Youth mental health problems and suicides rising sharply in UK

Alice Summers

The number of suicides among young people in London more than doubled in the three years up to 2016, according to research by the Brent Centre for Young People.

Twenty-nine Londoners between the ages of ten and 19 years took their own lives in 2015-16, compared to 14 in 2013-14—an increase of 107 percent.

This increase is more than four times the national rate. The number of youth suicide deaths in England and Wales rose by 24 percent in the same period, from 148 to 184.

The research, compiled through a Freedom of Information request to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), showed that the discrepancy between suicide rates in London and the rest of the country was particularly marked among the 19 to 24 age group. The number of suicides of young people in this age bracket increased by 76 percent in the Greater London region, compared to a five percent increase in the same time period in England and Wales as a whole.

Across the country, 518 young people between ten and 24 years old took their own lives in the 2015-16 period.

The Brent Centre for Young People explained that lack of educational and work prospects, stress and deprivation were significant factors in this devastating and avoidable loss of life.

“People are much more over-pressured here than they are in other parts of the UK,” Dr. Maxim de Sauma, chief executive of the centre stated. “Parents are less able to prioritise difficulties because they are under a lot of stress. It goes on from one generation to another, so the damage is continuous.”

Valentina Levi, an adolescent psychotherapist at the centre, added, “Many young people from more deprived neighbourhoods really feel they have no hope in terms of the future they are facing – in terms of education and jobs. They don’t feel they have any hope of getting anywhere.”

The Brent Centre for Young People stated that it had been “flooded” with cases of young people suffering from mental illnesses over the last few years, with the number of referrals in the North London area increasing by 59 percent between 2014 and 2017.

Among young people, university students are some of the most likely to report low levels of mental wellbeing, with feelings of happiness and worth declining over the last few years.

According to a study of more than 14,000 students conducted by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and Advance HE, only 17 percent of students said that their lives were highly worthwhile, compared to 22 percent of students two years ago.

The same proportion of students aged 20 to 24 years (17 percent) reported that they were happy in their lives, a figure that has declined from 21 percent in 2016. This compares to a happiness rate of a third (33 percent) among all young people of the same age.

Only 18 percent of students report low levels of anxiety, roughly half the proportion of young people in general. Students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or other (LGBT+) are among the least likely to report high levels of wellbeing. Only one in ten of these students said that their anxiety levels were low.

Contributing to low levels of mental wellbeing at universities are high tuition fees. Only two fifths (38 percent) of students felt like their university education was value for money, the study found. More than half (57 percent) of students said they would like their tuition fees—which at many universities are now £9,250 a year—to go towards improved student support and mental health services.

According to the Department of Education, one in four students are either using or waiting to use the inadequate and underfunded mental health services at universities.

The consequences of the intolerable burdens of stress, debt and lack of future prospects, combined with poor access to mental health treatment, can be shown in the high numbers of student suicides. Figures from the ONS found that in the year up to July 2017, 95 higher education students took their own lives.

With students now leaving university saddled with an average debt of more than £50,000, other studies have indicated that students not only suffer from mental health problems during university, but their high levels of debt also leave them with lower levels of wellbeing for many years to come.

Researchers from the Centre for Global Higher Education, based at the UCL Institute of Education and the University of Michigan, discovered that large quantities of student debt adversely affect graduates who are just starting out their adult lives, making them more likely to delay buying a house and negatively impacting upon their career decisions. High student debt levels also appeared to negatively affect the health—and in particular mental health—of graduates, both during and after leaving university.

In response to this mental health crisis, Conservative Universities Minister, Sam Gyimah, disingenuously warned that universities risk “failing an entire generation of students” if they do not significantly improve their mental health support services. Gyimah asserted to the London Times, “Mental health is much bigger [than tuition fees] if you’re talking to students.”

Rather than tuition fees being a non-issue in comparison to mental health services, mental health conditions among students are often intimately linked to the financial burdens imposed upon them. Gyimah ignores many of the factors contributing to the low levels of mental wellbeing among students—such as debt, deprivation and poor job prospects—that are the direct results the years of cuts and attacks on the working class and youth carried out by successive Conservative and Labour governments. These have led to declining living standards, rising tuition fees and lack of access to mental health services.

The WSWS noted in a recent article, “[Mental] health problems are not a simple aggregate of single issues but a product of the general and worsening inability of capitalism to provide fulfilling, secure lives. The toll of daily life in some cases produces and in others intensifies mental health problems, which grinds down people’s mental and emotional resilience. Support networks are ripped apart, both personal and state-provided, as the result of relentless budget cutting of essential mental health services.”

This crisis of youth mental health does not just affect university-age young people, but is present at all educational and age levels.

Javed Khan, chief executive of children’s charity Barnardo’s, declared earlier this year that resources for young children were so overstretched that children’s mental health was at the worst it had ever been in the charity’s 152-year history. Lack of government investment in children’s wellbeing meant that charities and local authorities were having to abandon vital services, he said.

Khan’s statement comes after a study of over 850,000 children revealed that nearly a fifth of seven to 14-year olds are at risk of suffering from mental health issues later in life. These children showed signs of low self-worth and doubt in their learning ability, which new research suggests are strong indicators of risk to a child’s mental wellbeing.

Similarly, over half (56 percent) of leading staff at further education institutes reported that they had seen a “significant increase” in the number of 16 to 18-year olds with disclosed mental health conditions in the past year, according to the annual Association of Colleges and Times Educational Supplement survey of college leaders. Almost two-thirds of colleges said that they were seeing significant numbers of other students with mental health difficulties who had not formally disclosed them.

These studies show that the mental health of an entire generation of young people is being destroyed by capitalism’s relentless pursuit of profit at the expense of human lives.

Australia’s new “foreign interference” laws: A threat to anti-war dissent

Mike Head 

At the core of the two anti-foreign influence bills that the Australian government and the opposition Labor Party jointly rammed through parliament on June 28 are “foreign interference” offences that are unprecedented in Australia and other supposed democracies.

In an increasingly globalised world, the “interference” provisions attack and criminalise the very concept of cooperative political activity with overseas or international organisations. This is an assault on fundamental democratic and legal rights.

The Espionage and Foreign Interference (EFI) Act, now in operation, inserts a new Division 92 into the federal Criminal Code. Entitled “Foreign interference,” it contains seven far-reaching offences.

This is on top of the expansion of an array of existing offences, such as treason, sabotage, advocating mutiny and breaching official secrecy, to broaden their potential use to outlaw dissent and anti-war activity.

Never before has it been a crime, punishable by up to 20 years’ imprisonment, to collaborate with an overseas group or individual to seek political change, whether on environmental, refugee, geo-strategic, anti-war or any other issues.

These laws have been introduced directly at the behest of the ruling establishment in Washington in order to combat China’s rise and help demonise and suppress opposition to preparations for war against China. Needless to say, the laws will not be directed against the US, which wields by far the greatest “foreign influence” in Australia.

As the US business publication Bloomberg reported: “Australia is set to become the first developed country to pass sweeping laws against foreign interference, in a move aimed at reducing Chinese meddling in national affairs and seen as the inspiration for legislation introduced in the US Congress.”

Over the past year, while the capitalist media produced sensationalised reports of “Chinese meddling” in Australia, a full press was applied by US political, military and intelligence representatives.

•  Leading US figures, including ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain, visited Australia last year, urging the passage of the legislation.
  
•  Members of Australia’s Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which reviewed and finalised the bills, were given closed-door intelligence briefings in Washington. They included committee chairman, Andrew Hastie, a former SAS commander, from the governing Liberal-National Coalition, and the Labor Party’s shadow foreign minister Penny Wong.
  
•  Proponents of the legislation were invited to testify before US congressional committees, depicting Australia as a frontline state in a battle against Chinese “influence.” Among them was Professor Clive Hamilton, a Greens member who this year produced a book, Silent Invasion, accusing China of seeking to take over Australia.

There is no possibility that the agents of this US “interference,” both overt and covert, will be prosecuted. Instead, the new laws provide vast scope to intimidate, harass and imprison people who are linked to China or whose political campaigns allegedly harm the interests of Australian capitalism and its US allies.

The language is sweeping. The primary offence of “intentional foreign interference” outlaws conduct “on behalf of, or in collaboration with, a foreign principal,” that is intended to:

(1) “influence a political or governmental process” or (2) “influence the exercise” of an “Australian democratic or political right or duty” or (3) “support intelligence activities of a foreign principal” or (4) “prejudice Australia’s national security.”

The definition of “national security” has been broadened from matters of military defence to include “protection of the integrity of the country’s territory and borders from serious threats” and “the country’s political, military or economic relations with another country or other countries.”

That potentially covers international campaigns against Australia’s “border protection” regime of militarily repelling refugee boats or indefinitely incarcerating asylum seekers on remote Pacific islands, and any globally-connected activity that harms the profits and predatory interventions of the Australian ruling class and its US partners.

“On behalf of” and “in collaboration with” are not defined. “Collaboration” could cover consultation, information-sharing, coordination, or even online communication. Thus, campaigning against Australian involvement in a US-led military intervention could be outlawed if contact were made with an organisation in the targeted country.

“Foreign principal” is defined to include not just governments and government-controlled enterprises, but also “foreign political organisations” and “foreign political parties.” As a result, a member of an organisation engaged in globally-coordinated political action could be jailed.

The definition has particular consequences for any dealings with China, where there is a measure of state control over many institutions and economic enterprises. Accusations of collusion could be used to criminalise relations with a broad range of Chinese cultural and educational bodies.

One potential target is former Foreign Minister Bob Carr. He is currently director of the Australia-China Relations Institute, a University of Technology, Sydney, think tank that has been critical of the government stance toward Beijing. For simply communicating with a Chinese university over such a criticism, he could be prosecuted for “collaborating with” a “foreign principal” to “influence a political or governmental process.”

The definition covers international organisations, even the UN. The bill’s official explanatory memorandum states that handing sensitive information to such bodies could cause significant damage to Australia’s international relationships. This could extend to reporting Australian war crimes or violations of the basic rights of refugees.

“Influence the exercise” of a “democratic or political right or duty” could include supporting a global boycott campaign or organising counter-protests against anti-China demonstrations.

“A part” of the conduct must involve being “covert” or “deceptive,” or making threats of “serious harm” to a person or “a demand with menaces,” but these terms could cover many forms of activity.

The government’s explanatory memorandum states: “For example, conduct may be covert if a person takes steps to conceal their communications with the foreign principal, such as deliberately moving onto encrypted communication platforms.”

In other words, simply using an encrypted phone or Internet app to communicate with a “foreign principal” could lead to imprisonment. Using standard means to protect one’s privacy, and that of others, has potentially become a serious offence.

When the other main law, the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme (FITS) Act commences next year, simply failing to list on the government’s foreign influence register could constitute being “covert.”

Another offence applies where a person is merely “reckless” as whether their conduct would influence a political issue or affect “national security.” For that, the penalty could be 15 years’ imprisonment. “Reckless” means just being aware of a “substantial” and “unjustifiable” risk that the influence could occur or that the conduct involves being “covert.”

A further offence, carrying up to 10 years’ jail, punishes “preparing” to commit a foreign interference offence, even if no such conduct occurs. This is similar to provisions in the “anti-terrorism” legislation imposed since 2002. “Preparation” extends criminal liability to discussing a possible act, going far beyond the existing Criminal Code provisions covering attempting, aiding or conspiring to commit an offence.

According to the explanatory memorandum, “preparing” can include “acts to conceive” an “idea” for an offence.

Another group of “interference” offences, also intentional or “reckless,” cover providing “material support” or receiving funds from, a foreign intelligence agency. Recklessness could apply, for example, to someone who was unwittingly used by an intelligence agent, or an intermediary, to do something.

A presumption against bail applies to people charged under all these provisions. If a person convicted of any offence is a dual citizen, the home affairs minister can revoke their Australian citizenship.

Unlike some other provisions in the EFI and FITS acts, there are no exemptions, even limited, for journalists, charities or arts organisations. Labor claimed to secure a “protection:” the attorney-general must personally authorise prosecutions. However, that does not stop a person being arrested, charged, detained and denied bail while the attorney-general considers such a decision.

The involvement of a senior government minister only makes political victimisation more likely. That was demonstrated by Attorney-General Christian Porter’s recent authorisation of a prosecution under the Intelligence Services Act. Both a former intelligence officer and his lawyer face imprisonment for exposing Australia’s spying operation in 2004 against East Timorese ministers, during talks over disputed oil and gas rights in the Timor Sea.

When Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull first introduced the bills last December, he claimed they were aimed against only activities that were “covert, coercive or corrupt.” But long-standing crimes such as espionage, blackmail and bribery already cover such activities.

The only conclusion that can be drawn is that the ruling capitalist elite, fearful that rising social discontent will intensify as the US-led drive to war escalates, is once again making preparations for wartime-style political repression.

Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (RLS) Scholarships for Undergraduate Students from North African Countries 2018

Application Deadline: 1st October 2018

Eligible Countries: Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, Morocco and Iraq

To Be Taken At (Country): Germany

Type: Undergraduate

Eligibility: 

• applications will be accepted only in German or English language
• very good grades
• some degree like a BA or a diploma
• certificate of enrolment (Immatrikulationsbescheinigung) for the next semester or at least a letter of admission (Zulassung) from a German university. Your enrolment must be documented at the latest by the time the scholarship would start
• basic knowledge of the German language (further classes can be sponsored by us). At least very good knowledge of the English language
• activities in social, political and/or community services

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value and Duration of Award: The maximum time period of the scholarship is based on the average time or number of semesters of your studies (Regelstudienzeit). The scholarship will at first be granted for one year and then to the end if the prerequisites have been fulfilled. Extensions in addition to the Regelstudienzeit are possible. The monthly basic scholarship is 850,- Euro.
Another public funded scholarship at the same time is not allowed, however, if a parallel and different scholarships is possible, the months will be simply subtracted from our scholarship.
RLS cannot sponsor:

• only the final phase of your studies
• the BA or the basic course
• your second studies (if you have studied a different subject in the first run)
• part time studies parallel to an employment
• trips back home to do research, trips in third countries

How to Apply: Visit link below

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers: RLS

MasterCard/CFI Africa Board Fellowship for Finance Leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa 2018

Application Deadline: Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis

Eligible Countries: Sub-Saharan African countries

About the Award: Weak governance and risk management impede African microfinance growth and sustainability. Our program connects board members and CEOs through peer learning and exchange to strengthen the governance of financial institutions serving low-income clients.
The Africa Board Fellowship takes place over the course of approximately six months and has the three components of: in-person seminars, personal advising and a virtual collaboration space. The in-person seminars are two-and-a-half days long and they bookend the fellowship with an opening kick-off seminar and a closing seminar at the end. The personal advising aspect of the fellowship matches fellows with advisors to establish and work towards individual and institutional goals. The collaboration space provides fellows with an opportunity to continue interacting with each other, faculty, advisors and subject matter experts between seminars. The collaboration space will provide more in-depth discussions, peer knowledge exchange and collaboration. It will also be a rich source of tools, resources, and expertise specific to board members and CEOs.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility:

• The Africa Board Fellowship (ABF) program is for board members and CEOs of institutions working toward financial inclusion throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
• The program requires an institutional commitment and suggests that the board chair, CEO and at least one other board member attend the fellowship program. Ideally, at least the board chair and CEO would attend together as part of the same class and then additional participants from the institution can join future classes.
• On select occasions, individual representatives will be selected as fellows for the program on a case-by-case basis. We are looking for fellows who are eager to share their experiences, learn from their peers, implement changes and strengthen their governance, risk management and strategic planning.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• The only out-of-pocket expenses for fellows to participate in the Africa Board Fellowship program are the travel costs of getting to and from the two in-person seminars.
• Once fellows arrive at the seminars, costs associated with hotel accommodation and food will be covered for the duration of the seminars.
• Fellows would cover any additional costs incurred if they decide to extend their travels, bring additional guests, or exceed the specified allotment for hotel incidentals. All fellows are required to stay at the location being provided for the seminars.  

Duration of Programme: Six months. Fellowship classes start in the spring and the fall.

How to Apply: Fellows are accepted into the ABF program on an institutional basis. It is preferred that from each institution the CEO, board chair and at least one other board member participate in the fellowship. The CEO and board chair should first attend together in the same class and additional board member(s) can either attend in the same or a future class.

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A Glimpse of Japanese Communism

Vijay Prashad

Kyoto is a city that teems with its history. Castles and palaces from the feudal Tokugawa shogunate rub shoulders with the modern steel and glass buildings of Japanese capitalism. It is impossible to digest the stereotype of the Japanese people as obedient or docile. This city’s history proves the opposite. The city was largely destroyed at least twice – once during the Onin War of 1467-77 and then during the Hamaguri rebellion of 1864. It was almost destroyed a third time, when the United States considered it as the second target – after Hiroshima – for an atom bomb. Consideration for the historical buildings – rather than the people of Kyoto – led the United States to turn their bomb on Nagasaki.

Not far from the Nijo Castle, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a nondescript office building that houses the headquarters of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) for the Kyoto Prefecture. Yoshimichi Sakakibara – known as Bara – has been in the party for fifty years. He joined the party, he tells me, when he was a student in Kyoto. The colleges, in the 1970s, were dominated by the Communist student groups. This is what drew him first to the party’s student groups, then to the Young Communist League and then eventually to the JCP. He has been a full-time worker for the party for the entirely of his life. There is nothing docile about the Japanese communists.

Bara joined the JCP around the time that its fortune began to wane in the city. It did not bother him. He joined the party to fight on behalf of the oppressed, he says. He has, in these five decades, been involved in a range of struggles – from fighting for workers in unions, for fighting for peasants against land theft and environmental destruction, for fighting against imperialism and the danger of annihilation through nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Bara has been in every struggle. He has a smile on his face. It suggests his energy to continue the fight.

PARTY HISTORY

From 1950 to 1978, the governor of Kyoto Prefecture had been Torazo Ninagawa, a hugely popular Communist leader. Ninagawa was a champion of workers and peasants, but also of the small business and artisan class. He had also – very early – adopted what might be called an environmental policy, based on the reality that Japanese monopoly firms were destroying the very beautiful environment of Japan. In 1974, for instance, Ninagawa’s campaign included a theatre troupe. Between acts, one of the performers would give short speeches, such as: ‘Look at this beautiful river. It is a river fit for fish to swim in. Think of the contrast with Osaka. In Osaka, any fish that has the misfortune to find its way into a river promptly dies from water pollution’.

Ninagawa’s tenure in Kyoto paralleled that of Kenji Miyamoto in Tokyo. Miyamoto led the JCP from 1958 to 1977. Founded in 1922, the JCP struggled to develop its independent line, to understand Japanese society and history based on a Marxist assessment and to develop the necessary strategy and tactics to overcome capitalism in Japan. Miyamoto joined the JCP in 1931, but – like many of his comrades – was arrested two years later and then spent the next twelve years in prison. Japan’s state had no tolerance for communists, socialists or even – in some cases – liberals. It was a hard state, a state of war and money. There was no room for concepts such as social justice.

When Japan lost the war in 1945 and came under US occupation, the Communists were released from prison. Some had spent two decades behind bars. One of the original founders of the JCP (and of the Communist Party of Great Britain, as it happened) had spent the war with the Chinese Communists, trying to recruit Japanese soldiers. This was Nosaka Sanzo.

Nosaka Sanzo returned to Japan in 1945 along with hundreds of exiled comrades and tried to revive the JCP. It was not an easy task. Disorientation under US occupation pushed the party leftwards and then rightwards. In the 1949 election, as a consequence of a mass contact campaign, the party won three million votes (10% of the national vote) and took 35 seats in the parliament. But shortly afterwards, a more militant line led to the dissipation of these gains. It was not an easy period, unclear whether to operate within a political system rigged in favour of the bourgeoise or to move to overthrow that system itself.

Miyamoto was one of those who first argued for a more militant line, but then, as a consequence of the repression visited upon the party by the Japanese state apparatus and the US occupation authorities, he fought to modulate the line. The JCP, from the mid-1950s, then, argued for an independent position from the USSR, for the need to fight for a more democratic polity and for the need to build its mass base above all else. By the time Bara joined the movement in Kyoto, the party had more active party members and more active members of front organisations than any other party in Japan – including the ruling parties. To translate this activity into political power remains a serious dilemma for the JCP.

STRUGGLES

Despite is distance from the USSR, the JCP suffered from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990-91. The penalty against socialism was severe. Nonetheless, the JCP had established itself – with its more than 300,000 members – as a force for workers and peasants, for those who relied upon welfare payments, for those who wanted better schools and better medical care, for those who wanted an end to nuclear power and weapons and for those who worried about Japan’s role as the subordinate ally of the United States.

In Kyoto, Bara tells me, one emblematic struggle was the fight to prevent the construction of a golf course on the Daimonjiyama, a mountain key to the culture of Kyoto. In 1988, a developer, with close ties to the political leadership, made plans for this golf course. The Japanese Communist Party and various citizen’s groups joined together to oppose this plan. The JCP’s candidate for mayor at that time almost beat the conservative mayor Tanabe Tomoyuki. The developer had to withdraw the project. In 1993, as a consequence of this struggle, the city imposed a ban on golf courses on the hills around Kyoto. The JCP rooted itself in struggles to preserve the character of the city. ‘Some people are trying to make Kyoto like Osaka or Tokyo, cities we call towns of iron and concrete’, said Kinya Sasai of the JCP.

The lesson of these struggles was clear. The JCP had to link itself to citizen’s groups. It had to become part of these groups. JCP members joined these groups and attempted to expand their influence and their vitality. Working with concerned citizens allowed the JCP to widen the range of its work to expand the rights of people and to create a better quality of life for the people of the city.

A more recent example of the unity between the JCP and the citizen’s groups has been the fight against the Kansai Electric Company’s expansion of nuclear power plants in nearby Fukui prefecture. Bara recounts how in 2012, the party and the citizen’s groups surrounded the Kansai offices in Kyoto each Friday evening to protest nuclear power. Their activists in nearby Fukui would gather outside the gates of the Takahama Nuclear Plant and the Oi Nuclear Power Plant. It has made an impact on Kyoto’s political culture. There is now a clear majority of the population against nuclear power.

As I walk away from the JCP building, through a nearby market, I see a poster for the election campaign for Akiko Kurabayashi of the JCP. A nurse, Kurabayashi is now a member of Japan’s House of Councillors (the National Diet). She has been a parliamentarian since 2013, one of fourteen JCP members in a House of 242 (the JCP won over 10% of the vote, namely 6 million votes). There are posters of her everywhere in the city.

NATO’s Crisis and the Trans-Atlantic Conflict

Jan Oberg 

When the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union dissolved and the Warsaw Pact disappeared, a few of us argued that the appropriate response would be to close down NATO and develop a new all-European peace system and a policy for conflict-handling to replace the predominantly military security thinking that had dominated during the First Cold War.

I had a particular reason for arguing that at the time. As part of the research I did for my PhD (1981) on Denmark’s defence and security policy in a global perspective, I had interviewed a small number of middle-level civilian and military personnel at NATO’s HQ in Brussels. They all basically told me the same three things – remember this was the late 1970s, or about 10 years before the Cold War ended:

– My parents’ belong to a generation that knows what war is, we are here at NATO to prevent a repetition (war prevention goal – which is not the same as peace, but let that pass).

– NATO is for the maintenance of peace, not for war, and the most important thing is Art 5 in our Treaty: If one member is attacked, all shall come to its rescue – “all for one and one for all” (the defensive principle, the musketeer pledge).

– The only – only – reason, NATO exists today is the presence and nature of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact (raison d’etre, existential argument – however a little strange, perhaps, in that the Warsaw Pact was established in 1955, NATO in 1949 – but defining the world in such terms that my own profession seems utterly important is nothing new to human beings).

Western leaders – that is, until one of the worst, Bill Clinton, took over in 1994 – showed statesmanship and told Gorbachev that they would not expand NATO an inch and that the divided Germany would be neutral if unified. There was no talk of closing NATO in those circles, however – nobody who took Gorbachev intellectually sound and visionary idea about a new European House seriously.

No, they had won the Cold War. The Soviet Union had lost and became a militarily a dwarf in comparison to what it had been. And that wasn’t that strong either: The Warsaw Pact’s military expenditures varied between 60 and 80% per cent of those of NATO and it vastly inferior in terms of technological quality, innovation capacity and discipline – but stronger in quantities, e.g. the number of tanks.

The 2nd Cold War

We’re in Cold War 2 – of course not a repetition because of all the differences between that world and today’s. Ten of the former Warsaw Pact countries are now full NATO members, neutral states back then like Sweden and Austria have abolished that – wise – policy. And, mind you, the military expenditures of Russia – one country facing NATO’s 29 – are 8 per cent of NATO – yes, you got it right: Eight per cent of NATOs military expenditures in spite of all the propaganda about Russia and Putin representing an existential threat to Europe and the US if not the whole world. Who said disinformation was used only by Russia?

The Clinton Administration decided to not give a damn about the promises made and started the expansion of NATO in 1994, the new (humanitarian!!) interventionism in Yugoslavia – devoid of knowledge about its complexities, of common sense and without a UN Security Council mandate and one gross violation of international law after the other including the bombing of Serbia to carve out a forever-failed state, Kosovo state – the second Albanian state in Europe. Oh Crimea, what a crime in comparison!

And then came, one-by-one, incrementally – the new NATO members right up under the skirts of Russia in total defiance of its history psychology and legitimate near-abroad security perceptions.

The wisdom of softer borders and neutrals, of dialogue and confidence-building – like Finland that started the OSCE, like Sweden under Palme that started common security and Germany under Brandt that started rapproachment and Ostpolitik etc – all gone today.

Imagine a Russia-led alliance with 12 times more military than the US making Mexico and Canada new members. Sure, Washington would love it.

Facts, analyses, intellectual understanding went out of the window long ago – in Western mainstream media and politics, from Right to Left too, the latter believing in humanitarian intervention and human rights advocates flying F-16.

We’re living in dangerous times because facts, knowledge, science and common sense play virtually no role anymore. And because the peace discourse has disappeared decades ago.

Today’s Western security policy managers are anti-intellectuals, seemingly unaware of their moral responsibilities and under much less control than when Dwight D. Eisenhower in his farewell speech in 1961 warned the world and the US itself about the MIC – the Military-Industrial Complex. (Bless him for doing so and curse those who never listened but made it a cancer on Western civilisation).

99% of these security managers would not be able to offer an intellectually decent definition of concepts such as deterrence, defensive/offensive, conflict-resolution, or peace. They don’t write books.

But – at least some of them have a button close to them with which they can kill millions.

Today we are facing a Western militarist cancer in which policies are run by, not the MIC, but the MIMAC – the Military-Industrial-MEDIA-ACADEMIC Complex. And it is de facto out of any democratic control.

Enemies are invented and marketed, one after the other, and the new WMD – Weapons of Mass Deception – consists marketing companies, military academies, militaries in civilian institute, military corporations influencing/steering media narratives, social media censorship (Facebook and Google) etc. (Say Syria since 2011).

By and large this is what explains all the wars, in the Middle East in particular, all the millions dead and wounded, all the hatred, terrorism (which thanks to the idiotic U.S. Global War on Terror since 9/11 2001 has boosted the number of dead and wounded in political terror acts from about 1 100 to 32 000.

The inverse proportionality between intellectual and military capacity is in and of itself the largest threat to humanity’s survival.

So is the absence – or woefully inadequate power – of a vibrant public dialogue about peace, social peace actions and peace policies. No government has peace advisers, no government even thinks of matching peace research with military research investment and no government has a peace policy or minister. Don’t even know that such things might be a good idea.

The discourse, as I said, is non-existing. Militarism – the Juggernaut – has no brakes. And, so, we’re in the Second Cold War that more knowledgeable and responsible people would have avoided.

NATO crisis indicators

People talk far too much about Trump, the person(ality). And far too little about the system that brought him on stage and runs him to a large extent – as large as anyone can run Trump. Remember, Kennedy was killed some time after a revolutionary speech about a new world peace order.

The day we talk as much about MIMAC as we talk about Trump and his sex life or Tweets, there might be some hope – but don’t expect it in media and a Western, Christian culture that is obsessed with individuals and individual morality and hardly can spell the word structure. MIMAC is a structure and not exactly benign – but did you ever hear about it in the mainstream press?

1. Since 1989, the West – not Russia – has destroyed the importance of international law; it began in Yugoslavia – probably the richest event since 1989 in terms of consequences for that country, the region, Europe and the world.

2. We got a Middle East destroyed beyond repair – physically, economically (e.g. sanctions), culturally and in terms of fomenting terrorism.

3. We got a US unilateralism, US First, helter-skelter policy that sees, consistently, the world out there as its enemies – one way or the other – NATO allies, Russia, China, Middle Eastern leaders, North Korea – and whose main contribution to the rest of the world is: threats, trade wars, sanctions, bad words, arms trade to authoritarian allies like Saudi Arabia that is not exactly a democracy but now the third largest military spender, larger than Russia.

4. We got a Turkey, NATO’s second largest military power, basically having departed, contributed heavily to the destruction of Syria, have US nukes stored on its territory, is becoming more and more authoritarian (hardly compatible with NATO’s defence of democracy) and makes deal after deal with arch-enemy Russia. In other words, a very serious problem for NATO.

5. We got a NATO that has done nothing under its seemingly brainwashed Secretary-General Stoltenberg – once a highly respected Norwegian PM with a humanist family background – speaking like a US ventriloquist’s dummy about how good all the confrontational, expansive initiatives are – all legitimated with the same three mantras: Security, Stabiliy and Peace –  none of which will ever appear with those policy kinds of initiatives.

6. We now get a Trump Administration that tries – for God knows which time the last 4-5 decades – to sell the argument that “the Europeans ought to pay more”! The magic formula is “2 per cent of GNP” – without the slightest analysis of threats or opportunities! If a country does well in general, the alliance will get more military? Asn vice-versa? Intellectually, this is nonsense, pure and simple. It has nothing to do with security and peace.

Furthermore, anyone knowing just a little about these matters are perfectly aware that the US is in Europe for the sake of the US itself, not for the blue-eyed people of Europe. Europe has always been and remains the forward defence area of the American territory and it is in Europe the war shall be fought, not on US territory. Therefore also the Ballistic Missile Defence in Europ – shooting down whatever retaliatory missile Moscow might fire in response to a US attack upon it – and shoot it down over Europe.

Every single forward deployment, every new NATO member is today much much less secure than before. Why? Because when you join an alliance and make the borders hard – there is no way to avoid that Russian military defensive preparation for the eventuality of an attack upon it, will target every single of these countries. Simple military logic – any NATO general would do the same if situated in a Russian military planning unit.

7. We got a NATO that – running out of raison d’etre with the end of the First Cold War – tries to reinvent itself. Read its Treaty here that states that it shall adhere to the UN Charter and solve conflict by peaceful means, support democracy and freedom and international… NATO is today a criminal organisation in the sense that it consistently violates everything it was founded to work for. Even works against it own fine priciples!

8. Since the 1990s, NATO member states have violated international law and its own Charter which states that it pertains to Europe and North America. What does NATO do, then, with a new office in Kuwait, with commitments way outside its member territories, with formalised cooperation with the Gulf States with a Danish ambassador there as a go-between?

9. Finally, and most importantly, NATO members have invested trillions of dollars on increasing their security. How come we are now in a new Cold War? How come everybody is talking about the need for even larger investments in this one type of security, the military? How come such a well-endowed alliance can feel threatened – and lack a genuine trust-building and cooperative policy with its old-time enemy, Russia? How come that NATO members’ War on Terror has only produced much more terror? How come the democracy and freedom NATO shall protect seem to be in crisis too? Why all these wars, destroyed countries and refugees problems – instead of peace by peaceful means and much more peaceful world?

Something is wrong. Very very wrong. With NATO.

NATO is what its members make it: Change it completely or dissolve it

You may now think that I mix “NATO, the alliance” with “NATO members” above. True! There comes a time when a Club that once had noble purposes falls apart because of its members’ reckless, immoral and constitution-violating behaviour. The centre simply doesn’t hold. There comes a time when you cannot healthily maintain a figleaf distinction between the organisation and its members. Call it compromised, corruption, de-moralization or decay and think, for instance, of the Swedish Academy.

NATO turns 70 next year. Age is not itself an argument for or against anything. The UN is even older and its Charter is still the most important governments have ever signed.

But NATO members, lead by the U.S., have undermined the organisation and all the noble principles it once stood for. (Also by having nuclear weapons which are not mentioned in the Treaty but militates against any concept of peace by peaceful means). In particular, since the end of the First Cold War, its net contribution to the world has become negative, destructive. NATO today stands for North Atlantic Treaty Obsolescence.

In conclusion, crap NATO as we know it!

Let’s use the anniversary to discuss how it can survive in a completely new shape and avoid the fate of its then beloved enemy, the Warsaw Pact – without which it should have been heavily reformed or closed down about 30 years ago.

The UK’s Brexit Shambles

Kenneth Surin 

Blighty this week has been frying in record warm temperatures. The army had to be called in to assist firefighters dealing with large moorland fires in the north of England.

Out of control fires are perhaps an apt metaphor for what is happening in UK politics.  Tory misgovernment gets worse with each passing day.

Tory handling of Brexit has been chaotic from the beginning, and is now beyond shambolic.

Ministers no longer leak surreptitiously against each other, since this has been superseded by denunciation and threats made brazenly in public by Tory Brexiteers and Remainers alike.  These two hate each other more than they do the opposition Labour party.

The EU has always been crystal-clear that Brexit means exactly that, namely, the UK’s exit will be a 100% departure from the EU.

The Tories, split among themselves, are either fine with this (the “hard” Brexiteers) and a range of ad hoc factions craving “more flexible” options tending towards  a “soft” or “softer” Brexit.

Theresa “the Maybot” May, a hack politician if ever there was one, is hopelessly out of her depth in dealing either with her own viciously divided party or the brutally uncompromising eurocrats in Brussels.

Where her own party is concerned, she tries to placate all sides, and of course ends up pleasing none.

It’s open season for the Tories when it comes to embarrassing the Maybot or undermining her in public.

In negotiating with the eurocrats who insist the UK’s exit will only be a 100% departure from the EU, the Maybot pleads for one that will be a 99%, or a 90%, or a 75%, or a 50%, or a 20% divorce, depending on which faction in her party seems to be in the ascendancy that week, or whichever fat cat CEO (it was the turn of Jaguar Land Rover and Airbus this week) issues a dire warning about the impact of Brexit on his company’s jobs and profit margins.

At the press conferences which follow her fraught and unproductive meetings with the eurocrats in Brussels, the brutes say time after time she is “delusional” for not accepting that Brexit can only be 100% and nothing else.

This hardline EU stance may however be an opening ploy to force the UK on to the back foot from the outset.

The eurocrats try to din into the Maybot’s head that the “soft” Brexit option has never existed, and that it is akin to a mirage tricking the exhausted and starving desert explorer of yore.

The brutal reality is that any post-Brexit modus vivendi between the EU27 and the UK will only come about with the agreement of both sides.

The UK has no power to force the EU27 to concede anything, a post-Brexit relationship with them cannot be brought about unilaterally by the Brits, and the future of Brexit is thus completely out of the UK’s hands.

The Tory cabinet held a “crunch” Brexit summit this weekend at Chequers, the prime minister’s official country residence.

May’s hope was that a Brexit façade can somehow be concocted which will be assented to by all cabinet members while being palatable to the EU27.

To guard against leaks, all participants at the Chequers summit had to surrender their cell phones on arrival.

What emerged at this meeting was a proposal for a version of the Norway-type arrangement with the EU27 (that is, an outside-the-EU linkage with the EU single market and the EU customs union).

In Norway’s case this entails the following:

No participation in EU decision-making, while having to abide by all the eurocracy’s decisions when dealing with the EU27.

Norway has incorporated nearly 75% of all EU law into its own legislation.

Norway has accepted the free movement of people, goods, services and capital between itself and the EU27.  The overwhelming majority of the UK’s Brexiteers are anti-immigration, but Norway has a higher per capita immigration than the UK.

Norway has had to accept the EU’s commercial standards, financial regulations, employment laws, and pay a substantial amount to the EU budget.

The UK will have to accept all the above, in line with the EU’s insistence that any post-Brexit arrangement with it must be predicated on the UK’s “regulatory alignment” with the EU27, all on the latter’s terms.

Blighty will thus be “independent” of Brussels while effectively being run from Brussels. In most areas to be negotiated under the Chequers proposal, the EU would be the “rule-maker”, Blighty the “rule-taker”.

The driver of the UK’s economy, for the worse rather than better, is its financial sector, and the EU will probably insist–  in the name of cyber security, money-laundering concerns (London is the world’s money-laundering capital), funding for “terrorist organizations”, tax-dodging, etc.– that all UK financial-sector transactions with the EU27 adhere to an EU regulatory framework.

The UK’s current options are snared in an inexorably simple trinary:  a complete divorce from the EU, Remain, or somehow this proposed modified Norway-type arrangement (which may still be rejected by Brussels).

The first two options are unpalatable to different wings of the Tory party.

Its Little Englander wing wants a complete divorce from the EU, motivated by the absurd and futile fantasy of regaining a lost imperial greatness, and, in a more sinister way, the fuller implementation of an even more vicious neoliberalism freed from “the bureaucratic red tape” and “big government” of the already neoliberal EU.

More than one Tory Brexiteer, with no apparent recollection of the Bhopal disaster, has lamented Blighty’s not having India’s health and safety standards.

May’s post-summit statement indicated that the UK will accept EU rules on commercial standards, including agricultural products after Brexit, in order to avoid “border friction”.  In other words: EU standards will prevail.

Protections in areas such as the environment, employment laws and consumer protection would not fall below current levels.  In other words: EU standards will prevail.

The Maybot arrangement proposes a looser arrangements for services, with the concession that this will involve less mutual access to post-Brexit EU markets.  In other words:  you win some, while losing some.

Where jurisdiction is concerned, decisions by UK courts will observe “due regard paid to EU case law in areas where the UK continued to apply a common rulebook”.  In other words: EU law will prevail.

A “combined customs territory” is proposed by the Maybot, allowing the UK to apply domestic tariffs and trade policies for goods entering the UK, and their EU tariffs equivalents for goods heading into the EU. In 2014, the proportion of all goods and services by the UK to the EU was 44% (55% for all of Europe).  In other words: a win for the EU27.

In a post-summit interview, May refused to rule out so-called “preferential access” for EU citizens after the UK leaves the EU.  In other words: if “preferential access” for EU citizens allows them almost unhindered entry into the UK, this will be a win for the EU27.

And all the above concessions involve no UK participation in EU decision-making.

There are a few other details not mentioned here, but for now the key terms of the Maybot’s proposal amount, in the eyes of all the UK media, to a “soft” Brexit.

So what are the hardline Tory Brexiteers hoping for next?

The Brexit hardliners may be hoping for two scenarios before attempting to take more conclusive steps: (1) the EU, holding all the cards, modifies May’s “soft” Brexit proposal in ways that require her total capitulation to the eurocrats, so the proposed deal falls apart, and in consequence the discredited May is easily deposed by the Brexit hardliners; and (2)  the Maybot proposal, once negotiated with the EU, is put to a vote in parliament (and gets defeated), or somehow a second public referendum is called, and the Leave verdict of the first referendum is confirmed (the hardliners will feast on this), or the Leave verdict of the first referendum is overturned (the Remainers will feast on this).

Who knows what will happen?

A clue as to what is likely to happen in the Tory party is supplied by the opinion of the right-wing and pro-Brexit Daily Telegraph:  “Theresa May won her battle with Eurosceptic ministers on Friday night as she announced the cabinet has signed up to a Brexit deal that keeps Britain tied to EU rules and regulations indefinitely”.

Given that such an arrangement has been repudiated by the Tory Brexiteers from the beginning, it would seem, therefore, that they have decided to save their ammo for a future battle against the Maybot’s version of the Norwegian option.

When a meda-shambles exists, a throw of the dice from all those involved is always the most likely outcome.  It happened at Chequers this weekend.

All Brexit bets are now off, because whatever the future is, it can last a very long time.

The next step is for the Chequers proposal to be turned into a White Paper which will be presented to parliament sometime next week. If approved, it will become the UK’s official negotiating position in talks with the EU.

The eurocrats will then have their say, and an early signal about their likely response has already been sent by them.  According to The Guardian:  “In Brussels… sources warned that May’s customs compromise looked very similar to the “new customs partnership” that the EU rejected as “magical thinking” 11 months ago”.

The same Guardianarticle also reported a response to the Chequers proposal from the business sector: “more than 100 entrepreneurs and founders of UK businesses dismissed it as unworkable….”

The UK foreign secretary, the sociopathic Boris “BoJo” Johnson, one of the leading Brexiteers, resigned after likening it to “polishing a turd”.   Also resigning was the woefully inept hardliner Brexit Secretary, David Davis, saying the Chequers plan was “unworkable”.

Labour has said it will vote against the Chequers plan in parliament, and if pro-Brexit Tory MPs vote with them in a “no confidence” parliamentary motion, May will almost certainly be toppled.

Next weekend Trump will arrive in the UK for a scaled-down “working visit”, after being invited by the ever-ingratiating Maybot for a full state visit.

He may not know which prime minister will be there to greet him.

The Orange Man will however be avoiding London, except for a night spent at the US embassy, because of the anticipated massive protests.

Demonstrators have promised to be outside banging pots and pans throughout the night.

Giant Killing, Heroes and Teams at the 2018 World Cup

Binoy Kampmark

They have been falling like ninepins at one of the most unpredictable World Cups in generations.  Even before the kick-off in the tournament, Italy’s absence was conspicuous.  By the time the first phase of matches had been concluded, Germany, whose teams have made it to the elimination phase for eighty years, found itself in exit mode, a victim of exhaustion, desperation and South Korean determination.  Die Welt deemed the performance an embarrassment of perfection, the team’s performance “harmless, unimaginative, listless”.

Spain, who won the 2010 World Cup, found its adventure prematurely aborted in the round-of-sixteen, falling to the inspired Russian team on penalties.  Portugal, in their defeat before the hard set Uruguayans, went the same way in that round.  (Christian Ronaldo was distinctly off the boil.)  Not enough credit, however, was given in shocked observations to the other side of the show, the performances of those giant killing teams which have added to the fogginess of any crystal ball.

One colossus did seem dangerously predictable in advancing.  Brazil threatened at points to overcome a furiously talented Belgian team, but failed to transform possession into goals.  The Belgians made their chances count and duly dispatched another giant from the competition.

A sense prevailed that Brazil were their own worst enemy.  This was not the team of jogo bonito, jaunty, ruthless representatives of the beautiful game.  Neymar was both talismanic and deficient, an asset rolled into a liability.  His drama strewn efforts, which involved diving and rolling as much as it involved natural ability, did not provide the ballast his team required.  Such attitude, it has been surmised, might have been born from past serious injuries, be it the broken back he sustained in 2014, and a broken foot in February this year.

“I can say,” wrote Neymar in an Instagram post, “that this is the saddest moment of my career, it is incredibly painful because we knew we could get there, we knew we had conditions to go further, to make history.”  It proved “hard to find the strength to play soccer again, but I’m sure God will give me strength enough to face anything”.

The shocks have been marked and frequent, with the ground left for exhilarating performances.  Giants Argentina did not vanquish Iceland, the match concluding with a goal a piece. In an absorbing match, it was that other footballer of genius Lionel Messi, who took the penalty after a collision between Sergio Agüro and Hördur Björgvin Magnússon.  He botched it, and Hannes Thór Halldórsson made the save.  Another team of minnows had done their country exhilaratingly proud.

Croatia, with its own smattering of talented players, subsequently rumbled Messi’s side with three answered goals, despite both sides going into the second half without having scored.  France, in a thrilling bout involving seven goals and the incessant efforts of the 19-year-old Kylian Mbappé, issued the coup de grace.

The host team Russia was a thrill with Croatia, also going down to penalties.  England, albeit with a soft line of the draw, found themselves in their first semi-final in major international competition since 1996.  An exorcism of sorts has been taking place with this team, with manager Gareth Southgate, waistcoat and all, becoming very much a figure of veneration in a nation bruised and battered by the trauma of Brexit negotiations.  Both dedicated Leavers and grieving Remainers have at last found something they can agree about.

As the BBC noted with a smattering of affection, this “affable man” had done what a host of experienced highly credentialed predecessors hadn’t.  Sven-Goran Eriksson, Fabio Capello, Steve McClaren and Roy Hodgson had failed “despite more than 80 [matches] between them.”  While the football nation has historical pedigree, and not short of its stellar complement, team efforts have tended to founder when it mattered most, notably during the psychological wear-and-tear of the penalty shootout. Southgate’s skill has been to temper expectations and the hysterical overconfidence that has accompanied previous World Cups.

The tournament has also thrown up a dilemma for managers: How best to incorporate the hero of the side, the glorious figure who shines in a team of lesser mortals who await for the powder to be lit, the flames to be stoked?  Teams studded with Neymar, Messi and Ronaldo may be Olympian on the field, but team value and effect is something else, material drawn from the machinery of collective spirit and mutual encouragement.

Truism as it is, teams, well functioning, telepathically linked and good of understanding, win matches.  Caesars deft of foot and brimming with talent are less significant, even if they are capable of landing killer blows.  “When you have somebody who can turn the game in a flash,” asks Kris Voakes, “do you select them at all costs regardless of their fitness in the hope that they supply that moment of genius?”  France, the sole giant and finalist in this competition, has no such dilemma, a team bristling with talent but compact in purpose.

The City of London and Grand Theft Ethiopia

Thomas C. Mountain

For decades now, going back to when Bob Geldoff handed over millions in cash to Meles Zenawi back during “We Are the World” circa 1983-4 supposedly for food aid for the victims of what was then the Great Ethiopian Famine, The City of London has been at the heart of Grand Theft Ethiopia, grand theft Africa really.

With out a place to stash your loot why steal in the first place? If you cant hide your dirty money where no one can take it from you why bother? And this is just what The City of London has been doing, laundering Billion$, some say Tens of Billion$, of stolen “aid” money for the late Ethiopian Gangster Government lead by Meles Zenawi. War, drought, famine followed by more war, drought and famine, The Horn of Africa maybe better called the Horn of Hunger and thanks to The City of London what was supposed to be used to feed the starving, house the homeless, nurture the sick and educate the illiterate was instead deposited in the financial cesspool calling itself a “City”, population seven thousand.

The City of London makes its own rules with some saying it was behind Brexit because it cannot survive if it must follow new EU banking regulations concerning money laundering and balance sheets. Cooking the Books is what its called and it is implanted in the DNA in the City of London.

Today Ethiopia is struggling to build a sustainable future free from debt bondage and beggary, and the Billion$ sitting in former Ethiopian leaders accounts in the City of London could go a long way towards turning the situation around.

The City of London is at the heart of international banksterism, and needs to be shut down and the ill gotten gains of crooks around the world returned to those they stole it from. The new Ethiopian peoples government has vowed to get Ethiopia’s money back and has promised a list of offenders and where they have stashed their loot. This could be the first step in helping expose how the City of London has been front and center when it comes to enabling Grand Theft Ethiopia.