Despite concerns, China sees a potential ally in Pakistan’s Imran Khan

James M. Dorsey

Pakistani prime minister-in waiting Imran Khan’s ability to chart his own course as well as his relationship with the country’s powerful military is likely to be tested the moment he walks into his new office.

Pakistan’s most fundamental problems loom large and are likely to demand his immediate attention. He probably will have to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a US$ 12 billion bailout to resolve Pakistan’s financial and economic crisis.

The request could muddy Mr. Khan’s already ambiguous relationship with China. The IMF is likely to reinforce Mr. Khan’s call for greater transparency regarding the terms and funding of projects related to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a crown jewel of the People’s Republic’s Belt and Road initiative and at US$ 50 billion plus its single largest investment.

Moreover, Mr. Khan’s need for a bailout is likely to give him little choice but to crackdown on militant groups that have enjoyed tacit, if not overt, support of the military despite risking Pakistan being blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog.

To be sure Mr. Khan could evade resorting to the IMF if China continues to bailout Pakistan as it has done in the past year with some US$5 billion in loans. Alternatively, Saudi Arabia could defer payments for oil that account for one third of its imports as it did in 1998 and again in 2008.

Continued Chinese assistance or Saudi help would provide immediate relief but without a straightjacket forcing Pakistan to embark on painful reforms would do little to resolve the country’s structural problem.

An IMF straightjacket may, however, solve one Chinese dilemma: backing for the Pakistani military’s selective support for militants. China’s support was both in response to a request by the military as well as the fact that militants focussing on India and Kashmir granted Beijing useful leverage.

China, nonetheless, has hinted several times in the past two years that it is increasingly uneasy about the policy. It did so among others by not stopping FATF from putting Pakistan on a grey list with the threat of being blacklisted if it failed to agree and implement measures to counter money laundering and funding of militants.

Chinese sensitivity about greater CPEC transparency was evident in Beijing’s attempts to stymie Mr. Khan’s criticism during the recent election campaign and when he was in opposition

Chinese pressure on Mr. Khan and his populist Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), or Movement for Justice, to tone down their criticism produced only limited results despite China’s expansion of CPEC’s master plan to include the prime minister-in waiting’s stronghold north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The move, however, did not stop PTI activists from continuing to portray CPEC as a modern-day equivalent of the British East India Company, which dominated the Indian subcontinent in the 19th century.

PTI denounced Chinese-funded mass transit projects in three cities in Punjab, the stronghold of the party’s main rival in the election, ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) as squandering of funds that could have better been invested in social spending. PTI activists suggested that the projects had involved corrupt practices.

China last year rejected allegations by Awami National League leader Sheikh Ahmed Rashid, a Khan ally, of corruption in a Chinese-funded bus project in the city of Multan.

Pakistani officials said PTI critics would likely get their way if the country agrees with the IMF on a bailout. “Once the IMF looks at CPEC, they are certain to ask if Pakistan can afford such a large expenditure given our present economic outlook,” the Financial Times quoted a Pakistani official as saying.

CPEC was but one of several issues that have troubled China’s attitude towards Mr. Khan, despite a post-election pledge to work with the prime minister-in waiting.

China was unhappy that a five-month anti-government sit-in in Islamabad in 2014 forced President Xi Jinping to delay by a year a planned visit during which he had hoped to unveil a CPEC masterplan.

Pakistani security analyst and columnist Muhammed Amir Rana, just back from a visit to China, said China was also uneasy about Mr. Khan’s plan to tap the expertise of Pakistan’s highly educated US and European Diaspora, who could counter the PTI’s anti-US bent.

CPEC, and particularly ownership of projects related to the corridor, is likely to be one indication of Pakistan’s relationship with China under a PTI government as well as the nature of Mr. Khan’s rapport with the military. The issue is sensitive given expectations that Chinese investment is pushing Pakistan into a debt trap.

Mr. Rana noted that the Sharif government had resisted a military push for the creation of a separate CPEC authority. The military and the Sharif government were also at odds over the establishment of a special security force to protect Chinese nationals and investments that have been repeatedly targeted in Pakistan.

The Chinese communist party’s English-language organ, Global Times, was quick to declare victory in the Pakistani election. While mentioning past Chinese concerns, the Global Times pointed to the fact that Mr. Khan had unveiled a plan to adopt the ‘Chinese model’ to alleviate poverty.

Noting that China was the first country Mr. Khan mentioned in his first post-election speech, the Global Times gloated: “Despite a barrage of criticism he threw at Sharif’s handling of Chinese investments, Khan is not a sceptic of the projects themselves… Imran Khan minced no words when his exclusive interview was published in Guangming Daily two days before the elections. Khan asserted that the CPEC will receive wide support from all sectors of Pakistani society.

Imran Khan’s politico-economic views do not seem to be influenced by his Western education. He questions the practicality of capitalist economic policies. He is also a strong critic of US President Donald Trump, the US and US-led wars… Imran Khan’s plan is a clear pivot by Pakistan, away from the US orbit and further into the Chinese bloc… China has a friend in Imran Khan,” said a Global Times oped.

Findings and Non-Findings: The MH370 Report

Binoy Kampmark

It does little to allay the grief of relatives and friends, but the MH370 report on the doomed, and ever spectral Malaysian passenger liner merely added smidgens of further speculation.  The report from Malaysian authorities into the disappearance of the Boeing 777 on route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014 will do little to contain the fever that accompanies such stories of disappearance, with MH370’s vanishing deemed by The Washington Post “the biggest airplane mystery since the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.”

The Post has a point, and Earhart’s vanishing, along with navigator Fred Noonan over the Pacific in July 1937 during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe did prompt a costly effort to rival that of the fruitless search for MH370: a sixteen day, Presidentially mandated scouring of an area the size of Texas comprising nine vessels, four thousand crewmen, sixty-six aircraft and a bill of $4 million.

Kok Soo Chon, head of the MH370 safety investigation team, told a news conference on Monday that his team was “unable to determine the real cause for disappearance of MH370.”  Such an answer would only be possible “if the wreckage is found”.  Nor could his team “determine with any certainty the reasons that the aircraft diverted from its filed flight plan route.”

The chief investigator did dangle a few theories: there might have been interference from any one of the 237 people on the plane with the pilots. “We cannot establish if there was third partly involvement but we also cannot exclude unlawful third party interference.”

As for the pilots themselves:  “We examined the pilot, the flight officer.  We are quite satisfied with their background, with their training, with their mental health, mental state.  We are not of the opinion that it could have been an event committed by the pilot.”

That said, there was an undeniable fact: “that there was an air turnback.  We cannot deny the fact that, as we have analysed, the systems were manually turned off with intent or otherwise.”  Tantalisingly, the motives are left to be pondered over, built upon and inflated.

Agency, in short, is everything; and speculation about how that agency manifested itself has been frenetic and rife.  Pilots Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid have furnished investigators and conspiracy theorists over the years ample, if somewhat indigestible fodder.  The MH370 investigation team preferred a different diet of solids.  The rest have been left to fill in the blanks.

The captain had certainly done his bit to excite various opinions, with Malaysian police documents suggesting that he had been practising a “suicide route” on his home flight simulator.  But as ever, the police were simply patching together scenarios rather than accepting them.  The Australian was more brazen: Zaharie had hijacked the plane, locked the co-pilot out, depressurised the plane only to then re-pressurize it before landing gracefully upon the waters of the southern Indian Ocean then sinking it.

Such pictures of horrifying finality are always sealed by theories of the mandatory cover-up.  In Earhart’s case, one catchy, and very elastic version, is that US Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal felt disposed to conceal the destruction of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra 10E at Aslito Field on Saipan in 1944.  The aeronautical beast, so goes this theory, survived its occupants.  Destroying the beast would destroy speculation.

Forrestal’s diaries remain silent on the issue, but this did not discourage the idea that Japanese forces might have been responsible for doing away with the two flyers in an act of blood lust.  This, suggest Thomas E. Devine and Richard M. Daley in The Amelia Earhart Incident, could well have been a pre-war Japanese atrocity against Earhart and Noonan, who “conceivably flew hundreds of miles off course and might well have observed forbidden military preparations in the Japanese Mandates.”  Forrestal, being savvy to a post-war order where Japanese assistance would be needed to counter the communist menace, kept mum on the whole affair.

Those working for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau have been irritated with the cover-up narrative regarding MH370, breaking their silence this year.  “There’s no earthly reason,” claimed an agitated Peter Foley, “why someone in control of an aircraft would exhaust its fuel and then attempt to glide it when they have the option of ditching.”

The authorities, however, have not covered themselves in professional, well-regarded glory.  The Ministry of Transport did not see fit to have representatives to answer questions from family members.  The report is also silent on the foot-dragging.  It took hours before any interest was taken in pursuing the flight.  When a search did commence, eight days were wasted in a mistaken spot.  Then came 1,605 days of waiting for an unsatisfactory 449 page report.

Left with such questions, those seeking answers have filled the void of grief with legal actions and repeated promptings for clarification.  Voice 370, a group claiming to represent the victims’ relatives, is keen to identify “any possible falsification or elimination of records related to MH370 and its maintenance.” The legend, agonisingly unresolved, will only proliferate in form and versions, aided by Kok’s own observation this was not “the final report. It would be presumptuous of us to say it is.”

Plans for Attack: US Plans for Striking Iran

Binoy Kampmark

The world of the terrifying hypothetical is programmatically standard in the Trump White House.  Periods of tense calm are followed by careless flights of fury, digs and remonstrations.  Mortal enemies become amenable comrades; reliable allies turn into irresponsible skinflints who ought to fork our more for their defence.

For all that swirling chaos, the one constant since the 2016 election campaign for President Donald Trump is the Iranian bogey, that defender of the Shiites, the theocratic Republic.  The fear of Iran’s aspirations is an endless quarry for domestic consumption, tied, as it were with propitiating the ever hungry Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On July 23, Trump gave a Twitter offering to Iranian President Rouhani, written in all-caps promising singular, untold of consequences of suffering should Iran ever threaten the United States again.  “We are no longer a country that will stand for your demented words of violence and death.  Be cautious!”

This shout of indignation was the less than measured response to remarks made by Rouhani to Iranian diplomats: “America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.”

After the outburst came the milder reflection.  Before a convention in Kansas City, a cooling breeze was blowing.  “I withdrew the United States from the horrible one-sided Iran nuclear deal, and Iran is not the same country anymore,” came Trump’s explanation.  The United States was “ready to make a deal.”

This picture of dysfunctional play was further clouded by last week’s ominous revelations from Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC.  The network had received some troubling titbits of information suggesting that the United States is intending to launch strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities next month. This has also prompted concerns about how broad the remit will be. Which allies will be called upon to be engaged in an endeavour that seems more than mildly suicidal?

One unnamed security source described in exasperating fashion by the ABC as “senior” suggests that Australia is supplying aspects of the skeletal outline for such a strike, specifically in the realm of identifying targets: “Providing intelligence and understanding as to what is happening on the ground so that the Government and allied governments are fully informed to make decisions is different to active targeting.”

This willing source within the Turnbull government was adamant to draw distinctions between the actual strike itself (described as the “kinetic” mission), and sketching the picture itself. “Developing a picture is very different to actually participating in a strike.”

But Australia would be implicated in such a mission, should it ever get off the ground, given the role played by the misnamed joint-defence facility at Pine Gap, located in central Australia.  The virtually unknown Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation would also do its bit.

As with any such reports emerging either within the White House, or from its imperial periphery, signals vary.  The US Defence Secretary John Mattis, just to make things a touch more interesting, described the reports as lacings of fantasy.  “I have no idea where the Australian news people got that information. I’m confident it is not something that’s being considered right now and I think it’s a complete, frankly, it’s fiction.”

The subsequent response from the Australian Prime Minister was an unsurprising, vassal phrased echo.  “President Trump has made his views very clear to the whole word, but this story,” noted Malcolm Turnbull, “has not benefited from any consultation with me, the Foreign Minister, the Defence Minister or the Chief of the Defence force”.  This, on paper, looks like a decidedly appropriate Trump formula: avoid consultation; it might just cloud your judgment.

The detail supplied to the ABC over the strike plans should not be sneezed at.  Given Trump’s belligerent inner circle (Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton) steaming with the anticipation of a first strike against irreverent states, and the promptings of Israel, the issue retains an air of solemn seriousness.  Even a more moderate Mattis is ever keen to run a grocer’s list of sins perpetrated by Teheran: bolstering Bashar al-Assad in Syria, “fomenting more violence” in Yemen, Iran as regional bully.

The prospect of strikes on Iranian facilities has been further complicated by public enunciations from Netanyahu reiterating the Begin Doctrine, stressing that, “Israel will not allow regimes that seek our annihilation to acquire nuclear weapons”.   The danger here, as ever, is that Israel will go rogue and initiate such an attack, though the spread of Iran’s facilities complicates any such enterprise.

Clio is a cruelly dogged taskmaster and a refusal to listen to the echoes of warnings she inspires imperils states and their citizens.  Invading, interfering and altering the trajectory of development in the Middle East tends to have global repercussions.  Western states have shown a pigheadedly dangerous tendency to meddle and destroy. Death inevitably follows; vacuums are created.  These latest slivers of information from Canberra on US intentions is a salutary reminder that much has not changed.

Australian government pursues prosecution of East Timor espionage whistleblower and lawyer

Patrick O’Connor

Despite protests in East Timor and Australia, and opposition by lawyers and human rights groups, the Australian government is proceeding with its extraordinary prosecution of an intelligence agent identified as “Witness K” and his lawyer Bernard Collaery. They face up to two years’ jail for exposing a sordid espionage operation in Dili in 2004 that sought to secure Australian imperialism’s hold over oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea.

In 2004, Witness K was reportedly head of technical operations for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). He lodged an internal protest over the planting of listening devices in East Timorese government buildings, including the cabinet room, by Australian spies posing as construction aid workers. The unlawful operation formed part of Canberra’s ruthless drive to maintain its stake of the multi-billion dollar Timor Sea energy reserves, following East Timor’s separation from Indonesia and establishment of formal independence, from 1999 to 2002.

In 2013, Witness K had been due to appear at The Hague’s International Court of Justice, as part of the Timorese government’s case against the 2006 Timor Sea Treaty. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and federal police carried out provocative raids on Witness K’s home, as well as the offices of Collaery, a former Australian Capital Territory (ACT) attorney-general.

Timorese government documents were seized, in violation of international law, along with Witness K’s passport. As a result, he has been unable to travel overseas for the past five years.

The protracted victimisation reached a new stage last month, when Attorney-General Christian Porter personally authorised prosecutions for an alleged breach of the Intelligence Services Act by “conspiring” to “communicate” ASIS information—charges that carry a maximum of two years’ imprisonment (recently extended to ten years). Under this legislation, it is a crime even to report ASIS operating illegally.

The case had been scheduled for an initial directions hearing in the ACT magistrates court last Wednesday, but the hearing was postponed until September 12. The government will reportedly attempt to have the case heard in secret, another anti-democratic move aimed at preventing any further public scrutiny.

In Dili, East Timor’s capital, protests were held on Monday outside the hotel where Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop arrived for the first Australian ministerial visit to the country in five years. The demonstration called for an end to the prosecution, but Bishop defiantly told reporters East Timor’s government agreed it was “a matter for Australia.”

Similar protests were also held in the Australian cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin.

The legal establishment has met the government prosecution with a degree of shock. Professor Spencer Zifcak of Australian Catholic University, formerly of Liberty Victoria, noted that the initial bugging of Timorese government offices, ordered by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, amounted to criminal trespass; the seizure of Timorese government documents in 2013 violated international law covering diplomatic immunity; and the theft of Collaery’s legal advice to the Timorese government and Witness K “transgressed the law underpinning the confidentiality of lawyer-client communications.”

Zifcak concluded: “It might have been more appropriate if the people in the dock were the former Minister for Foreign Affairs [Downer] and the former Director of ASIS.”

The government is proceeding with the full backing of the opposition Labor Party. For decades, Australian imperialism has pursued its ruthless exploitation of East Timor with bipartisan consensus, beginning with the Whitlam Labor government’s endorsement of Indonesia’s invasion of the former Portuguese territory in 1975.

In 2013, Labor leader Bill Shorten refused to criticise the ASIO-AFP raids on Collaery and Witness K, declaring: “If it’s a matter of national intelligence then we’re not able to comment and that is the convention.” In 2016, Collaery revealed that Julia Gillard, Labor prime minister between 2010 and 2013, authorised secret surveillance of his offices and home, as well as Witness K’s home, after she rejected a confidential request for arbitration over the Timor espionage operation.

Four crossbench parliamentarians—lower house independent Andrew Wilkie, Senator Rex Patrick, Senator Tim Storer, and Greens’ Senator Nick McKim—wrote to AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin on July 12, requesting an investigation into whether the spy operation against Timor-Leste was illegal. “We believe that an investigation is required to determine whether the actions by Australian government officials in this matter constituted a conspiracy to defraud,” they wrote.

Any such investigation would be a coverup. The AFP has been involved in numerous Australian government provocations in Timor and across the South Pacific.

The Greens and crossbenchers are denouncing the specific spying operation in 2004 in an effort to clean up the image of the continued international activities of Australian intelligence agencies—especially in the South Pacific, where the Greens have long demanded a heightened military-intelligence presence to shut out rival powers.

The prosecution of Collaery and Witness K is bound up with the wider drive toward a US-led military confrontation of China, which the Australian ruling elite is committed to supporting. The Turnbull government, like its predecessors, clearly regards the exposure of the 2004 spying operation as an intolerable breach of official secrecy. Australia’s ongoing role in the US-led “Five Eyes” global surveillance network depends on the successful suppression of any public exposure of the daily crimes committed by the imperialist spy alliance.

The Collaery-Witness K prosecution was revealed following the passage of the repressive “foreign interference” laws. They include sweeping provisions that will allow any intelligence agency whistleblowers, together with those who assist or publish their disclosures, to be prosecuted with greater ease, on even more serious charges.

Canberra has particular responsibility delegated to it by Washington in maintaining control over East Timor and the South Pacific. In recent years, China has increased its economic and diplomatic presence in the region, triggering stepped-up Australian government efforts to minimise Beijing’s influence and prevent any Chinese military presence.

The 2004 espionage operation and subsequent persecution of those who exposed it point to the provocations and dirty tricks that Australian imperialism will use to maintain its geo-strategic dominance.

ABI management demands more concessions, job cuts

Laurent Lafrance

Almost eight months after locking out the 1,030 workers at the Aluminerie de Bécancour Inc. (ABI) aluminum smelter in Bécancour, Quebec, its co-owners—Alcoa and Rio Tinto-Alcan—are demanding even more concessions and threatening massive job cuts.

In its “final” offer last December, ABI demanded the scrapping of the workers’ defined-benefits pension scheme and its replacement by an entirely worker-funded plan. Management also sought to gut seniority rights.

On January 11, the company locked out the workers after they overwhelmingly rejected its concessions demand.

In March, when ABI representatives met with United Steelworkers (USW) Local 9700 officials, they provocatively announced that the December “final offer” was no longer valid and that workers would have to accept even more draconian concessions if they wanted to go back to work. They then refused to even spell out what their new concession demands were.

When negotiations finally did resume in the late spring, the union agreed to a news blackout that keeps the membership entirely in the dark not only about the employer's demands, but also the extent to which the union has already ceded to management.

The few snippets of information the union has released underscore that the aluminum giants are intent on imposing a major defeat on the ABI workers, so as to boost profits and intimidate workers at their facilities worldwide.

According to the USW, the company has said it intends to slash the ABI workforce by 20 percent or more than 200 jobs. Management subsequently confirmed that it is planning to use the lockout to “adjust its organizational structure ... thanks to a wave of retirements.”

In reality, the months-long lockout has already led a significant number of ABI workers to take early retirement.

This suggests that a major consideration behind the company’s readiness to endure a drawn-out conflict was its desire to slash the ABI workforce.

If ABI management is able to act in such an arrogant and provocative manner, it is due to the criminal role being played by the corporatist, pro-capitalist USW leadership. While rank-and-file workers are determined to fight back, the USW Local 9700 leadership, the USW bureaucracy as a whole and the Quebec Federation of Labour and Canadian Labour Congress, have systematically isolated their struggle.

The USW has refused to appeal for any solidarity action from its hundreds of thousands of members across Quebec, Canada and North America. The union bureaucracy is bitterly hostile to making the ABI workers’ struggle the spearhead of a broader counteroffensive by the working class to overturn decades of wage cuts, speed-ups and concessions and to oppose capitalist austerity.

Dominic Lemieux, assistant to the director of the USW (Quebec), tacitly acknowledged the bankruptcy of the union’s strategy when he admitted that “the little stream that separated the parties in January is becoming a gaping chasm.” USW local 9700 President Clément Masse acknowledged that since ABI made its latest demands, the negotiations have reached a complete deadlock. Last Wednesday, Masse declared that “nothing was happening” and that he hadn’t heard from special mediator Lucien Bouchard in two weeks.

The union has repeatedly signaled its readiness to collaborate with management to impose rollbacks on its members so as to ensure the company’s “competitiveness”—i.e., to boost its profits. “We were already close to an agreement on the pension plan issue prior to the lockout in January … and we have since made some overtures to try to resolve the employee turnover issue,” said Masse. “But the employer has responded by backtracking on several issues that were settled for all intents and purposes.”

Even though the multinationals Alcoa and Rio Tinto pocketed billions in profits last year, they are determined to extort major concessions from the ABI workers so as to set new, low-cost benchmarks for their worldwide operations. ABI management and the employer lobby group, the Aluminum Association of Canada, have repeatedly cited lower labour costs in China, a major aluminum producer, as a competitive threat.

Despite such open admissions by the bosses, the USW has sought to to conceal the real motives behind ABI’s decision to impose a lockout. Union officials have claimed, for example, that the company is chiefly concerned with pressuring the Quebec government to obtain better electricity tariffs. The union feigned surprise when ABI imposed the lockout, even though its co-owners have repeatedly used this strategy to extort givebacks.

Instead of seeking to rally support for the ABI workers from workers in Quebec, across North America and around the world, whose jobs and social rights are under similar attack from the corporate elite and pro-big business governments of all political stripes, the USW is focused on issuing pathetic appeals to Alcoa and Rio Tinto’s wealthy shareholders and on acting as corporate counselors for ABI. “Aluminum prices are healthy right now, so each month that this dispute drags on represents lost revenues and profits,” Masse recently declared.

The USW's determination to isolate and betray the ABI workers' anti-concessions struggle is emboldening management to go further still. This was illustrated by the comments of Alcoa CEO Roy Harvey, who declared that the company is considering investing in the Bécancour facilities. Such declarations, which carry the implicit threat of a plant shutdown if management doesn't get its way, have been frequently used to pressure workers to accept concessions. The Steelworkers have a long history of conniving in this blackmail, including in the aluminum industry.

In June, USW leaders successfully prevailed over workers at Rio Tinto-Alcan’s Alma, Quebec facility, forcing them to reopen and possibly extend their collective agreement. Rio Tinto has said contract changes, i.e., concessions, are a prerequisite for it to make new investments.

The USW's anti-worker policies go hand in hand with its promotion of right-wing, nationalist politics that divide workers and tie them to trade war and militarism. The union enthusiastically endorsed US President Donald Trump's tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, merely appealing for Canada to be excluded so as to target the protectionist measures more directly at China.

With Trump refusing to withdraw his tariffs, the USW has now also lent support to Trudeau's retaliatory tariffs, while continuing to argue that Canada should be exempt because it is a staunch “ally” of the US in its predatory wars and, to use the words of Steelworker President Leo Gerard, “Canadian steel and aluminum” are vital for “US tanks and warplanes.”

In Quebec, the USW, in collaboration with five other unions, is mounting an “anti-Liberal, anti-CAQ” campaign that effectively translates into stumping for the election of a Parti Quebecois (PQ) government in the Oct. 1 provincial election. A right-wing, nationalist party, the PQ has presided over devastating attacks on the working class whenever it has held power, including sweeping social spending cuts and the criminalization of strikes.

If ABI workers are to prevail over Rio Tinto and Alcoa, they must seize control of their struggle from the hands of the United Steelworkers. Workers should form an independent action committee that would appeal for support from industrial and public sector workers across Quebec and the rest of Canada, and reach out to fellow workers in the United States and internationally, to initiate a joint counteroffensive against all concessions, in defense of public services and workers’ rights.

Tesla assembles cars in a tent amid investigations of workplace safety

Toby Reese

Over the past month, California-based electric automaker Tesla has added an additional assembly line for its latest Model 3 vehicle inside a large tent in the parking lot of its Fremont manufacturing facility. Numerous press reports about Tesla’s operations cite unsafe working conditions, lack of air conditioning, and reduction in quality control. As one commentator observed, production in this manner has not been seen “outside of the military trying to service vehicles in a war zone.”

Along with individual private investors, Tesla’s rapid entrance into the auto market has been backed by Daimler AG and Toyota, as well as by loans from the US Department of Energy. Yet the company continues to show a significant net loss, $2.2 billion in 2017 alone, as it attempts to work out assembly line methods to expand its production and compete with auto manufacturers that have been in the business for decades.

The makeshift operation in Fremont began as the company attempted to speed up production of the Model 3 to meet already overdue promises for a waiting list of customers as well as for the company to start turning a profit to meet the increasingly insistent demands of investors. The new conditions of production at Tesla have led to the opening of further investigations by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) into worker safety violations, on top of previous cases already under way.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated on Twitter that the tent was created based on the need for “another general assembly line to reach 5k/week Model 3 production,” and that he’s “Not sure we actually need a building. This tent is pretty sweet.” Musk had reportedly been sleeping on the floor of the factory and had, by some accounts, been yelling at employees in order to speed up production. Business Insider noted that on June 26, in another effort to speed up production, Tesla asked engineers to quit doing a car safety check known as a “brake-and-roll test.”

Shortly after starting the additional assembly line in the tent, Musk tweeted on July 1 that the plant had finally reached its previously stated production goals by making “7000 cars, [in] 7 days” (the additional 2,000 units being Model X and Model S vehicles).

The tent was constructed in three weeks after hastily receiving building permits from the City of Fremont, and the new assembly line was rigged up using scraps and spare parts lying around the facility. Tesla was given approval to use the tent for six months initially with a possible six-month extension. The use of a tent for auto manufacturing is unheard of and immediately raises questions of adequate infrastructure, including plumbing, electrical, mechanical systems, fire sprinklers, fans, and ventilation ducts.

In June, Musk announced a 9 percent cut of its workforce in a “company-wide restructuring” to “reduce costs and become profitable.” This translated to the jobs of over 3,500 employees from Tesla’s total workforce of around 37,000 at the time.

After the layoffs, many employees responded to Musk’s notification on Twitter. While some confused posts went so far as to praise Musk for the opportunity to work at Tesla even though they had just lost their positions, others spoke of the lack of respect they were being shown despite diligent service.

Abdu Marquez stated, “I was one of the most loyal hard working you had. I sacrificed so much for your company even my daughters birth due because I couldn’t leave the production line unattended. This layoff tells me that Tesla doesn’t respect or care about loyalty anymore. I pushed and pushed everyday. …”

There are currently more than 10,000 workers at the company’s single production facility, which is now running 24 hours per day, seven days a week. Workers at the plant have expressed concern about burn-out after working 12 hours or more per day for up to six days a week, including mandatory overtime and weekend shifts with little advance notice. Some workers have claimed that they have been told to work until the daily quotas have been met, even if it means to keep working past the end of their scheduled shifts.

There are several investigations currently under way by Cal/OSHA regarding workplace injuries at the plant. Recent media reports of workplace violations and injuries source back to an independent media non-profit known as The Center for Investigative Reporting, which publishes on the web, radio, podcast, and social media under the name Reveal .

The first Cal/OSHA investigation was opened on April 12 after an employee working for a subcontractor was reportedly hit by a skid carrier, breaking his jaw. A second investigation was opened on April 17 directly after Revealreleased a report that Tesla had been inaccurately recording injuries as “personal medical” cases instead of “workplace injuries,” causing the company to under-report on its injury logs. In a May article, reporter Will Evans shows that the company added 13 injuries from 2017 to OSHA logs after the company had produced its legally mandated injury report earlier this year.

Another investigation was initiated by Cal/OSHA on June 19, the details of which are not yet clear. Considering the correlation with start of assembly in the parking lot tent, the events very well may be related.

In both 2015 and 2016, Tesla’s injury rate of 8.8 and 8.1 injuries per 100 workers, respectively, compared to the industry national average of 6.7 and 6.2 per 100 workers. Significantly as well, “serious injuries” requiring days of work or job restrictions were almost double the national average for each year.

Tesla claimed in a blog post on April 16 that Reveal ’s article “paints a completely false picture of Tesla” and “is in fact an ideologically motivated attack by an extremist organization working directly with union supporters to create a calculated disinformation campaign against Tesla.” Musk has tweeted comments along the same lines.

Although no evidence was presented by Musk or Tesla to contradict Reveal, the United Auto Workers (UAW) is pursuing a self-serving, duplicitous, campaign in order to secure increased income by securing bargaining rights over the Tesla workforce.

The UAW has reportedly spent more than $422,000 on its Tesla campaign—renting office space and hotel rooms, and purchasing videos, t-shirts, ads and campaign flyers—in an attempt to unionize workers. The campaign has been met with little success. Although Musk claims this is due to the union’s interests not being “aligned with Tesla’s mission to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy,” many workers are aware of the treacherous policies of the UAW at the very same location when it was operated by General Motors (GM) and later by GM and Toyota as the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc.

At that time, the UAW attempted to channel anger behind bankrupt appeals to American nationalism, while refusing to organize any opposition to the closure of the plant. In 2010, worker anger erupted in a union meeting when UAW officials tried to prevent workers from speaking.

Workers are also no doubt following the current proceedings in Detroit where, at the writing of this article, former UAW President Dennis Williams has been implicated in a scheme to funnel millions of dollars from Fiat Chrysler into the pockets of UAW officials. The payouts included spending on resort and spa fees, lavish meals and other perks that were intended to keep the UAW “fat, dumb, and happy.”

Workers should place no stock in UAW nor should they trust the outspoken Musk for their workplace conditions, benefits and pay. To bring about genuine change in production, they will need to take their own independent initiative in the formation of rank-and-file committees and develop a socialist perspective to understand the attacks on their livelihoods.

Benalla affair destabilises Macron government in France

Francis Dubois

For the first time since becoming president a year ago, Emmanuel Macron is confronting a media and parliamentary campaign, triggered by the “Benalla affair,” which is destabilising both him and his ruling party, The Republic on the March (LRM). Last week, the pressure on Macron, who has refused to speak publicly on the affair, reached a new peak.

The affair began on July 19, when Le Monde identified a close collaborator of the president, Alexandre Benalla, captured on video violently beating demonstrators on May Day in Paris. Violations of normal police procedure have since been tied directly to Macron's personal security staff and to high-level officials of the Parisian police, notably those tasked with “managing” political demonstrations.

At present, Macron faces a counteroffensive from sections of the police apparatus that have publicly reproached him for improper interference in their operations. The prefect of Paris, speaking before a parliamentary commission established on Friday, denounced the “unacceptable, condemnable outgrowth of unhealthy cronyism.”

Benalla, Fabien Crase—the head of security for LRM—and three top police officials connected to them have been placed under investigation. Benalla was sacked by the Elysée presidential palace on charges of “public violence” the day after Le Monde's revelations. Crase was sacked for the same charge.

Macron on Tuesday refused to respond publicly after deputies and leaders of political parties requested that he testify before a parliamentary commission of inquiry. Some raised the possibility of impeaching the president, which has never taken place before in the history of the French Republic.

The police forces and the parliamentary opposition parties leading the offensive against Macron are no less reactionary than Macron himself. They defend social austerity and militarism as much as he does. The Assembly and the Senate have sought to exploit the scandal to block Macron's anti-democratic constitutional reform aimed at expanding presidential powers. Their criticisms of the Elysée, however, are aimed above all at defending the same police forces exposed on video engaged in arbitrary violence against the population.

The depositions of Interior Minister Gérard Collomb, the prefect of police and the director of public security were damaging to the presidency. The first two refused to take any responsibility and pointed the finger at Macron, and the third contradicted the declarations from the Elysée that the police had authorised Benalla to attend the demonstration.

One of the most persistent charges against Macron is that the Elysée is building a parallel police force—essentially an illegal militia—independent of the police apparatus that is normally responsible for the president's security. Another is that, despite knowing about the events in question starting on May 2, neither the interior ministry nor the presidency alerted the public prosecutor, though they are required to do so by law.

Compromising revelations continue to emerge around Benalla. After having been “sanctioned” on May 2, according to the Elysée, he continued his functions as the head of presidential security and was afterward reportedly provided with exorbitant privileges for his role as a “project leader,” including a monthly salary approaching 10,000 euros.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the head of Unsubmissive France (LFI), the pseudo-left ally of Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain, is playing a leading role in this crisis, exploiting his close ties with the police, intelligence agencies and the military.

The “commission of inquiry” of the Assembly has been convoked largely upon Mélenchon’s initiative, to keep the crisis engulfing the French presidency from precipitating a movement of the working class against Macron. Mélenchon proposed a motion of censure against the government, which was taken up on Monday by The Republicans (LR), the official right-wing party.

Last week, Mélenchon stated that he had above all sought to “ensure that an extremely grave crisis be resolved through a controlled institutional framework. I have always sought to find a resolution in the framework of a parliamentary democracy. This has been prevented by the actions of the president of the Republic.” He underlined that “what is important is an institutional resolution, that politics continue to unfold in an orderly way.”

As for the parliamentary commission of inquiry, the so-called opposition to Macron has functioned since July 19 as one party engaged in one political operation.

This united front, which includes, in addition to the governmental LRM, the neo-fascistic National Front (now renamed the National Rally), Mélenchon's LFI, the LR, as well as the Socialist Party (PS) and the French Communist Party (PCF). The central axis of this operation is an unflagging defence of the police and its violent attacks on protesting workers and students. The more the Benalla affair exposes the illegal violence of the state apparatus targeting the population, the more aggressively the ruling elite rallies around the police forces.

The violence in Paris on May Day began when the police attacked a contingent of 1,200 masked members of the Black Bloc—which is known to be heavily infiltrated by police agents—who had inserted themselves into the demonstration. Large sections of the media and the political establishment denounced the protesters as “hooligans.”

The government and the unions exploited the confrontations to demand an end to the strikes and demonstrations. Macron let it be known that he could order the dissolution of the political organizations that were involved. On Twitter, he declared: “I condemn with absolute firmness the violence which took place and which diverted the protests of May 1. Everything will be done to ensure that the instigators are identified and held to account for their actions.”

One of the underlying criticisms against Macron in official circles has been that by failing to intervene after Benalla was identified on social media after May 1, he discredited the official police account of the May Day clashes.

In the factional conflict now underway within the ruling elite, all sides are deeply hostile to the working class and desperate to block the emergence a renewal of workers’ struggles. The allegations of corruption and impropriety being hurled back and forth at the highest echelons of the state are aimed at stoking a right-wing pro-police climate and settling tactical differences with Macron and the Elysée via the methods of a palace coup.

British police and intelligence using children as spies

Steve James 

British police and intelligence forces were revealed last week to be using children as spies. The filthy practice affects an unknown number of young people and has been ongoing for an unknown time period. Some child spies are reported to be under 16 years of age. The exposure only came to public attention because of concerns raised by the House of Lords committee charged with scrutinising secondary legislation.

According to the scrutiny committee’s 35th report, the government was seeking to amend both the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 and a Draft Investigatory Powers Order 2018 by revising codes of practice on “aspects of covert surveillance.” The change aimed to increase from one to four months the period over which a young person can be utilised as a “CHIS” [Covert Human Intelligence Source] without further authorisation.

The government’s intention, according to answers from the Home Office to the scrutiny committee, appeared to be to make life easier for the police and “law enforcement agency stakeholders.”

Currently a “juvenile CHIS” can only be authorised for one month at a time. The unfortunate child spy “may not have been able to complete the tasking within the initial one month.” By extending the authorisation to four months, the government sought to remove pressures to demonstrate quick results or meet authorisation deadlines.

The Home Office hinted that “pressure to obtain results” could be “unhelpful to the juvenile CHIS,” could make it “more difficult to ensure the safety and welfare of the young person” and “could lead to the investigation progressing in a way that does not achieve the best long term result.”

No examples were provided or requested of the specific ordeals and disasters into which young people have been pitched to complete their “taskings”. But even the measured language of committee chair and former Conservative minister Lord Trefgarne indicated alarm.

Trefgarne wrote to Home Office minister Ben Wallace raising concerns that the extension of the authorisation “may be founded on administrative convenience as it does not make clear how the welfare of the young person in this situation will be taken into account.”

Trefgarne noted that those consulted on the change included “representatives of the police, intelligence agencies, National Crime Agency, Crown Prosecution Service, College of Policing and the National Policing leads for CHIS and undercover policing.” He pointed out that the list “does not mention consultation with organisations or professionals that might be expected to offer views on the mental and physical welfare of juveniles.”

He continued, stating the obvious, “We are concerned that enabling a young person to participate in covert activity for an extended period of time may expose them to increased risks to their mental and physical welfare.” He noted the committee’s “considerable anxiety concerning the principle of employing young people —sometimes very young people—in this way.” The committee noted that it did not understand how police and intelligence handlers would know how to assess the impact of undercover operations on a young person’s mental health.

Wallace’s response revealed the type of operations into which the British authorities have thought it fit to pitch young people.

He wrote: “Given that young people are increasingly involved, both as perpetrators and victims, in serious crimes including terrorism, gang violence, county lines drugs offences and child sexual exploitation, there is increasing scope for juvenile CHIS to assist in both preventing and prosecuting such offences. They may have unique access to information about other young people who are involved in or victims of such offences.”

Trefgarne commented: “These are serious, violent crimes and we have grave concerns about any child being exposed to such an environment.” He expressed surprise that Wallace was “unable to give any information on the number of juveniles so authorised.”

A former undercover police officer, Neil Woods, told the Guardian: “It sounds like infiltration to me, direction and infiltration.” Woods made clear the grossly manipulative means used by the authorities. “It’s basically a kid that has been caught for the first time and, instead of rescuing them they are sending them back in.” Woods warned that infiltrating juvenile spies into the illegal drugs trade would only heighten the dangers facing every young person caught up in the industry.

The exposure generated a wave of revulsion and condemnation from rights organisations.

Rights Watch (UK) told the Guardian: “Enlisting children as foot soldiers in the darkest corners of policing, and intentionally exposing them to terrorism, crime or sexual abuse rings—potentially without parental consent—runs directly counter to the government’s human rights obligations.”

The group continued, “Under domestic and international law, decisions which affect children must be taken in their best interests. Their welfare must be the primary consideration. It is difficult to imagine any circumstance where it would be in a child’s best interest to be used as an informant.”

CAGE, the group set up to in 2003 to expose the arbitrary imprisonment and torture of prisoners held by the US government at Guantanamo Bay, warned in a press statement: “In addition to the flagrant disregard for the rights of children, it is possible that youths caught for crimes are ‘re-deployed’ into spying operations, and then undergo surveillance themselves while spying, for vetting purposes.”

CAGE continued, “Serious questions then arise as to whether these ‘juveniles’ are being coerced into spying to avoid prosecution; this would amount to ‘state sanctioned child abuse’.”

The group’s research director Asim Quresh explained, “This is nothing more than the recruitment of child soldiers in a more sugar-coated guise.” He continued, “We thought it was bad when MI5 was shown to be taking advantage of the vulnerable including the mentally challenged, but this approach is even more cynical and abusive.”

The response from the leading political parties combined hand wringing along with a preference for the policy to be better managed. Green Party peer Jenny Jones intended to raise a “motion of regret” in the House of Lords.

For her part, Diane Abbott, Labour’s shadow home secretary, called for the practice to end. Abbot made clear, however, the terms on which she considered it could continue: “There appear to be no guarantees from the government that safeguarding measures are in place, no indication of parental authorisation, and no detail on whether these ‘child spies’ are given any support once they have finished with them.”

A spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May took the cue from the Labour Party. Child spies, Downing Street reassured, “are used very rarely and they’re only used when it is necessary and proportionate. ... The use is governed by a very strict legal framework.”

A Guardian editorial summed the matter up, pointing to the extreme vulnerability of the young people most likely to fall into the clutches of the police and intelligence agencies. Teenagers targeted for use as undercover agents were victims of “years of austerity which have stretched services to breaking point.” Nevertheless, the authentic voice of what little remains of British liberalism concluded: “If there is a case for their use it should be made openly, with provision of appropriate evidence and a full discussion of the necessary safeguards and oversights.”

Hundreds of residential tower blocks still covered in Grenfell-type flammable cladding

Margot Miller 

Thirteen months after the Grenfell Tower fire in London that killed 72 people, tens of thousands throughout the UK are still residing in tower blocks covered in flammable cladding.

Despite government promises, 297 tower blocks remain wrapped in cladding with an aluminium composite material (ACM). ACM, and the inept manner in which it was attached to the building, was the main factor contributing to the rapacious fire spread at Grenfell Tower, where a small fire breached one flat and within half an hour engulfed the whole building.

The role of the cladding in the fire speed and spread was confirmed at the government inquiry begun September 14 last year. The cladding was chosen because it was cheaper than a non-combustible 

By contrast, another fire, on July 3, on floor 16 of Whitstable House Tower block in North Kensington—adjacent to the charred remains of Grenfell—was easily contained and doused by firefighters. In this instance, the block was not encased in ACM. Whitstable, despite many other problems, had its original fireproof concrete exterior.

In May this year, the Conservative government pledged £400 million to remove ACM from council and housing association blocks. The money is being taken from the Affordable Homes Programme—itself an inadequate government response to the burgeoning UK housing crisis.

Yet only seven tower blocks have had remedial work done. According to Inside Housin g, in “August, then communities secretary, Sajid Javid wrote to the sector to say it [the government] expected landlords to meet the cost. Since then it has resolutely refused to budge on providing a penny towards the work.”

Similarly, in the private sector, remediation is barely moving.

The 132 private blocks identified as having ACM are a gross underestimation, said Inside Housing. Many buildings have not been tested. In 74 percent of cases, the government has not been informed of remediation plans. Work has begun on only 23 with only 4 decladded.

Private sector leaseholders are as concerned as public sector tenants. In many cases, their landlords—the freeholders who own the land where the blocks stand (who may or may not be the original developer)—are demanding flat owners or insurers pay remediation costs.

The then-Housing Minister Dominic Raab said “private sector companies should not pass costs onto leaseholders.” At a Westminster meeting, Head of Building Safety Programme Neil O’Connor said the government informed developers by letter that leaseholders should not pay.

Even when developers concur, this does not resolve the legal tangle of who foots the bill.

Developer Galliard Homes, builder of 1,000 ACM-covered homes in Capital Quay in Greenwich, London, has lodged a claim in the high court against insurer NHBC—hoping the court will rule the insurer pays the £25-£40 million remediation bill.

To date, only four developers or insurers have agreed to finance remediation of tower blocks they neglected to make safe in the first place.

Developer Barratt eventually agreed to put right the Cityscape block in Croyden, at a cost of £2 million, despite a tribunal ruling that residents should pay. Last November, Legal and General agreed to cover the cost of recladding a 330-home development in Hounslow. Taylor Wimpey has agreed to pay for safety work at a development in Glasgow Harbour. Developer Mace confirmed it would finance the recladding on its £225 million Greenwich Square project in London.

A property tribunal recently decided in favour of Property giant Pemberstone against the residents of private blocks Vallea Court and Cypress Place, in the Green Quarter of Manchester.

The 345 flats were built in 2013 by international conglomerate Lendlease. Lendlease sold the freehold on to Pemberstone, which receives leasehold payments from the flat owners.

The tribunal ordered the residents to pay £3 million for recladding, fire patrols and Pemberstone’s legal fees, through a hike in their annual service charge.

Many residents bought their homes under the government’s help-to-buy scheme. They represented themselves at the tribunal after crowd-funding raised £11,000 for legal advice.

One resident expressed his utter frustration to the BBC’s current affairs programme File on 4. “I purchased my flat from major developer Lendlease with a 10-year warranty,” he said. “Any responsible company would have been rushing to get the cladding off, but they’re all passing the buck, saying it’s not us.”

Residents were also enraged to learn that Manchester’s Labour-led council is considering awarding Lendlease a £190 million contract to refurbish the city’s historic town hall.

Greater Manchester Labour Mayor Andy Burnham expressed his party’s indifference to the dangers facing occupants of high-rise blocks wrapped in ACM. All he offered residents of Vallea Court and Cypress Place were vague assurances stating that the “High Rise Taskforce, which I established immediately following the Grenfell tragedy, [means] Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service now works…to ensure the right fire safety measures are in place until the cladding can be replaced.”

Spruce Court with cladding removed on just the first three floors

Residents whose lives are at risk are growing angry. The WSWS spoke to council tenants in Salford, north west England. In Salford, there are 29 blocks covered with ACM cladding—the highest concentration in the UK.

Labour-run Salford City Council, led by Mayor Paul Dennett—a supporter of Labour’s nominally left leader Jeremy Corbyn—runs nine blocks via management company Pendleton Together. The other 20 blocks with flammable cladding used to be council-run but are now owned by housing associations Salix Homes and City West Housing Trust.

Last August, the council announced it was borrowing £25 million to declad its nine blocks.

To date, most of the council flats are like Spruce Court—with cladding removed from the first three floors but no remedial work done.

Eileen, a 55-year-old parent, told WSWS reporters her son lives on floor 16 of Spruce Court. “They’ve gone for the cheapest [cladding]. It all boils down to money. Somebody came round taking photos, just to make us think they’re doing something.”

Alan

Student Alanzi from Kuwait said, “In my country we have 50, 60 floors. We can control any fire. We have building technology to make flats safe. I’m living floor 18 [in Salford], it’s very dangerous, there’s no safety.”

Marlene, from Malus Court, complained about the lack of information from the council or freeholders. “They’re not telling us anything,” she said.

Jon Smith, who is 72, has been an active campaigner for the removal of flammable cladding since the Grenfell fire. WSWS reporters spoke with him at his flat on the sixth floor of Thorn Court.

Jon Smith

Jon was in the middle of folding leaflets to organise a fight back that said “it’s now time to stand united…all nine blocks [managed by Pendleton Together] that still have the cladding on.”

Jon explained that “within 30 minutes of putting a leaflet up in the foyer of Spruce Court, the housing officer removed it from the notice board. The council do not want us coming together. We’ve had enough.”

As to the council’s promises to remove the cladding over the next two years, Jon said, “Two years is rubbish,” pointing out the slow pace of the work. “How’s it going to take two years with nine blocks. It’s a disaster! I’m going to sit outside Brotherton House [Pendleton Together] with a petition. We want this [cladding] removed now, the windows replaced and the electrics checked.

“They’ve asked for a war and that’s what’s going to happen.”