the crimes committed against refugees by successive Australian governments.

The Labor Party unequivocally supports the indefinite detention of asylum seekers. It was the Keating Labor government that instigated mandatory detention within Australia in 1992. And today, Labor’s leaders insist that the Gillard Labor government “stopped the boats” by reopening the offshore camps in 2012.

Initially, the Greens proposed a royal commission into the Nauru abuses, which would only serve as a more sophisticated form of cover up. Very quickly, however, the Greens complied with Labor’s call for yet another Senate inquiry, sending a wider signal of their readiness to collaborate with Labor.

Greens immigration spokesperson Senator Nick McKim said the Greens were “disappointed” by Labor’s lack of support for a royal commission, but “thank them for their constructive approach on this inquiry.”

McKim said: “We need to close the camps and bring the people there to Australia. But until that happens, we need to reveal the truth.” This only serves to cover up the fact that numerous reports, inquiries and investigations, including a previous Senate inquiry headed by the Greens, have failed to shift the government’s policy in the slightest. Nor has Labor’s support for “offshore” detention altered one bit.

In August last year, a Senate inquiry with Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young as deputy chair, produced evidence of systematic abuses of detainees, including sexual assault and torture, but did not demand closure of the camps. Instead, it called for more “transparency” and an “open centre” model, which still left detainees highly restricted.

Over the past year there has been a further escalation in suicides and protests, with two asylum seekers self-immolating. Despite this and Papua New Guinea’s highest court ruling the Manus camp illegal, both prison camps are still operating.

The working class must come to the aid of refugees and those displaced by war. They must have the basic democratic right to live and work where they choose, with full civil and political rights. The closing of borders to asylum seekers is a damning indictment of the entire nation-state system, which divides the international working class along national lines in the interests of corporate profit.

Number of London homeless sleeping on the streets tops 8,000 nightly

Allison Smith 

Rough sleeping doubles

Figures released by the Communities and Local Government Select Committee show that the number of people rough sleeping (sleeping on the streets) in London has doubled since 2010, rising 7 percent in the last year alone, to 8,096 people.

Research by the Crisis charity shows that the number one cause of homelessness is the ending of assured short-hold tenancies in the private rental sector—accounting for one third of all homeless acceptances by local councils.

Jon Sparkes, chief executive of Crisis, said, “The number of people rough sleeping in London is the highest in the country and for the first time in many years numbers are increasing in all parts of England. The biggest reason someone finds themselves homeless is the end of a private rented tenancy.”

Dying homeless in London

More than 8,000 people sleep rough in London each night, and for these vulnerable citizens, the average life expectancy is just 47 years. The average for the UK as a whole is 81.5 years.

Many of London’s homeless die violent or lonely deaths.

This summer, a spate of deaths in Camden Borough due to poisoning from synthetic cannabis led to an outcry from residents. The drug, once legal in London, is peddled to homeless residents for £1 per cigarette as a cheap alternative to marijuana. However, the strength of the synthetic drug is unpredictable, sometimes with devastating consequences.

This past June the decomposing body of Joseph Coughlin was found in his homeless hostel, three days after he had died. Social services and hostel managers failed to check on him, and his death went unnoticed until residents complained of a foul odour coming from his room.

Last year, former concert pianist Anne Naysmith, nicknamed “The Car Lady of Chiswick,” died after being hit by a lorry in West London. Naysmith had been living in her car until Hounslow Council towed it away in response to complaints from residents. After this, she lived in various places, including an alleyway behind an Italian restaurant, Charing Cross Hospital’s boiler room, and shrubbery behind Stamford Underground Station.

Last year a Kensington resident discovered the body of an unknown man impaled on a spike in the prosperous Conservative-controlled borough. After an exhaustive search, police discovered he was a Polish immigrant worker. He left behind a family in Peterborough.

Homeless university students in London

A survey of undergraduate students at London Metropolitan University (LMU) School of Social Professions found that 27 of the programme’s students are homeless. These homeless students were too ashamed to admit their situation and seek help from the university.

At LMU, the least expensive single student room with shared facilities is £584 per month, on par with private bed-sit rentals in London. This extortionate sum is forcing many low-income students to sleep on floors or couches or in hostels and local council emergency accommodation.

Martin Blakey, chief executive of Unipol housing charity for university students in Leeds, Nottingham and Bradford, said the survey findings don’t surprise him, telling the Guardian :

“It’s hard to get figures on homelessness because universities don’t monitor it, but I strongly suspect that it is a problem not just for LMU. Even in Leeds, when we hold viewings for family accommodation we find that people want to move in within days. When we ask about their present contracts, they are often extremely vague about where they are living. In London, student accommodation is being left to the market, so special groups, such as students with families, need greater help and support if they’re to survive in the market-driven jungle.”

According to the Degrees of Debt report by Sutton Trust, the average English university student can expect to graduate with around £44,000 of student loans. For the first time, English university students are now graduating with more debt than their American counterparts.

Homelessness and health

In 2015, at least 2,521 homeless London residents had “identifiable psychiatric needs”—a 260 percent increase from 2009, according to figures released by St. Mungo’s homeless charity that year. Mental health problems are the most common cause of homelessness.

In addition, homeless people also experience higher incidences of common diseases as well as diseases that were all but eradicated in the Victorian era, such as tuberculosis.

According to a Crisis charity survey of homelessness and access to general practitioner health care, one in 50 homeless people reported having tuberculosis, 25 times the national average. Responses from survey participants also revealed that homeless people are twice as likely to suffer from diabetes and five times more likely to suffer from epilepsy. Eighty percent of survey participants reported they are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol.

The Crisis survey reports that access to health care by homeless people is limited by a number of factors, including difficulty registering with a surgery, lack of trust in institutions and authority figures, and lack of awareness or understanding of their own health situation.

Children transferred out of boroughs suffer abuse and neglect

An Independent newspaper investigation, published earlier this year, revealed the tragic deaths of children who were “lost” by social services authorities after being moved away from their local area. These included “the death of a six-month old child from head injuries, the death of a 13-month-old child from ongoing abuse, the death of a neglected one-year-old baby, and the miscarriage of a baby after the eight-month pregnant mother collapsed from stress and exhaustion.”

Councils moving homeless and vulnerable families to a new borough have a lawful duty of care to notify the new borough council of the family’s situation through a system known as Notify2 in London, especially when there is a history of child abuse and neglect. However, local authorities report that transferring councils routinely do not provide critical information about these families.

The Independent reports that between July 2011 and June 2015, London Councils moved 64,704 homeless families, with 4,053 of these families moved out of Greater London area entirely.

Boroughs targeting homeless with Public Space Protection Orders

Councils across London are increasingly threatening to criminalise rough sleeping individuals through the use of Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs).

PSPOs were first introduced in 2014 as part of the UK Government’s Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, an anti-democratic bill with sweeping powers to criminalise everything from congregating in groups to sleeping rough, and particularly discriminating against the homeless. An investigation by Vice.com revealed that 36 local authorities are using the PSPOs to target rough sleepers, slapping them with a £100 penalty and possible criminal record and a further fine of £1,000 if they fail to pay the original penalty.

Under pressure from homeless advocates, Hackney Council in East London recently dropped its plans to charge homeless £100 on the spot for “anti-social behaviour” such as begging, street drinking, and rough sleeping in designated “hotspots.” But the council is undergoing a review of the use of PSPOs by other boroughs to determine if they will reintroduce them in the near future.

Tens of thousands of London homes stand empty

There are currently 56,000 empty homes in London. One of the main reasons is the phenomenon known as “buy to leave.” Property investors simply buy a house, leave it empty for a period until house prices rise enough to sell it on and make a substantial profit.

Croatian parliamentary election fails to resolve political crisis

Markus Salzmann

The parliamentary election in Croatia on September 11 failed to resolve the continuing political crisis of the youngest EU member state. The massive rejection of the entire political elite by the population was expressed in mass abstention. Only 54 percent, slightly more than half, of eligible voters took part in the election, 10 percent fewer than in the last election 10 months ago.

The nationalist conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) won the most votes. According to the official results, it won 61 seats, slightly more than the Social Democrats (SDP), who won 54 seats. The “Most” party (Bridge) achieved third place, winning 13 seats. HDZ and Most won a combined total of 151 seats, not enough to form a majority government.

The Party “zivi zid” (Living Wall) also achieved parliamentary representation. It won votes with its criticisms of the big parties and the raging corruption and privatizations in the big cities. Party members were recruited from the civil rights movement, and from small nominally “left” groups and former members of the SPD. It is pro-capitalist and calls for the Croatian Central Bank to play a larger role in order to strengthen “competition.”

The regional party IDS (Istrian Democratic Assembly), the party of Milan Bandic—who was mayor of Zagreb for many years and who faces an ongoing trial on charges of bribery and organized crime— also made it into parliament. The fascistic HDSSB led by the war criminal Branimir Glavas also secured a seat. Eight seats went to representatives of national minorities.

Under the circumstances, building a ruling coalition is viewed as an extremely difficult task. Due to extreme tensions between HDZ and SDP, a grand coalition is unlikely, so the HDZ will need at least two coalition partners. The Most party, which was also part of the last government, is viewed as a possible coalition partner.

On the night of the election, Most head Bozo Petrov voiced his conditions for joining a coalition. He said that he would only consider joining a coalition if it really carried out “reforms.” Most wants a massive reduction in taxes for corporations and “smaller management,” in other words, mass layoffs in the public sector. Petrov gave the HDZ and the SPD five days to address his demands. In this way he said he hoped to avoid a long political impasse.

New elections became necessary in Croatia after the ruling coalition government led by the non-party pharmaceutical manager Tihomir Oreskovic collapsed in June, after only four months. Oreskovic, the former head of a North American pharmaceutical company, had headed a coalition of the HDZ and the right-wing neo-liberal Most. The aim of his government was to carry out “hard reforms” in Croatia.

The election in November 2015 had led to a stalemate between the HDZ and the SDP. Most became a kingmaker and agreed with the HDZ to name Oreskovic as prime minister.

The economic crisis in the former Yugoslavian state has continued unabated since it joined the EU in 2013. After six years of recession, the official unemployment rate is 14 percent overall, while youth unemployment stands at 43 percent. A study performed by the IFO Institute in Munich draws attention to the extremely high cost of living in Croatia and, above all, the high cost of food. Because of the precarious living conditions for large segments of the population, increasing numbers of people are leaving Croatia to seek employment abroad. The number of young and well-educated Croats who have left has risen by 33 percent.

In its last country report, the IMF had called for wide-ranging cuts, primarily on the public sector. Some 12 percent of the Croatian working population are employed by a state-owned enterprise, twice the average in the EU as a whole. This is a thorn in the side of the international financial elite.

Both the HDZ and the Social Democrats also advocate further attacks on the working class. The HDZ is led by Andrej Plenković, an experienced politician who, unlike his predecessor Tomislav Karamarko, enjoys a good reputation in Brussels and is expected to follow a strict course of reforms. Plenković is a jurist and former diplomat and has been a member of the European Parliament since 2013, when Croatia joined the EU. For years, the EU has demanded that Croatia reduce its state debt and budget deficit and improve conditions for foreign investors.

The ruling class has reacted to the social, economic and political crisis by encouraging extreme nationalism, which raises the spectre of a renewal of conflict in the Balkans. According to the Financial Times, the relationship between Serbia and Croatia has deteriorated to its lowest point since 1995. Open nationalism has now become “political mainstream” in Croatia.

The election on Sunday was preceded by a vile campaign in which the parties strove to outdo each other with their nationalism. Both of the big parties vehemently defended the closing of the so-called Balkan route for refugees. They also fuelled tensions between the former Yugoslavian states.

The SDP and its lead candidate, former head of state Zoran Milanovic, outdid all the others. At a meeting of the Croatian veterans of the war from 1991 to 1995, he called Bosnia a “failed state.” He called neighbouring Serbia a “wretched” gang that “wants to rule half the Balkans.”

Belgrade and Sarajevo reacted immediately. Serbia’s President Tomislav Nikolić compared Milanovic’s statements to those of the fascist Ustasha regime. Bosnian Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak reacted just as sharply, rejecting the insults levelled at Bosnia and Serbia. Previously, Serbia’s Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic had called Croatia the greatest disgrace of the EU.

Croatian Foreign Minister Miro Kovač (HDZ) recently worsened relations between Croatia and the other Balkan states when he blocked a new round of negotiations between the EU and Serbia. At a meeting with war veterans, Milanović announced that he would continue and intensify this policy.

Immediately before the election, Branimir Glavas, who in 2009 was judged guilty of the murder of Serbian civilians in Osikek in 1991, was rehabilitated and acquitted by the Supreme Court. The self-avowed fascist used his acquittal to propagandize against Serbia during the election. The suspension of the 1946 sentence of Alojzije Stepinac, the former Cardinal of Zagreb, also created a stir. By supporting the fascistic Ustasha at the beginning of the 1940s, Stepinac shared responsibility for the murder of Serbs in the 1940s.

French right-wing candidate Alain Juppé warns of rising anti-Muslim hysteria

Kumaran Ira

On Friday, former Prime Minister Alain Juppé, the favorite in the right-wing Les Républicains (LR) party primaries for the 2017 presidential elections, spoke to Le Monde to declare his concern over the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hysteria dominating the election campaign. Juppé said that major candidates were inciting so much ethnic hatred that France risked sliding into civil war.

Juppé told Le Monde, “We must absolutely calm down the climate that exists in France today. Simply saying the word ‘Muslim’ leads to a hysteria that is totally disproportionate.” He added, “We must calm down the situation. If we continue the way we are going now, we are heading towards civil war. But I want civil peace.”

This extraordinary remark comes after deep attacks on Muslims in France in the last two years, after terror attacks in France and Belgium by Islamist networks fighting for NATO’s proxy war in Syria. Thousands of Muslim homes have been raided under the state of emergency. President François Hollande of the Socialist Party (PS), which imposed the state of emergency, has repeatedly invited Marine Le Pen, the leader of the neo-fascist National Front (FN), to the Elysée presidential palace. The FN is expected to easily qualify for the presidential run-off in May.

Since the Charlie Hebdo attacks of January 2015, the French people have been subjected to relentless propaganda, including from Juppé’s own LR party, denouncing Muslims. Thus, in one column after the Charlie Hebdoattacks, Nouvel Obs commentator Jean Daniel wrote that, “Yes, we are at war, and what’s more it is a war of religion.”

Nearly two years later, a former prime minister of France is admitting that the state of emergency has cultivated a hysterical atmosphere that brought ethnic and religious tensions to a fever pitch.

The immediate target of Juppé’s remarks was the provocative comments of his main rival for the LR nomination, former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is building his campaign around appeals to neo-fascistic sentiment and the worship of French ethnic identity.

Last Monday, Sarkozy said: “If one wants to become French, one lives as a Frenchman. We will no longer tolerate an integration that doesn’t work, we will demand assimilation.” In a reactionary and bizarre reference to ancient Gaul, the region of Europe encompassing most of present-day France that was first inhabited by Celtic peoples, Sarkozy declared, “Once you are French, your ancestors are the Gauls.”

This statement violates fundamental juridical principles that French citizenship is a legal and not an ethnic or blood relationship, and flies in the face of France’s large ethnic Arabic, African, Italian, and Portuguese populations. Sarkozy’s promotion of views that French identity is a blood tie echoes the conceptions of Charles Maurras of the anti-Semitic Action Française movement before World War II. They are in line with the views of his top advisor, Patrick Buisson, a former editor of the far-right Minutemagazine who is known as a devotee of Maurras.

Juppé’s remarks reflect growing concern in sections of the ruling elite that, amid the deepest crisis of European and world capitalism since the 1930s, their longstanding promotion of anti-Muslim and law-and-order prejudices has taken on entirely new dimensions.

Since 2003, French bourgeois politicians of all stripes have backed bans on the veil in the public schools, or on the burqa. Such anti-Muslim campaigns were promoted not only by right-wing forces, but also by the PS and its pseudo-left allies like the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA), Lutte Ouvrière(Workers Struggle, LO), and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Left Front.

Today, after nearly a decade of intense economic crisis, however, and mounting anti-Muslim sentiment after the Paris terror attacks and under the state of emergency, the level of tensions are far higher. Calls for banning the burkini or dismantling refugee camps in Calais reflect the growing emergence of politicized anti-Muslim nationalism as a key force in French bourgeois politics.

Sympathizers of the Action Française, which formed the key basis of the Nazi-collaborationist regime in Vichy, play increasingly visible roles as advisers and associates of the PS and the pseudo-left. In particular, Mélenchon developed close ties with both Buisson and far-right journalist Eric Zemmour, whom the NPA-linked news site Médiapart also promoted.

The defense of democratic rights in France and across Europe cannot be left to any faction of this utterly corrupt and reactionary political establishment. This is a task that falls to the working class, mobilized in struggle on a socialist program.

Juppé himself was at pains to reassure Le Monde that his limited criticisms of anti-Muslim hysteria did not mean that he would not firmly crack down on Muslims and the population at large. “Of course, I am aware of how serious the situation is,” he said, citing Montaigne Institute polls purporting to show that “over two-thirds of French Muslims accept the laws of the Republic. … but one quarter of them do not.”

Juppé’s claim that one-quarter of French Muslims—well over one million people—are in rebellion against France’s legal system is ludicrous. By making it, Juppé showed that he himself helps stoke law-and-order hysteria against Muslims. He went on to call for “undertaking a major campaign of de-radicalization, together with the leaders of the Muslim community.”

Moreover, while he expresses his reservations over anti-Muslim hysteria, Juppé has no viable alternative to propose, and he himself approves measures targeting Muslims and immigrants. While distancing himself from more outrageous anti-Muslim incidents like the expulsion of a Muslim student from school for wearing a long skirt or the banning of burkini swimwear on beaches, Juppé supported banning certain types of Muslim dress.

Juppé falsely presented such bans not as appeals to racism, but as simple police measures. He told Le Monde, “On the niqab, the State Council took a position: it must be banned not for religious reasons, but because it is contrary to the need to identify all faces in any public location. [But if one accepts religious bans,] The next thing that is posed is the question of bans on veils in universities, on ‘burkinis,’ or even one day on long skirts…”

The basic lines of Juppé’s police-state and austerity policies are virtually indistinguishable from those of Hollande and the PS, and there can be little doubt that—should he be elected—he will also rely on anti-Muslim rhetoric, as Hollande did, to disorient popular opposition.

Juppé plans an escalation of law-and-order measures and a prison build-up. As he told Le Monde, “I propose to create prison places for 10,000 new inmates, and to launch under the authority of the justice ministry a penitentiary police that will carry out intelligence work in the prisons and support prison guards. Finally, we need prison compounds to fight radicalization.”

With France’s economy stagnating, its budget deficits are set to rise. It therefore has to implement further budget cuts to keep the deficit below the 3-percent-of-GDP limit set by the European Union. Juppé is therefore vowing to carry out deep attacks on social spending, should he come to power.

“After the election, we won’t be at 2.7 percent but 3.5 percent if you look at all the [current PS] government’s promises,” he said. “From the start of my term in office, I will launch major structural reforms that have been too long delayed, like setting the pension age at 65 or deregulating the labor market. Overall, I will make €80 billion in spending cuts so we can finance €30 billion in tax cuts and €50 billion in structural reduction of the deficit.”

Obama vetoes bill allowing 9/11 victims to sue Saudi government

Evan Blake

On Friday, US President Barack Obama vetoed a bill passed unanimously in Congress that is intended to allow Americans to sue foreign governments alleged to be responsible for terrorist attacks in the US. With overwhelming bipartisan support for the bill, titled “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act” (JASTA), Congress is expected to override Obama's veto later this week.

The legislation was passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month, in the aftermath of the release of 28 pages of secret government documents detailing the role of the government of Saudi Arabia in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. It has been sponsored by organizations representing September 11 victims and their families who aim to sue the Saudi government.

Spurred on by the Pentagon and CIA, as well as a desire to maintain close ties to the Saudi regime, the Obama administration opposes the bill for a number of reasons. Above all, increased litigation on the 9/11 attacks threatens to further expose the fraudulent character of both the official investigation into the attacks, as well as the so-called “war on terror” launched in their aftermath.

The attacks provided the pretext to initiate longstanding plans to wage aggressive wars in pursuit of the oil resources of the Middle East, as part a broader effort to maintain American imperialism's hegemony throughout the region and the Eurasian continent as a whole. Through the “war on terror” begun under Bush and deepened under Obama, the US has destroyed entire societies from Afghanistan, to Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria, in the process killing over a million people.

The central lies deployed by the Bush administration in 2003 to justify its attack on Iraq were that Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government bore responsibility for the 9/11 attacks and that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction.

In reality, the country most deeply implicated in the attacks was Saudi Arabia, home to 15 out of 19 of the hijackers, as well as Osama bin Laden. Saudi ties to the 9/11 attacks were confirmed by the 28-page segment from the report issued by the “Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001,” released to the public last July. The 28 pages had been stowed away in a Capitol Hill basement vault since 2002, with only members of Congress allowed to read them, barred from taking notes or discussing their content with the outside world.

The redacted document begins by stating, “While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi government.” It goes on to detail that at least two of the hijackers were “provided substantial assistance” by Omar al-Bayoumi, whom the FBI identified as a Saudi intelligence agent, while some hijackers received paychecks for no-show jobs from a company financed by the Saudi Ministry of Defense.

In order to maintain official ties to Saudi Arabia—alongside Israel, Washington's principal Middle East ally for over 50 years and the largest buyer of American weapons—these facts had to be suppressed. While claiming without any evidence that Iraq bore responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, the US was forced to bury real and substantial links to the Saudi regime.

During the buildup and launching of the war in Iraq in 2003, many of the same congressmen now professing their desire to find justice for the 9/11 victims supported the campaign of the CIA and Saudi monarchy to keep the Saudi role a secret by suppressing the 28-page document. The present bipartisan congressional support for JASTA is thus a cynical and hypocritical political maneuver.

The release of the document and the passing of JASTA coincides with the 2016 presidential election campaign, in which the two candidates have been jockeying for the support of the military and are both campaigning on aggressively “antiterror” platforms, portraying the US as virtually under siege. Both Clinton and Trump released statements criticizing Obama's decision, saying they would have signed the bill into law.

The support of the candidates and Congress for the bill is also a manifestation of the deepening rift between the US and Saudi Arabia. Last year, against the wishes of the Saudi regime, the Obama administration began a rapprochement with Iran through the signing of a nuclear agreement. Most recently, there have been rising tensions between Washington and Riyadh over US foreign policy in Syria and the broader Middle East.

At the same time, the country’s continuing importance is highlighted by the fact that influential sections of the national security apparatus were able to pressure Obama to veto the bill, as part of an effort to maintain good relations with Riyadh. A bipartisan group of former national security officials, including President George W. Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley and attorney general Michael Mukasey, President Bill Clinton's secretary of defense William Cohen, and Richard Clarke, a national security aide to both Clinton and Bush, penned an open letter to Obama urging him to veto the bill.

They wrote, “The harm this legislation will cause the United States will be both dramatic and long-lasting,” and if enacted, the bill “will most certainly undermine our relationship with one of our most important allies, Saudi Arabia, and damage our relationship with the entire Middle East.”

While not explicitly naming Saudi Arabia, Obama made clear in his veto letter that the bill threatened US foreign relations. He writes, “A number of our allies and partners have already contacted us with serious concerns about the bill. By exposing these allies and partners to this sort of litigation in U.S. courts, JASTA threatens to limit their cooperation on key national security issues, including counterterrorism initiatives, at a crucial time when we are trying to build coalitions, not create divisions.”

In his veto message to Congress, Obama also expressed concern that setting this precedent in the US “could encourage foreign governments to act reciprocally and allow their domestic courts to exercise jurisdiction over the United States or U.S. officials—including our men and women in uniform—for allegedly causing injuries overseas via U.S. support to third parties.”

In other words, if similar legislation were enacted in virtually any country in the world, lawsuits could be brought against the US government to demand reparations for decades of imperialist slaughter. In the past quarter century alone, American imperialism has laid waste to entire societies, killing and displacing millions of innocent people and creating the largest refugee crisis since the end of World War II.

Yale World Fellows Programme 2017 for Mid-Career Emerging Leaders

Application Deadline: Ongoing

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International (Any country other than the United States)

To be taken at (country): Yale University, USA

About the Award: Applications to the Yale World Fellows Programme are accepted from across sectors and around the world.  Each class of Fellows is a unique group: geographically balanced, and representative of a wide range of professions, talents, and perspectives.  The 2017 program will run from mid-August to mid-December.  Fellows are expected to be in residence at Yale for the duration of the program. 

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• Bee Mid-career stage: Fellows are at least five, and typically not more than 20, years into their careers, with demonstrated work accomplishments, and a clear indication of future contributions and excellence.  The average age of a Greenberg World Fellow is 39, though there is no minimum or maximum age limit.
• Be fluent in English: An excellent command of the English language is essential.
• Be a citizen of a country other than the United States: While dual citizens are eligible, preference is given to candidates whose work is focused outside the US.

Selection Criteria: 

• An established record of extraordinary achievement and integrity;
• Commitment to engagement in crucial issues and to making a difference at the national or international level;
• Promise of a future career of leadership and notable impact;
• Special capacity for critical, creative, entrepreneurial, and strategic thinking;
• Likelihood to benefit from participation in the Program and to contribute to global understanding at Yale;
• Commitment to a rigorous program of activities, to full-time residence at Yale for the entire duration of the program, and to mentoring students and speaking frequently on campus

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Fellowship: 

• A taxable stipend to cover the costs of living in New Haven
• A modest, furnished one- or two-bedroom apartment for the duration of the program
• Medical insurance
• Round-trip travel from home country

Duration of Fellowship: mid-August to mid-December.

How to Apply: 

• Please note that application for admission to the Yale World Fellows Programme is completely an online process. There are no paper forms to complete or mail.
• Prior to the deadline, you may work on your application at any time and submit it when you are ready. After creating an account and accessing the online application, you can upload materials and request your letters of recommendation.
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• Please visit Fellowship webpage to be notified when the application for the 2017 programme will be available.

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Award Provider: Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Programme

Ethiopian’s Crying out for Freedom and Justice

Graham Peebles

Usually the 11th September, or 1st of Meskerem on the Ethiopian calendar, is a day of celebration. It is the Ethiopian new-year. However, this year there was a distinct shortage of happy gatherings or collective jubilation to mark the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, either inside the country or amongst the diaspora.

The country is in crisis and the majority of Ethiopians believe there is little to celebrate, instead many people spent the day in quiet reflection, dressed in black. Prayers were said at church services in Ethiopia and abroad for those who have been killed protesting (a constitutional right), by security forces of the ruling regime.

As the movement for democratic change grows, the government continues to try to put it down by violent means. Security forces indiscriminately shoot peaceful protestors in the streets, beat and intimidate others. Human Rights Watch (HRW) says they receive “daily accounts of killings and arbitrary arrests”, and estimate that up to 500 protestors have been killed since November 2015, although many inside the country put the figure higher.

Thousands have been arrested and falsely imprisoned; young people – who are leading the charge for democracy – are being specifically targeted. Torture is widespread in Ethiopian prisons, and for those detainees who have expressed political dissent, it is virtually guaranteed. Witnesses have told ESAT News (an independent broadcaster based in Europe and America) that some detained protestors have died as the result of torture, and are buried in the prison grounds.

The ruling EPRDF party (in power since 1991) was not democratically elected, and has remained in power by stealing one election after another. They demonstrate no concern for democratic principles or human rights, and like all dictatorships, will do anything to remain in power. They seem unable to grasp the severity of the current situation, or understand the feeling among the population, the vast majority of whom despise the regime and are desperate for fundamental change. Protestors are calling on the government to step down, and for real and honest democratic elections to be held.

Government ministers and spokespersons repeatedly claim that ‘outside forces’, and ‘anti peace elements’ (whatever they may be) are behind the popular uprising. This of course is nothing more than propaganda; complete lies promulgated to appease the EPRDF’s benefactors and maintain the false image of a democratic government, concerned with national and regional stability and the wellbeing of its citizens. They refuse to enter into meaningful discussions with opposition leaders and activists, and have sanctioned a policy of violence, which they presumably hope will frighten the people into collective submission once more. But the democratic genie is out of the bottle and the regimes heavy-handed, not to say criminal actions, are only serving to inflame the situation.

In an action that reveals their crude and bullish approach, over a thousand regime soldiers have now been stationed in Bahir-Dar in the Amhara region, where a dignified ‘stay-at-home’ protest has been taking place for weeks. Such an intimidating presence will further antagonise local people, and strengthen already existing anger. Troops were transported on Ethiopia Airlines commercial planes on 1st September, and are now receiving their deadly orders from the Chief of Staff, Samora Yunis, who has set up base in the city. The Internet (which is controlled by the government) in the region remains largely shut down, and locals suspect telephone calls are being monitored.
Growing Unity

Freedom and justice are like healthy seeds – once planted there growth and realization is inevitable, it is a question of when they blossom, not if. The desire for these basic human rights, so long denied, is now firmly rooted in the hearts and minds of Ethiopians throughout the country. People from various ethnic, tribal and religious groups are coming together, and despite the governments attempts to divide communities, a growing sense of unity and shared purpose is evolving, strengthening the movement for change. There is a danger however that the anger felt towards the regime, which is dominated by men from the Tigray region, will spill over into hatred for all people from Tigray, fuelling an ethnic conflict. This would be a terrible mistake and should be avoided at all costs. Unity of all ethnic and tribal groups is the key for peaceful change in the country, and the signs are encouraging.

The people of Oromia and Amhara, who together constitute the majority of the population, are combining their efforts; two opposition parties – the Oromo Democratic Front (ODF) and Patriotic Ginbot 7 for Unity and Democracy (PG7) have formed an alliance, and on the sacred Islamic day of Eid-Al-Adha, the Ethiopian Muslim Arbitration Committee “called on all Ethiopians to stand in unison regardless of ethnic and religious background in the struggle to restore justice in the country”, report ESAT News. The committee went on to make clear that no amount of government force would ‘stop the people from reclaiming their freedom’.

Predictably the government responded to this call for national solidarity with violence, attacking and detaining members of the Laity, as well as Muslims in Dire Dawa and Aweday in Eastern Ethiopia. The EPRDF’s sole response to calls for freedom and justice is to try to silence by any means, those making such democratic demands.

Nationwide Actions

What started as a regional dispute in the region of Oromia (central Ethiopia) is turning into a nationwide movement that is increasingly well coordinated and determined. Throughout the country different groups have different grievances, but one enemy – the EPRDF government. Inter-related democratic fires have been erupting up and down the land as groups protest against a range of unjust government policies; unconstitutional policies that have been violently enforced for over two decades.

In the town of Konso in southwest Ethiopia, over 50,000 residents signed a petition calling for self-determination – a constitutional right. The regional council dismissed the request without discussion. Insulted and angered the people went on strike, causing government offices and businesses to close down. Security forces were brought in and, ESAT News report, killed scores of people, forcibly displaced up to 300 Amharas whose village homes were set on fire, and attempted to “incite ethnic violence” between Amharas and local indigenous groups. Frightened for their lives “over 4,000 [Amhara] people have left Konso”, with many more planning to migrate to neighboring regions.

Protests over territorial land have been taking place in the city of Gondar in the North–West of the country for months. There is a huge military presence in the area now and residents had been ordered to hand over any guns held for self-defense. However far from complying with the decree to disarm, furious locals attacked soldiers and gun battles ensued. In the Lower-Omo Valley (south-west), people from the Bodi and Mursi tribes united blocking roads in protest at the government’s land-grab policy. Large tracts of ancestral land are being sold off by the regime to national and international companies, causing the displacement of thousands of indigenous people.
In the second incident to take place in a prison in a matter of weeks, a fire broke out at the high security Qilinto prison on the outskirts of the capital Addis Ababa. Under cover of the fire special-forces personnel, who were brought in to replace prison guards, killed a number of inmates. Whilst the BBC carries the (government influenced) figure of 23 dead, other sources claim military snipers shot at least 60 prisoners. Opposition party members, journalists and protestors are amongst those held in Qilinto.

It took the authorities over a week to release the bodies of those killed; a week in which the names of victims were also withheld, causing intentional anguish to families and friends of those detained.

The Ethiopian diaspora has also been active, protesting throughout the western world. And in what appears to have been a coordinated action, Ethiopians living in London, Frankfurt and Stockholm stormed the Ethiopian Embassies. Protestors took down the (current) national standard, which bears the regimes emblem, replaced it with the countries original flag and called for an end to the killing and arrests taking place in the country.

Change is coming

Ethiopia is regularly cited as an African success story and receives huge support from western donors – both financial and political. The countries primary donors are the USA, Britain and the European Union, all of who have allowed the ruling EPRDF to violate human rights on a colossal scale. The ‘allies’ – of the government not the people – to their utter shame, have (with their virtual silence) continued to support the regime as it slays innocent people in the streets. The US, it is said, has raised “grave concerns” about the use of force against protesters; ‘concerns’, which unless backed up with actions to influence the regime, are simply hollow words, insincerely spoken.

All pressure needs to be brought to bear on the Ethiopia government to stop the violence, listen to the people and enter into serious dialogue with opposition groups. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights request for access to affected areas of the country was denied, and leading human rights groups including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders have written to the U.N. Human Rights Council, calling for an immediate halt to “excessive” use of force by Ethiopian security forces against protestors.

The ruling party of Ethiopia will no doubt ignore such reasonable calls and continue with their violent response, they seem unable to react in any other way. But whatever the EPRDF may do, the movement for change is sweeping through the country and the struggle for freedom will go on. The fear that hung over the population for so long is at last loosing its grip; people sense that the momentum is with them, and that with consistent, united action, change is a real possibility.

TISA and the Privatization of Public Services

Joyce Nelson

A new report reveals the extent to which local governments around the world have been taking services delivery back into the public sector. Water and waste water services, garbage collection, electricity delivery, health services, transit systems, and other services that were contracted-out, partially privatized through public-private partnerships (P3s) or privatized outright are now rapidly being brought back into public control across the globe because privatizations resulted in economic (or other) major problems.

The report, called Back In House: Why Local Governments Are Bringing Services Home, was recently released by the Centre for Civic Governance at the Columbia Institute in Vancouver, B.C. It focuses on the process called “remunicipalization,” so-called because the changes in ownership structure usually occur at the municipal level.

While the report is thorough and helpful, it is strangely reassuring about the impact of pending trade agreements on remunicipalization. Mentioning only NAFTA and one of the pending trade deals – the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) – which have raised the concerns of local governments, the report states: “However, while it is important to be aware of these trade rules it is equally important to understand that most decisions made by municipalities will never be affected by these agreements.” 

On the contrary, as I reveal in my new book – Beyond Banksters: Resisting the New Feudalism  – the financial oligarchy is particularly focused on increasing privatization and is pushing the trade deals in order to make remunicipalization impossible. 

This is especially true of the little-known, secret deal called the Trade In Services Agreement (TISA), which the writers of Back In House might not know about. TISA is the back-up deal in case TPP (TransPacific Partnership), TTIP (TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) and CETA fail.

Team TISA

TISA involves 50 countries, including every advanced economy except the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India China, and South Africa). TISA is being negotiated in secret, with the unelected and unaccountable European Commission representing the 28 EU countries. Other countries negotiating TISA include Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Ideland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States.

Nick Dearden, director of UK-based Global Justice Now (GJN), calls TISA “a massive super-privatization deal covering everything from finance to education.”  TISA focuses on services, not goods, and allows multinational corporations to provide services across national borders by turning public services into commodities run for profit.

TISA specifically prevents remunicipalization, or any reversals of previous privatizations of public services. The Transnational Institute has noted, “TISA will make it impossible for governments to reverse privatization or decrease the influence of the private sector. Governments will only be able to choose to maintain privatized services as they are or to extend liberalization.”  Similarly, Public Services International warns that TISA “would lock in current levels of services liberalization in each country, effectively banning any moves from a market-based to a state-based provision of public services.” As Ellen Brown has written, “TISA is a one-way street. Industries once privatized remain privatized.”  Negotiations on TISA are set to conclude in December 2016.

As I reveal in Beyond Banksters, TISA was dreamed up by the Global Services Coalition, whose “Team TISA” members include Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, MetLife, Prudential, Verizon, Wal-Mart, and other corporate titans intent on privatizing the world. Unfortunately, municipalities will be affected by pending trade deals, especially TISA.

Controlling Bodies: Italy’s Fertility Campaign

Binoy Kampmark

Demography is destiny, and the destiny of aging Europeans is long run death.  How the demographic strategists have dealt with this varies, but the tendency in various countries is either to accept refugees en masse (the now questioned Merkel solution for Germany), or encourage home breeding through various initiatives.

The latter point became an issue in Italy when the population wonks got busy with a program of encouragement: Breed for the state; conceive in patriotic circumstances.  Since the 1960s, the birth rate in Italy has fallen by half, to 488,000 babies born in 2015.  Negative birth rates has been the norm for decades.

The Fertility Day was born, and it caused quite a rotten stir.  On Wednesday, accusations were made that a booklet, published by the health ministry pointing out undesirable and desirable personal habits, was more than mildly racist.

The top part of the cover was positively bread white, sporting two couples of near Aryan fairness.  All happy, ambitiously sexual, all hopefully fecund. The dark side of life was conveniently portrayed on the front as well, just to provide a suitably ugly contrast.  Instead of horizontal collaboration in the name of the state, lounge lizards, one of them visibly black, were lighting up, decadently passing the day.

While engaging oneself in the good act of copulation (or assisted reproduction), and lighting up a reefer, are hardly inconsistent activities, such campaigns tend to be resolutely austere. Fuck, but do so with biblical purpose and concentration. It’s all a rather serious affair.

Health minister Beatrice Lorenzin, member of the New Centre Right and self-proclaimed apocalyptic Cassandra, thought she was being clever in suggesting that the photos conveyed diversity in Italy yet also making a homogenous claim.  “The photos represent a homogeneity of people, as is the multi-ethnic society in which we live.  Racism is in the eye of the beholder.”  As is, come to think of it, racial homogeneity.

The country has borne witness to a range of posters encouraging a fertility drive.  Twelve have been produced.  “Beauty has no age,” goes one trite claim.  “But fertility does” (La bellezza non ha età.  La fertilità sì.)

Even the Italian Prime Minister has expressed irritation at the campaign run by his minister.  Matteo Renzi decided to throw his colleague to the wolves by distancing himself in a radio interview. He claimed that none of his friends felt an urgency to have children after seeing such an advertisement, with only stable jobs and appropriately financed day care being the priorities to ensure more children.

“If you want to create a society that invests in its future and has children,” asserted Renzi, “you have to make sure that underlying conditions are there.” Not the most earth shattering of revelations, but entirely appropriate to the standard policy maker, and one having to face the traditional impediments facing Italian families.

Sexuality and fertility tend to be minefields for policy makers.  While families and sexual life should be deemed areas of autonomous endeavour, family policies rarely reflect the family as a totally private, and privatised matter. Behind every child is a demographic consideration, a population marker.

In this case, it was obvious that fertility was being treasured, the sacred grove of a society’s existence.  The infertile one would invariably be cast on the outer, as would those waiting for an appropriate partner, or a more appropriate economic situation.

As author Robert Saviano noted on his Facebook page, the focus in this odd campaign was on urgency and desperation, rather than discretion and discrimination. “You are not certain that your partner is the right one?  Come on, procreate, for where they eat two eat three.”

When states start to fiddle the demographic picture, unevenness is a standard result.  The other aspect of the fertility coin is restriction and control.  When governments get involved in that field, problems can also arise.

China’s one-child policy, the classic example of fertility fiddling in action, had its backers, but it has always had its prominent detractors.  The fear there was that a centrally imposed directive about breeding would be demographically disturbing. Cultural impediments, in other words, were not adjusted to cope with the aspirations.

The inadvertent consequence of that approach was a preponderant favouring of male children.  The results of that all too remarkable social engineering exercise is a conspicuous shortage of brides for the surfeit of men. The availability of inexpensive ultrasound machines, notably in the countryside, also enable parents to make tactical decisions accordingly.

Then there is another side, often neglected by the panic mongers keen to see prams filled and cots populated. Aging is not necessarily a cause for crisis. The National Academy on an Aging Society has made the claim that demography need never be destiny – provided that a “reasoned set of policy choices” are put in place. Sort out the care options and employment, and the babies will duly follow.

Earth Could Reach Critical Climate Threshold In Decade, Scientists Warn

Nadia Prupis

The planet could pass the critical 1.5°C global temperature threshold in a decade—and is already two-thirds of the way to hit that warming limit, climate scientists warned on Thursday.

Speaking at a University of Oxford conference this week, led by leading U.K. climate researcher Richard Betts, scientists said global greenhouse gas emissions are not likely to slow down quickly enough to avoid passing the 1.5°C target.

The goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C was agreed to in the landmark Paris agreement negotiated by 195 nations last year.

But the planet is continuing to experience unprecedented heat month after month, setting 2016 on track to be the hottest year ever recorded. In fact, the scientists said, Earth is currently on a trajectory to hit at least 2.7°C in global temperature rise.

Pete Smith, a plant and soil scientist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, said mass lifestyle change must be undertaken to combat rising temperatures, such as developing more sustainable diets, reducing food waste and red meat intake, and importing fewer greenhouse gas-heavy vegetables.

“There are lots of behavioral changes required, not just by the government…but by us,” he said. He also warned that controversial geoengineering techniques such as sunlight blocking could become the norm in some countries.

The warning came the same day that Oil Change International released a report that found we have 17 years left to get off fossil fuels, or else face unprecedented and irreversible climate catastrophe.

Yet more bad news also emerged Thursday as a new study published in the journal Science found that the Earth is soaking up carbon at a far slower rate than previously estimated—which could mean a massive setback for environmental efforts.

Once considered a vital weapon in the fight against climate change, the soil, which traps carbon that would ordinarily be released into the atmosphere, has now been found to take a much longer time to absorb carbon than scientists believed—which means its potential for carbon sequestration this century “may only be half of what we thought it was,” the Washington Post explains.

As Jim Hall, director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, put it at the conference, “We need to get ready to deal with surprise.”