Climate change and the struggle against capitalism

Patrick Martin

Two events this week have focused renewed popular attention on the dangers inherent in global warming and climate change. The first was the report published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) warning that human activity is precipitating “biological annihilation” and a mass extinction event, the sixth such phenomenon in the evolution of life on planet Earth.

The report examined historical data for 200 land animals and found that most were in crisis, with nearly all having lost a substantial portion of their geographic ranges and more than 40 percent having suffered severe population declines (80 percent or more). Lions, cheetahs, giraffes and numerous bird species were among those suffering the greatest declines.

The second event was the collapse Wednesday of a portion of Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf, with the formation of a massive iceberg, estimated at one trillion tons of ice, equivalent to twice the fresh water in Lake Erie. The iceberg has the same land area as the US state of Delaware (or, to compare it to some of the world’s best-known islands, it is larger than Bali, Trinidad or Canada’s Prince Edward Island, but slightly smaller than Corsica, Cyprus or Puerto Rico).

Scientists who specialize in the Antarctic were divided over whether climate change was the main precipitating event for the “calving” of a new giant iceberg. Such break-offs are a regular part of the life-cycle of the gigantic ice sheets that cover the southern continent. But average ocean temperatures around Antarctica have been rising for a quarter century, particularly in the region near Larsen C.

There is no doubt that global warming has had a major, long-term effect on Antarctica, evidenced by previous collapses of the ice sheets known as Larsen A in 1995 and Larsen B in 2002. The concern now is that break-off of the huge iceberg, with 12 percent of the total surface of Larsen C, could be the precursor of the collapse of the entire ice sheet, which would be a major geophysical event.

The erosion of Antarctic ice is part of a larger global process, including the rapid melting of the northern ice cap covering the Arctic Ocean, the shrinkage of the Greenland ice cap, and the disintegration of glaciers throughout the world under the impact of global warming.

It is worth pointing out that the study of Larsen C has mainly been conducted through satellite instruments placed in orbit by NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite first revealed the break-off of the iceberg. Its complete separation from Larsen C was confirmed by NASA’s polar-orbiting Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument.

Such Earth-study satellite missions are targeted for cutback or outright elimination in the Trump administration’s budget plans for Fiscal Year 2018. Republican Senator Ted Cruz, who heads the Senate committee with jurisdiction over NASA, has repeatedly pressed for NASA to focus its efforts on other planets in the solar system while avoiding similar study of the Earth, out of concern that NASA’s efforts would bolster the scientific consensus that global warming and climate change are major threats.

The reactionary pig-headedness of the Trump administration and the Republican right can lead those genuinely concerned about the dangers of global warming to view more favorably the supposed rationalism of the Obama administration, the Democratic Party, and their allies in Europe like Germany’s Angela Merkel. This would be a catastrophic mistake.

The measures proposed by the bourgeois establishment politicians—Democrats in the United States, conservatives and Social Democrats in Europe—amount to giving lip service to the dangers posed by global warming, while doing little or nothing. The much-vaunted Paris Accord, from which Trump withdrew US support last month, was entirely toothless.

Significantly, the Paris Accord had the support of the world’s corporate elite, the CEOs who bear the main responsibility for carbon emissions and other pollution. Less than 100 corporations account for two-thirds of all man-made carbon emissions.

A special word needs to be said here about “Green” parties, which trace their origins to the environmental movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but have, once in power, revealed themselves as shameless servants of big business. Their evolution shows the impossibility of addressing the environmental crisis on the basis of the existing economic system.

What is needed in the climate crisis is a global effort, mobilizing the scientific, technological and productive resources of the entire human race, combining both a reduction in the carbon “footprint” of society through developing more efficient energy systems, and methods to actually retrieve carbon from the atmosphere (so-called “carbon capture”) that will begin the process of lowering the proportion of carbon dioxide back towards historically sustainable levels.

Such efforts immediately run up against insuperable barriers under capitalism: the private ownership of the means of production by a handful of capitalist billionaires and giant corporations, and the division of the world into rival capitalist nation-states. That only demonstrates that it is impossible to carry out a serious effort to reverse global warming and climate change within the framework of the profit system.

The climate crisis is yet another reason, along with mounting social inequality, attacks on democratic rights, and the growing threat of imperialist world war, for putting an end to capitalism and establishing a socialist society in which the productive forces are subordinated to the needs of the population of this planet, not to private profit.

The same scientific advances that, in the hands of the billionaires, threaten the destruction of the planet, can, in hands of the working class, the vast majority of humanity, lead to the opposite result: the creation of a society which abolishes poverty, war and social injustice along with the dangers posed by climate change and global warming.

Leaked reports expose Australian war crimes in Afghanistan

Mike Head

The government-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) this week published reports of leaked documents providing further evidence of crimes committed by Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan, while depicting them as simply the acts of individual soldiers.

Most of the documents, which the ABC has not released, reportedly cover “at least 10” incidents between 2009 and 2013 in which military investigators summarily cleared soldiers of killing civilians or other war crimes.

Some of the atrocities, such as the killing of a captured detainee, were already known. Each inflamed popular hostility in Afghanistan to the Australian and other occupying forces. They underscore the inherently criminal character of the US-led Afghanistan war, now almost 16 years long.

However, the material only gives a partial glimpse of Australia’s war crimes. It appears to have been leaked in an effort, accompanied by belated military inquiries, to clean up the reputation of the Special Forces by blaming a minority of soldiers, supposedly caught up in a “warrior culture.”

Preparations are being made for even greater violence as part of an expanded force being planned by the Trump administration in a bid to reverse the increasing gains being made by the Taliban-led resistance.

One incident occurred on March 27, 2011 in Sah Zafar, Chora Valley. According to the ABC report, Australian and Afghan troops were sent to capture a “high-value Taliban target.”

After being shot at, the Australians returned fire and later found a dead man and a fatally injured child. Local people in a “distressed state” arrived at the scene and told the Australians that the dead man was the boy’s uncle, and that he was returning with his nephew from a medical clinic.

By the ABC’s account, “Australian soldiers tested the dead man’s hands and found traces of nitrate, which they said proved he had handled explosives and was an insurgent. However, this was later disproved, as there was no evidence the man was an insurgent, and nitrates are present within commonly-used fertilisers in Afghanistan.”

Bags containing medication were also found at the scene, lending further credence to the residents’ version of events. Nevertheless, an inquiry found that the Australian troops were acting within Australian Defence Force (ADF) rules of engagement.

Other incidents included:

•  Special Forces soldiers shot a young boy in Kandahar Province in 2012. Local villagers recovered the boy’s body, but the killing was never reported up the official chain of command. A secret new ADF investigation into this incident commenced in September 2016.
  
•  A 14- or 15-year-old Afghan boy was killed in 2012, as were Bismillah Azadi and his six-year-old son during a raid on a house in 2013.
  
•  Special Air Services (SAS) members killed two mullahs in 2012. Then Afghan President Hamid Karzai complained publicly about the killings, saying the deadly raid was not authorised by his government.
  
•  An Afghan detainee was shot dead in 2013 after allegedly trying to seize an SAS trooper’s weapon. The Special Operations Task Group commanding officer—on the advice of a Defence lawyer—initially refused to hand over evidence to Australian Defence Force Investigative Service (ADFIS) officials, insisting it was a clear-cut case of self-defence.
  
•  In 2013, Australian troops commanded by SAS officer Andrew Hastie, now a Liberal Party member of parliament, severed the hands of alleged dead Taliban fighters. This followed an ADFIS training session where soldiers were told such methods could be used for identification purposes.

Shortly before the ABC published its reports, it broadcast comments by a Special Forces “veteran” who said he had witnessed “the development of a culture within a minority of operators within special forces… seeking to ‘get kills up’ in some attempt to glorify themselves amongst their peers.”

The anonymous officer, who came from “middle management,” said there was no doubt “this behaviour has led to the death of large numbers of innocent civilians.” He called for action to “stop the infectious spread of this damning culture before it claims the reputation that precedes special operations command within the ADF and within militaries around the world.”

Such attempts to attribute the crimes to “bad apples” within the Special Forces are themselves a cover-up. Any brutal “culture” in the ADF is a direct result of the neo-colonial wars of occupation in the Middle East, which treat the population as a whole as the enemy and involve the killing of anyone who resists.

There is a protracted record of lawless brutality by Australian and other allied forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Accounts of war crimes committed by Australian Special Forces are not new. Internal investigations, in recent conflicts alone, go back to the Australian military intervention in East Timor in 1999.

The ADF paid out $120,000 in compensation for incorrectly killed and injured Afghan civilians during 2009–2011 alone, according to an Amsterdam International Law Clinic report. With payments of less than $2,000 per murder, that total indicates hundreds of casualties.

Moreover, the rules of engagement of the ADF and other US-led forces permit such killings. Military inquiries invariably found that soldiers acted within the rules, and no further action should be taken.

During the period covered by the reports, Afghans could be killed if they were allegedly “directly participating in hostilities.” This allowed the targeting of “spotters” suspected of keeping watch and relaying information to Taliban forces, without being armed themselves. “Spotters” could be shot for riding a motorcycle or talking on a radio.

The Australian Liberal-National government, backed by the Labor Party, last year opened the way for even worse atrocities by allowing the ADF to extend the rules of engagement to specifically permit the bombing or shooting of supposed supporters of insurgents “not taking an active part in the hostilities.”

The military’s actions have been whitewashed at the highest levels of the ADF, with the full support of successive governments. In May 2013, for example, Stephen Smith, the defence minister in the last Labor government, rejected complaints by Afghan detainees that they were subjected to humiliating public searches of groin and buttocks areas, as well as poor food and cold cells.

The detainees had been captured by the ADF and incarcerated at a US military prison near Bagram air base. Smith flatly dismissed the reports and declared that Australians should be proud of the troops because “the ADF has prided itself on its high standards and it has a well regarded international reputation for doing so.”

In reality, the Australian Special Forces, like their US, British and New Zealand counterparts, specialise in secretive targeted killings and assaults on suspected villages. For that they were lauded by both US President George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

The new whitewashing of Afghanistan war crimes is a warning of further violence ahead. US Defence Secretary General James “Mad Dog” Mattis is reportedly proposing to add some 5,000 US soldiers to the nearly 9,000 already deployed in the country. At Washington’s request, Turnbull’s government recently committed another 30 troops to Afghanistan, taking the ADF contingent to 300. No doubt, a bigger contribution will be demanded if the Pentagon’s plans proceed.

During the Obama administration’s surge of 2010–2011, the US had some 100,000 soldiers deployed in the country—along with 30,000 from NATO and other US allies—yet still failed to quell the insurgency.

Since 2001, successive governments have justified the Afghanistan invasion as part of the “war on terror,” supposedly waged to protect the public. The truth is that US imperialism is determined to retain a permanent military presence in Afghanistan, which is strategically located near the oil- and gas-rich former Soviet republics of Central Asia, as well as China, Russia and Iran, which Washington regards as obstacles in its quest for global hegemony.

Russia has been attempting to broker a peace settlement between the Afghan regime and the Taliban. On the eve of a Moscow conference in April involving the regional powers, the US military unleashed the largest non-nuclear weapon in its arsenal on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, possibly killing hundreds more civilians.

Violence surges in central Congo’s Kasai province

Timotheos Gaist 

Violence against civilians living in Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) central Kasai province has surged in recent months, raising fears of all-out civil war. Some twenty villages have been destroyed, nearly 4,000 civilians killed, and more than 1 million displaced in Kasai since last August, when fighting erupted following the killing of the popular tribal leader Kamuina Nsapu by government forces.

Recent fighting between government troops and militiamen affiliated with the National Coalition of the People for the Sovereignty of Congo (CNPSC) in South Kivu province has displaced an additional 80,000 civilians, the United Nations reported Tuesday.

Yesterday, UN investigators reported discovery of an additional 38 mass graves in Kasai.

Analysts are warning that the fighting threatens to explode into a general war comparable to the First and Second Congo Wars, also known as the African World War or Great African War. Orchestrated by the United States’ government and its regional allies, war raged across Congo between 1996 and 2003, drew in the armies of six African countries, and resulted in the deaths of as many as five million civilians.

At present, nearly four million Congolese are internal refugees, the highest number of any country in Africa. Over seven million are in dire need of humanitarian aid.

It has become increasingly clear that the US and European powers are determined to seize upon the slaughter as the pretext for escalating their pressure campaign against the DRC government.

Last week, a group of ten leading US congressmen demanded that the Trump administration pursue a special inquiry into the deaths of United Nations personnel in Kasai. On Tuesday, US Deputy Ambassador Michele Sison announced that the American government will impose sanctions against any Congo officials involved in attempts to “delay and obstruct” the holding of new elections before the end of the year.

In an official letter leaked to the Financial Times this week, International Monetary Fund (IMF) director Christine Lagarde implied that any further transfers of IMF emergency funds to the DRC will be contingent upon President Joseph Kabila’s acceptance of a Western-dictated political deal, including a timetable for his own removal from power.

Western media are laying blame for the violence at the feet of the Congolese Army and Bana Mura, a militia with strong ties to the Kabila-led government, alleging that government forces are responsible for a series of recent atrocities. In Geneva last month, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein called for an investigation into what he called the “landscape of horror” in the Congo, and accused both the Bana Mura and the Congolese Army of mass killings and torture.

In a June 30 comment published by the Washington Post, “The crisis in Congo is spiraling out of control,” Ida Sawyer, Africa head at Human Rights Watch, called for “sustained, targeted and well-coordinated pressure on Kabila and his government at the national, regional and international levels.”

“Congo is facing a political and economic crisis, and it’s only growing worse. President Joseph Kabila was due to step down in December 2016, at the end of his constitutionally mandated two-term limit. But he has managed to hold on to power by delaying elections and overseeing a brutal crackdown against those calling for the constitution to be respected,” Sawyer wrote.

The DRC leadership is “unlikely to allow a real election any time soon,” according to a political analyst cited by Deutsche Welle.

Congo’s political crisis escalated on Sunday, when the Kabila government announced that it would remain in office through December 2017. Felix Tshisekedi, leader of Congo’s main opposition party, the Kasai-based Union for Democracy and Social Progress, denounced the move and vowed a “full response.” Kabila government troops captured and imprisoned leading members of the UDPS in June.

The concerted pressure campaign against Kabila is motivated by strategic considerations associated with the drive of American imperialism to dominate the African continent at the expense of its rivals, above all China. Kabila is viewed by Washington as an unreliable agent of American imperialism’s financial and commercial interests in the DRC.

Kabila has greatly increased his and his family’s fortune since taking the reins of power in 2001, securing control by the ruling clique over substantial holdings throughout the Congolese economy. Opposition leaders, including Tshisekedi and Moise Katumbi, are considered to be more malleable by imperialist strategists, and have increasingly been promoted in Western media.

Perhaps nowhere in Africa are the stakes higher than in the DRC, whose vast natural resource reserves include the lion’s share of world cobalt supplies, a key component in cellphone batteries. The massive African nation, whose territory is equivalent to that of all of Western Europe, is emerging as a central target of the new scramble for colonial control over Africa’s markets, resources and labor forces, now being waged by American and European imperialism.

The Kabila government’s increasingly pro-Chinese policies are cutting across the interests of his erstwhile partners in Washington and Western Europe. Kabila has agreed to mining deals with Chinese firms in recent years, setting the stage for China to become the top developer of rare mineral extraction infrastructure in the country.

On Tuesday, DRC officials announced talks with Russia’s state-controlled bank VTB toward potential investment deals and “strategic projects” worth in excess of $1 billion. Congolese foreign minister Leonard She Okitundu presented Russia’s top diplomat, Sergei Lavrov, with a package of rare earth metals as a token of goodwill during a state visit to Moscow earlier this year.

“Congo has tried to cultivate closer diplomatic ties to Russia amid growing strains in its relationship with the European Union and United States over its failure to organize elections on time and alleged human rights abuses,” Reuters reported last week.

The explosive political tensions within the DRC are being amplified by the massive pressures being brought to bear on its economy by the deepening of the world capitalist crisis. Congo is experiencing intense “economic difficulties” as a result of “the collapse of prices of raw materials on the world market,” Prime Minister Bruno Tshibalala reported Wednesday.

Congo’s central bank currently possesses currency reserves sufficient to pay for imports for a period of only three weeks, and the DRC economy is projected to shrink by nearly two percent in 2017.

Modi visit consolidates Indo-Israeli military-strategic partnership

Deepal Jayasekera

Narendra Modi’s three-day visit to Israel last week, the first by an Indian Prime Minister to the Zionist state, represented a turning point in the development of military-strategic ties between the two countries.

But it was more than that. On the part of Modi and India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government the visit was meant to underscore that New Delhi is determined to purge any lingering vestiges of its former “non-aligned” foreign policy in pursuit of closer ties with the United States and its principal Asian allies—in the Asia-Pacific, Japan and Australia, and in the Middle East, Israel.

Modi and his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced the upgrading of ties between India and Israel to a “strategic partnership,” while casting their two countries as embattled champions of “democracy.”

Underscoring the importance Israel attaches to courting Modi and further strengthening ties with India, Netanyahu gave the Indian Premier a grand reception. This included Netanyahu and his entire cabinet greeting Modi on the tarmac at Tel Aviv International airport on his arrival July 4. Only US presidents and the Pope have previously been granted such treatment.

In welcoming Modi, Netanyahu said Tel Aviv had waited for such a visit for “70 years,” i.e. since the creation of Israel itself.

Under India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and his Congress Party government, New Delhi opposed Israel’s admission to the UN in 1949, a year after the Zionist state had been founded through war and the expulsion of much of the Palestinian population. To bolster its phony “anti-imperialist” credentials and as part of its promotion of “non-alignment,” India for decades thereafter claimed to be a champion of the Palestinian cause and refused to establish formal diplomatic ties with Israel.

India’s Cold War “non-alignment” policy was bound up with the close relations it established with the Soviet Union during the 1950s in response to Washington’s burgeoning military-strategic partnership with Pakistan, India’s principal rival following South Asia’s bloody 1947 communal partition.

In the aftermath of the Stalinist bureaucracy’s December 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union and in lock-step with the Indian bourgeoisie’s abandonment of its state-led development strategy in favour of full integration into the US-led world capitalist order, New Delhi reoriented its foreign policy toward the pursuit of closer relations with the western powers, especially Washington.

In 1992, Narasimha Rao’s Congress Party government established full diplomatic ties with Israel. Since then, New Delhi’s relations with Tel Aviv have been systematically expanded both by Congress-led governments and those led by the Hindu supremacist BJP.

However, Modi’s three-year-old government has been determined, as part of a more assertive and ostensibly “pragmatic” foreign policy, to take India’s ties with Tel Aviv to a new level. According to Dore Gold, Israel’s Ambassador to India and the former director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, “Since 1992 there has been a growing relationship between Israel and India, but it was under Prime Minister Modi that the relationship has really blossomed.”

In a clear message to Tel Aviv that his government is indifferent to Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people and that India’s call for a Palestinian state is a hollow gesture, Modi broke with the longstanding Indian practice of combining official visits to Israel with a visit to Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority.

Netanyahu, for his part, clearly delighted in the company of the self-styled Hindu strongman, who came to political prominence in 2002 when as Gujarat Chief Minister he presided over an anti-Muslim pogrom.

The India media, which has lauded Modi’s unabashed promotion of the Indo-US alliance as the “cornerstone” of the country’s foreign policy, has also hailed what the Times of India termed as Modi’s “coming out party” in Tel Aviv. A July 7 Indian Express editorial, titled “Take-off in Tel Aviv,” welcomed “the de-hyphenation of India’s relations with Israel and Palestine,” calling it “perhaps the biggest achievement of this visit.”

Following their talks, Modi and Netanyahu issued a joint statement in which they pledged to further develop bilateral military-strategic ties, including through enhanced intelligence sharing and the “joint development of defence products” and related transfers of Israeli military technology. They also signed a half-dozen agreements to further economic and technical cooperation. Israel committed to assist India with water management and agriculture, and the two countries agreed to greater cooperation between their space agencies.

Israeli weapon sales have been central to relations between New Delhi and Tel Aviv since even before diplomatic relations were established in 1992. Israel rushed military equipment to India both during the latter’s brief border-war with China in 1962 and its war with Pakistan over Bangladesh in 1971.

Having purchased some $10 billion worth of Israeli weapons and military equipment over the last 10 years, India has become far and away Israel’s biggest market for arms, accounting for 41 percent of all its weapons exports.

With India engaged in a massive rearmament program and currently the world’s largest arms importer, Tel Aviv is anxious to take an even bigger share of India’s weapon’s purchases. Currently, Israel is India’s number three defence supplier, trailing only Russia and the United States.

In April, state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) announced a deal worth nearly $2 billion to provide sophisticated air and missile defense systems to the Indian army—the largest foreign defence contract in Israel’s history.

India sees advanced defence equipment from Israel as critical for augmenting its military prowess in South Asia and the broader Indian Ocean region, against both arch-rival Pakistan and China, with which it is locked in an all-round competition for strategic influence in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Israel has sold India Phalcon early-warning aircraft, its Barack II air defence system, which is currently being outfitted on all major Indian warships, and surveillance drones. It has also reportedly provided technical assistance to India’s nuclear-weapons program. According to some news reports, Modi snared a deal to purchase armed drones during last week’s visit.

The Israeli Defence Force also periodically conducts joint exercises with the Indian military, although these are generally kept under wraps. Later this month, India will participate, along with the US and five other NATO countries, in an air combat exercise being hosted by Israel.

In their joint statement, Modi and Netanyahu “reiterated their strong commitment to combat (terrorism) in all its forms and manifestations.” Israel, as the main agency of US imperialism in the Middle East, justifies its provocative military build-up against its regional rivals and its repression of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories in the name of “fighting terrorism.” In the same way, India portrays its brutal military occupation of the country’s only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, as a stand against “terrorism” and attributes the mass alienation of the Kashmiri people from Indian rule to Pakistani-supported terrorism, i.e., Islamabad’s support for various Islamist pro-Kashmiri separatist militia.

The joint statement calls for “strong measures …. against …. all those who encourage, support and finance terrorism, or provide sanctuary to terrorists and terror groups”—language Israel will hold up as justification for its belligerence against Iran and the Palestinians, and India against Pakistan.

The emphasis placed on collaboration in combating “terrorism” also underscores an important ideological component of the Modi government’s partnership with Israel. The Hindu supremacist BJP and its allies, stretching back to V.D. Savarkar—the pre-independence All-India Hindu Mahasabha leader and Hindutva ideologue—have venerated Israel and its militaristic nationalism, claiming that its treatment of the majority-Muslim Palestinian population should be an example for the “Hindu Indian nation.”

US threatens China over North Korean sanctions

Peter Symonds

The Trump administration has prepared a UN Security Council draft resolution that contains tough new economic penalties on North Korea following Pyongyang’s purported intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test on July 4. At the same time, the US is drawing up its own unilateral sanctions against North Korea, as well as secondary sanctions against countries allegedly in breach of the US measures.

The chief targets are Beijing and Moscow, which have already indicated they do not favour crippling sanctions on North Korea and could veto the US resolution. The draft was circulated to China and other UN Security Council permanent members this week. Senior UN diplomats told Reuters that the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, aims to put the resolution to the vote within weeks—circumventing the months of negotiations that preceded other sanctions on North Korea.

Citing a diplomatic source, the Russian newspaper Izvestiya reported that Beijing and Moscow would not support the US draft. “The proposed restrictions imply the introduction of an embargo on energy supplies to Pyongyang and a ban on employing North Korean nationals abroad,” the source stated.

Details of the US resolution have not been released but Haley indicated to the UN Security Council last week that it would include a ban on oil exports to North Korea and on North Koreans working overseas.

Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Vladimir Safronkov, bluntly declared last week that “attempts to economically strangle North Korea are equally unacceptable, as millions of people are in great humanitarian need.” Both Moscow and Beijing are hostile to any attempt by the US to precipitate an economic and political crisis on their doorstep that Washington could exploit to orchestrate a regime-change in Pyongyang.

US ambassador Haley indicated that the draft resolution is an ultimatum and not up for negotiation or substantial amendment. Speaking last Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” she said the US did not expect the resolution to be “watered down” and expected to know within days whether China and Russia would support it.

Haley declared that the US was going “to push hard against China” and the UN resolution was going to be “a really big test.” Beijing had the ability to pressure Pyongyang, she said, “and we need to see some more action going accordingly.”

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that the US Justice Department had already initiated a federal court case that was partly unsealed last week, targeting “offshore US dollar accounts” associated with a network of five companies linked to the Chinese citizen Chi Yupeng. The alleged network included one of the largest Chinese importers of North Korean goods, Dandong Zhicheng Metallic Material Co.

The Justice Department claimed, on the basis of dubious information from North Korean defectors, that Chi Yupeng had hidden transactions that helped to finance North Korea’s military programs. The case could provide the basis for US penalties against the five companies, similar to those imposed on another Chinese corporation, Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Co., last year.

Late last month, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced US sanctions on China’s Bank of Dandong, Dalian Global Unity Shipping and two Chinese business executives for their supposed business dealings with North Korea. These penalties come on top of other provocative US steps against China, including a major arms sale to Taiwan, and so-called freedom of navigation operations challenging Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang hit out on Tuesday against “certain people, talking about the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, [who] have been exaggerating and giving prominence to the so-called ‘China responsibility theory’.” Geng insisted China had made significant efforts to push Pyongyang to denuclearise and called on all parties to meet each other halfway.

While Geng did not name any country, his remarks were clearly directed against the United States. Reflecting the increasingly bitter relations between Beijing and Washington, the spokesman declared: “Asking others to do work, but doing nothing themselves is not okay. Being stabbed in the back is really not okay.”

Beijing has repeatedly proposed negotiations on the basis that North Korea freezes its nuclear and missile tests in return for the US and South Korea halting their large-scale joint military exercises. Washington has dismissed the plan out of hand. An online article in the official People’s Daily this week accused the US and Japan of using the “China responsibility theory” to hide their own failure on the Korean Peninsula. It declared that both countries had “refused to fulfill their duties to negotiate” to reach a peaceful solution.

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert fired back. While acknowledging that China had tightened sanctions on North Korea, she declared: “We expect and we want you to do a whole lot more.”

Behind the push for tough sanctions is the US threat to carry out military strikes on North Korea that would trigger a devastating war on the Korean Peninsula and more broadly. US ambassador Haley told the UN Security Council the US was prepared to “use the full range of our capabilities,” including “our considerable military forces” to deal with North Korea. While declaring that the military option was not preferable, she emphasised: “We will use them if we must.”

In the latest show of military force, the US Missile Defence Agency announced a successful test of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system. An interceptor based in Alaska shot down an intermediate-range target launched over the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii.

The US is in the process of completing a THAAD battery deployment in South Korea, supposedly aimed against North Korea. Beijing has repeatedly criticised the installation, pointing out that the associated powerful X-band radar can be used to undermine China’s nuclear deterrent against a potential US attack.

Most Grenfell survivors remain homeless a month after inferno

Margot Miller

Most of the survivors of the inferno at Grenfell Tower remain homeless, almost one month after at least 80 died because of the criminal policies of successive Labour and Conservative governments, which put profit before safety.

The issue of providing emergency rehousing for just 158 families, in one of the richest cities in the world—population 8.9 million—has revealed the callous indifference to the suffering of the victims of the fire. Prime Minister Theresa May pledged that within three weeks all the homeless families would be at least temporality rehoused.

As well as those made homeless by the inferno, hundreds of households who lived in tower blocks with combustible cladding like Grenfell’s have been temporarily evacuated and been strewn all over the capital in temporary accommodation.

At the 11th hour an emergency government taskforce, the Grenfell Response Team (GTR), claimed that 139 of the Grenfell 158 families had been offered accommodation. However, 19 of the families are not in a position to consider an offer as they were tending to seriously ill relatives recovering in hospital from fire injuries. As the three-week deadline came and went, only 14 families had moved into temporary accommodation.

Families have been made offers of unsuitable accommodation, with some offers for properties out of the borough. Other offers were for homes with an insufficient number of bedrooms. Survivors also reported that, despite escaping death in a tower block, they had been callously offered accommodation in other tower blocks. As with Grenfell, none of these have basic fire safety systems in place including two stairwells, a central fire alarm, water sprinklers, fire doors, fire extinguishers on every floor and non-flammable cladding on the exterior walls.

Housing campaigner Pilgrim Tucker told the Press Association, “People are being texted saying here is your offer, it is rent free for a year and then it is £400 a week—that is triple what they were paying before.”

A two-bed offer—located in a beautiful five storey terraced house in the heart of Kensington and Chelsea—had to be turned down by one family, as it was both temporary and unaffordable. Rent has been suspended for a year for survivors but thereafter it would be £1,103 a month on the property.

On June 20, May announced that the government would provide 68 permanent homes for some of the surviving Grenfell residents in the Kensington Row development on Warwick Road—a mile and a half from Grenfell Tower. The homes, designated as “social housing” were bought from the developers at a cost of around £10 million, not by Kensington and Chelsea Council but by the City of London Corporation.

The proposal was made to assuage the anger of families who felt abandoned by the authorities, and to avoid demands to requisition empty “ghost” flats owned by the rich in Kensington and Chelsea—numbering 1,400.

Kensington Row is worth £2 billion to its developers who describe it as “a world of opulence and privilege”, with apartments ranging in cost from £1.6 million rising to £3.5 million, or £13 million for a penthouse suite.

The right-wing press had a field day with the Telegraph headlining a report, “Sixty-eight flats in £2bn luxury Kensington block to be given to Grenfell Tower families.” It stated that the complex “boasts a private cinema and swimming pool,” and accompanied its piece with five pictures of stunning interiors.

Kensington Row does in fact boast a 24-hour concierge service, leisure suite, private cinema, landscaped gardens and gym.

However, such luxuries will not be enjoyed by the ex-Grenfell residents. A source from the Berkley group, which is developing the site, informed the Independent that “the social housing apartments will be less high-spec and that fixtures and fittings will also be more basic... modern but not luxury.”

The Berkley group had earmarked a percentage of its new development for social housing—part of the negotiated levy between the local council and developer to secure planning permission under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

Such social housing that is built into lucrative developments has justifiably earned the derogatory nickname of “poor doors.” It is generally segregated from the homes of rich neighbours by separate entrances—normally next to the refuse area—and residents are barred from using gardens and other social amenities. The site map for Kensington Row shows that its “poor door” properties face the busy, noisy and polluted Warwick Road.

The social housing properties will not be ready to move into until August at the earliest. This is despite the fact that the government is subsidising Berkley to the tune of £2-3 million to hurry along the build. This money is being handed over to a FTSE 250 company which announced revenues of £2.7 billion last year and recorded a 34 percent rise in pre-tax profits to £392.7 million in the six months to the end of October.

Kensington and Chelsea is the most socially polarised section of London, with the poorest people living alongside the very richest. The class hostility of the most affluent sections of society to the working class residents of Grenfell and North Kensington was evidenced in the callous and self-centred response of those at Kensington Row to any homeless survivors being allowed to live in the development.

One resident, who did not want to be identified, told the Guardian: “I’m very sad that people have lost their homes, but there are a lot of people who have bought flats and will now see the values drop.” Maria, who owns a flat in the block said, “It’s so unfair. We paid a lot of money to live here, and we worked hard for it. Now these people are going to come along, and they won’t even be paying the service charge.”

In a wealthy borough like Kensington and Chelsea, even high-priority families have to wait five years to be housed. London needs 50,000 new homes every year, but last year only 24,230 were under construction.

Cuts to local government spending has seen social house building grind to a halt since the banking crash of 2008. For property developers, however, the crash ushered in low interest rates and quantitative easing, which have been a boon for profits.

Councils, with Labour-run authorities leading the charge, have worked closely with developers in “regenerating social hot spots.” This is more accurately described as social cleansing. The councils have demolished large swathes of council housing stock to make way for plush dwellings and swanky high-rise apartments for the rich.

The Heygate tower block estate in Elephant and Castle South London is a case in point, demolished to make way for the new £1.2 billion Elephant Park complex, being built by Australian developer Lend Lease. One-bed apartments in Elephant Park start at £550,000, while the richest with more cash to spare can opt for three-bed properties going for £1,145,000.

To get planning permission all Lend Lease had to do was seal a gentleman’s agreement with Labour Party-run Southwark council to build 342 units for social housing out of its total of 2,500. Because of the “negotiable” loophole afforded by Section 106, Lend Lease is now only providing 74 units for social housing. Some 1,214 homes housing working class residents were demolished to make way for the new development.

Between 2009 and 2015 neither Haringey, Hackney or Lambeth, all Labour-run London councils, achieved their 50 percent targets for “affordable” house builds—agreed in return for granting planning permission—instead achieving just 17, 14 and 25 percent respectively.

Even as the government was forced to grudgingly hand over some Kensington Row flats to Grenfell survivors, social cleansing is continuing apace in the area.

The Warwick Road Leaseholders Association are fighting the social cleansing being carried out by Kensington and Chelsea council on two parts of their estate. Residents fear that the council will eventually demolish working class housing at Broadwood Terrace (24 units) and Chesterton Square (92 units).The leaseholders fear that new conditions that apply after “regeneration” will mean they can no longer to afford to remain in their homes.

Canada to wage offensive cyberwar

Laurent Lafrance 

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has ordered the Canadian military and the country’s signals intelligence agency, the Communications Security Establishment or CSE, to collaborate in the development of cyberwar capabilities.

Last month, the Liberals presented a new defence policy aimed at giving the military the “hard power” to aggressively assert Canadian imperialist interests and ambitions around the globe. It calls for military spending to be hiked by more than 70 percent over the next decade, to $32.7 billion. This includes funds for an expanded fleet of fighter jets, 15 new warships, armed drones, and the recruitment of 5,000 additional military personnel. The new policy also says that the development of offensive cyberwar capabilities must be a top priority for the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF).

Toward this end, the defence policy paper calls for the creation of a new “Cyber Mission Assurance Program” as well as a new job category of “cyber operator” within the military in order to “significantly increase the number of military personnel dedicated to cyberwar functions.” The CAF also plans to use “reservists with specialized skill-sets” to fill elements of its new cyber force.

Two weeks after the defence policy announcement, the government tabled legislation (Bill C-59) that would give the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada’s counterpart to the US National Security Agency (NSA), new powers to launch cyberattacks against foreign targets, including states’ computer infrastructure and communications networks.

Bill C-59 is the Liberals’ promised “reform” of Bill C-51, the anti-democratic law Stephen Harper’s Conservative government passed in 2015 under the fraudulent pretext of fighting “terrorism.” The Liberals’ new legislation, however, upholds Bill C-51’s main attacks on fundamental democratic rights, including granting the security agencies virtually unrestricted access to personal information collected by other government agencies.

Like Bill C-51, Bill C-59 empowers CSIS, the country’s primary domestic spy service, to actively “disrupt” so-called threats to national security and, if necessary, to use illegal means to do so. And going beyond Harper’s legislation, Bill C-59 expands CSIS’ power to store and analyze electronic data and share it with the other spy agencies.

CSE and CSIS carry out mass surveillance operations that violate the constitutional rights of millions of Canadians and others around the world, and are implicated in conducting espionage activities against foreign countries, their leaders, opposition movements, and corporate rivals of Canadian big business.

But elements within the political establishment and the security and military apparatuses have long criticized the limited “defensive” character of the spying agency operations and called for the arming of CSE with cyber war capabilities.

Bill C-59 would enable CSE, with the approval of the ministers of defence and foreign affairs, to engage in offensive actions such as shutting down servers, planting malware on phones or other devices, and disrupting online information.

Bill C-59 also provides the legal cover for CSE to integrate its operations more closely with the Canadian military. To be sure, CSE already works closely with the CAF, Public Safety Canada, Global Affairs Canada and Shared Services Canada on cyber issues. CSE provided intelligence to the Canadian military during the Afghan war, with retired CAF head General John Adams boasting in 2010 that over half of the “actionable intelligence” that Canadian soldiers used in prosecuting the Afghan War came from the CSE.

Now, however, the spy agency will be able to wage aggressive cyberwarfare and is mandated to work with military in waging offensive cyberwar operations.

Defence Minister Harjitt Sajjan, who expressed strong support for CSE/CAF integration, explained that “What [the section of Bill C-59 pertaining to the CSE] does…is allow the CSE to assist the Canadian Armed Forces, which was not the case before.” The new law “allows CSE to be able to (use) their specialized tools and skills to make sure…our interests are protected.”

The integration of the spying agencies with the military is part of a more aggressive, imperialist foreign policy demanded by the Canadian ruling class, which the Trudeau government is fully committed to enforcing. One day prior to Sajjan’s presentation of the new defence policy, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland delivered a speech in which she vowed that Canada must resort to “hard power,” i.e. war, to uphold its interests abroad. She also insisted on the maintenance of Ottawa’s strategic partnership with US imperialism, and the need for increased military spending.

One important mechanism for the expansion of joint Canada-US military-security operations will be the US National Security Agency-led “Five Eyes”, a vast spying network also involving the signal intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. In fact, with its new cyber measures the Canadian state is aligning its practices with those of its partners, which are using the pretext of Russia’s and China’s development of cyberwar capabilities to dramatically increase the powers of their spy and cyber agencies.

Cyberattacks can have a devastating impact on economic and social organization. In 2010, the US, in collaboration with Israel, launched a cyberattack (using the NSA-made “Stuxnet worm”) on Iran’s nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz which forced some 1,000 centrifuges to self-destruct.

Last May, a cyber weapon concocted by the NSA was stolen and used by a group of hackers to infect some 350,000 computers. 70,000 devices such as MRI scanners, blood storage refrigerators and operating equipment used by Britain’s National Health Service were also targeted, forcing the NHS to turn away emergency room patients and divert ambulances, thus risking patients’ health and even their lives.

The Canadian ruling elite and the media have cynically welcomed the draconian Bill C-59 for its creation of a “super watch-dog” committee which will replace the Security and Intelligence Review Committee. In fact, the new National Security and Intelligence Review Agency will be staffed with tried and trusted representatives of the ruling class, and will not be accountable to the public. A National Security Commissioner will be tasked to work with the security agencies to establish legal cover for their operations, including CSIS “disruption” campaigns.

Defence Minister Sajjan acknowledged that in the case of CSE and cyberwar, details of any attack will not be made public. "Just like any other type of (military) operation, it goes through a very strict process and obviously for national security reasons, we can't outline a lot of the work that is being done" said Sajjan. A provision within Bill C-59 also states that CSE can take whatever precautions necessary to “maintain the covert nature” of its cyber attacks.

New Irish prime minister uses identity politics to cover-up right-wing agenda

Dermot Quinn 


Leo Varadkar, the new leader of Fine Gael, took over as Ireland’s Taoiseach (prime minister) in mid-June, replacing Enda Kenny. He expounded his enthusiastic support for LGBT+ rights to a large march in Dublin to mark gay pride weekend on June 24. Varadkar is the country’s youngest Taoiseach at 38 and its first openly gay head of government. 

Over 30,000 attended the rally, at which Varadkar declared, “I pledge as Taoiseach to use my office, for as long as I hold it, to advance the cause of LGBT rights, to press for marriage equality across Ireland, to speak up for LGBT rights around the world where under attack, and to push for the implementation of the sexual health strategy here at home at a time when it is more important than ever.” 

CEO of Belong To, Moninne Griffith, welcomed Varadkar’s appointment as Taoiseach saying, “As Ireland’s national LGBT+ youth service, we are delighted that the new leader of Fine Gael is a gay man, and now a role model for the youth who use our services across the country.” 

Varadkar is no role model for young people no matter what their gender or sexual orientation. He inherits a minority government which is propped up with the support of Fianna Fail and represents the interests of the Irish super-rich. It is this class that now backs Varadkar. Latest figures from the Irish Central Statistics Office show that just 10 percent of the population own almost 54 percent of the wealth, while 5 percent own almost 40 percent. In contrast, government imposed austerity, a severe housing crisis and declining wages and conditions have propelled the poorest 20 percent of households to owe more than they own.         

Varadkar was a staunch supporter of the last four government budgets, which favoured tax cuts for the richest 10 percent. He first positioned himself for the Fine Gael leadership in early 2016 when as acting minister for health he cut €12 million from the mental health budget, which affected thousands of young people. A recent study by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) showed that young people have higher rates of mental health problems than their counterparts in other parts of Europe and the United States. One in five young Irish adults aged 19-24 and one in six young people aged 11-13 are experiencing mental disorder, according to the study.

As minister for social protection, Varadkar introduced a series of measures against the poor and the unemployed under the guise of clamping down on welfare fraud. Last month, before becoming Taoiseach, he launched his “Welfare Cheats Cheat Us All” campaign, urging members of the public to call a special hotline and spy on their neighbours. Dublin city busses were covered with posters asking people to anonymously report their neighbours. Radio ads blurted out figures about welfare fraud, which have subsequently been proved false. Varadkar boasted that 4,859 reports had been received against social welfare recipients, compared with 3,332 last year.
Earlier in June, when these figures were debated in parliament, Varadkar dismissed claims that the state should be pursuing financial fraud instead of the very poorest in society by saying, “If that was applied to justice and Garda matters, you would be telling people not to bother reporting burglaries until you have dealt with all the murders.” 

Varadkar’s verbiage about his sexuality, democracy, young people and LGBT+ rights is a thin veneer to cover his right-wing agenda. All political parties in Ireland and the establishment media now propagate politics which pushes and represents the interests of the super-rich, the rich and the upper middle class. This exceedingly comfortable social layer props up capitalism and is as hostile to the working class as it is anxious to promote identity politics as a means of furthering its own demands for a greater share of the national pie. 

Propagating the cause of one’s sexual preference while dispersing anti-socialist “fiscally conservative” policies has become the staple diet of the “socially liberal” upper middle classes and the establishment press. Because of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s disastrous showing in the June 8 election, there have been calls by a number of Conservative media pundits, including Michael Portillo, for her to be replaced by Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives. 

Davidson, with her partner Jen Wilson from Wexford, campaigned for the Marriage Equality referendum in Ireland last year and appeared together in a Scottish Conservative Party political broadcast praising Conservative values. The video shows Davidson and her partner strolling along the Elie harbour in Fife as she explains how hard it was growing up gay in Scotland while expounding her class prejudice against the poor with statements such as, “When I was growing up you didn’t get anything for free, you had to work for it.”

Davidson recently described becoming Scottish Conservative leader as “the best move I’ve ever made,” even though there had been “dark nights of the soul” and “tears in the bedroom at night.”

Varadkar is cut from the same cloth. He takes over as head of government just as May is attempting to broker a deal with the European Union. Many of the rich business interests grouped around the lobby group IBEC have stated that this will cause years of uncertainty to the Irish economy. Although the level of unemployment has declined, the €65 billion bailout of the banks in 2011 and the slashing of public services has torn Irish society apart. 

Material deprivation rose from 13.7 percent of the population in 2008 to 25.5 percent in 2016. Consistent poverty rose from 4.2 percent in 2008 to 8.7 percent in 2015. Over a quarter of unemployed people, 26.2 percent, now endure consistent poverty, an increase of 16.5 percent since 2008. 

Child poverty and poverty within single parent households has also increased dramatically. According to the homeless charity Focus Ireland there are now 7,600 people homeless, an increase of 25 percent since April 2016. One in three of those in emergency accommodation is a child. In April this year there were 1,302 families using emergency accommodation, including 2,708 children. In May there was public outrage when it was reported that 12 homeless families, including more than 30 children, were told to go to Garda stations in Dublin because no other emergency accommodation was available.

Groups such as the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) have pioneered the use of gender and sexual identity politics that has now been taken up by the political right. They used this agenda to propel themselves into a wider acceptance by the establishment and the media. Everybody now laughs around the same chat show table, united by a shared agenda that class and the economic exploitative power of the local ruling elite and the international capitalist class is not to be the central topic for political dispute. 

The SWP criticise Varadkar, saying, “Thankfully an emerging youth movement politicised by the marriage equality campaign, the repeal movement and austerity conditions won’t tolerate Varadkar’s conservative, ‘politics-as-usual’ style.”

But addressing the gay pride rally in Dublin along with Varadkar was Senator David Norris, who receives constant effusive praise from all political parties for his longstanding championing of gay rights. This has included being invited to speak at various meetings by the pseudo-left. In 2013, for example, Norris addressed a meeting organised by the Socialist Workers Party in Dublin. Billed as, “David Norris, Ailbhe Smith (SWP) on the LGBT struggle” at Marxism 2013, the meeting “would bring together hundreds of people from around the country to debate and organize resistance.”

Just three weeks after speaking at the SWP event, Norris went on to “organise resistance” in the Irish Senate—but against the working class and on behalf of Irish capitalism. He seconded anti-strike legislation introduced by Fergal Quinn, one of the country’s richest capitalists, which included the threat of criminal prosecution, massive fines and lengthy prison terms.

This laid the basis for proposed additional anti-strike legislation in the Dail, which Varadkar has insisted he will introduce, with the cooperation of the unions, over the next year. Varadkar intends to make state arbitration in disputes legally binding, thus making workers who take strike action outside the confines of the pro-establishment unions subject to new draconian labour laws. He has signalled that workers at Dublin’s light rail system (LUAS) who fought a lengthy pay strike last year, would be one of the groups subject to the strike ban.

Number of European working poor doubles in a decade

Elisabeth Zimmermann


More and more people in work in Europe are being forced into poverty. This is demonstrated by a new study by the Hans Böckler Foundation which was made public last Thursday. The study, titled “Activation policies and poverty,” notes that a growing proportion of the population of Europe live in poverty, although they are working.

The researchers from the Economic and Social Sciences Institute (WSI) of the Böckler Foundation examined the effects of labor market and social policy measures in 18 EU countries from 2004 to 2014. All of the measures were aimed at forcing unemployed people into low-wage labor.

According to their research, an average of about 10 percent of the workforce aged between 18 and 64 in the countries studied were “working poor.” This means they earn less than 60 percent of the average income in their country. The proportion of working poor was highest in Romania at 18.6 percent, followed by Greece, 13.4 percent, and Spain, 13.2 percent.

In Germany, the number of working poor doubled from almost 1.9 million, or 4.8 percent, in 2004 to almost 4.1 million, or 9.6 percent, in 2014. The increase is even higher in absolute figures, because the total number of employed in Germany increased during this period from 39.3 million to 42.6 million. In Germany in 2014, a single person with less than €986 net per month was considered poor. For a household with two adults and two children under 14 years, the threshold was €2,072.

“In most countries, poverty for those in work had already begun to increase before the crisis in the euro area,” the study states. In the wake of the crisis, however, the situation in many countries worsened. “The measures taken to combat high unemployment have seen a further deregulation of the labor markets and a reduction in social benefits.”

The social counterrevolution in Europe finds its sharpest expression in Greece under the Syriza government. High levels of unemployment due to the destruction of regular paying jobs is combined with savage cuts to unemployment benefits and pensions. Due to the already existing level of social decline, however, the statistical increase in the numbers of working poor in Greece is relatively low.

The example of Germany, where the number of those employed increased was “particularly remarkable,” the Böckler report concludes. “Evidently the link between employment growth and poverty is more complicated than commonly assumed.” This is a deliberately vague understatement of the social counterrevolution that has taken place in the past two decades.

The increase in precarious, temporary, low-paid, part-time employment for millions is an international phenomenon implemented by the ruling elites. 

“The positive development in the German labor market is to a large extent due to an increase in atypical employment, especially part-time, often in the service and low-wage sector,” the study notes. The growth of the low-wage sector has been accelerated by extensive deregulation of the labor market, the reduction of benefits and increased pressure on workers to take any form of work. This increased pressure on the unemployed forces them to find a job as quickly as possible.

The trade unions in all countries played a major role in this development. They rushed to the side of capitalism in the crisis of 2008/2009, and helped transfer benefits for workers won over the course of decades into fresh reserves for bankrupt banks and their respective governments. The Böckler Foundation is the official think tank of the German trade union movement (DGB), and this explains the diplomatic tact of the WSI researchers in their report, although their statistics on poverty among workers are an indictment of the system.

The explosive growth of the low-wage sector in Germany was inaugurated in 2005 by the Hartz IV anti-social laws and Agenda 2010 program introduced by the SPD-Green coalition government led by Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer. In 2004 the trade unions actively opposed those seeking to protest against the Hartz IV laws. The priority for unions was to enforce the new measures. 

The concrete effects of the increasingly severe and far-reaching sanctions used by job centers is clear in the city of Duisburg, situated in the former industrial hub (Ruhr area) of Germany. With a population of almost half a million inhabitants, 77,000 people in Duisburg are dependent on measly Hartz IV benefits. The number of those employed in jobs with social security protection rose between 2006 to 2016 by about 15,000 to just under 166,000. However, the number of full-time employed fell by 700 during the same period, while the number of part-time employees rose by around 14,000 to over 38,000.

The number of temporary contract workers (most of them working full-time) has tripled during the past 10 years to 9,986. Some 37,000 workers in Duisburg have a so-called mini-job and 10,000 of these workers have more than one job in order to earn enough money to survive. This means that more than a third of all workers in Duisburg are employed part-time, on a temporary basis or/and in a mini-job.

A study drawn up by the DGB, reported by the Berliner Zeitung at the beginning of July, notes that this trend is taking place nationwide. More than 1 million people are hired out by agencies, 8.5 million in part-time work, while 2.53 million have temporary employment. Nearly 2 million are registered as self-employed.

The DGB study also notes that the one-fifth of the workforce with the lowest hourly wages between 1995 and 2015 experienced a real wage loss of 7 percent. The next fifth of the workforce lost 5 percent. This is a direct consequence of the policy of the trade unions themselves.

While the WSI researchers seek to conceal the reasons for widespread poverty, referring to the “complex links” between employment growth and poverty, it is clear who profits.

The Global Wealth Report drawn up by the Swiss bank Crédit Suisse (November 2016) reveals a significant growth in the fortunes of the rich and super-rich. The report notes that the number of dollar millionaires in Germany increased by 44,000 to around 1.6 million between mid-2015 and mid-2016. The club of super-rich, with a fortune of at least $50 million, increased by 500 to a total of 6,100. This put Germany in third place behind the US and China. According to Forbes, 114 billionaires live in Germany. The richest 36 of them have as much wealth (€276 billion) as the poorer half of the population.

This growing social inequality can only be halted by a policy directed against all of the political parties at the beck and call of the major banks and corporations.

In its election statement for this autumn’s federal election, the Socialist Equality Party declares:

“The SGP fights for a society in which the needs of the many stand higher than the profit interests of big business. The super-rich, the banks and the corporations must be expropriated and placed under the democratic control of the population. Only in this way can the social rights of all be secured. These include the right to an adequately paid job, a first-class education, affordable housing, a secure pension, high quality old-age provisions and access to culture.”