Britain and the Black Gold of Mesopotamia

Jacques R. Pauwels

The First World War was a contest between two blocs of imperialist powers, whereby a major goal was the acquisition, preservation, and/or aggrandizement of territories – in Europe and worldwide – considered to be of vital importance for the national economy of these powers, mostly because they contained raw materials such as petroleum.

We have seen that this conflict was ultimately won by those powers that were already most richly endowed with such possessions in 1914: the members of the Triple Entente plus the United States. Uncle Sam admittedly became a belligerent only in 1917, but his oil was available from the very start to the Entente and remained beyond the reach of the Germans and Austrian-Hungarians throughout the war because of the British naval blockade.

Let us take a brief look at the role played by Britain in this struggle of imperialist titans.

Britain strode into the twentieth century as the world’s superpower, in control of an immense portfolio of colonial possessions. But that lofty standing depended on the Royal Navy ruling the waves, did it not? And a serious problem arose as the years following the turn of the century witnessed the rapid conversion from coal to petroleum as fuel for ships.

This caused Albion, richly endowed with coal but deprived of oil, to search frantically for plentiful and reliable sources of the “black gold,” of which preciously little was available in its colonies. For the time being, oil had to be purchased from its biggest producer and exporter at the time, the US, a former colony of Britain, increasingly a major commercial and industrial competitor, and traditionally not a friendly power; this dependency was therefore intolerable in the long run.

Some oil became available from Persia, now Iran, but not enough to solve the problem. And so, when rich oil deposits were discovered in the Mosul region of Mesopotamia, a part of the Ottoman Empire that was later to become the state of Iraq, the ruling patriciate in London – exemplified by Churchill – decided that it was imperative to acquire exclusive control over that hitherto unimportant part of the Middle East.

Such a project was not unrealistic, since the Ottoman Empire happened to be a big but very weak nation, from which the British had earlier been able to snatch sizeable pieces of real estate ad libitum, for example Egypt and Cyprus. But the Ottomans had recently become allies of the Germans, so the planned acquisition of Mesopotamia opened up prospects of war with both these empires.

Even so, the need for petroleum was so great that military action was planned, to be implemented as soon as possible. The reason for this haste: the Germans and Ottomans had started to construct a railway that was to link Berlin via Istanbul to Baghdad, thus raising the chilling possibility that the oil of Mesopotamia might soon be shipped overland to the Reich for the benefit of a mighty German fleet that already happened to be the Royal Navy’s most dangerous rival. The Baghdad Railway was scheduled to be finished in . . . 1914.

It was in this context that London abandoned its long-standing friendship with Germany and joined the Reich’s two mortal enemies, France and Russia, in the so-called Triple Entente, and that detailed plans for war against Germany were agreed upon with France. The idea was that the massive armies of the French and Russians would crush Germany, while the bulk of the Empire’s armed forces would move from India into Mesopotamia, beat the pantaloons off the Ottomans, and grab the Mesopotamian oil fields; in return, the Royal Navy was to prevent the German fleet from attacking France, and token assistance to French action against the Reich on the continent was to be forthcoming in the shape of the comparatively Lilliputian British Expeditionary Corps. But this Machiavellian arrangement was elaborated in secret and neither Parliament nor the public were informed.

In the months before the outbreak of war, a compromise with Germany was still possible, and was admittedly even favoured by some factions of the British political, industrial, and financial elite. However, such a compromise would have meant allowing Germany a share of Mesopotamia’s oil, while Britain wanted nothing less than a monopoly. And so, in 1914, laying hands on the rich oil fields of Mesopotamia was really London’s real, though unspoken, or “latent,” war aim. When the war erupted, pitting Germany and its Austrian-Hungarian ally against the Franco-Russian duo as well as Serbia, there seemed to be no obvious reason for Britain to become involved. The government faced a painful dilemma: it was honour-bound to side with France but would then have to reveal that binding promises of such assistance had been made in secret.

Fortunately, the Reich violated the neutrality of Belgium and thus provided London with a perfect pretext for going to war. In reality, the British leaders did not give a fig about the fate of Belgium, at least as long as the Germans did not intend to acquire the great seaport of Antwerp, referred to by Napoleon as “a pistol aimed at the heart of England”; and during the war, Britain herself would violate the neutrality of a number of countries, e.g. China, Greece, and Persia.

Like all plans made in preparation for what was to become “the Great War,” the scenario concocted in London failed to unfold as anticipated: the French and Russians did not manage to crush the Teutonic host, so the British had to send many more troops to the continent – and suffer much greater losses – than planned; and in the distant Middle East, the Ottoman army – expertly assisted by German officers – unexpectedly proved to be a tough nut to crack.

In spite of these inconveniences, which caused the death of about three quarters of a million soldiers in the UK alone, all was well in the end: in 1918, the Union Jack fluttered over the oil fields of Mesopotamia. Or rather, almost all was well, because while the Germans had been squeezed out of the region, the British would henceforth have to tolerate the presence there of the Americans, and eventually they would have to settle for the role of junior partner of that new superpower.

Fascism’s Return to Italy

Michael Leonardi

Riace (pronounced Riach with a long A at the end) is a small Calabrian town in the south of Italy on the Ionian Sea.  This area of Calabria is known for its spectacular coastline, white sand beaches and beautiful aquamarine waters. It is also known for its powerful mafia, l’ndrangheta, that dominates the territory with its clan-controlled corruption that infiltrates most aspects of the political and economic reality, while orchestrating the global heroin trade through the region’s massive industrial ports. But Calabria is also renowned for its utopian visionaries and struggle for a better human condition.

Like many Calabrian towns, the old historic village of Riace sits up in the hills, where it would be protected from invasions by pirates and invaders during medieval times. There is a more modern sea side development down below that is geared to summer tourism and beach goers. The area around Riace is arid and desert like with white colored earth dotted with olive groves and fruit trees that seem struggling to survive.  Also, like many southern Italian towns, by the 1990s, Riace itself was largely a ghost town struggling to survive. Its narrow winding streets and charming stone buildings were largely abandoned when a major tomato canning facility shut down and its citizens went looking for work in the industrialized north.

By 1998 the old agrarian way of life that was far more sustainable and locally based around food production and artisanal shops had disappeared with the onset of “Americanization,” mass production and mass consumerism. Riace’s abandoned economy could not even support a local bar/café or restaurant due to its shrinking population, and its local schools were at risk of shutting down. Like many southern Italian towns, it was on the verge of becoming uninhabited altogether.

It was in 1998 that a boatload of 200 Kurdish refugees escaping political persecution in Iraq, Syria and Turkey came ashore on a beach near Riace. As many well know, for decades there has been a flood of migrants struggling to reach the mainland of Europe. They come from the exploited, poverty starved and war-ravaged regions of Africa and the Middle East. Thousands of these refugees haven’t made it and have died at sea during their perilous journey.  They come from countries like Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Libya, Burkina Faso, Somalia and Rawanda, to name a few that are more commonly known for their strife, famine and war.

As a young leftist activist at the time, the future and current mayor, Domenico Lucano, had a vision. He proposed to house these refugees in the abandoned and crumbling hillside town of Riace instead of having these people endure the months long stays in the migrant detention camps around the south of Italy.  From there his vision grew. In 1999 Domenico Lucano, known as Mimmo, created an association called the Future Cities project and embarked on a plan to repopulate his town of Riace with migrants from all over the world. Challenging the racism and fear of strangers that fueled anti-immigrant trends, Lucano envisioned the creation of an integrated community with local residents and migrants from all around Africa and the Middle East working side by side to revive the town and rejuvenate the local economy. His vision steadily became a reality and has been heralded as a model of human dignity, solidarity and integration by the United Nations and human rights organizations, activists and leaders from all over the world.

With funding from the European Union geared toward supporting the subsistence needs of the migrant population, Mimmo Lucano thought outside the box and invested in the creation of artisanal shops, restaurants and social centers that employed and empowered the migrant population while rejuvenating the local economy. Local citizens worked side by side with migrants and a harmonious model of integration was created that became known as the world’s foremost model of welcoming immigrants while rejuvenating the local economy. In 2012 Lucano created a local currency that was able to be used by residents in the shops, restaurants and local cafes. The town of Riace was reborn with a resilient and beautiful celebration of human dignity and respect for diversity. By 2014 there were residents representing over twenty countries and the schools were thriving with local and migrant children growing side by side and many citizens that had abandoned the town returned home from the north to participate in this Future Cities model for humanity.

Contrasting the eco-mafia run garbage collection system in the Ionian region of Calabria, Mimmo Lucano created a door to door recycling system using 13 donkeys and run by two local cooperatives employing locals and migrants working side by side. The town of Riace reduced its garbage output by 50 percent using this model and was planning on a production of donkey milk as well. The donkeys were also part of therapy sessions that are proven to improve the social and psychological condition of children and adults suffering from PTSD, related to the traumas that many of these migrants have endured, autism and other such ailments. Human and animal interaction has proven effective in alleviating some of the negative symptoms associated with these conditions.

Despite its amazing successes, Riace’s Future Cities project has not been welcomed with open arms by the local mafia and is now under a full fledged attack by the xenophobic and racist Italian government led by interior minister Matteo Salvini. The mafia in Calabria is brutal and has seen Riace’s model of integration and dignity as a threat. In Calabria there are documented cases of present day slavery where migrant workers are exploited to harvest crops and clean streets and often are only provided tents to sleep and one meal a day as compensation. In 2010 there was an actual slave revolt in the nearby town of Rosarno against the local mafia, and slavery continues until this day, now being fueled by the xenophobia, racism and neofacism of the state.

Beginning in 2017 the funding provided to Riace to support its migrant population was cut off and the mayor was indicted for the misuse of funds, aiding illegal immigration and illegally contracting garbage removal. These indictments by the state just so happened to coincide with the impending release of a TV series based on the model of Riace called “Tutto il mondo e’ un Paese,” (All the World Is One Country) produced by RAI, the Italian state television. This series depicts Riace as a beautiful model of human solidarity that runs completely counter to the racist and neofascist politics of the coalition government between the populist 5 Star Movement and the historically xenophobic Lega Nord. On the pretext of these indictments this series, featuring some of the biggest stars of Italian cinema was blocked from the airwaves.   In the late spring of this year Domenico Lucano began a hunger strike to protest the State’s attack on Riace.  This summer people converged on Riace from all over the world to demonstrate their support and solidarity for the project.

Two weeks ago I was able to go to Riace and witness the situation on the ground firsthand and meet briefly with the mayor. The situation is terrible. All the shops and initiatives have been shut down. The mayor was extremely distressed and frantic. Some of the migrant residents were leaving to try and find work elsewhere. An online collection of 300,000 euros was not enough to keep the Future Cities project operational and there were forces working to have the association evicted from its headquarters.

After years of economic crisis and government stagnation after Berlusconi and the abysmal failure of the Italian Democratic Party created in the guise of the US Democratic party, a tide of neofascism is sweeping the country. The populist 5 star Movement founded by comic turned politician Beppe Grillo has taken a sharp right turn and formed a coalition with the xenophobic, blatantly racist and anti-immigrant Lega Nord. Matteo Salvini, the interior minister has become the de-facto leader of the country and has singled out the mayor of Riace with derogatory slurs and insults. Just last week Salvini announced anti-immigrant legislation that would slash funding to the immigrant community. This comes after months of the closed border polices and severe restrictions being placed on search and rescue missions by human rights organizations. Close to 2,000 migrants are known to have died at sea trying to cross the Mediterranean so far this year, but many fear that this number is a low estimate as it is difficult to determine what is happening as the ports are on lockdown.

Now, this Tuesday, Mimmo Lucano, the mayor of Riace was put under house arrest for aiding illegal immigration into the country. It is truly a travesty of justice and a frightening moment as fascism has returned to Italy with state sponsored persecution of political dissidents happening again. As I write a mass mobilization is underway with a major demonstration of solidarity being organized in Riace this Saturday and in major cities across the country. There is a resistance on the rise but it is facing an emboldened racist and fascist police state that has been empowered bilaterally by the Trump administration. Italians are comparing this situation to the persecution under Hitler in Nazi Germany. And just this week the US Ambassador to Italy, Goldman Sachs operative, Republican financier and Trump stooge Lewis Eisenberg stated that Italy is the quintessential model of democracy in the world. Tutto il Mondo e’ Un Paese, All the World is One Country. Time to rise together.

How Saudi Money Keeps Washington at War in Yemen

Ben Freeman

It was May 2017. The Saudis were growing increasingly nervous. For more than two years they had been relying heavily on U.S. military support and bombs to defeat Houthi rebels in Yemen. Now, the Senate was considering a bipartisan resolution to cut off military aid and halt a big sale of American-made bombs to Saudi Arabia. Fortunately for them, despite mounting evidence that the U.S.-backed, supplied, and fueled air campaign in Yemen was targeting civilians, the Saudi government turned out to have just the weapon needed to keep those bombs and other kinds of aid coming their way: an army of lobbyists.

That year, their forces in Washington included members of more than two dozen lobbying and public relations firms. Key among them was Marc Lampkin, managing partner of the Washington office of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck (BHFS), a company that would be paid nearly half a million dollars by the Saudi government in 2017. Records from the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) show that Lampkin contacted Senate offices more than 20 times about that resolution, speaking, for instance, with the legislative director for Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) on May 16, 2017. Perhaps coincidentally, Lampkin reported making a $2,000 contribution to the senator’s political action committee that very day. On June 13th, along with a majority of his fellow senators, Scott voted to allow the Saudis to get their bombs. A year later, the type of bomb authorized in that sale has reportedly been used in air strikes that have killed civilians in Yemen.

Little wonder that, for this and his other lobbying work, Lampkin earned a spot on the “Top Lobbyists 2017: Hired Guns” list compiled by the Washington publication the Hill.

Lampkin’s story was anything but exceptional when it comes to lobbyists working on behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It was, in fact, very much the norm. The Saudi government has hired lobbyists in profusion and they, in turn, have effectively helped convince members of Congress and the president to ignore blatant human rights violations and civilian casualties in Yemen. According to a forthcoming report by the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative program, which I direct, at the Center for International Policy, registered foreign agents working on behalf of interests in Saudi Arabia contacted Congressional representatives, the White House, the media, and figures at influential think tanks more than 2,500 times in 2017 alone. In the process, they also managed to contribute nearly $400,000 to the political coffers of senators and House members as they urged them to support the Saudis. Some of those contributions, like Lampkin’s, were given on the same day the requests were made to support those arms sales.

The role of Marc Lampkin is just a tiny sub-plot in the expansive and ongoing story of Saudi money in Washington. Think of it as a striking tale of pay-to-play politics that will undoubtedly be revving up again in the coming weeks as the Saudi lobby works to block new Congressional efforts to end U.S. involvement in the disastrous war in Yemen.

A Lobby to Contend With

The roots of that lobby’s rise to prominence in Washington lie in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As you may remember, with 15 of those 19 suicidal hijackers being citizens of Saudi Arabia, it was hardly surprising that American public opinion had soured on the Kingdom. In response, the worried Saudi royals spent around $100 million over the next decade to improve such public perceptions and retain their influence in the U.S. capital. That lobbying facelift proved a success until, in 2015, relations soured with the Obama administration over the Iran nuclear deal. Once Donald Trump won the presidency, however, the Saudis saw an unparalleled opportunity and launched the equivalent of a full-court press, an aggressive campaign to woo the newly elected president and the Republican-led Congress, which, of course, cost real money.

As a result, the growth of Saudi lobbying operations would prove extraordinary. In 2016, according to FARA records, they reported spending just under $10 million on lobbying firms; in 2017, that number had nearly tripled to $27.3 million. And that’s just a baseline figure for a far larger operation to buy influence in Washington, since it doesn’t include considerable sums given to elite universities or think tanks like the Arab Gulf States Institute, the Middle East Institute, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (to mention just a few of them).

This meteoric rise in spending allowed the Saudis to dramatically increase the number of lobbyists representing their interests on both sides of the aisle. Before President Trump even took office, the Saudi government signed a deal with the McKeon Group, a lobbying firm headed by Howard “Buck” McKeon, the recently retired Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. His firm also represents Lockheed Martin, one of the top providers of military equipment to the Kingdom. On the Democratic side, the Saudis inked a $140,000-per-month deal with the Podesta Group, headed by Tony Podesta, whose brother John, a long-time Democratic Party operative, was the former chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Tony Podesta later dissolved his firm and has allegedly been investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for serving as an unregistered foreign agent.

And keep in mind that all this new firepower was added to an already formidable arsenal of lobbying outfits and influential power brokers, including former Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who, according to Lee Fang of the Intercept, was “deeply involved in the [Trump] White House hiring process,” and former Senator Norm Coleman, chairman of the pro-Republican Super PAC American Action Network. All told, during 2017, Saudi Arabia inked 45 different contracts with FARA-registered firms and more than 100 individuals registered as Saudi foreign agents in the U.S. They proved to be extremely busy. Such activity reveals a clear pattern: Saudi foreign agents are working tirelessly to shape perceptions of that country, its royals, its policies, and especially its grim war in Yemen, while simultaneously working to keep U.S. weapons and military support flowing into the Kingdom.

While the term “foreign agent” is often used as a synonym for lobbyist, part of the work performed by the Kingdom’s paid representatives here resembles public relations activity far more than straightforward lobbying. For example, in 2017, Saudi foreign agents reported contacting media outlets more than 500 times, including significant outreach to national ones like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and PBS, which has aired multiple documentaries about the Kingdom. Also included, however, were smaller papers like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and more specialized outlets, even ESPN, in hopes of encouraging positive stories.

The Kingdom’s image in the U.S. clearly concerned those agents. Still, the lion’s share of their activity was focused on security issues of importance to that country’s royals. For example, Saudi agents contacted officials at the State Department, which oversees most commercial arms transfers and sales, nearly 100 times in 2017, according to FARA filings. Above all, however, their focus was on Congress, especially members with seniority on key committees. As a result, at some point between late 2016 and the end of 2017, Saudi lobbyists contacted more than 200 of them, including every single Senator.

The ones most often dealt with were, not surprisingly, those with the greatest leverage over U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia. For example, the office of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who sits on both the appropriations and armed services committees, was the most contacted, while that of Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) was the top Democratic one. (He sits on the appropriations and foreign relations committees.)

Following the Money from Saudi Arabia to Campaign Coffers

Just as there’s a clear pattern when it comes to contacting congressional representatives who might help their Saudi clients, so there’s a clear pattern to the lobbying money flowing to those same members of Congress.

The FARA documents that record all foreign-agent political activity also list campaign contributions reported by those agents. Just as we did for political activities, the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative program conducted an analysis of all campaign contributions reported in those 2017 filings by firms that represented Saudi interests. And here’s what we found: more than a third of the members of Congress contacted by such a firm also received a campaign contribution from a foreign agent at that firm. In total, according to their 2017 FARA filings, foreign agents at firms representing Saudi clients made $390,496 in campaign contributions to congressional figures they, or another agent at their firm, contacted on behalf of their Saudi clients.

This flow of money is best exemplified by the 11 separate occasions we uncovered in which a firm reported contacting a congressional representative on behalf of Saudi clients on the same day someone at the same firm made a campaign contribution to the same senator or House member. In other words, there are 10 other cases just like Marc Lampkin’s, involving foreign agents at Squire Patton Boggs, DLA Piper, and Hogan Lovells. For instance, Hogan Lovells reported meeting with Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) on behalf of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia on April 26, 2017, and that day an agent at the firm made a $2,700 contribution to “Bob Corker for Senate 2018.” (Corker would later decide not to seek reelection.)

While some might argue that contributions like these look a lot like bribery, they turn out to be perfectly legal. No law bars such an act, and while it’s true that foreign nationals and foreign governments are prohibited from making contributions to political campaigns, there’s a simple work-around for that, one the Saudis obviously made use of big time. Any foreign power hoping to line the pockets of American politicians just has to hire a local lobbyist to do it for them.

As Jimmy Williams, a former lobbyist, wrote: “Today, most lobbyists are engaged in a system of bribery, but it’s the legal kind.”

The Saudi Lobby Today

Fast forward to late 2018 and that very same lobby is now fighting vigorously to defeat a House measure that would end U.S. support for the Saudi war in Yemen. They’re flooding congressional offices with their requests, in effect asking Congress to ignore the more than 10,000 civilians who have died in Yemen, the U.S. bombs that have been the cause of many of those deaths, and a civil war that has led to a resurgence of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. They’ll probably mention Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent “certification” that the Saudis are now supposedly taking the necessary steps to prevent more civilian casualties there.

What they’re not likely to mention is that his decision was reportedly driven by the head of the legislative affairs team at the State Department who just happens to be a former foreign agent with BGR Government Affairs, one of 35 FARA registrants working for Saudi Arabia at this moment. Such lobbyists and publicists are using the deep pockets of the Saudi royals to spread their propaganda, highlighting the charitable work that government is doing in Yemen. What they fail to emphasize, of course, are the Saudi blockade of the country and the American-backed, armed, and fueled air strikes that are killing civilians at weddings, funerals, school bus trips, and other civilian events. All of this is, in addition, helping to create a grotesque famine, a potential disaster of the most extreme sort and the very reason such humanitarian assistance is needed.

In the end, even if the facts aren’t on their side, the dollars are. Since September 2001, that reality has proven remarkably convincing in Washington, as copious dollars flowed from Saudi Arabia to U.S. military contractors (who are making billions selling weapons to that country), to lobbying firms, and via those firms directly into Congressional coffers.

Is this really how U.S. foreign policy should be determined?

Achieving religious harmony in a world of fear and populism

James M. Dorsey

This is a tough time for men and women of the cloth, at least those whose message is one of peace, tolerance, mutual respect, equality and inter-faith dialogue.

Underlying the rise of populism, nationalism, protectionism, fear of the other, anti-migrant and anti-foreigner sentiment, and hate speech is an erosion of the norms of debate. Articulation of hate speech has become permissible, if not fashionable. Often blunt and crude language employed by leaders, politicians and some people of the cloth help shape an environment in which civility has been lost.

Intolerant, racist and supremacist have risen in significance even in democratic societies that project themselves as open, tolerant guarantors of equal rights irrespective of nationality, ethnicity, religion, colour or sexuality. Suppressing those voices through laws and bans drives hate speech and racism underground, it doesn’t erase or eradicate it. Countering it with a message of tolerance and mutual respect won’t erase it either but can help shape an environment in which those principles become dominant again.

Let’s face it, prejudice is a fact of life. Its inbred in whatever culture each of us adheres to and whatever education at home and in schools that we have enjoyed, irrespective of how conservative or liberal our family and societal backgrounds are. We all were raised on implicit or more explicit notions that our culture is best or by implication other cultures are not as good.

In other words, prejudice is not the issue, its how we deal with it, how we manage it. The problem arises when we lose our sense of relativity, when we adopt an absolutist approach, the high way or no way. It arises when pluralism is thrown out the window and we abandon the notion that our world is populated by a multitude of equally valid faiths, worldviews and belief systems.

To quote Mahatma Gandhi, a deeply religious Hindu, who said in 1942: “I believe with my soul that the God of the Qur’an is also the God of Gita and that we are all, no matter by what name designated, children of the same God. My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures… To ascent to such a doctrine is for me a denial of God.”

In the battles in the late 1940s and 1950s over a proposed national ban in India on the slaughter of cows, Gandhi declared himself a worshipper of cows whom he regarded with the same veneration as he viewed his mother. Yet, Gandhi, went on to say that “the Hindu religion prohibits cow slaughter for the Hindus, not for the world. The religious prohibition comes from within. Any imposition from without means compulsion. Such compulsion is repugnant to religion.”

On a visit in 1942 to a German camp populated by Indian prisoners of war captured from the British during fighting in North Africa, Subhas Chandra Bose, a deeply religious leader of the Indian independence movement, reportedly warned inmates that “if you use religion to unite yourself today, you leave the door open for someone to divide you later using the same sentiments.”

Recent history validates Bose’s warning, not only in India and Pakistan, but across the globe expressed in Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and anti-Shiism, just to name a few, as well as in conflicts, wars and brutal repression in places like Syria, Yemen and the north-western Chinese province of Xinjiang.

Many of you represent faiths with multiple sects, legal schools and interpretations – proof that your belief system in the narrow context of that system is open to multiple interpretation. Some of those interpretations may be intolerant, anti-pluralistic, supremacist. They too are a fact of life, like it or not. Countering them depends on the social environment one creates, a sphere within which men and women of the cloth have an important role to play as well. It is also a function of the social and economic policies implemented by governments.

Indeed, the key is not suppression, what is suppressed doesn’t go away, at best it goes into hibernation, only to re-emerge at some point in the future. The key is containment, communities and societies that make discriminatory, racist, supremacist expressions socially taboo. That key is not enforcement by force of law but by social custom and an environment in which those expressions are continuously challenged in public debate, social settings and individual encounters. I am not talking about political correctness that stifles debate.

Leaving aside those whose beliefs are absolute and intolerant of any other view, a majority of people gravitate towards the middle. It’s what some call moral shock or what former trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb dubbed black swans coupled with economic, social and societal uncertainty and political manipulation that drives people towards more literal, absolutist, intolerant beliefs.

It is those circumstances in which normally tolerant communities and societies become more amenable to those beliefs. It’s what allows men like Slobodan Milosevic or Bashar al-Assad to turn societies where inter-communal relations and inter-marriage were the norm into wastelands in which one community tries to exterminate the other.

Think of Bosnia Herzegovina in the 1990s that seemingly transformed overnight from a beacon of harmony into a hell or the tensions in multiple countries ranging from Bahrain to Nigeria or the tenth parallel that journalist Elizabeth Rush aptly described as the fault line cutting across Africa and Asia between more strident forms of Islam and Christianity.

The last two decades have witnessed a renewed hardening of fault lines, not just ones between strands of Islam and Christianity, but across the board. This latest round started in 2001 with the moral shock of the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington and subsequent attacks across Europe as well as in Asia and Africa that continue until today. 9/11 was the death knell of multi-culturalism and the cradle of the latest wave of Islamophobia and rising anti-Semitism.

The economic financial crisis of 2008/2009 with its decimating effect on the lower and middle classes, the flourishing of jihadism, the impact of heinous attacks close to home and the fear, a human being’s most irrational emotion, that generated the breeding ground for populism, nationalism, protectionism and the return to primordial, absolutist beliefs propagated by multiple sources, including men and women of the cloth.

To be sure, the groundwork for this pre-date 9/11, fuelled by some strands of Christianity, massive Saudi funding across the globe of ultra-conservative strains of Islam, and the use of religious intolerance by leaders and governments because it served a political purpose.

Pakistan illustrates what this can produce. The tolerant and live-let-live types live in a bubble, primarily in Pakistan’s three foremost cities, Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. The gravity of society has shifted towards intolerance, anti-pluralism and supremacism. Ultra-conservatism has been woven into the texture of segments of society and the culture of some institutions of the state. It is a world in which absolute truth rules supreme, discrimination based on an absolute truth is anchored into law, competence is determined not exclusively on the basis of merit but on what faith one adheres to, democratic freedoms are curtailed. Mob lynching becomes acceptable, violence against minorities the norm, and anti-blasphemy the tool.

It’s a trend that is not unique to Pakistan and not unique to the Muslim world. It is a trend that is nurtured by the rise of populism, nationalism, authoritarianism and autocracy visible across Western societies, the Muslim world and Israel, in other words irrespective of cultural-religious roots.

In most, if not all of these countries, significant segments of the population have no real stake in society. Intolerance, anti-pluralism, racism and supremacism fuel the perception of disenfranchisement and marginalization that often produces a sense of not having anything to lose. It is some combination of religious ultra-conservatism, exclusivist ethnic and nationalist sentiment, and lack of a stake that creates breeding grounds for militancy and extremism.

Men and women of the cloth working in Singapore are in many ways privileged. While Singapore regulates hate speech or expressions it believes would undermine harmony, it has been successful in ensuring that all segments of the population have a stake in society – perhaps the most important factor in combatting discrimination, racism and supremacism as well as militancy and extremism.

Singapore demonstrates messages of tolerance and inter-ethnic and inter-faith harmony can and will be heard in a political and social environment that fosters mutual respect and dialogue.

There is however one caveat. Peace and harmony in society requires peace and harmony at home. The divisions and animosity between different religions and ethnicities at large are reflected in divisions and animosity within faith groups.

Tolerance, mutual respect and dialogue starts in one’s own community and its message is as credible as one practices it without exception. That probably requires a redefinition of the concept of absolute truth. That’s a tough order, but no one claims that ensuring that a peaceful and harmonious existence and future would be easy. It also is a litmus test of one’s sincerity.

Australian banks downgraded as concerns mount over falling property prices

Mike Head

Australia’s four major banks, depicted by the government and the media as among the most secure in the world, are no longer “unquestionably strong,” according to a credit rating agency. The reason is their exposure to record levels of household debt and declining real estate values.

In a survey of 100 world banks compiled by S&P Global Ratings, Australian banks last year experienced among the “steepest declines” in their risk adjusted capital, or RAC, pushing them into the bottom half of global rankings. They would need to raise billions of dollars to return to the “unquestionably strong” top quarter of lenders.

This result, reported on the front page of the Australian Financial Review on Wednesday, but virtually nowhere else, is another indicator of a potential property and financial crash that would have devastating economic consequences, particularly for millions of ordinary working people who could lose their homes.

Since 2012, soaring house prices, combined with falling real wages, have accelerated the rise in Australia’s total household debt to around $2.5 trillion, and around 200 percent of disposable household income—one of the highest ratios in the world. Back in 1991, the ratio was less than 75 percent.

The unsustainable property bubble, while enriching layers of investors, also kept the economy afloat after the collapse of the mining boom six years ago. That collapse itself flowed from the 2008-09 global crash, the impact of which was temporarily delayed by raw material exports to China, boosted by Beijing’s massive debt-driven stimulus measures.

Over the past year, however, house prices have begun to fall, threatening to leave many households with mortgage debt greater than the value of their homes. Any rise in interest rates, which the Reserve Bank of Australia has kept at the record low official level of 1.5 percent since August 2016, will have a severe impact on heavily-indebted working class families.

By one estimate, a 5-point rise, taking rates back to the “normal” level before the 2008-09 breakdown, would throw more than two million households into “stress,” leaving them without enough income to cover living expenses.

The S&P downgrading could have dire implications during the next global financial meltdown, which is being predicted in ruling class circles. During the last crash, the banks were suddenly endangered because of their dependence on international financial markets, which froze. The Labor government of Kevin Rudd propped up the banks by guaranteeing their loans and deposits.

In late 2014, a financial system inquiry headed by ex-Commonwealth Bank of Australia chief David Murray recommended Australia’s banks maintain “unquestionably strong” status. This week, Murray told the Australian Financial Review that this was necessary for two reasons: firstly, to ensure that if the government did have to support the banks in a crisis, it would eventually get its money back; and, secondly, to allow the banks to retain the faith of foreign investors in a systemic downturn, given their reliance on international debt capital markets.

The S&P decision reflects its view on the vulnerability of Australian capitalism as a whole, not just the big banks. The agency’s RAC ratio is calculated by dividing a bank’s total capital by its risk-weighted assets. The risk-weighted assets figure is adjusted based on the prevailing economic risk score of the country in which the bank operates.

Corporate media commentators are warning of a steeper fall in the property market if the current royal commission into the abuses and predatory crimes committed by the banks and other financial companies recommends regulatory changes to curb profiteering lending practices.

Capital Economics chief economist Paul Dales told the media that while house price falls to date have been “small”—2.7 percent nationally over the past year—Australia could be in for a record decline. “At the moment the trajectory is a bit worrying, because the house prices seem to be declining at a faster rate and, in our view at Capital Economics, this will eventually prove to be the largest downturn in Australia’s modern history,” he warned.

Dales forecast a greater slowdown in the housing market over the next 6 to 12 months.

Some figures in the finance industry have predicted an even more serious implosion. Last month, on the Nine Network’s “60 Minutes” program, Martin North from Digital Finance Analytics said that Australia was uniquely vulnerable when it came to an economic crash tied to a property downturn.

North drew attention to the possibility of a crunch, produced by a combination of unmanageable household debt, rising interest rates and renewed global financial turmoil.

“At the worst end of the spectrum, if everything turns against us we could see property prices 40-45 percent down from their peaks, which is a huge deal. There’s $1.7 trillion held by the banks in mortgages for owner-occupiers and investors. And that’s about 65 percent of their total lending. That’s higher than any other country in the Western world by a long way… We’ve got a debt bomb, we’ve got a debt crisis and at some point it’s going to explode in our face.”

That prognosis triggered a flurry of denials throughout the corporate media, insisting it was scare-mongering. But indicators in recent weeks have added to the plausibility of North’s warning.

• House prices across the country fell for the 12th straight month in September and this trend is now spreading from the biggest markets, Sydney and Melbourne, which are 6.2 percent and 4.4 percent down from their respective peaks in July and November 2017.
  
• Sales volumes are declining even faster. Settled sales activity is down 10 percent year-on-year, with Sydney down 18.5 percent and Melbourne down 15.8 percent.
  
• Financial comparison site Canstar reported that an average homeowner is spending more than one-third of their income on home loan repayments, leaving them in mortgage stress.
  
• A forward indicator—new dwelling approvals—fell to its lowest level in almost two years in August, led by a 38 percent drop in high-rise apartments from July. This also throws into doubt thousands of construction workers’ jobs.
  
• One unnamed major bank sent to property brokers a blacklist of 6,700 apartment projects, where it would refuse loans to buyers or offer reduced loan to value ratios.

There were also reports in the Australian Financial Review of “off the plan” purchasers of apartments having difficulty financing the final settlements on their units, because banks had dropped their valuations of the properties by as much as 25 percent since the sales contracts were signed.

Adding further nervousness is the fact that banks, in their insatiable quest for profits, made approximately $500 billion in interest-only property loans during 2013-16. These loans are due to convert to principal and interest mortgages, with far higher repayments, over the next three years.

Both the Liberal-National government, led by recently-installed Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and the opposition Labor Party, assisted by the media, are trying to bury nearly all mention of this worsening financial and social crisis. They are concerned that it will produce even deeper political disaffection, in addition to multiple evictions and the consequent human misery.

50 million user accounts hacked in Facebook data breach

Kevin Reed

Facebook reported on September 28 that hackers had exploited a technical flaw in the social media platform and obtained the user information of about 50 million accounts. In this largest ever breach since the company was founded 14 years ago, the hackers found a security hole in the “View As” feature—that allows users to see what their profile looks like from other Facebook accounts—to gain access to login details.

Among the hacked accounts were those of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. In a Security Update blog post on Facebook’s Newsroom page, VP of Product Development Guy Rosen wrote that the hackers had used the “View As” feature to “steal Facebook access tokens which they could then use to take over people’s accounts. Access tokens are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged in to Facebook so they don’t need to re-enter their password every time they use the app.”

Rosen further explained that the vulnerability had been fixed, that law enforcement had been notified of the breach and that a thorough security review was being conducted to determine if the compromised accounts had been accessed or misused. The access tokens of both the affected 50 million accounts as well as another 40 million accounts that have been subject to the “View As” look-up in the last year have been reset, Rosen said.

One of the more troubling aspects of the hack is that access to Facebook account details can also enable access to many other user accounts. For example, there are hundreds of apps—among the most popular are Spotify and Instagram—that allow people to use Facebook credentials as a third-party login to their other accounts.

As in the report last spring of the harvesting of personal Facebook data by Cambridge Analytica, the Facebook “View As” hack is being seized upon as further evidence of Russian meddling and to demand government intervention and control of social media. Some news outlets immediately began raising the likelihood of “rogue state” involvement in the breach without presenting any evidence backing it up.

Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner released a statement on the same day that Facebook made the announcement that said, “This is another sobering indicator that Congress needs to step up and take action to protect the privacy and security of social media users.” Additionally, the Irish Data Protection Commission opened a formal investigation into the data breach under the terms of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that could result in a fine of up to $1.63 billion.

During a conference call, Facebook executives reported that company engineers noticed a problem on September 16 when an unusual “spike in traffic” appeared on their systems. It was not known initially if this spike was evidence of malicious activity. According to the executives, it took another nine days before the engineers uncovered the massive security breach.

Security experts familiar with the complex technical issues involved in the Facebook hack have said that it may be impossible to trace the source of the attack or “connect the dots” in order to identify the hackers.

Over the past year and a half, Facebook has increasingly cooperated with the US government and state intelligence agencies in promoting the unsubstantiated claims of anti-Russian meddling during the 2016 elections and the need to promote “trusted sources” in opposition to “fake news.” More recently, Facebook worked with the Digital Forensic Lab of the Atlantic Council to shut down pages, posts and accounts connected with a purported, but still unproven, Iranian influence campaign.

These efforts are part of a broader drive to censor left-wing speech across all social media platforms, gather intelligence on political activists and create a framework for disabling accounts and publishing activity deemed “divisive” or “inauthentic.” The technology monopolies and the state fear that the social media platforms will be used increasingly as tools for coordinating and organizing the growing social and political struggle of the working class and young people. The recent data breach—regardless of who is responsible for it—plays directly into these strategic aims of the ruling elite and strengthens the instruments of censorship and state repression.

Risk of no-deal Brexit staggers European companies and economy

Alex Lantier

The growing likelihood of a no-deal Brexit next March is sending economic and political shock-waves across Europe. After the European Union (EU) rejected UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s “Chequers plan” for Brexit at its Salzburg summit last month, it is ever clearer that Britain may well exit the EU without any agreement on future political and trading relations—an event with vast and still uncharted ramifications.

On Wednesday in Paris, European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau reported she had presented to the French council of ministers a law allowing President Emmanuel Macron to impose emergency decrees to deal with problems related to Brexit arising in France.

“A good agreement on the United Kingdom’s exit is still possible,” Loiseau said. “But we must be prepared for all scenarios, including one with no agreement. We owe it to our citizens, to our firms, and to British citizens living in France to be ready for all eventualities.” She added, “We are making these preparations, other EU member states are as well. The British are making them as much as we are. We are not trying to show mistrust as to the state of the negotiations or with regards to our British partners.”

Loiseau said, however, that major problems could include “the situation of Frenchmen now residing in Britain but returning to France,” as well as ensuring that “on March 30, 2019, British people living in France do not suddenly discover they are undocumented immigrants.” Some 1.2 million British citizens currently live outside Britain in the EU.

What is clear is that nearly two years of talks between the EU and London have made no discernible progress in creating a stable relationship between countries at the heart of Europe’s economy. Last month, French and British scallop-fishing vessels violently clashed in the English Channel. Now, ports, industrial enterprises and governments are scrambling to prepare for the sudden termination of the old cross-Channel relations, under conditions where no one knows what new relations might emerge from the Brexit talks.

All the major EU governments bordering Britain are making plans to re-establish border controls with Britain, which would wreak havoc on European supply chains. On Tuesday, the French government agreed to deploy 700 new border guards to inspect trucks transiting to Britain via ferry or Eurotunnel in anticipation of a no-deal Brexit. The Netherlands made plans to deploy 1,000 new border guards over Brexit in July, and Belgium 141 border guards in June.

With mass layoffs in preparation at auto firms, plans in ruling circles are well advanced to place the full costs of any Brexit crisis firmly on the backs of the working class internationally. Last month, Jaguar Land Rover moved 1,000 workers at its Castle Bromwich plant in Birmingham onto a three-day week for the rest of the year.

The chairman of Japan’s Keidanren business lobby, Hiroaki Nakanishi, told Bloomberg that in case of a no-deal Brexit, “It’s natural to assume that Japanese companies may start leaving the UK.” These companies include Toyota, whose president for Europe, Johan van Zyl, confirmed that it is planning to halt production in Britain, given that 87 percent of the 144,000 vehicles produced at its Burnaston plant are then shipped to EU markets. The Mitsubishi financial group is also planning to shift its European headquarters from London to Amsterdam, threatening up to 2,000 jobs.

However, not all the jobs threatened by Brexit at Japanese-owned firms are located in Britain. Japanese brewer Asahi exports Peroni beer to Britain from Italy, where it has a small presence in the local beer market, and could face significant losses in Italy. Hitachi Construction Machinery has said that it may stop exporting machinery to Britain from manufacturing facilities in the Netherlands, and ship from Japan instead.

More broadly, expectations of Brexit are setting into motion plans for a vast shift in trade relations that could send a wrenching shock to the European and world economy. The Journal of Commerce reported that 40 percent of businesses interviewed in Britain are looking to replace European suppliers, while 63 percent of EU businesses working with UK suppliers expect to move part or all of their supply chains out of Britain.

Ports and shipping companies are struggling to determine the consequences of any Brexit, even one that ends with a friendly deal between EU officials and London. “You at least will have to announce to the customs what you are transporting in much higher detail than today. Even if a shipment isn’t singled out for inspection, you will still need to provide all the necessary data to do a risk assessment,” ECS European Containers CEO Pieter Balcaen told The Globe and Mail.

Some 14,000 trucks cross the EU-Britain border daily, and 53 percent of UK imports originate in the EU, making detailed border controls of all UK-EU traffic—which could be mandated if Britain leaves the Common Market amid a no-deal Brexit—all but impossible. Joachim Coens, the CEO of Belgium’s Zeebrugge port, told the Independent that some 4,000 trucks drive through Zeebrugge to Britain. “If they are blocked even for a few hours, then you have 60 kilometers (40 miles) of blockage. Nobody wants that,” he said.

Even larger bottlenecks could develop at the British port of Dover, which handles 10,000 trucks in Britain-EU transit daily, as well as at the Eurotunnel between Britain and France.

Anticipating the worst, industrial enterprises are already building up inventory in case the UK-EU border becomes blocked for a protracted period.

Detlef Trefzger, CEO of the major German logistics firm Kuehne-Nagel, told the Journal of Commerce: “Our customers have started to build up inventory in the UK and are asking us for six to 12 months of additional capacity to build up a buffer until they have a better idea of what the impact will be. … CFOs [Chief Financial Officers] don’t like to build up inventory because of the costs, but they need to be prepared. We are seeing that in the hi-tech, automotive, and aerospace industries.”

A statement from the European Shippers’ Council noted, “Shippers and logistics operators all over Europe and globally are spending time and money analysing the possible consequences of Brexit: congestion at ports, impact on transshipment operations, and new barriers to trade. Contingency plans can be made, but each one is very time-consuming to develop, and in the current climate of uncertainty there could be many scenarios that need to be considered.”

The chaos emerging in the run-up to Brexit underscores the political bankruptcy of European capitalism. The Brexit vote—reflecting not only corrupt manoeuvres of more nationalistic sections of the British bourgeoisie, but above all the disillusionment of masses of voters with the EU’s austerity and attacks on democratic rights—has brought the contradiction between world economy and the nation-state system to a new level of intensity. The danger of an economic crash is clearly growing.

More broadly, however, the critical question that is posed is the unification of the working class in Britain and across Europe in struggle against the ruling class on both sides of the Channel, and their attempts to place the costs of Brexit on the backs of the workers.

US, UK and NATO allies ramp up anti-Russia offensive over “cyber spying” and Skripals

Robert Stevens

The US Department of Justice is seeking the arrest of seven Russian nationals it claims worked for the GRU, the main Russian military intelligence agency. They are accused of hacking, with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as the most important target, as well as wire fraud, identity theft and money laundering.

The announcement followed a coordinated blitz by the UK, the Netherlands and other NATO powers. To frame the demand for the seven arrests, the US used all the material gathered against Russia over the Skripal/novichok affair as a pedestal.

Seven months to the day since the still unexplained events in Salisbury that saw the poisoning of the Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, and the later death of resident Dawn Sturgess, the US made use of an operation carried out by Dutch intelligence in April, first announced last month, when four Russians were expelled for allegedly trying to hack the OPCW.

The narrative of the imperialist powers is that the alleged Russian attack on the OPCW was mounted because it was conducting investigations into the poisoning of the Skripals and the alleged chemical weapons gas attack by the Moscow-backed Syrian regime in Douma earlier this year. Four of the seven listed in the US indictment, Aleksei Morenets and Evegenii Serebriakov, Oleg Sotnikov and Alexey Minin, are the Russians expelled from the Netherlands.

According to the Financial Times, British intelligence tipped off their Dutch counterparts that they suspected the Russians, who they said had been organising reconnaissance around the OPCW headquarters at The Hague, after arriving in the Netherlands on April 10. They were supposedly planning, according to the FT, a “so-called ‘close access hack’ of the OPCW computer networks. This involves getting physically close enough to pick up the Wi-Fi signal of the building being targeted.”

The Dutch alleged that on April 13, the Russians parked a car in a hotel car park with its boot facing the headquarters of the nearby OPCW HQ. Counterintelligence officials reportedly arrested the four men and confiscated electronic equipment found on them, including mobile phones and laptops, and then took them to Schiphol airport to board a flight back to Russia.

Three of the defendants in the US indictment had already been charged in July by Robert Mueller, the special counsel heading a probe into Russian “meddling” in the US election and possible complicity of the Trump campaign. They were among a dozen Russians, alleged officers in the GRU, charged with hacking and leaking emails from senior Democratic Party officials and the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

The US indictment was preceded yesterday morning by UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt declaring that Russia was behind “reckless and indiscriminate cyber-attacks,” including the 2016 hacking of the DNC headquarters. Hunt based his allegations on an assessment by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre who said it was “highly likely” that 12 hacking groups operating around the world were really fronts for Russian intelligence. Hunt said the attacks were “in flagrant violation of international law, had affected citizens in a large number of countries, including Russia, and had cost national economies millions of pounds.”

Attacks supposedly carried out included the hacking of confidential medical files of international athletes under the control of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

In the afternoon, Peter Wilson, the British ambassador to the Netherlands, took part in a press conference alongside the head of the Dutch military intelligence and security service, Onno Eichelsheim, and Defence Minister Ank Bijleveld. Wilson stated that Russia had attempted to hack the computer network at Porton Down, the UK’s highly secretive chemical weapons laboratory—while it was investigating the attack on the Skripals just a few miles away—as well as UK Foreign Ministry computer networks.

According to the UK government statement, among the attacks organised by the hackers were ones hitting Russia’s central bank and two Russian media outlets, Fontanka.ru and news agency Interfax.

The UK and Dutch prime ministers, Theresa May and Mark Rutte, issued a joint statement condemning Russia.

Speaking at a NATO summit in Brussels, UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson also ratcheted up the tensions, stating that “here at NATO we stand shoulder to shoulder with our allies in unity against such actions. What we have made clear is that we are not going to be backward leaning.”

Labour Party deputy leader Tom Watson joined the fray, writing to Hunt to demand details of any possible Russian “interference” in the 2016 Brexit referendum. He asked, “Can you… confirm whether any investigation is being undertaken by our intelligence services and other authorities into Russian interference in the UK? If it is not will you instruct the security services and other relevant bodies to begin one?”

The coordinated moves by the US and its NATO partners followed last week’s threat delivered by Hunt via Sky News while at the United Nations General Assembly to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, that if Russia used chemical weapons, then “the price will be too high.” He repeated this threat in a speech to the Conservative conference in Birmingham Sunday, adding that he intended to “close the net on the GRU.” Hunt used his August visit to the US to demand that the European Union (EU) follow Washington’s lead in placing “comprehensive” sanctions on Russia.

As the Tory party conference opened, UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson told the Sunday Telegraph of plans to establish a new British military base in the Arctic circle, in northern Norway, to counteract Russian “influence.” The base will be manned by 800 marine commandos.

Tory MP Julian Lewis, head of parliament’s Defence Select Committee, published an article on Politics Home, insisting, “The best response to the Salisbury outrage is to put an end to the relentless hollowing out—under successive governments—of our army, our navy and our air force. Salisbury shows that the downgrading of defence must now be reversed.”

The “deterrent power of Western nuclear weapons and the collective security provided by Article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty,” and confronting the Soviet Union “did not come cheaply” and neither does confronting Russia today. Lewis stressed, “Since 2016, the Defence Committee has been making the case for a defence spending target of 3 percent of GDP.” However, he made clear this was not enough. “In the early 1960s, UK defence spending accounted for 6 percent of our GDP—the same percentage as welfare. The current welfare budget is six times the size of the defence budget.”

The campaign to attribute the poisoning of the Skripals to the Russian government took a dramatic turn on September 26 with the “identification” on the Bellingcat website of Ruslan Boshirov, one of the named “novichok suspects,” as Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga. The site claims Chepiga is a decorated soldier who served with a Special Forces unit under the military intelligence department, the GRU, before being transferred to Moscow as an undercover operative. Bellingcat is run by Elliot Higgins, a senior fellow of the fanatically anti-Russian US geostrategic think tank, the Atlantic Council.