Davos overshadowed by crisis and social upheaval

Nick Beams

This year’s gathering of the global elites at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, is perhaps best summed up in the phrase: The chickens are coming home to roost.

For almost five decades, the WEF has been at the centre of the promotion of the free market policies that have funnelled trillions of dollars into the hands of the world’s wealthiest individuals and led to the widening of social inequality to historically unprecedented levels—an institutionalised process that accelerated to new levels after the meltdown of 2008.

In January 2009, as the financial crisis was still unfolding, there was a widespread fear at the annual Davos meeting that the bonanza was about to end. But as concerns over an immediate social backlash receded somewhat and the vast accumulation of wealth on the heights of society continued, thanks to the massive injection of cheap money by the US Fed and other major central banks, it appeared that all was still for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

No longer. Social anger and the class struggle are intensifying around the world. As the Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty commented, the Davos billionaire is now experiencing a new and unsettling emotion: fear. As they face a world order crumbling before them, the Davos plutocrats are “terrified” and “whatever dog-eared platitudes they may recycle for the TV cameras, what grips them is the havoc far below.”

Surrounding the Davos gathering, there were attempts to introduce a course correction. In a column produced for the meeting, Financial Times economics commentator Martin Wolf pointed to the responsibility of the global elites for the elevation of populist and authoritarian political leaderships and insisted that law-governed democracies had to be made to work better. “Davos people,” he concluded, “please note: this is your clear responsibility.”

The international charity Oxfam issued a report showing that 26 billionaires held as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of the world’s population, some 3.8 billion, that wealth accumulation at the top was increasing at the rate of $2.5 billion per day and called or a new “human economy” to be financed through increased wealth taxes.

The “Davos people” gave their answer to this reform agenda when they handed the platform for the keynote address to the newly installed extreme right wing and fascistic president of Brazil, the former military commander, Jair Bolsonaro, after giving it to another right-wing authoritarian Donald Trump the previous year.

Bolsonaro’s remarks were music to their ears as he set out his agenda for a “new Brazil” by creating new market opportunities, lower taxes on business and a “much-needed overhaul” of the country’s pension system. And they would have been mindful that these measures come with a commitment for the suppression of the working class.

As the Davos summit opened, the WSWS noted that the present regime of the world capitalist order, dominated and controlled by the global billionaires and their financial markets, was as incapable of any reform as pre-1789 France or the pre-1917 czarist autocracy in Russia both of which responded to social opposition with increased repression. The red-carpet treatment for Bolsonaro sent a message to the working class the world over: this is how your demands will be met.

This year’s annual meeting was marked by the absence of a number of political leaders, itself an expression of the growing political disorder within bourgeois politics and the rising tide of class struggle. British Prime Minister Theresa May could not attend due to the turmoil over Brexit; US President Donald Trump withdrew himself and the rest of the planned American delegation because of the government shutdown; French President Emmanuel Macron stayed at home as he confronted continuing protests by the “yellow vest” movement.

The circumstances surrounding another absentee were also significant. On the eve of the meeting, Zimbabwe’s president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, decided he would skip Davos in order to direct the suppression of protests against his government’s doubling of fuel prices, which, according to reports, led to 12 deaths last weekend.

Hanging over the entire gathering was the worsening global economic outlook and the consequences of even a minor downturn under conditions of deepening trade conflicts, above all the US trade war against China, the palpable breakdown of long established political structures and the rising tide of social anger and class struggle.

In the lead up to the meeting, David Lipton, the deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund issued a warning that “history suggests” an economic downturn “somewhere over the horizon.” But under conditions of deepening distrust in government institutions there was no guarantee that the regulatory regimes put in place after the finance crisis “will be sufficient to keep a ‘garden variety’ recession from becoming another full-blown systemic crisis.”

Another warning came in the form of a letter written by billionaire investor Seth Klarman, which, the New York Times reported, was passed around amid the Davos attendees. Its central focus was on the impact of rising class struggles

“It can’t be business as usual amid constant protests, riots, shutdown and escalating social tensions,” he wrote. Citing the “yellow vest” movement in France, he continued on this theme: “Social cohesion is essential for those who have capital to invest.”

Klarman is among those who are aware that the measures taken by financial authorities over the past decade to combat the effects of the financial crisis are contributing to the creation of a new one as debt levels rise.

“The seeds of the next major financial crisis … may well be found in today’s sovereign debt levels,” he wrote. “There is no way to know how much debt is too much, but America will inevitably reach an inflection point whereupon a suddenly a more skeptical market will refuse to continue to lend to us at rates we can afford.”

And such a crisis will have immediate political effects, as Klarman and others recognise. “It’s not hard to imagine worsening social unrest among a generation,” he wrote,” that is falling behind economically and feels betrayed by a massive national debt without any obvious benefit to them.”

But a social order in which, as Oxfam reports, 82 percent of all the wealth created in 2017 went to the top global 1 percent is organically incapable of responding to deepening opposition other than with repression, underscoring the analysis of the International Committee of the Fourth International that present political situation is above all characterised by revolution versus counter-revolution.

Indian teachers, government workers launch indefinite strike in Tamil Nadu

Deepal Jayasekera

In another outbreak of massive working class struggles in India, about 700,000 teachers and state government employees in the southern state of Tamil Nadu have been on indefinite strike since Tuesday. They walked out over a list of demands that includes reversal of retirement pension cuts, pay increases and permanency for school teachers and anganwadi (day care centres) workers.

More than 20,000 strikers have been arrested for participating in street demonstrations throughout the state, defying threats of disciplinary action by the right-wing communalist All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)-led state government. On Wednesday, the Madras High Court ordered them to return to work by today—a warning of further government retaliation.

Tamil Nadu teachers picketing

The strike is a part of a growing upsurge of the international working class after decades of worsening conditions and widening social inequality. The revolt includes the strike by tens of thousands of Matamoros maquiladora workers on the Mexico-US border, the teachers’ strikes in Los Angeles and across the US and the Yellow Vest protests across France.

Workers throughout South Asia have taken determined industrial action, as seen in last month’s nine-day strike by Sri Lankan plantation workers demanding a doubling of their wages, and this month’s eight-day strike by garment workers in Bangladesh for higher pay.

Just two weeks ago, workers across India joined a two-day strike on January 8 and 9 against the pro-investor “reform” and austerity measures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) government. Late last year, over 3,000 workers from three major auto factories in Oragadam, near the Tamil Nadu state capital Chennai—Yamaha, Royal Enfield and Myoung Shin India Automotive—participated in two-month-long strikes.

Teachers and other state government employees want to roll back the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) and reverse the imposition of the National Pension Scheme (NPS), which have cut salaries and placed their pension funds in the hands of the stock markets.

The NPS, introduced by the last BJP-led central government, was imposed in 2014. Since then, all new central and state government employees have been deprived of the previous pension rights and 10 percent of their salaries have been diverted into a pension fund that fattens the profits of share market investors.

The seven-point list of strike demands includes payment of 21-month pay arrears, regularisation of part-time employees and anganwadi teachers and increased pay for secondary school teachers. Non-permanent workers are increasingly exploited, under various categories like “contract,” “part time,” “trainee” and “apprentice,” in both the public and private sectors, to impose poverty-level wages and divide the working class.

The strike has shut down many schools throughout the state. Workers in other state government departments, such as Revenue, Health, Rural Development and Agriculture, have joined the strike.

Despite mass arrests, strikers participated in protests in the capital Chennai and other major cities like Mudurai, Coimbatore, Virudhungar, Ramanathapurum, Sivaganga, Theni, Vellore and Dindigul.

Strikers outside a District Collector office

However, the trade unions, which were forced to call the action due to the growing militancy among workers, are totally opposed to any mobilisation of the working class against the government’s attacks. The Joint Action Council of Tamil Nadu Teachers Organisations and Government Employees Organisations (JACTTO and GEO), an alliance of teachers and government unions, claims that the AIADMK government can be pressured to reverse its policies.

What workers have experienced is the opposite—a government crackdown. On Monday, the day before the indefinite strike began, state Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan threatened to cut off strikers’ wages and cancelled all leave, except for medical reasons, during the strike. The state education department moved to hire strike breakers, offering temporary appointees a meagre 7,500 rupees ($US106) a month.

The last state AIADMK government unleashed brutal repression against striking government employees in 2003, sacking hundreds of thousands.

The striking workers also have had bitter experiences with the unions. Workers have repeatedly come forward to fight against the CPS. In February 2016, for example, they started an indefinite strike, but the Tamil Nadu Government Employees Association (TNGEA), an alliance of 68 unions, ended the strike after 10 days without meeting their demands.

The unions justified that betrayal by citing election and school examination duties that government employees needed to perform, and by supposedly giving the government time to think over workers’ demands. JACTTO refused to join the strike, claiming that the incoming state government’s 2016 budget would concede the demands.

Successive governments at both central and state levels have continued such socially-incendiary “economic reforms,” imposing on workers the burden of the deepening crisis of Indian and world capitalism since the 2008 global financial breakdown.

Major “reform” measures similar to the CPS have been introduced around the world at the dictates of the International Monetary Fund. They will not be reversed by replacing the BJP-led Modi government at the Indian general election due to be held in April-May. The opposition Congress—the traditional party of Indian ruling elite—and the regional capitalist parties like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam [DMK], the AIADMK’s current Tamil Nadu rival, are equally committed to same pro-big business measures.

The only viable strategy to defeat these attacks, as in Mexico, the US, France and around the world, is one based on the international class struggle and the independent political mobilisation of the working class against the reactionary capitalist order.

India’s main Stalinist parliamentary parties—the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) and the Communist Party of India (CPI)—are trying to channel the rising movement of workers behind the return of yet another capitalist government, whether led by the Congress Party or a series of smaller, right-wing regional parties—after the April-May general election, on the pretext of defeating the Hindu communalist BJP.

The same Stalinist parties made an electoral alliance with the AIADMK in the 2011 Tamil Nadu state elections, even after its mass sackings of striking government employees in 2003.

As the World Socialist Web Site explained in its January 12 Perspective on the political significance of the two-day national general strike: “All these parties have played a pivotal role in implementing the Indian bourgeoisie’s drive to make India a cheap-labour haven for global capital. Between 1991 and 2008, the CPM and CPI sustained in power a succession of governments, most of them Congress Party-led, which spearheaded the neo-liberal agenda and pursued closer ties with Washington.”

Indian workers should follow the example of the Abbotsleigh tea plantation workers in Sri Lanka, who, under the guidance of the Socialist Equality Party, have established a rank-and-file action committee completely independent of the trade union apparatuses that have enforced their brutal exploitation for decades. Auto workers in the US, confronted by plant closures and thousands more job losses, have taken a similar course.

Such rank-and-file workplace committees must develop a working class counteroffensive by unifying the struggles of workers across India and by reaching out to workers around the world, with whom they are closely interlinked by global capitalist production.

Above all, Indian workers need a revolutionary party, based on an internationalist socialist program and strategy, embodying all the strategic lessons of the struggles of the world working class, to prosecute the struggle for workers’ power. That party is the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI).

Canada’s diversity imperialism

Keith Jones

Canada’s trade union-backed, ostensibly “progressive” Liberal government is playing a key role in the regime-change coup that Washington has launched against Venezuela’s elected president, Nicolás Maduro.

Canada quickly seconded US President Donald Trump’s announcement Wednesday recognizing Juan Guaidó, Venezuela’s self-proclaimed “interim president,” as the country’s head of state.

The cabinet Trudeau named after winning office in October 2015 was hailed as an exemplar of diversity and inclusiveness. With an equal number of women and men, newspaper columnists lauded the “gender-balanced cabinet.” It boasted an indigenous Justice Minister, an Indian-born Sikh defence minister, a former Somali refugee as immigration minister, a gay Treasury Board president, and a quadriplegic Veteran Affairs Minister.

Particular acclimations were given for the selection of a female minister of foreign affairs, Christina Freeland. In an article in September on Canada’s “feminist foreign policy,” Foreign Policy magazine wrote that last year Canada hosted “the first-ever meeting of female foreign ministers, as part of a package of commitments it made to prioritize women’s issues under its G-7 presidency this year.”

The meeting, Foreign Policy wrote, was “unprecedented in its display of female power on the world stage.”

“It is important—and historic—that we have a prime minister and a government proud to proclaim themselves as feminists,” declared Freeland. “Women’s rights are human rights.”

In reality, as underscored by Canada’s role in aiding and abetting the US-orchestrated regime-change operation in Venezuela, the only “identity” that matters is that all the members of the Trudeau cabinet are defenders of imperialism.

Trudeau has been enthusiastically promoted by the New York Times and Guardian as a poster boy of contemporary liberalism. That is a liberalism that has renounced all social reform, is pro-austerity and pro-war, and which privileges issues of racial, ethnic and gender identity, as a means of rallying the support of sections of the affluent middle class.

Trudeau and Freeland are recycling and amplifying the foul propaganda emanating from the CIA and the likes of Brazil’s new ultra-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, that Guaidó—a representative of the country’s traditional US-aligned oligarchy—is the incarnation of the democratic aspirations of the Venezuelan people.

Ottawa’s role, however, goes far beyond trying to provide a smokescreen for yet another “made in USA” coup and obscuring the inexorable connection between Washington’s current intrigues in Venezuela and the succession of invasions, occupations and coups it has orchestrated in Latin America since 1898.

Ottawa, according to news reports, will soon host a meeting of the Lima Group, a coalition of US allies in the Americas, to plot the next steps in the “regime-change” operation against Maduro and the bourgeois nationalist regime he heads.

Since its establishment in August 2017, Canada has acted as Washington’s principal agent inside the Lima Group. Last September, Canada was conspicuous in leading opposition to a Lima Group “pledge” to oppose any foreign military intervention in Venezuela—i.e. a US invasion.

Wednesday’s US-fomented coup has pushed the impoverished South American country to the brink of civil war and, with Trump demonstratively declaring “all options on the table,” brought the US to the brink of a military assault on Venezuela.

There is every reason to believe that Canada will participate in any US military action against Venezuela, reprising, albeit almost certainly on a larger and bloodier scale, its 2004 role in assisting the US in overthrowing Haiti’s elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Washington has spearheaded the resurgence of imperialism, waging a never-ending series of wars since 1991 in an increasingly desperate attempt to offset the decline in its global economic position. But all the imperialist and aspiring great powers, big and small, are rearming and reviving war as a vital instrument of state policy.

A major belligerent and, from an economic and strategic vantage point, beneficiary of the two imperialist world wars of the last century, Canadian imperialism is no exception. Long gone are the days when Canada’s ruling elite, with a view to politically and ideologically harnessing the working class to its rule, promoted the myth that Canada and its military have a special “peacekeeping” vocation.

Since 1991, Canada, under Liberal and Conservative governments alike, has played a leading role in one US-led war after another, including the first Gulf War, the 1999 NATO war on Yugoslavia, the Afghan War, the 2011 regime-change war in Libya, and the ongoing US war in the Middle East.

As in Venezuela today, Canada’s government and military have, in the course of these wars and interventions, repeatedly aligned with extreme right-wing and outright fascist forces. Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel involved in the bombing of Libya described themselves as “al Qaeda’s air force.” Similarly, in the Ukraine in 2014, Canada helped orchestrate, in concert with Washington, a fascist-spearheaded coup against the country’s elected president.

Canada’s longstanding and rapidly expanding military-security alliance with Washington and Wall Street enjoys all but unanimous support with the Canadian ruling class, as the best means to assert its own predatory imperialist interests and aims on the world stage.

Canada’s banks and resource companies are important players in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Canadian ruling elite shares Washington’s determination to roll back Chinese and Russian economic and geopolitical influence in the Americas.

Under Trudeau and his purported “feminist foreign policy,” Canada is playing an even more rapacious and reactionary role in world affairs than under the neoconservative and onetime Iraq war enthusiast, Stephen Harper.

Declaring that Canada must prepare for the wars of the 21st Century and play a larger role in sustaining a US-led world order, the Trudeau government announced in June 2016 plans to hike military spending by more than 70 percent to almost $33 billion by 2026.

Already Canada is playing a leading role in US imperialism’s three main military-strategic offensives, any one of which could rapidly spiral into a war between nuclear-armed powers: in the Middle East, against Russia and against China.

Canada is leading one of NATO’s four new “forward deployed” battalion-sized battlegroups on Russia’s borders; routinely deploys warplanes and battleships to patrol the Black Sea, Baltic States and Eastern Europe; and is training Ukrainian Army and National Guard personnel to, in Trudeau’s words, “liberate” Eastern Ukraine.

And long before Ottawa ordered, at Washington’s behest, the December 1 arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on trumped-up charges, Canada was closely aligned with Washington in its escalating confrontation with China. Building on a secret 2013 US-Canadian military agreement on coordinating operations in the Asia-Pacific, the CAF has greatly expanded deployments in Asia. CAF head Jonathan Vance now routinely describes the South China Sea and Malacca Straits, key chokepoints in US war planning against China, as of vital strategic importance to Canada.

There are vital lessons to be learned from Trudeau’s role in Trump’s coup attempt in Venezuela, applicable in every country all over the world. Replacing one set of representatives of the financial oligarchy with another, regardless of their race, gender, or sexual preference, will not lead to a more “humane” outcome. The struggle against imperialism and social inequality must base itself on the social force capable of opposing capitalism and imperialist war: the working class.

WHO-TDR Clinical and Research Development Fellowship 2019/2020 for Developing Countries

Application Deadlines: 7th March 2019, 16:00 (GMT)

Eligible Countries: Low- and Middle income countries of WHO African Region.

About the Award: Successful applicants are placed for 12 months in host training organizations (pharmaceutical companies, product development partnerships (PDPs) or research organizations) and then receive a reintegration plan for 12 months at their home institution.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: On the date of the deadline set for submission of applications, the fellow should:

• Be a postgraduate (MSc or PhD) or medical/pharmacy graduate conducting clinical research activities in the scope of TDR’s mandate.
• Have obtained their first degree within the 15 years prior to submission of this application.
• Have been a researcher or clinical staff member employed for the past 12 months in an institution with a registered legal entity in an LMIC conducting clinical research activities in the scope of TDR’s mandate.
• Must be a national or citizen of, and resident in, an LMIC.

Number of Awards: Ten (10) Master’s scholarships

Value of Award: 

• The grant covers one economy class return air ticket (home – host training organization – home); a monthly stipend of approximately US$ 4000; a one-time allowance of US$ 1500 for educational support materials; health insurance and support to attend relevant meetings during the course of the fellowship, up to a maximum amount of US$ 3000, and access to an alumni website and to the Professional Membership Scheme for clinical trialists website.
• A break at 6 months of fellowship may be offered to the fellow to return to their home institution to present to their peers the acquired training and scientific progress made.
• The grant also includes provisional funds for reintegration, conditional upon the approval of a progress report and reintegration plan.

How to Apply:

1. Please send the completed application form in electronic format (Word or PDF only) to cdftdr@who.int.
2. It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage see link below) before applying

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: World Health Organisation, Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR)

Shanghai Government Scholarship 2019/2020 for Bachelors, Masters and PhD International Students

Application Deadline: from 1st March 2019 to 30th March 2019.

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): China

Eligible Field of Study:

1. Bachelor’s degree programs
2. Master’s degree programs (except MBA and MTCSOL*)
   • Note: MBA is short for Master of Business Administration;
   • MTCSOL refers to Master of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages.
3. Doctoral degree programs

Type: Bachelors, Masters and PhD

Eligibility: 

1. Be a non-Chinese citizen in good health.
2. Not be an enrolled degree student in Chinese universities at the time of application.
3. Be a high school graduate under the age of 25 when applying for the undergraduate programs;
4. Be a master’s degree holder under the age of 40 when applying for doctoral programs.
5. Be a bachelor’s degree holder under the age of 35 when applying for master’s programs.
6. 3.Language proficiency: new HSK5 level (scored at least 180)

Value of Scholarship: The scholarship covers tuition waiver and comprehensive medical insurance for bachelor’s students; it covers tuition waiver, accommodation, stipend, and comprehensive medical insurance for master’s students and doctoral students.

Duration of Scholarship: 

1. Bachelor’s Degree Program: 4 to 5 years
2. Master’s degree programs: 2 to 3 years
3. Doctoral degree programs: 3 to 4 years

How to Apply: 
Step 1 – Submit the scholarship application on http://study.shmec.gov.cn, print out the scholarship application form and sign on it.
Step 2 – Submit the program application on http://ao.sufe.edu.cn, print out the degree program application form and sign on it.
Step 3 – Present the supporting documents to the Admission Office at ICES SUFE.
Please mail or hand in directly to the Admission Office by the application deadline (mailing date considered as submission date).

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

Visit Programme Webpage for details

Dag Hammarskjöld Journalism Fellowships 2019 at United Nations Assembly for Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 1st March, 2019. 

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries:

• Developing nations of Africa, Asia (including Pacific Island nations), Latin America and the Caribbean.
• For 2019 only, the Fund will not accept applications from the countries of the 2017 fellows – Argentina, India, Kenya and Yemen – in an effort to rotate recipient countries.

To be taken at (country): New York, USA

Area of Interest: Journalism

About Fellowship: The Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists accepts applications from journalists of the developing nations of Africa, Asia (including Pacific Island nations), Latin America and the Caribbean to cover the United Nations General Assembly beginning in September each year. The fellowships offer a unique opportunity for promising young journalists from developing countries to see the United Nations at work and to report on its proceedings for news media in their home countries.

Offered Since: 1961

Type: Professional Fellowship

Eligibility: The Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists fellowships are open to individuals who:

• Are native to one of the mainly developing countries of Africa, Asia (including Pacific Island nations), Latin America and the Caribbean. For 2019 only, the Fund will not accept applications from the countries of the 2018 fellows – Argentina, India, Kenya and Yemen – in an effort to rotate recipient countries.
• Currently live in and write for media in a developing country.
• Are between the ages of 25 and 35.
• Have a very good command of the English language since United Nations press conferences and many documents are in English only.
• Are currently employed as professional journalists for print, television, radio or internet media organizations.  Both full-time and freelance journalists are invited to apply.
• Have approval from their media organizations to spend up to three months in New York reporting from the United Nations.
• Receive a commitment from their media organizations that the reports they file during the term of the Fellowship will be used and that they will continue to be paid for their services.

Number of Fellowships: not specified

Value of Fellowship: The Fund will provide: round-trip airfare to New York; accommodations; health insurance for the duration of the fellowship, and a daily allowance to cover food and other necessities. The Fund will not be responsible for other expenses of a personal nature, such as telephone calls.

Duration of Fellowship: first three months of the General Assembly session

How to Apply: 

• CLICK HERE for the application in Word format
  CLICK HERE for the application in PDF format (requires Adobe Reader, free download)

You MUST ALSO INCLUDE ALL necessary documentation as outlined in the Eligibility and Documentation Requirements with your application.
An originally completed AND signed application, along with all six (6) of the Documentation Requirements, should be sent by postal or courier service (such as DHL, FedEx, Airborne) to:
Dag Hammarskjöld Fund for Journalists
512 Northampton Street, No. 124A
Edwardsville, PA 18704 USA


Visit the Fellowship Webpage for Details

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Doctoral Scholarship Program 2019 for Students from Developing Countries

Application Deadlines: Applications will be accepted no later than:

• diploma / magister / state examination: by the end of 6^th semester
• Bachelor/ undergraduate programmes: until 3 semesters before finishing the standard period of study (if 6 semesters by the end  of 3^rd semester; if 7 semesters by the end  of 4^rd semester)
• postgraduate/ Master programmes: by the end of 1^st semester

• duration of application process:
  4-7 months

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Students from Developing Countries already studying in Germany.

About the Award: The promotion of young talent has been one of the founding principles of the FES.

At the time when Friedrich Ebert was elected as the first president of the Weimar Republic, it was almost impossible for talented children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds to study at universities or take part in research programmes. With the foundation of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in 1925, the first scholarships were awarded to particularly talented young individuals from a working class milieu who were taking an active part in the young democracy of the Weimar Republic.

To address social disadvantages by supporting students who actively work for freedom, justice and social cohesion in their commitment to social democracy, or will do so in future, continues to be one of the aims of the FES.

Type: Doctoral

Eligibility: The FES can only award scholarships to applicants from abroad who have already enrolled in a German university or have a supervisor for their doctoral studies.

• • For the FES, service to the common good deserves recognition. It is therefore not only the applicants’ academic achievement but their social and political involvement and personal attitudes that play an important part in the selection process.

• The FES also supports foreign applicants who are already studying, or doing their postgraduate studies, in Germany at the time of application. Up to 40 students from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe may qualify for the scholarship programme every year with the exception of those who are already receiving some support from public sources.
• Students are expected to be living in Germany before they apply and have to provide proof of an adequate command of the German language by submitting a language proficiency certificate ( C 1, TestDAF)
• Since foreign scholarship holders will receive an extensive social and political side programme, German language proficiency is crucial even when the study programme itself (M/B) is carried out in English.
• We do not support foreign students from Western European countries at present, but only those from the developing countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe.
• At the time of application, foreign students should be able to submit proof of their initial academic achievements/marks with the exception of those enrolled in Master or other postgraduate programmes.

Selection Criteria: The FES supports

• all academic subjects
• students from public or state-approved universities and from universities of applied sciences/polytechnical colleges (FH)
• postgraduate programmes (PhD)

The FES does not support

• second degree courses
• study visits outside Germany
• final phases of academic studies
• postgraduate courses in medicine

Number of Awards: This year, about 2.700 students and postgraduates will receive a grant from FES.

Value of Award: Foreign scholarship holders receive:

• 650 € per month (basic scholarship programme) / 1000 € per month (graduate scholarship programme)
• 276 € of family allowance, if applicable
• refund of health care costs
• any income exceeding 400 € per month will be credited against the scholarship.

Expectations: FES expects scholarship holders:

• to participate in extra-curricular seminars and activities of FES campus groups on a regular basis
• to achieve above-average results in their degree courses
• to continue and intensify their socio-political commitment.

At the end of each term, a semester report has to be submitted to FES which describes the scholarship holder’s current academic performance and his/her social engagement.

How to Apply: 

• • Self Application: Please use the “Online-Bewerbung” on the Internet – in German only! supplementary sheet

• • Individual interviews: In a second step, selected candidates will be invited to two individual interviews. The first interview will be conducted by one of the lecturers from the FES, and the second interview by one of the members of the FES scholarship committee (AWA). Two reports are written on the basis of these interviews and presented to the AWA.

• • Discussion and final decision by the AWA: The AWA will eventually make a final decision about your application. The AWA is an independent body composed of university lecturers as well as other persons from the fields of science, politics, art and media. The committee meets at least three times a year. The AWA will discuss every application at great length and then make the final decision.

• Written notification: You will be notified of the AWA’s decision.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details


Award Providers: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES)

DW Akademie Journalism Masters Scholarships 2019 for Journalism Students and Professionals in Developing Countries – Germany

Application Deadline: 31st March 2019

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Germany

About the Award: The program is targeted at students from around the world that want to work in a position of responsibility in journalism or the communications sector. It especially addresses journalists-in-training, media representatives from radio, TV, online and print and communication experts. Those interested must have completed an academic program (bachelor’s degree or equivalent) and have acquired at least one year of professional experience in a media-related field after their first degree. The program is bilingual (English and German), whereby English is the prevalent course language.
Full Scholarship: We are granting full scholarship to up to 10 applicants each year. Prospective students from developing countries can apply for the full scholarship. The scholarship is 750 EUR per month covering costs for living and accommodation. The tuition fee and the flight will be also reimbursed. A committee will decide which applicants are to receive a scholarship after the application deadline has expired.
Partial Scholarship: Prospective students from developing countries and countries in transition who do not meet the requirements for the full scholarship, may apply for a partial scholarship. This will cover the costs of the tuition fees of 6,000 EUR. The expenses for travelling, accommodation and living will have to be paid by yourself.

Type: Masters, Training

Eligibility: Especially targeted at:
• Media representatives from radio, TV, online and print
• Journalists-in-training, especially from electronic media
• Journalists and management from community radio stations
• Communication experts
• NGO employees
• Employees from ministries
• Employees from cooperative development groups and projects
• Representatives from regional working groups and national broadcasters
• Media association representatives

For the Master’s Program, applicants must have a bachelor’s degree, at least one year of professional experience in a media-related field and advanced skills in German and English.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Full and Partial scholarships are available.

Duration of Program: Four semesters

How to Apply: Applications must be made online.
Before you begin filling out the online application form make sure you have all the required documents:
• Letter of motivation (signed and dated)
• Current Curriculum Vitae (Europass format, signed and dated)
• Certificate of your first academic degree (including ALL transcripts)
• Evidence of at least one year’s professional experience in a media-related field AFTER obtaining your first academic degree (for a full scholarship you must give evidence for at least one additional year of professional experience)
• Certificate of APS (for applicants who completed their first degree in China, Vietnam or Mongolia)
• Evidence of sufficient English language skills (TOEFL IBT: score of 83 or higher, IELTS: score of 6.0 or higher, BULATS: score of 70 or higher, LCCI: level 3) – English language certificates are valid for two years from the date of issue
• Evidence of sufficient German language skills (TestDaF at least level TDN 3 in all four parts of the examination, Goethe Zertifikat at least level B2 or DSH at least level 1)
• Copy of your passport.
If you would like to apply for a full scholarship, you will be required to submit some additional documents:
• Recent recommendation letter from a University (with letterhead, official University stamp, signature and date)
• Recent recommendation letter from your employer (with letterhead, official company stamp, signature and date)
• DAAD application form
• High school diploma
Please sign the documents where required, scan them and upload them. You will need to bring the originals with you in case you are accepted to the program.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details


Award Providers: DW Akademie

How Worried Should We be If China’s Growth Rate Slows to 6.4%?

Dean Baker 

There have been numerous articles in the news recently telling us about China’s slowing economy (e.g. here and here). From the accounts I’ve seen, it does sound like China has problems, although we have heard this story before. (There have been China experts predicting a financial collapse since the late 1990s.)

But the striking part is that a slowing economy is treated as something unexpected. China had been maintaining extraordinary double-digit growth through the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. The idea that China could continue to grow at this rate seemed pretty far-fetched. In fact, if we go back to 2016 and look at the IMF’s forecast for growth in China in 2018 and 2019, it was 6.0 percent for both years. The IMF’s forecasts are generally in the middle of professional forecasts. For this reason, it is a bit strange to read an article in the NYT telling us that China’s slowdown to 6.4 percent growth last year is really bad news for the world economy.

It is also worth noting the ostensible problem here. The idea is that if China’s economy were growing more rapidly, it would be creating more demand for goods and services produced by other countries. This is true, but there is another way that the countries facing insufficient demand can generate it if China’s economy is not cooperating. Their governments could spend money.

The problem of insufficient demand is best countered by more demand. Insofar as the US faces this problem right now (it may not), it can be remedied by doing things like extending access to health care and child care or starting a Green New Deal. It really is not that hard to find ways to spend money.

Lawsuits against Australian government reveal horror in refugee camp

Max Newman

At least four lawsuits have been filed against the Australian government and the security giant G4S, which the government contracted to guard its refugee prison camp on Papua New Guinea’s remote Manus Island. The former employees allege that G4S and the government deliberately put the security staff at risk, resulting in physical and psychological damage.

Roderick St George, who worked as an occupational health and safety (OHS) manager, alleges that the conditions on the island were misrepresented to him. He says he was told there were approximately 130 men, women and children detained on the island and they were “in good spirits.”

Instead, only men were imprisoned on the island. A statement of claim filed in the Victorian state Supreme Court states: “Many of the male detainees at the centre were not in good spirits and some were predisposed to inflicting physical violence on themselves, on each other and on staff at the centre.”

The claim says G4S and the Australian government had a duty of care to provide their employees with a safe workplace, free from the risk of psychiatric injury. St George’s submission paints a picture of a tinderbox ready to explode. The camp had inadequate medical facilities, no running water, no electricity and mould forming on the tent walls.

St George alleges that the staff lacked the correct training and resources to deal with the circumstances in the centre. As OHS manager, he claims he had a “manifestly excessive workload,” responsible for health and safety in a centre that was woefully under-equipped. Moreover, he was given further duties that included quality assurance, risk assessment and intelligence.

After a disturbance broke out in April 2013, in which a number of detainees physically attacked the staff, including St George, he says he began to fear for his life due to the unpredictable and explosive tensions.

In truth, the April riot was a predictable outcome of a string of events from January to April 2013, including mass hunger strikes and protests, as well as multiple self-harm incidents and suicide attempts.

St George was so horrified by what he experienced while working for G4S that he resigned and became a whistle-blower. In a July 2013 interview with the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) “Dateline” program, he said “words really can’t describe” the conditions on Manus Island. “I have never seen human beings so destitute, so helpless, and so hopeless before.”

St George said he took the job with the intention of making the place safer, but that it “proved quite rapidly to be an impossibility. In Australia, the facility couldn’t serve as a dog kennel. The owners would be jailed.”

St George told “Dateline” the place was a tinderbox waiting to explode. “I believe it’s just a matter of time.”

Seven months later, St George’s warning came true. Three days of protests erupted in February 2014 after authorities organised a meeting of the approximately 1,300 detainees. They were informed that they would never be permitted to enter Australia and that the Papua New Guinea (PNG) government also refused to guarantee resettlement. G4S called in the notoriously brutal PNG Mobile Police Force which is Australian-funded. Joined by local thugs armed with machetes, and local security agents, they stormed the area, firing live ammunition at the detainees.

More than 60 people were injured in the resulting carnage. In what amounted to a state-sanctioned murder, Iranian-Kurdish asylum seeker Reza Barati was hit twice with a block of nail-pierced wood, before a large rock was dropped on his head. Barati died from a heart attack triggered by his catastrophic head injuries.

Labelled a “riot” by the Australian political establishment and the media, the WSWS explained at the time that the conflict bore “all the hallmarks of a calculated provocation orchestrated by the Australian government.”

Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and current Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who was immigration minister at the time, bear particular responsibility for these deaths, along with the previous Greens-backed Labor government that in 2012 reopened the Manus camp, and another on Nauru, an equally remote Pacific island.

St George claims he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression and alcohol abuse. According to an opinion piece he wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald in March 2014, he resigned when “instances of sexual abuse and torture of vulnerable inmates at the hands of fellow detainees were uncovered” and the facility’s design made it impossible to “protect the victims.”

Gregory Wisely, a former security officer, has submitted a claim that after the violence broke out in February 2014 he was struck in the head with a rock, causing a brain injury. As a result, he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, neck and spine injuries and ongoing psychiatric problems, including depression.

Wisely alleges that G4S provided him “with little or no training as to the manner in which he should handle the traumatic or stressful situations” and failed to listen to his complaints about the stress of the job.

Wisely’s submission further alleges that the Australian government failed in its duty of care to the staff at the detention centre because it failed to process detainees in a reasonable time frame, leading to high levels of stress and anxiety. Moreover, the government failed to keep detainees informed about what was happening.

Another former security officer, Grant Potter, alleges that G4S knew by at least September 2013 that tensions at the centre had increased due to frustration among detainees because of the government’s policies.

Moreover, Potter says G4S employed “incompetent and malicious security staff, who escalated the violence at the premises during the riots and contributed to the death of one transferee and the injury to other transferees.”

Another former officer at the centre, Peter Baehnisch, alleges he was injured during the same riots. In its defence filed to the court, G4S says it acted on behalf of the Australian government, which “asserted control and direction over provision of services” to detainees.

These cases point to the level of prior knowledge that the government, the immigration department and G4S had about the escalating tensions on the island. The February 2014 disturbance was used as a springboard to further worsen the conditions of asylum seekers. Morrison blamed the asylum seekers and exploited the violent crackdown as a deterrent to other refugees seeking asylum in Australia.

Since 2010 there have been 37 deaths in Australia’s detention centres, both the “offshore” facilities on Manus and Nauru and the “onshore” camps on the mainland and Christmas Island, an Indian Ocean outpost.

The entire Australian political establishment is culpable for these crimes, including the Labor Party, the Greens and the Liberal-National Coalition. They pioneered the cruel treatment of refugees that was later imposed across Europe and in the United States.

UK: More troubling questions emerge in the Skripal case

Robert Stevens

It emerged this week that the first person to give first aid to the Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia—poisoned in still unexplained events in Salisbury last March—was the most senior nurse in the British Army, Alison McCourt.

This adds a fresh layer to the ever-changing account cooked up by the British government and intelligence agencies, who immediately blamed Russia for the poisoning without providing any concrete information.

From facts that have been made public, Sergei and Yulia were found on a bench in Salisbury town centre on March 4, 2018 in an unconscious state. One witness, Jamie Paine, told the BBC that she saw them both in a distressed state. Sergei was “doing strange hand movements and looking up to the sky,” while Yulia was frothing at the mouth with her eyes “wide open but completely white.”

Paine decided not to intervene as “they looked so out of it that I thought that even if I did step in, I wasn’t sure how I could help. I just left them but it looked they had been taking something quite strong.”

It was known that a “nurse” did intervene, but hardly any details were made available. The Times reported last May, almost two months after the poisoning, “that the first person to respond to the Skripals when they passed out was an off-duty army nurse, who had worked on the ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. The nurse, a commissioned officer who has asked to remain anonymous, treated them before the emergency services arrived, and was vomited on but is not thought to have suffered novichok poisoning.”

Virtually no other details were provided.

In December, the Daily Mail cited the comments of PC Alex Collins who arrived on the scene to see that “The female [Yulia] was on the floor on her side. There was a member of the public, who turned out to be a doctor, helping her, maintaining her airway. I believe if that doctor hadn’t done that, she would have died.”

The Mail added, “The female doctor is believed to have placed Miss Skripal in the recovery position after discovering her vomiting and fitting on the bench and tended to her for almost 30 minutes.”

The fact is that the doctor/nurse was Colonel Alison McCourt, chief nursing officer in the British Army. This only emerged when her daughter, Abigail, was proposed by her mother for a “lifesaver award” at the local radio station for her actions in helping the pair, including helping administering CPR.

According to Spire FM’s report, “Abigail believed Sergei Skripal was having a heart attack. The teen, who was out celebrating her brother’s birthday quickly alerted her mum who is a nurse and together they gave first aid to the two Russians until paramedics arrived.

“Abby and her mum had to undergo hospital tests to make sure they weren’t contaminated with Novichok.”

According to an online biography, McCourt joined the Army in 1988 and became Chief Nursing Officer for the Army on February 1, 2018, just a month before the Skriprals’ poisoning. She received the OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) honour from the Queen in 2015. The biography, which includes a posed photo of McCourt outside the prime minister’s residence 10 Downing Street, notes, “Alison has deployed to Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Sierra Leone.” Subsequent assignments include Officer Instructor at the Defence Medical Services Training Centre and a deployment to Kosovo as the Senior Nursing Officer for 33 Field Hospital in 2001. During that operational tour she was the in-theatre lead for the establishment of the joint UK/US hospital facility at Camp Bondsteel.”

Camp Bondsteel is the main US army base in Kosovo and was set up as the largest “from scratch” foreign US military base since the Vietnam War.

According to the British government’s account, novichok is probably the most toxic and deadly substance ever invented. The Skripals’ poisoning was utilised by the May government to ratchet up tensions with Russia, with the prime minister stating in Parliament that the Putin regime had attempted to assassinate the pair using a “weapons-grade nerve agent in a British town” in “an indiscriminate and reckless act against the United Kingdom, putting the lives of innocent civilians at risk.”

The BBC wrote, “Novichoks were designed to be more toxic than other chemical weapons, so some versions would begin to take effect rapidly—in the order of 30 seconds to two minutes. The main route of exposure is likely to be through inhalation or ingestion, though they could also be absorbed through the skin.”

What then are the chances of administering CPR to someone who has supposedly been attacked by this substance only minutes previously—and who was witnessed as frothing at the mouth—while being able to avoid contact with the nerve agent?

Only a single police officer, Nick Bailey, who had substantially less contact with the Skripals and supposedly only came into contact with the nerve agent while wearing gloves, after being sent to their home where it had been allegedly sprayed on the door handle, was affected during the initial incident. He was hospitalised for three weeks and only resumed his duties last week.

On June 30 in nearby Amesbury, nearly four months after the Skripal poisonings, Dawn Sturgess sprayed a substance said to be novichock onto her wrists, thinking it was a perfume. She died in hospital days later on July 8. Her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, has suffered ill-health ever since the incident.

The more information that emerges about the Skripals case, the less there is that can be said for certain.

Nothing has been heard from the Skripals since they were spirited out of hospital months ago in a military-type operation and taken to a secret location. One can only conclude that they are being prevented from speaking.

At present the roof of Sergei Skripal’s home is being demolished and replaced, on the basis that it could be contaminated.

It should be noted that one of the authors of the above-mentioned Times articles was Deborah Haynes, the newspaper’s defence editor. The Times has played a critical role in the anti-Russia hysteria and is a regular forum where senior British military and intelligence figures parade their views demanding an escalation of preparations for military conflict with Russia and for a vast increase in military spending.

A number of Murdoch press journalists, including Haynes, were exposed in a document detailing the UK “cluster” of the Integrity Initiative, set up by the London-based Institute of Statecraft to spread propaganda on behalf of British imperialism. The cluster includes at least nine journalists with four from Rupert Murdoch’s Times/Sunday Times — Haynes, David Aaronovitch, Dominic Kennedy and Edward Lucas. Also named are leading BBC, Guardian and Financial Times journalists.

The Integrity Initiative has been heavily involved in the Skripal affair. The WSWS noted earlier this month, based on documents from the IoS/II’s servers made public by the Anonymous group, “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.”

With the government’s account of how the Skripals came to be poisoned shot through with inconsistencies, and the public’s scepticism in their ever-changing story growing, the II raised concerns just a week after the poisonings, that the government was “far too weak,” declaring, “[I]t’s essential the government makes a much stronger response this time.”