Netanyahu’s far right government plans political control over Israel’s judiciary

Jean Shaoul

In its first major legislative initiative since taking office a week ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has unveiled proposals that will give politicians sweeping powers over Israel’s judiciary, which already leans to the hard right.

Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu (left) far-right Israeli lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich (right) and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid (centre) and leaders of all Israel's political parties pose for a group photo after the swearing-in ceremony for lawmakers at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Tuesday, November 15, 2022. [AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov]

It paves the way for the government, made up of fascistic, ultra-nationalist and religious forces, to assume dictatorial powers. It heralds stepped up attacks on the Palestinians and a mounting assault on the social and democratic rights of all workers, Jewish and Palestinian, as Netanyahu cracks down on political dissent on behalf of Israel’s plutocrats.

This direct political assault on Israel’s already limited checks and balances—Israel has no constitution, just 12 Basic Laws—again explodes the myth that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.

Ever since his indictment some years ago on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three separate cases now being heard in court, the scandal-ridden Netanyahu has waged a vociferous campaign against the judiciary, claiming he is the victim of a witch-hunt orchestrated by a hostile media, police and left-wing prosecutors.

He was able to form a majority government after five elections in four years only after brokering an electoral alliance between three far right and racist parties—Religious Zionism, Jewish Power and Noam—to ensure they met the threshold for entry into the 120-seat Knesset and bolster his bloc. No sooner had it won 14 seats in November’s elections, becoming the third largest party in the Knesset, than the electoral alliance broke up. Their agenda, which Netanyahu largely shares, is Jewish supremacy and apartheid rule, the annexation of large swathes of the West Bank, the expansion of illegal settlements and Jewish prayer at al-Aqsa Mosque.

Netanyahu tweeted, “The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel,” adding “The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel” that includes the West Bank, which has been occupied, and East Jerusalem, annexed, in breach of international law since the 1967 Arab Israel war.

Having welcomed their offer to introduce legislation banning the indictment of a sitting prime minister, he is utterly beholden to these forces, even though these policies risk an uprising in both the Palestinian territories and Israel itself, jeopardise Israel’s burgeoning relations with Arab states and cut across the Biden administration’s efforts to forge a regional alliance against Iran.

Last week, National Security Minister and Jewish Power leader Itamar Ben-Gvir staged a provocation, visiting the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City under heavy security protection as part of his campaign to enable Jews to pray at the site. He threatened anyone opposing this with reprisals, saying they “must be dealt with an iron fist.”

Under Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s plans, a simple majority in Israel’s single chamber parliament will be able to overrule High Court decisions that strike down laws. The High Court, which acts as both the Supreme Court, the highest court of appeal, and the body that hears petitions against government authorities, provides one of the few means of restraining government actions given that most laws can be changed with a simple majority and there is no second chamber to review or block legislation.

Yariv Levin [Photo by לילך שלי at he.wikipedia / CC BY-SA 3.0]

Since the start of judicial review in 1995 and a plethora of illiberal laws and actions, the High Court has opposed just 22 laws, often just an article or clause. But even this is too much for Netanyahu. In future, the High Court’s power to strike down laws will require an unspecified “special majority” of its 15 members. Even so, its decisions could be overridden by just 61 of the Knesset’s 120 lawmakers--although the Knesset would not be able to override High Court decisions backed by all 15 of its judges within the same parliamentary term.

Once this becomes law, Netanyahu’s far right government intends to scrap Supreme Court rulings outlawing Israeli settlement outposts on private Palestinian land in the West Bank. It would also overrule the Court’s decision that outlawed the protracted detention of African asylum seekers and another that mandates all Jewish citizens, including the ultra-Orthodox, to carry out military service.

Levin also plans for the government and its parliamentary allies to control the appointment of judges by stacking the committee of politicians and jurists that appoints and dismisses judges with its own politicians, ensuring rulings that match up the government’s Jewish Supremacy, religious and anti-LGBTQ agenda.

Under the new proposals, the advice of the government’s legal advisers would no longer be legally binding, ministers would be able appoint their own legal advisers instead of using independent professionals, while the High Court would no longer be allowed to use “reasonableness” as a criterion for determining whether or not government decisions are lawful.

The new legislation was announced the day before the High Court began hearing petitions against the appointment of Aryeh Deri, the leader of the Shas religious party, to head two ministries—Health and Interior—in the new government, in which the criterion of reasonableness is set to play a central role.

His appointment is opposed by the Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who argues that it “exceeds in the extreme the boundaries of reasonableness” given his conviction and jail sentence in 1999 for taking bribes and his conviction and suspended jail sentence last year for tax fraud. Campaigners argue that Deri’s appointment to the cabinet follows a legal amendment, brought in by the new government that allows those convicted of crimes who do not receive a jail sentence to become ministers, that is illegitimate.

A successful petition against Deri’s appointment would affect the viability of Netanyahu’s coalition, ensuring that the new law, if enacted, would trigger the first battle between the Supreme Court and the government, which would be able to overrule the court decision to pass the amendment and appoint Deri to the cabinet. Some 65 percent of Israelis, according to a Channel 13 poll, deem Deri’s appointment unacceptable in view of his record. 

Levin plans a second suite of measures that would split the attorney general’s role in two—one for the government’s legal adviser and the other for the state prosecutor. This would allow Netanyahu to replace Attorney General Baharav-Miara with a prosecutor of his choosing who would either revise or revoke the corruption charges against him.

Opposition politicians and judicial and legal figures have opposed the plans. Head of the Israel Bar Association Avi Himi said, 'The new government wants power without limits, without oversight and without restraints, and to turn the State of Israel from a Jewish, democratic and liberal country into a benighted one.' Amir Fuchs, a senior researcher at Jerusalem’s Israel Democracy Institute, said, “It will be a hollow democracy,” adding “When the government has ultimate power, it will use this power not only for issues of LGBTQ rights and asylum seekers but elections and free speech and anything it wants.”

Opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid said merely that his opposition bloc would reverse the legislation 'the moment we return to power,' adding, 'Anyone who carries out a unilateral revolution against the system of government in Israel should know that we are in no way committed to it.'

The Biden administration, which loses no opportunity to claim human rights and democracy as the basis for its military interventions, while refusing to prosecute any of the leaders of the January 6 coup including the ringleader Donald Trump, voiced no opposition to Netanyahu’s assumption of dictatorial powers.  Tom Nides, US ambassador to Israel, said that keeping the countries’ “shared values” in mind, Washington would not rush to judgment.

On Saturday evening, there was a mass rally of some 20,000 people in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square protesting the new government and the proposed law. One march was organized by Standing Together that promotes Jewish and Arab equality and partnership, and another focused specifically on the threat to the country's justice system. Protesters carried banners saying, “Democracy in danger,” “Together against fascism and apartheid” and “Housing, Livelihood, Hope,” while others carried rainbow flags.

Netanyahu denounced the protests, criticizing banners comparing justice minister Levin to a Nazi and signs calling to “Free Palestine from [the] Zionist colonial regime.” He demanded an end to the demonstrations he said were acts of “wild incitement that went uncondemned by the opposition or the mainstream media. I demand that everyone stop this immediately.”

Mandatory overtime is increasingly the norm for Canadian workers

Steve Hill & Dylan Lubao

The eight-hour working day and forty-hour workweek are increasingly becoming a relic of the past in Canada and internationally. These fundamental advances, which workers fought and died for over the course of a century and a half, are now effectively a dead letter.

A scaffolder in Alberta [Photo: Government of Alberta]

In spite of extraordinary technological progress and unprecedented productivity, workers in every industry are working longer for less. The endless drive for higher profits has corporations and capitalist governments forcing workers to run themselves ragged, while criminalizing efforts by workers to resist these edicts. The pro-capitalist unions, which function as an arm of management, dutifully enforce this retrogression in working conditions.

In August 2022, to protest low pay and poor working conditions at energy company Suncor’s oil sands operations in northern Alberta, scaffolders employed by AlumaSafway refused to work beyond their ten-hour shifts and instead only fulfilled their contractual obligations.

Acting on Suncor’s behalf, AlumaSafway responded by filing a case with the Alberta Labour Relations Board (ALRB). The board declared the workers’ protest an “illegal strike” because workers had circulated an anonymous letter recommending that they refuse to accept the “voluntary” assignment and had thus acted in a coordinated manner. The ALRB backed this ruling with the threat of civil or criminal penalties.

In response, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America (UBC), which represents the scaffolders, merely posted a copy of the ALRB order on its website without comment. They did not so much as issue a protest in defence of the workers.

This situation is not unique to Canada or anywhere in the industrialized world. The Canada Labour Code, which oversees federally regulated industries, only allows a worker to refuse overtime to address a family member’s health care or educational issues, and only if “reasonable” steps to solve the issue have already been taken. Provincial labour boards across the country like the ALRB have ruled that workers cannot refuse overtime if they have regularly worked overtime in the past.

Mandatory overtime, or “voluntary” overtime under duress, is the norm for millions of Canadian workers. Adding to the mounting pressure on workers is the record number of job vacancies in the economy, which peaked at one million in May 2022. With fewer workers available to satisfy the demand for profit, employers are squeezing the workers they do have for harder work and longer hours.

A major driver of this phenomenon is the attrition of the workforce caused by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed thousands of workers and forced many more into early retirement due to burnout or the effects of Long COVID. Furthermore, an aging population is leaving the workforce, with retirements up 50 percent year-on-year as of August.

Public and private sector workers affected

One of the hardest hit sectors is health care, where more than one in five nurses worked overtime (21.6 percent) as of July, more than double the national average of 9.7 percent. Here, the burden of the capitalist “let it rip” pandemic policy is felt most keenly. Nursing job vacancies totaled 23,620 in the first quarter of 2022, or more than triple the number from 2017.

A November 2022 study from the Canadian Institute for Health Information found that 45 percent of paramedics, 34 percent of salaried family doctors, and 31 percent of respiratory therapists worked overtime in 2021.

Health care workers across the country often work long overtime hours to prop up a collapsing public health system, which is buckling under the weight of the pandemic after decades of systematic underfunding via capitalist austerity measures.

In Quebec, years of government budget cuts, health care rationing, and privatization by the Liberals, Parti Québécois (PQ), and now Coalition Avenir Québéc (CAQ) have resulted in inadequate resources, short-staffing and forced overtime. Even prior to the pandemic, many Quebec nurses were routinely compelled to work extra shifts, depriving them of the personal and family time needed to physically and psychologically recuperate from their jobs. Since 2021, a wave of sit-ins by nurses has swept hospitals across Quebec to protest short-staffing and forced overtime.

It was the unions that proposed the PQ government of Lucien Bouchard use a scheme of voluntary retirements to slash health care spending in the late 1990s. Under this scheme, the government permanently eliminated tens of thousands of health care jobs, thereby diminishing the quality of care available to Quebecers, and significantly increasing the workload for the nurses and other health care workers who remained.

This process is replicated across the country. In Ontario, hundreds of thousands of health care workers have endured decades of pay cuts, which were extended in 2019 by Tory Premier Doug Ford’s Bill 124, capping public sector wage increases at 1 percent per year.

Union officials have not lifted a finger to mobilize their members for a political struggle against these disastrous conditions. On the contrary, they have served as the chief obstacle to all efforts by workers to fight back, whether it be against wage restraint or dangerous working conditions produced by the ruling elite’s decision to let COVID-19 run rampant. Thousands of workers have left the public sector, compounding staff shortages and the need for overtime.

At the start of 2022, American railroad workers at the railway BNSF became subject to a punitive points-based “Hi-Viz” attendance policy. The policy, which effectively leaves workers on-call 24/7, binds workers entirely to their jobs with no time left over for their families.

Although all 120,000 railroad workers in the US were in strike position and were determined to overturn near-identical conditions across the industry, their unions barred them from striking and conspired with the Democratic Biden administration and railroad corporations to impose a sellout contract, which Congress enacted in December through a bipartisan vote.

Working in excess of ten to twenty additional hours per week is the norm, not the exception, for workers in industries like auto manufacturing. After decades during which unions like the United Auto Workers (UAW) in the US and UNIFOR in Canada imposed two-tier wage systems and rollbacks to benefits and pensions, workers have no choice but to chain themselves to their workstations just to make ends meet.

The workers movement and the fight for the eight-hour day

The achievement of the eight-hour day was the product of sustained struggle by the working class throughout the period of capitalist economic development, culminating with the conquest of power by the working class under the leadership of the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the working day ranged from 10 to 16 hours, the work week was typically six days long, and the use of child labour was common. When the International Workingmen’s Association took up the demand for an eight-hour day at its Congress in Geneva in 1866, it declared, “The legal limitation of the working day is a preliminary condition without which all further attempts at improvements and emancipation of the working class must prove abortive… The Congress proposes eight hours as the legal limit of the working day.”

In addressing the deleterious health effects of long working hours, Karl Marx wrote in Das Kapital (1867), “By extending the working day, therefore, capitalist production… not only produces a deterioration of human labour power by robbing it of its normal moral and physical conditions of development and activity, but also produces the premature exhaustion and death of this labour power itself.”

Legislation limiting the working day was a fundamental conquest of militant labour struggles going back to the early part of the 19th century. The first Canadian legislation giving protection to unions emerged in 1872 in the aftermath of an unsuccessful agitation for a nine-hour day led by the Toronto Typographical Union. This was a common demand of the 1860s and 1870s in both Europe and North America. The first May Day, on May 1, 1886, saw 300,000 workers walk off the job across the United States in support of the demand for an eight-hour day.

The Soviet Union was the first country to adopt the eight-hour work day for all professions in 1917. In the industrialized nations, the eight-hour day was primarily a result of militant struggles led by socialist-minded workers in the 1920s and 1930s, inspired by the October Revolution in Russia. Canada adopted the forty-hour work week in the 1960s, but there has been constant pressure by employers, and constant concessions by the unions, which have weakened that provision ever since.

The current situation for workers has been decades in the making. Twenty years ago, under the banner of Ontario Premier Mike Harris’ “Common Sense Revolution,” the Tory government removed longstanding limits on the length of the workweek and changed the way in which overtime pay is calculated to the detriment of workers. This helped set a precedent for similar attacks by other provincial and state governments across North America.

As we wrote in September, “While big business is free to utilize all the instruments of the state apparatus and the courts to criminalize worker opposition to its relentless drive for profits, workers are prevented at every turn from responding collectively. The so-called ‘labour relations’ system, including collective bargaining, would in fact better be termed ‘labour enforcement’ by a collective dictatorship of businesses, trade union bureaucrats and governments over the working class. There is no way for workers to defend even their most basic interests through these rigged institutions of bourgeois class rule.”

Japan’s healthcare system pushed to collapse by COVID-19 cases

Ben McGrath

Japan is currently experiencing one of its worst COVID-19 surges since the pandemic began three years ago. Total official cases have now exceeded more than 30 million while deaths reached 60,000 on Sunday. Both are underestimates of the real figures and the overall toll of the pandemic. None of this gives the government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pause as it presses ahead with the removal of remaining mitigation measures.

People wearing face masks flock to a shopping street famous for a year-end shopping before New Year holidays in Tokyo, Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. [AP Photo/Hiro Komae]

On January 5, Japan reported a single-day record high of 498 deaths, a fact that exposes the official lie that the pandemic is over. In December alone, official deaths spiked sharply with approximately 10,000 people succumbing to the virus. In comparison, it took 14 months to first reach the first 10,000 deaths in the pandemic while it took only four months to rise from 40,000 to 50,000.

Daily new cases have skyrocketed over the past two months reaching well over 200,000, following relatively low figures in October after the summer surge. Now, at least 12 prefectures have posted record-high cases, while nine have had record-high numbers of deaths. The highest daily case number was recorded on January 6 with 245,542, coming close to the record peak of 261,252 on August 19.

The true extent of the situation is not known as infected people recovering at home are not recorded as official cases. In addition, the dangerous new XBB.1.5 variant has also been detected in Japan, believed to be the most immune-evasive strain yet, meaning vaccination and previous infections offer little or no protection.

The real situation is therefore far more serious than presented by the government and in the media, which are inundating the public with claims that the pandemic is finished. Toho University Professor Tateda Kazuhiro, who sits on the government’s COVID-19 advisory board, warned that cases could rise later this month as high as 450,000 per day.

Excess deaths point to the real impact of the pandemic. In August, during the height of the summer surge, approximately 7,000 people died from infection with COVID-19, according to Health Ministry figures. However, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases estimated in the same month that there were between 12,000 and 17,000 excess deaths.

According to figures released last February, the year 2021 set a record for the number of deaths in the post-war period with 1,452,289, driven by the Delta variant of COVID-19. This was an increase of 67,745 deaths over the previous year. Similarly high numbers are expected for 2022 as a result of the spread of the numerous Omicron subvariants.

Hospital bed occupancy rates are rising, with beds for COVID-19 patients in Tokyo for example filled to 55.3 percent of capacity as of January 5. Patients are also being admitted to hospitals for different ailments and becoming infected.

In an interview with Tokai TV, Dr. Kobayashi, head of the Sakura General Hospital in the town of Oguchi, Aichi Prefecture, stated that the official prefectural hospital bed occupancy rate of 70 percent did not reflect the true situation. “We’re actually at 95 percent or more,” he said. “No mistake about it. We’re on the eve of collapse. If this wave continues for much longer, or if another wave strikes before this one recedes, we’re in a state where collapse is going to be imminent. I can say that with certainty.”

Doctors in Fukuoka Prefecture are warning that they can only accept the most severe cases, despite an official bed occupancy rate of just 8.2 percent. Following a record number of deaths of 36 in the prefecture on January 6, Dr. Ishikura Hiroyasu, head of Fukuoka University Hospital Emergency and Critical Care Center, warned: “People on respirators are in critical condition, so others are dying before even having the opportunity to get hooked on the respirator. This is what contributes to the rise in the death count, and I think when such a rise begins, it is the start of collapse for health care.”

The pandemic continues to have a serious impact on patients with other conditions as well. The number of cases where ambulances transporting patients in the country’s 52 major metropolitan areas rose to 7,158 during the week of December 26, exceeding the previous record-high from the week earlier by 358 cases.

Government officials have tried to downplay the recent surge. One official from Kumamoto Prefecture telling the media, “The reports may have been concentrated because medical facilities were closed during the year-end and New Year holidays. We need to see how the situation develops.”

As part of dismantling necessary public health measures, the government has restricted the free availability of the more reliable PCR tests. People showing symptoms can get tested while those who are asymptomatic and have not been referred by a doctor must pay for a test or are simply unable to access one at all. It is designed to prevent workers from accessing reliable testing and keeping them on the job.

The government is also planning to lower COVID-19 from its current classification as a Category II infectious disease to Category V, the lowest in the tier system. The move would make it easier to keep infected people working and further reduce reporting of new cases, while justifying ending the indoor mask-wearing requirement. Prime Minister Kishida made clear that the economy was at the heart of these changes, saying on December 26, “We hope to fully take back normal life and achieve a strong economic rebound next year.”

Travel has been renewed, with Tokyo aiming to bring in 5 trillion yen ($US37.9 billion) in annual tourist spending. On December 21, the Japan National Tourism Organization reported that the number of foreign travelers to Japan the previous month reached 934,500. It was the first full month in which mitigation measures for travelers had been fully scrapped.

At the same time, Japan is imposing restrictions on travelers from mainland China, demanding a negative PCR test upon arrival. Travelers from Hong Kong and Macao are exempt, even as both places have experienced a spike in new cases. This measure has nothing to do with stopping the spread of the virus, but instead is meant to further demonize China in the minds of the public. All of this demonstrates that the pandemic in Japan, as around the world, is far from over.

FTX bankruptcy fallout continues unchecked in crypto market

Nick Beams

The fallout from the $32 billion collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto exchange and his associated company Alameda Research is continuing to spread as more firms report their exposure to his Ponzi scheme operation.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried leaves Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023, in New York. [AP Photo/Craig Ruttle]

Last week, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported what it called the “massive crypto lender” Genesis Global Trading had laid off 30 percent of its staff and was in discussions about filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Genesis had been previously hit by the failure of the crypto-based hedge fund Three Arrows Capital after providing it with a $2.4 billion loan.

Its financial problems deepened with the implosion of FTX because it had lent hundreds of millions of dollars to Alameda.

Last November, Genesis halted redemptions, hitting the crypto exchange Gemini which had $900 million of its customers’ funds tied up in the firm. Other firms may also be affected.

According to the WSJ article, Genesis is owned by the crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group, which operates several other crypto-based firms, including the crypto news outlet Coinbase.

The FTX collapse also sparked a run on a major crypto bank, Silvergate, whose business involved the movement of money from institutional investors in and out of the crypto markets.

Last Thursday it announced that deposits from its customers had fallen from $12 billion to just $4 billion in the fourth quarter. To cover the withdrawals, it was forced to sell off $5 billion worth of financial assets at a loss of $718 million, far more than its total profits going back to 2013.

As a result of the announcement, Silvergate’s shares dropped by 43 percent last Thursday, bringing the total decline to 84 percent over the past three months.

A report in the WSJ said the magnitude of the run on Silvergate was “highly unusual—even by the standards of the Great Depression.” In a conference call with analysists on Thursday morning, Silvergate executives said customers did not simply close their accounts but indicated they were getting out of crypto altogether and putting their money into safe assets such as US Treasury bonds.

If the crypto debacle were just an isolated event, fueled by excessive speculation, it would not be of major significance.

Its importance lies in the fact that the crypto market—trading and profiting from an asset with no intrinsic value—has been the most egregious expression of processes in the broader financial system.

There is no fundamental difference between making a profit from an increase in the share value of a company, whose rise has been fueled by the expectation that it will go still higher and profiting from trading in crypto in the expectation that coin values will continue to climb.

Bankman-Fried’s “business model” has been characterised as a Ponzi scheme dependent on the continued inflow of money. But the same could be said equally of Wall Street.

Its rise and rise, particularly after the Fed injected another $4 trillion into the financial markets at the start of the pandemic in 2020, following the market freeze in March, lifted the prices of stocks to record highs and provided the fuel for speculation in other areas.

But by March last year, recognising that inflation was not “transitory,” as it has previously maintained, the US Federal Reserve, followed by other central banks, initiated a new regime of monetary tightening to try to suppress the global wages struggles of the working class in response to the biggest price hikes in four decades.

Share markets have been impacted, with the S&P 500 index finishing almost 20 percent lower in 2022. The loss in share values has been concentrated in high-tech stocks whose market valuations are most sensitive to interest rates increases, as reflected in the 33 percent fall in the NASDAQ index over 2022.

According to an analysis presented in the Financial Times, the ten biggest stocks by market capitalisation at the start of 2022, including Tesla, Apple and Microsoft, lost a combined total of $4.9 trillion last year, equivalent to around 20 percent of US GDP, and have lost a further $110 billion so far this year.

Tesla shares, one of the more speculative share market bets, lost two thirds of their market value last year.

The massive losses in share values mean that many small, so-called retail investors, will have taken a heavy hit, together with their 401K pension plans. But market losses of nearly $5 trillion means that major investments have also been impacted.

So far, these effects have yet to surface. But the events in the crypto market point to how rapidly the situation can change. After all, barely two months ago Bankman-Fried was the toast of the financial world. Now he is facing criminal charges.

Halting the endless supply of money and increasing interest rates, the full effects of which have yet to be felt, will have a major impact on the global economy and its financial system over the coming year.

According to an abstract of the World Bank’s bi-annual Global Economic Prospects report due to be released today, “further adverse shocks” could push the world economy into recession this year, with smaller countries particularly vulnerable.

It said that even without another crisis this year, global growth is “expected to decelerate sharply, reflecting synchronous policy tightening aimed as containing very high inflation, worsening financial conditions” as well as continued disruption flowing from the war in Ukraine.

There were similar forecasts from participants, reported by Bloomberg, at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in New Orleans which concluded on Sunday.

Summarising the conclusions, the report said ending the era of ultra-low interest rates ushered in a new world “where an intensifying US-China rivalry and dangerous debt blow-ups are more the norm.”

Former International Monetary Fund chief economist, Kenneth Rogoff said: “We live in an era of many shocks. We may be at a turning point for the global economy.”

Atlanta Fed president Ralph Bostic, a member of the Fed’s governing body, admitted he had no real idea of the direction of economic events. Because the pandemic was so unique, “it’s hard to have firm expectation about how things are going to evolve over time.”

But Bostic was sure of one thing: in line with the agenda of central banks around the world, the Fed would have to keep raising rates, even if wage rises were lower than expected.

A former Bank of England policy official, Kristin Forbes, said the policy response to COVID had “introduced new vulnerabilities and risks.”

Those risks arise from the refusal of governments to deal with the pandemic, for fear that public health measures would adversely impact on profits and market valuations, as well as the buying by central banks of trillions of dollars of financial assets.

The build-up of government debt and the creation of asset bubbles via ultra-low interest rates created vulnerabilities that could manifest themselves “sooner rather than later” as the cost of credit rose, Forbes stated.

The ongoing turmoil in the crypto market, which was so heavily dependent on the low-interest rate regime, is the sign of a much bigger storm approaching.

Sri Lankan president demands more austerity

Saman Gunadasa

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe called on public sector employees to work longer hours in his new year address to presidential secretariat staff on January 2.

“Each person’s duties cannot be limited to eight hours a day and five days a week. Let’s all work with commitment. By the end of 2023, I hope to take this country forward with the support of all of you, and to restore normalcy,” he declared.

Striking health workers protesting outside the Health Ministry building in Colombo, 9 January 2023. [Photo: WSWS]

Wickremesinghe’s message further underscores his determination to impose the burden of the deepening economic crisis gripping Sri Lanka on the working class and the poor.

What the president means by taking Sri Lanka “forward” is implementation of the government’s 2023 budget proposals.

Dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and passed by the parliament on December 8, the budget involves deep cuts to government expenditure. This includes major tax increases for hundreds of thousands of workers, the slashing of price subsidies, massive state sector job cuts, and a swathe of privatisations.

The Public Administration Ministry recently announced that a record 30,000 state employees—eight times higher than usual—abruptly retired on December 31, after Wickremesinghe reduced the retirement age from 65 to 60. The government has already frozen recruitment. Public Administration Ministry Secretary Neel Bandara has also threatened to take tough action against public officials using mobile phones during office hours.

The impact of staff shortage was immediately felt in the railways with the department forced to cancel at least 11 trains on the first working day of the year and reduce services during the week.

Education Minister Susil Premajantha admitted that around 4,000 teachers usually retire annually but that this time retirements increased to between 10,000 and 12,000. There was a shortage of over 4,500 principals, he added, declaring that the ministry confronted many obstacles trying to deal with the around 4.3 million students. This is the background to Wickremesinghe’s call for extended working hours and a longer work week.

On Friday, Wickremesinghe told the media that the government’s privatisation agenda will be stepped up. “A holding company will be set up to hold the shares of these [privatising state] institutions. It will be formed in the second week of this month,” he declared.

Colombo has already announced the privatisation or restructuring of Sri Lankan Airlines, the Ceylon Electricity Board, Lanka Hospitals, Sri Lanka Telecom and the Waters Edge and Hilton Colombo hotels.

Wickremesinghe has also demanded reports from Ceylon Petroleum Corporation and Sri Lankan Airlines CEOs, explaining why they paid bonuses to employees in these companies. This directive is not just about ending the payment of bonuses at state-owned institutions but a warning that other hard-won rights of the working class will be axed.

Pay-as-you-earn tax increases were implemented as soon as 2023 began, effectively slashing thousands of rupees from the salaries of many state and private sector workers. This occurred as hyperinflation in Sri Lanka continues to impact, further eroding the value of workers’ wages. Treasury Secretary Mahinda Siriwardena justified the higher tax rates, declaring: “Sri Lanka is still in a difficult situation [and has to] implement the 2022 tax policies introduced in May and August.”

Yesterday, the cabinet of ministers approved an average 65 percent increase in electricity tariffs. This is on top of a 75 percent rise last August. The latest increase is particularly targeted against the low-income groups whose electricity charges has climbed by three to four times.

Inflation in Sri Lanka is currently 57 percent, after hitting a record 73 percent in September, mainly due to the printing of billions of rupees to benefit big business. Sri Lanka is among the top ten countries in the world with the highest inflation and child malnutrition rates. According to the World Food Program, 6.3 million people, or almost 30 percent of the population, are “food insecure” and require humanitarian assistance.

In 2022, the Sri Lankan government defaulted on foreign debts, unable to make repayments due to foreign reserves drying up. The country’s debt crisis was intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic and the US-led NATO war against Russia in Ukraine.

Late last year Colombo made a deal with the IMF for a $2.9 billion loan, subject to debt restructuring and ruthless austerity measures. Creditor countries, however, have failed to agree on a concessionary debt restructuring program for Sri Lanka, which has led to the IMF delaying its bailout loan.

Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program on January 1, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned that because “25 percent of emerging markets are trading in distressed territories, the world economy may be in for a bad surprise. And this is why the IMF is working very hard to press for debt resolution for these countries.”

A third of the world economy would be hit with recession this year, facing a “tougher” year than 2022, Georgieva continued. The war in Ukraine, rising prices, higher interest rates, and the spread of COVID-19 in China would weigh on the global economy, she added. In other words, there will not be a financial recovery for any country, let alone Sri Lanka, but a deepening of the economic crisis.

While the World Bank estimated that the Sri Lankan economy would decline by 10 percent, it contracted by almost 12 percent in the third quarter of last year. The higher contraction rate was partly due to the IMF dictated policies and the impact of the global crisis.  

Working-class resistance to the Wickremesinghe’s austerity measure is growing. Yesterday thousands of junior staff at public hospitals walked out on strike opposing job cuts and interest rate hikes and demanding a wage rise.

In December, thousands of insurance, banking, electricity, railway, postal, healthcare and free trade zone workers demonstrated across the country in opposition to privatisation and demanding improved working conditions.

The trade unions blocked these struggles, promoting illusions that the government could be pressured to grant workers’ demands. Yesterday, for example, the health sector unions declared that striking hospital workers “understood” the crisis facing the country and only wanted a promise from the government that it would implement workers’ demands.  

Opposition parties, such as Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) have no fundamental differences with Wickremesinghe’s brutal budget-cutting measures.

The SJB and JVP are demanding general elections in an attempt to divert and exploit the mass opposition among workers and the poor. If elected to power they would implement the same IMF measures.

Yesterday, SJB leader Sajith Premadasa boasted that “foreign donors trust me more than others.” JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake is campaigning across country, declaring that Sri Lanka could be saved from the economic crisis by “two years of hard work” under his government.

US military “setting the theatre” for war with China

Peter Symonds

In a remarkably frank interview with the Financial Times yesterday, the top US Marine general in Japan declared that US-NATO successes against Russia in Ukraine were a product of advance planning and preparations—“setting the theatre” for war in military jargon. That was exactly what the Pentagon was doing in Japan and Asia, he explained, in preparing for conflict against China over Taiwan.

A US Marine launching a Javelin shoulder-fired anti-tank missile during the Resolute Dragon 22 exercise last year. [Photo: Cpl Scott Aubuchon/US Marine Corps]

“Why have we achieved the level of success we’ve achieved in Ukraine?” Lieutenant General James Bierman asked rhetorically. A big part of it, he explained, was that after what he termed “Russian aggression” in 2014 and 2015, “we earnestly got after preparing for future conflict: training for the Ukrainians, pre-positioning of supplies, identification of sites from which we could operate support, sustain operations.”

“We call that setting the theatre. And we are setting the theatre in Japan, in the Philippines, in other locations.” In other words, the US is setting a trap for China by goading it into taking military action against Taiwan in the same way that it provoked Russia into invading Ukraine following the US-backed coup in 2014 that toppled a pro-Russian government.

Lieutenant General James Bierman is commanding general of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF) and of Marine Forces Japan. Significantly, the III MEF is the only Marine crisis response force permanently stationed outside the US. In other words, Bierman and his Marines would be on the front line of any US-led conflict with China.

As the Financial Times explained, the III MEF is “at the heart of a sweeping reform of the Marine Corps.” Its focus is being shifted from the “war on terror” in the Middle East to “creating small units that specialise in operating quickly and clandestinely in the islands and straits of east Asia and the western Pacific to counter Beijing’s ‘anti-access area denial’ strategy.”

The US plans for war against China—known as AirSea Battle—envisage a massive air and missile assault on Chinese military bases and strategic industries supported by warships and submarines. The Pentagon has been increasingly concerned about China’s military abilities to defend its territory and secure neighbouring seas—“anti access area denial” with its own missiles and naval vessels.

US war preparations with Japan are proceeding apace. As Bierman boasted, the two militaries have “seen exponential increases . . . just over the last year” in their activities on territory from which they would operate during a war. In recent exercises, the Marines for the first time established bilateral ground tactical co-ordination centres rather than liaising with a separate Japanese command point.

The aim is far closer integration of American and Japanese forces. Instead of Japanese military groups being rotated to operate alongside US forces in Japan, specific units have now been designated as part of the “stand-in force” alongside their US Marine, Navy and Air Force counterparts.

Bierman also pointed out that similar preparations are being made in the Philippines where the government intends to allow the US to preposition weapons and other supplies on five more bases in addition to five where it already has access. “You gain a leverage point, a base of operations, which allows you to have a tremendous head start in different operational plans,” he enthused.

The US-led war against Russia in Ukraine and its intensifying confrontation with China are two sides of a strategy to dominate the vast Eurasian landmass that threatens to plunge humanity into a nuclear holocaust.

While Bierman is highlighting the advanced operational planning for war with China, it is being matched by huge increases in military spending by both the US and Japan.

Stars and Stripes reported on January 2 that the new US defence budget approved last month by President Biden included billions of dollars for new military infrastructure and strategic initiatives across the Pacific. The Indo-Pacific Command already has some 375,000 military and civilian personnel working across the region.

The Command’s headquarters in Hawaii get $87.9 million for barracks; $103 million for upgrading missile storage facilities; $111 million for a company operations facility, and $29 million for an Army National Guard Readiness Center.

The Navy will receive $32 billion alone for new warships and 36 F-35 aircraft, each costing about $89 million. The funding also includes $621 million for two SSN-774 Virginia class attack submarines that are expected to conduct operations in the Pacific and receive maintenance at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.

To counter Chinese weapons, the Army is upgrading artillery and missile systems, seeking new longer-range cannons and hypersonic weapons while modifying air- and sea-launched missiles and cruise missiles for ground launch by Army units.

The Japanese government announced last month that it would double military spending over the next five years between 2023 and 2027 to about $US80 billion or 2 percent of GDP. The associated national defence documents explicitly identify China as “an unprecedented and the greatest strategic challenge.” 

The Japanese military will buy a range of offensive weapons, including cruise missiles like Lockheed Martin’s Tomahawk and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM). It is also planning to upgrade its own Type 12 guided missiles that can be fired from the surface, ships, or aircrafts to strike naval vessels, and to manufacture its own hypersonic guided missiles.

Japan will also boost its missile sites. It has already begun to militarise its southern islands immediately adjacent to Taiwan and off the Chinese mainland, including Amami, Miyako, Ishigaki, and Yonaguni Islands. Tokyo has deployed or intends to deploy missile and electronic warfare units to these islands, in addition to constructing ammunition and fuel depots.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida set off Sunday on a tour of Europe and North America focussed on bolstering military ties. He will visit both Britain and Italy, which are joint partners in a deal agreed last month to build new advanced fighters. He is also expected to sign an agreement in Britain to establish the framework for visits by each other’s military forces. 

Kishida’s final stop will be in the US where he will hold talks with Biden at the White House that will discuss military collaboration, Japan’s purchase of US missiles and efforts to block China’s access to advanced semi-conductors. As part of the US economic war on China, Biden has imposed a series of bans on the sale to China of advanced computer chips or the machinery required to develop and manufacture them. The Japanese defence and foreign ministers are due to hold a round of talks with the American counterparts on Wednesday in Washington.

At the same time, the US is about to conduct a provocative, official trip to Taiwan—an island that it de-facto recognises under the One China policy as being part of China with Beijing as the legitimate government. Terry McCartin, the top US official responsible for trade with China, is due to arrive in Taipei on Saturday to lead a delegation that will include officials from other government agencies.

The visit to Taiwan by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last August, sanctioned by the White House, provoked sharp tensions and a dangerous show of force by both sides in surrounding waters. By strengthening trade and military ties with Taipei, Washington is deliberately pushing Beijing into a corner to force it to fire the first shot in a war over Taiwan that the US has prepared for in advance.

As Lieutenant General Bierman crudely explained: “As we square off with the Chinese adversary, who is going to own the starting pistol and is going to have the ability potentially to initiate hostilities . . . we can identify decisive key terrain that must be held, secured, defended, leveraged.”

Government of Turkey Undergraduate, Masters & PhD Scholarships (Türkiye Burslari) 2023/2024

Application Deadline: 20th February 2023 (OPENING 10th January)

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: See List below.

To be taken at (Universities): Turkish Universities

Fields of Study: Courses offered at the universities

About Türkiye Burslari Government of Turkey Undergraduate & Postgraduate Scholarships: Türkiye Scholarships include both scholarship and university placement simultaneously. Applicants will be placed in a university and programme among their preferences specified in the online application form. Candidates can apply to only one scholarship programme following their educational background and academic goals.

Type: Undergraduate, Masters, PhD

Eligibility: To be eligible for Turkiye scholarship, applicants must;

• be a citizen of a country other than Turkey (Anyone holding or ever held Turkish citizenship before cannot apply)
• not be a registered student in Turkish universities at the level of study they are applying.
• There is also age condition candidates are required to meet:• For applicants applying to Undergraduate Degree: Those who were born no earlier than 01.01.2001,
  • For applicants applying to Master’s Degree: Those who were born no earlier than 01.01.1992,
  • For applicants applying to Ph.D Degree: Those who were born no earlier than 01.01.1987,
• Applicants shouldn’t have any health problems barrier to education.
• have at least 75 % cumulative grade point average or diploma grade over their maximum graduation grade or have at least 75 % success in any accepted national or international graduate admissions test.

Required Documents

• Online application
• A copy of a bachelor or master’s diploma or document indicating that the candidate is bachelor or master’s senior student
• A certified bachelor and/or master’s transcript (indicating courses taken and relevant grades of the candidate)
• A copy of a valid ID card (passport, national ID, birth certificate etc.)
• Passport photo

Number of Scholarships: several

Value of Türkiye Burslari Government of Turkey Undergraduate & Postgraduate Scholarships: The Scholarship Covers:

• Monthly stipend (600 TL for undergraduate, 850 TL for master and 1.200 TL for PhD )
• Full tuition fee
• 1-year Turkish language course
• Free accommodation
• Round-trip air ticket
• Health insurance

Duration of Türkiye Burslari Government of Turkey Undergraduate & Postgraduate Scholarships: for the period of study

How To Apply

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details