Russian Duma plans internet crackdown as 12,000 truckers strike

Clara Weiss

Amid a strike of up to 12,000 truckers in southern Russia, the Russian Duma (parliament) voted on January 24 to approve the first reading of two bills that will dramatically escalate the state crackdown on free speech on the internet and websites critical of the Russian state and political establishment.

The two bills provide the legal basis for a far-reaching crackdown on independent news websites, in line with the international censorship campaign against alleged “fake news.” One of them prohibits the publication of what are deemed “unreliable” news stories about “socially significant” issues on the internet and in print media which could cause harm to individuals or social disorder. The term “unreliable” is kept deliberately as vague as possible, making it a transparent pretext to crack down on any coverage that goes against the official narrative of the state-controlled media.

The internet in Russia is already subject to large-scale surveillance by the state with significant limitations imposed on internet users, such as a ban on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) that hide users’ actual internet IP, allowing them to surf on the internet without being automatically identifiable. At the same time, Russia has the highest percentage of internet usage of all European countries, with millions relying almost exclusively on the internet for access to information, communication and entertainment.

Based on the first proposed bill, the Russian prosecutor general will be able to block material extra judicially and the Roskomnadzor, the Russian government’s censorship agency, can issue warnings to media sources that it believes publish such “unreliable” information. News agencies that receive two warnings within one year can have their license to operate revoked. Individuals spreading “fake news” may face fines: about 3,000 to 5,000 rubles (US$45-75) for individuals publishing, for example, on blogs—a significant amount in a country where millions earn less than $300 a month—and up to 10 times as much for public figures.

The second bill penalizes expressions of “disrespect” to “society,” the Russian president, the government, Russian state symbols such as the national flag, and the Russian Constitution. Those accused under this bill would face fines from between 1,000 to 5,000 rubles (US$15-75) or up to 15 days under administrative arrest. It is widely expected that both bills will pass the parliament with slight modifications.

These two bills are part of a series of far-reaching assaults on free speech on the internet and a censorship campaign against independent news outlets, in particular anti-war and left-wing websites like the World Socialist Web Site.This campaign is the response by the ruling class to growing class tensions, which have found an initial expression in the eruption of open class struggles in the US, Mexico, and Europe, and growing interest in left-wing and socialist politics among workers and youth. Most of these struggles are organized through social media and commented upon only by outlets such as the WSWS, amid blackouts by the official media and attempts by the trade unions to strangle any protests and strikes by workers.

In Russia, the Duma’s approval of the reading of these bills came amidst a now two-week-long strike by up to 12,000 truck drivers in southern Russia and rumors that Ford may close two major Russian auto plants as part of an international offensive against auto workers, potentially laying off up to 3,700 Russian auto workers.

The truckers’ protests started in late December. By the middle of January, between 9,000 and 12,000 truckers in southern Russia who transport grain to the ports of the Azov and the Black Sea had joined the strike. According to the business daily Kommersant, between 70 and 80 percent of all truckers delivering grain are on strike, including in the Rostov, Krasnodar and Stravopolski regions. Grain deliveries have slowed down or have been stopped by companies starting January 21. The truckers, who have protested several times in recent years against increasing taxation, are demanding the introduction of a unified tariff for the delivery of grain that would be fixed depending on the price of gas. Truckers blocking roads have also called upon car drivers to join their protests.

Amid an international eruption of struggles by the working class, there are well-founded fears within the Russian oligarchy that the strike movement could soon spread to Russia. The French “yellow vest” movement, in particular, has been widely discussed on Russian social media. Numerous outlets have speculated how long it would take for a similar movement to emerge in Russia, especially as broad sections of the population face skyrocketing prices for food items and gas.

Several people commented on a YouTube video about the truckers’ strike by referencing the movement in France. One noted that it was “time to wear yellow vests”; another wrote, “Excellent news, the truckers are doing great, finally someone started to strike. It’s high time for everyone to go on strike. Otherwise, they will take the last piece of clothes from the people, we are now seeing the blossoms of the 1990s.”

Russian workers are also hit by the international offensive against the working class in the auto industry. Ford is expected to close two out of its three plants in Russia: the one in Vsevolozhsk, an industrial city close to St. Petersburg where some 2,700 workers are employed, and in Naberezhyne Chelny, a major industrial city in the republic of Tatarstan, where 1,000 workers are employed. Both of these plants have already sent contractors on unpaid holiday leave in December and early January.

The business outlet offshorereview.ru recently noted: “In order to avoid a panic, the management of the Russian branch of Ford has already sent out letters in which it calls upon [workers] to work according to the standard scheme and not to succumb to the multiple provocations on the part of journalists and competitors. However, it was also confirmed that negotiations about the closure of the factories are underway.” The outlet also noted that the Ford layoffs may be only the beginning of a larger wave of plant closures in the Russian auto industry, which has grown significantly in the 2000s.

These layoffs will hit a working-class population that is already deeply impoverished and is seething with hatred for the oligarchy that has emerged out of the destruction of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy. According to the World Inequality Database, wealth inequality in Russia is greater than in any other major economy and has grown steadily since the 2008 crisis. The richest top 10 percent of the country controls about 65 percent of net wealth, while half of the population owns less than 5 percent of the country’s net wealth. The Russian oligarchs have as much wealth stashed outside of the country as is owned by the entire Russian population.

As Russian workers will be increasingly driven into struggle, the critical task for them is to orient toward a strategic alliance with workers in Europe and internationally in a fight against the capitalist system. The fight for this political orientation requires a struggle to build a section of the Trotskyist movement, the International Committee of the Fourth International, in Russia.

40,000 Irish nurses to participate in series of one day strikes

Dermot Byrne & David Byrne

Almost 40,000 Irish nurses, members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), are to hold a 24-hour strike today over pay and conditions. A series of five further 24-hour stoppages is planned for the first two weeks of February. Over 95 percent of nurses voted for strike action, demanding a 12 percent pay increase.

Six thousand psychiatric nurses, members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PSN), will also ban overtime and mount a series of strikes in February. Meanwhile, the National Association of GPs is to hold a protest at Dail Eireann (Irish Parliament) on February 6 citing the collapsing of family doctor services in parts of the country.

Following public attacks on the nurses by Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar, the 12 percent wage demand by nurses was rejected by the eight members of the Public Service Pay Commission (PSPC), all of whom were appointed by Paschal Donohoe, the current minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.

The degeneration of the Irish health service proceeds from the financial crash of 2008, in which the European Union, at the behest of the Irish government, bailed out the wealthy elite and the bankers to the tune of €62.7 billion. Savage cuts were made to public services. The Irish government cut public spending by a figure approaching 20 percent of GDP. The health service and the pay and conditions of nurses and other health workers were targeted.

Between 2008 and 2014, successive Fianna Fail and Fine Gael governments introduced a massive €2.7 billion of health service cuts, amounting to 20 percent of the health budget. These resulted in cuts to discretionary medical cards, home help supports, the introduction of prescription and hospital charges and chronic delays to infrastructure projects.

Both parties have presided over the introduction of a two-class health system. The wealthy use the booming private health sector, while the working class must make do with bed shortages, cancelled operations, and long hours waiting in Accident and Emergency Departments. The dysfunctional public system is operated by under-paid, under-staffed and over-worked nurses, doctors and ancillary workers.

Health workers have seen their wages decrease and staff levels plummet. The number of staff nurses fell by 1,754 between 2008 and 2018.

Since the strike was called at the beginning of the year, the INMO has held talks on three occasions with the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) seeking a pretext to prevent a strike. The WRC, formerly the Labour Relations Commission, has been instrumental over the past decade in drastically impacting the lives of 300,000 public service workers. Its purpose is to enforce the dictates of the ruling elite against working people.

The WRC set down a new marker in imposing the costs of recession and the financial crisis on the working class. It acts on behalf of the government and in conjunction with the trade union bureaucracy to confuse and strangle the anger and resentment which nurses and other health workers feel about their pay and conditions.

The unions are currently part of the Public Service Stability Agreement which runs until December 2020. This agreement, which was facilitated by the WRC, is the latest of a series between the unions and the government to target public sector workers for pay cuts, longer working hours, and the elimination of jobs.

The most notorious of these was the Croke Park deal of 2010, in which the public service unions agreed a four-year strike ban in return for a series of worthless promises on limiting future job cuts. Three brutal cuts budgets followed between 2010 and 2016. The unions therefore bear direct responsibility for the degeneration of the Irish health service over the past decade.

The INMO, despite its initial pose of opposing these agreements, accepted €1 billion in cuts without organising any protest action. They did nothing to resist the establishment of emergency powers during the financial crisis by the government, which allowed the pay and working conditions of public service workers to be altered unilaterally. The unions work consistently to facilitate cuts, while maintaining a pose of opposition in order to head off the mass struggles they fear will emerge.

In 2016, the INMO called off limited strike action as nurses’ frustration and anger at understaffing and increased work levels came to the fore. Over 90 percent voted for strike action. But the INMO concocted a plan with management which Liam Doran, then INMO General Secretary, described as leading to “a deeper level of trust between hospital management and nursing staff.”

The “resolution” to the threat of limited strike action worked out between the unions and the Health Service Executive (HSE) involved nothing more than weekly meetings between INMO representatives and HSE management to monitor overcrowding and the continuing crisis in the system.

The stitch up included “minimising emergency department overcrowding and trolley waiting times.” However, figures for September 2017 showed almost 8,000 patients sleeping on trolleys waiting for beds. It was the worst overcrowding in a decade.

This time, as before, the INMO is seeking an accommodation with the HSE and government which will do little or nothing to further the interests of nurses and health workers. The series of 24-hour strikes are deliberately limited in scope and designed for show and to let off steam while a new deal struck within the confines of the government-brokered public service agreement is patched together.

When the series of one day strikes was announced some weeks ago, INMO General Secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha was apologetic, saying “Going on strike was the last thing a nurse or midwife wants to do.”

The union has made no appeal for support to other sections of the working class or even an appeal to the 7,000 health workers in the Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU) who are working normally. This is under conditions where similar attacks are falling on every economic sector.

Ni Sheaghdha has been at pains to confirm to the government that a deal could be worked out within the guidelines of the current public service deal, which would rule out other public service workers making claims. Prior to taking the INMO general secretary position, Ni Sheaghdha worked for nearly a decade as its director of industrial relations.

The demands of nurses and other health workers cannot be constrained by what the Fine Gael government, the corporate media, and the trade union officials deem “affordable.” The working class needs to combine its independent strength and demand the right of all people to high-quality, free health care which is provided by the necessary number of doctors, nurses, and other well-paid medical professionals.

Forging workers’ unity and confidence cannot be done within trade union organisations that have become an industrial police force on behalf of the state and ruling establishment. The union bureaucracy is part of a privileged upper middle-class layer, which has a material interest in the defence of the status quo and opposes any struggle for social change.

The Socialist Equality Group (SEG) calls on health workers to organise independently of the union bureaucracy by forming rank and file committees to prepare for a nationwide strike and to forge alliances with health workers internationally.

UK’s May fends off demands to delay Brexit or rule out “no deal”

Robert Stevens & Chris Marsden

With less than two months to go before Britain’s scheduled exit from the European Union (EU), Prime Minister Theresa May swung most of her hard Brexit wing and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) behind her with a promise to seek renegotiation of the Irish backstop.

This and divisions within the Labour Party over either delaying Brexit or seeking a second referendum, or both, gave the day to the Conservative government though this could prove to be a pyrrhic and very short-lived victory.

May suffered an initial cross-party rejection of the deal she negotiated with the EU by a record majority of 230 on January 15, as hard-Brexit Tories and the DUP’s 10 MPs voted with the opposition because they disagreed with proposals for Northern Ireland to remain in a de facto customs union with the EU to prevent the return of a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.

May responded by promising to seek further concessions and assurances from the EU and scheduling yesterday’s vote on any modified agreement. However, May was unable to secure any substantial change, leaving MPs to back a short technical motion that they had considered last week’s statement. Attention therefore focused on seven amendments to the motion chosen to go forward to votes by House of Commons speaker John Bercow.

Labour’s official amendment advancing its Brexit policy—seeking to avoid a “no deal” and maintain some form of customs union with the EU—was bound to fail as no Tory would vote for it.

This left the most important vote for Labour the one proposed by Blairite Labour MP Yvette Cooper calling for a mandatory extension of Article 50 if May failed to secure a deal by late February. Article 50 is the legislation authorising the UK’s withdrawal from the EU after two years of talks. The amendment initially specified until December 2019, but Labour whipped its MPs to vote for a shorter extension of three months. However, 14 Labour MPs from Brexit-supportive constituencies and two former Labour MPs, now independents, voted Tuesday with the government and provided May a majority of 23.

This meant that a potentially more damaging amendment, by former attorney general Dominic Grieve, allowing parliament to take control of the Brexit process rather than the government, was defeated by a smaller majority.

Cooper’s amendment having failed, Labour and other opposition parties successfully backed an amendment by Tory MP Caroline Spelman stating that the UK would not leave the EU without a deal—with a majority of eight. However, unlike Cooper’s this is advisory and has no legislative force.

The most important amendment for the government side was proposed by Graham Brady, chair of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee. His amendment was backed by the government as it called for the Northern Ireland backstop to be removed from the EU Withdrawal Agreement, and for it to be replaced with “alternative arrangements” to avoid a hard border during the transition period between Brexit and securing an all-encompassing UK-EU trade deal.

This compromise was embraced by May as a successful means of enlisting support from the Tories’ hard Brexit wing and the DUP. It was accompanied by a Cabinet meeting to discuss a “Plan C” scenario named the “Malthouse compromise” after housing minister Kit Malthouse. According to pro-EU Tory Nicky Morgan, the plan “provides for exit from the EU on time with a new backstop, which would be acceptable indefinitely, but which incentivises us all to reach a new future relationship. It ensures there is no need for a hard border with Ireland.”

During the debate, May described the Malthouse compromise as a “serious proposal” that she was approaching “sincerely and positively.” In a further move to win over the hard Brexiteers, she stated—after maintaining for weeks that her deal with the EU was the only deal on the table—that she would be demanding from the EU regarding the backstop a “significant and legally-binding change to the withdrawal agreement.” She was forced to concede that negotiating such “will involve re-opening the withdrawal agreement—a move for which I know there is limited appetite among our European partners.”

The Brady amendment passed by 317 votes to 301—a majority of 16—meaning an acceptance of May’s deal with the present backstop removed.

However, while she has appeased her hard-Brexit opponents, the passing of the Spelman amendment again confirms there is a majority in parliament against any “no deal” outcome. Yet this is what is threatened by her relying on winning some final concessions from the EU. She calculates that taking votes on Brexit down to the wire will force MPs into backing her renegotiated deal. Pro Remain MPs would be threatened with a no-deal Brexit, and Brexiteers with a possible delay or even reversal. May has promised MPs a vote on February 14, but said that a vote may even be required as late as March 14—just two weeks from the date March 29 date for the UK’s exit—if no deal could be reached with the EU.

But this is still highly likely to backfire. Brussels continues to pour cold water on any conception that the deal agreed is up for renegotiation. On Monday, EU deputy chief negotiator Sabine Weyand said, “There’s no negotiation between the UK and EU—that’s finished.” The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt told the pro-Remain Independent that the European Parliament would not consent to a “watered down” agreement and that the Irish backstop would not be abandoned.

Speaking in Cyprus as the debate in parliament concluded, French President Emmanuel Macron stressed that the deal “is the best accord possible. It is not re-negotiable.” He warned that a no-deal Brexit is something that “no one wants, but we should all prepare for.”

After a 3 percent rally in anticipation of the success of “no deal” amendments, the pound fell 0.75 percent against the euro and 0.72 per cent against the dollar yesterday, with the sharpest fall after Cooper’s amendment fell.

Labour’s own divisions on Brexit are becoming ever more apparent—one reason why Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has refused to simply back Blairite demands to commit to a second referendum. But as it has throughout the Brexit crisis, Labour continues to act as an advocate of the “national interest” of dominant sections of big business who are reliant on access to the EU Single Market and the customs union.

Closing Labour MPs contributions, Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer said, “This is one of the greatest national crises our country has faced in a generation,” adding that the extension of Article 50 was inevitable to avoid a no-deal Brexit that MPs had to act to ensure did not occur.

After the vote, May declared, “Tonight a majority of… members have said they would support a deal with changes to the backstop. Combined with measures to address concerns over parliament’s role in the negotiation of the future relationship and commitments on workers’ rights … it is now clear there is a route that can secure a substantial and sustainable majority in this house for leaving the EU with a deal.”

This was, the prime minister insisted, the only way to prevent “no deal” before restating her offer to meet Corbyn. The Labour leader responded by saying the vote showed there was “no appetite” for “no deal,” which May had refused to rule out. But he then reversed himself once again, stating that he was now prepared to meet with her to discuss the way forward.

US: Measles outbreak in Washington state prompts state of emergency

Kate Randall 

Washington Department of Health officials have declared a state of emergency as they scramble to contain a measles outbreak in two counties in the state. There were 36 confirmed cases and 11 suspected cases of the potentially deadly virus as the number continues to rise in a region of the United States with a lower-than-normal vaccination rate.

In Clark County, Washington, which borders Portland, Oregon, Monday’s 36 confirmed measles cases were up significantly from the 26 on Friday, when Governor Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency. Most of the measles cases involved children between 1 and 10 years old who had not been vaccinated. Health officials anticipate that the outbreak will rapidly expand.

In a statement Friday, Inslee said: “The measles virus is a highly contagious infectious disease that can be fatal in small children” and that the number of confirmed cases “creates an extreme public health risk that may quickly spread to other counties.”

The outbreak of measles in Washington state is taking place nearly two decades after the virus was eliminated in 2000. By that time, enough people were immunized that outbreaks were uncommon and deaths from measles were virtually unheard of. A rise in the percentage of unvaccinated children has directly led to a rise in the number of cases of the potentially fatal disease.

US county-level nonmedical vaccine exemption rates, 2016–2017. Source: PLOS Medicine

Washington and Oregon are some of the more permissive states in the US in allowing parents to opt out of vaccines, including for measles. In Clark County, 7.9 percent of children were given exemptions from vaccines for entry to kindergarten in the 2017-18 school year, according to the Washington Post. This is much higher than the national average of children unvaccinated for nonmedical reasons, which is estimated at 2 percent nationally.

Before the measles vaccine was introduced in the US in 1963, there were 4 million measles cases with 48,000 hospitalizations and 500 deaths in the US every year. Measles was also a leading cause of death for children globally. Intense pockets of transmission still exist around the world today, especially in low-income countries such as the Philippines and Vietnam.

In addition to the US, there has also been an uptick of people contracting measles in Canada and across Europe due to people foregoing the vaccine. Europe saw more than 41,000 measles cases in the first half of 2018, a record high in the post-vaccine era. The tragedy is that the deadly disease and its consequences are almost 100 percent preventable if the population is vaccinated.

Measles strikes after an incubation period of 10 to 12 days in the form of fever, cough, stuffy nose, and bloodshot and watery eyes. Sufferers, overwhelmingly children, can be hit with loss of appetite, malaise and confusion. Several days after these initial symptoms, an uncomfortable rash spreads from the face and neck downward through the rest of the body.

In uncomplicated cases, sufferers usually begin to recover as soon as the rash appears and feel better in about two to three weeks. However, up to 40 percent of patients have complications, usually occurring in children under five, adults over 20, and anyone who is undernourished or immunocompromised.

Children under age 5 have the highest probability of death from measles. Pneumonia is the most common complication, accounting for most measles-related deaths. Less common complications include blindness, croup, mouth ulcers, ear infections, and severe diarrhea. Some children develop swelling of the brain, or encephalitis, which can lead to convulsions, loss of hearing and mental retardation.

A measles outbreak in the US usually begins when a traveler picks up the virus in another country where measles is still common. If that person brings the virus back to a community with a high rate of unvaccinated individuals, it can spread rapidly.

Child suffering from measles, pre-1963. Source: Wikimedia

The measles virus is airborne, and is transmitted by respiratory droplets from the nose, mouth, or throat of an infected person, usually through coughing or sneezing. Small-particle aerosols from an infected person can remain suspended in air for long periods of time after a person has left a location, and the virus can live on surfaces for up to two hours. The virus can spread in a person four days before the onset of the rash associated with measles, so people carrying the virus can spread it to others before even knowing they have the disease.

In Washington state, people with the measles virus reportedly visited public places such as healthcare facilities, schools and churches, as well as stores such as Dollar Tree and Ikea, potentially spreading the disease.

The measles vaccine is given as part of the combination MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) injection. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that children receive two doses: one at 12 through 15 months of age, the second at 4 through 6 years of age.

As the MMR vaccine cannot be administered until age 1 this leaves these young infants at particular risk of contracting the measles if they come into contact with the virus.

According to the CDC, fevers after the MMR vaccine occur in one in six people, mild rashes in one in 20. More severe problems are virtually nonexistent, with serious allergic reactions happen in fewer than one in a million cases.

Overall, MMR vaccine refusal by parents is not that common, with about 91 percent of young children receiving the shot in 2016, according to the CDC. This is nearly enough for “herd immunity,” in which a certain percentage of the population needs to be immunized.

“Herd immunity” means that a disease cannot spread very easily, even among those who can’t be vaccinated, like newborns and those with vaccine allergies. However, despite the national rate of vaccination, there are geographical clusters of unvaccinated people. These include vaccine-averse Amish in Ohio, Orthodox Jews in New York, as well as parents who choose not to put “unnatural” substances in their bodies or who choose to delay immunizing their children.

According to a 2018 analysis published in PLOS Medicine, dozens of counties across the country had nonmedical exemption rates exceeding the national average. In 2016-17, Camas County, Idaho, led the nation with a 27 percent opt-out rate.

A movement of parents in the US claims that vaccines, including MMR, cause autism, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and other developmental problems in children. These theories have been promoted by figures such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who met with then president-elect Donald Trump during the transition period in January 2017 to discuss plans to chair a commission “on vaccine safety and scientific integrity.”

The MMR vaccine

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump spoke with a group of donors at a Florida fundraiser who are prominent proponents of the discredited link between vaccines and autism, including disbarred British physician Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield was the senior author of a now retracted 1998 Lancet study linking autism to the MMR vaccine. The study involved only 12 children, including 8 whose parents were already convinced of the MMR-autism connection.

Trump in 2016, playing to the anti-vaccine community, stated without substantiation: “You take this little beautiful baby and you pump—I mean, it looks like just it’s meant for a horse and not a child…We had so many instances, people that work for me, just the other day, 2 years old a beautiful child, went to have the vaccine and came back and a week later got a tremendous fever, got very, very sick, now is autistic.”

It seems the Trump administration’s plans to launch an anti-vaccine commission have for the time being been stalled, much to the dismay of Kennedy and the other vaccine opponents. However, the fractured state of the public health system in the US allows millions of parents to be granted exemptions by states and localities from their children receiving the MMR vaccine.

The current state of emergency in Washington state points to the danger—on the basis of unsubstantiated and antiscientific theories—of measles and other diseases, long thought to be eradicated in North America and Europe, to reemerge.

Germany and EU support US-engineered coup in Venezuela

Peter Schwarz 

The governments of Germany, France, Spain, Great Britain and the Netherlands, as well as European Union Foreign Affairs Commissioner Federica Mogherini, gave the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, an ultimatum on Saturday: either he calls “free, transparent and democratic elections” within eight days, or Juan Guaidó, who appointed himself head of state last week with Washington’s backing, will be recognized as the new president.

Maduro rejected this demand at once, while Guaidó welcomed the “tough” EU response. It was “very positive, very productive for Venezuela,” he said. The line of “pressure” taken by Europe was correct, he told his followers in Caracas, and appealed again to the military to abandon Maduro and back him.

The threat against Maduro exposes the lie that Berlin and Brussels, unlike Washington, pursue a foreign policy committed to multilateralism, democracy and peace. Not only the governing Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, but also the Greens and the Left Party support the return of Germany to great power politics and militarism.

It is the second time in five years that Berlin and Brussels have supported a right-wing coup that bears the “Made in the USA” trademark. In 2014, they actively participated in the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was replaced by the pro-Western oligarch Petro Poroshenko.

The then-foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is now federal president, travelled personally to Kiev to negotiate the transfer of power and met with Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the far-right Svoboda party, which stands in the tradition of Nazi collaborators from the Second World War. Deputy US Secretary of State Victoria Nuland bragged that Washington had spent $5 billion to finance the regime-change operation in Kiev. The German media talked about a “democratic revolution” even when it became clear that the armed militia leading the Maidan protests in Kiev was recruited from neo-Nazis.

The consequences of this coup were devastating. As was foreseeable, the seizure of power by an ultranationalist regime in Kiev triggered a violent reaction among Russian-speaking inhabitants concentrated in eastern Ukraine, estimated at between 30 to 50 percent of the population. Russia was unwilling to accept the establishment of a pro-NATO regime on its immediate border and the loss of its naval base in Crimea, and supported anti-Kiev forces. For NATO, the coup served as an excuse to station troops in Poland and the Baltic states. The danger of Europe becoming a nuclear battlefield in a Third World War was immensely heightened.

Support for the coup in Caracas is no less reactionary and its consequences will be no less catastrophic. The talk from Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron of the Venezuelan people being allowed to “decide freely about their future” is a transparent fraud.

Juan Guaidó is a puppet of the US, and neither Washington nor Guaidó bother to hide it. Even the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung admits this fact in a rare display of openness.

“The precipitous events in the Venezuelan capital did not surprise foreign policy experts in Washington,” it reported on Monday. Vice-President Mike Pence publicly supported the protests against Maduro in a video message. Pence had called Guaidó the night before he proclaimed himself president and promised US support—which the Trump administration, with the full backing of the Democrats, proceeded to declare. Washington has imposed sanctions on the Maduro regime and the state-owned oil company and is threatening military intervention.

For weeks, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote, citing the Wall Street Journal, “there have been confidential talks with the opposition in Caracas, with allies in the region and with foreign policy leaders in Congress.” The idea of recognizing Guaidó as Venezuelan president was pushed with particular force by Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton, who is among the fiercest anti-Iran warmongers in the foreign policy establishment.

The Associated Press also reported that the anti-Maduro coalition had been created in weeks of covert talks. Guaidó had secretly travelled to Washington and had visited the ultra-right Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. There were many long meetings “with encrypted text messages.” When the decision for the coup was taken, the plotters chose Guaidó to head it up. “More moderate representatives were left in the dark.”

The Venezuelan population can expect neither freedom nor democracy from such a far-right conspirator. Guaidó stands in the tradition of those Latin American elites that have repeatedly defended their wealth and power with the help of US-backed dictatorships and have not shied away from massacring tens of thousands.

It is significant that the Trump administration has tasked Elliott Abrams with overseeing the “transition to democracy” in Venezuela. Abrams was one of the most prominent supporters of the Central American death squads in the 1980s, responsible for devastating entire countries. In the course of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, which concerned the secret financing by the White House of death squads in Nicaragua, Abrams was convicted of perjury.

Berlin and Brussels are backing the Venezuelan coup because they are pursuing their own imperialist interests in Latin America, no less criminally and ruthlessly than Washington. Again, the Frankfurter Allgemeine is remarkably open. Under the headline, “Venezuela’s wealth,” it writes, “Of course, it’s about oil in Venezuela. The country has the largest proven reserves in the world. China, Russia, the United States and the entire oil industry are eagerly looking to Venezuela.”

The article then seeks to relativize this statement, citing the country’s catastrophic economic and social situation, which had triggered mass protests against Maduro. In Guaidó, the Venezuelans had found “a new hope,” the paper said.

In reality, Guaidó is the “new hope”—as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungputs it—of “the entire oil industry,” including the European, which wants to exploit the riches of the country unhindered. Germany and the EU are concerned about their own sales markets, their investments and their raw material sources in Latin America, with its 500 million inhabitants. Since the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine 200 years ago, Washington has considered Latin America as its “backyard,” but more recently Russia and especially China have emerged as major competitors.

The Venezuelan coup is part of a global offensive against the working class, in which the ruling class is with increasing openness using authoritarian and dictatorial means to defend its wealth. It is also part of a global struggle between the major powers for markets, resources and strategic interests, which will inevitably lead to a world war if the working class does not stop the warmongers in time.

French President Macron visits the hangman of Cairo

Will Morrow & Alex Lantier

President Emmanuel Macron’s trip to Cairo on Sunday for talks with Egypt’s bloodstained military dictator General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was a barely veiled threat, tacitly endorsed by governments around the world, against the working class.

For eleven weeks, hundreds of thousands of “yellow vest” protesters in France have marched every weekend to demand higher living standards, tax increases for the wealthy, and an end to repression and militarism. But the financial aristocracy will make no concessions to workers’ social and political demands. Rather, it is preparing a drastic intensification of repression of social protest amid a universal turn of the capitalist class around the world towards authoritarian forms of rule.

The meaning of Macron’s visit to Sisi is unmistakable. Sisi is infamous for his resort to mass murder to drown in blood revolutionary struggles of the working class that erupted in Egypt in 2011. During the 2013 coup against Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, his troops shot thousands in broad daylight on the streets of Egypt’s cities. Since then, more than 60,000 people have been jailed, as the Sisi junta carries out mass show trials of its opponents and resorts to systematic torture, documented by human rights groups, of thousands of political prisoners.

Macron’s claim Sunday night that he is visiting the hangman of Cairo so that he can “speak more openly” about “human rights” is ludicrous. Sisi banned the sale of yellow vests in Egypt last year for fear that mass protests would spread from France to Egypt. Macron’s meeting with Sisi doubtless concentrated on a feverish discussion of repression.

Faced with a parasitic financial oligarchy that cannot and will not make concessions, the working class faces a political struggle that can have one of only two outcomes: revolution or counterrevolution.

In Cairo, Macron made clear France would continue arming Sisi to the teeth against the Egyptian workers. French sales of Rafale fighters and other military hardware to Sisi are to continue despite Macron’s mealymouthed comments on human rights. “I would differentiate between the two subjects,” he said. “They are not linked for us and they never were.”

Asked about Amnesty International’s report that French armored vehicles were used in the 2013 repression in Egypt, Macron said France “foresaw they would be used for military purposes.” He claimed that there is “no possible ambiguity” in French weapons sales, that they are intended for the “defense of Egyptian territory against external enemies,” not against the Egyptian people.

Who does Macron think he is kidding? French armored vehicles serve to repress the workers not only in Egypt, but also in France—since Macron took the hitherto unprecedented step of deploying armored vehicles against the “yellow vests.” As Macron escalates repression in France and showers Cairo with weaponry, Sisi can take Macron’s toothless remarks as a green light to use French arms for further crackdowns in Egypt.

The authoritarian regimes and police-state policies of the capitalist class are now facing a challenge from the working class. After over a quarter century of imperialist war in the Middle East since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and a decade of European Union (EU) austerity after the 2008 crash, the mechanisms used to suppress the class struggle are collapsing. A global upsurge of the class struggle, of which the 2011 uprising in Egypt was a forerunner, is underway.

The beginning of 2019 has seen a wildcat rebellion by 70,000 autoworkers in Matamoros, Mexico, the largest strike on the North American continent in 20 years, as well as strikes and anti-austerity protests across Europe, and continued mass “yellow vest” demonstrations in France.

On January 14, after nationwide demonstrations in December, a general strike of 700,000 public sector workers in Tunisia brought the country to a standstill, as tens of thousands in Tunis chanted, “The people want the fall of the regime.” Last week, Sisi met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, whose government has arrested hundreds and killed dozens since protests began last month over the rising cost of bread and other basic commodities.

As masses of workers and youth internationally enter into struggle, it is critical to draw the lessons of Macron’s trip to Cairo. Macron’s hailing last year of French fascist dictator Philippe Pétain, or German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer’s endorsement of neo-Nazi riots in German cities, are not isolated accidents. Faced with a challenge from below, the ruling class will seek to use the most ruthless methods.

The French ruling elite’s response to the “yellow vest” protests has been to launch mass arrests and repression on a scale unseen in metropolitan France since the Nazi Occupation. Over 5,000 protesters have been arrested, including more than 1,700 on a single day on December 8. At least four protesters have had their hands blown off by police stun grenades, another 20 have lost eyes from police bean-bag bullets, and one person has been permanently deafened.

Photos have emerged showing riot police in Paris carrying Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles loaded with live ammunition, and a furious debate is ongoing in the French ruling class about attempting to implement the repressive policies pioneered by Sisi in Egypt against the “yellow vests.”

On January 7, Luc Ferry, a former education minister and self-proclaimed “philosopher,” lashed out on radio against the “yellow vests,” demanding that the military fire live ammunition at them: “We have the fourth largest army in the world, and it is able to put an end to these c—ts,” he said. “These kinds of thugs … from the extreme right, the extreme left and from the housing estates that come to hit the police—enough!”

This statement sums up the sentiments prevailing not just in the ruling classes of France, but of the whole world, who see the turn to dictatorship and repression as the only means to prop up the increasingly hated capitalist system.

The most basic needs of the working class today, including the defense of the most fundamental democratic rights, cannot be met outside of a frontal assault on the fortunes and prerogatives of the capitalist class—a struggle of the international working class for the expropriation of the ruling class and the building of socialism.

State vs. Students: Why Marxism Troubles Xi Jinping

Palden Sonam


In theory, Marxism has for long been the ideological foundation of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) regime. In practice, however, while Marxism is employed as an instrument of Party rule, its principles are not. Under China’s President Xi Jinping in particular, a new lease of life has been injected into ideological propaganda to garnish the increasing re-partification of the state and society.

In May 2018, during a commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth, Xi hailed Marx as the “greatest thinker of modern time” whose ideas inspired a society free of oppression and exploitation. The study of Marxism is actively promoted from classrooms in the hinterland to the corridors of power in Beijing. Television shows, rap music and cartoon series have been launched to make communism, cool, and Marx, modern—especially for China’s tech-savvy millennials. This new push for ideological studies also includes the ‘Xi Jinping Thought’—described by the party’s chief ideological theoretician as the “Marxism of modern China.”

Therefore, in this atmosphere of renewed love for Marx, the government’s reaction to the activities of young Marxists in China is particularly intriguing. In August 2018, 40 Marxist students who came to support workers to form a union in Shenzhen disappeared after they were raided by authorities. In China, barring the Party controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions, no other union is permitted to exist. In November 2018, authorities detained over a dozen students from premiere universities across the country in a seemingly coordinated effort to clampdown on labour related activities. The latest offensive on Marxists in China took place in December 2018 coinciding with Mao Zedong’s 120th birth anniversary, when the head of Marxist Society at Peking University was bundled into a black car while on his way to attend a memorial for the very founder of People’s Republic. 

These incidents beg the question: why does the Party treat young communists with disdainful repression for practising what the Party has for long been preaching via its ideologically greased education system? 

Primarily, the activism of the young Marxists makes evident the fact that the Party hides and seeks its interests using the facade of Marxism. Despite the Party’s lofty rhetoric, labourers (especially migrant workers) live and work in substandard conditions. The students’ attempts to advocate the case of the labourers embarrassingly exposes the gap between official rhetoric and ground realities in the country. For the authorities, this represents a bigger threat to their power than the formation of a small union as the former exposes their hypocrisy, whereas the latter is a negligible challenge.

Secondly, the Party is also apprehensive of the organised nature of activities, particularly by students, given the memory of the 1989 students movement whose 30th anniversary (June 2019) is fast approaching. Additionally, the authorities are aware of the students’ ability to mobilise in the age of social media. Moreover, the political price of a violent suppression of any student movement is likely to prove costly. In this context, the regime seems to be frantically dousing any emerging sparks of discontentment before they transform into a bigger flames like 1989. It is due to such considerations that the Party is aggressively targeting the activities of the young Marxists notwithstanding the latter’s appeals to working class consciousness. 

The CPC is not Marxist in the true sense of the term and the so called Sinicisation of Marxism is hardly a justification for its disregard for the core principles of Marxism. Since inducting the super-rich into its membership in 2002 under Jiang Zemin, the Party has become club of billionaires and millionaires. At present, the higher rungs of the pyramid of power include over 100 billionaires as members and/or advisors to the CPC leadership. The nexus between the powerful and wealthy changed the Party from being a mass party to an elite party with less emphasis on revolution and more on self-aggrandisement. The students’ attention to and advocacy regarding the hardships of workers highlights the Party’s failure to address the grievances of the proletariat and peasants who paid the most for China’s economic miracle in terms of their lands and labours but gained the least from the ensuing development.

Despite Xi’s loud calls of Marxism’s relevance to China’s present and future under the Party’s guidance, the rift between the rhetoric of Marxism and reality in China has never been clearer. With its omnipresence in every aspect of the Chinese society, the Party is free to interpret and employ Marxism depending on circumstances because it enjoys the exclusive right to choose an ideology and its interpretation in the country.

However, the recent crackdowns have not been without international backlash. For instance, in October 2018, Cornell University suspended exchange programmes with Renmin University on account of the latter’s failure to respect the academic freedom of its students. In another case, in November 2018, over 30 scholars including Noam Chomsky announced their boycott of Marxism conferences in China arguing that their participation would make them complicit in the state’s clampdown on Marxist students.

Overall, from Mao to Xi, whether it is due to the faction-ridden nature of Chinese politics or a lack of genuine interest in Marxism, Party leaders have been more Machiavellian than Marxist; and they view the preservation of Party’s dictatorship as imperative for the preservation of their own power within the Party.

The Abnormal Normal: Time Stands Still at Two Minutes to Midnight

Manpreet Sethi 

The Doomsday Clock, maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1947, has come to symbolise a graphic description of the global security situation at any given time. Every year, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin, comprising of eminent personalities from the political, scientific and policy domains, undertakes a detailed examination of the two major threats facing mankind – from nuclear weapons and climate change. Based on the developments of the year in these two domains, a determination is made on how far the world is from midnight - or apocalypse. This imagery is intended to drive home the urgency of the threats facing humanity and the planet.

In 2018, in response to the heightened US-North Korea nuclear belligerence, and US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the Bulletin took the minute hand of the clock closer by half a minute to midnight. So, in January 2018, the world came as close as two minutes to midnight - the closest it had ever come to 12 O’clock. In an earlier instance in 1954, when the USSR tested its biggest megaton weapon, the Bulletin declared the world at two and a half minutes to midnight, the closest before 2018.

In January 2019, the Bulletin has chosen to retain the hand at two minutes to midnight – largely because it could not have taken it anywhere else. It could not have pulled it back since nothing reassuring has happened in the nuclear or climate realms over the past one year. Rather, things have only begun to heat up – figuratively and literally – and the coming months could see matters becoming worse. In fact, some of the nuclear related developments of 2018, as discussed below, will begin to reveal their implications in the coming year. Therefore, the time-keepers can be seen as having been prudent in not consuming the little real estate now left between two minutes and 12 O’clock. That might become necessary in 2019 if some of the trends are not reversed.

In setting the time this year, the Bulletin would have taken cognisance of the major nuclear developments that started to come into play as soon as 2018 set in. In February 2018, US President Trump announced the US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). Echoing the sentiments of 'America First', the NPR emphasised the centrality of nuclear weapons in US national strategy, including contemplating more circumstances in which the use of nuclear weapons may become necessary. Many nuclear issues and concepts that had been settled in the past after having been experimented with and discarded for the risks they carried, like the futility of tactical nuclear weapons or the impossibility of conducting a limited nuclear war, seemed to have resurfaced with the current NPR. 

In March 2018, President Putin of Russia responded with his State of the Union address that struck a note of aggression in Russian nuclear modernisation's ability to meet any threat that the US' new capabilities may pose to the country's deterrent. China is following the same approach and moving towards new capabilities like cyber and hypersonic missiles that will intersect with nuclear deterrence in ways that have not been seen before. 

Through March to May, US policy uncertainty towards Iran and North Korea continued. Finally, disregarding advice from the international community as well as several of his own strategic pundits, Trump decided to withdraw in May 2018 from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This brought into serious jeopardy an agreement that had been painstakingly crafted to halt Iran’s nuclear capability that could have sustained its weapons ambitions. The agreement was meant to mainstream the country economically and politically so its sense of security would remove the temptation to develop nuclear weapons. This process, however, came to a shaky pass once Trump pulled out of the agreement. Iran is for now living up to its part of the commitments in the hope that Europe and other major players will help resolve the situation. 2019 will prove to be a test case for how much the others are able to shield Iran from US sanctions and actions, and for how long Iran perceives its own interest in staying in the JCPOA. As hardliners in the country become more influential and strident, the tables could turn quickly.

With regard to North Korea, the Summit Meet in Singapore between Trump and Kim Jong-un in June 2018 did perceptibly bring down the temperature of their nuclear bravado. Apart from that, however, it seems to have done little. North Korean denuclearisation remains a befuddled and distant goal and not much has been achieved by the officials of the two sides engaging at levels lower than the heads of state. A second Summit Meet is planned for February this year but it would be best to keep expectations low.

Meanwhile, in the second half of 2018, nuclear capability build-up continued unabated in all nuclear-armed states. New missiles were tested, and an offence- defence spiral between all dyads is evident. In general, there is a sense of greater value being attached to nuclear weapons as part of national security strategies of all nuclear weapon possessing states. Nuclear strategies that teeter on the edge of brinkmanship, profess escalate-to-de-escalate postures, highlight the utility of low-yield nuclear weapons for limited nuclear war, are on the rise. No nuclear arms control is on the anvil as of now. In fact, the existing agreements are under a cloud. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty may be the next casualty this year.

In view of what could follow as a result of developments in 2018, it is not surprising that the doomsday clock time-keepers chose to maintain it at two minutes for 2019. If nothing positive develops over this year and the general sense of nuclear gloom continues, the challenge will re-present itself next year. It can only be hoped that the gravity of "two minutes to midnight" will sink in where it matters.  

Van der Veen-Schenkeveld Scholarship 2019/2020 for Female African Theologians – The Netherlands

Application Deadline: 1st May 2019

Eligible Countries: African countries


To be taken at (country): The Netherlands

Type: Masters

Eligibility: To be eligible for this scholarship the student should meet the criteria listed below:

• Admission to the international Master of Theology programme of the PThU;
• Be female;
• Be a native African;
• Preferably be under 35 years of age;
• Have an excellent study record and be committed to furthering the cause of African women.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Full scholarship

Duration of Programme: 1 year

How to Apply: 

• You can apply for a scholarship by sending a letter to the Board of the Protestant Theological University before 1 May 2019.
  The address of the Board may be found here. Please send your scholarship application by e-mail to: a.s.nijboer@pthu.nl.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

European Commission Paid 5 Months Traineeship 2019 (Travel, €1,196 monthly stipend)

Application Deadline: 4th February 2019 (12:00, Brussels time)

Offered annually? Twice in a year (Bi-annually)


Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Any allocated country in Europe within the EU

Eligible Field of Study: None. Interested candidate can only apply for one type of traineeship at a time – administrative or translation.

About the Award: A traineeship at the European Commission is much more than just a professional experience. Each batch of trainees organises a huge range of non-formal learning, social activities, from football to wine-tasting and much in between – in true bureaucratic fashion, each with its own organising committee. There are usually 40-50 of such activities to choose from.

Type: Internships/Jobs

Eligibility: The traineeship programme is open to university graduates, from all over the world who have a:

1. Degree of at least 3 years of study (minimum a Bachelor);
2. Very good knowledge of English or French or German (C1/C2 level in accordance with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages);
3. Very good knowledge of a second EU official language (required for nationals of EU countries).

Candidate must have completed at least 3-years of study with a degree to apply for a Blue Book traineeship. Only if you have a certificate or an official confirmation from your university that you have at least a 3-year degree will you be eligible to apply.
Candidate can apply once per session but as many times as you want until you are finally selected. If you do not pass the pre-selection, or you are in the Blue Book but not selected for a traineeship, you will have to submit again your application. It will undergo again the pre-selection with no guarantee that you will successfully pass it and be in the Blue Book again.

Selection Criteria: Candidates are anonymously evaluated in the assessment phase by two different evaluators, on the basis of following criteria:

• Level of education (a full university degree of at least three years of studies is mandatory);
• Language level in one of the three European Commission working/procedural languages (English, French, German) other than your mother tongue/s (mandatory);
• Language level in the remaining European official languages and/or non EU-languages, if applicable;
• Relevance of work experience, if applicable;
• International profile – experience of living/working abroad (mobility);
• Motivation and quality of reasoning;
• IT Skills, organisational skills, publications and rare domains of study.

If they successfully pass the first phase of the pre-selection, candidates are “pre-identified” and admitted to the second phase of the pre-selection, i.e. verification of supporting documents/eligibility check.
For the level of education, candidates can send:

• the certificate/s with the final grade/s clearly mentioned;
• the Europass Diploma Supplement, if available;
• university transcripts.

Up to three relevant work experiences can be mentioned in the application. Only work experience that is related to the profile that is selected and lasted, uninterruptedly, more than 6 weeks should be declared. Traineeships made during university courses are already assessed as part of the education and shall not be mentioned as work experiences.

Number of Awardees: Not specified. Every year, there are about 1,300 places available.

Value of Traineeship: 

• The living allowance for the traineeships sessions will be €1,196.84 per month.
• Visa costs and related medical fees may be reimbursed together with the travel expenditures.

Duration of Traineeship: October 2019-February 2020

How to Apply: Go here for more details

Visit Traineeship Webpage for details

Award Provider: The European Commission