LSHTM Fully-funded PACF Masters Scholarships for Students from sub-Saharan Africa 2018 – UK

Application Deadline: midnight (GMT) on Sunday 18th February 2018.

Eligible Countries:  sub-Saharan Africa

To be taken at (country): UK

About the Award: The Positive Action for Children Fund Scholarship Programme combines completion of a health/development-focused qualifying MSc programme with practical industry experience to equip students with the knowledge and skills to be effective advocates and catalysts of change in their home country, with a particular focus on championing the role of community interventions in contributing to the HIV and global health response.

The programme’s objectives are to:

• build knowledge, understanding and skills in global health theory;
• apply this learning within the development industry context through practical experience;
• develop strategies to address in-country health gaps and accelerate country-level responses, with a particular focus on community-led interventions; and
• grow in-country advocates and catalysts for positive change in HIV/AIDS programming.

Fields of Study: The qualifying programmes are: MSc Control of Infectious Diseases, MSc Epidemiology, MSc Health Policy, Planning & Financing, MSc Public Health, MSc Public Health for Development, and MSc Reproductive & Sexual Health Research.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: To be eligible for these scholarships, applicants must

• be nationals of, and resident in, countries in sub-Saharan Africa; and
• intend to return to sub-Saharan Africa on completion of their MSc year at the School; and
• have 2 years experience working in any function (board, staff, volunteer etc.) within a grassroots community based organisation with a  focus on HIV/AIDS and/or public health intervention. The selection committee consider a grassroots community organisation to be a non-profit group that work with local communities in delivering HIV/AIDS and/or public health interventions. Applications are encouraged from volunteers, youth group leaders, peer-support group leaders who are delivering locally based interventions.
• confirm (by submitting an application for this scholarship) that s/he would not otherwise be able to pay for their proposed programme of study, and
• agree to undertaking a 3 month placement with PACF, in their London office, during the summer (whilst simultaneously undertaking their MSc project); and
• meet the School’s minimum English language requirements, as required for admission to study, if short-listed; and
• hold an offer of admission for 2018-19 for one of the following London-based MSc programmes of study
  • MSc Control of Infectious Diseases
  • MSc Epidemiology
  • MSc Health Policy, Planning & Financing
  • MSc Public Health
  • MSc Reproductive & Sexual Health
  • MSc Public Health for Development

Selection Criteria: Applicants should ensure they demonstrate outstanding experience and qualifications in their study and scholarship applications, as appropriate. Preference will be given to those candidates who show how their skills and knowledge might be applied to community HIV/AIDS interventions, and who explain how they will be effective catalysts of change in their communities, particularly with regard to community HIV/AIDS interventions, once they have completed their MSc programme of study.

Number of Awardees: 2

Value of Scholarship: Each scholarship will cover:

• tuition fees, including any mandatory field trip fees, and
• a tax-free stipend (living allowance) of GBP 16,750.00, and
• GBP 2,000.00 towards MSc project costs, and
• a training support grant for the practical learning element of the award.

It is a condition of this funding that PACF Scholars must undertake a three-month practical element at PACF’s London office, during the period they conduct their MSc project. The purpose of this is to provide students with training, learning, and practical experience, and an opportunity to complete their MSc project, whilst undertaking their placement at PACF.

Duration of Scholarship: 1 year

How to Apply: Applicants should complete both steps below by the scholarship deadline.

• Step 1: Submit an application for an eligible 2018-19 London-based MSc programme of study, as per instructions under the ‘How to Apply’ tab on the relevant programme of study page, ensuring that all necessary supplementary documents (including references) are submitted via the Admissions portal as soon as possible to ensure that an offer of admission is held by the scholarship deadline.
• Step 2: Submit an online scholarships application, selecting the option ‘PACF MSc Scholarships’. A completed Supplementary Questions Form for this scholarship must be uploaded as part of the Scholarship application. (This is the only document which should be uploaded on the Scholarships online application.)

If you encounter any technical difficulties whilst using the online application system please contact LSHTM IT by email, providing them with your full name; the scholarship that you are applying for; and the issue that you have encountered. Please attach a screen shot of the difficulty.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Positive Action for Children Fund

African Leadership Academy (ALA) Fellowship for Young African Leaders 2018

Application Deadline: 16th February, 2018

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be taken at (country): South Africa

About the Award: ALA Fellowships are two-year posts for young professionals who have completed their undergraduate studies within the past five years. ALA Fellows work closely with talented and passionate students from across the African continent through teaching and/or professional staff supporting roles. Teaching Fellows collaborate with exceptional educators and mentors, teaching courses in areas of expertise and gaining broad practical experience in  teaching and learning. Staff Fellows assist in areas such as strategic relations or admissions, developing skills in project management. All Fellows participate actively in student life as resident advisors and coaches overseeing extracurricular activities, bringing energy and cultivating a vibrant culture of leadership, innovation, and international cooperation on campus. Fellows receive housing, a stipend to cover living expenses, and are eligible for a grant to enable one professionally relevant travel excursion during the course of the Fellowship.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: An ideal candidate (is):

• Creative and passionate about the field of education
• Celebrates opportunities to interact with people from very diverse cultural and social economic backgrounds
• Embraces a culture of leadership, international cooperation and excellence
• Open-minded and willing to share expertise and experiences, and to learn from others
• Loves to take on challenges and not afraid to work hard

Selection Criteria: 

• BA or BS degree from a leading university, with an excellent academic transcript and record of outstanding citizenship.
• A track record of leadership and results in extracurricular or professional activities.
• Experience working with young people in a mentoring, teaching, or coaching capacity.
• Experience developing strong relationships with people from a variety of different ages, cultures, religions, and socioeconomic groups.
• Experience in a boarding school or as a university Residential Advisor is a plus.
• Fluent in English. Fluency or proficiency in other languages spoken broadly on the continent (French, Portuguese, Arabic, Swahili, Yoruba, etc.) is a plus.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Fellowship: Fellows will receive housing on campus and a stipend payment to cover living expenses. Fellows are also eligible for a modest Summer Exploration grant to enable one professionally relevant travel excursion during the course of Fellowship tenure.

Duration of Fellowship: Fellowships will begin in August 2018 and last for two years.

How to Apply: To apply, complete the form below and attach your CV, cover letter and writing sample. Applications will be accepted through February 16, 2018.

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: African Leadership Academy

Corporate Coercion and the Drive to Eliminate Buying with Cash

Ralph Nader

“Sorry we’re not taking cash or checks,” said the clerk at the Fed Ex counter over a decade ago to an intern. “Only credit cards.”

Since then, the relentless intensification of coercive commercialism has been moving toward a cashless economy, when all consumers are incarcerated within a prison of corporate payment systems from your credit/debit cards to your mobile phone and very soon facial recognition.

“Terrific!” say those consumers for whom convenience and velocity of transactions are irresistible.

“This is nuts!” say a shrinking number of free-thinking consumers who are unwilling to be dragooned down the road to corporate captivity and coercion.  These people treasure their privacy. They understand that it’s none of any conglomerate’s business – whether VISA, Facebook, Amazon or Google – what, where, when and how consumers purchase goods and services. Or where and when they travel, receive healthcare, or the most intimate relationships they maintain. Not to mention consumers’ personal information can be sent to or hacked around the globe.

Cash-consumers are not alone in their opposition to a cashless economy.  When they are in a cab and ask the driver how they prefer to be paid, the answer is near-unanimous. “Cash, cash, cash,” reply the cab drivers in cities around the country. They get paid immediately and without having to have a company deduct a commission.

Back some 25 years ago, Consumers Union considered backing consumer groups to sign up Main Street, USA merchants who agreed to discount their wares if people paid in cash. For the same reason – merchants get to keep all the money on sales made with cash or check. Unfortunately, the idea never materialized. It is, however, still a good idea. Today, payments systems are much more comprehensively coercive.

Once you’re in the credit card system, lack of privacy and access to your credit are just the tip of the iceberg. That is why companies can impose penalties, surcharges, overcharges and a myriad of other corporate raids on your private treasury. They get immediate payment. If you object, you could see a lowering of your credit score or your credit rating. Besides, you don’t even know you agreed to all of these dictates – banks have over 300 different special charges for their revered customers – in fine print agreements that you never saw, read or even possessed to sign or click on. What’s the likelihood that banks would continue to surcharge you if they had to bill you instead of debit you?

The sheer pace and brazenness of corporations when they have instant access to your credit is stunning. The recent crimes of banking giant Wells Fargo, including selling auto insurance and assigning new credit cards to millions of their customers who had no knowledge and gave no consent for these charges, which resulted in damage to these customers’ credit scores and ratings, can only be committed when consumers are turned into economic prisoners. There are still no criminal prosecutions of the bank or its bosses. Wells Fargo bank stock rose to a year high last month. To their credit, the CFPB imposed a $100 million dollar fine on Wells Fargo, which barred them from deducting the fine as a business expense.

Coercive fine print contracts rob you of your consumer rights by preventing you from going to court, imposing fines as high as $35 fines for  bounced checks (which typically cost the banks less than $2), and decreeing that you agreed in advance to all kinds of unconscionable abuses, so long as you are in a “customer” status with them. Some companies are even charging customers for quitting them.

The rapacity inflicted on cashless purchasers prevails across the economy – insurance, mortgages, telecommunications, healthcare, stock brokerage, online buying and, of course, requirements to use electronic payment systems.

The more consumers become incarcerated by the companies that purportedly serve them, the more lucrative commodity consumers become. This leads to, among other problems, massive computerized billing fraud in the US. In the healthcare industry alone, billing fraud amounts to ten percent of what is spent, according to Harvard applied mathematics professor Malcolm Sparrow, author of License to Steal. This year’s expenditure of ten percent of the $3.5 trillion expected to be spent amounts to $350 billion. A cashless economy further facilitates these larcenous practices.

A computerized economy is one where fraud can easily be committed on a massive scale, according to Frank Abagnale who, after serving his time in prison for identity theft, , has become an impassioned educator (serving institutions ranging from the FBI to AARP) on how to detect and avoid such crimes, which he estimates to cost people about one trillion dollars each year.

What it comes down to is whether consumer freedom is worth more than consumer convenience or whether the points earned for future purchases (assuming the costs are not passed on in hidden ways) are worth minimizing impulse buying, avoiding big data profile manipulations, keeping personal matters personal and requiring your affirmative consent to transactions where you decide what you want to buy and how you can pay.

However, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to pay by cash or check. Try renting a car or occupying a hotel room or buying a snack or drink on an airline without a credit or debit card.

In the latest example of such coercion, new boutique eateries like Two Forks, Dig Inn, Dos Toros or Pokee in New York City operate entirely through payment systems that reject all cash purchases. “But isn’t cash legal tender?” you might ask. How could they reject cash on the barrelhead? Simple, says the Federal Reserve, so long as they notify you in advance. It’s that fine print again.

The New York Times, reported these rejections and noted: “Not surprisingly, the credit card companies, who make a commission on every credit card purchase, applaud the trend. Visa recently offered select merchants a $10,000 reward for depriving customers of their right to pay by the method of their choice.” The nerve!

Cash consumers of America arise, band together and organize a National Association for the Preservation of Cash Purchases. You have nothing to save but your freedom, your desire to push back and your precious, affirmative and personal right to consent or not to consent, before you are forced into contract peonage.

Mapping a World From Hell: 76 Countries are Now Involved in Washington’s War on Terror

Tom Engelhardt

He left Air Force Two behind and, unannounced, “shrouded in secrecy,” flew on an unmarked C-17 transport plane into Bagram Air Base, the largest American garrison in Afghanistan. All news of his visit was embargoed until an hour before he was to depart the country.

More than 16 years after an American invasion “liberated” Afghanistan, he was there to offer some good news to a U.S. troop contingent once again on the rise. Before a 40-foot American flag, addressing 500 American troops, Vice President Mike Pence praised them as “the world’s greatest force for good,” boasted that American air strikes had recently been “dramatically increased,” swore that their country was “here to stay,” and insisted that “victory is closer than ever before.” As an observer noted, however, the response of his audience was “subdued.”  (“Several troops stood with their arms crossed or their hands folded behind their backs and listened, but did not applaud.”)

Think of this as but the latest episode in an upside down geopolitical fairy tale, a grim, rather than Grimm, story for our age that might begin: Once upon a time — in October 2001, to be exact — Washington launched its war on terror.  There was then just one country targeted, the very one where, a little more than a decade earlier, the U.S. had ended a long proxy war against the Soviet Union during which it had financed, armed, or backed an extreme set of Islamic fundamentalist groups, including a rich young Saudi by the name of Osama bin Laden.

By 2001, in the wake of that war, which helped send the Soviet Union down the path to implosion, Afghanistan was largely (but not completely) ruled by the Taliban.  Osama bin Laden was there, too, with a relatively modest crew of cohorts.  By early 2002, he had fled to Pakistan, leaving many of his companions dead and his organization, al-Qaeda, in a state of disarray.  The Taliban, defeated, were pleading to be allowed to put down their arms and go back to their villages, an abortive process that Anand Gopal vividly described in his book, No Good Men Among the Living.

It was, it seemed, all over but the cheering and, of course, the planning for yet greater exploits across the region.  The top officials in the administration of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were geopolitical dreamers of the first order who couldn’t have had more expansive ideas about how to extend such success to — as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld indicated only days after the 9/11 attacks — terror or insurgent groups in more than 60 countries.  It was a point President Bush would reemphasize nine months later in a triumphalist graduation speech at West Point.  At that moment, the struggle they had quickly, if immodestly, dubbed the Global War on Terror was still a one-country affair.  They were, however, already deep into preparations to extend it in ways more radical and devastating than they could ever have imagined with the invasion and occupation of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the domination of the oil heartlands of the planet that they were sure would follow.  (In a comment that caught the moment exactly, Newsweek quoted a British official “close to the Bush team” as saying, “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.”)

So many years later, perhaps it won’t surprise you — as it probably wouldn’t have surprised the hundreds of thousands of protesters who turned out in the streets of American cities and towns in early 2003 to oppose the invasion of Iraq — that this was one of those stories to which the adage “be careful what you wish for” applies.

Seeing War

And it’s a tale that’s not over yet.  Not by a long shot.  As a start, in the Trump era, the longest war in American history, the one in Afghanistan, is only getting longer.  There are those U.S. troop levels on the rise; those air strikes ramping up; the Taliban in control of significant sections of the country; an Islamic State-branded terror group spreading ever more successfully in its eastern regions; and, according to the latest report from the Pentagon, “more than 20 terrorist or insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Think about that: 20 groups.  In other words, so many years later, the war on terror should be seen as an endless exercise in the use of multiplication tables — and not just in Afghanistan either.  More than a decade and a half after an American president spoke of 60 or more countries as potential targets, thanks to the invaluable work of a single dedicated group, the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, we finally have a visual representation of the true extent of the war on terror.  That we’ve had to wait so long should tell us something about the nature of this era of permanent war.

America’s war on terror across the globe (from the Costs of War Project). 

The Costs of War Project has produced not just a map of the war on terror, 2015-2017, but the first map of its kind ever.  It offers an astounding vision of Washington’s counterterror wars across the globe: their spread, the deployment of U.S. forces, the expanding missions to train foreign counterterror forces, the American bases that make them possible, the drone and other air strikes that are essential to them, and the U.S. combat troops helping to fight them.  (Terror groups have, of course, morphed and expanded riotously as part and parcel of the same process.)

A glance at the map tells you that the war on terror, an increasingly complex set of intertwined conflicts, is now a remarkably global phenomenon.  It stretches from the Philippines (with its own ISIS-branded group that just fought an almost five-month-long campaign that devastated Marawi, a city of 300,000) through South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and deep into West Africa where, only recently, four Green Berets died in an ambush in Niger.

No less stunning are the number of countries Washington’s war on terror has touched in some fashion.  Once, of course, there was only one (or, if you want to include the United States, two).  Now, the Costs of War Project identifies no less than 76 countries, 39% of those on the planet, as involved in that global conflict.  That means places like Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya where U.S. drone or other air strikes are the norm and U.S. ground troops (often Special Operations forces) have been either directly or indirectly engaged in combat.  It also means countries where U.S. advisers are training local militaries or even militias in counterterror tactics and those with bases crucial to this expanding set of conflicts.  As the map makes clear, these categories often overlap.

Who could be surprised that such a “war” has been eating American taxpayer dollars at a rate that should stagger the imagination in a country whose infrastructure is now visibly crumbling?  In a separate study, released in November, the Costs of War Project estimated that the price tag on the war on terror (with some future expenses included) had already reached an astronomical $5.6 trillion.  Only recently, however, President Trump, now escalating those conflicts, tweeted an even more staggering figure: “After having foolishly spent $7 trillion in the Middle East, it is time to start rebuilding our country!” (This figure, too, seems to have come in some fashion from the Costs of War estimate that “future interest payments on borrowing for the wars will likely add more than $7.9 trillion to the national debt” by mid-century.)

It couldn’t have been a rarer comment from an American politician, as in these years assessments of both the monetary and human costs of war have largely been left to small groups of scholars and activists.  The war on terror has, in fact, spread in the fashion today’s map lays out with almost no serious debate in this country about its costs or results.  If the document produced by the Costs of War project is, in fact, a map from hell, it is also, I believe, the first full-scale map of this war ever produced.

Think about that for a moment.  For the last 16 years, we, the American people, funding this complex set of conflicts to the tune of trillions of dollars, have lacked a single map of the war Washington has been fighting.  Not one. Yes, parts of that morphing, spreading set of conflicts have been somewhere in the news regularly, though seldom (except when there were “lone wolf” terror attacks in the United States or Western Europe) in the headlines.  In all those years, however, no American could see an image of this strange, perpetual conflict whose end is nowhere in sight.

Part of this can be explained by the nature of that “war.”  There are no fronts, no armies advancing on Berlin, no armadas bearing down on the Japanese homeland.  There hasn’t been, as in Korea in the early 1950s, even a parallel to cross or fight your way back to.  In this war, there have been no obvious retreats and, after the triumphal entry into Baghdad in 2003, few advances either.

It was hard even to map its component parts and when you did — as in an August New York Times map of territories controlled by the Taliban in Afghanistan — the imagery was complex and of limited impact.  Generally, however, we, the people, have been demobilized in almost every imaginable way in these years, even when it comes to simply following the endless set of wars and conflicts that go under the rubric of the war on terror.

Mapping 2018 and Beyond

Let me repeat this mantra: once, almost seventeen years ago, there was one; now, the count is 76 and rising.  Meanwhile, great cities have been turned into rubble; tens of millions of human beings have been displaced from their homes; refugees by the millions continue to cross borders, unsettling ever more lands; terror groups have become brand names across significant parts of the planet; and our American world continues to be militarized.

This should be thought of as an entirely new kind of perpetual global war.  So take one more look at that map.  Click on it and then enlarge it to consider the map in full-screen mode.  It’s important to try to imagine what’s been happening visually, since we’re facing a new kind of disaster, a planetary militarization of a sort we’ve never truly seen before.  No matter the “successes” in Washington’s war, ranging from that invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to the taking of Baghdad in 2003 to the recent destruction of the Islamic State’s “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq (or most of it anyway, since at this moment American planes are still dropping bombs and firing missiles in parts of Syria), the conflicts only seem to morph and tumble on.

We are now in an era in which the U.S. military is the leading edge — often the only edge — of what used to be called American “foreign policy” and the State Department is being radically downsized.  American Special Operations forces were deployed to 149 countries in 2017 alone and the U.S. has so many troops on so many bases in so many places on Earth that the Pentagon can’t even account for the whereabouts of 44,000 of them. There may, in fact, be no way to truly map all of this, though the Costs of War Project’s illustration is a triumph of what can be seen.

Looking into the future, let’s pray for one thing: that the folks at that project have plenty of stamina, since it’s a given that, in the Trump years (and possibly well beyond), the costs of war will only rise.  The first Pentagon budget of the Trump era, passed with bipartisan unanimity by Congress and signed by the president, is a staggering $700 billion.  Meanwhile, America’s leading military men and the president, while escalating the country’s conflicts from Niger to Yemen, Somalia to Afghanistan, seem eternally in search of yet more wars to launch.

Pointing to Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, for instance, Marine Corps Commandant General Robert Neller recently told U.S. troops in Norway to expect a “bigass fight” in the future, adding, “I hope I’m wrong, but there’s a war coming.”  In December, National Security Adviser Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster similarly suggested that the possibility of a war (conceivably nuclear in nature) with Kim Jong-un’s North Korea was “increasing every day.”  Meanwhile, in an administration packed with Iranophobes, President Trump seems to be preparing to tear up the Iran nuclear deal, possibly as early as this month.

In other words, in 2018 and beyond, maps of many creative kinds may be needed simply to begin to take in the latest in America’s wars.  Consider, for instance, a recent report in the New York Times that about 2,000 employees of the Department of Homeland Security are already “deployed to more than 70 countries around the world,” largely to prevent terror attacks.  And so it goes in the twenty-first century.

So welcome to 2018, another year of unending war, and while we’re on the subject, a small warning to our leaders: given the last 16 years, be careful what you wish for.

Cruelty and Suffering Billed as “Religion”

Martha Rosenberg

Once again, ritual slaughter is being debated in Europe. Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, other European countries and New Zealand have banned or limited religious slaughter. Now, new rules in the Netherlands state that no more animals can be killed for kosher and halal meat than “necessary to meet the actual need of the religious communities present in the Netherlands.” Also, if an animal is not “insensitive to pain” within 40 seconds of slaughter, it must be shot.

In both kosher (sanctioned by Jewish law) and halal (sanctioned by Islamic law) slaughter, cattle, sheep, goats and poultry have their throats cut while they are fully conscious. After a disturbing film of hog slaughter was shown in 1957 to Congress, the 1958 Humane Methods of Slaughter Act was passed in the U.S. which requires animals to be made insensitive to pain before being “shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast or cut.” Ritual religious slaughter is exempted.

In 2004, undercover video at the Agriprocessors’ kosher slaughterhouse surfaced, showing cows that did not die from having their throats cut but got up and thrashed around in heartbreaking agony. The video led to a USDA investigation that “reported many violations of animal cruelty laws at the plant,” reported the New York Times. (Trump commuted the sentence of an Agriprocessors’ owner for financial wrongdoing late last year.) The undercover activists who shot the video were later identified as Hannah and Phillip Schein, a married couple who keep kosher themselves, dispelling charges that their motives were anti-Semitic.

When the grisly video surfaced, a coalition of rabbis and kosher certifying agencies in the United States was quick to defend the images. “After the animal has been rendered insensible, it is entirely possible that it may still display certain reflexive actions, including those shown in images portrayed in the video,” they wrote on a kosher-certification website.

“These reflexive actions should not be mistaken for signs of consciousness or pain, and they do not affect the kosher status of the slaughtered animal’s meat. There may be exceptional circumstances when, due to the closing of jugular veins or a carotid artery after the shechita cut, or due to the non-complete severance of an artery or vein, the animal may rise up on its legs and walk around. Cases when animals show such signs of life after the slaughter process are extremely rare, and even such an event would not invalidate the shechita if the trachea and esophagus were severed in the shechita cut.”

In the United States, the sale of kosher meat has escalated through the perception that it is comparable to organic or halal slaughtered meat. In fact, kosher and halal slaughter are so similar that Muslims “often substitute kosher foods when their own ritually produced and certified halal foods are not available,” reports the Sioux City Journal.

Not surprisingly leaders of both religions and even some food scientists charge that laws to reduce animal suffering from ritual slaughter persecute. “This is not about animal rights,” said Joe M. Regenstein, a professor of food science who runs a kosher and halal food program at Cornell University about new Netherlands laws. “It’s an invitation to Jews and Muslims to leave.”

But animal advocates say the opposite. Former actress, sex symbol and current animal rights advocate Brigitte Bardot is a strong critic of ritual slaughter and the holiday Eid al-Adha, during which Muslims ritually slaughter sheep and other animals, often in public. “1,000 sheep were slaughtered last month only 300 yards from my house,” she lamented to a U.S. newspaper, asking when the French government would enforce its stunning laws.

Ritual slaughter is capable of causing great suffering, agrees animal expert Temple Grandin, noting how long conscious animals experience extreme pain before they die. “Some plants use cruel methods of restraint, such as suspending a conscious animal by a chain wrapped around one hind-limb” and the animals’ “vocalizations can be heard outside the building.” These plants “persist in hanging large cattle and veal calves upside down by one hind-leg. There is no religious justification for use of this cruel method of restraint.”

During a time of such religious discord,

it is ironic that one of the few things Islam and Judaism agree upon is so widely considered elsewhere as cruel.

What’s Behind the ‘Disappearance’ Of 420,000 Palestinians in Lebanon?

Franklin Lamb

Rashidieh Palestinian camp, on the border of Occupied Palestine

The first ever official census of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon was finally released on 12/21/2017 in Beirut. The village by village and camp by camp survey by 500 specialists found that only 174,422 Palestinian refugees are living these days in the country. Counted were al Palestinians living in the 12 official camps and 156 informal settlements known as ‘gatherings’ and those living outside these areas across Lebanon. This figure is shockingly lower than the previous estimate of 469,331 Palestinians by UNWRA and as many as 600,00 by other for political purposes.

Lebanon is a country where demographics have long been a politically sensitive subject to be approached with extreme caution. For the past nearly 85 years (since 1932) Lebanon’s leaders have refused to allow a count of the population out of feelings of terror that a rival sect, among the 17 other rival sects, might gain power at their expense were there to be an honest count. Consequently, plenty of political lords have used fake population figures, without fear of contradiction by a forbidden official government count, to secure benefits-political and financial- for their own sect.

With respect to Lebanon and regional endemic tribalism, one is reminded of the words of Hannah Arendt from her volume, “The Origins of Totalitarianism:”

“Politically speaking, tribal nationalism always insists that its own people is surrounded by “a world of enemies”, “one against all”, that a fundamental difference exists between these people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man”.

The reason for UNWRA’s own higher figures since it was created by General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) 69 years ago this month to help feed and care for refugees forced out of their homes in Palestine, its mandate has always been to register all Palestinians who, since the 1948 Nakba, apply for its help. This UNWRA has faithfully done to the best of its ability while facing many obstacles-political and financial-over the decades. Affecting its record keeping, starting in 1950s, scores of thousands of Palestinian refugees left Lebanon for a better life abroad. Just as more than 1,780,000 Lebanese have done since the onslaught of Lebanon’s civil war in 1975. Hence the larger number of UNWRA recorded registrants. UNRWA does not have a headcount of every Palestinian refugee who currently resides in Lebanon. What they do have are official registration records for the number of registered Palestine refugees in Lebanon. If a Palestinian registered with UNRWA in Lebanon should decide to live outside Lebanon, as countless thousands have, they don’t normally advise UNWRA that they are moving.

As a gentleman this observer admires, Hassan Mneimneh, chairman of the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee, which coordinated the census, told the media a couple of weeks ago, “tens of thousands of Palestinians left Lebanon when the Palestinian Liberation Organization withdrew from the country in 1982. This observer knows something about this firsthand as he was on one of the August 1982 boats than left Beirut harbor by boat for Tunis courtesy of an invitation from Yasser Arafat along with the American journalist, Janet Lee Stevens. Unfortunately, Janet missed the boat as she was assuring a group of Palestinian women in Burj al Barajneh camp in South Beirut that all would be OK as they worried about losing their PLO protection. The next month was the Sabra-Shatila massacre and seven months later April 18, 1983 Janet and our unborn child, Clyde Chester Lamb III were killed in the bombing at the American Embassy.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians left Lebanon when the PLO withdrew from the country in 1982.

Like the Lebanese over the past 3 decades, many Palestinians try to leave Lebanon at the first opportunity. And why wouldn’t they? Lebanese seemingly leave their birth country any chance they get these days and during Lebanon’s civil war more than one million left and hundreds of thousands have until today. There are fewer than 3.5 million Lebanese remaining with many of them searching for the first opportunity to begin a new life elsewhere because they realize that there is little future here for their children given the deep prevailing corruption of the former ‘warlords’ who appointed themselves ‘political lords. Other reasons include the growing Iranian occupation of Lebanon and the failure of the Sunni and Christians to counter the takeover of their country.

According to this seminal study, undertaken by both Lebanese and Palestinian statistics bureaus and the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, 45.1 percent of the 174,000 Palestinians in Lebanon live in refugee camps, while the remaining 54.9 percent live in “other gatherings.” According to the census taking teams spokesperson: “We would see huge numbers used, 500, or 600 thousand, and these would be used in politics. But this demographic project was able to define things, and thank God today we have results,”

Prime Minister Saad Hariri said in an address at the event where the figures were released. The survey sheds much needed light on the living conditions of 174,422 Palestinian refugees, as well as another 18,601 Palestinians who fled the neighboring conflict in Syria to camps in Lebanon. The survey found that the number of Palestinian in Lebanon were split essentially evenly between men and women, with half of the total being 24 years or younger. The percentage of Palestinian youth is nearly identical to the numbers of youth across the Middle East.

Dear reader can imagine what these demographics and living conditions portend for this region as the bright, energetic and acutely aware youth seek justice and empowerment from dictatorships who have cynically denied them empowerment for countless decades. Revolution is in the air across in Lebanon’s Palestinian camps and across this region.

The survey sheds light on the living conditions of 174,422 Palestinian refugees, as well as another 18,601 Palestinians who fled the neighboring conflict in Syria to camps in Lebanon. The painstakingly conducted count found the Palestinians evenly divided between men and women with half of the total 24 years or younger. While 7.2 percent are illiterate, 93.6 percent of children aged between three to 13 were enrolled in schools. Also documented is the well-known fact that Lebanon’s Palestinian camps suffer serious problems, with varying degrees of poverty, diseases, overcrowding, unemployment, poor housing and lack of any functioning infrastructure. The census found that the rate of unemployment among young Palestinians aged 20 to 29 is 28.5 percent whereas for Lebanese it is currently 6.8 percent.

Announcing the population survey results, Prime Minister Saad Hariri said Lebanon had a “duty” towards Palestinians. He pointed to “exaggerations” as for the number of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon which estimated the count at 600,000. He said the “actual number is 174,422,” assuring “that the State will adhere to its responsibilities.”

Hariri lamented how “some parties in the international community wish to offer no help to UNWRA but instead want to disrupt UNRWA.” Pointing to the UNRWA’s financial crisis, he said: “It directly affects the basic requirements of refugees in Lebanon. We call upon donor countries to increase their contributions and support to enable UNRWA fulfill its financial obligations to meet the needs of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.” With a total of $644,701,999 in contributions, the US, EU, UK, Sweden, Norway, Germany, The Netherlands and Japan pay 71% of the annual UNRWA budget. Mr. Hariri omitted mention of the fact that Lebanon, like Israel, donates zero dollars to UNWRA’s budget.

Assuming the PM is sincere, and this observer does, then Lebanon “adhering to its responsibilities” can be quickly demonstrated by its Parliament granting Palestinians the half-century overdue elementary civil rights to work and to own a home granted to every refugee on earth by every country but Lebanon.

Why do many Lebanese politicians inflate the number of Palestinians in Lebanon?

Plenty of Lebanese and regional political lords have used the inflated Palestinian population figures seeking political advantage.

Lebanon’s anti-Palestinian block that consistently mispresents the number of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is led by more than one Christian militia who committed the 1982 massacre at Sabra-Shatila and by the Amal Shia militia that carried out the 1985-89 massacres at three camps which they servilely, on orders from the east, labeled “wars of the camps.” There were no wars but rather massacres of Palestinian civilians who were without weapons to protect themselves since the PLO left Lebanon in August of 1982.

Among others with a long history of misrepresentation of the number of Palestinians, is Lebanon’s Iran appointed President, Michel Aoun. When this observer last met with Aoun as part of a delegation of pro-Palestinian Americans, Aoun stressed the point as he has done dozens of times before and since, that there are 600,000 Palestinians in Lebanon who, he implies are sucking Lebanon dry. Sometimes Aoun, who this past week, 12/26/2017, was accused by Ashraf Rifi former General Director of the Lebanon’s Internal Security Force (ISF) (2005-2013) and Minister of Justice (2014-2016), of stealing $ 26 billion uses the figure of 500,000 Palestinian refugees.

In Aoun’s defense re the $ 26 billon theft charge by Rifi, to date its unproven and if he did it Aoun would by no means be setting a record for theft of public money among Lebanon’s political lords, some of whom continue their decades work of bleeding Lebanon dry. Also accused by Mr. Rifi of the same crime as Aoun is his anti-Palestinian son-in-law Jebran Bassil , who Aoun, in Lebanese got appointed Foreign Minister despite Bassil having admitted he has no qualifications for the post but is close to Hezbollah and Iran like his father-in-law. This week Bassil is again facing calls to resign. This time for remarks he made this week about Israel being no threat to Lebanon. Speaking on Iran funded Al-Mayadeen on 12/26/2017, Bassil in his position as Lebanon’s Foreign Minister, stated: “For Lebanon, [Israel] isn’t an ideological cause. We are not against Israel existing in security. We accept it. We are not against it. We just want all people to live in peace and to recognize each other. This is not a blind cause.” Adding “We are a people who accept and want the Other, despite our differences.”

In response to Bassil’s statements, former Environment Minister Mohammad Machnouk called on Bassil to immediately be fired, declaring: “If Jebran Bassil does not find an ideological difference with Israel and demands security for it, Cabinet should dismiss him because he violates the Constitution. “Is this Lebanon’s position in international forums? This is shameful!”

As do some other anti-Palestinian politicians in Lebanon, including the former Minister of Education and Aoun partner, Elias Bou Saab as he a few months ago incited his Christian supporters with the 600,000 Palestinians in Lebanon gross exaggeration at an event at the American University of Beirut (AUB) which this observer attended. Mr. Saab knows that many of his and Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) political party supporters worry about Muslims swamping them politically and socially much as was the case in the run-up to the 1975-90 civil war.

Truth told Mr. Saab is probably not all that wild about this observer because at the above-noted event earlier this year in the presence of the UN’s elegant Special Coordinator for Lebanon Sigrid Kaag and a number of officials and directors of NGO’s and plenty of media, this no-account observer proceeded to deliver a short- well so it seemed to me- lecture with ample details and statistics to the then Minister of Education Bou Saad on the subject of inflating the number of Palestinians in Lebanon for political purposes. I also painstakingly addressed the subject of the right to work and home ownership for Palestinian refugees forced into Lebanon against their will seven decades ago. Despite the Ministers public assurance that he would meet with me and we can “fix the problem about the right to work” I still not heard from the gentleman.

But as life instructs us, there is plenty of good in all of us and during his three years as Minister of Education, Elias Bou Saab did, to his great credit, work to get a significant number of the 200,000 Syrian refugee kids now scattered across Lebanon into its public-school system employing a double session innovation whereby Syrian child could study using the same classrooms during split shift afternoon-evening time slot.

Some of the same political motivations have led to fake statistics regarding the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. As of the end of November 2017, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) tallied 997,905 Syrian refugees in Lebanon. A clear majority of them being women and children who fled their country to Lebanon from the outbreak of the civil war in March of 2011. More than 70% live in extreme poverty, struggling to eke out a living while sheltering in informal tented settlements or unfinished buildings because Parliament has refused to authorize refugee camps where they could receive more organized assistance.

The highest number of Syrian refugees who were ever in Lebanon from the ongoing war next door was 1,011,366.  From 2011 until September 2017, nearly 49,000 Syrians departed Lebanon for third countries under the UN’s resettlement program including the United States, Sweden, and France. Others left on their own, making the dangerous sea journey to reach Europe.

As with the Palestinian refugee’s count, the UN Syrian refugee tally has been shown to be 500,000 fewer than the 1.5 million scare tactic number some Lebanese politicians and their media have hyped for political purposes. By buying food and necessities, made possible with international humanitarian aid, partly in the form of ‘food stamp ATM cards’ the Syrians are growing Lebanon’s economy and Lebanon shopkeepers are generally thrilled with them.
But Syrian refugees are not growing Lebanon’s economy according to experts at the International Labor Organization (ILO) as fast as the Palestinian refugees would grow this country’s ailing economy if they were allowed the elementary civil right to work and home ownership as required by international humanitarian law and Lebanon’s constitution. Lebanese law targets Palestinians that denies them the right to work, social security, or joining a union. There are at least 25 banned areas of work for Palestinians including medicine, law, engineering and pharmacy. Also outlawed for Palestinian is ownership of land, property or a home.

As Fathi Abu al-Ardat, a representative of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon, noted this past week: “when Palestinians have the rights to work and can live a decent life, they will improve the country on the level of economics, on the level of community, even on the level of security and stability for the country.”

Iran & Hezbollah know better but also use inflated Palestinians population numbers to keep the increasingly restive Shia population loyal by inflating the size of the Palestinian Sunni “Takfiri” threat to Lebanon. Approximately 92-96% of Palestinians are Sunni and many resent Iran’s efforts at colonization for several reasons. One is that in Syria, Iran’s funded and trained 12 militia including Hezbollah and the Al Quds force that have killed nearly four thousand Palestinians, and have targeted a majority of Syria’s ten Palestinian camps. Including the destruction of Yarmouk in Damascus which before the civil war began was home to 120,000 and another Palestinian camp in Latakia last month. The most recent demolished camp, over the past two weeks, was in the Southern Ramal district of Latakia, which residents claim Iran wants to ‘develop.’ For nearly 70 years, Ramal has been located along Latakia city’s southern coastline, on a strip of land that slopes down towards the Mediterranean Sea. The district was settled as an informal encampment in the 1950’s by Palestinian refugees fleeing Jaffa and other coastal towns. Approximately 10,000 Palestinians in Syria have lost their homes in Ramal.

By slinging inflated figures for the number of Sunni Palestinians in Lebanon at the Shia community, Iran’s leadership reportedly hopes to help Hezbollah whose primary bases, South Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and South Lebanon increasingly believe that their sons, brothers and fathers are dying in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan for no reason except the whims of Iran’s Wali al-faqih. Iran also seeks to instill fear among its own population to quell the growing number of protests from its own population spreading across Iran.

Iran, according to even neighborhood Hezbollah sources, has vastly overreached in the region with its hegemonic objectives and the people of the region, including increasing numbers of Shia, including thousands of fed up Iranians. Many Hezbollah leaders have long objected to what they have been ordered to do in Syria and the region. Moreover, thousands of Iranian citizens have taken to the streets of the country’s second-largest city, Mashhad and other towns this week to once again protest high prices, unemployment, and the fact that their government is spending countless billions funding militia across the Middle East while “our women are selling themselves on the streets for money to feed their families and our young men are forced to steal!” Videos on Nazar’s Telegram channel showed citizens in Mashhad, an important religious center in the northeast of Iran, not chanting “Death to America” but rather “Death to the dictator” (Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei) and protesting about their ruler’s efforts at regional hegemony, rather than improving conditions at home. “Not Gaza, not Syria, not Lebanon, my life for Iran” was one of main chants.

Iran’s brutal theocratic rulers have a problem as many Iranian believe and hope that the current rebellion will rapidly spread and become for their rulers what Benghazi in February 2011 was for Gadaffi and Deraa, Syria was a month later for Assad.

The claimed “Resistance” has also long used the inflated figure for political advantage as they seek to rein in many of their hard-core Shia supporters with claims that Palestinians in Lebanon comprise another 600,000 Sunni so why empower them with the civil rights to work and own a home? Given Hezbollah’s political power it would take just 90 minutes in Parliament to grant Palestinians the right to work and home ownership. But the tribal “Resistance” axis has chosen to block these elementary civil rights.

Hopefully growing pressure from the new generation of young Palestinians vying for leadership positions in the camps and the growing number of young Shia in the region who no longer want to be fodder from their leaders seeking revenge for the events at Karbala 1,500 years ago, can persuade the “Resistance” that true Resistance begins with improving the Palestinian camps and being allowed to seek a job. Not killing and being killed crossed this region, with no end in sight nor any cogent rationale.

What’s Driving Iran’s Protests?

Patrick Cockburn

Iran is seeing its most widespread protest demonstrations since 2009. They are still gaining momentum and some 15 people are reported to have been killed, though the circumstances in which they died remains unclear. The motive for the protests is primarily economic, but many slogans are political and some directly attack clerical rule in Iran which was introduced with the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.

The demonstrations began with one against rising prices a week ago in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city and the site of its most holy shrine, a place which is traditionally seen as a stronghold for clerical hardliners. It may be that these conservatives initiated or tolerated the protests as a way of undermining President Hassan Rouhani, seen as a political moderate, who was re-elected by a landslide last year. If so, the protests have swiftly spiralled out of the control of the conservatives and are erupting all over Iran, strong evidence of a high level of discontent everywhere in the country and possibly a sign of covert organisation by anti-government groups.

Donald Trump threatened last year to support domestic anti-government resistance in Iran, though this does not necessarily mean that his administration has done anything about this as yet. His latest tweets accuses Iran’s leaders of turning the country “into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed and chaos”. The US and Saudi Arabia may also be tempted to fund ethnic groups like the Iranian Kurds who are already alienated from the central government.

Belligerent rhetoric like Mr Trump’s will be used to discredit protesters as the pawns of foreign powers.

Iran has been divided politically since the fall of the Shah, but the most immediate cause of unrest over the past five days is economic and social discontent. In many respects, grievances are similar to those in other oil states where there is long-suppressed anger against corruption and inequality. Youth unemployment was 28.8 per cent last year. The nuclear deal with the US and other major powers in 2015 reduced sanctions, but has not produced the benefits that many expected. A 50 per cent increase in the price of fuel was announced in the budget in December. Egg and poultry prices recently rose by 40 per cent.

It is too early to say how far the protests are a threat to the government and to Iran’s political stability. The size and motivation of demonstrations is murky because of a lack of reliable eyewitness reporting. This is in part because of government restrictions on news coverage by Iranian and foreign news outlets which creates a vacuum of information. In the past, this vacuum has often been filled by exiled opposition groups who become a source of exaggerated or fabricated accounts of protests.

I was in Tehran in early 2011 when there were genuine demonstrations in the north of the city, but they were often of a smaller size than skilfully edited film shown on YouTube. Pictures of protesters tearing down a picture of Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei might indicate a radical anti-regime turn in the protests or might be a one-off that tells one little about the direction of the movement. The same is true of slogans praising the Shah or criticising Iran’s support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

So far President Rouhani and his administration have reacted in a low-key way to the protests, appealing for calm and saying people have the right to demonstrate, but not to destroy property or engage in violence. The government is clearly hoping that the demonstrations will run out of steam, but so far the opposite seems to be happening. The number of arrests is still low – 200 in Tehran by Sunday – but Mr Rouhani must be under pressure to crack down and not to appear weak.

This he may do eventually, but well-publicised suppression of protests might increase public support for them in Iran and would certainly lead to the US and West Europeans jumping to the defence of human rights in Iran with an enthusiasm they have failed to show in countries such as Yemen where a Saudi-led blockade has brought eight million people to the edge of famine.

Bloody suppression of protests might also push the West Europeans towards Mr Trump’s aggressive posture towards Iran and fatally undermine the nuclear deal. This would, in turn, strengthen the hand of the hardliners who can say that Mr Rouhani’s more accommodating posture to the outside world and more liberal policies at home have failed.