Bangladesh garment workers jailed on bogus attempted murder charges

Wimal Perera

Seven garment union officials and a number of workers are being framed up on “attempted murder” charges initiated by the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). They have also been accused of vandalising office equipment.

At the request of police, a Dhaka court initially remanded the officials and workers on April 1. They are members of the Garment Workers Trade Union Centre (GWTUC), which is controlled by the Stalinist Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB).

On April 5, amid growing opposition by garment workers, the court granted the accused men three months’ bail, pending a hearing into the charges. According to media reports on Saturday, however, they remain in Dhaka Central prison.

Those jailed include GWTUC general secretary Joly Talukder, CPB central committee member Sadekur Rahman Shamim, K.M. Mintu, Manzur Moin, Jalal Hawlader, Lutfar Rahman Akash and Mohammad Shahjahan.

This persecution follows a series of provocations against workers at the Ashiana Garments plant, south of the capital Dhaka. The garment workers established a union branch at the plant last May and applied for official recognition. Bangladesh’s trade union registrar rejected the application.

On January 29, Ashiana workers protested over the dismissal of a fellow employee. Management then shut down the plant and summoned a group of GWTUC leaders and members to meet with police, company authorities and the Directorate of Inspection of Factories at the BGMEA’s offices.

The GWTUC told the media that union officials and workers waited inside the building but were told the meeting had been cancelled. Manzur Moin, one of the arrested officials, said Mansur Khaled, a senior BGMEA official, and others started attacking garment workers demonstrating outside the building.

“At least 25 to 30 people from BGMEA swooped on the labourers with sticks and rods and began beating them heavily,” Moin said. Several protestors were injured and BGMEA officials seized a rickshaw carrying workers’ banners and microphones.

The BGMEA made various false complaints to the police of violence and property damage by garment workers. Charges were laid against union officials and 150 members. Some of those named in the allegations were not even in Dhaka at the time.

On February 4, a Dhaka court granted eight weeks’ bail for those charged. When this expired on April 1, police remanded six union officials in order to interrogate them.

This is a joint conspiracy by the BGMEA and the police, backed by the Bangladesh government. Its aim is to intimidate the GWTUC and Ashiana workers, and the more than 4.5 million garment sector employees fighting against poverty-level wages and oppressive working conditions.

The attempted murder charges are similar to those involved in the prosecution and jailing of 13 workers from the Maruti Suzuki car assembly plant in Manesar, Haryana in India, including the entire leadership of the newly-established Maruti Suzuki Workers Union. They were sentenced to life in prison on frame-up murder charges in March 2017. Their only “crime” was to fight against the brutal exploitation at the plant.

In the context of the growing militancy of the international working class, the BGMEA, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed’s government and international retailers are acutely nervous about the eruption of major struggles.

Bangladesh garment workers have been fighting to have the poverty-level monthly wage ($US64) increased three-fold to 16,000 taka ($US192) to compensate for escalating price rises.

In December 2016, thousands of garment workers from about 20 factories in Ashulia industrial area, outside Dhaka, struck for a pay rise. The BGMEA closed about 60 factories in the area for several days and locked out thousands of workers. Thirty-four workers and union leaders were arrested on fabricated criminal charges in February 2017.

In an attempt to prevent further eruptions, the Bangladesh government, at the BGMEA’s request, established a panel to set a minimum monthly wage. The government will not declare a new wage structure until after the panel issues a report in the next six months. That means workers will not receive any wage increase for more than two years.

A. K. Azad, a panel member and former president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, bewailed the falling growth in the garment sector, from 14 percent in 2015 to 6 percent in 2016. “We will lag again if worker unrest occurs,” he declared.

While the garment sector in Bangladesh, the world’s second largest clothing exporter, accounts for around $28 billion in annual revenue, its workers are the lowest paid. According to recent Oxfam research, top fashion industry CEOs, on average, take home in just four days the lifetime income of a Bangladesh garment worker.

Giant retailers particularly in the US and Europe, such as Wal-Mart, H&M, C&A, Esprit, GAP and Li & Fung, earn huge profits by keeping these workers toiling under dire conditions. The brutal and life-threatening conditions were epitomised by the 2013 Rana Plaza multi-storey building collapse, which killed more than 1,000 workers and maimed thousands more, and in scores of factory fires across the country.

There has been a growing wave of strikes and protests among other workers in Bangladesh.

Hundreds of Dhaka Electric Supply Company workers demonstrated in Dhaka on February 18 for trade union rights and improved conditions. Hundreds of Community Health Care Providers Association members have staged hunger strikes since January 22, calling on the government to nationalise their companies and provide permanent employment.

At the end of January, about 500,000 teachers and employees from some 35,000 non-government secondary schools and colleges were involved in protests demanding the nationalisation of their institutions and permanent jobs.

While the Bangladesh unions, including the GWTUC, and the Stalinist CPB, have called protests over wages, working conditions and frame-ups of union members, they are promoting illusions that the government and companies can be pressured into granting concessions.

As typified by the attempted murder charges, however, the Hasina government’s response to the growth of working class opposition has been increased police repression.

India: Modi government accelerates anti-worker privatization drive

Kranti Kumara

As part of a renewed push for “investor-friendly reform,” India’s big business, Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is sharply accelerating its disinvestment drive—the partial or complete privatization of central government-owned enterprises.

According to the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, these enterprises, known as CPSEs or CPSUs (Central Public-Sector Enterprises or Undertakings), numbered 331 in 2017. They span most sectors of the economy, including railways, shipping, telecommunications, arms manufacturing, mining, banking, petrochemicals, airlines, and electricity generation and transmission.

In India, where working conditions as a rule are brutal and wages extremely low, CPSE jobs have traditionally been coveted as a source of relatively secure employment and better than average wages and working conditions. In a jobs competition that ended last month, more than 25 million people applied for 90,000 jobs, ranging from engine driver and carpenter to track inspector, on India’s state-run railways.

India’s ruling elite has been pursuing disinvestment for over a quarter-century, as part of its push to make India a cheap-labor haven for international capital. But the Narendra Modi-led BJP government has gone much further than its predecessors, including by targeting for privatization highly-profitable companies in what have previously been considered strategic sectors of the economy.

In this it has two long-term goals. One is to entirely eliminate CPSEs, so as to enable rapacious private investors and companies to gorge on enterprises that, although never run by or in the interests of the working class, are the product of the collective labour of generations of workers. The second is to progressively dismantle whatever social protections the CPSE provide against low-wages, mass-sackings and deleterious working conditions so as to further undermine the social position of the working class as a whole and thereby make India even more attractive to investors.

There is also a pressing short-term need for the government to raise revenue, in order to appease the international bond rating agencies, which have been pressing for India to lower its deficit to GDP ratio even while investing large sums in troubled state-owned banks.

The working conditions in CPSEs have been under concerted assault over the past two decades. Coal India Ltd. (CIL), from which the government has already sold off 20 percent ownership, is a case in point. It has announced that it plans to slash its workforce by 30 percent by 2020. This despite the fact that at least half of the 500,000 miners in CIL’s employ are contract workers whose wages, at a mere Rs. 8,500 (US $130) per month, are half those paid regular workers.

All sections of the political elite—including the Congress Party, which for the first four decades after independence championed state-led capitalist development—agree on the goal of wholesale CPSE privatization, claiming this will make India’s economy more “efficient.” By this they mean that it will unshackle management to squeeze greater profits from their workforces though an all-out assault on jobs, wages, benefits and working conditions.

When last in office (2004-14), the Congress Party implemented sweeping neo-liberal reforms, including privatization, but made a show of opposing the selling off of state-owned arm-manufacturers and the so-called “navratnas,” a handful of profitable CPSEs in strategic sectors like oil production and refining that it argued had the potential to be world-leaders.

Congress now has effectively dropped this stance, just it as has accommodated itself to Modi’s induction of India into an all but publicly proclaimed US-led anti-China alliance along with Japan and Australia.

The Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the smaller Communist Party of India (CPI) oppose privatization, but only from the standpoint of nationalism and an alternative strategy for the Indian bourgeoisie. They argue that retaining state-owned banks and other enterprises will strengthen Indian capitalism vis-a-vis imperialist finance capital and give the India ruling elite greater room to maneuver on the world stage.

In his February 1 “2018-19 Budget Speech”, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley proudly highlighted the fact that in the 2017-18 financial year, which ended March 31, government disinvestment receipts would exceed Rs.1 trillion (US $15.6 billion).

This was a considerable increase from the goal of Rs. 720 billion ($11.3 billion) he had set during last year’s budget speech.

Cumulatively, disinvestment receipts under the BJP government, which came to power in May 2014, amount to more than Rs. 2,3 trillion or more than $36 billion. And for the current financial year, Jaitley has set a disinvestment goal of Rs. 800 billion ($12.3 billion.)

The scale of the government’s privatization drive emerges when the cumulative disinvestment receipts of more than $36 billion are contrasted, as in the pie chart, below with the government’s 2017 valuation of its stake in all 331 CPS at Rs. 12,5 trillion or $195 billion.

In addition to reducing the budget deficit, the Modi government has used the disinvestment windfall to sharply increase military spending to almost $55 billion per year.

One of the major enterprises now in the Modi government’s crosshairs for privatization is Air India, the national carrier. Over the past fifteen years, successive governments, including those headed by the Congress Party, have essentially driven Air India into bankruptcy by starving it of funds while forcing it to order in 2005, 111 new planes at the cost of Rs. 700 billion or close to $16 billion at the then prevailing exchange rate.

For years Air India has been forced to borrow funds even for its day-to-day operations, resulting in a debt-load exceeding Rs. 500 billion (about $8 billion). According to an article on the corporate media website FirstPost, the airline sustains daily loss of Rs. 100 million ($1.5 million), while its daily interest obligation on its loans amounts to Rs. 165 million ($2.5 million).

Prior to auctioning off Air India later this year, the Modi government plans to transfer the company’s full debt burden onto the books of the Indian treasury thus effectively gifting private investors a vast fleet of aircraft debt-free. There is no doubt that the jobs, wages and working conditions of Air India’s 27,000 employees are under major threat.

The unions have responded with a half-hearted protest campaign. Other than verbal denunciations of the Modi government, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the trade union affiliate of the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist), has done nothing to oppose the Modi government’s plans to privatize Air India.

India’s public sector banks are also under the scanner for privatization. The government and corporate media have exploited recent scandals concerning politically-connected Indian billionaires and multi-millionaires getting additional credit even while not meeting payments on their existing debts to argue that the state-owned banks need to be put in “surer,” private hands.

In fact if India’s backs are riddled with “non-preforming assets,” i.e. loans in default, it is because BJP and Congress-led governments have pressed them to keep lending to India’s business houses to prop up a flagging economy. Now the BJP government intends to “socialize” these debts, making India’s workers and toilers pay through increased taxes and social-spending cuts for the cash infusions needed to strengthen the banks’ balance sheets and prepare them to be sold off to big business.

The rapacious big business interests animating the Modi government’s privatization drive are exemplified by its appointment of Reliance Mutual Exchange Traded Fund, an investment fund owned by the billionaire Anil Ambani, to serve as the “consultant” and “expert” overseeing the quick, partial or complete privatization of ten giant and highly profitable CPSEs, including Oil and Natural Gas Ltd. (ONGC), Gas Authority of India Ltd.(GAIL), Oil India Ltd., Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Coal India Limited, and Bharat Electronics Limited. Anil Ambani’s brother, Mukesh Ambani, is the richest person in Asia. The Ambani brothers were early enthusiasts for a government led by the Hindu “strongman” Modi, which they saw as an instrument for the Indian ruling elite to more aggressively pursue intensified exploitation of the working class and its predatory great-power ambitions on the world stage.

Isle of Wight Council continues to cut services

Paul Bond

Conservative-run Isle of Wight Council, which runs the largest and second-most populous island in England, has approved £7.5 million in cuts to services and a council tax rise of nearly 6 percent. The cuts follow reductions in government funding and will see a further erosion of social provision.

Attention has focused on cuts to the island’s health service, but every aspect of social provision on the island stands as an indictment of the capitalist system.

As an example, the council Cabinet approved, against the advice of its own Scrutiny Committee, that the most severely affected people living at home and in receipt of Attendance Allowance, Disability Living Allowance or Personal Independence Payments should pay more for their care charges in order to cover cuts of £678,700 from 2018/19. The council admitted that it had failed to make an almost identical agreed efficiency saving (£700,000) from its Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract with Island Roads for road maintenance.

This was immediately contradicted by the Council’s CEO, John Metcalfe, who said the saving had been made. It emerged that the £700,000 had been saved through individual management issues rather than as the rolling annual saving originally proposed, so further cuts will still be required.

PFI contracts place meeting the contractor’s financial servicing above any services or provisions they cover. The isle has two PFI agreements, the other being with Amey for waste management. Ahead of the budget negotiations, the chief proposal from the Independent group of councillors, the largest opposition grouping, was just to refinance the roads PFI loan to reduce interest payments. The Council’s budget, according to Leader Dave Stewart, involved “‘smoothing out’ our financial gap repayments,” increasing reserves and spending around £10 million on capital projects to encourage business rate income.

The Isle of Wight has a population of around 140,000. As a favoured retirement location its population is slightly older than the national average: 27.1 percent of the population are over 65, while only 14.7 percent of the population is under 15, compared with a national average of 17.5 percent.

The relative affluence of this inward migration disguises the levels of rural and coastal poverty. The End Child Poverty charity recently estimated that nearly a third of children (29.49 percent, more than 7,500 individuals) live in poverty after taking housing costs into account. In 2015, five Local Service Order Administration (LSOA) areas were in the 10 percent of most deprived areas in England, with another 19 in the top 20 percent. The island had no LSOAs within the 20 percent of least deprived areas.

The 2011 Census revealed a lower average standard of education across the island than nationally: higher than national average percentages of people with no or minimal qualifications, and lower than national average percentages of those with higher qualifications.

The one hospital, St Mary’s, coordinates with mainland hospitals. The island NHS Trust was placed in Special Measures in April last year, with all the signs of a service being systematically deprived of cash. Last June, St Mary’s was cancelling operations because it could not cope with patient numbers.

A year ago, the Council sought to offset its crisis in adult social care provision by appealing to the NHS Trust to continue paying into a joint fund. The Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) said it was required to pass on funding allocated for social care, but where it had previously been able to supplement this it was now struggling with its own £12 million deficit.

Health and social provision is being subject to drastic cutting from both sides, with predictable results. Last December, only 38.89 percent of highest priority emergency ambulance calls arrived within the required eight minutes. The government’s target of 75 percent has been missed every month since last May. In December the British Medical Journal reported that cuts to the sexual health services were the worst in the country, with the budget having been slashed by 47.9 percent in the previous two years.

The CCG put forward five options for service “redesign”, ranging from no change—which was ruled out immediately—to cutting all local hospital services apart from Accident and Emergency (A&E) and Maternity. This scenario was clearly introduced to soften up public opinion for drastic cuts.

In February, the CCG agreed Option 4 of the Acute Services Redesign plan. This would see 89 percent of current activity retained on the island, but closer study points towards further erosion along the worst case lines. A&E would remain the same, but 20 percent of acute medicine would be transferred off the island, with 80 percent of critical care and 30 percent of emergency surgery. Elective surgery, trauma care and obstetrics would stand at 90 percent of current provision, but paediatric care would be reduced to a short stay assessment unit, effectively cutting the department by half and transferring all children requiring more than 24-hours’ care to the mainland.

The main purpose of the redesign was to save some £80.6 million over the next 30 years.

Stephen Parker, clinical lead for the redesign, said it would reduce “the number of times people are asked to travel to the mainland.” It was announced that a “seamless” transfer system would be developed.

This highlights the problem of transport off the island, which is provided by private ferry companies. Reducing the number of patient voyages will not make the situation easier for families visiting patients in hospital for any length of time.

Tory MP Bob Seely urged the government to grant Isle of Wight Council powers to force the ferry companies to provide a “public service.” He said that islanders spend some £100 million a year on what have been described as some of the most expensive ferry routes in the world.

The redesign proposal is due to go to public consultation later in the year but there is no reason to think this will make any difference. When the Scrutiny Committee voted 6-3 against increasing care charges, Cabinet member for Adult Social Care, Clare Mosdell, said she had threatened to resign over it but decided not to because of “all the hard work and good that I am doing” and the Council pressed ahead.

Cuts to the island’s fire service are also being discussed. It is proposed crew numbers be reduced from five to four, with a 15 percent reduction in firefighter numbers. The loss of eight permanent and five retained firefighters through non-replacement is based, as Spence Cave of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) put it, “on budget saving and not on risk.” In a letter to the Isle of Wight County Press Dave Hunt, brigade organiser of the FBU, warned that the cuts would limit “the actions the first crew can take to carry out rescues and tackle the fire until a second appliance arrives. This second appliance would NOT be guaranteed to arrive promptly, particularly at night when as few as four whole-time crew may be immediately available for the whole Island.”

The Council is presenting these cuts, like those to the NHS, as a service development, but it is now reneging on an initial pledge to put them to public consultation, probably fearing any adverse reactions.

An NHS protest march in February promoted Labour as the NHS’s saviours. At a rally after the march, Labour’s parliamentary spokesman Julian Critchley pointed to the fact that all of the “redesign” proposals were directed to cuts, and that this was national policy. However, the game was given away by Colleen Brannon of Ryde Labour Party. Noting the present government’s privatisation programme she also admitted the responsibility of the last Labour government in introducing such plans.

Brannon insisted that Labour was now “under new management.” The reality is that since coming to office she and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell have gone to great lengths to reassure the financial elite that they pose it no threat.

Spain responds to German court decision on Puigdemont with threats of stepped-up repression

Alejandro López

Spain’s Popular Party (PP) government has made clear it will seek to overturn the decision by a German court rejecting the extradition of Catalonia’s deposed regional premier Carles Puigdemont on charges of rebellion. Backed by the media, it is insisting that there will be no let-up in the repression meted out to those involved in organising the Catalan independence referendum last year.

On Thursday, the Schleswig Higher Regional Court in Germany ruled against the extradition of Puigdemont back to Spain on charges of rebellion, declaring that the levels of violence Spain claimed had taken place in Catalonia did not satisfy the only possible comparable crime, high treason, in Germany. The court also released Puigdemont on bail.

The court upheld a second allegation, misuse of public funds, which could yet lead to his extradition. However, the ruling means that if Puigdemont were to be extradited on the lesser charge, a ludicrous situation would arise whereby the leader of the region’s secessionist drive would be tried for misuse of public funds, while 13 of his Catalan associates would remain charged with rebellion.

The court’s decision is a setback for Madrid, which was confident Puigdemont would be on his way back to Spain and a possible sentence of 30 years in jail based on the tacit agreement of the German government on the need to suppress the separatist movement. This sentiment was evident in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which insisted that Puigdemont remained “a criminal” who “cannot escape justice.” Deutsche Welle warned that the decision would “destroy” cross-border cooperation and encourage other separatist movements in Europe, including in Germany.

Publicly, the PP government sought to diminish the significance of Puigdemont’s release. Spokesperson Íñigo Méndez de Vigo insisted on Friday that the extradition procedure had not yet been completed, and that only then would it be possible to determine if Spanish justice was able to try him for rebellion. Behind closed doors, however, there was a different mood.

Government sources told El Español, “Nobody in the government expected this setback. The relationship with Germany has been seriously damaged by this… For German justice it seems that we are not a comparable democracy.”

Other government sources told the Catalan daily La Vanguardia that the news was “a disaster for Spain” because the German decision questioned the Spanish justice system in front of Europe and “will give wings to the secessionist movement.”

The Spanish public prosecutor’s office is considering appealing to the European Court of Justice and said it was “certain” that the court’s final ruling would respect the principle of “mutual recognition” of judicial decisions that is inherent in the European arrest warrant (EAW) system.

Spanish Supreme Court Judge Pablo Llarena, who is investigating 25 Catalan nationalists for rebellion, the misuse of public funds and contempt, is also considering asking the European Court of Justice to clarify EU law and the status of EAWs.

The major Madrid-based dailies reacted with undisguised horror at the German court decision.

Prior to last Thursday’s ruling, their pages were splashed with triumphal articles describing how Spain’s intelligence services had tracked Puigdemont once he had left his safe haven in Belgium and collaborated with the German police to capture him. They were confident that Prime Minister Rajoy’s professed close relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her refusal (along with the rest of Europe) to intervene in Spain’s internal affairs would ensure Puigdemont’s return.

Warning of a danger to the PP’s campaign to reimpose direct rule over Catalonia, the pro-PP daily ABC described the decision as “a serious setback, mainly political, which, if it leads to the investiture of Carles Puigdemont, can mean the disabling of Article 155.”

El Mundo called the decision an “oxygen cylinder” for the separatists that will “move Catalonia even further away from constitutional normality.” It attacked Germany, stating, “If this is the confidence that Europeans should have in continental solidarity to repel internal coups, then the EU is a failed project. A country like Germany, which expressly forbids secessionism as a political option and that recently ruled against the desire of Bavaria to hold a referendum on self-determination, disregards that same problem when it affects Spain.”

The most critical newspaper was El Español, which has recently shifted its allegiance from the PP towards the right-wing Citizens Party, (Cuididanos). The latter dominated the anti-independence vote in last December’s Catalan elections, while the PP was wiped out.

Calling for new elections, in a situation where Citizens is leading the PP in opinion polls, its editorial declared the German court decision to be “a severe setback to the cause opened by the Supreme Court.”

El Español continued, “Rajoy is politically responsible… Here the problem is no longer the Catalan question: we are facing a national problem, which affects the whole of Spain, and that is why all Spaniards must resolve it in the ballot box according to the different options that the parties propose. We must appeal now more than ever to the sense of patriotism that Rajoy has presumed on occasion: a new government is necessary to formulate another policy.”

For pro-Socialist Party (PSOE) daily El País, the decision is also a “setback for Spain,” but not final. The newspaper echoes the position taken by the PP government, saying, “Carles Puigdemont has not been tried, nor therefore acquitted. The Supreme Court’s case against him is still valid and has not been invalidated.”

The PSOE has been severely damaged by this decision, having defended the rebellion charges against the secessionists. Its leader, Pedro Sanchez, framed the most polite and non-committal response possible, stating that it was now “difficult to have confidence in the political strategy of the Spanish government to solve this crisis… We need a political solution both in Catalonia and also in the country as a whole.”

Citizens leader Albert Rivera said, “What happens in Catalonia is a problem for both the Spanish and Europeans.” The decisions made by judges can be “liked more or less,” but what “cannot be allowed is that people who are criminals for not complying with the laws in their country can roam around as if nothing has happened.”

The separatist “criminals,” Rivera continued “have been allowed to win the battle outside their borders,” but within their borders “they are in jail for not respecting Spanish law.”

Whatever the criticisms within factions of the ruling class against Prime Minister Rajoy and the decision of the German court, all factions agree that there should be stepped-up repression.

On the same day as Pugdemont’s release, the Spanish National Court, the direct descendant of Franco’s Public Order Court set up to punish “political crimes,” charged Josep Lluís Trapero, former chief of Catalonia’s Mossos d’Esquadra regional police, with criminal conspiracy and sedition.

Judge Carmen Lamela accused Trapero of belonging to “a complex and heterogeneous organization,” whose aim was to achieve “the secession of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia,” thus “clearly contravening the constitutional order.”

According to Lamela, the regional police were put at the service of the secessionist movement and the “illegal referendum,” and spied on Spanish police officers.

Lamela also charged the former Mossos director, Pere Soler, and the former secretary general of Catalonia’s Interior Ministry, César Puig, with criminal organisation and sedition. Mossos officer Teresa Laplana has been charged with sedition.

Podemos, the largest pseudo-left party in Spain, functions verbally as a “loyal opposition,” while suppressing all expressions of anti-PP sentiment and hostility to the lurch towards authoritarianism. Parliamentary spokeswoman Irene Montero declared that Podemos had always thought that “judicializing” political affairs was an “error.” However, she made sure to strike a patriotic pose, warning that the government’s “strategy” is “endangering” the international image of Spain and “making us all feel embarrassed.”

Britain piles on lies to shore up Skripal poisoning accusations against Russia

Robert Stevens

The British government is doubling down on its campaign of dissembling and lies in response to the unravelling of its efforts to blame Russia for the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal.

With Yulia getting “stronger by the day” and her father also recovering well, a United Nations Security Council meeting Thursday saw Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia tear apart the claims by Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson that the Skripals were victims of a novichok nerve agent produced in Russia.

He noted how on Tuesday Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of the UK Porton Down chemical and military research laboratory, admitted that it had not in fact identified the origins of the nerve agent used against the Skripals. His admission proved the government and Johnson in particular, to be serial liars.

Nebenzia recalled that prior to the UN meeting called by Britain on March 14, May issued a letter containing “heinous and totally unsubstantiated accusations against Russia of using chemical weapons on the UK soil.”

“UK representatives promised at that meeting to regularly brief the Council on the course of the investigation,” he said. “However, no briefings came from their side.”

Britain had ridden roughshod over basic standards of international law, refusing all requests for information or to answer more than 40 questions asked of them by Russia. Nebenzia added that Sergei and Yulia Skripal were Russian citizens, yet Russia had been denied consular access even though they “may have become victims of a possible terrorist attack carried out on British soil.”

In response Britain ratcheted up the anti-Russian rhetoric still further, with Karen Pierce, the UK’s Permanent Representative, stating after Nebenzia spoke, “We gave 24 hours,” for Russian to respond to the UK’s allegations of culpability, “because this is a weapon of mass destruction.” In another part of the speech, Pierce again stated that a weapon of mass destruction had been used in an “attempt to kill civilians on British soil.”

Pierce’s comments assumed the level of farce, given that the “weapon of mass destruction” referred to—one supposedly ten times more powerful than any other nerve agent—has killed no one. Instead, all its alleged victims—including Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, who was the first to attend the scene and the only other person affected—have now substantially recovered. Yulia Skripal even told her cousin Viktoria by telephone that she will be discharged shortly!

As for their long-term health, Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times reported that the UK is considering offering the Skripals new identities and a new life in the United States according to “unnamed” officials of MI6.

On Saturday, Russia demanded a meeting between its Ambassador to Britain, Alexander Yakovenko, and Johnson “to discuss the whole range of bilateral issues, as well as the investigation of the Salisbury incident.” The Foreign Office said it would respond in “in due course,” but that the meeting request was a “diversionary tactic” by Russia.

Faced with such a devastating exposure of the May government’s concoctions within the space of a month, the British media went into damage limitation mode, pleading with the government to stop digging a deeper hole for itself.

The day after the UN Security Council meeting, the Guardian, Telegraph and Fin an cial Times produced co-ordinated editorials warning, in the FT’s words, “Getting drawn into a misinformation war is an unhelpful distraction.”

Instead, it demanded, “While the UK continues to investigate the circumstances of the Skripal attack, it should be drawing up the next set of penalties against Russia.”

The Guardian editorialised, “Russia is engaging in an aggressive disinformation war over the Skripal poisoning. It would be disastrous to respond in kind.”

The Telegraph, the Tory government’s house organ, urged the government to now “give details of Skripal case” and warned that the UK’s policy of assigning blame without providing a shred of evidence had backfired badly. “[T]here is a real risk that the Russians will win the information war if the British side continues to be so secretive.” It added, “What is important now is not to lose the initiative or to allow the Russians to sow doubts in the minds not just of Britain’s allies but of the public.”

The UK media also decided that it was now necessary to row back on its previous claims of how deadly novichok supposedly is.

On Friday, stories began to circulate in the corporate media and the state-run BBC to account for the Skripals’ miraculous recovery. Sky News, for example, claimed in the vaguest terms that it was “likely” that “one of several general antidotes” had been given to the Skripals and “they appear to have helped.”

On Sunday, the Daily Mail went one step further into the realm of the absurd. It cited the comments of Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former army commander in the UK’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment, who claimed, “This botched double murder attempt was defeated by the brilliance of British scientists and the doctors in Salisbury who, under immense pressure, came up with a bespoke set of treatments to thwart a boutique chemical weapon specifically designed for assassinations.”

It cited an “anonymous source” backing up Bretton-Gordon’s claims of the “boutique” character of the novichok employed:

“The Kremlin wanted to get its agents out of Britain before the Novichok could be identified. So they reduced its toxicity and used it in a gel form rather than as a gas—had the Skripals inhaled the nerve agent they would have died very quickly. The Russians still banked on Sergei and Yulia dying as a result of their exposure, even though they had effectively watered it down.”

On Sunday, Johnson himself entered the fray, authoring an op-ed in the Sunday Times, complaining of how Russia was making a “cynical attempt to bury awkward facts beneath an avalanche of lies and disinformation.”

Assured of the servile backing of Britain’s media, he attributed all the government’s woes and the fact that the Kremlin was being lent a “false credibility to its propaganda onslaught” to the cause that Labour Party leader “Jeremy Corbyn has joined this effort... Truly he is the Kremlin's useful idiot.”

The Observer, the Guardian’s Sunday sister paper, was more realistic in its appraisal. Editorialising on “a dangerous new world of competing global visions,” it warned that “regardless of the justice of Britain’s grievance,” Russia was “succeeding in persuading much ‘unofficial’ global public opinion that its denials are credible.”

As is always the case, the Observer proposed as an answer measures to counter “the Kremlin’s ruthless use of social media and disinformation and propaganda tools” in the name of combating “fake news.”

In words that were more honest than they were clearly meant to be, it suggested, “What we face now is a struggle over opposing models of political and social control, rather than geo-strategic dominance or competing ideologies, involving not only Russia but all the countries of the modern world… Put bluntly, it is about truth and lies.”

Facebook intensifies censorship ahead of congressional testimony by Zuckerberg

Andre Damon

Ahead of scheduled congressional testimony by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook has announced a series of censorship measures that strike a blow against online anonymity and tighten the company’s grip on what users can say on its platform.

Zuckerberg announced Friday that the company will “require people who manage large pages to be verified,” meaning they will have to provide the company, and by extension the US government, with their real names and locations.

Zuckerberg declared that the measure “will make it much harder for people to run pages using fake accounts, or to grow virally and spread misinformation or divisive content.” In addition, the company will prohibit ad purchases by individuals whose identities have not been “verified.”

The move is a major step toward the fulfillment of the demand by the US intelligence agencies that social media companies end online anonymity, making it easier not only to track, but to arrest people for expressing oppositional political opinions.

Zuckerberg added that the move would involve the hiring of thousands of additional censors and “security” personnel. “In order to require verification for all of these pages and advertisers, we will hire thousands of more people,” he wrote.

Within hours of the announcement by Facebook on Friday, the company blocked an advertisement for a public meeting held by the Socialist Equality Party, which is affiliated with the World Socialist Web Site, entitled “No to war, inequality, and censorship,” on the grounds that it does not allow ads that contain “shocking, disrespectful, or sensational content.” Other ads related to the Oklahoma teachers strike were blocked yesterday.

Zuckerberg’s announcement came amidst a media-driven a campaign to demonize the company for downplaying the danger of “fake news” and “propaganda” on its platform. This campaign, presented as a defense of users’ “privacy,” has led the company’s stock price to fall by more than 15 percent over the past three weeks. It has also fueled speculation that Zuckerberg, who owns 28 percent of Facebook stock, could be ousted in a boardroom coup.

In the course of a few weeks, Zuckerberg has gone from a media darling to a virtual pariah, complete with a lampooning on Saturday Night Live. Every news story about the company now includes a picture of the “beleaguered” executive sporting a frown—the type of treatment usually reserved for politicians embroiled in sex scandals.

The nominal reason for the shift is the media-driven scandal surrounding the election data firm Cambridge Analytica, tied to former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon. Last month, The New York Times and Guardian simultaneously revealed that the company had used an app to harvest data on tens of millions of Facebook users, which was then turned over to the Trump campaign. Unmentioned in any of the media accounts is the fact that the Obama campaign did effectively the same thing in 2012, to media acclaim.

CBS’s “Face the Nation” talk show, for example, devoting approximately a third of the program’s airtime yesterday to discussion of Facebook—amidst a developing trade war with China, a war campaign against Syria, and the deployment of the military on the US-Mexico border.

The media’s campaign against Facebook has nothing to do with protecting users’ privacy, but rather is aimed at creating the best possible conditions for the imposition of massive new restrictions on the freedom of expression on the world’s largest social media network.

This was made clear by the comments of Democratic Senator Mark Warner (Virginia), who, when asked by a DC-area radio reporter Friday about the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Congress’s role in protecting “people’s data,” replied by denouncing Facebook’s resistance to his claims that it was being used to spread “fake news.”

Warner told the reporter, “I first called out Facebook and some of the social media platforms in December of 2016. For the first six months, the companies just kind of blew off these allegations, but these proved to be true; that Russia used their social media platforms with fake accounts to spread false information, they paid for political advertising on their platforms.” He added that the company has “got a lot of explaining to do.”

Commenting on the tone of the expected hearings on “Face the Nation,” Nick Thompson, the editor of Wired who has been a leading advocate of censorship, said that “Congress is going to be out for blood” when Zuckerberg testifies. He declared that the company would pay for the “sins” of having “stuck their heads in the sand” in response to demands that it implement censorship measures.

Thompson added that Facebook’s latest measures were intended to “soften the blow” ahead of Zuckerberg’s testimony. It is clear, however, that the measures that have already been announced are just a down payment on the crackdown on freedom of expression that is being prepared.

Zuckerberg’s testimony comes amidst a mounting strike waves by workers throughout the United States, including strikes by educators in Oklahoma and Arizona. Numerous media accounts have noted the vital role played by Facebook in organizing resistance by workers independent of the unions.

Under conditions of mounting class struggle, increasingly bitter divisions within the ruling elite, and the growing danger of war, the ruling elite is radically accelerating its drive to censor the Internet. The aim is to prevent the organization of social opposition and the dissemination of information that questions the official narrative of events.

Zuckerberg’s testimony will take place just one day after a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, at which the United States will press for an even greater intervention against Syria and Russia, nominally in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack attributed by the US media, without any substantiation, to the Syrian government.

The war fever is aimed not only at securing American imperialism’s predatory war aims in the Middle East, but, perhaps even more importantly, to create the conditions for domestic repression and political censorship at home.

Government of China MOFCOM Scholarships for Developing Countries (Masters & PhD) 2018

Application Deadline: 30th April 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Field of Study: Each applicant can choose one same major in three universities out of the 26 designated universities as their desired option.

About Scholarship: MOFCOM Scholarship is set up by Ministry of Commerce of People’s Republic of China to further strengthen the communication and cooperation between China and other countries as well as to develop talents for developing countries. Starting from 2015, MOFCOM Scholarship mainly sponsors the young and the middle-aged talents from recipient countries to pursue their postgraduate degree education in China and entrusts China Scholarship Council to administer the Scholarship.

Offered Since: 2015

Type: Masters and PhD Scholarships

Selection Criteria and Eligibility: To be eligible, applicants must:

• be a citizen of a country other than the People’s Republic of China, and be in good health;
• be a bachelor’s degree holder when applying for master’s program;
• be a master’s degree holder when applying for doctoral program;
• be under the age of 45 when applying;
• have sufficient English or Chinese proficiency which meets the academic requirements of the program.

Number of Scholarships: several

Value of Scholarship:

• -tuition waiver;
• -teaching material fee waiver;
• -research and survey fee waiver;
• -dissertation guidance fee waiver;
• -one-off resettlement fee:
• 3000RMB per master student,
• 3000RMB per PhD student;
• -on-campus accommodation;
• -stipend:
• 3000RMB per month per master student,
• 3500RMB per month per PhD student;
• -medical insurance
• -one-time round-trip international airfare for all the students （First time fly to China after enrollment, and Fly back to home country while graduation）, and a maximum of “n-1” （“n” is for the length of schooling year which is set while the student was enrolled by the program） round-trip international airfares for home visits （one time per year set at the end of an academic year）.

Duration of Scholarship: Master’s program for 2-3 years or PhD program for 3-4 years.

Eligible Countries: developing countries

To be taken at (country): Each applicant can choose one same major in three universities out of the 26 designated universities as their desired option. CSC will place each applicant in one university only based on their desired option and universities’ requirements.

Application Requirement (in Chinese or English)

1. Application Form for MOFCOM Scholarship;
2. Photocopy of highest diploma;
3. Photocopy of academic transcripts;
4. A Study Plan or Research Proposal with a minimum of 400 words;
5. Photocopy of Foreigner Physical Examination Form;

How to Apply

• Visit http://www.csc.edu.cn/laihua or www.campuschina.org for International Students.
• Step 2: Read “Tips for online application” carefully before clicking “NEXT” to the registration page.
• Step 3: After registration, log in with your user name and password. Click “Application Forms”and choose “MOFCOM Scholarship”.
• Step 4:  Put 00010 as your Agency Number.
• Step 5: Please fill all the required information truly, correctly and completely following the navigation bars on the left of the page.
• Step 6: After completing the application form, please click “Preview” and check your Application Form carefully before submitting it.
• Step 7: Download the completed Application Form by clicking “Download Application”and print two hard copies.
• Step 8: Prepare other supporting documents as required and send the full package of application documents (two sets of hardcopies) to the Economic and Commercial Counsellor’s Office (ECCO) of the Chinese Embassy.
• Step 9: You can make changes to your application by clicking Retrieve Application on the left of the page. But you have to make sure to submit it again by clicking Confirmation of Submit after finishing all the changes. Otherwise, the retrieved application will become invalid and your new application will not be accepted either.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details to apply

Sponsors: Ministry of Commerce of People’s Republic of China

Important Notes: Scholarship winners must register for English-taught program if such program is available. When only Chinese-taught program is available, students should take Chinese language training courses for one to two years before moving on to their degree study.
Scholarship winners will get the admission package from ECCO of the Chinese Embassy by the end of August, 2016, and must register at the host university before the deadline which is usually September, 2016.

TWAS Research Grants Programme in Basic Sciences for Researchers in Developing Countries 2018

Application Deadline: 11th May 2018

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

About the Award: TWAS Research Grants are awarded to high-level promising research projects in Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics carried out by individual scientists in the S&T-lagging countries  (S&TLC) identified by TWAS.
The TWAS Research Grants Programme in Basic Sciences aims to:

• Reinforce and promote scientific research in basic sciences in developing countries;
• Strengthen developing countries’ endogenous capacity in science;
• Reduce the exodus of scientific talents from the South;
• Build and sustain units of scientific excellence in S&TLC over a longer period to help them achieve a critical mass of highly qualified and innovative scientists capable of addressing real-life problems facing their countries.

The TWAS Research Grants Programme supports research in the basic sciences only; proposals focusing on more applied research should therefore be submitted to IFS. TWAS cannot accept projects relating to applications in agriculture or medicine or that use existing techniques to screen, for example, medicinal plants for bioactive substances or to monitor an environment for pollutants; TWAS will have to reject such proposals.

Fields of Study: Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics

Type: Research, Grants

Eligibility: 

• Individual applicants must be nationals of developing countries. They must hold a PhD, be at the beginning of their careers, but already have some research experience. They must hold a position at a university or research institution in one of the S&TLCs and be under 45 years of age.
• Applications from women scientists and those working in Least Developed Countries are especially encouraged.
• Individual scientists who submit a satisfactory final report on a previous grant may apply for a renewal.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• Research Grants to individual scientists amount to a maximum of USD 15,000.
• The grants, which are normally provided for a period of 24 months, may be used to purchase scientific equipment, consumables and specialized literature (textbooks and proceedings only). They do not cover salaries of researchers and/or students, field expenses, or travel expenses. In addition, the purchase of laptops and laboratory animals is not supported.

Duration of Program: 24 months

How to Apply: Apply Here

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: The TWAS Research Grants Programme in Basic Sciences is generously supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Italian government. The Sida contribution is mainly intended to support research proposals from S&TLCs in dire need of basic research tools.

Important Notes: Please note that the assignment meetings of the TWAS Research Grants Committees will be held by the end of the year. Applicants will be notified of the outcome shortly after the meeting.

Human Rights Consortium (HRC) Routledge Studentship for Students from Commonwealth Countries 2018/2019 – University of London

Application Deadline: 3rd June 2018.

Eligible Countries: Commonwealth countries

To Be Taken At (Country): UK

About the Award: This award marks The Round Table’s close connections with the Institute and celebrates the achievements of Dr Peter Lyon, long-time editor of the journal and Reader in International Relations at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: Open to students from Commonwealth countries (outside of the United Kingdom), who have already applied for a place on the MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. 

Selection: Your application will be considered by a panel of senior members of staff within the Institute and representatives from Routledge/The Round Table. It may be necessary for additional supporting information to be sought from other School staff. The School of Advanced Study processes all personal data in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• The award from Routledge/The Round Table is worth £12,000.
• In addition, the Institute offers the recipient of the award a fee waiver of 50%.

Duration of Program: 1 year

How to Apply: 

• To apply, eligible students should contact the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, indicating that they wish to be considered for the award. Applicants do not need to supply any additional material. The successful recipient will be selected on the basis of the academic or biographical CV and the his/her personal statement, stating why they wish to undertake this degree at the Institute.
• Overseas candidates wishing to apply to the MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights are advised to contact the UK High Commission in their country of residence as early as possible, ideally before or at the time of application in order to establish the financial resources they will need to demonstrate to obtain a UK visa as a postgraduate student, and what procedures they must fulfil in order to obtain a UK visa.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Routledge/The Round Table

Important Notes: Please note that this award is available only to overseas rate-paying students.

Beit Trust Masters Scholarship for African Students (Fuly-funded to Study in UK or South Africa) 2018

Application Deadline: 31st May 2018.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Malawi, Zambia or Zimbabwe

To be taken at (country): United Kingdom (Cambridge University, University of Edinburgh, University of Strathclyde, University of Glasgow, University of Oxford  University of Leeds), and South Africa (University if Cape Town, Rhodes University, Stellenbosch University).

Applicants will normally be expected to apply to these partner universities.

About Scholarship: The Beit Trust offers annually a number of Postgraduate Scholarships abroad (except an MBA) to graduates who are domiciled in and are nationals of Malawi, Zambia or Zimbabwe (and only to graduates in these three countries). Scholarships are taken up at a partner university in the United Kingdom, or South Africa, for study in a subject of the individual’s choice appropriate to the needs of the beneficial area.

Type: Masters (except an MBA)

Eligibility Criteria

• All applicants except medical and veterinary doctors must be under 30 years of age on 31 December of the year of application.
• Some experience of work after completion of a first degree is desirable.
• Doctors and vets must be under 35 years of age on 31 December and should have completed 18 months of internship and preferably a one-year preferably rural posting in the relevant country.
• hold at least a degree of class 2.1, i.e. Merit or Distinction

Number of Scholarship: Not Specified

Benefits

• Fees, tuition costs and related academic expenses are paid by the Trust direct to the universities.
• Payment of a personal allowance, index linked in accordance with guidance from an independent authority, covering maintenance support.
• Other allowances are paid for: arrival, a laptop, printing of a thesis, and return home.
• Economy Class air passages are provided by the Trust for the initial journey to the place of study, and on final return.
• No allowances are paid for spouses or other family members.

Duration of Scholarship Duration is normally for a one-year taught Master’s in the UK and two years in South Africa. 

How to Apply:

• Zimbabweans – the application form can be obtained from Zimbabwe Online Application form
• Malawians –  the application form can be obtained from  Malawi Online Application form
• Zambians – you will need to complete an initial application form using this online initial application link.  Applicants are urged to submit the online form as early as possible to establish whether they would qualify to apply. If you do qualify, a form will be emailed to you and you will be required to provide additional information and details.

Visit the Scholarship Webpage for Details

Sponsors: Beit Trust

Important Notes: Only those applicants who state that they intend to return to work in the relevant country upon completion of the scholarship, and who can, if short-listed, present themselves for interview before a Beit Postgraduate Scholarship Selection Board in Harare, Blantyre or Lusaka at the beginning of December, will be considered.

Young Feminist Media Fellowship for Feminist Storytellers 2018

Application Deadline: 22nd April 2018

Eligible Countries: Any

About the Award: Are you a feminist storyteller? Do you believe in the power of stories reaching millions? Are you a budding writer, artist or videographer? Then this fellowship opportunity is just the right thing for you!\

This fellowship is meant for young storytellers who have a passion for and commitment to telling powerful and transformative stories about young feminist activism and the creative ways in which youth organizing is happening all over the world. The fellowship is an opportunity to gain insight into global feminist issues, receive guidance and feedback from experienced feminist journalists and an opportunity for the writers to have their stories published in a publication that has worldwide readership.

Type: Fellowship (Career)

Eligibility: You are eligible to apply for this fellowship if you meet the following criteria:
● You are a young feminist (between the age of 18 and 30) with proven interest or activism in gender based issues in their local, national or in international contexts.
● You are a budding writer, publisher, visual artist or videographer.
● You will have some proven experience and have some sample pieces of your previous work to demonstrate it.
● You may be based anywhere in the world, but should be from a Global South country (i.e. not Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand) and willing to travel in the pursuit of the story. Previous experience in journalism, writing, blogging, sketching, designing is welcome, but not compulsory.
● You are proficient in the English language as the writing/designing will be done in English only. (We hope in the future we could offer in a different language). Knowledge of a second language is desirable, but not essential.
● Fellows belonging to marginalized identities–trans*, intersex individuals, gender non conforming, young people of color and people with disabilities–are particularly encouraged to apply.

Selection Criteria: 

• Anyone who has a passion for and commitment to storytelling.
• Someone who can think of non traditional and innovative ways to tell stories. Someone who is not afraid to experiment, is happy to learn and be pushed to produce sharper stories.
• Someone from a marginalised background, and hence having an edge to unpack marginalised issues in a better way.
• Someone who is willing to give the time needed to polish a story so that it finds its final shape as a strong and powerful one.
• Someone who looks at this fellowship opportunity as a means to gain knowledge, expertise and mentorship around storytelling.
• Someone passionate about making young feminist voices reach a wider audience.

Number of Awards: 2

Value of Award: 

• The fellow is expected to work part time and will be paid a stipend of USD 500 USD for the three-month duration of the fellowship.
• As a fellow, you will be expected to decide how you’d like to utilize the stipend money in pursuit of your story.
• During the 3-month period, both fellows will be part of a hands-on learning program, in which they will have a chance to learn about young feminist issues, journalism, writing and publishing.
• During this time, they will be expected to produce a total of three pieces, at least one of these should be focused specifically on the work of a FRIDA grantee partner.

Duration of Program: 3 (three) months

How to Apply: To apply, please fill this form.
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Frida, Young Feminist Fund