One sixth of world’s people want to flee their home countries

Eric London

The world is pulsing with hundreds of millions of people desperate to flee their homes under the weight of the crisis of world capitalism. According to a recent Gallup study, a sixth of the world’s adult population—some 750 million people, not including children—want to flee their home countries to escape war, poverty, conflict and disease.

The statistics expose the devastating impact of decades of imperialist war and corporate exploitation. In the more than quarter-century since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the ruling classes of the major powers, led by the United States, have unleashed an unprecedented wave of military plunder and social counterrevolution, killing millions and laying waste to broad swaths of the world.

A third of the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa want to escape. The region, which is rich in minerals and oil coveted by French, Dutch, Belgian and American corporations, has a life expectancy of 46, while 70 percent of the population lives on less than $2 per day.

In Latin America, 27 percent of people want to leave their home countries to escape the aftermath of US invasion, IMF austerity and US-backed dictatorships.

Twenty-six percent of Eastern Europeans want to flee the near-universal devastation that has followed the privatization of state industries by the Stalinist bureaucrats-turned-oligarchs.

Twenty-four percent of Middle Easterners and North Africans wish to leave in search of shelter from the storm of bombs and missiles that the US has rained down upon the region since the Persian Gulf War.

In 13 countries, nearly half or more of the adult population finds life unbearable.

In Sierra Leone, a country ravaged by the bloody fight to turn over diamonds to European jewelers, 71 percent of adults want to flee. In Haiti, 63 percent want to leave after more than a century of American invasions and occupations.

Fifty-two percent of Salvadorans and 47 percent of Hondurans want to escape the violence, poverty and corruption that dominate Central America following the civil wars of the 1980s and 1990s. Forty-eight percent of Nigerians want to leave their country, bled white from the extraction of crude oil by Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell.

This year, the ruling classes of Europe and North America implemented unprecedented anti-immigrant policies and inflamed xenophobic sentiment to distract from growing social inequality and strengthen far-right forces that will be used against the working class.

In June, the European Union agreed to cut migration and erect concentration camps to house immigrants in North Africa.

In August, French President Emmanuel Macron signed a law slashing asylum eligibility.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini repeated threats to deport 500,000 immigrants and the entire Roma population. In the United Kingdom, the Tory government is preparing a Brexit deal that may cut the country off to Eastern European immigrants. In Germany, the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany held anti-immigrant demonstrations this summer with the encouragement of the state.

Nowhere is the anti-immigrant scapegoating more fierce and dangerous than in the United States. In April, the Trump administration began separating children from their families at the US-Mexico border and erected tent-city internment centers to house the children.

In October, Trump deployed thousands of troops to the southern border. Thousands of participants in the Central American migrant caravan have been sleeping in the streets of Tijuana for months. When two Guatemalan children died in US custody this month, the government blamed their impoverished indigenous parents.

“Left” populist demagogues around the world play the most criminal role, justifying the anti-immigrant measures of the far-right and attempting to poison the working class with nationalism. In the United Kingdom, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn echoed United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage when he told a Scottish Labour conference in March that Britain should curb the entrance of foreign workers.

In Mexico, the new government of “left” nationalist Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) made a deal this month with Trump to detain Central American refugees in Mexico and block them from exercising their right to asylum in the US.

In Greece, the government of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) has jailed hundreds of thousands of refugees in internment camps and recently deployed police to brutally assault immigrants attempting to cross the Evros River from Turkey.

Syriza’s position on immigration is summed up in a recent report from Human Rights Watch:

Abuse [by Greek police] included beatings with hands and batons, kicking and, in one case, the use of what appeared to be a stun gun. In another case, a Moroccan man said a masked man dragged him by his hair, forced him to kneel on the ground, held a knife to his throat, and subjected him to a mock execution. Others pushed back include a pregnant 19-year-old woman from Afrin, Syria and a woman from Afghanistan who said Greek authorities took away her two young children’s shoes.

In the US, Bernie Sanders begged Trump in January to “work with us to make sure we have strong border security.”

Earlier this month, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) wrote a statement titled “Toward a Left Position on Immigration,” which includes the subsection “It’s Not About Open Borders.”

The DSA writes: “The actual alternative to the current existing immigration policy is not ‘open borders.’ It is enforcement of existing employment laws, followed by the development of new employment and immigration laws, leading to a fair, pro-worker system of immigration.”

This is a thinly veiled, foul appeal to anti-immigrant nationalism and chauvinism, in no basic way different from that of the trade union bureaucracy, the Trump administration and neo-fascists such as Stephen Bannon.

With such actions and statements, Corbyn, Syriza, AMLO, Sanders and the DSA expose their hostility to the international working class and to socialism. They are pledging—or in the case of Syriza and AMLO have already shown—that they will use state violence against workers demanding a redress of their grievances.

In contrast to nationalist groups like the DSA that defend the existence of national boundaries, the Socialist Equality Party fights for socialist internationalism and rejects the lie that any ruling class has the right to jail desperate workers escaping imperialist war or prevent them from seeking safety and a better life in another country. Immigrant workers are not to blame for growing poverty and declining living conditions in Europe and America. The real enemies of the workers are the same imperialist governments and transnational corporations that are responsible for forcing immigrants from their homes in the first place.

The Socialist Equality Party demands the immediate release of all interned immigrants and the provision of trillions of dollars, confiscated from the banks and corporations, to provide all immigrants with decent-paying jobs, housing, social services, education and safe passage to a destination of their choosing without fear of deportation.

Capitalism has turned broad swaths of the world into a foul prison, holding workers and the poor in nation-state straitjackets from which a sixth of the world is fighting to escape. Socialist revolution will free the productive process from the control of the world’s oligarchs, abolish national boundaries and guarantee the right of all workers to travel the world in peace.

Kashmir's Separatist Movement: Rising Challenges, Shrinking Relevance

Sarral Sharma

J&K's separatist leaders are under pressure to keep their political relevance intact in the aftermath of the outbreak of violence beginning July 2016. Despite their personal and ideological differences, three top separatist leaders–Yasin Malik, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq– were led to establish the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) in late-2016 to streamline street protests and galvanise a united front regarding developments in the so-called 'self-determination' movement. This article will look at how the 'new-age' militancy poses a challenge to the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC)-led separatist movement, with the latter finding it difficult to maintain its political and territorial influence in the Valley. 

The JRL regularly issues 'protest calendars' and calls for bandhs (shutdown) or election boycotts in pursuit of their goals. However, this is in part fuelled by challenges in light of the emerging new militancy. In the last two years, religion has been given significant relevance over politics as far as the local militancy is concerned. As a result, separatist leaders have also begun speaking on matters related to Islam, quite apart from politics, in their taqreers (speeches or sermons). Despite these contextual changes, local militants have not stopped criticising or intimidating the separatist leaders for their 'limited' participation in the Azadi (freedom) movement.

Thus, while some analysts are of the opinion that the erosion of the Hurriyat's relevance in the Valley, as popularly suggested, is somewhat over-exaggerated, there is certainly cause for concern from the perspective of the separatist movement. Recent instances such as masked youth raising pro-Islamic State (IS) slogans from Mirwaiz's pulpit, the killing of a separatist leader in South Kashmir by 'unknown' assailants, and not allowing separatist leaders at militant funerals suggest a growing anger against the Hurriyat leadership. In a rare incident, former Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) commander Zakir Musa even threatened graphic physical harm to Hurriyat leaders, including Geelani, if they continued to call their struggle a "political and not Islamic one." Further, with the emergence of IS and al Qaeda modules in Kashmir, some new-age militants are calling for the creation of an Islamic 'Caliphate' over a democratic state.

The Hurriyat faction is currently unable to translate motivation into action given Geelani's deteriorating health, and other separatist leaders failing to muster enough public support. This precarious position is a result of not just the post-2016 situation in the Valley, but also factors that existed pre-2016 that have compounded pressure on the separatist leadership. These include New Delhi's attempts to either completely sideline or limit the leadership's role in the Kashmir issue; raids conducted by the National Investigative Agency (NIA) on middle-rung separatist leaders, and growing apprehension about who would be Geelani's successor.

The Modi government, in its first year in power in 2014, called off foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan because Islamabad's then high commissioner in New Delhi held a meeting with the Hurriyat leaders. Since then, the separatist leaders have been kept out of any bilateral engagement between India and Pakistan. In the meantime, the NIA has charged some separatist leaders for fomenting street violence in the Valley. These arrests came at a time when the Hurriyat leadership was already facing troubles in controlling the street agitations that began after Wani’s killing. The separatists–who issued several protest calendars in the hope of staying relevant – tried to use the arrests to play the 'victim' card in a bid to gain some public sympathy - but to no avail.

In terms of territory, the Hurriyat's influence has further degraded in South Kashmir in the past two and a half years. Their hold or relevance remains restricted to the traditional pockets of North and Central Kashmir. Since July 2016, there is a growing impression that the Hurriyat is no longer central to the separatist movement in Kashmir. The vacuum created due to their apparent absence in some parts of the Valley may lead to more hard-line elements taking over in the future. With the emergence of social media platforms that offer easy access to propaganda literature, the region has become more malleable to religious radicalisation. The Hurriyat may find it difficult to control an individual(s)-driven movement in today's Kashmir. So far, they have not been able to come up with an alternative or counter-strategy to address the challenges that arise from the existence of self-motivated and radicalised youth.

Given the current situation in Kashmir, the separatist leadership is likely to lose more credibility in the near future. More importantly, as the 'new-age' militancy gains more ground, separatist leaders face a realistic fear of losing their influence or being marginalised. The separatist leaders may be increasingly targeted by a disorganised, possibly 'leaderless' militant movement in Kashmir. New Delhi may seek to turn the situation to its advantage by playing with these insecurities. However, it may be wiser for New Delhi to offer an alternative arrangement to the separatist leaders, as discrediting them completely does not appear to be a favourable policy consideration in the current circumstances in J&K. 

ISQua Lucian Leape Patient Safety Fellowship Award 2019 for Physicians and Healthcare Leaders in Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 15^th February 2019

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

About the Award: The Lucian Leape Patient Safety Fellowship Award has been established in 2018 and was announced at ISQua’s 35th International Conference in Kuala Lumpur. The objective is to fund physicians and health care leaders in developing countries, to advance and expand their expertise in patient safety, with the resultant improvement of safety of patients in their local area.
The Fellow will be linked to a mentor at the start of the programme. Mentors may be ISQua Experts or members of the International Academy of Quality and Safety in Health Care (IAQS). In collaboration with the mentor, the Leape Fellow will design a curriculum designed to ensure learning on theories of Patient Safety with a focus on measurement and interventions to decrease adverse events and harm.

Type: Fellowship, Award

Eligibility: To be considered for this Programme, candidates must possess a number of key skills and attributes. Candidates will be shortlisted based on their completed application form, and in particular, their personal statement. Successful candidates will then take part in a telephone interview with a panel representing ISQua and two of our strategic partners.
Candidates for the Lucian Leape Patient Safety Fellowship will be health professionals who:

• – Are physicians who have completed their clinical training (speciality residency or equivalent) OR
• – Are Health Care Providers who have completed the equivalent training to a residency in their field of practice.
• – Will commit to include patient safety as a core value of their future work in health care
• – Have a commitment from their home institution to provide them with a role in the organisation’s patient safety programme on completion of their Fellowship.
• – Have completed either the first year of the ISQua Fellowship Programme requirement, or the HPM-affiliated Master’s degree programme at the Harvard Chan School or an equivalent.
• – Were born in and work or intend to return to work in Africa, Latin America or any Low or Middle Income Country, as identified by the World Bank.
• – Have not been previously awarded an ISQua Education or Conference Fellowship.

Selection Criteria: Applicants will be assessed on:

• – The reason for the application
• – The benefit of the Fellowship to the clinical or managerial role of the applicants
• – The benefit of the Fellowship to the applicant’s professional career
• – The benefit of the Fellowship to healthcare and quality in his/her home country
• – An assessment of an applicant’s professional interest in Patient Safety

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The programme is clinically oriented, designed to provide the Leape Fellow with additional training in the theory of Patient Safety Science and interventions to improve patient safety. This will include training to identify and analyze adverse events and to develop interventions to address these events at a system level.

Duration of Programme: 1 year

How to Apply: Apply and/or Nominate in the Link below

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Problem of ‘ e- waste’ management

Sheshu Babu

Use of electronic materials has increased over the years and waste emanating from disbanding of the equipment is rising rapidly particularly in cities and towns. The city of Moradabad in U. P.( Located on the banks of Ramganga, a tributary of Ganga) is the largest e- waste hub in the country. The city air quality index had peaked at 500 in 2017 , the highest reading that year. (The afterlife of e- goods, by Isher Judge Ahluwalia and Almitra Patel, updated December 26, 2018, indianexpress.com). A study by Assocham and NEC finds that a mere 5 per cent of India’s e-waste gets recycled less than the global rate of 20 per cent.

‘E-waste’ estimates

The term ‘ E- waste’ is an informal popular name for electronic products nearing the end of their useful life. The electronic goods like computers, TVs, VCRs, Wires or cables,etc have to be disposed after they become old or damaged or stop functioning. In India, solid waste management along with emergence of e- waste has become a complicated task. The he total waste generated by obsolete and broken down electronic and electrical equipment was estimated to be 1, 46,000 tonnes for the year 2005 which is expected to cross 8,00,000 tonnes by 2012. According to the Greenpeace Report in 2007, India generated 380,000 tonnes of e- waste. Only 3% of the waste made up to the authorized recyclers facilities. According to the article’E-waste management: As a Challenge to Public Health in India ‘ by Monika and Jugal Kishore published in Indian Journal of Community Medicine ( 31-12-2009, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). , one of the reasons for this is that India has become a dumping ground for developed nations.

Toxic components

E- toxic components in computers could be summarized as circuit boards containing heavy metals like lead and cadmium or batteries with cadmium, cathode ray tubes with lead oxide and barium or brominated flame retardants are hazardous. In the article ‘ Environmentally Sound Options for E-wastes Management’ by Ramachandra T. V and Saira Varghese K. (Published by Envis Journal of Human Settlements, March 2004, wgbis ces.iisc.ernet.in), an in-depth study on contamination of water, air and land and the health hazards is presented.

Management and disposal

The waste produced due to unused electric goods is rising. The developed nations tried to get rid of their waste by disposing to the developing countries. This sparked outrage and led to the drafting and of strategic plans and regulations at the Basel Convention. The Convention secretariat at Geneva, Switzerland, facilitates the proper way for implementation of the Convention and related agreements. It also provides assistance and guidelines on legal and technical issues, gathers statistical data and conducts training on the proper management of hazardous waste. The main aims of the Convention are to reduce and control trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes, prevention and minimization of generation and transfer of latest technologies of management which are eco – friendly.

Mechanism

An efficient mechanism for recycling the e-waste should be developed. In India, 95% of the waste is managed by unorganized sector mainly ‘ kabadiwalas’ , scrap dealers and dismantlers using dangerous methods to recover metals. The Global E-waste Monitor estimates 44.7 million tonnes (mt) was generated in 2016 with China, US and Japan leading producers and India stood fourth. As the danger of e- waste increases, efficient ways of collection and disposal mechanism should be developed. Collection centers at major points in cities and towns should be started. Also, the manufacturers of goods may provide discounts on new products and collect waste goods so that they can recycle at their factories. Special locations to burn or dismantle electronic goods must be made available so that the health of people and environment remain unaffected. Proper planning is necessary to tackle e-waste and its growing menace.

Thousands face loss of mental health coverage in the US

Matthew Taylor 

Behavioral health clinics in eight states that administer addiction and mental health services under a pilot program authorized by the federal government in 2014 face a shutdown due to Congress’ failure to renew funding for the program. Approximately 9,000 patients will lose coverage and three thousand jobs will be eliminated, according to the Washington Post .

The legislation passed in 2014, titled the Excellence in Mental Health Act, established a Medicaid-reimbursed program wherein Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) could provide a range of services including mental health and addiction services, free screening, assessment and diagnosis, individual and family-centered treatment plans, psychiatric rehabilitation services, outpatient mental health services, and outpatient primary care screening and monitoring of key health indicators and health risk.

The program was aimed at providing mental health services at an earlier stage then Medicaid-eligible patients usually receive it and encouraged participating states to search out innovative methods to administer treatment to the most vulnerable members of society, including children placed in foster care and new inmates in jails and prisons.

Integration of various forms of treatment and coordination between different providers aimed to “provide a comprehensive collection of services needed to create access, stabilize people in crisis and provide the necessary treatment for those with the most serious, complex mental illnesses and substance use disorders,” according to a document released by the National Council for Behavioral Health.

By integrating various treatments and services under a single program, the CCBHCs are allowed to bill Medicaid for the resulting bundled services, resulting in a higher payout to clinics than would normally be provided by Medicaid. Psychiatry, for example, is one of several treatments that are typically reimbursed at a lower rate than the cost of delivering service. By charging Medicaid a single fee per patient the program is able to recoup some of the losses that would otherwise be absorbed by the healthcare providers.

The program was in part designed to address the surging opioid epidemic in the US, which has seen overdose rates skyrocket in recent years.

Administrators of the program in participating states have implemented various measures which have resulted in better health outcomes for their residents.

In Oregon, for example, a data analysis funded by the program showed higher rates of emergency room visits for patients who suffered from chronic back pain and mental illness. The pain management program that was subsequently developed for those patients resulted in fewer emergency room visits and lower reported incidences of pain, depression and anxiety, according to the Post .

Niagara County, New York, officials developed a program which offered expanded drug and alcohol treatment for inmates in the county jail, and free transportation for newly released inmates to attend addiction counseling. This program has reportedly reduced rates of recidivism in that county.

The program also offers expanded services for military veterans, especially those in rural areas who are underserved by the existing Veterans Affairs system.

The program was initially authorized for eight states, including Oregon, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Since the program began in 2017 it has served an estimated 381,000 patients.

In October, Congress failed to authorize continued funding for the program, estimated at $520 million per year, when they passed an $8.4 billion package aimed at addressing the opioid epidemic. Because the program had only been funded for two years in the initial legislation, clinics in participating states will begin closing as early as January. The remaining programs would run out of funding in May 2019.

The elimination of the CCBHCs and the resulting loss of care for hundreds of thousands of patients have received little coverage in the media, with an article in the Post being the only reporting from a major national news site. This is unsurprising since the impoverished beneficiaries of the program are hardly the upper-middle-class target audience of the New York Times, CNN and other mainstream media outlets.

Indeed, the larger question of why the provision of basic health services, which are a routine part of the state-run medical programs in most industrialized countries, requires special funding from Congress and only extend to eight states remains unasked. The politicians in both the Democratic and Republican parties have little interest in passing any legislation which will reduce the profitability of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

The elimination of this program by Congress is only a small part of the larger drive by the ruling class to dismantle the various social assistance programs conceded to the working class through decades of struggle in the 20th century. For the Democrats’ part, this process is concealed behind populist rhetoric and is embodied in the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, which mandated the purchase of insurance from the private market and shifted billions of dollars annually from the public to private interests.

For Trump and his supporters, the attack on social programs is pursued more openly, though usually accompanied by right-wing nostrums about improving “personal responsibility” and “accountability.” This approach is exemplified in Trump’s executive order in April of this year titled “Reducing Poverty in America by Promoting Opportunity and Economic Mobility” which ordered his cabinet secretaries to aim for the elimination of any public assistance programs that do not have work requirements attached to them.

Japan plans for massive military build-up aimed at China

Ben McGrath 

The cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved new so-called National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG) on December 18 that will rapidly accelerate Tokyo’s remilitarization, including the acquisition of offensive weaponry. The new 10-year policy explicitly targets China and North Korea, as well as Russia.

The document makes clear that Japan is preparing for war alongside the United States. It states that the US “remains the world’s most powerful nation, but national rivalries are surfacing and we recognize the importance of the strategic competition with both China and Russia as they challenge the regional order.”

The NDPG states, “Further strengthening relations with the US, which shares the same universal values and strategic interests with our country, has become more important than ever for our national security.”

While this relationship is couched in terms of defense, Tokyo is calling for a vast expansion of its military. This is in violation of Article 9 of the constitution that bans Japan from possessing the ability to make war on other countries, a ban which has been in place since the end of World War II. The NDPG calls for the acquisition of obviously offensive weaponry such as aircraft carriers and cruise missiles. Until now, governments have maintained the charade that the Japanese military has a purely defensive character.

Japan intends to convert its Izumo-class helicopter carriers, which it claimed were defensive weapons, to carry and launch United States-made F-35 fighter jets. While the Defense Ministry admits that aircraft carriers are prohibited by the constitution, it claims that because the ships will not always carry fighters, that they continued to be “defensive” in nature.

Japan will purchase 147 F-35 fighter jets, including 42 of the F-35Bs for the aircraft carriers. Other jets will be stationed on islands in the East China Sea, around the uninhabited Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, that are claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing.

Japan intends to equip these jets with long-range cruise missiles, capable of hitting targets at a distance of 900 kilometers. These Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM), would, in the words of their developer US-based Lockheed Martin, give Japan the ability to “destroy hostile air defenses and high value, well defended, fixed and relocatable targets while keeping aircraft safely out of range from hostile air defense systems.” Japan will also pursue the development of hypersonic guided missiles that evade radar systems.

The new guidelines also place increased emphasis on cyber and outer space with the government seeking to develop the ability to obstruct the use of cyberspace if the country is supposedly under attack. A new unit will be created within the Air Self-Defense Force to continuously monitor space.

The cost of this military expansion will inevitably fall on the working class in the form of increased austerity measures. Over the next five years, Tokyo intends to spend approximately 27.47 trillion yen ($248 billion), a record high and three trillion yen more than the period from 2014 to 2018. Part of this money will be spent on two land-based Aegis Ashore missile batteries from the US, as announced last year.

A major factor behind Japan’s decision to purchase so much military hardware is the demand from US President Trump that allies spend more money on US weaponry or face trade tariffs. The result, in part, is to ensure these allies are prepared for war, namely with China.

The fact that Japan views China as one of its primary targets also belies the apparent warming of ties earlier this year with Beijing. Tokyo has looked to improve relations with China as a means of heading off uncertainty in the face of tariff threats from Trump. However, Tokyo remains undeterred from its broader goal of using renewed military power to achieve its economic goals and boost its strategic position in Asia and internationally.

Japan’s Defense Ministry also made this clear in its annual White Paper, released at the end of November, saying, “China’s recent activities, including its rapid military modernization and enhancement of operational capabilities, its unilateral escalation of actions in areas around Japan, and with the lack of transparency in the military build-up, present a strong security concern for the region including Japan and the international community.”

In reality, US imperialism with the aid of Japan has sought to maintain and strengthen its hegemony in the Asia-Pacific since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and to head-off economic challengers like China. This intensified under the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia,” which included provocatively sailing warships near Chinese-claimed islands in the South China Sea.

Trump has stepped up these provocations, deepened military and political connections with Taiwan, which Beijing regards as part of its territory, and previously threatened to completely destroy North Korea, a Chinese ally.

Tokyo has acted in a similar fashion, in 2012 “nationalizing” three of the five Senkaku Islands, also claimed by China. Abe is pushing to revise the so-called pacifist constitution by 2020 and whitewashing the historical war crimes of Japanese imperialism in preparation for new conflicts. Tokyo also pushed through military legislation in 2015 to allow it to take part in wars abroad alongside an ally, namely the US.

The White Paper specifically cites this legislation as one method of deepening cooperation with the US, stating it will “enable SDF personnel to protect the weapons and other equipment of the units of the United States Forces and the armed forces of other foreign countries that are in cooperation with the SDF and are currently engaged in activities that contribute to the defense of Japan.”

China along with both Koreas expressed concern over the new guidelines. Beijing’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying criticized Tokyo for “[making] irresponsible remarks about China’s normal national defense construction and military activities.” She pointed out that, “For historical reasons, Japan’s movements in the military security field have greatly concerned its Asian neighbors and the international community.”

North Korea denounced Japan as a “war criminal country, saying “Japan remains unchanged in its wild ambition for overseas aggression.” South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk was more restrained, stating, “Japan’s defense policy should contribute to peace and stability in the region under the spirit of its pacifist Constitution. This is the South Korean government’s stance.”

Syrian government troops deployed to flashpoint city of Manbij

Bill Van Auken

The Syrian government announced Friday that its troops had entered the northeastern city of Manbij in an apparent bid to forestall a Turkish invasion aimed at driving out the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

The YPG, which has served as the Pentagon’s principal proxy ground force in controlling nearly a third of the Syrian territory near the Turkish border, is regarded by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a branch of the Turkish Kurdish PKK, against which Turkey’s security forces have waged a bloody, decades-long counterinsurgency operation.

Erdogan vowed earlier this month that the Turkish military would intervene to push the YPG back from the border. US President Donald Trump’s December 19 announcement that he was ordering the withdrawal of all 2,000-plus US troops from Syria and leaving the military campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Ankara’s hands appeared to open the door to a Turkish intervention and a broader scramble for control of northeastern Syria, which consists largely of sparsely populated desert, but also contains the country’s main oil and natural gas reserves.

In a statement posted on Twitter, the YPG said that it had invited the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad “to send its armed forces to take over these positions and protect Manbij in the face of Turkish threats.” The tweet, which was sent in the morning, was subsequently deleted and then reposted later in the day, likely reflecting the tensions between the YPG and its US military patrons following Trump’s announcement.

While the Syrian government issued a statement saying that its troops had entered Manbij, a city of approximately 100,000, and hoisted the national flag, the US military, which still has special operations units based near the city, as well as some local residents speaking to the Western media denied that the Syrian army was deployed in the city.

Other reports indicate that the Syrian military has doubled the number of troops that had already taken up positions on the city’s outskirts and has deployed them between the Turkish and Kurdish forces.

Manbij fell to US and Turkish-backed “rebels” in 2012, including the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front, and was subsequently overrun by ISIS in 2014. In the summer of 2016 the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, the YPG-dominated US ground proxy force, took control of the city.

The Turkish military has massed troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers on the border near Manbij in recent days, while Reuters quoted the main Turkish-backed Syrian “rebel” group, the “Free Syrian Army,” as stating on Friday that it had sent convoys, together with Turkish forces, toward the frontlines with Manbij, in “full readiness … to start military operations to liberate” the city. An FSA commander said that the group had 15,000 fighters prepared to attack the city.

Turkey carried out a similar operation in March of this year against the predominantly Kurdish town of Afrin, west of the Euphrates River, forcing over 200,000 people to flee their homes. Since then, Ankara has given free rein to the so-called “rebels” to carry out looting, arbitrary detentions, torture and killings, according to human rights groups.

Erdogan responded to the report of the movement of Syrian government forces to Manbij by calling it a “psychological” operation, amounting to “waving their own flag there.” He said that Damascus carried out a similar action in Afrin before the Turkish invasion.

He added that “It’s not just about Manbij, we are aiming to wipe out all terrorist organizations in the region. Our main target is that the YPG takes the necessary lessons here.”

The Trump White House appears prepared to sacrifice its erstwhile Kurdish proxy force in the interests of repairing ties with Ankara. Relations between the two NATO allies have been strained since an abortive July 2016 military coup against Erdogan that enjoyed US backing and had further deteriorated over the Pentagon’s alliance with the YPG.

Among Washington’s objectives is undoubtedly driving a wedge between Turkey and Russia, which have established closer ties as relations between Washington and Ankara soured. Turkey has collaborated with Russia and Iran in the so-called Astana peace process for Syria, which has eclipsed the Geneva talks backed by the US.

A delegation from Turkey consisting of its foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, and defense minister, Hulusi Akar, along with other officials, is due to arrive in Moscow today to discuss with their Russian counterparts the implications of the US troop withdrawal.

The precise timetable and conditions for the US troop withdrawal remain far from clear. On December 23, Trump tweeted that he had discussed with Erdogan a “slow and highly coordinated pullout of U.S. troops from the area” of northeastern Syria.

At the same time, during his December 26 lightning visit to the Pentagon’s Al Asad airbase in western Iraq, the US president declared that American troops were in Iraq to stay—despite the overwhelming hostility to their presence among the Iraqi people—and that the base could be used to carry out cross-border raids into Syria.

The clear suggestion was that US special operations troops will continue to operate in northeastern Syria. Whether their operations are directed at suppressing ISIS or reviving it for use against the Syrian government remains to be seen.

The US State Department, meanwhile, issued a ringing endorsement Friday of Israeli air strikes carried out against alleged Iranian-tied targets inside Syria. The Israeli military has acknowledged carrying out over 200 such strikes since 2017.

“Iranian support of and supply to terrorist groups in Syria and across the region that have the clear intent and capability to strike Israel are unacceptable,” the State Department said. “The United States fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against the Iranian regime’s aggressive adventurism, and we will continue to ensure that Israel has the military capacity to do so decisively.”

The statement came just three days after Israeli strikes on targets in Syria that were denounced by Moscow as “a gross violation of the sovereignty of Syria” that also threatened two civilian passenger planes.

Whatever the tactical shift carried out by the Trump administration in relation to US troop deployments in Syria, it is clear that Washington is continuing its strategy of military aggression aimed at asserting US hegemony—and rolling back Iranian and Russian influence—in Syria and the entire oil-rich Middle East. The threat that these efforts will spill over into a region-wide and even world war have in no way been lessened.

Dozens killed in protests against austerity and repression in Sudan

Jean Shaoul

At least 27 people have been killed and 219 injured during protests opposing the Sudanese government of president Omar al-Bashir. Hundreds more have been arrested in a brutal crackdown on demonstrations against the rising cost of basic commodities including bread.

Among those arrested were 14 leaders of an opposition coalition, the National Consensus Forces, including its leader, the 85-year-old Farouk Abu Issa, who is in poor health, a senior leader of Sudan’s Communist Party, as well as leaders from the pan-Arab Ba’ath and Nasserist parties. Authorities have also blocked social media sites and disrupted internet services to stop protesters communicating.

Yesterday, security forces fired tear gas at hundreds of protesters following Friday prayers outside a mosque in Omdurman, part of the Greater Khartoum conurbation.

A crowd of protesters outside the burning offices of the ruling National Congress Party

The protests initially broke out on December 19 over the tripling in the price of bread and fuel shortages in the northeastern city of Atbara, where protesters torched the ruling National Congress Party’s offices. Atbara, is known as the “City of Steel and Fire” because of its historical importance to the rail network and the presence of a militant rail workers’ trade union that was dismantled under military rule in the 1980s.

The protests rapidly spread across Sudan’s major towns and cities, including the Riverain region—reputedly the regime’s stronghold—and the capital Khartoum, with demonstrators torching the party’s offices in Dongola. Within 24 hours, the demonstrations had escalated into a more generalized expression of opposition to years of austerity, economic hardship and suppression of the most basic democratic rights that make life intolerable for most Sudanese people, particularly the youth. In Khartoum, the average age of protesters is reportedly around 17 to 23 years.

Within two days of the protests starting, the government imposed curfews and states of emergency in several cities, deploying the army around the country. It ordered the police to use tear gas wherever there were large crowds, so that they fired tear gas against fans leaving a football match immediately after they exited the stadium in Khartoum.

Earlier this week, with thousands demonstrating peacefully in what was described as the largest of its kind in years in central Khartoum calling for the ouster of President Bashir—in power since a military coup in 1989—and his regime, security forces fired live ammunition to prevent protesters reaching the presidential palace. The Sudanese Professionals Association had called Tuesday’s demonstration “to direct our voices and our strength towards removing this regime that has devastated us and divided our country.”

Sudan’s workers and poor farmers face a massive hike in prices, with inflation running at nearly 70 percent last September. According to a Reuters report of market vendors’ prices last month, the cost of a kilo of flour had risen 20 percent, beef by 30 percent and potatoes 50 percent.

With prices spiraling, there has been a huge demand for cash, leading to hour-long queues at ATMs that often run out. This has followed the government’s sharp devaluation of the Sudanese pound last October and the central bank’s policy of restricting the money supply to shore up the currency and prevent a run on the banks, leading to a liquidity crunch and a shortage of cash.

People have been forced to turn to the black market, but with the pound losing at least 25 percent of its value against the US dollar in the last month alone, the cost has become exorbitant.

The government’s brutality has only fueled the protests. On Thursday, the Sudanese Journalists’ Network announced that its members were starting a three-day strike in solidarity with the protesters and in opposition to the government’s crackdown. Journalists have faced the regular confiscation of newspapers by the security forces, along with beatings and arrests of those covering demonstrations.

The Sudanese Professionals’ Association, that includes doctors and other professional workers, began a nationwide strike Monday, saying that the work stoppage aimed to “paralyse” the government and deny it much-needed revenue.

The Sudanese Communist Party issued a statement calling on opposition groups to continue the protests, saying, “We urge the Sudanese people to continue their demonstrations until success is achieved by overthrowing the regime.”

The country’s largest political parties, Umma and Democratic Unionist, are also demanding that Bashir step down.

Bashir, who spoke on the crisis for the first time on Monday, tried to downplay the protests as based purely on economic frustrations. He refused to increase the bread subsidies, saying he would not “surrender to our enemies.” Claiming that “Some mercenaries serving the agendas of our external enemies are exploiting the lack of some commodities to sabotage our country,” he warned people to ignore “attempts to instill frustration.”

His assistant and deputy of the ruling party, Faisal Hassan Ibrahim, said the protests were “coordinated and organized” and that two of those killed in demonstrations in the city of al-Qadarif were from the armed forces, leading to the deployment of the military across the country.

That Sudan’s ruling elite has responded with such ferocity to these demonstrations testifies to the depth of the economic and political crisis. Sudan, a country of more than 40 million people, has never recovered from South Sudan’s secession in 2011, after nearly 30 years of civil war. The war was largely orchestrated by the US in an attempt to disrupt China’s growing economic influence in the Horn of Africa. Following the secession, Sudan lost three-quarters of its oil output, a crucial source of foreign currency.

Although Sudan endured harsh US sanctions, imposed in the 1990s following allegations by Washington that Khartoum was aiding international terrorism, US-Sudan relations have warmed somewhat. Last year, the Trump administration lifted the sanctions, largely due to pressure from the Gulf monarchies, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, following Sudan’s dispatch of some 1,000 ground troops to fight with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. There were promises of Saudi investment, after Sudan cut diplomatic ties with Iran in January 2016.

Nevertheless, Washington set conditions for the full normalisation of ties, with the result that Sudan’s economy has seen few benefits and there has been a falling out between different factions within the ruling clique.

In January, the government introduced austerity measures that included cutting subsidies on wheat, electricity and other essential goods, sending prices soaring and sparking wide protests the government managed to suppress by arresting hundreds of people.

Last April, Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour, reportedly in favour of meeting US conditions, was sacked for indicating the scale of the economic crisis confronting the government. He had told parliament that his ministry was facing a financial crisis and needed $30 million to cover its costs, adding, “Sudanese diplomats have not received their salaries, and paying rent for diplomatic missions has also been delayed.”

Bashir can count on the support of the region’s dictators, all of whom fear for their own shaky regimes. Egypt was quick to voice its support, while Qatar reportedly offered “all that was necessary to help Sudan overcome this ordeal…” Qatar and the Gulf States, which have been an important source of funding for Sudan since the secession of South Sudan, as well as Turkey have been competing for influence in the Horn of Africa.

Earlier this month, Bashir was dispatched to Damascus to put out feelers on behalf of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It was part of a broader effort to reduce Tehran’s influence in the war-torn country, under conditions where the Gulf States have lost influence in the Levant, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

The US, Britain, Norway and Canada have issued a joint statement expressing their concern about the use of live ammunition on the demonstrators and calling on all parties to avoid violence or the destruction of property, while affirming the right of the Sudanese people to peacefully protest to express their “legitimate grievances.”

Facebook: The global censor

Andre Damon

The year 2018 has seen a vast intensification of internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Twitter, transforming them from tools for exchanging information and communicating around the world into massive censorship dragnets for policing what their users say, do and think.

In August 2017, the World Socialist Web Site published an open letter to Google charging that the company, in collusion with the US government, was working to shape political discourse by manipulating search results. The open letter warned that Google’s actions set a dangerous precedent for subverting constitutional protections of freedom of speech and demanded that the company cease what the WSWS called “political blacklisting” of left-wing sites.

Sixteen months later, the central argument of the open letter—that Google and its peers are carrying out political censorship—is undeniable. The regime that Google pioneered through its search engine has been expanded to all major US social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

In a front-page article published Friday, titled “How Facebook Controls What World Can Say,” the New York Times writes that Facebook’s actions “make the company a far more powerful arbiter of global speech than has been publicly recognized or acknowledged by the company itself.”

Facebook has “quietly become, with a speed that makes even employees uncomfortable, what is arguably one of the world’s most powerful political regulators,” the article states. “Increasingly,” the Times concludes, “the decisions on what posts should be barred amount to regulating political speech—and not just on the fringes.”

The transformation of Facebook into an instrument for political censorship was driven home in an end-of-year statement by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg published just hours after the appearance of the Times report.

“We’re a very different company today than we were in 2016, or even a year ago,” writes Zuckerberg. “We’ve fundamentally altered our DNA to focus more on preventing harm in all our services, and we’ve systematically shifted a large portion of our company to work on preventing harm. We now have more than 30,000 people working on safety and invest billions of dollars in security yearly.”

Lurking behind the billionaire CEO’s sickly-sweet euphemisms about “harm prevention” is a much darker reality. The 30,000 employees Zuckerberg cites—a majority of Facebook’s workers—are engaged not in “harm prevention,” but “speech prevention.” They read the communications of Facebook users, determine what political views are and are not acceptable, and remove, ban or block users and posts.

Zuckerberg boasts that Facebook is “removing millions of fake accounts every day,” and working “to identify misinformation and reduce its distribution.” Facebook has “built AI systems to automatically identify and remove content related to terrorism, hate speech and more before anyone even sees it.”

In other words, every single Facebook post, comment and message is read and analyzed by humans, machines or both to determine whether or not it falls afoul of the company’s entirely arbitrary, undefined, amorphous and opaque (“and more”) standards.

If Facebook determines that what you post is “sensational,” such as a criticism of Israeli massacres of Palestinian civilians, your post may be secretly demoted. If you protest the persecution of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, your statements may be deleted. And, as Facebook has made clear, in certain unspecified cases it passes on information to the police and intelligence agencies based on users’ political statements.

Zuckerberg continues, “We’ve improved News Feed to promote news from trusted sources. We’re developing systems to automatically reduce the distribution of borderline content, including sensationalism and misinformation.”

In plain language, if Facebook determines that what you have to say is “borderline content” (whatever that may be), you will not be able to say it, and you cannot appeal to anyone.

“Trusted” sources, among which Zuckerberg has previously named the New York Times and Washington Post, are to be promoted, while those that question these quasi-official outlets of the American state will be gagged.

The Times article cited above concludes: “The company’s goal is ambitious: to reduce context-heavy questions that even legal experts might struggle with—when is an idea hateful, when is a rumor dangerous—to one-size-fits-all rules.”

It notes that the company has internal rules governing whether its users are allowed to use certain terms. “Words like ‘brother’ or ‘comrade’ probably cross the line,” the Times writes.

It adds that “Moderators say they face pressure to review about a thousand pieces of content per day. They have eight to 10 seconds for each post.”

Despite the explosive character of the article’s revelations, the report is a controlled release of information intended to push Facebook to systematize its censorship regime in coordination with the US government. Instead of what the article describes as a Byzantine maze of excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint files, the Times, one of the leading proponents of internet censorship, is demanding a clear set of government guidelines about what kind of speech Facebook is to remove.

But according to the First Amendment of the US Constitution, as well as various international human rights agreements, the government has no right to tell anyone what he or she can and cannot say. “Congress shall make no law” declares the First Amendment, “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

Facebook’s censorship drive has taken place at the direct instigation of the American state. In over a half dozen hearings this year by Senate and House committees, leading figures in the US Congress as well as officials from the intelligence agencies have demanded that the company create exactly the sort of Orwellian censorship regime that is now being described.

All of this is one great, unconstitutional, illegal conspiracy to destroy the freedom of expression.

The reasons behind the censorship drive are not hard to find.

The year 2018 has been one of mounting social struggle, ending in an international upsurge of the working class expressed most clearly in France’s “yellow vest” movement. With a looming global recession, mounting international antagonisms and deepening political crisis in the United States and other countries, the capitalist state faces what its representatives themselves call a “crisis of legitimacy.” It is desperately seeking to resolve this crisis by preventing the masses from accessing left-wing views and coordinating their struggles via social media.

But just as the coming year will see a further intensification of the class struggle, it will also see an upswing in the struggle against internet censorship.

Japan Wants to Jettison Its Vow to “Forever Renounce War”

Brian Cloughley

On December 26 Japan announced it would leave the International Whaling Commission and resume whale-hunting which was banned since 1986 when it was acknowledged (albeit reluctantly by Tokyo) that some species had been driven almost to extinction.

Irrespective of the moral aspects of the affair, and the fact that whale-killing is one of mankind’s cruelest commercial entertainments, the decision signals yet another move by Japan to assert itself on the world stage where it is demonstrating its determination to expand its military capabilities.

On December 11 Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported that “Japan plans to effectively upgrade its helicopter carriers to enable them to transport and launch fighter jets.”  Concurrently the Indian Ministry of Defence noted that in the course of a large exercise being held in India by the US and Indian air forces, “two military pilots from Japan are also taking part in the exercise as observers.”  There was also a Reuter’s account of Tokyo’s plans “to boost defense spending over the next five years to help pay for new stealth fighters and other advanced US military equipment.”

Coincidentally, these developments were reported in the same week as the anniversary of the Nanking Massacre of 1937-38, which was totally unreported by the Western media but remembered in China where “over a period of six weeks, Imperial Japanese Army forces brutally murdered hundreds of thousands of people” and wreaked further death and destruction there and throughout Asia until 1945.  They killed or otherwise caused the deaths of countless millions.

There was another anniversary in early December :  that of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which killed 2,400 Americans.  President Roosevelt declared that “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

The date has not lived in infamy, or indeed in any other way so far as the New York Times or the Washington Post are concerned, because neither’s front pages mentioned Pearl Harbor on either December 7 or 8.  A few days later, however, the Post reported that “Japan will announce plans to buy 40 to 50 [Lockheed Martin] F-35s over the next five years but may ultimately purchase 100 planes [which cost about $100 million each]. That will have the added benefit of mollifying President Trump, who has complained about the US trade deficit with Japan as well as the cost of stationing tens of thousands of US troops here.”  And the NYT headlined that “Japan to Ramp Up Defense Spending to Pay for New Fighters, Radar.”

Japan is embarking on a military spending surge which is totally inconsistent with the provisions of its Constitution, but entirely in line with the anti-China alliance that is being forged by Washington with various nations.

At the end of the Second World War, Japan was devastated and reeling from US operations in the Pacific that culminated in two atomic bomb attacks. It had to be rebuilt, and the generous United States helped its former deadly enemy to rise from the ashes. As officially recorded, “Between 1945 and 1952, the US occupying forces, led by General Douglas MacArthur, enacted widespread military, political, economic, and social reforms . . . In 1947, Allied advisors essentially dictated a new constitution to Japan’s leaders. Some of the most profound changes in the document included . . .  renouncing the right to wage war, which involved eliminating all non-defensive armed forces.”

There have not as yet been any amendments to Japan’s Constitution about waging war, and the Constitution is precise in stating that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

It could not be clearer :  given its own fundamental principles, Japan cannot maintain armed forces.  Yet a recent report indicates that “According to Japan’s 2018 Defense White Paper, the total strength of the Self-Defense Forces stands at 226,789 personnel,” including 138,126 in the army, 42,289 in the navy and 46,942 in the air force — or, to use the descriptions employed to fudge the fact that these are military forces with offensive capabilities, they are the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (SDF), the Japan Maritime SDF (18 submarines, 37 destroyers; two more on the way), and the Japan Air SDF (260 advanced combat aircraft).

That is a potent military force, and under the government of Shinzo Abe it will continue to be enlarged and developed with the warm approval of the United States with which Japan has a Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security.

When Abe was re-elected head of his party in September he declared “It’s time to tackle a constitutional revision,” and everyone knows what “revision” he wants to make. As reported by Asahi Shimbun “He is proposing to add a clause to Article 9, which bans the use of force in settling international disputes, to explicitly permit the existence of Japan’s military, now called the Self-Defense Force.”  And if he succeeds in having that amendment approved, the resurgence of militarism will gain speed.

Japan has territorial disputes with China and Russia, the former about sovereignty over some islands in the South China Sea, and that with Russia concerning the Kuril Island chain, which is inhabited by Russians, having been handed over to the Soviet Union a short time before the end of World War Two. The US Navy and Air Force, in Washington’s self-appointed role as Führer of the world’s oceans, continue to challenge China in the South China Sea in its confrontational “Freedom of Navigation” operations, and as recently as December 6 was involved in a similar naval fandango when, as the CNN headline had it : “US warship challenges Russia claims in Sea of Japan.”

CNN stated that the US had sent the guided missile destroyer USS McCampbell “to Peter the Great Bay to challenge Russia’s excessive maritime claims and uphold the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea enjoyed by the United States and other Nations.”

It is hardly coincidental that “Peter the Great Bay is the largest gulf in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, and home both to the Russian city of Vladivostok and the Russian Navy’s Pacific Fleet.”  Little wonder that the US wants to challenge Russia in that region — and of course it is entirely fortuitous that this maritime provocation comes after Ukraine’s naval incursions in the Kerch Strait, which were intended to encourage domestic and international support for Ukraine’s President Poroshenko. (Russia called a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the affair, but it descended into an insult offensive by the US.)

It is apparent that Washington intends to continue challenging China and Russia in a region where the US has a vast military presence, with the Seventh Fleet being based in Yokosuka, the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa and some 150 combat aircraft of the USAF at three major air bases.

Along their borders in the Asia-Pacific region both China and Russia face increasingly confrontational US military maneuvers which are intended to provoke them to take action. For the moment, Japan’s “self-defense” forces are constitutionally forbidden to get involved in anything that would involve the “threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes”. But after Shinzo Abe succeeds in having Japan’s constitution amended, just watch developments, because Washington will encourage Tokyo to join in its military provocations.

It’ll be just like the old days in Nanking and Pearl Harbor. And don’t forget the whales that are going to be slaughtered.