Global Oil Price Deflation 2018 and Beyond

Jack Rasmus

One of the key characteristics of the 2008-09 crash and its aftermath (i.e. chronic slow recovery in US and double and triple dip recessions in Europe and Japan) was a significant deflation in prices of global oil. After attaining well over $100 a barrel in 2007-08, crude oil prices plummeted, hitting a low of only $27 a barrel in January 2016. They slowly but steadily rose again in 2016-17 and peaked at about $80 a barrel this past summer 2018. Now the retreat has started once again, falling to a low of $55 in October and remain around $56 today, likely to fall further in 2019 now that Japan and Europe appear entering yet another recession and US growth almost certainly slowing significantly in 2019. With the potential for a US recession rising in late 2019 oil price deflation may continue into the near future. What will this mean for the global and US economies?

The critical question is what is the relationship between global oil price deflation, financial instability and crises, and recession–something mainstream economists don’t understand very well? Is the current rapid retreat of oil prices since August 2018 an indicator of more fundamental forces underway in the global and US economy? Will oil price deflation exacerbate, or even accelerate, the drift toward recession globally now underway? What about financial asset markets stability in general? What can be learned from the 2008 through 2015 experience?

In my 2016 book, ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy’ and its chapter on deflation’s role in crises, I explained that oil is not just a commodity but, since the 1990s, has functioned as an important financial asset whose price affects other forms of financial assets (stocks, bonds, derivatives, currencies, etc.). Financial asset price volatility in general (bubbles and deflation) have a greater impact on the real economy than mainstream economists, who generally don’t understand financial markets and cycles, think. Hence they don’t understand how financial cycles interact with real business cycles. This applies as well to their understanding of oil prices as financial asset prices, not just commodity prices.

For my comments on global oil deflation in 2014-15, go to my website for the excerpt from the chapter from the ‘Systemic Fragility’ book that explain the role of global crude oil prices as financial asset prices. This article is reproduced, with the excerpts from 2016, from the book. Go to: http://kyklosproductions.com/articles.html)

Oil Price Deflation Revisited 2018

Oil is a commodity whose price is determined by the interaction of supply and demand; but it is also a financial asset the price of which is determined by global finance capitalists’ speculation in oil futures markets and the competition between various forms of financial assets globally. For the new global finance capital elite (also addressed in the book) look at the returns on investment (e.g. profits) from financial asset investing globally—choosing between oil futures, stocks, bonds, derivatives, currencies, real estate on a worldwide basis.

The price of crude oil futures drives the price of crude oil in the short and medium term, as a commodity as speculators bet on oil supply and demand; and the relative price of other types of financial assets in part also determine the demand of oil speculators for oil futures.

What this means is that simply applying supply and demand analysis to determine the direction of crude oil prices globally is not sufficient. Neither supply nor demand has changed since August 2018 by 30% to explain the 30% drop in crude oil to its current mid-$50s range; nor will it explain where oil prices will go in 2019. Nevertheless, that’s what we hear from economists today trying to explain the recent drop or predict the trajectory of global oil price deflation in 2019.

What Mainstream Economists Don’t Understand

Mainstream economists are indoctrinated in the idea that only supply and demand determine prices. It hearkens back to the influence of classical economics of the 18th century and Adam Smith. Supply and demand are the appearance of price determination. What matters are the forces behind, beneath and below that cause the changes in supply and demand. Those forces are the real determinants. But mainstream economists typically deal at the surface of appearances, which is why their forecasts of economic directions in the medium and longer term are so poor.

Looking at recent explanations and analyses by mainstream economists, and their echo in the business media, we get the following view:

First, it is clear that there are three major sources of oil supply globally today: US production driven by technology and the shale fracking revolution. Second, Russian production. Third, OPEC, within which Saudi Arabia and its allies, UAE, Kuwait, etc. Each produce about 10-11 million barrels per day, or bpd.

Since this summer, US fracking has resulted in roughly an additional 670,000 barrels a day by October compared to last July 2018. Both Saudi and Russian production has added roughly 700,000 more, each respectively. Offsetting the supply increase, in part, has been a reduction in output by Venezuela and Iran—both driven by US sanctions and, in the case of Venezuela, US longer term efforts to prevent the upgrading and maintenance of Venezuelan production.

The more than 2 million bpd increase in global crude oil supply by the global oil troika of US- Russia-Saudi has, on the surface, appeared as a collapse in global oil prices from $80 to $55, or about 30% in just a few months. Projections are supply increases will drive global oil prices still lower in 2019: US forecasts for 2019 are for an average of 12.06 million bpd; for Russia an average of 11.4 million bpd; and for Saudi an average of 10.6 million bpd. (Sources: EIA and OPEC secretariat).

Demand & Supply as Mere Appearance

So the appearance is that supply will drive global oil prices still lower in 2019. But what about demand? Will the forces behind it drive oil price deflation even further? And what about other financial asset markets’ price deflation? Will declines in stock, bond, derivatives, and currencies prices result in financial capitalist investors increasing their demand for oil futures as they shift investing from the collapse of values in those financial markets to oil? Or will it reduce their investing in oil futures as other financial asset markets prices deflate, as a psychological contagion effect spreads across financial asset markets in general, oil futures included?

While mainstreamers focus on and argue that pure supply considerations will predict the price of oil, my analysis insists that a deeper consideration of forces are necessary. What’s driving, and will continue to drive, oil prices are Politics, other financial markets’ price deflation, and Demand that will be driven by renewed recessions in the major advanced economies (Europe, Japan, then US, and continued GDP slowdown in China).

As global economic growth slows, now clearly underway, more than half of the world’s oil producers will increase oil production. Russia, Venezuela, Iraq, smaller African and Asia producers, are dependent on oil sales to finance much of their government budgets. As real growth slows, and recessions appear or worsen, deficits will rise further requiring more government revenues from oil sales. What these countries can’t generate in revenues from prices they will attempt to generate from more sales volume. Even Saudi Arabia has entered this group, as it seeks to generate more revenue to finance the development of its non-energy based economy plans.

So Russia and much of OPEC for political reasons will increase supply because of slowing economies—i.e. because of Demand originally and Supply only secondarily. As the global economy continues to slow Demand forces trump those of Supply. But the two are clearly mutually determined. It’s just that Demand has now become more determining and will remain so into 2019.

Debt as a Driver of Global Oil Deflation

But what’s ultimately behind the Demand forces at work? In the US it’s technology, the fracking revolution, driving down the cost of oil production and thus its price. It’s also corporate debt, often of the junk quality, that has financed the investment behind the oil production output rise. Drillers are loaded with junk bond debt, often short term, that they must pay for, or soon roll over now at a higher interest rate in 2019 and beyond. They must produce and sell more oil to pay for the new technology driven investment of recent years. And as the price falls they must produce and sell still more to generate the revenue to pay the interest and principal on that debt.

So is it really Supply, or is it more fundamentally the debt and technology that’s driving US shale output, that in turn is adding to downward global price pressures? Is it Supply or is it the way that Supply has been financed by capitalist markets?

Similarly, in the case of Russia and much of OPEC, is it Supply or is it the need of those countries to finance their government growing debt loads (and budgets in general) by generating more sales revenue from more oil output, even as the price of oil falls and thereby threatens that oil revenue stream?

Whether at the corporate or government level, the acceleration of debt in recent years is behind the forces driving excess oil production and Supply that appears the cause of the emerging oil price deflation.

Politics as a Driver of Global Oil Deflation

Domestic and global politics is another related force in some cases. Clearly, Russia is engaged in an increase in its military research and other military-related government expenditures. Its governing elite is convinced the US is preparing to challenge its political independence: NATO penetration of the Baltics and Poland, the US-encouraged coup in the Ukraine, past US ventures in Georgia, etc. has led to Russian acceleration of its military expenditures. To continue its investment as the US attempts to impose further sanctions (designed to cut Russia connections with Europe in particular), and as Russia’s economy slows as it raises its domestic interest rates in order to protect its currency, Russia must produce and sell more oil globally. It thus generates more demand for its oil competitively by lowering its price. Demand for Russian oil increases—but not due to natural economic causes as the world economy slows. It increases because it shifts oil demand from other producers to itself.

Saudi politics are also in part behind its planned production increase. It has stepped up its military expenditures as well, both for its war in Yemen and its plans for a future conflict with Iran. The Saudi government investment in domestic infrastructure also requires it to generate more oil revenue in the short term.

The recent Russian-Saudi(OPEC) agreement to reduce or hold oil production steady has been a phony agreement, as actual and planned oil production numbers clearly reveal.

Not least, there’s the question of global financial asset markets’ in decline with falling asset prices and how that impacts the oil commodity futures financial asset market. Once again, changes in oil supply and demand simply do not fluctuate by 30% in just a couple months. The driver of oil prices since July 2018 must be financial speculation in oil futures.

Here it may be argued that investors are factoring in the slowing global economy, especially in Europe and Japan, in coming months. They may be shifting investment out of oil futures as a speculative price play, and into US currency and even stocks and bonds. Or into financial asset markets in China. Or speculating on returns in select emerging market currencies and stocks that have stabilized in the short term and may rise in value, producing a nice speculative gain in the short run. The new global finance capital elite looks at competitive returns globally, in all financial asset markets. It moves its money around quickly, from one asset play to another, enabled by technology, past removal of controls on global money capital flows, easy borrowing, and ability to move quickly in and out of what is a complex network of highly liquid financial asset markets worldwide. As it sees global demand and politics playing important short term roles in global oil price declines, it shifts investment out of oil futures and into other forms of financial assets elsewhere in the global economy. Less supply of money capital for investing in oil futures reduces the demand for oil futures, which in turn reduces demand for oil and crude oil prices in general.

Conclusion

What this foregoing discussion and analysis suggests is the following:

• Looking at oil supply solely or even primarily is to look at appearances only

• But Supply & Demand analyses of oil prices are also superficial analyses of appearances. They are intermediate causal factors at best.

• What matters are real forces that more fundamentally determine supply and demand

• Politics, technology, and debt financing are more fundamental forces driving supply and demand in the intermediate and longer run.

• Oil is not just a commodity, since the 1990s especially; it has become a financial asset whose price is determined in the short run increasingly by speculative investing shifts by global finance capital elites.

• As financial assets, oil prices are determined in the short run globally by the relative price of other competing financial assets and their prices

• The structure of the global economy in the 21st century is such that a new global finance capital elite has arisen, betting on a wide choice of financial assets available in highly liquid financial asset markets, across which the elite moves investments quickly and easily due to new enabling technologies and past deregulation of cross-country money capital flows

To summarize, as it appears increasingly that politics (domestic budgets and revenue needs, US sanctions, rising military expenditures, trade wars, etc.) and a slowing global economy are causing downward pressure on oil demand and thus oil prices; this price pressure is exacerbated by a corresponding increase in production and supply as a result of rising corporate and government debt and debt-servicing needs. However, in the very short run of weekly and monthly price change, it is global oil speculators betting on further oil price deflation and shifting asset investment returns elsewhere that is the primary driver of global oil deflation.

Global oil prices are in determined by other financial asset market price deflation underway in the short term, and in turn determine in part price deflation in other financial asset markets. Global oil prices cannot be understood apart from understanding what’s happening with other financial asset markets and prices.

Understanding and predicting oil prices is thus not simply an exercise in superficial supply and demand analysis, and even less so an exercise primarily in forecasting announcements of production output plans by the big three troika of US-Russia-Saudi.

Undercutting Female Circumcision

Masturah Alatas

Malaysia has always been the land of myths in the colonial imagination. The myth about those who run amok when possessed by demons; the myth of the Pontianak, the female vampire, inhabiting banana trees; the myth of the lazy native.

Today, Malaysia is still the land of myths, though one has to be careful about the way the word myth is used.

Remember the two lesbians who were publically caned in Malaysia, but they were not really caned, just “forcefully tapped” with a rod? The myth here is about shariah punishment for sexual ‘crimes’ or ‘deviance’. Is the lashing of women sanctioned by the Quran? How is it to be done? To what extent is lashing actually carried out in Muslim countries? There are those who will also point out that caning as a form of punishment is part of the old British colonial penal code, forgetting that Malaysia is not obliged to retain this code and that this code is compatible with Islamic code.

The debate goes on and on. It becomes hard to tell what, actually, is going on from what people believe is going on, putting the caning of women in Malaysia in the realm of myth.

In the case of the lesbians, however, Malaysia proposed its own real and by no means mythical  ‘gentle’ solution. The Malaysian way of punishment is still extreme and humiliating, but there are varying degrees of extremism, as we know. The fact is, however, that there is no tradition of real, hard flesh-splitting caning of women in Malaysia. So why the need to mete out a ‘light’ form of it?

Now there is this news that a representative of the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry in Malaysia recently defended the practice of infant female circumcision in Malaysia at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. It is part of a Malaysian cultural “obligation”, he said.  But “the type of circumcision practiced is very mild and does not involve any cutting,” he added.

By cultural did he mean the Islamic culture of Malay Muslims, the largest ethnic group in Malaysia, since none of the other Malaysian ethnicities practice female circumcision? Ah, but female circumcision is not required in Islam. Yes it is. No, it isn’t. Like caning, the hijab and polygamy, people will argue endlessly about what is and isn’t required in Islam. Neighboring Singapore, too, which is not a Muslim majority country and is touted as one of the wealthiest, most modern city-states in the world, tolerates female circumcision within the Malay community there, though, to the best of my knowledge, it is Malaysia that speaks of it for the first time in terms of “no cutting involved”.

Circumcision without cutting? Incision implies cutting, circumcision means to cut around. So there is no Malaysian word for what is “mildly” done to the clitorises of babies? Even in the Malay language, the same word for male circumcision is used for female circumcision: sunat. The only difference is that the word perempuan—female—is added on, but that in itself tells us very little about the difference in technique in the two types of circumcision.

One would have to talk to the doctors to find out how, exactly, female circumcision is carried out in Malaysia, though even here the picture is unclear. This is just one of the many reasons why Malaysia’s Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) and other groups have slammed the government representative for giving misleading information to the UN.

As someone who has researched and written fiction about circumcision, the truth of the matter is that no Malay woman I know has been circumcised. This was never a part of my adolescent or adult conversations. I know a fair amount of Malays who have daughters and granddaughters. I also happen to have family members who are sociologists and Islamic philosophers, so I know the kind of advice that is sought from them and given.

Malaysian Muslim women may not know whether they are circumcised or not, people say. They may not remember what was done to them as babies or young girls. The men, too, may not even know, the joke being that so many men don’t even know where clit is or what it should look like.

Plus Malay women are reserved. They don’t like to talk about these things. Odd, then, why some are so willing to talk to the media about their private parts. Even the Deputy Prime Minister is calling attention to the clitorises of Malay women, the same Deputy Prime Minister who is trying to accommodate child marriage in the country. Malay women have spent decades getting themselves hijabed. Now the first thing that someone is going to think when they look at a Malay woman is: Is she circumcised?

I don’t like to assume that Malay women—city women or kampong women—are stupid and don’t know their own bodies. Anyway rumour has it, from men and women, that a lot of Malay women simply aren’t circumcised. And the few women I have heard claim that they are circumcised relate the experience almost as hearsay, a story about a story rather than an account of direct experience. We don’t even remember the details of the first time we get our teeth pulled, they say.

But it is dangerous to say that few Malaysian women are circumcised and to do so, in a way, would be to help the enemy side. If the general sense is that women are not circumcised, the risk is that measures will be stepped up to get them circumcised, with real cutting, and this is exactly what many don’t want to happen.

However, if Malaysia feels some sort of need to use women to show to the world that they are following Islamic traditions even though there is no consensus on what they are, this invention of ‘mild non-cutting’ can actually be quite subversive. It undercuts the will to a horrible and unnecessary practice.

Maybe doctors who are pressured into carrying out this ritual, when they are in cold surgical rooms with female babies, they simply say a prayer over clit. Maybe that is what mild non-cutting is.

Whatever the case, the message is that the sexuality of Malay women has to be regulated, and somebody is making decisions over their bodies since the decision to circumcise them is made when they are babies or young girls.

Perhaps the most persistent myth of all is the notion that if you control sexuality, society will be more moral and ethical. The Victorian era has shown us that this is simply not true. And Malaysia still remains a country that certainly does not have a clean corruption record. It still has one of the biggest political and financial scandals involving the former Prime Minister and his wife hanging over its head.

Approaching Development: GMO Propaganda and Neoliberalism vs Localisation and Agroecology

Colin Todhunter

What people communicate is a matter of choice. But what can be more revealing are the issues they choose to avoid. There are certain prominent pro-GMO activists who describe themselves as ‘science communicators’. They hit out at those who question their views or who have valid criticisms of GM technology and then play the role of persecuted victim, believing that, as the self-appointed arbiters of righteousness, they are beyond reproach, although given their duplicity nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead of being open to questioning, they attempt to close down debate to push a flawed technology they have a vested (financial-career) interest in, while all the time appealing to their self-perceived authority, usually based on holding a PhD in molecular biology or a related discipline.

They relentlessly promote GM and industrial agriculture and unjustifiably cast critics as zealots who are in cahoots with Greenpeace or some other group they have a built-in dislike of. And they cynically raise or lower the bar of ‘credibility’ by ad hominem and misrepresentation so that studies, writers and scientists who agree with them are commended while those who don’t become subjected to smear campaigns.

Often with ties to neoliberal think tanks, pro-GMO lobbyists call for more deregulation and criticise elected governments or regulatory bodies which try to protect the public interest, especially where genetic engineering and associated chemical inputs (for instance, glyphosate) are concerned. The same people push the bogus idea that only GM agriculture can feed the world, while seeking to discredit and marginalise alternative models like agroecology and ignoring the structural violence and injustices brought about by global agricapital interests (from whom they receive funding) which help determine Codex, World Bank, IMF and WTO policies. By remaining silent or demonstrating wilful ignorance about the dynamics and injustices of the political economy of food and agriculture, they tacitly approve of its consequences.

They also frame the GMO debate as pro-science/pro-GMO vs anti-science/anti-GMO: an industry-promoted false dichotomy that has sought to close down any wider discussion that may lead the focus to fall on transnational agribusiness interests and their role in determining an exploitative global food regime and how GM fits in with this.

This is how ideologues act; not how open discourse and science is carried out or ‘communicated’.

Broadening the debate

A participant in any meaningful discussion about GM would soon appreciate that ethical, political, environmental and sociological considerations should determine the efficacy and relevance of this technology in conjunction with scientific considerations. Unfortunately, pro-GMO advocates want to depoliticise food and agriculture and focus on the ‘science’ of GM, yield-output reductionist notions of ‘productivity’ and little else, defining the ‘problem’ of food and agriculture solely as a narrow technocratic issue.

But to understand the global food regime, we must move beyond technology. Food and agriculture have become wedded to structures of power that have created food surplus and food deficit areas and which have restructured indigenous agriculture across the world and tied it to an international system of trade based on export-oriented mono-cropping, commodity production for a manipulated and volatile international market and indebtedness to global financial institutions.

More specifically, there are the deleterious impacts of the nexus between sovereign debt repayment and the ‘structural adjustment’ of regional agriculture; spiralling input costs for farmers who become dependent on proprietary seeds and technologies; ecocide, genocide and the destruction of food self-sufficiency; the fuelling of barbaric, industrial-scale death via animal-based (meat) agriculture and the colonisation of land to facilitate it; US/EU subsidies which mean farmers in developing countries cannot achieve prices to cover their costs of production; and degraded soils, polluted oceans and rising rates of illness, etc.

If any one country epitomises much of what is wrong with the global food regime, it is Argentina, where in an October 26th 2018 article (‘Soy destruction in Argentina leads straight to our dinner plates’) The Guardian newspaper’s analysis of (GM) soy cultivation highlighted many of the issues set out above.

Whether the impacts of the global food regime result from World Bank/IMF directives and geopolitical lending strategies, neoliberal plunder ‘ease-of-doing-business’ ideology,  undemocratic corporate-written trade deals or WTO rules, we are seeing the negative impacts on indigenous systems of food and agriculture across the world, not least in India, where a million farmers intend to march to Delhi and the national parliament between 28 and 30 November.

India’s manufactured ongoing agrarian crisis is adversely affecting the bulk of the country’s 840 million rural dwellers. And all for what? To run down and displace the existing system of peasant-farmer-based production with a discredited, ecologically unsustainable (GMO) model run along neoliberal ‘free’ market lines by global agribusiness, a model which is only profitable because it passes on its massive health, environmental and social costs to the public.

Neoliberal dogma

Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute in London says of India’s agrarian crisis that Indian farmers should be left to go bust because they are uncompetitive and relatively unproductive. But even where farmers in India produce world record yields, they are still heavily indebted. So why can’t they compete?

Putting the huge external costs of the model of industrial agriculture which Worstall compares Indian agriculture to aside (which he conveniently ignores), the issue is clear: a heavily subsidised US/EU agriculture depresses prices for Indian farmers both at home and on the international market.

Policy analyst Devinder Sharma says that subsidies provided to US wheat and rice farmers are more than the market worth of these two crops. He also notes that, per day, each cow in Europe receives a subsidy worth more than an Indian farmer’s daily income. He suggests: let the US and EU do away with subsidies, relieving taxpayers of such a costly burden and let Indian farmers compete properly; then see that it is the Indian farmer who produces the cheapest food; and then imagine US consumers benefitting from this cheap food.

That is the ‘free’ market which could exist. A fair one not distorted by subsidies. Not the type of market that currently exists and which is ‘free’ only within the ideological parameters set by Worstall and others who promote it.

Proponents of the ‘free’ market and GMOs are big on ‘choice’: letting ‘the market’, the consumer or the farmer decide, without anyone imposing their agenda. This is little more than rhetoric which fails to stand up to scrutiny, given the strategically embedded influence of agricapital over policy makers. If anything encapsulates the nonsense and hypocrisy surrounding this notion of choice are reports about Monsanto and its cynical manipulation of agriculture in Punjab.

According to an article in Delhi’s Sunday Guardian in late 2017 (‘Monsanto’s profits, not Diwali, creating smoke in Delhi’), India’s surplus food grain supply is an uncomfortable fact for the pro-GMO lobby. The piece notes that in 2012 the then Punjab Chief Minister asked Monsanto to set up a research centre for creating maize and, due to fears over water shortages, announced plans to reduce the area under rice cultivation to around 45% to grow maize. Fear-mongering about rice cultivation was reaching fever pitch, stoked by an advertisement campaign from a group of scientists who appealed ‘Reduce the area under rice, save water, save Punjab’.

Conveniently, Monsanto (now Bayer) offers its GM maize as a solution that will increase the level of subsoil water, although that corporation’s inputs and Green Revolution practices led to problems in Punjab and elsewhere in the first place. For instance, fertilisers and pesticides have accumulated in the ground water (causing massive health issues) and their use has also led to poor water retention in soil, leading farmers to pump excessive amounts of ground water.

Punjab’s plan to reduce the area under rice cultivation (a staple food for large sections of the Indian population) with what will most likely be GM animal feed is part of a cynical tactic. Of course, any resulting gap between supply of and demand for food in India will be conveniently filled via global agribusiness and an influx of GMO produce from abroad or by growing it in India (have no doubt, the push is on for that too).

It is reminiscent of unscrupulous attempts to undermine India’s edible oils sector in the late 1990s and current attempts to break traditional cotton cultivation pathways in India to help usher in herbicide-tolerant seeds (which have now ‘miraculously’ appeared on the market – illegally). The ability of hugely powerful corporations to flex their financial muscle and exert their considerable political clout to manufacture ‘choice’ and manipulate policies is the reality of neoliberal capitalism.

Those pro-GMO ‘science communicators’ are silent on such matters and, as with their fellow neoliberal ideologues, have nothing of any substance to say on these types of ‘market-distorting’ power relations, which make a mockery of their ‘free’ choice and ‘free’ market creed.

Indeed, a recent report in The Guardian indicates that neoliberal ‘austerity’ in the UK has had little to do with economics, having failed in its objective of reducing the national debt, and much to do with social engineering. But this is the ideological basis of modern neoliberal capitalism: dogma masquerading as economics to help justify the engineering of the world in the image of undemocratic, unaccountable corporations.

Agroecology and food sovereignty

The industrial agriculture that Worstall compares Indian farmers’ productivity with is outperformed by smallholder-based agriculture in terms of, for example, diversity of food output, nutrition per acre and efficient water use. Imagine what could be achieved on a level playing field whereby smallholder farming receives the type of funding and political commitment currently given to industrial agriculture.

In fact, we do not have to imagine; in places where agroecology has been scaled up, we are beginning to see the benefits. The principles of agroecology include self-reliance, localisation and food sovereignty. This type of agriculture does not rely on top-down corporate ‘science’, corporate owned or controlled seeds or proprietary inputs. It is potentially more climate resilient, labour intensive (job creating), more profitable for farmers and can contribute to soil quality and nutrient-enhanced/diverse diets. Moreover, it could help reinvigorate rural India and its villages.

When the British controlled India, they set about breaking the self-reliance of the Indian village. In a 2009 article by Bhavdeep Kang (‘Can the Indian farmer withstand predatory international giants?’), it is stated:

“The British Raj initiated the destruction of the village communities, famously described by Lord Metcalfe as ‘little republics, having nearly everything they can want within themselves.’ India’s ability to endure, he wrote, derived from these village communities: ‘They seem to last where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down but the village community remains the same. It is in a high degree conducive to their happiness, and to the enjoyment of a great portion of freedom and independence.’”

Metcalfe said this in 1830. However, since independence from the British, India’s rulers have further established ‘village India’s’ dependency on central government. And now a potential death knell for rural India is underway as India’s ruling elite, exhibiting a severe bout of ‘Stockholm syndrome’, sells out the nation to not only Western agribusiness but also to US finance and intelligence interests.

Whether it concerns India or elsewhere, to see the advantages of agroecology, there are those economists, political leaders and ‘science communicators’ who must remove the self-imposed blinkers. This would involve shifting their priorities away from promoting career-building technologies and facilitating neoliberal capitalism towards working for justice, equality, peace and genuine grass-root food sovereignty.

To do that, though, such figures would first have to begin to bite the hand that feeds them.

UK: Left groups targeted for decades-long police infiltration

Alice Summers

A database compiled by the Guardian and the Undercover Research Group, activists that scrutinise police espionage, has shed light on the extent of state spying on political groups between 1968 and 2011.

Over 1,000 political groups were targeted by undercover police agents, with the overwhelming majority left-wing organisations.

According to the new database, it is known that covert police agents spied on at least 22 left-wing/socialist groups, 10 environmental groups, 9 anti-racist campaigns and 9 anarchist groups, as well as 17 justice campaign groups. This is in addition to several trade unions and to campaigns against apartheid, war, the arms trade, nuclear weapons and the monarchy.

By contrast, only three far right-groups were targeted—the British National Party, Combat 18 and United British Alliance, involving only five agents in total.

According to the information obtained, the Socialists Workers Party (SWP), known as the International Socialists until 1977, was the primary known victim of police spying. Twenty-four undercover agents were deployed by police to infiltrate the party between 1970 and 2007. Undercover officers were in the organisation almost continuously during this 37-year period, often with more than one officer embedded at a given time.

Four of the 24 officers who infiltrated the SWP deceived women into forming sexual relationships with them, before abandoning them once their spying operations were complete. One spy, whose name has not been released, married an unsuspecting female party member and fathered a child with her as part of his efforts to build his cover story. The emotional suffering inflicted can only be imagined.

The database was compiled using a variety of sources, as the Undercover Policing Inquiry (UPI)—set up in 2015 supposedly with the aim of investigating police spying between 1968 and 2011—has refused to release full details of those involved.

As well as the minimal official list, the database draws on information garnered from the Undercover Research Group’s own investigations and from whistle-blowers, including Peter Francis, a former undercover officer and UPI core participant.

Due to the dearth of information supplied by the UPI, the database lists only 124 of the 1,000 groups spied on by the police since 1968. It includes information only about groups targeted by spies from the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), the two Special Branch units responsible for carrying out much of the police infiltration. The SDS was active between 1968 and 2008, and the NPOIU between 1999 and 2011.

Many police spies worked within left-wing organisations for five years or more, with one infiltrator, using the name Dave Evans, working within the SWP for seven years. Another SWP infiltrator in the 1980s, Alan Bond, stole the name of a dead child for his fake identity.

The new data shows that other organisations infiltrated included the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC), an anti-war popular front organisation established in 1966 and largely dominated by the Pabloite International Marxist Group (IMG). The VSC was penetrated by nine covert officers between 1968 and 1972.

This is only the tip of an iceberg. Information revealed by ex-MI5 agents Peter Wright and David Shayler, among others, indicates that the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP)—until 1986 the British section of the International Committee of the Fourth International—and its predecessor, the Socialist Labour League (SLL), were the main targets of undercover police operations from the late 1960s onwards.

The database gave information about only two of the police spies infiltrating the WRP, cover names “Michael Scott” and “Peter Collins,” who penetrated the group in 1971-1976 and 1973-1977. But in a House of Lords debate on combating the influence of “subversive and extremist elements in our society” in January 1975, Lord Chalfont singled out the WRP, declaring it to be one of the “most important revolutionary group[s].”

The Earl of Kimberley warned that the WRP “must not be dismissed as just another fringe movement. It is by far the most dangerous of the Trotskyist organisations in this country. It is larger, better organised, and, from the point of view of industrial agitation, more intelligently led than its rivals.”

This extensive infiltration, carried out over multiple decades, is a fundamental attack on democratic rights. The Socialist Equality Party demands that all details of the spying operations be fully and immediately disclosed.

In 2015, the SEP sent a letter to the UPI demanding “the immediate release of the names of all undercover police operatives, especially those active in the Workers Revolutionary Party (and its forerunners and successor organisations), their pseudonyms and dates of operation.”

Lord Pitchford, the chair of the Undercover Policing Inquiry at the time, refused to investigate police surveillance of the SLL and WRP, despite the evidence from ex-MI5 agents and others. This only confirmed the UPI’s essential role as a police cover-up and exercise in damage limitation. The inquiry was only convoked after activists and journalists uncovered damaging evidence of state surveillance and legal challenges had been launched for compensation. Unable to keep a lid on the scandal, then-Home Secretary Theresa May launched the inquiry in 2015.

Since then, nearly 200 victims have been named as core participants, though the true numbers affected likely run into the thousands.

From the outset, the inquiry did not require the police to reveal their operations and accepted as participants only some of those who already knew themselves to be victims. The SDS alone employed 201 people over its 40 years of existence.

Three years later, and at a cost of nearly £12 million, the inquiry is still in the evidence-gathering stage. No single piece of substantive evidence has been heard in public due to police legal applications for anonymity. Instead, anonymous police officers will give private evidence to a judge, who will produce a final report in 2023 at the earliest.

Other organisations, including MI5’s F-Branch, are known to have undertaken extensive “counter-subversion” spying operations. F-Branch, which was active until 1988, particularly targeted the Trotskyist movement, focusing particular attention on the SLL/WRP. A section of F-Branch, F6, dealt with Trotskyist and radical organisations, while another section, F7, specifically monitored the Workers Revolutionary Party and SWP.

The former head of MI5, Stella Rimmington, director general from 1992 to 1996, admitted in 2017 that spying on the Trotskyist movement was a central part of its operations: “I now see in [pro-Jeremy Corbyn] Momentum some of the people we were looking at in the Trotskyist organisation of the 1980s, now grown up and advising our would-be prime minister Mr. Corbyn on how to prepare himself for power…their names are familiar, shall we say that much?”

Even though it has been revealed to be one of the most prominent victims of police infiltration, the pseudo-left SWP has produced one 201-word article on the revelations. The SWP’s response was to declare that the figures are “further proof that the British state is not neutral” and that “The best response is to keep up the fight against the system the spymasters defend.” In opposition to such an unserious response, workers and young people must recognise the vast extent of police spying as a serious and still-present threat.

Argentine Senate approves “zero deficit budget”

Rafael Azul 

With a nearly unpayable debt burden of over US$ 327 billion dollars (about 80 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product) and a dollar flight of nearly US$ 30 billion this year, Argentina’s economy teeters on the brink of disaster. An agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a new budget plan attempts to pay the debt through the policies designed to inflict hunger and social misery.

Following 12 hours of debate, during the dawn hours of Thursday, November 15, the Argentine Senate approved a shock-therapy budget for 2019, a savage attack on jobs and wages. Having endured two years of supposedly “gradual” austerity measures that have eroded living standards, social services and public investment, the new budget signals that much worse is coming.

The so-called zero deficit budget, approved in October by the lower house, passed comfortably in the Senate (45 for, 24 against, one abstention) thanks in part to the votes of a conservative wing of the Peronist Party (the Federal Block), whose leader, Miguel Pichetto, declared that his faction would not allow a government paralysis.

The four-billion-dollar budget includes a budget cut of 300 billion pesos, relative to 2018. For workers it means another year of falling real wages, increasing unemployment and cuts in pensions and social benefits.

With a rate of unemployment and underemployment of 9.7 percent and 11 percent, during the first semester of 2018, Argentina’s poverty rate now exceeds 27 percent of the population, about 12 million people. President Macri recently warned that Argentines should brace for further increases in joblessness and poverty.

Further devastating living standards and increasing social inequality, the budget includes significant increases in regressive value added taxes, while slashing taxes on corporate profits, mining companies and soy exporters.

There will be no increases in public investments, further eroding the promises made by Macri in 2016.

In response to the collapse in the dollar-value of the Argentine Peso (currently 37 pesos up from 19 pesos to the dollar in January 2018), the budget sets aside increasing amounts of pesos to service Argentina’s debt to foreign banks and hedge funds in accordance with the agreement with the IMF in return for a US$ 57 billion rescue package from that institution.

Beginning with the decision to remove controls on the dollar, and now with this budget, the IMF has effectively taken control of Argentine fiscal policy, which is now oriented to insuring the debt payment above everything else. The budget does provide for increases in money destined for debt payment; one third of fiscal spending is earmarked for debt payment.

The government has declared that it anticipates that inflation, 45 percent in 2018, will fall to 23 percent in 2019 and that GDP growth will decline by 0.5 percent relative to the 1.5 percent decline in 2018. It predicts that the price of dollars will stabilize at 40 pesos, as Central Bank interest rates remain at a usurious 70 percent, slamming the brakes on economic activity. Unable to raise capital except at extremely high rates, medium and small firms are on the verge of financial collapse.

Government spending will shrink by seven percent in order to reach the zero fiscal deficit goal. For 2020, government officials predict a budget surplus.

There is an atmosphere of disbelief in Argentine society in relation to all the government projections. To many, they appear to be intended for foreign consumption; to reassure the IMF and Wall street bond holders. In the words of a TV commentator: “there is little bread and a lot of circus” in government statements.

Every day Argentine residents wake up to the announcement of mass layoffs in auto, steel, textiles, and other industries. So far this year, 250,000 workers have lost their jobs. Industries operate at 60 percent capacity, auto at less than 45 percent, textiles at less than 50 percent. As a consequence of the layoffs, along with cuts in pensions and cuts in social programs for children of the unemployed and poor, consumption spending has collapsed, further weakening industries that produce consumer goods for the domestic market.

For its part, IMF officials congratulated the Macri administration on the passage of the zero-deficit budget. At the fund’s regular Thursday press conference in New York, IMF official Gerry Rice called the new budget a “positive step” and key to restoring confidence in the Argentine economy.

Government authorities have announced some minimal palliative measures, such as a US$ 140 bonus (in 2 payments) in order to compensate for inflation, and a ten-day notice for layoffs.

As the social and economic crisis develops, on November 30, leaders of the G20 nations will gather in Buenos Aires and other Argentine cities, amidst extraordinary security measures. Interior Secretary Patricia Bullrich has suggested that residents of Buenos Aires leave the city during the days of the summit (November 30 to December 1). President Macri has announced that Argentina will shoot down any unauthorized airplanes that fly over the sites of the meetings. The infiltration of protest groups and attacks on immigrants are being carried out by Argentine security forces.

This December marks 17 years since one of the most significant mass protest movement in Argentina’s post-war history. Chanting “¡Qué se vayan todos, que no quede ni uno solo!” (Out with all [politicians], that not one remain!) hundreds of thousands poured into the streets of Buenos Aires and other cities.

What triggered this popular rebellion that forced the collapse of the administration of then-president De la Rua was the debt crisis driven by the failure of the neo-liberal model of former Peronist president Carlos Ménem, the resulting massive outflow of US dollars, the closure of the banks, mass unemployment and collapsing living standards.

“An austerity policy of this magnitude has never taken place without the collapse of the government,” declared Economics Minister Nicolás Dujovne referring to these events, undoubtedly expressing the fears within the Argentine government and ruling class.

US-China trade conflict leads to Wall Street sell-off

Nick Beams 

A fall in US equity markets yesterday, in the wake of the escalation of the trade war between the US and China at the Asia Pacific Economic Community (APEC) summit at the weekend, has wiped out all the limited gains made earlier this month, following a sell-off in October.

The APEC meeting, held in Papua New Guinea, broke up in acrimony, with no final communiqué able to be issued, after US Vice President Mike Pence launched a broadside against China’s trade and economic policies deliberately aimed at sabotaging the meeting.

The reaction in US markets was immediate. The Dow fell 395 points, a drop of 1.56 percent after dropping by more than 500 points in the course of the day, the S&P 500 index was off by 1.7 percent and the tech-heavy NASDAQ index dropped by 3 percent.

The sell-off was led by high-tech stocks which are sensitive to heightened trade war tensions because of the impact on their global supply chains and fears that trade conflicts will lessen demand for their products.

Markets had risen earlier this month, following the US mid-term elections, on the back of a resumption of talks between Washington and Beijing and statements by Trump of the prospect of a deal when he meets Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the end of the month.

This was taken as indicating there was a possibility that the escalation by the US of tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent at the start of next year could be put on hold. That now seems highly unlikely.

In his speech to the APEC meeting, Pence repeated Trump’s threat to impose the tariff hike and said the US “will not change course until China changes its ways.”

China has indicated that it is willing to increase its imports of US goods, in the areas of agriculture and energy, in order to reduce the US trade deficit as well as making other concessions. But this has been ruled out as insufficient by Washington.

The key US demand is that China undertake a fundamental shift in its economy by essentially scrapping its “Made in China 2025” economic program for the advancement of hi-tech industries as the next stage in its economic development.

Accusing China of the theft of intellectual property rights and imposing forced technology transfers, and demanding an end to what it calls market-distorting subsidies to state-owned industries, the US regards China’s economic policies as a direct threat to its economic and ultimately military hegemony.

For its part, China is prepared to offer some concessions to the US but regards the demand that it scrap its key economic agenda as non-negotiable because it would reduce China to a position of economic subservience to the US as a kind of semi-colony.

The conflict at the APEC meeting means that rather than the meeting between Trump and Xi leading to an easing of trade tensions it could bring a further escalation. Trump said last week that he had received a long list of proposals from Beijing but they were not sufficient and were missing four or five big issues.

China does not appear to be holding out hopes for an easing of the conflict with its top trade negotiator, Vice-Premier Liu He, cancelling a plan to visit Washington for discussions with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in advance of the Buenos Aires meeting between Trump and Xi.

Reporting on the cancellation, the South China Morning Post cited a source who said the sudden change of plan was the outcome of “work-level discussions.” But the events at the APEC summit—indicating that the anti-China hawks in the Trump administration are directing operations—were no doubt the key reason.

Liu was badly burned last May when he reached a deal with Mnuchin only to have it overturned by Trump a few days later.

The escalating trade tensions are not the only factor in the market sell-off. Another key ingredient is the slowdown in the global economy and the prospect that the effect of the Trump tax cuts, which have boosted the US economy this year, will wear off in 2019.

All of the fastest growing stocks, the so-called Faangs—Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google’s parent company Alphabet—have moved into bear market territory with their stocks down 20 percent from their peak.

Apple fell by 4 percent yesterday following a report in the Wall Street Journal that it had cut production orders for all of the three iPhone models in September. The report followed news that a series of Apple suppliers had lowered their earnings expectations.

The shares of one of those companies Lumentum Holdings dropped 33 percent last week after reporting that it had received “a request from one of the largest industrial and consumers” to “materially reduce” the supply of 3D sensors that power the facial recognition technology on the latest iPhones.

The slide in US markets is part of an emerging global trend. The Financial Times has reported that global bond and equity markets have contracted by $5 trillion so far this year, placing them on course for the worst year since the financial crisis of 2008 when they lost a total of $18 trillion.

The sell-off is taking place amid signs of a slowdown in the world economy. In 2017, the prospect was held out for “synchronised” global growth. But that is now very much a thing of the past.

Earlier this month it was reported that the gross domestic product in Germany, the key European economy, contracted at an annualised rate of 0.8 percent in the third quarter. This was the first quarterly decline in three and a half years, while the eurozone economy grew at an annualised rate of 0.7 percent in the same period, its weakest performance since early 2013.

The US economy has maintained a growth rate of above 3 percent, boosted by the stimulus provided by the Trump administration’s corporate and personal income tax cuts. But the claim by Trump that this would be “fantastic for the economy” and lead to increased investment and sustained expansion has been exposed for the fraud it always was.

Last month the National Association for Business Economics reported that while its members reported rising sales and improved profit margins in the third quarter the tax cuts had “not broadly impacted hiring and investment plans.”

Most of the increased cash has been used to finance share buybacks, rather than providing a boost to investment and economic expansion, and the impetus will now start to wear off under conditions where the world economy is starting to enter a period of “synchronised” slowdown amid rising trade conflicts.

IJP Journalism Exchange Programme 2019 for Young Journalists in Africa and Germany

Application Deadline: 15th February, 2019

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: SADC-Member States: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe + Kenya

To be taken at (country): Germany and countries in Africa

About the Award: The Southern African-German Journalists’ Programme is a multiyear effort to shape an integrated understanding of the other country and region and to foster relations between Africa and Germany. It has been offered as a response to concerns about an increasing political and cultural detachment between Africa and Europe. The bursary is intended to enable young journalists to gain valuable insights into the political, economical, cultural as well as the social fabric of the host country.
For all selected IJP-Fellows the Programme starts with an Introductory Conference for all delegates. This will allow the participants from Southern Africa to familiarise themselves with the host country. After that they will work for several weeks with media houses before going out to undertake individual research within Germany. Applicants are asked to submit their preferences for the newspaper, radio or TV station or news agency they would like to work with. The possible location will be chosen by the IJP organisers in dialogue with each delegate. It is expected that former and new participants assist one another with regard to accommodation and contacts.

Offered Since: 1998

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• All journalists from Southern Africa (SADC Member States and Kenia) between the age of 25 and 40 who regularly work for a media organisation can apply.
• It is assumed that all candidates have a strong command of the English language. German language abilities are an advantage but are not mandatory.

Number of Awardees: six young Africans and up to five young German journalists.

Value of Fellowship: The Southern African delegates receive a fixed payment of 3,000 Euro. This is expected to cover most of their travel, accommodation and living expenses. No further payments will be made: delegates are expected to use their own funds for any further costs. Payment for their work with the host media is not envisaged. To receive the full grant participants are obliged to write a report of at least three pages and provide copies of their published journalistic work after returning home.

Duration of Fellowship: 2 months

How to Apply: 
Enclose a CV with a passport photograph.
2. Write a 800 word essay addressing the following topics:

• Why you would like to work in Germany

• What you expect from IJP and what you think you can contribute to it?

• What are the 3 research topics you want to pursue during the fellowship?

• What role you expect to play at your home media in the future?

• How you will spend the bursary?

3. Include a one-page resume detailing your education and work experience, your standard of German and English (copies of certificates/ e.g. Goethe Institut/Toefel), plus 2 copies of articles written by you (TV and radio journalists must type up their reports since no audio or video tapes can be considered)
4. A journalistic reference from your editor or head of department is required (freelancers should submit a reference from a senior journalist). It should also guarantee your leave of absence for the duration of the program.
Applicants are asked to send the application documents (E-Mail) not before December 15th, 2018 and until February 15th, 2019 to the following address:
sa-application@ijp.org

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details


Award Provider: The International Journalists‘ Programmes (IJP)

KECTIL Youth Leadership Program 2019 for Young Leaders in Developing Countries (Fully-funded to the US)

Application Deadline: 30th November, 2018

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To be taken at (country): Online, USA (for the Youth Leadership Conference)

About the Award: KECTIL that refers to the Knowles Educational and Charitable Trust for International Leadership, is based on the following principles:

• Creating an authentic, collaborative network of high potential youth from developing and least developed countries can break down prejudices, lead to cultural, religious and gender understanding and give youth the comfort that they are more than just themselves– they are part of a mutual youth-based support system with the goal to make a positive difference in their lives, their Colleagues’ lives and the lives of those in their communities.
• Identifying, embracing and mentoring high potential youth (17-24) from developing and least developed countries can have a dramatic effect on the youths’ dreams, service to others and life accomplishments.
• Nothing comes easy and there is “no free lunch.” The results will not be achieved without hard work, dedication and an open mindedness to cultural understanding and compassion.

Kectil comprises of the following program categories:

• Web-Based Mentoring Program
  • Monthly Kectil Talks with Leaders in Science, Business, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Public Service
• Assignments & Sharing
  • Connect with other students on social media (Facebook & Twitter) with facilitated web-based group discussions
• Youth Leadership Conference
  • Intensive Leadership Training, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Workshop, Meetings with Successful Leaders, and Creation of Network of Youth Peers in Developing Countries
• Alumni Web-Portal
  • Maintenance of Network of Youth Peers in Developing Countries, Interaction with New Youth Participants, Availability of Mentorship from Program

Type: Training

Eligibility: Participants must be talented Youth (aged 17-25) in least developed and developing countries who have demonstrated a talent and passion for leadership, scholarship or innovation, are proficient in English and have access to a computer and the internet.

Number of Awardees: 15

Value of Programme: 

• The Kectil Program will select fifteen of the most active participants in the Web-based Program to be given a special award.
• The participants will have attended all of the Sessions and completed the online pre and post assignments.
• The Kectil Program will host a Youth Leadership Conference in Atlanta the first week of August 2018 for a select group of highly qualified youth from least developed and developing countries.
• The conference will include intensive leadership training, an innovation and entrepreneurial workshop, community service training, and meetings with successful leaders in a small group interactive setting.
• The Conference will provide additional instruction over and above the year-long web-based program to Kectil Colleagues who have the greatest potential to be future leaders and who come from communities in most need of passionate and positive youth role models.
• The Conference will be held on the campus of Emory University. Participants will stay in University dormitory rooms and will eat in a cafeteria serviced by the University dining program.

Duration of Programme: 1 year

Eligible Countries: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Croatia, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial, Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Federated States of Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, São Tomé and Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

How to Apply: Please Register to Submit An Application

• Interested Participants must go through the Application requirements before registering to submit an application.
• GOODLUCK!

Visit Programme Webpage for details

Award Provider: Knowles Educational and Charitable Trust for International Leadership (KECTIL)

UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) Member from Africa 2019

Application Deadline: 18th December 2018 (12 noon GMT)

About the Award: Four members of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) [HRC resolution 33/25]:

1. EMRIP member from Africa*
2. EMRIP member from Central and Eastern Europe, the Russian Federation, Central Asia and Transcaucasia
3. EMRIP member from Central and South America, and the Caribbean
4. EMRIP member from the Pacific

*This vacancy arose due to the resignation of the current mandate holder. The new mandate holder will serve out the remainder of the term of the previous African member.
The Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) was established by the Human Rights Council in 2007 in its resolution 6/36 as a subsidiary expert body of the Council. The mandate was amended in 2016 by Council resolution 33/25. The Expert Mechanism is now made up of seven independent experts on the rights of indigenous peoples and it provides the Human Rights Council with expertise and advice on the rights of indigenous peoples as set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and assists Member States, upon request, in achieving the ends of the Declaration through the promotion, protection and fulfillment of the rights of indigenous peoples.

Type: Job

Eligibility:

• Candidates should be experts of indigenous origin or experts with recognized competence and experience in the rights of indigenous peoples of a certain indigenous sociocultural region.
• Candidates are requested to indicate, in their Word application form, for which indigenous sociocultural region they are applying and to include in the motivation letter why they are applying for the specific indigenous sociocultural region.
• Candidates may submit up to three reference letters in support of their application.Candidates are encouraged to consider submitting letters from organizations or entities representing indigenous peoples.

Number of Awards: 1 for each region

Duration of Programme:

• Award will be given at the fortieth session of the Human Rights Council to hold from 25 February – 22 March 2019.
• The independent experts are appointed in the same way as other special procedure mandate holders, but for a three-year term renewable once.

How to Apply: Individual applications,including a motivation letter,must be submitted and received by 18 December, 2018 (12 noon Greenwich Mean Time / GMT) through the on-line application procedure, which consists of (1) an online survey and (2) an application form in Word format.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details