Who is Afraid of the Iranian Bomb?

URI AVNERY

I hate self-evident truths.

Ideals may be self-evident. Political statements are not. When I hear about a self-evident political truth, I immediately doubt it.

The most self-evident political truth at this moment concerns Iran. Iran is our deadly enemy. Iran wants to destroy us. We must destroy its capabilities first.

Since this is self-evident, the anti-nuclear agreement signed between Iran and the five Security Council members (plus Germany) is terrible. Just terrible. We should have ordered the Americans long ago to bomb Iran to smithereens. In the unlikely event that they would have disobeyed us, we should have nuclear-bombed Iran ourselves, before their crazy fanatical leaders have the opportunity to annihilate us first.

All these are self-evident truths. To my mind, all of them are utter nonsense. There is nothing self-evident about them. Indeed, they have no logical basis at all. They lack any geopolitical, historical or factual foundation.

Napoleon once said that if one wants to understand the behavior of a country, one has to look at the map.

Geography is more important than ideology, however fanatical. Ideologies change with time. Geography doesn’t. The most fanatically ideological country in the 20^th century was the Soviet Union. It abhorred its predecessor, Czarist Russia. It would have abhorred its successor, Putin’s Russia. But lo and behold – the Czars, Stalin and Putin conduct more or less the same foreign policy. Karl Marx must be turning in his grave.

When the Biblical Israelite people was born, Persia was already a civilized country. King Cyrus of Persia sent the “Jews” to Jerusalem and founded what can be called the “Jewish people”. He is remembered in Jewish history as a great benefactor.

When the State of Israel was founded in 1948, David Ben-Gurion saw in Iran a natural ally. It may now sound strange, but not so long ago Iran was indeed the most pro-Israeli country in the Middle East.

Ben-Gurion was an out-and-out realist. Since he had no intention whatsoever to make peace with the Arabs, a peace which would have prevented the original small State of Israel expanding without boundaries, he looked for allies beyond the Arab world.

Looking at the map (yes, he believed in the map) he saw that the Muslim Arabs were surrounded by a number of non-Arab or non-Muslim entities. There were the Maronite Christians in Lebanon (not Muslims), the Turks (Muslims, but not Arabs), the Kurds (Muslims but not Arabs), Iran (Muslim, but not Arab), Ethiopia (neither Muslim nor Arab) and more.

Seeing this, Ben-Gurion devised a grand plan: a “partnership of the periphery”, an alliance of all these entities surrounding the Arab world and which felt threatened by the emerging pan-Arab nationalism of Gamal Abd-al-Nasser and other Sunni-Muslim-Arab states.

One of the greatest enthusiasts for this idea was the Shah of Iran, who became Israel’s most ardent friend.

The “King of Kings” was a brutal dictator, hated by most of his people. But for many Israelis, Iran became a second home. Tehran became a Mecca for Israeli businessmen, some of whom became very rich. Experts of the Israeli Security Service, called Shabak (Hebrew initials of General Security Service) trained the Shah’s detested secret police, called Savak.

High-ranking Israeli army commanders traveled freely through Iran to Iraqi Kurdistan, where they trained the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in their fight against Saddam Hussein’s regime. (The Shah, of course, did not dream of giving freedom to his own Kurdish minority.)

This paradise came to a sudden end when the Shah made a deal with Saddam Hussein, in order to save his throne. To no avail. Radical Shiite clerics, who were very popular, overthrew the Shah and established the Shiite Islamic republic. Israel was out.

By the way, another element of the “Periphery” broke away too. In 1954 Ben-Gurion and his army chief, Moshe Dayan, hatched a plan to attack Lebanon and establish a pro-Israeli Maronite dictator there. The then Prime Minister, Moshe Sharet, who knew something about the Arab world, nixed this adventure, which he considered stupid. Thirty years later Ariel Sharon, another ignoramus, implemented the same plan, with disastrous results.

In 1982, the Israeli army invaded Lebanon. It duly installed a Maronite dictator, Basheer Jumayil, who signed a peace agreement with Israel and was soon assassinated. The Shiites, who populate the South of Lebanon, welcomed the Israeli army enthusiastically, believing that it would help them against the Sunni Muslims and withdraw. I was an eye-witness: driving alone in my civilian car from Metullah in Israel to Sidon on the Lebanon coast, I passed several Shiite villages and could hardly extricate myself (physically) from the embraces of the inhabitants.

However, when the Shiites realized that the Israelis had no intention of leaving, they started a guerrilla war against them. Thus Hezbollah was born and became one of Israel’s most effective enemies – and an ally of the Shiite regime in Iran.

But is the Shiite Iranian regime such a deadly enemy of Israel? I rather doubt it.

Indeed, when the religious fanaticism of the new regime in Iran was at its height, a curious business occurred. It became known as “Iran-Contra” affair. Some conservatives in Washington DC wanted to arm rightist insurgents in leftist Nicaragua. American laws prevented them from doing so openly, so they turned to – who else? – Israel.

Israel sold arms to the Iranian Ayatollahs (yes, indeed!) and gave the proceeds to our Washington friends, who transferred them illegally to the Nicaraguan rightist terrorists, called “Contras”.

The moral of the story: when it served their practical purposes, the Ayatollahs had no qualms at all about making deals with Israel, the “little Satan”.

Iran needed the weapons Israel sent them because they were fighting a war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It was not the first one. For many centuries, Iraq served the Arab world as a bulwark against Iran. Iraq has a large Shiite population, but the Iraqi Shiites were Arabs and had no real sympathy for their fellow-Shiites in Iran. They still have little.

Israel helped Iran in that war because it feared Saddam Hussein. Therefore, Israel helped to convince the US to invade Iraq. The invasion was highly successful: Iraq was destroyed, and the historic bulwark against Iran disappeared. So it was Israel which helped to remove the main obstacle to Iran’s hegemony over the Middle East.

Sounds crazy? Is crazy. Ben-Gurion’s grand design has been stood on its head. At present, the “periphery” of Lebanon and Iran, supported by Turkey, is our mortal enemy, and the Sunni bloc of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Egypt are our open or half-secret allies.

Here I hear the impatient reader shout: “Cut the bullshit, what about the nuclear danger? What about the mad ayatollahs obtaining atomic bombs and annihilating us?”

Well, I am not afraid. Even if Iran obtains nuclear bombs, I shall sleep well.

Why, for God’s (or Allah’s) sake? Because Israel is well provided with nuclear weapons and a second-strike capability.

Bombing Israel would mean the annihilation of Iran, the multi-millennial civilization, the proud heritage of innumerable philosophers, artists, poets and scientists. (The very word “algorithm” is derived from the name of the Persian mathematician al-Khwarizmi).

The current Iranian rulers may be fanatics (I doubt it) but they are not suicidal. There is not a single indication in that direction. On the contrary, they seem eminently practical people.

So why do they clamor against Israel? Because their aim is to become the dominant force in the Muslim world, and cursing Israel is the obvious way. As long as Israel does not make peace with the Palestinians, the Arab and Muslim masses everywhere hate Israel. Iran’s current leaders are very good at cursing the Little Satan.

Experts report that Islam has recently been losing strength as the main force in Iran, while Iranian nationalism has been gaining. The cult of Cyrus, who preceded Muhammad by more than 1200 years, is gaining ground.

Since the nuclear bomb was invented, no nuclear-armed country has ever been attacked. Attacking a nuclear-armed country simply means suicide. Even the mighty USA (the “Big Satan”) does not dare to attack little North Korea, whose endeavor to obtain a nuclear strike force is far from irrational.

The Public Bank Option: Safer, Local and Half the Cost

Ellen Brown

A UK study published on October 27, 2017 reported that the majority of politicians do not know where money comes from. According to City A.M. (London) :

More than three-quarters of the MPs surveyed incorrectly believed that only the government has the ability to create new money. . . .

The Bank of England has previously intervened to point out that most money in the UK begins as a bank loan. In a 2014 article the Bank pointed out that “whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money.”

The Bank of England researchers said that 97% of the UK money supply is created in this way. In the US, the figure is about 95%. City A.M. quoted Fran Boait, executive director of the advocacy group Positive Money, who observed:

“Despite their confidence in telling the public that there is ‘no magic money tree’ to pay for vital services, politicians themselves are shockingly ignorant of where money actually comes from.

“There is in fact a ‘magic money tree’, but it’s in the hands of commercial banks, such as Barclays, HSBC and RBS, who create money whenever they make loans.”

For those few politicians who are aware of the banks’ magic money tree, the axiom that the people should own the banks – or at least some of them – is a no-brainer. One of these rare politicians is Phil Murphy, who has a double-digit lead in New Jersey’s race for governor. Formerly a Wall Street banker himself, Murphy knows how banking works. That helps explain why he has boldly made a state-owned bank a centerpiece of his platform. He maintains that New Jersey’s billions in tax dollars should be kept in the state’s own bank, where it can leverage its capital to fund local infrastructure, small businesses, affordable housing, student loans, and other state needs. New Jersey voters go to the polls on November 7.

That means New Jersey could soon have the second publicly-owned depository bank in the country, following the very successful century-old Bank of North Dakota (BND). Other likely contenders among about twenty public banking initiatives now underway include Washington State, which has approved a feasibility study for a state bank; and the cities of Santa Fe in New Mexico and Los Angeles and Oakland in California, which are exploring the feasibility of their own city-owned banks.

A Bank Is Not Simply an Intermediary

An article in City Watch LA critical of the idea of a city-owned bank observed that Los Angeles formerly had a bank that failed, closing its doors in 2003 due to insolvency. The argument illustrates the confusion over what a bank is and what it can do for the local government and local communities. The Los Angeles Community Development Bank was not a bank. It was a loan fund, and it was designed to fail. It was not chartered to take deposits or to create deposits as loans, and it was only allowed to lend to businesses that had been turned down by other banks; in other words, they were bad credit risks.

With a loan fund, a dollar invested is a dollar lent, which must return to the bank before it can be lent again. By contrast, as the Bank of England acknowledged in its 2014 paper, “banks do not act simply as intermediaries, lending out deposits that savers place with them.” A chartered depository bank can turn one dollar of capital into ten dollars in bank credit, something it does simply by creating a deposit in the account of the borrower. If the bank’s books don’t balance at the end of the day, it borrows very cheaply from other banks, the Federal Home Loan Banks, or the repo market. It borrows at bankers’ rates rather than retail rates, and that is one of the many perks that a publicly-owned bank can recapture for local governments. Borrowing from banks rather than the bond market actually expands the circulating money supply, stimulating the local economy.

Compelling Precedents

Public sector banks, while rare in the US, are common in other countries; and recent studies have shown that they are actually more profitable, safer, less corrupt, and more accountable overall than private banks.

This is particularly true of the Bank of North Dakota, currently the only publicly-owned depository bank in the US. According to the Wall Street Journal, it is more profitable than Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan Chase. The BND is risk-averse, lends conservatively, does not gamble in derivatives or put deposits at risk. It is able to lend at lower than market rates because its costs are very low.

The BND holds all of its home state’s revenues as deposits by law, acting as a sort of “mini-Fed” for North Dakota. It has seen record profits for almost 15 years. It continued to report record profits after two years of oil bust in the state, showing that it is highly profitable on its own merits because of its business model. It does not pay bonuses, fees, or commissions; has no high paid executives; does not have multiple branches; does not need to advertise; and does not have private shareholders seeking short-term profits. The profits return to the bank, which either distributes them as dividends to the state or uses them to build up its capital base in order to expand its loan portfolio.

The BND does not compete but partners with local banks, which act as the front office dealing with customers. It does make loans that community banks are unable to service, but this is not because the borrowers are bad credit risks. It is because either the loans are too big for the smaller banks to handle by themselves or the smaller banks cannot afford the regulatory burden of lending in rural communities where they get only a few loans a year.

Among other cost savings, the BND is able to make 2% loans to North Dakota communities for local infrastructure — half or less the rate paid by local governments in other states. The BND also lends to state agencies. For example, in 2016 it extended a $200,000 letter of credit to the State Water Commission at 1.75% and a $56,000 loan to the Water Commission to pay off its bond issues. Since 50% of the cost of infrastructure is financing, the state can cut infrastructure costs nearly in half by financing through its own bank, which can return the interest to the state.

If Phil Murphy wins the New Jersey governorship and succeeds in establishing a New Jersey state-owned bank, expect a wave of public banks to follow, as more and more elected officials come to understand how banking works and to see the obvious benefits of establishing their own.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: Winners and Losers

BENJAMIN HACKETT

The details are out, and we know the winners and losers. Teachers would no longer be able to deduct a small amount of out-of-pocket school expenses; Donald Trump would still be able to deduct unlimited amount of fees paid to money managers and lawyers. There is a lot to love in the $1.5 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)—if you’re Donald Trump. Most of the Trump’s business ventures are structured as pass-through entities, in which the economic activity of the business is reported on the individual owner’s personal tax return. The TCJA caps the tax on business income reported on individual tax returns in what amounts to a $448 billion handout to business owners like the Trumps. In comparison, over the same time frame, the TCJA recoups about $4 billion of that money through abolishing tax credits for retirees with disabilities and adoptive families, among others. When Americans hear about slashing tax cuts for “special interest groups,” most think of oil or Big Pharma, but the Republicans apparently mean wage-earners and big families, because big business gets granted every perk on the corporate wish list while many ordinary Americans are in for some unwelcome surprises. High-income taxpayers currently may incur a modest limitation on their overall itemized deductions; the TCJA repeals this overall limitation on itemized deductions, which only affects wealthy Americans, and recoups some of that lost revenue by eliminating the deduction for student loan interest payments and repealing catastrophic medical expenses as an itemized deduction.

The estate tax, which affects only the modern John D. Rockefellers, the richest of the rich—the wealthiest 0.2% of all estates—is phased out before being abolished entirely, giving the top echelon of the 1%er’s a $172 billion windfall. The TCJA then turns around and repeals employer-funded adoption assistance programs, providing cost savings of less than $50 million over the next ten years. From what little we know of Donald Trump’s tax returns, we know that he is subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax—a tax assessed against people who benefit from too many tax loopholes and would pay too little tax otherwise. The TCJA repeals the Alternative Minimum Tax, saving the Trumps of the country about $700 billion. All of the figures cited are from the Republican-chaired Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation and, in my opinion, the Joint Committee on Taxation is likely understating how much the wealthy will benefit from the repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax, as tax advisors and money managers will rush to take full advantage of all of the loopholes that the Alternative Minimum Tax previously disincentivized, adopting tax planning strategies to more easily minimize the tax liability of America’s wealthiest families.

Some other tax credits that got the axe in the TCJA include expenditures to provide access to disabled individuals, clinical testing expenses for drugs that treat rare diseases, employer-provided child care, rehabilitation of historic buildings, and purchasing electric vehicles. Together, the cost savings of these socially beneficial provisions are negligible in comparison to the provisions that provide windfall savings to America’s billionaire class. The special carve-outs for industry largely remain intact; it’s only America’s working families that lose out on what little benefits they have under the current tax system. A lot has already been written about the repeal of the itemized deduction for state and local taxes and the capping of the deductions for mortgage interest and real estate taxes, and the effect it would have on ordinary Americans, especially ones in states like New York and California. One provision that hasn’t been talked about enough is the carried interest loophole—a special tax loophole exclusively for hedge fund managers and private equity partners that costs American taxpayers billions every year. The tax loophole is so egregious that Donald Trump himself vowed to repeal it, but the TCJA specifically preserves it, in another win for America’s moneyed elite. Donald Trump must answer to the American people why billionaire hedge fund managers should continue to receive lucrative special tax benefits while teachers and retirees lose out.

The case in favor of the TCJA can be summarized as follows: if you don’t know what’s in the bill, then the bill is a much-needed boon to hard-working middle class Americans; if you have read up on the bill, then, admittedly, middle class Americans will have to make some big sacrifices, but the TCJA is going to promote so much growth, and create so many jobs, that it’s worth the pinch to the working class. Congressional Republicans know from the Bush-era tax cuts that fiscal conservatives can be won over into embracing deficit-busting tax cuts with fuzzy math on future projected economic growth, even though such wildly optimistic economic growth has never panned out in the past. Congressional Republicans are also counting on that a few red-state Democrats can be convinced to vote in favor of what is, after all, a big handout to almost every Congressperson. If the TCJA passes with the support of a few red-state Democrats it will be proof of what we already know—that class divisions are more important than political affiliations, especially when all of the political class stands to personally benefit.

Trickle-down economics is a proven fraud. The International Monetary Fund, which is certainly not biased in favor of the working class, recently released a report stating that taxes could be raised on the top 1% of earners without negatively impacting economic growth. It’s common sense. If you give an extra $1,000 to a working class American family, that money will be reinvested into the economy in the form of purchasing gas, bread, and diapers; if you give an extra $1,000 to the average Congressperson, when they check their bank account they’ll be $1,000 richer, but it will not in any way affect their spending. If Congress wanted economic growth, it would be wage-earners who would receive the tax perks, rather than just business owners and Wall St. money managers. No amount of the TCJA’s funneling more money to the wealthy elite and exacerbating economic inequality is going to provide prosperity to ordinary families. Conservatives decry talk of the redistribution of wealth and class warfare, but the TCJA is the redistribution of wealth to the benefit of America’s richest and most powerful, and represents class warfare being waged against ordinary Americans.

If Congress was interested in middle class tax breaks, it would be trivially easy to pass a tax reform package—just ask what tax provisions benefit working Americans the most and increase those provisions, like personal exemptions and deductions for student loan interest. Instead these provisions are abolished outright under the TCJA, to cover pennies on the dollar of the windfall savings provided to the ultra-wealthy. If Congress was interested in job creation and economic growth, they would be discussing a desperately-needed infrastructure bill, preferably one modeled after the Works Progress Administration, which would put millions of Americans to work to rebuild America’s middle class at the same time as its roads and bridges. Instead, we have more of the same: a corrupt political system that exists to serve only the interests of the rich and powerful, at the expense of working people everywhere.

A Triumph Of Accountancy: The Paradise Papers

Binoy Kampmark

This was another case of the big and the powerful undercutting the tax systems of the world. But could anyone be genuinely surprised at the revelations to come out of the Paradise Papers on the workings of the tax haven industry?

Of the 13.4 million files revealed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and some 90 global media partners, 6.8 million stem from the offshore law firm Appleby. A further half million derive from the Asiaciti Trust based in Singapore, with six million obtained from corporate registries spanning 19 tax havens.

This is a field where denial is followed by qualification, and then, ultimately, a dismissive shrug.  Nothing exemplifies this more than the dispute over what a “tax haven” constitutes.  The Bermuda minister for finance, Bob Richards, for instance, rejects the suggestion that his country is a joyful tax haven for the stinking rich and robustly powerful.

Language and perception is everything here.  A tax haven, according to the Bermuda side of things, suggests terrorism and money laundering.  A no-tax or low-tax threshold is an entirely decent incentive.  “We didn’t pass a law to say,” disclaimed Richards, “that the Googles of this world don’t get taxed.”

Besides, claimed the evidently irritated finance minister, the UK was itself a tax haven.  “You have more billionaires resident in London than any place on earth.  They are not here for the weather, they are here for the tax climate.  We have a double standard going on here.”

Richards does have a point.  In the world of tax havens, countries with a supposedly more keen disposition to netting tax are found wanting. The Netherlands, for instance, is a the place of choice for General Electric, Heinz, Caterpillar, Time Warner, Foot Locker and Nike. In the sharp observation of Jesse Frederik, “The land of tulips and windmills, the home of the International Criminal Court, and the number one tax have for American multinationals.”

Combing through the papers has already revealed the activities of a few big fish, though again, there are few surprises.  US President Donald Trump, for instance, is the least surprising of all. Despite railing against the unelected global elites who do boardroom deals, his circle is filled with that very same ilk.  The corporate boardroom, in fact, stalks the land and haunts the cabinet.

Take US Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross.  His private equity firm W.L. Ross & Co., LLC was a company that became, in time, one of Appleby’s biggest clients. Despite divesting most of his empire, he retained a stake in the shipping company Navigator Holdings, with W.L. Ross being its largest shareholder. Navigating Holdings, in turn, does extensive business with the Russian gas processing and petrochemicals company SIBUR. A resounding tut-tut has duly followed.

Do these revelations actually matter?  The very fact that the Paradise Papers duly followed in the tracks of the enormous documentation in the Panama Papers is evidence that the enterprising accountant is always ahead of the plodding taxman.

Nonetheless, Will Fitzgibbon and Emilia Díaz-Struck would suggest in November 2016 for the ICIJ that the Panama Papers investigation had “produced an almost daily drumbeat of regulatory moves, follow-up stories and calls by politicians and activists for more action to combat offshore financial secrecy.”

The problem with such companies is that they, in a sense, have every right, or, to be more precise, liberty, to exist in an environment teaming with advisors on how best to trick the tax departments. Companies are not in the habit of feeding social consciences or the public good, and have an incentive to obtain the biggest dividends for their shareholders.

The problem is so endemic that even the ICIJ supplies a disclaimer noting how offshore companies and trusts have “legitimate uses”.  “We do not intend to suggest or imply that people, companies or other entities included in the ICIJ Offshore Database have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly.”  Precisely.

What is easy to ignore is the degree of collusion states afford companies.  Some are in the habit of encouraging companies to operate on their territory, the incentive here being a zero tax rate.   Capital duly migrates; outsourcing takes place.  Tax that would otherwise find its way into coffers is simply not collected.  Infrastructure and services duly suffers.

Matt Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy based in Washington sees an inexorable trend, one that threatens to reduce democratic practice to a shell.  The tax bases of the globe are shrinking, as is trust in state institutions.

“When its documented as well as it has that companies like Apple and Google and Microsoft – these incredibly profitable companies – are just able to use the tax system like a piñata, that just reinforces the belief that no-one cares about the plight of middle-income families.”

Till a good reason exists to abolish such entities as Mossack Fonseca or Appleby, the world of the tax haven will continue to thrive, however vigorous a prune it might receive from periodic bursts of moral outrage.

Complaints soar against Australian government’s welfare agency

Mike Head

More than 55 million phone calls to Centrelink, the Australian government welfare office, were met with a busy signal during the 2015–16 financial year—nearly double the 29 million a year before. A Senate estimates committee was belatedly told last month of this extraordinary rise, which had been hidden from public view.

Millions of welfare recipients were unable to get through to the agency that administers their payments, causing enormous frustration, anxiety and anger. Already struggling to survive on benefits that are far below the poverty line—single unemployed workers receive less than $40 a day—they were forced to spend hours waiting on phones.

This is another measure of the Liberal-National Coalition government’s contempt for those who depend on welfare, especially unemployed or disabled workers, and aged pensioners, as well as its determination to push them off benefits. In effect, the phone logjam is the latest in an endless series of moves by successive governments, both Coalition and Labor, to slash welfare spending at the expense of the working class.

Being unable to contact Centrelink can have serious consequences for some of society’s most impoverished and vulnerable members. This includes being cut off benefits for failing to report information, or being unable to complete applications for benefits. In the same year, the government accused tens of thousands of welfare recipients of falsely claiming payments worth $2.8 billion.

The government’s hostility toward social security dependents was further displayed at the Senate hearing. Department of Human Services official Renee Leon blamed automatic dialling apps for the sharp rise in failed calls.

“That’s not 55 million unique calls,” Leon told senators, asserting that about 20 percent of the calls were from repeat dialling apps. She stated: “55 million doesn’t mean there were 55 million people who tried to ring, because many of those were repeat calls.”

If people are using repeat dialling apps, it is because they know, from bitter experience, that they cannot contact Centrelink without resorting to such devices, which keep calling a number until it is ultimately answered.

Even according to official statistics, phone waits averaged almost 27 minutes at the height of the past year’s “robo-debt” outrage, when the government sent out 20,000 automated “debt notices” every week, demanding that current and former welfare recipients repay hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of dollars.

Seeking to intimidate people relying on pensions, unemployment benefits or other welfare payments, the government hired corporate debt collectors to hound them. It has also threatened to jail people unless they paid the demanded amounts or produced documents to disprove any alleged over-payments. Tens of thousands of people were wrongly accused of defrauding the welfare system, including disabled workers with mental health problems.

This is under conditions in which the ongoing destruction of jobs in manufacturing, mining, retail, public services and other basic industries has created mass unemployment in many working-class and regional areas, especially for young people. Currently, about three quarters of a million workers rely on the meagre Newstart (unemployment) allowance, under constant threat of being penalised or cut off altogether unless they pass onerous and often humiliating “work tests,” such as attending interviews, applying for 20 or more jobs a month, or performing unpaid charity work.

Recipients can have their benefits suspended or terminated for failing to notify Centrelink if they miss an appointment or interview, even because of ill-health or family emergency. Thus, not being able to phone Centrelink can result in being “breached,” leaving recipients in severe financial stress.

Anger over inability to contact Centrelink is just part of the seething discontent over the calculated mistreatment of welfare recipients by the government, through Centrelink. Recently released figures show complaints about the agency jumped by more than 50,000 in 2016–17.

The Department of Human Services’ latest annual report revealed that complaints rose to 168,709, from 113,746 in 2015–16. One in four complaints related to dissatisfaction with a decision, outcome or payment, including payments not being received.

About 28 percent of the complaints related to concerns about a claim, application, or assessment process. Centrelink’s jammed phone system was the subject of 16.2 percent of the complaints, which included concerns about wait times, engaged signals and call disconnections.

Centrelink workers also are paying the price of the government’s cost-cutting. Nearly 1,200 jobs were axed from the Human Services department in the Turnbull government’s 2017–18 budget, on top of about 5,000 job cuts since 2014. This ensures lengthy delays and destroys more working-class jobs. The remaining over-worked Centrelink staff are left to face the justified outrage of those trying to access basic social security rights.

Even worse is being prepared. Human Services Minister Alan Tudge recently announced a three-year $51.7 million contract with Serco, a global corporate services company, for a pilot program in which it will take over some of Centrelink’s phone-call facility. In what the government termed an unprecedented move for Centrelink, 250 Serco call centre employees will take calls about welfare payments. To extract profits from this take-over, Serco will only further run down the service provided to callers.

Tudge declared that this out-sourcing was the answer to the phone jam problem, thus seizing on the suffering the government itself has caused to pursue an obvious corporate agenda. The agreement with Serco, which has also profited from contracts to operate the government’s refugee detention centres, is another step toward the complete privatisation of government services.

The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), the main trade union covering the Centrelink workers, and most public sector workers nationally, has called for talks with the Human Services management. While publicly condemning the Serco deal, the CPSU will continue to stifle the opposition of its members, as it has done with all the previous job cuts.

The CPSU backs the return of another Labor government, but Labor is equally committed to further attacks on welfare. Last September it helped the Turnbull government pass an omnibus savings bill, cutting $6.3 billion from social spending over four years. Labor supported provisions such as 9 percent annual interest charges on alleged unpaid welfare debts.

The attack on welfare recipients is bound up with a wider offensive against the working class as a whole. Governments and employers want to increasingly force the unemployed into low-paid jobs on insecure, super-exploitative conditions. This is driving down wage levels, which have fallen in real terms for several years, while slashing social services in order to cut taxes for big business and wealthy individuals, and pour billions into military spending.

New Zealand: Labour-led government promotes nationalism and militarism

Tom Peters

In its first fortnight in office, the newly installed Labour-led government has made clear that it will advance a program of nationalism, anti-Chinese xenophobia and support for US warmongering.

The right-wing populist New Zealand First, which received only 7.2 percent of the vote, but held the balance of power, decided on October 19—four weeks after the election—to form a coalition government with Labour and the Greens rather than the conservative National Party.

Labour rewarded NZ First leader Winston Peters with the positions of foreign minister and deputy prime minister. NZ First deputy Ron Mark is the new government’s defense minister. The right-wing party ran a Trump-like campaign focused on scapegoating Asian immigrants for the deepening social and economic crisis.

Labour and NZ First have criticised capitalism, reflecting acute nervousness in the ruling elite over growing working class hostility towards the entire social order, which has produced record inequality. Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stated: “If you have hundreds of thousands of children living in homes without enough to survive, that’s a blatant failure.”

Labour is seeking to give itself a “progressive” veneer with meagre promises, such as a four dollar increase to the minimum wage by 2021—grossly inadequate given the soaring cost of living. Visiting Australia over the weekend, Ardern made a much-publicised offer to take 150 refugees from the detention centre on Manus Island. Canberra rejected the proposal.

The media, the trade unions and pseudo-left groups, are all promoting illusions in the Labour-Greens-NZ First coalition in order to trap the working class behind a capitalist government that will accelerate the assault on living standards, attack immigrants, and prepare for war.

While in opposition, Labour and NZ First repeatedly scapegoated foreigners, especially Chinese immigrants, who make up about 4 percent of the New Zealand population, for the housing crisis, low wages and other social problems. The government intends to cut migrant and foreign student numbers by up to 30,000 a year, or 40 percent.

The first item on Labour’s legislative agenda is to ban foreigners from buying houses. Calculated to stoke xenophobia, the ban will do nothing to address rising homelessness. Rents and house prices have soared due to rampant speculation, overwhelmingly by local investors. There is an estimated shortage of 71,000 houses and more than 33,000 unoccupied homes in Auckland alone.

Labour’s anti-Chinese campaign is closely connected with moves to align the country more openly with US warmongering. The Trump administration, escalating policies put in place by Obama, has demanded that US allies fully support the US military throughout the Asia-Pacific, in preparation for war against North Korea and China.

Following the NZ election, and before a government had been formed, US ambassador Scott Brown publicly intervened to stress the country’s importance as a US ally. Brown attacked the National government for describing Trump’s threat to annihilate North Korea as “not helpful.”

NZ First has endorsed a report by the US government-funded Wilson Center calling for an investigation into Chinese “interference” in New Zealand politics. The party has also demanded an “inquiry” into National Party MP Jian Yang, who is being witch-hunted as a Chinese “agent” because he taught English to Chinese military intelligence cadets more than 20 years ago.

While distancing New Zealand from China, the country’s second-largest trading partner, Labour and NZ First have agreed to reopen trade negotiations with Russia, which were cancelled following the 2014 US-backed coup in Ukraine and the subsequent annexation of Crimea by the Putin regime. The New Zealand Herald commented that thawing relations with Russia would “position New Zealand alongside the Trump administration.”

In another accommodation to Washington, the NZ First-Labour coalition agreement criticised the National government for co-sponsoring a United Nations Security Council resolution last year condemning Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. Trump vehemently opposed the resolution. The Jerusalem Post noted that Peters and Mark are “long-standing members” of the Parliamentary Friends of Israel group.

Pro-Labour commentator Chris Trotter told RadioLIVE on November 2 that Mark was “exactly the sort of person you want to have as your Minister of Defence: someone who actually knows what it’s like to be in a fight.”

Mark is a former NZ Army officer and also served, during the late 1980s, in the special forces of Oman, an absolute monarchy allied with the US. In April and June last year, he attacked the government for failing to equip the military “to prepare for war” and deter China’s growing presence in the Pacific. The NZ ruling elite relies on US imperialism to support its own predatory, neo-colonial domination over much of the Pacific, where it views China as an unwanted interloper.

Mark’s first action as minster on October 29 was to personally observe the biennial Southern Katipo military exercise, involving over 2,000 troops from New Zealand, Australia, the US and other countries. The nation’s largest military exercise, Southern Katipo is designed to prepare troops to intervene in a Pacific island country to suppress civil unrest.

Three days later, in a speech to the Returned and Services’ Association, Mark attacked journalists “who have never worn the uniform,” for criticising military operations. This was an apparent response to the book Hit and Run, which exposed how the Defence Force and the National government covered up the role of elite NZ forces in a massacre of civilians in Afghanistan.

Mark also said he would visit Iraq “as fast as we can.” Labour has reassured Australia and the US that it will keep more than 100 troops in Iraq, having ditched any pretence of opposing the war there.

The military will be aggressively promoted among young people. Labour and NZ First have agreed that the Defence Force’s Limited Service Volunteer program for “young jobseekers” aged 17 to 25 will double in size, from 800 to 1,600 recruits per year. NZ First has repeatedly called for unemployed youth to undergo military training.

The government plans to build a new museum to glorify the World War II Maori Battalion, a contingent of 3,600 soldiers that fought in North Africa, Greece and Italy. The unit is lauded by the Maori nationalist Mana Party as “one of the feared military units” in the war.

During a NZ First press conference on October 25, the party glorified Apirana Ngata, the Maori politician whose face appears on New Zealand’s $50 banknote. Ngata supported the Labour government’s efforts in WWII to enlist young Maori.

Peters hailed Ngata for “telling young Maori soldiers going off to their death that that’s the price of being equal in New Zealand.” NZ First Regional Development Minister Shane Jones added: “That’s the narrative that should be built into the Maori identity of New Zealand … It’s going to be elevated.”

These nakedly pro-war statements should be taken as a clear warning. The ruling elite is prepared to drag a new generation into even more devastating wars, demanding that they pay “the price of citizenship” by fighting and dying. The pro-imperialist liberals and pseudo-left groups supporting the right-wing, Labour-led government are seeking to cover up the immense dangers facing the working class.

NATO intensifies its preparations for war with Russia

Philipp Frisch

Against the backdrop of US aggression against North Korea, NATO is intensifying its preparations for war with Russia, the world’s second largest nuclear power. A report in the German news magazine Der Spiegel (Issue 43/2017) based on a secret NATO document indicates how far plans for war have progressed. The news magazine concludes: “In plain language: NATO is preparing for a possible war with Russia.”

In the document entitled “Progress report on the Alliance’s Enhanced Deterrence and Defence Disposition,” leading military figures call for a major boost to military capabilities in order to conduct a so-called “Major Joint Operation Plus.” The abstruse terminology in fact stands for a war involving the main military organisations of all NATO countries, i.e. hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Der Spiegel notes: “The period of the peace dividend is past, the command structures of the Cold War are returning.”

The secret report states that NATO must be able to “quickly strengthen one or more threatened allies, underpin peace and wartime deterrence, and support allies in the event of an attack.” The mobilisation of the necessary troops requires “robust military logistics and capabilities”. The lines of communication would have to extend from North America to the eastern and southern borders of the NATO Alliance.

The report notes that in particular, when relocating large-scale military units to Eastern Europe, NATO is insufficiently prepared, due to the reduction and increased demands of flexibility of the armed forces for foreign missions. In the field of logistics, “the risks involved in rapid reinforcement is considerable”. The alliance lacks low loaders for tanks and rail cars to move heavy equipment to the front. The infrastructure is not designed for the heavy battle tank of the German Army the 2Leopard 2.”

The core of the NATO paper is the demand for two new battlegroups comprising 2,000 troops.

The first of these units is based on the example of the Cold War Supreme Allied Command, which was to ensure the transfer of troops and supplies across the Atlantic for war in Europe. “According to high-ranking NATO military officers the sea route could prove to be an Achilles heel for replenishment in cases of emergency,” Spiegel writes. “In the secret meetings of the central command, analysts warned that Russia is able to manoeuvre its submarines in the Atlantic Ocean largely unobserved.” Based on the current command structure, NATO convoys in the Atlantic are defenceless.

The establishment of such a command unit would involve a massive militarisation of the North Atlantic. This is illustrated by a look at its historical precedent.

Up to its dissolution in 2003, the “Striking Fleet Atlantic” constituted the core of the Supreme Allied Command Atlantic. This included up to four aircraft carrier battle groups, two anti-submarine commandos, an amphibious unit for landing operations and 22,000 sailors. The purpose of this major federation was to maintain the supremacy of the seas between North America and Europe.

A second command unit known as “Rear Area Operation Command” is planned to organise the distribution of war supplies across Europe. According to Der Spiege l, its main task would be “to plan and secure logistics between Central Europe and the eastern member states….In reality the unit represents “the renaissance of the mobilisation concept of the Cold War”.

In plain language: the remit of the new battlegroup is to organise the deployment of large-scale contingents of troops at the Russian border and prepare an attack on Russia. Preparations are already in full swing and Berlin—the location of the command in Germany—is playing a key role. According to Der Spiegel talks between high-ranking US military officers and German officers had already taken place at the beginning of October, shortly after the federal election.

The first telephone conversation between German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) and her American counterpart James “Mad Dog” Mattis also centred on setting up the new command unit. This means that Germany, which has been engaged in a massive military build up for the past three years now and is seeking to increase its military presence in NATO, will become even more centrally involved in NATO’s preparations for war with Russia.

Der Spiegel comments “Domestically, the project would probably be unproblematic even in a possible Jamaica coalition with the Greens, because Germany would not provide combat troops, but only staff soldiers” This is confirmed by the aggressive rhetoric used by the Greens against Russia and the conduct of the exploratory talks for a Jamaica coalition, which has made clear there are only tactical differences between the various parties.

A decision on the establishment of new command structures is expected at the meeting of NATO defence ministers on 8 and 9 November in Brussels—despite increasing tensions within the NATO alliance.

The NATO secret report and the report in Der Spiegel both justify the preparations for a war, which would threaten millions of lives, as a response to the “Russian annexation” of Crimea. This turns reality on its head. There is nothing progressive about the Putin regime, and its own military policy increases the danger of war. But the real aggressors in Eastern Europe are the US and western powers. The United States has been systematically encircling and attempting to subjugate Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union 25 years ago, and in February 2014, both Washington and the German government supported a right-wing coup against the pro-Russian Yanukovych government in Ukraine.

The depiction of Russia as an aggressive superpower waiting for the chance to take over all of Eastern Europe, has been used by the imperialist powers to justify the deployment of NATO troops at the Russian border. In 2014/15, NATO increased its “Rapid Reaction Force” to 40,000 soldiers. Its so-called “spearhead” comprises four “multinational battlegroups” with 1,000 soldiers stationed in each of the three Baltic States and Poland, led by Great Britain, Canada, Germany and the US.

The secret report now calls for a further increase in size of these battlegroups. There is “insufficient assurance that the NATO Response Force will be able to react quickly and sustainably when necessary.” Der Spiegel makes clear that what is contemplated is not merely a reaction to Russian aggression but rather active preparations for war with Moscow. The magazine concludes “hardly anyone expects that Russia could actually attack a NATO country.”

US airstrikes kill dozens of Afghan civilians

Bill Van Auken

Reports from local officials and Afghan legislators have exposed mass civilian casualties in an offensive carried out last weekend by US and Afghan puppet forces in northern Kunduz province.

Some reports have put the death toll from the bombing raids in the Char Dara district at over 60, with women and children among the victims.

The Pentagon acknowledged that US forces had carried out an operation in Kunduz province, issuing its standard response, asserting that it “takes all allegations of civilian casualties seriously” and is investigating the reports.

The area of the attacks was west of the provincial capital of Kunduz, in a rural district where the Taliban has long maintained control.

According to the News International, Pakistan’s largest English language daily, Afghan security forces surrounded the three villages where the air strikes had taken place—Essa Khil, Qatl-e Aam and Uzbek Bazar—preventing relatives from collecting the bodies of their loved ones and interfering with any attempt to discover the precise death toll.

Khosh Mohammad Nasratyar, a provincial council member, gave an estimate of 55 civilians killed, while an Afghan aid worker in the area said the dead numbered at least 40. Others said that more than 60 had died.

President Ashraf Ghani has made no comment on the slaughter in Kunduz. His predecessor, Hamid Karzai, however, strongly condemned the air strikes, demanding an investigation and the prosecution of those responsible. Karzai, who left the presidential palace three years ago, has been strongly critical of the escalating US war in Afghanistan, accusing Washington of wanting to prolong the bloodshed in Afghanistan as a means of pursuing its own strategic interests in the region.

The latest air strikes were among the most intense in recent months, rattling windows in Kunduz city, which in 2015 was the scene of one of the bloodiest aerial massacres carried out by the US military in the course of its 16-year-old war in Afghanistan. In October of that year, a US AC-130U gunship carried out a protracted attack on a Doctors Without Borders medical center that left 42 dead, 33 missing and 30 wounded amid ghastly scenes of patients burning to death in their hospital beds.

Since US President Donald Trump announced a new Afghanistan strategy in August, ceding to the military brass the authority to set troop levels and guaranteeing the Pentagon “the necessary tools and rules of engagement” to escalate what is now America’s longest war, there has been a marked intensification of the bloodletting that has claimed at least 175,000 Afghan lives and turned millions into refugees.

This has come mainly as a result of intensified air strikes. In its October report on civilian casualties, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported that the number of civilians dying as a result of bombs and missiles dropped on the country from US and Afghan government aircraft had soared by 52 percent during the first nine months of 2017, compared to the same period last year.

The Pentagon is also increasing troop levels in the country, reportedly sending at least 3,000 more soldiers and Marines, bringing the official strength of the US occupation force to roughly 15,000. According to a recently disclosed Pentagon report, the US is now spending some $3.2 billion a month on the Afghanistan war, with that figure expected to rise along with the ongoing escalation.

The CIA is also reportedly expanding its role in the Afghan war, seeking authorization to initiate its own drone strikes inside Afghanistan—previously it had been restricted to cross-border missile strikes against Pakistan—and to organize “hunt and kill” militias to carry out assassinations and massacres in Taliban-held areas of the country.

In the midst of the US escalation, a prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) has formally requested judicial authorization to open an investigation into war crimes carried out in connection with the protracted US war in Afghanistan.

The situation in Afghanistan has been the subject of a “preliminary examination” by the ICC for over a decade, during which countless crimes have been carried out against the Afghan people. Both Washington and its puppet government in Kabul have strongly opposed the court’s moving forward toward any investigation and potential charges.

Among charges that the prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, intends to pursue are that the CIA and the US military, along with the Afghan security forces, engaged in the systematic torture of detainees as a matter of state policy.

A Preliminary Examination Report issued last year charged that the US intelligence agency and the Pentagon “resorted to techniques amounting to the commission of the war crimes of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity and rape.” It specifically cited the cases of 61 individual detainees subjected to torture on Afghan territory between 2003 and 2014 by the US military, as well as those of 21 detainees of the CIA who were tortured, abused and raped both in Afghanistan and at CIA “black sites” in Poland, Romania and Lithuania.

The ICC prosecutor’s office stressed that these crimes were “not the abuses of a few isolated individuals,” but rather were carried out in pursuit of “US objectives in the conflict in Afghanistan.”

Since its foundation in 2000, the US has refused to participate in the ICC, out of justifiable fear that US civilian and military officials could end up in the dock for crimes carried out by the Pentagon and the CIA in the multiple US wars and interventions waged in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and beyond. Legislation passed in 2002, the American Service Members Protection Act (dubbed the “Hague Invasion Act”), bars any cooperation from Washington on charges brought against US war criminals and authorizes the US president to employ military force to rescue any American military or intelligence personnel detained by ICC prosecutors.

The Obama administration also imposed upon Washington’s Afghan puppet regime a 2014 Status of Forces Agreement that bars any transfer of Americans accused of war crimes to any international tribunal, granting Washington sole jurisdiction over its own personnel operating in Afghanistan.

While Obama defended the CIA torturers who operated under the Bush administration, Trump has publicly declared his support for waterboarding and other forms of torture. While there has been no official US reaction to the ICC prosecutor’s request for authorization to pursue an investigation, it is clear that Washington will do everything it can to suppress such a probe.

Trump's Visit to East Asia

Sandip Kumar Mishra


US President Donald Trump’s 12-day visit to five of the East Asian countries is quite ‘unprecedented’. But so are his style, posturing, statements and policies. Trump will meet not only the leaders of Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, but also Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

This ‘grand trip’ to the region both in terms of time span and the leaders Trump plans to meet is posited in an environment in which the leaders of these countries are almost at the peak of their domestic political popularity, which the US president does not enjoy in his own country. Although such factors do not necessarily make a big difference to the content of deliberations, they will definitely cast a shadow over it.

Another important factor is strong East Asian leaders taking aggressive positions on regional issues, except South Korea. Similarities in leadership personality may be helpful to the US in forging a common strategy on issues of mutual agreement. However, these similarities may also be an obstacle in making deals and driving bargains if these leaders disagree with Trump.

According to the US Department of State, Trump visit will focus on "North Korea, promoting a free and open region, and fair and reciprocal trade." The US-China equation will underpin all discussions, particularly the security and economic domains. Thus, to achieve anything substantial, it would be important to watch Trump’s visit to China. Trump is going to visit Tokyo and Seoul before Beijing for important regional backing before approaching China’s ‘strongman’ Xi Jinping. The content of his talks with Vietnam and the Philippines will be shaped by the gains and misses of the previous visits. 

In Tokyo, Trump will seek to underline the long and trusted alliance with Japan and the commonality of their intent in the three pronounced focus areas. There is almost complete consensus between Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over regional issues and nothing new is expected to emerge from the visit. Talks with Seoul will be more nuanced because South Korean President Moon Jae-in does not agree with the US approach towards the North Korean issue, installation of missile defence, and revision of the US-South Korea free trade agreement (FTA). Trump will likely push South Korea for more open support of US' policy on North Korea and the installation of missile defence systems. In return, he may be willing to make concessions in the FTA revision process. However, experts are not certain that this will in fact be the bargain, and that Trump, as a former businessman, may make it the other way round. 

Trump's brand of diplomacy will be put to its real test in Beijing, and it will be interesting to observe how he bargains on security and economic issues. Equally interesting will be the nature of his messaging to China - strong or soft - in terms of bringing Beijing on board to achieve US' foreign policy goals in the region. The prospect of any substantial outcome is weak, which is quite common for most of summit meets. In this light, any attempt to accommodate each other's interest will be significant. 

Trump's visit to Vietnam will impinge on the expectation of injecting more content and trust in bilateral relations. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc was the first Southeast Asian leader to visit Washington in May 2017 to meet Trump. Vietnam is unhappy with the US because of its abrogation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and is reluctant to have deep military ties because of the memories of the Vietnam War. Washington is definitely interested in placating Hanoi in its efforts to deal with China. Trump will also attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economic leaders' meet in Vietnam. 

Trump will be in Manila, meeting President Rodrigo Duterte for the second time this year. Their first meeting in April 2017 went well - both leaders were ‘appreciative’ of each other. Unlike the Obama administration which raised concerns about the extra-judicial killing of drug dealers in the Philippines, Donald Trump has been able to bring about mutual acceptance between the two countries. The US has, to a large extent, neutralised China’s attempt to improve relations with the Philippines. There is a high probability of positive outcomes from Trump's Manila visit. Trump is scheduled to attend the East Asia Summit in Manila where he might have a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Overall, Donald Trump's visits to the region appear to be extensive and with a substantial agenda - the issue is whether they will be able to achieve anything significant from the point of the three expressed objectives. The probability of any such outcome is negligible, and this is so because success is generally achieved through consistent and continuous diplomatic effort, along with an interest in accommodating others’ positions. It is hard to do so by being inconsistent, episodic, and attempting to cover so much ground in one single visit. The visit might be ‘unprecedented,’ but the outcomes are most likely not going to be so. 

Linköping University International Masters Scholarship 2018

Application Deadlines:

• To apply for Masters studies: 15th January 2018
• To apply for Scholarship: April 2018. Application for the scholarship will be in early April 2017, after the deadline to apply for studies.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: The scholarship is open to non-EU/EEA students who are liable to pay tuition fees. However the programme is not open for students from the following 12 countries: Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Students from these countries may apply for a Swedish Institute Scholarship.

To be taken at (country): Linköping University, Sweden

Subject Areas: Masters programme offered at the University

About Scholarship: The LiU International Scholarship is aimed at supporting international students with significant academic potential from countries outside the European Union/European Economic Area (and Switzerland) who are required to pay tuition fees for studies. The scholarship is open for students who have applied for a master’s programme at Linköping University through the online national application website (see link below) and who have chosen a programme at Linköping University as their first priority (ranked as No.1 out of 4)

Selection Criteria: Applicants who have chosen a programme at Linköping University as their first priority

Eligibility

• Students who have applied for master’s programmes at Linköping University on time (before 15 January),
• who have chosen a Masters programme at Linköping University as the first priority (ranked as No.1 out of 4)
• who have been admitted to their first choice in the First Notification of Selection Results (end of March),
• who are required to pay tuition fees

Number of Scholarships: Several

Value of Scholarship: With LiU International Scholarships, tuition fees are reduced by 25, 50, 75 or 100%.

Duration: For the duration of the masters programme

How to Apply

Application for a LiU International Scholarship is made by filling in the electronic application form on Linköping University website.

The application for the selected master’s programme(s) on www.universityadmissions.se must be made prior to making a scholarship application on Linköping University’s website, as necessary information for making the scholarship application is obtained during this process.

The application form for LiU International Scholarships will be available for newly admitted students in early April 2017.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details

Sponsors: Linköping University

Important Notes: Scholarship applications will only be processed after the corresponding application for master’s programmes on the above link has been completed, required documentation and the application fee has been received.

Only applicants fulfilling the eligibility requirements for the masters’ programme applied for will be considered for a scholarship. All data entered in the scholarship application form must be verifiable by the documentation submitted in the national application process.