Australian Labor Party president warns of collapsing membership

Mike Head

In two recent speeches, Mark Butler, the Australian Labor Party’s national president, presented a devastating portrait of the accelerating disintegration of membership and support for both the Labor Party and the trade unions.

Butler’s remarks point to a growing fear in ruling circles of the deepening hostility in the working class toward these twin institutions, which have been central to subordinating workers to the profit system since the 1890s, particularly during periods of crisis—two world wars and the 1930s Great Depression.

Over the past four decades, Labor governments and the unions have systematically suppressed workers’ struggles, as they presided over the greatest-ever transfer of wealth from the working class to the financial elite. From apparatuses that propped up Australian capitalism by gaining limited concessions, in terms of wages and conditions, they have become industrial policemen for tearing apart jobs, wages and conditions to satisfy the dictates of globally-mobile finance capital.

Addressing the Victorian Fabian Society on January 22, Butler said the party’s membership of 50,000 had “disturbingly” declined by more than 6 percent since a peak in 2015. In a country of 25 million people, it could not “credibly claim to be a mass-membership party.”

Butler emphasised that Labor’s primary vote in the 2016 federal election was less than 35 percent, only 1.3 points higher than the record low of 2013, when the last Labor government was defeated in a landslide. The party’s Senate vote was “even worse”—it dropped below 30 percent for the first time since 1903.

In a second speech, delivered to the Australian Institute on February 2, Butler noted that after a collapse in union numbers in the 1990s, the membership had dived again over the past five years. It had reached “a threshold we regarded years ago as existentially threatening”—under 10 percent of the private sector workforce. For workers aged under 25, the rate was just 5 percent.

Butler recalled that when he first became a union official in 1992, membership was still running at about 40 percent of the workforce, having dropped from levels exceeding 50 percent in the mid-1970s.

As a long-time factional powerbroker, Butler epitomises these organisations. He was installed as party president in 2015 as the Labor “Left” faction’s candidate. Currently Labor’s shadow minister for climate change and energy, he has been a member of Labor’s central decision-making body, the national executive, since 2000.

Before being hoisted into parliament in 2007, in the working-class electorate of Port Adelaide, he was a union bureaucrat for 15 years—from the age of 22. For more than a decade, from 1996 to 2007, he was the South Australian state secretary of the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union, which was rebadged in 2011 as United Voice. For his services, Butler was quickly promoted. Between 2009 and 2013, he was appointed a highly-paid parliamentary secretary, then a minister in the last Labor government.

Butler is the second Labor politician to sound the alarm this year. At the end of January, federal parliamentary Labor leader Bill Shorten warned of the mounting scorn felt among millions of people toward the major parties and the parliament as a whole. Shorten called for a bipartisan “mission” with the ruling Liberal-National Coalition to “restore faith in parliament.”

What Shorten and Butler could not mention is why support for Labor and the unions has haemorrhaged so dramatically. That is because they are committed to intensifying the pro-business policies that have led to the implosion.

In his Fabian Society speech, Butler warned: “Respect for the major parties is running at historically low levels.” But he denied this was “a lack of respect for our ideas and our policies.” On the contrary, he lauded “the power of Labor’s ideas,” claiming: “Labor holds a unique position in Australian society as the principal protector of a fair go for all.”

In reality, the Hawke and Keating Labor governments of the 1980s and 1990s, working closely with the trade unions, began the restructuring of Australian capitalism to make it “internationally competitive” at the direct expense of the working class. Through prices and incomes Accords and “Australian Reconstructed” partnerships with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), the Labor and union leaders suppressed workers’ resistance to the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs, the imposition of casualisation and privatisation, the driving down of wages and the tearing up of hard-won rights and conditions.

From 1992, the Keating government and the ACTU deepened this offensive via the imposition of “enterprise bargaining,” which atomised workers into individual workplaces, tied their jobs and conditions to the profits of their separate employers, and outlawed all industrial action outside narrow “bargaining periods.”

The Rudd and Gillard governments of 2007 to 2013, again working with the unions, took this assault to new levels, including by enforcing the destruction of thousands more jobs in basic industries, and imposing market-driven regimes in education, health and disability services.

Butler told the Fabians that the problem was Labor’s lack of organisational “reform,” which left it in the grips of “self-appointed factional warlords.” He declared he would fight for changes at Labor’s next national conference in July. His main proposal was to try to mimic the British Labour Party by creating a new category of “registered supporter,” giving some voting rights to individuals who did not want to become full members.

Butler assured his audience this could be achieved without adopting British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s “hard-Left” agenda, because the ALP’s “Moderate voice” was better organised than their British equivalents. The truth is that Corbyn’s “left” leadership, which continually prostrates itself to the openly right-wing acolytes of Tony Blair, represents a desperate effort to head-off a leftward movement of workers and youth.

Butler made similar pledges to “democratise” the party when running for party president in 2015. He echoed promises from Shorten, who said in 2014, “we must rebuild as a membership-based party” and declared his ambition to have 100,000 members. Far from democratising this hollowed-out organisation, such changes only seek to free the parliamentary leadership from the influence of factional and sectional interests to make it more malleable for the business elite.

Likewise, Butler’s “solution” to the demise of the unions is to introduce a Californian-style “bargaining fee.” This would compel non-union members to pay, via the enterprise bargaining system, for “enjoying the benefits of union-negotiated wages and conditions.” He also suggested adopting German-style Works Councils, which would make the unions full partners in the companies whose workers they police.

Butler’s “bargaining fee” plan would mean trying to dragoon all workers, especially the young workers who see no “benefit” from joining these corporatised organisations, into financing apparatuses that are working continually against their interests.

The central pillar of Butler’s speech to the Australian Institute was to shore up enterprise bargaining, for the benefit of Australian capitalism. He hailed the 1990s shift to enterprise bargaining as “heavily driven by a desire to lift productivity in manufacturing workplaces after the dramatic industry restructuring exercises of the 1980s and in the face of growing global competition.” It was, he said, “a clever policy response which has served large parts of our economy very well.”

Butler’s two speeches were given against a backdrop of ever-more glaring social inequality, deteriorating working and living conditions, growing concerns about the dangers of war, and indications that the pent-up anger in the working class could erupt in major industrial battles. His remarks are warning of the preparations underway to refashion the Labor Party and unions as the key mechanism to combat the unrest.

Kimberly-Clark to lay off over 600 workers and close two plants in Wisconsin

Christopher Davion

Approximately 610 workers at paper products manufacturer Kimberly-Clark in northeastern Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley learned late last month that they will lose their jobs by 2019 as their plants are shuttered as part of an international restructuring.

The global producer of brand products such as Huggies diapers, Kleenex facial tissues, and Cottonelle toilet paper announced the imminent closure of two plants: Neenah Nonwovens located in the city of Neenah, and Cold Spring Mill in the village of Fox Crossing. Workers at the Cold Spring Mill are represented by the United Steelworkers (USW), while the Nonwovens facility is non-unionized.

The announced layoffs and closures are part of a plan, announced by the company on January 23, that would cut as much as 5,500 jobs companywide, roughly 13 percent of its entire workforce. Citing a decline in annual sales between 2013 and 2016, the restructuring plan will involve the closure or selling off of 10 of its plants across the world. Kimberly-Clark’s sales rose slightly in 2017 from the previous year, netting $2.28 billion in profits.

Audaciously, the company announced that it plans to spend up to $1.7 billion on its restructuring, utilizing funds gained from the Trump tax cuts to partially fund the plant closures along with delivering increased capital returns to its shareholders.

Paper manufacturing presently employs around 31,000 workers in Wisconsin, which has historically been the top producing state nationwide, with annual production yielding approximately 5.3 million tons of paper and 1.1 million tons of paperboard. Many of the major paper producers operate along the Fox River, which flows into Lake Michigan through Green Bay. Kimberly-Clark was founded in Neenah in 1872 and currently employs about 3,200 workers in the northeast region of the state.

However, the state’s paper manufacturing industry has experienced a staggering decline over the last two decades, resulting in part from the shift to digital over print communication, changes in methods of manufacturing, and difficulty competing with competitors with lower production costs and more affordably priced goods.

At least 34 paper facilities were shuttered between 2000 and 2013, eliminating 17,000 jobs. More than 1,400 paper manufacturing jobs were lost in the Fox River Valley in just the last five months of 2017.

As part of the broader trend of deindustrialization in the United States’ Midwestern “Rust Belt,” Wisconsin has lost more than 120,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000 and experienced the largest decline in middle-class income households in the US between 2000 and 2013, according to a research study by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

In response to the announced layoffs and plant closures, Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker announced that he would propose legislation for a scheme utilizing Wisconsin’s Enterprise Zone Program to raise Kimberly-Clark’s tax credits from 7 percent to 17 percent of the company’s payroll in hopes that the tax credit would spur retention of a portion of the workers slated for layoff and halt closure of the two plants.

This proposed increase in job retention credits is nearly identical to the one that was awarded to Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer Foxconn by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation for agreeing to construct a TV screen factory in Mount Pleasant and hire up to 13,000 workers. Foxconn was awarded $3 billion in tax credits for agreeing to invest $10 billion in the construction of its new operations, a giveaway of public money that will take an estimated 25 years for the state to recoup.

The same day, Democrats in the state legislature made a counterproposal, in the form of legislation dubbed the Papermaker Fund bill, which would reallocate $60 million in state aid from the Foxconn deal, 2 percent of the $3 billion investment, to provide Kimberly-Clark and other privately owned paper mills with public funds to make upgrades in energy efficiency and produce more desirable grades of paper.

Predictably, local Democratic politicians promoted economic nationalism, attacking Walker’s tax giveaways from the right. “I understand that if the state of Wisconsin can muster $3 billion for a foreign company, it can spare 1 percent for one of its own. We need to help the home team. That’s why we’re here today,” stated Tom Nelson, the county executive of Outagamie County, where both Kimberly-Clark plants are located. Democratic State Senator Dave Hansen quipped, “Unfortunately our governor can’t seem to give enough of our tax dollars to a Taiwanese giant, Foxconn, and doesn’t seem to care.”

At present, Kimberly-Clark has not publicly responded to either of the competing offers.

In a similarly fashioned self-exposure of the political bankruptcy of the economic nationalism of the unions, USW President Leo Gerard lamented in an article published by Alternet that Trump had not enforced a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports that he promised during his presidential campaign, claiming “the government’s failure to enforce international trade law bankrupted many of the Fox Valley plants as China plastered the U.S. market with underpriced, illegally subsidized paper. ...”

Exposing the role of the USW in functioning as labor police in the driving down of wages and benefits to maximize profitability and market competitiveness, Gerard continued “The USW workers at the Cold Springs [sic] factory thought they would be spared. Their plant was profitable, and over the past several years, workers had collaborated with managers to reduce costs. Just a few weeks ago, corporate officials told the Cold Springs [sic] plant that it achieved the best overall cost reduction.”

Gerard previously served on President Obama’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations and has been one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Trump’s America First reactionary nationalism, promoting trade war against China alongside Steve Bannon, Trump’s fascistic former chief strategist.

Russia’s presidential elections: What is behind Ksenia Sobchak’s candidacy?

Clara Weiss

Last week, the Russian socialite and presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak spent three days in the US, talking to politicians and appearing at think tanks as part of her presidential campaign. Her candidacy signals an attempt by sections of the Kremlin to find channels to a rapprochement with US imperialism, and to close ranks within the ruling class.

She concluded her three-day trip to the United States on February 7 with a presentation at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, one of the most important think tanks dealing with US imperialist foreign policy in the former Soviet Union. She had previously spent two and a half days in Washington, where she toured think tanks such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), spoke at Georgetown University and attended the national prayer breakfast at the invitation of the Trump White House. She also gave interviews on CNN and other TV shows.

It is fair to assume that, outside a small layer within the political elites, no one in the US or Western Europe knew anything about Ksenia Sobchak prior to this trip. Yet in Russia, she is one of the best known public figures. As the daughter of Anatoly Sobchak, who was the mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s and mentor to both Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev, she has been part of the ruling circles of Russia since her childhood. The Sobchak family stood at the very center of the violent mafia wars over economic control and political power that dominated the 1990s, and Ksenia Sobchak has counted many of those who have destroyed the Soviet state and robbed it among her closest friends.

While she initially made her name as the “Russian Paris Hilton”, posing for Russian Playboy and playing in various reality TV shows, like many children of the Russian political elite, she has also obtained a degree from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), which has traditionally trained the cadre for the Russian government and state apparatus. In the past few years, she has professed political ambitions, as a self-proclaimed leader of the liberal opposition movement and the protests in Russia’s capital in 2011-2012.

Her current presidential bid is formally backed by the Civil Initiative, one of many, often short-lived, pseudo-liberal parties and groupings. Polls indicate that she might receive less than 1 percent of the votes on March 18.

Sobchak announced her candidacy contesting Vladimir Putin, who is widely expected to win the elections on March 18, shortly after the main leader of the so called liberal opposition, Alexei Navalny, had been banned from participating. Navalny strongly opposes Sobchak’s candidacy and has instead advocated a boycott of the elections.

The most obvious question about her candidacy is: what is its purpose?

Sobchak herself has acknowledged that she discussed with Putin personally before announcing it. Her entire trip to the United States was covered widely not only by the American, but also by the Russian state-owned media.

In her presentations at the CSIS in Washington and Columbia’s Harriman Institute, she emphasized her orientation toward the West and commitment to an Orange Revolution type policy. Leaving aside her platitudes about “liberalism”, “democracy”, “transparency”, and “honesty”, a script well known by now by everyone who follows the machinations of US imperialist foreign policy and its lackeys in the former Soviet Union, her program boils down to this:

• Rapprochement with NATO and the US in particular, and steps toward integrating Russia into the European Union. Bound up with that would be a significant decrease in military spending (now 20 percent of Russian GDP).

• Unconditional defense of private property (“property is sacred”) and the need for a “strong state” to protect it.

• The opening up of Russia to foreign investors, including the right of foreigners to invest in and own parts of Russia’s key industries, oil and gas among them.

Her empty slogans about improving the educational system or laments about the poor state of hospitals are of course nothing but window dressing. The opening up and restructuring of the Russian economy would transform Russia, now basically a semi-colony of world imperialism on an economic level, into a full-blown playground for imperialism and its companies. It would result in massive attacks on the already dramatically low living standards of the working class.

The “democracy” that Sobchak envisions is the “democracy” and “freedom” of the oligarchs and aspiring entrepreneurs to grab whatever wealth they can get, too much of which, in their opinion, is now under the control of Putin, his friends and allies, and the state.

Speaking at the Harriman Institute, Sobchak stated that she was in close discussions with the ex-oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whom Putin put in jail largely in order to prevent a sell-off of the Russian oil industry to American companies.

Ksenia Sobchak with Timothy Frye, the director of the political science department and head of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University on February 7

Khodorkovsky’s imprisonment was supported by wide layers of the population, who were outraged by the open criminality with which Khodorkovsky had attained his fortune in the 1990s. In late 2013, Putin released him in an effort to appease the imperialist powers and pave the way for a rapprochement—a move that did not yield the results the Kremlin had hoped for. On the contrary, with the coup in Ukraine, both the US and the EU have embarked on a course of aggressive confrontation with Russia.

While advocating policies that are associated with the liberal opposition and a Maidan-style movement, she rejects the repetition of such a movement in Russia, and considers the call for a boycott by Navalny as “too radical”. Rather, her goal is “to influence Putin, to influence the system” in the next six years by attaining a substantial vote.

In a telling moment at Columbia’s Harriman Institute, she warned that anything else could lead to a revolution “which will be very different from ours” (meaning from that proposed by the liberal opposition); one that would be “much more radical than even what Navalny stands for. And no one wants that, so let’s keep it in this framework of discussions”—discussions that would, of course, take place only within the ruling circles, and behind the back of the population.

She went on to explicitly propose that a “compromise candidate” for Putin’s succession should be found, suggesting the ex-finance minister Alexei Kudrin, one of Putin’s closest advisors and a darling of the international financial elite.

Sobchak’s candidacy is a result and expression of the deep crisis of the Russian oligarchy.

Amid the continuously escalating confrontation with US imperialism, power struggles behind the doors of the Kremlin have intensified. Gleb Pavlovsky, a former advisor to Putin, who is now working for the US imperialist think tank Carnegie, wrote last fall:

“[I]t is now possible to talk about a system that operates without Putin. He is not acting in sync with his inner circle. Each feels uncomfortable with the other, as the president grows more stingy about intervening to resolve the power struggles within the elite.... The atmosphere inside the government apparatus is becoming more fearful, and the rivalry with the security agencies is intensifying. Arrests taking place in Kremlin circles are not carried out according to “Putin’s plan,” ordered from above, but are rather a manifestation of competition for power.... The near-term political goal is not about getting to a post-Putin Russia, it is about planning a transition. But it’s worth noting that the discussions are all about preserving the system, not about preserving Putin.”

These power struggles are fueled not only by fear of a war with the United States, but also the rising class tensions in Russia and internationally. As poverty and social dissatisfaction have been growing in Russia, the Kremlin has no doubt viewed with a great deal of anxiety the eruption of working class struggles in the Middle East and Europe.

There is a real fear by Putin and substantial sections of the Russia oligarchy that an escalation of the power struggles within the elites, including with the liberal opposition, could help provoke unrest within the Russian working class. Ksenia Sobchak, who has been shaped by and experienced first-hand the vicious struggles for power in the oligarchy since the 1990s, shares this fear.

In contrast to Navalny, she represents a wing within the oligarchy and upper middle class that sees a repetition of a Maidan-type movement in Russia as both unrealistic and too destabilizing. In her view, the “questions in dispute”, i.e., to what extent Russia’s market should be opened to foreign capital and how a rapprochement with the West can be achieved, can and have to be discussed behind closed doors by representatives of the liberal opposition, US imperialism, and ruling circles within the Kremlin.

French president Macron prepares to privatize railways

Anthony Torres

After announcing the end of lifetime employment guarantees for public sector workers, French President Emmanuel Macron is preparing to end these guarantees for rail workers, another social right established during the Liberation from Nazi Occupation at the end of World War II.

Jean-Cyril Spinetta, former CEO of Air France, is preparing a report commissioned by Prime Minister Édouard Philippe in October, about a strategic reorientation of rail transport amid the European Union (EU)-mandated opening of French railways to private competition.

EU rules foresee the opening to private competition starting on 25 December 2023 for regional rail transport, and by 14 December 2020 for high-speed trains (TGV). French officials are drafting a bill to turn the EU directive on the SNCF (National Society of French Railways) into domestic French law.

Spinetta’s report has not yet been published, but Le Parisien is already indicating various options being studied by Macron. In its article titled ‘Maximum risk of social conflict at the SNCF,’ it mentions a possible privatization of the SNCF: “Its current statute as a Public Establishment of Industrial and Commercial character (EPIC) is threatened by the EU, which considers that it hinders competition, according to Gilles Savary…a former Socialist Party (PS) deputy. This gives the SNCF a universal guarantee protecting it from bankruptcy. If it were transformed into a private corporation, partially owned by the Caisse des dépôts [i.e., the French government], it would conserve its public status while conforming to European regulations.”

The privatization of the SNCF would go hand in hand with the abolition of the statute of rail workers.

Le Parisien notes, “This is the most explosive issue. Based on a 1950 decree, it completes the Labor Code and defines rules specific to the railway workers on pay, vacations, career pathways, and trade union law. It is an advantageous statute, guaranteeing lifetime employment for railway workers… This is one way of blowing up the taboo of the sacred statute of the rail workers that automatically increases the wages bill for the SNCF by 2.4 percent every year...”

As at Orange (formerly France Télécom) and the Post Office, the statute could be suppressed for new hires at the SNCF, emptied of its content, or simply eliminated altogether. Thus Macron declared last summer, “Protecting you does not mean protecting your statute or your job of yesterday, but protecting you as an individual so you can get your job of tomorrow.”

To impose the directive on free competition in the railways, Macron tried to blackmail the workers by laying down harsh conditions for the state to buy up SNCF debt: “Let’s speak frankly, if we buy the debt, let’s ask what is the new social pact the SNCF is willing to have? … We are asking the SNCF to go further on reforms, on statutes, on flexibility, on pensions.”

By moving to scrap the rail workers’ statute, Macron is also preparing the pension cuts announced for 2019. Indeed, during the presidential election, he pledged to replace the roughly 30 different existing pension schemes in France by one unified, pay-as-you-go system. Thus, the rail workers’ pension scheme, already slashed in 2007 under President Nicolas Sarkozy, would be destroyed and the entire population’s pensions cut to the same rock-bottom level.

Plans to scrap the rail workers’ statute are part of a broad attack by the financial aristocracy across Europe on all the social gains of the working class obtained after the October 1917 revolution and the victory over Nazism in 1945. This is above all the product of a deep and intractable crisis of European and French capitalism. The government aims to smash the rail workers’ statute to boost productivity and competitiveness at the SNCF, which like many French firms, is rapidly failing faced with global competition.

Léon Blum’s government created in SNCF in 1937 as a joint public-private enterprise that was 51 percent state-owned, unloading billions of francs of private rail operators’ losses on the public. At the same time, his government was isolating the revolutionary struggles of the Spanish workers in the Spanish Civil War against Francisco Franco’s fascist coup, and brutally smashing strikes in France. This counterrevolutionary policy proved utterly bankrupt three years later, with the Nazi invasion of France and the collaboration of the French bourgeoisie with the Nazis.

Rail workers played an important role in the resistance to Nazi Occupation. As the SNCF helped the Nazis deport hundreds of thousands of Jews or resistance fighters to death camps, important sections of railway workers joined the resistance. Approximately 800 SNCF employees were shot by the Nazis for disobeying orders. Nearly 1,200 were deported to concentration camps for sabotage or acts of insubordination, and 2,361 were killed by bullets, mines or in aerial bombardments.

The statutes of public sector workers and of railway workers was guaranteed after the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II and the Liberation of France. Now, nearly three quarters of a century later, Macron’s attacks on the railway workers aim to scrap these social rights.

This offensive against social rights established during the 20th century is yet another historic confirmation of the Trotskyist critique of Stalinism, and in particular of the class-collaborationist policy of the Stalinist French Communist Party (PCF) at the Liberation. Insofar as it left the capitalist class in power and blocked a struggle by the European proletariat to overthrow it and build socialism, none of these social rights were in fact safe.

Macron’s offensive against the railway workers points to the irreconcilable character of the class struggle, which unfolds over decades. Under the Nazis and the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime, the bourgeoisie massacred thousands of railway workers during World War II; by attacking the workers today, the ruling class is spitting on these workers’ graves.

Having handed itself trillions of euros in bank bailouts since the 2008 financial crisis, the financial aristocracy is attacking basic social rights across Europe. In Germany, the EU’s largest economy, the ruling elite is trying to assemble a conservative/social-democratic “Grand Coalition” government preparing deep attacks on the workers to finance German rearmament. In Greece, the pseudo-left government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of the “Coalition of the Radical Left” is applying draconian EU austerity measures.

Workers want to struggle to defend their rights and boost long-stagnant wages, while the ruling elite raked in untold billions of euros during repeated bank bailouts. This can only be done, however, in opposition to the pseudo-left and the trade union bureaucracy, which hypocritically declaims on its indignation at Macron while negotiating the attacks with him and with business groups.

These forces will not halt Macron or the reactionary governments across Europe. This requires the formation of organizations of the working class independent from the trade unions, waging an international campaign to unify workers’ struggles across Europe. The basis of this struggle is a truly socialist and internationalist program for the construction of the International Committee of the Fourth International as the revolutionary vanguard of the working class, fighting for a program of the taking of power by the workers and building the United Socialist States of Europe.

Britain warned Sweden not to drop Assange extradition proceedings

Paul Mitchell

Confidential Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) emails published by the Guardian’s Sunday sister paper, the Observer, reveal that British prosecutors warned their Swedish counterparts not to drop extradition proceedings against Julian Assange on trumped-up “sexual assault” allegations as early as 2013.

Ever since, the British government has continued its vendetta against the WikiLeaks founder even though Swedish prosecutors finally abandoned their investigation in May 2017 and sought to revoke the European Arrest Warrant against him.

The UK is determined to arrest Assange for breaching his bail conditions in 2012 and seeking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy, where he remains confined, cut off from his family and friends and suffering from mounting health problems.

Julian Assange

Last week a British court upheld prosecutors’ demands that Assange be arrested should he try to leave the embassy. Today it is expected to rule on an appeal by his lawyers that the government’s actions are “disproportionate” after so many years (absconding bail typically receives a fine or short jail term) and that the UN has declared Assange to be unlawfully and arbitrarily detained.

According to the emails, as soon as Assange took refuge in the embassy the CPS “advised” Swedish prosecutors not to interview him there. The unknown CPS lawyer, who was dealing with the Assange case and whose name is redacted, told his Swedish counterpart, Marianne Ny, “It is simply amazing how much work this case is generating. It sometimes seems like an industry. Please do not think this case is being dealt with as just another extradition.”

Assange was quite prepared to be questioned about the allegations against him, but he was wary of returning to Sweden, fearing he would end up being extradited to the United States and tried for espionage and treason, crimes carrying a potential death penalty. It is clearer now why the Swedish prosecutors did not take up his offer of being interviewed in London or by a video link.

The emails then reveal that in August 2012 the CPS lawyer told Ny, “Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!” in relation to a newspaper article suggesting Sweden was about to drop the case.

In October 2013, Ny once more appeared to be considering dropping the case and emailed the CPS lawyer, “There is a demand in Swedish law for coercive measures to be proportionate.”

“The time passing, the costs and how severe the crime is to be taken into account together with the intrusion or detriment to the suspect. Against this background, we have found us to be obliged to lift the detention order ... and to withdraw the European arrest warrant. If so this should be done in a couple of weeks. This would affect not only us but you too in a significant way,” Ny concluded.

The CPS lawyer replied in December 2013, “I do not consider costs are a relevant factor in this matter”—a reference to the Metropolitan Police revealing they had spent over three million pounds by that point on its operation around the Ecuadorian embassy.

“All we can do is wait and see [and perhaps be eternally grateful that neither of us have to share a room in the embassy with him over Christmas!]”

The emails are a devastating indictment of the British government, which has played a critical role in the US “dirty tricks” operation aimed at silencing WikiLeaks and exacting revenge on Assange for having exposed US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and its diplomatic intrigues and crimes around the world.

They also stand as an indictment of the Guardian’s own role as cheerleader for the conspiracy undertaken by the US, British and Swedish governments against Assange.

At first it selectively published and edited cables released by WikiLeaks that exposed US war crimes and conspiracies, but it quickly turned on Assange, leading attempts to discredit him and demanding his return to Sweden.

Britain’s pseudo-left groups fell into line, echoing the propaganda of the liberal media that the allegations of sexual assault have nothing to do with the campaign to silence Assange and destroy WikiLeaks. For more than a year, the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party refused to defend Assange, finally and briefly breaking their silence to argue that he “must face rape charges,” or that the accusations against him “should be properly investigated.” Neither party has printed more than a passing reference to Assange since 2012.

The publication of the Observer story has all the elements of a damage limitation exercise on the eve of today’s court case. The emails quoted were released on the CPS website (see here and here) in August 2017 as a result of a freedom of information request by the Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, who had asked for the full correspondence between the CPS and the Swedish Prosecution Authority, Ecuador, the US Department of Justice and US State Department.

The CPS only released the correspondence with Sweden saying, “On balance, the CPS considered that the public interest factors were in favour of maintaining the exemptions.” The publication of other emails it insisted would have “a definite and deep chilling effect” on relations with “Requesting States,” that is the US, and “would inhibit the ability of the CPS to conduct extradition proceedings.”

Not only did the CPS refuse to release correspondence with the US administration, but it was also revealed in a court case brought by Maurizi in November 2017 that the CPS had destroyed key emails after the CPS lawyer retired in 2014.

To date it is clear only a small fraction of the Assange case file, which the CPS has admitted comprises “mainly 55 lever-arch files, one A4 file and a selection of other paper files,” has been published.

German government plans massive military expansion in Iraq

Johannes Stern

The new grand coalition in Germany is planning a massive expansion of the German army (Bundeswehr) mission in Iraq. This was announced by Foreign Minister Ursula von der Leyen (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) in the course of her trip to the Middle East last weekend.

Von der Leyen praised Germany’s cooperation with the Peshmerga [Kurdish military forces] during her visit to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region in northern Iraq. The Bundeswehr has been arming and militarily supporting the Kurdish force for three and a half years. It was “impressive to see the great success of the Peshmerga training mission,” she said, thanking “Bundeswehr soldiers” on the spot.

Von der Leyen then announced that in future the Bundeswehr would be deployed throughout Iraq. There will be “another mandate,” she said, “a mandate with a new balance … between Baghdad and Erbil on equal terms on both sides.” The defense minister made no concrete statements about the planned operation, but left no doubt she envisaged a long-term military engagement throughout Iraq.

“Both in Kurdistan, as well as in the central government in Baghdad,” there is “a request above all to help in the implementation of reforms, in the construction of ministry structures,” the minister said. In Erbil, for example, “the construction of an entire sanitary unit is necessary,” but this also involved “of course the entire planning, organisation, recruitment and training.” There is also “considerable demand” for logistics. Germany wanted to “make its contribution” to provide Iraq with “independent, loyal operational forces for the long term.”

In Baghdad on Saturday, von der Leyen justified the German offensive by referring to the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS). She “had experienced a country that, on the one hand, is heavily marked by the devastation left by ISIS, but, on the other hand, is full of pride that it has succeeded ... in beating ISIS.” Everybody knew, however, that “ISIS has been hit hard, but is still not completely defeated.”

Von der Leyen’s attempt to portray the deployment of the Bundeswehr as an “anti-terrorist operation,” or as part of the fight against the “devastation” of Iraq, is pure propaganda and lies. It is common knowledge that the US invasion under George W. Bush in March 2003 initiated the destruction of Iraq, and that ISIS was the product of the country’s subsequent occupation and Western cooperation with Islamist militias in the regime-change wars launched against Libya and Syria.

In the cases of Iraq and Libya, Germany largely abstained from participating in the US-led wars, but it has been playing an active role in the war against Syria from the start. The Bundeswehr has resorted to terrorist methods, both directly and indirectly, to defend the economic and geo-strategic interests of German imperialism in the Middle East. The allied Peshmerga units and Iraqi forces killed tens of thousands of civilians in the so-called liberation of Mosul from ISIS, with the German air force providing target coordinates for massacres carried out by the anti-ISIS coalition in Syria.

Instead of ending the Bundeswehr’s brutal and unpopular foreign deployments, the new federal government plans to intensify them. In Baghdad, von der Leyen openly stated that the expansion of the mission in Iraq corresponded to the plans drawn up by a new grand coalition. She told her partners in Iraq that “in the coalition negotiations we agreed we will move from our mandate in the fight against terrorism to another form of engagement.”

In the coalition agreement, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the conservative Union parties also agreed to continue their “commitment within the framework of the anti-ISIS coalition … and to adapt it.” In addition, the section on “current foreign missions” reads: “The Bundeswehr mission in northern Iraq was successful, the ISIS there has been largely pushed back militarily. Therefore, we can phase out and end the training mandate in northern Iraq … In a further step, we plan to develop this mandate for a comprehensive stabilisation and sustained fight against ISIS terror, in particular through capacity building.”

Over the weekend, leading SPD politicians criticised von der Leyen’s announcement. “The defence minister’s commitment to a future mandate in Iraq is premature and has not been agreed by the acting government,” declared SPD vice-chairman Rolf Mützenich. Only a new federal government could decide on a new mandate. In addition, “the statements of the defence minister” did not reflect, “what was agreed in the coalition agreement.”

What was agreed in the drafting of the coalition agreement, and what are the concrete plans of the SPD leadership for “capacity building” in Syria and Iraq? Workers and young people, but also the over 450,000 SPD members who are due to vote on the coalition pact in the coming weeks, have a right to know exactly what was agreed. It is becoming increasingly clear that far-reaching military decisions were made behind the scenes. At the end of last week it was revealed that the German army is to establish a new NATO headquarters in Germany.

The Socialist Equality Party rejects the coalition pact, which focuses on the return of Germany to an aggressive foreign and great power policy, and calls for the disclosure of all the talks. Under conditions of escalating warfare in Syria and Iraq, and US preparations for war against North Korea, which threaten to provoke a Third World War, this demand, along with the demand for new elections, is becoming increasingly urgent.

Trump war budget calls for sweeping cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps

Patrick Martin 

The Trump administration released its proposed budget for the 2019 fiscal year on Monday, calling on Congress to enact the massive boost in military spending indicated in a bipartisan budget deal last week, but withhold the funding for domestic programs approved under the same agreement.

Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said the $63 billion increase in non-defense domestic spending incorporated into the budget resolution was not mandatory. “These are spending caps. They’re not spending floors,” he said. “So you don’t have to spend all that.”

An addendum to the budget, prepared in response to the bipartisan deal, calls for Congress to spend $6 billion on the opioid crisis and forgo any other increases.

Given that Trump signed the bipartisan spending framework into law last Friday, and that both the House and Senate are already working on appropriations bills based on it, it is unlikely that the White House appeal to renege on the domestic side of the agreement will have any effect on current spending.

Nonetheless, the priorities laid down in the massive budget document indicate the outlook and intentions of the financial oligarchy in regard to fiscal and social policy. It wants virtually unlimited increases in military spending combined with dramatic cuts in domestic spending, particularly on the so-called entitlement programs, for which spending is driven by the number of people enrolled and qualified for benefits, not specific appropriations by Congress.

Last week’s bipartisan agreement, passed with the support of the congressional Democratic leadership, and with a critical 73 Democratic votes in the House of Representatives, called for $716 billion in military spending for the current fiscal year, which ends September 30, an increase of $80 billion. The military would get an additional increase of $85 billion in fiscal year 2019, which begins October 1, as well as $140 billion in off-budget funding over the two-year period for “overseas contingencies,” budget jargon for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

The Trump budget incorporates all this money for the Pentagon, and for further increases in the “out-years,” from fiscal 2020 through fiscal 2027 (by law, the federal budget projects spending over a 10-year period).

In contrast to this bonanza for the US military machine, the world’s largest by far, the Trump budget calls for slashing more than $1 trillion from entitlement programs over the next 10 years: $554 billion from Medicare, $250 billion from Medicaid, and $214 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the formal name of the food stamp benefit.

The cuts in Medicare would include $47 billion to come from a reduction in subsidies for prescription drug costs, forcing the elderly to pay more, and $34 billion through the elimination of “facility fees” for some hospital-owned medical practices, which would lead some hospitals to turn away Medicare recipients in favor of more lucrative patients.

Both Medicaid and food stamps are joint federal-state programs, and many of the cuts would come from allowing states to enact harsher eligibility and work requirements, thus driving poor people off the programs and into even deeper poverty.

Other cuts are more vaguely described, including $1.5 trillion over 10 years to come from reorganization and a reduction in the number of programs by 2 percent per year, or a reduction in “improper payments,” otherwise undefined.

There would be draconian cuts directed against the jobs, living standards and benefits of federal government workers. Specific agencies for which the Trump White House has a special animus are targeted for the most dramatic cuts: a 26 percent cut in the State Department, for example, and a 34 percent cut in the Environmental Protection Agency. It is unlikely that either of these cuts will actually be enacted this year, but the intention is clear.

Even within the framework of last week’s bipartisan budget agreement, there is ample room for reactionary measures. Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Mulvaney said: “Take the money that the Democrats want to put to these social programs, and move it to things like infrastructure, move it to things like opioid relief, move it to things that are in line with the president’s priorities, so that—if it does get spent—at least it gets spent to the right places.” This would include, among other things, using funds intended for the opioid crisis to pay for more police and prisons rather than addiction treatment or Narcan emergency resuscitation.

Besides the huge military build-up, the Trump budget calls for an additional $18 billion over two years for building a wall along the US-Mexico border, as well as $5 billion for additional Border Patrol and ICE officers, and a 25 percent increase in the number of beds in immigrant detention facilities, bringing the total daily capacity to 52,000, the highest ever.

The budget also assumes the complete repeal of Obamacare this year, although the Republican-controlled Congress failed to do so last year, repealing only the individual mandate. Other items on the Trump wish list include such ultra-right perennials as shutting down the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and eliminating the tiny federal subsidies for the arts and humanities.

The budget document acknowledges that even the drastic cuts proposed in domestic spending over the next decade would not suffice to eliminate the federal budget deficit because of the impact of the tax cut for the wealthy enacted in December. While during the congressional debate on the tax cut plan, the White House claimed that the steep reduction in taxes on corporations and the wealthy would unleash so much economic growth that it would pay for itself, the budget document drops this pretense and admits that federal tax collections will be far lower every year for the next 10 years.

Overall federal debt will climb by $7 trillion during that period, and that is with economic assumptions considered absurdly optimistic by most economists—economic growth averaging 3 percent or more a year and interest rates on federal debt never exceeding 4 percent. More realistic models suggest trillion dollar deficits every year, rising to more than $2 trillion a year by the mid-2020s, with annual interest payments alone topping $1 trillion.

Along with the budget document, the White House released Trump’s program for rebuilding US infrastructure, a proposal that is as full of holes as the aging bridges Trump claims he will begin repairing.

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $4.59 trillion is needed through 2025 merely to repair existing infrastructure. The Trump plan offers a drop in the bucket, $200 billion over 10 years, which the administration claims would “stimulate” another $1.3 billion in private and state government investment, a figure widely derided by analysts outside the White House.

Trump proposes not one dollar of actual new funding, calling for the $200 billion to come from cuts in other programs, including existing infrastructure spending such as federal aid to mass transit. Some of the proposed spending would be in the form of block grants to states, provided they came up with sizeable matching contributions—not at the current 50-50 standard, but a much lower federal share.

Far from a genuine effort to rebuild the corroded infrastructure of roads, bridges, airports, mass transportation and water and sewer systems, the Trump plan is a pretext for waiving environmental and safety regulations—in the name of expediting construction and repair—and privatizing what remains of the public infrastructure, handing it over to corporations that will charge exorbitant fees, including tolls on roads and bridges, and sky-high bills for water and sewer services.

2018 Winter Olympics held in Korea under shadow of war

Will Morrow

The 2018 Winter Olympic Games opened in South Korea last Friday under the official theme of “peace,” with a ceremony that included a choreographed candlelight depiction of a white dove and a rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, declared that it would send a “powerful message of peace to the world.”

Bach noted, with no apparent sense of irony, that the 2016 Olympics had officially provided a “message of hope” to refugees, in a year that ended with more than 5,000 refugees drowned attempting to cross the Mediterranean, with many thousands more since.

This year’s bromides should be taken no more seriously. The reality is that not since the 1936 Olympics in Hitler’s Germany have the games been held under such an immediate threat of war. Overshadowing the events in South Korea is the real possibility that the United States will launch a “bloody nose” strike on North Korean military facilities in the immediate aftermath of the games, which could trigger a nuclear conflagration and lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not tens of millions, on the Korean Peninsula.

The Trump administration has made clear that it will allow no let-up in its insistence that Pyongyang unconditionally submit to US demands for an end to its nuclear weapons program, or face military action. The decision for the North and South to compete on the same Olympic team—though welcomed by millions throughout the region in the hope that it might signal a lessening of tensions—was met with unconcealed hostility by the Trump administration.

This was epitomized by Vice President Mike Pence’s arrogant display at the opening ceremony, where he remained seated and stony-faced as the joint Korean team entered the stadium to a standing ovation. The American vice president left no doubt that Washington regards South Korea, occupied by some 35,000 US troops, as a semi-colony that should know its place.

Pence’s attendance at the Olympics was converted into a tour preparing for war, including a visit of US ballistic missile systems in Alaska and trips to US allies in both Japan and South Korea. Speaking last Wednesday in Tokyo, Pence declared, “We will not allow North Korea to hide behind the Olympic banner the reality that they enslave their people and threaten the wider region.”

This from the representative of a government that between 1950-53 carried out a war that killed at least three million Koreans, and is now carrying out a massive military buildup in the region, including the stationing of nuclear-capable B-2 bombers in Guam, in preparation for war.

Contrary to its supposed “international ideal,” the Olympics has always been an arena for the virulent promotion of nationalism and geopolitical interests by the world’s major capitalist powers, from Hitler’s efforts to use the games as a demonstration of Aryan supremacy, to the determination of the US to demonstrate its supremacy over the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.

This Olympics, like those that have preceded it, has been dominated by the most extreme expressions of nationalism and chauvinism, particularly by the United States, summed up in the belligerent chant of “USA, USA!” One would think that a country with size, wealth and military might of the United States would have no need to engage in such endless self-promotion, which assumes a jingoistic, hyper-militaristic character. It can only be explained by the crisis eating away at American capitalism and the growing challenges to Washington’s strivings for global hegemony.

In addition to the US military buildup against North Korea, the 2018 Olympics have been dominated by a ban on Russia by the IOC Executive Committee last December, under pressure from the United States. The allegations of systematic Russian doping are largely based on the testimony of Grigory Rodchenkov, who ran Russia’s anti-doping laboratory before moving into the protective custody of the American government in 2016.

While 168 Russian athletes are competing in the games, they are subject to additional intrusive drug testing, while all Russian flags have been banned, and the Olympic theme has been played in place of the Russian anthem at medal ceremonies where Russians have won. The IOC announced this month that the Russian athletes and coaches who had their lifetime bans on charges of doping overturned would still not be invited to participate. In 2016, Russian athletes in the Paralympics Games and track and field teams were banned from participating in the Rio Olympics.

These measures are blatantly aimed at presenting Russia as an international pariah state. The hypocrisy of the supposed outrage over alleged Russian doping is made clear by the revelations of systematic sexual abuse of adolescent female gymnasts by the USA gymnastics head doctor Larry Nassar. The American media has been dominated for months by reports of this abuse, which was systematically covered up by US Olympic Committee officials who knew of the scandal for over a year before it came to light, yet did nothing. The same Western governments and corporate media who marched in lockstep in support of banning Russia have made no suggestions that the “Stars and Stripes” should be barred from the South Korean Olympics and the singing of the US national anthem forbidden, even though the abuse of American athletes goes far beyond any violations committed in the alleged doping of their Russian counterparts.

This disparity only underscores the fact that the penalization of Russian athletes is not a defense of any supposed integrity of Olympic sport—long tarnished by unending corruption scandals, jingoism and corporate money—but rather part of a ferocious campaign of demonization of Russia to prepare the population for war.

Notwithstanding the official paeans to “peace” at the current Olympics, the world’s major capitalist powers are responding with their own military buildup to the announcement in the latest US National Defense Strategy document that the United States is preparing for “great power” conflict with “revisionist states,” principally Russia and China. In the last week, France, Germany, Spain and the US have all announced massive increases in military spending.

As with every Olympics, the reactionary geopolitical and corporate interests behind the 2018 Winter Games contrast with the extraordinary physical prowess, immense talent and genuinely sympathetic character of individual athletes competing in the games. It is not their fault that they are compelled to perform under the crushing weight of militarism, jingoism and commercialism that pervade the Olympics.

Tens of millions of dollars will be made by major corporations that have descended on Korea, including official Olympic partners Coca Cola, General Electric, Dow and Intel, while television networks reap hundreds of millions in ad sales.

For a very small number of competing athletes, victory will mean millions of dollars in product endorsements, while those who fail to make it into the winners’ circle return home to face all of the social problems besetting the population at large.

As the character of scandal-scarred Olympic skater Tonya Harding wryly observes in the recently released film “I, Tonya,”: “When you come in fourth at the Olympics, you don’t get endorsement deals. You get the 6 am shift at Spud City.”

Junior Programme Officer Employers Activities Programme (ACTEMP) Internship at International Training Centre 2018 – Italy

Application Deadline: 6th March 2018

Eligible Countries: International Labour Organisation member states (Applications from qualified candidates from member States in under-represented regions (Africa, Arab States and Asia-Pacific) would be particularly welcome.

To Be Taken At (Country): Turin, Italy

About the Award: The International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization (the Centre) is the training arm of the ILO, the Specialized Agency of the United Nations, which promotes social justice and human rights in the world of work. The Centre delivers training, learning and capacity development services to governments, employers and workers’ organizations, and other national and international partners, in support of decent work and sustainable development. Its mission is to be the leading global provider of learning and training for the world of work. Each year, it delivers over 400 programmes and projects for around 13,000 people from over 180 countries.

This position is located in the Employers’ Activities Programme (ACTEMP)

ACTEMP provides training to strengthen employers’ representatives in areas that are strategic for economic growth, governance, development and poverty alleviation. We believe that employers’ and business associations can make significant contributions for sustainable development and therefore help Employers’ Organizations around the world to become more representative and effective voices of business.

Organization unit: Employers Activities Programme (ACTEMP)

Type: Internship

Eligibility: 

Education: University degree in Business Administration, Economics, Law, Communication, International Relations or related subject.

Experience

• At least three years of professional experience in a junior level managerial position in an Employers Business Member Organizations (EBMOs) or in a private company.
• Experience in the administration and implementation of training activities and experience in international environment would be considered as assets.

Languages: Excellent knowledge of English and working knowledge of French or Spanish.  Knowledge of a third working language of the Centre would be considered an asset

Core competencies

• Adaptability: ability to adapt to major changes in work tasks or in the work environment.
• Client Service: ability to meet client needs effectively (internal and external).
• Collaboration: ability to develop and use collaborative relationships to facilitate work goals.
• Communication: ability to communicate by clearly conveying information to individuals or groups.
• Initiative: act promptly to accomplish objectives, including beyond what is required.
• Integrity: ability to maintain social, ethical and organizational norms and adhere to codes of conduct and ethical principles.
• Knowledge management: continuously develop and update professional knowledge base; assimilate and apply new job-related information in a timely manner.
• Sensitivity to diversity: open to accommodating the differences found in other cultures,  between genders and to interact effectively with people of different cultures.

Level competencies

• Decision-making: analysis, judgement and problem solving
• Managing work: ability to manage one’s time and resources effectively to ensure that work is completed efficiently.

Technical competencies

• Good research and writing skills: interest and capacity in research and in writing concisely, clearly and with an in-depth approach;
• Excellent knowledge on functioning and role of Employers’ and Business Member Organisations;
• Good knowledge in at least one of the following ILO technical area relevant to the Programme for Employers Activities: employment policies, responsible business conducts in global supply chain, skills development, social dialogue and industrial relations.
• Full competence in using standard computer applications, particularly software for training aids development (PPT, PREZI and others)
• Good knowledge of training methodologies for adult learners, including distance-learning modality would be considered an asset.

Personal Skills

• Ability to communicate clearly and concisely both orally and in writing.
• Ability to plan and organize work.
• Ability to work with team spirit, within the Programme and with other Centre units.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• Successful candidate will receive Salary to the minimum of USD  46,472.00 and maximum of USD  61,889.00.
• Adjustments included
• Numerous other allowances and benefits subject to specific terms of appointment included (view Program Webpage for details)

How to Apply: All candidates must complete an on-line application form.

Duration of Program: 1 year with extension subject to satisfactory conduct and performance

• To apply, please visit the Centre’s e-recruitment website here
• Instructions for on-line application procedures are available on the Program Webpage (see Link below).
• Candidates evaluation may include a written test, a pre-interview competency based assessment centre and a final interview. These will tentatively take place between March and May 2018. Candidates are requested to ensure their availability should they be shortlisted for further consideration.
• Applicants will be contacted directly if shortlisted.
• Depending on the location and availability of candidates, assessors and interview panel members, the Centre may use communication technologies such as e-mail, Skype, video-conference, etc. for the assessment and evaluation of candidates at the different stages of the recruitment process, including assessment centres, written test or interviews.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Provider: International Labour Organisation

University of Bath Postgraduate Engineering Scholarships for International Students 2018/2019

Application Deadline: Thursday 1st June 2018 (12:00 noon GMT+1).

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): UK

Type: Masters

Eligibility: You can apply for this scholarship if you are an international student from any country and:

• have a confirmed offer to study a full-time taught postgraduate masters (MSc) programme in Engineering with us
• have made us your Firm choice
• pay fees for the programme you study

Number of Awards: 20

Value of Scholarship: £2,000.

Duration of Program: 1 year

How to Apply: If you are eligible for the scholarship scheme the University of Bath will let you know and invite you to apply.
Decisions will be made by Wednesday 6th July 2018.

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: University of Bath