RUFORUM-UTAMU Masters Scholarships for African Students 2018 – Uganda

Application Deadline: 10th October 2017

Eligible Countries: African students

To Be Taken At (Country): Uganda

Type: Masters

Eligibility: Applicants must:

• Write a research paper at the end of your Master programme as a key output and shall be recognized by RUFORUM
• Complete the programme within not more than 2 years.

Number of Awards: 10

Value of Award: The RUFORUM partial Scholarship will be for ONLY one year and will contain the following;

• Half Functional Fees for One year (amounting to 300,000/=)
• Tuition Fees for One year (amounting to 3,400,000/=). The first installment will be paid in Year 1 Semester 1 and the last installment to be paid in Year 2 Semester 1.

As a beneficiary of the partial scholarship, one will be expected to pay the following fees which are outside the offer:-

• Half Functional Fees for One year (amounting to 300,000/=)
• National Council for Higher Education fees (20,000/= per annum)
• Guild Fees (25,000/= per annum)

Duration of Program: 1 year

How to Apply: 

Option 1: Visit UTAMU Campus located in Plot 6, Erisa Road, Bugolobi, Kampala with all your academic documents and apply.

OR

Option 2: Apply Online: www.utamu.ac.ug/postgraduateform Attach all your academic documents and submit online.

OR

Option 3: Download an application form at; www.utamu.ac.ug, print out the form, fill the required sections, scan the document and send it back with all your academic documents OR come with the filled form and submit it to registry.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM)

Climate Change: The Catastrophic Impact on Developing Countries

Graham Peebles

The Paris Agreement on climate change, signed in November 2016, was the first time all the world’s nations (except Nicaragua and Syria) signed up to reduce emissions and cap man-made global warming.

Amongst a number of positive pledges made by governments a key agreement was the goal to limit the increase in the average global temperature to well below 2°C (above pre-industrial levels) and to aim for 1.5°C. The probability is that neither of these goals will be met; in fact a recent study conducted by the University of Washington, estimates there is a mere 5% chance of meeting the 2°C target, and states that, “The likely range of global temperature increase [up to 2100] is 2.0–4.9 °C.”

Another Trump Mistake

An important part of the Paris Agreement was a commitment to assist developing countries as they try to prepare for and mitigate the impact of rising global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere by industrialized countries.

In a somewhat optimistic statement after the Paris accord, UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa and Moroccan Foreign Minister Salaheddine Mezouar said, “Humanity will look back on November 4, 2016, as the day that countries of the world shut the door on inevitable climate disaster.” They went on to say that: “The Agreement is undoubtedly a turning point in the history of common human endeavor, capturing the combined political, economic and social will of governments, cities, regions, citizens, business and investors to overcome the existential threat of unchecked climate change.”

A step of huge significance then, not just in our approach to climate change, but in the development of a global sense of unity. And whilst little of substance has been done since the accord, it represented a major shift away from isolationism, nationalism and ideology towards collective responsibility and cooperative action.

The decision by President Trump not to implement the Paris Agreement violates this unifying act and is a massive mistake, one of many. It reveals how out of touch his administration and certain sections of US business are with the mood of the times and the majority of people around the world. His violent, irresponsible and ignorant action further isolates the US, and reinforces international feelings of anger and dismay at successive US government’s approach to global affairs and the destructive values espoused and exported by the Neo-Liberal ideologues that determine American government policy.

Michael Brune, from the US environmental group the Sierra Club expressed the view of many when he said that: “Donald Trump has made a historic mistake which our grandchildren will look back on with stunned dismay at how a world leader could be so divorced from reality and morality.” Trump has “shamelessly disregarded the safety of our families just to let the fossil fuel industry eke out a few more dollars in profits.” America is a significant source of financial and technological support for developing countries: this is also jeopardized by the decision to withdraw. The ambitions of many countries to reduce emissions are dependent on receiving international support, and lack of funds will impact on their ability to meet agreed targets.

By this decision the US, which is responsible for 15% of all carbon emissions, has made it more difficult to reach the goals laid out in the Paris Agreement and intensified the risks resulting from climate change. The results could well be devastating for the whole World (including America), in particular those countries in the front line of climate change, many of which constitute the poorest nations on Earth, are not the principle polluters, have little or no resources – socially, technologically or financially – to cope with the impact of increases in global temperatures and need the support of wealthier countries.

A World Bank report (Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty) states that climate change “threatens the objective of sustainably eradicating poverty”, and unless substantial worldwide efforts are made, more than 100 million people could be pushed back into poverty by 2030. Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, home to the poorest of the poor, are the regions that will be hit the hardest. Studies by the Bank show that climate change in these regions will result in increased agricultural prices and could threaten food security: it’s the same old story, the poor always suffer most, no matter what the threat is.

Over the next ten years, according to The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) “it is predicted that billions of people, particularly those in developing countries, [will] face shortages of water and food and greater risks to health and life as a result of climate change.” Concerted global action – not withdrawal from international agreements – is needed they state: “To enable developing countries to adapt to the effects of climate change that are happening now and will worsen in the future.”

The poor live in a state of perpetual uncertainty; one natural disaster can take away what little they have, destroying homes and livestock, bringing death and disease. Based on three reports, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast that a global temperature increase within the lowest targets agreed at Paris, of between 1.5ºC and 2ºC will have a devastating impact: reduced crop yields in tropical areas fuelling hunger, the spread of malaria and diarrhoea, and the risk of extinction of 20 – 30 per cent of all plant and animal species. By 2020, “Up to 250 million people in Africa could be exposed to greater risk of water stress,” and over the course of the century millions of people around the Himalayas and Andes will be at risk of bouts of flooding and drought as glaciers retreat or disappear.

Migration and agricultural degradation

Environmental changes have always fed global migration, but the impact of climate change on communities in developing countries could lead to the displacement of unprecedented numbers of people. This will impact on countries in neighbouring regions and the wider world and in turn affect the surrounding ecosystems.

The key cause of mass displacement due to climate change will come from sea-level rises — a rise of 17 – 19 cm in the next 40 years is likely, with many scientists projecting a one meter rise by the end of the century. In addition to small island states, Egypt, Bangladesh, Vietnam, India and China are countries most at risk, all have large populations and productive agricultural land in low-lying coastal areas. Higher temperatures (affecting agriculture), disruption of water cycles and increased intensity of storms are the other key factors that are set to drive people from their homes.

The Global Military Advisory Council on climate change states, somewhat alarmingly, that climate change could trigger a refugee crisis of “unimaginable scale”, and that mass migration will become the “new normal”. Major General Munir Muniruzzaman, a former general in the Bangladesh army and chairman of the military Council has told The Guardian that, “one meter of sea level rise will flood 20% of his nation. “We’re going to see refugee problems on an unimaginable scale, potentially above 30 million people.” This view was echoed by former US Secretary of State John Kerry when, in 2015 (and nothing has changed since then) he warned that with increased food insecurity and shortages of water, violent conflicts between tribal groups fighting for survival would erupt and mass migration would follow. Far from being fantastical or apocalyptic, the early signs of this vision are upon us: In Pakistan for example, – one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, floods during 2010 destroyed crops and forced 14 million people from their homes. But according to research conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute floods are not the biggest threat, it’s hot weather, ‘heat stress’, as it’s called, that drive more people from their homes, as it severely impacts on crop yields.

Climate change is upon us, is increasingly affecting weather patterns around the world, and if the World Bank report is correct, in the short-term – between now and 2030, there is little that can be done to reduce them; the only option for developing countries over the next 15 years or so they say, is to “reduce vulnerability through both targeted adaptation investments and improved socioeconomic conditions.”

There is an alternative way to ‘reduce vulnerability’ for the poorest people in the world, and that is by the rich nations sharing what they have, and what the Earth provides more equitably amongst everyone. Building sharing into the socio-economic model that determines peoples lives; sharing the food and water, the knowledge, skills, information and materials, technology and ideas, so that those with nothing do not suffer the most as a result of our collective poisoning of the world; contamination by the industrialized nations of the world, which has caused the greatest crisis humanity has faced and is already tearing at the lives of millions of the most disadvantaged.

The Decline of Human Intimacy in the Age of Mass Surveillance

LOUAI RAHAL

Capitalism and surveillance, two powerful sociological processes in today’s world, are invading more and more space in our personal lives. Both processes are continuously assaulting possibilities for intimate connections and replacing them with symbiotic, ephemeral, and dehumanizing forms of relations.

A lot has been written about capitalism and the commodification of relationships under capitalism. Žižek has talked about love becoming a commodity that we want to get rather than a process that takes labor and care; Norman Fairclough has written about the self-promotion discourse and how it makes us constantly promote ourselves as if we were a commodity; Erich Fromm extensively studied the modern individual’s obsession with owning and having at the expense of being and flourishing. Today, capitalism is no longer the only macro process conditioning our interactions; surveillance has emerged as another ubiquitous force that is found everywhere and that is affecting all aspects of our lives. This article explicates the detrimental effect of surveillance on possibilities for intimate and spontaneous human connectedness.

Surveillance and the gradual demise of privacy and intimacy

In order to develop a sense of connectedness, we develop intimate relationships. Intimate relationships, whether they are platonic or romantic are the source of our empowerment when we feel vulnerable, they provide us with a sense of groundedness and an experience of the world as a friendly and trustworthy place. These relationships take time and effort to develop and one of the essential processes required to form intimate relationships is self-disclosure. Self-disclosure refers to the process whereby two parties disclose to one another facts about themselves that they have kept private. Sprecher’s (1987) research on the impact of self-disclosure on romantic relationships found that “the amount of overall disclosure in the relationship was predictive of whether couples remained together over four years.” Walker and Wright’s (1976) research on self-disclosure in friendships found that “ the general level of friendship increased as a function of intimate and nonintimate self-disclosure; however, intimate disclosure produced greater increases in friendship than nonintimate disclosure.”

The importance of self-disclosure in the development of relationships highlights the importance of privacy. When nothing about us is private, when everything is known to everyone around us, there will be nothing left to disclose and intimate self-disclosure will become impossible. The organic relationship between intimacy, self-disclosure, and privacy has led philosophers to define privacy as the ‘moral capital’ of relationships: “You can think of privacy as ‘moral capital’. People use this capital to build intimate relationships. Taking away people’s privacy means taking away their moral capital. Without moral capital, they have no means to develop close personal relationships” (Quinn, 2015). What creates intimacy is the disclosure of what we have kept private.

Given how indispensable privacy is in forming intimate bonds, defending our privacy becomes equivalent to defending our rights to form intimate and authentic human connections. In today’s age of surveillance our privacy is under attack and our moral capital for relationships is slowly vanishing. It is now clear that governmental and non-governmental surveillance systems are eliminating our right to privacy. We are constantly being watched. Data about us is being produced every day and saved on computers in the headquarters of security and business organizations. If you live in the UK, all your online browsing history is being saved and kept track of by your internet service provider; this is what the Investigatory Power Bill is requiring internet service providers to do. A large number of organizations will have access to your browsing data, to every link that you click and every web page that you visit; the organizations are listed here.

Mass surveillance has taken a new unprecedented scale and it will take us time to absorb and understand how much of our lives is being observed and recorded. Both our online and offline activities are being watched: internet logs, microphones, television cameras, hidden cameras, police drones and many other tools are being used to record our activities. According to an introductory textbook on ethics in the information age, “it has been estimated that the average Briton is caught on camera an average of 300 times per day” (Quinn, 2015).

The use and misuse of surveillance data

Surveillance is not a new phenomenon, law enforcement and security institutions have always resorted to gathering data in ways that were found to infringe privacy; and these practices were justified by the need for data in order to efficiently and effectively prevent criminal activity. Data about citizen’s locations and activities can be helpful for security organizations and there has been major success stories of using data to optimize security services. One success story comes from the state of Virginia in the US:

“Police in Richmond, Virginia, monitor Facebook and Twitter messages to determine where parties are happening. Data-mining software identifies the party locations mentioned most frequently. By deploying officers more strategically on big party nights, the department saves about 15000$ on overtime pay, and the community has seen a big drop in criminal activity” (Quinn, 2015).

When data about us is handled ethically, success stories could result; but not all institutions who have access to surveillance data are using it ethically.  For example, it was found that the FBI National Crime Information Centre (NCIC) which holds databases about citizens’ activities has been accessed by employees who used data to make financial profits: “Corrupt employees of law enforcement organizations with access to the NCIC have sold information to private investigators and altered or deleted records” (Quinn, 2015). Given that governmental and non-governmental institutions have histories of unethical uses of surveillance data and of using surveillance data, we need to be monitoring the institutions that are monitoring us; the surveillance agencies should be under surveillance.

From person to impersonator

Whether surveillance data is used ethically or unethically, surveillance will always be a problem and a source of harm. Human connectedness and self-disclosure require spontaneity; yet the more we are being watched and the more conscious we are of it, the more our interactions will lose their spontaneity. Humanistic psychologist Maslow has long ago warned that those who have lost the capacity for spontaneity can no longer be human, they become ‘human impersonators.’ The Truman Show movie has very well captured the type of society we would be living in when we are under surveillance: Truman was unaware that he was being watched, yet he was aware that there was something lacking in his world. He felt that everyone around him was an impersonator. No matter how hard they tried to connect with him, the actors in Truman’s world were incapable of developing intimate bonds with him, their awareness of being watched kept them from reaching the level of intimacy that Truman needed. Surveillance creates impersonators who are incapable of intimacy.

In order for our world not to become a world of impersonators we must protect our privacy.

No Country on Earth Fully Safeguards Labor Rights

Pete Dolack

There is no country on Earth in which violations of labor rights do not occur. The best rating is for those which are merely “irregular violators of rights,” and only 12 countries managed that.

The International Trade Union Confederation, in its annual Global Rights Index report on the state of labor around the world, has once again provided sobering news. Sixty percent of countries exclude whole categories of workers from labor law, the ITUC report says, indicative that “corporate interests are being put ahead of the interests of working people in the global economy.” The ITUC’s general secretary, Sharan Burrow, said:

“Denying workers protection under labour laws creates a hidden workforce, where governments and companies refuse to take responsibility, especially for migrant workers, domestic workers and those on short term contracts. In too many countries, fundamental democratic rights are being undermined by corporate interests.”

Among the key findings of the report:

* More than three-quarters of countries deny some or all workers their right to strike.

* More than three-quarters of countries deny some or all workers collective bargaining,

* Eighty-four countries exclude groups of workers from labor law.

* The number of countries in which workers are exposed to physical violence and threats increased to 59 countries from 52 a year earlier.

* Unionists were murdered in 11 countries, including Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Mauritania, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines and Venezuela.

International labor standards

To assess the state of global labor, the International Trade Union Confederation, “a confederation” of national trade unions, sends questionnaires to its affiliates in 161 countries and territories representing 176 million workers, with the intention of covering as many aspects of the right to freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining and the right to strike as possible. The information collected is then used to assess whether a given country meets standards set by the International Labour Organization.

These standards are examined by answering “yes” or “no” to 97 indicators arranged in five categories: Fundamental civil liberties; the right to establish or join unions; trade union activities; the right to collective bargaining; and the right to strike. The reason for a binary “yes” or “no” rather than a gradated scale is because “this method reduces the normative subjectivity of the analyst who carries out the coding,” the ITUC said. Further, because each of the 97 indicators is based on “universally binding obligations,” companies and government are required to meet them in full.

When the ITUC first carried out this survey, in 2014, the highest score attained was 43, meaning that no country had even half of its questions answered with a “yes.” In other words, every country in the world flunked.

For the 2017 report, the ITUC did not indicate the range of country scores, but followed its previous format of grouping countries into five tiers. The top tier, in which countries merely “irregular violate” labor rights, consists of 12 countries, which are marked in green on the map below. Eleven are found in Europe, and one in Latin America, Uruguay. (Yellow represents the second tier, followed by progressively darker shades of orange and red, the worst violators.)

The rankings are as follows:

* 1. Irregular violations of rights: 12 countries including France, Germany and Sweden.

* 2. Repeated violations of rights: 21 countries including Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

* 3. Regular violations of rights: 26 countries including Australia and Chile.

* 4. Systematic violations of rights: 34 countries including Brazil, Britain and the United States.

* 5. No guarantee of rights: 35 countries including India, Mexico and the Philippines.

* 5+ No guarantee of rights due to breakdown of the rule of law: 11 countries including Burundi, Palestine and Syria.

U.S., Britain systematic violators of labor rights

The United States was also rated a “four” in 2014, while Britain has slipped from being ranked a “three” then. Once again, that means the U.S. and U.K. commit “systematic violations” of labor rights — so much for those governments’ endless attempts to assert moral authority over the rest of the world. The Trump and May governments are not likely to improve upon these rankings. In regards to U.S. deficiencies, the ITUC report says:

“Far from consulting with unions regarding labour law and policy, some states and U.S. politicians have taken deliberate steps to roll back workers’ collective bargaining rights. … The National Labour Relations Act (NLRA) and judicial decisions interpreting the law prohibit workers from engaging in sitdown strikes, partial strikes and secondary boycotts, and impose other restrictions on organisational or recognitional strikes.”

Embarrassingly for a country governed by a party calling itself a “Coalition of the Radical Left,” Greece is among the countries with a ranking of “five.” This ranking is due to harsh restrictions on collective bargaining that were implemented beginning in 2010 through several laws on orders of the “troika” — the European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — which led to “a significant erosion” of labor rights.

Ironically, the Eurogroup president, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, says that collective bargaining is a “best practice” of the European Union, but the EU continues to block any attempt by the Syriza government to restore labor protections. A proposed law to re-establish collective bargaining was not submitted to the Greek parliament because of troika disapproval.

A sobering reminder of what capitalism offers working people: A race to the bottom and more exploitation. Surely, the world can do better.

Sri Lankan government to impose IMF dictated taxes

Saman Gunadasa

The Sri Lankan government tabled a new bill early last month designed to expand its tax income. The proposed taxes, which have been effectively authored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), will increase the economic burden on workers, small businesses and the self-employed while providing more concessions to big business. The bill is expected to be passed later this month

Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera told a press conference on July 21 that everyone over the age of 18 years should have a taxpayer number “regardless of whether he or she had to pay taxes or not.” In a crude attempt to deflect opposition to the new measures, State Minister of Finance Eran Wickramaratne told the same media event that the government would not tax the poor but then insisted that “everybody must pay tax.”

The government proposals include:

* Every resident or non-resident’s annual income, whether from employment, business, investment or other sources and starting at 600,000 rupees per year or 50,000 rupees (about $US300) per month will be taxed. This starts at 4 percent on annual incomes of 600,000 rupees and climbs to 24 percent for 3,000,000 rupees or more per year.

While the average monthly income for workers is around 15,000 rupees per month, state employees and bank workers, as well as some private sector workers, receive around 50,000 rupees or more per month. Many workers also have second jobs in order to cope with Sri Lanka’s rising cost of living.

* All pension funds, including the Employee Provident Fund (EPF), above a total lump sum payout of 2,000,000 rupees will be subjected to taxes of 5 to 10 percent. Almost all other payments, including employee compensation, termination allowances and other imbursements will also be taxed. While some corporations and the state banks previously paid their employees’ taxes, these workers will lose this benefit under the new system.

Under the new proposals there will be generous concessions for big business and investors, including:

* Corporate taxes for industries such as agriculture, exports, tourism, information technology, and education will be dropped to just 14 percent. This rate is very low by global standards.

* Taxes for other businesses will be just 28 percent, which is also low compared to other taxes in South Asian countries, such as India and Pakistan where it is 30 and 31 percent respectively.

* Taxes on dividends, interest, life insurance, and shares transactions on the Colombo Stock Exchange are expected to remain low under the new laws.

The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce immediately praised the tax bill, declaring that it was “happy to note that most [of their] submissions were accepted.” The big business peak body said that it planned to negotiate certain provisions relating to “the practical implementation of the proposed law.”

Amid growing competition for foreign investment, successive Sri Lankan governments have offered generous tax concessions while pushing regressive indirect taxes onto working people.

Finance Minister Samaraweera declared that he wanted to change the current ratio of direct and indirect taxes from 20 and 80 percent to 40 and 60 percent respectively. This is an attempt to hoodwink people into believing that the new system will reduce indirect taxes and provide some financial relief. In fact, the new taxes measures come on top of increases in the indirect VAT tax, which was lifted to 15 percent in November, and other government levies.

The IMF complains that Sri Lanka’s tax receipts are only 12 percent of GDP and that efforts must be made to increase the amount and boost government income. The international bank wants the budget deficit, which was 5.4 percent of GDP last year, reduced to 3.5 percent by 2020.

Implementation of the new tax bill was an IMF requirement for the release of its third installment of a $1.5 billion loan. Two weeks after the government tabled the bill, the IMF announced that the third tranche, which amounts to $167 million, had been approved and would be paid in September.

The squeezing of working people in Sri Lanka through higher direct taxes follows the imposition of similar measures last April in Greece at the behest of the IMF and European banks. In Greece, the tax-free threshold was reduced to €5,000 per year, down from the prevailing €8,636. This meant that workers earning less than €500 a month, which is below the poverty line, are now forced to pay tax.

The Sri Lankan government is reeling under massive foreign and domestic debts, declining exports and remittances, and faces a growing balance-of-payments crisis. On the directives of international capital and in alliance with Sri Lankan big business, Colombo is demanding that workers and the poor bear the burden.

Five trade unions at the Inland Revenue Department have criticised the new tax regime and made submissions to the Supreme Court alleging that some of the tax bill violates the constitution. The Inland Revenue Department Commissioner General will be given extensive powers under the bill, including the appointment of private individuals, corporate entities or non-governmental bodies to collect taxes.

The unions have also pointed out that the finance minister has the power “to inspect the tax files of individuals and appoint teams of tax officers without considering the service minutes of the department.” Under the new tax laws, “tax officers may no longer be required to give reasons for rejecting assessments” and the finance minister can “increase income tax rates without parliamentary approval.”

The new tax regime is part of broader austerity measures being demanded by the IMF. Other demands include the privatisation and commercialisation of state institutions, slashing of social welfare and the evisceration of public health and education.

While the trade unions at the Inland Revenue Department held a one-day strike on July 10 against the projected tax laws, these protests are aimed at preventing a direct political confrontation with the government and fostering illusions that Colombo can be pressured to soften the new taxes.

Labour Party leader resigns ahead of New Zealand election

Tom Peters 

New Zealand Labour Party leader Andrew Little announced his resignation on August 1, and the party caucus unanimously endorsed his deputy Jacinda Ardern to replace him.

Little’s decision to step down less than two months before the September 23 election is the latest sign of the crisis wracking the capitalist political establishment. It followed three separate polls on July 30 and 31 placing Labour’s support at between 23 and 24 percent. This was below the party’s 24.7 percent result in the 2014 election, its worst defeat in 92 years.

Labour’s support has collapsed because it is widely and correctly seen as a party of big business and militarism just like the National Party government. National is also deeply unpopular and does not have enough support to govern alone. Last December, Prime Minister John Key suddenly resigned and was replaced by Bill English, revealing tensions within the party.

Labour’s main election pledges include cutting immigration by almost half and recruiting more police officers. Labour will not reverse National’s austerity measures, including the partial privatisation of power companies, the increase in the Goods and Services Tax, and thousands of public sector job cuts. It also agrees with $20 billion in military spending planned over the next 15 years, aimed at preparing the country to join US-led wars.

Internationally, the working class is increasingly hostile to all established political parties. Labour’s equivalent in France, the Socialist Party, was all-but wiped out in this year’s elections in response to the party’s imposition of draconian austerity measures, its militarism and attacks on democratic rights.

In New Zealand there is growing anger over the social crisis, including deepening homelessness, the soaring cost of living, and a severely underfunded health system. In the last two elections more than a quarter of eligible voters abstained. Among those aged under 29, turnout in 2014 was just 49 percent. A poll released last month by Ipsos found that 64 percent believe the economy is “rigged to advantage the rich and powerful” and 56 percent “say traditional parties and politicians don’t care about people like them.”

The replacement of Little with Ardern is the latest desperate attempt to revive illusions in the Labour Party and stave off a complete collapse. For more than 100 years Labour has served as the most important prop for the bourgeoisie, preventing the working class from turning toward a socialist alternative.

Ardern is the fifth leader of the party since 2008. A similar attempt to portray Labour as shifting to the “left,” with the installation of David Cunliffe in 2013, was a dismal failure.

Like Cunliffe, Little has proven incapable of making any popular appeal. Before becoming Labour leader Little already had a long record of collaboration with big business as leader of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), the country’s largest private sector union (now called E Tu), from 2000 to 2011. The union enforced thousands of job cuts and pro-corporate restructuring, including at Air New Zealand, NZ Post and mining company Solid Energy.

Little demonstrated his personal usefulness to the corporate elite following the 2010 Pike River mine explosion, which killed 29 men. He defended the company’s safety practices, telling the media there was “nothing unusual” about the mine. It later became clear that there had been multiple warnings about life-threatening conditions in the mine, but the EPMU had said nothing and refused to take any action to prevent the disaster.

Ardern, 37, entered parliament in 2008. She became deputy leader earlier this year. She has been chosen to replace Little because, unlike every senior politician, she does not yet have a decades-long record of attacks on the working class. Before becoming an MP she worked in the offices of former Labour leader Phil Goff and former Prime Minister Helen Clark, who have both contributed to entrenched social inequality and strengthened ties with the US military.

Corporate media commentators, liberal pundits and middle-class pseudo-left organisations have swung behind Ardern, hailing her elevation as an opportunity for the Labour Party to revive its support. TV3 political commentator Patrick Gower described Ardern as “powerful, composed, eloquent,” adding, “National should be frightened.”

Martyn Bradbury, editor of the trade union-funded Daily Blog, declared that “everything has changed for this election.” He described Ardern as “part of a generation that was taught empathy and compassion and consideration for others.”

James Shaw, co-leader of Labour’s main ally the Green Party, declared to the media: “Jacinda turns this election into a real competition... she’s got the skills, she’s got the leadership capability, she’s got the connection with the public.”

The pseudo-left groups hope Ardern’s installation will help them promote Labour as a “lesser evil” to National. In a statement entitled “Labour must change course,” the International Socialist Organisation said Ardern was “no left-winger,” but added: “Labour’s popularity with the electorate matters... If Ardern’s leadership helps get some momentum—any momentum—into Labour kicking National out then so much the better.”

In reality, Ardern has not proposed any substantial change and has praised Little and the Labour Party’s policy platform. She told Radio NZ she would place “extra emphasis” on some policies focused on housing, health and inequality, adding “I believe in free education.”

The party is currently promising three years of free tertiary education, but this would not be fully implemented until 2025, i.e. after three elections, making the pledge worthless. Labour and the Greens, which are campaigning as a coalition-in-waiting, have agreed on strict “fiscal responsibility rules,” including a pledge to pay down government debt and cap spending at 30 percent of gross domestic product.

Ardern told Radio NZ she considered herself a “democratic socialist” like US Democrat Bernie Sanders but quickly added: “I don’t think that’s a meaningful term in New Zealand.” Sanders gained support from workers and youth in the presidential primaries by portraying himself as a socialist, only to then line up behind Hillary Clinton, the preferred candidate of the military and the Wall Street banks.

The elevation of Ardern, Labour’s second female leader, alongside Kelvin Davis, the party’s first Maori deputy leader, is an attempt to appeal to layers of the upper middle class on the basis of gender and racial identity politics. The media widely reported Ardern’s exchange with a newsreader who questioned whether she planned to have children. The Guardian said the exchange “sparked debate within New Zealand and accusations of sexism.” As in the US election, the purpose of the obsessive focus on gender is to divert attention from the fundamental issue of deepening social inequality.

Similarly, much has been made about Davis’ ethnicity. His installation, however, has nothing to do with helping the oppressed Maori working class, but is a clear pitch to the indigenous corporate elite. As the party’s corrections spokesman, Davis has called for greater involvement by Maori tribal businesses in running prisons. He also supports Maori-run, for-profit charter schools established under the current government.

In her first press conference as leader Ardern pledged to continue working with the Greens and the right-wing, anti-immigrant New Zealand First Party. On current polling, the three parties could have enough support to form a government after the election. NZ First leader Winston Peters is running a campaign similar to that of Trump; he has called for discrimination against Muslims and repeatedly scapegoated immigrants, particularly Chinese, Indians and Pacific Islanders, for the social crisis.

Labour and its allies are preparing to lead a government committed to deeper austerity cuts in response to the economic crisis, along with anti-immigrant measures, further strengthening the intelligence agencies and ramping up military spending to prepare for war.

Turkey launches mass trial of officers charged in July 2016 coup attempt

Halil Celik 

On Tuesday, August 1, Ankara’s Fourth Criminal Court launched a trial of 486 defendants accused of complicity in the attempted coup in Turkey on July 15 of last year. They are formally charged with “violating the Constitution, attempting to assassinate the President, attempting to abolish the government of Turkey, managing an armed terrorist organization, seizing military bases, manslaughter, attempting manslaughter, and deprivation of liberty.”

Prosecutors are demanding 330 life imprisonments for the 45 suspects accused of being leaders of the coup attempt. Of the defendants, 416 are jailed pending trial and 18 are not under arrest; 7 others are fugitives.

They are facing charges over events at the Akinci Air Base, the command center of the coup attempt, from which fighters took off to bomb the Turkish parliament and other key targets, killing 80 people. Akinci Air Base, near Ankara, was also where the putschists held the chief of general staff and other army commanders captive for hours, before they were freed by pro-government forces.

The explosive character of the trial and the deep political conflicts inside the Turkish state machine and armed forces were underscored by the announcement yesterday that the government had suddenly fired the officers leading the Turkish army, navy, and air force. A crisis in which this trial or related legal actions led to a renewed attempt by factions of the armed services to topple Erdogan cannot be ruled out.

Amongst the suspects are generals and civilians considered to be leading figures of the so-called Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETO). Fethullah Gulen, the US-based preacher Ankara blames for having orchestrated the coup attempt, is being tried in absentia, as the leading suspect. Gulen denies involvement, but evidence revealed since the July 15 coup indicates that he at least gave his approval for the scheme to topple Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan through a coup, as did the US government.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) declared they would apply to be admitted as co-plaintiffs in the trial. Erdogan, ministers and lawmakers are also among the plaintiffs in the indictment.

The first trial on the failed coup attempt started in December 2016 and was followed by dozens of trials across Turkey. Since July 15 of last year, more than 50,000 people have been detained or arrested for suspected links to FETO, and Turkish security forces have launched operations against those suspected of working for FETO almost every day.

Following the defeat of the coup attempt, thanks to a mass mobilization primarily of workers and youth, the AKP government declared a state of emergency and launched a wide-scale crackdown against not only the putschists, but all expressions of political opposition. Erdogan is using this crackdown to further his bid to secure dictatorial powers.

US imperialism’s war drive in the Middle East has provoked conflicts between Ankara and its NATO allies. As US imperialism moved to back Kurdish forces as proxies in Syria, Ankara, fearing the emergence of a broader ethnic Kurdish movement including inside Turkey’s borders, moved away from Washington and its traditional European imperialist allies. As Erdogan sought to improve relations with Moscow, US and European officials became ever more determined to get rid of him.

Having backed the coup, they are now also hosting military and civilian officers who fled Turkey to Europe or the United States and appealed for political asylum after the abortive July 15 coup attempt.

Erdogan has long feared that he could share the fate of Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi, who was toppled by a US-backed coup in July 2013. The July 15 coup demonstrated that the danger of the overthrow of the Turkish regime by a NATO-backed military dictatorship is very real.

Erdogan is reacting with a crackdown on all opposition, presenting his assault on democratic rights as a nationalist campaign of “fighting external powers”—that is, primarily Washington and Berlin, and their co-conspirators—whose aims are “subjugating and dividing Turkey.”

Recently, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel signaled that Berlin would review its policies toward Ankara and stated that he could not advise companies to invest in the country. This came only weeks after Turkish authorities handed Berlin a list of some 700 companies supposedly linked to the Gulen movement, and after Berlin decided to redeploy its troops from Turkey to Jordan.

In response to Gabriel’s remarks, Erdogan slammed Berlin over its barely veiled threats to impose economic sanctions, saying, “You have to take into account a bigger price [that you will have to pay], if you think you can frighten Turkey with your threats of embargo.”

The already frayed relations between Turkey and its NATO/European Union (EU) partners have further worsened. Ankara recently purchased an S-400 missile defense system from Russia, is seeking closer ties with China and is threatening the EU with the release of a new flow of Syrian immigrants to Europe.

The EU’s pretense that its growing pressure on Ankara is about “bringing democracy to Turkey,” like Erdogan’s claim he is pursuing an anti-imperialist policy, are political frauds. NATO and the EU are waging a ruthless struggle to maintain Turkey in their geo-strategic orbit, while the US government escalates its war drive against Russia and China.

The movement led by Fethullah Gulen, the US-based preacher who until 2013 was the closest political partner of Erdogan and his henchmen, is a strategic asset of US imperialism in its confrontation with China and Russia. Having moved to the United States in 1999, he rapidly developed his movement, particularly in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and in Africa. Gulen controls a wide network of schools and foundations under CIA patronage. His movement’s aim is to train a layer of the ruling elite in these countries aligned with Washington’s interests.

While Erdogan and his AKP pursue a reactionary and militarist agenda, the US and European powers are in fact ready to work with him, as they did during his first two decades in power, if they reach an agreement on what all sides consider to be the vital issues. The same imperialist powers that lecture the AKP government on democracy are the main supporters and partners of the arch-reactionary absolutist regimes such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf oil sheikdoms.

Since November 2015, France has stood under a state of emergency, with the basic rights of the population suspended, while Paris continues its military operations in Africa. Having already declared its aim of becoming a major military power, corresponding to its economic might, Berlin revealed its disregard for fundamental rights in the recent police crackdown against protesters at the recent G20 summit in Hamburg.

India-China border tensions continue unabated

K. Ratnayake

A tense stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops on the Doklam or Donglang Plateau—a ridge in the Himalayan foothills claimed by both China and Bhutan—continues.

Late last week, India’s National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, met China State Councillor Yang Jiechi on the sidelines of a BRICS security summit in Beijing. However, they failed to arrive at any agreement on defusing what is being described as the most serious Sino-Indian border dispute since the two countries fought a month-long border war in 1962.

Beijing is adamant India must withdraw its troops unconditionally before there can be any substantive talks on the Doklam issue and the related question of where the tri-junction between the borders of India, China, and Bhutan lies.

Beijing emphasizes that the intervention Indian troops made on June 18 to prevent Chinese construction workers from expanding a road on the disputed ridge is without precedent. Never before has the Indian Army confronted Chinese troops on territory to which New Delhi makes no claim, acting instead in the name of a third country.

Chinese officials and the country’s state-owned media have repeatedly indicated that Beijing’s patience is wearing thin. According to a report in yesterday’s Indian Express, the Chinese government is anxious to have the dispute settled by the time of a BRICS heads of government summit that is to be held in Xiamen, China at the beginning of next month.

India’s government, meanwhile, has signalled it is prepared for a long stand-off, lasting months, even years. While claiming it doesn’t want a military clash with Beijing, New Delhi insists that control over the remote ridge is vital to India’s national security, because it lies some 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the Siliguri Corridor—a narrow slice of territory that connects India’s seven northeastern states to the rest of the country.

The US and other great powers have thus far made only pro forma statements urging the two sides to pursue a diplomatic solution. But the principal factor driving the dispute is India’s emergence as a veritable “frontline state” in Washington’s military-strategic offensive against China. Indeed, on June 18, the very day that Indian troops interceded on the Doklam Plateau, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump vowed, following a White House meeting, to further expand the Indo-US “global strategic partnership.”

Last month India, the US, and Japan held what Trump boasted was the largest-ever Indian Ocean naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal. And speaking Monday at the inaugural session of an India-US Forum, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj parroted the language that Washington uses to paint China as an aggressor in the South China Sea. A “strong India-US partnership,” declared Swaraj, is “critical” for “upholding an international rules-based system”—i.e. a US-led order—across the Indo-Pacific region.

On Wednesday, China’s foreign ministry issued a 15-page statement detailing its position on the Doklam dispute. It reiterated Beijing’s demand that India “pull back all its troops to end the military standoff,” while noting that “there were still over 40 Indian border troops and one bulldozer illegally staying in Chinese territory.” This, the statement said, was down from a high of 400 Indian troops.

The statement included a thinly-veiled threat of military action. “No country,” it warned, “should ever underestimate the resolve of the Chinese government” to defend China’s territorial sovereignty and integrity, adding Beijing would take “all necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate and lawful rights and interests.”

The statement said that as a sign of “goodwill” China had informed New Delhi of the road-building project in advance. “India’s intrusion into the Chinese territory under the pretext of Bhutan,” it continued, “has not only violated China’s territorial sovereignty but also challenged Bhutan’s sovereignty and independence.”

Since the eruption of the dispute, the Indian media has raised a hue and cry over China’s alleged bullying of Bhutan, a tiny Himalayan border kingdom.

But India has itself long treated Bhutan as a protectorate. Moreover, there is much evidence to suggest that New Delhi ordered its troops to intervene on the Doklam without even seeking Bhutan’s agreement, let alone in response to a “distress call” from Bhutan as New Delhi has implied.

Only on June 29, that is a week-and-a-half after the standoff began, did Bhutan’s government even issue a statement protesting the alleged Chinese incursion.

India’s corporate media has for years been stoking animosity toward China and this has increased over the past two years as Beijing, in response to the burgeoning Indo-US alliance, has strengthened its longstanding strategic ties with Pakistan, India’s arch-enemy.

However, a handful of columnists have expressed concern about the brazenness with which India has treated Bhutan. Several have also suggested that New Delhi’s stance is being fueled at least in part by fears that Bhutan’s government may be preparing, in response to overtures from Beijing, to act more independently of India.

Reportedly, it is only at India’s insistence that Bhutan has spurned a Chinese proposal that it abandon its claim to the Doklam in exchange for China acknowledging Bhutan’s sovereignty over a large area further north.

In 2013, with the obvious aim of bringing about the defeat of the then-sitting Bhutan prime minster, who had defied New Delhi’s wishes by meeting with the Chinese premier, India withdrew energy subsidies to the country.

The Hindu ’s diplomatic editor, Suhashini Haidar, cautioned the Indian government not to overplay its hand in a column last week. Arguing that “the Indian government must see that Bhutan’s sovereignty is no trivial matter,” Haidar chastised a Foreign Ministry official for “likening the question of whether Bhutan had sought the help of Indian troops” or India had acted unilaterally to “whether the ball came first … or the batsman had taken a stand before the ball was bowled.”

India’s ruling elite has long viewed itself as the regional hegemon of South Asia. Emboldened by Washington’s support, the Modi government is intervening across the region and in the island states of the Indian Ocean to counter Beijing’s influence, which has grown in recent years thanks to burgeoning economic ties, including investments in infrastructure.

New Delhi is aggressively courting and seeking to forge anti-China factions within the local bourgeois elites. India worked with the US to carry out a “regime operation’ in Sri Lanka, helping orchestrate a “common opposition” candidate in the 2015 presidential election to unseat Mahindra Rajapkase who they deemed too close to Beijing.

China’s capitalist regime, for its part, has responded to Washington’s ever escalating threats and the forging of the Indo-US partnership by whipping up Chinese nationalism and oscillating between aggressive counter-threats and appeals for an accommodation with the US.

In the current dispute with India, Beijing has adopted a hardline and bellicose stance that contrasts markedly with the manner it dealt with previous disputes with New Delhi. Not only has the state-run media given the dispute great prominence, but papers like the Global Times have churned out article after article threatening and taunting India with a massive military defeat should it not back down.

In an interview with the Hindu, Joshua T. White, a former top diplomat in the Obama administration, made clear that Washington would not remain on the sidelines in the event of a clash between India and China.

“The US,” said White, “is largely sympathetic to the challenge that India faces in dealing with a territorially assertive China. Given the nature of Sino-Indian disputes, India technically does not ask for our help because it does not need it. But it knows that Washington presents a sympathetic ear and that if there were to be wider a Sino-Indian crisis, we will have a totally different conversation.”

Hidden in these diplomatic words is that a conflict between China and India, themselves both nuclear-armed powers, would rapidly draw in the US and potentially other great powers, threatening a global conflagration.

A recent article in Foreign Policy, a mouthpiece of the US establishment, warned of the danger of a Sino-Indian war. “Seven weeks into the crisis, the continued impasse—and increasingly caustic rhetoric—indicates the potential for escalation remains high … Aggressive signals of resolve like military exercises or mobilization or perceived windows of tactical opportunity in a different sector of the disputed India-China border could lead either side to miscalculate, resulting in accidental or inadvertent escalation. And any shooting that begins on the border could even expand into other domains like cyber- or naval warfare.”

Foreign Policy was studiously silent, however, on the role US imperialism’s drive to harness India to its reckless military-strategic offensive again China has played in dangerously destabilizing Sino-Indian relations and the entire Indo-Pacific region.

JMC Academy International Scholarship for Undergraduate Students 2018 – Australia

Application Deadline: 29th September, 2017.

Eligible Countries: Countries other than Australia or New Zealand

To Be Taken At (Country): Australia

About the Award: Scholarship recipients will become JMC Academy Student Ambassadors. More information about the Ambassador Program will be discussed during the application process.

Type: Undergraduate

Eligibility: 

• Applications will be accepted from citizens of a country other than Australia or New Zealand (Australian and New Zealand citizens should apply for the Undergraduate Scholarships here).
• Candidates must apply for a Bachelor Degree program at JMC Academy commencing in 2018. Applicants should meet the normal entry requirements for international students, including course specific requirements.

Selection Criteria: Interested candidates must display and satisfy:

• A willingness and ability to undertake full-time study
• An interest in pursuing a career in the creative industries
• A willingness to represent and act as an ambassador for JMC Academy to the public as outlined in the JMC Academy’s International Student Ambassador Program information. (This will be discussed during the interview).
• Maturity
• Common sense and sound judgement
• Clear and engaging personal presentation skills
• All usual JMC Academy international entry requirements

Number of Awards: 3

Value of Award: Tuition. The award does not cover flights, accomodation, living expenses, books, software, consumables, stationery, accommodation, Overseas Student Health Cover, the student registration fee or visa application fees.

Duration of Program: Each scholarship covers two trimesters of study.

How to Apply: 

Download the Information Sheet (see in Program Webpage below) and check your eligibility.
Fill out the International Scholarship Application Form.
You will also need to submit a General International Application Form.

Submit completed application forms and supporting documentation by email to international@jmc.edu.au

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: JMC Academy

Important Notes: Notification of final outcomes will be delivered by Friday, 1 December, 2017.