Report documents Canadian government’s abuse of immigrant and refugee children

Janet Browning & Roger Jordan

An August 2016 report, “No Life For A Child: A Roadmap to End Immigration Detention of Children and Family Separation,” by human-rights researchers from the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law criticizes successive Canadian governments for their brutal and illegal practice of locking up immigrant and refugee children.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) routinely detains all undocumented migrants and refugees “who are considered a flight risk or a danger to the public and those whose identities cannot be confirmed,” including children and adolescents.

Infants, children and teenagers are generally kept in federal immigration holding centers in Toronto and Laval, Quebec. Designed for adults, these facilities resemble medium-security prisons, with little privacy or freedom of movement, and little to no access to education and exercise, says “Not Life for a Child.”

According to the report, between 2010 and 2014, an average of 242 children were cruelly and arbitrarily detained annually in immigration detention centers, often after rejected refugee claims, in violation of Canada’s international legal obligations.

However, the researchers caution the true number of detained children is actually much higher, since the Canadian government’s statistics exclude children who were being held because their parents were in custody and were not themselves subject to a detention order. The detained children came from all over the globe, including some from Syria and other war-ravaged regions.

Those in detention have not been convicted of any crimes, nor have they even been charged with a crime. They exist in legal limbo, but are treated like convicted criminals.

Significantly, the study confirms that the detention of child refugees has proceeded apace under Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government. Earlier this year, two 16-year-old boys were held in solitary confinement, in one case for three weeks, at the Toronto holding center.

The report’s findings explode the Trudeau government’s attempt to posture as a friend of refugees. When he assumed power last year, Trudeau made a calculated appeal to the widespread public sympathy for the plight of refugees by announcing the acceptance of 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of February. He posed for pictures at Toronto’s Pearson Airport when he greeted the first plane-load in December.

The Liberals’ election pledge amounted to a drop in the bucket given that millions have been displaced by the US-fomented war in Syria. Moreover, it was made up largely of refugees who were being privately sponsored by charities and other groups. In the months since, reports have emerged of many refugees struggling to get by and having to rely on food banks and donations to survive.

The Liberals’ hypocritical “refugee-friendly” pose was meant to form a demonstrable contrast with the previous Harper Conservative government, the better to press ahead with a reactionary agenda of expanding militarism abroad and implementing austerity at home.

Trudeau’s Liberals are no less responsible for creating the conditions for the refugee crisis than the Harper Conservatives. Under the previous Chretien-Martin Liberal governments, Canada joined the war in Afghanistan, which laid waste to the country and forced hundreds of thousands to flee, and whilst in opposition the Liberals enthusiastically supported Canada’s leading role in the NATO war on Libya, which left the country in ruins and largely under the control of Islamist militia.

In the year since Trudeau came to office, Canada has expanded its role in the US-led war in Iraq and Syria, where millions have been forced to flee their homes, and it is planning military interventions on the impoverished African continent to prop up authoritarian regimes in the name of the “war on terror.”

The Liberals have also sent warships to the eastern Mediterranean to assist NATO in enforcing the European Union’s brutal refugee “deterrence” program, which has claimed the lives of thousands who have drowned horrifically in the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas.

Children have been hit particularly hard by the refugee crisis. Estimates suggest they represent around a quarter of all migrants and refugees worldwide. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates there are now more than 60 million refugees worldwide.

The Global Detention Project has called Canada, with its mandatory detention laws, an “outlier” on detention for immigrants and refugees among industrialized democracies. The conditions in which adults and children are kept are miserable, as shown earlier this year when a group of refugees went on hunger strike at their detention facilities. Trudeau’s Public Safety Minister, Ralph Goodale, refused to meet with them.

Immigration detention in Canada is harsh and arbitrary for the explicit purpose of “deterrence”—i.e. discouraging migrants from coming to Canada by making it known they will be subjected to harsh treatment.

There are strict rules, regimented daily routines, and significant restrictions on privacy and liberty. Children in detention are under constant and invasive surveillance. They have inadequate access to education, insufficient opportunity for recreation and play, and receive poor nutrition and healthcare.

"They are the equivalent of medium-security prisons. There's barbed wire, there are routines that people have to follow in terms of mealtimes. They're not nurseries. They're not designed as daycare centers. These are, in effect, prisons," said Samer Muscati, director of the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto. "It's the worst sort of place you can put a child in." He described meeting parents who said that their children's first words were "search" or "shift change."

At the press conference held to release the report, Rachel Kronick, a child psychiatrist at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal and an assistant professor of psychiatry at McGill University, who contributed to the research, said, "Life in immigration detention is woefully unsuited for children." She said the report’s findings are clear and well documented. "Our research concluded that it is never in the best interests of children to be separated from their parents. Nor is it ever in the best interests of [a] child to be detained,…Migrant children's right to health must be protected. Children who are detained or separated from their families experience extreme psychological distress.”

The report was based on interviews with detained refugees and asylum seekers, as well as mental health experts, social workers, legal professionals and children's rights activists. Organizations and individuals endorsing the cessation of the barbaric practice of detaining children include the Canadian Pediatric Society, the Canadian Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists, the Office of the Ontario Child Advocate, and the president of the Canadian Bar Association.

The report notes that Canada’s current practices relating to the detention of children are in violation of its international legal obligations.

These terrible conditions have been created by the passage of ever more draconian refugee legislation by successive governments. Under the Chretien-Martin Liberal government, a law was passed that strips anyone who arrives in Canada via a “safe third country” of the right to even apply for refugee status.

In 2012, the former Harper government tabled the draconian Refugee Exclusion Act (Bill C-31), which legalized mandatory incarceration for refugees designated as “irregular arrivals.” Under this law, which was presented as a way to reduce the flow of “bogus refugees” and people-smuggling,” migrants, including children, can be detained for a year pending a governmental review of their case.

This legislation, now being implemented by the Trudeau Liberals, effectively strips refugees of basic democratic rights, including freedom from arbitrary detention, the right to freedom and security, and habeas corpus.

Also in 2012, the Conservatives enacted the Protecting Canada's Immigration System Act which further limits the rights of refugee claimants to appeal a rejected claim, including eliminating any right of appeal for those from so-called “safe countries.” It also mandated biometric identification procedures for those applying for a Canadian visa.

The gig economy: More than 160 million in US and EU rely on “independent work”

Genevieve Leigh

Up to 162 million individuals in the United States and the European Union, or 20 to 30 percent of the working-age population, engage in “independent work,” a phenomenon that makes up what is being called the “gig economy,” according to a McKinsey Global Institute report released this month.

The report defines this independent work as a position that meets three basic criteria: a high degree of autonomy; payment by task, assignment, or sales; and a short-term relationship between the worker and the customer. These jobs include things like freelance work, driving for Uber, sales on Etsy, renting out rooms on Airbnb, and various temp jobs.

The report divides those who take part in independent work into four categories under the headings: “free agents,” those who both actively choose independent work and collect their primary income from it; “casual earners,” defined as workers who supplement their main income with independent work and do so by choice; “reluctants,” who make their primary income from this work but would prefer traditional jobs: and “financially strapped,” workers who do independent work out of necessity.

The group referred to as the “reluctants” make up 14 percent of independent workers, which equates to 23 million people. The “financially strapped” comes in slightly ahead, at 16 percent, or 26 million people. This adds up to almost 50 million people who take second or third jobs in the independent sphere out of necessity.

The report does not include what are becoming known as “fissured workers,” those whose jobs are considered non-core functions such as technical support, janitorial services and security, and are therefore being turned over to vendors and subcontractors, often resulting in another form of casualized labor.

The report explains that independent work provides many “macro benefits” to the economy by increasing labor force participation and the number of hours worked in the economy. Also among the beneficiaries of this layer of workers are the owners of startups, who rely on such cheap labor to avoid the “burden” of full-time employees. In other words, those on the receiving end of the “benefits” of the casualization of the labor force are not the workers, but the capitalist class, the petty-bourgeois, and aspiring petty-bourgeois layers who are no longer forced to supply long-term fixed jobs to their employees.

As the study notes, independent workers have limited access to income security protections, such as unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, and disability insurance. Since pay is often awarded as a lump sum according to the type of project, rather than by hours worked, minimum wage laws may not apply and retirement security is virtually nonexistent. Most casualized laborers are not provided health insurance, forcing them to turn to the overpriced Obamacare exchanges, or individual insurance market, or pay tax penalties for not being insured.

In addition, workers are considered to be “independent contractors” by the IRS, which requires paying self-employment tax in addition to income tax. This type of work creates other obstacles as well, such as reduced access to credit, the risk of not being paid for work that is already performed, and complex tax filing, licensing and regulatory compliance requirements.

However, many of the obstacles cited above have come to apply not only to part-time work, but to full-time jobs as well. With workers’ pensions being liquidated in many major US cities going through economic crises, Obamacare health care plans on track to increase by 25 percent in 2017, and wages remaining stagnant across the board, the “benefits” of full-time employment are becoming more and more a thing of the past.

The reality of the situation is that casualizing the workforce means only that the working class may now “choose” how they wish to be exploited, be it a “traditional” 9 to 5 job, or under the more novel guise of “independent” work.

Often packaged as creating “options” for workers, as this study suggests, the reality is that these new forms of employment provide options and increased profits for the ruling class. The push for more part-time and independent work is an attempt to curb the declining rate of profit, inherent in the capitalist system, by finding new ways to squeeze labor at a lower cost. It stokes competition between workers who are now forced to enter a race to the bottom within the independent sphere, as well as between those in the independent sphere and in full-time employment.

Possibly most affected by this shift in the economy is the Millennial generation, those aged 18-30. The report notes that more than half of those under age 25 participate in independent work, not just in the United States but throughout the European Union as well.

US mergers set new record in October

Barry Grey

With Qualcomm’s announcement Thursday of a $39 billion deal to acquire NXP Semiconductors NV, October has set a new monthly record for US mergers and acquisitions.

Coming the same week as AT&T’s $85 billion merger agreement with Time Warner and the $47 billion deal for British American Tobacco to take full control of Reynolds American, the total volume of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) for the month has reached $248.9 billion, topping the previous record of $240 billion set in July of 2015.

The past week has also set a new weekly high of more than $177 billion.

While M&A activity this year still trails last year’s record pace by 20 percent, recent weeks have seen a sharp acceleration of deal making. Such a flurry of M&A announcements in the run-up to a presidential election is rare. It indicates that the US corporate-financial elite does not anticipate a major change in the business-friendly policies of the government, whichever party captures the White House.

The character and scale of the latest merger announcements underscore the relentless process of monopolization that is increasingly placing economic activity in the US and around the world in the hands of a relative handful of corporate behemoths, whose economic dominance only enhances their control of bourgeois parties, politicians and governments, whether nominally of the “left” or “right.”

The announced merger between Qualcomm and NXP, for example, “counts as the second largest pure technology deal of all time after Dell Inc.’s recent acquisition of EMC Corp. for about $60 billion,” according to the Wall Street Journal. The San Diego-based semiconductor giant Qualcomm is a leader in the field of mobile devices. In acquiring the Netherlands-based NXP, the world’s biggest developer of chips for automobiles, Qualcomm is seeking to expand its revenue base under conditions of a stagnating market for mobile phones.

A takeover of Reynolds American by British American Tobacco would create the world’s largest listed tobacco company by revenues and market value.

The AT&T-Time Warner merger, if approved by the next US administration, will represent what the Washington Post called a “seismic shift” in the “media and technology world,” one that “could turn [AT&T] into a media titan the likes of which the United States has never seen.”

In addition to controlling much of the traditional telephone market, AT&T is already the biggest pay-TV provider in the US and the second largest wireless provider, behind Verizon. The acquisition of Time Warner would give this tech colossus control over a large swath of news and entertainment in the US, including such Time Warner properties as CNN, HBO, Cinemax, other Turner System cable channels and the Warner Brothers film studio.

There is every indication that the wave of mergers will continue. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that business telecommunications firms CenturyLink and Level 3 Communications are in advanced talks to merge in a deal likely to be valued at more than $20 billion.

The extraordinary level of mergers and acquisitions and the scale of the combinations are expressions of stagnation and crisis in the basic economy and the growth of financial parasitism. Mergers as a rule add nothing to the productive forces. On the contrary, they divert capital from productive investment and are generally used to slash costs and eliminate jobs. Stock prices are generally bid up, producing windfalls for big investors, and countless millions are pocketed by Wall Street investment bankers and lawyers.

Since the financial crash of 2008, M&A activity has soared while the real economy has settled into a malaise of slow growth, reduced productive investment, declining productivity and a fall in the growth rate of world trade. Along with the wave of mergers, banks and corporations have funneled billions of dollars into stock buybacks and dividend increases, entirely parasitic measures that enhance the wealth only of the rich and the super-rich.

Adding to the drive to consolidate is an environment of stagnant and declining corporate profits. Earnings for firms in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index are expected to rise a modest 1.1 percent in the third quarter, but that follows five consecutive quarters in which they fell.

Commenting on the record M&A activity in October, the Journal wrote on Friday: “With sales growth hard to come by in a slow economy, companies are casting about for ways to cut costs and keep profit growing. But after years of belt-tightening they need new sources of efficiency, such as a merger with a rival. Many are also looking to deploy their cash hoards in ways that will ensure future growth after spending years aggressively buying back stock.”

American corporations are hoarding an estimated $2 trillion in cash, much of it parked overseas to evade US taxes. Meanwhile, the focus on speculative and parasitical activities is producing an ever-larger overhang of debt. Tech companies in the S&P 500 today owe a combined $451.4 billion in long-term debt. This is an increase of 42 percent from just a year ago.

The speculative orgy and debt binge are encouraged by the super-stimulative monetary policies of the US Federal Reserve and the other major central banks. Years of near-zero interest rates and money printing in the form of “quantitative easing” have made corporate borrowing extraordinarily cheap. Companies are using borrowed funds to finance stock buybacks, dividend increases and mergers. Debt among all companies has risen every year since 2009, reaching $6.6 trillion in 2015, equal to more than a third of the country’s gross domestic product.

Italy: Another earthquake and an impending political crisis

Marianne Arens

Yet another earthquake shook central Italy on the evening of October 26. Two major tremors reading 5.4 and 6.1 on the Richter scale and over a hundred aftershocks affected the entire region of Marche and could also be felt in Rome. Because people were still awake and immediately ran outdoors, the only person who died as a consequence of the earthquake was an elderly man who had a heart attack.

Two months ago, several earthquakes struck the region of Gran Sasso and the villages of Amatrice, Accumoli, Pescara and Arquata. Almost 300 people were killed and over 400 injured. Numerous buildings collapsed and people spent the night in the cold and pouring rain. After Wednesday’s earthquake, thousands of people are in need of emergency accommodations, drinking water, toilets, warm clothing and a new home.

Minister President Matteo Renzi (Democratic Party) promised the earthquake victims two months ago that “rebuilding has priority.” However, even the damage of the earlier earthquakes had not been repaired. For example, seven years after L’Aquila was hit by an earthquake in 2009, the city centre is still one big construction site, and some of it has simply been left in ruins, empty and abandoned. Most people are still living in improvised housing that is now falling apart as well. Balconies have collapsed and the wind blows through walls and ceilings.

On account of the earthquake, Renzi interrupted his national referendum campaign tour and returned to Rome from Venice. The vote on December 4 could, however, bring about a shakeup of an entirely different kind: a political earthquake with far reaching consequences, not only for Italy, but also for the fate of the EU.

On December 4, Renzi’s most important reform, the constitutional referendum, will come to a vote. If passed, it would abolish the two-house system of parliament and simplify and accelerate the decision process. The Italian government wants to use the reform to prepare for war and impending class struggles.

The government is following the dictates of finance capital, which demands the introduction of authoritarian forms of rule in order to carry out supposedly necessary “reforms” against the opposition of the population. Renzi has, for a long time, connected the passing of this reactionary referendum with his personal fate. “If the referendum fails, my political career is at an end,” he has declared.

However, Renzi cannot be at all certain of the victory of the referendum. His policies in recent years and the attacks of his government on workers, pensioners and youth have enormously intensified social tensions. According to a report published by Caritas Italy on October 7, the number of people in absolute poverty has grown by 1.8 million to a total of 4.6 million in eight years. To an increasing extent, poverty affects not only southern Italy, but also the northern regions. As the report says, it affects “the entire society and not just isolated groups.”

With his pension reform, his “Buona Scuola” school reform, his “Jobs Act” labour reform, he has carried out a sustained attack on basic social rights. For weeks, there have been repeated strikes and protests against the government. In September, package deliverers, truck drivers, railway workers and flight personnel employed by the airline Alitalia went on strike. On September 15, an Egyptian worker was run over and killed by a strike-breaking truck, leading to days of protests by tens of thousands of people.

On Friday, October 21, over a million workers all over Italy took part in strikes organized by the so-called rank-and-file trade unions. This included strikes at Fiat factories, in particular the FCA factory in Pomigliano near Naples.

The “rank and file” trade unions (COBAS, CUB, USB and others) have taken up these struggles because the traditional trade unions support the labour and market reforms of the Renzi government. Union bureaucrats such as CGIL head Susanna Camusso are in fundamental agreement with Renzi that the Italian economy has to be saved at the expense of workers. The large metal working union FIOM, to which CGIL belongs, expelled all workers who took part in a boycott of the enforced Saturday shifts at Fiat.

It comes as no surprise that tens of thousands of workers are leaving the traditional unions and turning to “alternative” rank-and-file unions. However, these organizations are dominated by pseudo-left conceptions and their policies do not go beyond a nationalist and trade union perspective. The tense political situation demands an international and revolutionary program, but the “rank and file” unions close their eyes to this necessity, just like the traditional unions.

Instead, they allow right-wing forces to take the political initiative.

In effect, Lega Nord, the fascists and other right-wing radicals are responsible for a massive mobilization against the referendum. Lega Nord head Matteo Savini has called for a blockade of several Northern Italian cities, such as Milan and Bologna, supposedly in order “to free Italy” and “to stop immigration.” They have also called on the Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo to take part in the blockade.

Beppe Grillo has called for a “no” vote in the referendum. Grillo and his Five Star Movement could be the victors if Renzi loses the referendum on December 4. This poses a threat to the very existence of the EU.

Beppe Grillo is the most important EU ally of Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). Farage was the main proponent of the Brexit movement, which achieved a majority in favour of the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU on June 23. Grillo also calls for Italy to quit the EU and the euro.

The victory of the opponents of the referendum could further intensify the crisis of the EU, which is already threatened with a split and conflicts such as the disagreement over refugees and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada. Following the austerity diktats in Greece, Spain and Italy, growing layers of the population see the EU as the main culprit in attacks on wages, jobs and social programs.

However, the Five Star Movement does not attack the EU from the left, from the standpoint of the European working class, but from a right-wing nationalist standpoint. A national solution would make the crisis in Italy even worse. This has already been demonstrated by the deep crisis of the Italian banks, which are on the verge of collapse. The Italian banks have bad loans on their books amounting to over €360 billion.

On October 27, the troubled bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena suspended trading for the third time in a week. Its share prices moved like an extreme temperature curve and the renovation plan, to which the union had agreed, now includes layoffs of 2,600 employees and the closing of 500 branches.

This is why, in order to win support for his referendum, Matteo Renzi is trying to portray himself as a representative of Italian interests in opposition to the EU. In the current struggle over the Italian budget, he has made an ultimatum to the EU commission, demanding that it approve Italy’s planned deficit. La Repubblica held a prominent interview with Economics Minister Pier Carlo Padoan, in which he warned the EU Commission: “If the EU rejects our budget, this would be the beginning of the end.”

The 2017 draft budget includes a planned deficit of over 2.3 percent of GDP in the coming year. However, for Italy and other highly indebted EU member states, the EU has only approved a maximum of 2.2 percent, instead of the usual debt ceiling of 3 percent.

However, Renzi insists on passing a more flexible budget, and justifies this with the growing number of refugees from Africa and the enormous expense of rebuilding after the earthquake. On the day of the earthquake, he said on television that, effective immediately, he would only take into account “the needs of Italian citizens, but not those of Brussels technocrats.”

Renzi’s promises are—as always—grandiose and not to be taken seriously. He has promised a significant increase in pension payments to retirees and wants to increase social welfare by €500 million. This would barely be a drop in the bucket, since even a meagre improvement of conditions for those living in poverty would, according to official numbers, require an immediate expenditure of €2 billion.

UN warns US-Saudi war threatens mass starvation in Yemen

Bill Van Auken

United Nations aid agencies warned Friday that Yemen, after 18 months of savage bombardment in a US-backed war waged by Saudi Arabia and its fellow oil monarchies, is facing a catastrophic crisis threatening mass starvation.

More than 10,000 people have been killed since the Saudi regime began its bombing campaign in March 2015. Millions more have been displaced, and urban areas and essential infrastructure have been reduced to rubble.

According to statements issued by UN agencies, over 14 million Yemenis, more than half the population, is now living in hunger, while 7 million are on the verge of starvation.

In a press briefing in Geneva Friday, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said that at least 370,000 children are at risk of severe malnutrition, and without urgent treatment will die. Fully 1.5 million children are malnourished.

Aya, 2 years old, in Hodeidah main hospital being checked against acute malnutrition [Photo: WFP/Abeer Etefa]

The World Food Program (WFP) reported that almost half the children of Yemen are already suffering irreversibly stunted growth due to malnutrition. “An entire generation could be crippled by hunger,” said the WFP’s Yemen director, Torben Due.

The UN agency found that at least 10 of the country’s 21 governorates are on the brink of famine.

“It is really a dire situation on the ground. When you see mothers who have little to eat themselves and they see their children slipping away, it just breaks your heart,” said WFP spokeswoman Bettina Luescher. “It really is shocking and horrible to see this in the 21st century.”

The threat of mass starvation is compounded by a rapidly spreading cholera epidemic, which has recorded 1,410 cases in just the three weeks since the outbreak was first detected.

This human tragedy is not merely the byproduct of a war waged by the wealthy and parasitical Gulf monarchies, backed by Washington, against the poorest nation in the Arab world. Rather, it is this war’s intended effect.

The supposed aim of this war is to reinstate what is routinely referred to as the “internationally recognized government” of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, a stooge of Saudi Arabia who was placed in power through a 2012 election in which he was the sole candidate. He was supposed to step down in two years, but unilaterally extended his term and then, amid charges of wholesale corruption, was forced to flee the country after the Houthi rebels, based in the north and supported by elements of the military, took over the capital of Sana’a.

The Saudi regime, fearing any opposition in the region, refused to accept the rise of the Houthis, a political movement based on the Zaidi Shia group, which has enjoyed limited support from Iran.

In addition to a murderous bombing campaign that has targeted schools, hospitals, residential neighborhoods and factories, the Saudi-led coalition of Gulf sheikdoms, backed by the US Navy, has also imposed a sea blockade that has choked off the impoverished country’s supplies of food and medicine. Before the war, Yemen imported 90 percent of its food. The blockade has sent the price of food and other basic necessities soaring out of reach of much of the population.

There is also mounting evidence that air strikes have been deliberately targeted at destroying the country’s ability to provide its own food. The British daily Independent cited a study by London School of Economics researchers who documented “357 bombing targets in the country’s 20 provinces, including farms, animals, water infrastructure, food stores, agricultural banks, markets and food trucks.” Their conclusion: “...the Saudis are deliberately striking at agricultural infrastructure in order to destroy the civil society.”

Agriculture is a major sector of the national economy of Yemen [Photo: WFP/Abeer Etefa]

In other words, with the aid of US imperialism, Saudi Arabia and its allies are attempting to starve an entire population into submission in what constitutes one of the great war crimes of the 21st century.

The UN reports came just days after Reuters photos from a Yemeni hospital of a starving 18-year-old girl, literally reduced to skin and bones, gained some international attention.

The photographs recall nothing so much as the horrific images that came out of Biafra in the late 1960s, when the Nigerian government waged a genocidal war to suppress the secessionist territory. That attempt to starve a people into submission is credited with spawning the modern-day “human rights” movement, with its plethora of NGOs and its overriding imperialist hypocrisy.

There is no such international reaction to the crimes carried out against the people of Yemen, however, which are largely ignored by the Western media and supported by the ruling parties not only in Washington but also the United Kingdom and all the other imperialist powers.

The media and the UN agencies have euphemistically referred to the slaughter being inflicted upon the Yemenis by the Saudi monarchy and the Pentagon as “the forgotten war.” In reality, the immense human suffering inflicted by this war of aggression has not been forgotten, it has been deliberately blacked out by those in Washington and Riyadh who are determined to deepen it to the point of mass murder in order to achieve their strategic objectives.

Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, who made a lucrative career posturing as a human rights champion, was one of the leading proponents within the Obama administration for US support for the war against the people of Yemen. She has also been one of the principal defenders of the Saudi regime within the United Nations, which on Friday re-elected the blood-soaked monarchy to its human rights council.

Power, who has led the demonization of Russia over alleged war crimes in Aleppo, has, for obvious reason, shown no such sympathy for those dying from starvation and US bombs in Yemen.

Since the beginning of the war, the Pentagon has provided logistical and intelligence support, including the aerial refueling of warplanes, without which the Saudi bombing campaign would be impossible. Moreover, the US has poured a whopping $115 billion in arms into the kingdom since Obama took office, resupplying bombs and missiles dropped on Yemeni homes, schools and hospitals.

Following an October 8 Saudi bombing of a funeral, killing over 140 people, the Obama administration and the Pentagon issued hollow statements about US support to Riyadh not being a “blank check” and Washington’s military backing being reevaluated “so as to better align with US principles, values and interests.”

Within days, however, a spokesman for the US Central Command told reporters that nothing had changed, and that the US was continuing to provide aerial refueling of Saudi warplanes so that they could strike their targets in Yemen. Then on October 12, the US Navy fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at Yemeni installations in retaliation for what it claimed were failed missile attacks on a US warship.

Earlier this week, US Central Command Chief General Joseph Votel flew to Riyadh for talks with Saudi officials, including the regime’s defense minister, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Votel told reporters that he wanted to “hear Saudi concerns” and that it was “important to maintain confidence in the relationship.”

The threat of the war in Yemen not only continuing, but seeing a more direct US military escalation is likely to intensify in the aftermath of the US presidential election.

Michael Morell, the former acting director of the CIA and key adviser to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, spoke on Tuesday before the Center for American Progress, the think tank founded by the Clinton campaign chairman, John Podesta, calling for a more aggressive US policy to punish Iran for its “malign behavior in the region.”

Morell, who has previously advocated bombing Syrian government positions and carrying out military actions to “make Russia pay a price” for its presence in that country, claimed that Iran is shipping arms to the Houthis in Yemen. He said he would support “having the US Navy boarding their ships and if there are weapons on them to turn those ships around.”

In other words, the preparations are being made for a far wider US war in the region, with the threat that it will spill over into a global conflict.

University of Tokyo Global Science Course Scholarship for Transfer Students 2017/18 – Japan

Application Deadline: The application period is open from 10th January, 2017 to 7th April, 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Japan

Field of Study: Chemistry

Type: Undergraduate

Eligibility: Prospective students must have successfully completed or will be completing their first two years of studies in a comparable undergraduate program at an accredited higher educational institution before enrolling into GSC. It is also necessary for prospective students to have received secondary and tertiary education outside of Japan.

Students are required to be proficient in English.

Number of Awardees: A few

Value of Scholarship: 150,000 Japanese yen per month

Duration of Scholarship: Up to two consecutive years

How to Apply: Please visit the following webpage regarding application procedures- http://www.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/GSC/admissions/application.html

Visit Scholarship Website for Details

Award Provider: School of Science, the University of Tokyo

Quebec Government Research Internship for International Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 1st March, 2017, 11:59 PM

The internship must start no later than March 31, 2017.

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Quebec, Canada

About the Award: The FRQNT’s (Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies) international internship aims to foster international mobility of students whose research activities are part of the scientific program of a strategic cluster funded by the FRQNT.

The internship is a supplementary tool available to a strategic cluster to strengthen its position at the international level through research projects and partnerships that have already been established or which are under development.

The proposed research outlined in the application as part of the internship must be part of the scientific program of the strategic cluster.

Type: Research/Internship

Eligibility: 

• All of the strategic clusters supported by the FRQNT may submit an application to this program.
• The applicant proposed by the strategic cluster must meet all of the eligibility requirements listed here after.
• The applicant must have the valid study permits or visa for the entire duration of the internship;\
• The applicant can’t be enrolled in a co-degree from more than one institution including a Québec university. For the students enrolled in a co-degree see the rules of the Frontenac program.
• Students who are jointly supervised by a researcher in a foreign university (co-degree) are not eligible to apply for an international internship scholarship to visit one of their home universities.

Selection: Candidates are selected by the strategic clusters which recommend them to the FRQNT. It is the FRQNT that makes the final decision on the grants to be awarded under the international internship program. The allocation of internships by the FRQNT is made on a first come, first served basis and the funds available for this programme.

The FRQNT reserves itself the right to refuse any application that does not meet eligibility requirements or for which the selection committee report is not sufficiently detailed.

• Each strategic cluster may generally submit up to two applications during the period up to March 31, 2017.
• This limit can be re-examined and increased at all time until March 31, 2017.
• Each strategic cluster can propose the application of no more than one foreign student enrolled outside Québec so he/she can pursue its internship within the strategic cluster.
• The same rules for evaluating candidates, duration of the course and the value of scholarship apply to application. The application of a foreign student enrolled outside Québec doesn’t modify the total limit of two candidates per cluster.

Criteria: 

• The academic excellence and research aptitude of the candidate: 50 points
• The correspondence of the internship with the scientific program of the cluster’s: 25 points
• The insertion of the internship in international action of the strategic cluster: 25 points

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Internship: The scholarship for internship is of a maximum value of $15,000. However, the FRQNT will allow no more than the equivalent of $2,500/month in living expenses and will permit internship expenses (ex.: airfare, room rental agreement, etc.) to be covered by the strategic cluster.

Duration of Internship: The internship must be of a minimum duration of 2 months and a maximum of 6 months.

How to Apply: 

• Candidates interested within this program must file their application within their strategic cluster (see list on FRQNT’s Web Site) Validate the list of documents required for this application with the specific strategic cluster.
• The strategic clusters which recommend a candidate must fill the specific form available on FRQNT’s Web site as well as transmit it electronically. The form includes the complete addresses of the student, the academic supervisor, and the internship supervisor. A brief description of the nature of the internship is also required.
• The strategic clusters must also submit the selection committee report that states the results for each of the three criteria in effect, the assessment process and the names of the committee members.
• The strategic clusters must also send in the electronic form, a letter signed by the supervisor of the student specifying the start and end dates of the internship.
• Any internship application must be filed by the strategic cluster and approved by the FRQNT before the leaving of the trainee.

Visit Internship Webpage for details

Award Provider: FRQNT’s (Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies)

Important Notes: All projects involving human subjects or biological materials (body parts, products, tissues, cells or genetic material from a human body, of a person living or dead) or administrative, scientific or descriptive data from human subjects, require the approval of the research ethics board of the principal applicant’s institution (Common General Rules , article 5.3). Furthermore, if applicable, researchers must report any environmental impacts of their research and employ reasonable efforts to minimize them. To this end, they must obtain the required authorization and permit before the start of the project.

The US, NATO and the Pope

Brian Cloughley

At the branch office of the Pentagon’s US-NATO military alliance in Brussels there is a never-ending whirl of activity and apart from provoking Russia by announcing an aggressive military surge around its borders, its latest achievement was to have Belgium issue “a commemorative stamp depicting the new NATO Headquarters and its distinctive architecture.”

On October 22 a ceremony was held to mark the new stamp, but no details were given about the price of the vast palace which will “enable all Allies to have the space they require and [in which] there is also space for expansion should the need arise.”  There is never any mention by US-NATO of the staggering cost overrun that took place, but two years ago Germany’s Der Spiegel revealed that it was more than double the original construction budget, at over a billion euros.

Ten days before the stamp ceremony, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg left the Brussels Palace to visit a more modest one in Italy where he met Pope Francis.  After his call, some observers were unkind enough to express surprise that Mr Stoltenberg could spare the time for such an appointment, but all was made clear when it was announced that the meeting took place in the sidelines of his visit to Rome to celebrate the establishment anniversary of the NATO Defense College, an institution that has contributed generously to the Italian economy.

His Holiness the Pope did not of course make a public statement about the meeting, but the NATO publicity machine (the large and remarkably expensive organization that also arranges stamp issue ceremonies) made up for the omission by announcing that he and his illustrious visitor

discussed global issues of common concern, including the conflicts in Syria and the wider Middle East, the importance of protecting civilian populations from suffering, and the importance of dialogue in international affairs to reduce tensions. The Secretary General also stressed that climate change could pose a significant security risk.

It is remarkable that His Holiness engaged in such deliberations with the titular head of an enormous nuclear-armed military alliance, and it would be interesting to know if the Pope mentioned that he did not always agree with the policies espoused by Mr Stoltenberg and his directors in Washington, as he averred earlier this year.

It will be recollected that in February 2016 Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church met with Pope Francis in Havana and that Western media headlines included “Pope Francis Handed Putin a Diplomatic Victory” which was as absurd as it was trivial.  But even The Economist headline was similarly slanted and amusingly asked “Did the Pope Just Kiss Putin’s Ring?”  This set the tone for other comment, but one thrust of its reporting was especially revealing, as it pointed out in shocked — shocked — tones that the Pope had “made clear in his interview before the meeting that on certain issues he agrees with Mr Putin and disagrees with America and its allies.”

How truly dreadful that the Pope dares to be impartial and ventures to disagree with America and its allies about international affairs.

The Economist further noted that “On Libya, where Western powers helped to bring down former dictator Muammar Qaddafi, the pope was explicit:  ‘The West ought to be self-critical.’ And he continued that ‘In part, there has been a convergence of analysis between the Holy See and Russia’.”  The Economist did not mention the unpalatable fact that the ‘western powers’ — the US-NATO military alliance — bombed and rocketed Libya to a catastrophic shambles, resulting in anarchy and a base for Islamic terrorists.  Perhaps the Pope had taken note of that merciless Blitz, and of the fact that under the dictator Gaddafi the Catholic community in Libya had lived peacefully while now it is suffering gravely.

As recorded by Christian Freedom International, “The upsurge in attacks on Christians in Libya since the Obama/Clinton supported ouster of Gaddafi is of grave concern. CFI condemns these abductions, killings and attacks on Christian property in what is becoming an increasingly inhospitable region for Christians.”  Perhaps Pope Francis raised this with the devout Mr Stoltenberg, a graduate of Oslo Cathedral School who was prime minister of Norway when its air force “carried out about 10 percent of the NATO airstrikes in Libya” from March to July 2011.

The news that the Pope has had the temerity and moral realism to “disagree with America and its allies” is not altogether surprising, but the report that “on certain issues he agrees with Mr Putin” must have shaken Mr Stoltenberg, whose fundamental stance is that “Russia is trying to kind of re-establish spheres of influence along its borders and for me this just underlines the importance of strong NATO, of strong partnership with other countries in Europe that are not members of NATO.”

Mr Stoltenberg believes that because Russia wants to establish — or, more accurately, maintain — spheres of influence along its borders then it must be discouraged or even stopped from doing so.  This is confrontational, and it is unsurprising that His Holiness has made it clear that the Vatican is not an unconditional supporter of Washington’s Pentagon and its palatial sub-office in Brussels.

Mr Stoltenberg may not have read the address to the US Congress by His Holiness in 2015, when he said ‘We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome. Let us remember the golden rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’.’  As reported, ‘The line drew instant, thunderous applause from Democrats, followed with some hesitation by Republicans, a pattern repeated throughout the address.’

In his talk to Congress Pope Francis eschewed the Stoltenberg line that Russia’s desire to maintain peaceful ‘spheres of influence’ around its borders must by definition be wrong and unacceptableand pointed out that ‘there is another temptation which we must especially guard against : the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners.’

As President Putin observed in an interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera “we are not expanding anywhere; it is NATO infrastructure, including military infrastructure, that is moving towards our borders. Is this a manifestation of our aggression?”   No, it is not — except in the eyes of such as the Pentagon and Mr Stoltenberg.

Stoltenberg makes many visits round the world, including head-of-state-style attendance at the UN General Assembly in New York, where he had discussions with, among others, Ukraine’s President Poroshenko (“Dear Petro, it’s great to see you again”) and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon;  and another recent stopover was in the United Arab Emirates on October 19.  There, while committing NATO to an Individual Partnership and Cooperation Program he “praised the UAE for its role as a valuable NATO partner in projecting international security and stability: from Kosovo, to Afghanistan to Libya.”

Perhaps Mr Stoltenberg’s meeting with the Pope affected his short-term memory.  He ignores the unpalatable facts that in Kosovo, as Freedom House reports, there has been “little progress in strengthening its statehood,” while Afghanistan verges on total anarchy and, as noted above, US-NATO’s war on Libya destroyed the country.  These are far from being examples of “security and stability” as Mr Stoltenberg would have us believe them to be, but self-delusion knows no borders.

When Stoltenberg was made head of NATO, President Putin considered him to be a “serious, responsible person”  but warned with prescience that “we’ll see how our relations develop with him in his new position.”  Unfortunately that apprehension concerning future developments has been more than justified.  During a trip to Washington in April, Stoltenberg told the Washington Postcorrespondent Karen de Young, that “NATO has to remain an expeditionary alliance, able to deploy forces outside our territory,” which is a plain unvarnished statement of expansionism. The Pope summed it up when he quoted the Bible’s advice to ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ but it is unlikely that Mr Stoltenberg could ever bring himself to abide by such wise advice.  More confrontation lies ahead.

US Uranium Weapons Have Been Used in Syria

John LaForge

This month, the Pentagon admitted it has used uranium weapons in attacks inside Syria — violating its public promise last year that it would not use DU there, and contradicting the claim that US bombing is done in defense of the Syrian people, according to the Int’l Campaign to Ban Uranium Weapons.

Like the Pentagon’s past denials of the dangers of the chemical weapon Agent Orange, US military officials still claim publicly that its uranium weapons are not known to cause health problems. Made from waste uranium-238 — left from H-bomb and reactor fuel production — it is called “depleted” uranium (DU) but is only “depleted” of U-235. Ironically, the best evidence that it is dangerously toxic and radioactive — contrary to press pronouncements — comes from the Pentagon itself. A June 1995 report to Congress by the Army’s Environmental Policy Institute (AEPI) concluded: “Depleted uranium is a radioactive waste and, as such, should be deposited in a licensed repository.”

Military studies done in 1979, ‘90, ‘93, ‘95 and ‘97, make clear that uranium weapons are chemically toxic, alpha-radiation-emitting poisons that are a danger to target populations and to invading/occupying US forces alike. In spite of this cautionary written record, the military has been shooting its radioactive waste all over the world: into population centers in Iraq in 1991 (380 tons), in Afghanistan in 2001 (amounts unknown); in Bosnia in 1994-‘95 (five tons); in Kosovo in 1999 (10 tons), in Iraq again in 2003 (170 tons); and now in Syria.

The AEPI report above also says that DU has the potential to generate “significant medical consequences” if it enters the body. The Army’s Office of the Surgeon General, in its Aug. 16, 1993 “Depleted Uranium Safety Training Manual,” says that the expected effects of DU exposure include a possible increase of cancer, and kidney damage. The manual also warns, “When soldiers inhale or ingest DU dust, they incur a potential increase in cancer risk … (lung or bone) and kidney damage.”

The Army’s Mobility Equipment, Research & Development Command reported way back in 1979 that, “Not only the people in the immediate vicinity but also people at distances downwind from the fire are faced with potential over exposure to air-borne uranium dust.” This uranium “dust” is generated when DU shells hit and burn through hard targets like tanks or armored vehicles. The uranium is spread for miles by the wind, contaminating everything is its path including food, water, soil, schools, hospitals, etc., and DU is radioactive forever, or ten times 4.5 billion years, whichever comes first.

In 1990, the Army’s Armaments, Munitions and Chemical Command radiological task group said that DU is a “low level alpha radiation emitter … linked to cancer when exposures are internal, [and] chemical toxicity causing kidney damage.” It added that “there is no dose so low that the probability of effect is zero.”

With evidence of its radio-toxicity so clear and redundant, any use of uranium weapons today appears to flaunt the military’s own Field Manual prohibition — absolute and universal — against the use of poison or poisoned weapons.

Historical Disregard Revisited

The military has a long history of deliberately exposing US citizens and others to deadly risks without their knowledge or consent, beginning with the open-air nuclear bomb tests it knew would contaminate vast areas. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chose not to evacuate or even warn downwind populations it knew would be hard-hit by radioactive fallout. (“Fallout risk near atom tests was known, documents show,” New York Times, March 15, 1995) These bomb tests exposed Nevada Test Site workers to levels of radiation that the AEC knew could cause harm, but the agency chose not to reduce workers’ exposures or to even inform them of the risks because doing so would have scandalized and halted the bombing tests. (“Records say workers faced high radiation: Suit contends US used no safeguards,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, Dec. 14, 1989)

Likewise, the government refused to inform some 600,000 H-bomb factory workers that workplace radiation exposures posed serious health risks, although enough was known about radiation to warn them in 1948. (“N-plant workers not told of risks: Report says US arms program exposed many to radiation,” Associated Press, Dec. 19, 1989) Between 1944 and 1974, “medicalized” human radiation experiments were even conducted on unwitting US citizens, 16,000 of them (The Plutonium Files, by Eileen Welsome).

Today, the Pentagon extends this ghastly history into Syria where it is deliberately exposing human beings to weaponized radiation that it knows can cause cancer and other diseases. As if the undeclared, unconstitutional war in Syria weren’t unlawful enough, now add the crime of using poison in violation of military law and the Hague Regulations of War on Land.

It is so easy to prove that DU is poison, that a group of four non-lawyers, myself included, convinced a Minneapolis jury in 2004 that AlliantTechsystems’ manufacture of the shells is unlawful enough to excuse an otherwise illegal trespass; our minor offense was justified in order to prevent the greater harm of DU weapons production. Like torture, the use of such poison in war is always criminal, akin to gas war. This latest US government war crime must be condemned in the harshest terms.

For more information on DU weapons and the global effort to have them banned, see ICBUW.org.