Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

Thousands of health employees, teachers, development officers and other sections of the working class, including railway workshop employees and private sector workers, held protests and strikes across Sri Lanka on Monday and Tuesday over wages and conditions. The action follows anti-privatisation demonstrations last week by electricity, port and petroleum employees.

The mass walkouts are another indication of rising social anger against the Rajapakse government and its big business program which is ruthlessly driving up the cost of living and eliminating meagre social support, while forcing teachers and other employees to return to work amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

* On Monday, an estimated 50,000 development officers held a national sicknote protest over seven demands, including the abolition of salary anomalies, a monthly salary increase of around 15,000 rupees ($US75) and the establishment of a proper promotion scheme. There are about 100,000 development officers employed at different state departments across the country. Media reports indicated that more than half were involved in the campaign.

* On Tuesday, public hospital nurses and paramedics walked out in a one-day sicknote action. Union officials told the media that nearly 50,000 health employees were involved in the strike. The hospital workers want rectification of salary anomalies, a special duty allowance increase of 3,000 rupees and higher overtime payments.

The strike was called by the Collective of Health Professionals (CHP), an alliance of 16 unions. While the CHP has called a series of protests and strikes over the same demands in recent months, it has limited the walkouts and then shut them down following bogus promises by the government that it would resolve workers demands.

Health employees blamed the unions for not fully mobilising their members for Tuesdays strike, resulting in lesser numbers participating.

A nurse from Kandy national hospital told the WSWS that union officials had discouraged members from participating and that only about 500 of the 2,000 nurses at the hospital joined the walkout. There was no discussion with members before the strike. Workers cant be mobilised by just distributing a leaflet, they said.

The health unions, like their counterparts across the island, have deliberately divided workers. The Public Services United Nurses Union (PSUNU), led by Buddhist monk Muruththetuwe Ananda who backs the Rajapakse government, and the All Ceylon Health Services Union (ACHSU), which is controlled by the opposition Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), did not participate in Tuesdays action. Instead, the ACHSU called a separate lunch-hour demonstration.

While health workers are determined to fight for their longstanding demands, the unions are desperate to prevent any political confrontation with the government. This weeks one-day protest was called to dissipate the rising anger of health workers, who for almost two years have been working extended hours attempting to treat COVID-19 patients in the countrys dangerously under-staffed and underfunded hospitals.

* Also on Tuesday, thousands of public-school teachers and principals demonstrated in several parts of the island. This included about 3,000 teachers in central Colombo and over 1,000 in Kandy with a similar number mobilising at Hatton in the Central Hill Districts. The protests were called by an alliance of some 30 teachers and principals unions, including the Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU) and Ceylon Teachers Services Union controlled by the JVP.

Thousands of teachers, principals and parents also demonstrated outside the Mawanella police station, about 25 kilometres west of Kandy. They were demanding that police arrest a local Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna politician who is alleged to have physically assaulted a parent during a protest the previous week. While police later arrested the politician, and three others involved in the attack, they were bailed by a local magistrate.

The teachers demonstrations followed the unions shutdown on October 25 of a determined 100-day strike and boycott of online education services by 250,000 teachers demanding higher salaries. Teachers have been fighting for increased wages for over 20 years.

The Rajapakse government refused to grant the teachers pay claim but later offered one third of the amount being demanded to be paid in instalments over the next three years. Desperate to end the dispute, the unions accepted the reduced amount, demanding that it be paid in one instalment, and then shut down the strike, ordering teachers to return to work. This weeks protests, and similar demonstrations the previous week, were a cynical attempt by the unions to dissipate members anger.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and Finance Minister Basil Rajapakse met with the teachers unions and said the government would pay its reduced salary offer in one instalment. The unions readily agreed to the meagre rise, ditching teachers longstanding pay claims. Finance Minister Basil Rajapakse later told the media that Colombos deal should not be seen as a salary increase.

This weeks union-controlled protests were timed to coincide with Finance Minister Rajapakses annual budget proposals, which will be presented to parliament today, and were aimed at promoting the illusion that the government can be pressured. The JVP-controlled unions are demanding the government budget increase workers monthly wages by 10,000 rupees.

Finance Minister Rajapakse, who confronts a collapse in export earnings, a falling currency and massive foreign debt repayments has made it abundantly clear that he will be unveiling a ruthless austerity budget. The people will not gain anything. Instead, we will be taking from them, he told journalists last week. He plans to cut the fiscal deficit by two-thirds to 4.55 percent of gross domestic product, down from last years 14.7 percent.

Confronted with this crisis, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rajapakse government is prioritising profits over lives and implementing herd immunity policies. This criminal agenda has been fully backed by the unions and has seen the health unions abandon their members demands for increased work safety.

The reactionary role of the trade unions is bringing Sri Lankan workers into conflict with these organisations, which defend the Rajapakse government, and are hostile to any independent political mobilisation of the working class against the capitalist profit system.

Alongside the increase in workers struggles, farmers are continuing their protests, calling for fertiliser and other necessities for cultivation. On Tuesday, hundreds of housewives demonstrated in Colombo and other parts of the island demanding a reduction in the price of essentials and an end to food shortages.

Contrary to the union claims that the Rajapakse government can be forced to grant concessions, Colombo has passed an essential public services act, which covers nearly one million state sector workers and criminalises all industrial action and strikes in these institutions. At the same time, it is moving to whip up communalist tensions to try and divide the working class.

The unions, which function as industrial police, have not opposed the governments anti-strike laws and its racialist moves. Workers cannot develop a genuine struggle for their social and democratic rights through these organisations.

What is required is the establishment of rank-and-file action committees, independent of the unions and controlled by workers to defend jobs, wages and to fight for improved social conditions. These committees must unite workers across the island and turn to the international working class, as part of the struggle for socialist policies and a workers and peasants government.

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Over 100000 Sri Lankan workers walk out to demand higher wages and better conditions - WSWS

By order of the Greek Police, for the celebration of the anniversary of the Polytechnic, the metro station "Megaro Mousikis" will close today from 15:00, while the stations "Syntagma" and "Evangelismos" from 16:30.

As STASY announced, the trains will pass through these stations without making stops.

At the same time, employees announced work stoppages on buses and trolleybuses on Thursday, November 18th. According to the relevant announcements, the employees will carry out the work stops from the beginning of the shift until 9 in the morning, and from 9 in the evening until the end of the shift.

The mobilizations were announced by the OASA Workers 'Union and the ILPAP Workers' Union, demanding immediate responsibility for the tragic accident on line 1 of the Metro and maintenance of the infrastructure at work.

The ILPAP Workers' Union emphasizes in its announcement: "We express our sincere condolences to the family of our late ISAP employee colleague. Another worker does not return to his family due to the intensification of work, the choice of the employer not to take protection measures in the workplace. We demand: immediate responsibility for the tragic accident. Prevention and Maintenance of infrastructure in the workplace ". The OASA Workers' Union demands "the transfer of responsibilities and the abolition of contractors in the workplace".

Isidore Roussos

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Closed metro stations and modifications to bus and trolley routes, tomorrow due to the events for the anniversary of the Polytechnic - 9.84

The abolition of indirect primaries is a positive legislative action against executive arrogance, writes Bolaji Adebiyi

Now, technical glitches witnessed during the Anambra State governorship election last Saturday are thought to have weaponised political opponents of the electronic electoral system, which makes the case for technology-driven accreditation, voting, collation and transmission of election results. The election, which the Independent National Electoral Commission used to test-run its innovative Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, suffered the usual drawbacks and more. But the one of interest to the opponents of technology has been the hitches with BVAS. This, at best, is subterfuge.

Coming while the nation awaited the National Assemblys adoption and passage of the report of its harmonisation committee on 2010 Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2021 that resolved to grant INEC power to determine mode of electoral process, the antagonists saw a ray of hope. However, the approval of this recommendation on Tuesday by the Senate and the House of Representatives circumscribed that hope. Meanwhile, the National Assembly added insult to their injury when it approved direct primaries as the sole mode of selection of parties candidates for elective offices. As it is their nature to be optimistic even when the issues are as visible to the blind as they are audible to the deaf, the adversaries, largely led by governors, are not giving up. They, it is reported, have taken their battle to the presidency, hoping to convince President Muhammadu Buhari, who is a beneficiary of direct primaries, to withhold accent. Again, this at best, is reckless optimism.

The main argument for technological intervention is that it would reduce human interference in the electoral system and make the process more transparent and credible. The expected corollary is that it would reduce post-election contestation and make the nations electoral outcomes more acceptable to the generality of contestants and the people. This is essentially why the civil society and opposition politicians supported the idea and were up in arms against the federal legislators when they attempted to expunge the provisions in the electoral amendment bill a couple of months ago.

In proposing the introduction of technology, neither INEC nor its supporters beat their chest and vouched that all would be smooth without itches. First, BVAS is an innovative improvement over its predecessor, the Smart Card Reader. It aims to increase the commissions capacity to make the accreditation process faster and more credible. It offers a voter whose thumbprint is not recognised by the accreditation devise a second chance through facial recognition. If both fail the voter, then he would not be accredited as the device has eliminated the notorious incidence form that was in the past used to compromise the accreditation process. It would also send its information to the commissions central server, thereby making padding at any stage impossible.

That some of the gadgets of the new device had technical itches on its first deployment is obviously a none-issue because being a new innovation it would only be perfected through a learning process. In any case, this was the experience with the card reader when it was introduced in 2015. But by the general election of that year, it had been sufficiently mastered to render one of the most acceptable electoral exercises in the country to date. So, as the text-run continues with other stand-alone elections, including the governorship polls for Ekiti and Osun States next year, INECs electronics engineers have ample time to deal with the noticed challenges.

Secondly, it is necessary to point out that BVAS is only a leg of the electoral process that is billed for transition from analogue to digital (technology) mode. The others, voting, collation and transmission of results are outstanding, and their transition is in the offing. Already, INEC has more or less perfected the art of electronic transmission of results with the last Osun and Edo States governorship and some state constituency elections. Therefore, the partial failure of one leg at first deployment cannot be a sufficient argument for the abandonment of the push for an electronic electoral system.

The opposition to direct primaries is even more repugnant to the noble quest for entrenchment of internal democracy in the political parties, which the 1999 Constitution as altered insists are the only entities that can present candidates for elective offices in the country. It is obvious to all discernible observers of the nations politics that the delegate system has not only been fraught with fraud but has also enhanced the capacity of state governors to dominate their parties and politics.

Had the governors been effective in the delivery of services to the people, their control would have been appreciated. Unfortunately, their political control has been largely detrimental to national development. Having subdued the legislative and judicial arms of government in the states, the governors govern almost without restraint so much so they have become so emboldened to neglect their basic responsibilities of providing good governance.

The governors thirst for political dominance would have been ignored if it did not have the possibility of extending their gross incompetence to the federal level. Everyone knows that with their dominance of political power in the states no one could aspire successfully to any elective office at the federal level without their support. This, no doubt, has made many of them so arrogant that not a few non-executive actors, including legislators and other aspirants think they are the main source of instability in the political parties.

If this is the case, there can be no sustainable argument against the need to clip their wings. The abolition of the delegate system by the federal legislature is a right move in this direction and it should be supported largely because, as argued quite correctly last week, resisting the executives bully must go beyond belly-aching and threat issuing from the other arms. Both aggrieved arms must come together to take concrete actions to abate its arrogance and hostility. This, therefore, is a positive legislative action to begin to rid the polity of the armful influence of a segment of the executive that has over exploited the advantages of the functions donated to it by the constitution to the detriment of not only the other arms of government but also the very people for which it was entrusted with power.

Adebiyi, managing editor of THISDAY Newspapers, writes from bolaji.adebiyi@thisdaylive.com

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DIRECTING PRIMARIES THAT WORK FOR THE PEOPLETHISDAYLIVE - THISDAY Newspapers

Almost two years into a pandemic that has claimed the lives of close to 30,000 Canadians, Canadas Liberal government has admitted what scientific experts have long insistedaerosols play a major role in the transmission of COVID-19.

Indeed, research has conclusively demonstrated that aerosols are the virus principal means of transmission.

Yet up until late last week, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), which is overseen by the federal Liberal government, stubbornly insisted that respiratory droplets are far and away the most important means by which COVID-19 is transmitted. This is because highlighting the key role aerosols play in spreading the virus points to the dangers people face when they congregate in workplaces, schools, buses and subway cars, and thus cuts across the ruling elites drive to corral working people to return to work amid the pandemic.

Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam tweeted the new public health advice concerning aerosols late Friday afternoon. Since the outset of the pandemic, weve learned a lot about the SARS2 virus that causes COVID-19, the tweet read. Importantly, weve learned how the virus can linger in fine aerosols and remain suspended in the air we breathe. Much like expelled smoke lingers in poorly ventilated spaces, the SARS2 virus can remain suspended in the air, with those in close proximity to the infected person inhaling more aerosols, especially in indoor and poorly ventilated spaces.

The PHAC has not followed up Tams tweets, which appear to have been timed to minimize their impact, with a public information offensive to alert the population as to the dangers of aerosol transmission. Nor is it advocating any policy changes to prevent a surge of infections, as people increasingly congregate indoors during the cold winter months.

The PHACs belated admission constitutes a devastating indictment of the political establishments prioritization of corporate profits over human life, which has gone hand-in-hand with a systematic repudiation of a science-based response to the virus.

Until Tams tweet, the federal government had treated aerosol transmission of COVID-19 as little more than an afterthought. Not until November 2020, long after scientific investigations had demonstrated the centrality of airborne spread, did the PHAC even admit that aerosol transmission was possible. Moreover, as the CBC noted at the time, this change to the PHACs COVID-19 guidance was done quietly, and was not accompanied by any campaign to warn the public of the danger of aerosol transmission, let alone any changes in government policy.

The federal governments insistence that droplets were the main mode of transmission, a claim followed by provincial governments across the country, was driven by political motives. The ruling elites profits before life pandemic policy, based on forcing workers back into unsafe workplaces so they could churn out profits for corporate Canada, required that airborne transmission be denied or at least downplayed. This enabled governments to avoid imposing any responsibilities on employers for taking adequate precautions to stop the airborne spread of COVID-19, while at the same time removing any obligation from governments to fund basic upgrades to improve ventilation and air quality in schools, colleges and other public buildings.

Speaking at the October 24 webinar How to end the pandemic organized by the World Socialist Web Site, Prof. Jose Luis Jimenez, a chemistry professor at the University of Colorado (Boulder), addressed this issue directly. Noting that governments and public health authorities around the world have concentrated above all on transmission via droplets that are inhaled at close proximity or transferred via contact with surfaces, he remarked, Droplets and surfaces are more convenient for governments, organizations and companies. If you get infected, you didnt wash your hands, you didnt keep your distance, you didnt wear your mask well, so the responsibility is mostly yours. But if it was airborne, your employer or your government didnt provide you with good ventilation, and they have a horror of that.

One of the most notorious examples of this outlook in practice came in the fall of 2020, when provincial governments across the country reopened schools with virtually no protections against virus transmission. Campaigners who pushed for the use of HEPA filters and other ventilation devices in overcrowded and poorly ventilated classrooms were contemptuously dismissed by the authorities, while the education trade unions connived with provincial governments to suppress opposition among teachers and education workers to the reckless return to in-person learning. The back-to-school drive, as a study carried out in Montreal later demonstrated, played a crucial role in fuelling Canadas second pandemic wave, which claimed over 10,000 lives last fall and winter.

Similar devastating scenarios played out at numerous workplaces. Over 600 Amazon employees at the companys massive Heritage Road facility in Bramptonmore than 10 percent of the workforcewere infected by COVID-19 in a massive outbreak last winter. Thousands of workers crammed elbow-to-elbow in meatpacking plants also got infected in Quebec and Alberta, with several losing their lives.

There is no indication that the Trudeau Liberal government, or any of its provincial counterparts, intend to pull back in the slightest from their back-to-work/back-to-school drive in response to Tams admission about the dangers of aerosols. On the contrary, Tams statement came as governments move to dismantle all remaining public health measures aimed at limiting the virus spread. Despite resurgent infections, the Ontario Progressive Conservative government led by Doug Ford is pressing ahead with a timeline that will see the abolition of all public health measures, including mask-wearing, by March.

In Quebec, the hard-right Coalition Avenir Quebec government lifted a mask mandate for high school students on Monday and eliminated restrictions on karaoke bars and dance venues. COVID-STOP, a group of health care experts, attacked the government for refusing to acknowledge aerosol transmission, which it says accounts for between 85 and 100 percent of all COVID-19 transmission. Nima Machouf, an epidemiologist and member of COVID-STOP, said in response to the lifting of the mask mandate in high schools, Its like replaying last years movie. We were expecting that the government would have learned from it. The timing is not right.

In fact, the situation being provoked by the ruling elite this winter is arguably even worse than a year ago. Under conditions in which the significantly more infectious Delta variant is dominant, and the immunity provided by vaccines is beginning to wane, even the inadequate protective measures deployed earlier in the pandemic are being tossed aside. The health care system, which has operated at the breaking point for close to two years, is even less equipped to deal with an influx of patients than it was 12 months ago, with thousands of overworked, mentally-exhausted health care workers having left the profession.

Nonetheless, the ruling elite is determined to resist taking even the most basic public health measures to reduce COVID-19s further spread. Tams admission that the virus is transmitted by aerosols was itself somewhat contradictory, with the Chief Public Health Officer unable to even bring herself to recommend high-quality N95 masks or equivalents for workplaces and other indoor settings. Instead, she merely suggested that a well-fitted and well-constructed mask should be worn.

Nicolas Smit, an Ontario-based engineer and scientist who has been a strong advocate for better access to personal protective equipment (PPE) throughout the pandemic, told the WSWS in an interview that protections for workers must be strengthened following the governments admission that COVID-19 is transmitted primarily through the air. There have been a lot of outbreaks at Canada Post facilities, for example, he said. Federal workers should get N95 masks at a minimum.

Smit added that the revised PHAC guidance makes a big difference to how the threat of infection in schools should be viewed. Classrooms now become a danger zone, he continued. As we enter the winter, it will be harder to open windows. Theyre going to have to use other methods of protection and technology, like N95 masks and elastomeric respirators, he said. But in Ontario, you have teachers getting suspended for wearing N95 masks.

Workers who have based themselves on the science ignored by the ruling elite and fought for improved PPE over recent weeks have been met with intimidation and reprisals from their employers and trade unions. In Ontario, a campaign initiated by the biostatistician and educator Ryan Imgrund, and supported by hundreds of teachers, calling for only N95 masks to be worn in schools was viciously denounced by the teachers trade unions. Teachers who wore N95s to school were suspended by their school boards, including some with immunocompromised children at home.

These events underscore that if science-based policies to combat the pandemic are to be implemented, they must be enforced through a mass movement led by the working class. This movement must be guided by the understanding that the only way to prevent an airborne virus like COVID-19 from inflicting further mass infection and death on workers across Canada and internationally is to fight for its elimination.

This requires the immediate closure of all nonessential production and in-person learning in schools, with full compensation paid to all workers from the vast wealth being hoarded by the pandemic profiteers. It also requires the development of a comprehensive program of testing, isolation of infected people, contact tracing and vaccinations, to bring community transmission down to zero.

COVID-19 can be eliminated.

We gathered a panel of scientists to explain how.

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Canada admits aerosols are major source of COVID-19 transmission after nearly two years of denying it - WSWS

The Office for Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement hosted the seventh annual Diversity Summit late last week, featuring more than 20 virtual sessions including a keynote address from Angela Davis.

Nearly 40 speakers including students, scholars and activists participated in the virtual summit Thursday and Friday, headlined by the theme The Audacity of Hope, The Power in Community, which sought to educate the University community to protect diverse identities and enhance racial equity across the country. The summits lineup featured distinguished civil rights activist Angela Davis who delivered the keynote address, speakers from GW and honorary guests Dr. Tony Keith and Rebecca Russo, whodiscussed issues ranging from policings effect on D.C. youth to the intersection between sexual violence and disability.

Davis rehashed her journey of advocacy from the Civil Rights Movement to modern-day racial justice issues, like prison abolition and intersectional discrimination and advocacy, during her address Thursday.

She said she has spent her careerwriting eight books about social justice issues and lecturing about civil rights throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, Australia and South America. She said as a child growing up in the Jim Crow south, she developed a life centered around resistance from a young age, recalling a game where her friends would dare each other to ring white peoples doorbells before running away.

We even turned resistance into a game. Davis said at the summit. But most importantly, it became a way of life. It became the way in which we live our lives.

Davis said Black feminists have faced an intersectionality of discrimination on the basis of race, gender and sexuality, evidence of how multiple identities have conceptualized our place in the world.

Intersectionality is a particular formulation of the kind of interconnectedness and interrelatedness that Black feminists have been arguing for for a very long time, she said.

Davis voiced her support for the prison abolition movement at the summit, saying that without prisons, people would be free to live their lives without the fear of oppression and harm.

A world that would no longer need prisons and police for security would be a world in which people were happy and free and were able to explore their own individual desires and passions. Davis said. It would be a socialist world, let me put it that way.

She said everyone comes from a community, which in turn will shape their individual personality, tying into this years theme invoking the power in community identities, relationships and voices.

We are all produced by communities, we would not exist as individuals if not for our communities. she said.

Other speakers at the Diversity Summit discussed antisemitism, critical race theory and health concerns related to racial trauma as issues that affect community diversity.

Sabrina Soffer, a freshman majoring in international politics and Judaic studies and an opinions writer for The Hatchet, spoke at an event about antisemitism and Jewish inclusion on campus Thursday,where she advocated for an increase in Holocaust education and more awareness about a recent rise in antisemitism across college campuses.

Antisemitism resurfaced as a campus-wide discussion at GW after a Torah was desecrated at Tau Kappa Epsilons townhouse earlier this month, drawing hundreds of students to voice their support for the Jewish student population.

We have to remember history in order to prevent whats going on, especially because GW has a one-third Jewish population, but yet we have the second most cases of antisemitism across colleges in the nation. Soffer said in an interview.

Following Russos presentation, a panel of faculty and administrators answered questions and explained available resources, like bias reporting, to address concerns about antisemitism at GW. Caroline Laguerre-Brown, the vice provost for diversity equity and community engagement, said on the panel that officials have a mission to build a more inclusive GW through these resources.

In response to a question from the audience regarding the summits theme of hope, Laguerre-Brown said that in the face of rising antisemitism, she finds hope in the GW student community.

As the head of the Office for Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement, to be sure, the mission of the office is really every single day to work on as many fronts as we can to try to build a more inclusive GW, she said.

Wendy Ellis, an assistant professor of global health and the director of the Center for Community Resilience in the Milken Institute School of Public Health, spoke during the closing event entitled Trauma, Equity and Resilience: A Call to Action. The discussion focused on trauma created by forms of systemic racism, like inequitable economic opportunity, social capital and housing affordability, which have oppressed and marginalized communities.

When we hear community narratives, are we merely just looking at the outcome, or are we asking ourselves, Is this also the experience of racism that we are seeing? she said at the event.

Ellis said community resilience is essential to break from cycles of trauma.Recounting her own childhood experiences with an abusive father who murdered her mother, Ellis said the resilience of her community and the availability of an education propelled her to where she is today.

We know what equity means, we know what diversity looks like and we know the importance of inclusion, she said. So lets get to work.

Interim Provost Chris Bracey delivered a presentation about critical race theory, its origins and its inclusion in public school history curricula at an event Friday. Bracey said critical race theory originated in the legal field, and that the term acts as a verb in describing one who engages in critical race theory to learn more about the role of race and racism in society.

He said critical race theorists are examining how a rule, law or decision may disadvantagepeople of color.

Bracey said conservatives have worked to oppose critical race theory and its inclusion in public school history curricula, fearing it may negatively portray white people.

Critical race theory seems to have risen from relative obscurity to front page news almost overnight, Bracey said at the summit.

He said this resistancehasdriven the growing attention toward critical race theory, but these conservative opponents who have no clue about the true meaning of the term are actually opposing the rise of multiculturalism.

This is what the masses are reacting to this prevailing perception that somehow critical race theory is threatening white privilege, Bracey said.

This article appeared in the November 15, 2021 issue of the Hatchet.

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Diversity Summit takes community-based focus The GW Hatchet - GW Hatchet

Foot. gd_project / / stock struggle

After it was announced that Shells headquarters would be moved from the Netherlands to the UK, the Dutch government wants to scrap the dividend tax for international shareholders in order to convince the company to change its mind. The Minister of Economy wants to convince the political parties to do so.

The giant oil and gas company Shell announced, Monday, that it intends to exit the Netherlands. The seat will be moved from The Hague to London.

The Dutch government was unhappy with the proposal that the companys shareholders will vote on on December 10. I am unpleasantly surprised, Economy Minister Steve Block told reporters.

Moving the companys headquarters would mean losing hundreds of millions of euros a year, which now goes to the treasury as taxes, Jan van de Strick, a professor of tax law, was quoted by the daily Trouw as saying.

According to the media, Minister Block began consultations with parties in the House of Representatives (Tweed cameras) regarding the abolition of the tax on dividends to persuade the company to change its decision to change its seat.

De Telegraaf reports that Shell CEO Ben van Beurden indicated in conversations with the government and journalists that the failure to abolish the profit tax was the main reason for moving the headquarters to London.

The newspaper said: The government is now frantically persuading the parliamentary factions to agree to it. According to the media, the adoption of the governments proposal will cost the budget nearly 2 billion euros annually.

The answer is no, Lillian Blumen, the leader of the opposition Labor Party, wrote on Twitter. In her view, this money should be used to solve the problems of housing and investment in health care.

VNO NCW believes that the loss of Shell will worsen the business situation in the Netherlands. The organization notes that two million people work for multinational companies in the Netherlands, earning twice the average national income.

Andrzej Pawluszek from Amsterdam

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The Netherlands is fighting for Shell's concerns. The government proposes to abolish the tax on dividends for international shareholders - R&R...

Since 2019 a total of six young members of Cork County Council have said goodbye to politics, all citing the pressures of the job

FINE Gael councillors Liam OConnor and Katie Murphy are just the latest in what appears to be an ever-growing list of resignations by young members of Cork County Council, citing the heavy workload of the job.

Their resignations follow on from other recent resignations of young councillors, including Aidan Lombard earlier this year, as well as Rachel McCarthy, James ODonovan and Noel ODonovan in recent years. An ever increasing workload and the 24/7 nature of the job have been cited as reasons for these resignations.

The local government system isnt local enough and the ratio of councillors to citizens is exceptionally high, said Dr Aodh Quinlivan, director at the centre for local and regional governance at UCC.

Also the abolition of the town councils was a backward step and it now means councillors have much larger jurisdictions to cover and a big increase in workloads too, he added.

Entry into town councils was easier then and more young people and more women were elected onto town councils than any other level of government, he continued, suggesting they should be reinstated.

Dr Quinlivan said it is important to make local government more meaningful by increasing its powers.

Local government in Ireland is weak with limited responsibilities in areas like transport, tourism, policing and education. If young people feel that their local councils cannot make a major difference they are less likely to put themselves forward and if we want more young people involved we need to sell it and make it attractive. Remuneration and supports are vital to retain councillors.

At the moment many of our councillors are people who can afford to be councillors but its very difficult for those who may be part-time workers. Its not all about the money either and its more about general support too, like getting administrative help, mentoring and education.

Lama the local authority members association has recently announced a councillor assistance programme, where free and confidential psychotherapy sessions will be provided by former Olympic boxer, Cllr Kenneth Egan.

The Council should be representative of society as much as possible regarding gender, age, self-employed etc, and at the moment they dont accurately reflect this, said Dr Quinlivan. I also wouldnt be surprised if more councillors will resign down the road and also the pool of people who can become councillors is quite narrow, too, and it depends on their employment situation.

Former Fine Gael councillor Liam OConnor, who was elected to the newly created Carrigaline Municipal District in 2019, said it was very tough balancing his work commitments as a scientist with Janssen and his Council obligations.

Id have calls and emails every single day, as well as trying to juggle my work and attend the various Council meetings and I couldnt give my Council work 100%. So I had to decide then as things were changing in work, too, and it wasnt feasible, said Liam.

To give yourself fully to the role of a councillor, youre not able to have a full-time job. They will have to look at creating full-time roles where one is paid accordingly. Its a shame, too, because there are some great community people who could be great councillors but the role isnt attractive enough, he added.

For now Liam will remain active in his local party cumann and he hasnt ruled out a return to politics in the future. In the meantime, he says, he will continue his work as chair of Carrigaline Tidy Towns.

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Heavy workload leads to exodus of young voices - Southern Star Newspaper

The following is a report delivered by Peter Symonds,the national editor of the WSWS in Australia, to a meeting of electoral members of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia) on November 14. The meeting was one of a series being held by the SEP as it campaigns against anti-democratic new electoral laws that have trebled the number of members required to achieve the party registration needed to have the partys name placed on election ballot papers.

1. We have in these meetings been discussing the murderous policy of herd immunity and living with the virus that has now been adopted by virtually every country in the world. The results have been devastating.

The pandemic continues to ravage the world. The total number of confirmed cases is now over 250 million and the total number of deaths is more than 5 milliona terrible toll that finds its parallels only in the tragedies of major wars.

In those countries that have championed herd immunity, the figures are horrendous.

In the United Kingdom, according to the latest update on November 13 from the World Health Organisation, there were 42,401 new cases in the previous 24 hours. The total number of cases was nearly nine and a half million, and the total death toll was over 142,000.

In the United States, there were nearly 88,000 new infections in the previous 24 hours. Total cases were well over 46 million, and total deaths were over 750,000 and rapidly heading toward 800,000.

2. All of this is now accepted by governments and the media as the new normal and immense pressure is being exerted for people to do the same. We are seeing it here with the ending of restrictions in every state, the opening of schools, of borders, both state and national, regardless of the deadly consequences.

China stands out as the great exception. Rigorous public health measures, including wholesale testing and contact tracing, lockdowns and other restrictions, now supplemented by mass vaccinations, not only suppressed the initial outbreak last year in Wuhan but have limited the outbreaks that have occurred since then. All of those have resulted from infections being brought into China from outside.

The latest World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics for November 13 are a stark contrast with the rest of the world.

In the previous 24 hours, there were just 110 new cases in China. The cases were quite widespread but there is a serious effort to contain and suppress them. All of this is in marked contrast to the rest of the world. In the same 24 hours here in Australia, with a population that is tiny compared to China, there were 1,589 cases.

Overall, there have been just over 127,000 cases in China and about 5,700 deaths. The vast majority of these took place in the first few months of last year when Chinese authorities were struggling to deal with the outbreak in Wuhan of what was then an unknown respiratory disease. They rapidly identified the cause, and worked out measures to treat, contain and suppress it. And they made that information available to the WHO and the world.

Amid all the talk in the media that it is impossible to eliminate COVID-19, the experience in China demonstrates the opposite. Elimination is possible, but only if carried out on a co-ordinated international basis.

The SEP and the International Committee of the Fourth International have very fundamental political differences with the Chinese Communist Party that go to the heart of the struggle of the Trotskyist movement against Stalinism. It is not the place here to go into the complex history of the three revolutions in China and the evolution of the regime that emerged after the Third Chinese Revolution in 1949.

It is enough to say that the legacy of those huge social and political upheavals does live on, principally in the sentiments of masses of ordinary people who take the issue of the priority of social needs, including the welfare of the population amid the pandemic, over private profit very seriously. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership, which faces an enormous social and economic crisis, is thus under pressure to take this seriously as well and its handling of the pandemic has widespread popular support.

3. What has begun, however, is a rising drumbeat of demands in the US and international media for China to abandon its elimination strategy. It is particularly marked in the financial pressthe Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and here in the Australian Financial Review.

A comment in the Financial Times by the columnist Gideon Rachman, for example, is entitled Chinas self-isolation is a global concern. Its underline, Beijings zero-Covid policy is damaging international business and global governance, speaks volumes about the hypocrisy, criminal indifference to suffering and death, and underlying motives of the ruling elites for whom Rachman speaks.

What Rachman writes is very revealing. He declares: When much of the globe was in lockdown, the extreme nature of Chinas measures seemed less remarkable. But as most of the world returns to something close to normality, Chinas self-isolation is increasingly anomalous.

There are many things that can be said this statement, but the central thrust of what is being argued is that China must accept what has now been imposed by the ruling classes around the world. Something close to normality means ending the public health measures necessary to protect the population and prevent deaths in the interests of profit. The daily toll of cases and lives lost, increasingly including children, is what must be accepted in China.

Rachman is highly indignant over what he describes as the worst control-freak tendencies of the Communist party, citing the case of more than 30,000 people who were locked inside Disneyland Shanghai and tested, after the discovery of a single case of Covid.

The CCP regime has indeed a vast police-state apparatus, which it uses, above all, to suppress the working class. And there may indeed be cases of bureaucratic overkill in dealing with outbreaks of COVID-19, but this was not one of them. As we all know, the Delta strain is highly infectious and thus spreads very rapidly with deadly consequences, even in highly vaccinated populations.

All public health measures are in a sense bureaucratic. This is what is seized upon by the extreme rightwing to demand the abolition of such measuresall in the name of individual rights, including, that means, the right to infect others.

Rachman expresses no outrage at the fact that the British government, indeed the entire political establishment, allows the virus to run rampant in the United Kingdom, with deaths continuing in the hundreds every week. This is the new normal. In the United States, more people die each week from COVID-19 than have died overall in China.

The economic and political factors driving the open up campaign

4. Why is there this vicious campaign to demand that China open up? There are two main reasonsthe first economic, and the second political.

Rachman blurts out the first when he declares: The effects on international business are already apparent. China continues to trade and invest with the outside world. But business ties are fraying. Foreign chambers of commerce in China report that international executives are leaving the country and not being replaced. Hong Kongs role as a global business centre has taken a battering.

In a world economy built on the globalisation of production, any restrictions or the shutting down of any industry or any country affects supply chains around the world, impacting on profits and the stability of the financial system. The disruption is particularly great when it comes to Chinathe worlds largest manufacturer.

Articles have also appeared in the financial press complaining about the disruption of supply chains in South East Asia where countries like Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam have succumbed to pressure to end public health measures. The fact that an open campaign is underway to force China to open up also indicates that the sudden dropping of restrictions here not only came from big business in Australia but also internationally.

The second political reason is bound up with the developing public opposition in the working class around the world to the sacrifice of the health and lives of working people in the pursuit of profits. The ruling classes cannot tolerate any exceptionespecially one so large and obvious as Chinato the mantra that it is impossible to eliminate COVID-19 and everyone has to learn to live with it, and one should add, die with it.

Will Beijing will bow to this pressure? That depends over several factors, above all on what the working class in China and internationally does.

China is not a socialist or communist country. The Chinese Communist Partys claim that it is presiding over socialism with Chinese characteristics is absurd. After more than four decades of capitalist restoration, it is the capitalist market that dominates over every aspect of life and the economy in China. Undoubtedly, there is pressure on the regime from domestic big business as well as international finance capital.

But there is also the potential for the eruption of widespread opposition among Chinese workers if they are forced back to work in unsafe conditions and their children forced back into unsafe schools. The Chinese Communist Party is well aware that it is sitting on top of a social time bomb and to date has maintained its strict elimination policyat least within its borders. Its nationalist outlook means it is incapable of making any broad appeal to the one social force that could fight for it on a world scalethe international working class.

5. The open attack in the international media on Chinas COVID-19 policy is part of a far broader US-led confrontation with China over the past decadefirst under Obama then Trump and now Biden.

It is beyond the scope of this report to deal in any great detail with the reckless US efforts to undermine China diplomatically and economically, and to engage in a huge military build-up throughout the Asian region. This includes that strengthening of military alliances, strategic partnerships and basing arrangements in preparation for what would be a disastrous war between the worlds two largest economies, both nuclear-armed.

The latest is the AUKUS agreement involving the US, Britain and Australia that, among other things, will provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. As former Prime Minister Paul Keating, one of a tiny handful of critics, pointed out this week, these submarines only have one purposeto assist the US in a war with China by confining its navy to Chinas coastline.

The Biden administration has not only continued the aggressive, anti-China policies of the Trump administration but further intensified them on all frontsthe hypocritical denunciations of China over human rights issues, trade war measures and punitive economic measures against Chinese corporations such as Huawei, as well as provocative military operations in areas close to the Chinese mainland.

To touch very briefly on one of the most dangerous signs of the accelerating war drive, the Biden administration is recklessly inflaming tensions over Taiwanarguably the most dangerous flashpoint in Asia. While accusing China of plotting aggression against Taiwan, the US is actively undermining the One China policy that was the basis of the diplomatic relations with China established in 1979. The willingness of Washington to sacrifice diplomatic relations is a sure indication that it is preparing for war.

And the time frame is short. The top US generalchairman of the joint chiefs of staff Mark Milleyrecently put it in a very roundabout way: he didnt expect war with China over Taiwan in the next two years. In other words, after two yearsall bets are off!

The US-led drive to war is not simply a product of bad individuals or policies, but is rooted in the capitalist system itself, and its division of the world into competing nation states. US imperialism regards China and its massive economic expansion as the chief threat to the dominant position that it established in global capitalism after World War II. The US is prepared to use all means, including military, to arrest its historic decline and subordinate China to its economic and strategic interests. Anyone who believes that the potentially catastrophic effects of such a war will deter the ruling class should ponder the fact that they have already been willing to sacrifice millions of lives in the COVID-19 pandemic in the pursuit of profit.

6. The pandemic, the rising danger of war and other deeply troubling problems confronting humanity, such as climate change, are fuelling a radicalisation of workers and young people internationally. The solution to these crises is not to be found in futile appeals to the powers that be, but in the development of a unified revolutionary movement of the working class to put an end to the bankrupt and outmoded system of capitalism.

The electoral laws that we are campaigning against are just one element of the efforts to prevent above all a genuine socialist perspective from being enunciated. I would urge everyone here to redouble their efforts to sign up electoral members to the Socialist Equality Party and to seriously consider, if you are not already, applying to become full SEP members.

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Mounting pressure on China to abandon its zero-COVID policy - WSWS

Executive Summary

Children are one of the most vulnerable groupings amongst those who migrate. They have complex needs, including for a safe and stable environment, as well as access to healthcare, education and tailored, child-friendly services. Within this group, unaccompanied children, - those who have been separated from both parents and other relatives and are not being cared for by an adult who, by law or custom, is responsible for doing so are particularly exposed to increased risks of violence, abuse, and exploitation. As a result, they need targeted and appropriate services to scale, including adequate identification and registration, guardianship and legal representation, quality accommodation and care arrangements.

As of 15 October 2021, there were 2,159 unaccompanied children in Greece, the vast majority of whom were boys over 16 years of age. In the preceding 18 months, more than 1,000 other children were relocated from Greece to other European countries as part of a voluntary relocation scheme to assist the most vulnerable and decongest gravely overcrowded camps and reception facilities. The reality that over 37,000 unaccompanied children were referred for accommodation in Greece since 2016, indicates the scale of the needs and the multiple challenges the country has faced in trying to address them. Added to this, more than 18,000 unaccompanied refugee children and adolescents disappeared from state care across Europe between 2018 and 2020, including 2,118 from Greece, revealing just how vulnerable and at-risk this group can be.

Undeniably, Greece was not equipped to face the scale of the needs that arose with the arrival of these children. Age-appropriate, quality care arrangements, in line with the best interests of the child, were sorely lacking, leaving thousands of children out of long-term accommodation, in precarious conditions, in homelessness or even detention. From the moment of first arrival in the country, unaccompanied childrens safety is impacted as a result of inadequate first reception, identification and registration services and the lack of appointed guardians. If children are not officially recognised as children following the identification stage, then they are forced to live with unknown adults, in inadequate accommodation, without the protection services they need and are entitled to.

In November 2019, the Prime Minister of Greece made a public pledge to protect unaccompanied children through the No Child Alone scheme, at a time when over 5,000 were present in the country. Since then, Greece has made considerable improvements in the protection of unaccompanied children, especially in the provision of quality accommodation and care arrangements. Important advances include the legal abolition of protective custody and the gradual phasing out of safe zones and hotels as means of accommodation. Significantly, the creation of supported independent living apartments demonstrated a marked shift from institutional care and other more isolating and segregated settings to more appropriate, supported and empowering independent living. However, despite these welcome improvements, serious gaps in the protection of unaccompanied children remain.

Providing sufficient safety and support for unaccompanied children is the joint responsibility of both Greece and the EU as a whole, as part of the wider refugee response and in line with EU values and law. The relocation of over 1,000 children from Greece to other European countries is a practical show of solidarity that has also allowed Greece to protect the children remaining in its territory more effectively. Still, more needs to be done. EU member states should urgently fulfil their pledges to relocate unaccompanied children and put family unity at the heart of their asylum policies, allowing all children with family elsewhere in Europe, to join their relatives and grow up with their family. Sadly, in 2020, 3/4 of all family reunification requests of unaccompanied children in Greece were rejected by other EU countries.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has been providing child protection services for asylum-seekers, refugees and other migrants in Greece since 2016. Based on this work, as well as relevant protection and migration programming around the world, we believe that durable solutions that better address the needs and safeguard the rights of unaccompanied children must be urgently introduced or expanded. These include, as a priority, swifter family reunification for children with family members elsewhere in Europe; relocation to other European countries, ideally through a more permanent EU-wide relocation mechanism; resourced and effective foster care for younger children; and the increased provision of supported independent living accommodation for children over 16 years of age.

Supported yet independent accommodation is a community-based-care and protection model for largely self-sufficient adolescents, based on the provision of safe housing and individualised support with a view to supporting residents gradual and sustained autonomy. Considering that more than 90% of the unaccompanied children in Greece are over 14 years of age, and the largest percentage are 16 years or older, the importance of the SIL apartments model is evident. However, for this model to achieve its full potential in helping unaccompanied children transition smoothly into adulthood and integrate into society, serious gaps must be addressed. The Greek state needs to resolve serious issues affecting childrens access to the asylum procedure, health care, and education, as well as their representation by guardians, as they are separated from their parents.

Original post:

A chance for a better future: Supported independent living and the protection of unaccompanied children in Greece [EN/EL] - Greece - ReliefWeb

Besides the older and persistent threat of cross-border terrorism, Pakistan now poses another serious threat to Indias security interests there have been multiple cyberattacks from Pakistan-based hacker groups targeting Indias critical infrastructure and government servers.

These attacks eclipse the earlier nuisance value acts of vandalising Indian websites a regular Pakistani habit. The new attacks demonstrate a step-up of Pakistans cyber capabilities and work concurrently with its persistent anti-India cyber disinformation campaigns such as those pertaining to Kashmir and Indian interests in Afghanistan.

In early August, the United States-based cyber security firm, Black Lotus Labs, reported that a Pakistan-origin malware, ReverseRat 2.0 targeted Indian government officials by sending a forged invite for a United Nations meeting on organised crime with a Microsoft Teams link. Its impact is still not known. ReverseRat 2.0 can breach the device of its intended victims, and the malware can remotely click photographs via its webcams, even retrieve files from USB devices plugged into the infected device. According to Black Lotus Labs, this is an advanced version of Pakistans earlier malware ReverseRat, detected just two months prior in June, targeting Indias power sector and government departments.

India has been on the radar of Pakistani hackers for some time. In 2020, security researchers from the Ireland-based Malwarebytes Labs cyber security firm noticed attempts from a hacking group, APT36, a Pakistani state-sponsored malicious actor, to infiltrate Indian government, diplomatic and military networks, and honey trap defence personnel for stealing sensitive data related to Pakistani military and diplomatic interests. Its modus operandi involved spear phishing emails with a malicious link, purportedly from the Indian government. The group has been active since 2016, indicating its long cyber espionage campaign.

Pakistans recent anti-India cyber activity must be viewed in the backdrop of its new Cyber Security Policy 2021, which seeks to position the country as an important participant in the global conversation on cyber security. While the new policy does not explicitly mention the pursuit of cyber offensive capabilities for pre-emptive use, it does display more teeth in its messaging to Pakistans potential adversaries than the earlier Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016.

Whereas the 2016 Acts stated objective was to control the escalation of cyber offences in Pakistan and transgressions related to information systems, the most significant assertion in the recent law is that any cyberattack on a Pakistani establishment will hereafter be treated as an assault on Pakistans sovereignty and invite suitable retaliation. Unsurprisingly, the document has no clarity on the nature of retaliation, and whether it will be implemented using cyber offensive campaigns or more conventional methods. From Indias perspective, it is more likely that the actual objective of this vagueness is to grant Pakistan flexibility and unpredictability in its actions.

Although Pakistani hacking activities against India lack the sophistication of Chinese state-sponsored hacking groups, it is compensated for by the tenacity of the well-designed and catchy propaganda unleashed by the Inter-Services Public Relations of the Pakistani Army, such as in the aftermath of the August 2019 abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of Indias erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. For this, it utilised fake profiles, cyber trolls, journalists, and Pakistani diplomats, focussing on themes such as alleged human rights violations by Indian security forces in the Kashmir Valley, the plight of ordinary Kashmiris and scaremongering on the possibility of an India-Pakistan nuclear war. This propaganda gained temporary traction with viral posts and trending Twitter hashtags, but it failed to cause any significant dent in Indias global image.

More critical for India is Pakistans status as Chinas client state. Pakistans propaganda machinery has been busy concocting anti-India propaganda throughout the ongoing India-China border stand-off in eastern Ladakh to embarrass India and score brownie points with China. Although there is no material evidence to prove that these actions are carried out at Chinas behest, there are suspicions of cooperation between Pakistani and Chinese state-backed hackers in cyberattacks directed against India after the abolition of Articles 370 and 35A. In fact, the Long-Term Plan for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor identifies information and communications technology infrastructure development as a key area of bilateral cooperation, and while that sounds innocuous enough, dont rule out collaboration between their deep States for the misuse of technology for geopolitical ends.

It is imperative, therefore, that India prepare to effectively counter the cyber threat from Pakistan. In recent years, India has strengthened its cyber security capabilities by creating institutions such as the Defence Cyber Agency and putting in place policy frameworks like the National Cyber Security Policy of 2013. This has acted as an umbrella policy document that traces a plan for holistic, cooperative and coordinated responses to address cyber security issues within the country. It is now being recast as the National Cyber Security Strategy to take a proactive approach to cyber issues. Universities like the National Forensic Sciences University in Gujarat offer cyber forensics courses. And the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre has begun working with the public and private sectors to secure critical infrastructure from cyber threats. India will need to be on its guard.

Aditya Bhan is assistant professor, FLAME University

Sameer Patil is a fellow for International Security Studies Programme, Gateway House

The article is written under the aegis of The Gateway House-FLAME Policy Lab at FLAME University, Pune.

The views expressed are personal

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From across the border, a new cyber threat - Hindustan Times