The Shadow of An Israeli/U.S. Attack Grows Larger By the Day

Edward Curtin

Last week I wrote that “all signs point toward an upcoming large-scale Israeli/U.S. attack on Lebanon and Syria, and all the sycophantic mainstream media are in the kitchen prepping for the feast.  Russia and Iran are the main course, with Lebanon and Syria, who will be devoured first, as the hors d’oeuvres.”  Those signs are growing more numerous by the day.

Israel’s mainstream newspapers, Haaretz, and the more conservative Jerusalem Post, both announce in headline news that Iran has built a new base in Syria with missiles capable of hitting Israel. One look at these newspapers with their talk of Israeli war preparations and the potential in assassinating the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah makes it very clear that an expanded Middle Eastern war is fast approaching.  Russia, Syria, and Iran are being demonized as mind control propaganda spews forth.  The mainstream corporate media in the United States and other countries are sure to follow.

In Lebanon, the Prime Minister Saad Hariri has returned to Saudi Arabia to meet with his Saudi patrons for the first time since his shocking resignation on November 4, 2017, which he later withdrew.  The timing of his visit suggests another anti-Iranian and anti-Hezbollah announcement will follow.  Will Hariri issue another statement accusing Iran and Hezbollah of destabilizing Lebanon to add to the war rhetoric coming out of Israel at the same time that Lebanon is making a military agreement with Russia?  The moves on the chessboard are happening fast and furious. Divide and conquer is clearly the strategy of Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States.

Here in the United States, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity,  a group of retired intelligence workers, has just issued a public warning, or what they call a memo, to Donald Trump ( Why bother?  Do they actually think he is listening or is in charge?) Growing Risk of U.S.-Iran Hostilities Based on False Pretexts. This group, which shares some suspicions regarding Iran and is therefore not its apologist, nevertheless says the following:

                There is considerable anti-Iran rhetoric in U.S. media, which might well facilitate a transition from a cold-war type situation to a hot war involving U.S. forces.  We have  for some time been observing with some concern the growing hostility towards Iran coming out of Washington and from the governments of Israel and Saudi Arabia.  National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster is warning that the ‘time to act is now’ to thwart Iran’s  aggressive regional ambitions while United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley sees a ‘wake-up’  call in the recent shooting incident involving Syria and Israel.  Particular concern has been expressed by the White House that Iran is exploiting Shi’a minorities in neighboring Sunni dominated states to create unrest and is also expanding its role in neighboring Iraq and Syria.

VIPS also suggests that because Netanyahumay be indicted on corruption charges: “it is conceivable that he might welcome a ‘small war’ to deflect attention from mounting political problems at home.”  One may say the same of Donald Trump, but as history has taught us ‘small wars’ lead to large wars, and as is well known, the ultimate target of these warmongers is Russia, and such a war would be far from small.

One of the signers of the VIPS’ aforementioned article is Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer who in a separate article, Donald Trump’s foreign policy: Made in Israel?(No need for the question mark), rightly says that Trump is aligned with the most hardline elements in Israel and that “some pretext for war [with Iran] will surely follow with the United States having to bear much of the burden as well as most of the consequences, including what is likely to be a large casualty list as the Iranians will surely fight back.”  Furthermore, Giraldi says that the U.S., with an active presence on the ground in Syria aimed at destabilizing the country and ousting Assad, is supporting alleged Israeli intelligence that allows it to bomb another sovereign country under the claims it is protecting Israel by attacking Iranian, Hezbollah and Russian targets.

While the American public is inundated with news about Jared Kushner and Hope Hicks,propaganda about how the Syrian government is slaughtering civilians in East Ghouta (see Jonathan Cook’s excellent article, The Authoritarians Who Silence Syria Questions),and is further depressed by news of  the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School, shares are rising in the US military-Industrial Complex and the Academy Awards ceremony will soon give a Hollywood deluded society a “needed distraction” from all the news.  Meanwhile, the bloodthirsty warmongers are licking their lips in anticipation.  They are beating the war drums, and not very slowly right now.  The beat has quickened.  You can hear it if you listen.

Perhaps the propaganda film The Post, about the CIA’s favorite newspaper, The Washington Post, will take home the golden fetish at the Oscars while Israel and the U.S. assumes their responsibility to protect the innocent by killing more of them and expanding their deadly arms toward their ultimate targets.

The Imperialist Powers Have To Listen To Russia

Farooque Chowdhury

Nic Robertson, CNN’s international diplomatic editor, writes about Russian president Vladimir Putin’s two-hour annual State of Nation speech: “It is bombastic talk in the extreme: a waggling of military parts in the faces of other nations, most likely right now the United States”. (CNN, “Russia’s ‘invincible’ missile is chilling for everyone”, March 1, 2018)

The mainstream media leader primarily searched for Putin’s “largest boast”, and he found: Russia’s new nuclear-powered cruise missile capable of defying the US missile-defense shield.

The CNN-international diplomatic editor referred to last month’s Munich Security Conference. At the conference, NATO’s secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg spoke about an unfolding arms race.

The editor added:

“Putin now seems to have upped the stakes by claiming to have bigger and better weapons than anyone else on earth.”

The MSM editor misses Putin’s message. Putin’s actual message is not weapons or military capability of Russia; but, the country’s political position, which has been ignored, and at times, humiliated by the chief imperialist power – the US. This phase of humiliation began since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Putin is now trying to remind the US that the chief imperialist power should take into consideration Russia’s position before taking any unilateral aggressive move.

Putin, in his annual Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly on February 28, 2018, mentioned a number of advanced weapons systems developed by Russia. These weapons, as Putin claimed, make all US capabilities aimed at undermining the Russian nuclear deterrent obsolete.

So, Putin cautioned: The US should stop trying to diminish Russia’s security and start talking to Moscow as an equal partner, not the dominant military power the US seeks to be.

Part of Putin’s speech sounded like a challenge to the chief imperialist power. He accused the US of arrogance. All countries including allies of the imperialist power have the same experience: imperialism’s arrogance.

Putin said: The US thought that Russia would not be able to recover anytime soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union and that its interests can simply be ignored. As evidence he cited the withdrawal by George W Bush from the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002. After the withdrawal, Russia is being increasingly surrounded by the US strategic and tactical moves. No country with sense of self-respect, and, aware of its security and interests can accept the encirclement move. The Russian leader said: Without a nuclear deterrent, Russia would be exposed to US military pressure and would not be able to pursue a sovereign policy.

Putin mentioned a number of weapons including a new ICBM, a miniaturized nuclear reactor-powered cruise missile with an almost unlimited range, a high-endurance underwater drone capable of traveling between continents at a speed several times higher than that of a submarine and with the capacity of attacking aircraft carrier groups. The nuclear reactor that powers the drone is “100 times smaller” than those used by nuclear-propelled submarines. The Russian leader also mentioned a hypersonic weapons system with a speed of Mach-10, and a combat laser.

Putin said: Russia would not need all these new weapons if its legitimate concerns had not been ignored by the US and its allies.

He said: “Nobody wanted to talk with us on the core of the problem. Nobody listened to us. Now you listen.”

The Russian president suggested that the US abandon its costly and inefficient hostile plans towards Russia and start negotiating a security arrangement which would take Moscow’s interests into account.

Putin said: “To those who for the last 15 years have been trying to fan an arms race, achieve unilateral advantage against Russia, impose sanctions, which are illegal from the standpoint of international law and are aimed at holding back the development of our country, including in the military area, I have this to say: All the things you were trying to prevent through your policies have already happened. You have failed to hold Russia back.”

He said: “You now have to acknowledge this reality, confirm that everything I said is no bluff – which it isn’t – think for some time, send into retirement the people stuck in the past and incapable of looking into the future, [and] stop rocking the boat that we all ride in and which is called planet Earth.” Russia would be responsive if talked to as an equal partner, Putin added.

This part of the speech is more important than the list of the weapons as, anyone can assume that information about the newly developed weapons is already known to the US. The list of weapons is for consumption of the public at home and abroad. But, the signals the speech carries are important to the US as well as to allies and lackeys of the US. It’s clear that Russia wants an accommodation on the world stage, a reasonable aspiration, which is contrary to interest of the US and its allies.

It’s not possible for the US to accommodate Russia and other emerging powers if it doesn’t feel compelled. Or, moves, economic and political, by Russia and its allies can ensure their accommodation.

Similar moves are already in operation. These include trade, etc. relations. In the area of arms trade, a number of Russian moves are interesting, which were unimaginable during the days of the Soviet Union. These include Turkey’s and Qatar’s effort to buy Russia’s missile system. Even, was it imaginable that a Bush-trampled Iraq would be willing to buy Russia’s missile system? These are happening. And, the imperialist power is threatening countries willing to procure weapons from Russia. The trade aspect can’t be ignored if related geopolitical aspect is set aside in these cases of weapons procurement. Procuring of weapons from Russia will be a loss of two spaces: arms trade and geopolitical.

The chief imperialism has threatened Iraq to impose sanctions on Baghdad if the country facing threats to its sovereignty buys Russian missile systems.

There’s the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017 (CAATSA). The 2017-act imposes sanctions on countries purchasing weapons from Russia. The US has already told Iraq that purchasing of Russian missile system could violate CAATSA.

But, the prevailing political environment in Iraq is not always friendly to the US. Iraq’s parliament has passed a resolution demanding that the government set a timeline for the withdrawal of all foreign troops stationed in the war-ravaged country.

Qatar is negotiating purchase of long-range anti-aircraft system from Russia. A military cooperation agreement between the two countries is there.

The Turkey-Russia arms deal is not liked by the US and NATO.

All the weapons-purchase negotiations/agreements will not move smoothly and swiftly. But, the developments are part of a scene different from the days of “single pole-world”, a world dominated by the US during the days immediately after dissolution of the Soviet Union. Putin’s suggestion to listen to Russia is part of this scene – single-pole-days are over.

The situation makes a part of imperialism desperate, reckless, and more aggressive as the part is unwilling to accommodate Russia. It’s a question of competition. It has to give up a part of market to Russia, which is not possible for imperialism unless not compelled. This will lead to heightened tension, which helps the warmongers to bolster armament industry to profit from there.

In this situation, increase in subversive activities and intervention by imperialism in countries will be norm of the day as the warmongers find those easier to advance its interest in the face of increased competition. Imperialism likes to utter: We came, we saw, he died.

New Zealand governments lied about “non-combat” role in Iraq

Sam Price

Reports published by Fairfax Media reveal that New Zealand governments, National and Labour party alike, have lied about activities of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) in Iraq.

Around 100 New Zealand troops have been stationed in Iraq since May 2015 as part of a joint operation with Australia called Task Group Taji. The current Labour-led government has maintained that it is a strictly non-combat operation to train Iraqi soldiers. However, separate reports by human rights researcher Harmeet Sooden and investigative journalist Jon Stephenson have revealed that NZ soldiers are actively participating in the ongoing US-led war.

After the 2003–2011 US invasion and occupation of Iraq, which killed over a million people, the Obama administration sent US troops back to the country in July 2014, ostensibly to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as “Daesh.”

In reality, Washington’s aim was to shore up its position in the Middle East. It has supported a war for regime change in Syria, a Russian ally, in an alliance with Islamist militias and Kurdish forces. Over 85,000 Iraqi and 100,000 Syrian civilians have been killed in the past seven years, and an estimated 11 million Syrians have been displaced, producing the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

Sooden’s report, based on government answers to his official information requests, noted that on July 19, 2017, the government expanded the NZDF’s mandate to “provide advise-and-assist support to the Iraqi Army’s North Baghdad Operations Command.” This includes gathering intelligence and planning military actions, as well as “equipping, resupplying and refitting the Iraqi security forces for combat operations.”

Task Group Taji has been gathering biometric data for an intelligence program in which the NZ Army has been involved since at least 2009. Data from this program is available to US intelligence agencies.

Sooden also found that at some point between June 2016 and May 2017 the government authorised expanding the delivery of training to Qayyarah West Airfield without public acknowledgement.

Stephenson, who has reported extensively on New Zealand’s military deployments, revealed that since at least early 2016 NZDF personnel have been secretly stationed at the Combined Air and Space Operations Center (CAOC) in Qatar. CAOC, run by the US Air Force Central Command, involves 20 countries and coordinates air strikes in Iraq and Syria.

Former Pentagon official Paul Buchanan admitted that successive NZ governments’ description of New Zealand troops abroad as “non-combat” was a lie. He said: “In reality, the intelligence and planning role is as central to the kill chain as that of the pilots.”

In a comment published by Fairfax on February 12, Buchanan said “advise and assist … was envisioned from the very beginning of the Defence Force involvement in the anti-Daesh coalition.” He asserted that the government’s secrecy was necessary to protect New Zealand interests from terrorist retaliation, but also to avoid public backlash and “deny participation in potential war crimes.”

Last year, Stephenson co-authored Hit and Run, with Nicky Hager, which revealed that in 2010 NZ Special Air Service (NZSAS) commandos led an attack on two villages in Afghanistan, killing six people, including a three-year-old girl.

A documentary by Fairfax Media described the “bait and hook” tactic used by the NZSAS to terrorise villagers and provoke battles. It also revealed that the army’s so-called Provincial Reconstruction Team was secretly involved in offensive operations.

There is widespread anti-war sentiment in New Zealand, where thousands of people joined worldwide mass protests against the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Every party in parliament, however, supports NZ’s involvement in Iraq.

The Labour Party and its coalition partners, New Zealand First and the Greens, voted against the former National government’s decision to send soldiers to Iraq in 2015. However, the Labour-led government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has not withdrawn the troops.

Former Labour leader Andrew Little feigned concern in 2015 that training would turn into combat operations. Earlier this month Little, now the minister responsible for the intelligence agencies, joined Defence Minister Ron Mark on a visit to Camp Taji, and to NZ troops stationed in Afghanistan.

Mark, a member of the right-wing populist NZ First, told the media that NZ troops were “highly valued” by the Iraqi government and the US-led coalition and that he hoped parliament would extend their deployment.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop recently visited New Zealand to encourage the Ardern government to extend the deployment, which is due to end in November. The government has yet to announce its decision.

Ardern defended the actions of NZDF forces in Iraq, telling Fairfax Media on February 12 the soldiers worked within their “mandate.” She admitted she was aware of the gathering of biometric intelligence data, saying this “became standard practice … some years ago for all coalition forces.”

Labour, a party of big business, has consistently supported imperialist wars. It was founded in 1916 in order to corral working class opposition to World War I behind a limited campaign against conscription. New Zealand’s ruling class relied on Britain, and later the US, to support its own colonialist ambitions in the Pacific.

The 1999–2003 Labour government led by Prime Minister Helen Clark sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001, and to Iraq in 2003, after initially opposing the US invasion. NZ First strongly supported the decisions.

The Greens routinely posture as anti-war, but supported troops being sent to Afghanistan, falsely claiming the deployment was “humanitarian.” The party has remained silent on the current government’s support for the Iraq war.

The Labour-NZ First-Green government, falsely promoted as progressive by the media and pseudo-left groups, will play a critical role in bolstering military ties with the US, which is preparing for war against its nominated strategic rivals, Russia and China.

The government is pressing ahead with plans, drawn up by the National government, to spend billions of dollars to upgrade military planes and frigates. The Defence Force is continuing a recruitment campaign and there are growing calls from the media and think tanks for greater military spending.

In October, the anti-Asian xenophobic NZ First decided to form a coalition government with Labour, rather than the National Party, after US ambassador Scott Brown publicly criticised then-National Party Prime Minister Bill English for failing to fully endorse President Donald Trump’s threat to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea.

To align New Zealand with the drive to war, the government and much of the media are engaged in a witch-hunt against alleged Chinese “influence” in New Zealand politics. Ardern has ordered the Security Intelligence Service to investigate the accusations of Chinese “interference” made by NATO-funded academic Anne-Marie Brady, and echoed by NZ First.

Presidential frontrunner López Obrador backs off threat to undo Mexican oil privatization

Don Knowland

When he ran for president in 2006 and 2012 as the candidate of the once center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) raged against privatizing Pemex (Petróleos Mexicano), the Mexican state oil company, which had held a monopoly over crude production since 1938.

In the 2012 election campaign, López Obrador called the plan of the current Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto of the Party of the Institutional Revolution (PRI), to invite foreign oil giants to enter into profit-sharing and production contracts with Pemex “the robbery of the century,” which he said would cost Mexico $40 billion a year.

In December 2012, when the PRD signed on to Pena Nieto’s “Pact for Mexico” to liberalize the Mexican economy, the centerpiece of which was energy privatization, AMLO left the PRD to found his present political party, the Movement for National Regeneration (Morena). He rightly accused the PRD of abandoning the last of its social democratic pretensions.

When the Mexican Congress in 2013-2014 enacted sweeping legislation and changes to the Mexican Constitution in order to implement the energy reform, López Obrador called them a “band of criminals.” He led tens of thousands into the streets of Mexico City in protest.

At that time, AMLO emphasized that only 20 countries in the world had oil, and that without its patrimony Mexico would be “left with nothing.” He warned that if Mexico bought foreign gasoline instead of making it at home, Mexicans would pay 30 percent more for it. He projected a loss of $30 billion a year, which he said would starve the public budget of money needed for infrastructure projects, higher salaries for teachers and doctors, and social programs such as initiatives to reduce hunger and poverty.

The 2013-2014 legislation allowed output-sharing contracts and licenses for private oil producers to operate in Mexico, so that foreign oil giants could ship the oil to their own refineries. Starting in 2015, Mexico awarded 91 exploration and development contracts to international oil giants such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp.

After announcing his current run for president last year, AMLO warned that the “fall in [Mexican oil] production must be stopped—if not, we will end up buying crude oil, and we can’t have that.” He called for two more refineries to be built, in the oil producing states of Tabasco and Campeche, so that Mexico would not have to continue importing more than half the gasoline it consumes.

In September, López Obrador shook Pemex and the foreign oil industry, promising to “review all contracts” for foreign oil exploration and production.

However, no sooner has the Mexican presidential election gone into full swing than AMLO has backtracked on almost all of these prior pronouncements. Over the last two weeks, AMLO’s chief election advisers have been united in broadcasting a different message to the country’s energy industry and foreign investors: You have nothing to worry about.

“It would be an error for the next administration to cancel all that has been accomplished in this one,” said Abel Hibert, chief economic adviser to López Obrador in a Mexico City interview last week. “We are changing the perception that we are closing the door on the energy reform and all the economic benefits it has provided,” he added.

Hibert, who has drafted López Obrador’s 2018-2024 “governance plan,” assured that there would be “no drastic change” to the opening up of the energy industry. He called the crude auctions held since 2015 “very transparent” and “beneficial to the country’s energy and economic future.”

Hibert minimized the significance of any review of oil contracts as a routine “part of the process for any incoming administration.” As to future contracts, at most a López Obrador administration might “reduce the speed” of the auctions as the new government settles in.

Hibert’s comments echoed those of López Obrador’s top business adviser, Alfonso Romo, and his projected choice for finance minister, Carlos Urzua, who have both said the oil contracts would be “respected.”

AMLO’s chief advisers in essence are signaling that all that is left of Lopez Obrador’s prior energy platform is that he would still seek to build two new refineries in order to increase Mexican gasoline production and thereby reduce dependence on the US for fuel imports.

Mexico’s six refineries have the capacity to process 1.64 million crude barrels daily, but averaged only 767,000 last year, requiring the highest import levels from the U.S. since 1990. Under AMLO’s development plan, the new refineries would be built using public funding, although Hibert has also mentioned private investor partnerships as an option. Pemex has already sought partners at its older refineries since at least 2016, and hopes to enter into a $2.6 billion deal with Mitsui & Co. at its Tula refinery.

According to Hibert, López Obrador may also suddenly be backing down from his longstanding opposition to the $13 billion project to build a new Mexico City Airport, which he has lambasted as overly costly, and for having been built in a poor location on sinking land. Major investors in the airport object that abandoning the current site could cost Mexico billions in wasted labor and materials, as well as kill investor fees and gut debt restructuring for the project.

President Peña Nieto had long stressed that ending Pemex’s monopoly over oil and gas production was the key to investment in Mexico, not just by foreign oil companies, but also by the giant foreign banks and hedge funds. Foreign investors agreed, such as Laurence D. Fink, head of $5 trillion investment manager BlackRock Inc., who said that the oil legislation would make the nation his favorite international destination for investment. Other financial titans such as the $1.7 trillion bond giant PIMCO agreed, investing heavily in Mexico following the energy legislation.

In March, 2017, the president of the Association of Banks of Mexico, Luis Robles Miaja, who is also a director of major Mexican bank BBVA Bancomer, insisted that López Obrador did not represent a risk for the country or its bankers. Similarly, in June of last year, Spanish bank giant Santander insisted that AMLO could be compared at worst to former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva—i.e., no threat to foreign investors and banks.

Last week, López Obrador met with executives of major international banks to assuage their concerns over his populist rhetoric.

In conjunction with these meetings, his top aides emphasized that he is pro-market, touting what they call his “newfound maturity.” AMLO “has always been a supporter of the market economy,” insisted Hector Vasconcelos, his foreign policy chief.

These messages calmed concerns of some Wall Street investors, such as Goldman Sachs. Following a Mexico visit by a team of its analysts, the Wall Street giant reported that “in recent weeks AMLO has moderated his public stance…and acted in a statesmanlike manner while appearing presidential. …”

According to this week’s Bloomberg polling, López Obrador is leading all presidential contenders with 40 percent, to 31 percent for Ricardo Anaya, the candidate of the coalition between the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) and the PRD, followed by José Antonio Meade of the PRI with 20 percent.

AMLO has obtained this lead based for the most part on two electoral promises—first, ending the mass corruption infecting Mexico, and second, opposing, if not undoing, the energy reform.

The reform was opposed at the time by upwards of 75 percent of the population, and close to 2 million signed petitions to stop it. Once implemented, it resulted in skyrocketing gasoline prices. This led to the explosion of the mass gasolinazo demonstrations in early 2017.

With his current backsliding, López Obrador is exposed as a populist demagogue, that is, a charlatan. In reality, he is a bourgeois politician through and through, who represents no real threat to the financial overlords in Mexico or to American imperialism. Given his class position, he is incapable of pursuing the interests of Mexico’s working class and impoverished masses.

Draft EU Brexit agreement deepens divisions over Northern Ireland

Steve James

The UK Conservative government has treated the European Commission’s (EC’s) draft agreement for Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU) as a declaration of political warfare.

By outlining a scenario for a customs union between Northern Ireland and the EU, the commission has detonated a political bomb—making clear that it will not accept Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposed “ambitious managed divergence” as the basis for any transition agreement. In doing so the European powers have underscored just how deep are the inter-imperialist antagonisms that gave rise to Brexit.

The EU document was immediately denounced by May in the House of Commons. If implemented, the measures would “undermine the UK common market, and threaten the constitutional integrity of the UK by creating a customs and regulatory border down the Irish sea,” she said. “No UK prime minister could ever agree to it.”

Responding to May, in advance of a meeting with her yesterday, EC President Donald Tusk insisted that the document would be backed by all 27 countries in the EU. He warned, “One of the possible negative consequences of this kind of Brexit,” one without Britain agreeing to sign up to the existing provisions of the Single Market and Customs Union, “is a hard border on the island of Ireland.” Explaining the draft, Tusk said, “The EU wants to prevent this scenario and, if no other solution is found, the proposal [is] to establish a common regulatory area comprising the Union and the UK in respect of Northern Ireland.”

That these tensions should hinge on the Northern Ireland border, whose existence cost thousands of lives last century, underscores how dangerous the situation has become. Ireland was partitioned by Britain in 1921-1922, with a politically independent, Catholic-dominated Irish state in the South barricaded off from British-controlled Protestant Ulster in the North. Between 1968 and 1998, Irish republicans fought to expel British forces from the North in a guerrilla war that cost more than 3,500 lives.

The war was ended by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which incorporated republicans into the government of the Northern state in a power-sharing executive, based on sectarian divisions, alongside pro-British unionists.

It was only then that the border, once marked by army checkpoints and fortresses, patrolled by British Army helicopters and fought over by snipers and army death squads, became open. Each year there are now 110 million entirely unimpeded crossings by car, coach, andtrain, on foot, and by commercial vehicles small and large.

However, Brexit objectively calls the Good Friday Agreement, based as it was on agreements between two EU members, Britain and Ireland, into question.

The EC’s 119-page draft document was undoubtedly put together in the knowledge that it would be entirely unacceptable to Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the hard Brexit faction calling the shots in the Tory Party. The draft overturned the fictions of the agreement of last December between the EU and the British government to allow further talks on the terms of future trading relations to begin.

December’s pact included commitments on Britain’s payments to the EU and on the rights of British and EU citizens post-Brexit. But it also included mutually contradictory positions on Northern Ireland.

Paragraph 49 stated that in the “absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the (EU) Internal Market and the Customs Union. ...”

But paragraph 50 stated that, in “all circumstances, the United Kingdom will continue to ensure the same unfettered access for Northern Ireland’s businesses to the whole of the United Kingdom internal market.”

It was stressed by the Tories that there would be no border on the island of Ireland or down the Irish Sea.

In other words, Northern Ireland would be aligned with the EU, the Irish Republic and the UK—despite the fact that the UK is leaving the EU. The fudged wording was cooked up to placate the DUP, which holds the balance of power in Westminster and is currently propping up the May government with its 10 MPs.

In December, the EU was willing to go along with the ambiguous formulations providing that this would be underscored by Britain’s acceptance, during any transition, of the framework of existing EU trading conditions and related legislative framework.

Since then, in response to the hard-Brexit wing of her party, May came up with the concept of “ambitious managed divergence” in future relations with the EU. What this means emerged following a “war cabinet” or “away-day” at the prime minister’s country residence. Basically, the British government aims to take control of rules and regulations in all areas of commerce, agreeing to maintain regulations in alignment with those of the EU only where it suited the interests of key sectors of British capitalism.

These will clearly include the car industry, financial services and other lucrative areas of the economy heavily dependent on unfettered access to the EU single market. However, the Tories were adamant that regulations would be vetoed whenever they contradicted UK interests. The EU has repeatedly insisted that any such “cherry-picking” approach to EU rules by Britain is entirely unacceptable to its European rivals.

It then emerged that British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, one of the leaders of the pro-Brexit faction in the British government, wrote to May calling for new border controls in Northern Ireland, something that all sides have previously repeatedly rejected. According to a letter leaked to Sky News, Johnson wrote that “it is wrong to see the task as maintaining ‘no border’.” The government should instead “stop this border becoming significantly harder.”

Johnson went on radio to explain his grasp of the matter. “There’s no border between Islington, Camden and Westminster, but when I was mayor of London we anaesthetically and invisibly took hundreds of millions of pounds from people travelling between those two boroughs without any need for border checks.” His truly moronic comparison of the London congestion charge with the re-imposition of a hated and economically devastating border on Ireland is an indicator of the British government’s deepening disorientation.

The European powers’ draft, put together in consultation with the Irish government, is, therefore, an aggressive response to the increasingly reckless British manoeuvrings. Its stated intention, as a fallback should no other agreement be reached, is to “create a common regulatory area on the island of Ireland in order to safeguard North South cooperation, the all-island economy, and protect the 1998 [Good Friday] Agreement.”

The EU draft publication provoked a further wave of attacks on Brexit from leading elements within the Remain factions of the British ruling class.

Following Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s policy shift towards support for a customs union with the EU, former Tory Prime Minister John Major attacked the entire Brexit project and warned of its impact on the Good Friday Agreement. Former Labour Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter, now Lord Hain, proposed an amendment to the Brexit bill now going through the House of Lords to force the government to uphold a frictionless Irish border. The Scottish government and Welsh executive put forward bills demanding greater repatriated powers in the event of Brexit.

The deepening crisis poses real dangers for the working class. Both Brexit and the response to it from the European powers shows that all factions of the ruling class are willing to fight for their interests by stoking potentially explosive tensions in Ireland.

The only progressive alternative is for the working class across Ireland, Britain and Europe to reject all national divisions and to advance its own independent solution to the archaic division of the world through the struggle for workers’ governments across the continent and the United Socialist States of Europe.

French unions negotiate rail privatization with Macron government

Anthony Torres

On Thursday, Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne met with union officials to discuss privatizing the French National Railways (SNCF) and eviscerating the rail workers’ statute. Though aware of rising anger among workers and of the government’s determination to impose its will, the unions are negotiating with Borne and postponing any decision on strike action for several weeks.

The unions and French President Emmanuel Macron’s government plan to discuss for two months how to implement the European Union-mandated opening of French railways to private competition by privatizing the SNCF and ending all recruitment based on the rail workers’ statute. Macron and SNCF management are demanding that wages, pensions and career advancement procedures defined in the statute be watered down to conform with those of private rail firms.

The government is making quite clear that there is nothing to negotiate and that it is determined to reduce rail employees, like PSA autoworkers threatened by Macron’s reactionary labor decrees, to temp workers without any real social protections. At a cabinet meeting, Macron stressed that “the necessary transformation of the rail company… will be carried out with determination.” On Monday, the government announced its intention to ram an enabling act through parliament allowing it to impose the privatization of the SNCF by decree.

Nevertheless, the unions are refusing to organize strikes while holding reactionary discussions with Macron. This must be taken as a warning to rail workers as well as workers across Europe targeted for austerity. The trade unions will not fight Macron or the EU.

Against these illegitimate and anti-social measures, workers must prepare for a political struggle carried out by their own rank-and-file organizations set up independently of the trade unions, and together with their class brothers and sisters internationally.

Yesterday morning, the trade unions announced a “social alarm” that would potentially allow them to call a strike, but at the same time insisted they were trying to “calm the situation down.”

Coming out of his meeting with the transport minister, CGT (General Confederation of Labor) Rail Secretary Laurent Brun said that at the meeting there was “a lot of back-and-forth, but not a lot of room for maneuver.” He made clear that the CGT is well aware of what is taking place and plans to nevertheless participate, but “without too many illusions.”

Dider Aubert, the pro-Macron French Democratic Labor Confederation's (CFDT) secretary for rail, said, “If the first meeting to break the ice turns out to be the pattern for the other ones, well, it will be difficult to avoid a strike.”

While complaining about Macron, the unions are effectively supporting his strategy, refusing to politically challenge a key privatization at the heart of his counter-revolutionary social program while putting off any call for strike action. The trade union alliance will meet only on March 15 to discuss a possible strike date. The CGT has called on rail workers to protest on March 22, the same day that public-sector workers are set to protest the public sector reform.

Unsurprisingly, SNCF management and the state, both of which remember the explosive rail strike of November-December 1995 and fear a similar mobilization today, are denouncing strike action. On Wednesday, SNCF President Guillaume Pépy defended Macron’s reform on CNews, citing the SNCF’s large profits and saying, “No one, not the workers, the unions, their clients or our country has an interest in a long strike just now, when the trains are just getting back in shape.”

In 1995, when Prime Minister Alain Juppé tried to slash Social Security and rail workers’ pensions, workers were forced to take strike action independently of the unions. Over 1 million people went on strike or joined protests. This paralyzed France for three weeks, for the first time since the May-June 1968 general strike.

Terrified by a situation that was rapidly escaping their control, the unions and petty-bourgeois parties such as Workers Struggle (LO) and the Revolutionary Communist League (today the New Anti-capitalist Party—NPA) rushed into the workers assemblies to end the strike.

Two decades later, the situation is even more explosive. Macron is trying to liquidate the SNCF after a decade of social attacks and deepening political crisis across Europe since the 2008 financial crash. In France, the post-1968 political system has collapsed with the disintegration of the Socialist Party (PS), the implosion of the Gaullists and the discrediting of pseudo-left forces such as the NPA and LO.

A new international offensive of the working class is developing. Since the beginning of 2018, there have been major workers’ demonstrations in Iran and Tunisia and strikes of Turkish and German metalworkers, British railworkers and Greek workers opposing the Syriza government’s austerity policies. Many sections of American workers are entering into struggle, including teachers across the entire state of West Virginia who are defying the state government. In France itself, the rail workers’ struggle is unfolding amid strikes by Air France and health workers.

In the fight against Macron’s attacks, workers cannot limit themselves to a struggle on a national level, which would be dominated by the unions. Workers want to defend their social rights and win increases in wages, which have been stagnant for many years even as the financial aristocracy paid itself trillions of euros in bank bailouts and profits derived from the re-militarization of Europe. Despite their posturing, the unions are deeply afraid of this radicalization and are aligning themselves ever more openly with the financial aristocracy’s reactionary maneuvers.

The day before talks began, CGT General Secretary Philippe Martinez deployed the CGT’s standard Stalinist demagogy. Speaking on France2 television, he said he was “totally pumped.” He continued, “The government says it wants to discuss, we’re going to see if it really wants to discuss.” He said that rail workers “are not privileged” and that their social rights “are not negotiable.”

But if Martinez says the rail workers’ statute is “not negotiable,” what is the CGT doing in talks whose express purpose is to negotiate the statute away? Despite Martinez’s boasting, is it not clear that the unions, which negotiated for months on Macron’s labor decrees that effectively suspend the Labor Code, are preparing yet another impotent, symbolic protest that will serve only as a fig leaf for the imposition of yet another major social attack?

The CGT is not calling strikes now because it is itself negotiating the attack and fears it would lose control of strikes if it called them. The only way forward for the workers is to organize independently of the trade unions and unite their struggles in a political counter-offensive of the working class against Macron and the EU on the basis of a revolutionary, socialist and internationalist perspective.

Responding to US threats, Russian President Putin proclaims nuclear arms race

Andre Damon 

In a belligerently nationalistic speech before the Russian parliament Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted about advances in Russia’s nuclear arsenal, threatened “immediate” retaliation against any US nuclear attack, and played a video depicting a nuclear strike on the United States.

Putin’s speech, coming amid a fanatical war-mongering campaign against Russia in the US media, is perhaps the most explicit statement to date of the breakdown in US-Russian relations, highlighting the looming threat posed to humanity of a nuclear war between the two countries.

Bragging that “The operation in Syria has proved the increased capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces,” Putin outlined far-advanced plans by Russia to modernize its nuclear weapons and bypass US missile defense systems.

The most important of these is the so-called Sarmat missile system, a new heavy intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that has already been deployed by Russian forces. In addition to numerous other features enabling it to avoid detection and interception, Putin said the new missile is able to attack the United States from the south, bypassing most existing missile defense systems, which are oriented toward the north.

Putin also outlined, in substantial detail, a series of next-generation weapons systems, all of which he said were in advanced stages of testing. These included an ICBM-launched hypersonic reentry vehicle, which “flies to its target like a meteorite, like a ball of fire,” a nuclear-armed cruise missile powered by a nuclear reactor, a nuclear-armed undersea drone and an aircraft-launched hypersonic nuclear delivery vehicle.

Putin said that the development of these systems was Russia’s “response to the unilateral withdrawal of the United States of America from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the practical deployment of their missile defence systems both in the US and beyond their national borders.”

Putin framed his speech as a response to a series of escalatory measures by the United States, most notably the publication on February 2 of the latest US nuclear posture review, which greatly expanded the range of scenarios in which the United States says it would use nuclear weapons, and envisioned the development of a series of short-range battlefield nuclear weapons, putting the US in violation of international treaties.

In his speech, Putin declared, “We are greatly concerned by certain provisions of the revised nuclear posture review, which… reduce the threshold for the use of nuclear arms. Behind closed doors, one may say anything to calm down anyone, but we read what is written. And what is written is that this strategy can be put into action in response to conventional arms attacks and even to a cyber-threat.”

The US document represents a course reversal from the nuclear posture review released in 2010, which reduced the role of nuclear weapons in Washington’s military arsenal.

While cautioning that Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons only in response to attacks “that threaten the very existence of the state,” Putin made clear that Russia would respond overwhelmingly to any nuclear attack by the US.

“Any use of nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies, weapons of short, medium or any range at all, will be considered as a nuclear attack on this country. Retaliation will be immediate, with all the attendant consequences,” Putin declared.

The White House responded to Putin’s speech with its own declaration that it will not be outmatched by Russian weaponry, declaring, "US defense capabilities are and will remain second to none," and "President Trump” is “determined to protect our homeland and preserve peace through strength."

Responding to efforts by the United States to prevent the emergence of Russia as a regional power, Putin declared, “And to those who in the past 15 years have tried to accelerate an arms race and seek unilateral advantage against Russia… I will say this: everything you have tried to prevent through such a policy has already happened. No one has managed to restrain Russia.”

Putin’s statements come amid a series of warnings that the entire arms control system that kept the United States and Russia out of open military conflict since the Second World War is on the verge of breaking down.

Commenting on the tensions between Moscow and Washington at the Munich Security conference, Bloomberg warned of the breakdown of “decades-old arms control agreements that have helped to keep a strategic balance and prevent the risk of accidental war.”

It cited statements by Dmitri Trenin, head of the Carnegie Moscow Center, who said, “In the U.S., the animus is so tremendous that punishing Russia is the thing to do… I see the demise of the entire arms control regime.”

At the Munich Security conference, at which the major European powers took an ambivalent attitude toward the US, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned that “The most likely theater for nuclear conflicts would once again be here, in the center of Europe.”

It also cited former Kremlin foreign policy adviser Sergei Karaganov, who said the situation is on track to become “much more dangerous” than even during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

Putin’s speech followed the conclusion of the UN Conference on Disarmament, in Geneva, Switzerland, in which Secretary-General António Guterres declared, “We must work together towards our common goal: a world free of nuclear weapons.”

But Putin’s comments, and the US nuclear posture review that proceeded them, make clear how empty such phrases have become. It is becoming increasingly clear that the entire trajectory of geopolitical developments throughout the world is one of military escalation, culminating ultimately in the use of nuclear weapons.

Putin’s decision to make such bellicose threats express an element of desperation in the face of the increasingly obvious fact that there are substantial sections of the US military that are preparing for a military conflict with Russia.

Within that context, Putin is making clear that, under his watch, there will be no repeat of the 1941 Nazi invasion of Soviet Russia, for which the country was totally unprepared. It is not unrealistic to believe that Putin himself is under immense pressure from his own military establishment to push back against the United States.

As Putin put it, “I hope that everything that was said today would make any potential aggressor think twice, since unfriendly steps against Russia such as deploying missile defences and bringing NATO infrastructure closer to the Russian border become ineffective in military terms and entail unjustified costs, making them useless for those promoting these initiatives.”

But the attempt to counter the aggressive threats by the United States with nuclear saber-rattling will not secure Russia, and the policy of national defense as elaborated by Putin can lead only to a catastrophe.

Imperialism has its own agenda. The dissolution of the Soviet Union set into motion a process of the transformation of post-Soviet Russia into a virtual colony of the United States and Europe’s imperialist powers. No concession that Putin makes, short of one that accepts the complete subordination of Russia to American dictates, will be acceptable. In fact, Putin’s statement that Russia’s development of nuclear weapons will make the imperialist powers “listen” is both reckless and naïve.

A quarter century after the dissolution of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, humanity is once again on the brink of nuclear annihilation. There is only one alternative to this madness: the mobilization and unification of the working classes of the whole world on the basis of a socialist program in order to end the capitalist system that is the cause of war.

Trump launches trade war

Nick Beams

US President Donald Trump has taken a major step toward launching an international trade war by slapping a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminium.

The measures recall the Smoot-Hawley tariff of June 1930, which played a significant role in the economic and ultimately military conflicts of the ensuing decade. They were announced Thursday at a hastily convened White House meeting of 15 steel and aluminium executives.

In imposing a global tariff hike, rather than selective measures, Trump took the toughest option presented to him in a report submitted by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross concerning action to be taken under “national security” provisions of legislation adopted in 1962.

The military implications of the move are underscored not only by the legislation used to invoke it, but also by earlier remarks Trump made when commenting on the Ross proposals. He told a meeting with members of Congress last month that in a conflict “we don’t want to be buying steel [from] a country we are fighting.”

The measures were announced after an internal battle within the administration in which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and Defense Secretary James Mattis, among others, reportedly opposed to the move.

While the main fire of the rhetoric emanating from the White House has been directed against China—the announcement was made as a representative of the Chinese government was in Washington to discuss easing trade tensions—the measures will impact most heavily on some of America’s nominally closest allies, including Japan, South Korea, the European Union and Canada.

Last month, Pentagon head Mattis said in a memo in response to the Commerce Department’s options that he was concerned about a global approach because of the “negative impact on our key allies,” and called for more “targeted” tariffs.

But Trump told the industry executives he did not want any country excluded from the tariffs because if one country was exempted, others would try and obtain similar treatment.

Trump said he would sign the order for the tariffs next week and the measures would be in place for a “long time.”

The bellicose character of the measures and their wide sweep were emphasised in remarks by Trump to the industry executives. People, he said, had “no idea how badly our country has been treated by other countries,” which, he said, had “destroyed” the US steel and aluminium industries. “When it comes to a time when our country can’t make aluminium and steel, then you almost don’t have much of a country,” he added.

These remarks echoed a trade policy report released on Wednesday that said the administration was concerned that the World Trade Organisation, which administers global trade relations, was not acting as envisioned and “as a result, is undermining America’s ability to act in its national interest.”

The Trump measures brought an immediate response from Europe. The European Commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, accused Trump of invoking national security to impose protectionist measures to boost US domestic industry.

Underscoring the significance of the move for broader strategic relations, he said: “The EU has been a close security ally of the US for decades. We will not sit idly by while our industry is hit with unfair measures that put thousands of European jobs at risk.”

He warned that the EU would take “countermeasures against the US to balance the situation.” In anticipation of increasingly protectionist measures, it has been reported that the EU has prepared a list of US exports against which it could take action.

China is also preparing action, with reports that it is considering retaliation against US exports of soybeans and sorghum following the decision by the Trump administration in January to slap steep tariffs on washing machines and solar panels.

The chairman of the Japan Steel Information Centre, Tadaaki Yamaguchi, said the policy was “ill-advised and naïve.” He continued, “It will inevitably invite retaliation from America’s most reliable allies, ultimately hurting America’s non-manufacturing industries as well.”

Former International Monetary Fund economist and now Cornell University economics professor Eswar Prasad said the Trump moves “herald a declaration of open war on major trading partners and undercut the multilateral trading system.” This could lead to “a period of open and aggressive trade hostilities with some of America’s major trading partners” and undermine the rules of the WTO, which the US was instrumental in forming.

While the measures have the full backing of the steel and aluminium industries and are supported by the trade unions and sections of the Democratic party, opposition has been voiced both from within the Republican party and by industry groups that depend on cheaper imports of steel and aluminium.

The president of the National Foreign Trade Council, Rufus Yerxa, said: “These massive tariff hikes will raise costs for many crucial American industries—autos, machinery, construction, energy and many others. These are huge sectors, and the negative impact will far outweigh any benefits.”

Representatives of the car industry have warned that the tariff increases would lead to higher prices for consumers.

Roy Hardy, president of the Precision Metalforming Association, told the New York Times the tariffs would hit “the US manufacturing sector, and particularly downstream US steel and aluminium consuming companies,” and that companies using steel employ many times more Americans than the steel industry.

In his remarks to the Senate Finance Committee yesterday, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, did not comment directly, but said tariffs were “not the best approach” to handling trade problems.

Fears over the implications of the Trump administration measures were reflected on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling by 420 points—the third successive day of 300-plus point declines—along with significant falls in other indexes, wiping out virtually all of the gains of this year.

In an expression of the mounting instability in the financial system, the first two days of losses this week were sparked by fears of rising interest rates. Yesterday’s decline appears to have been sparked by other concerns. It was accompanied by a move to safety, with the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds falling as investors increased their purchases of more secure financial assets.

The way in which the tariff decision was announced expressed the extreme instability of the Trump administration, which is beset by mounting pressures from the investigations into its Russia connections. According to reports, members of the administration were in the dark about what was going to take place, and just an hour before Trump made his remarks a White House spokesman said no announcement was expected that morning.

However, any conclusion that these measures and their far-reaching implications for geo-economic and strategic relations are simply the product of a chaotic and conflicted Trump White House would be a fundamental misreading of the situation. They are the outcome of the protracted decline of the US in relation to its old rivals and new challengers, which it is now attempting to reverse by lashing out against both its perceived enemies and nominal allies with economic and ultimately military measures.

Paris Institute for Advanced Study Research Fellowships for International Researchers 2019/2020

Application Deadline: 3rd April 2018

Eligible Countries: International

To Be Taken At (Country): France

About the Award: 

1. one call for 5 or 10-month fellowships in the “Blue Sky Research” program, open to all disciplines and themes in the humanities and social sciences.
2. one call for 5 or 10-month fellowships in the “Brain, Culture and Society” program. This call is for researchers willing to conduct a project at the interface between neuroscience, cognitive science and the humanities and social sciences.

Blue Sky Research: The Paris Institute for Advanced Study welcomes applications from high level international scholars and scientists in the fields of the humanities and the social sciences for a research stay of five or ten months, during the academic year 2019-2020.
The Paris IAS will host around twenty guest researchers, allowing them to work freely on the project of their choice. The researchers will benefit from the scientific environment of the Institute and have the opportunity to create contacts with researchers in the academic institutions of Greater Paris.

Brain, Culture and Society: The Paris Institute for Advanced Study welcomes applications from high level international scholars and scientists in the fields of the humanities, social sciences, cognitive sciences, and neurosciences for a research stay of five or ten months during the academic year 2019-2020 within the framework of its “Brain, Culture and Society program”.
The selected fellows will be given the opportunity to work freely on the project of their choice, at the interface between the sciences of the brain, the humanities, and the social sciences. They will benefit from the scientific environment of the Institute and have the opportunity to create contacts with researchers in the academic institutions of Greater Paris.

Type: Research

Eligibility: Researchers from all countries are eligible.

This call for applications is open to:

• Junior scholars with or without a permanent position in a university or research institution, who have received their PhD no later than April 1st 2016. The applicants who have held their PhD for more than 9 years will be considered as senior researchers.
• Senior researchers holding a position in a university or research institution, or emeritus professors, having a minimum of 10 years of research experience after their PhD (received before April 1st 2008).

The institute is bilingual. Knowledge of English is required. The applicants are also expected to understand written and spoken French, as scientific and social activities are held in French and English.
Applicants who have spent more than a total of 12 months in France during the 3 years prior to the application (that is, between February 15th, 2015 and February 15th, 2018) are not eligible.
Selection Criteria: The main criteria of selection are:

• the scientific quality of the project and its innovative character;
• the career path of the applicant;
• the quality of the scientific contacts of the applicant in France, and the applicant’s capacity to collaborate with French scholars and research teams (organization of scientific events, participation in seminars, preparation of a joint research project for an application for international funding, etc.).

Duration of Program: Applicants may request a fellowship for one of the following periods:

• September 1^st, 2019 to January 31^st, 2020 (5 months)
• September 1^st, 2019 to June 30^th, 2020 (10 months)
• February 1^st to June 30^th, 2020 (5 months)

How to Apply: The application, in English or French, must be submitted via an online application system (see the guide “How to apply“). Mail or e-mail applications are not accepted.
The application consists of an online form with the following attached documents:

• a curriculum vitae (10 pages maximum) including a list of publications and a list of the 5 publications considered as the most important by the applicant;
• a detailed research proposal (25 000 characters maximum, spaces included, bibliography not included). The proposal should include :
  • theme
  • state of the art in the field, innovative character of the proposal
  • methodology or theoretical framework
  • expected outcomes
  • work planning, timescales
  • existing or planned scientific cooperation and contacts in France
  • bibliography (books and articles cited)
• a letter of cooperation signed by a member of a university or research institution based in France. Preference will be given to projects conducted in cooperation with the partners of the IAS (see list below). The planned collaborations may include the organization of conferences and series of lectures or the preparation of a research project to be submitted to an international funding agency (like the ERC or the EU H2020 program);
• in the case of Junior Fellows, two letters of recommendation from French or international researchers.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Paris Institute for Advanced Study

Kenya Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) Actuarial Science Scholarships for Masters Students 2018/2019 – UK

Application Deadline: 23rd March 2018

Eligible Countries: Kenya

To Be Taken At (Country): Cass Business School, United Kingdom.

Field of Study: Master of Science Degree in Actuarial.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: Eligible candidates must meet the following requirements:

• Should have obtained Bachelor of Science in Actuarial Science (First Class Honours) or an equivalent Actuarial Science qualification.
• Should have graduated not more than five years ago.
• Should have made significant progress towards becoming Associate Members of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (Minimum 5 professional papers).

Number of Awards: 8

Value of Award: The scholarships cater for tuition, travel, accommodation and any other incidental expenses.

Duration of Program: 1 year

How to Apply: 

• Applicants are advised to make a concurrent application to the CASS Business School.
• Applicants with first class honours and those who have admission letters will have an added advantage.
• Preliminary application forms are available and can be downloaded from the IRA website i.e. www.ira.go.ke – see links below to download the form.
• Completed application forms together with copies of identification, result slips/ transcripts, academic certificate, birth certificate and school leaving certificate should be sent to:

The Chief Executive Officer,
Insurance Regulatory Authority,
P.O.Box 43505,
Nairobi.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) of Kenya

Important Notes: only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and canvassing will result in automatic disqualification.