Report signals renewed US pressure on Australia to line up against China

Peter Symonds

A report released last week by the United States Study Centre at Sydney University underscores the centrality of the Australian alliance to the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” against China. It examines potential risks to the alliance, raising concerns, in particular, about the lack of public support for the US military build-up in Asia.

Entitled “Against Complacency: Risks and Opportunities for the Australia-US Alliance,” the report is written by Richard Fontaine, president of the Centre for a New American Security and former adviser to US Senator John McCain, known for his hardline militarism. Fontaine spent four months as a fellow this year at the US Studies Centre as part of its Alliance 21 Program, designed to boost US-Australian ties.

The report focusses on the impact of China’s efforts to use its economic clout to counter the US “pivot”—a comprehensive diplomatic offensive and military build-up throughout the Asia Pacific region aimed at continued American pre-eminence. While the report is preoccupied with the Australia-US alliance, it reflects wider concerns in American ruling circles that the “pivot” is stalling, particularly given the uncertainty being generated in Asia by the American presidential elections.

Fontaine identifies “American decline, denial or dysfunction” as one of the key risks to the Australian alliance. He notes that the view that the US is in long-term relative decline and ambivalent about its commitments to Asia “is today increasingly common across the region.” That sentiment in ruling circles is compounded by the fact that both US presidential contenders—Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump—have publicly opposed the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) which was designed to consolidate American economic predominance over China.

The fears in Washington have been confirmed by the foreign policy shift made by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who publicly declared during his visit to Beijing last week that he was “separating” from Washington in order to pursue closer ties with China. He was rewarded with billions of dollars in Chinese loans and investment. The US is concerned that other countries, including close allies like Australia, could follow suit.

Fontaine notes that despite US urging, the Australian government has not conducted a “freedom of navigation” operation in the South China Sea, and has taken decisions, such as the leasing of a commercial port in Darwin, in northern Australia, to a Chinese corporation, that have angered Washington. He suggests that Canberra should project a more aggressive stance, and “react more strongly than Beijing expects to its incremental actions, even if that reaction invites economic punishment.”

As the report explains, Washington regards Australia as a central component of its accelerating US war drive against China, figuring “more prominently in the thinking of American policymakers than at any time since the Second World War… With Britain’s troubles in Europe, observers in both countries have begun to describe the alliance as the Anglosphere’s new ‘special relationship.’”

Fontaine points to the risk posed to the US-Australia alliance by those in Australian ruling circles who have raised concerns about being too closely integrated with the Pentagon’s war drive against China. Referring to domestic Australian politics, Fontaine identifies political figures such as former Labor foreign minister Bob Carr, who has declared that “it’s not in our interests to slide into war with our major trading partner if there is a flare-up about uninhabited islands.”

Fontaine, however, is concerned, above all, about the gulf between the political establishment and the Australian population, which has been kept in the dark about US-led war preparations. “The gap between public opinion and the national security elite—and between popular opinion and government policy—presents a risk to the alliance, since it is not inevitable that elite views will always trump popular views when the two clash,” the report states.

It notes a recent US Studies Centre poll that found that respondents viewed the US as just as much of a threat as China, and were more likely to support a strong Australian relationship with China than with the US. Eighty percent thought that America’s “best years” were in the past. Among young people, more than half said that China was their country’s most important relationship, compared to just 35 percent for the United States.

Fontaine underscores Washington’s concerns by citing Australian analyst Rory Medcalf: “Perhaps the only thing that is certain is that governments in Canberra and Washington can no longer assume that the Australian public will go along with whatever policy decisions officials and political leaders reach, when it comes to the shape of the alliance or the way it operates in an increasingly contested Asia.”

The US Studies Centre was established specifically in response to the widespread opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, expressed in the largest-ever anti-war protests in Australian history in cities and towns across the country.

Fontaine calls for greater efforts by policy makers to explain the implications of “Chinese revisionism” and to counter Chinese “soft power.” His remarks echo a recent scare campaign whipped up by the Australian media and politicians against Chinese “influence peddling,” which implied that figures like Bob Carr constituted a fifth column acting in Beijing’s interests.

Fontaine is oblivious to the obvious hypocrisy of criticising Chinese influence from his position as an Alliance 21 Fellow at the US Studies Centre—a fellowship announced in November 2014 by the White House to allow American policy analysts to “immerse themselves in Australia.” The Alliance 21 program’s sponsors include Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, US arms manufacturer Northrop Grumman, US chemical conglomerate Dow, and the Australian government. This is just one indicator of the enormous influence that Washington wields in Australian domestic politics.

As well as outlining the risks to the US-Australia alliance, the report makes clear Washington’s new demands for greater Australian military and strategic integration into the “pivot.” These include “expanded access arrangements for US naval vessels in Australia,” including making the Stirling naval base in Western Australia the home port for an entire US aircraft carrier strike group, and the expansion of amphibious military exercises that could be used to project Marine units into East Asia.

Fontaine also calls for greater Australian efforts to establish closer military ties in Asia as part of Washington’s broader efforts to encircle China with US allies and strategic partners. He specifically calls for stronger relations with Indonesia, Japan, India and New Zealand and for a revival of a “quadrilateral” military partnership involving the US, Australia, Japan and India.

Fontaine’s report underscores the fact that the US is prepared to intervene, both publicly and covertly, into Australian politics to ensure that Canberra lines up against Beijing to ensure continued American dominion over the Asia Pacific region. This will involve every available means, including military threats, provocations and, ultimately, war.

Liberals impose austerity in Newfoundland and Labrador

Janet Browning


In a brazen abandonment of its election promises to protect public sector jobs and services, Dwight Ball’s Newfoundland and Labrador provincial Liberal government has spent its first year in power implementing devastating austerity measures.

The Liberals benefited from their anti-austerity pose in last November’s election, defeating the long-sitting Progressive Conservative government. But under conditions of deepening economic crisis, the Liberals have proven no less determined than their predecessor to offload the costs onto the backs of working people.

The rapid reduction of off-shore oil industry activity due to plummeting oil prices, the closure of an iron-ore mine in Labrador putting 3,000 people out of work, and the recent reduction in fishing quotas and resultant closure of fish plants has led to rising unemployment and poverty across the province.

Thousands of jobs have vanished since oil prices started to plunge in mid-2014. By January 2016 the province’s unemployment rate had risen to 16.8 percent, over twice the seasonally adjusted Canadian average of 6.9 percent. The jobless rate in September was 12.3 percent, but much of the fall is due to thousands of people leaving the province.

A fifth of Newfoundland’s energy sector workforce has been let go and the misery has spread to a large swathe of service sector jobs, from taxi drivers to restaurant staff. 

Newfoundland and Labrador’s annual offshore oil production, which has declined steadily over the past decade, fell to 62.6 million barrels last year from a peak of 134 million barrels in 2007, according to the offshore regulator C-NLOPB.

Non-renewable off-shore oil royalty revenues, which accounted for 32.8 percent of the province’s revenue in 2008 and 30 percent of provincial revenue last year, have declined by $888 million and are expected to provide just 7 percent of the province’s revenue this fiscal year. In boom years, oil royalties netted the province $2 billion. This fiscal year they are on course to barely garner $500 million. 

In presenting his first austerity budget earlier this year, Ball justified the axing of public sector jobs and a wide range of social spending reductions and tax hikes by claiming they were necessary to combat a $2.7 billion operating deficit in 2016. Ball claimed the cuts would reduce the shortfall to $1.83 billion on a 2016 budget of $8.5 billion.

Total provincial debt is projected to reach $14.7 billion this year, up from $12.6 billion last year. Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is forecast to shrink by 1 percent in 2016.

On July 1 the Ball government increased the provincial portion of the Harmonized Sales Tax by 2 percent, bringing it to 15 percent on most goods and services; doubled the 16.5 percent gas tax to 33 cents per liter; increased diesel tax by 5 cents per liter; hiked the aviation fuel tax by 2.5 cents a liter; introduced a new 15 percent Retail Sales Tax on property and casualty insurance policies (on top of the HST increase); and increased personal income tax rates.

Despite the brutal austerity measures and tax hikes, the Moody’s bond-rating agency down-graded the province’s credit rating from Aa2 to Aa3 on July 22. It fixed the province’s fiscal outlook as “negative,” noting that the amount the province must spend on debt servicing will reach 12 percent of total projected revenue by 2020, “a high level compared to international peers.”

This year the Ball government will spend $1 billion on interest payments and, in a province that has Canada’s lowest literacy rate, just $900 million on education.

The budget announced the elimination of at least 650 public sector jobs to save $243 million. Government spending cuts are expected to cost an additional 2,000 private sector jobs.

A number of benefits and grants were completely abolished. These include the Home Heating Rebate Program, the provincial Baby Bonus/Parental Benefit Program which saw parents receive up to a $2,200 non-taxable payment on the birth or adoption of a child, and the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s Transportation Benefit.

The government also cut ferry service, imposed caps on government-funded drug and medical programs for the poorest sections of the population, and increased home care costs.

Tax and fee hikes totaling $647 million annually and sweeping service cuts will hurt those with the lowest incomes the most: poor working class people, youth struggling to stay in school, those living in the rural out-ports, and children, the sick and the elderly living on fixed incomes. The impact of the budget has been pegged at a $3,000 reduction in disposable income for the average family.

The provincial public sector, which accounts for 46,000 full-time jobs, was told by the Liberals to find savings of 30 percent, resulting in massive cuts to operations and infrastructure spending. The province’s largest health authority, Eastern Health, has since announced it will eliminate 107 jobs and cut spending by $13 million. Other cuts include the closure of a 10-bed residential psychiatric unit in the Waterford Hospital, the closure of the Masonic Park long-term care facility, the elimination of routine breast cancer screening for women aged 40-49, and a reduction in X-Ray services. The cuts to the medical transportation benefit will severely impact those with frail and sick family members, as many medical procedures require traveling long distances.

A total of $40.4 million has been cut from the capital budget, further reducing employment in the construction trades. Construction of six schools and of new hospitals in Corner Brook and Waterford hospitals has been canceled.

The initial budget announcement included a new “Deficit Reduction Levy” or poll tax on anyone earning more than $20,000 per year, a brazen cash grab which the government had to cancel after huge public opposition and protests in front of the Confederation Building, the seat of the provincial government.

Finance Minister Cathy Bennett has signaled more layoffs will be necessary to create a more “sustainable” government workforce. The Newfoundland Association of Public Employees (NAPE), the province’s largest public sector union, has not lifted a finger to fight the cuts. The Globe and Mail reported on March 19 that NAPE President Jerry Earle had said, “There’s no way to avoid people losing their jobs.”

The Newfoundland and Labrador Liberals are closely aligned with the federal Trudeau Liberal government as well as the Liberal governments in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, which have also imposed austerity measures in the face of stiff public opposition.

The record of the Liberal governments in the Atlantic provinces, to say nothing of that of the Ontario Liberal provincial government, exposes the thoroughly dishonest attempt of Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberals to portray themselves as an anti-austerity party concerned about the “middle class” and defending jobs and promoting economic growth. In reality, the Liberals are no less ruthless than their Conservative and New Democrat counterparts in imposing the dictates of big business wherever and whenever they hold power.

Canada to partner with France in waging war in Africa

Laurent Lafrance

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged his Liberal government will dramatically expand its collaboration with France in military interventions in Africa, during a visit by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls to Canada earlier this month.

While Valls held discussions with Trudeau and senior government leaders on a range of issues, including the Canada-EU trade agreement, the main purpose of Valls’ trip was to finalize plans for Canada’s participation in French-led counter-insurgency operations in former French colonies in West and Central Africa.

The two leaders agreed to renew the Canada-France Enhanced Cooperation Agenda, which under a “humanitarian” cloak will see Canadian troops join the French army’s neocolonial missions on the impoverished continent. Although this was Valls’ first visit to Canada since he became prime minister, the talks on Franco-Canadian cooperation in Africa are far advanced.

As part of its “reengagement” with UN peacekeeping missions, Canada announced in September that it will deploy 600 soldiers and 150 police officers to one or more African countries and spend $450 million on “peace support projects.” During a tour of Africa last August to prepare for Canadian military deployments, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said the Canadian Armed Forces’ intervention on the continent will be “for a long-duration.”

While Trudeau has not yet specified what countries Canadian troops will deploy to, Mali and the Central African Republic are considered the most likely targets. However, Valls made clear that Canada’s support would also be welcome in other countries, including Niger and Burkina Faso.

Canadian Defence officials recently confirmed that planning is well underway for Canada to deploy military transport aircraft to move French troops and equipment in five countries: Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad.

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has been increasingly involved in West Africa since France sent troops to Mali in 2013. With the support of the then NDP official opposition, the Harper Conservative government deployed military transport planes to ferry in French weaponry and supplies. Last year, Canadian heavy-lift Globemaster military aircraft carried nearly 40 tonnes of equipment between France and Africa to support Paris’ drive to pacify its former colonial possessions.

It was recently revealed that the CAF has also been operating in Niger for the past three years, providing training to that country's special forces. France has long exploited Niger’s abundant uranium reserves. The impoverished land-locked country has also become of increasing interest to Washington, which, through the US military’s African Command (Africom), has developed a growing presence. As well as training troops in Niger, Canadian soldiers have cooperated with their US colleagues since 2011 in operation Flintlock, an Africom-led mission to train special forces from countries including Mali, Mauritania, Chad, Senegal and Nigeria.

The CAF’s involvement in Africa is part of Canada’s shift to a more aggressive foreign policy. Behind its “democratic” facade, the Trudeau government is pursuing the same aggressive foreign agenda on behalf of Canadian imperialism as did the hated Conservative government of Stephen Harper.

With the sole exception of the 2003 Iraq War, Canada has joined every one of the major wars the US has launched over the past quarter-century. Canada is now deeply implicated in Washington’s three principal military-strategic offensives—in the oil-rich Middle East and against Russia and China. These criminal enterprises have already set entire regions aflame and destroyed millions of lives, while increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between the US and the world’s second and third largest nuclear powers, Russia and China.

Defence Minister Sajjan has himself made clear that the government’s “peacekeeping” rhetoric is a fig-leaf to dupe the public into acquiescing to Canada’s participation in war. Speaking of the task Canada would be called to play in Africa, Sajjan recently said he preferred the term “peace support operations” to “peacekeeping.” Because “what we used to have as peacekeeping, before, is no longer. We don’t have two parties that have agreed on peace and there’s a peacekeeping force in between.”

In reality, what Sajjan and the Liberal government mean by this is that Canada will be waging counter-insurgency warfare along the lines of the role the CAF played in the neocolonial occupation of Afghanistan from 2005 to 2011.

During his visit, Valls praised the Canadian Armed Forces as “a very professional army” and declared that “generally, we need a strong and active Canada in the world.” The French premier also claimed that Canada and France confronted the same “terrorism which has struck our two societies—the crises that are shaking Africa and the Middle East and which affect our security”.

The “war on terror” invoked by Valls is a fraud. Since 2001 the Western powers have used it to justify wars and military interventions across Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa and to justify sweeping attacks on democratic rights at home.

French imperialism has promoted this narrative to justify the reassertion of its dominance over its resource-rich former African colonies, while also intervening aggressively in the Middle East in support of the US regime change operation in Syria.

Paris is eager for military collaboration with Canada, which—through its ties with the US’s Africom, its leading role in the Francophonie, and its global mining companies—has developed extensive interests in West and Central Africa.

Under Operation Barkhane, France is mounting military interventions in Mali and the Central African Republic, involving 12,000 and 13,000 troops respectively. Most of the troops are from neighbouring African states, but German, Dutch and Swedish forces are also involved.

Trudeau is using the same demagogic “anti-terror” rhetoric to justify Canada’s role in the US-led war in the Middle East and the impending African deployment. In this, the Liberals have picked up seamlessly from where the right-wing Conservatives under Harper left off.

The “peacekeeping” missions Canada is readying to join in Africa are in reality all counter-insurgency operations that aim at sustaining in power servile, pro-Western governments who are embroiled in civil wars.

The insurgency movements in those countries, as in the Middle East, are the direct result of the imperialist powers use of Islamist militias to oust regimes deemed hostile to the West and their promotion of communal and ethnic divisions as part of a “divide and rule” strategy. In the case of Mali, Islamist and Tuareg rebels who were armed and financed by NATO to oust the Gaddafi regime in Libya in 2011 went to Mali after the war and launched a rebellion against the Bamako government.

Canada is determined to expand its role in the imperialist carve-up of Africa because Canadian big business has billions of dollars in investments on the continent, above all in the mining industry. Canadian mining companies have invested at least $25 billion in Africa, including $3 billion in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In Mali, Canadian-based Iamgold is one of the two principal owners of the country’s largest gold mine with investments worth $1 billion. Canadian companies have reaped massive profits from the rich resources in Congo, including by seizing on the chaos provoked by the war which engulfed the country and much of the region between 1998 and 2003.

The Liberals are said to be considering the possibility of sending additional troops to join a UN mission in the DRC, where a small contingent of nine Canadian servicemen is already operating.

When the Trudeau government first announced its plans to revive the CAF’s participation in “peacekeeping” missions, a section of the Canadian ruling elite led by the National Post and Globe and Mail expressed skepticism. This was bound up with their concern that the references to “peacekeeping” would fuel popular opposition to the military deployments when it became clear that the Canadian military was in reality prosecuting war.

Sajjan’s bellicose talk of “peace support missions” and open acknowledgment that this amounts to counter-insurgency warfare, the government’s readiness to partner with French imperialism, and the substantial interests of Canadian corporations on the African continent appear to have persuaded the Globe to express itself more forthrightly in support of Canada intervening militarily in Africa.

During Valls’ visit, the Globe published an editorial in which it argued that working with the experienced French army in Africa would serve Canada’s interest and that sending 600 troops would be a good start. The editorial concluded, “If the contingent works well, there may be a case for sending more Canadian troops.”

The TV film “Terror” and the attack on democratic rights in Germany

Johannes Stern & Peter Schwarz

The TV film “Terror—Your Verdict”, shown by the public broadcasters ARD (Germany), ORF (Austria) and SRF (Switzerland) on Monday at peak viewing time, was a deliberate political spectacle to promote German militarism and nullify elementary democratic rights and principles, which were anchored in the constitution following the experiences of the Kaiser’s Empire, the Weimar Republic and the Nazi dictatorship.

The film is based on a theatre piece by Ferdinand von Schirach. It depicts the fictitious trial of a 32-year-old air force major who, in an unauthorised action contrary to orders, shoots down a Lufthansa airliner with its 164 passengers to prevent it being flown into a football stadium where there is a crowd of 70,000 people gathered.

The verdict—and thus the end of the film—was decided by the public. In Germany, 87 percent of callers voted that the army pilot was not guilty, 13 percent voted guilty.

In the following talk show, “Harsh but Fair”, the invited representative of the military, a certain Major Thomas Wassmann (retired), openly called for the constitution to be amended to reflect the “new conditions” of war and terror, such that in “extreme situations” soldiers would be authorized to act contrary to the constitution, the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) would be deployed inside Germany, and elements of martial law would be introduced on the home front.

The entire spectacle, extensively promoted by ARD and reaching a large audience, was an attack on the Supreme Court, which had refused to sanction the state-ordered killing of human beings. On February 15, 2006, the court struck down the “Aviation Security Law”, introduced by the Social Democratic Party-Green Party government, as unconstitutional. The law would have empowered the defence minister to order the shooting down of civilian airliners if “the circumstance indicates” that the plane “was being used against peoples’ lives”.

The Supreme Court based its ruling directly on Article 1 of the constitution, which declares that human dignity is inviolable and that the “duty of all state authority” is to respect and protect it. If the state orders the killing of people to protect others, according to the ruling of the Supreme Court, it violates “those affected as subjects with dignity and inalienable rights”. This “cannot be reconciled” with the “concept of people as beings invested with self-determination and freedom,” who cannot be made “the mere objects of state action”.

This ruling has since become a thorn in the side of all those advocating the build-up of repressive state powers at home and abroad. It not only stands in the way of shooting down hijacked planes, but every form of state ordered killing of alleged “terrorists”, “enemies” and “opponents”. The deliberate killings by drones—routine for the US in the so-called “war against terror”—is, according to the ruling, just as illegal as their detention without trial and torture.

The film “Terror—Your Verdict” is a smear against the Supreme Court ruling. In an interview, the author, Ferdinand von Schirach, a grandson of the Nazis’ National Youth Leader, stressed that he himself would have found the army pilot guilty, and he respects the principle that “the dignity of man is inviolable”.

The film is made in such a way that the defender of democratic rights (the state attorney, played by Martina Gedeck) appears as an unworldly dogmatist, while the accused military pilot (played sympathetically by Florian David Fitz) is a sensible pragmatist. Faced with the choice between the deaths of 164 passengers or those of the 70,000 in the stadium (in addition to the 164 passengers), one can understand, under this hypothetical scenario, the decision of the military pilot.

In reality, however, the film aims to justify not only the shooting down of a hijacked plane, but a broader assault on fundamental democratic rights. The tendentious hypothetical scenario envisioned by the film is merely a pretext for an attack on the constitution itself, which proclaims that the state must respect the dignity of human beings and cannot make them mere objects of state action. If the state killing of human beings is permitted under the constitution, then the door is wide open for every arbitrary state action.

The fact that the question of legitimizing state killings is being discussed in Germany, of all places, is particularly alarming. In no other country in the world have state violence and terror taken on such a scale as in Germany under the Nazis. The state ordered and organised the killing of millions of Jews, Sinti, Roma, the disabled, war prisoners and political opponents. Those involved were not just morally uninhibited Nazi henchmen, but hundreds of thousands of supposedly honourable jurists, officers and civil servants.

To create the maximum confusion regarding these questions, the actual legal situation has been deliberately distorted.

Heribert Prantl, who heads the domestic affairs department of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and is himself a lawyer, accuses Schirach and ARD of misleading viewers in order “to betray the most important legal principle of human dignity”. Using the logic of Schirach and ARD, one could “make waterboarding a necessary means of fighting terrorism, guilt- and penalty-free”.

Through a false presentation of the legal situation, according to Prantl, the population is being forced “to vote for setting aside legal principles in order to defend the law and people in extremis”, such that “in the fight against terror, every extra-legal means is legal”.

In his regular column in Die Zeit, Thomas Fischer, a federal judge on the Supreme Court, expressed similar sentiments. He described the film as “an unashamed, difficult-to-bear manipulation of public opinion”. Everything was “so false and involved and twisted that it makes you sick”. The viewer is “royally screwed over”.

The manipulation begins with the voting public being posed with the alternative of sentencing the major who authorizes shooting down the plane with freedom or life imprisonment. “The audience is not told that it is possible to find a culprit guilty and nevertheless to impose a mild sentence or even none at all”. In other words, the major could be found technically guilty but nevertheless receive no sentence.

Fischer also points out that illegality and guilt under the law are not the same. Paragraph 35 of the Penal Code expressly notes that a person acts “without guilt” if, under certain circumstances, they “commit an illegal act in a situation that presents an unavoidable danger to life, limb or freedom”. Here, also, the major could have violated the law and nevertheless be found not guilty.

In its ruling on the Aviation Security Law, the Supreme Court had ruled not on the guilt of an accused but exclusively “regarding the legality of a law”, which would have permitted “Mr. Koch [the military pilot in the film], also against his will and conscience, to kill the people”. The Supreme Court ruling concerned the question, “May a minister order the shooting of innocent people? Can a police chief order the torture of a prisoner? Are those who are ordered to carry out such orders legally and officially obliged to carry them out?”

The film was conceived to manipulate public opinion so that they would say yes to these questions. How far the attacks on elementary democratic rights have advanced could be seen in the broadcast that followed the film, titled “Harsh but Fair”.

The appearance of retired Major Thomas Wassmann, who had been a military pilot and is today the president of the Military Air Transport Forum, recalled the military figures of the Weimar Republic, who made no secret of their disdain for the constitution. He bluntly called for soldiers to disregard the constitution. In an “extreme situation”, he said, one must be “able, in individual circumstances, to retrospectively reach a verdict that deviates from the constitution, that is perhaps contrary to normal jurisprudence”.

Later, he said that the constitution was “not handed down by God in tablets of stone”. Instead, it must be modifiable. “When the constitution was written, people were still under the impact of the Third Reich”. Today, he said, life is essentially quite different. Germany was “out and about in umpteen countries” and was sending soldiers “into war, into crisis areas, into war zones, and also sending soldiers to kill people there and sometimes the innocent”.

Wassermann also advocated the deployment of the Armed Forces internally, which is banned by the constitution. Where the former SPD Defence Minister Peter Struck had said, “in future, we will defend our security in the Hindu Kusch”, perhaps one must “also question whether we shouldn’t also defend our security in the Federal Republic of Germany”.

The previous Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) has also argued in favour of laws that would permit soldiers to “kill innocent people” in Germany, if deemed necessary. He considers it “unrealistic” that in an emergency, “half the cabinet have to be rounded up” to decide on the possible shooting down of a hijacked airplane. There simply is not time for this. In an emergency, the defence minister should give the order directly. According to the constitution, he is the “bearer of authority and the power of command”.

Jung made clear that already during his time as defence minister (2005 to 2009), existing law had been flouted. Naturally, he had “discussed these questions with the Inspector of the Luftwaffe (Air Force)”. He had clarified that in Luftwaffe formations, pilots are not permitted to fly unless they “are prepared to implement such a decision”—that means: to obey orders to shoot down an airplane with possibly hundreds of innocent people on board.

The former Interior Minister Gerhard Baum (Free Democratic Party), a liberal, had gone to court successfully in 2006 against the “Aviation Security Law”. Baum defended elements of the constitution against figures such as Jung, but as a member of the ruling elite, he naturally did not explain the open discussion of state killings in Germany as a product of the deep crisis of capitalism, the growth of national and social contradictions and the growth of militarism and war.

Anyone who wants to defend democratic rights must do so from the socialist standpoint of the working class, and fight for the overthrow of capitalism.

Legal challenge to Brexit threatens constitutional crisis in UK

Robert Stevens

Three of Britain’s most senior High Court judges are considering their verdict in one of the most important constitutional cases in the history of the UK.

A four-day judicial review at London’s Royal Courts of Justice saw a challenge mounted against the British government over its decision to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty—beginning the formal process leading to the UK leaving the European Union (EU)—without Parliament passing a new law on the matter.

Prime Minister Theresa May announced at the conference of the ruling Conservative Party that she will activate Article 50 by the end of next March. May’s statement heightened fears within ruling circles of a “hard Brexit,” in which exit from the EU would also include an end to UK access to the European Single Market. The majority of Britain’s ruling class, centred on sections of finance capital that dominate the economy, are opposed to Brexit and the loss of access to the single market above all. This faction is also dominant in Westminster, encompassing almost three quarters of MPs and a majority in every major party except the Tories.

May intends to bypass Parliament by using Royal Prerogative to trigger Article 50, as it would not be possible for her to get the necessary support otherwise. Royal prerogative powers, once held by British monarchs, are wielded by government on the advice of the prime minister and the cabinet. The mechanisms by which the government is accountable to Parliament and whether Parliament has the right of veto have long been a contentious issue.

Regardless of the verdict of the judges, the court case will exacerbate the constitutional and political turmoil caused by the June 23 referendum. Whoever loses is expected to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The financial interests involved are underscored by the identity of those who initiated proceeding to bring the High Court case against the government.

A group of claimants is led by Gina Miller, a London-based investment manager for the firm SCM Private, which was launched in 2009 and manages funds of more than £100 million. Miller co-founded the firm with her husband Alan, who is known as “Mr. Hedge Fund,” having amassed a personal fortune of more than £30 million in the City.

People’s Challenge funds the legal case via crowd-funding that raised almost £160,000. It was set up by Grahame Pigney of the campaign, Say Yes 2 Europe. Separate crowd-funding raised more than £10,000 for legal advice from public law experts, organised by barrister Jolyon Maugham QC, who previously advised former Labour Party leader Ed Miliband on tax policy.

Miller was represented by Mishcon de Reya, a leading advocate of the finance and banking sector in London. Mishcon de Reya retained Baron David Pannick QC and Tom Hickman, a practising barrister and Reader in Public Law at University College, to act as counsel. Hickman is one of three academics, leading members of the UK Constitutional Law Association, who have drafted a legal opinion arguing that any decision to proceed without an Act of Parliament could be overturned by judicial review.

At the end of September, the claimants secured a victory, with a High Court judge ruling that the government must release its private legal arguments for not consulting Parliament on the triggering of Article 50. The documents revealed that government lawyers were to argue it is “constitutionally impermissible” for Parliament to be given a vote on the Brexit process. The “expertise of ministers and their officials are particularly well-suited and the courts ill-suited” to deal with the issue, they wrote.

Lord Pannick said the case was of “fundamental constitutional importance.” If the government used its prerogative powers to trigger Article 50, this would have the “intended consequence” of depriving citizens of the rights they have as EU citizens. British citizens were granted further, new rights after Britain joined the EU under the European Communities Act 1972, which was passed by Parliament. These included the right to stand as candidates and vote in European elections, and refer a legal case to the European Court of Justice. Pannick told the judges, “If you are going to take these rights away you need parliamentary authority. ... The basic truth is that parliament is sovereign and when rights are conferred they cannot be taken away by the executive.”

Addressing the “flexibility” of the UK’s unwritten constitution, he said, “However much flexibility there may be, a minister ... cannot validly act to remove statutory rights, rights of a constitutional nature, without we say, breaking the back of the constitution and crippling it.”

Pannick continued, “The inevitable consequence of (Article 50) notification is to destroy those rights and to destroy them whatever parliament may think about the matter.”

Barristers for the pro-EU claimants cited the Bill of Rights of 1689, which states that laws should not be discarded or suspended without consent from Parliament.

Putting the government’s argument, Attorney General Jeremy Wright, its most senior legal figure, said that some rights of UK citizens would be “hollowed out” but these were “necessary incidents of leaving a club.”

Wright argued that May could invoke Article 50 because “the country voted to leave the EU in a referendum approved by act of parliament. ... There must be no attempts to remain inside the EU, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door, and no second referendum.”

Wright said the court was not hearing “a narrow legal challenge directed to the technical procedural matter of notification. In reality, it seeks to invalidate the decision already taken to withdraw from the EU and to require that decision to be taken by parliament.”

The extraordinary political and economic volatility unleashed by the Brexit vote was nowhere more evident than in the impact of the court case proceedings. Since the June referendum, the pound has collapsed by almost 18 percent against the dollar, as the global currency markets gave their verdict on Brexit. It fell 11 percent immediately and then another 6 percent when May committed the government to triggering Article 50.

During the High Court hearing, government lawyer James Eadie QC, stated, “The government view at the moment is it is very likely that any such agreement [at end the end of the UK/EU negotiations] will be subject to [parliamentary] ratification.” Traders saw this as opening the possibility of Parliament blocking a British exit without a favourable trade deal with the EU and the pound instantly rallied 1 percent to $1.23, its biggest gain since mid-August.

The Tories have a working majority of just 16 seats in Parliament and the Brexit crisis could see May’s fall and new elections, under conditions of escalating economic and social tensions. The pro-Brexit Daily Mail reported Saturday that “a rebel alliance of MPs opposed to a hard Brexit,” led by Ed Miliband and former Liberal Democrats leader and Deputy Prime Minister in the previous Tory-led coalition Nick Clegg, are to “table a motion next week demanding the right to block Brexit with a vote in Parliament if it means leaving the single market. More than 20 Tories are predicted to join the alliance.”

Plans for a pro-EU political regroupment are at the centre of the attempted coup by Labour’s Blairite wing to remove party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn campaigned for a Remain vote, but the right wing placed his “lukewarm” position on the EU alongside his stated opposition to nuclear weapons and nuclear war against Russia as basis for their political campaign against him.

One of the main coup leaders, Hilary Benn, was elected by MPs to be chairman of the Commons Select Committee for Exiting the European Union. He defeated the pro-Leave Labourite, Kate Hoey, by 330 votes to 209. On taking the post, Benn said, “Parliament will definitely want to have the final say on the agreement that is negotiated by the Government at the end of this process whenever that comes.”

AT&T-Time Warner merger to expand corporate, state control of media

Barry Grey

AT&T, the telecommunications and cable TV colossus, announced Saturday that it has struck a deal to acquire the pay TV and entertainment giant Time Warner. The merger, if approved by the Justice Department and US regulatory agencies under the next administration, will create a corporate entity with unprecedented control over both the distribution and content of news and entertainment. It will also mark an even more direct integration of the media and the telecomm industry with the state.

AT&T, the largest US telecom group by market value, already controls huge segments of the telephone, pay-TV and wireless markets. Its $48.5 billion purchase of the satellite provider DirecTV last year made it the biggest pay-TV provider in the country, ahead of Comcast. It is the second-largest wireless provider, behind Verizon.

Time Warner is the parent company of such cable TV staples as HBO, Cinemax, CNN and the other Turner System channels: TBS, TNT and Turner Sports. It also owns the Warner Brothers film and TV studio.

The Washington Post on Sunday characterized the deal as a “seismic shift” in the “media and technology world,” one that “could turn the legacy carrier [AT&T] into a media titan the likes of which the United States has never seen.” The newspaper cited Craig Moffett, an industry analyst at Moffett-Nathanson, as saying there was no precedent for a telecom company the size of AT&T seeking to acquire a content company such as Time Warner.

“A [telecom company] owning content is something that was expressly prohibited for a century” by the government, Moffett told the Post.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, in keeping with his anti-establishment pose, said Saturday that the merger would lead to “too much concentration of power in the hands of too few,” and that, if elected, he would block it.

The Clinton campaign declined to comment on Saturday. Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine, speaking on the NBC News program “Meet the Press” on Sunday, said he had “concerns” about the merger, but he declined to take a clear position, saying he had not seen the details.

AT&T, like the other major telecom and Internet companies, has collaborated with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its blanket, illegal surveillance of telephone and electronic communications. NSA documents released last year by Edward Snowden show that AT&T has played a particularly reactionary role.

As the New York Times put it in an August 15, 2015 article reporting the Snowden leaks: “The National Security Agency’s ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T.”

The article went on to cite an NSA document describing the relationship between AT&T and the spy agency as “highly collaborative,” and quoted other documents praising the company’s “extreme willingness to help” and calling their mutual dealings “a partnership, not a contractual relationship.”

The Times noted that AT&T installed surveillance equipment in at least 17 of its Internet hubs based in the US, provided technical assistance enabling the NSA to wiretap all Internet communications at the United Nations headquarters, a client of AT&T, and gave the NSA access to billions of emails.

If the merger goes through, this quasi-state entity will be in a position to directly control the content of much of the news and entertainment accessed by the public via television, the movies and smart phones. The announcement of the merger agreement is itself an intensification of a process of telecom and media convergence and consolidation that has been underway for years, and has accelerated under the Obama administration.

In 2009, the cable provider Comcast announced its acquisition for $30 billion of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, which owns both the National Broadcasting Company network and Universal Studios. The Obama Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission ultimately approved the merger.

Other recent mergers involving telecoms and content producers include, in addition to AT&T's 2015 purchase of DirecTV: Verizon Communications' acquisition of the Huffington Post, Yahoo and AOL; Lionsgate's deal to buy the pay-TV channel Starz; Verizon's agreement announced in the spring to buy DreamWorks Animation; and Charter Communications' acquisition of the cable provider Time Warner Cable, approved this year.

The AT&T-Time Warner announcement will itself trigger a further restructuring and consolidation of the industry, as rival corporate giants scramble to compete within a changing environment that has seen the growth of digital and streaming companies such as Netflix and Hulu at the expense of the traditional cable and satellite providers.

The Financial Times wrote on Saturday that “the mooted deal could fire the starting gun on a round of media and technology consolidation.” Referring to a new series of mergers and acquisitions, the Wall Street Journal on Sunday quoted a “top media executive” as saying that an AT&T-Time Warner deal would “certainly kick off the dance.”

The scale of the buyout agreed unanimously by the boards of both companies is massive. AT&T is to pay Time Warner a reported $85.4 billion in cash and stocks, at a price of $107.50 per Time Warner share. This is significantly higher than the current market price of Time Warner shares, which rose 8 percent to more than $89 Friday on rumors of the merger deal.

In addition, AT&T is to take on Time Warner’s debt, pushing the actual cost of the deal to more than $107 billion. The merged company would have a total debt of $150 billion, making inevitable a campaign of cost-cutting and job reduction.

The unprecedented degree of monopolization of the telecom and media industries is the outcome of the policy of deregulation, launched in the late 1970s by the Democratic Carter administration and intensified by every administration, Republican or Democratic, since then. In 1982, the original AT&T, colloquially known as “Ma Bell,” was broken up into seven separate and competing regional “Baby Bell” companies.

This was sold to the public as a means of ending the tightly regulated AT&T monopoly over telephone service and unleashing the “competitive forces” of the market, where increased competition would supposedly lower consumer prices and improve service. What ensued was a protracted process of mergers and disinvestments involving the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs, which drove up stock prices at the expense of both employees and the consuming public.

Dallas-based Southwestern Bell was among the most aggressive of the “Baby Bells” in expanding by means of acquisitions and ruthless cost-cutting, eventually evolving into the new AT&T. Now, the outcome of deregulation has revealed itself to be a degree of monopolization and concentrated economic power beyond anything previously seen.

United Nations University IIGH Fellowship for International Students 2017

Application Deadline: 4:00 p.m. (Malaysian local time) on 4th November 2016.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All. Applicants from developing countries and women are particularly encouraged to apply.

To be taken at (country): UNU-IIGH in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Eligible Field of Study: Research topics should relate to any one of the following UNU-IIGH thematic research areas:

• Systems Thinking for Urban Health
• Governance for Global Health

About the Award: The UNU-IIGH PhD Fellowship Programme aims to provide an opportunity for candidates enrolled in a PhD programme to expand their intellectual vision beyond their scientific disciplines.

The PhD Fellowship Programme is open to candidates who are enrolled in PhD programmes in educational institutions around the world, and who could benefit from a period of up to 12 months at UNU-IIGH. With a view to strengthening capacity building, doctoral students from educational institutions in developing countries are strongly encouraged to apply.

Type: Fellowship/PhD

Eligibility:  Applicants must be able to make use of the UNU-IIGH facilities in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to: (i) work on a project or projects assigned by the supervisor, and (ii) participate in other academic activities of the Institute while writing their dissertation. The fellows shall also participate in regular in-house discussions and seminars, as well as contribute to the research and writing of the UNU-IIGH Working Paper Series.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: UNU-IIGH offers a monthly stipend for the duration of the fellowship.

Duration of Scholarship: 12 months

How to Apply: Interested applicants should download and complete the UNU Personal History form (P-11). There is no Vacancy Number; instead, just state PhD Fellowship 2017 as the “Title of Post” in the section “What post are you applying for?”

Please submit all of the listed documents below via email to: iigh-info@unu.edu

• a completed and signed UNU P-11 form(See in Link Below) (Please do not use P-11 forms from other UN agencies)
• a cover letter outlining your motivation and how a 12-month PhD Fellowship with UNU-IIGH will benefit you and UNU-IIGH
• an abstract of your current PhD research/dissertation
• a sample of your recent publications (in English)
• two references to support your application (one must come from your current PhD supervisor)
• a scanned copy of your passport details page

Be sure to state PhD Fellowship 2017 with your name clearly stated in the subject of the email.

Note that only completed applications received by the deadline will be considered. We will acknowledge receipt of your application via email.

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH)

The Emile Boutmy Scholarship for International Students at Sciences Po 2017/2018 – France

Application Deadlines: 

• Deadline for undergraduate programme: 2nd May, 2017
• Deadline for masters programme: 13th January, 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Sciences Po University, Paris, France

About the Award: The Emile Boutmy Scholarship is awarded to top students whose profiles match the admissions priorities of Sciences Po and individual course requirements. The Emile Boutmy/MIEM scholarship may not be supplemented with other scholarship (Eiffel scholarship, AEFE scholarship, BGF…).

Type: Bachelors Programme, Masters Programme

Eligibility: Eligible students are those, first time applicants, from a non-European Union state, whose household does not file taxes within the European Union, and who have been admitted to the Undergraduate or Master’s programme.

Students who are not eligible are:

• Swiss and Norwegian applicants, since they may be entitled to CROUS scholarships
• Candidates who have dual citizenship, including from a European Union state
• Candidates from Quebec for master degree (since they may take advantage of sliding scale fees same as European applicants). Candidates for bachelor degree are eligible
• Dual-degree candidates. Only applicants for the following dual degrees are eligible:
  • the dual degree in Journalism Sciences Po/Columbia University
  • the dual degree Sciences Po/Fudan University with the concentration Europe-Asia in Global Affairs (only applicants with Chinese nationality)
  • the dual degree Sciences Po/Peking University (only applicants with Chinese nationality)
• Ph.D. programme students (thesis)
• Candidates to the 1 year Master’s programmes
• Exchange students

Selection Criteria: This scholarship is awarded based on factors of excellence and according to the type of profile sought for this programme. Social criteria are also taken into account.

Selection Process: The Admissions Department is responsible for awarding Boutmy scholarships.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value and Duration of Scholarship: The Emile Boutmy scholarship is awarded to Undergraduate and Masters students arriving at Sciences Po for their first year of study.

Undergraduate Scholarship: The Emile Boutmy programme can take several different forms:

1. A tuition grant of €7,300 per year for the three years of the undergraduate programme, in addition to a grant to cover part of the cost of living of €5000 per year.
2. A tuition grant of €7,300 per year for the three years of the undergraduate programme.
3. A tuition grant of €5,000 per year for the three years of the undergraduate programme.
4. A tuition grant of €3,000 per year for the three years of the undergraduate programme.

On an exceptional basis, a scholarship of 19,000€ may be granted to cover the three years of College. Scholarship amounts are decided during the different admission juries.

If you do not validate your academic year, your scholarship will be lost.

If you have been granted for a scholarship and you decide to defer your admission, your scholarship wil be lost.

During the year abroad (third year of the undergraduate programme): Scholarship recipients will retain their tuition fee grant and additional cost of living grant (if applicable) during their year abroad.

Masters Scholarship: The Emile Boutmy/Miem programme can take several different forms:

1. A grant of €10,000 per year to cover tuition fees for the two years of the Masters, in addition to a grant to cover part of the cost of living of €6,000 per year.
2. A tuition grant of €10,000 per year for the two years of the Masters.
3. A tuition grant of €5,000 per yearfor the two years of the Masters.

On an exceptional basis, a scholarship of 19,000€ per year, may be granted to cover the two years of the Masters programme. Scholarship amounts are decided during the different admission juries.

If you do not validate your academic year, your scholarship will be lost.

If you have been granted for a scholarship and you decide to defer your admission, your scholarship wil be lost.

How to Apply: In order to apply to this scholarship you must notify it on your application form, as well as include a proof of income and documents explaining your family situation.

Students must indicate that they are applying for the Emile Boutmy scholarship in their Sciences Po application. Students will also be required to include proof of income and documents explaining their family situation (e.g. income tax return for both parents, payslips, divorce certificate, unemployment benefits, documents related to alimony, child support or retirement pensions, death certificate…).

It is important to visit the Scholarship Webpage (link below) to access the application form and for detailed information on how to apply for this scholarship.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Sciences Po University, France