International Labour Organization report documents growing assault on wages

Nick Beams

A report issued by the International Labour Organization (ILO) yesterday shows that workers’ share of global income has fallen “substantially” over the past two decades, with a systematic redistribution of wealth to both capital and the top income earners.

Globally, the share of national income going to workers is declining, having fallen from 53.7 percent in 2004 to 51.4 percent in 2017, while the share going to capital rose from 46.3 percent to 48.6 percent. This is part of an ongoing trend, only temporarily interrupted by the 2008–09 global financial crisis.

However, the overall redistribution of wealth from labour to capital is only part of the picture.

One of the most significant findings in the report documents how social inequality is widening. Income is being siphoned up to the highest levels at the expense of middle-income earners, defined as the middle 60 percent of workers. Their share of total wages fell from 44.8 percent in 2004 to 43 percent in 2017.

In what it described as a key finding, the report states: “The data show that in relative terms, increases in top labour incomes are associated with losses for everyone else, with both middle class and lower-income workers seeing their share of income decline.”

This is particularly the case in the major economies. “In several high-income countries,” the report states, “the evolution of the labour income distribution between 2004 and 2017 follows a ‘hockey stick’ pattern: substantial losses for the middle and lower-middle class, and large gains for the top. This pattern can be found, among others, in Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom.”

This pattern of large gains for the upper income earners, coupled with losses for much of the rest of the income distribution, was particularly marked in Britain, where the report found that the largest losses were for the percentiles ranging from 7 to 50 percent. It also found that the increases for the top income earners were “more pronounced” than in the US and Germany.

On a global scale, the report found that the top 10 percent received 48.9 percent of total wages, the next decile received 20.1 percent, and the remaining 80 percent received 31.0 percent. The lowest 20 percent received only 1 percent of total labour income.

Commenting on the report, Roger Gomis, an ILO economist, said: “The majority of the global workforce endures strikingly low pay and for many having a job does not mean having enough to live on. The average pay of the bottom half of the world’s workers is just 198 dollars per month and the poorest 10 percent would need to work more than three centuries to earn the same as the richest 10 percent do in one year.”

A number of factors have worked to create this situation. First, the ILO data is yet another confirmation of the analysis of Karl Marx, denounced by bourgeois economists down through the decades, that the essential objective logic of the capitalist mode of production is the accumulation of massive wealth at one pole and poverty and misery at the other.

This logic has been reinforced by the policies carried out by governments and financial institutions around the world, particularly since the eruption of the global financial crisis in 2008.

The injection of trillions of dollars into the financial system in order to boost the value of share prices and other financial assets has been one of the key mechanisms for the transfer of wealth up the income scale. Much of what constitutes the increase in wages for the upper 10 percent is derived from the escalating incomes of those involved in the top-level speculative operations of the financial system.

At the same time, governments are working to enhance this redistribution of income through tax cuts benefiting top income earners—the latest example being the passage of major tax cuts for the wealthy by the Australian parliament yesterday, with bipartisan support, following the lead of the Trump administration.

However, the key factor in facilitating this process has been the role of the labour and trade union bureaucracies, together with the social democratic parties, in suppressing the opposition of the working class. All over the world, the cuts in real wages, documented by the ILO report, have been accompanied by the actions of the trade unions in doing whatever they can to prevent and shut down opposition.

This is not merely the product of the total subservience and treachery of individual union leaderships—though that abounds—but flows from the nature of the trade unions themselves, rooted in their national-based structures and orientation.

Their response to the globalisation of production and finance over the past three decades has been to make their “own” capitalist class more “internationally competitive” through cuts in real wages and the imposition of changes in working conditions to facilitate greater exploitation. Consequently, they have undergone a transformation: from organisations that once carried out a limited defence of workers’ wages and conditions within the framework of the profit system, to the chief enforcers of the dictates and demands of capital.

In this role they have been aided and abetted by all the pseudo-left organisations, which have worked to promote the deadly illusion that workers’ struggles must be directed through the unions and that social change can come only through the Democratic Party in the US or via social democratic parties in other countries.

However, a new factor has now entered the scene. The ongoing and intensifying offensive by the ruling elites is provoking an upsurge of the class struggle—seen in the strikes by teachers and educators in the US and elsewhere, the “yellow vest” movement in France, the wildcat strikes in Mexico, strikes against wage freezes in Europe and the mass protests in North Africa.

The crucial issue confronting this growing movement, as yet only in its initial stages, is the development of a program and perspective. It must be based, first of all, on the understanding that all the great social issues confronting the working class, reflected most clearly in the escalation of social inequality, arise from a systemic crisis of the global capitalist order.

This means they can be resolved only with a program that is equally systemic, aimed at their root cause. That is, the growing struggles of workers around the world must be armed with an internationalist socialist program directed to the overthrow of the profit system, the taking of political power by the working class and the building of the world party of socialist revolution to lead this struggle.

Electricite De France (EDF) Pulse Africa Awards 2019 for African Energy Start-ups

Application Deadline: 12th July 2019

Eligible Countries: African countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Paris, France

About the Award: Wishing to contribute in facilitating access to energy alongside the agents of change in the
continent, EDF’s International Division initiates a call for projects and launches the “EDF Pulse Awards” in Africa (hereinafter referred to as ” EDF Pulse Africa), in order to be sustainable and effective as a development partner.
The contest is open to start-ups, micro-enterprises and small businesses in Africa that develop innovative solutions in the field of energy. Within the framework of this call for projects, a Grand Jury will award three (3) prize classes, known as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes of the Jury, to the project winners in one of the following fields. EDF reserves the right to reward a favorite project with one (1) prize called “Special Prize”:

• Off-grid electrical production: in this category, the Grand Jury may reward one innovative solution for the production and / or storage of electricity in off-grid area (solar, hydroelectric, wind, thermal, etc.)
• Electrical uses and services : in this category, the Grand Jury may reward an innovative product or service with low power consumption or a common use of electrical services (Hardware ex: household appliances, tablets, fans, cooling systems … / Services eg mobile money, breakdown service …)
• Access to water: in this category, the Grand Jury may reward one innovative solution to improve access to water through electricity (agriculture, domestic use, etc.)

Type: Award, Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: Any participating structure must satisfy the following requirements:

• Be a structure (start-up, micro-enterprise …) of less than 30 people.
• Be domiciled in Africa.
• Be established by July 12, 2019.
• Introduce an innovation that uses or produces electricity, and falls within the scope of one of the 3 categories mentioned above.
• Be the bearer of a project with an advanced stage of development:
• Be in the pre-commercialization phase (or be marketed for less than one year).
• Have a prototype by November 21, 2019, allowing the demonstration of the proposed solution to the general public, at the time of the Grand Jury.

Selection Criteria: Projects received will be assessed on the basis of the following selection criteria:

• Clarity and understanding of the proposal
• Innovative and differentiating features of the solution
• Progress for the society brought by the solution
• Relevance of the business model
• Evaluation of the team (vision, complementarity, experiences, skills …)

These criteria will be taken into account at each stage of the selection process

Selection: Based on the candidatures selected by the selection panel, a jury composed of EDF Group managers and external experts will meet in October 2018 to select ten (10) finalists (all  domains). The finalists selected will be presented to the Grand Jury in November 2019.

Number of Awards: 3

Value of Award:

• In preparation of the grand oral, the representatives will participate to three (3) day coaching session and support in order to the grand jury.
• The costs of transport and accommodation in France of each finalist representative will be borne by the Organizer
• The awards ceremony will be filmed and distributed or redisplayed on the Internet, especially on social networks.
• Each winner will receive a trophy “EDF PULSE AFRICA 2018 PRIZE”
• The three (3) laureates will receive from EDF an allocation for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes: 15K €, 10K € and 5K € respectively. This allocation will contribute to the development of their projects. The endowment will be paid by bank transfer or check to the winning team structure.
• The three (3) winners will benefit from easy access to financing and possible development of partnerships with EDF Group companies in Africa.

Participants must personally meet all costs related to the visa application process

How to Apply: All participants must complete and submit an electronic file on the competition website. The complete brief includes:

• One (1) editable PDF application form (annexed to this regulation) presenting:
  • The structure, its team and its motivations;
  • The developed solution or product, as well as its market and economic model;
  • The stage of advancement: tests, prototypes, fund raising, commercial contacts, support and partners, awards…
• One (1) project photo in high definition, JPEG or PNG format, 800 x 600 pixels minimum
• One (1) team photo in high definition, JPEG or PNG format, 800 x 600 pixels minimum

The application form for the EDF Pulse Africa Prizes, duly completed, must be submitted by a legal representative or founder of the company on behalf of the latter.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers: EDF

Princeton Arts Fellowships 2020/2022 for International Early-Career Artist(e)s

Application Deadline: 17th September 2019

Eligible Countries: All

To Be Taken At (Country): USA

About the Award: The PAF is a two-year fellowship that includes teaching one course or leading a project each semester.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Artists whose achievements have been recognized as demonstrating extraordinary promise in any area of artistic practice and teaching.

• Applicants should be early career composers, conductors, musicians, choreographers, visual artists, filmmakers, poets, novelists, playwrights, designers, directors and performance artists–this list is not meant to be exhaustive–who would find it beneficial to spend two years teaching and working in an artistically vibrant university community.
• One need not be a U.S. citizen to apply.
• Holders of Ph.D. degrees from Princeton are not eligible to apply.
• This fellowship cannot be used to fund work leading to a Ph.D. or any other advanced degree.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: An $81,000 a year stipend is provided.

Duration of Program: 2 years

How to Apply: All applicants must submit a resume or curriculum vitae, a personal statement of 500 words about how you would hope to use the two years of the fellowship at this moment in your career, and contact information for three references. In addition, work samples are requested to be submitted online (i.e., writing sample, images of your work, video links to performances, etc.)

Applicants can only apply for the Princeton Arts Fellowship twice in a lifetime.

APPLY HERE

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Life Among the Rubble: Mosul 18 Months after “Liberation”

T. J. Coles

Recent news of drought has brought Mosul, Iraq, to the attention of Western media; for the drought has led to the discovery of ancient ruins of archaeological significance. But let’s not forget the other news: the UN report on returnees. The refugees are returning to the carnage wrought upon the city by the US and its allies under the pretext of “liberating” it from Daesh: carnage that transformed much of the city to modern ruins.

ANCIENT RUINS DISCOVERED

Mosul is a city in Iraqi Kurdistan with a population of 1.3 million; 60% of whom are Sunni Arabs, around 25% of whom are Kurds. Ongoing drought has brought Mosul to the attention of Western media, as receding water levels at Kemune reservoir reveals the ruin of a 3,400 year-old palace. Researchers from the University of Tübingen and the Kurdistan Archaeology Organization reckon that the palace was part of the Mittani Empire (circa 1450-1350 BCE). According to one archaeological history, “[Mittani’s] end as independent realm can be dated to the time of Hittite king Šuppiluliuma I in the middle of the 14th century BC.”

Echoes of the conquests and rivalry of the ancient past haunt both recent history and the present. The so-called Mosul Question was a territorial dispute in the early-20th century between the British and Ottoman empires, with both parties wanting a share of the region’s oil. In the latter-part of the 20^th century, Iraq’s one-time US-British-backed dictator Saddam Hussein launched the Anfal genocide against Kurds who have historic and ongoing links to the region. A couple of years ago, the US-approved leaders of the central Iraqi government and the regional Kurdish authorities squabbled over control of Mosul, anticipating that Daesh would be defeated.

But the discovery of ancient Mittani ruins coincides with darker news. A recent report by the UN International Organization for Migration documents the effects of the US-led coalition bombardment of the city. It begins: “Entire neighborhoods have not yet been rebuilt, basic services are insufficient in some areas, and poor sanitation is contributing to serious public health problems and the spread of diseases. Furthermore,” the report continues, “reports of harassment and violence against civilians by state as well as non-state actors are undermining efforts to build trust in state institutions and authorities.” Western-led humanitarian intervention is the price that Iraqis pay for being an oil-rich, militarily vulnerable nation.

MAKING ENEMIES

Daesh (a.k.a., Islamic State) was largely the by-product of US-British savagery in Iraq. Having left the nation politically and infrastructurally decimated by decades of unprecedented sanctions, military occupation, and divide-and-conquer strategizing, the more extreme Islamic elements in Iraq—backed by foreign powers for their own geostrategic interests—sprouted from fertile ground. The US Army’s Strategic Studies Institute launched an unusually scathing attack on the Bush II administration’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and how it and the succeeding Obama administration handled the occupation. Ignoring moral questions and focusing solely on tactics, as well as blaming the US-backed politician Ahmed Chalabi, the report (worth quoting at length) says that the growth of the Islamic State Organization (ISO):

“did not occur in a vacuum … The ISO would not exist, or at this level of severity at least, had the ruling Shia elements in Iraq following the USG [US Government] occupation made the essential, painful choices required to pursue a new social compact with the nation’s Sunni population. Or, had the USG not operationalized Ahmad Chalabi’s long-dreamt of goal of imposing a punitive de-Ba’athification,”

meaning the dismantling of Iraq’s political, military, and policing infrastructure. It goes on:

“Or, had the USG not imposed the disastrous policy of dissolving the Iraqi armed forces and security forces, numbering in the hundreds of thousands; or had been prepared for a Sunni insurgency; or had developed a realistic post-occupation, longer-term stabilization policy based in a keen and learned awareness that the USG’s decapitation, occupation, and empowerment of Iraq’s Shia would profoundly destabilize an existing equilibrium in Iraq; or understood that the decapitation of the Iraqi regime would profoundly alter the terms of the broader Sunni-Shia rivalry inaugurated by the emergence of a Shia revolutionary State in 1979, and thereby further energizing proponents and antagonists who view this schism as a difference so wide as that between God and the Devil; or, finally, had the USG not first gone into Iraq the wrong way, and later repeated the error by disengaging from Iraq the wrong way.”

Even though US-British violence created Daesh, the US-British answer to defeating Daesh was more violence.

AIR AND GROUND WAR

In June 2014, Daesh took Mosul, triggering a refugee flight of half a million. According to the timeline, by September ten Arab majority states announced their participation in the US-led anti-Daesh coalition. Britain started bombing Iraq, again, on September 30th with Paveway IV and Brimstone missiles. As well as using Reaper drones in its anti-Daesh operations, the UK supplied 275 ground troops. By the end of the destruction of Mosul, the UK had 600 personnel on the ground in Iraq. Maj. Gen. Rupert Jones boasted that “the UK was the second biggest contributor from a military perspective in the campaign.” According to Forces.Net, the British Army trained 75,000 Iraqi military personnel at Camp Taji and other bases. Many of those who fought in Mosul committed war crimes, including torturing and murdering alleged Daesh members. In particular, the US-trained 16^th Division executed suspects, including children.

These atrocities pale in comparison to the devastation of the aerial bombardments.

In 2016, the US-led coalition dropped 30,743 bombs on Iraq and Syria. In 2017, it dropped 39,577. In 2018, the coalition dropped over 6,800 bombs. In February 2018, Pehr Lodhammar of the UN Mine Action Service reported that the “liberation” of Mosul had left 11 million tonnes of debris, burying two-thirds of the unexploded bombs (UXB). The anti-mine, anti-UXB operations will take the UN a decade to complete; assuming that their budget isn’t reduced. It took the agency 12 months to remove 25,000 explosive remnants in Mosul alone. The BBC reported that UK Ministry of Defence bombs “malfunctioned and strayed off target” sometimes by “hundreds of metres,” adding to the civilian death toll which reached up to 10,000; 11,000, according to the same Forces.Net source noted above. Mosul resident and civilian, Abdel Rahman Ali, lost five children to the blitz. “Nobody destroyed us except the coalition,” he told the BBC.

In its written evidence to the British government, Amnesty International says: “Our field research constitutes prima facieevidence that Coalition strikes, which killed and injured civilians in Syria and Iraq, violated International Humanitarian Law (IHL).” Criticizing what it calls a “crisis in accountability,” Save the Children’s written evidence notes that $700 million-worth of damage was wrought on each of Mosul’s 54 residential districts. Save the Children concludes: “In Mosul, the UN Security Council also found that at least 4200 civilians were killed by EWIPA [explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas] between October 2016 and July 2017. Research undertaken by the UN suggests that in such settings, over 90 percent of the casualties are civilians.”

IN CONCLUSION

Instead of being decapitated and immolated by Daesh, thousands of inhabitants of Mosul were blown to pieces and incinerated by US-British bombs. UN International Organization for Migration’s recent report notes that, at its peak, nearly one million residents fled the city. By now, 350,000 or so remain “internally displaced persons” (IDPs). “Many IDPs are unable to return because their houses have been destroyed, either by [Daesh] or during the battle, and renting or buying new property is prohibitively expensive.” They are some of the millions of refugees generated by the US-British imperial war machine. Mosul is a small part of a much larger tragedy: one of US global hegemony in the age of Full Spectrum Dominance.

UAE withdraws from Yemen: Managing alliances and reputational threats

James M. Dorsey


A United Arab Emirates decision to withdraw the bulk of its forces from Yemen shines a spotlight on hard realities underlying Middle Eastern geopolitics.

The pullback suggests that the UAE is preparing for the possibility of a US military confrontation with Iran in which the UAE and Saudi Arabia could emerge as prime battlegrounds.

It also reflects long-standing subtle differences in the approaches of Saudi Arabia and the UAE towards Yemen.

It further highlights the UAE’s long-standing concern for its international standing amid mounting criticism of the civilian toll of the war as well as a recognition that the Trump administration’s unquestioning support may not be enough to shield its allies from significant reputational damage.

The withdrawal constitutes a finetuning rather than a reversal of the UAE’s determination to contain Iran and thwart political Islam witness the Emirates’ involvement in the Libyan civil war and support for renegade field marshal Khalifa Belqasim Haftar as well as its support for the embattled Sudanese military and autocrats like Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

While the UAE may have withdrawn the bulk of its troops from key regions of Yemen, it leaves behind Emirati-trained local forces that will continue to do its bidding. The withdrawal, moreover, is not 100 percent with the UAE maintaining its Al-Mukalla base for counterterrorism operations.

The UAE’s commitment to assertive policies designed to ensure that the small state can continue to punch above its weight are also evident in its maintenance of a string of military and commercial port facilities in Yemen, on the African shore of the Red Sea, and in the Horn of Africa as well its hard-line towards Qatar and rivalry with Turkey.

As part of its regional and international projection, the UAE is keen to maintain its status as a model for Arab youth and preferred country of residence.

The UAE’s image contrasts starkly with that of Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Mecca and Medina, Islam’s two holiest cities.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s policies, including the clampdown on domestic critics and the Yemen war, have prompted embarrassing calls by prominent Islamic scholars for a boycott of the pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the five pillars of Islam.

Wittingly or unwittingly, the withdrawal leaves Saudi Arabia and Prince Mohammed, the instigator of the more than four-year long war that has sparked one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, exposed.

Nonetheless, despite differing objectives in Yemen, the UAE too suffered from the reputational fallout of bombings of civilian targets that were largely carried out by the Saudi rather than the Emirati air force.

Operating primarily in the north, Saudi Arabia focussed on countering Iranian-backed Houthi rebels whose stronghold borders on the kingdom while the UAE backed South Yemeni separatists and targeted Muslim-Brotherhood related groups.

With the withdrawal, the UAE may allow differences with Saudi Arabia to become more visible but will not put its alliance with the kingdom at risk.

If past differences are anything to go by, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are able to manage them.

The differences were evident in recent weeks with the UAE, unlike Saudi Arabia, refraining from blaming Iran for attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

Leaked emails written by Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE’s influential ambassador in Washington, laid bare the Emirates’ strategy of working through the Saudi court to achieve its regional objectives despite viewing the kingdom as “coo coo.”

Similarly, differences in the two countries’ concept of Islam failed to rock their alliance despite the effective excommunication in 2016 of Saudi-backed ultra-conservatism at a UAE-sponsored conference in the Chechen capital of Grozny.

The alliance is key to the two countries’ counterrevolution aimed at maintaining the region’s autocratic status quo in the face of almost a decade of popular revolts, public protests and civil wars.

The UAE-Saudi-led counterrevolution is driven by Prince Mohammed and his UAE counterpart, crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed’s desire to shape the Middle East in their mould.

The UAE rather than the kingdom was the driver behind the Qatar boycott with Saudi King Mohammed and Prince Mohammed initially reaching out to the Qatar-backed Muslim Brotherhood when they came to power in 2015.

Four years later Saudi Arabia, is unlikely to radically shift gears but could prove less intransigent towards the group than the UAE.

While preparing for possible conflict with Iran may be the main driver for the withdrawal, it is unlikely to protect the UAE from damage to its reputation as a result of its involvement in Libya and Sudan as well as its draconic clampdown on dissent at home.

Mr. Haftar’s UAE-armed forces are believed to be responsible for this week’s bombing of a detention center for African migrants in the Libyan capital Tripoli that killed 40 people and wounded 80 others.

The bombing came of the heels of a discovery of US-made missiles on one of Mr. Haftar’s military bases packed in shipping containers stating they belonged to the “UAE Armed Forces.” The UAE has denied ownership.

The UAE’s withdrawal from Yemen will likely help it evade calls for Yemen-related arms embargoes.

Libya, however, could prove to be the UAE’s Achilles heel.

Said Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a letter to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: “You are surely aware that if these allegations prove true you may be obligated by law to terminate all arms sales to the UAE.”

US Senate votes to give Ukraine $300 million in military aid

Jason Melanovski

As part of the recently passed massive National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) approved in the Senate last week, United States military aid to Ukraine is projected to increase by $50 million to $300 million in 2020.

As the WSWS noted upon the bill’s passage, the $750 billion check for the Pentagon is the largest military budget in history and is part of the United States’ preparations for a Third World War, involving China and Iran.

Of the $300 million being sent to Ukraine, $100 million will be used to supply Ukraine with lethal weapons such as anti-aircraft missiles and anti-ship weapons that can be used in a potential full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine.

US soldiers engaged in training exercises with Ukrainian national guard. Credit US Army

The bill’s passage comes amid growing tensions between US imperialism and the European Union (EU), including over the Trump administration’s war drive against Iran, which is perceived by Germany, France and other European states as a threat to their interests in the region.

The US, along with Ukraine and eastern European EU member states Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, is also bitterly opposed to the Russian-German gas pipeline Nord Stream 2. US officials have repeatedly threatened sanctions against Germany over the pipeline.

In the months since his election in April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for Europe to strengthen sanctions against Moscow over its issuing of passports to Ukrainian citizens within the separatist-controlled Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, all to no avail.

Last week, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted to allow Russia to return to the 47-member human rights body with voting rights, sparking outrage from Kiev, which demanded that Russia continue to be excluded. The Ukrainian delegation walked out of the vote and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin recalled the country’s representative to the Council of Europe stating they had “lost our trust in everything else, and to restore it will be extremely difficult.”

The measure passed by a 118-62 vote, with Ukraine receiving support in its opposition from the UK, Poland and the Baltic states. Alternatively, Russia’s return to the group was backed by the EU’s two largest countries, Germany and France.

Russia was first removed from voting in the Council of Europe in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea.

Prior to Russia’s reentry, Zelensky claimed that he had unsuccessfully tried to convince French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in separate meetings not to allow Russia to return to the Council.

Zelensky also called upon Russia to release 24 Ukrainian sailors who were captured by Russia in the Sea of Azov in a staged provocation by Zelensky’s predecessor Petro Poroshenko. Poroshenko later used the incident to declare martial law in several regions of the country just prior to the first round of presidential elections.

Despite the portrayal of President Donald Trump by the Democrats as a subversive Russian agent, Trump became the first president to officially provide lethal military aid to Ukraine by sending the country anti-tank Javelin missiles, worth an estimated $47 million, in March 2018.

Ukraine’s defense minister, Stepan Poltorak, reported in April that the US had provided the country with $400 million in military aid, much more than has been known. Summing up the lethal aid received from the US, Poltorak said: “These are Javelin anti-tank grenade launchers, modern communication systems, artillery recon tools, e-warfare equipment, anti-sniper systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles.” According to Poltorak, all military aid was directly employed in the ongoing civil war by the Kiev regime against Russian-backed separatists in the East of the country, which has claimed at least 13,000 lives since 2014.

In addition, US National Guardsmen now run Ukraine’s Yavoriv Combat Training Center and US Special Forces lead military courses for their Ukrainian counterparts.

Initially, Zelensky’s election was viewed by some in Washington with trepidation due to his business ties to Russia and proclaimed willingness to negotiate with Russia. With his aggressive turn against Russia since the election, the US now appears to be fully behind the Zelensky regime weeks after his inauguration.

On June 1, Trump officially invited Zelensky to Washington in a visit planned to take place later this summer.

In a warmup for his eventual visit to the United States, Zelensky left Europe earlier this week for his first overseas trip as president to travel to Canada. The country is one of Kiev’s staunchest imperialist backers in its more than five-year-long war against Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Like the US, Canada also has officially deployed members of its armed forces to Ukraine, where it claims to have “trained” more than 10,800 Ukrainian soldiers. In addition to personnel, the country has supplied Ukraine with $785 million worth of military, legal, financial, development and political assistance since 2014, according to the Canadian Press.

While in Canada, Zelensky met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the third annual Ukraine Reform Conference in Toronto, which began Tuesday and concludes today. The Ukrainian president also met with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker, European Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska, and the leadership of the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC).

Meeting with bourgeois representatives of the Ukrainian community in Toronto, Zelensky, a native Russian speaker, invoked Ukrainian nationalism to drum up support among his hosts. stating, “The Constitution stipulates that the only official language in Ukraine is Ukrainian. As President and guarantor of the Constitution, I will defend the Ukrainian language, our sovereignty and our course towards Europe and NATO.”

Canada is home to 1.3 million people of Ukrainian descent. Historically, a portion of this community has consisted of descendants of Ukrainian fascists from the OUN-B (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-Bandera) and the Ukrainian Insurgency Army (UPA). Having collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, they were channeled to the US and Canada in the immediate post-war period by the predecessor organization of the CIA, and they and their descendants have often gone on to play a significant role in the political and academic life of these countries.

Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, who has been one of the most vociferous cheerleaders for Canadian aid flowing to Ukraine, is a representative of this layer: In 2017, it was revealed that Freeland’s Ukrainian grandfather—Michael Chomiak—worked as a Nazi propagandist before fleeing to Canada in 1948 after World War II.

In addition to meeting with Zelensky, Freeland hosted the conference. Also in attendance were representatives from 30 other countries as well as the World Bank and IMF.

US, EU hail election of İstanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu

Ulas Atesci 

The victory of Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, in the June 23 re-run in Istanbul of the March 31 municipal elections has provoked an enthusiastic response from imperialist foreign policy circles and newspapers in America and Europe. Echoing the CHP’s own election rhetoric, they all present this outcome as a powerful blow for democracy against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP).

There is little doubt that İmamoğlu was the beneficiary of growing social discontent, amid a serious economic crisis in Turkey and new US war threats in the region, particularly against Iran. İmamoğlu beat AKP candidate Binali Yıldırım by 800,000 votes, after leading by only 13,000 on March 31. However, the wave of support for İmamoğlu from the powers that have been waging imperialist wars in the Middle East for decades, and that tacitly backed a failed coup in Turkey itself targeting Erdoğan in July 2016, should be taken as a warning.

İmamoğlu is not a progressive or left-wing alternative to the AKP. The parties backing him—the far-right Good Party, the Kurdish-nationalist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and countless pseudo-left groups—are orienting not to social opposition among workers, towards which the CHP is bitterly hostile, but to the Turkish bourgeoisie and its maneuvers with imperialism.

After the election, the US embassy in Turkey wrote on Twitter: “In an impressive display of participatory democracy, Istanbul residents went to their voting stations to cast ballots and make their voices heard. We wish Ekrem İmamoğlu the best as he leads Europe's biggest city.”

The New York Times, a mouthpiece for CIA operations including the recent, failed US-orchestrated regime change operation in Venezuela, again hailed the Istanbul election result, after publishing an editorial endorsing the CHP as the “democratic” opposition in the March 31 elections.

It cited Soner Cagaptay, the head of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The vote, Cagaptay said, “shows democracy is resilient and elections still matter. … Imamoglu won with a landslide—a 10-point lead—even though Erdogan mobilized all the state resources in this election.” He added, “Nothing sticks to İmamoğlu. He became the new Erdoğan.”

The Washington Post published an article titled “A mayoral election provides a glimmer of hope for Turkey” and advised Erdoğan: “The Istanbul election gives Turkey’s president a chance to pick a different route.”

The European imperialists shared Washington’s enthusiasm. European Parliament Rapporteur to Turkey Kati Piri tweeted: “Landslide victory for mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu—great news for Istanbul & for Turkey’s democracy. Tebrikler!!!”

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert stated Berlin’s “satisfaction” with the result, calling it a “good signal for Turkey.” The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) published a statement, signed by more than 50 SPD politicians, hailing the “candidate of our sister party, the CHP.” European Affairs Minister Michael Roth (SPD) tweeted: “How encouraging sign for Turkey, where democracy is alive. It is important that the EU and Germany turn to the Turks more strongly.”

The German press also hailed the results. “The period of Erdoğan is ending,” Die Welt titled, while state broadcaster Deutsche Welle commented: “Turkish democracy is still alive.”

In fact, the CHP is the party of the traditional Kemalist bourgeois elite that dominated the Turkish Republic till the beginning of this century. Historically, the CHP is complicit in all its crimes: repeated military coups, the violent suppression of the working class, and the oppression of the Kurdish minority. In these elections, it formed the so-called “Nation Alliance” with the Good Party, a recent split-off from the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), whose leader Meral Akşener, presided over savage repression of the Kurds as Interior Minister in the 1990s.

TÜSİAD, Turkey’s leading big business federation, issued a statement on June 24 hailing İmamoğlu’s victory and declaring, “The success of Turkey’s biggest city is the success of Turkey.” It also called for the “normalization” of Turkish political life and a reconciliation between the AKP government and the İmamoğlu administration in Istanbul, Turkey’s economic capital.

İmamoğlu heard his marching orders from big business loud and clear. Immediately after the June 23 election, he addressed Erdoğan, saying: “Mr. President, I am ready to work in harmony with you.” His party called for focusing on a “main agenda” until the next elections in 2023.

Despite mounting allegations of corruption and favouritism under the previous, AKP-led İstanbul municipal governments, such as funding pro-AKP charitable foundations, İmamoğlu indicated he would not press his advantage against Erdoğan. He told CNN that he did not think the allegations referred to “Erdoğan as an individual.” He added, “Extending the hand of peace [to Erdoğan] would be to the benefit of the country.”

The CHP is keenly aware of the explosive social anger in the population and is making demagogic statements to try to keep this anger under control. Addressing his supporters in İstanbul last week, İmamoğlu declared: “We are equal. The rich and the poor, we are equal.”

But that is easy for İmamoğlu to say, because he is a millionaire, according to his official financial statement. He also has close relations with the Koç Group, Turkey’s largest corporate conglomerate and the most influential part of TÜSİAD.

İmamoğlu is reportedly considering appointing his advisor, Yavuz Erkut, to be the general secretary of the İstanbul municipality, i.e. the second man in the city’s administration. Erkut was the CEO of TÜPRAŞ, Turkey’s biggest and strategic industrial company, which operates four oil refineries in the country. The AKP privatized the company, selling it off to the Koç Group for a price equivalent to the profits it has achieved over several years.

In the meantime, pro-opposition media organs like the daily Sözcü have tried to blacken the struggle of about 4,300 TÜPRAŞ workers in Kocaeli, Aliağa, Kırıkkale and Batman who occupied their refineries to protest their contracts, defying repeated intimidation from police.

İmamoğlu has lost no time in signaling the utterly reactionary and anti-working class character of the CHP. In the beginning of April, he sent out a tweet honoring the NATO-trained army officer, Colonel Alparslan Türkeş, who founded the far-right MHP and was at the center of planning coups and fascistic violence against the left and the working class in the 1970s.

İmamoğlu’s praise for virulent enemies of the working class is not limited to Türkeş. Almost four years ago, on December 31, 2015, he honored Hasan Karakaya, a radical Islamist columnist of the notorious daily Yeni Akit, after his death. Karakaya had congratulated an AKP official who attacked protesters after the mining disaster in Soma killed 301 miners in 2014.

The supposedly secular CHP’s İmamoğlu competed with the AKP on Islamist propaganda during the campaign. He went to break his fast during Ramadan in front of the media, like his rival Yıldırım, and boasted about establishing alcohol-free recreational facilities and gender-segregated swimming pools in his previous term as mayor of a district of İstanbul. İmamoğlu began his term in office last week with public prayers.

The CHP-led opposition and İmamoğlu are not a progressive alternative to the AKP, but the favored representatives of influential sections of the Turkish bourgeoisie closely linked to imperialism. They are trying to set a new trap for workers and youth, aiming to direct opposition into safe channels controlled by the ruling establishment. Whatever hopes workers and youth are encouraged to place in İmamoğlu and his allies will be rapidly disappointed.

Australian central bank cuts cash rate to record low

Mike Head

Driven by concerns about a deepening world slump and trade war, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) this week cut its official interest rate to an unprecedented 1 percent.

It was the second 0.25 basis point cut in two months—a sign of fear in ruling circles of the intensifying impact of the global turmoil on the domestic economy, which is highly vulnerable to reduced international trade and investment.

The RBA’s cash rate is now at a record low, well below the “emergency” level of 3 percent to which the bank slashed the rate during the 2008-09 world financial breakdown.

With world trade already being shrunk by the US trade and economic war on China, the RBA has followed central banks internationally in slashing rates to try to further boost the financial markets while lifting debt-fuelled consumption spending.

Internally, the recessionary slide has been compounded by the collapse since 2017 of a six-year property bubble, plus declining real wages since 2012, soaring household debt and worsening unemployment. Working class households are already experiencing a “per capita recession”—output per person has fallen for the past nine months.

The RBA held off interest rate cuts throughout the campaign for the May 18 federal election. This helped both the Liberal-National Coalition government and the opposition Labor Party to peddle lies about a supposed economic recovery.

All the election promises, made by the Coalition and Labor alike, of increased social spending and tax cuts for “ordinary workers” were based on these false forecasts, as the Socialist Equality Party warned.

The reality that all the capitalist parties sought to hide from view includes the fact that employment levels have fallen by 219,000 to less than 12 million over the past year—taking the combined rate of joblessness (10.3 percent) and “under-employment” (9.2 percent) to near 20 percent.

According to Roy Morgan monthly surveys, nearly 2.6 million workers are either unemployed or only working part-time or casually and needing more work. This estimate is more reliable than the official Australian Bureau of Statistics unemployment rate for May of 5.1 percent, plus 8.5 percent under-employed.

The major corporate job cuts over the past year include an estimated 70,000 jobs lost so far in the construction industry.

While Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his senior ministers played down the latest RBA rate cut, there were expressions of alarm in financial markets.

HSBC’s chief economist in Australia Paul Bloxham said the rate cut suggested the central bank had serious concerns about the economy. “For us, the key message from this is that the RBA must be quite worried about growth—back-to-back cuts suggest they have felt a sense of urgency.”

In his rate cut statement, RBA governor Philip Lowe referred to “the uncertainty generated by the trade and technology disputes” that was “affecting investment and means that the risks to the global economy are tilted to the downside.”

“The main domestic uncertainty” was that “consumption growth has been subdued, weighed down by a protracted period of low-income growth and declining housing prices.” House prices were still falling nationally, even though mortgage lending rates were at “record lows.”

Lowe raised the possibility of further rate cuts, saying the RBA board would “continue to monitor developments in the labour market closely and adjust monetary policy if needed.”

At 1 percent, the cash rate is already below the official inflation rate of 1.3 percent. This means that aged pensioners and others who depend on savings to live are seeing their retirement funds shrink in real terms.

Because of government welfare means tests, this particularly affects between 400,000 aged pensioners and 627,000 part-aged pensioners, as well as thousands of welfare recipients. The government has kept its “deeming rate” for average income earned on part pensioners’ assets at 3.25 percent, despite five RBA interest rate cuts since 2015.

While pensioners and welfare recipients are being punished financially, the country’s “big four” banks are reaping a bonanza, including by not passing on the full RBA rate cuts to mortgage holders, credit card customers and other retail borrowers.

An analysis by the comparison website Mozo estimated that the four banks would pocket an extra $547.6 million per year by not passing on the last two rate cuts in full. That is on top of raking in $18.8 billion between 2008 and 2019 by repricing mortgages above RBA rate movements, according to a report earlier this year by Macquarie Bank.

Because other central banks are slashing rates, the RBA’s cuts have not had the desired effect of lowering the value of the Australian dollar to make exports of raw materials and agricultural products more competitive. After the latest cut, the Australian dollar fell from $US69.75c to $US69.57c, then rose back to $US69.85c.

Warnings are being sounded about the disintegration of the post-war economic order as the US moves to reassert its global supremacy at the expense of its main rivals, China, Europe and Japan. Australian capitalism would be devastated in any all-out economic war because it depends heavily on exports to China and investment from the US.

At an economic forum this week, held in the wake of the acrimonious G20 summit in Japan, prominent economist Ross Garnaut said Australia must come to terms with the looming reality that the global trading system is “breaking down.”

Former Australian Trade Minister Craig Emerson said the way nations were approaching trade disputes was “almost without precedent” since World War II. He said both the US and China were “flouting the rules,” but expressed particular worry at the Trump administration’s readiness to “dismantle” the World Trade Organisation.

For now, the Morrison government is trying to exploit the slump to justify handing huge income tax cuts to the wealthiest layers of society, claiming that these will stimulate spending.

The government is rushing a three-stage tax package through parliament, having struck deals with four “crossbenchers” in the Senate. The government is being aided by the Labor Party leadership of Anthony Albanese, who has declared that Labor will back “successful” people, “wealth creation” and a closer partnership with the corporate elite.

The first stage of the package consists of one-off tax rebates of $1,080 for those on incomes between $41,000 and $90,000—offered on the calculation that they will have to spend the money quickly because of their financial stress. This is hardly likely to be enough, however, to halt the globally-driven slide into slump.

By far the biggest benefits of the tax package, moreover, will go to those taking home more than $200,000 a year—that is, the top 5 percent of income recipients. Such incomes are more than four times the median wage of taxpayers, which was estimated last year to be just under $45,000. This is line with the worldwide enrichment of the financial aristocracy at the expense of the working class.

Germany’s Deutsche Bank slashes 20,000 jobs

Dietmar Gaisenkersting 

Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest financial institution, plans to slash up to 20,000 jobs. The onslaught will affect more than a fifth of the bank’s 91,500 employees.

The bank informed its supervisory board and the regulatory authorities about its planned jobs massacre last week. Details were leaked to the media over the weekend. The final decision could be taken on July 7, when the supervisory board is due to meet.

The plans confirm that workers in the service and banking sectors, like their counterparts in industry, are paying with their jobs, wages and working conditions for the preparations for trade war and military conflict.

The details of the planned layoffs are still being finalised, and some of the figures could change. But media reports suggest that the main target will be the loss-making corporate and investment division, where 38,000 workers are currently employed, many of them outside Germany. “The trade in securities—above all with shares and government bonds—is to be reduced significantly outside Europe and closed completely in some areas,” wrote the Süddeutsche Zeitung, based on sources in the financial sector.

However, important parts of the bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt will also be affected, as well as the research department, where experts analyse capital markets. The bank has been attempting to reduce personnel in the private and business banking divisions for some time.

Due to financial reasons, the job cuts will take place over several years. Buy-outs, early retirement packages and so-called social plans for laid-off workers are being prepared. In this, the bank’s board of directors can rely on the loyal cooperation of the trade unions and works councillors, especially Verdi. Over the past three years, they have signed off on the destruction of 13,000 jobs, including 7,000 in the past year alone.

It was revealed on Friday that the trade unions have agreed to another 2,000 job cuts at Deutsche Bank’s subsidiary Postbank. Some 1,300 jobs will be cut due to the integration of Postbank into Deutsche Bank, and a further 750 jobs will go in Deutsche Bank’s private and business banking divisions in Frankfurt and Bonn.

“In order to meet our ambitious growth and cost targets, it is crucial that we organise our platform as efficiently and unified as possible,” wrote Frank Strauss, director of private banking, in a letter to employees justifying the job cuts.

This is by no means the last stage of the jobs massacre. “We will continue to lay off over the coming years,” Strauss told the DPA news agency. He can be assured of the trade unions’ support in this initiative. They repeatedly sign on to job-cutting programmes, merely urging that there be no compulsory redundancies.

As always, the announcement of layoffs led to an increase in the bank’s share price, with a three percent rise on Monday. However, Deutsche Bank’s share price is at rock bottom. The bank has faced one crisis after another since the outbreak of the financial crisis 11 years ago. Prior to the financial crisis, Deutsche Bank had a share price of more than €90 [$US102] per share. At the beginning of June, it reached a record low of €5,80. The share price has lost three-quarters of its value over the past five years. It currently stands at €6,77.

The drastic drop on the stock market is not only the result of the financial crisis, Deutsche Bank’s highly speculative business operations and the multi-billion bonus payments to top managers. Between 2015 and 2017, most of the bank’s multi-billion losses resulted from fines arising out of criminal speculation conducted in the United States.

In 2016, the US Justice Department imposed a fine of $14 billion on Deutsche Bank. The reason was fraudulent practices on the sub-prime mortgage market prior to 2008. The Obama government deliberately targeted Germany’s only major bank of international significance after the European Commission had imposed a fine of €13 billion on Apple.

These fines intensified the German government’s drive to establish Europe as a world power independently of the United States. This plan includes the need for a strong international bank. In February 2019, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier presented the national industrial strategy 2030 to the press. It calls for the creation of “national champions,” of large and strong actors capable of competing with rivals from the United States and China.

The German government then sought to create such a strong actor in the banking sector by encouraging the merger of Deutsche Bank and Kommerzbank. However, this failed in late April due to high financial risks.

Following the failure, Deutsche Bank chief executive Christian Seving was nonetheless well aware that he had to meet the demands of the government and shareholders. “Deutsche Bank will continue to review all alternatives to increase the profitability and returns for its shareholders over the long-term,” he said. He then announced a radical restructuring of the country’s largest bank at its shareholder meeting in late May. “We are ready to take tough measures,” stated Seving, who has led the bank since last year.

The 20,000 job cuts then followed. The costs of trade war, in which every imperialist power wants to secure an advantage at its rivals’ expense, will be borne by the working class. Deutsche Bank is the most spectacular example of this process, but by no means the only one.

Last year alone, 32,000 jobs were lost in Germany’s banking sector, more than any other previous year. Whereas some 765,000 people were employed in Germany’s banking sector in 1997, the total is now just 565,000. The number of credit institutions has declined from 4,500 in the year of German reunification (1990) to 1,800 today, and the wave of consolidations is continuing unabated. A total of 53 bank mergers occurred in Germany last year alone.

The jobs, wages, and social achievements of bank employees can only be defended if they organise themselves independently of the works councils and trade unions, and make contact with the tens of millions of workers around the world whose wages, jobs, and workplace benefits are being threatened for the very same reasons.