US uses gas deliveries to pressure Russia

Clara Weiss

While NATO is encircling Russia militarily, the energy market is increasingly being used to exert pressure on Russia for geostrategic aims. Recently, the US undertook two significant steps in this direction. With the beginning of liquid gas (LNG) exports to Europe, the United States has stepped up a price war against the Russian gas monopolist Gazprom. At the same time, the US government is openly intervening to prevent the extension of the German-Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream.

In late April, the first LNG units from the US were delivered to the Portuguese port of Sines. The delivery was meant not least as a symbolic move. The EU is currently importing on average about one third of its gas from Russia, but in several member states the percentage is significantly higher.

As of 2013, Finland, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary were importing well over 80 percent of their gas from Russia, and Austria and Greece over 60 percent. Germany imports about a fifth of its gas from Russia, but in quantity it is the largest importer. Overall, 90 percent of EU gas imports are covered with natural gas.

The American company Cherniere, which is delivering the LNG, has struck long-term contracts with several European companies, among them Galp (Portugal), the Dutch-British Royal Dutch Shell and the Spanish Gas Natural. It has not been made public exactly how much gas these companies will buy.

The LNG deliveries serve to put pressure on the European gas price and thus pressure the Russian state company Gazprom. As one analyst from the French bank Société Générale explained to the Wall Street Journal, the deliveries signify “the start of the price war between US LNG and pipeline gas.” In February, a Gazprom representative already announced that the company would lower production costs in the case of American LNG deliveries to Europe.

Over the past few years, Russia’s position on the world market as a major supplier of energy has been already significantly weakened. Just a few years ago, the United States was the world’s largest importer of gas. However, due to the development of fracking technology, the United States could start producing shale gas and oil on a mass scale. In 2009, the US thus became the world’s largest gas producer, overtaking Russia. The US is now importing less than 5 percent of its gas consumption.

Under these conditions, a bitter price competition has emerged between Europe’s two largest gas suppliers, Russia’s Gaszprom and Norwegian Statoil. The United States has now entered that competition. In order to maintain its market share, Gazprom has been forced to dramatically lower its gas prices in recent years.

In March 2016, the average price for Russian gas in Europe was only $147.2 per 1,000 cubic meters, 56 percent less than in March 2015. According to the Moscow Higher School of Economics, Gazprom was forced to renegotiate contracts with 30 of its European clients 65 times in the past few years.

A 2014 study by the Center on Global Energy Policy at the Columbia University in New York makes clear that the US is pursuing political goals with its LNG deliveries. It noted: “The US shale gas boom has already helped European consumers and hurt Russian producers by expanding global gas supply and freeing up liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments previously planned for the US market. This has strengthened Europe’s bargaining position, forcing contract renegotiations and lowering gas prices. US LNG exports will have a similar effect.”

The study stated that those deliveries were “unlikely to be significant enough to prompt a change in Moscow’s foreign policy, particularly in the next few years.” Nevertheless, the study calculated that the economic impact on Russia would be significant. Deliveries of 9 billion cubic meters per year would result in a lowering of Russian annual gas revenues by $24 billion, or 27 percent. If deliveries reach 18 billion cubic meters, the losses would amount to $33 billion, or 38 percent of annual gas revenues. This would be equivalent to 1.1 percent of Russian gross domestic product (GDP).

The strategists of US imperialism have made out the energy sector as the Achilles heel of the Russian economy. Thanks to rapidly rising oil and gas prices, Russian GDP grew by more than five times between 2000 and 2008, despite a stagnation in the manufacturing sector. The collapse of oil prices in 2008 and the strong dependence of the Russian budget on revenues from energy exports led to a dramatic decline of Russian GDP. This is why the economic sanctions and the energy policy of the United States since the Ukraine crisis are primarily directed at Russia’s energy sector.

A central component of this policy is to lower the Russian share of the European energy market. The US is therefore supporting pipeline projects that are supposed to deliver gas from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea to Europe by circumventing Russia. Among them are the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) that will transport gas from Azerbaijan over Georgia and Turkey to Greece, Albania and Southern Italy.

Ukraine occupies a key role in this strategy. Prior to the coup in Kiev in February 2014, Ukraine imported 90 percent of its gas from Russia, and about half of Russia’s gas deliveries to Europe were transported through the country. Now, the situation has changed radically.

Despite massive financial problems and extreme poverty, the Ukrainian government has spent hundreds of millions of euros to transport gas from Europe, instead of Russia, and thus lower its dependence upon the latter. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) supported this policy by extending large credits to the Kiev government.

In this way, by 2015 Ukraine had doubled its gas imports from Europe to 10.3 billion cubic meters, according to Natural Gas Europe. At the same time, the imports directly from Russia were drastically reduced by almost two thirds, to just 6.1 billion cubic meters. Since the winter of 2015/16 Ukraine has not been importing gas from Russia at all. Gazprom has thus lost one of its most important sales markets.

With this energy war against Russia the US and the EU are pursuing two aims: First, its goal is to help force the Kremlin to change its foreign policy and open up its energy sector for Western companies and investors. Second, it is aimed at preparing the grounds for a war against Russia in Europe on an economic level.

This is necessary because precisely those Eastern European NATO-member states that are pushing for a military confrontation with Russia are also the most reliant upon Russian gas deliveries. The United States and sections of the European bourgeoisie regard this as a serious obstacle to consistently pro-Western policies of these countries (for example Hungary) and as a weak spot in case of war. For instance, a sudden stop of Russian energy supplies would hit the economy of the Baltic States hard.

In December 2015, a study by the US Army College warned about the implications of the Ukraine crisis for European energy security and recommended the US army prepare the military protection of central energy infrastructure in Europe, including pipelines and underground gas storage facilities.

The sharp conflicts over the expansion of the German-Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream must be seen within this context. The US and several Eastern European countries, above all Poland and the Baltic states, fear that the pipeline could become the basis for a German-Russian axis, first in economic and then foreign policy. If built, Nord Stream 2 would significantly lower the gas transit via Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine. Meanwhile, Germany could further strengthen its position as a central energy hub in Europe.

In early May, the US government publicly spoke out against the pipeline. During an US-EU energy conference, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Nord Stream 2 would have “very negative implications” for Eastern Europe. Amos Hochstein, the US special envoy and coordinator for foreign policy issues, stated that the US was “deeply concerned” about the pipeline.

By contrast, the German government argues that Nord Stream 2 is nothing but a “commercial project” and therefore a matter of concern only for the companies involved. These include, alongside Gazprom, the German companies Wintershall and E.On, as well as the Austrian OMV and the French Engie.

The German government’s position is opposed not only in Washington, but by much of the EU as well. Unlike the German government, the EU commission in Brussels regards the project as a threat to European energy security and gas supplies to Eastern and Central Europe.

The countries of the Visegrad Group (Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) have demanded a legal review of the pipeline. Italy is also a strong opponent of the project. In the German bourgeoisie there is growing opposition. Thus, the head of the conservative faction within the EU parliament, Manfred Weber (CDU), sharply criticized the project in a letter to EU energy commissar Miguel Arias Cañete, while the German economic minister, Sigmar Gabriel, argued that it would undermine the energy and security goals of the EU and strengthen the position of Gazprom.

Over 700 refugees drown in Mediterranean shipwrecks

Laura Tiernan

More than 700 refugees have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea since Wednesday attempting to reach Europe from Libya. It is the single deadliest week for refugee drownings this year, according to the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR.

Three shipwrecks in just three days account for most of the week’s enormous death toll. Other agencies, including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSN), have estimated more than 900 deaths. “We will never know exact numbers,” MSN tweeted on Sunday, “Around 900 people may have died in the Central Mediterranean in the last week alone. Europe, this is unbearable.”

Carlotta Sami, a spokesperson for the UNHCR, has confirmed an estimated 100 people are missing after an unseaworthy vessel capsized on Wednesday. Horrifying images of the boat tipping over, with hundreds of terrified asylum seekers thrown into the sea, were captured on video by the Italian Navy.

Sami told the Associated Press that another 550 people are feared dead after another boat carrying refugees capsized the next day. The vessel reportedly left the Libyan port of Sabratha on Wednesday, with 670 refugees on board.

A third shipwreck occurred on Friday, during which 135 people were rescued and at least 45 bodies were recovered—taking the overall death toll to 700. But refugees who survived the incident say many more are missing.

The shipwrecks account for the largest loss of life in the Mediterranean since April 2015, when a single boat capsized killing 800 people trapped inside.

The death of hundreds of refugees in the Mediterranean is not only a tragedy, it is a crime. The governments in the US, Germany, Greece, Italy and other European countries, as well as the European Union, bear principal responsibility.

The numbers of asylum seekers fleeing to Europe in unseaworthy vessels is increasing due to vicious anti-migrant controls that have blocked routes to Europe via the Balkans. This includes the deal reached in March with Turkey creating a “Fortress Europe,” aimed at cutting off lifelines to those fleeing wars conducted by the European powers and the United States that have devastated entire countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

As a result, according to Italian authorities, the number of refugees rescued this week reached 13,000. On Saturday alone, a flotilla of ships saved 668 people from boats off the southern coast. Last week, over 4,000 migrants were rescued at sea in just one day.

The UNHCR’s update provided new information about Thursday’s deadliest sinking. Initial reports only took into account the missing and dead from a smaller, powered boat. Sami told AFP that the refugees rescued from the smaller vessel said the boat that sank did not have an engine and was being towed by another equally packed smuggling boat before it capsized.

AFP reports that Italian police corroborated the UN account, based on their own interviews with survivors, though the numbers cited do not precisely tally. According to survivors, the boat “started taking on water after about eight hours of navigation.” An attempt to bail it out “with a line of migrants passing a few five-litre bailing cans” failed:

“At that point, the commander of the first smuggler’s boat ordered the tow rope to be cut to the sinking boat. The migrants on the top deck jumped into the sea, while those below deck, estimated at 300, sank with the ship, police said. Of those who jumped into the sea, just 90 were rescued.”

Giovanna Di Benedetto, a spokeswoman for Save the Children, said, “There were many women and children on board. We collected testimony from several of those rescued from both boats. They all say they saw the same thing.”

The Independent reports a Libyan naval spokesman, Col. Ayoub Gassim, saying its own coastguard had rescued 766 refugees in two operations that took place on Thursday. They were found in two groups: 550 near the western coast city of Sabratha and another 216 off the coastal city of Zwara. Gassim said two boats were also found empty in the area between the two Libyan cities, and only four bodies had been retrieved. The death toll is unknown.

There are sinister and unanswered questions over the role of the military in the tragic events of the past week.

As part of “Operation Sophia,” a massive military mobilisation involving fourteen European countries has been underway for the past year. Warships, submarines, aircraft, helicopter gunships and drones have been deployed by European powers, including Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Britain, Greece, the Netherlands and Sweden. The headquarters of the mission is located at a military airport in Rome.

According to media reports over the weekend, military aircraft first saw the vessel (which subsequently sank on Thursday) in trouble around 35 nautical miles off the coast of Libya. Yet little was done in response. EU officials said a second helicopter “arrived on the scene Thursday and threw life jackets into the water.”

The purpose of Operation Sophia is to strengthen “Fortress Europe” to ward off refugees, while preparing a new military intervention in North Africa under the guise of fighting the ‘causes’ of refugee crisis.

On Friday, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, once again confirmed this analysis. Speaking at the G7 summit, he praised the EU-Turkey agreement to deport asylum seekers from Greece. He declared, “In the eastern Mediterranean, on average nearly 2,000 people arrived this way per day before the EU-Turkey deal was signed. Since then, it’s fewer than 100. It’s still a fragile agreement—but returning people works. Now we need to do the same with the central Mediterranean route.”

Cameron also declared that the European powers “are working to agree a plan to boost the capability of the Libyan coastguard.” Then he announced: “Once a detailed plan has been agreed with the Libyan authorities, the UK will send a UK training team to assist in its implementation. And once the relevant permissions and UN Security Council Resolution are in place, I will deploy a naval warship to the south central Mediterranean to combat arms trafficking in the region.”

The danger of nuclear war between the US and China

Peter Symonds

Last week’s G7 summit in Japan was dominated by two interconnected issues: the deepening crisis of global capitalism and the drive to war, in particular the growing danger of a clash between China and the United States in the South China Sea. The inability of the major powers to offer the slightest resolution of the economic breakdown is fuelling national antagonisms and the slide toward conflict.

The US and Japan pressed hard at the G7 gathering for a strong communiqué critical of China that would justify the ramping up of provocative American military incursions within the 12-nautical-mile territorial limit around Chinese-claimed islets. Earlier this month, the US navy conducted a third so-called “freedom of navigation” operation near Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea, producing an angry reaction from Beijing and declarations that it would beef up its defences in the area.

In the campaigns currently underway for the US presidency and the Australian federal election, a conspiracy of silence reigns over the preparations for war, aimed at deadening the consciousness of the population to the rising danger of nuclear conflict. Two nuclear-armed powers are facing off not only in the South China Sea, but other dangerous flashpoints such as North Korea and Taiwan, each of which has been greatly exacerbated by Washington’s “pivot to Asia” and aggressive military build-up throughout the region.

An arms race is underway that finds its most acute expression in the arena of nuclear weaponry, delivery systems and associated technologies. Determined to maintain its supremacy in Asia and globally, the US is planning to spend $1 trillion over the next three decades to develop a broader range of sophisticated nuclear weapons and means for delivering them to their targets. The unstated aim of the Pentagon is to secure nuclear primacy—that is, the means for obliterating China’s nuclear arsenal and thus its ability to mount a counter attack. The Chinese response, which is just as reactionary, is to ensure it retains the ability to strike back in a manner that would kill tens of millions in the United States.

The reality of these dangers was underscored last week by the release of a report by the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). It chillingly warned:

“Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, the governments of the United States and the People’s Republic of China are a few poor decisions away from starting a war that could escalate rapidly and end in a nuclear exchange. Mismatched perceptions increase both the possibility of war and the likelihood it will result in the use of nuclear weapons. Miscommunication or misunderstanding could spark a conflict that both governments may find difficult to stop.”

While appealing for the two sides to acknowledge the risks and heighten diplomatic efforts to prevent conflict, the UCS analysis offered not the slightest hope that such steps would be taken. The report bleakly declared:

“Lack of mutual trust and a growing sense that their differences may be irreconcilable incline both governments to continue looking for military solutions—for new means of coercion that help them feel more secure. Establishing the trust needed to have confidence in diplomatic resolutions to the disagreements, animosities, and suspicions that have troubled leaders of the United States and the PRC [China] for almost 70 years is extremely difficult when both governments take every effort to up the technological ante as an act of bad faith.”

The intensifying military competition is an unequal one, which only heightens tensions and the danger of war. In the field of nuclear armaments, China is outgunned and outnumbered. While desperately seeking to catch up, the Chinese military is generations behind in the capability of its weaponry and fields an estimated 260 warheads, compared to about 7,000 for the US. Its prime objective is to ensure a credible nuclear deterrent would survive a US first strike. Unlike Beijing, Washington has never ruled out the first use of nuclear weapons.

The Guardian reported last week that China is poised to send submarines armed with nuclear weapons on patrol in the Pacific for the first time. Such a move signals a break with the current policy, under which warheads and missiles were stored separately under the strict control of the top leadership. Armed missiles will now be loaded onto nuclear submarines to enable their immediate launch against continental America in the event of war.

The Chinese leadership has been driven to such measures by the US military build-up in North East Asia, especially the deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems aimed at neutralising China’s ability to strike back. China’s nuclear submarines, however, are comparatively noisy, making them vulnerable to detection and destruction by US attack subs. A new scenario is unfolding in which a jittery Chinese commander could misunderstand an order and, fearing imminent attack, unleash the submarine’s missiles against pre-determined targets.

Nuclear war will not be averted through the diplomacy of major powers, worthless posturing about international nuclear disarmament or the vain hope that nuclear war is so terrible as to be unthinkable. Nuclear strategists have been “thinking the unthinkable” for more than half a century. The last world war ended with the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing some 200,000 people. President Barack Obama’s refusal last week in Hiroshima to offer an apology for those monstrous crimes of US imperialism is a sure sign that new ones are being prepared.

The relentless drive toward a new world war between nuclear-armed combatants stems from the crisis of capitalism and its irresolvable contradictions. Only the working class can end the danger of war by putting an end to the profit system and its outmoded nation state system. That is the significance of the struggle being waged by the International Committee of the Fourth International and all its sections to build a unified anti-war movement of the international working class based on the perspective of socialist internationalism.

Terrorist arrests injected into Australian election

Mike Head

Ongoing arrests by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) have led to inflammatory government warnings of terrorist plots, and sensationalised headlines about “radical Islamist-inspired violence,” in the campaign for the July 2 double dissolution election.

The latest occurred yesterday. Police announced that a man, 25, was detained in Melbourne’s northwest on suspicion of offences relating to five men arrested on May 10, accused of trying to travel to Syria to join Islamic State (ISIS). No further details were provided.

Many questions are raised about the timing of each arrest, suggesting definite political calculations. The Liberal-National government, with Labor’s bipartisan backing, is again resorting to terrorist scares to divert attention from the deepening economic and social problems affecting millions of working people.

Attorney-General George Brandis seized on the arrests to declare that the threat of terrorist acts remained “real and present.” As well as seeking to whip up an atmosphere of fear, Brandis’s comments insinuated that those arrested were all guilty—even though they have yet to face trial—violating the legal presumption of innocence.

However, as the cases reveal, the police detentions are based on threadbare evidence and dubious charges.

Farhad Said, 24, who was arrested outside his Bankstown home on Thursday, was charged for alleged involvement in supposed 2014 plots to attack Sydney’s Garden Island Naval Base and AFP headquarters. The AFP said it expected to charge him with conspiracy to conduct an act in preparation for a terrorist act.

Such vague “conspiracy” charges, exploiting the draconian anti-terrorism laws introduced since 2001, permit people to be arrested and, if convicted, sentenced to life imprisonment, for allegedly “preparing,” “assisting” or “facilitating” an unspecified terrorist act.

According to media reports, fed by the police, Said is alleged to have been involved in preparing handwritten notes that police seized during raids across Sydney in December 2014. The AFP offered no explanation for why his arrest was made 18 months later while saying he posed no immediate threat to the public.

The Sydney Daily Telegraph, a Murdoch tabloid, reported that Said’s arrest was believed to relate to an alleged planned attack by Sulayman Khalid. Khalid was detained in December 2014, charged with possessing documents connected with the preparation for an unspecified terrorist act. He was due to stand trial last November, but this was postponed.

Last week, police carried out raids on eight homes across Melbourne connected to five men arrested in Cairns on May 10 and accused of planning to travel to Syria to ISIS, starting with a motorboat trip from northern Australia to Indonesia.

The men, aged between 21 and 31, all previously had their passports cancelled by the government. They were charged with preparing to enter a foreign country “for the purpose of engaging in hostile activities,” an offence that can mean life imprisonment. The five were detained after towing a small (seven-metre) boat from Melbourne to Cairns.

Towing a boat is not a crime, yet police commanders claimed that the long road trip over several weeks showed the men were “incredibly committed” to joining the fighting in Syria. Again, there was no explanation for the timing of the arrests. AFP assistant commissioner Neil Gaughan said the men had been under investigation for “a number of weeks.”

While the police officially did not disclose the five men’s identities, the media was full of allegations that they included a “notorious Islamic preacher” and a brother of a “hardline Islamist preacher.” Attorney-General Brandis fuelled the claims, saying it was the first attempt to leave Australia by vessel of which authorities were aware, but “I can’t rule out the possibility that there may be others.”

Under the “foreign fighters” legislation, the Australian foreign minister can, by executive decree, deem parts of the Middle East “declared areas” because a “listed terrorist organisation” is “engaging in a hostile activity” there. The criminal law onus on the police to prove that a trip is illegal is also reversed. An accused person must show that an intended trip was solely for a recognised “legitimate” purpose, such as a family visit.

Last week’s arrest of Tamim Khaja, 18, in Sydney points again to the role of police undercover agents in enticing vulnerable Islamic teenagers into making statements or taking steps that are used to arrest them. He became the second teenager to be entrapped by a police provocateur in recent weeks.

Under police surveillance for more than a year, Khaja was invited by a disguised police agent to buy a gun. He was promptly arrested for allegedly planning to obtain a weapon to commit a terrorist act, possibly targeting public buildings in Sydney. The police claimed his attack was “probably imminent,” although he had not decided on a location.

Following Khaja’s first court mention last week, his lawyer, Osman Samin, urged the public to recognise the principle of “the presumption of innocence.” That was after the police effectively declared Khaja guilty.

AFP Deputy Commissioner Neil Gaughan stated: “This young person’s life changed today. When he made those decisions he took two weeks ago, he’s now looking at life in prison.”

New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn boasted that Khaja’s arrest was the direct result of police involvement with the teenager, who was “known to police for some time.” Burn added: “We have been doing particular things with him. Today it’s culminated in his arrest.”

Earlier this month, evidence emerged that a 16-year-old boy arrested in Sydney on April 24—the eve of the annual Anzac Day war commemorations—was also a victim of police entrapment. In conversations on a social networking app, an undercover agent posing as an overseas Islamist persuaded or provoked him into saying he wanted to obtain a firearm and learn how to make a bomb.

Police entrapment is becoming endemic in Australia and internationally, generating sensational allegations of planned terrorist attacks. These scare campaigns are used to justify an increasing assault on basic legal and democratic rights.

This is an escalating offensive. As the Socialist Equality Party election statement warns: “For 15 years, Labor and Liberal governments, with the collaboration of the media, have manufactured terrorist scares and incidents as the pretext for handing draconian powers to the intelligence agencies and police to detain and interrogate ‘suspects’ without charge and conduct rampant surveillance and spying.”

Australian media vendetta against worker who questioned tax breaks for wealthy

Patrick Kelly

The beginning of the Australian election campaign this month coincided with a vicious media attack on a vulnerable minimum-wage worker who dared challenge the government’s tax breaks for the wealthy on ABC television’s “Q&A” current affairs program.

Duncan Storrar was one of the selected audience members on the May 9 program who asked a question to the panel, which included the Liberal-National government’s Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer.

Storrar, it later emerged, is a 45-year-old living in public housing with his partner in Geelong, a Victorian regional city that has been hard hit by several decades of deindustrialisation. He works part-time as a truck driver, earning $16 an hour, while also receiving a $520-a-fortnight Austudy allowance.

“I’ve got a disability and a low education, that means I’ve spent my whole life working for minimum wage,” Storrar began. Referring to changes to the tax structure in the government’s budget to benefit a wealthier layer, he continued: “You’re going to lift the tax-free threshold for rich people. If you lift my tax-free threshold, that changes my life. That means that I get to say to my little girls, ‘Daddy’s not broke this weekend. We can go to the pictures.’ … Rich people don’t even notice their tax-free threshold lift. Why don’t I get it? Why do they get it?”

O’Dwyer replied with barely concealed contempt. “The critical thing here is that we actually need to grow the pie,” she declared, deriding any suggestion of moving to redistribute the pie to benefit the less well off. She went on to boast of the government’s pro-business measures and cited the example of a café owner being given a tax break that allowed the purchase of a “$6,000 toaster” to boost profits.

The assistant treasurer was backed by another “Q&A” panellist, Innes Willox, head of the big business lobby the Australian Industry Group. Willox declared, “Duncan, I'll be harsh in my message. If you’re on the minimum wage and with a family, you would not pay much tax, if any at all. Would you? You would not pay much tax.”

Storrar stood his ground, answering that he paid tax every time he drove his car and shopped for groceries at the supermarket—a reference to the 10 percent goods and services tax (GST) and other indirect taxes.

Storrar’s questions immediately resonated among ordinary people. His remarks received loud applause from the “Q&A” audience, while social media responded with a popular #IStandWithDuncan hashtag. Deriding O’Dwyer’s defence of government policy, one person set up a crowdfunding website page to buy Duncan a $6,000 toaster. In just over two weeks, ten times that amount was collected, with $60,051 raised from donations from nearly 2,500 people.

Storrar’s intervention on “Q&A” made a significant impact because it provided a rare glimpse, albeit limited and brief, into the harsh reality of everyday life for millions of people in Australian society today. Numerous statements on social media, in letters to newspapers, and on radio call-in shows were made by people explaining their own struggles with raising a family on low incomes.

The major parties have no real policy differences on such matters, with Labor and Liberal both representing the interests of finance capital and the ultra-wealthy. The Greens occasionally posture as opponents of the banks and big business, while representing an affluent upper-middle class constituency and manoeuvring for a ruling coalition with either of the major parties.

The working class is effectively disenfranchised and excluded from any involvement in parliamentary politics. Just as a federal election campaign began, Storrar’s question on “Q&A” threatened to provide an opening for a broader discussion of poverty and social inequality—unmentionable issues as far as the political and media establishment are concerned.

As a result, Storrar was made the target of an extraordinary media campaign, aimed at discrediting if not outright destroying the individual.

The Murdoch press was at the forefront. Both the Australian and the Herald Sun devoted substantial resources to probing Storrar’s employment and taxation situation. After dredging through his private life, both newspapers ran front-page stories on Storrar’s past criminal record. The Herald Sun ’s headline was, “ABC Hero a Villain: Q&A sob story star exposed as a thug as public donate $60,000”. The Australian ran another front-page story featuring an interview with Storrar’s estranged son, who denounced his father as a drug user. Yet more stories accused him of being a “deadbeat dad.”

This media filth continued even after Storrar fled his home, pleading for his family to be left alone, and explaining that he suffers post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood sexual abuse.

In what amounted to a thinly-veiled threat to any other working class people thinking about challenging the government, the Herald Sun’s editor Damon Johnston declared: “If you put yourself on the public stage, and in, particularly in the middle of an election campaign, questioning government policy, questioning this, I think that you’re entitled to be subjected to a bit of scrutiny. It was all part of legitimate public debate in my view.”

Storrar responded with dignity, issuing a public statement via the ABC’s “Media Watch.” He began by explaining that he saw the main “lesson for Australia in this episode” to be that if anyone shows that “the powers-that-be [are the] out of touch people that they are, they will be dropped, probed and attacked in any way with no thought to the mental wellbeing of their children.”

He added: “My [‘Q&A’] question is still valid and hasn’t been answered, but more to the point there are a whole class of people out there, yes we might have records, yes we might not be perfect but society has forgotten us, the politicians and the media use us whenever they want to show why they need to be elected, but never do anything to help our plight. We are breaking down here and life hasn’t been this hard since before Whitlam for the underclass.”

The Storrar episode is a warning to workers. The savage media treatment of an individual who dared to ask a question about government policy is nothing but a reflection of the ruling elite’s ruthless determination to prevent any challenge to the status quo. There is no longer any constituency for democratic rights within the political establishment—when the capitalist class is confronted with a threat to its property and wealth, it will use every means at its disposal, including outright repression, to try to silence and suppress the working class.

UK White Paper escalates privatisation of higher education

Joe Mount

Britain’s Conservative government is pushing through major attacks on universities as part of the drive to privatize the entire education system.

The attacks were part of the Queen’s Speech announcing Tory plans “to support the establishment of new universities and to promote choice and competition across the higher education sector.” They are contained in a White Paper detailing changes to the higher education (HE) system that, if enacted into law, would fundamentally change the social role of universities and allow private institutions to be given university status.

The main proposals are further counter-reforms that remove any remaining barriers to profit making and facilitate the establishment of private universities. New, for-profit institutions will be able award degrees immediately and earn university status after three years of operation, benefiting numerous niche private institutions.

The White Paper, “Success as a Knowledge Economy,” denies support to the many universities that struggle financially and explicitly rejects bailouts. If struggling, they would face course closures or complete collapse, creating a gap in the market for new colleges. The new universities are given a license to exploit the lucrative “education export market” with courses, mainly in business and high-paying professions, targeting overseas students who pay astronomical fees averaging £12,000 per year and reaching £36,600 for medicine courses.

The government claims the reforms will improve the accessibility and “relevance” of universities. Background notes to the Queen’s Speech boasted of “the biggest supply-side reforms to the higher education sector for a quarter of a century, so that we open more universities and give more young people—from all backgrounds—the chance to succeed.” In reality, it increases the subordination of the HE system to a growing “market” in education, with institutions competing against one other. Far from increasing access to education for all, this can only decrease it and exacerbate social inequality.

The second plank of the paper breaks the link between teaching and research. Under the banner of “diversity,” the HE system will reflect entrenched social inequality, with a range of institutions charging different amounts according to market rates. This will further the proliferation of low-status, teaching-only institutions catering to working class youth while a core of elite universities monopolise scarce research funding. Newly founded universities will offer cut-price courses with shorter duration and lower educational standards, while the rich buy their children a world-class education.

Research resources are to be further subordinated to business interests, with increased focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects. The government’s agenda is revealed by the appointment of John Kingman, a former treasury secretary and banker, to run the new unified research funding body “intended to improve Britain’s record of turning knowledge into cash.”

The changes will worsen students’ financial burden and education quality.

The Tories’ planned Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) is effectively a league table that will intensify competition and encourage the commodification of education. Universities that fulfil “teaching quality” criteria will be allowed to increase tuition fees to keep up with inflation, which will mean £10,000 in standard annual fees within the decade. Various existing fee caps will be lifted, enabling more institutions to charge the present full figure of £9,000 per year. The TEF will become a mechanism to increase academics’ teaching workload.

The Tories’ claims that the measures are aimed at increasing social mobility are exposed by the fact that the universities most likely to fail are former-polytechnics in poor areas that teach the most youth from disadvantaged backgrounds. Graduates typically pursue lower-paid jobs in health care and public services. Prior to its latest raft of attacks, the government abolished maintenance grants that assisted with the living expenses of the poorest students.

The number of mature and part-time students has also fallen rapidly.

The HE proposals will cement Britain’s status as the country with the most corporate-dominated education system, with lower HE spending than any other developed country. Britain now has the world’s highest levels of student debt and worst bursaries provision, according to the “Degrees of Debt” study by the educational charity Sutton Trust, which concluded:

“The typical English student faces debts of over £44,000 at graduation. Even compared with graduates of US private for-profit universities (who graduate with about £29,000 of debt), estimates suggest that English students fare worst.”

Funding constraints have tightened since the 2010 tripling of tuition fees and associated cuts by the incoming Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition, forcing universities to rely on fees and placing the financial burden onto the backs of students. The impact on teaching quality was confirmed by a recent leaked government memo admitting universities “do not offer the quality and intensity of teaching we expect for 9k.”

HE is being transformed into a competitive market by spending cuts, sky-high fees and the rapid proliferation of private universities. Hundreds of private institutions are now able to adopt the prestigious “university” title, award official degrees and issue state-backed student loans. Market competition has intensified since the lifting of the student number cap, with the number of students at private universities up tenfold during the last parliament.

The White Paper is central to the ruling elite’s aim of privatising all education provision, initiated under the 1997-2010 Labour government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Labour opened the door to privatization by introducing tuition fees in 1999 and introducing the first private university in 2010.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn verbally opposed the fee hike and launched a petition, stating, “I want to make it clear to the prime minister [David Cameron] that he will not get any support from these benches on raising tuition fees.”

However, Corbyn is supine in the face of the Tory government’s drive to convert primary and secondary schools to privately run academies. Labour, under his leadership, scrapped his pledges to remove fees and reinstate grants, with a member of his shadow cabinet stating these would not “automatically become policy.”

The Labour and union bureaucracy have aligned themselves with the core of the Tory agenda, despite limited policy differences. Jonathan Clifton of the Labour-linked Institute for Public Policy Research openly supported the measures, stating, “The government is right to allow new providers into the higher education system, but it must manage the process carefully.”

University College Union (UCU) General Secretary Sally Hunt said of the White Paper, “Despite repeated warnings from UCU about the danger of opening up UK higher education to private, for-profit providers, the government is setting out on a clear course to privatise higher education.”

She did not oppose the Tories agenda in principle, stating instead that, based on international experience of such proposals, including in the US, “lessons must be learned and rigorous quality measures applied before any new provider is allowed to access either degree awarding powers or state funding.”

The UCU and other academic unions, despite professing opposition to attacks on further and higher education, have a record of capitulation to cuts and job losses spanning more than a decade.

The National Union of Students (NUS) verbally opposed the tuition increase, with its president Malia Bouattia stating it will be “fighting with all its strength to demand it ditches this disastrous plan.”

This same organisation systematically demobilised student opposition to the introduction of tuition fees. Accepting their subsequent hiking, the NUS then threw outs its pledge to “oppose further rises in tuition fees.” It did not lift a finger to prevent the maintenance grant cuts.

Students and youth must mount an independent political struggle, turning to the working class as the only social force that can defend education and prevent the dismantling of gains made over generations of class struggle. This is the standpoint advanced by the International Youth and Students for Social Equality.

The El Khomri law in France and the Schröder-Blair Paper

Peter Schwarz

Strikes and mass demonstrations against the El Khomri labour reform law in France have been met with sympathy among workers and young people across Europe.

For decades, so called “structural reforms,” including cuts to social spending and workers’ wages, were portrayed as unavoidable. The French government of François Hollande and Manuel Valls thought it could destroy rights and achievements fought for by generations of workers with the use of force. It was mistaken. When it imposed the hated law by decree, it did not intimidate workers, but only provoked their anger. Since then, strikes and protests have spread and paralyzed the whole country.

The situation in France marks a major development in the international class struggle. A similar mood prevails in many other European countries, in the US and in large parts of the world. It is expressed in the resurgence of the class struggle, including a spike in strikes and protests worldwide.

There is a danger that the movement in France – like other such struggles—will be isolated and strangled, and that the far-right National Front will profit from the resulting disillusionment. To allay this danger, it is necessary to probe the roots of this situation and determine who is responsible for the present attacks.

The French workers are fighting against a government that calls itself “left” and “socialist.” This is neither an accident, nor a misunderstanding. For the last 15 years, it has above all been the social democrats—supported by the unions, the communist parties and their successors as well as numerous pseudo-left groups—who have carried out structural reforms against the workers.

It is worthwhile in this context to look back at the paper published jointly by two social democratic heads of government, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, in 1999. Almost all of the social attacks that have taken place since then in Germany, Great Britain, Southern and Eastern Europe, Greece and now in France were outlined there.

In the paper, entitled “The Way Forward for Europe's Social Democrats,” Blair and Schröder call for the transformation of the “social safety net from entitlement to a springboard for personal responsibility.”

As we wrote at the time on the WSWS, the paper is “a list of social atrocities, which have become the standard repertoire of European economic, financial and social policy, is meticulously and approvingly catalogued. The authors take care to invoke every cliché: cuts in state expenditure; criteria of efficiency, competitiveness and performance for public services; adjustment of the social insurance system; encouragement of business; reductions in taxes on employers and property; flexibility ... and more flexibility.”

The chapter “An active labour market policy for the left” demanded, as the WSWS summarized, that “all social and political means are to be employed to encourage individual responsibility. The system of taxation and social payments are to be revamped to 'ensure that it works in the interests of the people'. Low-paid 'probationary jobs' should be subsidized by the government and all those receiving social payments should be evaluated according to their ability to earn their own living. In short, the paper advocates massive state pressure to force the acceptance of low-wage jobs that, in turn, serve to drive down wages as a whole.”

The Schröder-Blair paper appeared at a time when the social democrats ruled almost everywhere in Europe. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 1990s were characterized by an orgy of self-enrichment by the ruling elite and enormous attacks on the working class. At the end of the decade, workers throughout Europe supported the election of social democrats in the hope that they would adopt a more socially humane approach.

The opposite took place. The Schröder-Blair paper served as a blueprint for the Hartz laws in Germany, and the austerity course in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. In all of these countries, as a rule, the social democrats followed a much stricter austerity course than conservative governments.

The author and namesake of the Hartz laws, Peter Hartz, a German Social Democratic Party and IG Metall union member, travelled to Paris two years ago to advise the French president on social cuts. The El Khomri law is the immediate result of this collaboration.

In the meantime, social democrats across the globe have plunged into free fall. In France, workers are rebelling against the Socialist Party and in Greece against Syriza, which has further intensified the austerity policies. This rebellion needs a conscious political strategy.

It is not just the corrupt social democratic apparatus, the unions and the pseudo-left groups that move in their circles that are bankrupt, but the national program on which they are based. The globalization of production has destroyed the basis of all national social and labour market policies. Today, the social democrats and the unions see it as their responsibility to impose constant attacks on the workers to defend their “own” corporations against international competition.

The El Khomri law, as well as every other attack on the working class, can only by defeated by an independent, international movement of the working class that bases itself on a revolutionary, socialist program. The offensive against the El Khomri law must become the starting point for the building of such a movement.

The unions and social democratic parties all over Europe stand behind Hollande and react with horror to the offensive of the French workers. European workers must stand behind their fellow workers in France, free themselves from the influence of social democracy and the unions and take up the fight for the United Socialist States of Europe.

Warnings of slump in US economy

Nick Beams

Despite an upward revision in the Commerce Department’s estimate for first-quarter economic growth, the US economy continues to show signs of a far-reaching stagnation. The Commerce Department said Thursday that US gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of .8 percent, up from its earlier estimate of .5 percent.

Even though the upward revision was lower than expected, and pointed to a growth rate almost indistinguishable from stagnation, the result prompted media comments that the American economy appears to be “picking up speed” and the economic situation was “better than had been thought.”

Regardless of such proclamations, key indicators point to deepening trends toward economic stagnation in both the short and long term.

On Wednesday, technology company Microsoft announced 1,850 job cuts in its smartphone division, then on Thursday retailer Sears reported a loss of $471 million, after revenue fell by over 8 percent.

Next month will mark the seventh anniversary of the period of economic expansion that began with the official end of the recession in 2009—the fourth-longest recovery since the end of World War 2. But it is the slowest post-recession expansion in the post-war period.

The main factor is the fall in business investment, the key driver of economic growth in the capitalist economy.

“Spending on some of the building blocks of business—such as machines, computers and steel—is slipping,” an article in the Wall Street Journal noted. “Such expenditures are an important ingredient in improving employee productivity, workers’ wages and corporate profits. A lack of investment risks trapping the economy in a low-growth mode.”

The Commerce Department reported that orders for non-defence capital goods, excluding aircraft, an indicator of business investment, fell by 0.8 percent in April, bringing the total decline since April 2014 to almost 12 percent.

Well-known economic forecaster Diane Swonk told the Wall Street Journal it was “disturbing that businesses’ cash flow has improved dramatically and they have access to cheap debt, but they’ve deployed that on dividends and buybacks instead of investing in the future.”

Earlier this week, a report by Moody’s pointed out that US non-financial corporations were sitting on a cash stockpile of $1.7 trillion, almost one-third of it held by five major hi-tech US companies, a significant statistic given that these firms are regarded as a major driving force of the US economy.

The lack of business investment in the real economy, as opposed to financial speculation, finds expression in productivity data.

In a speech on Thursday, reviewing trends in the US economy, Jerome Powell, a Federal Reserve Board governor, noted that labour productivity in the US had increased by only 0.5 percent a year since 2010, the slowest five-year growth rate since World War 2 and about one quarter of the average post-war rate. He noted that this was a trend that extended across the world economy.

The productivity slowdown is expected to continue, with the Conference Board, a major US economic think tank, warning that it could go negative this year for the first time in more than three decades.

According to Powell, estimates of the long-run potential growth of the US economy have dropped from 3 percent prior to the financial crisis to 2 percent “with much of the decline a function of slower productivity growth.”

A key factor in holding back productivity in recent years, he said, was the meagre growth in the business sector’s capital stock, consistent with “the weak recovery in demand.” But other longer-term factors may also be at work. Powell pointed that the so-called total factor productivity (TFP) growth, regarded as a measure of the impact of technological innovation, was also falling.

“A broad decline in the dynamism in our economy may also be contributing to lower TFP. There is strong evidence that the slowdown in TFP growth in the United States preceded the financial crisis, particularly in sectors that produce or use information technologies,” he said.

In other words, there is a basic dysfunction in the workings of the American economy in which the cycle of business investment in the expectation of higher profits leads to higher productivity, economic expansion, resulting in further investment, has broken down.

Other economists, most notably former Clinton treasury secretary Larry Summers, have pointed to the development of secular stagnation—a situation which characterised the decade of the 1930s—in which the supply of savings continually outstrips the demand for investment, because of diminished profit expectations, leading to low growth, falling productivity and even outright contraction.

While not directly referring to this phenomenon, Powell alluded to it, posing the question: “What if the pessimists are right and productivity growth remains low for another decade, or indefinitely? The consequences would include lower potential growth and relatively lower living standards. Our longer-term fiscal challenges would be significantly greater.”

The long-term slowdown in the US economy is both contributing to the ongoing stagnation in the global economy and is in turn impacted by it. But there is no relief in sight from this quarter and no prospect at all of coordinated action by the major economic powers to stimulate global demand. In fact, the G7 summit meeting, which concluded on Friday, revealed that the divisions among them are widening.

The summit communiqué noted that since the last meeting of the group in April 2015 “downside risks to the global economic outlook have increased” and that “weak demand and unaddressed structural problems are key factors weighing on actual and potential growth.” There were also “potential shocks” of a noneconomic origin—a reference to the increasingly tense geopolitical situation.

But while it noted that risks had increased, the G7 moved further away from trying to combat them.

The G7 communiqué stated that global growth “is our urgent priority” but then laid out a meaningless set of words to cover over the differences between the participants.

“Taking into account country-specific circumstances,” the communiqué stated, “we commit to strengthening our economic policy responses…and to employ a more forceful and more balanced policy mix, in order to achieve a strong, sustainable and balanced growth pattern.”

The communiqué allows Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to claim that he secured some movement on his demand for global stimulus measures while enabling Germany and the UK, the main opponents, to point to the reference to “country-specific circumstances” in order to continue their austerity agendas.

It was, as the Financial Times noted, another example of the work of G7 resolution drafters who are “masters at the art of creating apparent agreement where none exists.”

As the summit was taking place, new data from Japan pointed to the global deflationary trends that have increasingly gripped its economy. The consumer price index for April fell by 0.3 percent in the year to April, following a decline of 0.1 percent in March with indications from preliminary forecasts that it will show an even larger decline next month.

Falling prices will put increased pressure on the Bank of Japan to further ease monetary policy and may even lead to direct intervention by government authorities in currency markets to lower the value of the yen in an effort to boost the economy, despite warnings from the US against such action and a declaration in the G7 communiqué that countries should not engage in competitive currency devaluations.

Echoing Green Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurs 2017 – $90,000 + Leadership Development

Dates: 

• Application Open: October 2016
• Application Closed: November 2016
• Finalists will be announced and interviewed in New York City: May 2017
• Fellows announced: June 2017

Brief description: Seeking the World’s Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs, Echoing Green’s Fellowship Programs will offer more than $4.6 million in seed-stage funding and support this year to emerging leaders working to bring about positive social change.

Eligible Field of Study: Social Entrepreneurs

About the Fellowship: The Global Fellowship is the twenty-seven-year-old program for smart leaders who are deeply connected to the needs and potential solutions that may work best for their communities. Any emerging social entrepreneur from any part of the world working to disrupt the status quo may apply.

The Black Male Achievement (BMA) Fellowship is the first fellowship in the world for social entrepreneurs dedicated to improving the life outcomes of black men and boys in the United States. The Fellowship was founded and is supported in partnership with the Open Society Foundations since 2012. BMA Fellows generate new ideas and best practices in the areas of education, family, and work, such as initiatives related to fatherhood, mentoring, college preparatory programs, community-building, career and economic opportunities, communications, and philanthropic leadership.

The Climate Fellowship, built in partnership with The ZOOM Foundation, is specifically targeted for next-generation social entrepreneurs committed to working on innovations in mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The threat of global climate change is one of the greatest humanitarian and economic challenges of our time. Our interest is in considering the full spectrum of responses to the climate crisis – from innovative technology in Silicon Valley to community organizing in the developing world.

Fellowship Offered Since: not specified

Fellowship Type: Social Entrepreneurship

Selection Criteria: Successful applicants not only present an innovative way of addressing social issues, but also explain why they as individuals have what it takes to succeed. Echoing Green is not a grant-making organization. We are a fellowship program because we believe in the importance of the individual social entrepreneur as well as his/her project.  As such, we look at both the applicant and the applicant’s idea.

Applicant Criteria

• Purpose / Passion
• Resilience
• Leadership
• Ability to Attract Resources

Organization Criteria

• Innovation
• Importance
• Potential for Big, Bold Impact
• A Good Business Model

Eligibility: In order to be eligible for an Echoing Green Fellowship, the applicant must be:

• Over 18 years old
• Fluent in English
• Able to commit a full 35 hour work week to their organization.

In order to be eligible for an Echoing Green Fellowship, the organization must be:

• The original idea of the applicant(s)
• In its start-up phase, usually within the first two years of operation
• Independent and autonomous

There are often some misconceptions about what types of organizations are eligible for the Echoing Green Fellowship. Here is some clarification about organizations that are eligible:

• An organization can be either a non-profit, a for-profit, or hybrid.
• An organization does not only have to be run by one individual. Partnerships can apply for a Fellowship
• Organizations still in the idea phase are eligible

The following types of organizations are not eligible to apply:

• Students, scholarships, or research projects
• Lobbying or faith-based organizations
• Existing organizations which have grown past their start-up phase

Number of Scholarships: Several

Value of Scholarship:

• Fellows will receive up to $90,000, participate in leadership development gatherings
• Fellows will access the powerful network of Echoing Green Fellows, partners, and friends. Echoing Green’s 2015 Barclays Brain Trust Series, sponsored in part by Barclays, is a program of roundtable and mentorship opportunities for Fellows with leading professionals working in marketing, fundraising, business development, and technology.
• Echoing Green will continue to support its Fellow community long after their initial funding period with ongoing programs and opportunities at critical inflection points in their organizations or careers.

The Fellowships are awarded annually to individuals or partners who receive:

• A stipend of $80,000 for individuals (or $90,000 for two-person partnerships) paid in four equal installments over two years
• A health insurance stipend
• A yearly professional development stipend
• Leadership development and networking gatherings
• Access to technical support and pro bono partnerships to help grow their organization and a dedicated Echoing Green portfolio manager
• A community of like-minded social entrepreneurs, public service leaders, and industry leaders including the Echoing Green network of more than 600 Fellows working in over sixty countries all over the world.

Duration of Fellowship: two years plus ongoing support

Eligible Countries: all

To be taken at (country): Not restricted

Offered annually? Yes

How to Apply: Apply on the webpage

Visit fellowship webpage for details

Sponsors: Echoing Green Feellowship

Enter the 2016 Syngenta Photography Awards. Up to USD40,000 In Awards

Application Deadline: 22nd of August, 2016

Offered annually? Not stated

Eligible Countries: Global

To be taken at (country): Online

Brief description: The Syngenta Photography Awards is inviting photographers of different calibre to visually explore the theme of the Award through compelling images in a series of two(2) competitions:

• Professional Commission
• Open Competition

About the Award: The Syngenta Photography Awards is an international competition that seeks to create conversation around key global challenges through powerful photography. This year’s theme is Grow-Conserve. As the world’s population continues to increase, so does the the growing need for food, energy and resources and the protection of the planet. How can we manage economic, social and technological growth in a way that supports the needs of today as well as for future generations? Can we do more with less? Bold and transformative action is needed.

Photographers, whatever their approach, are invited to submit images that explore the theme of Grow-Conserve and tell stories about the relationship and trade-offs that exist between these two forces that are shaping the sustainability of our planet.

Offered Since: Not stated

Type: Photography Contest

Eligibility:

• The Professional Commission invites professional photographers to explore the theme of the Award through a compelling series of 5-10 images and a creative project proposal of a maximum of 500 words that considers the theme in a more in-depth way for a commission worth $25,000.
• The Open Competition invites photographers aged 18 or over – whether amateur, professional, or student – to visually explore the theme of the Award through compelling images. Photographers are asked to submit between 1–3 images.

Selection Criteria: The jury selects 3 finalists from each competition based on the quality and technique of their work and the interpretation of the theme.

Number of Awardees: Six (6)

Value of Award: 

Three prizes are awarded in the Professional Commission category:
• First prize: US$15,000, plus up to US$25,000 for the commission project
• Second prize: US$10,000
• Third prize: US$5,000

Three prizes are awarded in the Professional Commission category:
• First prize: US$15,000, plus up to US$25,000 for the commission project
• Second prize: US$10,000
• Third prize: US$5,000

The winners will have their work featured in showcased at an exhibition in early 2017.

How to Apply: All entries are judged by a distinguished international panel, chaired by the author and curator William A. Ewing. Go here to apply

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Syngenta