Iraqi regime shaken by storming of Baghdad’s Green Zone

Thomas Gaist

Hundreds of Iraqi demonstrators flooded out of Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone Sunday, ending dramatic protests that saw crowds storm the central government compound, destroying property, assaulting an Iraqi lawmaker and prompting the imposition of a state of emergency throughout the capital by Iraq’s military.

The demonstrators, whose storming of the militarized compound on the previous day had, as even the New York Times acknowledged, “hinted at revolution,” maintained silence and ceased the attacks against government property they had carried out on the previous day as they left the Green Zone, doing so under orders from Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr.

In a speech to supporters Saturday, Sadr issued populist denunciations of the country’s political elite, declaring: “The main political blocs in this country want a partisan government of sectarian quotas so they can keep their gains and keep stealing.”

Sadr said that the cessation of protests was only temporary and that another round of demonstrations is scheduled to begin Friday. He vowed that his own sizable parliamentary faction would cease participation in legislative proceedings indefinitely.

The Sadrists had earned popular sympathy through their armed struggle against the US occupation forces. In 2004, the Shia movement was drawn into the anti-American insurgency after being outlawed by US proconsul Paul Bremer for delivering aid to residents during the blood-soaked siege of Fallujah by US Marines.

The opposition of the Sadrist party to US imperialism is, however, ultimately a tactic aimed at bolstering the movement’s sectarian interests within Iraq. Sadr, the representative of a powerful Shia clerical and political family, is firmly bound to sections of Iraq’s political establishment. Reports indicate that he is engaged in behind-the-scenes discussions with Abadi.

The New York Times reported that Sadr hopes “to nudge politicians who have opposed Mr. Abadi’s efforts” and is seeking “to reinsert himself into Iraq’s political mix.”

“This isn’t necessarily al-Sadr positioning himself against Abadi, they are both looking for the same sort of process,” Baghdad-based investment analyst Stephen Royle told Bloomberg.

“It works in favor of Abadi to use Moqtada al-Sadr and public support to push through with these reforms,” Royle said.

Though quickly reined in, the demonstrations are an acute manifestation of the fact that the US-backed government stands completely discredited and hated in the eyes of the Iraqi population. Eleven years after being installed in power through elections held as hundreds of thousands of American soldiers still patrolled Iraqi streets and towns, and under a transitional administrative law authorized by US bureaucrats employed by the Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraq’s government stands on the verge of collapse.

The crisis of the Iraqi state has only intensified since the official US withdrawal in 2011, as Iranian influence in the country has grown, and sectarian conflict has intensified.

In the summer of 2014, large portions of the country, including its second most populous city, have fallen under the control of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an Al Qaeda-linked militia that emerged out of the insurgency against the Syrian government organized by Washington and its Gulf allies. ISIS subsequently consolidated control over portions of northern and western Iraq, including the cities of Mosul, Hit and Ramadi. In the past week, a wave of terror bombings claimed by ISIS rocked cities in southern and central Iraq, killing dozens of civilians.

Faced with a steep decline in economic growth, which fell to only 2.4 percent in 2015, down from 12.7 percent on average between 2000 and 2012, Abadi’s government is seeking to stabilize its rule under conditions in which the fall in world oil prices has placed massive strain on its revenues. In recent weeks, demands by Washington for an escalation of military operations, fought by Iraqi troops accompanied by US “advisors,” have intensified the diversion of resources away from civilian functions and forced a virtual shutdown of government operations.

The deliberate stoking of Sunni-Shia divisions under the US occupation as a divide-and-rule strategy has insured that central areas of Iraq remain contested by the government troops, backed by US “advisors,” and various militant groups. Armed violence continues to rage throughout Iraq on a daily basis, with at least 800 Iraqi civilians killed last month alone, on top of 1,100 killed in March, according to UN figures.

At least 55,047 Iraqi civilians were killed between 2014-2016, the UN found, with 3.2 million displaced during the same period, including more than 1 million school children.

In recent weeks, the Pentagon announced new deployments of US ground forces, Apache helicopter gunships, and artillery to combat bases in northern Iraq, where US forces are preparing a brutal assault against Mosul. In a desperate effort to prop up its ailing puppet regime, Washington is preparing to meet any opposition to the American-backed order with, as Defense Secretary Ashton Carter put it in remarks last week, “the full might of the US military.”

Class and geopolitical tensions are mounting throughout the region. The emergence of strike movements among Kuwaiti oil workers, the revival of protests in Egypt and the accelerating buildup of US combat forces on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border underscore the fact that the entire Middle Eastern political order is becoming unstuck, under the impact of a developing revolutionary crisis and wars that are increasingly coalescing into a region-wide conflagration.

Oppose the witch-hunt of Ken Livingstone!

Robert Stevens & Chris Marsden

The suspension of former London Mayor Ken Livingstone from the Labour Party in Britain on the spurious grounds of anti-Semitism is an outrageous violation of democratic rights and yet another shameless capitulation by the Jeremy Corbyn leadership to reactionary political forces.

The Socialist Equality Party in Britain has longstanding and fundamental political differences with Livingstone. But it rejects the accusation that he is an anti-Semite as a politically motivated lie. Livingstone has been active in left wing and radical causes for more than 40 years. To accuse him of anti-Semitism is not only a personal slander. The unjustified misuse of the term—reducing anti-Semitism to the level of an epithet—has the effect of trivialising a politically sinister and dangerous form of racism. Such misuse of the charge of anti-Semitism has become the stock in trade of Zionists and other right-wing forces seeking to discredit all political opposition to Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.

The political forces behind the attack on Livingstone involve an unholy alliance of the Conservative Party, Zionist groups and right-wing sections of the Labour Party itself. The support lent to it by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is yet another demonstration of his political cowardice and lack of principles.

The suspension arises out of statements Livingstone made last week while opposing a similar action carried out against another Labour Party MP, Naz Shah. After defending Shah against charges of anti-Semitism, Livingstone went on to say, “Let’s remember, when Hitler won his election in 1932 [sic] his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism. [He then] went mad and ended up killing 6 million Jews.”

Within hours, dozens of reactionary Labour Party MPs—including all three of the individuals Corbyn defeated in the party leadership contest last September—demanded action against Livingstone. Corbyn suspended him that same day, declaring that his comments were “unacceptable” and that he would have to face an investigation. “We are not tolerating anti-Semitism in any form whatsoever in our party,” Corbyn said.

As to the substance of the controversy, the worst that can be said about Livingstone’s comments is that he spoke with insufficient care. The statement that Hitler supported Zionism, without further qualification, is imprecise and challengeable on factual grounds. Hitler was a virulent anti-Semite, and whatever support he and his regime gave to Zionism was steeped in the most cynical political calculations and always subordinate to Nazi leader’s unwavering and pathological hatred of Jews. However, it is a matter of historical record that after Hitler came to power in 1933, significant sections of the Zionist movement in Germany sought an accommodation with the regime.

Dealing with this subject in his book, Nazi Germany and the Jews, the respected historian Saul Friedländer has written:

Not only did the [Nazi] regime encourage Zionist activities on the territory of the Reich, but concrete economic measures were taken to ease the departure of Jews for Palestine. The so-called Haavarah (Hebrew: Transfer) Agreement, concluded on August 27, 1933, between the German Ministry of the Economy and Zionist representatives from Germany and Palestine, allowed Jewish emigrants indirect transfer of part of their assets and facilitated exports of goods from Nazi Germany to Palestine.

Friedländer also cites a memorandum from leaders of the Zionist Federation of Germany sent on June 22, 1933, which, according to historian Francis Nicosia (author of Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany), “seemed to profess a degree of sympathy for the völkish principles of the Hitler regime and argued that Zionism was compatible with these principles.” The memorandum states:

Zionism believes that the rebirth of the national life of a people, which is now occurring in Germany through the emphasis on its Christian and national character, must also come about among the Jewish people. For the Jewish people, too, national origin, religion, common destiny and a sense of its uniqueness must be of decisive importance to its existence. This demands the elimination of the egotistical individualism of the liberal era, and its replacement with a sense of community and collective responsibility.

While the subject of Zionist relations with the Nazi regime is subject to varying interpretations, Livingstone’s statements have a factual foundation. That he has been suspended from the Labour Party for expressing his views on the matter is a violation of the most elementary democratic norms.

An article that appeared in the Observer on Sunday, written by Nick Cohen, exposes the underlying political motivation of the campaign against Livingstone. Denouncing Livingstone and Corbyn in equal measure, Cohen libeled Marxism as the political source of the Labour “left’s” supposed hostility to Jews. The Labour Party was led, according to Cohen, by “dirty old men, with roots in the contaminated soil of Marxist totalitarianism. If it is to change, its leaders will either have to change their minds or be thrown out of office.” [emphasis in original]

Cohen is a right-wing hack and venal warmonger, who defends the actions of an Israeli state run by political gangsters and war criminals. His lies are part of a concerted attempt to silence dissent and shift British politics sharply to the right.

The provocation against Livingstone occurred just days before elections to the Scottish and Welsh Assembly, to some English local authorities and for mayor of London. It was timed to inflict maximum damage on Jeremy Corbyn in the first national elections contested under his leadership.

Rather than forthrightly defending Livingstone, Corbyn immediately prostrated himself before the rightwing. His response to the anti-Livingstone campaign is that of a political coward. It demonstrates once again that Corbyn’s political role is to stifle and suppress the oppositional sentiment of the hundreds of thousands of workers and youth who elected him to the leadership of the Labour Party. Indeed, his tenure as the party’s leader has not changed Labour’s policy one iota—so much so that today the party’s right-wing feels able to plan his ouster.

Corbyn’s behavior exemplifies the lack of political principle characteristic of the entire Labour Party and its leadership. His main ally in the party, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, is already positioning himself as a possible replacement in the event of a leadership challenge. After committing any future Labour government to continued austerity measures, McDonnell attacked Corbyn for taking too long to suspend Livingstone.

Asthma - Can We Live With It?

Akanksha Sethi

Not all ailments are of the type that can be cured completely over time, even though they are not life threatening. Asthma, which afflicts an estimated 300 million people worldwide, is one such disease that cannot be cured though it can consciously be controlled. Those who keep it under check, through a proper lifestyle, diet and regular medication, are able to lead a normal life, said Professor (Dr) Surya Kant, Head of the Respiratory Medicine Department at King George's Medical University, in an interview given to CNS (Citizen News Service).

Watch this exclusive video interview with Prof Surya Kant here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lznZ3sO_80

Even as there has been a 25% increase in the number of people living with asthma during the last decade in Uttar Pradesh, and in India as a whole, Dr Surya Kant is grateful for small mercies in so much as the mortality rate due to this ailment remains minimal. “This means that the disease, though debilitating, is not fatal in most cases.”

My 21year old friend has been living with chronic asthma since his childhood. One fine day, two years ago, he unexpectedly turned blue due to shortage of breath and had to be rushed to the hospital. He was admitted there for two days and was nebulized after every six hours. Perhaps he had been negligent in taking his medication as well as precautions. But since then he has become wiser and takes the medicines prescribed by his doctor religiously and regularly. He always carries an inhaler with him wherever he goes and uses it twice daily. He told me that his sister is also living with this ailment but hers is the acquired type, while his is genetic. In most cases, acquired asthma is not as problematic as the genetic one. The person with genetic asthma has to take better care of himself because it can cause an attack almost anytime and all that a person can do is be prepared. Today, this friend of mine is an active basketball player and performs all his daily chores in the same manner as any other person. Like many others of his kind, he is a living inspiration to all those people who wrongly believe that asthma prevents one from leading a perfectly normal and healthy life.

Dr Surya Kant who is also the national President of Indian Chest Society advises that, “Inhalation therapy should be the patient’s part of life just like wearing spectacles is for someone with a vision problem. All persons living with asthma must regularly use their inhaler once every twelve hours every day, since there is no other alternative therapy to it.”

Dr Surya Kant shared that every year there is an upsurge in the number of asthma patients during the months of July and October. He attributes this to the change in season that is one of the factors which triggers asthma. An interesting fact which he shared was that intake of cold drinks and ice creams are important trigger factors for 1 in every 3 Indians suffering from asthma. His advise is that we Indians should replace intake of iced drinks and other iced products with indigenous alternatives like butter milk, and coconut water to protect the children from developing asthma. A study done in the school going children of Delhi, the capital of India, found that unregulated intake of fast food and rise in obesity are also leading to asthma in children. So one has to be careful of one’s lifestyle too.

"Since asthma is a genetic ailment, one cannot change the genotypes but can surely change the triggers. Air pollution, house dust, biogas fuel smoke and pollen grains are other common risk factors. House dust provokes the genotype to convert into the phenotype asthma. Houses should be properly ventilated and admit enough sunlight, which kills the bacteria. Carpets, heavy curtains/sofa covers, pet animals etc also create risks. There is no moisture and fungus formation if the house receives proper sunlight and oxygen. Coming to the houses that are too modern, we see a lot of sofa covers, curtains, carpets etc. All these, including pet animals, create an allergic environment for people with asthma and should be avoided," said Dr Surya Kant.

In this year's World Asthma Day webinar, Dr Jeremiah Chakaya Muhwa of the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) and member, Board of Directors, International Union Against TB and Lung Disease (The Union) lamented that asthma is often under diagnosed and, even when diagnosed, under treated. There seems to be a tendency to ignore it as it does not kill as much as other diseases. But it has massive social, psychological, economic and physical consequences. He rightly called asthma a public health problem that needs a well-coordinated public health response.

Embrace The Coming Ecological Inflection Point And Great Transition

Glen Barry

Environmental awareness must soon reach a critical mass, whereby massive societal resources are re-allocated to scale up solutions in a great ecological transition; before biosphere, social, and economic collapse become unavoidable. An approaching ecological inflection point reflects a narrow band of opportunity to repair fragmented, quivering nature, clearly at its breaking point, before it is too late.

New York City: After 25 years of ecological advocacy, I can say with certainty that I have never seen as much genuine environmental concern as I do now. This has generally not led en masse to required action such as personal dramatic emission cuts and refusal to buy all products from old-growth forests. But for the first time ecological decline including climate change is visibly apparent to a degree that it is readily known by the educated and it can’t be denied by anyone of good faith and character.

Concurrently trend lines for atmospheric and ecosystem decline are more perilous than ever. Humanity is putting the biosphere at great risk, as rampant industrial pollution and clearing of natural vegetation results in abrupt climate change occurring far faster than envisioned, and natural ecosystems failing to provide the surrounding matrix of natural services which makes life possible.

The natural family’s only hope is that an ecological inflection point occurs, whereby the impacts of biosphere collapse become so evident – perhaps as millions die from extreme storms and other depredations – while there is still time to implement sufficient solutions. At that point the human family will howl for the necessary measures to be taken to protect and restore natural ecosystems, and end fossil fuels, on an accelerated emergency basis.

The only questions are whether as ecosystem collapse becoming apparent, will we squabble for what remains as we deny ecologism, or will we remain free as we begin in earnest a great transition to green liberty? And will we have identified and prototyped, and be ready with sufficient ecological solutions, to meet human needs while maintaining a living Earth? The ecological inflection point is a narrow band of opportunity to repair fragmented, quivering nature before it is too late. We must be ready with templates for ecological sustainability, which can employ billions, as a program of ecological restoration and energy conservation are rapidly scaled.

What hope remains for humanity and her habitat as ecological awareness and collapse converge in such a manner, is whether we are able to ramp up fast enough the plethora of ecological solutions we all know about but don’t support enough. These efforts may be abetted by deep wells of global ecological resilience of which we are unaware, as the Earth is a living organism that has self-regulated for 3.5 billion year, yet whose workings remain largely unknown to her peoples.

Clearly we are already in ecological overshoot, as planetary boundaries regarding species loss, terrestrial ecosystem destruction, and industrial emissions of carbon, phosphorous, and nitrogen have already been breached; and thresholds for safe levels of human population, ozone, ocean acidity, aerosols, freshwater, and chemicals draw near.

Yet as mayhem looms, if we all came together to harness all the resources at our disposal – including from conspicuous over-consumption by the rich, and the military-industrial complex’s lucrative war making – surely we could marshal a response that allows the land, air, water, and oceans to rest, recover, and flourish thereby ensuring global ecological sustainability.

Reaching the ecological inflection point that triggers the great ecological transition before it is too late is going to require an end to greenwashing, which means accepting the gravity of our situation and necessary personal and societal changes, and confronting those that continue to greenwash for personal benefit. Celebrity climate activists jetting around to tell us to cut emissions, and large foundation fed bureaucratic environmental groups enriching themselves from old-growth forest logging, will have to be rebuked and shamed until their behavior changes.

And the voices must be amplified of those personally creating lifestyles without cars, traveling less, eating little or no meat, having one child, and limiting their consumption; and coming together to remake a society that is peaceful, just, and equitable. Ecological leadership must walk the walk.

The poor and dispossessed, as well as those that opulently overconsume, can together learn the meaning of enough. Equity does not mean everyone is equal, but everyone’s basic needs must be met as hard workers have more, but not ridiculously so to the detriment of others and the Earth. As livelihoods of the rich and the poor converge to reasonable levels of disparity, the talents of each can be harnessed to power enterprise without fossil fuels, to scale up alternative energy, even as we conserve negawatts.

Vast resources can be put into reclaiming non-productive, depauperate land with the expansion of historically accurate natural ecosystems, built upon restoring and reconnecting ecologically neglected fragments, wherever remaining natural vegetation occurs; intermingled with organic permaculture, to once again ensconce the human species within nature’s nurturing embrace.

Only by leaving fossil fuels in the ground and returning humanity to a sea of nature can biosphere collapse be avoided, and a sustainable future for human and all life assured.

As ecosystems collapse, horrendous suffering is going to become apparent. When we as a collective consciousness understand the magnitude of the situation – basically as mass human and wildlife death can no longer be ignored – we must be ready to scale proven ecological solutions swiftly and prudently. The sooner the ecological inflection point is reached, the greater likelihood we will avert complete and total biosphere collapse, and the end of being. A few extremophiles, and dandelions and cockroaches, may hang on; but complex life may end, and there is no assurance it will reemerge.

We must maximize the probability that enough nature will remain to sustain Gaia, a living Earth, which can essentially go on forever.

It is vitally important that each and every one of us commit to the great ecological transition by continuing to build awareness. That each of us becomes a leader in living well but consuming simply and with great care. And that we engage with the global growth machine to alter the means of enterprise in our image. We must work for ecological change within society and its engine of production, as only by converting business and the rich to our cause of self and ecological survival can we all prevail.

Sadly, I believe the possibility of an ecological inflection point is fading. And that the mass migration, state of perma-war, and resurgence of authoritarian fascism which we are witnessing are the result of environmental decline and resource scarcity. The sooner this can be widely recognized, the sooner we can get on with a massive program to save Earth, all her life, and thus ourselves.

Endeavour Vocational Education and Training (VET) Scholarship in Australia

Australian GovernmentDiploma/Assoc. Degree

Deadline: 30 June 2016 (annual)
Study in:  Australia
Next course starts: Jan-Nov 2017

Brief description:

The Endeavour VET Scholarship provides financial support for international applicants to undertake VET at a Diploma, Advanced Diploma or Associate Degree level in any field in Australia for up to two and a half years. VET provides occupational or work-related knowledge and skills. The courses are directly related to a trade, occupation or ‘vocation’ in which the applicant participates. These courses exclude degree and higher level programmes normally delivered by universities.

Host Institution(s):

Universities or Higher Educations Institutions in Australia.

Level/Fields of Study:

Diploma, Advanced Diploma or Associate Degree level in any field of study offered at Australian Universities

Number of Awards:

Not specified.

Target group:

Americas: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela.

Asia: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, China (People’s Republic), Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea (Republic of Korea – South), Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Vietnam.

The Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago.

Europe: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France (including Reunion), Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland).

Middle East: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.

Pacific: Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated states), Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand* (including Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau), Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna.

Scholarship value/inclusions/duration:

The scholarship value is up to $131,000. It includes travel allowance ($AUD 3,000), establishment allowance ($AUD 4,000), monthly stipend ($AUD 3,000; up to maximum programme duration on a pro-rata basis). Health and travel insurance will also be provided.  It will also include tuition fees up to the maximum study duration (up to $6,500 per semester).

The scholarship duration is 1 – 2.5 years.

Eligibility:

To be eligible for Endeavour Vocational Education and Training (VET) Scholarship, applicants must:

•  be aged 18 years or over at the commencement of their programme

•  be a citizen and/or permanent resident of a participating country (see above)

•  commence their proposed programme after 1 January 2017 and no later than 30 November 2017. Applicants who have already commenced or will commence their intended programme prior to 2017 are not eligible to apply

•  provide all relevant supporting documentation

• not currently hold or have completed, since 1 January 2015, an Australian Government sponsored scholarship and/or fellowship (directly administered to recipients by the Australian Government)

•  not apply for a category in which they have already completed an Endeavour Scholarship or Fellowship.

Application instructions:

As part of the eligibility requirements, Endeavour Vocational Education and Training Scholarship applicants must attach a formal admission letter from their proposed Australian institution. A conditional admission letter will be accepted at the time of application. Commencement must be for the 2017 academic year.

Applications are submitted through the Endeavour Online (EOL) system. The deadline for 2017 Round is 30 June 2016.

It is important to read the 2017 Endeavor Application Guidelines and visit the official website (link found below) for detailed information on how to apply for this scholarship.

Website:

Official Scholarship Website: https://internationaleducation.gov.au/Endeavour%20program/Scholarships-and-Fellowships/Pages/default.aspx

McDonald Fellowships for Emerging Countries 2016

Application Deadline: The deadline for nominations is 30 June 2016.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Emerging Countries (all countries with a low, lower middle or upper middle income) as defined by the World Bank.

To be taken at (country): Established research institution in developed countries

Brief description: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) International Federation is offering the McDonald Research Fellowship for Emerging Countries in Medical fields

Eligible Field of Study: The program will accept applications from all areas of research related to MS and encourage applications in the areas of symptom relief, rehabilitation and palliative care.

About the Award

The McDonald Fellowship was formerly known as the Du Pré Fellowship.

Every year the MS International Federation offers a number of McDonald Fellowships to young researchers from emerging countries. Fellowships enable the recipient to travel to an established research institution to work with leading researchers in MS, with a view to returning to their own country to establish a programme of MS research that involves the application of the newly learned techniques.

Offered Since: Not specified

Type: Research fellowship

Eligibility

• Candidates must be under 35 at the time of application and must be citizens of an emerging country as defined by the World Bank.
• Candidates must be in one of the following situations:
• working or studying in an emerging country at the time of nomination
• working or studying in another country on a project which started within the six months prior to nomination
• Studying in another country on a project supported by an MS International Federation grant.
• The candidate’s focus of research should be an area of neuroscience relevant to MS.
• Before nomination, candidates need to have identified a suitable project and discussed their involvement with the project supervisor of the institution.
• It is anticipated that the award may be seen as a contribution to the country from which the candidate comes, as a step toward establishing greater expertise in MS research in that country.
• The fellowship may also be used as a supplement for work related to MS by a candidate who has been accepted for training in a recognised institute (within the six months prior to nomination) but who doesn’t have enough money to cover the total cost.
• The research should be in an area that makes it likely that the studies and expertise can be transferred to the candidate’s home country.

Number of Awardees: not specified

Value of Scholarship: The fellowship consists of a two-year grant, around UK £30,000 per year, to cover travel and living costs, and an additional contribution of UK £2,000 per year to the host institution.

It is anticipated that part of the second-year grant to the host institution will be used to cover the expenses of the candidate attending the annual congress of ECTRIMS, the European Committee for Treatment and Research in MS.

Duration of Scholarship: two years

How to Apply

For more information, including a list of possible host institutions, please contact the head of international research, Dr Dhia Chandraratna, using the contact us form from the link below.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: The executive committee of the MS International Federation ‘s International medical and scientific board

Important Note: The MS International Federation requires a short report at the end of the first year of the fellowship. Second-year funding depends on the submission of this report.

Upon completion of the fellowship, a final report is required. This should detail:

• What the recipient has gained from the fellowship
• Their achievements in the project field
• The area of expertise which is being transferred back to the country of origin.

In addition, the MS International Federation requests electronic copies of papers, abstracts and posters resulting from the fellowship.

Hungry and Frightened: Famine in Ethiopia 2016

Graham Peebles

Millions of the poorest, most vulnerable people in Ethiopia are once again at risk of starvation. Elderly men and women, weak and desperate, wait for food and water; malnourished children lie dying; livestock, bones protruding, perish.

According to a statement issued by the World Food Programme (WFP) on 6th February, over 10 million of the most vulnerable require urgent humanitarian assistance. This figure was published in the Joint Government and Humanitarian Partners’ Document (HRD) in December last year, and does not take into account the seven and a half million people who annually receive support from Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme – PSNP, (established in 2005 to enable, “the rural poor facing chronic food insecurity to resist shocks, create assets and become food self- sufficient), taking the total in need to almost 18 million. The worst affected areas, according to USAID, are the pastoral areas of Afar and Ogaden Region – where people rely totally on their livestock – and the agricultural lowlands of East and West Haraghe – close to the capital Addis Ababa.

The WFP explain that the level of humanitarian need in Ethiopia has “tripled since early 2015…caused by successive harvest failures and widespread livestock deaths. Acute malnutrition has risen sharply, and one quarter of Ethiopia’s districts are now officially classified as facing a nutrition crisis.” With a shortage of food, families are forced to make children drop out of school to take up menial jobs to survive; such children, lacking a decent education, are unable to find well-paid jobs in adulthood, and so the spiral of exclusion, poverty and deprivation continues.

Poverty and Chronic Food Insecurity

Ethiopia is a large country (385,925 sq. miles), with a population of just over 101 million (13th largest in the world), which is growing at a yearly rate of around 2.5% (over double the world-wide average). Conflicts resulting in migration from the neighbouring states of Sudan, South Sudan, and Eritrea has brought an influx of refugees and asylum seekers, which according to USAID amount to more than 733,000.

More than half the population live on less than $1 a day; over 80% of the population live in rural areas (where birth-rates are highest), and work in agriculture, the majority being smallholder farmers who rely on the crops they grow to feed themselves and their families.

The people of Ethiopia have suffered chronic food insecurity for generations: the major reason, as is the case throughout the world, is poverty. Other causes are complex; some due to climate change, others result from the ruling regime’s policies. Action Aid (AA) reports that unequal trading systems are a factor. The Ethiopian government purchases crops from farmers at low, fixed prices. International organisations encourage Ethiopia to produce cash crops to export, which reduces the land available for growing domestic crops – yes, Ethiopia – where millions rely on food aid every year – exports food. The country’s top exports are Gold (21%) Coffee (19%), vegetables and oily seeds, followed closely by live animals and khat – a highly addictive narcotic.

The agricultural system itself is another major cause. Individuals do not own land; it is assigned, AA states, “according to the size of a family, and redistributed every few years.” This means that every time land is redistributed “it is divided between more people”, so each farmer gets less. The lack of investment, combined with the need for large yields from a small area, leads to soil degradation, resulting in poor harvests.

The Oakland Institute (OI) in their report on the country’s land sales makes clear that drought (15 droughts since 1965), state-fuelled armed conflict, as well as “inappropriate government policies (land tenure, access to markets, etc.), rapid population growth and lack of infrastructure,” add to the list of causes.

Land grabbing and hunger

Since 2008 the EPRDF government has been leasing huge amounts of fertile agricultural land to so-called “foreign investors’’: international corporations, domestic agents, fund managers, and nations anxious to secure their own future food security.

Detailed research by the OI in 2011 estimated that “3,619,509ha of land have been transferred to investors, although the actual number may be higher.” Incentives to investors include exemption from import taxes, income taxes and custom duties as well as ‘easy access to credit’; the Ethiopian Development Bank will contribute up to 70% towards land costs – which are extremely cheap to begin with.

Land is sold with the understanding that it is totally cleared of everything – including people, by government forces. Indigenous communities, who have lived on the same land for generations are displaced and herded into camps – the universally condemned ‘Villagization’ programme. OI state that over a million people have been affected, and that, “the loss of farmland, the degradation and destruction of natural resources, and the reduction of water supplies are expected to result in the loss of livelihoods of affected communities.” Despite this, the ruling regime maintains that the land sold – all land is state owned (with formal and informal land rights) – is unused, and is being leased off ‘without affecting farmers’.

Industrial size farms have been built and foodstuffs (not eaten by the native population) grown for export, – back to their homeland – India for example. Very little, if any, of the food grown is going into the Ethiopian food market, and there are attractive government incentives in place to ‘ensure that food production is exported, providing foreign exchange for the country at the expense of local food supplies’. Oakland found that these commercial agricultural investments, by national and multi-national companies “increase rates of food insecurity” in Ethiopia, and that, despite “endemic poverty and food insecurity, there are no mechanisms in place to ensure that these investments contribute to improved food security.”
OI makes clear that in addition to these land sales, ‘state-fuelled armed conflict’ is an underlying cause of food insecurity. One of the worst affected areas in the current famine is the Ogaden (or Somali) region in the Southeast corner of the country. The majority ethnic Somali population has been under military control since 1992. People fleeing the area report large-scale arrests of civilians, torture, rape and murder, as well as the destruction of land, cattle and property, and confiscation of humanitarian aid by government military and Para-military forces. With international media and most humanitarian aid groups denied access to the region since 2007, independent information on the conflict and the impact and extent of the current famine is in short supply.

Official duplicity

The ruling regime, that appears to be more concerned with its international image than the suffering of those in need, has presented an ambiguous, contradictory picture of the famine.

In a recent interview Arkebe OQubay, the ‘special adviser to the Prime-Minister’ told Bloomberg that the countries greatest achievement since 1984, was that “we are being able to feed ourselves. In 1984 we were struggling to feed our 40 million-population, but now we have 95 million population and we have food security.” This is pure fantasy: Ethiopia (according to most recent, 2012 figures) remains the largest recipient of food aid in the world, and millions are today at risk of starvation.

Shortly after this claim from his ‘special adviser’, the Prime Minister himself, Hailemariam Desalegn appealed for help in supplying humanitarian aid to the millions in need, saying, ESAT News report; “it is the responsibility of the international community to intervene before things get out of hand.”

The EPRDF government owns most of the media inside the country, exerts tight controls on any marginally ‘independent’ publications and seeks to restrict and condition reporting by international media. Interviewed by foreign news agencies, officials smugly reject claims of widespread human rights violations and paint themselves as a democratic government bringing economic prosperity, opportunity and stability to the country: A fabricated image, far from the truth.

With the government more or less controlling the flow of news about the situation in the drought-hit areas, detailed, open and honest information is hard to come by. The sole independent Ethiopian broadcaster ESAT News, which has reliable contacts in the country, carries the account of an aid worker who recently spent time in the worst affected regions – Afar in the North East and Ogaden in the South East. He reports that, “the famine was already taking its toll on humans and livestock………[and] that the situation in places near Jijiga and Shinile in Somali [or Ogaden] region was very serious.” He saw, children whose skins were fused with their bones at feeding centers in the regions,” and at a health center in Afdem (in central east part of the Ogaden), met “hunger stricken bony children.”

The government proudly boasts that the Ethiopian economy has been growing, by between 7% and 8% (UK GOV figures) for almost a decade, that malnutrition and famine are no longer possible and that within a decade Ethiopia will be a middle ranking power. Nevertheless Ethiopia finds itself ranked 174th out of 188 countries in the UN Human Development Index (inequality adjusted). This suggests that whatever ‘growth’ the country has achieved, it has not changed the lives of the majority of Ethiopians, and, as is evidenced by the millions suffering from hunger and malnutrition, has clearly not eradicated food insecurity – which should be the first priority of the government.
Donor response

The scale of the current crisis has led the UNOHCA to call for $1.4 billion of funding to supply emergency food and water, to ‘in excess of 15 million’ people. So far donors have been slow to come forward, prompting Save the Children’s Ethiopia Director to describe the reaction as “the worst international response to a drought that he has seen.”

Around 45% of the total has been donated, including $200 million from the ruling regime. However the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says it has less than a third of the money it needs to keep the aid coming.

America has offered some small-scale additional support, sending, CNN reports, “20 disaster experts to provide technical assistance, conduct humanitarian assessments and coordinate relief efforts with partners on the ground,” as well as “$4 million in maize and wheat seed for more than 226,000 households.” This level of assistance, whilst welcome, is nowhere near enough, and it seems the motive is far from pure. “Climate-related threats pose an urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows and potential conflicts over basic resources like food and water,” said USAID spokesman Ben Edwards. It seems the US is concerned about ‘stability’ in Ethiopia and the wider region, not human welfare; fearing that a lack of food and work may drive young people into the hands of extremist groups, and encourage migration, adding to the huge refugee flows.

The UNOCHA estimates the total current cost of worldwide humanitarian demand to be $21 billion. With Syria on fire, a huge refugee crisis in Europe, urgent demand in Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq, in addition to ongoing international development commitments (including Ethiopia), donor nation resources (and attention) is turned elsewhere.

The need for sharing

It is the poor who die of hunger related causes throughout the world; it is the poorest people in rural Ethiopia – who constitute some of the poorest people on Earth – who are currently at risk. Every day 35,000 children in the world die of starvation and its attendant causes, but we live in a world of plenty; there is no need for a single man, woman, or child, – in Ethiopia or anywhere else, to die because they do not have enough food or water to survive. Oxfam report that, the world now “produces 17% more food per person today than 30 years ago. But close to a billion people go to sleep hungry every night.” And they all live, more or less, in seven countries: India, China, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Pakistan.

Food, like water, shelter, access to education and health-care is a human right, and is enshrined as such in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Like all natural resources it should be shared equitably amongst the people of the world, so that nobody, anywhere – specifically the famine-affected regions of Ethiopia, where so many are once again in dire need – experiences food-insecurity and dies of hunger.

Big Business and the Overtime Rule: Irrational Complaints

Dean Baker

Business lobbyists have been up in arms in recent months over what they claim is President Barack Obama’s anti-business turn. They point to a number of policies and executive orders that they contend are anti-business.

Three of these policies have gotten the most attention:

* The first is a rule requiring overtime pay for salaried employees making less than $50,440 a year.

* The second is a rule requiring that financial advisers have a fiduciary responsibility towards their clients.

* The third is tightening up tax regulations so that it will be more difficult for a huge company like Pfizer to relocate to another country to avoid much of its U.S. tax liability.

In each case, the business lobbyists have complained that the new regulations will hurt business, costing jobs and leading to higher prices. In actuality, in each case, Obama is simply implementing commonsense reforms that should have been in place long ago.

This is most clear with the overtime rule. This is a question of requiring employers to pay time and a half to workers who put in more than 40 hours a week. This is part of the Fair Labor Standards Act that went into effect in 1938.

While the standard for overtime pay is straightforward for hourly workers, it is less clear with salaried workers. The issue is that salaried workers tend to have more authority and control over their time.

Furthermore, it is often difficult to determine exactly how many hours they spend on the job. Under the law, supervisory employees are therefore exempted from the requirement for overtime pay.

However, if the law exempted all salaried employees from the requirement, companies could just switch everyone from hourly pay to being salaried and thereby avoid ever having to pay overtime.

To prevent this gaming, the Labor Department has a salary floor, which essentially assumes that a low-paid employee is not really in a management position.

This is a perfectly reasonable policy, but this floor has not kept pace with inflation. Until the new Obama rule, it was set at just $23,700 a year, less than $12 an hour.

The Obama rule essentially moves that floor from a 1970s level to one appropriate today, in effect saying someone earning less than $25 an hour is not really management.

The other two changes are in the same vein. Currently many financial advisers are paid a commission to get their clients into certain investments. Most people are not terribly sophisticated on financial matters and are likely to trust the advice from a financial adviser without asking many questions.

The fiduciary rule simply says that an adviser cannot be paid a commission for putting clients into a specific investment. The adviser must act in what she understands to be the best interest of the client. Note that this does not mean that the advice cannot be mistaken. Mistakes happen. The point is to prevent corruption and deception.

The last point is straightforward. We have a corporate tax code with the expectation that U.S. companies will be subject to that tax code.

But many of our largest companies are now treating paying taxes as optional. The latest fad has seen them merge with smaller companies located in lower-tax countries abroad.

The firms can then have most of their income appear in that country and avoid paying U.S. income taxes on it. Obama put in place new rules that make it much harder to pull off this little trick.

In all these cases, Obama is proposing regulations that serve important public goals at minimal cost to business. It’s difficult to look at the evidence and take the business complaints seriously.

Sanctions and Defiance in North Korea

Mel Gurtov

Sanctions on North Korea have failed.

North Korea has now been sanctioned five times by the United Nations Security Council for its nuclear and missile tests: resolutions 1718 (2006), 1874 (2009), 2087 (2013), 2094 (2013) and 2270 (2016).  UNSC Resolution 2270 is the strongest one yet, spelling out in great detail the proscribed goods and requiring that all parties neither import them from nor export them to North Korea.  Each resolution obliges the members to carry out the terms of the sanctions and (as the April 15 press statement of the UNSC says) “facilitate a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue.” This is a case of mission impossible for two fundamental reasons: the sanctions will not work, and the fact of them impedes any chance for a “peaceful and comprehensive solution.”

Foremost among the obstacles to an effective North Korea sanctions regime is smuggling along the China-DPRK (North Korea) border.  Military items disguised as ordinary goods seem easily able to evade detection thanks to inconsistent inspection by border guards, bribery, false declarations, and North Korean firms based in China that actually belong to military-run trading companies.  Since these practices are surely well known to the Chinese authorities, it seems fair to assume they have no strong interest in preventing or at least substantially reducing it—something they could accomplish with a more intensive border inspection process.  That China is not doing so no doubt reflects its oft-stated position that the North Korean nuclear issue is the result of other countries’ policies, not China’s, hence that resolving it is others’ responsibility, mainly the US.

This is not to say that China is refusing to follow the UNSC’s latest resolution (UNSCR 2270).  Beijing’s criticism of North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests has become increasingly harsh and open over the last few years, and voting to approve UN sanctions is one way to underscore its criticism.  Reports indicate, for example, that China has closed its ports to North Korean coal and iron ore exports.  But the Chinese have created a large loophole.  At their insistence, 2270 allows for humanitarian trade affecting people’s “livelihood.”  Thus, as China’s foreign ministry spokesperson said on March 4, “We will earnestly observe the UNSCR 2270. The resolution prohibits the DPRK’s export of coal, iron ore and iron, but those that are deemed essential for people’s livelihood and have no connection with the funding of the DPRK’s nuclear and missile programs will not be affected.”  As a result, China’s exports to North Korea actually rose about 15 percent in the first three months of 2016 compared with 2015, and Chinese imports rose nearly 11 percent.

These figures come from a Chinese customs official.  They may underplay the actual trade figures, which are said to have been deleted from official PRC trade reports in order to hide the volume and character of the trade.

China is hardly alone when it comes to evading sanctions on North Korea. The DPRK operates numerous entities that do business abroad in illicit goods.  Namibia, Iran, and Russia are usually mentioned in this regard.  Two specialists call these trading entities “North Korea, Inc.”  Their research concludes that “sanctions have actually improved North Korea’s ability to procure components for its nuclear and missile programs.”

The reason is that the trading firms, mainly in China and Hong Kong, have been willing and able to pay a higher price for these goods to middlemen, who in turn are willing to take greater risks to sell.  The writers acknowledge the great difficulty in getting ahead of the curve when it comes to identifying the North Korean firms and finding ways to put them out of business.  In the end, they say, only diplomacy will resolve the problem.

Reflagging and renaming North Korean ships is another common tactic, as is falsely claiming a ship’s destination as (for example) China rather than the DPRK.  For example, an unpublished UN report describes how the North Koreans used a Singapore branch of a Chinese bank to pay for their ships to transport weapons through the Panama Canal.  Then there is the story of a British banker who, according to the Panama Papers, set up a front company in Pyongyang, registered in the British Virgin Islands, to sell and procure arms.

North Korea’s military program also benefits from the fine line that often exists between civilian and military items.  Commercial trucks, for example, can be used to mount a variety of weapons.  A Chinese-made truck used in both China and North Korea for mining operations has reportedly been adapted by the North Korean military for its new mobile rocket-propelled artillery system.  Six mobile intercontinental missiles (possibly fakes or mock-ups) paraded in Pyongyang in April 2012 likewise were mounted on Chinese-made trucks.

When all is said and done, the most likely scenario is that the new round of sanctions will produce no better results than previous rounds.  This is so not only because North Korea has many ways to procure items needed for its military purposes, and plenty of willing private sellers.  China, as North Korea’s principal trade partner for many years, is not going to watch the North disintegrate in spite of Beijing’s discomfort over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.  China’s leaders will do more than previously to enforce sanctions, such as inspection of cargo bound for and incoming from North Korea; but they will do a good deal less than the US wants, especially when it comes to border inspections.  For just as President Obama has hawkish advisers who want to turn the screws on North Korea even tighter in hopes of regime change, President Xi has people around him who think resisting US pressure is strategically more important to China than undermining Kim Jong-un.  Secretary of State John Kerry may well say that China’s approach “has not worked, and we cannot continue business as usual.”  But the Chinese have a perfectly good comeback, namely, that Washington and Pyongyang must find a way back to the negotiating table.