Abolish nuclear weapons, Jeremy Corbyn writes

Posted on April 24, 2014 by petrel41

This video from Britain says about itself:

April 1, 2013: Katharine Hamnett & Jeremy Corbyn MP @ CND demo against Trident, Aldermaston AWE

CND‘s 2013 Easter protest against unaffordable Trident renewal outside Aldermaston AWE.

By Jeremy Corbyn in Britain:

The struggle for a nuke-free world

Thursday 24th April 2014

Courage and optimism are needed if we’re to succeed in eliminating WMD, says JEREMY CORBYN

Next week the United Nations nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) meeting in New York will be making preparations for the five-yearly review due in 2015.

The process might sound obscure, but it is important. Nuclear weapons have the power to destroy the whole planet many times over, cost vast amounts of money, consume resources that could be better spent elsewhere and, furthermore, they make war more, not less, likely.

When the NPT was first made law in the 1970s, approved by the vast majority of the member states of the UN, it had three central themes.

First, that the existing five declared weapons states — China, Russia, France, Britain and the US — be recognised as such and take steps towards disarmament.

Second, that all non-nuclear weapons states which signed the treaty must not themselves acquire them and the declared states must not export them or their technology.

Third, that all states could legitimately develop nuclear power for civil purposes.

On the face of it there is much cause for depression at the continued existence of these weapons and their proliferation in India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

Equally depressing is the upgrading of the weapons’ capability, even if accompanied by warhead reduction, by the five declared weapons states. But there are some causes for hope and optimism.

Much of our planet is covered by nuclear weapons-free zones, particularly Africa, Latin America, Antarctica and central Asia, and a number of states including South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Ukraine and Kazakhstan have renounced nuclear weapons.

Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu’s bravery in exposing Israel’s nuclear weapons programme resulted in his spending 18 years in prison, 13 of which were in solitary confinement. Ever since his famous release, he has been under restrictions, house arrest and under continual threat of reimprisonment.

His passport has been confiscated and he has been refused permission to leave Israel. His heroism and bravery have caused him intense pain and suffering but he enabled the world to know something of the truth about Israel’s programme and how it illegally obtained the technology and know-how to produce WMD.

In a moving message for Easter, CND vice-president Canon Paul Oestreicher called for support for Vanunu.

“He has remained steadfast to his convictions. He is now imprisoned in Israel, a state whose citizenship he has renounced yet which will not allow him to leave.”

The concept of a nuclear weapons-free Middle East has been long sought. It was first envisaged at the 2000 review of the NPT when a regional convention outside the NPT process, designed to include Israel, was conceived.

This was warmly welcomed by all states in the region except Israel, yet the declaration was repeated at the subsequent five-yearly reviews of the NPT.

In 2010 it was agreed that Finland should host such a conference. This did not happen and at the last preparatory committee meeting in 2013 in Geneva the Arab League and a number of individual states expressed anger at the lack of progress. Egypt, for example, walked out in disgust, although it has not left the treaty.

Failure to act could well start a dangerous process of proliferation as a number of countries have the finances and technology to develop their own weapons, potentially starting an arms race in the Middle East which would dwarf the horrors of the Syrian war and the continued Israeli occupation of Palestine.

The historic decision by Britain and the US not to involve themselves militarily in the Syria conflict led to a rapid reopening of relations with Iran and discussion on access to its nuclear processing facilities.

At present there is an interim six-month agreement with Iran under which some sanctions have been lifted.

At next week’s meeting in New York there will be another round of negotiations with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif.

The prize of a long-term agreement between the UN’s permanent five member countries and Iran is too much for the US right.

Senator Robert Menendez, the hawkish Republican chairman of the foreign relations committee, has condemned the talks and his colleagues support even deeper sanctions against Iran.

On the back of this huge development it is high time the NPT organised the Middle East conference and the US should put pressure on Israel to attend.

However, there is momentum for peace. Last month the Inter-Parliamentary Union global parliamentary assembly approved a comprehensive resolution calling on all parliaments “to work with their governments on eliminating the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines” and to urge their governments to start negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention or package of agreements to achieve a nuclear weapon-free world.”

Over a year of painstaking negotiation by parliamentarians for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament brought this step forward.

The baton must now pass to MPs, all over the world, to apply further pressure on their governments.

The need to achieve a nuclear-free world is a priority now more than ever, but this requires courage and optimism. That is why we in Britain need to oppose the renewal and catastrophic waste of replacing our very own Trident WMD.

A year ago the world learnt of the horror of the deaths of clothing workers in Rana Plaza in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The Bangladeshi government recorded 1,100 deaths, and 2,500 people were rescued. Dangerous buildings collapsed, fire escapes were locked, there was no safety procedure and the survivors lost their jobs and faced destitution.

The cheap clothes these workers were producing were destined for export to the Western world by companies such as Primark, which has just posted record profits.

The International Labour Association investigated the disaster and called for $40 million fund for compensation. A year on, only $15m has been contributed.

Yesterday the Bangladesh government announced payments of $645 per head from the fund.

According to Human Rights Watch, 15 of the big clothing importers from Bangladesh have not contributed anything, including Grabalok/Store 21 and Matalan. Primark has given $8m.

The Bangladesh government has given some support to the victims and has attempted to improve safety conditions, but there is a huge wider question.

In the race to the bottom of global economics the clothing industry routinely moves from poor low-paid economies to even poorer lower-paid labour markets.

The World Bank and IMF applaud the economic “benefits” of this process.

Meanwhile workers die, children are exploited and the shiny global brands make millions in profits.

Brave trade unionists are fighting back in Bangladesh. A young worker, Reshima, described the morning of the tragedy.

“We did not want to work but the general manager came and threatened us and said that if we did not work we would not get paid next month’s salary. He slapped one of my friends and dragged me out of where I was hiding under the staircase and took me to work.”

We must challenge those who constantly condemn health and safety laws and regulations as being bad for business.

The case for international trade unionism and solidarity has never been stronger or more obvious, the case for exerting consumer power as an act of solidarity never more important.

Jeremy Corbyn is Labour MP for Islington North.

Still no justice for Bangladesh factory collapse survivors

Posted on April 24, 2014 by petrel41

By Joana Ramiro in Britain:

Rana Plaza: One year on, no justice

Thursday 24th April 2014

Factory collapse anniversary exposes retail giants’ shame as they refuse to pay compensation for victims’ families

The collapse of a factory building which killed thousands of garment workers marks its first anniversary today — but British companies continue to refuse compensation to those affected.

A year after the tragic subsidence of the Rana Plaza building in Savar, central Bangladesh, big brands such as Matalan and Asda are still to contribute to the official Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund for families and victims of the disaster.

“One year later [Matalan] is still sitting on its hands,” said garment workers’ rights group Labour Behind the Label Sam Maher.

Her organisation said that despite many companies’ statements in the wake of the incident — which killed over 1,100 people — only a third of the total £24 million compensation pay has been raised.

Trade Union Congress general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “It is shameful that many of our companies sourcing from Rana Plaza have still not paid into the fund to help victims and their families.”

The TUC has supported the historic agreement between international trade unions and fashion businesses guaranteeing safer workplaces for Bangladeshi workers at almost 2,000 factories.

The Accord on Fire and Building Safety makes sure that recurrent building inspections are conducted so tragedies like Rana Plaza no longer occur.

Ms O’Grady said she was pleased that over 150 employers had signed the accord, but believe there was much left to be done.

Britain’s second largest supermarket Asda — a subsidiary of the US retail colossus Walmart — has so far declined to sign the accord.

Campaigners believe that Asda is determined not to set a precedent on indemnity pay for large scale industrial accidents, donating an undisclosed amount to poverty relief charity Building Relationships Across Communities (BRAC) instead.

“Cowardice,” retorted War on Want campaigns director Jeff Powell.

BRAC USA — to which not only Walmart but also clothing giant Gap contributed — has officially granted around £1.3m to the Trust Fund.

A poor record given that companies such as Primark contributed with almost £600,000. Stitched Up — The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion author Tansy Hoskins spoke to the Star about the double standards of many of the companies sourcing from Rana Plaza, saying that the industry had “grown rich as Croesus” by exploiting workers.

Ms Hoskins said: “The refusal of companies like Matalan to pay a penny in compensation and the attempts by Gap and Walmart to disrupt the vital Bangladesh Accord show what we are really dealing with — capitalist corporations’ callous disregard for human life.”

The TUC is now lobbying International Development Secretary Justine Greening to pressure British companies to pay the due compensation.

Labour Behind The Label is hosting a vigil outside of London’s Bond Street Gap shop today in memory of all those killed in Rana Plaza.

A Matalan spokeswoman said it had been working with Brac because it was one of the first development organisations to respond to the disaster and that the “partnership works well.”

Women workers jailed by Qatar dictatorship

Posted on April 23, 2014 by petrel41

This video is called A housemaid working in Qatar bravely speaks out.

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Qatar maids detained by authorities after having passports confiscated

Hundreds of migrant workers who have had documents seized by employers are being held for months in deportation centre

Rebecca Falconer

Wednesday 23 April 2014 15.29 BST

The “widespread” practice of confiscating low-income workers’ passports in Qatar has left hundreds languishing for up to a year in the Gulf state’s deportation centre, the Guardian has learned.

Amnesty International has uncovered evidence linking the Qatari government to the practice. Some employers gave domestic workers’ passports to authorities at the interior ministry if workers absconded, the human rights group discovered. “This practice suggests that the government may implicitly accept the principle that domestic workers do not hold their own passports,” says an Amnesty report, “My Sleep Is My Break”: Exploitation of Migrant Domestic Workers in Qatar, published on Wednesday.

All of the dozens of domestic workers the Guardian met in Qatar during an investigation in January had been forced to hand over their passports to employers. François Crépeau, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, met just one worker who had managed to retain his passport when he visited the Gulf state in November.

The man was in the overcrowded deportation centre in which more than 1,300 people were detained. Visitors to the female quarters of the building on the outskirts of the capital, Doha, have described seeing babies and up to three women sleeping on a single mattress.

“[In] the wards we visited, there were simply too many people for the space there was,” said Crépeau, who will present a report on his Qatar findings to the UN in June.

The use of mobile phones is forbidden in the deportation centre and officials told Crépeau this was for security reasons. There is telephone access, but detainees complained the lines did not work; others said they did not have the money to buy phone cards.

James Lynch, Amnesty’s researcher on migrants’ rights in the Gulf, said there were problems with phone lines in and out of the centre when the organisation visited the 1,600 detainees in March 2013.

“Many of the men and women we spoke to were also very unclear about why they were being held and what steps needed to be taken for them to leave the centre,” Lynch said. “Not being allowed to have mobile phones clearly exacerbated this problem as it made it much more difficult for them to contact family, lawyers, embassies or friends in order to resolve their situation.”

There are no official figures on Qatar’s deportation centre, but up to 95% of the 400 women held there when Lynch visited were domestic workers.

“Men and women can sit detained in this jail for months, and some for over a year,” a witness told the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in its report, The Case Against Qatar, released in March. “There is so little room that women are sleeping in the hallway on mattresses, or mattresses are put under the beds to accommodate more human bodies. The vast majority of these men and women are not criminals. They are victims of a sponsorship system that is not only abusive but is modern day slavery.”

More than 2,500 Indonesian maids a year have fled from abusive sponsors, according to the ITUC. Some women have fled abusive employers who have beaten or sexually assaulted them, only to be stranded in the centre because they do not have their passports or the correct paperwork.

According to Amnesty, the domestic workers it met in the deportation centre were being held there for breaching the terms of the sponsorship. Lynch said deportation orders were received for working for someone other than their appointed sponsor, overstaying their visa, or for leaving their sponsor without permission.

A study by the Journal of Arabian Studies in June 2013 found that 90% of low-income workers surveyed in Qatar did not hold their passports.

In January several recruitment agencies contacted by phone told a Guardian reporter posing as a would-be client that they routinely withheld the passports of migrant workers. “We keep them of course, this is the normal thing in this country,” a representative of one agency said. “All companies keep all the employees´ passports.”

Amnesty and the ITUC are pushing for Qatar to end the kafala sponsorship system and give domestic workers legal protection for basic human rights.

Militarist propaganda in German media

Posted on April 23, 2014 by petrel41

This video is called The Real Kaiser Bill: Wilhelm II of Germany.

By Peter Schwarz in Germany:

German magazine Der Spiegel campaigns for war and rearmament

23 April 2014

One of the most unmistakable signs of the return of German militarism is the barrage of war propaganda in the media. The conservative Die Welt and FAZ, the liberal Süddeutsche and Zeit and the “Green” taz newspaper have all published a torrent of articles urging German rearmament and more aggressive action against Russia.

The most recent example of such propaganda is provided by Dirk Kurbjuweit in the magazine Der Spiegel.

In an essay entitled “The Power of the Powerless,” Kurbjuweit declares that the West needs the “properties of [the war god] Mars, i.e. weapons, military capabilities, and on occasion the resolve to use them.”

The Roman empire, which in 58-50 BC killed a million people in Gaul, mainly civilians, according to the figures of their general Julius Caesar; maybe half the people of roughly present-day France and Belgium; and which enslaved many of the survivors, did worship Mars, the god of war.

The Greek equivalent of Mars was Ares. In ancient Greece, there were no temples for Ares; except in the militarized city-state Sparta; where there were human sacrifices to this war god.

He adds, “Not to rearm, not to engage in economic competition, to stay out of world affairs would be equally noble and insane”.

In support of his demand for war and rearmament, Kurbjuweit employs an argument reminiscent of a third-rate fantasy novel: There are the good and the bad. The good ones are “western democracies”, the bad are the “authoritarian states”, Russia and China. Facts, arguments and events that contradict his black and white depiction are obscured, distorted or simply denied.

The rulers in Russia and China “oppress their people”. China is “expansive” and will soon be “an authoritarian superpower”. Russian President Vladimir Putin has “revived Russia’s thirst for power… These regimes have no problem with morality. Legitimacy is secondary for them given that their own legitimacy is doubtful”.

The West, however, “fails to engage in active power politics, it will not conquer territories and change maps”. The Western democracies “have a moral foundation that limits warlike activities. They are limited to resolving internal conflicts peacefully. This has an effect on their determination. They must seek a legitimate basis for foreign deployments”.

Kurbjuweit concedes that the US has indeed “on occasion sometimes acted abroad like an authoritarian regime”. But Obama “has ended this policy”. He acts like “a dove of peace… This America has no designs on hegemonial power”.

Dirk Kurbjuweit is 51 years old. He wrote for Die Zeit for nine years, and 15 years for Der Spiegel. He has also written several books. He cannot be excused on the basis of naivety or ignorance.

He knows that the wars that devastated Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and other countries emanated not from Russia or China, but from the United States and its European allies. He knows that “dove of peace” Obama has built up a global monitoring network, carries out an illegal drone war with thousands of victims, and is expanding US power in East Asia in opposition to China as part of his “pivot to Asia”.

Kurbjuweit also knows that the “expansive project” of the West is not, as he claims, dedicated to “democracy”. In order to subject Ukraine to their influence and repel Russia, Berlin and Washington worked together with known fascists, nationalists and right-wing oligarchs to organize a violent putsch in Kiev.

Kurbjuweit is simply regurgitating imperialist propaganda. His lies about the alleged democratic and moral motives of the West hide an extremely reactionary argument. The West is weak and indecisive because it is democratic; Russia and China are strong because they are authoritarian—this theme runs like a red thread through his essay.

“The West behaves gently and compliantly in the Ukraine crisis. But what if the world is not allocated along pacifist rules?” he asks in his opening paragraph. “Currently authoritarian regimes have the advantage. One reason is their determination”, he writes. Again and again, Kurbjuweit emphasizes the inevitability of further conflict with Russia and China. The West should not hope that the local ruler will end up like Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, “but should be prepared for further confrontations”.

The conclusion is inescapable: In order to survive in a conflict between “authoritarian states” and “Western democracies”, the latter must renounce all and any democratic legitimacy. It was the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet who once proclaimed: “Democracy must be bathed in blood occasionally, so that it can continue to exist”. Now Kurbjuweit suggests something similar in order to conduct a victorious war against Russia and China.

Finally, Kurbjuweit advises against relying on the United States, which “has become quite moody… Europe should look urgently to establish its own army, military strategy and common foreign policy”.

Kurbjuweit has been campaigning for some time for a revival of German militarism. In early February he published an article in Der Spiegel entitled “The change of the past”, in which he declared “it is high time” for a “revision” of the assessment of German responsibility for the First and Second World Wars.

In the article he attacks the German historian Fritz Fischer, who demonstrated in his 1961 book Germany’s Aims in the First World War that Germany bore a significant share of the responsibility for the outbreak of the First World War. Fischer’s theses were “in principle outrageous”, the Berlin historian Herfried Münkler tells Kurbjuweit.

Regarding the Second World War, Kurbjuweit draws upon Ernst Nolte, who unleashed the “historian’s controversy” in 1986, with his assertion that National Socialism was an understandable reaction to Bolshevism. In discussion with Kurbjuweit, Nolte not only defends his past thesis but goes on to assert, without being challenged, that Poland and England bore a large responsibility for the Second World War because they refused to forge an agreement with Hitler. He accuses the Jews of having “partial responsibility for the Gulag, because some Bolsheviks were Jews”.

Mr Nolte, a philosopher, not a historian by education, flirts with holocaust denial.

Nolte’s arguments have been backed up by the Berlin-based historian Jörg Baberowski, who explains in an interview with Kurbjuweit that Nolte had been “wrongly treated” and adds that Hitler was “not cruel”.

This trivialization of the historical crimes of German imperialism is preparing the path for new crimes. This is made abundantly clear by Kurbjuweit’s latest plea for war and rearmament.

This author also recommends: The crisis in Ukraine and the sea change in German foreign policy [3 April 2014]

Cameron’s office calls police to stop bishops’ letter on hunger

Posted on April 23, 2014 by petrel41

This video from Britain says about itself:

Jan 11, 2013: UK’s poorest citizens seek hand-outs from food banks

For this struggling mother, it’s a hand-to-mouth existence, with the pressure of two hungry mouths to feed. Gemma receives her small shop-assistant wage and her state benefits every Tuesday.

SOUNDBITE: Gemma Hindmarsh, single mother (speaking English):

“Sometimes I will wake up on a Sunday and I will literally have five pound in my purse. And I will think right, what can I do with five pound?”

Not much when you’re living on the breadline. One in five mothers in Britain, just like Gemma, regularly skip meals just to feed their children.

SOUNDBITE: Gemma Hindmarsh, single mother (speaking English):

“You want to make nutritional meals for the kids, you hear it all the time on the TV, how they should be eating their five-a-day, fresh meat. But sometimes, you just literally can’t do it. And you have to buy them the 77p basic cottage pie, because that’s literally all you can afford.”

For this single mother, managing a tiny budget is turning into a puzzle that’s harder and harder to solve.

SOUNDBITE: Tim Nicholls, Child Poverty Action Group member (speaking English):

“We are seeing a lot more families telling us that they have to make this difficult choice between things like eating and heating, putting food on the table or paying the bills. A part of this is driven by problems in benefit administration, sanctions being applied often inappropriately, that leave people having to go to food banks.”

PTC:

Food banks such as this one, run by the Trussel Trust. The charity started working with abandoned children in Bulgaria, but they switched over to the UK when they discovered what they call “hidden hunger in Britain”. Three food banks open every week in the UK now, and in unexpected areas like Kensington and Chelsea, warehouses like these distribute store-cupboard staples and tinned food to families that are in need of emergency provisions. In fact, over 200,000 people had to turn to food banks last year in order to get fed. That’s double the amount on the year before. So if this sad dynamic persists, food banks like this are going to have to get a whole lot bigger in order to feed Britain’s struggling families.

Charities say that some parents are so desperate to feed their children that they consider stealing. It’s become such a reality that police have been known to take hungry shoplifters to food banks instead of arresting them.

SOUNDBITE: Molly Hodson, PR manager, Trussell Trust (speaking English):

“A lot of people that come to food banks have stories which are really heartbreaking, and we’ve had people come to food banks who have been forced to choose between eating and feeding their children, and that’s something we see very regularly.”

Just like Gemma’s, over half of Britain’s impoverished children have parents that are in work. And the issue of putting food on the table eats up their lives.

SOUNDBITE: Gemma Hindmarsh, struggling mother (speaking English):

“I come to a Monday, literally sitting there on Monday evening, waiting to check the balance, waiting to check the money is still there. It kind of controls you a little bit, it kind of takes over your life, because when you’re going week to week to week you’re thinking ‘right, I’m going to get this money on Tuesday, and I’ll do a list. Right, this has got to be paid out, right, that leaves me this much for shopping’. It takes over your thinking for most of the week.

And with the cost of basic necessities including food rising all the time, Gemma lives on a diet of daily struggle and worry about the future.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

PM’s office ‘phoned police on bishop’

Wednesday 23rd April 2014

DAVID CAMERON was left red faced following reports yesterday that his constituency office called the police on a bishop and priest attempting to present him with an open letter on food poverty.

Bishop of Oxford John Pritchard and Reverend Keith Hebden approached the Prime Minister’s Witney office last Wednesday to deliver the letter signed by 42 Anglican bishops and more than 600 clerics on behalf of the End Hunger Fast campaign.

But even though the office had been expecting their visit the pair were prevented from entering and forced to hand over the letter to police, Mr Hebden told the Independent.

The incident occurred on the same day foodbank charity Trussell Trust revealed that almost one million people in Britain were given emergency supplies in the last year.

A Witney constituency office spokewoman told the Star that Mr Cameron had not personally called the police and that they had not received advance notice about the handing in of the petition.

“We cannot comment on security arrangements around PM’s constituency office,” she added.

Japanese government exports Fukushima to Turkey, United Arab Emirates

Posted on April 22, 2014 by petrel41

This video is called The Thyroid Cancer Hotspot Devastating Fukushima’s Child Survivors.

From the Japan Times:

Exports that defy reason

April 20, 2014

Following an April 4 “yes” vote by the Lower House, the Upper House on Friday approved civilian nuclear accords Japan has signed with Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to enable the export of Japanese equipment and technology for nuclear power generation to them.

The big question, though, is why a country that suffered a disaster at a nuclear power plant (which remains ongoing) three years ago would choose to push the export of nuclear power plants — and especially to countries that are prone to earthquakes, like Turkey. It is deplorable from moral and other viewpoints that the Abe administration treats the export of nuclear power equipment and technology as a pillar in its economic growth strategy. Japan concluded similar nuclear accords with Jordan, Vietnam, South Korea and Russia under the previous Democratic Party of Japan-led administration.

At present, the government is negotiating civilian nuclear cooperation with five more countries — India, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

The Diet approval came with the support of the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and the DPJ at a time when Japan’s own crisis, caused by the triple meltdowns at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, shows no signs of resolution. More than 130,000 residents of Fukushima Prefecture are still displaced from their homes due to radioactive contamination of their communities more than three years after the nuclear crisis. Although the DPJ after the March 2011 Fukushima disaster called for ending nuclear power generation in the 2030s, it supported plans for Japan to export nuclear power technology.

As demonstrated in the Fukushima catastrophe, a large-scale accident at a nuclear power plant causes irreparable damage to people’s lives and the environment. If such an accident occurs at a plant in another country built with exported Japanese technology, both the Japanese government and the manufacturers of the technology would likely be expected to shoulder some of the responsibility. Even if they offer to pay compensation, they could be criticized for giving priority to business interests over human lives and the environment.

In addition, high-level waste from nuclear power plants must be stored underground for more than 100,000 years before its radioactivity declines to safe levels. The safe storage of such waste for such a long period presents extremely difficult technological problems to which solutions have yet to be established. So this toxic burden would pass on to future generations. Given this reality, it would be irresponsible for Japan to export nuclear power technology and equipment.

Although the nuclear accords in principle are designed to prevent military use of the nuclear materials, equipment and technology, the accord with Turkey is problematic.

A clause in the accord states that Turkey can enrich uranium or reprocess spent nuclear fuel if Japan agrees in writing to a specific instance of enrichment or reprocessing. Enriched uranium and plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel can be used to make nuclear weapons. Thus the clause runs counter to global efforts against nuclear proliferation.

The Abe administration’s policy could also result in Japanese firms continuing to devote a large amount of resources on nuclear power, possibly discouraging them from investing in the development and expansion of renewable energy sources — the “sunrise” industries where Japan’s future prosperity lies. The government must rethink its policy of promoting the export of nuclear power equipment and technology.

Safety concerns over ice wall plans at Fukushima — NHK World: here.

Fukushima disaster: Tokyo hides truth as children die, become ill from radiation – ex-mayor: here.

British pro- and anti-European Union politicians, both wrong

Posted on April 22, 2014 by petrel41

This video says about itself:

9 October 2012

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told Greece that the “tough path” of painful spending cuts will pay off, amid demonstrations by thousands of protesters in Athens in a show of anger against her visit.

Police fired tear gas on Tuesday to disperse protesters attempting to storm a barricade just blocks away from where Merkel was meeting with Antonio Samaras, Greek prime minister …

By Julie Hyland and Paul Mitchell in England:

Labour and UK Independence Party debate in Manchester

22 April 2014

In their joint campaign in the European Elections, the Socialist Equality Party (UK) and Partei für Soziale Gleichheit (PSG) in Germany have stressed that neither the “pro”- nor “anti”-European Union stance of the various big-business parties represents a way forward for working people.

Claims that the European Union (EU) represents a mechanism for overcoming the national antagonisms that twice in the twentieth century plunged the Europe into war are a fraud. Draconian austerity measures in country after country, coupled with its utilisation of the Western-backed putsch in Kiev to instigate war-mongering against Russia, prove that the EU is a tool of big business and a prime source of military aggression.

No less reactionary are the anti-EU campaigns of the United Kingdom Independent Party (UKIP), Alternative for Germany party, and the National Front in France. These are far-right parties whose opposition to the EU has nothing to do with its role in instigating growing poverty and national divisions. Rather, they speak for sections of the ruling elite in each country who seek to improve the competitiveness of their respective capitalist economies through beggar thy neighbour policies, and a no less dramatic increase in the exploitation of their “own” working class.

Both these positions were on display at an April 16 debate in Manchester entitled “The EU: Time for a sharp exit strategy?” The debate was organised by New Economy, which promotes business in North West England, and was attended by mainly well-heeled businessmen, Labour councillors, trade union officials and aspiring entrepreneurs.

Speaking in favour of the EU was Angeliki Stogia, a Manchester Labour councillor who is standing for the party in the European elections in the North West constituency.

Stogia, who came from Greece to Manchester as a child, was full of praise for the EU, claiming that it was responsible for peace and prosperity and is the guarantor of workers’ rights, such as a 40-hour week, sick pay, holidays and consumer protection.

She never mentioned the catastrophe inflicted on her home country by EU-dictated austerity measures that have resulted in a disastrous retrogression in social conditions. Health care has all but disintegrated in Greece, while education and other essential social programmes have been gutted and unemployment driven up to 27 percent, or 58 percent for those under 25.

Nor did she mention the British Labour Party’s pledge that it will continue with the coalition government’s austerity measures and its filthy campaign to scapegoat migrant workers for the social crisis caused by the largest spending cuts since the 1930s.

Stogia also did not comment on reports that in addressing a Unite Against Fascism conference last year, she had blamed the growth of the fascist Golden Dawn in Greece on immigrants themselves, whom she apparently described as “a threat to public health.”

Instead, she insisted that the EU was essential in order to help Britain negotiate with and compete against the United States, China and other countries.

Steven Woolfe of the UKIP argued against the EU. Describing himself as a former Labour Party campaigner, Woolfe claimed to be standing up for “freedom” and “democracy” against the “political elite”.

Not the financial elite, however. Woolfe, a barrister, is the UKIP’s City of London spokesman, where he is able to draw on his experience as a legal adviser for Mercury Jove Advisers, which advises hedge funds, banks, property developers and oil companies. He is also head of the UKIP’s Black & Minority Ethnic Association and previously stood for election as Manchester police commissioner.

Woolfe presented himself as the champion of small business against the larger corporations, which he complained were the sole beneficiaries of the EU. One of Woolfe’s remits is to investigate the impact of EU regulation on smaller companies for the UKIP.

While criticising the growth of unemployment and poverty in Greece and Spain caused by EU austerity policies, he counterpoised “free trade agreements” and an end to “regulation” as the supposed remedy.

Strikingly, Woolfe also insisted that there should be no more “left/right” divide over such questions, citing so-called “lefts” Labour veteran Tony Benn and Bob Crow, former leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (both recently deceased), for their opposition to the EU. In the same vein, he name-checked new Trades Union Congress president Mohammed Taj, who had agreed there “is no fiscal benefit to the UK from migration.”

Alongside Stogia in favour of the EU was Juergen Maier, managing director at Siemens UK and Ireland.

Maier, who is originally from Austria, cited the reduction in business regulations as the prime benefit of the EU, along with significant subsidies to Siemens, including help with Research & Development.

Withdrawal from the EU would mean “tariffs would go up 10-30 percent. I would have to drop wages, increase productivity, the government deflates the currency (which would cut living standards) or we close down our 13 factories. The quickest way would be to cut wages”, he said.

“The UK receives the biggest share of inward investment. It’s seen as a good way to trade with Europe. Don’t ruin it”, he concluded.

Backing Woolfe was Matthew Elliot, chief executive officer of Business for Britain, which describes itself as an “independent, non-partisan campaign involving people from all parties and none, run by business for business” and committed to renegotiating “the terms of Britain’s membership of the EU.”

Elliot’s insisted that a referendum must be held on British membership in the EU, so as to “start talking” about negotiating a “new arrangement”.

It should be noted that Elliott was the former campaign director for “No to AV”, which argued against the introduction of a form of proportional representation into British elections in the 2011 referendum on the issue. Although described as a cross-party organisation, it was funded almost exclusively by Conservative Party donors. This is the reality of the anti-EU right-wingers’ claims to be the defenders of democracy.

Present in the audience was Paul Mitchell, representing the Socialist Equality Party’s campaign in the North West constituency.

Mitchell denounced the Labour candidate for deliberately ignoring the plight of Greek workers, and the threats being made by the EU against Russia. He said that there is no difference fundamentally between Labour’s policies and those of the UKIP, both of which represent different avenues by which the ruling class is seeking to slash workers’ living standards and swell corporate profits.

At this point, the moderator interrupted to state, “I guess your question to the panel is ‘what about the workers?!’ ” The question was not answered.

RADICAL left coalition No2EU-Yes to Workers’ Rights warned yesterday that Ukip would continue to thrive till the labour movement takes concerns about the EU seriously: here.

Ukip is just as much a part of the neoliberal Establishment as the Tories. So is the EU: here.

Austerity caused thousands of Greek suicides

Posted on April 21, 2014 by petrel41

This video from Greece says about itself:

Greek couple stage suicide threat in jobs protest

15 February 2012

A Greek couple fearing for their jobs threatened to commit suicide by jumping from the window ledge of their office in Athens.

Both are now safe: the husband was first persuaded to come down but the wife remained for about five hours before going back into the building.

They work for a state owned housing company under threat of closure.

Underlining the plight of many people in the country, they said their pay had been cut and they had debts and a mortgage they couldn’t pay.

Other employees have also staged a sit-in protest.

As the 500 figure named in the article below here does not count women’s suicides because of austerity, and is only about 2009-2010, while the worst austerity measures in Greece came after 2010, one can safely estimate that the austerity policies of the European Union, European Central Bank and IMF caused thousands of suicides in Greece.

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Austerity in Greece caused more than 500 male suicides, say researchers

Study finds clear link between spending cuts and rise in number of men who killed themselves between 2009 and 2010

Spending cuts in Greece caused a rise in male suicides, according to research that attempts to highlight the health costs of austerity.

Echoing official statistics in the UK showing suicide rates are still higher than before the crisis, researchers at the University of Portsmouth have found a correlation between spending cuts and suicides in Greece.

According to the research, every 1% fall in government spending in Greece led to a 0.43% rise in suicides among men. In other words, after controlling for other characteristics that might lead to suicide, 551 men killed themselves “solely because of fiscal austerity” between 2009 and 2010, said the paper’s co-author Nikolaos Antonakakis.

“That is almost one person per day. Given that in 2010 there were around two suicides in Greece per day, it appears 50% were due to austerity,” he added.

Antonakakis, a senior lecturer in economics and finance, and himself a Greek national, said he had been prompted to look into a potential link between austerity and suicide rates after media stories and reports of friends of friends dying from suicide.

Although there had been studies into the health effects of negative economic growth, there was a gap when it came specifically to spending cuts and health, he said.

Antonakakis and his co-author, the economics professor Alan Collins, said they were surprised at how many suicides appeared linked to austerity and how clear the connection was.

There was also a clear gender divide in the effects of austerity with no obvious rise in female suicide rates, according to the research published in the journal Social Science and Medicine.

Men aged 45-89 faced the highest suicide risk in response to austerity because they were most likely to suffer cuts to their salaries and pensions, the research said.

Antonakakis and Collins are considering work on the link between austerity and suicide rates in other eurozone countries most affected by the crisis, such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland. In the meantime, they are urging policymakers to put more weight on the health costs of spending cuts.

“These findings have strong implications for policymakers and for health agencies,” said Antonakakis. “We often talk about the fiscal multiplier effect of austerity, such as what it does to GDP. But what is the health multiplier?

We have to consider the health multipliers of any fiscal consolidation and austerity. The fact we find gender specificity and age specificity can help health agencies target their help.”

The research is not the first to claim that cutbacks have cost lives. Last year, the political economist David Stuckler and the physician-epidemiologist Sanjay Basu pointed to soaring suicide rates, rising HIV infections and even a malaria outbreak. But in their book, The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills, they argued that such costs were by no means inevitable and that in some countries countermeasures such as active labour market schemes had softened the blow from cuts.

In Greece, however, HIV infection rose by more than 200% since 2011 as prevention budgets were cut, and intravenous drug use grew amid 50% youth unemployment. Greece also experienced its first malaria outbreak in decades after budget cuts to mosquito-spraying, the authors said.

In the UK, official statistics released in February showed that suicide rates for 2012 had changed little from 2011 but remained significantly higher than five years earlier.

The Samaritans charity said that despite the economic recovery many people were still very worried about money, jobs and housing, and that one in six calls to its service were about financial worries. That compares with one in 10 in 2008.

Its research has shown that disadvantaged men in mid-life are at higher risk of suicide. Men in the lowest socio-economic group living in the most deprived areas are approximately 10 times more likely to die by suicide than men from higher socio-economic backgrounds, living in the most affluent areas.

Responding to the research on Greece, a Samaritans spokesman said: “There is a well established link between unemployment and suicide, which tends to increase during economic recession, particularly where it’s not offset by welfare safety nets.

“The fact that disadvantaged people have shorter lives, live with physical and mental health problems and are more likely to die by suicide are inequities that demand a response by services such as Samaritans.

“As the nation’s listening ear, we’d like to remind people struggling to cope that we will continue to be here for anybody who needs someone to listen to them.”

• The Samaritans helpline is 08457 90 90 90 in the UK and can be emailed jo@samaritans.org

New book on 19th century London strike

Posted on April 21, 2014 by petrel41

This video says bout itself:

An exploration of the origins of the Labour Party, told through the story of Keir Hardie, Britain’s first working class MP.

By John Callow in Britain:

Monday 21st April 2014

History is very much worth fighting for and engaging with in the present — as a new book on a previously little-known 19th-century strike eloquently demonstrates, says JOHN CALLOW

Silvertown: The Lost Story Of A Strike That Shook London And Helped Launch The Modern Labour Movement

by John Tully

Lawrence & Wishart, £17.99

JOHN TULLY’S Silvertown: The Lost Story Of A Strike That Shook London And Helped Launch The Modern Labour Movement has a sense of original archival discovery that permits the voices, actions and ideals of long-forgotten working men and women to speak directly to us, in their own way and on their own terms.

It’s a considerable achievement, not least on account of the difficulties inherent in trying to reconstruct the lives and motivations of the silenced majority of Victorian Britain, the wealth creators who were actively prohibited from sharing in their gains and who more often than not had neither the leisure nor the opportunity to record their own thoughts and feelings.

As this book demonstrates, the strikers in 1889 at Silvertown in east London refused to be broken by poverty, ground down by cynicism or cowed by the forces arrayed against them by both their employers and the state.

This determined stance led, swiftly and surely, to the realisation that rights and freedoms — to education, healthcare, meaningful and well-paid work, social and economic justice and dignity in old age — were never going to be freely conceded by the privileged few.

Rather, they would have to be won through concerted, collective action and shared principle on the part of the many whose industry and life blood drove the machines and fed the furnaces of the world’s first industrial nation, the shock-centre of modern capitalism.

As Tully appreciates but many of our politicians would rather forget those early socialist pioneers knew that these liberties, once won, would have to be jealously guarded and forcefully defended, each and every day, against those who would seize them back again or else seek to give them away without a struggle, backwards glance or second thought.

The Gasworkers’ Union — the ancestor of today’s GMB union — was founded upon a big idea.

It sought to represent the underdog, the unskilled worker, and to unequivocally and unapologetically represent class as opposed to sectional interests.

It was serious about redistributing power and wealth from the “haves” to the “have-nots,” appreciative of the risks it ran and of the destruction of earlier general unions and driven by a clearly articulated Marxist vision that found its expression in the guiding objective of the union’s first rule book.

Thus members were called upon to “remember that the interests of all workers are one and a wrong done to any kind of labour is a wrong done to the whole of the working class and that victory or defeat of any portion of the army of labour is a gain or a loss to the whole of that army, which by its organisation and union is marching forward to its ultimate goal — the emancipation of the working class.

That emancipation can only be brought about by the strenuous and united efforts of the working class itself.”

The prescience of this injunction would seem to be borne out in the pages of John Tully’s book, where two main factors are highlighted in the account of the defeat of the strikers.

The first emphasises the sense of unity and ruthless purpose that characterised the board of management at the rubber works, which scorned any form of negotiation or compromise with their workforce.

The board understood with absolute clarity what was at stake for the capitalist system if concessions began to undermine the ability to amass private profit by any means at its disposal.

The second reason for the collapse of the strike lay in the antipathy felt by the older skilled craft unions towards the new general union that sought to represent and to promote unskilled labour.

Tragically, on this occasion, the company directors and shareholders knew better than either the executive of the Amalgamated Society Of Engineers — the precursor of the AEEU — or the London Trades Council that unity really was strength.

This said, the battle was still well worth fighting.

The Silvertown dispute brought Eleanor Marx firmly into contact with both the union and with the women and men of the East End.

It provided her with a new purpose and sense of comradeship and permitted her to combine her own remarkable skills as both office administrator and as street-corner orator.

She appears to have been everywhere, in constant motion and creative symbiosis with her constituency, advising, heartening and finding new ways to feed the strikers and their families.

She acted as a catalyst for the union’s decision to admit women to membership and founded the first women’s branch at Silvertown on October 10 1889, enabling feminist — alongside Marxist — currents to course through every fibre of the new union.

For the next six years, she successfully combined the roles of activist and propagandist — she collected branch donations and dues door-to-door in Silvertown — with the duties of a national trade union official and her position as one of the leading figures within the Second Socialist International.

The union was, for its first decade, deeply influenced by her example and ideals and it was Silvertown which provided the cornerstone for her engagement with it.

In a similar vein, the dispute also set the scene for the first meeting between Will Thorne and Pete Curran and set the seal upon their lasting friendship.

Though his contribution to the formation of the Labour Party is now largely forgotten, Curran drove the political strategy of the union for more than 20 years and was one of the first Labour MPs, serving the Jarrow constituency from 1907-10.

Like many of the early figures in the union’s development — JR Clynes, Jim Connell and Jack Jones — he came from an Irish background and combined the themes of anti-imperialism, opposition to militarism and the Boer war with an overtly Marxist conception of socialism and societal development.

Though neither he nor Eleanor Marx would live to see it, the election of Jack Jones as the union-sponsored MP for Silvertown in 1918 provided a fitting tribute to the sacrifices and dedication of those who had gone on strike a generation earlier and who had first raised the red flag outside the walls of Matthew Gray’s factory.

Tully’s book is as committed, as passionate and as clear-sighted as those pioneers who staked everything they had for the sake of our tomorrow.

It recalls tragedies and injustices but it also encourages us to remember the scope of the labour movement’s advance and the simple, undeclarative heroism that saw unskilled women and men, old and young, with no financial reserves or access to the media and with starvation threatening brave police truncheons, pauperisation and the chill of the cold to wage a strike that lasted some 89 days.

How many more possibilities could be achieved by the unions of today, with full-time officers, legal teams, campaign funds and access to the internet and the press?

In this light, it is to be hoped that Silvertown: The Story Of A Lost Strike gains the widest possible audience, both union and non-union, academic and popular and that the author should be congratulated for his work in recovering this account of our collective past. It is for today’s labour movement to lay its own claim to shaping a progressive future.

Silvertown: The Lost Story Of A Strike That Shook London And Helped Launch The Modern Labour Movement is published by Lawrence & Wishart, price £17.99.

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