UK government carries out deportation of around 20 Jamaican nationals

Robert Stevens

The Conservative government has enforced the cruel deportation of around 20 people to Jamaica. The flight had originally been specified to deport up to 56 people but late Monday night the Court of Appeal ordered the halting of deportations to some of those on board—after ruling that their democratic rights, including their right to access legal advice, had been flagrantly breached.

The flight was originally scheduled to leave the UK today from Heathrow Airport at around 6:30 a.m but in the end it was not revealed where the flight departed from or when it left. The men on board were among 700 immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers being held at two immigration detention removal centres near Heathrow Airport—Colnbrook and Harmondsworth.

The Court of Appeal ruled in a case brought against the Home Office by Duncan Lewis solicitors on behalf of the Detention Action charity last week. The charity argued that due to the O2 mobile phone network being unavailable in the area immediately next to Colnbrook and Harmondsworth, detainees were denied the right to have five working days to contact and instruct lawyers after receiving notice from the Home Office that they were to be deported on the Tuesday flight.

Protesters outside Downing Street

The ruling did not oppose all the deportations being carried out in principle, instead Lady Justice Simler ordered the Home Office not to remove anyone from Harmondsworth or Colnbrook for deportation “unless satisfied (they) had access to a functioning, non-O2 Sim card on or before February 3”.

Director of public law at Duncan Lewis, Toufique Hossain, who brought the case said, “For weeks now detainees’ complaints have fallen on deaf ears. Their removal looms large, hours away and yet again it takes judicial intervention to make the home office take basic, humane and fair steps to allow people to enjoy their constitutional right to access justice.”

Despite the Court of Appeal ruling, it is still not clear who was on the flight with Chancellor Sajid Javid telling BBC 5 Live Tuesday morning he did not know the exact number but understood it was “around 20--or above 20.”

The Court of Appeal decision was made as hundreds of people demonstrated outside Downing Street Monday evening. Among their chants were “Stop charter flights! We want human rights!” Home-made placards demanded, “Amnesty for All. No More Tearing Families Apart” and “Jamaican government stop colluding with UK government racist charter flights”.

The move to deport the men met with widespread public outrage. An online petition to “Stop all charter flight deportations to Jamaica and other Commonwealth countries” received over 100,000 signatures by the end of Monday evening, with hundreds signing every few minutes.

This surge in opposition no doubt had its impact on the Court of Appeal decision.

Protesters outside Downing Street

Those to be deported at Harmondsworth and Colnbrook were being held in a state of mental torture, not knowing their fate and waiting to be bundled onto a flight at any time. The Independent reported that “some of those earmarked for deportation were told it would take place on 6 February…” before it was switched to this week.

The Tory government were determined to ram through the deportations in breach of the law, with Boris Johnson confirming in Parliament at last week’s Prime Minister’s Question Time that the deportations would go ahead. His statement led to hundreds protesting last Thursday outside Downing Street and shutting down the adjacent main street, Whitehall.

In Parliament Monday, Home Secretary Priti Patel insisted that the flight would still depart Tuesday and repeated that those being deported had committed “serious offences.” This was in the face of opposition from 170 MPs and peers who signed a letter calling on the government to halt the flight, and a legal bid, also by Duncan Lewis Solicitors, representing 15 people due to be deported.

On Monday, they filed papers at the High Court calling for an urgent oral hearing that afternoon to discuss the matter. They argued that Patel was acting unlawfully by forcing the men onto the plane, had denied them adequate access to legal advice and breached human rights legislation. The adverse publicity around the deportations and their labeling as “serious criminals” by the UK government would ensure the men would be a “public spectacle” on arrival in the Jamaican capital, Kingston, endangering their safety.

Late Monday afternoon, High Court judge Justice Mostyn refused Duncan Lewis’ application on behalf of 13 Jamaican-born men and refused to halt the flight. By Monday evening the grounds for refusing that application had not been revealed.

The forced deportation of the Jamaican nationals, many of whom have lived in the UK for years, is an escalation of the Tory government’s anti-immigrant agenda following the UK’s exit from the European Union on January 31. One is a 30-year old who has lived in the UK since the age of 11 and another 24 years old and has lived in Britain since he was 4 years old.

Protesters outside Downing Street

The government carried out the deportations on the basis of Johnson’s deliberately incendiary words that it “is right to send back foreign national offenders.” This was followed by a statement from chief secretary to the Treasury, Rishi Sunak, who said Monday, “Many of these people have committed crimes such as manslaughter, rape, other very serious offences.”

No-one can take these lurid claims at face value. A year ago this month, the Tory government deported 29 people on a flight to Jamaica after making identical claims. Then Home Secretary and now Chancellor Sajid Javid faced calls to apologise after saying those on board that flight were all convicted of “very serious crimes... like rape and murder, firearms offences and drug-trafficking.”

Following the deportations, the Home Office was forced to admit this was not the case at all as it emerged that just one person on board had committed a serious crime, murder. Some 14 of those deported had been convicted of drug offenses and one had been jailed for dangerous driving.

According to the Home Office, those it deported yesterday and those who it was unable to deport, for now--due to the Court of Appeal ruling--all have criminal convictions. However, even if this is the case, they have served their sentences in the UK and are being punished again with deportation to a country that many left as young children.

One of those who may have been on the plane Tuesday is 30-year-old Reshawn Davis, a father of a six-month-old baby, married to his British wife for five years. Davis was arrested only last Friday and informed by Home Office officials that he would be deported after they found out he had spent just two months in prison over a decade ago.

Davis was convicted under the controversial “joint enterprise” law, historically used to convict people in gang-related cases if defendants “could” have foreseen violent acts by their associates. The Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that the law had been wrongly interpreted for 30 years.

Speaking to the Independent he said, “I’m so stressed out. I can’t even explain how I feel. Yes, I was born in Jamaica, but I was brought up here. I don’t know anything else. I made one mistake in life, and it feels like I tried to kill the Queen.”

If Davis was deported--along with the 55 others threatened--his child will be one of 41 children who will be deprived of their fathers. He said of his daughter, “I look at my daughter’s pictures now every night before I go to bed. Since she was born, I had never spent a night without her until I was locked in here. I still reach for her when I wake up.”

The government was determined to carry out the deportations in breach of human rights legislation and international law, as people cannot be deported if their life could be in danger by doing so. Davis added, “I’m terrified to go to Jamaica. My cousin was deported and he has now died. People will be hostile to me because I’ve been deported. I’m going to be targeted.”

The Home Office keeps no records on the wellbeing of those it deports, but the Guardian established last May through its own research that five people previously deported have been murdered in Jamaica since March 2018. Jamaica has one of the highest per capita murder rates of any country.

One of those murdered was a 37-year-old, Dewayne Robinson. Robinson was the cousin of Akeem Finlay, 30, who came to the UK aged just 10. Not only had one of his cousins been murdered, but just months prior to Robinson’s killing another cousin of Finlay’s was killed. Before being granted a last-minute reprieve in a separate court case, Finlay was to have been deported Tuesday on the basis of a previous Grievous Bodily Harm conviction. Finlay said, “The men involved in the murders of my cousins have warned our family not to return to Jamaica or we will be murdered too.”

The threat of deportation still hangs over all 56 and many others. It would be a grave mistake to rely on the courts or the politicians of parties who are responsible for the huge assault on immigrants now underway. The Tories are only able to proceed with such a sadistic policy because they can rely on legislation brought in by the Blair Labour government. Under the UK Borders Act 2007, a deportation order must be made if a foreign national has been convicted of an offence and received a custodial sentence of just 12 months or more.

The letter signed by the 170 MPs and peers was organised by Labour MP Nadia Whittome and did not call for an end to deportations in principle, but only that Tuesday’s flight and other deportations be halted until a review into the Windrush scandal is published and “its recommendations implemented.”

The letter welcomed the sight of a leaked version of the review, which states the government “should consider ending all deportations of FNOs [foreign national offenders] where they arrived in the UK as children (say before age of 13)” before adding, “Alternatively—deportation should only be considered in the most severe cases.”

The Windrush scandal refers to some 164 people detained and deported to Commonwealth countries and 5,000 denied access to support from public services to which they were fully entitled. According to the government’s own figures, by November 2018 at least 11 deportees had subsequently died.

Woman who killed UK teenager Harry Dunn was a CIA spy

Thomas Scripps

The wife of a senior US spy, who fled the UK last year after being involved in a road accident that led to the death of 19-year-old Harry Dunn, is reported to have been a CIA agent herself. According to the Mail on Sunday, Anne Sacoolas held a higher rank in the intelligence services than her husband.

Harry was killed on August 27 when his motorbike collided with Sacoolas’s car, being driven on the wrong side of the road, just outside the RAF base at Croughton, Northamptonshire. The US Air Force runs a spy facility from the base known as the Joint Intelligence Analysis Centre, where Sacoolas’s husband Jonathan was employed by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Sacoolas was charged with causing death by dangerous driving by British police but was released and fled the country with her husband on September 15. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has refused to grant a UK request for her extradition.

It was already clear from the available facts that the UK government had determined to let Sacoolas go. Police visited her on August 28, the day after the incident, to be told she had diplomatic immunity as the wife of a “diplomat.” The Foreign Office claims to have asked the US embassy to waive immunity only on September 5. The US embassy refused this request on September 13, and Sacoolas was flown out of the country on a US Air Force plane two days later. The Foreign Office claims it was only informed the day afterward. Dunn’s parents only had it confirmed that Sacoolas had left the country on September 23.

Now, as Harry’s mother, Charlotte Charles, has said, “things are beginning to fall into place.” This charade, woven from lies, was used to prepare for the extraction and protection of a US spy.

According to the Mail, multiple sources in London and Washington have confirmed Sacoolas’s past work in the CIA. Sky News has since claimed to have also confirmed this fact. The Foreign Office denied all knowledge, asserting that “Anne Sacoolas was notified to us as a spouse with no official role.”

Senior Whitehall figures, however, confirmed to the Mail that they knew of her CIA history. The Mail’s report also states that the US government notified the Foreign Office that Sacoolas was leaving the country for America.

The Dunn family’s legal spokesman, Radd Seiger, explained it is “high time that the nation can see with full transparency whether or not the government prioritised protecting the identity of the Sacoolas family over the welfare and rights of Harry’s family. The US government told the FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] that they were going to remove Anne Sacoolas from the UK unless the UK had any strong objections. Still to this day, the family have seen no evidence that the UK did indeed raise any such objections and indeed fear that they waved her off at the airport.”

Harry’s parents and their legal team continue to wage a principled fight for justice for their son. Seiger is calling for a public inquiry. Responding to the revelations, his mother, Charlotte Charles, asked of the British government, “How could they do this to us?”

“Her leaving, and the US government protecting her and refusing the extradition request, is nothing short of a disgrace and we will not stand for it. Whether she is CIA or not, she must come back and I will not rest until she does.”

Adam Wagner, another lawyer for the Dunn family, said the Foreign Office needed “to answer whether it knew Sacoolas was CIA at the time of Harry’s death, and whether the US used her status as a family member to take advantage of the ‘anomaly’ whereby family members are said to have more immunity than diplomats at the base. …”

Wagner also reported, “The Foreign Office have refused so far to disclose any information or documents about the discussions with the USA and the police after Harry died. The family are pushing hard for disclosures and have made an application for information and documents.”

The Dunn family lawyers dispute Sacoolas’s claimed immunity. Human rights activist and former British ambassador Craig Murray has written, “I am not at all convinced, as a matter of law, that the government has the power to grant, by bilateral treaty or otherwise, immunity from criminal prosecution to foreign nationals…outside the provision of the Vienna Convention (relating to diplomatic immunity). This should be tested by the courts.”

Thoroughly exposed, government representatives are still making a cynical pretence of demanding Sacoolas’s return while claiming ignorance of her CIA background. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and Home Secretary Priti Patel have all made pro forma criticisms of the US State Department’s refusal to grant Britain’s extradition request.

Speaking on Sky’s Sunday Show after the Mail’s report, Housing Minister Robert Jenrick claimed, “I don’t know the reasons why the US have turned down our requests so far to extradite her. She needs to return to the UK.

“She should face justice, and I think it’s a terrible situation—I think we all agree on that—for the family. Not only have they lost their child but they’re not seeing somebody brought to justice for that.”

On the same show, former Conservative Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Sacoolas’s role as a CIA operative “may have a bearing on it [her escape and protection], and I don’t know the truth of these things because I’m not foreign secretary any more, but I still think it is totally and utterly unacceptable that she is not facing justice in the UK.

“And if anyone is questioning that, I think we just need to ask what would have happened if the boot had been on the other foot, if a British diplomat had been involved in a road accident in the United States where someone had died and had fled on a private plane back to the UK and was evading justice. ... I don’t think Britain would have behaved in that way.”

These crocodile tears have been a pathetic fraud from the start. Now that the real nature of the case has been revealed, this cynical posturing has become a naked insult. The UK grants US intelligence services the right to act with complete impunity. From the perspective of the ruling class, the Dunn-Sacoolas case is not an outrage, but business as usual.

Russian-Belarusian energy talks fail as Minsk moves closer to the US, NATO

Clara Weiss

At a meeting on Friday in Sochi, Russian president Vladimir Putin and the president of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko failed to find a resolution to a months-long conflict over Russian oil deliveries to Belarus.

In December, Russia had suspended much of its oil deliveries to Belarus after negotiations over prices and the integration of Russia and Belarus into a “union state” failed. The “union state” had been formally created in 1997 but few steps toward its actual realization have been taken. Other potential member states of the “union state” included Kazakhstan, Moldova and, until the pro-Western coup in Kiev in 2014, Ukraine.

Map of Belarus

Russia has rejected to continue granting Belarus subsidized oil deliveries without Belarus supporting a plan for more rapid economic and political integration. This would include the creation of supranational bodies and a single currency. The Belarusian economy is heavily reliant on subsidies from Russia, and duty-free oil shipments. Based on the now expired contract, Russia delivered 24 million tons of oil to Belarus every year, or 2 million tons per month, but in January it delivered only 500,000 tons.

In January, Lukashenko announced that he wanted to reduce Belarusian reliance on Russian energy supplies, which currently make up 80 percent of the country’s imports, down to 40 percent. Belarus is now trying to arrange for deliveries from the US, Poland, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan as well as Norway.

At the meeting on Friday, Russia and Belarus agreed on continuing gas deliveries in 2020 for the same price that was in effect in 2019. However, Putin reportedly insisted that Russia would only grant Belarus commercial prices for oil deliveries, and that deliveries would be linked to the implementation of a plan to integrate the Russian and Belarusian economies. On Sunday, it was reported that Belarus was ready to pay global market prices for Russian oil deliveries.

The recent flaring up of tensions between Russia and Belarus is taking place as the US is aggressively escalating its push toward drawing Minsk into its orbit. Just a week before Friday’s meeting between Putin and Lukashenko, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo visited Minsk and had a discussion of over two hours with the Belarusian president. It was the first visit of a US secretary of state to Belarus since 1993, and followed a visit by Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, to the country in August 2019. Pompeo promised Lukashenko that US companies “stand ready to deliver 100 percent of the oil you need at competitive prices.”

Lukashenko tried to exploit the improved relations with the US to pressure Russia in the energy negotiations. A few days before the meeting with Putin, he declared that Russia had been rattled by Pompeo’s visit but that they should stop “crying,” adding, “If Trump comes tomorrow what will they [the Russians] do then?”

In December, protests of a few thousand people by the pro-US nationalist opposition took place in Minsk to oppose closer integration between Russia and Belarus.

Belarus is of major geostrategic significance for the imperialist powers in their war preparations against Russia. Most NATO military exercises in Europe are taking place on the borders of the country, which shares some 1,200 kilometers of its border with NATO member states. Several Belarusian state officials were also affected by the US sanctions against Russia.

Belarus is generally considered to be Russia’s closest ally in Eastern Europe and both countries share long-standing historical and cultural ties.

However, Lukashenko, who has been in power ever since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1994, has made a point of supporting the coup in Kiev in February 2014, which was orchestrated by German and US imperialism to tighten the political and military nose around Russia. Lukashenko denounced the annexation of Crimea as a “dangerous precedent” and Belarus was one of the first states to recognize the Ukrainian presidential elections of May 2014 which brought Petro Poroshenko to power. Belarus hosted the negotiations over the so called Minsk agreements with German and French participation in 2014 and 2015.

Belarus and Ukraine have developed an increasingly close military and industrial cooperation, especially in the armaments sector. Belarus has provided military and technical support for the Ukrainian army, which is engaged in a proxy war with Russia in East Ukraine, with heavy military funding and support of the US. The country has also helped European companies circumvent Russian countersanctions by relabeling their products as “made in Belarus” before shipping them to Russia.

A key role in the rapprochement between Belarus and NATO is played by Poland and Lithuania. The far-right Polish government of the Law and Justice Party (PiS) has worked toward a rapprochement with Minsk since coming to power in 2016. Poland and Belarus have fairly close economic ties. For the Polish government establishing closer ties with Belarus on both an economic and political level is part of the plan to establish an alliance of right-wing regimes in Eastern Europe that can be mobilized for a war against Russia. This so-called Intermarium alliance is also endorsed by sections of the political establishment in Belarus as well as Lithuania. US president Donald Trump has voiced support for these plans in Warsaw in 2017.

The Lithuanian government has also systematically worked on improving its relations with Minsk in close consultation with Washington. The Lithuanian foreign minister, Linas Linkevicious, visited Minsk shortly before Pompeo to discuss possible future oil supplies. For May, Lithuania and Belarus plan an economic forum in Klaipeda to discuss deepening their economic cooperation, including in the energy sector.

Belarus has also stepped up efforts to deepen cooperation with NATO and the US on other levels. Last fall, the Belarusian defense ministry declared that it “is interested in maintaining and developing dialogue with NATO” and asked for a “regular dialogue between representatives of the country’s Defense Ministry and corresponding officials of the alliance military structure” which was currently “absent.”

In recent months, both Lukashenko and the country’s defense chief Oleg Belokonev have explicitly proposed that Minsk participate in NATO military exercises and training. Joint military exercises are, in fact, forbidden for Belarus as part of the Moscow-led CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization] and any such move would de facto signal a rupture of Minsk-Moscow relations. Belokonev told local media that Belarus is envisioning a military cooperation with NATO along the lines of Serbia, which has close ties to Russia but also has ties for military training with NATO.

Belarus has already begun to develop bilateral military cooperation with NATO the members US, the UK, Germany, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

On January 30, Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Kravchenko was in Washington to speak at the Atlantic Council, a think tank that is among the most aggressive in its advocacy for war preparations against Russia. Kravchenko proposed that Minsk could play the role of a bridge between Moscow and the West, especially in the Ukraine crisis. He said that “Allies recognize that a too-tight embrace by NATO could be counterproductive,” but that “Belarus can play a useful role if it is not pushed too hard.”

Foreign Affairs, the official journal of the US National Security Council published a piece last week entitled, “Will Belarus be the next Ukraine?” It noted that Belarus was at least as important as Ukraine in terms of its geostrategic significance to Russia and that Moscow would not tolerate Belarus being drawn too closely into the orbit of the US and NATO, writing: “... if Belarus were to pivot westward, Moscow would lose a potential military staging ground and risk seeing Western political and economic influence extend over a population that many Russians regard as part of their own nation. ... Moscow would respond to any breakdown of state authority in Belarus in much the same way it did following the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.” The piece concluded by urging Western governments to more strongly support Lukashenko, writing that “Although the authoritarian Lukashenko has often been a nuisance, his ability to keep Russian influence at bay has been an underappreciated gift to regional stability.”

Trump budget gives top priority to new generation of nuclear weapons

Patrick Martin

The most ominous feature of the new budget document issued Monday by the Trump administration is the prominent place given to the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons, including so-called low-yield weapons, smaller than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which are widely regarded as more likely to actually be used in combat.

First launch of a Trident missile on January 18, 1977 at Cape Canaveral, Florida (Credit: US Navy file photo)

The document calls for nearly $50 billion to be devoted to nuclear modernization, including $29 billion from the Pentagon budget, and $19.8 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a unit of the Department of Energy which operates the actual production of nuclear warheads, as well as some of the primary research.

The Trump budget would slash spending on diplomacy and foreign aid while sharply increasing funding for nuclear weapons, a clear indication of the policy direction being given from the White House in the wake of Trump’s acquittal last week in the impeachment trial before the Senate. The debacle of the Democratic effort to impeach Trump over foreign policy differences—while ignoring his real and ongoing crimes against the working class and democratic rights—has only emboldened the White House to press ahead with its program of militarism, austerity and attacks on immigrants.

The budget provides the largest amount for the Pentagon’s research and development budget in 70 years, since the period when US imperialism was engaged in the initial research on the hydrogen bomb and the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Nuclear weapons modernization funds rose by 18 percent compared to last year’s budget.

The modernization program, which was given initial approval under the Obama administration, will last 30 years and cost more than a trillion dollars, split between the three components of the US nuclear triad: ground-based missiles, submarine-launched missiles, and nuclear bombs delivered by long-distance bombers.

An important aspect of the modernization program is the improvement of the delivery systems, including a new generation of nuclear-powered submarines (the Columbia Class) and making the stealth F-35 jet fighter, the most expensive weapons system ever built, capable of carrying nuclear bombs. That configuration would be ideal for a prospective nuclear “Pearl Harbor” sneak attack on Russia or China, since the warplanes are nearly invisible to radar.

According to one defense industry publication, there had been serious infighting between the NNSA and the White House Office of Management and Budget over the huge figure for nuclear modernization, a conflict won by the NNSA after Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Imhofe (R-Okla) intervened on its behalf.

Senate Democrats like Jack Reed of Rhode Island lost the battle over funding priorities, as the Navy canceled one nuclear submarine—to be built in Groton, Connecticut, and Quonset Point, Rhode Island—as a “pay for” to accommodate the additional spending on nuclear warheads.

NNSA chief Lisa Gordon-Hagerty said that there were five major warhead modernization programs being funded: the B61-12 Life Extension Program, the W80-4 Life Extension Program, the W88 Alteration 370, the W87-1 Modification Program and the W93 warhead program. She cited the need to increase production of plutonium “pits,” the key component of a nuclear explosive device, to 80 per year by 2030.

The budget announcement follows the Pentagon’s confirmation that it has deployed a new low-yield variant of the W76-1 nuclear warhead used on the Trident missile. The deployment of the W76-2 came on the submarine USS Tennessee, operating from the Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia. The escalation of US preparations for nuclear war was first reported by the Federation of American Scientists, which warned that the action would bring forward the danger of a nuclear weapon actually being used.

Building the W76-2 was a direct consequence of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, which accompanied the more general overhaul of Pentagon military doctrine, elevating “great power” conflict with Russia and China to first place in US war preparations, displacing the so-called “war on terror.”

In terms of the overall military budget, while the Pentagon receives a year-to-year increase of 0.3 percent, that figure is misleading on at least two counts. At $740.5 billion, the proposed Fiscal Year 2021 Defense Department budget would be the largest amount ever spent by the US government on war buildup and dwarfs the spending of all the rivals of US imperialism combined.

Moreover, the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund, a component of the budget that pays for ongoing combat operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other locations where US troops, ships and drones are engaged in combat, is open-ended.

While the White House is seeking $69 billion for OCO, this figure assumes a significant drawdown in US troop strength in Afghanistan. If those troops remain in Afghanistan, or are redeployed to another war zone, the Pentagon will seek a supplemental appropriation that would be swiftly rubber-stamped both by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and the Republican-controlled Senate.

The release of the Fiscal Year 2021 budget has been accompanied by media commentaries and declarations by leading congressional Democrats that the budget is merely a “wish list” devised for political purposes to appeal to Trump’s right-wing base, and that as a practical matter it is “dead on arrival.”

This may be true for the massive cuts in domestic programs like Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps, which come to some $2 trillion over ten years. Neither capitalist party is likely to enact such cuts in the nine months before the November 3 election. But the document is nonetheless significant as a blueprint for the social counterrevolution which Trump proposes to carry out if he is reelected—and to which the Democrats have no principled objections, despite their posture of dismay.

Among the cuts proposed—all over a ten-year period—are $465 billion from Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and doctors, which will undermine the ability of the elderly to get care; $292 billion from Medicaid, which pays for health care for the poor and disabled, and from food stamps; and $70 billion from Social Security disability payments.

House Budget Committee Chair John Yarmuth (D-Ky), issued a statement denouncing the Trump budget as “destructive and irrational,” pointing out that it “includes destructive changes to Medicaid, SNAP, Social Security, and other assistance programs that help Americans make ends meet—all while extending his tax cuts for millionaires and wealthy corporations.”

The fact is, however, that the Democrats have never rescinded Republican tax cuts or restored Republican budget cuts, despite their posturing to the contrary. There is a longstanding division of labor in the capitalist two-party system, in which the Republican propose gigantic cuts in social spending which the Democrats “fight” ferociously, eventually reaching a bipartisan agreement that incorporates substantial cuts and sets the stage for the next round in a never-ending onslaught on what remains of the welfare state.

While this pretended conflict takes place in relation to domestic social spending, the two parties usually cooperate openly on increasing spending for the military-intelligence apparatus. This means that while the domestic cuts proposed by Trump may be deferred until after the election, the military buildup will gain overwhelming bipartisan support, and the plans elaborated in the budget document deserve careful scrutiny.

One significant element is the buildup in ground troops available for the invasion and occupation of foreign territory, or for the suppression of domestic unrest. The Army seeks a significant manpower increase, to 485,900 regular troops, reinforced by 336,500 in the Army National Guard and 189,800 in the Army Reserves. This would bring the total ground force to over one million soldiers—1,012,200 in all.

New weaponry for these soldiers will include hypersonic weapons, laser-based antiaircraft weapons (the Directed Energy Mobile Short-Range Air Defense System), and the Indirect Fire Protection Capability, described as “a mobile capability to defend against unmanned aircraft systems, cruise missiles, rockets, artillery and mortars.”

There is at least $6 billion to modernize key weapons systems, including the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, the Stryker armored vehicle, the M1 Abrams tank and the Paladin howitzer, and $3.5 billion in aviation procurement, including 36 UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters and 50 AH-64E Apache attack helicopters.

It is also worth noting, in relation to the overall budget numbers, that the federal budget deficit will hit $1 trillion this year and is likely to soar far beyond that figure next year. While the White House budget office projects the deficit at just below $1 trillion in FY 2021, this assumes completely unrealistic economic successes: Gross Domestic Product rising at over 3 percent, and interest rates remaining at near-zero levels, so that federal debt can be refinanced cheaply.

When these figures inevitably prove too optimistic, and the deficit soars, there will then be a clamor from the political establishment and the media that social spending must be slashed even more because “there is no money.” In the meantime, the incomes and wealth of the financial aristocracy will continue to rise exponentially.

The coronavirus pandemic: a global disaster

Bryan Dyne

The number of confirmed cases of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus outbreak that began in the Chinese city of Wuhan has now surged past 43,000. The number of fatalities is now at least 1,013 and at least 25 countries have at least one person suffering the disease. Dozens more countries are either monitoring patients with fevers and pneumonia-like symptoms or preparing for potential infections.

The outbreak has now exceeded both the number of infections and fatalities of the 2002-2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic and is continuing to spread, despite the quarantine measures imposed by Chinese and world governments.

Students line up to sanitize their hands to avoid contracting the coronavirus before their morning class at a high school in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Cities across China, especially in Wuhan, the epicenter of the novel coronavirus, remain under partial or total lockdown in an effort by the government to contain the spread of the virus. Millions of people have remained home and turned many of China’s major urban centers, including its most populated city Shanghai, into veritable “ghost towns.” Those who do venture outside are often relatives of the infected, who are seeking aid from overtaxed hospitals or searching for food and other necessities to care for those that have already been turned away from medical facilities.

The coronavirus contagion has become a disaster and a tragedy for the tens of thousands infected and the tens of millions who remain under quarantine, shocking people all over the world.

Yesterday, Beijing and Shanghai announced new controls on the movement of residents and vehicles, including tracking and quarantining anyone who was in Wuhan or another highly infected area in the past 14 days. Both cities have joined at least 80 others across 20 provinces that have imposed either partial or total lockdowns, affecting at least 103 million people.

At the same time, work across China resumed yesterday after an extended Lunar New Year holiday. As the population begins to travel once again, they are doing so under extraordinary scrutiny. The government has set up infrared cameras to measure body temperature at public transportation stations, offices, factories and industrial parks. Residents have been advised that they shouldn’t leave their homes if they don’t have a surgical mask. Multiple cities, including Wuhan and Beijing, have set up special quarantine zones where people suspected of being infected are being forcibly remanded. Threats have been issued that people breaching quarantine could face the death penalty.

There are now concerns that essential supplies are running out in Wuhan and elsewhere in Hubei province. To date, the Chinese government has sent 17,000 medical personnel and more than 3,000 tons of supplies to the province, which has somewhat lessened the pressure facing doctors and nurses, though hospital beds are still in short supply. However, places such as Singapore, where there are 45 confirmed cases, are considering only hospitalizing the worst cases. “If we still hospitalise and isolate every case, our hospitals will be overwhelmed,” admitted Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Songon on Saturday.

Lee’s remarks came alongside reports that the virus is likely more widespread than officially known. Neil Ferguson, an infectious diseases expert at London’s Imperial College, wrote Sunday that “only 10 percent or less of all infections in China and a quarter in other countries were being detected.” A paper published by Chinese respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan on Monday theorized that the incubation of the novel coronavirus could be up to 24 days, not the 14 days currently accepted. This position was given further weight when a patient in China’s Henan province was diagnosed as an infected patient after displaying no symptoms for 17 days.

There has been an outpouring of solidarity from the world’s population since the imposition of quarantine measures in China. Thousands of Go Fund Me and similar pages have been set up to direct money and supplies to the beleaguered areas. Doctors and medical professionals have begun multiple efforts to find a cure to 2019-nCoV while working to care for and heal those currently infected. At the same time, the tens of millions that have been caught in the quarantine zones have done everything they can to limit the spread of infection, including isolating themselves as much as possible, even when their employers have demanded they return to work.

The sympathy from the workers and youth internationally towards China is all the more significant under conditions of growing national antagonisms. In a particularly vicious comment, hedge fund manager Kyle Bass tweeted Sunday, “We should take our supplies and go back home. Let the Chinese virus rampage through the ranks of the GT [state-owned newspaper Global Times] and the rest of the Communist Party.”

Bass’ comment came little more than a week after US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross gloated that the coronavirus outbreak would undermine China as an economic competitor and give US-based companies “yet another thing to consider when they go through their review of their supply chain... So, I think it will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America.” The Commerce Department itself stated: “It is also important to consider the ramifications of doing business with a country that has a long history of covering up real risks to its people and the rest of the world.”

The United States government’s response to the coronavirus has been to ban foreign nationals who were recently in China from entering the country, while enforcing quarantine on its own citizens for the first time since the 1960s. It has also demanded $1,000 airfare to repatriate its citizens to the US and is reportedly charging both for any treatment they require and for their mandatory housing on military bases.

The responses internationally have been along the same draconian lines. Across Asia, businesses have put up signs declaring that Chinese citizens are unwelcome, forcing Chinese people living abroad to describe themselves as Korean or generically “Asian” in order to get essential services. Australian citizens in China attempting to evacuate have been sent to Christmas Island, a remote facility in the Indian Ocean built to imprison so-called “illegal” refugees. Britain yesterday declared the coronavirus an “imminent threat,” allowing the government to detain and quarantine anyone suspected of being infected.

In Brazil, which has eight suspected cases and zero confirmed cases of the coronavirus, the right-wing government has already announced a public health emergency. It has isolated 34 individuals on an airforce base who were repatriated from China, where they will remain for the next 15 days. One of the few things they will be allowed to do is watch the base’s military band play live.

Pharmaceutical companies are already looking to profit from the attempts to find a cure, with some stocks rising by as much as 110 percent after announcing their own teams to develop a vaccine. They are in a scramble not to protect human beings, but to get a larger portion of the $8.54 trillion global health care market.

The contrasting responses between ordinary people and the ruling elites internationally pose the question of what sort of social system is needed not just to stem, but to prevent and eliminate, the danger of global pandemics. Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent every year by the United States and China on their defense budgets, while they grudgingly hand out ever-decreasing amounts to medical and scientific institutions that could put a stop to the coronavirus and other outbreaks if they were properly funded.

As workers and youth around the world over have realized, the response to contagious diseases must extend across national borders. As with every other social problem—including the ever-widening social inequality, accelerating climate change and the heightened threat of war—the coronavirus epidemic is a global problem that requires an international solution. Moreover, the fight against the spread of such diseases must not be held hostage to the corporations and the shareholders who only work to find a vaccine when they can profit off the dead and dying.

The response to the coronavirus epidemic has exposed the incompatibility of the capitalist nation-state system with the most fundamental human needs. Riven by national divisions and the scramble for geopolitical power, the capitalist nation-state system is incapable of any systematic or planned response to the threats facing humanity, from infectious disease to extreme weather and climate change.

It is therefore critical for those alarmed at the outbreak of the novel coronavirus to turn to the working class. It is the working class that has suffered the brunt of the epidemic. It is the working class that is objectively and increasingly defining itself as an international class. It is the working class whose social interests lie in socialism: the overthrow of capitalism, the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, and the establishment of an economic system based on the satisfaction of human need, including the highest living standards and health care of every human being.

The science, technology and productive capacity exists to solve the great social problems of our time: pandemics, global warming, the destruction of jobs, social inequality, the assault on democratic rights and the threat of world war. At the same time, the rational and coordinated democratic planning of the world economy can ensure increased living standards and quality of life for the world’s population. The only social force that can achieve this goal is the international working class, through the method of world socialist revolution.

IGB Freshwater Science Fellowship Programme 2020 for International Scientists – Germany

Application Deadlines: 1st June 2020

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Germany

About the Award: You would like to expand your research on freshwaters or inland fisheries? You are highly motivated to put your excellent research ideas into action? You are keen on working abroad with an interdisciplinary team of scientists dedicated to advance freshwater ecology, inland fisheries science or related research areas? And you are looking for unique facilities to develop new approaches to tackle the most important research questions for the future of our freshwaters?
Then we cordially invite you to apply for a research visit at IGB. With Berlin being an attractive science location, you will find stimulating working conditions, excellent infrastructure and open-minded colleagues with a wide range of backgrounds in freshwater ecology and inland fisheries. The working language at IGB is English.
Twice a year we offer support for senior fellows for 3 to 12 months. We view these research stays as excellent opportunities to develop or implement original research ideas in collaboration with IGB scientists. IGB provides excellent laboratory and field facilities for interdisciplinary research, large-scale experimental facilities as well as long-term research programmes.

Fields of Study: 

• Ecohydrology
• Ecosystem Research
• Experimental Limnology
• Biology and Ecology of Fishes
• Ecophysiology and Aquaculture
• Analytical Chemistry and Biogeochemistry

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Successful applicants are well-established scientists leading a research group at their home institution in one of the research areas pursued at IGB. Before submitting an application, please contact your potential host and develop a concept for your stay that ensures good integration into research activities within the host group and other scientists at IGB.

Selection: The selection of the fellowship awards is competitive. The following evaluation criteria apply:

• scientific record and potential to conduct the proposed research
• full support of the potential host contacted before
• quality and novelty of the research proposal
• complementary integration into ongoing research activities at IGB

The selection committee is composed of the director, the department heads, the speakers of IGB’s cross-cutting research domains and IGB’s equal opportunity commissioner. The director will notify the awardees no later than eight weeks after the application deadline. Research projects can start in agreement with the respective host at any time but no later than six months after notification. Candidates that have not been accepted can resubmit a revised application within one of the following application rounds. Consultation with the potential host is strongly recommended if this option is envisioned.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of fellowship: The fellowships provide resources to cover basic living expenses. They amount to 1,365 €/month at the doctoral level, 1,828 €/month at the postdoctoral level, and 2,600 €/month at the senior scientist level. In addition, some funds can be provided for consumables and travel allowances. The fellowships do not include health insurance, which is mandatory in Germany, nor contributions to pension schemes. Fellowships can normally only be granted if no other income is received during the fellowship period by employments elsewhere.

Duration of fellowship: 6-24 months.

How to Apply: 

• Your CV, including a complete list of publications
• A motivation letter indicating your research interests and experience (max. 1 page)
• Your ideas about the envisioned accomplishments during your stay, outlining your aims and proposed activities (max. 1 page),
• A statement of your potential research host(s) confirming mutual interest

The deadline for applications is the 1^st of June 2020. Documents need to be submitted electronically in English by using our online application platform.

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Government of Austria ITH Fully-funded Masters Scholarships 2020/2021 for Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 1st May, 2020

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Scholarships are offered to i) ADC Priority countries (See list below) and ii) Other Developing countries

To be taken at (country): The Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management in Salzburg Klessheim, Austria

About the Award: The Austrian Development Cooperation through the Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management offers about 30 scholarships to applicants from priority countries as well as other developing countries. The Tourism School in Salzburg has an outstanding international reputation and a long tradition. They train future entrepreneurs and employees according to the needs of the international tourism and leisure industry.

Type: Postgraduate

Eligibility: To apply for this programme at ITH, candidate must meet the following criteria:

• Be between 18 – 35 years of age
• Have a secondary school leaving certificate (high school diploma)
• Have a minimum of one year‘s experience within the tourism and hospitality industry
• Non-native English speakers must have an English qualification e.g. TOEFL, Cambridge 1st Certificate, IELTS or equivalent

Successful candidates should be ambitious and open-minded with good organisational and time management skills

Number of Awardees: up to 30

Value of Scholarships: Scholarship for Priority countries include:

• tuition fee
• accommodation
• flight tickets (from home country to Salzburg and back)
• health insurance
• food from Monday – Sunday
• excursions (except field trip to ITB Berlin)
• € 205.- pocket money per month

Not included in this scholarship are:

• transfer from the Airport to the hostel and back to the Airport when leaving
• visa fee: the visa fees have to be paid by the applicants. The entry visa is approximately $ 110, – and the 8 months residence permit, which will be issued in Salzburg, costs approximately € 120.

Scholarship for Developing countries include:

• tuition fee
• health insurance
• food from Monday – Friday
• excursions (except field trip to ITB Berlin)
• € 205.- pocket money per month

Not included in the Scholarship are:

• accommodation: accommodation costs have to be covered by students who are awarded this scholarship. It is € 247, – per month. (€ 1976, – in total). The total accommodation fee of € 1.976, – has to be remitted in advance before admission letter can be issued.
• flight ticket: Students who are on this scholarship have to cover their own travel expenses from their countries to Salzburg and back.
• visa fee: the visa fees have to be paid by the applicants. The entry visa is approximately $ 110, – and the 8 months residence permit, which will be issued in Salzburg, costs approximately € 120.

Eligible Countries: 
ADC Priority countries include: Ethiopia, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Bhutan, Palestinian Territories, Georgia, Armenia
Other Developing countries include: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Benin, Burundi, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Dem. Rep., Eritrea, Gambia, The, Guinea, Guinea-Bisau, Haiti, Kenya, Korea, Dem Rep., Kyrgyz Republic, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo, Rep., Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Arab Rep., El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kiribati, Kosovo, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Mauritania, Micronesia, Fed. Sts., Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, Samoa, São Tomé and Principe, Senegal, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Timor-Leste, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vietnam, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen, Rep., Zambia, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Angola, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Fiji, Gabon, Grenada, Hungry, Iran, Islamic Rep., Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Libya, Macedonia, FYR, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Mexico, Montenegro, Namibia, Palau, Panama, Peru, Romania, Serbia,  Seychelles, South Africa, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Thailand, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu and Venezuela

How to Apply: Apply here

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Misconceptions Of Indians Over Sexuality!

Kabir Deb 

Beauty provokes harassment, the law says, but it looks through men’s eyes when deciding what provokes it. ~ Naomi Wolf

As an Indian, I should be proud of my country and yes, I am proud of this land but what I’m not proud of are the civilians of this country. India became India when it had the concept of romance and love involved in the daily life with equality having a special place. It had the concept of same sex relationship involved even when religion wasn’t a proud part of our identity. Similarly, it had the concept of intercourse induced inside both non religious and religious texts. Even if we visit an architecture which has been a part of religion from thousands of years, we can find that the old India had several misconceptions about sexuality and tolerance which finally leads to pushing of the civilians to perform the activities which reduces our pride and honour as a tolerant and conceptually developed civilization, but never reduces the pride of the nation since no matter how intolerant the civilians become, the country finds tolerance whenever a single civilian speaks concretely.

● MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SAME SEX RELATIONSHIP

India has given recognition to same sex relationship from a very old time but has never inculcated the relationship as a natural phenomenon. Though it has been portrayed in several religious texts like Bhagavad, Ramayana, Vedas etc., but every time the relationship has been the result of a curse or a trick of a deity to trap another deity or demon. Whether it is Vishnu transforming to Mohini to trick over the demons or Shiva uniting with Shakti to give birth to the universe. Everytime the same sex has been portrayed it has been a result of unnatural means or it completely contradicts the concept of homosexuality.

Consecutively, the texts started to dilute the concept of homosexuality and thus reducing it from daily studies and discussions making it an unnatural topic to have a discussion upon. The dilution also gave ample power to the misogynist or upper class to prohibit anyone who is homosexual in origin and thus making sexuality a freaking ominous term. The upper class Brahmins and Kshatriyas started a campaign against anyone who wanted to change from hetero to homosexual.

The havoc started to shape a misogyny inside the mind of their descendants which India today observes. Indians today have the same misconception but in a very different way. Indians today work on homosexuality, especially lesbian relationship, in several B – grade and bollywood movies because, Indians highly masturbate while watching lesbian movies. The porn industry has got its highest viewership from India and the most watched section from India is of lesbian porn videos. The reality is, we enjoy the same thing as our means of relaxation which is obscene for us the very next moment.

Today, we see the civilians talking about homosexuality in a more progressive manner but what the origin lacks is the naked concept of the term “homosexuality”. Writers and filmmakers try to portray homosexuality but deep inside the misogyny still works. They fail to show the true nature of Homosexuality. Whenever, good-for-nothing Indian commercial filmmakers try to portray homosexuality and transgenders in their movies, they fail badly. No matter whether it is “Girlfriend”, having Isha Kopikar hating men from her daily and professional life or Dostana showing its own misogyny of a confused mentality or showing misogyny over transgenders in every Govinda film. From a very long time, India has observed transgenders being portrayed as a mere cult which today is visible in the Indian minds. Few days back, one participant of a cultural function portrayed transgenders in the same way the misogynist filmmakers tried to portray, that is, by shaming the style of transgenders in a very unnatural and exaggerated manner.

Censor board is the prime criminal for which the idea of homosexuality in India is still impious and obscene. When Deepa Mehta made “Fire” the kiss between Nandita Das and Shabana Azmi was censored and right after that, the whole film was banned from being screened. Similarly, “Arekti Premer Golpo”, “Unfreedom”, “I Am” etc., went to the censor board to be censored for showing cunnilingus and discussions of sexuality. When Rituparno Ghosh started making film on Transgender and homosexual relationships, his films reached to a particular section due to their availability in only few sites and were never screened openly and thus never letting the films break the taboo of the Indians and so, I’m not proud of the system.

● MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT INTERCOURSE AND SEXUAL DESIRES

Few days back, I wrote an article on the obstacles of the people who want to open up about their sexual desires. As a biology student and teacher, I feel that sexual desire is one of the innate qualities we have inside us and whenever some Indians have tried to open up their doors of sexual desires, the label of obscenity hooked up them from coming openly. The famous religious text, “Kamasutra” is being neglected and is being obscenely portrayed by making B grade movies based on the book itself. Desire of intercourse is being given a bad shape by the patriarchal Indians to establish the obscene nature of women.

Biology tells us that neither testosterone (male hormone) nor progesterone (female hormone) is free off sexual desires. The hormones have been made to arouse humans irrespective of gender and it is not just responsible to give birth to children. Yet whenever a woman speaks on her sexual desires, patriarchy predicts that the woman is obsessed to having intercourse with every man. The concept is wrong. Kamasutra isn’t about establishing the insertion of a penis inside a vagina. Rather it is about the desires of a woman and man. Lust has never been a part of the text nor it has been a part of biology. Lust has always been a weapon of patriarchy to celebrate suppression of women on the basis of muscle power.

Today, a man doesn’t need to open up about his sexual desires neither he has to start a conversation with understanding and love to finally involve in sexual intercourse with the consent of the woman. A man just has to work on his lust to gear up his hormone. The nation has got civilians who believe that no matter how much modern a woman becomes, she has to stay in limit when it is about being painted nude or when she has to wear a backless dress or even when she has to speak on her very own body parts just like men do of their own body parts. Men do not have to care about any of the prohibition neither he is slammed for his misogyny.

Recently, when the web series “Four More Shots” was announced to be screened which opens the door of sexuality to a very honest level, patriarchy took another step to abuse the women of present India as “sexually hungry” without even thinking of how predatory is their own nature which believes in giving men a higher status in muscle, sexual desires, on screen sexual scenes, and suppression of feminist movies. When a woman utters the word “vagina”, which is her own body part only, the woman becomes obscene and a sex hungry human. But when a man abuses a woman on her sexual desires and calls her a “bitch”, it becomes a “mistake” (when caught) or “a traditional human” (when not slammed).

● MISCONCEPTIONS ON STRENGTH AND CHORES:

Take for example, the women of our religious texts have got more number of suppressed and romantically abused women, compared to independent women. When Kunti gave birth to Karna, having a father who gave the title of Suryaputra when he earned his fame, Kunti couldn’t call herself an independent mother because for religion it is a taboo and which led to many women and men believe that it is indeed obscene to have a child from an unidentified father even after five sexual abuses take place every second. Similarly, in Mecca, women are stoned to kill the devil which Muslims believe reside in women making religion merge with sexual abuse.

The chores of men and women has been framed according to religion and no matter, what the statistics say, we cannot deny the fact that our house has got equality to the perfect level. From the Indus Valley Civilization, women have been kept between four walls to take care of the house. She has to hide herself with a “Ghumta” from strangers and both of these traditions are followed in almost every part of our nation. The Muslims have the obscure trend where a woman has to wear a Hijab and she should obey her husband and father (male guardian) before taking any step. Denying that these have been abolished is just what is leading the country to sink down in patriarchy. Even the educated women fight to establish that Hijab is a good trend and they should be the house maker like Sita.

Feminism fails when women fail to understand that without equality even the simplest of the logic cannot attain momentum. The idea of fighting for women is possible only when the idolised dialogue “Aurat Maa ban Sakti hai isliye Shakti bhi bann sakti hai” (A woman can become a mother, and so she can also become a fighter), would be abolished. The above dialogue leads to the failure of every woman who doesn’t wish to/hasn’t/couldn’t become a mother. The idea of strength of a woman is not based on her ability to give birth. It is a patriarchal idea to claim that at first a woman should have the the sperm of a man inside her vagina to become a mother and then only she could be a tough fighter.

Similarly, until and unless equality isn’t established in every field between a man and a woman, it is not ideal to stop fighting. Whenever we say that a woman is stronger than a man, we are showing her weakness. And when, we distribute work after getting into domestic environment based on muscle, we are ruining feminism which is the only ideology that works according to nature. The abusive mentality of patriarchy has been established by religion and it can fought with rationality only when equality would sustain.

Suppression of women over sexual intercourse can be fought by opening up the biology of women. Idea of homosexuality can be kept with more clarity only when the filmmakers won’t show the kneeling of Homosexuals before patriarchy to show its rise only for a short moment. Similarly, equality would be established in professional work and daily chores only when the world would crave for old mentality of forcefully strengthening women. It is not just about feminism or the homosexuals. The idea is to fight for a world which is less dominating and believes in decoding everything that is against equality.

US retail giant Macy’s announces closure of 125 stores and 2,000 job cuts

Dan Conway

On Tuesday, US retail giant Macy’s announced it would close more than 125 stores and cut 2,000 jobs over the next three years. The company will close 28 of these stories by the end of this year. The total cuts represent one-fifth of all of Macy’s locations and 9 percent of its corporate and support positions.

Jeff Gennette, Macy’s chairman and CEO, announced the cuts after disappointing sales figures for the 2019 holiday season. “We are making deep cuts that impact every area of our business,” Gennette said. “These changes are painful but they are necessary.”

Macy’s in Wheaton, Maryland [Credit: Farragutful/Wikimedia]

The changes will not be the slightest bit painful for Gennette himself, who raked in nearly $13 million, including $3.7 million in bonus and incentive pay in 2018, in spite of a series of store closures and a sharp decline in the company’s share values over the preceding years.

The move is only the latest in a series of closures and job cuts by the department store giant. In 2015 the company closed 54 stores and laid off 4,800 employees. In 2016, company closed more than 100 stores and cut 10,000 jobs.

Macy’s will now have 400 stores remaining, a decline of nearly 50 percent from its high of 773 stores in 2014.

The recent closures are the latest in a series of setbacks for so-called “big box” retailers. In 2019, 9,200 retail stores closed across the US, exceeding the 5,437 closed in 2018. The closures themselves often cause a domino effect, whereby the loss of big box retailers spills over into smaller in-line mall tenants.

JCPenney store sales dropped 7.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019, and the company projects fiscal year sales declines between 7 to 8 percent. Market analysts project a strong likelihood that the 95,000 employee company may not survive the coming year.

The iconic Sears and Kmart department store chains, which are both owned by holding company TransformCo, are still teetering on the brink after Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018. Under bankruptcy the chains closed more than half of the stores, from 1,000 to little more than 400, over the course of a single year.

Kmart itself was purchased by the now-defunct Sears Holding Corporation after it emerged from an earlier bankruptcy in 2003. Over the next 16 years the combined entity incurred massive debts under CEO and hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert, Last year, Sears sued its former chief executive, alleging Lampert had stolen more than $2 billion in company assets.

As part of the 2018 bankruptcy, TransformCo, which was also founded by Lampert, purchased 223 Sears and 202 Kmart stores from Sears Holdings for $5.2 billion. The remaining stores were immediately liquidated while TransformCo proceeded with a series of store closures throughout 2019.

As of this month, only 182 full Sears and Kmart stores will remain open. At its peak in 1994, Kmart operated 2,486 stores while Sears, formerly the largest single retailer in the US by revenue, had 2,205 stores operating in the US as of 2011.

The mass closures of JCPenney, Kmart, Sears and Macy’s are connected to the downfall of US shopping malls, where their outlets are classified as “anchor stores” for their ability to attract smaller retailers who take advantage of increased foot traffic to and from the larger retailers.

The current mall retail vacancy rate now stands at 10 percent, an all-time high, even higher than during the last two recessions according to Moody’s Analytics. Only 1,169 malls remain in the United States, and the international investment bank Credit Suisse predicts that 25 percent of US shopping malls could close by 2022.

The overall decline of the big-box retailers and shopping malls can be attributed to the rise of lower cost options such as Walmart and Target along with the rapid rise of e-commerce giants such as Amazon. Online retailers accounted for almost all growth in retail sales in the 2019 holiday season, and comprised a record 15 percent of all sales. Department stores, meanwhile, posted a 5.4 percent decline in sales.