Drought In Somalia: Over 100 Children Die Everyday From Starvation

Thomas C. Mountain

The UN just announced that due to drought and famine over 300,000 Somali children are suffering from severe malnutrition. This means that over 100 children are already dying everyday from starvation. Soon the number will reach many hundreds a day, bringing back memories of the most recent Great Horn of Africa drought in 2011-12 when the UN admitted that 250,000, almost entirely children, died from starvation. And this drought and famine is worse.

The reason so many Somali children are starving to death is triggered by the latest climate disaster in the form of the El Nino drought. But the fact that Somalia itself, this meaning from the former capital Mogadishu south to the Kenyan border, is in a state of foreign occupation and war is exacerbating the situation.

The ongoing war in Somalia was started by the UN back in 2006 when the UN and AU, and ultimately the USA, sanctioned Ethiopian army invaded Somalia and overthrew the existing government headed by the Union of Islamic Courts.

Until the Ethiopian invasion and occupation of Somalia in 2006 the country was peaceful and starting to rebuild a war torn nation thanks to the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), a coalition of Somali Clan Elders and senior Islamic religious leaders or Sheiks.

The UIC’s popular militias had driven the warlords and gangsters out of Mogadishu and through negotiated settlements had spread its influence increasingly to the south bringing peace to most of Somalia.

The Port of Mogadishu had been reopened and talks for reopening Mogadishu Airport had begun. In other words, for the first time since 1991 Somalia was in a state of peace.

This was all shattered when the UN and its African Union gendarmes, the Ethiopians, invaded Somalia, occupied Mogadishu and placed a bounty on the heads of the UIC, who mostly being older, had to flee the country into exile.

What was left to lead the wave of Somali nationalism opposing the invasion and occupation by their historical enemies, the Ethiopians, was Al Shabab, the youth wing of the UIC who picked up the gun to fight an armed struggle for national liberation.

Eventually, the fanatic wahabist wing of the youth movement for national liberation defeated the quite moderate UIC elders lead fighters and voila, today’s “terrorist” organization known as Al Shabab was born.

The UN, the AU and behind it all, the USA, was never going to allow any “Islamist” government to take over in such a strategically critical country like Somalia at the mouth of the Red Sea and potentially able to control the Baab Al Mandeb entrance to the Indian Ocean.

Just as in Libya, the western instigated funded and directed overthrow of an independent, nationalist government created the conditions for fanaticism to thrive, as in Al Shabab in Somalia.

The Somali people didn’t create Al Shabab, the UN did by starting a war that is still raging today, ten years later. And worse yet by creating a monster in the form of an army lead by religious fanatics under a banner of Somali nationalism you guarantee that there will be unending violence and even more famine and genocide.

Famine and genocide, it seems something that the UN specializes in when it comes to Somalia, for the UN is responsible for feeding the internally displaced persons its war against the Somali people has been creating for a decade now, and simply fails to do so.

In 2011 the UN via UNICEF only budgeted 10 cents a day, $35 million, to feed a million Somali refugees and a quarter million starved to death. Today there are far more children starving for this time the drought is worse. Yet the UN is standing by and once again allowing hundreds of thousands of Somali children to starve.

The UN has spent untold $Billion$ funding the AU implemented occupation and war in Somalia in the name of fighting terrorism in the form of Al Shabab, with over 30,000 AU “peacekeepers” occupying Somalia.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it, $Billion$ for war and never mind the hundreds of thousands of starving children the UN is responsible for? And so it happens that we find ourselves once again predicting the next UN sponsored genocide in Somalia.

New fossil discovery may date origin of life on Earth earlier than previously known

Philip Guelpa

Newly discovered bacterial fossils may push back the date of the earliest direct evidence of life on Earth to 3.7 billion years ago, 220 million years older than the previous record. This is roughly four-fifths of the way back to the original formation of the planet, 4.6 billion years ago. If confirmed, this discovery would have tremendous significance for our understanding of the evolution of life in the universe.

The research was published in the August 31 issue of the journal Nature by a team of Australian researchers lead by Allen P. Nutman of the University of Wollongong. They used radiometric dating of volcanic ash deposits to determine the age of the fossil layers.

Stromatolites found in the Isua area of Greenland are currently the oldest fossil evidence of life on Earth. Credit Allen Nutman

Patterns in a rock specimen from the Isua formation in southwestern Greenland are interpreted as the fossilized remains of features known as stromatolites. These are the result of ancient bacteria and/or algae (their precise nature has not yet been determined) that lived in water and formed colonial “mats.” The living mats tended to accumulate sedimentary particles or precipitate carbonates which were eventually concreted into solid rock, preserving impressions that are the fossilized remains of these organisms. The newly reported fossils were revealed in bedrock recently exposed by the melting of glacial ice, due to the retreat of the Greenland ice sheet.

It is more than a bit ironic that the discovery of these most ancient organisms, the earliest life forms so far identified, was made as a result of global warming, which threatens a mass extinction of life on Earth.

The earliest previously known, and now widely accepted, stromatolites had been found in Western Australia, dating to 3.48 billion years ago. Organisms that create similar formations still exist in certain locations on Earth today.

Some researchers have questioned whether the identified features in the Greenland rocks are actually biological fossils, noting that the rock formations in which they are found are metamorphic, having undergone significant modifications under conditions of high pressure and temperature following their sedimentary origins. Thus, the identified features could be artifacts of the metamorphism. There is ongoing research to rule out or confirm this hypothesis.

The authors of the Nature article counter that the observed features are sufficiently distinct as to indicate that they escaped the intense changes suffered by adjacent portions of the rock formation and are indeed the result of biological processes. They cite similarities to the more recent and more widely accepted Australian fossils.

The existence of what were already relatively complex life forms, made up of multi-cellular structures, even if the organization was of a rudimentary character, at such an early stage in Earth’s development, indicates that a significant amount of biological evolution had already taken place. Hence, the actual origin of life on Earth must have occurred even earlier, within the first billion years of Earth’s existence.

Previously, indirect evidence of life, based on chemical traces in rock formations suggestive of biological activity, has been dated to between 3.8 and 3.7 billion years ago. The Greenland fossils fall into that time frame, possibly corroborating the chemical signature.

Image a shows stromatolites found in Greenland while those in c and d are a younger sample from Western Australia. Image b reveals how the Greenland microbes formed different layers over time. ‘Stroms’ are several overlapping stromatolites. Credit: Nature

Unfortunately, finding direct evidence of even earlier life is highly unlikely. Active geologic processes, such as plate tectonics and metamorphism, have so modified the rocks that made up the early Earth that subtle remnants of the most primitive life forms have likely been obliterated.

If such direct evidence was found, it would provide a great deal of insight into the conditions of early Earth. At that period, terrestrial surfaces were black, consisting of exposed bedrock formed by cooled lava, without soil or any plants or animals. Oceans were green due to large amounts of dissolved iron. Plants had not evolved, meaning there was very little oxygen in either the oceans or atmosphere. The entire planet was toxic to modern life.

The Greenland discovery has substantial implications not only for life on Earth but for the potential for life elsewhere in the universe. It indicates that life can develop early in a planet’s history, possibly less than half a billion years after its formation, and under harsh conditions. Among other things, it suggests that primitive life could have evolved independently on early Mars, a time when the planet’s chemistry and geology were similar to those found on Earth during its early existence.

Given such possibilities, a new question emerges: What is the range of conditions for life to evolve and how often do they occur?

In recent years, astronomical research has demonstrated that planets orbiting other stars are likely a widespread phenomenon. Other research has found a planet orbiting a nearby star at just the right distance to have bodies of liquid water on its surface. It is enticing to think of just how many other solar systems could have planets with conditions similar to early Earth.

Bosnian Serb referendum inflames tensions in the Balkans

Paul Mitchell

On Sunday, the government of Republika Srpska (RS—Serb Republic), led by President Milorad Dodik, held a referendum on keeping January 9 as a national holiday. Some 99.8 percent voted in favour in a 56 percent turnout of the republic’s 1.2 million registered voters.

The referendum went ahead despite the Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Constitutional Court ruling it illegal, saying that January 9, a Serbian Orthodox Christian holiday and the day on which Bosnian Serbs declared independence from Bosnia in 1992, discriminated against Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Croats.

The referendum is inflaming ethnic tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and within the Balkans more generally, and heightening tensions between the Western imperialist powers and Russia. The controversy shows that after 21 years, nothing has been resolved by the US-brokered 1995 Dayton Accord, which divided BiH into two semi-independent entities—the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), inhabited mainly by Bosniaks and Croats, and the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska (RS). The Dayton agreement ended the four-year war provoked by the imperialist powers’ policy of dismembering Yugoslavia, itself bound up with the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe.

Dodik was promoted as an opponent of then-RS President Radovan Karadzic. He was praised by US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, who brokered the Dayton process, as well by as the US secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, who called him a “breath of fresh air,” and the foreign secretary of the British Labour government, Robin Cook.

Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosniak member of the tripartite BiH presidency and leader of the Party of Democratic Action, warned recently that the referendum was “some kind of test balloon” that could “slowly plunge [BiH] into conflicts which later you will be unable to halt.”

“Nobody is more ready to defend this country all the way to the end,” Izetbegovic added.

Sefer Halilovic, the former Bosnian army chief of staff and leader of the Bosnian Patriotic Party, which has one MP in the BiH parliament, was more outspoken, warning, “If someone wants to break Bosnia apart, that will not go [ahead] without a war.”

RS President Dodik called such reactions “hysteria,” adding, “This is not a referendum about secession as many want to portray it. … It is not even a beginning of such a process.”

However, Dodik has worked to whip up nationalism, and his Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) has agreed to hold an independence referendum in 2018 if powers he says RS lost as a result of the Dayton process are not restored by next year.

Prior to the referendum, Western diplomats belonging to the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), created to oversee the Dayton agreement, issued a statement declaring, “We once again urge the RS authorities not to hold the referendum. … The decision of the BiH Constitutional Court will remain fully in force and must be respected.”

The statement added, “Republika Srpska will remain an integral and essential part of the sovereign state of BiH…there will be no redrawing of the map.”

Russia, a member of the PIC, did not sign the statement. Petar Ivancov, Russia’s ambassador to Bosnia, called the referendum an “act of democracy,” adding, “Our position is very clear. We believe the people of Republika Srpska have the right to declare themselves on vital issues.”

Last Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Dodik, after which the RS president expressed his gratitude for Russia’s “unambiguous” support—a barb directed at Serbian Prime Minister Aleksander Vucic, who opposed the referendum. Serbia is walking a tightrope between Russia, with which it is trying to maintain a long and close relationship, and the European Union (EU), with which it is conducting membership negotiations.

Behind Ivancov’s sudden concern for the democratic rights of the Bosnian Serbs is Russia’s attempt to counter a renewed offensive by the US and EU in the Balkans. Last week, the NATO Military Committee chairperson, General Petr Pavel of the Czech Republic, said the Balkans remained a potential source of military conflict, adding that NATO had to be in a position to deter adversaries and defend its members.

Russia has seen one Balkan country after another join the EU or apply for membership, including BiH, which applied last February.

Following the UK Brexit referendum vote to leave the EU in June, in an attempt to prove that the EU was not suffering from “expansion fatigue,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with Bosnia’s three presidents and offered to help speed up Bosnia’s accession to the EU. Merkel declared, “I personally promise that we, from the German side, will try to help entrepreneurs in BiH if they have certain disadvantages and drawbacks. If there are real problems, we will support farmers financially.”

Last week, the EU formally accepted BiH’s membership application, declaring its “unequivocal commitment to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s EU perspective as a single, united and sovereign country.” The EU commissioner responsible for enlargement, Johannes Hahn, made it clear, however, that a precondition for BiH joining the EU was acceptance of pro-market restructuring and the dismantling of state social welfare subsidies. He declared, “One of our biggest challenges in preparing the Western Balkan countries for the EU is restructuring the economic model to ensure that all countries are functioning market economies and are driven by export and investments rather than import and consumption.”

The demand for “restructuring” is what lies behind Dodik’s referendum manoeuvres. His escalation of Serb nationalism, coming in the run-up to October 2 municipal elections that will likely benefit the opposition alliance led by the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), is aimed at distracting attention from the EU’s austerity agenda and dividing workers along ethnic and communal lines. The aim is to prevent a united movement against a corrupt ruling elite that has overseen growing social inequality and unremitting attacks on the social position of the working class.

The unemployment rate in BiH is 42 percent, forcing 80,000 young people in a country of less than 4 million to emigrate last year. The average monthly wage is 1,293 convertible marks (US$748), and the minimum wage is 403 marks (US$232). BiH remains one of the poorest countries in Europe. The country’s richest 85 people, however, are worth US$9 billion.

Over the last year, as EU spokesperson Jamila Milovic Halilovic recently reported, Bosnia has made “crucial progress” towards meeting its “demanding” 2015-2018 Reform Agenda agreed with the EU. “It was a long list and, as a result, there were some delays. … But virtually all reforms were concluded or introduced, including difficult political measures like new labour laws in both entities,” Halilovic explained.

The imposition of austerity will only get worse. In early September, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to a €553 million three-year loan that was reported as pulling BiH “back from the brink” and averting a liquidity crisis. The freezing of the bank accounts of hospitals is just one sign of the growing financial nightmare facing both Bosnian entities. The IMF could cancel the second installment of the new loan if concrete “reforms” are not apparent within three months.

Lesbos fire highlights tragic situation of refugees in Greece

John Vassilopoulos

Tensions reached the boiling point on the Greek island of Lesbos on Monday, September 19, after the refugee camp at the village of Moria was set alight.

Around 60 percent of the camp was destroyed, including 50 large sleeping tents, three containers as well as clothing supplies. Two separate fires also broke out in the surrounding area, laying waste to nearly four acres of land containing olive trees adjacent to the camp.

The sequence of events that led to the fires began earlier in the day when rumours circulated around the camp of imminent mass deportations to Turkey. This led to riots breaking out, during which around 300 refugees attempted to march through the town. They were stopped by large numbers of police who blocked their way, forcing them back to the camp where fresh unrest broke out—including scuffles between different ethnic groups—culminating in the torching of the camp.

According to the Greek edition of the Huffington Post, when the fire broke out in the camp, “hundreds of refugees and migrants ran away towards different directions on the island. At the same time mothers with babies in their arms, old people, men and children were running to safety—some without even shoes on. By around midnight the fire had been put out.”

Nine people of varying nationalities living at the camp were arrested the following day on suspicion of starting the fires.

While the camp’s catering and medical facilities had been restored by Thursday, 300 small tents had yet to be fully set up and it was still unclear at that time whether the approximately 4,500 detainees resident before the fire had returned. Many of them are still sleeping rough nearly a week later.

There are currently nearly 14,000 people being detained in refugee camps on Greek islands in the Aegean, while existing infrastructure is only adequate for around 7,500 people. In Lesbos alone, which is the entry point of around 50-60 percent of all refugees arriving into Greece from Turkey, there are 5,700 stranded refugees while the island’s capacity is for only 3,500. This is more than double the number only a few months ago due to an increase in the flow of refugees coming into Greece from Turkey.

This is only one consequence of the flood of refugees created by the predatory wars of the US and European powers. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over 300,000 refugees and migrants had crossed the Mediterranean, mainly to Italy and Greece, by September. This was 42 percent lower than the 520,000 registered sea arrivals during the first nine months of 2015. However, the numbers of dead or missing was 3,211, “only 15 per cent lower than the total number of casualties for the whole of 2015 (3,771)”—making this year potentially the deadliest ever.

A report published by Doctors of the World, an NGO operating at the Moria refugee camp, states that Lesbos saw a 28 percent surge in the number of arrivals between July and August. The camp, according to the report, is ill-equipped to deal with this surge and there are real risks to public health due to overcrowding, the lack of adequate washing and toilet facilities as well as ongoing problems with the sewage facilities at the camp.

“We have no water for showers and sometimes we have to go to the field in order to use the bathroom because the smell and hygiene of the toilets are horrendous,” a Nigerian inmate told Deutsche Welle. Another inmate from Palestine was quoted by Greek daily Kathimerini stating, “The situation is dramatic, there are sick people [at the camp] and there are no doctors to treat them. Recently there was a scuffle and we were pleading for an ambulance to be called.”

This situation is a direct consequence of the EU’s policy on the refugee crisis, which the Syriza-led government is implementing.

In March an agreement between the EU and Turkey stipulates that Turkey takes back all refugees who come across the Aegean to Greece. As a result, refugee camps in Greece, known as “hotspots,” are essentially internment camps of people most of whom are destined to be deported back to Turkey after their cases have been assessed in what is an extremely slow process.

Kathimerini cited the example of Asia and her sister-in-law Famida who reached the island of Chios in March with their 11 children. “They tell us that we might not be interviewed for another nine months,” stated Asia, while Famida told the paper, “We can no longer live in the hotspot, my children are frightened with all the fighting and the noise.”

Tensions are also stoked between the different ethnic groups by the fact that the outcome of the asylum process is influenced by the applicant’s ethnic origin. According to the Huffington Post, “Syrians are viewed as ‘lucky’ in the great race for asylum, whereas Afghans, Pakistanis, Iraqis and others have a harder time convincing authorities they’re at risk.”

This has fuelled outbreaks of inter-ethnic conflict at the Moria camp, which are often put down by the Greek riot police that has constant presence at the camp.

Aid agencies have long warned about the simmering tensions at the Moria camp, describing it as “a ticking time-bomb.”

“If nothing changes, this is going to happen again and again and again,” Benjamin Anoufa, an IRC field coordinator, told the Huffington Post. “We are talking about people who fled war, surely at night, walked at night to cross borders, who stayed in Turkey four to five years. And now, they arrive into circumstances like this.”

The situation at the Moria camp has also stoked tensions among sections of the local population, partly due to the increase in petty theft, including of livestock and vegetables from peoples’ gardens as a result of the economic desperation of the migrant and refugee population, many of whom are sleeping outside the hotspot due to overcrowding. There are also concerns about the ongoing problems with the camp’s sewage system, given that sewage has reportedly been leaking in the local river and is ending up in the sea.

On the day the fire broke out there was a march by around 600 residents of Moria through Mytilini, the capital of Lesbos. The protest included a small, but vocal contingent of the fascist Golden Dawn, who were chanting nationalistic and anti-immigrant slogans. During the march four women NGO activists who were passers-by were attacked and one of them had to be hospitalised. Separate attacks and threats of violence by locals against refugees and migrants have been reported, including a group of migrants outside the Moria hotspot being threatened with a shotgun by an 84 year-old man.

One day before the fire broke out, Golden Dawn activists were present at the weekly ceremony in downtown Mytilini that commemorates Lesbos’ independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912, which consists of the lowering of the flag and singing of the national anthem by an armed forces detachment.

Golden Dawn was there on the pretext of protesting the cancellation of the ceremony the week before, due to security concerns given that the ceremony would have coincided with a protest by refugees outside the local customs office. Their presence was described by emprosnet.gr, a local Lesbos news web site, as “a contrived display of national patriotism with xenophobic characteristics, which blatantly implies that the refugees and migrants in Lesbos are threatening to alter our national identity.”

If Golden Dawn is able to channel local anger into the scapegoating of migrants, this is primarily down to the Syriza government. It is Syriza whose enforcement of the EU’s reactionary refugee policy has pitted different groups of migrants against each other while stoking tensions among the local population who face savage austerity measures that are also imposed at the behest of the EU.

US to deport thousands of Haitian workers

John Marion

In a statement issued last Thursday, US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced that deportations of Haitian immigrants—which had been suspended after the January 2010 earthquake—will resume. Johnson’s statement cited “policies prioritizing the removal of … individuals apprehended at or between ports of entry while attempting to unlawfully enter the United States.”

In other words, Haitians who have committed no crime other than seeking a better life will be denied that opportunity. The policy is being applied to anyone who arrived at the border on Thursday or afterward.

Those stuck at the border have been forced to sleep outside or seek food and beds at shelters in Tijuana. According to the San Diego Union Tribune, Tijuana’s “four main shelters have found themselves overwhelmed”; more than 2,800 people have stayed in just one of the shelters, Desyunador Salesiano Padre Chava, this summer.

The trigger for DHS’s decision is a more than 10-fold increase in the number of Haitians entering or trying to enter the United States through the San Ysidro, California border crossing. During the year ending September 30, 2016, more than 5,000 have entered the United States on parole. The previous year saw fewer than 350 Haitians enter at San Ysidro. The humanitarian parole process allows people to enter the US and stay for up to three years while an immigration court hears their case. Since the deportation policy was announced, Homeland Security officials have told the press that 2,000 people will be deported.

This brutal policy is being implemented not by Republican Donald Trump, but by President Barack Obama and the same Democratic Party that postures as a friend of immigrants and uses identity politics in a cynical attempt to corral voters.

Media reports indicate that the policy change was made unilaterally by the US government, which complained that the Haitian government is not well prepared to process the deportees. Interim Haitian President Jocelerme Privert, in New York to address the UN General Assembly, found out about Johnson’s decision the day it was announced, according to Le Nouvelliste.

Thousands of Haitians migrated to Brazil after the earthquake, at a time when that country’s economy was still booming and its unemployment rate was low. Even while it was supplying many of the generals who oversaw the UN’s MINUSTAH “peacekeeping” force of soldiers and police in Haiti, the Brazilian ruling elite was happy to increase its own supply of low-paid labor through immigration, and therefore offered work visas. Now that Brazil’s economy is in crisis, the Haitian workers are making the more than 7,000 mile trip from Brazil to the US by land. The long, life-threatening and expensive voyage can cost as much as US $13,000.

MINUSTAH troops, who have occupied Haiti since 2004, have sexually abused hundreds of Haitians, including children under age 18. The crimes are so serious that Privert raised them in his address to the General Assembly last week.

Johnson’s September 22 statement claimed that “the situation in Haiti has improved sufficiently to permit the U.S. government to remove Haitian nationals on a more regular basis.” This, at a time when the number of cholera cases and deaths in Haiti is increasing, when its interim president has warned the UN General Assembly that the Zika and chikungunya viruses are still rampant, and when flooding from any tropical storm this season will increase the death toll from these diseases. Fox News reported two weeks ago that 25,000 cholera cases were registered in Haiti from January to July of this year, a more than 20 percent increase from the same period in 2015.

Haiti’s economy has not “improved sufficiently” either. Citing World Bank figures, the Miami Herald has reported that the country’s economic growth is likely to be less than 1 percent this year, and that foreign aid—which was more than $2 billion in 2011—is now only $250 million per year. A sharp decrease in the value of the Haitian Gourde against the US dollar is driving up the cost of food imports, while parts of Haiti are suffering from severe drought.

Appeals for political asylum from new arrivals or those being processed in US immigration courts are likely to fall on deaf ears. Presidential elections in Haiti are scheduled for next month, the legislature is again in session and mayors are starting to be elected instead of appointed. The US government will use these developments to deny asylum applications, even though they do nothing more than reverse the policies of US client president Michel Martelly, who ruled by decree during his last year in office.

Nor have conditions “improved sufficiently” for Haitians trying to emigrate elsewhere. Suriname is now denying entry to Haitians—even on commercial flights—French Guiana is beginning deportations and the Dominican Republic continues to force tens of thousands of people across its border. Alterpresse reported this weekend that since June 2015, approximately 120,000 families and more than 1,600 unaccompanied children have crossed into Haiti from the Dominican Republic. Nearly 24,000 have been officially transported to the crossings at Ouanaminte, Malpass, and Belladère during that time by the Dominican government.

Johnson’s statement does continue the exemption from deportation of Haitian immigrants who entered the US in Temporary Protected Status after the earthquake, but only through July 22, 2017. To qualify for the extension, a person needs to “have been continuously residing in the United States since January 12, 2011.”

Deutsche Bank plunge sparks talk of “Lehman moment”

Nick Beams

Shares in Deutsche Bank plunged yesterday in the wake of reports in a German news magazine that Chancellor Angela Merkel had ruled out assistance to the bank following the imposition by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) of a $14 billion fine over its dealings in the sub-prime mortgage market leading up to the financial crisis of 2008.

On Friday, Focus, a weekly magazine based in Munich, reported that Merkel had categorically stated the government would not step in, citing unidentified government officials. The publication said the chancellor had made her views known in discussions with the bank’s CEO, John Cryan.

Deutsche Bank shares plunged 7 percent, falling to their lowest level since 1983 despite a statement by Cryan that the bank had not sought government assistance in its negotiations with the DoJ. Shares in Deutsche Bank, which has been troubled by persistent reports about its financial ill health, have fallen 55 percent over the past year.

According to a report in the Financial Times, on a market capitalisation basis, it now ranks 78th among global banks, “just below Malaysia’s Public Bank and Brazil’s Itausa Investimentos Itau.”

Last month, the International Monetary Fund described Deutsche Bank as the weakest link in the global financial system, and its position has only worsened since then with the imposition of the DoJ fine.

The fine imposed on it was triple the amount that Deutsche Bank had put aside for that purpose. If paid in full it would, in the words of a BBC report, “put the bank’s finances under life-threatening pressure” as it is worth only $18 billion. Even if the amount were half it would still pose a “serious problem.”

The problems for Deutsche Bank have been growing all year and its financial position raised concerns during the period of market turbulence in January and February, when bank shares fell sharply worldwide. In February, Cryan issued a statement to reassure staff and investors that its position was “rock solid.”

Since then, however, its position has only worsened as efforts to restore profitability by cutting costs have proved unsuccessful. Then came the DoJ fine. It has sparked fears that businesses that were supposed to provide it with a boost will not go ahead because counterparties will be reluctant to deal with the bank and it will start to lose revenue because of the bad news surrounding it.

As the British Daily Telegraph commented, if the German government does not stand behind the bank, then other banks and financial institutions will start to be very nervous in dealing with it. “As we know from 2008, once confidence starts to evaporate, a bank is in big, big trouble,” and “if Deutsche goes down, it is looking increasingly likely that it will take Merkel with it – and quite possibly the euro as well.”

Like a flock of vultures, hedge funds have been circling with a number of them shorting Deutsche Bank shares in the expectation they will rapidly fall.

Whatever the final amount of the fine, Deutsche Bank would almost certainly have to raise additional capital to meet it. But here it encounters a major problem because the low and even negative interest rate regime of the European Central Bank has hit the business models of all major banks. As one commentator on the US CNBC business channel noted, “How do you raise more capital if your profits are declining?”

The turmoil surrounding Deutsche Bank is only a particularly sharp expression of the developing crisis of the entire European banking system flowing from the 2008 financial meltdown. Speaking on Monday, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said there was an “overcapacity of banks in Europe,” and that government should create the legislative conditions for consolidation to take place.

“Do you really want to have a system that only reaches the right dimension after protracted failures? Banks in Europe should be strong and profitable. One of the reasons for low profitability is exactly overcapacity,” he said.

If Deutsche Bank were to fail it would not stop there. Because of its connections with other banks and financial institutions, the effects would rip through the entire European financial system and extend globally. No one knows the full extent of the consequences, but some commentators have already pointed to the possibility of a “Lehman moment” – a reference to the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers that sparked the global collapse of 2008.

First in line for a major crisis would be the Italian banking system, where it is estimated that there are €360 billion of bad loans on the books, four times the level in 2008 and comprising 17 percent of total loans outstanding.

In addition to mounting economic problems, the crisis surrounding Deutsche Bank has a major political component. It is significant that the action against the banks has been launched not by the regulatory authority, the Securities and Exchange Commission, but by the Department of Justice.

The size of the fine also points in the same direction. “The DoJ is asking for 10 times more from Deutsche than they asked from any of its US peers, with no disclosure—it is extortion,” Davide Serra, the founder of a company that invests in the debt of European banks, told the Financial Times.

The imposition of the fine has come in the midst of rising political and economic tensions between the US and the European Union, and particularly Germany. The recent decision by the EU to impose a €13 billion payment on Apple for back taxes over a deal with the Irish government brought strong opposition from major US corporations and the US Treasury.

The row over Apple was followed by statements from Germany and France that have virtually ended negotiations over the US push to establish a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to cover its trade and financial dealings in Europe. Together with the Trans Pacific Partnership, covering the Asian region but excluding China, the US regards the TTIP as crucial to maintaining its position of global economic dominance.

But earlier this month, German Finance Minister Sigmar Gabriel rendered negotiations dead in the water, declaring that “we as European naturally cannot submit to American demands.”

The crisis over Deutsche Bank points to two interconnected processes. First, far from having been resolved, all the contradictions of the global financial system that exploded eight years ago not only remain, but have worsened. Second, despite all rhetoric about cooperation and collaboration issuing from major economic summit meetings of world leaders, the global economic and financial system is increasingly becoming a battleground of each nation against all.

Clinton-Trump debate: A degrading spectacle

Patrick Martin

The first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was a political and cultural abomination. It demonstrated, in both style and substance, the thoroughgoing decay of American capitalist society over many decades.

It says a great deal about the US political system that, out of 330 million people in America, the choice for president has been narrowed down to these two individuals, both members of the financial aristocracy—they last met face-to-face when the Clintons attended Trump’s third wedding in 2005—and both deeply and deservedly hated by a large majority of the population.

There was not the slightest intellectual substance or reasoned political content to the so-called “debate.” No topic was addressed with either intelligence or honesty. Both candidates lied without effort or shame, slinging insults and prepared one-liners against each other while posturing as advocates of working people.

The capitalist two-party system in America has never put a premium on intelligence or truth. It has always been based on politicians who represent the interests of a narrow stratum at the top of society, while pretending to speak for all of the people. But by 2016, this pretense has lost all credibility.

Trump is the personification of business gangsterism, a billionaire who built his fortune on swindles, bankruptcies, the theft of wages and deals with the Mafia. When Clinton charged him with profiteering from the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market, which touched off the 2008 financial collapse, he retorted, “That’s business.” When she accused him of paying no taxes on his vast fortune, he boasted, “That makes me smart.”

Clinton is the personification of political gangsterism, deeply implicated in the crimes of American capitalism over a quarter century, from the destruction of social welfare programs, to the criminalization of minority youth, to the launching of imperialist wars that have killed millions. At one point in the debate she declared that her strategy for defeating ISIS was focused on the assassination of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. She alluded to her role in “taking out” Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and said she would make such killings “an organizing principle” of her foreign policy.

Clinton came into the debate as the favorite of the media and the American ruling elite, a tested servant of the financial aristocracy who can be relied on to serve as the political figurehead for the military-intelligence apparatus. She found her voice in the event as the representative of identity politics in the service of imperialism, making repeated appeals along racial and gender lines while threatening Russia with war and presenting the crisis in the Middle East as something that could be resolved by killing the right people.

Trump has attracted support by appearing to give voice to anger over the catastrophic decline in the social position of working people, citing plant closings, mass unemployment, rising poverty, the deterioration of roads, schools, airports, etc. But he offers no solution except the elimination of every restraint on the operations of big business: slashing taxes on corporations in half and scrapping business regulations.

The fascistic billionaire made perhaps the only truthful statement in the debate when he declared that American capitalism faced disaster after a “recovery” that was already the worst since the Great Depression. “We are in a big fat ugly bubble that’s going to come crashing down as soon the Fed raises interest rates,” he said. This recalls the remark by President George W. Bush during the financial meltdown of September 2008, when he blurted out, “This sucker’s going down.”

The media apologists of the Democrats and Republicans blabbed both before and after the debate about the need for fact-checking of the candidates. But the entire debate was a lie, from beginning to end. The falsehoods uttered by Trump and Clinton are picayune compared to the overarching lie that these candidates offer a genuine choice to the American people.

Whatever the outcome of the election, whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton replaces Barack Obama in the White House, the next administration will be the most reactionary government in the history of the country, committed to a program of imperialist war, social austerity and attacks on democratic rights.

The task of the working class is to prepare itself politically for the struggles that will be generated by the drive to war and the deepening crisis of world capitalism.

Withdrawing the MFN Status to Pakistan: Legality and Implications

VP Haran

The Most Favoured Nation (MFN) treatment is the fundamental basis of multilateral trade conducted under the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. It simply means that WTO members will not discriminate among other members, except as specifically provided for in the rules. Multilateral trade rules embodied in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [GATT], were framed in the immediate years following the World War II, which probably prompted the framers of the rules to provide for exceptions to the general rule on grounds of National Security, via Article XXI. There are other exceptions as well, in Article XX of the GATT. In the context of reports that India will be reviewing its 1996 decision to extend the MFN status to Pakistan, it will be useful to understand the legal position, in view of our commitments in the WTO and under SAFTA.

Pakistan, which is bound by WTO rules to extend the MFN status to India has not done so, using the provisions of Article XXI. India has not taken the issue to the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, partly because it is difficult to challenge Pakistan’s subjective assessment on security issues. Nor has New Delhi reconsidered withdrawing the 1996 decision – probably because it gives us bragging rights that we have been extremely reasonable in dealing with Pakistan. Article XXI ‘Security Exceptions’ of GATT states that:

“Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed…(b) to prevent any contracting party from taking any action which it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests…(iii) taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations; or (c) to prevent any contracting party from taking any action in pursuance of its obligations under the United Nations Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security.”

The critical phrase – “which it considers necessary” – gives a member state nearly unfettered rights to invoke this provision at its own discretion, which is what Pakistan has used, to deny the MFN status to India. In the mid-1980s, following a ban on imports of goods and services from Nicaragua by the US, the former approached the GATT. The US argued that validity of its decision to invoke Article XXI cannot be examined by the GATT Panel and succeeded in getting this critical point excluded from the terms of reference to the Panel.

The answer to whether or not India has the right to withdraw the MFN status to Pakistan on security considerations is a most definitive yes. When Pakistan has invoked a security exception to deny India an MFN status, New Delhi would be justified in reciprocating for the same reason and under the same provision; and Pakistan will have no case to take to the WTO. Furthermore, recent developments near the India-Pakistan border would constitute an emergency in New Delhi’s relations with Islamabad, which would justify the decision to withdraw the MFN status.

 

All members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) are required to extend MFN treatment to fellow members, under the South Asian Free Trade Agreement [SAFTA]. SAFTA also provides for some exceptions, one of which is national security. Article 14(a) of the SAFTA states that: 

 

“Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent any Contracting State from taking action and adopting measures which it considers necessary for the protection of its national security.”

 

This provision is modeled after Article XXI of the GATT and here again, the member can adopt “measures which it considers necessary”. The measures are left to the discretion of the member and India would be justified in withdrawing the MFN status in the present circumstances. Its assessment in this regard is beyond challenge.

 

While India would be on firm legal ground in withdrawing the MFN status granted to Pakistan, what would the practical implications be? It will be a strong political message to Pakistan, but more importantly, to domestic public opinion that the government means business in facing up to the security challenges from the western frontier.

 

It is uncertain whether it will have serious economic consequences for Pakistan. Pakistan’s exports to India in 2015-16 was $441 million – 1.56 per cent of its total exports – and much of it was primary products. On the other hand, India’s exports through regular channels to Pakistan in 2015-16, despite the denial of MFN status, was $2.17 billion. Pakistan could retaliate by restricting imports of several items from India.

 

On the economic front, the scores may be even; but on political terms, India would have scored a point.

Solomon Mahlangu Scholarship Fund for Young South Africans 2017

Application Deadline: Applications (online and manual) close on 15th January 2017.

Eligible Countries: South Africa

To be taken at (country): South Africa

Eligible Field of Study: Full-time degrees that fall within the priority growth sectors, critical and scarce skills areas outlined in the labour planning framework of the country.Full-time degrees that fall within the priority growth sectors, critical and scarce skills areas outlined in the labour planning framework of the country.

About the Award: In its quest to address the challenge of youth unemployment, access to education, among many other challenges, the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) changed its core business to focus on education and skills development as the organisation’s main priority. This move was informed by studies which suggested that salary remains the main source of income for young South Africans.

The Solomon Mahlangu scholarship fund was established in honour of Solomon Kalushi Mahlangu who at the age of 23, was executed under the apartheid laws after being wrongfully accused of murder and terrorism. Fearing crowd reaction at the funeral, police decided to bury Mahlangu in Atteridgeville, Pretoria.
The scholarship fund is designed to create an environment for affording youth with excellent academic background, an opportunity to further their studies. Financial support will be provided to youth who pursue full time degrees that fall within the priority growth sectors, critical and scarce skills areas outlined in the labor planning frameworks of the country.
The fund will be accessible to deserving South African youth who meet the minimum entry requirements set by the NYDA and, who have been admitted for study at public Universities and Universities of Technology

Type: Undergraduate

Eligibility: 

• Students must be applying for admission to one of the public universities as a 1st year full-time student in a priority study (see above).
• High school learners who plan to attend one of the public universities or university of technology after completing the National Senior Certificate
• Must meet University Admission Points Score (APS) and achieve an average of 70% in the NSC exams
• Must be South African citizens between 14 – 35
• Financial neediness – combined household salary of less than R15 000 a month
• Reside in rural/semi-rural areas

Number of Awardees: 150

Value of Scholarship: 

• Tuition
• Accommodation
• Meals
• Study Books

Duration of Scholarship: The Solomon Mahlangu Scholarship is awarded for the duration of studies

How to Apply: Applications can be completed online or manual. Click HERE to start completing your online application.

Download an application form (form in the link below) or get one from your nearest branch. Complete the form and send to VDG House, 8 Victoria Road, Plumstead, Cape Town 7945 or email to studentfunding@studentfundingportal.com.

It is the responsibility of the applicant to fully complete the online application form.

Electronic applications are the preferred method of applying as they ensure speed, accuracy and efficiency.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: National Youth Development Agency (NYDA)

Important Notes: 

• Application does not automatically mean acceptance; a selection will be made of students to be covered by the scholarship programme.  Application does not automatically mean acceptance; a selection will be made of students to be covered by the scholarship programme.
• NO late applications will be considered.

A System Of Food Production For Human Need, Not Corporate Greed

Colin Todhunter


There has been an adverse trend in the food and agriculture sector in recent times with the control of seeds and chemical inputs being consolidated through various proposed mergers. If these mergers go through, it would mean that three companies would dominate the commercial agricultural seeds and chemicals sector. Over the past couple of decades, there has already been a restriction of choice with the squeezing out of competitors, resulting in higher costs for farmers, who are increasingly reliant on corporate seeds (and their chemical inputs).

Big agribusiness players like Monsanto rely on massive taxpayer handouts to keep their business models on track; highly profitable models that have immense social, health and environmental costs to be paid for by the public. Across the globe healthy, sustainable agriculture has been uprooted and transformed to suit the profit margins of transnational agribusiness concerns. The major players in the global agribusiness sector fuel a geo-politicised, globalised system of food production that result in numerous negative outcomes for both farmers and consumers alike (listed here: 4th paragraph from the end).

Aside from the domination of the market being a cause for concern, we should also be worried about a food system controlled by companies that have a history (see this and this) of releasing health-damaging, environmentally polluting products onto the market and engaging in activities that might be considered as constituting crimes against humanity. If we continue to hand over the control of society’s most important infrastructure – food and agriculture – to these wealthy private interests, what will the future look like?

There is no need to engage in idle speculation. Foods based on CRISPR (a gene-editing technology for which Monsanto has just acquired a non-exclusive global licensing agreement for use) and synthetic biology are already entering the market without regulation or proper health or environmental assessments. And we can expect many more unregulated GM technologies to influence the nature of our food and flood the commercial market.

Despite nice sounding rhetoric by company spokespersons about the humanitarian motives behind these endeavours, the bottom line is patents and profit. And despite nice sounding rhetoric about the precision of the techniques involved, these technologies pose health and environmental risks. Moreover, CRIPRS technology could be used to create genes drives and terminator seed traits tools could be used for unscrupulous political and commercial ends.

There could well be severe social and economic consequences too. The impacts of synthetic biology (another sector dominated by a handful of private interests) on farmers in the Global South could result in a bio-economy of landlessness and hunger. Readers are urged to read this report which outlines the effects on farming, farmers and rural economies: synthetic biology has the potential to undermine livelihoods and would mean a shift to narrower range of export-oriented mono-cropping to produce biomass for synbio processes that place stress on water resources and food security in the exporting countries.

Aside from these social, health and environmental implications, can we trust private entities like Monsanto (or Bayer) to use these powerful (potentially bio-weapon) technologies responsibly? Given Monsanto’s long history of cover-ups and duplicity, trust took the last train out a long time ago. Moreover, the legalities of existing frameworks appear to mean little to certain companies: see here what Vandana Shiva says about the illegality of Monsanto’s enterprise in India. National laws that exist to protect the public interest are little more than mere hurdles to be got around by lobbyists, lawyers and political pressure. So what can be done?

Agroecology is a force for grass-root rural change that would be independent from the cartel of powerful biotech/agribusiness companies. This model of agriculture is already providing real solutions for sustainable, productive agriculture that prioritises the needs of farmers and consumers. It represents an alternative to corporate-controlled agriculture.

However, as much as people and communities strive to become independent from unscrupulous corporate concerns and as much as localised food systems try to extricate themselves from the impacts of rigged global trade and markets, there also has to be a concerted effort to roll back corporate power and challenge what it is doing to our food. These corporations will not just go away because people eat organic or choose agroecology.

The extremely wealthy interests behind these corporations do their level best to displace or dismantle alternative models of production – whether agroecology, organic, public sector agriculture systems or anything that exists independently from them – and replace them with ones that serve their needs. Look no further than attempts attempts to undermine indigenous edible oils processing in India, for instance. Look no further than the ‘mustard seed crisis‘ in India in 1998. Or look no further than how transnational biotech helped fuel and then benefit from the destruction of Ethiopia’s traditional agrarian economy.

Whether it’s on the back of US-backed coups (Ukraine), military conflicts (Iraq), ‘structural adjustment’ (Africa) or slanted trade deals (India), transnational agribusiness is driving a global agenda to suit its interests and eradicate impediments to profit.

To underline this point, let’s turn to what Michel Chossudovsky says in his 1997 book ‘The Globalization of Poverty’. He argues that economies are:

“opened up through the concurrent displacement of a pre-existing productive system. Small and medium-sized enterprises are pushed into bankruptcy or obliged to produce for a global distributor, state enterprises are privatised or closed down, independent agricultural producers are impoverished.” (p.16)

Increasing profit and shareholder dividends are the bottom line. And it doesn’t matter how much devastation ensues or how unsustainable their business model is, ‘crisis management’ and ‘innovation’ fuel the corporate-controlled treadmill they seek to impose.

As long as the domination of the food system by powerful private interests is regarded as legitimate and as long as their hijack of governments, trade bodies and trade deals, regulatory agencies and universities is deemed normal or is unchallenged in the sham ‘liberal democracies’ they operate within, we are destined for a future of more contaminated food, ill health, degraded environments and an agriculture displaced and uprooted for the benefit of self-interest.

The problems associated with the food system cannot be dealt with on a single-issue basis: it is not just about the labelling of GM foods; it’s not just about the impacts of Monsanto’s Roundup; it’s not just about Monsanto (or Bayer) as a company; and it’s not just about engaging in endless debates with corporate shills about the science of GMOs.

Despite the promise of the Green Revolution, hundreds of millions still go to bed hungry, food has become denutrified, functioning rural economies have been destroyed, diseases have spiked in correlation with the increase in use of pesticides and GMOs, soil has been eroded or degraded, diets are less diverse, global food security has been undermined and access to food is determined by manipulated international markets and speculation – not supply and demand.

Food and agriculture have become wedded to power structures that have created food surplus and food deficit areas and have restructured indigenous agriculture across the world and tied it to an international system of trade based on export-oriented mono-cropping, commodity production for a manipulated and volatile international market and indebtedness to international financial institutions.

The problem is the system of international capitalism that is driving a globalised system of bad food and poor health, the destruction of healthy, sustainable agriculture and systemic, half-baked attack on both groups and individuals who oppose these processes.

At the very least, there should be full public control over all GMO/synthetic biology production and research. And if we are serious about reining in the power of profiteering corporations over food – our most basic and essential infrastructure – they should be placed under democratic ownership and control.

In finishing, let us turn to Ghiselle Karim who at the end of her insightful article says:

“… we demand that it is our basic human right to protect our food supply… [food] would be planned to meet human need, not corporate greed.  We have hunger not because there is not enough food, but rather because it is not distributed equally. The core of the problem is not a shortage of food, but capitalism!”