Scorning The Dead: The Berlin Truck Attack And The Refugee Question

Binoy Kampmark

The hard-nosed neo-cons were certainly showing little interest in linking arguments, examining evidence, or even considering elementary logic in the aftermath of the Berlin truck attack near the Gedächtniskirche.  With the bodies fresh in the morgue, former US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, peered into the mind of the everyday German, and found teeth chattering fear.

“Many Germans feel as though they’ve lost control of their country – it’s not a feeling that’s unknown elsewhere in Europe.” For it was Chancellor Angela Merkel who had been “the biggest symbol across the continent of somebody that is open to this policy – it’s aroused a lot of resentment.”

Fittingly, Bolton decided to reference Europe’s self-assumed populist, Viktor Orbán (“the controversial president of Hungary”) who wanted it put on record that he did not intend paying “for Germany’s mistake.”

The German political classes were certainly turning black and blue attempting to explain the slaughter in Berlin.  Rather than putting it down to plain criminality, it had to be twinned with other causes.

Would this effort be a triumph of mind over matter?  Chancellor Merkel did what she has always done: reiterate, remind and calm.  “We will find strength for the life we want to live in Germany – free, united, and open.”

She did add one vital qualification, a note soured by the deadly events at the Christmas market.  Setting out the vision of openness was one thing; the corpses, however, had suggested a modification of tone, a possible bitterness. It would be “particularly difficult for all of us to tolerate a situation in which the perpetrator had come to Germany as a refugee.”

It would be “particularly repulsive with respect to the many Germans who are engaged daily in providing assistance to refugees and with respect to the people who really need our protection and who are doing their best to integrate.”

The other side of populism, one blackened by fear and anticipation, is certainly coming into full view.  Much of the groundwork had already been laid by the attacks in Würzburg and Ansbach during the course of the summer.

Horst Seehofer, the governor of Bavaria and also leader of the Christian Social Union, had little time for any analysis that urged provident reaction or a steady approach.  “We owe it to the victims, their families and the entire populace to rethink and readjust our entire immigration and security policies.”

A close reading of Seehofer’s mine-deep angst gives a sense that he wants to survive – badly. The grieving families do count on some level, but so does his political position in Bavaria against the nibbling advances made by the far right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

Much of the reasoning behind embroiling refugees and immigrants in a criminal matter was not very sound (Merkel’s own CDU colleague Klaus Bouillon even referred to the attack as part of a “state of war”), but Frauke Petry, chairwoman of the AfD, came up with a brutal, if simple response.  “Germany is a divided country on the question of immigration.  Terror will unite us.”  Immediate steps included closing the mosques with jihadi preachers, and stopping uncontrolled immigration.

German MEP Marcus Pretzel, who has previously urged the use of armed fore against asylum seekers, also joined the party of condemnation.  “When will the German rule of law strike back?  When will this cursed hypocrisy end?  It is Merkel’s dead!”

Police accounts have been altering rapidly, making any immediate assessment by critics of Merkel’s policy premature.  First, the driver was supposedly arrested at another venue, only to then be released. He was said to be a Pakistani asylum seeker – only he wasn’t the one driving the truck.  Attention has now shifted to a Tunisian suspect, Anis Amri, who had piqued the interest of authorities for having suspected ties with Islamic State.

In an environment where the next ridiculing hashtag, or chattily gormless Facebook post, takes precedence over investigative groundwork, any announcement of progress is bound to become a political weapon.  Key words are highlighted for gain: “Islamic State”; “asylum seeker”; “refugee”.  Cobbling them together in speech negates the need for a sensible refugee policy.

One murderous asylum seeker (and of this, we know little of yet) is taken to tarnish all refugees and condemn a policy that is not only sagacious for Germany’s demographic future, but humanitarian.  Ergo, such refugees should have remained in static putrescence, harbouring in camps in Jordan, already awash with hundreds of thousands of Syrians, not to mention other refugee groups.  The modern refugee dilemma is one of unequal treatment and unequal distribution, clouded by demagogy.

The moral of such spellbindingly erroneous arguments is that it is better to stay in a dangerous home, be killed, gassed, tortured and raped, rather than journey with the cloak of international protection to other countries. If you do decide to leave a destroyed city or state of total impoverishment, be of perfect ethical disposition mirroring the recipient country, channelling their values. If Muslim, convert; if Christian, well, stay as you are. Orban would like you to.

Homeownership rates at historic lows for young people in the US

Nick Barrickman 

Recent reports on the US housing market have revealed that homeownership levels in the US have dropped to record lows in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

A report released last week by the Pew Research Center shows homeownership rates are at the lowest level in over 20 years, while US Census data evaluated by real estate firm Trulia show that young people aged 18-24 are living with their parents in numbers not seen since 1940, the year after the Great Depression officially ended.

According to the data accumulated by Trulia, and reported by the Wall Street Journal, the share of young people living with parents in the US in 2016 was nearly 40 percent. Noting that homeownership “is closely correlated with housing affordability and income,” the Journal states that the only other period in which comparable rates were seen was over 75 years ago. In contrast, only 24.1 percent of young people were living with their parents in 1960.

Those 18 to 24 years old, known as “millennials,” have surpassed Baby Boomers (ages 51-69) as the country’s largest living generation. However, the Journal notes a Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies report, which found that despite the number of people under the age of 30 increasing by over 5 million since 2006, there are less than 200,000 new homeowners within this group today.

A report released by Pew provides a more detailed breakdown of the loss in homeownership affecting broad sections of the working class. In 2004, homeownership in the US hit a modern peak of 69 percent. By contrast, the homeownership rate had fallen to 63.5 percent in 2016. Current homeownership rates have sunk to levels lower than in 1994, the period prior to the “dot-com” boom, when home values began their rapid growth.

Significantly, the Pew study shows that young people have suffered the most under today’s conditions. In 2004, 43 percent of people under the age of 35 owned homes. Today, that number has fallen to 35.2 percent, a drop of 18 percent from 12 years earlier. Homeownership for people age 35-44 declined by 16 percent in this same period.

When based upon income, the collapse was also stark. The report notes that homeownership for people with household incomes lower than $44,000 fell from a high of 52.9 percent in 2005 to 47.1 percent in 2015. This was in contrast to better-off homeowners, making yearly incomes of between $44,000 and $132,000, and high-income homeowners making over $132,000, who saw a drop from 73.8 to 68.3 percent and from 86.6 to 80.3 percent, respectively.

The Pew report found that African Americans were the hardest hit racial group in the US, with homeownership rates falling from a peak of 49.1 percent in 2004 to 41.3 percent today. Whites and Hispanics also saw their homeownership rates plummet, from 76 percent to 71.9 percent and from 48.1 percent to 47 percent, respectively. In addition, the number of loan applications has collapsed since 2004. According to Pew, housing loans for whites have fallen by 45 percent; 77 percent for African Americans and 76 percent for Hispanic residents.

The 2008 collapse of the housing market precluded millions of people from ever obtaining ownership of a home, an aspiration long-associated with the “American Dream.” The report notes that nearly 72 percent of all renters wish to own their homes, but are blocked from doing so by stringent rules put in place to curb the illegal lending practices that occurred in the lead-up to the housing collapse.

A report released two weeks ago by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that life expectancy fell for the entire US population for the first time in over 20 years in the period from 2014-2015, the last year on record. A recent study produced by economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman show a vast growth in total income inequality in the US since 1980, with the top 1 percent obtaining the same percentage of income today that the bottom 50 percent of the US population held in 1980.

A study released in early December by economists from Harvard, Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley found that the percentage of Americans making more in income than their parents had collapsed from over 90 percent in 1970 to only 51 percent in 2014.

These reports and others released in the recent period further undermine President Barack Obama’s claim that Americans are doing “pretty darn great” thanks to his administration’s policies. The decline in support from people 18-29 was among the key factors in the November 8 defeat of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who had promised to continue the policies of the Obama administration.

Funding cuts across almost all UK schools

Tom Pearce 

Conservative Education Secretary Justine Greening has unveiled proposals for a new “fairer funding” formula for UK schools. This was originally promised by former Prime Minister David Cameron, but was delayed by his resignation in the aftermath of June’s referendum vote to leave the European Union.

In the Theresa May government’s autumn statement, Chancellor Philip Hammond made no attempt to address the funding crisis wracking schools. Instead he pledged £240 million to expand grammar schools on the basis that selective education helped poorer children.

Under conditions in which many schools are struggling with declining revenue and increased class sizes, some are taking desperate action to avoid closure. Still, thousands of struggling schools are set to lose further money from their budgets as a result of the government’s changes.

The new funding formula was announced on the same day the National Audit Office warned that schools in England were facing an 8 percent real-terms cut in funding per pupil by 2019-20 as a result of £3 billion worth of cuts. The proposals show the government’s shakeup of school funding is just another attack in a long line of cuts to education. Rather than providing more money and bolstering budgets, the government’s proposals shift funding from one county or city and redistributes it to other parts of the country.

More than 9,000 schools in England will lose funding, with money moving from London and other urban centres that have been well funded in the past, to schools in areas that receive less money.

It therefore means substantial cuts in funding across England. The cuts will be felt most in Inner London, where there is to be a -2.4 percent change in per-pupil funding. However, even the increased funding is miniscule, with the North-west of England gaining a paltry 0.1 percent, the West Midlands 0.3 percent and the North East and outer London 1.0 percent.

The areas that are set to “benefit” still only receive the smallest of increases in funding. These are in Yorkshire & Humber and the East of England at 1.5 percent, the South-west at 2.2 percent, the South-east at 2.3 percent, and the East Midlands gaining 2.5 percent more per pupil.

In her statement, Greening said, “Our proposed reforms will mean an end to historical unfairness and underfunding for certain schools.” However, the impact of these changes actually means, according to Adrian Prandle, director of economic strategy at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), that “around 90 percent of schools would see a real-terms cut to their funding.”

Even in areas that are receiving a marginal increase, there are disparities, with schools in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and Knowsley, Merseyside looking set to gain slightly while the large cities of Manchester and Liverpool will have an average cut of 2.2 percent per pupil. Calculations by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the ATL show that in the city of Salford in the North-west of England, school budgets face real term cuts of over £9 million by 2020. A loss of 252 teachers and £320 per pupil is forecast.

The government proposals come in the wake of a crisis of funding that has already had a detrimental impact across every aspect of education. Thousands of smaller primary and secondary schools in England are becoming financially unviable.

Last month, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) released a statement that one-form entry primaries and secondaries with 600 pupils or fewer will “fall off a cliff” financially unless new funds are found. Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the ASCL, said, “At some smaller schools, the funding will become such that they would not be able to support their teaching infrastructure. They will not be financially viable.”

Schools across the UK have already cut support staff to balance budgets. In addition, the profession is struggling to hold onto new teachers. Schools Minister Nick Gibb revealed in a written parliamentary answer that almost a third of new teachers had left the sector between 2010 and 2015.

A joint statement from heads’ and teachers’ unions—ASCL, the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT), NUT, ATL and Voice—reiterated the situation, saying that schools “urgently need additional investment.”

“We are already seeing job losses, increased class sizes and cuts to courses in our schools and colleges,” it read, and schools “urgently need additional investment.”

So fragile is the situation in some areas that several school leaders have suggested they might find solutions to funding issues by sharing specialist teachers with a group of neighbouring schools. Alternatively, they might choose to share some of their support services. Some local authorities are considering moving to a four-day week in order to keep their schools operating.

In response, the Department for Education continued spouting the fiction that education budgets have been protected. It stated, “[T]he schools budget has been protected and in 2016-17 totals over £40bn, the highest ever on record.”

It claimed the “fairer funding proposals will ensure that areas with the highest need attract the most funding and end the historic unfairness in the system.”

The NUT and the ATL have mapped the changes to school funding with an interactive programme that shows the effect on every school in England and Wales. The research, based on published school funding data for 2016/17 and 2014/15, shows that 83 percent of UK schools are worse off in real terms since the Conservatives took office.

GHYPERLINK "https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/planned-la-and-school-expenditure-2016-to-2017-financial-year"government statistics on planned local authorities and school expenditure for the next financial year show that, even without considering inflation, levels of funding per pupil have dropped since 2012.

Last month, the NUT and the ATL held a special conference to amalgamate the two unions to form a new body called the National Education Union. The decision will now be put to the members of both unions for approval in ballots to be held in the spring term.

However, the fight for fairer funding for schools cannot be won through the existing trade unions or by creating new ones. The teachers’ unions, including the NUT and the ATL, have overseen the decimation of education by successive governments. Cuts to pensions, the introduction of performance related pay and the academies programme—which have rapidly privatised education—have proceeded without opposition from the unions.

Massive explosion kills 31, injures scores at fireworks market in Mexico

Genevieve Leigh

At least 31 people have been confirmed dead from a massive chain-reaction explosion which tore through the San Pablito Market, one of the largest fireworks markets in the country, in Tultepec, Mexico on Tuesday. The town lies just north of the capital and is considered part of Greater Mexico City.

The explosions, which took place in an area containing over 300 tons of fireworks, left the bodies of the dead so badly burned that neither their ages nor genders could be determined on site. Among the few bodies which have been identified so far are seven adolescent boys, a three-month old baby, and a 12-year-old girl.

In addition to the dead, over 70 people were injured in the explosions, including three children whose injuries are so severe they have been sent to Galveston, Texas for specialized treatment. Some of the injured were admitted to the hospital with severe burns covering as much as 90 percent of their bodies. As of this writing, 47 people remained hospitalized, among them 10 children.

The market was especially well stocked with fireworks at the time of the incident due to the high demand around the holidays. The market, which regularly holds over 300 vendors, was expected to sell 100 tons of fireworks by the end of its season, which lasts from August through December. More than 80 percent of the 300 stalls at the market were destroyed by the explosions, according to state officials.

In addition to this immense loss of life, the tragedy also spells a serious crisis for the surrounding area. The San Pablito Market was a vital part of the local economy, sustaining a large portion of the region’s population. With its destruction, more than three-quarters of the town’s residents, who are in some way involved in the pyrotechnic industry, will be affected. One source estimated that sales from this market provided sustenance to over 40,000 families.

While the immediate cause of the explosion is still unknown, the head of Tultepec emergency services, Isidro Sanchez, has speculated that a lack of safety measures was the likely cause of the blasts.

If the cause is proven to be the result of poor regulation, the tragedy will represent one more major scandal for the Mexican government. The market was inspected by safety officials only one month prior to the incident, and no irregularities were reported. In fact, San Pablito Market was described by the head of the local pyrotechnics association to the online publication Animal Politíco just last week as one of the safest markets in all of Latin America with stalls having “sufficient space so that there is not a chain reaction in case of a spark.”

While this explosion is among the worst fireworks tragedies in the country's history, it is not the first. Mexico has experienced many deadly explosions caused by poorly controlled and often illegal fireworks markets over the last few decades. A 1988 blast in Mexico city’s La Merced market killed 68; In 1999 an explosion of illegally stored fireworks left 63 people dead; and in 2002, 29 were killed at a market in Veracruz.

The San Pablito Market itself has had at least two other explosions over the last decade alone. After a series of near deadly incidents, more safety precautions were added to the market including provisions that all structures must be built of brick and concrete and fireworks had to be kept beneath glass out of reach of customers. Firefighters were also stationed on site.

Despite these measures being officially in place, some employees reported to the Mexican daily La Jornada that there had been frequent violations. Among those reported were things such as neglect of a 15 meters distance between the premises and the parking lot.

The newspaper also quoted workers at the market saying that merchants had overstocked and improperly stored fireworks. According to these accounts, a bundle of rockets known as “brujitas” toppled over and ignited from friction with the pavement, setting off the disastrous chain reaction. Whether or not this was the cause is still to be determined.

The most devastating feature of such frequent tragedies like the one in Tultepec, Mexico is how easily they could have been prevented. Poor regulation of such a volatile industry, the lack of advanced safety resources and the fact that there is an entire region of a country racked by immense poverty and forced to rely on fireworks sales as a means of survival, are all the result of a dysfunctional socio-economic system which fails to protect, sustain, and least of all fulfill, its population.

Trump’s election fuels foreign policy debate in Australia

Peter Symonds

The election of Donald Trump as US president has generated heightened uncertainty and tensions throughout the Asia Pacific region with his promises to scrap the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and implement trade war measures against China, as well as threats to abandon military alliances with Japan and South Korea unless they bear the costs.

The concerns were further exacerbated when Trump this month called into question the so-called One China policy that has formed the linchpin of relations with China, not only for the United States but countries throughout the region. Under the policy, Washington recognises Beijing as the sole legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan.

In Australia, Trump’s election has intensified the ongoing debate in the political and military establishment over the basic dilemma facing the ruling class: how to balance between China, the country’s largest export market, and the United States, the country’s longstanding strategic partner. The divisions, which run through both the ruling Liberal-National Coalition of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the opposition Labor Party headed by Bill Shorten, are being intensified by the worsening economic position of Australian capitalism and the growing danger of conflict between the US and China.

Trump’s victory has prompted those critical of the Obama administration’s confrontational “pivot to Asia” against China to once again call for a more independent Australian foreign policy—one that safeguards trade and investment with China.

Former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating last month publicly blasted those who treat the Australian alliance with the US with “a reverential, sacramental quality.” He declared that Australia had a “more or less tag-along foreign policy” with the US and “it’s time to cut the tag.” Speaking later in November at the University of Melbourne, he declared that under Trump, the US would be “refocussing on themselves, not alliances” and that Australia needed “a dexterous, mobile, clever foreign policy.”

Former Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Richard Woolcott commented that Trump’s election “may well be good for Australia” by forcing the forging of “a more independent foreign policy” focussed on the Asia Pacific region. Moreover, “the Trump presidency will hopefully bring an overdue end to our misconceived and ineffective operations in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq.”

The Washington Post this month noted the debate that Trump had triggered in Australia, pointing to the remarks of Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong who called for consideration of “a broader range of scenarios” than previously contemplated and declared that Trump’s views ran “counter to what are core values for more Australians.”

The call for Canberra to focus more on the Asian region has been the longstanding catch cry of the Greens party, even as it tacitly supported the US-led war in Afghanistan. Greens leader Richard Di Natale declared last month that Trump’s views represent “an ally’s worst nightmare” and called for “a fundamental reassessment” of the US alliance. “We need to recognise that the alliance has served us well; it’s served us poorly at times, but there are grave concerns now that the alliance with the US represents a security threat to Australia,” he said.

None of those pressing for a more independent foreign policy focussed particularly on Asia is openly advocating an end to the US alliance. Rather their call for a more agile foreign policy expresses the deep concern in ruling circles about the economic impact of the US confrontation with China and the potential for Trump’s extreme right-wing militarist views to provoke popular anti-war opposition.

The room for manoeuvre is narrowing, however. In 2010, Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted in an inner-party coup by party and trade union powerbrokers, who, it was later revealed in WikiLeaks cables, were “protected sources” of the US embassy in Canberra. Rudd had alienated the Obama administration by suggesting that the US reach a modus vivendi in Asia with China, right at the point when it was preparing to confront Beijing.

Rudd’s replacement Julia Gillard provided the Australian parliament as the platform for Obama to announce his “pivot to Asia” in November 2011 and signed a deal for the basing of US Marines in northern Australia. Over the past five years, under both Labor and Coalition governments, the Australian military and intelligence apparatuses have been more closely integrated into the Pentagon’s planning for war against China.

Australia is already central to the US military’s operations around the world, with key facilities such as the Pine Gap spy base essential to its intelligence, communications and missile targeting systems. Since 2011, the US has obtained growing access to Australian military bases, not only for its Marines but its warships and planes. Admiral Harry Harris, head of US Pacific Command (PACOM), revealed this month that the most advanced American fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor, would start operating out of northern Australia next year. Nuclear-capable bombers already fly in and out of northern bases.

The integration and “interoperability” of Australian forces with the American counterparts extends to the embedding of Australian officers in PACOM headquarters in Hawaii. Harris pointedly paid tribute to the fact that Australian Major General Greg Bilton is deputy commander of US Army Pacific and Australian Navy Commodore Ian Middleton is a senior advisor for strategic planning and policy.

While Prime Minister Turnbull was critical of the “pivot” when it was announced, his government has continued to strengthen Australia’s integration with the US military. After protracted haggling, Canberra reached an agreement with Washington in October to share the costs of upgrading Australian bases to bring US Marines in Darwin up to a full complement of 2,500 and to provide for US air force and naval deployments.

Last month Turnbull publicly endorsed Trump’s plans for a vast expansion of the military, including the expansion of the US navy from 274 ships to 350 and their more extensive deployment in the Asia Pacific. “A stronger United States means a safer world,” he declared, and berated Labor spokeswoman Wong for wanting “to move away from our most trusted, most enduring ally, move away [and] put our country at risk.”

Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne has enthusiastically embraced Trump’s plans for a military expansion as a possible boon for Australian military industries. Referring to Trump’s criticism of Japan and South Korea for not paying enough toward US bases, he declared last month that “we are not strategic bludgers” and foreshadowed greater defence spending. The close integration of Australia and US is underscored by the decision of the huge American defence contractor, Lockheed Martin, to establish a research lab at the University of Melbourne next year, the first of its kind outside the United States.

Sections of the Australian political establishment have responded to the uncertainty generated by Trump’s election by calling for even closer ties with the US. Former Labor leader and ambassador to Washington Kim Beazley hit out at Keating’s remarks, declaring he was “right off the beam.” Beazley said Canberra had “to use the influence we have [in Washington] to try and mitigate the effect of policy changes” in the region, including Trump’s trade war measures against China.

Peter Jennings, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, advocated a doubling down of Australian military commitments to the US to send a signal to Trump that Canberra was fully on board. He called for more Australian troops to be dispatched to Iraq and suggested allowing the US navy to base an aircraft carrier in Western Australia. The remarks reflect the prevailing view in strategic policy circles that Canberra should remain firmly wedded to the US alliance as the means for prosecuting its own economic and strategic interests in Asia and internationally.

The debate highlights the increasingly precarious balancing act facing the Turnbull government, which has backed the “pivot” and the US military build-up in Asia, while attempting to avoid antagonising China and risking economic retaliation. It has so far not carried out a “freedom of navigation” operation—sending a warship into Chinese-claimed waters—despite pressure from Washington. Last week Turnbull also made clear that his government was not about to change its One China policy as Trump has threatened to do.

The debate in Australian ruling circles will only intensify after Trump is inaugurated as US president next month and proceeds to implement his aggressive agenda against China. The disputes in Canberra undoubtedly reflect discussions taking place in capitals throughout the region as each seeks to defend its economic and strategic interests. This in turn will only intensify geo-political rivalry in the Asia Pacific and heighten the dangers of trade war and military conflict.

Russia, Iran and Turkey issue joint declaration on Syrian settlement

Bill Van Auken

After meeting in Moscow on Tuesday, top officials of the Russian, Iranian and Turkish governments issued a joint eight-point statement of principles calling for the extension of a ceasefire throughout Syria and a negotiated settlement between the Syrian government and its opponents.

Much of the statement, dubbed by Russian officials the “Moscow Declaration,” was boilerplate. It declared the three countries’ support for “the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic,” while affirming that “there is no military solution to the Syrian conflict.”

The timing of the statement and the geopolitical alignment of its three signatories, however, make the document extraordinarily troubling for Washington.

The meeting in Moscow was convened on the basis of the stunning defeat delivered to the nearly six-year-old US-orchestrated war for regime change in Syria. Last week, Syrian forces, backed by Russia and Iran, retook eastern Aleppo, the last urban stronghold of the Islamist militias that served as US proxy forces in the fight against the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

That Turkey has now joined with Assad’s key allies, Russia and Iran, is an indication of the severity of this defeat. Previously, Turkey had served as a key state sponsor of the Al Qaeda-linked militias fighting in Syria, allowing its territory to be used as a conduit for the shipment of CIA-supplied arms and foreign fighters into the country, while dispatching elements of its security forces to provide them aid and training.

Over the past week, however, Turkey joined with Russia in brokering a ceasefire with the so-called “rebels” in eastern Aleppo, along with their evacuation together with that of thousands of civilians from the besieged enclave.

The Moscow statement declared that the three countries “welcome joint efforts in eastern Aleppo allowing for voluntary evacuation of civilians and organized departure of the armed opposition.” The statement stands in sharp contrast to the position taken by Washington, which has waged a propaganda campaign denouncing the government’s retaking of Aleppo as a “massacre” and even “genocide.”

That Turkey, a key NATO ally for the last six decades, with the second largest army in the US-led military alliance, has joined with the two countries viewed by Washington as the principal obstacles to its drive to assert hegemony over the Middle East and Eurasia is a serious blow to US policy.

The Turkish government has sought a rapprochement with Moscow since last May, when it began efforts to assuage tensions that erupted after the Turkish air force carried out an ambush shootdown of a Russian warplane operating on the Turkish-Syrian border in November of 2015, raising the threat of an armed conflict between the two countries and potentially drawing NATO into a war with nuclear-armed Russia.

Relations between the two countries grew closer after the abortive military coup against the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan last July, which Erodgan and his supporters blamed on Washington and Berlin.

The Erdogan government has also clashed with Washington over the US alliance with the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia affiliated with the Turkish Kurdish PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), which Ankara regards as a terrorist organization and against which it has waged a protracted counterinsurgency campaign. Erdogan ordered the Turkish army into Syria last August, ostensibly to join the US campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS), but more importantly to block the YPG from establishing a de facto Kurdish state on its border.

The issuing of the Moscow statement came on the heels of Monday’s assassination in Ankara of the Russian ambassador, Andrei Karlov, by an off-duty member of an elite Turkish police unit. While there was initial speculation that the killing could provoke a crisis between Russia and Turkey, the two governments have insisted that they are united in response to the assassination, while pro-government media and officials in both countries have made statements blaming Washington and NATO for the crime.

The affiliations and motives of the killer, 22-year-old Mevlut Mert Altintas, remain in dispute. Erdogan made a statement Wednesday categorically identifying Altintas as a supporter of the opposition Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in self-exile in Pennsylvania.

Erdogan and his ruling AKP party blamed Gulen supporters for the abortive July coup, and the government has since launched a massive purge of the military, the police forces and the civil service that has seen over 100,000 people sacked and some 37,000 detained.

Meanwhile, Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest), the joint command center of Islamist militias dominated by the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate, issued a statement Wednesday claiming responsibility for the assassination. Such an affiliation is in line with the statements made by the assassin after pumping nine bullets into the Russian ambassador.

While it has been widely reported that he shouted out, “Don’t forget about Aleppo, don’t forget about Syria,” it was less widely acknowledged that he began his rant in Arabic, proclaiming himself one of those “who give Mohammed our allegiance for jihad,” a slogan used by Al Qaeda.

The Turkish prosecutor’s office has announced that it is investigating why police who responded to the scene of the assassination shot and killed the assassin rather than seeking to capture him. Sections of the Turkish media have also raised questions on the same subject, pointing out that killing Altintas served to impede the investigation into his real motives. Erdogan reacted angrily to the questions, suggesting that failing to kill him could have cost more lives.

The Turkish government has obvious motives for pinning the killing on the Gulenists, which would serve to legitimize its police-state crackdown while diverting attention from the deep ties forged between the Turkish security forces and the Islamists in Syria during the war for regime change against Assad.

The editorial reaction to the assassination and the subsequent trilateral meeting in Moscow by the two “papers of record” of the US political establishment Wednesday was telling.

The New York Times noted that “the most important thing to say about Monday’s dramatic assassination of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey by a lone gunman is that it has not ruptured relations between the two countries.” It concluded that “losing Turkey as an ally would be another unacceptable casualty of the Syrian war.”

The Washington Post was more blunt, stating that the assassination “might have been expected to derail a fragile detente between the regimes of Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan." The newspaper continued: "Instead, it has served to underline a budding alliance that could have the effect of excluding the United States from the endgame of Syria’s civil war and critically weakening US influence across the Middle East.”

The paper described the killing as a “sign that Russia may pay a price in blowback for its intervention in Syria,” but concluded that Washington may be facing “a peace [in Syria] that will empower a string of anti-US strongmen from Damascus and Tehran to Ankara and Moscow.”

These suggestions by the two most influential US newspapers that a political assassination has had the opposite of the desired effect have ominous implications, given the level of anti-Russian hysteria whipped up in recent months by both the US government and the corporate media.

This anti-Russian campaign saw the former director of the CIA, Michael Morell, tell a television interviewer last August that Washington should respond to the events in Syria by “covertly” telling the “moderate” US-backed rebels “to go after the Russians.” Asked if he meant “killing Russians,” Morell answered in the affirmative.

In his end-of-year press conference last week, President Obama said that Washington would retaliate against Moscow over allegations of Russian interference in the US election “at a time and place of our own choosing.”

Whether or not Washington had a direct hand in the murder of Ambassador Karlov, evidence points to the killing having been carried out by someone affiliated with the US proxy forces in Syria. More fundamentally, the initial reaction to the reversals for US policy in the Middle East suggest that far greater acts of violence are being prepared.

Germany: SPD leader calls for cuts to child benefits for European citizens

Dietmar Henning

As poverty levels grow in Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) is fostering xenophobia. On Saturday, Economics Minister and SPD chairman, Sigmar Gabriel, called for the curtailing of child allowances for European residents in Germany if their children were not currently living in the country. In this case, “child allowance should be paid at the level paid in [the children’s] home country,” Gabriel told newspapers published by the Funke Media Group.

In order to justify his demand, Gabriel turned reality on its head. He said: “In some large cities, there are whole streets with run-down estates where immigrants live for just one reason: because they can receive child allowance at a German level for their children who do not live in Germany.”

Immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania, in the majority Sinti and Roma, are severely exploited and suffer from mass poverty. Often denied miserly Hartz IV social benefits, they must accept any sort of work, no matter how low the pay. Many have to keep themselves and their families above water by working as day labourers.

They can only find accommodation in “run-down estates,” paid for from their miserable wages (in many cases less than €5 an hour) and child allowance—their only secure source of income. To now claim they tolerate these conditions merely because of child benefit payments is the type of racist demagogy associated with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and other far-right outfits.

The yellow press Bild-Zeitung subsequently delivered the figures. According to the Federal Agency for Labour, Germany paid child allowance for some 185,000 children living in EU countries who did not have German citizenship. In December of last year, this figure stood at 120,000. From January to December 2016, around €32 billion in child allowance was paid, of which €470 million was paid to children living in EU countries without German citizenship. Poles, Romanians, Croatians and Czechs were most likely to receive child allowance from Germany.

“There is a right to immigration in Europe, but there is no right to immigrate to social systems without work,” Gabriel said. This is a lie. In fact, Article 45 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union guarantees the “free movement of workers” in Europe.

EU citizens are thereby entitled to “work in another EU country” and “live there for that purpose,” the European Commission notes on its web site. EU nationals are to be treated “in the same way as the nationals of the host country” with regard to access to employment, working conditions and all other social benefits and tax benefits.

German municipalities welcomed Gabriel’s statement. “We need this law now,” Helmut Dedy, the chief executive of the Organisation of German Cities, told Die Welt. Gerd Landsberg, Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the chief executive of the German Association of Cities and Towns, agreed, saying, “Free movement within the EU does not mean that EU citizens can choose the social system with the most comprehensive services.” A new law was needed to prevent a “certain form of social tourism.”

There are enormous differences in child allowance in Europe, “in some cases in excess of €100 per month,” Landsberg said. If the child allowance for 185,000 children could be reduced by a monthly €100, savings of €18.5 million would be made. This sum amounts to less than 0.07 percent of the total of paid-out child allowance and makes clear that Gabriel’s demand is solely aimed at fostering right-wing sentiments.

Gabriel even criticised German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) from the right, stating, “I have been waiting months for a proposal for such a reduction in child allowances from the responsible CDU finance minister.”

Schäuble is not against a reduction in child allowance. At present, he cannot enforce it due to the European legal system. “Last week the EU Commission presented an initiative that does not allow child allowance in the European Union to be adjusted to the price level in the child’s country of residence,” a spokesman from Schäuble’s department declared. This was a matter of regret and “possibilities were being explored to change European citizenship law.”

The Commission’s proposal states: “There is no provision for the child’s benefits to be linked to an index: the country of employment of the parent continues to be responsible for the payment of child allowance and this amount can not be adjusted, if the child lives elsewhere.”

According to the Commission, less than 1 percent of children’s benefits are paid from one member state to another within the EU.

Gabriel’s proposal has been heartily greeted by the conservative CDU and Christian Social Union (CSU) parties. The CSU regional group leader in the Bundestag, Gerda Hasselfeldt, noted that her party had long advocated such a reduction. If Gabriel were now to embrace this course, that is “good and necessary,” she said.

CDU Vice-President Thomas Strobl, a right-wing rabble-rouser who puts forward the policies of the AfD in the CDU on many questions, said it was laudable that Gabriel was now on this track. His colleague, deputy CDU chairperson Julia Klöckner, remarked that Gabriel was making suggestions which, in the mouths of others, he claimed were populist. CSU General Secretary Andreas Scheuer stated that evidently the SPD boss had ended the year with good resolutions, and, “In the new year we can solve the issue together.”

Last April, Labour Minister Andrea Nahles (SPD) had already presented a draft bill that would deny unemployed EU citizens social benefits for five years. Now the SPD is taking the next step to direct anger over its own self-created social misery into racist and chauvinistic channels.

Fifteen years ago, the SPD-Green coalition led by Gerhard Schröder (SPD) created the prerequisites for a huge low-wage sector with its Agenda 2010 program. Currently every fifth employee in Germany works at wages below €10 per hour. The resulting social gulf plays into the hands of the AfD, which exploits social anger against foreigners, Muslims and other minorities.

Right-wing, anti-immigrant offensive escalates in aftermath of Berlin terror attack

Peter Schwarz

Although the background to Monday’s attack on a Berlin Christmas market remains unclear, politicians and the media are using it to mount a right-wing offensive in Germany and throughout Europe. The attack claimed 12 lives and left 48 people injured.

On Tuesday, the police released a 23-year-old refugee from Pakistan because of lack of evidence that he had driven the truck that ploughed into a crowd at the Breitscheidplatz in central Berlin. Now the search is focused on a young Tunisian, Anis Amri, who has been living in Germany since July 2015 and has been under surveillance by the security authorities because he is alleged to be in contact with a German network of the Islamic State.

According to press reports, the investigators found an identification document from Amri under the driver’s seat of the vehicle. Why they discovered it only after one-and-a-half days, although they had previously examined the vehicle for DNA traces of the first suspect, remains unanswered. Just as puzzling is why a perpetrator on the run would leave his visiting card at the crime scene.

Ralf Jäger, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, the state where Amri was registered, told the press that the participation of the man in the attack was “still not at all clarified.”

On the basis of available information, nothing definitive can be said about those responsible for the Berlin attack. An Islamic background cannot be excluded, but neither can a provocation by home-grown right-wing forces be ruled out. It should be recalled that the attack carried out by an 18-year-old student in Munich this past summer was immediately declared an act of Islamist terrorism, until it turned out that the offender was a right-wing extremist.

The lack of clarity has not stopped politicians and the media from using the Berlin attack to launch a concerted campaign against refugees and demand a massive buildup of the state apparatus. The right-wing extremist Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the federal government, are leading the pack.

Their attacks are directly or indirectly directed against the CDU chairperson and chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, who plans to run for a fourth term as chancellor in the Bundestag (parliamentary) elections next autumn. Although Merkel has long since dropped her pose of acceptance of refugees fleeing the imperialist wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya Afghanistan and other countries in the Middle East, Northern Africa and Central Asia, and switched to a course of ruthlessly deterring and deporting refugees, her critics continue to denounce her for being “soft” in regard to the refugee “problem.”

Marcus Pretzell, a leading AfD politician, tweeted immediately after Monday’s attack: “The deaths are Merkel’s responsibility!” On Wednesday evening, the AfD organized a vigil in front of the Chancellery at which far-right organizations such as Pegida, the Identities, and the National Democratic Party (NPD) planned to take part.

On Tuesday, Bavarian Prime Minister and CSU Chairman Horst Seehofer declared in Munich: “We owe it to the victims, their families and the entire populace to rethink and readjust our entire immigration and security policy.”

The Bavarian minister of the interior, Joachim Herrmann, claimed on Deutschlandfunk that the perpetrators were “people who had come to Germany as part of the refugee stream.” He added, “The risks are obvious.”

Participants in the Maischberger news interview program broadcast by ARD Tuesday evening demanded a massive state buildup. Shlomo Shpiro, known as an Israeli terror “expert,” described the Berlin attack as “Germany 9/11.” In the US, he declared, people had woken up to the threat of terrorism from one day to the next. This was now taking place in Germany. “The solutions,” he said, “are police, intelligence, security policy, but also social.”

Shpiro called for doing away with the “outdated laws, regulations and structures” that had been anchored in the German constitution as a consequence of Nazi rule. He said it was necessary to centralize the state surveillance and police apparatus. He acknowledged that “services in Germany have a bad reputation—keyword, Stasi, Gestapo, etc.” But, he said, the times when people could dwell on the crimes of such organizations were “over.”

Klaus Bouillon, the chairman of the Interior Ministerial Conference, called for “clear solutions” to deal with the terror threat, which “will certainly continue.” He continued: “We need to significantly strengthen the police, we need new forms of organization, we need more weapons. We need to think, do we need new laws to help investigation agencies, do we need to control the new media more?”

The Greens and the Left Party are supporting this campaign. The chairperson of the Green Party in the Bundestag, Katrin Göring-Eckardt, attacked Shpiro and Bouillon on the Maischberger show from the right. She criticized the fact that the intelligence services had not been centralized long before. On Deutschlandfunk, the Green politician Boris Palmer demanded: “There must be more deportations.” The Left Party has been demanding more police for some time.

These reactions were not restricted to Germany. Across Europe, right-wing parties and governments seized on the Berlin attack as confirmation of their authoritarian and xenophobic policies.

Czech Finance Minister Andrej Babis, a millionaire entrepreneur, declared that Merkel’s policy was “responsible for this dreadful act.” He continued: “It was she who let migrants enter Germany and the whole of Europe in uncontrolled waves, without papers, therefore without knowing who they really are.” Migrants had “no place” in Europe, he insisted.

The Dutch extremist Geert Wilders published a picture of Merkel with blood on her hands and blamed Europe’s “cowardly leaders” for a “tsunami” of Islamic terrorist attacks.

The former UKIP (UK Independence Party) leader Nigel Farage posted on Twitter: “Terrible news from Berlin but no surprise. Events like these will be the Merkel legacy.”

The head of the Polish ruling party PiS, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, declared: “We will defend Poland.” The country’s interior minister, Mariusz Blaszczak, announced: “If the old government were still in power, we would have had several thousand, maybe 10,000 Islamist immigrants in the country. Then the danger would be great. It is all about a ‘struggle of Civilisations.’” He added that it was “no accident the target was a Christmas market.”

The editor of Die Zeit, Josef Joffe, a notorious right-winger, was jubilant, writing in the British Guardian: “Now the cocoon has burst for good. Ever protective of our privacy laws, Germans will soon come around to much intensified surveillance by our own intelligence services and those of our allies… Now Germany will invest even more in security—and perhaps show a bit more gratitude to the NSA, GCHQ and DGSE.”

Militarism in Germany would also benefit, Joffe continued. “Pacifism, the nation’s traditional posture since the Second World War, is losing its luster as Putinist expansionism encroaches on NATO’s eastern borders, while Donald Trump dismisses the alliance as ‘obsolete.’”

He concluded: “Above all, if the perpetrator does turn out to be a refugee, Merkel’s ‘open door’ policy on refugees will get a decisive make-over.” The policy of the “open door” was “a grand moral gesture stemming from Germany’s ugly past—an act of historical atonement.” But, he added, “The noblest of intentions go awry when terror legitimizes anti-migrant and isolationist parties on the right and on the far left.”

There is no indication that this right-wing campaign has significant popular support. The atmosphere in Berlin is calm. Most of those interviewed express grief and horror combined with the hope that the attack does not poison the public climate and lead to an upturn in the fortunes of the right wing. Seehofer's attempt to politicize the terrible events after only 14 hours aroused widespread anger.

What is taking place is a deliberate campaign by ruling circles for which the attack on the Christmas market provides an ideal pretext. Here lies the real parallel to 9/11, as opposed to the claims of the Israeli terror “expert” Shpiro.

The attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, in which the US intelligence services played a still-to-be-clarified role, provided the pretext for the wars in the Middle East by means of which the United States sought to defend its position as the sole world power, while erecting a huge surveillance and security apparatus for the control and suppression of the working class. The culmination of this development is the presidency of Donald Trump, whose government is comprised of members of the financial oligarchy and the military.

The ruling elites in Europe are now taking the same course. In so doing, they are responding to growing social tensions and the breaking apart of the European Union. The differences that arise between and within the bourgeois parties are purely tactical. In the basic direction of policy—militarism and social counterrevolution—all of the established parties are in accord.

Mosul, Iraq and Obama’s legacy of war

James Cogan

Barack Obama is the first two-term American president to have presided over war every day of his tenure in office. He bequeaths to a Trump administration ongoing operations in Afghanistan, continuing drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, the consequences of the 2011 destruction of Libya, the instigation of civil war in Syria, US sponsorship of the brutal Saudi interventions in Yemen, and the civil conflicts in Ukraine, the Caucuses and across Africa.

Obama’s blood-soaked legacy, however, is most graphic in Iraq. There is a bitter irony in this, given the fact that he was elected in 2008 largely on the basis of claimed opposition to the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of the country, and his boasts, after continuing the war for nearly three more years after his inauguration, to have ended it with the formal withdrawal of US forces in December of 2011.

Obama launched new military attacks in Iraq following ISIS’ June 2014 capture of Mosul, where one of the most criminal episodes in over 25 years of US violence against Iraq and its people is currently unfolding.

The northern Iraqi city is under siege by tens of thousands of US-led Iraqi Army forces, Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) troops and sectarian Shiite militias. The objective is to take back control of the city from the Sunni extremist Islamic State, which was able to capture Mosul and other Iraqi cities from the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad only because of the weaponry and recruits it had gained in Syria by serving as a proxy for the US and its allies in the war for regime change against the government of Bashar al-Assad.

The Obama administration seized upon this blow-back from its own policy to resume large-scale American operations in Iraq and directly intervene in the war in Syria. Uncounted numbers of Iraqis and Syrians have paid with their lives as a result. The majority Sunni cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in western Iraq have already been effectively destroyed and depopulated as a result of the campaign to evict ISIS. Now, the same destruction is being inflicted to “liberate” Mosul—Iraq’s second largest city with a population of some 1.5 million.

After two months of the US-led assault, reports from Mosul testify to large-scale civilian casualties, mass displacement, the wholesale destruction of infrastructure and housing, and horrific human suffering.

The Baghdad government instructed Mosul residents to remain in their homes and not flee the city. In the weeks since, air strikes by the US and British, French, Australian, Canadian, Jordanian and Iraqi war planes have shattered bridges linking the west and east of the city across the Tigris River and destroyed water pipelines. Electricity has been cut off in most areas. The university and other public buildings have been reduced to rubble, while roads are being “cratered” to stop vehicles using them.

Hundreds of thousands of people, including large numbers of children, are trapped without safe drinking water, adequate food or access to medical treatment. ISIS has rigged buildings with explosives and is sending vehicles driven by suicide bombers against the government forces pushing into the eastern suburbs. It has ignited oil-filled trenches to cover the city in thick black smoke and hinder air attacks. The US-led offensive is making limited progress due to the savage resistance.

The most populated suburbs are still held by ISIS. In the areas that have been retaken by US-led forces, just 100,000 people have been able to flee to tent city displacement camps. Males are separated from their families to be detained and interrogated for potential ISIS sympathies. Scattered reports have surfaced of Sunni civilians being killed or tortured by sectarian Shiite troops or militias. Once in the camps, people are prevented from leaving for “security reasons.”

A Kurdish government representative stated this week that 2,000 more people are now fleeing the city each day. Lisa Grande of the United Nations told the Washington Post: “We are very worried that we are going to run out of supplies. We only have limited amounts of stocks, and if everyone near and inside Mosul requires help, we won’t have enough—not by a long shot.”

Medical facilities have been overwhelmed by civilians with wounds caused by gunfire or explosives. The fate of the majority of wounded, inside the city where hospitals are not functioning, is terrible to contemplate.

The Obama administration and American media, as well as the governments and media in allied states, have denounced as a war crime the Russian-backed Syrian government offensive that dislodged US-backed Islamist “rebels” from the city of Aleppo. The plight of Aleppo civilians, particularly imagery of suffering children, has been widely reported.

The people of Mosul, however, are being treated as “collateral damage” by the imperialist hypocrites, barely warranting comment. Casualties are largely being blamed on ISIS using civilians as “human shields” or attacking people trying to escape the city with snipers or mortars.

Summing up the situation, one displaced person told the Washington Post: “People of Mosul have two options. Either stay inside and die because of the bombing or hunger, or go to the camps—to the prison. Either way, it’s a slow death.”

The US military has stated that the offensive will go on for at least two to four months—well into the first stages of a Trump presidency. When, or if, Mosul falls, the full extent of civilian deaths is unlikely to ever be known. Close to 14 years since the US invasion, the credible estimate by Lancet that it caused over 650,000 deaths just between March 2003 and June 2006 is still routinely rejected as exaggerated by apologists for American imperialism and its puppet government in Baghdad. The death toll of this year’s bloodbaths in Fallujah and Ramadi has not been revealed.

While the exact human cost is unknown, there is no doubt as to the overriding motive behind the 1991 Gulf War, years of sanctions on Iraq, the 2003 US invasion, through to the current blood-letting in Mosul: Oil.

The 2003 invasion was a criminal conspiracy planned between the Bush administration and the major oil conglomerates and justified with flagrant lies that Iraq threatened the United States with “weapons of mass destruction.” It was continued under Obama because years of Iraqi resistance had prevented the US establishing untrammelled dominance over either the country’s energy resources or the broader Middle East. During the past three years, ISIS’ victories in Iraq, and Russia’s decision to join Iran in militarily supporting the Syrian Assad government, have further set back the US agenda.

US intrigues in the Middle East will continue under Trump. He is surrounded by figures steeped in the 25-year attempt to subordinate the region to American dictates. These include Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, whose company sought to buy up much of Iraq’s oil industry. In charge of the Pentagon will be Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, who commanded Marines in the 2004 assault on Fallujah, opposed the withdrawal of US forces in 2011, and has advocated military confrontation with Iran to shatter its influence in Iraq and Syria.

The degree to which the Middle East becomes the focus of US aggression under Trump will be determined by the outcome of the bitter struggle taking place within the American establishment over which major rival to its world position should be its more immediate target. Accusations by the Democratic Party and much of the American media that Trump’s victory is the result of “Russian interference,” stems from their concern that the new administration intends to moderate the confrontation with Russia in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, in order to focus more immediately on escalating the conflict with China.

Regardless of what front is ultimately chosen by a Trump administration, the legacy of Barack Obama is the heightened danger of World War III.

Tanzanian-German Centre for Eastern African Legal Studies (TGCL) Scholarships for East African Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 17th February, 2017

Eligible Countries: East African Community Partner States (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda)

To be taken at (country): University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Field of Study: Law

About the Award: The TGCL, a think tank on East African Community law, is a cooperation project of the University of Dar es Salaam and the University of Bayreuth in Germany. It is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Structured LLM and PhD study programmes at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, are addressed to aspiring young East African lawyers, qualifying them for leading positions in the region.

The LLM candidates will pursue a coursework and a dissertation programme on Regional Integration and East African Community Law. The programme takes one year of fulltime attendance.

PhD students are required to write a comprehensive PhD thesis within three years of fulltime attendance.

The TGCL will offer seminars and workshops on academic research methodology and professional leadership skills for its students, accompanied by an introduction to German Law and the Law of the European Union.

Additionally, interdisciplinary seminars and a German language course are part of the programme.

On successful completion of the programme, the students will obtain a law degree from the University of Dar es Salaam and an additional TGCL Certificate.

Type: PhD/Masters

Eligibility: Applications are invited especially from candidates from the East African Community Partner States (i.e. Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda).

The formal minimum requirements for admission to the LLM and PhD programmes are:

• for the LLM programme: a Bachelor’s degree in law (LLB) with a minimum GPA of 3.0 or its equivalent from a recognised higher learning institutions.
• for the PhD programme: an excellent LLM degree from a recognised institution

The language of instruction in the School of Law is English. Those who are not conversant with it should not apply.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Scholarships are granted only to applicants from EAC countries and will cover:

• the university fees for the LLM/PhD programme
• a reasonable health insurance
• an annual stipend of 2,400 EUR for Tanzanians and of 3,000 EUR for non-Tanzanians
• a housing allowance of 30 EUR per month
• a once-off research grant of 460 EUR for LLM and 920 EUR for PhD

Duration of Scholarship: 

• LLM: 1 Year
• PhD: 3 Years

How to Apply: The applicant must register online through the TGCL website and submit the following documents electronically:

1. a signed curriculum vitae with clear evidence of periods of legal and other relevant education, training and practical experience. It is compulsory to use the Europass CV template (http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu).
2. one page letter of motivation
3. certified photocopies of all relevant certificates (birth certificate, school leaving certificates, academic transcripts, certificates of legal or other professional education, including provisional results for applicants who are in the final year of their LLB studies); in the case of documents not in English an official translation should be attached
4. a passport picture
5. a release letter from your employer (if you are employed) – a proposal of the intended research (for LLM candidates: 1,500 words; for PhD candidates: 3,000 words) – see annexed guidelines
6. for PhD candidates: an electronic copy of your LLM dissertation

Additionally, applicants must send (1) Hard copies of all application documents mentioned above (2) three letters of recommendation (signed and sealed), (3) a printout of the online registration form to:

The Coordinator, TGCL, Dr Benedict T. Mapunda, University of Dar es Salaam School of Law, P.O. Box 35093, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; phone: +255 22 278 1422; fax: +255 22 278 0217; email:mapundabt@yahoo.com

Apply here

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details 

Award Provider: German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Important Notes: Incomplete and late applications will not be considered. All applications have to be submitted both online and as a hardcopy. It is highly recommended to use a reliable professional courier service to ship the hardcopy, if you are not handing it in personally