How Syrian Conflict Sparked New Cold War

Nauman Sadiq

On March 4, Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent working for the British foreign intelligence service, and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench outside a shopping center in Salisbury. A week later, another Russian exile Nikolai Glushkov was found dead in his London home and police has launched a murder investigation into his death.

Skripal was recruited by the British MI6 in 1995, and before his arrest in Russia in December 2004, he was alleged to have blown the cover of scores of Russian secret agents. He was released in a spy swap deal in 2010 and was allowed to settle in Salisbury.

Theresa May’s government has concluded that Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a Moscow-made, military-grade nerve agent, Novichok, and has recently expelled 23 Russian diplomats. In a tit-for-tat move, Kremlin has also expelled a similar number of British diplomats.

Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump have assured their full support to Theresa May and the relations between Kremlin and Western powers have reached their lowest ebb since the break-up of Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in December 1991.

Although Kremlin might appear as an aggressor in these instances, in order to understand the real casus belli of the new Cold War between Russia and the Western powers, we must recall another momentous event that took place in Deir al-Zor province of Syria last month.

On February 7, the US B-52 bombers and Apache helicopters struck a contingent of Syrian government troops and allied forces in Deir al-Zor that reportedly killed and wounded scores of Russian military contractors working for the Russian private security firm, the Wagner group.

The survivors described the bombing as an absolute “massacre” and Kremlin lost more Russian citizens in one day than it had lost throughout its more than two-year-long military campaign in support of the Syrian government since September 2015.

The reason why Washington struck Russian contractors working in Syria was that the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – which is mainly comprised of Kurdish YPG militias – had reportedly handed over the control of some areas east of Euphrates River to Deir al-Zor Military Council (DMC), which is the Arab-led component of SDF, and had relocated several battalions of Kurdish YPG militias to Afrin and along Syria’s northern border with Turkey in order to defend the Kurdish-held areas against the onslaught of Turkish armed forces and allied Free Syria Army (FSA) militias in their “Operation Olive Branch” in Syria’s northwest.

Syrian forces with the backing of Russian contractors took advantage of the opportunity and crossed the Euphrates River to capture an oil refinery located east of Euphrates River in the Kurdish-held area of Deir al-Zor.

The US Air Force responded with full force knowing well the ragtag Arab component of SDF – mainly comprised of local Arab tribesmen and mercenaries to make the Kurdish-led SDF appear more representative and inclusive – was simply not a match for the superior training and arms of Syrian troops and Russian military contractors. Consequently, causing a carnage in which scores of Russian citizens lost their lives, an incident which became a trigger for the beginning of a new Cold War as is obvious from the subsequent events.

Regarding the conflict in Syria, General Joseph Votel, the head of US Central Command, recently accused Russia of playing as both “arsonist and firefighter.” This projection is farthest from truth because in fact it was Washington which kindled the fires of militancy in Syria and now it appears desperate to douse those fires.

First, Washington nurtured militants against the Syrian government for the first three years of Syria’s proxy war from 2011 to 2014, and then it declared a war against one faction of the militants, the Islamic State, when the latter transgressed its mandate in Syria and dared to occupy Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in early 2014.

Since the beginning of Syria’s proxy war in August 2011 to early 2014 when the Islamic State overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq, an informal pact existed between the Western powers, their regional Middle Eastern allies and the Syrian militants against the Iranian resistance axis comprising Iran, Syria and their Lebanon-based surrogate, Hezbollah. In accordance with the pact, Syrian militants were trained and armed in the training camps located in the border regions of Turkey and Jordan to battle the Syrian government.

This arrangement of an informal pact between the Western powers and the Syrian militants against the Iranian resistance axis worked well up to August 2014, when the Obama administration made a volte-face on its previous regime change policy in Syria and began conducting air strikes against one group of militants battling the Syrian government, the Islamic State, after the latter overstepped its mandate in Syria and overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq from where the US had withdrawn its troops only a couple of years ago in December 2011.

After this reversal of policy in Syria by the Western powers and subsequent Russian military intervention on the side of the Syrian government in September 2015, the momentum of Sunni jihadists’ expansion in Syria and Iraq stalled, and they felt that their Western patrons had committed a treachery against the Sunni jihadists’ cause.

If we look at the chain of events, the timing of the spate of terror attacks in Europe during the last three years was critical: the Islamic State overran Mosul in June 2014, the Obama administration began conducting air strikes against the Islamic State’s targets in Iraq and Syria in August 2014, and after a lull of almost a decade since the Madrid and London bombings in 2004 and 2005, respectively, the first such incident of terrorism took place in Europe at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, and then the Islamic State carried out the audacious November 2015 Paris attacks, the March 2016 Brussels bombings, the June 2016 truck-ramming incident in Nice, and last year, three horrific terror attacks took place in the United Kingdom within a span of less than three months, and after that the Islamic State carried out the Barcelona attack in August last year.

Fully aware of their complicity and the role of “arsonists and firefighters” they had played in Syria’s proxy war, if the Western powers can overlook the blowback of their ill-fated Syria policy in the form of spate of Islamic State-inspired atrocities in Europe during the last three years, then heavens won’t fall if they could show a similar level of understanding regarding the recent assassination attempts on the Russian exiles in the United Kingdom and avert a new Cold War with Russia.

Arab Exodus Again And The Global Wickedness

Mahboob A. Khawaja

Is the UN-Global Community working to Protect the Civilians in War Zones?

Increasingly frightening trend of crimes against humanity committed in the Syrian war signal a major shift in prevalent Western world’s tendency to becalmed and bewildered without any action. After the cold blooded massacres of civilians at Aleppo, the cruelty is being repeated on helpless mankind in Eastern Ghouta. The Western peace activism has lost sense of reality to merely self-interest lacking moral and political character to defend the precepts of humanitarian intervention and international law. In complete disregard to the UN Security Council Resolution for ceasefire, the continuous Syrian and Russian bombardment is an open challenge to the global humanity. Thousands of civilians were supposed to be protected by the UNO and the global community butare now asked to move out while the warfare is in full swing against the victimized population. From nowhere to nowhere-where will the victims find protection under continuous bombardment? Has the global humane conscience come to its own abstract end?  All the so called moral and political intents to safeguard the people and references to UN “concerns”, “critical situation” and claim of “war crimes against the humanity” in Syria are vague and wicked expressions of escape from the reality and sheer inhumanity when thousands and thousands are daily massacred by the chemical warfare and aerial bombardments. Were the global powers, more so, the Western nations claiming to be more of humanitarian impulse not supposed to protect the civilians in a war zone as the situation warranted action across Syria?  Is there an international community alive and intact to ensure the principles and humanitarian values of a civilized global community? One cannot find a rational answer based on the facts except a flimsy fantasy image floating on the media screen.

“Hell on Earth” and the Global Humanity

Educated humanists and moderate generalists often talk of diplomacy and continuous UN engagements to stop the bloodbath in Syria. There were seven so called UN sponsors meetings, not one of them turned out to be practical in any rational terms except a time killing exercise. The clarity of purpose is undoubtedly clear but means are not there to change the fantasies into reality on the ground.  When the Secretary General described the Ghouta crisis as “Hell on Earth”, the UN Security Council adopted the resolution for ceasefire and 30 days halt of war and provisions of humanitarian aid in Eastern Ghouta but nobody cared for its declaration. So may empty statements and intents go unnoticed and ignored by the Russian and Syrian collaborating with Iran in the conflict. The warriors plans are working – deliberate bombing and massacres are happening but the UNO fake paper-based resolution are continuously ignored and given disputed interpretation for implementation. The UNSC members expressed horrors and fear of crimes against humanity but could do nothing to change the safeguard the victims. Many echoed the voices of reason as did the delegate from Kuwait- Chair of the Security Council:

“If we fail to react, the worst is yet to come,” he said.  “We owe this to the civilians who were dying by the hundreds in eastern Ghouta.”  Moreover, prompt action would also “ensure that this Syrian tragedy does not become the grave of the United Nations”, he added, cautioning that everything must be done to avoid a humanitarian crisis that flouted every principle the Organization stood for.”

A snapshot of the inhuman horrors committed against the civilian population only remind us of the horrors of the 2nd World War and millions of civilian population forcibly displaced during the Palestine crisis in 1948 and the creation of the State of Israel. Did the international community learn any lessons from the formidable record of history? Was the UN diplomacy not entwined with much needed humanitarian action to protect the masses in Eastern Ghouta? Was the UNO not supposed to take preventive measures in a timely and responsible manner to ensure safety and protection of the civilian population in Syria?

Dictators never listen to voices of reason and logic. The absolute power makes the Assad regime a pathological liar killing the people. The entrenched Syrians called upon the global community as if it existed in reality to protect them from barbarity of the Assad regime and Russian collaborated attacks. Some besieged children and women echoed voices on Twitter and Facebook appealing to President Trump to save their lives. They were too innocent to know the political nature and psychology of reality of the war – America and Russian are coordinating the war in Syria for their own interests and futuristic weapons sales. The human destruction and bombed habitats are not part of their sense of humanity. They are too busy in their malicious affairs and have no time to think of the beleaguered humanity in Eastern Ghouta. Plus, it does not affect the market indicators – let it be a business as usual for the global media and entertainment- after all these are Arabs killing each other. The EuroNews (21/02/2018),says that “situation is Eastern Ghouta cannot be descried with words.”  The neighboring Arab leaders of all sorts had no imagination or humanitarian concerns to speak on the horrors and killings of people in Ghouta. Obviously, they could be happy that their own citizens are not revolting against the authoritarianism and are occupied in thoughts and prayers for the people of Eastern Ghouta.  Noticed that none of the Syrian civilians called upon the Arab leaders to rescue them because they know the inept leadersare indifferent toward fellow Arabs in pains and besieged.

The Alleged Russian Poisoning of Agents in UK but No action against Russia on Chemical Warfare in Syria

Comparative surprise hits human consciousness as how the European and American leaders expressed outrage at the alleged Russian involvement in poisoning its former agent in UK. Ironically, for long the UN and other international agencies have been alleging the use of chemical warfare in many parts of Syria. The evidence-based photos and videos demonstrate how the Assad regime and Russian have blasted the civilians with chlorine gas, cluster bombs and other prohibited bombing substance across the Syrian war theatre.The bogus calls of “crimes against humanity” were loud and clear at times but no actions were taken to stop this cruelty against the masses. The NATO Secretary General made it clear that it was a chemical attack in substance on UK soil, first of its kind after the 2nd WW. If the chemical warfare was supposedly banned according to the Geneva Conventions and outlawed, how come the European leaders showed no reaction to the savagery of chemical attacks on the civilian population in Syria? Did the Syrian victims not deserve the same force of moral and political condemnation and action against the aggressors? Are there different sets of human standards and rules of the geo-political games, one exclusively for the Europeans and another one for the besieged non-white Syrians? Were the Syrian civilians less human than the recent ex-Soviet spy targeted in UK to prompt a rational response?

A spokesperson of Save the Children – Syria Relief NGO described the gravity of the situation.

“Honestly the situation is really, really, really, awful. It can’t even be described with words,”

The world is changing as it should be but for worst not for the good of common global mankind. Throughout the globe, the mainstream of humanity feels denied recognition as equal in rights and dignity, the Declaration of Human Rights and the UNO Charter and all that could be imagined as part of the “civilized world” appears fake, treacherously irrelevant and out of line with the humane world of the 21st century. Simply put, ‘words” cannot describe the inhumanity of man against man. Was Robert Burn more intelligent to clarify the human wickedness (“From Man was made to Mourn: A Dirge, 1785):

‘Many and sharp the num’rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And Man, whose heav’n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, –
Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!

Who Wants To Kill Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah?

Ramzy Baroud

On March 13, while on his way to the besieged Gaza Strip, two 33-pounds bombs targeted the convoy of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Rami Hamdallah.

Hamdallah was visiting Gaza, through the Israeli border checkpoint, Erez, to open a large sewage treatment plant that, if allowed to operate regularly, will make life easier for hundreds of thousands of Gazans, who have endured a perpetual Israeli siege since 2006.

The Prime Minister’s visit was also seen as another important step in the reconciliation efforts between the two main Palestinian factions, Fatah – led by PA President, Mahmoud Abbas, in the Occupied West Bank – and Hamas, led by former Prime Minister, Ismael Haniyeh, in Gaza.

Although reconciliation efforts have, for years, been half-hearted at best, the latest round of talks between both groups led to a breakthrough in Cairo last October. This time, Palestinians were told that the two factions are keen on establishing unity, ending the siege on Gaza and revamping the largely dormant Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) institutions.

Hamas and the Islamic Jihad were to join the PLO at some point in the future, leading to the formulation of a unified Palestinian political program.

And, perhaps, this keenness at ending the rift has led to the attempt on Hamdallah’s life.

But who is Rami Hamdallah?

Hamdallah, 60, was chosen by Abbas to serve in the current post in June 2013, despite the fact that he was not a member of Fatah. He took over from Salaam Fayyad who served for six years, focusing mostly on state-building in a region that is still militarily occupied by a foreign power.

Hamdallah, though not a particularity controversial figure, has been a follower of Abbas and committed to his agenda. He is a political moderate by Palestinian standards, and it was through his strong ties with powerful Fatah figures like Tayeb Abdul Rahim and Tawfik Tirawi – who served under late PA leader, Yasser Arafat, and Abbas respectively – that allowed him to claim the post and keep it for nearly five years.

Last October, Hamdallah led a delegation of Fatah PA officials to Gaza to “end the painful impacts of divisions and to rebuild Gaza brick by brick.”

Since Israel destroyed much of Gaza’s infrastructure and thousands of homes in the summer of 2014, Gaza – already reeling under a hermetic siege and the impact of previous wars – has been in ruins. Hamdallah’s visit rekindled hope among Gazans, and all Palestinians, that respite is on the way.

Hamas’ insistent attempts to break from its isolation seemed to be finally bearing fruit.

Abbas’ party, too, moved forward with the unity arrangements, although for its own reasons. Fatah has been dysfunctional for years, and the imminent exit of Abbas, 83, has opened up intense rivalry among those who want to succeed the aging leader.

Supporters of Mohammed Dahlan, who was shunned by Abbas years ago and is currently based abroad, would like to see him back in a position of power.

The United States and Israel are following these developments closely. They, too, have favorites and are vested in the future of Fatah to sustain the current status quo as long as possible.

Those who want Hamdallah dead are likely not targeting the Prime Minister for his own ideas or policies per se, but for what he represents, as the moderate leader capable of achieving a long term understanding with Hamas.

Killing Hamdallah also means ending or, at least, obstructing the unity efforts, discrediting Hamas, and denying Abbas and his leadership the necessary political capital to secure his legacy.

Hamas’ main enemy in Gaza are the Salafi Jihadist groups who are unhappy with Hamas’ politics and what they see as a too moderate style of Islamic governance.

Of course, there are those in Fatah, including Abbas’ own office, who accused Hamas of trying to kill Hamdallah. Hamas did more than deny the accusations, but, within one day of the apparent assassination attempt, announced that it had apprehended suspects behind the explosion.

It would make no sense for Hamas to kill Hamdallah. The group has worked tirelessly to engage the PA, as life in Gaza has become truly unlivable.  Their leadership and reputation has suffered as a result of the failed efforts to end the siege.

Moreover, as Amira Hass noted, Hamas “could not have any interest in attacking senior Palestinian Authority officials on their way to inaugurate a sewage treatment plant that residents of the Gaza Strip have long awaited.”

Hamas, in turn, accused the Israel intelligence of the assassination attempt. The group’s spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, claimed that “same hands” that gunned down MazenFakha in March 2017 and Tawfiq Abu Naim in October are behind the attempt on Hamdallah’s life. He was referring to Israel, of course.

The timing of the bombing of Hamdallah’s convoy was quite interesting as well, as it came barely a few hours after a meeting at the White House regarding Gaza. The meeting, chaired by leading pro-Israel officials in Washington, including Jared Kushner, was dubbed as a “brainstorming session” on how to solve the Gaza crisis.

“The Palestinian Authority, furious over the Trump administration’s actions in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving its embassy there from Tel Aviv, and cutting aid for Palestinian refugees, refused to attend,” reported the New York Times.

One, however, should not undermine the seriousness of the remaining disagreements between Hamas and Fatah.

Perhaps the main point of conflict is over Hamas’ fighting force. Hamas refuses to compromise on the issue of armed resistance, and Abbas insists on the dismantling of Hamas’ armed group, Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

But these disagreements are hardly strong enough reason to kill Hamdallah, the last hope for an end to the rift and easing the blockade on Gaza.

Although Hamdallah survived, the bombing achieved some of its objectives. A senior PA official told AFP that “Abbas decided no members of Hamdallah’s government would travel to Gaza in the short term ‘due to the security problems.’”

While this might not be the end of reconciliation, it could possibly be the beginning of the end.

Australian women join legal actions over pelvic implants

Michelle Stevens

In an Australian court class action, lawyers representing more than 700 women are suing pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary, Ethicon, over allegedly defective implants.

The law firm involved, Shine Lawyers, estimates that some 8,000 women have been negatively impacted by devices surgically implanted to repair pelvic floor damage that causes prolapse and urinary incontinence, two common results of childbirth.

In a Shine Lawyers statement, special counsel Rebecca Jancauskas explained: “The complications that Australian women are suffering include the mesh or tape eroding through, and into, surrounding tissue and organs, as well as incontinence, infection and chronic pain. Australian women have had their lives changed forever by these products. Many now live in excruciating pain, suffering terrible side effects that impact all aspects of their lives.”

Media reports of the court submissions over the past seven months have indicated allegations against the pharmaceutical giant that, if proven correct, will reveal a profit-driven disregard for the health and wellbeing of the women.

Barrister Tony Bannon SC told the Federal Court there was a “tidal wave” of aggressive marketing and promotion to surgeons insisting that the devices were a cheap, easy alternative to treating pelvic prolapse. Bannon alleged that the risks of surgery were either minimised, or not communicated to either the surgeon or patient. He said Johnson & Johnson saw a “valuable market” to be gained.

Duncan Graham SC told the court the devices were not properly tested before they were approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and placed on the Australian market in 2005. He said no randomised controlled trials were conducted. “It was sell first, test later,” Graham said. “The women who had them implanted were part of an experiment, they were guinea pigs.”

Western Sydney University professor of gynaecology and obstetrics Andrew Korda testified: “These patients had such alarming problems and poor quality of life that I felt like I could not inflict these problems on any patients that came to me for treatment for prolapse.” Korda said the available literature did not reflect or explain the risks. “In my view it does not reflect the devastation [of] some of the complications of mesh surgery.”

Internal documents from Ethicon were submitted as evidence that it knew the devices lacked proper clinical trials and that the risks were known. According to one email, French doctor Bernard Jacquetin, who was running a clinical trial for the manufacturer, said he would “not like my wife to undergo this procedure” and did not think he would be “alone” in that view.

The court heard that in 2007, two years after the devices had been on the Australian market, the French health authority, Haute Autorité de Santé, was preparing to release a report on the mesh devices. It found that a randomised controlled trial was needed, concluding that until this was completed the implants should be used only in clinical research.

An Ethicon document allegedly says it needed to “stop the publication of the report” as it “could have a major impact on our business if made public.”

In 2008, the US Food and Drug Administration issued an urgent public health notification to physicians and patients regarding serious complications associated with transvaginal placement of surgical mesh in repair of pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence.

Evidence was also provided to the court that a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011, supportive of the product, was corrected two years later. That was after it emerged that the study failed to disclose that Ethicon had sponsored the study and edited the draft before its publication.

There are multiple variations of implant devices, including meshes, slings and tapes, available internationally from different manufactures.

Months after the class action trial commenced last July, the TGA finally decided to remove many transvaginal mesh products from the Australian Therapeutic Goods Register. It cited a “lack of adequate scientific evidence” for it to be satisfied that the benefits to patients outweighed the risks.

The TGA gave all manufacturers a deadline of January 17 to update the “instructions of use” on transvaginal mesh and tape products to include information about possible adverse effects, such as chronic pain and bleeding.

After failing to meet the deadline, Johnson & Johnson withdrew its supply of the devices, but some remain on the Therapeutic Goods Register. Devices supplied before January 17 can still be used “at the discretion of the medical practitioner and the individual patient,” a TGA spokesperson told the media.

A Senate inquiry into transvaginal meshes, initiated last year, has been delayed after receiving hundreds of submissions from women detailing catastrophic experiences. The inquiry’s report is expected later this year.

Similar legal action has been undertaken worldwide against manufacturers, including Boston Scientific, American Medical System, Coloplast Corp, Cook Medical, Neomedic, C.R. Bard and Endo International, as well as Johnson & Johnson.

Lawsuits have been filed for more than 100,000 American women who were implanted with the devices. In the UK lawyers representing more than 800 women have commenced proceedings against manufacturers and the National Health Service. Litigation is in progress or expected to be filed in Canada, Israel, Italy, Venezuela, Belgium and the Netherlands.

In the US, juries have ordered millions of dollars in punitive damages. Some verdicts said manufacturers showed egregious misconduct, others found a company acted with malice or fraudulently misled patients. Another concluded that a manufacturer defectively designed and negligently manufactured the devices.

Boston Scientific allegedly has $945 million set aside to handle lawsuit settlement costs, while Endo International announced recently it had reserved $1.6 billion to settle without trial.

The Australian class action trial is expected to run until September.

French President Macron signs basing deals in India

Athiyan Silva

French President Emmanuel Macron’s four-day visit to India last week highlighted the growing military build-up and drive towards war taking place internationally. Even as French officials and media called for war in Syria and backed Britain’s calls for suspending diplomatic relations with Russia after the unclarified poisoning of British spy Sergei Skripal, Macron was drawing France and Europe into the maelstrom in Asia.

For India’s Hindu-supremacist prime minister, Narendra Modi, Macron’s visit was part of a broader strategy of reinforcing its military power in the strategically and commercially vital Indian Ocean area and pursuing an escalating rivalry with China stoked by Washington.

During the visit, Modi and Macron signed 14 agreements worth $16 billion (€13 billion), focusing on military and nuclear energy deals. France is to sell conventional Scorpène-class submarines and nuclear-weapon-capable Rafale fighter jets to India.

Above all, the two agreed on a “Joint Strategic Vision of India-France Cooperation in the Indian Ocean region” that includes a so-called Reciprocal Logistics Support Agreement. Under such agreements, France and India will open their army or naval bases to each other’s militaries. Not only will Indian warships be allowed to dock in ports located in France’s numerous overseas territories in the Indian Ocean, but France will also have the option of stationing warships and troops in Indian military bases.

Workers and youth in France threatened by Macron’s calls to bring back the draft should be warned: these deals point to the vast financial and military interests underlying Macron’s calls for a major military build-up and a return to universal military service in France. The attempts to trivialize Macron’s plans notwithstanding, this plan does not aim to encourage youth to do community service. Rather, France is preparing to recruit the necessary forces to participate in large-scale conflict across the world between major, nuclear armed powers.

In Delhi, Macron made clear that France saw its escalating military involvement in the region as aimed to influence growing tensions and rivalries between the major powers. He declared, “A strong part of our security and the world’s stability is at stake in the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean, like the Pacific Ocean, cannot become a place of hegemony.”

India and France pledged to intensify the pre-existing naval cooperation between the two countries under which they already hold yearly “Varuna” joint naval exercises. The “Strategic Vision” document pledged to “increase exchange of information on the maritime situation in the Indian Ocean” and to work on “co-developing a maritime surveillance satellite system focused on the Indian Ocean.” This would allow continual monitoring and updating on ship movements, in particular those of Chinese warships in the region.

The unmistakable implication of this is to escalate French and European involvement in the growing great-power conflicts in Asia, as Washington tries to develop India as a counterweight to China. In recent months, India and China—both major nuclear-armed states—have threatened each other with military force in the dispute over the Doklam plateau on the China-India border in the Himalayas, and also over the crisis in the Maldives. French troops located in India could soon be parties to a conflict over these areas, should it break out.

While it plays a minor role in the Indian Ocean compared with the US military and major regional powers like China or India, the basing agreement French imperialism is offering gives Modi access to substantial facilities.

France has bases at Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, at Réunion island near Madagascar, in the United Arab Emirates, and in Mayotte off Mozambique in the Western Indian ocean. It also has bases in French Polynesia and New Caledonia in the South Pacific. France and India are preparing to build a military base in the Seychelles. France has deployed more than 7,000 permanent ground troops in the region.

Macron’s visit underscores that it is not only US imperialism, but all the imperialist and regional powers that are participating in an escalating drive of world capitalism towards war. Macron is attempting to build a European military alliance with Germany and has pledged to spend €300 billion on the army by 2024. His moves at home to slash jobs and social programs and dismantle the Labor Code are aimed at forcing the working class to bear the costs of European military escalation abroad.

At last month’s Munich security conference, where German and French officials laid out these plans, they stressed that ties to the so-called “Asian Quad” (America, India, Japan, and Australia) could advance their interests amid the rising economic weight of Asia in the world. Macron’s visit to India is part of a broad military escalation by France, involving it more closely in preparations of the “Asian Quad” countries for military confrontation—and potentially war—with China.

According to Defense Minister Florence Parly, since 2017 France has been negotiating with Japan agreements on stepped-up technical and operational military cooperation, as well as joint military exercises. The main target is China. Last January, Parly pledged France would “continue to deploy naval vessels in the Indo-Pacific region for freedom of navigation operations,” that is, for US-led military incursions into the South China Sea to monitor and harass Chinese forces there.

Similarly, in India such reactionary agreements will do nothing except raise the danger of war and intensify the exploitation of India’s large and impoverished working class. The celebration of the signing of multi-billion-dollar contracts between Modi and Macron was obscene, under conditions where hundreds of millions of Indians live in grinding poverty.

India’s ruling elites are spending more than €8 billion Euros to buy 36 French Rafale fighter jets, while more than 70 percent of the Indian population lives in poverty and a large proportion of them on $2 per day or less. These deals will only compound the difficulties facing millions of Indian workers trying to earn a livelihood, while bringing the world closer to another catastrophic conflict.

Modi’s Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) has divided the country along ethnic, religious and caste lines to carry out this reactionary program.

It also carried out pogroms against minority Muslims and is notorious for demolishing mosques. In December 1992, the BJP and other Hindu supremacists demolished the nearly 500-year-old Babur Mosque. And in 2002, thousands of Muslims died in riots in Gujarat, which forced 140,000 to 200,000 Muslims to flee to other states as refugees, while Modi was premier of the BJP state government in Gujarat. Modi is tainted by this crime, and indeed before he came to power he was banned from traveling to America due to his role in the riots.

In an indication of his own utterly reactionary politics, Macron went out of his way to whitewash the role of Modi and the BJP.

During his visit, Macron met with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (BJP) at Benares. The place is known as the focal place of Hindu supremacism and a political base for Hindu monk Yogi Adityanath, a founder of the Hindu Yuva Vahibi, a youth militia which carries out violence against India’s Muslim minority. Adityanath has been accused of attempted murder, intimidation and instigating riots. He was arrested In January 2007 on charges of criminal activities and rioting. He spent 10 days behind bars, and a murder case is still pending against him.

Facebook and Sri Lankan government collaborate on social media censorship

Pradeep Ramanayake

While Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena last Thursday officially removed its bans placed on Facebook on March 7, his government is working closely with the giant corporation to restrict access to the social media platform.

In a tweet message Sirisena noted that his secretary, Austin Fernando, discussed “with officials of Facebook, who have agreed that its platform will not be used for spreading hate speech and inciting violence [in Sri Lanka].”

The government imposed the ban on Facebook, and other social media outlets, including Viber and WhatsApp, as part of its national state of emergency on March 6. The draconian measure was in response to anti-Muslim violence unleashed by Sinhala-Buddhist extremist groups in some areas of central Kandy district.

The government claimed that social media was used to whip up “communal sentiments” and violence. Sirisena lifted the state of emergency on March 17 following international criticism and from within Sri Lanka.

Facebook officials met with Austin Fernando in Colombo on March 14. Fernando is the chairman of Sri Lanka’s Telecom Regulatory Commission (TRC), which is also the country’s Internet and social media monitoring authority and comes under President Sirisena’s remit.

No details have been released about the discussions with Facebook but the social media giant declared in an email to the TRC last week that it was ready to assist, and had “clear rules against hate speech and incitement to violence and works hard to keep it off our platform.”

One paragraph of the Presidential Media Division statement on lifting the ban said: “Anyone propagating hate speech on Facebook is liable under Sri Lanka Law and prompt action will be taken as per Facebook’s community standards.” The Sunday Times reported on March 19 that Facebook officials collaborated in the drafting of this statement.

Fernando told the same newspaper that the government would introduce new laws on social media. “We have to do some regulating and have discussed this also with our friends in Facebook. We have to put it into legal form.”

Justifying the government ban on social media, Sirisena declared last week: “If we had not taken such a step the situation would have been aggravated.” Addressing a meeting of Sri Lankans in Japan, he said, “If something is detrimental to the society we will have to contain its effects despite it being useful in some other way. A new program will be introduced to the country on using social media.”

Sirisena’s claim that social media was the cause of the anti-Muslim violence is bogus. This month’s communalist attacks were unleashed by organised fascistic formations with the tacit backing of sections of the Sri Lankan security apparatus. These groups have been encouraged and nurtured by Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, as well as the opposition parliamentarians led by former President Mahinda Rajapakse.

The ultra-right Buddhists are long-standing political tools of the Sri Lanka ruling elite and are used to provoke communal tensions and clashes in order to divide and divert opposition and hostility to capitalist rule.

The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government confronts a mounting series of struggles by workers, the rural poor and students opposing its International Monetary Fund-dictated austerity measures. The government is also in political disarray as coalition partners blame each other for defeats in recent local government elections.

Last Wednesday, Wickremesinghe told a meeting in Colombo that the government would introduce new social media censorship laws within weeks. “Defence authorities,” he said, “advised the cabinet to take some steps to control social media as it made the situation in Kandy worse.”

Referencing measures introduced in the UK, Germany and other countries, he added: “I have also advised the ministry of foreign affairs to look at how the other countries in our region are working on controlling social media.”

The former Rajapakse government and the current Sirisena-Wickremesinghe coalition have both targeted social media and other web sites. Last November, TRC blocked lankaenews.com, a generally pro-government publication that supports Wickremesinghe’s United National Party. The site was censored because it began criticising Sirisena.

In Sri Lanka there are six million social media users—i.e., almost 30 percent of the country’s total population. The government’s real fear is that social media will be used to unite workers and youth in political struggles against the ruling elites and the capitalist profit system. Confronted with mass opposition, Internet censorship is part of the expanding use of police-state methods—states of emergency, essential services orders and military and police violence—to suppress all opposition.

Curbing “hate speech” and “fake news” are terms used by governments and authorities internationally to justify the censorship of social media and suppress free expression over the net.

Giant corporations, such as Google and Facebook, are now directly collaborating with the US government to censor the Internet and social media. Last year Google began limiting and blocking access to the World Socialist Web Site and at least 12 other anti-war and progressive web sites. Facebook is also censoring revolutionary, socialist and progressive commentaries.

Trump demands death penalty for drug dealers as answer to opioid overdose crisis

Niles Niemuth

Speaking at an event in Manchester, New Hampshire Monday, President Donald Trump announced his administration’s law-and-order initiative in response to the US overdose epidemic, the centerpiece of which is his push for the death penalty for convicted drug dealers.

The reactionary proposal opens the gruesome prospect of thousands of Americans being marched to the nation’s death chambers, as many addicts often sell drugs in order to fund their habit or out of desperate need for money.

More than 64,000 people nationwide died of a drug overdose in 2016, triple the number in 1999 and higher than the number of deaths at the peak of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Reports indicate that the numbers will be even higher for 2017 and 2018. At least 65 percent of overdoses involve an opioid.

The introduction of fentanyl and other more powerful synthetic opioids into the drug supply in recent years has pushed overdoses and deaths through the roof in most states. The CDC reports that emergency room visits for opioid overdoses increased 30 percent between July and September last year.

“We can have all the blue-ribbon committees we want, but if we don’t get tough on the drug dealers we are wasting our time and that toughness includes the death penalty,” Trump declared. “Toughness is the thing that they most fear.”

However, Andrew Bremberg, of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, contradicted the president’s fulminations, telling reporters last week that the Trump administration would seek the death penalty for large-scale drug traffickers, rather than drug dealers.

This was reiterated by an official White House fact sheet released on Monday, which announced that the “[Department of Justice] will seek the death penalty against drug traffickers when it’s appropriate under current law.” That would limit the death penalty to drug-related homicides that already carry a possible death sentence.

According to the fact sheet, the administration is also seeking legislation from Congress which would lower the threshold for mandatory minimum sentences for the possession of opioids that are lethal in small amounts, such as fentanyl.

The Death Penalty Information Center notes that US law currently allows for the death penalty in drug-related cases only in limited instances where drug use or distribution can be related to a murder. Otherwise there are no provisions which allow for prosecutors to seek the death penalty merely for distribution or trafficking.

While the president paid lip service to the giving addicts access to treatment options and public health initiatives during his remarks Monday—including praise for companies which have donated small supplies of drugs like Narcan, which can quickly reverse an opioid overdose—Trump presented the problem as a law enforcement issue.

He claimed that individual drug dealers are responsible for “thousands” of deaths and should not be allowed to serve limited prison sentences if they are convicted, but rather should face the prospect of life in prison or execution.

Trump blamed the ongoing crisis on America’s supposedly lax drug laws, contrasting this situation to countries that have “zero tolerance” policies which provide for the death penalty for dealers and traffickers. While he didn’t mention him by name Monday, Trump has previously lauded Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who has directed the police and vigilantes to murder alleged drug dealers and addicts.

Not surprisingly the president took the time to praise the police and federal immigration agents who are carrying out his administration’s crackdown on immigrants, to promote the construction a border wall along the US-Mexico border, and to blame the drug crisis on so-called sanctuary cities as well as Mexico and China. Trump declared that it was necessary to “build the wall to keep the damn drugs out!”

New Hampshire was picked for Trump’s address because it is one of the states hardest hit by the opioid crisis, with an overdose death rate which is nearly double the national figure, having risen more than 340 percent over the last decade. The president repeated remarks he had made earlier this month at a rally in Pennsylvania, a state which has also been ravaged by the opioid crisis.

The highest death rate from opioid overdoses has been concentrated in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and New England: West Virginia, New Hampshire, Ohio, District of Columbia, Massachusetts and Maryland. The largest increases in opioid overdose deaths between 2006 and 2016 were seen in Ohio and Pennsylvania, rising more than 400 percent. These two states were key to Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Drug overdose has quickly become the leading cause of death for Americans under 50 years old. So many people have died in the overdose epidemic that US life expectancy fell in 2015 and 2016, a decline unprecedented in modern history.

Last year Trump declared the epidemic a “public health emergency,” a public relations maneuver which did not provide any new federal funding to the crisis, instead redirecting money from other federal programs.

The federal government distributed just $1 billion to states in 2017 to assist in efforts to confront the crisis, and Congress recently approved another $2 billion in funding over two years. This pales in comparison to the $32 billion in federal funds for HIV/AIDS research and prevention last year. Only a public health effort on that scale could make serious inroads into the opioid crisis.

At the same time, federal and state agencies have turned a blind eye as pharmaceutical companies flooded communities across America with cheap and easy to obtain prescription opioids, while cracking down on small time distributors and imprisoning a growing number of addicts who often find limited treatment options in prison.

Trump’s pick to head the Office of National Drug Policy (the “drug czar”), Representative Tom Marino, was forced to withdraw last year when it was revealed that he played a key role in limiting the ability of the Drug Enforcement Administration to block the pharmaceutical industry’s flooding of low income rural areas with prescription opioids.

Threat of US attack on Syria grows amid fall of “rebel” stronghold

Bill Van Auken

The Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad is reportedly taking measures to prepare for a US military strike against the capital of Damascus.

Washington has escalated its threats of a direct military attack as the Syrian army, backed by Russian air power, has made decisive advances in its siege of the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta, one of the last strongholds of the Western-backed Islamist “rebels.”

In the past few days, tens of thousands of civilians have streamed out of the enclave, which has been controlled by the successor to the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate, the Al Nusra Front, and its allies. Syrian government forces have recovered 80 percent of the area, dividing what remains into three isolated pockets, each of which is surrounded.

The imminent fall of eastern Ghouta is unfolding parallel to the overrunning of the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northwestern Syria by the Turkish army and its proxy ground troops, the so-called Free Syrian Army, which is made up in large part of ISIS and Al Nusra Front fighters. The Turkish victory has sent some quarter of a million people fleeing for their lives.

The fall of eastern Ghouta to the Assad government represents a milestone in the failure of the Western-backed and CIA-orchestrated war for regime change initiated by the US and its allies in Syria seven years ago, utilizing Al Qaeda-linked militias as their proxy ground forces. The “rebel”-held territory has been utilized to launch mortar and rocket attacks on the Syrian capital, as well as to organize car bombings and other acts of terrorism.

With the retaking of the area by the government, Washington fears a loss of leverage in its attempt to salvage its regime-change operation by pressuring for the ouster of Assad as part of an internationally brokered political settlement of the Syrian conflict.

This is what lies behind the renewed campaign over unsubstantiated allegations of Syrian government forces using chlorine gas bombs in their attack on eastern Ghouta. While Damascus, which carried out the complete destruction of its chemical weapons stockpiles under international supervision, has denied any such attack, leading figures in the Trump administration have issued direct threats of American military retaliation, directed not only against Syria, but its principal military allies, Russia and Iran, as well.

Thus, last Thursday, President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor, Gen. H. R. McMaster, delivered a speech at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., insisting, “All civilized nations must hold Iran and Russia accountable for their role in enabling atrocities and perpetuating human suffering in Syria.” McMaster added, “Assad should not have impunity for his crimes, and neither should his sponsors.”

Similarly, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, issued a warning last week to “the outlaw Syrian regime,” that Washington “remains prepared to act if we must.” Referring to last year’s US cruise missile attack on a Syrian airfield, she added: “It is not a path we prefer. But it is a path we have demonstrated we will take, and we are prepared to take again.”

The hypocrisy of the American charges and humanitarian pretensions is shameless, given the massive civilian casualties inflicted by the US military’s sieges of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, where relentless air strikes and artillery bombardments inflicted tens of thousands of civilian casualties and reduced entire cities to rubble.

And, while condemning and threatening military action against the Syrian government and its allies, Washington’s reaction to the atrocities carried out in Afrin by Turkey—which like the US has sent troops into Syria illegally, without the permission of the country’s government or any international authorization—has been decidedly muted, with the State Department merely issuing statements of “serious concern.”

The sentiment within sections of the US military and intelligence apparatus for an escalation of the intervention against the Assad government—and its ally Russia—found expression in a column published Monday by the Washington Post headlined, “Will Trump try to stop Assad’s chemical weapons use?”

Written by the newspaper’s “global opinion” columnist Josh Rogin, the column warns that “America’s credibility is on the line” and that “If nothing happens before Eastern Ghouta falls, Haley and McMaster’s bluff will have been called. That spells disaster for upcoming diplomatic standoffs with Assad, Russia and Iran in other parts of Syria.”

These standoffs are not merely “diplomatic,” as was made clear in last month’s US strike on a pro-government force that claimed the lives of a number of Russian military contractors near strategic oil and gas fields in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. The American military action was in furtherance of Washington’s aim of carving out a US-controlled zone east of the Euphrates River along Syria’s borders with Turkey and Iraq. This area, covering nearly a third of Syria’s territory, is to be controlled by thousands of US troops along with their main proxy force, the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, which consists largely of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

The latest US threats have been taken with deadly seriousness by Moscow. The chief of the Russian military’s general staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, warned that Washington and its proxy Islamist militias were preparing to stage a fake chemical weapons attack to use as a pretext for a US military strike. He warned that any threat to the lives of Russian troops in Syria would be answered with “retaliatory measures both over the missiles and carriers that will use them.”

Asharq al-Awsat, the London-based “pan-Arab” newspaper controlled by the Saudi regime, published a report citing Western diplomats as saying that the Assad government was taking measures in anticipation of an imminent US attack. It claimed that Russian military personnel had been deployed at “critical locations” in Damascus in an attempt to deter airstrikes, and that the United Nations had moved some of its staff from areas it feared could be targeted.

Amid the threats of a confrontation in Syria between the world’s two major nuclear powers, the overrunning of Afrin by the Turkish military and its allied Syrian Islamist militia has increased the possibility of an unprecedented military clash between two ostensible NATO allies, Turkey and the US.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gloated Monday over the fall of the city of Afrin to Turkish forces the day before, declaring that Kurdish fighters had “fled with their tails between their legs.”

The city was largely abandoned as well by its civilian population, which feared atrocities at the hands of the Turkish military and its allied Al Qaeda-linked militias. These forces systematically looted businesses and homes in the city after conquering it, as well as knocking down a statue in the city center of the ancient mythical figure Kaveh, the blacksmith, who is seen as a symbol of Kurdish struggle against oppression.

The events, which have included the flight of some 250,000 people into the countryside without food or refuge, appear to presage a systematic ethnic-cleansing operation, in which Kurds will be permanently driven from their homes and replaced with Syrian Sunni Arab refugees living in Turkey.

Turkey’s military invasion, dubbed “Operation Olive Branch” and begun two months ago, is aimed at preventing the establishment of a Syrian-Kurdish autonomous zone on Turkey’s southern border. The action was provoked by Washington’s announcement that it intended to continue its occupation of Syrian territory indefinitely and to organize its YPG-dominated proxy forces into a 30,000-strong “border security force.”

The Turkish government views the YPG as an extension of the Turkish Kurdish PKK, against which it has waged a more than three-decades-long counterinsurgency operation. Both Washington and Ankara have formally branded the PKK a “terrorist” organization.

Speaking to an audience of judges and prosecutors in Ankara on Sunday, Erdogan declared that while the capture of Afrin was “an important stage” of the Turkish operation in Syria, “We will continue this process until we have entirely abolished the corridor through Manbij, Ayn al-Arab, Tel-Abyad, Ras al-Ayn and Qamishli.”

Manbij is a city in Syria’s Aleppo province west of the Euphrates River, which is in the hands of both the YPG and US Special Forces troops. The other towns mentioned by Erdogan are located east of the Euphrates, where the Pentagon is attempting to carve out a zone of US control, using the Syrian Kurdish militia as its proxy force. An advance on any of these areas poses a direct confrontation between American and Turkish troops.

International Labour Organisation (ILO) Labour Migration Journalism Fellowship 2018

Application Deadline: 23rd March 2018

Eligible Candidates: The program is open to individuals working in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, and the UAE.

About the Award: The programme is part of a comprehensive initiative to promote fair migration (including fair recruitment), and contribute to the elimination of human trafficking for forced labour across the Arab States region.
The media are instrumental in shaping public perceptions about labour migration, which can in turn influence policy and practice. Coverage of labour migration in the region tends to focus on criminal behaviour either by migrants, or against migrants, by employers or traffickers. Often unwittingly, media can perpetuate negative stereotypes about labour migrants, increasing their vulnerability to discrimination and abuse. The fellowship programme aims to address this by engaging and supporting a new generation of journalists who are trained to consider the full range of diverse issues inherent in the migration debate, and understand the range of perspectives on this complex topic.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: To be eligible for the program, participants must

• be early-career journalists and media professionals working in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon and the UAE,
• be passionate about human rights, migration, and labour issues.
• be freelance or working for an existing outlet.
• The programme is open to print, TV and radio journalists, photojournalists and film-makers, multimedia journalists, citizen journalists and social media experts.

Number of Awards:  Not specified

Value of Award: Participants to the programme will

• take part in an expert training programme on reporting and storytelling on labour migration,
• be provided with editorial support from a board of mentors,
• be given USD 1500 stipends to cover field work to produce and publish a series of in-depth stories on labour migration.
• Reports and multimedia will be published on the ILO and partner websites, in English and Arabic.

Duration of Program: 6 months

How to Apply: Applicants will be required to submit the following (in either English or Arabic):

• A cover letter outlining: your motivation to participate in the program and a relevant story proposal
• CV
• Two relevant samples of your work

The Application To | Email: Law by Tom, EJN Director Director Of Communications And Campaigns , At Tom.law@ethicaljournalismnetwork.org

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: The fellowship is implemented through the ILO Regional Fair Migration Project in the Middle East (FAIRWAY), with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Google/Udacity Africa Scholarship Program (Fully-funded to learn Web and Android Programming) 2018

Application Deadline: 24th April 2018

Eligible Countries: Scholarships available for residents African Countries.

To be Taken at: The program takes place 100% online. You can work from wherever you want to, as long as you have a working internet connection.

Type: Training

Eligibility: To receive one of these scholarships, you

• must be a current resident of an African country.
• must also be at least 18 years old and complete the application in full.
• When applying, you will choose between learning web development or Android development. From there, once you’re accepted, Udacity will place you in one of two tracks (beginner or intermediate), depending on your existing skills and experience. After that, the learning begins!

Number of Awards:

• 150 scholarships to the Front End Web Developer Nanodegree Program.
• 200 scholarships to the Mobile Web Specialist Nanodegree Program.

Value of Award:

• Top students from each track will earn full scholarships to one of our Android or Web Development Nanodegree programs.
• Some scholarship recipients may be able to participate in an Andela Learning Community with the partners from Andela.

How to Apply: Start Application

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Google, Udacity

Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa 2019

Application Deadline: 23rd July 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Countries within Sub-Saharan Africa. For the purposes of the competition, sub-Saharan countries include:
Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Crucial commercialisation support is awarded to a shortlist of innovative applicants through a six-month period of training and mentoring. Following this period of mentorship, finalists will be invited to present at an event held in Africa and a winner will be selected to receive £25,000 along with runners-up, who will each be awarded £10,000.

Eligibility: To be eligible,

• Applicants must be individuals or groups of no more than three people.
• Individual applicants must be citizens of a country within sub-Saharan Africa and currently reside there. For teams of two or three, the lead applicant must be a citizen of a country within sub-Saharan Africa and currently reside there.
• Applicants must have an engineering innovation and provide a letter of support from a university of research institution.
• Industrial researchers and establishments are not eligible.
• The applicant’s innovation can be any new product, technology or service, based on research in engineering defined in its broadest sense to encompass a wide range of fields, including: agricultural technology, biotechnology, chemical engineering, civil engineering, computer science, design engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, ICT, materials science, mechanical engineering, and medical engineering. If you are in any doubt that your area of expertise would be considered engineering then please contact the Academy to discuss your application.
• Applicants should have achieved the development of, and be in the early stages of commercialising, an engineering innovation that:

1. will bring social and/or environmental benefits to country/countries in sub-Saharan Africa;
2. has strong potential to be replicated and scaled up;
3. is accompanied by an ambitious but realistic business plan which has strong commercial viability.

Number of Awardees: not specified

Value of Prize: Finalists will be invited to present at an event held in Africa and a winner will be selected to receive £25,000 along with runners-up, who will each be awarded £10,000

Duration of Program: Crucial commercialisation support is awarded to a shortlist of innovative applicants, through a six month period of training and mentoring.

How to Apply: All applications must be submitted via the online grants system, applicants should ensure they read the guidance notes before submitting their application.

Visit Program Webpage for Details

Award Provider: Royal Academy of Engineering