United Nations/Ranan Lurie Political Cartoon Awards 2017

Application Deadline: 15th November, 2017

Eligible Countries: Editorial cartoonists from around the world can enter this contest.

To be taken at (country): Online

About the Award: The UNITED NATIONS in its desire to promote the highest standard of excellence in political cartoons depicting the spirit of the United Nations has established this annual political cartoon award given in the international field, and named the award after political cartoonist Ranan Lurie.

Type: Contest

Eligibility: 

• Submissions should reflect fundamental UN principals, the importance of human dignity, mutual respect and friendship among nations, as well as economic consideration and environmental responsibilities toward each other.
• Entries for these awards may be made by any professional individual, and should consist of political cartoons printed in any publication published anywhere, in any language. The entry must consist of reproductions only.The cartoon reproductions will be accepted only as published, with name of publication, language, and date included, accompanied by a newspaper reprint, and translated into English.
• Exhibits are limited to two cartoons per person.
• Reproductions must be presented measuring no larger than 8,5 x 11 inches. Envelopes larger than 8,5 x 11,5 inches and that are thicker than one eighth of one inch will not be opened, and their entries shall not participate in the competition.
• Submissions must have been published between Sept. 1, 2015 and Oct. 15, 2016.
• The Committee requires that all entries conform to the stated limits and sizes before it can be given any jury consideration. All exhibits should include a biography of no more than 75 words long, be written in clear English, and a picture of the entrant.
• The entries should be sent in soft envelopes, easy to open.
• All materials including prize-winning exhibits become the property of The United Nations Ranan Laurie Political Cartoon Awards and will not be returned. Again: Only copies (not originals!) will be accepted for consideration. All material may be used for promotional purposes, including but not limited to inclusion in special United Nations albums or any other albums and/or exhibits.
• Our obligation is fulfilled upon the mailing of the plaques and/or valid checks to the award winners. Checks must be cashed within three months of mailing, after which time the checks will become null and void. The Committee will not be responsible for banking procedures and limitations of any country, or negligence that may create obstacles in cashing the check.
• The decisions of the judges are final and irrevocable.

Number of Awardees: 13

Value of Scholarship: The names of the winners of our thirteen prizes will be published on December 15, 2016, on this web site, together with their winning cartoons:

• First prize, of us$10,000 and a plaque.
• Second prize, of us$5,000 and a plaque.
• Third prize, of us$3,000 and a plaque.
• Ten honorable mention plaques granted by

The United Nations Ranan Laurie Awards Committee

How to Apply: Entries must be submitted in writing and addressed to:

THE UNITED NATIONS/RANAN LURIE
POLITICAL CARTOON AWARDS
25 Columbus Circle
New York, NY 10019

(No phone or fax calls or Emails, please). While cartoonists may send in what ever they please, the contest does not encourage maligning member nations.

Winning cartoons will be chosen for their high professional standards in art, political analysis of events, projection of events to come, humor, while also reflecting the spirit and principles of the U.N.

Entry Form

Visit Contest Webpage for details

Award Provider: The United Nations

Important Notes: All winning entries will be announced via the worldwide press and on the website. All winners’ prizes, either financial and/or plaques, will be sent via U.S. registered mail by December 15, 2016, to the winners.

256 Makerere University MasterCard Foundation Scholarships for African Students 2017/2018

Application Deadline: 28th April 2017 5pm

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Citizens and residents of all African countries.

To be taken at (country): Makerere University, Uganda

Eligible Field of Study: Applying to study in the preferred fields of Agriculture, Veterinary medicine, ICT, Health Sciences, Technology and Engeneering, Law and Human rights and Business and Financial Management at Makerere University.

About Scholarship: Makerere University has partnered with The MasterCard Foundation (MCF) to support 1,000 academically bright but economically disadvantaged youth from Africa to access quality university education from 2014 to 2024. The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program at Makerere University is pleased to announce 200 scholarship opportunities for both national and international students who will be joining the University in the academic year 2017/18 for undergraduate education.

Offered Since: 2014

Type: undergraduate

Eligibility

• Applicants must apply for admission to Makerere University main campus only for academic year 2016/17 on private scheme. The applicant should be admitted on direct entry (using UACE results) or its equivalent for international applicants.
• The applicant must be from an economically disadvantaged background, and a citizen of any country in Africa.
• The applicant should exhibit academic excellence in either Sciences or Arts with a minimum of 15 points for boys and 13 points for girls at UACE for Ugandans, and two principal passes in relevant subjects for international applicants. Those who studied sciences have an added advantage.
• The applicant must demonstrate leadership skills, commitment to social betterment and giving back to their communities.
• The applicant should not have been admitted on government or be holders of any other scholarship.

Selection Criteria: Applicants must be:

• Academically talented, must value learning and be driven to complete their education.
• Economically disadvantaged and facing significant financial barriers to accessing education.
• Committed to giving back to their own communities once studies are completed.
• Return to their home areas and countries and take a leadership role in promoting social and economic improvement.
• Future leaders committed to embracing ethical leadership to improve the lives of others.
• Commitment to community service through previous and/or past engagements with community outreach activities
• Wanting to study at undergraduate level at Makerere University
• All prospective Scholars must first be admitted to Makerere University to be considered for the Scholarship.

Number of Scholarships: 256 for 2017/2018 academic year and a total of 1,000 students through 10 year period of the scholars program.

Value of Scholarship: full scholarship

Duration of Scholarship: for the period of the undergraduate degree

How to Apply:

• Applicants should obtain and complete the Scholarship Application Forms at no cost from Makerere University, Senate Building Level 4, Room 402,

OR

Down load the application forms from The MasterCard Foundation Scholars website on http://mcfsp.mak.ac.ug or Visit the University website at http://mak.ac.ug

• Submit completed Application Forms to the address in (1) above by Friday 28th April 2017 at 5:00pm. If submitting by email as an attachment, ensure the scanned copy of the scholarship application form is clearly legible and send to: info@mcfsp.mak.ac.ug.
• Should you need further clarification on the application process don’t hesitate to call us on our hotline +256 414 542470

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Scholarship Provider: MasterCard Foundation

Important Notes: This program exercises merit principles and zero tolerance to dishonesty.  Any form of influence pedaling by anybody leads to automatic cancellation. Cases of impersonation, falsification of documents, giving false and incomplete information whenever discovered will lead to automatic cancellation and or prosecution in the courts of law of Uganda.

Only successful applicants will be contacted at every stage of the application process.

Female applicants are particularly encouraged to apply.

East Tennessee State University Undergraduate, Masters and PhD Academic Merit Scholarship 2017/2018

Application Deadline: Completed applications, including letters of recommendation, need to be submitted by the following dates:

• Fall semester deadline: no later than 15th July, 2017
• Spring semester deadline: no later than 15th October, 2017

Scholarship Name: International Students Academic Merit Scholarship

Brief description: East Tennessee State University USA offers Undergraduate and graduate Merit Scholarships for international students to study for 2015/2016

Accepted Subject Areas: Courses offered at the University

About Scholarship: The International Students Academic Merit Scholarship is open to new international students seeking a graduate or undergraduate degree. The scholarship covers 50 percent of the total of in and out-of-state tuition and maintenance fees only. No additional fees or costs are covered.

The award is available for:

• Eight semesters for undergraduate recipients
• Five semesters for recipients seeking a master’s degree, or commensurate with the length of the program.
• Eight semesters for doctoral students, or commensurate with the length of the program.
• Scholarship can be applied to summer semesters.

Scholarship Offered Since: Not Specified

Scholarship Type: Undergraduate and graduate merit scholarships in US

By what Criteria is Selection Made?

• Recipients must maintain full-time status.
• Undergraduate recipients must maintain a 2.75 grade point average in order to continue receiving the scholarship. Graduate recipients must maintain a 3.0 GPA.
• The scholarship only applies to in and out-of-state tuition and maintenance fees. Recipients will be required to pay other fees such as program fees, course fees, housing costs, and medical insurance costs.
• Recipients continuing from a bachelor’s to a master’s degree program must reapply for the scholarship.

Who is qualified to apply? Applicants Must:

• Be admitted to ETSU as full-time, degree-seeking students. Scholarship applicants must apply for admission to ETSU before their scholarship applications can be reviewed.
• Have or plan to have an F-1 or J-1 student visa
• Have a demonstrated record of academic achievement
• Fill out the scholarship application form.
• Students are encouraged to apply as soon as they are admitted to ETSU.

Number of scholarships: Not specified

What are the benefits? The scholarship covers 50 percent of the total of in and out-of-state tuition and maintenance fees only.

Eligible Countries: International Students

To be taken at: East Tennessee State University USA

Offered annually? Yes

How to Apply: Students are encouraged to submit scholarship applications as soon as they are admitted to ETSU. An application cannot be reviewed until the applicant is admitted to the university. Applications received after the deadline will not be reviewed.

Visit the Scholarship Webpage for details

Sponsors: East Tennessee State University

Important Notes: Students who are NOT eligible:

• Students continuing from an ETSU bachelor’s degree program to a second ETSU bachelor’s degree program
• Graduate students receiving a graduate assistantship or tuition scholarship
• Students receiving any other ETSU tuition scholarship
• Students applying for the M.D. and Pharm. D. programs

Newton Advanced Fellowships for Early Career Researchers 2017

Application Deadline: 23rd March 2017

Eligible Countries: Brazil, China, Malaysia, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey

About the Award: The Royal Society invites applications for the Newton advanced fellowships – Brazil, China, Malaysia, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey. These enable international researchers to establish and develop collaborations with the UK, with the intention of transferring knowledge and research capabilities. The skills and knowledge gained should contribute to advancing economic development and social welfare of the partner country. Fellowships are worth up to £37,000 per year for up to three years.

Type: Research, Fellowships

Eligibility: Applicants must have a PhD or equivalent research experience and hold a permanent or fixed-term contract in an eligible university or research institute, which must span the duration of the project. Applicants should have no more than 15 years of postdoctoral experience. Collaborations should focus on a single project involving overseas-based scientist (“the Applicant”) and UK-based scientist (“the Co-applicant”).

Selection Criteria: Applications will be assessed by the Newton Advanced Fellowships Panel and decisions made in September 2017.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value and Duration of Program: Awards last for up to three years and are available to support researchers across the natural sciences, including clinical or patient-oriented research. Up to £37,000 is available each year, guidelines for use as follows:

• A salary top up (maximum £5,000) for the group leader from the partner country.
• Research support (maximum £15,000) to cover costs for studentships, staff, consumables or equipment.
• Travel and subsistence (maximum £12,000) to cover travel costs of the UK partner to the international partner and/or travel of the international partner to the UK.
• Training (maximum £5,000) to support the career development of the applicant and their research group or network.

How to Apply: Applications can only be submitted online using the Royal Society’s electronic Grant Application and Processing (e-GAP) system.

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: This scheme is funded by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy as part of the Newton Fund.

LSHTM Masters Scholarships for Future Health Leaders in Africa 2017/2018 – UK

Application Deadline: Sunday 19th March 2017.

Eligible Countries: Africa countries

To be taken at (country): UK

About the Award: These highly competitive scholarships are available to applicants intending to study on a one-year, full-time, London-based MSc programme at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: To be eligible for these scholarships, applicants must

• be nationals of, and resident in, countries in sub-Saharan Africa; and
• intend to return to sub-Saharan Africa on completion of their MSc year at the School; and – confirm in writing that they would not otherwise be able to pay for the proposed programme of study; and
• meet the School’s minimum English language requirements; and
• hold a first degree at either a first or upper second class equivalency level, and
• hold an offer of admission for 2017-18 for one of the School’s 18 London-based MSc programmes of study. Preference will be given to applicants who demonstrate outstanding experience and qualifications (in their application documentation), and who have the potential to make significant contributions to public and global health in Africa.

Number of Awardees: 3

Value of Scholarship: Each scholarship will cover

• tuition fees, including any mandatory field trip fees, and
• a tax-free stipend (living allowance) of GBP 16,510.00.

How to Apply: Applicants should complete both steps below by the scholarship deadline.

• Step 1: Submit an application for 2017-18 for a London-based MSc programme of study, as per instructions under the ‘How to Apply’ tab on the relevant programme of study page, ensuring that all necessary supplementary documents (including references) are submitted by the scholarship deadline.
• Step 2: Submit an online scholarships application, selecting the option ‘2017-18 MSc Scholarships for Future Health Leaders’. A completed Supplementary Questions Form for this scholarship must be uploaded as part of this application.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Important Notes: Please note the name of the scholarship fund may change and is associated with a pharmaceutical company.

The Next Terrorist Atrocity

Brian Cloughley

Official Washington refers to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization as ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and although this regional description is clearly out of date the fact remains that IS is a loose international association of quasi-religious thugs whose likeness to human beings is marginal and whose savagery is almost beyond comprehension. Its attack on a hospital in Kabul on March 8 was indicative of the depths to which it will sink in its contemptible campaign of terror.

President Trump has thrown down the American gauntlet at the feet of these barbarians and sworn to destroy them, which is a laudable aspiration, because they are intent on creating mayhem throughout the world.  Their declared ambition is to establish a so-called Caliphate “claiming exclusive political and theological authority over the world’s Muslims,” and although they first began to operate in the Middle East, where they are being opposed militarily and with moderate success by disparate groupings of national and cross-national forces, they have expanded well beyond their initial bases.

IS terrorist groups and affiliates are thriving most markedly in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Yemen and even Saudi Arabia.  Following the US-NATO war that reduced Libya to anarchy in 2011 IS was given the opportunity to establish control over wide areas of North African territory and expand in numbers and political influence.

Their very existence is a festering crisis, a truly malignant virus that is spreading inexorably round the world, for IS’s influence is being felt in Western and Asian countries where it has pulled in followers who may be even more dangerous than those in Muslim states. The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dunford, said it has enlisted about 45,000 followers in over 100 countries, and there is evidence that its recruiting campaign has been successful in attracting anti-social misfits from many walks of society.

Mr Trump said he instructed his administration to develop a “comprehensive plan” to defeat Islamic State, and declared that “we will work with our allies, including our friends and allies in the Muslim world, to extinguish this vile enemy from our planet.”  The Pentagon has sent the White House a preliminary proposal, described as a “framework for a broader plan aimed at countering the extremist group beyond Syria and Iraq,” but it is difficult to see how any military-based strategy is going to succeed in neutralizing the fetid octopus of Islamic State.  As with his predecessors, President Trump has made an anti-terrorist statement of well-intentioned reassurance, but it remains to be seen what direction his policy will take his country and the world.

In the meantime the terrorist threat is growing outside the Middle East.  Even while IS is being defeated in conventional warfare in Syria and Iraq, and gradually being driven out of its former safe havens, it is concentrating on extending its evil influence elsewhere, and attacks by its fanatics have had a considerable effect around the world.  The tourist industries in many countries, most notably France, Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia have suffered grievously, and the New York Times reported that in France, for example, “growth in hotel room bookings after the Paris attacks fell to single digits from 20 percent. After the Brussels bombings, bookings went negative, and after Nice, bookings fell by double digits.”  This may seem a relatively minor terrorist impact in international terms, but it is extremely serious for those directly affected, and for the economies of regions and countries.  The leaders of Islamic State are well aware of the poisonous effect of their terrorist outrages on all sectors of national communities, and continue to look for means of continuing their campaign of disruption wherever they might detect weakness. It is alarming to consider what opportunities they might seize to create further and perhaps more lasting chaos.

***

It can be unwise to attempt to forecast the future.  We have recently seen major prediction errors by pollsters worldwide, notably on the outcome of Britain’s vote about leaving the European Union and the even more unexpected outcome of the US Presidential election, and the forecasting business is so suspect that some French newspapers have decided to forgo polling in the run-up to the French presidential election in April-May.

The Chinese poet Lao Tzu told the world over two thousand years ago that “those who have knowledge, don’t predict ; those who predict, don’t have knowledge,” and his sagacious observation has by and large been ignored ever since.  We tend to want to believe what we are conditioned to accept, and not the least of these beliefs is that there are experts who can actually predict the future with accuracy.  And having made it clear that such prediction is at best a risky business, I now forecast that there is going to be a terrorist attack involving what is known as a “dirty bomb”.

The dirty bomb, or radiological dispersal device (RDD) is a particularly horrible weapon that the US government describes as combining conventional explosives, such as dynamite, with radioactive material in order to create disruption and panic rather than overwhelming destruction, as effected by a ‘normal’ nuclear weapon.  It points out that a dirty bomb is “not a ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’ but a ‘Weapon of Mass Disruption,’ where contamination and anxiety are the terrorists’ major objectives.”

What is particularly disturbing is that the radioactive material intended for these devices need not be even close to weapons’ grade, and can be obtained from the most commonplace sources. As the Stimson Centre observes, “dirty bombs are attractive to terrorists because the materials necessary to build the weapons are relatively easy to acquire and the technology is simple. Materials with the potential for serious attacks are used in hundreds of medical, industrial, and academic applications.”

As long ago as 2002, Michael Levi and Henry Kelly wrote in Scientific American that “Radiological terror weapons could blow radioactive dust through cities, causing panic, boosting cancer rates and forcing costly cleanups” and Foreign Policy magazine recorded that “some have pointed out that if a simple radiological device had been used in conjunction with the World Trade Center explosive, large areas of lower Manhattan would still be uninhabitable.”

The attraction for Islamic State to pursue construction and explosion of radiological weapons is obvious, but what is not at all clear is what the international community is doing about preparing for the dirty bomb.

An explosion of this type in the center of most cities could be appalling because of the massive effects of panic. In some countries the effects might be containable, although there is evidence that panicked crowds are an international phenomenon.  What is certain is that in cities such as Delhi and Karachi — vast, uncontrollable metropolises — explosion of a dirty bomb, immediately followed by word-of-mouth and social media transmission of shock and alarm, would in all probability result in massive national disruption, with millions of people fleeing the unknown in sheer terror.

President Trump and his experts must certainly continue to fight the fanatics of Islamic State, and no doubt they are thinking ahead to what IS might be preparing to do to again disrupt the already shaky international order. But combating IS demands more than military expansion and improved battlefield tactics.  The major challenge is for leaders of all the world’s nations to acknowledge the possibility of a dirty bomb attack and prepare their citizens to cope with it.  Creating panic could be the Islamic State’s most effective tactic.

Why Everybody But NATO Lives Happily With Russia

JONATHAN POWER

The state of being vigorously anti the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is becoming out of control. It is in danger of becoming pathological and self-destructive. What does the West gain in the long run if it sees nothing ahead but being anti-Russia?

The West is in danger of having embarked on a journey to nowhere. Russia is not going to change significantly in the near future. The very close Putin/ Dimitri Medvedev team are going to remain in the saddle for a long time.

We are not yet in a second Cold War. Those who say we are don’t know their history.

The Cold War was years of military confrontation, not least with nuclear arms. It was a competition for influence that stretched right around the globe and it was done with guns. There was the Cuban missile crisis when nuclear weapons were nearly used.

If Putin is here to stay we have to deal with him in a courteous and constructive way. Russia is not a serious military threat. President Donald Trump’s proposal for an increase in US defence spending is larger than the whole of the Russian defence budget.*

Neither is Russian ideology. When the Soviet Union was communist there was a purpose behind Moscow’s overseas policies – it was to spread the type of government of the supposedly Marxist-Leninist workers’ state. No longer.

Today the militant anti-Putinists – I would include in this group Barack Obama, most of the big media in much of the Western world and most, but by no means all, EU leaders – believe they are defending the US-led “liberal democratic order”. They believe that Russia is intent on undermining it. In their eyes it is democracy against authoritarianism.

But it is not.

As the renowned Russian scholar Gordon Hahn tirelessly points out, there are a significant number of democracies that are non-NATO. India is the most important with its massive population. New Delhi has excellent relations with Moscow and in no way feels challenged.

Neither does Moscow feel that India is engaged in nefarious activity on Russia’s southern flank. Just as the US doesn’t arm itself against Mexico and vice versa so India and Russia don’t prepare to be militarily engaged against the other.

India has neither encouraged nor supported illegal, revolutionary seizures of power in countries neighbouring Russia. For its part Russia has never given Pakistan any encouragement in its confrontations with India, even when Beijing was a close ally of Islamabad.

Indeed, we see a continuously improving relationship between New Delhi and Moscow. BRICS, for example, that joins these two countries with Brazil, South Africa and China brings the five of them economically closer and develops amity between them. The first two are also democracies that in no way feel they are in another camp.

Moscow has good relations with other Asian democracies – with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. There are few tensions between Tokyo and Moscow, even though they have failed so far to settle the sensitive dispute over ownership of the Kuril islands – a leftover from World War 2.

During Putin’s recent trip to Tokyo to talk with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe there was a significant breakthrough on the issue. The two agreed that their countries would engage in joint economic activity on the islands.

South Korea is the US’s firm ally. Nevertheless, Moscow has not raised the issue of the US deployment of an anti-missile defence system in South Korea, aimed at North Korea. Recently Seoul signed some 20 economic agreements with Moscow. Moreover, South Korea plans to sign a free trade agreement with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union- the very one that the US and the EU leant on Ukraine not to join.

There is no sign that Russia is bent on subverting democracy. Democracy flourishes all over the world – in nearly every Latin American country, in most of Africa and a good part of Asia. None of these countries complain of Russian opposition to their “liberal democratic order”.

They live happily with Moscow, (as does authoritarian China). So why can’t the West?

The truth is the West would be enjoying the same benign relationship with Russia if under presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the US hadn’t, step by step, put Russia under the hammer by expanding NATO and breaking its solemn promise not to.

Neither Ronald Reagan nor George H.W. Bush, who understood Russia, saw fit to expand NATO. Richard Nixon, a Russophile, would never have.

Russia’s own post-Soviet politics have veered from chaotic democracy under Boris Yeltsin to a half-way-house authoritarianism under Putin. For all their deficiencies they have been miles away from the repression of Soviet rule.

The West is going to have to live with this kind of Russia for a long time. The West must stop being both paranoid and vindictive. This is counterproductive and goes nowhere.

UK Chancellor Hammond commits to further years of austerity

Robert Stevens 

Chancellor Philip Hammond meant his Spring Budget to be as uncontroversial as possible, given that the government is to trigger Article 50 beginning the process of the UK exiting the European Union (EU) by the end of this month.

However, the media seized on his decision to increase Class 4 National Insurance contributions (NICs) for the self-employed from 9 pence to 11 pence. The move will hit 2.5 million people (many on low incomes) out of 4.8 million self-employed—raising £500 million a year for the Treasury. It brings the rates paid by the self-employed closer to workers directly employed by businesses.

The increase breaks a promise made in the 2015 Tory election manifesto promising no tax rises over the five-year parliament.

But of greater import still for all working people is that Hammond’s budget was based on a commitment to continue with five more years of austerity.

Hammond’s speech painted a rosy picture of an economy that “continued to confound the commentators with robust growth.” But he made clear that the expanding wealth of the major corporations and the super-rich will not lead to an end in austerity because their enrichment depends on the impoverishment of the working class.

The budget confirmed what David Cameron, Prime Minister Theresa May’s predecessor, said in 2009—that the UK was entering an “age of austerity.”

Hammond told MPs there would be no retreat from the attacks on the jobs, wages and living standards of the working class: “As we prepare for our future outside the EU, we cannot rest on our past achievements. We must focus relentlessly on keeping Britain at the cutting edge of the global economy. The deficit is down, but debt is still too high. And our task today is to take the next steps in preparing Britain for a global future.”

The central task was “getting Britain back to living within its means,” Hammond declared.

The Financial Times noted that Hammond left in place every austerity policy launched by Cameron’s chancellor, George Osborne, “including cuts to in-work benefits—that will lead to a large increase in income inequality over the next few years. Despite the rhetorical commitments, there is very little help for families who are ‘just managing’.”

Daily Express columnist Leo McKinstry said the government was correct to continue the “policy of austerity” and “Hammond rightly warned the job is far from complete.”

To underscore what this means, the Institute of Fiscal Studies made a public statement on the budget, with Paul Johnson declaring that Britain faces “a third parliament of austerity.”

He noted that Britain was still due to be borrowing around £20 billion in 2020, which is £30 billion more than intended a year ago. “That leaves a lot of work to do in the next parliament to get to the planned budget balance. It looks like being, I’m afraid, a third parliament of austerity.”

Johnson noted that forecasts suggest that by 2022 people will have gone 15 years without an effective pay rise and average earnings will be no higher in 2022 than they were in 2007. “I’m rather lost for superlatives,” he said. “This is completely unprecedented.”

When Hammond replaced Osborne in May’s first Cabinet after becoming prime minister last July, claims were made that the austerity agenda was being relaxed, with Hammond shelving Osborne’s target of reaching a budget surplus by 2020. The reality is that austerity is to be extended for years into the future and must necessarily be intensified as the UK exits the EU.

Hammond said that in the autumn (2016 budget) Statement, “I set out our plan to return the public finances to balance in the next Parliament.”

To further facilitate the privatisation of education, Hammond announced that another 110 free schools—state-funded but privately run outside of Local Education Authority control—will be opened, including a new generation of grammar schools.

The only extra spending that Hammond was prepared to pledge was a drop in the ocean. With many forecasting that adult social care provision was on the brink of going under within 12 months, Hammond pledged just £2 billion to social care in England over the next three years, with a paltry £1 billion available in 2017-2018. Social care funding has been eviscerated by nearly £5 billion in cuts over the previous five years.

Even a recent report by parliament’s Tory-dominated Communities and Local Government Committee estimated that the funding gap in adult social care ranges from £1.3 billion to £1.9 billion in 2017-2018, and will increase from £1.1 billion to £2.6 billion in 2019-2020.

Nothing is to be provided in extra funding or resources for the National Health Service (NHS), despite its situation being described by the British Red Cross as one of a “humanitarian crisis”. Hammond rolled out the government’s standard line that an extra £10 billion in annual funding is being given to the NHS by 2020.

He never mentioned that the NHS is having more than £40 billion slashed from its budget in “efficiency savings” from 2010 to 2020. These are to be imposed via Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) being implemented in 44 regions of the UK. Hammond said the “Treasury will work closely with the Department of Health over the course of the summer as the STPs are progressed and prioritised.”

While poverty now affects at least a third of the population, with the social right to health, education and housing being destroyed, the demands of the sated ruling elite for further enrichment were met by Hammond. “I am listening to the voice of business,” he declared. “My ambition is for the UK to be the best place in the world to start and grow a business.”

He boasted how “In 2010 Corporation Tax was 28 percent. From April this year, it will fall to 19 percent, the lowest rate in the G20. In 2020, it will fall again to 17 percent, sending the clearest possible signal that Britain is open for business.”

Labour’s leader Jeremy Corbyn described the budget as “complacent”, while presenting no alternative beyond demands for trifling amounts of money to be allocated to the NHS. “The money ought to be made available now. Because this government ducks really tough choices, like asking corporations to pay a little bit more in tax,” he said.

The fact is that Labour in office under Corbyn would continue the same austerity agenda and protect big business. Corbyn told MPs that under the austerity programme, “council services are suffering,” noting that 67 libraries nationally were closed last year, along with 700 Sure Start centres and 600 youth centres.

He said, “These painful decisions being taken by councils not because they want to do it, but just because they don’t have enough money even to keep essential services running because of the slashing of their budgets, year on year.”

This is staggering hypocrisy. Austerity is the official policy of the Labour Party. Labour controls the vast majority of councils in the UK’s main towns and cities. These councils “do want to do it” and have been faithfully imposing every cut demanded by successive Labour and Conservative cuts since mass austerity was initiated, following the £1 trillion bailout of the banks by the 2007-2010 Brown Labour government.

Corbyn’s election as Labour leader made not an iota of difference. At Labour’s last conference, councils under its control were instructed to continue imposing austerity and not to set “illegal budgets”. Councils were warned in a letter from Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell that disciplinary measures would follow if austerity was not imposed.

Fillon survives challenge as French right’s presidential candidate

Alex Lantier & Stéphane Hugues 

In an emergency meeting of Les Républicains’ (LR) Political Bureau Monday night, LR candidate François Fillon received a unanimous vote of confidence to continue his presidential campaign. Nonetheless, the vote, coming after a virtual disintegration of his campaign staff and the eruption of bitter recriminations among LR’s central leadership, has exposed the deep divisions provoked inside LR by its rapid shift far to the right.

Fillon’s campaign has been badly damaged since January when reports emerged, in retaliation for his proposal of a French-German-Russian alliance against the Trump administration in Washington, apparently showing that he organized no-show jobs for his wife Penelope, worth €900,000. Some 71 percent of French voters want Fillon, who has advanced an unpopular program of deep social austerity, to withdraw.

Before the Monday LR political bureau meeting, significant sections of LR rallied behind calls for Alain Juppé, Fillon’s main rival for the LR presidential nomination, to run as an emergency replacement for Fillon. Polls currently show that if Juppé ran, he would reach the second round of the elections, where he would face neo-fascist National Front (FN) candidate Marine Le Pen and beat her, winning the presidency. Fillon, on the other hand, would be eliminated in the first round.

Starting late last week, virtually the entire top leadership of Fillon’s campaign staff resigned, more or less openly attacking Fillon. Last Thursday, assistant campaign director Sébastien Lecornu and campaign treasurer Gilles Boyer resigned, with Boyer denouncing Fillon for adopting neo-fascistic positions: “You don’t fight the FN by trying to be further to its right.” On Friday it was the turn of Fillon’s campaign spokesman Thierry Solère to leave, and on Sunday campaign director Patrick Stefanini sent his resignation letter to Fillon.

If Fillon ran and LR were defeated, Stefanini wrote, this “would place center-right voters before an unbearable dilemma,” namely, of voting for the FN or for candidates close to the unpopular Socialist Party (PS) government. “I cannot accept to work on such a perspective,” he added.

Fillon responded by organizing a right-wing protest in defense of his campaign on Sunday afternoon at the Trocadéro palace, in a wealthy neighborhood of Paris. It gathered several thousand protesters and mobilized a large cadre of operatives close to the far right, including the Common Sense movement of anti-gay marriage activists.

He also went on France2 television that night and stressed that, as the winner of the LR primary, he was the only legitimate LR candidate and that LR’s Political Bureau could not remove him. “It is not the party that will decide. We will not choose in backstage maneuvers. … If voters had wanted Alain Juppé, they would have voted for him in the primaries.”

In the event, Fillon received a unanimous vote of support from LR’s political bureau, apparently after Fillon received the support of Nicolas Sarkozy—who, as president from 2007 to 2012, also pursued a strategy of appealing to FN voters on a nationalistic and far-right basis.

Juppé issued a statement Tuesday morning definitively declaring that he would not run. He attacked his own party’s membership, stating that “the hard core of LR members has become radicalized” and blamed their shift towards far-right positions for his inability to rally the party. “I am not in a position to carry out the necessary unification of the party around a common platform,” he said, “and this is why I am confirming—once and for all—that I will not run for the presidency of the Republic.”

Juppé’s supporters within LR denounced Sarkozy’s role in the internal LR discussions, with one telling Le Monde: “Sarkozy prefers to lose with Fillon than to win with Juppé. It’s irresponsible.”

The eruption of a political crisis that threatens to split LR apart is a product of the broad shift to the right of the European Union (EU) since the 2008 economic crisis and, in France, of the rapid turn far to the right of President François Hollande’s PS government. As he sought to cultivate a far-right constituency for policies of austerity and war, particularly within the police and security forces, Hollande adopted ever larger portions of the FN’s program.

He imposed a state of emergency in response to attacks carried out by terror networks used by the NATO powers for their war in Syria; closed down refugee camps; rounded up and deported Roma families; and formed a paramilitary national guard. Hollande repeatedly invited FN presidential candidate Marine Le Pen to the Elysée presidential palace to legitimize her party.

LR was trapped between the PS’ hysterical drive towards the far right, and the rising influence of the FN. While Juppé tried to pose as a moderate, Sarkozy and Fillon spoke for those sections of LR that sought to push it further to the right. They tried to attack both the FN and the PS from the right, to win support of Catholic fundamentalist circles as well as sections of big business looking to carry out slashing attacks on basic social programs, such as Social Security.

They are also apparently trying to stop a rapid shift towards the FN of much of the LR voting base and political periphery, by taking over much of the FN’s program.

Philippe de Villiers, a right-wing nationalist traditionally close to LR forces but who was also courted by PS-backed candidate Emmanuel Macron, is now backing Le Pen. He declared that he supports her because “her hand will not tremble when she needs to take painful decisions,” and because he said she had absorbed the conceptions put forward by himself, fascistic former Sarkozy advisor Patrick Buisson, and pro-Vichy journalist Eric Zemmour.

De Villiers wrote, “Marine has read our books [of Villiers, Buisson and Zemmour] and has understood where we’re going. The result is that our readership is ditching Fillon. The right will vote for Marine Le Pen in the second round, she can win.”

At the same time, the record of the PS government and of Fillon underscores that large sections of the political establishment are now adopting political positions very close to those of the FN. This underscores the bankruptcy of any attempt to halt the attacks on basic social and democratic rights in France by voting for candidates closer to LR or the PS. Fillon’s survival and the evolution of the LR campaign underscores that these fundamental rights can only be defended by the working class, in opposition to the shift of the French and European ruling class far to the right.

European Central Bank maintains a balancing act

Nick Beams

The European Central Bank has sought to keep balancing between demands from Germany for a pull-back from its low-interest rate regime, and retaining its present “accommodative” monetary policies. The pressure has increased over recent months, with signs of increased euro zone inflation and marginal improvements in growth.

The ECB’s governing council, which met in Frankfurt yesterday, left its interest policy and bond buying program on hold but decided to remove a key sentence from its statement.

ECB president Mario Draghi told a press conference that a sentence stating that “if warranted, to achieve its objective the governing council will act by using all the instruments available within its mandate,” which appeared in previous statements, was no longer included.

This was a “signal that there is no longer that sense of urgency in taking further actions”—a concession to German demands.

Headline inflation in Europe has moved closer to the 2 percent level that the ECB says is its target. The rise, however, has been due mainly to increased oil and unprocessed food prices. Draghi said “the risks of deflation have largely disappeared” but he was not prepared to pronounce “victory on the inflation front.” For that to happen, he stated, wages would have to rise at the faster rate. The governing council’s members wanted to be “convinced that they actually see a self-sustained adjustment in inflation” and “we don’t see it yet.”

In addition to demands from Germany for a winding back of the low-interest rate regime, which is regularly denounced as impacting adversely on German savings, the ECB is facing pressures from the policies of Donald Trump’s administration in the United States, in particular over currency values and trade.

Those pressures have increased following the latest data, which showed that the US trade deficit in January jumped to its highest level in five years. It rose by 9.6 percent to $48.5 billion, up from $44.3 billion in December, the largest monthly trade gap since the deficit of $50.2 billion in March 2012.

The Trump administration has focused on China, insisting that it has benefited from the international trading arrangements since its entry into the World Trade Organisation in 2001, to the detriment of the US economy. White House officials have also taken aim at Germany, declaring that, with the euro’s establishment as the European Union’s common currency, Germany has benefited in international markets because the deutschmark’s value would have been significantly higher.

During the ECB press conference, the attacks on Germany were raised in a question that referred to the country’s trade surpluses and the large surplus for the euro zone as a whole.

Draghi delivered a reply in polite language but the underlying tensions were discernible. He repeated the defence of euro zone policy that he made to the European parliament last month after US criticism.

“I don’t think there is any merit in attacking Germany,” Draghi said. “The currency of Germany is the euro and the euro area’s monetary policy is conducted by the ECB.” The euro’s exchange rate was “determined by market forces.”

Obviously prepared for such questions, Draghi quoted from a US Treasury determination of October 2016 that Germany was not a “currency manipulator.” The euro’s real effective exchange rate was close to its historical average, he said. “But the [real] effective exchange rate of the dollar is off the historical average. So it means that it’s not the euro, which is the culprit for this situation.”

The ECB’s caution in reading too much into the uptick in inflation and growth figures was also reflected in a global economic assessment issued by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on Tuesday.

It said global gross domestic product was expected to “pick up modestly” to around 3.5 percent in 2018, from just under 3 percent in 2016. But a “disconnect between financial markets and fundamentals, potential market volatility and policy uncertainties” could “derail the recovery.”

Referring to the boost in share prices—the US market is up by about 15 percent since Trump’s election—the OECD noted an apparent “disconnect” between the positive assessment of economic prospects as reflected in market valuations and forecasts for the real economy.

The improvement in market sentiments, the OECD said, “contrasts with continued low growth of consumption and investment, which still lag well-behind previous recoveries, and the slowdown in productivity growth, with persistent inequality.”

The OECD noted a risk of exchange rate volatility due to the rising variance in interest rates between major economies. The world’s two major central banks, the US Federal Reserve and the ECB, are on divergent paths. While the ECB decided to maintain its rate of minus 0.4 percent, the Fed is expected to again raise its base interest rate by 0.25 percent at its meeting next week.

The report noted that uncertainties in many countries about future policy actions and political directions were “high” and there was “significant uncertainty about the future direction in trade policy globally.” No-one was named, but this was a reference to Trump’s “America First” trade agenda and the rise of right-wing economic nationalist parties in Europe.

The same issue surfaced in the final question at Draghi’s press conference. The ECB president had emphasised the importance of statements from G20 summit meetings about avoiding competitive currency devaluations and other protectionist measures.

Draghi was asked how important it was that these commitments be maintained at the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany on July 7-8, given there were reports that such commitments may be dropped.

There is uncertainty over the make-up of the G20 meeting because of elections in the Netherlands and the presidential election in France prior to the summit. Right-wing economic nationalist parties could make significant gains. While the polls are currently running against her, Marine Le Pen of the right-wing National Front could even take the French presidency.

Draghi replied that the commitments not to engage in competitive devaluations and to maintain open trade had been “the pillars of world prosperity” for many decades and it was important that the G20 reaffirmed them.

It would be a major step for the G20 to drop its previous commitments. The fact that the possibility is even being raised and has reached the ear of the ECB president points to the sharp rise of tensions in global economic relations.