NUFFIC TMT Tailor-Made Training Programme 2017 for Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 1st March 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Eligible NFP Countries (see list below)

To be taken at (country): The country of the requesting organisation, in a neighbouring country, or in a combination of these locations. If the added value is explicitly explained and motivated, training may take place in the Netherlands

About the Award: The Tailor-Made Training programme (TMT) is a specific type of study programme funded within the Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (NFP). A tailor-made training course is designed to meet specific needs of a requesting organisation. The Tailor-made Training programme is specifically meant to enhance the overall functioning of an organisation by training a selected group of its staff members. An organisation facing certain constraints in achieving its goals can by means of a tailor-made training course (partly) eliminate these constraints.

The programme is open to a broad range of organisations in NFP countries, from education institutions, research institutes and ministries to NGOs and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The participants of the training course are meant to be employees of the requesting organisation. Members of an association, or employees of member organisations of a federation, for example, do not qualify

The Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (NFP), funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the budget for development cooperation, are designed to promote capacity building within organizations in 51 (previously 62) countries by providing training and education to mid-career staff.

Offered Since: Not stated

Type: Entrepreneurship Training and Funding

Eligibility: There is a set of criteria for requesting organisations, the Dutch provider and the training itself. Below is an overview of the eligibility criteria. Criteria for the requesting organisations:

• is based in one of the countries on the NFP country list valid at the time of application;
• is not:
  • a large industrial, commercial, international or multinational organisation, which can be assumed to have sufficient resources of its own to finance staff training;
  • a bilateral donor organisation or a multilateral donor organisation;
  • an international NGO;
  • benefiting from a NICHE project.
• the field in which it operates is relevant to the sustainable development of the country the organisation is located;
• is requesting training for its own staff.

Criteria for the Dutch provider

• is registered with the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce and has its headquarters or a branch within the Netherlands;
• is directly responsible for the preparation and management of the tailor-made training course, and not acting as an intermediary;
• is experienced and able to show that the organisation has the capacity needed to manage an activity on the scale of the tailor-made training course for which the proposal is being submitted;
• is financially sound to ensure continuity throughout the tailor-made training course.

Criteria for the tailor-made training course Set-up of the training course:

• It is a group training;
• the programme does not support activities such as seminar attendances and conference visits; The requesting organisation is an organisation which submits a proposal for a tailor-made training course. A TMT will be carried out by a provider from The Netherlands. This Dutch organisation is acting on its own or is leading a consortium to provide a particular service for a particular price. The consortium partners may be registered in another country than the Netherlands.
• the programme does not support the purchase of hardware;
• the subject is relevant to the needs identified within the requesting organisation.

Selection Criteria: Embassies may opt for an ‘open call’, so that all interested organisations in the country can apply. Or, they may opt for a ‘closed call’ and invite a number of organisations in the country to participate. In this case, non-invited organisations cannot submit a joint proposal. EP-Nuffic recommends all interested organisations to contact the relevant embassy before starting to prepare a joint proposal.

Afterwards, EP-Nuffic assesses and takes into account the recommendations of the embassy.

Eligible proposals will be based on the following priorities:

• Country classification (category 1 or 2)
• Sub-SaharaAfrica
• Preference for the food security sector
• Strongest recommendation by embassy/consulate

Number of Trainees: 

• minimum number of participants is six persons;
• maximum number of participants is 20 persons;

Value of Training:

• The maximum NFP subsidy for an application is 200,000 euros. The maximum subsidy for a joint proposal is 75,000 euros. Co-funding is not required for this call, although it will be considered positively in the assessment.
• Co-funding of at least 2,500 euros by the requesting organisation or a sponsor in the NFP country will give the application/joint proposal an advantage in the assessment.

Duration of Training: 2-3 weeks

Eligible African Countries: Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Guinea-Bissau, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Burundi, Tanzania, Kenya, Cape Verde, Uganda, Mali, Zambia, DR Congo, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Egypt, Namibia

Other Developing Countries outside Africa? Afghanistan, Eritrea, Nicaragua, Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Pakistan, Autonomous Palestinian Territories, Peru, Bangladesh, Guatemala, Philippines, Bhutan, Honduras, Bolivia, India, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Iran, Suriname, Jordan, Cambodia, Thailand, Kosovo, Colombia, Macedonia, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Yemen, Cuba, Moldova, Mongolia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nepal

How to Apply: Proposals have to be submitted to the embassy or consulate of the Netherlands for your country. To ensure timely processing of proposals, embassies may deviate from the EP-Nuffic deadline and apply their own, earlier deadline. Therefore, organisations need to consult the website of the embassy or consulate for the applicable application procedures, criteria and deadlines.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (NFP)

Important Notes: Embassies and consulates use earlier deadlines than 1 November, as they have to process the joint proposals before forwarding them to EP-Nuffic.

Peace Revolution International Youth Fellowship (Funded) 2017 – Thailand

Application Deadlines:

• 25th February 2017: Last date to apply online
• 8th April 2017: Last date to complete at least 42 days of the online Self-Development program including 2 Special Ops

To be taken at (country): Thailand

About the Program: Do you want to give a try to meditation and start a true change from within? Your training starts with the 42 Days online self-development program (See link below for details) on our interactive platform providing you the basic theory and practice; develop the tool for inner peace and learn about the concept of PIPO – Inner Peace + Outer Peace = Sustainable world peace. Through the Online Special OPS you have the means to share true peace to friends, family and school at large.

The fellowship (after the 42-day online self-development program) offers a 14 days of intensive training program providing participants with deeper insight in the relationship between inner peace and sustainable world peace and enhancing their ability to create peace within their family, professional and social environment.

In addition to the intense meditation practice, participants will gain knowledge of various theoretical approaches that include:

• Conflict resolution and the role of the basic human self-disciplines
• The role of our habits in our daily life and how to improve; the 5 Rooms of life
• The factors that determine our perception to think, act and speak; relation between body and mind
• Leadership: Eight pillars for a stable peaceful society
• Thai-Buddhist Studies

Type: Training/Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• Candidates should be at least 20 years old at the time of submitting the application.
• Candidates must have completed 42 days of the English version of the online self-development program. Note that in order to submit the application form, candidates do not need to have completed the online self-development program. Deadline to finish the program is 18th April 2017
• Candidates must have completed at least 2 Special Ops, which are
• 1 OFFLINE (with 5 or more participants) and
• 1 ONLINE (with 10 or more participants) OR 1 LIVE (with 15 or more participants).
• Candidates need to submit a PIPO Proposal (included in the application form).
• Candidates have good proficiency in written and spoken English language.
• Candidates should be optimistic, be open-minded, show leadership potential, and have a genuine interest in peace.
• Candidates must finish all the above requirements (the self-development program as well as the online Special Ops) before the eligibility deadline of a 8th April 2017

Selection Process: After completion of the 42 days of the online self-development program, and the 2 Special OPS required, World Peace Initiative Foundation selection committee will make an interview appointment based on candidate’s performance, available funds as well as group combination in the fellowship. There is no need to write a request for an interview.

Value of Program: The fellowship covers

• Free Local Transportation
• Free Catering & Accommodation
• Meditation Sessions and Lectures
• Yoga Classes
• Interactive Workshops
• Free Meditation Retreat Fee
• Partial Airfare Support for Applicants Meeting the Criteria
  • All residents from countries from this list here
  • PR+ (Applicants that participated in any of our regional fellowships)
  • Applicants who belong to a PIPO club

Duration of Program: 3rd – 16th June 2017

How to Apply: Before you apply via the Program Webpage link (below) it is important to go through the eligibility requirements.

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: Peace Revolution

Road Map to Professional Success for Engineers not Taught in School – Online Course

Enrolment: Starts on February 21, 2017

Timeline: 4 weeks @ 2-3 hours per week

Skill Level: Introductory

Course of Study: Business & Management for Engineers| Course Platform: Edx.org

Created by: IEEE

Cost: Free

About the Course

Congratulations! You’re an engineer, and now you’re ready to take the corporate world by storm. But in order to succeed in your career, you’ll need more than just great technical skills. You’ll need to be able to promote your ideas, share them with others, and work with a wide variety of people. Stuff You Don’t Learn in Engineering School is designed to give engineers entering the corporate world the soft skills they’ll need to succeed — in business, and in life.

Filled with insightful, practical advice addressing vital skill areas and helpful tips you can apply immediately to any situation, this course will help you take charge of your career and achieve the success for which you’ve worked so hard.

What you’ll learn

Step by step, you’ll learn important skills like

• Setting priorities;
• Managing or working in a team;
• Being more effective at meetings;
• Speaking in front of a group;
• Negotiating personal or business issues;
• And just having more fun in the process!

Eligibility requirement

For engineers and engineering students

Certificate offered? Yes

How to Enrol

VISIT COURSE WEBPAGE TO ENROL.

MILEAD Empowerment and Leadership Fellowship for Young African Women 2017

Application Deadline: 15th March 2017 (Wed)

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible African Countries: All African countries

To be taken at (country):  Ghana, Candidate’s home country.

Accepted Subject Areas: Leadership development

About Scholarship:The MILEAD Fellows Program is a long-term leadership development program designed to identify, develop and promote emerging young African female leaders to attain and thrive in leadership in their communities and Africa as a whole. The program targets dynamic young women interested in developing transformational leadership skills that help them address issues facing women and girls across communities in Africa. The MILEAD Program equips Fellows with the world class knowledge, skills, values and networks they need to succeed as 21st century women leaders.

Offered Since: 2004

By what Criteria is Selection Made? The MILEAD Fellowship will be awarded to outstanding young women who have exhibited leadership potential in their community, organization, and/or profession.

Who is eligible to apply? To be eligible for the one-year program, an applicant must:

• be African, living on the continent or in the Diaspora;
• agree to participate in all required activities related to MILEAD – including a three-week residential Summer Institute in Ghana;
• commit to a community change project
• be between 19 – 25 years of age.

Number of Awards: The MILEAD Fellowship will be awarded to 25 outstanding young women

What are the benefits? The MILEAD Program equips Fellows with the world class knowledge, skills, values and networks they need to succeed as 21st century women leaders.

Duration of Fellowship: One year

How to Apply: Specific requirements of the program and related dates are outlined in the application package. Please review program and application guidelines carefully, before completing your application.

Completed application forms must be submitted along with a CV and two recommendation letters. All applications and supporting documents must be submitted via email.

1. Download Application Pack/Form
2. Download Recommendation Form

Visit the Fellowship Application page

Sponsors: Moremi Initiative for Women’s Leadership in Africa (Moremi Initiative)

Important Notes: Please note that this one year program is not a full-time fellowship. Selected candidates may remain full time students or work full time for the program duration, except during the 3–week summer institute. The 3-week summer institute is an intensive and full-time residential program and all fellows will be required to attend. The rest of the program involves community-based, online and other distance activities.

Ticking Carbon Clock Warns We Have One Year To Avert Climate Catastrophe

Nika Knight

Our window of time to act on climate may be shrinking even faster than previously thought.

We may only have one year remaining before we lock in 1.5ºC of warming—the ideal goal outlined in the Paris climate agreement—after which we’ll see catastrophic and irreversible climate shifts, many experts have warned.

That’s according to the ticking carbon budget clock created by the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC). The clock’s countdown now shows that only one year is left in the world’s carbon budget before the planet heats up more than 1.5º over pre-industrial temperatures.

The current carbon budget countdown, as of January 10, 2017. (Screenshot: MCC)

That’s under the most pessimistic calculations. According to the most optimistic prediction, we have four years to kick our carbon habit and avert 1.5º of warming.

And to limit warming to 2ºC—the limit agreed upon in the Paris climate accord—we have nine years to act under the most pessimistic scenario, and 23 years to act under the most optimistic.

“So far, there is no track record for reducing emissions globally,” explained Fabian Löhe, spokesperson for MCC, in an email to Common Dreams. “Instead, greenhouse gas emissions have been rising at a faster pace during the last decade than previously—despite growing awareness and political action across the globe. Once we have exhausted the carbon budget, every ton of CO2 that is released by cars, buildings, or industrial plants would need to be compensated for during the 21st century by removing the CO2 from the atmosphere again. Generating such ‘negative emissions’ is even more challenging and we do not know today at which scale we might be able to do that.”

(Climate activists and environmentalists have also long warned of the potential negative consequences of geoengineering and other carbon capture schemes, as Common Dreams has reported.)

“Hence, the clock shows that time is running out: it is not enough to act sometime in the future, but it is necessary to implement more ambitious climate policies already in the very short-term,” Löhe added.

“Take all of the most difficult features of individual pathways to 2ºC—like fast and ambitious climate action in all countries of the world, the full availability of all required emissions reduction and carbon removal technologies, as well as aggressive energy demand reductions across the globe—the feasibility of which were so heatedly debated prior to Paris,” Löhe said. “This gives you an idea of the challenge associated with the more ambitious 1.5°C goal.”

Trump and China fears overshadow fragile Australian economy

Mike Head

The New Year has produced warnings in the Australian media about the multiple “risks” in 2017 to the country’s economy, which already experienced an official contraction in the September quarter of 2016. Above all, there are fears in ruling circles that conflict between the US, led by the protectionist Donald Trump, and China, Australian capitalism’s largest export market, could have catastrophic consequences.

Last week’s announcement of a trade surplus of $1.24 billion for November, the first monthly surplus since March 2014, was initially presented as signalling a revival of economic fortunes. The outcome was the result of higher prices for Australian capitalism’s biggest export earners—iron ore and coal—during the second half of 2016.

This turnaround, it was claimed, could prevent the prospect of another quarterly contraction that would officially mark a recession. The Australian reported a “ray of light” for the economy and the Turnbull government. “The stars are finally starting to align for Australia’s trade numbers,” Paul Bloxham, HSBC Australia’s chief economist, told the Guardian .

In reality, the upswing in commodity prices, which had collapsed during the previous 18 months, is likely to be short-lived and unable to overcome the underlying economic deterioration produced by a four-year plunge in corporate investment, both mining and non-mining. In fact, the brief upturn, which is already reversing, underscores the country’s substantial dependence on China.

Prices of coking coal, which is used in steelmaking, rose sharply in the second half of last year, from $US90 a tonne in late June to $308 by early November. But this was based almost entirely on relatively strong Chinese steel demand, largely generated by infrastructure and real estate stimulus packages adopted by Beijing to avert a fall in China’s economic growth rate, as well as coal mining restrictions by the regime.

Over the past five years, China’s growth, which averaged 10 percent per year from 1989 to 2009, has slowed sharply under the impact of the post-2008 global financial crisis. Even to prevent the official rate from dropping below their current target of 6.5 percent, the Beijing authorities again resorted to stimulus measures during 2016, but these led to renewed production gluts and a further blowout in debt.

The country’s combined public and private debt is estimated to have reached 260 percent of gross domestic product by the end of last year, the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the world. As a result, Beijing has been forced to pull back its measures, and this has quickly affected global coal and iron ore prices.

In the first week of 2017, coking coal prices fell to near $200 per tonne, extending their drop in the previous six weeks to 35 percent. Iron ore prices, which rose from $54 a tonne to $80 in the second half of last year, were trading at $76 last weekend and are expected to drop further as Beijing continues to restructure its steel industry to cut more than 100 million tonnes a year of steelmaking capacity.

The Australian government’s own commodity forecaster cautioned last week that the price surges would not last for long. “The combination of slowing demand growth from China’s steel sector and increased global supplies are expected to lower export unit values in 2017–18,” Mark Cully, the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science’s chief economist, said.

Even these predictions will be shattered if the Trump administration instigates tariffs and other trade war measures against China, let alone provokes military conflict between the two nuclear powers. Not only would the world economy be thrown into crisis, but Australian capitalism would be particularly devastated.

Writing in the Australian on January 9, finance journalist Stephen Bartholomeusz first noted the likelihood of contracting Chinese demand this year. Then he warned: “The biggest wildcard, however, probably remains the nature and effect of Trump’s trade policies and the extent to which they damage China’s export volumes and economy.”

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s David Taylor also gave voice to this overriding fear. “One big issue to keep an eye out for is China’s trade relationship with the US. If president-elect Donald Trump starts a trade war with Australia’s largest trading partner (imposing tariffs as much as 45 percent on all of the country’s exports), all bets are off.”

One indication of the nervousness in the corporate elite was provided by another ABC business reporter, Michael Janda, who listed 10 “risks” to the Australian economy in 2017. Reflecting the country’s particular vulnerability to a global slump, they included “China slowdown,” “The Trump factor” and “European disintegration.”

At the top of Janda’s list were five “risks” of soaring unemployment. They were “Car industry shutdown,” “Mining investment bust continues,” “Commodity price snap back,” “Property price fall” and “Construction boom peaks.”

Janda explained that on top of the thousands of jobs being eliminated by Ford, General Motors and Toyota in closing all their car plants by the end of 2017, and the completion of the country’s remaining major mining construction projects, there could be a rout in the real estate market, triggered by a glut in apartment construction, which would wipe out an estimated 200,000 jobs.

“With the construction industry accounting for almost 10 percent of employment, not to mention hundreds of thousands of extra jobs in the broader real estate sector, this is another huge economic risk facing Australia this year or next.”

To his list, Janda added the almost certain loss of the country’s AAA credit rating this year. This could help produce another risk—an “Australian banking crisis”—because of the major banks’ high levels of exposure to the debt-fuelled housing market and their heavy reliance on borrowing from international financial markets.

Any rise in interest rates from their current official low of 1.5 percent would exacerbate these dangers, generating mortgage defaults by financially-stressed families. Household debt is now above 175 percent of GDP—one of the highest levels in the world.

The ABC journalist concluded with a “doomsday scenario”: “Imagine, as tens of thousands more jobs are shed from the mining and automotive sectors (as we know will happen), that 200,000 workers start drifting out of residential construction and related industries…

“Most likely this exact scenario won’t happen this year and Australia will keep muddling through with below par economic growth and weak employment and wages outcomes. But the fact that it is even plausible highlights how fragile the nation’s economy has become.”

These warnings reflect two concerns dominating the corporate and media establishment. One is that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government is failing to sufficiently satisfy the demands of the financial elite for an all-out offensive against social spending and working class wages and conditions.

The other fear is that the deteriorating economic situation and rising joblessness will intensify the growing popular discontent and political disaffection produced by years of austerity measures by successive governments and the continual destruction of full-time jobs, which has already pushed hundreds of thousands of workers and youth into lower-paid and insecure employment.

Australian government agrees to negotiate East Timor maritime border

Patrick Kelly

The Australian and East Timorese governments issued a joint statement on Monday declaring that they are entering negotiations through the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to settle a permanent maritime border.

The statement also announced the termination of the 2006 Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS), under which the border was to be left unresolved for 50 years while the Timor Sea’s energy reserves were divided through a mechanism heavily weighted in favour of Australia. Canberra had previously resisted, tooth and nail, attempts by East Timor to nullify CMATS.

The announcement represents a significant tactical shift by Australian imperialism. Since 1975, when Indonesia invaded and subsequently annexed the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, successive Labor and Liberal governments in Australia have been satisfied to leave the Timor Sea maritime border undetermined. The same policy underwrote Canberra’s predatory relationship with “independent” East Timor, following the Australian military deployment in 1999 under the bogus pretext of humanitarian intervention.

The unresolved maritime border has allowed Australia to exert geostrategic influence—and extract lucrative oil and gas resources—far beyond the median point between Australia and East Timor, where the border ought to be established under international law.

The full implications of the joint Australian-Timorese statement remain to be seen. Carefully worded throughout, the statement appears to allow Canberra ample opportunity to drag out negotiations indefinitely on a maritime border. It declared that during meetings in The Hague last October: “The governments of Timor-Leste and Australia agreed to an integrated package of measures intended to facilitate the conciliation process and create the conditions conducive to the achievement of an agreement on permanent maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea… The governments of Timor-Leste and Australia look forward to continuing to engage with the [Permanent Court of Arbitration’s] Conciliation Commission and to the eventual conclusion of an agreement on maritime boundaries in the Timor Sea.”

None of this signals a retreat from Australian imperialism’s long record of provocations and lawlessness against East Timor.

Immediately prior to formal Timorese independence in 2002, Canberra withdrew from a key aspect of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in order to prevent any juridically determined border in the Timor Sea. This blatant contempt for international law has not prevented the current Australian government from hypocritically echoing US criticisms of China for failing to recognise a dubious Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) finding last year on territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Having barred the PCA from ruling on the Timor Sea, the Australian government last year sought to block the court from allowing the East Timorese government to proceed with a compulsory arbitration case. This was to involve “compulsory conciliation,” with the PCA considering the rival sea boundary claims and then issuing non-binding recommendations aimed at providing the basis of a negotiated settlement. In September, the court dismissed the Australian legal challenge to this process.

Talks on the process of negotiating a maritime border began the following month. One of the Australian government’s aims in agreeing to Timorese demands for a permanent border is likely to prevent further scrutiny of the now defunct CMATS treaty.

The Timorese government had mounted a separate legal challenge in The Hague to CMATS, based on the argument that the treaty was unlawful because of illegal Australian intelligence operations during the treaty’s negotiations. In 2004, Australian intelligence operatives posed as humanitarian construction workers helping to build Timorese government offices. Listening devices hidden in the buildings were then used to eavesdrop on Timorese cabinet discussions.

Responding to the Timorese legal challenge, in December 2013, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) raided the offices of East Timor’s Australian-based lawyer, Bernard Collaery, also stealing sensitive Timorese government documents. Attorney-General George Brandis threatened Collaery with serious criminal charges for allegedly divulging official secrets. The government seized the passport of a former Australian intelligence operative turned whistleblower, in order to prevent him from testifying at The Hague. All of these provocations and dirty tricks are now being swept under the carpet.

The Timorese government has welcomed the termination of CMATS and the announcement of negotiations on a permanent maritime border. It is entering into the discussions amid a worsening economic and social crisis in East Timor.

The massive Greater Sunrise gas fields that were previously covered by the CMATS treaty remain untapped. Australia’s Woodside Petroleum—which heads a consortium of Australian, American, and Japanese oil and gas giants that has the rights to exploit the reserves—has flatly refused Timorese government demands to extract the gas and pipe it to southern Timor for refining and export. The protracted standoff over whether Greater Sunrise gas ought to be processed in Australia, Timor or in a floating facility in the Timor Sea has coincided with a plunge in gas prices worldwide. The rise of fracking in the US and other countries, and the development of gas mega-projects off northwest Australia and in other regions has led to a glut in global supply that has raised questions about the viability of bringing Greater Sunrise online.

The Timorese state currently relies on the far smaller Bayu Undan oil and gas field for about 90 percent of all its revenue. Bayu Undan is expected to run dry within the next decade. Moreover, a Timorese sovereign wealth fund that is currently valued at $16 billion is being depleted by higher government spending. The so-called national unity government of Xanana Gusmão’s CNRT and Fretilin has sought to dissipate social tensions in impoverished East Timor by providing limited cash grants and other entitlements to different sections of the population. According to some reports, if current trends continue, the sovereign wealth fund will be exhausted by the late 2020s.

Timorese government hopes for significant concessions in border negotiations will be dashed. For Australian imperialism what is at stake is not just the fate of the Greater Sunrise reserves but its wider geostrategic standing in the region. Sections of the Australian media have this week openly tied the resolution of the border issue to the ongoing efforts to minimise Chinese economic and political influence in Dili.

Another important consideration is the Indonesian response to an Australian-Timorese border. Canberra finalised its maritime border with Indonesia in 1971–72, just five years after Australia supported the Indonesian military coup that saw the mass murder of up to one million workers and peasants associated with the Communist Party. In the negotiations, the junta accepted Australian claims that the border ought to follow an underwater “continental shelf” that extends close to Indonesian land. Since the 1971–72 treaties, international law has largely rejected claims based on purported continental shelves, instead favouring borders equidistant between states’ land masses.

Australian officials fear that a negotiated Timorese border could trigger an Indonesian attempt to force a renegotiation of its border with Australia. The redrawing of this border in accordance with contemporary international law would see Australia lose swathes of maritime territory adjacent to some of the world’s most critically important naval trade choke-points. This would have significant implications amid accelerating moves by US imperialism for a military confrontation of China.

New report documents extreme poverty in Poland

Clara Weiss

The NGO Szlachetna Paczka (Noble Package), which helps poor families during the Christmas holidays, released a report in December 2016 documenting extreme levels of poverty in Poland. The report is based on the work and experience of volunteers of the organization.

Since its founding in 2001, Szlachetna Paczka has helped, according to its own numbers, some 112,000 families. Another 20,000 families were added in 2015. The report reveals the miserable living conditions facing broad sections of the working class and the peasant population who, a quarter century after the restoration of capitalist relations, lack access to basic elements of civilized life.

The living conditions of millions are more reminiscent of the conditions facing the working class in England in the period of early industrialization in the 19th century, than the 20th or 21st centuries. In contrast to other reports on poverty, this one includes not only numbers but also offers an insight into the deprivations in everyday life brought about by poverty.

Szlachetna Paczka examined the situation of groups of the population that are particularly affected by poverty: infirm pensioners, families with more than one child or with a single parent, the self-employed, as well as families with one or more member who is seriously ill.

The resulting picture is devastating. Every third ailing pensioner in Poland cannot spend more than 7 Zloty ($1.69) per day in order to not go in debt. Every second family with more than one child has problems paying its bills and debt. Every fifth family with more than one child lives together in one room. Every sixth family with more than one child does not have its own bathroom. Of these families, 60 percent have to pay off a long-term loan. 15 percent of the families with a seriously sick or disabled member have only 1.6 Zloty ($0.39) per person per day. This is not even enough to buy a loaf of bread in Poland.

The interviewees often lacked the possibility to relax and rest, and suffered from low self-esteem. The elderly and sick, in particular, suffer from loneliness.

Conditions are particularly outrageous for elderly people dependent on the meagre payments from the state.

A 83-year-old lady, Pani Zofia, has to spend 300 Zloty ($72.40) every month on medication and does not have enough money to pay for more than two hours of heat every day. An elderly man, Pan Kazimierz, has laryngeal cancer and therefore had to give up his work before reaching the official pension age. For this reason, he has to live on only 600 Zloty ($145) per month. He was told by the government official at the office: “You will get your pension in heaven.”

Another elderly lady, Pani Czesia, has to pay off debts of 5,000 Zloty ($1,207) following the suicide of her husband. The son suffers from a mental ailment and is currently in psychiatric care. For breakfast she eats of piece of bread and drinks a glass of milk which she gets from a neighbour.

A single man, severely disabled since age 21, must live on about 700 Zloty ($169) per month. This is hardly enough to pay for the basic food, the bills and the help offered by his neighbour. Families with more than one child or a single parent are particularly affected by poverty. According to official estimates, 1.4 out of 8.9 million children and young people aged under 24 lived in poverty in 2014. This means that every fifth child has no hot meal during the day, no books, toys, new clothes or access to dentists, not to mention vacations.

The report cites the example of a single mother with three children who lives in a remote village in the countryside. The youngest son suffered an electric shock and has since then been unable to speak and walk. In order to feed her children, the mother has to knit socks and collect mushrooms in the forest.

Some families with more than one child were asked about the impact of the governmental program 500+ on their financial situation. The program was introduced by the ruling right-wing government of the Rule and Justice Party (PiS), in an effort to mitigate social discontent in the face of the rapid preparations for war and the buildup of a police state.

The program provides for a monthly payment of 500 Zloty ($121) for every child after the first. The report shows that the meagre payment signifies a certain relief for many families, though not solving their everyday struggle for existence.

In one of the families introduced in the report, the mother has to raise five children on her own after the death of her husband. One of them is severely ill. They are all sleeping together in one bed to keep warm as the family cannot afford heat. The additional money from the government program pays for the children to go on school trips. She still struggles to pay for the medication for her sick child.

The examples provided in the report by Szlachetna Paczka reflect the social reality of millions of working people in Poland, which remains one of the poorest countries in Europe. In 2013, the GDP per capita in Poland of 13,349 Euros was three times lower than that in neighboring Germany (45,000 Euros), putting Poland behind even Russia, Croatia, Greece or Chile.

The persistent poverty has driven more than three million Poles since 1989 to leave the country. Most of them work for low, but still better, pay in Germany or Great Britain. The unemployment rate in Poland is still around 8 percent.

According to the Central Statistical Office (GUS), 7.4 percent of the population lived in extreme poverty in 2015 with an income of less than 545 Zloty ($132) per month. Another 16.2 percent lived in relative poverty, which means for a family of four that is has less than 2056 Zloty ($496) per month to live on.

Figures by the Institute for Work and Social Questions (IPiSS) which preceded from a somewhat higher, but still low minimum for social existence of 1080 Zloty ($261) per person and 2915 Zloty ($704) for a family of four per month, corroborate this picture. In 2015, 42.7 percent of Poles live beneath these very low living standards. According to IPiSS, this includes 64.9 percent of peasants (some 40 percent of the population still live in the countryside), 55.4 percent of infirm pensioners, and 41.9 percent of workers.

There is a wide social gulf between the city and the countryside in Poland. Thus, in big cities such as Warsaw, or Cracow—the centres for the social elites and the middle classes—only about 1 percent of the population live in extreme poverty, whereas in the countryside it is about 11 percent.

British super-rich pay less tax as workers pay more

Simon Whelan

British workers have experienced an unprecedented assault on their living standards, wages and social conditions. Working class communities have witnessed severe attacks on basic public services, with welfare benefits slashed for the poorest in society.

While austerity ravages the lives of workers and their families, the super-rich continue to rake in gargantuan levels of wealth.

The New Year began with a bonanza for the super-rich and corporations as the stock market hit record levels. On January 9 in early trading, the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) was up 29 points to an all-time high of 7,239. The FTSE consists of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with the highest market capitalization. Traders rejoiced when the index closed last week after experiencing its longest run of record closes in 20 years.

Only one year ago, the FTSE 100 ended the first week of January at 5,912 points. By the first week of 2017, the FTSE had climbed 22 percent to 7,208 points.

Two of the FTSE firms, Anglo American and Glencoe, are mining corporations and beneficiaries of the protracted market rally. Central to this has been the plummet in the value of the British pound since the referendum vote to leave the European Union (EU) last summer. The persistent fall in the value of sterling has boosted multinational companies listed on the FTSE 100, when their foreign earnings are converted into pounds.

In the time it took between the FTSE 100 Share Index opening trading on the first Monday morning of the New Year and reports of its continuing rise arriving across news desks by midday, the UK’s most highly remunerated CEOs had already received more money than most workers earn in a year.

The High Pay Centre (HPC) which conducts research and analysis on issues relating to the incomes of the super-rich compared the earnings of CEOs at FTSE 100 firms with UK average wage rates.

Its informed estimate is that British-based CEOs are paid approximately £1,000 an hour, in comparison to the National Living Wage of £7.20. They calculated it would take approximately 28 hours of employment in the New Year for them to equal the UK average wage of £28,200. This means that by lunchtime on Wednesday January 4, the average FTSE 100 CEO had surpassed the average annual worker’s salary in less than 48 hours. The top bosses now receive 129 times more than their employees.

Pointing to the further enrichment of the super-rich, a report by the public spending regulator the National Audit Office (NAO) suggests that Her Majesties Revenue and Customs (HMRC) was chasing nearly £2 billion in taxes that have potentially gone unpaid by those more than capable of affording them.

In 2009, HMRC set up a specialist unit, following widespread public anger and criticism that it was failing to seriously tackle tax avoidance by the wealthiest. Seven years after HMRC launched this “crackdown” on the super-rich, it emerges that they are now paying even less income tax than before.

More than half of the estimated £2 billion in missing taxation was linked to tax avoidance schemes the likes of which were partially exposed by the release of the Panama Papers last year.

The NAO research shows that since 2009, while the total amount of income tax collected in Britain has risen by £23 billion to £273 billion, the amount paid by the super-rich has fallen by £900 million to £3.5 billion. In 2014, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government cut the top rate of income tax to just 45 percent and subsequently the numbers of the super-rich, whilst still tiny in absolute terms—the British population is approximately 60 million—rose sharply from 5,900 to 6,500 individuals.

The heads of the HMRC recently gave evidence to parliament’s public accounts committee, following the publication of the NAO’s research. Some MPs felt obliged to go through the motions and question why tax inspectors assigned to deal with the super-rich were known euphemistically but accurately as “customer relationship managers.”

Questions were asked about why the richest individuals in society received only “suspended fines” rather than serious penalties for their infringements and breaking of the law. The 380-strong HMRC unit had prosecuted just one super-rich tax avoider since the team was established back in 2009. It aims to prosecute 100 individuals by 2020. However, on the basis of its record so far, prosecuting just 100 more would take hundreds of years!

According to the HMRC, the super-rich paid just £4.4 billion in income tax and National Insurance in 2009-2010, but that fell further to £3.5 billion in the year to April 2015. During the same timeframe, the total amount collected by the Treasury increased from £250.1 billion to £272.9 billion, a 9 percent rise—with the share paid by Britain’s richest falling from an already derisory 1.8 percent to 1.3 percent.

Standing reality on its head, HMRC saw fit to release a statement suggesting that the potential tax paid by rich taxpayers would have been negatively affected by the economic downturn. In fact, the incomes of the super-rich have been entirely unaffected and indeed have grown, not shrunk, since the beginning of the 2008 global financial crisis.

Nothing will be done to ensure that the super-rich hand over taxes due. HMRC all but confirmed this when stating that really everyone should be grateful for what they do deign to pay. It stated, “Today, the top 1 percent of earners pay more than quarter, 27% of all income tax, and the National Audit Office makes it clear that each year HMRC has increased the amount of tax it chases from the very wealthy that would have otherwise gone unpaid.”

While the sated rich are allowed to avoid and evade the taxes necessary to fund vitally-needed services for millions of people, the government continually devises the means to extract ever more from the working class.

Last month, Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May approved a measure allowing local authorities to hike up council tax from the currently permitted 1.99 percent each year to an extra 6 percent over the next two years. This is to offset massive cuts in central government funds.

The amount expected to be raised nationally through this measure is £900 million—exactly equal, according to HMRC, to the amount the super-rich have got away with paying in income tax in recent years.

A council tax increase on this scale means that a household in an average council B and D property—which already pay £1,530 a year—would face a nearly £100 increase over the next two years if the full 6 percent is levied. This would be on top of a general increase of 2 percent set to be imposed by councils. Councils are already planning to enforce the increase. For example, Manchester City Council is to increase council tax by the maximum 4.99 percent in 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, and then by 1.99 percent in 2019-2020. For a property in band D, this results in a council tax increase of £178.20 between now and 2020.

This regressive tax is justified on the basis that it is needed to fund social care. But it comes after overall social care funding has been slashed by 12 percent in real terms over the past five years. Tens of thousands of people with physical disabilities and mental health problems have been the victims of social care cuts. By 2013, after years of austerity since 2008, more than £1.5 billion had been cut from the social care budget and an estimated 483,000 elderly and disabled people had either lost their care support, or were no longer eligible.

The cuts have resulted in a fall in the number of available care homes overall in England. From more than 18,000 available in September 2010, just over 16,600 remained by July last year.

President Hollande gives French army, intelligence “green light to kill”

Kumaran Ira 

Last week, Le Monde published extracts of Erreurs fatales, a book released a week ago by investigative journalist Vincent Nouzille. After his first book on this subject in 2015, The Killers of the Republic, Nouzille gives further details in his new book on how President François Hollande and top army staff regularly order extrajudicial murders, including of French citizens.

According to Fatal Errors, the Socialist Party (PS) government has vastly stepped up the French state’s murder program, assassinating at least 40 people on Hollande’s “kill list.” This program, carried out behind the backs of the French people and violating basic constitutional rights in a country where the death penalty is illegal, underscores the enormous dangers posed by the crisis of French democracy.

Nouzille writes, “Since his election in May 2012, François Hollande intends to pursue a more martial policy than his predecessors, even if the price to be paid is leaving the strict framework of legality. He has decided to systematically react in this fashion to hostage-taking situations and to attacks that impact on French people throughout the world.”

Hollande has given a green light to the army and external intelligence agency, the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), to kill individuals identified as High Value Targets (HVT) or High Value Individuals (HVI).

The French daily Le Monde reported, “Surrounded by military advisers who tend towards aggressive action, including his personal chief of staff General Benoît Puga, and members of [Defense Minister] Jean-Yves Le Drian’s staff, François Hollande has given clear directives on the matter to the military general staffs and to the DGSE: they have a green light to kill abroad, including through clandestine operations, terrorist leaders and other alleged enemies of France.”

In The Killers of the Republic, Nouzille exposed the assassination programme of successive French governments. He revealed the existence of a clandestine cell in the DGSE whose commandos are trained to carry out “Homo [i.e., homicide] operations.”

Hollande himself admitted that he had ordered targeted assassinations. Speaking to journalists Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme in their book A president should not say that, released last October, he said: “The army, the DGSE have a list of people who presumably were responsible for hostage taking or acts against our interests. I was asked. I said, Well, if you catch them, of course,” Hollande said. He has approved at least four targeted killings of Islamists abroad.

Nouzille states, however, the extent of the program has been minimized: “At least 40 HVT were executed overseas between 2013 and 2016—by the army, or the DGSE, or even more directly by allied countries based on intelligence provided by France. This is a tempo of about one operation per month—a tempo not seen since the end of the 1950s, during the Algerian war.”

According to Nouzille, French extrajudicial murders are carefully prepared, based on electronic intelligence, interrogation of prisoners, and imaging analyses. Once identified, the target is tracked in order to select the most opportune time to trigger the assassination.

The French army deliberately targeted and extra-judicially murdered a Frenchman, Salim Benghalem, near Raqqa, Syria, on the night of 8-9 October 2015, during the bombing of an Islamic State (IS) training camp.

Several relatives of Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the Islamist who took responsibility for a hostage-taking after the attack on the Tiguentourine gas field near Aménas, Algeria, were apparently killed on PS orders. They include Abu Moghren Al-Tounsi, in September 2013; Fayçal Boussemane and the Mauritanian Al-Hassan Ould Al-Khalil, the son-in-law and spokesman of Belmokhtar, in November 2013; and Belmokhtar’s right-hand man, Omar Ould Hamaha, in March 2014.

The PS government has defended and promoted extrajudicial killings, claiming that this aims to defend the population from terrorist attack. In opposition to accusations by sections of the judiciary that Hollande is effectively reintroducing the death penalty and moreover without trial, Le Monde notes, “As the Elysée [presidential palace] and the general staffs see it, on the other hand, war against far-off, fanatical enemies justifies the primacy of military operations rather than uncertain recourse to French courts.”

The admission by Le Monde, a paper politically aligned with the PS, that Hollande and his top officials are ordering extrajudicial murders of people a court of law would not convict—acting quite literally as judge, jury, and executioner—is a warning to the working class. In line with the turn to drone murder and mass surveillance by the United States government and its allies across Europe, Hollande is giving extraordinary powers to the military/intelligence apparatus, laying the basis for the transformation of France into an authoritarian police state.

The state murder campaign takes place amid a state of emergency imposed after the 2015 Paris terrorist attack, and amid the development of an unprecedented mass spying program by US and European intelligence agencies, including French intelligence, targeted at the entire population. The observation that the French state is murdering people at a tempo unseen since the Algerian war, when it deployed mass torture against the Algerian people, itself testifies to the escalating criminality of official French politics.

No faction in the political establishment is campaigning against the assassinations arbitrarily decided by the executive without even the fig leaf of a legal decision. Extrajudicial executions are systematically hidden from the public. Pseudo-left parties like the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA), which called for a Hollande vote in the 2012 presidential elections and backed the war in Libya and Syria, are silent on the French state’s assassination program.

The program is not aimed at stopping Islamist terrorist groups, which continue to serve as tools of French and NATO foreign policy in the Syrian war and beyond. Rather, the French state is using the continuing activities of terror networks it is well acquainted with and closely monitors in order to justify the build-up of its police powers—including, most threateningly, the head of state’s ability to order murders at will.

The terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015 were committed by individuals, like the Kouachi brothers involved in the attack on the Charlie Hebdo editorial office, who were well-known to French intelligence authorities. The Islamist networks they were a part of were cultivated by France and other NATO powers as they backed various Islamist elements in the regime change war in Libya and Syria.

Speaking on Thursday to Europe1, Nouzille said that many terrorist operatives, from Toulouse shooter Mohamed Merah to the Kouachi brothers who carried out the attack on Charlie Hebdo, were spotted but then “disconnected” by French intelligence.