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During recent weeks, evidence has piled up that U.S. and European economies, far from recovering, are swirling back into recession. Failure of American politicians to address the federal debt crisis, the U.S. credit rating downgrade, and increasing fragility of European economies have investors running for the hills.

Richard Heinberg is Senior Fellow-in-Residence at Post Carbon Institute. He is the author of ten books, including The Party’s Over, Peak Everything, and the soon-to-be-released The End of Growth. He is widely regarded as one of the world’s most effective communicators of the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels.

By Richard Heinberg

8 September 2011

@ Post Carbon Institute

TRIPOLI, Libya — The United States formally reopened its embassy in Libya on Thursday as the returning ambassador said that his government was cautiously optimistic about the country’s future and already trying to help American companies exploit business opportunities here.

Speaking to reporters after the ceremonial flag-raising over a makeshift post that was once his residence, Ambassador Gene A. Cretz said that about two weeks ago — roughly a week after forces loyal to the deposed Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, were driven out of Tripoli — he participated in a State Department conference call with about 150 American companies hoping to do business with Libya.

“We know that oil is the jewel in the crown of Libyan natural resources, but even in Qaddafi’s time they were starting from A to Z in terms of building infrastructure and other things” after the country had begun opening up to the West six years ago, he said. “If we can get American companies here on a fairly big scale, which we will try to do everything we can to do that, then this will redound to improve the situation in the United States with respect to our own jobs.”

His remarks were a rare nod to the tacit economic stakes in the Libyan conflict for the United States and other Western countries, not only because of Libya’s oil resources but also because of the goods and services those resources enable it to purchase.

Oil was never the “predominant reason” for the American intervention, Mr. Cretz said, but his comments — which came at a moment when the fighters who chased out Colonel Qaddafi have not yet caught him or fully vanquished his forces — underlined the American eagerness for a cut of any potential profits.

Elsewhere on Thursday, Tripoli’s new leaders continued to inch forward toward their twin goals of subduing the old government and building a new one. Officials of neighboring Tunisia said Thursday that on the previous night their security forces had arrested the last of Colonel Qaddafi’s figurehead prime ministers, Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi, for crossing its border illegally while fleeing Libya. A Tunisian court immediately sentenced him to six months in prison for illegal entry, the government said.

The Libyan provisional government said that anti-Qaddafi fighters continued to battle loyalist forces in the area around Colonel Qaddafi’s southern stronghold and onetime childhood home of Sabha. Anti-Qaddafi fighters also remained locked in standoffs with Qaddafi forces in his other two remaining bastions, Surt on the Mediterranean coast and Bani Walid in the desert south of Tripoli.

Libya’s provisional government has already said it is eager to welcome Western businesses, although both Mr. Cretz and the Libyan leaders acknowledged that addressing the rampant corruption of the Qaddafi era remains a potential hurdle.

In a news conference last week, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, chairman of Libya’s Transitional National Council — the civilian leadership of the former rebels — said the new government would even give its Western backers some “priority” in access to Libyan business.

There had been no promises to its Western supporters, he said, “But as a faithful Muslim people we will appreciate these efforts and they will have priority within a framework of transparency.”

But he also acknowledged that the “framework of transparency” could be a significant qualification, at least as far as the many contracts with Western companies signed under the Qaddafi government. While the provisional government had respected “all legitimate contracts” from the Qaddafi period, it was undertaking a systematic review “for whatever financial corruption may have tainted them.”

Cleaning up the former government’s habitual corruption was all the United States hoped for, Mr. Cretz said, but he acknowledged it was a tall order. “The stench of corruption affected everything that the Qaddafi regime did with respect to commercial entities,” he said. “The bureaucracy was rife with it because that was the way it was done, and the family was at the top. Every deal involved a payoff to the Qaddafi family or a crony.”

Still, Libya’s new leaders, he said, appeared “willing to accede to international standards of transparency and accountability, and I think that is a good thing.”

In the final years of the Qaddafi government, Mr. Cretz wrote vividly of its rampant corruption in diplomatic cables released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, including a 2009 dispatch titled “Al-Qadhafi: The Philosopher-King Keeps His Hand In.” After the release of those cables late last year, he said Thursday, he had been “physically threatened” and “I had to leave immediately.”

The United States abandoned its embassy when the uprising began in February, and on May 1, the empty building was ransacked by Qaddafi forces, ostensibly in retaliation for the death of Colonel Qaddafi’s son, Seif al-Arab, in a NATO bombing.

Reviewing the situation he found on his return, Mr. Cretz cited several factors for concern, including the challenge of disarming the newly armed populace and many autonomous militias; the many fissures within the anti-Qaddafi forces along regional or other lines; and the potential for militant or at least anti-Western Islamists to take control.

But so far, he said, the Islamists were emphasizing moderation, democracy and pluralism, and the Libyan leaders deserved a chance to overcome their differences. “Don’t underestimate the Libyan people because they have shown for the last six months what a truly heroic people is,” he said.

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

22 September 2011

@ The New York Times

More Americans are living in poverty than at any time since records began more than 50 years ago as a weak economic recovery has failed to lift incomes.

In 2010, 46.2m people fell below the poverty line, calculated as an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four and $11,139 for an individual, according to the Census Bureau.

The increase lifted the poverty rate to 15.1 per cent of the US population, the highest since 1993 and almost 1 percentage point higher than the year before, according to the US census bureau. It will add to pressure on Barack Obama to stimulate the jobs market, where unemployment stands at 9.1 per cent.

“To have hit 15.1 per cent is truly extraordinary,” said Alice O’Connor, a professor who studies poverty at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“We are entering territory which looks like the period before we even started fighting a ‘War on Poverty’ in the 1960s. It’s quite stunning. This is a terrible statement about the depths of the Great Recession but, even more, about the recovery, which has clearly left the poorest out completely.”

The aftermath of the recession has seen a “two-speed” recovery for Americans, as the wealthiest maintain their spending habits and lifestyles while a record number of their fellow citizens are mired in poverty.

The median household income of Americans dropped 2.3 per cent in 2010 from the previous year, hit by increasing long-term unemployment which has depressed wages and left many without income. Median wages peaked in 1999 and are still 7 per cent below that level, suggesting that incomes have never fully recovered from the downturn the followed the dotcom bust.

The number of Americans without health insurance also rose by nearly 1m people to 49.9m. “Income down, poverty up, health insurance coverage down or flat. The news on economic well-being in the US is not good,” said Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Nearly a quarter of American children are living in poverty. Their number increased for the fourth year in a row to 22 per cent, the highest since 1993. Child poverty was the fourth highest in 2010 since the mid-1960s, when the federal “War on Poverty’ was launched by President Lyndon Johnson.

Analysts do not expect a turnround any time soon. “Given the widely accepted projections that both unemployment and, in particular, long-term unemployment will continue at high rates for the next several years, we can expect this pattern of continuing low income and high poverty rates for many years,” Mr Haskins added.

Meanwhile, on the same day as the poverty figures were announced, Ipsos Mendelsohn, the media research group, released figures that show things are apparently looking up for the top tier of US earners.

The group’s annual survey of affluent Americans found that the number of households making more than $100,000 a year was 44.2m in 2011, compared with 44.1m the previous year. Their spending held steady at $1,400bn after previously falling.

“Their life has stabilised,” said Bob Shullman, Ipsos Mendelsohn president. “Everyone feels it when their income falls but, when you have less discretionary income, you feel it more. It doesn’t hurt [the rich] as much.”

The survey, which polled 14,405 wealthy adults, found “almost all affluents are planning a wide range of activities in the next year, with travelling, remodelling, and investing topping this list”.

However, the latest census figures underscore the difficulties facing the US federal and state governments as they seek to reduce deficits and help growing numbers of the poor. Republicans in Washington have targeted programmes that subsidise healthcare for the poor and elderly, Medicaid and Medicare, as well as Social Security benefits for the elderly.

If planned cutbacks take effect and unemployment remains high, analysts predict that life for the poor and middle class will become even harder.

According to Brookings, the poverty rate will continue to rise and hit 16 per cent in 2014. If that happens, nearly 10m Americans will have sunk into poverty since the recession began in 2007. The latest figures showing the divergence between the recovery of the rich and poor come as Mr Obama pushes the $447bn jobs plan unveiled last week. The White House has said it wants to fund most of the package through curbing tax breaks for the richest.

At the same time, the growing income gap is worrying policymakers who are concerned about the effects on aggregate demand if wages continue to stagnate.

In 2009, the median full-time male worker aged 25-64 was earning $48,000 – roughly the same as in 1969 in real terms. Meanwhile, in the same 40-year period, the income of the top 2 per cent of working age men has jumped 75 per cent.

By Matt Kennard and Shannon Bond

13 September 2011

@ Financial Times

US eyes Asia from secret Australian base

SYDNEY, Sept 19, 2011 (AFP) – Deep in the silence of Australia’s Outback desert an imposing American spy post set up at the height of the Cold War is now turning its attention to Asia’s growing armies and arsenals.

Officially designated United States territory and manned by agents from some of America’s most sensitive intelligence agencies, the Pine Gap satellite station has been involved in some of the biggest conflicts in modern times.

But its role in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, and in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, had been little recognised until one of its most senior spies broke ranks recently to pen a tell-all account.

Intelligence analyst David Rosenberg spent 18 years at the base, 20 kilometres (12.4 miles) south of Alice Springs, working with top-secret clearance for the National Security Agency (NSA), home to America’s code-cracking elite.

Formally known as the “Joint Defence Space Research Facility”, Pine Gap is one of Washington’s biggest intelligence collection posts, intercepting weapons and communications signals via a series of satellites orbiting Earth.

Australia has had joint leadership at the post and access to all intercepted material since 1980, but the base’s history is not without controversy.

Former prime minister Gough Whitlam was sensationally sacked by the British monarchy — allegedly at American urging — not long after he threatened to close Pine Gap in 1975, although other domestic political issues were also involved in his removal.

Its futuristic domes were originally built as a weapon in America’s spy war with Russia, officially starting operations in 1970, but Rosenberg says it is now targeting the US-led “war on terror” and Asia’s military boom.

“There’s a large segment of the world that are weapons-producing countries who have programmes that the United States and Australia are interested in, and obviously a lot of Asia encompasses that area,” Rosenberg told AFP.

The career spy is under a lifetime secrecy agreement with the NSA, meaning he cannot reveal classified information and is limited in what he can say about his time at Pine Gap, but said North Korea and China were among its targets.

“I think any country that has a large military, is a large weapons producer, is always going to be a focus for the intelligence community and China of course is growing and it’s growing rapidly,” he said.

“There are developments there that we are looking at.”

India and Pakistan were also “very much of a concern”, he added, with a surprise nuclear test by New Delhi in 1998 catching Pine Gap’s analysts “blind”.

The latter half of his time at the mysterious station known to locals as the “Space Base” was dominated by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an intense focus on Al-Qaeda following the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Rosenberg recalls that day as his most sombre in the job, with analysts scouring the region for clues on what was going to happen next, knowing instantly that Al-Qaeda was responsible and fearing they would strike again.

“While these attacks were happening we of course were thinking how many other simultaneous or near-simultaneous actions are going to happen?” he said.

“We didn’t know how many other attacks had been planned that day.”

It was also a huge wake-up call to the fragmented spy community, he added, who soon realised all the signs had been there of an impending attack but they had failed to piece them together to perhaps prevent 9/11.

Delays also allowed Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders to escape into hiding, a “significant intelligence failure” which left agents with a 10-year hunt Rosenberg was not around to see completed — one of his few regrets.

It was “certainly possible” that Pine Gap was involved in the US mission which ultimately saw Bin Laden killed in Pakistan in May, he added.

He sees “cyber-warfare” such as state-endorsed hacking and increasingly portable technology allowing, for example, the remote detonation of a bomb with a mobile phone, as the next big front for the intelligence community.

Rosenberg’s book offers a rare insight into the mysterious world of military espionage, discussing widespread doubts amongst spies about the since-debunked claims of weapons of mass destruction that presaged the invasion of Iraq.

It was screened 16 times before publication by four intelligence agencies — three American and one Australian — and has been altered or blacked out in sections through an arduous censorship process which saw him, at one point, taken into a vault in Canberra for interrogation.

Defence officials were also due to seize and destroy his computer hard-drive to ensure classified elements of the original manuscript were wiped out.

But the self-confessed “Mission: Impossible” fan said he had no regrets about telling his story.

“Imagine being in a job where secrecy surrounds everything you did for 23 years — it’s kind of like letting the cork out of a champagne bottle, all the secrets come flowing out,” he said.

“It was quite a liberating experience for me.”

ANKARA, Turkey — A newly assertive Turkey offered on Sunday a vision of a starkly realigned Middle East, where the country’s former allies in Syria and Israel fall into deeper isolation, and a burgeoning alliance with Egypt underpins a new order in a region roiled by revolt and revolution.

The portrait was described by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey in an hourlong interview before he was to leave for the United Nations, where a contentious debate was expected this week over a Palestinian bid for recognition as a state. Viewed by many as the architect of a foreign policy that has made Turkey one of the most relevant players in the Muslim world, Mr. Davutoglu pointed to that issue and others to describe a region in the midst of a transformation. Turkey, he said, was “right at the center of everything.”

He declared that Israel was solely responsible for the near collapse in relations with Turkey, once an ally, and he accused Syria’s president of lying to him after Turkish officials offered the government there a “last chance” to salvage power by halting its brutal crackdown on dissent.

Strikingly, he predicted a partnership between Turkey and Egypt, two of the region’s militarily strongest and most populous and influential countries, which he said could create a new axis of power at a time when American influence in the Middle East seems to be diminishing.

“This is what we want,” Mr. Davutoglu said.

“This will not be an axis against any other country — not Israel, not Iran, not any other country, but this will be an axis of democracy, real democracy,” he added. “That will be an axis of democracy of the two biggest nations in our region, from the north to the south, from the Black Sea down to the Nile Valley in Sudan.”

His comments came after a tour last week by Turkish leaders — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mr. Davutoglu among them — of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the three Arab countries that have undergone revolutions this year. His criticism of old allies and embrace of new ones underscored the confidence of Turkey these days, as it tries to position itself on the winning side in a region unrecognizable from a year ago.

Unlike an anxious Israel, a skeptical Iran and a United States whose regional policy has been criticized as seeming muddled and even contradictory at times, Turkey has recovered from early missteps to offer itself as a model for democratic transition and economic growth at a time when the Middle East and northern Africa have been seized by radical change. The remarkably warm reception of Turkey in the Arab world — a region Turks once viewed with disdain — is a development almost as seismic as the Arab revolts and revolutions themselves.

Mr. Davutoglu credited a “psychological affinity” between Turkey and much of the Arab world, which was ruled by the Ottoman Empire for four centuries from Istanbul.

The foreign minister, 52, remains more scholar than politician, though he has a diplomat’s knack for bridging divides. Cerebral and soft-spoken, he offered a speech this summer to Libyan rebels in Benghazi — in Arabic. Soon after the revolution in Tunisia, he hailed the people there as the “sons of Ibn Khaldoun,” one of the Arab world’s greatest philosophers, born in Tunis in the 14th century. “We’re not here to teach you,” he said. “You know what to do. Ibn Khaldoun’s grandsons deserve the best political system.”

That sense of cultural affinity has facilitated Turkey’s entry into the region, as has the successful model of Mr. Davutoglu’s Justice and Development Party, whose deeply pious leaders have won three consecutive elections, presided over a booming economy and inaugurated reform that has made Turkey a more liberal, modern and confident place. Mr. Erdogan’s defense of Palestinian rights and criticism of Israel — relations between Turkey and Israel collapsed after Israeli troops killed nine people on board a Turkish flotilla trying to break the blockade of Gaza in 2010 — has bolstered his popularity.

Last week, Mr. Erdogan was afforded a rapturous welcome in Egypt, where thoroughfares were adorned with his billboard-size portraits. (“Lend us Erdogan for a month!” wrote a columnist in Al Wafd, an Egyptian newspaper.)

Mr. Davutolglu, who accompanied him there, said Egypt would become the focus of Turkish efforts, as an older American-backed order, buttressed by Israel, Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, prerevolutionary Egypt, begins to crumble. On the vote over a Palestinian state, the United States, in particular, finds itself almost completely isolated.

He also predicted that Turkey’s $1.5 billion investment in Egypt would grow to $5 billion within two years and that total trade would increase to $5 billion, from $3.5 billion now, by the end of 2012, then $10 billion by 2015. As if to underscore the importance Turkey saw in economic cooperation, 280 businessmen accompanied the Turkish delegation, and Mr. Davutoglu said they signed about $1 billion in contracts in a single day.

“For democracy, we need a strong economy,” he said.

Other countries — Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel — would undoubtedly look upon an Egyptian-Turkish axis with alarm. Just a year ago, Egypt’s own president, Hosni Mubarak, viewed Turkey, and Mr. Erdogan in particular, with skepticism and suspicion. But in the view of Mr. Davutoglu, such an alliance was a force for stability.

“For the regional balance of power, we want to have a strong, very strong Egypt,” said Mr. Davutoglu, who has visited the Egyptian capital five times since Mr. Mubarak was overthrown in February. “Some people may think Egypt and Turkey are competing. No. This is our strategic decision. We want a strong Egypt now.”

The phrase “zero problems” is a famous dictum written by Mr. Davutoglu, who served as Mr. Erdogan’s chief foreign policy adviser before becoming foreign minister. By it, he meant that Turkey would strive to end conflicts with its neighbors. Successes have been few. Problems remain with Armenia, and Turkey was unable to resolve the conflict in Cyprus, still divided into Greek and Turkish zones. Turkey’s agreement to host a radar installation as part of a NATO missile defense system has rankled neighboring Iran.

Most spectacularly, its relations with Israel collapsed after the Israeli government refused a series of Turkish demands that followed the attack on the boat: an apology, compensation for the victims and a lifting of Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip.

“Nobody can blame Turkey or any other country in the region for its isolation,” he said of Israel. “It was Israel and the government’s decision to isolate themselves. And they will be isolated even more if they continue this policy of rejecting any proposal.”

Caught by surprise by the Arab revolts — as pretty much everyone was — Turkey staggered. At least $15 billion in investments were lost in the civil war in Libya, and Turkish diplomats initially opposed NATO’s intervention. For years, Turkey cultivated ties with Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, seeing Syria as its fulcrum for integrating the region’s economies. Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Assad counted themselves as friends.

Syria’s failure to — as Mr. Davutoglu put it — heed Turkey’s advice has wrecked relations, and Turkey is now hosting Syrian opposition conferences and groups.

Last month, in meetings that lasted more than six hours, Mr. Davutoglu said Mr. Assad agreed on a Turkish road map — announcing a specific date for parliamentary elections by year’s end, repealing a constitutional provision that enshrined power in the ruling Baath Party, drafting a constitution by the newly elected Parliament and then holding another election once the constitution decided between a presidential or a parliamentary system. Despite face-to-face assurances, Mr. Assad did not follow through.

“For us, that was the last chance,” Mr. Davutoglu said.

Asked if he felt betrayed, he replied, “Yes, of course.”

Mr. Davutoglu accused Mr. Assad of “not fulfilling promises and not telling the truth.”

“This is the illusion of autocratic regimes,” he said. “They think that in a few days they will control the situation. Not today, but tomorrow, next week, next month. They don’t see. And this is a vicious circle.”

By ANTHONY SHADID

18 September 2011

@ The New York Times

More than a week after the NATO-led “rebels” invaded the Libyan capital of Tripoli, the city’s 2 million residents are facing a deepening humanitarian crisis, deprived of water, electricity, adequate food supplies and desperately needed medical care.

While the downfall of the 42-year-old regime of Col. Muammar Gaddafi has been universally proclaimed, the whereabouts of Gaddafi himself are still not known. The principal leaders of the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council (NTC)—recognized by the major powers as the “legitimate” government of Libya—have yet to set foot in Tripoli.

Sporadic fighting continues to be reported in the capital, while NATO and the insurgent forces it has sponsored are preparing for a siege of Sirte, the coastal city of 100,000 that is Gaddafi’s home town and a center of his tribe, the Gaddafas.

NATO warplanes have conducted dozens of air strikes against Sirte, which straddles the highway leading from Tripoli in the west to Libya’s second largest city, Benghazi, to the east.

The pretense that this air war is being carried out under the United Nations mandate to protect Libyan civilians has become increasingly ludicrous as US, British and French warplanes are used to pound civilian population centers to prepare the way for invading “rebel” armies.

The head of the self-appointed NTC, Mustafa Abel Jalil, told a meeting of NATO envoys in Qatar Monday that the bombings should continue because “Gaddafi is still capable of doing something awful in the last moments.” He added that the ousted Libyan leader’s “defiance of the coalition forces still poses a danger, not only for Libya but for the world.”

Meanwhile, a United Nations watchdog web site published a leaked document that contains draft plans for a UN “peacekeeping” deployment in Libya, which would involve dispatching several hundred foreign military observers and police. The thrust of the UN mission, according to the 10-page document, would be to “contribute to confidence building and to the implementation of agreed military tasks.” The “confidence building,” it adds, “might be necessary for the troops of the Gaddafi government which will find themselves under the control of hostile forces.”

In other words, the key question perceived by the major powers is resurrecting the repressive apparatus of the Gaddafi regime under new, and presumably more pliant, management. As for the “agreed military tasks,” primary among them would be disarming the population.

The document calls for 200 unarmed military observers and 190 UN police officers to be sent to Libya. The document adds, however, that if the stabilization of Tripoli required more “robust international assistance,” this would be beyond the UN’s capabilities. In that case, it states, “the only viable option to ensure a safe environment in Tripoli are the transitional authorities themselves, with the advice of those who are already assisting or advising them.”

It continues: “The Security Council’s ‘protection of civilians’ mandate implemented by NATO forces does not end with the fall of the Gaddafi government, and there, NATO would continue to have some responsibilities.”

The clear implication is that should NATO see the necessity of deploying ground troops in Libya for the purpose of “restoring order,” it could claim to be implementing the UN Security Council resolution for “protection of civilians,” even as it suppressed civilian opposition to a new Western-backed puppet regime.

Some have suggested that this dirty work be contracted out to Arab regimes, such as Qatar or the United Arab Emirates, likely bolstered by mercenaries hired through military contractors. The CNT’s Jalil has called for any foreign troops to be “Arab or Islamic.” Italy’s defense minister, Ignazio La Russa, recently expressed himself along similar lines, declaring, “We cannot rule out the presence of UN troops, so long as they come from Arab or African countries.”

The Times of London on Monday described the current situation in Tripoli as follows: “Seventy percent of the capital’s homes have no running water… Large parts of the city have little or no electricity. Fresh produce, milk and cooking gas are all but unattainable… At the zoo, keepers are cutting branches from trees to feed the hippopotamuses and monkeys and say they are short of water. ‘The animals are in danger,’ said one, Ali Abdullah Conti.

“Hospitals are running out of oxygen, fixators for treating fractures, and drugs for conditions such as diabetes… The city is filled with the stench of rubbish, and occasional corpses, rotting in the heat. Telephones work only intermittently. Most commercial life ceased months ago. Many people have no money left because the banks are shut and salaries have not been paid.”

The continuing discovery of victims of massacres and summary executions across Tripoli has created an atmosphere of fear and terror in the Libyan capital. Reuters’ Peter Graff described the killings as “a harrowing warning that more carnage may lie ahead.”

“[A]s bodies lay in fetid piles in the streets of the capital this week,” Graff reported, “Libyans faced the prospect that, as in Iraq in 2003, the fall of a dictator could mark the beginning, rather than the end, of the war’s most violent phase.”

Referring to last week’s grim discovery of dozens of bodies of massacred Gaddafi supporters at a traffic circle outside the Libyan ruler’s compound, Graff wrote: “Since then, Reuters and other news organizations have found scores of other bodies in the capital, especially in Abu Salim, home to many Gadhafi government officials and their families. Friday brought the discovery of the abandoned Abu Salim hospital building, full of corpses lying on cots.

“The exact circumstances of the killings are still not clear, but these were not fighters left where they were killed on the battlefield. Gadhafi’s supporters will doubtlessly blame the rebels for carrying out large-scale revenge killings.”

The discovery of dozens more bodies in government jail cells, apparently massacred by Gaddafi’s security forces, has fueled the drive for revenge.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned Monday that the lack of drinking water, which extends well beyond Tripoli—from Misrata to the east and to the Tunisian border to the west—threatens to produce a serious public health crisis.

In addition to providing water, the ICRC has made it a priority to distribute body bags and train volunteers in “dead body management.”

The African Union Monday announced that it would withhold recognition of the National Transitional Council as Libya’s legitimate government because of the widespread killing and abuse of black African workers by the so-called “rebels.”

One of the facets of Tripoli’s crisis, the piling up of trash in the city’s streets, is directly attributable to these criminal pogroms. The overwhelming majority of the city’s sanitation workers are sub-Saharan African immigrants, who are now in hiding, in fear for their lives.

The African Union charged that the NATO-backed forces were indiscriminately rounding up and killing African migrants solely because of their skin color. It warned that the lives of tens of thousands of migrant workers were in danger, as “rebels” were branding people with black skins “mercenaries” and lynching them.

“We need clarification because the NTC seems to confuse black people with mercenaries… They are killing normal workers,” Jean Ping, the chairman of the Commission of the African Union told reporters in Ethiopia Monday. “[The rebels seem to think] all blacks are mercenaries. If you do that it means [that] one-third of the population of Libya which is black is also mercenaries. They are killing people, normal workers, mistreating them.”

The NTC responded with a bald denial that any such killings or cases of abuse have taken place, despite their being confirmed by many news reports from the country. “This never took place,” said an NTC spokesman. “If it happened, it will be the Gaddafi forces.”

As the carnage continued to unfold, major Western energy conglomerates pressed for advantage in what they anticipate will be a profit bonanza from the NATO-led “regime change” in Libya. The National Transitional Council signed an agreement Monday with the state-backed Italian energy firm ENI calling for a “rapid and complete” resumption of the company’s activities in Libya. The memorandum of understanding was procured by the oil firm’s CEO, Paolo Scaroni, who went to Benghazi for the signing.

ENI was the largest producer operating in Libya before the NATO war. The company’s shares rose 3.1 percent on the announcement.

Meanwhile, the French government, the first to recognize the CNT, announced that it has reopened its embassy in Tripoli and a foreign ministry spokesman stressed that “there’s no time to lose” in promoting reconstruction in Libya. The government of President Nicolas Sarkozy, which will host a Libyan contact group meeting in Paris Thursday, is widely seen as pressing for advantage, particularly for the French oil giant Total, based on France’s aggressive posture in the war.

A column published in the Italian daily La Stampa on Sunday warned that France was preparing to switch from its military onslaught against Libya to “fighting a cold war to prevent Italian companies from winning back their priority positions in the network of oil wells” set up by ENI.

By Bill Van Auken

30 August 2011

WSWS.org

In all honesty, I really have many other things to do than waste my time commenting on what has to be one of the most inane and counter-productive debates in Malaysian politics today. Yet as the tide of silliness gains strength all around us, I feel it necessary to add my two cents’ worth to this debate, before I get back to my real work which happens to be teaching and research, so here it goes…

It appears that some academics in Malaysia now claim that Malaya (as it was then called) was never colonised by the British after all- or at least that the Malay kingdoms were never colonies in the fullest sense of the word, but rather protectorates. This is, literally, correct and it has to be said that the legal-political status of these states were precisely that: Protectorates rather than colonies. But we need to raise some crucial questions at this point in order to flesh out the debate a little further, and try to understand how and why such an arrangement came about in the first place.

Firstly, it ought to be noted that the use of the term ‘Protectorate’ rather than ‘colony’ offered (then, in the 19th century) a fig-leaf of respectability to what can only be described as a mad scramble for power and domination by the British who were not satisfied with the acquisition of their outright colonies in Penang, Dindings, Malacca and Singapore. By the 1870s, members of the British merchantile community in the colonies were demanding more British intervention into the Malay kingdoms so that the British could have direct access to the tin ore and fertile land for rubber and palm oil production. Simply put, Penang, Malacca and Singapore were too small for their own capital investment and market concerns, and they wished to have more control over resources in the Malay kingdoms. To this end, the so-called ‘Forward Movement’ policy was devised to facilitate British colonial intervention into the Malay lands.

By the time the British – through means both fair and foul – gained control over the kingdoms of Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang, they instituted new treaties that placed the Malay rulers at a tremendous disadvantage. It has to be remembered that before this the Malay kingdoms were independent sovereign states in their own right, and each kingdom was in fact its own country with its own government, economy, courts of law etc. All of this was eroded by the British whose mode of indirect rule meant the introduction of the office of the colonial Resident, whose role and status was that of the de facto administrator of the states; and the Malay rulers were coerced (often at the point of a gun or cannon) to concede control to the British in matters political and economic.

With the arrival of the British in Pahang and the installation of a Resident (John Pickersgill Rodger[1]) at the court in Pekan in 1888, Pahang was ‘opened up’ to the outside world – though the only foreign capital that was henceforth welcomed in the state was British, and not other European capital. British ships began to dock at the ports of Pahang and a bi-weekly ferry service was introduced that brought with it a regular mail service as well.  British commercial investments were initially focused on gold and tin-mining – both of which required the mapping of the territory as well as the importation of manual labour. Coming just a year after the British had installed Sultan Idris Shah as the new British-backed ruler of Perak (after having defeated Sultan Abdullah and sent him into exile), the turn of events in Pahang in 1888 signalled that Sultan Ahmad Shah’s days as the ruler of Pahang were effectively over.

As in the Pangkor treaty that was signed by Sultan Abdullah of Perak with the British, the 1888 treaty between Pahang and the British meant that henceforth Sultan Ahmad al-Mu’azzam Shah would be forced to accept the presence of a colonial Resident appointed to the court of Pekan, and Pahang’s affairs would come under the auspices of the colonial office based in Singapore. Pahang was forced to open itself up to foreign capital and to accept the currency of the Straits Settlements as well, according to the terms of the Pahang treaty – which also stipulated that henceforth the Sultan of Pahang was not even allowed to enter into diplomatic relations with any other state without prior approval from the British government.

The terms of the 1888 treaty between Pahang and the British made it abundantly clear that the latter were about to gain command over the territory and economy of the former. Act 1 of the treaty bound Pahang to the other British states, compelling it to come to their defence when requested to do so. Act 2 of the treaty stated that ‘His Highness the Raja of Pahang undertakes if requested by the government of the Straits Settlements to co-operate in making arrangements for facilitating trade and transit communication overland through the state of Pahang with the state of Johore and other neighbouring states’, while Act 3 stated that ‘If the government of the Straits Settlements shall at any time desire to appoint a British officer as Agent to live within the state of Pahang having functions similar to those of a Consular Officer, His Highness the Raja will be prepared to provide free of cost a suitable site within his territory whereon a residence may be erected for occupation by such officer’.

Act 4 stipulated that the currency of the Straits Settlements will be in use in Pahang, and that henceforth the mint of Pahang would not be allowed to produce coinage and other currency without following the limitations set by the government of the Straits Settlements, while Act 5 noted that ‘The Governor of the Straits Settlements will at all times to the utmost of his power take whatever steps necessary to protect the government and territory of Pahang from external hostile attacks’, and in so doing demanded the same co-operation from the ruler of Pahang.

Crucially, Act 6 of the treaty made it clear that ‘The Raja of Pahang undertakes on his part that he will not, without the knowledge and consent of Her Majesty’s government negotiate any treaty or enter into any engagement with any foreign state’, or ‘interfere in the politics of administration of any native state’. The same act further added that ‘It is further agreed that if occasion should arise for political correspondence between His Highness the Raja and any foreign state, such correspondence shall be conducted through Her Majesty’s government, to whom His Highness makes over the guidance and control of his foreign relations’.

Act 6 thus effectively robbed Sultan Ahmad and any of the future rulers of Pahang of the right to engage in any diplomatic relations with any other Malay or European kingdom. [Re: Treaties and Other Papers connected with the Native states of the Malay Peninsula, Government Printing House, Singapore, 1888. pp. 42-55.]

The terms of the Pahang Treaty of 1888 and the Pangkor Treaty of 1874 were more or less the same, and they implied that henceforth the Malay rulers of Pahang, Perak and the other Malay protectorates would be under the coercive ‘advice’ of the British Resident who was in turn backed by British arms and military power. So while the Malay rulers were allowed to keep their flags and banners, the real power – political and economic – was robbed of them by the British. Now tell me, how is this any different from outright colonialism? Or are we to give lip service to British colonial propaganda that claimed that this sort of intervention was done ‘for the good of the natives’ and to bring development for the Malays?

I am baffled by the recent turn of events in Malaysia where all sorts of characters are now claiming that this charade of colonial intervention was something less than outright colonisation. To aid them in their memory (some of them are close to retirement I think, or should have retired a long time ago.), I end with a quote from Tun Mahathir’s ‘The Malay Dilemma’ (1969/1970) where Mahathir describes the reality of colonial governmentality then:

“Practically all the import-export houses were British or at least European. These firms were protected by the (colonial) government without any need for legislation. The exclusive European clubs all over the country were the places where these protective laws were made and implemented. …

This protectionism was equally comprehensive on the export side. Markets in rubber and tin for example were established by these firms in their own countries, and the markets were not open to any local (Asian) firms.

…As if government protection was not enough, the British controlled the whole of the banking business, especially the portion of it that was concerned with the financing of the import-export sector. …

…Contracts with supplies were almost exclusively through the (British) Crown agents. Local supplies, even when needed, were by contract with British firms. British officials and businessmen formed a close-knit community usually presided over by a local British Adviser or Resident.” (from: Mahathir Mohamad, The Malay Dilemma, 1970, pp. 48-49)

To our esteemed Dons and Doyens of the ivory towers who claim that British Malaya was never truly a colonial construct, I would serious advise a trip to the library, or even a conversation with Tun Mahathir to sort out some of the lingering doubts about the past of the country. Malaysia’s youth may be confused enough today; the least that we – teachers – can and ought to do is to help clarify their understanding a little further; rather than muddy the already murky waters of the past with revisionist obfuscation even further.

Notes:

[1] John Pickersgill Rodget was the first Resident appointed to Pahang in October 1888. (Gopinath, 1996, pg. 103)

By Dr. Farish Ahmad Noor

13 September 2011

Dr. Farish Ahamd Noor is the Senior Fellow for the Contemporary Islam Programme, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

Former PM visited Gaddafi during Libyan loan negotiations by JP Morgan, the bank that employs him as an adviser

Tony Blair is facing calls for greater transparency in his role as Middle East peace envoy after it emerged that he visited Muammar Gaddafi in 2009 while JP Morgan, the investment bank that employs Blair as a £2m-a-year adviser, sought to negotiate a multibillion-pound loan from Libya.

Blair also championed two large business deals in the West Bank and Gaza involving telecoms and gas extraction which stood to benefit corporate clients of JP Morgan, according to a Dispatches investigation to be broadcast on Monday night.

Blair, who represents the diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East – the US, European Union, Russia and the United Nations – flew to see the former Libyan leader in January 2009 as JP Morgan tried to finalise a deal for the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) to loan a multibillion-pound sum to Rusal, the aluminium company run by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

LIA was set up by Gaddafi to manage the country’s wealth and was estimated to be worth $64bn (£41bn) last September.

Emails obtained by anti-corruption campaign group Global Witness and seen by the Guardian reveal JP Morgan’s vice chairman, Lord Renwick, invited the then vice chairman of LIA, Mustafa Zarti, to “finalise the terms of the mandate concerning Rusal before Mr Blair’s visit to Tripoli which is scheduled to take place on around 22 January”.

The meeting went ahead, but a spokesman for Blair denied the former prime minister had been involved in the proposed Rusal deal. A spokesman for JP Morgan said Blair had no knowledge of the proposal but could not explain why Blair’s visit to Gaddafi was raised in the email.

“Neither Tony Blair nor any of his staff raised any issue to do with a Russian aluminium company,” Blair’s spokesman said. According to a Rusal presentation obtained by Global Witness, the aluminium company had been seeking a $4.5bn loan in the form of a convertible bond, but the deal never happened.

In Palestine while working as the quartet envoy, Blair persuaded the Israeli government to open radio frequencies so mobile phone company Wataniya could operate in the West Bank. The company’s owner, Qtel, a Qatari telecoms company, is a client of JP Morgan and its deal to buy Wataniya was funded with a $2bn loan that JP Morgan helped arrange.

“I would say his [Blair’s] prime contribution to Wataniya was negotiating the release of the frequencies,” Bassam Hannoun, Wataniya’s chief executive, told Dispatches. “That was a milestone. November 2009 we were nothing … and since then we have done fantastically well. We have captured 23% of the market.”

The second deal saw Blair champion the development of a gas field off the coast of Gaza as a priority for the territory. The owner of the rights to operate the field is BG Group, a client of JP Morgan.

“There seems to be growing evidence that Tony Blair’s business activities across the middle east may be in conflict with his peace envoy role,” said Robert Palmer, a spokesman for Global Witness. “It is time he came clean about all of his interests in the region and who they are benefitting.”

A spokesman for Blair said the former prime minister had no idea JP Morgan had connections with Wataniya or BG Group and said it considered claims of a conflict of interest to be defamatory.

“Tony Blair has advocated for both the Wataniya project and the Gaza gas development at the direct request of the Palestinians,” a spokesman said. “It is his responsibility as Quartet representative to work to build the Palestinian economy and the Wataniya project represented the single largest foreign direct investment there has been into the Palestinian authority. That is good news for the Palestinians. The fact that we have been doing so is hardly a revelation: it is listed on our website. Both were long-standing demands of the international community. “In neither case was Mr Blair even aware JP Morgan had a connection with the company. He never discussed it with them. They never raised it with him.”

JP Morgan stressed it was one of several investment banks who acted as advisers to Qtel and said it had a minor role.

“Mr. Blair is a strategic advisor to our management team on high-level geopolitical issues and trends,” a spokesman said. “We have never raised or discussed with him the two projects mentioned. Any suggestion of a conflict of interest is baseless.”

Since leaving Downing Street in June 2007, Blair has established various structures for his commercial work and good causes. He has established three charities, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, the Tony Blair Sports Foundation and the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative. On the commercial side, he runs a consultancy, Tony Blair Associates, and he has paid advisory roles with Zurich, a Swiss insurer, as well as JP Morgan.

 By Robert  Booth

26 September 2011

@ The Gurdian

Firerush Ventures faces fresh scrutiny as chief operating officer Mark Labovitch leaves post after just one year

Tony Blair’s business operations are under scrutiny after the departure from his investment firm of a high-profile banker with connections to some of the world’s richest investors and the revelation that the former prime minister secured big deals in the Middle East.

Mark Labovitch’s resignation as chief operating officer of Blair’s Firerush Ventures, little more than a year after he was appointed to the post, threatens to leave a hole in Blair’s business empire.

Labovitch, 48 – who was appointed at the same time as a former Lehman Brothers banker, Varun Chandra, joined Firerush as an adviser – was seen in financial circles as someone who could open doors for Blair. The Financial News newspaper described him as possessing “an expansive Rolodex of contacts and relationships built up during more than a decade as a senior investment banker”.

Firerush is crucial to Blair’s fortunes, not to mention the 130 people who work for him. Blair explained a couple of years ago, when his staff was much smaller, that he had to “earn £5m a year to pay the wages”. Firerush, which gives its address as a PO box in west London, is licensed by the Financial Services Authority to offer investment advice in a number of countries, including three that have low-tax environments – Gibraltar, Lithuania and Romania.

Records filed at Companies House show that the Oxford-educated Labovitch joined Firerush on 1 June last year. He resigned on 28 July this year.

It is unclear why Labovitch – who is reportedly to become a director at Coventry City football club and has joined Gems, a Dubai-based provider of private education – parted company with Blair. In an email sent to the Observer, he declined to comment. Blair’s spokesman also declined to answer emailed questions regarding Labovitch.

News of his departure comes as a Channel 4 Dispatches programme to be broadcast on Monday reveals Blair’s role in two multi-billion-dollar contracts in Palestine.

The programme shows how, in his role as the Quartet’s representative to the Middle East, Blair helped persuade the Israeli government to open up radio frequencies so that a mobile phone company, Wataniya, could operate in the West Bank.

He also championed the development of a huge gas field off the coast of Gaza operated by British Gas. Both Wataniya and British Gas are major clients of JP Morgan, the US investment bank that pays Blair £2m a year for a role as a senior adviser.

A spokesman for the former prime minister said on Saturday: “Tony Blair has advocated for the both the Wataniya project and the Gaza gas development at the direct request of the Palestinians. It is his responsibility as Quartet representative to work to build the Palestinian economy and the Wataniya project represented the single largest foreign direct investment there has been into the Palestinian Authority.”

The spokesman added that in neither case was Blair aware JP Morgan had a connection with the company.

Blair’s business empire sparked interest in his relationship with the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), the $70bn fund used to invest the country’s oil money abroad. Blair’s close links to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the country’s former leader, are well documented.

Last week a senior executive of the fund suggested that the former prime minister had made representations to Gaddafi on behalf of JP Morgan. It also emerged that, after he stepped down from No 10, Blair wrote to Muammar Gaddafi offering investment advice for projects in Africa.

“You know I am doing a lot of work there and know of good worthwhile projects for investment,” Blair told the despot. A spokesman said Blair never sought payment nor received it from Gaddafi or the LIA.

Since he left office, Blair’s business empire has helped him sustain a jetset lifestyle. The Daily Mail claims he is a regular at Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace hotel, one of the most expensive resorts in the world. He has acquired a £5.75m country house in Buckinghamshire and a £3.7m home in London. Blair and his wife, Cherie, have also bought properties for their children.

In addition to his work for JP Morgan, Blair is on a lucrative contract to advise insurance firm Zurich and is understood to be paid as much as £200,000 a speech. Blair has also been paid for consultancy work by a South Korean oil firm, UI Energy Corporation, which has extensive interests in the US and Iraq, and by the ruling family in Kuwait, from whom he received a reported £1m fee.

Another of his companies, Tony Blair Associates, which offers “strategic advice on both a commercial and pro-bono basis” has a contract with Mubadala, an Abu Dhabi investment fund. Blair also earns a reported £700,000 a year as an adviser to Khosla Ventures, a US venture capitalist firm founded by Indian billionaire Vinod Khosla.

Labovitch’s exit follows that of another Firerush director, former No 10 staffer Jo Gibbons, who was Blair’s director of corporate affairs and left last year. He advised Russian oligarchs during his time at the investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and was responsible for stitching together more than $8bn-worth of deals for oil and gas giant Gazprom. He also has strong connections to wealthy investors in the Middle East and was, until recently, an executive of the company that owns the Independent newspaper.

As COO of Firerush, Labovitch was at the centre of a complex web of companies that, due to the way they are structured, have to disclose only a minimal amount of information concerning Blair’s business operations, the profits he makes or indeed how he makes his money.

However, someone familiar with Blair’s business activities suggested he is keen to cultivate closer relationships with Russian oligarchs. Earlier this month he gave a speech at the eighth Yalta annual meeting organised by Yalta European Strategy, which campaigns for Ukraine to join the European Union. The Yalta meetings are promoted by a foundation set up by Victor Pinchuk, one of the world’s richest men, who has an estimated fortune of $3.3bn and owns TV channels and steel plants.

LIFE AFTER GOVERNMENT

Peter Mandelson

The former trade secretary has established his own advisory firm, Global Counsel LLP, with the financial support of advertising company WPP. Also has a senior advisory role at international investment bank Lazard. Rumoured to be a contender to become the next director general of the World Trade Organisation.

Alastair Campbell

Published his diaries four years after resigning from his position as director of communications and strategy. Earlier this month it emerged that he was providing the Kosovan government with advice on how to communicate with its old enemy, Serbia.

Patricia Hewitt

Seven months after leaving government, Hewitt was appointed a special consultant to Alliance Boots, the largest chemist company in the world. In January 2008, the former health secretary was accused of “cashing in on her contacts” when she accepted a £55,000-a-year role as an adviser to Cinven, which paid £1.4bn for Bupa’s 25 UK hospitals. She is also on the board of Eurotunnel and is an adviser to Barclays Capital.

Stephen Byers

After leaving government, the former transport secretary was secretly recorded by Channel 4 boasting how he used his contacts to change policies to the advantage of businesses. Byers was heard offering himself for hire for between £3,000 and £5,000 a day.

 Geoff Hoon

The former defence secretary was also exposed in the “cash for influence” scandal last March. In May, Hoon was given a vice-president’s position by helicopter company AgustaWestland, which had been awarded a £1.7bn contract when he was defence secretary.

By Jamie Doward

24 September 2011

@ The Guardian

Saturday, September 3, was the Saturday of the citizen in Israel. The protest movement brought 460,000 people onto the streets to create a new socio-economic agenda. No government can remain indifferent to that many calling, “The people demands social justice!” The hope is to gain a new social contract, which will overthrow neo-liberal capitalism and create in its place a welfare state.

Tel Aviv, Sept. 3, 2011. The ODA contingent with banner: “The people demands Da’am, the Workers’ Party!”

What is Daphni saying?

Daphni Leef, the natural leader of the tent protest, defines the movement as “political but not partisan.” According to this view, the political system, including the parties and the Knesset, have failed to understand the feelings of the people, who are calling on them to descend from their lofty towers and see that the country is falling apart.

The word “party” terrifies the leaders of the protest. A “party” (in Hebrew, the word has an etymological root meaning split, section or division) requires a worldview and clear ideological agenda, which necessarily causes criticism and draws antagonism from others. Let’s take for example Labor Party candidate Shelly Yechimovich, who has fought tirelessly and fearlessly against the tycoons and enjoyed a wide public consensus. The moment she revealed her political views, declaring she has no problem with the settlements, she attracted antagonism. But if the protest movement avoids “politics” in order to avoid division, it ends up leaving politics to the same deaf politicians who scurry to do the bidding of big capital. It’s a closed circuit.

So what do we have? A political movement without political tools to realize its objectives. And the more support it receives, the greater the internal contradiction. The movement’s problem is its inability to translate popular support to political power, in other words, a political party, which can take responsibility, aim to enter the government, win a majority in the Knesset and anchor in law the social contract which currently enjoys wall-to-wall support.

The protest movement decided that the way to avoid antagonism is to stick with the slogan “social justice,” which has become the new state anthem, and purposefully avoid critical issues such as occupation, settlement, war and peace. According to this approach, the fact that Binyamin Netanyahu (“Bibi”) is an unabashedly rightwing leader needn’t disturb anyone, because nobody’s asking him to make “political” changes, but only “social” changes. Netanyahu can stick with the occupation while working toward “justice” within Israeli society – especially within the Israeli middle classes who serve the state loyally and struggle under the burden of the morally uninhibited tycoons. This is the significance of the slogan, “Let us live in this country!”

However, the chances of Netanyahu meeting these demands are no greater than the chances of him meeting Palestinian demands for “distributive justice” – the two-state solution. Betting on Bibi ensures that the Palestinians remain stateless and Israeli citizens remain without the social justice they demand.

What does ODA say?

The Organization for Democratic Action (ODA)—Da’am in Arabic—has taken part in the protest movement right from the start. For the past five years, we have marched alone along Tel Aviv’s chic boulevards demanding fair employment terms, equality for women, the right to unionize, equality between Arabs and Jews and peace. Thus it was only natural for us to join the thousands of youth who woke up and discovered the flames had reached their door after consuming every last morsel in Yeruham, Hadera, Kufr Qara and Nazareth.

Asma Agbarieh-Zahalka of ODA leading the chants, Tel Aviv, Sept. 3, 2011

The ODA is not a middle-class party. It is a workers’ party, which lives and breathes “social” issues and fights tooth and nail to change the system to serve the workers (including the middle classes) instead of capital. The ODA is not like all the other parties. It is a revolutionary party.

The revolution it aims for is a revolution in consciousness. This too begins with change in the order of priorities, a change which will not be brought by the middle classes but by the working class – because Jews and Arabs meet over their wage slips as they struggle to get by.

This change cannot be limited to an awakening from indifference. This is a necessary but not a sufficient condition. Change in consciousness must address Arab workers in Israel, the Palestinian workers under Israeli occupation, and all workers in the Arab world. The ODA does not believe in a fleeting consensus; thus it works fearlessly and without prejudice to generate a new workers’ consensus which crosses national boundaries. It does not shrink from facing reality even when reality is complex and difficult.

What will cause real change in the struggle for social justice is the participation of those millions of workers, the 50% of wage earners who don’t even reach the tax threshold, who have not yet found the strength to break free of their despair. So far, they have been conspicuously absent from the protest movement, but the ODA has not forgotten them. In the fight against worker organization, which the government calls “making the labor market more flexible,” we see a destructive and merciless war – as is evident from the struggles at Haifa Chemicals and the Salit Quarry, or in the plight of the social workers and the medical interns.

The start of a new era

The current social movement is the opening volley of a new era. Despite its shortcomings, it has exposed the nakedness of the distorted social order, clearly pointed out its ills, and formulated a comprehensive agenda which has become a worthy basis for further action.

Despite Netanyahu’s bragging, the neoliberal capitalist system which he so admires has led his beloved US to the edge of the precipice. Israel is marching confidently towards a future without an economy and without peace. The protest movement cannot continue sitting on the fence, expecting our present leaders to save us.

Some will accuse us of seeing only the dark side. To them we reply: Since the USSR collapsed, the world has been unipolar. The American right has been implementing global predatory capitalism. Despite this dark picture, we do not sit idle; we continue to do the hard labor of building up a workers’ party, for we believe it is possible to generate change. To our delight, after 30 years the Arab world and some European states are awakening and challenging the existing social order, just as we do.

Therefore we, workers from all sectors, Arabs and Jews, marched to the square on Saturday with a clear message: Bibi, your time is up, go home! We marched with a socialist worldview, according to which the economy should exist to serve society, not capital. Those who fail to overcome the capitalist brainwashing will remain slaves to the tycoons and their lackeys in the Knesset.

The socialism in which we believe has become more relevant than ever, because the welfare state is a socialist state . This is a state which does justice to its citizens without regard to religion or ethnicity. A state such as this can be integrated into the region and become a partner to the democratic changes sweeping the Arab world. This cannot happen unless the occupation is brought to an end. Those who truly struggle for social justice must seek universal justice. There will be no true welfare state until the occupation is ended!

Translated by Yonatan Preminger

By Yacov Ben Efrat

6 September 2011

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