Two Other Khashoggis in the Middle East

Kani Xulam 

Both men grew up in the same country, Turkey. One was a Turk, the other a Kurd. The Turk wanted to become a journalist. The Kurd hoped to be a lawyer.

Both accomplished their goals, and both lucked out in their choice of wives, marrying their sweethearts who added luster to their lives.

The Turkish journalist grew up in a leftist household and sometimes shouted the fashionable slogan of the week, “Down with American Imperialism!”

The Kurdish lawyer came of age when Kurdish guerrillas battled Turkish oppression, and probably murmured, “Down with Turkish Imperialism!”

The Turkish journalist became a muckraker—so bold that famed Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk hailed him as “a courageous reporter.”

The Kurdish lawyer was equally daring. He used his mind in the courts to skillfully prosecute the Turkish state in Turkey and in Europe for violating the laws of war in Kurdistan.

The Turkish journalist rose rapidly to become editor in chief of Turkey’s oldest newspaper, Cumhuriyet, a staunchly secular daily once considered a mouthpiece of Ataturk.

The Kurdish lawyer rose equally fast, becoming president of Amed (aka Diyarbakir) Bar Association, the highest accolade in the largest organization of Kurdish attorneys in the world.

Then, they found themselves spotlighted for not minding their words.

The Turkish journalist came upon a flash drive exposing Turkey’s conspiracy in delivering illicit weapons to jihadi cutthroats inside Syria. In spite of the risks, he published the news as “Erdogan’s Weapons Revealed!”

The Kurdish lawyer appeared on “Impartial Zone,” a television program on CNN Turk, and during his interview made a passing remark that Amnesty International also employs, “The PKK is not a terrorist organization. It is an armed political group.”

Both, alas, became marked men.

The Turkish journalist found himself threatened by President Erdogan, on national television no less: “The individual who reported this as an exclusive story will pay a heavy price.”

The Kurdish lawyer was subjected to death threats on social media and was arrested six days later. His passport seized, he was closely stalked under supervised release.

The Turkish journalist’s arrest followed suit.

The Kurdish lawyer tweeted: “That arrest is the greatest blow to freedom of press and expression. Without a violent social reaction, it will be hard to escape from this dark tunnel of no return.”

The Turkish journalist, stripped of his electronic gadgets, remained in the dark about the solidarity tweet.

The Kurdish lawyer, in spite of his probation, tried to stop a war inside city centers in Turkish-Kurdistan, called a press conference in front of a damaged four-legged minaret, and urged Turkish soldiers and Kurdish guerrillas to fight elsewhere. His noble call for peace was ruthlessly repaid with brutal assassination: a bullet to the brain.

The Turkish journalist indignantly responded: “[The Kurdish lawyer’s] tunnel of no return has dragged him into its own darkness. We were the last victims he’d defended: my colleague, I and the four legged minaret.”

The Kurdish lawyer’s wife got a call from the prime minister of Turkey, promising that her husband’s killer would be identified and prosecuted. Some promise. The murderer is still free.

The Turkish journalist’s wife got an unexpected visit from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden who expressed his support for the Turkish journalist and praised the importance of freedom of press by quoting her Thomas Jefferson:

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

The Kurdish lawyer’s wife met with Mr. Biden as well, but their conversation has remained private.

Reflecting on her pain, she came to embody Aeschylus’s maxim: “Suffering leads to wisdom.”

She told Irfan Aktan, a Kurdish reporter: “I grew by suffering.” And, “Both Kurds and Turks have a tendency to fetishize death.”

She added: “The Kurds want their demands to be expressed and defended in a way that their safety is not threatened.”

Her choicest words were reserved for Turks: “When a society is at peace with death, that society becomes scary. And when death is glorified, you can no longer speak of a healthy society.”

The Turkish journalist’s appeal from his prison cell finally paid off. A judge ordered him released. After 92 days, he was reunited with his family and colleagues, but his arbitrary prosecution persists.

Here the paths of these two courageous defenders of freedom crossed again:

Just as the Kurdish lawyer was murdered, so an assassin attempted to kill the Turkish journalist. In an act of unrivaled bravery, captured on video, his wife shielded him. He now lives in exile in Germany.

Oh, if you’re wondering who those two brave dissidents were:

The Turkish journalist is Can Dundar. Dilek is the name of his fearless wife.

The Kurdish lawyer was Tahir Elci. Turkan, his wife, has now taken up her husband’s cry of freedom with her beautiful mind.

Rest in peace, Mr. Elci; take good care, Mr. Dundar.

Highlighting the Need to Combat the Use of Rape as a Weapon of War

Rene Wadlow

The co-laureate of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, Denis Mukwege, has become an eloquent spokesperson for the effort to outlaw the use of rape as a weapon of war. Rape has often been considered as a nearly normal part of war. When an army took a city or town, the rape of women followed, a reward to brave soldiers. Military commanders turned a blind eye.

However, whatever may have been past practice, rape has now become a weapon of war, often an effort at genocide. Women’s reproductive organs are deliberately destroyed with the aim of preventing the reproduction of a group – one of the elements of genocide set out in the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Denis Mukwege has created a clinic near Bukavu in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo – a country that is democratic only in name. He and a number of younger doctors whom he was trained try to care for women who have undergone rape by multiple men, one after the other, often in public in front of family members and others who know the woman. Known rape, even by a single person, can be a cause of family breakup, lasting shame, and an inability to continue living in the same village. There are also negative attitudes toward children born of a rape. Multiple rape is often followed by deliberate destruction of the reproductive organs.

The eastern area of Congo is the scene of fighting at least since 1998 – in part as a result of the genocide in neighboring Rwanda in 1994. In mid-1994, more than one million Rwandan Hutu refugees poured into the two Kivu states, fleeing the advance of the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front now become the government of Rwanda. Many of these Hutu were still armed, among them the “genocidaire” who a couple of months before had led the killings of some 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda. They continued to kill Tutsi living in the Congo, many of whom had migrated there in the 18th century.

The influx of a large number of Hutu led to a desire to control the wealth of the area – rich in gold, tropical timber and rare minerals such as those used in mobile telephones. In the Kivu, many problems arise from land tenure issues. With a large number of new people, others displaced and villages destroyed, land tenure and land use patterns need to be reviewed and modified.

However, violence in the eastern Congo is not limited to fighting between Hutus and Titsis. There are armed bands from neighboring countries – Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda – who have come on the scene attracted by possible wealth from timber and mines of rare minerals. In addition, local commanders of the Congolese Army, far from the control of the Central Government, have created their own armed groups, looting, raping, and burning village homes.

There is a United Nations peacekeeping force in the Congo, the U.N.’s largest peacekeeping mission. However its capacity has reached its limit. Its operations are focused on areas with roads, leaving villages on small paths largely unguarded.

There has been a growing international awareness of the use of rape as a weapon of war. The issue was raised during the conflicts which followed the breakup of Yugoslavia as well as cases brought to the International Criminal Court. The Association of World Citizens has raised the issue in U.N. human rights bodies in Geneva.

Yet there is much yet to be done to make the outlawing of rape as a norm of humanitarian law and especially to prevent its practice. The Nobel Peace Prize to Denis Mukwege should be a strong step forward in this effort.

Pakistan rules out any kind of ties with Israel as Netanyahu visits Oman

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Pakistan President Arif Alvi on Sunday (Oct 28) ruled out establishing any kind of relations with Israel as he strongly rejected reports that an Israeli aircraft carrying some officials secretly landed in Islamabad and flew away after several hours at the airport here.

“Islamabad is not establishing any kind of relations with Israel,” President Alvi told the media before his departure for Turkey on a three-day official visit.

The story of the Israeli plane coincided with the visit of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the Sultanate of Oman. Netanyahu and his wife Sara visited Muscat on Thursday and returned on Friday (Oct 26). The visit was announced after Netanyahu returned to Israel.

The episode of Israeli plane

An Israeli journalist Avi Scharf tweeted on October 25, when Netanyahu landed in Muscat, that an Israeli business jet flew from Tel Aviv to Islamabad where it was on the ground for 10 hours, before flying back to Tel Aviv.

It may be pointed out that the Muscat Port is only 208 nautical miles from Pakistan’s strategic port Gwadar that was part of Oman till 1958 when it was sold to Pakistan for $3 million.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi also dismissed reports of an Israeli aircraft landing in Pakistan as fake and baseless. He said that something which is not even real does not warrant a response.

Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said the “government would not negotiate in secret with either Israel or India”.

BBC Urdu reported that the aircraft in question was a Canadian-manufactured Bombardier Global Express with the serial number 9394. It was registered on February 22, 2017 in the Isle of Man in the UK by a company called Multibird Overseas Ltd.

The Israeli journalist later said he was not “100 per cent sure” if the plane had landed in Islamabad.

Pakistan and Israel do not have diplomatic relations and their aircraft are not allowed to use each other’s airspace.

Analysts are wondering if the ‘fake’ news was a message to nuclear-armed Pakistan that Israel is now in its proximity as Muscat is close to Gwadar.

According to Azriel Bermant, a research associate at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, “one could argue that Islamabad poses more of a threat to Israel than Tehran does.” In an article in the Haaretz, Bermant wrote “Pakistan test-fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile, the Shaheen III, which Pakistani officials said can reach Israel.

The Saudi Reaction

Commenting on Netanyahu’s visit to Muscat, the Saudi TV Channel Al Arabiya pointed out that Israel has played an important role in hitting Iran’s growing influence in Syria. It took up roles that rejecting Arab countries couldn’t achieve. With this, military balance in the region was achieved.

Al Arabiya writer, Abdulrahman al-Rashed, said:

“Israel has played an important role in hitting Iran’s growing influence in Syria. It took up roles that rejecting Arab countries couldn’t achieve. With this, military balance in the region was achieved, and Israel became integral to regional security after it was once considered a poisonous apple that everyone avoided dealing with.

“The Syrian war changed the equation when Israel became an involved party. In addition to Turkey and Russia, Iran’s strong involvement in the war is what prompted Israel to enter and become a major player, especially when both America and Turkey failed in the face of Iranian regime’s expansion and hegemony in Syria, after it was clear that it is building an empire with chaotic militias.

“Even those who reject Israel in the context of the Palestinian cause found themselves compelled to welcome the intervention of Israeli air forces which dramatically changed the situation in Syria and curbed Iranian threats in the region.

“Israel imposed itself on the heart of the region’s military camps, and without its intervention, stopping the Revolutionary Guards’ expansion that succeeded on the back of Russian military and political presence would not have been possible. These are important changes in the region, and they will not stop the activities of the Israeli leaders in Muscat. It is actually the start of a political division built on conflicts in Syria, Yemen and others.”

Not surprisingly, Netanyahu has said that mutual opposition to Iran has brought Israel closer to the Gulf Arab countries, while Iran criticized the visit, saying that Israel was seeking to create divisions among Muslim countries.

Oman seeking ‘regional role’

Sultan Qaboos bin Said’s surprise meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was more about Oman’s desire to play a role in the region than reaching a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, Middle East Eye quoted a diplomatic source as saying.

Sultan Qaboos hosted Netanyahu in Muscat only days after he met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

While Palestinian sources said the Sultan urged both leaders to revive the stalled peace process, a Western diplomatic source indicated that Netanyahu’s visit – and the way it was quietly announced after the prime minister had returned to Israel – was more about Oman and its role in the region than anything else.

“Oman is trying to play a regional role between the various parties and axes in the region, and it sees Israel as an important player in various regional issues,” the diplomat told Middle East Eye.

It may be pointed out that Oman is a member of six-state Arabian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Oman’s government described Israel as an accepted Middle East state on Saturday, a day after hosting a surprise visit by Netanyahu.

Oman is offering ideas to help Israel and the Palestinians to come together but is not acting as mediator, Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, the Omani Foreign Minister told a security forum in Bahrain.

“Israel is a state present in the region, and we all understand this,” bin Alawi said adding:

“The world is also aware of this fact. Maybe it is time for Israel to be treated the same [as others states] and also bear the same obligations.”

Spy and police chiefs demand passage of Australian encryption access law

Mike Head 

Facing mounting public opposition, Australia’s intelligence and police chiefs are demanding that parliament pass a bill that would set a global precedent for the compulsory cracking open of encryption and other privacy devices.

In effect, the heads of the spy and security apparatus spoke on behalf of the US-led “Five Eyes” worldwide network, which conducts mass monitoring of the world’s population, as well as secret bugging operations against targeted governments.

A summit of the Five Eyes countries, held in Australia on August 28–29, called for laws to enable access to encrypted emails, text messages and voice communications. Representing the US, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, they declared it was necessary to force open “end-to-end encryption” tools.

Without providing any evidence, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) chief Duncan Lewis told a parliamentary committee hearing on October 19 that suspected terrorists were using encrypted messages to plan potential attacks.

“I can confidently say there are suspected terrorists in Australia using encrypted communications and due to that encryption it is impossible for us at this time to intercept and read their communications, despite our existing range of lawful and legal access authorities,” Lewis said.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Andrew Colvin made similar unsubstantiated assertions, trying to link the proposed assault on all on-line communications to the endless “war on terrorism.”

In other words, despite the introduction of barrages of legislation since 2001 authorising electronic surveillance, computer hacking, detention and interrogation without trial and other measures overturning fundamental civil and democratic rights, the political spy apparatus insists it must have even greater powers.

Lewis himself noted that since 2014, “at about the time I became the Director-General of Security, we’ve seen 12 tranches of national security legislation pass through the parliament.”

The ASIO chief also alluded to the pressure coming from Washington and other “allies” to push the anti-encryption measures through. He told the committee, “it’s not only a concern unique here, to Australia, but it’s one faced around the globe, as our international allies and partners would attest.”

Lewis said ASIO had neither the desire nor the capacity to intercept or collect the communications of Australians en masse. In reality, the Australian agencies work with their Five Eyes partners to monitor the communications of millions of people, as exposed by former US National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange.

In the lead-up to the committee hearing, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton insisted that the bill’s passage was urgent. Dutton, who attended the Five Eyes summit and heads a super-ministry in charge of all the spy and police agencies, said: “Given we are talking about nine out of 10 national security investigations now being impeded because of the use of encryption, we need to deal with it.”

The actual concern of the capitalist class and its security apparatuses is not handfuls of terrorists but growing working class hostility to widening social inequality, worsening working and living conditions, the evisceration of civil and democratic rights and the mounting danger of another world war provoked by the US.

At the hearing, a Home Affairs Department official revealed that it had received 15,990 submissions, an indication of popular opposition, but the department contemptuously dismissed nearly all of them—15,130—as “standard campaign responses.” Of the 743 “unique individual responses classified as appropriate for consideration,” only 55 were treated as “substantive submissions.”

Not one member of the bipartisan parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security questioned the declarations of the ASIO and AFP chiefs. All the MPs, both Liberal-National and Labor, declared their agreement with the need to protect “security” and suggested changes to the bill to enhance the operations of the spy and police agencies, while appearing to address the widespread alarm.

The far-reaching scope of the bill was underscored when Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) director-general Mike Burgess was asked to outline the communications platforms that would be covered. The examples he gave included: “Your banking application; your web browser; your text; your music application on a phone; Signal, which is a messaging app that encrypts data; WhatsApp.”

The ASD, Australia’s equivalent of the US NSA, conducts electronic surveillance, including bugging and phone tapping, throughout the Indo-Pacific region.

Under the Telecommunications (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018, telcos, Internet companies and device manufacturers, as well as website and individual social media hosts, would be compelled to remove all barriers to government agencies accessing private data.

Companies would face fines of up to $10 million for each instance of “non-compliance” with “technical assistance notices” or “technical capability notices.” Individuals could be fined up to $50,000.

The ASIO and AFP chiefs repeated the government’s claims that the legislation would not require tech companies to provide “backdoor” entry to encryption systems. But any “approved agency” could force an individual or a service provider to hand over a password or the tools to decrypt messages.

Other witnesses at the hearing outlined insidious aspects of the 176-page bill. Several pointed out that it only mentions “encryption” once. Instead, it uses the wider term “electronic protection” to cover all devices and applications designed to ensure privacy.

Arthur Moses, the president-elect of the Law Council, representing the legal profession, said: “The bill as presently drafted would authorise the exercise of intrusive covert powers with the potential to significantly limit an individual’s right to privacy.”

Moses said compliance notices could amount to a new form of detention without trial. “If a person is required to attend a place to provide information or assistance, this may amount to detention of that person, particularly as they may be arrested on suspicion of an ­ offence if they attempt to leave.”

The Law Council also warned that the bill would allow authorities to side-step warrants previously needed to access private information.

Despite raising objections to aspects of the bill—particularly the threat of criminal sanctions for non-compliance—executives from the major telecommunications companies stressed their willingness to keep voluntarily collaborating with the authorities.

Ramah Sakul, a representative of Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, told the hearing: “We believe a collaborative and cooperative approach is more likely to result in efficient and timely outcomes in the provision of assistance and capability development.”

Andrew Sheridan from Optus said his company had “developed a long history of cooperation with law enforcement and national security agencies,” including “data retention.”

Representing “The Software Alliance” of transnational internet corporations, such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, Darryn Lim said his organisation “encourages close collaboration between the government, Australian law enforcement and the technology community to improve processes and methodologies enabling law enforcement access to digital evidence in a timely manner.”

Lim outlined a six-point plan to modify the bill to enhance this relationship.

As the WSWS has documented in detail, the global giants are increasingly working in partnership with governments to implement anti-democratic restrictions on internet access. This features, in particular, using algorithms to limit or block access to socialist, anti-war and other critical websites.

Canada upholds $15 billion Saudi arms deal after Khashoggi murder

Roger Jordan 

In the nearly four weeks since the Saudi regime had journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered, Canada’s Liberal government has gone out of its way to avoid criticizing Riyadh, while insisting Canada must fulfill a $15 billion arms deal with the kingdom—a linchpin of US imperialism’s domination of the oil-rich Middle East.

A Saudi citizen, Khashoggi disappeared after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul October 2 to obtain divorce papers needed to marry his Turkish fiancé. In the three weeks since his disappearance became internationally known, the Saudi regime has desperately attempted to deny responsibility. Initially it claimed that Khashoggi left the embassy, then that he had died during a “fist fight.” More recently, it has said he was the victim of a premeditated murder carried out by “rogue” elements in the Saudi security forces.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has avoided publicly accusing Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the kingdom’s effective ruler, of ordering Khashoggi’s murder. But Turkish authorities have systematically leaked information contradicting Riyadh’s claims, including video of the arrival in Turkey of a 15-man Saudi assassination squad. Everything points to the Saudi journalist having been tortured and beheaded inside the consulate, then his dismembered body being smuggled out of the premises.

With public outrage over Khashoggi’s gruesome murder mounting, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government have spent the past two weeks twisting and turning in the face of mounting criticism from sections of the media and opposition over its insistence that Canada must fulfill its $15 billion contract to supply Riyadh with 740 LAVs (Light Armored Vehicles), manufactured at a General Dynamics plant in London, Ontario.

For the first week, Trudeau and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland claimed, as they have in the past, that Canada’s international reputation would be damaged if it failed to “honour” the contract, while emphasizing that it was the Harper Conservative government that entered into the deal—Canada’s largest ever arms contract—with Riyadh in 2014.

However, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has now come forward with a second argument. Cancelling the contract, he insists, would result in massive financial penalties. Initially, Trudeau spoke of a billion dollars, but by Thursday he was claiming Canadian taxpayers would be on the hook for “billions of dollars.” According to Trudeau, the deal is subject to stringent confidentiality clauses such that the government cannot make the financial penalties section, or any other part of it, public. In other words, the government must be taken at its word.

Trudeau’s claims to be in a legal bind are a callous and hypocritical subterfuge.

The reality is he and his government have issued no more than pro forma statements of concern about Khashoggi’s horrific fate. The strongest language Ottawa has been willing to employ is to describe the obvious stream of lies coming from Riyadh as “not credible.”

Bourgeois commentators have noted a contrast between Ottawa’s tepid response to Khashoggi’s death, and Freeland’s tweets of last August denouncing Riyadh’s jailing of human rights activists. The latter triggered a bitter diplomatic spat, with the Crown Prince demanding an apology and Riyadh recalling its ambassador to Canada and announcing a series of economic reprisals.

In reality, in both cases the Liberals have been pursuing the same reactionary aims.

In August, the Liberal government was not seeking a confrontation with Riyadh. It saw the tweets as a way of providing it political cover at home for the controversial Saudi arms deal, and calculated the criticism would be interpreted by the Saudis as nothing more than the usual human rights rhetoric Western governments use to camouflage their imperialist intrigue and aggression.

After all, Trudeau and his government had never voiced a word of criticism of the brutal war the Saudis have been waging in Yemen since 2015, and which has produced the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis. When evidence emerged of Canadian-built LAVs being used in the Yemen war and to suppress Shia protesters in eastern Saudi Arabia, the Liberal government willfully ignored it. Nor did Trudeau or Freeland ever make any issue of the Saudi absolutist regime’s beheading of over 150 people in 2017, or its executing 48 prisoners in the first four months of this year.

That Ottawa is eager to maintain the $15 billion arms deal with Riyadh is incontrovertible. But the Trudeau government’s muted response to Khashoggi’s murder is about more than just the Canada-Saudi relationship.

For the Liberal government and for the Canadian bourgeoisie as a whole an even more fundamental consideration is sustaining and strengthening the Canada-US military-strategic alliance, which is the cornerstone of Canadian imperialism’s global strategy.

Ottawa was rattled when the Trump administration, which has stepped up its strategic partnership with Riyadh as part of its plans for war with Iran, refused to come to Canada’s support in last August’s spat. In what was seen as a slap in the face in Canadian ruling circles, Trump administration officials repeatedly urged Ottawa and Riyadh to settle the dispute among themselves.

In the intervening period, Canada has reached an agreement with Washington on a “modernized” North American Free Trade Agreement, but to do so it had to make significant concessions. These include changes aimed at making NAFTA a more effective instrument for waging trade war, such as a clause that for all intents and purposes prevents Ottawa and Mexico City from concluding free trade agreements with China without first receiving Washington’s approval.

The Trudeau government has got the message. If Canadian imperialism is going to rely on the might of Washington’s military and geostrategic influence to pursue its predatory interests around the world, it needs to bend more to Washington, at least on issues that it does not view as core interests.

The Trump administration has all but publicly announced that it is looking for the quickest and most effective way to sweep the Khashoggi affair under the proverbial carpet, so it can resume open and active collaboration with Saudi Arabia in bullying and threatening Iran.

Consequently, the Trudeau government is raising only the most muted criticisms of the Saudi murder of Khashoggi, who was a regime insider until a recent falling out with the Crown Prince.

The Khashoggi affair has not only highlighted the Trudeau government’s imperialist foreign policy. It has also provided yet another demonstration of the hypocrisy of the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP).

Under pressure from the leadership of Unifor, the country’s largest industrial union, the NDP dropped criticism of the Saudi arms deal like a lead balloon during the 2015 election, and until recently has said little to nothing about it. But now, hoping to bolster their pathetic poll numbers, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and his fellow social democrats are urging the Trudeau government to abandon the Saudi arms deal.

The New Democrats are feigning outrage that Canada is associated with a regime that is a gross violator of human rights and promoting as an alternate market for General Dynamics’ SAVs Canada’s NATO allies—that is the states that comprise the world’s foremost inter-imperialist military alliance, which is currently involved in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and seeking to strategically encircle and threaten Russia.

NATO is led by none other than Washington, the country that not only has back-stopped the Saudi regime for decades, but which over the past quarter century has led a series of illegal wars that have destroyed entire societies from Afghanistan to Libya, and which with Canada’s support is today pursuing military-strategic offensives against nuclear-armed Russia and China. Other NATO states include Britain, Washington’s chief ally in the Iraq war; France, which, again with Canada’s support, is waging its own neo-colonial war in north Africa; Germany, which is today frantically rearming; and a coterie of other lesser imperialist powers.

Such is the NDP’s defence of human rights and opposition to imperialist militarism.

Tens of thousands of teachers demonstrate in Glasgow for better pay

Robert Stevens 

Tens of thousands of teachers marched in Glasgow, Scotland, on Saturday to demand higher pay and reject a derisory “final” pay offer of 3 percent from employers for the year 2018-2019.

Members of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) are demanding a pay rise of at least 10 percent in response to their remuneration falling by nearly a quarter over the past decade of austerity measures imposed by the Scottish National Party (SNP) administration in Scotland. For the past seven years, teachers in the United Kingdom have been subjected to a 1 percent maximum pay rise cap fixed by the government—with the cap only being scrapped this year in Scotland.

The demonstration was far larger than the EIS anticipated, showing the desire of teachers internationally to fight back against decades of pay cuts. The march won the support of not only teachers but also that of parents and their families. Protesters marched from the city’s Kelvingrove Park to George Square. So large was the march that as the first marchers arrived in George Square, others were still waiting to set off from Kelvingrove, over two miles away.

The march took place despite the systematic suppression of the teachers’ fight by the unions.

In March, EIS members voted to throw out the 3 percent pay offer and gave the union leaders a mandate to call industrial action. This took place as thousands of teachers in unions across the UK and internationally simultaneously voted to strike over pay and pensions. In the UK, teachers at conferences of the National Education Union (NEU) and the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) voted during this time to walk out. In the seven months since, the unions have done nothing but suppress these demands.

The EIS, opposed to a fight to mobilise teachers and other education staff, instead launched a petition writing campaign aimed at persuading Scottish MPs to back a 10 percent pay deal.

The petition gave 10 reasons why MPs should support a pay increase, with the fourth being an indictment of the unions, which have collaborated in forcing teachers to increase productivity for less pay.

It states, “Scotland’s teachers have delivered. Despite cuts in teacher numbers and resources, teachers have gone the extra mile to protect pupils at a time of significant curricular change and new qualifications. Workload and stress have soared – whilst pay has been declining. Teachers are delivering more, for less.”

After 25,000 signatures were delivered to SNP Education Secretary John Swinney’s office, EIS President Alison Thornton reiterated that the main aim of the union was to prevent the eruption of industrial action. “We are happy to hand over our postcards here today and these will provide Mr [sic] Swinney with plenty of reading material for the summer period. Whilst it is unfortunate that the Deputy First Minister was unable to accept the cards personally today, we will be taking him up on his offer to meet with us in the near future to discuss the pay campaign. The EIS remains committed to seeking a negotiated solution in order to remove any prospect of a formal dispute and would urge the Scottish Government and local authorities to return to the negotiating table with a substantially improved pay offer in the next round of talks.”

The suppression of the independent struggle of teachers is at the heart of why the EIS called Saturday’s demonstration. It was timed to coincide with yet another ballot initiative they have called on the same 3 percent offer already rejected in March. The ballot opens on October 30 and will close on November 20, with nothing being organised against the attacks for the entire duration of the vote.

While the EIS is calling on members to reject the offer, it is using the anger of teachers as a bargaining chip for more negotiations with the employers, with their objective to impose another sellout deal. The ballot paper makes no reference to strikes or any action being organised in the event of another vote to reject the offer.

Prior to the demo, EIS General Secretary Larry Flanagan said, “Thousands of Scottish teachers will march through the streets of Glasgow to send a clear message to the Scottish Government and COSLA [Convention of Scottish Local Authorities] that they must improve their pay offer to teachers.”

The demobilisation of teachers is taking place through the unions and leading figures of all the main parties, including the governing Scottish National Party. Also speaking at the rally was Scottish Trades Union Congress president Lynn Henderson, Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard, SNP MP Chris Stephens, Carole Ford for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Scottish Greens education spokesman and MSP Ross Greer, and Liam McCabe from the National Union of Students.

Leonard, who is a supporter of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, offered no alternative for teachers, instead calling on them to rely on the good graces of the SNP—which is insistent on continuing budget cuts. “It’s time for Mr. Swinney to put a fair pay deal on the table to provide teachers with the respect and due recognition they deserve,” Leonard bombastically declared.

In a statement, Swinney claimed that teachers would receive a larger pay deal of between 5 and 18 percent, but this was based on the conflating of a low pay increase with incremental pay that teachers were due to receive anyway.

Not only are the unions ensuring that the struggles of education workers are isolated from one another; everything is being done to prevent a unified offensive of public sector workers who are facing a common assault on their pay, terms and conditions.

Teachers in Glasgow demonstrated just days after around 6,000 mostly female local government workers took strike action in pursuit of equal pay. They were supported by many of their male co-workers who refused to cross picket lines in solidarity. The male workers, including every refuse worker in Glasgow, walked out in support even as the SNP government threatened them with the use of the Conservative government’s anti-strike laws.

Under US pressure, Maldives president accepts election defeat

Rohantha De Silva 

In a televised speech on October 17, Maldives President Abdulla Yameen accepted his defeat in the presidential elections held on September 23. After attempting to have the country’s Supreme Court judges annul the election results, he was forced to retreat after US and European Union threats of punitive responses.

The outcome directly cuts across Beijing’s interests in the tiny island country, strategically located 400 kilometres southwest of India and close to the world’s busiest shipping lanes, from the Middle East and Africa to East Asia.

In September’s election, the pro-US joint opposition candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, obtained 58 percent of the declared vote while Yameen polled 42 percent. In the run-up to the poll, the US, EU and India had, for their own political purposes, intensified criticism of Yameen’s anti-democratic rule. They warned of sanctions if the elections were not “free and fair” and demanded the reinstatement of ousted opposition MPs.

Yameen conceded defeat immediately after the election, but later claimed to have evidence that election results were rigged and filed a case in the Supreme Court to annul them. After the Supreme Court decided to hear Yameen’s appeal, the US and EU issued another round of warnings.

On October 13, US State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said on Twitter: “The US is concerned by troubling actions that threaten to undermine the will of the Maldivian people, and will consider appropriate measures against anyone who undermines a peaceful transfer of power in Maldives.”

Amid these warnings, the judges decided not to hear Yameen’s “secret witnesses” about the alleged vote rigging. Then a five-judge Supreme Court bench unanimously ruled that the president failed to prove his claim.

The country’s judiciary is highly politicised. In February, Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed and another judge were jailed after ordering the release of opposition MPs convicted earlier on trumped-up charges. At that time, Yameen declared an emergency and jailed the two judges with the help of the remaining judges. Now these same judges have thrown out Yameen’s case.

After the court ruling, Robert Hilt on, the chargé d’affaires at the US embassy in Sri Lanka, issued a statement saying Washington was “looking forward to working with president-elect Ibrahim Mohamed Solih after his inauguration in November.” He added: “It’s a new and positive era for the Maldives.”

Likewise, the EU said it looked forward to “working with the future government of Maldives” and expected “the full restoration of democratic institutions.”

However, the Western powers have no concern for the democratic rights of Maldivian people. Their statements underscore the intense pressure applied by the US and EU for a regime change in their geo-strategic interests.

After opening an embassy in 2012 under the previous president, Mohamed Nasheed, China became the country’s main investor and currently holds 70 percent of its foreign debt. It has invested in many infrastructure projects, including a main port built at the expense of India, its regional rival and US ally. Yameen’s government had pledged to become a partner in Beijing’s flagship project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to link China to Europe.

Washington is determined to undercut China’s influence and bring Maldives firmly into its orbit as part of its aggressive diplomatic, economic and military moves against China. The Indian capitalist elite is developing close strategic ties with the US as New Delhi also wants to stop China from challenging its regional and global great power aspirations.

In response, China is seeking to maintain its investments in Maldives. Beijing has declared it will continue its relations with the new government in Maldives.

Yameen will have to step down on November 17, according to the constitution. President-elect Solih said “the Maldivian people can finally enjoy clarity over the outcome of the election.” Despite Solih’s claims, the Maldivian people will not enjoy a flourishing of democratic rights.

Solih was a parliamentary leader of the opposition Maldives Democratic Party (MDP), led by Mohamed Nasheed.

Though Yameen’s government jailed Nasheed, the US and UK pressured Yameen to allow him to travel to London. Abroad, he conducted a pro-US and anti-China campaign. He is operating from Colombo where a similar pro-US regime change was orchestrated in January 2015. Nasheed has declared he will return to Maldives on November 1.

The MDP and other opposition parties have begun a campaign to suppress Yameen’s influence. They have held protests demanding the police stop him “escaping from the country” and are reportedly preparing to lay corruption charges against him.

Solih has quickly indicated he will distance his government from China and strengthen relations with India and the US in particular. He has publicly expressed support for US and Indian strategic interests in the Indian Ocean, which could lead to military conflicts with China.

The pro-US shift in Maldives will only intensify the political instability in the archipelago and the geopolitical tensions between China and the US.

Far-right candidate Bolsonaro elected as Brazil’s president

Miguel Andrade

Brazil’s presidential run-off election Sunday confirmed what had been anticipated in the first round vote earlier this month and by subsequent electoral polls, with the election of the fascistic reserve Army captain and seven-term federal representative for the state of Rio de Janeiro, Jair Bolsonaro, as president.

Bolsonaro won 58 million votes, or 55 percent of the total, against 47 million, or 45 percent, for Workers Party (PT) candidate Fernando Haddad. The run-off also saw a repeat of the record abstention and spoiled ballots of the first round, with over 40 million out of a total of 146 million adults able to vote choosing not to cast a ballot for either candidate.

The election of Bolsonaro, an open defender of the US-backed, 21-year military dictatorship that ruled Brazil until 1985, and of its murderous and barbaric repression, marks a thorough-going breakdown of the regime of civilian bourgeois democratic rule that emerged in Brazil after the military ceded power.

It also represents a shipwreck for all of the parties that previously held power, first and foremost the PT, which served as the preferred instrument of rule for the Brazilian bourgeoisie for 13 years. Also decimated was the party that emerged out of the former legal opposition to the dictatorship, the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), and the country’s former main right-wing party, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB). The first round had already seen the Congressional elections cut both the PSDB’s and MDB’s caucuses in half, and a drop of 20 percent in the number of seats held by the PT.

The election marks widespread opposition to the whole political setup dominated by the PT and the former right-wing opposition, which is seen by wide layers of Brazilians as responsible for the worst economic crisis in the country’s history—with an 8 percent GDP drop between 2015 and 2016 and the slowest recovery ever since. The unemployment rate has remained stagnant at 12 percent—with some 13 million jobless—and extreme poverty and infant mortality are on the rise.

Moreover, the PT and the other two main bourgeois parties are seen as co-responsible for wholesale corruption, with the MDB swinging between the other two to give them support for almost 30 years. Since the PSDB first came to the presidency in 1994, being succeeded by the PT from 2002 for four terms, corruption schemes have spanned from vote-buying in Congress by the PT and PSDB, to fraudulent privatizations under the PSDB, to bribes and kickbacks for public contracts involving construction, industrial and energy monopolies under the rule of the PT—the central scheme uncovered by the Lava-jato (Carwash) investigation, whose tentacles have spread as far as the United States, Africa and virtually the whole of the rest of Latin America.

Against this backdrop, Bolsonaro was able, with populist criticisms of corruption and cronyism, to pose as the sole opposition to the anti-working class policies of these three parties. With a candidacy backed by an array of senior military officers and gradually embraced by big business, Bolsonaro’s election will mark the first time since 1985 that the reviled Brazilian military, formerly completely demoralized by the exposure and abject failure of its brutal repression and class war policies, will play a dominant role in government.

Following first-round trends, the electoral breakdown showed the PT being roundly defeated in virtually all of its former strongholds, where it first gained strength in the 1980s and from which it finally rose to national power. This was most notable in the so-called ABC region of industrial cities surrounding São Paulo, as well as the so-called “red belt” of working class areas in the city’s outskirts.

Traditionally left-wing states that used to give the PT electoral victories long before it took control of the national government, such as Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de Janeiro, gave Bolsonaro stunning victories of over 63 percent.

The city of São Bernardo in the ABC region, where the PT was born and where its former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—now jailed on charges related to the Carwash probe—led metalworkers in a series of major strikes beginning in 1978, leading to the end of the dictatorship, gave Bolsonaro 60 percent of the vote, while other ABC cities gave him up to 75 percent.

The PT was only able to retain support in the country’s impoverished and neglected northeast, a region it first penetrated in Lula’s presidential victory of 2002 and where it has been associated with modest, IMF-approved poverty reduction schemes.

In the run-up to the election, Bolsonaro issued a series of provocative statements declaring that his opposition in the PT, whom he described a “red criminals”, would have to choose between either exile or prison. He similarly vowed a to stage a “clean-up the likes of which has never been seen in Brazilian history.”

Bolsonaro’s vice-presidential running mate, the right-wing general Hamilton Mourão, who retired from the military only this year after making speeches affirming the need for “military intervention” to secure “law and order”, stated bluntly on the eve of the election that the first task of the new government would be to carry out economic adjustment programs, including a sweeping pension “reform.”

The general said that the new government would take advantage of the “honeymoon” after it takes office to “hammer in some nails.”

Following the release of the results of the election, Bolsonaro delivered a rant on social media denouncing socialism and communism. Shortly afterwards, he appeared on national television vowing his support for democratic rule of law and property rights as well as fiscal responsibility. He also signaled that he would more closely align Brazil’s foreign policy with that of Washington. He added that he had received a congratulatory call from US President Donald Trump who said that the two could reach “great partnerships.”

The election of Bolsonaro clearly signals a sharp turn to the right by the Brazilian bourgeoisie in confronting the deepest economic crisis in the country’s history and steadily rising class tensions.

His path to power was paved by the PT, which over its 13 years of rule allied itself with Bolsonaro and a whole series of right-wing politicians in congress to impose economic policies demanded by the IMF that placed the full burden of the country’s economic crisis onto the backs of the working class.

Many had pointed to the jailing of Lula—which barred him from running again for the presidency—as the principal cause for the PT’s defeat. Polls, however, have indicated that a majority of the Brazilian population believes that he should be jailed, and the PT itself dropped his image from the campaign in the second round, while changing their party’s trademark color red to the same green and yellow of the Brazilian flag used by Bolsonaro.

The reality is that the election represented a stunning rejection of the PT by masses of Brazilian workers, many of whom voted for Bolsonaro and even more of whom refused to vote for anyone out of disgust for the entire political setup.

The PT was itself unable and unwilling to make any class appeal to workers to oppose the right-wing threat posed by Bolsonaro’s coming to power. No attempt was made to bring workers out into the streets in advance of the second-round vote, and if there had been it is unlikely that many would have answered a call from the PT. Instead, the party pitched its appeal to a broad “democratic front,” attempting to pick up the support from the discredited parties of the bourgeoisie, which themselves had lost whatever small popular base that they once had.

The entire pseudo left in Brazil attempted to give this bankrupt and reactionary policy a “left” façade, portraying a vote for Haddad as the only means of stopping the advent of fascism in Brazil. This attempt to corral workers back under the wing of the party that had betrayed them over the course of decades proved itself an abject failure.

The reality is that the right-wing social and economic policies that Bolsonaro will now attempt to introduce would have been adopted by an incoming PT government as well. And his move to bring the military into the government also would have been seen under a PT government, with Haddad making one of his first visits after the first-round vote to the chief of staff of the Brazilian armed forces for a political discussion.

It will take far more than an election to impose a fascist dictatorship over a country of some 210 million people. Great class battles lie ahead. The decisive question confronting the working class is to assimilate the lessons of the decades of betrayals at the hands of the PT, its affiliated union confederation, the CUT, and the coterie of pseudo-left groups that orbit around them. A new revolutionary movement must be built, based on the program of socialist internationalism and the fight to link up the struggles of Brazilian workers with those of the working class throughout the Americas.

Anti-Semitic violence erupts in America

Joseph Kishore

The anti-Semitic massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has raised the crisis of American politics and society to a new level. More and more, the conditions in the United States have the character of a civil war, in which the most backward and reactionary forces are being encouraged and promoted.

Eleven people were killed in the slaughter in Pittsburgh, which occurred during religious services Saturday morning. Among the predominantly elderly victims were two brothers and a husband and wife, aged 84 and 86. Another victim was Rose Mallinger, 97, a survivor of the Holocaust. The shooter, Robert Bowers, has been charged with 11 counts of criminal homicide and 13 counts of ethnic intimidation.

While the United States is no stranger to anti-Semitism, an act of mass violence targeting Jewish people on this scale is unprecedented. As one commenter in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz wrote, the “illusion that ‘this can’t happen here’ has been shattered. American Jews will wake up the next day to a new and far more frightening future, knowing not only that it has happened here, but that the attack could portend similar assaults in the future.”

To understand the significance of this act it is necessary to place it not only in its domestic, but also its international and historical context.

The attack is a direct product of the open appeals to fascist violence by the Trump administration. Bowers was evidently motivated by a combination of rabid anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant chauvinism. He posted comments on social media just prior to the attack linking his hatred of Jews to the efforts of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), with which the Tree of Life synagogue is affiliated, to assist refugees fleeing Central America. “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people,” he wrote. “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered.”

The language he employed, including the use of “invaders” to refer to migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America caused by US imperialism, is that of the Trump administration. In a speech last week, Trump referred to the caravan of migrants heading for the US border as “an assault on our country.” He called it an invasion that threatened to destroy “your neighborhoods, your hospitals, your schools.” In remarks laden with anti-Semitic and fascistic tropes, Trump denounced those who “want to turn the clock back and restore power to corrupt, power-hungry globalists…”

The attack on in the synagogue follows the string of pipe bombs sent by a Trump supporter to prominent Democrats.

Trump himself is a symptom, however, not an explanation. What brought Trump to power?

The consequences of the financial crisis of 2008 and the pro-Wall Street policies of the Obama administration, which enabled the right wing to posture as defenders of the “forgotten man.” The impact of more than a quarter-century of unending war, 17 years under the banner of the “war on terror.” The turn by the ruling class and both Democrats and Republicans to ever more authoritarian forms of rule in response to growing resistance from the working class.

While Trump seeks to cultivate an extra-parliamentary movement of the far-right, the Democrats promote the FBI, the CIA and the military as the guarantors of stability against those who “sow divisions” and discontent.

The international context underscores the fact that far more is involved than simply the Trump administration. The growth of far-right and fascistic movements and governments is a global phenomenon.

In the Philippines, it has produced Rodrigo Duterte, who has praised and helped organize vigilante death squads.

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a member of the fascistic RSS. As chief minister of Gujarat, he helped organize the 2002 riots that killed hundreds of Muslims.

In Brazil, elections held yesterday elevated to power the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro.

Throughout Europe, far-right and fascistic parties have been systematically promoted by the ruling class. Particularly significant are the developments in Germany. In the country that produced Hitler and the most horrific crimes of the 20th century, including the slaughter of six million Jews in the Holocaust, fascism is once again a major political force.

The fascistic Alternative for Germany (AfD) is the main opposition party, deliberately cultivated by the parties of the political establishment, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, which have at every turn adapted to and embraced its anti-immigrant chauvinism.

Last month, AfD head Alexander Gauland published a column in the leading newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that paraphrased a speech by Hitler. The state, meanwhile, in alliance with the AfD, has moved to criminalize left-wing opposition to fascism.

The significance of the rise of fascism in Germany has been almost entirely ignored by the American media, including the New York Times. The efforts of reactionary historians to rewrite German history and relativize the crimes of the Nazis have provoked no opposition from the liberal establishment, including a corrupt academia in the United States.

The universality of this process is underscored by the fact that among those countries where fascism is on the rise is Israel itself. The hatred of Jews is a specific form of a virulent brand of nationalism that in Israel is expressed in state-sanctioned and organized violence against Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently oversaw the passage of the “Nation-State Law” enshrining Jewish supremacy, has made common cause with far-right and fascistic forces in Europe, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Finally, the international growth of fascistic movements must be placed in its historical context. What is the significance of the reemergence of fascism, 85 years after the coming to power of Hitler and nearly 80 years after the outbreak of the Second World War?

Today, approaching 30 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy, the essentially reactionary character of what transpired in 1989–1991 is exposed before the entire world. The fascist disease, which was somewhat in remission during the period following World War II, has powerfully reemerged. The end of the USSR produced not a flowering of democracy, as the propagandists of capitalism prophesied, but an explosion of inequality, imperialist war, authoritarianism and a revival of fascism.

Fascism is a political expression of extreme capitalist crisis. Trotsky explained in “What is National Socialism?” (1933) that with the rise of Nazism, “capitalist society is puking up [its] undigested barbarism.” Fascism, he wrote, “is the most ruthless dictatorship of monopoly capital.”

So too today, capitalism is vomiting up its undigested barbarism. The most immediate targets are migrants and refugees who are fleeing the consequences of imperialist war and capitalist exploitation. In the United States, concentration camps have been erected on the US-Mexico border that are holding immigrants—including children—under the most barbaric conditions.

In one of his last major writings, the “Manifesto of the Fourth International on Imperialism and War,” published in May 1940, Trotsky wrote: “[D]ecaying capitalism is striving to squeeze the Jewish people from all its pores; seventeen million individuals out of the two billion populating the globe, that is, less than one percent, can no longer find a place on our planet! Amid the vast expanses of land and the marvels of technology, which has also conquered the skies for man as well as the earth, the bourgeoisie has managed to convert our planet into a foul prison.” Such is the condition facing millions of immigrants today.

As the massacre on Saturday has once again demonstrated, a period of political reaction and war is inevitably associated with the revival of anti-Semitism, one of the oldest forms of chauvinism. Among the illusions that must be dispelled is the notion that the existence of Israel is some sort of protection against anti-Jewish persecution and violence.

The most fundamental target of right-wing reaction is the working class. Just as fascism arises out of capitalism, so does the class struggle. The development of the class struggle and the growing interest in socialism terrify the ruling class. Masses of workers are moving to the left, not the right. There is deep and growing hostility to social inequality and the preparations of the ruling class for war.

It is a sign of the desperation of the ruling class that, at the first sign of social opposition, it calls forward fascist violence. In the 1930s, while fascist movements acquired a mass base, what made possible their ascension to power in Germany, Italy and Spain were the political conspiracies of the ruling elites. Today, the deliberate instigation of fascism from above is an even more dominant factor.

Capitalism is again posing before mankind the alternatives: socialist revolution or capitalist barbarism. All the talk in the media about the need to “restore civility” and end “divisive political rhetoric” are empty platitudes that evade all the critical issues. What must be abolished is the capitalist system itself.

Eighty years ago, in 1938, the Fourth International was founded to resolve the crisis of revolutionary leadership in the working class in response to the betrayals of Stalinism and Social Democracy. At the very center of the political program of the new international was an assimilation of the lessons of the victory of fascism in Germany in 1933, the greatest defeat of the working class in history.

The most important lesson was the impossibility of fighting fascism except on the basis of a revolutionary socialist and internationalist program. As the horrors of the 1930s reemerge once more, this understanding must be brought into the working class through the building of a socialist leadership, the Socialist Equality Party, which connects the fight against fascism with opposition to inequality, war and the capitalist system.

ACI Foundation International Fellowships in USA & Canada 2019/2020 for Undergraduate and Graduate Students

Application Deadline: 1st November, 2018.

Eligible Countries: All

To be Taken at (Country): ACI Foundation Fellowships can be awarded to anyone in the world; however, you must attend a U.S. or Canadian university during the award year.

About the Award: The ACI Foundation offers several Fellowship and undergraduate Scholarship opportunities for students and E-Members. ACI Foundation Fellowships and Scholarships are awarded annually to help students with an interest in concrete achieve their educational and career goals. The student must be considered a full-time undergraduate or graduate student as defined by the college or university during the award year. Applications will be accepted from anywhere in the world but study must take place in the United States or Canada during the award year.

Fields of Study: Structural Design, Materials, Construction

Type: Undergraduate, Graduate (Masters, PhD)

Eligibility: Before beginning the application have the answers ready for these four questions.

• When submitting the application, what is your educational status (undergrad, grad, or PhD)?
• When the award year begins next fall, what will your status be (undergrad, grad, or PhD)?
• Following the application season, can you attend an interview at the Spring ACI Convention on March 25, 2018? Travel and hotel arrangements will be made through and paid for by the ACI Foundation.
• Can you fulfill a 10 to 12-week internship the summer before the award year?

During the award year, you must be a full-time student for the regular school year.

Selection Criteria: Based on essays, submitted data and endorsements, the Scholarship Council of the ACI Foundation will select scholarship and fellowship recipients who appear to have the strongest combination of interest and potential for professional success in the concrete industry.

How to Apply: Now Open! Apply Now!
It is important to go through the Application instructions on the Scholarship Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for more details

Award Provider: American Concrete Institute