Four Thai boys trapped in flooded cave brought to safety

Patrick Martin

The first four of 12 boys trapped with their soccer coach while exploring a cave in Thailand were brought to safety Sunday, as an international rescue effort intensified. The complex operation was halted overnight while workers recharged oxygen tanks and divers planned the next steps to be taken on Monday.

The four were taken immediately to local hospitals to be checked for the effects of dehydration, malnutrition and oxygen deprivation, as well as the stress and sheer terror of being trapped underground for more than two weeks.

The 12 youth, aged 11 to 17, and their coach, aged 25, have been trapped underground since June 23. They were largely given up for lost until a British diving team located them on July 2, still alive after 10 days with little food.

Four Thai Navy SEALs, one of them a doctor, are now with the boys in the cavern where they took shelter. They have brought in food, medicine and equipment vital to the boys’ survival while they await rescue.

There was celebration in the town of Mae Sai, located on the northern edge of Thailand near both Myanmar (Burma) and Laos, where the Wild Boars soccer team is based. As families awaited the release of the names of the four boys rescued thus far, young men cruised the town on flatbed trucks cheering and waving.

Narongsak Osottanakorn, the governor of Chiang Rai province, who is in charge of the search and rescue operation, said there would be a break of from 10 to 20 hours to allow for replacement of equipment used along the long and difficult escape route, a distance of some four kilometers, which takes the most experienced cave divers six hours to traverse.

The cave opening is wide enough for only one person at a time, and none of the boys can swim, adding to the difficulty of the rescue. Two divers are being used to escort each boy out. The divers are helping the boys with their diving masks and carrying their oxygen tanks. The rescuers reportedly prioritized the boys who were in the worst physical shape, taking them out first.

According to press reports, the boys must endure a mixture of walking, wading, climbing and diving while they cling to guide ropes put in place by the rescue workers. At the most difficult passage, divers have to take off their air tanks to squeeze through. All of this is done largely in darkness, with occasional lights placed by the rescue divers where possible.

A total of 90 rescue workers are involved, 40 from Thailand and 50 for around the world, including Australia, Britain, Japan and the United States. Of the 18 experienced cave divers doing the most dangerous work, 13 are from overseas and five are Thai Navy SEALs.

The dangers facing both the boys and their rescuers were underscored by the death of one diver, a retired Thai Navy SEAL, 38-year-old Saman Gunan, who ran out of oxygen himself while placing spare oxygen tanks along the underwater route.

The oxygen level in the Tham Luang cave where the boys and their coach are trapped has fallen to only 15 percent, well below the 21 percent normal in the atmosphere at sea level. Divers had to bring in oxygen tanks and breathing gear for everyone to use while they awaited rescue, to avoid hypoxia, which causes nausea, drowsiness and incapacitation and can ultimately be fatal. Strenuous activity, such as required in the prolonged exit from the cave, is far more difficult.

The 12 boys and their assistant soccer coach went into the cave for an outing on June 23 and were trapped there by rising floodwaters that came unseasonably early. The boys include one 17-year-old, a 16-year-old, two 15-year-olds, three 14-year-olds, four 13-year-olds, and the youngest, only 11.

Even after they were located, there were fears that they would have to remain below ground for months, until the monsoon rains ended and the subterranean water level dropped sufficiently to bring them out.

Both the search for the missing boys and the subsequent rescue effort have been enormous in their scope. Massive pumps have been brought in to hold back rising waters from runoff due to ongoing rainstorms. Dozens of farms downstream from the cave have been flooded by the pumped water, with the government offering compensation.

The plight of the trapped children has attracted immense international attention, with hundreds of journalists flocking to the scene. Tens of millions of people have been following the progress of the search and rescue operation, commenting on it, and expressing their support and sympathy for the families of those involved.

This outpouring of human solidarity is in healthy contrast to the official vilification that would be visited on such children if they were Guatemalan asylum seekers seeking refuge in the United States, locked up in one of Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prisons, or African refugees on board a ship in the Mediterranean Sea, denied landing rights by the right-wing government in Italy.

No one (at least publicly) is asking how much it costs to save the lives of these 12 boys and their young coach, or suggesting that the rescue operation should be shut down because “there is no money” to pay for it. On the contrary, the scale of the effort being mounted in a supposedly less developed country like Thailand puts to shame the incompetent and indifferent operation mounted by the US government in Puerto Rico last year.

Refugees ensnared in European dragnet

Johannes Stern & Andre Damon

On Friday, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) agreed to back a major crackdown on refugees negotiated by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU).

The agreement marks the adoption by the parties of the German political establishment, represented by the “Grand Coalition” government of the SPD and CDU/CSU, of the racist and criminal immigration policies of the fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD).

To complement its dragnet roundup of immigrants, the German government has agreed to establish mass internment camps for refugees inside Germany and throughout Europe.

These so-called “anchor centres,” to be located throughout the country, will intern potentially tens or even hundreds of thousands of people behind barbed wire and under police guard, for 18 months or longer.

The camps will exist outside of basic legal frameworks, violating every fundamental democratic right of the men, women and children unfortunate enough to be ensnared in them. The inmates will be treated as criminals for seeking their right to asylum and subjected to the most degrading and inhuman treatment.

The German government has sought to distance itself from historical parallels to Germany’s previous experiences with mass internment, declaring that the new internment centres—where inmates would be detained against their will—would not be “closed camps.”

It is hiding its crimes behind bureaucratic phrases. A government paper on the resolutions of the most recent EU summit declared, “Increased use of dragnet controls and other intelligent border police approaches can significantly increase the number of people detected near the border with a EURODAC [European fingerprint data base] entry, who can receive immediate processing in the Special Reception Facilities.”

According to the plans of the German government, the refugee camps in Greece and Italy, euphemistically called “hotspots,” are now to be extended to the whole of Europe. A draft of German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer’s “Master Migration Plan” states that “reception centres in Italy and Greece should be supported and expanded by sufficient staff from the member states.”

“Hotspots,” “dragnet,” “Master Plan.” These revolting euphemisms for the mass internment of innocent human beings are just one indication of the horrors being prepared for their inmates.

“Iron wire interwoven into squares, up to four, five metres high,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung wrote of Camp Moria, an EU “hotspot” camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. “Barbed wire has been rolled over the fence, watchtowers and security guards stand at all entrances to the camp, rifles slung over their chests.” Inside, too, the camp, which with 7,500 people is massively overcrowded, resembles a veritable “hell,” in which the Geneva Convention and fundamental rights have been suspended.

If Seehofer describes such horrors as a “master plan” and “anchor centres,” it is because Hitler already used the phrases “final solution” and “concentration camps.”

The Grand Coalition’s new refugee plan provides the practical basis for the creation of prison camps that exist in a legal vacuum. The coalition paper states that during the planned “transit procedure,” persons are “legally not entering Germany.” With this reactionary legal construct, similar to America’s Guantanamo Bay prison camp, extraterritorial zones will be created that do not legally qualify as state territory and constitute a de facto legal vacuum in which the police are given free reign.

The utter indifference to human dignity, the most shameless violation of human rights, the use of chilling bureaucratic language to hide even more chilling crimes—all of it has the stench of the 1930s. Bourgeois democracy in Europe is disintegrating, increasingly replaced with dictatorial forms of rule.

What is true of Germany, with its supposed “welcoming culture” presided over by “Mutti” Angela Merkel, is true of the whole world. In Italy, the neo-fascist government of Matteo Salvini is carrying out a census of the Roma in preparation for their mass roundup. In the United States, immigrant children are separated from their parents and kept in cages. In Greece, under the “radical left” Syriza government, refugees from throughout Europe are rounded up in mass internment camps.

All over the world, the same filth and putrefaction, the same stench of criminality, is oozing out from the pores of every capitalist nation-state. Israel’s slaughter of hundreds of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators is openly defended, and the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Yemeni civilians by Saudi Arabia, backed by the United States, is simply ignored.

The ruling classes, in the words of Leon Trotsky in the 1930s, are transforming the world into a “foul prison.”

These criminal policies of the capitalist parties stand in stark contrast to the humane sentiments of workers and young people throughout the world. The Grand Coalition’s embrace of the refugee policy of the fascists was met with protests Sunday by tens of thousands throughout Germany, while hundreds of thousands have participated in demonstrations in the United States against the Trump administration’s barbaric treatment of refugees.

The task now is to connect the humane and democratic sentiments of workers all over the world with a political program that expresses their social interests. The defence of immigrants and refugees all over the world must be connected to opposition to war, social inequality, declining wages and the assault on social programs.

Four years ago, the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party—SGP), the German section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, was the first to raise the alarm about the establishment parties’ embrace of neo-fascist politics through the official promotion of academics like Jörg Baberowski, who declared that “Hitler was not vicious.”

Now the SGP is leading the fight to organize resistance to the Grand Coalition, which is supported by the entire middle-class “left,” in the struggle to defend the rights of refugees as a central plank of the socialist program to overthrow the capitalist system that is dragging mankind back into the fascist sewer of the 1930s.

Imperial College Research Fellowships for International Researchers 2019 – UK

Application Deadline: 28th August 2018 at 23:59

Eligible Countries: International

To Be Taken At (Country): Imperial College London UK

About the Award: Imperial’s prestigious Imperial College Research Fellowships sustain the brightest and best early career researchers from across the world, providing a level of commitment and support that is rare from a UK university.
Imperial College Research Fellowships are intended for post-doctoral researchers of demonstrated ability, who are at the early stages of their research career and who have the potential to establish research independence.  This opportunity is equivalent to the British Academy’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship, EPSRC Postdoctoral Fellowship and Wellcome Trust Henry Wellcome fellowship schemes

Type: Fellowship, Postdoctoral

Eligibility: 

• There are no restrictions on nationality; however you will be required to provide evidence of your eligibility to work in the UK before commencing any fellowship offered
• Applicants should have a PhD and will normally have no more than four years postdoctoral research experience in an academic environment (calculated from the PhD viva to the application deadline). Exceptions to this can include discipline hopping, where there must still be less than four years post-doctoral research experience in the discipline of the proposed fellowship; career breaks and career changes, where time spent out of the academic research environment will not be counted in the four years
• In exceptional cases, applicants applying to the Faculty of Engineering and Imperial College Business School are permitted to apply before the submission of the PhD but any offer of funding will be dependent on the PhD being awarded before the start of the fellowship
• For applications to the Faculties of Natural Sciences and Medicine, a PhD must have been submitted before an application is made and the PhD must be awarded before the start of the fellowship

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• a competitive salary
• research and travel expenses of up to £45,000
• personal mentoring support from a senior Imperial academic
• focussed careers support, training courses, and development opportunities from the College’s Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre
• the chance to take full responsibility for setting and directing your own research agenda

This support gives you the freedom to focus on your research and career trajectory, with no obligatory teaching or administration.

Duration of Programme: 4 years

How to Apply: 

• Candidates who are interested in applying for an Imperial College Research Fellowship must contact their proposed sponsor and proposed sponsor department as soon as possible, to discuss their intentions to apply.
• Applicants should complete and submit an online application form via the College’s careers website. The deadline for submission is 23:59 (GMT) Tuesday 28 August 2018

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Konosuke Matsushita Memorial Foundation Scholarship for Masters Students in Developing Countries 2018

Application Deadline: 23rd August, 2018.

Eligible Countries: Countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America

To be taken at (country): Tohoku University, Japan

Type: Masters

Eligibility: 

• Students who will start their Master’s program in October 2018 (including students who has already started studying in Japan as a bachelor or a research students and those who will enroll in the Master’s program in October 2018).
• Students from countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship:

• Living allowance: 120,000 yen per month
• Admission (Entrance) fee: 282,000 yen
• Tuition fee: 535,800 yen
• Travel expense: Economy class roundtrip airfare between Japan and your country. (It will be paid to those who live outside Japan only.)

Duration of Scholarship: From October 2018 until completion of Master’s program in 2020 (maximum 2 years)

How to Apply: Prepare documents that are instructed in the guideline to submit them to the department office.

2018KMMF.zip

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Konosuke Matsushita Memorial Foundation

Important Notes: 

• Application documents can be filled out in Japanese or in English by using the computer.
• Economic Status Report should be stated as of October 1, 2018.

Pakistan’s financial crisis puts Belt and Road on the spot

James M. Dorsey

Increased Pakistani dependence on China to help it avert resorting to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to avoid a financial and economic crisis spotlights fears that the terms of Chinese investment in massive Belt and Road-related projects would not pass international muster.

Concerns that China’s US$ 50 billion plus investment in Pakistani infrastructure and energy, the Belt and Road’s crown jewel dubbed the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), potentially amounts to a debt trap, compound suggestions that Pakistan increasingly will have no choice but to toe Beijing’s line.

The concerns are reinforced by the vision spelled out in a draft plan for CPEC. The plan envisioned a dominant Chinese role In Pakistan’s economy as well as the creation of a Chinese style surveillance state and significant Chinese influence in Pakistani influence.

Pakistani officials, concerned that Chinese loans offer a band-aid rather than a structural solution, have cautioned China, in a bid to keep the People’s Republic committed to bailing them out, that CPEC projects would be at risk if their country was forced to seek help from the IMF.

The officials said that they would have to disclose the terms of CPEC projects if they are forced to revert to the IMF and that this could lead to projects being cancelled.

“Once the IMF looks at CPEC, they are certain to ask if Pakistan can afford such a large expenditure given our present economic outlook,” the Financial Times quoted a Pakistani official as saying.

China has so far been willing to bail Pakistan out with Chinese state-owned bank giving the South Asian country some $5 billion in loans in the last 12 months in addition to a US$1.5 billion trade facility.

Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves plunged to US$9.66 billion last month from US$16.4 billion in May 2017.

Pakistani efforts to avert a crisis could not come at a more sensitive moment with elections scheduled for July 25. Political tension in the country were heightened this week by the sentencing to prison on corruption charges of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter, Maryam, as well as the likely participation of a large number of Islamic militants in the polls.

To make things worse, China last month did not try to shield Pakistan from being grey-listed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering and terrorism watchdog. that threatens to impair the country’s access to international financial markets.

Pakistan is struggling to avoid being blacklisted by the group.

Pakistani concern about disclosing terms of CPEC projects, even if it may involve a degree of opportunistic hyperbole, reinforces widespread worries in the country itself as well as in the international community that Chinese-funded Belt and Road projects put recipients at risk of walking into a debt trap and losing control of some of their key assets.

Malaysia this week suspended China-backed projects worth more than US$20 billion on the grounds that many made no financial sense. The projects included a railway and two pipelines.

China has written off an undisclosed amount of Tajik debt in exchange for ceding control of some 1,158 square kilometres of disputed territory close to the Central Asian nation’s border with the troubled north-western Chinese province of Xinjiang. Sri Lanka, despite public protests, was forced to give China a major stake in its port of Hambantota.

Pakistan and Nepal withdrew last November from two dam-building deals. The withdrawal coincided with mounting questions in Pakistan about what some saw as a neo-colonial effort to extract the country’s resources.

A report published in March by the Washington-based Center for Global Development warned that 23 of the 68 countries benefitting from Belt and Road investments were “significantly or highly vulnerable to debt distress.”

The centre said eight of the 23 countries – Pakistan, Tajikistan, Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Laos. the Maldives, Mongolia, and Montenegro, Pakistan, and Tajikistan – were particularly at risk.

Djibouti already owes 82 percent of its foreign debt to China while China is expected to account for 71% of Kyrgyz debt as Belt and Road-related projects are implemented.

“There is…concern that debt problems will create an unfavourable degree of dependency on China as a creditor. Increasing debt, and China’s role in managing bilateral debt problems, has already exacerbated internal and bilateral tensions in some BRI (Belt and Road initiative) countries,” the report said.

With analysts predicting that China will ultimately be unable to stabilize Pakistan financially, Pakistan is ultimately likely to have to revert to the IMF in a move that could seriously impact the Belt and Road initiative, widely perceived as an infrastructure driven effort to cement Chinese economic and geopolitical influence across a swath of land that stretches from South-eastern Europe and the Atlantic coast of Africa to the People’s Republic.

Analysts estimate that Pakistan this year needs US$ 25-28 billion to service its debt and ensure investor confidence in its ability to put its financial house in order. An IMF technical assistance team this week concluded a week-long visit to Pakistan.

Said one analyst: “Ultimately, the IMF is Pakistan’s only option. If an IMF-imposed regime has consequences for BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) projects, it could impact perceptions of the terms China imposes.”

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)