Poland: Tens of thousands protest proposed anti-abortion bill

Clara Weiss

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in all major Polish cities on Monday to protest a proposed ban on abortions. The Polish Sejm had approved the bill in late September, releasing it to further reviews by committees of the parliament. The protests were supported by the liberal opposition and are intensifying the crisis of the Polish government.

The bill was introduced by a far-right, Catholic lawyers organization and supported from the beginning by leading politicians of the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS). The bill has also enjoyed the official backing of the Catholic Church, with which PiS is closely aligned.

If passed, the bill would signify a virtual total ban of abortions, including for minors and victims of rape. The only case in which abortions would be allowed is when the mother’s life is immediately threatened. More than that, the current bill provides for jail terms of up to five years for anyone involved in an abortion, criminalizing both doctors and also women that suffer miscarriages. The bill would, furthermore, seriously endanger the health of many pregnant women.

As one Polish doctor who participated in the protests on Monday told the New York Times: “This would be the end of prenatal diagnostics. I couldn’t do basic prenatal tests, like the amniotic fluid test that allows me to determine whether I’m dealing with certain genetic disorders, such as Down syndrome. Should the procedure go wrong, I could end up in jail. I won’t risk that.”

The liberal opposition parties Civic Platform (PO) and Nowoczesna (“Modern”) organized a “women’s strike” on Monday with the support of pseudo-left organizations like Razem to protest the bill. Under the slogan #BlackProtest (#czarnyprotest), up to 100,000 people protested the bill in major Polish cities such as Warsaw, Cracow, Poznan, Wroclaw, Katowice and Gdansk. The largest protests took place in Warsaw with some 30,000 participants. According to the organizers, protests took place in some 90 Polish cities. Solidarity protests were organized in Berlin, Paris and a few other European capitals, with several thousand participants.

Many employers, including restaurant owners, museum and gallery directors, and university officials, allowed their female employees to take the day off to join the protests. Several mayors of Polish cities also supported the participation of their female workforce in the protests. Judging by Polish press reports, there was no substantial working class participation in the protests.

The fact that more workers did not support the protests was the result of both the deliberate attempt of the liberal opposition to curtail the protests by organizing a “women’s strike” only, and the healthy suspicion that broad layers of workers feel toward the political forces behind the protests. Moreover, the liberal opposition speaks for bourgeois forces that are directly responsible for the restoration of capitalism in Poland, which from the very beginning was orchestrated by an alliance of the Stalinist bureaucracy, the leadership of the trade union movement Solidarity, and the Catholic Church.

The protests enjoyed the full backing of the main newspapers in Poland that are affiliated with the liberal opposition, above all in the Gazeta Wyborcza, by former liberal dissident Adam Michnik, as well as in Polityka and Newsweek Polska. The Committee for the Defence of Democracy (KOD), which was formed by various figures associated with the opposition late last year to organize mass rallies against the government’s policies, also helped organize the protests.

The pseudo-left party Razem (Together), which is modelled after the pseudo-left parties of Greece and Spain, Syriza and Podemos, used the ongoing protests against the abortion bill throughout this year to align itself more closely with the official liberal opposition from which it had tried to keep at least a formal distance during the pro-EU protests of winter 2015/16.

The political forces behind the protests have nothing to do with the defence of the democratic rights of the working class. Indeed, they do not even advocate freedom of choice, but defend the current abortion legislation, which is already one of the most restrictive in Europe. As of now, abortions in Poland are only allowed when the pregnancy came about as a result of rape or incest, or when the foetus is seriously malformed or ill.

Under current law only about 2,000 abortions are legally registered in Poland every year. Estimates assume that up to 150,000 Polish women have abortions either in other EU countries or illegally in Poland. These restrictions date back to the early 1990s, when the Polish government, in orchestration with the Catholic Church, introduced a series of laws restricting the right to abortion despite polls showing that 60 percent of the population were in favour of freedom of choice.

The organization of the protests on Monday was not least of all aimed at channelling the mass opposition to the right-wing policies of PiS behind the liberal opposition and its promotion of gender politics and a pro-EU foreign policy. The liberal opposition fears that the current course of the government, which is aligning itself with the most backward and right-wing political forces in Poland, will further widen the gulf between Warsaw on the one hand, and Brussels and Berlin on the other. Moreover, substantial sections of the Polish bourgeoisie are afraid that the government’s frontal assault on democratic and social rights will provoke mass unrest in the working class.

The ongoing protests and mass popular opposition to anti-abortion law have already shaken the ruling PiS-government. With its backing of the bill, PiS has tried to consolidate its base of support among the country’s various far-right and Catholic organizations. It thus sought to find a basis of support for its assaults on the social and democratic rights of the working class and its rapid militarization and preparations for war with Russia.

Now the government is in disarray about how to proceed with the anti-abortion law. Defence Minister Wytold Waszczykowski, the first to publicly speak on the protests in a radio interview on Monday, dismissed them and said: “Let them play. If someone thinks there are no bigger worries in Poland at the moment, then go ahead. Women’s rights are not being undermined in Poland.”

Later that day, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo rushed to assure that she does not agree with Waszczykowski. She argued that the defence minister had spoken only for himself and insisted that the government was not even working on the bill. Tomasz Latos, head of the Health Committee in the Polish Sejm, also tried to distance the party from the bill, arguing that PiS was preparing a separate bill.

The government fears the prospect of a broader movement by the working class against its reactionary policies. The turnout at the protests on Monday, which was largely limited to layers of the professional intelligentsia and middle class, is only a pale reflection of the overwhelming opposition to the law in the Polish working class. According to a poll by Newsweek Polskataken on the eve of the Sejm’s approval of the bill, 74 percent of the population are opposed to it. Another poll found that only 14 percent of the population are in favour of the bill. The approval ratings for the ruling PiS party dropped to only 29 percent early this week.

IMF cuts growth forecasts for major economies

Nick Beams

The International Monetary Fund has revised down its estimates for the US and other advanced economies for this year while maintaining its forecast for global growth as a whole at the low level of 3.1 percent in its latest World Economic Outlook report released yesterday.

It said the major economies would grow by just 1.6 percent this year compared to 2.1 percent in 2015, down from the forecast of 1.8 percent growth made last July. The most significant decline in the US where the IMF cut its July forecast of 2.2 percent growth to just 1.6 percent following what it said was a “disappointing first half caused by weak business investment” and a rundown of inventories.

It said the euro area would expand 1.7 percent this year and 1.5 percent next year compared to 2 percent growth in 2015. Growth in Japan, the world’s third largest economy, would be only 0.5 percent this year and 0.6 percent in 2017. Growth in the UK economy is forecast to be 1.8 percent this year, falling to 1.1 percent in 2017, compared to growth to 2.2 percent in 2015.

Growth in the Chinese economy, the world’s second largest, is forecast to be 6.6 percent this year, falling to 6.2 percent in 2017, compared to growth of 6.9 percent in 2015.

Falling growth in the major economies is offset to some extent by growth in so-called emerging market and developing economies, which is forecast to rise for the first time in six years to 4.2 percent this year, up from the forecast of 4.1 percent in July, and then increase to 4.6 percent in 2017.

Summarising the outlook, the IMF’s economic counsellor Maurice Obstfeld said: “Taken as a whole, the world economy has moved sideways. Without determined policy action to support economic activity over the short and longer terms, sub-par growth at recent levels risks perpetuating itself through the negative economic and political forces it is unleashing.”

On the economic front those forces include the emergence of the “deflationary cycle” in which “weak demand and deflation reinforce each other” giving rise to a “deflationary trap” in which interest rates, already close to zero, cannot stimulate the economy,” according to the WEO.

An IMF discussion note, co-authored by Obstfeld and released on the eve of the report, warned that downside risks were high, confidence in a sustainable recovery low and, with interest rates at the lower bound, “a deflationary cloud threatens as weak growth looms.”

In his remarks on the WEO, Obstfeld pointed to the political impact of slow growth and rising inequality in the eight years since the global financial crisis of 2008. “The slow and incomplete recovery from crisis has been especially damaging in those countries where the distribution of income has been skewed sharply towards the highest earners leaving little room for those with lower incomes to advance,” he said.

The main factor in the growth of income and wealth inequality, above all in the advanced economies, has been the policies of “quantitative easing” by the world’s major central banks. With the full support of the IMF, they have pumped trillions of dollars into the financial system, enabling rampant speculation, parasitism and the accumulation of unprecedented wealth on the heights of society, while living standards and social conditions have been slashed through a combination of lower wages and cuts in social services.

According to Obstfeld, the consequence of this economic development was a “political movement that blames globalisation for all woes and seeks to wall off the economy from global trends rather than engage cooperatively with foreign nations. Brexit is only one example of this.” Protectionist trade measures have been on the rise across the world, he said.

However, to blame the rise of protectionist measures on a movement of resentment and hostility from below over rising social inequality is completely false. The drive toward protectionism is being organised from above as the governments and ruling classes of the major capitalist powers, confronted by a contracting world economy, take action against their rivals.

As the World Trade Organisation and other international trade bodies have noted, protectionist measures have significantly increased over the past two years, mainly as a result of actions initiated by the governments of the major countries. This has taken place despite repeated declarations at the G-20 summit meetings that the lessons of the 1930s, when such beggar-thy neighbour policies helped fuel the drive to war, have been learned.

The conflict over the $14 billion fine imposed by the US Department of Justice against Deutsche Bank was a political initiative aimed at weakening, if not completely crippling, Germany’s only significant international bank. This prompted claims from leading German politicians that the US was waging “economic warfare” against Germany and that the US had a “long tradition” of waging what amounted to trade war “if it benefits their own economy.”

The move on Deutsche Bank followed in the wake of the European Union decision to impose a €13 billion back tax claim on Apple, prompting strident denunciations from US business leaders, and the virtual scuttling of the US-backed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership by Germany and France.

The release of the WEO was preceded by a series of warnings from leading economic commentators about the direction of the global economy and its implications for world politics.

According to the Brookings Institution-Financial Times tracking index, growth rates for the world economy were “sliding back into the morass [they have] been stuck in for some time.”

Brookings Institution economist Eswar Prasad said most of the world could be described as having “weak investment, stagnant productivity and tepid private sector confidence.” With little prospect of a spontaneous recovery or any new stimulus “ a strong adverse feedback loop has been set in with low growth, fragile business and consumer confidence, low interest rates, trade tensions and political instability feeding into and reinforcing each other.”

Writing in the Financial Times, Mohamed El-Erian, the chief economic adviser to the financial firm Allianz, warned that the “new normal” of the past seven years was unsustainable. The consequences of low growth went far beyond today’s forgone economic opportunities because the longer they persist “the more they eat away at the potential for future growth” as investment plans are shelved.

“The ‘new normal’,” he concluded, “is coming to an end. The reason is simple: it has lasted for so long that it is now breeding the causes of its own destruction.”

Former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia Stephen Roach, now a lecturer at Yale, took aim at the policies of the central banks. Their approach led to an “insidious connection” between monetary policies, financial markets and asset-dependent economies which had led to the meltdown of 2008-2009 and “could well sow the seeds of another crisis”

“Central bankers desperately want the public to believe they know what they are doing. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

The lack of response to zero interest rates was “strikingly reminiscent of the so-called ‘liquidity trap’ of the 1930s, when central banks were also ‘pushing on a string’.” But having depleted their traditional arsenal long ago, central bankers remained “myopically focused on devising new tools, rather than owning up to the destructive role their old tools played in sparking the crisis.”

The drawing of a parallel between present conditions and those of the 1930s is not misplaced. The stagnation in the world economy and the failure of the ruling elites to devise any measures to turn it around is fuelling the rise of geo-political tensions and conflicts, which, in turn, impact on the world economy. Coupled with the rise of militarism, these processes point inexorably in the direction of war.

Bangladesh: A Conflict Shatter Zone

Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman

The Fragile States Index (FSI), published annually by the Washington DC based The Fund for Peace has come out with its report for 2016, which covers the conflict events for the year 2015. This article analyzes the indicators provided by the report for Bangladesh, which has seen incidents of spectacular violence in its recent years of political turmoil.

Bangladesh qualifies to be a classic conflict shatter zone (Robert Kaplan), owing to the peculiar conditions attributable to its geographical position, which has resulted in social, economic, political and environmental conflict. The FSI report marks Bangladesh in the Alert category in state fragility for 2016, and in the category of Some Improvement in the decade trends (2007-2016). Its neighbour Myanmar has a similar Alert categorisation in 2016 and Marginal Improvement between 2007-2016, while India has a Elevated Warning ranking in 2016 and Worsening between 2007-2016, according to the FSI Overview Report for the year 2016.

The Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government assumed office in 2009, which was preceded by a period of intense domestic turmoil (2006-2008) under the military caretaker government in Bangladesh. This period saw extreme political polarisation and violence in the country, and the fractured political conditions sowed the seeds for continued violence during and after the Shahbagh protests of 2013. Therefore, the decadal index of Some Improvement in Bangladesh is quite misleading in the FSI report, and does not co-relate to the Alert sounded for 2016. The past ten years have been marked by increased violence in Bangladesh.

The social indicator index of the FSI report does not accurately depict the intensity of the demographic pressures that Bangladesh is facing (8.0), which when combined with the environmental pressures and population growth, is definitely higher than what has been depicted for India (8.1). Also the intensity of refugees and IDPs depicted for Bangladesh (6.3) needs to be seen in context with the intensity for Myanmar (8.3), as the problems facing both the neighbouring countries are quite similar. The group grievance depicted for Bangladesh (8.9) is also seemingly low given the intense political polarisation, whereas for Myanmar it is high (9.9).

Contextualising the above social indicators, the Bangladesh shatter zone is closely interconnected to the Rakhine region of Myanmar, and the state of Mizoram in Northeast India. Over 60,000 Rohingya migrants are believed to be living in Cox’s Bazaar, in and around the registered camps of Bangladesh and many are accused of illegal activities such as drug-running and other petty crimes. This has led to strong political debate in Bangladesh in the past. The continuing ethnic clashes between Rohingya Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists in the Rakhine state of Myanmar, has led to more Rohingya migrants entering Bangladesh through the porous borders.

The Jamaat-e-Islami, a close ally of the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by Begum Khaleda Zia, seems to offer tacit support to the Rohingya migrants in Bangladesh. This is owing to commonality in religion, and easy indoctrination to their ideology, as most of these migrants are illiterate and do not have adequate livelihood means. There have been allegations that in attacks and road picketing during political protest rallies by the Jamaat and its youth wing, the Islami Chatra Shibir, the Rohingya migrants are used as the frontline human shield in confrontations with the police, in return for political patronage and money.

Looking at the rise in extremely violent incidents in Bangladesh, in particular the use of swords, sharp blades and machetes, especially during political protests and street confrontations, and the killings of liberal bloggers, LGBTQ+ rights activists, Hindu and Buddhist minorities in various parts of Bangladesh, it seems that group grievance in Bangladesh would be alarmingly high. This in turn is directly translating into political violence and there is a growing trend of normalisation of brutalised violent means in the Bangladeshi political scenario. These conditions have led to human flight and brain drain from the country, and is having severe impacts on the young generation, specifically students.

The state legitimacy index under the political and military indicators of the FSI report is again misleading (8.0), as there is a far more serious decline of political legitimacy and democratic choice in Bangladesh, starting from the 2006-2008 period, and continuing to the parliamentary elections of 2014, which was boycotted by the main opposition parties. The political scenario is of extreme vendetta between the main political parties and the religious organisations, directly co-relating to the factionalised elites index (9.6), which has deepened the political divide. The human rights and rule of law index (7.6) does not fit in with the prevailing ground reality either.

Overall, the FSI report seems to have under-assessed certain indicators and the contradictions are evident within indicators of the same grouping. It will be interesting to note the shifts in the FSI report of 2017, which will have to take into account the protracted and violent events of the current year; 2016. The culmination of the actualities of the brutalisation over the past years has finally shown its ugly head in Bangladesh, with the homegrown terrorism and jihadi ideology. It is in the interests of India to see that the conditions present in Bangladesh and Myanmar do not affect the larger region.

Rockefeller Foundation Art Residency Programme 2017- Italy

Application Deadline: 

• The application period for an Academic Writing residency begins October 1, 2016 with the deadline of December 1, 2016, for residencies in 2017.
• The application period for Arts & Literary Arts residency begins October 1, 2016 with the deadline of December 1, 2016 for residencies in 2017.
• Applications for practitioner residencies are accepted on a rolling basis and are currently being accepted for residencies in 2016.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Countries in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the United States

To be taken at (country): Bellagio, Italy. The Center consists of several buildings in 55 acres grounds on Lake Como in Northern Italy: the Villa Serbelloni and Villa Maranese house the resident fellows (scholars, practitioners and artists); the Sfondrata and Frati buildings are reserved for meetings. The town of Bellagio, immediately adjacent to the Bellagio Center, is located in northern Italy at the point where Lake Como divides to form its Lecco and Como arms. It is approximately 75 km. (47 miles) north of Milan.

Eligible Fields: The Rockefeller Foundation seeks applicants with projects that contribute to discourse and progress related to its dual goals: i) advancing inclusive economies that expand opportunities for more broadly shared prosperity, and ii) building resilience by helping people, communities and institutions prepare for, withstand, and emerge stronger from acute shocks and chronic stresses. To achieve these goals, The Rockefeller Foundation works at the intersection of four related focus areas: Advance Health, Revalue Ecosystems, Secure Livelihoods, and Transform Cities.

Applicants with projects that may help shape thinking or catalyze action in these areas are also strongly encouraged to apply.

About the Award:  The Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Residency Programme is split into 3 areas:

• Academic Writing residency
• Arts & Literary Arts residency
• Practitioner residencies

The Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Residency Programme has a track record for supporting the generation of important new knowledge addressing some of the most complex issues facing our world, and innovative new works of art that inspire reflection and understanding of global and social issues.

The Bellagio Center Residency Program is committed to creating an environment that fosters rich cross-cultural and interdisciplinary exchanges, which arise from bringing highly diverse and international cohorts of artists, academics, practitioners, and policymakers together. The Bellagio Center typically offers residencies of two to four weeks for no more than 15 residents at a time. Collegial interaction within the community of residents is an integral dimension of the Bellagio experience. Meals and informal presentations of residents’ work afford an opportunity for dynamic discussions and engagement within and across disciplines. To help build connections across one another’s work, residents are also offered opportunities to interact with participants from international conferences that are hosted in other buildings on the Bellagio Center’s grounds.

Type: Residency

Eligibility: 

• Residencies are open to university or think-thank based academics in all disciplines, literary artists, visual artists, and practitioners from a variety of fields, particularly those working on socially impactful endeavors. The Foundation seeks to promote a broad, stimulating mix of disciplines and fields within the Bellagio Community.
• The Academic Writing residency is for university and think tank-based academics, researchers, professors, and scientists working in any discipline. Successful applicants can either demonstrate decades of significant professional contributions to their field or show evidence of being on a strong upward trajectory in their careers.
• The Bellagio Arts & Literary Arts residency is for artists working in any discipline including composers, fiction and non-fiction writers, playwrights, poets, video/filmmakers, and visual artists who share in the Foundation’s mission of promoting the well-being of humankind and whose work is inspired by or relates to global or social issues.
• The Center also welcomes applications from practitioners, defined as senior-level policymakers, nonprofit leaders, journalists, private sector leaders and public advocates with ten or more years of leadership experience in a variety of fields and sectors.

Selection Criteria: Bellagio Center arts & literary arts residencies are for composers, fiction and non-fiction writers, playwrights, poets, video/filmmakers, interdisciplinary and visual artists seeking time for disciplined work, reflection, and collegial engagement, uninterrupted by the usual professional and personal demands.

Number of Awardees: Not more than 15 residents

Value of Residency: 

• During the course of the residency, room, meals and board are provided without charge.
• Opportunity for dynamic discussions and engagement within and across disciplines.
• Accessibility: housing/grounds/studios are accessible
• Studios/special equipment: Painting, Photography (digital)
• Additional studio information: The Maranese Art Studio (for painters) is located directly one flight downstairs from the bedroom (access through an outside stairway).
• To help build connections across one another’s work, residents are also offered opportunities to interact with participants from international conferences that are hosted in other buildings on the Bellagio Center’s grounds.
• Space for Spouses/Life Partners of residents are welcomed at the Center and can utilize this time to work on their own projects
• Travel grants and modest stipends to offset incidental travel costs are available on a needs basis, with awards granted to approximately half of all resident fellows.

Duration of Residency: 2 to 4 weeks

How to Apply: Go to Application 

It is important to go through application requirements on the Rockefeller Foundation Residency Webpage before applying.

Visit Residency Webpage for details

Award Provider: Rockefeller Foundation

Professor De Winter 2017 International Masters Scholarships for Women – Netherlands

Application Deadline: 31 March 2017 | 

Offered annually? Yes

To be taken at (country): University of Twente, Netherland

Eligible Field of Study

• Applied Mathematics
• Applied Physics
• Biomedical Engineering
• Business Information Technology
• Chemical Engineering
• Civil Engineering and Management
• Computer Science
• Construction Management and Engineering
• Electrical Engineering
• Embedded Systems
• Human Media Interaction
• Industrial Design Engineering
• Industrial Engineering and Management
• Mechanical Engineering
• Nanotechnology
• Sustainable Energy Technology
• Systems and Control
• Telematics

About Scholarship: The Professor de Winter Scholarship is provided by the inheritors of Professor de Winter and his wife. Professor de Winter was one of the founders of the research and education department of the ‘Technische Hogeschool Twente’ – which later became the University of Twente. In 1969 he became the first career counselor of Technical Physics. At that time, he had already been appointed as professor of Applied Physics at the department of Electrical Engineering.

Type: Masters degree

Selection Criteria and Eligibility: This scholarship is only available to excellent female students.

Number of Scholarships: not specified

Value of Scholarship:

• € 7,500 per year for the full duration of your Master’s programme.
• If you have applied for a two-year programme, make sure you read the information about two-year study programmes below.

Two-year study programme: The selected study programmes for this scholarship have a duration of two years. Students can receive an additional scholarship amount equal to that in the first year to cover the expenses of the second year. However, the scholarship will only be continued during the second when students meet the process requirements for the scholarship. These progress requirements in order to get a scholarship for the second year are:

• The student must have obtained an average grade of 7 (out of 10) at the end of the third quartile of the first year of the programme;
• The student must have obtained at least 50% of European Credits at the end of the third quartile of the first year programme;
• The student must have obtained 90% of European Credits before start of the second year programme.

Duration of Scholarship: two years

Eligible Countries:

• EU/EEA Countries
• Non-EU/EEA countries (Eligible African countries only are listed here: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Sao Tome & Principe, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zanzibar, Zimbabwe.)

How to Apply: You cannot apply for a Professor de Winter scholarship yourself. You need to be nominated by your faculty, after you have applied for the University of Twente Scholarship (UTS) (link the Webpage link below)

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details and to Apply (‘Application’ at the Left-hand corner)

Important Note: It is important to carefully read the information on the Scholarship Webpage before applying.

University of Twente Masters Scholarships for International Students 2017 – Netherlands

Application Deadlines:

• Application round 1: 1st February 2017
• Application round 2: Opens on 1st February 2017. Closes on 1st May 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries

• EU/EEA Countries
• Non-EU/EEA countries

To be taken at (country): University of Twente, Netherlands

Eligible Fields of Study

• Applied Mathematics
• Applied Physics
• Biomedical Engineering
• Business Administration
• Business Information Technology
• Chemical Engineering
• Civil Engineering and Management
• Communication Studies
• Computer Science
• Construction Management and Engineering
• Educational Science and Technology
• Electrical Engineering
• Embedded Systems
• European Studies
• Health Sciences
• Human Media Interaction
• Industrial Design Engineering
• Industrial Engineering and Management
• Environmental and Energy Management
• Mechanical Engineering
• Methodology and Statistics for the Behavioural, Biomedical and Social Sciences
• Nanotechnology
• Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society
• Public Administration
• Science Education and Communication
• Sustainable Energy Technology
• Systems and Control
• Telematics

About Scholarship: The University Twente Scholarship (UTS) is a scholarship for excellent students from both EU/EEA as well as non-EU/EEA countries, applying for a graduate programme (MSc) at the University of Twente.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: In order to be eligible for a the University of Twente Scholarship, you should meetall the requirements below.

• Your programme starts in September 2017;
• You have been (provisionally) admitted to one of the qualifying UT graduate programmes (Please note: After completion of your application, it may take up to 8 weeks before you receive the results).
• You have not graduated from a UT graduate programme;
• You have to include a motivation letter in your application (250 – 500 words). This motivation letter explains:
• What you have studied in the past;
• What goal you want to reach through your study at UT;
• How you plan to receive this goal;
• Why you particularly choose to study at the University of Twente;
• You comply with the conditions for obtaining an entry visa in the Netherlands (if applicable);
• You comply with the general English language test requirement Academic IELTS 6.5 (or TOEFL iBT of 90) and an additional 6.0 (TOEFL iBT 20) on the subscore of speaking skills
• You are not eligible for a Dutch study grant;
• You have completed a pre-master at the University of Twente (if applicable);
• You may already apply for a UTS even if you have to do a pre-master programme at the University of Twente first. However, you must complete your pre-master programme with a CGPA of 7.5 (out of 10) to be eligible for a UTS and comply with above mentioned requirements. UTS benefits and support are explicitly for Master’s programmes, not for pre-master programmes. Please note: If you intend to start your Master’s programme in September 2017 and you are required to follow a pre-master programme, the pre-master should start in February 2017 at the latest.

Number of Scholarships: approximately 30

Value of Scholarship: €3,000 – €25,000 for one year. If you have applied for a two-year programme, make sure you read the information about two-year study programmes (link below).

Duration of Scholarship: one or two years

How to Apply:

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: University of Twente, Netherlands

Important Notes: You can only be awarded with one UT scholarship. If you have been awarded with a UT scholarship in the first round, you cannot receive additional funding in the second round.

Women Techmakers Scholars Programme for Women in Africa 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 1st December 2016

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Women from Europe, the Middle East and Africa

To be taken at: Universities in Europe, the Middle East and Africa

Eligible Subject Areas: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Informatics or a closely related technical field

About Scholarship: Dr. Anita Borg devoted her adult life to revolutionising the way we think about technology and dismantling barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields. She proposed the “50/50 by 2020” initiative, so that women earning computing degrees would be 50% of the graduates by year 2020. However, the percentage of Computer Science degrees earned by women is still far from 50% throughout the world.

As part of Google’s ongoing commitment to furthering Anita’s vision, Google is proud to honor Anita’s memory and support women in technology with the Women Techmakers Scholars Program (formerly the Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship).

Through the scholarship, Google aim to encourage women to excel in computing and technology, and become active role models and leaders.

Type: Bachelors, Masters or PhD scholarship for women

Selection Criteria: Multiple scholarships will be awarded based on the strength of candidates’ academic performance, leadership experience and demonstrated passion for computer science.

Who is qualified to apply? To be eligible to apply, applicants must:

• Identify as female
• currently be enrolled at a university for the 2016-2017 academic year
• Intend to be enrolled in or accepted as a full-time student in a Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD program at a university in Europe, the Middle East or Africa for the 2017-2018 academic year
• Be studying Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Informatics or a closely related technical field
• Demonstrate and Maintain a strong academic record
• Exemplify leadership and demonstrate passion for increasing the involvement of women in Computer Science

Number of Scholarships:  Not specified

Value of Scholarship:

• The scholarship recipients will each receive a €7,000 (or equivalent) scholarship.
• A retreat opportunity to connect with fellow scholars and Google mentors, while participating in professional and personal development trainings and workshops.
• An online network with fellow scholars program participants designed to share resources, support the global community of women in tech and collaborate on projects to make continued impact.

How to Apply: The Women Techmakers Scholarship is a one-time scholarship. While past applicants and finalists are encouraged to reapply, unfortunately, past recipients of any Google scholarship, including the Women Techmakers Scholarship and Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship, are not eligible to apply.

Complete the online application and submit all requested documents by 1st December 2016.The following application documents must be in English.

• General background information (includes contact information and information about your current and intended institutions)
• Current resume
• Academic transcripts from your current and prior institutions (if you have earned a prior degree)
• One letter of reference from a professor, instructor, adviser or supervisor
• Responses to four essay questions

Sponsors: Google

Destroying Syria: a Joint Criminal Enterprise

Diana Johnstone

Everyone claims to want to end the war in Syria and restore peace to the Middle East.

Well, almost everyone.

“This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don’t want one to win — we’ll settle for a tie,” said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York told the New York Times in June 2013. “Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic thinking here.”

Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, stressed the same points in August 2016:

“The West should seek the further weakening of Islamic State, but not its destruction… Allowing bad guys to kill bad guys sounds very cynical, but it is useful and even moral to do so if it keeps the bad guys busy and less able to harm the good guys… Moreover, instability and crises sometimes contain portents of positive change… The American administration does not appear capable of recognizing the fact that IS can be a useful tool in undermining Tehran’s ambitious plan for domination of the Middle East.”

Okay, not exactly everyone.

But surely the humanitarian website Avaaz wants to end the war and restore peace.

Or does it?

Avaaz is currently circulating a petition which has gathered over a million signatures and is aiming at a million and a half. It is likely to get them, with words like this:

“100 children have been killed in Aleppo since last Friday.

“Enough is enough!”

Avaaz goes on to declare: “There is no easy way to end this war, but there’s only one way to prevent this terror from the skies — people everywhere demanding a no-fly zone to protect civilians.”

No-fly zone? Doesn’t that sound familiar? That was the ploy that served to destroy Libya’s air defenses and opened the country to regime change in 2011. It was promoted zealously by Hillary Clinton, who is also on record as favoring the same gambit in Syria.

And when the West says “no-fly”, it means that some can fly and others cannot. With the no-fly zone in Libya, France, Britain and the United States flew all they wanted, killing countless civilians, destroying infrastructure and allowing Islamic rebels to help themselves to part of the country.

The Avaaz petition makes the same distinction. Some should fly and others should not.

“Let’s build a resounding global call to Obama and other leaders to stand up to Putin and Assad’s terror. This might be our last, best chance to help end this mass murder of defenseless children. Add your name.”

So it’s all about mass murder of defenseless children, and to stop it, we should call on the drone king, Obama, to end “terror from the skies”.

Not only Obama, but other “good” leaders, members of NATO:

“To President Obama, President Erdogan, President Hollande, PM May, and other world leaders: As citizens around the globe horrified by the slaughter of innocents in Syria, we call on you to enforce an air-exclusion zone in Northern Syria, including Aleppo, to stop the bombardment of Syria’s civilians and ensure that humanitarian aid reaches those most in need.”

The timing of this petition is eloquent. It comes exactly when the Syrian government is pushing to end the war by reconquering the eastern part of Aleppo. It is part of the massive current propaganda campaign to reduce public consciousness of the Syrian war to two factors: child victims and humanitarian aid.

In this view, the rebels disappear. So do all their foreign backers, the Saudi money, the Wahhabi fanatics, the ISIS recruits from all over the world, the U.S. arms and French support. The war is only about the strange whim of a “dictator”, who amuses himself by bombing helpless children and blocking humanitarian aid. This view reduces the five-year war in Syria to the situation as it was portrayed in Libya, to justify the no-fly zone: nothing but a wicked dictator bombing his own people.

For the public that likes to consume world events in fairy tale form, this all fits together. Sign a petition on your computer and save the children.

The Avaaz petition does not aim to end the war and restore peace. It clearly aims to obstruct the Syrian government offensive to retake Aleppo. The Syrian army has undergone heavy losses in five years of war, its potential recruits have in effect been invited to avoid dangerous military service by going to Germany. Syria needs air power to reduce its own casualties. The Avaaz petition calls for crippling the Syrian offensive and thus taking the side of the rebels.

Wait – but does that mean they want the rebels to win? Not exactly. The only rebels conceivably strong enough to win are ISIS. Nobody really wants that.

The plain fact is that to end this war, as to end most wars, one side has to come out on top. When it is clear who is the winning side, then there can be fruitful negotiations for things like amnesty. But this war cannot be “ended by negotiations”. That is an outcome that the United States might support only if Washington could use negotiations to impose its own puppets – pardon, pro-democracy exiles living in the West. But as things stand, they would be rejected as traitors by the majority of Syrians who support the government and as apostates by the rebels. So one side has to win to end this war. The least worst outcome would be that the Assad government defeats the rebels, in order to preserve the state. For that, the Syrian armed forces need to retake the eastern part of Aleppo occupied by rebels.

The job of Avaaz is to get public opinion to oppose this military operation, by portraying it as nothing but a joint Russian-Syrian effort to murder civilians, especially children. For that, they call for a NATO military operation to shoot down (that’s what “no-fly” means) Syrian and Russian planes offering air support to the Syrian army offensive.

Even such drastic measures do not aim to end the war. They mean weakening the winning side to prevent it from winning. To prolong a stalemate. It means – to use the absurd expression popular during the Bosnian war – creating an “even playing field”, as if war were a sports event. It means keeping the war going on and on until nothing is left of Syria, and what is left of the Syrian population fills up refugee camps in Europe.

As the New York Times reported from Jerusalem in September 2013  , “The synergy between the Israeli and American positions, while not explicitly articulated by the leaders of either country, could be a critical source of support as Mr. Obama seeks Congressional approval for surgical strikes in Syria.” It added that “Israel’s national security concerns have broad, bipartisan support in Washington, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the influential pro-Israel lobby in Washington, weighed in Tuesday in support of Mr. Obama’s approach.” (This was when Obama was planning to “punish President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons without seeking to force him from power” – before Obama decided to join Russia in disarming the Syrian chemical arsenal instead, a decision for which he continues to be condemned by the pro-Israel lobby and the War Party.) AIPAC’s statement “said nothing, however, about the preferred outcome of the civil war…”

Indeed. As the 2013 report from Jerusalem continued, “as hopes have dimmed for the emergence of a moderate, secular rebel force that might forge democratic change and even constructive dialogue, with Israel, a third approach has gained traction: Let the bad guys burn themselves out. ‘The perpetuation of the conflict is absolutely serving Israel’s interest,’ said Nathan Thrall, a Jerusalem-based analyst for the International Crisis Group.”

The plain truth is that Syria is the victim of a long-planned Joint Criminal Enterprise to destroy the last independent secular Arab nationalist state in the Middle East, following the destruction of Iraq in 2003. While attributed to government repression of “peaceful protests” in 2011, the armed uprising had been planned for years and was supported by outside powers: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States and France, among others. The French motives remain mysterious, unless linked to those of Israel, which sees the destruction of Syria as a means to weaken its archrival in the region, Iran. Saudi Arabia has similar intentions to weaken Iran, but with religious motives. Turkey, the former imperial power in the region, has territorial and political ambitions of its own. Carving up Syria can satisfy all of them.

This blatant and perfectly open conspiracy to destroy Syria is a major international crime, and the above-mentioned States are co-conspirators. They are joined in this Joint Criminal Enterprise by ostensibly “humanitarian” organizations like Avaaz that spread war propaganda in the guise of protecting children. This works because most Americans just can’t believe that their government would do such things. Because normal ordinary people have good intentions and hate to see children killed, they imagine that their government must be the same. It is hard to overcome this comforting faith. It is more natural to believe that the criminals are wicked people in a country about which they really understand nothing.

There is no chance that this criminal enterprise will ever arouse the attention of the prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, which like most major international organizations is totally under U.S. control. For example, the United Nations Undersecretary General for Political Affairs, who analyses and frames political issue for the Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, is an American diplomat, Jeffrey Feltman, who was a key member of Hillary Clinton’s team when she was carrying out regime change in Libya. And accomplices in this criminal enterprise include all the pro-governmental “non-governmental” organizations such as Avaaz who push hypocrisy to new lengths by exploiting compassion for children in order to justify and perpetuate this major crime against humanity and against peace in the world.

Links in the Golden Chain: Tracking the Saudi Role in 9/11

Christopher M. Davidson

The “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act” (JASTA), which will almost certainly be promulgated, will represent the latest in a series of milestones for a long-running class action lawsuit filed by the “9/11 Families and Survivors United for Justice Against Terrorism”.

The suit had its first big break in 2014 when a New York federal court ruled that the Saudi government was not allowed to claim sovereign immunity, and was thus liable to be sued for damages if the link to 9/11 could be proven.

Since then, its progress has become something of a bellwether for the US’s overall stance on Saudi Arabia, and of a decades-old alliance that would now appear to be unravelling.

The alliance has been underpinned for decades by Saudi Arabia’s role as the world’s “swing” oil producer and thus its centrality to the Western powers’ dominance over world energy supplies. It has also rested on the ability of the kingdom to recycle a portion of its “petrodollars” every year into expensive Western arms imports and, more broadly, into a variety of assets in the US and Western Europe.

Often glossed over, the alliance was also key to the US winning the Cold War, especially in Central Asia and the Middle East. Riyadh’s financial and ideological backing of hardline Islamist movements provided Washington with a useful reactionary and religiously conservative counterweight to more progressive and largely secular nationalist movements, popular liberation fronts, and new regimes such as the People’s Democratic Party in Afghanistan – all of which threatened to nationalise resources and end Western monopolies, and some of which had little choice but to seek the Soviet Union’s protection.

With more than 2,800 killed on 11 September 2001, including 11 unborn babies, the first serious test of the US-Saudi alliance had begun, especially after it emerged that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers had been Saudi citizens and that a secret Saudi-bound flight had been given special permission to fly out of the US on 13 September.

But with the Saudi petrodollar still vital to the health of the US economy, and rumours of over $100bn of US Department of Treasury bonds by then having been purchased by Riyadh, it was imperative that the strategic relationship remained intact.

Fast-forward to today, however, and it is no coincidence that this 15-year-old narrative on 9/11 has now finally begun to come unstuck.

Most obviously, in the wake of the 2014 US shale oil revolution, which saw US companies briefly overtake Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world’s largest oil producers, Riyadh has clearly lost its coveted “swing producer” role.

How JASTA will feed into this new dynamic remains to be seen, as the class action lawsuit may still take years to come to fruition.

Nonetheless, in the meantime, it seems that every extra piece of evidence that is assembled by the 9/11 lawyers and is reported on in the media will serve to lower Saudi Arabia’s reputation even further amongst the American public, and perhaps eventually bring it down to the sort of level last experienced by Gaddafi’s Libya or Ahmadinejad’s Iran.

Furthermore, it is also entirely possible that long before the lawsuit is concluded, a consensus will have emerged in the US that important elements of the Saudi state were indeed involved in 9/11.

Recent revelations, including the release of about 85 percent of the content of 29 pages (known erroneously as the “28 pages”) that were originally redacted from the joint congressional inquiry into 9/11, have provided additional, but unconfirmed circumstantial evidence about a Saudi role. But there also now exists a considerable body of recently declassified documents, leaked materials, interrogation transcripts, and court subpoenaed files that point to a much more substantial connection and the clear existence of Saudi 9/11 financiers and the operation of a Saudi cell in the US that provided logistical assistance for the hijackers.

The new evidence paints a clear picture of a network of key Saudi businessmen and ruling family members known as the “Golden Chain”, which had played a role in financing the 1980s Afghan jihad but had then been reinvigorated in the mid-1990s following Osama bin Laden’s blackmail-like fatwa criticising the Islamic credentials of the Saudi king.

Known to Western intelligence agencies, the network’s members included three princes, one of whom was on the secret flight out of the US on the 13 September 2001, and all three of whom were soon after named by a heavily waterboarded al-Qaeda prisoner. Dying within a week of each other in June 2002, the men’s deaths were ascribed to a “heart attack” (at age 43), a car accident of which no convincing records exist, and a “thirst incident” that took place during a desert hiking trip with no witnesses.