29 Sept 2018

Guinness Nigeria Undergraduate Scholarship Scheme 2018/2019 for Nigerian Students

Application Deadline: 12th October 2018

Eligible Countries: Nigeria

To be taken at (country): Nigeria

About the Award: This scholarship supports Guinness Nigeria’s commitment to implementing transformative schemes that foster youth development.

Eligible Fields of Study: Applications are open to students studying the following courses: Engineering & Sciences – Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Lab Science, Microbiology, Bio-Chemistry, Marketing & Sales, Human Resources/Industrial & Labour Relations and Accounting.

Type: Undergraduate

Eligibility:
  • Candidates must be 1st or 2nd year students in Nigeria Universities or Polytechnics.
  • Student from Guinness host communities are encourage to apply.
Selection Criteria: 
  • Candidates may be required to write an aptitude test
  • Shortlisted candidates may be required to provide a letter of introduction from the Chairman of their Community Development Associations where applicable. .
Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The scholarship will provide full tuition for students who are currently studying in Nigerian Universities and Polytechnics. Student from our host communities are encourage to apply.

How to Apply: Interested and qualified candidates should send the following details below to: info.gn@diageo.com
  • Full Name
  • University/Polytechnic
  • Matriculation Number/Year of study
  • Home Town/Local Government Area/State of Origin
  • Phone Number/e-mail address
  • Scanned copy of Student ID card or
  • Admission letter.

PEO International Peace Scholarships for Women to Study in USA and Canada 2018/2019

Application Timeline: 
  • Application closes: 15th December, 2018
  • March 1, 2019: Last day to submit completed application materials from applicants already enrolled in the graduate program and school for which their scholarship is intended.
  • April 1, 2019: Last day to submit completed application materials from applicants not yet enrolled in the graduate program or school for which the scholarship is intended. Last day to submit completed application materials for applicants who will be attending Cottey College
Offered Annually: Yes

About the Award: Members of P.E.O. believe that education is fundamental to world peace and understanding. The scholarship is based upon demonstrated need; however, the award is not intended to cover all academic or personal expenses.

Eligibility and Criteria:
  • An applicant must be qualified for admission to full-time graduate study and working toward a graduate degree in an accredited college or university in the united States or canada.
  • A student who is a citizen or permanent resident of the United States or Canada is not eligible.
  • Scholarships are not given for research, internships, or practical training, unless it is combined with coursework. Awards are not to be used to pay past debts.
  • In order to qualify for her first scholarship, an applicant must have a full year of coursework remaining, be enrolled and in residence for the entire school year.
  • Doctoral students who have completed coursework and are working only on dissertations are not eligible as first-time applicants.
  • international students attending cottey college are eligible to apply for a scholarship.
Scholarship Worth
  • The maximum amount awarded to a student is $12,500. Lesser amounts may be awarded according to individual needs.
  • The scholarship is based upon demonstrated financial need; however, the award is not intended to cover all academic or personal expenses. At the time of application, the applicant is required to confirm additional financial resources adequate to meet her estimated expenses. Additional resources may include personal and family funds, tuition waivers, work scholarships, teaching assistantships, study grants and other scholarships.
  • Awards are announced in May. The amount of the PEO International scholarship will be divided into two payments to be distributed in August and December
Application Guideline and Procedures
  • Information concerning the international peace Scholarship program is available from the P.E.O. Executive Office or from the website at peointernational.org.
  • Eligibility must be established before application material is made available. Eligibility information and application deadlines can be found at any time on the P.E.O. website.
  • Information concerning admission to Cottey college may be obtained by writing to the coordinator of Admissions, Cottey College, Nevada, Missouri 64772, or visit them at cottey.edu.
Awards are announced in May. The amount of the scholarship will be divided into two payments to be distributed in August and December.

Visit P.E.O. International Peace Scholarship Fund Information

Russian Duma rams through pension reform amid mass opposition

Clara Weiss

The lower house of the Russian parliament (Duma) has passed the pension reform, which will raise the retirement age for men and women by five years, in a final reading on Thursday, September 27, in a slightly amended version. The passing of the reform, the most unpopular measure of the Russian government in decades, sets the stage for a sharp escalation of social and political conflicts in Russia.
A second reading of the bill, introduced for the first time in mid-June during the opening of the FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia, took place on Wednesday, September 26. Over 300 amendments had been submitted to the Duma before the second reading, including nine by President Vladimir Putin, who had endorsed the pension reform in late August. The amendments by Putin were endorsed by all deputies unanimously.
The amended bill provides for a raising of the retirement age for men from 60 to 65 years and for women from 55 to 60 years. Starting in 2019, the retirement age will be raised gradually, to reach 65 years for men by 2028 and 60 years for women by 2034.
Following a phony debate, which gave opposition deputies from the Stalinist KPRF, the nationalist Just Russia and the fascistic LDPR, the chance to pose as opponents of the reform, the bill was passed in an amended version with 72.4 percent of the Duma (326 deputies) voting for it. All opposition deputies present (59) voted against the bill, without endangering its passage.
On Thursday, a third and final reading of the bill resulted in its adoption with 332 deputies voting for, and 83 against it. Before the bill takes effect, it will have to be reviewed by the upper house of the Russian Duma on October 2-3, which is widely expected to approve it.
The pension reform is being rammed through in the face of mass opposition with polls indicating that between 85 and 92 percent of the population oppose it. The raising of the retirement age is rightly perceived by the vast majority of the working population as a blatant act of systematized state theft of funds that working Russians have been paying into all their lives.
The state will effectively steal 1 million rubles (US$16,000) from every working woman and 1.5 million rubles (US$24,000) from every working man as a result of the reform. In a country where the average salary is 35,900 rubles ($567) per month, and even less for millions of workers, these are very significant sums.
Following the catastrophic socioeconomic collapse of the 1990s during capitalist restoration, life expectancy in Russia is still significantly lower than in most advanced countries. Over a third of Russian men will not live long enough to receive their pensions at 65.
Low pensions are already a source of social and political outrage and disgust. The average pension of 13,300 rubles ($210) a month barely puts pensioners above the official poverty line. Over a third of Russian pensioners are forced to work to make ends meet.
In a case that is symptomatic of the conditions facing pensioners and workers throughout the country, local news recently reported that thousands of pensioners in Krasnoyarsk, a major industrial city in Siberia, depend on buying groceries beyond their expiration date on a street market because they were not able to buy food in grocery stores on their miserable pensions. According to a local news station, hundreds of pensioners go to the small market every day to buy spoiled milk for 10 rubles (15 cents), or sausages for 70 rubles ($1,06).
One elderly woman who is forced to buy her food on the market said that this was the only way for her to feed herself on a pension of 12,000 rubles ($183) a month. “I would ask all major supermarkets [in the area] to somehow organize [the selling] of this kind of groceries that are beyond their expiration date but still entirely eatable for poor devils like myself. And there are many of us. We cannot cope with this life.” Since the news broke about this, a charity organization has started an online collection of expired food items to send to pensioners.
In Russia, more so than in Western Europe or North America, many pensioners live with their children and grandchildren. Millions of families depend on pension payments to add to their meager salaries. Retired family members are often key to enabling both parents or single parents to work one or more jobs to maintain the family, by taking care of the small children. The raising of the retirement age for women in particular will thus place significant financial and logistical burdens on what is already a deeply impoverished working class.
The argument advanced by the defenders of the reform, including Vladimir Putin, that it is necessary to maintain the pension system and raise pensions, is recognized as a transparent lie. Putin speaks for a super-rich oligarchy whose wealth is based on the ruthless plunder of the working class and raw material resources. It is in their hands that the resources necessary to meet the needs of society, including pensions and salaries on which workers can actually live, are concentrated. They include billionaires like Alisher Usmanov with $12.3 billion, Viktor Vekselberg, who is worth over $13 billion, Vladimir Potanin ($14.8 billion), Alexei Mordashov ($18.4 billion) and Leonid Mikhelson (over $20 billion).
The recklessness with which the Russian oligarchy has pushed through this reform within just a few months mirrors the ever-more aggressive moves by the bourgeoisie internationally against the working class, such as the massive tax breaks for the super-rich of the Trump administration and the escalation of social austerity in France under Macron.
It is thus no coincidence that the pension reform is widely supported by governments internationally and has indeed been pushed for over more than a decade by the World Bank and imperialist think tanks. In its present form, the reform has been developed above all by Alexei Kudrin, the former finance minister of Russia and a close ally of Putin, who is regarded as one of the figures in Russian politics with the best connections to Western imperialist governments and business circles.
The mass outrage over this frontal assault on workers’ living standards finds no expression in the existing political system. The protests against the pension reform that were organized by an alliance of right-wing parties, ranging from the Stalinist KPRF and other pseudo-left formations, to Alexei Navalny, a nationalist stooge of US imperialism, and the fascistic LDPR, have drawn only very limited numbers of a few thousand people or less and have eventually all but petered out. As the WSWS warned early on, the aim of these protests was, from the very beginning, to strangle mass opposition by steering it into right-wing, nationalist channels, and thus enable the Kremlin to push through the pension reform.
In contrast to the promotion of nationalism by all bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties in Russia, the opposition to the pension reform has to be oriented toward linking up the emerging struggles of Russian workers with the struggles of workers throughout Europe and the United States. It has to become part of a socialist counteroffensive by the international working class and a struggle to overthrow capitalism.

US announces new barrier to citizenship for low-income immigrants

Meenakshi Jagadeesan

On Friday, US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielson signed a proposed new rule that will require all immigrants applying for permanent legal status or citizenship to provide evidence of their financial status, including applications for public benefits, proof of private health insurance and credit histories and scores.
The rule is another major step in the Trump administration’s drive to create a class-based immigration system. The DHS defends the new rule as a means of preventing immigrants who may become a “public charge” from acquiring permanent legal status.
This is supposedly being done to prevent foreigners from becoming a “burden” on the American taxpayer—an appeal to national chauvinism and xenophobia. Neither the Trump administration nor its nominal opposition in the Democratic Party evinces a similar concern for the burden on the average taxpayer of multitrillion-dollar tax cuts for corporations and the rich.
According to the proposal, a credit check is needed to reveal an individual’s bill payment history, current debt, work history, bankruptcies and, most importantly, whether a person can be “self-sufficient” in the United States.
This proposal follows a regulation change announced last week that will effectively bar immigrants from acquiring permanent legal status if their families have used social programs. That new policy labels as public charges all undocumented immigrants who have ever used cash or non-cash benefits—such as food stamps, housing vouchers or Medicaid—making it all but impossible for them to obtain permanent legal status (a green card). This directly affects just under 10 million undocumented workers who have already used the benefits outlined in the rule.
Millions more immigrant workers will be affected because they will forgo use of public benefits for themselves and the children for fear of being branded “public charges” and targeted for deportation. The rule, as numerous studies have pointed out and even the DHS itself has acknowledged, disproportionately targets the most vulnerable sections of the population, including pregnant women, infants and children and will increase poverty rates.
There are 10.4 million children who are US citizens with at least one non-citizen parent. Of this group, nearly 6 million children receive public health benefits. These families could be separated if a parent is considered a public charge and not granted legal permanent residency.
These rule changes will take effect after a 60-day pro forma public comment period. They are being announced alongside ongoing Gestapo-style raids and mass arrests by immigration police at work sites around the country, the construction of a network of detention camps for immigrants, and the continuing detention of hundreds of immigrant children who have been separated from their parents.
The Trump administration is escalating its war on immigrants behind a wall of media silence and the connivance of the Democratic Party, which says nothing. The Democrats have all but dropped any pretext of defending immigrant workers and youth. They are focusing all their efforts in the run-up to the November midterm elections on promoting their warmongering anti-Russia campaign and their right-wing #MeToo witch hunt, designed to solidarize their alliance with the CIA and the military and mobilize their base among privileged upper-middle-class layers of the population.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of immigrant workers are being subjected to the most brutal conditions in detention centers across the country, their only “crime” being the search for refuge from the hellish conditions of poverty and violence caused by a century of US imperialist intervention in Central and Latin America.
This past week a court case in Tacoma, Washington revealed a month-long hunger strike by detainees at the Northwest Detention Center, a facility run by the for-profit company GEO Group. The detainees, who are paid $1 a day instead of the state’s minimum wage, were protesting against the overall “zero tolerance” policy of the Trump administration as well as more specific issues within their facility, including a chickenpox outbreak and exposure to toxins from a nearby chemical fire.
It is also reported that nearly 70 fathers, separated from their children, have started a hunger strike at the Karnes detention facility in Texas.
Workplace raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are continuing unabated. This past week, ICE carried out a series of raids in Southern California, arresting 150 immigrants who were categorized as “public safety threats.”
A 10-day ICE operation in North Texas and Oklahoma led to the arrest of almost 100 people.
The persecution and scapegoating of immigrants is not simply a US issue. It is a global phenomenon. Across Europe—in Germany, Italy, the UK, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia—the capitalist ruling classes and all of the major parties are seeking to divert mass discontent along reactionary nationalist channels by witch-hunting immigrants and blaming them for unemployment and poverty. They are encouraging the growth of far right and neofascist parties as part of the preparation for war abroad and dictatorship at home.
Workers in the US must join hands with workers all over the world to defend the rights of immigrants and fight for a socialist policy of open borders. Workers of every country must have the right to live and work in the country of their choice.

28 Sept 2018

IBM Fellowship Awards Program for Ph.D Students 2019

Application Deadline: 25th October, 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Fellowships vary by country/geographic area

About the Award: The IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Awards Program is an intensely competitive worldwide program, which honors exceptional Ph.D. students who have an interest in solving problems that are important to IBM and fundamental to innovation in many academic disciplines and areas of study. This includes pioneering work in: cognitive computing and augmented intelligence; quantum computing; blockchain; data-centric systems; advanced analytics; security; radical cloud innovation; next-generation silicon (and beyond); and brain-inspired devices and infrastructure.
IBM brings together hundreds of researchers who possess deep industry expertise across domains. Collaborating with clients in the field and in its global THINKLab network, IBM addresses some of the most challenging problems and creates disruptive technologies that hold the potential to transform companies, industries and the world at large. For more than seven decades, IBM has collaborated with clients and universities to work on multi-disciplinary projects that quickly lead to prototypes, as well as long-term projects that last for years. IBM has an environment that nurtures some of the most innovative and creative thinking in the world.

Eligible Fields of Study: The academic disciplines and areas of study include: computer science and engineering, electrical and mechanical engineering, physical sciences (including chemistry, material sciences, and physics), mathematical sciences (including big data analytics, operations research, and optimization), public sector and business sciences (including urban policy and analytics, social technologies, learning systems and cognitive computing), and Service Science, Management, and Engineering (SSME), and industry solutions (healthcare, life sciences, education, energy & environment, retail and financial services).
Focus areas include the following topics of particular interest:
  • AI / Cognitive Computing
  • Blockchain
  • Cloud Computing
  • Data Science / Big Data / Analytics
  • Internet of things
  • Quantum Computing
  • Security
Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 
  • Students must be nominated by a doctoral faculty member and enrolled full-time in a college or university Ph.D. program. The faculty member is encouraged to contact an IBM colleague prior to submitting the nomination to assure mutual interest.
  • Students from Europe and Russia may be nominated in their first year of study in their doctoral program.
  • Outside of Europe and Russia, students must have completed at least one year of study in their doctoral program at the time of their nomination.
  • Students from U.S. embargoed countries are not eligible for the program.
  • Award Recipients will be selected based on their overall potential for research excellence, the degree to which their technical interests align with those of IBM, and their academic progress to-date, as evidenced by publications and endorsements from their faculty advisor and department head.
  • While students may accept other supplemental fellowships, to be eligible for the IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Award they may not accept a major award in addition to the IBM Ph.D. Fellowship.
Selection Criteria: 
  • Preference will be given to students who have had an IBM internship or have closely collaborated with technical or services people from IBM.
  • The IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Awards program also supports our long-standing commitment to workforce diversity. IBM values diversity in the workplace and encourages nominations of women, minorities and all who contribute to that diversity.
Value and Duration of Fellowship: 
  • The 2019 two-year IBM PhD Fellowships are awarded worldwide. A fellowship includes a stipend for two academic years (2019-2020 and 2020-2021) and, in the US, an education allowance for year one (2019-2020).
  • In the US, fellowship recipients while in school will receive a stipend for living expenses, travel, and to attend conferences ($35,000 for 2019-2020 and $35,000 for 2020-2021). US fellowship recipients will also receive $25,000 toward their education in 2019-2020.
  • Outside the US, fellowship recipients while in school will receive a competitive stipend for living expenses, travel, and to attend conferences for the two academic years 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. Fellowship stipends vary by country.
  • All IBM PhD Fellowship awardees will be mentored by an IBMer in order to collaborate on a research or technology project for the duration of the award period and are strongly encouraged to do an internship during the first or second year of their award.
How to Apply: Visit Fellowship Webpage (See Link below) to access the Nomination form.
Interested candidates are advised to read the eligibility requirements and FAQ before applying

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Trust for Sustainable Living (TSL) Primary/Secondary Schools Essay Competition (Fully-funded to British Columbia, Canada) 2019

Application Deadline: 20th December 2018.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): British Columbia, Canada.

About the Award: Young people are key to supporting Life on Land (SDG #15)
The Trust for Sustainable Living is pleased to invite schoolchildren around the world to share their ideas on the role young people can play in helping to conserve and sustainably manage Life on Land (United Nations SDG #15).
The essay competition is aimed at primary students and secondary students, supported by Teacher Champions, parents and schools.
All students and Teacher Champions who participate in the essay competition are warmly invited to attend the 2019 International Schools Debates in British Columbia, Canada (8-12 July, 2019).

Type: Contest

Eligibility: Each student is invited to submit one essay in English, entitled:
Primary students (ages 7-11): Young people are key to sustaining life on land (max. 400 words)
Secondary students (ages 11-17): Young people are key to sustaining life on land (max. 600 words)

Selection Criteria: 
  • The essays are judged for originality and creativity in all formats, and the potential to contribute to a constructive international debate.
  • Unique and well-argued perspectives score highly. Please refrain from copying and pasting non-original material.
Number of Awardees: 5 finalists, 1 winner and lots of consolation prizes.

Value of Competition:
  • Every year, one overall Grand Prize winner (plus Teacher Champion and parent) wins a free trip to the TSL International Schools Debates & Awards. The 2019 debates will take place in British Columbia, Canada.
  • The writers of the top ten essays in each category (Primary or Secondary) receive medals and all Finalists, Honourable Mentions and Debate Attendees receive personalised certificates.
How to Apply: Apply here

Visit Competition Webpage for details

The Perils of Plastic Pollution

Meena Miriam Yust 

Plastics are found in the products we use every day: the toys we give our children, the clothing we wear, the disposable cups we drink from, the automobiles we make, the straws we use, the list goes on.  Cheap and easy to make, plastic goods and plastic production have exploded in recent years.  Yet the junked cars, the used straws and cups, they all end up somewhere, perhaps in a landfill, or perhaps drifting in the wind.  91% of plastic goods are not recycled.  Most have found their way to rivers, lakes, and oceans, and over time break down into tiny microscopic particles of plastic.  Microplastics are everywhere, even in the deepest sea floor sediments and in the Arctic.  They can originate in small form from toothpaste or makeup, or can be derived from larger pieces of plastic, which over time break down into small particles.
Not very long ago (Sept. 8, 2018), a giant 2,000 foot long tube was launched from San Francisco to be towed to a suitable site.  The brainchild of a young 24-year-old Dutchman named Boyan Slat, it is intended to trap some of the ever-increasing tons of plastic polluting our oceans.  To be sure California lends a more sympathetic ear to pollution problems than does Washington or the federal government these days.
Researchers have sought to determine the extent of plastic pollution and tested water samples from cities and towns on five continents.  The results: microscopic plastic particles were present in 83%.  Ironically samples that tested positive included the US Capitol building and the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC, as well as the Trump Grill in New York.  Researchers say these plastic particles are also likely in foods prepared with water, such as pasta and bread.
Every day, more plastics are added to the world’s waters.  From coastal regions alone, between 5.3 million and 14 million tons of plastic find their way to the oceans each year.  By 2050, the amount of plastic in the ocean is expected to ‘outweigh the fish’, says Jim Leape, co-director of the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions.  Currently estimated to be 150 million tons, they take a very long time to biodegrade – an estimated 450 years to never.
Almost 700 species that we are aware of have been affected by plastic pollution, ranging from tiny creatures to the largest, and some are already endangered.  Wales have already fallen victim to plastic contamination. This past June, a whale died in Thailand from ingesting more than 80 plastic bags.  And a sperm whale was found dead on a beach in Spain with 29 kilos of plastic in its stomach.
Australian researchers studying a large sample of sea turtles recently reported in Nature that half of the baby sea turtles had stomachs filled with plastic.  They calculated that turtles have a 50% probability of death after ingesting 14 pieces of plastic, and that younger turtles are more likely to be harmed.
Can plastics affect human health too?  The answer is ‘yes,’ and in various ways, depending on the kind of plastic.  Diethyl hexyl, found in some plastics, is a carcinogen.  Bisphenol-A (BPA), present in some plastic bottles and food packaging materials, can interfere with human hormonal functioning and can be ingested through water or from eating contaminated fish.  Some toxins in plastics are known to cause birth defects, cancers, and immune system problems.  Cadmium, mercury, bromine and lead are highly toxic.  Many of these metals are now restricted or banned from plastic production.  Yet a recent 2018 study examining the water of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, found levels of these chemicals sometimes beyond the accepted limits under EU law.  The findings were a testament to how long plastic pollution remains in the environment – toxins banned from manufacturing several decades ago were still in the lake.  The metals are released as the plastics break down over time, and they remain in the environment.
It is very difficult to study the exact impact of plastic pollution on humans because plastic pollution is so widespread that ‘there are almost no unexposed subjects’, notes a researcher.
Norway has managed to recycle a remarkable 97% of its plastic bottles.  It achieved this by installing plastic bottle machines that return money in exchange.  The UK is considering adopting a similar strategy.
Denmark recycles far more plastic bags than the United States: an average Dane uses four single-use bags per year, an American almost one per day.  How do they do it?  Denmark adopted a tax on plastic bags in 1993 and the bag is not free.  It costs about 50 cents, part of the money going to the tax and part to the store.  The effect has been a reduction in the sale of bags by over 40% over the last 25 years.  One can only hope that more countries will follow.
The United States currently recycles only about 9% of plastics.  According to an EPA study this past August, the U.S. recycling rate actually decreased in 2015.  Could the Scandinavian techniques help?  Only a handful of states in the U.S. have passed laws regarding deposit machines; adding laws requiring a charge for plastic bags or a tax, as the city of Chicago did, is not impossible.
China has been for years importing much of the world’s scraps, including 40% of U.S. recyclables.  But in 2018, China put a ban on imports of plastics, mixed paper, and other materials.  Recycled plastics from the U.S. to China dropped 92% in the first five months of the year.  California may be especially hard hit, as it had been exporting about a third of its recyclables, amounting to 15 million tons in 2016.  62% of those exports went to China.  It is unclear whether the U.S. will be able to cope with the increased influx of recyclables on home territory.
Sadly, even if the U.S. and all developed countries had sufficient machines and facilities to reach  Norway’s 97% level of plastic bottle recycling, it would not be enough to save the oceans.  The reasons: the bulk of ocean plastic pollution comes from developing countries who often lack recycling and waste pickup infrastructure.  In 2010, one researcher estimated that half of the world’s plastic pollution was generated by just five Asian countries:  China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka.
The top polluters were again listed for Earth Day 2018, by quantity of annual mismanaged plastic waste.  The top six:
1) China:  1.32 – 3.52 Million Metric Tons (MMT) / year
2) Indonesia: 0.48 – 1.29 MMT/year
3) Philippines: 0.28 – 0.75 MMT/year
4) Vietnam: 0.28 – 0.73 MMT/year
5) Sri Lanka: 0.24 – 0.64 MMT/year
6) Thailand: 0.15 – 0.41 MMT/year
The statistics also showed a percentage of mismanaged plastic waste. Eight countries had over 80% mismanaged plastic waste: Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Burma, and North Korea.  These are developing nations and they often do not have a proper waste and recycling infrastructure.  In the Philippines, recycling is sometimes done slowly and laboriously by hand picking from dump yards.  Not surprisingly, much is washed away to sea.  The Pasig River that flows through Manila carries an estimated 72,000 tons of plastic downstream each year, and the river has been declared “biologically dead” since 1990.  Of course, developed nations could provide aid to help create a recycling infrastructure where it is lacking.  But such foreign aid without educating the public of its necessity is unlikely.  Then there is the intriguing possibility of actually scavenging ocean plastic.
Boyan Slat’s giant flexible tube, appended on its underside with a curtain barrier, will be shaped into a U to trap the plastic, which a sister ship will retrieve for recycling and safe disposal.  Due to ocean currents, the plastic collects in the relatively stagnant ocean pools between them easing the job of Mr. Slat’s device.  The Ocean Cleanup, Slat’s foundation, displays five such sites in the world’s oceans: one each in the North and South Atlantic and Pacific, and one in the south Indian Ocean.  They claim the device can clean up 90% of the floating waste.  Everyone is rooting for him.
In the mean time, there are a few things we can do each day, which, collectively could have a positive impact:
+ Ordering fewer products online could help, as packaging is a huge source of pollution and often includes bubble wrap, made of low-density polyethylene.  It is not the easiest form of plastic to recycle and it comprises 20% of global plastic waste.  Bringing ones own bags to a local store would be far less taxing on the environment.
+ Minimizing foam cups and takeout containers would be highly beneficial – they are made from polystyrene, which is difficult to recycle.
+ Avoiding the use of straws, when possible, would aid sea creatures.  Straws, made of polypropylene usually end up in the ocean.  Polypropylene comprises 19% of global plastic waste.
+ Reusing and recycling as much as possible is a mantra that cannot be repeated too often.
+ Collectively, we could make a difference.  And if we can also pool our resources to help developing countries recycle, then perhaps we can save our oceans, the turtles, the whales, and even, us.

Power, Politics, Prudery or the Totalitarianism of Sex

Dan Corjescu

Sex is a dangerous subject. Rape even more so.
However, the question is: does the current climate of sexual victim narratives exactly fit in an age that is allegedly post-sexual liberation?
To be clear; violence used to gain ones pleasure against the will of another should always and everywhere be rightfully condemned.
But despite this obvious disclaimer is there still somewhat of an antiquated double standard operating in the sex lives of men and women?
If not, why is it then that if young men are forced to have sex with women, or disrobed by them unwillingly, or made to perform or undergo sex acts by them that no one, in the end, really cares including the young men involved? Or if this is not the case, then is it because young men are ashamed to report such behavior? Or are they less traumatized by such behavior for social, cultural reasons? To put it more dramatically, do young men view the fact of having sex, even unwillingly, with more than one partner in a night as a somewhat different experience than do women? And if so, does this mean men and women are after all different and perhaps unequal in questions of sexual modesty or that women’s view of their own sexuality has to let go of the last vestiges of Victorian prudishness?
If modern day feminism is to be consistent I think they must choose the latter. This would mean that women should not be expected to be more traumatized or incensed by certain unwilled sexual acts than would men. This, too, means that the concept of rape has to be carefully rethought. After all both sexes often enjoy the thrill of a bit of violence in their sexual relations. Anyone who denies this is a liar and a hypocrite. (But yes Americans are sooooo good at hypocrisy) Sex is complicated but at the same time shouldn’t its ambiguities be shared equally?
Here’s an even more extreme example to contemplate. If someone puts a gun or a knife to your throat and literally forces you to commit a sexual act, let’s say for the sake of argument, that for most people that would be an undesirable situation to be in. Yet, if a woman were to play the role of the violator in this instance would society expect the man who was violated to be deeply and irrevocably traumatized? So the question here is: why does society still encourage women to view themselves as victims and sex, even violent sex, as the terrible monster from which they will never recover?
Should not women be encouraged to view sex, all kinds of sex, as something natural and, just as for men, if they should be in a position to commit unwilling sexual acts that this is unfortunate but not, barring physical damage, an irrevocable caesura in their Dasein?
For the record, I am emphatically not saying that rape, however it will be defined in the future, is OK and not a serious event. It is. Yet what I am saying is that I think our present day culture is a schizophrenic hybrid of outdated Victorian mores and supercharged Pornographic fantasies which send an overwrought and confused signal to young men and women. If men are raped by women we, and they themselves, expect different things/responses from themselves than the reverse situation. Is that right?
If someone put their vagina, unwillingly, on a young man’s face how do we expect them to react? Do we view it as an unmentionable crime? I think not. But if a young man exposes himself in the same way towards an unwilling woman the response is inevitably histrionic. Again why? Are today’s young women not psychically strong enough to take such an event in their stride? Are their psyches so weak and their bodies more sacrosanct then young men? Or are we indeed operating here with a double standard inherited from the Victorians which view women as always the potential innocent victim with the evil, demonic male principal ever lurking to satisfy his disgusting lusts on a pure virginal symbol.
C’mon people grow up already. Women are just as sexually manipulative, conniving, and opportunistic as men are. As often as not, society encourages them to capture and use the age old Victorian narrative to their advantage. And who benefits? Often powerful men, who want to bring down other powerful men. Demonization has always been one of the tricks of the trade of totalitarian societies. In the USA, true to Orwellian form, SEX CRIMES are the clever if not so subtle way to destroy ones opponent. After all, even in the Soviet union enemies of the state were always referred to, among their many negative epithets, as sexual deviants.
We should not stay silent over this insidious culture and institution of thought crime. A first step forward is to be responsible modern people and start viewing young women as equal to men in their sexual appetites, sexual powers, sexual machinations, and sexual conflicts. Both sexes are equal in their abilities to sustain the ups and downs of the sexual circus that is part of the travails and tribulations that is sexual experimentation. Massive institutional intervention is not necessary and probably unwise in the long run. Diffusing sexual events, even unpleasant ones, of any histrionic metaphysical meaning; of making sex more spiritually at home in the female; and making both sexes equal combatants in the arena of passion might, in the end, free us from both the power and the prejudice of the American Totalitarianism of Sex.

The Real Reasons behind Washington’s War on UNRWA

Ramzy Baroud

The US government’s decision to slash funds provided to the United Nations agency that cares for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, is part of a new American-Israeli strategy aimed at redefining the rules of the game altogether.
As a result, UNRWA is experiencing its worst financial crisis. The gap in its budget is estimated at around $217 million, and is rapidly increasing. Aside from future catastrophic events that would result in discontinuing services and urgent humanitarian aid to five million refugees registered with UNRWA, the impact of the US callous decision is already reverberating in many refugee camps across the region. Currently, UNRWA has downgraded many of its services: laying off many teachers, reducing staff and working hours at various clinics.  
Nearly 40 percent of all Palestinian refugees live in Jordan, a country that is already overwhelmed by a million Syrian refugees who sought shelter there because of the grinding and deadly war in their own country.
Aware of Jordan’s vulnerability, American emissaries attempted to barter with the country to heed the US demand of revoking the status of the two million Palestinian refugees. Instead of funding UNRWA, Washington offered to re-channel the funds directly to the Jordanian government. Thus, the US hopes that the Palestinian refugee status would no longer be applicable. Unsurprisingly, Jordan refused the American offer.
News of this failed barter resurfaced last August. It was reported that US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Jared Kushner, tried to sway the Jordanian government during his visit to Amman in June.
Washington and Israel are seeking to simply remove the ‘Right of Return’ for Palestinian refugees, as enshrined in international law, from the political agenda altogether.
Coupled with Washington’s strategy to “remove Jerusalem from the table,” the American strategy is neither random nor impulsive.
“It is important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA,” Kushner wrote to the US Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, in an email last January. The email, among others, was later leaked to Foreign Policy magazine. “This (agency) perpetuates a status quo,” he also wrote, referring to UNRWA as “corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace.”
This notion that UNRWA sustains the status quo – meaning the political rights of Palestinians refugees – is the main reason behind the American war on the Organization, a fact that is confirmed through statements made by top Israeli officials, too.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, echoed the American sentiment. UNRWA “has proven itself an impediment to resolving the conflict by keeping the Palestinians in perpetual refugee status,” he said.  
Certainly, the US cutting of funds to UNRWA coincides with the defunding of all programs that provide any kind of aid to the Palestinian people. But the targeting of UNRWA is mostly concerned with the status of Palestinian refugees, a status that has irked Tel Aviv for 70 years.
Why does Israel want to place Palestinian refugees in a status-less category?
The refugee status is already a precarious one. To be a Palestinian refugee means living perpetually in limbo – unable to reclaim what has been lost, and unable to fashion an alternative future and a life of freedom and dignity.
How are Palestinians to reconstruct their identity that has been shattered by decades of exile, when Israel has constantly hinged its own existence as a ‘Jewish state’ on opposing the return and repatriation of Palestinian refugees? Per Israel’s logic, the mere Palestinian demand for the implementation of the internationally-sanctioned Right of Return is equivalent to a call for “genocide”.  According to that same faulty logic, the fact that the Palestinian people live and multiply is a “demographic threat” to Israel.
Much can be said about the circumstances behind the creation of UNRWA by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1949 – its operations, efficiency and the effectiveness of its work. But for most Palestinians, UNRWA is not a relief organization, per se – being registered as a refugee with UNRWA provides Palestinians with a temporary identity, the same identity that allowed four generations of refugees to navigate decades of exile.
UNRWA’s stamp of “refugee” on every certificate that millions of Palestinians possess – birth, death and everything else in between – has served as a compass, pointing back to the places those refugees come from – not the refugee camps scattered in Palestine and across the region, but the 600 towns and villages that were destroyed during the Zionist assault on Palestine.
These villages may have been erased, as a whole new country was established upon their ruins, but the Palestinian refugee remained – subsisted, resisted and plotted her return home. The UNRWA refugee status is the international recognition of this inalienable right.
Therefore, the current US-Israeli war does not target UNRWA as a UN body, but as an organization that allows millions of Palestinians to maintain their identity as refugees with non-negotiable rights until their return to their ancestral homeland. Nearly 70 years after its founding, UNRWA remains essential and irreplaceable.
The founders of Israel envisioned a future where Palestinian refugees would eventually disappear into the larger population of the Middle East. Seventy years on, the Israelis still entertain that same illusion.
Now, with the help of the Trump administration, they are orchestrating yet more sinister campaigns to make Palestinian refugees vanish, wished away through the destruction of UNRWA and the redefining of the refugee status of millions of Palestinians.  
The fate of Palestinian refugees seems to be of no relevance to Trump, Kushner and other US officials. The Americans are now hoping that their strategy will finally bring Palestinians to their knees so that they will ultimately submit to the Israeli government’s dictates.
The latest US-Israeli folly will prove futile. Successive US administrations have done everything in their power to support Israel and to punish the supposedly intransigent Palestinians. The Right of Return, however, remained the driving force behind Palestinian resistance, as the Gaza Great March of Return, ongoing since March, continues to demonstrate.
The truth is that all the money in Washington’s coffers will not reverse what is now a deeply embedded belief in the hearts and minds of millions of refugees throughout Palestine, the Middle East and the world.  

Japanese space agency lands two rovers on surface of asteroid

Bryan Dyne

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully deployed two small hopping rovers from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft onto the asteroid 162173 Ryugu. Initial images and sensor data transmitted back to Earth from the rovers indicate that their systems are operating as expected. It is the first time that robotic craft will be able to travel across the surface of one of the Solar System’s oldest objects.
Hayabusa2, a combined effort of Japanese, German and Australian scientists, was launched on December 3, 2014, using a H-IIA launch vehicle. It spent the next three and a half years maneuvering to Ryugu, using its ion engines to synchronize its motion with and enter orbit around the near-Earth asteroid. It is a follow-up to the Hayabusa mission, which launched in 2003 and returned with samples from the asteroid 25143 Itokawa in 2010. That mission’s many successes, as well as the failure to land a rover in 2005, have been incorporated into the more recent design and played a significant role in the ongoing success of the current mission.
An image of Ryugu's surface from ROVER-1A. The blurry purplish glint is Hayabusa2. Credit: JAXA
The target of Hayabusa2, the one-kilometer-wide asteroid Ryugu, was chosen because it is a near-Earth asteroid which is expected to have minerals, ice and organic compounds preserved from the origin of the Solar System. Similar to comets, every asteroid contains a part of the history of humanity’s planetary system and every mission to study them has provided new insights into the development of Earth, the other planets in the Solar System and the worlds that have so far been detected elsewhere in the galaxy. Ryugu in particular is thought to contain matter that will provide additional knowledge about the origins of the Solar System’s rocky inner planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars—as well as the origins of the water and organic compounds on Earth.
In order to answer some of these questions, Hayabusa2 has a variety of tools, including the two currently landed rovers and two rovers which it has yet to deploy. Its rovers are equipped with visual cameras that will eventually be used to make a three-dimensional map of the asteroid, thermometers to measure the temperature at the surface, and instruments to study the mineral composition and magnetic field of Ryugu. The spacecraft itself is equipped with optical and infrared cameras and precision-mapping sensors, as well as tools to capture bits of dust and rock of the asteroid.
Artist rendition of ROVER-1A and ROVER-1B as they hop across the surface of Ryugu. Credit: JAXA
These analyses started in June, when the probe arrived and stabilized its orbit at 20,000 meters. A month later, the spacecraft began using the very fine control provided by its ion engines to begin a two month descent to an orbit at a distance of merely 55 meters. From that altitude it successfully deployed ROVER-1A and ROVER-1B using a MINERVA-II landing vehicle. Next week, on October 3, the rover MASCOT will deploy from its parent craft and gather data for sixteen hours before its battery runs out of power. A fourth rover, ROVER-2, will deploy sometime next year to follow up on the analyses made by its siblings.
In between deploying MASCOT and ROVER-2, Hayabusa2 will use its ion engines to almost touch the asteroid, hovering just one meter above its surface. It will then use its specialized asteroid sampling suite to gather material from the asteroid, getting two samples of rock and dust from the surface. The spacecraft is also slated to fire a 2.5 kilogram copper projectile at the asteroid’s surface to expose the underlying rock and collect a sample of that as well.
Artist rendition of Hayabusa2 taking samples of Ryugu which will eventually be returned to Earth. Credit: JAXA
While these samples are being collected, the instruments on board Hayabusa2 and its rovers will be taking as much data as they can to provide information about the asteroid and its environment. Once the data collection of the asteroid is complete, the spacecraft is slated to fly back to Earth and send the samples to the surface for a more detailed analysis than can be done in space. The sample return is currently scheduled for December 2020, after which Hayabusa2 itself will likely have enough propellant to flyby another asteroid, likely 2001 WR1, before it runs out of fuel and drifts through the Solar System indefinitely.
In addition to the original Hayabusa spacecraft, Hayabusa2 has benefited from the lessons learned during the Galileo and NEAR Shoemaker missions, both of which are NASA missions that had previously visited asteroids. In fact, NEAR was the first spacecraft to land an asteroid, 433 Eros, on February 21, 2001. While it wasn’t designed to do so, the attempt was made close to the end of the probe’s lifespan. It impacted at a relatively soft 6.5 kilometers per hour and landed with its antenna and solar panels oriented so they could send back data to Earth and collect power, respectively. This allowed the other instruments, particularly the gamma ray spectrometer, to gather data directly at Eros’ surface. Observations were made at the landing site for 16 days before NEAR was shut down.
The asteroid Ryugu as seen by Hayabusa2 just before the spacecraft released two of its rovers. The shadow of the probe can be seen in the upper right. Credit: JAXA
As noted earlier, Hayabusa2’s main achievement is successfully landing rovers on an asteroid. While it is more difficult to land on a comet, the weak gravity of asteroids provides many problems for moving around. The most notable is that a standard wheeled craft is just as likely to drive itself off into space as it is to stay on the surface. Instead of this, JAXA designed its ROVER craft as cylinders that are able to hop around, while MASCOT can tumble to change its orientation. It is a very non-traditional but so far effective solution.
Of course, it is not impossible to make some sort of wheeled or tracked vehicle to drive around an asteroid. JAXA was constrained both by physical problems and a stringent budget. The entire Hayabusa2 instrument suite is $146 million dollars, a relatively small amount when compared to what NASA and the European Space Agency spend on comparable projects. And even those sums are dwarfed by the colossal amount world governments spend on their militaries—$43 billion for Japan, $227 billion for Europe and $717 billion for the United States. If this money was appropriated toward progressive pursuits—the exploration of space, the promotion of the arts, investing in infrastructure—asteroids across the Solar System could be studied along with a great deal more.