Many people in Anglo societies seemingly can’t imagine that the fairy-tale queen they recognise might look different to those who live in the countries from where the shining jewels in her crown and sceptre were stolen, writes Carlo Sands.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Berlin on March 9, 2022. Sholz attended a delegation visit to Canada from August 21 to August 23, 2022. Image Credit: (Michael Sohn/The Associated Press)
Written by: Morrigan Johnson
Canada and a shifting international economic situation
Earlier this year Canada endorsed the US-led coordinated sanctions against Russia. Since late February, Canada has experienced very high inflation and sees an affordability crisis unfolding. Western narratives on the sanctions, the international economy, and Russia seem to be full of contradictions. Canada has taken advantage of an escalating international crisis by peddling ‘ethical oil’ to displace Russia from international markets, jeopardizing a just transition in the process.
Western countries rolled out a series of sanctions packages across NATO member states as they were deliberated with economies and supply chain in mind. NATO countries have frozen assets, while implementing trade restrictions and financial prohibitions. Notably restricting many technologies and components for Russia to produce high tech goods, global services like Mastercard, and Russian oil and gas are banned or being phased out of Western markets.
Europe will replace Russian energy in the short term depending on sourcing new supply. This has put incredible strain on the international economic situation. There is also a disturbing trend in some countries lobbying dangerous russophobic laws such as Estonia, a former Soviet state, seizing homes of Russians, and banning Russian visas.
Corporate foreign policy in the interest of multinational mega corporations demonstrates that capitalists are failing to save capitalism from monopoly, with increasing destruction for the people and the prospects of the planet.
The Canadian economy is back to work nearly three years into the Covid-19 pandemic. Canadian conditions are less dire than in Europe following Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine. Inflation is beginning to slow in Canada, and the unemployment rate is falling. Traditionally, these are good trends. However, if we look deeper the root problems remain malignant features of capitalism.
During the recession of Covid, we saw concerning trends. Shocks in employment and production due to lockdowns, little relief for people, austerity, profiteering, protectionism of private intellectual property patents, protectionism of markets, and supply chain issues. There is an escalation of multinational mega corporations finding ways to dominate and exploit global crises with the help of the State to achieve market dominance.
In rich imperialist countries, finance capital sustains this system. In Canada for example, we rely on the Bank of Canada to manage inflation through interest rates of debt and printing new money to keep the system afloat just like the Federal Reserve system in the United States. This means unprecedented money creation, reliance on finance rather than production, where production is outsourced to countries where labour and resources are easier to exploit. We can also see supply chain destruction, as markets are shifted through sanctions while extreme weather and the climate emergency disrupt food production. For example the drought in Europe this year is estimated to be the worst in at least 500 years, impacting crops and food supply.
The Canadian ruling class has chosen an economy of war
Amid high inflation many consumer price categories have risen at a pace we have not seen since 1981, 41 years ago. People are returning to work with the unemployment rate at 4.9 per cent in July. Wages are rising in order to keep people in the workforce, but are not keeping up to match inflation. At this stage the damage to purchasing power is changing market behavior.
The ways we measure inflation are not the most accurate measures for most people, due to category, weight, and the circumstance of the consumer. There are also limits to measuring the long term damage to value, from price changes on goods in ways that linger to the livelihoods of people in tangible ways. Value ought to have a relationship to price based on the labour required to produce a good, but sometimes that relationship fails to recover as other economic measures recover.
During the reference years of 2018 and 2019 the Government measured food insecurity as part of its ‘Opportunity for All—Canada’s First Poverty Reduction Strategy’ legislation. In 2022 we see gaps in useful measures where food insecurity is not being tracked in ways that give a picture of people’s livelihoods as they fall out of range of standard economic measures.
We see no drastic structural changes to redistribute capital and bail out the people or the planet. The Government of Canada approved a budget of war, while many provinces made budgets of austerity. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland gave an update in June, which will be dealt with later.
Angus Reid’s most recent report shows that 76 per cent of Canadians are stressed about money, with 56 per cent saying they cannot keep up with their basic costs of living. One third of Canadians are worried about losing their jobs, while 80 per cent are changing their financial behaviors in some way.
The Consumer Price Index shows the Canadian average inflation rate at 7.6 per cent in July. Wages are only expected to increase 3.7 per cent this year, which shows a destruction of value in relation to work. Some countries such as Australia are seeing the worst destruction to real wages since records began. Small rise in wages can be explained by the minimal competition of employers to retain workers and fill labour shortages. The EU currently sits worse at an overall inflation rate of 8.9 per cent in July which is yet to peak.
The improvement in Canadian inflation trends can be explained by the stabilization of the price of fuel. However other categories of consumer goods, such as food, are not stabilizing in-trend and by July are still rising, at 9.2 per cent, while the inflation rate of shelter rose to 7.6 per cent. To break down this number for the same month: Home ownership inflation rate rising to 6.3 per cent. Utilities at 14.5 per cent. Vancouver and Toronto are pulling the shelter prices trend higher. One third of Canadians are renters; rent inflation sits at 4.9 per cent.
Private vehicle operation (including fuel), peakeding at 24.1 per cent in May. Depending on the region, for example the Eastern provinces of greater concern pulled the trend higher.
Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland announced $8.9B in measures to address affordability in June emphasizing investment, job creation, and respecting the banks. The hands-off approach increases tax benefits, old age security, one-time damage deposit assistance for low income Canadians, child care, and dental care benefits. Also increasing indexation of federal programs to match inflation such as GIS, CPP, CCB, and GST credits.
Following this announcement, Freeland told CBC, she “must strike a balance between helping Canadians suffering from the effects of inflation and pursuing a policy of fiscal restraint — or risk making the cost of living problem worse”.… “I don’t want to make the Bank of Canada’s job harder than it already is” she said. This essentially means the Bank of Canada is steering the ship. No structural changes are foreseeable, only growth of the same economic malignancy of the ruling class. There is no plan for the long term destruction to value in relation to labour.
Protectionism and the environment
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson has been busy with Canada’s intermediate Oil and Gas interest as well as the long term Hydrogen interest. Canada has pivoted to new markets opening in the EU from the sanctions forcing Russia out. The coordinated sanctions packages have wedged an opening for one third of the EU oil supply, and 40 per cent natural gas markets before the Special Military Operation began. The EU is racing to close the gap. Russia also had long term interests in transitioning the market to clean energy, for example Russia was poised to supply Europe with Hydrogen, which has now fallen through.
Canada will increase exports of crude by 200,000 barrels per day, and natural gas by 100,000 barrels per day by the end of the year. Canada could replace 5 per cent of Europe’s natural gas supply gap and less than 10 per cent of the oil gap. This would be transported to Europe through existing infrastructure from the Gulf of Mexico in the USA. The logistical capacity limit the utility of further increase at this time. Alberta Natural Resources Minister Sonya Savage commented in March, “the federal government has “demonized” the oil and gas industry for too long, and as a result the industry’s ability to grow is constrained”. Bloomberg reports that a natural gas export terminal on Canada’s west coast should be ready by mid-decade.
Wilkinson reassured Canadians “Canadian oil displacing Russian oil doesn’t cause more climate change. There’s no more C02 emissions”. This means the overall supply and demand of energy products oil the market isn’t changing from prior, it’s simply more share for Western monopoly. Canada is essentially pursuing protectionism using the historical branding strategy of the far right, i.e. Ezra Levant’s book ‘Ethical Oil’ published in 2010. Keep in mind Russian energy is publicly owned, and Russia has far lower per capita emissions than the US and Canada, despite being far less developed and economically poised to transition. The same per capita trend is true for China. Moralizing Oil is a dishonest distraction from the international economic situation.
American energy interests would compete with the OPEC countries; Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to fill the supply gaps however both have seemingly been hesitant to significantly boost production yet. The sanctions appear to be a handout to Western monopolies.
On August 22, Wilkinson picked up the deal with Germany during the delegation meeting with Chancellor Scholz to replace Russia’s deal. The hydrogen trade for cleaner energy could be worth 11.7 trillion between Asia, Europe, and the USA by 2050. Russia was poised to supply 20 per cent of the hydrogen trade. Canadian and German leaders said Monday, “Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine is bringing Canada and Germany closer together, with Canada seeking to boost energy and critical mineral exports to Germany as both countries wean themselves off fossil fuels”. During the delegation the leaders also discussed AI and attended a Russophobic digital Crimea summit.
Jonathan Wilkinson has been peddling ‘ethical oil’ in what seems to be eco-protectionism, but this is also an ecological contradiction. Canada, and the USA, UK, and EU have committed to carbon neutrality by 2050. In May of this year the European Commission released an update to it’s Green Deal as further sanctions packages were deliberated. The EU’s Green Deal essentially failed to shift course, re-committing that transition from carbon emissions is at the pace that the corporations set, while individual consumers will be targeted in marketing campaigns to use less energy. This was a missed window for European Capitalists to save themselves.
Already profitable multinational monopoly oil and natural resource corporations of rich developed economies are edging out Eastern economies far less poised to transition from carbon, and orchestrating Russia into a dependency on oil economics for the long-term through coordinated sanctions. Canadian financial interests have undermined the economic ordering of a just transition. This will have climate impacts and diplomatic impacts on climate cooperation.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is in its sixth assessment. According to the best available climate science, we see the remaining carbon budget, to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate disaster without drastic change, will be depleted by 2030. Meanwhile the report shows we are already falling behind the 2050 targets promised. In July, The Economist reports 3 degrees of global temperature rise is likely. This modeling is on the assumption that war and diplomatic breakdown are not going to happen. The international situation makes this cruel optimism.
Furthermore, Ukraine and Western Powers are failing to engage in diplomacy. If there is no repair of Minsk II, or no agreement for a new political solution, balanced with Russia’s defensive concerns for a demilitarized zone, we will likely see a continued international conflict on the horizon.
An updated Brown University study on ‘Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change and the Costs of War’ from 2019 shows the US Military to be one of the most historically highest contributors to the climate crisis, and military activity is the most carbon intensive category. And to make matters worse, Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan province earlier in August, has resulted in counter measures from China. The country announced the end of all climate cooperation between US-China.
Canada’s complicity in the international economic situation is palpable. We have undermined Eastern transition from fossil fuels while meddling in their access to long term clean energy markets through sanctions.
Canada’s war-focused economy and sanctions pushes just transition farther away
Putin has contained the economic pressure of sanctions—being the world’s largest exporter of oil with strategic trade deals and subsidies struck with China and India, its GDP will shrink far less than the 12 per cent figure projected months ago, only shrinking 4.2 per cent this year. Russian people lost disposable income by 2.8 per cent, and a yearly inflation of 13.4 per cent. The Kremlin mitigated the potential for collapse and pushed through the sanctions.
The Nord Stream 1 pipeline that supplies the EU with natural gas announced a shut down from August 31-September 3rd, cited for repairs by energy giant Gazprom. However, as reported on September 2, the pipeline will indefinitely remain offline. Turbines sent to Canada for repairs had been stuck due to sanctions, but Germany requested they be returned with exemption. Gazprom has refused the delivery citing irregularities. A looming international energy crisis is possible.
The contradictions of Western corporate foreign policy are notable, having done barely any damage to the opponent, but proving to be destructive to the international economy and the planet. Yet several monopoly categories are on the precipice of substantial opportunistic profits. ‘Ethical oil’ as a strategy of Canadian and American economic intervention is categorically false considering ecology and the economy. Displacing Russian energy achieves very little for combatting the climate crisis, while sabotaging international markets, climate cooperation, and a just transition from fossil fuels. Working class people who will bear the burden, particularly in Europe, have a challenging winter ahead.
Afternote
The growth of several multinational monopoly categories is alarming. Macro data taken for this year, are measures of the last twelve months averaged at the time of the second financial quarter of 2022.
Military industrial complex;
Congress approved $840 billion USD in military spending in July, an 8.7 per cent increase from 2020, but this will likely be much higher by the end of the year as updates are made and expenditures run over budget. $10.2 million USD in lobbying donations to House and Senate Armed Services Committee members were given to help achieve this. Approximately half of this expenditure is expected to land in weapons companies and other contractors. The US streamlines its arms trade through the Foreign Military Sales Program, the largest channel for US weapons exports. US allies and NATO member states feedback-loop into this program, in partnership with these contractors. The general trend is that costs that vanish into the industrial complex are hard to track due to the complexity of feedback despite the growth. Direct contributions to Ukraine for example, 54$ billion USD from the US, has almost all been for military purposes. This can be re-doubled for the rest of NATO member states.
Big oil, big pharma, and others;
American oil companies have seen drastic increases of revenue in recent years, with Canadian oil not far behind. ExxonMobil saw revenue grow 57.38 per cent last year, and 66.16 per cent this year. Chevron saw revenue grow 71.57 per cent last year, and 81 per cent this year. In Canada, Enbridge has seen revenue grow by roughly a quarter year over year in the last two years. Suncor saw revenue grow 66.83 per cent last year, and 67.47 percent this year.
Vaccine producers during Covid maintained their private intellectual rights which has internationally been criticized as ‘Vaccine Apartheid’ and an incredibly large wealth transfer of public funds into private monopoly. Most vaccine makers saw a doubling each year, with the shocking exception of Moderna which saw exponential growth. Moderna saw a revenue increase of 1238.33 per cent in 2019, 2200.25 per cent increase in 2021, and a 227.61 per cent in the past twelve months, slowing to 9.07 per cent by Q2 2022
Big Tech is also striking in their economic measure. Tesla saw revenue grow 70.67 per cent last year, and 60.45 per cent this year. In the last two years Apple, Amazon, Twitter, and Meta (Facebook) have seen their revenue grow by a quarter to a third year over year.
Editor’s note: The Canada Files has spent more than two years doing critical investigative reporting on Canada’s imperialist foreign policy. We’ve established a clear track record of exposing the truth Canada’s political establishment hides from you. There’s so much more we can do, but only with your financial support.
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Morrigan Johnson is an anti-imperialist writer based in Calgary, Alberta.
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This post was originally published on Articles – The Canada Files.
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Vladyslav Starodubtsev, an activist with Ukrainian democratic socialist organisation Sotsialnyi Rukh (Social Movement), discusses the state of the war and its impact on progressive forces.
Anti*Capitalist Resistance activist Phil Hearse discusses the debates on the British left over Ukraine and the rise of the Enough is Enough cost of living campaign.
No other British prime minister is as lionised to the point of deification as Winston Churchill. Rupen Savoulian looks behind the cult of personality.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
Frontex human rights official says Greece ‘needs enhanced monitoring’ after claims asylum seekers being illegally expelled
Greek authorities should face more checks over how they manage asylum seekers trying to reach Europe, the lead official in charge of human rights at the EU’s border agency has said.
Jonas Grimheden, fundamental rights officer at the European Border and Coastguard Agency, known as Frontex, was speaking in a rare interview following numerous allegations that asylum seekers are being illegally expelled from Greece.
Alaa Hamoudi sues EU border agency Frontex after he and 21 others allegedly abandoned in motorless inflatable
Alaa Hamoudi was adrift in the Aegean sea and thought he was going to die. The orange dinghy – the only hope for him and 21 other people – was starting to sink, while desperate passengers threw their bags overboard. “I thought I wouldn’t survive, I was close to death,” the the 22-year-old Syrian said.
Only the day before, it seemed he was starting a new life. After landing on the Greek island of Samos soon after dawn on 28 April 2020, he and his fellow passengers had trudged up the steep coastal path, searching for Greek police, in order to claim asylum. “I was just so happy to leave everything behind,” said Hamoudi, who fled his Damascus home aged 12, moved to Lebanon, then Turkey, and hoped to reach Germany to be reunited with his father.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed two top government officials on July 17, for allegedly “turning a blind eye” to “traitors” in their agencies, report Malik Miah and Barry Sheppard. But what does this represent and where will this purge end?
Under capitalism, wars are fought to gain access to markets, resources and to harness the working class in its service. The suffering of the Ukrainian people attests to this, writes William Briggs.
This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.
Scenes and pictures have been circulating of broken earth, lacking moisture, cracked and yearning. But these are not from traditional drought-stricken parts of the planet, where the animal carcass assumes near totemic power amidst dry riverbeds or desert expanses. Neither Australia nor Africa feature on these occasions – at least in a prominent way. Europe, continent of historical arable sustainability, is drying up.
This is not to say that the continent is immune to drought. The International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River notes the impacts of a number of dry and severe summers from the 1990s till 2015. In 2015 alone, “drought phenomena” were recorded in countries from Austria to Ukraine.
What makes the current crisis in Europe significant is its scale. According to the European Drought Observatory, 64% of the land in the European Union is being affected by drought, with 47% of the territory classed as having “warning” conditions, and 17% facing “alert” conditions. The European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) has gone so far as to warn that the current drought may be the worst in 500 years.
That particularly bold assessment, to be more precise, comes from senior researcher Andrea Toreti. “Just to give you an idea, the 2018 drought was so extreme that, looking back at least the last 500 years, there were no other events similar to the drought of 2018, but this year I think it is really worse than 2018.”
The story, however, is the same across the Northern Hemisphere. Deutsche Welle showed alarm in declaring that, “from Hungary to Hawaii, from the drying Rhine River to the now-recovering Rio Grande, or from Casablanca to California, summer droughts and high temperatures are having a serious impact on everything from agriculture to the freight industry.”
The German broadcaster then goes on to note the lowering of Lake Garda’s levels, and the observation from one tourist. “We came last year, we liked it, and we came back this year.” Unfortunately, the landscape had altered. “We were a bit shocked when we arrived because we had our usual walk around, and the water wasn’t there.”
Across Europe, water levels in famed aqueous bodies have been falling and vanishing. Italy’s River Po has fallen to such a level that rice fields can no longer be watered consistently, nor clams sustained. In France, the warming of the Rhône and Garonne have made their water prohibitively hot to cool nuclear reactors.
Europe’s major waterways have been suffering a fall, producing colossal headaches for those involved in the transportation sector. (The focus on economic matters has the effect of ignoring the more attritive consequences that climate change has for both environment and species.) For countries such as Germany, which rely on suitably filled inland waterways, the signs are ominous, a point not helped by the ongoing problems with reduced delivery of Russian natural gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
The Rhine River has been so depleted that the standard number of vessels have been unable to sail with regularity and appropriate tonnage. The Rhine Waterways and Shipping Authority (WSA Rhein) confirmed that the lower water levels would lead to the passage of fewer barges transporting petrochemicals and oil products. Those that did could only make use of the river with reduced capacity.
For logistics wonks in the petrochemical business, this has meant sharp increases in costs, though a spokesperson for WSA Rhein tried to suggest that the “exceptionally low level” of water at this time of the year “was not significant.” The German logistics company HGK also urges calm, suggesting that things are “not as dramatic yet as in 2018”. The consultancy Elwis, which specialises in German waterways, disagrees. Were the water levels to fall to 20cm by mid-August, nothing would be able to navigate along the Rhine.
A spokesperson for the world’s largest chemical producer, BASF, summarised matters with gloomy precision: “The mark of 60cm of the Rhine has been undercut at Kaub. Levels in the range of 35-55cm are forecast for the next two weeks. For the predicted levels, some types of ships can no longer be used and will stop sailing; all others will sail with reduced loads.” To alleviate problems with cost, the company has been resorting to alternative modes of transport, including rail.
Another astonishing European waterway – the Danube – is also diminishing, suggesting how climate change is, quite literally, altering landscapes and transport systems. In Romania, Greenpeace activists tried to draw attention to the issue by dragging kayaks to a stretch of shoreline exposed by the retreating water. “We want Danube waves, not heat waves,” the protests declared in their banners.
In less transport related matters, scenes of parched earth have been beamed across the globe from the UK, a country famed for its rather mild climate. Parts of the country have experienced their driest July on record. Hosepipe bans have been introduced, and one can almost hear Britain’s drought-hardened cousins in Australia: shower less and shower together. Exacerbating the problem of decreased rainfall has been the unusually high temperatures, at times rising savagely beyond 40 degrees Celsius.
Globally, the earth is changing in violent, displacing fashion. Climate change will cause displacements in the order of tens of millions, if not more. Whole territories are vanishing, while other tracts of land are being exposed. Nature is not just being reordered but doing much of the reordering. What will humanity’s response be?
The post Europe Dries Up first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Cláudia Agostinho, her siblings and cousins will have case heard at European court of human rights
Cláudia Agostinho has been going to Pedrogao beach since she was a child. Back then it was a stretch of silver white sand sandwiched between pine trees and sea.
Today Pedrogão beach, in central Portugal, is an apocalyptic reminder of the carnage and violence that can be brought by global heating. This summer, as temperature warnings were again issued in the Leiria region – where the beach is situated – and several active wildfires raged, the charred remains of the deadliest fire in Portugal’s history were still evident.
Vienna: Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington resumed in Vienna with a meeting between Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator and the EU’s Enrique Mora, who coordinates the talks aimed at salvaging a 2015 nuclear deal, Iranian state media reported on Thursday.
According to Reuters, both Tehran and Washington have played down the prospect of a breakthrough in this round of talks, while the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has warned there is no room left for further major compromises.
As Iran refuses to hold direct talks with the United States, Mora will shuttle between Ali Bagheri Kani and U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley, who tweeted on Wednesday he was heading to Vienna with his expectations “in check”.
Signaling little flexibility to resolve remaining thorny issues, Bagheri Kani put the onus on the White House to compromise, saying in a tweet the United States should “show maturity & act responsibly”.
According to New York Times, before the meeting, Mr. Malley suggested that he did not expect major progress. “Our expectations are in check, but the United States welcomes E.U. efforts and is prepared for a good-faith attempt to reach a deal,” he wrote on Twitter. “It will shortly be clear if Iran is prepared for the same.” Iran negotiators still refuse to meet directly with Americans.
Mr. Bagheri Kani said that the burden was on Washington. “The onus is on those who breached the deal & have failed to distance from ominous legacy,” he wrote in his own Twitter message. A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanani, described the talks as “a discussion and exchange of views.”
Speaking at the United Nations, Iran’s ambassador to the global body, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, blamed Washington for failing to guarantee that Iran would receive the pact’s economic benefits. “Achieving this objective has been delayed because the United States is yet to decide to give assurance that Iran will enjoy the promised economic benefits in the agreement,” he said.
The delay has meant that Iran has pressed ahead with its nuclear program so far that it will be difficult to monitor any revived agreement, even if one is reached, suggested the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael M. Grossi.
Little remains of the 2015 deal, which lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear programme. But then-President Donald Trump ditched the deal in 2018 and reimposed harsh sanctions.
After 11 months of indirect talks in Vienna between Tehran and President Joe Biden’s administration, however, the broad outline of a revived deal was essentially agreed in March.
But talks then broke down, chiefly because of Tehran’s demand that Washington remove its Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) from a U.S. terrorism list and the U.S. refusal to do so.
To overcome the impasse, Borrell in July proposed a new draft text, which two Iranian officials said Tehran “was not happy” with it.
“Iran has shown enough flexibility. Now it is up to Biden to make a decision. We have our own suggestions that will be discussed in the Vienna talks, such as lifting sanctions on the Guards gradually,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters.
According to CBS News, Iranian officials have been trying to offer optimistic assessments of the negotiations while blaming the U.S. for the deadlock. They may be worried that a collapse of the talks could send the country’s rial currency plunging to new lows.
Iran struck the nuclear deal in 2015 with the U.S., France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China. The deal saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium under the watch of U.N. inspectors in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Then-President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the accord in 2018, saying he would negotiate a stronger deal, but that didn’t happen. Iran began breaking the deal’s terms a year later.
Reports suggest, as of the last public IAEA count, Iran has a stockpile of some 3,800 kilograms (8,370 pounds) of enriched uranium. More worrying for nonproliferation experts, Iran now enriches uranium up to 60% purity — a level it had never reached before. That is a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Boris Kagarlitsky, a Moscow-based sociologist and editor of the socialist website Rabkor, spoke to Federico Fuentes about the domestic factors behind Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine and the role of the left in anti-war organising.
My personal experience of this week’s “heat apocalypse” in Europe involved discovering large globs of hot, sticky tar stuck to my leg after I trod in melted asphalt on a mountain road in France on Sunday afternoon: The road that I was walking on had literally begun to melt.
I was standing on the melted road because the heat was so extreme that my car’s engine had overheated, and my kids and I ended up stranded on top of a steep mountain pass in the Pyrenees until a tow truck finally came to tow us down the mountain to a nearby town. Around the continent, roadside assistance agencies predicted spikes in the number of car breakdowns as the thermometer readings headed north.
Meanwhile, others across Europe were facing much more frightening emergencies as fires engulfed swathes of forest in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Hungary and France, and as the extreme heat triggered housefires and wildfires in and around London. Europe is finally waking to the ghastly realities of the climate crisis and the rampant fires that come with it.
After days of record-breaking temperatures, calamitous forest fires and mounting numbers of deaths associated with the heat, French President Emmanuel Macron called this week for the creation of a European-wide fire-fighting air fleet.
Touring the Gironde, a picturesque region in southwestern France hammered by the fires, Macron pledged a “major national project” of reconstruction and called for new rules and prevention plans designed to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.
Europe’s leaders have realized that the continent has got to play catch-up to shore up its infrastructure, and to protect its fire-vulnerable lands from wildfires.
European countries currently spend only 0.4 percent of their budgets on firefighting services. The German federal government has repeatedly refused to invest in fire-fighting aircraft, apparently believing the country is unlikely to face the sorts of megafires that routinely consume vast tracts of land in the U.S. and Australia.
France does have one of Europe’s best-equipped firefighting fleets, but it tops out at 22 planes. In addition to the national fleets, such as the one France has, the entire EU currently has a dozen firefighting planes that are pooled for use across national boundaries during fire emergencies. Clearly, that’s not adequate to the needs of this climate change moment. By contrast, California, which has been on the frontline of climate change-fueled fires for years, has more than 60 firefighting aircraft.
California, which has, over the past decade, had to adjust to the new realities of fighting vast fires every year, now spends more than 1 percent of its state budget on the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The state is, at least, fortunate in having vast financial resources at its disposal. Many of its neighbors aren’t so lucky; in one western U.S. state after the next, extreme fires have strained state budgets in recent years.
Now, as heat waves become more common and more ferocious in Europe, the continent’s governments (both in national capitals and in Brussels, headquarters of the EU) will also have to adjust upward the amounts they invest in fire prevention services, as well as in firefighting equipment and personnel. It will, inevitably, put a strain on state budgets, and will do so just at the moment when the continent is teetering on the edge of recession and is being battered by stubbornly high inflation.
Taken as a whole, Europe has been caught remarkably unprepared by July’s heat wave. Thousands of people, most of them elderly, died last week as the blast of hot air moved slowly northward from the Mediterranean.
The human dislocation that the heat caused has also threatened to magnify Europe’s already stark economic woes — its currency in decline against the dollar, inflation running at above 9 percent, its loss of stable supplies of Russian gas and oil. If Europe does fall into a severe recession later this year, no single factor will be to blame; but the hit to the region’s economy brought on by a string of debilitating heat waves will certainly be one of the causes contributing to the malaise.
Heat is something of a relative concept. In California or Texas, in Arizona or Oklahoma, summer temperatures a few degrees north of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (100°F) would barely raise eyebrows. Even higher temperatures, such as the 120°F sometimes reached in Las Vegas, Phoenix or Tucson, don’t tend to do quite the same damage that soaring temperatures inflict in Europe. In the American West, populations are accustomed to such temperatures; and houses, public transport systems, office buildings, entertainment centers, malls and so on are designed to include air conditioning. By contrast, in Europe, most buildings, both public and private, do not have air conditioning; many transit systems are similarly lacking; and populations are woefully unfamiliar with how to navigate extremely hot weather.
Moreover, electricity prices have soared so quickly in Europe this past year that even those with air conditioning have had to think twice before using their systems. Electricity wholesale prices rose more than 400 percent in Spain and Portugal from the winter of 2021 through early 2022, and by more than 300 percent in Greece and France. While not all of that has been passed onto consumers, much has; in the 12 months leading up to March of this year, home energy prices around the EU increased by 41 percent. Since then, as gas and oil prices have soared, they have gone up still higher. Faced with shortages of Russian natural gas, the EU has announced a rationing plan to try to cut usage by 15 percent over the coming months. Vastly increased reliance on air conditioning simply isn’t possible in Europe at the moment, given current energy supply and price conditions.
When the heat soared to around 104°F in London on Tuesday, the agency responsible for managing London’s complex public transport system was forced to urge people not to use its un-air conditioned buses and trains. Faced with lack of staff coming into work, many businesses shuttered. In Scotland, the government appealed to the public to cut down on alcohol consumption so as to avoid inebriated people becoming dehydrated in the unusual heat. By Tuesday evening, the London fire brigade was experiencing its busiest day since World War II, as more than 40 properties burned and numerous parks and heaths blazed in the fierce heat.
At Luton airport, just outside of London, outbound flights were canceled and incoming flights had to be diverted after a runway buckled in the heat. Railway tracks around the country also started to fail. Put simply, the U.K.’s infrastructure simply isn’t built to withstand triple-digit temperatures.
For years, European leaders have been at the forefront of global efforts to create meaningful climate change agreements. Yet, despite the strong rhetoric, when push came to shove last week, the continent’s preparedness for extreme weather events was shown to be inadequate. In the U.S., activists are pressuring President Biden to declare a climate emergency. In Europe, where the populace is far more in favor of strong actions to tackle climate change than are Americans, leaders have long realized this is an emergency. Yet the crisis is worsening seemingly by the day. This past week is a preview of just how bad things can get. It’s far past time to tackle this catastrophe with the focus and urgency it so clearly merits.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Britain and the EU responded dismally to the 2015 migrant crisis. The number of ‘irregular entries’ is up by 84% this year – and the ways to deal with the issue now range from limited to bizarre
In a week when Russia threatened to annex more territory in Ukraine, gas shortages loomed, and inflation and Covid surged across Europe, it seems almost unkind to remind EU and UK leaders of another crisis that is unfolding, largely unremarked, right under their noses. As Claudius laments in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, / But in battalions.”
As if defeating Russian aggression was not enough of a challenge, Europe now also faces rapidly rising new “waves” of undocumented asylum seekers. Given the sociopolitical upheavals that ensued after 1 million refugees, mostly Syrians, arrived on Europe’s shores in 2015, the EU and UK might be expected to be better prepared this time.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
Alika has a UK sponsor, and applied for visa in March, but is one of few children left in her Kharkiv neighbourhood
A four-year-old girl remains stranded in a block of flats on the Ukrainian frontline four months after attempts began to bring her to the UK, a delay campaigners have blamed on a series of government “blunders”.
Efforts to rescue Alika Zubets from the city of Kharkiv began on 21 March when her UK sponsor applied for a visa under the Homes for Ukraine scheme and expected her to reach north Staffordshire by mid-April at the latest. Instead, she remains one of the few children left in her Kharkiv neighbourhood, with no schools or nurseries open and the constant threat of shelling from Russian forces nearby.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.
Barry Healy reviews Quake, which gives an insight into family dysfunction and violence and how individual members come to bear the guilt of collective failures.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, social conflict inside the country was not put on hold: any illusion that its defence needs might produce a truce in the class struggle soon vanished, reports Dick Nichols.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
GEOFOR: Greetings! Since our last conversation, the conflict between Russia and the West has only continued to gain momentum. How far do you think this proxy war in the Ukraine can go? Is there a chance that the situation will improve?
Peter Koenig: Thank you for having me again for an interview.
This is a million-dollar question. Especially when we consider that Russia, by far the world’s largest and resource-richest country, was for over hundred years in the crosshairs of the western empire, led by the US and since WWII also by NATO, to be overtaken or to become a “colony” – similar – or worse – than western Europe. The European Union (EU), has become a colony of Washington’s and NATO’s.
It is worth a distinction, though, between the people of Europe and the governments of western Europe; i.e., the EU member countries and the European Commission (EC), the latter consisting of unelected members.
The EC currently, headed by the hawkish EC President, Ursula von der Leyen (unelected), former Minister of Defense of Germany, and close ally of Klaus Schwab’s. In fact, she is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum. It is unlikely that Ms. Von der Leyen would deviate from the WEF’s globalist agenda. And it looks like part of this globalist agenda is “regime change” in Russia.
On behalf of Washington, it’s driven by NATO and the EU.
Let me make this clear: the EU and EC are not representative of the 500-plus million people of Europe. The European Parliament that is supposed to represent the interests of the people has practically no voice. Most people, educated people, inquired about Russia, have a positive opinion about Russia. They want peaceful relations. While perhaps not agreeing with the Ukraine war, they understand what may have led up to it.
The people of Europe want sanctions on Russia to stop. The sanctions are foremost hurting Europe, but not Russia. On the basis of these sanctions, the planned One World Order (OWO), currently represented by the World Economic Forum (WEF), is using these sanctions, or rather Russia’s reaction to the sanctions, as a justification for causing massive energy and food shortages throughout the west, and to some extent, also the Global South.
They want to cause suffering and death. This is a gigantic western agenda of mass starvation, possibly mass death – fitting well into the Great Reset’s population reduction program. Having said this, it is difficult to imagine that the west will let go and pursue a Peace Agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
That would, in fact, be easy.
All Ukraine would have to do is to adhere to the Minsk II Agreement (February 2015), which was sponsored by France, President Macron, and Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel; by the very countries which are now coming down strongest, following US sanctions on Russia.
Let’s just for a moment look at NATO’s Madrid Summit 22-point Declaration, released on 29 June 2022. Item two is a statement of utter hypocrisy and point 3 reflects an outright hatred against Russia:
Then, point 4, starts with a love declaration for Ukraine’s President Zelensky:
That means and justifies for NATO continuing supplying billions worth of weapons to Ukraine – weapons that already now are ending up largely in the hands of dark and criminal weapons dealers. Brussels and Washington know it, but they will not stop it.
Zelenskyy, of course, is not free at all to take any decisions on his own. His decisions are dictated by the west.
These circumstances give a bleak outlook for Peace. But one should never lose hope.
GEOFOR: Can the statements of a number of Baltic politicians on the need to take Kaliningrad away from Russia lead to a new hotbed of military confrontation already in Lithuania?
PK: The Kaliningrad Oblast/District, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania, has also an important Baltic Sea port for Russia. Who knows what will really happen, but I do not believe that Poland and / or Lithuania will dare intervene in Kaliningrad.
These statements or declarations may be just hot air or a new type of western-style anti-Russia propaganda. From my point of view, not to be taken seriously.
GEOFOR: The sanctions confrontation has, apparently, finally gone beyond reasonable explanations. Canada, following the UK, introduced them even against Patriarch Kirill… Tell us, is the bottom already reached, or should we expect new surprises?
PK: Another good question. Frankly I don’t know. I think rather that the Europeans, as well as Washington, start realizing that they are the ones suffering, I mean them – particularly also the elite, not just the people, about whom they do not care.
Therefore, it just might be that they are quietly trying to make arrangements with Russia for energy deliveries – dropping “sanctions” and accepting Russia’s ruble-billing and more.
It has been clear from the beginning that the Global South, meaning China and associated Asian countries, like the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), ASEAN, the BRICS-plus Iran – as well as most of Africa and many of Latin American countries, will not adhere to sanctions.
These are also the countries that Russia keeps supplying with energy resources and food.
The west has clearly overreached with their sanctions, totally illegal sanctions, mind you. Sanctions, any kind of “sanctions”, from one country to another, impacting another country’s economy and the people’s well being, are illegal under International Law.
That’s also a reason why the east, led by China and Russia, will disassociate from the western currency and payment system (via US banks and SWIFT) and become an autonomous, sovereign politico-economic force. That may happen soon, possibly later this year or in early 2023. A shock-wave may be expected.
It could well be that the financial-economic decoupling of the east from the west – already ongoing – may be the “surprise”, when it reaches its final stages.
And that in the meantime, the west is quietly back-paddling, as they realize to what extent they have been shooting themselves, unwittingly embarking on committing socioeconomic suicide.
GEOFOR: Autumn is coming soon, will be followed by winter. Judging by the statements of the Europeans, they will not have time to fill in the gas storage facilities, even despite the fact that many companies have agreed to pay for Russian hydrocarbons “in rubles”, and the United States supplies liquefied natural gas. What will Brussels do in such a situation?
PK: Some of my assessment is already given above. And, of course, supposedly NATO approves (despite 28 of the 30 NATO members being European, decisions are made in Washington), they may go back to Russia, quietly “lifting” some (or all) sanctions and trying to re-activate Nordstrom I and activate Nordstrom II.
It is clear that the Middle East, the Saudis, for example, will not jump in to supply Europe and the US with gas and oil to replace deliveries from Russia. The results of the recent Joe Biden visit to the Saudis may be an indication.
For the Middle East replacing Russian gas would be like “sanctioning” Russia, when they have clearly indicated that their future trading inclination is more eastwards, Russia, China and SCO and other eastern socioeconomic associations.
The Middle East realizes that the future is in the east. The west has been digging their own grave for decades. But they apparently still cannot admit it. Instead of seeking Peace, they are confronting an impending collapse.
GEOFOR: And the last question. Against the backdrop of the financial and economic crisis gaining momentum, the ratings of leading Western politicians are beginning to fail. B. Johnson is no longer the leader of the Conservatives. They are increasingly talking about the upcoming political crisis in Germany, and the midterm elections to the US Congress are not far off… What are we to expect from all this?
PK: Yes, Boris Johnson is out. But his “outing” was most likely a planned outing. In the west, there are no decisions nor elections made by the people or Parliaments. They are all imposed or planned from the beginning with the consent of the leaders in question – by the WEF and its handlers, or commanders; i.e., the interlinked corporate financial oligarchs of this world, the amalgamation of Black Rock, Vanguard and State Street. Plus, there are other important players – like Chase, Bank of America, JPMorgan, City Group et al.
The WEF is the executioner according to the Great Reset and following the script of UN Agenda 2030. Only people themselves, waking up, can stop this drive to total destruction. And, yes, I’m positive that LIGHT will prevail over darkness.
It is said the “financial emperors” control close to 90% of the western corporate industrial and service world with majority shareholdings. Under these circumstances it is not difficult to decide who “presides” over what country – and when they have to go.
Boris Johnson will be replaced by another vassal of the financial emperors, the one which best suits their current agenda.
As to Germany’s Olaf Scholz, he has been put into the German Chancellorship just a bit over six months ago, after a long vetting process with important players like the EC, Washington and not least NATO. He had the right profile for what the west is all about.
If one reads or listens to his history, it is amazing that he is not in jail. See this The Olaf Scholz File – His Words, his Deeds (English spoken – 3 March 2022)
Yes, an economic crisis is coming. Even to Germany. According to many economists, Germany is de-industrializing. I agree. Self-made, by the insane “sanctions”. But even that is part of the plan.
During and after a harsh winter 2022 / 23, there may be lots of bankruptcies, unemployment, poverty to extreme poverty, perhaps even deadly famine for the poorest.
This is not a coincidence. There are no coincidences. This is shifting capital from the bottom and the center to the top – the financial elite, that pretends to rule the world. If they – the WEF-led globalists – have their way, there would be a One World Government. But that will not happen.
The globalist agenda is falling apart. That was already visible at the WEF’s Davos meeting last May. People around the world are waking up to the globalist agenda. The vast majority of them has been suffering under the global everything – and now the attempt of global digitization, meaning total control of every move you make, via the financial system.
Russia and China may lead humanity into a new future, a multipolar world. This is the hope. And the peoples will, to be expressed in solidarity and peace, may prevail.
• An interview with Peter Koenig on July 18, 2022. See Russian translation here.
• Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020). Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
The post The West Against Russia: The Strategy is being Played Out in Ukraine first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Activists and athletes say this is an important and symbolic moment for rights of LGBTQ+ people in Russia
Russian human rights activists and fellow athletes have described the decision to come out as gay by the nation’s highest-ranked female tennis player, Daria Kasatkina, as a monumental and symbolic moment for the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the country.
“When I heard the news about Kasatkina, I couldn’t believe it, I was so proud,” said Nadya Karpova, a footballer, who became the first openly gay Russian national team athlete when she came out last month. “I was ecstatic, jumping around like crazy in my flat.”
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
Vladislav Buryak was kept for 90 days and describes people screaming and a room with bloodstains and soaked bandages
A 16-year-old Ukrainian boy has described how he was held hostage by Russian soldiers for 90 days as he heard other prisoners being tortured in a nearby cell.
Vladislav Buryak, who was separated from his family on 8 April at a checkpoint while attempting to flee the city of Melitopol, was released after a months-long negotiation between his father, Oleg – a local Ukrainian official – and Russian soldiers, who wanted to exchange Vladislav for an individual of interest to the Russian military.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
As the climate crisis deepens, rich states refuse to seriously fund climate adaptation and have reneged on agreements such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, while spending trillions on militarisation and war, writes Murad Qureshi.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
Record-breaking heat has killed over 1,000 people in Western Europe over the past week, while firefighters battle to contain blazes scorching swathes of three countries amid a worsening climate emergency, officials said this weekend.
El País reports heat killed 360 people in Spain between July 10 and July 15. This follows the heat-related deaths of more than 800 people last month, according to the Spanish government’s Carlos III Health Institute. Madrid-Barajas International Airport recorded an all-time high temperature of 108°F Thursday, while some Spanish municipalities registered highs of 110°F to 113°F.
One 60-year-old Madrid sanitation worker collapsed in the middle of the street while working Friday. The man was rushed to the hospital with a body temperature of over 106°F and died of heat stroke. He was one of 123 people who suffered heat-related deaths Friday in Spain.
In drought-ravaged Portugal, where temperatures soared to over 116° in Pinhão on Friday, the Health Ministry said Saturday that 659 people, most of them elderly, have died from heat-related causes over the past week.
For the first time 40C has been forecast in the UK and the Met Office has issued the first ever ‘red alert.’
Experts have praised this warning for jolting the public’s understanding of next week’s event, from day at the beach to unnatural disaster.https://t.co/baSWWmsGsV
— Karl Mathiesen (@KarlMathiesen) July 16, 2022
In Britain, the U.K. Met Office on Friday issued its first-ever Red Extreme heat warning for Monday and Tuesday, when an “exceptional hot spell” is expected to hit the country.
AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tyler Roys said “there is concern that this heat could become a long-duration heatwave” lasting into August in places including “the valleys of Hungary, eastern Croatia, eastern Bosnia, Serbia, southern Romania, and northern Bulgaria.”
Parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia are also suffering heatwaves and wildfires.
Meanwhile, more than 10,000 people in France, Spain, and Portugal have been evacuated as firefighters battle out-of-control wildfires burning throughout parts of those countries. More than half of Portugal is on red alert status as firefighters work to contain 14 separate conflagrations.
Europe on fire. https://t.co/WOjD62dRPh
— Rocky Kistner (@therockyfiles) July 17, 2022
According to the Associated Press:
Hungary, Croatia, and the Greek island of Crete have also fought wildfires this week, as have Morocco and California. Italy is in the midst of an early summer heatwave, coupled with the worst drought in its north in 70 years—conditions linked to a recent disaster, when a huge chunk of the Marmolada glacier broke loose, killing several hikers.
Scorching temperatures have even reached northern Europe. An annual four-day walking event in the Dutch city of Nijmegen announced Sunday that it would cancel the first day, scheduled for Tuesday, when temperatures are expected to peak at around 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit).
Studies have shown that the human-driven climate emergency is increasing the frequency and severity of heatwaves.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Latest findings suggest Rwandan government has deployed surveillance campaign against relatives of Paul Rusesabagina
The mobile phone of a Belgian citizen who is the nephew of Paul Rusesabagina, a jailed critic of the Rwandan government made famous by his portrayal in Hotel Rwanda, was hacked nearly a dozen times in 2020 using Israeli-made surveillance technology, according to forensic experts at The Citizen Lab.
The findings follow earlier revelations by the Guardian and other media partners in the Pegasus Project, an investigation of Israel’s NSO Group, that Rusesabagina’s daughter, a dual American-Belgian national named Carine Kanimba, was under near-constant surveillance by a client of NSO Group from January to mid-2021, when the hacking attack was discovered by researchers at Amnesty International’s security lab.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
On the eve of the Ukraine Recovery Conference, in Lugano, Switzerland, Ukrainian democratic socialist Vitaliy Dudin outlined an alternative vision for reconstruction to deregulation and liberalisation.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
Federico Fuentes spoke to Ilya Matveev, Russian anti-war socialist and editorial collective member of Posle, a new anti-war website, about the background and motivations behind Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
This post was originally published on Green Left.