Nova Scotia Liberals slash public sector workers’ wages

Janet Browning

Hundreds of teachers, hospital workers, civil servants and other public sector workers demonstrated outside the Nova Scotia legislature at its reopening last Thursday to protest a provincial Liberal law that slashes the real wages of 75,000 public sector workers.

For close to two years, Stephen McNeil’s Liberal government had been using Bill 148 to bully public sector workers into accepting concessionary contracts. But last month, it went a step further and had the legislation, which had been rushed through the provincial legislature in December 2015, proclaimed into law.

Under Bill 148, provincial public sector workers, including low-paid health care workers, are subjected to a four-year wage “restraint” program. This consists of a two-year wage freeze and increases totaling no more than 3 percent in the two subsequent years. When inflation is taken into account, this translates into a substantial real-wage cut and one whose impact will likely last well beyond four years.

Bill 148 also retroactively suspends the “public service award,” a lump sum bonus paid to workers after 10 years of service, and abolishes it for new hires.

First elected in 2013, by exploiting popular anger over the austerity measures of Darrel Dexter’s NDP government, McNeil and his Liberals predictably continued the attack on working people, with further social spending cuts.

Last May, the Liberals narrowly won re-election on a platform that sought to dress up pro-big business policies, including corporate tax cuts and reduced taxes for the well-to-do, behind pledges of tax relief for working people.

No sooner was he re-elected than McNeil signaled his government would press forward with its plans to force wage-cutting contracts on all public sector workers, declaring, “We are going to continue to live within our means.”

Several smaller unions buckled under the government’s threats to enact Bill 148 and prevailed on their members to accept “negotiated” contracts that incorporated the government’s wage restraint program in full.

The Liberals originally brought forward Bill 148 in December 2015 in response to a rank-and-file revolt of the province’s 9,300 public school teachers who had twice rejected tentative agreements recommended by the Nova Scotia Teachers’ Union.

Ultimately, after teachers had rejected a third union-endorsed agreement, the Liberals imposed contracts on them in February 2017, by legislative fiat under another anti-worker law, Bill 75. The imposed four-year contracts included the two-year wage freeze and annual increases of 1.5 percent in the final two years.

The Liberals decided to enact Bill 148 last month after the province’s largest union, the 30,000-member Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU), had unilaterally surrendered civil servants’ right to strike by requesting that their collective agreement be determined by binding arbitration.

Under Bill 148, arbitrators are forced to apply the government’s wage-cutting “restraint” program.

On the part of the unions, last Thursday’s protest was a pro forma affair. As exemplified by the actions of the teachers’ union, they have been desperate to avoid any worker challenge to the Liberal government, to the point of seeking to impose its real-wage cuts on a hostile membership.

No sooner had the Liberals passed their anti-teacher Bill 75, than the teachers’ union called off even a work-to-rule campaign, saying it was up to individual teachers to continue the action if they wanted.

Faced with worker demands that they fight the government, the unions have quickly doused any and all suggestions of strike action. Instead, they have said they will challenge Bill 75 and now Bill 148 in the capitalist courts.

Throughout, the union bureaucracy’s principal concern has been that the government not circumvent their role as worker “bargaining agent.” Thus, Nova Scotia Nurses’ Union President Janet Hazelton seems less concerned that her members, already overtaxed by years of cuts to heath care, will now be subjected to wage cuts, than that the union apparatus is being bypassed. “We’ve often had concessions in bargaining,” said Hazelton. “We’ve often had takeaways in bargaining, but we’ve negotiated that. We have made decisions. That’s what bargaining is about, and this takes away that.”

In April 2014, McNeil’s government illegalized a brief nurses’ strike, adopting legislation requiring all health sector unions to reach essential services agreements with their employers before any job action can legally take place.

The trade union-backed NDP claims to be opposed to Bill 148, but has joined the unions in suppressing any genuine struggle against it.

Nova Scotia NDP leader Gary Burrill, a United Church minister who was hailed as a “socialist” by the pseudo-left groups when he became leader, has applauded Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberal government’s economic policies. “The answer the federal Liberals gave in their last budget and in their last platform was the right one,” Burrill stated. The Trudeau government’s budget welcomed so enthusiastically by Burrill included plans to privatize vast swathes of public infrastructure and maintained the reactionary fiscal framework imposed by successive Canadian governments through public spending cuts and tax handouts to the rich.

Nova Scotia’s first-ever NDP government worked within this framework, slashing social programs and raising the provincial sales taxes and other charges, so as to table three balanced budgets between 2009 and 2013.

During the election campaign last spring, Burrill offered the NDP as a partner for the other two big business parties if parliamentary arithmetic required it. “If it should turn out that there’s a potential minority government situation that requires greater levels of co-operation,…we’re always interested,” said Burrill.

The Nova Scotia Liberals are close allies of Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberal government, which enjoys a close partnership with the unions, even as it continues the ruling elite’s austerity agenda and expands the aggressive, militarist foreign policy of the previous Harper Conservative government. In fact, Liberal governments in Ontario, Quebec, and throughout Atlantic Canada, all of which have strong ties to the federal Liberals, have specialized in collaborating closely with the union bureaucracy to ram through attacks on public sector workers and cuts to social spending. They have also regularly moved to outlaw worker struggles, such as the construction workers’ strike in Quebec last May and the Nova Scotia teachers’ dispute.

Millions of European workers in precarious employment

Verena Nees

On the 150th anniversary of Marx’s Capital, a new report reveals how European capitalism, headed by the bureaucracy of the European Union, has created a huge army of precarious workers, plunging millions into poverty.

On 12 September, the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel published an article by the research network Investigate Europe titled “Europe’s new reserve army.” The report authored by Harald Schumann and Elisa Simantke presents shocking figures.

Politicians and business groups regularly refer to the over five and a half million people who have found jobs since 2012 as proof of the EU’s booming economy. According to Eurostat, however, four out of five of these new jobs are part-time or short-term contract and low-paid.

This is especially true for young people. More than half of those under-25 years old in the EU are employed for a limited period, while in Spain this figures rises to over 70 percent.

Schumann and Simantke cite the reasons for this development: “Commissioners and finance ministers of the Eurogroup systematically abolished collective bargaining agreements” and EU countries were “engulfed by a downward trend for wages and workers’ rights.” There has been a wave of deregulation in labor law in EU countries for the past two decades. These so-called structural reforms are aimed at making work more “flexible” and driving down costs.

The model for these measures was the German Agenda 2010 program implemented by the Social Democrat-Green Party government led by Gerhard Schröder (SPD) and Joschka Fischer (Green Party) in 2003. “In his government statement on the subject in March 2003, Schröder, spoke of ‘flexibility’ and ‘creating flexibility’,” the authors write. “And so non-contract agency work was freed from ‘bureaucratic restrictions’, the ceiling for short-term contract work for start-ups was extended to four years, employers received tax relief for offering low-wage and mini-jobs, while the unemployed were forced to accept any job offer no matter how badly paid.”

The often-cited German job miracle, according to the report, is misleading. In fact, the total of actual working time did not increase up to 2010. Instead hours worked were spread amongst more workers. In the period of growth in 2011 the volume of work once again rose more slowly than employment levels. This figure continues to remain below the level of the early 1990s.

In 2016 4.6 million people in Germany worked exclusively in mini-jobs (earning up to 450 euros per month!), while another 1.5 million are employed part-time. In addition, there are about one million temporary workers and around two million self-employed individuals, who usually do not have enough work.

The “industrial reserve army”, as Karl Marx termed the army of unemployed, which is used to suppress wages and as a reserve force at the beck and call of the employer, has been turned into an army of underemployed and temporary workers, and temporary low wage earners living on or under the poverty line. The poor in Germany currently comprise 16 percent of the population. According to recent data, the bottom 40 percent of wage-earners now take home less than they did twenty years ago when inflation is taken into account.

The Agenda 2010 program has since been taken up in many other EU countries: In Spain, short-term contracts lasting a few months are commonplace. The Netherlands has introduced variable part-time work and in Italy, self-employment is the norm.

The situation in Poland is particularly bad. After EU accession, the Polish government introduced a system of hiring and firing to attract investors. Companies in Poland can terminate temporary employees before the expiry of their job deadline without stating a reason. Short term contract work without social insurance has also been extended, resulting in income levels below the statutory minimum wage. Today, in Poland, more than a third of all workers are working precariously, or for hunger wages—the highest percentage in the EU.

Following the financial crisis of 2008, the EU tightened up its austerity policy. EU economic commissioner Olli Rehn called for “employment-friendly reforms” in crisis-ridden countries, which a “Report on labor market development” listed as follows: reduction of protection against dismissal; lower compensation payments; increase in the maximum duration and number of short-term contracts; reduction in the scope of collective agreements; lessening of the bargaining power of trade unions.

EU officials were particularly ruthless in Greece, Portugal and Romania. The Troika (the EU Commission, IMF and ECB) met secretly in October 2011 with Pierre Deleplanque, the head of the Heracles cement company—a Greek subsidiary of the world’s largest construction company, Lafarge. After the meeting, Deleplanque sent his demands to the IMF office in Athens. In a document stamped “Confidential, for internal use only,” he demanded the suspension of sectoral tariff agreements and existing company contracts in favour of “individual agreements.”

This was then incorporated into the Troika credit agreement, the so-called Memorandum of Understanding. Since then, wages have been largely negotiated at a company level, usually directly with individual employees. Employers can convert a full-time contract into “atypical employment” against the will of employees. The measures were a major factor in reducing wages in Greece by an average of 23 percent.

The same applies to Portugal. By 2008, some 45 percent of all employees still worked under secure contracts—six years later this figure stands at a mere five percent.

In Romania, ninety percent of all workers worked on the basis of a collective agreement in 2009, until a new labour law was enforced with the help of the Council of Foreign Investors and the US Chamber of Commerce. Today, 40 percent of all employees earn the statutory minimum wage.

When the government in Bucharest announced in 2012 that it intended to introduce collective wage agreements nationwide, the then EU economic commissioner Rehn and the IMF jointly vetoed the plan along with the American Chamber of Commerce. The government then ditched the proposal.

At present, the new French government under Emmanuel Macron is striving to impose similar labor market laws on French workers who have so far been less affected by precarious working conditions than other EU countries.

The report of Investigate Europe shows the true face of the EU. As the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) noted in its election statement, the EU “does not represent the ‘unity of Europe’. It is a weapon of the most powerful economic and capital interests against the working class.”

The report by Schumann and Simantke cites a number of trade union officials who complain about the destruction of tariff structures. Thibault Weber from France, and a member of the board of the European Trade Union Confederation declares that Europe’s economics politicians are “obsessed with the notion that the labor market is a market like any other, and therefore needs to be flexible to the extreme.”

The fact is, however, that the trade unions have played an important role in this development. Their perspective is pro-capitalist and pro-EU. In the interests of the profitability and competitiveness of their own national economies, they have signed countless agreements enforcing more flexibility and wage reductions.

Without the services of the German trade union movement, the Schröder government could not have introduced policies for such a huge low-wage sector.

On 18 September, Gustav Horn, the head of the Institute for Macroeconomics and Economic Research (affiliated to the trade union Hans Böckler Foundation) appealed to the political establishment to take measures to combat poverty and curb precarious employment. His appeal was aimed at covering up the tracks of the trade unions themselves and holding out a helping hand to the SPD on the eve of the German federal election. All to no avail—the widely despised SPD registered its worst election result since 1949.

Poverty, inequality on the rise in Spain as independence vote looms

James Lerner

The worsening social crisis in Spain has been virtually ignored in the run-up to the October 1 vote on Catalan independence.

Official Spanish government figures for August show a major increase in unemployment, signaling a slowdown in economic growth and pointing toward a growth in social inequality.

Some 46,000 people joined the ranks of the unemployed in August, ending six months of slightly declining unemployment figures. The number of workers contributing payroll taxes to social security plummeted by 179,000.

The unemployment rate in Spain is 17.8 percent, the second highest in the European Union (EU) after Greece (22.5 percent). The number of young people under 25 without work is 38.6 percent (compared to Greece’s 44.4 percent).

The Popular Party (PP) government attributes the increase in unemployment to seasonal factors, namely the end of the tourist season.

“August is a transitional month in which certain summer-related activities end, while sectors that traditionally slow down in the summer, such as construction or industry, have not yet resumed their activity,” claimed Tomás Burgos, the secretary of state of social security.

However, the rise in joblessness was the largest in the month of August since 2008, the peak of the global economic crash.

Further, the official unemployment figures are a poor reflection of the real situation facing workers as an ever-larger number, especially the long-term unemployed, are simply dropping out of the labour market and no longer actively seeking work.

One fourth of the unemployed have not had a job for at least four years.

One must add to this those people who have migrated abroad in search of work, who are also removed from the official statistics. From consulate register figures, nearly 2.5 million workers and youth are registered as living outside Spain. There are hundreds of thousands more who do not register.

At the same time, a massive redistribution of wealth and income upwards, towards some of Europe’s biggest banks and private fortunes, is intensifying as a direct outcome of the social counter-revolution pursued by both major parties of the Spanish bourgeoisie, PP and the Socialists (PSOE), since the financial crash of 2008.

A report based on a compilation of tax records shows that in just the four years, between 2011 and 2015, the number of rich—those possessing at least €700,000 in assets—increased by no less than 44 percent, some 58,000 people. Around 0.4 percent of the population now own half the wealth in Spain. They have benefitted from the bank bailout, which amounted to €57 billion, of which only four billion has been recovered.

The result of this protracted attack on wages, working conditions and social benefits is that half the households in Spain have incomes below the official poverty level (€8,010 for single-person households and at €16,823 for those with two adults and two children) or are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. The number of workers and youth with incomes less than €6,000 a year has increased by 1.4 million over the last five years to 5.4 million.

The repeated cutbacks and tightening of eligibility conditions between 2012 and 2015 for unemployment and social-welfare assistance has resulted in a drop of no less than 41 percent in total expenditure and a cut of 31 percent in the number of unemployed workers receiving them.

Ever more households have nearly no source of income apart from grandparents’ pensions. These families depend on their elderly relatives for meals, child care and other assistance.

Spain’s rising unemployment rate is intersecting with other ongoing ruling class policies that have deepened misery and inequality in Spain.

One of these policies is the use of temporary contracts to maintain a large pool of workers in a precarious state of existence as the disposable instruments of employers. For example, more than 92 percent of the contracts signed in August were temporary. For a broad swathe of the working class, especially young people, a permanent employment contract has become a rarity, almost akin to winning the lottery.

Spain has the third highest rate of temporary employment of all OECD countries, at 26.1 percent of the workforce, behind only Poland and Colombia. For those trapped in the world of temporary work, a contract provides no security, as contract terms have been narrowed down to a few months, a few weeks, or sometimes a few days. One consequence of the increased “precariousness” of work is the 8.4 percent rise in the number of workers who have died in occupational accidents in the first half of this year to 300 compared to 2016.

The effect on children has been devastating. UNICEF recently reported that Spain has the third highest level of child poverty in all of Europe, behind only Romania and Greece. About 40 percent of children were below the official poverty line in 2014, nine points higher than in 2008.

The source of this calamitous decline in the social position of the working class is the breakdown of the post-World War II economic and political order, which has resulted in the growth of nationalism and separatism. In Spain, the two-party system has collapsed, and demands for regional independence increased above all in Catalonia.

The critical issue in these developments is the independent mobilisation of the working class in opposition to the ruling elites in Spain, Catalonia and Europe.

The growth of separatism, expressed in the October 1 Catalan independence referendum, is a retrograde development that cuts across the critical struggle to unite the working class in opposition to the social counterrevolution being carried out by both Spain and Catalonia under the auspices of the EU.

The striving for Catalan independence is bound up with an attempt by bourgeois and upper middle class layers to exploit their already-privileged economic position in Spain’s most prosperous regions. One of their main complaints is that they do not want taxes collected there to subsidise Spain’s poorer regions.

The role of pseudo-left organisations such as CUP is to divert social discontent, especially among the youth, into nationalist channels, in the process splitting the Spanish working class against itself and in support of rival factions of the bourgeoisie.

Trump implements new indefinite travel ban

Niles Niemuth

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Sunday night implementing indefinite travel restrictions on citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad, North Korea and Venezuela.

The decision comes 90 days after the Supreme Court allowed a temporary anti-Muslim travel ban, targeting six majority Muslim countries, to go into effect pending a possible hearing of challenges to the measure in October.

However, following Sunday’s proclamation, the Supreme Court cancelled impending oral arguments in two court cases challenging the travel ban, Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project and Trump v. Hawaii. Lawyers for both sides in each case have been given until next Friday to file briefs in order to determine if the legal issues are moot given Trump’s latest order.

The high court had declared in June that those with “bona fide” relationships in the United States could still travel to the United States; this exception will be dropped once the new restrictions go into effect on October 18.

The travel restrictions, which were set to expire Sunday night, covered citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. Iraq, included in the original ban signed by Trump in January, was later dropped in the revised executive order signed by Trump in March, but Iraqis are still subject to extra security screenings if they seek to travel to the US.

Trump’s proclamation continues the existing restrictions while dropping Sudan and adding Chad, North Korea and Venezuela. Permanent immigration to the US from all the countries, except for Venezuela, will be entirely suspended starting next month.

Further restrictions on travelers and immigrants vary by country: travel has been completely blocked from Syria and North Korea; while business and tourist visas will be blocked, Iranians will still be able to come to the US on student visas with extra security screenings; additional security screenings will be required for travelers from Somalia; residents of Libya, Chad and Yemen will not be able to travel to the US on business or tourist visas. The travel restrictions on Venezuela apply only to government officials and their family members.

Amnesty International released a statement condemning the latest version of Trump’s travel ban as “senseless and cruel.” The American Civil Liberties Union noted that the addition of Venezuela and North Korea, non-Muslim majority countries, “doesn’t obfuscate the real fact that the administration’s order is still a Muslim ban.”

Trump signed the original Muslim ban during his first week in office, on January 27, sparking protests by thousands at airports across the country, denouncing the racist policy and demanding that travelers and refugees from the seven restricted countries be allowed into the United States. During the 2016 election campaign Trump had promised to impose a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

Legal challenges were immediately filed by Democratic state attorneys general from Washington state and Minnesota, in lower federal court, resulting in a nationwide temporary restraining order. Trump responded by signing a new executive order in March, which was also temporarily blocked by federal district court challenges until the Supreme Court allowed the travel ban to go into effect in June.

Except for Chad, all the countries covered by the latest travel ban are either currently being bombed by the United States (Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia), or, in the cases of Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, are prime targets for US wars of aggression and CIA-instigated regime change operations.

Just last week Trump set the stage for world war in his appearance at the United Nations in New York where he threatened to destroy North Korea, pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and menaced Venezuela. The implementation of the new travel restrictions can only be understood as a prelude to a further escalation of US imperialist operations, which already encompass a significant portion of the globe, from South America to northern Africa and the Middle East to South Asia.

Trudeau government bans Chelsea Manning from entering Canada

Tom Hall 

Canadian immigration authorities have banned Chelsea Manning from entering the country, the whistleblower and former political prisoner announced on Twitter yesterday.

This comes just days after the cowardly decision by Harvard University to rescind its invitation to Manning to be a visiting fellow at the university in response to pressure by top current and former CIA officials.

Manning had attempted to enter Canada by car as part of a tour of North America, during which she planned to join protests against the fascistic former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopolous. However, she was stopped and detained by Canadian border guards overnight before being released back into the United States. Manning has announced her intention to challenge the decision in court.

According to a printed Canadian Immigration notice that Manning posted to her Twitter account, she has been barred from entering the country because she was “convicted of an offence outside Canada that, if committed in Canada, would constitute an offence under an Act of Parliament punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of at least 10 years.”

Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment under the World War I-era Espionage Act for passing on to WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables detailing the machinations of US imperialism around the world, as well as a video of a US helicopter gunship gunning down Iraqi civilians and journalists. Her sentence was commuted by Obama on his last day of office only after she had been subjected to years of physical and psychological abuse and torture, which resulted in two suicide attempts.

The rationale given to justify Canada’s refusal to allow Manning to enter the country amounts to a government declaration that, if a member of the Canadian armed forces or intelligence services were to leak information exposing the crimes of Canadian imperialism, they would be arrested and tried on charges of treason in a similar fashion.

The barring of Manning from entering Canada exposes the phony populist pretensions of the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau. During the 2015 parliamentary elections, Trudeau postured as an opponent of government spying on Canadians, declaring that his government would amend the Conservative government’s hated Bill C-51 bill, which, in the name of “fighting terrorism,” grants sweeping powers to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The law was so draconian that even the Globe and Mail, the traditional mouthpiece of Canada’s financial elite, felt compelled to denounce it as a “police state” measure.

The Liberals’ proposed reform, Bill C-59, however, contains only toothless protections, while upholding the core provisions of Bill C-51 and granting Canada’s intelligence services new powers to wage offensive cyberwarfare. The Trudeau government’s bolstering of the powers of the intelligence community under the guise of “reforming” it mirrors the passage of the USA Freedom Act under the Obama administration, which systematized and expanded government spying under the guise of regulating it.

According to Manning, everything indicates the ban on her entry into Canada is meant to be a lifetime ban.

In response to her exposure of this anti-democratic measure, one moreover clearly meant to curry favour with the Trump administration, Liberal government officials have issued terse, non-committal statements. Nevertheless, they have made it clear they have no intention of reversing the ban.

“When a Canada border service officer has exercised appropriately within their jurisdiction the judgment that they are called upon to make, I don’t interfere in that process in any kind of a light or cavalier manner,” Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told the CBC.

Trudeau refused to comment, but said that he was “looking forward” to seeing more information about the case.

US-Russian tensions flare in Syria

Bill Van Auken

The death of a senior Russian general advising Syrian government forces and claims by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia that it has been bombed by Russian warplanes have escalated tensions between Washington and Moscow, as the two sides wage rival offensives to seize control of the oil-rich Deir Ezzor province from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov charged Monday that the death of Lt. Gen. Valery Asapov in a mortar attack near the city of Deir Ezzor the day before was “the price, the bloody price, for the two-faced American policy in Syria.”

Deir Ezzor province is in eastern Syria, bordering Iraq, and is the center of the country’s oil and gas industry, which provided much of the power for the country’s cities before it was seized by Islamist militias as part of the US-backed war for regime-change against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Both because of its strategic energy resources and its geographical position, the province has become the focus of a scramble for control, with the US-backed SDF, a Kurdish-dominated militia supported by American Special Forces troops and air power, rushing from the north to counter the advances made by Syrian government forces.

Early this month, the Syrian army succeeded in breaking a two-year siege by ISIS against the government-held city of Deir Ezzor and its 200,000 residents. The Syrian government victory was answered by the US proxy forces of the SDF being diverted from the siege of Raqqa, the so-called ISIS capital to the north, and sent down the eastern side of the Euphrates River to contest control of the city and the province’s oil and gas fields.

US military spokesmen have issued repeated statements claiming that Washington is interested only in defeating ISIS and is not, as one put it, “in the land-grabbing business.” Facts on the ground, however, strongly indicate that this is precisely the “business” being pursued by the Pentagon.

The charge by the Russian Foreign Ministry official that Washington is engaged in a “two-faced policy” in Syria was preceded by the Russian Defense Ministry’s release of aerial photographs showing large numbers of US Humvees used by American Special Forces troops occupying what had been ISIS strongholds north of the city of Deir Ezzor.

The ministry noted that there was no sign of any battle having been waged in the area, which was free of craters from shelling and bombing, and that the American forces had not even bothered to set up a defensive perimeter in the ISIS-held area. “This shows that all the US servicemen who are currently there feel completely safe in the areas under the terrorists’ control,” the ministry said. A ministry spokesman said that Russian surveillance of the area had turned up no sign of combat between the SDF and ISIS.

The clear implication is that Washington and its proxy militia struck a deal in which ISIS ceded the territory without a struggle and directed its forces against the Syrian Army instead. Given the intimate ties between the CIA and the Islamist forces that created ISIS, there are no doubt lines of communication between US forces and the purported target of their intervention in Iraq and Syria.

The SDF militia and its US Special Forces “advisors,” on the one hand, and the Russian and Iranian-backed Syrian army, on the other, are pressing forward around Deir Ezzor, advancing, according to an SDF spokesman, to within barely two miles of each other. The SDF claims that its forces have seized control of a major gas field named Conoco, while Syrian troops and tanks have crossed the Euphrates River and taken towns on its eastern bank.

The US proxy forces and the Syrian government troops are effectively in a race to establish control over the oil and gas fields that are crucial to the economic recovery of Syria after nearly six years of devastation wrought by the CIA-orchestrated war for regime-change.

Each side has accused the other of carrying out attacks on their positions. On Thursday, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said that, after Russian-backed Syrian government troops had twice come under fire from SDF positions, Moscow had warned Washington that continued shelling would provoke a Russian response against the US proxy forces and American Special Forces troops operating with them.

“A representative of the US military command in Al Udeid (the US command center in Qatar) was told in no uncertain terms that any attempts to open fire from areas where Syrian Democratic Forces are located would be quickly shut down,” Major-General Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

For its part, the SDF claimed Monday that its forces in the Conoco gas field had been bombed by Russian aircraft, resulting in the wounding of six of its fighters. It marked the second time that the SDF has leveled such a charge in as many weeks, and the US proxy force declared in a statement: “We will not stand by with our arms crossed and we will use our legitimate right to self-defense.”

Russia has denied responsibility for attacking the SDF. A Pentagon spokesman confirmed Monday that shells had fallen near the militia’s position, but said he could not confirm that they were fired by Russia. For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group opposed to the Assad government, said that no Russian rounds had hit SDF positions.

The increasing dangers of an open military confrontation in eastern Syria between the US and Russia, the world’s two major nuclear powers, is driven by Washington’s determination to seize control of the area, both to deny resources to the government in Damascus and to further the carve-up of Syria. Washington is also seeking to secure Syria’s eastern border in order to counter Iranian influence in the region and prevent the consolidation of a land route linking Iran through Iraq to Syria as well as Lebanon, where Iranian forces could link up with Hezbollah, the powerful Shia-based political movement and militia.

The threat of this scramble for eastern Syria erupting into a wider regional war is further fueled by the aggressively anti-Iranian stance of the Trump administration, which appears determined to blow up the 2015 nuclear accord reached between Tehran and the major powers and has embarked on an increasingly aggressive military and diplomatic posture toward Iran across the Middle East.

University of Zurich Fully-funded PhD Scholarships for International Students 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 31st January, 2018 for entry in September 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Switzerland

About the Award: The UBS Center Scholarship are full scholarships awarded every year to outstanding university graduates to enable them to take up their doctoral studies at the Zurich Graduate School of Economics, run by the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich. Furthermore, by funding new endowed chairs at the Department of Economics, the UBS Center will create additional doctoral positions for talented young researchers beyond the scholarship scheme. This will ensure that the Zurich Graduate School of Economics achieves a critical mass of top young talent to create a leading international graduate school with an attractive research environment.

Type: PhD

Eligibility: Scholarships are open to graduates from around the world, they are awarded to candidates on the grounds of outstanding academic merit, and continuing support will be subject to satisfactory completion of course work. While preference may be given to students whose research plans include areas of interest of the UBS International Center of Economics in Society, applications from all areas are welcomed.

Admission to the Zurich Graduate School of Economics is a pre-condition for being considered for a UBS Center Scholarship.

The UBS Center Scholarships are full scholarships, covering living expenses and all fees. Scholarship holders are free to choose their supervisor and have no mandatory duties beyond the completion of the course work and their doctorate. We do however encourage students to contribute to departmental teaching because it is in their own interest to acquire good teaching skills.

Number of Awardees: 3

Value of Scholarship: The UBS Center Scholarships cover living expenses(Approx. CHF 42’500 p.a) plus all tuition fees.

Duration of Scholarship: Scholarships are offered to award holders for a period of four years, subject to satisfactory completion of course work.

How to Apply: Applicants need to apply for admission to the Zurich Graduate School of Economics (see details on the departmental webpage) where they indicate that they are applying for a UBS Center Scholarship.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Zurich Graduate School of Economics at the University of Zurich

Ezera Research Fellowship for African Students for Study at University of California, Berkeley 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 12th February 2018

Eligible Countries: African countries

To Be Taken At (Country): USA

About the Award: An endowment has been established in memory of Emeka Kalu Ezera to support graduate students from African countries south of the Sahara at the University of California at Berkeley. The funds from the endowment are assigned to the Center for African Studies to aid student scholars at the graduate level concentrating in African Studies.

For administrative purposes, the Ezera competition is combined with the Rocca Fellowship (See in Program Webpage link below) competition. Ezera recipients may also receive funds from the Rocca endowment. Only one application is necessary. If you are applying for the Emeka Kalu Ezera fellowship, indicate which African country you are from in the appropriate space on the application.

Type: Graduate

Eligibility: 

• The Ezera Fellowship gives priority to graduate students from West Africa who show exceptional promise of advancing scholarship in African Studies in the social sciences, humanities, and public policy and who demonstrate strong leadership potential.
• Students from other African regions are eligible and are encouraged to apply.
• Students must have been accepted for admission at the University of California at Berkeley when they apply and must be enrolled before funds may be dispersed to them.
• The fellowship is not available to students who are permanent residents or citizens of the United States.
• A total of no more than two years of support will be provided to a recipient of this fellowship; applications for the second year of support will be considered de novo along with other applications for that year.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Funds may be requested for maintenance, travel, or research costs, as appropriate to enhance pre-dissertation and dissertation research on Africa. Ezera funds may be used to supplement, but not substitute for, other grants. Students are encouraged to apply to other sources, including the Rocca grant. Currently, grants from the Ezera fund will be in the $500 to $1000 range. In making awards, the Center adheres to the cap on stipends set by the Graduate Division, which in 2016 was $34,000 – combined for all fellowships awarded.

How to Apply: See the application for details.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: University of California at Berkeley

CleanEdge Save the Environment Campaign for Young Nigerians 2017

Application Deadline: 6th October 2017

Eligible Participants: Nigerians resident in Oyo

About the Award: Interested in helping to save the planet? Interested in helping to save the environment? Are you passionate about climate change? Can you teach secondary school student in Oyo state on how they can save their environment? Can you give out 2-3hrs per week for a month to educate secondary school students about they can save their environment and reduce impact on climate change?

If all your responses to these questions are YES, then this call for application is right for you!  This is a chance to serve your community; time to get engaged is now. Now is the time to boost your CV through community service work

This is the last call for volunteers in Oyo State and you will be selected based on the quality of your application.

Type: Internship (Volunteer)

Eligibility: 

• Young people between 18-40yrs
• Reside in Oyo State or can participate in Oyo State
• Passionate about environment, climate change, education and sustainable development goals (SDGs) as a whole

Number of Participants needed: Not spepcified

Value of Award: This is non-paid.

Volunteers get the chance of a lifetime to open doors to opportunities, ability to network with Businesses, Captain of Industries, Government; Civil Society Organizations etc. and collaborate with other young people who are excelling both locally and internationally. You additionally get noticed at all levels (Online and Offline), will be able to request for recommendation letter to attend local and international conferences, and apply for visa. Volunteers will also get the chance to attend our networking events (such as with YALI RLC Fellow, Mandela Washington Fellow, Federal and State Ministry of Environment, Ambassadors to United Nations and many more), apply for job openings at CleanEdge Solutions and a Certificate of Service will be presented to you as you finish your service.

Duration of Program: 19th October – 17th November 2017

How to Apply: To apply, click here

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: CleanEdge Solutions

Important Notes: All necessities will be provided by CleanEdge solutions team.

University of Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Scholarships 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 8th or 19th January 2018, depending on your course

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): UK

Eligible Field of Study: All

About the Award: The Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies is a Recognized Independent Centre of the University of Oxford. It was established in 1985 to encourage the scholarly study of Islam and the Islamic world. The Centre provides a meeting point for the Western and Islamic worlds of learning. At Oxford, it contributes to the multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary study of the Islamic world. Beyond Oxford, its role is strengthened by an international network of academic contacts. For more information, please refer to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies scholarships website.

Type: All full-time master’s and DPhil courses

Eligibility: 

• You must be applying to start a new full-time master’s or DPhil course at Oxford.
• You must be either:
  • ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom and from a Muslim community (with preference given to those from a financially disadvantaged household), or
  • a national of, and ordinarily resident in, one of the following countries in Asia and Africa
• You should be intending to return to your country of ordinary residence once your course is completed.
• Scholarships will be awarded on the basis of academic merit.
• You should be intending to undertake study in a field derived from or of relevance to the Islamic tradition, which is of relevance and/or benefit to the Muslim world.
• This scholarship is not open to applications from candidates who hold deferred offers to start in 2017-18.

Selection Process: Decisions are expected to be made by June 2017. If you have not heard from the University by this time, then please assume that your application has been unsuccessful. Due to the volume of applications that we receive, we regret that we are unable to contact unsuccessful applicants individually or provide feedback on applications.

Number of Awardees: Up to 5

Value of Scholarship: The scholarship will cover 100% of University and college fees and a grant for living costs (of at least £14,553).

Duration of Scholarship: Awards are made for the full duration of your fee liability for the agreed course.

How to Apply:

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: University of Oxford

Australia Awards Post-Doctoral Fellowship for African Academics 2018

Application Deadline: 30th November 2017

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Phase 2 of the pilot will be open to Eligible Applicants affiliated to Ghanaian, Kenyan or South African Universities that are members of the AAUN.

To Be Taken At (Country): Australia, Ghana, Kenya or South Africa.

About the Award: During the pilot phase, the Post-Doctoral Fellowship provides financial support for African academics affiliated to eligible  Ghanaian, Kenyan and South African university and engaged in research activity.

The Pilot Post-Doctoral Fellowship program seeks to:

• develop on-going educational, research and professional linkages between individuals and universities that are members of the AAUN, in Australia and Ghana, Kenya or South Africa
• provide opportunities for high achieving academics to improve their research skills and contribute to development outcomes in Africa
• contribute to Australia’s position as a high-quality education and training provider and a leader in research and innovation
• contribute to the research capacity of Ghanaian, Kenyan and South African tertiary institutions, and
• contribute to public and economic diplomacy efforts.

Australia Awards – Africa is a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) funded initiative. It is designed to equip Africans with the skills and knowledge necessary to contribute to sustainable economic and social development outcomes in their own countries. In addition, Australia Awards – Africa builds long-term, sustainable links between targeted countries in Africa and Australia. The program provides a variety of Masters scholarships, postgraduate short courses and post-doctoral fellowships to Africans in the public, civil society and private sectors in targeted disciplines, that support the home countries’ developmental priorities.

Type: Postdoctoral, Fellowship

Eligibility: A candidate must meet the following criteria:

• Be a citizen of an eligible African country as outlined in the table in Annex 2 of the Post-Doctoral Fellowships Guidelines
• Must be studying in Ghana, Kenya or South Africa
• Must have the right to reside and work in Ghana, Kenya or South Africa
• Must be affiliated with their home institution in Ghana, Kenya or South Africa in an academic/research capacity
• Be at least 25 and not more than 50 years of age at the date of application
• Home and Host Institutions must be members of the Australia Africa Universities Network
• Not be a citizen of Australia, hold permanent residency in Australia or be applying for a visa to live in Australia permanently
• Must not be married, engaged to, or a de facto of a person who holds, or is eligible to hold, Australian or New Zealand citizenship or permanent residency, at any time during the application, selection or mobilisation phases
• be able to satisfy all requirements of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to hold a Temporary Activity Visa (subclass 408). This may mean that DFAT will need to withdraw an Award offer if the Awardee cannot satisfy the visa requirements
• Have been conferred a PhD at the time of application
• Field of research must be aligned to Agricultural Productivity, Health and Science and Technology
• Must have a letter of support from their home institution that outlines their agreement to the Fellowship, Annex 4 of the Post-Doctoral Fellowships Guidelines
• Must have a letter of invitation from the Host Institution in Australia, outlining their commitment to the Fellowship, Annex 4 of the Post-Doctoral Fellowships Guidelines
• Must be able to commence their program in the academic year 2018

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The costs covered by the Post-Doctoral Fellowship are detailed in each Awardee’s contract. These include fees that are common for all Awardees and costs that may be applicable depending on individual fellowship conditions.

Duration of Program: Fellowships will be up to two years in total, comprised of research components in both Australia and Ghana, Kenya or South Africa but limited to 12 months in Australia.

How to Apply: Hard copy applications will not be accepted. Applications and supporting documentation must be scanned and submitted to postdoc@australiaawardsafrica.org.

It is necessary to go through the Steps and Application details on the Program Webpage before applying

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)

IBM Fellowship Awards Program for Ph.D Students 2018

Application Deadline: 26th October, 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Worldwide

To be taken at (country): Fellowships vary by country/geographic area

About the Award: The IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Awards Program is an intensely competitive worldwide program, which honors exceptional Ph.D. students who have an interest in solving problems that are important to IBM and fundamental to innovation in many academic disciplines and areas of study. This includes pioneering work in: cognitive computing and augmented intelligence; quantum computing; blockchain; data-centric systems; advanced analytics; security; radical cloud innovation; next-generation silicon (and beyond); and brain-inspired devices and infrastructure.

IBM brings together hundreds of researchers who possess deep industry expertise across domains. Collaborating with clients in the field and in its global THINKLab network, IBM addresses some of the most challenging problems and creates disruptive technologies that hold the potential to transform companies, industries and the world at large. For more than seven decades, IBM has collaborated with clients and universities to work on multi-disciplinary projects that quickly lead to prototypes, as well as long-term projects that last for years. IBM has an environment that nurtures some of the most innovative and creative thinking in the world.

Eligible Fields of Study: The academic disciplines and areas of study include: computer science and engineering, electrical and mechanical engineering, physical sciences (including chemistry, material sciences, and physics), mathematical sciences (including big data analytics, operations research, and optimization), public sector and business sciences (including urban policy and analytics, social technologies, learning systems and cognitive computing), and Service Science, Management, and Engineering (SSME), and industry solutions (healthcare, life sciences, education, energy & environment, retail and financial services).

Additionally, IBM Research is paying special attention to the following areas of focus for 2017-2018:

• Quantum Computing
• Cognitive Computing
• Cloud and distributed computing technology and solutions
• Fundamental science and technology

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• Students must be nominated by a doctoral faculty member and enrolled full-time in a college or university Ph.D. program. The faculty member is encouraged to contact an IBM colleague prior to submitting the nomination to assure mutual interest.
• Students from Europe and Russia may be nominated in their first year of study in their doctoral program.
• Outside of Europe and Russia, students must have completed at least one year of study in their doctoral program at the time of their nomination.
• Students from U.S. embargoed countries are not eligible for the program.
• Award Recipients will be selected based on their overall potential for research excellence, the degree to which their technical interests align with those of IBM, and their academic progress to-date, as evidenced by publications and endorsements from their faculty advisor and department head.
• While students may accept other supplemental fellowships, to be eligible for the IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Award they may not accept a major award in addition to the IBM Ph.D. Fellowship.

Selection Criteria: 

• Preference will be given to students who have had an IBM internship or have closely collaborated with technical or services people from IBM.
• The IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Awards program also supports our long-standing commitment to workforce diversity. IBM values diversity in the workplace and encourages nominations of women, minorities and all who contribute to that diversity.

Value and Duration of Fellowship: 

• The 2018 two-year IBM PhD Fellowships are awarded worldwide. A fellowship includes a stipend for two academic years (2018-2019 and 2019-2020) and, in the US, an education allowance for year one (2018-2019).
• In the US, fellowship recipients while in school will receive a stipend for living expenses, travel, and to attend conferences (US$35,000 for 2018-2019 and US$35,000 for 2019-2020). US fellowship recipients will also receive $25,000 toward their education in 2018-2019.
• Outside the US, fellowship recipients while in school will receive a competitive stipend for living expenses, travel, and to attend conferences for the two academic years 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. Fellowship stipends vary by country.
• All IBM PhD Fellows are matched with an IBM Mentor according to their technical interests, and they are strongly encouraged to participate in at least one internship at IBM while completing their studies.

How to Apply: Visit Fellowship Webpage (See Link below) to access the Nomination form.

Interested candidates are advised to read the eligibility requirements and FAQ before applying

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: IBM