DAAD Masters Scholarships for Public Policy and Good Governance

DAADMasters Degree

Deadline: 31 July 2016 (annual)
Study in:  Germany
Next course starts Sept/Oct 2017

Brief description:

The DAAD Masters Scholarships for Public Policy and Good Governance Programme offers very good graduates from developing countries the chance to obtain a Master’s degree in disciplines that are of special relevance for the social, political and economic development of their home country at German institutions of higher education.

Participating Programmes in Host Institutions:

The scholarships are awarded for selected Master courses at German institutions of higher education listed below:

•  Hertie School of Governance, Berlin: Master of Public Policy (MPP)
•  University of Duisburg-Essen: MA Development and Governance
•  Willy Brandt School of Public Policy at the University of Erfurt: Master of Public Policy (MPP)
•  Leuphana University of Lüneburg: Public Economics, Law and Politics (PELP)
•  Hochschule Osnabrück: Management in Non-Profit Organisations
•  University of Osnabrück: Master of  Democratic Governance and Civil Society
•  University of Passau: Master of Governance and Public Policy
•  University of Potsdam: Master of Public Management (MPM)

The courses have an international orientation and are taught in German and/or English.

Number of Scholarships:

Not specified

Target group:

The scholarship scheme is open to candidates from Africa, Latin America, North/Central America, South Asia, Southeast Asia as well as from countries in the Middle East. See list of eligible countries.

Scholarship value/inclusions:

DAAD scholarship holders are exempt from tuition fees. DAAD pays a monthly scholarship rate of currently €750. The scholarship also includes contributions to health insurance in Germany.

In addition, DAAD grants an appropriate travel allowance and a study and research subsidy as well as rent subsidies and/or allowances for spouses and/or children where applicable.

Eligibility:

The scholarship targets very well qualified graduates with a first university degree (Bachelor or equivalent) who in the future want to actively contribute to the social and economic development of their home countries. The scholarships are offered both for young graduates without professional experience and for mid-career professionals.

The main DAAD criteria for selection are: the study results, knowledge of English (and German), political and social engagement, a convincing description of the subject-related and personal motivation for the study project in Germany and the expected benefit after the return to the home country.

The university degree should have been obtained during the six years before the application for the scholarship. Applicants cannot be considered if they have been in Germany for more than 15 months at the time of application.

All Master courses have further additional requirements that must be fulfilled by the applicants at any case.

Application instructions:

Please submit your applications for the selected Master courses and for the DAAD scholarship to the respective universities only (not to DAAD). Please fill in the DAAD application form by indicating your desired priority of study courses. The application period at all 8 universities is from 1 June – 31 July 2016.

It is important to read the 2017 Announcement and visit the official website (found below) to access the application form and for detailed information on how to apply for this scholarship.

Website:

Official Scholarship Website: https://www.daad.de/deutschland/stipendium/datenbank/en/21148-scholarship-database/?status=&origin=&subjectGrps=&daad=&q=public%20policy&page=1&detail=10000039

Related Scholarships: List of Germany Scholarships

2016 HEC Paris-Forté Foundation for International Women Scholars

Application Deadline: Rolling. September 2016 Full-time intake: 18th August 2016

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): France

Brief description: HEC and Forté Foundation are offering scholarship opportunities to exceptional women candidates who understand the added value of an MBA from the University.

Eligible Field of Study: Courses offered for  MBA

About the Award: As part of the school’s partnership with the Forté Foundation, the HEC Paris MBA Program will offer exceptional women significant scholarships per graduating class. By opening educational pathways, the HEC Forté scholarships will help improve leadership opportunities for women in business.

Recipients of the Forté Scholarship are high-quality candidates who meet the school’s standard selection criteria and have demonstrated exemplary leadership skills in:

• Academics
• Team building
• Community work
• Creative activity

Offered Since: Not stated

Type: MBA

Eligibility: Only admitted candidates can apply for this scholarship. Candidates should have demonstrated a commitment to women via personal mentorship or community involvement. Candidates should please note that unfortunately, they cannot apply for this scholarship if admitted after June 15th for the September intake, and after November 26th for the January intake.

Selection Criteria: Essay – “Please explain in 1,500 words why you should be the Forté Scholar at the HEC MBA Program”.

Amount of Award: Variable, up to €15,000

Number of Awardees: A minimum of 3 scholarships for the September intake, a minimum of 1 for the January intake

Duration of Scholarship: Duration of programme

How to Apply: Once admitted into the HEC Paris MBA Program, candidates will have the opportunity to apply for HEC MBA Scholarships. Candidates will receive guidance in applying for a scholarship from the Admissions Officer

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: HEC MBA School

Register for the 2018 Football World Cup Volunteer Programme

Programme Dates: Registration starts June 2016. Selection starts Third (3rd) quarter of 2016. Training starts first(1st) quarter of 2017. Those who will volunteer at the 2018 FIFA World Cup™ will begin 10th of May 2018.

Eligible Countries: Global

To be taken at (country): Online

Brief description: The call is on for eligible youths to join the 2018 World Cup Volunteer Programme taking place in Russia! Dedicated volunteer centres will be responsible for recruiting and selecting applicants living in Russia. International candidates will apply and go through the selection process from their respective home countries with online support.

Minimum Required Experience: Zero (0) year(s)

Minimum Qualifications: High School

Eligible Field of Study: Not Specified

About the Award: Russia is now gearing up to host its first-ever football World Cup, which is impossible to organize without the help of volunteers. To take part in the World Cup as a volunteer means to be part of a global highlight, to get a chance to represent Russia and tell the world about it. Whether our World Cup is a success, to a great extent, depends on the volunteers.

What kind of person should be a World Cup 2018 volunteer? He or she is a cheerful, dynamic person, living a healthy lifestyle, proficient in foreign languages, and with a wide range of professional skills. He or she is a person who is willing to work hard and communicate with others. Not so long ago the volunteer culture was not developed in Russia. But in the past few years, thanks to a series of major international events, Russia has grown aware of what volunteers do and why their work is important.

Type: World Cup Volunteer Programme

Eligibility: Registration will be open to everyone, regardless of the gender, ethnic background and physical ability. There is only one requirement: volunteers wishing to volunteer at the 2018 FIFA World Cup™ must be at least 18 years old by the 10th of May 2018. Volunteers should also:

• Agree to the terms and conditions of participation;
• Undertake and successfully complete a security check;
• Be available to work up to eight hours each day

Selection Process: Volunteer candidates go through a three steps selection process: testing to determine analytical skills and personal traits; English test; interview. Those who successfully pass will be enrolled in the training programme.

Number of Awardees: Fifteen thousand (15 000) 2018 World Cup volunteers

Value of Programme: 

• Unique Volunteer Uniform
• Free Meals during Shifts
• Souvenirs
• Free Use of Public Transport
• Priceless Experience
• New Friends
• A chance to take Special Training
• Participant Certificate

Key Functional Areas: There will be twenty (20) key  functional areas. Volunteers will be required to specify their preference in the application form. However, don’t worry if you cannot make a choice at this time, preference can be made during selection process:

• Spectator Services
• Marketing
• Catering
• Arrivals and Departures
• Protocol
• Transport
• Sustainability
• Ceremonies
• Media Operations
• Venue Management
• Language Services
• Hospitality
• Team Services
• Broadcasting Operations
• Volunteer Management
• Accommodation
• Ticketing
• Medical Services and Doping Control
• Information Technologies
• Accreditation

Duration of Programme: June 14-July 15 2018. The 2018 World Cup will take place at 12 stadiums in 11 Russian cities: Moscow, St Petersburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Saransk, Sochi, Kaliningrad, Yekaterinburg, Rostov-on-Don, Volgograd, and Samara.

How to Apply: Interested participants should:

• Fill out the form at fifa.com. To do that, participants need
  • Internet access
  • Passport
  • Digital Photo
• Go for an online testing and interview
• Find out if they have been picked
• Participate in the training
• Receive their accreditation and volunteer uniforms
• Become part of the Football Highlight of 2018!

Visit Programme Webpage for details

Programme Coodinator: FIFA

Fossil Fuel Energy Gave Us Power And The Illusion Of Security, So Far

Lionel Anet

The reason wealth gives the wealthy so many things is, that our planet and its ecosystems still have much to yield, but only by jeopardizing itself. What scientists have shown is only from their individual narrow specialised field with little or no holistic assessment, so the future appears manageable with only fine-tuning of the existing system. On the other hand, a holistically based assessment would show it’s impossible to deal with that multitude of threats, which’s combined in capitalism. Here are some of the obvious ones. Over-population, depleting sea food resources, acidification of oceans, warming of Siberian seas releasing methane hydrates, the loss of sea ice in the artic that reflects of sunlight to absorbing it as heat, rising sea levels of metres. Furthermore, on land there’s falling levels of ground water, desertification of farm land, a depleting soil due to synthetic fertilisers, the unprecedented speed in the heating of biosphere of the atmosphere, which’s creating a multitude of difficult leading to impossible condition for life, like severe storms and flooding, extended droughts. We are trying to deal with those threats in a piece meal fashion with the system that’s proliferating and reproducing those menaces. The structure and the way civilised systems must or are likely to functions will negate attempts to remove those threats to a continuing life. Furthermore, the effect those difficulties, will produce condition of chaos, civil and national wars, creating unimaginable numbers of refugees looking for sustenance and safety.

Civilisation was founded by warriors and maintained by the masses for the few dominant people to maximise their wealth and increase our oppressors’ domain and power over people and their land. This is civilisation and with the use of fossil fuels and fiat money the masses only see the power that money gives, so today, it’s a struggle for money, not for fairness. Although financial institution rules the planet’s people with money through the market, but it’s largely uncoordinated, unplanned, yielding unexpected outcomes, but worst still, it’s assessed inwardly on its ideological supreme premise thereby, they the financial market, are able to ignore scientifically evaluated needs and dangers to our wellbeing and survival.

Oil has soar civilisation to an incredible wealthy state and managed to feed the ever increasing population to a standard for many of the world people that would be unimaginable a century ago. Yet it’s hardly acknowledged the role oil plays in bolstering our lifestyle. The impossible has become the norm for road transport, shipping, air transport, agriculture, mining including coal, and most important for capitalism, all aspect of warfare. Without oil, capitalism is kaput, but with it people are finished. Our ultimate choice is to abandon both, although late, if we had used our foresight we would have phased out oil and capitalism by the end of last century and be living simple worthwhile life.

Oil has produced so much wealth, which has blinded our ability to foresee the effect of using so much of it. Without oil we would use picks and shovels to get that tiny bit of coal, and haul it with pit ponies to be taken by coal burning steam trains and ships, which was the world of my youth. But the second half of last century was the age of oil, it gave us the power to do real harm to the planet and we did, to the extent it’s jeopardizing our lives and will end it for today’s children unless we come to our senses. The cost of oil is vital, it was too high for the economy at $140 a barrel in 2014 and now it’s too low at $50 dollars a barrel for the oil industry, as it now requires over $140 a barrel to be viable.

So the first question I ask myself is why do we need so much energy and stuff, what do we do with it all? Well, the build-up of military hardware and its use is substantial, it kills, maim physically and emotionally directly and indirectly untold numbers of people. The advertising medium enticing us to buy more to feel good so as to buy more, the neocons eternal growth dependency, and civilisation ideology of living for a belief, or things. We even have children to bolster the economy to produce more stuff. Nurturing, particularly public education is centred on fulfilling the needs of the economy, what will benefit the economy will determent the education given. That’s capitalism and is our life now; it’s living for an economy. Pre-capitalism it was God King and country, which was the reason to live and die today it’s for the dollar.

All living things have an economic system that’s successful otherwise they die as individuals and as circumstances changes species adapt or die out. We are nature’s most social creature, because we have the body structure, the compulsive need of others, and the mental ability to be supremely social. Therefore, our nature must be compassionate, cooperative, and an affinity for one another, furthermore because our body and brain is so adaptable and able we have been able to withstand all the harrowing conflicts that tented to explode into violence time after time.

El Niño and the acceleration of global warming

Matthew MacEgan

New temperature records have been set in the early months of 2016, according to data compiled by NASA. A driver behind what one researcher referred to as “extraordinary” temperatures has been the presence of an abnormally long El Niño. At the same time, research over the last several years has shown how El Niño and its cool-water counterpart, La Niña, have been affected and made more extreme by human-induced climate change.

El Niño and La Niña are phases of what scientists call the “El Niño Southern Oscillation,” a cycle of alternating warm and cold temperatures in the central and eastern parts of the Pacific Ocean that research suggests has been happening for at least 100,000 years. The changes in ocean temperatures produce significant shifts in air pressure over whole regions of the globe, inducing powerful weather patterns that have proven devastating for human habitation in many parts of the world.

The abnormally warm ocean waters caused by El Nino induce much more extreme weather patterns than normal, including droughts, cyclones and floods.

The most recent El Niño, which just recently came to a close after lasting two years, has been referred to as the strongest in two decades. It has been held responsible for record flooding in Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Brazil, as well as flooding and landslides in Ethiopia, which killed more than 100 people. It has been thought to have directly caused droughts in South Africa, Thailand, and Venezuela, affecting millions of people and, in the latter case, resulted in electricity rationing. It has also been blamed for the intensity of Tropical Cyclone Winston, which destroyed parts of Fiji in February, as well as having enhanced the Pacific cyclone season generally.

The continuing wildfires in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada are also in part attributed to the hot and dry conditions brought about by the current El Niño cycle. Moreover, while specific fires cannot be directly linked to global warming, higher temperatures in general mean less snowpack during winter, allowing for more frequent and intense wildfires.

Though El Niño is a natural phenomenon, in recent years many researchers have shown that its intensity has been exacerbated by global warming. An article published in Nature in January of 2014, for example, presents evidence that the increased frequency of “extreme” El Niño occurrences, such as the one which just closed, is largely due to surface water warming more quickly in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The authors state, “We should expect more occurrences of devastating weather events, which will have pronounced implications for twenty-first century climate.”

Two years later, new data are supporting their predictions. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently reported that April marks the seventh consecutive month of average global temperatures being at least 1 degree Celsius above the 20th-century average. In addition, NASA’s land-ocean temperature index shows that the last seven months saw about a 30 percent increase in sea surface temperature over the same months one year earlier.

Other metrics show the same warming. Measurements taken in January indicate that on a single day the northern hemisphere reached 2 degrees C above the pre-industrial average, a result that has only a one hundredth of one percent chance of happening without human-induced climate change. Data from the North Pole in December show temperatures above freezing, more than 30 degrees Celsius above average. Mark Serreze, who is the director of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, stated, “I’ve been studying Arctic climate for 35 years and have never seen anything like this before.”

The consequences to the environment and human life are not limited to more severe storms. A recent update from NOAA shows that both El Niño and global warming are resulting in the longest global coral die-off on record, which will likely extend well into 2017. The event is referred to as “global coral bleaching,” the result of disease and heat stress caused by high ocean temperatures. NOAA reports indicate that some areas have already seen bleaching two years in a row, which means that the coral have no time to recover from their ailments. The potential cost to human well-being is high: 500 million people depend upon reefs for food and to protect coastlines from storms and erosion. Coral reefs contribute approximately $30 billion to the world economy each year.

While some attribute the recent heat events to El Niño alone, others state that this only accounts for a small amount of the anomalous warmth. Michael Mann, the director of Penn State Earth System Science Center, stated, “We would have set an all-time global temperature record even without any help from El Niño.”

This was echoed by Jeff Knight, from the Met Office Hadley Centre, stated that while additional heat from a big El Niño does contribute to the conditions, this contribution is relatively small. He stated earlier this year that “the bottom line is that the contributions of the current El Niño and wind patterns to the very warm conditions globally over the last couple of months are relatively small compared to the anthropogenically [human] driven increase in global temperature since pre-industrial times.” Put another way, global warming is the more fundamental problem that must be overcome.

New Zealand government, opposition housing policies grossly inadequate

Tom Peters

Over the past fortnight there have been reports nearly every day on New Zealand’s housing affordability crisis, fuelled by out-of-control property speculation.

Government figures show rents for three-bedroom houses in Auckland have increased 25 percent in five years. According to Trade Me Property, the median weekly rent in the country’s largest city is now at a record $520. This is roughly equivalent to the income of a full-time worker on the minimum wage after tax.

As temperatures plummet throughout the country, thousands of people, including families with young children, are living in appalling conditions in overcrowded or insecure accommodation, along with garages and cars.

There is widespread anger in the working class over the National Party government's utter failure to address the crisis and its plan to privatise thousands of state houses. According to a Newshub/Reid Research poll published on May 24, 76 percent of people believe not enough is being done to control the housing market. Despite this, Prime Minister John Key has repeatedly denied the existence of a crisis.

The government’s budget, announced on May 26, confirmed it would fund “community” organisations (which can include investors, charities and Maori tribal-owned businesses) to provide just 750 additional “social housing” rental properties, mostly in Auckland. Nationwide there are 4,500 people on Housing New Zealand's waiting list, who have been deemed eligible for public housing because they cannot afford market rents. This represents only a fraction of the need: the estimated housing shortage in Auckland alone is 30,000-40,000 properties.

The government also announced a policy of cash grants, of up to $5,000, for homeless people to move out of Auckland to vacant state houses in regional towns, many of which have even higher unemployment and poverty.

Writing in the New Zealand Herald on May 21, Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett feigned sympathy for the growing numbers of homeless people in Auckland and elsewhere, but asserted that “we have finite resources” and it was “challenging and expensive to house more and more people on the taxpayer dollar.” This comes from a government that has delivered billions of dollars worth of tax cuts for the rich and plans to spend $11 billion over 10 years on new military hardware to assist the country’s integration into US war preparations against China.

The opposition Labour and Green parties have criticised the government over the housing shortage. Their own proposals, however, would do nothing to address the crisis. Like National, Labour and the Greens are pro-business parties committed to maintaining the ability of wealthy investors, landlords, and the banks, to profit from the housing bubble.

Policies such as forcing landlords to charge affordable rents, and constructing tens of thousands of quality public houses, have been rejected out-of-hand by the entire political establishment.

In his recent Herald column, Labour leader Andrew Little repeated Labour’s xenophobic scapegoating of “foreign speculators.” Labour and the Greens, along with the anti-immigrant New Zealand First Party and the Maori nationalist Mana Party, have called for foreigners to be banned from buying houses, even though they make up only about 3 percent of all purchases.

The calls for a ban are an attempt to divert anger over the social crisis in a reactionary direction. The repeated attempts to pin the blame on Chinese buyers in particular are aimed at aligning the country with the US military encirclement and reckless provocations against China.

Labour has also called for the expansion of Auckland’s city limits, supposedly to increase the housing supply and improve affordability. In fact, this proposal is designed to boost the profits of property developers by removing restrictions on where they can build. It received support from the National government and the far-right ACT Party.

The Labour Party's other main policy is its “Kiwibuild” scheme, which housing spokesman Phil Twyford has described as “a massive state-backed building program of affordable housing.” In reality, the plan involves the construction of 10,000 homes per year, in partnership with private companies, which would be sold for profit at unaffordable market rates.

On May 19, the Greens announced a “Homes Not Cars” policy that would temporarily abolish the annual dividend of approximately $200 million paid by Housing New Zealand (HNZ) to the government, freeing up money for the state-owned corporation to build more houses. Co-leader Metiria Turei said: “The Government has the power and the money to ensure every New Zealander lives in a warm, safe, dry home—it just lacks the will.”

The policy, however, would only fund an estimated 450 new state houses—that is, about one tenth of the HNZ waiting list.

The most recent detailed study on homelessness, published in 2013 by Otago University, estimated that 34,000 people suffered from “severe housing deprivation.” This included families living in vehicles, sheds, garages, boarding houses or in severely overcrowded conditions. Assuming an average of three people in each state house, the Greens' policy would accommodate less than 4 percent of those in need.

The 2013 study was based on data from 2006. Since then the crisis has become much worse due to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, which destroyed thousands of homes, and sky-rocketing house price inflation in Auckland and elsewhere.

The miserable so-called “solutions” put forward by Labour and the Greens demonstrate that these parties have no real differences with the government's austerity agenda, designed to make the working class bear the burden of the economic crisis.

Notwithstanding their demagogic criticism of funding cuts, the opposition parties have pledged to keep a tight lid on public spending if they win next year’s election. Earlier this year the Greens proposed a new unit within Treasury that would calculate the cost of each party's election promises, in order to promote fiscal restraint. The idea was warmly endorsed by the corporate media and the pro-National Party Kiwiblog site.

Neither party has promised to reverse National's tax cuts for corporations and the rich, or its increase to the regressive Goods and Services Tax in 2010. Far from opposing the allocation of billions of dollars to the military, Labour has attacked the government for not spending enough, calling for a stronger navy.

India: Congress Party and Stalinists suffer debacle in state elections

Arun Kumar

The Congress Party, the Indian bourgeoisie’s traditional party of government, and the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its Left Front suffered major reversals in the state assembly elections held this spring in four states with a combined population of 225 million.

The Congress Party was ousted from power in Kerala in the south and Assam in the northeast, leaving it the governing party in just six of India’s 29 states. The Stalinists were routed in West Bengal, the state that for decades constituted their principal electoral bastion, and failed to retain a single of their 22 seats in the Tamil Nadu assembly.

The Congress, which led India’s national government from 2004 to 2014, has been discredited among workers and rural toilers because of its pro-investor economic “reforms,” which have produced mounting economic insecurity and social inequality, and its pursuit of a global military-strategic partnership with US imperialism.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM and its Left Front allies—including the older, but smaller Communist Party of India (CPI)—propped up the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government from May 2004 through June 2008, helping it to implement socially incendiary neo-liberal reforms.

The “Left” governments that held office in West Bengal and Kerala until their defeat in the last round of state elections, held in 2011, pursued what the CPM itself described as “pro-investor” policies. In West Bengal this included banning strikes in IT and IT-enabled industries and using police and goon violence to suppress peasant opposition to the expropriation of land for big business projects.

In the latest West Bengal state election, the CPM forged an unprecedented electoral alliance with the big business Congress Party and touted the prospect of a Left-Congress state government. CPM leaders, including former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, appeared on platforms and held joint election rallies with Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, her son and heir apparent.

In Tamil Nadu, the CPM and CPI contested the elections as part the of People’s Welfare Front—an alliance of right-wing, regionalist and casteist parties, including the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and Desiya Mutmoku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK).

The Stalinists’ right-wing politics enabled various reactionary big business parties to rally support through a combination of populist promises and communalist, regionalist and casteist appeals.

This included the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which in alliance with two regionalist parties—the Assam Gana Parishad (AGP) and the Bodo People’s Front—won 89 of the 126 seats in the Assam state assembly.

Under Narendra Modi, the BJP has formed India’s national government for the past two years. Following on from the Congress, the BJP has intensified the push for “pro-investor” reforms and dramatically enhanced military-strategic ties with the US and its principal Indo-Pacific allies, Japan and Australia.

In early April, the Modi government announced the impending signing of an agreement that will allow the US military to use Indian bases and ports for repair and resupply. While the Stalinists’ claim to oppose this agreement and India’s integration into Washington’s plans to wage war on China, they raised neither in their election campaigning.

In West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, the two biggest of the four states that went to the polls this spring, the respective ruling regional parties—the West Bengal-based Trinamul Congress (TMC) and the Tamil Nadu-based All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)—won reelection.

A right-wing split-off from the Congress and one-time BJP ally, the TMC was a largely discredited force until it was able, with Maoist support, to exploit popular anger with the Left Front over its pro-big business land expropriation program in 2007-08. In the 2011 West Bengal elections, the TMC was the senior partner in an electoral alliance with the Congress that swept the polls, ending 34 consecutive years of CPM-led government.

In this year’s election, running alone, the TMC increased its seat tally by 27, winning 211 of the 295 West Bengal assembly seats. One reason for this was the rallying of a sizeable chunk of BJP supporters behind the TMC.

But the most striking feature of the election was the continuing decline of the Left Front, which saw its strength in the state assembly nearly cut in half, from 60 to 32, and its popular vote fall to 25.9 percent from 29.9 percent in 2011.

The CPM campaign was explicitly right-wing, featuring its alliance with the Congress Party, on the one hand, and claims that a Left-led government would be better able to attract investment to West Bengal on the other.

The electorate rewarded the CPM with its lowest-ever seat total. Indeed, the Congress, which increased its seat tally by two to 44, is now the second-largest party in the West Bengal assembly and is expected to claim the status of Official Opposition, although it won just 12.3 percent of the popular vote.

The West Bengal CPM leadership has publicly lamented that the Congress could not “transfer” its votes to the Left, in accordance with the public alliance between the CPM and Congress. “Our workers,” CPM Politburo Member M.D Salim told NDTV, “worked wholeheartedly for the alliance and the Congress benefited. However the Congress votes could not be transferred to us.”

Nonetheless, the West Bengal CPM leadership has indicated it wants the alliance with the Congress to continue at least through the 2019 national elections. Some are even arguing for a national CPM-Congress electoral bloc.

In Tamil Nadu the ruling AIADMK won 134 seats, 36 more than its principal rival, the DMK. During the campaign the AIADMK and DMK cynically traded promises of small subsidies and handouts for voters, while reassuring the ruling elite that they would continue to pursue pro-big business policies that condemn that vast majority to crushing poverty.

The Stalinists, who have previously alternated between supporting one or the other of these parties on the grounds they could be pressured to pursue “pro-people” policies, could not and would not mount any challenge to their posturing. The Stalinist supported People’s Welfare Front failed to win a single seat, its projected chief ministerial candidate, DMDK leader Vijayakanth, losing his deposit.

In the neighbouring small Union Territory, the former French colonial enclave of Puducherry (Pondicherry), the Congress won its sole election victory. Running in an alliance with the DMK, the Congress won government, routing a Congress-breakaway party, the NR Congress.

In Kerala, India’s 13th largest state, the CPM-led Left Democratic Front ousted the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) after one term in office.

The result was not unexpected given the unpopularity of the Congress nationally, the right-wing polices pursued by Kerala’s Congress-led government and the wave of corruption scandals in which it was engulfed.

Attempting to cover up the debacle it had suffered in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, respectively India’s fourth and sixth most populous states, the CPM Politburo issued a statement that hailed the outcome of the Kerala state election as an “historic” victory for India’s workers and toilers.

It is nothing of the sort. While the electoral outcome was different, the CPM campaign in Kerala was politically of a one with that in West Bengal, with the Stalinists pledging to pursue pro-investor policies and allying with various Congress split-offs.

Speaking to BusinessLine during his pre-poll “Nava (New) Kerala March,” state CPM leader and now Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan promised that a Left Democratic Front would spare no effort at improving conditions for business. Decrying his party’s traditional “negativity towards” business, he vowed, “This needs to change. A new paradigm should be evolved wherein an investor is welcomed with open arms.”

A wave of summary executions following the Philippine election

Dante Pastrana

Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte, the head of death squads in Davao City in the Southern Philippines where he has been the long-time mayor, vowed during his campaign to kill and dump over a hundred thousand alleged criminals in Manila Bay within six months of his election. Less than a month before his presidential inauguration, police and vigilantes have already launched a murderous campaign against alleged criminals throughout the country.

Duterte announced on May 31 that he would be paying bounties for every person killed who was alleged to be in the drug trade. He also announced the value which he would assign to every human life taken, promising up to 3 million pesos ($US64,000) for every “drug lord,” 2 million for those deemed to be in charge of distribution, 1 million for “syndicate members,” and 50,000 for “ordinary” drug peddlers.

Duterte further stated that he would begin making payments for those killed prior to taking office, stating that he had enough money left in his campaign funds to pay for “100 persons dead.” He explicitly included in his bounty offer a reward for lives of inmates within the prison system who were alleged to be dealing drugs.

Since his election, a wave of executions of alleged criminals carried out both by vigilantes and the police has swept the country.

On May 19, vigilantes executed an alleged drug pusher in Bulacan province on the island of Luzon. According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the vigilantes abducted Ramonito Nicolas Mendoza immediately following his court hearing on drug charges and release on bail. Mendoza’s dead body, riddled with bullets, was later found with his hands and feet hogtied, his head wrapped with packaging tape and a sign on his neck stating “Huwag akong tularan. Drug Pusher Ako.” (Don’t be like me. I’m a drug pusher).

On May 25, according to the South China Morning Post, five motorcycle-riding gunmen shot dead three alleged petty thieves in Davao city.

“Police records show these men were pickpockets and burgled cars,” the city’s police spokeswoman, Senior Inspector Milgrace Driz, told the newspaper. She then added the well-worn rationale of the city’s police for such assassinations, claiming that they were “due to gang warfare” and insisting that the Davao Death Squads were a “myth.”

“They don’t exist, it is only you journalists who say they exist,” she said. Duterte himself has repeatedly acknowledged the existence of these death squads, as well as his direct oversight of them.

Three days later, unknown gunmen shot and killed two other suspected drug dealers in the same city. One victim, attacked at an Internet shop on Wednesday, had been out on bail on a drug-related offence.

The police have not been far behind in racking up kills. Two suspected illegal drug traders died in a shootout with police during a sting operation in Biñan City, in the province of Laguna on Luzon, in the early morning of May 20.

On May 26, police in Bulacan killed four alleged drug dealers in a gun battle in the town of Norzagaray town. The next day, another four drug suspects were killed after allegedly trading shots with the police in General Santos City on Mindanao Island.

Over the weekend, police shot and fatally wounded Rowen Secretaria and three others in a shootout at Banacon Island, 33 kilometres from Cebu city, the second largest city in the country. The police accused Secretaria of ranking “third among the top drug personalities in Cebu City.”

The police killings follow the explicit instruction of Duterte’s new national head of the police, Superintendant Ronald de la Rosa. Speaking to the press last month, de la Rosa exhorted his men to “shoot-to-kill if the criminal fights back or is armed.” When asked by reporters what police should do if the criminals did not fight back, de la Rosa responded, “Make them fight back.” He thus publicly green-lighted extra-judicial killings on the pretext of resisting arrest.

This spate of killings is unfolding as the entire Philippine political establishment is rapidly shifting to the far-right. From city mayors to congress, under the banner of an “all-out war against crime, drugs and corruption,” the pretence of adhering to democratic rights and due process is being discarded.

In Tanauan city, the newly-elected mayor twice forced suspected drug pushers to parade through the streets in a so-called “Walk of Shame” with signs on their chests stating “Ako’y Pusher, Huwag tularan” (I’m a drug pusher, Don’t be like me.). The local police have admitted formal charges have yet to be filed as their investigations have not been completed.

In Cebu City, days after gaining the mayoralty, Tomas Osmeña announced a $US1,000 dollar bounty to the police for every suspected “drug lord” or petty criminal killed or wounded. “It can be their extra source of livelihood,” Osmeña told the Cebu media.

Last week, the mayor-elect awarded the bounty to a police team for killing Teodoro Cabriana, suspected of drug pushing, after he allegedly tried to shoot it out with the police. The previous week, Osmeña handed over a bounty to an off-duty policeman for shooting and wounding two suspected robbers alleged to have held up a public utility Jeepney.

Underscoring his murderous intent, the mayor-elect handed out only $US427 dollars, explaining that the suspects “were injured and were not shot dead.”

In the Philippine congress, with even nominal opposition to Duterte expected to be just 20 congressional representatives out of 300, a repressive legislative agenda of “all-out war against crime, drugs and corruption,” including the return of the death penalty and the reduction of the age of criminality, will be rapidly advanced under the guise of a national crisis of drug addiction and drug-related crimes.

Even more ominously, Duterte announced plans to add two divisions to the military, recruit 3,000 new police and to organize and arm militias down at the barangay level, the smallest local government unit.

Justice in the Philippines, designed under US colonial rule, has always been a repressive and corrupt affair. There is no trial by jury. The state security forces, in general, and the police in particular, are brutal, corrupt and have a well-earned reputation of torturing suspects and conducting extra-judicial executions.

Moreover, according to Human Rights Watch, between 85 and 90 percent of the more than 94,000 inmates in the penal system are still awaiting or undergoing trial. The Philippines is the Southeast Asian country with the highest number of pre-trial and remand detainees and the second highest in all of Asia.

Duterte’s so-called “war on drugs” is aimed at the working class. The main victims of drug addiction in the Philippines are workers, the poor and the youth, who have also been the main victims of Duterte’s death squads in Davao.

The summary executions across the country which Duterte is calling for and rewarding, and which have already commenced, are intended to dramatically increase repression in the face of a mounting social crisis and to prepare to brutally crackdown on any resistance from the working class.

Turkey seeks increased presidential powers amid rising social tension

Jean Shaoul

Fierce clashes broke out between armed police and a few hundred demonstrators commemorating the third anniversary of the May 31 Gezi protests this week.

Beginning Monday, hundreds of armed police, as well as riot control vehicles and water cannon, were deployed to Taksim Square to bar people from entering the square. Police fired tear gas and detained more than a dozen activists. In a separate incident, police detained 16 activists at the offices of the city’s architects’ chamber near the Yildiz Palace.

The heavy-handed response to a small demonstration testifies to the extraordinarily tense social relations in Turkey. Since 2013, the authorities, particularly President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was prime minister at the time, have used every opportunity to demonise the Gezi protests—and any other protest movement--as an attempted coup orchestrated by Turkey’s domestic and foreign enemies, with Washington’s backing.

Thus far, Erdogan’s government has focused repressive measures on supporters of the opposition Gulenist movement founded by US exile Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

While Gulen is a convenient scapegoat, the AKP government’s increasing repression is fundamentally driven by fear of working class opposition to the deeply unpopular domestic and foreign policies implemented by Ankara in response to the 2008 global financial crisis.

Erdogan is seeking to side-line his political rivals, most recently the former president and co-founder of the AKP Abdullah Gul, and his former foreign minister and handpicked prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, whom he has replaced with the loyalist Binali Yildirim.

Erdogan is developing closer relations with the military, which he long viewed as a threat to his rule. Since 2007, the Erdogan government has tried hundreds of current and former military officials on charges of attempting to overthrow the government, when military leaders threatened to intervene if Turkey’s secular character was diluted by the Islamist AKP.

Last month, Erdogan invited Turkey’s top general to his daughter’s wedding, evoking a storm of criticism in the opposition press and on social media. In April, a court overturned the convictions of 275 people in the 2008 case, including those of top generals.

The government is to introduce a constitutional amendment to parliament to allow Erdogan to become a “party affiliated” president, enabling him to resume his leadership of the AKP, which he was obliged to give up on assuming the presidency, a largely ceremonial position, in August 2014. This will enable him to more directly control the AKP and the government. It forms one of a series of changes that Erdogan is determined to force through in order to create a more dictatorial presidential system. Other constitutional amendments are to be introduced that will consolidate his position as an executive president.

This follows the passage of a sweeping anti-terrorism law that enables people who merely express opinions to be investigated or tried on the grounds of aiding terrorism. Erdogan is using the anti-terrorism law to eliminate opposition politicians and journalists, targeting those critical of the army’s brutal crackdown on the Kurds, and operations aimed at toppling the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Anti-terror statutes are also being employed for repression against ethnic Kurds, aimed at preventing the establishment of an autonomous Syrian Kurdish entity on Turkey’s borders, an objective which Ankara has pursued through backing Islamist forces such as ISIS and the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra.

Erdogan’s aggressive Syrian policy has already brought Ankara to the brink of war with Russia, after the Turkish military provocatively downed a Russian fighter jet for allegedly straying into Turkish airspace. Moscow has retaliated by cutting its commercial links with Ankara, leading to a dramatic fall in investment, trade and tourism that has reverberated throughout the economy and accelerated the decline of the Turkish lira. So bad is the situation on Turkey’s south coast that Antalya has placed large colour brochures in the travel sections of foreign newspapers to bring tourists to its shores.

Last month, the Turkish parliament agreed to the AKP’s demand to lift the immunity of a quarter of its deputies, predominantly members of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), ostensibly for aiding and abetting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The government is waging war at a far greater level of intensity than that of the 1990s war. It has locked down towns, devastated cities, including much of the historic old city of Diyarbakir, capital of the largely Kurdish province, which contains UNESCO world heritage sites, displaced more than 350,000 civilians and killed more than 1,000 people. The entire region, already the poorest in Turkey, home to waves of refugees from Syria and prey to ISIS bombings, faces an economic disaster.

HDP legislators can now be brought before the courts and lose their mandate if convicted. In this way, Erdogan could establish the two-thirds parliamentary majority he requires to legitimise the presidential dictatorship, which is already functioning in practice, constitutionally.

The Turkish press has been brought to heel with the AKP-led drive for dictatorship. The only news media widely available are those that toe the government line. To step outside the boundaries of what the government deems acceptable means imprisonment.

Erdogan, who served a jail term in 1999 for reciting, while mayor of Istanbul, a nationalist and Islamist poem that was deemed guilty of “inciting violence and religious or racial hatred,” is now imposing similar treatment on those who dare to criticise him.

The Turkish authorities have jailed two leading journalists, Can Dündar and Erdem Gül of the Cumhuriet newspaper, for “disclosing state secrets” and aiding “an armed terrorist group”, after they showed pictures of the security forces handing over weapons to ISIS and other Islamist groups. They have raided the weekly news magazine Nokta, opened a case against Hurriyet’seditor-in-chief Sedat Ergin for insulting the president, and appointed state-trustees to run the Koza İpek Media Group, Zaman newspaper and Cihan News Agency. Numerous foreign journalists have been deported, usually on the grounds of aiding the PKK.

At the end of 2015, more than 100 journalists remained either imprisoned or on trial, mostly for “national security” offences, making Turkey the fifth worst jailer of journalists globally in 2015.

Around 2,000 journalists and ordinary citizens have been prosecuted for insulting Erdogan since he became president, the latest being Merve Buyuksarac, a former Miss Turkey, who was given a year-long suspended sentence for reposting a satirical poem insulting the president on social media. Barış İnce, former editor of the leftist daily Birgün, which faces another 40 similar investigations, was given a 21-month prison term for “insulting” the president.

UK firms use new regulations to cut pay and conditions

Danny Richardson

In October 2015, the hourly adult rate of the UK’s National Minimum Wage (NMW) rose from £6.50 to £6.70. From April this year, all workers aged 25 were legally entitled to at least £7.20 per hour under a new National Living Wage (NLW).

Despite being handed a £15 billion cut in corporation tax in Conservative Chancellor George Osborne’s budget to fund NLW and NMW pay increases, many firms are in fact cutting other workers’ pay rates and terms and conditions supposedly to offset the cost.

Supermarket chain Waitrose responded to the legislation by ending the payment of Sunday and overtime rates for new shop workers. Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket chain, reduced Sunday rates from double time to time and a half, while Morrisons cut Sunday pay rates. Retail chains B&Q and Wilko cut Sunday and overtime pay.

Many of the attacks on wages and conditions began within the UK food industry, which is heavily reliant on the use of agency workers as cheap labour. Agency workers are not entitled to the same pay and conditions as full-time workers.

This has only been possible through agreements with the trade unions, notably the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) and the UK’s biggest union, Unite. These unions are involved in a number of disputes, including with the £1 billion-valued 2 Sisters Foods group, which is part of Boparan Holdings, valued at £3.5 billion and chaired by Labour Party Peer Charles Allan.

The unions claim the firm is reducing established enhancement pay to compensate for the cost in implementing the rise in the minimum wage. Enhancement pay is paid for work performed outside agreed normal hours and for working during weekends and holidays (commonly known as overtime). The unions say the loss of earnings to full-time workers far outstrips the cost to the company of applying the new wage regulations.

On May 19 and 20, 400 workers at the Pennine factory of 2 Sisters Foods in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, struck for 48 hours against proposed wage cuts. Some workers could lose up to £5,000 as part of plans to remove extra weekend pay and lieu days for working weekends and bank holidays.

Following the Pennine strike, a 2 Sisters spokesman said, “We are disappointed some colleagues have decided on industrial action, given the union leadership’s acceptance of our new terms in February.” The firm claims the BFAWU agreed to recommend the deal to their members.

At the 2 Sisters-owned RF Brookes factory at Rogerstone in Newport, Wales, 100 workers are to strike for 48 hours between June 2 and 4. They are protesting the removal of night shift allowance, having to work more bank holidays, proposed lower overtime rates and the fact that the lowest hourly rate is being increased for workers over 25 only—in line with the national living wage. Interviewed by the BBC, an RF Brookes worker said he would lose £2,800 a year and some of his colleagues would lose up to £5,000. RF Brookes employs 800 workers, of which 420 are in the BFAWU.

A spokesman for the 2 Sisters Food Group said, “To connect this to the living wage would be totally inaccurate and misleading. Negotiations are all part of standard annual talks we have with unions at all our sites over the UK—Rogerstone is no different.”

Unite is balloting its 440 members at the 2 Sisters Foods Pizza Factory in Nottingham regarding changes to agreed terms and conditions. In a May 24 statement, Andy Shaw, a Unite regional officer said, “Any attempts to cut workers overtime, holiday and weekend pay to offset the government’s new National Living Wage or to impose changes without negotiating with the workers union will be strenuously challenged by Unite... Unite submitted its pay claim back in September, seeking a modest 3.1 percent pay increase but rather than honour the annual pay anniversary the company has been refusing to negotiate.”

Unite wants the dispute brokered by the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS). ACAS is headed by former Trades Union Congress General Secretary Brendan Barber. During his tenure, he did not lift a finger to oppose agency workers being on lower pay and worse conditions than those on permanent contracts.

Unite’s claims that it will “strenuously” defend its members’ pay and conditions is contradicted by its record. Last year, a 2 Sisters poultry planning site in Llangefni, Anglesey Wales announced 270 job cuts as part of a plan to “simplify” its business. The company announced that compulsory redundancies were restricted to 14, and that 37 workers had taken voluntary redundancy. The bulk of the job losses were made by 170 agency workers not having their contracts renewed. The union involved was Unite, which the company refer to as “our colleagues.” With their collaboration, the firm said it had moved “to the proposed operating model which the business presented two months ago.”

The unions have allowed food industry companies, including 2 Sisters Food Groups, to take on workers at rates of pay and conditions well below the existing basic level. Established workers are now being pushed towards accepting inferior terms on the same level as the agency/temp workers. For agency workers, enhanced payments are nonexistent.

At the Hovis factory in Wigan in September 2013, the BFAWU agreed to allow management to bring in zero-hours workers, replacing permanent workers made redundant. In an attempt to claim a historic “victory”, the union claimed the agreement reached scrapped the company’s attempts to use the “Swedish derogation.” This is an opt-out used by employers to deny agency workers their rights under the Agency Workers Regulation, which grants comparative pay and leave entitlements after 12 weeks on an assignment. However, the provision did not apply to zero-hour “on call” contracts.

A BFAWU press release described the settlement as “satisfactory for all concerned,” saying that the union has “worked together with the company in order to minimise the use of agency labour at the Wigan site [which] will only be used where there is insufficient commitment by employees to work overtime and banked hours.”

This sellout laid the basis for further attacks on the workforce by management. In July 2015, 40 jobs were lost when one of the two bread lines was shut down. Later, in November, the second bread line was shut down, and 111 jobs threatened overall. The bread-making lines ended entirely in March this year, with crumpet making the only production remaining at the plant. In response, BFAWU regional secretary Geoff Atkinson said the plant had suffered a “managed decline and a scaling back of jobs and skills, resembling nothing more than the business equivalent of a death of a thousand cuts, which I fear may lead to the eventual total closure of the bakery.” He didn’t mention the role of his union in this process.