India’s Native Grass Root Health Revolution

Moin Qazi

Women are not dying because of diseases we cannot treat…They are dying because societies have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving

– Mahmoud Fathalla, Chair of the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research

Inclusive growth is now perhaps the strongest buzzword in development discourse. We have all been talking about growth without understanding that development interventions will not be effectual if they don’t benefit all sections of society. The illusion of trickle-down and ripple-effects of growth had kept us on the wrong track for quite long.

Development programmes have delivered good outcomes for some segments of society, but sadly only marginal or zero sum for others. It is this realisation that has prompted policy-makers to draft strategies that can deliver outcomes that benefit everyone. An important new learning is that health or healthcare is a key component of inclusive growth. It is an important piece in the development ecosystem, in independent India too inclusive health was identified as a hallmark of the country’s policy architecture.

As the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) puts it: “Adults in good health are more productive; children in good health do better at school. This strengthens economic performance, and also makes economic growth more sustainable and inclusive”. In fact it is much less expensive to produce healthy children than to keep repairing ill born ones.

Healthcare has now become a critical leverage point where Government action could have the maximum impact. The Government’s development wisdom is now focused on identifying the strategic leverage points where successful action could trigger many supportive reactions rather than fixing everything everywhere.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of an important signpost in the world’s history of healthcare. At a conference on October 25–26 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, the Alma Ata Declaration was adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) with a pledge to focus on primary healthcare. The vision was to bring healthcare closer to people, by creating a network of rural dispensaries.

Since then, there have been continuous efforts for establishing strong primary care systems in local communities in a bid to achieve universal healthcare (UHC). The results have not been uniform on account of several policy deficiencies. The pursuit of ‘vertical’ programmes (targeting a single disease) has resulted in health services functioning in silos, in an uncoordinated manner and being unable to respond to people’s real health needs, which are complex and can be addressed only by a range of healthcare channels.

India now seems to have awakened to the glaring realities of its healthcare system. The National Health Policy 2017, the first comprehensive health policy document after the last policy was issued 15 years ago in 2002, is an evidence of this intent. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi put it, “The National Health Policy marks a historic moment in our endeavour to create a healthy India where everyone has access to quality healthcare.”

The NHP reckons four major contextual changes that perhaps motivated the overall policy approach: Increasing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and certain infectious diseases; robust growth of the healthcare industry; high incidence of catastrophic healthcare spending by households; and an enhanced growth-enabled fiscal capacity of India.

The 71st National Sample Survey (NSS) January-June 2014 revealed that out of the total hospitalisation cases in rural areas, 58 per cent were in private clinics and 42 per cent were in public hospitals.

The corresponding figures for urban areas were 68 per cent in private and 32 per cent in public. Of a total of 628,708 Government beds, only 196,182 are in rural areas. India is regarded as the world’s pharmacy bowl, but ironically, a huge proportion of its population sinks into the poverty pit every year due to highly expensive medicines, mostly for cancer, heart ailments and serious injuries that maim most of the victims.

There is a massive shortage of healthcare professionals in the country and their supply must therefore be expanded rapidly if we want to fulfill our commitments in this sector. Country-wise availability of doctors per million people (World Bank Report) Cuba: 7519, Russia: 3975, China: 3625, UK: 2825, US: 2568, Brazil: 1852, Pakistan: 978, Sri Lanka: 881, South Africa: 818, India: 758, World Average: 1857,

All these point to a need for more local community-owned and community-designed model of healthcare which also incorporates the experience of traditional health systems. In the third century BC, emperor Ashoka is believed to have said, “I am going to propagate medicinal herbs throughout my kingdom to ensure complete accessibility to all my subjects as it is my ethical responsibility to provide good health to all people.”   The country has 750,000 medical practitioners of the traditional medical systems of Siddha, Unani, Ayurveda, and Homeopathy (AYUSH). They receive five and a half years of medical training, and about 70 percent are legally permitted to prescribe allopathic medicines. While most are based in rural areas (unlike their MBBS counterparts), there are few professional options for them and there has been no concerted effort to integrate AYUSH practitioners into the primary care level, which could fill the gap of doctors practicing in these areas.

One of the obvious reasons is the strong resistance from the allopathic practitioners particularly bodies like Indian Medical Council which would not allow dilution of its standards. Several areas continue to be serviced by quacks and faith healers .Wisdom demands that we work out a an acceptable model of healthcare that combines the best features of all systems and is at the same time safe and affordable.

Doctor couple Abhay Bang and Rani

India has been home to several internationally acclaimed home-grown models of community healthcare. The earliest innovators were two doctor couples in Maharashtra: Abhay Bang and his wife, Rani in Gadchiroli and doctor Raj and Mabelle Arole in Jamkhed separated by a distance of 664 kms. The Bangs set up the charity SEARCH (Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health) in 1985, whereas the Aroles founded the Comprehensive Rural Health Project, (CRHP) in 1970. CRHP is a comprehensive approach to primary health care at the community level, mobilising communities to use simple tools, adapted to the local context, to address priority health needs. In 1972, the World Health Organisation officially recognised CRHP’s pioneering work in villages, also known in the global health community as the Jamkhed model. The innovation of this approach lies in involving the communities themselves, especially those who are poor and marginalised, in designing their health and development programmes. Through their ‘Shodh Gram’ hospital, the Bangs operate their home-based new-born care model. This model does not depend upon doctors, nurses, hospitals or expensive equipment. It empowers women to use simple medical knowledge and skills to save their new-borns.

Instead of villagers having to walk for miles to get to the nearest hospital, health visitors (called arogyadoots, which means ‘health messengers’ visit remote locations carrying a small health kit pack on their back. As more women are trained, they pass on their knowledge to others, and entire communities become empowered.

The insistence that patients must be treated in ‘techno-centric’ hospitals by Western-trained physicians is to the minds of Bangs, ridiculous, particularly in rural India, where lack of transport and low income levels make modern healthcare inaccessible.

Prema Gopalan Pinoeer of Arogya Sakhi movement

A relatively recent innovation is the Arogya Sakhi model promoted by Prema Gopalan in western Maharashtra who established the acclaimed non-profit Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP), which selects and trains women who are landless, but have basic education, are interested in healthcare and community service. These Arogya Sakhis are equipped with health devices, such as glucometers, blood pressure machines. Along with a mobile tablet, they visit rural women door-to-door to conduct basic medical tests.

The sakhis charge a nominal fee of Rs 150 from each individual, which includes cost of generation of rep-ort, printing charges, doctor’s fee, conducting tests, and even delivering the reports at door steps. After accounting for all costs, a sakhi is usually able to earn Rs 50 to Rs 70 per beneficiary.

“These women conduct a series of preventive tests using mobile health devices, capture the data by using a tablet and upload the results on the cloud server developed by our technology partner,” says Gopalan. The data is then shared with a doctor, who analyses it and provides a report and prescriptions over the cloud. The sakhis then guide the patients on the treatment and precautions to be taken. Wherever needed, they are referred to SSP’s partner specialist doctors and hospitals for further treatment.

Since many villages have scarce medical facilities, the sakhis are also trained to provide medical help related to minor burns, cuts, joint pains and other ailments, for which they charge nominal fees. The movement has now reached deep pockets. There are now 150 Arogya Sakhis who have reached out to more than 500 villages. They present a unique human resource to be deployed to helping people with both physical and mental disorders.

SSP was awarded the sixth Billionth South Asia Award 2015 in M-Health category for this technology enabled-project implemented in partnership with Sofomo Embed-ded Solutions Pvt ltd. Any visitor to villages, where these community healthcare models are primary drivers of health awareness, will marvel at the ability of these health workers to connect with and explain things to women.

Their lack of education is not a handicap; it is an advantage. They understand how to reach the people who most need reaching: Illiterate, vulnerable and poor village women. They know how they think and live, because they are one of them. Co-designing co-creating, and co-owning health services is an increasingly effective and scalable path to inclusive health. Putting people and communities in charge of their own healthcare leads to better outcomes and increased productivity by leveraging traditional knowledge and local healing plant material.

The government too has embraced the lessons from these grassroots initiatives and the public health programmes are modeled round them. The community health worker, including cadre such as the ASHA worker and the Auxiliary Nurse Midwife, are indeed the foundation of our public health care system. They have played a central role in the success of our public health programmes which substantially reduced maternal and child mortality.

An ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) is a community worker who is appointed   to assist pregnant women to avail themselves of their health entitlements. There is one ASHA for every 1,000 women. Her job is to spread awareness about antenatal care, ensure that women go to hospitals for deliveries, and receive proper care during childbirth and the postpartum period. Many ASHAs accompany women to a health facility for antenatal check-ups, delivery and postnatal check-ups.

Baby Fakira Sidame is an ASHA worker, or frontline health worker in villages in the Yavatmal district of Maharashtra. Chosen by her village as their health representative, Baby mobilizes her community to bring their children for routine immunizations, and provides counselling to pregnant women and new mothers about breastfeeding, vaccinations, hand-washing, and other basic health needs. She also runs a day care centre for young children in the community, providing basic education and lunch.

“Drastic changes have occurred. No one used to do family planning. Many children suffered from polio, many of whom died or were not able to walk. But over the last five years that I have been working, I have been able to reach out to these families through home visits, through meeting them and informing them about better health practices and vaccination. Now there are a lot of changes happening in these communities. People are adopting family planning and coming for vaccination and keeping good hygiene practices. We are trying to do our best and continue to improve our results. Immunization is very important. It is like holy water. It will save children from polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and measles. If a child gets immunized, then my community becomes healthier.

“And similarly, my country will also become healthy. When a hungry child gets fed at my centre, I take great pleasure in seeing that that child is full. Also when a child comes to my centre and gets a vaccination on time. Seeing those cheers on the faces of the children brings me great happiness. That’s what motivates me,” says Baby. A highly laudable vision.

Corporate India too has been quite alive to these indigenous models and has been replicating it through either their CSR or social business programmes. Through ‘Aarogya’, the health initiative under its CSR programme, Tata Motors operates mobile health clinics for remote tribal community outreach, offering last-mile aid. Aarogya also focuses on maternal and child health, with a holistic and balanced approach towards preventive healthcare and curative healthcare interventions. The Company has tied up with nutrition rehabilitation centres across India to raise awareness on the health of children, pregnant women and lactating mother

Arogya Parivar, another successful community-centric health model, is a sustainable   social business initiative by Swiss drug maker Novartis, and not a Corporate Social Responsibility project. Social business is a for-profit model whereas CSR is not-for-profit. The awareness generated in remote villages by the Aarogya Parivar animators is followed-up with a doctor close by or by connecting via the internet to a doctor at a larger hospital who helps with diagnosis. Given the magnitude of the healthcare challenge in India, philanthropy is not enough. We also need scalable business models that take into account the needs of society

At present about 24% of the total spend on CSR is focused on healthcare. However, much of the spending tends to be focused on health camps and building hospitals or donating to hospitals for upkeep of facilities. Health camps tend to have a short-term orientation and are number driven. Setting up and running hospitals are often poorly targeted. There is a need to focus on primary care rather than tertiary care. The local youth could be trained to advice residents on simple treatments. Community health works, supported under CSR, could help with basic diagnostics like blood pressure, pulse, and sugar testing.

India is now a far better placed to make inclusive health a reality. An enormous social capital has been built up over the years. It can be leveraged to support innovations in healthcare for development of new and affordable drugs, therapies or medical devices.

Public policy needs to actively promote those innovations that can accelerate our journey to universal healthcare: Increased access, quality and affordability of health care; increased responsiveness of the system to healthcare needs; greater health equity; autonomy in healthcare choices; and above all, improvements in the social determinants of healthcare.

European Union announces draconian internet censorship measures

Thomas Scripps

The European Union (EU) has advanced plans for the continent-wide censorship of the internet. Giving his final State of the Union speech last Wednesday, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker outlined plans to compel online platforms to take down “terrorist content” within one hour of it being flagged by national authorities.

Failure to comply will result in fines of up to four percent of the offending company’s annual global turnover.

These proposals have vast, grave implications for the democratic right of hundreds of millions of people to access and use the internet freely. The law will mean EU members state governments and national security services will determine what is acceptable for publication on the internet—with no reference to the courts or any kind of democratic oversight. The one-hour time limit for removing content will force platforms to prevent certain postings lest they run the risk of sanctions.

The measure will make little difference to the major tech companies, who are already censoring their platforms and employing tens of thousands of people to enforce it. But the legislation will be used to strictly police more independent outlets. That this will be primarily at the expense of postings seen as “damaging” to the corporate and financial elite is obvious.

The plans envisage a “mitigation procedure” that allows platforms the right to challenge a removal order, but the content must still be removed. Only if an appeal is successful will content be restored to the site.

A critical element in the moves to police and fine the tech giants—who are all US based—is to assert the dominance of Europe’s governments over US corporations. Under conditions of a fracturing of relations between the US and EU, with the launching of reciprocal trade war measures, the European elite wants to ensure that the internet is compatible with their interests.

Once accepted by member states and the European Parliament, the law will formalise across Europe even closer relationships between state security services and tech companies pioneered by Germany and increasingly adopted by other European nations.

The Network Enforcement Act, which came into operation in Germany on January 1, requires operators of internet platforms with over two million users to “remove or block obviously unlawful content within 24 hours of receipt of a complaint.” Failure to comply incurs a fine of €50 million.

Platforms must report to government authorities regularly on their handling of complaints and inform them on who wrote controversial statements. Germany is home to a 10,000 square-meter office building, currently occupied by 1,000 staff, for Facebook’s “fact checkers” in Europe.

In July, the French National Assembly passed an anti-“fake news” bill allowing judges to censor not simply “fake” information, but material containing “any allegation or implying of a fact without providing verifiable information that makes it plausible.”

In August, the UK parliament’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee released an interim report on “fake news” which suggested the government assign verification ratings to web sites and establish “a new category of tech company” with a “clear legal liability” to “act against harmful and illegal content.”

The scale of the censorship planned by the EU is immense.

For the last six months, online platforms have been acting under the guidance of a European Commission official recommendation demanding “proactive measures” against “any information which is not in compliance with Union law or the law of the member state concerned.”

The recommendation was introduced on March 1, with the acknowledgement that online platforms were already censoring their users to an unprecedented degree but insisted that more had to be done.

The EU’s Digital Commissioner Andrus Ansip said at the time, “While several platforms have been removing more illegal content than ever before... we still need to react faster against terrorist propaganda and other illegal content which is a serious threat to our citizens’ security, safety and fundamental rights.”

Prior to this announcement, YouTube had removed nearly two million videos between June and December 2017. Twitter suspended 1.2 million accounts between August 2015 and December 2017, removing 300,000 accounts between January and June 2017. Facebook “took down more than 30,000 fake accounts” during the 2017 French general election. Both Google and Facebook laid out plans to hire more than 10,000 staff to police their content and both put in place algorithms to suppress “untrusted” or “divisive” material on their platforms.

Even this is not enough. More content is to be taken down or be prevented from even being published in the first place. In Juncker’s words, “Whilst significant progress has been made under the EU Internet Forum established in 2015, it is clear that more needs to be done to ensure the engagement of all internet platforms and national authorities to protect Europeans online...”

In response to Juncker’s speech, Facebook issued a statement saying, “There is no place for terrorism on Facebook and we share the goal of the European Commission to fight it, and believe that it is only through a common effort across companies, civil society and institutions that results can be achieved.

“We’ve made significant strides finding and removing terrorist propaganda quickly and at scale, but we know we can do more.”

YouTube said it “shared the European Commission’s desire to react rapidly to terrorist content and keep violent extremism off our platforms.”

Juncker claimed, “Several of the recent terrorist attacks in the EU have shown how terrorists misuse the internet to spread their messages.”

In fact, the most serious terror incidents in Europe have been carried out by organisations or individuals known to the security agencies. A large number have been active in, and supportive of, the proxy forces used by the Western imperialist powers to pursue their geo-strategic aims in the Middle East and Africa.

While the proposed measures deal specifically with “terrorist” content—whose definition will be up to the censors—previous guidelines have used even broader categories of “extremist” or “grossly offensive” material to enforce its removal.

The now default resort to the threat of “terrorism” in order to justify draconian censorship by the authorities is a fraud. These measures have nothing to do with protecting Europe’s population from terror attacks. Rather, they are designed to gag them in the face of austerity, militarism and the build-up of right-wing forces across the continent.

Juncker’s call for unprecedented levels of internet censorship has overwhelming support in the European Parliament and the national parliaments of each EU member state. As the EU fractures under the impact of the global capitalist crisis, one thing its constituent governments agree on is the danger posed by rising social discontent and opposition in the working class. The European Commission’s proposals make clear they will spare no efforts in imposing authoritarian measures to suppress this development.

In April 2017, Ben Gomes, who is responsible for Google’s search engine, met with leading German politicians. Shortly afterwards, Google began censoring the World Socialist Web Site and other anti-war and progressive web sites.

In his April 25, 2017 blog post announcing the changes to Google’s algorithm, Gomes linked to the guidelines issued to the company’s evaluators, which made clear that its search engine should show results from sites presenting “alternative viewpoints” only if “the query clearly indicates the user is seeking an alternative viewpoint.”

Within two months, a manner consistent with this mechanism, many pages from the World Socialist Web Site were removed from search results.

In January of this year, the World Socialist Web Site issued an open letter calling for socialist, anti-war, left-wing and progressive web sites, organizations and activists to join an international coalition to fight internet censorship.

The WSWS explained, “Without access to alternative news and social media, workers in different countries will not be able to effectively coordinate their common struggles. Unfettered access to the Internet will facilitate the international unity of the working class in the global fight for socialism, democracy and equality.”

Russia implicates pro-NATO Ukrainian regime in MH17 shoot-down

Kumaran Ira

On Monday, the Russian Ministry of Defence revealed new details in the shoot-down near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 (MH17) flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014. The crash killed all 298 passengers and crew on board. The Russian Defence Ministry used serial number data to show that the missile that hit the jetliner was produced in 1986, before the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union. It was held by the Ukrainian army.

Just after the crash, Washington and NATO, backed by the Western media, accused Moscow and pro-Russian separatist forces in eastern Ukraine of shooting down MH17. US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power blamed Moscow for downing the flight, stating that there was “credible evidence” that Russia was responsible for the crash. They did not, however, give any hard evidence implicating Moscow.

NATO then stoked an explosive war hysteria targeting Russia and built up its military forces across eastern Europe. It was less than six months after the US-orchestrated, fascist-led coup in February 2014 that toppled pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in Kiev, and installed the far right in power. US and European media denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin as being personally responsible for the shoot-down, with Germany’s Der Spiegel declaring that the time for diplomacy with Russia was over: “The wreckage of MH17 is the wreckage of diplomacy.”

Using data provided by the Ukrainian regime, which obtained veto power over the investigation, the Europol-affiliated Joint Investigation Team (JIT) blamed the crash on Moscow. In May, it concluded that the MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine by a Russian-made Buk missile, supplied by Russia’s 53rd anti-aircraft brigade in Kursk. Wilbert Paulissen, a Dutch JIT investigator, said: “All the vehicles transporting missiles were part of the Russian armed forces.”

Now, however, using the serial numbers provided by the JIT, Moscow has given damning evidence that this missile was in fact under the Kiev regime’s control as it shot down MH17. This refutes NATO charges that Moscow shot down the jet—charges that NATO used to justify a massive military build-up in eastern Europe, on the borders of Russia.

According to the JIT, two serial numbers were found on fragments of the missile, one on the nose, and the other on the craft itself. The JIT claimed that MH17 was shot down by a 9M38-series missile from a Buk missile launcher and that the missile was manufactured in 1986; it also provided the serial number 9032 for the missile’s rocket motor.

Russian officials claimed to have linked these identification numbers to a missile bearing serial number 8868720. It said that the missile was delivered to Ukraine and never sent back to Russia. In a media briefing, Nikolai Parshin, the head of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate, said: “So the missile...on December 29, 1986, was sent by rail to the military unit 20152. It is well known that the missile was received by the military unit.”

The unit is stationed on Ukraine’s western borders, according to Parshin—that is, in territory securely held by the NATO-backed regime: “Separately, I will mention the military unit 20152, where the missile with the number 886847349 was put, its real name is 221 anti-aircraft missile brigade. ... By the decree of the president of Ukraine this unit was renamed into 223 anti-aircraft missile regiment. Currently, this unit is located in the city of Stryi of the Lviv region, they still have the Buk systems.”

The Russian Ministry of Defence said that the documentation for the Buk missile that brought down MH17 is still stored at the Dolgoprudny plant where it was built, and announced that it had sent declassified documents on the missile to the JIT. Parshin explained, “This is a set of technical documentation that is filled at the manufacturing plant for each manufactured product and stored there, regardless of whether it is in Russia or abroad. Among the documents presented to you is a passport for the nozzle cluster 9D13105000 No. 8-30-113.”

Moscow stated that the anti-aircraft missile regiment that received the Buk missile that shot down MH17 was involved in what Kiev called an “anti-terrorist operation,” against Russian-backed rebels of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Parshin added, “It is noteworthy that units of the 223 regiment, since 2014, have repeatedly been involved in the so-called anti-terror operation in Donetsk and Lugansk regions.”

This would have placed the battery in the region of Ukraine where MH17 was shot down. It bolsters Moscow’s previous charges that Ukrainian forces brought down the jetliner.

In response to the Russian revelation, the JIT said it would “meticulously study” its information as soon as it was made available. It also claimed it had always carefully analysed information provided by Russia, and found that information “previously presented to the public and provided to the JIT was factually inaccurate on several points.” However, JIT did not try to rebut the Russian evidence or provide evidence to prove its supposed inaccuracy.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak dismissed Russia’s claims as “another fake story.”

These events cast a cold light on Russia’s post-Soviet capitalist oligarchy’s accommodation to Western imperialism. Unwilling and incapable of appealing to anti-war sentiment in the US and European working class, it oscillates between preparing for nuclear war and trying to work out a deal with what it calls its “Western partners,” all the while giving evidence implicating these “partners” in criminal provocations against Russia.

Nevertheless, a striking difference exists between Moscow’s charges and the hysterical campaign mounted by the NATO powers four years ago to justify a reckless military build-up on the borders of Russia. While Moscow presents evidence to back its claims, NATO issues blanket accusations based only on the say-so of US and European intelligence agencies.

Ever since a US-led coalition invaded Iraq in 2003, claiming that they were invading in order to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that did not in fact exist, Washington and its European allies have been infamous for launching wars and military campaigns based on lies.

Now, it appears the NATO escalation in eastern Europe was similarly based on lies. Claims that only Russia has Buk missiles, and that identifying the missile that brought down MH17 as a Buk in and of itself proved Russian responsibility for the crash, were false. Yet they were used to justify a military build-up that left Europe teetering on the brink of “total war” with nuclear-armed Russia, as French President François Hollande remarked in 2015.

The JIT neither released data from MH17’s black box—taken from Malaysian authorities after the crash and sent to Britain—nor radar data on eastern Ukraine provided by Moscow. Nor did it publish US radar and satellite data on the area. Instead, it relied on wiretaps, photos and brief videos posted by unidentified users to Ukrainian social media and apparently collected by Ukrainian intelligence.

The Russian Ministry of Defence also charged that a video showing Russia’s Buk system in Ukraine is a doctored animation based on one photo. “The images of a tractor, a trailer, and a Buk were built into the image of the corresponding section of the motor road during the production of this video. ... Many signs of falsification of the video recording were also revealed in an episode showing the movement of the Buk in Lugansk,” it reported.

Korean summit yields new agreement, but few tangible results

Ben McGrath

The leaders of the two Koreas signed a declaration on Wednesday following two days of talks in Pyongyang on denuclearization and inter-Korean relations. South Korean President Moon Jae-in travelled to North Korea to hold his third summit this year with Chairman Kim Jong-un. While tensions have appeared to ease, the barely-veiled threat of a US military assault on impoverished North Korea still exists.

With Moon posing as a mediator, the latest agreement is aimed at restarting negotiations between North Korea and the US, which have been stalled since August when US President Trump cancelled Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s scheduled fourth trip to Pyongyang.

The declaration states that the North will take additional steps towards denuclearization and disarmament. During a press conference with Kim broadcast by the South Korean media, Moon stated that the two had discussed specific measures for the first time.

“The North has agreed to permanently shut down its Dongchang-ri missile engine testing facility and missile launch pad under the participation of experts from related countries,” the South Korean president said.

The agreement, according to Moon, also stated: “Contingent upon corresponding measures by the United States, the North will also carry out further measures such as the permanent dismantlement of the Yeongbyeon nuclear facility.” The installation includes North Korea’s only nuclear reactor and an associated plutonium reprocessing plant.

Other parts of the agreement include cooperation on environmental and healthcare issues, reconnecting roads and railways between the two countries this year, and reopening the Kaesong Industrial Park along the border “if favorable conditions materialize.”

Kim promised to visit Seoul by the end of the year as well. In a separate agreement between the North and South military chiefs, the two sides will form an inter-Korean military committee to hold regular consultations.

Both Moon and Kim claimed that the agreement would bring about a new era of peace. Kim stated, “The September declaration will open a higher level for the improvement in relations [between the South and the North]... and bring closer the era of peace and prosperity.”

As with other agreements and declarations though, nothing has actually been resolved. This fact was echoed by Cheon Seon-whun, an analyst at the South Korean think tank, the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, who stated: “No matter how hard I look, I can find no real progress in denuclearization in today’s announcements.”

Pyongyang’s pledge to dismantle the Yeongbyeon nuclear facility comes with the caveat that Washington takes “corresponding measures,” which has consistently been the North’s position.

Washington, however, refuses to relax sanctions or provide any security guarantees unless Pyongyang completely denuclearizes first, a fraught prospect for the North Korean leadership, which is seeking a formal peace treaty to end the Korean War.

North Korea knows the US could tear up any agreement or choose to attack after it disarms. Pyongyang has regularly pointed to Iraq and Libya as examples of Washington’s backstabbing after making disarmament agreements. Trump’s tearing up of the nuclear deal with Iran further underscores that political considerations would dictate resumed threats against the North, not Pyongyang’s actual conduct.

Even if North Korea completely capitulates to US demands, this will not end the danger of war. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Washington has used the supposed North Korean threat as the rationale for maintaining and building up its military forces and hardware in the Asia-Pacific in order to maintain its hegemony in the region.

That Washington may choose to abrogate any future deal stems from this broader strategy, aimed above all at forcing China to submit to the interests of US imperialism, including if need be through waging war on the world’s most populous nation. This was made clear at the beginning of the year when the Pentagon declared that “great power competition” would now be Washington’s primary focus, singling out China and Russia.

For the time being, Washington has welcomed the results of the latest inter-Korean summit. Trump wrote on Twitter: “Kim Jong Un has agreed to allow Nuclear inspections, subject to final negotiations, and to permanently dismantle a test site and launch pad in the presence of international experts.”

However, Kim did not agree to any nuclear inspections, an indication that the measures agreed to in Pyongyang did not go far enough for Washington, which is demanding a list of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and facilities in addition to inspections. Pyongyang has rejected both of these demands.

US Secretary of State Pompeo signalled yesterday that he was prepared to restart talks with North Korea and had invited its foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, to meet during the UN General Assembly session next week in New York. He claimed that talks would result in the “rapid denuclearization” of North Korea, to be completed by January 2021.

Seoul expressed the hope that both sides would go ahead with the proposed second summit between Trump and Kim. In the end though, any talks between Pyongyang and Washington, whose demands the former has previously described as “gangster-like,” would be used to emphasize the US ultimatum that North Korea abandon its alliance with China and join the US war drive, or become the first casualty in the conflict.

Moon has backed this war drive against North Korea and China, including by agreeing to host the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system. However, South Korea envisions turning North Korea into a cheap labor platform and invited leading chaebol officials from Samsung, Hyundai Motors, and SK, among others as part of the delegation to Pyongyang.

These officials met with North Korea’s Deputy Prime Minister Ri Yong-nam, in charge of matters on international economic cooperation. Both sides praised one another as Pyongyang is seeking to attract investment. Sin Han-yong, chairman of the South’s Kaesong Industrial Complex Enterprise Association, stated: “I eagerly hope that inter-Korean economic cooperation projects will develop and expand considerably as a result of the summit.”

The reopening of the Kaesong complex would be just one step towards allowing South Korean companies to exploit the North Korean working class more broadly. Current economic cooperation plans also include resuming tourist trips to the North’s Mount Geumgang and rail and roadway construction.

However, Moon’s statement that economic cooperation would only proceed if “favorable conditions materialize” implies that his government will not violate current US sanctions. Washington has previously expressed dissatisfaction with South Korea’s economic push, warning Seoul not to ease US-led pressure on Pyongyang.

Moon and his delegation returned to the South on Thursday and will travel to New York on Sunday for the United Nations General Assembly meeting. The following day, he will meet with Trump to discuss the outcome of the summit.

Bangladesh garment workers denounce minimum wage offer

Wimal Perera

Hundreds of Bangladesh readymade garment workers demonstrated outside the national press club and other parts of Dhaka last Friday, a day after the government announced a miserable pay offer from the Minimum Wage Board (MWB). Garment workers have not had their pay increased since 2013. They are demanding minimum monthly pay rates be set at 16,000 taka ($US189.63).

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League-led government established the MWB in January in an attempt to dissipate garment workers’ anger over their low pay. The tripartite board has representatives from the employers, national trade union federations and the government.

Labour Minister Mujibul Haque told the media last Thursday that the MWB had recommended the monthly pay be raised from 5,300 taka to just 8,000 taka, effective from December. The “offer,” just half the amount demanded by garment workers, will do nothing to overcome the escalating cost of living. Since 2013, both the general and urban consumer price indexes have risen by a third—from 184.33 to 248.13 and from 180 to 249.31 respectively.

Last Friday’s demonstrations, the latest in a series this year, were organised by the Garment Shramik Odhikar Andolan, a platform of 12 labour organisations, as well as the Garment Workers Trade Union Centre (GWTUC), the Movement for Garment Workers Rights (MGWR) and the Garment Workers Front (GWF). Protests were also planned this week, including local actions outside selected factories tomorrow. Another demonstration in front of the national press club is scheduled for September 28. The limited action is an attempt to divert workers’ demands for national strike action.

Addressing Friday’s protest, MGWR coordinator Mahbubur Rahman Ismail denounced the wage board’s offer as “unrealistic and unfair” and said workers would “stick” to their demand for a 16,000-taka minimum wage. GWF president Ahsan Habib Bulbul proclaimed the new proposal a “farce.” Mujahidul Islam Selim, president of the Stalinist Communist Party of Bangladesh, said the government had “outwitted” the workers and they should push for 21,000-taka monthly pay.

This is empty posturing and a crude attempt by the garment unions and labour rights group leaders to cover up their support for the government’s MWB. They have consistently sought to block a unified movement of garment workers and other sections of the working class against the Hasina government and for decent wages and safe working conditions.

Garment workers have been fighting for wage increases for at least five years. Some 50,000 garment workers protested in Dhaka in September 2013 and about 150,000 workers from over 20 factories in Ashulia and Savar struck for 10 days in December 2016 to demand higher pay.

Fearing that the 2016 strike would draw in other sections of the working class, the Hasina government ruthlessly attacked garment workers, mobilising its Rapid Action Battalion and Border Guard Bangladesh. About 3,500 workers were sacked and more than 1,500, including union officials, were arrested under the state’s special powers act. Workers were prosecuted for “inciting” the agitation, “trespassing,” “vandalism” and “theft.”

Bangladesh is the world’s second largest exporter of readymade garments. The industry employs four million workers, mainly women, who last year produced 83 percent, or $30.6 billion, of the country’s annual export income.

While making huge profits, the garment companies pay the lowest wages in the world. According to a recent survey by the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a Bangladesh think tank, garment workers’ average income covers only 49.9 percent of their family expenditure. The survey found that poverty has led to falling birth rates among garment workers, with 47 percent of married workers having only one child and 27.8 percent not having any children.

The working conditions and social life of garment workers is harsh and dangerous. In 2013, the Rana Plaza garment factory building at Savar in Dhaka collapsed, killing 1,138 workers and injuring 2,000 others. On July 25 this year, hundreds of garment workers rallied outside the Rana Plaza building, demanding pay rises and punishment of the factory owners responsible for the 2013 disaster. The Hasina government responded by deploying police battalions to disperse the protesters.

Concerned about the growing unrest, the Awami League government, the ruling elite and international investors are encouraging the growth of trade unions in order to pre-empt and derail workers struggles. The Centre for Policy Dialogue survey reported that unions do not exist or are not functioning in 97.5 percent of the country’s garment factories.

On September 2, the government passed the Bangladesh Labour (Amendment) Bill 2018, which reduces the proportion of workers required to establish a legally-recognised union at a factory from 30 percent to 20 percent of the workforce. A European Union delegation is scheduled to visit Bangladesh this month to assess the “labour rights situation.”

The unionisation push does not stem from any concern for the plight of workers. As occurs internationally, the government and the companies will use corporatist unions to contain and suppress workers’ opposition and ensure that super-exploitation and massive profits continue.

Turkish government frames up airport construction workers

Jean Shaoul 

An Istanbul court granted the prosecutor’s demand that 24 workers, including two union leaders, involved in last Friday’s mass protests over the lethal working conditions at Istanbul’s new airport, be remanded in custody. The court ordered the release of the remaining 19 on condition they were subject to judicial monitoring.

These 43 workers are just a fraction of the hundreds of workers arrested during protests. Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin said that 401 people had been detained, either for refusing to work or “trying to provoke others.” Sahin claims some 275 had been released, although the unions say many more have been arrested.

The 24 face provisional charges such as “damaging public property,” “violating laws on assemblies and rallies,” “resisting police” and “violating freedom to work,” but could face additional charges. This is a travesty of the truth and as such, sets the stage for the beginning of a vindictive and ruthless frame-up trial.

There is every indication that the authorities are seeking to make an example of these workers to intimidate and repress all opposition to the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) efforts to place the full burden of Turkey’s economic crisis on the working class.

Pro-government media even described the protesting workers as “terrorists.” Kadir Kurt, organizing secretary at the builders’ union Insaat-Is, told the website al-Monitor, “We were publicly called terrorists. We cannot understand the reaction a legal protest created. These workers were asserting their democratic rights.”

He said the crackdown was “aimed at stirring fear to prevent workers elsewhere from demanding their rights … which are all written into law and the violation of which should be subject to prosecution. The biggest problem is that the bosses don’t regard the worker as a human being.”

The Transportation Ministry said, “This project [Istanbul’s new airport] is Turkey’s project of pride, and no one has the power to stop or obstruct it. As we promised our people, it will open October 29, 2018, honored by our president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”

Last Friday’s mass protests of thousands of workers at the new airport, which is being constructed on a vast 77 million square metre site of former forest and farmland near the Black Sea coast, broke out after a shuttle bus accident left 17 workers injured. The incident was the latest in a raft of industrial accidents at the site, which workers describe as a “graveyard” due to the lack of basic safety protections and pressure to open the first stage of the giant airport by the end of next month.

Hundreds of workers chanted, “We are workers, we are right. We will have our way one way or another.” The hashtag supporting the workers, “#we are not slaves” (#köledegiliz), gained strong support throughout Turkey.

Police and gendarmes used military vehicles, tear gas and water cannon to break up the protests of striking workers, arresting hundreds of workers. The following day, the police carried out dawn raids on the workers’ living quarters near the construction site, arresting dozens of workers who had pledged to continue their protests.

The following day, the police presence was massively ramped up, with one young man telling Deutsche Welle, “Now it’s like a state of emergency here. There are tanks everywhere.” Another 20 people were arrested as they rallied to demand the release of the detained workers.

Workers say they are working as under military conditions. They are being put onto buses under the baton of the police-gendarmerie and working among hundreds of civilian police officers. As a worker told the Construction Workers Union, “They’re really hard on taking pictures. And now they’re looking at our phones.”

Another worker said, “It’s like we’re building a pyramid for a pharaoh. People who lost their lives while doing this pyramid are ignored. Unfortunately, even the people out there don’t know enough about what’s going on here. This perception must change. In any case, people should understand that it is not a crime to seek their rights, and that the only thing that workers do here is to seek their rights.”

The airport workers published a list of their demands that included payment of their wages, no dismissal from their jobs, more shuttle buses and better living conditions, citing the atrocious conditions in their company-supplied container homes near the construction site. Some 15,000 workers sleep in these units, which are infested with fleas and bed bugs, and have uncollected garbage and cracks in the walls and ceilings.

A key demand was for improved safety conditions. Last February, the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet said that the government—which claims that just 27 workers had died from workplace accidents or poor health since construction began in 2015—was covering up as many as 400 deaths at the site, which employs 36,000 workers, and called for the cause of their deaths to be investigated.

Kazim Bayraktar, a lawyer for the workers’ union Insaat-Is, said it was impossible for union members to check the safety precautions because they were not allowed in. He told Deutsche Welle, “It is more difficult to get into this area than into army barracks.” He said it was also almost impossible to contact the families of the deceased because, “The relatives are threatened. That’s how these incidents are prevented from making it into court. It is very difficult for us to get in contact with the families.”

The workers told the newspaper that employers have put pressure on them to increase productivity after several delays in the target opening date. Many deaths go unreported, workers told the newspaper, because the government pays the families of the victims—many of whom live in impoverished villages far away from Istanbul or overseas—as much as 631,433 lira (US$100,000) in “hush money.”

The new airport in Europe’s largest city is one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s flagship projects that he hopes will be the largest in the world. It is being built by a consortium of five Turkish companies that will pay the government about $26 billion to operate it for 25 years.

This and similar mega infrastructure projects launched by the AKP government over the last 15 years have underpinned the growth of the Turkish economy over the last decade. But their estimated $250 billion loans and Treasury guarantees have played a major part—alongside Ankara’s worsening relations with Washington that have led to a doubling of steel and aluminum tariffs last month in retaliation to Turkey’s refusal to release imprisoned US pastor Andrew Brunson—in exacerbating Turkey’s foreign indebtedness and its fiscal and currency crisis.

The lira has fallen by 60 percent relative to the US dollar this year, sending inflation, already around 18 percent, and unemployment, expected to be around 15 percent in August, to new highs. It has forced Erdogan to shelve some of his grand projects in a bid to shore up the economy.

Turkey’s Central Bank has raised interest rates by 6.25 percent to 24 percent—the biggest increase since Erdogan became prime minister in 2003—to prop up the lira, in defiance of Erdogan, who has long opposed any interest rate increase. This will drive many companies to the wall, especially in the construction industry, and many households, saddled with consumer debt, to breaking point.

Erdogan also issued a decree that property agreements must be made in Turkish lira, outlawing indexing to foreign countries, and existing contracts converted within 30 days, in a new bid to prop up the country’s beleaguered currency.

Under these conditions, Erdogan and the ruling clique around him are determined to prevent any opposition that could rapidly escalate into mass class struggles.

Last July, the government ended the two-year-long state of emergency, put in place after the failed coup of July 2016, only to introduce new legislation that gives police-state measures the force of law.

The two-year-long state of emergency was used to sanction the detention of some 160,000 people—77,000 of whom have been formally charged and kept in jail pending trial—the firing of around 150,000 state employees and the annulment of nearly 200,000 passports.

Now the new “anti-terrorism law,” passed in July and renewable in three years’ time, strengthens the authorities’ powers to detain suspects, impose public order and ban public meetings and rallies. It also authorizes the firing of public employees if there are links to or contacts with “terrorist organisations” or other “perceived threats to national security.” This and the new executive presidency give Erdogan sweeping powers to stifle dissent.

Just one month later, the authorities banned a decades-old weekly vigil, whose 700th sit-in in downtown Istanbul was broken up by police, for Turkish victims who “disappeared” while in the custody of state-linked agencies and paramilitary groups.

In another ominous development, the leaders of the AKP and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have also agreed to restore the death penalty, abolished in 2004 as part of the accession talks with the European Union, for “terrorists” and killers of women and children. Following the coup, Erdogan said that he would restore the death penalty “without hesitation,” regardless of the EU’s stance.

The airport workers must be released. There is absolutely no basis for their detention or indictment.

Workers in Turkey and around the world must come to their defense. In challenging their slave-like conditions of employment, they are striking a blow for workers not just in Turkey but around the world. Their defense is a vital step in forging the international unity of the working class that is needed to fight global capital.

Over 5 million children face starvation as US-backed forces attack Yemeni aid port

Bill Van Auken

Soaring food and fuel prices and dwindling supplies have driven another million Yemeni children to the brink of famine, bringing the total number of children facing starvation to 5.2 million, the UK-based aid group Save the Children warned in a report issued Wednesday.

The report appeared as the US-backed coalition led by Saudi Arabia and its fellow Persian Gulf oil monarchies announced an escalation of their offensive against the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, which constitutes the sole lifeline for food, medicine and fuel for some 80 percent of the country’s population.

Save the Children warned that any disruption in the supplies flowing through Hodeidah could “cause starvation on an unprecedented scale” and risk killing “an entire generation of Yemeni children.”

The United Nations food agency, meanwhile, reported that it anticipates its current estimate of 8.4 million Yemenis confronting famine will rise by another 3.5 million, given rising food prices—35 percent over the past year alone—and the collapse in the value of the country’s currency.

“Time is running out for aid agencies in Yemen to prevent this country from slipping into a devastating famine,” David Beasley, the executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), warned in a statement Wednesday.

The country is already facing what the UN has termed the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet and the threat of the worst famine in modern history, with the WFP reporting that 18 million Yemenis, almost two thirds of the population, do not know where their next meal will come from.

Conditions have descended to the point that in some areas of the country families are trying to stay alive by eating leaves. In the capital of Sana’a, fuel shortages have led to streets being emptied of vehicles, leaving people unable to transport the wounded and sick to hospitals.

The UN had attempted to negotiate a humanitarian corridor for badly wounded civilians, cancer patients and others who will lose their lives unless they are transported out of the country for medical treatment. But the US-backed Saudi-led coalition has refused to allow planes to transport these people from Sana’a. A report that such flights were imminent led to long lines of people in wheelchairs and mothers carrying their dying babies forming outside Yemen’s health ministry.

New deaths have also been reported as a result of a cholera epidemic—the worst in modern history—that has affected over a million Yemenis and claimed the lives of well over 2,000.

The threat of mass starvation has intensified with the increasingly violent assault on Hodeidah, a city of 600,000 people, which has come under sustained Saudi bombing. This is combined with a tightening naval blockade and a ground assault by troops of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and various mercenary forces supposedly loyal to the exiled US-Saudi puppet president of Yemen Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

UN officials have warned that the siege of the city could claim as many as a quarter of a million lives, while the blocking of aid through the port could kill millions more.

Saudi Arabia and its allies launched their war of aggression against Yemen in 2015 in a bid to reinstall Hadi in the capital of Sana’a by defeating the Houthi rebels who overthrew him. The war has been waged by means of an unrelenting bombing campaign that has destroyed hospitals, schools, marketplaces, factories, ports and residential neighborhoods, as well as crucial electrical and water infrastructure, creating the conditions for the spread of cholera.

This campaign would be impossible without extensive support from Washington, including the sale of tens of billions of dollars in arms and munitions to Riyadh and its allies, and the provision of midair refueling for Saudi warplanes as well as targeting information and other intelligence and logistical assistance. The US Navy serves as a backup for the punishing naval blockade imposed upon the starving country.

This military aid began under the Obama administration and has continued and intensified under Trump. Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a pro-forma declaration to Congress, required under a military appropriation bill as a condition for continuing the midair refueling operation, that the Saudi-led coalition was “undertaking demonstrable actions to reduce the risk of harm to civilians.”

The certification followed a series of war crimes, including the August 9 bombing of a bus filled with school children, which claimed the lives of 40 children and 11 others, while wounding another 79, including 56 children. An August 23 strike against civilians fleeing the besieged city of Hodeidah killed 22 children and four women.

The renewed onslaught against Hodeidah has been accompanied by a fresh massacre of innocent civilians. A Saudi coalition warship attacked a fishing boat off Yemen’s Red Sea port of Al Khokha, 75 miles south of Hodeidah, killing 18 of those aboard and leaving only one survivor. The port was seized at the end of last year by forces of the United Arab Emirates, which turned it into a military base.

Washington’s responsibility for this slaughter of civilians has been underscored by documented evidence provided by the Yemeni human rights group Mwatana to the US cable news network CNN. The evidence establishes—through the examination of fragments bearing serial numbers—that bombs and missiles used in attacks that have inflicted mass casualties upon civilians across Yemen have all come from US military stockpiles and have been manufactured by major US arms corporations, including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. These include cluster munitions—banned by an international treaty that neither the US nor Saudi Arabia signed onto. These weapons spread lethal bomblets over an area the size of a football field.

The damning evidence is posted on the network’s website under the headline Made in USA: Bombs Used on Yemeni Civilians, but it has not been featured on CNN’s television broadcasts. Other major US media have ignored the evidence.

The escalation of the siege of Hodeidah, with its potential for triggering mass starvation, could be carried out only with the approval of the White House and the Pentagon.

Washington views the savage war against the population of Yemen strictly through the lens of geo-strategic interests. It is seen as a means of countering Iranian influence and asserting US hegemony in the region. US officials have claimed, without presenting any credible evidence, that the Houthis act as a proxy for Tehran and are armed and trained by Iran. In reality, both Riyadh and Washington oppose any government in Yemen that is not their servile puppet.

To press its campaign against Iran and for US hegemony in the region, US imperialism is willing to sacrifice the lives of millions. Top officials in the White House and the Pentagon—from Obama and Trump on down—are guilty of war crimes in Yemen that are comparable to those carried out by Germany’s Nazi regime in the Second World War.

Germany’s grand coalition promotes far-right secret service chief to state secretary

Ulrich Rippert

Ever since the negotiations to form a coalition government in Germany earlier this year, the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP—Socialist Equality Party) has warned that the grand coalition government comprised of the Christian Democratic Union, Christian Social Union and Social Democratic Party is the product of a conspiracy to implement far-right policies in line with the programme of the fascistic Alternative for Germany (AfD).

This right-wing conspiracy was revealed once again on Tuesday night.

In recent weeks, Hans-Georg Maaßen, the head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the German secret service, has been increasingly exposed as a supporter and adviser to the AfD. It emerged that he consulted with the AfD before issuing the BfV’s annual security report. Then, following the neo-fascist riot last month in Chemnitz, in which ultra-right demonstrators were videotaped hunting down and attacking people they presumed to be immigrants, Maaßen publicly defended the rioters and cast doubt on the authenticity of the damning videos.

This provoked mass protests demanding that Maaßen be forced to resign. Tens of thousands gathered in several cities to oppose the right-wing xenophobic agitation and the support given it by Maaßen and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU). In Chemnitz, 70,000 people took part in a “rock against the right wing” concert. Under these conditions, the Social Democrats (SPD) declared that Maaßen was no longer acceptable as BfV president and demanded he be fired.

However, Seehofer publicly backed Maaßen, declaring that his ministry was responsible for overseeing the secret service.

The coalition committee met Tuesday evening under the auspices of the three party leaders and agreed that Maaßen would be replaced as BfV president. However, far from being dismissed, he would be given a position as state secretary in Seehofer’s Interior Ministry.

Maaßen was not fired, he was given a promotion. He now holds a high position in the ministry that has powers of oversight and direction of the BfV. The coalition leaders declared that Maaßen would not be responsible for overseeing the BfV in his new post, but Seehofer made clear the worthlessness of this claim by stating repeatedly that he valued Maaßen’s work as a leading political official.

The indications are that Maaßen will function as Seehofer’s right-hand man. He will receive a much higher salary as a state secretary than he did as head of the BfV.

It remains unclear who will take over as head of the secret service. However, it is likely that a current state secretary in the Interior Ministry will move to the BfV to complete the musical chairs maneuver, removing the domestic intelligence service from the firing line and strengthening it.

The German government has responded to the protests against the AfD and its neo-fascist provocations by shifting further to the right. The grand coalition is integrating the hated secret service president and his pro-AfD policy more directly into the government and attempting to cover up the right-wing conspiracy that has long been under way in the BfV by installing a new leadership.

The SPD is playing a key role in this operation. With Maaßen’s promotion to state secretary, the SPD has demonstrated that its demand for his firing and its threat to withdraw from the coalition was pure theatre. The SPD is celebrating the elevation of Maaßen within the state apparatus as a victory.

In reality, it wanted to avoid a new election at all costs. This was due not only to its fear of losing further support, but also because it did not want to hold an election in a situation where tens of thousands of people are taking to the streets each weekend to protest against the far-right and a powerful mass opposition to the grand coalition’s right-wing policies is developing.

It was not for nothing that the SPD negotiated for months behind closed doors to bring about the coalition, thereby making the AfD the official opposition in parliament and granting it political legitimacy and greater prominence.

In almost all areas, the new government’s policies conform to the AfD’s right-wing extremist politics. The coalition agreed on the doubling of the defence budget to make it the largest military budget since World War II. Seehofer’s “masterplan,” adopted by the grand coalition, included a major expansion of deportation and internment camps for refugees. At the same time, the police state infrastructure is being strengthened.

The AfD has been fully integrated into parliamentary work by the SPD, in particular. As the new parliament was being constituted, the SPD demanded a “collegial” approach to the AfD. Stefan Brandner, a leading AfD politician, has the SPD to thank for his appointment as chairman of the parliamentary judicial committee. It was Thomas Oppermann, the SPD vice president of parliament, who proposed Brandner, a representative of the volkish-nationalist wing of the AfD and close ally of the right-wing extremist Björn Höcke.

The connection between the government and the AfD was clearest of all in the secret service. Maaßen met with leading AfD politicians on numerous occasions and discussed his agency’s plans with them, even though these plans were considered state secrets.

Brandner has confirmed that Maaßen spoke with him about this year’s secret service report. Neither the AfD, nor its neo-fascist wing, nor numerous other right-wing extremist groups are mentioned in the report. Instead, organizations that oppose the right-wing extremists are labeled “left-wing extremists.” For the first time, the SGP is declared to be “left-wing extremist” because of its opposition to capitalism and nationalism, according to the report.

Maaßen used the secret service to politically strengthen the AfD and the most right-wing circles in Germany. He is now being rewarded accordingly.

He took over as head of the BfV in the summer of 2012, when the intelligence agency was in deep crisis. Nine months earlier, news about the right-wing terrorist cell National Socialist Underground came to light. Many agents of the secret service were active in its milieu. The BfV subsequently shredded a large number of files. Heinz Fromm, Maaßen’s predecessor, was forced out as a result of the scandal.

Maaßen did not put a halt to ties with far-right extremist groups, but strengthened them. In early 2015, he filed criminal charges against two journalists from the blog Netzpolitik.org. He thus initiated a clampdown on freedom of speech while at the same time establishing close ties with the AfD.

It became clear this summer that the BfV was much more involved in the terrorist attack in Berlin in December 2016 than had previously been known. There is much to suggest that the attack was aimed at creating an atmosphere of fear at the beginning of an election year, so as to strengthen the AfD.

With its decision to promote Maaßen, the grand coalition is giving its backing to the right-wing networks in the secret service and leaving no doubt about the character of the current government.

The SGP therefore demands the dissolution of the BfV and the immediate holding of new elections. The vast majority of the population opposes the government’s right-wing policies, which were negotiated behind closed doors by the losers of last year’s election.

The SGP is doing everything in its power to mobilise the only social force capable of halting the right-wing, authoritarian and militarist policies of the ruling class and all of its parties—the international working class. This requires a socialist perspective.

Our demands are:

• Stop the conspiracy of the grand coalition, the state apparatus and right-wing extremists!
• No more war! Stop Germany’s return to a militarist great power policy!
• Dissolve the secret service! An immediate halt to the surveillance of the SGP and other left-wing organizations!
• Defend the right to asylum! No to the militarisation of the state! No to surveillance!
• End poverty and exploitation—for social equality! Expropriate the super-wealthy and place the banks and corporations under public ownership and democratic control!

US-China Contestation and North Korean De-Nuclearisation

Sandip Kumar Mishra

It is conventional wisdom that China’s role would be the most crucial in the process of de-nuclearising North Korea. North Korea and China share strong historical connections along with political and strategic mutual needs. Given how nearly 90 per cent of North Korea’s external trade has been with China alone in the past few years, the salience of this wisdom cannot be exaggerated. For North Korea, China is definitely the most important country, providing a credible and continuous economic and military backup, despite the fact that on occasion, Beijing faces discomfort and annoyance arising from Pyongyang’s provocative and isolationist behaviours including its nuclear and missile programmes.

After coming to power, US President Donald Trump first tried to squeeze North Korea by courting China on the basis of these few discords between Beijing and Pyongyang. On several occasions, Trump profusely praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for his cooperation in dealing with North Korea and appealed for more of it. Trump correctly realised that his policy of ‘maximum pressure’ on North Korea could not succeed without China’s cooperation. There are opinions that the US tried to at least postpone disagreements and contestations with China in most of the contentious issues. China also obliged by placing more restrictions in its economic transactions with North Korea.

However, in early 2018, North Korea surprised Trump when it agreed to hold direct talks with the US to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for a security guarantee. After few hiccups, the historic summit between the leaders of the US and North Korea finally took place in Singapore on 12 June 2018. Even though both have been maintaining contact with each other, the US and North Korea do not sufficiently trust each other. For the same reason, just a few days before the Singapore summit, Trump declared that his proposed meeting with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, might not happen–and eventually, the process was brought back on the track thanks to South Korean intervention. China appeared less active in this phase as North Korea, South Korea and the US were apparently making all the moves.

Unlike during the previous occasions, the US’ engagement policy towards North Korea did not involve sufficient communication with China, and Beijing was not given much of a space and role in the process. However, the occasion provided a golden opportunity to North Korea for reaching out to China–and Pyongyang immediately grabbed it. In fact, Kim Jong-un visited China both before his first summit meet with South Korean leader Moon Jae-in in April 2018 and also before his Singapore summit with Donald Trump in June 2018. Overall, the North Korean leader has met Xi Jinping three times in the last six months and some other important high level visits between North Korea and China have also taken place.

Basically, North Korea has cleverly utilised growing frictions between the US and China in 2018 on trade and other strategic issues. In last few months, the US accused China for not doing enough towards resolving the North Korean nuclear and missile issues; raked up the Taiwan issue; and more importantly, imposed trade restrictions on China. In March 2018, the US signed the Taiwan Travel Act; and in August 2018, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen made stopovers in the two US cities–Los Angeles and Houston–during her trip to Central and South America. By early July 2018, the US and China had imposed tariffs on US$34 billion worth of goods from the other countries, and on 7 September 2018, Trump threatened to add another US$267 billion worth tariffs on goods imported from China. In a way, the US has touched upon two extremely sensitive issues for China–Taiwan and trade–and Beijing must be highly annoyed by Washington’s policy and moves.

Trump anticipates that he may create gap between North Korea and China by being soft towards North Korea but tough on China. The US policy was evident, when on 9 July 2018, Trump tweeted that he is confident ”that Kim Jong Un will honor the contract we signed &, even more importantly, our handshake” but blamed that “China, on the other hand, may be exerting negative pressure on a deal because of our posture on Chinese Trade-Hope Not!”

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleged that ”China has relaxed sanctions against North Korea” and that there have been complications in achieving North Korean de-nuclearisation because of Chinese behaviour. Unfortunately, the US strategy towards deal with North Korea alone does not appear to succeed. The US needs to go back to the conventional wisdom which demands working with China to resolve the North Korean issue. The US needs take a more in-depth, patient, innovative approach to devise a mutually acceptable quid pro quo with China rather than venturing alone.

Margaret McNamara Educational Grants (MMEG) Scholarships for Women from Developing Countries 2019/2020 to Study in US & Canada

Application Deadline: 15th January 2019

Offered annually? Yes

Accepted Fields of Study: Any field of study

To be taken at (country): United States (US) & Canada

About the Award: The Margaret McNamara Educational Grants (MMEG) provides grants to women from developing countries to help further their education and strengthen their leadership skills to improve the lives of women and children in developing countries. About $15,000 Education grants are awarded to women from developing and middle-income countries who, upon obtainment of their degree, intend to return to or remain in their countries, or other developing countries, and work to improve the lives of women and/or children.

Offered Since: 1981

Type: Masters

Who is qualified to apply? Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Be at least 25 years old at time of application deadline (see specific regional program application below);
• Be a national of a country listed on the MMEG Country Eligibility List (listed below);
• Be enrolled at an accredited academic institution when submitting application; and plan to be enrolled for a full academic term after award of the grant by the Board;
• Not be related to a World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund or Inter-American Development Bank staff member or spouse;

Number of Scholarships: Not Specified

Scholarship benefits: Approximately $15,000 per scholarship recipient

Duration: The grant is a onetime award to last for the duration of study

Eligible African Countries: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Rep., Chad, Congo, Dem. Rep., Congo, Rep, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt , Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Other Countries:
Afghanistan, Ecuador , Macedonia, FYR of , Albania, Arab Rep., Serbia, El Salvador, Seychelles, Malaysia, Antigua and Barbuda, Eritrea, Maldives, Solomon Islands, Argentina, Armenia, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh , St. Kitts and Nevis, Belarus, Georgia, Mexico, St. Lucia, Belize, Micronesia, Fed. Sts , St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Grenada, Bhutan, Guatemala, Moldova, Suriname, Bolivia, Mongolia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Syrian Arab Rep., Guyana, Tajikistan, Brazil, Haiti, Bulgaria, Honduras, Myanmar, Thailand, India, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Nepal, Cambodia, Iran, Islamic Rep. of, Nicaragua,Tonga, Iraq, Trinidad and Tobago, Cape Verde, Jamaica, Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Palau, Turkmenistan, Chile, China, Kiribatii, Panama, Colombia, Korea, Republic of, Papua New Guinea, Ukraine, Comoros, Kosovo, Paraguay, Uruguay, Kyrgyz Rep, Peru, Uzbekistan, Lao PDR, Philippines, Vanuatu, Costa Rica, Latvia, Poland, Venezuela, RB, Lebanon, Romania, Vietnam, Croatia, Russian Federation, West Bank & Gaza, Yemen, Rep, Dominica, Samoa, Dominican Republic, São Tomé and Principe

How to Apply:  Apply via Scholarship Webpage link below.
Remember to read the Application Checklist & FAQs before applying, and when applying (after signing up), select “US-Canada program” in the first question of the application. If the programme name does not appear, the programme may be closed to new applications.

Visit Scholarship webpage for details

Sponsors: Margaret McNamara Educational Grants (MMEG)

Important Notes: Please make sure to submit ALL documents as listed. Only complete applications will be accepted. Decisions will be announced by April.