Police carry out mass anti-Muslim raids in Hesse, Germany

Marianne Arens

Large-scale raids ordered by the interior ministry in the central German state of Hesse early last Wednesday morning represent a major act of intimidation against Muslims throughout the country. At 4 a.m., 1,100 police officers entered several apartments, businesses and two mosques. Locations affected included Frankfurt, Offenbach, Darmstadt, Limburg, Wiesbaden and the Groß-Gerau, Marburg-Biedenkopf and Main Taunus areas.

Overall, 56 locations were searched, 33 of which were in Frankfurt. As the operator of the Bilal mosque in Frankfurt-Griesheim reported to the media, twelve police vehicles surrounded the building and militarily-armed police kicked down all the doors even though an imam was standing there with a key. They demolished the fence surrounding the plot of land, broke glass windows and overturned everything in the library.

Hesse Interior Minister Peter Beuth (Christian Democrats, CDU) said on Wednesday morning at a press conference that the raids were “a clear message to the radical Islamists in Hesse: we are firmly focused on this scene.”

The action was part of investigations against 16 suspects aged between 16 and 46. These people were under “the suspicion of support for a foreign terrorist organisation and the preparation of a serious act of violence endangering the state,” the web page of the State Criminal Office (LKA) in Hesse stated.

One person, a 36-year-old Tunisian, was arrested and did not put up any resistance. He was already known to the police, having spent 83 days in custody last year. He lived in Hesse between 2003 and 2013 and travelled to Germany a second time in the summer of 2015. According to police information, from August 2015 he was active as “a smuggler and promoter of IS.” He was arrested on August 15, 2016.

An application for extradition from the Tunisian authorities is also under way against him because he is a joint suspect in the attacks on the Bardo museum in Tunis in March 2015 and the border town of Ben Guerdane in March 2016.

He was first taken into custody in 2008 due to a charge of grievous bodily harm. He then spent another 40 days in extradition detention. The Tunisian authorities allegedly did not supply the required paperwork in time. He was released from custody based on this justification on November 4, 2016.

This entire episode strongly recalls the circumstances surrounding the attack in Berlin, where suspect Anis Amri directed a lorry into a Christmas market. Amri, as it later emerged, had previously been in custody and under constant state surveillance. After his attack, which killed 12 people, the media and authorities exploited public horror to create a favourable atmosphere for the strengthening of the domestic state apparatus and mass deportations.

The operation in Hesse raises several questions.

According to the press statement from the LKA in Hesse, the federal state prosecutor handed the investigation of the 36-year-old to the Frankfurt state prosecutor on October 25, 2016. The man was accused of actively supporting the terrorist organisation Islamic State. In Tunisia, proceedings were also ongoing into the two attacks he was accused of participating in, in which 30 people died.

However, the same man was freed ten days later, on November 4, 2016.

At this time, preparations for the raids were already far advanced. The operations were, as LKA spokesman Max Weiss noted, prepared over an extended period. A group of 150 officers prepared the raids for four months. The group included the general state prosecutor and the Frankfurt state prosecutor, the LKA and the police.

The question is posed: did the authorities set the Tunisian free to use him as a decoy? According to the general state prosecutor, he has been under round-the-clock surveillance by LKA officers.

The accusations against the other suspects also raise questions. They stand in stark contrast to the scale of the raids and can only be described as flimsy: over 100 memory cards and data storage devices were confiscated, along with “stabbing weapons” and €28,000. But mobile phones, computers, money and even knives are objects that could be found in practically every house. Neither firearms nor explosive chemicals were detected.

Senior state prosecutor Alexander Badle said at the press conference that the organisation had no clear plan for a targeted attack and therefore “no concrete terrorist danger” exists.

Those accused were taken unawares while sleeping and checked for identification. The press statement declared that the “usual standard measures” against these people had been used and had been “comprehensively and operationally enforced.” Only one, a 16-year-old German-Afghan, was abroad. The state prosecutor is investigating into him because he had allegedly expressed the desire to travel to Syria to join Islamist groups. But last September, he left for Afghanistan.

In the end, what remained were 14 people accused of a “serious act of violence against the state” in general, but with no evidence of a plan of action or target, let alone weapons or explosives. And secondly, a “suspect in chief” who was deliberately and knowingly set free on November 4, at the beginning of the preparations for the raids, placed under 24-hour surveillance, and re-arrested on February 1.

The raids are part of a nationwide campaign to implement police state measures. At the same time, they are aimed at dividing the population and whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment. In Berlin, North Rhein-Westphalia and other states have seen similar raids recently. On January 31, the eve of the Hesse raids, police searched several apartments, mosques and arrested three men.

On the same day, the federal government adopted a measure allowing the use of ankle tags for “extremist threats,” which is itself a highly questionable legal definition. In an obvious breach of the presumption of innocence, the ankle tags, which could previously only be ordered by a judge, can now be used by officers from the state criminal offices, “if certain facts justify the assumption that an individual could carry out an attack or his behaviour indicates this.”

Hesse’s CDU-Green government is playing a leading role in such police-state policies. Hesse’s Minister President Volker Bouffier (CDU), likes to boast that his police force the “best trained, best armed and best paid police force in Germany.”

As Interior Minister under Roland Koch, Bouffier introduced video surveillance early on, as well as stop-and-search, automatic reading devices for vehicle number plates and the location of mobile phones. Bouffier also supports the policy of sealing the borders to refugees and recently suggested taking those rescued in the Mediterranean to Egypt and Tunisia, and to construct special detention centers.

The Greens are also responsible for the state build-up. They are the junior partner in the coalition and are led by Tarek al-Wazeer. Al-Wazeer is economics and transport minister, as well as the deputy to Bouffier. The Hesse Greens support the militarist actions of the police. Recently, its members in the Hesse government agreed a joint statement with Green parties from ten states which explicitly calls for deportations to Afghanistan to no longer be blocked.

UK: More deaths of those ruled “fit to work”

Paul Bond 

Lawrence Bond, a 56-year-old man deemed “fit to work” by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), collapsed and died in North London after attending a Jobcentre on January 12.

According to his sister, Iris Green, Bond, who was appealing the cut to his benefits, had gone to the Kentish Town Jobcentre in obvious “physical distress.” After the visit, he suffered a fatal heart attack as he boarded a bus.

Bond had suffered from long-term mobility and breathing difficulties associated with being overweight. In regular employment from the age of 16, he had lost his last long-term job two years ago.

Green told the Camden New Journal her brother had felt reasonably secure in that job fixing computers, photocopiers and cash tills, although his diet was poor. But when he lost it, his weight and unfitness prevented him from getting work.

Green said she thought he had “suffered from anxiety all his life.” This was not an issue while he was in work, but losing his last job had an impact on his health: “His anxiety was getting worse as he could not pay bills and was afraid to leave home to go to the shops.”

Bond’s GP had made two referrals for mental health services that had gone astray, creating further stress.

Bond was claiming Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) introduced by the then Labour government in 2008. The Work Capability Assessment (WCA), brought in at the same time, is a computer-generated test to place a claimant into one of three groups—fit for work, fit for work at some point in the future (and thus on reduced rates of ESA) or supported.

Initially intended to reduce the number of new benefit claimants, the WCA was subsequently applied to reassess and reduce existing claimants. The tests are administered by US-based Maximus, which took over testing from the French firm Atos Healthcare in March 2015. Each test costs the government £190.

In July 2015, a second WCA decided that Bond was “fit to work.” His first appeal against the decision was rejected, and he was awaiting the outcome of his second appeal. In the meantime, he had to attend the jobcentre to sign on.

The tragedy of Lawrence Bond was that it was not a personal crisis. Iris Green said her brother “functioned very well when he had a job, and money, and a van and functioned as a productive tax-paying member of society, but he was frustrated that, although he was an intelligent person, he could not seem to get his needs met.”

“The main thing,” she said, “is that they [the DWP] have the means to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

That is not the DWP’s concern. As the World Socialist Web Site noted at the time of Labour’s 2008 Welfare Reform Act, which introduced the ESA and the WCA, “A critical element in slashing access to benefits … is to facilitate the privatisation of both welfare and employment service. Over the past decade, the private sector has been utilised to step up attacks on the welfare state and to profit from providing services.”

This has intensified. As a National Audit Office study last year revealed, the government is spending more on assessing whether people are fit to work than it will save in benefit reductions. The dismantling of any social provision is the priority.

The government’s measures are part of a brutal class war against the working class, targeting the most vulnerable first.

Just after Christmas, for example, it was revealed that a Birkenhead Jobcentre manager had written to a local GP announcing that the ESA of a patient, James Harrison, had been cut following a WCA.

The letter stated, “We have decided that your patient is capable of work from and including 10 January 2016.

“This means that you do not have to give your patient any more medical certificates for Employment and Support Allowance purposes unless they appeal against this decision.

“But you may need to again if their condition worsens significantly or they have a new medical condition.”

Like Lawrence Bond, Harrison had worked for 30 years before the community centre where he worked was closed down. His daughter Abbie said he “had worked all his life and wasn’t the kind of guy who knew anything about benefits,” but his health had deteriorated badly. He had a serious lung condition and had developed a hernia, and “there just wasn’t any chance that he could do a job.” Like Bond, he developed depression and anxiety because of his situation.

Throughout this period, Harrison required medical support and had to visit his doctor regularly. Abbie Harrison describes the Jobcentre letter, which she found when she asked to see her father’s medical records, as “basically telling his doctor not to give my dad sick notes for the very serious health problems that he had been suffering from.”

In November, 10 months after being found “fit to work,” 55-year old James Harrison died of a heart attack.

Medical concerns are not the DWP’s priority. “I do feel really sorry for the people who dealt with [Lawrence],” Iris Green said. “They face an awful dilemma of being the people responsible for collecting signatures for people signing on as fit for work, even when they can see people are very sick.

“I realise that the reception staff have no clinical knowledge or responsibility for doing it, but the rules need to be changed so that they have the right and discretion when they see a human being turning up in physical distress to flag the situation up and ask for urgent re-assessment.”

Abbie Harrison made a similar point: “Dad was not well. Who knows, maybe he could have improved if he had been given some support, rather than subjected to suspicion and scepticism at every turn.

“I think it is a disgrace that managers at the Jobcentre who know nothing about medicine should be interfering in any way in the relationship between a doctor and a patient.

“When the Jobcentre starts to get involved in telling doctors about the health of their patients that is a really slippery slope to be on.”

The DWP’s responses are bland defences of these policies. After Lawrence Bond’s death, a DWP spokesman claimed, “The local Jobcentre had been supporting [him]”. ESA decisions, he said “are made following a thorough assessment and after considering all of the evidence, including that provided by a claimant’s doctor or other medical professionals. Anyone who disagrees with a decision can ask for it to be reconsidered, and if they still disagree they can appeal.”

That was exactly the situation Bond was in when he died.

The deaths of Bond and Harrison are added to a list of sick or disabled people who have died after losing their entitlement to sickness benefit and being declared fit for work. A Freedom of Information request in 2015 forced the disclosure that 2,380 (and possibly nearer 4,010) had died between 2011 and 2014. A further 7,200 claimants died after being awarded ESA and being placed in the separate work-related activity group. This category identifies claimants who are unfit to work but may be able to return to work in the future.

Netanyahu in London for talks with British prime minister

Jean Shaoul 

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu flew to London yesterday to meet with his British counterpart, Theresa May. He was officially there to demand support for renewed sanctions against Iran, after Tehran’s test firing last week of a ballistic missile.

Netanyahu’s visit comes after the US administration of Donald Trump last week placed Iran “on notice,” warning Tehran that it was “playing with fire” and imposing sanctions on a number of Iranian individuals.

Trump is seeking to blow up the agreement reached under the auspices of his predecessor, Barack Obama, with Tehran in 2015 on its nuclear program. Under the deal with the P5+1 (the five UN Security Council permanent members—the US, UK, Russia, France, and China—plus Germany), Iran pledges to “redesign, convert, and reduce its nuclear facilities.”

Britain still formally adheres to the deal it played a role in securing. After it was signed, in the face of bitter opposition from Israel and Saudi Arabia, the UK rushed to negotiate trade deals with Tehran, and reopened its embassy in the city and it is reluctant to freeze relations and reapply sanctions now.

But May, in her efforts to compensate for the possible loss of access to European markets following Brexit, has staked her own future and that of British imperialism on consolidating an alliance with the US that includes a trade deal and political support in the coming negotiations with Brussels. Indeed, she met with Netanyahu on the eve of the third reading of the bill paving the way for triggering Article 50 in March and beginning the two-year process for quitting the EU.

Like the strong-arm man for some mafia boss, Netanyahu is seeking to squeeze out every advantage of Trump’s hostility to Iran and support for Israel, and May’s utter dependency on the US. Speaking ahead of the talks, he said, “Iran seeks to annihilate Israel, it seeks to conquer the Middle East, it threatens Europe, it threatens the West, it threatens the world. … That’s why I welcome President Trump’s assistance of new sanctions against Iran. I think other nations should follow suit, certainly responsible nations.”

Netanyahu is specifically seeking to enlist Britain’s support in efforts to bypass the UN, which is charged with determining whether the test was in breach of the agreement. Such a decision would require a Security Council resolution, which the Russians could be expected to veto, to formally punish Iran or even to issue a statement paving the way for reimposing sanctions.

May’s spokesperson, in contrast, said that the talks would focus on bilateral relations with Israel, including the potential for more trade post-Brexit. There was no press conference following the meeting, and Netanyahu then went for discussions with Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

On Iran, Downing Street issued a cautious statement saying, “We share concerns about that test. It was discussed at the UN and we made clear our position. With regard to the specific agreement relating to the nuclear weapons ... it’s important that it is very carefully and rigorously policed, but we should also be clear that it has neutralised the possibility of the Iranians acquiring nuclear weapons for more than a decade.”

Netanyahu will, behind closed doors, also have sought UK reassurances that there will be no practical measures that cut across Israel’s stepped-up programme of settlement construction in the occupied territories of east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Officially, May’s spokesperson declared, “Of course, I would expect the peace process to come up and in that context to reiterate our longstanding position to make clear that we view the continued increase of settlement activity as undermining trust, but also a very clear position that we have taken of needing to pursue a twin track approach, recognising the right of Israel to live safe from terrorism.”

However, Netanyahu wants to make sure that it is Israel’s “rights” that are indeed paramount in this weasel-worded formulation. He is fully aware in doing so that Britain’s foreign policy on this question is determined primarily by the White House.

Last December, Obama instructed the US ambassador to the UN to break with normal US practice and abstain on a toothless UN Security Council resolution—actually drafted by Britain—criticising Israel’s settlement expansion as illegal and prejudicial to any peace deal with the Palestinians, allowing the resolution to pass.

Netanyahu went ballistic, called in the British ambassador to Israel for a dressing down on Christmas Day and ordered his cabinet ministers to boycott Britain.

With a Trump presidency approaching, Britain rapidly switched horses and criticised Secretary of State John Kerry’s follow-up speech reiterating all the nostrums about US support for the “two-state solution” and opposing Israeli intransigence, even though, as Obama pointed out, this was long-held British policy.

May refused to support the Paris conference of more than 70 countries, organised by the French government, but held five days after Trump’s inauguration. She only sent an observer. The conference criticised Israel over its settlement building and re-endorsed a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Britain also intervened to stop the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council adopting the Paris communiqué, after Trump told the Sunday Times that he expects Britain to oppose any future UN Security Council resolution criticizing Israel.

Emboldened by Trump’s pledge to be “the most pro-Israel president in history,” Netanyahu defied the UN resolution and gave the go-ahead for the construction of 3,500 new homes in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The White House issued a statement that, while mildly criticising the decision, tacitly accepted their legality. It stated, “While we don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace, the construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal.”

It continued, “The Trump administration has not taken an official position on settlement activity and looks forward to continuing discussions, including with Prime Minister Netanyahu when he visits with President Trump later this month.”

Netanyahu knew, therefore, that any criticism made of settlement expansion during his visit to London would only be for show. May is in no position in oppose anything or anyone that has Trump’s backing. As Netanyahu said, “We are in a period of diplomatic opportunities and challenges,” adding, “The opportunities stem from the fact that there is a new administration in Washington, and a new government in Britain.”

It should be noted that Downing Street had already announced that Israel’s blatant interference in Britain’s political processes was not a problem and was not on the agenda. Shai Masot, an Israeli embassy staffer, was caught on video plotting to “take down” Deputy Foreign Secretary Alan Duncan and other senior Conservative politicians verbally opposed to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, and to undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.

As far as the British government was concerned, it considered the matter closed after receiving a token apology from the embassy, rejecting calls from opposition parties for an investigation into the affair.

Later this week, Netanyahu goes to Australia, another US ally that was given a very public dressing down last week when Trump leaked the content of a phone call in which he berated Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refugee swap deal brokered with the Obama administration, and then slammed the phone down on him after 25 minutes. After these visits, Netanyahu will meet Trump in Washington on February 15 to report back to his new political paymaster.

Riots erupt after youth sexually assaulted by French police at Aulnay

Kumaran Ira

Riots broke out on Saturday evening in the poor housing estate in Aulnay-sous-Bois, in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, in protest against police brutality. Four officers have been charged with using excessive violence and raping an innocent 22-year-old, Théo, with a police baton.

The incident sparked popular outrage on Saturday and Sunday evening, with minor clashes and arson attacks on the sprawling Estate of the 3000. A car was set fire and bus shelters smashed. On Sunday, riot police were deployed and arrested at least five people.

The assault took place on Thursday afternoon, when four police officers arrived on the housing estate and began doing identity checks on the youths. During the operation, Théo was allegedly forced to the ground and beaten by police officers, one of whom assaulted Théo with a baton. Théo suffered anal injuries 10 centimeters in depth, requiring immediate surgery, as well as injuries to the head and face.

Yesterday, BFM TV released a recording in which Théo recounts his arrest and his barbaric assault by police.

Théo said, “He was looking at me, he was behind me but at an angle, so I saw what he was doing behind me. He took his baton and stuck it in my buttocks, voluntarily. As soon as he did that, I fell on my stomach, I had no more strength. Then he said, ‘hands on your back,’ I had to put my hands on my back, they handcuffed me and they told me to sit down. So I told them I couldn’t sit down, I don’t feel my buttocks anymore, so they put tear gas in my head, my mouth, they hit me on the head with a baton, and I had so much pain in my buttocks that this pain seemed temporary.”

“I had trouble walking, I was not myself. I thought I was going to die, I was walking but it was because they were holding me up,” he said.

Once he was inside the police vehicle, Théo reported, police beat him and insulted him, calling him a “dirty bitch.” It took them several hours to call an ambulance.

Théo said, “The medics turned me over, looked at the wound and said, that is very serious, the opening is at least 5 or 6 centimeters, we have to operate and as fast as possible… They said I had lost a lot of blood. … The baton injury in the buttocks they gave me, it marked me for life, it is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, physically I am very diminished, I can’t move… I can’t sleep at night.”

Judicial sources say images show two police “trying to subdue” Théo, apparently as he intervened to try to protect one of his friends. “They quickly use tear gas. Their colleague is alone, he gets out his telescopic baton and strikes the individual’s legs, apparently trying to make him buckle at the knees.” The source added, “On the video, we see a blow from the telescopic baton, horizontally, at the victim. The blow pierces his underwear, we think this was what caused the injury.”

Initially, the public prosecutor’s office in Bobigny tried to cover up the police brutality, opening a judicial investigation simply for “violence.” It issued a statement declaring, “Police were carrying out identity checks on a dozen people after hearing characteristic cries from lookouts trying to protect drug dealers.” During this operation, they “tried to carry out the arrest of a 22-year old,” and “in the face of his resistance,” they “used tear gas and, in one case, a telescopic billy club.”

After video images on the Internet clearly revealed police brutality against Théo, Bruno Beschizza, the right-wing mayor of Aulnay-sous-Bois and a former police officer, was forced to condemn the violence. Calling the decision of the prosecutor’s office to open an investigation for violence and not for rape “a miscarriage of the truth,” he said that “police are there to protect and not to humiliate our fellow citizens.”

On Sunday, the investigating judge in charge of the case decided to prosecute the officer who used the telescopic baton for rape. The four officers, who deny the charges, have been suspended.

The savage and horrific assault on Théo is the product of many years during which police have been able to treat residents of working-class suburbs in France brutally, and with impunity. This only got worse when police were handed extraordinary powers under the terms of France’s effectively permanent state of emergency, which has been constantly extended since the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris. At the same time, the influence and political prestige of the neo-fascist National Front among police officers has continued to rise.

Aulnay is a devastated city, suffering from deplorable social conditions, particularly soaring unemployment. In recent years, it witnessed mass riots pitting police against the population, notably in 2005 and 2007.

This social crisis is the product of decades of reactionary policies conducted by successive governments of all political colorations. Three years ago, the Socialist Party (PS) government, with the help of the trade unions, closed down the PSA Peugeot-Citroën’s car factory in Aulnay, eliminating 3,000 jobs.

PS presidential candidate Benoît Hamon ritualistically called for a “determined and transparent inquiry,” in an attempt to head off growing anger among suburban youth. He tweeted a message saying, “Police represent the Republic, which is a protector. We must urgently reestablish [popular] confidence” in police.

Long and bitter experience has shown, however, that the assurances of figures like Hamon are utterly worthless. Each time police brutally attack youth in such neighborhoods, they enjoy state protection; charges against police have been dropped after evidence of police brutality was suppressed or covered up.

Last summer, 24-year-old Adama Traoré died in police custody after his arrest. His death triggered riots in his hometown, Beaumont-sur-Oise. Although autopsy reports revealed that Traoré died of asphyxia due to excessive police violence, authorities tried to cover up the fact and whitewash the killing. They limited protests by family and friends, citing the terms of the state of emergency.

German newsweekly Der Spiegel calls for “resistance” to Trump

Johannes Stern

Some two weeks after the inauguration of Donald Trump, the demands of German politicians, business leaders and the media for Berlin to oppose the US and assert their own interests against the country’s main ally in the post-World War II period are becoming more aggressive.

The current high point is the latest edition of Der Spiegel. The cover depicts Donald Trump with a bloody butcher’s knife, in the pose of an IS fighter, holding the severed head of the Statue of Liberty in the air. The caption reads, “America First.” The editorial in the same issue, entitled “Nero Trump,” compares the American president with the “emperor and destroyer of Rome” and calls him a “brute and choleric”, a “pathological liar,” “racist” and “tyrant.”

The message of Der Spiegel is clear: Trump represents war, destruction, xenophobia and dictatorship. Germany, “together with Asian and African partners” and “with our partners in Europe, with the EU,” must “prepare the resistance” and “stand up in opposition to the 45th president of the United States and his government”.

The plans of Der Spiegel recall the old megalomania of German imperialism. To date, “German leadership” was viewed “as one that is by all means in opposition to the interests of other European countries”. Now, “the economically and politically dominant democracy in Europe” must “fill in many of the gaps created by America’s withdrawal from the old world order” and “build an alliance against Donald Trump”

“This is not a threat that will somehow resolve itself”, the editorial warns, and notes, “the German economy has become the target of American trade policy and German democracy is ideologically antithetical to Trump’s vision. … It is high time that we stand up for what is important: democracy, freedom, the West and its alliances.”

The author of the article and current editor of Der Spiegel, Klaus Brinkbäumer, is clearly aware that his polemic speaks in favour of confrontation between Germany and the United States, something which led to two world wars in the twentieth century and claimed millions of lives.

“This does not mean escalation or that we must abandon our contacts with America and all the working groups between our governments,” Brinkbäumer says reassuringly. Only to add: “What is does mean, though, is that Europe must grow stronger and start planning its political and economic defences against America’s dangerous president.”

Also in the current edition of Der Spiegel, the designated Social Democratic Party chancellor candidate Martin Schulz demands Chancellor Angela Merkel take a harder line against Washington. The chancellor must “not keep silent about actions that we cannot accept. If Trump is running through our set of values with a wrecking ball, one must clearly say: That is not our policy”. Schulz describes the new US president as “highly dangerous to democracy.” He is playing “with the security of the Western world” and is starting “a culture war.”

On Friday, during his two-day US trip, the new German foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, read a historical translation of the American Declaration of Independence in the Library of Congress, and stressed the importance of “remembering the universality of the US Constitution in these days”.

In an interview with broadcaster ARD shortly after his return, he advised Europeans, despite “encouraging” talks with the new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Vice President Mike Pence, to not “sit like a rabbit in front of a snake” and stare at the US, but to show “self-confidence.” Internal conflicts must not tear Europe apart. Because “if we stay together, we are a figure who can act”. Europe must learn to act as a continent, then it will also play a role in world politics and should have no worries about others, Gabriel counseled.

Gabriel and other representatives of the ruling class are attempting to exploit the widespread anger and opposition to the most right-wing president in the history of the United States for the interests of German imperialism.

Their attempts to justify their great power offensive with phrases about democracy and human rights are cynical and mendacious. The German bourgeoisie has no bourgeois-democratic traditions and, with its war of annihilation against the Soviet Union and the Holocaust, has committed the most terrible crimes in human history.

Ever since German reunification in 1990, it has literally drawn blood time and again. Alongside the US, it has played a leading role in the imperialist wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and the Middle East, and supports the NATO offensive against Russia. It has imposed brutal austerity measures throughout Europe, plunging millions into poverty and despair, especially in the south of the continent. Berlin has brutally sealed off “Fortress Europe”from refugees, which leads almost every day to new deaths in the Mediterranean, now the largest mass grave on earth.

It is not concerns for the democratic rights of American or European workers that lie behind the hypocritical “human rights criticism” of Trump—which is propagated mainly by the SPD, the Greens, and the Left Party, but also by sections of the Christian Democrats—but the strivings of the German elites to again act independently of the US in world politics and assert their own geostrategic and economic interests.

On the one hand, the German elites see in Trump’s “America First” policy an opportunity to advance the return of German militarism first announced in 2014 at the Munich Security Conference.

For example, in its weekend edition, business daily Handelsblatt demanded the final “end of disarmament”. With its “White Paper on the Future of the Armed Forces”, the defence minister was already “paving the way for more troops”. If Trump “is being serious”, the Europeans and “especially the largest EU country Germany...[must] step in—and where possible deploy more soldiers to support the East Europeans on the border with Russia.” And also, “defence spending must rise faster than planned”.

On the other hand, those in business fear the consequences of Trump’s nationalist course. Following accusations of “currency manipulation” by Trump’s chief trade adviser Peter Navarro, the Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote under the headline, “German industry fears the Trump-shock”: “The United States, previously the dream trading partner of the Germans, has overnight become a potential enemy in a trade war. There is a lot at stake. In 2015, the US imported $114 billion of German goods—more than any other country.”

And in another comment, entitled “No one has so much to lose as Germany,” the leading German daily writes, “The German economy is successful, but highly vulnerable. The political risks have never been so great for decades. Should the world become protectionist, it would be a disaster for Germany.”

The looming “catastrophe”, like Trump’s rise and the German reaction to it, lies in the insoluble contradictions of capitalism, which is incapable of overcoming the contradiction between the international character of production and the division of the world into nation states. As on the eve of the First and Second World War, the competition of the imperialist powers for raw materials, markets, spheres of influence and cheap labour is unleashing violent conflicts that lead to trade war and war.

International Graduate Business School Young Talents Case Study Contest 2017/2018 – Zagreb, Croatia

Application Deadline: 1st March, 2017

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Croatia

About the Award: We understand that MBA is a big step in one’s career so we want to provide a full MBA financing for the best candidates. We are looking for young, talented people who are intellectually thirsty, want to grow, improve their knowledge and cope with challenges of the digital transformation and innovation.

Offered Since: 2016

Type: MBA (EMBA)

Eligibility: If you fulfil the following entry requirements:

• 3-5 years of relevant work experience
• higher education with a minimum of 180 ECTS credits
• English language proficiency

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Contest: The chance to win the full covered e-Leadership MBA Scholarship.

Duration of Contest: Two(2) years

How to Apply: Visit Scholarship Webpage to apply

Visit Contest Webpage for details

Award Provider: Algebra University College, Kelley School of Business

Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academic Scholarship for Girls 2018 – South Africa

Application Deadline: 15th February 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: South Africa

To be taken at (country): South Africa

About the Award: The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls – South Africa is a residential boarding, special learning school with 300 students enrolled in Grades 8 -12. The Academy teaches the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (IB MYP) in Grades 8 – 10. Grade 12 students write the Independent Examination Board (I.E.B.) NSC Examination.

Eligibility: Students qualify to apply if they are girls who:

• Are currently in Grades 7, 8 or 9
• Display leadership potential
• Are South African citizens or permanent residents
• Display academic talent
• Are in a family whose total household income is less than R10,000 per month

Number of Awardees: Not specified

How to Apply:

Download Application Form

Completed application forms must be addressed and sent to:

Attention: Student Recruitment
P O Box 1485, Henley on Klip, 1962
Fax: +27 (0) 16 366 9004

Once all applications have been received and screened, testing will be arranged for those applicants who meet the criteria. There are several stages to the selection process.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls

UNU-MERIT International Conference 2017 Scholarships for Developing Countries – Belgium

Application Deadline: 1st March 2017.

To be taken at (country): Brussels, Belgium

Type: Events and Conferences

Eligibility: The awarding of these scholarships will be on a competitive basis. In order to be eligible for the scholarships, students must:

• agree to be bound by the terms and conditions (particularly regarding the sharing of costs);
• provide proof of their nationality and country of residence (e.g. passport, birth certificate);
• submit a CV and a statement of motivation detailing why they should be selected for the scholarship;
• indicate what theme they are interested in; and
• agree to write a short blog post about the conference or to participate in an audio/video testimonial. The blog or testimonial may be used by APPAM and UNU-MERIT for marketing purposes.

Selection: Decisions regarding the selection of successful applicants will be made by UNU-MERIT staff, in particular the Director, the Deputy Director and the UNU-MERIT conference chair, and are final. Scholarships are not transferable between persons.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship:

• Included in the scholarship:International travel expenses (economy class, booked by UNU-MERIT); travel expenses in Brussels (public transport, economy class, reimbursed based on receipts); APPAM conference waiver.
• Excluded from the scholarship – to be paid by the applicant:Local travel (in home country); accommodation in Brussels; costs related to passport, identity card and / or visa; any other out-of-pocket expenses (meals, excursions, etc.).

Duration of Scholarship: 13-14 July 2017

How to Apply: Please send your letter of motivation, your CV, the conference theme you are interested in and a scanned copy of your passport, identity card or birth certificate to appam2017@merit.unu.edu  before 1 March 2017.

The outcome of the scholarship selection will be communicated before 15 March 2017. After selection for the scholarship, you will need to register for the APPAM conference separately. APPAM will offer you an invitation letter and visa letter if needed.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: The United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT)

Bankers Without Borders (BWB) Grameen Foundation Fellowship 2017

Application Deadline: 31st March, 2017

Offered annually? Yes

To be taken at (country): Fellowship placements will likely be in Africa (particularly Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Burkina Faso, and Tanzania), Latin America (particularly Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador), Asia (particularly India and the Philippines), and the Middle East (particularly U.A.E).

About the Award: Grameen Foundation Fellows make their mark in the fight against poverty, while broadening their professional horizons and gaining invaluable hands-on experience in international development. This is a unique opportunity for professionals from a wide range of industries, from management consulting and business to data analysis to healthcare and agriculture, to gain substantial experience leading the development and implementation of projects serving the poor, working with some of the brightest minds in social innovation.

During their placement, Fellows work with some of the brightest minds in social innovation on projects designed to accelerate the impact, scale and sustainability of some of the world’s most promising organizations committed to alleviating global poverty.  All Fellows receive monthly stipends, pre-departure training, and ongoing support.

Offered Since: 2013

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Typically, strong Fellowship candidates have experience in strategy or management consulting and/or have worked in global business or in start-up environments. For placements with Grameen Foundation teams, we also look for expertise in the areas of financial services, health, agriculture, mobile technology, and social entrepreneurship.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: All Fellows receive living stipends, pre-departure training, and ongoing support.

Duration of Fellowship: 1 year

How to Apply: 

• Step 1: Download the application instructions here.
• Step 2: Submit your application responses and supporting documents via the Application Submission Form.

Candidates are strongly encouraged to submit their completed written application by the priority deadline of March 31, 2017.

The application closes on  April 14, 2017.

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Bankers Without Borders (BWB)

100 Hungarian Government Scholarships for South African Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 5th March 2017.

Eligible Countries: South Africa

To be taken at (country): Hungary

About the Award: The qualifications offered are all at degree level. There are 30 Bachelors, 60 Masters and 10 PhD spaces available in various academic fields including natural sciences, engineering, IT, business management, agriculture, human resources and food sciences among others.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: Application for the scholarship is open to all South African citizens with a strong academic record and an interest in studying in Hungary. Applicants should also demonstrate commitment to the development of South Africa and must be available to study abroad from September 2017. Furthermore, all applicants must meet the minimum academic requirements for entry into a similar programme at a South African university.

Number of Awardees: 100

Value of Scholarship: The scholarship offers tuition, accommodation and medical insurance.

How to Apply: The scholarship offers tuition, accommodation and medical insurance. Application forms are available to download from the following website: (vhttp://www.internationalscholarships.dhet.gov.za/Content/HUNGARY/DHET_Hungary%20application%20form.pdf).

For more information:

Madikwe Mabotha
Chief Director: Communication
Telephone 012 312 5024 Mobile 081 710 3321
Email Mabotha.M@dhet.gov.za www.dhet.gov.za

For General Enquiries:

Lehlohonolo Mphuthi Media Liaison:
Communication Telephone 012 312 5648 Mobile 061 985 9474
Email Mphuthi.L@dhet.gov.za www.dhet.gov.za Issued by the D

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Hungarian Government

Cold War Redux: the “Fake Information Age”

Binoy Kampmark

London.

The great tedium of history is that those who refuse to acknowledge its immemorial works tend to see exceptional events everywhere.  The next event of terror is singular; the next act of technology inspired hacking is remarkable.

Listening to the crackling consternation of the airwaves this Friday morning, the sense of a dark, sulphuric fog, not unlike the polluted air of London descending upon the UK, is palpable. There is a terror that the UK is escaping the bosom of the European family, a painful process of separation involving a mixture of exhilaration and bile filled disgust.

With equal terror is the sense that the wily and resourceful Russians have gotten the upper hand everywhere, closing in on their opponents in what has been termed, erroneously, a fake information age. They do not do so with tanks, with missiles, and with garrisons so much as what is incongruously called weaponised information.

The UK Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, goes so far as to call it weaponised mis-information, and flattering the Kremlin with its provenance:

“Today we see a country that, in weaponising misinformation, has created what we might now see as the post-truth age.  Part of that is the use of cyber-weaponry to disrupt critical infrastructure and disable democratic machinery.”

The literature is now being peppered less by clinical analysis than a fear about losing current and coming battles: the Russian menace, as every, must be exaggerated. Budgets must be financed; personnel hired and fed.  An example of such fears is found in an Institute of Modern Russia paper by Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss unmistakably entitled The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money.

A salient point is that the Russian information corps have simply done better than their opponents. If there is a market place of gristle and ideas, Moscow seems to be prizing others out of it – or so it is being assumed by the likes of Fallon. Big boys and girls have become subtler and more sophisticated in manipulating the obvious, in chancing their digital arm.  This is not so much the world of the lie as the world of the alternative.  The UK, by way of contrast, finds itself lagging in staff and skills in the cyber security department.

In terms of elections, the world of make believe starts becoming an addiction. Before long, Pygmalion’s statue comes alive, and one wants to believe it has fleshy lips and a comely mouth. But for all that, it still remains information, to be either consumed without critique, as much news is, or questioned with indigestible refrain.

The plethora of charged assessments and allegations of Russian meddling, first in the US election, and now the forthcoming French, Dutch and German elections, only points to an age old practice of wanting a more favourable position in diplomacy.  Gone are the days when this was traditionally done by traditional gun boat diplomacy, emissaries, delegations and envoys. The modern hyper-networked world has made reach and scope childishly simple, enabling a deep burrowing into information systems at a fraction of the cost.  This is not so much soft power as seductive power.

The mistake is to then assume that one man, a certain President Vladimir Putin, controls this creation, the puppet master in charge of the information warfare machine. This confuses operational matters – the prosaic sort that agencies engage in across the globe – with actual matters of direct influence and causation.  In the ideological scrap, proportionality is lost, and equivalence sets in: all Russia does is deemed faking and fakery, the orgasm that never was.

It has been said that the Kremlin, as other governments, have had spectacular moments of disrupting infrastructure.  The frontier of the cyber war was already well and truly crossed in the battles with Estonia in 2007 in a dispute over a war memorial.  As we only have the words of spooks to go on, always making this a hazardous line of inquiry, subsequent incidents have been noted where broadcast networks have received interest.

British security officials, for instance, claimed last year that the group known as APT28 and Sofacy (Fancy Bears being another name) was thwarted in its efforts against the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky.  The same group was supposedly linked to the disruptive incidents with the bringing down of French international broadcaster TV5 Monde in April 2015.

There is another line at play here.  To take out and control information systems is one thing; to hack a system – the servers of the Democratic National Committee, for instance – and reveal gold dust and candy to be couriered over to such an organisation as WikiLeaks, is another. Individuals like Fallon fail to make the distinction.  All is fake in the post-truth world, and Russia refuses to play with clean hands.

Little is done to actually confront the information directly.  The hacking of the DNC, the Podesta emails and Hillary Clinton’s email indiscretions are all grouped under the category of propaganda – weaponised as battalions of facts and realities, the tactic on the part of those caught with their pants down is to accuse your assailant of removing the belt.

The same goes for how one views such media outlets as RT.  The constructively minded individual will profit from the discussions of such programs as the financially minded Keiser Report or The Hawks, the latter paying tribute to the passing of mainstream news. There is much worthy crankiness in all of it.

But all subject matter is blurred into a series of forces that trouble critics in the West rather than illuminate.  All “weaponised” information, which shape a counter-narrative, is thereby ignored for what it says, dismissed as counterfeit rather than a way of assessing its merits.  One does not examine the blade approaching you in a darkened street as a fact to be admired but a threat to be deflected.