Study shows funding down, tuition up at US public universities and colleges

Buster Haycook

A report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CPBB) shows that years of cuts in state funding for public colleges and universities have driven up student tuition. This has led to faculty reductions, fewer courses offerings and campus closings.

While some states are beginning to restore a portion of the deep cuts in funding prompted by the 2008 financial crisis, overall, state funding for public two- and four-year colleges still remains far below pre-recession levels.

According to the report, nearly every state has failed to keep higher education funding on par with inflation, and many have actively cut funding. Half of the states in the country have cut funding per student by more than 20 percent.

One state, Arizona, has cut funding per student by more than 50 percent at public universities and colleges. A CBPP graph shows that six states—Louisiana, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Idaho and New Hampshire—have cut funding by 30 to 40 percent.

In only four states—Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming—was per-student funding for the last school year above its 2008 pre-recession levels. Forty-five states spent less per student in 2015-2016 than they did before the recession. Alaska spending stayed statistically stable.

Tuition at public four-year institutions rose in 34 states over the past year, increasing by an average of $254, or 2.8 percent. In nine states, average tuition rose by more than 5 percent, while Louisiana hiked tuition at its four-year schools by more than 7 percent, about $540.

States across the country recently approved tuition increase caps, which allow universities to keep state funding low as long as they observe the set maximum tuition increase. At the University of Michigan, some administrators have questioned whether or not they even need to raise tuition, due to the university’s massive endowment.

College tuition rates have soared compared to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which averages the prices of consumer goods and services, reflecting the cost of living. The Business Insider notes that while the CPI increased 120 percent from 1980 to 2014, college tuition rose by a staggering 260 percent during this time period. Even the top 1 percent of families in the United States, who have little trouble affording college tuition, have seen tuition rates outpace their 170 percent income growth.

As tuition has skyrocketed, college enrollment at public colleges and universities has risen almost 9 percent as funding has dried up. This has led many students to take on massive student loan debt.

Rising tuition costs make choosing a college a difficult decision for high school students and their families. Low-income students are particularly affected. Without access to information about available financial aid, many low-income families do not believe that they can afford college and therefore do not pursue it, deciding it is not worth the financial risk.

In 2012, nearly 50 percent of low-income students enrolled in some form of post-secondary education. Over 80 percent of students from families in the top 20 percent income bracket enrolled. Income, more so than test scores and academic records, has been shown to be one of the main deterrents preventing the pursuit of higher education for students from lower income families.

Tuition increases are likely a reason for families who choose a less-selective public institution, which has been shown to decrease a student’s future earnings. Even high-achieving students who grew up in low-income families are likely to select colleges based upon financial constraints.

Various media outlets have placed blame for rising tuition costs on instructors’ pensions and allegations of administrative fraud. But, as an article from the Washington Monthly points out, the number of full-time professional administrators and their support staffs far outnumber the total number of educators employed by universities throughout the country:

“Alas, today’s full-time professional administrators tend to view management as an end in and of itself. … For many of these career managers, promoting teaching and research is less important than expanding their own administrative domains. Under their supervision, the means have become the end.”

This is a change from the past, where professors would often cycle through administrative positions and most always return to teaching or research. While many of these support positions are valuable to students’ success, the bloating of higher-level administrative staff and their salaries is not in students’ interest.

Many of the major universities have generated massive endowments, which guarantee their own stability outside of state funding. Smaller public universities do not have such massive endowments, and they are virtually nonexistent at community colleges.

The University of Michigan, a public institution, has a $10 billion endowment. The Wall Street Journal reports that UM President Mark Schlissel, pulling in $772,500 annually before perks, has been guaranteed a minimum salary of $225,000 when he returns to the faculty, as well as $2 million to open a new biology laboratory.

The resources exist for quality affordable education. The National Priorities Project reports that military spending in the fiscal year 2015—$598.5 billion—accounted for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending. This massive figure included spending for war, nuclear weapons, international military pursuits and other Pentagon-related spending.

The Socialist Equality Party and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality insist that high-quality higher education, including continuing education for adults, is a social right and a necessity in a modern society.

US air raids kill more than 200 civilians in northern Syria

Thomas Gaist

Airstrikes by the American-led war coalition killed as many as 212 civilians in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo on Tuesday, according to estimates published Thursday by Al Jazeera.

The original civilian death toll produced by the strikes was reported to be 56. The strikes, which were allegedly carried out with significant support from the French military, “pulverized entire families, including young children,” the Washington Post reported Thursday.

The carnage in Aleppo is merely a foretaste of the slaughter being prepared by Washington against the Syrian city of Raqqa and Iraqi city of Mosul. The bombings, carried out in total disregard for civilian lives, serve notice that Washington and its allies are ready to carry out large-scale war crimes in pursuit of strategic domination over the Middle East.

Planning sessions for the attacks on Raqqa and Mosul were held this week, attended by leaders from the US-dominated North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and other governments aligned with Washington’s “anti-Islamic State coalition.”

In addition to hashing out the details for a massive urban assault against areas inhabited by hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis, the talks included discussions over a package of new military escalations throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

The stepped-up NATO military operation, to be conducted in the name of the “war against Islamic State,” includes deployments to Iraq, Syria, and Libya. The NATO powers also agreed to contribute additional forces for naval operations in the Mediterranean, as part of “Operation Sea Guardian.”

With the US military and its proxy forces on both sides of the Syria-Iraq border now in the final countdown for the offensives, it is already clear that the assaults will be bloody affairs. They are predicted to produce hundreds of thousands of refugees, and the Pentagon is planning for an extended ground occupation, aimed at “controlling the population” and modeled on the lessons of the 2003-2011 US occupation of Iraq, once Islamic State militants are cleared from the area.

The US-led coalition seeks to “collapse ISIS control over Mosul and Raqqa,” and is planning for large-scale “stabilization and governance efforts,” geared to “hold, rebuild and govern their territory,” US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said.

“Mosul is now increasingly coming upon us. We have it in sight,” anti-ISIS coalition spokesman Brett McGurk declared Thursday.

Having committed an additional 560 US troops to Iraq last week, bringing the official US troop presence there to nearly 5,000, Washington is pressing for greater troop contributions from its allies. The Australian government announced Tuesday that it will send forces to Baghdad in support of “counter-terror” training programs for Iraqi forces. NATO plans to expand efforts to train Iraqi military officers, in an effort to bolster the imperialist-controlled Iraqi government in Baghdad. The alliance is already training hundreds of Iraqi officers at camps in Jordan, and plans to expand its training programs into Iraq itself.

Secretary Carter made clear Wednesday that Washington expected all of its major allies to get on board with the “war against ISIS.” He called for material support from NATO allies, along with commitments of more trainers and advisors.

“We’re all going to need to do more,” Carter said, following discussions Wednesday morning.

“Today, we made the plans and commitments that will help us deliver ISIL the lasting defeat that it deserves,” he stated. “We’ve pursued a number of deliberate decisions to accelerate our plan.”

Just prior to Wednesday’s conference, Secretary Carter met with French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who confirmed that Paris would deploy the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in support of the US-led aerial bombardment of Iraq and Syria.

On Thursday, Le Drian made clear the global scope of the war preparations being implemented under the banner of the “war on terror” and the “war against ISIS,” which extend from West Africa straight across to Central Asia. He called for stepped-up NATO deployments to sub-Saharan Africa, citing the need for operations focused on the Lake Chad Basin.

“We must also help the poorest countries which are on the front line (near) Lake Chad,” the French Foreign Minister said, highlighting Niger, Chad, and Nigeria for targeting by NATO forces.

The Turkish coup, US militarism and the collapse of democracy

Bill Van Auken

One week after the abortive military coup to overthrow Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, there remains no doubt that Washington had a major hand in the bloody events that shook Istanbul and Ankara.

Turkish military commanders with the closest ties to the Pentagon have been directly implicated in the attempted overthrow, including the commander of the Incirlik air base, where the US stores its largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in Europe and from which it carries out its bombing campaign against Iraq and Syria. Multiple aircraft supporting the coup flew out of Incirlik under the eyes of the US military. After it became apparent that the coup would fail, the Turkish base commander asked the US for asylum.

It emerged Wednesday that a warning of the impending coup had come from Russia, which relayed intercepted radio communications between the coup plotters to Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, known as the MIT. The warning was shared with the Turkish president in time for him to flee barely a half an hour in advance of a special operations squad sent to the seaside resort where Erdoğan was vacationing with the mission of either killing or capturing him.

Is it plausible that the CIA and the US military, with their massive deployment in the region and the world’s most extensive electronic surveillance network at their disposal, would not have been aware of the same communications?

If they weren’t relayed to the Turkish government by the American military and intelligence apparatus, the reason is clear. They were in on the coup plot. Obama didn’t want Erdoğan warned; he wanted him dead.

Then there was Washington’s original reaction to the coup, which came from Secretary of State John Kerry, who was in Moscow. Kerry limited himself to expressing American hopes for “stability and peace and continuity within Turkey.” There was no mention of defending a democratically elected government against military overthrow, not to mention any expression of concern for the fate of the country’s president, Erdoğan.

What precisely Kerry was referring to in voicing support for “continuity within Turkey” can only be understood in the context of the last 70 years of US-Turkish relations. In 1947, at the outset of the Cold War, the US promulgated the Truman Doctrine, committing itself to the defense of both Greece and Turkey against what it alleged was Soviet aggression.

US aid, military advisors and an aircraft carrier group were rushed to Turkey to assist it in rebuffing Moscow’s demand for free passage through the Turkish Straits, the strategic passage connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. In 1952, Turkey was brought into NATO and, over the course of four decades, remained a pivotal country in the US military drive against the Soviet Union.

In the interests of maintaining this “continuity,” Washington supported a series of military coups in Turkey, the first in 1960 against Turkey’s prime minister, Adnan Menderes, whose fate (he was hung) was sealed after he turned to Moscow for economic aid.

Erdoğan, first as prime minister from 2003 to 2014, and then as president, has posed similar problems. In the interests of securing the grip of his right-wing Islamist party, the AKP, he has pursued a nationalist policy that has repeatedly antagonized Washington. In 2003, Turkey refused to allow the US to use its soil to attack Iraq. In 2010, it failed to back the US drive for UN sanctions against Iran. And in 2013, it shocked Washington and NATO by announcing plans to purchase a Chinese anti-missile system.

Relations have further deteriorated over the war for regime change in Syria, where Turkey is the principal backer of Islamist militias tied to Al Qaeda, while Washington has increasingly solidified ties with Syria’s Kurdish militia, which is in turn aligned with the PKK, the Turkish Kurdish movement with which Ankara is at war.

Most recently, there is Erdoğan’s apology to Moscow over the deliberate shoot-down of a Russian warplane in November 2015 and a move toward rapprochement with the government of Vladimir Putin.

In the wake of the coup, Erdoğan spoke with Putin well before a phone call with Obama. And, in a conversation Tuesday with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Erdoğan declared, “We are determined to resolve regional issues by joining hands with Iran and Russia, and with our efforts to return peace and stability to the region.”

US imperialism has no intention of brooking such a strategic realignment in the region. Resort to an attempted military coup was no doubt a criminally reckless policy. If it had succeeded, the likely result would have been a civil war and a death toll that would have made the bloody US-backed coup in Egypt pale by comparison.

US imperialism has already wrecked Iraq, Libya and Syria, killing and maiming millions in pursuit of its geo-strategic interests, so why not Turkey as well?

The tensions with Turkey have emerged in the context of a global eruption of American militarism. The coup took place barely one week after a NATO summit in Warsaw outlined plans to execute a massive escalation of military deployments on Russia’s western border and preparations for a direct, i.e., nuclear, confrontation with Moscow.

In Asia, US imperialism has made it clear it intends to use a ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration against Chinese claims in the South China Sea as the pretext for a major military escalation against Beijing.

To that end, the Obama administration dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to Australia to deliver bellicose speeches threatening China with US military might and, more pointedly, to instruct the Australians that, whether they liked it or not, they would be dragged into the US war preparations. “It’s never a good bet to bet against the United States,” he threatened.

The US is moving toward a military confrontation on a scale not seen since the end of the Second World War. It is determined to crush all obstacles in the path of its war plans. Great shocks are coming in the wake of the American November elections, if not even before.

The growth of militarism and preparations for world war are incompatible with the maintenance of democratic forms of rule anywhere on the planet. The drive to war is intensifying and accelerating a turn toward dictatorial methods in country after country, a turn that is rooted in the profound crisis of world capitalism and the unchecked growth of social inequality and class tensions in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown.

In Turkey itself, the defeat of the imperialist-backed coup has spelled not some flowering of democracy, but the consolidation of a right-wing dictatorship in which Erdoğan has arrogated to himself the power to rule by decree, while carrying out the arrest and firing of tens of thousands of people thought to oppose him and moving to restore the death penalty.

In answer to moralizing capitalist critics in the West, the Turkish president has retorted that he is only doing the same thing as French President Francois Hollande, who is now ruling under what is becoming a permanent state of emergency, imposed on the pretext of combatting terrorism but directed against mounting social tensions and working class unrest.

Whether the abortive coup of July 15 marks the end of the attempts by the Turkish military to seize power is itself an open question. With fully one-third of its general staff under arrest, the country’s armed forces are in a state of turmoil. Moreover, Washington is not about to passively permit Turkey to drift out of its strategic orbit.

The Turkish events have provided a stark lesson for the working class. It is impossible to defend basic social and democratic rights outside of a unified international struggle against imperialist war and militarism and the capitalist system in which they are rooted.

OFID Scholarship for Youths to Attend International Conference 2016 – OPEC Countries

Brief description: One Young World in association with the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) is offering travel/conference scholarships to students from OPEC countries wishing to attend the One Young World Summit

Application Deadline: 5th August 2016

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: OPEC Countries. See list below.

To be taken at (country): Ottawa, Canada

Eligible Field of Study: None

About the Award: The OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) is the development finance institution established by the Member States of OPEC in 1976 as a collective channel of aid to the developing countries. OFID works in cooperation with developing country partners and the international donor community to stimulate economic growth and alleviate poverty in all disadvantaged regions of the world. It does this by providing financing to build essential infrastructure, strengthen social services delivery and promote productivity, competitiveness and trade. OFID’s work is people-centered, focusing on projects that meet basic needs – such as food, energy, clean water and sanitation, healthcare and education – with the aim of encouraging self-reliance and inspiring hope for the future.

OFID is a long standing supporter of One Young World and has enabled 100 young leaders to participate in One Young World Summit since 2011. This year OFID will sponsor twenty successful applicants to participate in the One Young World Summit 2016 which takes place in Ottawa, Canada from 28 September – 1 October.

Offered Since: 2011

Type: Events and Conferences

Eligibility: In order to apply, candidate must be:

• Aged 18 – 30
• A national of one of the listed eligible countries. Click here to view list.

Successful candidates will excel in the following areas:

• Evidenced commitment to the sustainable development of their country. This commitment can come in many forms; ranging from a high level of involvement in community initiatives to social entrepreneurship or from leading responsible business practices to public service.
• Leadership ability
• Concern for local or global issues
• Ability to generate and articulate impactful ideas
• Teamwork

Number of Awardees: 20

List of countries:  Algeria, Guatemala, Nigeria, Syrian Arab Republic, Botswana, Iraq, Palestinian Territory, Occupied, Tanzania, United Republic of, Burkina Faso, Jordan, Paraguay, Tunisia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Philippines, Venezuela, Cameroon, Libya, Qatar, Vietnam, Congo, The Democratic Republic of, Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia, Egypt, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Ghana

Value of Scholarship: 

• Access to the One Young World Summit 2016 in Ottawa, Canada.
• Hotel accommodation on a shared basis between 28 September and 1 October
• Catering which includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• Transport between the Summit accommodation and the Summit venue.
• Summit hand-outs and support materials.
• The cost of travel to and from Ottawa.

Duration of Scholarship: 28 September – 1 October.

How to Apply: Submit an online application in English before midnight 5 August. If you already have a One Young World candidate profile, you do not need to create a new application to apply for this scholarship, you will be considered for it automatically.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: One Young World,OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID)

Sri Lanka: Post-War Abyssal

Nilantha Ilangamuwa

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?  ―Albert Camus

Here is the disastrous and forlorn situation that many are facing in the post-conflict situation in Sri Lanka. Seven years have been passed but the wounds of the bloody conflict keep putrefying society due to absence of healing. In his recent talk, one of the medical doctors attached to the Kilinochchi district hospital has disclosed few more heartbreaking facts out of countless numbers, on the socio-economic situation in the area.

Not a single family which has been unaffected by the brutal conflict which produced more and more desperation, doubt, misery and mistrust in public life.

In most affected families women turned themselves into the single parents, while the rate of child abuses has escalated to alarming levels – largely due to lack of paternal protection in women-headed families. Most of the females have been affected to the roots due to trauma and depression, leading to increased level of suicides.   120 suicide cases were reported in first six months of this year and in the most horrendous of these cases, the victims used insecticides to kill themselves.  Child marriages – the “tragic trick” most of the parents in the area used to prevent their children being abducted by the Tamil Tigers, the vicious terror outfit which used Child Soldiers in large scale, is still continuing.  Three hundred thousand population affected by custody has decreased to hundred thousand. Thirty thousands of soldiers were re-deployed in the area.  What else does one need to understand the tribalism and the backward travel of our society, and the situation that our brothers and sisters are facing?

Take out all masks you are wearing, forget political afflation you are in, keep aside the historical illusions which control your conscience; take a deep breath and think rationally to heal these hearts, and think why we were unable to consolidate our political power to solve this catastrophic and anguishing problem. This is not an exception to the particular region or the district, but this is indeed applicable throughout the country. Nothing different when it comes to the races or clan you belong to but this scenario is common to all. From war to national disaster, this is the hapless reality most of the victims are going through.

It is indeed somewhat, comforting to hear the words of the President – Mr. Maithripala Sirisena when he expressed his commitment to bringing us out of this quagmire  by introducing “national reconciliation” as a subject in the public education system. This is subsequent to Prime Minister Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe expressing his keenness to introduce the anti-corruption and criminal justice system as subjects to the National Education System. Actions are yet to be taken.

There is no doubt we need such subject-matters to be included in the Public Education System, which unfortunately continues to be riddled with dead theoretical hierarchy. The country’s education system is producing living machines in place of the substantive and healthy living humans confirming humanity through their soul-connections – made through the regulated pathway of Education.  The government and their officials in Administration are required to take immediate actions to restore the missing links in the education system, so as to ensure that at least the next generation in this nation will widen its sharing and broaden its mind.  That is indeed a long term plan which the state should be continuously acting upon whichever political side comes into power.

But unfortunately, in Sri Lanka, there are no bipartisan state policies but political party based agendas and desires which are controlling almost every section of the state. Devolution of Power – based on policies and strengths is the need of the hour, and the most important political fact is that majority people in this country have empowered the Government with the mandate to enact such plan. The core purpose of “Common National Government” or “Hybrid Government” is based on this basic value desperately needed by Sri Lanka.

In the meanwhile, our country needs a reliable mechanism to identify, analyze and apply effective procedures to generate the atmosphere where the victims of a three-decade nightmare, can nurture their hopes and expectations – however weak and small the post-war residue is, so they would live and contribute to humanity rather than go screaming for immediate death.

The pitiful situation that the University of Jaffna allowed itself  into, which later some of the extreme political gangs, were attempting to use for other means, portrayed the eldritch atmosphere in our society. Most of us are not ready to accept with faith and work on the basis of true principles of unity and harmony. This is applicable to each community whatever its name. Time has already passed, to think and work beyond the locum of political ambitions. If we as the countrymen need peace we have to work on peace; yes … the whole peace and nothing but the peace.

However, peace without truth is nothing but an illusion – a deceptive misguidance which generates opportunities and problems to chew the sweet and bitter tastes of evil respectively.  Let’s strengthen unity before it leave us again!

Photo Essay: Life In Pieces For Delhi’s Displaced Community

Vishank Singh


“The bulldozers were running over our homes even without any prior notice. We all ran to save our belongings, only to find most of them destroyed,” says Geetha, a former iron carver who is now working as a maid in homes nearby. She belongs to Gadia Lohar community, which seeks its origins from Rajasthan and finds its existence in History for it’s allegiance to a Rajput ruler, Maharana Pratap. In 2009, the state government decided to demolish their settlement, located ahead of the Tyagaraj Stadium in South Delhi during a ‘beautification spree’ just before the Delhi Commonwealth Games (CWG) 2010.

The Delhi High Court’s judgement in 2010 directed the authorities to plan a proper rehabilitation policy for the victims within 4 months of the demolishment. More than 6 years have passed but the rehabilitation is yet to be provided. The previous settlement of the community was at the roadside where it was easier for them to find customers. “My father used to earn around Rs. 400-500 daily. Now it’s not even Rs. 150, including the earnings of both of us.” says Kuldeep (26), who dropped from college 6 years ago to help his father in overcoming the financial crisis of the family.

A 2011 report from Housing and Land Rights Network suggests that more than 2,50,000 people were virtually displaced just before the CWG 2010 in Delhi. “How can they destroy our homes and call it a nation-building? How can they take our homes away just like that?” asks Gagan Singh (33), a former blacksmith, who now works as a contractual labourer. The community is currently based in a temporary settlement in a marginalized and deprived state.

Geetha (35), a mother of 2 children, used to work as an iron carver before her community was forced to leave their settlement in 2009. Now she is working as a maid in nearby houses.

Rohit Sisodia (32), along with her wife, Sunita (30) and two children. His occupation as a blacksmith suffered a lot after the demolishment.”No one comes here, away from the road to this settlement for getting their job done.They usually hire roadside blacksmiths,” says Rohit

Iron tools kept in one of the Blacksmith’s shops for sale.

Gagan Singh (33), with his daughter, Medha (12). He returned home after 6 months from Jodhpur. Compelled to leave his traditional occupation of blacksmith due to the financial problems, he is now working there as a contractual labourer.

Mishtha (31), Gagan’s wife.

Worshipping place along with a traditional ‘Hukka’. There used to be a temple in the previous settlement which was demolished in 2009. From then onwards the community has made this place their worshipping spot.

The living conditions in these settlements are tough. Usually, a family of 6-7 people lives in a single room.

Ramesh Singh (55), is jobless for years. Suffering from the pulmonary Tuberculosis, he is not able to treat himself in any of the government hospitals as most of his official papers were lost during the demolishment.

Vicky Chauhan (36), a blacksmith standing in his shop. He is hardly able to earn enough through the profession which he perceives as an art after he was forced to leave his roadside shop during the demolishment in 2009.

Mukundilal Chauhan (62), is one of the eldest members of the settlement. He is the one who is leading the fight for his community’s rights on various platforms.

Radha, doing her household chores.

Even the temporary settlement is in danger of being evacuated since the Delhi Metro construction is getting intense in the area.

Saving Coral Reefs Means Slashing Emissions

Abel Valdivia


An example of coral bleaching. (Photo: SarahDepper/flickr/cc)

Climate change is the primary cause of coral reef degradation around the world, according to a groundbreaking new study that casts doubt on the previous scientific understanding of reef erosion.

The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, finds that even isolated coral reefs, far away from localized human degradation like fishing and pollution—long assumed to be the primary causes of reef destruction—are no better off than those near coastal areas with human populations.

That means addressing localized problems won’t be effective in salvaging these critical marine ecosystems unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed first, the study concludes.

“We were surprised to discover that even those reefs most isolated from local impacts like pollution and fishing were no better off in terms of coral and seaweed cover,” said lead author John Bruno, a professor of marine ecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “This finding totally overturns a major paradigm in reef ecology and conservation: the assumption that isolated reefs are near-pristine and more resilient to global warming.”

The study, which analyzed more than 1,700 coral reef surveys across the world, was released amid a mass bleaching event that has devastated some of the world’s most pristine coral reefs. A study in April found that sections of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have been all but destroyed, with 50 percent of the GBR’s northern section already dead and much of it “severely” bleached.

Bleaching occurs when overly warm ocean waters cause coral to expel internal algae, which turns the coral white and erodes its structures. The loss of structure makes shorelines more vulnerable and destroys natural habitats for marine life.

Canada to wage war in Africa

Roger Jordan

Speaking just days after Canada pledged to command and organize a 1,000-strong NATO combat force in Latvia, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan insisted that Canada’s leading role in the US-led alliance’s military build-up against Russia will not prevent it from deploying forces to Africa.

Sajjan told a July 13 press briefing that a military intervention in Africa would be a “risky venture,” but then committed the Liberal government to announcing a deployment to an unspecified African country in the coming weeks.

“We will be moving ahead on this,” said Sajjan, “because it is extremely important to send a message to our multilateral partners that Canada will play a responsible role in the world.”

Sajjan’s comments were backed up by General Jonathan Vance, the Chief of the Defence Staff, the next day. Speaking at the investiture of a new army commander, Vance summarized the rapidly expanding list of overseas Canadian operations, declaring, “Internationally, the army is at the forefront, managing conflicts around the world, contributing to operations in Iraq, building capacity with allies and partners in Poland, Ukraine, and very soon in Africa.”

According to press reports, the Canadian Armed Forces’ Africa deployment could involve up to a 1,000 troops and will include a contingent of CF-18 fighter jets.

There has been no official confirmation of the destination of the troops, but it is widely anticipated they will be sent to Mali, where French imperialism has been waging a counter-insurgency war against anti-government rebels since 2013. Also reportedly under consideration is the Central African Republic (CAR). Like Mali, the CAR is a former French colony which has been convulsed in recent years by violent sectarian conflict.

Currently, 13,000 troops have been deployed to Mali and 12,000 to CAR under the banner of the United Nations. Most of these troops are drawn from neighboring African countries, however both interventions are effectively led by the French with, in the case of Mali, support from the German and Dutch militaries.

In late June, the Security Council agreed to increase the UN troop contingent in Mali by 2,500.

The Trudeau government, with the support of the media, is casting the Canadian military’s impending African intervention as a “peacekeeping” mission aimed at protecting the local population from various Islamist militias, re-engaging with the United Nations and strengthening Canada’s commitment to “humanitarian” goals. Speaking at the UN last March, Trudeau proclaimed, “Canada will increase its engagement with peace operations, not just by making available our military, police, and specialized expertise, but also by supporting the civilian institutions that prevent conflict, bring stability to fragile states, and help societies recover in the aftermath of crisis.”

This is all hogwash. Since coming to power late last year, Trudeau and his Liberals have pursued an aggressive, militarist foreign policy aimed at asserting the predatory interests of the Canadian ruling class. The new government has made good on its election pledge to deepen Canada’s longstanding military-strategic partnership with the US, the most aggressive imperialist power on the planet. In less than a year, Trudeau has tripled the number of Special Forces personnel active on the frontlines in the Mideast war in Iraq, given his backing to Washington’s and Japan’s stridently anti-Chinese stance over the South China Sea conflict and agreed to dispatch 450 troops, a frigate and six fighter jets to Europe to join the war drive against Russia.

While expanding Canada’s participation in Washington’s three principal military-strategic offensives—in the oil-rich Middle East and against Russia and China—the Trudeau Liberals have shunned the bellicose rhetoric of their Conservative predecessors. In contrast with Stephen Harper, who celebrated Canada as a nation of “warriors,” Trudeau has resurrected the lie that Canada’s foreign policy is motivated by humanitarian ideals and the canard that Canada’s military has a vocation for “peacekeeping.” Through this propaganda, the government aims to camouflage its aggressive foreign policy and rally popular support for employing the CAF to intervene around the world, hiking military spending, and procuring new warplanes, battleships, drones and other advanced weapons.

The government’s own document for the “defence policy review” it launched in April admits as much, noting that, “peace support missions are increasingly deployed to hostile environments where violence is systemic … Unlike ‘traditional’ peacekeeping missions of the past, most current missions operate where there is no clear peace accord to be monitored.” The missions, adds the document, are moreover frequently “authorized under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, thereby allowing use of force.”

Even neo-conservative commentators, who are critical of the Trudeau government’s peacekeeping rhetoric because they believe it constitutes an obstacle to Canada playing a frontline role in support of US imperialism, have been compelled to acknowledge that the “peacekeeping” label is misleading and that the upcoming CAF intervention in Africa will be a war in all but name.

The National Post’s Matthew Fisher compared the coming African deployment to Canada’s involvement in the Afghan war, where the CAF played a pivotal role in supporting the US-led neo-colonial occupation by leading counter-insurgency operations in Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold. One hundred fifty-eight Canadian troops lost their lives in Afghanistan and thousands of others were either wounded or psychologically traumatized.

Noting that in 2005-2006, Defence Minister Bill Graham and the military’s top commander, Gen. Rick Hillier, toured the country to prepare “Canadians for the likelihood of casualties” in Afghanistan, Fisher called on Sajjan and Vance to “in the same way now prepare Canadians for the dangerous slog ahead in Africa.”

In an editorial last Thursday, the Globe and Mail agreed with Fisher’s assessment, stating that the coming African intervention “could prove to be no easier than Canada's difficult, deadly experience in Afghanistan.”

According to Fisher, West Africa has become “a terrifying place, with Islamic terrorists flooding south across the Sahara from the chaos of Libya to cause mayhem, anarchy and despair in half a dozen impoverished countries.”

This self-serving “war on terror” narrative carefully omits mention of precisely what caused the “chaos of Libya,” as Fisher puts it. The country was plunged into sectarian conflict by the 2011 US-led NATO “regime change” war in which Canada played a prominent role. NATO air strikes killed thousands, laid waste to much of the country’s infrastructure, and were coordinated with and bolstered the very extremist, Islamist forces against whom the Liberals and the media now claim Canadian troops must be mobilized to fight.

Fisher, to say nothing of Trudeau and his Liberals, also avoids any reference to Africa’s brutal colonial past, which remains the chief reason for the mass poverty and misery which continues to blight the West Africa region and much of the rest of the continent. The period of direct colonial rule was followed by ruthless neo-colonial domination and the enforcement of IMF restructuring programs aimed at slashing social spending and boosting investor profits.

The reality is that the Trudeau government’s military intervention in Africa is being driven by geopolitical and economic interests. An operation in West Africa would help strengthen Canada’s cooperation with French imperialism, a key NATO ally with thousands of troops in the region. As early as 2013, the Harper government aided Paris by airlifting troops and military equipment to Mali, and this was repeated by the Trudeau government at the end of last year for France’s Operation Barkhane. This mission stretches across Paris’s former colonial possessions, from Mali in West Africa to Chad in the center of the continent.

In May, Foreign Minister Stephane Dion travelled to Tunisia to proclaim his support for the government and unveil a security agreement between the two countries that will facilitate the training of Tunisian security forces on the border with Libya. This deal could help pave the way for a Canadian military deployment to Libya, which has Africa’s largest oil reserves, should the European powers act on their long-discussed plans to mount a new military intervention there.

Canadian troops have considerable experience operating on the African continent. As well as their role in Libya, Canadian troops began in 2011 to participate in the US-led Operation Flintlock in West Africa. The annual military exercise involves special forces from Mali, Nigeria, Mauritania, Niger and neighbouring countries.

Canadian corporations have substantial investments in Africa, investing more than $25 billion in mining operations across the continent. In Burkina Faso, where a terrorist attack in January by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was seized upon by Canada’s ruling elite to step up pressure for a military deployment to the region, Canadian companies control three of the country’s five biggest mines and have invested $1.6 billion. Canadian-based Iamgold is one of the two principal investors in Mali’s largest gold mine.

In 2014, the Harper government named Burkina Faso and Mali as “priority countries” for Canada, meaning that they offered considerable potential for business investments and should be a focus of Canada’s foreign policy.

IMF cuts growth forecast in the wake of Brexit

Nick Beams

The International Monetary Fund has revised down its forecast for global growth in 2016 as a direct result of the British referendum decision to quit the European Union. IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld said the fund had been prepared to deliver an upgrade on its world growth projection but the Brexit vote had “thrown a spanner in the works.”

Overall the IMF cut its global growth forecast for 2017 by 0.1 percentage points. But the downgrades for the United Kingdom (UK) were much more significant. After cutting its UK forecast by 0.2 percentage points from its April forecast for this year, it reduced the growth prediction for 2017 from 2.2 to just 1.3 percent, the largest decline for any advanced economy.

The impact on the UK may be even more significant than forecast by the IMF. Private economic forecasters have warned its economy will stagnate next year, in contrast to the IMF estimate of 1.3 percent growth for 2017.

The European Commission has forecast that UK growth could fall by as much as 2.6 percentage points, with the economy contracting by 0.3 percent next year.

The IMF update warned that the Brexit vote “implies a substantial increase in economic, political and institutional uncertainty, which is projected to have negative macroeconomic consequences, especially in advanced European economies.”

The IMF acknowledged the outcome could be worse than the present downgraded forecasts. These were based on “benign” assumptions that uncertainty after the Brexit vote would gradually wane. However, it warned that “more negative consequences are a distinct possibility.”

Such “downside risks” include the possibility of tighter financial conditions and weaker consumer confidence than presently anticipated. It set out a “severe scenario” in which there was increased financial stress due to trade relations between the UK and the EU reverting to World Trade Organisation norms, rather than any special relationship. Under such conditions, “the global economy would experience a more significant slowdown” that would be more pronounced in the advanced economies.

The impact of the Brexit vote extends beyond Europe. The IMF said the uncertainty it has generated would impact on Japan, pushing up the value of the yen, which hits Japanese exports, reducing growth by 0.2 percentage points this year to just 0.3 percent.

The IMF did not anticipate Brexit would have a significant impact on China because of its limited trade links with Britain but warned that if growth in the EU were “affected significantly, the adverse effect on China could be material.”

This is because the EU is China’s largest export market.

The IMF pointed to financial instability which could be increased by Brexit, noting what it called “unresolved legacy issues in the European banking system, in particular in Italian and Portuguese banks.”

Italian banks alone have some €360 billion in non-performing loans on their books and the Italian government of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is seeking to organise a bailout. Such a move could bring his government into conflict with the rest of the EU, above all Germany, because EU regulations prohibit direct bailouts by national governments.

The financial instability is not confined to Italy and Portugal but extends throughout the euro zone, including Germany, because of the failure of European banks to recapitalise sufficiently after taking a hit as a result of the 2008 financial crisis. They had hoped that economic growth would create the conditions where problems could be overcome. The failure of that growth to eventuate has resulted in their further weakening.

Besides the immediate financial and trade impacts, the IMF pointed to the political consequences of the Brexit decision, which expressed the deep-seated hostility of broad masses of the population to the political, business and financial elites—a hostility that is universal in all major economies.

It said “political divisions” within advanced economies “may hamper efforts” to implement “long-standing structural challenges” and that “a shift towards protectionist policies is a distinct threat.”

The continued fall in growth for the advanced economies—they are expected to expand by only 1.8 percent this year compared to the forecast of 2.4 percent last year—coupled with mounting hostility towards the entire political and economic establishment is fueling concerns among economic and financial pundits over the stability of the present order.

Financial Times economics commentator, Martin Wolf, added his voice to these warnings in a column published on Wednesday. He denounced the solutions offered by such aspirants to power as Donald Trump in the US and Marine Le Pen in France, based on “nationalism, nativism and protectionism,” as bogus.

“But the illnesses are real,” he continued. “If the governing elites continue to fail to offer convincing cures, they might soon be swept away and, with them, the effort to marry democratic self-government with an open and co-operative world order.”

But the solutions offered by Wolf were far from convincing. Among other things, he called for a “reform” of capitalism, curbing the “excessive” role of finance, greater international co-operation, greater support for aggregate demand, especially in the euro zone, and a fight against economic quacks.

He concluded with a passage which is a measure of the growing fear of what the deepening economic malaise signifies. The biggest single issue, he wrote, was to “recognise the challenge” because “our civilisation itself is at stake.”

But like all would-be-reformers of the capitalist system, Wolf has continually failed to explain why all the measures he advances to ensure its stability have been continually rejected at the highest levels of the political and financial establishment and the flow of economic events continues in the opposite direction.

The reason lies in the fact that the present course is not rooted in an incorrect mindset of the political and financial elites, and therefore subject to correction by the “sweet reason” offered by Wolf and other like-minded commentators, but arises from the irresolvable contradictions of the profit system itself.

Deportations triple in Berlin

Carola Kleinert

According to a report from the Senate Interior Department, 1,068 people were deported from Berlin between January and the end of June 2016. The number of deportations has almost tripled compared with the same period last year, surpassing the total for last year. In all of 2015, Berlin authorities carried out approximately 800 deportations.

“The senate aimed at a doubling of deportations this year,” explained Interior Senator Frank Henkel (Christian Democratic Union, CDU), boasting that Berlin had “so far surpassed these expectations.”

Of the 1,068 deported, 904 came from Balkan states. The four countries to which people are most frequently deported are Serbia with 319, Bosnia with 213, Kosovo with 188 and Albania with 184. Almost 100 percent of asylum applications from the west Balkan countries were rejected according to official numbers.

The largest numbers of deportees are Roma families who have been seeking protection from civil wars and persecution since the first Balkan War in 1991 and the NATO bombings of Serbia in 1999. The majority of those sent back to their so-called secure countries of origin will face impoverishment and homelessness, as well as exclusion from the labour market, education and health care services, along with racist persecution and discrimination.

In addition to compulsory deportations, the Senate of the Interior reports that in the first five months of this year, around 790 people left the country voluntarily. Many only left “voluntarily” because family members were already forcibly deported with no consideration given to minors or people in poor health and the relatives who remained “voluntarily” followed them.

Tom Schreiber, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) spokesperson for constitutional matters in the Berlin House of Representatives, criticised Henkel on Twitter for failing to mention that there are still around 9,000 people obligated to leave the country. In doing so, Schreiber attacks the CDU interior senator from the right.

Among these 9,000 are many who have lived in Berlin long-term and are well integrated but whose suspension of deportation will not be extended. Their children were in many cases born in Germany and speak German but will now be torn from the German school system. This is the real position of the CDU and the SPD on integration.

Police and other authorities have been ruthless in carrying out deportations. In a number of cases, families were torn apart and the seriously ill or families who had received no notice of deportation were nevertheless deported. This practice is cynically justified on the basis of alleged “tricks to remain” by migrants accused of hiding their children with relatives or obtaining false attestations from doctors concerning their inability to travel.

Henkel told the press, “Whoever has no prospects for staying must leave our country.” Because not everyone will go willingly, “Berlin will continue to consistently carry out deportations to enforce law and order.” This from a minister whom the Berlin courts just recently found had flouted “law and order” in a police operation in the city’s Friedrichshain district.

In order to catch “those obligated to leave the country” more quickly and boost the deportation quota, the senate has now established a special collection centre capable of holding up to 200 people, the location of which the administration has up to now kept secret. With this, a part of the recently adopted master plan for integration will be realised, with its euphemistic language about “payment-in-kind facilities” and the “increased efficiency of repatriations.”

Once detained in the collection centres, refugees will be processed and deported in groups. In addition to families from the Balkan states, migrants from the Republic of Moldova will also be affected, although the former Soviet state is not considered a secure country of origin and is part of the Eastern Partnership of the European Union.

The establishment of special mass accommodations for “repatriation” is nothing more than the return to deportation prisons under another name. Only last November was the infamous deportation prison in Berlin-Grünau closed for violating EU regulations forbidding the housing of refugees in penal institutions.

With a few cosmetic modifications, it will now be transformed into a “repatriation centre” similar to the closed camps in Bamberg and Ingolstadt. In December 2015, the Berlin Senate responded to a request of the Left Party that separate accommodations be planned in Grünau for around 280 “people from secure countries of origin.” Amidst remodeling the prison, the Senate Department for the Interior stated that “the removal of bars from emergency exits took away a substantial feature of its character as a prison.” However, the high concrete walls, barbed wire and metal bars on windows are to remain.

The Left Party has no fundamental objections to the housing of refugees in the former prison. During the decade in which they governed in the Red-Red Senate, they themselves did nothing to close the deportation prison in Grünau and they supported deportations. According to a report in theTagesspiegel last August, the chairman of the Left Party’s faction in the House of Representatives, Udo Wolf, only now calls for the removal of “everything that suggests a jail.”

Should the Left Party again participate in a government after the elections in September, they will continue the deportation policy, despite the campaign rhetoric of spokesperson for integration Hakan Taş, who says, “Deportations are incompatible with human dignity.”

A glance in the direction of Thuringia, where Taş’s party colleague Bodo Ramelow leads a Red-Red-Green state coalition government, shows what the Left Party does for “refugees with no prospect for staying.” Along with Bavaria and Saxony, Thuringia is among the three states with the most deportations.