Government of Malta Scholarships in Climate Action for Students from Developing Countries 2017/2018

Application Deadline:  5th May 2017

Eligible Countries: Developing nations listed in link below

To be taken at (country): Malta

About the Award: Three scholarships in postgraduate studies are being offered for students seeking to enroll in Postgraduate Studies at the University of Malta commencing in October 2017. Each scholarship will focus on one of the three key areas recognised as essential pathways for ensuring effective climate action on a national level.

These pathways are:

• mitigation of climate change and the development of a low carbon economy
• identifying risks and vulnerability to adapt to climate change and enhance resilience
• good governance of climate change.

The scholarships would offer students from developing States the opportunity to focus their studies and research according to their national needs and realities. A number of developing states are already exploring methodologies on how to build a better future in view of the impacts of climate change. The formation of young professionals in this field will directly support the growth and consolidation of these home-grown initiatives. The aim of these scholarships donated by the government of Malta will serve to complement other national climate action projects and provide the opportunity to educate academically and train professionally, young people from developing Page 2 of 16 States on how to manage mitigation, adaptation and governance of climate change.

Type: Postgraduate

Eligibility: In order to be considered eligible

• applicants should be Nationals and current residents of one of the countries indicated in the following list available here
• Applications should demonstrate a clear intention of returning to their home country at the end of their studies in Malta.

Number of Awardees: 3

Value of Scholarship: Funding will cover:

• Payment of the University of Malta Tuition Fees and/or Enrolment fee.
• Health Insurance to cover a premium up to a maximum of EUR 500 per year. Students will be guided on this and other arrangements upon arrival.
• Reimbursement for visa expenses amounting to 60 eur.
• A monthly subsistence allowance amounting to EUR 750 per month to be used towards accommodation, living, transport, academic expenses and any other expenses that may arise. Students will receive this monthly allowance for a maximum and continued duration of 16 months. The study programme must be completed on a full-time basis within the same time-frame.
• One return journey to the home country the cost of which is capped at 1000 euro. Any additional trips or travel costs higher than this amount will have to be covered by the student.

The scholarship holders will be requested to attend the Orientation Programme that is organised for all new international students joining the University of Malta. This will be held towards the end of September 2017.

How to Apply: Applicants need to have submitted their application online and provided copies of their academic qualifications and all other requested documentation to the University of Malta by the 5th May 2017.

It is important to go through the Application criteria and process before applying for this scholarship.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Government of Malta

50 Heriot-Watt University Dubai International Students Scholarships 2017/2018: UAE

Application Deadline: 1st April 2017

Eligible Countries/Region: India, China, Pakistan, CIS, Africa

To be taken at (Country): Dubai, UAE

Type: This scholarship will be open to all applicants for any of the foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

Eligibility: 

• These scholarships will be awarded based on a range of criteria including merit, sports, service to community/industry etc. and will only be applicable to applicants who are nominally residents in the below mentioned countries/regions: India, China, Pakistan, CIS, Africa
• Students who are awarded the International Student Scholarship are expected to voluntarily contribute to the University’s marketing efforts in their respective countries. This may include, but not be limited to writing blogs about their University experience, managing a country specific social media page, providing support at international recruitment events etc.

Number of Awardees: Up to 50

Value of Scholarship: 50% of the tuition fee

How to Apply: Students must apply for scholarships using the scholarship request form and must attach all required supporting documents as mentioned in the scholarship form by 1 April 2017

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Heriot-Watt University

Google Public Policy Fellowship for Undergraduate and Graduate Law students 2017

Application Deadline: 26th May 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: international students

To be taken at (country): In Host Organizations (North America; Africa; Asia Pacific; Middle East)

Eligible Field of Study: undergraduate, graduate, and law students interested in Internet and technology policy

About Fellowship Program: The Google Policy Fellowship program offers undergraduate, graduate, and law students interested in Internet and technology policy the opportunity to spend the summer contributing to the public dialogue on these issues, and exploring future academic and professional interests.

Fellows will have the opportunity to work at public interest organizations at the forefront of debates on broadband and access policy, content regulation, copyright and creativity, consumer privacy, open government, government surveillance, data security, data innovation, free expression and more.

Fellows will be assigned a lead mentor at their host organizations and will have the opportunity to work with several senior staff members over the course of the summer. Fellows will be expected to make substantive contributions to the work of their organization, including conducting policy research and analysis, drafting reports and white papers, attending government and industry meetings and conferences, and participating in other advocacy activities.

Eligibility Criteria: For students who are passionate about technology, and want to spend the summer diving headfirst into Internet policy. Students from all majors and degree programs who possess the following qualities are encouraged to apply:

• Demonstrated or stated commitment to Internet and technology policy
• Excellent academic record, professional/extracurricular/volunteer activities, subject matter expertise
• First-rate analytical, communications, research, and writing skills
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously and efficiently, and to work smartly and resourcefully in a fast-paced environment

Number of Awardees: not specified

Value of Award: Fellows will receive a stipend of USD 7,500 in 2017.

Duration of Fellowship: Individual host organizations will set exact start and completion dates, however, the timing will be early June through mid/late August.

How to Apply: Entrance Requirements: Applicants must be 18 years of age or older by January 1, 2017 to be eligible to participate in Google Policy Fellowship program in 2017.

Along with the application form, applicants have to submit and fill the following information:

• Personal Information
• Current Education
• Education History
• References
• Resume
• Personal Statement: Provide us with an essay outlining your qualifications for and interest in the program, including relevant academic, professional and extracurricular experiences. As part of this essay, explain what you hope to gain from participation in the program. (750 word maximum)

Visit fellowship Webpage for details

Scholarship Provider: Google

British Council Future Leaders Connect for Young Leaders 2017 – Fully-funded to UK

Application Deadline: Sunday 14th May 2017, 23.59pm (GMT).

Eligible Countries: Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tunisia, and the UK.

To be taken at (country): UK

About the Award: Future Leaders Connect is where exceptional individuals (aged 18-35) from around the world join a long-term network of emerging policy leaders. You will develop your policy making expertise, make valuable connections and gain the skills to have real impact. Together you will discuss major global policy issues in the Houses of Parliament, engage with inspiring leaders, visit some of the UK’s leading global institutions and collaborate to produce innovative policy recommendations. The skills, experience and connections you will make through Future Leaders Connect will support you to seize your leadership potential.

Type: Short courses/Training

Eligibility: British Council is looking for exceptional individuals with the ideas, energy and commitment to work collaboratively with all members of Future Leaders Connect and senior leaders. Interested candidates:

• are people who can passionately articulate their vision for global change and explain the role of policy making in helping them to achieve this.
• should be willing to engage in this long-term opportunity with the British Council to become a member of Future Leaders Connect and be committed to the network.
• are likely to be in their early to mid-career, aged between 18 and 35 (on 14th May 2017) and already have examples of when they have demonstrated leadership.
• will need to live in one of our participating countries (Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tunisia, and the UK) and be eligible to access a visa to come to the UK.
• are emerging leaders who are committed to support the development of their country through policy change, and so encourage those to apply who have good contextual knowledge and strong networks in the country they are based in.
• are a recruit a diverse group of people with different experiences, ideas and backgrounds.
• must be able to speak English at IELTS level 6 or equivalent (this means you generally you have an effective command of the language despite some inaccuracies, inappropriate usage and misunderstandings. You can use and understand fairly complex language, particularly in familiar situations).
• cannot be currently employed by the British Council or be an immediate family member of a British Council employee. (In this case immediate family member is defined as one’s spouse, parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, siblings and immediate in-laws (mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law and sister-in-law). Adopted children and stepchildren are also counted as immediate family members.)
• must be able to travel to the UK for the programme

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Program: In the interests of equal access, the costs of participating in Future Leaders Connect will be covered by the British Council.

Duration of Program: 18-27 October 2017.

How to Apply: There are three stages to the application procoess. Interested candidates should go through the Application process and requirements before applying

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: British Council

UNESCO/ISEDC Fellowship Programme for Developing Countries 2017/2018 – Russia

Application Deadline: 17th April 2017

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: See list below

To be Taken at (Country): Russia

Fields of Study: The candidates may choose to study in the following fields of study, which are aligned with UNESCO’s objectives and programme priorities, as per approved 35 C/5 and in accordance with the decisions made by the Executive Board (161 EX/Decision 3.6.3 and 165 EX/Decision 8.6) :

(a) Energy and sustainable development;
(b) Ecological management of energy resources;
(c) Renewable energy;

About the Award: The aim of this fellowships programme is to enhance the capacity-building and human resources development in the area of sustainable and renewable energy sources in developing countries and countries in transition. The training activities in the framework of these fellowships are tenable in specialized institutions in the Russian Federation. The medium of instruction will be Russian. UNESCO will solicit applications from the developing countries and countries in transition.

In line with the strategy and objectives of the approved UNESCO Programme and Budget for the Fellowships Programme Section, the UNESCO Category II International Center for Sustainable Energy Development (ISEDC) in Moscow (Russian Federation) is offering thirty (30) fellowships of four weeks (4) duration each in 2012. Each invited Member State is requested to nominate not more than two (2) candidates.

Type: Short course fellowship

Eligibility: Candidates must meet the following criteria:

(a) Holder of at least a BSc degree or BA in Economics;
(b) Proficient in English language;
(c) Not more than 35 years of age;

Number of Awards: Twenty (20)

Duration of Award: One month duration: from 2 to 27 October 2017.

Eligible African Countries (46 States)

Angola*, Benin*, Botswana, Burkina Faso*, Burundi*, Cameroon, Cape Verde*, Central African Republic*, Chad*, Comoros*, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo*, Djibouti*, Equatorial Guinea*, Eritrea*, Ethiopia*, Gabon, Gambia*, Ghana, Guinea*, Guinea-Bissau*, Kenya, Lesotho*, Liberia*, Madagascar*, Malawi*, Mali*, Mauritius, Mozambique*, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda*, Sao Tome and Principe*, Senegal*, Seychelles, Sierra Leone*, Somalia*, South Africa, Swaziland, Togo*, Uganda*, United Republic of Tanzania*, Zambia*, and Zimbabwe.

ARAB STATES (15 Member States)

Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania*, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan*, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Yemen*

ASIA and THE PACIFIC (39 Member States)

Afghanistan*, Bangladesh*, Bhutan*, Cambodia*, China, Cook Islands, Federal States of Micronesia, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Kazakhstan, Kiribati*, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic*, Malaysia, Maldives*, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Myanmar*, Nauru, Nepal*, Niue, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa*, Solomon Islands*, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor – Leste, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu*, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu*, Viet Nam

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN (32 Member States)

Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia (plurinacional State of), Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti*, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela

EUROPE (22 Member States)

Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Montenegro, Republic of Moldova, Republic of Serbia, Romania, Slovak Republic, The former Yugolsav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, and Ukraine

How to Apply:

(a) All applications should be endorsed by the National Commission for UNESCO and must be duly completed in English or French with the following attachments in DUPLICATE:

• The prescribed UNESCO fellowship application form;
• Six photographs;
• Certified photocopies of Diplomas
• Certificate of Russian Language proficiency – minimum of 500 hours of language training (if Russian is not the mother tongue or was the language of instruction for some years of study);
• Subsequently, for those who have been selected, the UNESCO medical examination form duly completed by a recognized physician (not more than four months before the actual date of studies)

The prescribed form of which will be sent along with the letter of award.

(b) Files which are incomplete or received after the deadline for the submission of applications and candidatures, and do not fulfil the requirements mentioned above, will not be considered.
(c) Each invited Member State is requested to nominate not more than two (2) candidates.

Visit the Scholarship Webpage for Details

Sponsors: UNESCO, International Center for Sustainable Energy Development (ISEDC)

Important Notes: Selected fellows from countries where there are Russian Federation Embassies or Consulates must obtain their entry visa in their country prior to their departure. Fellows from countries where no such embassy/consulate exists must secure their visa through the nearest country where the Embassy or Consulate of the Russian Federation can be found.

UNESCO and ISEDC provide no allowance to defray passport and visa expenses.

When Canada Invaded Russia

Yves Engler

The corporate media presents Russia as militaristic but ignores Canada’s invasion of that country.

100 years ago today a popular revolt ousted the Russian monarchy. Enraged at Nicholas II’s brutality and the horror of World War I, protests and strikes swept the capital of Petrograd (Saint Petersburg). Within a week the czar abdicated. Later in the year the Bolsheviks rose to power in large part by committing to withdraw from the war.

The English, French and US responded to the Bolshevik’s rise by supporting the Russian monarchists (the whites) in their fight to maintain power. Six thousand Canadian troops also invaded. According to Roy Maclaren in Canadians in Russia, 1918 – 1919, Canadian gunners won “a vicious reputation amongst the Bolsheviks for the calm skill with which they used shrapnel as a short-range weapon against foot soldiers.”

While a Canadian naval vessel supported the White Russians, Canadian pilots stationed near the Black Sea provided air support.

The war against the Bolsheviks was initially justified as a way to reopen World War I’s eastern front (the Bolsheviks signed a peace treaty with Germany). Canadian troops, however, stayed after World War I ended. In fact, 2,700 Canadian troops arrived in the eastern city of Vladivostok on January 5, 1919, two months after the war’s conclusion. A total of 3,800 Canadian troops, as well as Royal Northwest Mounted Police and 697 horses, went to Siberia, which the Whites continued to control long after losing Moscow, St. Petersburg and most of the western part of the country.

Ottawa maintained its forces in Russia after the conclusion of World War One partly to persuade the British that Canada merited inclusion in the Paris peace conference that would divvy up the spoils of the war. Prime Minister Borden wrote: “We shall stand in an unfortunate position unless we proceed with Siberia expedition. We made definite arrangements with the British government on which they have relied … Canada’s present position and prestige would be singularly impaired by deliberate withdrawal.”

Ottawa also feared the rise of anti-capitalism. On December 1, 1918, Borden wrote in his diary that he was “struck with the progress of Bolshevism in European countries.” For their part, Canadian working class groups condemned the invasion of Russia as “for the benefit of the capitalist.”  The president of the BC Federation of Labour Joseph Naylor asked, “is it not high time that the workers of the Western world take action similar to that of the Russian Bolsheviki and dispose of their masters as those brave Russians are now doing?”

The allies invaded Russia to defend the status quo, much to the dismay of many Canadians who welcomed the czar’s demise and found it difficult to understand why Canada would support Russian reactionaries. Opposition to the intervention was widespread even among soldiers. According to the Toronto Globe, 60-70 percent of the men sent to Siberia went unwillingly. One artillery section even refused to obey orders.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s western countries worked to isolate Moscow. Canada (and the US) opposed a treaty to guarantee Russia’s pre-war frontiers, which England had signed with Moscow. Ottawa recognized the Bolshevik government in 1924 but ties were severed after the British cut off relations in mid-1927.  Full diplomatic relations with Moscow would not restart until the late 1930s.

Russophobia has once again gripped the political/media establishment. A number of prominent commentators have defended the grandfather of Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland collaborating with the Nazis on the grounds it was either them or the Russians occupying Ukraine during World War II. Freeland herself deflected questions on the matter by saying Moscow may be trying to “destabilize” Canadian democracy while Brigadier General Paul Rutherford warned of Russian cyber warfare. More dangerous, Ottawa is ramping up its military presence on Russia’s doorstep (Ukraine, Poland and Latvia) to counter “aggression”.

To help clear the thick fog of propaganda it’s useful to remember how Canada responded to the fall of Russia’s monarchy. While Russia has never invaded Canada, we once invaded their country.

It is Happening Here: Fascism as a Real Possibility in the US

Howard Lisnoff

Fascism has creeped incrementally across the landscape of the United States and in many, many other places around the world. Here, from the right vantage point, it has slowly and steadily left its mark since the end of the Vietnam War. Reaganism propelled it onto the domestic and international scene. Historically, this epoch can be described and compared in some ways to the right-wing upheaval that spread across the globe in the 1930s. Tens of millions of people were left dead in its wake.

Taking part in demonstrations seems more like the norm now than it did during the early part of the Vietnam antiwar movement in the middle of the decade of the 1960s.  Rallies and protests in support of the Muslim community, in support of women’s rights, and in support of the right to health care have all come in rapid fire after Trump’s electoral victory on November 8, 2016. The U.S., and in particular its political, economic, and social systems work to isolate people from one another through greed and wealth and power. That is how a class of the extremely wealthy, the 1 or 2 percent, can allow the entire system to crash and burn as long as they are somewhat protected for a relatively short time from the effects of their predatory system. The rest are left in varying degrees of access to a consumer culture that works for some and not at all for millions of others.

A rally took place last week in Springfield, MA to show solidarity with the Jewish Community Center there and with members of all faiths from the surrounding area (“Springfield residents rally against hate at the city’s Jewish Community Center,” The Springfield Republican, March 9, 2017). A threatening message had been found in a locker room of the facility several days earlier, one of many threats and acts of intimidation and destruction that have been taking place against Jews, Muslims, and members of other faiths who have been mistaken as Muslims because of the perception of their manner of dress and/or appearance. These attempts to drive fear home to different minority communities has been on the rise since the beginning of Trump campaign and during the first weeks of his presidency. His campaign rallies, filled with Trump’s hateful rhetoric, often took on the appearance of barroom brawls. Political brawls have an important historical antecedent in the lead-up to World War II in Europe.

As a Jew, I am intimately aware of attacks against both individuals and larger communities of faith. I am especially aware of what it means to target those weaker or less able to defend themselves and that was one of the reasons for showing up and showing solidarity at the rally in Springfield.

The right wing has not missed a beat. The question remains just how far they will go to solidify their control and protect the interests of vast wealth and power? Over the last weekend, threats continued against Jewish organizations across the U.S. (“More Bomb Threats Target Jewish Community Centers,” Democracy Now, March 13, 2017). In New Orleans, someone threw a brick through the stained glass window of a Unitarian Church that had previously hosted a town hall meeting about violence against the transgender community (“New Orleans Church Service Attacked Amid Anti-Transgender Violence,” Democracy Now, March 13, 2017). And in Florida, a man attempted to set a convenience store on fire to “run Arabs out of our country,” (“Florida Arsonist Sought to ‘Run Arabs Out of Our Country,’” Democracy Now, March 13, 2017). The convenience store owners are of Indian ancestry.

“Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King, who has a history of controversial statements on immigration and race, is drawing condemnation for a Sunday tweet in support of a right-wing Dutch politician, in which King wrote, ‘We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies’” (“Representative Steve King Stands By Controversial Tweet About ‘Somebody Else’s Babies,’” NPR, March 13, 2017).

I speak and protest with many people who act and have not allowed this right-wing horror to take control of their lives. Others are visibly depressed and justifiably fearful. All it would take is one incident that the Trump administration, Congress, the courts, and those who control great wealth could use to bring their wretched plans for total authoritarian control of the people to fruition.

Is the Vault 7 Source a Whistleblower?

Jesselyn Radack

It is the leakiest of times in the Executive Branch. Last week, Wikileaks published a massive and, by all accounts genuine, trove of documents revealing that the CIA has been stockpiling, and lost control of, hacking tools it uses against targets. Particularly noteworthy were the revelations that the CIA developed a tool to hack Samsung TVs and turn them into recording devices and that the CIA worked to infiltrate both Apple and Google smart phone operating systems since it could not break encryption. No one in government has challenged the authenticity of the documents disclosed.

We do not know the identity of the source or sources, nor can we be 100% certain of his or her motivations. Wikileaks writes that the source sent a statement that policy questions “urgently need to be debated in public, including whether the CIA’s hacking capabilities exceed its mandated powers and the problem of public oversight of the agency” and that the source “wishes to initiate a public debate about the security, creation, use, proliferation and democratic control of cyber-weapons.”

The FBI has already begun hunting down the source as part of a criminal leak investigation. Historically, the criminal justice system has been a particularly inept judge of who is a whistleblower. Moreover, it has allowed the use of the pernicious Espionage Act—an arcane law meant to go after spies—to go after whistleblowers who reveal information the public interest. My client, former NSA senior official Thomas Drake, was prosecuted under the Espionage Act, only to later be widely recognized as a whistleblower. There is no public interest defense to Espionage Act charges, and courts have ruled that a whistleblower’s motive, however salutary, is irrelevant to determining guilt.

The Intelligence Community is an equally bad judge of who is a whistleblower, and has a vested interest in giving no positive reinforcement to those who air its dirty laundry. The Intelligence Community reflexively claims that anyone who makes public secret information is not a whistleblower. Former NSA and CIA Director General Michael V. Hayden speculated that the recent leaks are to be blamed on young millennials harboring some disrespect for the venerable intelligence agencies responsible for mass surveillance and torture. Not only is his speculation speculative, but it’s proven wrong by the fact that whistleblowers who go to the press span the generational spectrum from Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg to mid-career and senior level public servants like CIA torture whistleblower John Kiriakou and NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake to early-career millennials like Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The lawbreaker does not get to decide who is a whistleblower.

Not all leaks of information are whistleblowing, and the word “whistleblower” is a loaded term, so whether or not the Vault 7 source conceives of him or herself as a whistleblower is not a particularly pertinent inquiry. The label “whistleblower” does not convey some mythical power or goodness, or some “moral narcissism,” a term used to describe me when I blew the whistle. Rather, whether an action is whistleblowing depends on whether or not the information disclosed is in the public interest and reveals fraud, waste, abuse, illegality or dangers to public health and safety. Even if some of the information revealed does not qualify, it should be remembered that whistleblowers are often faulted with being over- or under-inclusive with their disclosures. Again, it is the quality of the information, not the quantity, nor the character of the source.

Already, the information in the Vault 7 documents revealed that the Intelligence Community has misled the American people. In the wake of Snowden’s revelations, the Intelligence Community committed to avoid the stockpiling of technological vulnerabilities, publicly claiming that its bias was toward “disclosing them” so as to better protect everyone’s privacy. However, the Vault 7 documents reveal just the opposite: not only has the CIA been stockpiling exploits, it has been aggressively working to undermine our Internet security. Even assuming the CIA is using its hacking tools against the right targets, a pause-worthy presumption given the agency’s checkered history, the CIA has empowered the rest of the hacker world and foreign adversaries by hoarding vulnerabilities, and thereby undermined the privacy rights of all Americans and millions of innocent people around the world. Democracy depends on an informed citizenry, and journalistic sources—whether they call themselves whistleblowers or not—are a critical component when the government uses national security as justification to keep so much of its activities hidden from public view.

As we learn more about the Vault 7 source and the disclosures, our focus should be on the substance of the disclosures. Historically, the government’s reflexive instinct is to shoot the messenger, pathologize the whistleblower, and drill down on his or her motives, while the transparency community holds its breath that he or she will turn out to be pure as the driven snow. But that’s all deflection from plumbing the much more difficult questions, which are: Should the CIA be allowed to conduct these activities, and should it be doing so in secret without any public oversight?

“Making America Great” at Americans’ Expense

Ralph Nader

Donald J. Trump was a builder of casinos and high-priced hotels and golf courses. Now he is a builder of a tower of contradictions for the American people that is making “America Great” at their expense.

He made many conflicting promises throughout his presidential campaign. He was going to be the “voice of the people.” He was going to make their safety and their job expansion his number one priority. He was going to make sure that everybody had health insurance under his then unannounced plan. He was going to deregulate businesses, cut taxes, increase the military budget, build and repair the country’s public infrastructure and not surge the deficit. He was going to scrap the trade agreements known as NAFTA and the WTO.

Now in the White House, he proceeds to push programs and policies that contradict many of his promises. He is ballooning an already massive, bloated military budget by cutting the health and safety budgets of consumer, environmental and labor regulatory agencies and housing and energy assistance. Reportedly he wants to cut one billion dollars out of the budget of the Centers for Disease Control that works to detect and prevent global epidemics! Just today, the Congressional Budget Office announced that under the proposed Republican Health Plan, 24 million people will lose health care by 2026. Apparently he is oblivious to the perils of Avian Flu, SARS, Ebola and Zika threatening our national security and the health and lives of millions of people.

There is more to this emerging betrayal. Trump is supporting Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s “you’re on your own, folks” devastating health insurance plan. Slash and burn Ryan, comfortably fully insured by the taxpayers, publicly admits he doesn’t know how many people will lose their health insurance. Imagine the impact of strip-mining Medicaid on the poor – nearly 70 million, including many children, are on that program. Runaway Ryan even fantasizes over going after Medicare next and corporatize it.

Republicans such as Mick Mulvaney, the new director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, argue that these measures are necessary for “efficiency.” Yet neither Trump, nor Mulvaney, nor Ryan, nor Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have ever gone after $60 billion in business fraud on Medicare each year. The Congressional Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) reports ten percent of all health care spending is drained away by computer billing fraud and abuse.=That would be about $340 billion this year alone – an estimate considered rock bottom by the nation’s leading expert on health care billing fraud – Professor Malcolm Sparrow of Harvard University!

It gets nuttier. Trump wants to increase the budget of the sprawling Department of Homeland Security but cut the budget of the US Coast Guard (which is part of the Department) and whose budget is already strapped in safeguarding our coastlines (See David Helvarg’s engrossing book, Rescue Warriors, which describes the Coast Guard’s often unsung missions).

Trump seems unwilling to oppose the more extreme “mad dogs” among the Congressional Republicans who want to erase the budgets for legal services for the poor (150 corporate law firms last week signed a letter saying they support maintaining the budget for legal services for the poor), public broadcasting and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. The total number of dollars for all these programs is about $1 billion annually, or one thirteenth the cost of another redundant air craft carrier (we already have twelve in service—more active service carriers than the rest of the world combined).

Moreover, this self-touted “voice of the people” is instead placing in the highest government positions the “voices” of Wall Street billionaires. Next door to his Oval Office is Gary Cohn, former Goldman Sachs boss, a supposedly smart man who just mimicked Trump by absurdly claiming “we have no alternative but to reinvest in our military and make ourselves a military power once again.” Who in the world doesn’t think US Empire, bristling with arrays of weapons of mass destruction and able to immediately destroy far weaker adversaries in the air, on the sea and land is not a military power?

Wall Street and the mega-wealthy now run the Treasury Department, the State Department, and the Department of Education while corporatists and militarists run other major departments and agencies. Where are the people’s voices in that plutocratic park?

As the opposition coalesces in their resistance to various measures pushed by Trump’s tantrums, it is interesting to note the surprising diversity of those challenging President Trump. More than a few corporate leaders are appalled by extreme Trumpism and their opposition is not restricted to the destabilizing bill to replace Obamacare or to Silicon Valley.

Sure, corporate CEOs are tempted by the tax cuts and jettisoning of some regulations. But they know they are making record after-tax profits, record corporate after-tax pay for themselves, and the stock market is soaring. As they watch the growing rumble from the people in street demonstrations and at Congressional town meetings, there is building a little foreboding.

They’re thinking – why rock the boats (or yachts) – Trump is taking away what people already have – their health insurance – and their health and safety protections while the Republicans plan to continue depressing their vote and rigging the electoral districts by gerrymandering. When a society, blocked from advancing justice, is unraveling what fair play there remains, the corporate bosses, who see beyond tomorrow, get worried, for good reason.

The tower of contradictions, being constructed by Trump and the most extreme Republican Party in its history, won’t be camouflaged or distracted for long by provocative, prevaricating 3:00 am tweets from the White House.

The Murky World of Deradicalisation

Binoy Kampmark

It has attracted money and the implementation of programs, another standard diversionary tactic common in many societies.  It is all touted as a good bit of social engineering, a form of anger management by other means.  The basis of that problematic term “deradicalisation” entails the erroneous idea that telling a person something should not be done politically is necessarily going to be effective.

The subjective analogue on deradicalisation with Hamlet is apparent: “for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”  So, the teachers, pedagogues, social workers and lecturers have sought to persuade those young incipient jihadis that somehow, finding numerous virgins at the end of the tunnel of martyrdom is a bad idea.  Best be a model citizen, seeking a dull job and treating politics, essentially, as a politician’s business.  A country’s leaders can simply go on with their meddlesome ways, creating mischief overseas while proclaiming the virtues of stability at home.

The idea of deradicalisation starts off on a misstep, a malformed idea. It assumes that a person is going to turn rotten and rush off to the Middle East at any given moment unless the instructor nips such ambitions in the bud with appropriate ideals and suitable options. It also assumes that ideas, however developed or reasoned, can be cordoned, quarantined and varied.

Nor are the scholar squirrels and analysts entirely clear about what the initial stage – radicalisation – actually means.  (The same goes for the term terrorism, a multi-headed beast of multi-headed meanings.)  Criminologist Kris Christmann has advanced no less than eight separate models on the process of deradicalisation while placing his finger on ten theoretical models.

A gaze through the literature is bewildering, whether one soddens ones feet in Taarnby’s eight-stage recruitment process, wades through Wiktorowicz’s al-Muhajiroun model, or slugs through McCauley and Moskalenko’s twelve mechanisms of political radicalisation.  Variety, in this world, is not the spice of the life so much as a muddle in the middle.

Little wonder then that Christmann’s report for the British Youth Justice Board Preventing Religious Radicalisation and Violent Extremism suggests, citing previous studies, that general scholarship on this is “impressionistic, superficial and often pretentious, venting far reaching generalisations on the basis of episodic evidence”.

It also assumes that a person is only permitted to think in a certain, pleasing way: the orthodoxy of the state, the wisdom of the technocrats and politicians who supposedly operate on a Platonic plane of high reason.

This, essentially, amounts to a form of cerebral amputation, a reverse brainwashing supposedly designed to respond, as a targeted sonic boom, to the brainwashing methods of the madrassa. It is a political strategy designed to neuter the potentially radical subject, while also instilling a dull, mute conformity. It is, in short, reactive, pre-emptive, and unimaginative.

While this should not be taken as a hearty endorsement of the gun toting antics of an Islamic State recruit, the state obsession with curtailing a youth’s understanding of political or religious destiny (in Islam, there is no functional difference on this point) is doomed to fail.  All states insist on their brand of radicalisation, whatever the popular ideology of the day.

The attempt by such countries as the United States, Britain, France, and Australia to claim clarity above the radical politics of the Middle East also suggests a remarkable confusion.  Deradicalisation programs are themselves facing an impossible end: attempting to convince youths that they not take up arms against a state that itself is engaged in war in Muslim countries, or that their adventurist spirit must somehow be channelled.

Added to this is the parallel legal world that has grown up in response to terrorism, known more broadly as the counter-terrorist response.  As Irfan Yusuf noted in 2016, there were 64 separate pieces of counter-terrorism legislation and measures introduced onto the law books between 2001 and 2014 in Australia alone.

The icing on this system, in turn, is the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program.  Be it in legislation or in the CVE program confusion reigns over what constitutes an actual terrorist act, and what constitutes radicalisation itself.

In Syria, an epicentre of the radicalism debate, radical groups do battle against a form of secular violence; secular violence, through the Assad regime in Syria, is reasserted as a defender against radicalisation. It would be far more fitting to say that war is of its own accord the great agent of radicalisation, the fulcrum behind inspiring others to join it like moths to a flickering flame.

The general burden of proof for deradicalising youth tends to fail at the conceptual level. What it has led to is a sprawling set of programs with false assumptions. The obvious question, though one that is persistently ignored, is how a teenager with a spotless police record might still wish to seek glory in a distant land behind a gun.

Australian government imposes phonics test on six-year-olds

David Cohen

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s federal Liberal-National government has unveiled a so-called expert panel tasked with imposing yet another standardised test, this time on Year 1 students.

On January 31, the first day of the new school year, Education Minister Simon Birmingham declared that new phonics and numeracy tests would comprise part of the government’s “back to basics education approach.” This approach is supposedly aimed at using “record and growing levels of investment in Australian schools as effectively as possible to turnaround areas of stagnating or worsening performance.”

The reality is that public schools and their students are grossly under-resourced. The government’s new testing regime is aimed at further undermining the public education system, by extending the impact of the former Labor government’s National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) testing regime. NAPLAN remains the pivotal mechanism for federal and state government moves to target working class schools for “reform” or closure, tie teachers’ job security and salaries to standardised test results, and narrow the curriculum, bringing back regressive teaching methods through “teaching to the test.”

While NAPLAN begins with Year 3 students, the government has now moved to target children two years earlier, with six-year-olds to be tested on their numeracy and literacy skills.

While details of the numeracy testing component remain unclear, the reactionary agenda behind the new literacy phonics screen becomes clear when one examines the “experts” appointed to the government panel. Not a single literacy expert or educational academic has been assigned to “inform the development and implementation of a national Year 1 check.”

Instead, four individuals have been appointed directly from a right-wing campaign group, led by the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) and backed by the Murdoch media.

The CIS is a “free market” think tank, financed by mining companies and other transnational corporations. In recent years it has focussed its remit on demanding austerity budget cuts that target the working class, totalling $60 billion a year, every year for a decade.

Last year the CIS established the “Five from Five” education campaign group, led by CIS staffer Jennifer Buckingham. Buckingham is one of the four literacy-based appointees to the phonics test panel, all of whom are “Five from Five” campaigners and supporters—Steven Capp, principal of Melbourne’s Bentleigh West Primary School; Pamela Snow, head of the La Trobe Rural Health School; and Mandy Nayton, CEO of the Dyslexia-SPELD Foundation.

The CIS’s “Five from Five” campaign is backed by Murdoch’s Australian newspaper and has been endorsed by multiple dyslexia campaign and advocacy organisations. It purports to be “a group of organisations and individuals who support the objective of promoting effective, evidence-based reading instruction.”

In fact, the CIS is using the literacy campaign as a cynical cover to advance its agenda of dismantling the public education system.

Jennifer Buckingham has authored numerous propaganda pieces, in the guise of “research reports” and op-ed pieces in the Murdoch and financial press, to attack public schools. In a 2014 CIS paper, “School Funding on a Budget,” she declared that education “cannot be quarantined from efforts to bring the [budget] back into balance,” adding that “measures to reduce future spending and improve productivity” could include “removing mandatory class sizes” and “making it easier for principals to dismiss ineffective teachers,” that is, to victimise targeted teachers and impose cost-cutting layoffs.

Buckingham also advocates so-called “vouchers,” the mechanism long advocated by proponents of a wholly privatised school system, in which families are annually allocated a set amount of public money for each school child that can be used to enrol them at either public or private schools. In addition, she has campaigned for charter schools, i.e., schools that are publicly funded but privately operated. In a 2015 CIS paper, “Free to Choose Charter Schools: How charter and for-profit schools can boost public education,” Buckingham insisted that a corporate takeover of “chronically-failing [public] schools” would provide “the positive disruptive reform Australian education needs.”

Backed by the government, this right-wing ideologue is now posturing as an expert on the teaching of reading.

The Year 1 testing panel will report to the government by the end of April. Education Minister Birmingham, however, has already outlined what will be in the new phonics test. The government is importing a British phonics test, first imposed on primary schools there in 2012 by the Conservative-led government. The test involves teachers assessing Year 1 students’ ability to read 20 words on flashcards, without the context of an authentic text or even a sentence, and 20 so-called pseudo- or nonsense-words. If students are deemed to have failed the test, they have to repeat it in Year 2.

The Australian government has ignored numerous critiques of this test issued by literacy experts.

One survey of teachers found that 91 percent had concluded that the expensive and time-consuming test had told them nothing that they did not already know about their students’ reading abilities. More fundamentally, the test’s extraction of separate words from any meaningful context and the demand that students read them (or, more accurately, pronounce them correctly) is contrary to the premise of all quality literacy instruction—namely, that reading is not simply saying words (“barking at print”) but generating meaning from print. Isolating individual words prevents young readers from utilising multiple strategies to read, including by predicting what comes next in a sentence through their knowledge of grammar and syntax, text conventions, and prior understanding of the text’s subject.

These issues emerge most sharply with the required testing of “pseudo-words.”

Children will be instructed to “read” computer-generated nonsense such as shan, flarm, and strom. This is supposedly being done in order to assess the students’ knowledge of letter-sound relationships. In practice, however, fluent readers (who have moved beyond inefficient sounding out, decoding strategies) know that reading should always make sense, and they approach the test on that basis. Reports have documented strong readers saying, for example, “storm” instead of strom, and “farm” instead of flarm, and therefore being ranked in the standardised test as less proficient than emergent readers, who laboriously sound out “f-l-ah-ar-mm” and “s-t-r-oh-mm.” (See: Howard Gibson and Jennifer England, “The inclusion of pseudo words within the year one phonics ‘screening check’ in English primary schools,” Cambridge Journal of Education, 2015.)

Such reports underscore the fact that the Australian government’s new testing measures have nothing to do with assisting either students or teachers.

The immediate agenda is to mandate regressive new teaching measures in public schools across the country. In Britain, the introduction of the phonics test was accompanied by the statutory imposition of a specific literacy teaching model, known as synthetic phonics. Well trained literacy educators will teach the complex relationship between the English alphabet’s 26 letters and the 42–44 sounds within spoken English, as it is developmentally required for each student—through an open and inquiring engagement with rich picture story books and other texts written by real authors, and through authentic writing experiences.

Synthetic phonics, on the other hand, is made up of a rigidly presented, one-size-fits-all, instruction in letter-sound relationships. There are countless commercially marketed synthetic phonics programs, such as Jolly Phonics and THRASS, for which the government’s agenda promises a profit bonanza. They typically present one letter-sound per day or per week instruction for the whole class, regardless of different students’ literacy development, and use commercially-produced phonics texts (“the fat cat sat on the mat”) instead of engaging books written by genuine authors to entertain and enlighten the children. In attempting to reduce the learning of reading to a mindless set of mechanical skills, the government is promoting synthetic phonics as another means of narrowing the school curriculum and suppressing creative and critical thought among young people in the public school system.

The CIS and its “Five from Five” campaign is also agitating for “direct instruction”—a deeply authoritarian, 1950s-style teaching method involving teachers clicking their fingers and students chanting rote-memorised responses. American-based companies selling direct instruction scripts for schools and teachers have already received millions of dollars, via government contracts, for use in Aboriginal schools in Queensland and the Northern Territory. One of these companies—Good to Great Schools Australia, which operates in Queensland’s Cape York indigenous communities—is part of the CIS “Five from Five” campaign.

Despite the documented disasters that direct instruction has wrought across Aboriginal communities, including plummeting school attendance rates and increased student disruption and violence, the government has indicated its intention to extend the direct instruction model to working class public schools across the country.

In the face of this onslaught, the teachers’ unions are once again demonstrating their complicity with the government. A statement issued by the Australian Education Union on January 31 raised nothing about the political agenda behind the phonics test, and instead urged the government to adopt the bogus “Gonski” school funding model, which is backed by the opposition Labor Party, the original sponsor of standardised testing.