Alzheimer’s Burden On Families

Zeenat Khan

What can be more ironic and catastrophic when a renowned linguist loses her language altogether,as the deadly Alzheimer’s disease (AD) fiercely ravages her brain? That is what did happen to Alice Howland, a professor and a linguistics expert at Columbia University, New York. Initially, it started with her inability to remember the word ‘lexicon’ while giving a lecture. From then on she forgot how to get back home after taking a run around campus. She went to see a well-known neurologist at the New York- Presbyterian Hospital. Alice was diagnosed with early onset of Alzheimer’s, an irreversible, progressive disease. Her biologist husband and three grown children reacted in different ways to her fast deteriorating condition. Unable to cope with the life changing situation, Alice’s husband takes a job at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, on the pretext that he has big medical bills to pay. Ultimately, the youngest daughter, Lydia, an aspiring actress and the rebel in the family gives up her dream and movesback to New York from Los Angeles to become her mother’s fulltime caregiver.

The Alice I am talking about is a fictional character in a 2015 movie called ‘Still Alice’ that I watched last night for the second time. In the movie, the celebrated actress Julianne Moore plays Alice. For her very realistic and touching portrayal of Alice, she took the Oscar trophy home in the best actress category.

Likewise in the real life usually an adult daughter like Lydia often has no choice but to become a caregiver. She has to give up a career and neglect other family duties, her own relationship– because of love, concern, and moral obligation to care for a sick and elderly parent. For any caregiver, it can be overwhelming and a heavy burden to shoulder.In portraying Alice, Moore was able to shine a light on Alzheimer’s and how the burden of this disease finally was dumped on Lydia who had no understanding of this debilitating disease.

Since 2012, the entire month of Septemberof each year is considered World Alzheimer’s Month.This international campaign’s main goal is to raise global awareness, challenge the stigma and misinformation about AD. Globally, the number of people now living with dementia is expected to rise from the current 46 million to 131.5 million by 2050. About 5 million people alone in the United States suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. It is estimated that by 2050, as many as 13.4 million Americans will be affected with this fatal disease.

The Alzheimer’s scenario in Asian countries including India and Bangladesh is somewhat unknown because of stigma surrounding permanent dementia. Dementia in most cases is considered an old age problem and therefore the incidences are not reported. About 4 million people in India have some form of dementia. “An estimated 460,000 people were suffering from dementia in Bangladesh in 2015, and the number is expected to rise to 834,000 in 2030 and 2,193,000 in 2050 respectively.”According to WHO, the government hasn’t given it a priority and there is little awareness about this disease.

A couple of months ago, a Bengali drama that I had watched on You Tube somewhat addressed the issue of dementia. There were some haunting scenes where a grandfather became a diminished figure because of this raging disease. He was mostly left alone in a locked room, isolated, and away from everyone. He was thought to have gone mad because he asked questions repeatedly. Family members didn’t know how to communicate with him and failed to understand that may be he was trying to express a specific thing. Because of the family’s lack of understanding of AD, he became a subject of ridicule where everyone poked fun at his expense.

AD deprives a person of his or her memory, disrupts cognitive abilities and personality. The patients experience mood changes, their day- to- day life become very limited. The disease starts with symptoms like simple forgetfulness: not being able to remember where the car keys are, trying hard to recall a friend’s phone number, after a phone conversation forgetting what the call was all about, or while walking, not sure whether to take a left or a right turn to reach home.Eventually, a complete brain failure kills the patient who has this dreadful disease.

Alzheimer’s is a universal disease and it spares no one. From the former British PM Margaret Thatcher to one of my neighbors had to withstand the challenges of coping with a cruel and absurd ordeal that had no chance of getting easier. The families with Alzheimer’s patients have to endure a nightmarish circumstance and many challenges of coping with this disease. The patient’s new sense of self is an unknown territory for an inexperienced caregiver. Worldwide, most of the caregivers of an Alzheimer’s patient are not trained professionals to care for that patient over a long period of time. There are enormous responsibilities that come with this disease. Sometimes it exceeds the caregiver’s capacity for caring.

Whether one is the patient or the primary caregiver – AD affects every member of a family on some level. With all kinds of drugs and innovative modern medicine, now the Alzheimer patients live longer. This prolongation can be viewed as a blessing or a curse. This memory-robbing chronic disease is indeed one of the hardest to deal with when a patient loses total sense of self. The stress of watching a loved one slowly declining affects everyone in the family.

With Alzheimer’s, a family member has to become a surrogate for the patient. He/she is accountable to make end-of-life decision for the patient. It is like taking care of an infant, from bathing, personal hygiene, preparing meals to spoon feeding and all that is in-between. The caregiver becomes the patient’s life line. All the custodial decisions like medicine, business affairs and putting the person’s overall well-being in order can become very distressing for the caregiver of an Alzheimer’s patient. More often an adult daughter or a spouse hasto see to every need of a patient who doesn’t remember anything.

Faced with such huge responsibility and colossal task, a caregiver herself can become a victim of serious illness. Spending endless hours with the patient, day in day out, the caregiver can develop dementia, according to experts who had done studies. Their alcohol intake increases and some become chain-smokers. They suffer from depression and become ill. They lack exercise because they become housebound in caring for the patient.

A joint study done by researchers of Johns Hopkins University and Utah State University concluded that the spouses of Alzheimer’s patients were six times as likely to develop dementia themselves. They become socially isolated and ignore their own health. They perhaps feel by doing that they become better care givers.

Most families in the United States or elsewhere are not fortunate enough to hire round-the-clock nursing care for an Alzheimer’s patient like the Regans or the Kennedys. In both families they had Alzheimer’s patients. Because of the socio-economic differences the educated and well to do families are in a position to bring this disease to focus and be at the forefront. They also can pay greater attention to their own health and not be a victim to this disease. The less advantaged group can only rely on family. Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s can be a very long, stressful and an intensely emotional journey for a caregiver. Without any support group, an overburdened caregiver may become an invisible victim of this dreadful disease.

FDA recommends approval of new leukemia treatment

Benjamin Mateus

A panel of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently made a unanimous recommendation to approve the “first-ever treatment that genetically alters a patient’s cells to fight cancer, transforming them into what scientists call a living drug that powerfully bolsters the immune system to shut down the disease.”

In the summary of their report, the authors explain that in 2014 the FDA granted “breakthrough therapy” designation to CTL019 for being the first time in medical history that personalized cellular therapy has been used to treat patients with a high-risk B-cell leukemia. In their study, they describe how T-cells, which are one of the body’s types of white blood cells and a key part of the human immune system, can be engineered to fight malignant cancers.

This area of research gained steam in 2006 after the first human clinical trials using Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell technology demonstrated that it was possible to redirect T-cells to attack cancer cells. This normally does not happen because T-cells regard cancer cells as native to the body or fail to detect them, and thus do not destroy them. Since then, there have been many investigations in this field that have ultimately led to the current discovery.

Blood is extracted from the patient so their T-cells can be engineered to fight leukemia and then reintroduced into the body.

The treatment process begins with removing T-cells from a patient’s serum and genetically modifying them so they can attack the cancerous B-cells. The researchers used a disabled form of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that can carry the new genetic material and incorporate it into the T-cells, thereby reprogramming them. The T-cells can now recognize the protein called CD-19 on the surface of the B-cell and attack it. The reprogrammed T-cells are then infused back into the patient where they multiply and eradicate the cancer.

With such therapy there are also complications involving the Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) that can have severe consequences for the patient. This means the inflammatory response to the treatment is brisk and characterized by high fevers, low blood pressures, and low oxygen saturation. The body undergoes an inflammatory-mediated shock similar to a major infection. It becomes imperative to appreciate the delicate but complex systems of interaction that such efforts mediate. Yet, CAR T-cell therapy holds the possibility to eradicate cancer in these patients permanently.

As compared to tumor vaccines that have a low affinity to their target, with responses occurring over several months, T-cell transfer responses are measured in days to weeks. A single reprogrammed T-cell can kill up to 100,000 cancer cells.

There are currently 30 clinical trials open for the treatment of B-cell malignancies involving many major institutions in the United States, Europe, China, and Japan. CAR T-cell therapy is also being investigated for an assortment of hematological as well as solid tumor malignancies such as breast and lung cancer.

T-cells seek out specific sites on other cells, antigens, in order to bind with and kill cancer cells.

CAR T-cell therapy is a seismic shift from current conventions for treatment, yet significant work lies ahead. Unknowns include finding the optimal gene transfer method that is less complicated, safe, and financially feasible, and which ensures a consistent T-cell mediated immune response. The T-cell expansion is currently being carried out at local cancer treatment centers. Suitable methods to scale up production and increase output while adhering to strict quality control is necessary. The appropriate dosing of T-cells needs to be worked out. Protocols need to be standardized from institution to institution.

Because it is a patient-specific treatment, CAR T-cells must be manufactured for each patient on a case-by-case basis. Accordingly, it is only feasible now at large academic centers that have extensive expertise and resources. At the same time, however, a single infusion of T-cells is sufficient to induce a tremendous proliferation and rapid response.

The kinetics of T-cell expansion and tumor rejections appear to be dependent on the type of tumor and remain to be further studied. Though CAR T-cells are considered targeted therapy, the mechanisms by which this occurs are unknown and thought to be multifactorial. T-cells are versatile in their ability to target and kill through multiple methods of attack. It is hypothesized that tumors can only escape CAR T-cells through antigen (surface receptor) loss.

If the FDA approves the recommendation for CAR T-cell treatment for B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), it would be the first gene therapy to reach the market in the United States. Novartis, a Swedish-based global healthcare company, would be the first to offer such treatment while it works to investigate similar approaches to other blood and solid organ malignancies.

B-cell ALL afflicts about 6,000 people in the United States with a peak incidence at 2-5 years of age. These patients undergo a rigorous treatment with multidrug regimen divided into several phases. Most treatment protocols can take two to three years to complete. Many of them will require supportive care with blood products, treatment for infections with broad spectrum antibiotics and correction of metabolic imbalances. Despite the debilitating side effects, most will be cured. However, approximately 15 percent will not respond or relapse.

White blood cells (green) attacking a cancer cell (purple).

The results from the clinical trials conducted at the University of Pennsylvania have been dramatic for this subset of patients with a very slim prognosis. One such patient, Emily Whitehead, was treated in 2012 at age 6. Though the side effects of the CAR T-cell treatment were severe and nearly killed her, she emerged cancer free and continues to remain in remission.

The data Novartis presented to the FDA panel included results from 63 patients treated from April 2015 to August 2016. Fifty-two patients (82 percent) went into remission, which is considered astonishing given the severity of the disease. Certainly, the CRS is an issue they are grappling with as well as concerns for possible future medical complications for which there are presently no answers. This means that such patients would likely be treated at specialized centers where expertise with the treatment will be important for patient safety.

Though Novartis has not commented on treatment costs, analysts predict that individualized treatments could cost more than $300,000. It is unlikely insurance companies would approve such an expense. Most likely the only way that working people could obtain such life-saving treatments is to be among the few selected as subjects in clinical trials.

There are certainly ethical issues to this which are not being raised in the mainstream journals. Arguments in support of the high cost follow the irrational logic that these patients will assume high costs of treatment for their cancer in the long run anyway.

Similar arguments have been used by successive administrations to slowly slash federal funding for medical research. Trump’s proposed budget cut for the National Institutes of Health would reduce the organization’s funding by 20 percent, from $31.8 billion to $26 billion. Such cuts will directly and negatively impact any further research into this new way to fight cancer.

Sri Lankan plantation workers protest job cuts and new productivity demands

M. Thevarajah

Strike action and protests by plantation workers at several estates in Sri Lanka’s Nuwara Eliya district have erupted in recent weeks over new productivity demands, the dismantling of tea estates and cuts in wages and jobs. The management attacks have the full backing of the government and the trade unions.

* On September 10, nearly 200 workers from the Henfold tea estate in Hatton held a protest picket against the leasing of six hectares of land to a foreign-based business for corn cultivation. The estate is managed by the Watawala Plantation Company.

* On September 7, Strathdon estate workers, also in Hatton, walked out on strike and demonstrated against wage cutting and the abandonment of tea cultivation in a section of the estate.

* Nethastal division workers at the Glasgow estate also struck recently to protest against company plans to replace tea bushes with turpentine trees in some parts of the estate. Company management temporarily abandoned the plan in response to the walkout.

The strikes and demonstrations are part of a growing wave of industrial action and working-class struggles against Colombo’s big-business program.

Henfold workers, who were concerned about the destruction of jobs at their estate, contacted P. Digambaram who leads the National Union of Workers (NUW) and is also Sri Lanka’s plantation infrastructure minister. He brushed aside workers fears, claiming that management had assured him that the corn cultivation was only for three months and the land would revert to tea production. He demanded an end to the protest, telling workers that the manager was a good person.

Plantation workers picketing Henfold Estate

As one Henfold estate worker told the World Socialist Web Site: “If tea cultivation is transformed into corn cultivation, many workers will lose their jobs. That is why we are protesting. The trade unions, however, support management implementing this plan. Management previously closed down and abandoned 22 out of 112 hectares of tea plantation in this division.”

Digambaram’s intervention, the worker continued, “helped the company. We don’t believe the company will stop corn cultivation if it is investing millions of rupees. Digambaram is cheating us.”

While the company now claims to have discontinued corn cultivation, its plan has not been abandoned. Two other divisions of the estate have already started cultivating corn over a total of four hectares.

Commenting on demands for increased productivity at other plantations, a Strathdon estate worker said: “Most of the workers have not been paid full wages since May this year and have lost about 3,000 rupees [$US19.60] per month. The company wants 19kg [of tea] plucked per day but we can’t reach this target.

“During the rain season the maximum we can get per day is only 15kg and because of that every worker lost the 140-rupee daily productivity allowance. Also, if a worker plucks less than 15kg they are only paid a half day’s wages. How can we live with these wage cuts under today’s skyrocketing cost of living?”

Other estate workers denounced the plantation unions and said they were betrayed when the unions signed the last collective agreement that allows management to cut wages and increase workloads.

Estate managements are deliberately abandoning estate land, not clearing weeds and bushes, and not using fertiliser and other chemicals. Where previously 15 workers were employed to clear and weed about two hectares a day, now only two workers have to cover the same areas. Wild shrubs have grown in many places, breeding grounds for leeches, snakes and sometimes wild leopards.

A Glasgow estate worker detailed the intolerable workload at her plantation: “We have to pluck 18kg of tea leaves per day but cannot reach this target during the rains in March, April and May. Because of that we lost the 140-rupee productivity allowance and the 60-rupee incentive payment.”

Another tea plucker said: We can’t reach [management’s] target because of the bad condition of the estate and so we lose allowances. Many workers are now employed on a casual basis, some of them even for seven years. Some retired workers have been reappointed as casual workers in order to cut costs.”

“I don’t have a house,” the mother of three children continued. “For several years we’ve been living at a relative’s house. The trade unions are doing nothing and the government has cheated us.”

Line-room accommodation for plantation workers and their families at Glasgow Estate

Management attacks on workers at the Henfold, Strathdon and Glasgow estates are part of a broader assault on plantation workers’ jobs and social conditions.

Watawala Plantations has initiated a dairy farm project at its Lonach estate with a Singapore-based investment company. Beginning with 400 cows, it will be expanded to carry 2,000 cows. The company wants to end all tea cultivation at Lonach and use the land for the dairy farm. Watawala Plantation plans to transfer workers from Lonach to its Tharawela estate.

At the same time, plantation companies have begun imposing a new revenue system that assigns plots of land with about 1,000 or more tea bushes to individual workers and/or their families to maintain.

The worker is provided with fertiliser, agricultural implements and other inputs but must handover the harvest to the company’s factory. In exchange the worker receives a share of the income but only after company has deducted its “input costs.” The system transforms waged tea plantation workers into share-croppers with the loss of previous hard-won conditions and rights.

Kelani Valley Plantations implemented this system in April at its Battalgalla estate in Dickoya. Mathurata Plantations began imposing these measures at its Mao Uva estate in October last year.

The new share-cropping system, demanded by the Planters Association, is fully backed by the Sri Lankan government. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe has called on planters “to go beyond a traditional tea cup and explore the industry from fresh perspective in order to outperform others in global arena.” He recently told a convention that the government was preparing new legislation to expand the share-cropping system.

Workers at Henfold Estate

Addressing the “150 years of Ceylon Tea” celebration at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall on August 9, the prime minister declared that the lower tea prices, higher cost of production, including wage increases, were impacting on plantation companies. “The industry should make a decision about whether it can continue with traditional workers, subcontract the land or think of a combined model,” he said.

Wickremasinghe urged Plantation Industry Minister Naveen Dissanayake to boldly implement the share-cropping plan and referred favourably to his father, Gamini Dissanayake, and his “Accelerated Mahaweli Project” in the late 1970s.

Gamini Dissanayake, then a minister in former President J. R. Jayawardene’s government, imposed the so-called Mahaweli Project, brutally expelling peasants from their land and crushing protests by plantation workers employed at several estates that were to be submerged.

Wickremesinghe’s reference to the Mahaweli Project is a warning that plantation workers will be confronted with similarly ruthless government attacks.

Naveen Dissanayake assured the convention audience that the government was studying the share-cropping model and appealed for more union support.

“The estate workers are given some land rights over land and the management companies will also have better yields. This model is commonly known as the outgrow model. I hope the union leaders will give us the support required to take the industry forward,” he declared.

Wickremesinghe and Dissanayake’s promises are to give the plantation companies more legal clout in suppressing the opposition of estate workers and intensifying the attacks on their basic rights. As the last wage agreement makes clear, the unions have already indicated that they will deepen their collaboration with the companies and the government.

The escalating attacks on plantation workers are part and parcel of the “economic reforms” dictated by the International Monetary Fund. The recent protests of plantation workers are another indication that there is deep-seated opposition to Colombo’s austerity measures in the working class and that major political and industrial struggles lie ahead.

New Zealand election: Bipartisan agreement on war and austerity

John Braddock

Today’s election in New Zealand is forecast to be the closest since the Helen Clark-led Labour government was ousted in 2008. Since the installation of Jacinda Ardern as Labour’s new leader on August 1, polls have gyrated wildly, alternately favouring the National Party government and a possible Labour-Green Party coalition.

According to a TV 3 poll released on Thursday, National has 45.8 percent support. With Labour on 37.3 percent, and the Greens at 7.1 percent, either camp could take office. Significantly, both major parties would need to strike a deal with the right-wing populist New Zealand First Party, currently at 7.1 percent, to form government.

The entire campaign has seen the vast dangers facing the working class and youth—specifically the accelerating threat of nuclear war—systematically suppressed by all the establishment parties.

This immense danger, highlighted by US President Donald Trump’s threat at the UN to “totally destroy” North Korea, has remained the great political unmentionable. Since Prime Minister Bill English declared in August that he would “consider” joining a US-led offensive against North Korea, this stance has not been opposed by any party.

In the final televised leaders’ debate on Wednesday, just hours after Trump’s speech, there was no mention of foreign policy. The official opposition parties—Labour, the Greens, NZ First and the Maori nationalist Mana Party—along with the trade unions and much of the media, have prepared for joining US hostilities against China by promoting nationalist attacks on immigration and anti-Chinese “influence” on house prices and business investment.

The ruling elite is preparing far-reaching attacks, by whichever parties assume office, on the working population at home and for war abroad. This bipartisan consensus was on display in the debate between English and Ardern. The event was not a “debate” in any real sense, but rather a friendly discussion between representatives of two wings of the political establishment.

Since the 2008 global financial crisis, the National Party government has carried out a deepening assault on jobs, living standards, public services and basic rights. English was allowed during the debate to assert, virtually unchallenged, that the housing market is expanding “faster than ever,” there is no housing crisis and National is tackling social issues by “changing lives one by one.”

Ardern had almost nothing to say about the depth of the social crisis. Aside from scapegoating immigrants, Labour’s main housing proposal is to build 100,000 houses over the next 10 years, to be sold at unaffordable prices of between $400,000 and $600,000. This will do nothing to help the 42,000 people who are homeless.

The final week of the election campaign was dominated by reports of a crisis in the health system due to decades of underfunding by Labour and National governments alike. Severe delays for vital cancer surgery in Southland will shorten people’s lives, while a baby recently died at Waikato because not enough surgeons were available to perform the ceasarian section operation on time. Ardern criticised the lack of funding, but Labour’s proposal is to inject only $2 billion extra per year, well short of what is needed to meet existing need and provide for population growth and ageing.

Ardern focussed on assuring the ruling elite that Labour’s policies are fiscally responsible and “fully costed.” Her most animated remarks came when she criticised National’s “dishonest” attacks on Labour’s tax proposals, which have included claims of seven new taxes, including on capital gains and water.

Ardern has ruled out any increase in tax to tackle severe social problems. Labour would set up a working party of “experts” to investigate a “fairer” tax system, she claimed, but any suggested changes would not be implemented until after 2020.

There is a discernible shift to the left among broad layers of the working class and youth, who are searching for an alternative to deepening inequality, child poverty and the housing crisis, for which all the parties carry responsibility.

To direct this into safe parliamentary channels, the corporate media, along with the trade unions and pseudo-left groups, have whipped up a wave of “Jacindamania,” featuring false claims that Labour will address the social crisis. Ardern’s elevation to Labour’s leadership was a desperate manoeuvre to stave off electoral disaster, not just for Labour, but for the increasingly discredited parliamentary system. A million voters abstained in both the 2011 and 2014 elections.

Labour and the Greens have stuck to their commitment to “budget responsibility rules” which mean reining in public debt and returning fiscal surpluses. Neither party has put forward any policies that will significantly reverse the social disaster of the past three decades.

All Labour’s proposals are fundamentally deceptive. Its pitch to young people to provide three years’ “free” tertiary education is merely an “aspiration,” that would be implemented only after two more elections, making the promise worthless.

On Thursday, Ardern promoted Labour’s reactionary changes to industrial legislation, which would allow the trade unions to negotiate “fair wage agreements” across selected industries. While details of the policy are unclear, Ardern told Radio NZ it would help the unions work “collaboratively” with employers and the government to impose wages and conditions acceptable to big business. She stressed that her government, with the agreement of the unions, would “legislate” to remove the right to strike during these negotiations.

The Green Party and commentators on the trade union-funded Daily Blog have appealed to “progressive” voters to ensure the Greens reach the 5 percent threshold to maintain a presence in parliament.

In fact, like their international counterparts, the Greens are a capitalist party representing “environmental” businesses and oriented toward affluent sections of the upper middle class. Ardern was instrumental in a right-wing campaign to force former Greens leader Metiria Turei to resign over allegations she committed “benefit fraud” as a solo mother 20 years previously.

In Wednesday’s debate, Ardern said the Greens would get Labour’s “first call” in forming a coalition, but refused to discuss which Greens policies would be considered. She said any “conversation” would not imply a “stitched-up deal,” leaving open the option of a deal with NZ First.

Key business leaders, anxious to suppress popular anger, have signalled they would be “comfortable” with a Labour-Green government. Mainfreight chief Don Braid told the New Zealand Herald on September 4 there is growing frustration with National. “I think they’ve [National] stopped listening to us. And I think they think they know better than us,” Braid said. He heaped praise on Ardern, describing her as “visionary.” SkyCity casino chairman Rob Campbell said “fear” of a Labour-Green government in the business community was “well gone.”

May’s overtures to European Union on Brexit terms falls flat

Robert Stevens 

UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s speech in Florence yesterday was hyped as crucial to breaking the deadlock in negotiations with the European Union (EU) over the terms of Britain’s withdrawal. But it did nothing to resolve growing tensions.

May chose to speak in Florence, Italy to prove that while the UK “may be leaving the European Union, but we are not leaving Europe.” Her tone was conciliatory, beginning with a paean to Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance, which had began “a period of history that inspired centuries of creativity and critical thought across our continent and which in many ways defined what it meant to be European.”

But in her bid to placate her numerous critics domestically and internationally, May failed ultimately to satisfy anyone.

She heads a minority government, and a cabinet split over the terms of Brexit. Only last week, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, leader of the “hard” Brexit faction penned a 4,000-word manifesto widely seen as an undeclared leadership bid.

Britain’s major banks and corporations want an arrangement with the EU that will enable them to keep access to the single market or customs union. However, the EU insists there can be no preferential treatment for the UK, and that it must settle its divorce bill—estimated at up to 100 million euros—before any discussions can take place on future trade relations.

With Britain due to withdraw by March 2019, it is not even clear that the EU will agree at its summit next month that the May government has done enough to pass the first hurdle.

So while the prime minister made constant references to the UK’s European “partners” (nearly 40 mentions) and “friends”, no EU leaders were present in the Santa Maria Novella church. Instead, the audience consisted entirely of members of her cabinet, including Johnson, journalists, and a handful of Italian business leaders, diplomats and local dignitaries.

The Italian prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, was nowhere to be seen, despite meeting with the EU commissioner in charge of Brexit talks, Michel Barnier, in Rome only the previous day. The EU has insisted that all negotiations on Brexit must pass through Barnier, to ensure that the UK does not try to exploit divisions within the 27-member states to its advantage.

In Rome, Barnier had said that no progress had been made in negotiations, leaving just 12 months to conclude a deal. In addition to the UK’s disputed financial liabilities, the rights of three million EU nationals living in the UK and future arrangements regarding the status of the border between the Republic of Ireland—which is an EU member—and Northern Ireland are still outstanding.

As the Financial Times commented, “Gentiloni’s huddle with Mr Barnier comes amid concern that Mrs May could try to sidestep Brussels and negotiate with national capitals to exploit any division between member states.”

Still May’s pitch, couched in the most diplomatic language, was that “it is up to [EU] leaders to set the tone”. She said that the UK had issued 14 “position” papers on Brexit, stressing in particular that relating to Foreign policy, defence and development. This was a none too subtle warning that the EU’s defence and security was heavily reliant on Britain’s substantial defence and intelligence capabilities. May cited North Korea explicitly as an existential threat and, in a reference to Russia, argued that, “Here on our own continent, we see territorial aggression to the east; and from the South threats from instability and civil war; terrorism, crime and other challenges which respect no borders.”

In the face of this, May said the UK would draw on the “full weight of our military, intelligence, diplomatic and development resources…,” adding, “Our determination to defend the stability, security and prosperity of our European neighbours and friends remains steadfast.”

But in turn the UK required an urgent agreement on trade. She warned, “At the moment, the negotiations are focused on the arrangements for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. But we need to move on to talk about our future relationship… And this should span both a new economic relationship and a new relationship on security.”

May proposed that the EU agree to a Brexit transition period of “around two years”, during which the UK would continue to have access to the single market. This has long been the demand of big business in the UK, with CBI director-general Carolyn Fairbairn commenting after that, “Firms will welcome the proposal of a ‘status quo’ transition period for business that averts a cliff-edge exit.”

On this basis, the UK would meet its financial obligations she said, although no sum was mentioned. In equally vague terms, May said the UK would also accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice until 2021 or beyond, and would give legal protection to EU citizens in the UK.

In return, she returned to her demand for the UK to have preferential trading terms. She ruled out a deal based on European Economic Area (EED) membership [as with Norway], or the type of agreement adopted by the EU recently with Canada. EEA membership required the UK adopting “new EU rules,” (which is opposed by the hard Brexit faction) while the Canadian option “would represent such a restriction on our mutual market access that it would benefit neither of our economies.”

The EU’s response to the speech was guarded, with Barnier describing it as “constructive.” What had to be agreed, however, were the “concrete implications of this pledge.”

Manfred Weber, the head of the conservative European People’s Party group in the European Parliament, and a leader of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition partners, the Christian Social Union, was openly hostile saying the speech offered “no more clarity to London’s positions.” He added, “I am even more concerned now. The clock is ticking and time is running faster than the government believes in London.”

May’s speech was peppered with pious references to the UK being steadfast in defence of shared “values” with the EU. “We share a deep, historic belief in the same values—the values of peace, democracy, human rights and the rule of law,” she proclaimed.

Just three days before, May and Johnson had sat silently while US President Donald Trump delivered his fascistic rant before the United Nations in New York. Asserting his doctrine of unbridled US militarism and war, he threatened to “destroy” the 25 million-strong population of North Korea, and menaced Iran and Venezuela amongst others.

Trump’s “America First” policy, backed by threats of nuclear annihilation, is both an expression of, and significantly increases, tensions between the main imperialist powers and threatens world war.

While Germany’s Chancellor Merkel and France’s President Macron absented themselves from Trump’s speech, afterwards May went into talks with the US President, with whom she hopes to conclude a post-Brexit trade deal. Reports state that Trump criticised the UK for “not doing enough” to pressure Pyongyang, and called for it to adopt a “tougher stance.”

For a faction of the UK bourgeoisie, Brexit was meant to facilitate the development of global financial and trade relations as a counterweight to the EU. But such plans risk placing it at odds with its more powerful international ally.

At the UN, Trump described the agreement signed with Iran in 2015 by the US, China, Russia, the UK, Germany, France and the EU over its nuclear programme as the “worst deal ever,” and has threatened to scrap it.

In his talks with May, the US President refused to provide any information on his intentions. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said “Prime Minister May asked him if he would share it [his decision] with her and he said no.”

The UK moved rapidly to develop trade relations with Tehran after the agreement, with trade increasing by 42 percent from January to October in 2016 and 57 percent this year.

The day after Trump’s rant, a London-based firm, Quercus, announced a 500 million euro project to build one of the world’s largest solar power farms in Iran.

French President Macron signs labor decrees, trampling on social opposition

Anthony Torres 

Despite mass popular opposition and growing strikes and protests, French President Emmanuel Macron signed decrees destroying the country’s Labor Code yesterday. His government has also announced deep cuts to health, education, and unemployment insurance, while promising to spend billions of euros more on the army and cut taxes on the rich (ISF).

On live television, flanked by Labor Minister Muriel Pénicaud and government spokesman Christophe Castaner, Macron signed five decrees modifying the Labor Code after a meeting of the cabinet yesterday. The first measures are to be published in the legislative record starting tomorrow. Macron declared, “This reform will go into effect immediately upon publication. The first reforms will be in effect in a matter of days.”

He added that he would sign “maybe 20 or so decrees” before the end of the year, and that “all the reforms contained in these decrees” would go into effect “at the latest by January 1.”

This action underscores the contempt of Macron and of the entire financial aristocracy he represents for mass popular opposition to austerity across Europe. Macron’s approval ratings have fallen to 30 percent in the four months since his election, and 70 percent of French people opposed last year’s reforms of labor law on which Macron is building.

Macron is arrogantly imposing his diktat on the population via the state machine, which functions against the wishes of the people. While the September 12 union protest was being prepared, Macron declared in New York that “democracy does not happen in the street.” He insulted demonstrators opposed to the law as “lazy” and “cynical.”

Macron, the banks and the rest of big business in France are determined to destroy all the social rights won by the working class in the 20th century. Those gains were the products of international struggle. France’s Labor Code, passed in 1905, was the immediate product of European strikes that erupted in the wake of the Russian Revolution that year. The October Revolution of 1917, which terrified the ruling class everywhere, was more responsible than any other single event for improvements in the conditions of the working class.

By destroying the traditional framework of class relations in France, Macron’s decrees have set the stage for an intensification of the class struggle. Workers will only be able to defend themselves by building new organizations of struggle to replace the unions, which have been transformed into instruments for strangling workers’ resistance, and by constructing a new revolutionary leadership of the working class.

Macron’s decrees allow employers to impose workplace votes to blackmail workers into accepting sackings and cuts to wages and benefits. If workers refuse these demands, employers will be able to shut down factories, sack workers refusing the proposed agreements and cancel their rights to job re-training at Unemployment Centers.

Bosses will be authorized to hire workers on so-called “project” contracts, which are indefinite temp contracts. These will be regulated at the industry level in terms of how long and how many times workers can be hired on such contracts. Employers will be legally allowed to break “project” contracts once a project is done, without paying any severance pay.

Small businesses will be able to change established rules on pay and bonuses through these votes.

Employers will also be authorized to impose firm-level contracts that violate the Labor Code, industrial-level agreements and previously signed contracts, all of which would be a dead letter.

The Macron government and the international bourgeoisie are watching nervously as anger develops in the working class. Yesterday, Transport Minister Élisabeth Borne called in truckers’ unions to offer empty reassurances that the reforms should be “no cause for worry,” in an attempt to shut down the drivers’ strike and keep roads and gas stations open.

The ruling class is counting on the complicity of the trade unions, who are seeking to divide struggles against the law into a number of separate, rolling one-day strikes to exhaust opposition to Macron. They met the new president after his election to go over the schedule of his reform agenda. They then negotiated the labor decrees for weeks with Pénicaud and the employers organizations.

According to Le Canard enchaîné, two secret meetings took place between Macron, Pénicaud, and top officials of the CFDT (French Democratic Confederation of Labor) and FO (Workers’ Force) unions. The weekly reported that Macron wanted to make sure the unions “had their members under control.”

Le Monde reported that discussions between union officials and the government are “cordial” and Pénicaud is “very enthusiastic” about plans to fund training for union officials—one of the main avenues Macron’s decrees use to funnel corporate money into the unions’ coffers. The unions will then seek to impose on the workers the agreements they have arranged with the bosses and the government.

The aim of Macron’s reforms is to increase the profitability of the second-largest economy in the European Union (EU), above all to make it possible for France and Europe to rival the United States—including militarily—in the wars now being prepared.

A few days before publishing his decrees, Macron told an assembly of ambassadors, “My ambition is for our armies to demonstrate themselves, in terms of quality, capacity for deployment, and speed … as among the very best in the world, the best in Europe, to protect France, but also our continent. We have forgotten that the last 70 years of peace on the European continent are an aberration of our collective history. But the threat is on our doorstep, and war is on our continent.”

Amid the collapse of the post-war international order and of the world hegemony of the United States, brought to a head by the actions of the Donald Trump administration, tensions are exploding between Washington and the EU. Trump’s barbaric threats of nuclear genocide against North Korea are driving the European bourgeoisies to build up their military forces to prepare their own imperialist wars. They are determined to put the cost of this military build-up squarely on the backs of the working class.

The billions of euros saved by slashing workers’ social rights are intended to reinforce the armed forces and militarize France, as Macron aims to transfer the extraordinary police powers granted by France’s anti-democratic state of emergency directly and permanently into common law.

Faced with the EU austerity diktat and the growing dangers of dictatorship and war, workers in France and across Europe are confronted with the necessity of a political and revolutionary struggle.

General Motors and Ford announce thousands of US layoffs

Shannon Jones

General Motors announced Friday that it is indefinitely shutting down the third shift at its Spring Hill, Tennessee plant. The shift closure at the plant, which builds sport utility vehicles (SUVs), is slated for November. There are 1,000 workers on the shift, although GM says they may not all be affected.

At the same time, Ford has announced it will temporarily idle five car assembly plants employing some 20,000 workers before the end of the year in order to reduce swelling inventories. The company reported another US sales decline—two percent—in August. Ford’s overall sales in the US are down four percent for the year.

The GM Spring Hill plant builds the Cadillac XT5 and GMC Acadia midsize SUVs. The company said the cuts were needed to reduce inventories. GM has a 105-day supply of the Acadias; a 65-day supply is considered normal.

Three of the Ford plants being idled are in the United States and the other two are in Mexico. The Ford Flat Rock plant south of Detroit will be down for two weeks. It builds the Lincoln Continental sedan and the Ford Mustang sports car. The Michigan Assembly plant, also outside of Detroit, will be down for a week. The plant builds the Focus sedan and the C-Max hatchback.

Both of Ford’s assembly plants in Mexico are being temporarily idled as well. They include the Cuautitlan Assembly Plant, which builds the Fiesta sedan, and the Hermosillo facility, which makes the Fusion and Lincoln MKZ sedans. Cuautitlan will be down for three weeks and Hermosillo for two.

The fifth plant being impacted is Kansas City Assembly, which will see Transit van production halted for two weeks to fix a defect first reported in June. Ford is recalling about 400,000 of the vehicles due to a faulty drive shaft flexible coupling. The driveshaft could separate, causing loss of power, loss of control and damage to brake and fuel lines.

Kansas City Assembly will be down for a week starting September 25. Ford did not specify when the other layoffs would take place.

The massive Kansas City plant employs over 7,000 workers and produces the F-150 truck as well as the Transit commercial van. A worker with over two decades at the plant told the World Socialist Web Site, “They’ll be shutting down the entire Transit van side of the plant, where I work, even though the vans are selling like a son of a gun. They say it could be two down weeks between now and the end of the year, but that could change at any time. It’s pretty hush-hush.”

Citing the grueling character of Ford’s alternative work schedule and mandatory overtime, he continued, “There are actually a lot of people who had been looking for a down week. We were working five 10-hour days since about the beginning of the year. Everybody’s been working Saturdays.”

Permanent workers who are laid off at the factories will be eligible for Supplementary Unemployment (SUB) benefits, which pay some 80 percent of regular wages. However, with the collaboration of the United Auto Workers union, Ford and the other US auto companies have increased their hiring of temporary and part-time workers, who receive few, if any, benefits. This has made it less costly for all of the US-based car manufacturers to carry out layoffs.

Ford’s other layoffs are directly related to declining passenger car sales, which have offset gains in the sale of light trucks. Ford’s US car sales are down 20 percent for the year, while truck sales are up 3.6 percent. Overall, US car sales are down 12 percent for the year, with GM sales down 2.4 percent.

The layoffs at Ford and GM are a further indication that the seven-year boom in US auto sales is collapsing. Ford had an 81-day supply of vehicles in September, up from 77 days in August. The Transit van built in Kansas City is the best-selling van in the US, but sales fell 15 percent in August and are down 21 percent for the year.

In August, Fiat Chrysler US sales were off by 11 percent, the twelfth consecutive month the automaker has seen a year-over-year decline. Jeep Cherokee sales are down 25 percent for the year and fell 50 percent in August. The company ended passenger car production in the US at the end of last year to concentrate on more profitable trucks and SUVs.

Fiat Chrysler is temporarily halting production at its Windsor, Ontario van plant in Canada. The company said the four-week shutdown, starting October 2, was related to new US airbag requirements, which involve retooling. Only 4,000 of the 6,000 workers at the plant qualify for SUB benefits. The others are newer hires who are not covered.

On August 31, the company permanently ended production of the Dodge Viper sports car in Detroit. The 87 workers are being transferred to other plants, Fiat Chrysler said.

Ford has extended the temporary layoff of about 140 workers at its Avon Lake Assembly Plant in Ohio through the end of the year. Production at the plant, which builds the F-650 and F-750 truck, had been cut to one shift. A UAW spokesman at the plant told local media that the layoffs could extend into the first quarter of 2018. Ford has thus far avoided permanent layoffs at its plants in the face of slowing sales.

In addition to the layoffs planned at Spring Hill, General Motors has this year carried out some 5,000 permanent layoffs at several plants, including 1,300 at the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant and 1,200 workers at Lordstown, Ohio Assembly. A full shift is slated to be laid off this month at the Fairfax, Kansas assembly plant. These cuts were first announced in June.

The United Auto Workers has not opposed the job cuts. Instead, it has justified them on the grounds of “market conditions.” The layoffs come as further corruption revelations emerge concerning the illegal diversion of money from the Fiat Chrysler UAW National Training Center to high-ranking UAW officials.

The 2015 national auto contract, which provoked massive opposition from rank-and-file union members, was a milestone in the betrayal by the UAW of the interests of autoworkers. The contract, initially voted down by a two-to-one margin by Fiat Chrysler workers, maintained the hated two-tier wage system and the alternative work schedule, while allowing the auto companies to expand the use of contingent workers. It gave senior workers a measly three percent wage increase after ten years of frozen wages, and failed to restore cost-of-living raises.

Now the so-called job protections in the contact are being exposed once again as worthless.

A worker with six years at the GM Detroit-Hamtramck plant who was laid off in March told the WSWS, “They are firing people right and left. It is a way they can cut jobs and not pay benefits.”

About the UAW, he added, “They are all crooks. We pay union dues for no representation. They manipulate the contract.”

The Ford Kansas City Assembly worker spoke about the UAW bribery scandal and the impact of the 2015 contract betrayal. He said, “The UAW doesn’t like anybody knowing their business. They’ll come down on your ass. They stole from our retirees. They’re crooks.

“The whole last contract, that really, really hurt. We had temps getting insurance, but now they’re no longer getting it. The morale sucks at the plant.

“Facebook and social media was the reason the last contract almost got out of their control. You can lie so much, but you can’t run from that.”

This month the UAW launched a website promoting its reactionary Build Buy USA campaign aimed at pitting American workers against their fellow workers in Mexico and other countries. The layoffs are not the result of Mexican workers “stealing” US jobs, as claimed by the union officials, but rather the outcome of the crisis of the capitalist profit system.

Autoworkers’ jobs and conditions are under attack all over the world by the massive transnational corporations, which, with the aid of the unions, pit workers in one country against those in other countries in a fratricidal race to the bottom. The attack on jobs can by fought only by autoworkers uniting across national boundaries in a common struggle against the auto corporations.

Spanish government dispatches police reinforcements to Catalonia

Paul Mitchell

The Spanish Interior Minister, Juan Ignacio Zoido, has announced that National Police and Civil Guard reinforcements are being dispatched to Catalonia in advance of the October 1 independence referendum.

In a letter addressed to the his Catalan regional counterpart, Joaquím Forn, Zoido declared extra officers were needed “to support” the Catalan regional police force, Mossos d’Esquadra, to “maintain public order” following the “tumultuous mobilizations” that erupted after the arrest on Wednesday of Catalan officials and businessmen involved in the preparation of the referendum. The arrestees face possible sentences of 15 years for “sedition.”

Three ships are docked in the ports of Barcelona and Tarragona to provide accommodation for the forces, although dockworkers have refused to supply them.

Behind Zoido’s announcement, however, are fears that the Mossos d’Esquadra are unreliable and that it is necessary to match their number—some 16,000 officers.

The chief of the Mossos d’Esquadra, Josep Lluís Trapero, has been accused of relaying orders from Madrid to his subordinates with insufficient enthusiasm or clarity. On Thursday the force was accused of “passivity” by PP officials when demonstrators prevented Civil Guards from provocatively taking over, without a warrant, the headquarters of the pseudo-left CUP party and besieged those searching the Catalan Economy ministry.

An El País editorial criticized the Mossos d’Esquadra for not acting against those “in the commission of crimes.” Other newspapers warned that the government could put the Catalan police force under the direct control of the Interior Ministry or disband it altogether.

The PP government, according to El Espanol has decided to “park although not discard” the process of invoking Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution allowing it to suspend autonomy and take over the functions of the Catalan government. The newspaper criticized the decision complaining bitterly that, “If [PP Prime Minister Mariano] Rajoy continues to act as a mere observer, the state will continue towards the coup”—the term used by Madrid to describe the referendum.

For their part, Rajoy and the PP are counting on the ability of police operations to prevent the referendum. Ballot papers, posters and polling booths have been seized and officials arrested and threatened with fines of up to 16,000 euros a day if they continue preparing for the vote. Catalan government finances have also been taken over by Madrid.

The Public Prosecutor's Office of the National Court has filed sedition charges against the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Omnium Cultural for the protest that took place in Barcelona and other towns on Wednesday. It accuses the two main separatist organizations of promoting violence, when in fact ANC leader Jordi Sánchez, is on the record for calling for peaceful demonstrations.

The PP is stoking up claims of violence to justify their drafting in of more police and further repression. They are pinpointing the CUP “a movement of an anarchist origin, with a very radical and violent nature” that “is very far from the reality of Catalan society.” These sorts of statements only assist the CUP, which dresses itself up in pseudo-socialist colors while acting as the foot-soldiers of the main Catalan bourgeois parties, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and the Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT).

The PP is seeking to split the secessionists by declaring that as soon as they renounce the referendum of October 1, they will begin negotiations on political and economic reforms. There are suggestions of the PP supporting the proposal of the Socialist Party (PSOE), already put before Congress, to convene a “commission on the territorial model” in Spain.

Economy Minister, Luis De Guindos, told the Financial Times, “As soon as they abandon the independence plans, we can talk…Catalonia already has a great autonomy, but we could talk about a reform of the financing system and other issues.”

Whist welcoming PP support for negotiations, PSOE president, Cristina Narbona, has said that the government should not wait for October 2 to begin but start immediately. The PSOE, however, has refused to join an initiative launched by Podemos involving, “European parliamentarians, state and autonomous community representatives, as well as councils and councillors of all political formations, except PP and Citizens.” In addition, the PSOE president of the Provincial Council of Zaragoza has banned a conference this Sunday of these organiations and individuals, although organizers are seeking to hold it elsewhere.

Meanwhile Catalan President Carles Puigdemont has announced that referendum will take place and that the Catalan government has “contingency plans”. A map of polling stations has been published and some 55,000 people needed to man them are being notified. A call for “permanent protest” has been made by the secessionist umbrella organizations, the Catalan National Assembly and Òmnium Cultural.

The events in Catalonia have also had repercussions in other autonomous regions. The Basque Country President Iñigo Urkullu, declared Thursday for an “exit to the territorial political labyrinth” of Spain, “a redistribution of the sovereignty of the State” and discussions about the idea of a confederal “shared sovereignty”. The Congress deputies belonging to Urkullu’s Basque National Party, upon whom the minority PP government relies for its survival, have refused to vote for the Budget, forcing its postponement.

Few European Union leaders have spoken out openly on the Catalonia crisis for fear of worsening the existential crisis in the bloc, beset by Brexit and the rise of nationalism and separatism. This week, Scottish National Party Nicola Sturgeon made common cause with the Catalan separatists and called for the referendum to go ahead. In Italy two “advisory” referendums promoted by the Northern League, with the support of Forza Italia, will be held on October 22 on greater autonomy for the two richest regions of the country, Lombardy and Veneto.

A spokesperson for German Chancellor Angela Merkel summed up the official EU line that the Catalonia issue was an “internal Spanish matter” but that she had often told Rajoy that the German government had “great interest in the maintenance of stability in Spain”. The German co-leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, Ska Keller, was more forthright declaring, “Rajoy has put a lot of oil on the fire, fuelling the independentist debate. He has made a huge mistake” and called for other PP leaders to put pressure on him to “calm things down”.

European Commission (EC) President, Jean-Claude Juncker, criticized Catalan politicians for using his remarks last week that Catalonia could join the EU after independence to imply he supported secession. He said a newly independent state would only be allowed to join if he had done so in accordance with the constitutional law of the member state it had left.

An editorial in the UK’s Guardian called for a “step back from the brink.” It said that “All the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has achieved by being so oblivious to public sentiment in Catalonia is to harden opinion in the region and draw thousands onto the streets.

“If nothing is done to work towards a compromise, a political train wreck threatens in the EU’s largest southern member state” it warned.

The Economist declared, “If the rule of law is to mean anything, the constitution should be upheld. Mr. Puigdemont should thus step back from his reckless referendum…Mr. Rajoy should be less defensive: he should now seek to negotiate a new settlement with Catalonia, while also offering to rewrite the constitution to allow referendums on secession, but only with a clear majority on a high turnout.”

Sigmar Gabriel’s UN address: German great power ambitions in pacifist garb

Johannes Stern

Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel underscored Germany’s claim to great power status in an address to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, just days prior to Sunday’s federal election. After a flood of pacifist phrases, he concluded his remarks with an explicit call for greater German “responsibility” in world affairs, including a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Germany is ready to assume additional responsibility,” he declared to his international audience. “This is why my country is applying for a seat on the United Nations Security Council for the years 2019 to 2020.”

Germany, he added, has “a clear course. Peace and security, global justice and human rights are inseparably bound together.” Germany wants “to cooperate in partnership with all members of the United Nations—in Africa, Asia, America and Europe.”

Phrases about “peace,” “human rights” and “global justice” are rhetorical window dressing for Germany’s renewed turn to imperialist “Realpolitik.” Unlike the 1930s, when the German Reich left the League of Nations to rearm and prepare for war, today Berlin seeks to pursue its global imperialist ambitions within existing international organisations.

Now, as then, Germany identifies the United States as its chief rival. Gabriel did not once refer to US President Donald Trump. But his speech was a clear rejection of Trump’s “America First” strategy, to which Gabriel counterposes an ostensibly more “peaceful” German policy.

“If one looks around the world,” Gabriel declared, “it appears as though a world outlook has imposed itself that considers one’s own national interests to be absolute and avoids seeking to reconcile the interests of the world’s nations and states.” He rejected such an outlook, proclaiming “national egoism” to be unsuitable “as an organising principle for our world.”

He went on to say that “this world outlook” is dominated by “the international law of the strongest and not the strength of international law.” He was certain that “we must engage to oppose this world outlook.” Again wrapping himself in the mantle of international law, he declared, “We need more international cooperation and less national egoism, not the reverse.”

Leon Trotsky, the leader of the Russian Revolution along with Lenin, wrote in the founding program of the Fourth International: “The bourgeoisie and its agents use the war question, more than any other, to deceive the people by means of abstractions, general formulas, lame phraseology: ‘neutrality,’ ‘collective defense,’ ‘arming for the defense of peace.’”

In Gabriel’s case, the phrases of choice are “reconciliation of interests,” “international cooperation” and “international law.”

All such formulas, Trotsky continued, “reduce themselves in the end to the fact that the war question, i.e., the fate of the people, is left in the hands of the imperialists, their governing staffs, their diplomacy, their generals, with all their intrigues and plots against the people.”

Gabriel’s “lame phraseology” cannot conceal the fact that he and the Social Democrats (SPD) are playing a leading role in the return of German militarism and, like Trump, are preparing for war. Significantly, he did not utter a word of criticism of Trump’s fascistic threat to “totally destroy” North Korea, a country of 25 million people.

Just a few days earlier, in an interview with Handelsblatt, Gabriel laid out his own militarist programme for the German government. “In essence,” he said, “the issue is to make Europe a global political actor” capable of standing up to the US as well as China. To this end, he said it was necessary “to double the efficiency of the European defence policy.” He described the “abolition of military service” and cutbacks in the budget for the armed forces as mistakes.

In his recent book Remeasuring, Gabriel calls for the construction of a European army capable of imposing the continent’s global interests independently of NATO and the US, and, if necessary, in opposition to the latter.

“Europe’s security is Europe’s own responsibility,” he writes. “We have to become capable of acting strategically, because currently we don’t do so sufficiently. This includes defining our European interests and articulating them independently of the US. This requires an emancipation, to some extent, from adopting positions developed in Washington.”

He continues: “Anyone with his own goals should develop the capabilities to achieve them. The EU must see itself increasingly as a security policy power. Our defence budgets must be adjusted accordingly. Europe’s military equipment must be modernised and reoriented towards operational readiness and military tasks.”

Gabriel’s criticism of Washington has nothing to do with pacifism. He opposes Trump’s threats to destroy North Korea and blow up the Iran nuclear deal because they undercut German imperialist interests. Berlin, like Paris and London, has signed multi-billion-dollar deals with Iran and wants to further open up the country to secure new energy sources and new markets for Germany’s export-dependent economy in the Middle East.

With regard to North Korea, Germany, which is one of the few countries to have an embassy in Pyongyang and North Korean diplomatic representation in Berlin, is pursuing similar goals. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview with Deutsche Welle, “Even though in terms of distance it is far away from Germany, it is still a conflict that affects us. And that’s why I am prepared and the foreign minister is prepared to assume responsibility for this. In the Iran agreement, which I believe to be correct… we also took part in the negotiations.”

Behind the call for more “responsibility” in the North Korea conflict lie the economic and geo-strategic interests of German imperialism. Rüdiger Frank, the leading German North Korean expert, describes the North Korean economy in his recent book as an “uncut diamond.” He writes: “The geographical position, between some of the largest and most dynamic markets in the world, which have substantial deposits of raw materials and largely well-educated, disciplined populations,” offers “realistic prospects for growth and economic success.”