2 Oct 2018

Covert Wars in the UN Halls

Elias Akleh

Last week the UN halls have been the battlefields of aggressive covert wars in the form of speeches by world leaders. Each speech has maneuvers of attacks, defense, threats and bullying, lies and justifications, and rallying support of the international community. My interest is in the speeches concerning the Middle East; a very dangerous and volatile area, whose unfolding battles are affecting the whole world. The warriors of these battles were American Donald Trump, Zionist Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas, Iranian Hassan Rouhani, and Syrian Walid Al-Moualem.
In a monotonous voice, that drags one to sleep, Trump started his speech bragging about himself and the accomplishment of his administration “that has accomplished more than almost any administrations in the history of our country”; adding $10 trillion to American wealth, high stock-market, low jobless claims in 50 years, added half a million jobs, tax cuts, record military funding of $700 billion this year and $716 billion next year, and starting the construction of border wall with Mexico that made US “stronger, safer and richer.”
One cannot but explode in laughing about these narcissistic false claims as the whole audience had done. The American people have not seen those $10 trillion, that were paid to military corporations, stock-market prices have been artificially raised, unemployment is record high with the majority of people living from one pay check to the next, homelessness has become epidemic, tax cuts went only to the wealthy, educational budgets were severely cut, medical coverage are not affordable by the millions, crime rates and police violence are on the rise, record military funding for perpetual wars and border walls are shame to brag about.
Trump stated that “We”; his administration, stand up for the American people and for the world and “… that is why America will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance, control and domination.” Politicians excel in camouflaging their dubious behaviors into the exact opposite, and Trump is the master in this. History has proven that the choice of these Zionist Judaic controlled American administrations has always been perpetual wars, terrorism, intimidation, bullying, blackmail, control and dominance without any respect for the rights and well-being of other nations and not even for their own citizens.
Recent administrations have felt emboldened even to confess that they create, finance and arm terrorist groups to wage American as well as Israeli proxy wars around the globe. Strong historical evidence prove that the US had toppled many democratically elected governments; e.g. 1953 Iranian democratically elected Mosaddeq’s regime, created al-Qaeda in Afghanistan,  ISIS and al-Nusra in Syria, and waged proxy war against Yemen among many other documented examples around the globe. The American administrations have used, and are still using, financial resources and armies of other states such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt to wage its proxy wars against other states in the region.
As NATO members are beginning to free themselves from the American warmongering whims Trump has assigned CIA director; Mike Pompeo to work “with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jordan, and Egypt to establish a regional strategic alliance so that Middle Eastern nations can advance prosperity, stability, and security across their home region.” This is actually an Arab NATO-like alliance similar to the 1990 anti-Iraq Gulf War Coalition, whose main function is to wage American/Israeli proxy wars in the region specifically against Iran.
Iran has become a painful thorn in the Israeli and American rears after spoiling their plan to destroy and fragment Syria as they had done to Iraq and Libya. Thus, Iran has to be demonized in order to weaken and contain it if not toppling its regime and destroying it. So, Trump called for “Every solution to the humanitarian crisis in Syria must also include a strategy to address the brutal regime that has fueled and financed it: the corrupt dictatorship in Iran.”
Trump demonized Iran’s leaders stating “Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction, they do not respect their neighbors or borders or the sovereign rights of nation” Actually, Iran’s leaders sow respect, cooperation, security and humanity that gained them popularity and respect in the region. They fought American/Israel/Saudi terrorists, sheltered and secured refugees, and donated aid to disaster areas.
Trump continued “Iran’s leaders plunder the nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond” and “have embezzled billions of dollars from Iran’s treasury, seized valuable portions of the economy, and looted the people’s religious endowments, all to line their own pockets and send their proxies to wage war.” He is, here, actually describing his own administration, Wall Street, Federal Reserve and banking system, and American mega corporations, who are perpetrating these crimes.
Trump warned that “We cannot allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet’s most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants “Death to America,” and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth.” It is the USA that possess the most dangerous weapons, bully other nations, call for regime change and destruction of countries and is advancing its nuclear warheads to make them “so strong & so powerful.”
As soon as Israeli Netanyahu started his speech he immediately accused Iran of having secret nuclear program, again using his silly drawings, “Disclosing for the first time that Iran has another nuclear facility, a secret warehouse for material for secret Iran’s nuclear program” where Iran is storing at least 15 gigantic ship containers full of 300 tons of nuclear equipment and materials hidden in nuclear compounds in “Turqusabad”. Iranians could not but explode in laughter when Netanyahu mentioned Turqusabad, because in their folklore stories Turqusabad is a non-existent fictional place. Yet this did not stop Netanyahu from urging IAEA to inspect this imaginary location.
Netanyahu accused Iran “Last year Iran attacked Kurds in Iraq, slaughtered Sunnis in Syria, armed Hezbollah in Lebanon, financed Hamas in Gaza, fired missiles into Saudi Arabia, and threatened freedom of navigation in the straights of Hurmuz and straights of Bab el-Mandab.”    Using scare tactics, he warned UN members that “Iranian aggression will not be confined to the Middle East”citing alleged arrested Iranian agents plotting terror attacks in the US and in the heart of Europe.
Justifying Israel’s 210 air raids against Syria Netanyahu accused Iran of building military bases in Syria, launching missiles and drones in Israeli territory, arming Gaza Palestinians to rain rockets onto Israeli cities, directing Lebanese Hezbollah to build secret sites to manufacture precision guided missiles to target Israel, and use Lebanese as human shields when placing these missile sites along Beirut’s international airport. His proof is a kiddy drawing he claimed to be “worth a thousand missiles”
Netanyahu implicitly insulted UN members’ intelligence when he stated “while US is confronting Iran with new sanctions Europe and others are appeasing Iran by trying to help it bypass these sanctions… While Iran was caught red handed plotting against Europe, European leaders are rolling the red carpet for Iranian leader; president Rouhani, promising to give Iran even more money … have these European leaders learned nothing from history, will they wake up?”
Netanyahu urged UN countries to stop cuddling Iran’s dictators and to join Trump’s sanctions against Iran because companies would abandon Iran and do business with US, whose GDP is 50 times the size of Iran’s GDP, Iran’s economy is destined to collapse, it’s currency is plummeting, inflation and unemployment are souring and most important when next patch of economic sanctions are imposed in November Iranian people will rally against the regime rather than around it, and will chant “death to the dictator rather than death to America”, and instead of chanting to export the Islamic revolution they will demand to leave Syria and Lebanon and Gaza and to take care of us.
One cannot help but be amazed by Netanyahu’s wide unrealistic imaginations and lying creativity. Maybe he thinks people are so stupid that he can outsmart them. Really, will the world learn lessons from Netanyahu’s perpetual lying episodes?
Due to the myths of America’s manifest destiny, and god’s chosen people, both Trump’s administration and Israel seem to feel privileged and entitled to dictate their will, to violate international laws and conventions and to undermine international organization using bullying, intimidation and economic and financial sanctions. Trump’s administration has withdrawn from climate accord, from NAFTA, from Transpacific Partnership, from JCPOA in violation of UNSC resolution 2231, undermined World Trade Organization to impose unreasonable tariffs and sanctions on other countries, undermined and withdrew from UN Human Rights Council after Nikki Haley threatened to take names of its members, undermined International Criminal Court (ICC), pulled out of UNESCO, cut down US contribution to UN peacekeeping budget, and stopped funds to UNRWA.
Israel has never implemented any related UN resolution since its illegal establishment. Since 1947 there have been 705 UN resolutions and 86 Security Council resolutions related to the Arab/Israeli conflict. Emboldened and supported by American policies and VETO power Israel has never implemented any of these resolutions. Israel has also violated all agreements and accords it signed with the Palestinians.
While praising warmongering butchers king Salman and crown prince; Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), for their alleged bold new reforms, discarding their on-going genocide in Yemen, and celebrating Israel’s 70th anniversary and genocide of Palestinians as a thriving democracy in the Holy Land, Trump did not mention Palestine, but claimed that he took significant steps forward in the Middle East by acknowledging obvious facts and moving US embassy to Jerusalem. Palestinians for Trump are nobody to be concerned about.
Netanyahu expressed Israel’s appreciation to Trump and Haley “for their unwavering support they provided Israel at the UN “, and for pulling out of “history-denied UNESCO in the morally bankrupt UN Human Rights Council, who have more resolutions about Israel than the whole world combined and tenfold compared to Iran or Syria.” In itself, this is a confession that this international human rights organization has recognized that Israeli terror is the utmost danger.
Emboldened by the unwavering but unethical American support Netanyahu diverted blame from Israel by accusing “… unreformed UNRWA; an organization instead of solving the Palestinian problem perpetuate it.” UNRWA is a humanitarian organization, whose job is to aid Palestinian refugees and not solving Palestinian political problem.
Answering accusation of Israel as a racist apartheid state by Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas because Israel adopted the racist law of “Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people”, Netanyahu reminded Abbas that he wrote a dissertation denying the holocaust, and accused him of paying Palestinians to attack Israelis and to impose death sentence on Palestinians, who sell land to Israelis. He shamelessly and flagrantly defended adopting the racist Jewish nation law by criticizing what he called the “specialty of the UN; slandering Israel” and accused the UN of the old exhausted cliché of anti-semitism, whose “foul stench still clinches to these halls.” He also described UN accusing Israel of racism, apartheid and of ethnic cleansing as “this is the same old anti-semitism with a brand-new face.”
Ignoring the fact that Israel is brutally usurping Palestinian land, destroying their towns and homes, murdering their women and children, locking their teen agers in prisons for years, desecrating their Muslim and Christian holy places, and having armed Jewish religious fanatics routinely attack Palestinian neighborhoods (midnight Sunday 9/30 was the latest), and not  mentioning racist Jewish Israelis attacking black African Ethiopian Jews for their color, Netanyahu still insists that Israel is “both Jewish and democratic with guaranteed equal rights to all.”
Resorting to his distorted religious beliefs (the opium of the people), and ignoring the existence of the indigenous owners of Palestine, he told the mythical story of Abraham, Sara and other Judaic figures, who immigrated to Palestine and signed an eternal covenant with god; a contract with a racist real estate broker, who choses one small group of people over the billions of other people and promises them a piece of land. He concluded his speech with the historical distortion and his disillusioned poetic assertion that Palestine is the land “from which we were exiled and to which we return, rebuilding our ancient and eternal capital Jerusalem. The nation state of Israel is the only place where Jewish people proudly can exercise our collective right of self-determination” – on the expense of indigenous Palestinians.
Mahmoud Abbas’ speech came as a whimpering sick dog begging for help rather than demanding justice. In between sick coughing and throat clearing he complained about Israeli violation of all agreements and accords, and of not implementing even one of the many UN resolutions. He criticized Israel’s nation law describing it an apartheid law. He complained about Israeli oppressive measures against Palestinians and desecration of Palestinian holy places. He complained about Israel’s intention of demolishing the village of Khan El-Ahmar to divide the Palestinian territories into two halves.
He rejected Trump’s unjust actions of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the American embassy there. He also complained that Trump had cut funds to the PA, to Palestinian hospitals in Jerusalem, of cutting funds to the UNRWA, and of closing the Palestinian office in Washington. He expressed his disappointment of Trump’s administration and asked Trump to retract all these measures.
Abbas considered the US to have become a biased to Israel rather than an honest broker to peace process, and asked other nations including the Quartet to become brokers for peace instead. He objected to the fact that although the PLO is considered and is recognized by the UN as the only representative of the Palestinian people the American Congress still considers it a terrorist organization.
He reiterated PA’s commitment to peace, readiness as always to sit at the negotiating table with Israel, renouncing violence and armed resistance but following what he called peaceful popular resistance vis a vie the armed settlers’ aggression. Then he asked what else do you want us to do after we had already given up almost everything.
He confessed that the PA is not able to protect itself nor its Palestinian people and blamed the UN for not protecting Palestinians after they promised to do so. He also requested UN members, who did not recognize Palestinian state to join those who did and recognize the Palestinian state.
Although the UN is not the correct place to do this, Abbas claimed that he is exerting every effort for reconciliation with Hamas in Gaza to re-unite Palestinians, yet he threatened Hamas that he will not take any responsibility if they refused his conditions. Hamas was the democratically elected government in 2007 as certified by international observers.
Abbas, whose term has expired since 2007, has been a huge disappointment to Palestinians. Instead of protecting his people, he, and his so-called security forces, has functioned as Israeli proxy police force protecting Israelis and oppressing his people. He instructed his security forces to arrest hundreds of Palestinian activists the night before his speech.
Syrian Deputy Walid Al-Moualem and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani defended Palestine better than pathetic Abbas. Rouhani considered the Palestinian question as “the most pressing crisis in the Middle East”, and that the passage of time must not and cannot justify Israeli occupation. He accused the US to be a complete partner to Israeli crimes when he stated that “the innumerable crimes of Israel against the Palestinians would not have been possible without the material and military assistance and political propaganda support of the US.”
He considered the US decision to transfer its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and the Israeli enactment of the racist Jewish state law as flagrant violations of international law and clear manifestation of apartheid. “Israel equipped with nuclear arsenal and blatantly threaten others with nuclear annihilation presents the most daunting threat to regional and global peace and stability”he emphasized.
Al-Moualem summed up his defense as such: “The international community must also help the Palestinian people to establish their own independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, and facilitate the return of Palestinian refugees to their land pursuing to international resolutions according to international legitimacy. Any action that undermine these rights are null and void and threaten regional peace and security especially the Israeli racist law known as the nation state law, and the decision of the US administration to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and stop funding UNRWA.”
Both Rouhani and Al-Moualem criticized US administration for its withdrawal from the JPCOA in violation of UNSC 2231and imposing sanctions although IAEA had issued 12 reports indicating that Iran is compliant with the agreement. They considered these sanctions as economic war and warned that US bullying other nations to violate and undermining international laws and conventions will endanger world peace and security.
“The US understanding of international relations is authoritarian. In its estimation might is right. Its understanding of power not of legal legitimate authority is reflected in bullying and in imposition. No nation can be brought to negotiating table by force” accused Rouhani.
Rouhani accused Trump of withdrawing from the JPCOA because it is the legacy of his previous domestic rivals; Obama’s administration, and warned that Trump is threatening international security as a way of escaping from domestic policy problems and scandals in his administration. He asked Trump just to fulfill America’s international obligations explaining that Iran’s proposal is clear: “commitment for commitment, violation for violation, threat for threat, and step for step”
Rouhani explained that Iran is against nuclear weapons yet for nuclear knowledge. Similar to the US and other countries Iran has the right to develop defensive weapons, such as ballistic missiles that have been used only twice against terrorist groups; ISIS, who attacked the Iranian Parliament and a number of cities in the Iranian Kurdish region.
Rouhani accused US of supporting terrorist groups despite its claims of fighting them. Referring to the terrorist attack on Iranian military parade in Ahwaz Saturday 9/22 he questioned “why can the leaders of these terrorist operations, including the organization that had publicly claimed responsibility for the Saturday crime, live and operate freely in western countries and even openly solicit funds?”
In the Syrian crisis Rouhani explained that Iran had warned against any foreign intervention in the internal affairs of Syria, and that the crisis can only be resolved thorough intra-Syrian dialogue. He explained that the presence of Iranian military advisers in Syria has been at the request of the Syrian government, and consistent with the international law, and aimed at assisting the Syrian government in combating terrorists. Through the Astana Process Iran had helped preventing escalation in blood shed in Idlib region.
Syrian Deputy; Al-Moualem explained that the battle in Syria could be a lesson to other countries because it is the battle of ideologies, a struggle between two global camps; one promotes peace while the other promotes terrorism and hegemony. He accused the US of leading an illegitimate international coalition to destroy Syria under the pretext of combating terrorism, while they are providing military support to the terrorists.
He accused the US of releasing terrorists from Guantanamo prison and sending them to Syria where they became leaders of al-Nusra and other terrorist groups. He explained that US forces present in the Tanaf area in south Syria had created a safe haven for ISIS terrorists, who perpetrated suicide attacks against the governate of Suwayda.
Al-Moualem warned that “Any foreign presence on Syrian territories without the consent of Syrian government is illegal and constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and the UN charter. It is an assault on our sovereign nationality” considering US, French and Turkish forces operating on Syrian territories without explicit request from Syrian government as occupying forces and threatening to deal with them as such. He advised that these forces must immediately withdraw without any conditions.
He also explained that Israel, too, has been supporting and protecting terrorist groups attacking Syria. He further stated that Israel continues to occupy Syrian Golan and aggressively oppress Syrian citizens there. He demanded the international community to compel Israel to implement UN resolution 497 on the occupied Golan and expressing his government determination to liberate the Golan to the lines of June 4th 1967 the same way they liberated southern Syria from terrorists.
He defended Syria against accusation of chemical weapons use by reiterating that Syria rejects the use of chemical weapons and reminding that Syria had completely eliminated all its chemical weapons as confirmed by international organizations, and had always cooperated with Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to investigate all alleged accusations. He condemned the tripartite aggression perpetrated by US, France and UK against Syria last April claiming that chemical weapons were used without any investigation or evidence, and in flagrant violation of Syrian sovereignty, the international law and the UN charter. He accused the White Helmet group, created by British intelligence, as a terrorist organization, who orchestrated and fabricated accusations of chemical weapons attacks.
Al-Moualem concluded his speech expressing solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli occupation and American late illegal measures, solidarity with Venezuela in the face of American interference in its internal affairs, and a call for lifting all unilateral economic sanctions imposed on all countries including Syria, Iran, DPRK, Cuba and Belarus.

New Zealand education riven by class inequality

John Braddock

An investigation published last month by the New Zealand Herald highlighted the extent to which working-class students are excluded from university. It laid bare the vast social gulf that has opened up following three decades of pro-market assaults in every aspect of life, including for young people.
Written by journalist Kirsty Johnston and headlined, “Want to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer? Don’t grow up poor,” the report found that only one in 100 entrants to top university courses come from the most deprived homes.
Johnston analysed university entrance data according to the economic status of the schools from which students had enrolled. Each school has a “decile” ranking, from the poorest at 1, through to the wealthiest at 10. Ratings are based on census data for households with school-aged children in a school’s catchment area, using measures such as income, parents on a benefit, occupation, education, and household crowding.
There has always been a correlation between school deciles and examination results. So-called “league tables,” published annually in the media, draw attention to the disparity between wealthier schools—both public and private—with their higher results, and poorer schools which invariably occupy the bottom rankings. Many schools in working-class areas become stigmatised as “failing.”
Decile rankings can influence local property values, particularly in the major city, Auckland. Houses in well-known decile 10 school zones, such as Auckland Grammar, are advertised as “in the grammar zone,” inflating their price. These elite public schools benefit from donations and other support from their relatively well-heeled parental base and business sponsorships.
In an attempt to obscure the deepening social class divide, the last National Party government, supported by the Ministry of Education (MoE), proposed abolishing the decile ranking system, claiming it was too “blunt” an instrument to be useful.
While limited, decile profiles have been useful for investigations highlighted by the Herald. Johnston’s research found that Canterbury University took just a single decile 1 student into engineering in five years, but over 500 decile 10 students, out of a total 2,000 course entrants.
Achievement gaps between rich and poor students exist throughout the school system, and widen at tertiary level. At Level 2 of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement, the penultimate year of secondary school, there is a seven percentage point disparity between the pass rates of low- and high-decile students.
By the time students take University Entrance in their final year, the gap grows to 44 points. Only 17 percent of low-decile students go to university, whereas 50 percent of high-decile students do.
Another gap occurs with second-year university courses that have limited numbers and high entry thresholds, such as law, medicine and dentistry which lead to professions with the highest salaries. Data from six universities showed that while 60 percent of almost 16,000 students accepted into law, medicine and engineering in the past five years came from the richest third of homes, just 6 percent came from the poorest third.
Focusing solely on decile 1 schools, the latter figure drops to just 1 percent. Victoria University of Wellington’s law school took just eight decile 1 students over the period while Otago University law took three. Auckland University medical school took 12 decile one students out of 1,160 total admissions to its second-year course.
Universities told the Herald they didn’t accept more students from poor backgrounds because these students failed to get the grades. Last year, just 20 percent of final year students at low-decile schools passed University Entrance, compared to 64 percent at high decile.
Schools countered that universities needed better outreach programmes and more scholarships to improve “equity.” Universities NZ chief executive Chris Whelan said the lack of equity funding was a major barrier. Universities were not encouraged to take more “marginal” students, and there was no recognition that poverty had more impact on achievement than ethnicity.
In fact, social class inequality is deeply systemic and cannot be addressed by quotas and competition for a handful of scholarships.
Auckland University professor Alan France told the Herald: “People think education is a level playing-field but this is showing that’s not the case. We talk about increasing Māori and Pacific participation at university, but actually the underlying issue is socio-economics. It’s money. It’s class. It’s privilege.” According to economist Brian Easton, NZ is now the fifth most economically stratified of the OECD’s 34 member countries.
Inequality in education is a product of the oppression of the working class under capitalism. Working-class children face a barrage of intractable issues over money, parental time, poor housing and health, and access to books and other learning or cultural experiences. By kindergarten age, children from the poorest backgrounds are already far behind on measures of early reading and math skills.
Many students entering decile 1 high schools show up as reading at 2–3 years below their chronological age. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests in reading, maths and science indicate that New Zealand has one of the biggest variations in student achievement, with the gap in average scores for students from poor and rich backgrounds the equivalent of more than three years of schooling.
Inequality has been exacerbated since the education “reforms” enacted by the Labour Party government of 1984–90, supported by the trade unions and enforced by successive administrations. A “market” model was imposed on schools and universities, with self-governing boards tasked with imposing “business” disciplines and competition for students. In the early 1990s, many schools in working-class areas were struggling to survive.
In 1989, student fees were introduced and have increased almost every year. Tertiary study, including at polytechnics, has now become too costly for many working-class students. In 2017, it was estimated that the combined student loan debt of 731,800 people, with an average debt of $NZ21,000, was $15.3 billion.
Significantly, the material produced by the Herald shatters the assiduously cultivated myth that “disparities” in education are not a matter of social class, but are due to other factors, such as ethnicity and gender.
All governments have promoted identity politics to divide the working class, while elevating a small upper middle class layer, particularly among indigenous Maori. A virtual academic industry, abetted and funded by the MoE, is devoted to sustaining the notion that Maori and Pacific students are worse off because of “institutional racism,” not class.
The insistence that ethnicity is the central cause of inequality has fuelled reactionary political agendas, including demands for racially segregated school systems and charter schools controlled by Maori tribal-based businesses. As in the US and Britain, these publicly-funded, privately-run schools were introduced by the National government to undermine public education and establish a bridge-head for widespread privatisation.
Social class divisions, however, are asserting themselves more powerfully than ever, as capitalism lurches more deeply into global crisis. Internationally, including in New Zealand, teachers and other sections of the working class are beginning to fight back. Primary school teachers held a 24-hour nationwide strike in mid-August, following an effective pay freeze for much of the past decade, and severely understaffed schools. Their primary demands were for a pay increase of 16 percent, smaller class sizes and more support for needy students.

Pakistani premier Imran Khan imposes austerity mini-budget

Athiyan Silva & Kumaran Ira

After coming into power by exploiting social anger and anti-war sentiment, the ruling Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan is positioning itself to drop his limited electoral promises and attack the working class with deep budget cuts. Khan’s pro-austerity and pro-imperialist line have been exposed barely two months after his election. At the same time, he is aligning Pakistan with US imperialism while seeking to renegotiate financial deals with China.
On September 18, the PTI presented the 2018 Finance Supplementary (Amendment) Bill, dubbed the “mini-budget,” in the National Assembly. The mini-budget was closely coordinated with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and was presented after Pakistani officials held a video conference with the IMF officials at the Finance Ministry.
Presenting the budget, Finance Minister Asad Umar claimed that Pakistan faces “difficult times” and called for “difficult” measures to slash budget deficits. Noting that the budget deficit had grown to 6.6 percent from 4.1 percent, Umar said: “The most dangerous situation is that if we continue as we have, the budget deficit will expand 7.2 percent by the end of the ongoing year. This is the assessment of the finance ministry as well as economic experts.”
Umar claimed these measures were the only way to halt the fall in the rupee’s value against the dollar and save Pakistan’s plunging economy, warning that the country’s foreign exchange reserves had fallen to the equivalent of two months’ worth of imports. While Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves have plunged to $9.3 billion, external debt stands at $92 billion.
Umar said that difficult decisions had to be made or inflationary pressures would build up to the point that they would become painful for the average consumer.
Prime Minister Imran Khan exploited social anger at the previous PML-N government to win the July election, making demagogic promises, including to create more jobs and provide relief for the poor, while criticizing the murderous US drone attacks in the Federally Administered Tribal Area.
Khan formed his government by picking ministers who have already worked under former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) governments, which imposed IMF austerity measures and collaborated with the US-led NATO war in Afghanistan. With his mini-budget, Khan is ditching his electoral promises and pursuing policies similar to those of its predecessors.
The mini budget consists of price and tax hikes on the most essential items such as food and gas. To cut the budget deficit, Khan is proposing a cut in the federal Public Sector Development Programme from Rs 1,030 billion to Rs 700 billion, along with new taxation measures.
The government will also increase customs and regulatory duties, including on mobile phone imports. Through severe cuts, it hopes to bring in some $1.5 billion. It has also formed a special cabinet committee to oversee privatizations of public sector firms.
Last week, Pakistani officials held talks with the IMF, as the PTI government prepares to seek a bailout. In exchange, the IMF will demand severe austerity measures.
The Diplomat wrote, “It is likely that the IMF, before offering any new loan program to Pakistan, will ask for a number of reforms that may not be in the interest of Pakistan’s middle and poor classes. It is expected that the tax base targeting the salaried class is expected to grow and more direct and indirect taxes are likely to be called into action. Meanwhile, subsidies in the field of agriculture and other areas are likely to see a significant reduction in the coming weeks and months.”
With its austerity measures and collaboration with the IMF, the Khan government is moving rapidly toward a confrontation with masses of working and oppressed people, in a country of 210 million people where the majority live on under US$2 a day.
More than 60 percent of Pakistanis struggle to find food, and women and children are the most affected by the poverty. Half the youth are unemployed, while 3.8 million children are exploited in slave labor conditions. About 25 million children have no access to education, with thousands of schools lacking basic facilities, including water, electricity and sanitation. The conditions of public hospitals are worsening with a lack of beds, medical equipment, medicines and doctors.
At the same time, just 22 Pakistani billionaires monopolize enormous wealth. These include former Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) prime minister Nawaz Sharif (US$1.4 billion), and the former president of Pakistan and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari (US$1.8 billion).
The Khan regime’s defense of the interests of the banks, of US imperialism and of the super-rich points to the historic bankruptcy of Pakistani capitalism. Corrupt, sclerotic, and totally dependent on its ties to imperialism, it has nothing to offer to the masses.
The growing conflict between Washington and Beijing has undermined the deals the Pakistani capitalist class tried to use to overcome the essential unviability of the Pakistani state—the product of the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947—imposed upon independence from British imperialism. The Islamabad regime maintained an alliance with both the US and China that it sought to mobilize against its arch rival, India.
Now, however, Islamabad is confronted with the reality that its two key “allies” are pursuing a bitter war for influence and geo-strategic advantage across the Middle East and Central Asia.
Khan is, for now at least, tacking closer to Washington. Dropping his campaign rhetoric against US drone murder, Khan met with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last month and urged him to build strong relations with Pakistan. He declared he was “optimistic” about relations with Washington. “You know I’m a born optimist,” he said. “A sportsman always is an optimist.”
However, Islamabad is still also committed to developing its economy and industry via the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, the “flagship project” of China’s Eurasian BRI (Belt and Road Initiative). Launched in 2015, the CPEC is a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking western China to Pakistan’s strategic Gwadar Port on the Indian Ocean, near the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
The Diplomat reported, “China has so far invested $19 billion in various sectors of Pakistan’s economy while nine of the 22 under-construction and planned projects have been completed. Around 30,000 Chinese are working on different projects across Pakistan.”
Pompeo has already stated that it would be “unacceptable” for Pakistan to use US financial aid to pay off infrastructure and industrial debts to China, however, and Pakistan’s economic foundations are at the mercy of any major international shock.

Armed police used in illegal evictions in Dublin, Ireland

Steve James 

Gerard Doyle is a homeless father of two, living with his partner in emergency accommodation in Dublin for nine months. His Facebook video posts while fending off an illegal eviction attempt by armed gardai (police) called by the landlord of his homeless hostel have been viewed thousands of times.
The first video clip records Doyle and his partner trying to calm down gardai and prevent the armed unit from breaking down the door of his flat. The second clip shows Doyle explaining the bullying tactics of his landlord and Dublin City Council.
Ten years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and an Irish-based property bubble triggered the greatest financial crisis in Irish history, housing conditions are becoming desperate for large numbers of workers and young people.
Demonstrations have taken place in Dublin and towns and cities across Ireland against unaffordable housing. Thousands of mostly young protesters blocked O’Connell Bridge on Dublin for over an hour on September 22 in one of several demonstrations that began in a number of locations and converged on the city centre.
Demonstrators carried placards with slogans such as “Student homes, not student loans,” “Less cardboard, more homes” and “Public housing, not landlord state.” Smaller protests also took place around the country.
Over the summer, other groups, such as the Dublin Central Housing Action group and Take Back the City, have occupied properties to highlight the grotesque levels of empty properties scattered around the country amid a deepening housing emergency.
In the week before the Dublin protest, vanloads of gardai from the Public Order Unit broke into a property in North Frederick Street, Dublin. Six people from the Take Back the City group were removed and arrested. A squad of gardai wearing balaclavas boarded up the building. When approached by the Irish Times, they refused to give their names.
According to figures published by the daft.ie property website, the median deposit for first-time buyers in Dublin has reached €54,389, while average monthly rents are an astronomical €1,936. Average salaries in Dublin are €36,919, or €3,076 per month, meaning that nearly two thirds of an average salary would be required to rent an average dwelling and anyone below this salary figure has little or no chance of doing so.
While a software engineer might expect to earn €43,011, the living wage is a minimal €11.90 per hour. Someone earning this wage would need to work 162 hours monthly, or 37.5 hours weekly, just to pay an average rent. They would have nothing at all left over. Someone on the minimum wage of €9.55 an hour would have to work 46.7 hours and spend 100 percent of their wages on rent to keep a roof over their head.
Across the Republic of Ireland, average rents are at an all-time high of €1,304. The price of new rental contracts rose 12.4 percent last year and are now 27 percent above the peak of the pre-crash Celtic Tiger boom.
The consequences, as well as brutally squeezed living standards, have included an inevitable rise in homelessness, evictions, mortgage and rent arrears along with all the associated stresses.
In August, mother of six Margaret Cash, from Tallaght, Dublin, was forced to sleep in a Garda station because she had been unable to retain the emergency accommodation she had been forced into only days previously. The landlord of her emergency flat forced her out to make way for students. She had moved into emergency accommodation last September when the private house she had been renting was repossessed.
This month, Dublin City Council sought to remove Claire Elliot and her three children from a vacant house they had been occupying for a fortnight. Elliot had been on the waiting list for social housing since 2008. She was evicted from her private rented flat because the landlord was selling the property and she was forced into hotels and B&Bs, miles away from her children’s schools. The city council told the High Court that they expect her to live in an emergency hub for three years. She described the hubs to the Irish Times: “You’re in a room with bunk beds, barely any room for a cot. People are arguing, taking each other’s food--arguing over the washing machines, arguing over the kids. They’re stressful places.”
In all, 700 families became homeless in Dublin alone in the first seven months of 2018; and in total, 9,891 people were in emergency accommodation, including 3,867 children. These figures represent a 21 percent increase in one year for adults and a 30 percent increase for children.
Regional figures show the same pattern. In Limerick, the number of homeless children increased 120 percent in a year, from 80 to 176. In counties Kildare, Meath and Wicklow the figure increased 98 percent. In Galway, Mayo and Roscommon child homelessness rose 77 percent. In Cork, some 1,400 people used Cork Simon’s homelessness service, an increase of 18 percent to 2017, while the numbers of long term homeless grew by 10 percent.
While living conditions for workers are becoming impossible, the Irish bourgeoisie is desperately trying to maintain the most permissive and friendly environment for some of the world’s largest corporations. Just over a week before the housing protests, the Irish Department of Finance announced the US tech giant Apple, the world’s largest company by market capitalisation and one of two worth over $1 trillion, had completed the transfer of €14.3 billion into an escrow account run by the Irish government.
The transfer arose out of a 2016 European Commission (EC) ruling, following a three-year investigation, which found that Apple had effectively paid just 1 percent tax on its European profits in 2003. Even this low figure had diminished to the vanishingly low 0.005 percent by 2014, through use of a variant of the “Double Irish” tax dodge employed by many US-based finance and tech outfits. Tax swindling on a massive scale remains the basis for much of the Irish economy.
The EC ruling expressed rapidly deepening transatlantic inter-imperialist tensions, which imperil the entire business model of the Irish economy. The EC demanded that Ireland collect the money, deemed state aid, from Apple. But the Irish government has no intention of touching the money. To maintain the country as a low-tax platform in the eurozone and the EU, the government transferred the money into a secure account and came into conflict with the EC over delays in collecting the sum. Legal action in the European courts is expected to continue for years.
For comparison, the Irish Exchequer has collected €32.4 billion in 2018 to date. Of this, income tax, largely from workers, amounted to €13 billion while VAT on retail sales, also mostly from the working class, accrued €9.4 billion. Corporation tax from companies that include Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Google and Oracle generated a mere €4.4 billion. The money the government refuses to collect from Apple is more than the country’s entire annual income tax take and almost as much as the entire 2017 health budget, €14.6 billion, for a nation of 4.7 million people.

Campaign grows inside Podemos for alliance with Spanish right

Alejandro López

Nearly a month has passed since top Stalinists associated with the Podemos leadership in Spain wrote an initial article endorsing the policies of the far-right-wing government in Italy. Since then, numerous members of Podemos have come out to defend this position, seeking to create a new movement based on nationalism, economic protectionism and appeals to the far right.
Former Communist Party leader Julio Anguita, Podemos deputy Manuel Monereo, and law professor Héctor Illuega published two articles in pro-Podemos online paper Cuarto Poder. The authors, all of whom are top associates of Podemos General Secretary Pablo Iglesias, hailed the Italian neo-fascists’ “Dignity Decree” as “a remarkable effort to defend the Italian people against the lords of finance.” They remained silent on Rome’s austerity policies, military intervention in Libya, terror campaign against the Roma and refugees, and threats of mass deportations.
In a series of interviews, Monereo and Anguita defended their positions and denounced the “political correctness” of their critics. They have enjoyed wide press coverage in official media. In a Ctxt interview, Anguita asked “how have the Spanish people benefited” from the EU and called for an exit from the euro currency, saying: “I want to regain sovereignty and the state, I want power to do something” while cynically claiming not to be a “nationalist.”
Similarly, Monereo told Cuarto Poder that the new movement’s aim is to “change the [European Union’s] fundamental treaties and the exit of the Euro, especially by the countries of the South.” He attacked Germany, claiming that “German Europe is breaking with a part of European history linked to the workers’ movement, to social rights, trade unions and popular sovereignty.”
Both Monereo and Anguita are quite open that the aim of their “Initiative for the III Republic” is to forge ties with the right and far-right. Monereo states that “the III Republic will not only be for the left, it will be democratic federalist and defender of social rights and it will go beyond the left as we know it today.” Similarly, Anguita says the new movement will be open to “democrats…but not necessary from the left.”
The endorsements of xenophobic policies and far-right parties from within Podemos testifies to the bankrupt and reactionary character of Podemos, a coalition of Spanish Stalinism with Anticapitalistas, the Spanish allies of France’s Pabloite New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA).
Stalinist, Pabloite and social democratic parties, as well as openly right-wing parties, have repeatedly enforced the interests of the financial markets and the European Union’s (EU’s) austerity diktat against bitter opposition from workers. This is again the case in Spain, where the Socialist Party (PSOE) minority government is supported by an alliance of the Stalinist-led United Left and Podemos. The PSOE government is adapting itself to EU budgetary austerity, military spending increases and the rapid turn to the right of the European bourgeoisie as a whole.
Such policies have led to disastrous social conditions. More than 4 million people in Spain live in severe social exclusion, 40 percent more than 10 years ago, according to Caritas Spain’s latest report. There are 3 million unemployed, and a third of youth have no job. Across Europe, these betrayals have repulsed workers and youth, and—absent a visible socialist alternative—driven some angry and desperate sections of the population to vote for far-right parties.
As far broader discontent provoked by deteriorating living standards and the extreme concentration of wealth emerges in the working class, sections of Podemos are responding by trying to channel this anger behind xenophobic Spanish nationalism.
Even though Anguita and Monereo began by defending far-right Italian minister Matteo Salvini’s policies, a number of Stalinists within Podemos have emerged to defend their position. The camp inside Podemos of what one Cuarto Poder reader aptly called “the white-washers of the white-washers of Salvini” is rapidly growing.
Hugo Martínez Abarca, who was a member for two decades of the Stalinist-led United Left until he left to pursue a career within Podemos in 2015 as deputy in the Madrid regional assembly, posted an article under the title “Republic or the Left: for a Patriotic Republicanism.” He calls the “left” to abandon any left content related to a “Third Republic” demand, so it can be a “transversal project for the country.”
Martínez, like Monereo and Anguita, makes clear that this new Republic will be compatible with right-wing politics: “If there is an opportunity for the Republic to be the name of change, this passes through untying its identification with the left and fill it with content shared by large sectors [of the population]: to make political republicanism synonymous with institutional republicanism.” The “content” would be “democratic, ethical, modernising values, and above all, extraordinarily tied with the future.”
Clara Ramas, a professor at Complutense University of Madrid, which is close to Podemos, wrote a piece for Ctxt defending a “new democratic patriotism, which speaks for law and order in a non-reactionary way, which offers security, welfare, belonging and protection.”
Salvador Arnal, another Stalinist university professor, defended Ramas in another article posted in Rebeli ó n. He defends Ramas’s “democratic patriotism,” stating: “Certainly in Spain a bloody counterrevolution triumphed, but not all the history of Spain in these last two centuries can be reduced to that triumph. That appeals to patriotism have been linked to repressive bodies such as the Civil Guard for about four decades [under the Franco dictatorship] does not mean that this has always been the case or that it always has to be so.”
He provides examples of “democratic patriotism” in the “democratic-patriotic struggle…of 1936-1939 against fascism and foreign intervention.” He also hailed the supposedly progressive use of “patriotism” by Spanish Stalinists and Maoists under the Spanish fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
These are anti-Trotskyist historical lies serving to cover up the rapid evolution of the Stalinist groups towards support for xenophobic positions and far-right organisations. The Stalinist promotion of nationalism during the Spanish Civil War, as well as during the fascist dictatorship that emerged from Franco’s victory in the war, was not a democratic and revolutionary policy. It was a defence of capitalist property against the repeated revolutionary uprisings of the working class during the Spanish Civil War and the workers’ deep opposition to the Franco regime.
During the Civil War, based on their bloodthirsty opposition to socialist revolution, the Stalinists tortured, jailed and murdered Trotskyists and anarchists who opposed the Popular Front government of the Second Republic.
Eighty years after the end of the Spanish Civil War, and a decade after the eruption of the 2008 global economic crisis, the calls for more nationalism and patriotism emerging from Podemos again reflect its bitter opposition to a political movement in the working class challenging European capitalism on the basis of a Trotskyist programme. While the working class is moving towards ever broader strike action and political opposition to the regime, Podemos and its allies are moving into the orbit of right-wing and even neo-fascistic tendencies.

IMF chief warns of rising risks facing global economy

Nick Beams 

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, has warned that rising trade tensions are starting to impact on world growth, issuing a call for countries to “de-escalate and resolve the current trade disputes” in the lead-up to the Fund’s meeting to be held in Bali, Indonesia, next week.
In a speech delivered in Washington on Monday, she noted that six months ago she had indicated “risks on the horizon.” “Today, some of those risks have begun to materialise.”
A year ago the IMF was pointing to synchronised global growth. That is no longer the case. There are signs that “global growth has plateaued” and is becoming “less synchronised, with fewer countries participating in the expansion.” She indicated that the IMF would downgrade the forecast of 3.9 percent global growth it issued in July when it releases its updated projections.
Without naming the United States and the trade war measures of the Trump administration, she said: “A key issue is that rhetoric is morphing into a new reality of actual trade barriers. This is hurting not only trade itself, but also investment and manufacturing as uncertainty continues to rise.”
While the US economy was growing strongly, for now, she said, in other advanced economies there were signs of slowing growth, especially in the euro area and to some extent in Japan. Emerging markets in Asia were continuing to grow at faster rates than other regions but there were indications of “moderation in China, which will be exacerbated by the trade disputes.”
And “challenges” were mounting in a number of other emerging markets and low-income countries, including in Latin America, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Many of these countries were facing pressure from a stronger US dollar and tightening financial conditions with some facing capital outflows.
There was not “broader financial contagion—so far—but we also know that conditions can change rapidly. If the current trade disputes were to escalate further, they could deliver a shock to a broader range of emerging and developing economies,” she said.
Lagarde called for countries to work together to build a global trade system “fit for the future.”
“The stakes are high because the fracturing of global value chains could have a devastating effect on many countries, including advanced economies.”
But this warning is destined to fall on deaf ears because a key objective of the Trump administration is not simply the reduction of its trade deficits with China and a number of other countries, but the breaking up of global value chains to bring manufacturing industry back to the US in order to strengthen its military capacities.
On financial conditions, Lagarde claimed that ten years after the financial crisis, the situation was safer “but not safe enough” and pointed to the escalation of debt levels which have reached new highs in advanced, emerging and low-income countries.
Global debt, both public and private, has now reached an all-time high of $182 trillion—some 60 percent greater than in 2007, leaving governments and companies “more vulnerable to a tightening of financial conditions.”
Emerging and developing economies were already “feeling the pinch” as they adjust to the “normalization” of monetary policies in the advanced world—an increase in interest rates. “That process could even become more challenging if it were to accelerate suddenly. It could lead to market corrections, sharp exchange rate movements and a further weakening of capital flows,” she said.
The IMF has estimated that emerging markets, excluding China, “could potentially face debt portfolio outflow of up to $100 billion” that would broadly match the outflow during the global financial crisis. “That should serve as a wake-up call.”
In addition to reducing trade tensions and stabilising financial conditions, Lagarde pointed to a “third challenge”—the need to “rebuild trust” in institutions and policymaking—noting that the causes for its decline are many.
“In too many countries, growth has failed to lift the prospects and livelihoods of ordinary people. In too many cases, workers and families are now convinced that the system is somehow rigged, that the odds are stacked against them.
“This is not hard to understand: since 1980, the top 1 percent globally has captured twice as much of the gains from growth as the bottom 50 percent.” Over that period many advanced economies have seen rising inequality and limited growth in wages due to technology, global integration and policies favouring capital over labour.
The IMF has noted this process on several occasions in the recent period, and warned of its social and political consequences. But every year, it continues to intensify as new data reveal that the accumulation of wealth at the heights of society has increased.
In the most recent analysis, it has been reported that a cohort of some 255,810 ultra-high net worth individuals with a minimum of $30 million now collectively own $31.5 trillion, an increase of 16.3 percent between 2016 and 2017.
That is a group of oligarchs, equivalent in size to a small city own more than 80 percent of the world’s population—some 5.6 billion people.
In order to “rebuild trust” Lagarde said it was necessary to scale up investment in training and social safety nets along with more progressive taxation and higher minimum wages and smarter taxation to ensure multinational corporations paid their “fair share.”
In the face of a financial system that has institutionalised the siphoning of wealth up the income scale and under conditions where governments the world over are continuing their cuts to all social services, such a call will be as effective as the plea for a lessening of trade tensions.
Lagarde entitled her speech “Steer, Don’t Drift: Managing Rising Risks to Keep the Global Economy on Course.” It might have been more appropriately dubbed “Lecturing on Navigation as the Ship Continues to Sink.”

Indonesian tsunami relief grossly inadequate as death toll tops 1,200

Tom Peters

Three days after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake and 3 meter high tsunami devastated the Indonesian city of Palu and surrounding areas on the island of Sulawesi, the death toll is continuing to climb. The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that 1,203 people were confirmed dead as of Monday afternoon.
The report was based on figures from Indonesian hospitals and agencies in Palu, with a population of 380,000, and nearby Donggala, home to 300,000 people, which was near the quake’s epicentre. The toll does not include the dead from Parigi Mountong and North Mamuju, which were also badly hit.
Accounts from the area paint a horrifying picture of the disaster and its aftermath, made immeasurably worse by the lack of civil planning and the impoverished condition of masses of people. The vast majority of dwellings in Indonesia are not built to withstand tsunamis and earthquakes, despite the frequency of these disasters.
The country’s tsunami early warning system is in a shambles due to underfunding and failed to gauge the severity of the deluge. A warning delivered following the earthquake by the country’s geophysics agency, the BMKG, was lifted after only half an hour.
Several buildings in Palu collapsed metres into the ground, including a residential complex in the neighbourhood of Balaroa that was home to 900 people. An eight-story hotel, with an estimated 60 guests, was also reduced to rubble.
Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, from the Indonesian National Board for Disaster Management (BNPB), told the Associated Press that in the Petobo district, “it is estimated that there are still hundreds of victims buried in mud.” Rescue workers have begun to fill a mass grave in Palu, which has a capacity for over 1,000 bodies and can be expanded if necessary.
Xinhua reported on Monday night: “The stench of dead bodies was intense around Palu’s iconic Talise Beach, a popular tourism spot.”
Search and rescue efforts have been severely hampered by a lack of heavy machinery, with most of the digging being done by hand. Many people spent days trapped in rubble, while the region has been shaken by more than 200 aftershocks.
Several villages are still inaccessible due to landslides. A Red Cross team found 34 bodies of students trapped inside a church in the village of Sigi, which they accessed only on Monday.
At least 59,000 people are homeless or displaced and essential supplies are running out. The United Nations Office said on Monday that a total of 191,000 people in affected areas urgently need aid including food, fuel, drinking water, medical personnel and tents. Palu and Donggala are without electricity and there are lengthy queues for fuel.
Doctors report that survivors are deeply traumatised and that there is a risk of water-borne diseases such as cholera, as well as malnutrition. BBC Indonesia’s Rebecca Henschke, who is in Palu, told CBC Radio today: “The situation is very bleak. There’s no power to the entire town so hospitals and medical clinics can’t do complicated operations. They are running out of medical supplies and in most of them, the ones that we have been to, there’s rows of bodies in plastic bags.”
Henschke said people she had spoken to had not received the aid they need, and that “in terms of an organized aid operation, there’s nothing like that here now.”
Many people are furious at the lack of assistance. Thousands flocked to Palu’s airport following the disaster, but they were not allowed to leave. The AP reported: “Video showed some of them screaming in anger because they were not able to get on a departing military plane. ‘We have not eaten for three days!’ one woman yelled. ‘We just want to be safe!’”
Many journalists sent to the region reported being stopped by people begging for drinking water and other items. According to the International Red Cross, the aid that has so far reached the area is a “drop in the bucket” compared to what is needed.
President Joko Widodo told reporters on Sunday: “I’m aware there are a lot of issues that need to be resolved as soon as possible, and I hope the people will remain patient in this situation.” The government has so far allocated just $38 million for disaster relief.
Meanwhile, soldiers and police have been deployed to defend private property and suppress starved and desperate people who have entered shops looking for food and other supplies. The media and politicians have demonised such people as “looters.”
The New York Times reported that Sarah Wati, a 20-year-old unemployed mother, was treated in hospital after being shot in the foot when police officers “sprayed bullets” at a group of people attempting to get access to an ATM with pickaxes, as well as several onlookers.
According to the Jakarta Post “police are reported to have ordered a shoot on sight policy against such robbers.”
Foreign governments have pledged a pittance in aid. Britain has made available $2.6 million, the European Union $1.7 million, South Korea $1 million and New Zealand $1 million. Australia’s government has said it is “ready to help Indonesia” but made no precise offer. US President Donald Trump said he offered “warmest condolences” to those affected by the tsunami, but so far Washington has not announced any specific aid.
By contrast, the ruling elites of these countries are collectively spending trillions of dollars on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the militarisation of the Asia-Pacific region.
The worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Central Sulawesi is an indictment of capitalism. Fourteen years after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 167,000 people, the majority of them in Indonesia, the latest tsunami reveals that nothing whatsoever has been done to prepare for such events.
It has rapidly emerged that the country’s antiquated tsunami warning system has not been functioning correctly since at least 2012, with 22 buoys designed to provide key information no longer operational.
Rahmat Triyono, the head of the BMKG’s tsunami and earthquake department, told BBC Indonesia this week that, “Our tools are very lacking. In fact, of the 170 earthquake sensors we have, we only have a maintenance budget for 70 sensors.” Sutopo, of the BNPB, likewise stated on Sunday: “If we look at the funding, it has decreased every year.”
The buoys, and the warning system as a whole, failed in 2016, when a tsunami was triggered by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake. Sutopo explained afterwards that much of the system’s infrastructure was no longer operational due to a lack of maintenance, caused by funding cuts and vandalism.
In the two years since, nothing has been done to fix the system, or to upgrade it to a more advanced model designed in the wake of the 2004 tsunami. The new system has been in the “testing phase” for over a decade, with the country’s disaster agencies unable to raise the 1 billion rupiah ($A95,500) required to complete the project.
The utter indifference of the Indonesian ruling elite, and its imperialist partners, to the safety of ordinary people is inextricably tied to the dramatic growth of social inequality and the super-exploitation of the working class in “developing” countries.
Indonesia is the sixth most unequal country in the world. Its ruling elite has enriched itself through the exploitation of masses of workers and rural poor, which are offered up as ultra-cheap labour for local and transnational businesses. Even the most basic measures to mitigate the impact of natural disasters are seen as an unacceptable impost on profits.

Iran fires missiles at Islamist “rebels” as US vows to remain in Syria

Bill Van Auken

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) early Monday morning carried out missile strikes against targets inside Syria, claiming that it had killed and wounded a significant number of Islamist militia members that it charged with responsibility for a terrorist attack against an Iranian military parade last month.
The six missiles fired from the western Iranian province of Kermanshah flew 355 miles over Iraqi territory to hit their targets in Syria’s eastern Deir Ezzor province. Tehran said that the missiles, Iranian-made Qiam and Zolfaghar models capable of carrying over 1,500 pounds of explosives, were followed up with drone strikes.
The Pentagon reported that the missiles hit just three miles from where US troops are based in the Al Bukamal district of Deir Ezzor.
“Iranian forces did conduct no-notice strikes last night and we see open source reports stating that they were targeting militants it blamed for the recent attack on an Iranian military parade in the Middle Euphrates River Valley,” US military spokesman Col. Sean Ryan said in a statement. “At this time, the Coalition is still assessing if any damage occurred and no Coalition forces were in danger.”
Iranian media reported that some of the missiles were inscribed with the slogans “death to America,” “death to Israel” and “death to the house of Saud.”
Tehran has blamed Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh, as well as the United Arab Emirates for supporting “foreign mercenaries” responsible for the September 22 terrorist attack on a military parade in Iran’s southwestern city of Ahvaz that killed 29 people and wounded 70 others.
The Iranian missile strike coincides with a ratcheting up of tensions between Washington and Tehran, with US President Donald Trump and other top administration officials using last week’s opening of the United Nations General Assembly to demonize Iran as the source of all problems in the Middle East and to issue a series of bellicose threats.
The US is already imposing punishing economic sanctions in direct violation of the UN-backed nuclear accord from which the Trump White House unilaterally withdrew last May. Even more severe sanctions, imposing a ban on Iranian oil exports and barring Iran from accessing the US-dominated world banking system, are set to go into effect on November 5.
Meanwhile, as the Washington Post spelled out in a lead article Monday, the Trump administration has “opened a new chapter in American involvement in Syria, vowing to remain until the civil war’s conclusion in a bid to halt Iran’s expansion across the Middle East.”
The newspaper cites James Jeffrey, the State Department’s special representative for Syria, as stating that the US would maintain its presence in the country, where over 2,000 US troops are presently deployed without either UN sanction or the permission of the Syrian government, until Iran and Iranian-backed militias have left the country. Iran is the closest ally of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and its military advisers work closely with the Syrian army.
Similarly, Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, vowed that the US military would continue to occupy Syrian territory “as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders.”
Bolton delivered a blistering speech last week in which he warned Tehran, “If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat, and deceive, yes, there will indeed be hell to pay. … We are watching, and we will come after you.”
The Al Qaeda-linked militias that Iran targeted in its missile attack may well qualify as one of Washington’s “allies” or “partners.”
The Trump administration has sought to strengthen an anti-Iranian axis throughout the Middle East, centered on Washington’s close ties with and military support for Israel, Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf oil monarchies.
To this end, the US is not only seeking to continue its military presence in both Iraq and Syria. It is also providing indispensable military assistance for the near genocidal war being waged against the impoverished nation of Yemen. Washington and Riyadh are determined to impose a US, Saudi puppet regime there—and preclude any growth of Iranian influence—at the cost of what could prove to be millions of Yemeni lives already driven to the brink of starvation.
Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly on Saturday charging “the so-called international coalition” led by the US with having “done everything but fight terrorism” in Syria. “It has even become clear that the coalition’s goals were in perfect alignment with those of terrorist groups; sowing chaos, death and destruction in their path,” he said. “The coalition destroyed the Syrian city of Raqqa completely; it destroyed infrastructure and public services in the areas it targeted; it committed massacres against civilians, including children and women, which amount to war crimes under international law.”
Moallem went on to demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of US, French, Turkish and Israeli troops from Syrian soil.
The justification of the demands of the Syrian government notwithstanding, there is every indication that the dirty war in Syria is far from over. The US and its NATO as well as regional allies, having invested billions of dollars in arming and funding the so-called rebels dominated by Al Qaeda-linked Islamists, have no intention of abandoning their goal of regime change or of ceding any regional influence to Iran.
The US military presence in Syria is aimed not only at countering Iran’s influence, but at blocking the government in Damascus from accessing the vitally needed wealth of the oil and gas fields in eastern Deir Ezzor province, now under the control of American occupation forces and their proxy forces, comprised of the YPG Syrian Kurdish militia.
Washington’s regional NATO ally, Turkey, meanwhile, is committed to vanquishing the presence of the YPG, which it views as a branch of the Turkish Kurdish separatist guerilla movement, the PKK, on its border.
Tensions have also mounted in the wake of last month’s Israeli attack on Latakia, which caused the shoot-down of a Russian aircraft and the deaths of all 15 of its crewmembers. Moscow has responded by offering to deploy Russian S-300 air defense systems to Syria, which would threaten not only Israeli, but also US warplanes.
Even as the threat of a military confrontation involving these various countries mount, the Wall Street Journal Monday published an article questioning whether the stated ends of the US government in confronting Iran were being matched by the means of US military deployments.
The Pentagon, the Journal reported, “has scaled back its presence in the Persian Gulf region … removing ships, planes and missiles that would be needed in a major confrontation.”
The article points out that the US Navy has not sent an aircraft carrier strike group into the Persian Gulf since March, the longest interval in two decades, while four Patriot missile-defense systems are being pulled out of Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain this month.
It quotes senior Pentagon officials as saying that the forces are being shifted from the Middle East to confront China and Russia, in line with US strategy documents released late last year, which affirmed that “great power” conflicts have become the main focus for the US military.
Any mismatch between Washington’s rabidly anti-Iranian rhetoric and the actual deployment of military might, however, will only serve to deepen the instability of the situation in Syria, which increasingly poses the threat of erupting into a region-wide and even global war.

US-North Korea Nuclear Diplomacy: Contexualising the Third Inter-Korean Meet

Shivani Singh

The third inter-Korean summit took place between North Korean leader Kim-Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in on 18 September. Topping the agenda was the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula as promised during the US-North Korea Singapore summit held in June 2018. Although some purportedly substantial commitments were reached on the denuclearisation front, it is premature to rejoice. Precedence suggests North Korea’s failure to live up to its commitments, and it is crucial that South Korean efforts are complemented with appropriate US diplomacy. However, the kind of diplomacy adopted by the US so far appears problematic, and is two-fold: US' emphasis on positional bargaining, and an absence of a 'trust-building framework' in the negotiations between the US and North Korea.
Broken Promises
During the summit, North Korea pledged to close the Tongchang-ri facility, a launch site used for testing rocket engines, and  "expressed readiness to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear facility...if the US took some reciprocal action" agreeing  to allow independent inspectors to verify said promises.
However, such commitments are not new. Since the last two inter-Korean summits and the US-North Korea summit in Singapore, North Korea has claimed compliance by allegedly practicing a moratorium on nuclear/missile tests and dismantling the Sohae rocket launch site and the Punggye-ri nuclear site. However, satellite images indicated "no significant dismantlement activity." Moreover, US intelligence agencies reported renewed construction activities towards building "two new liquid fueled intercontinental ballistic missiles at a large research facility on the outskirts of Pyongyang." 
Soon after, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), through its collection of satellite imagery, confirmed a detailed list of nuclear-related activities, like "the use of centrifuge enrichment technology and mining, milling and other fuel activities at a declared uranium plant" still being undertaken by the North Korean government.
As far as allowing inspections is concerned, it is important to note that since North Korea is not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), nor has it concluded any separate Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, it is not subject to the IAEA inspection protocols and therefore, it is too soon to consider the credibility or effectiveness of these inspections, if at all undertaken.
US Nuclear Diplomacy
Time and again, Moon Jae-in has assumed the role of a mediator between the US and North Korea, especially in light of the US decision to abruptly cancel US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Pyongyang. However, South Korea’s success has been held back by the flawed US diplomacy adopted so far, with only some forward movement.
President Donald Trump has been very clear that he will not compromise on his demand of complete denuclearisation and is unwilling to lift sanctions till such time as complete denuclearisation is achieved. However, despite this rigid position, the ground reality remains that the US has engaged in tactical negotiations by matching concessions. The US offered to temporarily halt the US-South Korea joint military exercise in exchange for a cessation of nuclear and missile tests by North Korea. It is anybody's guess whether, and to what extent, the US-North Korea summit's immediate goal - persuading Kim Jon-un to cease his aggressive behaviour - has been achieved through this.
It is important to remember that building and sustaining trust relationships with the adversary is just as important as negotiating the substantive matters. South Korea has undertaken confidence-building measures to improve bilateral relations, like negotiating over a Peace Treaty, and its efforts at strengthening economic relations - such measures seem lacking in the US-North Korea negotiations. While North Korea has extended goodwill gestures such as returning the remains of 55 US soldiers killed in the Korean War and releasing three arrested US citizens, the US has not done much in instilling any kind of faith in the relationship except the current cancellation of joint exercises with South Korea. Clearly as larger concessions require some basis, greater confidence-building measures will be inevitable since, ultimately, a larger breakthrough is sought.
The entrenched adversarial relationship between the two countries has been the result of many years of strained ties and it will not be an easy - or quick - task to mend it. To that end, South Korea’s improving bilateral relationship with North Korea can be part of a step-by-step approach to eventually bridging the trust deficit between the US and North Korea. It is thus imperative that these diplomatic issues are addressed, and an optimal mix of smooth inter-Korean relations and cooperative US diplomacy be fused to yield the desired results.

1 Oct 2018

HFG Foundation Young African Scholars Program 2018

Application Deadline: 15th October, 2018

Eligible Countries: African countries

Eligible Fields: Applicants’ projects are expected to highlight the issues of violence and aggression.

About the Award: Harry Guggenheim established this foundation to support research on violence, aggression, and dominance because he was convinced that solid, thoughtful, scholarly and scientific research, experimentation, and analysis would in the end accomplish more than the usual solutions impelled by urgency rather than understanding. We do not yet hold the solution to violence, but better analyses, more acute predictions, constructive criticisms, and new, effective ideas will come in time from investigations such as those supported by our grants.
The foundation places a priority on the study of urgent problems of violence and aggression in the modern world and also encourages related research projects in neuroscience, genetics, animal behavior, the social sciences, history, criminology, and the humanities which illuminate modern human problems. Grants have been made to study aspects of violence related to youth, family relationships, media effects, crime, biological factors, intergroup conflict related to religion, ethnicity, and nationalism, and political violence deployed in war and sub-state terrorism, as well as processes of peace and the control of aggression.

Type: Grants

Eligibility: Applicants must be aged 40 or younger, currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program at an African higher education institution, and living on the continent.

Number of Awardees: 10

Value of Programme: The program includes:
  • a methods workshop
  • fieldwork research grants of $2,000 USD each,
  • editorial and publication assistance,
  • and sponsorship at an international conference to present research findings.
How to Apply: The online application will be available beginning October 1st.
Applications should be no more than ten pages in length and include the following:
  • Research question
  • Short literature review
  • Description of research methods to be used
  • Reference letter from official academic advisor
  • Two-page C.V.
  • Copy of passport or government-issued ID card
Eligible applicants may apply here.

Visit Programme Webpage for details

Award Provider: Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation