The human rights disaster in America

Andre Damon

Antonio Zambrano-Montes, a 35-year-old Mexican national, was shot to death by police in Pasco, Washington last Tuesday as he was backing away from officers with his hands up. A video of the shooting clearly corroborates claims by Zambrano-Montes’s family that he was killed “execution style.”

Police claimed that Zambrano-Montes, who had lived in the city for ten years and worked as an orchard picker, may have been “armed with a rock” before he was shot multiple times. Protests erupted over the weekend, with more than a thousand demonstrating in Washington state on Saturday against the killing.

The United States has invaded, bombed and destabilized dozens of countries on the grounds that their regimes perpetrated human rights abuses. In his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Obama declared that America leads the world “with the example of our values.” He added, “That’s what makes us exceptional.”

Not only is this sanctimonious drivel completely at odds with the reality of American imperialist foreign policy, which employs mass murder, support for extreme right forces, subversion and provocation as its stock-in-trade, it is belied by the reality of life within the United States itself.

The wave of police violence in the US is one aspect of an escalating assault on the democratic rights of the working class that makes a mockery of the official human rights rhetoric. Were these events occurring in a country targeted for conquest or regime change by the CIA and the Pentagon, that country would be declared a human rights disaster area.

According to a web site that keeps track of police shootings, Zambrano-Montes was the 122nd person to be killed by police in the United States since the start of the year. In the five days since the shooting, another ten people have been killed by police: two black, two white, one Latino. The names and identities of five others have not been released.

In virtually all of these fatal police shootings, the victims have been blasted by a fusillade of bullets, their bodies riddled by ten, fifteen, twenty or more rounds fired off by the killer cops.

The recent incidents of wanton police violence include:

The beating of an elderly Indian man in Alabama as he walked in the street, leaving him partially paralyzed.

The beating of a 13-year-old schoolgirl by police in Baltimore, Maryland.

The killing of 17-year-old Jessica Hernandez as she sat in a car with her friends in Denver, Colorado.

The killing of Kristiana Coignard, a mentally disturbed teenager who was carrying a kitchen knife, in Longview, Texas.

Most of the killings and beatings that are widely known to the public have been captured on videotape, like the shooting of Zambrano-Montes. Countless similar incidents go unreported by the local and national media.

It is now six months since the August 9 police shooting of Ferguson, Missouri teenager Michael Brown, an act of wanton violence that sparked protests locally and nationally. The immediate reaction of the political establishment, from the local authorities to the Democratic governor to the Obama White House, was mass repression, including the declaration of a state of emergency and the deployment of the National Guard and militarized police with helicopters and armored vehicles to occupy Ferguson.

This was followed by a politically motivated decision not to indict Brown’s killer, officer Darren Wilson, in a sham grand jury proceeding. Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who choked to death Staten Island resident Eric Garner in broad daylight, was likewise exonerated.

These rulings signaled a counteroffensive by the state to intimidate and criminalize opposition to police violence and murder.

New York City, under the leadership of Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio, announced the formation of a special police unit armed with machine guns. The unit will be deployed for “dealing with events like our recent protests,” as New York Police Commissioner William Bratton put it. Across the country, scores of people have been arrested for posting anti-police comments on the Internet.

The wave of police beatings and killings is only one component of the escalation of state violence and the assault on democratic rights. Despite numerous “botched” executions, including the horrific state murder of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma last April, in which the prisoner writhed in pain for an hour, America’s capital punishment assembly line continues to exact its toll, with eight people executed so far this year.

America’s vast prison gulag, which incarcerates the largest inmate population in the world, is increasingly assuming the social role of the debtors’ prisons of Dickensian England. Last week, the Vera Institute of Justice released areport documenting the extent to which American jails have become “massive warehouses” for the poor.

The organization found that more than half of the people in jail were incarcerated because they were unable to pay a bail of $2,500 or less. It concluded that “a guilty plea may, paradoxically, be the fastest way to get out of jail.”

The brutality of the “justice” system in the US is only the most visible expression of the violent and exploitative character of American society. It embodies the response of the ruling class to ever-rising levels of social inequality, which have increased at an unprecedented rate over the six years of the Obama administration.

The corporate and financial elite, whose wealth has doubled since 2009, gorges itself at the expense of an increasingly impoverished working class. The state, headed by a military-intelligence-police apparatus that operates above the law, looks on the population with distrust, fear and hatred.

Killer cops shielded by the politicians and the courts, the militarization of the police, the criminalization of social protest—these are aspects of dictatorial forms of rule being put into place to defend the interests of the financial aristocracy against the inevitable eruption of class struggle in America.

British unions recommend health service workers accept another pay cut

Ajanta Silva

Unions in England are recommending National Health Service (NHS) workers drop their opposition to a pay freeze for 2014-15 and accept a miserly one percent rise in 2015-16. This represents yet another pay cut.

NHS workers have already suffered a four-year pay freeze, had their pay slashed by 10-15 percent, experienced worsening job conditions and have been forced to contribute more towards their pensions.

Eight unions involved in the NHS, including Unison, Unite, GMB, Society of Radiographers and Royal College of Midwives, suspended a 12-hour strike on January 29, declaring it was “the best deal that could be achieved through negotiation.”

A key reason for ending the strike is to prevent any embarrassment for the Labour Party as the May general election looms. Labour has made the NHS a major issue in the election, although it is committed to austerity measures and cuts to public spending.

The unions claimed that they had received a “not insignificant” last-minute concession from the Conservative/Liberal-Democrat coalition. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt signed the pay proposal just two days prior to the planned strike with the “hope that this offer will enable Trade Unions in dispute to suspend planned industrial action.”

The strike went ahead in North Ireland where the unions have not got any pay deal as such to sell to their members.

The government proposal includes a one percent pay rise for workers up to pay point 42 from April 2015, with a £200 per year increase for the lowest paid—those on pay point 8 or below. Pay point 1 will be abolished and workers moved to pay point 2 (£15,100 a year). These increases will be paid for by freezing the pay and incremental progression of those earning over £56,000.

The proposal excludes any back pay for 2014-15, one of the key issues behind the strike, effectively continuing the four-year pay freeze for another year.

As a part of an agreement, Hunt demanded the unions “commit to work together with the NHS employers to ensure this remains affordable” and “to commit to talks on further reforming of Agenda for Change pay system” to make sure “it can continue to deliver flexibility, capacity, fairness and value.”

The NHS Employers Association said it was “delighted” and praised the unions for making the “right decision” by calling off the strike. Chief Executive Danny Mortimer declared, “If the unions proceed to fully accept the proposed pay agreement it will demonstrate a commitment and signal the start of a period of negotiations to deliver long-term pay reform in the NHS.”

The Department of Health has already given some idea of what reforms it has in mind in its submission to the NHS Pay Review Body—the end of enhanced pay for working unsocial hours and annual incremental pay progression, which it declares are not affordable within the current financial climate.

After suspending the union action, Unison Head of Health Christina McAnea, lead negotiator for the health unions, said, “The two strike days staged by health workers last year have moved the government to negotiate with the unions.” She claimed that “these new proposals deliver pay rises of between 5.6 percent and 2.2 percent for more than 200,000 of the lowest paid workers in the NHS.”

The Chartered Society of Physiotherapists’ Jill Barker was more circumspect. After saying “this new offer represents a better deal than originally proposed by government”—not difficult given the government didn’t want any pay rise—she admitted, “The offer certainly isn’t brilliant.”

Many NHS workers already rely on unsocial hours enhancements, work in the Staff Resource Pool (Bank) or do other jobs to keep their heads above water. By accepting this rotten pay deal, unions not only pit one section of workers against the other, but pave the way for further inroads into pay terms and conditions.

In Scotland, the same unions did not even call a ballot when the government implemented the Pay Review Board-recommended below-inflation pay rise. In Wales, the scheduled four-hour walkout on November 10 last year was called off by Unison after accepting a deal with the Labour Party-led Welsh Assembly, which restrains pay for two years.

Unite and GMB officials in Northern Ireland complain they have not got a pay proposal which matches the one in England. Michael Mulholland, GMB regional officer, said, “NHS workers are furious and the public will want to know why the Department of Health [Northern Ireland] is not putting the offer in England on the table as they are expected to do.”

The attacks on NHS workers is a vital element in the government’s £20 billion cuts to the NHS budget over the last five years, as a part of the austerity measures implemented in the aftermath of the 2008 financial breakdown. It is demanding a further £10 billion in cuts by 2021.

Last year, the World Socialist Web Site warned, when NHS workers balloted to strike, “A mandate for strike action by the members of Unison, Unite, GMB and the RCN will not be used to galvanise opposition to pay restraint but to dissipate and demoralise resistance, while convincing the government that the services of the unions are required to forestall a general mobilisation. Where they cannot prevent strikes, the unions are only prepared to hold them on a token basis.”

The pseudo-left Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Party, in contrast, proclaimed it as proof of a resurgence of the unions as a force to defend the working class and oppose austerity. After the unions suspended the January 29 strike action, portraying the government proposal as a victory, theSocialist Worker urged “every activist now has to fight for a No vote and get the action back on.”

The Socialist Party complained, “More could be achieved if we had a determined and strong leadership. NHS England bosses all but admitted they were in a difficult position and wanted to end the action. In these circumstances, it is a poor negotiator indeed who manages to come up with less pay than the small amount that was asked for.”

No one will be able to resuscitate these putrefying union corpses as fighting organs of the working class. Time and again, unions have proven that they are not only against mounting any genuine opposition to these attacks, but work as an extended arm of the ruling elite in imposing them. On every occasion, the pseudo-lefts cover for their betrayals and try to convince workers that the union bureaucrats will fight if only enough pressure is applied.

What is required to fight back is the urgent building of action committees independent of the unions. We call on the NHS workers to reject with contempt this utterly rotten pay deal and to intensify their struggle under a socialist programme.

Australia: Labor forms minority government in Queensland

Mike Head

Two weeks after the January 31 state election, Labor Party ministers were sworn in today to form a minority government in Queensland. State governor Paul de Jersey, who represents the monarchy, yesterday invited state Labor leader Annastacia Palaszczuk to form government after the Electoral Commission declared that Labor had won 44 seats.

Voting was so close in numerous seats that it took 13 days to determine the outcome of the election. Labor will rely on the vote of conservative independent MP Peter Wellington to hold a precarious one-seat majority in the 89-seat parliament.

There was speculation that de Jersey would delay his decision, and accept the urging of the outgoing Liberal National Party (LNP) government to retain it as a caretaker administration for several months pending the outcome of a possible challenge to the result in one seat. These machinations highlight the unelected governor’s far-reaching powers to decide who takes office in times of uncertainty and crisis.

The lengthy delay and the narrowness of Labor’s victory underscore the fragility and volatility of the parliamentary system in Australia. At both state and federal levels, one government after another is being ousted at elections because of intense public hostility to the austerity programs pursued by Labor and Liberal National governments alike.

In the Queensland election, Campbell Newman became the state’s first premier to lose his own seat, because of deep opposition to the LNP’s destruction of more than 14,000 public sector jobs, decimation of health, education, housing and other basic services, and its plans to deepen the assault by privatising $37 billion worth of public assets.

Newman’s first-term government was defeated in a large election swing against the LNP just three years after Labor had been reduced to a rump of seven MPs, because of Labor’s own $15 billion privatisation operation, which axed thousands of jobs.

The unprecedented political reversal was also driven by the widespread loathing for the budget-slashing launched by the federal Liberal National government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, which itself came to office in 2013 because of the popular anger toward the similar austerity drive by the previous Labor governments.

Labor’s hold on office in Queensland may still depend on the outcome of a possible court challenge to the result in the Brisbane electorate of Ferny Grove, which the LNP lost to Labor by just 409 votes. The fourth-placed candidate in that seat, from mining magnate Clive Palmer’s Palmer United Party (PUP)—who received 993 votes—was ruled ineligible after the election because he was an undischarged bankrupt.

The LNP has said it will apply to the Court of Disputed Returns for a fresh election in the seat, which could not be held until April 11 at the earliest. Lawrence Springborg, who replaced Newman as LNP parliamentary leader, is still manoeuvring for the support of the two MPs from Katter’s Australian Party to form an alternative minority government if the LNP wins back the seat. Like the PUP, Katter’s party is a right-wing populist formation.

Whatever the final result, the working class faces an intensified assault on jobs, living standards and social services, amid a sharp and deepening slump in the former mining boom state. Now that the election campaign is out of the way, all the pretences of an imminent economic recovery are being dropped.

Even before Labor’s appointment to government was announced yesterday, incoming Treasurer Curtis Pitt began to warn of further austerity measures, claiming that revised economic growth figures would pose bigger challenges for the new government than expected.

A Deloitte Access Economic Report earlier this week forecast a 3.6 percent economic growth rate for 2015–16, making a mockery of the state Treasury’s prediction of 5.75 percent, on which both the LNP and Labor fashioned their election commitments.

Pitt professed to be surprised by the downward revision, saying it meant “an ongoing economy that is sluggish” and “higher unemployment.” Labor’s election pledges and budget calculations, like those of the LNP, were based on fraudulent claims that Queensland would experience a sudden reversal from a year of contraction as liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports commenced.

In reality, plunging global oil prices, to which LNG prices are tied, were already undercutting LNP projects. Hundreds of jobs are now being axed in LNG projects, on top of the thousands destroyed in coal mines over the past two years.

Officially, the state’s jobless rate rose from 6.2 to 6.5 percent in January, but this vastly understates the impact of mine closures and project cancellations and their knock-on effects throughout the state.

Arrow Energy shelved its multibillion-dollar LNG project and QGC’s parent company, BG Group, reduced the value of its LNG operation by $5 billion. Santos will cut $50 million from its spending on its coal seam gas to LNG project, and Origin is believed to be shedding hundreds of jobs. The impact will flow on to revenue for the state government, with royalties likely to fall even further than forecast.

Interviewed on radio on Thursday, Pitt was asked whether front line public services would benefit from job creation programs. He declared that the Labor government would reject the “old-school” stereotype of restoring public sector jobs and instead “engage the private sector” by offering payroll tax rebates to employ apprentices and trainees. Pitt also refused to promise any drop in soaring electricity, water and gas prices.

During the campaign, Labor refused to promise to restore the public sector jobs eliminated by the Newman government and the previous Labor government. Palaszczuk, who was a leading minister in the last Labor government, attacked the LNP from the right, accusing it of promising to spend too much money on the basis of asset sales.

Labor vowed to eliminate state debt faster than the LNP by restructuring electricity and other government enterprises, and diverting two-thirds of their dividends each year from social spending into debt repayments. This will mean deeper cuts to essential services, as will Labor’s vow to save $645 million over four years by cutting government spending on consultancies, contractors and advertising.

On election night, Palaszczuk, who belongs to the state Labor Party’s dominant Australian Workers Union apparatus, signaled that her government will rely on the trade unions to suppress opposition to its measures in the working class, as they did under the two decades of state Labor government under Anna Bligh and her predecessor, Peter Beattie.

Australian PM prejudices rights of terrorist suspects to fair trial

Will Morrow

Two days after the police raid and arrest of two young men on allegations of terrorism, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott used his parliamentary privilege on Thursday to make deeply prejudicial statements about the case and attempt to stoke an atmosphere of fear and hysteria over “home-grown” terrorist threats.

Responding to an already prepared question by a member of the Coalition government, Abbott gave lurid details of what he claimed was a video seized from the home of the two men, 25-year-old Kuwaiti Mohammad Kiad, and 24-year-old Iraqi Omar al-Kutobi.

Abbott said that he had been shown the “pre-attack” video by police that proved the young men were acting in the name of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—which Abbott has taken to referring to as “the death cult.”

Abbott claimed that one of the arrested men was shown “kneeling before the death cult flag with a knife in his hand and a machete before him.” Abbott read out what was purportedly an English translation of the man’s statements in Arabic: “I swear to almighty Allah, we will carry out the first operation for the soldiers of the caliphate in Australia. I swear to almighty Allah, blond people, there is no room for blame between you and us. We owe you only stabbing the kidneys and striking necks.”

Abbott asserted: “I do not think it would be possible to witness uglier fanaticism than this, more monstrous fanaticism and extremism than this, and I regret to say it is now present in our country.”

Police have claimed that the video provides evidence that a so-called “lone-wolf” terror attack was imminent. The video, however, has not been made public, and there has been no verification of the government’s claims or of the accuracy of the English translation. As with every purported terrorist incident, the official version presented by the state cannot be taken at face value. In case after case, in Australia and internationally, it has later been exposed as riddled with falsifications and distortions.

After massive police raids in Sydney and Melbourne last September, assertions of a plot to publicly “behead” someone, made on the basis of a phone-call intercept, later proved to be baseless. The word “behead” was never actually been used, and the “weapon” turned out to be a plastic ornament owned by an individual who was not even charged.

A hostage incident in Sydney at the Lindt Café in December was blown up by the government, police and media into a national terrorist crisis. It rapidly emerged that the hostage-taker, Man Haron Monis, was a disturbed man who was well-known to police and had no connection to ISIS or terrorist organisations. No attempt was made to negotiate a peaceful conclusion and it ended with police storming the café and the death of Monis and two hostages (see: “The Sydney siege: Official lies and contradictions”).

Several lawyers have publicly condemned Abbott’s comments on the latest incident as outrageous and deeply prejudicial. Having publicly read out evidence that would be used in the trial of the two young men, and effectively declared them guilty, Abbott has ensured that they will be unable to receive a fair trial.

Prominent Australian barrister Robert Richter QC said that if Abbott had made his statements outside of parliament, he could have been held in contempt of court. “To make those sorts of inflammatory utterances is calculated to influence the judicial process, and it’s being done for a political purpose,” he said.

Criminal lawyer Adam Houda also pointed to the political calculations underlying Abbott’s statements and the timing of the police raid itself. He suggested it was aimed at diverting attention from the deepening crisis facing Abbott’s government. The raid took place in the immediate aftermath of a leadership challenge to the prime minister last Monday, and ongoing opposition to Abbott in the Liberal Party.

“He wants to milk this situation politically for all it’s worth,” Houda said. “And the unfortunate result is that it will also bring unfair prejudice to the matters now before the court and also undermine the court process.” He added: “Is it coincidental that every time the Prime Minister is in the sh**, his mates find him a terrorist?”

Abbott’s comments are part of a broader agenda of the government, Labor opposition and media to use the alleged threat of terrorism to justify their reactionary program of war abroad and the tearing up of democratic rights at home.

The massive “anti-terror” raids last September were timed to coincide with the Abbott government’s announcement that it was sending fighter jets and Australian combat forces to join the renewed US-led war in Iraq. This week’s widely-publicised arrests come amid preparations by the Obama administration to further escalate US military operations in the Middle East.

Australian forces are an important component of Washington’s military strategy and planning in Iraq and Syria. In a speech on Thursday, Vice-Admiral David Johnston, the head of the Australian Defence Force’s Joint Operations Command, stated that the coalition had conducted 2,000 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since August, 13 percent of these were carried out by six Australian F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter-bombers. Johnston alleged that 8,000 ISIS fighters had been killed, mostly from airstrikes, and that Australian planes had killed “hundreds.”

The Abbott government also dispatched 200 special forces commandos to Iraq, who have been attached to three brigades of the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS). The CTS forces have a documented record of functioning as sectarian Shiite death squads. They stand accused of murdering numerous perceived opponents of the US-backed puppet Shiite government in Baghdad (see: “Australian special forces working with sectarian Shiite troops in Iraq”).

The Abbott government has used the latest police raid to justify a series of draconian laws passed in the wake of the September raids, and to call for an even greater build-up of state powers. During his speech on Thursday, Abbott declared that “the anti-terror legislation recently passed by the parliament was helpful in securing this arrest.” Along with many other anti-democratic provisions, the legislation lowered restrictions on the power of police to make arrests, by requiring that they only “reasonably suspect” someone of having committed a crime, rather than the previous legal standard of “reasonably believes.”

Abbott explicitly tied the arrests to another tranche of the government’s anti-democratic legislation, which will soon come before parliament. Thelegislation will require Internet providers and social media platforms to hold metadata of all their users for two years, allowing intelligence agencies to trawl through it and build up a detailed profile of anyone’s life. Abbott declared that the bill “must be passed if our community is to be as safe as it should be in these difficult times.”

The latest arrests are also being used to fan anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant xenophobia, which is aimed at diverting growing social tensions in Australia into reactionary nationalist channels. In response to another staged question about how al-Kutobi was allowed to enter Australia, Minister of Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton declared that intelligence agencies had been “pushed to the limit and beyond” by the influx of refugees to Australia. He has foreshowed a review aimed at even tougher anti-immigrant measures.

The Labor opposition has given its unequivocal backing to the Abbott government’s anti-terror campaign and the deployment of the Australian military into Iraq. In comments to reporters following Abbott’s parliamentary speech on Thursday, Opposition leader Bill Shorten attacked Abbott, not for undermining the legal rights of the two suspects, but for compromising their conviction. He declared that it would be “terribly concerning if we’ve compromised a national security trial because the prime minister’s just gone too far.”

Siemens unveils another round of job cuts in Germany and worldwide

Elisabeth Zimmermann

The German electronics firm Siemens announced February 5 it was slashing 7,800 jobs globally. Most of the job losses will occur among white collar administrative workers, while 1,200 positions in the company’s energy sector will be eliminated. Of the total, 3,300 jobs are to be shed in Germany.

One of the main targets of the latest cuts is the Siemens site in Erlangen, Germany, where 900 jobs are to be cut. Three of the firm’s four departments have their headquarters in Erlangen. In Nuremberg, 300 jobs are to be cut, 500 at the corporate headquarters in Munich, and 300 in North Rhine-Westphalia. The remaining 1,300 job cuts in Germany are spread across the rest of the company’s locations.

Already at the end of May last year, company CEO Joe Kaeser announced at an investors’ conference in New York that a total of 11,600 jobs would be affected by the company’s restructuring. The latest decision from company management fulfills this announcement. It does not include the jobs that are no longer at Siemens due to the sale or outsourcing of entire departments.

The latest job cuts were prepared in close cooperation with the IG Metall trade union and the works council. Prior to the announcement of the figure, the Siemens business committee met for two days during the first week of February.

The committee, with equal representation from union and management, was led by the new human resources chief Janina Kugel, who is a close associate of CEO Kaeser. She collaborated closely with Birgit Steinborn, who took over the chair of the central works council a year ago and has been deputy chair of the board of directors since the end of January.

Steinborn assumed the leading position on the board from former IG Metall head Berthold Huber. The great value the company places on the collaboration of IG Metall was shown by the selection of Huber for the prestigious post of president of the Siemens Foundation.

Steinborn has worked hand in glove with the previous chairman of the central works council, Lothar Adler, over recent years. According to media reports, Adler earned €360,000 annually from Siemens until his retirement last year. Like Adler, Steinborn has a direct financial interest in the exploitation of Siemens workers.

As deputy chair on the board, Steinborn will make more than €300,000 annually. In total, “worker representatives” on the Siemens board received over €1.8 million, according to a company report.

The trade union board members are supposed to give the majority of these payments to the Hans-Bückler Foundation, run by the German trade union confederation (DGB). The representatives are allowed to retain €33,000 apiece. Due to this rule, the so-called meeting payments for board members, which the trade unionists are allowed to keep for themselves, have increased drastically. For Steinborn, this will amount to another €30,000 annually.

A large portion of the restructuring was directly planned and proposed by the works council and IG Metall. In order to cover up their role as co-managers, some union officials beat the protest drum from time to time.

Thus the IG Metall regional head for Bavaria, Jürgen Wechsler, stated the trade unions were not against “the reduction of superfluous bureaucracy and the slimming down of unnecessarily complicated processes.” But they emphatically opposed “a restructuring which, as always, is combined with employee reductions.”

Birgit Steinborn also sought to cover her tracks. She said that she expected difficult negotiations. She said, speaking in Munich February 6, that everything now had to be done “to further reduce the total of around 3,300 affected workers, whose posts are being eliminated, by deploying them somewhere else … I am fed up with job losses always being presented as the only solution.”

Who is Steinborn trying to fool? One cuts programme has followed another at Siemens for years, and on each occasion the IG Metall and works council played a key role in implementing job cuts.

In just the six years that Kaeser’s predecessor, Peter Löscher, led the company, the Siemens workforce was reduced from 475,000 to 370,000. The cuts were carried out through savings programmes, as well as the sale of entire departments. At the end of March last year, Siemens still employed 359,000 workers, of whom 117,000 worked in Germany. Today, with the announcement of the next round of cuts, the total workforce stands at 343,000, and 115,000 in Germany.

The latest announcement is only the beginning of another round of cuts and the destruction of jobs. The former medical technology department with around 50,000 workers has been outsourced and will be run as a legally independent company. At a later point it may be floated on the stock market.

Workers affected by such outsourcing have seen the results of previous outsourcings, sales and fusions, which have all led to further job cuts, as in the cases of Osram and Nokia-Siemens Networks. The sale of the mobile telephone division to BenQ resulted one year later in the bankruptcy of the company and the loss of all jobs.

Beyond the already announced 1,200 job losses, the Siemens energy department will bear the brunt of future restructuring measures and cuts. It has already been confirmed that 300 jobs will be cut at the steam turbine and generator plant in Müllheim in the Ruhr region, where 4,800 workers are employed.

Last year, Siemens purchased the American compressor producer Dresser-Rand for $7.6 billion, intending to profit from the fracking boom in the US. At the time, the price of oil was above $90 per barrel. The oil price has now fallen to below $50 per barrel, in part due to the economic warfare by the US, Europe and Saudi Arabia against Russia. Many suppliers for the oil industry have already announced thousands of layoffs as a result.

While workers at Siemens worry over the future of their jobs, the business press is demanding an acceleration of the social attacks and job cuts. As a comment in daily Die Welt February 7 stated, “If Siemens was an American company, everything would move faster.” Layoff protections and co-determination were putting the brakes on the cuts, the newspaper said, warning, “The major American competitor General Electric can only laugh at such blockages.”

Japanese PM calls for constitutional change in keynote speech

Peter Symonds

In a keynote policy speech on Thursday to the Japanese parliament or Diet, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe laid out his agenda of militarism, austerity and pro-market restructuring. “A rocky road lies ahead of all of these goals—the greatest reform effort since the end of the war,” he declared. “However, we must undauntedly make progress in carrying out these reforms.”

Central to Abe’s “reforms” is the revision of the country’s constitution, especially Article 9 that places constraints on the use of the military to prosecute the economic and strategic interests of Japanese imperialism overseas. Abe used his speech to launch a public campaign for constitutional change, exploiting the recent barbaric killing of two Japanese hostages by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militias.

The New York Times highlighted Abe’s “impassioned plea for change” explaining that at times he seemed “to shout at the chamber.” He exclaimed: “People of Japan, be confident! Isn’t it time to hold deep debate about revising the constitution? For the future of Japan, shouldn’t we accomplish in this parliament, the biggest reform since the end of the war?”

Since coming to power in December 2012, Abe’s right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government has, under the fraudulent banner of “pro-active pacifism,” taken far-reaching steps to remilitarise. With the encouragement of the United States, it has expanded the military budget, adopted a more confrontational posture towards China, established a national security committee and last July “reinterpreted” the constitution to allow for so-called “collective self-defence”—that is, Japan’s participation in US-led wars and military operations. At the same time, Abe is waging an ideological campaign to whitewash the crimes of the Japanese military during the 1930s and 1940s.

The constitutional “reinterpretation” is an outright negation of Article 9, which formally renounced war and declared that land, air and sea forces would never be maintained. Since the 1950s, successive Japanese governments have subverted the post-war constitution by establishing substantial “self-defence” forces that have been deployed to support the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Abe has long regarded Article 9 as an intolerable restriction on the ambitions of Japanese imperialism and called for an end to the “post-World War II regime” and Japan’s transformation into a “normal nation.” However, the chief political obstacle to constitutional revision is the deep-seated hostility of the working class to war and militarism, which is reflected in consistent opinion polling showing a majority of voters oppose any changes to Article 9. While the LDP won a snap election called by Abe last December to consolidate his hold on office, a Kyodo News opinion poll, taken just days later, found 55 percent of respondents did not support Abe’s military and security policies.

Under the existing constitution, any amendment requires a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Diet as well as a majority vote at a subsequent referendum. Since its adoption in 1947, no amendments have been made to the Japanese constitution. The LDP and its coalition partner New Komeito have a two-thirds majority in the lower house, but not in the upper house where the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is likely to block changes.

Nevertheless, the Abe government is determined to press ahead. The LDP’s sweeping plans for constitutional change have already been presented in 2013 in the form of a new draft constitution that eliminates key democratic rights, restores the emperor as head of state and drastically modifies Article 9.

Since winning last December’s election, Abe has repeatedly made statements calling for changes to the constitution. Following the execution of two Japanese hostages, he told an upper house committee on February 3 that amending Article 9 was necessary “to carry out our duty of protecting the lives and assets of Japanese citizens.” He has foreshadowed changes to allow the Japanese military to carry out rescue operations of hostages, including through the use of force.

A day later, Abe met with Hajime Funada, head of the LDP’s Headquarters for the Promotion of Revision to the Constitution, to discuss plans for constitutional revision. Funada reportedly recommended that concrete amendments be timed to take place after upper house elections due in mid-2016. He also suggested that the LDP propose amendments on “environmental rights,” “a provision to deal with emergency situations” and “a provision to maintain fiscal discipline” to garner wider support from opposition parties, before pressing ahead with deeply unpopular changes to Article 9.

While the opposition DPJ, Japanese Communist Party as well as the LDP’s New Komeito ally declare themselves formally opposed to changes to Article 9, all of these parties have joined in the government’s confrontational stance towards China, particularly over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea. The previous DPJ government was responsible for dramatically escalating tensions with Beijing by “nationalising” the rocky outcrops in 2012.

Abe’s speech to the parliament on Thursday not only threw down the challenge on constitutional revision, but foreshadowed legislation to give legal force to last year’s constitutional “reinterpretation” and laid out an extensive domestic agenda aimed at carrying through pro-market restructuring. These measures included changes to labour laws that will undermine working conditions and jobs, and “all-encompassing agricultural reform” that will impact heavily on the LDP’s own base of support in rural areas.

Abe’s speech was covered in markedly different ways in the media. While the Japanese press paid little attention to Abe’s remarks on the constitution, they were centrally featured in the report in the New York Times, which in recent months has been paying more attention to the Japanese government’s military policies. While not critical of Abe’s militarist orientation, the articles do suggest a growing unease in American ruling circles over its implications for US interests.

As part of its “pivot to Asia,” the Obama administration has been actively encouraging Japan to take a more aggressive approach to China, to expand its military capacities and to end legal and constitutional restrictions on taking part in US-led wars. In its preparations for war against China, the Pentagon envisages Japan as one of its key allies. While it is fully committed to the US alliance at present, the Abe government is pressing ahead with remilitarisation in order to prosecute the interests of Japanese imperialism, which could, in the future, come into conflict with those of the United States.

House fires kill 71 people in the US during the first week of February

Samuel Davidson

At least 71 people in the United States were killed in house fires during the first week of February. This comes on top of a January death toll of 298, as sub-freezing temperatures and soaring utility costs force many people turn to dangerous space heaters.

Missouri had the highest number of people killed, 11, in home fires during the week. Three people were killed in each of three fires and one person died in each of two others.

On February 1, two boys, 7 and 10, died along with their 47-year-old grandmother in Poplar Bluff, a rural community about 150 miles south of St. Louis. The small wood-frame house was already engulfed in flames when rescue workers arrived. Fire officials have not yet released a cause for the fire, but they have said that the blaze was fueled by propane bottles that were inside the house. Propane is commonly used for portable heaters.

On February 4, a 78-year-old woman and her 8-year-old great-granddaughter and 4-year-old great-grandson died in a house fire in University City, a suburb of St Louis. The fire was caused by an electric space heater. Four other people living in the home were able to escape.

On February 7, a 9-month-old baby, a 2-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl died when fire tore through the 100-year-old home in the farming community of Jameson, north of Kansas City. A 20-year-old man and two other children were able to escape although they were all hospitalized, one of the children critically.

The fire is believed to have started in the living room where the children were sleeping. The rented house had a wood-burning stove for heat and officials did not report hearing any smoke detectors when they arrived a few minutes after the fire began.

The single deadliest fire took place February 4 in the rural community of Spurger, Texas, in which four children, two boys and two girls aged 4 to 8, lost their lives when the mobile home they were living in erupted into flames at 2:30 a.m. The children’s parents along with two other children were able to escape.

Investigators have not yet determined the cause of the fire. Mobile homes, generally cheaply made, are some of the most dangerous dwellings. Often their electric wiring is faulty or overloaded, causing fires.

Their small size makes safe use of space heaters almost impossible, since the heater can’t be placed the necessary distance from flammable materials. Once a fire starts, the inferior quality of the construction means the entire home is usually consumed in flames in just a few minutes.

Of the 298 fire deaths in January, Ohio had the highest number with 25, followed by Texas with 23, Pennsylvania with 21 and Michigan with 16.

The number of house fires rises during the winter months as people are forced to use space heaters and take other risks to stay warm. In addition, millions of families are living in substandard homes and often in very overcrowded conditions as a greater number of extended families are forced to live together.

Millions of low income and poor families are struggling to pay for both heat, housing and food, as the drop in crude oil prices has not been reflected in a corresponding fall in home heating costs.

At the same time, the Obama administration has continued deep cuts to the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which has been cut by 30 percent since the official end of the great recession in 2009. LIHEAP funding stands at just $3.4 billion. Obama proposes to freeze LIHEAP funding in next year’s budget at its current level.

Benefit levels and eligibility vary by state, but are usually only about $400 per household, which is only a fraction of the cost of home heating during the winter, especially in the coldest states of the Northeast and Midwest.

Last year many states ran out of funding for heating assistance and many states are already reporting that they are running out of funds with the winter not yet half over. Last year, the state of Missouri, where 11 people died last week, didn’t pay benefits to 22,000 families that applied. Nationwide, only about one third of families eligible for the benefits actually receive them.

As the Missouri and Texas examples detailed above suggest, large numbers of fire victims are small children. More than half of US children live in poverty and few wealthy people die in house fires.

Fresh talks begin on forcing Greece to accept austerity package

Robert Stevens

Representatives of Greece’s Syriza-led government began three days of talks in Brussels on Friday with negotiators from the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—the so-called “troika.” The talks followed the failure of Syriza Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis to reach agreement with European finance ministers Wednesday on a plan for Greece to repay its foreign debt of nearly €320 billion.

The new talks will extend to the eve of the February 16 deadline set by the Eurogroup, at which time euro zone leaders are scheduled to meet once again to discuss the Greek debt crisis. Greece’s current agreement with the troika, which Syriza says it will not renew, expires on February 28. If there is no agreement with Greece’s creditors by that time, the Greek government will have no source of external funding to service its debt.

The Greek negotiating team is led by Professor Giorgos Chouliarakis, who teaches at the University of Manchester. He is working with debt restructuring advisers from Lazard, a US investment bank. Greece’s main creditors are represented by Declan Costello of the European Commission, Klaus Masuch of the ECB, and Rishi Goyal of the IMF. The troika’s team is led by Thomas Wieser of the Euroworking Group, a hard-line proponent of austerity. Times Of Change noted that the talks will cover “the poor trajectory of the 2015 budget so far (with a ‘hole’ of about 1 billion euros in January alone due to poor revenue collection), the fiscal shortfall that had been projected by the troika before the elections, and the cost of the measures announced by the government during its policy statements in parliament.”

“A key element of the three-day technical negotiations will be how the country will cover its funding needs until August,” the newspaper added. By then, the Greek state is obligated to pay back some €7 billion.

According to a source close to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the purpose of the 72-hour discussion will not be to “negotiate or engage in critiques of positions.” Instead, the talks will “register the points where there is convergence and identify divergences.”

The Greek government will outline its “red lines,” demanding an end to the current arrangement whereby the troika directly formulates and monitors the austerity program. Another demand is a reduction of Greece’s primary surplus target from 4.5 percent to 1.5 percent. Times Of Change claimed that labour deregulation and privatizations would not be discussed, but “broad agreement is expected to be found in the areas of combating corruption, tax evasion and public sector reform.”

A senior EU official close to the talks told Kathemerini, “[N]ow we need to get down to the hard facts, explaining what is in the (bailout reform) agreement and what are the quantified results of the new Greek government’s program.”Kathemerini noted, “If Greece wanted to remove a certain reform from the list agreed under the bailout, it would have to propose in its place a measure that would have a similar fiscal effect.”

Since it was elected on January 25 on an anti-austerity ticket, Syriza has made one concession after another, including ditching pre-election pledges to write off a large part of the debt, in an attempt to reach an agreement with the EU states, which hold 60 percent of the Greek foreign debt. Now it is meeting with representatives of the troika, which it had previously ruled out doing.

It is not certain that an agreement will be reached on Monday.

Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, leaving a summit of EU leaders Friday, said, “At this stage I’m very pessimistic about it. The possibilities, given the state of the Greek economy, are limited. I don’t know if we’ll get there by Monday. The Greek government has made it clear that they don’t want to carry on with the programme as it currently stands. The Eurogroup has made it clear that there are possibilities for change only as long as the programme remains on the rails.”

He warned, “We lend out money only when there’s real progress and when new reforms are being carried through. For months, this has not been the case.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, along with her finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has insisted that the Syriza-led government adhere to austerity measures agreed by previous Greek governments. She said she hoped an agreement was reached, but added, “Compromises are agreed when the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.”

German Finance Ministry spokesman Martin Jäger said sarcastically at a Berlin press conference, “Out of consideration for our Greek friends, we are not calling the troika the troika anymore, but ‘the institutions.’” He went on to say, “It doesn’t mean the assessment function of the three institutions is affected in any way whatever.”

Syriza’s newspaper Avgi (The Dawn) published a cartoon Friday portraying Schäuble as a Nazi. This is a reflection both of the tension between Germany and Greece and of Syriza’s efforts to disorient and divert internal social opposition to austerity by playing on anti-German sentiment to whip up Greek nationalism. The German Finance Ministry responded by lodging an immediate complaint.

In a reference to the Holocaust, the cartoon featured Schäuble saying, “Negotiations have begun. We insist on soap from your fat,” and “[W]e are discussing fertilizers from your ashes.” Another cartoon in Avgi portrayed Schäuble in a German military uniform.

Whatever the outcome of the talks and the euro zone finance ministers meeting Monday, nothing will be resolved regarding either Greece’s debt or the crisis in the euro zone as a whole.

On Friday, the US government again expressed disapproval of the handling of the Greek debt crisis by euro zone leaders. Caroline Atkinson, the US deputy national security adviser, said, “Greece has moved into primary surplus. How much more fiscal consolidation is necessary?”

She added, “The global economy is falling short and this is of deep concern to the US, and a key part of that weakness is tepid growth in the euro zone.”

This week’s Economist magazine wrote: “At its root, the problem is simple: Greece does not have enough income to pay its bills. Since the financial crisis began, its economy has shrunk by more than any other rich country’s.”

The magazine did not note that the savage austerity measures imposed by the European Union in behalf of the banks contributed massively to the contraction in the Greek economy.

Over this period, Greece’s foreign debt has rocketed. From a debt of €301 billion (127 percent of gross domestic product) owed largely to the private sector, the Greek state now owes some €320 billion (175 percent of GDP), with the vast majority of the debt (€195 billion) held by European states and the ECB.

The Financial Times was blunter still in summing up of the implications of the still deeper attacks on the Greek working class demanded by the European ruling elite immediately after Syriza’s election. “To service its debt burden would require Greece to operate as a quasi-slave economy, running a primary surplus of 5 percent of GDP for years, purely for the benefit of its foreign creditors,” the newspaper wrote.

Virtually all of the €226 billion loaned to Greece since 2010 as a so-called “bailout” has gone to paying off global banks. A recent study by the GreekMacropolis web site concluded: “Combined with some other government financing needs (mostly relating to repayments of arrears that accumulated in the first two years of the crisis), the combined allocation to the Greek state’s operating needs was just 11 percent of the total funding, circa 27 billion euros.”

In the euro sceptic Daily Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard said that not only Germany, but also other European countries, have a “very strong incentive to make Greece suffer.” He went on to warn that “to act on this political impulse risks destroying the European project.”

US threatens military intervention as UN warns of “disintegration” in Yemen

Thomas Gaist

Yemen faces “civil war and disintegration” in the wake of the overthrow of the US-backed government by a Houthi insurgency, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon declared Thursday.

“Yemen is collapsing before our eyes. We cannot stand by and watch. The current instability is creating conditions which are conducive to a reemergence of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP),” Moon said.

The comments from Moon come in the aftermath of moves by the Houthis to take over the presidential palace last week, formally dissolving the US-backed regime of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The Houthis have simultaneously launched new invasions of provinces to the south of Sanaa, in an effort to bring larger sections of the country under the direct control of their new regime.

This has been accompanied by reports of the seizure of a major government military installation, manned by some 2,000 troops, by Sunni militants affiliated with AQAP.

Comments from US officials late this week suggested that the US ruling elite is preparing to respond to the breakup of the Yemeni state with a new military escalation, ostensibly directed at combatting AQAP, but aimed more broadly at asserting control over the geostrategically key country.

“The bottom line is increased danger to the United States homeland,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, a Republican, said in comments cited by Fox News. The Houthi takeover “makes it easier for them [AQAP] to plot and plan against us,” Thornberry said.

The rapid military successes of Houthi and AQAP militants took the US by surprise, a top counterterrorism official said Friday, comparing recent developments to the rise of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “The situation deteriorated far more rapidly than we expected,” National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen said in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany have closed their embassies, joining the US, Britain and France. Houthi leaders have protested against the embassy closures, saying they are unnecessary and making clear their readiness to negotiate with the US and other foreign powers.

The central aim of the US is to ensure that its extensive military and intelligence operations in Yemen and throughout the region are maintained. US ground forces, acknowledged by the Pentagon to be operating from bases in Aden since 2012, will continue to carry out missions against AQAP and other groups, the Obama administration has confirmed.

“There continue to be Department of Defense personnel … on the ground in Yemen that are coordinating with their counterparts,” White House representative Josh Earnest said.

At the same time, the Central Intelligence Agency has been forced to withdraw dozens of agents and senior officers previously operating out of the US embassy, according to the Washington Post.

The deepening civil conflict in Yemen also threatens to draw in regional powers, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. At least four governors in southern provinces have declared their opposition to the new Houthi government, while Saudi leaders have announced their intention to arm anti-Houthi forces in the resource-rich western province of Marib. Secessionist militants affiliated with the Southern Movement already began seizing checkpoints in southern cities last month.

Egypt has assembled a special expedition force to deploy to Yemen if there are threats to close the Bab al-Mandab straight, which controls the southern entrance to the Red Sea. “Egypt will not accept the closure of the strait in any way, and would intervene militarily if needed. … This action affects Egyptian national security, and has a direct impact on the Suez Canal,” Egyptian Suez Canal Authority official Mohab Mamish said last week.

Yemen’s fate underscores the ongoing fragmentation of the nation-state structure throughout the Middle East and large sections of Africa, with civil war conditions emerging as tribal and sectarian factions vie to fill the developing power vacuum.

The US government is responding to these conditions—a product of US machinations throughout the Middle East, including the promotion of sectarian tensions—with a massive expansion of its military operations throughout the region. This includes the escalation of its bombing campaigns in Iraq and Syria, drone war in Somalia and special forces operations in West Africa.

The pseudo-legal foundation for a large slate of new wars is to be supplied by the latest Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) sought by the Obama administration—which ostensibly targets ISIS but in reality empowers the president to wage endless war around the globe.

Ukrainian government moves to stifle dissent as military morale plunges

David Levine

The Ukrainian military is showing signs of severe decomposition and demoralization, as antiwar sentiment rises to the surface among Ukrainians in Kiev-controlled territories. In response, the government of Petro Poroshenko is cracking down on dissent.

On January 28, Ukrainian “hacktivist” group CyberBerkut published on its website documents obtained from the computer of Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor Anatolii Matios. According to the documents, during the preceding two weeks, 1100 members of Ukraine’s armed forces lost their lives, over 100 damaged tanks were left on the battlefield, and tens of Ukrainian soldiers and officers were taken prisoner.

The hacked documents indicate that, contrary to the affirmations of leading Ukrainian politicians, the military is disintegrating. New recruits are deserting and fleeing to Russia and other countries. Servicemen have been putting their weapons and ammunition up for sale. Commanders are the first to desert their units. Young and inexperienced fighters are being ordered into senseless attacks against rebel forces. Residents of areas near the battlefields are reportedly being terrorized by plundering deserters and “homicidal maniacs in uniform.”

The documents include an order that information on war losses is to be kept secret and reported to the counter-terrorism center of the Ukrainian Security Service only. This document, as well as the figure of 1,100 servicemen lost in the second half of January, lend additional credibility to the rebels’ estimates of war casualties, which thus far have exceeded those of the Ukrainian government and United Nations by approximately a factor of ten. The UN’s most recently published figure was 5,400 civilians and military personnel killed since the start of the conflict.

The higher figures received further support on February 8 from the GermanFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). Citing anonymous sources in the German intelligence establishment, the FAZ estimates 50,000 dead. It asserts that the Ukrainian government and UN figures have been greatly understated.

Matios was quoted in Ukrainskaya pravda on February 10 as saying that the prosecutor’s office is currently investigating the desertion of 10,266 servicemen. “It is particularly offensive that we have had desertions not just among the rank and file, but among generals as well. We just filed in court charges of desertion against a brigadier general of the Foreign Intelligence Service.”

Matios added that his agency does not have information on desertion and other crimes committed by members of volunteer battalions.

The Ukrainian parliament adopted a law on February 5 that creates “barrier detachments” to enforce military discipline and empowers commanders to use their weapons against deserters and other subordinates engaged in criminal activities. Another law adopted on February 3 introduces secret investigative proceedings against draft dodgers. President Petro Poroshenko has called for a law to prevent draftees from leaving the country.

Earlier, on January 29, Donetsk People’s Republic Ministry of Defense Deputy Commandant Eduard Basurin made an announcement regarding prisoners of war. “[They come to us] hungry, freezing cold, and demoralized. The only thing they ask for is not to be shown on camera and for their names not to be disclosed, so that their family members who remain at home will not come under attack.” Basurin insisted that the prisoners are safe, their lives are guaranteed, and they will be released after investigations are completed.

On February 11, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a think-tank based in London, England, published its annual “Military Balance.” The report indicates that the Ukrainian army is not prepared for the conflict with the rebels. It is using obsolete equipment and is experiencing a shortage of armored vehicles, artillery, and missiles.

The Ukrainian military mobilization, a large-scale program that includes conscription, began on January 20. With a number of exceptions, men up to age 60 are subject to the draft, which is to include up to 104,000 personnel, including women.

The mobilization thus far has been massively unpopular and has provoked extremely high rates of abstention. Recruiters have been chased away by residents from the villages of Dmytrivka and Kulevcha in Odessa Province. There have been reports of employers in Kharkiv refusing to distribute draft notices to employees. There have been demonstrations against the mobilization, particularly in Zaporizhia Province. Videos have appeared on the Internet showing women speaking before crowds of people, vehemently denouncing the Kiev regime and calling for peace (see, for example: here,here, here and here).

Ukrainian journalist Ruslan Kotsaba was arrested on February 8 for treason and espionage after publicly calling for resistance to the mobilization. Kotsaba had also asserted that the rebel fighters are not “terrorists,” that they do not consist of regular Russian forces, and that the majority of the population in the rebel territories do support them.

Subsequently, on February 11, Poroshenko announced that criticism of the mobilization “has no relation to democracy and the freedom of speech” and qualifies as “anti-state activity.” He said that the Ukrainian Security Service had already identified 19 people who had conducted a campaign to undermine the mobilization.

Draft legislation currently on review in parliament would make “public denial of or support for Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014-2015” a crime punishable by up to three years of imprisonment.

The most intense fighting in recent weeks has centered around the town of Debaltseve, where Ukrainian forces had concentrated during the “truce” that ended last month. The town is located roughly at the midpoint between the rebel centers of Donetsk and Luhansk and occupies a strategically crucial location for the warring armies. Since February 9, rebel forces have been claiming control over the village of Logvynove on the main Debaltseve-Artemivsk road.

If the rebels manage to take control over country roads and field roads as well, then the thousands of Ukrainian troops in Debaltseve will be trapped without any supply lines. As of this writing, fighting continues as the Ukrainian army attempts to reassert control over the Debaltseve-Artemivsk road.

Under the ceasefire agreement signed in Minsk on February 12, which is supposed to go into effect at midnight on February 15, Debaltseve is to remain under Kiev’s control. However, the rebel republics’ leaders insist that their forces have practically surrounded Debaltseve and are simply waiting for the Ukrainian forces that remain there to surrender.