1,000 Mandela Washington Fellowships for Young African Leaders 2017

Application Timeline: 

• Application Opens: Today, 21st September,2016
• Application Closes: Wednesday, 26th October, 2016
• Semifinalists interviewed by local U.S. embassies and consulates: December 2016– February 2017
• Applicants are notified of their status: Late March 2017
• Visa processing for finalists: April-May 2017
• Fellowship begins in the United States: Mid-June 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Sub-Saharan African countries

To be taken at (country): U.S

About the Award: The Mandela Washington Fellowships for Young African Leaders is the flagship program of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI). President Obama launched YALI in 2010 to support young African leaders as they spur growth and prosperity, strengthen democratic governance, and enhance peace and security across Africa.

The Mandela Washington Fellowships for Young African Leaders empowers young people through academic coursework, leadership training, and networking. In 2017, the Fellowship will provide up to 1,000 outstanding young leaders from Sub-Saharan Africa with the opportunity to hone their skills at a U.S. college or university with support for professional development after they return home.

The Fellows, who are between the ages of 25 and 35, have established records of accomplishment in promoting innovation and positive change in their organizations, institutions, communities, and countries. In 2016, Fellows represented all 49 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. They also represent diversity across the continent as 66 Fellows identified as having a disability, thirty percent came from rural areas or towns of fewer than 100,000 people, and fifty percent of Fellows were women.

Offered Since: 2014

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Candidates must:

• be between the ages of 25 and 35 although exceptional applicants younger than 25 will be considered;
• Are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the United States;
• Are eligible to receive a United States J-1 visa;
• Are not employees or immediate family members of employees of the U.S. government (including the U.S. Embassy, USAID, and other U.S. government entities);
• Are proficient in reading, writing, and speaking English;
• Are citizens of one of the following countries: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Republic of the Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
• Are residents of one of the above countries; and
• Are not alumni of the Mandela Washington Fellowships.
• Please note: Fellows are not allowed to have dependents (including spouses and children) accompany them during the Fellowship.

Number of Awardees: Up to 1000

Selection Process and Criteria: The Mandela Washington Fellowship selection process is a merit-based open competition. After the deadline, all eligible applications will be reviewed by a selection panel. Following this review, chosen semifinalists will be interviewed by the U.S. embassies or consulates in their home countries. If advanced to the semi-finalist round, applicants must provide a copy of their international passport (if available) or other government-issued photo identification at the time of the interview. Selection panels will use the following criteria to evaluate applications (not in order of importance):

• A proven record of leadership and accomplishment in public service, business and entrepreneurship, or civic engagement;
• A demonstrated commitment to public or community service, volunteerism, or mentorship;
• The ability to work cooperatively in diverse groups and respect the opinions of others;
• Strong social and communication skills;
• An energetic, positive attitude;
• A demonstrated knowledge, interest, and professional experience in the sector/track selected; and
• A commitment to return to Africa and apply leadership skills and training to benefit the applicant’s country and/or community after they return home

Value of Fellowship: There is no fee to apply to the Mandela Washington Fellowship. If you are selected for the Fellowship, the U.S. government will cover all participant costs. Financial provisions provided by the U.S. Government will include:

• J-1 visa support;
• Round-trip travel from Fellow’s home city to the U.S. and domestic U.S. travel as required by the program;
• A six-week academic and leadership institute;
• Concluding Summit in Washington, DC;
• Accident and sickness benefit plan;
• Housing and meals during the program; and
• An optional six-week Professional Development Experience (for up to 100 Fellows).
• Please note: the Fellowship will not cover salary while Fellows are away from work or funds for personal purchases such as gifts.

Mandela Washington Fellows will also have access to ongoing professional development opportunities, mentoring, networking and training, and support for their ideas, businesses, and organizations.

How to Apply: The deadline for applications for the Mandela Washington Fellowship is 4:00 PM GMT on Wednesday, October 26, 2016. Applications must be completed online at https://yaliapp.irex.org.

It is important to visit the official website (link below) for detailed information on how to apply for this Fellowship.

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: American Government, Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI)

Important Notes: The Mandela Washington Fellowships are not designed to help Fellows identify funding for projects or organizations.

Is India About To Make A Catastrophic Mistake With GM Mustard?

Colin Todhunter

Global oilseed, agribusiness and biotech corporations are engaged in a long-term attack on India’s local cooking oil producers. In just 20 years, they have reduced India from self-sufficiency in cooking oil to importing half its needs. Now the government’s attempts to impose GM mustard seed threaten to wipe out a crop at the root of Indian food and farming traditions.

In 2013, India’s former Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar accused US companies of derailing the nation’s oilseeds production programme. Similar claims had been made in 1998 concerning the so-called mustard oil tragedy when Rajasthan Oil Industries Association claimed that a “conspiracy” was being hatched and that the “invisible hands of the multinationals” were involved.

Both figures seem to have a point. India was almost self-sufficient in edible oils by the mid-1990s, but by 2014 it was the world’s biggest importer of cooking oils. Under pressure from the World Bank, India began to reduce import tariffs on edible oils and imports then began to increase.

The country now meets more than half its cooking oil requirements through imports, with palm oil shipped from Indonesia and Malaysia and soybean oil from Brazil and Argentina (see here), with devastating impacts on the environment. At the same time, there is a push to get GM mustard (and other crops) commercialised and grown in Indian fields.

The GM mustard issue cannot be divorced from the running down of India’s indigenous edible oils production. The cynical argument being forwarded for introducing GM mustard is to diminish reliance on imports, especially as it is said to possess a trait that makes it high-yielding. Given the role that trade rules had in decimating India’s oils sector, this argument is little more than a smokescreen to divert attention from this reality, which has to date certainly benefited US agribusiness Cargill. What is more deceptive is that the genetically engineered mustard does not produce higher yields than non-GM mustard.

In addition, the high-level push to get GM food crops planted in India is by-passing proper processes and procedures in what is a case of “unremitting regulatory delinquency“. Moreover, four high-level reports advising against the adoption of these crops in India are being side-lined:

The ‘Jairam Ramesh Report’ of February 2010, imposing an indefinite moratorium on Bt Brinjal;

The ‘Sopory Committee Report’ [August 2012];

The ‘Parliamentary Standing Committee’ [PSC] Report on GM crops [August 2012]; and

The ‘Technical Expert Committee [TEC] Final Report’ [June-July 2013]).

Given that trade rules and not the low productivity of Indian farming undermined indigenous production and that non-GM varieties of mustard are better yielding, where is the logic in promoting GM varieties?

Consider that India is the biggest recipient of World Bank loans in the history of that institution. And consider that the opening up of India’s agriculture sector to foreign agribusiness via the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture is a quid pro quo deal for the US sanctioning investment in and the opening up of India’s nuclear industry. Such considerations steer us towards the real reasons for the relentless drive for a GM India.

The push to get GM mustard into India is presented as an endeavor independent from vested interests. However, the hand of Bayer is clear to see. It is a Trojan horse crop that is intended to open the regulatory floodgates for the sanctioning of other GM crops. That’s not a wild claim. It is a tactic that has already been employed the GMO agritech sector: Syngenta once described GM Golden Rice as a device to create “regulatory tension”with the ultimate aim of breaking down regulatory barriers.

GM mustard is being undemocratically forced through with flawed tests or no tests and a lack of public scrutiny. It is also a herbicide-tolerant crop (to be reliant on Bayer’s non-selective weedkiller Basta) that is wholly inappropriate for a country like India with its small biodiverse farms that could be affected by its application.

GM is not wanted or required in India. From research institutes, regulatory agencies and decision-making bodies riddled with conflicts of interests to strings-attached trade deals and nuclear agreements and pressure from the World Bank, the answer to why India is trying to pursue the global agribusiness-backed GM route is clear.

Transnational agribusiness armed with its chemicals and chemical-responsive (GM) seeds uses the language of crisis to convince people of its enormous value to humanity: that the world would starve without its products. However, in India, people go hungry because of, for instance, a lack of income, under-investment in farming, mismanagement or poor logistics – not because of an inability to produce enough food.

Environmentalist Viva Kermani states:

“India has been self-sufficient in food staples for over a decade. It grows about 100 million tons (mt) of rice, 95 mt of wheat, 170 mt of vegetables, 85 mt of fruit, 40 mt of coarse cereals and 18 mt of pulses (according to the Economic Survey)… our farmers grow enough to feed all Indians well with food staples. We have 66 mt of grain, two-and-a-half times the required buffer stock (on January 1, 2013). The country has reached this stage through… the knowledge and skill of our farmers who have bred and saved seed themselves and exchanged their seed in ways that made our fields so bio-diverse.”

If there are to be any winners here, it will be Monsanto/Bayer and Cargill as India’s farmers continue to buckle under the pressures of neoliberalism and under-investment.

The decision over GM Mustard is close, despite data being kept out of the public domain and the whole processes surrounding the regulation of GMOs having been described as a case of “unremitting fraud“. The sanctioning of GM food crops will alter the genetic core of India’s food system to suit the profit margins of the likes of Monsanto/Bayer with irreversible consequences for biosafety (ecology and health):

“This technology is a classic case of ‘unforeseeable systemic ruin’, which means that we will know we are ruined after it happens. As they say, the dead cannot make a comeback.” – Aruna Rodrigues

The genuine solution for securing sufficient healthy food is to adopt more sustainable, organic, ecological farming systems that draw on India’s vast indigenous knowledge of agriculture to promote food self-sufficiency and sovereignty. India should learn from the mistakes it made in adopting Green Revolution ideology and practices. As Viva Kermani argues, India’s farmers have legitimate claims to being scientists, innovators, natural resource stewards, seed savers and hybridisation experts. Unlike fly-by-night corporate profiteers who can in no way be trusted, farmers’ knowledge and skills have been developed over millennia.

Australian government launches far-reaching assault on welfare

Mike Head

Under the fraudulent banner of “investing” in welfare recipients to “improve” their lives, the Australian government yesterday unveiled an ideological offensive designed to satisfy the demands of the financial and corporate elite for the dismantling of welfare entitlements.

The government is trying to put new window dressing on measures designed to coerce some of the poorest layers of the working class into low-paid jobs. This is under conditions of mounting job losses, driven by the collapse of the mining boom and the global slump, and growing numbers of workers already being forced into insecure and poorly-paid work.

At the same time, the government is targeting the entire welfare system, including disability programs and aged pensions, in a bid to lower taxes further for corporations and the wealthy. Having barely survived the July 2 election, the Liberal-National Coalition government is anxious to demonstrate to big business that it can deliver its requirements.

Addressing the National Press Club, Social Services Minister Christian Porter declared a “revolution” to eliminate “welfare dependency.” It was a “moral imperative” to assist individuals supposedly “trapped” in a welfare cycle. In reality, the proposals take to a new level the “welfare to work” drive by successive governments, both Coalition and Labor.

Porter rejected criticism that unemployment benefits—kept at below-poverty levels for two decades (currently $38 a day for single adults)—push people into poor quality, part-time and low-wage jobs. “These types of jobs are far better than 40-odd years inside the welfare system,” he declared. Young people were being deprived of the “dignity and purpose” of employment under such super-exploited conditions.

Porter boasted of the punitive “success” of the welfare system. By making it “challenging to subsist off Newstart (unemployment benefits),” the government was already pushing off within six months 96 percent of those relying solely on the benefit. Only 1,500 people remained on the base rate for a long period. The government intended to go further, he insisted, by compelling applicants to wait four weeks before payments began.

Porter’s cynical declarations about the “dignity and purpose” of work are based on a false premise—namely that there are jobs available for those who want them. Even according to the under-stated official statistics, more than 720,000 workers are unemployed and there are 18 jobseekers on average per vacancy. Roy Morgan surveys estimate that the real level of unemployment is twice as high as the official 5.7 percent. A total of 2.3 million workers (17.5 percent) are either unemployed or under-employed, a rise of nearly 1 percent over the past year.

Many of those who are driven off unemployment benefits are condemned to a desperate hand-to-mouth existence relying on friends, family and welfare agencies. Others who do manage to find a job—often casual and poorly paid—are frequently little better off. In 2014, one-third of those living below the poverty line were “working poor”—that is, living in households with wages as their main income.

As the government’s initial victims, the minister singled out three vulnerable groups—students, young carers and young parents—but made it clear that his initiatives would not stop with them. Citing statistical analysis commissioned by the government from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, Porter produced the misleading claim that the “lifetime cost” of welfare payments for those currently on benefits would total a colossal $4.8 trillion.

This calculation reveals the actual purpose of the government’s plan—drastic budget-cutting—beneath the veneer of concern for the wellbeing of welfare dependants. It is also a confected figure. First of all, the data focusses on alleged forecasts of the future plight of relatively small groups of young recipients. For example, of the 4,370 teenage parents, 12 percent—just 525 people—were expected to access income support for the rest of their lives.

Secondly, the biggest and fastest growing categories of welfare dependants are aged pensioners, people on National Disability Insurance Scheme programs and disability pensioners. In other words, it is the basic social right to welfare itself, including retirement pensions, that is being declared “unsustainable.”

Assisted by the corporate media, which constantly demonises “dole bludgers” and “welfare parents,” governments, Labor and Coalition, have already dramatically lowered the proportion of the working age population receiving income support payments, from 25 percent in 1994 to 16.6 percent in 2015.

This has been achieved through punishing measures such as eliminating sole parent payments once the youngest child turns 8 and imposing harsh “work tests” on dole recipients. By one measure alone—cutting off sole parent benefits—a process completed by the Gillard Labor government, the proportion of households receiving those payments halved from 5 percent in 1998 to 2.4 percent in 2015.

Porter signalled an intensification of this offensive. He outlined a new era of “mutual obligation” for every “working age” payment. Among his proposals were obligations to refrain from alcohol or substance abuse, attend “work appointments” on time, ensure children attend school and pay debts owed to the government.

Porter went beyond simply seeking to repackage the “welfare to work” drive. He advanced an underlying agenda of redefining “fairness” and dismissing inequality as a social indicator. “Fairness” now consisted of stopping “the mere transfer of money from one group to another.” Inequality was just a “measure of difference,” not of “comparative wellbeing.” These “ideological fixations” had to be pushed aside.

Similar nostrums are being brought forward to declare the failure of expenditure on education and health, which is decried as “throwing money at the problem.” This means nothing less than the gutting of all social spending in order to boost corporate profits and widen the gulf between the wealthy elites and the working class.

According to the most recent estimates by the Australian Council of Social Service, by 2014, 2.5 million people, or 13.9 percent of all Australian residents, were already living below the internationally accepted poverty line of 50 percent of median household income. Among them were 603,000 children, or 17.7 percent of all children in Australia.

By presenting its measures as “investing in people,” the government is aiming to secure the political assistance of the charities and other groups that vie for ever-dwindling government grants to provide basic social services once delivered by governments themselves. As an initial step in “revolutionising” welfare, $96 million will be allocated to a “Try, Test and Learn Fund” to enable such groups to compete with corporate consultants for funding to experiment with programs to “create a path out of the welfare system.”

Interviewed on Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “7.30” program last night, several representatives from such organisations, including Mission Australia CEO Catherine Yeomans, expressed “cautious optimism” about the government’s agenda.

As for the Labor Party, it demonstrated its basic agreement by last week helping the government push through the first post-election legislation, an Omnibus Bill to cut public spending by $6.3 billion over the next four years. More than half the cuts will come from welfare, including payments to families, students, the young unemployed, newly-arrived immigrants and aged nursing home residents.

More than a million Australians live in poor housing

John Harris

Over one million people in Australia are living in poor housing and, of those, more than 100,000 are in dwellings regarded as very poor or derelict.

A report published last month found that 1,093,600 people, or nearly 5 percent of the population, live in poor housing. The health of residents in these households was more likely to be rated as being only fair or poor compared to those living in better quality housing.

The study, entitled “Poor housing quality: Prevalence and health effects,” was conducted by researchers at the University of Adelaide. They found that official statistics do not account for a “hidden fraction” of the population that is in dire circumstances.

Many families live in precarious and unstable conditions, due to a combination of unaffordable housing, lack of a secure tenure and poor quality housing, plus inadequate access to social and employment networks. In the major cities, tenants in overcrowded dwellings have a lower health status, and children in poor quality dwellings are more likely to have long-term health issues, including a greater likelihood of asthma and respiratory disease.

When it comes to public housing, only about 42 percent is in good condition. Some 20 percent of public housing tenants live in very poor to derelict conditions. Responding to the report, a public housing resident in Port Lincoln, South Australia, provided a glimpse of the shocking conditions. Identified only as Muzz, he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “I live in a Trust home with asbestos and no heating or cooling but it’s a home nonetheless… so many people have no home and will just struggle to exist.”

The report’s lead author Associate Professor Emma Baker said: “There is a strong body of research linking poor quality housing to measureable impacts on mental, physical and general health.

“We know that damp, cold or mould in homes can cause or exacerbate respiratory illnesses like asthma, and overcrowding can promote communicable disease, but just living in poor quality housing has been linked to anxiety, depression, and a range of other mental health conditions.

“Poor housing makes the already disadvantaged even worse off. Younger people, people with disabilities and ill health, those with low incomes, the unemployed or those in part-time employment, indigenous people, and renters are much more likely to be found in the emerging slums of 21st century Australia,” she said.

The largest proportion of poor quality housing is in the rental housing market, both private and public or social housing. Nearly half, 47 percent, of all indigenous Australians, who are among the most exploited and disadvantaged layers of the working class, live in poor quality housing.

Those who owned their own homes or held mortgages accounted for 80.5 percent of those who occupied homes of good to excellent condition. However, many families who have mortgages are teetering on a knife’s edge. Couples and families often rely on two incomes to repay mortgages of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Australian housing costs are among the most expensive and unaffordable in the world, “and that plays a big role in people not being able to afford the quality of dwelling they need,” Baker told Fairfax Media.

Over the past three decades, the cost of private housing has soared. From 1991 to 2011, the average price of houses in Australia grew sharply by 263 percent, compared to an average after-tax income growth of only 95 percent.

This is producing a mountain of debt. In 2014, the mean home equity was at $427,847, compared with a mean home value of $618,276. The mean household debt was $190,429 on unappreciated mortgages. Job losses, or loss of working hours can thrust many families into poverty, when confronted by unrepayable debts.

At the same time, for many the rental market is unaffordable. In Sydney, one of the most expensive cities in the world, median weekly rents range from a low of $400 for a house and $390 for a unit in the outer suburbs to a staggering $1,750 for a house and $720 for a unit in the wealthiest areas.

Hundreds of thousands of working-class families experience housing stress—more than 30 percent of their income is allocated to housing costs. To avoid housing stress, a family or individual living in Sydney would need to earn about $1,800 a week, and in broader NSW, $1,500.

Yet the minimum wage is only $672.70 a week, while the maximum unemployment payment for a single adult without children is just $237 a week. In May 2016, the average weekly pay for a full-time worker in NSW was just $1,160.20.

Home ownership is declining, and is now at its lowest level in 50 years, marking an historic reversal from the post-World War II period of rising ownership. According to the best estimates, home ownership was at 51.7 percent in 2014, down from 57 percent in 2002. These statistics include those paying off mortgages. In 2011-12, outright home ownership was only 31 percent.

The Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, on which the report’s data was based, demonstrated the ever-growing gulf between the wealthy and the poor. Between 2002 and 2014, the average net wealth of the top 1 percent of households more than doubled, from $3,905,912 to $8,491,287. By contrast, the mean net household wealth recorded for the lowest 10 percent was $6,148 in 2002 and only $10,820 in 2014.

Report lead author Baker appealed for remedial action, saying: “We believe governments need to take steps to ensure the supply of affordable and reasonable quality housing, otherwise we are destined to become a nation scarred once again by slums, reduced life chances and shortened lives.”

But despite occasional government lip service to providing affordable accommodation, the housing crisis has continued to worsen. It is driven by soaring prices that are producing a bonanza for property developers, real estate speculators, finance houses and construction giants. Capitalism systematically subordinates the needs of millions of people to the demands of private profit, with a terrible price being paid by the working class, particularly its poorest and most vulnerable members.

German government steps up anti-refugee agitation

Johannes Stern

The established parties are responding to their catastrophic result in the Berlin state election Sunday with a sharp shift to the right. While the SPD, Left Party and Greens are preparing to continue the programme of austerity, anti-refugee agitation and a build-up of the state apparatus at home and abroad within the framework of a red-red-green coalition, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is ever more explicitly adopting the programme of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) used her party’s historic low election result to distance herself from the position of a “welcoming culture” for refugees, which was falsely attributed to her. Speaking to media representatives in Berlin, she made clear that her statement “We can do this” never had anything to do with solidarity towards refugees. “Much” was “interpreted or even decoded from this common statement of daily life. So much that I would almost prefer not to repeat it again,” the chancellor said.

Referring to the right wing of her own party and the constant criticism from the Bavarian sister party CSU (Christian Social Union), Merkel added, “Some felt themselves provoked by the sentence—and that was of course never the intention with the short sentence.” Then she went on, “This situation should never be repeated like we…had last year, with an at times uncontrolled and unregistered influx—I am fighting precisely to prevent that from being repeated… Nobody wants this situation to be repeated, myself included.”

Merkel openly acknowledged her disappointment that the government had proven incapable of preventing the refugees from the war zones in the Middle East from reaching Germany from the outset. If she could, she would have liked to turn back time by many, many years, “so that I, together with the whole government and all of those in positions of responsibility could be better prepared for the situation that hit us in the late summer of 2015,” Merkel stated. Then she provocatively added that she wanted to make an offer to the AfD voters.

Merkel has increasingly adopted the rhetoric of the far right within and outside the CDU/CSU over recent weeks. According to a report in Die Welt, she told a parliamentary group meeting at the beginning of September that the most important thing now was to deport asylum seekers whose applications had been rejected. “Over the coming months, the most important thing is repatriation, repatriation and, once again, repatriation,” the conservative paper cited the chancellor as saying. A few days later, Merkel was cited as having stated, “Germany will remain Germany. With everything that is dear and valued to us.”

While the bourgeois press is talking of “a new tone” from the chancellor (Tagesschau), or even a “change of course” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), Merkel in reality represented a right-wing, inhumane refugee policy from the outset. Merkel and the grand coalition have been working feverishly with the support of large sections of the Left Party and Greens over the past year for a “joint” European solution in order to prevent new refugees from reaching Europe and brutally deport those who have already arrived.

Significantly, the CDU Bundestag (federal parliament) Berlin deputy and Merkel supporter Karl-Georg Wellmann boasted in an interview with Deutschlandfunk on Tuesday, “The flow of refugees has stopped. Why is nobody saying that already this year over 60,000 refugees have returned to their homes? Why is nobody saying that 100,000 deportations have taken place?”

The “Bratislava Declaration,” passed last Friday at the EU summit, gives an indication of Merkel’s reactionary refugee policy. The section titled “Migration and external borders” calls for a strengthening of fortress Europe, denies refugees from wars the right to asylum and demands further mass deportations of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. The paper calls on the EU “Never to allow return to uncontrolled flows of last year and further bring down the number of irregular migrants” and to “ensure full control of our external borders.”

As concrete measures, the paper calls for a “full commitment to implementing the EU-Turkey statement as well as continued support to the countries of the Western Balkans.” In addition, a number of EU states had promised “to offer immediate assistance to strengthen the protection of Bulgaria’s border with Turkey, and continue support to other frontline states.”

In a summit in March, the EU states secured commitments from the Turkish government to completely close the borders for refugees and intercept boats before they can even leave Turkey in exchange for money and diplomatic concessions. The right-wing Balkan governments built border fences and mobilised the military so as to hermetically seal off the so-called Balkan route to refugees.

This apparently does not go far enough for Merkel and the EU. By the end of the year, the EU must ensure “full capacity for rapid reaction of the European Border and Coastguard” and negotiate agreements with third countries “to lead to reduced flows of irregular migration and increased return rates.” In other words, the notorious border protection agency Frontex and other state security forces will launch even more major operations against refugees on Europe’s external borders. At the same time, the EU intends to expand its collaboration with the authoritarian regimes in North Africa and Turkey to deter refugees and to deport them immediately without any bureaucratic hurdles if they manage to reach Europe.

Merkel’s statements and the EU paper underscore the dishonesty and hypocrisy of the German government and the EU’s claims to defend “European values” such as freedom and democracy against racism and nationalism. In reality, they pursue an anti-refugee policy that is hardly distinguishable from that of France’s National Front, the UK Independence Party or the AfD and plays directly into the hands of the far right.

The brutal approach to refugees by the ruling elite is directly bound up with the militarisation of Europe at home and abroad, which is above all being pushed by Berlin. The Bratislava Declaration also included “concrete measures” for the imposition of Europe’s geopolitical and economic interests against its global competitors. “In a changing political environment” the European Council should “decide on a concrete implementation plan on security and defence” at its December meeting, the declaration stated.

Already prior to the meeting, German Defence Minister Ursula Von der Leyen and her French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian called in a six-page paper for an implementation of the new “EU global strategy for foreign and security policy.” This required “a stronger Europe in security and defence affairs, European strategic autonomy and a credible, rapid, effective and reaction ready” European military policy, which must “now be rapidly translated into concrete plans of action.” Among other things, the German-French paper proposes the construction of an autonomous “European defence industry,” as well as “a permanent EU HQ for military and civil missions and operations.”

The European working class must decisively reject the agitation against refugees. It must counterpoise to the politics of nationalism, militarism and war, which enjoy the full backing of the entire ruling elite, their own independent strategy: the construction of an international movement against capitalism and war and the unification of Europe on a socialist basis.

Polish government strengthens the far right

Clara Weiss

As part of its preparations for war against Russia, the Polish government is deliberately strengthening the far right.

Since the Law and Justice Party (PiS) entered government last autumn, the number of attacks of a racist or xenophobic character has risen to its highest level since 1989. This was revealed by investigations by the NGO Nigdy Więcej (Never Again).

Currently, there are almost daily incidents of violent attacks by right-wing forces.

Widespread attention was given recently to an assault on Jerzy Kochanowski, a history professor at Warsaw University. A drunk right-winger insulted and struck Kochanowski on a tram because he was speaking German with a colleague from the University of Jena. He received virtually no assistance from fellow passengers and was forced to have a head wound treated in hospital.

On the same day, two women of Asian origin fell victim to right-wing violence. In an open letter, university students announced their solidarity with the professor and opposed the growth of racist and nationalist sentiments.

The PiS government is consciously encouraging this development. It is stoking racism and strengthening the influence of the far right with state measures.

In April, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo abolished the Council for the Struggle against Racism and Discrimination, which was established under the previous government. At the same time, she is integrating radical right-wing groups into the state apparatus.

The most well-known example is the ONR (National Radical Camp), whose members have been responsible for several attacks on foreigners and homosexuals. In August, ONR members attacked the leaders of the Komitet Obrony Demokracji (KOD) opposition movement, sending them to the hospital.

Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz has been planning, since the beginning of the year, the integration of the ONR into a new territorial defence unit, which is being expanded into a second army under the direct control of Macierewicz and the PiS government.

Both in terms of its name and programme, the ONR stands in the tradition of the organisation of the same name in the 1930s, which belonged to the so-called Endecja under Roman Dmowski and became a training ground for Polish fascist paramilitary units.

These units were not only responsible for anti-Semitic assaults and attacks on Jewish businesses, but also at times collaborated with the Nazis in the persecution of the Jews during the German occupation of Poland.

Militant anti-Semitism and racism continue to be key planks of the ONR’s programme today. Some of their members have been prosecuted for using the Hitler salute. Like its predecessor organisation in the 1930s, the ONR finds support today among academics: their current leader is 27-year-old Aleksander Krejckant, a graduate of European studies.

Another prominent figure is Justyna Helcyk, who has a degree in chemistry.

Catholic priests have repeatedly organised joint events with ONR members over recent years. Jacek Międlar, a priest from Wrocław, is an open supporter of the ONR. He compared the organisation, according to Newsweek Polska, to “chemotherapy for a malignant tumour that has affected Poland and the Poles.”

In the Sejm, Poland’s parliament, the government also cooperates indirectly with the ONR. The ONR is part of the National Movement (Ruch Narodowy, RN), which supported the Kukiz’15 party in the election and was therefore rewarded with five of its 42 seats. This party collaborates closely with the PiS in parliament.

The PiS is itself closely tied to the extreme right. Macierewicz was a leading member for many years of various ultra-right formations and published a radically nationalist and anti-Semitic newspaper, before joining PiS in 2005. After the PiS election victory and assumption of power for the first time in 2005, many members of the right-wing coalition Liga polskich rodzin (LPR, League of Polish Families) joined the PiS, including Jan Olszewski, the official adviser to former President Lech Kaczyński, who died in 2010.

In addition, the right-wing Catholic radio station Radio Maryja is a firm backer of the PiS government. The station has its main influence over sections of the rural population in the east of the country. It is led by priests and media mogul Tadeusz Rydzyk. Rydzyk has enjoyed the official support of the Vatican since the time of Pope Benedict XVI, even though he has repeatedly made anti-Semitic, homophobic and racist statements.

The strengthening of the radical right is part of the militarisation of Polish society with which the PiS government is preparing for war with Russia and a brutal suppression of social protests from the working class.

During its first year in power, the PiS has taken major steps towards the construction of a police state and encouraged a nationalist revision of history. The PiS has increased the defence budget, which had already risen to 2 percent of GDP under the Citizens Platform (PO) government, to 3 percent of GDP. The PiS plans to spend a total of €16.3 billion in the coming years on rearming the military.

Poland will therefore be one of the most important arms markets in Europe, together with the Baltic states, which are also rearming swiftly against Russia. According to arms expert Ben Morris from Jane ’s, the arms are above all “heavy military equipment like tanks that are planned for use in a conventional war on its eastern border.”

The US, Poland’s most important international ally, and NATO support the military buildup and the right-wing forces imposing it.

In the lead-up to the NATO summit, which took place in Warsaw in July, six former Polish defence ministers closely aligned to the opposition PO called for the resignation of Macierewicz. But the conference, where Obama shook his hand, adopted measures closely corresponding to those proposed by Macierewicz.

Macierewicz was therefore able to significantly consolidate his position in the government. After PiS head Jarosław Kaczyński, observers view Macierewicz as the most influential politician in Poland.

In an interview with the opposition-aligned newspaper Polityka, General a. D. Janusz Boronowicz said that Macierewicz had more power than any other defence minister prior to him. “Essentially he can do what he likes. In my view he is the first civilian leader of the armed forces.” Boronowicz has played a leading role in the Polish army for close to two decades and was influential in interventions in Afghanistan and Syria. He resigned from the army early this year out of protest at the reforms introduced by Macierewicz.

The interview with the general in Polityka sheds light on the sharp tensions being produced within the ruling elite by the PiS government’s political agenda. Boronowicz accused Macierewicz of being responsible for leaving the army leaderless and dividing the army leadership.

With direct reference to Germany’s invasion of Poland at the start of World War II, he said, “The situation is totally unacceptable. And in the event of a potential conflict it is preparing the way directly to a repetition of the defeat of September 1939. We are on the best path to repeating all of the mistakes of the past.”

This general and the liberal opposition fear that the PiS’ politics are dividing Polish society to such an extent that the stability of the state could be at stake in the event of a war or a social movement of the working class.

The editor of Newsweek Polska and a well-known supporter of the opposition, Tomasz Lis, accused Andrzej Duda (PiS) of being the weakest president since 1989. He warned, “Since 1989, Poland has never needed a real president more than it does now, at a time when the position of the state is at risk and the community is more fragile than perhaps ever before.”

Kremlin party wins parliamentary elections amid low voter turnout

Andrea Peters

In an election with notably low turnout, Russia’s ruling party has won a supermajority in the country’s parliament. In Sunday’s contest, United Russia (UR) saw its number of Duma representatives rise from 238 to 343, giving the party, which is allied to President Vladimir Putin, control of over three-quarters of the votes in the 450-seat body.

UR garnered just over 54 percent of the total ballots cast. The party’s control of the parliament is a product of the fact that election laws were recently changed such that half of the seats are no longer allotted proportionately, but rather in first-past-the-post contests in which UR candidates dominated. Compared to 2011, the ruling party saw its vote rise by just 5 percent. It is down by about 10 points compared to 2007, the final year of the Putin-era economic boom.

The Stalinist Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), led by Gennady Zyuganov, and the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), under the control of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, each commanded about 15 percent of the vote and won 42 and 39 seats respectively. In a major reversal of fortunes, the KPRF lost 50 spots and the LDPR 17 relative to 2011. Speaking of his party’s poor performance and near-equal level of Duma representation now with the LDPR, Zyuganov declared, “This is not just deception, it’s a dangerous aberration, which will inevitably end up undermining stability.”

The LDPR and KPRF were trailed by A Just Russia, which now has 23 representatives in the Duma, along with a handful of other groups that collectively have three seats. Constituting a loyal “opposition,” all of these organizations have worked hand-in-glove with UR and the Kremlin for years to pass right-wing policies and promote Russian nationalism to shore up the government.

In a rebuke of the free-market, pro-Western policies of the country’s leading liberals, the two most well known such outfits, Yabloko and PARNAS, commanded less than 1 and 2 percent of the vote respectively, failing to cross the minimum threshold to enter parliament.

Despite securing a significant win, United Russia’s supermajority does not indicate the existence of deep-seated support for the Kremlin. Overall, turnout fell by about 12 points, falling to just shy of 48 percent from 61 percent just five years ago. It is the lowest it has been since the start of the 2000s.

Indicating widespread disaffection in Russia’s economic and political centers, participation was worst in the country’s two major cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg, where just 28.7 and 25.6 percent of the electorate respectively went to the polls. Turnout in the country’s capital has collapsed in the last five years. In the previous parliamentary cycle in 2011, after which anti-government protests erupted, 66 percent of voters cast ballots in Moscow.

UR’s popularity in that city is also much lower than in outer-lying regions. This year the Kremlin party won just 38 percent of the vote, far less than the overall total.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov declared that the supermajority meant that the government had received a “vote of confidence” from the population. While acknowledging that the level of support in the big cities was “a bit lower,” he insisted that turnout in European elections is usually below that witnessed in Russia this year.

A political scientist speaking to the Russian news outlet TASS sought to make a similar argument, insisting that the fall in voter participation was simply the country catching up to broader “global trends.”

Putin, however, sounded a more cautionary note. “Things are tough but people still voted for United Russia. It means that people see that United Russia members are really working hard for people even though it doesn’t always work,” he said.

Sergei Mironov of A Just Russia declared that the turnout problem lay in a lack of “faith in the electoral system,” such that “people think their vote won’t count.”

The far-right nationalist, Vladimir Zhirinovksy of the LDPR, denounced the population for abstaining. “More than 57 million people didn’t go and vote. It’s a disgrace,” he declared.

Mikhail Kasyanov, the leader of PARNAS, said, “Citizens had no faith in elections as an institution. This is the result of government policies. It’s their fault.” His party, however, was repudiated by the electorate, unable to win voters dissatisfied with the Kremlin’s policies. Allegations of voter fraud have surfaced. In Moscow, opposition leaders reported so-called carousel voting in which people move from one place to another, casting multiple ballots. YouTube videos taken in some southern Russian cities appear to show ballot stuffing.

In other locales, soldiers not registered to vote were seen lining up in large numbers regardless. One opposition leader claimed that in the Siberian mountain region of Altai, young people were casting ballots in place of older, registered voters. In Dagestan, youth attacked a voting place in anger over alleged ballot stuffing on the part of officials. Issues have also been reported of voting taking place on open tables, as opposed to in curtained booths. The election rights organization GOLOS says it has received over 2,000 complaints.

Ella Pamfilova, the recently appointed head of the Russian Election Commission and a well-established human rights figure, indicated that some investigations were underway. According to her, there are three regions where the vote may be invalidated. The elections were monitored by 264,000 observers, including international representatives.

At the Russian embassy in Ukraine, dozens of right-wing protesters sought to interfere with Russian citizens who came to cast ballots. At least one voter was assaulted. The European Union and the virulently anti-Russian, pro-US government in Ukraine are refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the Russian parliamentary vote in Crimea. Moscow absorbed the peninsula after a popular referendum held there in the aftermath of the February 2014 coup in Kiev supported unification with Russia.

K.U. Leuven University Full PhD Scholarships for Developing Countries 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 13th November 2016 for the programme beginning 1st October 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Developing countries

To be taken at (country): Katholieke Universiteit in Flanders, Belgium

Eligible Fields of Study: Doctoral or pre-doctoral programmes in the Schools of Humanities and Social Sciences, Science, Engineering and Technology, or Biomedical Sciences.  The research topics proposed by the KU Leuven Doctoral Schools can be found on their respective websites.

About the Award: The programme is organised and managed by IRO, the University’s Interfaculty Council for Development Cooperation. This programme is intended for the student to do his or her whole research at KU Leuven; therefore, any other type of agreement (e.g. Sandwich programmes, etc) are not envisioned.

Over the past ten years, the IRO Doctoral Scholarships Programme has supported over a hundred PhD graduates.  Having obtained their doctoral degree from KU Leuven, the PhD holders are now utilising their expertise back in their home countries either at a university (by doing academic research), government bodies, civil society organisations or in various sectors of the industry.

Eligibility: 

1. The applicant must be a citizen of one of the countries on the OCDE DAC table that are considered as: Least Developed Countries, Low Income Countries or Low Middle Income Countries.
2. The applicant may not possess a citizenship from an EU country. The applicant may not posses a long-term EU residence permit.
3. The candidate’s latest master’s degree must have been awarded no more than ten years prior to 1 October 2017 (including the ongoing calendar year).
4. The candidate must hold an academic qualification at least equivalent to a high distinction. Degrees obtained with a final score equivalent to second class second/lower division will not be taken into consideration.
5. The research project must have excellent academic quality, with a special focus on the development relevance of the proposal.
6. The vacancies that are published on the KU Leuven website are already funded and thus, cannot participate for this scholarship.
7. The candidate must demonstrate a development-oriented motivation.
8. The candidate must be supported by a KU Leuven promoter.
9. The candidate must be supported by a local co-promoter at the candidate’s home country to ensure embeddedness of the research within the country’s context.
10. The candidate must be supported by excellent recommendations from relevant referees.
11. The candidate must follow the application procedure and complete his file before 13 November 2016.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Tuition fee, Health and Life Insurances, partner and child allowances, monthly stipend, travel.

Duration of Scholarship: 

• PhD: 48 months (4 years)
• Predoctoral programme: 12 extra months (1 year)

How to Apply: If you meet the eligibility conditions, you will need to complete the online application form following the online application instructions.

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

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: K.U Leuven