Serbia shuts schools amid new protests over station collapse


By AFP
December 20, 2024

Thousands protest outside Serbia's public broadcaster in Belgrade demanding accountability for the railway station tragedy - Copyright AFP OLIVER BUNIC

Serbia’s government closed schools early for Christmas Friday just as teachers and pupils were set to join nationwide protests over the collapse of a train station roof that killed 15 people last month.

University students joined the protest movement in the wake of the tragedy, which had already forced the resignation of construction minister Goran Vesic.

He was later arrested before being released.

But outrage at the deaths in the northern city of Novi Sad has not abated, with many protesters accusing the government of corruption and inadequate oversight.

Serbia’s four education unions had called on teachers and other staff to walk out Friday to support the protests.

“Employees will stop work in solidarity and support of students in the fight for a better and fairer society,” unions said in a letter to pupils’ parents this week.

With pressure mounting, the Serbian government said schools would close early for the winter holidays.

They had already released official documents on the building works at the station and bowed to student demands to raise higher education funding by a fifth in a bid to calm the anger.

“We fulfilled all the (students’) demands. We do not accept additional ones,” President Aleksandar Vucic said earlier this week.

Protesters are demanding the resignation of the prime minister and the Novi Sad mayor over the disaster, and want to see those found responsible prosecuted.

Fourteen people, aged between six and 74, were killed at the scene on November 1 when the roof collapsed after major renovation works on the station.

A 15th victim died in hospital weeks later.

Seven weeks on, tensions remain high with violence breaking out at some protests, with students accusing pro-government football hooligans of targeting demonstrations.

A video widely shared on social media showed opposition leader Dragan Djilas scuffling with supporters of Vucic’s party on Thursday night.

Major reshuffle as Trudeau faces party pressure, Trump attacks


By AFP
December 20, 2024

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hopes a reshuffle could improve his fortunes - Copyright AFP Dave Chan

Michel COMTE

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday shook up his cabinet, changing one-third of his team as political turmoil threatens his leadership and tensions erupt with incoming US president Donald Trump.

The reshuffle came at the end of a chaotic week in Ottawa spurred by the surprise resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland following disagreement with her boss over Trump’s threats to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian imports.

Her exit, after nearly a decade at Trudeau’s side, marked the first open dissent against the prime minister from within his cabinet and has emboldened critics.

Since then, Trudeau has hunkered down with advisors as he reportedly contemplates his own political future amid calls for him to step down ahead of elections scheduled for October 2025 but expected much sooner.

In Friday’s reset, eight new ministers were appointed to replace those in the 35-member cabinet who have signaled they will not seek reelection, and to relieve others of their double or triple duties in government.

Four current ministers were also given new responsibilities.

Freeland, who also quit her role as finance minister, has said she would seek reelection next year.

– Behind in the polls –

Trudeau’s childhood friend and ally Dominic LeBlanc was already sworn in as the new finance minister hours after Freeland quit.

He also took over the reins from her on negotiating with the incoming Trump administration.

Several cabinet recruits, as they headed into the swearing-in ceremony Friday, declared their confidence in Trudeau.

But part of his caucus has urged him to resign, worried that voter fatigue with his leadership will hamstring the Liberals in the next election.

Trudeau swept to power in 2015 and led the Liberals to two more ballot box victories in 2019 and 2021.

But he now trails by 20 points his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, in public opinion polls. And his Liberals lost four by-elections this year.

Compounding those woes, Trudeau faces the possibility that Trump in January will slap 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, accusing both of allowing the United States to be flooded with illicit drugs, namely fentanyl, and undocumented migrants.

More than 75 percent of Canadian exports go to the United States and nearly two million Canadian jobs depend on trade.

In her resignation letter, Freeland warned this could lead to a “tariff war” with the United States and urged Ottawa to keep its “fiscal powder dry” while rebuking Trudeau’s spendthrift policies.

Trudeau last month traveled to Florida to meet with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in a bid to head off a trade war.

Trump called the talks over dinner “very productive.”

But since then the president-elect has also landed humiliating blows against Trudeau on social media, repeatedly calling him “governor” of Canada and declaring that the United States’ northern neighbor becoming the 51st US state is a “great idea.”

Political analysts and officials have said the taunts appeared aimed at putting Trudeau on the back foot in bilateral negotiations.

Half of UK businesses hit by cyber breaches in 2024

CUSTOMER PRIVACY BREACH


ByDr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL
December 20, 2024


A massive cyberattack and data breach hits the Internet Archive - Copyright AFP Stefani REYNOLDS

A review outlines essential practices for UK businesses to enhance their online protection and explains the concept of cyber hygiene and its importance. This comes in the wake of 2023, when 32 percent of UK businesses reported experiencing a cyberattack at least once a week, with cyberattacks projected to increase by 15 percent globally.

Recent data reveals that 50 percent of businesses encountered a cyberattack or security breach in the past year. This is based on the UK Government Cybersecurity Breaches Survey.

In light of recent cyber threats, Milan Bosman, Commercial Director from e-commerce hosting provider Hypernode, has explained to Digital Journal about the significance of cyber hygiene for UK businesses and share essential practices to ensure online safety.

What is cyber hygiene?

Cyber hygiene can be explained as a set of practices to maintain system health and security in relation to a business’s online activities. Like physical hygiene, maintaining cyber hygiene entails a set of regular preventative measures.

Five key practices

Antivirus and antimalware software

Installing antivirus and antimalware is an obvious place to start for protecting against cyber threats. These tools help detect malicious programs that can compromise data. Viruses and malware are constantly evolving, so it is important to also keep this protective software up to date.

Be cautious of phishing

Phishing is a common cyber-attack in which criminals use deceptive emails, messages, or websites to trick individuals into providing sensitive information. It is by far the most common type of cybercrime, with 90 percent of businesses that have experienced at least one type of cybercrime falling victim to phishing. Awareness and caution around possible phishing scams is crucial within all businesses.

Back up and encrypt data

Backing up important data and storing it securely will be helpful in the event of a data loss or ransomware attack. Particularly sensitive data, meanwhile, ought to be encrypted to ensure it can only be accessed by authorised parties.

Secure Wi-Fi, strong passwords, and MFA

While seemingly obvious, these three simple steps, which are often neglected, are absolutely key to good cyber hygiene. Unsecured Wi-Fi networks are vulnerable to attack from cybercriminals who may intercept data or gain access to internal systems. Similarly, weak passwords are susceptible to being hacked. Strong, unique passwords that are different for each online account should be used. MFA (Multi-factor authentication) adds a layer of security to data and internal systems, keeping out anyone who should not be able to access them.

Educating all employees

Perhaps the most important point is that a business’s security is only as strong as its weakest link, and a cyber-attack can target any employee. Providing cybersecurity training to all employees is crucial to ensuring the security of a business as a whole.

Indonesians embrace return of plundered treasure from the Dutch

IMPERIALIST LOOTERS

ByAFP
December 20, 2024

A statue of Hindu god Ganesha is one of hundreds of Indonesian artefacts so far returned by the Dutch government - Copyright AFP Yasuyoshi CHIBA

Agnes ANYA, Marchio GORBIANO

In the mid-19th century, Dutch colonial officials climbing an Indonesian volcano spotted an ancient statue meant to serve as protection against misfortune, looted it, and took it to the Netherlands.

Today, the volcanic rock likeness of the Hindu god Ganesha, bearing four arms and the head of an elephant, stands tall inside Indonesia’s National Museum in the capital Jakarta.

The country is repatriating hundreds of similarly pillaged treasures, reclaiming parts of its history lost to looting under its former colonial ruler from the late 17th century to independence in 1945.

“We fully support it because it is part of preserving our culture,” said 23-year-old banker Devi Aristya Nurhidayanti, standing in front of the Ganesha statue.

“Nowadays, not many people are aware of the history. Hopefully, through efforts like this, more people will learn that this is part of our heritage.”

The effort is part of a global restitution movement for goods plundered from the Global South, where heritage workers are preparing to bring back pieces missing from their colonial pasts, which could take decades.

As of mid-December, 828 cultural items have been returned to Indonesia from the Netherlands, according to the Indonesian Heritage Agency.

They represent a mosaic of tradition, culture and craftsmanship from across the Southeast Asian archipelago nation — from coins and jewellery to textiles and weapons.

The Netherlands government has pledged to return cultural artefacts stolen during more than three centuries of Dutch control, based on a 2020 recommendation from a government advisory committee.

One cabinet minister has said the items should have never been taken.


– ‘Spiritual effort’ –


Indonesia’s strong diplomatic ties with the Dutch played a key role in negotiations, starting with a 2017 cultural agreement, according to I Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja, head of the Indonesian Collection Repatriation Team in the Netherlands.

“The significance of this is to demonstrate to the international community that Indonesia is capable of having these objects returned,” he told AFP.

“This counters sceptics who claim Indonesia lacks the capacity to preserve such valuable heritage.”

Among the items returned are three other Hindu-Buddhist sculptures depicting deities taken from a 13th-century temple compound in the Singosari kingdom located near the active Mount Semeru volcano on Indonesia’s main island of Java.

The standing Ganesha is one of only a few in the world, said East Java-based archaeologist Dwi Cahyono.

“This standing position symbolises vigilance against danger,” he told AFP.

So its repatriation is a “spiritual effort to calm the wrath of disasters in Indonesia”, which sits on the Pacific’s earthquake-prone Ring of Fire.

Thousands of stolen cultural items are believed to remain abroad in the Netherlands and other countries, with more research needed to bring them home.

While no further repatriations from the Dutch are slated, Dwi hopes to see more works making their way back in the coming years.

“I still look forward to the return of more assets, and this remains a priority, as these objects are crucial to strengthening our cultural heritage,” he said.


– ‘Temples were empty’ –


There is also a debate about what Indonesia should do with the artefacts and how to deliver them to the Indonesian people when they return — through displays or returning them to their original locations.

“What meaning do we want to present to the people?” asked archaeologist Irmawati Marwoto from the University of Indonesia.

“The museum must… present these objects to the public in a meaningful way and enhance knowledge about them.”

The expert argued the country’s museums must be prepared for the storage of the treasures “before requesting the return of more across the world”, because of fears that items won’t be properly maintained.

Minister of Culture Fadli Zon has said the government plans to upgrade and standardise Indonesia’s museums, securing them from natural disasters, but has not provided details.

For Catur Puji Harsono, a history enthusiast from Central Java, any form of the statues being returned to their original sites, including replicas, would make him happy.

“When I was a child, I loved visiting the temple compounds. But unfortunately, the temples were often empty,” the 32-year-old said, showing his two sons the newly repatriated artefacts in the national museum.

“Having that memory again is important. It reminds us of the identity of the Indonesian nation.”

‘Dark lull’ in German energy transition sparks political debate


By AFP
December 20, 2024

Renewables have become an ever more important part of Germany's energy mix, accounting for an average 60 percent of its electricity production so far this year - Copyright AFP 

OSCAR DEL POZO

As Germany heads for February 23 elections the grey winter weather has become a hot campaign topic because of its impact on the country’s shaky green energy transition.

Twice in recent months electricity prices temporarily spiked in Europe’s top economy because of a lack of both sunlight and wind to power its solar panels and turbines.

The phenomenon — dubbed a “dark lull” — briefly sent the price soaring to 936 euros ($972) per megawatt hour on December 12, twelve times the average for the preceding weeks.

Conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz, whose CSU/CDU is widely expected to win the elections, seized on the issue to attack centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

In Europe’s interconnected energy market, Merz told Scholz that “your energy policies are setting teeth on edge across the European Union, which is very angry with Germany”.

The comment was rejected by the Greens, who have long been the political driving force behind Germany’s transition away from fossil fuel and nuclear power and toward clean renewables.

The Greens’ Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck hit back that previous CDU/CSU-led governments under Angela Merkel had been “blind” to Germany’s energy challenges.

To help fight climate change, Germany has pledged to phase out fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030 from 1990 levels, and become carbon-neutral by mid-century.

– ‘At the limit’ –

The recent price spikes prompted some of Germany’s most energy-intensive firms to temporarily limit or even halt production.

In the December 12 incident, Germany bought electricity at the European Energy Exchange in Leipzig, causing a spike in prices in neighbouring countries.

Meanwhile the German energy sector is ringing alarm bells.

Markus Kreber, head of the biggest energy supplier RWE, said the recent dips in renewable supply “would not have been manageable on another day with a higher peak load, for example in January”.

He warned that the system is currently operating “at its limits”.

The situation after the most recent dip soon stabilised as renewables production picked up again, and households and most businesses remain shielded from day-to-day price fluctuations by fixed tariffs.

The Scholz government defended the green energy transition despite the occasional “temporary phenomenon” of a dark lull that can drive up prices on the spot market.

“There are phases in which the sun shines a lot, the wind blows a lot, and electricity is produced very cheaply in Germany, which is then gladly exported and supplies our neighbouring countries with electricity,” said spokesman Steffen Hebestreit.

Renewables have become an ever more important part of Germany’s energy mix, accounting for an average 60 percent of its electricity production so far this year.

Traditional sources of energy are being wound down, with coal power stations gradually shutting down after the last three nuclear power stations were taken off the grid last year.

– Political paralysis –

But many experts say the world’s third biggest economy can ill afford such supply fluctuations when it’s already struggling with a lack of competitiveness in other areas.

Analysts say Germany needs to scale up energy storage capacity and also develop other sources of production, such as gas and hydrogen, to pick up the slack when necessary.

“If the state establishes a good regulatory framework, then it should be possible to avoid shortages through investing in storage and having flexibility in supply,” Georg Zachmann, energy and climate specialist at the Bruegel think tank, told AFP.

However, he said there was “a big concern that the framework will not be sufficient to quickly develop” the necessary infrastructure.

“It takes on average seven years to construct a wind power facility but just seven months to build a liquified natural gas terminal,” said Claudia Kemfert, energy expert at the DIW institute. “It ought to be the other way around.”

For now, Germany faces months of political paralysis after the collapse of Scholz’s three-way coalition government.

The coalition’s demise also means the scrapping of a key draft law for a project to build a network of gas and hydrogen power stations as part of the transition away from coal.

A new government will likely take several months to emerge after February’s election and then set out its own energy policy.

The frontrunner Merz has already pledged to study a return to nuclear power.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Credit Suisse collapse probe slams banking regulator


By AFP
December 20, 2024

Credit Suisse was hit by a string of scandals before being taken over by UBS

 - Copyright AFP TREVOR COLLENS

Nathalie OLOF-ORS

Switzerland’s financial regulator was ineffective in tackling the scandals at Credit Suisse, where executive mismanagement scuppered the bank and nearly triggered a global financial crisis, a Swiss inquiry concluded Friday.

However, after an 18-month investigation raking over the dramatic collapse of one of the world’s biggest banks, the rarely-used parliamentary commission of inquiry found no evidence that the implosion of Credit Suisse was caused by misconduct on the part of the authorities.

“Credit Suisse’s long-term mismanagement is the cause of the crisis,” the inquiry said.

“The board of directors and management of Credit Suisse in recent years are responsible for the loss of confidence in the bank.”

Credit Suisse was among 30 international banks deemed too big to fail due to their importance in the global banking architecture.

But the collapse of three US regional lenders in March 2023 left Credit Suisse looking like the weakest link in the chain and its share price plunged more than 30 percent on March 15 last year.

The Swiss government, the central bank and the Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) then strongarmed the country’s biggest bank UBS into a $3.25-billion takeover announced on March 19 before the markets reopened the following day.

The government feared Credit Suisse would have quickly defaulted and triggered a global banking crisis that would also have shredded Switzerland’s valuable reputation for sound banking.

– Global crisis avoided –

The authorities’ actions “avoided a global financial crisis”, according to the more than 500-page report.

The commission levelled numerous criticisms at the financial market regulators, saying it “deplores the partial ineffectiveness of FINMA’s supervisory activity”.

It said it did not understand why, back in 2017, FINMA granted “vast capital relief” without which Credit Suisse would have “had difficulty meeting regulatory requirements” four years later, and “would have been absolutely incapable of doing so from 2022”.

FINMA had issued several warnings and launched numerous procedures against the bank, the commission said, but found Credit Suisse’s managers had been “reticent” when the regulator intervened.

The inquiry regretted that at the time, FINMA did not withdraw the certificate that banks need to operate in Switzerland.

However, the inquiry “has not identified any misconduct by the authorities that caused the Credit Suisse crisis”.

– Merger raised concerns –

The merger raised serious concerns in Switzerland around jobs, competition and the size of the resulting bank relative to the Swiss economy.

The inquiry was set up in June 2023, tasked with tasked with investigating the role of Swiss authorities in the emergency merger of Switzerland’s second-biggest bank into its larger domestic rival UBS.

It was composed of 14 lawmakers — seven from each house of parliament — with all the major parties represented.

It was only the fifth parliamentary committee inquiry ever held in Switzerland and the first since 1995.

The commission looked at events from 2015 onwards to identify the factors that led to the bank’s downfall, and examined more than 30,000 pages.

– Recommendations on regulations –

The inquiry criticised the rules applicable to banks deemed too big to fail, finding that the government and parliament had placed “too much importance” on the demands of the big banks.

The commission made 20 recommendations to the government.

It said the regulations on “too big to fail” banks should be placed within an international framework, to clarify the rules for cooperation between the authorities responsible for financial stability in Switzerland.

In April, UBS chairman Colm Kelleher said he was concerned about a looming tightening of the rules, warning that the bank risked being penalised compared to its international competitors.

He said the fall of Credit Suisse was down to a crisis of confidence, but said trust in a bank was not something that could be regulated.

The Swiss Bank Employees Association has called for greater resources to supervise banks, saying the collapse of Credit Suisse was down to a few unscrupulous senior managers, with junior staff paying the price.

Ex-IMF chief Rato gets four-year jail term in Spain for tax crimes


ByAFP


PublishedDecember 20, 2024


Rato headed the IMF from 2004 to 2007 - Copyright AFP OSCAR DEL POZO
Imran Marashli

A Madrid court sentenced ex-IMF chief and Spanish economy minister Rodrigo Rato to more than four years in prison for tax crimes, money laundering and corruption, it said Friday.

The sentence comes after the disgraced former heavyweight of Spain’s conservative Popular Party was jailed for four and a half years in 2018 for misusing funds while working at lender Bankia.

Prosecutors had alleged that Rato defrauded the Spanish tax office and lined his own pockets to the tune of 8.5 million euros between 2005 and 2015.

Judges found Rato guilty of “three offences against the Treasury, one offence of money laundering and one offence of corruption between individuals”, the court said in a statement.

Rato was sentenced to four years, nine months and one day in jail and fined more than two million euros ($2.1 million), which he can appeal at the Supreme Court.

The court added that the “undue delays” in the proceedings, which lasted more than nine years, reduced the sentence.

Rato refused to comment on the decision, wishing journalists gathered outside the court “a very merry Christmas”, and said he would respond in a written message to court.

Rato spent eight years variously serving as economy minister and a deputy prime minister in the conservative government of Jose Maria Aznar before going on to lead the International Monetary Fund from 2004 to 2007.

– Economic crisis –

He later headed Spanish lender Bankia, where he misused company credit cards for personal expenses between 2010 and 2012.

That earned him the 2018 jail sentence before he was moved to a semi-open prison regime in late 2020.

That decision came just after he was acquitted in another case of fraud and falsifying the books during the 2011 flotation of Bankia.

The Bankia scandal came to light at the height of a severe economic crisis that left many people struggling financially.

It sparked outrage in Spain, which worsened when the government then spent 22 billion euros on a bailout for the failing lender that quickly won notoriety as a symbol of financial excess.

A second defendant, Domingo Plazas, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for money laundering and collaborating in two of Rato’s tax offences.

Another defendant, Alberto Portuondo, got three months and one day for colluding with Rato in a corruption scheme whereby they received kickbacks in return for securing Bankia contracts.

The court cleared the 13 other defendants in the trial.

Sierra Leone student tackles toxic air pollution


By AFP

December 21, 2024

Self-taught innovator James Samba stands in front of an eco-friendly electric vehicle he made from scrap metals in Sierra Leone's capital - Copyright AFP Saidu BAH
Saidu BAH

In his small Freetown workshop, engineering student James Samba tinkered with batteries and electrical parts he hoped could help clean up Sierra Leone’s polluting public transport system.

Rush hour in the West African country’s major cities is a frenetic medley of minibuses, mopeds, shared taxis and three-wheeled vehicles known as “kekehs” –- each spluttering toxic emissions into the atmosphere.

Samba said that his uncle died from a respiratory illness after years of inhaling roadside exhaust fumes, spurring the 23-year-old to develop his own model for an electric kekeh.

Assembled from recycled scrap metal and powered by batteries, the pink four-wheeled vehicle now roams the streets of the capital.

Although the project is still in its infancy, Samba aims to offer an eco-friendly alternative to traditional fuel-run models.

“I wanted to save others from dying of lung and respiratory disease due to air pollution… by manufacturing a prototype electric vehicle,” Samba said.

Worldwide, an estimated 4.2 million premature deaths per year are attributed to outdoor air pollution, the World Health Organization (WHO) says, with low- and middle-income countries overwhelmingly impacted.

Vehicle emissions are also a leading contributor to climate change.

Like in much of West Africa, lengthy traffic jams in Sierra Leone’s major cities and poorly maintained vehicles with inefficient exhausts exacerbate the emissions problem.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says that in 2021, fine particle air pollution killed 1,200 people in Sierra Leone, a country of 8.5 million people.



– ‘Good for business, environment’ –



Samba first ventured into engineering when he built an electric wheelchair for his uncle, who had long struggled to access public transport.

He has since set up his own company, Sierra Electric, with the aim of eventually manufacturing a fleet of solar-powered kekehs and disability-friendly electric vehicles.

Lacking the immediate means to cover production costs, Samba has partnered with start-up NEEV Salone to develop a kekeh powered by a rooftop solar panel.

The Freetown-based firm already has a fleet of more than 100 solar tricycles, three charging stations and battery swapping cabinets for customers, according to co-founder and operations officer Emmanuella Sandy.

“Our e-kekeh products are thriving. We swap batteries to reduce waiting time for commercial riders and we have trained 60 university students from the mechanical engineering department on electric vehicle assembly and maintenance,” she said.

The development of electric vehicles faces numerous hurdles in Sierra Leone, where the national grid suffers from chronic underperformance and frequent outages, and a six-month rainy season hampers the functioning of solar panels.

Just over 20 percent of households have access to electricity via the national grid or mini-grids, according to a 2024 World Bank report.

NEEV Salone alternates between solar power, off-grid generators and the national grid to maintain supply to their charging points.

Samba says solar kekehs are cheaper to run than fuel-powered alternatives, as drivers face lower maintenance costs and no fuel bill.

The smallest of NEEV Salone’s solar kekehs sells for 120,000 new leones (around $5,270), a high price for those living in one of the world’s poorest countries.

Despite the cost, some drivers have already converted to renewables in the face of rising fuel prices.

“The solar tricycle is comfortable and a profitable business. I no longer worry about fuel scarcity in the country,” said 25-year-old driver Thomas Kanu.

“The solar kekeh is good for business and our environment.”

Revolution in Sudan was put under siege

Today is the six year anniversary of the protests that marked the beginning of the revolution in Sudan

Protesters on the train from Atbara to Khartoum in December 2018, Sudan

 (Picture: Osama Elfaki)

Comment

By Khalid Sidahmed
Tuesday 17 December 2024  

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2936

Six years ago this month, protests over lack of bread and fuel spread like wildfire across Sudan.

Within days, health workers had taken up the movement’s demands. This gave it a revolutionary momentum and transformed it into a challenge to the whole regime of then dictator Omar al-Bashir.

Over the following months, huge sections of Sudanese society would join protests. It culminated in mass sit-ins in the major cities and general strikes, leading to the downfall of the dictator in April 2019.

The current conflict in Sudan is a counter-revolutionary war, backed by imperialist and regional powers, to crush the Sudanese people’s struggle for freedom, peace and justice.

This violence is a reaction to the 2018 revolution, which was a bold attempt to dismantle over 60 years of military dictatorship. Two militias—the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo—plunged the country into chaos.

Desperate to preserve a decaying system, these remnants of the old regime unleashed a war of devastation in 2023. Over 14 million have been displaced, more than 150,000 killed, and vital infrastructure, healthcare and education have been destroyed.

Both militias loot the country, hoarding Sudan’s wealth while the people bear the cost of their greed and brutality. The RSF profits from gold smuggling and hiring out mercenaries to Gulf states to fight wars in Yemen and Libya. The SAF enriches itself through state assets and deals with imperialist allies.

Sudan’s crises are rooted in the scars of colonisation and the exploitation that followed its 1956 independence. The British Empire divided regions and ethnicities to maintain control while looting Sudan’s resources. Decades of imperialist interference entrenched a system of corruption and dependency.

The major imperialist and regional powers continue to shape Sudan’s tragedy. Britain and the European Union (EU) facilitated the RSF’s creation through the “Khartoum Process”. This provided training for Sudanese security and border forces in order to control “illegal migration” from Sudan to Europe.

The US and EU, along with the African Union, pressurised civilian opposition forces to accept a power sharing government with the SAF and RSF in 2019 after the fall of al-Bashir. Israel’s complicity is clear—Israeli security officials met SAF and RSF leaders in 2021. They then carried out a coup against their civilian “partners” in government.

In February 2023, Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen and al-Burhan signed a “peace treaty” prioritising military cooperation, exposing the cynicism of “peace” as a tool to mask imperialist ambitions.

The regional powers, including the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are arming both sides in order to seize Sudan’s gold and wealth, but most importantly to crush the revolution. A victorious revolution would threaten their imperialist and capitalist order, inspiring millions worldwide to rise up.

Their corporate-controlled media frames Sudan’s war as an ethnic conflict or humanitarian crisis, obscuring its political roots.

Both militias are criminals. Condemning the RSF while ignoring the crimes of the SAF—or vice versa—serves only to divide and weaken the revolutionary forces.

Similarly, singling out the UAE as the sole villain distracts from the systemic issues that underpin Sudan’s crisis. The struggle is not against one militia or one foreign power but against the entire system.

But Sudan’s revolutionaries have already shown extraordinary courage and resilience. The revolution had the potential to become a fight for a new society, one in which the wealth of the nation serves the people, not warlords and imperialists.

Rebuilding a revolutionary movement requires international solidarity—not with governments, but with the resistance committees, unions and grassroots organisations that embody the spirit of the revolution.

The Rebecca movement—Welsh riots that heralded new wave of class anger

A storm raged in the countryside between 1839 and 1843. Poor farmers and workers united in uproar at the latest attempt to impose a capitalist order. Charlie Kimber explores a new book on the Rebecca Riots

Rebbeca’s Country by Rhian E Jones

In Depth
Tuesday 17 December 2024   

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2936

Rhian E Jones has written a story of riot and resistance that is a model of how to bring history alive and make it sing for today.

The Rebecca movement in 1830s and 40s Wales was part of a revolt from below against the enforcement of capitalist priorities and new state powers. It was inspiringly radical.

The target of their anger was tollgates set up by ­turnpike trusts dominated by the rich which prevented free access to the roads.

The Rebecca movement’s leaders summoned large groups of men to an assembly point with horns, rockets and flares.

Protesters painted their faces white, red and black. They wore high-crowned black hats, white lace caps, straw bonnets, white shirts, petticoats, shawls or animal hides.

The movement took its name from the owner of the dress worn by one of its first prominent figures. Or maybe it came from a passage in the bible where Rebecca talks of the need to “possess the gates of those who hate them”.

Such protest actions drew on traditions of folk rituals, ­carnival and popular reprisals.

Here people would dress up, bang drums and make other “rough music” outside the homes of overcharging ­shopkeepers or men who beat their wives.

But this was no mere ­performance. The Rebecca ­protesters were armed with guns or scythes, axes, pitchforks and reaping hooks. And they didn’t just demonstrate.

They smashed and set fire to the tollgates, sent bloodcurdling warnings to the owners and defied the authorities.

As one Rebeccaite statement said, “As for the constable and the policemen, Becca and her children heeds no more of them than the grasshoppers which fly in the summer.” Today they would be called terrorists.

Rural Wales was no paradise before the industrial revolution. But people reacted furiously against a new order that privatised and enclosed common land, tore away their meagre methods of mutual support and imposed extra rules and laws.

And they were incensed that this was done through a remote and wholly ­unaccountable authority speaking a language—English, not Welsh—they didn’t share.

Jones gives pulsating accounts of the resistance and doesn’t exclude, as many other accounts do, the role of women.

The Carmarthen protest in June 1843 included women marchers, and around two-thirds of street spectators were women and girls.

During the storming of Carmarthen workhouse, Frances Evans, a young servant, was observed urging the invading crowd onto the building’s upper floor.

Scandalously, she was also seen dancing on the dining hall table, for which she later found herself on trial.

Women turned out to witness and encourage the destruction of toll gates, and courtrooms were regularly packed with the mothers, wives, sisters, daughters and partners of arrested Rebeccaites.

Wales was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the capitalist class and Britain’s imperial project.

“From Merthyr at the ­northern tip, the advance of industrialisation swept through the valleys of Glamorganshire, spreading east into Monmouthshire and west to Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot,” writes Jones.

Merthyr, with a population of 8,000 in 1801, was by the 1830s a town of 50,000.

Regrettably for the ­capitalists, the explosive development of industry spawned a militant ­working class. It was drawn from the rural areas and included migrants from all over the world, particularly Ireland and Spain.

These workers organised and fought back over wages, and jobs—and for democracy. Riots, strikes and bigger challenges—such as the Merthyr Rising of 1831—convulsed towns and parts of the countryside.

Chartism, the world’s first great workers’ movement, had deep roots in Wales. In 1839 workers and the poor took over the town of Llanidloes for five days. Then came the much bigger Newport Uprising—an insurrectionary attempt. Welsh workers also joined the cross-Britain general strike of 1842.

The threat that rural-based movements such as Rebecca could fuse with the workers in the industrial areas terrified a ruling class that was all too aware of the revolutionary events in France. They replied with brutal repression.

Warned in advance, soldiers and police shot and arrested Rebeccaites who attacked ­tollgates in Pontarddulais and nearby Hendy in 1843. But their hopes this would crack the movement failed as huge crowds supported the arrested activists at their trial.

Miners threatened to use their industrial knowledge of explosives to blow up the roads—and to ambush the police.

By the autumn of 1843, Rebecca activists controlled some 2,000 square miles of territory across Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire.

In Swansea the combined revolt saw copper miners strike for five weeks against wage cuts and around the same time Rebecca activists burned the Ty Coch gate in St Thomas.

People flowed between strikes and riots with, for example, workers sacked during trade slumps joining the rural revolts.

The movement faded because of intense repression, with military rule in some places and 2,000 troops and police ­flooding south west Wales.

There were other factors. Railway building made it easier for people to move around and crucially most of the tollgates went.

But the central question was the actions of the Rebeccaites themselves. Just as in the wider Chartist movement, Wales saw a ­foretaste of the splits between liberals and workers that would burst into continent-wide focus during the revolutions of 1848.

Rebecca saw class differences and arguments about strategy. Some of its activists, mostly the better-off and those with land and property, wanted just to win over tolls and then settle into more mundane campaigns for reform.

Others demanded the ­movement move on to other issues such as tithes—money to the Church of England—and the poor law that penned up the unemployed in workhouses.

More fundamentally, some craved to find their niche in capitalism, others to tear up the structures that oppressed and exploited them, and to win by using all their strength whether it was legal or not.

As a poem in the great Chartist newspaper The Northern Star proclaimed:

Rebecca, that brave Amazon!

Comes rolling o’er your brows,

And like a mighty avalanche,

Destruction loud she vows

To your bastilles and your police, As fiercer on she rolls,

She wars against the system, now

She’s conquer’d all the tolls.

At a great ­meeting in August 1843 on the slopes of Mynydd Sylen, near Llanelli, up to 3,000 Rebeccaites met to discuss the way forward.

The crowd included small farmers, landless agricultural labourers, miners who had given up a day’s pay to attend. But also there was the Llanelli ­landowner and magistrate William Chambers.

The dominant group argued for an end to the night-time meetings that organised violence and a turn to ­respectable agitation.

The meeting agreed to a lengthy petition to queen Victoria and less radical measures. But other voices opposed the turn to “moderation”. At a meeting a few days later, one speaker said, “The great men are wanting us to hold no more midnight meetings. We will meet by day and by night also.

“They are fearing for their rents when they want us to give up our meetings at night. They feel our force and they fear us.” But the working class was too small, too inexperienced and without independent organisation. “Calmer” elements won out.

Jones says that the Rebecca movement has echoes for today. She writes, “Rather than a single-minded campaign against tollgates, this looked more like an 1840s version of the Occupy campaigns that arose after the 2008 financial crisis or, a decade later, the Gilets Jaunes of France.”

The Russian ­revolutionary Leon Trotsky wrote in the 1920s, “The Chartist movement resembles a prelude which contains in an undeveloped form the musical theme of the whole opera.

In this sense the British working class can and must see in Chartism not only its past but also its future.” The defiance and class fury of the Rebecca movement is also part of that, and Jones has brought it to life.

Capitalism and ideology: Where do people get their ideas from?

A Marxist understanding of ideology can help us understand how the ruling class uses ideas, and how we can challenge reactionary ideas

The rich use their power to control the media

Teach Yourself Marxism
By Judy Cox
Monday 16 December 2024

SOCIALIST WORKER Issue 2936

Why do people who are angry about inequality and insecurity sometimes turn to racist demagogues such as Donald Trump and Nigel Farage and not to socialist organisations?

The society we live in makes us vulnerable to fake solutions and misleading explanations of society.

At times of deep crisis there are huge contradictions between what the system promises to deliver and the realities of our lives. People reach for ways to explain this contradiction.

Often, the easiest explanations are those that fit with pre-existing prejudices.

These ideas do not emerge naturally. As Karl Marx put it, “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas. The class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.”

Marx’s concept of ideology revealed the truths hidden behind justifications for social inequality. Such “common sense” reflected the interests of and reinforced the power of the ruling class.

Marx understood that people learn how to think within a given social order. More fundamentally, workers’ position within capitalism can make them receptive to reactionary ideas. Workers have no choice but to compete with others for everything they need. This competition can open the door to prejudice, suspicion and hostility.

All class societies are ruled by a minority. The wealthy have always used force to repress us and encourage the poor to submit to their rule. But they also try to convince us that their rule is in our best interests. During the 19th century the emerging capitalist class was terrified of resistance and turned to manufacturing consent. They looked to parliament, the pulpit and the press to encourage nationalism, racism, colonialism and conservative ideas of gender to persuade workers to identify with their rulers instead of others from their own class.

The capitalist class developed a powerful ideology—a system of ideas and beliefs about the world.

Their ideology says we are all individuals, free to pursue our interests through the market, free to succeed or to fail. This ideology obscures the real forces driving society.

Within this general framework there are intense ideological and political debates. Some contradictions reflect tensions between groups within the capitalist class. For example, some demand greater border controls while others are in favour of migration. Other debates arise when changes in society clash with long-held ideas and beliefs about how we should live.

Rows within the ruling class can create an opening for socialist ideas.

But the mass media systematically excludes left wing voices and vilifies critics of the system. This is because the ruling class uses both its economic power and its political power to shape how people think. Wealth buys access to the media. Billionaire Elon Musk bought X and turned it into a cesspit of reactionary ideas.

GB News is jointly owned by hedge fund manager Sir Paul Marshall who has a personal wealth of £630 million.

The ruling class also shapes the ideas embedded in the state. The state’s institutions find multiple ways to justify the status quo and dismiss any radical voices.

The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci developed an understanding of how classes compete to establish “hegemony” over society. Every class vies to establish “cultural, moral and ideological” leadership over other classes.

Gramsci also described how working class people often hold contradictory ideas. People accept some of the prejudices constantly repeated by the media and politicians.

But prejudices are challenged by the experience of diverse communities and workplace solidarity.

Capitalism makes working class people vulnerable to accepting its ideology. But workers are uniquely placed to see through that ideology and potentially join forces to challenge their bosses.

Such resistance could break down reactionary ideas and challenge capitalist common sense.

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Here Marx wrote the manuscript for The German. Ideology (1845, co-authored by Friedrich Engels) and the polemic. The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) against ...