Papal visit boosts UAE effort to redefine concepts of tolerance

James M. Dorsey

The United Arab Emirates is projecting itself as a leader of inter-communal and inter-faith harmony with the first ever visit by a Catholic pope to the Gulf and an inter-faith conference that is as much about dialogue as it is about absolute political control.

There is no doubt that the UAE is a leader in the Muslim world in promoting concepts of religious tolerance and prevention of religiously packages militancy.

The UAE has bolstered perceptions of its leadership by declaring February, the month of Pope Francis’s visit and the conference, a month of tolerance. The UAE is one of a few if not the only country that has a government ministry of tolerance.

The UAE, unlike its ally and more powerful neighbour, Saudi Arabia, increasingly allows adherents of other faiths like Jews, Christians and Hindus, to openly worship and practice their beliefs.

“Today, the UAE is home to 200 different nationalities, more than 40 churches and approximately 700 Christian ministries. Sikh and Buddhist temples welcome multinational congregations. Last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke ground for a new Hindu temple. Evangelical Christian ministries abound in the country. The Jewish community is vibrant and growing,” Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the United States, noted in an op-ed in Politico.

In hosting the pope as the star of an inter-faith dialogue organized by the UAE-sponsored Council of Elders, entitled International Interfaith Meeting on Human Fraternity in the United Arab Emirates, the UAE hopes to cement its position as the icon of Muslim tolerance.

The council is a brainchild of Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the revered 1,000-year-old seat of Sunni Muslim learning.

It groups Muslim scholars that in its words purportedly are “known for their wisdom, sense of justice, independence and moderateness…(to).,,to promote peace, to discourage infighting and to address the sources of conflict, divisiveness and fragmentation in Muslim communities”

The council is part of a broader UAE and Saudi effort that includes groups like the Global Forum for Prompting Peace in Muslim Societies and the Sawab and Hedayah Centres that aim to counter the influence of controversial, Qatar-based Islamic scholar, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood, and more political and militant Islamist forces.

The effort targets any political expression of Islam and promotes an interpretation of the faith that dictates absolute obedience to the ruler. It competes with Turkish efforts to globally promote a more activist form of Islam supportive of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarianism and Morocco’s projection of itself as a paradigm of Islamic moderation.

Timed to coincide with the council’s meeting, Muhammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa, a former Saudi justice minister and secretary general of Saudi Arabia’s Muslim World League, once a major vehicle for the propagation of the kingdom’s intolerant ultra-conservative strand of Islam, highlighted his inter-faith outreach in an op-ed in Newsweek magazine.

“I have travelled to the Vatican to elevate interfaith understanding with His Holiness, Pope Francis. I visited the Grand Synagogue of Paris and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. I welcomed the highest-level delegation of U.S. evangelical Christian leaders ever to visit Saudi Arabia… Among my proudest achievements (as justice minister) was licensing Saudi Arabia’s first women lawyers. I also reformed the Saudi judiciary system,” Mr. Al-Issa wrote.

While segments of the justice system were indeed reformed, it remains a system that equates atheism with terrorism, enables authorities to imprison people for the slightest expression of criticism and allows for an anti-corruption campaign that lacks transparency and accountability and has the appearance of a power and asset grab.

In line with ultra-conservative precepts, Mr. Al-Issa’s past track record includes denunciation of witchcraft defined as including, among other things astrology, the use of plants for medicine, palm-reading, and animal calling.

In a bid to deprive the council as well as the league of a monopoly on Muslim empathy with non-Muslim groups, Iranian-born Australian Shiite Muslim imam Mohamad Tawhid tweeted on Sunday about his visit to Auschwitz, one of Nazi Germany’s foremost extermination camps for Jews.

“I am proud to be the first ‘Shia’ Muslim Imam to pay his respects at Auschwitz,” Mr Tawhid said in a tweet hashtagged #NeverAgain and featuring a picture of himself sporting a black T-shirt with the slogan #WeRemember.

While there can be no doubt that the UAE’s example of tolerance of non-Muslim belief systems constitutes an important contribution to more harmonious inter-faith relations, there is also little question that it is part of an effort to fortify autocratic rule in the greater Middle East and cement an environment that is intolerant towards any form of criticism or dissent.

In doing so, the UAE’s advocacy of religious tolerance and political intolerance is part of a global struggle about values that underlies tectonic shifts shaping a new world order. That struggle involves a redefinition of concepts of tolerance designed to ensure autocratic regime survival and enhance ways of avoiding and/or resolving conflict without bolstering transparency, accountability and a free flow of ideas.

The dark side of the UAE’s concept of tolerance manifests itself in the country’s conduct together with Saudi Arabia of its four-year old war in Yemen, the 20-month old rift in the Gulf with Qatar, and its harsh repression of dissent and freedom of expression

In a letter to the pope, Human Rights Watch called on Pope Francis to use his visit to press the government to address “the serious human rights violations by its forces in Yemen and to end its repression of critics at home.”

The human rights group asserted that the Saudi-UAE military coalition in Yemen had “indiscriminately bombed homes, markets, and schools, impeded the delivery of humanitarian aid, and used widely banned cluster munitions. Domestically, UAE authorities have carried out a sustained assault on freedom of expression and association since 2011. And the many thousands of low-paid migrant workers in the country remain acutely vulnerable to forced labour.”

Sarah Leah Whitson, the group’s Middle East and North Africa director argued that the Pope was in a position to capitalize on the fact that the UAE is sensitive about its international image that is to a significant extent dependent on projecting itself as a cutting-edge proponent of tolerance in the Muslim world.

In a more hard-hitting comment, Islam scholar Usaama al-Azmi warned that “whether engaged in brutal wars like the one in Yemen with hundreds of thousands displaced and tens of thousands killed, or crushing dissent and political liberties at home, the UAE government is no better than its neighbour next door. Yet its savvy PR means that such matters frequently fall below the radar of international observers.”

China Creates, Macau Burns And Robs

Andre Vltchek

It is truly an amazing site: monstrous US hotels and casinos, just few hundred meters from the Mainland China. All that kitsch that one usually associates with Las Vegas or Atlantic City, but bigger, much bigger! In fact, Macau is the biggest casino sprawl in the world.

Casinos, most of them confined inside the US mega-hotels, make approximately 5 times more money here, than in Las Vegas.

You want Venetian; a tremendous mind-blowing temple of bad taste, complete with a fake San Marco Square, canals, gondolas (gondoliers don’t sing O Sole Mio, thank God, as they are mostly from Portugal) and overcooked pasta – it is all here; one of the largest buildings on earth, and the biggest casino in the universe!

You want Parisian; yet another vulgar monstrosity, complete with afake Eiffel Tower which lightens up right after dark to the great delight of the armies of selfie-takers? It is also here, in Cotai, Macau, together with the fake Champ de Mars that doubles as an (phony again) ice-skating rink.

Macau is tiny, measuring only some 115 km square. But with around 650,000 people, it is one of the most over-populated places in the world. There is no space to move around here, anymore. Macau is a total, thorough urban nightmare and failure, propelled and ‘justified’ only by greed. But its plans are still Napoleonic. The territory wants more and more. Or more precisely: the Macau government, together with big business from the West, want more and more visitors, more and more casinos, luxury retail stores, and of course, profits.

24 hours a day, 365 days a week, Macau sucks in like a monstrous turbine, millions, in fact billions of dollars, yuan or whatever currency manages to enter its territory. It attracts like a magnet,masses of people from the PRC, who are often still naïve, innocent and defenseless when confronted by brutal and extreme forms of capitalism and its advertisements.

In January 2019, I visited several casinos in Macau, and not surprisingly, there are very few traditional roulette tables there, but masses of electronically controlled machines. Everything is noisy, confusing and lacking transparency. Western casinos treat Chinese people like some brainless children. At least the classic roulette mainly wins (for casino) on ‘neutral’ 0 (zero), giving a gambler very fair chance. But electronic, futuristic machines are a sham, and can ‘strip’ an unseasoned gambler of everything, in just a few hours, even minutes. But that is, obviously, precisely the goal.

I am horrified to see hordes of good Chinese (PRC) citizens who work hard, building their beautiful country, and then crossing to that fake universe of Macau, where they are literally blowing their savings in spasmodic, insane sprees.

On 23 January, 2019, CNN reported from Hong Kong:

Chinese authorities say they have busted an underground money-smuggling ring used to launder more than $4.4 billion through the Asian gambling hub of Macau.

The case is a high-profile example of Beijing’s crackdown on attempts to dodge its capital controls, which it has tightened in recent years to prevent money from flooding out of the country and destabilizing the economy.

Macau’s Judicial Police said the syndicate was formed in 2016 and relied on point-of-sale machines — the devices used by shops to conduct transactions with credit cards or debit cards — which were smuggled in from China. 

These in theory would allow Chinese citizens to make withdrawals from their bank accounts that appeared to be domestic transactions, thereby avoiding China’s strict limits on how much money people can move across its borders.

In theory, Chinese citizens are only allowed to take out of country no more than 100,000 Yuan, which amounts to approximately $15,000 annually. But local businessmen and gangs are always looking for loopholes.

Macau gangs are brutal and they are dealing with huge amounts of money. Antagonizing them is dangerous. Even journalists and academics connected to this tiny but super rich territory, prefer not to speak openly; only on condition of anonymity. One of my good colleagues replied, sarcastically, to my request for a quote:

“I don’t think I could contribute anything to your open eyes approach – and for me to write the truth on what I see in this fishing village making firecrackers turned capitalist paradise of Macau would be like you risking lèse-majesté in Bangkok by mocking the golden towers of the royal palace.”

*

In historic Macau pedestrian traffic jams

In the old, Portuguese historic area of Macau, which happens to be a UNESCO-inscribed world heritage site, there is hardly any place left to move. Weekends are the ‘deadliest’, with monstrous ‘pedestrian traffic jams’ and more than one hour-long taxi lines. However, weekdays are not much better.

Beijing tried to crack down on gambling and for some time it worked, but during the last months, casinos have been bouncing back. The loopholes are too numerous. In the meantime, the territory panicked (‘God forbid it could not make as much money as before!’) and began trying to attract even more tourists, mainly from the Mainland, by all means available: a new bridge, advertisements…  It also began to cater to the lowest of tastes; historic houses have been painted in kitschy pink, vulgar bluish and greenish, as well as yellow colors. Culture and art has almost disappeared. And everything has become mass-produced and fake, including ‘Portuguese food’.

Frankly, all that Macau represents is wrong: it has already ruined millions of human lives through mass gambling. It robs Mainland China of billions of dollars. Instead of educating people, it offers fake culture, in fact a disgusting parody‘Las Vegas-style’. It is brainwashing Chinese people, so they see ‘the world according to Disney, Hollywood and big US hotel chains’.

Many hotel managers come from Portugal (for ‘authenticity’, I suppose). They are arrogant, more North American than North Americans themselves, ambitious and unscrupulous. Many of them speak about Mainland China sarcastically, with spite. Typical Western ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom of speech’ nonsense.

Stripped of authenticity and decency, Macau adopted a gold-digging, repulsive culture. Talk about ‘fake news’ and fake culture! Everything that is fake,is here, in Macau.

Across the water, in the PRC, beautiful modern cities are growing,simple, elegant, and confident; built for the people.

In Macau, morale, socialist spirit, as well as family savings, are getting ruined and burned.

‘One country two systems’ has gone too far in Macau. This territory produces nothing. Not even those traditional firecrackers, perhaps. It only consumes, and perverts.

One of Sheraton Macau’s employees, a Philippine lady born in Macau, explained:

“I don’t recognize my own home city, anymore! It used to be a dormant, beautiful place. Now it is thoroughly ruined.”

I don’t recognize Macau either. And people who come here, from Mainland China, tend to change, quickly. Is this yet another Western subversion, an attempt to break China into pieces? Definitely. The government of the PRC should take more decisive action, soon; protecting its people and funds.

Brexit, Free Ports and the super-exploitation of the working class

Steve James

Boris Johnson, the leading Brexiteer and former foreign secretary, spoke last month at an event organised by Lord Bamford, the billionaire chief executive of earth moving equipment manufacturer JCB. Johnson reportedly earned £10,000 for his grovelling speech, littered with droll references to JCB’s products.

His remarks were directed towards sections of the ruling elite who might back a Johnson Conservative Party leadership bid. His appeal promoted regional economic competition and deregulation as the bedrock of a post-Brexit economy.

The government “should be devolving power to cities in coherent regions,” he said, including bundling together local taxes such as “council tax, business rates stamp duty, land tax” to give to “local mayors and politicians to spend so that they have clear incentives to go for growth.”

Johnson called for the creation of Free Ports, pointing that “there are now 135 countries in the world that have Free Ports.” These attract growth “and it is absurd that Britain will be forbidden by this deal [Theresa May’s European Union (EU) Withdrawal Agreement] from doing the same.”

Free Ports are better known as Free Trade Zones (FTZ) or Special Economic Zones (SEZ). The last three decades have seen hundreds of such zones proliferate worldwide, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, South East Asia and China. The zones have become synonymous with the unbridled exploitation of the working class.

In floating Free Ports in Britain, Johnson is speaking to a discussion within both the Conservative and Labour parties on how best to use the Brexit crisis to complete the deregulation of the economy and slash the wages and conditions of the working class. In the words of her former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, the hard-Brexit wing intend to “finish the Thatcher Revolution” and “make the UK the most dynamic and freest country in the whole of Europe: in a word, to finish the job that Margaret Thatcher started.”

Johnson’s proposals hinge on developing Britain, particularly its most deprived areas, as cheap labour and tariff-free manufacturing platforms.

In 2016, Tory MP Rishi Sunak issued a report, “The Free Ports Opportunity,” calling for an “extensive and ambitious network of UK Free Ports. … These would not only provide domestic manufacturers with a wealth of tangible benefits, but also send a clear message to international markets that Britain’s new global role will be open, innovative, and outward looking. It is therefore imperative that, if the recommendations of this report are to be implemented, the Government acts to legislate in the immediate aftermath of Britain’s departure from the [European Union].”

The proposals were debated in Westminster in October last year. Brexiteer Tory MP Simon Clarke explained, “At its simplest, a Free Port is an area that is physically within a country but legally outside it for customs purposes. Consequently, goods that enter a Free Port do not incur import duty. Instead, import duty is paid only if and when goods pass from the Free Port into the domestic economy.”

This allows goods to be imported, processed and re-exported without paying any duty. Free Ports offer “tax reliefs and a simplified regulatory environment” and could be seaports or airports. Clarke gave the example of the Jebel Ali free zone in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in which 7,000 companies currently employ 145,000 workers. The zone draws in 40 percent of all foreign direct investment to the UAE.

Clarke declined to mention conditions in the Jebel Ali free zone and across UAE, where a young and largely immigrant workforce, mostly recruited from rural areas in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, toil in overcrowded work camps.

He cited a recent report from consultants Mace Group “Supercharged Free Ports—the ultimate boost for Britain’s economy,” promoting the prospects for Free Ports in the north of England. Commissioned by the Tory mayor of Tees Valley, Ben Houchen, the report breathlessly outlines a scenario for a network of Free Ports, based on the ports of Immingham, Grimsby and Hull on the Humber Estuary, Teesport and Hartlepool on the Tees Estuary in the east and Liverpool on the Mersey in the west. Connected by improved road, rail and network infrastructure, these could produce an additional £70 billion in GDP and “rebalance” the British economy by increasing productivity in the North of England.

The report cited existing industrial concentrations in these areas which, freed of regulatory restrictions, could expect to draw in more investment. It alluded to the availability of cheap labour, arising from decades of demolition of the living standards of the working class: “[T]here is a further economic rationale for selecting these ports in particular: they are in some of the most deprived parts of the UK. At the local authority level Hull ranks 3rd most deprived in England on the Government’s Index of Multiple Deprivation. That’s out of 326 English local authorities. Liverpool ranks 4th worst (Knowsley, incidentally, is 2nd), Manchester 5th worst, and Middlesbrough 6th worst. Nearly a clean-sweep of deprivation. Relatively lofty Newcastle is 53rd worst, though still in the bottom quintile of local authorities.”

According to Clarke, previous Tory governments had not gone far enough in opening the workforce up to super-exploitation. In 1984, the then Thatcher government attempted setting up Free Ports in Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Liverpool, Prestwick airport and Southampton. They all failed, Clarke continued, because of an “uncharacteristic lack of ambition by the Thatcher government, but mostly due to the regulatory constraints placed on them by the EU.”

The Free Ports would “offer lower levels of taxation and less burdensome regulations than exist outside,” cut down on customs documentation, offer secure perimeter areas and therefore lower insurance costs and avoid Value Added Tax (VAT).

Sunak’s report noted that Free Ports would have broad ideological appeal that could be expected to command bipartisan support, allowing the policy to act as a rapid response in the event of British withdrawal from the EU Customs Union: “It is easy to see Labour mayors of regional port cities partnering with a pro-enterprise, pro-trade Conservative Government to make Free Ports successful.”

Former right-wing Labour MP, Frank Field, now an Independent, assisted Clarke in setting up the Westminster debate. Field and Clarke penned a joint letter to T he Times explaining that their Free Port proposal hinged on state aid the UK could deploy after Brexit. The duo complained, “The EU’s state aid regulations are far more stringent than those of the WTO; the most fundamental difference being that, under WTO law, only ‘financial contributions’ count as subsidies, whereas the European Commission describes state aid as ‘an advantage in any form whatsoever.’”

In other words, more perks and tax breaks can be handed over to investors and more social spending can be redirected towards drawing in cheap labour manufacturers.

Labour MP for Redcar, Anna Turley, also spoke in the debate, hailing Free Port zones as “recognised around the world as playing a major role in retaining, reshoring and growing domestic manufacturing activity and boosting trade.”

Turley begged the government to “give serious consideration” to a Teesport Free Port “without delay.”

Turley called for the need “to ensure that there is no erosion of employment rights, environmental rights or health and safety rights.” But this is worthless verbiage. The purpose of the Free Port proposal is to ruthlessly crank up rates of exploitation.

Significantly, Turley opposes Brexit and supports a rerun of the 2016 referendum. In her view EU membership is no barrier to establishing Free Ports.

Britain’s secret propaganda “Integrity Initiative” targets Russia

Thomas Scripps

In a desperate attempt to cover its tracks, the propaganda network linked to Britain’s security services, the Integrity Initiative (II), has wiped its website and locked its Twitter account “pending an investigation into the theft of data.”

The decision was taken shortly after the Anonymous hacking group released new II documents targeting Russia as supposedly the greatest threat to world peace, based on claims that it is the country most likely to use nuclear weapons.

The documents reveal yet more of the disinformation campaign used to justify NATO preparations for war with Russia, including the use of nuclear weapons.

Minutes from a joint workshop of the Institute for Statecraft (IfS), which runs the II, and the US government-funded Center for Naval Analyses discuss what would happen if the “West” intervened to “push back” a Russian advance in the case of a localized conflict. “The reality of the Russian nuclear doctrine is that it will not back down. … War games usually start with Russia about to, or using a nuclear weapon,” the minutes conclude.

Citing the inevitability of Russian use of nuclear weapons is used to justify their “pre-emptive” use by the NATO powers in the type of “pre-emptive war” made infamous by President George Bush’s criminal invasion of Iraq and which now forms the bedrock of the Pentagon’s National Security Strategy. Last Friday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced US withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty as part of the reorientation of the US military toward “great-power” conflict with Russia and China.

Registered as a Scottish charity promoting good “governance and statecraft” and working to “counter disinformation,” the IfS and II privately list their “top three” objectives as:

• “Developing and proving the cluster concept and methodology”—that is, creating various national networks of assets in government, the military, the media and academia to covertly coordinate anti-Russian propaganda. The “silencing [of] pro-Kremlin voices on Serbian TV” by the Serbian political analyst and director of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies, Jelena Milic, is given as an example.
  
• “Making people (in Government, think tanks, military, journalists) see the big picture, making people acknowledge that we are under concerted, deliberate hybrid attack by Russia,” as seen in the II’s coordination of the media response to the Skripal affair.
  
• “Increasing the speed of response, mobilising the network to activism in pursuit of the ‘golden minute.’” That is, creating fraudulent “popular” campaigns and “independent” news stories to push an anti-Russian agenda, as with the successful effort to prevent the promotion of an insufficiently Russophobic general in Spain and the attack on Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

This work is overseen by military intelligence operatives and run in service to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on behalf of a network of pro-British and US imperialist outfits.

The IfS co-founder and director, Daniel Lafyeedney, is a Senior Member, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford. His online university biography notes, “As Senior Associate Fellow at the Advanced Research and Assessment Group at the Defence Academy of the UK (2004-2010) he specialised in the development and implementation of capacity-building projects for high-level governance of the security sector in European and middle-Eastern countries …” It adds, “His military service, legal background and career as an entrepreneur have given him an understanding of the importance of the link between business and national security.”

Speaking in Israel in 2018, Lafyeedney explained, “We have supported the creation of special Army reserve units (e.g., 77 Bde and SGMI—Specialist Group Military Intelligence) with which we now have a close, informal relationship” and how the work of the IfS and II feeds “into the highest levels of MoD and the armed forces.”

In return, the IfS and II receives £2.6 million in funding for 2018-19 as well as office space in central London provided by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Funding also comes from HQ NATO Public Diplomacy, the US State Department, the “German business community,” the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence, the US think tank the Smith Richardson Foundation and other named “partner institutions.”

II is involved in a concerted anti-Russian offensive in Eastern European states. Ukraine, the Baltic states, Moldova and Armenia are all referenced as crucial areas of II work. One document on the Baltics refers to the need to be “educating our audience to understand how Russia sees this world as being at war.” Another on the war in Eastern Ukraine claims “aggression is inherent in the Russian condition.”

A file called “Moldova Democracy” explicitly argues for regime change, demanding that “A new team of people with integrity must come to power” or else “Moldova will remain a captured state forever, under Russian direct influence.”

During the 2018 protests in Armenia, the II published articles and intervened in social media to encourage a break with Russia after a change in government.

One of its key partners in Ukraine is Stopfake, which defends the far-right Ukrainian regime and the fascist forces which put it in power. An II document resolves to “Provide guest articles from … our clusters for StopFake’s printed material published and distributed along the contact line in Eastern Ukraine.”

In the UK the II is engaged in efforts to shut down uncooperative media outlets, accusing them of precisely the dirty tricks that it itself engages in. The most notable target is Russia Today (RT), which, II laments, is finding an audience because of “growing mistrust of western media among westerners.”

RT has been the target of an escalating campaign of attempted censorship with MPs demanding its broadcasting license be revoked. In December, the regulator Ofcom threatened to fine RT, claiming it had broken impartiality rules. There was no prior announcement from Ofcom that any RT shows had received more than 10 complaints from the public—as is standard practice. The II’s hidden hand is suggested in an II “Production timetable” document, which included the item in “eight complaints forwarded to Ofcom on RT’s failure to ensure due impartiality with request to launch a formal investigation.”

Other II plans include efforts to investigate “likely target[s] (e.g., a university with an anti-fracking agenda)” in receipt of Russian funding—even where those organisations are not in breach of the law.

A 2016 report by Péter Krekó and Lóránt Győri of the Budapest-based Political Capital Institute on “pro-Russian far-left parties in Europe” names parties such as Syriza in Greece, the Left Party in Germany, and Unsubmissive France and essentially accuses them of being Russian stooges. Invoiced for payment to the II, the report ends with the recommendation that states “need to assess in more detail the security implications” of these parties’ alleged Russian connections.

In the UK—and this helps explain the complete absence of media coverage of its sordid activities—the leaked II documents list the names of a “cluster” of top journalists and TV reporters including the Times’ David Aaronovitch and Dominic Kennedy, the Guardian’s Natalie Nougayrede, Carole Cadwalladr and Paul Canning, the BBC’s Jonathan Marcus, the Financial Times’ Neil Buckley, the Economist’s Edward Lucas and Sky News’ Deborah Haynes.

Leading Blairite Labour MP Ben Bradshaw is listed, as are “individuals who are very senior civilian experts in some relevant area, such as Hedge Fund managers, senior bankers, Heads of PA companies, etc., i.e., people whom the Army could never afford to hire, but who donate their time and expertise as patriots.”

The drawing together of such figures is a manifestation of the strategy laid out in the recent British National Security Capability Review, which singled out Russia as enemy number one for British imperialism. It called for a “Fusion Strategy” to advance the UK’s strategic interests against Moscow, which would make use “of all our capabilities; from economic levers, through cutting-edge military resources to our wider diplomatic and cultural influence on the world’s stage” to “project our global influence.” The BBC and “collaborative programmes with industry and academia” are listed as examples.

The II is proof that these plans are far-advanced and have been able to proceed without a word of criticism from a complicit bourgeois media.

More US drug price hikes in 2019

Alex Johnson 

Drug manufacturers began the new year with a new round of price hikes for already highly expensive US-branded prescription drugs.

According to Reuters, drug manufacturers raised the prices of more than 250 prescription drugs, including the world’s top-selling medicine, Humira.

Such annual price hikes are common among drug makers. Around this time last year, pharmaceutical companies raised the prices of over 400 medications, according to the data analyst website Rx Savings Solutions.

Although this year’s price hikes are smaller than in previous years, possibly in response to Trump’s tepid threats against the drug industry, such price increases will continue throughout the year, placing further financial burdens on workers struggling to afford life-saving medications.

Among the worst offenders was Allergan Plc, the Irish-based drug maker who raised the prices on more than 50 drugs, with more than half of the drugs going up in price by 9.5 percent.

Drug maker AbbVie Inc. increased the price of their most popular medication Humira, used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, by more than 6.2 percent. Last year, the company recorded $20 billion in sales of this drug alone. Between 2012 and 2018, AbbVie raised the price of Humira from $19,000 to more than $38,000 per year, a 100 percent increase.

Johnson & Johnson raised prices on two dozen prescription medications by 6-7 percent, including the psoriasis treatment Stelara, the prostate cancer drug Zytiga and the blood thinner Xarelto, the company’s best-selling products.

Although profits for drug makers have soared the past three years, with the profit margins of the industry generally exceeding other sectors with the exception of finance, more price increases were expected before the new year began.

Reuters reported late last year that almost 30 pharmaceutical companies notified California’s agencies that they plan to raise the prices of their drugs. Most significantly, the article notes that the United States, a country that leaves drug pricing entirely to “market competition,” has higher prices for drugs than any other country.

For example, a pre-filled carton of two syringes containing Humira costs an average of $2,669 in the United States, but only $1,362 in the United Kingdom and $822 in Switzerland.

Another striking feature of the drug price phenomenon is its astronomical rise in comparison to the inflation rate. According to a report released by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) in December, the retail prices of 768 widely used prescription drugs rose 50 times higher than the general rate of inflation.

President Donald Trump told members of his cabinet in October that he expected the prices of drugs to decrease tremendously this year. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar also attended the meeting. HHS has since proposed policy changes aimed at lowering the cost of medications.

The so-called “pressure” that Trump has applied to the giant pharmaceutical conglomerates has been nothing short of lip-service against a rapacious and widely despised industry.

As Rx Savings Solutions CEO Michael Rea noted in Business Insider, “I think the calls for decreases or no increases by the president, the public and payers are largely disregarded.” He continued, “If they’re hitting their numbers, they’re going to continue using the practice that allows them to do that.”

The proposed policy changes are not expected to alleviate the high costs of medications in a country that has the most lucrative market for manufacturers. These measures fall significantly short of governmental control over negotiating and regulating drug prices.

Even as public outrage has spread over the perpetual price increases, the response of the pharmaceutical industry has amounted to sheer indifference. Ronny Gal, an analyst for Bernstein Research, told Business Insider that there could be a “step up in both the number and magnitude of list price increases.”

“However,” he continued, “while individual companies may do well, the price increases taken together would suggest Pharma is ‘tone deaf’ to public concerns.”

The unaffordability of medications and the rising profits of big pharma demonstrate the incompatibility between the needs of the majority of the population and the profit interests of the ruling class.

US issues new threats of war for oil against Venezuela

Eric London 

President Trump, Vice President Pence and National Security Advisor John Bolton escalated threats to launch a war against Venezuela, as large pro- and anti-government demonstrations filled Venezuela’s streets on Saturday.

In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” program that aired before the Super Bowl yesterday, Trump reiterated that military intervention “is an option.” Pence assured a crowd of far-right Venezuelan exiles in Miami on Friday that “this is no time for dialogue, it is the moment for action, and the time has come to end the Maduro dictatorship once and for all… Those looking on should know this: all options are on the table.”

Bolton, who helped author the playbook that was used to launch the 2003 invasion of Iraq, issued a blunt threat Friday that the US would kill or jail and torture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro if he did not resign. Comparing Maduro to Nicolae Ceaușescu and Benito Mussolini—both of whom were killed—Bolton told right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt: “The sooner he takes advantage of that [i.e., resignation], the sooner he’s likely to have a nice quiet retirement on a pretty beach rather than being in some other beach area like Guantanamo.”

Self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó, the US and their allies in South America and Europe are preparing a new provocation aimed at forcing the Venezuelan military to abandon Maduro, with Guaidó announcing that the US will deliver aid at three locations along the Venezuelan border in the coming days.

While Maduro and the Venezuelan military leadership have said they will refuse the aid, the US hopes that images of crowds gathering to receive food and medication will either provoke the military to defect to the opposition and help distribute the aid or provide valuable propaganda footage justifying the need for a “humanitarian” intervention.

Over the weekend, hundreds of armed Colombian soldiers dressed in battle fatigues deployed to one of the three “aid distribution” centers, Cúcuta, on the Venezuela-Colombia border. Colombia’s far-right President Iván Duque issued a statement proclaiming, “Few hours remain to the Venezuelan dictatorship.” At a press conference last week announcing Washington’s moves to topple Maduro, Bolton held under his arm a note pad with the words written in plain view: “5,000 troops to Colombia.”

Guaidó also announced that one of the “aid” locations would be on the border with Brazil, which deployed troops to the border last year, while the third would be on an island in the Caribbean.

The stepped-up pressure produced an initial crack in the Venezuelan military, which remains the backbone of the Maduro government. Over the weekend, one Air Force general and a small group of mid-level Air Force officials defected and issued public statements calling on their colleagues to join them.

Germ án Ferrer, a sitting Venezuelan legislator and United Socialist Party member who opposes Maduro, told the CBC that Maduro has disabled combat aircraft for fear the Air Force will turn on the government.

The US is imposing blanket sanctions on Venezuelan oil that amount to a blockade on oil exports. This act of economic war is intended to increase social misery.

Shannon O’Neil of the Council on Foreign Relations told a conference call of bankers, government officials and oil executives last week that the sanctions will lead to “more deprivation, even given the low base we’re at, more among the population.” The sanctions will force thousands to flee the country, she added: “You’re going to see more refugees pouring into countries throughout the hemisphere and elsewhere around the world.”

The Brookings Institution explained that the present stage of the coup operation is aimed at “building an off-ramp for the Maduro regime.” In the parlance of US imperialism, countries whose leaders do not take the “off-ramp” are, like Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Gaddafi in Libya and Assad in Syria, subject to a hailstorm of bombs and missiles from the air and US troops or proxy armies on the ground.

As the Council on Foreign Relations’ O’Neil told the corporate conference call, “If it [sanctions] doesn’t work in dislodging this regime, then there’s not a lot left in the toolkit besides things like military intervention.”

A military intervention in Venezuela—population 30 million—could kill hundreds of thousands or millions of people and transform Latin America into an imperialist slaughterhouse.

The geopolitical intelligence think tank Stratfor recently noted, “A military intervention could quickly snowball into one of the largest worldwide military operations since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.”

Francisco Toro, a Washington Post columnist and anti-Maduro think tank analyst, told the Council on Foreign Relations gathering that a military intervention would lead to “a kind of Syrian civil war” and confrontation between nuclear-armed powers.

He said: “There is this definite threat that if a military operation takes any amount of time in Venezuela, that other countries then start to move in too. And you can imagine, easily, Brazil moving into the southeast, Colombia into the southwest. You can imagine Russia trying to defend its oil interests, because Russia has big oil investments in Venezuela. You can imagine China doing I don’t know what. And Cuba has already intelligence penetration into the Venezuelan armed forces.”

Maduro’s strategy is three-fold. First, he is seeking to present himself as palatable to US imperialism and open to negotiation with the far-right opposition. Second, he is using the threat of “another Vietnam” as bargaining leverage against a US military intervention. Third, he is violently crushing working class opposition over inflation, poverty and record levels of social inequality.

Maduro rejected the demand of several European imperialist powers that he announce by February 2 the holding of new presidential elections. As the deadline passed, European governments—including the UK, France, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany—officially joined the US in recognizing Guaidó as president.

Maduro will now participate in large military exercises scheduled to last from February 5 to February 10. His government has also reportedly armed tens of thousands of members of a civilian reserve force with World War Two-era bolt-action rifles in anticipation of a possible invasion.

Key to the government’s strategy is a ferocious military crackdown on working class demonstrations and food riots. While the military and police have maintained a more passive presence at “official” demonstrations held by the right-wing opposition, government forces have murdered dozens of workers and youth participating in demonstrations over lack of access to food, water and other basic necessities.

The Maduro regime has responded to these demonstrations, which largely take place at night in the slum areas, with midnight raids by death squads, “disappearing” working class opponents in an effort to terrorize the areas that once were bastions of support for Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez Frias. The corporate media does not report these crackdowns.

In this way, Maduro is attempting to prove to his opponents in the US and Europe—as well as his backers in Russia and China—that he remains the best option for ending instability and keeping the oil flowing.

At its roots, Washington’s intensifying efforts at regime-change in Venezuela are part of a “pivot to Latin America” aimed at eradicating Chinese and Russian influence and transforming the whole Western Hemisphere into the exclusive cheap-labor and primary resource platform for US imperialism.

In November 2018, when Bolton announced the “Troika of Tyranny”—Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua—he was elaborating the strategic view that the US cannot successfully conduct operations against Russia in Eastern Europe, against China in South Asia, or against both Russia and China in Central Asia, without eliminating their presence in “America’s backyard” and freeing up the region’s resources for the US war machine. The establishment of a US-ruled “Fortress Americas” was a central foreign policy component of the “America First” movement in the early 1940s.

In a March 2018 document published by the US Army War College titled “The Strategic Relevance of Latin America in the US National Security Strategy,” the Army notes that in the aftermath of the fall of the dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s, “most democratic societies in the Western Hemisphere” are “feckless and unconsolidated, thereby representing a threat to the national security of the United States by external actors (such as China and Russia) opposing US interests in the region.”

The strategy document indicated another reason for possible military operations in Venezuela: the need for the US military to test its operating capacities in heavily populated urban areas.

“Latin American megacities are also a laboratory for the US Army in cooperation with its strategic partners in addressing another important issue, or, perhaps, an old issue in the post-Cold War international system: how to fight a conventional war in an unconventional environment,” the document states. “Megacities are the new arena for conflicts in the 21st century. Therefore, the US Government and Army cannot afford to be caught off guard when called upon to exercise and accomplish its mission.”

New Zealand Development Scholarships 2019/2020 for African and Developing Countries’ Students

Application Deadline: 14th March 2019 12.00 pm NZ Time.

Offered annually? Yes


Eligible African countries: Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

To be taken at (country): New Zealand

Fields of study: Preference will be given to candidates who apply to study in academic disciplines relating to one or more of the following:
Agriculture development

• Agri-business Management, AgriComerce, Agriculture Economics, Agricultural and Environmental Systems, Agriculture Systems, Agriculture Systems extension and innovation; Dairy Systems;
• Agriculture and/or Horticulture Management, Rural Development, Agriculture and/or Horticulture Domestic Supply Chain Management and Distribution, Natural Resource and Environmental Impact Assessment
• Public Policy, Administration, Finance, or Governance directly related to one of the above areas

Renewable energy

• Geothermal, Solar, Hydro-electric and Wind Energy, Energy Engineering and Renewable Energy Distribution Systems
• Market reform and sector management, including Energy Economics and Energy Efficiency
• Public Policy, Administration, Finance, or Governance in the above areas

About Scholarship: New Zealand Development Scholarships (NZDS) give candidates from selected developing countries an opportunity to gain knowledge and skills through study in specific subject areas which will assist in the development of their home country. Awardees are required to return to their home country for at least two years after the completion of their scholarship to apply these new skills and knowledge in government, civil society or private business organisations.

Who is eligible to apply? Applicants must meet the following conditions to be eligible for a New Zealand Scholarship (An update on this situation will be given on Monday 4 February 2019):

• Be a minimum of 18 years of age at the time of commencing your scholarship.
• Be a citizen of the country from which you are applying for a scholarship.
• Not have citizenship or permanent residence status of New Zealand, Australia, USA, Canada, European Union countries, United Kingdom, Japan, Israel, South Korea, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia. Have resided in your home country for at least two years immediately prior to commencing your scholarship. Have at least 2 years of work experience (part time or fulltime, paid or voluntary).
• Not be serving military personnel.
• Be able to satisfy Immigration requirements for international student entry to New Zealand or the country in which you will undertake your scholarship (i.e. medical checks, police clearances/character checks, etc.)
• Be academically and linguistically able to obtain an Offer of Place for the proposed programme of study from the tertiary institute where you will undertake your scholarship.
• Not have been previously terminated from a New Zealand Government Scholarship
• Seek a qualification that will contribute to the sustainable development of your home country
• Commit to return to your country for a minimum of 2 years at the end of your scholarship.

Number of Scholarship: Several

What are the benefits? New Zealand has first-rate education institutions that offer world-recognised qualifications. Successful applicants will have access to excellent academic knowledge in quality facilities. The scholarships include financial support for tuition, living costs while in New Zealand, and airfares. The partners of students are eligible for a work visa that allows them to live and work in New Zealand for the duration of their partner’s study.

Duration of sponsorship: New Zealand Development Scholarships are available for the following qualifications:

• Postgraduate Certificate (6 months)
• Postgraduate Diploma (1 year)
• Master’s Degree (1 – 2 years)
• PhD (3 – 4 years)

How to Apply: If you are interested in applying for a scholarship, we encourage you to go through and complete the required Steps way before application deadline in March 2019.
See the How to Apply page for details.

Visit the Scholarship Webpage for details

New Zealand Commonwealth Scholarships (Masters and PhD) 2019/2020 for Commonwealth Countries

Application Deadline: 28th March 2018

Eligible Countries:

• Africa: Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia.
• Caribbean: Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines.
• Asia (Other): Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
• Pacific: Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.

To be taken at (country): New Zealand

About the Award: The Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan (CSFP) is an international programme under which member governments offer scholarships and fellowships to citizens of other Commonwealth countries. The CSFP was established at the first Commonwealth education conference in 1959 and is reviewed by education ministers at their triennial meetings – the only scholarship scheme in the world to receive such high-level recognition.

Type:

• Master’s
• PhD

Eligibility: Applicants must meet the following conditions to be eligible for a New Zealand Scholarship (An update on this situation will be given on Monday 4 February 2019):

• Be a member of a Commonwealth country
• Be a minimum of 18 years of age at the time of commencing your scholarship.
• Be able to satisfy Immigration requirements for international student entry to New Zealand or the country in which you will undertake your scholarship (i.e. medical checks, police clearances/character checks, etc.)
• Be academically and linguistically able to obtain an Offer of Place for the proposed programme of study from the tertiary institute where you will undertake your scholarship.
• Not have been previously terminated from a New Zealand Government Scholarship
• Seek a qualification that will contribute to the sustainable development of your home country
• Commit to return to your country for a minimum of 2 years at the end of your scholarship.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: New Zealand has first-rate education institutions that offer world-recognised qualifications. Successful applicants will have access to excellent academic knowledge in quality facilities. The scholarships include financial support for tuition, living costs while in New Zealand, and airfares. The partners of students are eligible for a work visa that allows them to live and work in New Zealand for the duration of their partner’s study.

Duration of Scholarship: New Zealand Commonwealth Scholarships are available for the following postgraduate qualifications:

• Master’s Degree (1 – 2 years)
• PhD (up to 3.5 years)

How to Apply: Read the Commonwealth section of the How to Apply page carefully before you submit an application.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

TWAS-DFG Cooperation Visits to Germany Program 2019 for Researchers from sub-Saharan Africa

Application Deadline: 1st April 2019

Eligible Countries: Sub-Saharan African countries


To Be Taken At (Country): Germany

About the Award: The TWAS-DFG Cooperation Visits Programme provides postdoctoral researchers from sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa, with the opportunity to make a ‘Cooperation Visit’ to an institute in Germany of no more than 3 months.
Under this programme, researchers are assisted in making a ‘Cooperation Visit’ to an institute in Germany. Such visits will have a duration of no more than three (3) months and must be undertaken within 12 months of the award.
The aim of the visit is to discuss research collaboration with German scientists with the ultimate goal of developing longer-term collaboration, perhaps through other Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, or German Research Foundation) programmes. DFG will cover health insurance, travel expenses and provide subsistence costs for the stay in Germany. The administration and financial operation of TWAS is undertaken by UNESCO in accordance with an agreement signed by the two organizations.

Field of Study: All academic fields

Type: Postdoctoral, Short Courses

Eligibility: 

• Applicants must hold a PhD and must have obtained it not earlier than 2014;
• Applicants must be nationals of a sub-Saharan African country, including South Africa, and hold a research position in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Applicants already on site in Germany are not eligible.
• Previous receipients of a TWAS-DFG Cooperation Visit cannot reapply. For a second visit, the German host can apply for funding under the DFG Initiation of International Collaboration Programme.
• Women scientists are especially encouraged to apply.
• All academic fields will be considered.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: DFG will cover health insurance, travel expenses and provide subsistence costs for the stay in Germany.

Duration of Program: 3 months

How to Apply: 

• Applicants must complete the online application form by clicking on the ‘Apply now’ button at the bottom of this page.
• While filling in the online application, applicants also need to upload the following documentation in the link below.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details


Award Providers: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, or German Research Foundation), The World Academy of Science.

Fulbright Foreign Scholarships 2019/2020 in USA for 4,000 Students (Masters & PhD)

Application Deadline: varies per country, however on a general note, it is usually from February to May annually of the preceding year you wish to study.

Offered annually? Yes


Eligible Countries: Citizens of more than 155 countries worldwide, including countries in Africa, East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Eurasia, Middle East and North Africa, The Americas, and South and Central Asia.

To be taken at (country): All accredited USA Universities and Academic Institutions.

Eligible Field of Study: The Fulbright program encourages applications from all fields, including interdisciplinary ones except medical degree program or clinical medical research.

About Scholarship: The Fulbright Foreign Student Program enables graduate students, young professionals and artists from abroad to study and conduct research in the United States. The scholarships are for study towards a Master’s or PhD degree, and can also be awarded for non-degree postgraduate studies. Study and research under this program is for one or more years at U.S. universities or other appropriate institutions.

The Fulbright Foreign Student Program is administered by binational Fulbright Commissions/Foundations or U.S. Embassies. All Foreign Student Program applications are processed by these offices.

Offered Since: 1946

Type: Masters and PhD degree (also non-degree postgraduate studies)

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

• To participate in the Fulbright Foreign Student Program, the applicant must have completed undergraduate education and hold a degree equivalent to a bachelor’s degree.
• Program eligibility and selection procedures vary widely by country. Please use the drop-down menu located on the country specific websites to find information about the Fulbright Program in your home country, including eligibility requirements and application guidelines. See link below
• If your country is not listed there, you are not eligible to apply.

Number of Scholarships: The number of awards varies per country, but approximately 4,000 foreign students receive Fulbright scholarships each year.

Value of Scholarship: The Fulbright program provides funding for the duration of the study. The grant funds tuition, textbooks, airfare, a living stipend, and health insurance. See the official website for the exact scholarship benefits.

Duration of Scholarship: The whole duration of the study, research or non-degree program – usually one year or more

How to Apply: All applications to the Foreign Student Program are processed by bi-national Fulbright Commissions/Foundations or U.S. Embassies. Therefore, foreign students must apply through the Fulbright Commission/Foundation or U.S. Embassy in their home countries.
Visit scholarship webpage for details

Sponsors: USA Government

Important Notes: Note that the Institute of International Education (IIE) arranges academic placement for most Fulbright nominees and supervises participants during their stay in the United States.

All inquiries should be made to your local embassy or Fulbright Commission. For more information, see your country-specific website.

Government of Brunei Darussalam Scholarships 2019/2020 for International Students

Application Deadline: 28th February 2019.

Offered annually? Yes


To be Taken at (university): 

• Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD),
• Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali (UNISSA),
• Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) and
• Politeknik Brunei (PB).

Fields of Study: These scholarships are awarded for pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate degree program in various disciplines offered by the UBD, UNISSA and ITB at different levels.

About the Award: Applications are invited for Brunei Darussalam Government Scholarships available for foreign students to study at University of Brunei Darussalam [UBD], Islam Sultan Sharif Ali University [UNISSA], Brunei Institute of Technology [ITB] and Politeknik  Brunei (PB) in Brunei. These scholarships are awarded to the students of ASEAN, OIC, Commonwealth Member Countries and others. Scholarship award is normally tenable for the duration of the programme.

Type: Undergraduate and postgraduate degrees

Eligibility:

• Applications are open to citizens of, but not limited to, ASEAN, Commonwealth and OIC member countries.
• Applicants should be nominated by their Government.
• Applicants must be certified to be medically fit to undertake the scholarship and to study in Brunei Darussalam, by a qualified medical practitioner who is registered with any Government Authority(ies) prior to arrival in Brunei Darussalam. Any and all costs incurred in obtaining this certification are to be borne by the applicant.
• Applicants must be, between the ages of 18-25 for undergraduate and diploma programmes and must not exceed the age of 35 for postgraduate programmes on the 31^st July 2019.
• The award is NOT eligible to Brunei Darussalam Permanent Residents.

Number of Scholarships: Several

Value of Scholarship: The scholars are exempted from paying tuition fees and other appropriate compulsory fees as determined by the university for the duration of the programme.
One return economy class air-ticket for the most economically viable route to Brunei Darussalam will be determined by the Brunei Darussalam Government. No additional assistance will be provided towards other travel expenses.
Allowances payable will include:

• Monthly personal allowance of BND500.00
• Annual Book Allowance BND600.00
• Monthly food allowance of BND150.00
• Upon completion of the program, Baggage allowance to a maximum institution of BND250.00 to ASEAN region and BND500.00 to non ASEAN region.
• An accommodation at respective institution residential college is provided. If the scholar opts not to live in the provided accommodation, no additional allowance will be given in the lieu of board and transport.
• Outpatient medical and/or dental treatment is at any Brunei government hospitals, However an administrative charge is payable for each consultation with the government general practitioner or specialist.
• Should the scholar seek further medical or dental treatments at any private hospital or clinic, all expenses are to be borne by scholars themselves.

Duration of Scholarship: The scholarship award is normally tenable for the minimum period required to obtain the specific degree which is four years for a first degree with honours, one to two years for a master’s degree, three years for a doctoral degree at UBD, UNISSA and ITB, two and a half years for HND at ITB, three years for diploma of health sciences at UBD, all on a full time basis.

Eligible Countries: Students of ASEAN (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam), OIC (Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Suriname, Syria, Tajikistan, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Yemen), Commonwealth Member Countries ((Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Botswana, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Falkland Islands, Gambia, Ghana, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Montserrat, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, St Helena, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and The Grenadines, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Virgin Islands (British) and Zambia) and others can apply for the scholarships.

How to Apply: Application forms can be downloaded from the following link:
APPLICATION FORM 2019/2020

• Application forms must be duly completed and endorsed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the National Focal Point for scholarships of the applicant’s country.
• Applicants are required to also submit a security clearance statement from their National Security Agency(ies)/ Police Station (i.e. a statement/ report certifying that applicants are clear from any civil and criminal charges).
• Completed application forms are to be emailed to the following address:

applyBDGS2019@mfa.gov.bn
Applicants applying to Univeristi Brunei Darussalam must also complete an online application through https://apply.ubd.edu.bn/orbeon/uis-welcome/

Visit the scholarship webpage for details to apply

Provider: Brunei Darussalam Government