Gay Plebiscites: Australia’s Crisis on Same-Sex Marriage

Binoy Kampmark

What a fabulous mess. And a churning one it is for the Australian government, now mired in yet another farce of weak leadership and bullying factions.  A mess for those who feel that this issue need never have gotten this far.  A mess for others who just wish to be left alone with their decisions. Such is the nature of the same-sex marriage debate down under.

While other countries have been going along their merry way, through parliament or through the ballot box, to legalise gay marriage, Australia remains suspended. In Germany, the Bundestag finally agreed to pass a four-year-old bill legalising same-sex marriage.  Earlier this year, Finland and Slovenia joined the growing ranks.  The politicians in Canberra, however, continue to limp.

The Liberal party room antics have managed to stir the political spectrum with vigour.  A handful of MPs from the government side began issuing threats: take the vote to Parliament, or we will force the issue.  (The opposition Labor Party has threatened, at points, to do so, though this would necessitate a suspension of standing orders.)

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, ever sniping against the man who ousted him, suggests that the Turnbull government is no longer in control of much.  With authoritarian tenacity, he insists that “Coalition MPs are honour-bound to oppose same-sex marriage in the absence of a plebiscite.”

Another former Australian prime minister and verbal knuckle duster Paul Keating was venomous as ever on the Liberal Party wobbling: “‘I didn’t want to vote for gay marriage – the plebiscite made me do it!’ Is that what this is all about?”

On Monday, the wobblers and the firmly rooted within the party gathered to deliberate the issue.  Potential renegades who threatened to take the matter to the floor of parliament and make the issue of same-sex marriage Parliament’s business failed to change the party’s course.

The cabinet wished to push for another vote in parliament to have a plebiscite, another tactic that is bound to fail given the composition of the Senate.  No matter, claims Finance Minister Matthias Corman, whose determination remains a testament to hope over experience.  “Our preference is to give the Australian people a say through a compulsory attendance plebiscite.”

This is the stance favoured by the hardliners who remain committed to delaying what can only be the inevitable. For them, resolving the same-sex marriage debate through Parliament in the absence of a plebiscite would break an electoral promise.

Another alternative was also put on the table: a non-binding postal vote, and even more strikingly for Australian polls, a non-compulsory one, that would bypass any Senate opposition.  For MP Craig Kelly, this was, by far and away, the “second-best option”.

Advocates for gay marriage see a plebiscite as a muddling, disgruntling affair. It will agitate the prejudiced, stimulate the bigots, and tease the tax payer’s purse strings. And for what?  Those against same-sex marriage are not necessarily going to vote for a change in the Marriage Act, given their burning consciousness. In short, all pantomime and show.

The Australian Marriage Equality group was none too impressed by the proposal. Alex Greenwich, the group’s co-chair, deemed the postal plebiscite “a bloody stupid idea that will weaken Parliament because it basically says people are not prepared to do their job.”

Greenwich and his colleagues are also finding a legal route to frustrate the government proposals.  They may well have good reason in succeeding, given a lack of authority to expend funds on such a venture.  Bypassing the senate, whose authority would be needed to finalise such supply, would be distinctly prohibited.

Today host Karl Stefanovic, who makes a habit of disturbing the airwaves with headlines, told the political classes in Canberra to pull their proverbial fingers out “and get on with it”.  “Why do we elect officials if not to make decisions that reflect our beliefs?”

The default of Australian democracy is parliamentary paternalism.  Much red-faced consternation tends to take place about the supposed effectiveness of a system that remains a constitutional monarchy, overseen by the unelected official in Canberra known as the governor general.

Nonetheless, the Australian High Court, in 2013, made it clear that marriage as termed in the Australian Constitution refers to a consensual, enduring union between natural persons entailing mutual rights and obligations, terminable in accordance with prescribed formalities. In less than gentle fashion, the judges also preferred the matter to be resolved through Parliament.

The plebiscite, in short, will be mere pageantry.  Parliament will ultimately decide the matter irrespective of the outcome.  The actual decision on whether Australia decides, kicking and waddling, to change an old law will still resolve itself by personal prejudice.  The window dressing approach will be to term this a matter of conscience.

Australian government staves off crisis over marriage equality

Mike Head 

An emergency “special” meeting of members of federal parliament from the ruling Liberal Party yesterday averted, for now, a split and the possible fall of the Turnbull government over the issue of same-sex marriage.

Liberal MPs were summoned to Canberra a day before today’s resumption of parliament after a six-week winter recess. The urgency and timing of the meeting reflect the fact that the divisions over marriage equality are bound up with deeper and broader rifts wracking the fragile government and the entire parliamentary establishment.

Despite days of speculation that Liberal backbench supporters of gay marriage would potentially cross the floor of parliament and vote for a supposed marriage equality bill, only seven MPs reportedly spoke in favour of such a bill during yesterday’s closed-door meeting.

After a two-hour session, the majority of MPs decided to stick with the government’s current policy of delaying any legislation on this basic legal and democratic right by again trying to push a bill through the Senate for a compulsory national plebiscite.

If, as seems almost certain, the Senate again rejects such a plebiscite, like it did last November, the government is threatening to conduct a voluntary postal plebiscite. This would be legally non-binding, unreliable and open to bias and rigging. According to legal experts, such a ballot would be illegal also without legislation to specifically authorise it.

The government cannot afford defections on this, or any other issue, because it holds only a one-seat majority in the House of Representatives and just 29 of the 76 seats in the Senate after last year’s double dissolution election called by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Even though the opposition Labor Party declared it would not treat a vote against the government on gay marriage as a no-confidence motion that could bring down the government, such a vote could let loose the wider tensions tearing the government apart.

The lead-up to the meeting saw warnings by socially conservative Liberals, supporters of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and members of the National Party, the Liberals’ rural-based coalition partner, that any move for a free “conscience” vote in parliament would trigger a split with the Nationals and moves to oust Turnbull.

National Party MP Andrew Broad made the threats public. He told the Sunraysia Daily: “If the Liberals come out with a conscience vote, it won’t be me only, the whole show would blow up … Turnbull’s leadership would become untenable and he’d no longer be prime minister. They’d push for [immigration minister] Peter Dutton or [health minister] Greg Hunt as leader and deputy leader or we’d be going to a general election.”

Despite such threats, the issue remains fraught and the outcome unpredictable. One of the seven Liberal MPs supporting a conscience vote—Warren Entsch—has threatened to re-open the divisions by introducing a private same-sex marriage bill into parliament if the Senate rejects a plebiscite.

Reportedly, however, a number of concerns were ventilated during the meeting about a postal vote. Speaking before the meeting, another gay marriage bill proponent, Senator Dean Smith, branded a postal vote “a D-grade response to what is a defining A-grade social issue.”

Marriage equality is an elementary issue of democratic rights that should have been recognised long ago. Same-sex couples and their children face discriminatory limitations on the rights afforded to married couples in areas such as inheritance, parenthood, adoption, guardianship and health care benefits. Media polls show two-thirds backing for marriage equality, with higher levels of support among young people.

However, the bill proposed by Entsch and Smith—the “marriage amendment (definition and religious freedoms) bill”—would still deny equality by pandering to the homophobic prejudices of religious fundamentalists and others. It would allow ministers of religion, military chaplains and a new category of “independent religious celebrants” to refuse to marry couples on grounds of sex, sexuality and family status. Bodies established for religious purposes could legally refuse to provide facilities, goods or services.

The impasse over same-sex marriage is just one expression of an intensifying crisis over the past decade that has confronted successive Labor and Liberal-National governments, none of which have lasted a full three-year term. At the heart of the divisions that have torn through each government since the 2008 global financial breakdown is the question of how to impose on an increasingly disaffected and hostile population the agenda of austerity and militarism demanded by the corporate elite.

Millions of working class people are experiencing the destruction of full-time jobs, falling real wages, soaring prices for housing, utilities and other essentials, and deteriorating schools, healthcare and other social services. At the same time, big business is demanding a far deeper social assault.

The Australian today reported that spending cuts and tax levies in the government’s May budget worth at least $12 billion over the next four years could become “zombie measures,” blocked in the Senate. These include a 2.5 percent Medicare levy to raise $8.2 billion, random drug testing of welfare recipients, and tertiary education cuts of $3.7 billion.

The reference to “zombie measures” recalls the cuts to education, health and welfare that the Coalition government, then led by Abbott, failed to push through the Senate from the 2014 and 2015 budgets. Now, as then, the Labor, Greens and “crossbench” senators, mainly right-wing populists, are terrified of committing electoral suicide themselves if they vote for the measures.

There are no real differences in the political establishment on slashing social spending in order to impose the burden of the underlying economic crisis on the working class. But the rifts on gay marriage reflect divisions over how to achieve that end.

Abbott and the social conservatives are competing with Senator Corey Bernardi’s breakaway Australian Conservatives and Senator Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in trying to mobilise religious forces. They are also appealing to anti-immigrant chauvinism, nationalism and militarism in a similar vein to Donald Trump in the US, as a means of diverting the immense social discontent in reactionary directions.

MPs like Smith and Entsch, who have taken up the marriage equality issue, represent right-wing, pro-business elements who are seeking to build a base of support among so-called progressive upper-middle layers on the basis of gender, sexual orientation and other forms of identity.

By declaring support for a marriage equality bill, Labor and the Greens are making a similar pitch. Hypocrisy abounds all round. Worried by opposition from Labor’s own social conservatives, the last Greens-backed minority Labor government also blocked same-sex marriage calls from 2010 to 2013. This helped prop up Prime Minister Julia Gillard as her government deepened cuts to education and other social programs and ramped up the attack on refugees.

Now Labor leader Bill Shorten, a key Gillard minister, is claiming to be both a champion of gay rights and an opponent of social inequality. A Labor-led government would be no less intent on imposing the requirements of the corporate elite, regardless of whether it enacted marriage equality.

Japan increases beef tariff, hitting US exporters

Gary Alvernia

The Japanese government announced late last month it would lift the existing tariff rate for imported beef from a number of countries, chief among them the United States. From August 1, the tariff on US frozen beef exports to Japan was due to increase to 50 percent, up from the previous rate of 38.5 percent.

In part, the tariff hike is a reaction by Tokyo to US President Donald Trump’s decision earlier this year to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), on which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had counted to boost the Japanese economy. More broadly it reflects rising trade tensions as the ruling elites in each country seek to offload the burden of the worsening global economic crisis onto their rivals.

The official reason for the hike was that frozen beef imports to Japan have increased by greater than 17 percent compared to last year—the point beyond which World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules permit the Japanese government to lift the tariff to “safeguard” domestic industries.

Frozen beef imports, particularly from the US have increased substantially over recent years due to their use in popular fast food dishes, with a rise of 20 percent recorded over the past year to the April–June quarter. Tokyo, however, has rarely invoked the WTO rule in previous years—the last tariff increase was in 2003 against the US.

The tariff increase affects any country without a free trade agreement with Japan, including major beef exporters such as Canada. Media attention, however, has focussed on the US, reflecting the substantial trade between the two countries. Japan is the largest importer of US beef, buying roughly 45,000 tonnes of frozen beef from the US, estimated to be worth $400 million, or about 20 percent of total American frozen beef exports.

The tariff will impact most heavily on US states like Nebraska, Arkansas and North Dakota. With an estimated decline in gross domestic product of 0.5 to 1 percent, these regions, already among the poorest in the US, face significant job losses. In Japan, the increased price of frozen beef is expected to hit many fast-food restaurants that heavily use US imports, contributing to increasing unemployment.

The tariff hike is a blow to the Trump administration, which has boasted loudly about improving trade relations in America’s favour. Trump claimed that by scrapping the TPP the US could negotiate better trade deals with other countries, including Japan. Other beef exporters like Australia and Mexico, both of which have free trade agreements with Japan, will now have a substantial advantage over the US.

Significantly, Washington received no warning or consultation about Japan’s decision, and is deeply displeased. US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said the tariff increase would “impede US beef sales and is likely to increase the United States’ overall trade deficit with Japan.” He warned the decision “would harm our important bilateral trade relationship with Japan”—suggesting the US could retaliate.

Adding to US concerns is the fact that the tariff hike comes less than a month after Japan reached a free trade agreement with the European Union (EU) that could potentially create the world’s largest trading bloc. A crucial part of that deal concerned the lowering of tariffs on agricultural imports into Japan, meaning that the EU will also enjoy a trade advantage over the US.

For its part, the Japanese government clearly sees the tariff rise as a political tool either to revive TPP negotiations, or failing that, to force concessions by the US on trade. Although official media statements downplayed the tariff increase, a government source cited by the Nikkei Asian Review bluntly declared “if the US doesn’t like [the safeguard] it can return to the TPP.” Japan is preparing for high-level trade talks with Washington in October.

Nevertheless, there is concern in Japanese business circles that the tariff rise could backfire and result in US retaliation that would impact on the country’s stagnant economy. Furthermore, Japan is highly reliant on the US strategically. The US maintains large military bases and forces in Japan, and Trump has supported Prime Minister Abe’s agenda of re-militarising Japan. Given the politically volatile nature of the crisis-ridden Trump administration, the tariff rise has the potential to impact on Japanese relations with the US in both economic and military matters.

With an eye to these considerations, Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso offered a fig leaf on August 2. Speaking to reporters, Aso said the government had been holding internal discussions on delaying the tariff rise by three months. “It is true there is talk of extending the period [delaying the tariff],” he said, adding “there is room for a review.”

Aso said the delay would expire after the scheduled October trade talks with the US. Undoubtedly the Japanese government will try to exploit the issue to gain leverage in negotiations.

In the final analysis, the dispute over beef tariffs represents only a small fraction of US-Japanese trade, which is valued at nearly $200 billion. Whether it is implemented or not, the tariff rise will not significantly reduce the $60 billion US trade deficit with Japan.

What only a few years ago would have been considered a relatively minor issue is now seen in the US and Japan as a sign of deeper tensions and potential conflict. It highlights the increasingly fragile nature of the global economy and risk of trade war amid the historic breakdown of capitalism.

Nothing about these tariffs will “safeguard” the interests of workers, be they in Japan, US, or elsewhere. Ultimately, these protectionist measures are designed only to defend the profit interests of the national bourgeoisie against its international rivals, and will mean deepening attacks on the social conditions of the working class.

Germany resumes deportation of refugees to Greece

Martin Kreikenbaum

Germany is to deport refugees to Greece for the first time since 2011, even though asylum seekers in the country confront catastrophic conditions and frequently end up homeless or living in extreme poverty. According to official announcements, both countries’ interior ministries have agreed to treat the refugees in line with the Dublin III regulations. In reality, the Syriza government in Athens initially opposed the demands for the reintroduction of the Dublin III provisions made by Germany, France, and the European Commission, but has finally fallen into line.

The Dublin III provisions adopted by the European Union (EU) member states allow for refugees to be deported to the country where they first arrived in the EU or were registered as asylum seekers. The German Interior Ministry told the television news programme Report Mainz that 392 transfer requests had been submitted to the Greek government under the Dublin III provisions and the first acceptances from the Greek side had been received.

Greece’s Interior Minister Ioannis Mouzalas justified the decision to Report Mainz by stating, “We have only now approved a small number of Dublin cases for the first time from Germany and some other EU states. The asylum authorities in Germany and Greece are currently working on implementing this. There was pressure from the EU states for us to accept deportations to Greece once again. I understand that the governments want to show their populations that they are doing something. And that’s why I want to help them.”

The subservient approach of the non-party interior minister towards the EU is typical of the Syriza government, which while initially pledging its determination to resist the dictates from Brussels, ultimately acceded to all of the EU’s demands.

As recently as March, Mouzalas told Spiegel Online, “We are not in a position to implement a return to the Dublin regulations. I would like the Germans to understand that the reason is not political or ideological, and it is not that we do not value the assistance from Germany. Greece simply has no capacity to deal with the arrival of more refugees. We have just managed to pull ourselves together. Please don’t make us flounder again.”

In the end, the interest in reaching a compromise with the EU proved weightier than the pure misery into which refugees will be thrust with the recommencement of the Dublin regulations. According to this procedure, the countries on the EU’s southern border, chiefly Greece and Italy, will accommodate and provide for the lion’s share of refugees seeking protection in Europe.

The Dublin procedure is aimed above all at deterring refugees from coming to Europe. In Italy and Greece, refugees confront a vast bureaucracy that endlessly drags out the asylum process, resulting in it taking many months, if not years, to complete.

Refugees are usually confined for the duration of the asylum process in camps, where they have to live under deplorably unhygienic conditions and receive insufficient food. There are more than 20,000 children among the 62,000 refugees currently living in Greece in catastrophic conditions.

The refugee camps are massively overcrowded. This is especially the case on the Aegean islands of Lesbos, Chios Samos, Leros and Kos. On these islands, 15,000 people are crammed together in internment camps built to house only 10,000. In Chios, 3,500 people are confined in a camp built for just 1,100, while on Samos more than 2,400 people are in a camp designed for 850.

At the notorious Moria camp on Lesbos, where 4,500 people vegetate in extremely cramped conditions, even though the camp only has places for 3,500, the situation escalated dramatically around two weeks ago.

Following a march of 1,000 refugees protesting for their release and freedom, a fire broke out once again in the camp. The police subsequently seized 35 refugees at random, and they are now facing charges of arson. Lawyer Lorraine Leete, who advises refugees on asylum matters in the camp, told Tagesspiegel that the police acted on the basis of racism. “When everything had calmed down, the police entered the camp and searched for West Africans. All on the basis of race,” she said.

Even recognised asylum seekers live in Greece under impoverished conditions, as Report Mainz uncovered. Since they cannot claim state assistance, they end up homeless and must wait in line at public soup kitchens to get their sole meal each day. There is no hope of work or language courses.

The refugee aid organisation ProAsyl has therefore sharply condemned the deportation of refugees to Greece. “That is a lapse. The situation in Greece is as catastrophic as it has ever been, many refugees are homeless, the country urgently requires more assistance. It is simply not possible to deport people there.”

But the German government, which wants to return to the Dublin process at any price, has no interest in the misery facing people in need of protection.

In January 2011, the European Court of Justice ruled that deporting refugees to Greece under the Dublin Accord was impermissible because refugees would be exposed to “humiliating and inhumane treatment.” Germany’s interior minister at the time, Thomas de Maiziere, initially suspended deportations to Greece for a year, but was forced to repeatedly extend the moratorium.

The influx of more than a million refugees into Europe between the summer of 2015 and April 2016, mainly from Syria and Iraq, threw the Dublin procedure into crisis. Since the conclusion of a dirty deal between the EU and Turkey and the sealing off of the Balkan route, the German government has been working at the European level to reintroduce the Dublin regulations.

Berlin achieved its first success in December 2016, when the EU Commission recommended readmitting Greece to the Dublin regulations because conditions in refugee camps had allegedly improved.

Greece’s Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias protested at the time against deportations to the country. He told German daily Die Welt, “There are some EU states who think they can use southern Italy and Greece as closed boxes where refugees can be stored.” Nonetheless, the EU Commission announced in March that “the readmittance of Greece to the Dublin system is an essential element of our comprehensive strategy to jointly improve our migration management.”

A similar tone was struck by the German Interior Ministry, which released an announcement declaring that “the stabilisation of a functioning Dublin system is an indispensable component of the comprehensive efforts to stabilise our policies on asylum, migration and borders.”

This means nothing else than making the EU’s borders impenetrable to refugees. Those who, in spite of this, manage to breach “fortress Europe,” will have their existence turned into a living hell by being sent back to the worst camps on the continent.

The inhumane Dublin system, whose death had already been proclaimed, has also been revived by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The ECJ ruled on July 26 that the Dublin regulations were still valid even during the period when refugees were being “waved through” the Balkan route in the late summer of 2015. The ECJ thereby ruled against two Afghan families and a Syrian refugee who appealed against their deportation to Croatia from Austria and Slovenia, respectively. The ECJ declared the deportations to be lawful.

The ECJ ruling was generally interpreted as being inapplicable to the refugees who have arrived in Germany because in the late summer of 2015, the German government declared refugees had a “right of entry” and thereby assumed responsibility for the asylum proceedings. Nonetheless, the interior affairs spokesman for the CDU/CSU in parliament, Florian Mayer (CSU), demanded, “In Germany, we must now evaluate in detail the opportunities which arise to repatriate asylum seekers to the EU member state originally responsible for them.”

Although the deportations to Greece allegedly only affect those refugees who travelled to Germany from Greece after March 15, 2017, it could rapidly be expanded to tens of thousands of additional cases. Alongside de Maiziere, the Social Democrats are the driving force behind this. It was then-Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel who in March initiated discussions with the Greek government to negotiate the planned deportations. The new SPD Chairman Martin Schulz has since begun agitating against refugees.

With consummate cynicism, the German government intends to enforce the mass deportation of refugees while at the same time continuing to refuse to allow families to reunite. According to figures from ProAsyl, more than 2,000 refugees requiring medical care or dependent upon their relatives currently in Germany, are in Greece awaiting approval to travel to Germany. Even though they have a right to reunite with their families, the German embassy in Athens has refused to issue the required visa. Several refugees have died as a result of the hardline stance adopted by the German embassy and the lack of medical care.

Devastating toll of hunger on US school children

Patrick Martin

Hunger is a growing problem for US children and increasingly affects their performance in school, making it more difficult for them to focus on their classes or do homework. It also contributes to behavior and discipline problems.

This was the finding of a report issued last week by the anti-hunger charity Share Our Strength, based on a survey of 500 low-income parents and their teenage children in public schools. Some 325 teachers were also interviewed. “Low-income” was defined as at or below 185 percent of the official poverty line, or $45,417 a year for a family of four.

Among children in low-income families, 59 percent said they had gone to school hungry. In the richest country in the world, with the largest concentration of billionaires, one in six children faces hunger, some 13 million in all.

The survey found that 59 percent of the parents reported that their food ran out before they could buy more; 48 percent couldn’t afford to buy enough food each month; and 23 percent had been forced to cut the size of their children’s meals because of a lack of money.

Children were under increasing stress from hunger. Some 55 percent of children knew their parents were worried about running out of money for food, while 35 percent shared their parents’ fear. Among those teenagers in low-income families, 42 percent experienced sadness caused by hunger and 41 percent experienced anger for the same reason. Many teenagers reported deliberately going hungry to make sure that younger siblings could have enough to eat.

One 15-year-old told the survey, “I feel like real hungry is different. It’s like when your stomach growls. It’s like when your stomach is almost in pain for me. That’s what real hungry is.” A 16-year-old said, “My focus is different when I’m hungry. I’m gonna be thinking about which one of my classmates has food. I’m gonna be thinking about which one of them might share.”

Among low-income families, 92 percent had at least one adult in the household working full-time, part-time or in multiple jobs. Hunger is thus the byproduct not only of poverty, but of the precarious and contingent character of so many jobs and the lack of any meaningful social safety net. Among low-income parents, 64 percent said that a single unexpected large bill—a $1,500 car repair or medical expense—would make it difficult to feed their children.

Hunger is an increasingly serious obstacle to learning. Among teachers questioned in the survey, 92 percent said that hunger had an impact on their students’ learning, 80 percent saw loss of concentration, 62 percent saw behavior problems, and 47 percent saw students suffering additional health problems.

Nearly three out of four teachers regularly saw students come to school hungry, and nearly two-thirds of teachers reported regularly buying food for students who were not getting enough to eat at home, spending an average of $300 a year of their own money.

Children had an overwhelmingly positive response to their schools providing breakfasts and lunches. Three quarters said school meals helped them feel better, pay more attention, behave in the classroom and get better grades.

Brian Minter, a spokesman for Share Our Strength’s “No Kid Hungry” campaign, said, “Hunger exists in nearly every community in America today. It’s an urban problem, it’s a rural problem, and it has come to our suburbs. It is also a solvable problem.”

He noted that programs like food stamps, school meals and WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children) had a major impact in alleviating hunger. But these programs are targeted for severe cuts, if not outright destruction, in the budget proposals of the Trump administration and congressional Republicans.

According to a report published Thursday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the House Republican budget plan, scheduled for a vote in early September, would slash $2.9 trillion from programs for low-income and moderate-income families over the next ten years.

This includes a cut of $150 billion from food stamps alone, a reduction of 40 percent. According to the CBPP, “A funding reduction of this magnitude would end food assistance for millions of low-income families, reduce benefits for tens of millions of such families, or some combination of the two.”

State governments would be enlisted to do the dirty work, by transferring to them the authority to reduce benefits and increase eligibility standards. The budget would also limit “community eligibility,” which allows schools in high-poverty areas to provide free school meals to all students without documenting the income of each individual student’s family. Cuts in low-income entitlement and discretionary programs account for half of all the cuts in nonmilitary programs proposed by the House Budget Committee, although these programs make up only one quarter of the federal budget.

The CBPP estimated that the Republican budget would cut the proportion of gross domestic product devoted to social spending for low-income and moderate-income families from 2.1 percent to only 1.0 percent in 2027, the lowest percentage figure since 1966, when the Johnson administration launched its so-called “War on Poverty.”

While the Trump administration and the congressional Republicans propose to deal with the deepening poverty and social misery by deliberately making the conditions worse, the Democratic Party offers no alternative. The Democrats are not demanding hearings over hunger or the impact of the proposed budget cuts.

During the month-long legislative recess, when senators and representatives sponsor political events in their states and districts to highlight issues of concern, the Democrats are focusing on allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 elections and alleged collusion by the Trump campaign as part of a broader effort to whip up a war fever directed against targets of the Pentagon and CIA, in the first instance Russia.

There are no events spotlighting the dire conditions of life for tens of millions of working people. As for the Democrats’ latest political offering, the so-called “Better Deal” program unveiled last week, it makes no mention of poverty, hunger, homelessness or even unemployment, proposing to use the power of the federal government to boost the interests of “small business and entrepreneurs” and defend “Main Street” against “Wall Street”—i.e., favor one section of business against another.

The guns of August

Alex Lantier

In the closing weeks of the summer, tens of thousands of NATO and Russian soldiers are participating in dueling war games across Europe. Just over a century after the guns of August 1914 announced the outbreak of World War I in Europe, conditions are being created in multiple military flash-points for the eruption of conflict between the world’s major nuclear powers.

The US aircraft carrier George H. W. Bush is joining a British carrier strike group for the “Saxon Warrior” exercise in the North Sea. This follows last month’s “Saber Guardian” exercise involving 25,000 NATO soldiers in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.

NATO troops are joining more exercises across Eastern Europe. Thousands more are deploying to Poland and the Baltic states, on Russia’s borders, and 2,000 US troops have joined the “Noble Partner” exercise in Georgia, a former Soviet republic. This is the largest US exercise in Georgia since 2008, when a US-backed attack by the Georgian army killed Russian peace keepers stationed in the north of the country, triggering a brief war between Russia and Georgia.

Meanwhile, Washington is debating whether to arm the far-right ultra-nationalist Ukrainian regime that emerged from the February 2014 NATO-backed coup in Kiev. The US first proposed this policy in 2015, but abandoned it after Germany and France, warning that escalation could trigger all-out war with Russia, negotiated a peace deal in Minsk.

Moscow is staging its own war games. After holding joint naval exercises in the Baltic Sea with Chinese guided-missile destroyers, it is hosting its International Army Games involving forces from countries such as China, Iran, Egypt, Angola, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. It is also preparing for next month’s Zapad drill in western Russia, which NATO sources claim could involve as many as 100,000 troops.

The unprecedented scope of these war exercises, the largest since the end of the Cold War, is a political warning. The military focus of the NATO alliance is shifting from the Middle East back to Europe. The New York Times reports that US and NATO units are making “wide-ranging” changes to equipment and strategy to prepare for war with high-tech enemies. This includes repainting their tanks from desert tan to dark green so as to blend into European terrain.

Behind the backs of the masses, political and military cabals are getting ready for conflicts comparable to, or bloodier than, the world wars of the last century. US General John Healy declared, “What we’re eventually going toward is a globally integrated exercise program so that we [are] … all working off the same sheet of music in one combined global exercise.” But for what is this “global exercise”—with drills on the Korean peninsula, in the South China Sea and in the Middle East—preparing? This “global exercise” is a dry run for global war.

A deafening silence prevails in official circles as to what world war would mean. It is, however, a fact that a war in which nuclear bombs exploded over cities across North America, Europe and Russia would claim billions of lives. And so, as opposition to war and military spending grows among masses of workers in America and Europe, the political and media establishment churns out endless, unsubstantiated accusations of Russian aggression in Ukraine and Russian hijacking of the US elections in an attempt to overwhelm and intimidate the public and whip up a war fever.

Military officials confess that these war games pose the danger of escalation, whether intentional or accidental, into war. However, the NATO countries’ media turn even this into grist for the mill of anti-Russia hysteria. In an article attacking Russia’s Zapad exercise, MSN.com writes, “Many officials are on edge that an error by an alliance or Russian soldier, such as misreading a drill as an aggressive act, could quickly escalate into a crisis if one side were to respond with force … NATO forces will avoid holding exercises close to the Russian border during the Russian drill.”

Claims that Moscow is responsible for the war danger are saturated with imperialist hypocrisy. Russia is carrying out exercises on its own soil, while the United States and the European imperialist powers are marching their troops right up to Russia’s borders.

The danger of escalation and war is rooted in policies pursued by the NATO powers, above all the United States, over the more than quarter-century since the Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. By means of US-led wars in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Syria and beyond, Washington sought to establish its hegemony over the Eurasian landmass. It aimed not only to prevent the emergence of a rival power dominating Eurasia, but also to control the energy supplies and trade routes of its “allies” in Europe and Asia.

The current escalation against Russia is the product of a series of devastating setbacks for the US in these wars. Washington’s Islamist proxy forces face imminent defeat in the civil war that it and NATO incited against the Russian-backed regime in Syria, and the NATO-backed regime in Kiev has failed to seize the entire country, losing effective control of Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine and the key Russian naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea. And amid growing economic rivalries between America and Europe, these setbacks have encouraged the European powers, led by Germany, to pursue an independent, that is, potentially hostile, foreign and military policy.

Conflicts are surging as Washington seeks both to strengthen its position against Russia and split Europe by winning over allies, notably in Eastern Europe, on an anti-Russian basis. These Euro-American conflicts are rooted not in the boorish persona of Trump, but in the objective conflict between American and European imperialism. Last month, it was not Trump but the US Congress that passed sanctions cutting off critical Russian oil and gas exports to Europe and threatening Western European corporations active in the Russian energy trade with financial penalties, prompting angry protests from Germany and other US “allies.”

The Kremlin’s policy, rooted in the bankrupt Russian nationalism of the post-Soviet capitalist oligarchy, offers no way forward in opposing the imperialist war drive. Afraid and incapable of appealing to anti-war sentiment in the international working class, the Kremlin instead incites right-wing forces and ethnic tensions within Russia. It oscillates between risking all-out military confrontation with the imperialist powers and capitulating to them in an attempt to reach a deal, as in its recent vote for UN sanctions against North Korea.

Like their political ancestors a century ago, the rival capitalist governments are setting into motion a dynamic that leads to world war, this time, however, involving the use of nuclear weapons that could destroy the planet. There is no way to stop the drive to war outside of a politically conscious intervention by the working class. The main danger is that masses of people are not truly aware of the risks posed by this explosive situation.

University of British Columbia (UBC) Doctoral Scholarships for International Students 2018/2019 – Canada

Application Deadline: 18th September, 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: 

• Canadian
• Permanent Resident
• International

To be taken at (country): Canada

Eligible Fields of Study: Health Sciences, Natural Sciences and Engineering, Social Sciences and Humanities

About the Award: Killam Doctoral Scholarships are the most prestigious awards available to graduate students at UBC. The Killam Scholarship and Prize Programmes were established in memory of Izaak Walton Killam through the Will of his wife, Dorothy Johnston Killam, and through gifts made during her lifetime. Their primary purpose is to support advanced education and research at five Canadian universities and the Canada Council for the Arts.

The UBC Killam Doctoral Scholarships are provided annually from the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Fund for Advanced Studies. It was Mrs. Killam’s desire that those selected to receive scholarships: “Be likely to contribute to the advancement of learning or to win distinction in a profession. A Killam scholar should not be a one-sided person…Special distinction of intellect should be founded upon sound character.”

Type: Doctoral

Eligibility: To be eligible to apply for Killam Doctoral Scholarship funding, applicants must have completed no more than 24 months of doctoral study as of the start date of the scholarship. Therefore, applicants to the fall 2017 competition must have completed no more than 24 months of doctoral study as of September 1, 2018.

Selection Criteria: Candidates will be evaluated as per Affiliated Fellowships. Top students in the competition are awarded the Killam Doctoral Scholarships.

Number of Awardees: Approximately 15-20 awards

Value of Scholarship: $30,000 per annum and a $2,000 allowance for research-related travel during the 24 months of the scholarship.

Duration of Scholarship: Two years

How to Apply: Applicants submit their application materials to the College of Graduate Studies.

Applicants may submit complete application forms directly to graduateawards.ok@ubc.ca or submit a hard (paper) copy to the College of Graduate Studies.

See Application Form and Instruction link in the Scholarship Webpage (link below)

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider:  Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Fund for Advanced Studies, University of British Columbia.

Important Notes: Please note that students who submit a NSERC doctoral or a SSHRC doctoral award application to the College of Graduate Studies and are successfully forwarded to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (G+PS), are automatically considered for Killam Doctoral Scholarship funding. These students do not need to submit a separate Affiliated Fellowship application.

9Mobile (Formerly Etisalat) Photography Competition 2017

Application Timeline: 

• Deadline: 11th September, 2017
• Voting Opens for Voters Choice (Top 100): September 13th – September 20th
• Voters Choice Winner Announced: September 22nd
• Shortlist – Top 10: September 26th
• Winner Announcement: September 29th

Eligible Countries: Nigeria

To be taken at (country): Lagos, Nigeria

About the Award: As nurturers of talent, the 9mobile photography competition was developed as a platform to engage and empower budding photographers using the power of digital media; online, social and mobile. Each year, a theme is created and submissions are received within a specified period. From the pool of entries received, 100 images will be approved by internal reviewers based on entry criteria and passed on to the Judging panel for review to come up with a longlist of 10 images and then opened to the public for voting to come up with the voters choice.

The image with the highest number of votes emerges as the winner for voter’s choice. And the judges come up with the shortlist and winner for the competition. Winners from the judges and public voting are rewarded with prizes. Images of the finalists are showcased during a winner’s announcement.

Type: Contest

Theme of Contest: This year’s theme is tagged Capturing Solid Memories in 9ja.

Photography has become part of our culture when it comes to creating lasting memories, and with the technological advancements, the art of capturing photos keep changing and growing. A lot of creativity has gone into the art of contemporary photography in Nigeria. The diverse nature of Nigeria, provides many kinds of notable buildings.

Charge the shutter, adjust the lens to unmask the solid memories and reality evidenced in 9ja. Through this category “Architectural Buildings”, we hope to visualize and unfold the act of photography in capturing sights of historical buildings, landmarks, churches, bridges in Nigeria.

Excited? Submit your picture as we search for the most creative pictures depicting the subtheme “Architectural Buildings”

Categories: Architectural Buildings – Explore and capture sights of historical buildings, famous landmarks, bridges, city skylines and old churches. It is expected you stay creative in your surroundings.

Selection Criteria: 

• images should depict the theme
• participants are allowed multiple entries exploring daily routines and celebratory activities
• Images must be a jpeg file. Editing/cropping via various photo editing programs/applications are acceptable.
• images must not contain inappropriate subject matter.
• images not submitted in the above mentioned manner will be disqualified from the competition.
• Etisalat and LagosPhoto retain exclusive usage rights of images submitted to this competition
• artistic creativity is highly desired

Number of Awardees: 3

Value of Contest: 

• Grand Prize: Canon Camera
• 1st runner up: iPhone + Airtime
• 2nd runner up: Samsung phone + Airtime

Selection Process: The judging panel is comprised of selected members from the photography community as well as other creative individuals.

The approved 100 images will be reviewed by the jury to produce a shortlist of 10 and top 3 images from the shortlisted. The top 3 finalists will be unveiled and awarded prizes by the jury at a Winner Announcement event.

How to Apply: Register here

Visit Contest Webpage for details

Award Provider: LagosPhoto, Etisalat

Norbert Zongo Investigative Journalism Award for African Journalists 2017

Application Deadline: 30th August 2017

Eligible Countries: African countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Burkina Faso

 About the Award: The Norbert Zongo investigative prize is an award of excellence to reward the best works of investigative journalism.The Prize is opened to all the professional journalists of Africa regularly employed in press or collaborating with African press.

Type: Contest

Eligibility: Works must be published or broadcast between May 3, 2015 and May 3, 2017

The competition will be in three categories : News Papers, Radio and Television. 
Newspapers – send the original and a copy of the story. 
Television – send 2 DVD copies of the story or a file. 
Radio – send 2 audio CDs of the story or a file.

Selection Criteria: 

• The professionalism of the author (through the respect of deontology) ;
• “search for information” strategies ;
• Relevance and originality of the covered subject ;
• Interest of topic approached (can it be exploited) ;
• Evidence of the difficulties encountered by the author (checking the various sources of information for reliability)
• The editorial style (concrete, lively and accessible to everyone)

Selection: 

• The members will be chosen by the Norbert Zongo National Press Center, among highly skilled professionals of communication, famous defenders of the freedom of the press and human rights, established reputation on the African continent.
• It will consist of five (05) to seven (07) members

Number of Awards: 6

Value of Award: The winner of every category will receive a diploma, a trophy and One Million CFA francs (1.000.000 CFA).

First prize of any category : the “GOLD SEBGO” 2013
The jury will attribute the award of excellence : SEBGO GOLD (pen name of Norbert Zongo) to the best work of the three awards. The winner will receive an additional sum of one million (1 000. 000) CFA francs, a diploma and a trophy symbolizing “SEBGO GOLD.”

How to Apply: The application must include :

  a declaration of candidature on a plain paper with a complete indication of the identity of the candidate (last name, first names, pseudonym) ;
  a certificate of the media confirming his membership or his collaboration with the media which have published his work
  a C.V of the candidate, bearing his photograph
  a handwritten and signed declaration authorizing the Norbert Zongo National Press Center to use his name, his voice, his images and the whole of the work in case he is a winner, without any compensation and on all media supports, within the framework of publicity and public relations or information on the Prize.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Norbert Zongo National Press Centre,

Important Notes: The works in French or English can be sent by e-mail to cnpress@cnpress-zongo.org or cnpnzongo@gmail.com and originals by regular post, the postmark authentic.

UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute TECH Conference in Education (Funded) 2017 – India

Application Deadline: 15th August, 2017 (11:59 p.m. Indian Standard Time)

Eligible Countries: All

To Be Taken At (Country): Visakhapatnam, India

About the Award: TECH invites submissions for proposals on the following themes that can be presented through a variety of formats (panel discussions, workshops, e-posters, learning zone and more..):

• 21st Century Skills: The skills needed to address the challenges of the 21st century will be very different from the skills prioritized over the past six decades. New challenges in a rapidly changing world will require new skills for success. The advancements in the digital world have played a key role in shrinking the world and connecting societies in ways never seen before in human history. The conference focuses on exploring how digital pedagogies actually improve the efficiency of learning using the vast amount of big data and information available. In addition to improving numeracy and literacy through critical thinking, new competencies to meet 21st century challenges include social emotional skills such as mindfulness, empathy and compassion. Please apply now if you have something to say in the following areas:
  • Digital Games, pedagogies and assessments
  • Fostering Social and Emotional Learning
  • Multimodal digital platforms for Design Thinking and systems approach to learning
  • Artificial Intelligence in learning
  • Augmented and virtual reality as digital pedagogies
• 21st Century Schools for Inclusive, Equitable and Quality Education: Technology offers a great possibility to make learning bespoke. Every individual learns differently, some more common than others. Digital pedagogies offer the possibility of designing the future school, in which students are provided an environment where they are able to build their own lesson plans and advance at their own speed and comfort. Advances in the use of big data and multimedia to design lesson plans offer customized attention to each learner. Please apply now if you have ideas on the design of future schools along the following themes:
  • Technology enabled innovative tools for screening, assessment and measuring outcomes
  • Teacher training and capacity building for inclusive education through digital platforms
  • New Technology Applications in the classroom
  • Traditional Education vs. digital education and its Integration
• 21st Century Policies for the implementation and mainstreaming of digital pedagogies in educational systems: Governments around the world have invested an enormous amount of resources and efforts into ICT in education in order to reform their informal, formal, and non-formal education systems. If you have worked on the implementation and mainstreaming of digital pedagogies, do submit your proposal on any of the following themes:
  • Best practices and models in policy development, financing and delivery
  • Community based approaches in informal and non-formal education systems
  • Intellectual Property Rights and digital pedagogies
  • Regulations and management of digital resources and the Internet

Still can’t find a match of your idea in any of the above topics? Go ahead and share your stories, solutions and products to transform education for humanity

Type: Conference

Eligibility: TECH intends to bring together educators, education researchers, neuroscientists, edtech specialists, policy makers, students, gaming experts, curriculum designers, young social entrepreneurs, technology experts and futurists who can help build, share, enhance and deliver Digital Pedagogies for Peaceful and Sustainable Societies.

Apply now if you have something to say in the following areas:

• Digital Games, pedagogies and assessments
• Fostering Social and Emotional Learning
• Multimodal digital platforms for Design Thinking and systems approach to learning
• Artificial Intelligence in learning
• Augmented and virtual reality as digital pedagogies

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Financial assistance may be available for select candidates from developing countries

Duration of Program: December 16 – 18, 2017

How to Apply: The application process requires interested individuals to complete and return the Application Form along with their proposals / presentations to tech@unesco.org

• The title of the proposal should convey the exact topic and its content.
• A brief yet detailed description of your session covering the subject, objective and proposed outcome.
• The method you use to deliver your presentation must align with one of the session formats
• Please also submit a brief bio of the presenter and co-presenter.

All of the above must be submitted to tech@unesco.org by the stated deadline above

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India