NSA surveillance program exposed by Edward Snowden ruled illegal by US Ninth Circuit

Kevin Reed

A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion on Wednesday that ruled illegal the US government surveillance program that collected metadata from every international and domestic phone call and was exposed by Edward Snowden in 2013.

The decision said that the National Security Agency’s bulk phone record collection program “may have violated the Fourth Amendment and did violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (‘FISA’) when it collected the telephony metadata of millions of Americans, including at least one of the defendants.”

Phone call metadata is the information about the calls such as the phone numbers and duration of a call, but not the content of the conversations themselves.

Although the ruling said the surveillance program was against the law, the Ninth Circuit upheld the conviction of four Somali immigrants—who were also US citizens—of providing financial assistance to a “foreign terrorist group.” The ruling states that “suppression is not warranted on the facts of this case” and “we affirm the convictions in all respects” because, “the metadata collection, even if unconstitutional, did not taint the evidence introduced by the government at trial.”

The case against the four Somali men—Basaaly Saeed Moalin, Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud, Mohamed Mohamud, and Issa Doreh, of San Diego—began in October 2010 and was based, in part, on recorded phone calls of Moalin that took place in 2007 and 2008. The men were convicted by a jury on February 22, 2013 of giving $10,600 to al-Shabaab, which was identified by the US government as a foreign terrorist organization in March 2008.

Significantly, the Ninth Circuit ruling reviews the impact of the Snowden revelations on the convictions of the four men. It states, “Months after the trial, in June 2013, former National Security Agency (‘NSA’) contractor Edward Snowden made public the existence of NSA data collection programs. One such program, conducted under FISA Subchapter IV, involved the bulk collection of phone records, known as telephony metadata, from telecommunications providers.”

The ruling explains that public officials, who were defending the NSA phone call surveillance program in the face of public outrage over the Snowden exposures, boasted about how that “the program had played a role in the government’s investigation” of Moalin. Specifically, then-FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the NSA program had “provided us a telephone number only in San Diego that had indirect contact with an extremist outside the United States.”

This information then led to the defendants’ filing a motion for a new trial on September 5, 2013, arguing that Moalin’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures had been violated. The motion for a new trial also argued that “the government had failed to provide notice of the metadata collection or of any surveillance of Moalin it had conducted under the FISA Amendments Act.”

The lower court denied the motion on November 14, 2013 on the grounds that the “public disclosure of the NSA program adds no new facts to alter the court’s FISA. .. rulings.” The court also ruled that the telephony metadata program did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The defendants appealed this decision to the Ninth Circuit on October 29, 2015.

The bulk phone record collection program was but one of the mass electronic surveillance operations of the NSA and CIA exposed by Edward Snowden. The whistleblower smuggled an estimated 1.7 million documents out of a clandestine NSA facility in Honolulu, Hawaii on micro secure digital cards and shared portions of them with news outlets.

Snowden’s exposures proved that the US government, in cooperation with the so-called Five Eyes partners (UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada), had built a global electronic spying apparatus. The documents showed that this apparatus was not only gathering phone metadata but had electronic surveillance tools that were capturing in real time the email, phone call, text messaging and online browsing activity of anyone, anywhere in the world.

Responding to the court’s opinion, Edward Snowden tweeted, “Seven years ago, as the news declared, I was being charged as a criminal for speaking the truth, I never imagined that I would live to see our courts condemn the NSA’s activities as unlawful and in the same ruling credit me for exposing them. And yet that day has arrived.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, one of several organizations that supported the appeal, welcomed the court’s ruling. Patrick Toomey, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, said, “The ruling makes plain that the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records violated the Constitution. The decision also recognizes that when the government seeks to prosecute a person, it must give notice of the secret surveillance it used to gather its evidence. This protection is a vital one given the proliferation of novel spying tools the government uses today.”

The ruling by the Ninth Circuit regarding the NSA’s bulk collection of phone call metadata—a program the government claims as of 2015 is no longer in use, but which is but the “tip of the iceberg” of unconstitutional surveillance activities of US intelligence—raises many more questions than it answers. While the Ninth Circuit opinion most definitely does not indicate that the US courts are now going on the offensive against the undemocratic practices of the surveillance state, the decision does point to ongoing divisions within the ruling establishment over US intelligence matters.

It should be pointed out as an important political fact that none of the US courts involved in the case of Moalin and his associates questioned the role of US imperialism in Somalia. While all of the courts supported the claims that Somali defendants were supporting “terrorism,” the Ninth Circuit Court ruling states, “In March 2008, the United States designated al-Shabaab a foreign terrorist organization. A key figure in al-Shabaab, Aden Hashi Ayrow, was killed in a U.S. missile strike on May 1, 2008.”

In any case, during his podcast on Thursday, right-wing Representative Matt Gaetz (Republican from Florida) called for President Trump to pardon Snowden, saying, “As of today, the case has never been stronger, that Edward Snowden deserves a pardon from President Trump,” adding, “If it were not for Snowden, we might not know today that our own government was engaged in an activity that now a federal appellate court has deemed illegal.”

Gaetz also said that pardoning Snowden would be a good political move for Trump because Libertarians in key swing states would support the president if he did so.

At the same time, those sections of the US political establishment with close ties to US intelligence, including Attorney General William Barr who said he was “vehemently opposed” to a pardon for Snowden, consider the whistleblower a “traitor” who should be brought back to the US and executed.

Both Democrats and Republicans, as well as the corporate media, ferociously attacked the idea floated by President Trump that he was taking “a good look at” pardoning Snowden. For example, a right-wing publication founded by Bill Kristol called TheBulwark.com, wrote on August 20, “The prospect of a presidential pardon for Snowden, whose revelations about the National Security Agency’s foreign and domestic surveillance techniques were disclosed at his personal whim rather than through democratic audit, is a befitting offering from a chief executive whose flagrant criminality and contempt for the democratic process will be his most enduring legacy.”

Washington slaps sanctions on International Criminal Court prosecutor

Bill Van Auken

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a new round of sanctions Wednesday, personally targeting the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, for daring to proceed with an investigation into war crimes committed by US military forces and intelligence agents in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the “war on terror.”

The sanctions, which are the sort typically reserved for alleged terrorists or drug traffickers, are also being imposed against Phakiso Mochochoko, head of the ICC’s Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division and a senior aide to the prosecutor.

Judges of the International Criminal Court

After years of blocking the prosecution, on the grounds that the pursuit of the case would be fruitless because of the refusal of Washington and its puppet regime in Kabul to cooperate, an ICC panel of judges ruled in March that Bensouda could proceed with the probe.

The Trump administration responded in June with an executive order imposing punitive sanctions, including freezing assets and imposing travel restrictions, not only against Bensouda and other ICC officials, but their family members as well.

Pompeo gave no reason for this latest escalation of the attacks on the court, outside of the charge that “they continue to target Americans.”

The US secretary of state, who acts as Washington’s lead bully boy in all such threats against international institutions and US rivals, warned that “Individuals and entities that continue to materially support those individuals risk exposure to sanctions as well.” This threat would potentially penalize anyone turning to the ICC over war crimes and human rights abuses, or anyone supporting prosecution of such crimes, in any country in the world.

Washington has treated the ICC with unconcealed hostility since its founding in 2002. Not only refusing to recognize the court’s jurisdiction, it directly threatened it with retaliation against any attempt to hold US officials or personnel accountable for the criminal acts of militarism that have killed and maimed millions across the Middle East over the past three decades.

With overwhelming bipartisan support, Congress passed legislation in 2002 cynically referred to in Washington circles as the “Hague invasion act,” named for the Dutch city where the ICC is headquartered. It authorized the use of military force to free any US citizen or citizen of a US-allied country held by the court for trial.

In a Fox News interview Wednesday night, Pompeo described the ICC as “a group of political hacks in The Hague, a place that is threatening our kids who served in Afghanistan, our young men and women who served and fought there.” He said that Washington would not allow “a rogue court with lawyers that are frankly corrupt and political” to “prosecute Americans who engaged in America’s fight for freedom in Afghanistan.”

This “fight for freedom in Afghanistan” has directly claimed the lives of at least 175,000 Afghans, while leading to many more indirect deaths, leaving many more maimed and displacing millions. The two-decade-long dirty colonial-style war has seen indiscriminate US bombings, death squad night raids and the rampant brutality exposed in the operations of the so-called Kill Team operating in the US Army’s 5th Stryker Brigade, systematically murdering civilians and mutilating their bodies, taking fingers and parts of their skulls as “trophies.”

Among the charges that are being investigated by the ICC prosecutors relating to this “fight for freedom” are those based on evidence that US personnel “committed acts of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, rape and sexual violence” against detainees in Afghanistan.

The court has ruled that the nexus of this evidence allows the prosecutor to pursue similar charges related to US “black sites” where detainees were tortured and killed, including in Poland, Romania and Lithuania. It could also extend to the infamous US torture center in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, where US military torturers were reassigned after operating in Afghanistan.

While the US does not recognize the court, Afghanistan formally did so, giving the ICC jurisdiction to investigate crimes committed on its soil, including by citizens of other countries.

For all of Pompeo’s bluster about protecting “our kids,” Washington’s real concern is that the ICC investigation will implicate officials at the highest levels of government, given the involvement of the White House, the Justice Department and the Defense Department in authorizing US war crimes in Afghanistan under the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. No one has ever been held accountable for these crimes.

The US puppet regime in Afghanistan has also sought to block the ICC prosecution, claiming that it is conducting its own investigations of war crimes. This is absurd on its face as it has granted a blanket amnesty to its own war criminals and signed a Status of Forces Agreement with the US government fore-swearing any prosecution of crimes committed by US occupation forces. Washington has demanded similar guarantees from governments all over the world where US troops are deployed.

The latest round of sanctions against the ICC prosecutor and her aide drew a sharp rebuke from the Court, which called the action “unprecedented.” In a statement, the ICC said that they represented “serious attacks” on the rule of law and “another attempt to interfere with the Court’s judicial and prosecutorial independence and crucial work to address grave crimes of concern to the international community.”

The European Union also condemned the action as an attempt “to undermine the international system of criminal justice by hindering the work of its core institutions.” Peter Stano, spokesman for EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell, told the media, “We are standing by the ICC and we are not happy to see steps which are going against the activities of the ICC.”

Even Washington’s closest European ally, the British government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, felt compelled to issue a tepid criticism, with a spokesman saying, “The UK regrets the measures taken by the US against ICC employees. These officials must be able to carry out their work independently and impartially, without fear of sanction.” London itself could face charges before the ICC for war crimes committed by its forces in Iraq.

Until now, the International Criminal Court has confined its investigations largely to Africa, which accounts for virtually all of those indicted or arrested by the court since its founding nearly two decades ago.

That the US now confronts the possibility of being hauled before the dock has infuriated not only the Trump administration, but the American ruling establishment as a whole. Washington has repeatedly made clear that its militarist aggression in the Middle East and elsewhere will not be bound by the Geneva Conventions or any other form of international law against war crimes.

The vicious response to the ICC probe is an expression of Washington’s escalating pursuit of its predatory aims by means of unilateral military force—including against its so-called “great power” rivals. The deepening crisis of US capitalism has only made it more reliant on war crimes to defend its interests against threats both at home and abroad.

Germany’s trade unions and municipalities prepare to slash wages of public service workers

Peter Schwarz

Not long ago, politicians from all of Germany’s main political parties were gushing in their praise for nurses, teachers, bus drivers, sanitation workers and other public service employees, who have carried out vital social services during the Corona pandemic under massive stress and enormous dangers, while receiving miserable wages. At the end of March, the German parliament (Bundestag) even gave a standing ovation to these workers at the suggestion of its president, Wolfgang Schäuble.

Five months later, the same parties are in the process of fleecing public sector employees once again, and are being actively supported by the main public service union, Verdi.

Warning strike in Darmstadt during Verdi’s 2018 bargaining round

Contract bargaining for the 2.5 million municipal and federal employees began in Potsdam on September 1. As is the usual practice, the first meeting served to survey the terrain and generate a lot of empty noise. Two further rounds of negotiations are planned for September 19–20 and October 22–23.

Verdi’s demands, even if measured against the usual modest standards of the union, are minimal, and guarantee the further impoverishment of public workers. Verdi, which also negotiates on behalf of smaller unions, such as the teachers’ union GEW and the police union, is demanding a 4.8 percent pay hike, or at least €150 more per month, together with a reduction in working hours in the east of the country by one hour, to match the 39-hour week worked in the west.

This is significantly less than Verdi’s initial demand in the last round of contract bargaining two and a half years ago and, as then, the union has no intention of realising its demand.

In 2018, Verdi demanded 6 percent more pay for a period of 12 months and a minimum increase of €200. The union was responding to the explosive mood among public sector employees who, after years of wage stagnation, had carried the main burden of the multi-billion-euro bank bailout following the 2008 financial crisis and the government’s “black zero” (i.e., no new debts) policy. Along with low wages, which barely covered daily living costs (particularly in large cities with exploding rents), workers were struggling with dilapidated buildings and facilities and did large amounts of overtime due to a chronic shortage of personnel with all the attendant stress.

To diffuse anger, Verdi organised a series of toothless limited strikes and protests at the time, in which tens of thousands took part. The contract then signed by the union amounted to a slap in the face for all public sector workers.

On paper, the contract referred to 7.5 percent more pay—but this increase was distributed in several stages over a period of 30 months! Converted to an annual rate the increase barely covered inflation. The increase was also distributed very unevenly. Preference was given above all to well-paid specialists who can earn much more in the private sector. Lower wage groups, however, failed to obtain the €200 that Verdi had originally demanded as an immediate increase—even after the 30 months had passed.

The fact that Verdi is now entering contract negotiations with an even lower demand indicates that far more extensive attacks on public sector employees have already been worked out in backroom talks. As was the case after the 2008 financial crisis, public service workers are expected to reimburse the billions pumped into the major corporations and money markets by the German government and European Central Bank in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The chief negotiator for municipal employers left no doubt about this. “Actually, we should cut salaries in view of the difficult situation,” the mayor of Lüneburg, Ulrich Mägde (SPD), told the FAZ newspaper. He added he did not want to go so far, but declared that “the demands of the unions are completely exaggerated and there is nothing to distribute.” He also stated that a reduction of working hours in the east of the country from 40 to 39 hours was “unacceptable.”

Reinhard Sager, president of the municipal umbrella organisation, Deutscher Landkreistag, urged the unions to abandon their demands. It would be irresponsible, he said, to demand billions in times of tax shortfalls and crisis packages.

For its part, Verdi signaled its support. “We understand the environment,” said Christine Behle, who is responsible for public services on the union’s executive. “But we don’t want employees to be left behind either,” she added cautiously.

Verdi boss Frank Werneke made clear in Potsdam that the union was ruling out industrial action in the current round of contract talks. “I am not threatening with strikes” and “we do not want any escalation,” he assured, as long as “employers present a constructive offer at a very early stage.”

Verdi had gone so far as to propose delaying the contract negotiations by several months in exchange for a one-off payment, which would have further reduce the size of the pay increase. But municipal employers rejected the offer.

One year ago, Werneke a Social Democrat, replaced Green Party member Frank Bsirske as the head of Verdi. Under Bsirske’s leadership, Verdi had played a major role in imposing wage and job cuts in the public sector, the catastrophic consequences of which have become so apparent in the coronavirus crisis. More than any other bureaucrat, Bsirske embodies the transformation of unions from reformist workers organisations into company managers who suppress the class struggle and discipline workers. Werneke, who served as Bsirskes’ deputy for 17 years, is ensuring that this policy continues in a seamless fashion.

The public service contract bargaining comes as class antagonisms are intensifying enormously in Germany and around the world. By opening up schools without effective protective measures and boosting production, governments are putting countless lives at risk to ensure increased profits for the big corporations and banks. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are at stake in the auto, engineering and supply industries, not to mention the mass loss of jobs in the country’s service and cultural sectors.

There is growing resistance among workers, teachers, parents and students to these inhumane policies. In their attempts to resist, however, those affected come up against a wall of resistance from all of the parties represented in the Bundestag as well as from the unions. They are all determined to defend the interests of the “economy,” i.e., the fortunes of the rich elites at the expense of the needs of the majority.

The Socialist Equality Party calls on workers in all sectors to build a network of action committees, independent of the unions, to prepare a general strike against the opening up of schools and the policies of the ruling class. The public service contract bargaining round should be used to advance this initiative. Verdi must not be allowed to once again stab public service workers in the back.

Germany is reopening all schools despite rising coronavirus infections

Marianne Arens

According to scientific studies, the lockdown in the spring saved millions of lives throughout Europe. Now, however, since the end of the summer vacations, schools and day care centres are being reopened with virtually no restrictions, although the number of daily coronavirus infections almost quadrupled from early July until mid-August.

In mid-August, when voluntary testing among those returning from travel abroad and in the vicinity of schools increased significantly, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported about 1,500 new infections daily. In the first days of September, the seven-day average remains over 1,200 cases per day: On Wednesday, 1,256 new infections were registered in 24 hours and on Thursday, 1,311. The COVID-19 death toll in Germany reached 9,400 on Thursday, with eight more deaths on Wednesday alone.

Across Europe, the number of infections topped four million this week, with devastating case numbers in Russia, Spain and the UK. In France, too, up to 5,000 new infections are currently being registered daily. In the whole of Europe, around 216,000 people have died of the disease so far.

Pupils crowding around a school in Dortmund-Hacheney

For some weeks now, more and more young people, children and adolescents have been infected with the dangerous COVID-19 disease. The average age is at its lowest level since the beginning of the pandemic.

On Tuesday, Charité virologist Christian Drosten resumed his NDR podcast. He confirmed that the rising number of cases since July is real and not just, as is often claimed, due to the increase in tests. The actual frequency of infections in the population is probably underestimated. “It may be that the RKI underestimates the virus,” said Drosten.

He warned that a critical threshold could quickly be reached because of new infections. One should “not close one’s eyes” to this. He outlined a situation in which, as is currently the case in France, there are significantly more cases every day.

Systematic contact tracing and isolation are of course important. But if this gets out of control, the health authorities will have to react, once again imposing a lockdown and restricting contact and travel, he said. It is already foreseeable that “we will have more hospital admissions in a month’s time. If we wait until the intensive care units are full, it will be too late.”

The virologist explained that “this infectious disease spreads very strongly in clusters”; that it is in “temporal and local clusters” that infections accumulate. He emphasized that, although we do not always know exactly where the virus is, we do know quite well what contributes to its further spread: “The more people are in a room, the better the virus can spread,” said Drosten. Fifteen to 20 people who stay close to each other for a long time in one room can become a dangerous cluster. The virologist cited fitness studios, family celebrations, unofficial techno concerts or similar situations as examples.

Even more important, however, is what he did not explicitly mention: the reopening of schools and day care centres. The danger here is obvious: the currently overcrowded day care centres and the general in-person teaching in schools without social distancing and the compulsory wearing of masks in class will inevitably lead to numerous new infections.

Figures produced by the teachers’ group #BildungAberSicher (#EducationButSafely) shows that there have already been around 600 cases of infection at schools and 179 at day care centres in Germany since the reopening of schools. In the most recent case, at the Freiherr von Stein secondary school in Düsseldorf, 20 students tested positive for coronavirus after a school trip. They belonged to a group of 55 students who had gone on a four-day bus trip through Upper Bavaria in mid-August.

On Monday, a teacher in Templin (Brandenburg) also tested positive. On the same day, Bremen (Lower Saxony) reported two cases of coronavirus among the city’s students. On Wednesday, a ninth grader in Hesse fell ill with COVID-19, whereupon the affected school in the Hersfeld-Rotenburg district sent the entire teaching staff and 111 students into quarantine.

Increasingly, teachers, educators and parents are being forced to accept the reopenings against their will, or to send the children to school if they do not want to lose their jobs, places at university or the children’s access to education. In Berlin, some teacher trainees are confronted with being deprived of the teaching materials they need to study their additional subjects if they do not participate in classroom instruction.

Politicians from all parties in the Bundestag (Germany’s federal Parliament) are pushing through the risky reopening policy with the help of the trade unions, especially the GEW and Verdi. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the state government under Armin Laschet declared the compulsory wearing of masks in class on September 1 to be irrelevant. On August 27, three days earlier, GEW state chairwoman Birgit Koch had published a statement in which she criticized the compulsory wearing of masks in classrooms as a serious obstacle to teaching.

The GEW has not raised a single demand for coronavirus protection in the current collective bargaining round covering two-and-a-half million public employees. Instead, prominent union members such as Verdi member Ulrich Mägde, who is also the Social Democratic Party (SPD) Mayor of Lüneburg, are pushing through the attacks on teachers and education staff as negotiators for the municipal employers.

In Berlin, the senator (state minister) for education, Sandra Scheer (SPD), also a Verdi member, stands for the merciless enforcement of school reopenings. While she herself is working from home, she strongly criticized the Gerhart Hauptmann high school, which suspended classes for a day due to a coronavirus outbreak. It was “disproportionate to close down entire schools at once,” the senator admonished.

The policy of reopening schools is accompanied by a shrill propaganda campaign trivializing the risks. A blatant example of this is a guest commentary in the taz, the Green Party’s house journal, jointly written by Dieter Janacek, a Green Party member of the Bundestag, and Kristina Schröder (Christian Democratic Union, CDU), Merkel’s former federal minister for family affairs. Schröder represents the neoliberal think tank INSM (New Social Market Economy Initiative), a lobbyist for business associations.

“Every society must take a certain risk during the pandemic,” the two demand, “otherwise we would not be able to act at all.” And even more explicitly, “The millions of working hours lost weaken our economy.” They put profits above lives when they write, “There will also be infections within schools and kindergartens… As a society, we should be prepared to accept this to a certain extent this time.”

They justify their inhuman demands with phrases such as, “The younger the children, the lower the risk of infection,” and “today, we know that the risk of healthy children falling seriously ill due to an infection is almost zero.” This is reminiscent of US President Donald Trump, who insists on reopening schools because children are “definitely immune to this disease.”

These are all flat-out lies. As is now known, not only can children spread the virus for weeks at a time, but they are at risk and can die from COVID-19, or the infection can leave them with lifelong damage.

According to a European-wide study, which Die Zeit reported at the end of June, four of 582 sick minors between the ages of three and 18 years died of COVID-19. A significant number of the young patients developed a severe illness and 8 percent had to be treated in an intensive care unit.

In a series posted on the World Socialist Web Site, physician Benjamin Mateus has compiled scientific findings that can help educators, students and workers protect themselves and join the common struggle against the virus. In particular, he has clearly refuted the claim that children are immune to COVID-19 or are not contagious.

Regarding government propaganda and the reopening policies motivated by economic interests, Mateus writes that this is “not a policy based on science, but a political endeavor phrased in scientific jargon to lull the population to adapt themselves as fait accompli that which was preventable and remains still stoppable.”

But, he continues, this requires recognizing “that on a global scale, socialism is the cure for eradicating this pandemic, a disease that erupted as a byproduct of conditions created by capitalism.”

Millions reject UK government’s return to work call as COVID-19 cases escalate

Robert Stevens & Paul Bond

The Johnson government is intensifying its drive to reopen the economy despite mounting proof of the rising dangers of infection, and in the face of mounting popular opposition.

Its response to the pandemic has been driven from day one by a vicious “herd immunity” policy and indifference to the deaths of tens of thousands.

After the government abandoned all national lockdown measures from July 4, coronavirus infections surged in many densely populated areas. The number of new cases averaged more than 1,000 each day for most of August. In the first week of September increases are officially already edging towards 2,000 a day. Analysis by King’s College London—using data taken from four million app users—shows that this rate has already been reached—an increase from the 1,300 cases per day recorded last week.

Many office workers are refusing to risk their own lives and that of their families by returning to unsafe workplaces. At the beginning of last month, a survey by Morgan Stanley revealed that only 34 percent of UK office workers had returned. In London, that figure dropped to 29 percent. As of this week, that figure had risen to just 37 percent. This compares with the return of over three-quarters of employees in Germany, Italy and Spain, and 84 percent in France.

A survey by academics at Cardiff and Southampton universities reported that 90 percent of respondents would like to continue working from home “in some capacity.” A YouGov poll last week asked whether businesses, whose staff have been working from home, should be encouraging their return to the office. Only 31 percent thought they should.

Last week, Transport for London (TfL) reported a 17.2 percent increase in Tube passengers over the previous week—but this was nearly 30 percent lower than the same period last year. TfL reported a 22.2 percent increase in bus journeys on the previous week, down 54.3 percent on the same period last year. Figures provided by the private train operating companies reveal that on Tuesday this week there were three million fewer passengers traveling compared to the equivalent day in 2019.

Daily Mail front page headline: “THEY’RE BACK AT WORK... WHERE’S REST OF UK?”

Incensed, the Daily Mail led its front-page Wednesday with a photo of children returning to school, alongside a picture below of an almost empty Paddington rail station in London. Its headline read, “As thousands of children return to school, railways, roads and offices stand empty: “THEY’RE BACK AT WORK... WHERE’S REST OF UK?”

Writing in the Daily Mail, Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), made clear the drive to reopen schools “is a vital first step to enable parents to go back to work… they must stay open wherever possible.” The result of this criminal policy will itself fuel the increase in infections, with 10.3 million pupils and 1.5 million teachers and school staff returning to the classroom from Tuesday—nearly 18 percent of the entire population of the UK.

By yesterday, outbreaks had been reported in 100 UK schools. There have been 73 outbreaks in Scotland’s schools, which were reopened on August 11 by the Scottish National Party government. In Northern Ireland there have been 15 outbreaks and in Wales one outbreak. Even though schools in England had only been open for two days, by Thursday 5 outbreaks were recorded and by Friday 11 schools reported infections—more than a doubling in a single day.

Many school pupils will use buses and other forms of public transport, with Transport for London already declaring that measures to limit passenger numbers do not count for school services, which are permitted to be full to capacity.

Many of the new cases of the virus are connected to international travel—like the seven confirmed cases on a tourist flight from Greece to Wales last week. This week, Scotland and Wales demanded that arrivals from Portugal and parts of Greece self-isolate, whereas England and Northern Ireland did not. This is despite Portugal’s seven-day infection rate increasing from 15.3 to 23 per 100,000 people—above the threshold of 20 where a quarantine is supposed to be applied.

The Tories and their counterparts in Scotland and Wales have for weeks imposed local lockdowns—described idiotically by Johnson as a “whack a mole” strategy in reference to the arcade game. These were put in place with the government insisting that it would not countenance reverting back to a national lockdown and without the testing and tracing strategy required to combat the virus.

Imposed haphazardly, with contradictory rules, these “lockdowns” have had virtually no impact in stopping the spread of the disease. Lockdowns have been put in place whereby two different households are not allowed to gather in one household, yet the same households can go to the pub together or travel freely to somewhere a few miles away where lockdown rules do not apply, to meet who they please, go to cafes, shop, etc. Residents can also go on holiday abroad so long as they avoid sharing hotel rooms with people they do not live with!

The absurdity of the entire system is seen in the cases of Bolton and Trafford in Greater Manchester. Greater Manchester, comprising a population of nearly three million people in two cities and eight towns, was put under lockdown at the end of July, along with large parts of east Lancashire and West Yorkshire.

On Tuesday night, the populations of Bolton and Trafford (over 430,000 combined) went to bed under conditions of a lockdown. Just hours later lockdown measures in the towns were due be lifted. But on Wednesday afternoon, Health Secretary Matt Hancock was forced to keep restrictions in place after “reviewing the latest data” showing “infection rates increase more than 3 times in Bolton in under a week, and double in Trafford since the last review.”

After being in a local lockdown for over four weeks, it was revealed Wednesday that Bolton had the highest infection rate in England, with a rate of 76.5 per 100,000 people in the week ending August 31. In the last seven days, 220 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded in Bolton—a spike of 340 percent from the week beforehand.

The growth in the infection rate could see millions more people—over an even larger area of northern England, with a population affected larger than that of Scotland and Wales—placed under local lockdown.

Large parts of the North East of England, including County Durham including Darlington, Teesside, South Teesside and North Yorkshire have been added to Public Health England’s “hotspot” map after an infection rate surge.

One of the country’s largest cities, Leeds in West Yorkshire, was this week listed as an “area of concern” and close to lockdown after a surge to 29.4 infections for every 100,000 people. Over 40 cases were identified on Wednesday. Last week, the infection of 20 staff at a distribution depot of the Greggs bakery chain in Leeds forced its closure.

The government is only able to push its pro-big business agenda because of the collusion of the Labour Party and the trade unions. On Wednesday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer reminded Johnson that as the government prepared to open schools, he sent him “a private and confidential letter offering to help try and move this forward in a way that would ensure consensus and confidence…” before complaining “and I haven’t even had a reply.”

Workers must assert their own interests and oppose the homicidal agenda of the ruling class. What is required is the building of rank and file safety committees in every workplace and school, linking the fight for workplace safety with the transformation of society on a socialist basis.

New pandemic projections place US death toll at over 400,000 by end of the year

Benjamin Mateus

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), a research institute working in the area of global health based at the University of Washington in Seattle and often cited by the White House on COVID-19 trends, recently updated their projections on pandemic deaths. It stated that cumulative deaths expected by January 1 are 410,000, meaning they expect close to 225,000 more deaths from now until the end of the year. In their “reference scenario,” or what they think will most likely happen, 300,000 deaths will be tallied by New Year’s Eve.

IHME bases their estimate on the change to the autumn and winter seasons as well as “declining vigilance of the public” to adhere to recommendations to wear masks and maintain social distancing. By December, they forecast that daily deaths will approach 3,000 per day. They also warn that “if herd immunity strategy is pursued, namely no further government intervention is taken from now to January 1, then the death toll could increase to 620,000.” Such numbers would inundate all the health care services throughout the country and mobile morgues would once again be a common sight.

The almost casual reference to such a scenario is not surprising, but one that the working class should heed with great alarm. The callous suggestion that the declining use of public masking is somehow the fault of the population is malicious in light of every effort by this administration, the political parties of the Wall Street financial embezzlers and public agencies—the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Health and Human Services—which have all worked in concert to ensure that markets are sustained at the cost of risking the population to a viral contagion that remains rampant, fast-moving and deadly.

World map of COVID-19 cases as of September 4

The globe is fast approaching 27 million cases of COVID-19, with over 877,000 deaths. According to the Worldometer coronavirus dashboard, the United States has had 6.37 million cases and 192,000 deaths in a little more than six months since the first confirmed death in Washington state. The seven-day moving average has settled at just under 42,000 cases per day as deaths have begun to decline slowly, with close to 900 per day.

Reports have indicated that rural communities are one of the hardest-hit and fastest-growing areas in the nation for the COVID-19 outbreak. There is a clear correlation between the opening of schools and universities with the rise in cases seen in these regions.

Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci and others have urged universities to convert dorms and residence facilities to quarantine and isolation sites to care for students who have contracted COVID-19. The concern is that if they are sent home it will further fuel community transmission and endanger students’ parents and families. To suggest that these events were not foreseen is the essence of criminal recklessness.

To place the policy of herd immunity into its proper but grotesque context, presently death due to COVID-19 has become the third leading cause of death in the United States, trailing heart disease, with 650,000 deaths in 2017, and cancer with 600,000 deaths. A complete disregard of any containment efforts, according to the IHME forecast, would push COVID-19 to the lead in almost a dead heat.

World map of cumulative COVID-19 deaths September 4

This prediction would also place COVID-19 deaths comparable to the fatalities suffered during the 1918 influenza pandemic, which took 675,000 lives in the US. With only eight states having more than 10 percent of their population infected with COVID-19—Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts—means a significant portion of the population remains vulnerable before herd immunity can be achieved.

This week, the CDC suddenly announced that states should prepare to distribute COVID-19 vaccines as soon as the end of October, advising that health care workers, workers designated as essential, national security “population” (read military, police and government agencies), and those residing in long-term facilities would receive priority. This announcement was in conjunction with President Trump’s statement at the Republican National Convention that a vaccine may be ready before year’s end.

CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, speaking with Yahoo Finance, said, “Right now I will say we’re preparing earnestly for what I anticipate will be reality … that there’ll be one or more vaccines available for us in November, December—and we have to figure out how to make sure they’re distributed in a fair and equitable way across the country.” This is simply a face-saving hypocritical aside.

By all accounts, every expert knowledgeable about the COVID-19 vaccine trials has stated that a vaccine against the virus will not be available until after the end of the year, in a best-case scenario. Dr. Stephan Hahn of the FDA has continued to voice that he would be willing to authorize an experimental vaccine before phase three clinical trials are complete. Currently, there are three phase-three trials in the US, those developed by Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

In a letter, Medscape Editor-in-Chief Dr. Eric Topol said, regarding Hahn’s statements, “I’m writing because I’m gravely concerned about your leadership of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The circumstances of your statements in recent days have led to a crisis of confidence. Not only has your credibility been diminished, but so has that of the FDA, its 15,000-plus staff members and, most importantly, your ability to oversee the health interest of the American people.”

The ability to transfer millions of doses of vaccines to the US population will be hampered by the same incompetence that has impacted the delivery of personal protective equipment and masks to health care workers. This is the same incompetence that failed to protect nursing homes from the ravages of the infection that have killed so many of the elderly population and the same criminal neglect that is forcing schools and universities to open for business.

The Moderna vaccine requires storage temperatures of minus four degrees Fahrenheit; for Pfizer’s, a frigid minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit. In a note from SVB Leerlink analysts to investors, “These storage conditions would make traditional office or pharmacy administration very difficult. These conditions could be met at tertiary hospitals and laboratories and could be accommodated in intensive one-day vaccination events at such sites, but this would still only cover a fraction of the healthy population.”

In the race for a vaccine, the US, the European Union, Japan and the UK have made agreements to purchase at least 3.7 billion doses from their manufacturers, nearly monopolizing all production and distribution at the expense of the billions living in the poorest nations.

The IHME’s predictions for the globe by January 1 indicate a massive loss of life will begin to occur. They expect that a total of 2.8 million globally will succumb to the infection, or “1.9 million more from now until the end of the year.” Daily deaths could reach as high as 30,000 per day. They write, “The increase is due in part to a likely seasonal rise in COVID-19 cases in the Northern Hemisphere. To date, COVID-19 has followed seasonal patterns similar to pneumonia, and if the correlation continues to hold, northern countries can anticipate more cases in the late fall and winter months.”

The ruling elites should be warned that they will be facing a winter of discontent.

German imperialism and the strange case of Alexei Navalny

Peter Schwarz

On August 20, the pro-Western Russian politician Alexei Navalny fell ill on a flight to Moscow, Russia. After he was transferred to a hospital in Berlin, the German government announced categorically that he had been poisoned with a “Novichok” nerve agent.

Politicians and media outlets in Western countries, and above all in Germany, have declared that the Russian government is responsible for Navalny’s poisoning, and have escalated their calls for a confrontation with Russia. A certain pattern is repeating itself. An incident takes place, and immediately it is declared by the media outlets that “Putin” or “Assad” is responsible, requiring an immediate response.

Even the most routine homicide case involves a great deal of investigation before the alleged perpetrator is publicly named. But in this case, the entire Western media immediately and unanimously concluded who is to blame.

Assuming Navalny was poisoned, one would think there would at least be a range of suspects. Is it remotely possible that someone would have poisoned Navalny not because they support the Putin regime, but because they oppose it?

After all, the German government is under immense pressure from the United States to stop the construction of the Nord Stream II gas pipeline, and the latest events have already accelerated calls for an abandonment of the project.

Germany has historically looked upon Eastern Europe as its sphere of influence, or to use Hitler’s term, “Lebensraum.” Now, almost eighty years since the start of Operation Barbarossa, which led to over 27 million Soviet deaths, Germany is once again leading the charge for a conflict with Russia.

In an interview with the Rheinische Post newspaper, German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer explicitly threatened the Russian government with retaliation.

The “Putin system” is an “aggressive regime, which seeks without scruples to enforce its interests by violent means and repeatedly violates the international norms of behaviour,” she said. The poisoning of Alexei Navalny is proof that in Russia, chemical weapons that are outlawed are used against people. The Putin regime is thus “on the same level as regimes, such as that in Syria, which have used chemical weapons against their own civilian population.”

The unsubstantiated and in many cases thoroughly disproved allegations that the Syrian government deployed chemical weapons against civilians have repeatedly served as pretexts for the Western powers to launch air strikes on the country.

The rhetoric is equally aggressive on the opinion pages of the main newspapers. The German financial daily Handelsblatt raged on August 25 that it must be made clear “that the West has a bite as well as a bark, and that its approach of cozying up to Moscow is at an end.” On September 3, Der Spiegel demanded, “The time for toughness is now. Now is the time to hurt the man in the Kremlin.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel threw fuel on the fire on Wednesday, when she declared at a press conference that German army toxicologists had proven “beyond doubt” that Navalny was the victim of a crime and had been poisoned by a nerve agent from the Novichok family. She delivered an ultimatum to the Russian government to “answer very serious questions” and announced that the European Union and NATO would take joint action.

Both organisations responded immediately to Merkel’s demands. In a statement on Thursday, the EU threatened Russia with sanctions. In a letter to the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell, 107 European Parliament deputies demanded an investigation “within the structures of the United Nations or European Council” to “investigate the real background to this crime.” The initiative for the letter was taken by the German Green deputy Sergey Lagodinsky.

It would be the height of naivety to believe that the possible poisoning of Navalny is the reason for this aggressive campaign against Russia. His case merely serves as a pretext to intensify the offensive against Russia that NATO has long been pursuing. Germany in particular is exploiting the case to take a further step towards its long-cherished goal of reemerging once again as a major military power.

Nothing said about the Navalny case by the media or politicians can be taken at face value. The hypocrisy of the alleged concern over his fate is impossible to overstate.

After the murder of the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, and the Slovakian investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancé, there was no talk of sanctions, even though strong evidence pointed to the involvement of powerful circles within the government and big business. Both countries are members of the EU and NATO.

Just this week, the Slovakian businessman Marian Kocner was acquitted by a court of Kuciak’s murder, even though several witnesses identified him as having ordered the journalist’s assassination. The Saudi regime was never confronted with the threat of sanctions after it ordered the murder and dismemberment of oppositional journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its embassy in Istanbul.

No evidence has yet been presented to prove “beyond doubt” that Navalny was poisoned by a nerve agent from the Novichok family. The laboratory in Munich that presented the evidence is neither neutral nor independent. It is under the command of the German army, which is playing a leading role in NATO’s military build-up against Russia and has a direct interest in discrediting the Russian government. Twenty years ago, the German foreign intelligence agency (BND) played a major role in “proving” the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which served as a pretext for the US-led war on Iraq but was later proven to be without foundation.

But even if one accepts that Navalny was poisoned, this in no way proves the involvement of the Putin regime. Novichok was produced in Soviet laboratories during the 1970s and 1980s, but after the dissolution of the Soviet Union it was, like everything else, obtainable with money. For example, it is known that the BND purchased a sample of Novichok from a Russian military scientist in the 1990s and passed it on to its Western counterparts, suggesting that they are in a position to produce Novichok. The nerve agent has also been discovered in private hands and has been used to settle scores among Bulgarian gangsters.

In addition, it is inexplicable why the former intelligence agent Putin would be so foolish as to first poison Navalny, then allow him to leave for a German clinic two days later, where he must have assumed that the poison would be discovered.

As the World Socialist Web Site explained in an article this week, Navalny has ties to right-wing extremists, oligarchs competing with the Kremlin, and Western intelligence agencies. He has many enemies who had an interest in disposing of him. It is also possible that he tread on the toes of one of his mentors, who may have seen the attack as an opportunity to discredit Putin.

In 2014, the German ruling class drew the conclusion that it was necessary to assume more “international responsibility” and launch a major military build-up. “Germany is too large to comment on world politics from the sidelines,” said then-Foreign Minister and current German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the Munich Security Conference.

Since then, the country has launched a massive rearmament programme, participated in several military interventions in the Middle East and Africa, and joined the NATO military build-up on Russia’s borders. The revival of militarism was accompanied by the trivialisation of the Nazis’s crimes and the strengthening of far-right forces, like the Alternative for Germany. With the coronavirus pandemic, these developments have intensified.

Already prior to the Navalny affair, the German Society for Foreign Affairs (DGAP) published an aggressive comment from its president, Tom Enders, calling for Germany to pursue a “courageous and combative” foreign policy. Enders was head of Airbus before switching to DGAP. Airbus, along with Boeing, is not only the world’s largest producer of civilian aircraft, but also Europe’s largest arms manufacturer.

The fact that German imperialism is now turning against Russia follows an historical pattern. In its struggle for “living space in the east,” the Nazi regime invaded the Soviet Union and sought to exterminate large sections of the Soviet population. In its deepening conflict with Russia, the German bourgeoisie is drawing on these criminal traditions once again.

UK Government Chevening British Library Fellowship 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 3rd November 2020.

To Be Taken At (Country): UK

About the Award: The Chevening British Library Fellowship is a collaboration between the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the British Library, offering international experts a year-long professional project-based placement. Fellows will have the privilege of working with the extensive library’s collections, and benefit from the broad range of professional expertise of library staff. Please note that this fellowship is not suitable for those wanting to pursue their own research.
Fellows will undertake a period of professional project-based activity at the British Library, receiving support and supervision from library staff. Please note that this fellowship is not suitable for those wanting to pursue their own research.
For the 2021/2022 academic year, two placements are on offer and will provide fellows with experience in strategic and policy work relevant to a national library. There is one placement per theme.

Theme 1 – Cataloguing Harari Sound Recordings

This fellowship is available in the following countries:
Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Somaliland, or Yemen and currently reside in country

Theme 2: Latin American Indigenous Languages in Early Printed Books

This fellowship is available in the following countries:

• Colombia
• Ecuador
• Peru
• Mexico

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: To be eligible for a Chevening British Library Fellowship, you must:

• Demonstrate the potential to rise to positions of leadership and influence
• Demonstrate that you possess the personal, intellectual, and interpersonal attributes reflecting this potential.
• Be a citizen of the above-listed countries.
• Return to your country of citizenship at the end of the period of the fellowship.
• Have a postgraduate level qualification (or equivalent professional training or experience in a relevant area) at the time of application.
• Have significant professional and/or academic research experience (at least five years).
• Be currently employed or a currently enrolled PhD candidate (PhD must not be with a UK/EU or USA university).
• Provide evidence of meeting at least the minimum English language abilities for Chevening Awards.
• Not hold British or dual British citizenship.
• Not be an employee, a former employee, or relative of an employee (since July 2016) of Her Majesty’s Government (including British Embassies/High Commissions, the Department for International Development, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office), the British Council, or a staff member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities.

Note: Immediate relatives are defined as parents or step-parents, siblings or step-siblings, children or step-children, spouse, civil partner or unmarried (where the couple have been in a relationship akin to marriage or civil partnership for at least two years).
Please note that applicants who have previously received financial benefit from a HMG-funded scholarship or fellowship are eligible to apply after a period of five years following the completion of their first HMG funded award. In these cases, applicants will be required to demonstrate their career progression from that point.

Number of Awards: 2 (1 per Theme)

Value of Award: 

• 12-month period of project-based activity at the British Library
• Living expenses for the duration of the fellowship
• Return economy airfare from their home country to the UK
• Allowance package for fellowship-related activities
• Up to £1,000 for approved project-related expenses

Duration of Programme: The fellowship starts in September 2021 and is for a 12-month period of project-based activity at the British Library.

How to Apply: Apply here before 3 November 2020.

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Chevening Scholarships 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 3rd November 2020 at 12:00 GMT (midday)

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible African Countries: Developing countries

To be taken at (country): UK Universities

Eligible Fields of Study: Chevening Scholarships are awarded across a wide range of fields; including politics, government, business, the media, the environment, civil society, religion, and academia in any UK University

About Scholarship: Chevening Scholarships are awarded to individuals with strong academic backgrounds who also have demonstrable leadership potential. The scholarship offers financial support to study for a Master’s degree at any of the UK’s leading universities and the opportunity to become part of an influential global network of 44,000 alumni. There are approximately 1,500 Chevening Scholarships on offer globally for the2018/2019 academic cycle. These scholarships represent a significant investment from the UK government to develop the next cohort of global leaders.
Prior to starting your application for a Chevening Scholarship please ensure you have the following ready:

• Essential: Three different UK master’s course choices
• Optional: English language test results (if you’ve already met the requirements) 
• Optional: UK master’s university offer (if you’ve already met the requirements)

Scholarship Offered Since: 1983

Eligibility: To be eligible for a Chevening Scholarship you must:

• Be a citizen of a Chevening-eligible country
• Return to your country of citizenship for a minimum of two years after your award has ended
• Have an undergraduate degree that will enable you to gain entry onto a postgraduate programme at a UK university. This is typically equivalent to an upper second-class 2:1 honours degree in the UK.
• Have at least two years’ work experience (this may be up to five years for fellowship programmes, so please refer to your country page for further details)
• Apply to three different eligible UK university courses and have received an unconditional offer from one of these choices by 15 July 2021.

Number of Scholarship: 1,500

of Scholarship: A full Chevening Scholarship award normally comprises:

• payment of tuition fees;
• travel to and from your country of residence by an approved route for you only;
• an arrival allowance;
• a grant for the cost of preparation of a thesis or dissertation (if required);
• an excess baggage allowance;
• the cost of an entry clearance (visa) application for you only;
• a monthly personal living allowance (stipend) to cover accommodation and living expenses. The monthly stipend will depend on whether you are studying inside or outside London. It is currently £917 per month outside London and £1134 per month inside London (subject to annual review).

Duration of Scholarship: One year

How can I Apply? To apply for a Chevening Scholarship, you must complete and submit an online eChevening application form.
It is important to go through the application instructions on the scholarship webpage before applying.

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Sponsors: Chevening Scholarships are funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), with further contributions from universities and other partners in the UK and overseas, including governmental and private sector bodies.

Important Notes: The process of selecting Chevening Scholars takes a minimum of eight months from the application deadline to when scholars are conditionally selected for an award.

Government of Ireland Research Masters and PhD Scholarships 2021

Application Deadline: 22nd October 2020

Eligible Countries: National and International

To Be Taken At (Country): Ireland

About the Award: The aim of the Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship, hereinafter referred to as the Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship, is to support suitably qualified research master’s and doctoral candidates pursuing, or intending to pursue, full-time research in any discipline.
A number of targeted scholarships are offered in collaboration with strategic funding partners.

Type: Masters, PhD

Eligibility:

• Applicants must fulfill the following criteria:
  
  
  • have a first class or upper second-class honours bachelor’s, or the equivalent, degree. If undergraduate examination results are not known at the time of application, the Council may make a provisional offer of a scholarship on condition that the scholar’s bachelor’s, or the equivalent degree result is a first class or upper second-class honours. If a scholar does not have a first class or upper second-class honours bachelor’s, or the equivalent, degree, they must possess a master’s degree. The Council’s determination of an applicant’s eligibility on these criteria is final;
  • must not have had two previous unsuccessful applications to the programme, including strategic partner themes. This includes applications since 2010 to the EMBARK Scheme previously run by the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology, and the Government of Ireland Scholarship Scheme previously run by the Irish Council for Humanities and Social Sciences;
  • in the case of applications for a research master’s scholarship, applicants must not currently hold, or have previously held, a Council Postgraduate Scholarship;
  • in the case of applications for a doctoral degree scholarship, applicants must not currently hold, or have previously held, any Council Postgraduate Scholarship other than those which would enable them to obtain a research master’s degree
• Applicants will fall under one of two categories based on nationality and residency. For category one, applicants must meet BOTH of the following criteria:
• be a national of a European Union member state, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein or Switzerland
  AND
• have been ordinarily resident in a European Union member state, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein or Switzerland for a continuous period of three of the five years preceding 1 October 2020.

All other applicants will fall under category two.
While the majority of scholarships will be awarded to applicants who fall under category one, a proportion of awards will also be made to exceptional applicants who fall under category two. Please note that the Council may request documented evidence of an applicant’s nationality and residence.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• a stipend of €16,000 per annum
• a contribution to fees, including non-EU fees, up to a maximum of €5,750 per annum
• eligible direct research expenses of €2,250 per annum

Duration of Program:

• Research master’s degree: 12 months
• Structured research master’s degree: 24 months
• Traditional doctoral degree: 36 months
• Structured doctoral degree: 48 months

How to Apply: Potential applicants should read the 2021 Terms and Conditions carefully to ascertain whether or not they are eligible to apply. Indicative versions of the applicant, supervisor and referee forms are provided for information purposes only. All participants must create and submit their forms via the online system.

Visit Program Webpage for Details