Gruesome murder case in Japan reflects social alienation and despair

Gary Alvernia

Last month the Japanese public was shocked by the discovery of nine brutally-mutilated corpses in an apartment in suburban Tokyo in what was described as the worst case of serial killing in recent years. A 27-year-old youth, Takahiro Shiraishi, has admitted guilt after being named as the prime suspect.

The murders, labelled the “Zama killings” after the Tokyo suburb, have been portrayed as an isolated and inexplicable episode. Whatever Shiraishi’s exact motivations, this gruesome crime reflects the social disaffection and political alienation felt by broad layers of Japanese youth.

The bodies of the victims found in Shiraishi’s apartment were dismembered and stuffed in ice coolers, toolboxes, and rubbish bags. The strong stench was noticed by neighbours, who notified municipal authorities. However, it was only when a brother of one of the victims discovered Internet exchanges between Shiraishi and his sister that the police arrested him.

Shiraishi has been charged with first-degree murder as well as destruction of evidence. His alleged victims included eight women and a man, all aged between 15 and 26 years old. By his admission, starting in August this year, he apparently contacted youth who had expressed a desire to end their own lives on so-called “suicide pages” on Twitter. He offered to assist their suicide, along with the promise that they could die together in a “suicide pact.” Upon arriving at his apartment, the victims were murdered and their belongings and money stolen.

Shiraishi has reportedly expressed no other motivation than theft. If the allegations are true, he is deeply troubled with scant regard for human life. Prior to the killings, Shiraishi had no criminal record, and was described by family and neighbours as a quiet, unassuming young man. After graduating high school, he worked casual jobs at a grocery store but then became a recruiter for a local brothel.

In its reporting, the Japanese media has been quick to focus solely on the grisly nature of the murders, sensationalizing every detail and ignoring any broader examination of the social causes of this tragedy. The only measure proposed thus far is to restrict access of Japanese youths to the “suicide websites” and greater censorship.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshishide Suga rapidly announced that the government would clamp down on “websites propagating suicide content.” Seiko Noda, minister of internal affairs and communications emphasised that efforts would be made to close any supposed loopholes in Internet regulations allowing such web sites to exist.

Amid the media outrage over web sites promoting suicidality, the question is never raised: Why are so many Japanese youth seeking to commit suicide?

Suicide in Japan is a serious social problem. Even though recent years have seen a decrease in the rate, the country still recorded over 21,000 cases of suicide in 2016. By population, Japan has the sixth highest suicide rate in the world.

Suicide is the number one cause of death for children and youth, with surveys revealing that roughly a quarter of high school students have suffered from severe depression and thought about suicide at one point in their lives.

Japanese media abounds with articles on individuals committing suicide due to overwork, succumbing to incredible pressures in the academic and schooling system, and serious difficulties for young people in finding friends and romantic partners.

While the idea of an honourable suicide stemming from feudal times still has a cultural sway, it is completely inadequate to explain the suicide rate. The persistently high rates of depression and suicide are a reflection of widespread social despair, hopelessness and alienation from society at large.

The descriptions of Shiraishi’s victims are quite telling. They came from diverse backgrounds, ranging from private high school students to a divorced single mother, government public servants to casual labourers.

Deep social alienation is also expressed in the rising numbers of hikikomori—young people who adopt a reclusive life and in the most extreme cases refuse to leave their rooms. An estimated half million youth are categorised as hikikomori. They are generally ignored by the media or treated as mentally ill. For many, however, it is a reaction to a sick society that they want no part of.

The social stresses are only compounded by the lack of assistance. For those in need, public mental health services, which have always been limited, have become increasingly stretched in recent years by budget cuts and increased demand.

The most acute expression of a diseased society are crimes such as the Zama killings, which contrary to the media, are not an isolated incidents. Since the early 1990s, there have been an increasing number of similarly random and gruesome murder cases, often involving young people with clear psychological disturbances.

* A month prior to the Zama murders, a 32 year old man was arrested for killing his wife and five children by setting fire to their apartment, without any apparent reason.

* Just last year a young disability-care worker killed 19 and wounded 26 disabled patients in a knife attack. In admitting to the crime, he said he wanted to free people of the burdens of their disabilities.

* In 2008, a young man drove a truck into a crowd in downtown Tokyo, killing eight people. When questioned, he expressed feelings of worthlessness and suicidality.

The rise of the various symptoms of social distress and political alienation correspond with the onset of the long period of Japan’s economic stagnation that has given rise to an end of lifelong employment and widespread casualisation, lower wages and greater economic insecurity, and a deepening gulf between rich and poor.

The entire political establishment from the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government of Shinzo Abe to the various opposition parties is committed to the agenda of austerity at home and support for the US-led war drive against North Korea and China. The bleak future facing young people not only in Japan is undoubtedly contributing to the various symptoms of social disease—from suicide to violent crime.

General Electric follows Siemens in announcing mass layoffs

Gustav Kemper 

Rumours about mass layoffs at General Electric (GE) had been circulating for some time. They were confirmed at the beginning of last week by a report in the French business newspaper Les Echos.

GE’s executive provided details to the European works council of the former Alstom facilities in France, which were purchased by GE in August 2016, about job cuts in Europe. According to this, 1,600 jobs in German facilities, 1,400 in Swiss factories, and 1,100 at GE’s British operations will be cut.

The former Alstom facilities in France will initially be spared from the job cuts, since GE pledged in the purchase contract to create at least 1,000 jobs in France by the end of 2018. This was a precondition to secure approval in the bidding process.

Employees at GE’s German facilities only found out more details at factory meetings on Thursday. GE employs close to 10,000 workers in Germany. GE Power and GE Grid Solutions are the subsidiaries most affected by the job cuts, including locations in Berlin, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Mönchengladbach and Kassel.

According to press reports, assembly at the Berlin-Marienfelde plant will be halted, causing the loss of 500 jobs of a total of 650 workers employed there. Production at the Mönchengladbach plant will also fall victim to the cuts, resulting in 350 job cuts. Further jobs will be lost at GE Grid in Berlin Neukölln. One hundred job cuts are planned at an engineering facility in Stuttgart.

At the end of the month, the shutdown of the turbine plant in Mannheim begun in 2016 will be concluded with the loss of 1,000 jobs. The new plan will also impact some 700 service workers in the city, with 600 jobs being cut and the remaining 100 relocated to other sites in the medium term.

In the Swiss canton of Aargau, 1,400 jobs will be cut. This will impact 1,100 jobs at the Baden plant, in the Steam Power and Power Services business area, and a further 250 jobs in Birr, (power plant components), where 100 layoffs have already been carried out this year. The Oberentfelden plant (power grid planning) will also see 50 engineers and administrative staff lose their jobs.

In Britain, 1,100 jobs will go at factories in Stafford and Rugby.

John Flannery, GE’s new CEO, took up his post only in August 2017 after the company’s share price had fallen by 40 percent over the previous twelve months. Manager Magazine reported that consideration was being given to removing GE from the Dow Jones lead index. The company was one of its founding members in 1896.

Like Siemens management, Flannery justified the company’s new orientation by citing a declining global market for power plant equipment and a corresponding drop in orders for large turbines. Germany’s new energy policy, the “energy transition,” has resulted in a faster increase in renewable energy than had been expected, added Flannery, and there is also increased competition in the market for the production of standard turbines from Asian producers, and from China in particular.

The main source of the pressure for the reorientation was the company’s shareholders. GE shares have been viewed as a secure investment since the company’s founding. On November 13, after Flannery presented the restructuring proposal and plan to concentrate in the future on the areas of air travel, energy and health care technology to the shareholders, and also announced the halving of dividend payouts, GE lost $20 billion in value over two days, as its share price plunged.

The company has cut its dividend only twice in its history, in 1938, following the Great Depression, and after the financial crisis in 2009.

Investment funds, pension insurers and other investors demanded even deeper cost-cutting measures, since wage and job cuts generally mean increased share prices for shareholders.

This development lays bare the irreconcilability of the workers’ class interests and those of the owners of capital. There is no compromise that will allow workers to secure their jobs and basic necessities of life at their existing level without breaking the capitalists’ unchallenged control over the factories. This is precisely what the trade unions reject. They protest against the job cuts with moral arguments and appeals to the corporations’ social responsibility.

Marco Spengler, deputy chair of GE Germany Holding Ltd.’s supervisory board, is also head of operations for the IG Metall trade union in Freiburg. He lamented that GE is calling into question its industrial existence in Germany with the job cuts. “This is a slap in the face for employees which they will not accept,” he told Handelsblatt. However, as deputy chair of the supervisory board, he is bound to the company’s interests.

Klaus Abel, lead representative for IG Metall in Berlin, referred to GE Power’s large profit of 9.5 percent during the first three quarters of 2016 and described the layoffs as “extremely anti-social.”

“The job cuts amount to a capitulation by the company in the face of complex issues,” Klaus Stein, head of operations for IG Metall in Mannheim, told the Mannheimer Morgen. “Before the end of the year, we all intend to protest in front of General Electric Germany’s headquarters in Frankfurt,” he added.

The trade union bureaucrats are closely connected by numerous ties to company management and are well paid for this. Like the shareholders and managers, they focus above all on the company’s competitiveness and therefore subordinate workers’ interests to the maximisation of corporate profits. Protests are organised to let off steam and to control the outrage in the workforce.

In the case of the layoffs at GE, a routine programme of protests will be held as at other companies: demonstrations, rallies with whistles, well-wishing statements from politicians. These will be followed by closed-door talks about which the workforce will hear nothing, and finally the presentation of accomplished facts. Jobs have been destroyed everywhere according to this plan—Opel in Bochum, ThyssenKrupp, Siemens Power & Gas, the Siemens Dynamo plant, Bombardier, Air Berlin, and the list goes on.

The trade union officials will continue to act in this way until workers form their own action committees, take the conduct of the struggle into their own hands and break the unchallenged control enjoyed by the capitalists over the factories and their own lives.

This demands a political struggle waged independently of the trade unions. GE’s plans fully confirm the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei’s (SGP) analysis that the latest wave of layoffs in the industrial and service sectors marks the beginning of a new stage of bitter class conflicts, which must be waged on the basis of a socialist programme.

EU rejects Trump’s call to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

Alex Lantier 

At a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the foreign ministers of the European Union (EU) member states in Brussels yesterday, the EU rejected the demand spearheaded by US President Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This call openly tramples international law, which has long maintained that the status of Jerusalem can be settled only in peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

The Brussels meeting, coming after Netanyahu met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris for tense talks over the weekend, pointed to explosive divisions between Washington and its European allies over the growing conflicts in the Middle East. At the same time, European officials issued reactionary denunciations of protests that are spreading internationally against Trump’s demand.

Though EU officials repeatedly opposed Trump’s proposal on Jerusalem before the summit—after meeting Netanyahu on Sunday, Macron called it “contrary to international law and dangerous for world peace”—Netanyahu said he expected European opposition would ultimately be overcome.

“I believe that all, or most, of the European countries will move their embassies to Jerusalem, recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and engage robustly with us for security, prosperity and peace,” he said. He also claimed that Israel helps Europe fight terrorism and shields Europe from refugee flows out of the war-torn Middle East.

Netanyahu aggressively promoted Trump’s provocative proposal, which has exposed the fraud of the so-called “peace process” in Palestine, triggered mass protests and raised the specter of a new escalation of war in the Middle East. Demonstrations have erupted from Indonesia in Southeast Asia, across the Middle East including in Lebanon yesterday, to Tunisia and Europe. While Netanyahu was in Paris this weekend, Palestinian groups held a protest on Republic Square.

Netanyahu claimed, however, that in demanding Jerusalem be made Israel’s capital, “what President Trump has done is put facts squarely on the table. Peace is based on reality. … Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, no one can deny it. It doesn’t obviate peace, it makes peace possible.”

After Netanyahu’s summit meeting with EU foreign ministers, however, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini said the EU would not support the proposal or move its embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “The prime minister mentioned a few times he expected other countries to follow president Trump’s decision... He can keep his expectations for others, but from the European Union member states’ side, this move will not come,” Mogherini said.

Mogherini reiterated the EU’s support for the common existence of Israeli and Palestinian national states, based on the borders prior to the 1967 war. She called this the “international consensus” and added that the EU would continue to support it until the status of Jerusalem was resolved by international negotiations.

Mogherini said the EU was acting in an attempt to prevent Trump’s actions from triggering more opposition to US policy in the region. “We do not wish to see a discredited US administration when it comes to the negotiations in the Middle East,” she said.

Two governments with far-right ties, the Czech Republic and Hungary, had signaled support last week for Netanyahu’s positions. Hungary vetoed a draft EU statement condemning the call to move the Israeli capital to Jerusalem, while the Czech government had issued a statement declaring that it “recognises Jerusalem to be in practice the capital of Israel.” Subsequently, it issued a statement declaring that this previous statement had applied only to Israeli-held West Jerusalem. Yesterday, however, neither government publicly supported Netanyahu’s positions.

The EU’s refusal to back Trump’s demand for what is effectively an Israeli annexation of Jerusalem comes amid a downward spiral of war and bloodshed across the region. The United States and its European allies have suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Russia and Iran in the proxy war for regime change in Syria launched by NATO in 2011. Over six years of war that left hundreds of thousands dead in Syria and Iraq and forced tens of millions to flee, it became clear that the NATO powers’ Islamist proxies in the region had no real popular support whatsoever.

This defeat has not lessened, but rather increased, the danger that the ongoing wars created by decades of imperialist intervention in the Middle East could coalesce into an all-out regional war, or even a US-European-Russian conflict. The imperialist powers have no intention of ceding ground to Russia, Iran, or other powers such as China that are rapidly developing their influence in the Middle East. However, Washington and the main European powers are increasingly at odds over how to pursue this escalation and divide the spoils.

While the EU sought to bolster its regional military deployments by deepening its commercial influence in Iran after the adoption of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, Washington is pushing for all-out military escalation. These divisions have widened since Trump’s election and his trip to the Middle East in May, in which he handed a blank check to Saudi Arabia for action against Iran. The EU opposed Trump’s threat to de-certify the Iranian nuclear treaty, and France sought to defuse the situation last month when Saudi Arabia detained Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

Trump’s call to make Jerusalem Israel’s capital comes after repeated Israeli air strikes, launched with tacit US backing, against government forces inside Syria aligned with Russia and Iran. The Israeli daily Ha’aretz wrote that this signified that Israel is “willing to risk a new front with Iran,” and advocated “eyeing the US to form a decided strategy.” Last week, Israeli officials denounced Iran after the leader of an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia, Qais al-Khazali, visited and delivered speeches near the Lebanese-Israeli border.

Increasingly, the regional powers are preparing for a new, even bloodier war. A major target of the US-Israeli escalation, as of Saudi Arabia’s detention of Hariri, is the Iranian-aligned Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. In 2006, Hezbollah fought an Israeli invasion force attacking Lebanon to a draw, and concerns are growing in Israeli media that Hezbollah has been strengthened militarily by its participation in the war against the US-backed intervention in Syria.

In this explosive crisis, the EU powers play a reactionary role. They are trying firstly to dissociate themselves from Washington and Tel Aviv in order to pursue their own imperialist interests, but above all to suppress anti-war protests against the reactionary policies of Trump and Netanyahu.

In a France Inter radio interview, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned of the danger of mass protests against Israel in the Palestinian territory: “It is a risk, I do not wish it, I think everyone has to calm down now.” He added, “In fact, the United States are isolated on this matter.”

Social-democratic Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo also issued a reactionary attack on the protests against Israel’s threat to annex Jerusalem in her city. Even as Netanyahu orients to far-right forces in Eastern Europe closely tied to anti-Semitic movements, Hidalgo branded opponents of Netanyahu’s policy as anti-Semites, saying: “Anti-semitism, which hides behind anti-Zionism, should never be allowed to win.”

Putin stages “mission accomplished” visit to Syria

Bill Van Auken

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a surprise visit to Syria Monday, delivering a laudatory speech to Russian troops at the Hmeimim air base in the country’s coastal province of Latakia and meeting with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.

Russia intervened in Syria at Assad’s request beginning two and a half years ago, providing air support and other aid that proved critical in reversing the gains made by Al Qaeda-linked “rebels” that had been armed and financed by the CIA, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Gulf oil monarchies.

Putin’s visit came just days after he and the Russian Defense Ministry had declared a “complete victory” over the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which has been routed from all major Syrian cities, reduced to a few pockets along the Euphrates River in eastern Deir Ezzor province.

Putin said he had ordered the military to withdraw “a significant part” of the Russian military contingent from Syria. At the same time, Moscow has made it clear that it will hold onto the Hmeimim air base, which has been the command and control center for Russia’s military operations in the country since the fall of 2015, as well as the Russian naval base at Syria’s Mediterranean port city of Tartus.

Putin declared in his address to the Russian troops, “If the terrorists raise their heads again, we will strike them with blows, the likes of which they have never seen.”

The plan for Putin to land in Syria was kept secret until after his plane had touched down. Coming barely three months before Russia’s presidential election, in which Putin is running for another six-year term, the Russian president’s speech had a “mission accomplished” theme, aimed at promoting his image as a defender of Russia’s national interests on the world stage.

His claims that Russia’s intervention had secured Syria’s sovereignty and brought the bloody war begun in 2011 to an end, however, are undoubtedly premature.

In addition to residual Russian forces remaining in Syria, the US has recently acknowledged its deployment of fully 2,000 troops in the country, while indicating it has no intention of withdrawing them, despite the Syrian government’s denunciations of the American intervention as an illegal aggression. Documents released by the Turkish government indicate that the Pentagon has set up at least a dozen bases on Syrian territory.

The Pentagon responded to Putin’s announcement with open skepticism, while making clear it would not follow Moscow’s lead in terms of troop withdrawals.

“Russian comments about removal of their forces do not often correspond with actual troop reductions, and do not affect US priorities in Syria,” Pentagon spokesman Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway said.

The spokesman added that US troops would “continue to operate in Syria in support of local forces on the ground to complete the military defeat of ISIS and stabilize liberated territory, in turn allowing for displaced Syrians and refugees to return.”

This marks the second time that Putin has announced a withdrawal of Russian forces. In March of 2016, the Russian president declared that Moscow’s mission in Syria had been “on the whole accomplished,” making it possible to pull out the “main part” of Russia’s military force in the country. However, Russia’s intervention intensified in the subsequent months, particularly in the fight to defeat Islamist “rebel” forces in eastern Aleppo.

The US and Western corporate media waged a propaganda campaign denouncing Russia for the civilian casualties caused by its bombing campaign, while Washington denounced Moscow for striking targets that it described as the “anti-government opposition,” consisting for the most part of the CIA-backed rebels operating in alliance with the Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda.

As the United States ramped up its own air war on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border, leading to a far greater number of deaths, the media’s concern for civilian casualties rapidly dissipated.

While both Moscow and Washington claim that their respective interventions in Syria are aimed at combating terrorism, and ISIS in particular, the reality is that they have pursued different and diametrically opposed aims. In the case of US imperialism, the goal from 2011 to the present has been regime change directed at imposing a US puppet government in Damascus and strategically weakening the regional influence of Syria’s two main allies, Iran and Russia.

The attempt to achieve this objective through the promotion, funding and arming of “rebels” dominated by the al-Nusra Front, Syria’s Al Qaeda affiliate, and related Islamist militias such as ISIS, resulted in a debacle.

Subsequently, Washington has steadily escalated its direct military involvement in the country on the pretext of backing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a proxy force comprised almost entirely of the YPG, the Syrian Kurdish militia, in a war against ISIS. However, as has recently been revealed by both the BBC and the former chief spokesman of the SDF, the Pentagon and its proxies have repeatedly organized the evacuation of ISIS forces from besieged cities in order to turn them against the advance of Syrian government troops.

The aim of Moscow’s intervention has been to prop up its principal Arab ally in the Middle East. A major concern was the prospect of Assad’s overthrow and the imposition of a US puppet government leading to a deal providing Qatar access to Syrian territory for a gas pipeline directed toward Western Europe. Assad had rejected the Qatari monarchy’s demands for such an agreement, which would undermine the profit interests of Gazprom, Russia’s largest corporation, and the ruling capitalist oligarchs that Putin represents.

Russia also justifiably feared that the overthrow of the Assad regime would result in Syria becoming a base for Al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters drawn from Russia’s Caucasus region to launch a campaign, backed by the CIA, to destabilize and ultimately dismember the Russian Federation.

Despite this undeniable defensive element to Moscow’s intervention in Syria, which was launched under conditions of a concerted campaign by the US and its NATO allies to militarily encircle and subjugate Russia, it has provided no progressive solution to the crisis wracking Syria or any way forward for the Syrian working class and oppressed.

The character of Russia’s intervention in the region was underscored by the two subsequent legs of Putin’s Middle East trip, which saw him touch down in Cairo for talks with the Egyptian dictator Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and then Ankara for a meeting with Turkey’s autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Moscow has reportedly reached an agreement with the Sisi regime allowing Russian warplanes to use Egyptian bases, further antagonizing Washington. While in Cairo, Putin signed an agreement for Russia to build Egypt’s first nuclear power plant.

In Turkey, meanwhile, Erdogan announced that the visit would be followed by the final negotiations for Ankara’s purchase of a Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system . The plan to deploy this system, which would not be integrated into NATO’s air defense network, has further escalated tensions between Turkey and its erstwhile Western allies.

As the ostensible aim of both sides—the defeat of ISIS—is being realized, the threat of a direct confrontation in Syria between the world’s two major nuclear powers grows ever more acute. In recent weeks, the US and Russian militaries have traded charges of provocations by each others’ warplanes over the Euphrates River valley, with the Pentagon warning that they could result in the shoot-down of a Russian jet.

This threat was issued against the backdrop of an increasingly dangerous escalation of nuclear tensions between Washington and Moscow. Last Friday, the US State Department issued a statement marking the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) in which it said that the Trump administration is “pursuing economic and military measures intended to induce” Moscow to comply with the terms of the agreement.

The statement went on to make clear that Washington is prepared to invoke alleged Russian violations as a pretext for scrapping the treaty altogether and embarking on a path leading to a nuclear confrontation. The Pentagon, the State Department warned, is conducting a “review of military concepts and options, including options for conventional, ground-launched, intermediate-range missile systems, which would enable the United States to defend ourselves and our allies.”

Trump White House preparing sweeping attack on the poor

Patrick Martin

The Trump administration is preparing a frontal assault on social programs for the poorest Americans, according to a report published Monday by the Politico website. This would involve “the most sweeping changes to federal safety net programs in a generation, using legislation and executive actions to target recipients of food stamps, Medicaid and housing benefits,” the web site said.

“The White House is quietly preparing a sweeping executive order that would mandate a top-to-bottom review of the federal programs on which millions of poor Americans rely,” Politico reported. “And GOP lawmakers are in the early stages of crafting legislation that could make it more difficult to qualify for those programs.”

The executive order could be issued as soon as next month. It amounts to a political conspiracy against the poorest sections of the working class involving the White House, the congressional leadership and dozens of state governments, working together to slash spending on programs for the poor through a combination of direct benefit cuts, tightened eligibility standards and mistreatment of vulnerable families to drive as many as possible out of programs on which they now depend.

The Department of Agriculture said last week it would give states greater power to limit eligibility for food stamps, which it administers, by imposing drug testing or tighter work requirements, even though the vast majority of families receiving food stamp benefits have at least one working adult.

Congressional Republican leaders indicated that the attack on domestic social spending would not be limited to means-tested programs such as food stamps and Medicaid, which are available only to low-income families. The broadest entitlement programs, which provide services to all families, regardless of income, will also be targeted.

House Speaker Paul Ryan told a radio interview last week, “We’re going to have to get back next year to entitlement programs.” He singled out health care, pledging not only to repeal Obamacare, an effort that failed earlier this year in the Senate, but to privatize Medicare, which he denounced as “government-run health care.”

Voicing the claim endlessly repeated by Republicans that it hurts poor families to provide them access to adequate medical care or put food on the table for their children, Ryan declared, “We have a welfare system that’s basically trapping people in poverty and effectively paying people not to work.”

Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue sounded the same theme, calling for further cutbacks in the food stamp program, officially titled the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. “SNAP was created to provide people with the help they need to feed themselves and their families, but it was not intended to be a permanent lifestyle,” Perdue said.

The measures being prepared by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, behind the backs of the American people, would effectively make the poorest sections of the working class pay for the massive tax cut for the wealthy that is now in the final stages of congressional passage.

Both the House and Senate have named members to participate in a special conference that will combine the different versions of a $1.5 trillion tax cut for the rich that passed the House in November and the Senate last week. All indications are that far from representing a “compromise,” the conference will choose the most reactionary measures from the House and Senate versions to produce a final bill that is substantially worse than either of the separate bills.

Last Thursday, 54 House Republicans sent a letter to the House Republican leadership demanding that they stand firm on the House plan for a full repeal of the estate tax—paid by only 5,500 super-wealthy families—rather than accept the Senate plan, which retains the tax but raises the minimum size of the estate to which it would apply from $22 million to $44 million.

Similarly, Senate Republicans are demanding that the conference committee accept the Senate version’s elimination of the Obamacare tax penalty for those who do not buy health insurance, an action that would destabilize the individual insurance market and leave another 13 million people without health coverage.

The essence of the bill, certain to be retained in whatever version is ultimately adopted, is the lowering of taxes on the earnings of capitalists and the raising of taxes on the earnings of workers. It is class legislation of the most flagrant and reactionary kind. As an analysis of the bill in the New York Timesexplained, “for the first time since the United States adopted an income tax, a higher rate would be applied to employee wages and salaries than to income earned by proprietors, partnerships and closely held corporations.”

Under these conditions, the Democratic Party has chosen to focus not on the historic nature of the attack on working people, but on a series of political scandals, first involving claims of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and now involving a hunt for alleged sexual predators in the entertainment industry, the media and politics, which the Democrats hope will undermine Trump.

Four Democratic senators, including Bernie Sanders, who challenged Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination in 2016, and Kirsten Gillibrand, who is spearheading the sexual misconduct purge, have called for Trump to resign the presidency because of allegations of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women, involving incidents spread out over three decades.

It is remarkable that the Democrats do not demand that Trump resign because of the crimes his administration has committed against millions of working people—attacking social programs, slashing enforcement of safety and environmental regulations, rounding up immigrants and revoking DACA protection for nearly 1 million immigrants brought here as children—let alone Trump’s threatening the world with nuclear war in North Korea.

Their focus is entirely on Trump’s personal conduct before he entered the White House, not on the policies being pursued by his administration. That is because the Democrats largely support these policies and would do so openly and enthusiastically if the same measures were being carried out by a President Hillary Clinton.

Similarly, the Democratic campaign in the Senate race in Alabama, where voters go to the polls today, is focused entirely on allegations of sexual misconduct against the Republican candidate Roy Moore, dating back as much as 40 years, while the Democrats are silent on the appalling social conditions created by decades of Republican rule in the southern state.

According to a United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty, who visited the state last week, Alabama has the worst poverty of any area in the developed world, including the prevalence of diseases like hookworm, normally found only in the poorest areas of sub-Saharan Africa. The UN official, Philip Alston, toured a rural community where “raw sewage flows from homes through exposed PVC pipes and into open trenches and pits,” he told an interviewer.

The United States has 41 million people living below the official poverty line and the second-highest poverty rate in the developed world—below only the state of Israel, with its large super-oppressed Palestinian population.

These issues are of no concern to the Democratic Party, which shares responsibility for the devastating conditions facing the working class, made significantly worse by eight years of right-wing policies under the Obama administration.

UNESCO-Rotary Scholarships for Water and Sanitation Professionals 2017/2019

Application Deadline: 15th June 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All countries with a Rotary club presence

About the Award: The Rotary Scholarships for Water and Sanitation Professionals have been designed to promote long-term productive relationships between Rotarians and highly skilled water and sanitation professionals in their communities. Rotary scholars will benefit from the support they receive through regular contact with sponsoring Rotarians from their home country and the opportunity to interact with Rotarians in the Netherlands. After graduating, scholars’ expertise will be put to work improving water and sanitation conditions in their own community with a project the scholar and sponsoring Rotarians will design and implement together.

In addition, Rotary Foundation alumni are part of an extensive network of fellow Rotary scholarship recipients and Rotarians worldwide. Becoming involved with a local Rotary club and the alumni association allows scholars to stay connected to Rotary’s global community and resources.

Type: Masters, Grants

Eligibility: Students eligible for this scholarship must be provisionally admitted to one of the following degree programs at UNESCO-IHE (joint programs are not eligible):

• MSc in Urban Water and Sanitation
• MSc in Water Management
• MSc in Water Science and Engineering

Students must also live or work near a Rotary club.

Selection Criteria: Scholars are selected in a competitive process. Candidates are chosen based on their ability to have a significant, positive impact on global water and sanitation issues during their career. Successful applicants will have a strong academic background, significant and relevant professional experience, and demonstrated leadership in the community

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: TRF awards scholarships of approximately €34,000, paid directly to UNESCO-IHE. Funding to cover additional costs (including international travel) related to participation in the academic program will be coordinated by UNESCO-IHE.

How to Apply:

1. Students admitted to UNESCO-IHE’s eligible programs seek the sponsorship of their local Rotary club or district by submitting a scholar application to the potential sponsor.
2. The potential sponsor receives and reviews the application and the terms and conditions.
3. Rotarians interview the scholarship candidate and make a decision about sponsoring the applicant.
4. The sponsor submits a full application online no later than 15 June of the year that the scholarship candidate’s program begins.
5. The Rotary Foundation reviews the application.
6. The Foundation awards a scholarship to a limited number of candidates who demonstrate the strongest potential to make a significant, positive impact on global water and sanitation issues during their career.
7. The sponsor submits a progress report after the scholar’s first year of the program and a final report when the scholar completes his or her academic program.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Rotary, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education

AuthorAID Travel Grants for Researchers in Developing Countries 2018

Application Deadline: 3rd January 2018.

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To Be Taken At (Country):

About the Award: Five AuthorAID travel grants (USD 1500 each) for early-career researchers to present their research at an academic conference.

This is the final round of travel grants awarded under the SRKS funding programme which comes to an end in March 2018. AuthorAID has been proud to support over 50 researchers with the award of travel grants during the course of this programme.

Type: Grants

Eligibility: 

• To apply for an AuthorAID travel grant you must be a citizen of, and living and working in, a country on the list of eligible countries. Exceptions are made for refugee academics, so please make this clear on your application.
• You should not have received a grant from AuthorAID in the past.
• Your proposal/abstract should already have been accepted for presentation at an academic conference. Please be aware that we will ask for proof in the form of an acceptance letter/email from the conference organizers before a grant is awarded. Please do notsubmit an application unless your proposal or abstract has already been accepted.
• You should be a first-time presenter.

Number of Awards: 5

Value of Award:  1500 each.

How to Apply: 

• Please submit your application using our online application form. You should be ready to complete the online application in a single session, as partial applications cannot be saved. Before you begin an application, we suggest you read the PDF copy of the application form and prepare your responses to the questions that require some thought.
• Please note that the PDF copies of the application form is solely for preparation purposes and only online applications will be accepted.
• AuthorAID travel grant online application form here
• We expect to notify successful applicants in the beginning of February 2018.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: AuthorAID

Cisco Global Problem Solver Challenge for Innovative Student Entrepreneurs 2018

Application Deadline: 12th January 2018

Eligible Countries: All

About the Award: How can your innovative technology solution solve the world’s most pressing social and environmental problems?

The second annual Cisco Global Problem Solver Challenge aims to recognize new innovative solutions that leverage technology for social impact from student entrepreneurs around the world. The Challenge is open to students and recent alumni from any college or university.

Type: Contest

Eligibility:  For participants to be eligible, at least half of the team’s members must be students currently enrolled at a post-secondary institution or have received a degree after March 1, 2016. If entering as a business entity, at least 25% of the business must be owned by individuals that meet the above qualifications. Individual students and recent grads may also apply. For detailed eligibility requirements, please click here.

Eligible solutions (technologies, products or services) must:

• Incorporate IoT/digitization as part of the solution
• Have a positive social, environmental or economic impact (e.g. health, education, accessibility, critical human needs (food, water, disaster response/recovery, safety, etc.)

Value of Award: US$300 thousand

In addition to a cash infusion to develop your solution, it will be reviewed by Cisco technology experts and high-profile judges. You’ll receive peer and industry validation for your solution, as well as have a great opportunity for global recognition and publicity.

How to Apply: Apply Now!

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Cisco

Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition Now Open 2018

Application Deadlines:

• Offline Entries: 1st May 2018
• Online Entries: 1st June 2018;

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: all Commonwealth countries and territories.

Theme: The theme for 2017 Queen’s Commonwealth essay competition is ‘Towards a Common Future’. Building upon the 2017 theme of ‘A Commonwealth for Peace’, this year’s theme ‘Towards a Common Future’ and its topics ask young writers to explore how the Commonwealth can address global challenges and work to create a better future for all citizens through sub-themes of sustainability, safety, prosperity and fairness, in line with the theme of the 2018 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London.

Topics

Senior Category: Born between 2nd June 1999 and 31st May 2004 (14-18 years of age)

1. The road to a safer future.
2. How does education contribute to a fairer future?
3. ‘Healthy, Wealthy, Happy, and Free’: is one more important than the others?
4. Future generations have rights too, which must be defended. Discuss.

Junior Category: Born after 31st May 2004 (under 14 years of age)

1. What does a ‘safer future’ mean to you and your community?
2. Write a recipe for a common future: what ingredients will you need? What is the best method for making it? What will it look like?
3. ‘A Day in the Life’. Imagine you are your country’s Head of Government for the day: how will you build a better future for young people?
4. Our Common Earth.

Judges described entries to the competition in 2017 as ‘emotive’ ‘hauntingly assuring’ ’striking’ and as having ‘powerful narratives’, that ‘this letter should be read by everyone’. We expect a similiarly high calibre of writing for 2018.

The topics are a chance to develop critical thinking and to express views in a creative manner.

About The Award: Open to all Commonwealth citizens aged under 18, the Commonwealth essay competition offers young people from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to make their voices heard on a global platform, to engage with issues important to them and to express their aspirations for the future. Each year, participants demonstrate their ability to stimulate and provoke discussions about important Commonwealth and global issues from a young person’s perspective and to showcase their critical and creative skills.

Run by The Royal Commonwealth Society – RCS since 1883, this international schools’ writing contest – the world’s oldest and largest – is a highly regarded and popular international education project which we run in partnership with Cambridge University Press.

Offered Since: 1883

Eligibility: Entries will be disqualified if they fail to meet any of the following requirements:

1. The competition is open to nationals or residents of all Commonwealth countries and territories. Note: Special dispensation applies to entrants from Hong Kong, Ireland, The Gambia and Zimbabwe, who are entitled to enter the competition.
2. Entrants must select a Senior or Junior topic depending on their age on 1st May 2017. Senior entrants must be born between 2nd June 1999 and 1st June 2004 (14-18) and Junior entrants must be born after 31st May 2004 (under 14 years of age).
3. The maximum word counts are 1,500 words for Senior entries and 750 words for Junior entries. These word limits apply to all topics and all formats (essay, poem, letter, etc). Exceeding the word count will result in automatic disqualification.
4. Entries must be written in English.
5. Only one essay per entrant is allowed. Once an essay is submitted, students/teachers will not have the opportunity to revise it. Please carefully check and improve your writing before submitting the final copy, and also ensure that all supplementary information is filled in correctly (name, contact details, topic number, etc.)
6. Plagiarism: Every year a number of students are disqualified because they are suspected of plagiarism. Please see our guide to plagiarism before submitting (in production).
7. The final copy submitted for the competition must be the entrant’s own work, and cannot be excessively corrected or improved by another person. This does not rule out input or assistance from others. However, an entry will be disregarded if there is any suggestion of excessive external help.
8. By entering the competition, you agree that your name, email, school and essay may be sent to your local RCS branch. See Clause 4.1.6 of the RCS’ Privacy Policy for more information.
9. Essays can only be uploaded as a Microsoft Word document (.doc) or in PDF format (.pdf). The online platform does not accept Google Docs (.gdoc), Pages documents (.pages) or other word processor formats. Note: if we are unable to find or open your essay file (either through an incorrect format or upload error), your entry may not be counted in the competition.
10. All online entries must be submitted before midnight (GMT) on 1st June 2018; any offline entries must arrive at RCS London by 1st May 2018
11. All entrants retain the copyright rights that they have for the pieces they submit, but by entering The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition, each contestant consents to the use of his/her name, and/or pieces or parts thereof in any advertisements, educational materials, corpus research or media and publicity carried out or produced by the Royal Commonwealth Society and its local branches without further notice or compensation. The Royal Commonwealth Society can publish or decline to publish; use or decline to use, any submitted pieces at the Royal Commonwealth Society’s sole discretion.
12. The RCS suggests that entrants retain a copy of their original work as regretfully we are unable to return or provide copies of submissions.
13. Please note: Winners and Runners-up of the pan-Commonwealth competition will have their full names, schools, essays and photographs displayed on the RCS website and social media channels.

Value of Award: Prizes have traditionally been awarded only to the first prize winners in the Senior and Junior categories and also vary year by year. All entrants receive a Certificate of Participation and one Winner and Runner-up from the Senior and Junior categories will win a trip to London for a week-long series of educational and cultural events.

How to Enter: Please visit the ‘Terms and Conditions’ page and Competition Webpage before submitting your entry.

Submit your entry

Visit Competition Webpage for details

Provider: The Royal Commonwealth Society

JRD-Tata Fellowships for Visiting Scientists from Developing Countries 2018 – India

Application Deadlines: 30th April 2018 and 31st October 2018

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To Be Taken At (Country): India

About the Award: The Fellowship provides an opportunity for young scientists, teachers and researchers from the developing countries to undertake research studies in India. It covers short-term, participatory research studies in all major disciplines of science and technology including engineering and medical sciences at premier research institutions in India. The Fellowship awardees are provided considerable freedom in availing the opportunity and formulating the contents of
their research work in India.

The Fellowship Applications will be scrutinized twice a year in May and November by a selection committee. On successful completion of the program, the awardees are required to submit a brief report to the centre and participate in subsequent feedback requirements on the usefulness of the program in their home country

Type: Fellowships

Eligibility: 

• Applicant (other than Indian) possessing Doctorate or Master’s Degree in Science or equivalent degree in Engineering/ Medicine and allied disciplines, below 45 years of age (as on 31 December of the previous year of selection)
  affiliated to a scientific or academic institution in a developing country (Other than India).
• Applicant must possess a valid passport.

Number of Awards: About 10 Fellowships are awarded annually.

Value of Award: Fellowship covers return airfare from place of work in their home country to place of work in India, boarding and lodging at the affiliated institution/s, and an adequate allowance in Indian currency to cover incidental expenses.

Duration of Program:  The maximum period of award will be for three months. The awardees are allowed to choose a fellowship period mutually convenient to them and the host institute.

How to Apply: The prescribed application can be downloaded from CICS website: http://www.cics.tn.nic.in

List of enclosures to accompany the application:-

a) A detailed curriculum vitae containing the date of birth & age, applicant’s research interest and experience, publications (only those in referred journals), present position, scientific affiliations, awards and scholarships etc.
b) A brief write-up describing the proposed research work.
c) Reprints of 5 best publications (past 5 years)
d) Two passport size photographs.
e) Copy of degree certificate for highest qualification.
f) A letter of consent from Parent Institution
g) Copy of first page of passport showing date of birth, date of issue and date of expiry
h) Letter of acceptance from the Host Institution in India (Please obtain acceptance letter from the Host Institute as per the format in the pg 6)

Applications should be forwarded by the competent authority.

Selected candidates must obtain permission from their parent institutions for undergoing training in India
Selected candidates must obtain Indian Visa for the proposed period of research upon advice from CICS.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Indian National Science Academy