FEMRITE Regional Residency for African Women Writers 2017

Application Deadline: 15th July 2017.

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be taken at (country): Kampala, Uganda

About the Award: The 10-day writing residency will take place, in Kampala, in February 2018. The 10 selected writers will re-work their submitted manuscripts, participate in peer reviewing of work(s)-in-progress, receive feedback from mentors, participate in a public reading, share information on writing, and work with selected schools to start reading and writing projects.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Any African woman writer who lives on the continent, is working on a novel or memoir manuscript, writes in English and hasn’t published more than one book, can apply.

Number of Awards: 10

Value of Program: The residency will cover your return air ticket, accommodation, and meals for the period of the residency.

Duration of Program: 10 days

How to Apply:  

1. An extract from a novel or memoir manuscript that you would like to re-work during the residency (Maximum 5000 words)
2. A short story for publication in the residency anthology (minimum 3000 words)
3. Biography (150 words or less)
4. A passport-size photo

Send the documents as Microsoft Word attachments. (Use Times New Roman, size 12, 1.5 spacing.)

Do not include illustrations.

FEMRITE will notify successful applicants by 30th August 2017.

For submissions or further inquiries, please send an email to info@femrite.org and copy to info.femrite@gmail.com.

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: FEMRITE, Swedish Institute

French Embassy Masters and PhD Scholarships for Tanzanian Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 28th May 2017

Eligible Countries: Tanzania

To be taken at (country): France

Fields of Study: The following sectors of study will be prioritised in the selection process : – Aeronautics – Digital (Information and Communication Technologies…) – Governance (Security, Peace…)

About the Award: As part of its scientific and higher education cooperation program, the Embassy of France to Tanzania offers scholarships to study in France at Master or Doctorate level. The scholarships are intended to give an opportunity to Tanzanian students to undertake specific courses of study related to their future professional activities in order to build capacity in Tanzanian organisations and add to the potential of Tanzanian learning institutions.

Type: Masters and PhD

Eligibility:  

• The candidate must be, on January, 1st 2017, less than 35 years old
• All applicants must have a clear professional project in Tanzania.
• The academic project of the candidate for his/her studies in France has to be clear, well-documented and relevant to his/her academic and professional background. All the master / PhD programmes available in France are published on the website of Campus France (link below)

Selection Criteria: The first selection criteria will be the excellence of the academic achievement. It will evaluated by the results obtained at university level (upper and second class minimum).

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Program:  The scholarship includes :

• International airfare between Tanzania and France, and travel costs in France
• Registration and tuition fees
• An allowance per month (rent not included)
• Social welfare, and repatriation insurance
• Support to pay for accommodation

Duration of Program: Master Scholarships cover 2 years of study.

PhD Scholarships cover 3 months of study in France per year during 3 consecutive years. The thesis defence imperatively has to be at the end of the last 3 months in France.

How to Apply: All applications will have to include the following documents :

• – The completed application form
• – CV – Reference letters
• – scan of the degree certificates specifying grades
• – scan of the passport or of a travel document – an electronic version of an ID picture
• – Copy of written exchanges with universities (proof of admission)
• – For degrees taught in French: certification justifying at least a B2 level in French
• – For PhD candidates one page on their subject of study and the thesis project accepted and signed by thesis director.

The applications have to be sent by email to scac.dar-es-salam-amba@diplomatie.gouv.fr with the following subject line: Bourse 2017 – Name SURNAME

If multiple emails are needed due to the size of the attached documents, kindly state the number of the email in the subject line after your name.

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: Embassy of France in Tanzania

Important Notes: Non French-speaking students have to make sure that the degree they apply for exists in English. Please refer to the list of programs taught in English.

Please note that applications that do not include a proof of admission by a French university will not be considered

University of Bradford International Academic Excellence Scholarships 2017/2018

Application Deadline: Monday, 5th June 2017.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): UK

Eligible Field of Study: All

Type: 

• Undergraduate
• Postgraduate taught

Eligibility: 

• Students from all other countries excluding EU countries and China will be automatically assessed for academic-related fee scholarships worth £2,500, £3,000, £3,500 or £4,000 based on your entry qualifications and nationality.
• Students entitled to the £3,000 or £4,000 fee scholarships can apply for one of our Half-Fee Academic Excellence Scholarships.
• Students on discounted partnership programmes are not entitled to this scholarship. The scholarship is only applicable to students who enter their programme in Year 0 or Year 1.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: 

Undergraduate entry

• Country equivalent of BBB at A-level will result in a £2,500 fee scholarship. The scholarship will be paid in subsequent years if progressing with an average of 50% or above. Students from one of the world bank countries with low or low/middle income will receive a £3,500 fee scholarship.
• Country equivalent of AAB at A-level will result in a £3,000 fee scholarship. The scholarship will be paid in subsequent years if progressing with an average of 60% or above. Students from one of the world bank countries with low or low/middle income will receive a £4,000 fee scholarship.
• Students entering in Year 0 (Foundation Year) can only receive the lower level academic scholarship of £2,500 or £3,500.

Postgraduate entry

• Country equivalent of 2:1 at degree-level will result in a £2,500 fee scholarship. Students from one of the world bank countries with low or low/middle income will receive a £3,500 fee scholarship.
• Country equivalent of first-class Honours at degree-level will result in a £3,000 fee scholarship. Students from one of the world bank countries with low or low/middle income will receive a £4,000 fee scholarship.

Duration of Scholarship: 1 year

How to Apply: These scholarships are automatically processed by the University and no separate application is required. The amount of scholarship that you are entitled to will be shown on your offer letter.

Although you may apply for more than one scholarship, you can only receive one scholarship from the University. The exception is that you can still receive the 15% Alumni discount(link below) and this scholarship. Students must be paying their own fees. Students in receipt of external funding e.g. chevening scholarships are not entitled to this award. This award is instead of the Country Specific Scholarship NOT in addition to it.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: University of Bradford

Ten dead in confrontation between civilians and the military in Puebla, Mexico

Alex González

A violent encounter between the military and alleged oil thieves left 10 dead and 12 wounded in the central Mexican state of Puebla last Wednesday. The following day, over 500 people took control of a major highway to demand the release of 13 individuals detained the previous day.

According to statements by the Secretary of Defense (Sedena), at approximately 8 p.m. on May 3 a local military unit was alerted to plans to steal oil from the state-owned oil company Pemex (Petróleos Mexicanos) in the town of Palmarito, Puebla. When they arrived at the scene, the ministry claims, the army was attacked by a group using women and children as “human shields.” Sedena claims another encounter took place at 10 p.m., when five vans drove by a stationed police car and opened fire against members of the armed forces. The clash left 10 dead, including six alleged oil thieves and four members of the military. One woman and one minor were among the dead.

This official story stands in sharp contradiction to the testimony of local townspeople. A woman designated as spokesperson for the town affirmed clashes began at around 5:30 p.m. when members of the military shot at peasants who were running away from a beehive, confusing them for huachicoleros (the name given to those who illegally siphon fuel from pipelines).

The military then violently entered Palmerito and opened fire against the population, while “taking men, women and children” prisoner. Local townspeople affirm one woman was killed on her way to buy tortillas and three minors were detained by the authorities.

The following morning, about 500 people blocked a highway between Puebla and Veracruz in protest against the military assault, carrying signs reading “Palmerito is in mourning. We want peace and tranquility” and “We want the people who were taken from us.” The protesters erected barricades and lit several tires on fire, producing smoke that could be seen for several kilometers. They issued demands for the armed forces to leave the area, and for the release of those who had been detained in connection to the prior day’s events, as well as for the return of the bodies of the six dead civilians. The protesters blocked the highway for five hours, after which they were forcefully dispersed by over 1,000 state police using tear gas.

Puebla is the third poorest state in Mexico, with two-thirds of its population, or 3.5 million people, living below the poverty line. According to the Secretariat of Social Development (Sedesol), over 45 percent of the population of Palmerito has not completed a primary education, and eight out of 10 people are living in poverty, including one out of four in extreme poverty.

Palmerito is in an area of high activity by huachicoleros known as the Red Triangle (Triángulo Rojo), which includes six Puebla municipalities, through which 40 percent of all oil that reaches Mexico City passes each day. According to Pemex, there have been over 17,000 cases of oil siphoning from January 2014 to February of this year, which has cost the government about 160 million pesos (about US$8.4 million). Pemex claims over 2,800 illegal oil taps occurred in the state of Puebla during this period, the highest in the country.

Pemex workers and local police are often complicit in the illegal oil tapping operations. Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an associate professor at the University of Texas, told the newspaper Periódico Central: “The illegal tapping cannot be perpetrated by drug traffickers alone. There must be people who worked or are working for Pemex. And with the express agreement of management, this is not a new development, but something that has been documented since [former Mexican president] Vicente Fox.” In a recent case, two out of the four huachicoleros detained by federal police on April 6 in Guanajuato were Pemex workers, while seven police were detained in Puebla last September for collaborating with the huachicoleros .

Andres Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), who is currently leading the polls for the 2018 Mexican presidential elections, spoke about the events a few days later and continued to claim he was against corruption in Mexico. “The huachicolero is not just about siphoning the pipes. They steal gasoline from the refineries, where there are pipes, and this has to do with the authorities. They are a huachicol, but a white-collar huachicol.”

On May 7, AMLO issued a call for the “left parties” in Mexico—including the Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD), the Workers Party (PT) and the Citizen’s Movement— to join forces with his party, Morena (Movement of National Regeneration), against the “corrupt parties.” For all his posturing as an enemy of the “mafia in power,” he neglected to mention that Eva Cadena, a Morena candidate in the state of Veracruz, was recently captured on video receiving over one million pesos (over US$52,000) from unreported sources on three separate encounters, allegedly to finance AMLO’s campaign and as payment for pushing a favorable law in the local congress. As for the PRD, it was recently revealed that its national president owns a $1 million luxury apartment in Miami.

While the Mexican government quickly mobilized to defend Pemex’s profits, its citizens continue to bear the cost of the 20 percent gas hike in January known as the gasolinazo. The price of a basic basket of goods increased by 8 percent in the month of April, and families in the lowest two deciles of earners now allocate over 80 percent of their income to food alone, compared to 10 percent for the wealthiest Mexicans. The unaffordability of gasoline sets the stage for the huachicoleros to sell it at cheaper prices on the illegal market while bringing in additional income for their impoverished communities.

The Mexican ruling class responded to the events in Palmerito by calling for the further militarization of the country. Enrique Ochoa Reza, the leader of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), quickly renewed calls for declaring an extraordinary session of the Chamber of Deputies to pass the Interior Security Law.

Among the events commemorating the 1862 Battle of Puebla, popularly known as cinco de mayo, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto spoke before the armed forces alongside the secretary of defense, the secretary of the marines, and the secretary of finance. He restated his commitment to “support them, protect them, and see that their dignity and rights are respected at all times.” Meanwhile, the governor of Puebla announced plans to deploy another two thousand military personnel, two helicopters, and armored vehicles to the state.

US auto profits soar as sales slowdown threatens more layoffs

Shannon Jones

Sales of US-based automakers declined again in the month of April continuing a four-month trend. After rising for seven straight years, car sales appear to have a hit a peak and are falling back, raising the prospect of significant layoffs.

Despite this both General Motors and Fiat Chrysler reported record profits in the first quarter of 2017, with GM earnings up 34 percent to $2.61 billion and Fiat Chrysler rising 34 percent to $698 million. Ford posted a 35 percent year-over-year decline, but still took in a hefty $1.6 billion.

Higher earnings are not translating into job security for production workers. General Motors has already carried out job cuts this year, including the elimination of shifts at its Lordstown, Ohio Assembly plant, Lansing Grand River and Delta Township factories and Detroit-Hamtramck facility. This week it is being reported that GM plans to slow down production at its Spring Hill, Tennessee manufacturing complex, raising the possibility of layoffs. The plant is currently running three shifts with some workers on seven-day, 12-hour schedules.

Ford has meanwhile announced production cuts at its Avon Lake, Ohio plant, which builds the F-650 and F-750 pickup truck. The company said it is eliminating 130 jobs and cutting production at the facility due to lower demand for the previously hot selling cargo vehicles.

Meanwhile, auto parts supplier Gestamp has announced layoffs. The Spain-based company is cutting 84 jobs at its plant in Lapeer, Michigan. The company builds metal stampings and assemblies and will phase in the cuts through July.

Industry-wide, US car sales came in at an annualized rate of 16.88 million vehicles, the second straight month where sales were below the 17 million level. Sales figures were in most cases significantly lower than earlier projections. General Motors sales fell 5.8 percent in April while both Ford and FCA reported sales down by 7 percent or more. Japanese automakers Toyota and Nissan saw their sales fall by 3.5 percent and 2 percent respectively. Honda’s sales fell 7 percent.

The surge in auto profits, despite declining sales, demonstrates once again the treacherous role of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which has helped the auto companies slash wages and benefits while increasing the number of low-cost temporary and part-time workers. The increased use of temporary workers sanctioned in the UAW sellout agreement in 2015 has allowed the Detroit automakers to slash jobs without paying out supplemental unemployment benefits (SUB). Further, the 2015 agreement removed the cap on lower-paid tier-two workers, whose SUB benefits are capped at 26 weeks and only provides 74 percent of their pay. The deal also permits additional overtime, allowing management to use existing workers to take up production shortfalls without re-hiring workers.

Altogether these measures mean that autoworkers are increasingly a disposable workforce. Unlike in previous downturns, there are few significant cost restrictions on the auto companies’ ability to slash jobs.

For its part the UAW has sanctioned layoffs, saying they are justified due to “market conditions.”

A tier-two worker at the Fiat Chrysler Jefferson Assembly plant contacted by the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter said, “They are increasing overtime. During our lunchtime, they can mandate two crews to work and we have one mandatory Sunday every month. At the same time, they have announced a one-month shutdown in July. We haven’t had a shutdown in seven years.”

She said that while some autoworkers may have initially had illusions in the Trump administration, with the recent spate of layoffs and the attack on health care being orchestrated by the US Congress, “at this point it is beginning to sink in that we are in danger.

“I don’t feel there is any real job security. We are basically being told by the UAW to look out for ourselves. Everyone knows they could be laid off any day.”

The slowdown in sales is being reflected in higher inventories of unsold cars, which now stand at a level of 75 days across the industry. A 60-70 day supply is considered normal.

For its part, GM had a 100-day supply of inventory on hand at the end of April, up from 98 days at the end of March. GM says it is stockpiling cars in advance of the closure of several plants later this summer for re-tooling. Nevertheless analysts say there are likely to be more temporary layoffs this summer, especially for plants that build slower-selling models.

One factor in the sales decline are rising interest rates. The average interest on new car loans rose above 5 percent for the second month in a row in April. There is also a shift in consumer preference away from smaller sedans toward light trucks and SUVs that generally cost more money. For example, sales of GM’s Chevrolet brand fell 10.4 percent in April and sales of its subcompact Chevrolet Sonic were down 67.8 percent.

However, the sales slump is hitting more popular brands too, with April sales of GM company’s top-selling Silverado pickup falling by 19.7 percent.

The market has been glutted with large numbers of previously leased vehicles being offered for sale. In addition, auto industry experts are concerned about the increase in the number of sub-prime auto loans and the rise in the number of past due loans.

The New York Times quoted a manager at a Honda dealership in Massachusetts who said, “The market is tapped out. It is no longer expanding at the rate manufacturers thought it would.” He said rising consumer sentiment “hasn’t translated into what’s happening in dealerships where we are trying to sell cars.”

Despite its surge in profits, GM’s stock values have been relatively flat over the past year. Neither has the recent multi-billion-dollar stock buyback program instituted at the insistence of major shareholders led to higher share values. In fact, auto start up Tesla Motors, which builds fewer more than 100,000 electric vehicles per year, has a market capitalization of $49.3 billion, larger than Ford and nearly on a par with GM’s $50.87 billion.

This has led to calls for a stock reorganization at GM to funnel even more cash into the pockets of wealthy investors regardless of its impact on the overall financial health of the company. General Motors has already put billions into the pockets of investors through increased dividend payouts.

However, hedge fund Greenlight Capital, which owns over 2 percent of GM stock, wants the company to implement a dual stock plan. Under this arrangement some stock would be dividend paying and the rest “growth” stock. GM management has opposed the proposal saying it would undermine the company’s credit rating. UAW executives who control the largest ownership stake in GM, through union-controlled retiree health funds, have not commented on the dispute yet.

NATO requests UK troops for US-led surge in Afghanistan

Paul Mitchell 

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met UK Prime Minister Theresa May in Downing Street yesterday to discuss sending more British troops for a proposed surge in the 13,000-strong Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan.

Although the British combat mission in Afghanistan—which cost 456 lives— ceased in 2014 there are still about 500 military personnel training and advising security forces fighting the Taliban.

Stoltenberg’s visit came as US President Donald Trump approved a plan to deploy as many as 5,000 additional US troops alongside the 8,400 already in Afghanistan. Trump is demanding that America’s NATO allies contribute more than the 5,000 they have there. According to various sources, a formal request for more troops has been made to the UK without the numbers involved being made public.

NATO hopes to finalise numbers at a summit meeting of leaders in Brussels on May 25.

A NATO press release declared the Brussels meeting “comes at a time when the Alliance continues to adapt to the most serious challenges in a generation, with the biggest reinforcement of NATO’s collective defence since the Cold War and increased efforts to project stability beyond the Alliance’s borders.”

After his talks with May, Stoltenberg made a lengthy statement declaring, “When it comes to burden sharing, the UK is leading by example, investing two percent of GDP in defence, but also by providing capabilities and contributions to NATO missions and operations.

“The UK is leading our multi-national battle group in Estonia, leading our high readiness joint task force, and also providing planes to our air-policing mission in the Black Sea region.”

Stoltenberg lavished praise on Theresa May’s Conservative government for her commitment to “defence.” Speaking along Stoltenberg, May said, “I would like first of all to reaffirm the commitment the UK has to NATO... Obviously we’ve got at the moment a number of commitments—nearly 1,000 troops in Estonia and Poland, the RAF Typhoons in the Black Sea as part of that project there.”

Stoltenberg said that NATO members, after many years of decline, “are now following” the UK example.

The Stoltenberg-May talks confirm the assessment of the WSWS that behind the official reasons given for the calling of a snap general election—to strengthen May’s mandate for negotiating the terms of Britain’s leaving the European Union (EU)—is an undeclared aim of furthering the UK’s war agenda in alliance with US imperialism.

The placing of British imperialism on a war footing is also confirmed by the despatch of dozens more troops to its former colony of Sudan—boosting the 200-strong deployment already there. The aim is to increase the number of troops to around 400.

The deployment to Sudan follows the Guardian ’ s revelation last week from a “Whitehall source” that “The government is considering holding a vote to expand military action in Syria if the Conservatives win a big enough majority in the general election.” As in Afghanistan, such moves are primarily aimed at countering increasing Russian influence.

There has been a continuous loss of territory to insurgent forces in Afghanistan—the Taliban claims to fully control 34 of the country’s 349 districts and is fighting over another 167. Some 3,000 Islamic State (ISIS) fighters have gained a foothold in the country. Fatalities amongst Afghan troops soared by 35 percent last year to 6,700 deaths—three times that of US forces during nearly 16 years of the US occupation.

In April, Trump’s national security adviser, Gen. H.R. McMaster and US Defence Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis travelled to Afghanistan in an attempt to stem the crisis following high-profile attacks.

The prospect of a strategic defeat in Afghanistan is increasing US tensions with Russia. American officials are ramping up accusations that the government of Vladimir Putin is supporting and arming the Taliban to undermine the Kabul government and the US position in the country.

This is part of a general Russia-baiting campaign in the US, which has led to demands by the Democrats for the appointment of a special prosecutor or independent commission to investigate charges of collusion between Trump’s key personnel and the Russian government during the 2016 election campaign.

This has already succeeded in pushing the Trump administration into a more confrontational foreign policy in Syria, Central Asia, North Africa and Eastern Europe, where US imperialism regards Moscow as its principal opponent.

The head of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, has labelled Russia a “malign influence” in Afghanistan. Mattis declared, “We’re going to have to confront Russia… For example, any weapons being funnelled here [Afghanistan] from a foreign country would be a violation of international law unless they’re coming through the government of Afghanistan for the Afghan forces, and so that would have to be dealt with as a violation of international law.”

Russia has rejected the accusations, saying that following the failure of the US to establish peace talks, it is intervening to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for ISIS and preventing its expansion into neighbouring Central Asia and then Russia.

On April 14, Russia sponsored a third conference including China, Iran, India, Pakistan, Central Asian states and the Afghan government—to discuss peace negotiations with the Taliban, which Russian officials readily admit they have been in contact with. The US and its NATO allies boycotted the talks.

Russia’s courting of Pakistan, whose influence in Afghanistan the US has tried to contain, is of major concern to Washington. Last September, Russian and Pakistani special forces conducted their first-ever joint military operation in Pakistan. On April 27, Minister of Defence Khawaja Asif met with his Russian equivalent, Sergei Shoigu, in Moscow and called on Russia to lead a stabilisation process. This strategy, they agreed, had to involve all the participants in the conflict.

The dropping by the US—on the eve of the Russia-led talks—of the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, purportedly to destroy a small group of ISIS militants in eastern Afghanistan, was clearly aimed at intimidating its rivals. Washington does not intend to allow an end to the Afghanistan conflict on terms other than its own. Central to its strategy is the retention of strategic bases within close striking distance of Iran, China, South Asia and Russia itself.

In response to the May-Stoltenberg meeting, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn declared that “at the end of the day wars are not solved by the presence of foreign troops” and a political solution to the violence was needed. However, he spoke out of both sides of his mouth, adding that he would “look at” any request for more troops. That he would also accede to any such request is clear from his record of kowtowing to the pro-war Parliamentary Labour Party.

Within weeks of being elected leader in September 2015, Corbyn granted a free vote to Labour MPs in support of UK bombing raids on Syria. In the December 2015 parliamentary debate on authorising UK’s bombing on Syria—which overturned a 2013 vote against air strikes—Corbyn allowed his warmongering Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn the right of replying to the government. Benn spoke in support of bombing, leading 66 Labour MPs in doing so, handing then Prime Minister David Cameron the convincing majority he needed to begin air strikes within hours.

US-Turkish tensions mount over plan to arm Syrian Kurdish militia

Bill Van Auken 

The US announcement that President Donald Trump has given his authorization for the direct US arming of the Syrian Kurdish militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), was met with heated protests from the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is set to visit the White House next week.

The Pentagon has determined that the YPG represents the only local force that can serve as a credible US proxy on the ground in Syria in the bid to drive the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) out of the northern city of Raqqa. The US is opposed to the city being retaken by forces loyal to the Syrian government, which Washington has sought to overthrow, while the so-called Free Syrian Army that the CIA had backed in the war for regime change has been largely routed and is dominated by the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda and similar groups.

Previously, under the Obama administration, Washington had indirectly funneled arms to the Kurdish militia through the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, which includes the YPG and a far smaller Syrian Sunni Arab contingent. Hundreds of US special operations troops have also been deployed in Syria to provide assistance and training to the Kurdish militia.

Under the new plan, the US military will ship small arms, ammunition, machine guns, armored vehicles and engineering equipment to the YPG, according to Pentagon officials. US Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the US military in Baghdad, said that the weapons shipments had been pre-positioned and could be delivered to the Kurdish militia “very quickly.”

The position of the Erdogan government is that the YPG represents a branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged an on-again, off-again guerrilla war in Turkey itself for over three decades. Not only Ankara, but also Washington and the EU, have labeled the PKK as a “terrorist organization.”

The Turkish government fears that the crisis in Syria, which it played a major role in creating by backing Islamist “rebels” in the more than six-year-old war for regime change, will pave the way to the carving out of an autonomous Kurdish territory on its southern border. Erdogan ordered troops into Syria last year under the pretext of battling ISIS, but for the real purpose of driving a wedge between Kurdish cantons in the east and west of northern Syria.

More recently, on April 25, Turkish warplanes carried out airstrikes against YPG positions in northern Syria, killing at least 20 Kurdish fighters. Washington condemned the attack and responded by deploying hundreds of US troops equipped with Stryker armored vehicles to serve as a buffer between Turkish forces and the Syrian Kurds.

The level of tensions between Washington and Ankara found expression last week when Turkish presidential adviser Ilnur Cevik warned in a radio interview that if the YPG and its US special forces advisers “go too far, our forces would not care if American armor is there, whether armored carriers are there. ... All of a sudden, by accident, a few rockets can hit them.”

Erdogan, who is scheduled to arrive in Washington on May 16, said that Turkey’s “patience has ended” with the US decision to arm the YPG. “I want to believe that Turkey’s allies will side with us, not with terrorist organizations,” he said.

Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, told reporters during a visit to Montenegro Wednesday, “Both the PKK and the YPG are terrorist organizations and they are no different, apart from their names. Every weapon seized by them is a threat to Turkey.”

Meanwhile the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the main bourgeois opposition party, called for Erdogan to “reconsider” his trip to Washington, saying that the US decision had put Turkey in “a weak position.”

The humiliation of the Turkish regime over the Trump administration’s decision was compounded by the presence in Washington on the day of its announcement of Erdogan’s advance team, which included Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar, presidential spokesman İbrahim Kalın and National Intelligence Agency (MIT) chief Hakan Fidan. The three had held meetings with their US counterparts and Trump’s national security advisor, Gen. H.R. McMaster.

The Washington Post Wednesday quoted an unnamed Turkish official as saying that the officials delivered the “message to the Trump administration...that Turkey reserves the right to take military action,” while suggesting that airstrikes could be intensified.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis, who was in Turkey just days before the announcement of the decision to directly arm the YPG, dismissed the protests from Ankara. “We’ll work out any of the concerns,” he said during a visit to Lithuania. “We will work very closely with Turkey in support of their security on their southern border. It’s Europe’s southern border, and we’ll stay closely connected.”

The Wall Street Journal Wednesday provided a concrete indication of what Mattis meant by support for Turkish security. The US, the newspaper reported, is beefing up the capabilities of a so-called intelligence fusion center run by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies in Ankara “to help Turkish officials better identify and track the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.” The plan will reportedly double the capacity of the center, while providing drones and other US intelligence assets.

Thus, US intelligence will assist the authoritarian regime of Erdogan to hunt down and kill Kurdish militants in both neighboring Iraq and Turkey itself. There is every reason to believe that, once the Syrian Kurdish forces of the PYG have completed their mission in Raqqa, the same resources will be provided to go after them.

The Pentagon’s present reliance on the Kurdish militia against ISIS—itself a product of the US interventions in Iraq and Syria—is merely a temporary tactical initiative in the protracted and bloody campaign by US imperialism to impose its hegemony over the Middle East by means of invasions, bombing campaigns and wars for regime change.

US children’s suicide-related hospital admissions double in last decade

George Gallanis

New research indicates a devastating development amongst the most vulnerable section of society. The number of children and teens ages 5 to 17 hospitalized for suicidal thoughts or self-harm in the United States has doubled since 2008.

The finding are based on a study abstract titled, “Trends in Suicidality and Serious Self-Harm for Children 5-17 Years at 32 U.S. Children’s Hospitals, 2008-2015” prepared for presentation at the 2017 Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in San Francisco May 7.

Researchers sifted through administrative data from 32 children’s hospitals from around the country. All discharge diagnoses for suicidality or serious self-harm from emergency department and inpatient intakes were indexed between the years 2008 and 2015 for children between ages 5 and 17.

The results are staggering. Researchers tallied a total of 118,363 diagnoses for suicidality or self-harm from the 32 hospitals. They concluded that a doubling of such diagnoses took place over the study period, an increase from 0.67 percent in 2008 of all intakes to 1.79 percent in 2015.

Over half of those tallied, 59,631 patients, were 15- to 17-year-olds, with 43,682 patients, or 36.9 percent, comprising 12- to 14-year-olds. Moreover, 15,050 patients, amounting to 12.7 percent of the total, were children between ages 5 and 11.

The study also noted that the time of year could also affect when children felt suicidal or inflicted self-harm. The lowest occurrences for both diagnoses occurred during the summer months of June through August, with the highest happening during the spring, March through May, and the fall, September through November.

Dr. Gregory Plemmons, a leading researcher of the study and an associate professor of pediatrics at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, in Nashville, Tennessee, told CNN: “We noticed over the last two, three years that an increasing number of our hospital beds are not being used for kids with pneumonia or diabetes; they were being used for kids awaiting placement because they were suicidal. And it confirmed what we were feeling: that the rates have doubled over the last decade.”

As to why children commit or think about suicide, Plemmons said it was the “million-dollar question,” adding, “Family history of depression or suicide, family violence, child abuse, gay and lesbian youth, history of bullying—those are all risk factors that have been reported. We didn’t look at any of those specific factors in our study.”

While such factors undoubtedly play a significant role in the development of mental illness among America’s youth, they are further exacerbated by the capitalist system, which exploits the working class and savagely tears society apart into the haves and haves-nots.

For today’s youth, having been born in the past two decades means being raised in a world in which war has been waged on a daily basis. The study shows that young people are among the most vulnerable to this social crisis—facing an uncertain educational future and bleak job prospects—and are increasingly expressing their despair through suicidal thoughts and actions.

A CDC report published last fall found that US children ages 10 to 14 are now more likely to die from suicide than from auto accidents.

The desperation felt by youth is pervasive throughout American society. Recent research reveals swaths of the US population are plagued by mental illness and psychological distress. One report from the Psychiatrics Journal found that 3.4 percent of American adults, a total of 8.3 million people, suffer from “severe psychological distress” (SPD).

Another report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that 52,404 people in the US died from drug overdoses in 2015, stemming in part from psychological distress.

Anglia Ruskin International Excellence Scholarship for Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 14th July 2017

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): UK

Type: Undergraduate and Postgraduate taught

Eligibility:  Scholarships will be assessed based on the criteria below:

1. Academic qualifications – Students achieving the equivalent to a minimum of three A levels at B for Undergraduate courses or above or a 2:1 or above for Postgraduate courses will be considered
2. Your motivation to study at ARU and relevant extra curricula activity or work experience. This will be assessed from your personal statement

Number of Awards: 30

Value of Program: £3000

Duration of Program: 1 year

How to Apply: Complete application with all relevant supporting documentation to study a full time course at ARU submitted by the 14 July 2017

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: Anglia Ruskin University

Important Notes: Students achieving this award will be notified no later than the 31 July 2017. The awardees will be selected at the discretion of the International Admissions Team. Please also note that this scholarship can not be combined with any other scholarships or early payment discounts.

Bollywood in the Arab World

Vijay Prashad

Sitting in an al-Qaeda encampment in western Syria, the chief of this fighting unit asked about Hindi films. He was an aficionado and had many films downloaded on his laptop. It was his distraction from the perils of close combat. “Who is your favourite film star?” he asked casually. To fill the uncomfortable silence, he said: “Should I tell you my favourite?” It went on from there, a discussion of this film and that. It was surprising that many of these men — plucked from as far afield as North Africa and from Central Asia — enjoyed sentimental Hindi film songs.

In a quiet moment, away from the others, an Algerian man began to sing a song that was hard to identify. His accent was too strong and he had garbled the Hindi words. It took a while to figure out that he was signing ‘Jaane tu ya jaane na’ from Aa Gale Lag Jaa (1973). Sung by Kishore Kumar and starring Shashi Kapoor and Sharmila Tagore dancing in the snow, this song has a lovely catchy chorus. Few would argue that this movie and this song in particular would define Hindi cinema in the 1970s. In this remote camp of hardened fighters, an Algerian expatriate wanting to talk about a film that he knew only by the first two words of its hit song — Jaane Tu .

The NAM link

The Bangladeshi filmmaker Naeem Mohaiemen and this writer were recently in Algeria to shoot his new film that showcases the 1973 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meeting in Algiers. We travelled across the city, meeting a range of people and visiting the sites of that historical NAM meeting. It was at this conference that the Third World countries pledged to push for a New International Economic Order. The charismatic Algerian leader Houari Boumédiène urged the NAM members to be far more confrontational on the world stage against imperialism. Boumédiène backed the freedom fighters of his time, from the Palestinians to the South Africans. These were fighters from a different era, sharing only the gun with the al-Qaeda guerrillas along the western flank of Syria. The line that runs from people like Boumédiène to the al-Qaeda leader in Syria, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, is broken. Mr. Mohaiemen’s film will recover the period when that old order in the Third World began to fray and the current malignancies began to emerge.

Everywhere we went in Algiers, people would ask if we were Indian. Mr. Mohaiemen is used to this misidentification. He would correct people, but then — with a shrug — move on. It was common for people of a variety of ages to break into song — Jaane Tu . Those were the two words. They expect visiting Indians to know the rest of the lyric. The film is popular in Algeria, having been shown on state television from the 1970s to the present. There is, then, another thing that unites the al-Qaeda militants with the old revolutionaries of Algeria. Both have a thing for Bollywood films.

The young Algerian filmmaker Amine Hattou made a short film about three years ago called Nostalgic Laziness . This one-minute film is shot from the perspective of a man lying on a bed with a television set in front of him. You first see a news report of the Arab Spring protests, with the reporter commenting how Algerians — exhausted by their civil war in the 1990s — had no desire for an upheaval. The man changes the channel. Shashi Kapoor appears. He is singing “Aye mere bete sun mera kehna” from Aa Gale Laj Jaa . It is as if the syrupy nostalgia overcomes the political protest. The father tells the son to listen to him, a warning against chaos. Mr. Hattou is now making a full-length documentary called Searching for Janitou .

The line that runs from people like former Algerian leader Boumédièn, who supported freedom fighters, to the al-Qaeda leader in Syria, al-Golani, is broken

The Korea Crisis: Beyond the Smoke and Mirrors

THOMAS HON WING POLIN

Hong Kong.

Some outsiders to Asia are painting a skewed scenario of the current Korea tensions that casts China as co-villain (with the US), if not chief villain. This represents a serious misleading of what’s going on in Northeast Asia.

The real, core story here is not Donald Trump’s attention-grabbing aircraft carrier diplomacy, which is a headline-hogging sideshow that is not designed to result in war. The main story is the steadily worsening relationship between China and North Korea, which accelerated with Kim Jong Un’s rise to power five years ago and reached boiling point recently. Washington, of course, knows this and senses an opportunity to push through a decisive change in the geopolitical landscape of Northeast Asia. Trump is naturally trying to exploit it to maximum (US) advantage.

The two-giants-joining-to-bully-a-principled-midget narrative is an alluring one that also happens to be cock ‘n bull. Even more outlandish is the scenario favored in some leftist circles of “revisionist” China vs. “revolutionary” North Korea. Everyone in the real Asia knows that political ideology died long ago, in China and to a large extent even in North Korea. Lip service is paid while everyone goes about more mundane, practical pursuits. If any “ism” applies meaningfully in today’s Asia, it’s nationalism.

So what’s the story between Beijing and Pyongyang? Their traditionally strong ties are well known, forged in blood and from history. The bottom line is that if not for China’s critical contributions — including half a million PLA casualties during the Korea War — the DPRK wouldn’t even exist. Chinese throughout China, already dirt-poor after a century of war and upheaval, had to further tighten their belts for the war. The war had another fateful effect: preventing the complete unification of China. The PLA was about to cross the Taiwan Strait when the Korean War broke out. Beijing had to put on hold plans to reunite Taiwan, as all PLA troops in southern China had to be deployed to the Korean Peninsula. In the East Asian, Confucian mindset, that is the kind of debt you never forget, down through x generations.

Since the Korean War, China has continued crucial assistance and sacrifice for Pyongyang:

1) Food, fuel and fertiliser to DPRK over the years aggregating several billion USD. China has been the largest aid giver. The aid staved off many famines in North Korea over decades.

2) When China established diplomatic relations with South Korea in the 1990s, the Kim dynasty destroyed graveyards and even dug up graves where PLA soldiers killed in the Korean War were buried.

3) The DPRK deliberately sited nuclear facilities close to the Chinese border. Each time there is a nuclear test, it sets off a minor “earthquake,” destroying houses and forcing residents to evacuate.

4) In some years, half the grain production in northeast China was given as aid to North Korea.

5) Through the decades, Beijing constantly provided Pyongyang with diplomatic cover, the only major nation to do so, as well as security under its de facto nuclear umbrella. Whatever the prevailing smoke ‘n mirrors, the fact is this: The US has not attacked North Korea because that would mean crossing the thick, absolutely immovable red line that Beijing drew in blood in the early 1950s.

For China, perhaps the biggest liability of having Pyongyang as an ally is not even all the above. It is this: DPRK long provided the biggest single public pretext for the US Empire to surround China with weapons and troops in NE Asia, in a sustained containment drive that reached a climax with Washington’s “pivot to Asia,” starting 2011.

And what has the DPRK given China in return? Essentially, it served as a useful buffer between China and the US Empire’s military forces in South Korea. An exorbitantly expensive one.

For reasons best known to Pyongyang itself, that “protection” cost rose dramatically after Kim Jong Un’s ascension. The visible signs included Kim’s murder or purge of all senior people in his government known or suspected of being friendly to No. 1 benefactor China, including blood relatives. Unlike his father and grandfather, KJU never paid even a courtesy visit to Beijing since taking power. Most spectacularly, he had his half-brother Kim Yong Nam — who’d renounced politics and was under Chinese protection — killed when the latter was visiting Malaysia.

In the present crisis, knowing that his missile antics would allow the US to deploy THAAD as well as put extra diplomatic pressure on Beijing, KJU nonetheless went ahead — repeatedly. If China moved visibly to rein him in, Trump & Co. could all too easily portray China as joining their efforts to do the same, rubbishing China’s reliability as an ally and descrediting its independent, Third World credentials. That is already what Trump and his top officials have been doing.

There is a view that North Korea’s obsessive drive to develop nukes is aimed less at the US Empire than at creating trouble for China, perhaps in a bid for what Pyongyang sees as “independence” from both. Under the rule of Kim Jong Un, that once-outlandish view seems all too plausible.

Given all the above, no one should be surprised if China should seek to neutralize Kim Jong Un. That does NOT mean destroying or not continuing to protect the DPRK — far from it. If the high-risk scenario of KJU-neutralization should unfold, it will have little to do with Beijing “cooperating with” or “kowtowing to” the US-centered Empire. Instead, it will have everything to do with China’s own possibly too-toxic-to-save relationship with the incumbent representative of the Kim dynasty.

The Case For An Intellectual Discourse On Islam

Maryam Sakeenah

The righteous rage that boils over into lynchings, mobs, suspicions and allegations of blasphemy shows a loss of balance and rationality in our social behaviour. This is a disturbing truth that needs a serious collective introspection. Among other things, a lot of this (self) righteous rage is because of an inability and unwillingness to intellectually confront and address diversity, difference and dissenting opinions.

The religious discourse in our society is largely anti intellectual to the extent that even an intellectual approach to religion is sneered at as deviant, threatening and disrespectful. This simplistic, anti intellectual discourse is asserted by wielding power and instilling fear by religious leaders, and the use of threat and violence by those who lack the privilege of religious authority.

The decadence of religious discourse in this part of the world is rooted in the colonial past when the prestigious madrassah was systematically marginalized and disempowered as part of the colonial education policy of ‘schooling the world.’ The cornered madrassah took refuge behind a defensive, protectionist, insecure religious discourse, trying to hold on in a rapidly changing milieu. In an attempt at self preservation, this defensive discourse refused to engage and became airtight and obscurantist. This still characterizes the madrassah and those who emerge from the system: a stubborn refusal to intellectually engage with alternative discourses that the modern world is teeming with. But we cannot insulate our youth from the tide of intellectual assault from modern ideas and new patterns of thinking. There will be questions raised, and our refusal to engage or even bother with articulating responses will alienate thinking minds.

It is already happening at an ever-increasing rate. As a teacher on Islam, I have observed an incremental trend over the years, of skepticism among young people exposed to the kind of heavily Westernized modern education we have at private urban educational institutions. There are lots of questions as they encounter diverse patterns of thought. Unfortunately, answers through religion are most often not available, and even asking is often put down as impertinent. This produces a disenchantment with a faith that is unable to address critical and vital questions of the day. It is these disenchanted bright minds that possess social and cultural capital to make up the pool that supplies the academia, the media and the bureaucracy with fresh human resource. Hence this early skepticism which hardens into a strident secularism, filters into institutions of state and society, to be systematically wielded and exerted with power.

At the other end, this systematic empowerment of the secularized, socially privileged lot breeds frustrated rage in the conservative mind. The conservative mind is fiercely anti intellectual. This anti intellectualism takes any intellectual challenge as an audacious affront, a ‘conspiracy against Islam’- hence violence becomes the only ‘language’ to respond with.

These developments are ominous, and the cracks and gashes are already appearing, cutting across society, letting the red hot lava boil over. Unfortunately, few are cognizant of this and even fewer conscious of our responsibility to stem the process in our capacities. Any calls for a progressive Islamic discourse are put down with suspicion of hidden agendas. The truth is, developing a modern intellectual and philosophical Islamic discourse and mainstreaming it is nobody’s agenda but Islam’s own need. In fact, Islam has had progressive thinkers throughout its history. Being progressive is not deviance; it is an approach which makes human beings throughout time sift through all the narratives and reveal the essence in a way that is most relevant and applicable for their times.

In more open societies in the West, Muslim communities have no option but to engage and adapt, hence one sees an increasing realization of the need to come up with an intellectually robust spirituality that does not cave in or go berserk on encounter with difference. Thinkers and scholars like Tariq Ramadan, Yasir Qadhi, Omar Suleiman and Hamza Yusuf among others are rising up to the intellectual challenge Islam is faced with. Their fidelity to Islamic fundamentals and tradition makes their progressive voices credible and authentic.

An intellectual discourse on Islam should not be polemical but dialectical. It should be guided by Islamic tradition yet fully cognizant of influential modern and postmodern ideas. It should reflect an awareness of and respect for the diversity and pluralism within Islam and outside of Islam. It should be equipped with tools and methods for credible research and aim to mediate between ideas, creating common grounds. It should engage in a modern ijtehad with the traditional tools of Muslim jurisprudence, to address contemporary issues like homosexuality and the reconstruction of gender, new atheism, militant Islamism etc. Such a project must use the language, approach, style and tools most familiar to the modern mind. This will bring two great benefits: firstly, rescuing the skeptical modern Muslim mind from disenchantment by addressing critical questions. Secondly, mainstreaming an intellectual religious discourse which respects diversity and demonstrates to the mass Muslim mind that difference can be lived with and engaged with intellectually.

Religious scholars and intellectuals here need to realize the need to develop a new religious discourse that arms itself with reason, not fear and violence.