200 people jailed as mass protests continue in Turkey

Ulaş Ateşçi

CHP leader Özgür Özel is addressing the demonstrators protesting against the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu in front of the building of Istanbul Municipality in Saraçhane, İstanbul, March 25, 2025 [Photo: herkesicinCHP]

Some 1,500 people have been detained and 200 sent to prison across Turkey as mass protests continue against the arrest of Istanbul Mayor and Republican People’s Party (CHP) presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu last week.

Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Saraçhane Square on Tuesday, where over 1 million gathered on Sunday to protest the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after İmamoğlu was arrested and sent to prison. Protests continued on Monday, while school boycotts and mass demonstrations by university students have grown. The CHP announced the next rally in Istanbul will be held on Saturday in Maltepe Square.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on Tuesday that a total of 1,418 people have been detained since March 19. On Tuesday alone, 174 people were arrested and sent to prison in Istanbul. Four people were arrested in Kocaeli and ten in Izmir.

The Sosyalist Eşitlik Grubu (Socialist Equality Group, SEG), the Turkish section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), and the World Socialist Web Site condemn the arrests and detentions and demand the immediate release of all political prisoners.

Among those arrested are several journalists and leading members of the Labor Party (EMEP), the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), the Left Party, the Communist Movement of Turkey (TKH) and the Social Freedom Party (TÖP).

On Wednesday morning, many others were detained in Istanbul, Bursa and Adana as the police continued their house raids. Among those detained was academician Levent Dölek, deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (DİP) and representative of educators’ union, Eğitim-Sen at Istanbul University.

Dölek was detained for “violating the law on meetings and demonstrations” by participating in a one-day work stoppage organized by Eğitim-Sen in solidarity with the ongoing student boycott at universities. The governorships of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir unconstitutionally declared “protest bans” last week but they were overturned by the defiance of the youth and working masses.

Students from several universities in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir started a school boycott on Monday to defend democratic rights and protest the government. Faculty members of the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara organized a march to protest the operation targeting Eğitim-Sen for its strike.

University students, who have been organizing marches and demonstrations for days despite police repression, staged one of the largest student protests in Istanbul in decades on Tuesday. According to news reports, the students’ joint protest march was two kilometers long.

CHP leader Özgür Özel declared that the Erdoğan government’s “coup attempt” against İmamoğlu has been defeated, stating: “The coup attempt on March 19 was to install a trustee appointed by an indigestible coup plotter who could not defeat the elected İstanbul mayor. We sincerely thank the tens of millions of people they did not take into account for defending the will of İstanbul and defeating the coup.”

However, İmamoğlu was unlawfully removed from his post as mayor and sent to prison, and it is unclear whether he will be able to run for president in the next elections. The CHP is the founding party of the Turkish Republic established by Atatürk.

İmamoğlu, the only candidate in the CHP’s presidential primaries on Sunday in which 15 million people participated, had his university degree, a requirement for candidacy, revoked the day before he was detained.

In his remarks to Tuesday night’s rally, Özel addressed Erdoğan and demanded İmamoğlu’s hearings be broadcast live on state-owned TRT channel. On Wednesday, Erdoğan signaled that the crackdown on the CHP would continue, implying that the ruling in the case of İmamoğlu had already been made.

“İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality and some district municipalities [run by CHP] seem to have written the book on cannibalism when it comes to theft. The extent of the shame that began with the irregular diploma [of İmamoğlu] and continued with the bribery and extortion ring that wrapped around the whole city like an octopus has been revealed with the latest operation,” Erdoğan said, adding, “All kinds of illegality, including corruption, amounting to 100 billion liras, have been revealed.”

He continued: “Moreover, these are the crimes that the judiciary accused them of based on information coming from inside the CHP. Bigger ones will follow… Instead of shedding light on the allegations, the CHP leadership preferred to play cheap politics and tried to create chaos in the country by taking people to the streets.”

In reality the CHP did not take the people to the streets, but did its best to control the masses who took to the streets spontaneously, seeking to prevent the movement from radicalizing and subordinating it to capitalist rule.

On Tuesday, Finance Minister Mehmet Şimsek and Central Bank Governor Fatih Karahan held an online meeting with many investors from North America, the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East to reassure finance capital. The Central Bank is estimated to have sold around US$26 billion in three days as the Turkish lira plunged against the US dollar after İmamoglu’s detention last week.

“The increase in inflation expectations will not require a second increase in the minimum wage for the time being,” said Şimşek, pointing out that the price of the financial turmoil will be paid by workers who have been subjected to a severe austerity. Official annual inflation was 39 percent in February.

The sharp decline in the living conditions of workers and youth played an important role in the eruption of mass anger against the Erdoğan government over the detention of İmamoğlu. The austerity program led by Şimsek, which the CHP supported, has led to a severe decline in real wages. This has provoked wildcat strikes in many sectors, from metal workers to miners, textile workers to construction workers. Most recently, on Tuesday, hundreds of workers at the construction site of the strategic Akkuyu nuclear power plant in Mersin, a joint venture with Russia, walked off the job because they were denied a wage increase for the new year.

Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan traveled to Washington on Tuesday for a two-day official visit. After talks with his US counterpart Marco Rubio, the State Department issued a statement saying the secretary of state “expressed concerns regarding recent arrests and protests in Türkiye.”

New study finds that the world’s glaciers are melting at an accelerating rate

Philip Guelpa

The Punta Rocca glacier near Canazei, in the Italian Alps in northern Italy, where a huge chunk broke loose in July 2022. [AP Photo/Luca Bruno]

A newly published scientific study, (“Community estimate of global glacier mass changes from 2000 to 2023,” Nature, 19 February 2025), finds that the world’s mountain glaciers are melting at a faster rate than ever recorded and that rate is accelerating. This will have many dire consequences both for humans and the environment as a whole. 

Glaciers are large masses of ice, formed in colder regions, usually in mountains, where the accumulating winter snow does not completely melt away during summer. Over many years, snow builds up, gradually compacting and consolidating into ice. Eventually, the weight of the ice becomes such that it begins to “flow” downhill at a slow pace. The dynamic balance between snow accumulation during winter and melting during summer determines whether a glacier expands or contracts. Due to global warming, glaciers around the world have been contracting at an increasing rate. 

The new data shows that the rate of melting is now (2012-2023) more than a third (36 percent plus or minus 10 percent) greater than that during the preceding period, 2000-2011. Since the beginning of the century, mountain glaciers have lost more than 6,500 billion metric tons of ice, 5 percent of the total.

There are currently a total of more than 200,000 mountain glaciers of varying sizes throughout the world. 

They hold enough frozen water to raise sea levels world-wide by 32cm (13 inches), if totally melted. This would inundate many low-lying coastal areas, especially due to storm surge. That is not even counting the massive ice sheets covering Antarctica and Greenland, which currently hold 99 percent of fresh water ice on earth. Total melting of the Antarctic ice sheet alone would raise sea levels by another 60 meters (200 feet) and Greenland would add an additional 7.4 meters (24 feet). Combined, this would cause an incalculable catastrophe. 

In addition, glacial runoff provides fresh water for millions of people around the world. The loss of this resource, if all the glaciers were to disappear, would cause massive economic and social disruptions and population migrations. Yet, this is the inevitable outcome if global warming is not halted and reversed. 

The current study in Nature is the most comprehensive yet on this topic. It combines data from more than 230 regional estimates gathered by 35 internationally based research teams. 

Until the advent of the industrial revolution, when the burning of fossil fuels began to increase massively, releasing greenhouse gases, fluctuations in glacial ice masses were subject to natural climate variation. In general, the loss of glacial ice due to warm weather melting was balanced by cold season snowfall and changes were relatively gradual. The rate of melting now being observed exceeds anything previously recorded since the end of the last ice age, roughly 11,500 years ago. Human civilization has developed and is adapted to this post-ice-age environment. 

Since 2000, the annual rate of glacial melting has risen dramatically, from less than 100 gigatons to more than 500 gigatons. 

To arrive at these numbers, the researchers used a variety of methods, from direct measurements on the ground to data from satellite imagery, the combination of which raises the level of confidence in the reliability of the result. 

It was also found that glacial ice is far more vulnerable to climate change than the massive ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, due to the latter’s larger mass and depth which result in a lower surface to volume ratio (i.e., less ice directly exposed to warm air). This disparity is also reflected in the contrast between the total volumes of glacial ice loss from larger glaciers and the proportional losses relative to the sizes of individual glaciers between regions.

The greatest total volumes of glacial ice loss contributing to the global total were recorded in Alaska (22 percent), the Canadian Arctic (20 percent), peripheral glaciers in Greenland (13 percent) and the southern Andes (10 percent). However, the greatest relative losses (i.e., reductions in glacial size) occurred in regions with smaller glaciers, including Central Europe (-39 percent), the Caucasus (-35 percent), New Zealand (-29 percent), North Asia (-23 percent), and Western Canada and USA (-23 percent). 

A separate report prepared by the United Nations agency UNESCO assesses the impact of melting glaciers on the world’s population. It finds that the retreating glaciers threaten the food and water supplies of 2 billion people. The combination of the loss of glacial meltwater and diminished snowfall in mountainous regions due to global warming will adversely affect irrigated agriculture. Many of these areas are already experiencing food insecurity.

Regions significantly affected include East Africa, which has lost 80 percent of its glaciers in some places, and the Andes, where between a third and a half of glaciers have melted away since 1998. 

The rapidly melting glaciers and diminishing and irregular rains are not only impacting poorer regions of the world. For example, the Colorado River basin has been in drought since 2000. Reduced rain and snowfall combined with higher temperatures have significantly lowered river levels, creating conditions in which various users of water resources, including urban areas, farmers and Native American nations are locked in seemingly irreconcilable conflict over the division of water allocations. 

Another factor in the acceleration of glacial melting is the loss of the “albedo effect.” White snow and ice reflect more sunlight and therefore absorb less heat than dark soil and rock. Therefore, as glaciers melt and retreat spatially, more of the darker underlying surface is exposed, creating a positive feedback (i.e., self-reinforcing) loop of more heat retained in the earth and even faster melting. 

Historically, mountain glaciers and winter snowpack melt relatively more slowly, releasing water over an extended period as compared to runoff from rain, thereby creating a more steady, predictable supply of water for agriculture and human consumption than often more variable rainfall. However, global warming is upsetting that balance. Warmer global temperatures mean that there is less snowfall, and it melts more quickly. At the same time, growing seasons are lengthened but without a commensurate increase in the quantity and continuity of available water. 

The study published in Nature projects that, at the current rate, half of the world’s glacial mass will be lost by the end of the century. 

Every year that greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced means that the rate of glacial melting will continue to accelerate. Since 1900, sea level worldwide has risen 20cm (8 inches) due to melting from all sources plus expansion of the volume of ocean water due to warming. Approximately half of that increase has occurred during the last 35 years.

Confusion as world awaits next move in Trump trade war

Nick Beams

As has become par for the course, the approach of April 2, dubbed by Trump as “liberation day” when his regime will take action via “reciprocal tariffs” against all the countries, friend and foe alike, that have been “ripping off” the US for decades, is surrounded by confusion.

President Donald Trump departing the White House, Friday, March 21, 2025, in Washington. [AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin]

After indicating that his retaliatory regime will be broad-based, Trump has indicated it could be more targeted, and exemptions may be given. The indication from administration officials is that this may cover the few countries with which the US has a trade surplus rather than a deficit, but no one knows for sure if this will apply.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump said: “I may give a lot of countries breaks. They’ve charged us so much that I’m embarrassed to charge them what they’ve charged us, but it’ll be substantial, and you’ll be hearing about that on April 2.”

In previous comments he said it would be “liberation day” for the US. “We’ve been ripped off by every country in the world, friend and foe.”

The “reciprocal tariff” covers more than the direct tariff imposts on US exports. It includes any measures in a country’s internal policies, such as taxes, subsidies, and regulations, that are deemed to adversely affect US companies.

One of the reasons for any pull back or delay in the full-scale agenda may well be the enormous amount of work involved in examining the economic policies of a given country to determine their impact on US exports.

Apart from the “reciprocal tariff” program directed against countries, Trump has announced additional tariffs on a number of commodities.

He told reporters at an Oval Office briefing that the threatened tariffs on cars would go ahead “fairly soon over the next few days,” in advance of the broader measures.

Without providing any details, he also said he planned to go ahead with tariffs on lumber and semi-conductors. He repeated his threat to impose tariffs on pharmaceutical drugs, saying they would come “in the very near future.”

One of the most significant announcements was that he intended to impose a 25 percent tariff on all imports from any country that buys oil from Venezuela. This is aimed directly against China and India, two of the largest buyers of Venezuelan oil. For China, the impost would be on top of the 20 percent tariff already being levied on its exports, taking the total rate to 45 percent.

The announcement was accompanied by a series of rants against Venezuela and the government of Nicolas Maduro which successive US administrations have been trying to overthrow.

Venezuela exports around 600,000 barrels of oil a day of which about 230,000 barrels per day went to the US last year, making it the fourth biggest international supplier of the US. The US Treasury has already ordered Chevron to cease its operations and extended its initial deadline to May 27.

Oil analysts have warned that if Venezuelan oil came out of the market that could cause disruption, leading to increased prices at the petrol pump, in opposition to Trump’s stated goal of lowering prices.

At this stage it appears that the tariffs on April 2, also dubbed by Trump as the “big one,” are aimed at a group of 15 counties which have a persistent trade surplus with the US. They were branded the “dirty 15” in a television interview on Fox Business given by treasury secretary Scott Bessent last week—a designation since taken up in the media.

The language employed is an expression of the character of the Trump regime as it breaks apart all the relationships on which the post-war order was based. Major trading nations are labelled “dirty”—criminals, seeking to rob the US.

Last year the 15 comprised in descending order: China, the European Union, Mexico, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, Canada, India, Thailand, Switzerland, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia and South Africa.

“What’s going to happen on April 2—each country will receive a number that we believe represents their tariffs. For some countries it could be quite low. For some countries it could be quite high,” Bessent said.

Then, in the posture of a Mafia boss, he continued: “I’m optimistic that April 2nd, some of the tariffs may not have to go on because a deal is pre-negotiated, or that once countries receive their reciprocal tariff number, that right after that they will come to us and want to negotiate it down.”

The reciprocal tariff number will not only encompass the tariff rate actually charged on US goods but will be calculated to include domestic policies of the country which the administration claims adversely affect US exports in the same way as a tariff.

Countries in the firing line are engaged in a frantic round of discussions to try to secure some kind of exemption. The European trade chief Maros Sefcovic met with commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and US trade representative Jamieson Greer yesterday. India’s government also sought exemptions in a meeting with a US delegation.

Those such as Australia, which have a trade deficit with the US, are hoping that will mean they will be excluded from the April 2 measures. Earlier efforts by government officials, using the deficit argument to try to gain an exemption from the 25 percent tariff on steel and iron, were unsuccessful.

The Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme has been specially targeted by the major US drug corporations as a barrier to their profit making that should be subject of retaliatory action.

Commerce Secretary Lutnick told reporters after a cabinet meeting that the administration would also announce its plans for a new department, the “External Revenue Service,” which would oversee tariff collection and “build the power and prestige of America back.”

The proposal to establish the new body was announced in Trump’s executive order on America First Trade Policy issued on January 20 after his inauguration. Its role was not set out other than to say it would recommend the best method for designing and building the means to collect tariffs, duties and other foreign trade-related revenues. Little has been heard of it since.

At this point its precise role is not clear because tariff revenues are collected by the Customs and Border Protection department.

However, Lutnick’s remarks indicate it will function as some kind of permanent body to prosecute and deepen the economic war to be launched on April 2.

German automaker Audi cuts 7,500 jobs

K. Nesan

Workers of the German automaker Audi protest the threat of massive layoffs in downtown Brussels, Belgium, Monday September 16, 2024 [AP Photo/Sylvain Plazy]

Audi announced last week it was cutting 7,500 jobs and would be implementing a medium-term “savings programme” of more than €1 billion per year. The IG Metall union describes the so-called “Agreement for the Future” as a “success” and is already working on the concrete implementation of the savings targets.

The Audi jobs are to be cut by 2029 at its Ingolstadt headquarters and in Neckarsulm in administration, sales and development.

Across Germany, the 55,000 employees of this Volkswagen subsidiary are worried about the future of their families. An Audi worker at the Neckarsulm plant told Südwest Rundfunk radio that today was “not a day to rejoice” after hearing about the savings package and job cuts.

Audi General Works Council Chairman Jörg Schlagbauer, who has no worries about his future, sees things differently. The destruction of 7,500 jobs was justifiable, he told business weekly Wirtschaftswoche. He even spoke of a success for IG Metall, as management had originally proposed cutting 12,000 jobs.

For months, IG Metall and its works council representatives had worked out the plan behind closed doors with Audi management. Similar to VW, where IG Metall agreed to cut 35,000 jobs and reduce wages, pay at Audi will also be cut in addition to the job losses. IG Metall and management stated that the profit-sharing scheme for employees would be reduced. In 2024, each employee received €8,840, which will now be reduced to €5,310. This is likely to be the start of a series of attacks on the workforce in the future.

However, in the face of intensifying competition, Audi’s profit margin, which has recently been well below 5 percent, is expected to return to double digits by 2029 at the latest once the current “Agreement for the Future” has been concluded. What other bad news awaits the autoworkers in addition to the current job cuts and reduction in profit sharing remains a secret.

According to the Audi Media Centre, “based on the key points, the next step will be to define the measures and the structure in the divisions in detail and the specific mix of personnel instruments and then implement them consistently.”

Profits fell by around a third last year. However, this was mainly due to the costs of the closure of the Belgian Audi plant. Despite massive protests by the workforce, Audi stopped production there in February and closed the plant, which was founded in 1949, destroying 3,000 jobs and hundreds more in the supplier industry.

In addition, the Audi Group, which also includes subsidiaries Bentley, Lamborghini and Ducati, sold fewer vehicles in 2024 than in the previous year. Sales figures for the cars and motorbikes in the luxury segment produced by 87,000 employees at 21 locations in 12 countries fell sharply in some cases, from over 1.9 million to under 1.7 million.

Marco Schubert, management board member for sales and marketing at Audi, pointed to the discontinuation of some models as the reason for the cuts. He therefore categorised 2024 as a transition year: “We have strong models in the start-up phase, but these will only gradually impact volumes in the markets.”

In China, the German automotive industry as a whole is facing rapidly growing competition from Chinese manufacturers who are producing technologically advanced and affordable electric cars in one of the world’s most lucrative markets.

This also applies to the Audi Group, which delivered just under 650,000 vehicles in China last year, around 80,000 fewer than in the previous year. These were almost exclusively internal combustion engine vehicles; the group only sold 164,000 of its electric cars worldwide in 2024.

Comparatively, on the American market, Audi—just like Porsche, which is also part of the VW Group—is more affected by Trump’s punitive tariffs than other German manufacturers. Neither of them currently produces in the US and only supply imports to the auto market. Last year, Audi delivered to the US around 57,000 vehicles from Germany, 31,000 from Slovakia and almost 8,000 from the now closed plant in Belgium.

As a result of these developments, turnover fell from just under €70 billion in 2023 to €64.5 billion in 2024. As profits slumped, the return on investment fell from 9 percent to 6 percent. The uproar among investors was enormous. The job cuts and savings programme that have now been announced are intended to satisfy investors’ greed for profit.

CFO Jürgen Rittersberger assured that the Audi Group would deliver, promising that the 2025 financial year would exceed the 2024 result with turnover of between €67.5 billion and €72.5 billion. The operating margin should rise again to between 7 percent and 9 percent within a year, he said. “However, we still have a tough road ahead of us,” warned Rittersberger. “In order to achieve our sustained return targets, we will continue to consistently drive forward the transformation of the company.”

This is to be ensured by the so-called “Agreement for the Future.” Audi CEO Gernot Döllner proudly explained at its announcement, “The Agreement for the Future is the basis for continuing to consistently implement the personnel transformation.” In times of upheaval, “company management and the Works Council are pulling together.”

The terms “Agreement for the Future” or “Future Contract” are regularly used by IG Metall to feign job security and maintain its stranglehold over the workforce. Under this guise, which always includes revision clauses and other hidden measures, IG Metall collaborates with management to develop and implement various methods of job cuts and austerity programmes.

In December, IG Metall glorified the “Future Agreement” at parent company Volkswagen, citing the reduction of 35,000 jobs and a 20 percent loss in real wages as the “Christmas miracle of Hanover.” Weeks later, employees had to face the fact that the agreement was a carte blanche for management to make unlimited job cuts and plant closures in the future.

At the beginning of March, automotive expert Constantin Gall from the consulting firm Ernst & Young stated in a press release: “The German automotive industry is in a massive and comprehensive crisis. We will therefore see car manufacturers massively cutting costs this year in order to increase their resilience. This will inevitably lead to significant job losses.”

The auto corporations can fully rely on the trade unions to implement the job cuts and savings programmes. Following the same pattern, firms first announce job and social cuts, whereupon the IG Metall works councils loudly threaten “resistance,” only then to implement exactly what the companies initially demanded—or even more, as in the case of VW.

The current agreement at Audi also followed this script. Even during the negotiations, Jörg Schlagbauer, who as chairman of the General Works Council is also deputy chairman of the Supervisory Board, invoked the alleged “fighting spirit” of IG Metall.

The “list of atrocities” initially presented by the company would be resolutely countered and the union was prepared for “all eventualities,” he boomed. “If the company does not give in quickly, there will be a rampage,” even during the so-called industrial peace period if necessary, he added. A few days after this bluster, Schlagbauer signed the current “future agreement” and praised the fact that compulsory redundancies would be ruled out until 2033. Audi and IG Metall will just implement the job cuts in other ways.

“With the reduction and structural reorganisation of profit-sharing, the Audi workforce is making an important contribution to making [Audi] as a whole weatherproof and future-proof again,” Schlagbauer added. “The Audi workforce is investing many, many millions of euros in its own future over the years.”

Wrong. The workforce is “investing” in increasing returns, i.e., putting more money in shareholders’ pockets.

The top management is rewarding this. In order to secure the dominance of IG Metall over the workforce, Audi management has agreed to pay an additional bonus for IG Metall members from 2026. In this way, the union and employer are trying to force the workforce to become members. IG Metall, currently Germany’s largest trade union with just under 2 million members, has lost around 280,000 members in the last 20 years.

Workers are increasingly turning their backs on the trade unions. Hardly any workers defend IG Metall when they speak frankly outside the factory gates.

Many criticise the fact that IG Metall is implementing company job cuts and is now also supporting the pro-war policy of the incoming federal government. This became clear on IG Metall’s March 15 “day of action.” What was declared to be a “wake-up call for secure work” turned out to be nationalist agitation by leading trade unionists in support of the war policy.

This “day of action” unmistakably showed the trade union bureaucracy to be an integral part of the state apparatus and its rearmament policy. The massive rearmament spending and preparation for war will intensify the attack on jobs and social achievements to an unprecedented degree. In order to defend jobs, workers must therefore also oppose the pro-war policy.

Australian intelligence review calls for “urgent” powers for crises, war and political unrest

Mike Head

On the eve of a looming federal election, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last Friday released a redacted version of an official review that his Labor government initiated in 2023 of the country’s sprawling network of spy and surveillance agencies.

Cover of 2024 Independent Intelligence Review [Photo: Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet]

After sitting on the report without explanation for eight months since it was completed, the government chose to publish this carefully censored version just before the election, which must be held by May 17.

Starkly, the report demands greater powers and resources for the so-called National Intelligence Community (NIC) to deal with political crises triggered by what it calls the “collapse of the post-Cold War” global order.

“It is not yet clear what will take its place, but for the foreseeable future Australia faces a world shaped by competition between nation-states and global geopolitical and economic fragmentation,” the review states.

Written by two former intelligence chiefs, Heather Smith and Richard Maude, the report speaks of the possibility of catastrophic wars. It says “major-power conflict is no longer unimaginable.”

The report declares the necessity for the 10 NIC agencies, headed by the US-style Office of National Intelligence (ONI), to be bolstered and prepared for rising global conflicts, especially a potential US war with China, and threats to “social cohesion” within Australia.

The report unequivocally aligns the Australian intelligence apparatus behind the US drive, now escalated by the Trump administration’s trade war measures, to reassert its global post-World War II hegemony against the perceived threat of China.

Turning the world situation on its head, the review blames China, not the US, for the aggression. It centrally targets China, accusing it of working with Russia “to weaken the global influence of the United States and the West more broadly.”

The report was released amid mounting calls in the corporate, political and media establishment for a vast expansion of military spending, combined with alarm that high levels of domestic political disaffection are likely to produce an unstable hung parliament in the election, with neither Labor nor the Liberal-National Coalition able to form a majority government.

At the same time, the report voices underlying concerns about the historic crisis confronting the Australian ruling class, which has depended since World War II on the US military alliance to pursue its own predatory activities across the Indo-Pacific, but has also become reliant on raw material exports to China.

This is a new era, the report proclaims. “Competition between nation-states, especially between China and the United States, is deeply rooted and structural in nature,” it states. “It is a feature of the era, not a passing moment.”

In this context, the review warns that “risks to prosperity, security and sovereignty are increasingly complex to manage and pose difficult choices and trade-offs for Australia.”

Although written before the accession of the fascistic Trump administration, the report sounds an alarm about the impact of the international political and geo-strategic instability:

The election of more nationalist or populist governments in Europe and the United States, for example, could introduce considerable uncertainty in global affairs and alter some of Australia’s current foreign and economic policy planning assumptions.

Under these conditions, the report underscores the Australian ruling class’s commitment to the US. It emphasises Australia’s increasingly pivotal position for the US-led Five Eyes global intelligence system, which also includes the UK, Canada and New Zealand.

“Australia and its geography are becoming more important to efforts to improve the collective resilience of the Five Eyes enterprise in the event of a crisis or conflict,” it states.

The review reinforces the reliance on “the alliance with the United States and the Five Eyes partnership,” describing them as “national assets for Australia, providing access to information, expertise and technology that would not otherwise be obtainable.”

The report continues the shift away from the alleged threat of terrorism as the main pretext for the vast expansion of police-state surveillance powers since the US declaration of the “war on terror” in 2001.

While “terrorism remains a persistent threat,” the review lists “Australia’s principal security concerns” as “systemic state competition, cyber threats, espionage and foreign interference.”

There is also an intensified internal focus on “fraying social cohesion.” This is code language for the rising social and political discontent among workers and young people fueled by the soaring cost-of-living and social inequality, the bipartisan support for the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza and the pro-war drumbeating in ruling circles. According to the report:

The sources of internal fragmentation are varied but often amplify each other. They include the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, political polarisation, inequality, declining faith in democracy, large-scale misinformation and disinformation powered by the internet, and deliberate attempts by some countries (notably Russia and China) to stoke internal divides in democracies.

Significantly, the review urges the government to help overcome public distrust in the “intelligence community.” It notes that the prominence of the agencies in “supporting government” has “not been without controversy.” It insists: “Building public understanding of, and support for, a strong Australian intelligence enterprise is essential.”

Among its 67 recommendations, the report demands a further increase in the powers of the intelligence agencies, starting with an “urgent” extension of their legal capacity to access the computers and telecommunications of “particular groups,” rather than just named individuals.

It also calls for related amendments to the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Act to officially permit ASIO, the domestic political surveillance agency, to share its “raw foreign intelligence information” with the central ONI, which could then share it with US and other agencies.

Without providing any detail, another recommendation stresses “the need for deeper integration of intelligence with other arms of government.”

In releasing the report, Albanese said the intelligence agencies were crucial to the country’s security “and we have full confidence in their capacity.” He vowed to “continue to invest in capability to ensure Australia’s intelligence community can deal with emerging threats and challenges.”

As an initial pre-election down-payment, the Labor government promised to plough another $45 million into the ONI, the peak agency, over four years. That is on top of the funding for the entire NIC network more than doubling since 2017, from just under $2 billion to $4.5 billion in 2023.

Much more is in the pipeline, including $1.25 billion over ten years for ASIO to “strengthen its capacity” and $469 million over four years to “modernise” the overseas spy agency, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). There is also $9.9 billion over ten years to boost the capacities of the electronic surveillance agency, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), especially its “defensive and offensive cyber capabilities.”

The review also covers the activities of the other six NIC agencies. They are the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the satellite mapping Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation (AGO), the police-linked Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC), the financial tracking Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), the military’s Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) and the Department of Home Affairs.

The Labor government instructed the review to examine the performance of these agencies since the last similar report in 2017, when the then Turnbull Liberal-National government responded to the formation of the first Trump administration by restructuring the intelligence apparatus. It established the ONI, headed by a Director-General of National Intelligence, inside the prime minister’s office to establish centralised control over all 10 agencies.

At that time, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, surrounded by masked Special Forces commandos, also announced expedited measures to call out the military to suppress any outbreaks of “domestic violence” and outlined plans for a Home Affairs super-ministry to take direct command of seven surveillance and police agencies.

Today, the political fears and strategic calculations in ruling circles go far deeper. They are driven by the global turmoil and uncertainties produced by the second Trump administration and the rise of seething discontent in every country, including Australia.

Trump escalating US economic war with looming “reciprocal tariffs”

Nick Beams

At the beginning of next month US President Donald Trump’s economic war against the rest of the world will be intensified when he receives a report on the imposition of so-called “reciprocal tariffs.”

The designation creates the impression that US tariffs will be imposed on goods from countries that have higher tariffs than are applied to their exports to the US. Countries, such as India, along with others which have a higher tariff regime aimed at trying to protect their domestic markets, will be hit hard.

But they are not the central target.

The new regime is aimed at major economies, in particular the European Union but many others as well. The US is set to take action via tariffs in response to any domestic policies which are deemed to adversely impact on the profits of its corporations.

This includes measures such as the value added tax (VAT) in the EU, regulations in Europe and elsewhere covering the social media and high-tech giants, subsidies, state assistance and social services such as the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

Prescription-only medication on the shelves of a pharmacy [AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh]

This means that the US tariffs so far—the 25 percent impost on steel and aluminium, the 20 percent tariff on Chinese goods and the 25 percent tariff on Mexican and Canadian goods—are just preliminary skirmishes, initial forays in the war to be unveiled when economic officials report back to Trump on April 2.

How extensive the escalation will be remains to be seen due to the vast set of calculations which have to be made, both of a technical and political character, but there is no doubt about the eventual intended scale of the operation. It is spelled out very clearly in the executive order issued by Trump on February 13 to set it up.

That document states that the administration will “work strenuously” to determine the “reciprocal tariff” to be imposed on any country in response to measures that are deemed to adversely impact the US.

This will include:

• Tariffs imposed on US goods.
• Unfair taxes imposed on US goods, including a VAT.
• Costs to the US arising from non-tariff barriers or measures and “harmful acts” such as subsidies and “burdensome regulatory requirements.”
• Policies that cause exchange rates to deviate from their market value to the detriment of the US.

Then, just to make sure that all bases are covered, the order says that action will be taken against “any other practice” that US officials deem to impose “any unfair limitation in market access or any structural impediment to fair competition with the market economy of the United States.”

The order says it will consider all measures that disadvantage the US, whatever they are called, and “regardless of whether they are written or unwritten.”

The Australian PBS, together with similar measures in a range of other countries which subsidise medicines for patients, could be one of the targets in the “reciprocal tariff” war following a submission to Trump by the major US drug companies on March 11.

The submission from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), representing the major drug firms, illustrates the wide range of polices which could be considered the subject of retaliation.

“Egregious and discriminatory pricing policies in several markets including Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan and Korea undervalue American innovation, threaten billions of dollars of lost sales and undermine American competitiveness, jobs and exports,” the submission said.

The Australian PBS was established in July 1948 as part of the post-war concessions made by governments in all the major capitalist countries, fearing an upsurge of struggles of the working class unless action were taken against a return to the conditions that had prevailed in the 1930s.

Under the scheme the government purchased drugs from the pharmaceutical companies and made them available to patients for whom they had been prescribed at a heavily subsidised rate.

There was only limited coverage at the beginning but with the vast expansion of medical science and pharmaceutical remedies in the past eight decades, the scheme has grown accordingly. In the 2023-24 financial year there were 930 medicines listed on the scheme with the government spending $17.7 billion on the cost, or 91.6 percent. The rest was supplied by patients charged a maximum of $31.60 for each script covered by the scheme.

The PBS has long been a target of the US pharmaceutical industry, which views it as inimical to its interests. The industry rakes in billions in profits, much of which is used for share buybacks that boost stock values on Wall Street as CEOs are richly rewarded through stock options and other mechanisms for increasing “shareholder value.”

In an article last week, the Australian Financial Review recalled the direct intervention by President Barack Obama on trans-Pacific trade negotiations in 2015 when he made two phone calls to then Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, to push the demands of the US pharmaceutical giants.

In a separate section of its submission to Trump, the PhRMA sets out its objections to the Australian PBS, using language tailored to reflect that in the Trump executive order. It directs fire against the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC), the group which advises the government on whether drugs should be included in the subsidised scheme.

“PBAC,” it said, “conducts biased health technology assessments that compare innovative medicines to the lowest comparator.” The PBS imposed “unreasonable patient access delays” on new medicines and “Australia creates unnecessary data requirements and other administrative hurdles to secure PBS listing, causing significant delays.”

According to the PhRMA, this amounts to a non-tariff barrier to US companies and a restriction on trade—the implication being that such action comes within the framework of Trump’s program for the imposition of “reciprocal tariffs.”

The emphasis placed on what the PhRMA called unnecessary delays is significant because it goes to the heart of the profit-making model of the pharmaceutical giants. They depend on the appropriation of the super-profits reaped from an innovative drug before the price falls because of the manufacture of generics, bringing a decline in returns. This is a never-ending race to sustain high profit margins.

It remains to be seen what action the Trump regime will initiate on April 2 and subsequently. Insofar as the PBS is concerned it could include tariffs on the export of pharmaceutical products to the US. The Australian blood plasma giant CSL is reported to be already considering what effect potential tariffs could have on its operations outside the US.

Australia has only been marginally impacted by the 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminium, despite pleading by the government for an exemption, but pharmaceuticals are among the top Australian exports to the US.

Moreover, the trade war agenda is so broad that retaliatory action may include imposts on other exports to the US such as wine and beef. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, representing 175,000 producers, has launched an offensive with a submission to the US Trade Representative, one of the departments charged with delivering the April 2 report.

“The US-Australia free trade agreement is by far the most lopsided and unfair trade deal for US cattle producers,” the submission said.

The Australian situation is not a special or exceptional case. Rather, it is indicative of the investigations and submissions taking place across the board involving all the so-called “trading partners” of the US, friend or foe alike, now regarded as having “ripped off” the US for decades and which must now be put in their place, if necessary, by punitive tariffs.

There is also a significant feature of the Australian case, likely to be replicated more broadly. The targeting of the PBS, a concession to the needs of the working class, restricted as it may be, is a warning that nothing is off limits as far as the US economic war is concerned. It will not only hit industries and jobs but will reach right down to seek to rip away any social concessions made in the past which are regarded as inimical to the insatiable thirst of giant corporations for profit.

Erdoğan tries to quell mass protests as 15 million turn out for CHP’s presidential primary

Barış Demir

The mass protests that began last Wednesday with the detention of İstanbul mayor and Republican People’s Party (CHP) presidential candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, on corruption and terror charges, expanded with his formal arrest on Sunday.

Mass protest against the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu in front of the building of Istanbul Municipality in Saraçhane, İstanbul, March 23, 2025 [Photo: herkesicinCHP/X]

Millions defied governorates’ bans on demonstrations in the most populous cities of İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir, and a nationwide police crackdown, to protest against the attack on their basic democratic rights to vote and freedom of speech and assembly, and against the moves to a presidential dictatorship.

In İstanbul, Turkey’s largest city, Ekrem İmamoğlu—who defeated President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in three elections—had been leading the polls for the presidential race. The Republican People’s Party (CHP) held a primary election on Sunday, where İmamoğlu ran as the sole candidate, drawing massive participation. According to the CHP, around 15 million people, including 1.65 million party members and 13.5 million solidarity voters, cast their ballots to endorse İmamoğlu as the party’s presidential candidate for 2028 or a potential early election.

The CHP leadership sought to channel the mass movement that erupted after İmamoğlu’s arrest into the primary election—originally intended only for party members—in an attempt to control and demobilize the protests.

In İstanbul’s Saraçhane district, the epicenter of the protests, hundreds of thousands—or nearly a million, according to the CHP—gathered on Sunday. While workers and youth seek a revolutionary way forward in the struggle against dictatorship and for democracy, the CHP leadership has made it clear that its role is to steer the movement into a dead end under capitalist rule.

CHP leader Özgür Özel highlighted the high turnout in the primary and called for early elections: “Our candidate is imprisoned in your dungeons. But we challenge you from this square. If you are too afraid to release our candidate İmamoğlu, we are ready for an election where he runs against you.”

Rejecting growing calls on social media and in the streets for a general strike by the working class, Özel said, “We are launching a great struggle starting this morning [Monday],” and added they would use “the power of consumers.”

İmamoğlu was sent to Silivri Prison, where Selahattin Demirtaş, the former co-chair of the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) who was jailed in 2016 thanks to the CHP’s support for Erdoğan in parliament at the time, is being held. In a message sent from prison, İmamoğlu also pointed to the ballot box as a way out for the masses.

İmamoglu stated in his message: “There was a record level of participation in the presidential primary election of our Republican People’s Party. 15 million citizens voted. Tens of millions of people of this country, who were hurt by the tyranny of the government, the destroyed economy, meritlessness and lawlessness, ran to the polls. They said ‘enough is enough’ to Erdoğan... That ballot box will come and the nation will give this government a slap it will never forget.”

In a letter from prison on Monday, İmamoğlu urged youth to “avoid clashes” and added: “To our beloved security forces and police, you treat our people well.”

Meanwhile, the Erdoğan government is trying to suppress the growing mass opposition with police violence, detentions, and social media bans.

Late on Sunday night, after the CHP ended its rally in Saraçhane and MPs left the square, police violently attacked peaceful protesters.

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Similar scenes unfolded across the country throughout the night and the government launched an intimidation operation against journalists in the morning.

In a statement, Basın-İş Trade Union (UNI Graphical and Packaging affiliate) announced that NOW TV reporter Ali Onur Tosun, photojournalist Bülent Kılıç, journalist Zeynep Kuray, AFP reporter Yasin Akgül, journalist Hayri Tunç, photojournalist Kurtuluş Arı, Sendika.org reporter Zişan Gür and photojournalist Murat Kocabaş were detained because of covering the protests.

The wave of detentions continued with leftist political party officials who supported the protests. In a statement released by the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), the party’s İstanbul Provincial Chairman Ahmet Dincel, Party Assembly member Arda Hacıyusufoğlu and three other party members were detained. The Communist Movement of Turkey (TKH) announced that three of its members were detained in early morning raids on the grounds of “participating in a banned protest”.

Left Party İzmir Provincial Chairman Barış İnce and Left Party İzmir Provincial Executive Mehmet Duman were among those detained. The Enerji-Sen Trade Uniun headquarters in İstanbul was raided and its leader Süleyman Keskin was detained.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on X that 1,133 people were detained between March 19 and March 23, 2025.

The Socialist Equality Group, Turkish section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), demands the release of all political prisoners and those detained for exercising their constitutional rights.

The government has also tightened restrictions on social media. In the first days after İmamoğlu’s arrest, the government tried to block access to the Internet through “bandwidth restrictions”, but has now moved directly to closing down opposition accounts.

The authoritarian moves in Turkey are part of an international trend. The re-election of the fascist Donald Trump to the US presidency in January and his attempt to build a presidential dictatorship that abolishes the constitution has accelerated this process worldwide. The government’s attempt to arrest İmamoglu followed a phone call between Erdoğan and Trump.

X/Twitter, the social media platform owned by Trump’s assistant, the fascist billionaire Elon Musk, has suspended a large number of accounts in the country at the request of the Turkish government.

Most of the suspended accounts were “university-associated activist accounts, basically sharing protest information, locations for students to go,” Yusuf Can, coordinator and analyst at the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program, told POLITICO. Many of these accounts are “grassroots activists” with their followings in the low tens of thousands, said Can.

In a statement on Monday, Güçlü Yaman, who prepared reports on “excess deaths” in the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) Pandemic Working Group and played a critical role exposing the deadly response of the government, said: “X blocked access to my account from Turkey, so I am now using this [new] account. I have not received any notification/warning from the court or X, but I think the reason for the block was my posts about police brutality.”

That is why the authorities and the pro-government media are trying to smear the legitimate democratic protests as “street terrorism”. The CHP, as another representative of the imperialist ruling class, is as afraid as the government that these protests will mobilise the working class as an independent social force.