China’s achievement is literally the greatest in world economic history

By John Ross, Visiting Professor at Antai College of Economics and Management, Jiao Tong University, Shanghai

Economic development’s purpose is to improve the conditions of human beings. Robert Lucas put it eloquently, in frequently quoted words, examining the consequences of different rates of economic growth: ‘I do not see how one can look at these figures without seeing them as possibilities. Is there some action a government of India could take that would lead the Indian economy to grow… If so, what, exactly?… The consequences for human welfare involved in questions like these are simply staggering: Once one starts to think about them, it is hard to think about anything else.’

In this framework it should be stated, soberly and with due consideration, that China’s economy since 1978 is the greatest economic achievement in world history. This article shows this in the prosaic language of statistics. But of course that is not the real issue. What really counts is the consequences of this for human beings – escape from poverty, improvement in life expectancy, improved health, expanded potential for education, improvement in the position of women, and many other dimensions. Economic statistics, such as GDP per capita, simply underpin this improvement in human conditions.

The scale of China’s economic achievement

A problem in assessing the true scale of China’s economic achievement is that partial statistics are frequently used to state it. Some of these, for example that China has become the world’s second largest economy, or that it has raised 620 million people out of internationally defined poverty, are extremely striking (Quah, 2010). But nevertheless, because they are partial, they do not capture the full scope of what has occurred. Only when systematic data is used does the full magnitude of China’s achievement become clear.

Again, even when systematic comparisons are attempted, the scale of China’s economic achievement is frequently underestimated because inappropriate measures are used. For example when comparing rates of economic growth, in calculating contributions to economic welfare, it is misleading to take individual countries as the unit of comparison, rather than the proportion of world population affected – rapid economic growth in a small country evidently contributes less to human well being than rapid growth in a large country.

In order to give an initial systematic comparison, therefore, Table 1 shows the percentage of world population affected at the point when sustained rapid growth commenced in major economies. For example the first country to experience sustained rapid economic growth was the UK in the industrial revolution – which was in a country with 2.0 per cent of the world’s population. The sustained rapid US economic growth after the Civil War was in a country with 3.3 per cent of the world’s population.

There are, of course, arguments about some additional individual countries that might be included in the comparison – for example Italy from 1950 (1.9 per cent of the world’s population) or Spain from 1960 (1.0 per cent of the world’s population). But it is evident from the data that introducing such extra countries makes no difference to the essential situation.

No other economy starting sustained rapid economic growth even approaches the 22.3 per cent of the world’s population in China in 1978 at the beginning of its new economic policies. For comparison Japan’s rapid post-World War II growth was in a country with 3.3 per cent of the world’s population, and the growth of the four Asian ‘Tigers’ (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) was in economies with only 1.4 per cent of the world’s population.

Only India’s sustained economic growth after the late 1980s, in a country with 16 per cent of the world’s population, even begins to approach China’s achievement in scale, but the percentage of the world population affected is still lower than China’s, as is India’s growth rate.

Table 1

 

Introducing the necessary correction of population size also makes clear that the method sometimes utilised of ranking by country size is misleading. To see why it need only be noted that, if current exchange rates are used, on the World Bank tables for 2010, the latest year for which comprehensive statistics are available, 87 of the countries for which data was available have a higher GDP per capita than China and 83 had a lower. This appears to place China about half way up the list of world rankings. As when the People’s Republic of China was created in 1949, or economic reform was launched in 1978, China was one of the world’s most economically underdeveloped countries this might appear a quite good performance, but it wholly understates China’s achievement.

The reason is that ranking by country takes no account of relative population. For example among the countries above China are the Seychelles, Palau, St Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, and Antigua and Barbuda – all with a population of less than 100,000. If the real international position of China is to be assessed then, again, size of population must be taken into account. Figure 1 below, therefore, shows the percentages of world population living in countries with GDP per capita above and below China and shows the real proportions of China’s economic achievement.

In 1978 countries containing only 0.5 per cent of the world’s population had a GDP per capita below China’s, while 73.5 per cent had a higher one – China itself accounted for 25.9 per cent of the world’s population for which data was available. By 2010, using the same measure, the percentage of the world’s population living in countries with a higher GDP per capita than China was 31.3 per cent – given the speed of increase, it is clear that when 2011’s data is published it will show that less than 30 per cent of the world’s population lives in countries with a higher GDP per capita than China.

Figure 1

 

Therefore in only slightly over thirty years China, containing more than twenty per cent of the world’s population, has moved from being one of the world’s least economically developed countries, to a position where less than one third of the world’s population lives in countries with a higher GDP per capita, and where China’s position is rising rapidly.

Checking these current price statistics against international parity purchasing powers (PPPs), which takes into account different price levels in different countries, confirms the same result. Measured by PPPs in 1980, the first year for which World Bank data is available, only 1.3 per cent of the world’s population lived in countries with lower GDP per capita than China and 73.0 per cent in countries with a higher one. By 2010 only 31.5 per cent of the world’s population lived in countries with a higher GDP per capita than China.

Another way of measuring is to compare China to the rest of the world’s population. To do this, the best measure is not the average as, for well known statistical reasons, averages covering wide ranges are excessively affected by small numbers of extreme values. This is confirmed very clearly by world data. Only 25 per cent of the world’s population has a GDP per capita above the global average and 75 per cent have one below it. A better, and the standard, measure of incomes is to make a comparison to the median – the exact mid-point.

In 1978 China’s GDP per capita was only 42 per cent of the median for the rest of the world’s population. By 2010 China’s GDP per capita was 289 per cent of the median.

That since 1978 China, with more than one fifth of the world’s population, has moved from being one of the poorest countries in the world to a situation where less than one third of the world’s population has a higher GDP per capita is without historical precedent. Never before in human history has such a large proportion of the world’s population advanced so rapidly.

A number of conclusions clearly follow from the above data – in addition to the obvious one of simply recognising this as a fact of economic history. But for now it need simply be noted, soberly and with due measure, that China’s is quite literally the greatest economic achievement in world history.

* * *

An earlier and shorter version of this article appeared, in English and Chinese, in Global Times.

Notes

Quah, D. (2010, May). ‘The Shifting Distribution of Global Economic Activity’. Retrieved January 2, 2012, from London School of Economics: econ.lse.ac.uk/~dquah/p/2010.05-Shifting_Distribution_GEA-DQ.pdf

http://ablog.typepad.com/keytrendsinglobalisation/2012/02/chinas-achievement.html

Regarding the expressions of solidarity with the Greek People

Recently, demonstrations have been held in many countries across the world under the “umbrella” of slogans of “solidarity with Greece” and “we are all Greeks”. Working class and popular solidarity are powerful weapons in the struggle of the peoples. But the workers must deal with any attempt to mislead them.

Which Greece needs solidarity? The Greece of the capitalists, who seek to acquire new loans from the EU and the IMF in order to strengthen the profitability of their capital, to reinforce their position against the people, or the Greece of the working class and the other popular strata, who are suffering due to the consequences of the capitalist crisis, for which they bear no responsibility?

In many of these events this issue remained unclear. And this is the case because there is an effort by certain forces (mainly of social-democracy, the opportunists of the Party of the European Left and the “Greens”) to use vaguely the “solidarity with the Greek people” to whitewash their support which they had provided in the past to the Maastricht Treaty, and the other Euro-treaties, to the EU of capital itself, which is reactionary and in no way can be “democratised”, as they are even now claiming.

In addition there is an attempt for the issue of Greece to be utilised in the inter-imperialist rivalries, inside and outside the EU.

Yes, the workers in Greece want the solidarity of the workers in Europe and all over the world! But solidarity with their struggles, their strikes, their militant demands, the KKE, and the class-oriented trade union movement, PAME which is in the front line of the struggle and not the “solidarity”, which seeks the continuation of capitalist exploitation and the squeezing of the workers.

Regarding this issue the Press Office of the CC of the KKE issued the following statement:

“The KKE addresses a message to all the workers of Europe: It is not necessary for you to “become Greeks” in order to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Greece.

We call on you to join us on the same road for the contemporary rights of the working class and the poor popular strata, in order to impede and overthrow our common enemy, the dictatorship of the monopolies, the EU, the parties which serve them.

Their overthrow in every country or group of countries, the socialization of the monopolies, disengagement from the EU, NATO, with working class-people’s power will be the greatest contribution to the struggle of the peoples of Europe and the whole world.

The newest and most contemporary slogan, which is more timely than ever is: “Workers of all countries, Unite!”

http://www.solidnet.org/greece-communist-party-of-greece-/2610-cp-of-greece-regarding-the-expressions-of-solidarity-with-the-greek-people-en-ru-sp-ar

Big Brother aims to screen all online activity in UK

. (AFP Photo / Thomas Coex)

British security agencies are pushing for a law, which would allow vast amount of private data to be collected and stored, according to media reports. Big Brother will know who you call to, what sites you surf and how you play video games.

The government wants details about text messages, phone calls, email, visited websites, Facebook and Twitter exchanges and even online games chats, British media report.

According to the initiative called the Communications Capabilities Development Programme, the data will be stored for a year and will be available to the secret services.

The security scheme requires Internet providers, landline and mobile phone operators to police their clients in and effort to combat terrorism.

What is said in text messages and phone calls will not be recorded, but much other data, including geographical whereabouts or people involved will be.

The plan is said to have been prepared by the Home Office in collaboration with home security service MI5, the foreign intelligence service MI6 and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the body responsible for signals intelligence and information assurance for UK’s government and armed forces.

Rights activists fear potential abuse of the surveillance, as well as hacker threats to the database storing the personal details collected.

“Britain is already one of the most spied on countries off-line and this is a shameful attempt to watch everything we do online in the same way,” Nick Pickles, director of the liberty organization Big Brother Watch told the Daily Mail newspaper.

The plan is expected to be announced in May in the Queen’s Speech. It is a rewrite of a similar plan, which was developed by the Labour party, but had been shelved in November 2009 due to lack of public support. Then in opposition the Conservatives criticized Labour’s “reckless” record on privacy.

“The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats started their government with a big pledge to roll back the surveillance state,” Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group told the Daily Telegraph newspaper. “No state in history has been able to gather the level of information proposed – it’s a way of collecting everything about who we talk to just in case something turns up.”

http://rt.com/news/uk-online-surveillance-plan-733/

The proletarianisation of the ‘squeezed middle’

RESPECTABLE, stable, well-paid families in decent homes throughout the western world are living in terror of the nightmare that is striking them down in growing numbers, as the effects of the global financial crisis hit home.

These are people who thought themselves secure. They paid into pension schemes, made wise career choices, worked hard, did their best to please the boss and had all the right insurance policies.

Suddenly all that protection is disappearing. Lose your job; get a couple of instalments behind on the mortgage, the insurance policies, the credit card repayments and bang, you are out on the streets with no job, no home, no entitlement to healthcare and no future.

In Athens a former civil servant whose job was cut — and along with it his health insurance — is told he can no longer have the regular diabetes medication that has kept him living a normal, comfortable life for years. Now, it is likely he will die soon.

In the United States tent cities are springing up like weeds; in remote parking lots dozens of parked cars have become the family home for people who have lost jobs and homes.

In Los Angeles schoolchildren report to their teachers: “We don’t have dinner in our house” and steal sachets of tomato ketchup to take home to make ketchup soup. These children do still get free school dinners and the teachers make up food parcels on Fridays to see the children through the weekend.

Under Las Vegas, in the sewers, young couples who just a year ago had jobs, homes and the American dream in their heads are trying to make liveable homes out of cardboard packaging, knowing that every so often it will all be swept away by a flood surge and they will have to start all over again.

Meanwhile the once prosperous and teeming Detroit City is looking as if it has been in a war: buildings are abandoned and crumbling; good schools are now roofless decaying heaps, blackened and rotting homes and factories are totally without windows.

These horrors are an echo of the appalling poverty inflicted on land workers in Britain some 200 years ago, as they were driven off the land by the enclosure movement to sink or swim in the towns. They ended up in the ranks of the emerging proletariat, getting work by the day if they could and horrendously exploited by the fat cats of the emerging industries.

It was a steep learning curve. All the ruling class propaganda about work hard and be a good obedient Christian was instantly revealed as absolutely useless as a means of protection against sudden dire poverty. They soon saw their fortunes had nothing to do with their own personal qualities but were governed by national and international economic forces way beyond their control.

But they also learned that their only protection was in standing together in absolute solidarity and fighting the bosses for better wages and conditions. The battles were long and bitter and they gave birth to trade unionism, socialism and ultimately Marxist-Leninist theory and in 1917 to the Great October Revolution.

Once this was established, in the West the battles for better wages, conditions and state welfare were more successful — the fat cats became aware of workers’ power.

Meanwhile in the Third World, the process of proletarianisation has been steadily forging ahead — land workers driven off the land to become propertyless urban workers. And not surprisingly class consciousness among these workers has been steadily growing. Battles between trade unions and bosses are fought in a life-and-death struggle with no room for sentimentality.

But, now the Soviet Union has gone, and workers in the West are at least three generations removed from those who fought so hard for the better wages, conditions and state welfare. Those victories have been taken too much for granted and complacency had set in.

It is time for the workers of the West to remember the struggles of their ancestors and learn the lessons: number one, the boss class is the enemy; number two, the only people you can rely on are your fellow workers; number three, get organised!

http://www.newworker.org/archive2012/nw20120217/the_proletarianisation_of_the_squeezed_middle.html

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Firefighters join pensions battle

by Daphne Liddle

THE FIRE Brigades Union last week joined other major public sector unions who are preparing for another one-day strike on 28th March.

The unions so far committed to action in March are the civil service union PCS, the National Union of Teachers and the lecturers’ union UCU.

The giant union Unite is balloting its public sector members for further action. Unite said the prospect of strike action over the NHS pensions’ issue is a real possibility, possibly on 28th March. Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said: “There have been no substantive changes from what was on the table before Christmas — our hard working members will still be expected to pay more, work longer and get less when they retire.”

The FBU has come into the battle with preparations for a swift strike ballot for 28th March. The union says the pensions proposals are unacceptable because they include:

• Unaffordable and unfair contribution rates;
• A totally unrealistic retirement age for firefighters (60)
• An unsustainable scheme for the fire service.

Contribution rates are set to rise by 2014 from 11 per cent to between 14.2 per cent for firefighters and up to 16 per cent for fire service officers. They face extra payments of between £2,000 and £7,200 over the next three years alone.

FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said: “These are unfair and unaffordable contribution hikes. We’re facing five years of a pay freeze and a pay squeeze at a time of serious inflation.

“There is a real danger these huge hikes will trigger an exodus from the scheme. That means a drop in the money coming and less to pay for pensions going out.

“The entire scheme could rapidly become unstable leaving the taxpayer to fill the gap. Instead of savings the taxpayer will be paying more money.

“A pension age of 60 for firefighters is unrealistic and that is obvious to all of us. Everyone in the fire service is saying that 60-year-olds can’t work as frontline fire crews.

“We never rush into a ballot for national strike action and have constructively engaged in all talks. We need Government to start addressing the evidence we have presented them which supports all we are saying.”

UCU had been planning rolling strikes in February followed by a one-day strike on 1st March. It has dropped this now to coordinate with other unions in the one-day strike on 28th March and is balloting accordingly.

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: “The Government’s proposals still come up short, even after repeated attempts by the education unions over months of hard negotiation to win protection for pensions.”

PCS has played a leading role in planning for the March strike. Its general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “We refuse to accept that civil servants, nurses, teachers and council workers should be bullied into paying more and working longer for less, just to pay off debts racked up by greedy bankers who are still pocketing their bonuses.”

PCS has also proposed a rolling programme of industrial action after 28th March.

So far the unions preparing for a strike on 28th March speak for over 700,000 workers. That is a very large number but not as many as the two million who took part in the 30th November national stoppage but there is plenty of time for that number to grow.

When they see the plans taking shape the members of the unions not yet committed are likely to pressure their own leaders into joining to give the Government another clear message it cannot ignore.

http://www.newworker.org/archive2012/nw20120217/firefighters_join_pensions_battle.html

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Anger in Athens at savage new cuts

by our European Affairs correspondent

MOUNTING anger against savage cuts erupted into violence on the streets of Athens last weekend as riot police advanced to break up demonstrators on the eve of the parliamentary vote to accept the latest European Union and IMF austerity demands.

Among the protesters were renowned composer Mikis Theodorakis, 86, and Second World War partisan hero Manolis Glezos, 90. Both had to seek refuge in the parliament building after police fired tear gas and stun grenades into the crowd.

Violent protests also spread to other towns across the country as well as the holiday islands of Corfu and Crete. Meanwhile banks and offices were torched and shops looted as rioting spread throughout the centre of the Greek capital.

The communists believe that some of the violence was carried out by the secret police posing as hooded anarchists to divert media attention away from the massive demonstrations against the government and prepare the ground for the imposition of martial law.

Earlier Greek communists draped the Acropolis with two giant banners calling for the cancellation of the debt and Greece’s withdrawal from the EU.

Hundreds of Greek Communist Party (KKE) members holding red flags took part in the protest last Saturday, the second day of a general strike that had paralysed most of the country.

not afraid

Speaking at a rally called by PAME — the militant unions’ umbrella organisation — C Katsiotis said: “The people must not be afraid, nor be quiet and allow themselves to be skinned alive. It is of no importance whether this happens inside or outside of the Euro, with a controlled or uncontrolled bankruptcy.

“What is of vital importance is that the people decide that they will make no more sacrifices for the plutocracy, to fill the treasure vaults of the capitalists, while they and their children will be submerged in abject poverty and destitution.”

In the Greek parliament members of the “Black Front”, the bourgeois coalition between the conservatives, social-democracy (PASOK) and the fascist LAOS party, voted overwhelmingly to pass the measures demanded by the EU and the IMF in return for a further €130 billion bailout.

draconian

These draconian terms were even too much for some members of the Black Front to swallow. Twenty two PASOK MPs and 21 others from the conservative New Democracy bloc joined the communists in voting against the bill. All were immediately expelled from their parties.

Four right-wing cabinet ministers and two social-democrats have resigned from the coalition because they refused to identify themselves with this new round of austerity and LAOS has withdrawn from the coalition altogether.

Meanwhile strikers at the Greek Steelworks in Athens marked the first 100 days of their strike last week with a solidarity rally and concert organised by their union. The steel-workers walked out last year when the employer sacked 65 workers and imposed a 50 per cent cut in wages on those who were left.

Greece will be compelled to sack another 15,000 public employees, cut the minimum wage by 22 per cent and slash pension plans to comply with the new loan.

The European Union, IMF and the European Central Bank are also demanding that Greece cuts spending on medicines by another billion euros and speeds up the privatisation of what’s left of the state sector.

None of this will help the Greek working class. “Even if the workers give their own flesh to pay off the debt, the savage bankruptcy will not be averted,” Greek communist leader Aleka Papariga declared. “There is one solution to the crisis: disengagement from the EU and unilateral cancellation of the debt.

This is the solution, anything else will constitute a tragedy for the workers.”

 http://www.newworker.org/archive2012/nw20120217/anger_in_athens_at_savage_new_cuts.html

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Response to Tariq Ali’s incorrect statements about Syria

by Carlos Martinez (Agent of Change)

Tariq Ali has made a number of incorrect and unjustifiable statements in his recent interview on Russia Today regarding Syria. Ali is a much-celebrated icon of the British left; he is a talented orator and writer, and often says quite good things. Therefore his comments are particularly dangerous, as they are considered trustworthy by many progressive/radical people.

Ali claims that “the overwhelming majority of the Syrian people want the Assad family out”. This is not a claim that anyone with an understanding of Syrian politics would make, at least not in good conscience. The government is popular, and continues to become *more* popular as it works to stop civil war. This fact is even occasionally recognised in the mainstream press – see for example Jonathan Steele’s recent Guardian article

Ali joins the rest of the western fake left in calling for bomb-free regime change, saying that Bashar “has to be pushed out”. Of course, it would be political suicide for Ali to support western military intervention; therefore he calls on Russia, China, Iran and Hezbollah to use their leverage to persuade Bashar to step down: “Non-violent pressure has to be kept up externally to tell Bashar he has to go… Countries that are not seen as hostile to Syria, including Russia and China, should step up pressure for Bashar to leave.” In other words, Ali completely supports the regime change operation, but he wants it to be brought about by “non-violent pressure”.

He does not address such difficult issues as why the west is so desperate for Bashar to go, or what political current is in a position to fill the power vacuum that would arise if the Ba’ath government were to fall. He comes close to admitting that the Muslim Brotherhood would dominate the political scene if the Ba’athists were defeated, and he even concedes that this could result in deep sectarian divisions, but he thinks this is preferable to the continuation of the secular nationalism of the Ba’ath: “It’s possible that the Brotherhood in Syria will target minorities, but if this is what the majority of the people want then unfortunately it will happen sooner or later.” So, according to Tariq Ali’s logic, ethnic cleansing can’t be stopped if it is the will of the majority!

Curiously, Ali sees fit to label the Syrian government as a “sectarian clique”. This is consistent with the mainstream narrative, which accuses the Syrian rulers of being Alawite sectarians. However, this accusation is nothing but war propaganda; it has no basis in fact. There are plenty of things you could justifiably criticise the Syrian state for, but religious sectarianism isn’t one of them. In fact anti-sectarian secular nationalism is one of the Syrian state’s defining characteristics – it’s record is impressive for a region that has historically been torn apart by British/French/Turkish/US-provoked sectarian fanatacism. The Assads have always sought to build a power base that crossed the religious divide. Meanwhile, the groups being funded by NATO-GCC really ARE sectarian. And the Middle Eastern regimes most favoured by the US (Saudi, Israel and Bahrain, for example) really ARE sectarian. Incidentally, how interesting that the least sectarian, most secular governments in the modern history of the Middle East (Nasser’s Egypt, Qaddafi’s Libya, Saddam’s Iraq, Assad’s Syria) have been the most hated by western imperialism.

Ignoring the Syrian National Council’s statements that it would end Syria’s relationship with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas; and ignoring the SNC’s open support for Iran’s Green Movement, Tariq Ali says he doesn’t “think the fall of Assad will affect Iran, because it will be in the interests of the Syrian government – if it is a democratic and representative government – to maintain good relations”. Once again, Tariq Ali refuses to acknowledge the *actual* composition of the opposition, which is dominated by the pro-west liberal stooges of the SNC on the one hand and militant Sunni supremacists on the other – both of which groups are irreconcilably hostile to Iran and Hezbollah. Ali has swallowed so much media misinformation he thinks that the opposition is primarily composed of nice, left-leaning, democratic, secular peaceful protestors. This is very clearly not the case. Those who genuinely want reforms in Syria are unambiguously siding with the government against conspiracy and intervention. As Alistair Crooke writes: “There is this mass demand for reform. But paradoxically — and contrary to the ‘awakening’ narrative — most Syrians also believe that President Bashar al-Assad shares their conviction for reform.”

Tariq Ali ends the interview by saying that “if the Assad clan refuse to relinquish their stranglehold on the country, sooner or later something disastrous will happen, possibly involving intervention. Do they want to end up like Gaddafi or Saddam, lynched by mobs backed by western troops?” That is: Assad should stand down and abandon the Syrian people, otherwise the west will get him. I, for one, prefer the sentiment of Emiliano Zapata: “It’s better to die upon your feet than to live upon your knees”.

It is not good enough to call for bomb-free regime change, brought about by NATO-GCC-funded opposition groups rather than NATO-GCC warplanes. We must close ranks against the greater enemy: imperialism and zionism. Mao writes in On Contradiction:

“When imperialism launches a war of aggression against such a country, all its various classes, except for some traitors, can temporarily unite in a national war against imperialism. At such a time, the contradiction between imperialism and the country concerned becomes the principal contradiction, while all the contradictions among the various classes within the country (including what was the principal contradiction, between the feudal system and the great masses of the people) are temporarily relegated to a secondary and subordinate position. So it was in China in the Opium War of 1840, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 and the Yi Ho Tuan War of 1900, and so it is now in the present Sino-Japanese War.”

So it is today with Syria.

http://theagentofchange.tumblr.com/

Al-Qaeda joins ranks of Syrian revolt backers

Having re-established their friendship and cooperation in Libya, Al-Qaeda is backing the US campaign to oust the government in Syria. – AoD

The leader of Al-Qaeda has voiced his support for the Syrian uprising. He called on Muslims to join the opposition in Syria in their drive to oust President Bashar Assad.

­In an eight-minute video address posted on Sunday on a jihadist website, Ayman al-Zawahri called on Muslims in Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan to aid the Syrian rebels.

“Continue your revolt and anger, don’t accept anything else apart from independent, respectful governments,” the successor of Osama Bin Laden urged the Syrians.

He also called on Syrians not to rely on Western or Arab governments, whom he said would impose a new regime subservient to the West.

The news comes as the Arab League is discussing in Cairo their next step in tackling the Syrian crisis. Earlier Russia and China blocked a draft resolution at the UN Security Council, which called for Assad to step down. Now a plan to send a joint UN-Arab League observer mission to Syria is on the table.

The country has been in turmoil for almost a year now. The government says it fights off foreign-sponsored terrorist groups masquerading as public uprising. Critics of the regime call it a bloody crackdown on Syrian citizens.

http://rt.com/news/al-quaeda-syria-support-103/

Health Bill seriously unwell

by Daphne Liddle

ANDREW LANSLEY’S flagship Health and Social Care Bill, which would turn the NHS into a privately run, two-tier service, is back in Parliament and about to be debated by the House of Lords.

It has acquired over 1,000 amendments since it was paused last year for a cosmetic rethink but opposition to it has only grown stronger.

The British Medical Association was not taken in. “Minor tweaking has not made the Health and Social Care Bill fit for purpose,” the BMA told the Lords.

Dr Hamish Meldrum, who chairs the BMA, said: “We recognise that some of the amendments recently set down by the Government suggest modest improvements in some areas, such as integration, training and education and giving patients a greater say in their health care.

“But these do little to address the issues which continue to cause us great concern, for example: an over reliance on ‘market forces’ remains at the core of the Bill, there is excessive control over commissioning groups, plans for incentives for commissioning are ill-thought through, and proposals to give hospitals more scope to generate income from private patients pose serious risks.

amendments

“The Government has had to make so many amendments to remedy the initial flaws in the legislation and has brought in so many checks and balances that the level of complexity and bureaucracy in the new NHS will be huge. It would be better to withdraw the Bill altogether and come up with a new plan — one that will actually improve care and make the NHS more efficient.”

All the Royal Colleges — GPs, Surgeons, Nurses, Midwives and so on — are opposed to the Bill. Patient groups are opposed. And the health service unions have been actively opposed from the beginning.

The 116-year-old Community Practitioners’ and Health Visitors’ Association (CPHVA) has become the latest professional organisation to come out against the Bill.

Even the Labour leadership has belatedly joined the battle with Ed Miliband declaring that “we have three months to save the NHS”. And Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham has said that the Bill marks a “big break” with NHS history. But he thinks it can be defeated as the Government has failed to build a political and professional consensus behind the bill.

The bourgeois press is now posing the question: “Can Cameron save the health Bill?” Cameron has declared that he will stand by Health Secretary Lansley — and that signals how deeply the Bill is in trouble.

Three major medical journals have described the revamped Bill as an “unholy mess” and asserted that if the Bill is passed another one will be needed urgently within a few years to sort out the mess.

The Government is now trying to pressure the House of Lords to support the Bill, which will hand control of NHS finances to general practitioners. They have enough on their hands being doctors without being expected to be accountants and managers as well. They will hand the work over to the growing number of private healthcare companies that ready to pounce the moment the Bill is passed — if it goes through.

We all have an opportunity to voice our opposition to the Bill on Wednesday 7th March in the mass lobby of the House of Lords organised by health service unions and patient groups in the All Together campaign.

The lobby will be followed at 6pm with a Save our NHS rally in Central Hall, Westminster, organised by the union Unite.

http://www.newworker.org/archive2012/nw20120210/health_bill_seriously_unwell.html

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Imperialists thwarted

RUSSIA and People’s China stopped the imperialists in their tracks at the United Nations last week with a veto over Syria that enraged Anglo-American imperialism and the rest of the Nato pack. For the second time in six months Russia and China blocked imperialist attempts to bulldoze a resolution through the UN Security Council that would have sanctioned regime change à la Libya against Syria.

At the United Nations the imperialists had repeatedly blocked a Russian motion that sought to preserve Syria’s independence, meet the genuine demands of the Syrian people and end the crisis peacefully. Instead they chose to make another attempt to get the world forum to endorse a form of words that would sanction Nato aggression against Syria.

The imperialists claimed to acting in support of the Arab League, a front that now only represents the interests of the Arab oil princes and the big oil corporations that they serve. They said their motion had nothing to do with regime change. But it was entirely one-sided and aimed at providing sanction for the economic blockade and the underground war that the imperialists have been running against Syria for the past 10 months or so.

With crocodile tears the Western Powers are now bleating on about the plight of Syrians caught up in an armed uprising that they incited, financed and armed in the first place to provide them with an alibi for further aggression against the defiant Arab country that has long been a thorn in their flesh.

Imperialist politicians and their chosen lackeys in the media now tell us that Russia and China are defying the “international community” in defending Syria and its Baathist-led popular front government that has long been an obstacle to American and Zionist plans to take over the Middle East.

When imperialists talk about the “international community” they are, of course, only talking about themselves. In their lexicon, these words are synonymous with Nato and imperialism, and indeed have no other meaning as far as Barack Obama and David Cameron are concerned. Likewise with “human rights” which are of paramount importance when their advocates serve the interests of imperialism but are totally ignored when it comes down to the Palestinian Arabs or the millions upon millions in Africa and Asia ruled by puppets of imperialism and the big capitalist corporations that span the world.

The imperialist juggernaut against Syria may have been halted at the UN but it continues apace across the Nato world. Turkey, which has been covertly supplying arms and money to the Syrian rebels, as well as providing a safe-haven for the reactionary Muslim Brotherhood’s “Syrian National Council,” is now calling for the establishment of a new “Friends of Syria” Nato front to co-ordinate support for the terror gangs trying to bring down the Syrian government.

The concerted imperialist move against Syria is part of the broader campaign to isolate and then attack the Islamic Republic of Iran to destroy their nuclear plants and bring down the clerical regime that the imperialists believe is jeopardising their hegemony over the entire Middle East.

The Stop the War movement has started an awareness campaign to expose the war propaganda of the Cameron-led Coalition and alert people to the dangers of yet another Nato war in the Middle East beginning with the rally outside the American embassy in London last month. All communists must redouble their efforts to build the “Don’t Attack Syria or Iran” campaign throughout the labour movement and halt British involvement in more American aggression.

http://www.newworker.org/archive2012/nw20120210/imperialists_thwarted.html

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