Price gouging at Amazon and the case for public ownership

Eric London

As Florida’s residents brace themselves for Hurricane Irma, Amazon is profiting from third party sellers hiking the cost of water sold on the corporation’s online marketplace.

Family and residents of areas expected to be slammed by the hurricane’s torrential rain and 180 mile per hour winds took to Twitter in recent days to protest high mark-ups on cases of water. Many people have attempted to buy water online in the run-up to the storm because grocery stores and warehouses quickly sold out.

Florida resident Lee Munro tweeted, “So. Florida girl trying to by food on @Amazon before Irma...prices have tripled. Isn’t that PRICE GOUGING? @JeffBezos”

Another user, J, posted a photo of a 24-pack of bottled water priced at $20, adding, “@Amazon, I’m in Tampa trying to buy water online because stores are out of water and this is crazy price gouging!”

Diana Moskovitz, an editor for the web site Deadspin, posted a photo of Amazon sellers charging $18.48 for a 24-pack of bottled water usually priced at $5-6. To ship the bottled water before the storm hits would cost $179.25, making the total cost $197.73, or $8.24 per bottle. USA Today reported that an Amazon search for Ice Mountain Spring Water priced a 24-pack at $99.99 before shipping.

Amazon replied by denying claims of price gouging. “We do not engage in surge pricing,” a corporate spokesperson told Business Insider, adding that bottled water prices “have not widely fluctuated in the last month.” While true that the price increases are not due to surge pricing, Amazon contracts with third party sellers and receives a percentage of sales revenue and is profiting from third party price hikes. The company spokesperson blamed the company’s algorithms for the rising price, noting that “lower priced offers are quickly selling out, leaving higher priced offers from third party sellers.”

Even the pro-corporate Forbes magazine found this defense suspicious, with Tom Popomoronis writing yesterday: “Personally, I find it appalling and sickening to just ‘blame the algorithm’ and sweep this under the rug amidst catastrophe.” Popomoronis explained, “Under normal circumstances, algorithmic processing can result in price shifts ranging from just a penny or two to several dollars, depending on the demand the AI analyzes and the initial price. ... But in hurricanes and other natural disasters and crises, algorithms break this general rule. Because equipment and supplies that are necessary for human survival get tagged with the increases, the ethics of allowing regular supply and demand concepts to prevail comes into question.”

Even in the wake of last week’s devastating Hurricane Harvey struck Houston, capitalist think tanks have defended the policies of companies like Amazon. Writing for the American Enterprise Institute, University of Michigan economist Mark Perry wrote recently, “A frequent claim we hear is that the laws of economic should be suspended, ignored or circumvented following a natural disaster like Hurricane Harvey, which then motivates laws against ‘price-gouging.’ But you can make a stronger case that it’s during the period following a natural disaster like a hurricane when we want market prices to prevail and market forces to operate as forcefully and powerfully as possible.”

In other words, let the corporations prey on workers and their families in Texas and Florida whose homes have been destroyed or who are attempting to get out of harm’s way. Airlines are currently charging Floridans thousands of dollars to leave the state for safe grounds. American Airlines, for example, is charging just under $2,000 for flights from Miami to Minneapolis. One twitter user said, “This is how American Airlines helps people to evacuate Miami ... by raising tickets 400% #shameful!”

The recent price hikes by third party sellers on Amazon is a particularly egregious example of corporate profiteering, but this type of vulture activity is the rule under capitalism, where social need and human rights are subordinated to the interests of corporate profit. Amazon has catapulted itself to the top of the economic food chain by imposing a business model based on the hyper-exploitation of its 300,000-person workforce, forcing workers all over the world to labor under strenuous conditions at low pay and low benefits.

While the government protects the right of corporations to profit off of flood victims, it ignores infrastructure, rescue preparations, and leaves residents to fight for themselves. In Houston, rescue efforts were largely spontaneous and organized by the working class without sufficient support from the government. While thousands of workers took their boats into the flood waters looking for victims and bringing them food and water, the Washington Post—owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos—sought to paper over the government’s lack of preparedness, writing: “Rescue officials say there was no way to prepare for deluge’s ferocity.”

The response of the ruling class and the working class to this summer’s storms shows the burning need for the socialist reorganization of the world economy. Instead of price gouging and government neglect, trillions of dollars must be taken from the major corporations and from the bank accounts of their billionaire owners to build flood and natural disaster infrastructure across the world. Massive jobs programs involving millions of workers must be launched to protect the population against storms, earthquakes, fires and floods.

Corporations like Amazon must be placed under social ownership and directed not for private profit, but to meet social needs. Under socialist direction, Amazon could be transformed into a platform for natural disaster rescue. The corporation’s fleet of delivery drones could be flown to Miami or Houston and used to deliver free water, food, medical supplies, flares, inflatable rafts, etc., to millions of residents.

Drones with live video cameras could be used to go street-by-street through the floodwaters, identifying residents in need of rescue and alerting authorities. The corporation’s massive warehouses could be used to store food and its growing network of neighborhood shops could be used as distribution centers, supplied with a constant flow of emergency goods and personnel by the company’s complex international supply line.

Rebuilding efforts could be scientifically organized according to a regional plan that calculates the material needs of different neighborhoods, programming drones, delivery drivers and trucks to drop off supplies and pick up waste. With the immense power of a corporation like Amazon at the full disposal of disaster relief efforts, rebuilding a major city like Houston could be as smoothly orchestrated as municipal garbage pickup.

This requires a level of social planning which cannot be introduced under a capitalist system where private profit is the rule.

Mass demonstrations in Togo threaten to topple ruling government

Eddie Haywood 

On Wednesday and again on Thursday, tens of thousands of Togolese poured into the streets of cities across the West African nation demanding the ruling government of Faure Gnassingbe resign immediately. The numbers of protesters are unprecedented; initial figures reported in the media indicate that at least 100,000 turned out in 10 cities around the country on Wednesday.

The demonstrations were organized by the Pan-African National Party (PNP) and the National Alliance for Change (ANC) to call for the immediate release of party members imprisoned by the government. But the demonstrations took on a revolutionary dimension with the crowds expressing popular contempt for the government with widespread calls for the Gnassingbe regime to resign.

Lomé, Togo’s capital city, saw the largest convergence of protests. Banners were waved with the words “Faure Must Go!” and “50 Years Is Long Enough!” a reference to the dynastic character of the Gnassingbe government.

Social anger reached a fever pitch in August when two protesters were killed by police during demonstrations against the Gnassingbe government organized by the opposition party of Jean-Pierre Fabre, the National Alliance for Change (ANC). Many were beaten and assaulted with teargas, with others arrested and jailed.

The protests have struck a chord of terror within the Gnassingbe government. Recalling the mass demonstrations in Egypt and Tunisia in 2011 that saw the hated dictators of both countries swept from power, the wave of large scale demonstrations currently in Togo have shook the very foundations of the Gnassingbe government.

Recognizing the massive threat to its continued existence in the wave of popular outrage, the Gnassingbe government is desperate to put an end to the demonstrations.

Public service minister and government spokesperson Gilbert Bawara announced on Wednesday that the government had moved to limit Internet access nationwide for “security” purposes. Internet as well as mobile text messaging and money transfer networks were completely down by Thursday.

In an effort to assuage popular anger the Gnassingbe government has promised to introduce legislation in October that would call for limits to two terms for the presidency. In the unlikely event this meaningless reform was made law and enforced, Gnassingbe would remain in power for another three years, leaving office in 2020.

Togo is among the poorest countries in the world, with more than 80 percent of the rural poor living on less than $2 a day while a tiny layer at the top enjoy obscene privilege at the expense of these impoverished masses.

The social anger which has erupted in mass demonstrations has been kindled for decades by the dictatorial and dynastic government. The Gnassingbe family has ruled Togo for half a century.

In 1967, Faure Gnassingbe’s father, Etienne Gnassingbe Eyadema, took power after he staged a coup against the government of Nicolas Grunitzky. His nearly four-decade rule was one of the longest in Africa.

Eyadema’s political trajectory paralleled the path of many post-colonial African autocrats. In 1953 during French colonial rule, Eyadema joined the army, rising to the rank of sergeant. While in the army during the decade of the 1950s, he fought on behalf of France in its bloody colonial wars conducted against Indochina and Algeria.

After he assumed power, Eyadema enjoyed the backing of France and other European governments, including Washington. Like other newly independent governments coming to power in Africa’s post-colonial era, Eyadema’s government sought to continue undisturbed the capitalist operations established in Togo under the colonial administration.

The Eyadema government was characterized by corruption, nepotism and authoritarianism. The government held a series of allegedly democratic elections, now widely regarded as rigged, at various times throughout Eyadema’s 38-year rule.

Upon taking power, Eyadema decreed his party, Rally of the Togolese People (RPT), as the only legal political organization allowed in the country. A rabid anticommunist, he targeted political enemies with accusations of having close ties to the Soviet Union.

In 1993, after feeling international pressure over his regime’s gross human rights violations, Eyadema attempted to give his regime a veneer of democratic legitimacy by allowing other parties to campaign for elections held that year. These reforms were largely farcical, and the fraudulent character of these “elections” was revealed when Eyadema was declared the winner in every single election afterwards.

Following Eyadema’s death in 2005 of health complications while on a plane bound to Tunisia for medical treatment, the remaining government in Lomé appointed his son, Faure Gnassingbe, as the new president.

When the Togolese masses poured into the streets in revolt at this blatant establishment of dynastic succession, Faure Gnassingbe felt compelled to hold elections. Not surprising to the Togolese masses, Gnassingbe was declared the winner.

International election observers, barred by the government from monitoring the election, strongly suspected the ballot was rigged. During protests against the regime’s dynastic machinations, 500 people were killed by security forces.

An element of dread no doubt haunts the minds of the Togolese ruling elite and Western capitalists regarding the potential for the collapse of the Gnassingbe government and its effect on their capitalist operations and banking enterprises in Togo in the wake of the mass demonstrations.

Washington displayed its “scramble for Africa” strategy in August, when it sent representatives of the Trump administration to attend the annual African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade forum held in Lomé. AGOA was enacted in 2000 by the Clinton administration, to better facilitate trade between the United States and Africa.

When asked by the media regarding President Donald Trump’s position on Africa, US State Department spokesman Brian Neubert, who was present at the forum, said that Washington has “very significant interests in Africa.”

Speaking further, Neubert elaborated on Washington’s imperialist aims for Africa, “There are opportunities for American investors in several sectors. For example, in the energy sector—the opportunities are enormous.”

Wednesday’s demonstrations make clear the establishment is petrified of the Togolese masses, and the ruling elite is desperate to contain the social outrage. Calculating the implications of a collapse of the Gnassingbe government, the ruling class is attempting to forge an alliance with the political opposition in a combined effort to channel the restive masses down the fraudulent avenue of constitutional reforms of presidential term limits.

On Wednesday, the Gnassingbe government demonstrated its eagerness to make a political alliance with the PNP and ANC by releasing several PNP and ANC figures it held in prison.

The fraudulent political parties behind the organization of the demonstrations represent a faction of the Togolese capitalist elite, and seek to take undeserved political advantage of the mass social anger towards the dynastic regime and channel it into a political campaign to assume power for themselves. The election of either the PNP or ANC would not improve the miserable conditions of life experienced by the Togolese masses.

Suicide attempt by Renault Nissan worker reveals brutal conditions in India’s free trade zones

Arun Kumar 

A recent suicide attempt by a worker at Renault Nissan India’s manufacturing plant in Oragadam Special Economic Zone (SEZ), 50 km from Chennai, has once again highlighted the brutal and inhuman conditions facing autoworkers in India.

The August 17 incident occurred with virtually no comment by the regional and national corporate-controlled media. It came to light only after Thozhilalar koodam (Workers Forum, tnlabour.in), an English-Tamil bilingual website with ties to Maoist-led organizations, reported the suicide attempt on September 3.

Renault Nissan is a leading global auto company and the second-largest car manufacturer in India. It was formed in the 1999 as an alliance of France-based Renault and Japan-based Nissan and employs nearly 450,000 workers globally. Renault Nissan is the leading plug-in electric car manufacturer in the world. The company began its Indian operations in Oragadam in 2010.

The Oragadam plant manufactures 480,000 cars per year and markets them in India and 106 countries around the world. The plant employs more than 10,000 workers, including regular, contract and apprentice workers.

Following a heated argument with the supervisor over his application for leave, an assembly shop floor worker in the plant attempted to poison himself by consuming soap oil. The supervisor not only refused to grant the worker’s request for leave but also verbally abused him. The helpless worker, extremely frustrated by supervisor’s response, attempted to kill himself.

The immediate intervention by co-workers, who witnessed the incident, saved the worker’s life. They rushed him to the nearest Global Hospital where, after two days of treatment, he was discharged and has recovered.

The next day, the angry workers in the plant stopped production for 20 minutes to protest the supervisor’s refusal to grant leave to their co-worker and demand that the supervisor be disciplined for driving the worker to suicide.

The denial of leave was not the act of just a particularly sadistic supervisor but is the common practice of Renault Nissan and other global automakers in India to maximize the exploitation of workers and corporate profits. Though plant workers are eligible for casual leave with pay, each leave application has to be approved by the floor supervisor. In most cases supervisors deny leave, forcing workers to forgo time off or to go on “unapproved” leave facing a cut in one-day wages. Every month hundreds of workers lose pay for taking such leaves.

The victimized worker had reportedly already lost two days wages amounting to 2,000 rupees (US $31.27) for his earlier such “unapproved” leave. The lost of these meagre wages is devastating for impoverished workers. Because the worker could not afford another pay cut, he challenged the supervisor.

In an earlier incident at the same Renault Nissan plant, which highlighted the lack of basic safety measures, Thiyagarajan Mahalingam, a 29-year-old junior engineer in the factory’s maintenance department, was crushed to death on January 6 by a hydraulic press he was inspecting in the engine assembly section.

Sweatshop conditions are commonplace throughout the country’s factories and are encouraged by successive central and state governments to attract foreign investment. Since coming to power in May 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has escalated the attacks on the social and democratic rights of the working class in the name of Modi’s “Make in India” campaign.

The sharpest expression of this ruling class offensive is the witch-hunt against the Maruti Suzuki autoworkers in Manesar, Gurgaon in northern India Haryana state. Last March, 13 Maruti Suzuki workers were sentenced to life imprisonment on trumped-up murder charges in a brutal display of class justice aimed at intimidating and silencing workers and crushing the rising resistance to exploitation.

Twelve of the 13 imprisoned workers were leaders of the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU), which was formed by workers in a rebellion against the company and the government-sanctioned stooge union. The July 2012 frame-up followed more than a year of militant strikes and protests against brutal conditions in the plant, including the lack of leave, arduous production quotas and the hated contract labour system, which prevail across the Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt—a huge auto manufacturing centre that has sprung up on the outskirts of Indian capital Delhi.

India’s main Stalinist parliamentary parties—the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM and the Communist Party of India (CPI)—and their affiliated union federations—the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) respectively—have systematically isolated the embattled Maruti Suzuki workers, thereby facilitating the company-government vendetta against them.

In Sriperumbudur, Oragadam and other nearby SEZs, many global auto and electronics corporations and auto parts companies extract vast profits with conditions similar to Maruti Suzuki. The Stalinist CITU and Maoist-linked unions are active in these SEZs and seek to restrict workers to a narrow trade unionist and nationalist outlook while boosting illusions in the Congress Party, the traditional party of the Indian ruling class, which also played the central role in the state persecution of the Maruti Suzuki workers.

German conservative parties embrace the language of dictatorship

Peter Schwarz

On September 1, the interior and justice ministers of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) adopted a statement on domestic security which reads like a blueprint for dictatorship. The two “Union” parties head the current coalition government in Germany, with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) as a junior partner.

At the start of the document the signatories boast: “We are the driving force in domestic and legal policy.” The document continues in this vein and ends: “We stand for a strong state that takes seriously its responsibility for the security and protection of its citizens. Security in freedom requires order. ... We will not permit unregulated areas.”

The word “right” is used in the text exclusively in expressions linked to state, law and order, rather than in connection to democracy. The term “democracy” appears only once in the document: “Right and left-wing extremism question the basis of our democracy.” The concept of “basic rights” or “democratic rights,” which protect citizens from state violence and exploitation, does not exist in the vocabulary and mindset of the Union ministers.

Under the title “A strong state of law to protect our citizens,” the document puts forward a catalogue of measures any dictator would be proud of. This begins with the sentence: “Optimal cooperation between the federal and state level, and especially between the police, intelligence services and the judiciary, is the decisive factor for effective security in our country.”

The ministers seem to have forgotten that the separation of the intelligence services and the police as well as their decentralisation were among the basic principles of the post-war German order. This was the most important conclusion drawn from the criminal role played by the Secret State Police (Gestapo) of the Nazi regime.

The German bourgeoisie, however, did not arrive at this conclusion voluntarily; it was forced to adopt it under pressure from the Allied powers. Following the restoration of full Germany sovereignty after unification, the longstanding separation of the police and intelligence forces has been increasingly questioned. The CDU ministers now consider it to be irrelevant.

Many of the measures proposed by the Union ministers would have made the Gestapo envious—in particular because it did not yet have the new possibilities of state control opened up by the latest surveillance technology.

“We will strengthen the police and security forces, both in terms of personnel and state-of-the-art equipment,” the document states. “We want to bring state-of-the-art technology (for example, intelligent video technology for face recognition), powers corresponding to our time, close cooperation between the security authorities, and, last but not least, a modern data policy that balances security interests with data protection concerns.”

“Islamist terrorism” serves as a pretext for the massive build-up of state powers, This, despite the fact all of the major terror attacks in recent years—from Paris, Brussels and Berlin to Barcelona—were committed by perpetrators known to the security authorities and frequently in close contact with them. Significantly, however, the interior ministers go further. They cite as an additional reason for boosting state power the threat from “right-wing and left-wing extremism,” with the emphasis on the latter.

The violent clashes on the fringes of the G20 summit in Hamburg, provoked by the police and massively exaggerated by the media, serve as a pretext for attacking social and political opposition from the left. “The brutal violence on the streets of Hamburg at the G20 summit has demonstrated the terrifying potential for violence stemming from left-wing extremists,” the text reads.

This serves as a justification to undermine the basic rights to demonstrate and exercise free expression. To this end the criminal offence of civil disorder is to be broadened in a way that a single stone, thrown by a police provocateur, can serve as a pretext to declare a peaceful demonstration to be a mob of violent criminals. Based on the new law, criminal proceedings can be brought, not only against those who practice violence, but also against all those who “assist aggressors by offering them protection in the crowd.”

Meeting places of Autonomists—such as the Rote Flora in Hamburg and Riga Street in Berlin—will no longer be “tolerated,” and masking one’s face on a demonstration is to remain a criminal offence and not be “downgraded to an administrative offence.”

The Union ministers also want to further empower prosecutors and the courts to combat and intimidate social opposition. This is to be done via improved “personnel and material equipment,” the further expansion of criminal law as well as the modernisation “of the instruments for prosecution.” This includes “new possibilities to evaluate DNA” and the expansion of “the storage and recovery of traffic data.” “Promoting sympathy” for “terrorist and criminal associations … on our streets and squares”—whatever that means—is to be made a punishable offence.

Many of the proposals have unmistakably racist features, e.g., when the ministers demand the examination of DNA “for skin colour, hair colour and bio-geographical origin” or when they are threatening: “We will not tolerate parallel societies—only our rights, our values, our principles are valid.”

The fact that attacks on democratic rights carried out in the name of “security” are an essential characteristic of dictatorships was part and parcel of German public education just a few years ago. According to a report on the military dictatorships in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay posted on the web site of the Federal Centre for Civic Education in 2006, all these regimes justified their rule with the “Doctrine of National Security,” which is elaborated as follows: “This doctrine asserts external and internal security to be the most important task of the state; to this end state action is not subject to (human) rights restrictions and controls. The doctrine therefore legitimates the considerable tightening up of existing security laws.”

On the basis of these criteria, the German minister’s proposals clearly point to the establishment of a dictatorship. And in this respect they are not alone. As we have already pointed out in another article, in the current federal election campaign, all of the parties involved, from the far-right Alternative for Germany to the Left Party, are trying to outdo one another “with demands for more policemen, civil war equipment for police and better surveillance techniques.”

It should also be noted that the ministers of interior and justice from nine federal states, who drafted the statement with German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, include ministers from Baden-Württemberg and Hesse, where the CDU governs in coalition with the Greens. The demand for the rearmament of the police and judiciary also occupies a central place in the programs of the SPD and the Left Party.

The only explanation for the drive towards state armament and dictatorship is that all parties anticipate fierce social and political conflict after the Bundestag election. They know that the policies of militarism and dismantling of social rights—their response to the global crisis of capitalism and growing international tensions—are deeply unpopular. They are consciously preparing to forcibly repress any opposition.

Quebec Liberals expand chauvinist bill targeting Muslims

Louis Girard 

Thousands of migrants, mostly Haitian, have recently crossed the US-Canadian border near Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, to escape the Trump administration’s threats of deportation and apply for asylum in Canada.

They have received a warm welcome from ordinary people, who are sensitive to the plight of those who have suffered severe hardship. Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, was devastated in 2010 by an earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people. In 2016 a hurricane destroyed a large part of the island.

But the reception from the Quebec and Canadian elite has been cold, if not hostile. Migrants are widely portrayed by the media and the establishment parties as “illegals,” even “invaders,” including by the two main opposition parties in Quebec, the Parti Québécois (PQ) and the Coalition for Quebec’s Future (CAQ), and by the Conservatives, the Official Opposition in Ottawa.

Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard and his Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) government have adopted the pose of defenders of civil rights. They are claiming to be “open” to the asylum seekers and have warned that the xenophobic agitation of the opposition parties is encouraging the extreme right.

“[P]olitical leaders need to be very careful when they describe people as illegal when they are not,” said Couillard. “When you make it seem as though we can solve the problem by snapping our fingers, we worry the population and we encourage this kind of thing.” Here Couillard was pointing to the connection between the anti-immigration pronouncements of the PQ and CAQ and a spike in the activity and public presence of the far-right.

But there is an enormous gap between Couillard’s humanitarian rhetoric and the actions of his government.

Since returning to office in 2014, the Liberals have carried out massive cuts in health care, education, social assistance and child care. In 2015-16, with the help of the trade unions, the Couillard government imposed cuts in the real wages, pensions and working conditions of a half-million public sector workers.

In May of this year, in a move that has become the norm across Canada, the PLQ criminalized a strike by 170,000 construction workers who were resisting the employers’ drive for “flexibility” in work schedules, cuts in overtime pay, and a five-year contract with wage increases below the rate of inflation.

This is on top of the attacks on democratic rights unleashed by the Liberals during the student strike that shook Quebec in 2012. Liberal Premier Jean Charest responded by unleashing police violence against the students and adopting a draconian law, Bill 78, that effectively illegalized the strike and banned demonstrations over any issue.

Now the PLQ is making its own pronounced turn towards chauvinism to divert the growing opposition to its austerity measures in a reactionary direction and to split the working class.

The party’s real attitude to the asylum seekers and other immigrants can be gauged by the government’s moves to amend Bill 62—proposed Liberal legislation that in the name of the “security” and the “religious neutrality of the state” targets the Muslim minority. Bill 62 would prohibit anyone giving or receiving public services while wearing a face covering, a provision that explicitly targets Muslim women who wear the burqa or niqab.

It is meant as the Liberals’ response to the debate over the reputed “excessive accommodation” of religious minorities—a reactionary and diversionary debate that Quebec’s political elite and media have promoted for the past decade.

The Liberals’ new version of Bill 62 would extend its reach to municipalities, public transit companies, museums and other government agencies, thereby imposing a virtual public ban on the wearing of Muslim face-coverings.

The strengthening of Bill 62 is part of a series of calculated steps taken by Couillard and his Liberals in recent months to promote chauvinism.

In the name of upholding Quebec’s “cultural,” i.e., Roman Catholic, “heritage,” Health Minister Gaétan Barrette and other leading Liberals have defended the decision of a Quebec hospital to restore a giant crucifix to its central position at the hospital’s main entrance.

In June, after a police officer was stabbed in the United States by a Muslim Quebec resident, Couillard adopted the typical language of anti-Muslim chauvinism, declaring that it was not possible to “separate such events—terrorism—from Islam in general” and asserting that Quebec Muslims have a special responsibility to oppose terrorism.

The fact that Bill 62 provides for certain unspecified accommodations has raised the ire of the opposition parties, who predictably claim that the anti-democratic legislation does not go “far enough.”

The CAQ, which recently said that the border between the United States and Quebec “shouldn’t leak like a sieve,” has called on the government to be “firmer in enforcing its regulation on the giving and receiving of services with the face uncovered.”

For his part, Parti Québécois (PQ) leader Jean-François Lisée has called on Couillard and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to suspend the international agreement under which the federal government accepts asylum-seekers. Lisée has tweeted that Quebecers “are against the normalization of illegal crossings” and has sought to whip up chauvinism with demagogic denunciations of the government for providing financial support to asylum-seekers while telling “us it can’t give two baths” a week to seniors in nursing homes.

Lisée is also adamantly opposing a request from the mayor of Montréal, where most Quebec Muslims live, for the right to opt out of some of Bill 62’s provisions.

Both the CAQ and the PQ are criticizing the Liberals for not banning the chador, traditional Iranian clothing that covers the body but leaves the face uncovered. Both organizations also argue that the bill should prohibit the wearing of religious symbols by state employees in “positions of authority,” including, in the CAQ’s case, daycare workers. This ban was first proposed in 2008 by the Liberal-appointed Bouchard-Taylor Commission on “reasonable accommodation.”

It is noteworthy that Bill 62 has received tacit support from New Democratic Party (NDP) federal leadership candidate and Quebec MP Guy Caron. Niki Ashton, who also aspires to lead Canada’s social democratic party, and who is being heavily promoted by the pseudo-left as a quasi-socialist, also indicated her support for what she termed the “consensus among Quebec’s political leaders on secularism.” But she later backtracked after coming under fire for supporting legislation “dictating women’s attire.”

Québec Solidaire, the ostensibly “left-wing” pro-independence party, has remained silent on the amendments to Bill 62. Although it occasionally criticizes certain “excesses” in the identity debate, QS has played a key role in legitimizing it with the claim that discussions on “religious accommodation” are “necessary.”

QS’s response to the rise of xenophobia has been anything but principled. Faced with the spike in asylum-claims, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the new “male spokesperson” for QS and former 2012 student strike leader, said the “situation is serious” and that “some concerns are legitimate.” The next day, he solidarized with the governments of Quebec and Canada—instruments of big business, which are trampling on worker and democratic rights—declaring the “real problem is Donald Trump.”

Canada, under the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, hypocritically claims to be in favor of refugees. But this is a sham.

Canada’s Liberal-led government has accepted only 40,000 Syrian refugees in the last two years, although millions have been forced to flee the civil war in that country, and it has made clear that many, if not most, of the Haitian asylum seekers will be deported.

Moreover, Ottawa has taken part in almost all the US-led military interventions and wars of the last quarter century that are at the root of the refugee crisis. This includes the “regime change” operation that overthrew Haiti’s elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in 2004. These interventions, from Libya to Afghanistan, have razed entire societies, forcing millions to flee.

Canada’s turn to militarism, which is fully supported by both the federal and sovereignist (pro-independence) wings of Quebec’s ruling elite, is taking place in tandem with a cross-country assault on public services and workers’ wages and pensions.

It is these regressive policies that create fertile ground for far-right, ultra-nationalist groups like La Meute (the Wolf Pack). Last month La Meute staged a high-profile demonstration in Quebec City, under police protection, to demand Canada violate its international obligations and immediately return all the asylum-seekers to the US. On January 29, a young Quebec sympathizer of Donald Trump and France’s National Front, strongly influenced by the anti-Muslim discourse of Quebec’s politicians and media, opened fire in a mosque in Quebec City, killing six people and wounding 20.

Myanmar: Contextualising the Violence In Northern Rakhine

Angshuman Choudhury

At midnight on 25 August, hundreds of assailants launched coordinated attacks on close to 30 security installations, including police stations, border posts, and a military base, in northern Rakhine, Myanmar. The attacks left 110 dead, including militants, security personnel, and civilians.

The militant assault was claimed by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a relatively new armed group formed by Rohingya émigrés based in Saudi Arabia and made up of locally-trained Rohingyas. In response, state security forces (SF) have launched ‘clearance operations’ to neutralise militants and recapture seized weapons and territory. However, the campaign has been marred by allegations of use of excessive force, alongside reports of around 270,000 Rohingyas having fled to neighbouring Bangladesh.

In what context did the attacks take place and what does the state’s response reflect?

Prelude

Contrary to current news coverage, the attacks did not take place in isolation but were part of a conflict continuum in northern Rakhine.

Since a similar attack on border posts in October 2016, also linked to ARSA, northern Rakhine has witnessed incremental militarisation undertaken by state authorities in response to multiple instances of killings of ethnic non-Muslims by suspected Rohingya extremists. In addition to building 30 new security posts in the area since 2016, authorities had been steadily ramping up force presence to conduct frequent ‘clearance operations’ in the Mayu hill tracts between Maungdaw and Buthidaung Townships to weed out suspected militant training camps, some of which were uncovered around 21 June.

According to the union government, 63 ethnic Rakhines and security personnel were killed and 37 have gone missing since October 2016. On the other hand, local pro-Rohingya media reports claim that SFs had been conducting violent raids in Rohingya villages in collaboration with ethnic non-Muslim ‘Rakhine extremist’ brigades, allegedly leading to extrajudicial deaths, arbitrary arrests, sexual violence, and forced displacement of Muslims. These incidents played significantly into sharpening the longstanding mutual suspicion between the two contiguous communities.

The situation took a drastic turn after 3 August when the dead bodies of six Mru (Arakenese sub-ethnic group) farmers were discovered in a village called Kay Gyee. A meeting of Rakhine’s local ruling party, Arakan National Party (ANP), and the Tatmadaw’s commander-in-chief immediately followed, where the former reiterated its demand for boosted security measures. On 10 August, new battalions of the army began arriving in Maungdaw to conduct fresh operations in the area, following which reports of violent raids and blockades of Rohingya villages by SFs and ethnic Rakhines began to emerge.

Thus, the 25 August attacks happened in the thick of two-way escalation and were unlike any ‘typical’ peacetime terror attack like those in Dhaka or Paris. The area has been trapped in a overwhelming cycle of violence since last year, and the instance of aggravated violence must be seen in this context. This is even more so because the assailants chose hard (military), rather than soft (civilian), targets.

Aftermath

Following the attacks, northern Rakhine has been gripped by heightened insecurity in the face of a security lockdown and a disproportionately aggressive counterinsurgency campaign by SFs, allegedly in collaboration with non-Muslim civilian brigades. In this regard, it is important to inquire as to what exactly is pushing thousands of local Rohingyas to flee the area.

Local reports and eyewitness accounts indicate that SFs are treating the entire Rohingya population as one insurgent collective, having adopted a scorched-earth policy, including burning of Rohingya settlements, rather than targeted counterinsurgency measures based on specific intelligence. There is little doubt that this has resulted in broad-spectrum violence due to the lack of any design or intent to distinguish combatant Rohingyas from non-combatants. It is also worth noting that the government has evacuated only local non-Muslims trapped in the core conflict zone, a policy that reflects the Burmese state’s differential treatment of Rohingya civilians during crises.

This time, the SFs have been given sweeping powers to undertake offensive action against a broad set of targets through parliamentary approval. The government has also approved the military’s request to designate the entire Maungdaw district as an "operational area," which gives SFs power to undertake "decisive action against terrorist organisations." What exactly such a mandate entails remains unclear. The premise was laid when the government proscribed ARSA as a terrorist organisation a few hours after the attacks, effectively referring to a local insurgency as terrorism.

A quick analysis of ARSA’s Twitter feed reveals that the organisation is attempting to project itself as a legitimate armed group fighting to restore the Rohingya as a recognised ethnic group in Myanmar. This is opposed to the Home Minister’s statement on 27 August that ARSA wishes to establish an ‘Islamic State’ in Rakhine, an apprehension that remains unverified. While it is difficult to know what the group really seeks, the fact that it has upgraded its strike capacity and consolidated local support over the past few years is undeniable.

At this moment, it is fair to say that violence will endure as long as the state continues to operate without a larger political strategy. The current strategy could trigger a bigger humanitarian crisis in the region while creating newer political opportunities for ARSA to operate, survive, and grow.

International Student Travel Video Contest ($4,000 prize money) 2017

Application Deadline: 13th October 2017

Eligible Countries: International

About the Award: The winner will be expected to maintain a blog documenting the trip. This blog will start immediately after the winner is announced, and will continue through the trip until return to school. Contributions are expected at least once a week during the preparation for the trip and daily during the trip.

Type: Contest

Eligibility: 

1. If you are currently studying outside of your home country, your video must describe any trip you would like to take. If you are not currently studying outside of your home country, your entry must describe your proposed study abroad.
2. You must be 18 or older and already enrolled or planning to enroll in college or university outside of your home country.
3. Your video must be created specifically for the current InternationalStudent.com Travel Video Contest.
4. The maximum length for your video is 4 minutes. There is no minimum length.
5. In addition to the link to your video, each applicant must also submit a fully completed online entry form. The entry form is available here.

Selection Criteria: Originality and interest level in the trip, and creativity and quality of the video, are the main criteria.

Value of Award: $4,000

The winner will book all his or her own flights and other travel arrangements.

Duration of Program: 

•  Finalists Announced: Week of 6 November 2017
•  Winners Announced: 17 November 2017

How to Apply: 

• Complete the online entry form by 13 October 2017. On the entry form you will need to include the link to your video.
• Your video can be housed on Youtube or Vimeo. If your video requires a password you must include this on your form
• Applicants are advised to keep a backup of their entry.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: International Student

Ontario Graduate Scholarships (OGS) for International Students 2018 – York University, Canada

Application Deadlines: 

• Applications for the master’s level of study: December 1, 2017
• Applications for the doctoral level of study – CIHR eligible field of research: September 29, 2017
• Applications for the doctoral level of study – NSERC eligible field of research: October 13, 2017
• Applications for the doctoral level of study – SSHRC eligible field of research: October 17, 2017

Eligible Countries: International

To Be Taken At (Country): York University, Canada

About the Award: Since 1975, Ontario, in partnership with Ontario’s publicly–assisted universities, has encouraged excellence in graduate studies at the masters and doctoral levels through the awarding of Ontario Graduate Scholarships (OGS). OGS awards are merit–based scholarships available to students in all disciplines of academic study. The OGS program is jointly funded by the Province of Ontario and Ontario universities. The Province of Ontario contributes two-thirds of the value of the award and the university provides one-third.

Type: Masters, PhD

Eligibility: 

• Be a Canadian citizen, Permanent Resident, or Protected Person [under subsection 95(2) of the Immigration and Refugee Protections Act (Canada)] at the time of the OGS application deadline date
• Or be a foreign student who is studying in Ontario under a temporary resident visa–student study permit, under the immigration and refugee protection act
• Be enrolled in an eligible postsecondary institution in Ontario (one offering graduate programs)
• Be taking an eligible program on a full time basis. An eligible program is defined as a full–time program of study of two or three terms at an eligible institution leading to a graduate degree. Eligible programs must be approved as eligible for funding by MTCU
• Have a minimum GPA of (A-)
• PhD students in their 4th year of study (or beyond) in Fall 2017 are ineligible to apply for OGS in 2018–19 Must be in 3rd year or less as of December 2017, to be eligible.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: $15,000 per year for a one year maximum

How to Apply: Please submit a complete application package to your proposed program of study. A complete package includes the following:

• Application Form (Part A and Part B) (.pdf)
• Two OGS Reference Assessment forms – to be completed by referees. Please use the applicable form below:
  • OGS Reference Assessment — Master’s (.pdf)
  • OGS Reference Assessment — PhD (.pdf)
• Transcripts from all post-secondary studies

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: York University, Province of Ontario.

Google/Udacity Web and Android Scholarship Program 2017

Application Deadline: 15th October 2017

Eligible Countries: Scholarships available for residents of Europe, Russia, Egypt, Israel and Turkey

To be Taken at: The program takes place 100% online. You can work from wherever you want to, as long as you have a working internet connection.

About the Award: The scholarship program is structured in two parts:

Phase 1: 60,000 Challenge Scholarships

The first phase of this scholarship provides 3-months of access to one of four Udacity courses: Intro to HTML + CSS, Offline Web Applications, Android Basics and Developing Android Apps. Scholarship recipients in these courses will receive a robust community experience supported by dedicated Community Managers, Udacity mentor support, and a chance to qualify for a full Nanodegree scholarship.

Phase 2: 6,000 Nanodegree Scholarships

The top 6,000 students in the program earn an additional 6-month scholarship to one of four Nanodegree Programs: Front-End Web Developer, Mobile Web Specialist, Android Basics Nanodegree and Android Developer. The full-scholarships will include project reviews, mentorship and community support.

Basically, if accepted, you’ll be placed into one of two tracks based on your experience level:

• Web Developer
• Android Developer

Type: Training

Eligibility: To receive one of these scholarships, you

• must be a current resident of one of the 28 EU countries, 4 EFTA countries or Russia, Egypt, Israel and Turkey.
• must also be at least 18 years old and complete the application in full.

Number of Awards:

• Top 2,000 students from the Beginner Track will be awarded scholarships to the Front End Web Developer Nanodegree Program.
• Top 1,000 students from the Programmer Track will be awarded scholarships to the Mobile Web Specialist Nanodegree Program.

Value of Award: After the 3-months, full scholarships will be awarded to students based on the progress in Phase 1 and their contributions to the Udacity community. The scholarships will include the following Nanodegree programs: Front-End Web Developer, Mobile Web Specialist, Android Basics Nanodegree and Android Developer.

Duration of Program: Within 3 months.

How to Apply: Start Application

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Google, Udacity

Government of Japan Young Leaders Program in Governance (Fully-funded) 2018

Application Deadline:  The deadline of the applications differs according to the country. Please contact with Japanese embassy or consulate general in your country.

Eligible Countries: 

• YLP in Government: P. R. China, Rep. of Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, Hungary, Czech, Slovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey. (29 Countries)
• YLP in Local Governance: P. R. China, Republic of Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Hungary, Czech, Poland, Romania (20 Countries)
• YLP in Healthcare Administration: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Poland, Romania, Thailand, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam (15 countries in alphabetical order)
• YLP in Business Administration: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines,
  P. R. China, Rep. of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam (15 countries)
• YLP in Law Course: P. R. China, Rep. of Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Mongolia, Singapore, India, South Africa, Turkey and Bhutan (16 Countries)

To be taken at (country): Japan

About the Award: The Young Leaders Programme (YLP) aims to contribute to the fostering of future national leaders in Asian and other countries. In addition, while deepening the participants’ understanding about Japan, it should help form a network among national leaders, contributing to the establishment of friendly relationships and improved policy planning activities among Asian and other countries, including Japan.

Launched in 2001 by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of the Government of Japan, the Young Leaders Programme (YLP) is a yearlong academic scholarship program that aims to prepare and empower young professionals from all over the world for future leadership roles in their respective fields.

Type: Postgraduate (Masters)

Eligibility: 

• Nationality: Applicants must be nationals of countries eligible for the Young Leaders Programme (YLP).
• Age: Applicants must be, in principle, under 40 years of age, as on 1st October, 2018 (i.e. born on or after 2nd October 1977).
• Academic Background: Applicants must hold a Bachelor’s degree or equivalent from a recognized/accredited university or college, and have achieved shown excellent academic performance.
• Work Experience: At least 3 years of full-time work experience in public administration (preferably 5 years or more).
• English Proficiency: A minimum TOEFL-iBT score of 79 (TOEFL-PBT score of 550), IELTS 6.0 or equivalent.
• Health: Applicants must be in good health.
• Visa Requirement: In principle, selected applicants must acquire “College Student” (ryuugaku) visas before entering Japan. The visas should be issued at the Japanese legation, located in the country of applicants’ nationality.  Applicants who change their resident status to any status other than “College Student” after their arrival in Japan will immediately lose their status as a Japanese government scholarship student.
• Applicants who meet any or all of following conditions are not eligible. If identified after acceptance of the scholarship grantees, the applicants will be required to withdraw from the scholarship:
  [1] If an applicant is a service member or a civilian employee registered on the active military list at the time of his/her arrival in Japan;
  [2] Those who cannot arrive in Japan during the period designated by accepting university;
  [3] If an applicant is, in principle, currently enrolled in a Japanese university or other type of school with the resident status of “College Student,” or will be enrolled in a Japanese university, etc. as another source or self-financed international student between the time of application for this scholarship in his/her country and the time the scholarship period is due to begin; or
  [4] Those who will lose their status as public administrators or government officials following the time of application or before completion of the program.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: 

• Allowance: Each grantee will be provided monthly with 242,000 yen during the term of the scholarship. However, the amount of allowance will be subject to change depending upon the annual budget of the Japanese government for each fiscal year. The scholarship will not be paid to a grantee who takes a leave of absence or is long absent from the assigned university.
• Traveling Costs:
  1) Transportation to Japan: Each grantee will be supplied in general, accounting to his/her itinerary and route as designated by MEXT, with an economy-class airplane ticket from the international airport nearest to his/her home address* to Narita or Haneda International Airport. Expenses such as domestic transportation from his/her home address to the international airport, airport tax, airport usage fees, special taxes on travel, or inland transportation within Japan will NOT be supplied.
  2) Transportation from Japan: The grantee who returns to his/her home country within the fixed period after the expiration of his/her scholarship will be supplied, in general, upon application, with an economy-class airplane ticket for the travel from Narita or Haneda International Airport to the international airport nearest to his/her home address.
• School Fees: Fees for matriculation and tuition will be paid by the Japanese government.
• Accommodations:
  1) In principle, grantees may reside at residence halls provided by GRIPS.
  2) Private Boarding Houses or Apartment Houses: Those who cannot accommodate in the facilities described above will be arranged at private boarding houses or apartments recommended by the GRIPS Student Office.

How to Apply: All YLP applications must be made through the specific recommending authorities for each course. Applicants must submit the following documents to their recommending authorities by the designated date. Documents submitted will not be returned.

• Application for Admission
• Photographs
• Official transcripts from all undergraduate and graduate institutions attended
• Recommendation Letter from the recommending authority
• Recommendation Letter from the applicant’s direct superior at work
• Recommendation Letter from the applicant’s superior at work, or supervising professor of the university
• Certificate of Health
• Official degree certificates or certified copies of diplomas from all undergraduate and graduate institutions attended
• Essay explaining applicant’s aspirations and future plans following program  completion
• Certificate of Citizenship
• Family Register
• Copy of the Passport
• English Proficiency Certificate
• Answer to the Essay Questions

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider:  Government of Japan

Africa Climate Change Leadership Program for African Researchers (Individual & Organisation) 2017

Application Deadline: 30th September 2017

Eligible Countries: African countries

To Be Taken At (Country): University of Nairobi, Kenya; University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

About the Award: The Africa Climate Leadership Program (AfriCLP) is a grants awards program that recognizes and incentivizes exemplary individuals and organizations to build leadership capacity in response to climate change. The awards programme seeks to build local climate change leaders who can shape understanding of the extent and severity of climate-related stressors on African economies and ecosystems, and propose solutions on how countries can build resilience to these impacts.

The overall objective of the program is to develop leadership capacity of African researchers, policy advisers and practitioners for advancement in current climate knowledge, long-term adaptation.

The Programme is funded by IDRC and managed by the University of Nairobi and the Institute of Resource Assessment (IRA) – University of Dar es Salaam.The program aims to build on these past investments by IDRC to achieve sustainability and impact at scale.

Type: Grants

Eligibility: Applicants for the African Climate Leadership Award must meet the following eligibility requirements:

• Applicant’s institution must have significant presence/operations in any African Country. Applicant’s institution must meet one of the following descriptions:

– Legally-recognized organization in any African Country; or
– Governmental entity or academic organization in any African Country.

• Applicants must have been students/employed and reside within Africa.

Selection Criteria: Applicants will be evaluated based on the following attributes that are deemed to exceed business as usual:

• Innovation, strategic management, and thought leadership in addressing climate change.
• Key climate (or closely associated) initiatives led by the applicant, and subsequent goals, benchmarks and plans for measuring success implemented by applicant.
• Quality of engagement with non-profit partners, government organizations, and/or other non-advocacy collaborations.
• Quality of collaboration with peers to develop best practices, influence behavior change, establish standards, and engage in public education.
• Education and training of internal staff and management, as well as external stakeholders, partners and suppliers.
• Academic qualifications and achievements.
• Strength and relevance of Concept Note.

Number of Awards: Not specified

How to Apply: Apply Now

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: IDRC