Turkish lira crisis renews fears of Italian banking system collapse

Allison Smith

In mid-August, the Turkish lira lost nearly 40 percent of its value after US President Donald Trump announced a doubling of steel and aluminium tariffs against Turkey and Turkey responded with tariffs against American imports into the country.

The devaluation of the Turkish lira threatens a hyperinflationary collapse of Turkey’s economy and has renewed fears about Italy’s continuing economic and financial crisis. Italy’s largest banks are heavily exposed to Turkey’s economy through nearly €20 billion in loans, in euros and Turkish lira, many of which are going into default. Should the loan defaults continue, it could lead to a full-blown Italian credit crisis and possibly trigger a collapse of the Eurozone, which holds more than €135 billion in Turkish debt.

Amid fears of an Italian collapse, Italy’s Unicredit Bank lost 5.2 percent of its share price.

The lira crisis comes just weeks after the Genoa motorway bridge collapse, an event that further exposed the fragility of Italian infrastructure, which has been underfunded and systematically looted for decades.

But according to economic analysts, the real issue in Italy is not the fall in the value of the Turkish lira. The rising cost of borrowing to cover Italy’s sovereign debt is triggering a jump in Italian interest rates coupled with a drop in economic growth down from 1.8 percent of GDP to 1.2 percent of GDP for the second quarter of 2018. Italy’s debt to GDP ratio is more than 131 percent, meaning it is barely able to service the interest, let alone pay down the principal.

Weak economic growth is leading to lower tax revenue at the same time that there is an increase in demand for social spending. Italy’s creditors are demanding that the government shore up the banking system through deeper cuts to social spending and continued pension “reform.”

As Italy’s new coalition government of La Lega (The League) and Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) puts together the next budget it is being closely scrutinized by European authorities and, more importantly, the markets, which will not allow for increased domestic spending.

The attacks already carried out on pensioners and workers since the 2008 global economic crash have resulted in a massive economic polarisation and increased social tensions. The major increase in the retirement age left millions of seniors in poverty. Although the liberalisation of the labour market slightly reduced unemployment figures several years ago, now two of every three newly created jobs are temporary and precarious; short-term contracts or low-paying positions.

According to the most recent report by Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat), 30 percent of people in Italy—more than 18 million—are at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

Official unemployment stands at 10 percent, with youth unemployment more than 40 percent, the third highest in Europe. In reality, unemployment is much higher than the official statistics, since more than 30 percent of all working-age Italians are not counted since they are considered “inactive” because they cannot prove they are actively looking and/or have applied for work when statistics are taken. This means that for youth, a much higher percentage is without work or training.

The most recent report by the Caritas charity documents that for the first time the group most affected by poverty are aged 18 to 34. According to the Catholic charity, one in ten Italians in the 18-34 age group lives in extreme poverty and the group has seen a steep rise in the number of young people relying on its centres for food, shelter and clothing.

An equal number of men and women sought help from the charity, and 60.8 percent of those who did so were unemployed. The charity also noted a rise in requests for help from people in employment.

Historically, poverty has been mostly concentrated in the south of Italy. However, in recent years Caritas has also noted a marked increase in the number of requests for help from the centre-north of the country.

These statistics conceal a development with explosive social consequences. As the Italian economy faces a possible collapse and youth joblessness continues to rise, an increasing number of youth are turning their backs on traditional politics.

In a recent European-wide survey of youth, when asked, “Would you actively participate in a large-scale uprising against the generation in power if it happened in the next days or months?” more than half, 53 percent, said “yes.”

With social anger at the boiling point, Italian politicians are focusing their attention on agitating against refugees and immigrants, in order to divide the working class in an effort to direct the anger of the exploited and oppressed against the most vulnerable sections of the population.

Putin backs widely hated Russian pension reform

Clara Weiss

On August 29, Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time came out openly in support of a widely hated pension reform, which will raise the retirement age for both men and women. The reform is opposed by more than 90 percent of the population. Just a little over a week earlier, a Duma hearing had ended with an approval of the reform. It is likely to be pushed through in the next few weeks.

The initial bill provides for a raising of the retirement age for women from 55 to 63, and for men from 60 to 65, an age that over a third of Russian men do not even reach. The raising of the retirement age will have far-reaching social implications for the entire working class, as substantial sections of workers rely on the meager pension payments to their parents as an addition to their salaries to sustain their families. About a third of Russian pensioners already work because they cannot live on their pension, which is on average only about 13,300 rubles ($210) per month.

While some media outlets, including the New York Times, have focused on the limited concessions that Putin made to the widespread hostility toward the reform, the main signal the Russian president sent is that he and his government will not budge on this issue in any substantial way.

In his 3,100-word address, Putin outlined the demographic problems facing Russian society, focusing on the devastating impact of the Second World War, which killed up to 40 million Soviet citizens, and of the total economic and social collapse of the 1990s following the Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Stating that he had been forced by objective circumstances to change his position on the pension reform—ever since 2005, he had insisted he would never agree to raising the retirement age—he argued that the state budget did not have the resources to pay for pensions, under conditions in which the numbers of pensioners is rapidly growing, while the working-age population is shrinking. Putin added that Russia had come out of the economic and social crisis that still marked the 2000s and was now in a position to demand more concessions from the population.

He proposed a number of changes to the original pension reform draft: Instead of raising the retirement age for women by eight years from 55 to 63, it should be raised by five years, from 55 to 60.

Putin also argued for incentives for businesses so that they would keep people in pre-retirement age on the job, and for the maintenance of some benefits and exceptions for specific groups of workers.

He concluded: “I will emphasize again that we are faced with a very difficult, but necessary decision. I ask you to understand this.”

The argument that there is no choice but raising the retirement age is a lie.

“Resources” to pay for pensions, and increase living standards for both workers and pensioners, exist in abundance: They are concentrated in the hands of oligarchs close to Putin and a whole layer of other oligarchs who are in or close to the “liberal opposition.” They all have gained their fortunes through social plunder: the reckless destruction of the Soviet economy and welfare system, and the ongoing exploitation of Russia’s raw material resources and working class.

As of 2017, the country’s top decile owned 89 percent of all household wealth. The country is home to some 96 billionaires and 79,000 dollar millionaires. Among Russia’s wealthiest billionaires are Alisher Usmanov with $12.3 billion, Viktor Vekselberg, who is worth over $13 billion, Vladimir Potanin ($14.8 billion), Alexei Mordashov ($18.4 billion) and Leonid Mikhelson (over $20 billion).

The riches of the oligarchs and their origins are, of course, widely known in Russia. This is why no one believes or supports the official argument in favor of the pension reform.

Moreover, Putin’s argument that the social situation for Russians has become more stable flies in the face of the reality that Russian workers, youth and intellectuals are facing on a daily basis.

Especially since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis and the Western sanctions, which triggered another economic crisis in Russia in 2015-2016, and led to a dramatic devaluation of the ruble, living standards have steeply declined. The number of “extremely poor,” who live on 9,828 rubles (less than $174) has risen to almost 20 million. Many of the “extremely poor” are pensioners.

A recent article in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported that the population will face a steep increase in payments for utilities in 2019, which would lead to a growth in the already high consumer debt. According to one expert, the debts of Russians for utilities rose by 5.3 percent over the past year, and is now 35 percent higher than in 2015. The average debt of Russians in terms of utility payments is over 46,000 rubles ($682). Consumer debt this year has risen twice as fast as real income.

This year has already seen multiple expressions of extreme social anger over the horrendous social and working conditions. Earlier this year, a teacher was fired (and later reinstated) for protesting against poverty wages for teachers in his region, which placed them in the income bracket of those counted as “extremely poor.” For several months in the late winter and early spring of this year, paramedics in Voronezh were engaged in a work-to-rule action (a full strike by paramedics is banned by law) to protest against new regulations that force them to drive to patients on their own time. Paramedics in the region receive a monthly salary of some 19,000 rubles ($282). In August, workers at the Russian VW plant in Kaluga also staged a work-to-rule action.

The so-far limited strikes and protests will no doubt grow in the coming months. The pension reform, with or without Putin’s proposed changes, constitutes an aggressive move by the oligarchy in its warfare against the working class. Like the bourgeoisie internationally, the oligarchy in Russia is determined to make the working class pay for the very crisis it itself has produced.

On September 2, several thousand people protested again against the pension reform. The protests had been mainly organized by the Stalinist KPRF, the largest opposition party in the Russian parliament. At the biggest rally in Moscow, which attracted some 10,000 people, Gennady Zyuganov, the long-time head of the KPRF, described the pension reform as “cannibalistic” but only mildly criticized Putin. His speech tried to whip up Russian nationalism and was filled with anti-American and anti-Ukrainian remarks. At other rallies, protesters raised demands for Putin to step down.

The politics of the forces that currently organize the protests, ranging from the KPRF, other Stalinist parties and various pseudo-left groups, to fascist forces and the far-right “liberal” politician Alexei Navalny, constitute a dangerous dead-end. Their aim is to divert social anger into reactionary nationalist channels and thus block the emergence of any genuine working class opposition movement to the reform.

Such a movement would have to be linked up with the growing class struggles of workers internationally on a socialist basis and take up a fight not only against Putin and the current government, but against the entire political establishment that has emerged out of the destruction of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism.

“Five Eyes” summit in Australia ramps up internet censorship

Mike Head 

A meeting of key cabinet members from the US-led Five Eyes global spying network, held in Australia on August 28-29, shed light on the ousting of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull three days earlier, as well as the intensifying social media censorship.

Despite the high-profile character of the gathering, the event received almost no publicity. Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton hosted the summit. Leading the other delegations were US Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid, along with Canada’s Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and New Zealand Justice Minister Andrew Little.

As exposed by ex-US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, the five-country intelligence web conducts bugging, hacking and other forms of mass surveillance over the world’s population, as well as targeted governments. Its cyber warfare operations are dedicated to tracking and suppressing political and social discontent and preparing for wars to reassert US global hegemony.

The annual summit of Five Eyes ministers was no doubt scheduled months before Turnbull’s removal on August 24, yet the timing and the contents of the communiqué issued by the meeting point to the escalating demand from Washington for the Australian government and its other partners to commit themselves to front line involvement in any military conflict launched by the US, as well as to taking greater control over the internet.

Dutton, an extreme right-wing figure, notorious for his xenophobic anti-immigrant demagogy, anti-refugee operations and militarism, chaired the gathering just after failing to replace Turnbull as prime minister. After months of destabilisation of Turnbull by the most right-wing and pro-US elements in the Liberal Party, Dutton was narrowly defeated by Scott Morrison in a party room leadership ballot.

Despite Dutton falling short in his leadership bid, Morrison quickly reinstated him as home affairs minister, presiding over the central repressive apparatus of the capitalist state—the federal police, intelligence and Border Force agencies. In fact, the governor-general swore Dutton back into office at a special ceremony on August 27, a day before the rest of Morrison’s new ministry, so he could host the Five Eyes meeting.

In the meantime, Morrison, himself a right-wing militarist, had distanced himself from Turnbull by holding a “warm” conversation with US President Donald Trump, who rang to congratulate Morrison a day after he was installed.

During Turnbull’s three years in office, he had repeatedly assured US leaders of his commitment to the US military and intelligence alliance but his government had baulked at US requests to send warships and planes to challenge China’s activities in the South China Sea. Moreover, two weeks before he was ousted, Turnbull had given a “reset” speech calling for closer relations with China, Australian capitalism’s biggest export market.

At the two-day summit, the five countries firstly pledged their unity, specifically referring to its foundation through the US victory in World War II. “We reaffirmed that the close and enduring five country partnership, developed following the Second World War, remains fundamental to the security and prosperity of our nations,” the communiqué stated.

Next, the meeting agreed to jointly respond to “severe foreign interference” and publicly brand the governments responsible. Russia and China were not named, but they are clearly the focus of the declaration, coming amid a barrage of unsubstantiated accusations by the intelligence, political and media establishments against the two countries.

“We condemned foreign interference, being the coercive, deceptive and clandestine activities of foreign governments, actors, and their proxies, to sow discord, manipulate public discourse, bias the development of policy, or disrupt markets for the purpose of undermining our nations and our allies,” the communiqué said.

Under pressure from Washington, Turnbull’s government, backed by the opposition Labor Party, recently pushed through parliament unprecedented “foreign interference” laws, outlawing alleged links to China and many forms of anti-war and other political dissent, particularly involving international campaigns. Morrison’s government will now be expected to launch prosecutions.

The communiqué also denounced tech companies for not meeting with Five Eyes officials to discuss clamping down further on social media. An accompanying “Joint Statement on Countering the Illicit Use of Online Spaces” demanded that the internet conglomerates work more closely with the intelligence and police agencies to detect, identify and “urgently and immediately” remove “illicit content,” including “sources of disinformation” and “forms of malicious foreign interference.”

The meeting insisted that social media companies act on “previous commitments to invest in automated capabilities and techniques (including photo DNA tools) to detect, remove and prevent re‑upload of illegal and illicit content.”

Unless the companies cooperated, the five governments would work together to force companies to allow law enforcement agencies to access user data. “We may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve lawful access solutions,” the statement declared.

As the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) has proven, these governments and their European counterparts are already collaborating with social media companies to implement massive restrictions on internet access. In April 2017, Google announced new algorithms, aimed at limiting or blocking access to the WSWS and other left wing, anti-war and progressive websites. Facebook and Twitter have adopted similar measures.

The WSWS has taken the lead in exposing this conspiracy to censor the internet and called for the formation of an International Coalition of Socialist, Anti-War and Progressive Websites to fight back against this attack on freedom of speech and basic democratic rights.

The Five Eyes edicts signal an even more draconian offensive. A statement on combatting “ubiquitous encryption” declared the necessity to crack open “end-to-end encryption” tools allegedly used for “terrorist and criminal activities.”

Aware of the importance of encryption for online retail, banking and other corporate and financial purposes, the statement denied any “intention to weaken encryption mechanisms.” Nevertheless, the five governments “agreed to the urgent need for law enforcement to gain targeted access to data,” subject to further “discussion with industry.”

Under Turnbull, Australia’s Liberal-National government had already unveiled such legislation, tabled in parliament last month. Telcos, internet companies and device manufacturers that refuse to facilitate access to secret data face fines of up to $10 million.

The intelligence and police forces will have powers to compel any company, via a “Technical Capability Notice” issued by the attorney-general, to build a capability or functionality to provide the information required by agencies.

These powers will be far-reaching, potentially affecting any website. According to government ministers, they will apply to encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp, as well as “any entity operating a website.”

The Five Eyes summit underscores the need to develop the struggle against this ever-increasing internet censorship, together with the drive toward war and police-state rule, and to root it in the working class, the only social force capable of defending fundamental democratic rights and freedom of expression.

Washington escalates threats over Syria as Russia bombs Al Qaeda positions

Bill Van Auken

With forces loyal to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad apparently preparing for a ground offensive to reassert control over the northwestern province of Idlib, the Trump White House, the State Department and the Pentagon have all issued warnings of a “humanitarian” catastrophe and threats of US retaliation over the use of chemical weapons.

The latest threats came Tuesday, with the White House issuing a statement declaring that Washington was “closely monitoring the situation in Idlib” and the “threat of an imminent Assad regime attack, backed by Russia and Iran.”

Such an attack, the statement continued “would be a reckless escalation of an already tragic conflict and would risk the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.” It added that, in the event of a chemical weapons attack, “the United States and its Allies will respond swiftly and appropriately.”

The statement reiterates earlier declarations by Trump and top administration officials. The US president had tweeted on Monday, “The Russians and Iranians would be making a grave humanitarian mistake to take part in this potential human tragedy.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned last Friday that the US would view an offensive in Idlib as “an escalation of an already dangerous conflict,” and National Security Advisor John Bolton warned that the US “will respond very strongly” to any use of chemical weapons.

Russia and the Assad government have rejected the warnings. After a three-week lull, Russian warplanes carried out at least 20 airstrikes on targets near the Idlib’s western border, reportedly targeting positions held by Chinese Uighur Islamist extremists who are affiliated with the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda. The action involved Russian Sukhoi Su-24Ms and Su-34s jets and was supported by Russian ships in the eastern Mediterranean.

Syrian Foreign minister Walid Muallem said that the US threats would not stop the “determination of the Syrian people and Syrian army’s plans to clear Idlib and finally put an end to terrorism in Syria.” Syrian troops and armor have reportedly been massed at the province’s border.

Speaking at a Moscow press conference Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described Idlib as a “terrorists’ nest” that threatened Russian bases in Syria. “Just to speak out with some warnings—without taking into account the very dangerous, negative potential for the whole situation in Syria—is probably not a full comprehensive approach,” he said, in obvious reference to the threats from Washington.

Absent from the US statements is any recognition that Idlib is effectively run by the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate, which leads the dominant “rebel” faction, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (IHT), and includes large numbers of so-called foreign fighters. The IHT has reportedly set up gallows and employed firing squads to eliminate opponents seeking accommodation with the Syrian government.

The UN’s special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has acknowledged that there are at least 10,000 Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Idlib. The front that the group leads is said to control 60 percent of the province’s territory along with its capital, and effectively governs the region. Others have put the number of Al Qaeda-linked fighters at between 20,000 and 30,000.

Washington is threatening to intervene not out of any humanitarian concerns. Successive US administration have carried out bloody interventions in the region—from the war of aggression in Iraq, to the regime change operations in Libya and Syria and the near genocidal US-Saudi war against Yemen—that have claimed the lives of millions and decimated entire societies.

If it launches a new act of aggression in Syria, it will be to rescue the Al Qaeda-led “rebels,” which Washington and its Western and regional allies have supported since the onset of the proxy war for regime change in 2011, pouring billions of dollars’ worth of money and weapons to support these forces. And it will be to further US geo-strategic interests in dominating the Middle East and rolling back the influence of Iran and Russia in both Syria and the wider region.

With the open defense of Al Qaeda in Syria, Washington is unceremoniously ditching the 17-year-old “global war on terror” in favor of preparations for military confrontation with what US national security documents describe as “revisionist states” challenging US hegemony—i.e., Russia and China.

As for the warnings over a chemical weapons attack, these amount to an invitation to the Al Qaeda forces to stage an incident in order to secure air support from the US and its allies. Damascus flatly denied responsibility for earlier incidents—in Douma last April and in Khan Shaykhun a year before. Both were used as the pretext for missile and air strikes by Washington and its allies.

The Washington Post Tuesday published excerpts from a new book on the Trump White House by Bob Woodward, Fear, which included an account that after the supposed April 2017 chemical weapons incident, Trump proposed to his defense secretary that the US military assassinate Syrian President Assad.

“Let’s fucking kill him!” Trump is quoted as saying “Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them.”

While Mattis is reported to have told Trump he would develop such plans, the book says that he immediately told a senior aide: “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured.”

Gripped by extreme political crisis over the internecine war within the US political establishment, particularly over US policy toward Russia, and confronting mounting social tensions and rising working class militancy at home, the impetus for the Trump administration seizing on another phony chemical weapons incident to launch a major US escalation in Syria is greater than ever.

The UN’s Syria envoy, De Mistura, told reporters this week that the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate had “the capability to produce weaponized chlorine,” meaning that it is entirely capable of staging a chemical weapons attack and blaming it on the government.

The moves toward a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive to retake Idlib are unfolding in the midst of intense rounds of diplomatic discussions between Moscow, Ankara and Tehran. The leaders of the three powers—Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hassan Rouhani—are set to meet in Tehran on September 7 for discussions that will center on the question of Idlib.

Turkey’s defense minister and intelligence chief were in Moscow, while Iran’s foreign minister has held meetings in both Ankara and Damascus in recent days.

Turkey, which has backed a section of the Islamist militias in Syria and is anxious to avoid another flood of refugees across its border, has sought to forestall the offensive, insisting that the “moderate” rebels can be separated from their Al Qaeda core. It has also sent troops and tanks to positions inside Idlib near the Turkish border with the aim of blocking any further movement of Syrians into Turkey.

Moscow is clearly hopeful that Turkey can provide a means of delivering Idlib to the government in Damascus without a protracted and bloody campaign.

The Erdogan government has come into increasing confrontation with Washington, over both the US military’s use of the YPG Syrian Kurdish militia as its principal proxy ground force in Syria and the Trump administration’s imposition of sanctions that have exacerbated Turkey’s economic crisis.

The Turkish government reported on Tuesday that the country’s defense minister, Hulusi Akar, had told the visiting US special representative for Syria, James Jeffrey, that Turkey wanted all Kurdish militants out of the Syrian-Turkish border region.

The threat of the developments in Syria turning into a wider and far more dangerous confrontation are clear. Russia has reportedly moved 26 warships and 36 planes, including strategic bombers, into the Mediterranean. The US, meanwhile, has also positioned substantial forces in the region.

Moscow reported last week that the Pentagon had redeployed the USS Sullivans to the Persian Gulf, with 56 cruise missiles on board, and that B-1B strategic bombers had been redeployed to the Al-Udeid Air Bases in Qatar.

Who is to blame for the neo-Nazi rampage in Chemnitz, Germany?

Johannes Stern

On Sunday and Monday, over 7,000 neo-Nazis marched through the streets of the East German city of Chemnitz, formerly known as Karl-Marx-Stadt, attacking foreigners, chanting nationalist slogans and giving Nazi salutes.

“I saw huge groups of people with a racist mind-set,” one witness told Deutsche Welle. “It was a right-wing mob. They were roaming around freely in the city centre. They were chasing migrants… They took over the city.” While all this was happening, the police did nothing to control, much less stop, the fascist riot.

These events have come as a profound shock within Germany, where the population retains a deeply-rooted and bitter hatred of Nazism.

With further demonstrations planned by the extreme right over the weekend, leading figures within the government, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, are engaged in a thoroughly hypocritical and dishonest attempt to absolve themselves of any responsibility for what took place.

“We have video footage of the fact that there was race baiting, there were riots, there was hatred on the streets, and that has nothing to do with our rule of law,” Merkel said.

Social Democratic President Frank-Walter Steinmeier added, “I strongly condemn the extreme right-wing attacks.”

Saxony State Premier Michael Kretschmer, a member of the Christian Democratic Union, said at a press conference on behalf of the state government, “The political instrumentalization by right-wing extremists is disgusting and is rejected by us... We are conducting a determined fight against racism and xenophobia in the Free State of Saxony.”

These individuals are under the impression no one notices that they have systematically built up the very fascistic forces whose actions they now condemn.

The Grand Coalition government of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has effectively adopted the xenophobic anti-refugee policies of the fascistic Alternative for Germany (AfD). A system of camps to hold refugees is being created nationwide, mass deportations are taking place and the media and all the establishment parties are demagogically inciting hatred against refugees.

Merkel, who has long been dubbed the “refugee chancellor” by the media, now emphasizes in every government statement that “a situation like 2015 [in which Germany accepted hundreds of thousands of refugees] cannot be repeated” and calls for “a functioning culture of repatriation in Germany,” i.e., the mass deportation of refugees.

The formation of the Grand Coalition government involved the conscious decision to make the AfD, with just 12.6 percent of the vote, the official opposition party within the German parliament.

The events at Chemnitz and the trajectory of official politics in Germany comprehensively expose all the apologetic claims by historians and politicians that Hitler’s regime was an aberration, that it was not an outgrowth of the crisis of capitalist society, and that it was the response to anti-democratic “left wing extremism” that destabilized the Weimar Republic.

Though there is no politically organized mass socialist movement in Germany, Nazism is again establishing a political presence. And it is indisputable that its growth has been encouraged and supported by the policies of the major bourgeois parties, backed by the media.

The rise of the extreme right and the adoption of the AfD’s policies by the Grand Coalition and de facto, all establishment parties, were systematically prepared ideologically and politically.

For the last five years, going back to 2013, there has been a relentless campaign to revise history, to ideologically legitimize the extreme right and to viciously attack those, particularly the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP), who have sought to expose this right-wing campaign.

The media has been engaged in an effort to legitimize the historical relativization of the Third Reich, presenting the Nazi regime as a legitimate response to the threat posed by the Soviet Union and Bolshevism.

The principal ideological leader and beneficiary of this campaign has been the right-wing historian Jörg Baberowski, who teaches at Berlin’s Humboldt University. He has been lauded by the media as Germany’s greatest scholar and transformed into a talk-show and media celebrity. Baberowski’s provocative declaration to Der Spiegel in 2014 that “Hitler wasn’t vicious” has been either ignored or rationalized.

At the same time, the SGP has been the subject of an unrelenting campaign of slander in the media, precisely on account of its exposure of Baberowski and the systematic attempt to rewrite German history and trivialize the crimes of German imperialism.

This right-wing campaign has been endorsed by the administration of Humboldt University, which has protected Baberowski and covered up his links to the extreme right, even though Baberowski himself has been a leading voice of anti-refugee demagogy.

In May 2016, at the Phil.Cologne, an international festival for philosophy, Baberowski asserted that “men in Germany” were helpless in the face of violence from migrants because they were no longer able to fight. This had supposedly been visible on New Year’s Eve, 2016, in Cologne, when, he said, German men had not defended their women from alleged assaults.

“We see that men in Germany no longer have any idea how to deal with violence,” Baberowski argued. His statements were prominently quoted and promoted by Breitbart News in the US and other far right news outlets.

Baberowski’s academic reflections on “violence” have been put into practice by the Nazis rampaging through Chemnitz.

The placing of the SGP on the official list of subversive organizations by Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), as the secret service is called, is the direct outcome of the efforts to suppress its exposure of the far-right. The current BfV report, published in July with a foreword by Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU), includes the SGP as an “object of observation” because it fights against “nationalism, imperialism and militarism” and protests against right-wing extremism.

In other words, from the point of view of the coalition government and the BfV, which maintains close contacts with the AfD itself, it is not the neo-Nazis but their opponents, i.e., the vast majority of the population, that are the real problem.

It is no coincidence that the right-wing extremist mob was able to march through Chemnitz almost undisturbed by the police on Sunday and Monday. In Saxony, the close links between right-wing extremists, the police and government are legion. Confident that they enjoy high level support in the state, the Nazis are intensifying their political provocations.

The dangerous developments in Germany show that, for all the crimes of the Nazis between 1933–45, the German ruling elite is as reactionary, and German democracy as fragile, as ever. Its natural inclination historically is to the extreme right, all the more so when it senses popular discontent and when it sees the need to revive its imperialist strategic ambitions.

But the fact that fascism is once again on the march not just in Germany, but throughout Europe and the world, makes clear that this global process, far from being an accident, expresses the fundamental tendency of the capitalist system.

There is no way to defeat the revival of Nazism and imperialist militarism except through the building of a genuine revolutionary socialist movement. The time has come to revive the great traditions of Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Lenin and Trotsky that have been defended solely by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and its sections. The SGP calls upon all workers and youth to join its ranks and take up the fight against capitalism, fascism and war.

Gates Cambridge Scholarships (Fully-funded Masters & PhD) in UK for International Students 2019/2020

Application Timeline:

• Applications Open : 3rd September, 2018
• Applications Close: Dependent on your course – either 5th December 2018 or 3rd January 2019

Eligible Countries: international

To be taken at (country): Cambridge University UK

Accepted Subject Areas: Masters and PhD Courses offered by the university

About the Award: Gates Cambridge Scholarships are highly competitive full-cost scholarships. They are awarded to outstanding applicants from countries outside the UK to pursue a full-time postgraduate degree in any subject available at the University of Cambridge. The Gates Cambridge Scholarships programme aims to build a global network of future leaders committed to improving the lives of others.

Type: Masters, PhD

Selection Criteria:

• outstanding intellectual ability
• leadership potential
• a commitment to improving the lives of others
• a good fit between the applicant’s qualifications and aspirations and the postgraduate programme at Cambridge for which they are applying

Eligibility:

• a citizen of any country outside the United Kingdom.
• applying to pursue one of the following full-time residential courses of study: PhD (three year research-only degree); MSc or MLitt (two year research-only degree); or a one year postgraduate course (e.g. MPhil, LLM, MASt, Diploma, MBA etc.)
• already a student at Cambridge and want to apply for a new postgraduate course. For example, if you are studying for an MPhil you can apply for a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to do a PhD. However, if you have already started a course, you cannot apply for a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to fund the rest of it.
• already a Gates Cambridge Scholar and want to apply for a second Scholarship. You must apply by the second, international deadline and go through the same process of departmental ranking, shortlisting and interviewing as all other candidates.

Number of Scholarship: Several

Value of Scholarship:

• Scholarship will cover the full cost of study
• the University Composition Fee and College fees at the appropriate rate
• a maintenance allowance for a single student
• one economy single airfare at both the beginning and end of the course

Duration of Scholarship: For the duration of the programme

How to Apply: Apply Here

Visit the Scholarship Webpage for Details

Award Sponsors: Gates Cambridge Trust

Important Notes:
Gates Cambridge Scholarships are extremely competitive: over 4,000 applicants apply for 90 Scholarships each year.
Given the intense competition, the Trust has a four stage selection process:

• Departmental ranking – the very best applicants to each department are ranked on academic merit only
• Shortlisting – Gates Cambridge committees review the applications of ranked candidates using all four Gates Cambridge criteria and put forward a list for interview
• Interview – all shortlisted candidates have a short interview to assess how they meet all four Gates Cambridge criteria
• Selection – chairs of interview panels meet to decide the final list of Scholars
• A good fit between the applicant’s qualifications and aspirations and the postgraduate programme at Cambridge for which they are applying

Facebook International Fellowship for Doctoral Students 2019

Application Deadline: 12th October 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Domestic and International Students

To be taken at (country): Any country (excluding US embargoed countries)

Research Areas:

• CommAI
• Computational Social Science
• Compute Storage and Efficiency
• Computer Vision
• Distributed Systems
• Economics and Computation
• Machine Learning
• Natural Language Processing
• Networking and Connectivity
• Security/Privacy
• Research Outside of the Above: relevant work in areas that may not align with the research priorities highlighted above.

About the Award: Giving people the power to share and connect requires constant innovation. At Facebook, research permeates everything we do. We believe the most interesting research questions are derived from real-world problems. Our engineers work on cutting edge research with a practical focus and push product boundaries every day. We believe that close relationships with the academic community will enable us to address many of these problems at a fundamental level and solve them. As part of our ongoing commitment to building academic relationships, we are pleased to announce the two year Facebook Fellowship program to support PhD students in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 academic years.

Type: PhD, Fellowship

Selection Criteria and Eligibility:

• Full-time PhD students who are currently involved in on-going research.
• Students work must be related to one or more relevant disciplines.
• Students must be enrolled during the academic year(s) that the Fellowship is awarded.
• The Fellowship Program is open to PhD students globally who are enrolled in an accredited university in any country.

Number of Scholarships: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Each Facebook Fellowship includes several benefits:

• Tuition and fees will be paid for the academic year (up to two years).
• $37K grant (one-time payment during each academic year).
• Up to $5,000 in conference travel support.
• Paid visit to Facebook HQ to present research.
• Opportunity for a paid internship at Facebook.

Duration of Scholarship: Facebook Fellowship Award to cover two years!

Required application materials:

• 1-2 page research summary which clearly identifies the area of focus, importance to the field, and applicability to Facebook of the anticipated research during the award. Please reference the topical areas below.
• Student’s CV (with email, phone and mailing address). Please include applicable coursework.
• 2 letters of recommendation (one must be from an academic advisor).

How to Apply: The Application is now live. Go to the Site and enter your information.

Visit scholarship webpage for details

Award Sponsors: Facebook

Facebook Emerging Scholar Programme for PhD Students in Emerging Regions 2018

Application Deadline: 12th October, 2018

Eligible Candidates: The Facebook Emerging Scholar Award is provided for first and second year PhD students who are underrepresented minorities in the technology industry.

To be taken at (country): US

About the Award:  The Facebook Emerging Scholar Award is provided for first and second year PhD students who are underrepresented minorities in the technology industry.
For the purpose of the Facebook Emerging Scholar award, underrepresented minority group is considered to include persons who identify as: Black or African American, person having origins in any Black racial groups of Africa; Hispanic or Latino, person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South American, Central American, Caribbean, or other Spanish culture origin, regardless of race; Native American or Alaskan Native, person having origins in any of the original peoples of North, Central, or South America and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment; Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, person having origins in the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa or other Pacific Islands.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility:  

• You must be currently enrolled in your first or second year of a PhD program to apply.
• All applicants will need to use their Facebook account to apply.

Selection Criteria: Applications will be evaluated based on the strength of the student’s proposed research and their recommendation letters.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: 

• Payment of tuition and fees for two academic years
• $37,000 annual stipend
• Up to $5,000 towards conference travel funds

How to Apply: 

• Research Statement: 1-2 page research summary
• Resume or CV with email, phone and mailing address, along with applicable coursework noted
• Two letters of recommendation (Please provide reference email addresses): Advisor and one Professional reference (can be from academia or industry)

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Facebook

The Paranoid Drive for Military Intervention in Venezuela

Manuel E. Yepe

“Bomb, invade, occupy a country to see it flourish.” Such is the logic of the absurd philosophy of imperialist interventionism that has been applied by the United States throughout the world in the name of the defense of freedom and western culture.

But war is the worst human calamity and, despite the feverish hopes and utopian promises of its promoters, humanitarian interventions almost always result in unimaginable killings, devastation, horror and suffering added to the situations that “justified” them.

The most recent United States wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Iraq, Yemen and Syria) should serve as sufficient proof of this fact: Future humanitarian warriors make serious professions of humanitarianism and end up killing many of those they promised to help.

I consider it very interesting to assess this dilemma from the point of view of the defenders of humanitarian warfare as an ideal mechanism to ensure its geopolitical and/or class advantages in circumstances such as the current ones we are analyzing here.

Let us examine what the imperialist camp is proposing about a possible U.S. military intervention in Venezuela by Doug Bandow. He is a senior researcher at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank founded in Washington D.C. in 1974 as the Charles-Koch Foundation, dedicated to lobbying and promoting capitalist public policies that challenge socialism based on the free principles of individual freedom, limited government and the pro laissez faire markets.

Bandow was President Ronald Reagan’s assistant and author of the book “America’s New Global Empire.

Previously, the warmongering “humanitarian” interveners went straight to looting but, over time, they refined their rhetoric and began to talk about trade and investment opportunities, increases in GDP and other more subtle forms of robbery.

According to Bandow, last year, President Donald Trump asked his aides if the United States should intervene militarily in Venezuela. Everyone argued against the idea. He then asked for the opinion of several Latin American leaders who also strongly opposed it.

However, the US intervention had to be assessed from the point of view of the economic benefits that this could bring, both for the oligarchic sectors of Venezuela and for the hegemonic interests of the United States.

Cynically, it was argued that the number of people killed by an American assault on Venezuela would be reduced. Extrapolating data from the U.S. assault on Panama cites an estimate of 3,500 civilian casualties.

He didn’t consider that war is not just another political tool. It is based on death and destruction. No matter how well-intentioned, military action is often indiscriminate. The course of the conflict is unpredictable and often unexpected.

Bandow admits that the pinkish predictions about the results of a U.S. expeditionary force landing in Venezuela are highly questionable. Such intervention could result in a mixture of civil war and insurgency in which the “good guys” would undoubtedly win, but the costs would be severe.

The Cato Institute researcher acknowledges that it is grotesque to try to justify military action on the grounds that fewer people could die if it didn’t happen.  Should lives be treated as abstract numbers in an account balance? Whatever the number of victims, a war would mean that thousands of people would otherwise be alive and would die.

Who authorized US politicians to make that decision? who anointed Washington to play God with the future of other peoples?

If the security and humanitarian arguments are insufficient, the economic justification is laughable: How much economic benefit for life, American or Venezuelan, justifies war? Imagine a president writing to the families of the dead soldiers explaining that his sacrifice was justified because it helped to increase Venezuela’s annual GDP rate.

And then the height of cynicism: “The most important thing would be the impact on the United States. The main responsibility of the U.S. government is to protect its own people, and its uniformed officers, who should not be treated as pawns on tactics in some global chess game. Their lives should only be in danger when their own nation has something substantial at stake.”

Finally, it is striking that these assessments emanate from the ranks opposed to Chavism, and it is certainly the case that attempting a U.S. military intervention in Venezuela would be the worst, and perhaps the last, madness of U.S. imperialism!

Lebanon’s Precarious Neutrality

Robert Fisk

Facing possible invasion from both Britain and Germany in 1940 and determined to remain neutral, the Irish government in Dublin asked one of its senior ministers to draft a memorandum on how to stay out of the Second World War. “Neutrality is a form of limited warfare,” was his eloquent but bleak response.

The Lebanese would agree. For seven years, they have been pleading and praying and parleying to stay out of the Syrian war nextdoor, to ignore Israel’s threats, Syria’s sisterly embrace, America’s warnings, Russia’s entreaties and Iran’s blandishments. I guess you have to be an especially gifted people to smile obligingly – ingratiatingly, simplistically, bravely, grovellingly, wearily – at all around you and get away with it.

“When Lebanon is without a government for a month, you know the Lebanese are to blame,” a friend announced to me over coffee in Beirut this week. “When Lebanon is without a government for three months, you know foreigners are involved.” Armies have clanked through Lebanon for thousands of years, of course, but its current suitors are arriving with almost daily frequency. The Lebanese are being embraced by the newly victorious Syria, threatened by Israel, warned by the Americans, cuddled by the Russians and vouchsafed eternal love by the Iranians who pay and arm the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. And all this with an $80bn national debt, 1.5 million Syrian refugees, and electricity cuts – every day, without exception – since 1975.

It’s a lesson in how to be small, stay safe and live in fear. The caretaker cabinet of Saad Hariri – in effect, the pre-election Lebanese government and the next government rolled into one, each minister chosen under the country’s tiresome Muslim-Christian system of sectarianism – has adopted a policy of “dissociation” from regional conflicts. “Dissociation” is a version of neutrality, in which almost everyone from the Americans to the Iranians and the EU pretends that Lebanon is united in mutual love, and of far more use intact than destroyed in a rerun of the 1975-1990 civil war. The EU, of course, is lavishing money on the bankrupt Lebanese patient because it doesn’t want even more refugees pouring into Europe.

In fact Lebanon’s neutrality also protects it from itself. The Sunnis receive massive funding from the Saudis, who loathe the Iranians, Hezbollah and the Lebanese Shias who support them. The Sunni Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri loves the Saudis – or rather, has to love the Saudis, since they support his premiership and because he holds Saudi citizenship and the Saudis believe he will do their bidding. Readers may remember the gentlemanly kidnapping of Hariri in Riyadh last year and his ghostly reappearance before Saudi television to “resign” his Lebanese premiership until president Macron rescued him from the clutches of crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, and spirited him to Paris where he mysteriously resumed his Lebanese premiership. Hariri, being an eclectic passport holder, is also a French citizen.

The Lebanese Christians, as always, are divided – President Michel Aoun remains a pal of Assad, the rest fear another Syrian “intervention” in Lebanon – while Hezbollah says that if Israel strikes Iran, the war between Shia militias and Israel will restart in southern Lebanon. Israel regularly threatens Hezbollah – to Hezbollah’s delight – and Lebanon. Walid Jumblatt’s Druze still await the destruction of Assad. Try explaining all that to Donald Trump. After all, it’s only a year ago that the dotty US president praised Hariri for being “in the front line of the fight against Hezbollah” – haplessly unaware that poor old Hariri sits next to Hezbollah’s ministers in the Lebanese cabinet.

The Americans (and the Saudis) therefore maintain their constant and useless exhortation to Lebanon that the Shia Hezbollah must be disarmed/disbanded/merged with the Lebanese army – since they are armed by Iran (the font of all evil), the enemy of Israel (the font of all goodness) and the ally of Syria (whose leader the Americans still theoretically want to dethrone as the font of all chemical warfare) – while sending arms to the Lebanese army. Besides, no Lebanese soldier – least of all a Shia – is going to attack his Shia brothers and sisters in south Lebanon for the benefit of the Americans, Saudis or Israelis.

So American support keeps coming, up to a point; just two months ago, Lebanese army commander general Joseph Aoun was in Washington to discuss “counter-terrorism cooperation” – only months after his soldiers and Hezbollah (‘terrorists’, according to the US State Department) had together helped to drive Islamists out of the Ersal pocket in north-eastern Lebanon. The Americans gave the Lebanese army four A-29 Super Tucano light-attack aircraft, powerful enough to shoot up Isis, weak enough to be of no threat to Israel. US military aid to Lebanon stands at a slightly measly $70m a year – compare it to $47bn over 40 years to the Egyptian military, which cannot even suppress the current Isis uprising in Sinai. And US weapons will cease to arrive in Beirut, the Americans have made perfectly clear, the moment the Lebanese are tempted by Iranian offers.

The Iranians, with their crashing rial economy, have been offering Beirut even more cash – from where, exactly, we don’t know – than the Americans, along with guns, agricultural and industrial assistance. After Iran’s new military and defence agreements with Syria, and the “productive role” it will play in Syria’s post-war reconstruction – the words of Iranian defence minister Amir Hatami – not to mention the rebuilding of Syrian military installations, airbases, schools, hospitals (comparatively speaking, this list is of Marshall Plan proportions) there must surely be a merging of funds and fantasy. You wouldn’t think that Iran’s minister of economy had been dismissed this week. The Russians, needless to say, want their stake in the reconstruction of Syria – so do the Lebanese, one might add – but in Lebanon the Russians have a team offering to take tens of thousands of Syrian refugees home under guarantees of safety.

This is good news for President Aoun and his foreign minister Gebran Bassil (who happens to be Aoun’s son-in-law), who want to get rid of the Syrian refugee camps across Lebanon and help to restore “normalisation” to Syria. But there were lots of objections from the Europeans and the UN, who’ll have to get involved and want to make sure the refugees don’t get slapped into prison the moment they cross the border and more than anything want to avoid the “normalisation” of post-war Syria under Assad.

The Syrians, meanwhile, want to resume their formerly “sisterly” relations with Lebanon and are impatient when the Lebanese – especially Hariri – resist. Syria, with massive power cuts of its own, is already offering electricity to Lebanon, and the Lebanese were delighted to hear that the Syrian government had just retaken control of the Syrian-Jordanian frontier post at Nassib. This would surely reopen the only land transit passage for Lebanese exports to Jordan and the Gulf.

But there was a catch. Syria’s ambassador to Beirut, Ali Abdul Karim Ali, made a suitably Baathist remark this week. “Enemies are now looking for ways to put their pride aside, so” – and here he was referring to Lebanon – “what about the brotherly country whose land borders are all with Syria, in addition to occupied Palestine?” For Palestine, read Israel. And, Ali added, “Syria of course needs Lebanon, but Lebanon needs it more.” Then came reports – unconfirmed but distressing for Hariri’s pro-Saudi camp – that while returning refugees could cross the Nassib border post, it was not yet open to Lebanese lorries carrying the country’s fruit and vegetable exports. “Blackmail,” roared Hariri. Even more galling for the Lebanese was a photograph showing Russian military police as well as Syrian troops at the Nassib border.

So if Lebanon needs Syria more than Syria needs Lebanon, I suppose that Lebanon needs America more than America needs Lebanon – but Iran needs Lebanon more than Lebanon needs Iran. And the Saudis need Lebanon, because they can use Hariri as the figurehead of Sunnism against the Shia Hezbollah/Syrian axis and thus damage Shia Iran. And the Lebanese, with their $80bn debt – a result of the policies, ironically, of Hariri’s murdered father Rafiq – need the Saudis. The Russians? Surely, with their fleet sailing the billows off the Syrian coastal city of Tartus, they need no one. Perhaps that Irish minister – Frank Aiken, veteran of the Irish war of independence and the Irish civil war – was right in 1940. Neutrality is a form of limited warfare.