Amnesty International report exposes EU role in mass torture of refugees in Libya

Alex Lantier 

In order to keep masses of refugees from reaching Europe, the European Union (EU) is helping build, fund and equip a vast network of prison camps in which refugees are arbitrarily detained, beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted, sold into slavery and murdered. This is the conclusion of a harrowing Amnesty International (AI) report published yesterday, titled “Libya's Dark Web of Collusion.”

The horrific abuses detailed in the AI report are already well known. Protests erupted in North Africa, France and worldwide last month, after CNN broadcast videos of human traffickers selling refugees into slavery in Libya. However, AI's extensively documented report, based on government documents and dozens of interviews with refugees, underscores not only the vast scope of this barbaric prison system, but the key role of EU technical and financial support.

Moreover, while the AI report says very little about NATO's 2011 war in Libya, it makes clear that the origins of this prison system lie in the wave of imperialist wars across the Middle East and Africa and the ensuing global refugee crisis. The people-smugglers that operate prison camps in Libya are mostly militias that NATO backed against Gaddafi during the war, and that took power after NATO destroyed the Gaddafi regime.

This is a devastating indictment of the pundits, academics and pseudo left parties like France's New Anti-capitalist Party or the International Socialist Organization in the United States that hailed the war in Libya as a humanitarian intervention to aid a democratic revolution. While they claimed that imperialist war would bring democracy and freedom to Libya, it brought slavery, rape and murder.

According to International Organization on Migration (IOM) statistics cited by AI, at least 416,556 refugees were trapped in Libya in September 2017. Of these, over 60 percent are from sub-Saharan Africa, 32 percent are from North Africa, and 7 percent from Asia and the Middle East. The EU is working with militias and criminal gangs to keep them in Libya.

The strategy was codified in the February 2017 Malta Declaration, in which the EU endorsed and vowed to support Italian cooperation with Libyan authorities against refugees. This involved funding, training and arming border guards and the Libyan Coast Guard (LCG) to block refugee departures, and “upgrading and financing” so-called “reception centres” where refugees captured by the LCG are detained. Also, AI notes, the EU has “struck deals with Libyan local authorities and the leaders of tribes and armed groups—to encourage them to stop the smuggling of people.”

As a result, AI notes, refugee departures from Libya are collapsing: “In the first semester of 2017 a total of 83,754 people had reached Italy by sea, a significant increase over the same period in 2016, when 70,222 arrivals were recorded. However, the trend then changed dramatically: between July and November 2017 a total of 33,288 refugees and migrants arrived in Italy, 67 percent fewer than in the same period of 2016, when 102,786 arrived.”

With EU assistance, tens of thousands of refugees are being thrown into prison camps where they are subjected to beatings, torture and murder. Currently, AI writes, “about 20,000 refugees and migrants are detained in centres normally managed by the General Directorate for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM),” an EU-funded branch of the Libyan Interior Ministry. As Libya does not have a functioning judicial system since Gaddafi's overthrow, AI adds, refugees are “deprived of any formal administrative or judicial means of challenging their detention.”

AI cites testimony from many refugees who escaped to Italy from camps in Libya. Mariam from Eritrea said the guards “were hard; they were drunk all the time. Then one day there were four Somalis who tried to escape. The Eritrean smugglers told us they killed them, three of them; the fourth [was] in the hospital.

“Then they beat the rest of the Somalis. [They were] getting tortured; you could hear the screaming. They used electricity and beat them with Kalashnikov [rifles].”

Samir from Sudan described how he escaped from the DCIM's Nasser detention center, but his friends did not and were sold into debt bondage: “The electricity was out and there was no water, so they took us outside to gather water. Me and two other friends—we ran; they shot after us but we were fast. ... The other three were bailed out by the Sudanese man and they have to work to pay off 4,500 Libyan dinars to the factory owner.”

Ousman from Gambia described a DCIM detention center in Tripoli: “I saw many people dying in prison, either because they fell sick or were beaten … Guards were Libyan—they used to beat everybody, without a reason. Before entering the prison, police search you and take away all money, phone, everything.” He added, “I saw one boy in the prison—they gave him a phone to call

his family, and they beat him with a metal stick while [he was] on the phone, on arms and everywhere...after five months I escaped with other people, but the guards started shooting and many were killed. I don’t now how many were killed, but I saw some falling and screaming.”

Mohamed, a Bangladeshi steelworker living in Libya, said: “A group of Libyans came in the shop one day and said they had work for us. Three of us went with them. There were three of them. We got in the car with them. They told me to put my head down, and not look; they became aggressive. They took us to a place, next to a factory. When they took us inside, there were about 500 people, it was one big place filled with people. … They beat me with a metal rod; it broke my fingers [he showed deformed fingers on his right hand]. I have problems with my right leg also and my shoulder because of the beating. One guy was beaten to death in front of my eyes. I stayed there for 20 days. I then paid 2,000 US dollars to get out; my friends managed to collect the money.”

The NATO war in Libya and the country's ensuing collapse into a bloody civil war are searing lessons in the reactionary role of imperialism. The EU's foreign policy has emerged from the Libyan war completely criminalized, using the most barbaric methods to deny refugees' right to asylum. The EU is complicit in the torture of refugees not only in that it provides support to DCIM to operate its semi-official prison camps in Libya; EU naval aid to train and arm the LCG, as well as deals cut with various regional or local militias that control prison facilities, also play a key role.

AI explains, “The LCG’s increased capacity, due to support from EU member states, has led to an increasing number of such pull-back operations. So far in 2017, 19,452 people have been intercepted by LCG and taken back to Libya. When the LCG intercept boats at sea, they bring refugees and migrants back to Libyan shores and routinely transfer them to DCIM detention centres.”

AI singled out a particular deal between Italy, the former colonial power, and influential warlord Khalifa Haftar: “Italian government representatives also discussed measures to reduce irregular migratory movements with Khalifa Haftar, the head of the self-styled Libyan National Army, which controls the east of the country. Haftar visited Italy on 26 September 2017 to meet with the Italian Ministers of Interior and Defence.”

Millions of the poorest in the UK eat an unhealthy diet

Thomas Scripps

In a report commissioned to investigate the effects of Brexit on fruit and vegetable prices in the UK, the Food Foundation think-tank found that only a minority of the population regularly eats healthy food.

Only a small minority is eating enough fruit and vegetables—even by the older standards of “five-a-day” (five 80g portions of fruit or vegetables).

Since 2016, government recommendations have suggested a target of seven portions a day, and more recent studies indicate yet greater benefits from eating 10 portions. These benefits include significantly reduced risks of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, hypertension and many types of cancer, according to the World Health Organisation.

However, just 8 percent of children aged 11-18, 27 percent of adults aged 19-64 and 35 percent of adults over 65 years old are achieving even five-a-day. Since the financial crash in 2008, moreover, the trajectory of these percentages has been downward. In 2008, 10 percent of children managed to reach the target amount, as did 29 percent of 19-64 year olds and 36 percent of over 65s.

Deficiencies are skewed strongly towards the poorest families. Whereas those in the £50,000-and-above income group are eating, on average, 3 percent less than the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables, those on incomes between £25,000-£50,000 are eating between 11-13 percent less, and those earning less than £25,000 are eating between 21-27 percent less. This last group, roughly 7/10ths of the UK’s earning population, is also consuming 15 percent more sugar—generally more prevalent in cheaper, faster foods—than recommended.

The reasons for this are not hard to guess. Data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs shows that, between 2007 and 2015, households were forced to save five percent on their food bills by buying cheaper versions of their regular items, in addition to buying seven percent less food. But despite making these savings, households still saw a 16 percent increase in their food bills on average over this period; for the poorest 10 percent of the population, the increase was 26 percent.

In short, under the impact of austerity cuts to social services, falling wages and rising food prices, many working people are unable to provide themselves, and particularly their children, with a healthy diet.

If the UK were to leave the European Union without an exit deal, the Food Foundation claims that the changed cost of exchange rates, labour and tariffs would result in a £158 a year increase in the amount spent on just fruit and vegetables by a family of four. For a family of the same size, the cost of eating seven-a-day would cost a full half of the average food budget of the poorest 10 percent.

In the case of excessive sugar consumption—and that of high calorie foods generally—poverty and inequality, beyond imposing financial constraints, have been shown to have deeper psychological effects. A study at the University of St Andrews last year, “Poverty, inequality, and increased consumption of high calorie food: experimental evidence for a causal link,” suggested that the way the body responds to the scarcity and social stresses imposed by poverty and extreme inequality encourages higher consumption of sugary and fatty foods.

The overall health cost of poor diet to individuals, and consequent financial costs to health services, are immense.

In a global study published in 2015, reported in the Guardian, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) found that “Cumulatively, unhealthy eating, including diets low in fruit, whole grains, and vegetables, and diets high in red meat and sugar-sweetened beverages, contributed to more deaths than any other factor, causing ischemic heart disease, stroke and diabetes.”

While smoking remained the largest single health risk factor in the UK, high blood pressure, high body mass index, high cholesterol, diet low in fruit, diabetes and diet low in vegetables were all among the top ten. Obesity is thought likely to soon outstrip smoking as the leading cause of cancer, with over one-quarter of UK adults currently obese (the worst rate in Western Europe) and official estimates suggesting the figure will rise to 50 percent by 2050.

In 2014-15, the NHS estimated it spent £6.1 billion on obesity-related illness alone; the wider social costs of obesity are estimated at roughly £27 billion. These figures are projected to reach £9.7 billion and £49.9 billion by 2050. They do not take into account health problems caused by other dietary issues.

As with fruit and vegetable deficiencies, the effects of obesity are more sharply felt in economically deprived households and areas. Children from the poorest 10 percent of households are twice as likely to become obese as those from the richest 10 percent, and fast food outlets are more prevalent in poorer areas of the country, according to Public Health England.

Obesity is linked to a wide range of social and environmental factors, not least of which is the great power exercised by fast-food and confectionery businesses, whose influence the government’s piecemeal health campaigns will not begin to challenge.

The “Change 4 Life” national healthy eating campaign, for example, spends just £5 million on advertising a year, compared to over £12 million a year by Cadbury’s, £11 million by Coca Cola, £11 million by Galaxy and £8 million by Walker’s. The list goes on.

The government’s sugar tax, which will come into effect in 2018, is likely to see additional costs passed onto consumers, with poorer people hit disproportionately harder. It offers no guarantees of reduced consumption, and is in any case limited to sugary drinks. Other reductions in sugar content have been agreed with certain businesses on a purely voluntary basis.

The health crisis is being stoked by the millions of people regularly going hungry due to lack of income. According to the Food Foundation report, quoting UN estimates, 4.2 percent of the UK’s population is experiencing severe food insecurity, compared to a European average of 1.6 percent—putting the UK in the bottom half of European countries scored on hunger.

Other surveys paint an even bleaker picture. The Food Standards Agency (FSA), for example, found that eight percent of adults (around 4 million people) had low or very low food security—regularly going whole days without eating due to lack of money. Seventeen percent of adults, meanwhile, are regularly worrying about their food supplies running out before they can afford to buy more. This rises to 47 percent among the unemployed, one-third of whom have low or very low food security. The WSWS recently reported on the continually rising use of food banks across the country.

The catastrophic state of dietary health and chronic problem of hunger are an indictment of the failed capitalist system.

The health dangers and benefits of various foods and diets are known, and the wealth to ensure full access to healthy diets for all exists in abundance, but the power to produce and distribute food is held by a small number of private corporations only concerned with safeguarding their profit, without regard for the population’s health.

Bitcoin frenzy: The fever chart of a deepening crisis

Nick Beams

According to the official scenario, the world economy is enjoying its best period of growth since the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, which ushered in the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

According to a report issued by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development last month: “The global economy is now growing at its fastest pace since 2010, with the upturn becoming increasingly synchronised across countries. This long-awaited lift to global growth, supported by policy stimulus, is being accompanied by solid employment gains, a moderate upturn in investment and a pick-up in trade growth.”

Once upon a time such a “rebound” would have seen increased productive investment, accompanied by real economic growth and rising wages and living standards. Those days, however, have long gone.

Symptomatic of the real state of affairs is the fact that the biggest economic and financial news this week has been the beginning of futures trading in the cryptocurrency bitcoin. It was initiated on Sunday night by Cboe Global Markets, a Chicago-based futures exchange operator. Next week, the much larger CME Group will begin trading in futures for bitcoin.

While trading was described as relatively slow, it had to be halted twice as prices surged, triggering circuit breakers. January 2018 contracts traded at $17,420, compared to a price of $16,250 for buying bitcoin directly on cryptocurrency exchanges. In the last week, the price of bitcoin has risen by 50 percent. At the start of this year it was fetching around $900, making its rise over the past 11 months the largest financial bubble in modern economic history.

The origins of bitcoin lie in the development of a new mechanism in 2009 known as blockchain by an unknown Japanese man named Satoshi Nakamoto, or a group of computer programmers using that name. The new technology claims to enable direct monetary transactions via the Internet using bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies bypassing national-based currencies and financial regulatory authorities.

The technology itself, which is based on a public ledger system in which information is simultaneously stored on the computer systems of the participants rather than centralised, may have wider applications that could facilitate faster transactions, speeding up information flows and tracking the flow of goods and services digitally.

But the rise and rise of bitcoin from something little more than a curiosity in its first years of existence to its explosion into financial prominence over the past year has nothing to do with any potential benefits that may derive from the underlying technology. Rather, it is the most egregious expression of the rampant speculation that has come to dominate the global economy.

Reporting on the establishment of bitcoin futures trading, the Financial Timessaid it marked a “seminal moment for a cryptocurrency engineered as an alternative to the global monetary system.” The main effect, however, of the introduction of futures trading is not the implications it may or may not have for the global monetary order, but that it enables the major hedge funds and other financial speculators to cash in on its rising price and make huge profits from their transactions.

Initially, bitcoin had been regarded with some scepticism in leading financial circles. The CEO of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, for example, said earlier this year that he would fire anyone who was dealing in it.

But as the head of Citigroup, Chuck Prince, famously commented in 2007 in the midst of the speculative sub-prime bubble, when the music is playing you have got to get up and dance. And the opening of futures trading provides the opportunities for the inflow of large amounts of money into this latest form of speculation.

The bitcoin mania forms part of a much broader development in the global financial system since the financial crisis of 2008-2009. The response of the Fed and other central banks to the collapse of the speculative sub-prime bubble, and the meltdown of the global financial system, was to first to bail out the banks and investment houses and then pump in trillions of dollars and set interest rates at historically-record lows to finance the next one.

The outcome has been to send up asset prices, stock prices and, in some areas, housing, to new highs, completely outstripping the very limited growth in the underlying real economy.

As the Financial Times commentator John Authers noted: “Stocks look blatantly overvalued. Bonds look even more so. Art has never fetched such big prices. The bitcoin is only an absurd appendage to what is already a ‘bubble in everything.’ ”

One of the main factors in sustaining the bubble has been the promise of major corporate and income tax cuts for the for the ultra-wealthy in the United States, with the Trump administration’s legislation now in the last stages of passing through Congress.

Since the election of Trump, US stock prices have risen by 25 percent, bringing the rise in the market to more than 350 percent since its trough in March 2009. The tax cuts will do nothing to promote investment in the real economy and economic growth but are aimed at providing still more funds for speculation, while at the same time leading to further cuts in social spending to finance the operation.

Apple is a case in point. It has been calculated that as a result of the lowering of tax rates on the $250 billion in cash it holds overseas it stands to gain some $47 billion—more than the annual profit of any single US corporation. None of this money will go towards investment but will be used for “financial engineering” such as share buybacks, to boost the value of its stocks even further as it heads towards a $1 trillion market valuation.

Writing in the Financial Times and Washington Post, former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said the US economy was on a “sugar high”.

He noted that economic growth this year had been driven by a stock market rally that has seen an increase of more than $6 trillion in household wealth “captured by a small share of the population.”

Despite record-low capital costs and abundant corporate cash, both of which are an inducement to investment, productivity growth has been very slow and “even innovative companies such as Apple and Google cannot find enough high-return investments and so choose to engage in large-scale share repurchases.”

The implication of Summers’s “sugar high” diagnosis is that the US and, by extension, the world economy are heading for a crash.

Summers did not explicitly draw that conclusion—issuing instead an empty call for “a new economic foundation that we so desperately need”—but the bitcoin frenzy is the clearest indication that all the conditions for a massive financial meltdown are being created.

Washington’s secret wars

Bill Van Auken

The Trump White House Monday issued a so-called “War Powers” letter addressed to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and the president pro tempore of the Senate, Orin Hatch, to “keep the Congress informed about deployments of United States Armed Forces equipped for combat.”

In 1973, against the backdrop of the debacle of the Vietnam War, the US Congress, overriding the veto of then-President Richard Nixon, passed the War Powers Act. The aim of the legislation was to prevent future presidents from waging undeclared and open-ended wars with little or no accountability to Congress, which under the US Constitution has the exclusive power to declare war.

It gave the president the right to use military force at his discretion for up to 60 days—itself a huge concession of power to the executive branch—but required withdrawal after a total of 90 days if Congress failed to vote its approval of military action.

While still on the books, the War Powers Act has long ago been turned into a dead letter by the quarter century of US wars of aggression that have followed the Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union, all waged without a declaration of war by Congress.

Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have willingly acquiesced in the de facto concentration of dictatorial power in the hands of the “commander in chief” in the all-important matter of the waging of foreign wars.

The latest letter from the Trump administration, however, represents another qualitative step in this protracted degeneration of American democracy and the elimination of the last pretenses of civilian control over the military. Failing to even keep Congress “informed” about US combat deployments, the document, for the first time, omitted any information about the number of troops participating in Washington’s multiple wars and military interventions.

The letter acknowledges that the US is continuing and escalating the longest war in its history, the 16-year-long intervention in Afghanistan, stating that the American military is engaged in “active hostilities” against not only Al Qaeda and ISIS, but also the Taliban and any forces that “threaten the viability of the Afghan government” and its security forces. How many troops are engaged in this open-ended conflict is kept secret.

Similarly, the letter refers to a “systematic campaign of airstrikes” that have killed and wounded tens of thousands in Iraq and Syria, along with the deployment of ground troops in both countries. But again, their number is concealed.

It also mentions, for the first time, that “a small number” are deployed inside Yemen, where a US-backed Saudi force is carrying out a near genocidal war that has left millions on the brink of mass starvation.

It goes on to make reference to US military operations in Libya, East Africa, Africa’s Lake Chad Basin and Sahel Region and the Philippines, as well as deployments of forces in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Cuba.

In sync with Trump’s “War Powers letter” the Pentagon has issued a report listing the current location of fully 44,000 troops deployed across the globe as “unknown.” During a Pentagon press briefing last Wednesday, Army Col. Rob Manning declared that the US military’s aim was to “balance informing the American public with the imperative of operational security and denying the enemy any advantage.”

This was the same specious argument made by Trump last August when he announced his plan for an escalation of America’s war in Afghanistan. “We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities,” he said. “Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on. America’s enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out. I will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will.”

The Trump White House has removed caps imposed on troop levels under the Obama administration, leaving it up to the military commanders to escalate US deployments at will. Obama’s caps themselves were routinely circumvented through so-called temporary deployments that saw far more troops sent into US wars than were officially on the books.

The secrecy surrounding troop deployments has been highlighted in recent months following the October firefight in Niger that killed four special operations troops and brought out in the open the deployment of some 1,000 US troops in the central West African country and on its borders, an intervention about which leading members of the US Senate claimed to have known nothing. This was followed by the so-called slip of the tongue by the commander of US special operations forces in Iraq and Syria who told a Pentagon press conference that 4,000 US troops were on the ground in Syria. He quickly caught himself and repeated the official figure of 500. Subsequently, the Pentagon allowed that the real number was over 2,000.

Meanwhile, figures posted by the Pentagon last month—with little media attention—revealed that the number of US troops deployed in the Middle East as a whole had soared by 33 percent over the previous four months, with the sharpest increases taking place in a number of Persian Gulf countries, indicating advanced preparations for a new US war against Iran.

These deployments are kept secret or effectively concealed not out of any concern about “tipping off the enemy,” which in virtually every case is well aware of the level of US military aggression against their countries. Rather, it is aimed at keeping the information from the American people, which has no interest in continuing the ongoing military interventions in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa, much less launching new and potentially world catastrophic wars against Iran, North Korea and even China and Russia.

In terms of the waging of semi-secret wars abroad, as with attacks on democratic rights and the social conditions of the working class at home, Trump represents not an aberration, but rather the culmination of protracted processes that have unfolded under both Democratic and Republican administrations, which have ceded ever greater power over US foreign policy to US military commanders. This trend has only deepened under Trump, with an active duty general serving as national security advisor, and two recently retired Marine generals filling the posts of defense secretary and White House chief of staff.

With US forces on the borders of North Korea, China, and Russia on a hair-trigger, the continuous assertion of ever greater war-making powers to the military brass massively increases the danger that a miscalculation, misunderstanding, or accident could quickly lead to full-scale nuclear war.

Trump’s further assault on the War Powers Act has elicited no protest from the Democrats in Congress. They are not opposed to the government’s domination by the military or the drive to war. Their differences are merely of a tactical character, expressed in a campaign of anti-Russia hysteria waged in collaboration with sections of the US military and intelligence apparatus in preparation for a new and far more terrible conflagration.

Both parties represent a parasitic financial oligarchy that relies ever more heavily upon militarism and war to defend its wealth and domination. These parties, along with the other institutions of the US ruling establishment, have no interest in reining in the generals or upholding constitutional government and democratic rights. Rather, they are collaborating in the emergence of a system based upon the unfettered domination of the military, working in tandem with Wall Street, in which elections, the Congress and other civilian bodies are becoming little more than window-dressing.

Newton Advanced Fellowships for Early Career Researchers 2018

Application Deadline: 28th February 2018

Eligible Countries: Brazil, China, Mexico, South Africa.

About the Award: This award is currently available to international early career group leaders to develop their research by linking them with some of the best research groups in the UK. The aim is to:

• Support the development of a well-trained research community who can contribute to poverty alleviation by transferring new skills and creating new knowledge which can lead to changes in the wellbeing of communities and increased economic benefits.
• Strengthen research excellence in partner countries by supporting promising independent, early-career scientists and their research groups and networks to develop their research through training, collaboration, reciprocal visits and the transfer of knowledge and skills from the UK.
• Establish long-term links between the best research groups (and networks) in partner countries and the UK to ensure that improvements in research capacity are sustainable in the longer term. Such long-term links will also benefit the UK, securing our position with partner countries as the scientific partner of choice.

Type: Research, Fellowships

Eligibility: Applicants must have a PhD or equivalent research experience and hold a permanent or fixed-term contract in an eligible university or research institute, which must span the duration of the project. Applicants should have no more than 15 years of postdoctoral experience. Collaborations should focus on a single project involving overseas-based scientist (“the Applicant”) and UK-based scientist (“the Co-applicant”).

Selection Criteria: Applications will be assessed by the Newton Advanced Fellowships Panel and decisions made in September 2017.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value and Duration of Program: Awards last for up to three years and are available to support researchers across the natural sciences, including clinical or patient-oriented research. Up to £37,000 is available each year, guidelines for use as follows:

• A salary top up (maximum £5,000) for the group leader from the partner country.
• Research support (maximum £15,000) to cover costs for studentships, staff, consumables or equipment.
• Travel and subsistence (maximum £12,000) to cover travel costs of the UK partner to the international partner and/or travel of the international partner to the UK.
• Training (maximum £5,000) to support the career development of the applicant and their research group or network.

How to Apply: Applications can only be submitted online using the Royal Society’s electronic Grant Application and Processing (e-GAP) system.

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: This scheme is funded by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy as part of the Newton Fund.

Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program for International Teachers (Fully-funded to the USA) 2018

Application Deadline: 25th February 2018

Eligible Countries: Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Finland, Greece, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Philippines, Senegal, Singapore, Taiwan, Uganda.

To Be Taken At (Country): USA

Type: Training

Eligibility: 

• Full-time primary and secondary educators, including classroom teachers, guidance counselors, curriculum specialists, library media specialists, and special education coordinators, administrators, and others who spend at least half of their time interacting with students
• Applicants from the following participating countries listed above
• Applicants should have:
  • Five years of full-time teaching experience or experience working with primary- or secondary-level students in another capacity
  • Proven track record of professional development activities and leadership
  • Citizen of a participating Fulbright DAI country
  • Other requirements as indicated on the application

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• Educator training: Fulbright Distinguished Teachers take part in an intensive five-month professional development program at a US university. The curriculum includes academic coursework, leadership training, and instructional technology seminars.
• Inquiry projects: Each participant will complete an individual or group project relevant to their education practice. Past projects covered topics such as current methodologies for teaching math, science, music, visual arts, performing arts, and English as a second language; working with special needs students; promoting civic engagement or service learning; environmental education; school management and leadership; and others that meet a critical need in the candidate’s home country.
• Field experience: Fulbright Distinguished Teachers are actively engaged with US schools. They are given opportunities to observe, co-teach, and share their expertise, building collaborative, lasting connections with teachers and students.
• Best practice exchange: Fulbright Distinguished Teachers study and observe international best practices in education. They also share professional expertise with educators and students in the United States.
• Civic and cultural activities: Fulbright Distinguished Teachers participate in US cultural activities such as performances, sporting events, visits to US homes, board of education meetings, and trips to notable historical sites.

Duration of Program: A semester in 2018

How to Apply: APPLY NOW

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: The Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program for International Teachers (Fulbright DAI) is a program of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), and is administered by IREX.

Tanzanian-German Centre for Eastern African Legal Studies (TGCL) Scholarships for East African Students 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 23rd February, 2018

Eligible Countries: East African Community Partner States (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda)

To be taken at (country): University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Field of Study: Law

About the Award: The TGCL, a think tank on East African Community law, is a cooperation project of the University of Dar es Salaam and the University of Bayreuth in Germany. It is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Structured LLM and PhD study programmes at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, are addressed to aspiring young East African lawyers, qualifying them for leading positions in the region.

The LLM candidates will pursue a coursework and a dissertation programme on Regional Integration and East African Community Law. The programme takes one year of fulltime attendance.

PhD students are required to write a comprehensive PhD thesis within three years of fulltime attendance.

The TGCL will offer seminars and workshops on academic research methodology and professional leadership skills for its students, accompanied by an introduction to German Law and the Law of the European Union.

Additionally, interdisciplinary seminars and a German language course are part of the programme.

On successful completion of the programme, the students will obtain a law degree from the University of Dar es Salaam and an additional TGCL Certificate.

Type: PhD/Masters

Eligibility: Applications are invited especially from candidates from the East African Community Partner States (i.e. Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda).

The formal minimum requirements for admission to the LLM and PhD programmes are:

• for the LLM programme: a Bachelor’s degree in law (LLB) with a minimum GPA of 3.0 or its equivalent from a recognised higher learning institutions.
• for the PhD programme: an excellent LLM degree from a recognised institution

The language of instruction in the School of Law is English. Those who are not conversant with it should not apply.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Scholarships are granted only to applicants from EAC countries and will cover:

• the university fees for the LLM/PhD programme
• a reasonable health insurance
• an annual stipend of 2,400 EUR for Tanzanians and of 3,000 EUR for non-Tanzanians
• a housing allowance of 30 EUR per month
• a once-off research grant of 460 EUR for LLM and 920 EUR for PhD

Duration of Scholarship: 

• LLM: 1 Year
• PhD: 3 Years

How to Apply: The applicant must register online through the TGCL website and submit the following documents electronically:

1. a signed curriculum vitae with clear evidence of periods of legal and other relevant education, training and practical experience. It is compulsory to use the Europass CV template (http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu).
2. one page letter of motivation
3. certified photocopies of all relevant certificates (birth certificate, school leaving certificates, academic transcripts, certificates of legal or other professional education, including provisional results for applicants who are in the final year of their LLB studies); in the case of documents not in English an official translation should be attached
4. a passport picture
5. a release letter from your employer (if you are employed) – a proposal of the intended research (for LLM candidates: 1,500 words; for PhD candidates: 3,000 words) – see annexed guidelines
6. for PhD candidates: an electronic copy of your LLM dissertation

Additionally, applicants must send (1) Hard copies of all application documents mentioned above (2) three letters of recommendation (signed and sealed), (3) a printout of the online registration form to:

The Coordinator, TGCL, Dr Benedict T. Mapunda, University of Dar es Salaam School of Law, P.O. Box 35093, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; phone: +255 22 278 1422; fax: +255 22 278 0217; email:mapundabt@yahoo.com

Apply here

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details 

Award Provider: German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Important Notes: Incomplete and late applications will not be considered. All applications have to be submitted both online and as a hardcopy. It is highly recommended to use a reliable professional courier service to ship the hardcopy, if you are not handing it in personally

Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) International Masters Scholarships at the University of Leeds, UK 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 20th June 2018.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): University of Leeds, UK

Accepted Subject Areas? The Institute offers a choice of six (6) Masters degrees:

• MSc Mathematical Modelling for Transport
• MSc Sustainability in Transport
• MSc Transport Economics
• MSc Transport Planning
• MSc Transport Planning and the Environment
• MSc (Eng) Transport Planning and Engineering

About Scholarship: The Institute for Transport Studies (ITS), Faculty of Environment, University of Leeds is offering a fees scholarship, to provide a unique opportunity to an African student of outstanding ability, achievement and potential. The Institute is offering a 50% fees scholarships, each worth £8500, to provide development opportunities to students of outstanding ability, achievement and potential. The scholarships will fund 50% of the tuition fees for international students to undertake a full-time Masters degree programme. The scholarships form part of the ITS mission to advance the understanding of global transport, via the development of future transport professionals.

It is envisaged that the scholarship recipient will take up employment in the transport sector in their home country after the Masters programme, to apply their new skills in an area of identified need.

Offered Since: 2013

Type: Taught Masters

Who is eligible to apply?

• a) Applicants must hold, or expect to obtain, a bachelors degree equivalent to a UK first class or upper second class honours.
• b) Applicants must hold an offer (conditional or unconditional) of an academic place for an ITS Masters degree for the academic year commencing September 2016.
• c) Applicants must be designated as ‘international fee status’ by the University of Leeds, and be domiciled in an African country.

How Many Scholarships are available? 6

What are the benefits? £5,000

How long will sponsorship last? Onetime fee reduction

How to Apply: Download the application form.

For further details including the application pack and full terms and conditions, please visit the ITS Scholarship webpage

Sponsors: The Institute for Transport Studies (ITS), Faculty of Environment, University of Leeds UK

Important Notes:: Early application is encouraged. Shortlisted applicants will be notified by email in July.

Nikon Small World In Motion Digital Video Contest 2018

Application Deadline: 30th April 2018

Eligible Countries:  All

About the Award: This competition is an extension to the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition and dedicated strictly to movie or digital time-lapse photography taken through the microscope. It is held annually since 2011.

The subject matter is unrestricted and any type of light microscopy technique is acceptable, including phase contrast, polarized light, fluorescence, interference contrast, darkfield, confocal, deconvolution, and mixed techniques. Entries submitted to Nikon are then judged by an independent panel of experts who are recognized authorities in the area of photomicrography and photography. These entries are judged on the basis of originality, informational content, technical proficiency and visual impact.

A movie that has won any other competition is not eligible to win this contest.

The Nikon International Small World Competition first began in 1975 as a means to recognize and applaud the efforts of those involved with photography through the light microscope. Since then, Small World has become a leading showcase for photomicrographers from the widest array of scientific disciplines.

Type: Contest

Eligibility: 

1. Anyone over the age of 18 is eligible, with the exception of employees of Nikon, their families, the contest judges, and individuals engaged in the manufacture or sale of microscopes or photographic equipment. Former first prizewinners are ineligible to win first prize in the three contests immediately following the contest they won, but can win other prizes. A movie that has won any other competition is not eligible to win this contest.
2. Movies must be captured using a light microscope, such as one of the Nikon series of compound or stereoscopic microscopes. The use of Nikon equipment is not required. No purchase is necessary.
3. Any type of specimen is acceptable. All techniques of light microscopy are acceptable. Electron microscopy is not acceptable. Animated movies are not acceptable.
4. Movies must be submitted digitally by uploading to the Small World Competition entry area on the www.nikonsmallworld.com Web site. Maximum file size is 100MB, and it is recommended the file size be no smaller than 3MB although smaller file sizes will not be disqualified. Movies should be no longer than 2 minutes in length. Files must be in .avi, .wmv, .mov, mp4, mpeg4 or .flv format. Nikon reserves the right to edit movies for length. Although sound is permitted, the use of copyrighted material is not, unless express written consent of the copyright owner is provided. Permission will be subject to the same conditions as the movie.
5. Each entrant may submit up to three movies for judging. A completed and signed official entry form, facsimile, or complete Internet entry form must be used.
6. Entries must be received no later than April 30, 2018 to be eligible for prizes.
7. Please send all correspondence to Nikon’s Small World Competition, Nikon Instruments Inc., 1300 Walt Whitman Road, Melville, NY 11747-3064 USA or email info@nikonsmallworld.com
8. Prizewinners will be notified by August 15, 2018.
9. The decision of Nikon’s panel of judges will be final.
10. All files will be retained by Nikon Instruments Inc., and cannot be returned.
11. If your entry is selected by Nikon as a winning movie, you will give non-exclusive rights to Nikon to use your name and the movie in connection with the competition. You also certify that you hold the rights to grant such permission. Winning movies will only be used in connection with the Nikon Small World Competition and accompanying publicity and will include appropriate photo credits.
12. Contestants will be notified regarding usage should Nikon be approached with any commercial opportunities related to a submitted movie or movies.
13. All reasonable care will be taken in handling digital files, but Nikon Instruments Inc. will not assume any responsibility for their loss or damage.
14. Offer void where prohibited.
15. Taxes, if any, on prizes are the sole responsibility of the prizewinner.
16. Failure to comply with and accept all of the preceding rules will disqualify any entry.

Selection Criteria: Entries will be judged on:

1. Originality
2. Informational Content
3. Technical Proficiency
4. Artistic and Visual Impact

Number of Awardees: 3

Value of Contest: Winners will be awarded one of three prizes, sorted according to rank in the competition. First prize is $3,000 toward the purchase of Nikon equipment.

How to Apply: Contestants may enter the Competition by uploading video files directly to MicroscopyU.com.

Before you begin, read the Contest Rules and prepare your movies for uploading according to the instructions.

Visit Contest Webpage for details

Award Provider: Nikon

Saving Humanity From Itself

Robert F. Dodge

Since the beginning of the nuclear age and the dropping of the first atomic bombs, humankind has struggled with the reality of being able to destroy the planet on the one hand and the abolition of these weapons on the other. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear (ICAN) acknowledges these realities and celebrates the efforts to achieve the latter. The Nobel Peace Prize with its award criteria specifies: the promotion of fraternity between nations; the advancement of disarmament and arms control and the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

From the beginning of the nuclear age in 1945 to the founding of the United Nations, 71 years ago, with its very first resolution–advocating for the importance of nuclear disarmament and a nuclear weapon-free world–nuclear abolition has been the necessary goal for our survival. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) exemplifies these ideals and brings hope to our world.

In a world armed with some 15,000 nuclear weapons, everything that we cherish and value is threatened every moment of every day. From a limited nuclear war to all out nuclear war between “superpowers,” our future is hanging in the balance. Whether by intent, miscalculation or accident, never before has the world been closer to nuclear war. From the setting of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock in January of this year to 2 ½ minutes till midnight–where midnight represents Armageddon from nuclear war and the relationship to climate change–to the dangerous rhetoric between our president and North Korea, China and Russia resulting in the worst relations between nuclear powers in decades, we face great peril.

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize acknowledges the grave humanitarian consequences of nuclear war–a threat for which there is no adequate humanitarian or medical response and whose only solution is prevention through the total abolition of these weapons.

This is the path chosen by the majority of the nations of the world on July 7 when they voted 122-1 to adopt the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Unwilling to remain forever hostage to the arsenals of the nuclear armed states, these nations, with the strong support of global civil society, agreed to eliminate and ban all nuclear weapons.

ICAN is a coalition of 468 non-governmental organizations from 101 countries around the globe. The coalition has been a driving force in prevailing upon the world’s nations to pledge to cooperate with all relevant stakeholders in efforts to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons. To date, 127 states have made such a commitment, known as the Humanitarian Pledge that ultimately led up to this year’s U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This Treaty will ban nuclear weapons just as every other weapon of mass destruction has previously been banned. The Treaty opened for signature on September 21, the International Day of Peace. As soon as the Treaty has been ratified by 50 Nations, the ban on nuclear weapons will enter into force and will be binding under international law for all the countries that are party to the treaty.

Paradoxically (hypocritically), five of the states that currently have nuclear weapons – the USA, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China – have already committed to the objective of abolishing nuclear weapons through their accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1970. While the Non-Proliferation Treaty will remain the primary international legal instrument for promoting nuclear disarmament and preventing the further spread of such weapons, it has until this time lacked the juridical status of declaring these weapons illegal.

Now, flouting these laws and treaties, a new arms race is under way. It will cost in excess of $1.2 trillion dollars to the U.S. and rob resources from all other endeavors.

This nuclear hypocrisy must stop. These expenditures rob future generations, making it impossible to address desperate human needs around the planet. More scarcity, more poverty, more environmental degradation–more conflict.

We risk realizing Albert Einstein’s prophetic words: “With the unleashed power of the atom, we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe unless we change our mode of thinking.” Ultimately, we will see the end of nuclear weapons. Either through adherence to international law and their abolition or through their use and the end of humanity, the choice is ours.

The Nobel Committee has joined the peoples and nations of the world in calling on and demanding the nuclear-armed states to begin the serious negotiations toward the complete elimination of these weapons. The time is now and this Nobel Peace Prize highlights these efforts and brings new hope and determination to this call. Each of us has a role to play in bringing forth this reality and must demand that our nation sign the Treaty and abolish nuclear weapons.