The Increasing Danger of Addiction to Video Games in Children

Cesar Chelala

The extraordinary increase in the use of video games by children results in their becoming a danger not only to their health but also to their quality of life. In recent years, video games have become one of the most popular forms of entertainment for children and teens worldwide. They are now a serious form of addiction for many children that concerns not only parents, but also health and school authorities.

It is estimated that between 5 and 8 percent of children and teens are addicted to this form of entertainment. In recent days, the World Health Organization (WHO) has categorized video game addiction as a mental health disorder, an opinion that is not shared by all experts on these games.

One of the conditions that make their use attractive for children is that they can be practiced with very few elements, unlike more traditional games. At the same time, they allow children to have an escape from the difficulties and demands of the real world.

One could add to these factors the attraction of establishing social connections, the rewards of continued play, and a carefully developed sense of gradual accomplishment based on well-known principles of psychological reinforcement.

Addiction to video games can have serious health effects on children. They can lead to visual and postural problems, poor eating and sleeping habits, social isolation, and anger and aggressive behavior that can be dangerous to others when asked to stop playing. Children may also lose friends who are non-gamers.

Addicted children can also become anxious and depressed, leading them to social isolation, low self-esteem, poor school attendance and failing school grades. Although excessive gaming can occur independently of other problems, it can also represent a child s response to other underlying situations, such as poor communication with their parents or with other children, anxiety and depression.

To limit the negative effects of video games, parents can establish a set of rules such as: limiting the amount of time when children can play; prohibiting them from playing until they have fulfilled their responsibilities both at home and in school; making sure that children understand that playing games is not a right they have, but that it is an earned privilege; prohibiting games that parents consider can be dangerous to their children s health; using by parents of “Parental Control” settings that are now included in almost all video game devices; keeping game and consoles out of children s bedrooms where parents can more easily control their use; and prohibiting children from watching games with disturbingly violent themes.

It is the parent’s responsibility to limit their children s access to video games and computers, and their recommendations to their children about their use should be strictly enforced. The children s health and quality of life is at stake.

A Secret Political Genocide in Colombia

Mario Murcia

“One does not know if the paramilitaries are going to kill you first or if one will be killed by the avalanche of Hidroituango.”

– Ana María Cortés, campaign organizer.

While much of the main international media outlets have been captivated by the World Cup or covering the current political developments occurring in Venezuela or Nicaragua, little coverage has been awarded to the remarkable increase in the systematic assassination of community leaders and political activistS in Colombia. There have been 19 recorded assassinations in the past 8 days and countless death threats as well.

This week Ana Maria Cortés, a leader of the ex-presidential campaign of Gustavo Petro, in Cáceres, Antioquia was found dead. This event is connected to a thread of assassinations of opposition campaign leaders after the presidential victory of Ivan Duque on May 27th. Neither the incumbent president nor the current president has presented a solution to stop this new threat of violence. Many point to the complicity of the state in these assassinations. For example, the ex-presidential candidate Gustavo Petro has signaled the head of the police in Cáceres of being the intellectual perpetrator behind the assassination of his campaign coordinator, as days before the murder the sheriff had threatened her life. Due to this fact, many opposition political leaders feel as though they can no longer seek remedy through traditional juridical system.

The recent popular hashtag in Colombia has been #NosEstánMatando which literally translates to: “they are killing us.” Many social organization have been galvanized by the recent uptake of violence and public assemblies have been scheduled in memory of the victims. Camila M., a community leader in Bogota, Colombia comments, “We feel great pain for the tragic situation we are going through, there is no respect for life. However, the citizenry are organizing to demand the exiting administration and the one that will arrive, that the peace agreement be implemented, that security is given to the defenders of peace, and that the Justice system accelerate the investigations of the recent assassinations.”

The function of these assassinations of community organizers is to intimidate and deter the political opposition to the new presidency of Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who is ostensibly a close friend to Washington. He is a current senator of Colombia that has 274 investigations pending in the judicial system.  The sense of anguish and urgency of the current situation is exacerbated by the silence of the major media outlets in Colombia, the Attorney General and the Minister of defence.

While the American public is bombarded by the news of democratic losses and persecution of political opposition in Venezuela and Nicaragua, little is said about the dire situation of democratic and human rights in Colombia. The Colombian people demand their voices to be heard to prevent the impending political genocide.

The Politics of Poverty in America

Ebony Slaughter-Johnson

This summer, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty Philip Alston presented his observations on the state of international poverty to the UN Human Rights Council.

The country at the center of his most recent report wasn’t a developing one — it was the United States. In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, Alston found, many Americans live without access to water and public sewage services.

More alarmingly, at a time when 40 million Americans live in poverty — including over 5 million experiencing “developing world” levels of poverty — congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump are jeopardizing access to the social safety net for millions, the report concluded.

Exacerbating poverty won’t “Make America Great” for anyone.

For instance, health care, which is already prohibitively expensive, could become more so. A new rule allowing small businesses to buy plans without certain “essential health benefits” required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is expected to increase insurance costs for people who need those benefits.

Even now, ACA premiums are increasing thanks to the president’s decision to stop sharing costs with insurers.

Rising out-of-pocket costs and premiums could either push the poor out of the market or force them to contend with even higher medical expenses. And by encouraging people to opt out of pricier plans, that leaves those who remain insured confronting higher costs, and subsequent financial insecurity, themselves.

Lack of insurance either drives the uninsured into hospital emergency rooms, where they face more expensive treatment they have no hope of affording, or promises an amplified public health crisis. In a December report, Alston recalled encountering poor Americans who had lost all of their teeth because they lacked access to dental health care.

The social safety net, which plays a crucial role in reducing poverty among children, is also under threat.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) alone kept 3.8 million children and 2.1 million children out of poverty and “deep poverty,” respectively, in 2014. The Center for American Progress calculated that childhood poverty alone stunts economic output by $170 billion each year and deprives the economy of $500 billion each year.

More importantly, poverty is morally reprehensible, subjecting children to a lifetime of harm. It portends adverse health consequences, limited educational achievement, and lower rates of employment. Yet SNAP is on the chopping block for the House Farm Bill.

Poverty has also been shown to make communities fertile breeding grounds for abuse by law enforcement.

America’s homeless have been among those most vulnerable to this abuse. Instead of addressing homelessness with increased access to affordable housing, however, the Trump administration has suggested cuts to rental assistance programs. These cuts could push more Americans into homelessness — and then into the criminal justice system.

Across the country, homeless Americans are arrested and hit with an avalanche of fines and fees simply for trying to survive. The criminalization of homelessness deepens the poverty of the homeless and creates a criminal justice system that discriminates against the poor. No one benefits.

Fortunately, such hostility to the poor has been met with a wave of progressive activism.

Only a day after Alston presented his report, the Poor People’s Campaign rallied in front of the Capitol Building to cap six weeks of anti-poverty advocacy. Lawmakers are already following the campaign’s lead: Several influential senators and representatives recently heard testimony from struggling Americans.

Anti-poverty measures also featured prominently in the winning campaign of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is likely to become the next congresswoman for New York’s 14th District.

As Republicans pursue policies that make American poverty a global concern, at least some progressives are preparing to fight back.

Understanding the Conflict in Nicaragua: the Long Battle Against US Imperialism

Celina Stien-della Croce

As of June 28, the death toll in Nicaragua has reached 285, with more than 1,500 wounded. The country is divided, trying to make sense of the violence and the political climate that surrounds it. In the United States, making sense of the current narrative is nearly impossible. It seems that there is one narrative passing through the mainstream news cycle on repeat like an echo chamber. According to this narrative, President Daniel Ortega is authoritarian. He cut pensions. People protested. Ortega responded violently, killing still climbing numbers of protestors. Ortega must go, and the United States must support him, in the name of democracy. But reality is rarely that simple. This article is not a defense of the Ortega administration. It does not seek to condone or overlook the recent deaths. It is an attempt from one human being to another to push against the walls of this echo chamber and give historical context to the current conflict.

The misinformation – or, at best, the careful curation of facts—surrounding the recent protests begins with the pension cuts that sparked the conflict. Contrary to the current narrative, the pension proposals did not originate with Ortega’s administration. In response to the budgetary shortfall of Nicaragua’s social security fund (the INSS), the IMF proposed cutting benefits by 20% and raising the retirement age to 63 (or even 65) from 60, among other changes. Ortega’s administration rejected the IMF’s harsh austerity measures and instead proposed cutting pensions by 5% and increasing contributions to the INSS by 3.5% from employers and .75% from employees. Ortega’s proposal cut pensions by far lower rates than the plan suggested by the IMF policy, but somehow the IMF seems to have escaped blame in the narrative around the protests. Don’t be fooled: the IMF and the broader neoliberal agenda have a long history of crafting policies that impoverish everyday people and widen inequality gaps throughout the Global South. Nicaragua is no exception.

Daniel Ortega has long been an enemy of the United States and its imperialist agenda. Ortega was part of the Sandinista revolution that ousted the US-backed 40-year Somoza dictatorship in 1979. The Sandinistas remained in power for 19 years under Ortega’s leadership, during which time illiteracy rates fell by nearly %40. They lost the elections in 1990, paving the way for 17 years of neoliberal administrations. In 2006, Ortega once again won the presidential elections. Since he has been in office in 2007, poverty has fallen from 48.3% in 2005 to 24.9% in 2016 after plateauing for during the series of neoliberal administrations that followed the 1990 defeat of the Sandinista government. From 2006 to 2017, the GDP has increased by 38 per cent. Ortega has enjoyed high popularity ratings, but to say that the people of Nicaragua unliterally love him would be a lie. His record is complicated: it was before the protests, even more so now. But the fact that the gains made by his administration have been left out of much of the coverage around Nicaragua’s most recent protests gives rise to a bigger question, one that is unconcerned with the wishes and demands of the Nicaraguan people. The conflict in Nicaragua is not black and white: it is possible both that the people of Nicaragua have grievances with Ortega, and also that there are other factors at play that echo larger trends of an imperialist intervention and a neoliberal agenda throughout Latin America propagated by the US, most recently in Brazil and Venezuela.

Image courtesy of Institute Nacional de Información de Desarrollo’s Report on Poverty and Inequality (2016)

As Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research recently reported, the United States has waged an ‘unconventional war’ on Venezuela and throughout the region, using economic sanctions, the manipulation of public opinion, and other schemes to insert a neoliberal agenda under the pretext of humanitarianism, “waging a war that has the particularity of sometimes seeming to be mobilizations for citizens’ rights.” These ‘Unconventional Wars’ provide important context for understanding the protests and relate violence in Nicaragua. The United States has in large part created the crisis in Venezuela through economic sanctions and other means and subsequently used the consequences as a pretext for intervention. Self-determination is a threat to US and corporate interests that stand to benefit from natural resources, trade deals, and cheap labor in the region. In the case of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega’s administration has aligned itself with the leftist Venezuelan government, raising its fist to the beast of US imperialism. It is brave to stare US imperialism in the eye (according to Tricontinental: Institute for Social Researches In the Ruins of the Present,the US has the most powerful military in the world at $611.2 billion per year), but it is not without consequences.

The West has shown that the assertion of both Venezuela and Nicaragua that they have the right to act independently of US and Western interests will not be tolerated, especially insofar as it dares to use the countries’ resources to invest in the wellbeing of their own people at the expense of the profits of multinational corporations. The US has made it clear that there are consequences for any administration that dares to challenge its authority. To this end, the United States is pushing the Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act of 2017 (also known as the NICA Act), which seeks to block the country’s access to international loans—all under the pretext of democracy and humanitarianism (despite the fact that these loans are largely used for health, education, and social spending). The NICA Act has been interpreted by many as a way of punishing Nicaragua for its alliance with Venezuela and its deviation from the desires of US imperialism and hegemony. For the US, this has nothing to do with democracy. It has nothing to do with pension cuts. It has nothing to do with supporting actual grievances that the Nicaraguan people have with their government.

The US narrative about Nicaragua closely mirrors the ‘unconventional wars’ in Venezuela and Brazil, hiding behind a manufactured narrative of humanitarian need and using a systematic shock as an opportunity to insert a neoliberal agenda. As journalist Max Blumenthal and others have noted, the United States government has poured a tremendous amount of money into the anti-Ortega protest movement (including some protest groups, media, and other anti-Ortega groups), largely through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)and USAID. Recently, a group of student leaders of the protests took a trip to the United States funded by Freedom House, a US government-funded NED partner, and met with conservative senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to ask for support (the same three who recently re-introduced the NICA Act in April). While the intentions of the students and the reality on the ground are murky at best, the intentions of US imperialism couldn’t be clearer.

We mustn’t forget that the United States has a long history of meddling in Latin America and supporting regime change to further its own economic interests. In Nicaragua, the United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship and funded the right-wing Contras in an attempt to defeat the Sandinistas during the iconic Iran-Contra scandal. With this history in mind, are we really to believe that the US government has the best interest of the Nicaraguan people at heart? Are they concerned about the people’s grievances with Ortega, or is there something else at stake?

We can – and must – hold multiple truths at the same time: that Ortega’s government has made huge strides for working people in Nicaragua, that many Nicaraguans have had- and continue to have- grievances with the Ortega administration, that there has been a real human toll to the conflict that has cost the lives of hundreds of Nicaraguans, and that the United States is trying to take advantage of this discontent and instability for its own benefit. The push for the NICA Act and the funding of opposition groups enforce any suspicions that the historians among us might have had. We know what the US wants. But we mustallow the people of Nicaragua to chart a path forward, to be the makers of their own history, and to hope for peace and a future that is free from the suffocating grip of US imperialism.

Congo’s Imposter President and the Moral Depravity of the West

Jeremy Kuzmarov

On June 28^th, 2018, the Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said in a letter to the African Union (AU) that it was preparing new protests and described a total crisis of confidence in the electoral process.

President Joseph Kabila has remained in office beyond his constitutionally mandated two term limit in December 2016, and his security forces have used repression to stay in power.

Yaa Lengi M. Ngemi is a Congolese dissident who has written an important book entitled “Joseph Kabila, Identity Thief, Imposter and Rwandan Trojan Horse in Congo” (self-published, 2017) that sheds light into the horror show that is modern Congo.

Mr. Ngemi provides considerable evidence to show that Joseph Kabila’s real name is actually Hyppolite Kanambe and that he is not Congolese but a quisling of Rwandan origin.

Mr. Kanambe claims to be the son of Laurent Kabila, Congo’s head of state from 1997-2001, who fought alongside Ché Guevara in the 1960s as a leader of the Simba rebellion against the dictator Joseph Mobutu.

Kabila’s actual father, Adrien Christophe Kanambe, however, was a Rwandan Tutsi exiled in Tanzania after the Hutu revolution, who was killed by Laurent Kabila after he had been accused of disloyalty to his cause.

Hyppolite was then adopted by Kabila who married his widowed mother but could not actually take care of him because he had too many other wives and kids.

Kanambe thus never received much formal education and made a living as a taxi driver and bartender.

He was at a certain point taken under the wing of his uncle, Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) James Kabarebe and was then installed in power by Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame after presiding over the massacre of Hutu in the late 1990s.

The Congolese army under his command integrated thousands of Rwandan and Ugandan Tutsi who committed legions of atrocities against Mai Mai fighters and others seeking the liberation of North Kivu, which Rwanda has aimed to annex.

Kanambe’s security forces also detained and tortured trade union organizers and murdered human rights activists like Floribert Chebeya, the president of the NGO Voice for the Voiceless, priests such as Cardinal Frederic Etsou, the Pope’s representative in the Congo, and members of Laurent Kabila’s family who threatened to expose his dark secret.

They included Laurent’s outspoken younger sister Esperance who was shot to death by her bodyguard who never did any prison time.

According to Ngemi, at least forty five assassinations were carried out by Dr. Jean Pierre Tumba-Longo, who used specialized poisons to kill victims like General Mbuza Mabe, who had kicked Rwandan troops out of Kivu and threatened to pursue them back into Rwanda.

Kanambe came to power after the murder of Laurent Kabila in 2001. He had been installed by Rwanda, Uganda and the U.S. and UK following the overthrow of Joseph Mobutu in 1997.

Mr. Kabila, however, proved to be too independent for his outside patrons.

In line with his Guevarist heritage, he rejected Bechtel’s plans for the newly liberated country, annulled mining contracts signed with some powerful Western companies like American Mineral Fields, based in Bill Clinton’s home-town of Hope Arkansas, and ejected the Rwandan and Ugandan invaders.

Kabila would pay for these decisions with his life.

His successors’ first move upon assuming the presidency was to fly to the United States to give back mining concessions to the companies that had had them revoked by his fictitious father.

Kabila in turn enabled Rwandan and Ugandan proxy forces to occupy and plunder the Kivu province while selling Congo’s riches out to predatory foreign interests.

Gang rapes were carried out by a battalion of the Congolese army trained by U.S. Special Forces.

Maurice Carney, Director of the NGO Friends of the Congo, said that “Kabila [Kanambe] served as a toll-gate for Western corporate interests, sell[ing] off Congo’s riches for pennies on the dollar.”

Among the beneficiaries was Herman Cohen, the former U.S. ambassador to Rwanda and Zaire, whose consulting firm partnered with Rwandan president Paul Kagame to exploit deadly methane in deep water under Lake Kivu on the Congo-Rwanda border.

Congo is vital in providing the raw materials that are used in modern electronic gadgets, and sits atop uranium reserves, cobalt and tantalum which is used in the manufacture of smart bombs and drone technology.

Since 2016, a number of U.S. congressmen have been outspoken in condemning the Kanambe regime without acknowledging that its head is an imposter.

The United States meanwhile continues to provide over $7 million in annual security assistance along with the massive foreign aid to Rwanda and Uganda.

These aid programs should be cut if the United States is serious about promoting democracy and human rights in Africa, and new legislation should be passed that outlaws the exploitation of Congo’s mineral wealth.

Kanambe and his foreign sponsors including mining conglomerates and their political patrons should at the same time be subjected to condemnation and sanction and investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Perhaps then, the peoples of Kivu and Congo may obtain some modicum of independence and justice for the horrendous atrocities they have endured.

World Bank Solution for Lack of Jobs: Cut Worker Protections

Pete Dolack

The World Bank is in the process of completing its “World Development Report 2019: The Changing Nature of Work” and, surprisingly, the latest draft version opens with quotes from Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. Has the World Bank suddenly lost sight of its purpose and will now take up the cause of working people?

Well, you already know the answer to that question, didn’t you?

Only a few paragraphs down we begin to see where this paper is heading. After a bit of perfunctory hand-wringing over disruptions caused by robotics, we read the problem is “domestic bias towards state-owned or politically connected firms, the slow pace of technology adoption, or stifling regulation.” And although some jobs are disappearing, fear not because “the rise in the manufacturing sector in China has more than compensated for this loss.”

Oh, so we should all move to China to get new jobs.

Never mind that the highest minimum wage for Chinese workers, that mandated in Shanghai, is $382 per month. In some places the minimum wage is half that, if workers are fortunate enough to be paid regularly. And that millions of rural Chinese are being driven into cities to become sweatshop workers, so for now there won’t be enough work for the rest of the world. Then again, letting bosses have the upper hand is what the World Bank has in mind. No, its economists haven’t forgotten what the institution’s purpose is nor why it exists.

So what to do? The World Bank report does suggest not allowing corporations to dodge taxes to the degree that they do. Very well, but even if taxes were collected at the statutory rates, that would still leave corporations vastly under-taxed. No suggestion by the bank, of course, that corporations actually pay a fair tax rate. Corporations currently account for a paltry nine percent of U.S. tax receipts; in the 1950s, they accounted for 30 percent or more. Similarly, in Canada personal income taxes account for three and a half times more revenue than do corporate income taxes; these were equal in 1952.

There is much discussion of “investing in human capital,” a particularly favored mantra of the World Bank. What does that mean? Capitalists are likely to interpret such talk — rather common in NGO circles these days — to mean demanding more skills or degrees from prospective workers, but in the United States graduates with doctorate degrees are being forced to take jobs in academia as part-time adjuncts, and plenty of folks in other fields are “over-educated” already for the jobs they hold. This concept comes from the idea that the problem is that there aren’t enough skilled people for all those wonderful jobs that are out there, just over the rainbow. But in the real world, as opposed to Right-wing think tanks, that is not so.

A 2014 report issued by the National Employment Law Project found that higher-wage jobs were created at a much lower rate during the “recovery” from the 2007-08 economic collapse than had been lost; conversely, low-wage jobs (paying less than $13.33 per hour) were created twice as fast as they had been lost. In separate studies, the Economic Policy Institute found that long-term unemployment is elevated for workers at every education level (and was increasing at a somewhat higher rate for those with some college or a four-year college degree than the average), and that the so-called “skills mismatch” is a myth.

So we come to the real “solution” in the minds of World Bank officials: Cut worker-protection laws.

Aw, you really aren’t surprised, are you?

Here’s a key passage in the report: “Rapid changes to the nature of work put a premium on flexibility for firms to adjust their workforce, but also for those workers who benefit from more dynamic labor markets.”

Dynamic for who? What we have here are code words meaning make it easier to fire people. And that’s the real takeaway message, no matter the lofty rhetoric about governments creating a new social contract. “Creating jobs” and “investing early in human capital” are two elements of the World Bank paper’s suggested new social contract. Unfortunately, there are no thoughts on how new jobs might be created when capitalists are in a frenzy of eliminating jobs to maintain their profit rates and survive relentless market competition. More schooling, which is what “investing early in human capital” amounts to, is fine by capitalists, as long as they don’t have to bear any of the costs. It’s up to students to take on more debt to create this new “human capital.”

Contrast this happy talk with the reality of the capitalist workplace. A report just issued by Democratic U.S. Representative Keith Ellison found the average ratio of CEO-to-median-worker pay is 339-to-1. That ratio among the 500 biggest U.S. corporations is as high as almost 5,000-to-1. Nope, I don’t think the boss works thousands of times harder than you do. At McDonalds, for example, the CEO’s annual salary could be used to pay the yearly wages of 3,101 workers making the chain’s median pay.

The sort of societal priorities and imbalances of power that enable such appalling inequality might be summed up by the uses to which money is put. In Los Angeles, a new football stadium is being built and the estimated cost of it is now estimated at $4.9 billion. That figure has risen considerably and likely will again. Given all the homelessness in Los Angeles, and all the other social problems, what could have been done with $4.9 billion?

The number of homeless people in California is estimated at 130,000. Doing something about that might be one way to “invest” in human development, and doing so might even save money. A Rand Corporation study carried out for Los Angeles County found that homeless people who are provided stable shelter make fewer trips to the emergency room and are arrested less frequently, to the extent that the cost of the housing is more than offset.

Oops, but that’s not profitable for the well-connected as throwing money at stadium boondoggles or cutting jobs. But if you earn enough degrees, perhaps you’ll fulfill the World Bank’s prophesy by landing a job at a Chinese sweatshop.

Australian investigation underscores global health dangers of toxic foam exposure

Patrick Davies

An investigation by Australia’s Fairfax Media has underscored the potentially deadly consequences of exposure to toxic PFAS chemicals. It documented the existence of a cancer cluster in the US city of Oakdale, Minnesota, close to the global headquarters of chemical manufacturing giant 3M, which produces the substance.

The revelation is a damning indictment of Australian authorities. Since 2012, residents have known that areas around 18 military bases and airports nationally have been contaminated with PFAS chemicals, used in fire-fighting foam.

State and federal governments have rejected demands for financial and medical assistance, claiming there is no clear link between the substance and life-threatening diseases such as cancer.

The Fairfax Media investigation pointed to the fraudulent character of these claims. It showed that 21 children who attended Tartan Senior High, a few blocks from 3M’s Oakdale plant, have suffered cancer. Five have died.

Katie Jurek, the first of the school’s pupils to be diagnosed, died from osteosarcoma in 2007. In addition to four other cancer fatalities since, another 16 students at the school have suffered various forms of the disease since 2002. They were all diagnosed during their high school studies, or in the subsequent 10 years.

The most recent victim, Amara Strande, 16, had a volley-ball sized tumour on her liver. The condition was extremely rare for someone her age.

As the number of cases grew, several parents made inquiries with the Minnesota Department of Health. They were told the numbers were insufficient for a cancer cluster to be declared.

The statistics were eventually examined as part of a lawsuit launched by the state of Minnesota against 3M last year. The action was initiated in response to damage caused to natural resources, including the aquifers that provide drinking water to 125,000 people in Minnesota.

During the trial, the Minnesota Health Department sought to downplay the rates of cancer. Their own figures, however, showed that the incidence of cancer among Oakdale children between 1999 and 2014 was 56 percent greater than the state average. Children who died in the city were 171 percent more likely to have had a diagnosis of cancer than elsewhere in the US.

Mothers had a 34 percent greater chance than the national average of having a child born with low-birth weight and were less fertile than those in unaffected areas. Cases of female breast cancer among adults were 12 percent more common than elsewhere in the state. The city’s rate for all adult cancers was 8 percent above the state average.

The lawsuit was settled in February for $US850 million. But 3M did not accept any liability for the contamination and denied any PFAS-related public health issue.

During the lawsuit, internal 3M documents emerged demonstrating that the company conducted a campaign to undermine scientific studies linking its products with cancer.

Professor John Giesy, a well-known academic, had stated in internal emails that his role was to keep “bad papers” about 3M and PFAS “out of the literature.” He allegedly received a secret consultancy fee from the company for over a decade.

PFAS chemicals are at the centre of a growing international health crisis. They have been linked to the suppression of the immune system, reproductive problems, hormone abnormalities and various cancers. The chemicals have been widely used in various products, including non-stick cookware and items with water repelling surfaces.

Some of the worst contaminations are the result of 3M’s “light water” C8 firefighting foam. The product has been used by emergency personnel in Australia and globally. For decades, it entered ground soil and contaminated waterways and aquifers.

In May 2000, 3M announced it would cease production of the product following research by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) indicating the presence of PFAS chemicals in the blood of affected populations.

In the years following, meetings between 3M and Minnesota’s government regulators revealed that PFAS waste was dumped in the city’s landfill and other sites around Oakdale. By 2004, the chemicals were present in Oakdale’s water supply with elevated concentrations in some cases reaching 20 times what is considered the safe level.

There are clear parallels with the plight of residents of Williamtown, near Newcastle, in the Australian state of New South Wales. The town’s waterways and groundwater have been contaminated with PFAS chemicals by firefighting foam runoff from the nearby air force base.

Firefighting foam in use, credit: CRC Care

Federal and state governments have commissioned reports that attempted to whitewash the responsibility of the relevant military and civilian authorities, which have done nothing about the contamination for decades.

A federally-funded “expert health panel” report released in May said the government need not conduct disease screening or health interventions for highly exposed groups. It claimed there was “weak and inconsistent evidence” about the health impact of PFAS chemicals.

The state health department has also referenced the work of 3M’s scientists to maintain there is “no consistent evidence” linking the toxic substances to cancer. The department’s analysis of cancer incidences in the Williamtown area denied the existence of a cancer cluster on Cabbage Tree Road, labelling it as a coincidence.

The response echoes that of the Minnesota Health Department.

After the contamination was discovered in Williamtown, a number of other sites were identified nationally, including at Oakey, near Toowoomba, in Queensland, and Darwin and Katherine in the Northern Territory.

The Australian government is seeking to quash a growing number of class action lawsuits launched by residents of the affected communities, who have exhausted all other avenues for compensation.

In the US, the Trump administration recently directed the EPA to revise its methods of evaluating environmental and health risks associated with toxic chemicals. Touted by the New York Times as a “big victory for the chemical industry,” this will limit the study of dangerous chemicals.

The EPA has also sought to suppress a US Department of Health and Human Services study warning that PFAS levels in public water supplies can threaten human health at concentrations 10 times lower than what the EPA deems safe.

The Fairfax Media investigation is another exposure of the role of capitalist governments, in Australia, the US and internationally, in subordinating the health and safety of ordinary people to the profit demands of corporations and big business.

Pentagon and Iran trade threats over renewed oil sanctions

Bill Van Auken 

Washington and Tehran have traded threats that the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s petroleum passes, could become the flashpoint for the tensions generated by the Trump administration’s attempt to derail the Iran nuclear agreement and reimpose crippling economic sanctions against the country.

The US Central Command, which oversees the Pentagon’s far-ranging military interventions from North Africa and the Middle East to Central Asia, issued a statement Thursday asserting that it stood “ready to ensure the freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce” through the strait, while insisting that the role of the US military was to “promote security and stability in the region.”

In reality, after laying waste to entire societies, from Iraq, to Libya and Syria, US imperialism is preparing for a military confrontation with Iran that could quickly eclipse the bloodbaths in those countries and precipitate a regional and even world war.

The Pentagon’s threats followed remarks by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during a visit to Europe aimed at countering escalating US pressure to choke off European trade and investment with Iran.

Speaking at a press conference in Bern alongside his Swiss counterpart Alain Berset, Rouhani said it was “incorrect and unwise” for Washington to believe that “one day all oil producing countries would export their surplus oil and Iran would be the only country that cannot export its oil.”

Rouhani’s remarks were followed up on Thursday, by a statement from the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which directs Iranian naval operations in the Persian Gulf. Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari welcomed the Iranian president’s “decisive” response to the threats by the Trump administration and expressed confidence in his force’s ability “to make the enemies understand what using the Strait of Hormuz by all or none could mean.”

Iranian officials had issued a similar threat to block the strategic strait—the only sea passage from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean—in 2012 in response to sanctions imposed under the Obama administration. Tehran has repeatedly made it clear that the cutting off of its oil exports, which account for 60 percent of Iran’s foreign earnings and provide the lion’s share of the government’s revenues, is a red line that would spark retaliation. Military analysts have estimated that Iran could tie up shipping for a month, unleashing a sharp rise in energy prices and potential global economic turmoil.

Rouhani also suggested during his trip to Europe that Iran could curtail its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the international watchdog agency that has repeatedly confirmed that Tehran is in compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal it signed with the US, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, accepting the drastic curtailment of its nuclear programs in return for a step-by-step easing of international sanctions.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is to meet with his counterparts from Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia in Vienna today in an attempt to salvage the deal in the aftermath of US President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from and violation of the agreement, together with the re-imposition of punishing US economic sanctions. Iran is demanding that the European powers provide guarantees that the benefits of sanctions relief will continue, in terms of trade and investment, despite the new aggression by the United States.

Under the sanctions legislation imposed under Obama, the punishing measures originally imposed against Iran automatically “snap back” with Trump’s repudiation of the nuclear accord. Early next month, sanctions targeting Iran’s automotive sector, trade and gold, as well as other key metals, go back into effect. And, on November 4, the sanctions targeting Iran’s energy sector and petroleum-related transactions and transactions with the central bank of Iran, as well as ports, shipbuilding, insurance and more, resume with full force.

“Our goal is to increase pressure on the Iranian regime by reducing to zero its revenue on crude oil sales,” said the State Department’s Director of Policy Planning Brian Hook Monday.

Echoing an earlier ultimatum delivered by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Hook claimed that Washington’s strategy “is not about changing the regime, it is about changing the behavior of the leadership in Iran.”

The thrust of American policy, however, is to impose such a crippling economic blockade against Iran—essentially an act of war—that the government either collapses or is compelled to submit to US domination of the region. Hook demanded that Iran behave as a “normal country,” by which Washington means a vassal state of US imperialism.

The US government has sent contradictory messages over whether it will grant temporary exemptions from retaliatory secondary sanctions against countries that are heavily dependent upon Iranian crude, including China, India and Turkey.

Asked on Tuesday whether China would reduce its imports of Iranian oil as a result of Washington’s ultimatums, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman replied that China is opposed to unilateral sanctions. Beijing is both Iran’s top trading partner and a major foreign investor, with two-way trade increasing 21 percent last year to US $37.3 billion.

But China’s Minister for Regional Cooperation Tzachi Hanegbi told the South China Morning Post that Tehran could not rely on China to offset the US sanctions. “Companies will stop working with Iran because they understand they will lose the American market,” he said. “China can be a replacement, but very limited.”

Washington dispatched its ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to New Delhi in an attempt to strong-arm the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi into “rethinking its relationship with Iran.” India is the second-largest importer of Iranian oil after China. Government sources in India told the media that while New Delhi was “engaging” with the US on the issue, it would have to pursue its own national interests. Previously, the Indian government stated that it did not recognize unilateral sanctions, but only those imposed through the United Nations.

Japan, meanwhile, has reportedly informed the US that it cannot further cut its Iranian oil imports without damaging the country’s economy. At the same time, however, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called off a planned trip to Iran—the first by a Japanese prime minister since before the overthrow of the Shah’s US-backed dictatorship nearly 40 years ago—in apparent deference to US attempts to isolate Tehran.

While ratcheting up the danger of a wider war in the Middle East, Washington’s measures against Iran are simultaneously escalating the drive toward full-scale trade war between US imperialism and its economic rivals.

Germany: Largest ever mass deportation of refugees to Afghanistan

Marianne Arens

In the wake of the recent reactionary deal struck by the German grand coalition—Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU), Social Democratic Party (SPD)—the government is expanding its terror against refugees. In the early hours of July 4, 69 refugees were deported to Afghanistan. The Lufthansa flight from Munich to Kabul was the largest ever mass deportation of refugees to Afghanistan.

All of the parliamentary parties, including the opposition Greens and the Left Party, share responsibility for this criminal action. Fifty-one refugees were deported from Bavaria, while the remaining 18 came from Berlin, Hesse, Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Baden-Württemberg, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In most of these states, the Greens are involved in government. In Berlin and Thuringia, the Left Party is part of the administration and has once again demonstrated that it is capable of deporting migrants as brutally as the other Bundestag parties.

In Afghanistan, citizens are confronted on a daily basis with violence, torture and death. The situation in the country, occupied for 17 years by NATO and torn apart by the war, is deteriorating rapidly. This is confirmed by a number of official reports issued by the German Foreign Office.

The German government has been forced to admit this. A government statement from February 2018 to the Bundestag stated: “In Afghanistan, there is fierce fighting and bombings on a daily basis with numerous civilian deaths.” Such “excessive violence” prevails not only in areas dominated by Taliban and ISIS militias, but also in those regions ruled by the puppet government in Kabul. This was confirmed by a United Nations report on torture that states that no area in Afghanistan can be classified as safe.

Previously deportations were limited to those regarded as “potentially dangerous” or those “refusing to integrate,” but now even this official restriction has been repealed. In reply to a question at the beginning of June, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) stated: “In our view, the restrictions have been dropped.” The only concrete reason given for the latest deportations is the claim that “following the major attack of last year the German embassy in Kabul is once again able to better conduct its work.”

Wednesday’s mass deportation involved no less than 134 police officers, while the preparations for the deportations involved major police operations in the respective federal states.

The authorities acted with great brutality. Many of those affected were awoken in the early morning hours of Wednesday, taken into custody and placed directly on a plane in Munich, without being able to pack belongings or say a goodbye. In Bavaria, 21 people had been detained some days earlier. In a press release, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) proudly announced that the remaining 30 victims in Bavaria were “apprehended by the Bavarian police so early to prevent them evading deportation.”

The Bavarian Refugee Council has criticised the state administration and its interior minister for their use of “a sledgehammer against refugees.” The organisation lists a number of cases in which students and apprentices, full-time employees and even sick people were deported. It writes that the state government is even deporting “well-integrated people and young adults from youth welfare institutions.”

According to the BRC report, one of the deportees was a juvenile apprehended on his way to an apprentice school, while another trainee was arrested at a therapeutic education facility and then deported. Another victim has been living in Germany for seven years and had had a permanent employment contract for the past five years. Yet another was handed over to the police while receiving treatment at the Gauting Psychiatric Clinic in Starnberg.

Also noteworthy is the case of Esam from Munich. The 27-year-old speaks German and had commenced an internship at a Munich bakery at the end of 2017. His employer, who was very satisfied with Esam’s work, wanted to hire him as an apprentice, but the immigration office delayed approval of his training contract for nearly half a year. Esam was among the group that has been deported.

A reporter who was able to speak to several of the deported men in Kabul on Wednesday documented the tragic stories of a number of other victims. Among those deported was Ahmed Hussain, 28, originally from Wardak, an unstable province in Afghanistan. He had worked as a guard and pizza chef in Germany for six years, during which time he paid taxes. Mohammad Nasar from Nangarhar, aged just 21, was another of those roused by police in the early morning hours and then immediately deported.

The only “offence” of all these people is that they failed to obtain asylum from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). Instead, they have been subject to absurd and cynical accusations. In the case of the young man with the chance of a permanent job in a Munich bakery, the Central Immigration Office of Upper Bavaria outrageously justified his deportation by declaring that his efforts to integrate into German society were a sign he was not prepared to leave the country voluntarily!

Brutal mass deportations are a key element of the offensive undertaken by Germany’s grand coalition against refugees, which is supported by all of the parties in the Bundestag. This offensive is ultimately directed against the entire working class. The “Migration Master Plan” drawn up by Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) provides for the establishment of camps in Germany and throughout Europe that resemble the Nazis’ own concentration camps. At the same time, mass deportations to the war zones of the Near and Middle East are to be massively expanded.

Anyone who wants to know what the CDU, CSU and SPD have agreed in their refugee deal should take a look at Bavaria. Many of the points included in Seehofer’s master plan have already been put into action.

On June 5, the Bavarian state government decided on a new asylum plan, which is due to come into force on August 1. It provides for accelerated deportations and asylum procedures. It is all about “more tempo,” declared Bavarian Minister President Markus Söder (CSU): “We want faster procedures.” To this end, a new state office for asylum and repatriations is being established to start work in Bavaria on August 1, with a workforce of 1,000.

Seven of the so-called Anchor Centres agreed by the CDU, CSU and SPD in their coalition agreement are also to be set up and running in Bavaria for the start of August. The term “anchor” stands for “arrival, decision and return.” In addition to the existing initial reception facilities at Manching and Bamberg, internment and deportation camps are to be established in Regensburg, Deggendorf and three other sites. The plan also stipulates that those incarcerated in the centres should be denied any sort of monetary allowance.

The detention centres, which are in effect prisons, and most other refugee facilities are aimed at systematically sealing off and isolating migrants from the rest of the world. Barbed wire is common and sites are chosen in remote areas, cut off from public access and guarded by security companies.

The refugees living in the camps are not allowed to work or send their children to school. They are cut off from independent legal aid and access to volunteer aides is made almost impossible. The percentage of those qualifying for asylum status is very low and many migrants spend months or even years in such centres. According to the Bavarian state government, 10 percent of the residents of the facilities in Manching and Ingolstadt had been there for more than 18 months.