Apple, Surveillance Technology And The Police State

Jon Kofas

In the battle between a giant multinational corporation known for its record of tax evasion around the world as well as its hypocrisy of manufacturing in Asia not because of low wages but “talent availability”, APPLE is not yielding to the FBI/Justice Department request for hacking into the cell phones because the big winner will be SAMSUNG and the other ten largest cell phone companies in the world. APPLE has argued that the US government wants to unlock the cell phone that the shooters in the San Bernardino killings used. However, the goal of the US government under Obama claiming to be the protector of civil liberties is to gain access to all cell phones and carry out surveillance for all users at will. This is not only a constitutional issue that essentially touches on the Fourth Amendment – right to privacy – but it also opens a Pandora’s box because other governments would demand same access as the US has. When it became known that the NSA was spying at home and abroad using the giant tech companies of Silicon Valley, the position of Obama administration officials was that foreigners were not protected under the Fourth Amendment, while US citizens needed to understand that national security is above their Constitutional rights.

On 16 February 2016, the US government convinced a California federal judge to have Apple reveal encryption security features in its cell phones. APPLE has been fighting back both with public opinion campaigns as well as using its lobbying efforts in Congress as a counterweight to the Justice Department. Because it is well known that APPLE along with GOOGLE and all major tech companies had secret agreements with the US government to conduct illegal surveillance at home and globally, it seems somewhat puzzling at this juncture why APPLE is fighting the Justice Department. Is APPLE so interested in protecting citizens for idealistic reasons, for the sake of furthering democracy, or is it simply a case of protecting its global market-share?

Thus far, no government in the world has made the kind of demands of APPLE that the US has made. However, the US of course invokes American Exceptionalism against the background of the “war on terror”, just as it invoked anti-Communism during the Cold War when civil liberties were readily trampled. However, that they are asking APPLE to provide code access to cell phones clearly indicates that the Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department and the FBI have not been doing their jobs as effectively as they claim. Moreover, the question is where does surveillance stop? If there is no privacy of any kind, as we have discovered after the Edward Snowden revelations regarding National Security Agency violations of the Fourth Amendment, then why not suspend the Constitution altogether and declare a State of Emergency? Why go through the motions and the thin faced of a democratic society at all?

For APPLE the argument is hardly the constitutional rights of citizens but global market share. I repeat that if APPLE yields on this issue, the other twelve major cell phone makers in the world will prevail in the global market, most notably SAMSUNG. It is a myth that APPLE or any cell phone maker is concerned about privacy when these dozen large phone companies around the world have been violating the privacy of consumers for many years by illegally collecting and commercializing information of their users without their knowledge. APPLE along with SAMSUNG is among the biggest violators when it comes to privacy, so it stretches one’s imagination to come up with reasons why it is fighting the FBI/Justice Department now. If there was a financial incentive for APPLE to give the FBI what it wanted, it would have done as secretly as it collects information and never discloses it to its users. However, there is no incentive, but there is massive potential harm from the competition.

The America people know very well that their government violates the constitution in the name of national security and it does so randomly and not just in extreme cases such as that involving the unique incident of the San Bernardino case. The surveillance state would not have been possible in the absence of the tech companies cooperating with government. This is not an issue of whether is the US is moving closer to a police state. By its own criteria as defined in the Constitution the US has been practicing police state methods that go back to the early Cold War when Communism was used as the justification. Today, it is terrorism, which ironically the US helps to strengthen by its own policies in Islamic countries, including Syria where ISIL has been operating with the considerable support of US allies in the last five years. After all, there was no ISIS before the US and its EU and regional Middle East allies decided to overthrow Assad in Syria. Even when the Russians were bombing ISIS targets, the US and its allies were critical, giving the impression to ISIS that the priority was removing Assad not ISIS.

The APPLE issue reveals very clearly that the more technology dependent a society becomes, the more it slips down the road of a police state at home because it is pursuing militarism abroad. This does not mean that technology in and of itself is a bad thing – no Luddite thesis here – but that the use of technology by corporations and the state makes it easier to have a police state. Civil liberties are eroding very rapidly in the US and one reason the country ranks at about the same level as Turkey when it comes to social justice is because its practices are about as democratic. The “security hoax” which the government has been pursuing at home and abroad has actually helped to strengthen not just the military industrial complex but tech companies that receive multi-billion contracts from government agencies. The state-corporate nexus has been responsible for the evolution toward a police state that has become more necessary than ever as society is becoming increasingly polarized socioeconomically. Security is the last resort of the state to defend welfare capitalism that accounts for the downward social mobility in America and the increasing alienation of citizens who believe their government serves the top ten percent of the wealthiest people –

63% of Americans say money and wealth distribution is unfair

These attitudes are substantially unchanged over past 30 years

Slight majority of 52% favor heavy taxes on rich as fix

http://www.gallup.com/poll/182987/americans-continue-say-wealth-distribution-unfair.aspx

(For more on how technology promotes police state methods see: http://thedailycoin.org/?p=63700;https://www.corbettreport.com/police-state-gadgets-and-the-technology-of-enslavement/; http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/the-daily-need/are-we-becoming-a-police-state-five-things-that-have-civil-liberties-advocates-nervous/12563/)

100% Renewable Energy: What We Can Do In 10 Years

Richard Heinberg

If our transition to renewable energy is successful, we will achieve savings in the ongoing energy expenditures needed for economic production. We will be rewarded with a quality of life that is acceptable—and, perhaps, preferable to our current one (even though, for most Americans, material consumption will be scaled back from its current unsustainable level). We will have a much more stable climate than would otherwise be the case. And we will see greatly reduced health and environmental impacts from energy production activities.

But the transition will entail costs—not just money and regulation, but also changes in our behavior and expectations. It will probably take at least three or four decades, and will fundamentally change the way we live.

Nobody knows how to accomplish the transition in detail, because this has never been done before. Most previous energy transitions were driven by opportunity, not policy. And they were usually additive, with new energy resources piling onto old ones (we still use firewood, even though we’ve added coal, hydro, oil, natural gas, and nuclear to the mix).

Since the renewable energy revolution will require trading our currently dominant energy sources (fossil fuels) for alternative ones (mostly wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and biomass) that have different characteristics, there are likely to be some hefty challenges along the way.

Therefore, it makes sense to start with the low-hanging fruit and with a plan in place, then revise our plan frequently as we gain practical experience. Several organizations have already formulated plans for transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy. David Fridley, staff scientist of the energy analysis program at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and I have been working for the past few months to analyze and assess those plans and have a book in the works titled Our Renewable Future. Here’s a very short summary, tailored mostly to the United States, of what we’ve found.

Level One: The Easy Stuff

Nearly everyone agrees that the easiest way to kick-start the transition would be to replace coal with solar and wind power for electricity generation. That would require building lots of panels and turbines while regulating coal out of existence. Distributed generation and storage (rooftop solar panels with home- or business-scale battery packs) will help. Replacing natural gas will be harder, because gas-fired “peaking” plants are often used to buffer the intermittency of industrial-scale wind and solar inputs to the grid (see Level Two).

Electricity accounts for less than a quarter of all final energy used in the United States. What about the rest of the energy we depend on? Since solar and wind produce electricity, it makes sense to electrify as much of our energy usage as we can. For example, we could heat and cool most buildings with electric air-source heat pumps, replacing natural gas- or oil-fueled furnaces. We could also begin switching out all our gas cooking stoves for electric stoves.

Transportation represents a large swath of energy consumption, and personal automobiles account for most of that. We could reduce oil consumption substantially if we all drove electric cars (replacing 250 million gasoline-fueled automobiles will take time and money, but will eventually result in energy and financial savings). Promoting walking, bicycling, and public transit will take much less time and investment.

Buildings will require substantial retrofitting for energy efficiency (this will again take time and investment, but will offer still more opportunities for savings). Building codes should be strengthened to require net-zero-energy or near-net-zero-energy performance for new construction. More energy-efficient appliances will also help.

The food system is a big energy consumer, with fossil fuels used in the manufacture of fertilizers, food processing, and transportation. We could reduce a lot of that fuel consumption by increasing the market share of organic local foods. While we’re at it, we could begin sequestering enormous amounts of atmospheric carbon in topsoil by promoting farming practices that build soil rather than deplete it—as is being done, for example, in the Marin Carbon Project.

If we got a good start in all these areas, we could achieve at least a 40 percent reduction in carbon emissions in 10 to 20 years.

Level Two: The Harder Stuff

Solar and wind technologies have a drawback: They provide energy intermittently. When they become dominant in our overall energy mix, we will have to accommodate that intermittency in various ways. We’ll need substantial amounts of grid-level energy storage as well as a major grid overhaul to get the electricity sector close to 100 percent renewables (replacing natural gas in electricity generation). We’ll also need to start timing our energy usage to coincide with the availability of sunlight and wind energy. That in itself will present both technological and behavioral hurdles.

After we switch to electric cars, the rest of the transport sector will require longer-term and sometimes more expensive substitutions. We could reduce our need for cars (which require a lot of energy for their manufacture and decommissioning) by increasing the density of our cities and suburbs and reorienting them to public transit, bicycling, and walking. We could electrify all motorized human transport by building more electrified public transit and intercity passenger rail lines. Heavy trucks could run on fuel cells, but it would be better to minimize trucking by expanding freight rail. Transport by ship could employ sails to increase fuel efficiency (this is already being done on a tiny scale by the MS Beluga Skysails, a commercial container cargo ship partially powered by a 1,700-square-foot, computer-controlled kite), but relocalization or deglobalization of manufacturing would be a necessary co-strategy to reduce the need for shipping.

Much of the manufacturing sector already runs on electricity, but there are exceptions—and some of these will offer significant challenges. Many raw materials for manufacturing processes either are fossil fuels (feedstocks for plastics and other petrochemical-based materials) or require fossil fuels for mining or transformation (e.g., most metals). Considerable effort will be needed to replace fossil-fuel-based industrial materials and to recycle non-renewable materials more completely, significantly reducing the need for mining.

If we did all these things, while also building far, far more solar panels and wind turbines, we could achieve roughly an 80 percent reduction in emissions compared to our current level.

Energy infographic, YES illustration
World per capita primary energy consumption

Sources: Research from Peter Kalmus and Post Carbon Institute
YES! Magazine infographic, 2016

Level Three: The Really Hard Stuff

Doing away with the last 20 percent of our current fossil-fuel consumption is going to take still more time, research, and investment—as well as much more behavioral adaptation.

Just one example: We currently use enormous amounts of concrete for all kinds of construction. The crucial ingredient in concrete is cement. Cement-making requires high heat, which could theoretically be supplied by sunlight, electricity, or hydrogen—but that will entail a nearly complete redesign of the process.

While with Level One we began a shift in food systems by promoting local organic food, driving carbon emissions down further will require finishing that job by making all food production organic, and requiring all agriculture to build topsoil rather than deplete it. Eliminating all fossil fuels in food systems will also entail a substantial redesign of those systems to minimize processing, packaging, and transport.

The communications sector—which uses mining and high-heat processes for the production of phones, computers, servers, wires, photo-optic cables, cell towers, and more—presents some really knotty problems. The only good long-term solution in this sector is to make devices that are built to last a very long time and then to repair them and fully recycle and remanufacture them when absolutely needed. The Internet could be maintained via the kinds of low-tech, asynchronous networks now being pioneered in poor nations, using relatively little power. An example might be the AirJaldi networks in India, which provide Internet access to about 20,000 remote users in six states, using mostly solar power.

Back in the transport sector: We’ve already made shipping more efficient with sails, but doing away with petroleum altogether will require costly substitutes (fuel cells or biofuels). One way or another, global trade will have to shrink.

There is no good drop-in substitute for aviation fuels; we may have to write off aviation as anything but a specialty transport mode. Planes running on hydrogen or biofuels are an expensive possibility, as are dirigibles filled with (non-renewable) helium, any of which could help us maintain vestiges of air travel. Paving and repairing roads without oil-based asphalt is possible, but will require an almost complete redesign of processes and equipment.

Great attention will have to be given to the interdependent linkages and supply chains connecting various sectors (communications, mining, and transport knit together most of what we do in industrial societies). Some links in supply chains will be hard to substitute, and chains can be brittle: A problem with even one link can imperil the entire chain.

The good news is that if we do all these things, we can get beyond zero carbon emissions; that is, with sequestration of carbon in soils and forests, we could actually reduce atmospheric carbon with each passing year.

Doing Our Level Best

This plan features “levels”; the more obvious word choice would have been “stages.” The latter implies a sequence—starting with Stage One, ending with Stage Three—yet accomplishing the energy transition quickly will require accelerating research and development to address many Level Two and Three issues at the same time we’re moving rapidly forward on Level One tasks. For planning purposes, it’s useful to know what can be done relatively quickly and cheaply, and what will take long, expensive, sustained effort.

How much energy will be available to us at the end of the transition? It’s hard to say, as there are many variables, including rates of investment and the capabilities of renewable energy technology without fossil fuels to back them up and to power their manufacture, at least in the early stages. This “how much” question reflects the understandable concern to maintain current levels of comfort and convenience as we switch energy sources. But in this regard, it is good to keep ecological footprint analysis in mind.

According to the Global Footprint Network’s Living Planet Report 2014, the amount of productive land and sea available to each person on Earth in order to live in a way that’s ecologically sustainable is 1.7 global hectares. The current per capita ecological footprint in the United States is 6.8 global hectares. Asking whether renewable energy could enable Americans to maintain their current lifestyle is therefore equivalent to asking whether renewable energy can keep us living unsustainably. The clear answer is: only temporarily, if at all. So why bother trying? We should aim for a sustainable level of energy and material consumption, which on average is significantly lower than at present.

One way or another, the energy transition will represent an enormous societal shift. During past shifts, there were winners and losers. In the current instance, if we don’t pay great attention to equity issues, it is entirely possible that only the rich will have access to renewable energy, and therefore, ultimately, to any substantial amounts of energy at all.

The collective weight of these challenges and opportunities suggests that a truly all-renewable economy may be very different from the American economy we know today. The renewable economy will likely be slower and more local; it will probably be a conserver economy rather than a consumer economy. It will also likely feature far less economic inequality. Economic growth may reverse itself as per capita consumption shrinks; if we are to avert a financial crash and perhaps a revolution as well, we may need a different economic organizing principle. In her recent book on climate change, This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein asks whether capitalism can be preserved in the era of climate change. While it probably can (capitalism needs profit more than growth), that may not be a good idea because, in the absence of overall growth, profits for some will have to come at a cost to everyone else.

This short article only addresses the energy transition in the United States; other nations will face different challenges and opportunities. Poor nations will have to find ways to provide all their energy from renewable sources while advancing in terms of the U.N. Human Development Index. Nations especially vulnerable to sea level rise may have other immediate priorities to deal with. And nations with low populations but very large solar or wind resources may find themselves in an advantageous position if they are able to obtain foreign investment capital without too many strings attached.

The most important thing to understand about the energy transition is that it’s not optional. Delay would be fatal. It’s time to make a plan—however sketchy, however challenging—and run with it, revising it as we go.

Make Monsanto Pay

Vandana Shiva

Monsanto is in the news again. The Competition Commission of India (CCI), the country’s antitrust regulator, has recently said that it suspects a Monsanto joint venture abused its dominant position as a supplier of genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds in India and has issued an order citing prima facie violation of Sections 3(4) and 4 of the Competition Act, to be investigated by CCI’s director-general.

Monsanto also faces cases brought by state governments and domestic seed manufacturers, for the astronomical royalty it charges. In previous cases, Monsanto defended itself by saying that it was “trait fees” (for using its technology in cotton hybrids) and not royalty.

Fact is that Monsanto has viewed the laws of our land as mere hurdles in its way to swindle India and our farmers. On March 10, 1995, Mahyco (Monsanto-Mahyco) brought 100 grams of cotton seeds, containing the MON531-Bt gene, into India without the approval of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC).

Eager to establish a monopoly in India based on the smuggled MON531 gene, Monsanto-Mahyco started large scale, multi-centric, open field trials of Bt cotton in 40 locations spread across nine states, again without GEAC approval.

Article (7) of the Environment Protection Act, 1986, states: “No person shall import, export, transport, manufacture, process, use or sell any hazardous microorganisms or genetically engineered organisms/substances or cells except with the approval of the GEAC.” GMO traits, once released into the environment, cannot be contained or recalled.

Genetically engineered cotton from the trials was sold in open markets. In some states, the trial fields were replanted the very next season with wheat, turmeric and groundnut, violating Para-9 of the Biosafety Guidelines (1994) on “post-harvest handling of the transgenic plants” according to which the fields on which GMO trials were conducted should have been left fallow for at least one year.

In face of these blatant violations of Indian laws and the risks of genetic pollution India faced, the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE) filed a petition in the Supreme Court of India against Monsanto and Mahyco in 1999, for their violations of the 1989 rules for the use of GMOs under the Environmental Protection Act.

India’s laws, rightly, do not permit patents on seeds and in agriculture. This has always been a problem for Monsanto and, through the US administration, it has attempted to pressure India into changing her robust intellectual property regime since the World Trade Organisation came into existence, and continues to do so today.

Monsanto-Mahyco Biotech (MMB) Ltd collected royalties for Bt cotton by going outside the law and charging “technology fees” and “trait fee” to the tune of $900 million from marginal Indian farmers, crushing them with debt.

In 2006, out of the Rs 1,600 per 450 gram package of Bt cotton seed (Rs 3,555.55/kg), almost 80 per cent (Rs 1,250) was charged by MMB as “trait fee”. In stark contrast, before Monsanto destroyed alternative sources of seed (including local hybrid seed supply) through unfair business practices, local seeds used to cost farmers Rs 5-9/kg.

In response to the unfair pricing, the government of Andhra Pradesh filed a complaint with the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC) against MMB, pointing out that Monsanto was charging Andhra Pradesh farmers nine times what it was charging US farmers for the same seeds. MMB said the royalty it charged reflected its research and development costs for Bt cotton, admitting that they were charging royalty to Indian farmers.

Monsanto’s ruthlessness is central to the crisis Indian farmers are facing. Farmers leveraged their land holdings to buy Bt cotton seeds and the chemicals it demanded, but the golden promise of higher yield and reduced pesticide use failed to deliver.

Of the 300,000 farmer suicides in India since Monsanto smuggled the Bt gene into India in 1995, 84 per cent, almost 252,000, are directly attributed to Monsanto’s Bt cotton.

While the Government of India is suing Monsanto, the government of Maharashtra has signed an MoU with Monsanto to set up the biggest seed hub in the country in Buldana, announced at “Make in India Week”. How can a corporation breaking India, taking the lives of Indian farmers, destroying our agriculture and food security, and violating our laws be rewarded with the “Make in India” label?

For arrogantly breaking Indian laws and corrupting our regulatory systems, Monsanto must be held accountable. For the failure of Bt cotton, Monsanto must be made to pay damages to the farmers and seed companies that have had to pay “technology fees” for a failed technology.

The land that our farmers have lost to the agents selling Monsanto seeds and chemicals must be returned to the farmers’ families. All the illegal royalty collected from our farmers and India’s seed companies must be returned to India.

With its flagship product failing across the country year after year, and the dimming prospects of the super-profits the company has become used to, why would Monsanto make a large investment in Vidarbha unless it is sure of continued monopoly?

The technical expert committee has recommended that Herbicide Tolerance (Ht) and GM varieties of crops for which India is the centre of diversity, not be allowed in India. Is Monsanto counting on the GEAC approving Bayer’s herbicide-tolerant terminator mustard in contempt of the recommendations of the Technical Expert Committee? Allowing Bayer’s Ht terminator mustard will open the floodgates for herbicide tolerant crops, worsening India’s agrarian crisis and debilitating India’s food security.

Herbicide tolerance, which goes hand in hand with Monsanto’s Glyphosate based RoundUp herbicide, has failed across the world at controlling weeds, creating super weeds. Glyphosate, classified by the World Health Organisation as a carcinogen, is already being used across India and we are seeing an explosion of cancers in villages where Glyphosate is used. If we allow another failed technology and its associated poisons to further destroy India’s rural economy, and allow extraction of profits from Indian farmers, we will fail our nation and India’s future generations.

Apply for Lagos State Undergraduate Scholarship 2016

Brief description: Application is open for Lagos State Undergraduate Scholarship Award 2016 for students in tertiary institutions in Nigeria

Eligible Field of Study: Courses offered at Nigerian tertiary institutions

About Scholarship: The Lagos State Scholarship Board is the agency in charge of scholarship, bursary and other related matters within the state. It grants Scholarship awards to deserving indigenes in various tertiary institutions for full time studies in order to assist these students financially.

Scholarship Offered Since: Not specified

Scholarship Type: Undergraduate studies

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

1. All applicants must have gained full time admission into an accredited Nigerian tertiary Institution.
2. All undergraduate applicants:

• Where CGPA scale is 7.0 (e.g University of Ibadan) he /she must possess a minimum of 4.6/7.0
• Where CGPA scale is 5.0 (e.g University of Lagos) he /she must possess a minimum of 3.5/5.0
• Where CGPA scale is 4.0 (e.g polytechnics and colleges of education) he /she must possess a Minimum of 3.0/4.0
• Where applicant is a medical student in 200L,  option i, ii and iii applies
• Where applicant is a medical student in 300L and above a minimum of Credit is required in their result

1. All applicants must be in their second year or above
2. All applicants must have completed LASRRA Registration
3. All applicants must have a signed letter of identification from their respective Oba
4. All applicants must have a signed letter of identification from their respective local government
5. All applicants must purchase a Scholarship application form. (Payment of N2,000.00 for Local Scholarship) through the Office of Special Adviser onEducation, Block 5, 3rd Floor, Alausa Secretariat.
6. All applicants must upload clear scanned copies of all documents to ascertain the genuineness of their claims. Documents like:

• Admission Letter
• Valid ID Card
• Letter of identification from Oba
• Letter of identification from Local Government
• SSCE result
• Lagos State Resident Registration Agency(LASSRA) registration card
• Passport Photograph (clear background not older than three months)
• Progress report from school stating results clearly

Number of Scholarships: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Not specified

Duration of Scholarship: Not specified

Eligible Countries: Lagos state indigenes

To be taken at (country): Nigerian tertiary institutions in and out of Lagos state

Application Deadline: 1 April 2016

Offered annually? Yes

How to Apply

All applicants are required to make a Payment of N2,000.00 for Local Scholarship through the Office of Special Adviser on Education, Alausa Secretariat.
Then take the treasury receipt to the Lagos State Scholarship Board to secure their secret voucher pins for online application. Application will not be processed without evidence of treasury receipt.

Visit scholarship webpage for details

Sponsors: Lagos State Scholarship Board

Important Notes: Application can only be submitted online from the link above.

Apply for Lagos State Postgraduate Scholarship 2016

Brief description: Application is open for Lagos State Postgraduate Scholarship Award for Masters and Doctorate studies 2016/2017

Eligible Field of Study: Courses offered at Nigerian tertiary institutions

About Scholarship: The Lagos State Scholarship Board is the agency in charge of scholarship, bursary and other related matters within the state. It grants Scholarship awards to deserving indigenes in various tertiary institutions for full time studies in order to assist these students financially.

Scholarship Offered Since: Not specified

Scholarship Type: Postgraduate studies

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

1. All applicants must have gained full time admission into an accredited Nigerian tertiary Institution for postgraduate studies (Masters or Doctorate).
2. All Post-graduate applicants:

• Where CGPA scale is 7.0 (e.g University of Ibadan) he /she must possess a minimum of 4.6/7.0
• Where CGPA scale is 5.0 (e.g University of Lagos) he /she must possess a minimum of 3.5/5.0

3. All applicants must be in their first year or above
4. All applicants must have completed LASRRA Registration
5. All applicants must have a signed letter of identification from their respective Oba
6. All applicants must have a signed letter of identification from their respective local government
7. All applicants must purchase a Scholarship application form. (Payment of N2,000.00 for Local Scholarship) throughthe Office of Special Adviser onEducation, Block 5, 3rd Floor, Alausa Secretariat.
8. All applicants must upload clear scanned copies of all documents to ascertain the genuineness of their claims. Documents like:

• Admission Letter
• Valid ID Card
• Letter of identification from Oba
• Letter of identification from Local Government
• SSCE result
• Lagos State Resident Registration Agency(LASSRA) registration card
• Passport Photograph (clear background not older than three months)
• Progress report from school stating results clearly

9. Applicant must participate in a written test conducted by Dragnet Solutions Limited in conjunction with Lagos State Scholarship Board.

Number of Scholarships: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Not specified

Duration of Scholarship: Not specified

Eligible Countries: Lagosians

To be taken at (country): Nigerian tertiary institutions in and out of Lagos state

Application Deadline: 1 April 2016

Offered annually? Yes

How to Apply

All applicants are required to make a Payment of N2,000.00 for Local Scholarship through the Office of Special Adviser on Education, Alausa Secretariat.
Then take the treasury receipt to the Lagos State Scholarship Board to secure their secret voucher pins for online application. Application will not be processed without evidence of treasury receipt.

Visit scholarship webpage for details

Sponsors: Lagos State Scholarship Board

Important Notes: Application can only be submitted online from the link above.

Federal Government Scholarship for Nigerian Undergraduate, Masters and PhD (Bilateral Educational Agreement) 2016/2017 -Overseas

Brief description: The Federal Scholarship Board by the Federal Ministry of Education of Nigeria is offering the 2016/2017 Bilateral Educational Agreement (BEA) Scholarship Awards for Undergraduate, Masters and PhD students to study Overseas

Accepted Subject Areas?

• Undergraduate level – Engineering, Geology, Agriculture, Sciences, Mathematics, Languages, Environmental Sciences, Sports, Law, Social Sciences, Biotechnology, Architecture, Medicine (very limited), etc; and

• Postgraduate level (Masters Degree and Ph.D) in all fields.

About the Federal Scholarship

The Honourable Minister of Education, is hereby inviting interested and qualified Nigerians to participate in the 2016/2017 Nomination Interview for Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) Scholarship Awards for:

• Undergraduate (UG) studies tenable in Russia, Morocco, Algeria, Serbia, Hungary, Egypt, Turkey, Cuba, Romania, Ukraine, Japan, Macedonia; and

• Postgraduate (PG) studies tenable in Russia (for those whose first degrees were obtained from Russia), China, Hungary, Serbia, Turkey, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, e.t.c.

Scholarship Offered Since: Not Specified

Scholarship Type: The Awards are for Undergraduate (UG) and Postgraduate (PG) studies.

Eligibility Criteria

• Undergraduate Scholarship:

• All applicants for undergraduate degree courses must possess a minimum qualification of Five (5) Distinctions (As & Bs) in the Senior Secoundary School Certificate, WAEC (May/June) only in the subjects relevant to their fields of study including English Language and Mathematics.
• Certificates should not be more than Two (2) years old (2014 & 2015).
• Age limit is from 18 to 20 years.

• Postgraduate Scholarship:

• All applicants must hold a First Degree with at least 2nd Class Upper Division.
• The applicants who are previous recipients of Foreign Awards must have completed at least two (2) years post qualification or employment practice in Nigeria.
• All applicants must have completed N.Y.S.C.
• Age limit is 35 years for Masters and 40 years for Ph.D.

• Since the BEA countries are non-English speaking, applicants should be prepared to undertake a mandatory one year foreign languare of the country of choice which will be the standard medium of instruction; and

• All applicants for Hungarian Scholarship must visit the website: www.stipendumhungaricum.hu.

Number of Scholarships: Several

What are the benefits?

The participating countries are responsible for the tuition and accommodation, while Nigeria government takes care of supplement, warm clothing, health insurance, research grant where applicable and take off.

How long will sponsorship last? The duration of the scholarship offer ranges from 4- 9 years depending on the level of study and the country.

Eligible Countries: Nigeria

To be taken at (country): Russia, China, Morocco, Turkey, Algeria, Romania, Serbia, Japan, Ukraine, Cuba, Greece, Czech Republic, Syria, Macedonia, Mexico, Egypt, Tunisia etc.

Application Deadline: The 2016/2017 BEA interview is dates from 7th -10th March 2016across the six geopolitical zones

Offered annually? Yes

Venue of Interview:

All eligible applicants are to report for interview at the venues scheduled for their respective Zones of origin for proper identification. Two sets of the Printed Completed application forms are usually submitted at the various interview centres with the following attachments:

• Two sets of Photocopies of Educational Certificates and Testimonials of previous schools attended with the originals for sighting;
• One certificate is accepted i.e WAEC of May/June only; • Statement of results must be confirmed by WAEC and forwarded to the Director/Secretary, Federal Scholarship Board, Abuja;
• Two copies of Birth certificate
• State of Origin/LGA certificate duly signed, stamped and dated;
• Four (4) passport sized coloured photographs on white background;
• Academic transcripts and NYSC certificates will be required from applicants for Postgraduate Studies.

How to Apply

Candidates nominated and finally selected by the awarding BEA countries will be required to submit to Federal Scholarship Board the following:

• Photocopies of Authenticated academic certificates;
• Data page of current International passport, and
• Specified Medical Reports & Police clearance certificate.

Visit the scholarship webpage for details

Sponsors

The federal Government of Nigeria through the Federal Ministry Of Education, through the Federal Scholarship Board (FSB), Plot 245 Samuel Ademulegun Street Central Business District, Abuja

Pak's Nuclear 'Normality' through External Deals: Chasing a Chimera

Manpreet Sethi

Several recent writings have recommended how Pakistan could and should be accommodated into the nuclear mainstream. Mark Fitzpatrick, a non-proliferation analyst at the IISS, London, had advocated this through his Adelphi paper entitled “Overcoming Pakistan’s Nuclear Dangers” in 2014. More recently in 2015, Toby Dalton and Michael Krepon made a similar case in a Carnegie publication entitled "A Normal Nuclear Pakistan." 

Interestingly, Pakistan’s military and diplomatic elite have been demanding the same ever since India earned itself a nuclear cooperation agreement with the USA and an exceptionalisation from the NSG. This din reached a crescendo in October 2015 just before PM Sharif was to visit Washington. US newspapers hinted at the possibility of a US-Pak nuclear deal as a means to get Pakistan to limit expansion of its nuclear arsenal. Though nothing came out of this then, Pakistan continues to voice the demand. On 12 February 2016, Pak foreign secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, lamented that a "discriminatory approach has impacted strategic stability" and argued that as a "legitimate and normal nuclear power with legitimate needs for nuclear energy," Pakistan too was entitled to a deal with US.

 As is evident from the expressions used by Western analysts and Pakistani officials, both seem to emphasise the adjective "normal" nuclear state for Pakistan. But there is a huge difference in how they use it. While Pakistan claims that it already is one, writings from US think-tanks suggest that the country could and should be offered some external inducements to change its nuclear behaviour into becoming normal. This dichotomy in approach of both is where the dilemma lies. Pakistan believes it deserves a deal while the West contends that it is offering a favour in exchange for a set of conditions. 

Dalton and Krepon have identified five conditions for such an offer. These include shifting declaratory policy from “full spectrum” to “strategic” deterrence; committing to a recessed deterrence posture and limiting production of short-range delivery vehicles and tactical nuclear weapons; lifting Pakistan’s veto on Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty negotiations and reducing or stopping fissile material production; separating civilian and military nuclear facilities; and signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty without waiting for India. The basic argument behind these demands is to put a halt to the Pakistani slide towards operationalisation of tactical nuclear weapons that, the West fears, would lead to a command and control nightmare, raising the dangers of nuclear terrorism, which are not lost on the US. 

Keeping the above in mind, the US is protecting its national interest by trying to find ways of curtailing the expansion of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. But the questions that need to be answered from a wider perspective are whether a Pakistan that believes all is fine with its nuclear behaviour and strategy can indeed be amenable to change through external inducements in the nuclear arena? Would an offer from the West change the basic drivers of Pakistan’s nuclear policy? Is it at all possible to 'positively shape' Pakistan’s nuclear posture by offering incentives from outside? 

The answer to each of these questions is in the negative because Pakistan’s nuclear posture is driven by exaggerated threat perceptions and a self-created paranoia, largely by the Army. Its nuclear strategy is premised on the projection of easy and early use of nuclear weapons, or nuclear brinksmanship or a sense of instability, including through show of battlefield use of nuclear weapons. At every opportunity, Pakistan officials do not forget to remind India and the 'concerned' West of its nuclear-armed status. All this, while Rawalpindi continues to uphold its support for terrorism beyond its own borders. Unless these drivers change, and that can only happen from within Pakistan, no influence from the outside can alter the country's nuclear posture. Therefore, to believe that offering a nuclear deal would placate Pakistan into becoming ‘normal’, is taking a rather shallow view of Pakistan’s deep-rooted security psyche. 

In fact, to do so is not even desirable since it is only likely to further postpone a much needed introspection by Pakistan's strategic community of the dangers created by its self-generated threat perceptions and sponsorship of terrorism. It could well embolden Pakistan, even make it more adventurous, seeking to push the envelope of its demands even further. The inability and unwillingness of the international community to deal with Pakistan’s past proliferation and ongoing nuclear brinkmanship with a firm hand, and instead consider offering it nuclear cooperation, contributes to the impression that countries with nuclear weapons can ‘get away with’ activities that may otherwise be considered unacceptable. International security will have to bear the consequences of this in the years to come as Pakistani behaviour is copied by others to brandish nuclear weapons as a potent bargaining chip to seek political concessions. 

Of course, the 'West' has the prerogative to grant or deny nuclear cooperation to a country based on its assessment of how this would serve its interest without violating own guidelines and international obligations. But to believe that such an offer could reorient Pakistan’s fast evolving force posture that boasts of a capability to build tactical nuclear weapons and refuses to allow negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, is certainly naive. Such a concession could most likely be interpreted and projected by Pakistani military elite as a victory of sorts and make them more risk prone, not less. This would only sustain the Army's predominance over its national security policy, including continued support to terror groups that in their mind serve a purpose. But as has been seen in the last few years, terrorists are quick to switch loyalties and cannot be straitjacketed into clear cut categories. The nuclear dangers, consequently, will only multiply. 

The only long-term solution lies in Pakistan’s reconsideration of its own threat perceptions. This propensity for harboring terrorism and using it to feed a paranoia from India cannot be changed from the outside. Pakistan has opted for a nuclear strategy that its Army considers best suited to its national interest. Therefore, its definition of national interests must change for its nuclear posture to be different. Outside inducements cannot influence this. 

To be fair, it is up to the people of Pakistan to choose their ‘normal’. It is their right and responsibility to understand the nuclear dangers they face and plan their own course correction. It has to be Pakistan’s choice to want to become a normal state, not a status that can be conferred or a condition that can be imposed from the outside by offering a nuclear deal. The West, or the rest, can only help Pakistan by offering to assist in building capacities to handle its myriad political, social and economic challenges. These are far bigger millstones around Islamabad’s neck than the imaginary phantoms that Rawalpindi conjures, essentially to sustain its own authority and influence in the domestic power structure. 

Pakistan’s well-wishers, within the country and beyond, must help reorient the national security discourse toward a broader normalisation of the state and its polity. Keeping it in good humour by bestowing goodies such as the nuclear deal or more F-16s and other conventional arms is not going to be helpful, neither to the people of Pakistan and nor to its neighbours. The only beneficiaries would be the small nuclear elite within Pakistan that has a narrow, warped view of the nation and its future. 

It is ironic that the country that was held out by the Harvard Development Advisory Group in the 1960s as a ‘model developing country’ with an average annual economic growth of 6 per cent has today degenerated into such a sad economic state. Much of this has to do with the country’s obsession with parity with India that leads to an over spending on defence, including on its nuclear weapons programme, while ignoring domestic economic growth and development. 

If things have to change, Pakistan will have to alter, first of all, its own sense of threat perceptions. It is a bit far-fetched to assume that a state that has shown such irresponsible behaviour and that yet refuses to accept its irresponsibility, nor change its behaviour, can be made normal by inducements. It is certainly like chasing a chimera of Pakistan's nuclear normality. And 'bestowing normalcy' through external sops in the absence of change will only make the prospect of real change dimmer, not brighter.

Mass shooting in Kalamazoo, Michigan leaves six dead

Joseph Lorenz

The United States woke up Sunday morning to news of yet another mass shooting, the 42nd of 2016, according to Mass Shooting Tracker. On Saturday night in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Jason Dalton, 45, shot eight people, killing six. The shootings occurred at three different sites.

The victims, who range in age from 14 to 74, were apparently chosen at random.

Dalton, a husband and father of two, had no criminal record or history of mental illness. He worked as an insurance adjuster, but also earned money driving for the ride-sharing company Uber. Investigators believe Dalton picked up and dropped off passengers in between the shooting rampage and was even looking for additional fares after killing the final victim of his nearly seven-hour shooting spree.

CNN affiliate WWMT interviewed a man who said he was a passenger in Dalton's car before the shootings started. “We got about a mile from my house, and he got a telephone call. After that call, he started driving erratically, running stop signs,” Matt Mellen told the affiliate. “We were kind of driving through medians, driving through the lawn, speeding along and then finally, once he came to a stop, I jumped out of the car and ran away.”

Mellen said he called the police, telling them, “He was surprisingly calm, I was freaking out.”

The victim of the first shooting, according to Michigan State Police, was a woman shot several times at 5:42 p.m. in an apartment complex parking lot. The woman, who was with her three children, is in serious condition but is expected to survive, according to CNN.

More than four hours later, a 53-year-old man and his 17-year-old son were killed at a Kia car dealership as they were looking at a car. Shortly afterward, Dalton pulled into the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel restaurant and opened fire on two vehicles, killing four others, ages 60 to 78, including a retired English teacher at Calhoun Community High School. A fifth victim, a 14-year-old in the passenger seat of one of the cars, is alive but in critical condition.

After two more hours, at approximately 12:40 a.m., police took Dalton into custody in downtown Kalamazoo without a conflict. Police described Dalton, who was carrying a semiautomatic handgun, as “even-tempered” at the time of the arrest.

Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting later told CNN, “These were very deliberate killings. This wasn't hurried in any way, shape or form. They're on video. We've watched the video with law enforcement. They were intentional, deliberate and—I don't want to say casually done—coldly done is what I want to say.”

The “ride-sharing company” confirmed Dalton was an Uber driver and said he had passed a background check. “We are horrified and heartbroken at the senseless violence in Kalamazoo,” Uber's chief security officer Joe Sullivan said to CNN in a statement. “We have reached out to the police to help with their investigation in any way that we can.”

Officials have provided no motive for the killings, which they describe as “senseless” and “shocking.” Local media referred to Dalton as an “average Joe.” Politicians at the local, state and national level have commenced the hand-wringing that inevitably follows a mass shooting and have already made ritualistic calls for stricter gun control and better mental health care.

No one in the media or political establishment dares or is even capable of conducting an examination of American society that would shed light on the reason why the US leads the world in such mass killings. While it is often the most psychologically fragile who snap, the regularity of these shootings points to the diseased character and dysfunction of American society as whole.

The political establishment, absorbed entirely with the enrichment of the financial and corporate elite, is impervious to the levels of social distress, which have worsened since the 2008 crash. The US has also been engaged in nearly two decades of endless wars that have coincided with the nonstop promotion of violence and the dehumanizing of the countless victims of American militarism. It is no surprise that such a poisoned atmosphere contributes to the outbreak of such violence in America.

Kalamazoo and the surrounding cities in southwestern Michigan have been hard hit by deindustrialization and deteriorating social conditions. Kalamazoo, which has a metro population of more than 300,000, had a poverty rate of 38.8 percent in 2011, putting it just below Flint (41.2 percent) and above Detroit (37.6 percent).

Between 1995 and 2010, the Kalamazoo area saw about half of its manufacturing jobs disappear, from more than 32,000 jobs to less than 18,000. A significant portion of these lost jobs were tied to the auto industry, which saw a brutal restructuring in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. The General Motors Stamping plant in Kalamazoo, which once employed 4,000 workers, closed in 1999 and the 2.2 million-square-foot space is now occupied with largely low-paying light industrial, warehouse and retail jobs.

Three of the shooting victims lived in neighboring Battle Creek. In the home of Kellogg’s and other cereal makers, 47 percent of the population, or 15,000 households, lack the means to pay for housing, child care, food and other basic necessities, according to a 2014 study on the working poor in Michigan.

West of Kalamazoo in Benton Harbor, the official poverty rate in the town of 10,000 residents is 48.8 percent and the median household income is only $18,208, compared to $48,411 for the state of Michigan as a whole. Appliance maker Whirlpool, which still has its headquarters in the town, has shut down virtually all of its manufacturing facilities. Many of the boarded up storefronts and ruined neighborhoods in the city, which was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager from 2010 to 2013, look the same as they did in 2003 when two days of riots erupted over poverty and police violence.