Trump implements new indefinite travel ban

Niles Niemuth

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Sunday night implementing indefinite travel restrictions on citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad, North Korea and Venezuela.

The decision comes 90 days after the Supreme Court allowed a temporary anti-Muslim travel ban, targeting six majority Muslim countries, to go into effect pending a possible hearing of challenges to the measure in October.

However, following Sunday’s proclamation, the Supreme Court cancelled impending oral arguments in two court cases challenging the travel ban, Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project and Trump v. Hawaii. Lawyers for both sides in each case have been given until next Friday to file briefs in order to determine if the legal issues are moot given Trump’s latest order.

The high court had declared in June that those with “bona fide” relationships in the United States could still travel to the United States; this exception will be dropped once the new restrictions go into effect on October 18.

The travel restrictions, which were set to expire Sunday night, covered citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. Iraq, included in the original ban signed by Trump in January, was later dropped in the revised executive order signed by Trump in March, but Iraqis are still subject to extra security screenings if they seek to travel to the US.

Trump’s proclamation continues the existing restrictions while dropping Sudan and adding Chad, North Korea and Venezuela. Permanent immigration to the US from all the countries, except for Venezuela, will be entirely suspended starting next month.

Further restrictions on travelers and immigrants vary by country: travel has been completely blocked from Syria and North Korea; while business and tourist visas will be blocked, Iranians will still be able to come to the US on student visas with extra security screenings; additional security screenings will be required for travelers from Somalia; residents of Libya, Chad and Yemen will not be able to travel to the US on business or tourist visas. The travel restrictions on Venezuela apply only to government officials and their family members.

Amnesty International released a statement condemning the latest version of Trump’s travel ban as “senseless and cruel.” The American Civil Liberties Union noted that the addition of Venezuela and North Korea, non-Muslim majority countries, “doesn’t obfuscate the real fact that the administration’s order is still a Muslim ban.”

Trump signed the original Muslim ban during his first week in office, on January 27, sparking protests by thousands at airports across the country, denouncing the racist policy and demanding that travelers and refugees from the seven restricted countries be allowed into the United States. During the 2016 election campaign Trump had promised to impose a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

Legal challenges were immediately filed by Democratic state attorneys general from Washington state and Minnesota, in lower federal court, resulting in a nationwide temporary restraining order. Trump responded by signing a new executive order in March, which was also temporarily blocked by federal district court challenges until the Supreme Court allowed the travel ban to go into effect in June.

Except for Chad, all the countries covered by the latest travel ban are either currently being bombed by the United States (Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia), or, in the cases of Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, are prime targets for US wars of aggression and CIA-instigated regime change operations.

Just last week Trump set the stage for world war in his appearance at the United Nations in New York where he threatened to destroy North Korea, pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and menaced Venezuela. The implementation of the new travel restrictions can only be understood as a prelude to a further escalation of US imperialist operations, which already encompass a significant portion of the globe, from South America to northern Africa and the Middle East to South Asia.

Trudeau government bans Chelsea Manning from entering Canada

Tom Hall 

Canadian immigration authorities have banned Chelsea Manning from entering the country, the whistleblower and former political prisoner announced on Twitter yesterday.

This comes just days after the cowardly decision by Harvard University to rescind its invitation to Manning to be a visiting fellow at the university in response to pressure by top current and former CIA officials.

Manning had attempted to enter Canada by car as part of a tour of North America, during which she planned to join protests against the fascistic former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopolous. However, she was stopped and detained by Canadian border guards overnight before being released back into the United States. Manning has announced her intention to challenge the decision in court.

According to a printed Canadian Immigration notice that Manning posted to her Twitter account, she has been barred from entering the country because she was “convicted of an offence outside Canada that, if committed in Canada, would constitute an offence under an Act of Parliament punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of at least 10 years.”

Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment under the World War I-era Espionage Act for passing on to WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables detailing the machinations of US imperialism around the world, as well as a video of a US helicopter gunship gunning down Iraqi civilians and journalists. Her sentence was commuted by Obama on his last day of office only after she had been subjected to years of physical and psychological abuse and torture, which resulted in two suicide attempts.

The rationale given to justify Canada’s refusal to allow Manning to enter the country amounts to a government declaration that, if a member of the Canadian armed forces or intelligence services were to leak information exposing the crimes of Canadian imperialism, they would be arrested and tried on charges of treason in a similar fashion.

The barring of Manning from entering Canada exposes the phony populist pretensions of the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau. During the 2015 parliamentary elections, Trudeau postured as an opponent of government spying on Canadians, declaring that his government would amend the Conservative government’s hated Bill C-51 bill, which, in the name of “fighting terrorism,” grants sweeping powers to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The law was so draconian that even the Globe and Mail, the traditional mouthpiece of Canada’s financial elite, felt compelled to denounce it as a “police state” measure.

The Liberals’ proposed reform, Bill C-59, however, contains only toothless protections, while upholding the core provisions of Bill C-51 and granting Canada’s intelligence services new powers to wage offensive cyberwarfare. The Trudeau government’s bolstering of the powers of the intelligence community under the guise of “reforming” it mirrors the passage of the USA Freedom Act under the Obama administration, which systematized and expanded government spying under the guise of regulating it.

According to Manning, everything indicates the ban on her entry into Canada is meant to be a lifetime ban.

In response to her exposure of this anti-democratic measure, one moreover clearly meant to curry favour with the Trump administration, Liberal government officials have issued terse, non-committal statements. Nevertheless, they have made it clear they have no intention of reversing the ban.

“When a Canada border service officer has exercised appropriately within their jurisdiction the judgment that they are called upon to make, I don’t interfere in that process in any kind of a light or cavalier manner,” Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told the CBC.

Trudeau refused to comment, but said that he was “looking forward” to seeing more information about the case.

US-Russian tensions flare in Syria

Bill Van Auken

The death of a senior Russian general advising Syrian government forces and claims by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia that it has been bombed by Russian warplanes have escalated tensions between Washington and Moscow, as the two sides wage rival offensives to seize control of the oil-rich Deir Ezzor province from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov charged Monday that the death of Lt. Gen. Valery Asapov in a mortar attack near the city of Deir Ezzor the day before was “the price, the bloody price, for the two-faced American policy in Syria.”

Deir Ezzor province is in eastern Syria, bordering Iraq, and is the center of the country’s oil and gas industry, which provided much of the power for the country’s cities before it was seized by Islamist militias as part of the US-backed war for regime-change against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Both because of its strategic energy resources and its geographical position, the province has become the focus of a scramble for control, with the US-backed SDF, a Kurdish-dominated militia supported by American Special Forces troops and air power, rushing from the north to counter the advances made by Syrian government forces.

Early this month, the Syrian army succeeded in breaking a two-year siege by ISIS against the government-held city of Deir Ezzor and its 200,000 residents. The Syrian government victory was answered by the US proxy forces of the SDF being diverted from the siege of Raqqa, the so-called ISIS capital to the north, and sent down the eastern side of the Euphrates River to contest control of the city and the province’s oil and gas fields.

US military spokesmen have issued repeated statements claiming that Washington is interested only in defeating ISIS and is not, as one put it, “in the land-grabbing business.” Facts on the ground, however, strongly indicate that this is precisely the “business” being pursued by the Pentagon.

The charge by the Russian Foreign Ministry official that Washington is engaged in a “two-faced policy” in Syria was preceded by the Russian Defense Ministry’s release of aerial photographs showing large numbers of US Humvees used by American Special Forces troops occupying what had been ISIS strongholds north of the city of Deir Ezzor.

The ministry noted that there was no sign of any battle having been waged in the area, which was free of craters from shelling and bombing, and that the American forces had not even bothered to set up a defensive perimeter in the ISIS-held area. “This shows that all the US servicemen who are currently there feel completely safe in the areas under the terrorists’ control,” the ministry said. A ministry spokesman said that Russian surveillance of the area had turned up no sign of combat between the SDF and ISIS.

The clear implication is that Washington and its proxy militia struck a deal in which ISIS ceded the territory without a struggle and directed its forces against the Syrian Army instead. Given the intimate ties between the CIA and the Islamist forces that created ISIS, there are no doubt lines of communication between US forces and the purported target of their intervention in Iraq and Syria.

The SDF militia and its US Special Forces “advisors,” on the one hand, and the Russian and Iranian-backed Syrian army, on the other, are pressing forward around Deir Ezzor, advancing, according to an SDF spokesman, to within barely two miles of each other. The SDF claims that its forces have seized control of a major gas field named Conoco, while Syrian troops and tanks have crossed the Euphrates River and taken towns on its eastern bank.

The US proxy forces and the Syrian government troops are effectively in a race to establish control over the oil and gas fields that are crucial to the economic recovery of Syria after nearly six years of devastation wrought by the CIA-orchestrated war for regime-change.

Each side has accused the other of carrying out attacks on their positions. On Thursday, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said that, after Russian-backed Syrian government troops had twice come under fire from SDF positions, Moscow had warned Washington that continued shelling would provoke a Russian response against the US proxy forces and American Special Forces troops operating with them.

“A representative of the US military command in Al Udeid (the US command center in Qatar) was told in no uncertain terms that any attempts to open fire from areas where Syrian Democratic Forces are located would be quickly shut down,” Major-General Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

For its part, the SDF claimed Monday that its forces in the Conoco gas field had been bombed by Russian aircraft, resulting in the wounding of six of its fighters. It marked the second time that the SDF has leveled such a charge in as many weeks, and the US proxy force declared in a statement: “We will not stand by with our arms crossed and we will use our legitimate right to self-defense.”

Russia has denied responsibility for attacking the SDF. A Pentagon spokesman confirmed Monday that shells had fallen near the militia’s position, but said he could not confirm that they were fired by Russia. For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group opposed to the Assad government, said that no Russian rounds had hit SDF positions.

The increasing dangers of an open military confrontation in eastern Syria between the US and Russia, the world’s two major nuclear powers, is driven by Washington’s determination to seize control of the area, both to deny resources to the government in Damascus and to further the carve-up of Syria. Washington is also seeking to secure Syria’s eastern border in order to counter Iranian influence in the region and prevent the consolidation of a land route linking Iran through Iraq to Syria as well as Lebanon, where Iranian forces could link up with Hezbollah, the powerful Shia-based political movement and militia.

The threat of this scramble for eastern Syria erupting into a wider regional war is further fueled by the aggressively anti-Iranian stance of the Trump administration, which appears determined to blow up the 2015 nuclear accord reached between Tehran and the major powers and has embarked on an increasingly aggressive military and diplomatic posture toward Iran across the Middle East.

University of Zurich Fully-funded PhD Scholarships for International Students 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 31st January, 2018 for entry in September 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Switzerland

About the Award: The UBS Center Scholarship are full scholarships awarded every year to outstanding university graduates to enable them to take up their doctoral studies at the Zurich Graduate School of Economics, run by the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich. Furthermore, by funding new endowed chairs at the Department of Economics, the UBS Center will create additional doctoral positions for talented young researchers beyond the scholarship scheme. This will ensure that the Zurich Graduate School of Economics achieves a critical mass of top young talent to create a leading international graduate school with an attractive research environment.

Type: PhD

Eligibility: Scholarships are open to graduates from around the world, they are awarded to candidates on the grounds of outstanding academic merit, and continuing support will be subject to satisfactory completion of course work. While preference may be given to students whose research plans include areas of interest of the UBS International Center of Economics in Society, applications from all areas are welcomed.

Admission to the Zurich Graduate School of Economics is a pre-condition for being considered for a UBS Center Scholarship.

The UBS Center Scholarships are full scholarships, covering living expenses and all fees. Scholarship holders are free to choose their supervisor and have no mandatory duties beyond the completion of the course work and their doctorate. We do however encourage students to contribute to departmental teaching because it is in their own interest to acquire good teaching skills.

Number of Awardees: 3

Value of Scholarship: The UBS Center Scholarships cover living expenses(Approx. CHF 42’500 p.a) plus all tuition fees.

Duration of Scholarship: Scholarships are offered to award holders for a period of four years, subject to satisfactory completion of course work.

How to Apply: Applicants need to apply for admission to the Zurich Graduate School of Economics (see details on the departmental webpage) where they indicate that they are applying for a UBS Center Scholarship.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Zurich Graduate School of Economics at the University of Zurich

Ezera Research Fellowship for African Students for Study at University of California, Berkeley 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 12th February 2018

Eligible Countries: African countries

To Be Taken At (Country): USA

About the Award: An endowment has been established in memory of Emeka Kalu Ezera to support graduate students from African countries south of the Sahara at the University of California at Berkeley. The funds from the endowment are assigned to the Center for African Studies to aid student scholars at the graduate level concentrating in African Studies.

For administrative purposes, the Ezera competition is combined with the Rocca Fellowship (See in Program Webpage link below) competition. Ezera recipients may also receive funds from the Rocca endowment. Only one application is necessary. If you are applying for the Emeka Kalu Ezera fellowship, indicate which African country you are from in the appropriate space on the application.

Type: Graduate

Eligibility: 

• The Ezera Fellowship gives priority to graduate students from West Africa who show exceptional promise of advancing scholarship in African Studies in the social sciences, humanities, and public policy and who demonstrate strong leadership potential.
• Students from other African regions are eligible and are encouraged to apply.
• Students must have been accepted for admission at the University of California at Berkeley when they apply and must be enrolled before funds may be dispersed to them.
• The fellowship is not available to students who are permanent residents or citizens of the United States.
• A total of no more than two years of support will be provided to a recipient of this fellowship; applications for the second year of support will be considered de novo along with other applications for that year.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Funds may be requested for maintenance, travel, or research costs, as appropriate to enhance pre-dissertation and dissertation research on Africa. Ezera funds may be used to supplement, but not substitute for, other grants. Students are encouraged to apply to other sources, including the Rocca grant. Currently, grants from the Ezera fund will be in the $500 to $1000 range. In making awards, the Center adheres to the cap on stipends set by the Graduate Division, which in 2016 was $34,000 – combined for all fellowships awarded.

How to Apply: See the application for details.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: University of California at Berkeley

CleanEdge Save the Environment Campaign for Young Nigerians 2017

Application Deadline: 6th October 2017

Eligible Participants: Nigerians resident in Oyo

About the Award: Interested in helping to save the planet? Interested in helping to save the environment? Are you passionate about climate change? Can you teach secondary school student in Oyo state on how they can save their environment? Can you give out 2-3hrs per week for a month to educate secondary school students about they can save their environment and reduce impact on climate change?

If all your responses to these questions are YES, then this call for application is right for you!  This is a chance to serve your community; time to get engaged is now. Now is the time to boost your CV through community service work

This is the last call for volunteers in Oyo State and you will be selected based on the quality of your application.

Type: Internship (Volunteer)

Eligibility: 

• Young people between 18-40yrs
• Reside in Oyo State or can participate in Oyo State
• Passionate about environment, climate change, education and sustainable development goals (SDGs) as a whole

Number of Participants needed: Not spepcified

Value of Award: This is non-paid.

Volunteers get the chance of a lifetime to open doors to opportunities, ability to network with Businesses, Captain of Industries, Government; Civil Society Organizations etc. and collaborate with other young people who are excelling both locally and internationally. You additionally get noticed at all levels (Online and Offline), will be able to request for recommendation letter to attend local and international conferences, and apply for visa. Volunteers will also get the chance to attend our networking events (such as with YALI RLC Fellow, Mandela Washington Fellow, Federal and State Ministry of Environment, Ambassadors to United Nations and many more), apply for job openings at CleanEdge Solutions and a Certificate of Service will be presented to you as you finish your service.

Duration of Program: 19th October – 17th November 2017

How to Apply: To apply, click here

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: CleanEdge Solutions

Important Notes: All necessities will be provided by CleanEdge solutions team.

University of Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Scholarships 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 8th or 19th January 2018, depending on your course

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): UK

Eligible Field of Study: All

About the Award: The Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies is a Recognized Independent Centre of the University of Oxford. It was established in 1985 to encourage the scholarly study of Islam and the Islamic world. The Centre provides a meeting point for the Western and Islamic worlds of learning. At Oxford, it contributes to the multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary study of the Islamic world. Beyond Oxford, its role is strengthened by an international network of academic contacts. For more information, please refer to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies scholarships website.

Type: All full-time master’s and DPhil courses

Eligibility: 

• You must be applying to start a new full-time master’s or DPhil course at Oxford.
• You must be either:
  • ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom and from a Muslim community (with preference given to those from a financially disadvantaged household), or
  • a national of, and ordinarily resident in, one of the following countries in Asia and Africa
• You should be intending to return to your country of ordinary residence once your course is completed.
• Scholarships will be awarded on the basis of academic merit.
• You should be intending to undertake study in a field derived from or of relevance to the Islamic tradition, which is of relevance and/or benefit to the Muslim world.
• This scholarship is not open to applications from candidates who hold deferred offers to start in 2017-18.

Selection Process: Decisions are expected to be made by June 2017. If you have not heard from the University by this time, then please assume that your application has been unsuccessful. Due to the volume of applications that we receive, we regret that we are unable to contact unsuccessful applicants individually or provide feedback on applications.

Number of Awardees: Up to 5

Value of Scholarship: The scholarship will cover 100% of University and college fees and a grant for living costs (of at least £14,553).

Duration of Scholarship: Awards are made for the full duration of your fee liability for the agreed course.

How to Apply:

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: University of Oxford

Australia Awards Post-Doctoral Fellowship for African Academics 2018

Application Deadline: 30th November 2017

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Phase 2 of the pilot will be open to Eligible Applicants affiliated to Ghanaian, Kenyan or South African Universities that are members of the AAUN.

To Be Taken At (Country): Australia, Ghana, Kenya or South Africa.

About the Award: During the pilot phase, the Post-Doctoral Fellowship provides financial support for African academics affiliated to eligible  Ghanaian, Kenyan and South African university and engaged in research activity.

The Pilot Post-Doctoral Fellowship program seeks to:

• develop on-going educational, research and professional linkages between individuals and universities that are members of the AAUN, in Australia and Ghana, Kenya or South Africa
• provide opportunities for high achieving academics to improve their research skills and contribute to development outcomes in Africa
• contribute to Australia’s position as a high-quality education and training provider and a leader in research and innovation
• contribute to the research capacity of Ghanaian, Kenyan and South African tertiary institutions, and
• contribute to public and economic diplomacy efforts.

Australia Awards – Africa is a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) funded initiative. It is designed to equip Africans with the skills and knowledge necessary to contribute to sustainable economic and social development outcomes in their own countries. In addition, Australia Awards – Africa builds long-term, sustainable links between targeted countries in Africa and Australia. The program provides a variety of Masters scholarships, postgraduate short courses and post-doctoral fellowships to Africans in the public, civil society and private sectors in targeted disciplines, that support the home countries’ developmental priorities.

Type: Postdoctoral, Fellowship

Eligibility: A candidate must meet the following criteria:

• Be a citizen of an eligible African country as outlined in the table in Annex 2 of the Post-Doctoral Fellowships Guidelines
• Must be studying in Ghana, Kenya or South Africa
• Must have the right to reside and work in Ghana, Kenya or South Africa
• Must be affiliated with their home institution in Ghana, Kenya or South Africa in an academic/research capacity
• Be at least 25 and not more than 50 years of age at the date of application
• Home and Host Institutions must be members of the Australia Africa Universities Network
• Not be a citizen of Australia, hold permanent residency in Australia or be applying for a visa to live in Australia permanently
• Must not be married, engaged to, or a de facto of a person who holds, or is eligible to hold, Australian or New Zealand citizenship or permanent residency, at any time during the application, selection or mobilisation phases
• be able to satisfy all requirements of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to hold a Temporary Activity Visa (subclass 408). This may mean that DFAT will need to withdraw an Award offer if the Awardee cannot satisfy the visa requirements
• Have been conferred a PhD at the time of application
• Field of research must be aligned to Agricultural Productivity, Health and Science and Technology
• Must have a letter of support from their home institution that outlines their agreement to the Fellowship, Annex 4 of the Post-Doctoral Fellowships Guidelines
• Must have a letter of invitation from the Host Institution in Australia, outlining their commitment to the Fellowship, Annex 4 of the Post-Doctoral Fellowships Guidelines
• Must be able to commence their program in the academic year 2018

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The costs covered by the Post-Doctoral Fellowship are detailed in each Awardee’s contract. These include fees that are common for all Awardees and costs that may be applicable depending on individual fellowship conditions.

Duration of Program: Fellowships will be up to two years in total, comprised of research components in both Australia and Ghana, Kenya or South Africa but limited to 12 months in Australia.

How to Apply: Hard copy applications will not be accepted. Applications and supporting documentation must be scanned and submitted to postdoc@australiaawardsafrica.org.

It is necessary to go through the Steps and Application details on the Program Webpage before applying

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)

IBM Fellowship Awards Program for Ph.D Students 2018

Application Deadline: 26th October, 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Worldwide

To be taken at (country): Fellowships vary by country/geographic area

About the Award: The IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Awards Program is an intensely competitive worldwide program, which honors exceptional Ph.D. students who have an interest in solving problems that are important to IBM and fundamental to innovation in many academic disciplines and areas of study. This includes pioneering work in: cognitive computing and augmented intelligence; quantum computing; blockchain; data-centric systems; advanced analytics; security; radical cloud innovation; next-generation silicon (and beyond); and brain-inspired devices and infrastructure.

IBM brings together hundreds of researchers who possess deep industry expertise across domains. Collaborating with clients in the field and in its global THINKLab network, IBM addresses some of the most challenging problems and creates disruptive technologies that hold the potential to transform companies, industries and the world at large. For more than seven decades, IBM has collaborated with clients and universities to work on multi-disciplinary projects that quickly lead to prototypes, as well as long-term projects that last for years. IBM has an environment that nurtures some of the most innovative and creative thinking in the world.

Eligible Fields of Study: The academic disciplines and areas of study include: computer science and engineering, electrical and mechanical engineering, physical sciences (including chemistry, material sciences, and physics), mathematical sciences (including big data analytics, operations research, and optimization), public sector and business sciences (including urban policy and analytics, social technologies, learning systems and cognitive computing), and Service Science, Management, and Engineering (SSME), and industry solutions (healthcare, life sciences, education, energy & environment, retail and financial services).

Additionally, IBM Research is paying special attention to the following areas of focus for 2017-2018:

• Quantum Computing
• Cognitive Computing
• Cloud and distributed computing technology and solutions
• Fundamental science and technology

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• Students must be nominated by a doctoral faculty member and enrolled full-time in a college or university Ph.D. program. The faculty member is encouraged to contact an IBM colleague prior to submitting the nomination to assure mutual interest.
• Students from Europe and Russia may be nominated in their first year of study in their doctoral program.
• Outside of Europe and Russia, students must have completed at least one year of study in their doctoral program at the time of their nomination.
• Students from U.S. embargoed countries are not eligible for the program.
• Award Recipients will be selected based on their overall potential for research excellence, the degree to which their technical interests align with those of IBM, and their academic progress to-date, as evidenced by publications and endorsements from their faculty advisor and department head.
• While students may accept other supplemental fellowships, to be eligible for the IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Award they may not accept a major award in addition to the IBM Ph.D. Fellowship.

Selection Criteria: 

• Preference will be given to students who have had an IBM internship or have closely collaborated with technical or services people from IBM.
• The IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Awards program also supports our long-standing commitment to workforce diversity. IBM values diversity in the workplace and encourages nominations of women, minorities and all who contribute to that diversity.

Value and Duration of Fellowship: 

• The 2018 two-year IBM PhD Fellowships are awarded worldwide. A fellowship includes a stipend for two academic years (2018-2019 and 2019-2020) and, in the US, an education allowance for year one (2018-2019).
• In the US, fellowship recipients while in school will receive a stipend for living expenses, travel, and to attend conferences (US$35,000 for 2018-2019 and US$35,000 for 2019-2020). US fellowship recipients will also receive $25,000 toward their education in 2018-2019.
• Outside the US, fellowship recipients while in school will receive a competitive stipend for living expenses, travel, and to attend conferences for the two academic years 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. Fellowship stipends vary by country.
• All IBM PhD Fellows are matched with an IBM Mentor according to their technical interests, and they are strongly encouraged to participate in at least one internship at IBM while completing their studies.

How to Apply: Visit Fellowship Webpage (See Link below) to access the Nomination form.

Interested candidates are advised to read the eligibility requirements and FAQ before applying

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: IBM

Government of Ireland Masters and PhD Scholarships for International Students 2018

Application Deadline: 16:00 (Irish time) 1st November 2017

Eligible Countries: National and International

To Be Taken At (Country): Ireland

About the Award: The aim of the Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship, hereinafter referred to as the Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship, is to support suitably qualified research master’s and doctoral candidates pursuing, or intending to pursue, full-time research in any discipline.

A number of targeted scholarships are offered in collaboration with strategic funding partners.

Type: Masters, PhD

Eligibility:

• Applicants must fulfil the following criteria:
  
  • have a first class or upper second-class honours bachelor’s, or the equivalent, degree. . If undergraduate examination results are not known at the time of application, the Council may make a provisional offer of a scholarship on condition that the scholar’s bachelor’s, or the equivalent degree result is a first class or upper second-class honours. If a scholar does not have a first class or upper second-class honours bachelor’s, or the equivalent, degree, they must possess a master’s degree. The Council’s determination of an applicant’s eligibility on these criteria is final;
  • must not have had two previous unsuccessful applications to the programme, including strategic partner themes. This includes applications since 2009 to the EMBARK Scheme previously run by the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology, and the Government of Ireland Scholarship Scheme previously run by the Irish Council for Humanities and Social Sciences;
  • in the case of applications for a research master’s scholarship, applicants must not currently hold, or have previously held, a Council Postgraduate Scholarship;
  • in the case of applications for a doctoral degree scholarship, applicants must not currently hold, or have previously held, any Council Postgraduate Scholarship other than those which would enable them to obtain a research master’s degree
• Applicants will fall under one of two categories based on nationality and residency. For category one, applicants must meet BOTH of the following criteria:
  • be a national of a European Union member state, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein or Switzerland
    AND
  • have been ordinarily resident in a European Union member state, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein or Switzerland for a continuous period of three of the five years preceding 1 October 2018.

All other applicants will fall under category two.

While the majority of scholarships will be awarded to applicants who fall under category one, a proportion of awards will also be made to exceptional applicants who fall under category two. Please note that the Council may request documented evidence of an applicant’s nationality and residence.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• a stipend of €16,000 per annum
• a contribution to fees, including non-EU fees, up to a maximum of €5,750 per annum
• eligible direct research expenses of €2,250 per annum

Duration of Program:

• Research master’s degree: 12 months
• Structured research master’s degree: 24 months
• Traditional doctoral degree: 36 months
• Structured doctoral degree: 48 months

How to Apply: Potential applicants should read the 2018 Terms and Conditions carefully to ascertain whether or not they are eligible to apply. Indicative versions of the applicant, supervisor and referee forms are provided for information purposes only. All participants must create and submit their forms via the online system.

Apply here

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Government of Ireland

Important Notes: 

• Please note that the timings provided here are indicative and may be subject to change.
• All scholarships must commence on 1 October 2018.

Obfuscating the Truths of Vietnam

S. Brian Willson

I have hesitated to comment on the instructive discussion on VFP’s Full Disclosure page about the Burns-Novick Vietnam PBS series because I am not watching it. I have enjoyed reading many of the comments, and have communicated with people who have seen advance screenings.

In 2014, I heard Burns’ publicly discuss his pending PBS Vietnam series. He responded to a question about Agent Orange with a “safe” position that damage to human beings from the chemical herbicide was scientifically inconclusive. This was not surprising given that Burns is a popular, established film maker of various aspects of history from jazz, to baseball, to the Civil War. However, any deep threat to the US American basic “good guy” self-image would likely curtail his continued popularity, not likely to lend itself to corporate funding on PBS, whether from Bank of America, the Rockefeller or Koch Brothers.

Any treatment of the US War against the Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians that does not establish the historic foundation of the US criminal invasion, occupation, and destruction of an innocent country, murdering and maiming millions – profound moral issues – flunks authentic history. And, equally, if the presentation ignores the US creation of a fictional puppet government in the South that was so unpopular that the US was forced to deploy 3 million troops and massive airpower to protect it from the Vietnamese people themselves, it will fail miserably to do justice to genuine history.

Despite this history, Viet Nam is still commonly called a “Civil War” of relative “equivalencies”, a preposterous representation suggesting an “enemy” of basically poor people 8-10,000 miles distant on their own ground who for some unknown reason might threaten the wealthy US with bombs or naval and ground invasions, or….. ? And to represent that the war was “begun in good faith by decent people”, ignores the revelations of the Pentagon Papers.

Thus, Burns’s and Novick’s 18-hour “The Vietnam War” series severely obfuscates the most significant great truths of the US war – that “The Vietnam War” was and remains a Great Lie. Provoking national discussion about the war is important, but for it to be acceptable to a national PBS audience, the producers had to assure that in the framing the US remains basically the good guy against evil.

The honest portrayal of a people who wanted authentic autonomy from a stream of colonial intervenors seems outside our capacity to embrace, and certainly we were not able to comprehend the deep Vietnamese commitment to do whatever they believed necessary to rid itself of its latest occupier. Instead, the US created and funded a fictitious government with a corresponding enemy to justify our intervention against the shadowy, deceitful, evil, though tenacious “communists”. This US policy was intended to prevent a successful “Third World” post-WWII revolutionary movement that possessed the potential to spread to other restive peoples.

Without establishing this fundamental immoral foundation to the history of the US intervention, this Burns-Novick documentary history safely avoids provoking the US American people into an overdue, painful self-examination of its cultural “DNA”. Our geltanshauung was cast as a divinely guided “predestination” for goodness in 1630 when Puritan John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared “that we shall be as a city upon a hill” and “the eyes of all people are upon us”.

We are reminded of such arrogance in “Founding Father” Thomas Jefferson’s hypocritical words penned in the 1776 Declaration of Independence that claimed “all men are created equal”, yet a few words later declared the King of England using the “merciless Indian savages” to attack with “known rule of warfare” the new settlors with “undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions”.

Let’s see…. those words describe well our behavior in Viet Nam, genocidal behavior then, as in Viet Nam, off limits for US to consider.

*The US destroyed more than 60 percent of Viet Nam’s 21,000 inhabited, undefended villages, including use of unprecedented 8 million tons of bombs and 370,000 tons of napalm, murdering 4 to 5 million, leaving a decimated landscape with 26 million bomb craters and as many as 300,000 tons of unexploded ordnance that continue to kill and injure thousands every year;

*USAF manuals instructed the intentional bombings of the “psycho-social structure” of Viet Nam such as pagodas and churches (950 of them), schools (over 3,000) and hospitals and maternity wards (1,850, many with large red crosses painted on their roofs);

*US and South Vietnamese pilots were trained to “cut people down like little cloth dummies” during daytime raids;

*US employed the most intensive use of chemical warfare in human history, spraying 21 million gallons of lethal poison leaving millions deformed, sick and dead, now with third generation birth deformities;

*The US used torture in every southern province to extract confessions;

*The US imposed free fire (genocide) zones over 75 percent of the South, mass murdering villagers on the ground, etc.

In fact, our behavior was unspeakable, but similar to what our forebears did against our Indigenous inhabitants. Viet Nam was no aberration.

Yes, the PBS series will present much important history for the viewers through its artful selection of dramatic war footage and wide-ranging interviews with Vietnamese and US Americans. It will indeed educate and raise questions….as long as the storyline essentially preserves the US as the better of two basically equivalent fighting forces. It admits making terrible mistakes, but not crimes, implying or expressing justification for our intervention against evil – here the convenient Cold War Pavlovian “communist” bogeyman.

This PBS series is being aired as the US deepens its atrocious pattern of perpetual war around the globe since Viet Nam, the chess pieces continually moving from Viet Nam to almost everywhere else under a philosophy of “full spectrum dominance”. This includes use of the ultimate wholesale terror from the sky using missile-laden drones.

The nature of US behavior in Viet Nam, and in the little understood tragic Korean war more than a decade earlier, and in virtually all countries in which it intervenes, covertly or overtly, is virtually ungraspable to the majority of US Americans. In 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr delivered his anti-Vietnam War speech, declaring that “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government”. Hmm!

Without a willingness to honestly address our long pattern of immoral and criminal military and covert interventions to preserve essentially selfish, narcissistic values, utilizing deceit and grotesque barbaric techniques, when and how might the US people be awakened to discover a political consciousness of mutual respect? The Burns-Novick series will produce healthy debates about the US War in Southeast Asia, but it will tragically steer clear of revealing, while obscuring, the Grand Lie of the war itself, even as the documentary is touted by observers and viewers as monumental history. What a lost opportunity!

So, as people are glued to this intriguing PBS series, they will nonetheless continue to shop, their government will continue to bomb, and the warmakers will continue to get richer. Nothing changes.

Why the Kurds Are Seeking Independence From Iraq

Patrick Cockburn

On 10 April 2003, I was driving on a road west of Kirkuk, waiting for the city to be captured by the Kurdish Peshmerga and worried that we might arrive there before the Iraqi army had withdrawn or broken up. We could see no cars from Kirkuk coming towards us, which might mean that there was fighting still going on.

We could see abandoned Iraqi army camps beside the road but no looters, a bad sign in Iraq in wartime where only extreme danger will deter looters from trying to grab the richest pickings. We were havering about what to do, when a car appeared from the direction of Kirkuk whose driver leaned out the window to shout: “It is finished – the way to Kirkuk is open.”

An orgy of looting was going on inside the city, with the theft of everything from mattresses to fire engines. I saw two looters drive away a large yellow bulldozer they had just stolen. The Kurdish Peshmerga had taken over the city a few hours earlier, saying that they were there to fill the vacuum left by the disintegration of the Iraqi army and to restore order, though they did little to stop the looters.

They had repeatedly promised the Americans that they had no plans to seize Kirkuk and, even now, were insisting that their occupation was only temporary. A senior Kurdish officer standing in the wreckage of the governor’s office told me that “we’re expecting to withdraw some of our men within 45 minutes”.

Fourteen years later, the Kurds still control Kirkuk, the oil capital of northern Iraq with a mixed population of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, as well as much of the surrounding province. The leaders of the US-led coalition during the invasion had feared that, if the Kurds captured the city, they would provoke a Turkish invasion, since Turkey had declared that it would not tolerate such a thing. I wrote an article describing the Kurdish takeover with the headline “Kurdish victory provokes fears of Turkish invasion”.

It never happened: in the years following 2003, Iraqi Kurdistan has been like the eye at the centre of a hurricane, always brushed by disastrous winds but avoiding complete catastrophe.

Journalists reporting on Kirkuk frequently referred to it as a “powder keg” because of its ethnic and sectarian divisions along with its oil wealth, which so many different parties would like to control.

The cliche is a useful one for reporters in Iraqi Kurdistan in general, because it suggests that an explosion will happen without saying when. Again and again, predictions of Turkish invasions or war between the Peshmerga and Iraqi central government forces over disputed territories have proved false or premature.

The referendum on independence for the Kurdish controlled territory, due to take place on 25 September, is the latest event billed as threatening the stability of Iraq and a good chunk of the Middle East. Seldom has a democratic poll in such a small place been so universally denounced by so many international powers, including the US, UK, Germany and France.

A White House statement emphasises “to the leaders of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) that the referendum is distracting from efforts to defeat Isis and stabilise the liberated areas. Holding the referendum in disputed areas is particularly provocative and destabilising.”

Regional powers like Turkey and Iran have likewise demanded that the referendum be cancelled and threatened retaliation if it is not. In Baghdad, the Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has denounced it and the Supreme Court ruled that it was “unconstitutional”. But for all the sound and fury, it looks as if the vote is going ahead.

A peculiarity of this hysterical reaction is that the referendum is non-binding and does not commit KRG President Masoud Barzani to doing anything concrete to achieve self-determination. He himself says that the purpose of the poll “is to tell the world that we want independence”, adding that outside powers had believed that the calling of the referendum was merely “a pressure card”, a ploy to extract concessions from Baghdad.

By pressing ahead with it, he believes he has put Kurdish independence firmly on the agenda. If nothing else, he has demonstrated that the international community is terrified by anything that destabilises Iraq and that the cooperation of the Kurds cannot be taken for granted.

Among the Iraqi Kurds, Barzani has already re-established his credentials as the standard bearer of Kurdish nationalism, defying threats and pleas for postponement or cancellation of the vote. Even Kurdish leaders opposed to it as too risky are calling for as large a “yes” vote as possible, so as not to undermine the demand for a Kurdish state.

The national issue also diverts attention from the corruption and incompetence of the KRG government and the dreadful condition of its economy. Barzani has scheduled presidential and parliamentary elections for 1 November, when he and his Kurdistan Democratic Party should benefit from an overwhelmingly positive referendum result 35 days earlier.

The political landscape of northern Iraq is changing in other ways. Isis is on the run and on Thursday the Iraqi army started an offensive against one of its last substantial enclaves at Hawija west of Kirkuk.

As always, calculating the political and military balance of power in Iraq is difficult because so many players are involved and the way they come together is unpredictable. How, for instance, will Abadi react to being treated so contemptuously by the KRG? His forces have just won a historic victory over Isis by recapturing Mosul after a nine-month siege. He will not want to lose the credit won then by being faced down by Barzani.

On the other hand, Baghdad’s hard-fought success at Mosul dependeds on the air support of the US-led coalition. Without it, the central government’s military strength is for the moment too modest to give it a military option against the Kurds.

There is another reason why the Kurdish leadership may show caution after the referendum, assuming there is no last-minute postponement: they have a lot to lose. The Kurdish demand for self-determination is not like that of the Algerians or Vietnamese after the Second World War because, in many respects, the KRG is already highly independent and has been so since 2003. Its government is stronger politically and militarily than many members of the UN. But is also true that the Kurds’ real share of power within the nominally power-sharing government in Baghdad has been shrinking. For practical purposes Iraq is already two countries, despite the pretence that it is a unitary state.

The real constraint on self-determination for Iraqi Kurdistan is that, referendum or no referendum; it remains a minnow in shark-infested waters. The US and its allies will no longer need the Kurds to the degree they do today once Isis is defeated. The Iraqi central government will get stronger rather than weaker. The safest course for the Kurds is still a confederal power-sharing agreement with Baghdad, but so far neither side has had the will to make this happen.