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By Federico Fuentes

In the midst of Venezuela’s prolonged economic crisis, in which state budgets and support for the governing socialists steadily contract, at least one municipal council is bucking the trend. The key, according to the local mayor, has been focusing on people’s power and self-management.

Paéz is a rural municipality located in Apure state, along the tense border with Colombia. Opposition-controlled Tachira state lies to its west.

Despite this conflictive surrounding, José María “Chema” Romero managed to increase the United Socialist Party of Venezuela’s (PSUV) vote in the 2017 mayoral elections by 70% from its 2013 result (when it lost to the right-wing opposition).

Moreover, in the first two months of this year, the municipal council has generated more revenue than its entire annual budget allocated by the national government.

How has this occurred?

Chema explained to Green Left Weekly in March that, as in most of the country, the PSUV in Paéz had lost support in successive elections since 2013.

“At the national level,” Chema explained, “the vote has been decreasing because of the economic blockade and because of the corruption that has encrusted itself in the state.”

The local situation was further complicated by the former government-aligned mayor — whose political loyalties had been heavily questioned by community activists during his controversial tenure — joining the opposition after being booted out of office in 2013.

Paéz has a strong level of community organisation. Some of Venezuela’s first communes, which unite communal councils encompassing between 20 and 400 families to discuss and resolve local issues, were formed there.

So too was the first communal city, bringing together neighbouring communes and envisaged as the next level in grassroots self-government.

The Bolivar and Zamora Revolutionary Current (CRBZ), of which Chema is a member, also has a strong presence in the municipality. Tracing its origins back to a local campaign for peasant rights, the CRBZ today operates as a radical left tendency within the PSUV.

Due to his ties with the CRBZ and the local communes’ movement, regional party authorities twice blocked Chema from running as a PSUV candidate. But out of office and faced with a declining vote, the PSUV turned to him as its last option.

“It took us years to recuperate the mayor’s office,” Chema said. “But, by working together with popular power, with the communal movement, we were able to regain this municipality.”

Since winning in 2017, Chema has lost no time in turning the municipality’s situation around.

“As a municipal government, our focus is on four areas: production; people’s participation; transparency and efficiency, that is, the struggle against corruption; and people’s wellbeing.

“In the one year and two months that we have been in government, we have, among other things, recuperated damaged machinery and equipment that belonged to the municipality; we have improved access to health and water; and we have set up Juntas de Gobierno para el Buen Vivir(Government Boards for Living Well) in each of the municipality’s parishes [wards].

“This has been possible because of our vision of self-management, which rests on two pillars: people’s power and participation; and a self-reliance on the resources and potentialities that exist in our territory.

“Given the country is in a very delicate economic situation, we believe self-management is what is needed to resolve the problems.”

The boards, Chema explained, sit between the commune and the municipal council. They are made up of six appointed representatives from the main departments of the mayor’s office (finance, sports and culture, services, production, security and an overall coordinator) and spokespeople elected from the communes.

“Importantly, people’s power has a majority, as there is a maximum of six representatives of the constituted power, whereas each parish has 9, 11, or 17 communes, depending on the parish.

“On top of this, spokespeople are also elected to represent each sector of production in the municipality.

“The municipality has 13 productive sectors, and in each parish at least three, four, or five of these productive sectors are present, each with their own spokesperson.

“Finally, the local commander of the militia battalion is also on the board as a spokesperson for security and defence.

“What we have is constituent power working with the constituted power in an assembly to discuss and prioritise problems and projects.”

In terms of funding community projects in the middle of a crisis, Chema explained: “When there was abundance and oil was at more than $100 a barrel, the state provided everything; the national government could guarantee funds for all types of projects.

“That is not possible today with the economic blockade and decline in oil production.

“So now, if we need to deal with a problem, the municipality contributes 70% of the funds and the community contributes the other 30%”, through fundraising or individual contributions.”

In order to generate revenue, the municipality has sought to benefit from its increasingly prominent role as a gateway for people seeking to buy and sell products across the Venezuela-Colombia border. It applies a small tax on local hotels and transport companies profiting from the boom in the number of people passing through Paéz.

“On top of this, we have implemented a way in which people can contribute to the cost of basic services such as water and electricity that are currently provided essentially for free by the national government.

“The idea is to encourage people to contribute to compliment the budget.”

Though these taxes have been adopted in municipal law, they remain voluntary. The idea is to convince people, through assemblies and a communicational campaign, “that they need to pay something to be able to sustain the services.”

“The people have cooperated: the municipality has collected more money in the first two months of this year than our entire allocated budget for 2018.”

To avoid corruption, an electronic system has been established so that no one pays in cash and the council’s books are open for residents to see what money has come in and out. How funds are spent is decided by public debate in the communal councils, communes and boards.

“All of the resources are dedicated to tending to people’s needs, whether it is access to water, or improved roads; all of this money is reinvested in the municipality.”

Some of the projects the municipality has embarked on include sowing 550 hectares with rice (a feat it hopes to repeat this year) and fixing up the municipal hospital and several local health centres. It has also set up popular pharmacies, where the municipality sells medicine it buys in Colombia at much cheaper prices than private pharmacies.

The municipality now has its own food company, slaughterhouse and recycling plant.

“We know that the country is facing an economic crisis, so we are not sitting back, waiting for the central government to send us resources,” Chema said.

“We have sought out our own responses, using our resources, together with our people. And we have the results to show for it.”

13 May 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Justice for Assange

The Facts

There is widespread media misreporting about allegations made against Julian Assange in Sweden in 2010. Here are the facts:

First, Assange was always willing to answer any questions from the Swedish authorities and repeatedly offered to do so, over six years. The widespread media assertion that Assange “evaded” Swedish questioning is false. It was the Swedish prosecutor who for years refused to question Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy: they only did so, in November 2016, after the Swedish courts forced the prosecutor to travel to London. Sweden dropped the investigation six months later, in May 2017.

Second, Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in 2012 to avoid onward extradition to the US – not to avoid extradition to Sweden or to refuse to face the Swedish allegations. Assange would have accepted extradition to Sweden had it provided an assurance against onward extradition to the US (as Amnesty International also urged at the time) – but both Sweden and the UK refused to provide an assurance that he would not be extradited to the US.

Third, Sweden wanted to drop its arrest warrant for Assange in 2013. It was the British government that insisted that the case against him continue. This is confirmed in emails released under a tribunal challenge following a Freedom of Information Act request. UK prosecutors admitted to deleting key emails and engaged in elaborate attempts to keep correspondence from the public record. Indeed, the lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service advised the Swedes in January 2011 not to visit London to interview Assange. An interview at that time could have prevented the long-running embassy standoff.

Fourth, despite widespread false reporting, Assange was never charged with anything related to the Swedish allegations. These only reached the level of a “preliminary investigation”. The Swedish prosecution questioned Assange on two separate occasions, in 2010 and 2016. He has consistentlyprofessed his innocence.

Fifth, almost entirely omitted from current media reporting is that the initial Swedish preliminary investigation in 2010 was dropped after the chief prosecutor of Stockholm concluded that “the evidence did not disclose any evidence of rape” and that “no crime at all” had been committed. Text messages between the two women, which were later revealed, do not complain of rape. Rather, they show that the women “did not want to put any charges on JA but that the police were keen on getting a grip on him” and that they “only wanted him to take a test”. One wrote that “it was the police who made up the charges” and told a friend that she felt that she had been “railroaded by police and others around her”.

Sixth, Assange left Sweden after the prosecutor told him that he was free to leave as he was not wanted for questioning. Assange had stayed in Sweden for five weeks. After he left, Interpol bizarrely issued a Red Notice for Assange, usually reserved for terrorists and dangerous criminals – raising concerns that this was not just about sexual accusations.

Seventh, Sweden’s investigation is now entirely closed. It was shelved for six years during the period 2010-2016 while the Swedish prosecutor refused to question Assange in London. Sweden’s Court of Appeal ruled that that the prosecutor had breached her duty because a preliminary investigation either has to be open and active leading to a charge, or closed—there is no intermediate phase. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also concluded that the prosecutor’s inaction had resulted in Sweden and the UK violating international obligations.

Eighth, there was no technical impediment for the prosecutor to proceed to charge Assange after he was questioned in the Ecuadorian embassy. In early 2017, Assange’s lawyers asked a Swedish court to force the prosecutor to either charge Assange or drop the arrest warrant. The prosecutor closed the investigation in May 2017 without attempting to charge him.

Since his arrest on 11 April 2019, there has been considerable political pressure on Sweden to reopen the investigation. Theoretically any closed investigation can be reopened until the statute of limitations expires—August 2020 in this case. Such calls serve to displace the critical issue of Assange’s impending US extradition over WikiLeaks publications (whether from UK or Sweden). They also obfuscate critical facts, such as the fact that the UK and Swedish authorities had actively prevented Assange from responding to the allegations, which is contrary to basic principles of due process.

It is critical to note that the re-opened Swedish allegations in September 2010 occurred after WikiLeaks published the Iraq “Collateral Murder” video in April 2010 and the Afghanistan war logs in July 2010. In fact, US grand jury proceedings already began against Assange in June 2010 and by July, the US was publicly describing WikiLeaks as a “very real and potential threat”. The Intercept’s Charles Glass has reported that “Sources in Swedish intelligence told me at the time that they believed the U.S. had encouraged Sweden to pursue the case.” Other reports from just days before the Swedish allegations were initiated show that the U.S. State Department was encouraging allied statesto initiate prosecutions against Assange. To ignore all this, as much media reporting does, is to ignore vital further context.

In December 2018, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, together with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, reiterated their finding from 2016 and urged Assange’s freedom to be restored. UN Special Rapporteur on Privacy and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture are currently investigation Assange’s case.

13 May 2019

Source: Justice for Assange

The Venezuela Chapter of the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity urges you to subscribe to the following statement by sending your complete name, country, organization and occupation to the following email address: Redintelectualesvenezuela@gmail.com

We are appealing to you, people of all countries of the world, people concerned about freedom and social justice, who share with us the ideal that all human beings have the right to live and that we are all free and worthy of respect. We call on you knowing that you may feel that international institutions and the corporate press have told you the truth about the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and that they performed abiding by ideals of the U.N. Charter and Agreements to respect Human Rights.

We appeal to you because we know they have lied to you and they have not given you the opportunity to know what Venezuela actually is, what is going on there, its human accomplishment and why the image of our country has been grossly distorted.

They have not told you the truth in order to provoke the current situation, that worsens every day, they have taken coercive measures that are carried out by banks, big industries and financial and media corporations, as well as other actions undertaken directly by governments. In particular the Trump administration in the United States has chartered a course to sanction and isolate Venezuela until the function of governing is just not feasible. In the face of this situation, current events in Venezuela have been described as crimes against humanity by some experts, such as Alfred de Zayas. He has warned that as the scenarios unfold the general public is not receiving the real information about what is really going on in Venezuela.

We are coming to you, whom we feel are brothers and sisters of the people, with a view to tell you the truth and ask you to condemn, by way of what links humans as a single family, the events being carried out against Venezuela and to join us in our demand for justice on behalf of the honorable and free people here in resistance.

Venezuela is a country inhabited by 32 million people, placed over territories extraordinarily rich in oil, gas, gold and, fresh water. We are the nation where the process of South America’s independence began. We have undertaken an intense revolutionary process that since its beginnings has faced the hostility of each subsequent administration in Washington that has tried hard to over throw it. Venezuela has however proven its resilience by having a people’s, socialist and anti-imperialist government through more than 20 elections, during and after two coup attempts.

Venezuela was declared by the Obama administration as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States, an action condemned by over 10 million people who signed petitions against it. Venezuela has been financially persecuted because of this, which has resulted in the loss of more money than what is needed to grant free education for 26 years, at all levels and in optimal conditions. Our country is being persecuted internationally, in violation of principles consecrated by the Law of Geneva and the Law of the Hague, founding principles of international organizations, to such an extent that the country’s savings in gold were confiscated by the London Bank while the United States granted the administration of its assets to people who have not been appointed by legitimate authorities.

Furthermore, Venezuela is now a place where the concept of democracy is at stake, not just for the country but for the concept itself since it is being established that a person who has not run for the office of president in any election has declared himself the Interim President because of his total backing by Washington.

But above all, Venezuela is made up of 32 million people, a population that is being threatened day by day, through press releases and digital communication, by the United States spokespeople who say they will spare no effort to bend Caracas’ will, to maximize the pain on all Venezuelans, to achieve an America free of Bolivarianism, and where they say they will use all available force and technology, as if it was a foreign policy based on science fiction.

Before being sanctioned Venezuela had reached the region’s highest literacy rate, highest university enrolment rate, our best sports development; we had reached our lowest level of inequality and the highest level of human development ever; and we had opened up ourselves to give oil and opportunities to people in the poorest villages in the region, such as in Central America and the Caribbean.

But this has not been told; instead according to the international press, there is an alleged humanitarian crisis in effect in Venezuela since 2016, a groundless argument because the country has not reached levels of hunger and misery to justify the crisis. They have omitted that there is a daily battle in this country to prevent hunger while unilateral coercive measures are imposed against all efforts, aggression and terrorist acts are committed, such as the partial destruction of Venezuela’s power grid. The international media corporations omit that everyday women and men are sowing and distributing food stuff home by home, together with the National Government, and using their inventiveness to keep public services working.

Venezuela is also made up of mothers of young people who were burnt alive in 2017 because they looked like Chavistas, deaths that are not reported abroad because the responsibility for these horrendous crimes was committed by sectors opposed to the Government.

People like these mothers compel us to communicate to you that there are people in Venezuela insisting for the recognition that they have rights, for their rights not to be nullified through financial suffocation, and for justice to be brought in cases that should be known by the entire world.

This is why we are requesting your support to convene and act before the Russell Tribunal or other agencies which allow a space that could hear the voices of the Venezuelan people, to put on record the ongoing suffering in our country due to actions banned by International Public Law and which runs contrary to the idea that people can define their own system of government and their decisions should be respected by all other nations.

We call on you because we don’t want the world to forget the anguish we are living everyday with the threat of a military invasion always hovering nearby, for the increase in deaths and diseases that might be prevented if the country would be able to use its own resources and be part of the normal integration of international markets, understanding that the only way the world can improve is if people, despite being oppressed, refuse to be oppressed and act despite the permanent lies in large media corporations.

Venezuela Chapter of the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity

4 May 2019

Source: Network in Defense of Humanity – US

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Recent reports suggest that Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton, together with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, are “doing everything possible to instigate a war with Iran”. Will they succeed?

Bolton-Pompeo are involved in deliberate acts of provocation. The Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group is currently en route to the Persian Gulf “to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime…”

This is not the first time that threats of this nature have been formulated. War on Iran has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for the past 16 years. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, U.S. military sources intimated at the time that an aerial attack on Iran could involve a large scale deployment comparable to the U.S. “shock and awe” bombing raids on Iraq in March 2003.

Without dispelling the dangers of the reckless Bolton-Pompeo initiative, a large scale US-NATO-Israel military operation directed against Iran from a strategic and geopolitical standpoint at this juncture is unlikely.

Why?

A shift in military alliances between “Great Powers” is unfolding, which is exceedingly more complex than that pertaining to World War I. (i.e the confrontation between “The Triple Entente” and “the Triple Alliance”).

Today, the structure of military alliances is in jeopardy much to the detriment of Washington.

You cannot successfully wage war on Iran when Turkey, your ally and NATO heavy weight is “sleeping with the enemy”.

While Turkey is officially a member of NATO as well as a firm ally of the US, president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been developing “friendly relations” with two of America’s arch-enemies, namely Iran and Russia.

Needless to say NATO is in crisis. Moreover, US and Turkey supported proxy forces are fighting one another in Northern Syria.

There is also a Turkey-Israel military-intelligence alliance which dates back to the Security and Secrecy Agreement (SSA) signed with the government Tansu Çiller in 1993-94. This alliance which had been designed by the Clinton administration is no longer functional.

The strategic bilateral US-Israel relationship as well as the US-Turkey alliance coupled with the Israel-Turkey military and intelligence cooperation agreement as well as the Israel-NATO agreement (2003), were the foundations of the US-Israel-Turkey “Triple alliance” or what the Brookings Institute called the US-Turkey- Israel Triangle.

This US sponsored triangular structure of alliances is dead and defunct, much to the detriment of Washington’s interests in the Middle East.

What is now unfolding is a new Triple Entente between Turkey, Iran and Russia

The Netanyahu-Putin “Love Relationship”

But there is another element which is absolutely crucial: Israel is also sleeping with the enemy. Netanyahu and Putin have developed over the years an informal and friendly relationship. They consult one another frequently on key political and strategic issues.

While the Netanyahu-Putin relationship is not a formal alliance, it nonetheless serves the interests of both Russia and Israel. “Putin has a friend in Bibi Netanyahu, and maybe even a soulmate”. According to Reuters, “Vladimir Putin is the closest thing to a friend Israel has ever had in Moscow”.

Turkey, NATO Exit

Contemporary developments point to a historical shift in the structure of military alliances which is contributing to weakening US hegemony in the Middle East as well as creating an unspoken crisis within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Waging US-NATO-Israel war on Iran with or without Turkey?

Turkey is NATO’s heavy weight, it is the only NATO member state which is (largely) situated in the Middle East bordering onto Iran.

In early April, Secretary State Mike Pompeo met up with his counterpart Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara. The Pompeo-Cavusoglu confrontation made the headlines, In turn, Vice President Pence openly threatened the Turkish government:

Vice President Mike Pence warned Turkey against going ahead with the purchase of the Russian-made [S-400] missile system, hours after the Turkish foreign minister said the acquisition was “a done deal” … Pence said the weapons purchase could “threaten the very cohesion of this alliance… We’ve also made it clear that we’ll not stand idly by while NATO allies purchase weapons from our adversaries,“ Pence said. (CNN, April 3, 2019)

Mike Pence is right: The cohesion of NATO is at stake. And Turkey cannot be trusted as an ally of the US.

Turkey’s NATO-Exit? It is almost a done deal.

And if Turkey exits NATO, other countries might follow suit.

In the course of the month of April (following Pompeo’s diplomatic blunder in Ankara) Turkey and Iran have strengthened their bilateral relations.

Pompeo’s counterpart Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has retorted: “We do not accept unilateral sanctions and impositions on how we build our relationship with our neighbors.” (quoted in Al Monitor, April 29, 2019)

US, NATO, Israel Military logistics are integrated, and Turkey is still (officially) part of NATO.

The evolving structure of military alliances (and cross-cutting coalitions) including the crisis within NATO does not favour the launching of a large scale military operation against Iran. One assumes that Bolton-Pompeo are fully aware of this issue. Or are they?

Turkey is a NATO Member State which is sleeping with enemy. Given It’s relationship with Russia and Iran, from a logistical point of view the practice of coordinated US-NATO military planning is in jeopardy.

This does not exclude the conduct of other forms of warfare including economic sanctions, sabotage, Bolton-style spontaneous acts of provocation, covert support of terrorist organizations, etc.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, May 09, 2019

Source: www.globalresearch.ca

By Countercurrents Team

U.S.-China trade was is now a major world issue. The United States is taking measures against China while China vows to take counter-measures.

Media reports from Washington DC and Beijing said:

China plans to take “necessary countermeasures” in response to the US’ decision to increase tariffs to 25 percent on $200 billion in Chinese goods, a decision China’s Commerce Ministry said it “deeply regrets.”

The ministry did not elaborate on what those countermeasures might be, but added in a statement that it hoped the US could come to a mutually satisfactory agreement with China through “cooperation and consultation”.

China’s statement was made as the increase in tariffs took effect at the turn of midnight on Friday Eastern time, between two days of desperate talks aimed at rescuing a trade deal that has been in the making for months now.

US President Donald Trump announced the hike on Sunday, accusing China of backtracking on commitments it had made while fleshing out the deal – what he later called “they broke the deal.”

Chinese officials rushed to the US to continue the negotiations, a move they said proved that they were “serious” about reaching an agreement. None has been forthcoming so far, with the talks in Washington moving into the second day without visible progress.

The tariffs impact a wide range of imported consumer products including electronics, luggage, furniture, construction materials, seafood, and lighting. They do not affect products currently in transit, meaning the two countries have a small window of opportunity to reach an agreement while the next shipment of goods from China is en route.

A Chinese delegation is currently in Washington for the 11th round of China-U.S. high-level economic and trade consultations.

With this round of talks still ongoing, China hopes that the U.S. can meet China halfway, and that the two sides will make joint efforts to resolve existing problems through cooperation and consultation, the delegation said.

China better prepared than U.S. to withstand trade war

Chinese state media Thursday published and aired reports quoting U.S.-based organizations and individuals critical of Trump’s decision to raise tariffs, but played down the impact higher U.S. tariffs would have on the Chinese economy.

“China is well-prepared for an escalation in trade tensions. A variety of plans are in place, such as countermeasures for any tariff rise, and favorable policies to minimize losses for Chinese enterprises,” the Global Times, a tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily, said in an editorial.

It said: “Mentally and materially, China is much better prepared than its U.S. counterpart.”

This came in response to U.S. President Donald Trump tweeting Sunday that he will hike U.S. tariffs by 25 percent on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods by Friday and target hundreds of billions more soon, prior to this week’s negotiations between the two countries.

According to a Reuters report, Trump’s team was upset that Beijing deleted commitments Chinese negotiators had made to change domestic laws in every one of the seven chapters of the nearly 150-page draft text of the agreement. The sources said the changes were not shown to the U.S. side until Friday night, via a diplomatic cable.

Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson Gao Feng responded by saying that “China’s attitude has been consistent and China will not succumb to any pressure. China has made preparations to respond to all kinds of possible outcomes.” He did not elaborate.

Neither side has raised tariffs since both leaders met in Argentina in November 2018 and agreed to a truce while their teams negotiated an end to the trade war. Tariffs on Chinese goods are paid to the U.S. by the companies importing the goods; most of those companies are U.S.-based

Back in February 2019, the U.S. president decided to delay the increment from 10 to 25 percent trade tariffs on imported Chinese goods, as negotiations and talks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping were underway. Yet with the latest statement, the Chinese delegation could decide not to convene because of what is likely to be seen as an escalation by Trump.

US announces 25% tariffs on another $200 billion of Chinese imports

Earlier reports said:

US Customs and Border Protection announced Thursday a 25% hike on tariffs on 5,700 categories of Chinese imports, amounting to $200 billion that would take effect the following day – just as stock markets in the US closed.

A guidance notice on CBP’s website said the import categories were previously subjected to a 10% tariff.

Trump said on Thursday that the move was intended to apply pressure to Beijing, which requested substantial edits to a trade deal being negotiated between the two countries. If successful, the deal is anticipated to bring the lifting of tariffs on each others’ imported goods, as well as enhanced intellectual property protections for Chinese companies and expanded markets in China for US goods.

“We were getting very close to a deal then they started to renegotiate the deal. We can’t have that,” Trump said Thursday. “I think it will be a very strong day, frankly, but we’ll see. We’ll see. It was their idea to come back.”

Trump said he was more than happy to keep tariffs on Chinese goods if a deal could not be reached.

“They’ll see what they can do, but our alternative is, is an excellent one,” Trump said, referring to the tariff threat.

10 May 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Peter Koenig

After the new coup attempt – or propaganda coup – Venezuela lives in a state of foreign imposed insecurity. The failed coup was executed on 30 April by Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed and Washington-trained and endorsed “interim President”, and the opposition leader, Leopoldo López, who was hurriedly freed from house arrest by Guaidó with a couple of dozens of armed-to-the-teeth defecting military, who apparently didn’t quite know what they were up to. Because, when all was over after a few hours, most of them asked to be re-integrated into their military units – and, as far as I know, they were readmitted.

These are Washington’s puppets and “coup-makers”. When one sees that the so-called coup was defeated in a mere few hours, without any Venezuelan military interference, one wonders whether this was really planned as a coup, or merely as a “public relations” coup, for the media to ‘recharge’ their narrative of Maduro dictatorship, of a suffering people, of famine, of lack of medication and medical supply – all due to the Maduro government’s mismanagement of Venezuela’s natural riches, the lie-slander we have been used to for the last several years.

For sure, the Venezuelan people are suffering. According to a CEPR report (https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/1/economist_jeffrey_sachs_us_sanctions_have) sanctions have killed some 40,000 Venezuelans. And this, not because of President Maduro’s squandering of Venezuelan resources, but because of a brutal, merciless outside interference, principally from the United States and to a lesser degree from Washington’s European vassals. If you listen to the ceaseless drumbeat for war against Venezuela and her democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro, by Pompeo, Bolton, Pence and Trump – you can only wonder and shake your head – what pathological and schizophrenic world we are living in? – And – are we all sick to the bone, that we tolerate it, that nobody of and in power – other than Russia and China – say ‘Halt’ to this deadly fiasco?

This article by Eric Zuesse, including leaked documents from Pentagon’s southern command, SOUTHCOM, will give the non-believers plenty of reasons to change their minds: (https://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-government-plan-dated-23-february-2018-coup-venezuela/5676380)

Western humanity has reached an abject state of mental disease. We allow the slaughter of tens of millions of people by the United States and its NATO allies, in US-provoked wars and conflicts around the world, indiscriminate killing for resources and monetary dominion. But we follow the same killer nation in accusing a quiet, peace-loving, fully democratic country, like Venezuela, to be utterly trampled on and punished with the most horrific monetary and economic sanctions – all illegal, by any standards of law – and our western “leaders” know it all.

These western heads of state and their chosen minions do not have the guts or political courage to say ‘STOP’. — They could, if they had any conscience left. These so-called leaders (sic) of vassal states, they have it all in their sovereign power – they could together decide that enough is enough, separate themselves from the Washington horrors and form a real European Union, a union to say no to the tyrant, a union that is capable of calling its own sovereign shots – decide its own destiny, a destiny of alliance with peaceful countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, China, Iran and more – basically all those that have decided not to bend to the dictate of Washington.

Why don’t they? Have they been bought, or received death threats if they dare to deviate? – All is possible – even likely, because it is unfathomable that the leaders, the political heads of all those 28 EU countries are hell-bent to believe the lies being propagated day-in and day-out, drip-by-miserable drip. It is not possible.

Back to Venezuela.

The western public at large must never be too long without devastating smear-news about a regime the empire wants to “change”. It is clear that the nefarious pair in Venezuela, Guaidó-López, followed strict Washington instructions. Guaidó would never dare doing anything without prior approval and directives from his masters in Washington.

Despite threats after pompous threats and false accusations and failed coup attempts, President Maduro holds on to a solid backing of six million voters who supported him, more than two thirds of those who went to the ballots, on 20 May 2018. He also has the solid support of the military, who have a revolutionary integrity and conscience unknown to the west. And not least, he has the support of Venezuela’s solid allies, Russia and China.

Nevertheless, the United States will not let go. Why do they risk everything – even a devastating war?

Well, there are several reasons. First you may think, “It’s the Oil, stupid!” – And second, the turbo-capitalist, neoliberal turning-to-neofascist US will not tolerate a socialist state in what they still consider their ‘backyard’. – Well, all of this is true. Venezuela has indeed the world’s largest hydrocarbon reserves – and it is conveniently close to The US’s Texas refineries.

However, the key reason for Washington forcing ‘regime change’ is that Venezuela has stopped selling her hydrocarbon in US dollars, and, may therefore become a risk for the US-dollar hegemony around the globe. That is a punishable violation for the empire. At least two heads of state were assassinated because they dared abandoning the unwritten and unlawful, but nevertheless US-imposed rule to sell their oil and gas in US-dollars, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi. Both had started trading their oil in other than US-dollar currencies – and were strong advocates for others to do likewise.

Some three years ago, Venezuela started selling her oil and gas in other currencies than the US-dollar, a cardinal sin.

Global dollar hegemony, meaning the full control of economies throughout the globe – a control that is rapidly fading – can only be maintained by a world flooded by dollars and with a monetary system that is entirely controlled by the FED and its associated American banks, by an international transfer system, SWIFT, that channels every dollar to be moved between countries, whether it is the US or any other country – through a US bank, in either New York or London. That still being the case, the US dollar remains the key reserve currency in the world, though rapidly fading. And second, through the obligatory trading of a commodities – like hydrocarbon energy – ONLY in US-dollars. The latter also allows the empire to print as many dollars as it needs to keep the world economy under control – and punish those that do not want to bend to Washington’s rule, with sanctions and confiscation of assets abroad, because — all transactions are controlled by the US banking system.

First, the dollar as a reserve currency, is fading rapidly, as ever fewer countries entrust their reserves to a largely recognized ‘fake’, fiat and debt-based currency, the US-dollar. They convert their dollar reserve holdings gradually into other assets, i.e. gold, or the Chinese Yuan which has become high in demand over the last few years. Logically, because China is already known as the undisputable strongest economy in the world, hence, the Chinese currency has a special reserve standing. However, the mainstream media do not report on this.

Second, with a growing number of countries that do no longer respect the Washington imposed US-dollar rule for hydrocarbon trading – the demand for dollars decreases rapidly – a direct confrontation to the United States’ dollar hegemony over the world. Russia and China have years ago stopped trading in US dollars, not only hydrocarbons, but everything. India and Iran have started doing the same. Other countries will follow – and Venezuela, one of the vanguards with the world’s largest oil reserves – should, therefore, not be allowed to become a model for other nations. The Trump Administration and its Wall Street masters will do what it takes to stop Venezuela from abandoning the dollar.

Hence, regime change and taking over the vast oil assets is of the order – with war, if necessary – “all options are on the table” – all under the blatantly fakest pretexts of “humanitarian intervention” and bringing back democracy – when the world knows that anywhere the US intervenes, democracy is abolished. In fact, what the US has managed – and wantonly so – is kill any democracy that ever existed.

Under these circumstances, Venezuela’s transgression in shedding the dollar for oil trading – and for trading in general – amounts to a serious threat to the dollar hegemony and must be suffocated. That’s what these coup attempts are all about. If they succeed, the dollar-currency collapse could be postponed for a bit, and taking possession of the oil reserves would be the icing on the cake.

What’s left after the dollar dominance over the world is gone, once the key tool, economic sanctions, for manipulating nations into doing the bidding of the emperor is no longer effective? – A broken US economy, one that already today depends heavily on the war and weapons industry – in fact, for over 50% of US GDP, when all associated manufacturing and services are counted. What’s left is the overwhelming firepower of that belligerent warmongering and war-dependent nation, with which the US and NATO could pull the rest of the world into oblivion.

That’s what’s at stake with any nation that wants to kick the petro-dollar. Also, Iran, of course. But both Iran and Venezuela have strong protection from Russia and China – two countries that freed themselves from the fangs of the dollar system years ago. And they are offering a bright future with viable Eastern monetary alternatives, mostly based on the Chinese Yuan and other currencies linked to SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) members.
Venezuela – Venceremos!

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst.

9 May 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Nile Bowie

One year ago today (May 9), Malaysians from all walks of life went to the ballot box seeking change. Victory for Pakatan Harapan, a reform-oriented multi-party alliance led by 93-year-old Mahathir Mohamad, stunned observers and brought six-decades of rule by the once-formidable Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition to a jubilant end.

At a time when many lamented democratic backsliding in the region and beyond, the unlikely election of a pluralistic ruling coalition bent on broad political reform imbued Malaysia with a newfound significance. Economic headwinds and widening sociopolitical polarization, however, have since complicated matters for the upstart leadership.

Though some argue campaign vows have been realized, perceptions of the government’s performance after a year in power are decidedly mixed. According to research by the Merdeka Center, an independent polling agency, recent approval ratings for both the ruling coalition and the prime minister have suffered a significant slide.

Mahathir, an iconic political personality who previously served as premier for over two decades before his re-election, polled at 83% shortly after taking office last May. His popularity, according to a survey published last month, has almost halved to just 46%. Harapan’s rating fared similarly with approval falling from 79% last May to 39% in March of this year.

Concerns over corruption, rising living costs and the preservation of Malay rights were among the top three concerns of survey respondents, anxieties that a resurgent right-wing opposition deftly leveraged as it clinched three back-to-back by-election victories since the beginning of the year.

Despite its falling popularity, a separate survey by polling firm Kajidata Research found that a 40% majority of Malaysian voters still preferred Harapan in comparison to other parties, though support for the government was lower among rural and low-income communities that are an essential vote bank for the coalition as it seeks to turn the tide and win support for its policies.

Rooting out entrenched corruption has been Harapan’s key deliverable, with scandal-ridden former prime minister Najib Razak first in the firing line. One of several graft trials that have Malaysians on tenterhooks, the ex-premier faces dozens of charges in connection with billions of dollars allegedly pilfered from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state fund.

Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, and former deputy, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, among others, are also ensnared in the prosecutors’ dragnet over alleged graft. While efforts to get to the bottom of corruption remain popular with voters, some are uneasy over Harapan’s tendency to blame the former regime when questioned over the slow pace of change.

After taking power, Harapan said public debt levels exceeded 1 trillion ringgit (US$240.3 billion), a substantially higher figure than the Najib administration claimed. While the government has attempted an economic course correction, recent data points to declining investor confidence and bearish market sentiment.

To curb spending and curtail future debt, the Malaysian government chose to cancel or renegotiate several multibillion-dollar mega-projects inked by the previous government, including those backed by China and neighboring Singapore, moves that have generally been politically popular at home despite triggering initial market jitters.

Last month, Malaysia announced that it would move ahead with a multibillion-dollar Beijing-backed rail link on more equitable terms after reaching a deal with the project’s Chinese state-owned contractor to cut construction costs nearly one-third, an outcome that analysts and observers generally saw as a much-needed victory for Harapan.

Many in the region and beyond watched as Mahathir, the world’s oldest serving leader, went about recalibrating ties with China after calling out his predecessor’s unscrupulous borrowing and stance toward the Asian superpower, with some seeing his strategy and tactics as an example of how best to negotiate with Beijing.

On the domestic front, however, the government appears to be perpetually fighting fires while failing to speak with a single voice on issues dividing the electorate on racial and religious grounds. Perceptions that Harapan is not sufficiently committed to safeguarding the interests and privileges of the Malay Muslim majority are a key stumbling block.

Since being toppled last year, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the lynchpin party of the former ruling BN coalition, has sought to dispel impressions of it being a mainstay for corrupt elites and blood-blue patricians, fashioning itself instead as a disruptive populist vehicle championing the preservation of Islam and Malay rights.

It has formalized a loose alliance with Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), a hardline Islamist party that seeks to turn Malaysia into an Islamic state with greater criminal powers for sharia courts, in hopes of nurturing a Malay Muslim wave capable of toppling Harapan, which they allege is beholden to a plot by ethnic Chinese politicians to deny Malays political power.

“The defeat of BN, with UMNO at its helm, was an epoch-making event. UMNO was an institution that was so deeply and historically intertwined with what was seen as the Malay position that its defeat came as a huge, monumental shock to a lot of people,” Chandra Muzaffar, a Malaysian political scientist and public intellectual, told Asia Times.

“I don’t think the UMNO leadership, and a very big segment of the Malay society, could accept it psychologically and so there’s been a lot of exaggeration about how Malay interests are threatened as a way of restoring their own position,” he said, noting that Harapan’s inability to counter opposition rhetoric has compounded its problems.

When Harapan pledged to ratify a United Nations statue against racial discrimination, known as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), tens of thousands took to the streets to oppose the move, fearing it covertly sought to unwind long-standing affirmative action policies and special privileges accorded to Malays.

According to Article 153 of the country’s constitution, ethnic Malays are granted special status as “sons of the soil”, or bumiputera. The New Economic Policy (NEP), race-based measures granting Malays preference over affordable housing, university scholarships and government contracts, entered force following deadly Chinese-Malay race riots in 1969.

The memory of May 13 – the date when sectarian violence that claimed hundreds of lives unfolded 50 years ago – still looms large in the national consciousness as ethno-nationalist activism pushed by the right-wing opposition widens polarization across political and racial lines and keeps race relations in the multi-ethnic nation on edge.

“A lot of lies were churned out” that the anti-discrimination convention Harapan pledged to ratify would have been to the detriment of ethnic Malays, said Muzaffar. “The reaction [from Malays] was very strong but Mahathir, being the seasoned politician that he is, read the signs very quickly and decided not to go ahead.”

Harapan similarly reneged on plans to accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) after critics alleged a government plot to undermine the country’s powerful constitutional monarchs, opening a fresh clash with Johor’s influential ruler, Sultan Ibrahim Ismail, and his acerbic-tongued crown prince.

“The government withdrew from the Rome Statute because it was easy to whip up sentiments along these lines, especially as one or two members of the royalty itself helped to manipulate these issues because they’re against the Harapan government and against Mahathir in particular,” Muzaffar told Asia Times.

Dennis Ignatius, a former ambassador and veteran Malaysian diplomat, believes Harapan’s leaders must first be “convinced of what they want to accomplish and then be prepared to fight tooth and nail to defend their policies. Crumbling in the face of opposition as they did on ICERD, the Rome statute sends the wrong signal and demoralizes their base,” he said.

Ignatius said that Harapan lacked “a clear vision and purpose of where they want to take the country. They need “a common plan of action on issues like national unity, education reform, the NEP and economic uplift. These are the critical issues that will define our nation going forward. I don’t see such a vision as yet.”

The veteran diplomat did, however, note that the government had made progress in some areas: “The fight against corruption, appointments that have increased the integrity of the judiciary, an election commission that we can finally have confidence in, are all very significant. They have also opened up the public space for discussion and dissent.”

“The most positive aspect of this multi-party coalition,” said Muzaffar, “is that they’ve stood together. If you look at the background of the parties involved and the constituencies that were important to each of them, the fact that they’ve remained together is an achievement, especially for Mahathir, who is the glue that holds the coalition together.”

Mahathir’s bumiputera-centric Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu), the ethnic Chinese-dominated Democratic Action Party (DAP), the left-of-center multiracial Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), progressive Islamist outfit Amanah, and Warisan, a Sabah-based political party, are among Harapan’s diverse component parties.

Given that many see the nonagenarian premier as integral to the coalition’s political cohesion, certain anxieties persist about what could happen after Mahathir steps aside. Veteran politician and reformasi icon Anwar Ibrahim, 71, is slated to take over as prime minister when Mahathir retires, though a date for that transition has not been set.

Putting a time limit on Mahathir’s rule would make him a “lame-duck leader” Anwar has claimed as he bides his time as a parliamentary backbencher. Though relations between the two men – who have been both political allies and bitter rivals at different intervals of Malaysia’s recent history – appear cordial, factional politicking continues to play out behind the scenes.

“Both Mahathir and Anwar should pay serious attention to the succession issue,” said Muzaffar, who was once the deputy president of the Anwar-led PKR, now the ruling coalition’s largest party. “While they make statements that are politically correct, if you look at their followers and manipulations that are taking place, it’s not healthy.

“One has to put a stop to it. The best way of doing that is for Anwar to join the cabinet and to become the deputy prime minister, the position which his wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, holds at the moment, making clear what the line of succession is so there won’t be any sort of internal maneuvering or attempts by one side to undermine the other,” he said.

“There is widespread support for Mahathir to stay for as long as possible but the longer he stays the harder it will be for Anwar to unite the coalition under his leadership and successfully stave off the challenge from a resurgent UMNO,” said Ignatius. “Many also have doubts about whether Anwar is the right person to lead Harapan to victory at the polls.”

“It is not cast in stone or a foregone conclusion that Anwar will lead the country,” believes Mustafa Izzuddin, a political analyst at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Institute of South Asian Studies, who noted that PKR has “been careful not to rock the political boat” and has moved “in concert with Mahathir’s Bersatu on domestic exigencies and initiatives.”

Harapan, said the academic, “has gone into auto-pilot mode [and is] simply enacting incremental domestic reforms because the priority for the government is to win the next general election by preserving, if not increasing, the support of the Malays in the light of some semblance of solidarity between UMNO and PAS.”

“Racialized politics coupled with religious fervor within the larger context of Malay nationalism will remain the prevailing orthodoxy under Harapan, although perhaps not as intense or excessive under the previous BN regime,” Mustafa said, an appraisal that would not sit well with many who cast their ballots for change on May 9 last year.

Nile Bowie is a writer and journalist with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia.

9 May 2019

Source: www.asiatimes.com

By Countercurrents Team

Sudan is going through political turmoil as military rulers are trying to capitalize Islamic and Sharia law and lingering with transition to civilian rule while the public demanding democracy are opposing imposition of Islamic and Sharia law. At the same time, female activists are seeking half of transitional authority.

Media reports said:

Sudan’s military rulers said Tuesday that they generally agreed with proposals made by protest leaders on the structure of an interim government. But the military leaders demand Islamic Sharia and local norms as basis of new Constitution.

Protesters whose months of street demonstrations helped force longtime president Omar al-Bashir leave office last month have kept up their demands for change, calling on the military officers who took over to hand over power to civilians.

Responding to a draft constitutional document presented by a coalition of protest groups and political parties, the ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC) noted that the document omitted Sharia law.

“Our view is that Islamic Sharia and the local norms and traditions in the Republic of Sudan should be the sources of legislation,” TMC spokesperson Lieutenant General Shams El Din Kabbashi told reporters.

Sudanese protest leaders rejected the use of Islamic laws. Amged Farid, the spokesperson for the Sudanese Professionals Association, told Wednesday that the usage of Islamic law is aimed at blackmailing opposition activists.

“The insertion of Islamic and Sharia issues into this situation is an attempt to practice political blackmail,” Farid said. “We are discussing transitional arrangements, transitional institutions. This is the subject, not Sharia,” said Khaled Omar Youssef, a protest leader with the opposition Sudanese Congress Party.

“Issues like Sharia or the language of the state, those are ideological weapons the former regime kept using to divide the people on the issue of mobilization, between Muslims and non-Muslims, Arabs and non-Arabs. We are not willing to sit for this game,” he said.

Salah Aldoma, a political analyst from Sudan said that using Sharia is counter-revolutionary.

“The Sudanese revolution is against political Islam and anyone seeking the backing of Islamists in Sudan will lose popularity,” he said.

Using Sharia is “the old regime discourse” according to an activist and the whole movement is about disrupting the “old regime.”

The Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces, an alliance of activists and opposition groups, sent the military council the draft constitutional document Thursday outlining its vision for the transitional period.

Earlier Tuesday the main group spearheading protests in Sudan said that the TMC had responded to its plans for an interim government structure, and it would announce its position once it had studied the reply.

Opposition threatens wave of civil disobedience

The opposition Change and Freedom alliance is threatening to wage a campaign of “civil disobedience” if the ruling TMC refuses to swiftly hand over power to a civilian authority.

At a Wednesday news conference in the capital Khartoum, Khalid Omer Youssef, secretary-general of the Sudanese Congress Party (a component of the Change and Freedom alliance) accused the TMC of “maneuvering” to avoid relinquishing executive power.

“We have many options, including demonstrations and sit-ins, along with plans for a civil disobedience campaign,” Youssef said.

“But we would rather reach a negotiated settlement with the TMC if the latter can take the situation seriously,” he added.

On Tuesday, the TMC rejected a raft of proposals tabled by the opposition alliance.

Medani Abas Medani, a leading member of the Change and Freedom alliance, said the TMC’s continued rejection of the opposition’s proposals was “complicating the situation”.

He described the TMC’s recent statements on the role of Sharia Law as “an attempt to distract attention from the main issue — namely, the sought-for handover of power to a civilian authority”.

Medani accused the TMC of “resorting to the tactics of the former regime”.

He said that Sudan’s sprawling security apparatus was “still running the country”.

On April 11, the Sudanese army announced the “removal” of President Omar al-Bashir following months of popular protest against his 30-year rule. The TMC is now overseeing a two-year “transitional period” during which it has pledged to hold free presidential elections.

Female activists seek half of transitional authority

Sudanese women leaders affiliated with the Change and Freedom alliance have claimed women’s right to half the seats in every institution of the transitional authority.

Under the name of “Sudan Women for Change”, women leaders have recently launched a protest in front of the army headquarters in Khartoum to highlight women’s will to take part in the institutions of the transitional phase.

These female figures stressed women’s role in the success of the revolution against Al-Bashir and the way they were subjected to the repression of the security services and militias of the former regime during the last four months of protest.

“Since 1989, the women’s movement has actively participated in the opposition against Al-Bashir’s old regime, despite its repressive nature, has made great sacrifices, and does not consider its just demands as a grant to be offered by anyone,” said Nahed Jabrallah, a representative of the Alliance.

She continued: “The Sudanese women have participated in organizing demonstrations, protests, harboring revolutionaries, sit-ins, and social support. Their role has not only been limited in supporting men but also in leading the daily resistance movement.”

Jabrallah considered that “it is natural to launch a campaign aiming to achieve equal participation for women in the mechanisms of change to bring about real democratic transformations using civil mechanisms that can transform the slogans of the revolution into a real fact. We will not get involved in any compromises, and we will not tolerate any attempt of manipulation in this regard”.

She stressed that “this message, which is not only designated for the military council but all the forces engaged in the Declaration of Freedom and Change, aims to ensure a genuine democratic transition that guarantees fair participation for women.”

The parties, implicated in the Declaration on Freedom and Change, have already expressed their commitment to fair representation of women in the next phase.

Women participated in Al-Bashir’s regime with a minor symbolic representation, in limited ministries of service and social nature, such as education, care, and social security.

Sharia law must be legislation source, says army chief

The ruling military council is insisting that Sharia remain the basis of the country’s new laws.

The 10-member military council said it had “many reservations” about the suggestions made by alliance demanding democracy. The military council said the protesters demanding democracy are conspicuously silent on Islamic law.

Talks between the military and opposition remain deadlocked.

The protesters’ proposals were put to the military council the coalition of activists and opposition political groups.

On Wednesday, DFCF member Khalid Umar, a leading figure in the Sudanese Congress party, said they would continue with peaceful resistance through sit-ins and other legitimate means until their demands were met.

Lt-Gen Shamseddine Kabbashi, spokesperson for the TMC, told reporters “the declaration failed to mention the sources of legislation, and the Islamic Sharia law and tradition should be the source of legislation”.

Our view is that Islamic Sharia should be the sources of legislation,” he said.

Sudan’s constitution currently specifies that Sharia is the country’s guiding principle.

Under Bashir’s rule it was used to target women. Some women’s rights organizations say thousands of women were flogged for “indecent behavior”, according to news agency AFP.

A top military council official earlier told that they would not accept a civilian-majority transitional council – a statement that sparked widespread criticism.

Demonstrators are on the streets

Demonstrators, however, have remained on the streets to demand that the military council hand over power — at the earliest possible date — to a civilian government.

Protest groups remain camped out in front of the army headquarters in Khartoum, calling for civilian rule.

Army threatens protesters demanding democracy

“We will deal with it firmly in accordance with the law,” Sudanese army threatened the protesters demanding democracy and civilian government.

The ruling TMC said Tuesday the army would not accept unrest in the country amidst continuous sit-in outside army headquarters in demand of a civil government.

“We will not accept chaos. We will deal with it firmly in accordance with the law,” Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the TMCs vice president said Tuesday. “We do not want to escalate the situation. We are committed to negotiation. After today, there will be no chaotic scenes,” he added.

A curfew and three-month emergency period were announced, which thousands of protesters defied.

Since then thousands of protesters are camping outside the army headquarters in the capital city Khartoum demanding a quick transition to a civil government.

“The military council is a copy cat of the toppled regime. The army is trying to disperse the sit-in by removing the barricades,” said the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), one of the leading groups of the movement. “We are calling on our people to come immediately to the sit-in area. We are calling on the revolutionaries to protect the barricades and rebuild them.”

UN support civilian-led transition

The United Nations say they are supporting a civilian-led transitional government in Sudan.

African Union

The African Union recently granted the Sudanese military council a three-month deadline to hand over power to a civilian administration; however, this was rejected by the opposition alliance.

AU Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat told reporters after meeting Monday with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres there is no question of sustaining the military council that assumed power after al-Bashir’s ouster, saying, “it is not acceptable.”

Politicians brawled at meeting with TMC

Representatives of political forces for a meeting with the TMC Wednesday over the participation of supporters Sudan’s former ruling party.

The TMC called for a second meeting in capital Khartoum all the forces that had presented their views on the transition period to meet them for a briefing on Wednesday.

Most of these forces were partners to the former government and an ally of the National Congress Party (NCP) of ousted President Omer al-Bashir. They were part of the National Dialogue Initiative and were part of successive Bashir governments.

According to some politicians who attended the meeting, the atmosphere was characterized from the outset by intense tension after the objection of a number of participants to the presence of personalities known for their support to the National Congress Party. Some led campaigns to re-elect President Omer al-Bashir in the 2020 elections.

Some participants chanted slogans against the Council and called for civil authority, forcing the military council members to shorten their interventions and leave the place.

Presence of a large number of members of the National Congress Party and its allies contributed to the spread of more tension to transform the meeting room to an arena of fierce fighting.

Video footage that was widely circulated showed that some of the participants had been kicked out of the seats and clashed with their hands in a state of chaos and tension.

Video footage also showed some of the participants threw chairs against each other and clashed with their hands among chaos and tension.

During the first week, the TMC even refused to recognize the Freedom and Changes forces as the legitimate parent of the revolution.

The Freedom and Change forces say the TMC wants to form a government with these small forces as the opposition refuses to accept its perception of the transitional structures.

Currency crisis deepens

In recent days, the bank machines have only dispensed small sums of cash – about $40 for the lucky few – until the money in the ATMs runs out.

It is not that the people at the bank have no money. They do. The issue, as everyone complains, is that the central bank has not delivered money to the retail banks and so customers have not been able to access their funds.

The crisis is not new. Many cash machines began running out of banknotes in November as the government scrambled to prevent economic collapse with a sharp devaluation and emergency austerity measures, a month before the beginning of the political crisis and protests that brought down the former dictator Omar al-Bashir on April 11.

The currency crisis has been fuelled by longer term and more complex economic problems, not least, a loss of foreign currency since Sudan lost three-quarters of its oil output when the south of the country seceded in 2011.

Now after five long months the shortage of cash is biting hard, despite the promise from Saudi Arabia and the UAE of $3bn in financial aid to help stabilize Sudan’s toxic economic crisis.

It is being felt most acutely, however, on a personal level.

The cash shortage, say some, has created unexpected problems in an economy where people have been selling what they own to get by.

Big ticket items such as house and car sales now have two prices, a cheaper one for those who can pay with ready cash and a higher price for payment by cheque because confidence in the banking system has been seriously eroded.

While some believe the money has been stolen, most of the problems are due to the chronic mismanagement of the former regime.

When the bank did move to devalue the pound by about 40%, it triggered soaring inflation that would become a major factor in the protests that brought down Bashir after three decades in power. An economic crisis has still not played out and could have yet more dramatic consequences.

9 May 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Vijay Prashad

On Sunday, May 5, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton announced that the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force had begun to make their way from the Mediterranean Sea toward the coastline of Iran. Iran, Bolton said, had made “a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.” He was, characteristically, not specific. It was enough that Bolton—who has a history of making hazardous statements—had made these comments from the perch of the White House in Washington, D.C. “The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime,” he said rather incredulously. After all, what is the arrival of a massive war fleet on the coastline of a country but a declaration of war?

On his way to Europe, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the “indications and warnings” included actions by the Lebanese political formation Hezbollah. Once more, Pompeo said he would give no evidence. “I don’t want to talk about what underlays it.”

The journey of the USS Abraham Lincoln through the Red Sea comes as the U.S. government tries to tighten its sanctions regime against Iran. Any country that buys Iranian oil, the United States now says, will be liable to have sanctions placed against it. The five countries most vulnerable to further U.S. sanctions are China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey. India, Japan, and South Korea have said that they would try and abide by the new, and harsh, U.S. sanctions. China and Turkey have made it clear that they will not follow the U.S. lead.

Iran’s Economy

Iran’s deputy oil minister Amir Hossein Zamaninia told Iranian state media that his ministry will oversee the sale of Iran’s oil into the “gray market.” The U.S. sanctions, Zamaninia said, are “illegal,” and therefore Iran is entitled to use all kinds of methods to circumvent them. The “gray market” includes loading tankers with Iranian oil—often sold at deep discounts—and then allowing them to alter their signals as they go out into open water. Congestion of tankers on the world’s waters makes it difficult to monitor which tanker has actually come from which port. But even if Iran sells oil on the gray market, the volumes will drop significantly, and this will impact Iran’s external revenues.

In April, the International Monetary Fund projected that Iran’s economy would likely slide downhill by 6 percent in 2019. The main reason for this continued slide is of course the U.S.-led sanctions that have whittled away at Iran’s budget and at the confidence of its people. Iran’s macroeconomic situation is hurt by large-scale budget deficits—projected to reach over $14 billion this year—and the flooding of the market with Iranian rials—so that money supplied grew by over 20 percent. Serious problems of capital flight and of tax evasion dog Iran’s prospects. Kazem Delkhosh, the deputy head of the Iranian parliament’s economic commission, estimates that about 40 percent of the country’s income is hidden from the tax authorities.

It did not help that last month Iran faced devastating floods in the country’s northeast and southwest. The damage is estimated to cost $2.5 billion. Countries that want to send financial support toward the flood victims cannot do so as a result of the U.S. sanctions on financial systems, says the Iranian Red Crescent Society. This is why in-kind aid has been the only thing that has been permitted into the country, with China sending tents and Austria sending blankets. But even in-kind aid, including from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, was blocked due to the U.S. sanctions. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter, “Iranian Red Crescent can’t receive any funds due to illegal US sanctions. US should own up to its ECONOMIC TERRORISM.”

Tensions

On Wednesday, May 8, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani will go on television and the radio to announce his country’s response to the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and to the harsh new sanctions’ regime.

The United States had permitted Russian and European firms to do work on Iran’s nuclear energy sector. Five waivers had been given to help four Iranian facilities—at the Bushehr nuclear power plant, the Fordow enrichment facility, the Arak nuclear complex and the Tehran Research Reactor. Pompeo allowed three waivers to be extended for 90 days (half the length of the previous waivers) but disallowed two. The two that were not renewed include one to Russia, which had swapped Iranian enriched uranium for Russian raw yellowcake, and one to companies that operate in Oman to store heavy water from Iran. Both Russia and Europe are not happy with this situation. Iran has refused to stop enrichment, which is essential to its nuclear energy program—legal under the terms of the 2015 agreement. It is likely that Rouhani will affirm Iran’s right to continue to enrich uranium for its power reactors.

Last month, Iran’s senior leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged his Iraqi counterparts to “make sure that the Americans withdraw their troops from Iraq as soon as possible because expelling them has become difficult whenever they have had a long military presence in a country.” Iran and Iraq have—since the U.S. war against Iraq in 2003—deepened their ties. Close economic links, including roadways and a potential train, have made both countries dependent on each other (Iraq, despite U.S. pressure, imports Iran’s oil). Khamenei referred to the 5,200 U.S. troops who remain in Iraq. Bolton has said that these troops are there to “watch Iran,” a phrase that has been widely mocked after Trump used it earlier this year.

The war of words has escalated into dangerous territory. In April, Trump’s government called Iranian military forces “terrorists.” In response, the Iranian parliament retaliated. Defense Minister General Amir Hatami put a bill forward that would allow Iran’s government to respond to the “terrorist actions” of U.S. forces. It was not clear how Iran would respond, although the bill suggested that the response could be political and diplomatic rather than military.

The U.S. government has said that Iran might target U.S. troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region. These are likely the “indications and warnings” of Bolton. There are tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Gulf. The U.S. military hardware that encircles Iran is lethal. Late last year, the Iranian government—feeling hemmed in by this military noose—proposed that it could strike U.S. forces at al-Udeid Air Base (Qatar), al-Dhafra base (United Arab Emirates) and Kandahar base (Afghanistan). “They are within our reach,” said Amirali Hajizadeh, who heads Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ air brigade. As if to provoke Iran further, in March of this year, the United States signed a deal with Oman to use its ports at Salalah and Duqm for military purposes.

Endless Wars

In his state of the union address, Trump said, “Great nations do not fight endless wars.” The United States has tried to push a new deal in Afghanistan and has tried to withdraw from the conflict in Syria. Neither of these withdrawals will be easy.

But if the United States strikes Iran, there is no doubt that the wars from Lebanon to the border of India will become endless. There is no question that Iran—much weaker militarily than the United States—will use its advantages to strike the United States inside Afghanistan and to urge its allies to strike U.S. forces in the Gulf and across North Africa. Iran’s population is deeply patriotic and would see any U.S. strike as one against the Iranian people and not just against the Iranian government. It is unlikely that the United States will find any significant allies amongst the Iranians. A war against Iran at this time would be a war against a stretch of the world that has seen too many wars in recent times, that would like to open the door to peace. Trump—with Bolton and Pence—seek to provoke a war. These are dangerous men with a dangerous agenda.

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

8 May 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By George Monbiot

It is a weapon pointed at the living world. We urgently need to develop a new system.

For most of my adult life, I’ve railed against “corporate capitalism”, “consumer capitalism” and “crony capitalism”. It took me a long time to see that the problem is not the adjective, but the noun.

While some people have rejected capitalism gladly and swiftly, I’ve done so slowly and reluctantly. Part of the reason was that I could see no clear alternative: unlike some anti-capitalists, I have never been an enthusiast for state communism. I was also inhibited by its religious status. To say “capitalism is failing” in the 21st century is like saying “God is dead” in the 19th. It is secular blasphemy. It requires a degree of self-confidence I did not possess.

But as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to recognise two things. First, that it is the system, rather than any variant of the system, which drives us inexorably towards disaster. Second, that you do not have to produce a definitive alternative to say that capitalism is failing. The statement stands in its own right. But it also demands another, and different, effort to develop a new system.

Capitalism’s failures arise from two of its defining elements. The first is perpetual growth. Economic growth is the aggregate effect of the quest to accumulate capital and extract profit. Capitalism collapses without growth, yet perpetual growth on a finite planet leads inexorably to environmental calamity.

Those who defend capitalism argue that, as consumption switches from goods to services, economic growth can be decoupled from the use of material resources. Last week, a paper in the journal New Political Economy by Jason Hickel and Giorgos Kallis examined this premise. They found that while some relative decoupling took place in the 20th century (material resource consumption grew, but not as quickly as economic growth), in the 21st there has been a re-coupling: rising resource consumption has so far matched or exceeded the rate of economic growth. The absolute decoupling needed to avert environmental catastrophe (a reduction in material resource use) has never been achieved, and appears impossible while economic growth continues. Green growth is an illusion.

A system based on perpetual growth cannot function without peripheries and externalities. There must always be an extraction zone, from which materials are taken without full payment, and a disposal zone, where costs are dumped in the form of waste and pollution. As the scale of economic activity increases, until capitalism affects everything from the atmosphere to the deep ocean floor, the entire planet becomes a sacrifice zone: we all inhabit the periphery of the profit-making machine.

This drives us towards cataclysm on such a scale that most people have no means of imagining it. The threatened collapse of our life support systems is bigger by far than war, famine, pestilence or economic crisis, though it is likely to incorporate all four. Societies can recover from these apocalyptic events, but not from the loss of soil, an abundant biosphere and a habitable climate.

The second defining element is the bizarre assumption that a person is entitled to as great a share of the world’s natural wealth as their money can buy. This seizure of common goods causes three further dislocations. First, the scramble for exclusive control of non-reproducible assets, which implies either violence or legislative truncations of other people’s rights. Second, the immiseration of other people by an economy based on looting across both space and time. Third, the translation of economic power into political power, as control over essential resources leads to control over the social relations that surround them.

In the New York Times on Sunday, the Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz sought to distinguish between good capitalism, that he called “wealth creation”, and bad capitalism, that he called “wealth grabbing” (extracting rent). I understand his distinction, but from the environmental point of view, wealth creation is wealth grabbing. Economic growth, intrinsically linked to the increasing use of material resources, means seizing natural wealth from both living systems and future generations.

To point to such problems is to invite a barrage of accusations, many of which are based on this premise: capitalism has rescued hundreds of millions of people from poverty – now you want to impoverish them again. It is true that capitalism, and the economic growth it drives, has radically improved the prosperity of vast numbers of people, while simultaneously destroying the prosperity of many others: those whose land, labour and resources were seized to fuel growth elsewhere. Much of the wealth of the rich nations was – and is – built on slavery and colonial expropriation.

Like coal, capitalism has brought many benefits. But, like coal, it now causes more harm than good. Just as we have found means of generating useful energy that are better and less damaging than coal, so we need to find means of generating human wellbeing that are better and less damaging than capitalism.

There is no going back: the alternative to capitalism is neither feudalism nor state communism. Soviet communism had more in common with capitalism than the advocates of either system would care to admit. Both systems are (or were) obsessed with generating economic growth. Both are willing to inflict astonishing levels of harm in pursuit of this and other ends. Both promised a future in which we would need to work for only a few hours a week, but instead demand endless, brutal labour. Both are dehumanising. Both are absolutist, insisting that theirs and theirs alone is the one true God.

So what does a better system look like? I don’t have a complete answer, and I don’t believe any one person does. But I think I see a rough framework emerging. Part of it is provided by the ecological civilisation proposed by Jeremy Lent, one of the greatest thinkers of our age. Other elements come from Kate Raworth’s doughnut economics and the environmental thinking of Naomi Klein, Amitav Ghosh, Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq, Raj Patel and Bill McKibben. Part of the answer lies in the notion of “private sufficiency, public luxury”. Another part arises from the creation of a new conception of justice, based on this simple principle: every generation, everywhere shall have an equal right to the enjoyment of natural wealth.

I believe our task is to identify the best proposals from many different thinkers and shape them into a coherent alternative. Because no economic system is only an economic system, but intrudes into every aspect of our lives, we need many minds from various disciplines – economic, environmental, political, cultural, social and logistical – working collaboratively to create a better way of organising ourselves, that meets our needs without destroying our home.

Our choice comes down to this. Do we stop life to allow capitalism to continue, or stop capitalism to allow life to continue?

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About George Monbiot: Here are some of the things I try to fight: undemocratic power, corruption, deception of the public, environmental destruction, injustice, inequality and the misallocation of resources, waste, denial, the libertarianism which grants freedom to the powerful at the expense of the powerless, undisclosed interests, complacency.

6 May 2019

Source: www.transcend.org