Macedonia name change agreement paves way for NATO expansion

John Vassilopoulos

The Macedonia name dispute has been ongoing for over a quarter century since the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991, with Greek government claiming that use of the name by its northern neighbour reflects irredentist ambitions over the northern Greek province of Macedonia.

On June 17, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias and his Macedonian counterpart Nikola Dimitrov signed an accord to rename the former Yugoslav Republic the “Republic of North Macedonia.” The formal ceremony took place in the presence of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Syriza and Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev in the Prespes region of Greece, which borders the two countries.

In 1993, Macedonia joined the United Nations under the provisional name “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (FYROM). Since then, repeated attempts to resolve the dispute have stalled, with Greece vetoing Macedonia’s accession to NATO in 2008 and the European Union (EU) in 2009.

The accord is the culmination of negotiations begun following a meeting on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. Behind the signing of the Macedonian agreement are wider geopolitical interests of the Western powers led by the United States, which is keen to bolster NATO’s presence in the region as part of its military expansion on Russia’s border.

Responding to the deal in a US Senate foreign policy hearing, Assistant Secretary of State for Europe Wess Mitchell, declared, “We … expect the formal procedures in Greece and Macedonia to be completed and that NATO will send a call for membership to Northern Macedonia at the July summit.”

That Russia was the main target was clear, with Mitchell adding, “I am worried about the protests and potential Russian interference that we saw in Montenegro. Russian predecessors have put forward the threats and I think that there is a chance that the Russians try to interfere in Macedonia.”

Following the agreement, a date was set for Macedonia to begin accession talks in June 2019 to join the EU. In an interview with Deutsche Welle, Macedonian Prime Minister Zaev personally thanked Chancellor Angela Merkel “for initiating the Berlin Process and for having Germany as one of the strongest supporters of this process.”

Russia’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, told CNN that an expansion of NATO via the Macedonia deal would be “an effort to tackle security dangers and challenges in the 21st century with means and mechanisms from the last century. Every country, just like every citizen, certainly has the right to make mistakes, except in some cases mistakes have consequences, some of which could be severe.”

Chizhov hoped that the EU’s expansion would “not violate our good bilateral relations. For instance, forcing countries to adopt the EU’s restrictive measures against Russia.”

In an interview with Xinhua, Greek Parliament speaker Nikos Voutsis lauded the opportunities the agreement presents for China, which has extensive investments in Greece. The largest is Cosco’s concession at the port of Piraeus, an integral link in China’s supply chain trade route into Europe and part of its One Belt One Road initiative:

“We are consolidating our relationship with the neighbouring country, FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia),” Voutsis said, “through a deal that has a perspective and also helps to open the path for the Belt and Road also for trade. These moves are not coincidental.”

Far from ushering a new era of stability, the agreement can only intensify geopolitical rivalries in the region. While expressing optimism for closer Greek/Chinese relations, Voutsis stated, “I try to retain this optimism, not because there are clouds from the Greek or Chinese side, but because of what is happening on the wider map, like the looming possible trade wars. Who would have imagined that this could happen, but such issues arise between the big poles, the United States under Trump, the G7, Russia and the European Union.”

The signing of the agreement has met with bitter opposition from right-wing, nationalist and fascist forces on both sides of the border. One day before the agreement was signed, Tsipras narrowly survived a vote of no-confidence called by the conservative opposition New Democracy (ND).

The agreement has triggered a crisis within the Syriza-led government, with Panos Kammenos, the leader of its Independent Greeks coalition partner, saying that the deal is “bad” and can only be approved through a referendum or via elections. Kammenos heads the Defence Ministry and said, “We will not allow the deal to move forward without the approval of the Greek people.”

Macedonian president and member of the conservative VMRO-DPMNE party, Gjorge Ivanov, refused to sign off on the agreement—which was ratified by the Macedonia parliament on June 20—stating, “The agreement makes Macedonia dependent on another country, in this case Greece.”

Reports suggest that Ivanov’s refusal will serve to delay rather than derail the agreement. A referendum vote is due to be held in Macedonia in September, after which the Greek parliament will vote to formally accept the deal by the end of the year.

A series of protest rallies have been held in Greek cities as well as cities in Macedonia.

Syriza Foreign Minister Kotzias downplayed the relatively small number at the protests compared with an Athens rally in February, stating, “We have gone from 1,000,000 protesters to 100,000 and now to 4,000.”

Notwithstanding the relatively low numbers involved, with Syriza’s support collapsing to 22 percent according to the latest opinion poll—14.1 percent behind ND—the protests represent a concerted effort by right-wing forces to divert popular anger against Syriza’s austerity programme into reactionary channels. The protests were called just as the Tsipras government signed a new raft of brutal austerity measures, with savage cuts set to continue for years after Greece’s current “bailout” programme with the EU is due to end in August.

They are also the most high-profile indication of the mobilisation of fascistic layers and sections of the military to be deployed in future against the working class.

Prior to the no-confidence vote, Golden Dawn MP Konstantinos Barbarousis called on the army to mount a military coup against the Syriza government, as a fascist newspaper, Makeleio, ran a front page with doctored photos of the bloody execution, for treason, of Tsipras, Kotzias and President of the Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos

A week before the agreement was signed, in an interview with SigmaLive.com, retired head of the armed forces General Frangkoulis Frangos called on Pavlopoulos to resign to avoid being accused of high treason. “Otherwise the government should be forced to resign,” he added, saying the opposition should call a vote of no confidence in parliament.

Frangos was cashiered in 2011 by then-Prime Minister George Papandreou, amid rumours that he was planning a coup against the social democratic PASOK government. Since then Frangos’ name has been linked to initiatives to form a populist far-right party. He was also the main speaker at a large rally on Macedonia at the start of the year.

There is constant talk of creating a new political movement to the right of ND. Takis Baltakos, the former defence chief of staff under Antonis Samaras’ 2012-15 ND administration, is the key figure working towards creating what he described in an interview on June 20 with 24/7 Radio as “the Syriza of the Right”—that is uniting all the disparate right-wing forces on the right outside of New Democracy.

Baltakos stressed that the time is ripe for a right-wing realignment, saying that “after the [name change] agreement was signed talks have intensified. There is no doubt about that.”

The deal has resulted in a further lurch to the right by ND as it attempts to prevent any further haemorrhaging of its base. A report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung cites German government sources saying that while ND leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis has privately assured Berlin that he would not reverse any Macedonia agreement, “he now had to demonstrate opposition [to the agreement] in order not to lose the right wing of his party and prevent a party start-up on its right.”

Conflict between Polish government and opposition escalates over Supreme Court

Clara Weiss 

The past week witnessed an escalation of the conflict between the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government in Poland and the pro-European Union (EU) liberal opposition over attempts by the PiS to fully bring the Supreme Court under its control.

The PiS majority in the Polish parliament [Sejm] voted on the forced, immediate retirement of all Supreme Court judges, which was to take effect July 4. Only current judges who receive a special permission from President Andrzej Duda will be permitted to stay on. This measure would enable the PiS-dominated parliament to set up a Supreme Court of its liking.

Several thousand people protested against this blatant attempt to subordinate the judiciary the government. The protests were organized by the pro-EU opposition, to which many of the current Supreme Court judges are close.

The head of the Court, Małgorzata Gersdorf, defied her dismissal by the government and showed up for work on Wednesday, arguing she had been appointed until 2020 and that the PiS’s moves were in defiance of the country’s constitution. Gersdorf described the new legislation as a “purge.”

One commentator for the conservative Rzeczpospolita warned that PiS overhaul of the judiciary would result in a situation in which political opponents of the government could be put on trial before judges handpicked by the same government.

Much about the situation remains unclear. Polish news reports have speculated that Gersdorf might have reached a “secret agreement” with Duda since the latter did not formally complete her dismissal. Gersdorf is now leaving for a vacation after having appointed as her replacement the same judge that the PiS wants to appoint as her successor.

European Union politicians denounced the reform as an assault on judicial independence. Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian Member of the European Parliament and leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, described the Polish government’s action as “a question of principles, of our common community.” Last year, the EU launched an investigation into Poland’s legal situation, the first-ever investigation into the legal affairs of a member country, a process that could result in the country leaving the EU.

The EU’s talk about “principles” and “values” is hypocritical nonsense that seeks to cover up both the political issues involved in the dispute in Poland and the right-wing character of the EU itself.

The rightward shift of the European Union, pushed for above all by its leading imperialist powers, Germany and France, over the question of refugees, has no doubt encouraged the PiS to press ahead with the establishment of a full-blown authoritarian regime.

The appeal of the Polish liberal opposition to the EU as the supposed guarantor of democratic rights has no credibility whatsoever.

Underlying the conflict between PiS and the liberal opposition, led by the Civic Platform (PO), are sharp divisions over both how to suppress and divert social and political opposition in the working class and the overall direction of Polish foreign policy.

Speaking for a section of the Polish bourgeoisie and layers of the upper middle class, the liberal opposition is concerned not with the democratic rights of the working class, but with its own ability to determine and co-direct Polish domestic and foreign policy. The subordination of the Supreme Court to the government, following moves to weaken parliament in 2015-16, create a paramilitary unit under the supervision of the ministry of defense and establish direct government control over the intelligence services, would make this all but impossible.

The liberal opposition also fears that reckless moves toward dictatorial forms of rule will trigger uncontrollable opposition within the working class, and destabilize the political situation.

Krzysztof Brejza, a PO member of parliament, criticized the reform as “Chaos, dilettantism, sloppiness, a botch-up, a makeshift decision, anti-statism.” The liberal opposition’s fear of any mobilization of Polish workers against the PiS has been underscored by its stubborn insistence not to appeal to the considerable social or political discontent within broader layers of the population. On the contrary, the PO has consistently attacked PiS from the right on social issues such as the payment of child support. In attacking the PiS, PO supporters and representatives regularly describe it as employing “Communist” methods.

Equally, if not more significant, are the sharp divisions over foreign policy. The official bourgeois opposition, unlike the PiS, considers European Union membership of Poland, and a maintenance of the EU as it is, vital to the country’s economic and strategic interests. It, therefore, insists on close cooperation with Germany, which is still by far Poland’s most important economic partner.

The PiS, by contrast, speaks for a section of the Polish elite deeply concerned about Germany’s dominance of the EU and the recent escalating drive to revive German militarism. The PiS government has also bitterly opposed the formation of European army now being pushed for above all by France and Germany. The latter proposal is an attempt to build a military force to advance those two nations’ interests independent of the US-led NATO alliance.

To counter the influence of Germany, the PiS banks on a close alliance with American imperialism, and a revival of the so-called Intermarium alliance, a union of right-wing regimes in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, under Polish leadership and with US support.

Given the escalating conflicts between the European Union—and especially Germany—and the Trump administration, the rifts over foreign policy within the Polish bourgeoisie have become ever sharper.

Earlier this year, the PiS government offered the US $2 billion for the stationing of a US armored division on Polish soil in preparation for a potential military conflict with Russia. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an influential Washington think tank, commented June 7 on the proposal in a piece headlined “Has Poland Cracked the Trump Code, and Will That Put Cracks in the NATO Alliance?”

The CSIS effectively endorsed the proposal to station troops in Poland, but argued that the $2 billion offered by the PiS government was “simply insufficiently attractive for the United States to place division-sized base infrastructure in Poland.” Pointing out that much in the Polish proposal remained unclear logistically, the CSIS suggested that proposal might actually envision “relocation of U.S. forces in Germany and Italy (neither of which spends 2 percent of GDP on defense) to Poland.” The CSIS concluded by warning that the Polish proposal, while fundamentally correct, would in this form threaten to erode “NATO’s cohesion and solidarity.”

Very little information has emerged as to whether and in what way the White House and Pentagon have been discussing the Polish proposal. However, earlier this week, President Trump announced that he was considering the withdrawal of the 35,000 American troops still stationed in Germany.

Over the past year, the Trump administration has increased the already considerable US military cooperation with Poland. During his visit in Warsaw one year ago, Trump publicly endorsed the PiS’s Intermarium strategy and its far-right policies.

In May this year, the US Air Force began flying MQ-Reaper drones from Poland’s Miroslawiec Air Base. As of now, the drones are used primarily for surveillance, intelligence and reconnaissance, but they can also fly equipped with armed missiles. Explaining why Poland had been chosen as an air base, Auburn Davis from the US Air Forces in Europe, praised the country for its “strategic location” in Europe and its role as “a pillar of stability in the region.”

French auto giant PSA announces new cuts at Opel

Marianne Arens & Peter Schwarz 

Eleven months after the takeover of Opel by the French PSA Group, the next round of cuts has been announced. As reported by the French daily Le Mondeon 3 July, the PSA board intends to sell off large parts of the International Technical Development Centre (ITEZ) in Rüsselsheim and the test track in Dudenhofen (Offenbach district).

Le Monde has seen internal information, according to which the negotiations with the engineering service Altran are already well advanced. The possible date for a contract is put at December this year. In addition to Altran, two other French car development companies, Akka and Segula, and the German Bertrandt are in discussion as potential buyers. Akka had already taken over part of the development department of Daimler in 2012.

In France, Altran has long been an important partner of the PSA Group. In fact, the auto industry outsources more and more R&D to external service providers to offset risks arising from modern electronic technology and the consequences of the growing global trade war. Thus, the pressure increases on jobs and achievements, as workers are fragmented into ever-newer subsidiaries and subcontractors.

The sell-off will affect about half of the approximately 8,000 technicians, engineers and developers who currently work at the ITEZ. A large part of these jobs would be put in danger. After the separation from General Motors, which also had a development operation in Rüsselsheim, there was an overcapacity of 40 percent at ITEZ, Le Monde quotes Opel development chief Christian Müller as saying.

Forgoing its own development department would also have consequences for the other Opel plants, which, like Eisenach, Kaiserslautern and Ellesmere Port, are already threatened by closure.

The announcement of the sell-off plans met with anger and indignation in the Rüsselsheim workforce. On Thursday, the works council called an extraordinary staff meeting to attempt to settle the waves. It had also invited Opel boss Michael Lohscheller and development chief Christian Müller, but neither of them appeared.

At the meeting, the Opel general works council leader Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug feigned indignation. The day before he had described the sell-off negotiations as an “unbelievable and unprecedented provocation,” which the IG Metall union and the central works council “would not accept without a fight.”

This empty bluster merely serves to cover their tracks and prepare for the next sell-off. Schäfer-Klug was quoted by Le Monde saying he had “lost his mind” when he heard of the ITEZ sell-off plans. A PSA spokesman smugly answered, “The possibility of strategic partnerships with other companies is laid down in a framework agreement signed in December. Works Council Leader Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug signed it himself.”

Schäfer-Klug knows the workers are boiling with anger. “The mood is bad, it is aggressive, there is absolute incomprehension among the workforce. The workforce is quite combative,” is how he described the mood at the works meeting.

The auto industry expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer from the University of Duisburg even warned of an upcoming revolution. “In France, they obviously believe that it is a good idea to make things known bit by bit. If they had announced everything all at once, they would have been afraid of triggering a ‘revolution’ or a strike,” broadcaster ZDF quoted him saying.

The IG Metall and the works council will also work closely with PSA CEO Carlos Tavares, Opel boss Lohscheller and potential buyers in the liquidation of the ITEZ and closure of other plants, as they have done in the past, from the closure of the Opel plants in Amsterdam and Bochum to the “ PACE” restructuring program, which they signed on the PSA takeover, and which aims to reduce a quarter of jobs.

As recently as May, the works council described the agreement with PSA as a “milestone for Opel.” In it the works council agreed that Opel workers forgo their hard-won wage increase for months. The additional wages, due in January 2019, will not be paid, and the other pay increases will not start until 2020. The true value of the so-called “comprehensive job security” can now be seen at the ITEZ.

Moreover, since the merger with PSA, 3,700 jobs, excluding temporary workers, have already been lost. The future of Eisenach is still completely unsecured, and Rüsselsheim and Kaiserslautern face rationalization and short-time working.

The auto industry has seen a fierce competitive struggle carried out on the backs of the workers, while the corporations and the financial investors behind them pocket billions, and the company executives receive emoluments in the double-digit millions. The impending trade war with the US will further accelerate this development.

The concentration of the auto companies into ever-larger monopolies with corresponding synergies (i.e. job losses) is just as much a part of this as is the dividing up of workers in order to push down wages. For example, PSA Group company General Motors bought Opel and Vauxhall’s factories last year to counter Volkswagen’s predominance in the European car market. PSA already included Peugeot, Citroën and DS.

The takeover last year was associated with a radical savings program. PSA boss Tavares wants to cut 1.7 billion Euros each year, in close cooperation with and approval of the Opel works council and IG Metall. As part of this, the works council already approved the introduction of short-time working from January, the loss of hundreds of temporary jobs, and the liquidation of 450 jobs in Eisenach. The removal of several thousand jobs in the ITEZ has been planned and prepared for a long time.

The works council and IG Metall stand on the side of management and the shareholders. Their cries that they were deceived and lied to are only to throw sand in the eyes of workers and cover their real role.

There are several reasons for this. In the first place, they are royally rewarded for their services. They often earn many times the pay of an ordinary worker, and enjoy protection against dismissal and many other privileges. Second, they advocate a reactionary nationalist program. They see the future of “their” enterprise solely from the national point of view of capitalist interests and not from the international stance of the working class. That is why they support every action--including plant closures, wage cuts and rising hurdles--to boost competitiveness.

It is clear that workers can only oppose the international corporations if they also join forces internationally. But the works council and IG Metall reject this vehemently. They fear a real struggle by the workers, just as the companies do. Their call to save “the heart of the Opel brand” and to defend “Germany as an industrial location” does not serve to preserve jobs, but rather to play off workers in Germany against their colleagues in France and other countries, in order to better exploit them.

The workers at Peugeot, Citroen and DS have been exposed to ferocious attacks for years, just as have their German colleagues. Thus, PSA reduced its labour costs as a share of turnover from 15 to 11 percent between 2013 and 2017.

One of the preferred methods employed by the PSA Group is to increase the number of temporary workers. Around 8,000 of PSA’s 60,000 employees are temporary workers, who earn less than their permanent counterparts and are used to increase work pressure.

“The same treatment,” PSA chief of staff Xavier Chéreau said in January in Le Monde, “must also be prescribed at Opel-Vauxhall.” He bragged that savings of 12 percent there had already been achieved in 2017 compared to the financial planning of General Motors. Further measures had been identified, he said. “We will not give up on achieving short-term and long-term synergies,” Chéreau emphasized, adding, “... always in the context of co-determination.” Chéreau, like Tavares and Lohscheller, well knows the works council and the IG Metall.

To defend jobs, it is necessary to break with IG Metall and the works council, establish independent action committees in the factories and contact colleagues in the French and all other PSA, Opel and Vauxhall factories, and in other car plants and industries. This requires a socialist program that places society’s needs above the profit interests of the corporations.

Australia pushes Pacific Pact to combat China

Mike Head

Acting in concert with Washington, the Australian and New Zealand governments are strong-arming small Pacific island countries into signing a “security agreement” directed against alleged Chinese influence in the region.

The two regional imperialist powers are seeking to shore up their military and economic dominance in the southwest Pacific, in partnership with the overall regional hegemon, the US. The Pacific Ocean is once again becoming a key geo-strategic battleground, as it was in World War II.

According to yesterday’s Australian, the Pacific pact, “covering defence, law and order, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” is expected to be signed at September’s Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru.

An editorial in the Murdoch newspaper welcomed the move and placed it directly in the context of preparations for a military confrontation between the US and China:

“It’s reassuring news that Australia and New Zealand are working on a Pacific Islands security agreement calculated to discourage the military presence of outsiders, notably China. The Pacific was a crucial theatre in World War II, and the sprawling island region is likely to be the source of future tension, given US interest in the Indo-Pacific and the rising maritime power of China.”

The push for the pact is related to a xenophobic campaign over the past two years by the media and political establishment in both countries against supposed Chinese “interference” in politics and business, designed to whip up anti-Chinese sentiment in preparation for military conflict.

Just over a week ago, Australia’s Liberal-National government and Labor Party opposition joined hands to ram through parliament unprecedented “foreign interference” laws. The legislation lays the basis for criminal charges against people linked to China and anyone else engaged in political activity—such as anti-war campaigns—that allegedly aids a “foreign organisation.”

Even people conducting a campaign in Australia, in alliance with oppositional voices in the Pacific and globally, that denounced the proposed neo-colonial pact for what it is, could be charged under the new laws.

The 22 mostly tiny nations and territories covering a vast swathe of the Pacific, from Palau, near the Philippines, to French Polynesia, are being bullied into an expanded compact intended to bar military relations with China.

Australia’s International Development and Pacific Minister Concetta Fierravanti-Wells told the Australian: “A new Biketawa Plus regional security declaration will guide Pacific Islands Forum member countries, including Australia, and regional organisations on Pacific priorities for security co-­operation, and provide a framework for responding to emerging threats.”

In January, the Australian government provoked a diplomatic row with China when Fierravanti-Wells accused China of “duchessing” politicians in the Pacific, lending funds on unfavourable terms to deliberately entrap them in debt and financing worthless “white elephant” construction projects.

That marked a new offensive by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government to answer concerns in Washington, first voiced by the Obama administration, that the Australian establishment has permitted China to gain ground in the Pacific. In 2016, Turnbull pledged Australia would “step up” its engagement in the Pacific.

The ­initial Biketawa Declaration foisted on Pacific governments in 2000, followed the 1999 Australian-led military intervention in East Timor to secure control over Timor Sea oil and gas fields. The declaration laid the groundwork for further Australian and New Zealand operations to assert their predatory interests.

That included a de facto occupation of Solomon Islands for a decade from 2003, another dispatch of troops to East Timor in 2006 and Canberra’s bullying of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Nauru into establishing offshore detention centres to incarcerate refugees indefinitely.

However, the Liberal-National government has come under fire for allowing China to step up its aid and investment in the Pacific. China put $2.3 billion into 218 Pacific projects in the 10 years to 2016, according to an estimate by the Sydney-based Lowy Institute.

Lieutenant Colonel Greg Colton, an Australian army officer, took 12 months leave to work at the Lowy Institute heading a “South Pacific Fragile States Project.” He authored a paper in April entitled “Safeguarding Australia’s security interests through closer Pacific ties.”

Colton said the proposed Biketawa Plus Declaration should be “Australia’s primary strategic objective in the region” and should extend to US-associated territories in the western Pacific.

The pact should “include those states and territories with Pacific Islands Forum Observer Status, namely Wallis and Fortuna, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Timor Leste [East Timor].”

Colton’s report said: “[T]he new declaration should seek to limit the military involvement in the region of those external actors not signatories to the agreement, and therefore not part of the larger ‘Pacific Family’. This would at least make it more difficult for nations from outside the region, such as China or Russia, to use military means in the region.”

The report advocated a neo-colonial role for Canberra, similar to that retained by the US across the western Pacific. “Australia should also seek to enhance the bilateral security memoranda of understanding it has signed with Tuvalu and Nauru, and is negotiating with Kiribati, into compacts of free association similar to those the United States has with Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia,” Colton stated.

“Under these compacts, Australia would provide these countries with a host of government services, greater access to labour markets, and take on the responsibility for their defence, in return for an undertaking that foreign military forces or installations would not be allowed in these countries.”

A new battle for control over the Pacific is underway. Colton’s Lowy Institute report cited the 2018 US National Defense Strategy, which accuses China of seeking “Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future.”

Colton insisted: “The United States will expect Australia, which it sees as the region’s dominant power, to do more to counter rising Chinese influence and in many cases, it will be in Australia’s interest to do so.”

Significant steps have already been taken over the past month:

• A bipartisan delegation, led by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong, visited Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands on what has become an annual tour. “[W]e regard the Pacific as our part of the world,” Bishop declared during the trip.

• Turnbull launched negotiations for a new “security” deal with Vanuatu after unsubstantiated media reports that China had discussed establishing a naval base in the country. In addition, Defence ­Minister Marise Payne went to Tonga and Solomon Islands for military-to-military talks.

• The Turnbull government pledged to build an undersea Internet cable connecting PNG, Solomon Islands and ­Australia, in order to prevent Chinese company Huawei building the ­infrastructure.

• Four Australian warships, led by a new Landing Helicopter Dock Ship, are conducting a show of force throughout the southwest Pacific. The three-month “Indo-Pacific Endeavour 2018” military tour, which began in June, includes training during port visits in Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, PNG and Solomon Islands.

• Australia’s “Pacific Maritime Security Program” commenced, aiming to supply 19 new patrol vessels to 12 Pacific nations at a cost of around $2 billion over 30 years.

IDRC Research Awards for Students from Canada and Developing Countries 2019

Application Deadline: 5th September, 2018 by 4:00 PM (EDT)

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Canada and citizens of Developing countries (except the following listed below)

To be taken at (country): Positions are available at IDRC’s head office in Ottawa, Canada AND there is one position available at IDRC’s Regional Office for Sub-Saharan Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya. Eligibility criteria differ for each location.

About the Award: Research award recipients will undertake a one-year paid program of research on the topic they have submitted, and will receive hands-on experience in research management, grant administration, and the creation, dissemination, and use of knowledge from an international perspective.

Type: Research, Internship

Eligibility: 

For the eleven positions located at IDRC’s head office in Ottawa, this call is open to:

• Canadians and permanent residents of Canada pursuing a master’s or a doctoral degree at a recognized university OR who have completed (within the last three years) a master’s or doctoral degree at a recognized university.
• Citizens of developing countries pursuing a master’s or a doctoral degree at a Canadian university and who, prior to applying, have a student visa with a work permit valid in Canada until December 31, 2019, OR who have completed (within the last three years) a master’s or doctoral degree at a recognized university and who already have a work permit valid in Canada until December 31, 2019.

For the position located at IDRC’s Regional Office for Sub-Saharan Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, this call is open to:

• Citizens of Kenya pursuing a master’s or a doctoral degree at a recognized university OR who have completed (within the last three years) a master’s or doctoral degree at a recognized university.

Other eligibility requirements 

• Your proposed research must focus on one or more developing countries.
• These awards may be part of an academic requirement.
• NB: Successful award recipients cannot receive any other Canadian government scholarship, award, subsidy, bursary, or honorarium, or hold any federal government contract in support of a research/work project for the duration of the award; this includes any other IDRC award and any award managed by another institution but supported in whole or in part by IDRC, such as the Queen Elizabeth Advanced Scholars program.

• In addition, each program has specific eligibility criteria that must be satisfied.

Research country exceptions

In principle, IDRC supports research in all developing countries. At this time, however, we do not offer awards for research that involves the following countries:
Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mali, North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of), Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Southern and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and South Caucasus.

Countries subject to approval

You may apply for research in the following countries and territories, but if you are recommended for an award, your application may be subject to a further stage of approval within IDRC:
Afghanistan, Congo (Democratic Republic of), Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Gaza, Guinea-Bissau, Maldives, Micronesia, Monserrat, Myanmar, Sudan, Suriname, Venezuela, West Bank, Zimbabwe, some small island states, including Comoros, São Tomé and Principe, Saint Helena, Timor-Leste, and the Pacific Islands (Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis & Futuna).

Selection Criteria: The following criteria will be used to evaluate applications:

• Fit with IDRC mission and thematic priorities;
• Overall appropriateness, completeness, quality, and clarity of the research proposal;
• Overall methodology and considerations of cultural, logistical, and scientific constraints;
• Overall feasibility, duration, and timing of the research;
• Originality and creativity of the research;
• Potential contribution to existing knowledge on the issue;
• Gender dimensions of the research;
• Ethical considerations of the research;
• Benefit to the communities where the research is taking place;
• Suitability of the affiliated institution;
• Potential for research results to be disseminated and used;
• Budget;
• Applicant’s capacity to conduct the proposed research, including academic training, local language capacity, professional skills, research experience, and knowledge of country/region of research.

Number of Awards: 12

Value of Program: 

• Salary for one year in Canada: CA$40,800-47,231;
• Monthly salary in Kenya: KSh 143,394–KSh 226,127

Duration of Program:12 months

How to Apply: Before applying, please read the checklist of documents required for this call via Program Webpage (Link below).

Then Apply online

Visit Programme Webpage for details

Award Provider: International  Development Research Centre (IDRC)

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.