8 Apr 2017

The US attack on Syria: A prelude to wider war

Andre Damon

In the day that has passed since the United States carried out an unprovoked and illegal attack on a Syrian air field, it has become clear that this event is only the prelude to a much broader military escalation, with the potential for a direct clash with nuclear-armed Russia.
On Friday, the US media and political establishment, as if with one voice, not only applauded Trump’s action, but called for its expansion. Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton declared, “It is essential that the world does more to deter Assad from committing future murderous atrocities.” The day before the attack, Clinton called for bombing Syrian airfields and reiterated her support for setting up a no-fly zone, which top US generals have said would lead to war with Russia.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi praised Trump’s move, while calling on Congress to pass a new authorization for the use of military force to give further action greater legitimacy. Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham released a statement calling on Trump to further escalate the war in Syria. Trump must move to “take Assad’s air force…completely out of the fight,” they wrote, and create “safe zones” in the country, which would entail the deployment of substantial numbers of ground troops.
The delusional and warmongering mood in the media was summed up by MSNBC commentator Brian Williams, who absurdly cited lyrics from Leonard Cohen: “I am guided by the beauty of our weapons.” He was so transfixed by the “beauty” of the Tomahawk missiles that he repeated the word three times. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria proclaimed that with the launching of the airstrikes, “Trump became president of the United States.” 
All of these statements were underpinned by a universal acceptance of the transparent lie that the strikes were in response to allegations that the Syrian government, with the support of Russia, used chemical weapons on Tuesday against the village of Khan Sheikhoun. The Syrian government’s denial of responsibility was dismissed, and the fact that US-backed forces have used such weapons in the past and blamed it on the government simply ignored. 
As for the blatant illegality of the US attack on Syria, this was treated as a nonissue. At Friday’s UN Security Council meeting, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations called the strikes a “flagrant act of aggression,” in violation “of the charter of the United Nations as well as all international norms and laws.”
In response, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley simply declared, “When the international community consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times when states are compelled to take their own action.” In other words, the US reserves to itself the right to wage aggressive war against any country it chooses, whatever the pretext. 
This line was echoed in the media, with Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, the eternal propagandist of “humanitarian” war, declaring, “President Trump’s air strikes against Syria were of dubious legality… But most of all, they were right.”
To understand the real motivations behind the airstrikes on Syria, it is necessary to place them in a broader historical context. 
The United States has been continually at war for over a quarter century. In each of these wars, the US government claimed that it was intervening to prevent some imminent catastrophe or topple one or another dictator.
In 1991, the US invaded oil-rich Iraq, nominally to stop atrocities planned by the Iraqi military against the population of Kuwait. Then came the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, nominally to prevent ethnic cleansing by President Slobodan Milosevic. 
In 2001, the Bush administration invaded Afghanistan, based on the false pretext that the Taliban was harboring the perpetrators of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Next came the second invasion of Iraq, justified by false claims that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed “weapons of mass destruction.” 
Under Obama, the US bombed Libya and had its Islamist proxies murder President Muammar Ghadaffi after claiming that his troops were planning to carry out an imminent massacre in Benghazi.
In all of these wars, humanitarian pretexts were employed to carry out regime-change operations in pursuit of the United States’ global geostrategic interests. They have resulted in the deaths of more than a million people and the destruction of entire societies. In the effort to reverse the long-term decline of American capitalism, the US ruling class has bombed or invaded one country after the next in regional conflicts that are rapidly developing into a confrontation with its larger rivals, including China and Russia.
Now, once again, the American people are expected to believe that the US is launching another war to save, in the words of Donald Trump, “beautiful babies.”
In relation to Syria, the horrific bloodshed and refugee crisis are the products of a five-year-long CIA-stoked civil war aimed at bringing down the government of Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran and Russia. In 2013, allegations of a chemical weapons attack falsely attributed to the Syrian government were used to demand airstrikes. The Obama administration ended up backing down, confronting broad popular opposition and the unexpected defeat in the British parliament of a resolution authorizing military intervention.
Dominant sections of the military and political establishment, however, considered Obama’s agreement with Putin to be a terrible climbdown, a loss of face that had to be reversed.
In the months since Trump’s election and inauguration, the Democrats’ accusations that he was a “Siberian candidate” and a “Russian poodle” were aimed primarily at forcing a more aggressive policy in Syria and against Russia, in line with the demands of the CIA and military establishment.
The partial resolution of the bitter conflict within the ruling class over foreign policy does not mean that the US will not also escalate military intervention in Trump’s preferred region for military intervention, Asia. NBC News carried a prominent segment Friday evening reporting, “The National Security Council has presented President Trump with options to respond to North Korea’s nuclear program—including putting American nukes in South Korea or killing dictator Kim Jong-un.” Any such action could quickly develop into an all-out war in the Asia Pacific. 
What is perhaps most striking is the indifference of the political establishment and media to public opinion. The propaganda is so blatant, so repetitive, it is as if they are operating based on a script—which they are. Broad sections of the population largely take it for granted that the government is peddling falsehoods. 
Through the operations of the Democratic Party and its organizational affiliates, however, mass opposition to war has been politically demobilized. There remains a gulf between the level of consciousness of broad masses of the population and the extreme danger of the world situation. This must be reversed, through the systematic and urgent development of a mass political movement of the working class, in opposition to imperialist war and its ultimate cause, the capitalist system.

7 Apr 2017

United Nations Development Group (UNDG) Data Visualization Contest for Data Analysts 2017

Application Deadline: 30th April 20017
Eligible Countries: All
To be taken at (country): Online
About the Award: The UNDG Transparency Portal displays data from UNDG members that are currently publishing to International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) standard. The objective of publishing to IATI standard is to improve the transparency and openness of aid, development, and humanitarian resources in order to increase their effectiveness in tackling poverty.
You can create a data visualization across any theme, country or region that combines UNDG data (through the UNDG Transparency Portal) to other agency datasets such as World Bank and Human Development Report data. Examples of datasets that can be used for this contest include, but are not limited to:
UNDG Transparency Portal (mandatory)
World Bank Data
UNDP Human Development Report
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Indicators Global Database
Preference will be given to visualizations that highlight new trends and insights into the sustainable development goals and indicators.
Type: Contest
Eligibility: Develop a summary of your data visualization that explains:
  1. Choice of topic/theme
  2. How the dataset was obtained and sources
  3. Any cleaning, parsing, and analysis you performed on the dataset
  4. How data visualization improves/highlights a new understanding of the topic
  5. Any conclusions or inferences that can be made from the data visualization
The summary should not exceed 500 words and must be in English.
Selection Criteria: Each visualization will be judged based on the following criteria:
  1. Creativity and aesthetics of visualization(s)
  2. Effectiveness to transform underlying data into insight
  3. Utility of the data visualization to inform decision making
Judges will include UN program experts, data scientists, and UN member state representatives.
Number of Awardees: Not specified
Value of Program: Winning entries will be given a certificate of participation from the United Nations Development Operations Cooperation Office on behalf of the United Nations Development Group. Prizes for winners include one of the following:
  1. Prize: One year free subscription to Tableau Professional (worth $1,499);
  2. Prize: Up to $500 cash prize towards an educational opportunity or
  3. Prize: Presentation of your visualization at the Transparency Portal launch event organized at UN Headquarters
Winning entries will be advertised on various portals. These portals are listed in the Program Webpage (Link below)
How to Apply: To create a visualization using Tableau:
  1. Download Tableau Desktop Profession, the product used by authors to create and publish dashboards. Tableau Desktop is available for both iOS and Windows PCs.
  2. Use the special key below provided by Tableau exclusively for the UNDG contest to activate the software.
  3. This key is valid till April 30thLicense Key: TD3L-A0F9-95C0-607A-6DCA
  4. Create an account on Tableau Public  to publish your final Dashboard submission: https://public.tableau.com/s/ 
  5. Once a dashboard has been published, it is accessible via a web browser.
  6. Need inspiration or want to see the art of what’s possible?  Check out the Tableau Public Gallery https://public.tableau.com/s/gallery
To create a visualization through other means, publish it at a link and follow the guidelines below to submit your work.
All participants must submit an online web-based visualization.
The link to your online visualization must be submitted here
Award Provider: United Nations Development Group (UNDG)
Important Notes: Please note that visualizations can be changed/edited before the deadline.

CARTA PhD Fellowships for African Researchers 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 1st May, 2017 
Offered annually? Yes
Eligible Countries: All African countries
To be taken at (country): Below is a list of Universities and host countries
Participating African Universities:
  1. Makerere University, Uganda.
  2. Moi University, Kenya.
  3. Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria.
  4. University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
  5. University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
  6. University of Malawi, Malawi..
  7. University of Nairobi, Kenya.
  8. University of Rwanda, Rwanda.
  9. University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.
Participating Research Institutes:
  1. African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), Kenya.
  2. Agincourt Health and Population Unit, South Africa.
  3. Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), Tanzania
  4. KEMRI/Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kenya.
  5. INDEPTH Network
Northern Partners:
  1. Brown University, USA.
  2. Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research (CCGHR), Canada.
  3. Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), Switzerland.
  4. Umeå University, Sweden.
  5. University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
  6. University of Warwick, UK.
Eligible Field(s) of Study: Public and Population health related fields such as public health, demography, anthropology, communication, and economics.
About the Award: 
CARTA is currently offering a collaborative doctoral training program in public and population health. This program has been developed in response to the great challenges faced by Africa’s institutions of higher education in addressing the training and retention of the next generation of academics in the region. Women are particularly encouraged to apply.
Specifically, CARTA seeks to fund candidates who will be future leaders in their institutions; that is, young, capable, and committed individuals who, in time, will ensure that their universities will be the institutions of choice for future generations of academics and university administrators wishing to make a positive impact on public and population health in Africa.
Successful applicants will attend CARTA’s innovative series of Joint Advanced Seminars (JAS) for cohorts of doctoral students admitted and registered in the participating African universities. Both the development and delivery of these courses are jointly-led by regional and international experts. The seminars consist of didactic sessions, discussions, demonstrations, and practice labs. These activities collectively serve to:
  1. Expose students to key theories and concepts, seminal readings, and research methods of disciplines relevant to public and population health;
  2. Train students in critical research skills; and
  3. Build and maintain a network of researchers for scientific collaborations, professional support, and mutually beneficial exchange of scientific resources
Type: PhD Research Fellowship
Eligibility:
  • Male applicants must be under the age of 40 years and female applicants under the age 45 years.
  • A Masters degree in a relevant field.
  • Prior admission into admission into a PhD program is not required for application but awards are contingent on such admission being obtained at one of the participating African universities.
  • Applicants for this program must be teaching or research staff at one of the participating African institutions and should be committed to contributing towards building capacity at their institutions.
  • Applicants’ PhD research proposal must be related to public and population health.
  • Fellowships are only open to people who have not yet registered for a PhD or are in the very early stages (first year) of the PhD program.
  • Applicants must commit to participation in all four annual residential Joint Advanced Seminars (JASes), and to engage in inter-seminar activities designed to keep fellows actively engaged and in continual communication with peers and mentors.
Number of Awards: Up to 25 PhD fellowships
Value of Award: Value of fellowship includes the cost of fellows’ participation in the advanced seminars; a modest monthly stipend; small grants for research activities; a laptop loaded with relevant software; funds for travel to conferences, as well as costs for participating in joint program activities. Fellows are encouraged to seek supplemental funding to cover additional costs of their doctoral program.
Duration of Scholarship: Four (4) years
How to Apply:
  1. Contact the CARTA focal person) at your institution to discuss your interest and obtain application materials. Application forms may also be downloaded from the CARTA website (www.cartafrica.org)
  2. Submit your application to the local CARTA committee in your institution (also email a copy of all application materials to (carta@aphrc.org ), which will conduct the initial screening process and submit successful applications to the CARTA secretariat. The deadline for submissions is May 1, 2017.
  3. If successful at the university selection level, the CARTA secretariat will inform and contact you to proceed to the next level
  4. Successful applicants at the university selection level will be expected to:
  • Complete an online-based pre-JAS, Part I tasks
  • A competency course (May 15, 2017 – June 15, 2017)
  • Send a full application to the CARTA secretariat.  The deadline for submission of the full application is June 15, 2017.
Final fellowship decision, which is independent of the university application, will be communicated by CARTA secretariat by November 1, 2017.
Award Provider: The Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa

Government of the Slovak Republic Scholarships for International Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 30th May, 2017.
Eligible Countries: All Slovak partner countries
To be taken at (country): Government of the Slovak Republic
About the Award: Slovak government scholarships, under OECD-defined conditions for conducting official development assistance, include awarding the Slovak government scholarship to persons with Slovaks Living Abroad status.
Slovak government scholarships have long been a part of Slovakia’s official development assistance, which itself is a programme and project activity of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs within the international community. Act No. 392/2015 Coll. on Development Cooperation and on amendment of certain acts and Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport Decree No. 50/2016 defining the details of awarding government scholarships entered into force on 1 January 2016. The Slovak government adopted the Medium-Term Strategy for Development Cooperation of the Slovak Republic for 2014 – 2018 and the Objectives of Bilateral Development Cooperation of the Slovak Republic 2017, which committed the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic in Section B.1 of Slovak Government Resolution No. 83/2017 to deliver on the objectives of bilateral development cooperation by awarding government scholarships.
Type:  Government scholarship. Research
Eligibility: A government scholarship may be awarded to a national of a partnering country who
a) has
  1. temporary residence for the purpose of studies,10)
  2. temporary residence as a third party national granted Slovak Living Abroad status,11) or
  3. the right to stay on the territory of the Slovak Republic for a period in excess of three months,12)
b) is
  1. a full-time student at a public university located in the Slovak Republic in one of the academic programs contained in the notice defined in Subsection 2 who demonstrates command of Slovak at the level required by the given public university, or
  2. a participant in language education for the purposes of university studies (“language education”)
and c) as of 1 September of the year in which the application for a government scholarship is submitted,
  1. is at least 18 years of age and not more than 26 years of age with respect to language education for studies of a first-level or second-level academic program or an academic program combining first and second-levels or studies in such an academic program or
  2. is at least 23 years of age and not more than 35 years of age with respect to language education for studies of a third-level academic program or studies in such an academic program.
Number of Awardees: Not specified
Value of Scholarship: This scholarship offers students monthly scholarship and stipends
Duration of Scholarship: A government scholarship is awarded a) over the standard duration of studies in the given academic program, b) for ten months in the case of language education, c) during the months between the completion of language education and registration for studies in the given academic program or between the end of studies in one academic program and registration for studies in another academic program, if 1. the participant in language education completes language education or a student completes studies
How to Apply: The deadline for submission of online application form is available on the website: www.vladnestipendia.sk
Award Provider: Government of the Slovak Republic

U.S.-Egypt Higher Education Initiative (HEI) Scholarships for Egyptian Students 2017

Application Deadline: 15th June 2017 11:59pm (GMT)
Eligible Countries: Egypt
To be taken at (country): Egypt and USA
About the Award: The USAID-funded Public University Scholarships program through the U.S.-Egypt Higher Education Initiative is a scholarship for high school graduates to attend excellence programs at public universities in parallel with specially-designed supplementary enhancement activities such as English, leadership training and career planning, as well as internships, community service, and study abroad.  The program will interweave the private sector and practical experiences so that graduates are primed to enter and contribute to the workforce in Egypt, in sectors that are critical to the economic development of the country.
Field of Study: Interested applicants will be required to study in the fields that are crucial in building the future economy of Egypt (Engineering, Commerce, Nursing, Science, Information Technology, Agriculture, Law, Mass Communication, Education and Economics).
  • There are limited opportunities for faculty of commerce, (Priority for students of Arts section)
  • Applicants for faculty of Agriculture will have priority.
Type: Undergraduate
Eligibility: 
  • Egyptian young men and women enrolled in Thanaweyya Amma in government schools including STEM schools.
  • Student achievers in their first and second secondary results.
  • Participated in community activities.
  • Includes scholarships specifically for disabled applicants.
Number of Awardees: Not specified
Value of Scholarship: Costs covered by the scholarship: (tuition fees, books, laptop, enhancement courses on basic skills, accommodation, and transportation). Also,
  • Intensive English and study skills program
  • Leadership, character building, and business development training
  • Mentoring and networking activities
  • Internship and summer training in field of study
  • Semester / Study summer at a univeristy  abroad
  • Support at job search and placement after graduation
Duration of Scholarship: 4 years
How to Apply: You can apply using the online application here FREE of charge, which requires you to provide information about your studies, background, personal information and preferred fields of study.
Award Provider: The Higher Education Initiative (HEI) Public University Scholarships is administered by AMIDEAST and Etijah.

Thomson Reuters Elections Reporting Program 2017 for African Journalists. Fully-funded to Nairobi, Kenya

Application Deadline: 1st May 2017
Eligible Countries: Kenya, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Somaliland, Cameroon, Madagascar, Mauritania, and Zimbabwe.
To be taken at (country): Nairobi, Kenya
About the Award: The programme will provide skills, tools and resources on fact-checking in an African context. It will look at how to develop and integrate evidence-based election coverage into existing newsrooms, and how to make information engaging for an audience that might be fed up with the campaign.
In an era of “post truth”, fake news and propaganda, fact checking is more important than ever. Citizens need access to reliable news, based on evidence – particularly during election campaigns, when the news agenda is dominated by claims, promises and accusations made by politicians and the candidates vying to replace them.
However, providing quality, fact-checked coverage of an election can be a challenge when newsrooms have limited resources and are under pressure from increasingly short deadlines. Professional media may also have to contend with a growing lack of transparency from government sources, and compete with unregulated “information sources” on social media.

Type: Training
Eligibility: 
  • Journalists and editors working for domestic media in African countries with elections coming up in the near- to mid-term (preferably in 2017 or 2018). These include, but are not limited to: Kenya, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Somaliland, Cameroon, Madagascar, Mauritania, and Zimbabwe.
  • You can be working in any medium – print, radio, TV, online
  • We are interested to hear from journalists or editors with the ability to change practice in their newsroom – for example by setting up standardised fact-checking processes
  • Applicants must be fluent in English
  • Applicants must have a minimum of one year’s experience. They should either be working full-time for a media organisation, or a freelancer whose main work is journalism
Value of Program: We will cover all transport and subsistence costs of journalists and editors participating in this programme.
Duration of Program: 5 days
How to Apply: When applying you will be asked to upload the following documents – please have these ready:
  •  2 relevant work samples (maximum file size 5 MB). For stories not in English, please include a 250-word English summary about the story. Editors may submit stories that they have edited and which exemplify the output of their team or newsroom.
  • A letter from your editor (if applicable) consenting to your participation in the programme and committing to publish/broadcast resulting stories or implement editorial projects.
If you have any difficulties applying, please email trfmedia@thomsonreuters.com.
Award Provider: Thomson Reuters Foundation

University of Hertfordshire Undergraduate and Postgraduate Scholarship for International Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline: Ongoing. Candidates will be notified by email by 1st August 2017 to let them know if they have been successful in receiving a scholarship award.
Offered annually? Yes
Eligible Countries: All international students outside Europe
To be taken at (country): United Kingdom
Brief description: The University of Hertfordshire, England is offering scholarships to international students outside the UK and EU.
Eligible Field of Study: Courses offered in the University
About the Award: The University of Hertfordshire, England is seeking to award exceptional undergraduates and new entrants scholarships to the tune of £1000 or £2000 towards course fees. The award amount will be deducted from candidate’s tuition fees and will only be granted for the first year of study. Candidates are advised not to fill any application form anywhere but to provide a strong personal statement while applying normally to the school.
Type: Undergraduate and Postgraduate Degree
Eligibility: 
  • Candidates’ applications will be assessed by the University scholarship team.
  • All candidates are classed as International students if they are from countries outside of the European Union.
  • All undergraduate and postgraduate International students may be eligible for the International Scholarship.
  • Scholarships will be assessed based on the strength of candidates’ personal statement.
  • Eligibility and funding amounts are assessed on a case by case basis which is dependent on course, application and country of application.
  • Students are only eligible to receive one scholarship award.
Number of Awardees: Not specified
Value of Scholarship: £1000 or £2000 towards course fees for the first year of study.
Duration of Scholarship: First year only
How to Apply: 
To make the process as easy as possible, there is no need to fill out an application form. Instead, candidates are advised to provide a strong personal statement within their course application which highlights:
  • interest in candidate’s chosen course.
  • motivation for candidate’s studies.
  • future career aspirations.
All applications will be assessed by the University’s scholarship team.
International students should apply for their chosen course through the normal application process.
Successful candidates will be notified after they have been offered a place at the University of Hertfordshire.
Award Provider: University of Hertfordshire,UK
Important Notes: 
  • Scholarships are awarded on a competitive basis so there is no guarantee that candidate will receive a Scholarship if they meet the minimum requirements.
  • The decision of the selection panel is final.
  • There is no right to appeal.
  • The University will not enter into individual correspondence with applicants during the selection process.
  • Only successful students awarded the scholarship will be contacted.
  • The scholarship is only valid for the intake (year and course) you have applied for.

African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) Masters and PhD Fellowships for African Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline:  12th May, 2017
Offered annually? Yes
Eligible Countries: AERC has received grants from the African Development Fund (the Bank) and the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), and intends to apply a portion of the proceeds of these grants to offer Masters and PhD Bridge Programme Fellowships to applicants from the following under-represented countries and groups:
  • Anglophone Countries: Eritrea,  Sierra Leone, Liberia, Lesotho, Somalia, South Sudan, Swaziland, The Gambia
  • Francophone Countries: Burundi, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo,  Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Togo
  • Lusophone Countries:  Angola, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique
To be taken at (universities): Partner universities
Fields of Study: Every year, AERC offers scholarships to students from sub-Saharan Africa, admitted into any of the following three training programmes, implemented in a collaborative framework with network and other partner universities:
  • The Collaborative Masters Programme (CMAP) in Economics, which spans departments of economics in 26 public universities in Anglophone Africa (excluding Nigeria);
  • The Collaborative Masters in Agricultural and Applied Economics (CMAAE) Programme, which is spearheaded by departments of agricultural economics in 17 public universities in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa; and
  • The Collaborative PhD Programme (CPP) in Economics, which brings together eight (8) participating universities in Anglophone and Francophone sub-Saharan Africa.
About the Award: Participants are expected to take up to eight weeks (two months) of intensive skill enhancement in the three courses (four courses for CMAAE) at a joint facility in Nairobi, Kenya, and to sit examinations during the final week of the programme. Students who successfully complete the bridge programme will form a pool to be enrolled into the CMAP, CMAAE and CPP, or the Francophone Nouveau Programme de Troisième Cycle Inter-universitaire (NPTCI) Masters Programme.
AERC training programmes have played a big role in producing a pool of better-trained economists in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa. However, there are countries and groups (including women and post-conflict and fragile states) that are under-represented in the research and training activities of AERC. This is due to participants from these countries and groups lacking requisite skills to effectively transit in AERC training programmes without cannibalizing on the high value these programmes have created over the years.
Type: Postgraduate (Masters and PhD) Scholarship
Number of Awardees: Not specified 
Eligibility: Since it is expected that students who successfully complete the bridge programme would enroll into CMAP, CMAAE, CPP or NPTCI Masters Programme, a key requirement for admission into the bridge programme is admissibility of the applicant into any of these programmes. Rules and regulations of the respective CMAP, CMAAE, CPP and NPTCI universities governing admission of students into the degree programmes shall, therefore, apply. However, the following criteria shall apply as a minimum requirement for selection of the Masters and PhD bridge programme students:
  • Applicants for the Masters bridge programme fellowships must have attained at least a second class honours (upper division) Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness Management and Agricultural Sciences or related field;
  • In addition to at least an upper second class (or equivalent) first degree in Economics, Agricultural Economics or related field, applicants for the PhD bridge programme fellowships must have a Master’s degree in Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics or related fields (with compulsory course work coverage of Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Econometrics/Quantitative Methods, and a research project/thesis component) from a recognized institution;
  • Applicants of either Masters or PhD bridge programme fellowships must be citizens of any of the under-represented countries listed in the table above; (iv) Female applicants are encouraged to apply
Duration of Fellowship: up to eight weeks (two months)
How to Apply: Interested applicants are required to submit their applications for bridge programme fellowship to the AERC Director of Training by attaching the following documents and sending them to following email address: training@aercafrica.org, copied to: tom.kimani@aercafrica.org and mark.korir@aercafrica.org:
  1. Application cover letter specifying which fellowship (Masters or PhD Bridge Programme you are applying for;
  2. Certified copies of transcripts and certificates;
  3. At least two original letters of recommendation from senior university academics who previously taught the applicant; and
  4. Curriculum Vitae;
The application letter should be referenced “Application for Masters/PhD Bridge Programme Fellowship.”
In addition, applicants are required to upload the above-listed application documents on to the AERC scholarship portal http://scholarships.aercafrica.org
Award Provider: African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Government of Kenya.

Is US Policy to Prolong the Syrian War?

Sam Husseini

Many are claiming that Trump is being inconsistent in illegally attacking the Syrian regime with cruise missiles.
After all, he had been saying the U.S. should focus on defeating ISIS, and now he seems to be going after Assad. But contradictions from Trump are a dime a dozen.
A closer examination shows a deeper pattern of remarkable consistency in U.S. policy toward Syria that is far more critical than the perennial contradictions of politicians like Trump.
To summarize U.S. actions and non-actions in terms of direct publicly announced U.S. air attacks targeting the Syrian regime: In 2013, when Assad was losing the war, Obama refrained from strikes that may well have ended his regime. Now, four years later, when Assad seems close to winning the war, Trump with a revamped NSC does a 180 on his previous pronouncements and attacks Assad.
Push away the personalities. Dispense with the rhetoric. Free yourself from the spin cycle that much of the media obsess over. Just follow the policy.
The evidence is that the underlying U.S. policy — whether the president is Obama or Trump — is to prolong the Syrian war as much as possible. Let Assad off the hook when he’s cornered, hit him when he’s about to win.
This would not at all be unprecedented. Through the 1980s, the U.S. backed both sides in the Iran-Iraq War, which resulted in horrific carnage. See Dahlia Wasfi’s piece from 2015 — “Battling ISIS: Iran-Iraq war redux” — which argued that “Obama’s unofficial strategy to fight ISIS may be that of Reagan’s for Iran and Iraq in the 1980s: a long, drawn-out war to strengthen U.S.-Israeli hegemony in the region.”
Since the Arab uprisings of 2011, we’ve seen a series of actions by the U.S. government and its allies and clients — from Israel and Saudi Arabia in particular — to ensure the destruction of secular, at times independent Arab governments.
Many obsess over “double standards” and apparent contradictions by Trump, Obama, Clinton and other political figures. But much of this analysis presumes that these political figures have stated what their actual goals are.
But a president can’t come forward and publicly say that the goal is the continuation of the war in Syria. That would be to embrace the carnage and suffering that the policy causes. The president can’t just say we’re in cahoots with the authoritarian Israeli and Saudi regimes to keep countries like Iraq, Syria and Libya in turmoil.
So, politicians claim they are acting to save human life or to stop weapons proliferation or whatever their pretext is. Then, because it’s not their actual reasons, people see what seem like contractions: “They don’t know what they’re doing!” “He’s such an idiot!” But they are not really contradictions, they just highlight that the stated goals are not the actual goals.
Except at times. Trump did say in a high profile debate in September, 2015: “ISIS wants to fight Syria. Why are we fighting ISIS in Syria? Let them fight each other and pick up the remnants.”
And this gruesome notion is occasionally brought up in the establishment media in more polite terms. In 2013, the New York Times reported on how Israel viewed the prospect of Obama bombing Assad’s forces:
Israelis have increasingly argued that the best outcome for Syria’s two-and-a-half-year-old civil war, at least for the moment, is no outcome.
[For the Israeli government], the status quo, horrific as it may be from a humanitarian perspective, seems preferable to either a victory by Mr. Assad’s government and his Iranian backers or a strengthening of rebel groups, increasingly dominated by Sunni jihadis.
“This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don’t want one to win — we’ll settle for a tie,” said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York. “Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that’s the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there’s no real threat from Syria.”
The synergy between the Israeli and American positions, while not explicitly articulated by the leaders of either country, could be a critical source of support as Mr. Obama seeks Congressional approval for surgical strikes in Syria.
This notion comes up occasionally.
It’s often claimed that “regime change” is the goal of the U.S., including by presumed critics of it. But that might be too simple of an explanation. After all, the U.S. government sometimes claims this is its goal. At times the goal may well be not “regime change” but No Regime.
Perhaps the U.S. establishments would like subservient leaders in Syria and Iraq and Libya. But these are significant counties with population, some resources and some capacity for independence. This is in contrast with Gulf sheikdoms and other monarchies like Jordan which are effectively client states of the U.S.
So, if permanent subservience is not possible, then a crippled country, with the possibility of dismemberment, is a fairly good option for those intent on ensuring U.S.-Israel-Saudi dominance of the region. At least for the time being.
Keep the fighting, keep the bleeding. Keep the people of the Mideast divided and fighting while the U.S. establishment solidifies its plans on how it will “pick up the remnants.”
The phrase “Deep State” has been in vogue of late, as if it’s an entity that Donald Trump were out to undo even as he empowers it. But what does that really mean? A bureaucracy, perhaps. But more than anything, I think it’s an articulation of policy that the U.S. government pursues that dare not speak its name.