As Americans die younger, corporations to reap billions in pension costs

Kate Randall 

Life expectancy for Americans has stalled and reversed in recent years, ending decades of improvement. According to a new Bloomberg study, this grim reality has an upside for US corporations, saving them billions in pension and other retirement obligations owed to workers who are dying at younger ages.

In 2015, the American death rate rose slightly for the first time since 1999, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Over the last two years, at least 12 large companies have reported that negative trends in mortality have led them to reduce their estimates for how much they could owe to retirees by a combined $9.7 billion, according to Bloomberg’s analysis of company filings.

It is highly unusual in modern times, except under epidemic or war conditions, for life expectancy in an industrial country to stop improving, let alone decline. Laudan Aron, a demographer at the Urban Institute, told Bloomberg that falling US life expectancy, especially when compared to other high-income countries, should be “as urgent a national issue as any other that’s on our national agenda.”

But this has not sounded alarm bells in Washington. In fact, shortened life expectancy in the 21st century is the result of deliberate government policy of both big business parties: to restrict access to affordable health care, resulting in increased disease, suffering and early death.

Those who stand to cash in on the shortened lifespans of workers include General Motors, Verizon and other giant corporations. Lockheed Martin, for instance, has reduced its estimated retirement obligations for 2015 and 2016 by a total of about $1.6 billion, according to a recent annual report.

Companies have reduced estimates of what they will owe future retirees. According to a Society of Actuaries (SOA) report, companies can expect to lower their pension obligations by about 1.5 to 2 percent, based on a 2016 update of mortality data.

Life expectancy for the US population was 78.8 in 2015, a decrease of 0.1 year from 2014, according to the CDC, with the age-adjusted death rate increasing 1.2 percent over the year. Since the introduction in 1965 of Medicare and Medicaid—the government insurance programs for the elderly, poor and disabled—US life expectancy has steadily increased.

Death rates for Americans over age 50 have improved by 1 percent on average each year since 1950, according the SOA. In 1970, a 65-year-old American could expect to live another 15.2 years, on average, until just past 80 years.

From 2000 to 2009, the death rates for Americans over age 50 decreased, with annual improvements of 1.5 to 2 percent. By 2010, a 65-year-old could expect to live to 84. But these increases have slowed in recent years, with life expectancy at 65 rising only about four months between 2010 and 2015.

The slowing in death rate improvements since 2010, and the actual lowering of life expectancy in 2015, have followed the global financial crash of 2007-2008. Despite the Obama administration’s declaration that the Great Recession ended mid-2009, millions of US workers and their families continue to suffer under the weight of unemployment, underemployment, and stagnant or falling wages.

Seven years after the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, a staggering 28 million Americans remain uninsured. Those who are insured have seen their premiums, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs skyrocket. Families are saddled with billions of dollars in medical debt.

The lack of access to affordable health care is resulting in an unprecedented health crisis in the US. A 2015 study showed that mortality was rising for middle-aged white Americans, with deaths from suicides, drug overdoses and alcohol, collectively referred to as “ deaths of despair.” Both women and men have been affected by this phenomenon.

CDC data shows that more than 500,000 Americans have died of drug overdoses in the period between 2000 and 2015, now approaching an average of 60,000 a year.

The 10 leading causes of death in 2015 were heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, unintentional injuries, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, kidney disease, and suicide, according the CDC. Despite scientific advances in medical treatment and the development of new drugs to treat these diseases and conditions, they still accounted for 74.3 of all US deaths in 2015.

Moreover, from 2014 to 2015, age-adjusted death rates increased 0.9 percent for heart disease, 2.7 percent for chronic lower respiratory diseases, 6.7 percent for unintentional injuries, 3 percent for stroke, 15.7 percent for Alzheimer’s disease, 1.9 percent for diabetes, 1.5 percent for kidney disease, and 2.3 percent for suicide. Only cancer saw a reduction, of 1.7 percent.

It is on the backs of workers dying earlier from these diseases, alongside “deaths of despair,” that US corporations now stand to save billions, increasing their bottom lines by not paying out pensions and retirement benefits.

This is by design. Obamacare was the first significant effort to reduce the trend of increasing life expectancy by shifting the costs of medical care from the corporations and government to the working class. The ACA was drafted in close consultation with the insurance industry, requiring those without insurance to purchase coverage from private insurers under the threat of tax penalty.

The ACA set into motion the rationing of health care for ordinary Americans, making vitally needed treatments and medicines increasingly inaccessible for millions. This has now borne fruit in the first reduction in US life expectancy in more than half a century.

Following the Republicans’ failure to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, the Democrats have responded by offering to work with the Republicans to “repair” the ACA. But they do not mean reducing the number of uninsured or further expanding Medicaid.

Instead they have offered a five-point plan to shore up the insurance companies by setting up a “stability fund” for companies to insure high-risk enrollees, and guaranteeing they receive $8 billion in government cost-sharing payments to the insurance firms that the Trump administration has threatened to cut off.

Such measures, along with savings from unpaid retirement benefits, will further bloat corporate profits along with those of the private insurance companies and health care industry as a whole.

Facebook establishes new censorship centre in Germany

Christoph Vandreier 

Facebook announced Wednesday that it would open a new control centre in Essen with 500 employees. The number of workers responsible for censoring and checking content in Germany will almost double as a result. The company has thus far only one such centre in Berlin.

Facebook has gone to great lengths to cover up the work of the control centres. While the training documents and internal guidelines for the workers have been kept strictly secret, the company organised a tour of the Berlin centre for selected media outlets a month ago.

The public broadcaster WDR, Die Zeit and Spiegel Online were permitted to look at locked screens and ask questions of workers specially primed for the occasion in the offices of Arvato, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann, which carries out the deletions for Facebook. All three media outlets focused their subsequent reports on the difficult working conditions of the employees and presented them as being responsible merely for deleting videos of brutal beheadings and child pornography.

In fact, millions of Internet users are being systematically censored in the hermetically sealed-off offices. Reports about the deletion of critical posts and the blocking of left-wing and progressive authors have risen rapidly in recent months.

Last December, for example, a post by the satirist Leo Fischer was deleted. Fischer placed the xenophobic headline of the right-wing Bild newspaper, “The great debate about refugees’ perceptions of women,” alongside the same newspaper’s regular pictures of women in bikinis and took a picture of it. It was not only attacked by numerous right-wing extremists, but also deleted by Facebook, because the post allegedly breached the community’s regulations.

With the same justification, Facebook blocked Austrian author Stephanie Sargnagel for 30 days. Her profile had been flagged by numerous right-wing and far-right users in a concerted campaign. Sargnagel had posted satirical comments against xenophobia and racism, and therefore ended up in the crosshairs of the far right and the Internet company.

Berlin-based blogger Jörg Kantel also reported that some of his posts were deleted. After the Bild seized on the violence surrounding the G-20 summit in Hamburg to publish unpixelated pictures of alleged rioters from Hamburg, Kantel wrote, among other comments, “Germany, a land of denunciators and surveillance. At least since 1933!” According to the blogger, Facebook deleted the post.

The list of censored authors could be extended at will. In addition, there are those who go unnoticed because they lack the prominence of the individuals involved in the cases discussed. The Guardian revealed on May 21 that Facebook was carrying out this work systematically. The newspaper obtained 100 training documents for the workers at the control centres and came to the conclusion that they were alarming for advocates of free speech.

While posts advocating extreme violence and brutal murder or containing insults were deemed unproblematic, the employees were ordered to immediately delete posts like “Someone shoot Trump,” because as a head of government, Trump was part of a “protected category.” Freedom of speech therefore only applies at Facebook so long as the government, which is considered worthy of protection, is not attacked.

This is an obvious violation of freedom of speech, which above all protects the population’s right to criticise the government.

The close connections between the government and the major corporation’s censorship apparatus is especially clear in Germany. Even though on July 1 only 1.5 percent of Facebook users came from Germany, 16 percent of Facebook’s 7,500 censors will work in Germany by the end of the year when the new facility is up and running. At the end of June, the federal parliament passed the so-called Network Enforcement Law, which compels companies like Facebook to fulfill the responsibilities of a censor. Without any judicial ruling, the company must delete “obviously unlawful content” within 24 hours or face a fine of up to €50 million [$US 59 million]. The major companies are left to determine what “obviously unlawful” is.

The censoring of the Internet by the government and corporations is by no means restricted to Facebook. Google, the search engine monopoly, has disappeared entire websites from its search results, making them inaccessible to millions of readers.

This operation was also implemented in close consultation with German government circles. On April 25, Google’s chief engineer of search, Ben Gomes, announced that Google would downgrade “low-quality” information such as “conspiracy theories” and “fake news.”

Just three weeks earlier, Gomes met with representatives of all German state governments to discuss the functionality of search engines.

Google’s censorship measures resulted in numerous anti-war websites and left-wing publications being massively downgraded. The World Socialist Web Site was targeted in particular, with its search traffic from Google declining by 67 percent.

The resort to such aggressive censorship by the government and major corporations can only be explained by mounting social conflicts. Policies of militarism and social attacks are being met with opposition from the vast majority of the working population. War and capitalism are incompatible with basic democratic rights.

This is why all of the parties represented in the German parliament are calling in their election programmes for the strengthening of the state apparatus and the censoring of the Internet. Concepts such as “fake news” or “hate speech” serve in this context to justify state repression. The lies of the major media outlets and agitation by all parties against refugees, by contrast, are being spread without hindrance.

In its programme, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) describes “fake news” as “a great danger for peaceful coexistence and for a free and democratic society.” Therefore, it calls for the “better training and equipping of police authorities and judicial system in this area.” The SPD intends to retain the Network Enforcement Law and cut the “reaction times” even more. “Anybody failing to abide by the provisions will be punished with painful financial penalties.”

The Left Party also calls for more police and for action to be taken against “verbal attacks” online. “We want to protect the security of citizens in public spaces with more personnel,” their election programme states. “On social networks, as in public spaces in general, protection against verbal attacks, hate speech and character assassination must be enforced.”

It is no coincidence that this choice of words recalls the campaign of leading media outlets against the World Socialist Web Site and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality. Because they criticised right-wing extremist statements, which were subsequently confirmed as such by a court, from Humboldt University Professor Jörg Baberowski, accusations of “bullying” and “character assassination” were directed against them.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung complained shortly prior to Gomes’ visit to Berlin about “how impactful the Trotskyist splinter group is,” and demanded the WSWS be censored—a demand that Google has since fulfilled.

European Union criticizes US nuclear war threats against North Korea

Alex Lantier

The military stand-off that is emerging between Washington and the North Korean regime in Pyongyang threatens the entire world, including Europe, with nuclear war. European Union (EU) officials and European media are warning of the risk of war and ever more openly criticizing the Trump administration’s threats to incinerate North Korea with nuclear bombs.

The European press noted that Trump threatened to unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen” against North Korea the day before the 72nd anniversary of the US atom bombing of Nagasaki. It is also widely reporting Pyongyang’s reckless threats to bomb the US Pacific island of Guam and the dispatches of its Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). These include the KCNA report of North Korean General Kim Rak Gyom’s dismissal of talks with Trump: “Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason, and only absolute force can work on him.”

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel indicated that Berlin is deeply concerned by the policies of both the North Korean regime and Germany’s ostensible ally in Washington. “Our main concern, now that this struggle is escalating,” Gabriel said, “is that both sides are ramping it up, and this can in fact end in military conflict.”

France’s Catholic daily La Croix pointed to the effects of even a limited war in Northeast Asia: “Even if the North Korean regime collapsed after a military conflict, the human and political cost for countries in the region would be considerable. The economic consequences of such a war would also be considerable, especially given the region’s role as a motor of the world economy; China, Japan, and South Korea are the world’s second, third and eleventh largest economies, respectively.”

Le Figaro cited retired General Jean-Bernard Pinatel, who indicated that a US attack would likely end in a nuclear holocaust. Speaking of Trump, Pinatel said: “What can he do? A pre-emptive strike? North Korea today has 10 to 20 nuclear weapons that are miniaturized enough to reach South Korea, Japan, or even Guam. There is the anti-missile shield, but if he asks his military staff what guarantees he has, his generals will reply that zero risk in military matters does not exist. Can he risk North Korean retaliatory strikes that claim a million lives in Seoul or Tokyo?”

Le Figaro reported that Pinatel believes Trump’s nuclear war threats are to a large extent addressed “to the American people, to make them forget his difficulties in domestic politics.”

The inescapable conclusion that emerges from the remarks of European bourgeois politicians and media is that world capitalism is passing through a political collapse on a scale comparable to the world wars of the last century. Pre-emptive wars and their use to divert the attention of angry and impoverished populations from social issues—policies employed by US imperialism for decades with the tacit acceptance of its European imperialist allies—have criminalized the NATO countries’ domestic regimes. They now threaten humanity with disaster.

The central feature of the remarks by European politicians and generals is that they downplay the threat posed to humanity in general, and the European population in particular, by the Korean crisis. Speculating about the disastrous initial effects of one or another US or North Korean missile strike, they do not address what the outcome of such a war would be.

However, anyone suggesting that a war would only have economic effects on Europe, or that conflict would stop once North Korea had been reduced to ashes—together with much of South Korea, Japan, and potentially the United States—is placing heavy bets against history. It is clear that what is emerging is a conflict with the potential to escalate rapidly into a world war.

China already intervened in the Korean War of 1950-1953 to prevent the US army from destroying North Korea, and to maintain a buffer between itself and US troops in South Korea. North Korea’s other great-power neighbor, Russia—already on high alert after the NATO-backed overthrow of a pro-Russian regime in Ukraine in 2014, and amid NATO war games across Eastern Europe—would doubtless also prepare for war in the event of a US strike on North Korea.

US war threats are aimed not in the final analysis at North Korea, moreover, but at more powerful states that Washington sees as rivals. Above all, US imperialism’s Asia policy is driven by increasing tensions with its nominal NATO allies in Europe. As the “unipolar moment” of US global military hegemony that followed the Soviet bureaucracy’s dissolution of the USSR rapidly fades, and class conflict rises in the NATO countries, inter-imperialist tensions between Europe and America are surging.

This is particularly the case in Asia. Britain and the EU powers joined China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2015 over US objections. EU officials hailed their strategic relations with China after Washington obtained a ruling against China last year, over the South China Sea dispute at a UN court in The Hague. And Berlin and Paris attacked Trump after his election last year when he indicated he could move away from the One China policy, with French officials warning that US policy meant China’s “unity is being put into question.”

As Germany announces the re-militarization of its foreign policy and countries across the EU prepare vast social cuts to spend billions of euros more on their military machines, the EU countries are also seeking to expand their commercial penetration of Asia. The Trump administration’s threats in recent weeks to place massive trade sanctions on Russia and China are to a large extent a trade war measure aimed at its imperialist rivals in Europe. The US foreign policy establishment itself now remarks on the US-EU tensions in Asia.

After the election of French President Emmanuel Macron in May signaled a period of close strategic ties between Berlin and Paris, The National Interestpointed to the potential dangers to US interests in Asia posed by a Franco-German axis. It wrote, “This will signal a significant diminution in American prestige and influence abroad. Imagine, for example, that Merkel decided to defy Trump’s push for sanctions and isolating Iran by establishing trade ties with North Korea, including selling it weapons.”

Workers and youth opposed to war in Europe and internationally cannot oppose the threat of escalation against North Korea by endorsing the foreign policy of the EU powers against that of Washington. It is ever clearer that EU policy is to wait for a better moment to assert, commercially and militarily, imperialist interests not fundamentally different from those of Washington.

For now, Berlin and its allies have not carried out sufficient attacks on workers’ living standards to build a military machine capable of rivaling the Pentagon. After Britain’s exit from the EU, moreover, London is hostile to the Berlin-Paris axis and is aligning itself with aggressive US military measures against North Korea and China. Under these conditions, the EU powers are pressing for China to broker a settlement with Washington at Pyongyang’s expense.

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen stressed that China is “the only country with influence over North Korea,” while La Croix wrote, “The only diplomatic card is China, Pyongyang’s ally. Donald Trump blows hot and cold on Beijing, not without success, since Beijing voted with the rest of the UN Security Council, at the end of last week, to impose new sanctions on North Korea.”

German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schäfer said, “These sanctions must above all be firmly imposed. Thus we can increase the pressure for Pyongyang to join talks. Therefore we see US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s offer of talks as the right way forward, to set talks with North Korea into motion immediately once the [North Korean] regime stops its illegal missile tests.”

Thousands of textile workers strike in defiance of Egyptian dictatorship

Johannes Stern

Thousands of textile workers in Egypt are on strike for higher wages and better working conditions in defiance of the brutal Western-backed dictatorship of General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.

On Thursday, the Middle East Eye reported that as many as 16,000 workers were involved in the walkout at the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company (MSWC), Egypt’s largest state-owned textile mill, located in the Nile Delta City of Mahalla al-Kubra. Overall, MSWC employs more than 25,000 workers.

Six thousand workers struck the company on August 5, demanding improved wages and benefits and the payment of delayed bonuses. On August 8, 10,000 additional workers joined the strike and refused to resume work after management met with workers’ representatives and offered a 10 percent basic salary rise. The workers rejected the offer and said they would end the strike only if their demands, which also include an increase in their share of the company’s profits, an increased food allowance and changes in promotion policy, were met.

One of the striking workers, who spoke to the Egyptian online newspaper Mada Masr under the condition of anonymity, reported that the strike was being carried out at all of the company’s plants, including eight spinning factories, seven cloth factories, one wool factory, one grille workshop, 11 textile factories and the garage, electricity and water departments.

Speaking to the Egyptian daily Al Ahram, Faisal Loksha, a leading strike activist, described the strike as a “final escalation.” He said, “For the past couple of weeks, we have organised short rallies inside the factory after working hours, demanding the raise. As our demands had not been met, we decided to go on a full strike in the factory.”

Mahalla al-Kubra is a historic center of working-class struggle in Egypt. Workers at MSWC mounted massive strikes against the regime of former dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2006 and 2008 and played a key role in the mass revolutionary struggles in 2011 that brought down Mubarak. In December 2012, amid rising working-class opposition to Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, workers and students in Mahalla declared themselves “autonomous” from what they called Mursi’s “Muslim Brotherhood State.”

The current strike in Mahalla reflects growing working-class opposition to al-Sisi’s counterrevolutionary military dictatorship that has killed and jailed tens of thousands of political opponents since the July 2013 military coup against Mursi, and is now preparing an all-out assault against the working class. On May 22, security forces violently dispersed a sit-in strike at the privately owned Tourah Cement Company in southern Cairo, detaining 32 workers who were demanding full-time contracts.

The current strike erupted after Egypt’s consumer price inflation jumped to 33 percent in July—the highest rate since the floating of the Egyptian pound last November, following a $12 billion loan approved by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As part of the IMF-dictated austerity package, the regime last month raised fuel prices by up to 50 percent and imposed severe cuts to the bread subsidies upon which masses of impoverished Egyptians depend.

With the economic and social crisis in Egypt deepening and protests and strikes once again on the rise, fear of another revolution is rising among the imperialist powers. A recently published paper by the European Council on Foreign Relation titled “Egypt on the edge: How Europe can avoid another crisis in Egypt” warns: “The Egyptian economy is the most pressing cause for concern in the country today. Since the 2011 revolution, political instability and security fears have deterred investors and tourists, causing revenues to plummet. The political repression instituted by Sisi has only exacerbated the situation.”

The authors continue: “All signs point to the continuation, and indeed escalation, of social and economic protests motivated by local, sectarian and even nationalistic considerations. Not all protests are politically inspired, but it is unwise to overlook the discontent that is simmering in Egyptian society. The 2011 revolution was preceded by thousands of protests, sit-ins and strikes organised by the labour movement; they could be playing the same role today. Sisi would ignore the discontent of Egyptians at his government’s peril.”

The imperialist powers may be concerned that Sisi’s repression is only fueling another social explosion, but their reaction is to arm his regime to the teeth. On Tuesday, the Egyptian Navy, at a ceremony in Kiel, received its second of four Type 209/1400 submarines from German shipbuilder Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems. According to media reports, the contract for the four vessels is worth some €1.4 billion.

In April, US President Donald Trump welcomed al-Sisi to the White House in a public demonstration of support for his bloodstained regime. After Israel, Egypt is the second-biggest recipient of US military and economic aid in the region. The central function of the massive Egyptian military apparatus, funded by $77 billion in US aid over three decades, is to police the largest and strongest working class in the Arab world.

As of this writing, the strike is continuing. Reports indicate that the regime is not willing to meet the demands of the workers and is preparing for a confrontation. Speaking to Ahram Online, MP Nemat Amar of Mahalla urged the workers to end their strike. He claimed that they did not have the right to ask for the special wage increase promised by al-Sisi and the Egyptian parliament, as it applies “to the workers and employees of the ministries and general authorities only.”

The Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported that the Gharbiya Security Directorate deployed troops to the entrances and exits of Mahalla, along with secret agents to quickly control the workers should marches or protests break out.

US imperialism and the threat of nuclear war against North Korea

Peter Symonds

The world is poised on the brink of a war on the Korean Peninsula that could rapidly escalate into a global nuclear conflict.

US President Donald Trump has doubled down on his inflammatory threat to engulf North Korea in “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Yesterday he commented that his words were “maybe not tough enough” and warned that the US response to any attack “will be an event the likes of which no one has seen.” He added that the US nuclear arsenal was in “tip top shape.”

Asked whether he would carry out a “pre-emptive strike” against North Korea, Trump said he would not talk about military options, but did not rule it out. That a strike is under active consideration in American ruling circles was underscored by an article in the New York Times entitled “If US attacks North Korea first, is that self-defence?” The commentary treated a unilateral, aggressive attack on North Korea as a legitimate option, debating whether it would meet the legal standard for a pre-emptive strike.

A chilling article in the Washington Post went further to examine how Washington could launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike attack on North Korea. It concluded that Trump could order a nuclear first strike without securing the agreement of his advisers, and that neither the military nor Congress could overrule his order.

Whether Trump is seeking to goad the highly unstable Pyongyang regime into a desperate act to which the US would respond with overwhelming force, or creating the conditions to launch pre-emptive strikes on North Korea, the US is preparing a monstrous crime “like the world has never seen.”

Even if the war were confined to the Korean Peninsula and restricted to conventional weapons, the death and destruction would run into the millions, as it did during the Korean War of 1950–53. Defence Secretary Gen. James Mattis threatened this week that if North Korea failed to bow to Washington’s dictates, Washington would bring about “the end of the regime and the destruction of its people,” i.e., the annihilation of a country of 25 million people. If other nuclear powers such as China and Russia were drawn in, the global consequences would be incalculable.

Who is responsible for this crisis? The US media uniformly blames it on North Korean “aggression.” This is a lie, in keeping with the role of the American media as a conduit for state propaganda.

The current crisis is the outcome of a policy of naked aggression pursued by US imperialism for the past quarter-century in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and the Balkans. In the wake of the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, which had acted as an impediment to Washington’s global ambitions, the Pentagon drafted defence guidelines stating that the fundamental US strategy must “focus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor.”

The doctrine of “pre-emptive war” now being invoked by Trump and his advisers to justify an attack, even a nuclear strike, on North Korea was first enunciated by President George W. Bush as the pretext for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. President Barack Obama expanded the Bush doctrine to declare any threat to American “values and interests” sufficient cause for the US to militarily attack another country. This new doctrine is a gross violation of international law. Waging a war of aggression was the chief crime for which the Nazi leaders were charged and convicted at the Nuremberg trials after World War II.

Taking its cue from the Trump administration, there is now a blitz in the American and international media to demonise North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a madman and to grossly inflate the “weapons of mass destruction” threat posed by his regime. This follows a well-worn modus operandi that was used to try to stampede public opinion behind the US-led wars against Serbia, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Behind this barrage of propaganda, what is the fundamental character of this looming war? It is a conflict between the world’s most heavily armed imperialist power and an oppressed and impoverished country, whose social and political character is the product of relentless colonialist and imperialist oppression throughout the twentieth century.

After more than forty years of brutal colonial rule by Japan, the US installed a military dictatorship in Seoul and waged a near-genocidal war in the early 1950s to preserve the artificial division of the Korean Peninsula into North and South. Since the end of the war, North Korea has been subjected to a US-led economic blockade, accompanied by repeated provocations and military threats.

The chief target of the Trump administration’s threats of war is not North Korea, but China, which the US regards as the principal obstacle to its regional and global dominance. The US military build-up throughout the Asia Pacific did not begin with the fascistic billionaire Trump, but is a continuation of the “pivot to Asia” developed by the Obama administration. In handing this geo-strategic initiative over to Trump, Obama identified North Korea as the chief military challenge facing the new administration and advised that the North Korean “threat” be used as the pretext for ratcheting up the US confrontation with China.

The fact that Trump’s bellicose statements come in the immediate wake of a unanimous vote in the UN Security Council for harsh new sanctions against Pyongyang demonstrates that Washington interpreted China’s vote in support of the sanctions resolution as a sign of weakness and a green light to immediately escalate the confrontation. The threat of “fire and fury” against North Korea is an implicit warning to China, Russia and any other power that poses a challenge to US hegemony.

Any US attack on North Korea could rapidly escalate into a war with China, as already occurred in 1950. US control of the strategically-placed Korean Peninsula could become the springboard for provocations and interventions into northern China, as it was for Japanese imperialism in the 1930s. China, which fought 67 years ago to prevent a US takeover of North Korea and still maintains a mutual defense treaty with Pyongyang, is very conscious of the danger and has been militarily reinforcing its northern border.

Only the independent revolutionary mobilisation of the working class internationally can disarm the war-mongers and halt the imperialist drive to a new world war.

UN-Habitat’s World Habitat Awards for Innovative Housing Solutions 2018

Application Deadline: 1st March, 2018.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

About the Award: Every year a prize of £10,000 and an award are given to two winners – projects that provide practical and innovative solutions to current housing needs and problems. The awards are presented at a UN-Habitat global event.

Offered Since: 1985

Type: Contest

Eligibility: Housing projects and approaches are sought that

• demonstrate practical, innovative and sustainable solutions to current housing issues faced by countries all around the world
• can be transferred or adapted for use as appropriate
• are already being implemented or are completed ie not at design stage or very early stages of development
• view the term habitat from a broad perspective and bring other benefits as well, such as energy or water saving, income generation, social inclusion, community and individual empowerment, health benefits, capacity building or education.

Selection Criteria:

• Any individual, organisation or government who has an innovative and practical solution to housing needs and problems from any country of the world.
• More than one entry can be made by the same individual or organisation.
• Entries should relate to housing projects and processes that are either completed or in progress. Those that are at design stage only or in the very early stages of development cannot be considered.
• Previous entrants can re-submit in subsequent years providing that the project has been further developed in the intervening time period.

Selection Process: All entries are assessed and up to 12 projects are shortlisted by an assessment committee. These shortlisted projects are then evaluated by an independent advisory group.

Evaluation visits are made to some of the shortlisted projects before recommendations are put forward to a panel of external judges, including the Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT).

Number of Awardees: 2

Value of Award: £10,000 as well as international recognition. Trophies will also be presented and one representative of each winning project will be invited to attend the awards ceremony.

How to Apply: APPLY NOW for the chance to gain recognition for your work.

Visit Awards Webpage for details

Award Provider:  Building and Social Housing Foundation (BSHF)

Important Notes: Projects at design/prototype stage or completed over ten years ago will not be considered.

Nominate an Individual/Project for Public Peace Prize 2018

Application Deadline: 1st January 2018

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

About the Award: The Public Peace Prize is the only peace award in the world for which the candidates are proposed, nominated and supported simply by citizens of the world. This mark of recognition allows everyone to offer their appreciation for initiatives and for people, known or unknown, who are working for reconciliation, non-violence and mutual aid.

The sole objective of the Public Peace Prize is to make better known as many peacemakers, peace projects and peace initiatives as possible to a large audience, beyond all forms of competition! The Public Peace Prize is not a cash prize but a prize of public recognition.

Just like last year, the Public Peace Prize remains a completely unconditional prize, without grants or sponsors, organized by simple volunteer citizens of the world, with the goal of fostering recognition of peacemakers and peace initiatives beyond the boundaries of culture, religion, and social affiliations!

All non-profit organizations can become partners of the prize by associating with the team to help make the prize better known through their own networks.

Type: Contests/Awards

Eligibility: 

• Anyone can propose a person or a peace initiative.
• Any person, group or initiative that contributes to bringing a little more tolerance, understanding, mutual aid, solidarity, inclusion, reconciliation, non-violence or peace to the world is eligible.
• Describe the reasons why applicants think it’s important that this person, group or initiative be publicly recognized for their contribution to peace, by describing them through a half-page text sent along with several photos.
• Ask ten other people to write letters of support for the candidate (minimum 10 lines of text each).
• The candidates or initiatives who did not win the previous year are automatically re-nominated and eligible for voting during the following year.

Selection: Everyone is invited to support the finalists of their choice using the following supportive actions:

Each visit to the finalist’s profile page
each “Like” on Facebook or Twitter for the Public Peace Prize
= 1 support/vote

Sharing on Facebook or “retweets” on Twitter
= 2 supports/votes

Comments of appreciation or encouragement
published on the website, on the Facebook page or the Twitter account of the Public Peace Prize,
or sent by email to contact@publicpeaceprize@gmail.com= 3 supports/votes

The initiatives or candidates who receive a significant amount of support in their category will be proclaimed the laureate of this category.

Number of Awards: 1

Value of Award: The Public Peace Prize is not a cash prize but a prize of public recognition.

How to Apply: 

• New propositions of candidates will be automatically signed up for the 2018 edition of the Public Peace Prize.
• Anyone can propose and person or a peace initiative at the email address contact@publicpeaceprize.org by following three steps.
• Any person, group or initiative that contributes to bringing a little more tolerance, understanding, mutual aid, solidarity, inclusion, reconciliation, non-violence or peace to the world is eligible!

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Public Peace Prize

Japan Media Arts Festival Contest for Professional and Amateur Artist(e)s 2018

Application Deadline: 5th October 2017

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To Be Taken At (Country): NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC] and the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (Hatsudai,Tokyo), Japan

Field of Entry: The Four Divisions (Art, Entertainment, Animation, Manga)

• Art Division: Interactive art, media installations, video works, video installations, graphic art (illustrations, photographs, computer graphics, etc.), internet art, media performances, etc.
• Entertainment Division: Games (video games, online games, etc.), video / sound works (music videos, independent and advertising videos, etc.), multimedia productions (including special effects videos, performances, projections), gadgets, electronic devices, websites (including web promotions, open source projects), application software, etc.
• Animation Division: Animated feature films, animated short films, animated series, etc.
• Manga Division: Comics published in book form, comics published in a magazine (including works still being serialized), comics published online (for computer or mobile devices), self-published comics, etc.

About the Award: Entries are sought in various disciplines of the Media Arts including interactive art, video, websites, games, animation and comics, from professional, amateur, independent and commercial sources.

Type: Contests/Awards

Eligibility: In all divisions professional, amateur, independent and commercial works are eligible for submission.

• Works must be completed or released between Saturday, September 10, 2016 and Thursday, October 5, 2017.
• Works completed, changed, renewed, presented or released during the above period are eligible for entry.
• While an unlimited number of entries may be made, the same work may not be entered in multiple divisions.
• The entrant must hold the copyright of the submitted work. If the work is submitted by a representative, permission from the copyright holder must be obtained.
• Each entrant must read, understand and accept the Rules and Regulations before submission.
• By submitting their work, the entrant is deemed to have accepted all Entry Rules and Regulations as stated.

Value of Award: For each division, a Grand Prize, Excellence Awards, and New Face Awards will be awarded on the basis of artistic quality and creativity. In addition, Special Achievement Awards will be awarded on the recommendation of the Jury to individuals or groups who have made a special contribution to Media Arts in any of the four divisions.

Grand Prize: Certificate*, trophy, 600,000 Japanese Yen
Excellence Award: Certificate*, trophy, 300,000 Japanese Yen
New Face Award: Certificate*, trophy, 200,000 Japanese Yen
Special Achievement Award: Certificate*, trophy
Other outstanding entries will be chosen by the Jury as Jury Selections

Timeline and Duration of Program: 

• Announcement of Award-winning Works: March, 2018
• Awards Ceremony: Tuesday, June 12, 2018 Venue: The National Art Center, Tokyo
• Exhibition of Award-winning Works: Wednesday, June 13 – Sunday, June 24, 2018 Venue: The National Art Center, Tokyo

How to Apply: Enter here

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: 21st Japan Media Arts Festival Executive Committee

SCIENCE BY WOMEN Visiting Research Senior Fellowships for African Women (Fully-funded to Spain) 2018

Application Deadline: 20th September 2017

Eligible Countries: African Countries

To Be Taken At (Country/university): Spain

• Spanish National Biotechnology Centre
• Institute of Photonic Sciences
• Institute of Mathematical Sciences
• Barcelona Graduate School of Economics
• Centre for Genomic Regulation
• Vall d´Hebron Institut de Recerca
• Institute for Neuroscience
• Kronikgune Research Center
• Biocruces (bc)
• DeustoTech

Eligible Fields of Study: The preferred areas of research include:

1. Health and Bio-medicine
2. Energy, Water and Climate Change
3. Agriculture and Food Safety
4. Mathematics, Information and Communication Technologies
5. Economic Science

About the Award: Following the success of 1st and 2nd Edition, the Women for Africa Foundation (FMxA), in line with its mission of contributing to the development of Africa through its women, is launching the 3rd Edition of SCIENCE BY WOMEN programme, with the aim to promote African women’s leadership in scientific research and technology transfer and to foster the capacity of the research centres in their home countries.

The main goal is to enable African women researchers and scientists to tackle the great challenges faced by Africa through research in Health and biomedicine, agriculture and food security, water, energy and climate change,  mathematics, Information and Communication Technologies as well as Economic Sciences.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• Being a woman
• Nationality of an African country.
• PhD with at least 3 years of post-doctoral professional experience
• Contractual relationship with a university or a public or private non-profit organization based in Africa dedicated to significant scientific research in the areas indicated
• Excellent academic record and proven track of relevant research experience
• Solid working knowledge of English
• Proven experience leading a research group

Beneficiaries of first and second edition are not eligible. Candidates must have already contacted and identified research groups in the host centres to confirm that their proposed research can be carried out in collaboration with those research groups and, when needed, in their laboratories.

Selection Criteria: Applications will be subjected to a highly competitive selection process by the Women for Africa Foundation’s Scientific Committee. The jury will evaluate the following criteria:

• The candidate’s research career, curriculum vitae and experience as independent research group leader.
• The project’s scientific -technical quality and innovative potential.
• The expected and measurable economic or social impact of the research project.
• The candidate’s plan to communicate and disseminate the project’s results.
• The proper consideration of ethical issues where appropriate.

Successful applicants will present innovative research projects that respond to the needs of African populations and that are likely to be transferred into products or patents for commercial exploitation, or services and public policies which have a social impact in terms of people’s welfare and quality of life, as well as an economic impact in terms of companies’ productivity and competitiveness.

Number of Awards: 10

Value of Award: Successful candidates will have access to the following benefits:

• Flight from their centre of origin to the host institution and back
• Living allowance of 2.400 Euros gross per month to cover accommodation, personal expense and health and occupational accident insurance coverage.

Duration of Program: 6 months

How to Apply: Only applications submitted in English via the Science by Women microsite at www.mujeresporafrica.es will be accepted. They must include the following documents:

• Letter of Interest (max. 1 page)
• Full curriculum vitae • Fully filled form
• Brief but concise description of the project to be developed in the Spanish
• host centre (max. 2 pages)
• A letter of the prospective host group’s stating its interest to support the project proposed by the candidate.

APPLICATION FORM

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Women for Africa Foundation (FMxA)

AVAC HIV Prevention Research Advocacy Fellows Program for Young Leaders in Africa and Asia 2018

Application Deadline: Friday, 8th September 2017

Eligible Countries: African and Asian countries

About the Award: The HIV Prevention Research Advocacy Fellows Program pairs emerging leaders in advocacy and activism with existing organizations to develop and execute creative, context-specific projects focused on HIV prevention research.

The overall goal of Advocacy Fellows is to expand and strengthen the capacity of civil society advocates and Organisations to monitor, support and help shape HIV prevention research and rapid rollout of new effective interventions in low- and middle-income countries with high HIV burdens. The program is guided by the belief that effective, sustainable advocacy grows out of work that reflects country level Organisational and individual interests and priorities and is led by passionate advocates who are motivated to bring change.

Fellows projects focus primarily on advocacy around biomedical HIV prevention research (such as clinical trials of vaccines, microbicides, pre-exposure prophylaxis) or rollout of male circumcision for HIV prevention. Fellows projects may also focus on “test and treat” or ARV treatment as prevention strategies, which are under active discussion in many contexts. Fellows receive training, financial support, and technical assistance to plan and implement a targeted one-year project within host organizations focused on HIV/AIDS.

Founded in 1995, AVAC is a non-profit organization that uses education, policy analysis, advocacy and a network of global collaborations to accelerate the ethical development and global delivery of HIV prevention options as part of a comprehensive, integrated and sustained response to the pandemic.

Join an informational conference call to learn more about the program and ask questions directly to those who lead the program and/or have been a part of it on Thursday, August 10 at 8am New York / 9am Rio / 2pm Johannesburg / 3pm Nairobi / 6pm Mumbai.

Register for the call here.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: The Advocacy Fellows Program seeks the following:

• Emerging or mid-career community leaders and advocates involved or interested in advocacy around HIV prevention research and implementation, particularly the areas described in question (3).
• Individuals with some experience or education in the areas of HIV and AIDS, public health, medicine, international development, women’s rights, communications, or advocacy with key populations, such as sex workers, LGBTQ individuals and drug users.
• Individuals based in low- and middle-income countries with high HIV burdens and where biomedical HIV prevention clinical research is planned or ongoing and/or where there is current work on implementation of new preventions strategies (such as voluntary medical male circumcision, pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP, early treatment and “combination prevention” packages.) Advocates can also develop proposals that seek to catalyze plans and policies in countries where little activity on these issues has happened to date. Please visit www.avac.org/pxrd, www.avac.org/trial-map and specific resources noted in the appendix to identify countries where research and implementation is ongoing or planned.
• Those proficient in the English language. Applications are encouraged from all countries where prevention research is ongoing or rolling out, however the Advocacy Fellow and key staff at his/her Organisation must be able to communicate with AVAC staff in English.
• Demonstrated awareness of and willingness to learn about ongoing prevention research and implementation in their respective countries, although extensive knowledge in biomedical HIV prevention is not required. They must also be able to demonstrate strategic analysis of how Fellows Program activities will relate to local prevention landscapes.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• Full-time compensation for the Fellow, small project budget and technical assistance from AVAC for 12 months.
• Mentoring and capacity building in biomedical HIV prevention research and implementation advocacy from AVAC for both Advocacy Fellows and Host Organisations.
• Connection to a global network of biomedical HIV prevention research advocates including current and former Advocacy Fellows, researchers, civil society leaders and other individuals and/or organisations working in similar fields.

Duration of Program: 2018 Fellow Projects run from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019.

How to Apply: Applications go through a thorough review process, including by an external review panel made up of advocates, researchers, past Fellows and Host Supervisors recommendations. Short-listed applicants are interviewed. Selected Fellows will be notified by the end of November.

• Applicants must submit the individual and Host Organisation information forms, the essay/short answer questions, the Host Organisation letter of support and the CV/resume by 8 September 2017.
• Short-listed candidates and proposed Host Organisations are contacted for further documentation and interviews that aim to get to know each applicant a little better.
• Successful applicants and Host Organisations are notified in November 2017.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: AVAC