Peace Revolution’s Inuka Fellowship for African Women 2019

Application Deadline: 19th April, 2019

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be taken at (country): Rwamagana, Rwanda

About the Award: The Inuka Fellowship for African Women 2019 is tailor made for women like you! Give yourself the opportunity to disconnect from the hustle and bustle of life. Reconnect with yourself through a powerful 3 – day self development program that will leave you transformed, strengthened, and refreshed.
The program is a retreat like platform created for the rising women of Africa. This unique event will be hosted in Rwanda in a serene location away from the busy motion of life. Through the program, you will get to form bonds with fellow African women; support each other on a deep journey of inner self discovery and master emotional intelligence through the practice of meditation and mindfulness with the individual commitment to sustainable world peace.

Type: Training

Eligibility:

• Candidates must be 22- 35 years old at the time of submitting the application to be eligible for sponsorship.
• Candidates must have a good proficiency in written and spoken English language
• Candidates should be optimistic, open -minded, show leadership potential, and have a genuine interest in peace
• Candidates must have submitted their formal application by 14th April 2019
• Candidates must have completed the 21 days of self development program to be eligible for interview. After the interview, candidates will be required to complete the remaining 21 days of Self Development Program to be considered for the fellowship.

Selection Criteria: 

• Completion of at least 21 days of the online self-development programme.
• Show of interest in meditation and self-development
• Even distribution of participant from the eligible countries
• Likelihood to benefit from participation in the program and to contribute to world peace
• Commitment to adhere to the program of activities during the time of the fellowship

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:

• Accommodation
• Catering
• Local Transportation within the host country
• Partial or Full airfare sponsorship from home country

Duration of Programme: 21 – 25 October 2019

How to Apply: Apply now

• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage see link below) before applying

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

“Are You Serious?” Awards, 2018

Conn Hallinan

The Golden Sprocket Wrench Award goes to Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest arms manufacturer, for its F-22 Raptor Stealth fighter, a fifth-generation interceptor said to be the best in the world.

That is when it works, which isn’t often.

When Hurricane Michael swept through Florida this fall, 17 Raptors — $339 million apiece — were destroyed or badly damaged. How come the Air Force didn’t fly those F-22s out of harm’s way? Because the Raptor is a “hanger queen”— it loves the machine shop. Less than 50 percent of the F-22 fleet is functional at any given moment. The planes couldn’t fly, so they got trashed at a cost to taxpayers of around $5 billion.

Lockheed Martin also gets an Oak Leaf Cluster for its F-35 Lightning II fighter, at $1.5 trillion the most expensive weapon system in U.S. history. Some 200 F-35s aren’t considered “combat capable,” and may never be, because the Pentagon would rather buy new planes than fix the ones it has. That may cost taxpayers $40 billion.

The F-22s and F-35s also have problems with their oxygen systems, but no one can figure out why.

However, both planes did get into combat. According to Vice Admiral Scott Stearney, the F-35 achieved “tactical supremacy” over the Taliban (which doesn’t have an air force). The F-22, the most sophisticated stealth fighter in the world, took on Afghan drug dealers.

As for Lockheed Martin, the company was just awarded an extra $7 billion for F-22 “sustainment.”

The Golden Parenting Award goes to the U.S. State Department, for trying to water down a resolution by the UN’s World Health Assembly encouraging breastfeeding over infant formula.

A Lancet study found that universal breastfeeding would prevent 800,000 infant deaths a year, decrease ear infections by 50 percent, and reduce gastrointestinal disease by 64 percent. It lowers the risk for Type 1 diabetes, two kinds of leukemia, sudden infant death syndrome, and asthma. It also makes for healthier mothers.

In contrast, infant formula — a $70 billion industry dominated by a few American and European companies — is expensive and not nearly as healthy for children as breast milk.

When Ecuador tried to introduce the breastfeeding resolution, the U.S. threatened it with aid cuts and trade barriers. Several other Latin American countries were also threatened and quickly withdrew their names from a list of endorsers. Finally, Russia stepped in and introduced the resolution.

The measure finally passed, but the U.S. successfully lobbied to remove language urging the World Health Organization to challenge “inappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children.”

The Golden Cuisine Award goes to Ron Colburn, president of the U.S. Border Patrol Foundation, who told Fox & Friends that the tear gas used on migrants at the U.S. border was not harmful, because pepper spray was such a “natural” product that “you could actually put on your nachos and eat it.”

The Marie Antoinette Award has two winners this year:

* Nikki Haley, retiring U.S. ambassador to the UN, who blasted Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) for supporting the UN’s special rapporteur report on poverty in the United States, who found that tens of millions of Americans suffer “massive levels of deprivation.” In a letter to Sanders, Haley said it was “patently ridiculous” for the UN to even look at poverty in the United States, because it is “the wealthiest and freest country in the world.”

In a response, Sanders pointed out that while this country is indeed the wealthiest in the world, it is also one of the most unequal. “Some 40 million people still live in poverty, more than 30 million have no health insurance, over half of older workers have no retirement savings, 140 million Americans are struggling to pay for basic living expenses, 40 percent of Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency, and millions of Americans are leaving school deeply in debt.”

* U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, who expressed surprise that the people attending the World Economic Forum in the resort town of Davos, Switzerland were considered elite. “I didn’t realize it was the global elite.”

Basic membership in the forum costs more than $70,000, and getting to the event by helicopter or car is expensive, as are accommodations. There also numerous glittering parties hosted by celebrities like Bono and Leonardo DiCaprio. (But those parties can have a sharp edge: one had attendees crawl on their hands and knees to feel what’s like to flee an army.)

The Golden Matthew 19:14 Award (“Suffer the little children”) goes to Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen for threatening to seize the children of poor people if parents commit crimes or fail to teach children “Danish values.”

The Danish parliament has designated 25 “ghetto” areas — Denmark’s term — which Muslim immigrants are crowded into. Families living in “ghettos” must send their children — starting at age 1 — to schools for 25 hours a week, where they’re taught about Christmas, Easter, and the Danish language. Failure to do so can result in a welfare cutoff.

Proposals are also being considered to double prison sentences for anyone from a “ghetto” convicted of a crime, and a four year prison sentence for parents who send their children back to their home countries to learn about their cultures.

The neo-fascist People’s Party, part of the governing coalition, also proposed forcing all “ghetto” children to wear electronic ankle bracelets and be confined to their homes after 8 PM. The measure was tabled.

Runners up are:

* The British Home Office, which, according to a report by the House of Lords, is using children for undercover operations against drug dealers, terrorists, and criminal gangs. “We are concerned that enabling a young person to participate in covert activity for an extended period of time may expose them to increased risk in their mental and physical welfare,” the Lord’s report concluded.

* The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for placing Dr. Ruth Etzel, head of Children’s Health Protection, on administrative leave and derailing programs aimed at reducing children’s exposure to lead, pesticides, mercury, and smog. Etzel was pressing to tighten up regulations because children are more sensitive to pollutants than adults. A leader in children’s environmental health for more than 30 years, Etzel was asked for her badge, cell phone, and keys and put on administrative leave.

The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight Award goes to arms maker Raytheon (with a tip of the hat to contributors Northup Grumman and Lockheed Martin) for its Patriot anti-missile that has downed exactly one missile in 28 years of use (and that was a clunky old Scud).

An analysis of the missile interceptor system by Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, concluded that Patriot is “a lemon.” Writing in Foreign Policy, Lewis says, “I am deeply skeptical that Patriot has ever intercepted a long-range ballistic missile in combat.”

But it sure sells well. Saudi Arabia forked over $5.4 billion for Patriots in 2015, Romania $4 billion in 2017, Poland $4.5 billion in 2018, and Turkey $3.5 billion this year.

The Golden “Say What?” Award has three winners:

*The U.S. Department of Defense for cutting a deal in the Yemen civil war to allow al-Qaeda members — the organization that brought us the September 11 attacks — to join with the Saudis and United Arab Emirates (UAE) in their fight against the Houthis.

According to Associated Press, while the Saudis claim that their forces are driving al-Qaeda out of cities, in fact, the terrorist organization’s members were allowed to leave with their weapons and looted cash.

U.S. drones gave them free passage. Why, you may ask? Because the Saudi coalition says the Houthis are supported by Iran.

* Saudi Arabia and the UAE for bankrolling a series of racist and Islamophobic attacks on newly elected Muslim Congress members Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) and Rashid Tlaib (D-Michigan) because the Gulf monarchies accuse both of being members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Neither is, but both are critical of the absolute monarchs of the Persian Gulf and are opposed to the Saudi-instigated war in Yemen.

* Israel, for selling weapons to the racist and anti-Semitic Azov Battalion in the Ukraine. On its YouTube channel, members of the militia showed off Israeli Tavor rifles, the primary weapon of the Israeli Special Forces. The Tavor is produced under license by the Israel Weapons Industries. The unit’s commander and Ukraine’s Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov, met with Israel’s Interior Minister Aryeh Deri last year to discuss “fruitful cooperation.”

Azov’s founder, Anriy Biletsky, now a Ukrainian parliament member, says his mission is “to restore the honor of the white race,” and lead “a crusade against the Semite-led untermenschen.”

The Blue Meanie Award goes to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for blocking medical supplies to North Korea. Drugs to fight malaria and tuberculosis have been held up, as have surgical equipment and soy milk for child care centers and orphanages.

According to the UN, sanctions “are not intended to have adverse humanitarian consequences for the civilian population” of North Korea. The U.S. position has come in for criticism by Sweden, France, Britain, Canada, and the International Red Cross.

The Little Bo Peep Award goes to the Pentagon for its recent audit indicating that some $21 trillion (yes, that is a “t”) is unaccounted for. Sharing this honor is the U.S. Air Force for losing a box of grenades, which apparently fell off a Humvee in North Dakota. The Air Forces says the weapons won’t go off without a special launcher. Right. What can possibly go wrong with grenades?

In Memory of Dr. Victor Sidel, a founding member of the Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Nobel Prize winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. Sidel, along with Dr. Barry S. Levy, wrote several important books, including War and Public Health, and Social Justice and Public Health. In 1986 he was arrested, along with astronomer Carl Sagan, at the Mercury, Nevada nuclear test site. He once said, “The cost of one-half day of world arms spending could pay for the full immunization of all the children of the world against the common infectious diseases.”

Happy New Year from Kim Jong-un

Mel Gurtov

Long ago, US foreign aid programs honored the principle that humanitarian aid should be treated separately from economic and military assistance to governments. Public Law 480 (popularized as “Food for Peace”), which began under President Eisenhower in the 1960s and expanded under President Kennedy, was mainly intended (in Kennedy’s words) to “narrow the gap between abundance here at home and near starvation abroad.” It was a simple and ethical goal, though it applied only to “friendly” countries and therefore had the secondary aim, as Kennedy admitted, to be a barrier against communism.

The original humane goal has now vanished, and the secondary political aim has taken its place. The Trump administration is explicitly using humanitarian aid as another weapon to sanction adversaries. North Korea is the prime example. After decades providing humanitarian aid by private citizens and NGOs, Americans will no longer be able to send or deliver it: the decision includes denial of permission to travel to North Korea to deliver aid. Programs that made perceptible contributions to economic development and health care in North Korea, and built trust, will now be grounded.

The American Friends Service Committee, Nautilus Institute, Mercy Corps, Northwest Medical Teams, and other well-established NGOs are among the affected organizations.

All this in the name of the Trump administration’s policy of “maximum pressure” to force North Korea to take tangible steps toward verifiable denuclearization. The administration justifies the ban as necessary to protect Americans from being taken prisoner and eliminate a source of hard currency for the North Korean regime. But those are excuses; humanitarian aid is a carrot now turned into a stick because Trump’s summit meeting with Kim Jong-un has failed to bring denuclearization any closer to realization and has no interest in an incentives-based engagement strategy.

Keith Luse, executive director of the National Committee on North Korea, a group that supports engagement, points out in a message to members (which includes me) that “a line has been crossed.”

American citizens and NGOs have provided humanitarian assistance to that country for decades. Whether motivated by a faith-based perspective—or out of a compassionate nature—all have been committed to saving the lives of the neediest of North Korea’s citizens, including children, the elderly and pregnant mothers. Thousands of North Koreans neglected by their own government, particularly in rural areas, know their lives have been impacted, or saved because of the intervention of the American people. It has become clear that the Trump Administration regards the provision of humanitarian assistance to the North Korean people as a legitimate target for its maximum pressure campaign.

Despite improvements in its economy, North Korea’s public health and food circumstances remain dire. The World Food Programme reports a shortfall of over $15 million for its work in North Korea. Ten million people—40 percent of the population—are said to be undernourished, and roughly 20 percent of children suffer from chronic malnourishment. The White House, where the president periodically extols his friendship with Kim Jong-un, has said nothing about the human condition in North Korea. But even if it did, US termination of humanitarian aid to North Korea would undermine its criticisms of human rights there.

In the United Nations, the US position makes Russia and China look good. Their representatives have called for rewarding North Korea for its diplomacy and its focus since April 2018 on economic development rather than on the byongjin line of parallel military and economic development. Moscow and Beijing have both argued in the Security Council for North Korean exemptions from UN sanctions. A Chinese foreign ministry statement of June 12, 2018 said:

The UN Security Council resolutions that have been passed say that if North Korea respects and acts in accordance with the resolutions, then sanction measures can be adjusted, including to pause or remove the relevant sanctions. China has consistently held that sanctions are not the goal in themselves. The Security Council’s actions should support and conform to the efforts of current diplomatic talks towards denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, and promote a political solution for the peninsula.

But to date Washington, with veto power in the Security Council, has taken a firm line on UN sanctions. In the White House’s view, reflected for example in a statement of August 29, 2018, China’s food and fuel assistance to North Korea—which typically amounts to 70 percent of North Korean imports—is “not helpful.” The White House is fighting a losing battle, however. Since the Trump-Kim summit, leakage in the UN sanctions regime has increased significantly as neither Russia nor China feels duty bound to honor it as before, particularly when it comes to oil. South Korean humanitarian aid also enters the picture as inter-Korean talks move ahead. North-South Korea agreements so far have greatly reduced military tensions along the demilitarized zone and at sea, paving the way for renewal of a South Korean-funded industrial zone and resort complex just across the DMZ in the North. But the Trump administration stands in the way of South Korean aid to the North.

In response to Seoul’s interest in lifting trade and investment sanctions, Trump said: “They won’t do it without our approval. They do nothing without our approval.”

North Korea is not an isolated case. Iran is also subject to “maximum pressure” and worse—meaning regime change—as became apparent in a speech by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeoon May 28, 2018. Officially, Trump’s imposition of sanctions on Iran following withdrawal from the Obama-era nuclear deal separates humanitarian aid from US sanctions on Iran’s banks, oil, airlines, and other industries. But in fact humanitarian aid requires the same bank processing as any other aid, making food and medicine imports hard to find under US sanctions. As Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said: “The US has imposed financial sanctions on Iran. When you want to transfer money, the bank does not ask whether it goes for food or other items—that is why sanctions always hit food and medicine.”

Economic sanctions do hurt. Iran’s Zarif has said as much, while also saying that sanctions “strengthen the resolve to resist. The North Koreans have not acknowledged the pain but have demanded an end to US sanctions as a condition of further dialogue. A major problem with sanctions, surely applicable to Iran and North Korea, is that they arouse nationalist resistance in the targeted regime. Studies of sanctions show, moreover, that they have a poor record when it comes to forcing policy changes

As for sanctions on humanitarian aid, the core issue is moral as well as economic. The people most affected by such sanctions are, of course, those who are most in need of basic necessities. Political leaders, the military, and residents in the capital rarely suffer. Moreover, loss of direct contact by aid groups with ordinary people undermines opportunities to build goodwill and nurture diplomatic engagement. In short, weaponizing humanitarian aid has no upside even in a policy based on “maximum pressure.”

The future of humanitarian aid is grim. The sheer number of people in need around the world almost defies imagination. Food and health deficits in North Korea and Iran pose one kind of humanitarian need. They are in caught in the middle of international rivalries, like the half-million Yemenis displaced by war and the “caravans” of people fleeing Central American violence and trapped in Mexico. But then there are the over 60 million displaced and transnational refugees and migrants who are victims of natural catastrophes (including climate change), war, and persecution.

Five countries—Afghanistan, Myanmar, Somalia, Syria, and South Sudan—account for two-thirds of today’s refugees according to Mercy Corps and Amnesty International. The global map is pockmarked with encampments, many of them permanent, as governments struggle either to support or find a way to remove hundreds of thousands of people. Governments that put out the welcome sign for such people, like Germany and Lebanon, risk being ousted by the current tidal force of anti-immigrant sentiment. And in the United Nations, refugee fatigue is an old problem, and funding relief has long since become a mission impossible.

Politics Over Menstruation

Kabir Deb

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness”. ~ Karl Marx.

If we stand on the platform that Marx established then we can have a clear view of how Sabarimala fight is “not just for women” but it is also “for the politics of the state”. Oppression itself, in the present state, is the fundamental product of politics and we cannot deny that after witnessing oppression of Dalits, women and poor in the name of religion based politics. Forget who is Ayyappa or any other Lord and just focus on the politics that has been established by a coalition of more than one party. Today Sabarimala issue is a clear fight for the women of India and it is to be supported but in contrast, should we forget that how easy it is for the political party to establish a double game out of a single issue.

I don’t want to enter the issue of religion, for it is a place which is way more dirty than any other issue. As we all know, that the political parties which are obsessed with religious politics, and it can be Hinduism or Muslim or Christianity etc., can itself create religion as an easy means to pierce women empowerment with the help of politics. Present scenario of politics runs like this which shapes India as the most unsafe country in the world. Politics gives birth to a chain which runs from power to oppression. Fight over Sabarimala in itself constructs an easy road for the coalition of different party to walk to power. As the Communist Party fights with the Constitution as its armour, BJP, RSS and Congress fights against the Constitution in the name of faith. We all know that India runs on the wheel of religion and so it is a critical point where we should decide that how serious could be the impact of this coalition for Kerala to stay safe from being a patriarchal state because no matter which party comes in power after the 2019 election (heart believes in Communist Party), a change could be drastic for the state in each and every way.

India today stands in the back foot, for its own fault, and the fight over Sabarimala can be a changing point and the feminists should keep this in mind because India needs feminism but at the same time, it cannot lose Communist Party in Kerala which fights for feminism. For me, the issue still appears to be a nonsense one because why should feminism strictly focus on religion when it is the most fundamental reason for the oppression of women? Discrimination over religion is the most relevant and crystal clear thing if we keep feminism in our mind because feminism always fights against the oppressive religion.

No matter whether it is Ayyappa or Shiva or Jesus or Muhammad, every religion comes to one central point: Oppression of women and poor. Hinduism works in multiple angles to oppress women for its Brahminian oppressive philosophy. Christianity stands against women for the blasphemy of the need of division (during its early years, Christianity taught a spiritual unity that at least potentially mitigated the harshness of Roman law, in which women were considered non-citizens with no legal rights. Inequality was everywhere in this system, for example, while men’s adultery was assumed, women’s was punishable by death). Islam gives birth to violence against women in the name of beating of wives which is still prevalent and their oppression in the name of rights and overburdened work. As we work on the statistics of the mass which believes in oppression, we can see that except the urban and rural areas near urban areas, only few areas exist where women know about the blasphemy and oppressive religion.

In a nation, which has got its illiteracy rate of 70%, I still don’t get how can the educated intellectuals ignore the utilisation of politics by the BJP, RSS and Congress to bring the devotees together as one entity and to bring a tension in the whole nation in the name of faith! The nation which hardly works to bring down the illiteracy level has got the mass, in maximum, which never bothers to care about the Constitution as they believe religion is the only truth. Today when Sabarimala issue burns as breaking news, four women got gang raped in one night and for me, that should be the biggest concern rather than an opium named religion. It is not about “Why should women be denied to enter during their menstrual period in Sabarimala?” rather the bigger picture that pops out of the issue is that “Politics today is being played over menstruation interlinking it with religion” and that is the saddest thing. The country which is still deprived of napkins for women in rural areas during menstruation just because of religious immorality, a serious fight to be beneath the umbrella of the same oppressive religion is the biggest irony!

Menstruation is not impure and it cannot be because it is a biological phenomenon which is responsible for our birth. Obscenity is when political parties find a woman’s menstruation as the biggest issue to play politics on and no one cares to establish the clear picture of political obscenity. Parties which established the hashtag trend of “Love Jihad”, “Moral Policing”, “No Valentines Day”, “No New Year Celebration”, “Mass Molestation” today works to bring the devotees of Ayyappa which are many in number to declare a war against the state in the name of celibacy to fight against feminism. So, the bigger question here is, should our focus be more on the strengthening of the political scenario of the country after the honourable Supreme Court eradicated the ban on the entry of women in any religious institution since it violates the Articles 14, 15, 17, 25, 26 of the Constitution or should we keep on giving opportunities to the political parties to establish a way more strong foundation of patriarchy in the state and country to play politics on menstruation?

At last, since religion is the opium of the masses, so a more serious fight on Sabarimala may create a crack over Kerala which would be a worse scenario for women empowerment and political organisations of Kerala! For me, feminism is a better platform than religion because the former works on human rights while the latter breaks human rights to create war. Constitutional battle should be kept on the hands of the law rather than giving the opportunists an easy road to attain power using the opium of our nation. Feminism, for me, stands against religion and works for reformation.

Biting into Apple: The Giant’s Revenues Fall

Binoy Kampmark

The worm has gotten into Apple, and is feasting with some consistency.  Revenue has fallen. Chief executive Tim Cook is cranky.  The celebrated front of Apple’s wealth – the iPhone with its range of glittering models – has not done as well as he would have hoped.  Dreams of conquering Cathay (or, in modern terms, the Chinese market) have not quite materialised.

In a letter to Apple’s investors, Cook explained that “our revenue will be lower than our original guidance for the quarter, with other items remaining broadly in line with our guidance.”  This somewhat optimistic assessment came with the heavily stressed caveat: “While it will be a number of weeks before we complete and report our final results, we wanted to get some preliminary information to you now.  Our final results may differ somewhat from these preliminary estimates.”

The reasons outlined were various, but Cook, in language designed to obfuscate with concealing woods for self-evident trees, suggested that the launches of various iPhone types would “affect our year-to-year compares.” That said, it “played out broadly in line with our expectations.”  While Cook gives the impression of omniscience, he is far from convincing.  Why go for the “unprecedented number of new products to ramp”, resulting in “supply constraints” which led to limiting “our sales of certain products during Q1 [the first quarter]”?  Such is the nature of the credo.

Where matters were not so smooth to predict were those “macroeconomic” matters that do tend to drive CEOs potty with concern.  While there was an expectation that the company would struggle for sales in “emerging markets”, the impact was “significantly greater… than we had projected.”  China, in fact, remained the hair-tearing problem, singled out as the single biggest factor in revenue fall.

“In fact,” goes Cook’s letter of breezy blame, “most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPhone.”  The slowing of China’s economy in the second half of 2018, with a slump in the September quarter being the second lowest in the last 25 years, deemed a significant factor.

The irritating tangle of world politics also features; as ever, Apple can hardly be responsible for errors or misjudgements, and prefers, when convenient, to point the finger to the appropriate catalyst.  The United States has not made matters easy for the Apple bottom line in its trade war spat with Beijing.  “We believe that the economic environment in China has been further impacted by rising trade tensions with the United States.”

While it is never wise to consult the view of economists without caution (their oracular skills leave much to be desired), the feeling among the analysts is that a further contraction is nigh.  “We expect a much worse slowdown in the first half, followed by a more serious and aggressive government easing/stimulus centred on regulating the property market in big cities,” claims chief China economist at Nomura, Ting Lu.  But chin up – a rebound is bound to happen in the latter part of 2019.

The Apple vision is, however, dogmatically optimistic, an indispensable quality to any cult.  China remains customary dream and object, a frontier to conquer.  It is stacked with Apple friendly innovators (“The iOS developer community in China is among the most innovative, creative, and vibrant in the world.”) and loyal customers who have “a very high level of engagement and satisfaction.”

Product fetishism only carries you so far.  The iPhone models are not exactly blazing a trail of enthusiasm in other countries either.  Users in Brazil, India, Russia and Turkey can count themselves as being more reluctant.

Some of this dampening is due, in no small part, to a certain cheek on the part of the tech giant, one nurtured by years of enthusiastic, entitled arrogance.  In late 2017, for instance, the company revealed that it was slowing down iPhones with old batteries in an attempt to prevent undesired shutdowns.  But the company did not feel any great desire to inform users of this fiddling, and it took the published findings of an iPhone user to replace his iPhone 6’s battery, thereby restoring performance to accepted levels, to kick the hornets’ nest.

As Chris Smith explains, “The fix was implemented via an update last January [2017], but Apple didn’t accurately inform users of what was going to happen to chemically aged batteries.”  Class action suits followed in the United States; Brazilian authorities insisted that the company inform iPhone users on how to have their batteries replaced within 10 days.

The bite on Apple has had its predictable shudder on the markets.  Investors ran off some $75 billion on the company’s stocks.  The Nasdaq fell by 3 percent; the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.8 percent.  An environment of chaos has greeted us in 2019, and fittingly, Apple remains at the centre of it, a company as responsible for modern technological worship as any.  As with any central dogma, disappointments are bound to happen, an irrepressible function of misplaced belief.

Opal Tower structural flaws expose rot in Australian construction industry

John Wilson

As more information surfaces concerning the severe structural faults in the $165 million, 36-storey Opal Tower in the Sydney suburb of Homebush, it is apparent that the problems stem from a broader crisis caused by self-regulation and the culture of cost-cutting throughout the construction industry.

On Christmas Eve, cracks appeared in a six-metre by three-metre pre-cast panel on level 10 of the tower complex, which has been occupied for less than 12 months. Residents in the building’s 392 apartments and businesses on the ground floor were ordered to evacuate. On Saturday, they were told they must wait at least another week before they can reoccupy the building because the specific cause of the cracks has yet to be identified.

A report on the cause of the cracking is due on Friday. To carry out its investigation, the builder of Opal Tower, Icon, has been tearing down walls in some apartments. One resident commented on Facebook: “All of our personal belongings have been thrown in a pile and our furniture is damaged. We received absolutely no notice that they were going to be doing work in our property and this is just appalling.”

Opal Tower resident’s belongs pushed aside during investigation

The most revealing aspect of the Opal Tower faults is that few experts in the building industry appear surprised.

A report presented in April 2018 to the federal, state and territories’ Building Ministers’ Forum (BMF) stated: “Those involved in high-rise construction have been left largely to their own devices. Where there has been supervision, this has generally been by private building surveyors (also known as certifiers) whom critics argue are not independent from builders and/or designers.”

It noted: “We have heard that there is a high incidence of building products in the market that are not compliant with the standards set out in the NCC [National Construction Code], resulting in inferior and sometimes dangerous products being used in the construction of buildings.”

The report was commissioned in the wake of the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London that killed at least 72 people and the similar, but not deadly, fire at the Lacrosse tower building in Melbourne in 2014.

On January 4, Geoff Crittenden of the Welding Technology Institute of Australia told the Sydney Morning Herald that “about 85 percent of the 600,000 tonnes of fabricated steel imported into Australia every year is non-compliant.”

The initial response of the New South Wales (NSW) government and sections of the media was to call for a crackdown on “dodgy certifiers” and “cowboy certifiers.” This transparent attempt to scapegoat one element in the whole chain of construction is now wilting under a deluge of information.

Robert Hart from Engineers Australia told the Australian Financial Review last week that blaming certifiers alone was “missing the point.” He noted that the NSW government had ignored 100 proposed changes to building industry regulation outlined in a 2016 report which it had commissioned.

“They’ve received so many warnings that the situation is critical, but they’ve done nothing,’’ Hart said. “You talk about people fiddling while Rome burns, but the man responsible for sorting this out, [Minister for Innovation and Better Regulation] Matt Kean hasn’t even picked up the fiddle. It’s bloody ridiculous… It’s really appalling. Will someone have to die before they’ll take it seriously?”

On January 4, Australian Subcontractors Association spokeswoman Louise Stewart indicted the “toxic culture” of pressure put on subcontractors by major building companies to cut costs.

She stated: “The subcontractors are asked to price jobs at the tender stage and even if the work is won, the prices are then shopped around and they are expected to drop their rates. It’s the nature of the industry, that’s the way it’s been working for years and it’s part of the problem.”

Stewart noted: “Fifty years ago, builders employed large work forces and the trades were employed by the builder. Now almost none of the trades are employed by the builder. They are all subcontractors. And the subcontractors are played off against each other to get the lowest price. It’s destroying the industry. It’s eroding the quality of projects.”

Two-bedroom apartments in Opal Tower were sold for around $930,000, while single-room studio apartments sold for $600,000. Media commentators have speculated that their value will have at least halved. Some owners are already demanding that the developer, Ecove Group, buy back their units. It is highly likely that they will be left to bear massive losses.

Opal Tower apartment temporary bracing in place “in case” there is a problem

In NSW, the developer or construction company must repair the damage if “major” defects in a building emerge within six years of its completion, and two years for “minor” defects. However, these purported protections have been weakened by legal rulings that have defined “major” as meaning a situation in which a building is uninhabitable.

In a 2014 decision, the full bench of the High Court found that Brookfield Multiplex did not owe a duty of care to compensate owners of the Chelsea apartment tower in the Sydney suburb of Chatswood for losses they had suffered due to defects. Colin Grace, a lawyer who acted for the Chelsea Owners Corporation, noted in December last year: “It [the ruling] had a significant notional impact. It implied builders don’t have a statutory duty of care to the end user.”

In January 2018, the NSW government introduced a “Strata Building Bond” requiring developers to put aside 2 percent of the total cost of the building work to cover any repairs needed during the first two years after it is occupied. However, as Colin Grace noted: “Unless we deal with the fundamental problem of making better construction and better reviews and stages and certification, it won’t change at all.”

Even when legal rights are in place, they do not necessarily offer protection. At the Elara Apartments, which was completed in 2007 in Canberra’s northern suburbs, structural problems led to cracks in the walls. The owners were forced to take legal action against the builder and Master Builders Fidelity Fund, which issues warranty insurance certificates to builders. The day after owners re-commenced legal proceedings in 2017, the builder went into voluntary administration.

The repairs ended up costing about $20 million, or $120,000 per apartment, which owners had to pay while they continue to pursue legal action against the Fidelity Fund. In December 2018, lawyers for the Fund claimed in court that a five-year limitation on claims had expired, so the owners were not entitled to any compensation—which in any case is capped at a maximum of $85,000. There are other reports of owners facing similar situations.

The residential building construction in Australia is worth over $150 billion per year. A speculative housing boom has been one of the main drivers of economic growth and employment in Australia since the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. The impact of this frenzied speculation is now beginning to be laid bare, with workers and residents burdened with huge mortgage debts or high rental payments for defective products.

At every level of government, in bank boardrooms and across the building industry, the main concern is not the plight of home-owners however. It is the fear that the revelations of sub-standard construction will cause a sharp fall in new home purchases and an even greater slump in property prices.

As the WSWS reported on Saturday, there is clear evidence that the housing boom is over. Sydney’s median property price fell by around 10 percent in 2018, equivalent to roughly $100,000 per dwelling. This took the total fall since the city’s market peak in early 2017 to 11.1 percent, the sharpest correction in over 35 years. The annual decline in Melbourne, the country’s second largest city, was 9.1 percent, or an average of about $75,000 per property.

Sri Lankan Central Bank governor calls for extended IMF program

Saman Gunadasa

Presenting his annual economic “road map” for 2019, Central Bank governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy called on the Sri Lankan government last week to request the International Monetary Fund (IMF) resume its loan bailout program—and extend its terms—to avert the country’s growing financial problems. Coomaraswamy’s “remedy” for the island’s economic crisis is to impose another round of austerity measures on working people.

The IMF last November suspended the final $500 million instalment of its $1.5 billion loan to Sri Lanka after bitter infighting within Colombo’s political elite. President Maithripala Sirisena sacked pro-US Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, replaced him with former President Mahinda Rajapakse, and then dissolved parliament. Sirisena, however, was compelled to reinstate Wickremesinghe as prime minister in mid-December, amid considerable international pressure, particularly by the US, after the Sri Lankan Supreme Court overruled the president’s political coup.

“There are provisions to extend the [IMF] program by another year” which are “worth considering,” Coomaraswamy said. Senior deputy bank governor, Nandalal Weerasinghe, told the media that the bank would investigate how much more financial aid was needed and the sort of conditions that would be attached to an extension of IMF loan repayments.

The IMF’s $1.5 billion bailout loan, awarded in 2016, included a reduction of the budget deficit to 3.5 percent of the GDP in 2020. This was to be achieved by increasing taxes, slashing the country’s meagre welfare programs and “restructuring the economy”—i.e., further privatisation of state-owned enterprises.

Pointing to Sri Lanka’s precarious financial situation, Central Bank governor Coomaraswamy said that foreign reserves had fallen to $6.94 billion last year amid a $1 billion outflow from rupee-denominated government securities. Of that outflow, 42 percent occurred since October, when the bitter factional fighting erupted in Colombo. The value of the local stock market fell by 23 billion rupees during the year, with a 13 billion rupee decline since October.

The capital market outflow was the main factor in a 19 percent depreciation of the Sri Lankan rupee against the US dollar last year that forced up the cost of imported essentials.

Coomaraswamy said that the Central Bank would respond to the capital outflow by cutting the volume of rupee bonds held by foreigners. “In view of the increased volatility in global financial markets we intend to reduce the threshold for foreign investment in rupee-denominated bonds from 10 percent to 5.” US financiers are the main investors in the Colombo security market.

The Central Bank governor also noted that the government is required to make a $1 billion repayment in mid-January with total repayments of $2.9 billion due by the end of the year. He said that the Central Bank is currently attempting to secure additional loans from all available sources, including Panda and Samurai bonds, and swaps with the Reserve Bank of India and the People’s Bank of China.

While Sri Lankan exports are in decline, import prices are increasing. As a result the trade deficit had widened to $8 billion by September. Sri Lanka, Coomaraswamy continued, is a “twin deficit” country with trade and budget deficits, and admitted that the country has been battered by the global crisis. “The economy faced heightening challenges in 2018, emanating mainly from global economic, financial and geo-political developments.”

Sri Lanka’s economic growth rate fell to an annualized 2.9 percent in the third quarter of 2018, down from the 3.6 in the second quarter. The Central Bank estimates that the growth rate in 2018 will be 3 percent, a decline from the 3.2 percent recorded in 2017.

The three major international rating agencies—Moody’s, Fitch and S&P—responded to the IMF’s suspension of its final loan instalment, by immediately downgrading Sri Lanka’s credit rating.

Referring to the new credit rating, Coomaraswamy said: “Now that we have been downgraded, we have had to renegotiate with various financing sources… If we have an undisciplined budget and poor policies, we will be downgraded again. We will lose access to capital markets.”

The Central Bank governor warned the new Wickremesinghe government not to make any political concessions to popular sentiment in Sri Lanka’s forthcoming elections. “I get very disturbed because everybody, even fairly well-informed people, say the election is coming so they will have to loosen policy…We cannot keep making the same mistakes.” The government has to be “careful to ensure there is no fiscal slippage, despite the elections.”

State Minister of Finance Eran Wickramaratne told the Dailyft that Colombo has decided to begin discussions with several organisations, including the IMF and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) US aid program. The newspaper reported that further IMF intervention was “crucial to encouraging the government to stick to its fiscal consolidation policies.”

Political uncertainty about the government, however, continues. Wickremesinghe’s United National Party does not have an outright majority in the parliament and President Sirisena will continue to use his powers to undermine the government.

Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera, who was supposed to present his 2019 budget last year, is now scheduled to present it in March. He has told the media that the budget will be a “surprising one,” indicating that there may be some concessions because provincial council and presidential elections are due to be held this year.

In all likelihood, however, the IMF will insist on another round of harsh austerity measures that will set the stage for the eruption of mass struggles against the government and the Sri Lankan capitalist state by workers, students and the rural poor.

UK Integrity Initiative heavily involved in Skripal affair

Robert Stevens

The Institute for Statecraft (IoS) and its Integrity Initiative (II) constitute a secret propaganda network tied to the UK security services. They bring together high-ranking military and intelligence personnel, journalists and academics to manufacture and disseminate propaganda serving the geo-political aims of British imperialism and its allies.

The IoS was founded in 2006 and the II in 2015. But their secret role in promoting fake news and disinformation was exposed only in November and December of 2018 by hacking group Anonymous.

A document published by Anonymous shows funding for the II totalled £582,635 in 2017-18, with £480,635 coming from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the rest from NATO.

Funding shot up to £2.6 million in 2018-19, with £1.96 million from the FCO and the rest from the US State Department, NATO and the American neoconservative Smith Richardson Foundation. Facebook, which plays in integral role in imposing censorship on behalf of US imperialism, donated £100,000.

The Working Group on Syria Propaganda and Media (WGSPM) produced a briefing on the II last month documenting the role played by leading figures in the UK Ministry of Defence, US Army and senior intelligence figures. It noted, “The involvement of these senior officers from military intelligence and information warfare units suggests that the MoD rather than the FCO is driving the Integrity Initiative programme.”

On January 4, a fourth trove of documents was made public by the Anonymous collective, taken from the internal servers of the IoS and II. These include many documents related to the poisoning last March of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury.

British Prime Minister Theresa May, without citing any evidence, immediately accused Russia of attempting to assassinate the pair using the nerve agent novichok, thereby ramping up global tensions. The II leaks indicate that the moves against Russia over the Skripal affair were scripted well in advance, with the IoS planning a detailed anti-Russia propaganda war, including suggested achievable objectives.

A 2015 document written by IoS “team member” Victor Madeira is titled “Russian Federation Sanctions.” It lists “potential levers” to achieve Russian “behaviour change,” “peace with Ukraine,” “return [of] Crimea,” and “regime change.” Such “levers” span almost every conceivable area, including “civil society,” “sports,” “finance” and “technology.”

Under “intelligence” Madeira calls for the simultaneous expulsion of “every RF [Russian Federation] intelligence officer and air/defense/naval attaché from as many countries as possible”—citing as a precedent the expulsion of over 1,000 Soviet officials from the UK in September 1971. The May government expelled over 100 Russian diplomats from over 20 countries just days after the Skripals’ poisoning.

Madeira has lectured at the University of Buckingham. The WGSPM quoted the university’s website: “Dr. Victor Madeira comes to us from Cambridge (where he has been a lecturer and tutor for four years, working with Professor Christopher Andrew and Sir Richard Dearlove and the Institute for Statecraft in London, directed by Chris Donnelly, where he is a senior fellow working on 21st century security architecture.” Dearlove is the former head of the UK foreign intelligence service MI6.

The head of the IoS is Chris Donnelly, formerly a reserve officer in the British Army Intelligence Corps. He previously headed the British Army’s Soviet Studies Research Centre at Sandhurst.

Between 1989 and 2003, he was special adviser to four NATO secretaries general. An online biography confirms that Donnelly is, among many things, an honorary colonel in Specialist Group Military Intelligence (SGMI) and sits on the official team responsible for scrutinizing the current reform of the UK’s Reserve Forces for the defence secretary. SGMI is a Ministry of Defence (MoD) operation based at Denison Barracks in Berkshire, England. It is part of the 1st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Brigade, which became operational on September 1, 2014.

Another leaked document shows that in October 2016, Donnelly met UK General Sir Richard Barrons. The account of their meeting is chilling in light of the Skripal affair that followed and the escalation of tensions with Russia, including demands by leading generals that the UK prepare for military conflict.

Either Donnelly or Barrons reportedly stated that “if no catastrophe happens to wake people up and demand a response, then we need to find a way to get the core of government to realise the problem and take it out of the political space.”

The speaker continued: “We will need to impose changes over the heads of vested interests. We did this in the 1930s. My conclusion is it is we who must either generate the debate or wait for something dreadful to happen to shock us into action. We must generate an independent debate outside government. We need to ask when and how do we start to put all this right. Do we have the national capabilities [and/or] capacities to fix it? If so, how do we improve our harnessing of resources to do it? We need this debate now. There is not a moment to be lost.”

The Donnelly/Barrons meeting came just one month after the Financial Times leaked a letter from Barrons to the MoD making clear that the British military had to prepare for a major war. In his letter, Barrons demanded the upgrading of military and intelligence hardware, capabilities and personnel necessary to prosecute an extended air, land and sea confrontation against heavily armed state opponents, particularly Russia.

Just days after the poisoning of the Skripals, the IoS proposed that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office “study social media activity in respect of the events that took place, how news spread, and evaluate how the incident is being perceived” in various countries. Within days, the II’s “Operation Iris” swung into operation. As well as monitoring media coverage with its own team, it recruited the global investigative solutions firm Harod Associates to analyse social media activity related to the Skripals affair.

On March 11, just seven days after the poisonings, II set out what it called the necessary “narrative.” It declared, “Russia has carried out yet another brutal attack, this time with a deadly nerve agent, on someone living in Britain.”

The May government’s account of how the Skripals came to be poisoned was shot through with inconsistencies, with the wider public increasingly sceptical at its ever-changing story. The II raised concerns that the government was “far too weak,” declaring, “[I]t’s essential the government makes a much stronger response this time.”

It proposed 11 “possible, realistic first actions,” including such authoritarian measures as banning Russian state news services RT and Sputnik from operating in the UK. Its first demand was to publicly attack the Putin government with a barrage of propaganda “through regular media, social media, and with the assistance of specialists such as those at the Institute of Statecraft.”

A number of senior journalists at the BBC, Times/Sunday Times, Guardian and Financial Times are listed as supportive of the IoS/II in an earlier leaked document. These media outlets each played a central role in disseminating government propaganda throughout the Skripal affair. The named journalists include David Aaronovitch and Dominic Kennedy at the Times, Natalie Nougayrede and Carole Cadwalladr at the Guardian, Edward Lucas at the Economist, Neil Buckley at the Financial Times, and Jonathan Marcus at the BBC.

Another figure who has played a central role for II is security consultant Dan Kaszeta. Invoices from his consultancy reveal he was paid over £2,000 to write anti-Russian articles published by the II. These included a puff piece on Porton Down, the UK’s chemical weapons laboratory, which has the capability to produce novichok. His piece insisted that Porton Down, located just a few miles from Salisbury, could not possibly have anything to do with the presence of novichok in Salisbury.