Hult Prize Student Enterprise Challenge 2018

Application Deadlines:

• Early Priority Deadline: 31st October 2017
• Second Application Deadline: 30th November 2017
• Final Application Deadline 11:59pm EST: 23rd December 2017

To be Taken: at any five Hult Prize regions. Grand Prize of $1,000,000 will be awarded at Washington D.C

About Award: The Hult Prize Foundation is a start-up accelerator for budding young social entrepreneurs emerging from the world’s universities. Named as one of the top five ideas changing the world by President Bill Clinton and TIME Magazine, the annual competition for the Hult Prize aims to create and launch the most compelling social business ideas—start-up enterprises that tackle grave issues faced by billions of people. Winners receive USD1 Million in seed capital, as well as mentorship and advice from the international business community

Theme: Energy

The 2018 Hult Prize Challenge as announced by President Bill Clinton at the United Nations is: “Harnessing the Power of Energy to Transform the Lives of 10 Million People.” Hult Prize is not necessarily looking for the next big breakthrough in energy, but rather we are looking at the application of various energy innovations to change the world. Much like the light bulb. See, it wasn’t the invention of the light bulb that changed everything, it was how people like you took that tech innovation and lit up the world with it. That’s what we are solving with this year’s challenge. Good luck!

This year’s Hult Prize Challenge walks you through six core areas affected by energy use that may form the basis of 2018 entries. The six dimensions ripe for transformation through energypowered innovation include:
● Connectivity
● Mobility
● Farming, food, and agriculture
● Water collection, storage and transport
● Health and the human experience
● Education

This year’s Hult Prize Challenge pushes you even further than previous Challenges, as it asks teams to do two things in parallel:
● Extend your reach: Search across  campus, throughout town, and around the world to find the energy-driven technologies that are not realizing their potential to propel progress.
● Get out of the building: Find users and learn about their needs. Don’t just imagine how you can use energy to enable new capabilities—prove it.

Selection Process: 

• You will be asked to form a team of 3-4 students from your university and submit an application to participate at any of the regional finals locations held in: Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai, Shanghai, Toronto, Mexico City, Quito, Bogota, Melbourne, Lagos, Nairobi, Cairo, Tunisia, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Alternatively, your university may be hosting a Hult Prize@ on-campus event, in which case you can fast track your team’s participation through competing in your local university edition.
• Regional Finals will be held in March 2018.  Approximately 50-60 teams per region, will move on to present their innovative start-up ideas to an executive jury made up of regional CEOs, Non-Profit leaders and Social Entrepreneurs.
• When you apply, you should carefully consider which regional final you would like to attend.
• While we encourage you to pick a region within proximity to where you currently live, you are free to choose any of the five regions.  A regional champion will be selected live at the conclusion of each regional final event and that team will move onto spend the summer at the world-class Hult Prize Accelerator – an innovative incubator for the start-ups of the future.
• Following the conclusion of your time working in the Hult Prize Accelerator, you will attend the Hult Impact Forum where the Hult Prize Global Finals will be hosted in September, 2018 in New York, USA. Within the meeting agenda, regional champions will pitch their start-ups in-front of a world-class audience, who along with other notable global leaders will select and award the winning team the Hult Prize, along with USD1 million in start-up capital.

How to Apply: APPLY TO COMPETE NOW

It is important to read more about the Challenge and go through the FAQS before applying.

Visit the Award Webpage for Details

Award Provider: Hult Prize

African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) Fellowships for Women in Francophone Africa 2018

Application Deadline: 7th October 2017

Eligible Countries: Women agricultural scientists who are citizens of the following countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, and Togo.

About the Award: African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) is working toward inclusive, agriculture-driven prosperity for the African continent by strengthening the production and dissemination of more gender-responsive agricultural research and innovation. We invest in African scientists, research institutions, and agribusinesses so that they can deliver agricultural innovations that better respond to the needs and priorities of a diversity of women and men across Africa’s agricultural value chains.

The AWARD Fellowship is a career-development program that since 2008 has, through tailored fellowships, equipped top women agricultural scientists across sub-Saharan Africa to accelerate agricultural gains by strengthening their science and leadership skills. The fellowship is a catalyst for innovations with high potential to contribute to the prosperity and wellbeing of African smallholder farmers

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• Education: Completed bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree.
• Discipline: All domains in agriculture and food are eligible.
• Priority will be given to scientists working on research to benefit the sorghum and millet value chains, seed systems, and agroecological transitions.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: AWARD Fellows benefit from a two-year fellowship focused on fostering mentoring partnerships, building science skills, and developing leadership capacity. Following a highly competitive process, the fellowships are awarded on the basis of intellectual merit and leadership capacity.

Duration of Program: 2 years

How to Apply: Find the application form here and for answers to frequently asked questions, please visit: FAQ page

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD)

Important Notes: 

• Winners will be notified in November 2017.
• Successful candidates must be available to attend a five-day AWARD Mentoring Orientation Workshop to be held on February 18-23, 2018, in Kenya.

Brunel University International African Poetry Prize for African Poets 2018

Application Deadline: 1st December, 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be taken at: Online

About the Award: The Brunel University International African Poetry Prize is a major annual poetry prize of £3000 aimed at the development, celebration and promotion of poetry from Africa. Now in its fourth year, this year the Prize is sponsored by Brunel University and Commonwealth Writers.

British-Nigerian writer, Bernardine Evaristo, who is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, initiated the award in 2012.

Type: Contest

Eligibility: 

1. The prize is open to African poets, defined as those who were born in Africa, or who are nationals of an African country, or whose parents are African.
2. The prize is open to African poets who have not yet had a full-length poetry book published. Self-published poetry books, chapbooks and pamphlets are exempt from this stipulation.
3. Only poems written in English are accepted. Poems translated into English are also accepted with a percentage of the prize going to the translator.
4. The prize opens for submissions from October 1st 2016 to December 1st 2016. Each entrant must submit 10 poems to be eligible, no more and no less.There is no stipulation as to the content of submitted poems but no poem should exceed 40 lines in length.
5. The poems may have been previously published or won previous awards.
6. Under no circumstances can alterations be made to poems once entered.
7. Under no circumstances will the organisers or judges enter into discussions with entrants who have submitted for the prize.
8. The prize organisers reserve the right to not award the prize if, in the judges’ opinion, such an action is justified. 
The organisers also reserve the right to split the prize if they decide that more than one poet is worthy of it.
9. The judges’ decision is final and they will not enter into any correspondence with entrants regarding their decisions.

Number of Awardees: 10

How to Apply: All entries must be submitted via email only to BUAPP@brunel.ac.uk*.
An acknowledgement will be sent. (Please note that email enquiries about the rules will not be answered.)

It is important to read the Rules and requirements before applying

Visit Contest Webpage for details

Award Provider: Brunel University and Commonwealth Writers.

The Long, Troubled History of UN Peacekeeping in Africa

Stephen Stratton

On September 18, 2017 UN Secretary General António Guterres said that sexual exploitation and abuse must end. Guterres spoke of the need for the UN to lead the way in eliminating the use of power and authority to engage in sexual exploitation. Speaking specifically of the UN, the secretary general acknowledged that both civilians and uniformed personnel of the UN had perpetrated violence against people in various crises where the UN is supposed to provide security or relief, not violate human rights.

UN Peacekeeping in Africa provides a thorough review of the history of UN peacekeeping forces in Africa, highlighting the many problems these operations have wrought on the countries where the Blue Helmets were serving. Kwame Akonor, associate professor at Seton Hall University, provides a critical view of the peacekeeping forces in a book published earlier this year. His researched history of the Blue Helmets sexual exploitation and abuse proves prescient in its recommendations for the UN to take responsibility for this history and change its conduct.

Akonor outlines first the history and nature of UN peacekeeping in Africa. A discussion of the often-mixed authority of UN missions with local and regional organizations sharing responsibilities for oversight of the missions is helpful to understanding the possibilities for problems to arise. His view that the peacekeeping missions must respect international human rights whatever the laws of the home country of the peacekeeper sets the tone for future chapters. His critique of past and current UN missions of combined responsibility with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and its successor African Union (AU) are clear and sharp.

His book also examines the abuses of trust and violations of international human rights in Africa during the numerous UN missions on the continent. Over 40% of all UN peacekeeping missions have been in Africa and over half of missions since the end of the Cold War have been on the continent, Akonor points out. Thus, he examines these missions collectively with a broad look across all players and actions. He notes that simply because the missions are based in Africa does not mean that the Blue Helmets are necessarily from African countries, and that the importance of allegations is not different whether it be one incident or hundreds. Akonor examines four UN missions in Africa notable for the magnitude of the sexual exploitation and abuse involved. His analysis of the Congo mission dovetails well with the recent Associated Press report on the extensive abuse in the country related to peacekeeping forces.

Finally, Akonor looks at the official responses to the numerous allegations of misconduct by the Blue Helmets and the UN bureaucracy and then provides recommendations on how to move forward. He notes the disparate ways allegations and charges have been handled. Given that peacekeeping agreements are based in international law, the sending nation handles criminal cases involving their peacekeepers, not the nation where the violations occurred. Akonor argues for a special UN office for prosecuting alleged sexual exploitation and abuse, which would require sending nations to allow such cases to be tried at the International Criminal Court. He advocates for protections of UN whistleblowers, so systemic cover-ups cannot recur, as in the past. Akonor concludes with a call for collective responsibility for the actions of international peacekeepers, thereby setting an aspirational goal to maintain human rights and responsibilities for all concerned in these crises.

UN Peacekeeping in Africa is an extensive review into the actions of the Blue Helmets in Africa. Whether Akonor’s recommendations will fully make their way into UN or international policy remains to be seen. However, the recent UN acknowledgement of past sexual exploitation and abuse is a necessary first step to restoring respect to the Blue Helmets. In the meantime, this book is well a worth a read for those interested in the background to the recent UN calls for changes in peacekeeping.

Why Catalans Want Independence From Spain

Federico Demaria

If anyone thinks, says or writes that the Catalan question is easy to understand, I would say that she or he did not understand anything. The question comes from long back and is complex. Catalan independence can appear to a foreign eye, both as a matter of avarice (Catalonia not willing to share its economic wealth with the rest of Spain), and simultaneously as a political force of emancipation (similar, but obviously different to that of the Kurds or Saharawi).

I’ve lived in Barcelona for ten years. I’ve witnessed the cultural, economic and political motivations of contemporary Catalan ‘independetism’ (separatism might be a more common expression for this in English, but not in Latin languages). In response to the referendum that took place on October 1st, I suggest the need for mediation, rather than repression to tackle a political conflict that questions the meaning of democracy itself.

Catalonia is a small region between Spain and France, with Barcelona as the capital, and 7.5 million people. The name is used since the Middle Age, and is roughly the same territory of the County of Barcelona created around 800 dC. In those years, Muslims controlled almost the whole of the Iberian peninsula under the name Caliphate of Cordoba (or al-Ándalus). For centuries Catalonia has been conquered repeatedly by neighboring kingdoms (more or less Spain and France, in today’s configuration). It was an independent republic, under the protectorate of France, between 1640 and 1652, before falling definitively under the Spanish dominance in the War of Succession ended in 1714. At that time, the King was Philip V of Spain (1683 – 1746) of the Bourbon dynasty, still reigning in Spain. Today the King is Philip VI. Catalan nationalism (that Paul Mason calls ‘cosmopolitan’), as we know it today, has its roots in the second half of the 19th century, at the time of industrialization. From the beginning, and through out its history, nationalism has been supported by both progressive and conservative forces. The first Catalanist party was the Lliga Regionalista de Catalunya (1901-1936; Regionalist League of Catalonia). In 1931, the party, which still exists, the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, Republican Left of Catalonia) supports the cause of a Catalan republic, but they would have to be content with an autonomous region under the name of Generalitat de Catalunya (Government of Catalonia). The autonomous government between 1936 and 1939 will be abolished after the victory of the putschist Francisco Franco. Political autonomy is canceled and the Catalan language is forbidden. Once Franco died in 1975, the new Spanish Constitution of 1978 allowed for the formation of the new Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia in 1979, similar to that of 1932 abolished under the dictatorship. In 2006, the Catalans approve a new Estatut by referendum, that would further expand the authority of the Generalitat de Catalunya, but the Constitutional Court challenged its constitutionality and modified it substantially. This generated a lot of frustration, and as a consequence the option of independence from Spain, up to that time rather a minority position, begins to gain terrain in the public opinion. This is demonstrated by the increasing participation in the Diada (Catalan National Day) on September 11^th each year, with 2 million people according to the organizers (and 600,000 according to the Spanish government) in 2012 demanding independence. In 2014, the first popular consultation is celebrated and in the elections of 2015 the coalition of independent parties wins the elections. Here’s how we get to the referendum on October 1^st 2017, vite fait.

To simplify, I would say that there are three main elements of contemporary Catalan indepententism that have to do with culture, economy and politics.

First of all, the Catalans are very proud of their language and culture, and feel different from the Spaniards. Catalonia is completely bilingual, Spanish and Catalan. Those who went to school under Franco’s fascist dictatorship (from 1939 until 1975) speak Catalan but often do not know how to write it. It was forbidden even to speak it. Of course, schools today are in Catalan. The memory of the civil war (1936-1939) and the fascist oppression is very alive.

Secondly, there is an economic issue, that recalls reasons behind the Brexit. Catalonia accounts for 20% of Spanish GDP, 16% of the population and pays 23% of taxes but receives ‘only’ 10 % of investments. There would therefore be a fiscal deficit, between what Catalonia contributes and receives from Spain. So if Catalonia was independent, it could ‘earn’ about 10% of its GDP. I confess that the exact logic of these estimates escapes me. For example, in terms of energy, Catalonia is largely dependent on foreign imports of fossil fuels, and its industrialization has been allowed by migratory flows from southern Spain and from abroad. What is the deficit and debt not only economic, but also ecological, between Catalonia, Spain and the rest of the world is questionable. In a more comprehensive way, the Catalan left-wing eco-feminist party CUP, based on autonomous local assemblies according to the principles of deliberative democracy, calls from a transition from autonomy to sovereignty, not only in political and economic terms, but also in relation to energy, food, health and education.

The economic issue has certainly been aggravated by the financial crisis. Although it was the Catalan government to apply the first austerity measures, these were said to be justified by the lack of funding from the Spanish government. The economic question is the most controversial one.

The last question would be the political one. Spain is a parliamentary hereditary monarchy, divided into 17 autonomous communities. Communities have ample competences, which include health and education, and to the state only corresponds the basic legislation. Some communities such as the Basque Country and Catalonia have their own political dynamics with their regional parties. They complain that Spain has never recognized to be a pluri-national state. The Catalans do not feel identified with the Spanish government, now dominated by the right-wing post-fascist Partido Popular of Mariano Rajoy. There is also the hypothesis that if the government was at a lower geographical level, it would be more democratic. Last, there is the intention to break with the 1978 Constitution, which many on the left think it has not made justice with the fascist past (a transaction rather than a transition). Each one projects on a potential Catalan republic her/his own expectations and fantasies, many of which are in itself contradictory. For example, CUP sees it as an opportunity for a revolutionary project focused on anti-capitalism, direct democracy, feminism and ecology. This is definitively not the position of the majority of Catalans.

In conclusion, even though these issues contribute to understanding the emergence of Catalan independetism, I still wonder whether there are broader issues that have to do with global processes, such as some refusal to globalization, and which could potentially be valid elsewhere. Some argue that across the world, people yearn to govern themselves. Are there increasing aspirations for direct democracy? We shall see.

Hoping to have clarified some of the origins of Catalan independetism, let’s focus on today. The current Catalan government convened a referendum on October 1^st with the question: “Do you want Catalonia to be an independent state in the form of a republic?” Yes or no.

The Catalan government, made up of independentists (or separatists), celebrated the referendum, according to a law approved in the Catalan parliament. More than 2.000.000 Catalans casted their vote, 90% in favour of independence. The Spanish government considers it illegal because it violates the Spanish Constitution, and attempted to prevent it with violent repression. The Catalan government consists of the coalition Junts pel Sí (with the two main catalan parties Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, center-left, and the Partit Demòcrata Europeu Català, center-right) with the Candidatura d’Unitat Popular(CUP), left-wing, eco-feminist and pro-degrowth. These Catalan parties have 72 votes in a parliament with 135 votes. Against, with 52 votes, there are the Catalan branches of main Spanish parties Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya, il Partit Popular de Catalunya e Ciutadanos. The other 11 deputies are from Podem (the Catalan Podemos) are in the middle: they are not in favor of independence, but of a referendum.

With the same firmness, the Spanish government (in minority) of the Partido Popular has been determined to prevent it. Even the Partido Socialista Obrero Español opposes, while Podemos no. The Constitutional Court has suspended it. Over the past two weeks, government officials have already been arrested and 10 million ballot papers have been seized, calling 700 (out of 900) Catalan mayors to declare in the Court for showing their support for the referendum. The Spanish government has sent in Catalonia about 10,000 members of the Spanish military police Guardia Civil (same that under the fascist dictatorship), which are partly hosted by three Italian cruise ships. The Spanish government has little faith in the Catalan police (the mossos) with 16,000 members. Let alone that one of the cruise ships, Moby Dada, is decorated with the canary Tweety and Sylvester the Cat. The brutality of the Spanish anti-riot police has left 800 wounded voters, despite their peaceful attitude. In Catalonia human and civil rights, freedom of speech, freedom of information and freedom of assembly are being violated by Spain’s central government, in a dangerous drift towards authoritarianism. The unquestionable truth is: the more the repression by the Spanish government, the more the support for Independence in Catalonia. This is linked to a fundamental question: What is democracy? Is it defending the Spanish Constitution principle of the indissoluble unity of Spain with repression, or voting to exercise people’s right to self determination?

This recalls an old debate in political science regarding whether national self-determination, in the form of creation of a new state through secession, overrides the principles of majority rule and of equal rights. Surveys say that around 80% of Catalans think that they should be legally allowed to vote. Participation would be about 60/70%, and about 50% would vote for independence. Instead, 60% of Spaniards think that such a referendum should not be allowed. The Catalan question is a political conflict that I doubt can be solved with repression. It needs mediation, urgently.

Buying Homeland Insecurity

Dave Lindorff

Thank god for the US Department of Homeland Security!

Thanks to its $40-billion annual budget, and Homeland Security laws like the PATRIOT Act that Congress passed quickly after the horrific attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we have not had a major terrorist attack in the US in the ensuing 16 years.

Oh, wait a minute. My bad.

We have had some major mass murders over the ensuing years, haven’t we, including some being officially labeled “acts of terrorism.”

There was the sniper shootings of 10 people in suburban Washington, DC back in 2002. There was the execution of 5 Amish schoolchildren in their one-room schoolhouse by a gunman in 2006. There followed the 32 students and faculty killed at the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, the lone gunman who opened fire at an open-air meet-and-greet session hosted by an Arizona Congresswoman which killed six people and gravely wounded the Congresswoman in 2011, the 12 killed in the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting in 2012, the Vietnamese immigrant who shot and killed 13 people in Binghamton, NY in 2009, the 20 grade-school kids and a teacher murdered in the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, also in 2012, and the Navy contractor and former sailor who killed 13 in a Washington, DC industrial complex, the murder of 9 people in their church in Charleston, SC in 2015, and now this latest killing of over 58 people in Las Vegas. I’m just naming the big ones here, or particularly outrageous one like those that focused on killing little kids.

Thank god not one of these horrible incidents was considered an act of terrorism!

Of course there were some at least nominally terrorist mass killings too — the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three or four depending on whether you count the killing of a police office during the later manhunt part of the deal, the 2014 attack at Fort Hood by a deranged Army psychologist, the 2015 San Bernardino rec center attack, and the 2016 murder of 49 at a disco in Orlando, but in most of these cases the link to organized terror was tenuous at best, and in the Orlando case in particular, which was touted at the time as the worst mass killing in modern US history (at least until this latest Las Vegas incident), the killer appears to have had no connection to ISIS and was probably just claiming a link in order to ensure that he would be killed by police, and not captured (he succeeded in that plan). We know these were acts of terrorism not just because the government calls them that, but because, well, they were committed by Muslims.

The few actual or supposed “terrorist’ attacks aside, what all these mass murders in the US not committed by Muslim terrorists have in common, along with many more that I did not list either because the number killed was less than 10, or because the cause was so mundane — worker laid off, family dispute, road rage or whatever — is that they were the work of lone usually deranged (and usually white) men using guns — and often guns designed for killing people.

The New York Times reports that since 2000, mass shootings and the deaths caused by mass shootings in the US have been on the rise, with the rise being especially sharp in the last six years ended in 2014 when the article was published (and when Homeland Security was supposedly fully staffed up and running like a finely oiled machine), and that rise has continued since over the next three years, especially with the help of this week’s epic Las Vegas slaughter.

So what has all that money spent on “homeland security” gotten us? What has the surrender of our right to private phone and internet conversation, our right to be left alone in our homes, our right not to be monitored in our travels, and our right not to have massive dossiers gathered on our lives, what has the militarization of our local police forces, and the training of cops to behave as occupiers and centurions instead of peace officers gotten us?

Are we more safe now?

Actual terrorist attacks have occurred, or at least the government is calling them that, while most of the alleged planned terror attacks the FBI says it “foiled” have turned out to be the creations of FBI “informants” — that is, people paid and planted among unfortunate low0-wattage or psychologically vulnerable people the Bureau hoped to induce into attempting some act of terror that the FBI could then swoop in and bust up, then claiming to have saved the day. That means that for all its awesome invasive technology and its multi-billion-dollar assets and interlinked law enforcement personnel, America’s Homeland Security Industrial Complex has been remarkably unable to prevent terrorism.

And meanwhile, mass shootings — terrible even if they don’t get called terrorism because they are committed, for the most part, by American white men like Stephen Paddock— are becoming increasingly common and also increasingly deadly.

To me, it appears obvious that the War on Terror has been a spectacular bust — and not just the $40 billion a year spent on Homeland Security, but the $10 billion a year (at least) that we are told is spent on the National Security Agency, as well as a fair amount of what is spent on both the FBI the CIA, the National Security Council’s Office of Counterterrorism, and of course all the anti-terror budgets of state and local police.

What is really making this country unsafe, let’s just face it, is the ready availability of really deadly firearms — let’s call them Guns of Mass Destruction (GMDs).

The only reason so many people died in Las Vegas is that wack-job Las Vegas mass killer Stephen Paddock was reportedly able to obtain and bring, unimpeded, into his hotel room, some 19 high-powered rapid-fire rifles and handguns, including at least one fully-automatic rifle capable of firing dozens of rounds per second. (That’s in addition to some 20 more such weapons police found in his home and car, including, reportedly, explosives.)

What’s nuts is that in some parts of this country, Nevada being one of them, guns, including military weapons, are so ubiquitous and so unregulated that the sight of someone checking into a hotel with two golf bag’s worth of lethal weaponry suitable for mass murder wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. Heck, he probably asked at check-in for a bellhop to carry them for him. No doubt they just figured the old duffer was headed for a gun show or was a salesman with product to show to gun dealers.

Hey, if the guy doesn’t look or dress like a Muslim, what’s to worry, right? Nice older white dude with a friendly southern accent? He should be okay.

Maybe now that we have a case of a friendly-seeming older white guy mowing down good decent white folks attending a good-ol’ American country and western music concert, the pro-National Rifle Assn. crowd will start to re-evaluate their absolutist position on GMDs.

My suggestion would be not banning guns, an extremist idea which will never happen in this country and which isn’t even done in Europe, but at least registering every single weapon from its point of import, sale or manufacture until it ends up in private hands. I would make it illegal to transfer a gun to someone else without that transfer being registered with the government. I’d eliminate the gunshow loophole to registration too. I have little hope that such measures could be passed, though. There is to much political opportunism among Republicans in Congress who want that National Rifle Assn. money and the votes of the gun-toting yahoos of Middle America who think registration is akin to giving up their right vote (though they want everyone to have to register to do that).

But if we could at least limit our American-grown terrorists to single-round-per-trigger weapons, and outlaw high-capacity clips that allow them to kill more than, say, five people without reloading, we’d all be a hell of a lot safer in America. At least more of us would be able to run out of a crowded area safely when an attack happens, and there’d be more opportunity for heroic types to tackle a guy who has to stop and reload all the time.

Also, keeping America safe wouldn’t cost us $50 billion a year for an army of spooks and federal investigators, or require the surrendering of our hard-won freedoms either, so more money could be made available for treating mental health problems.

We should give it a try. It’s obvious that the Homeland Security/War on Terror approach has been a bust. It sure hasn’t provided security in the “homeland,” and, as the spread of ISIS and al Qaeda/al Nusra or whatever they’re calling themselves demonstrates, the “War” on terror has clearly been lost. (There’s another example of wasted treasure. With just a fraction of the trillion-plus dollars spent on the 16-year US war in Afghanistan to date, the US could have paid that country’s impoverished 10 million families, who eke by on an average of $400 a year, an income of $2500 a year back in 2001 for the next decade— enough to turn the country overnight into an economic powerhouse and its people from virtual serfs to a bustling middle class and into America’s BFFs.)

We’ll never be able to prevent the domestic American nut jobs who snap and decide they need to kill a lot of people or do enough damage to be killed by the police. But at least we could reduce the carnage they can do here at home if we made it a little harder and slower for them to cause their desired mayhem.

Wheels and Deals: Trouble Brewing in the House of Saud

Pepe Escobar

Suddenly, the ideological matrix of all strands of Salafi-jihadism is being hailed by the West as a model of progress – because Saudi women will finally be allowed to drive. Only next year. Only some women. And still subject to many restrictions.

What’s certain is that the timing of the announcement – which comes after years of liberal American pressure – was calculated with precision, arriving only a few days before House of Saud capo King Salman drops in for a chat at Trump’s White House. The soft power move was coordinated by the 32-year-old Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, a.k.a. MBS, the Destroyer of Yemen; the king merely added his signature.

The diversionary tactic masks serious trouble in the court. A Gulf business source with intimate knowledge of the House of Saud, having held a number of personal meetings with members, told Asia Times that “the Fahd, Nayef, and Abdullah families, the descendants of King Abdulaziz al Saud and his wife Hassa bin Ahmed al-Sudairi, are forming an alliance against the ascendancy to the Kingship of the Crown Prince.”

No wonder, considering that the ousted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef – highly regarded in the Beltway, especially Langley – is under house arrest. His massive web of agents at the Interior Ministry has largely been “relieved of their authority”. The new Interior Minister is Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Nayef, 34, the eldest son of the governor of the country’s largely Shi’ite Eastern Province, where all the oil is. Curiously, the father is now reporting to his son. MBS is surrounded by inexperienced thirty-something princes, and alienating just about everyone else.

Former King Abdulaziz set up his Saudi succession based on the seniority of his sons; in theory, if each one lived to the same age all would have a shot at the throne, thus avoiding the bloodletting historically common in Arabian clans over lines of succession.

Now, says the source, “a bloodbath is predicted to be imminent.” Especially because “the CIA is outraged that the compromise worked out in April, 2014 has been abrogated wherein the greatest anti-terrorist factor in the Middle East, Mohammed bin Nayef, was arrested.” That may prompt “vigorous action taken against MBS possibly in early October.” And it might even coincide with the Salman-Trump get together.

ISIS playing by the (Saudi) book

Asia Times’ Gulf business source stresses how “the Saudi economy is under extreme strain based on their oil price war against Russia, and they are behind their bills in paying just about all their contractors. That could lead to the bankruptcy of some of the major enterprises in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabia of MBS features the Crown Prince buying a US$600 million yacht and his father spending US$100 million on his summer vacation, highlighted on the front pages of the New York Times while the Kingdom strangles under their leadership.”

MBS’s pet project, the spun-to-death Vision 2030, in theory aims to diversify from mere oil profits and dependency on the US to a more modern economy (and a more independent foreign policy).
That’s completely misguided, according to the source, because “the problem in Saudi Arabia is that their companies cannot function with their local population and [are] reliant on expatriates for about 70% or more of their staff. Aramco cannot run without expatriates. Therefore, selling 5% of Aramco to diversify does not solve the problem. If he wants a more productive society, and less handouts and meaningless government jobs, he has to first train and employ his own people.”

The similarly lauded Aramco IPO, arguably the largest share sale in history and originally scheduled for next year, has once again been postponed – “possibly” to the second half of 2019, according to officials in Riyadh. And still no one knows where shares will be sold; the NYSE is far from a done deal.

In parallel, MBS’s war on Yemen, and the Saudi drive for regime change in Syria and to reshape the Greater Middle East, have turned out to be spectacular disasters. Egypt and Pakistan have refused to send troops to Yemen, where relentless Saudi air bombing – with US and UK weapons – has accelerated malnutrition, famine and cholera, and configured a massive humanitarian crisis.

The Islamic State project was conceived as the ideal tool to force Iraq to implode. It’s now public domain that the organization’s funding came mostly from Saudi Arabia. Even the former imam of Mecca has publicly admitted ISIS’ leadership “draw their ideas from what is written in our own books, our own principles.”

Which brings us to the ultimate Saudi contradiction. Salafi-jihadism is more than alive inside the Kingdom even as MBS tries to spin a (fake) liberal trend (the “baby you can drive my car” stunt). The problem is Riyadh congenitally cannot deliver on any liberal promise; the only legitimacy for the House of Saud lies in those religious “books” and “principles.”

In Syria, besides the fact that an absolute majority of the country’s population does not wish to live in a Takfiristan, Saudi Arabia supported ISIS while Qatar supported al-Qaeda (Jabhat al-Nusra). That ended up in a crossfire bloodbath, with all those non-existent US-supported “moderate rebels” reduced to road kill.

And then there’s the economic blockade against Qatar – another brilliant MBS plot. That has only served to improve Doha’s relations with both Ankara and Tehran. Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani was not regime-changed, whether or not Trump really dissuaded Riyadh and Abu Dhabi from taking “military action.” There was no economic strangulation: Total, for instance, is about to invest US$2 billion to expand production of Qatari natural gas. And Qatar, via its sovereign fund, counterpunched with the ultimate soft power move – it bought global footballing brand Neymar for PSG, and the “blockade” sank without a trace.

“Robbing their people blind”

In Enemy of the State, the latest Mitch Rapp thriller written by Kyle Mills, President Alexander, sitting at the White House, blurts, “the Middle East is imploding because those Saudi sons of bitches have been pumping up religious fundamentalism to hide the fact that they’re robbing their people blind.” That’s a fair assessment.

No dissent whatsoever is allowed in Saudi Arabia. Even the economic analyst Isam Az-Zamil, very close to the top, has been arrested during the current repression campaign. So opposition to MBS does not come only from the royal family or some top clerics – although the official spin rules that only those supporting Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey, Iran and Qatari “terrorism” are being targeted.

In terms of what Washington wants, the CIA is not fond of MBS, to say the least. They want “their” man Nayef back. As for the Trump administration, rumors swirl it is “desperate for Saudi money, especially infrastructure investments in the Rust Belt.”

It will be immensely enlightening to compare what Trump gets from Salman with what Putin gets from Salman: the ailing King will visit Moscow in late October. Rosneft is interested in buying shares of Aramco when the IPO takes place. Riyadh and Moscow are considering an OPEC deal extension as well as an OPEC-non-OPEC cooperation platform incorporating the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF).

Riyadh has read the writing on the new wall: Moscow’s rising political / strategic capital all across the board, from Iran, Syria and Qatar to Turkey and Yemen. That does not sit well with the US deep state. Even if Trump gets some Rust Belt deals, the burning question is whether the CIA and its friends can live with MBS on the House of Saud throne.

New presidential election in Kenya overshadowed by political crisis

Eddie Haywood

On Monday police in several cities across Kenya used tear gas and live rounds to disperse protests called by Raila Odinga and his National Super Alliance party (NASA). The demonstrators demanded a change in leadership of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and to stop the ruling government from changing voting laws, before a new presidential poll takes place on October 26.

With the atmosphere of a siege, scores of police were deployed in the cities of Kisumu, Nairobi, and Mombasa to quash the demonstrations, leaving one dead and several injured, with many others beaten and detained.

The social unrest arises against the backdrop of the September 1 Supreme Court decision that invalidated the August 8 presidential election result, which named incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta the winner over his challenger Raila Odinga, citing that “balloting had been tainted by irregularities.” As part of the court’s decision, it ordered a new poll to be conducted within 60 days.

The protesters’ demands called for IEBC head Ezra Chiloba to resign, with many chanting and holding placards bearing the slogan, “Chiloba Must Go!”

The IEBC, in a bid to quell social anger, agreed to a meeting on Tuesday with both presidential candidates, stating on Twitter, “We look forward to meeting with the presidential candidates. We hope to create a common understanding on the 26th October poll.”

Kenyatta skipped the meeting, leaving only Odinga and a contingent of NASA officials to attend, in which the group failed to reach a consensus with the election commission on Odinga’s demand of “irreducible minimums,” a reference to Odinga’s and NASA’s demand that IEBC chief Chiloba and other officials resign from the commission, as well as the revocation of contracts from the printing companies NASA suspects of aiding the rigging of the August poll.

After initially praising the decision of the Supreme Court overturning the election’s result, Odinga stated that he “will not let Kenyans participate in another election that will be bungled by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission as presently constituted.”

Coming after an election season overshadowed by suspicious circumstances, which fueled the widespread perception that the vote was rigged in Kenyatta’s favor, many Kenyans have little faith in the outcome of a new poll overseen by the IEBC. The IEBC is widely perceived as corrupt and biased toward the ruling Kenyatta government.

For his part, President Kenyatta condemned the demonstrations, saying “the protesters’ demands are unrealistic.”

In an attempt to prevent future election nullifications by the Supreme Court, Kenyatta and his ruling Jubilee party introduced into parliament the Election Laws Amendment, a bill that would completely curb the judiciary from intervening in an election.

The crisis shaking the Kenyan ruling establishment has reached a fever pitch, and the widespread corruption surrounding the election is fueling fears that the crisis will provoke broader popular outrage against the government. To ameliorate these fears, the Kenyatta government is conducting a violent crackdown on social opposition.

The measurement of the rising social tensions threatening to boil over, of which the October 26 election is a catalyst, is the shutting down of the University of Nairobi for an indefinite period, as a result of what administrators called a “deteriorating security situation” following days of student demonstrations on the campus.

The closure came after students protested the arrest of Babu Owino, a former student and member of parliament who was detained for allegedly “insulting the president” and assault. Summoned by the administration to break up the demonstration, the General Services Unit (GSU), a paramilitary wing of the Kenyan police, entered the university compound and beat and detained several students.

Angel Mbuthia, a deputy chairperson of the student union behind the protest, told the Voice of America, “Students right now are not happy with the situation. What we planned was to have a demonstration to ask for answers and to find out why our vice chancellor ordered the GSU to get into university hostels and use excessive force on our students.”

Speaking on the broad opposition to the establishment felt among the students, Mbuthia added, “The country is a bit unstable right now, and it has been reflected in our university because now politicians are running into the university to get a share of the votes they can get from there and influence everything they can, so that is what is coming in and dividing students in such a magnified way.”

For Washington and the European imperialist powers that extract profits from Kenya’s economic resources and vast working class, the chaos surrounding the election represents a threat to their economic operations.

The uncertainty over the new election is unnerving markets and investors in Kenya. Amid a sluggish economy, Western capitalists are clouded by pessimism for the economic prospects for the country, fearing that the political chaos will disrupt the flow of their profits.

The Kenya Private Sector Alliance, a private entity organized by Western and Kenyan capitalists to promote a “favorable” business climate in Kenya, issued a statement regarding the threat to its members’ profits: “Our super-heated political rhetoric and hardline positioning by politicians, accompanied by threats of chaos and implied violence, are now a serious threat to the continued economic well-being of this country.”

Moving to assuage the apprehension of Western banks and corporations, a coalition of Ambassadors from the US, UK, and EU embassies in Kenya issued a statement sharply rebuking both Kenyatta and Odinga for “not demonstrating the required leadership to ensure [the October 26 election re-run] proceeds smoothly.”

Speaking on the threat to capitalist operations presented by the election conflict, the statement added, “If the upcoming election devolves into chaos, the economy, businesses, jobholders, and families—all Kenyans—will pay a heavy price.”

The US Ambassador to Kenya, Robert Godec, stated, “We are deeply concerned by the deterioration in the political atmosphere and the impact this has had on preparations for the election.”

The eruption of conflict over the election constitutes an embarrassment for Washington and Europe, who unanimously certified the election as “free and fair.” The suspicious instances surrounding the poll, together with the Kenyan Supreme Court’s ruling and the violent crackdown on protesters, have exposed these certifications as a fraud.

Additionally, Washington is deeply concerned that any chaos resulting from the election could threaten its imperialist operations in the region, namely the US-backed war conducted by Kenyan forces against neighboring Somalia.

Director of British rights group Cage convicted for refusing to reveal mobile phone and laptop pass codes

Steve James

The international director of advocacy group Cage, Muhammed Rabbani, has been convicted under Schedule 7 of Britain’s draconian Terrorism Act for refusing to reveal pass codes for his mobile phone and laptop.

Rabbani was convicted last month at Westminster Magistrate’s Court by Senior District Judge Emma Arbuthnot for “willfully obstructing” a stop and search. He was ordered to pay court costs and conditionally discharged for 12 months. He intends to appeal.

Cage was set up in 2003, as CagePrisoners, to highlight the “plight of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the War on Terror.” Among Cage’s other directors is former Guantanamo prisoner Moazzam Begg.

Rabbani was held November 2016 at Heathrow Airport in London on return from Qatar. He was questioned for three and a half hours before being handcuffed, arrested and held for nine hours. His laptop, phone and a USB stick were seized.

In a statement made in May this year, Rabbani made clear his principled stand:

“I considered that although the police were in law entitled to ask questions so that they could satisfy themselves I was not engaged in terrorist activity, that did not justify my in addition being required to expose all the sensitive contents of my phone to being copied and undoubtedly disseminated not just to police but to intelligence services and possibly elsewhere in the world—an unjustifiable, uncontrolled acquisition of material.”

During his trial Rabbani explained the sensitive nature of his case as one “involving the US against an individual who was allegedly tortured over the course of 12 or 13 years in US custody.” He went on, “There were around 30,000 (documents) which I was especially uncomfortable handling and I felt an enormous responsibility to try and discharge the trust that was given to me.”

Under Schedule 7, police and immigration officials can detain and question any person passing through border controls under the pretext of determining whether they are involved in terrorism. In practice, the schedule is a dragnet to pry on the affairs of travellers, particularly those whose activities come into conflict with the nefarious activities of the military-intelligence complex.

According to Middle East Eye, between 2015 and 2016 under Schedule 7 561,660 people were asked screening questions, 28,083 examinations were carried out, 10,000 intelligence reports were filed and 1,677 had the contents of their phones downloaded. Yet only 0.02 percent of stops led to an arrest, even less to charges.

The most notorious use of Schedule 7 was the arrest in 2013 of David Miranda, also at Heathrow, when he was carrying electronic files relating to material leaked by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden exposing mass surveillance by US and UK spy agencies. Miranda was threatened with jail and his laptop, camera, cell phone and other personal items seized and trawled for data.

Rabbani’s case underscores the significance of recent investigations into the massive extent of mobile phone surveillance in Britain by local police forces.

Extensive use of smart phones means that, in addition to allowing voice and text messages to the targeted, vast amounts of personal data, either stored on smart phones or accessed from them, can potentially be collected.

So-called “IMSI-catchers” [International Mobile Subscriber Identity-catchers] are portable devices that masquerade as mobile phone cell towers to which mobile phones connect for voice calls and data transmission and reception. By deploying an IMSI-catcher in an area, its owner can potentially identify every active mobile phone within an area of up to eight square kilometres via its unique subscriber identity and approximate its location. Police operators can develop a live map of every active phone user in an area. They can also listen to phone calls and read text messages.

In 2016, an investigation by the Bristol Cable media cooperative revealed that, as well as London’s Metropolitan Police, as many as five other local forces were using IMSI-catcher technology. British police forces have consistently refused to report any use of the devices, but by deciphering an acronym, CCDC, in police procurement records and published minutes as Covert Communications Data Capture, investigators concluded Avon and Somerset, West Midlands, South Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and West Mercia police forces all had purchased CCDC technology. The devices purchased by West Mercia and Staffordshire at least were compatible with 4G mobile networks.

The deployment of IMSI-catcher tools in a locality allows police forces to identify individuals attending a demonstration, while monitoring their communications. It allows eavesdropping on private phone calls and messages, for example between lawyers and clients, or journalists and their sources.

Efforts by rights organisation Privacy International to use Freedom of Information requests to clarify the extent of IMSI-catchers by police forces have been rejected by every police force contacted on grounds of “national security”.

Other technologies are in use.

Further investigations by the Bristol Cable, and the Ferret, another investigative group based in Scotland, focused on the widespread deployment of easy to use mobile phone cracking devices. As of January this year, some 28 local police forces in the UK, as well as the Home Office, had contracts with Israeli company Cellebrite whose most popular product is the Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED).

The UFED is a portable gadget that can quickly extract mobile phone pass codes allowing access to personal text messages, emails, photos, videos, GPS location data by attaching the target mobile phone to the UFED and following straightforward documented procedures.

Cellebrite also claim that data stored in encrypted apps, passwords to cloud services and third-party apps can be extracted, giving access to a vastly expanded data hoard. In all, the company claims that data can be pulled from some 21,374 phone models, including most iPhone and Android based devices.

Further investigation by the Cable concluded that North Yorkshire police is one of the forces deploying UFEDs and that no audit trail had been left for 50 percent of a sample of its mobile phone data extractions. This means that there is no means of confirming whether searches were even legal or what happened to the extracted information. The same investigation found that only 26 percent of searches were regarding “serious crime type, for example sexual offences and murder cases.”

Hundreds of police officers are being trained in the use of UFED and similar devices. West Yorkshire Police is reported to have trained 150 officers on how to examine mobile phones, for offences ranging from traffic violations to assault. Durham Police reported that 90 percent of searches are carried out by local officers, while the City of London reported that searches are generally undertaken by “frontline officers... generally in the first custody detention period.”

The scale of data gathering was clarified in another article in the Ferret which, based on Freedom of Information requests, reported that over the last three years Police Scotland alone had successfully extracted data from 35,973 phones and 16,587 computers. The Ferret notes that police can legally seize and analyse electronic devices belonging to anyone detained, or arrested, for any reason. Evidence is admissible in court even if the data is obtained without the owner’s permission. Police Scotland have 56 staff members dedicated solely to analysing mobile devices, with more being trained every year.

People voluntarily giving consent to their phone being examined may not be aware of the extent of personal data being handed over. Police Scotland procedure states, “Only information held on the mobile telephone or SIM card when it was seized can be retrieved during the course of an examination,” but this can be overcome if the device owner gives authorisation for the examination or if the police obtain a warrant.