The German government prepares military intervention in Syria

Peter Schwarz

The German government is preparing to provide military support for a US-planned “safe zone” in northern Syria. The zone is intended to protect the Kurdish militias, which fought against the Islamic State (IS) on the side of the US, from both Syrian and Turkish troops.

Appropriate plans are to be discussed in Berlin on Friday, when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo makes his first official visit to Germany—a visit which has been postponed several times.

Spiegel Online reported on Thursday that the German government “signaled to the US in months of secret talks that it would be prepared to participate militarily in securing the safe zone”. The Americans had “in recent months repeatedly requested for German commitment behind the scenes, for the first time on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in mid-February.”

Since then, the German government had sought “a constructive dialogue with Washington”. “In order not to put off the US once again, the Chancellor’s office, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence largely agree that one should not alienate the US regarding the Syrian issue.”

According to Spiegel Online, secret negotiations have taken place almost continuously since the Munich Security Conference. For example, in mid-March, the political heads of the German Ministry of Defence and the Pentagon, Geza Andreas von Geyr and John C. Rood, gathered together “in Berlin in strict confidence all the other nations that had previously participated in the anti-IS coalition.” In April, both the German Defence Minister, Ursula von der Leyen, and Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, travelled to Washington “to discuss the issue at the highest level.”

According to Spiegel Online it is still open how the German army will participate in the establishment of the safe zone. The dispatch of ground troops has been ruled out for political reasons, but the possibility of aerial support for a security force has been raised. To this end, Berlin made the offer to Washington of extending the German army’s current mission in Jordan.

Since June 2017, the German army has maintained its own base at a Jordanian air force base under the name “Camp Sonic”. Specially equipped Tornado jets conduct air reconnaissance for the US-led anti-IS coalition from the base. The German Air Force also refuels coalition jets over Syria from the air. The mandate for this mission expires on October 31 and, according to a decision by the German parliament, is not to be extended.

Military officials, however, assume that “the high-resolution images of ‘Tornadoes’ and aerial refueling” would also be valuable for a future coalition, Spiegel Online reports. “Politically, the mission would also be a symbol that Germany does not refuse to participate in more difficult international missions.”

Military support of a “safe zone” in northern Syria would mean a massive escalation of Germany’s participation in the Syrian war, which from the outset was aimed at ousting the regime of Bashar al-Assad and replacing it with a Western puppet regime.

The German foreign ministry has been intensively involved in the construction of the pro-imperialist Syrian opposition, which relied mainly on al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist militias. To this end it was supported not only by the SPD and the Greens, but also by the Left Party.

Following the failure of this operation, which has cost the lives of 400,000 civilians and reduced large parts of the country to ruins, the German government is now plunging into a military adventure that involves not only confrontation with the regime in Damascus, but also with its NATO partner Turkey, Iran and the nuclear power, Russia.

Damascus rejects such a “safe zone” because it would massively curtail the country’s sovereignty. Ankara is opposed because it wants to prevent at all costs the emergence of a Kurdish state on its border, which is under the control of a PKK-affiliated organisation. Tehran, which is being economically starved by the US and threatened with a devastating war, is closely allied with both Damascus and Ankara. And Moscow, which supports the Assad regime militarily and maintains close ties with Tehran and Ankara, quite rightly views the Western offensive in the Middle East as part of a containment strategy against Russia.

Should the German government accede to Pompeo’s request for military support for the establishment of a “safe zone”, then the official propaganda machinery will immediately begin to proclaim that such a mission is a “humanitarian action” aimed at protecting lives, or a “fight against a dictatorial regime” or something similar. This was already the pattern in the Afghanistan, Iraq and Libyan wars. The latter also began with the establishment of a “safe zone”, which then provided the pretext for bombing the country and overthrowing the Gaddafi regime.

No credence should be given to such lies. Washington and its European allies, including Berlin, are pursuing naked imperialist interests in their wars in the Middle East—control of oil, gas and markets, repression and weakening of their rivals, and strengthening their own position as a world power.

Five years ago the German government announced—in the words of then Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier—that it is no longer prepared “to comment on world politics from the sidelines” and intends instead “to engage in foreign and security policy earlier, more decisively and more substantially”. Since then Berlin has been massively upgrading its military forces. In the powder keg of today’s Middle East, the Germany elite sees another welcome opportunity to translate its goals into action—even at the risk of a Third World War.

US escalates threat of force against Iran

Bill Van Auken

The two principal architects of US imperialism’s war buildup against Iran are carrying out a series of foreign visits aimed at bullying Europe into falling in line behind Washington’s campaign of aggression and whipping up the US-backed anti-Iranian axis comprised of the Persian Gulf Sunni oil sheikdoms, led by Saudi Arabia.

John Bolton, the US national security adviser, was in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, on Wednesday, leveling unsubstantiated allegations against Iran and threatening a “very strong response” by the US and its war machine.

It was Bolton who announced the military buildup against Iran earlier this month, with the dispatch of the naval strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln along with a bombing task force including nuclear-capable B-52s.

Since this initial buildup announced at the beginning of May, Washington has deployed an amphibious battle group carrying warplanes and US Marines, a Patriot missile battery and, at the end of last week, the deployment of another 1,500 troops to reinforce the nearly 50,000 already deployed in a string of bases encircling Iran. Acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said that the latest deployment consists of another 900 troops being sent into Saudi Arabia and Qatar, along with 600 assigned to a Patriot missile battery that had scheduled to rotate out of the region but will be kept in place.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, drew up plans for the deployment of as many as 120,000 troops to the region, a similar number as was deployed before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Bolton, who prior to his appointment as national security adviser had frequently called for regime change in Tehran and penned an Op-ed for the New York Times titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran,” made the improbable claim to reporters in Abu Dhabi that US policy under the Trump administration was not one of regime change.

The US national security adviser blamed Iran for an alleged sabotage attack on four vessels off the shores of the UAE, including two Saudi-owned tankers, together with a drone attack on pumping stations on the Saudi oil company Aramco’s East-West pipeline—claimed by Houthi rebels as a retaliation for the near-genocidal war being waged by Riyadh on Yemen. He also claimed that there had been another attempted attack—previously reported by neither the US nor Saudi Arabia—on the Saudi oil port of Yanbu.

Offering no evidence whatsoever, Bolton declared that the alleged sabotage of the Saudi tankers and the other two vessels was the result of “naval mines almost certainly from Iran.”

The same Bolton in 2002 and 2003 insisted with far greater than “almost certainty” that the government of Saddam Hussein was stockpiling “weapons of mass destruction” when, as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs in the Bush administration, he was one of the leading advocates for a war of aggression against Iraq.

Iran’s foreign ministry denounced Bolton as a “warmonger” and dismissed his remarks as a “ridiculous accusation.”

Washington’s transparent aim is to present Iran as the aggressor. This is under conditions in which US imperialism is carrying out what it describes as a campaign of “maximum pressure” against the country of 83 million people, mounting an unrelenting military buildup, while imposing sweeping sanctions tantamount to a state of war with the principal aim of reducing Iran’s oil exports to zero and creating social upheaval by crashing the country’s economy.

The US reimposed and escalated sanctions one year ago after unilaterally abrogating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal, reached in 2015 between Iran, the US, the European powers, Russia and China. Under the agreement, Tehran sharply limited its nuclear program while submitting to an intrusive inspections regime in return for the lifting of sanctions and normalization of economic relations.

Recently Tehran announced a 60-day suspension of its commitment to cap its production of enriched uranium and heavy water in an attempt to pressure the European powers to make good on their promises to launch an Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) to circumvent US sanctions by facilitating non-dollar trade with Iran.

While the reported quadrupling of its production rate of uranium to 3.67 percent would still leave Tehran in compliance with the JCPOA, the increase would soon cause it to exceed the cap of 300 kilograms of stockpiled low-enriched uranium. Under the JCPOA, Tehran is supposed to sell off any enriched uranium, which it did to Russia, but now cannot because of the US sanctions.

With unmitigated cynicism, Bolton said of Iran’s action, “There’s no reason for them to do any of that unless that’s part of an effort to reduce the breakout time to produce nuclear weapons.” He added, “That’s a very serious issue if they continue to do that.”

He claimed that Tehran’s actions had vindicated Washington’s ripping up of the agreement: “This is just more graphic evidence that it hasn’t constrained their continuing desire to have nuclear weapons. It certainly hasn’t reduced their terrorist activities in the region that we just discussed or their other malign behavior in their use of conventional forces.”

Tehran has consistently denied that it has ever sought to develop nuclear weapons.

Bolton’s trip to the Middle East came on the eve of a trio of conferences that were convened in Saudi Arabia on Thursday—the Organization of Islamic Countries, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council—all brought to Mecca in a blatant attempt to exploit the Muslim holy city to line up member states behind the predatory interests of the House of Saud which are being pursued in alliance with Washington against Iran.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is conducting a tour of Europe aimed at bullying its governments into subordinating themselves to Washington’s war drive against Iran. It includes stops in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, as well a visit to Montreux, Switzerland for the annual meeting of the secretive Bilderberg Group, to share Washington’s war plans with a group of billionaires and senior state officials who are sworn to secrecy about what he reveals.

Before Pompeo’s arrival, Washington issued a naked threat against any attempt by Europe to bypass the crushing US sanctions against Iran.

The Bloomberg news agency reported in a May 7 letter sent by Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, warning that anyone associated with Instex, the European vehicle created to sustain trade with Tehran by avoiding the US dollar and financial institutions, could be subjected to severe penalties and barred from the US financial system.

“I urge you to carefully consider the potential sanctions exposure of Instex,” Mandelker wrote in the letter to Instex president Per Fischer. “Engaging in activities that run afoul of US sanctions can result in severe consequences, including a loss of access to the US financial system.”

Meanwhile, the US sanctions regime against Iran has focused on a single Chinese super-tanker, the “Pacific Bravo,” which took on a load of crude at Iran’s Kharg Island and has headed back toward China.

Washington has issued a warning to Hong Kong that if it allows the ship to dock or services it, it could face severe sanctions for violating the US blockade against Iran.

China’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement rejecting the threats. “The normal energy dealings between Iran and the international community, including China, that is within the framework of international laws, are reasonable, lawful, and should be respected and protected,” it said.

Hong Kong’s Commerce and Economic Development Bureau similarly responded that it has been “strictly implementing sanctions decided by the United Nations,” which don’t impose “any restrictions on the export of petroleum from Iran.”

This standoff exposes the real roots of the war drive against Iran. They lie not merely in the maniacal warmongering of Bolton or Pompeo, but in the drive by US imperialism to offset the decline of its economic hegemony by wrapping its fists around the oil pumps of the Middle East, Venezuela and the entire planet in order to dictate terms to its emerging rival, China.

Bound up with the “great power” rivalries that are the focus of the ever-escalating eruption of US militarism, a military confrontation with Iran could trigger a third world war fought with nuclear weapons. Such a global catastrophe can be averted only by means of the independent political mobilization of the working class against war and its source, the global capitalist system.

New prime minister installed in Papua New Guinea

Patrick O’Connor

After weeks of acute political turmoil, the parliament in Papua New Guinea this morning voted overwhelming 101-8 to replace Prime Minister Peter O’Neill with former finance minister James Marape.

The country’s ruling coalition remains in place. Marape, who resigned last month over a natural gas deal and defected along with others to the opposition, returned to the government side along with his supporters. As finance minister, Marape had a major hand in formulating the austerity measures imposed on working people.

O’Neill, in office since 2011, had announced last Saturday that he intended to step down, appointing as stand-in leader Julius Chan, parliamentarian and former prime minister between 1980-1982 and 1994-1997. The situation quickly descended into political farce, however, as the opposition accused O’Neill of announcing a fake resignation.

On Sunday Chan declared that there had been “a huge misunderstanding” and that he had not been nominated the new prime minister. The following day O’Neill issued a press statement as prime minister explaining that he was taking court action to prevent the parliamentary opposition tabling a no confidence motion against him.

On Tuesday, parliament briefly convened with the speaker blocking the no confidence motion and closing down the session amid physical altercations between government and opposition parliamentarians. Only yesterday did O’Neill confirm that he was indeed stepping down, explaining that he had submitted his official resignation.

The manoeuvring between rival groups of parliamentarians to form government demonstrates the vast gulf that separates the poverty-stricken Papua New Guinean masses and the country’s corrupt and venal political elite.

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is among the poorest countries in the world, despite having some of the most lucrative natural resources. Most of the country’s eight million people confront limited or non-existent health care, education, and other social services and infrastructure, with preventable disease and other indices of social distress comparable to sub-Saharan Africa. Members of the ruling class, on the other hand, have reaped enormous personal wealth through their collaboration with Australian imperialism and services rendered to the giant transnational corporations profiting from PNG’s energy and mineral wealth.

O’Neill was pressured out of office amid a furore in PNG ruling circles over a series of deals he negotiated with Australian-based Oil Search and France’s Total for a significant expansion of the country’s enormous liquid natural gas project that is led by US energy giant ExxonMobil.

In 2014, O’Neill personally approved a $1.2 billion state loan from Swiss bank UBS, via its Australian arm. Most of this money was used to purchase a 10 percent PNG government stake in Oil Search, with the liquidity assisting the development of new gas fields in the PNG Highlands known as Elk-Antelope. The O’Neill government last month announced it had finalised a deal with Total to develop the new gas fields, using the existing huge gas extraction and processing facilities that came online in 2014 constructed by a US-Australian energy consortium led by ExxonMobil.

The Total deal triggered fresh scrutiny of the 2014 UBS loan. At the time O’Neill ran roughshod over legal and parliamentary norms, ramming through approval for the massive loan without parliamentary approval and despite opposition from his treasurer Don Polye, who resigned in protest.

A damning state ombudsman’s investigation into the affair reportedly concluded its findings last December. Though the report has not been publicly released, it was leaked online and picked up by the Australian Financial Review. The newspaper reported that the ombudsman found that O’Neill may have violated 15 different laws.

The Australian Financial Review explained that UBS charged interest rates of between 8.1 and 9.1 percent on the $1.2 billion loan, and began demanding payments when the ink on O’Neill’s signature was barely dry. “If the state missed the interest payment by more than two days, it would constitute an event of default,” the newspaper stated. “That would trigger defaults from World Bank and Asian Development Bank loans, impair PNG’s ability to access international markets, and even force a run on its currency, the kina.”

Amid plunging world oil and gas prices in 2014-2015, the PNG state lost an estimated $420 million after being forced to sell part of its Oil Search stake.

Not everyone lost out, however. After UBS effectively threatened to crash the PNG economy, the government sent $2.61 million to Australia, a sum that the ombudsman reportedly found was more than $200,000 in excess of what was required, “raising doubts as to what became of the remaining balance.”

Behind the sordid cash-grabs and intrigues in Port Moresby lie sharpening geopolitical tensions.

The country’s LNG industry forms part of the rivalry between the US-Australia and China. In 2011, then secretary of state Hillary Clinton told a Congressional committee about ExxonMobil’s work in PNG, before immediately complaining that “China is in there every day in every way trying to figure out how it’s going to come in behind us, come in under us.”

China remains one of four Asian countries that PNG sends its gas to. Japan remains the largest customer, however, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe previously explaining that he was seeking to maximise LNG imports from the Australasian region because they did not travel through the territorially-contested South China Sea. All trade through this naval passageway would grind to a halt in the event of a conflict between the US and China, or between China and one of its US-backed neighbours.

Australian imperialism is determined to maintain its hegemony over its former colonial possession. There is little doubt that intelligence operatives will be actively working to ensure a pliant government in Port Moresby. O’Neill seized power in blatant violation of the constitution in 2011 thanks only to Canberra’s backing. Last weekend Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was effusive in his praise for O’Neill when his resignation was first foreshadowed.

O’Neill has lined up alongside the Australian and American governments on every major geopolitical issue since he seized office—including agreeing last year to reopen the World War II-era deep sea naval port in Manus Island for Australian and US warships.

Ford layoffs provoke widespread anger

Tim Rivers

There is a growing anger and apprehension among Ford workers in the US and around the world after the automaker’s announcement that it will cut the jobs of 7,000 salaried workers by August. Top engineers and managers, who are required to hold graduate degrees, and many of whom also have decades of seniority, were subjected to the agonizing suspense of rumors followed by being called into meetings where they were terminated.

Some of those who were once considered among the most secure and well-placed in the company have been reduced to the status of workers on the assembly lines, who have suffered falling wages, benefit cuts and the constant threat of layoffs and plant closings that have been sanctioned by the United Auto Workers union. Some 900 engineers, managers, technicians and other salaried workers were cut in the US last week, in addition to the 500 workers who have already been forced to take “voluntary separations.”

Ford CEO James Hackett, whose personal compensation rose 6 percent to almost $18 million last year, calls the jobs cutting program, Ford’s “Smart Redesign.” The planned cuts that began at Ford world headquarters south of Detroit last week will continue in Europe, China, Russia and South America until 10 percent of a global salaried workforce of 70,000 are slashed by the end of August.

Analysts for Wall Street firm Morgan Stanley who scrutinize the company’s balance sheet for investors are demanding, not 7,000 white-collar cuts, but more than four times that number, or a total of 30,000 salaried layoffs, to meet Hackett’s promises of increased profits through cost cutting. Industry adviser Jon Gabrielsen told the Detroit Free Press, “No one who analyzes the Ford situation believes that 7,000 job cuts remotely scratches the surface of what will be required for Ford’s long-term longevity.”

In a post on the web site thelayoff.com, one salaried Ford worker said, “Young professionals with tons of student loan debt should not expect to work at Ford for any extended period of time. See what the company has done to our parents, aunts, uncles, friends, etc. They push/throw old older, experienced employees like old shoes. They could care less about their employees. Glad I left last year. This is repeated behavior every 10 years. Work for a company that values your expertise and experience.”

Another replied: “They lure in the kids every year with all sorts of promises. Telling them ‘they are the future’ and that ‘they are the most prized and valued employees.’ Just remember, youth is fleeting AND every year there is a new batch of kids they bring in. Within just a couple years, you too will be included in what they treat as ‘old/ burned out dead weight employees.’”

Reporters from the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter spoke to production workers at the Dearborn Assembly Plant (DAP) about their conditions. A young worker had just been hired at a plant as a “Supplemental Temporary Status” (STS) employee, which means he works for half pay with no contractual rights while still paying dues to the UAW. “I was at Flat Rock Assembly Plant for three years‚ working nights, he said. “They just called one day and said, ‘Hey, we are going to one shift,’ and I was in the street.”

The union gave no warning of the layoff. “The UAW told us the same day as the company announcement,” he continued. “There were rumors but nothing official. They basically did nothing.” New hires are routinely given the false expectation by both the company and the union that they will be rolled over to full-time positions within a matter of a few months.

“After three years, I am still an STS,” he sighed. “I was working on and off, back and forth.” Changing what needs to be changed, such conditions resemble the early years of the last century when autoworkers had to gather at the gates each morning to see who the foreman would pick to work that day.

“Right now, we’re working four days a week at Dearborn Assembly Plant. They did not give me an end date. They say anything, except, ‘This is what we’re doing, so take it, or leave it.’ They literally have tiers of STS workers now,” he said.

“The UAW is the opposite of what they were in the ‘30s and ‘40s, when they were sticking up for the workers and fighting the company.”

Regarding the efforts by the Trump administration, backed by the Democrats and the UAW, to promote hatred of workers in China, Mexico and other countries, the young worker said, “These tariffs on Chinese goods are going to cause prices to go up and worse. We should cooperate with workers in other countries, everywhere. That is the direct opposite of what the country is doing right now. It makes no sense to me, or to any of us, to provoke a war, to provoke a trade war.”

A highly skilled, salaried employee with full seniority stopped to talk to us. “I’m a job setter and I have seen a lot of cuts over the years. I’ve never been laid off. But this time is different. If they close plants, nobody’s job is secure.”

A TPT or “Temporary-Part-Time” worker who has worked at DAP for two years said that he does not know when, or if, he will be hired in as a full-time worker. “It is unknown really,” he said. “I ask the union all the time, but they just string me along. They take dues out of my check every month, around $50.00. But they can’t tell me anything. It is not right.

“That 6 percent pay raise that Hackett got last year is probably more than I will make in the next ten years,” he added. Even that lopsided calculation represents a vast underestimation of the depth of the actual class divide. Assuming rates of taxation and all other expenses were equal, it would take a typical TPT 600 years to earn as much as the CEO received in 12 months.

“I never trusted the government,” the young worker continued, voicing a growing conviction among workers of an approaching political struggle. “The company is a massive part of the problem, but it is more the government’s fault.” The vast expansion of second-tier workers, pay cuts and multiple layers of temporary and part-time workers was imposed under the restructuring of the industry engineered during the first year of the Obama administration.

“I am ready to leave every day,” he continued. “If they told me that I have no chance of getting hired in at full pay, I would quit right away. I am more capable of tolerating this work than a lot of people. Workers all around me are broken down and hurting. I don’t know how they do it.”

In the face of falling sales and mounting signs of a coming economic recession, the corporations are restructuring their global operations to slash costs, boost investor returns and better position themselves for cost-heavy and cutthroat competition for the emerging electric and self-driving vehicle markets.

The global automakers, along with the UAW, intend to use the threat to jobs as a hammer to extract further concessions from 155,000 Ford, GM and Fiat Chrysler workers whose contracts expire in mid-September. To answer this, production and salaried workers should form rank-and-file committees, independent of the corrupt unions, to prepare a national strike to stop plant closings, layoffs and overturn all concessions, including abolishing the two-tier wage system and transforming all temporary workers into full-time employees with full pay and benefits.

The global attack on jobs requires a global response by workers. This means rejecting the nationalism of the unions and big-business politicians and unifying autoworkers across all national boundaries to defend jobs and living standards. The giant industries built up through the collective labor of generations of workers must be transformed into public utilities, owned and controlled by the working class as part of the socialist transformation of the world economy. Only in this way can the great advances in science and technology be used for the common good to provide safe and reliable transportation and secure the livelihoods of the millions of workers in the global auto industry.

Austrian Chancellor Kurz toppled following vote of no confidence

Markus Salzmann

On Monday, the Austrian parliament sacked the right-wing government led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (Austrian Peoples Party—ÖVP) following a vote of no confidence. The opposition Social Democrats (SPÖ) had introduced the motion of no confidence in a special sitting of parliament. The SPÖ was able to achieve the necessary majority by voting together with the former government partner of Kurz, the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ).

Not only was the Kurz administration the shortest reigning government in the history of modern Austria, it was also the first ever government to be brought down by a vote of no confidence. The end of the ÖVP/FPÖ coalition marks the culmination of a severe government crisis in the Alpine republic. At the same time, it is indicative of massive political upheavals taking place across Europe.

The dismissal of Kurz came just ten days after the German news magazine Der Spiegel and the Süddeutsche Zeitung published a video that made clear that FPÖ leader and Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache was guilty of bribery and corruption. Strache then resigned from office and the right-wing coalition broke apart. Following the sacking of the interior minister, Herbert Kickl (also FPÖ), other FPÖ ministers resigned from their posts.

Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen responded by appointing an interim government led by Kurz, with four “non-aligned” experts taking the place of the FPÖ ministers who had resigned. This administration lasted just five days.

The Austrian president supported Sebastian Kurz and appealed to other parties, in the name of stability and the preservation of state power, to allow him to stay in office until the parliamentary election in September. After considerable hesitation, however, the Social Democrats decided to call a vote of no confidence.

Van der Bellen, a former member of the Green Party, was elected president in 2016 with the votes of the SPÖ. His main rival at that time was the FPÖ candidate Norbert Hofer.

Following the vote of no confidence, Van der Bellen dismissed Kurz and commissioned the finance minister, Hartwig Löger (ÖVP), to take over the affairs of government. He is to remain in office with the other ministers until a new chancellor is appointed. Forming a new interim government should take no longer than a week, Van der Bellen declared.

As was the case with the so-called Ibiza video, the vote of no confidence carries all the hallmarks of an internal conspiracy. All of the parties in parliament are engaged in bitter infighting, but there is no avenue within the political system for the working class to assert its own interests. All of the various factions in the ruling elite are tacking to the right, and in the election campaign that has already begun following Kurz’ dismissal there is every indication that these parties will shift even further to the right.

With the exception of a seven-year period, the Social Democrats headed all Austrian governments between 1970 and 2017. It was their right-wing and anti-working class policies that enabled the far-right FPÖ to flourish. In the meantime, the SPÖ is so despised and its policies differ so little from those of the ÖVP and FPÖ that the party was unable to benefit from the government crisis in the European elections held on Sunday.

At 23.5 percent, the SPÖ fell slightly below its 2014 European election result and well below its 2017 National Council election result. The ÖVP, on the other hand, gained several percentage points, with 35.4 percent, while the FPÖ gained 1.6 percent compared to the previous European election. Its total of 18.1 percent represented a loss of 7.9 percent compared to the 2017 National Council election.

The new SPÖ leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner embodies the profound political crisis racking the SPÖ. A trained physician, she joined the SPÖ only in March 2017 and was appointed health minister in the then-SPÖ-ÖVP government. She now she supports a government of “experts” until the election planned for September.

There are many signs that the ÖVP and FPÖ coalition will return to power in the autumn.

In his resignation speech, Kurz praised the balance sheet of the outgoing coalition, which has brutally proceeded against refugees, tightened up labor laws, cut social benefits and lowered corporate taxes. Kurz immediately plunged into the election campaign. On Tuesday, an ÖVP spokesman declared that Kurz would turn down positions both as head of the ÖVP parliamentary fraction and as member of the National Council in favour of taking to the road across Austria “to win the support of the people for a continuation of his course.”

Several ÖVP and the FPÖ politicians have already called for a renewed coalition in the autumn. “Of course, the FPÖ has the clear goal to participate in a new coalition government after the election in September,” declared the Freedom Party councilor of Lower Austria, Gottfried Waldhäusl. “We want to help shape politics in Austria at the highest level,” he added, and “continue governing Austria with the ÖVP.”

The ÖVP and FPÖ continue to work together closely at state level. Manfred Haimbuchner, the FPÖ leader in Upper Austria, where all parties represented in the state parliament are involved in the administration, said: “In Upper Austria the trust between government partners and the will to work for the country is intact. Therefore, I can assure you here and now that, irrespective of today’s vote of no confidence, there will continue to be close cooperation with the ÖVP in future.”

For its part, the SPÖ is using the vote against the Kurz government to strengthen its own cooperation with the FPÖ. Against the background of its dramatic electoral defeats in recent years, the SPÖ has repeatedly strived for alliances with the far-right.

On Sunday, the SPÖ lost its former heartland Burgenland to the ÖVP for the first time in 60 years. The party retains control only in Vienna. Under these conditions, Burgenland’s prime minister, Hans-Peter Doskozil (SPÖ), affirmed the alliance he struck with the FPÖ in 2015. “It’s clear the situation is difficult,” he said. But he did not want the situation at the federal level to influence Burgenland. Many other SPÖ politicians also advocate a new federal coalition with the FPÖ.

China considering “rare earths” retaliation in conflict with the US

Nick Beams

While its official position remains that it is still willing to engage in trade negotiations, China has signaled that it is ready to hit back in the US economic war against it.

A major Chinese planning body has made a thinly-veiled threat to cut off the supply of rare earth minerals, used in a large variety of high-tech products, in response to the US move to ban the sale of vital high-tech products to the technology and communications giant Huawei. It came in a question and answer bulletin posted on Wednesday by the National Development and Reform Commission.

“Will rare earths become China’s counter-weapon against the US’s unwarranted suppression? What I can tell you is that if anyone wants to use products made from rare earth to curb the development of China, then the people of the revolutionary soviet base and the whole Chinese people will not be happy,” the posting said.

The US relies on China for about 80 percent of its rare earths, a category covering a variety of minerals used in a range of products including smartphones, electric vehicles and military equipment. China has a dominant position in the supply of these minerals which, despite their designation, are relatively abundant but costly to mine.

An editorial published on Wednesday in the People’s Daily, one of the key media outlets of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, warned that the US should not underestimate China’s ability to fight a trade war.

In its report on the editorial, Bloomberg noted it contained a phrase meaning “don’t say I didn’t warn you” that had been employed on other occasions, including in 1962 when China went to war against India, and also before the conflict between China and Vietnam in 1979.

The belief that rare earths could possibly be used as a weapon in the conflict with the US was sparked earlier this month when China’s president Xi Jinping made a visit to a rare earths plant accompanied by his chief trade negotiator Vice Premier Liu He.

The conflict has also extended to the World Trade Organisation when the Chinese representative raised the issue of the US bans on sales of products to Huawei at the meeting of the organisation’s market access committee on Tuesday.

According to a report in the Financial Times, when the meeting moved to discuss “other business,” the Chinese representative launched an attack on the US saying the placing of Huawei on an export blacklist by the US Commerce Department breached WTO rules.

Under those rules, member states can invoke trade bans on “national security” grounds. However, the representative accused the US of claiming “national security” concerns across the board, which was causing “great concern” in the membership of the organisation.

Trump has invoked “national security” to place tariffs on steel and aluminium imports and has threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on auto imports on the same basis.

There was now a “great danger of having too wide an exception that would permit anything under the sun,” the Chinese representative said.

The scope of the US action against Huawei and its implications have also been raised in a legal case brought by the company against an earlier US ban on the supply of Huawei equipment to federal agencies.

The action was launched three months ago, arguing that the ban under the US National Defence Authorisation Act is unconstitutional in that it singles out a person or a group for action without trial. The Huawei lawyers are seeking summary judgement in the case; that is, to decide on the matter without a full trial.

Huawei said it was filing the motion in order to accelerate the process of halting “illegal action against the company.” It is arguing the ban violated sections of the US constitution, that there were no facts at issue, and therefore a judgement was purely a matter of law.

Speaking on the case and the wider attacks on Huawei at a press conference in Shenzhen on Wednesday, the company’s chief legal officer, Song Liuping, said the judicial system was the last line of defence to obtain justice.

The US administration was “using every tool they have, including legislative, administrative, and diplomatic channels. They want to put us out of business. Almost never seen in history. The fact is the US government has provided no evidence to show that Huawei is a security threat. There is no gun, no smoke. Only speculation.”

Commenting on the decision by the Commerce Department to add Huawei to the US Entity List, banning US firms from supplying it with products needed for its operations, Song said the action had set a “dangerous precedent.”

“Today it’s telecoms and Huawei. Tomorrow it could be your industry, your company, your consumers.”

He said as many as 1,200 companies could be affected by the US action. Last year Huawei spent around $11 billion on buying components and services from US firms. The ban is due to come into force in August, following Trump’s decision to give a three-month reprieve on its implementation.

However, already major hi-tech suppliers, including Google, Qualcomm, Microsoft and the chip technology provider ARM Holdings, have moved to cut ties with Huawei, hitting its international smartphone business. Huawei is the second largest supplier of smartphones worldwide.

The war against Huawei followed the breakdown on trade talks between China and the US which came on May 5. Trump had announced new tariff hikes in the lead up to a meeting in Washington that had been touted as finalising an agreement.

The South China Morning Post has published an article on the circumstances which led to the decision. On April 30, China’s top negotiator Liu He held a private meeting during trade talks in Beijing with US negotiators Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

According to the report, citing a person who was present at the wider negotiations, the expressions on their faces was “stern and gloomy” when they emerged and a sense of “foreboding” permeated the meeting hall. Five days later, Trump announced the new tariff measures.

The US claimed that they were imposed because China was “backtracking” on what had been previous agreed.

However, according to two Chinese sources cited by the newspaper, the US negotiators “kept adding new demands in the late stages of the negotiations” some of which would “directly affect China’s political and social stability.”

“The real reason is that the US side keep changing their demands. There were so many changes … And then they turned around and accused us of backtracking.”

With the escalation of the attacks on Huawei, Trump has effectively ruled out any prospect of a trade agreement with China. At a joint press conference in Tokyo with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe earlier this week, he said China wanted to make a deal but “we’re not ready to make a deal.”

He warned that American tariffs on Chinese goods “could go up very, very substantially, very easily.”

Trump’s comments were not just directed at Beijing but were also intended as a warning to Abe. The US is engaged in bilateral trade negotiations with Japan in which it is demanding that Japanese markets be opened for increased exports of US agricultural products.

Similar negotiations on a bilateral deal, also involving US agriculture, are being conducted with the European Union. Both sets of discussions are being held under the threat that if US demands are not met then auto tariffs of 25 percent—consideration of which has been suspended by Trump for six months—will be imposed.

52,000 teachers strike in New Zealand

Tom Peters

More than 52,000 teachers and principals went on strike yesterday across New Zealand. It was one of the country’s biggest-ever strikes. In fact, the one-day walkout was an historic event, marking a major escalation in the struggles of the working class, which is coming into direct conflict with the Labour Party-led coalition government.

It was the first time primary and secondary teachers have carried out strike action together. Their separate unions, the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) and the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA), were forced to call the strike because of the growing anger of teachers to their deteriorating conditions. The unions, however, will be working desperately behind the scenes to negotiate a sellout deal to avoid any further strikes and wind down the teachers’ movement.

Teachers, students and supporters march in Wellington

The vast majority of public schools were completely closed, with nearly 800,000 students affected. In Auckland, 15,000 teachers and supporters marched down Queen Street. In Wellington, approximately 5,000 marched to parliament. Thousands protested in Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Whangarei, Invercargill, New Plymouth, Rotorua and Nelson. Pickets were organised in many smaller towns throughout the country. Thousands of parents, workers and students joined the protests.

The action occurred on the eve of the government’s second annual budget, fraudulently promoted as a “wellbeing budget.” The Labour-NZ First-Greens coalition is actually deepening the previous National Party government’s austerity measures, severely underfunding healthcare, education and other basic services, while giving billions to the military and police.

The working class is seeking to fight back against these conditions. There has been a wave of stoppages over the past two years, including a nationwide strike last year by 30,000 nurses and healthcare assistants, and several strikes by 3,000 doctors in response to the crisis in public hospitals. Midwives, ambulance workers, public transport workers and fast food workers have taken industrial action also.

This is part of the upsurge of the working class internationally, in which teachers are playing a leading role. Mass teachers’ strikes have been held this year in the United States, many European countries, as well as India and parts of Latin America and Africa.

NZ teachers are demanding pay rises of 15 to 16 percent, a significant increase in staffing, smaller class sizes and reduced workloads. Despite two primary teachers’ strikes last year, the government has refused to increase its offer of just 3 percent per year and a token increase in teacher training places. The total offer is just $1.2 billion, about a third of what teachers are demanding.

Protesters outside parliament

Yesterday’s strike was initially scheduled for April 3 but the unions postponed it, in an anti-democratic decision, using the Christchurch terror attacks as a pretext. The union leaders are following the example of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, which dragged out the health workers’ dispute and cancelled one strike in order to wear down resistance to a sellout .

Teachers are determined to continue striking. Secondary teachers have voted for a further one-day strike in June, to be held in different areas on different days. PPTA leader Jack Boyle, however, told Radio NZ yesterday “we’re desperately hoping” to avoid further strikes. NZEI’s Lynda Stuart declared “none of us want to take strike action at all.” In recent interviews, neither union leader referred to the teachers’ original pay claims, indicating they will settle for much less.

Yesterday’s protests reflected growing anger toward the Labour government over its refusal to address the crisis facing teachers and schools. At parliament, thousands of protesters demanded that Education Minister Chris Hipkins come outside to face them, chanting “Come out, Chris!” When Hipkins emerged, he declared that the “teacher shortage … was not of this government’s making” and added: “I acknowledge that you want more progress and you want it to be faster and I cannot offer you that.”

Hipkins’ speech was almost drowned out by booing and angry shouts of “Not good enough!” “Pay us what we’re worth!” and “Shame on you!”

NZEI negotiator Tute Porter-Samuels tried to defuse the anger. Lamenting that there was “such a divide” between teachers and the government, she said: “We completely understand that the issues we are faced with today are not of the current government’s doing. And we know, Minister Hipkins, that education means a lot to you and that you want to see the best education for our children. We are in agreement on that.” She asked the government to “please come to the negotiation table” with “an open mind.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who spoke outside parliament to feign support for primary teachers during their initial strike last August, this time remained inside. Instead, she posted a Facebook video from her office, saying “unfortunately” teachers’ demands could not be met because the government had to “juggle so many demands,” including “mental health and wellbeing” and “homelessness.”

In fact, the claim that there is “no more money” has been used to justify the refusal to address the social crisis in every area, despite the government presenting a $5.5 billion surplus last year. It has refused to increase taxes on the rich to fund public services, while funneling billions of dollars to the military. The $1.2 billion over four years offered to teachers is less than the $2.3 billion allocated to pay for four new war planes.

The crisis in schools is the result of more than a decade of attacks by both National and Labour Party governments. The unions have collaborated by suppressing resistance to an effective wage freeze and school closures during the 2000s and following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Before last year’s strikes, NZEI had not called a stoppage since 1994.

There is strong support for teachers throughout the working class. A Facebook group established by parents called “I back the teachers!” has quickly grown to more than 10,000 members. Adria commented there yesterday: “Teachers will have to default on rent and not eat to be taken seriously. You’ll have to walk off the job indefinitely until [the government] comes to the party. One day won’t do it... It’s time for an indefinite strike.”

Scott, a single parent who attended the Wellington strike with his daughter to support her teacher, told the WSWS: “I’ve seen the effort he goes to, spending his own money for kids to have resources. All the people that do the most, like teachers and nurses, are undervalued.” He did not think the government understood “the seriousness of it: teachers leaving their jobs because they feel undervalued. It’s genuinely sad.”

Nik, a teacher with more than 30 years’ experience at primary and secondary schools, said “conditions have got worse.” Wages had not improved in more than a decade. “For the government to say there’s no money is just a blatant lie,” he said.

Part of the Wellington protest

Nik explained that teachers had to deal with the consequences of growing poverty: “Behavioural and learning disabilities have all increased, the number of incidents of violence has increased, the number of children coming to school hungry, the number of kids without shoes or raincoats has increased.

“Teachers are also spending more time on assessment than they are teaching,” he said. Many did large amounts of unpaid work on weekends and evenings. “The salaries are so low. There are graduates with four-year degrees with over $100,000 in debt. You can’t save for a mortgage.” Nik said he would support more strikes until teachers’ demands were met.

The hangman of the Middle East: US-backed regime in Egypt hands down nearly 2,500 death sentences

Bill Van Auken

Egypt’s US-backed dictatorship of Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has sentenced 2,443 people to death since coming to power in a bloody coup in 2013, according to a report issued this week by the UK-based human rights group Reprieve.

Of those sentenced to die by hanging, 2,008, or 82 percent of the total, were convicted of political offenses.

A death penalty index tracking the use of the death penalty in Egypt and identifying those faced with execution recorded cases up until September 23, 2018, when 77 of those on the country’s teeming death row faced imminent execution as a result of convictions in criminal trials. Since then, at least six of them have been put to death.

Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah al-Sisi

In total, 144 people have been executed by the Egyptian regime over the past five years. This compares to a single execution carried out between the 2011 revolution that overthrew the 30-year-long US-backed dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak and the July 3, 2013, coup led by General Sisi against the elected government of President Mohammed Morsi. During this same interval, a total of 152 death sentences were recommended by the Egyptian courts, compared to the nearly 2,500 issued since.

The death sentences have, in many cases, been handed down in mass trials in which defendants are brought before drumhead military tribunals in which they are denied all of the elementary rights to a fair trial including the right to present an individual defense, representation by legal counsel and the ability to call or examine witnesses.

The assembly line of state murder in Egypt begins with arbitrary arrest followed by a period of “enforced disappearance” in which prisoners are held incommunicado without charges and subjected to hideous torture until submitting to signing a confession. They are then brought into cages in military courts alongside dozens if not hundreds of others.

Under the regime’s “Assembly Law,” unlimited numbers of defendants can be tried together on the theory that they were involved in a “joint enterprise” in the alleged commission of a crime by a single individual. This has allowed the handing down of the death penalty for thousands of people whose sole crime has been to participate in peaceful protests against the regime.

Children have been subjected to this same treatment, tried for their lives alongside adults. The Reprieve report found that at least 12 of those condemned to hang were children at the time of their arrests, rounded up, tried and sentenced in flagrant violation of international law. Thousands of such children have been unlawfully arrested since the 2013 coup.

Among them is Ahmed Saddouma, who was dragged from his bed and taken from his family’s home on the outskirts of Cairo by Egyptian police in March 2015. He was held incommunicado for 80 days as his parents desperately searched for him. During that time, he was subjected to continuous torture, savagely beaten with metal bars and electrocuted all over his body until he signed a false confession.

Ahmed Saddouma, dragged away by police at the age of 17 and sentenced to die

“It is a political trial based on trumped-up charges,” the boy’s father, Khaled Mostafa Saddouma, told Middle East Eye. “I saw marks of torture on his body, which he said happened during interrogations.”

Even though the crime to which he confessed, the attempted assassination of a judge, took place three weeks after he had been seized by the police, he was convicted and sentenced to death in a mass trial of 30 people. It appears that his only real “crime” was participating in a protest together with fellow members of a group of football fans known as the Ultras.

Also sentenced to die for a crime he was alleged to have committed at the age of 17 and while a high school student is Karim Hemeida Youssef, whose June 22 sentencing was not included in the data compiled by Reprieve.

Arrested in January 2016, he also was subjected to “enforced disappearance” for 42 days during which he was tortured into confessing to taking part in an attack on a Cairo hotel.

“When he denied the charges, a security officer electrocuted him repeatedly all over his body until he was forced to confess,” his father told Middle East Eye .

At least 32 women have also been condemned to death under Sisi’s reign, according to Reprieve.

The abysmal conditions in Egypt’s prisons are claiming more victims than the hangman’s noose. Since the coming to power of Sisi, at least 60,000 people have been imprisoned on political charges, jailed under hellish conditions of severe overcrowding, lack of sanitation and denial of medical care.

Defendants in mass trial

According to the London-based Arab Organization for Human Rights, nearly 800 detainees have died in Egyptian jails since the 2013 coup, most as the result of medical negligence.

“Egyptian prisons have turned into execution compounds taking the lives of their detainees by denying them the right to the medical care they need and providing a fertile environment for diseases and epidemics to spread inside the detention centers due to the lack of hygiene, pollution and overcrowding,” the group said.

It said that there had been 20 such deaths so far in 2019, including 15 detainees charged based on their political opposition to the regime.

Egyptian security forces, meanwhile, are carrying out violent repression against the civilian population in the northern Sinai Peninsula that amounts to war crimes, according to a report issued on Tuesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The 134-page report documents arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, extra-judicial killings, and mass evictions, as well as air and ground assaults against civilian populations.

The report states that children as young as 12 have been rounded up in mass sweeps of the region and held in secret prisons.

The area is subject to a demilitarization treaty between Egypt and Israel, but the Israeli government has not only allowed a massive Egyptian military deployment, ostensibly in a campaign to eradicate the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), but has itself participated in airstrikes in the region.

The HRW report called upon the US government to “halt all military and security assistance to Egypt,” while indicating that Washington’s support for the regime implicated it in war crimes.

Washington is the foremost backer of the blood-stained dictatorship in Cairo, with the US Congress approving the Trump administration’s request for $3 billion in aid to the Sisi regime, with another $1.4 billion in the pipeline for 2020.

This aid has gone to the purchase of F-16 fighter jets, M1A1 Abrams battle tanks, Apache attack helicopters and Humvees, all of which have been unleashed upon the population of the Sinai Peninsula. Also included in this package are cluster bomb munitions, banned by most countries because of their lethal effects on civilian populations and, in particular, children.

The US Central Command has also resumed “Operation Bright Star,” a major military exercise begun under the Mubarak dictatorship, which focuses on training Egyptian forces for “irregular warfare.”

The US State Department dismissed the HRW report, insisting that US military aid had “long played a central role in Egypt’s economic and military development, and in furthering regional stability.” It added that the assistance was aimed at “countering the Iranian regime’s dangerous activities” in the region.

The US military’s aid to Egypt’s armed forces have implicated it in war crimes

Similarly, a Pentagon spokesman insisted that “The US strategic military-to-military relationship with Egypt remains unchanged.”

US President Donald Trump, who praised General Sisi during his visit last month to the White House for doing “a fantastic job in a very difficult situation,” has since announced that he will formally brand the Muslim Brotherhood, which backed the overthrown Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, as a “terrorist organization.”

This classification of an organization that Washington utilized over a long period in the Middle East to counter the influence of socialist and left-nationalist political forces has the sole purpose of legitimizing the mass murder being carried out by the Egyptian regime.

Washington backs Sisi precisely because of his role in ruthlessly suppressing the revolutionary movement of workers and young people that toppled Mubarak in 2011 and threatened to spread throughout the region, undermining the strategic interests of US imperialism.

The police state repression undertaken by the Cairo regime with Washington’s backing is only postponing a revolutionary reckoning with the Egyptian working class. Under conditions in which 40 percent of the population subsists on less than $2 a day, while inflation and the elimination of subsidies to meet the demands of the IMF are slashing the living standards of masses of workers, a new eruption of class battles is inevitable.

Workers who rose up in the textile mill towns of the Nile Delta, the Egyptian ports and in Cairo itself to overthrow Mubarak, will be impelled once again onto the road of struggle. The lessons of the betrayal of the Egyptian revolution of 2011 must be assimilated and a new revolutionary leadership built in the working class as a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International.

Yoti Fellowship Programme 2019 for Community Change Activists

Application Deadline: 15th June, 2019.

Eligible Countries: International

About the Award: Through a global competitive process, each year Yoti invites applications for three 12-month Fellowships aimed at scholars, practitioners, journalists, technologists, social changemakers, policy makers and other public intellectuals interested in tackling an identity, or digital identity, challenge or issue within their country or community. Fellows conduct research, or develop solutions or policy recommendations, while interacting with other Fellows, Yoti staff and other members of the wider global digital identity community

Fields of Research: We are primarily interested in issues, challenges and opportunities for digital identity in a local context. More specifically, we invite applications which focus on any of the following thematic areas.

• Unlocking the challenges of providing and managing identity solutions among refugee, migrant, marginalised or economically exploited communities or individuals.
• Studying the difficulties experienced by indigenous communities in establishing and proving identity, as well as claiming any state benefits they may be eligible for.
• Unpicking what ‘digital identity’ and identity more broadly means to communities in developing countries (including those living in or close to the last mile) and the NGOs and local organisations providing services to them.
• Any other issues which warrant investigation which are not yet part of the wider digital identity debate.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Applicants may be based anywhere, although preference will be given to those from the developing world. A short concept note will be required along with a current CV and the names of at least one referee. This is so we can be confident that the Fellow is qualified and able to deliver on their proposal.

Selection: A selection panel made up of digital identity, technology, social scientists, activists and other experts will decide on the successful applicants. Details of the panel are available in the application pack.

Number of Awards: 3

Value of Award: Yoti Fellowship Program Fellows will be supported with a generous payment of £30,000 (approximately US$38,000) paid in equal installments over the course of the year, and receive logistical and technical support from Yoti. A small budget for project travel and other expenses up to a maximum of £5,000 will also be available. All work produced will be made publicly and freely available on completion of the Fellowship.

Duration of Award: 12 months

How to Apply: 

• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying

Visit Award Webpage for Details