Offering Choice but Delivering Tyranny: The Corporate Capture of Agriculture

Colin Todhunter

Many lobbyists talk a lot about critics of genetic engineering technology denying choice to farmers. They say that farmers should have access to a range of tools and technologies to maximise choice and options. At the same time, somewhat ironically, they decry organic agriculture and proven agroecological approaches, presumably because these practices have no need for the proprietary inputs of the global agrochemical/agritech corporations they are in bed with. And presumably because agroecology represents liberation from the tyranny of these profiteering, environment-damaging global conglomerates.

It is fine to talk about ‘choice’ but we do not want to end up offering a false choice (rolling out technologies that have little value and only serve to benefit those who control the technology), to unleash an innovation that has an adverse impact on others or to manipulate a situation whereby only one option is available because other options have been deliberately removed. And we would certainly not wish to roll out a technology that traps farmers on a treadmill that they find difficult to get off.

Surely, a responsible approach for rolling out important (potentially transformative) technologies would have to consider associated risks, including social, economic and health impacts.

Take the impact of the Green Revolution in India, for instance. Sold on the promise that hybrid seeds and associated chemical inputs would enhance food security on the basis of higher productivity, agriculture was transformed, especially in Punjab. But to gain access to seeds and chemicals many farmers had to take out loans and debt became (and remains) a constant worry. Many became impoverished and social relations within rural communities were radically altered: previously, farmers would save and exchange seeds but now they became dependent on unscrupulous money lenders, banks and seed manufacturers and suppliers. Vandana Shiva in ‘The Violence of the Green Revolution‘ (1989) describes the social marginalisation and violence that accompanied the process.

On a macro level, the Green Revolution conveniently became tied to an international (neo-colonial) system of trade based on chemical-dependent agro-export mono-cropping linked to loans, sovereign debt repayment and World Bank/IMF structural adjustment (privatisation/deregulation) directives. Many countries in the Global South were deliberately turned into food deficit regions, dependent on (US) agricultural imports and strings-attached aid.

The process led to the massive displacement of the peasantry and, according to the academics Eric Holt-Giménez et al, (Food rebellions: Crisis and the hunger for Justice, 2009), the consolidation of the global agri-food oligopolies and a shift in the global flow of food: developing countries produced a billion-dollar yearly surplus in the 1970s; they were importing $11 billion a year by 2004.

And it’s not as though the Green Revolution delivered on its promises. In India, it merely led to more wheat in the diet, while food productivity per capita showed no increased or even actually decreased (see ‘New Histories of the Green Revolution‘ by Glenn Stone). And, as described by Bhaskar Save in his open letter (2006) to officials, it had dire consequences for diets, the environment, farming, health and rural communities.

The ethics of the Green Revolution – at least it was rolled out with little consideration for these impacts – leave much to be desired.

As the push to drive GM crops into India’s fields continues (the second coming of the green revolution – the gene revolution), we should therefore take heed. To date, the track record of GMOs is unimpressive, but the adverse effects on many smallholder farmers are already apparent (see ‘Hybrid Bt cotton: a stranglehold on subsistence farmers in India’ by A P Gutierrez).

Aside from looking at the consequences of technology roll outs, we should, when discussing choice, also account for the procedures and decisions that were made which resulted in technologies coming to market in the first place.

Steven Druker, in his book ‘Altered Genes, Twisted Truth’, argues that the decision to commercialise GM seeds and food in the US amounted to a subversion of processes put in place to serve the public interest. The result has been a technology roll out which could result (is resulting) in fundamental changes to the genetic core of the world’s food. This decision ultimately benefited Monsanto’s bottom line and helped the US gain further leverage over global agriculture.

We must therefore put glib talk of the denial of technology by critics to one side if we are to engage in a proper discussion of choice. Any such discussion would account for the nature of the global food system and the dynamics and policies that shape it. This would include looking at how global corporations have captured the policy agenda for agriculture, including key national and international policy-making bodies, and the role of the WTO and World Bank.

Choice is also about the options that could be made available, but which have been closed off or are not even considered. In Ethiopia, for example, agroecology has been scaled up across the entire Tigray region, partly due to enlightened political leaders and the commitment of key institutions.

However, in places where global agribusiness/agritech corporations have leveraged themselves into strategic positions, their interests prevail. From the false narrative that industrial agriculture is necessary to feed the world to providing lavish research grants and the capture of important policy-making institutions, these firms have secured a thick legitimacy within policymakers’ mindsets and mainstream discourse. As a result, agroecological approaches are marginalised and receive scant attention and support.

Monsanto had a leading role in drafting the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights to create seed monopolies. The global food processing industry wrote the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. Whether it involves Codex or the US-India Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture aimed at restructuring (destroying) Indian agriculture, the powerful agribusiness/food lobby has secured privileged access to policy makers and sets the policy agenda.

From the World Bank’s ‘enabling the business of agriculture’ to the Gates Foundation’s role in opening up African agriculture to global food and agribusiness oligopolies, democratic procedures at sovereign state levels are being bypassed to impose seed monopolies and proprietary inputs on farmers and to incorporate them into a global supply chain dominated by powerful corporations.

We have the destruction of indigenous farming in Africa as well as the ongoing dismantling of Indian agriculture and the deliberate impoverishment of Indian farmers at the behest of transnational agribusiness. Where is the democratic ‘choice’? It has been usurped by corporate-driven Word Bank bondage (India is its biggest debtor in the bank’s history) and by a trade deal with the US that sacrificed Indian farmers for the sake of developing its nuclear sector.

Similarly, ‘aid’ packages for Ukraine – on the back of a US-supported coup – are contingent on Western corporations taking over strategic aspects of the economy. And agribusiness interests are at the forefront. Something which neoliberal apologists are silent on as they propagandise about choice, and democracy.

Ukraine’s agriculture sector is being opened up to Monsanto/Bayer. Iraq’s seed laws were changed to facilitate the entry of Monsanto. India’s edible oils sector was undermined to facilitate the entry of Cargill. And Bayer’s hand is possibly behind the ongoing strategy to commercialise GM mustard in India. Whether on the back of militarism, secretive trade deals or strings-attached loans, global food and agribusiness conglomerates secure their interests and have scant regard for choice or democracy.

The ongoing aim is to displace localised, indigenous methods of food production and allow transnational companies to take over, tying farmers and regions to a system of globalised production and supply chains dominated by large agribusiness and retail interests. Global corporations with the backing of their host states, are taking over food and agriculture nation by nation.

Many government officials, the media and opinion leaders take this process as a given. They also accept that (corrupt) profit-driven transnational corporations have a legitimate claim to be owners and custodians of natural assets (the ‘commons’). There is the premise that water, seeds, food, soil and agriculture should be handed over to these conglomerates to milk for profit, under the pretence these entities are somehow serving the needs of humanity.

Ripping land from peasants and displacing highly diverse and productive smallholder agriculture, rolling out very profitable but damaging technologies, externalising the huge social, environmental and health costs of the prevailing neoliberal food system and entire nations being subjected to the policies outlined above: how is any of it serving the needs of humanity?

It is not. Food is becoming denutrified, unhealthy and poisoned with chemicals and diets are becoming less diverse. There is a loss of plant and insect diversity, which threatens food security, soils are being degraded, water tables polluted and depleted and millions of smallholder farmers, so vital to global food production, are being pushed into debt in places like India and squeezed off their land and out of farming.

It is time to place natural assets under local ownership and to develop them in the public interest according to agroecological principles. This involves looking beyond the industrial yield-output paradigm and adopting a systems approach to food and agriculture that accounts for local food security and sovereignty, cropping patterns to ensure diverse nutrition production per acre, water table stability and good soil structure. It also involves pushing back against the large corporations that hold sway over the global food system and more generally challenging the leverage that private capital has over all our lives.

That’s how you ensure liberation from tyranny and support genuine choice.

Can Modi save India from a looming disaster?

 Mike Ghouse

        The early warning signals are blaring, and a disaster is in the making. It will tear the nation apart severely impairing the economic prosperity gained in the last twenty years. Terrorism in the likes of Afghanistan was never a part of India, but the conditions are ripe to give birth to it. The United States has much to lose, first the huge investments made by Americans, and most importantly losing the imaginary bulwark America has made India be against the expansion of communism.

Modi can save India if he listens to the sane voices and restores the rule of law, and freedom to every Indian to pursue his/her life, liberty, and happiness. The downfall can be reversed, provided Modi sees the full picture.

Let’s picture an ideal society that functions cohesively, where each member of the community feels secure about his/her income, business, faith, culture, language, and ethnicity. When one is free from tensions and fears, he or she will be super productive and enriches his community. Indeed, the prosperity of a nation is directly proportional to its freedom, in the case of India, it is religious freedom. The economic success of the United States is directly attributable to freedom. One should be free to eat, drink, wear, think, speak, and believe whatever the individual wants in the pursuit of his/her happiness.

That’s the central lesson of the “2008 Index of Economic Freedom,” released by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. “A country-by-country survey of how free people are worldwide to direct their economic fortunes; the Index repeatedly demonstrates the vital link between freedom and prosperity. In simple words, the freer the people are, the more an economy grows — and the more everyone benefits.”

Gill and Owen in a paper “Religious Liberty and Economic prosperity,” write in a Cato Publication, “A casual glance suggests nations that have developed strong legal guarantees of religious freedom are also ones that have had long-term sustained economic growth (Grim and Finke 2011).”

The reality is grim – the Indian Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, moderate Hindus, and Dalits are not feeling secure. Every day is laden with tensions, and everyone is apprehensive about walking alone on the street lest he/she be beaten, harassed, raped, or even lynched. Lynching is not only on beef pretext but clearly demanding to renounce one’s religion.

Let this be clear; the innocent majorities believe that everyone around them is treated fairly and equitably as they are treated. Neither the moderate white majority understands the fear a black man feels when he sits behind the wheel to go to work, nor does the moderate Hindu majority understands the concern a Muslim, Christian or a Dalit man or a woman feels walking alone on a given street in Modi’s India.

The number of Muslims and Dalits who are sacrificed number over 115 now. Muslims are afraid to get out on the street, lest someone lynches them for the suspicion of carrying beef. Recently, a woman was hung to a tree and beaten non-stop while a crowd gathered around and watched the shameless act. An individual was hacked to death with bare stones and ax in public, and they videotaped the gory murder for the world to watch. A Dalit man was chased and set on fire this week. Does Modi recognize the ruthless, mindless, and violent new generation of Indians he is fostering, is that the kind of Indians he wishes for India?

Last year, the men who gang-raped and brutally murdered a six-year-old girl in a Hindu temple were greeted with garlands by Modi’s men as if they were heroes. Two years ago, Chief Minister Yogi stood on the podium next to a man who announced to the extremists to dig out dead Muslim women from the graves and rape them.

Indian Muslim must be appreciated; they have shown extraordinary resilience and patience. Despite the lynching’s and injustices, they have not resorted to violence, unlike their counterparts in other nations. Presidents Bush, Obama, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have appreciated Indian Muslims. It is time for Modi to do the same and stop the growing discord. If the thinks he can remain silent while his men harass and subjugate nearly 1/3rd of Indians comprising Muslims, Dalits, and Christians, he is wrong. He will destroy India and American Interests.

There is a limit to pushing, harassing, and lynching, and it needs to be stopped before it blows up.

What if Indian Muslims, Christians, and Dalits cannot take it anymore and resort to violence? What will happen to the economy, investments from overseas, and the political stability of the nation? Every Indian will live in hell should that happen.  No Indian will leave in peace, Modi can save India or let it be destroyed from within.

Prime Minister Modi’s party lives in the past. The RSS wants to get even with Muslims of Independent India for the acts committed by a king or two some three hundred years ago. If the facts matter to Modi, almost all the kings of yesteryears, be it Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh or Christian expanded their territories by killing the resisting neighbors. None of them ruled for the sake of religion but for their own gain, they cleverly duped the people then, as well as now.

The Muslims of independent India should be held accountable for the acts they commit as any other Indian citizen would. Should one be punished for the actions of his grandfather or even father?

I hope Modi restores the rule of law and prevents India from getting a certificate of Particular Concern by the Department of State? Would the conscientious mega-corporations and investors continue to partner with India or hold back for lack of stability?  In that case, the ultimate losers are the Hindu businesses and individuals who have seen prosperity in the last two decades, all will be gone.

If Modi cannot change the mindset of the mobs, no one can.  All he has to do is frequently and boldly announce that anyone who harasses another Indian will meet severe punishment and he means it.  The action should follow the words. That is all it takes to save India from going into chaos. Would Modi do it?

Gandhi’s Contribution To Communal Harmony

Sandeep Pandey

It is well known that Mahatma Gandhi began his meetings with a all faith prayer – reciting portions from various religious texts. Gandhi was a firm believer in the idea of communal harmony. From his childhood as he used to nurse his father, he got an opportunity to listen to his father’s friends, belonging to different religions including Islam and Zoroastrian, about their faith. Interestingly, he was biased against Christianity as he heard some preachers criticise Hindu Gods and believed that drinking and eating beef were integral part of this religion. It was much later in England when a Christian, who was a teetotaler and vegetarian, encouraged him to read Bible, that Gandhi gave a serious thought to this religion. Once he started reading Bible, especially the New Testament, he was enthralled and particularly liked the idea that ‘if somebody slaps you on the right cheek, offer your left cheek.’

Even before reading Bible he had got this idea from perusal of different religious texts that evil should not be countered with evil but by good. He was exposed to different religions but he doubts whether he was a believer in his childhood. In spite of this he was of the firm view that all religions deserve equal respect. Hence seeds of communal harmony were sown even at a young age for him. In fact, he became more atheist after reading Manu Smriti as it supported non-vegetarianism. The essential learning he imbibed from these religious texts was that this world survives on principles and principles are subsumed in truth. Thus from his childhood truth was highly held value which became the basis for living his life and various actions that ensued.

It is ironical that Gandhi, who is wrongly accused of having supported partition of the country, whereas in reality it was people like famous poet Iqbal and fundamentalist Hindus like Savarkar who made public pronouncements supporting the idea of two nation theory, is questioned by the fundamentalist Hindus for not having undertaken a fast to prevent partition of the country? The fact is decision about partition was taken by Mountbatten, Nehru, Patel and Jinnah by marginalising Gandhi and he was only informed of the decision as a fait accompli. Had Gandhi supported the idea of partition why would he choose to remain absent from the ceremonies of transfer of power from the British to India and Pakistan? When India was becoming independent Gandhi was fasting in Noakhali to stop communal riots.

In fact, Gandhi realised and he had publicly expressed his frustration on people not heeding to his advice of practicing tolerance, non-violence and communal harmony. The only role he could play was to bring moral pressure on people to desist from communal thought and violent action. He undertook a fast in Delhi in January 1948 upon returning from Bengal. This fast was in support of minorities – Muslims in India and Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan. Hindu fundamentalists were furious and tried to defame him by spreading a rumour that he was fasting to force Indian government to give Rs. 55 crores to Pakistan, which was actually due to them as part of an agreement on division of assets of Government of undivided India with Mountbatten, it received positive response from Muslims in India and Pakistan. He was hailed in Pakistan as one man in both countries who was willing to sacrifice his life for Hindu-Muslim unity.

Some people say that Gandhi could not speak in harsh terms to Muslims as he could to Hindus and hence practised Muslim appeasement. This is also not true. During his fasts he convinced nationalist Muslims visiting him to condemn the treatment of minorities in Pakistan as un-Islamic and unethical. He beseeched Pakistan to put an end to all violence against minorities there if it wanted the State in India to protect the rights of minorities here. When some Muslims brought rusted arms as a proof to him that they had given up violence, probably out of concern for him so that he could give up his fast, he chastised them and asked them to cleanse their hearts instead.

Gandhi’s towering personality could contain communal violence to some extent. His assassination had a more dramatic impact and brought all such violence to an end. The ban on Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh by Sardar Patel also helped. But four decades later the communal politics raised its fangs again when Babri Masjid was demolished in Ayodhya. What followed is a downward slide of the nation into communal frenzy. For the first time a right wing party practising outright communal politics is in power with full majority at the centre and in most states of the country, incidents of mob lynching on suspicion of Muslims having partaken beef, their marginalisation in social, economic and political life, treating them as second rate citizens are the new normal. Majoritarian thinking, which is contrary to the idea of democracy, is dominating and the minds of people have been communalised as never before in the history of the country. The communal politics has brought out the worst in us.

It appears that the seed of communalism was buried is us. Probably seeds of good and bad both are buried in us. The atmosphere in which we grow will determine which thinking will flower. Communal politics in the post-Babri Masjid demolition era fanned communal thinking and it started dominating. By this time the generation influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas and who had seen Gandhi in flesh and blood was on its way out. Hence thought and practice of communal harmony waned.

I was once invited by a respected gentleman belonging to Jamat-e-Islami for a meeting on communal harmony. I told him that if he was inviting me as a representative of Hindu religion then he should rethink about it as I was an atheist. He opined that I need not come for the meeting. I argued with him that only an atheist can truly practice the concept of communal harmony because he is equidistant from all religions. Anybody practising a faith would always be more attached to his religion. Hence it appears that we have not even given a serious thought to what communal harmony is all about and have paid only a lip service to the idea. No wonder we have landed is such a messy situation today.

Suddenly West Is Failing To Overthrow “Regimes”

Andre Vltchek 

It used to be done regularly and it worked: The West identified a country as its enemy, unleashed its professional propaganda against it, then administered a series of sanctions, starving and murdering children, the elderly and other vulnerable groups. If the country did not collapse within months or just couple of years, the bombing would begin. And the nation, totally shaken, in pain, and in disarray, would collapse like a house of cards, once the first NATO boots hit its ground.

Such scenarios were re-enacted, again and again, from Yugoslavia to Iraq.

But suddenly, something significant has happened. This horrific lawlessness, this chaos stopped; was deterred.

The West keeps using the same tactics, it tries to terrorize independent-minded countries, to frighten people into submission, to overthrow what it defines as ‘regimes’, but its power, its monstrously destructive power has all of a sudden become ineffective.

It hits, and the attacked nation shakes, screams, sheds blood, but keeps standing, keeps proudly erect.

*

What we are experiencing is a great moment in human history. Imperialism has not yet been defeated, but it is losing its global grip on power.

Now we have to clearly understand ‘Why?’, so we can continue our struggle, with even greater determination, with even greater effectiveness.

First of all, by now we know that the West cannot fight. It can spend trillions on ‘defense’, it can build nuclear bombs, ‘smart missiles’ and strategic warplanes. But it is too cowardly, too spoiled to risk the lives of its soldiers. It either kills remotely, or by using regional mercenaries. Whenever it becomes clear that the presence of its troops would be required, it backs up.

Secondly, it, the West, is totally horrified of the fact that there are now two super-powerful countries – China and Russia – which are unwilling to abandon their allies. Washington and London do all they can to smear Russia and to intimidate China. Russia is being provoked continuously: by propaganda, by military bases, sanctions and by new and newer bizarre mass media inventions that depict it as the villain in all imaginable circumstances. China has been provoked practically and insanely, ‘on all fronts’ – from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and the so-called ‘Uyghur Issue’, to trade.

Any strategy that could weaken these two countries, is applied. Yet, Russia and China do not crumble. They do not surrender. And they do not abandon their friends. Instead, they are building great railroads in Africa and Asia, they educate people from almost all poor and desperate countries, and stand by those who are being terrorized by both North America and Europe.

Thirdly, all the countries in the world are now clearly aware of what would happen to them, if they give up and get ‘liberated’ by the Western empire. Iraq, Honduras, Indonesia, Libya and Afghanistan, are the ‘best’ examples. Submitting themselves to the West, countries can only expect misery, absolute collapse and the ruthless extraction of their resources. The poorest country in Asia – Afghanistan – has totally collapsed under NATO occupation.

The suffering and pain of the Afghan and Iraqi people is very well known to the citizens of Iran and Venezuela. They are not giving up, because no matter how tough their life is under sanctions and the West-administered terror, they are well-aware of the fact that things could get worse, much worse, if their countries were to be occupied and governed by the Washington and London-injected maniacs.

And everyone knows the fate of the people living in Palestine or Gollan Heights, places which have been overrun by the closest ally of the West in the Middle East, Israel.

*

Of course, there are other reasons why the West cannot get any of its adversaries to kneel.

One is – that the toughest ones are left. Russia, Cuba, China, North Korea (DPRK), Iran, Syria and Venezuela are not going to run away from the battlefield. These are the most determined nations on earth. These are the countries that have already lost thousands, millions, even tens of millions of their people, in the fight against Western imperialism and colonialism.

If one is following the latest attacks of the West carefully, the scenario is pathetic, almost grotesque: Washington and often the EU, too, are trying hard; they are hitting, they are spending billions of dollars, using the local mercenaries (or call it ‘local opposition’), and then they quickly withdraw after wretched but anticipated defeat. So far, Venezuela has survived. Syria survived. Iran survived. China is fighting horrible Western-backed subversions, but it is proudly surviving. Russia is standing tall.

This is a tremendous moment in human history. For the first time, Western imperialism is being not only defeated, but fully unveiled and humiliated. Many are now laughing at it, openly.

But we should not celebrate, yet. We should understand what and why this is happening, and then continue fighting. There are many, many battles ahead us. But we are on the right track.

Let them try. We know how to fight. We know how to prevail. We have already fought fascism, in many of its forms. We know what freedom is. Their ‘freedom’ is not our freedom. Their ‘liberty’ is not our liberty. What they call ‘democracy’ is not how we want our people to rule and to be ruled. Let them go away; we, our people, do not want them!

They cannot overthrow our systems, because they are, precisely our systems! Systems that we want, that our people want;systems we are ready to fight and die for!

Diverging Gulf responses to Kashmir and Xinjiang ripple across Asia

James M. Dorsey

Recent diametrically opposed responses to repression of Muslims by China, India and other Asian countries highlight deep differences among Gulf states that ripple across Asia.

The different responses were evident in Gulf reactions to India’s unilateral withdrawal of Kashmir’s autonomy and Qatar’s reversal of its support of China’s brutal clampdown on Turkic Muslims in its troubled, north-western province of Xinjiang.

The divergence says much about the almost decade-long fundamentally different approaches by Qatar and its main detractors, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, towards an emerging more illiberal new world order in which minority rights are trampled upon.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia lead a more than two-year-long economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar in a so far-failed attempt to force the Gulf state to alter its policies.

The feud and divergence reflect the Gulf states’ different efforts to manoeuvre an environment in which the United States has sent mixed signals about its commitment to Gulf security and China and Russia are seeking to muscle into US dominance of the region.

In what was perhaps the most surprising indication of differences in the Gulf, Qatar appeared to reverse its tacit acquiescence in China’s clampdown, involving the incarceration in re-education camps of an estimated one million predominantly Turkic Uyghur Muslims.

Qatar did so by withdrawing from a letter it initially signed together with dozens of others countries expressing support for China’s human-rights record despite its clampdown in Xinjiang.

In a letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Ali Al-Mansouri, Qatar’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, advised the council that “taking into account our focus on compromise and mediation, we believe that co-authorizing the aforementioned letter would compromise our foreign policy key priorities. In this regard, we wish to maintain a neutral stance and we offer our mediation and facilitation services.”

Signatories of the letter included Qatar’s detractors – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt – as well as Kuwait and Oman, who together with the feuding Gulf states are part of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The withdrawal coincided with a US warning that kowtowing to China’s “desire to erode US military advantages” in the Middle East by using its “economic leverage and coercion” and “intellectual property theft and acquisition” could undermine defence co-operation with the United States.

“Many investments are beneficial, but we’re concerned countries’ economic interests may blind them to the negative implications of some Chinese investments, including impact on joint defence co-operation with the United States,” said Michael Mulroy, the US Defence Department’s top official responsible for the Gulf.

The Qatari move also came against the backdrop of the Gulf state, home to the largest US base in the region, being the only country and the greater Middle East to host an expansion rather than a reduction of US facilities and forces. Qatar is believed to have funded the expansion to the tune of US$1.8 billion.

The United States has withdrawn some of its forces from Syria and is negotiating with the Taliban a US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, Qatar, an enlightened autocracy that has yet to implement at home what it preaches abroad, was unlikely to reap the full soft power benefits in liberal Western democracies of its withdrawal from the pro-Chinese letter despite Uyghur and human rights activists welcoming its move.

It was unclear what prompted the Qatari change of heart that followed an incident last month at Doha’s Hamad International Airport that drove home the limits of China’s ability to flex its financial, economic and political muscles to control the fallout of its clampdown beyond its borders.

The limits were evident when Ablikim Yusuf, a 53-year old Uyghur Muslim seeking protection from potential Chinese persecution, landed at the airport. After initially intending to deport Mr. Yusuf to Beijing at China’s request, Qatar reversed course.

But rather than granting Mr. Yusuf asylum under its newly adopted asylum law, the Gulf’s first, Qatar gave him the time to seek refuge elsewhere. Even that was in sharp contrast to countries like Egypt and Turkey that have either deported Uyghurs or entertained the possibility.

As a result, Qatar’s withdrawal drove one more wedge into the Muslim world’s almost wall-to-wall refusal to criticize China for what amounts to the most frontal assault on a faith in recent history.

Turkey, Qatar’s ally in its dispute with Gulf states, as well as the Turkic republics of Central Asia have been walking a tightrope, attempting to balance relations with China and domestic public criticism of Chinese policy in Xinjiang.

Kazakhstan this month silenced a detained Kazakh rights activist of Uyghur descent by forcing him to plead guilty to a hate speech charge and abandon his activism and public criticism of China in exchange for securing his freedom.

The Qatari withdrawal complicates the Turkish and Central Asian balancing act and strengthens the position of the United States that is locked into multiple trade and other disputes with China.

The withdrawal and the US criticism of Chinese policy in Xinjiang put Muslim states, increasingly selective about what Muslim causes they take up, in an awkward position.

The UAE, in sharp contrast to Qatar, has not only maintained its support of China, but also, alongside Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, ignored requests for support on Kashmir by Pakistan, their long-standing regional Muslim ally.

Adding insult to injury, the three Gulf states are rewarding Indian prime minister Narendra Modi for his undermining of Kashmiri autonomy and imposition of unprecedented, repressive security measures.

Mr Modi is scheduled to travel this week to the United Arab Emirates to receive the country’s highest civilian honour and on to Bahrain for the first-ever visit to that country by a sitting Indian prime minister.

Meanwhile, Saudi national oil company Aramco announced a US$15 billion investment in an Indian oil company as Mr. Modi was clamping down on Kashmir.

For its part, Qatar, has remained largely silent about Kashmir, advising its nationals to leave the region.

If the policy divergences in the Gulf say anything, they suggest that differences among the region’s rivals s as well as in in the greater Middle East are likely to deepen rather than subside.

A study last year by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace concluded that conflict in the region was fuelled by a “dearth of regional communication channels, dispute resolution mechanisms, and norms for warfare as well as a surplus of arms imports.”

There is little on the horizon to suggest that this state of affairs is about to change any time soon.

New human species discovered in the Philippines

Frank Gaglioti 

The discovery of a new human species, Homo luzonensis on the island of Luzon in the Philippines has further highlighted the complexity of human evolution. The findings were published in April in the journal Nature in an article entitled “A new species of Homo from the Late Pleistocene of the Philippines.”

The lead scientist was the archaeologist Armand Mijares from the University of the Philippines, along with scientists from Australia and France.

Mijares found evidence of ancient human activity in the Callao cave located in the north of Luzon in 2003. He was spurred on to dig down to deeper strata after the discovery of Homo floresiensis, commonly referred to the Hobbit due to its diminutive size, on the island of Flores in Indonesia in 2004.

The Callao cave and part of the dig

The breakthrough came in 2007 when Mijares found a foot bone. Subsequent excavations in 2011 and 2015 unearthed two more toe bones, a thigh bone, seven teeth, and two finger bones. The fossils came from two adults and a child and are between 50,000 and 67,000 years old.

“From the beginning, we realised the unusual characteristics of these fossils,” Florent Détroit, a palaeoanthropologist from France’s Musee de l’Homme, told a press briefing. “We completed the comparisons and analyses, and it confirmed that this was something special, unlike any previously described species of hominins in the homo genus,” he said. Hominins include modern humans and all species that are considered ancestral to them.

The scientists conducted a three-dimensional analysis and computer modelling of the bones and found a mixture of modern and more ancient traits. The teeth are relatively small with simple shapes suggesting modern origins, but the upper molar has three roots, an extremely rare trait in modern humans. One of the foot bones is curved, resembling Australopithecines (earlier hominins), and suggesting an arboreal existence as well as walking upright. It is thought that H. luzonensis had a relatively small size, although this is not conclusive due to the lack of larger bones.

Every hominin fossil discovery deepens our understanding of human evolution. It is thought that humans evolved from Australopithecines, known as the southern ape. These emerged in Africa around Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania about four million years ago and are known to have survived to two million years ago. Several Australopithecines have been discovered, including A. afarensis that was able to walk upright but still inhabited trees.

A photo of the excavation

The most famous Australopithecine was Lucy, a representative of Australopithecus afarensis discovered in 1974 by Donald Johanson in Ethiopia. Although Lucy had a relatively small brain, the critical development was that she walked upright, freeing the hands for the use of tools. Features such as speech and increased brain capacity evolved later.

The species that is thought to have evolved from the Australopithecines was Homo habilis, first discovered in Tanzania by the famous Kenyan paleoanthropologist and archaeologist Louis Leakey in 1962 and 1964. H. habilis or “handy man” was a proficient tool maker and was considered to have lived between 2.8 to 1.4 million years ago. The species had a larger brain than A. afarensis.

The next major species to emerge was Homo erectus, or upright man, which was originally discovered in Java in 1886 and existed from 1.89 million years ago to 143,000 years ago. H. erectus had a body structure very similar to modern humans and was known to be able to run considerable distances. The species was associated with the significant invention of hand axes and was the first to migrate out of Africa.

Our species, Homo sapiens, or intelligent man, was thought to have evolved 300,000 years ago. Numerous other Homo species have been discovered, but it is not always straightforward to determine their exact relationships. The ability of scientists to extract DNA from relatively recent fossils has enabled a better estimation of the complex genetic connections.

Neanderthals are considered our closest relative and were known to have existed 400,000 to 40,000 years ago. They had a much stockier body than H. sapiens but a similar sized brain. They had a very sophisticated tool kit and had mastered the use of fire. Some scientists consider them a subspecies of modern humans and have found evidence of interbreeding.

A limited number of bone fragments discovered in Siberia in 2010 have been called Denisovans. A finger bone indicated a robust body structure similar to Neanderthals. Mitochondrial DNA analysis has shown a close similarity to Neanderthals and modern humans. Part of the Denisovan genome is shared with modern humans in South East Asia and Australian Aborigines.

The period that the latest discovery, H. luzonensis, is known to have existed is a complex one for human evolution. Recent discoveries have shown that several hominin species existed contemporaneously, including modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans and H. floresiensis.

A recent study published in Nature in February, “Mosaic dental morphology in a terminal Pleistocene hominin from Dushan Cave” in southern China reported the discovery of atypical H. sapiens fossils that were 15,000 years old with primitive characteristics similar to H. luzonensis and H. floresiensis.

Former Ukrainian President Poroshenko faces charges over corruption and “high treason”

Jason Melanovski & Clara Weiss

Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is facing a range of criminal corruption charges opened by the country’s State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) last month.

The 11 charges were first revealed in July just prior to the parliamentary elections, suggesting that the timing of the accusations was meant to further damage the chances of Poroshenko’s already ailing European Solidarity Party. The party ended up winning just 25 seats compared to 254 for President Volodomyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People Party.

It was later revealed by Roman Truba, the head of the SBI, that Poroshenko was aware of the charges and had already submitted requests to delay questioning by the Bureau for several weeks.

The charges stem from lawsuits filed by lawyer Andriy Portnov, who previously served as a deputy in the administration of Viktor Yanukovych. The latter was toppled in the Western-backed fascist coup in 2014 that brought Poroshenko to power.

Among the multitude of charges being investigated include claims that Poroshenko—a billionaire chocolate manufacturing tycoon—evaded taxes during the sale of a television station and that he spent $500,000 of state money on an illegal and secret personal vacation to the Maldives in January 2018.

Portnov has also claimed that Poroshenko committed high treason by staging a deliberate provocation in the Kerch Strait incident in the Azov Sea November 2018 when 24 Ukrainian sailors aggressively confronted a Russian ship and were later captured. According to Portnov, Poroshenko planned to use the subsequent declaration of martial law to postpone elections, ban opposition parties, and remain in power, a claim that was widely circulated throughout the country prior to the first round of presidential elections in March.

The Ukrainian billionaire Sam Kislin, a former advisor to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, traveled to Ukraine this past week to speak with Ukrainian investigators. Speaking with Ukraine’s Strana.UA news website, Kislin claimed that Poroshenko had siphoned $8 billion in state funds through the state-owned Centerenergo company and the importation of coal from the United States and South Africa at inflated prices. Kislin also claimed that Poroshenko is facing criminal charges in courts in the United States but gave no details.

Poroshenko has already spoken with investigators on several occasions. Each time when leaving the building of the SBI he has been accosted by protesters. Ukrainian courts have given permission to investigators to request that Poroshenko take a lie detector test, which he has so far not consented to.

In addition to the investigation led by the SBI, this week a court in Kiev ordered Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau to open an investigation against Poroshenko and former Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on charges of abuse of power. The government is also investigating the mayor of Kiev, Vitaly Klitschko, a major figurehead in the 2014 coup, for “corruption.”

There is little doubt that Poroshenko, a member of the oligarchic class that enriched itself off the privatization and plundering of state assets, is a criminal. Poroshenko—who was overwhelmingly voted out of office in April—is widely hated and despised by the vast majority of the Ukrainian working-class for his blatant corruption, xenophobic nationalism and far-reaching assaults on living standards during his time in power from 2014 to 2019.

The charges against Poroshenko give an inkling of the depth of criminality in a government that was brought to power by a coup that was fraudulently portrayed as a “democratic revolution” by the imperialist powers and the Western bourgeois media. Now, the same media that portrayed Poroshenko as a warrior of democracy and published article after article about the corruption of Yanukovych, have maintained an almost complete silence.

The Trump administration has been trying to protect the stooge in Kiev who played a critical role in the US-led anti-Russia campaign and war preparations. After the announcement of an investigation into Poroshenko, the US’s special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, held a meeting with the billionaire and other leaders of his European Solidarity Party leaders where they promised to continue to fight for “Ukraine’s interests” against Russia.

Lending his support to Poroshenko, Volker claimed during the meeting that “the last five years had been the most productive over the entire period of independence, both for building the state and for strengthening the partnership between Ukraine and the United States.”

Vesti Ukrain e has also reported that Poroshenko has been using the Washington, D.C., lobbying firm BGR Group, where Volker is a senior advisor, to help convince American lawmakers to support him should he be arrested by the Zelensky government.

The report also raised the possibility that Poroshenko may flee to Washington, as former Georgian President and American-backed stooge Mikhail Saakashvili did when he faced legal prosecution by an incoming opposition government in 2013.

UK Prime Minister Johnson fails to secure Brexit concessions from Germany and France

Robert Stevens

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson left Paris empty-handed Thursday following talks over Brexit with French President Emmanuel Macron. Johnson met Macron after departing Berlin a day earlier, having failed to secure concessions from German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Johnson, who replaced Theresa May as prime minster last month, has staked his premiership on the UK leaving the European Union (EU) on October 31, with or without a deal.

Johnson pleaded with Merkel and Macron to offer him a deal that he can sell to parliament, including the removal of the Irish border backstop that was agreed with May. The backstop is an integral part of the current withdrawal deal and is the EU’s insurance policy against the return, post-Brexit, to a hard border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, and the Irish Republic, which remains an EU member.

While Merkel told Johnson that changes to the deal’s accompanying political declaration could provide a solution, at a later stage, to the backstop dispute, she applied maximum pressure by stating that “maybe we can find that solution in the next 30 days.”

Her remarks were seized on by the UK’s pro-Brexit media as evidence that Johnson had secured a major concession. But Merkel’s statement was made in full knowledge that Johnson will be unable to square the circle over the Irish border question. He faces bitter opposition to any compromise from Conservatives and from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party MPs, who prop up his minority government.

Norbert Röttgen, a leading figure in Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and chair of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee, immediately shot down in flames any suggestion of a backdown by Merkel: “She did not move one millimetre… At no point did she suggest that Germany is ready to abandon the backstop. The German position is the same as the European position… She is putting the onus on Johnson. But everyone knows that you cannot find a solution for something in 30 days that has not been found in three years.”

Macron agreed with Merkel, saying that the “withdrawal agreement can be amended,” while insisting that the “Irish backstop is indispensable.” He warned, “We will not find a new Withdrawal Agreement in the next 30 days that is much different from the existing one… We have to respect what has been negotiated."

Macron told reporters after meeting Johnson, “Renegotiation of the terms currently proposed by the British is not an option that exists, and that has always been made clear by [EU] President [Donald] Tusk…” The EU was not to blame for a no-deal outcome as “A hard Brexit ... will be the responsibility of the British government.”

Clutching at straws, the pro-Brexit Daily Express claimed that Johnson appeared to punch the air with both hands in a “victory salute” after returning to London. His meetings had seen a “stubborn EU crumble.”

However, another pro-Brexit newspaper, the Sun, owned by billionaire oligarch Rupert Murdoch, warned that Johnson’s meetings with Merkel and Macron had paved the way for a no-deal outcome. It editorialised, “It’s clear that there is some flexibility on the Continent,” before concluding, “We remain sceptical that the EU really has seen the light, and that they’ll finally—after three long years—negotiate in good faith.” It denounced Irish premier Leo Varadkar, who opposes any removal of the Irish backstop. “If Varadkar continues to insist that it’s the only deal possible, what does he think will happen?”

On Friday afternoon, Johnson said he would “turbocharge” arrangements to find a solution to the backstop, but he played down chances of a breakthrough. While “progress” had been made, his government had to “prepare to come out without an agreement. We can do that. We are very confident.”

Ahead of parliament’s return from summer recess, MP’s opposing a no-deal Brexit are finalising their manoeuvres.

UK High Court rules in favour of spy agencies

Trevor Johnson

The mass surveillance of the UK population has been legitimised by the High Court in a ruling against a suit brought by Liberty, the civil rights organisation. Liberty sought changes to the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA, known as the Snoopers Charter) to reduce the ability of the secret services to carry out mass surveillance.

The ruling last month by Lord Justice Singh and Mr Justice Holgate rejected the challenge by Liberty.

Since the introduction of the IPA, the UK has already become the surveillance capital of the world’s developed countries. It is now legal for state agents to hack into large numbers of electronic devices, without any grounds for suspicion, on the say-so of judges (given the title of Judicial Commissioners).

Liberty, supported by the National Union of Journalists, argued that such “bulk powers” were incompatible with European human rights law, due to the lack of adequate safeguards against abuse of powers to access the private data of innocent people.

In a preliminary hearing, Liberty stated that documents disclosed to it by the government showed that MI5 has engaged in “extraordinary and persistent illegality” in the way it retains personal data obtained under the IPA.

Lord Justice Singh and Justice Holgate dismissed the claim, ruling that “the totality of the suite of interlocking safeguards” meant the Act did not breach human rights law. The judges added, “We have reached the conclusion that the safeguards in IPA are sufficient to prevent the risk of abuse of discretionary power and the Act is therefore not incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights on the ground that it does not comply with the concept of law.”

In June, Liberty’s barrister, Martin Chamberlain QC, outlined the scale of surveillance the IPA allows. It “provides for a wide expansion of ‘bulk’ secret surveillance powers,” which “permit the interception or obtaining, processing, retention and examination of the private information of very large numbers of people—in some cases, the whole population.

“They also permit serious invasions of journalistic and watchdog organisations’ materials and lawyer-client communication.”

Over the course of the hearing, MI5 said it had even lost control of how it stored the mass surveillance data it had collected. The intelligence agency admitted that there were “ungoverned spaces” on its computers in which it was not sure what was stored.

MI5 kept its illegal behaviour secret for three years, meaning that it has never complied with the meagre restrictions applied to it in the IPA. During that period, it applied for—and received—authority to carry out an undisclosed number of warrants for mass surveillance. The judges referred to this in their final ruling but without describing it as illegal, quoting a summary that MI5 had “inadequate control over where data is stored; [REDACTED]; and the deletion processes which applied to it.”

It was revealed in court that the spy agencies may collect, store and use data related to communications between journalists and their sources, with (in the words of the challenge to the IPA by Liberty) “an absence of effective safeguards relating to material which was subject to legal professional privilege.”

The judges claim that so long as this is not the primary aim of the mass surveillance, it is to be considered acceptable—as if MI5 would admit that its motives were not honourable!

Bangladesh: Thousands of families homeless after fire destroys Dhaka shanty homes

Wimal Perera

Thousands of poor people were rendered homeless after a massive blaze swept through the 20-acre Chalantika shanty town in Mirpur on the northern outskirts of Dhaka on August 16. It took 24 fire-fighting units three hours to bring the inferno under control. Fire service authorities told the media that illegal gas connections in plastic pipes helped the fire spread faster.

Homeless Chalantika shanty town residents [Credit: Muslim Hands]

While news agencies initially said the fire incinerated 15,000 homes, recent media articles claimed that between 1,500 and 2,000 dwellings were devastated, rendering 10,000 people homeless and destroying most of their belongings.

The area is home to poor and low-income workers and their families, including rickshaw pullers, small vendors and street hawkers, as well as garment workers and day labourers.

Muhammad Siddique, 50, who works as a security guard, told ucanews.comon August 19 that he was with his family—four sons and a daughter with her baby girl—inside their home when the disaster started. “The fire destroyed our food, clothes and all our belongings, including some money,” he said.

While no deaths were reported, four people were hospitalised. No-one was killed primarily because most residents were away celebrating the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Many garment workers had returned to their home villages for the religious holiday.

No official statement has been released by the government or firefighting agencies about what caused the fire. Arson cannot be ruled out. Some survivors told the media the fire could have been deliberately lit to force residents out of the area. The Bangladesh police and its notorious Rapid Action Battalion forces were deployed to break up possible demonstrations by residents.

An AsiaNews report quoted Saidul Islam, a local rickshaw puller, who said: “We could smell kerosene. Fire was lit in the north and south [of the area]. I think somebody set fire intentionally to remove us.”

Survivors search through fire-ravaged ruins [Credit: Muslim Hands]

In a face-saving gesture, the Awami League-led government appointed a three-member committee to investigate the disaster and made empty promises to help victims. The state minister for disaster management and relief, Enamur Rahman, and Dhaka North City Corporation Mayor Atiqul Islam visited the site and “assured” survivors they would be temporarily housed in five neighbourhood schools.

Islam claimed that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had ordered “permanent establishments” to be erected at Baunia embankment. Rahman said 500 tonnes of rice would be made available and a pittance of 1.3 million taka ($US15,476) in total for survivors. If 10,000 people were impacted by the blaze, the government’s so-called financial assistance amounts to about $1.54 per person.

According to the Daily Star, victims of this year’s Chawkbazar fire, which was caused by a chemical store explosion and killed 80 people, “have not received any financial compensation from the State.”

An opinion column this week in the same newspaper referred to the recent Chalantika fire. It noted that landlords gouge massive profits from those forced to live in dangerously unsafe and unhealthy slums. According to a 2017 Bangladesh University study, landlords earn on average 47 taka per square foot each month for accommodation, with additional exorbitant charges for electricity, gas and water.

Frequent fires in Bangladesh also have destroyed factories and high-rise buildings. These disasters are a result of the violation of basic fire safety standards by construction companies and the government’s refusal to provide adequate resources and manpower to the country’s firefighting authority, the Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence (BFSCD).

Wildfires rage throughout the Amazon rainforest

Bryan Dyne

Satellite imagery reveals that at least a quarter of the Amazon rainforest is on fire or covered in soot and ash across the four Brazilian Amazonian states: Amazonas, Rondônia, Mato Grosso and Pará.

A combination of dry summer heat exacerbated by climate change, planned burnings and expanded deforestation of the Amazon rainforest has sparked at least 9,507 new wildfires in the region in the past week, for a total of more than 74,155 wildfires in the Amazon since January. According to data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), this represents an 84 percent increase in Amazon fires from last year and the highest number of wildfires in the region since the agency began its records in 2013.

Cities across the region were blanketed with smoke, including Brazil’s largest city São Paulo, where wildfire smoke from Rondônia, Bolivia and Paraguay combined with dense rain clouds and a cold front which blotted out the Sun and brought nighttime lighting hours early. Amazonas declared a state of emergency on August 9 and residents across South America have been encouraged to stay indoors, particularly those with respiratory problems, heart or lung diseases.

While wildfires are a part of the life cycle of the Amazon, the massive increase in the number of fires this year is a direct result of the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Since coming into office, Bolsonaro has sought to increase the exploitation of the rainforest so that Brazil’s agricultural and mining industries can better compete on the global market, including an increase in logging and burning and a massive reduction in monitoring and oversight of these activities.

These policies are guided by “the new hopes for the Homeland: Brazil above everything!” a slogan uncovered in documents recently leaked to the online news site democraciaAbierta. They reveal that one of Bolsonaro’s major initiatives will be the so-called “Triple-A” project, which states, “it is necessary to build the Trombetas River hydroelectric plant, the Óbidos bridge over the Amazon River, and the implementation of the BR-163 highway to the border with Suriname.” Bolsonaro has also previously stated that he plans to bring nuclear power into the rainforest.

All of these projects will require major inroads into the Amazon, destroying hundreds of thousands of acres of rainforest. They also represent an attack on the one million indigenous people who live in the rainforest and have relied on it for millennia, whom the Brazilian president has specifically targeted for forced integration into capitalism, even if it means their extermination.