Schwarzman Scholars Fully-funded Masters Scholarship for International Students 2018/2019 – China

Application Deadlines: 27th September 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All (except Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao)

To be taken at (country): Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (students live and study together on the campus of Schwarzman College, a newly-built, state-of-the-art facility, where all classes will be taught in English.)

Fields of Study:  Masters degree programmes in one of these three disciplines:

• Public Policy
• Economics and Business
• International Studies

What will be taught: Business, Social sciences, Leadership skills

About the Award: Enrolling the inaugural class in 2016, the program will give the world’s best and brightest students the opportunity to develop their leadership skills and professional networks through a one-year Master’s Degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing – one of China’s most prestigious universities.
With a $350 million endowment, Schwarzman Scholars will be the single largest philanthropic effort ever undertaken in China by largely international donors. The extraordinary students selected to become Schwarzman Scholars will receive a comprehensive scholarship.

Schwarzman Scholars was inspired by the Rhodes Scholarship, which was founded in 1902 to promote international understanding and peace, and is designed to meet the challenges of the 21st century and beyond. Blackstone Co-Founder Stephen A. Schwarzman personally contributed $100 million to the program and is leading a fundraising campaign to raise an additional $350 million from private sources to endow the program in perpetuity. The $450 million endowment will support up to 200 scholars annually from the U.S., China and around the world for a one-year Master’s Degree program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of China’s most prestigious universities and an indispensable base for the country’s scientific and technological research. Scholars chosen for this highly selective program will live in Beijing for a year of study and cultural immersion, attending lectures, traveling, and developing a better understanding of China.

Type: Masters Degree

Offered Since: 2015

Eligibility: The following criteria must be met by all candidates:

• Undergraduate degree or first degree from an accredited college or university or its equivalent. Applicants who are currently enrolled in undergraduate degree programs must be on track to successfully complete all degree requirements before orientation begins in 1 August 2019. There are no requirements for a specific field of undergraduate study; all fields are welcome, but it will be important for applicants, regardless of undergraduate major, to articulate how participating in Schwarzman Scholars will help develop their leadership potential within their field.
• Age. Applicants must be at least 18 but not yet 29 years of age as of 1 August 2019
• Citizenship. There are no citizenship or nationality requirements
• English language proficiency. Applicants must demonstrate strong English Language skills, as all teaching will be conducted in English. If the applicant’s native language is not English, official English proficiency test scores must be submitted with the application. Acceptable test options are:
  • Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL PBT)
  • Internet-based Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL iBT)
  • International English Language Testing System (IELTS)
  This requirement is waived for applicants who graduated from an undergraduate institution where the primary language of instruction was English for at least three years of the applicant’s academic program.

Number of Awardees: Up to 200 exceptional men and women will be accepted into the program each year. The class that begins in summer 2019 will include 125 scholars, and the program will grow to include up to 200 students in coming years.

Value of Scholarship: 

• Semi-finalist interview expenses, such as economy class air or train travel, group meals and one night in a hotel if needed, will be arranged and covered by the program.
• Expenses for successful Schwarzman Scholars are also FULLY covered by the program.
• It will include Tuition and fees, Room and board, Travel to and from Beijing at the beginning and end of the academic year, An in-country study tour,
• Required course books and supplies, Lenovo laptop and smartphone, Health insurance, and
• A modest personal stipend.

Duration of Scholarship: 1 year

How to Apply: There is no fee associated with applying to the Schwarzman Scholars program. To apply, you will need to complete and successfully submit an online application form, including all required documents and essays before the deadline date.
Visit the official website (link below) for complete information on how to apply to this scholarship programme.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Schwarzman Scholars

NORPART Call for Applications 2018 – Funding between Norway and Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 31st May 2018

Offered annually? The call is open to long-term project cooperation with a project period from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2023

Eligible Countries: A list of 39 relevant countries have been developed, all of which are potential partner countries for Norwegian development cooperation.
Africa: Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Other Countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, East Timor, Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Palestine, Peru, Sri Lanka, Vietnam

About the Program: The programme will support academic partnerships and student mobility with an emphasis on the Master and PhD level. The programme addresses both higher education policy and development policy goals.
Objectives of NORPART: The programme shall lead to:

• Strengthened partnerships for education and research between developing countries and Norway
• Increased quality and internationalisation of academic programmes at participating institutions
• Increased mobility of students from developing countries to Norway, including mobility in connection with work placements
• Increased mobility of students from Norway to developing countries, including mobility in connection with work placements

Offered Since: 2016

Eligibility Criteria: In order to be eligible, applications must meet the following requirements:

• The applicant must be an accredited Norwegian higher education institution.
  The application must include at least one partner that is an accredited higher education institution in one of the NORPART partner countries.
• A curriculum vitae (CV) for the project coordinator must be uploaded.
• Applications must be written in English and be submitted fully completed, including attachments, through SIU’s online platform for applications and reporting (Espresso) within the call’s final deadline.
• All project activities described in the application must be completed within the project period defined in the duration below.

Failure to meet the above criteria will lead to dismissal of the application.
Selection criteria: The eligible applications’ relative strength will be assessed on the degree to which they are
deemed able to meet the following selection criteria:

• The project’s relevance to the overall aim and objectives of the programme
• The quality of the project design, including:
  • the application’s overall clarity and quality
  • correspondence between project goals, proposed activities, budget allocations and expected project results
  • demonstration of cost-effectiveness
  • the sustainability of the project results
  • the project’s feasibility, including the feasibility of the plans for student mobility
• The quality of the partnership, including:
  • complementarity, experience and expertise of the project team
  • level of formalised commitment
  • potential for long-term collaboration between the partners
  • the degree to which the partnership is based on mutual academic interests and capacity within relevant academic programmes at the participating institutions
  • documented synergies with other funding programmes, such as Erasmus+, Horizon 2020, other international and regional programmes for higher education and research in the partner countries, NORHED, NORGLOBAL and other Norwegian-funded programmes.

In line with the Sustainable Development Goals’ commitment to leave no one behind, the following cross-cutting issues will be assessed as they pertain to all the three abovementioned selection criteria: Gender perspectives and gender equality in project activities; female participation in project activities, including student mobility; inclusive practices towards indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable or marginalised groups of society; and transparency and anti-corruption measures.
Please note that the selection criteria correspond to various compulsory fields in the online Espresso application form, and that the application’s ability to meet these relative criteria will be assessed on the basis of the description provided. In order to ensure coherence and a logical order in the description of your project, please read the relevant help texts in the online application form as well as the “Guidelines for applicants” carefully. Remaining questions may be directed to SIU.

Value: The total funds made available in this call are approximately NOK 90 million.  Each application may be awarded up to 5 000 000 Norwegian kroner (NOK).

Duration: The call is open to long-term project cooperation with a project period from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2023.

How to Apply: The applications should be prepared jointly by the main partner institution in Norway and the other partner institution(s).

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: NORPART is funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is administered by the Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education (SIU).

Important Notes:

• All applicants will be notified of the outcome of the application process, tentatively in November 2019.

ITC Excellence Scholarship Programme for Students from Developing Countries 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 22nd April 2018

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To Be Taken At (Country): The Netherlands

About the Award: The ITC Excellence Scholarship Programme is available for excellent students applying for ITC’s
Master’s degree programme Geo-information Science and Earth Observation with specializations in:
– Applied Remote Sensing for Earth Sciences
– Natural Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction
– Geoinformatics
– Land Administration
– Natural Resources Management
– Urban Planning and Management-
– Water Resources and Environmental Management.

Eligible Field of Study (Students must have a Bachelors degree in): Agriculture, forestry and fishery, Architecture and town planning, Environmental Sciences, Mathematics and computer sciences, Natural sciences, Other, Transport and communication.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: Additional requirements for the application for the ITC Excellence Scholarship Programme include:
– Residing in and being a national of a country listed on the OECD approved List of Recipients of Official Development Assistance
– Having completed the Bachelor’s degree from a well-acknowledged university outside the Netherlands
– Academic performance among the top 10%
– English: IELTS 6.5
– Relevant background for the intended field of study
– Not eligible for support under the Dutch system of study grants and loans

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: As this is a partial scholarship, admitted applicants must be able to show that additional funding is available to complement the funding through this scholarship (i.e. covering all remaining fees and costs in full before the payment deadline).
Extra facilities: Next to the standard study programme in which the applicant will be enrolled:

• Students receiving an ITC-ES and who perform excellently during the course may be offered some additional academic research courses or workshops.
• Depending on the study and thesis research results, a selected limited number of students will be offered a 3-month study extension during which either a scientific paper or a PhD research proposal can be developed.

Duration of Program: 2 years

How to Apply: 

• First, you must have applied for the ITC course of your interest through the on-line application system and have received an academic acceptance letter.
• If subsequently you are interested to apply to the ITC Excellence Scholarship Programme, you will have to send the completed application form.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: University of Twente

Nigerian Agip Oil Company Tertiary Scholarship Scheme for Undergraduate Nigerian Students 2018

Application Deadline: 30th April 2018

About the Award: Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited (NAOC) Joint Venture in pursuance of its Community Development Programme invites suitably qualified candidates for its 2017/2018 Tertiary Institutions Scholarship Awards Scheme.

Eligible Countries: Nigerian Students

To be taken at (country): Nigerian tertiary institutions

• Host Communities Merit Award: For applicants strictly from NAOC host communities
• National Merit Award: For applicants from non-host communities

Fields of Study: Only applicants studying Engineering, Geology, Geosciences and Agricultural Science are eligible for the National Merit Award.

Type: Undergraduate

Eligibility
To qualify for consideration, applicants MUST be:

• Registered Full TIME undergraduates in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions
• Certified 100 level students at the time of application

NOTE: The following categories of students should NOT apply:

• 200 level students and above
• Current beneficiaries of similar awards from other companies and agencies
• Dependants of employees of NAOC, AENR and NAE

Number of Scholarships: Several

What are the benefits? Monetary financial aid

Duration of Scholarship: As determined by the sponsor

How to Apply

1. Before you start this application, ensure you have clear scanned copies of the following documents
   • Passport photograph with white background not more than 3 months old (450px by 450px not more than 200kb)
   • School ID card
   • O’Level Certificate
   • Admission letter
   • Birth certificate
   • Proof of Local Government Area of Origin
   • Letter from Community Paramount Ruler
   • Letter from CDC Chairman
   • JAMB Result
2. Ensure the documents are named according to what they represent to avoid mixing up documents during upload
3. Ensure you attach the appropriate documents when asked to upload
4. Ensure to provide valid Email and Phone Contact for effective communication

For further information on how to apply for this scholarship, Visit the Scholarship Webpage

Sponsors: Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited (NAOC), Operator of the NNPC/NAOC/Phillips Joint Venture

Important Notes:

• Please ensure you understand the Instructions carefully before you start application to avoid errors and disqualification.
•  The aptitude test will take place at designated centers to be communicated to applicants on a later date and applicants are to fully bear the cost of transportation to and from Aptitude test centres.

Striking Syria: The Real Reasons

Chandra Muzaffar

The United States government has once again shamelessly violated international law. There was no legal or moral justification for launching more than a 100 missile strikes against so-called chemical weapons’ sites in Syria on the 14th of April 2018. Unlike the last strike targeting a single airfield in April 2017 which was also in retaliation for President Bashar Assad’s alleged use of sarin gas against civilians, the US was joined in its assault this time by its allies, Britain and France.The three Western powers claimed that they had strong evidence that the Assad government had again employed chemical weapons in Douma on the 7th of April, killing scores of civilians, including children.

If the evidence was so compelling, why didn’t the US President present it to the US Congress and seek its endorsement for military action, as required by law? Why didn’t the British Prime Minister seek approval from her Parliament, instead of getting a Cabinet cabal to endorse her war plan? The French President also erred in this respect. One could go further and ask why Washington did not share the evidence it had with Moscow, Syria’s staunchest protector?  Or, with other members of the UN Security Council, apart from Britain and France?

Is it because the so-called evidence was obtained from dubious sources — such as the terrorist group, Jaish al- Islam which was fighting the Assad government and in control of parts of Doumaon the 7th of April? Were the White Helmets, a fake civil defence outfit established by British intelligence and funded by both Britain and the US yet another supplier of ‘evidence’? Or as it has happened on numerous occasions in the past, was the ‘evidence’ generated by  Mossad, Israel’s intelligence network, in pursuit of its own nefarious agenda ?

The source or sources of evidence of Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons is an issue that has to be explored thoroughly for an obvious reason. Since the beginning of the war in Syria in 2011, there have been at least half a dozen alleged episodes of Assad resorting to chemical weapons in order to eliminate his adversaries which after independent investigations have turned out to be false flag operations or gross distortions of what had really occurred. In fact, some analysts are of the view that a terrorist group had stage managed the 7th April Douma episode and then put the blame upon the Syrian government to justify foreign intervention. Ghouta in 2013 was also a false flag operation, according to the celebrated investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh. Let’s not forget that Syria’s neighbourhood has witnessed some major false flag operations including that monstrous lie about Saddam Hussein’s ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ in 2002-3.

What lends credence to this view about fabricating evidence and false flag operations is the actual situation on the ground. Why should Assad employ chemical weapons when he is on the cusp of total victory over his terrorist opponents and other militants? How does it benefit him? Why should he deliberately elicit the wrath of people everywhere when he is already in a position of strength? Besides, he had surrendered his arsenal of chemical weapons to the UN affiliated Dutch based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in 2013. This was verified by the OPCW. It was also the OPCW that established some time ago that one of the three facilities destroyed by Western missiles on the 14th of April was in fact a civilian pharmaceutical and chemical research centremanufacturing among other things drugs for cancer treatment necessitated by the embargo imposed upon Syria.

With all this as the backdrop, one is not surprised that the US and its allies chose to attack Syria on the eve of the visit of the OPCW to Douma to verify whether, and what type of, chemical weapons were used on the 7th of April. Were the aggressors afraid that the truth about the 7th April episode would expose them? Was the attack a move meant to render the OPCW investigation academic?

Given these and a multitude of other questions hanging over the allegation about Assad’s chemical weapons, why were the US and its allies in such a hurry to strike Syria? Before we attempt to answer that question, we must understand that the US and Israel have for decades regarded Syria, together with Iran and the Hezbollah, as the unyielding obstacle to their persistent drive to dominate and control the region. To put it in another language, Syria, Iran and Hezbollah constitute the triumvirate of resistance to the US-Israel Agenda of Hegemony over West Asia and North Africa (WANA). Israel in particular seeks to curtail and if possible crush each of the three for similar and dissimilar reasons. Since our concern is with Syriawe shall examine why the leadership of that country is in Israel’s radar.

For Israel, control over Syria’s Golan Heights is vital for its security. Israel’s notion of security is defined by its ability to control and dominate its neighbours such as Syria and Lebanon. The Golan Heights which Israel captured in the 1967 War was formally annexed on 14 December 1981. It is important to note that it supplies water to Israel and contains oil, gas and minerals.  With annexation, Israel asserted its perpetual sovereignty over Golan which to this day international law recognises as part of Syria. To translate its illegal annexation into political reality, Israel has for a number of years sought to oust the independent minded government in Damascus and replace it with a puppet regime. It saw the uprising that broke out in March 2011 in a small township in Syria as an opportunity and backed the rebels. Very soon, the rebels were joined by militants, many of whom were linked to various terrorist outfits. These terrorist outfits such as Al-Qaeda were financed by countries in the region and trained and equipped by groups in WANA and from Europe and the US. It is not widely known for instance that Israel itself has provided arms to seven different terror groups in Syria.

By the middle of 2015, Israel and other supporters of these groups within WANA such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey and those outside the region such as the US, Britain and France, were confident that they would be able to oust Bashar Assad, based upon the vast swathes of land and resources that the anti-Assad forces had seized. Realising that its longstanding ally in WANA was in mortal danger, Russia decided to intervene militarily in September 2015. It fortified the Syrian Army, and with the assistance of Hezbollah and Iranian advisers and militias, Russia intensified the fight against terrorist groups in Syria. Within 20 months it was obvious that the tide had changed. The Bashar government, buttressed by Russia, had regained control of most of Syria by the last quarter of 2017. Douma was in a sense one of the last footholds of one of the terrorist groups. With defeat staring in the face of not only the terrorists but also Israel, some other regional players and of course the US and its allies, the latter decided hastily to strike against Syria on the 14th of April.

Defeat in Syria is more than defeat in one Arab state. It portends a significant shift in the power balance in the entire region. Russia may well emerge as the pivot of this change with crucial roles for Iran and Syria and other players. It is a scenario that is totally unacceptable to the US and its allies like Britain and France. Incidentally, all three at various points in the present and the past have been imperialist powers in the region.

It is not a coincidence that in all these three countries, Israel and Zionism exercise inordinate influence. Israel has always viewed the US and to a lesser extent Britain and France as the protectors of a power structure in WANA that guarantees its own regional hegemony. It is because Israel and its protectors are now uncertain about their dominance that they have chosen to flex their muscles.

7 Questions About the Syria Airstrikes That Aren’t Being Asked

Richard (RJ) Eskow

“Mission accomplished,” says the President. What, exactly, was the mission? And what exactly was accomplished?

Donald Trump is being mocked for using this phrase in a tweet to praise what he claims was a “perfectly executed” airstrike against chemical weapons facilities in Syria. This recalls George W. Bush’s egregious evocation of the phrase in 2003 to claim an early end to the U.S. entanglement in Iraq, which is still ongoing fifteen years later.

History made a fool of Bush for that proclamation, which was printed on a banner behind the President as he delivered his speech proclaiming an end to the Iraqi conflict on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

But Bush’s foolish and lethal incursion to Iraq had the backing of virtually the entire national-security establishment. So did Donald Trump’s bombing attack on Syria, as did the bombing attack he ordered last year.

The Costs of Intervention

U.S. media, for the most part, reinforce the idea that intervention by our military is the preferred solution to global conflicts. Some of the same reporters who now mock Trump for saying “Mission Accomplished” cheered on Bush’s invasion of Iraq. They remember Bush’s errors, but not their own.

The media’s job, we are told, is to ask skeptical questions about the people in power. That didn’t happen much in the runup to the invasion of Iraq, and it’s not happening now. Here are the questions that should be asked – not just on the eve of a bombing attack, but every day we continue our disastrous and drifting military intervention in the Middle East.

1. Why couldn’t the military wait for inspectors to do their jobs?

Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an international non-proliferation organization, were scheduled to arrive in Douma, Syria on Saturday, April 15 to begin investigating the reported chemical attack on civilians there. The airstrikes took place on Friday, April 14.

This is a disturbing echo of the 2003 Iraq invasion. There, too, the United States was unwilling to wait for international inspectors to discover the facts before beginning the attack. Fifteen years on, we know that didn’t work out very well. Why couldn’t the bombing of Syria wait for inspectors to do their work?

2. How do we know we’re being told the truth?

“We are confident that we have crippled Syria’s chemical weapons program,” said U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. That statement was echoed by military leaders. But a report from Agence France Presse suggests that one destroyed building, described by attacking forces as a chemical-weapons facility, was actually a pharmaceutical and research facility specializing in food testing and antivenoms for scorpion and snake bites.

“If there were chemical weapons, we would not be able to stand here,” said someone who identified himself as an engineer who worked at the facility.

Given our country’s long history of public deception from military and civilian officials, why aren’t we demanding independent confirmation of the airstrikes’ effectiveness?

3.Have strikes like these ever really “punished” a country’s leader – or “sent them a message,” for that matter?

We keep hearing the cliché that airstrikes like these are meant to “punish” leaders like Assad. This time was no different. And yet, it’s unlikely that Assad personally suffered as a result of this attack.

So who, really, are we punishing?

Then there’s this comment, from Defense Secretary James Mattis: “Together we have sent a clear message to Assad and his murderous lieutenants that they should not perpetrate another chemical weapons attack.”

That was also the presumed purpose of Trump’s last missile attack on Syria, less than a year ago. Trump supporters claimed that attack sent a forceful “message,” too – to Assad, to Putin, the Chinese, and others. “With just one strike that message was sent to all these people,” claimed former Trump advisor Sebastian Gorka.

The situation in Syria did not perceptibly change after that attack. And the day after this latest airstrike, Assad launched a new round of airstrikes of his own.

These airstrikes seem more performative than tactical – warfare as theater, but with real lives at stake. There must be better ways to send a message.

4. Why isn’t the full range of U.S. activity in Syria getting more coverage?

Thanks to widespread under-reporting of U.S. involvement in Syria, commentators can complain about “years of unmasterly inactivity by the democracies” with a straight face, wrongly blaming that nation’s disasters on a failure to intervene.

In a paragraph that was subsequently deleted from its website, the Washington Post wrote that the latest airstrikes “capped nearly a week of debate in which Pentagon leaders voiced concerns that an attack could pull the United States into Syria’s civil war.” As of this writing, that language can still be found in syndicated versions of the article.

We were pulled into that civil war a long time ago.  The United States has more than 2,000 troops in Syria, a fact that was not immediately revealed to the American people. That figure is understated, although the Pentagon will not say by how much, since it excludes troops on classified missions and some Special Forces personnel.

Before Trump raised the troop count, the CIA was spending $1 billion per year supporting anti-government militias under President Obama.  That hasn’t prevented a rash of commentary complaining about U.S. “inaction” in Syria before Trump took office. It didn’t prevent additional chaos and death, either – and probably made the situation worse.

5. Where are the advocates for a smarter national security policy?

There’s been very little real debate inside the national security establishment about the wisdom of these strikes, and what debate there has been has focused on the margins. Anne-Marie Slaughter, a senior State Department official under Secretary Hillary Clinton in the Obama administration, tweeted:

I believe that the U.S., U.K, & France did the right thing by striking Syria over chemical weapons. It will not stop the war nor save the Syrian people from many other horrors. It is illegal under international law. But it at least draws a line somewhere & says enough.

In other words: This attack will not achieve any tactical goals or save any lives. And it is illegal – just as chemical weapons attacks are illegal – under international law. It’s illegal under U.S. law, too, which is the primary focus of Democratic criticism.

But, says Slaughter, the amorphous goals of “drawing a line” and “saying enough” make it worthwhile, for reasons that are never articulated.

Michèle Flournoy, who served as Under Secretary of Defense under President Obama and was considered a leading Defense Secretary prospect in a Hillary Clinton Administration, said:

• What Trump got right: upheld the international norm against [chemical weapon] use, built international support for and participation in the strikes, sought to minimize collateral damage — Syrian, Russian, Iranian.
• What Trump got wrong: continuing to use taunting, name-calling tweets as his primary form of (un)presidential communication; failing to seriously consult Congress before deciding to launch the strikes; after more than a year in office, still no coherent Syria strategy.

How can a country uphold international norms by violating international law?

If Trump lacks a coherent Syria policy, he has company. Obama’s policy toward Syria shifted and drifted. Hillary Clinton backed Trump’s last round of airstrikes and proposed a “no-fly” policy for Syria that could have quickly escalated into open confrontation with Russia.

The country deserves a rational alternative to Trump’s impulsivity and John Bolton’s extreme bellicosity and bigotry. When it comes to foreign policy, we need a real opposition party. What will it take to develop one?

Commentators have been pushing Trump to take aggressive military action in Syria, despite the potential for military conflict with nuclear-armed Russia. MSNBC’s Dana Bash accused Trump of “an inexplicable lack of resolve regarding Russia” – leaving the audience to make its own inferences – adding, “We have not been willing to take them on.”

In the same segment, reported by FAIR’s Adam Johnson, Bash complained that “the U.S. hasn’t done “a very good job pushing Russia out of the way,” adding that “we’ve let Russia have too free a hand, in my view, in the skies over Syria.”  Her colleague Andrea Mitchell responded that “the criticism is that the president is reluctant to go after Russia.”

The Drum Beats On

“Mission accomplished.”

This drumbeat of political pressure has forced Trump’s hand. He has now directed missiles against Syria, twice. Both attacks carried the risk of military confrontation with the world’s other nuclear superpower.

That risk is greater than most people realize, as historian and military strategist Maj. Danny Sjursen explained in our recent conversation.

Trump has now adopted a more aggressive military posture against Russia than Barack Obama. Whatever his personal involvement with the Russian government turns out to have been, it is in nobody’s best interests to heighten tensions between two nuclear superpowers.

The national security establishment has been promoting a confrontational approach, but they’ve been unable to explain how that would lead to a better outcome for the US or the world – just as they’ve been unable to explain how unilateral military intervention can lead to a good outcome in Syria.

7. Did the airstrikes make Trump “presidential”?

“Amid distraction and dysfunction,” wrote Mike Allen and Jonathan Swan for Axios, “Trump looked and acted like a traditional commander-in-chief last night.”

The constitutional phrase, “Commander in Chief,” was originally understood to underscore the fact that the military is under civilian control. It has devolved into a title that confers a quasi-military rank on the president.  That’s getting it backwards. The fetishization of all things military is one of the reasons we can’t have a balanced debate about military intervention.

Besides, saying that an act of war makes Trump “presidential” – that’s so 2017!

Here’s a suggestion: In 1963, John F. Kennedy rejected his generals’ advice to strike Soviet installations during the Cuban missile crisis.

Rejecting reckless calls to military action: Now that’s a “presidential” act worth bringing back.

US and Britain hit Chinese telecom company ZTE

Nick Beams

In an escalation of inter-linked trade and national security wars, Britain and the US have taken action against the major Chinese telecom company ZTE, effectively banning it from both countries.

Yesterday, the British National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) ordered the UK telecom sector not to use equipment or services from ZTE, as it would have a “long-term negative effect on the security of the UK.”

Hours later, the US Commerce Department announced it was banning the sale of components to ZTE for seven years. This was said to be enforcing an agreement the company entered when it pleaded guilty in March 2017 to breaching bans on sales to North Korea and Iran.

Under that deal, ZTE paid some $1.2 billion in fines and said it would take action against those involved. Four company directors were sacked but the Commerce Department said bonuses were paid to other employees that were involved. ZTE had “misled” it and so it was invoking the seven-year suspension.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said: “Instead of reprimanding ZTE staff and senior management, ZTE rewarded them. This egregious behaviour cannot be ignored.”

These declarations ring rather hollow. Senior US banking executives have been regularly rewarded with increased bonuses in the wake of the malpractices that led to the crisis of 2008.

In an indication that other reasons were involved, the Commerce Department said the company had argued “it would have been irrational for ZTE to knowingly or intentionally mislead the US government in light of the seriousness of the suspended sanctions.”

Commerce Department officials, cited by the Financial Times, claimed its actions were not related to the recent measures initiated by the White House targeting Chinese companies operating under the “Made in China 2025” program, by which China is seeking to advance its high-tech development in telecommunications and other areas.

“The timing of this is somewhat unfortunate because it could make it seem like they are connected,” a senior Commerce Department official said.

Under the decision, US companies are banned from conducting any business with ZTE in the US or anywhere else in the world.

Last year ZTE purchased as much as $1.6 billion worth of products from US chip makers, and is a significant customer of both Qualcomm and Intel. It has sold handset services to major US companies, including AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.

A smaller US company, Acacia Communications, that supplies ZTE has been hard hit. Last year it derived 30 percent of its $385.2 million of revenue from sales to ZTE. Its shares fell 35 percent in trading yesterday.

The Commerce Department action came amid calls for more aggressive moves by US authorities against Chinese communications and telecom firms.

Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai issued an op-ed piece on Fox News.com yesterday, warning that a hostile foreign power could exploit the US telecom supply chain to “spy on Americans or attack our critical infrastructure by injecting viruses or launching denial-of-service attacks.”

The FCC earlier this month proposed rules that would make it more difficult for Chinese firms, such as Huawei and ZTE, to sell equipment to small rural US providers.

Last month the US fears of Chinese telecommunication advances were highlighted by the Trump administration’s decision, on the basis of a finding by the Committee for Foreign Investment in the US, to ban a proposed takeover by the US firm Broadcom of the high-tech company Qualcomm because it would advantage Huawei in the development of 5G phone technology.

The British decision to ban ZTE was taken on national security grounds. The NCSC said that if ZTE became a big supplier to the UK it could pose a risk to measures it has taken against Huawei, which is a big supplier to the British telecom sector. Huawei agreed some years ago to set up a centre where its components can be broken down and inspected.

In a letter to British telecom firms, NCSC technical director Ian Levy wrote: “The UK telecommunications network already contains a significant amount of equipment supplied by Huawei. Adding in new equipment and services from another Chinese supplier would render our existing mitigations ineffective.”

The NCSC said it was concerned over new Chinese laws which it claimed gave Beijing “wide-ranging powers of compulsion” that could force companies to infiltrate or sabotage telecommunications infrastructure.

The US and British actions against ZTE were accompanied by a broader offensive by the two imperialist powers following the attack on Syria over the weekend.

Yesterday, the UK and US governments issued a joint warning about Russian cyber attacks on government and private organisations.

US Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Jeanette Manfra said the government had a “high confidence” that the Russian government was behind alleged intrusions.

“We hold the Kremlin responsible for its malicious cyber activities,” she said, claiming that Russia was trying to seize control of connectivity, including routers, and firewall detection systems, with a view to espionage, intellectual property theft or positioning for offensive action.

The head of the British NCSC, Ciarin Martin, said “there are millions of machines being targeted globally” and the alert was part of an allied “fightback against state-sponsored aggression in cyber space.”

The measures against ZTE, the trade war against China over its high-tech development and the warnings of cyber attacks, coupled with the missile attacks on Syria and the anti-Russia propaganda campaign, are part of an integrated offensive. The US is seeking to overcome its decline through economic and military warfare.

Russian government blocks messaging app Telegram

Clara Weiss

A Russian court issued a ruling Friday, April 12, to block the messaging app Telegram. In a months-long standoff with the Kremlin, the company’s CEO had refused to grant the secret service FSB access to users’ encrypted messages. The ban took legal effect on Monday, April 16.

The court hearing took just 18 minutes. Judge Yulia Smolina from the Tagansky court in Moscow ruled in favour of Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media), a national agency that is subordinated to the Ministry of Telecommunication and in charge of the massive censorship efforts of the Russian government. Pavel Durov, the head of Telegram, announced that the company would be using built-in methods to bypass the block for its 9.5 million users in Russia.

The ruling is based on the “anti-terror laws” signed by President Vladimir Putin in 2016, which have provided the legal basis for a massive crackdown on Internet and communication freedoms in the past two years. This is part of an international drive by capitalist governments to censor the Internet and block encrypted communication, in anticipation of mass struggles by the working class.

According to the Russian laws, telecommunications operators have to store their customers’ phone calls and text messages for six months. Messaging services like Facebook and Telegram have to provide decryption keys to the FSB. Moreover, Russians are legally required to inform authorities about potential terrorist acts, and postal employees are required to inspect packages.

The standoff between Roskomnadzor and Telegram started in June 2017, when the Russian agency asked the company to register in Russia and hand over the encryption keys to the FSB. Telegram did register but refused to provide the encryption keys to the FSB. Last month, Telegram lost the case before the Supreme Court and then failed to comply with the 15-day deadline to hand over the keys. The company can now appeal the recent court decision within 30 days.

There has been an outcry against the ban of Telegram on social media, with many users denouncing the step as a crackdown on freedom of speech and communication. One critic, “Artem,” sarcastically wrote: “Well that’s it! There will be no more terrorism, Telegram is blocked. Now we only have to ban reproductive organs in order to finally do away with rape!”

Many posts expressed anger over the measure as well as fears of impending blocks of other websites and platforms. Others announced that they would defy the ban. One Twitter user from Yekaterinburg, a major industrial city in the Urals, wrote: “Now that Telegram has been blocked I will use it more than ever. Out of principle.”

Telegram has about 200 million users worldwide and is especially popular in the Middle East and Russia, because it allows for encrypted communication and works much better under conditions of poor Internet connection than other messaging apps. In Russia, many young people and even government employees make use of the messaging app.

The company was founded by Pavel Durov, dubbed the Russian Mark Zuckerberg, who also created the hugely popular Russian social media network vkontakte. In 2014, Durov was forced to resign from the board of vkontakte, by then a $3 billion company, because he refused to shut down pages of politicians from the liberal opposition and hand over data from opposition and pro-Maidan pages to the FSB. He has since lived in emigration.

The crackdown on Telegram is in many respects symbolic. Telegram was the app most widely used in the organization of the mass working class protests in Iran last winter. The Kremlin no doubt fears a similar development in Russia where tensions are running high amid an escalating war drive by the imperialist powers and growing poverty in the working class. The recent fire in a shopping mall in Kemerovo provoked mass outrage on social media, including anger over the initial blackout of the fire by the state media and the reaction of the authorities to the disaster.

The blocking of Telegram, whether or not the company can circumvent it, signals that the Russian government will take whatever means are necessary to prevent encrypted communication and the organization of protests via social media and chat apps. This is part of a broader effort by the Kremlin and governments internationally to censor the Internet and spy on communications.

In Russia, these efforts are well-advanced. Especially since the protest movement of 2011-2012, which was spearheaded by the pro-Western liberal opposition, the Kremlin has undertaken a systematic crackdown on freedom of communication on the Internet. The central agency overseeing these censorship and surveillance efforts on the internet is Roskomnadzor.

Internet access in Russia has grown massively over the past 15 years. Between 2004 and 2015, the percentage of the population with Internet access grew from a mere 8 percent to 70 percent (92.8 million people). An estimated 97 percent of all young people between 16 and 29 and 82 percent of those aged 30 to 54 use the Internet. Internet usage was more widespread in urban areas, with a coverage of 83 percent in Moscow and St. Petersburg and 71 percent in cities with a population of 100,000 compared to 66 percent in small towns and the countryside.

Under conditions where most media outlets are controlled by the state, or by the liberal opposition, which is widely despised in the working class, the Internet has become a central source for alternative information about politics. Moreover, given the extraordinary destruction of social and cultural infrastructure during the restoration of capitalism, the Internet today is the main source of culture (be it books, films or other media) for the vast majority of Russians.

While direct Internet censorship by the state has, so far, focused on pages associated with the right-wing liberal opposition, all laws, and especially the mass surveillance, are designed to prevent and target above all movements by the working class which would threaten not only the current Putin regime but the capitalist system as a whole.

The most important restrictions and surveillance measures now in place on the Russian Internet include:

• An Internet blacklist (since November 2012); the criteria for inclusion on this blacklist included initially “child pornography” and the advocating of suicide and illegal drugs. Since 2013, the blacklist law also applies to content that is “suspected of extremism”, “calling for illegal meetings,” “inciting hatred,” and “violating the established order.” Websites deemed guilty of any of these are blocked at the initiative of Roskomnadzor.
  
• Providers of free public wi-fi are legally required to collect and store the personal information of all users, including addresses and passport numbers.
  
• The System of Operational-Investigatory Measures requires telecommunications operators, social media platforms, chats and forums to install hardware by the FSB which allows the agency to monitor users’ communications metadata and content, including phone calls, email traffic and web browsing.

Since 2014, social media platforms and telecommunications operators are also required to install equipment with Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) capabilities, which include direct eavesdropping. Access to data obtained through these means is available not only to the FSB, but also the Interior Ministry, the Russian police and the tax police, border patrol, as well as the Presidential Security Service, the Kremlin Regiment, and Parliamentary Security Services.

• The virtual elimination of legal encryption in messaging apps. As of January 2018, operators of messaging apps are also not permitted to allow unidentified users.
  
• Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and other devices to surf anonymously on the internet have been banned since the summer of 2017.

Washington seeks permanent deployment of special forces brigade to Africa

Eddie Haywood

Republican Senator James Inhofe of the Senate Armed Services Committee last week sent a letter to Secretary of the Army Mark Esper outlining a proposal that would constitute an increase in troop levels deployed under AFRICOM, as well as broadening the American military’s footprint across Africa.

In his letter, Inhofe requested the Army secretary give his views regarding the assignment to AFRICOM of one of the six new Security Forces Assistant Brigades (SFAB). The special brigade, if deployed, would provide an additional 500 troops on a permanent basis for AFRICOM.

Inhofe wrote, “As you know, AFRICOM does not have any assigned forces, but must compete for allocated forces within the Department of Defense’s global force management process. The Army has allocated a Brigade Combat Team (BCT) to AFRICOM in the recent past as part of the Regionally Aligned Forces (RAF) program. These operations were a success for our African nation partners and built strategic partnerships for the United States. However, they also negatively affected the allocated BCT’s readiness, especially for core missions such as full spectrum combat operations.”

The SFAB were officially introduced last year with the first of six brigades activated. According to the Pentagon, the new units were “created in order to train, advise, assist, enable and accompany host nation conventional forces in infantry, armor, cavalry, engineer, artillery and combined arms warfare.”

According to the US Army website, the Pentagon envisions the SFAB as “specifically built to achieve the Army’s vision of enabling combatant commanders to carry out theater security objectives through partnered and allied indigenous security forces for decades to come.”

The drive to increase the American military’s presence in Africa comes after last year’s ambush killing of four Green Berets in Niger while conducting a combat mission with their Nigerien counterparts. Highlighting the predatory aim of AFRICOM’s presence in the region is the Niger defense minister’s admission that the US forces “wage war when necessary.”

The plan to expand AFRICOM follows an already amplified presence across the continent, with an estimated 6,000 US special forces and other military personnel on the ground in nearly every country in Africa.

AFRICOM was established in 2007 by the Bush administration to oversee and develop military operations on the resource rich continent. In the beginning, the command was little more than an appendage run under Central Command (CENTCOM) from its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. Its exponential expansion today into every corner of Africa is a significant manifestation of Washington’s far-reaching drive to secure US economic dominance over Africa’s vast resources and block the advance of its economic rivals, foremost China.

The Trump administration has overseen a significant rise in drone strikes in Somalia, conducting 35 drone strikes in 2017. In comparison, there were 13 strikes conducted in 2016, and five in 2015. As the WSWS has reported, 2018 is on pace to surpass all previous years combined for drone strikes in the country.

Additionally, the Trump administration issued new rules of engagement for US military forces, essentially granting free rein for commanders to carry out open-ended warfare. The Pentagon has deployed another 500 troops to Somalia.

Notably, the US military has opened a new drone base in Agadez, Niger, which the Pentagon projects will give it the ability to carry out drone strikes and surveillance throughout Western and Northern Africa.

Major General Marcus Hicks, the Chief of Staff for US Special Operations Command, spoke to the Washington Post amid the annual Flintlock military exercise currently being held in Niger. Hicks reiterated the broad scope of the American military’s aim in Africa, saying, “We’re not reducing our footprint or tempo [in Africa].”

Flintlock is a counterterrorism exercise organized by AFRICOM, with the participation of several African nations, since 2005. Participating countries (both past and present) include, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Canada, Tunisia, Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States.

Naming the “rise of Islamic extremism” as the pretext for AFRICOM’s broadening mission, Hicks told the Post, “I believe al-Qaida has a more disciplined approach to developing infrastructure across Africa, north Africa, the Sahel. They are taking a patient approach to gaining ground in influence over organizations that are already there and co-opting local and regional grievances and turning it to their own devices.”

In fact, the cause for the rise of Islamic militants spilling into the Sahel and West Africa are largely the consequence of Washington’s intervention into Libya.

From the beginning of the campaign for regime change in Libya, Washington enlisted Islamic militants affiliated or linked to Al-Qaeda to carry out its dirty work in removing Gaddafi.

Now, in the aftermath of the bombardment of Libya by NATO air strikes in 2011 that led to the complete upending of Libyan society, from which it has yet to recover, the former US-backed fighters spilled forth out of Libya and down into West Africa.

The militarization of the continent comes amid a rise in strikes and demonstrations across Africa. Doctors and teachers in Algeria, Kenya, Togo and Nigeria have been carrying out protests and strikes, in many cases completely shutting down schools, universities, and hospitals.

In the final analysis, AFRICOM’s escalation and expansion complements Washington’s utilization of its massive military power to counter waning US economic and political influence in Africa to neutralize China’s rising economic influence on the continent. Beijing’s recent opening of a naval base in Djibouti, five miles from the joint US-France Camp Lemonnier base, is of particular concern to Washington’s strategists.

GM to slash 1,500 jobs at Lordstown, Ohio plant

Tim Rivers

In spite of a continuous chorus in the media of a booming economy creating robust job numbers, General Motors is unleashing a new round of attacks on autoworkers in North America as part of a global cost-cutting offensive against the working class.

The corporation announced on Friday it will cut one of two operating shifts at its massive Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant, cutting as many as 1,500 jobs effective June 15. As recently as 2016, the plant was operating three shifts around the clock with nearly 4,000 workers. By the end of June only 1,500 will remain.

As sales for the compact Chevy Cruze, the only vehicle produced at the facility, began to slip, GM shuttered the third shift in January 2017, axing 800 jobs. Over the course of 2017, the plant was idled for weeks at a time and rumors began to circulate about the impending layoffs.

As an indication of the severity of the cuts, this is the first time since the recession of the 1980s that the plant will operate with only one shift.

In September, anticipating the cuts, the United Auto Workers (UAW) international union merged the two local unions at the plant into one. Local 1714 joined UAW 1112. At the time, international president Dennis Williams said the move would increase efficiency and preserve union operations in the plant. The move was clearly intended to tighten the grip of the international, suppress any struggle against the job cuts and, on the contrary, boost the company’s cost cutting and profitability.

GM pretax profits for 2017 topped $12.8 billion. The company sold 450,000 fewer vehicles to dealers last year than they did in 2016, but because of aggressive cost-cutting attacks on the workers, imposed by the union, which include everything from an expansion of Temporary Part Time employees at less than half pay, widespread layoffs and shutdowns.

US passenger car sales are on track to decline for the fifth straight year while sales of light trucks are setting records. US sales of compact cars dropped 10 percent in the first quarter and 5.8 percent through 2017.

Lordstown is not the only plant affected by this shift. GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck factory, for example, relies heavily on production of small and midsize sedans, including the Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac CT6, Chevrolet Impala and the Chevrolet Volt. In October, the automaker announced plans to cut about 200 jobs there and halt production beginning November 20 through the Christmas break, affecting 1,500 jobs over the holidays. The second shift was eliminated in March 2017, eliminating 1,300 jobs.

Massive attacks imposed during the Obama administration’s 2009 restructuring of GM and Chrysler, which cut pay in half for new hires and sharply expanded the temporary workforce, allowed the automotive industry to lead the way in what was—for corporate America—a sterling economic recovery. The UAW was paid off handsomely with union officials receiving millions of dollars in corporate bribes to sign “company friendly” agreements.

Mary, a legacy worker from Lordstown who is about to retire, told the World Socialist Web Site, “A lot of people are going to be hurt. There are a lot of young families out there that need their jobs.”

When asked about a struggle against the layoffs, she replied with disgust, “We don’t have the union we had umpteen years ago. All of that has changed.”

Another legacy worker who will lose her job in June is outraged that the union is refusing to cover her health insurance when she retires. “The union doesn’t want to pay for my health care,” she said. “I am very upset. The union does nothing for me. A lot of people are angry about it. They rewrite the seniority clause in the contract when they want to, to protect their people.”

The same conditions are developing in factories everywhere as GM pursues its cost-cutting strategy with a vengeance. Last year, GM said it would withdraw from India, one of the few major automakers to walk away from a country many are counting on for cheap labor and growth. It also has withdrawn production from Europe and Australia and substantially downsized in Russia, Thailand and Indonesia.

GM has announced it will close a Korean factory in the coastal city of Gunsan cutting 2,000 jobs in May as a bludgeon to force workers at the three remaining plants to take cuts. The company is approaching a major restructuring of its operations in South Korea where it employs 16,000 factory workers. Its plants there produce cars mostly for export to dozens of countries—including Buick sport-utility vehicles sent to the US.

GM President Dan Ammann, who is in charge of global operations, said in an interview that the automaker has laid out its position to the union and government officials but declined to discuss specifics. In a threat that will ring all too familiar to American autoworkers, he said GM Korea’s factories are too costly to operate profitably.

“We’ve made clear we need to have a business that’s sustainably profitable in order for that business to attract further investment,” Mr. Ammann stated. He said retaining a presence in the country is the “preferred scenario.”