Algerian regime pledges fraudulent political “transition” as strikes spread

Will Morrow 

As mass strikes spread across Algeria for the second day, the regime issued a statement in the name of figurehead president Abdelaziz Bouteflika yesterday evening, postponing elections indefinitely and pledging that Bouteflika will not seek a fifth term.

The regime’s announcement is a fraud, meeting none of the demands of the workers and youth. While it claims Bouteflika will not stand again for re-election, this is to be achieved by extending his current term indefinitely. Elections previously scheduled for April 18 are to be postponed to at least after 2019.

The regime will appoint what it calls an “inclusive and independent national conference,” which is to draft a new constitution and set the date for new elections. An unspecified “government of national unity is to be formed.” Bouteflika—a political corpse who has not spoken publicly since a 2013 stroke and is widely seen as a figurehead for the ruling cabal in the military, security services and his family—is to oversee the new “constitutional institutions to ensure they adhere scrupulously to the accomplishment of their mission.”

The letter states that the postponement of elections is aimed at “appeasing tensions that have been revealed in order to open the way to generalised peace, quiet and public security.” It adds that the reshuffling of Bouteflika’s cabinet and a change in prime minister “constitute an adequate response to the expectations you have placed upon me.” These are implicit threats that an escalation of the strikes and demonstrations will be met with fierce repression.

Gen. Gael Salah was reported to be in the discussions prior to last night’s announcement. Last week, he threatened that the army stood ready to defend “security and stability” against “anything that could expose Algeria to unpredictable threats.”

The announcement was immediately hailed by the French government, the former colonial power, which maintains close ties with the regime and its security forces. The minister of foreign affairs, Yves Le Drian, said he “salutes the declaration of president Bouteflika, in which he announces he will not seek a fifth mandate and will take measures to renovate the Algerian political system.”

The ruling class in Algeria and internationally has been terrified by the direct entrance of the working class into the movement against the Bouteflika regime with the eruption of a general strike on Sunday, which deepened yesterday. The strikes have developed largely independently and outside the control of the trade unions, spread by workers online via social media.

Oued Ezzine gas workers enter the strike on Monday

Of particular significance is yesterday’s expansion of strikes in the oil and gas industry, which accounts for over 90 percent of Algeria’s export revenues. On Sunday, employees of GTP, a subsidiary of the state gas company Sonatrach, walked off the job in the Hassi Messaoud oil fields. A video on Facebook of the strike was viewed more than 100,000 times.

Yesterday, they were joined by workers at ENGAGEO, another Sonatrach subsidiary in the same region. One picture of ENGAGEO workers marching off the job shows a striker’s sign stating, “Un grand merci à Facebook!” Hundreds of workers at the Oued Ezzine gas complex in Adrar, central Algeria, entered the strike on Monday. Sonelgaz workers in Guelma carried out a sit-in outside their offices.

Sonatrach (ENGAGEO) workers enter the strike on Monday

The port city of Bejaia remained completely paralysed yesterday, with strikes closing the ports and every state administrative building and private company, excepting some medical facilities. The city of Tizi-Ouzou in the Kabylie region was also reportedly completely closed.

At the industrial complex in Rouiba, autoworkers at both Mercedes and the car and bus maker SNVI remained on strike. A report published yesterday by L’Expression revealed that the strike was initiated on Sunday when workers began picketing inside the plant and organised a vote to walk out. It reported that a march by the workers at both plants was tear-gassed by police.

Much of the capital Algiers remained shut down. The industrial complex at Baba Ali was closed. The metro was partially reopened, but trains to and from outside the city remained paralysed. Yesterday, a group of 15 major agri-food companies in the heavy industrial zone of Taharacht issued a joint statement demanding workers return to their posts at 5 a.m. today in order to avoid “a dangerous disruption to the” food market.

The trade unions responded to the eruption of strikes on Sunday by scrambling to regain control in order to suppress the movement. In Rouiba, the union covering workers at SNVI announced that it was calling a “four-day” strike beginning Monday, after workers independently initiated a five-day strike beginning Sunday.

In Tizi Ouzou, more than 20 trade unions gathered late Sunday night to pass a resolution declaring, the day after a general strike, that they “supported the movement.” They announced they were now “retracting their confidence” in Sidi Said, the long-time president of the General Union of Algerian Labour (UGTA), the main national trade union federation that has openly supported Bouteflika.

Sonelgaz workers in Guelma on strike for second day on Monday

The ruling class is particularly terrified at the emergence of working class strikes because it knows that such actions can rapidly spread throughout the entire Maghreb region and internationally, after a decade of escalating assaults on living standards, and under conditions of a resurgence of workers’ struggles around the world.

Benin Web TV reported yesterday that “on social media networks” in neighboring Morocco, “the support for the protest is visible.” Tunisia, to Algeria’s east, was shaken by a general strike of 700,000 workers last month. The protests in Algeria have been met by demonstrations of tens of thousands in Algerian communities around the world, including in Montreal, Canada, and in multiple cities in France.

The trade unions and the capitalist class that they defend know that the workers are entering into struggle not only against Bouteflika and his immediate gang of cronies. They are fighting against the social inequality, poverty and unemployment that they preside over, and are driven by the determination that their lives should actually materially improve.

That is why the trade unions are issuing nervous warnings that the workers should not raise “sectional” and “divisive” demands—i.e., for wage rises, social services, and jobs. Amar Hadjout, the president of the National Federation of Workers in Textiles, Leather and Clothing, told El Watan yesterday that “the demands must remain within the limits that are respectful of others, to have the capacity to overcome and defeat any divisions. We cannot lose sight of what has been achieved in the economic sphere.”

What is driving the working class into struggle? A report by the Algerian Human Rights League in 2015, based on a survey of 4,500 households, found that 35 percent of the population, or some 14 million people, live on a poverty wage of less than US$1.25 per day. Over 90 percent of households reported that their living standards have fallen since the decline of oil prices in 2014, and the average purchasing power of a family fell by 60 percent over that period. The unemployment rate for youth is almost a third, and more than two thirds of the population is below the age of 30.

Meanwhile, wealth has been concentrated in the hands of a tiny class of billionaires and multimillionaires that controls the regime and the opposition parties. The report stated that 10 percent of the Algerian population owned 80 percent of the country’s wealth.

Every faction of the political establishment, including the fraudulent “opposition” parties claiming to support the movement against Bouteflika, such as Louisa Hanoune’s Workers’ Party, is opposed to any struggle by the working class for its own interests. They all want to maintain the domination over society by the super-rich and seek only to secure a greater position for themselves in the regime and the distribution of the money taken from the working class.

The struggle developing in Algeria has an objective logic that is bringing the working class into conflict with the profit system itself and all of its political defenders. The only progressive solution to this situation lies in the seizure of political power by the working class in Algeria and internationally, and the overthrow of the capitalist system, and its replacement with socialism.

A US budget for worldwide war

Patrick Martin

The budget request made public Monday by the White House must be taken by the international working class as a serious warning. The US government is preparing for full-scale war abroad and savage attacks on the living standards and social benefits of working people at home. The most powerful imperialist state is seeking a record level of military spending, while demanding unprecedented cuts in spending on social necessities such as healthcare, education and the environment.

The Trump administration proposes to give the Pentagon an increase nearly double that sought by the military establishment itself—a 4.7 percent rise over current spending, double the 2.4 percent increase for which Defense Department officials had been planning. The dollar amount of the increase is $34 billion, while the Pentagon asked for only $17 billion.

Total US military spending of $750 billion would be larger than the 2018 military spending of the next 14 countries combined—China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, Britain, France, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Brazil, Australia, Italy, Israel and Iraq.

Perhaps the most startling and ominous figure in the budget request is the proposed increase for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), the all-purpose war-fighting category that includes funding for the US interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, drone warfare across the wider Middle East and North Africa, and the US military buildup on the borders of Russia (European Deterrence Initiative). While the fiscal year 2019 budget provides $69 billion for OCO, the request for FY 2020 balloons to a staggering $164 billion.

Initial press reports, citing White House sources, claim that this is an accounting gimmick, reclassifying a significant portion of the regular Pentagon budget as OCO in order to allow the military nominally to comply with spending caps set in 2011 under a bipartisan budget agreement between the Obama administration and congressional Republicans, but routinely evaded in congressional budget deal-making since then. Under that scenario, the Trump administration would declare that it was now observing the caps, imposing them on domestic spending through a savage across-the-board cut of at least five percent. Meanwhile, overall military spending would soar, since money for the OCO is not counted towards the spending caps.

Whatever the truth of such assertions, funneling almost $100 billion more into Overseas Contingency Operations has implications far beyond Trump’s maneuvers with Congress, and would surely provoke alarm in Tehran, Moscow and Beijing. It would give the Pentagon more than enough money to fight a major war, such as an invasion of Iran or Venezuela, both targets of Trump fist-shaking in recent months, or North Korea, if the current talks between Washington and Pyongyang collapse completely. This vast sum could even be used to finance the initial stages of a war with China or Russia, if such a conflict did not immediately escalate into a world-destroying nuclear holocaust.

Moreover, given Trump’s ongoing effort to use the declaration of a bogus “national emergency” on the US-Mexico border to redirect Pentagon funds towards the building of his border wall, the creation of a gigantic $164 billion OCO slush fund would give the commander-in-chief virtually free rein for military operations around the world, or within the United States itself. For a sense of the scale of the war allocation, the $164 billion OCO fund by itself is roughly equal to the total military budget of China, at $168 billion, and nearly three times the $63 billion military budget of Russia. It would pay for Trump’s border wall many times over.

Specific military spending categories that have been reported include $104 billion for research and development, with the main focus on hypersonic weapons (missiles and planes flying much faster than sound), on artificial intelligence systems (cyberwarfare and automated battlefield weapons), and “space-based technologies.” The Navy will contract for two new Gerald Ford-class supercarriers, costing upwards of $13 billion apiece. The Air Force will buy upgraded F-15 fighter jets from Boeing and more F-35s from Lockheed Martin. Tens of billions will go to update and modernize US nuclear weaponry.

Then there is a $9.2 billion “emergency requirements” item that would “address border security and hurricane recovery.” The portion devoted to “hurricane recovery” is for past and future damage to US military facilities and the cost of deploying US military resources during and after a storm, not for civilian needs. And “border security” would give Trump yet another pot of money to fund the US-Mexico border wall, in addition to the $8.6 billion formally requested in the budget for that purpose.

While proposing this bonanza for the Pentagon, the Trump budget would impose the biggest cuts in Medicaid and Medicare in history, nearly $2 trillion over 10 years. Medicaid would be converted into block grants to the states, with spending increases limited to the rate of overall inflation, not the much higher rate of health care cost inflation, forcing almost immediate cuts by the states. In addition, the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare would be repealed, cutting off health coverage for more than 10 million people. The total savings over 10 years are estimated at $1.1 trillion. Another $845 billion would be slashed from Medicare by slashing reimbursements to hospitals and other health care providers and eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse.”

According to a White House summary reported by the Washington Post, other federal social spending would be slashed even more in percentage terms, although by smaller dollar amounts: $327 billion over 10 years from food stamps, housing assistance and other means-tested programs; $200 billion from retirement programs for federal and postal workers; $207 billion from college student loan programs, including those that provide food and housing assistance; cuts of 32 percent from the Environmental Protection Agency, 22 percent from the Department of Transportation, 11 percent from the Department of the Interior, 12 percent from the Department of Education and 12 percent from the Department of Health and Human Services.

The response by congressional Democrats and the media to the Trump budget has been to focus on the $8.6 billion request for the border wall—the issue that was the trigger for a 35-day partial shutdown of the federal government that ended in late January. This is a deliberate diversion, allowing the Democrats to posture as intransigent opponents of Trump while they quarrel with him over a sum that represents less than two one-thousandths of a $4.6 trillion budget.

The Democratic leadership fully embraced Trump’s military budget as part of a bipartisan deal last year, and it is just as enthusiastically in support of the Pentagon this year. In fact, the Democrats have generally attacked Trump from the right on foreign policy, demanding a more aggressive stance toward Russia in Syria and Eastern Europe, against North Korea, and in opposition to China, particularly on trade.

Even on border security, the Democrats are in full support of further massive spending increases to deploy more technology and hire more Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement thugs to persecute immigrants, so long as it isn’t labeled as money for Trump’s wall.

The delivery of Trump’s proposed budget begins an entirely predictable and cynical sham fight in Washington. The Democrats will denounce the proposed cuts in Medicaid, Medicare and other social programs and vow to fight them to the death. They will ultimately do a deal with Trump that includes major new cuts in social programs, which do not, however, go as far as the White House proposals, in return for full funding for the US military-intelligence apparatus, the most reactionary and dangerous force on the planet.

Lawyer charged for exposing Australian war crimes in Afghanistan

Mike Head

A former Australian military lawyer, once a captain in Britain’s Special Air Service (SAS), has been charged over the alleged leak of documents to journalists containing evidence of war crimes committed in Afghanistan by Australia’s Special Forces.

David McBride, 55, appeared in the Australian Capital Territory Magistrates Court last Thursday, accused of leaks to Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Fairfax Media reporters during 2014 to 2016.

The charges relate in part to an ABC investigation published in 2017, called “The Afghan Files: Defence leak exposes deadly secrets of Australia’s special forces.” It provided some detail­ about long-suppressed official investigations into alleged war crimes.

Most of the documents, which the ABC did not release, reportedly covered “at least 10” incidents between 2009 and 2013 in which military investigators summarily cleared Special Forces soldiers of killing civilians, including children, or other war crimes.

Among the investigations mentioned were cases relating to the death of a man and his six-year-old child during a raid on his house, and the killing of a detainee who was alone with a soldier.

In 2013, troops commanded by Australian SAS officer Andrew Hastie, now a Liberal Party member of parliament who chairs the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Security and Intelligence, severed the hands of alleged dead Taliban fighters. This followed a training session where soldiers were told such methods could be used for identification purposes.

Some of the atrocities, such as the killing of the captured detainee, were already known. Despite some derisory compensation payments, each incident inflamed popular hostility in Afghanistan to the Australian and other occupying forces. They also underscored the inherently criminal character of the US-led Afghanistan war.

McBride entered no pleas. Instead, speaking to the media outside court, he said he had admitted handing over the documents but would defend his actions on legal grounds.

“I saw something illegally being done by the government and I did something about it,” he said. “I’m seeking to have the case looking purely at whether the government broke the law and whether it was my duty as a lawyer to report that fact.”

McBride suggested a cover-up at the highest levels of the military. He stated: “I have a duty to look after Australia, if that means reporting illegal activity by the top brass of the ADF [Australian Defence Force] I’m going to do it… If I was afraid of going to jail, why would I have been a soldier?”

The ex-ADF lawyer said he first sought an internal inquiry through the defence department and then went to police. When police did not act, he went to the media. He said he gave the documents to the ABC, the Sydney Morning Herald and journalist Chris Masters, but only the ABC published a report.

The lawyer is charged with theft and three counts of breaching the Defence Act, for being a member of the defence force and communicating information. The charges, if prosecuted on indictment, have maximum penalties of an unlimited fine or imprisonment for any term.

McBride faces a further charge under Criminal Code secrecy provisions, which were expanded and subjected to harsher penalties as part of last year’s “foreign interference” legislation. Imprisonment for up to 10 years can be imposed for an “aggravated” offence of leaking official secrets that allegedly prejudice Australia’s military defence or security.

McBride said he had been living in Spain, but was arrested at Sydney airport last September after a brief visit to his daughter. He is next due in court on May 13.

The government and the military are insisting that McBride’s trial must be conducted in secret, in order to suppress the details of the leaked documents. A Legal Aid representative for McBride told the court that his office was having difficulty finding a lawyer with the necessary security clearance to represent McBride.

McBride’s actions point to concerns within the military-intelligence establishment itself that the abuses committed by the Special Forces in Afghanistan have been so egregious that they have publicly discredited the “elite” units, on which Australian and allied governments rely for military interventions.

After studying at Sydney University and Oxford, McBride joined the British army. He spent six years with the Queen’s household cavalry, and also served with the SAS and in Northern Ireland and Afghanistan. In 2002, he stood unsuccessfully as a Liberal Party candidate in a New South Wales (NSW) state election.

The ABC reported that some of the cases were being probed by an inquiry run by NSW Supreme Court judge Paul Brereton, an army reserve major general, which was set up in 2016 by General­ Angus Campbell, who is now Chief of Defence.

The leaked material provided only a partial glimpse of Australia’s war crimes. It was published by the ABC in an effort, accompanied by belated military inquiries, to clean up the reputation of the Special Forces by blaming a minority of “bad apples” supposedly caught up in a “warrior culture.”

In reality, any brutal “culture” in the ADF is an inevitable result of the neo-colonial wars of occupation in the Middle East, which treat the populations as a whole as the enemy and involve the killing of anyone who resists.

Accounts of war crimes committed by Australian Special Forces are not new. Internal investigations, in recent conflicts alone, go back to the Australian military intervention in East Timor in 1999.

The military’s actions have been whitewashed at the highest levels of the ADF, with the full support of successive governments. In May 2013, Stephen Smith, the defence minister in the last Labor government, rejected complaints by Afghan detainees that they were subjected to humiliating public searches of groin and buttocks areas, as well as poor food and cold cells.

Last June, in a damage control operation, the current Liberal-National government belatedly revealed a third closed-door inquiry into alleged war crimes. After a Fairfax Media investigation reported further killings by Australian commandos, the Defence Department announced that earlier last year, military chiefs commissioned David Irvine, a former intelligence chief, to conduct an inquiry.

This “independent assessment” was designed as another official cover-up, seeking to cloak the barbaric character of the US-led occupation of the impoverished country. Such wars necessarily require the recruitment and training of soldiers to become hardened killers.

In addition to Hastie, ex-military commanders are prominent throughout the political and military establishment. Duncan Lewis, the current Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) director-general, is a former SAS officer.

Government Senator Jim Molan headed allied military operations in Iraq during 2004-05. A Labor Party MP and ex-minister, Mike Kelly, was a colonel and Director of Army Legal Services, which would have handled complaints against Special Forces members.

Brutal Special Forces operations are part of expanded preparations for use at home, as well. Alongside deployments to neo-colonial wars, the commandos train to suppress social unrest, in the name of combatting terrorism or “domestic violence.”

Milan, Italy: 200,000 march against racism

Marianne Arens

Around 200,000 people demonstrated last Saturday in Milan, Italy against the policies of the right-wing coalition government of Lega and the Five Star Movement (M5S) that close ports to immigrant vessels, let people drown in the Mediterranean and, with new laws, drive tens of thousands of immigrants into illegality.

The protest organizers estimate that nearly a quarter-million participants assembled in front of Milan Cathedral. Demands and slogans on colourful, hand-painted signs and banners read: “We all have the same blood,” “The world belongs to all,” “Stop racism” and: “Protect the people, not the borders.” Migrants who have to work as harvesters in Calabria carried posters with the inscription: “Stop exploitation.”

Protest in Milan, Italy

Many participants came in carnivalesque costumes, some in Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio (M5S leader) masks. There were also several floats depicting migrants dying in the Mediterranean Sea. The motto of the demonstration, “First the people,” was directed against the battle cry of Minister of the Interior and Lega boss Matteo Salvini, “Prima gli Italiani” (Italians first). The protest was organised by an association of six social organisations and NGOs and supported by the mayor of Milan, Giuseppe Sala.

Sala is part of a network of mayors who reject the racist Salvini decree because they consider it unenforceable in their municipalities (Palermo, Naples, Florence, Milan and other major cities). In these Italian cities, opposition to the government is growing, and around 1,200 initiatives, NGOs, district groups, etc., publicised the Milan demonstration on the internet.

The organisers avoided any speeches at the demonstration, instead inviting singers, musicians and DJs to perform. At the end of the rally, they played Patti Smith’s “People Have the Power.”

Nevertheless, several prominent politicians from the so-called “centre-left camp” appeared on the sidelines of the rally to give interviews to the media in which they tried to present themselves as spokesmen for a “new left.”

“This is where the reconstruction of the Left begins,” claimed Mayor Giovanni Sala, himself an “independent” member of the political camp of former Democratic Party (PD) leader Matteo Renzi.

Also present at the rally were Maurizio Landini, head of Italy’s largest trade union, CGIL; governor of Tuscany, Enrico Rossi; and the previous and the new PD chairmen, Maurizio Martina and Nicola Zingaretti.

Zingaretti, who is also president of the Lazio region, was elected as the new leader of the PD after winning 70 percent of the over 1.5 million votes, and several journalists have already celebrated him as “the face of the other Italy,” who, they claim, will lead the resistance from below against the right-wing government.

In reality, Zingaretti is nothing of the sort. The 54-year-old has been a professional politician since he was 20 years old and stands for the PD wing that grew out of the Stalinist Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI). At the age of 17, he joined their youth organization, of which he became chairman, and since then he has participated in all the transformations and mergers of the PCI after the collapse of the Soviet Union: at the end of 1991 it was the Democratic Left Party (PDS), in 1998 the Left Democrats (DS) and in 2007, by merging with a Christian Democratic faction, the Democratic Party (PD).

Until last year, the PD held the leadership position in government under then-leader Matteo Renzi. It was Renzi’s interior minister, Marco Minniti (PD), who initiated the current racist course in Italy. Under Renzi and Minniti, the Mediterranean was completely sealed off and a deal was made with the Libyan Coast Guard to return migrants against their will, back to Libya where they are subjected to inhumane conditions, beatings, rape and starvation. It was also the Renzi government that began to put pressure on the sea rescue NGOs to illegalise rescue missions.

As a result of its social attacks on the working population, the Renzi government was so discredited in the end that the ultra-right Lega, supported by Beppe Grillo’s Five-Star Movement, was able to take power last June.

Significantly, Zingaretti owes part of his popularity as an opposition leader to the fact that his older brother, who looks like him, is the popular TV star Luca Zingaretti in the TV series “Commissario Montalbano.” This suggests that the current prestige of the new PD chairman is based on a misunderstanding and has little depth.

March in Milan, Italy

In fact, Italy is a deeply divided country, and the PD is just as responsible for this as the right-wing parties that now run the government.

Five million Italians live in total poverty, three times as many as 11 years ago, before the recession that began in 2008. At the same time, Forbes figures released on Tuesday have revealed the gigantic fortunes of the five richest Italians: Nutella king Giovanni Ferrero (US$22.4 billion), Luxottica founder Leonardo Del Vecchio ($19.8 billion), pharmaceutical entrepreneur Stefano Pessina ($12.4 billion), fashion designer Giorgio Armani ($8.5 billion) and the former head of government and media entrepreneur, Silvio Berlusconi ($6.3 billion).

“We have abolished poverty,” boasted Social Affairs Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio, who is also head of the Five Star Movement, last Wednesday. The reason for this was the introduction of the Reddito di Cittadinanza (citizen’s income). As of March 6, Italians may apply for the promised €780 a month.

However, this step will quickly lead to disillusionment among the needy. People will soon find out that the citizen’s income is nothing more than a bad version of the hated German Hartz IV system. Only Italians who declare themselves immediately available for work and who meet the impossibly strict examination of their income and assets will be entitled to receive the wage, while non-Italians are excluded.

Recipients of citizen’s income must accept one of three job offers, even if the offer forces them to travel 50 kilometres to work. The citizen’s income is booked on a special cheque card, which can only be used for cash withdrawals of up to €100 at a time and is limited to a maximum of 18 months. In addition, only those who are prepared to do at least eight hours of community service a week receive money. In the case of “abuse” of the benefit, they face severe punishment with up to six years imprisonment.

The most recent demonstration in Milan—like the one in Rome on February 9, in which workers, pensioners and school children demonstrated on a grand scale—shows that in Italy, as in the rest of the world, resistance is growing and the class struggle is reawakening.

However, it can only develop in a progressive way if it breaks with the bourgeois PD camp and its pseudo-left environment and advocates an international, socialist perspective. This requires the establishment of an Italian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International.

US jobs numbers highlight global growth concerns

Nick Beams

The surprise fall in US employment growth in February sent a chill through economic and financial circles, with the Dow falling by more than 200 points at one stage on Friday, because of what it could portend for the US economy amid a marked slowdown in the rest of the world.

Only 20,000 jobs were added to US non-farm payrolls last month, the lowest level in 17 months, well below economists’ estimates of an increase of 180,000. There was a large increase of 311,000 jobs in January and last month’s virtual halt may be something of a statistical blip, but it has been taken as a worrying sign.

Sameer Samana, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, commented: “If the weakness continues next month and there’s no revision to this month, it’s a meaningful deceleration in the outlook for the labour market. Given what happened in the fourth quarter, it could be that companies now are at this point at least deciding to really curtail hiring.”

The fall in American jobs growth came amid signs of a rapidly slowing global economy. Last week the 36-member Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) cut its growth forecast for advanced economies in 2019 from 1.8 percent to 1 percent, with Europe taking the brunt of the downward revision. The growth forecast for the UK was cut from 1.4 percent to 0.8 percent, while that for Germany was reduced from 1.6 percent to 0.7 percent.

“The global expansion continues to lose momentum,” the OECD said in a statement. “Growth outcomes could be weaker still if downside risks materialise or interact.”

Among those risks are the failure of the British government to reach a deal with the European Union on Brexit, which could bring a recession and “sizeable negative spillovers” to other countries. China was another cause for concern. A sharp slowdown there would have “significant adverse consequences for global growth and trade.”

The Chinese government has lowered its forecast for growth in 2019 to between 6 percent and 6.5 percent—the lowest level in three decades—amid signs that exports are starting to slow. Raw data showed that exports for February dropped by 20.7 percent. Much of this was due to seasonal factors—the impact of the Lunar New Year—but even after these were taken into account the fall was a significant 5 percent.

There are signs of further weakness in China’s export markets with manufacturing purchasing managers’ indexes for both the euro area and Japan signalling a contraction in February, the first time that has happened in both regions since early 2013.

Tommy Xie, an economist at Oversea-Banking Corp in Singapore, told Bloomberg: “China is set to have a difficult time on trade, because on the US front there is the trade war, and on the EU front the economy is really weakening.” He said the 5 percent fall in exports “reflected the impact of the trade war and also a slowing global economy.”

The slowdown in the euro zone is most marked in Germany where factory orders unexpectedly fell in January by 2.6 percent, contrary to forecasts they would increase by 0.5 percent. The decline was caused mainly by weak demand for investment goods, particularly from outside the euro area, with domestic orders also in decline.

The German economy only barely avoided a recession in the last two quarters of 2018. The sharp contraction in growth across the euro zone resulted in the European Central Bank last week reversing its previous policy of a wind down in quantitative easing (QE) by offering cheaper money to European banks.

The decision came in the wake of the decision by the US Federal Reserve in early January to put the interest rate rises planned for 2019 on indefinite hold and ease the wind down of its asset holdings. The decision came in response to the sharp falls on Wall Street in December when stock markets had their worst result for that month since 1931 in the midst of the Great Depression.

The US market has since risen on the back of the Fed’s decision and the claims by President Trump and members of his administration that they are optimistic over the prospect of a trade deal with China. However, there are a number of warning signs about the underlying course of the US economy.

Last Friday, the Dow Jones Transportation Average fell for the eleventh consecutive session, its longest losing streak in 47 years. Because transport forms an integral component of the real economy, rather than the financial system, the transport index is regarded as an indicator of broad economic trends.

The Fed’s recent decision could be followed by other moves to try to boost US markets and the economy.

Bloomberg reported over the weekend that bond-fund managers had started to “whisper about the prospect of more Federal Reserve quantitative easing [through the purchase of bonds] in order to fight the next US downturn, underscoring just how acute concerns over flagging global growth have become less than three months after the central bank last raised interest rates.”

It cited recent remarks by San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly that, faced with another slowdown, the central bank may use asset purchases “more readily” and not just as a last-ditch measure. The prospect of further QE arises because, with interest rates being held at a range between 2.25 and 2.5 percent, the Fed has little room to manoeuvre to combat a downturn.

The longer-term structural changes in the US and global economy, which have led to the use of QE, were the subject of a Brookings Institution paper co-authored by former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers last week.

It said that “real neutral interest rates” that neither stimulate nor suppress the economy may have declined by at least 300 basis points, or three percentage points, over the last generation.

“Our findings support the idea that, absent offsetting policies, mature industrial economies are prone to secular stagnation. This raises profound questions about stabilization policy going forward.”

There would need to be a wider tolerance of budget deficits and “unconventional monetary policies” to promote investment and maintain full employment.

In essence, this is an acknowledgement that the mechanisms through which the post-war capitalist economy in the US and internationally was stabilised have broken down. Consequently, the pumping of ultra-cheap money into the financial system, fueling speculation and parasitism, together with ever-widening social inequality, is not a temporary measure but must be made permanent.

Joint Japan World Bank Group Scholarship Program 2019/2020 for Students in Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 11th April, 2019

Offered annually? Yes


About Scholarship: The Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program (JJ/WBGSP) is open to women and men from developing countries with relevant professional experience and a history of supporting their countries’ development efforts who are applying to a master degree program in a development-related topic.

After earning their degree, developing country scholars commit to return to their home country to use their new skills and contribute to their countries’ social and economic development.

Type: Masters

Selection Criteria: Eligible applications are assessed according to three main factors: academic excellence, professional experience, and relevance of program of study. Priority is given to candidates from the public sector with a high potential to impact the development in their own countries after completion of their studies

Eligibility: Details on Eligibility Criteria for each call for applications are provided in that call’s Application Guidelines, and these detailed eligibility criteria are strictly adhered to. No exceptions are made.
Broadly speaking, Developing Country nationals must:

• Be a national of a World Bank member developing country;
• Not hold dual citizenship of any developed country;
• Be in good health;
• Hold a Bachelor’s (or equivalent) degree earned at least 3 years prior to the Application Deadline date;
• Have 3 years or more of recent development-related work experience after earning a Bachelor’s (or equivalent) degree;
• Be employed in development-related work in a paid full- time position at the time of submitting the scholarship application.  The only exception to this criterion is for developing country nationals from a country that will be on the updated list of Fragile and Conflict States provided to applicants in the Application Guidelines for each call for scholarships.
• On or before the Scholarship Application Deadline date, be admitted unconditionally (except for funding) for the upcoming academic year to at least one of the JJ/WBGSP preferred university master’s programs and located outside of the applicant’s country of citizenship and country of residence listed at the time the call for scholarship applications open.
• Not be an Executive Director, his/her alternate, and/or staff of any type of appointment of the World Bank Group or a close relative of the aforementioned by blood or adoption with the term “close relative” defined as: Mother, Father, Sister, Half-sister, Brother, Half-brother, Son, Daughter, Aunt, Uncle, Niece, or Nephew; *Please note: All eligibility criteria are strictly adhered to. No exceptions are made.
• Eligibility criteria WILL NOT change during an open call for applications. However, this information is subject to change between the close of one application process and the opening of the next.

Number of Scholarships: Several

Scholarship benefits: The JJ/WBGSP scholarship provides annual awards to cover the cost of completing a master’s degree or its equivalent. The awards are given for one year and, provided that the academic program is longer than one year, may be renewed for a second consecutive year or a portion thereof, subject to satisfactory academic performance in the first year and the availability of funds.
The scholarship provides benefits for the recipient only, covering:

• economy class air travel between the home country and the host university at the start of the study program and one return journey following the end of the overall scholarship period. In addition to the ticket, scholars receive a US $500 travel allowance for each trip;
• tuition and the cost of basic medical and accident insurance usually obtained through the university;
• a monthly subsistence allowance to cover living expenses, including books.

Duration: The proposed program of study should start during the academic year 2018/2019 for a maximum duration of two years.

Eligible Countries: Developing countries

To be taken at (country): One of the preferred universities (see in Program Webpage Link below)

How to Apply: Applicants are strongly encouraged to use the online application form available in  English, French, or Spanish.
It is very necessary to go through the instructions in ALL application documents before applying.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

OWSD PhD Fellowships 2019/2020 for Women Scientists from Science and Technology Lagging Countries

Application Deadline: 30th May 2019

Eligible Countries: Developing countries


To be taken at (country): The award will give nominated students the opportunity  to study in centres of excellence in the developing world, and help educate the next generation of mathematicians thereby advancing science in the home countries of those chosen for the fellowship.

Fields of Study:
01-Agricultural Sciences
02-Structural, Cell and Molecular Biology
03-Biological Systems and Organisms
04-Medical and Health Sciences incl. Neurosciences
05-Chemical Sciences
06-Engineering Sciences
08-Mathematical Sciences
09-Physics

About the Award: The “South to South PhD Training” fellowships for Women Scientists from Science and Technology Lagging Countries (STLCs) to undertake PhD research in the Natural, Engineering and Information Technology sciences at a host institute in the South. The fellowships are to be held at a centre of excellence in a developing country outside the applicant’s own country.

Candidates can choose between two study schemes:

• a full-time fellowship (maximum 4 years funding), where the research is undertaken entirely at a host institute in another developing country in the South.
• a sandwich fellowship, where the candidate must be a registered PhD student in her home country and undertakes part of her studies at a host institute in another developing country.
  The sandwich fellowship is awarded for a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 3 research visits at the host institute. The minimum duration of the first visit is 6 months. The total number of months spent at the host institute cannot exceed 20 months. The funding period cannot exceed 4 years.
  OWSD particularly encourages candidates to consider the sandwich option, which allows them to earn the PhD in their home country while accessing specialist researchers and equipment abroad, at the host institute.

The fellowship support is only provided while the student is on site, at the host institute.

Type: Postgraduate (Doctorate)

Eligibility: To be eligible, candidates must confirm that they intend to return to their home country as soon as possible after completion of the fellowship.
The minimum qualification is an MSc degree in one of the above listed study fields.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Each fellowship will cover the following:

• A monthly allowance to cover basic living expenses such as accommodation and meals while in the host country
• A special allowance to attend international conferences during the period of the fellowship
• A return ticket from the home country to the host institute for the agreed research period
• Visa expenses
• Annual medical insurance contribution
• The opportunity to attend regional science communications workshops, on a competitive basis
• Study fees (including tuition and registration fees) in agreement with the chosen host institute which is also expected to contribute
• Travel expenses to and from the host institute

Duration of Award: up to four years

How to Apply: The online application system will only accept applications complete in all parts, including the required documents. All documents must be uploaded through the online application system. Do not email any document to OWSD unless requested.

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

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

OWSD Early Career Fellowships 2019 for Women in Science and Technology Lagging Countries

Application Deadline: 30th April 2019

Eligible Countries: Science and Technology Lagging Countries


About the Award: The OWSD Early Career Fellowship is a prestigious award of up to USD 50,000 offered to women who have completed their PhDs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects and are employed at an academic or scientific research institute in one of the listed Science and Technology Lagging Countries (STLCs). The OWSD Early Career fellows will be supported to establish an environment at their institution where they can maintain an international standard of research and attract scholars from all over the world to collaborate.

Type: Fellowship (Academic)

Eligibility: To be eligible to apply for the ECWS fellowship applicants must meet the following criteria:
1. Eligible countries

• Applicants must have been resident in one of the listed Science and Technology Lagging Countries (STLCs) for at least 5 years.
• The fellowship must be undertaken in one of the listed STLCs.

Please note this list may be subject to slight variation each year according to criteria established by our donor, IDRC, and in agreement with OWSD. Each year the list will be updated when the call for applications is opened.

2. Eligible STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)

• Agricultural Sciences
• Astronomy, Space and Earth Sciences
• Biological Systems and Organisms
• Chemical Sciences
• Computing and Information Technology
• Engineering Sciences
• Mathematical Sciences
• Medical and Health Sciences
• Neurosciences
• Physics
• Structural, Cell and Molecular Biology

3. Eligible academic qualification
PhD in one of the above listed study fields.

• PhD awarded not more than 10 years prior to application.

4. Eligible employment

• At the time of application, applicants must be already employed at the university or research institute where the project will be carried out.
• The university or research institute must be based in one of the eligible countries.
• Applicants must provide evidence that they will receive a salary from the above institute for the duration of the two-year fellowship.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• The ECWS fellowship is for two years and provides up to USD 50,000 to enable fellows to maintain an international level of research as well as initiate collaborations and partnerships with industry and the private sector.
• The ECWS fellowship does not provide for the fellow’s salary which must be guaranteed by the fellow’s institute.
• The eligible expenses are listed in the Program Webpage (see Link below).

Duration of Program: 2 years

How to Apply:

• All applications must be submitted online. 
• The documents listed in the Program Webpage (see Link below) may take some weeks to prepare, especially when they require official signatures. We strongly encourage eligible applicants start gathering all requested documentation as soon as possible.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Leading Africa Scholarship 2019 (Fully-funded for Young Africans to attend One Young World 2019 Summit in London)

Application Deadline: 15th April 2019, 5PM BST

Eligible Countries: African countries


To be taken at (country): London, UK

About the Award: The Leading Africa Scholarship is an initiative designed to ensure that outstanding young people from Africa are represented at the One Young World Summit 2019 in London.
Africa is host to the largest population of young people in the world, with over 60% of its population under the age of 25. With 72% of its labour force in “vulnerable” employment and several countries experiencing challenges of governance and violent extremism, the Fourth Industrial Revolution could provide a lifeline to this young, eager population. Given their sheer numbers, they have the ability to transform their regions, whether it be in governance, energy, infrastructure, medicine and beyond.
In the midst of these challenges and opportunities, it is young leaders who are devising meaningful strategies to build a more sustainable region. Are you one of those leaders? If so, One Young World is looking to bring you to the next annual Summit in London.

Type: Conference

Eligibility: You are eligible for sponsorship if you:

• Are between the ages of 18 – 30
• Have an evidenced commitment to delivering positive change
• Demonstrate capacity for leadership
• Are addressing key local and/or global issues in your work
• Have a track record of generating impactful and innovative ideas 
• Are a national (passport holding citizen) of one of the countries listed below

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:

• Access to the One Young World Summit 2019 in London, the United Kingdom.
• Hotel accommodation on a shared basis between 22 October and 25 October 2019.
• Catering which includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• Transport between the Summit accommodation and the Summit venue.
• Summit handouts and support materials.
• The cost of travel to and from London. Your flight to and from London must depart from and return to one and the same international airport.

Please note that if you are ultimately selected for a Scholarship and require a visa to enter the UK to attend the One Young World Summit 2019, you will be required to pay the UK visa fee yourself. The UK visa costs £93 GBP plus the applicable service charge of your local visa application centre. The costs of the visa and the applicable service charge as well as any further costs associated with the visa application (including travel to and from the visa application centre) fall on you as the participant.

Duration of Programme: 22-25 October 2019

How to Apply: Apply Here

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

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

MasterCard Foundation Youth ThinkTank 2019 for Young Africans

Application Deadline: 17th March 2019

Eligible Countries:  Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia or Ghana


To be taken at (country): Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi & Ghana

About the Award: The YTT is a group of young African researchers. They conduct research to support Foundation programming and strategy development. They are trained and mentored to conduct research, document youth needs, challenges, and aspirations, and share their findings with government, policymakers, and development practitioners.

Type: Job, Research

Eligibility:

• Nationals of the participating countries (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia and Ghana) aged 18-24 years
• Must hold valid passport and associated travel documents or demonstrate timeliness to secure them

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Salary: This is a voluntary position but honorarium of $800 will be paid for the whole period upon satisfactory accomplishment of assigned tasks

Duration of Programme:  10 months (February to November 2019 with flexibility to engage beyond this period  in an alumnus capacity participating in key activities  whenever  called upon

How to Apply: Please send a completed application form and required documentation to yttugrecruitment@restlessdevelopment.org by 17th March 2019.

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

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Mandela Rhodes Scholarships 2020 for African Students to Study at South African Universities

Application Deadline: 15th April 2019

Offered annually? Yes


Eligible Countries: open to citizens of all African countries

To be taken at (country): South African universities or tertiary institutions

About Scholarship: The Mandela Rhodes Scholarships Programme is a combination of financial support for postgraduate studies and a high quality leadership development programme, with the intention to build exceptional leadership capacity in Africa.
A Mandela Rhodes Scholarship enables a Scholar to study at a South African tertiary institution registered with the South African Council on Higher Education for an accredited postgraduate degree programme. The Scholarship is awarded for one or a maximum of two years, currently for an Honours or Masters degree.

Areas of Study: The leadership development programme is made up of the following three components.

• Three residential workshops
• Three regional group pods
• Mentoring

Type: Undergraduate, Masters .

Eligibility and Selection Criteria

• The Scholarship is open to citizens of all African countries
• The Scholarship is for postgraduate study at South African universities or tertiary institutions
• Full funding is for Honours (maximum one year) or Masters (up to a maximum of two years) or their equivalents (MBA’s excluded)
• Any individual who will be between the ages of 19 and 30 years at the time of taking up the Scholarship may apply
• Applicants must posess a first degree or its equivalent or must be in the process of completing one by 31 January 2017
• Applicants should have a history of well above average academic results
• Individuals that reflect in their character a commitment to the four principles of Education, Reconciliation, Leadership and Entrepreneurship
• The MRF leadership development activities sometimes include weekends. It is a condition of the Scholarship that attendance is compulsory

Number of Scholarships: Several

Value of Scholarship: The Scholarship covers the cost of a Scholar as follows:

• Tuition and registration fees as set by the institution;
• A study materials allowance as set by the MRF;
• Accommodation and meal allowances as set by the MRF;
• A medical aid allowance as set by the MRF;
• Economy-class travel allowance for international Scholars only from the Scholar’s home to their institution at the beginning and back home at the end of their degree programme;
• Personal allowance.

Duration of Scholarship: Full funding is for Honours (maximum one year) or Masters (up to a maximum of two years)

How to Apply: All Mandela Rhodes Scholarship applicants are to apply online via the Embark application system.

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

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

One World Media Fellowship 2019 for Journalists in Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 10th April 2019

Eligible Countries: International


About the Award: Working in film, print, audio or multimedia, our Fellows’ projects bring together integrity and creativity to present under-reported stories that break down stereotypes and build cross-cultural connections.
We guide filmmakers and journalists on a single project, and provide a supportive network of mentors and peers through the production and completion of their project.
We seek to champion diverse emerging talent, and particularly encourage submissions from BAME applicants as well as from people from and based in developing countries.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility:

• We are open to applications from all around the world.
• One World Media Fellows are aspiring filmmakers and journalists ready to take the next leap in their career reporting from developing countries. Looking for their first director role or solo investigation, our Fellows experiment and learn in a supportive environment.

Number of Awards: We select 12 Fellows each year, and we reserve at least 3 spots for international Fellows from and based in developing countries.

Value of Award:

• £1,000 production grant
• Executive Producer for your project
• Career mentorship
• Workshops and webinars by industry experts
• Fair Reporting and Security Guidance
• Introductions to commissioners
• Network of like-minded Fellows and Alumni

How to Apply: How To Apply

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

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

New Hope for People Suffering from Depression

Cesar Chelala

The FDA approval of the drug esketamine is a significant advance in the treatment of depression, a mood disorder. Esketamine is particularly effective for those that have been resistant to conventional treatment or who are at imminent risk of suicide. The drug is a nasal spray that could be self-administered by patients but under the supervision of health care professionals. Esketamine can bring relief to millions of patients all over the world.

Like ketamine, a related drug, esketamine, in addition to its anesthetic effects, is a rapid-acting antidepressant, whose medical use was started in 1997. On February 12, 2019, an independent panel of experts recommended that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approve the use of esketamine, as long as it is administered in a clinical setting to ensure patient safety.

Depression has been called a “democratic disease” since it affects people of all social and economic strata. Abraham Lincoln suffered from prolonged periods of depression, which didn’t stop him from becoming one of the most admired presidents in U.S. history.

A study of the first 37 U.S. presidents (1776-1974) by Jonathan Davidson, of Duke University Medical Center and colleagues concluded that half of them had been afflicted by mental illness, and that 24 percent met the criteria for depression, including James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Franklin Pierce, and Calvin Coolidge, in addition to Lincoln.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, more than 300 million people were affected by depression worldwide in 2015, equivalent to 4.4 percent of the world’s population. Nearly 50 percent of all people diagnosed with depression are also diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Depression is also a major contributor to suicide, which numbers approximately 800,000 globally annually. In the U.S., 44,000 people die by suicide every year.

Depression is a state of low mood which can affect a person’s thoughts, behavior, feelings, and sense of well-being. Its symptoms include sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, and altered appetite and sleep. Many depressed people have feelings of dejection and hopelessness that may drive them to suicide. According to a person’s condition, it may be a short-term or a long-term affliction.

At some point in their lifetime, 15 percent of the adult population will experience depression. At any given year, five percent of the U.S. population experiences seasonal depression. Among women, one in seven experiences post-partum depression; about half of them start experiencing symptoms during pregnancy.

Depression can happen at all ages. It can begin during childhood or during the teenage years. As happens also among adults, girls are more likely to experience depression than boys. Although in the U.S. there has been an increase in teenage depression, there has not been a parallel increase in their treatment. Because symptoms of depression among teens are often missed by their parents and teachers, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends regular depression screenings for all adolescents and youngsters ages 11 to 21.

Clinical depression among the elderly is also common, affecting 6 million Americans ages 65 and older. Among the elderly, depression is frequently confused with the effects of other illnesses, and the medicines used to treat them. Studies in nursing homes of elderly patients with physical illnesses show that depression substantially increases the risk of dying from those illnesses.

Aside from the effects on health and on people’s well-being, depression exacts a heavy economic toll on individuals, families and on society as a whole. The total economic cost of depression in the U.S. is estimated to be $210 billion annually. That includes decreased productivity, medical expenses, and indirect medical costs.

Although there are known, effective treatments for depression, fewer than half of those affected by it receive such treatments. As depression is on the rise globally, the approval of a drug to treat cases resistant to treatment is most welcome, and necessary, news.