Indonesian Government KNB Undergraduate & Masters Scholarship for Students in Developing Countries 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 30th May 2017

Eligible Countries: developing countries

To be taken at (country): Indonesia

About the Award: The scholarship is offered to potential students from developing countries to earn their Master Degree at one of 16 prominent universities in Indonesia. Officially launched in 2006 by the Directorate General of Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia, this program has been attracting a significant number of applicants, as by 2015, 896 students from 64 countries had been awarded this scholarship.

Fields of Study: Humanities, Science,  Engineering, Social Sciences

Type: Masters, Undergraduate

Eligibility: 

1. Having maximum age of 35 year-old
2. Having a bachelor degree for applying a master degree program
3. Having a TOEFL /IELTS/other English Proficiency Certificate scores of 500/5. or equivalent
4. Completing the on-line application form
5. Signing a statement letter provided by the KNB Scholarship management for the successful candidates prior to the departure to Indonesia.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The KNB Scholarship covers:

1. A Settlement Allowance of IDR 1,000,000 will be given to new students upon their arrival in Indonesia;
2. While taking the Indonesian language course and preparatory programs, the new students will only receive a Living Allowance of IDR 2,550,000 per month;
3. During the Master Program, the KNB students will receive a scheme of monthly allowance as detailed in the guide book (link below)
4. A health insurance with a maximum of IDR 200,000 monthly premium (In case of the cost of medical services exceeded to those covered by the health insurance, the difference should be borne by the student);
5. A round-trip international airfare (economy class) from the international airport of the student’s home countries to Indonesia, including local transport to the host university;

Please be advised that the scholarship scheme will only sufficient to cover one person to living properly in most cities where the universities are located.

Other expenses beside above mentioned items will be considered as personal expenses and will be borne by the students.

Duration of Scholarship:

• Indonesian Language Course and Master Preparatory Program: Maximum 12 months
• Master Program: Maximum 24 months (4 semester)
• Bachelor Program: Maximum 48 months (8 semester)

The online application process must be completed no later than May 30th , 2017; 2. Selection process will be conducted on the 1 st week of June 2017; 3. The selection result will be announced on the 4 th week of June 2017; 4. The students are expected to arrive in Jakarta on August 30th 2017; 5. Orientation will be organized in August 31st, 2017;

How to Apply: 

1. Downloading the Invitation Letter posted in the KNB Scholarship website
2. Submitting the Invitation letter, Passport, Academic Certificates and Academic Transcripts to the Indonesian Embassy to acquire the recommendation letter
3. Sign Up and Complete the online application
4. Receiving the selection result broadcasted online in the KNB Scholarship Website and/or officially announced through the Indonesian Embassy publication network.

It is  important to visit the Scholarship Webpage for the Application requirements and documents before applying.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Government of Indonesia

Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA) 2017 Global Digital Media Competition

Application Deadline: 2nd May 2017 (Early submission)

12th June 2017 (Regular Deadline)

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Las Vega, Nevada,  USA

About the Award: Connected to industry professionals, academic leaders, and top brands, the ADAA is launching the next generation of student careers

Fields of Contest: This year, the Adobe Design Achievement Awards include fourteen (14) competition categories and basically cover all creative disciplines.

Competition categories are grouped in three (3) main segments and include many different subcategories:

• Fine Art
• Commercial
• Social Impact

Type: Contest

Eligibility: Both individuals and groups may enter up to three (3) unique projects in each of the fourteen competition categories.

Contest is open to individuals who are:

• 18 years of age (or the age of majority in your jurisdiction) or older; and
• students enrolled in an accredited institution of higher education at time of entry.

Individuals residing in the following countries, states,and territories are excluded: Brazil, Northern Ireland, the Province of Quebec, and the Indian state of Tamil Nadu Categories

Selection Criteria:  

1. Project originality and creative excellence.
2. Effectiveness in meeting a communication objective.
3. Demonstrating skills in applying Adobe products towards these ends.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Contest: Competition winners receive global recognition, trophies, yearly Adobe Creative Cloud memberships, mentorship opportunities, certificates and much more. The best creatives will be invited to attend the Adobe MAX 2017 Conference held in Las Vega, Nevada, 16-20 October, 2017.

How to Apply: START HERE

Visit Contest Webpage for details

Award Provider: Adobe

Profiling Islamophobes

L. Ali Khan

Islamophobia in America is the fear and hatred of Islam and Muslims prevailing among Christian and Jewish Americans. (Atheists who question the very notion of religion are perhaps less likely to select Islam as a special target of disparagement.) A majority of American Christians and Jews do not fear or hate Islam or Muslims. In fact, many Christian and Jewish interfaith organizations are actively engaged in repelling Islamophobia. American Jews understand that they too will be a prime target, as recent cemetery vandalism and bomb threats demonstrate, if Islamophobia gains intensity and momentum. Likewise, Mormons, Hindus, Sikhs, and other minority religious groups living in America fear for their safety as the hatred of Islam sweeps the nation.

The ugliest American Islamophobes that occupy prominent social, political, and intellectual fields are well known to the world if not to the people of the United States: They are Steve Bannon (Irish Catholic), Robert Spencer (Greek Catholic), David Horowitz (Jewish), Pamela Geller (Jewish), David Yerushalmi (Jewish), Frank Gaffney (Irish Catholic), Steven Emerson (unknown heritage), Daniel Pipes (Jewish), Sean Hannity (Irish Catholic), and Bill O’Reilly (Irish Catholic). There are scores of other Islamophobes, less highflying but no less vicious, firmly occupying posts in the media, legislatures, television, and academia.

These garrulous Islamophobes write books, sponsor seminars, and write op-eds; some prompt states to enact anti-Sharia legislation, some finance anti-Islamic political movements in Europe and the United States, some provide radio and television commentaries sensationalizing the perils of Islam, and some outright advocate the persecution and expulsion of American Muslims.

A quick overview of the ugliest Islamophobes listed above demonstrates that they are mostly white males, and mostly Irish Catholic or Jewish. It is ironic how these ugliest Islamophobes conveniently forget that Jews, Catholics, and the Irish — their own communities — have experienced sorrowful histories of discrimination, prejudice, hatred, and refusal to enter the United States. Anti-Semitism is the fear and hatred of the Jews. Hibernophobia is the fear and hatred of the Irish. It is a question of psychiatry, if not psychosis, why the descendants of the victims of Anti-Semitism and Hibernophobia have turned into malicious Islamophobes.

Profiling is inherently obnoxious and a questionable generalization from both moral and empirical viewpoints. Profiling is stereotyping, maybe carrying a trace of truth but almost always over-inclusive – a fishing net catching the blameless and the blameworthy. Stereotypes such as African-Americans are violent, Native-Americans are alcoholics, and Muslims are terrorists – all are odious and wrong. To this questionable list of stereotypes, I am in no hurry to add Irish Catholics and Jews as Islamophobes.

But I wonder. When Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly fume against Islam or Muslims with the intent to poison hearts and minds of the FOX viewers, do they ever simultaneously think about the Irish, the Catholic, or the Irish Catholic communities? When Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz intellectualize hatred against Islam and Muslims, do they ever simultaneously think about similar intellectualization of hatred against the European Jews who faced expulsion and extermination? At this point, in a free flowing stream of consciousness, I am thinking of Ben Carson, an African-American, speaking in vivid delirium against Syrian refugees and discounting African slavery as a form of illegal immigration.

Producers of Islamophobia may be distinguished from consumers of Islamophobia. The producers are highly educated or highly power individuals, such as Steve Bannon. The individuals identified in this commentary are the producers of Islamophobia. For example, David Yerushalmi markets his Islamophobia to state legislatures, Sean Hannity to his television viewers. The consumers of Islamophobia are frequently less educated or less powerful, who can be easily swayed into hating Islam or Muslims. A person pulling the hijab off a Muslim woman walking in the street is a consumer of Islamophobia as is the person shooting “Iranians” (who were indeed Indians) in a Kansas bar. By every standard, the producers of hatred are worse foes of humanity than the consumers of hatred.

Over the centuries, Islamophobes have trashed Islam, persecuted and even killed Muslims. But there is a great irony in Islamic history. The Mongols destroyed Baghdad but their children embraced Islam. Even the Prophet’s own uncle (Abu Lahb) was a vicious Islamophobe, and Mecca, now the citadel of Islam, was once an Islamophobic city. American Islamophobes, the ugliest and the less ugly, need to know that American Muslims and their progeny, even if persecuted, will continue to contribute to the economic, social, moral, and intellectual good of America as they have in Malaysia and Indonesia, nations as far away from the Middle East as are the United States.

Largest Hunger Crisis Since Creation of UN Underway As US Hoards Food To Feed Harmful Addiction

Robert J. Barsocchini

The UN notes the world is “facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the UN … more than 20 million people across four countries face starvation and famine. Without collective and coordinated global efforts, people will simply starve to death. Many more will suffer and die from disease.”

One of the reasons scholars like Gary Francione have said “there is nothing more elitist than the standard Western diet” is (as Obama and many officials have pointed out) the plants used in the US alone to feed the animals US citizens eat (a vice that is not only unnecessary but is causing a major health crisis in the US) could feed the world several times over.

If US citizens wanted to, they could use their land, resources, and historically unprecedented global military apparatus to stop the global hunger crisis at very little cost to themselves.  For this to occur, oligarchic dictation elements of the US government system (which, as “study after study” reveals, ensures the majority of the citizenry has no effect on government policy and prevents US citizens from having, for example, even the single-payer healthcare system they have polled as wanting for decades) would have to be replaced, but this is another choice for US citizens.

Instead, the US is directly contributing to the hunger crisis by expending countless tons of food on producing harmful animal products for US consumption and, for example, by assisting the brutal Saudi dictator Salman Abdulaziz in enforcing a food blockade on Yemen, which imports almost all its food and where the UN notes “millions of children” are on the brink of starvation.

While US citizens are lead to believe (as reflected in polls – see paragraph 1) that US aid to other countries is a large portion of GDP, in fact it is virtually nothing, and the biggest recipient of US aid by far is Israel, a regional, nuclear superpower, a major human rights violator (making the aid illegal), and one of the richest countries in the world.

The Enduring Myth Of Microfinance

Moin Qazi

Access to the right financial tools at critical moments can determine whether a poor household is able to capture an opportunity to move out of poverty or absorb a shock without being pushed deeper into debt.

When microfinance-provision of financial services tailored to fit the needs of low income people – made its first appearance, everyone was infatuated by its narrative:

Those on the left loved its stories of transformed women and direct empowerment of the poor. Those on the right loved how it promoted grass-roots capitalism, fostered a culture of entrepreneurship, and all this by doing away subsidies. Microfinance appeared to be the much awaited tool whose time had come. Everyone was charmed by its astonishing capabilities.

In recent years microfinance has been aggressively fueled by international funders called as impact investors. They provide capital to businesses that solve social challenges while generating a profit and are the current rage in economic development .Although impact investors can lay the groundwork for commercial investors; they must also work in unison with government authorities to ensure well-functioning market systems. It is only when such a synergy brigs about a proper market structure that l the poor be able to participate in today’s vast global economy.

But as with other trumpeted development initiatives that have promised to lift hundreds of millions from poverty, microcredit has struggled to turn rhetoric into tangible success. Done right, these loans have shown promise in allowing the slightly better off among the poor to build sustainable livelihoods. The notion that microcredit has potential to spark sustained economic growth is misplaced.

It’s certainly true that if a borrower can’t invest productively enough to generate a high rate of return, he or she will be more indebted and worse off than before.

Those entrepreneurial individuals are few who use a small amount of money to catapult themselves from destitution to security, but what about the poorest of the poor as a class. Those successful enterprises are the exceptions—particularly where a microfinance organization has a good model. The success of microfinance has led to a rush of new entrants, some of whom aren’t so good at tweaking their models, and those new imitators probably have much higher failure rates.

Microfinance is remarkably working well as a Band-Aid solution to poverty, i.e., it puts food on the table and microfinance is not providing a bridge to sustainable development because it fails to address the root causes of poverty. As such, microfinance borrowers fall short of graduating [i.e., entering the formal economy], which should be the ultimate goal of microfinance.

The verdict is now out .No one should be lulled by the livelihood finance boom into believing that microfinance is a cure-all for global poverty. The problem is that not everyone is ready or able to take on debt. Some people struggling to feed their families require more basic help and financial training before they can properly handle debt. Originally developed as a nonprofit effort to lift society’s most downtrodden, microfinance has increasingly become a for-profit enterprise that serves investors as well as the poor.

Microfinance has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. It critics have been at pains to emphasize that whilst microfinance can stabilize livelihoods, broaden choices, provide start-up funds for productive investment, help poor people to smooth consumption flows and send children to school, it can also lead to indebtedness and increased exclusion unless programmes are well designed. We must not forget the caution: “Microcredit is microdebt.”

If you substitute the word”credit” with “debt,” it’s easy to see how microfinance can create a power imbalance between a lender and a financially strapped borrower, especially if that borrower is a woman. We should be alive to its downside. When a woman fails to make her installments on time, she experiences humiliation through verbal aggression from fellow members and loan recovery officials. Default by a lone woman can result in friction among group members who are collectively held responsible for individual loans. Women who cannot pay due to unforeseen circumstances, (poor investment decisions, illness and theft of property) are subjected to public shaming by microfinance. Hence, poor women bear the social costs of microfinance, often with negative consequence. A central problem is this: In the world of microfinance, women borrowers are viewed as autonomous individuals who make independent choices in the marketplace.

But this is not the reality. Even when they possess marketable, loan-worthy skills, women often find themselves beholden to their husband and male relatives. They negotiate complex kinship and social obligations. In addition to male control, other problems affect a woman’s ability to repay a loan. Lenders may extend loans to prospective dairy-cow breeders or egg sellers without doing any market survey of how many dairy-cow breeders or egg sellers the economy of a particular area can sustain. Micro-entrepreneurs may be undone by an unexpected illness, a poor investment decision or a theft.

The provision of small loans or other financial services to the poor will never work until we address the background conditions that produce poverty in the first place. The list of needed measures to create an enabling environment for poor people to improve their lives is long. There is need, for example, for a fairer distribution of productive assets such as land or putting in place pro-poor labour legislation at the national level, and a rethink of unfair trade policies and aid conditionalities which continue to disempower poor

In recent years, economists have designed a rigorous research methodology by which researchers attempt to study the effects of microfinance with randomized control trials, the same way medical researchers test whether a new drug works better than a placebo.

The six randomised evaluations from four continents conducted by researchers affiliated with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), show that microcredit does not have a transformative impact on poverty.

The results of studies, which were carried out in India, Mongolia and Philippines in Asia, Bosnia-Herzegovina in Europe, Morocco and Ethiopia in Africa, and Mexico in North America, were presented in the January 2015 issue of the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. They conclude that while microloans can increase small business ownership and investment, they generally do not lead to increased income, investments in children’s schooling, or substantial gains in women’s empowerment for poor borrowers.

Here are the key findings:

1. None of the seven studies found a significant impact on household income.
2. Only about one in four or five households wanted a small loan.
3. Some of them used the money to grow their very small businesses. But this rarely led to higher profits.
4. And there’s no evidence it empowered women or led more children to go to school.
5. Loans do give more freedom in optimizing the ways in which people make money, consume, and invest, according to the evaluations.

Microfinance needs to shape a more responsible capitalism. Not an easy choice by any means, but the right choice for their investors and society alike. Similarly, politicians should be wary of the bad consequences of their narrow populism. They should not overstep and attempt to throw the baby out with the bath water .This will be to the detriment of all, and particularly to the poor.

Rising food and fuel prices driving millions more Britons into poverty

Dennis Moore

A recent report, carried out by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) think tank, alongside poor growth forecasts from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, (IFS) reveal that poverty levels in the UK will escalate in the coming period.

The JRF report, “Households below a Minimum Income Standard: 2008/09 to 2014/15,” shows that 4 million more people in Britain are now living below a minimum accepted standard.

The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) is accepted as a benchmark—rooted in what the public accepts as what is needed for a minimum socially accepted standard of living—for people to be able to meet material needs, and “take part in society.” The report examines what percentage of people fell below this benchmark.

The JRF found that between 2008-2009 and 2014-2015, those classed as living below the MIS has risen by 4 million, from 15 million to 19 million—equivalent to 25 percent to 30 percent of the population.

The figures include the 8 million families that have been described by Theresa May’s Conservative government as “just about managing.” These families are considered to be making ends meet, yet struggling to earn enough to have an adequate standard of living.

JRF chief executive Campbell Robb said government policies were at “…the expense of those at the poorest end of the income scale, and it must remember just about managing today can become poverty tomorrow.”

The JRF highlights the plight of the 11 million people who are living well below the MIS, and whose numbers have risen from 9.1 million. By 2020, the cost of living could rise by 20 percent, placing enormous pressure on household budgets, exacerbated by freezes in tax credits and working age benefits.

These families’ incomes are already 75 percent below the MIS, with the JRF stating they are at high risk of being in severe poverty, living day to day in a financially precarious situation.

Low income hotspots that have fared less well in recent years include London, Northern Ireland, the North East and the West Midlands. These have the highest proportion of individuals with incomes below the MIS, though all regions have seen a rise in individuals with inadequate incomes between 2009 and 2013.

People living in the rented sector are at a greater risk of low income than owner-occupiers, with nearly two-thirds of individuals in the social-rented sector having an income below MIS. Just under 50 percent of individuals in the private-rented sector have incomes below this level.

Since the global financial crash of 2008 and the £1 trillion bailout of the banks, the minimum price of a basket of goods has risen from 27 to 30 percent, while at the same time, average earnings have only risen by half that amount. This is the result of savage attacks on incomes resulting from the austerity measures imposed by successive Labour and Tory governments since the crash.

Children living in lone parent families are at a greater risk of low income. This risk has risen substantially and continues to grow. By 2014-2015, a mere one-in-four children with a lone parent had a household income that was considered sufficient to reach a minimum acceptable standard of living, with nearly half having incomes below 75 percent of this level.

Pensioners have also seen some increase in their risk of low income. This specifically includes single pensioners, and is attributed due to increases in the costs of basics, such as food and domestic fuel.

Following the 2008 crash, there was a greater risk of falling into the low income threshold for working age households due to a reduction in employment. Though employment rates have recovered as a whole over the intervening period, there is still an increased risk of being below the MIS, due to employers continuing to pay workers low wages, including those in full-time employment.

The substantial increase in the numbers of those below MIS since 2008 has been driven by the increasing inadequacy of wages and benefit levels, relative to costs. State support through tax credits and working age benefits have been frozen, and this will affect those in work who are dependent on state support via tax credits (a top-up for low income workers).

This situation is not likely to get any better, with forecasts for economic growth being poor. The Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts that households will be worse off by 2021.

Britain is now experiencing the weakest growth in living standards in 60 years, hitting lowest income families the hardest. The IFS said that incomes for the average family would not grow at all over the next two years. It predicts that incomes will be lower by 18 percent in the years 2021-2022 than could have been expected in 2007-2008.

A childless couple are about £5,900 a year worse off than pre-crash incomes. This figure rises to £8,300 a year for a couple with two young children.

The IFS found that if benefit cuts are implemented as planned, including the freezing of previously uprated benefits, it is likely the poorest 15 percent of the population will have lower incomes in five years time.

Latest official figures on wages showed that pay growth slowed unexpectedly to 2.6 percent in the final quarter of 2016, despite record rates of employment. The IFS said this amounted to the most sustained slowdown in income growth since comparable records began in 1961.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) suggests that GDP growth will continue to slow into the next year, as economic uncertainty leads to firms not investing. This will increase pressure on consumers’ living standards, said the OBR, due to higher import prices because of the fall in the value of the pound.

The last decade has seen an enormous growth in inequality, with living standards falling for millions of people—something that has not been seen since the 1930s in Britain. Lower wages and increased prices for the basics required in order to live only spell further disaster, as many more are thrust into poverty.

The latest reports point to a growing number of people who are working, yet not able to afford to live adequately from day to day, thus increasing the number of people who constitute the working poor.

Germany’s new president to accelerate militarist foreign policy agenda

Johannes Stern

On Sunday, Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democratic Party, SPD) moved into Bellevue Palace in Berlin as Germany’s new president. Germany’s former foreign minister takes over from Joachim Gauck, who left his post on Friday night with an ostentatious military parade.

The atmosphere was eerie. Before the eyes of Berlin’s political establishment, 400 soldiers wearing steel helmets and bearing torches marched in front of Bellevue Palace. Among the spectators were Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (Christian Democratic Union, CDU); the general inspector of the Bundeswehr (armed forces), General Volker Wieker; Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU); and the mayor of Berlin, Michael Müller (SPD). Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) was represented by her vice-chancellor and foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel (SPD), since she was involved in crisis talks in the US.

The military parade, known in Germany as the Große Zapfenstreich, was an appropriate end for Gauck’s five-year presidency. The Zapfenstreich is the supreme military ceremonial of the Bundeswehr and has its roots in Prussian militarism. In its present form it goes back to the military parade held in Berlin on May 12, 1838, in honour of the Russian tsar, Nicholas I. Afterwards, it was a mainstay ceremony of the Prussian army, the German imperial army and the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic, prior to its use by the Wehrmacht of the Third Reich.

In office, Gauck has been a strident advocate of German militarism—more than virtually any other federal president. In his notorious speech on the Day of German Unification in 2013, the former pastor demanded an active, military-based, great power policy. “Our country is not an island. We should not indulge in the illusion we can be spared from political and economic and military conflicts if we do not participate in their solution,” he warned.

At the Munich Security Conference in 2014, he announced, together with von der Leyen and his successor, then-Foreign Minister Steinmeier, a fundamental change in foreign policy. He spoke of “the role of Germany in the world” and declared: “We Germans are on the road to a form of responsibility we have exercised too little.” A threat, which was then put into practice in the form of the right-wing putsch in Ukraine, NATO rearmament against Russia, and military interventions in Mali, Syria and Iraq.

The process begun under Gauck is now to be continued and intensified under Steinmeier. In a previous commentary, we wrote: “The presidency, which has had a primarily representative function after the experiences of the Weimar Republic, is to be transformed once again into a political planning and power centre in order to implement these new great power fantasies.”

Steinmeier epitomises the shift to the right in German politics during the past 20 years. As head of the federal chancellery under former SPD chancellor Gerhard Schröder, he played a central role in the development of the Agenda 2010 and the Hartz laws, which drove millions into bitter poverty. From 2005 to 2009, and again from 2013 to 2017, he was foreign minister in the Grand Coalition of conservative parties and the Social Democrats, and the pioneer, along with Gauck and von der Leyen, of a more aggressive foreign policy.

Under his direction, the Foreign Office launched its so-called review of German foreign policy in order to combat widespread opposition in the population to war and militarism. Steinmeier published strategy papers aimed at the militarisation of Europe under German domination, and, in innumerable speeches and articles, stressed “Germany’s new global role.”

In a contribution to the document “Germany’s new foreign policy,” published by Wolfgang Ischinger at this year’s Munich Security Conference, Steinmeier reiterated his mantra that Germany must “intervene at an earlier stage, in a more decisive and substantial manner.” There was a “growing competition for the allegedly correct social order...and geopolitical spheres of influence. … By changing track at the right moment…in shaping the future order,” Germany could “often do more than merely putting out the fire when it is too late.”

In other words, Germany must be ready to undertake preventive war in order to assert its geopolitical and economic interests against its rivals.

A further contribution in the anthology, titled “Foreign Policy as Moral Touchstone” by Jan Techau, underlines this. Techau, the director of the Richard C. Holbrooke Forum at the American Academy in Berlin, complains that in Germany the “neurotic striving to remain morally clean” permeates almost every domestic and foreign policy debate.

What was clear, he continued, is: “Whoever goes to war, usually has to be responsible for the death of humans, including the deaths of nonparticipants and innocents.” Particularly in “times of new strategic uncertainty,” it is necessary “to elevate the military, not only because societies demand such harsh trials, but rather because it is ultimately the most difficult, the most demanding and, undoubtedly, the crowning discipline of foreign policy.”

Techau’s final forecast is a threat: In the years to come Germany must “undertake much more politically and militarily” and will face “foreign and security policy issues” that “the country could not possibly imagine in its worst nightmares.”

While the vast majority of the population react with shock to such aggressive militarism, which recalls the darkest days of German history, the Left Party supports the new war policy. Stefan Liebich, the representative of the Left Party on the German Bundestag’s Foreign Affairs Committee, agreed: “Yes, Germany must take on its growing responsibility in the world.”

In the same manner as the Green Party in 1998, the Left Party is now ready to smooth the path for a revival of German militarism with talk of “humanitarian interventions” and thereby oppose anti-war sentiments in the German population in a future governing coalition. “Germany, under red-red-green [SPD-Left Party-Green Party coalition] must engage vigorously in the area of civilian conflict prevention. The government draft of the federal budget for 2017 has initially failed to allocate medium-term growth for crisis and disaster relief, although the necessity has grown,” Liebich wrote.

He leaves no doubt that under “conflict prevention” and “crisis and disaster relief” the Left Party envisages the use of the military. “This does not mean Bundeswehr soldiers can no longer be deployed abroad. … A commitment such as fighting Ebola or destroying chemical weapons such as two years ago in the Mediterranean is not excluded.”

Liebich also adds: “Personally, I believe that following a decision by the UN Security Council, for example in the case of an imminent genocide such as once took place in Rwanda, it should be decided in particular cases whether and how the Bundeswehr participate.”

Fighting flares in Damascus as US escalates air war in Syria

Jordan Shilton

Some of the heaviest fighting in Damascus since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 has occurred over recent days. A surprise attack by a collection of Islamist and other opposition forces, including a considerable number of fighters from the former al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front, launched a surprise attack on eastern neighborhoods of the city on Sunday, gaining some ground.

Even the New York Times, which has championed the overthrow of Assad and the installation of a puppet regime in Damascus, hypocritically noted “political concerns” about the “alliance between a spectrum of rebel groups and hard-line Islamists” which conducted the attack.

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched a counter-attack on Monday and recaptured much of the territory taken by the Islamists the previous day, according to Syrian government sources. But a second offensive was initiated yesterday by the rebels with the aim of breaking the government siege of the rebel-held Qaboun district.

Other assaults on government-controlled territory were reported in Hama Province and in western Aleppo.

Syrian and Russian aircraft have launched heavy bombardments of rebel-held areas, with reports of 143 airstrikes since Sunday’s surprise attack began. The rebels have indiscriminately targeted civilians, including with a recent suicide bombing at a court house in Damascus which killed 30.

While it remains unclear whether the collection of Jihadi forces and other opposition fighters can sustain their attacks and push further into Damascus, the escalation of fighting demonstrates that the ceasefire brokered in December by Russia and Turkey is a dead letter. Observers almost unanimously anticipate that planned peace talks beginning tomorrow in Geneva chaired by the UN’s special Syria envoy will produce no concrete progress. Mohammad al-Alloush, designated the head opposition negotiator in the Geneva talks, is also leader of the Army of Islam, one of the groups leading the attack on Damascus.

The fighting also underscores the highly unstable and explosive situation into which the Trump administration is preparing to send a further 1,000 US marines as part of a vast expansion of American participation in the war in Syria and Iraq.

The brutal US-instigated war for regime change in Syria, which entered its seventh year last week, has already claimed the lives of upwards of half a million people and driven a further 11 million from their homes.

Airwars, a group monitoring US and coalition airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, recently noted that since Trump took office, civilian casualties in both countries had undergone an “unprecedented” increase. Local sources in the Iraqi city of Mosul, currently the target of a US-backed assault to retake control of it from ISIS, reported to Airwars that in the first week of March alone, between 250 and 370 non-combatants were killed by US-led airstrikes.

Over the past three years, Airwars calculates that airstrikes conducted by the US-led coalition have claimed the lives of some 2,590 civilians in Syria.

The latest atrocity reportedly occurred Tuesday in the de facto ISIS capital of Raqqa, when an alleged airstrike struck a school building housing hundreds of civilians. If confirmed, the strike will be the second over the past week to claim a large number of civilian lives, following the partial destruction of a mosque in Idlib province which the US claimed was being used by al-Qaida as a base. At least 42 people were killed in that attack, although reports spoke of many more still trapped in the rubble.

Confronted with a growing number of photos, video footage and eye witness accounts detailing the devastation following last Thursday’s strike, US military officials told CNN yesterday that an official investigation into the strike was being launched.

The increased targeting of civilians is part of the Trump administration’s drastic escalation of the Syrian war. Trump has given the CIA authorization to carry out airstrikes and requested that the rules of engagement for US forces be loosened to permit targets to be struck even if civilian casualties could result.

The stepping up of the US intervention takes place under conditions of rising regional tensions. Last Friday, Israel launched one of its most provocative air raids in Syria, striking a site near the government-held city of Palmyra. The Assad regime alleged the Israeli strike hit a government military position and fired air defense missiles at the planes, prompting Tel Aviv to shoot one missile down with its Arrow air defense system. Israel claimed it was targeting a weapons shipment destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Russian officials subsequently stated that a number of Russian military personnel were in close proximity to the attack. Moscow summoned the Israeli ambassador for an explanation for the strike.

Israeli politicians have gone on the offensive, vowing to expand similar strikes in the future. Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman told Israeli Public Radio on Sunday, “The next time the Syrians use their air defense systems against our airplanes, we will destroy all of them without thinking twice.”

Israel has also sought to justify its intervention with allegations that Iran is attempting to strengthen its influence over Damascus by establishing a permanent military presence in the country. Tel Aviv’s hardline stance towards Teheran enjoys the full backing of the Trump administration.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during a trip to China, dismissed any talk of tensions with Russia, but insisted that strikes would go on. “If there is a feasibility from an intelligence and military standpoint—we attack and so it will continue,” he said.

Assad, in response to the Israeli airstrike, called on Russia to prevent future attacks. “Russia can play a role so that Israel no longer attacks Syria,” Assad stated to Russian journalists. “I think Russia can play an important role in this regard.”

The Kremlin, which intervened in the Syrian conflict in September 2015 with the aim of propping up the Assad dictatorship, is responding to the expansion of US involvement by extending its own presence on the ground. On Monday, a Kurdish spokesman confirmed that the Kurdish YPG militia, the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), had struck a deal with Moscow to establish a military base in northwest Syria where Russian soldiers will train Kurdish fighters. Troops and armored vehicles have already arrived in the town of Afrin, Redur Zelil said. Russia stated that it had no intention of establishing an additional military base on Syrian territory, claiming it already had a presence in Aleppo province.

The YPG is also being supported by Washington, with US troops imbedded with the Kurdish militia to direct the offensive to retake Raqqa from ISIS.

The news of the Russian training initiative prompted a hostile rebuke from Turkey, which intervened into northern Syria last August with the primary goal of preventing the establishment of a contiguous territorial area on its border controlled by Kurdish forces. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus declared that Ankara would not tolerate a “region of terror” in Syria and added that the ethnic structure of the region had to be kept intact.

Turkish forces have repeatedly clashed with the YPG, which Ankara designates as a terrorist organization. Earlier this month, Turkey threatened to attack the town of Manbij if YPG militia did not withdraw. However, it was compelled to back down in the face of opposition from the US and Russia.

The increase in US troops on the ground in this contested region, and the broader escalation of the conflict being pursued by the Trump administration throughout Syria and Iraq, is adding fuel to the fire of a conflict that could rapidly spiral out of control. Even an unintended clash between any combination of the myriad competing military forces operating in Syria would be sufficient to draw in regional and global powers, with catastrophic consequences for the long-suffering population of the Middle East.

Wealth of world’s billionaires soars amid stock market surge

Shannon Jones

The ranks of the world’s billionaires registered a sharp increase in 2016, with the number rising by 233 to reach a record 2,043, according to Forbes magazine’s annual survey. This was the first time that the Forbes list of the world’s richest has included more than 2,000 individuals.

The combined wealth of those on Forbes’ billionaires list rose 18 percent to $7.67 trillion, a staggering sum, more than the gross domestic product of all but the wealthiest of the world’s countries. The immediate impetus for the rise are surging stock prices, which have reached record levels since the election of US president Donald Trump, and the rising price of oil over the past 12 months.

More fundamentally, the increasing concentration of wealth among the world’s richest represents a social retrogression in which society’s resources are being plundered in the name of a mad pursuit of private gain.

The wealthiest individual in the world remains Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose fortune rose to $86 billion, an $11 billion increase. Second was investor Warren Buffett ($75.6 billion) and a close third Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ($72.8 billion). Bezos recorded the single biggest jump in net worth last year, pocketing an additional $27.6 billion.

Carlos Slim Helu of Mexico was number six on the Forbes list with a net worth of $54.5 billion. Despite a $4.5 billion increase in his net worth from last year, Slim moved down the list from the number four position. All told the net worth of Mexico’s billionaires rose 17 percent in 2016 to $116.7 billion.

The top 10 billionaires on the Forbes list had a combined wealth of $558 billion, more than the Gross Domestic Product of Venezuela. Just eight of those billionaires control as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population, 3.6 billion people, according to Oxfam.

The United States continues to have the largest number of billionaires in the world, with a record 565, an increase of 25 over last year. China is next with 319, while Germany is third with 114. China had the most newly minted billionaires last year, adding 76.

In impoverished India, where 13 Maruti Suzuki autoworkers were recently sentenced to life imprisonment on frame-up charges, there are 101 billionaires, making the country fourth on the list in terms of the super wealthy. At $23.3 billion, telecom tycoon Mukesh Ambani is India’s richest man, in a country where the average wage is just $295 per month.

There are 14 billionaires living in Sub-Saharan Africa, another region noted for its high proportion of people living in extreme poverty. The richest is Nigerian Aliko Dangote, ($12.1 billion) chairman of Dangote Cement, Africa’s largest cement producer.

US President Donald Trump is 544th on the list, with an estimated net worth of $3.4 billion, based largely on his holdings in the New York real estate market.

In the United States, meanwhile, the compensation of top executives also rose in 2016, up from its already obscene levels. The median compensation of chief executives at the 104 largest US companies rose 6.8 percent for 2016 to $11.5 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. Twice as many CEOs saw pay increases as pay cuts, with most of the compensation coming in the form of stock awards.

The top-paid US CEO, Thomas Rutledge of Charter Communications, pocketed $98.5 million, a 42 percent increase. Estee Lauder CEO Fabrizio Freda raked in $48.4 million while Nike CEO Mark Parker nabbed $47.6 million. Caterpillar CEO Jim Umpleby got $18 million at a company that is being investigated by the federal government for a scheme involving tax fraud.

These figures provide a snapshot of the degree to which the world is being plundered by a financial elite that has amassed wealth on a scale that has no historical precedent. The growth of these fortunes parallels a process of social destruction in which the vast majority of the world’s population are being stripped of resources in order to provide money for tax subsidies to the rich and increases in military spending.

A large portion of the world subsists on less than $2 per day. Famine is threatening some 20 million people in Yemen as well as South Sudan, Somalia and northeast Nigeria, the product of predatory wars stoked by the United States.

In Western Europe the welfare state set up in the wake of World War II is being dismantled while Germany and other imperialist powers rearm in preparation for war.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the already inadequate social safety net is being further slashed to provide tax cuts for the rich and pay for a big increase in military spending. Life expectancy in the United States declined for the first time in 23 years in 2015 after decades of stagnant or declining income, cuts in health care services and other social programs and a burgeoning drug epidemic.

In the United States for the past four decades, Democratic and Republican administrations have seamlessly and without interruption proceeded with the dismantling of the social gains of the working class in order to enrich the financial aristocracy.

This process intensified with the election in 2008 of Barack Obama, whose administration made unlimited funds available to bail out Wall Street and, through its policies of quantitative easing, opened the spigots of the Federal Reserve to flood money into the stock market.

The policies of Obama paved the way for the election of the billionaire Trump, the direct representative of the criminal financial elite. Since the election, the stock market has reached record levels in anticipation of further tax handouts to the rich and the dismantling of health, safety and environmental regulations in the interests of boosting corporate profits.

There is a bipartisan consensus in the US Congress for an overhaul of the health-care system based on further restricting access and slashing costs so that more money can be made available for the military and tax cuts. Both Democrats and Republicans reject the notion that health care is a social right that should be made available to everyone free of charge, claiming, “there is no money.”

However, as the Forbes billionaire list demonstrates, there are resources aplenty for satisfying all pressing social needs. It is the present irrational organization of society and the subordination of all aspects of economic and social life under capitalism to the demands of a rapacious financial aristocracy that is the main stumbling block to providing for the well-being of the world’s population.

This raises the necessity for the working class to unite its forces globally for the socialist transformation of society. This means seizing the wealth of the corporate and financial elite and placing the major banks, petrochemical, industrial, transportation and health-care companies under the democratic ownership and control of the working class. These resources must be employed for the raising of the living standards of the world’s population and the provision of decent wages, healthcare, education and housing for all.

The return of the US-German conflict

Johannes Stern

The first meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump in Washington last weekend exposed the rapid deterioration of transatlantic relations.

Trump’s refusal to shake Merkel’s hand during their photo-op in the Oval Office attracted international attention. After the heads of government from the two close post-World War II allies appeared before the press following a 15-minute one-on-one discussion and were asked by the photographers present to shake hands for a picture, Trump did not respond. Merkel turned to him and repeated the photographers’ request. But the US president ignored her and stared angrily in the other direction.

The press conference that followed was frosty and tense. Responding to a German journalist’s question as to whether it would “not be a danger for America if ‘America first’ weakens the European Union?”, Trump answered, “I… believe a policy of trade should be a fair policy and the United States has been treated very, very unfairly by many countries over the years, and that’s going to stop.”

Trump threatened Germany on several occasions with trade war measures before taking office. Without going into detail, Trump raised the issue again at the press conference, declaring, “The negotiators for Germany have done a far better job than the negotiators for the United States. But hopefully we can even it out.”

He then added menacingly, “It’s probably the reason I’m standing here, maybe number one—that and maybe the military—building up our military, which we will do, and we will be stronger than ever before—and hopefully not have to use it. But we will be stronger, and perhaps far stronger than ever before.”

When Merkel, who according to press accounts was seeking to defuse the conflict with Trump, was on her return flight to Berlin, Trump went a step further. In one of his notorious tweets, he wrote, “Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!”

German Defence Minister Ursula Von der Leyen promptly shot back, “there is no account where debts are registered with NATO.”

The G20 conference in Baden Baden, Germany, which concluded the same day as Merkel’s trip to Washington, likewise ended with a provocation. American Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin prevented the inclusion of the usual declaration in support of free trade and in opposition to protectionism in the final statement. The contents of past communiqués were “not necessarily relevant from my perspective,” Mnuchin said by way of justification.

The German ruling class has reacted to the escalating conflict with a mixture of concern and aggression. On Monday, the daily Handelsblatt published a commentary headlined “Transatlantic confrontation” which declared, “Anyone who hoped that Angela Merkel’s visit to US President Donald Trump would lay the basis for a normalisation of transatlantic relations must learn to know better. The American president is sticking to his firm positions and is even intensifying the conflict with international partners. The tweet against the Chancellor is an affront, the incident at the G20 meeting an historic break with the past.”

Even representatives of the German ruling elite who have been vehemently pro-American in the past and supported US-led wars are no longer taking Germany’s partnership with the United States for granted. “Enough of making fun. There is no longer a generous patron, now someone is governing who recognises no allies, but only alleged debtors who take advantage of America. Yes, a new era is beginning in the White House,” wrote Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

A comment in the Rheinische Post summed up the response of German imperialism to Trump’s aggressive assertion of US interests. Now it was necessary “to find even clearer statements against the new US protectionism and mobilise the majority of the remaining states against Trump.” Germany and the European Union have to “assert themselves and counterpose their own, different-sounding goals” to Trump, “instead of permitting themselves to be intimidated by Washington.” The prospects for this are good, wrote the newspaper, because at the G20 summit it became clear “that in trade policy, Germany not only has the rest of the EU, but almost the rest of the entire world, above all China, Brazil and Japan, on its side.”

Nobody should underestimate the historical and political significance of these developments. Twenty five years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the conflicts between the imperialist powers, which led twice in the 20th century to horrific world wars, are once again erupting in trade war and preparations for military conflict.

The international working class must counterpose its own strategy to the plans of the ruling elites on both sides of the Atlantic. This is what the Socialist Equality Party in the United States and the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei in Germany, together with all other sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International, fight for.

Wits Journalism Africa-China Investigation Reporting Project for African Journalists 2017. Funded to Hong-Kong

Application Deadline: 5th April 2017

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be taken at (country):   Hong-Kong

About the Award: As part of the Investigation the Project is inviting applications from African journalists for a number of special reporting grants to undertake investigations in an African country or region on a specific critical wildlife issue such as mentioned above. After completing their investigations in Africa, the selected journalists will be sent to Hong Kong where they and journalists from HK01 and Initium Media (who have conducted investigations on the same issues on the demand side in Asia) will share information and findings with each other. The African journalists will spend a week in Hong Kong and gain experience and skills in busy Asian newsrooms.

The features produced as a result of this cross-border Investigation will be published in English by the selected African journalists and in Chinese by HK01 and Initium Media, with due accreditation accorded to both sides.

Type: Training

Eligibility: Journalists participating in this Investigation must be available to travel to Hong Kong once their African investigations have been completed

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Funded

Duration of Scholarship:  1 week

How to Apply: 

• African journalists should submit a clearly structured proposal (see below), a CV also indicating current occupation/position, and a list of previous publications (experience in reporting wildlife poaching and trafficking issues in Africa will be an advantage) by no later than 5 APRIL 2017 in an email marked “APPLICATION – POACHING & TRAFFICKING INVESTIGATION” to africa-china@journalism.co.za
• Proposals should contain the following:
  • Clear description of particular poaching and trafficking issue to be investigated (e.g. ivory, rhino horn, pangolins, donkeys, shark fin or abalone) and why it is critically important right now
  • Detailed methodology of how and where the issue will be investigated, along with potential connections to demand side in Asia. Also indications of how much (if anything) have been published on this issue on the supply side in Africa so far
  • Detailed, itemised budget with a total of up to US$2,000
  • Indication of where feature will be published (pereferably indicating partner media organisation in Africa)

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Africa-China Reporting Project (the Project) in collaboration with the Hong Kong-based news organisations HK01 and Initium Media.