Anti-China witch-hunt in Australia escalates

Peter Symonds

A front-page article in Saturday’s Australian ramped up the ongoing xenophobic campaign against “Chinese influence” in Australia. It reported that the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) had “identified 10 political candidates at state and local government elections whom it believes have close ties to Chinese intelligence services.”

The article, headlined “Security agencies flag Chinese Manchurian candidates,” is a crude beat-up. No-one is named, no evidence is provided and ASIO’s unsubstantiated allegations are treated as good coin without any questioning of its motives. What the article does demonstrate is that the anti-China witch-hunt is being driven by the Australian intelligence agencies—backed to the hilt by Washington—amid the growing danger of a US-led war against North Korea and China.

Ross Babbage, a former intelligence analyst with the Office of National Assessments, told the Australian that Chinese security agencies were engaged in a far-reaching campaign “to recruit and insert and encourage, and to some extent fund, agents of influence.” He is currently a senior fellow at a prominent US think tank—the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Babbage added: “We have not seen this type of activity in Australia since the Cold War.” The reference to the “Cold War” is significant as it is precisely a McCarthyite climate of fear and intimidation that the media and political establishment is seeking to whip up. By relaying ASIO’s “concerns” about unnamed political figures, all politicians are being placed on notice that they could come under scrutiny as “agents of influence” if they step out of line.

ASIO was notorious for its skulduggery during the Cold War and persecution of anyone alleged to have communist or socialist affiliations or sympathies.

The Australian article came just two days after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced plans for sweeping new laws to criminalise “unlawful foreign influence,” create a registry of “foreign agents” and ban all foreign funding of political activities. The expanded treason and espionage legislation will carry draconian penalties of up to life imprisonment.

That the directives are coming from Washington was underscored by the comments of the Australian ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, last week. “It’s being very closely watched [in Washington],” he said. “It is a really serious issue and it represents a threat to what many Australians fought and died for and that is a free and transparent and open democracy.”

In reality, the opposite is the case. After more than a decade of attacking basic democratic rights under the rubric of the bogus “war on terror,” the country is being put on a war footing that will create the conditions for the round-up of anyone deemed to be aiding the enemy—namely China.

The government announcement provoked condemnation from the Chinese embassy in Canberra and the foreign ministry in Beijing. Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Friday that he was “shocked” by Turnbull’s allegations against China. “We have expressed strong dissatisfaction at this and have already lodged solemn representations with the Australian side,” he stated.

Turnbull hit back on Saturday, declaring: “There has been foreign influence in Australian politics, plainly.” He again lashed out at Labor senator Sam Dastyari as “a clear case of somebody who has literally taken money from people closely associated with the Chinese government and, in return for that, has delivered essentially Chinese policy statements.”

Dastyari has been the whipping boy for the anti-China campaign extending over more than a year. Just prior to last week’s announcement of the new legislation, lurid allegations concerning the Labor senator hit the headlines. His allegedly pro-China comments consisted of suggesting that Australia should not join the United States in its provocative challenges to Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Dastyari is a right-wing Labor powerbroker and money raiser, who has always supported Australia’s military alliance with the US and its involvement in Washington’s criminal wars in Afghanistan, Libya and the Middle East. Yet he was targeted last year for his association with Chinese property developer Huang Xiangmo, who has donated not only to Labor, but also to the Liberal-National Coalition.

Among the latest allegations against Dastyari is that he offered “counter-surveillance advice” to Huang—suggesting during a meeting that the two leave their mobile phones in another room to prevent anyone listening in. Clearly someone was listening in—in all probability ASIO, which by its own admissions to the Australian is extensively monitoring politicians, and undoubtedly many other individuals.

The persecution of Dastyari continues unabated, with Immigration Minister Peter Dutton telling Sky News over the weekend that “a lot more is to come.” He continued: “He’s a shady figure. If he’s a double agent he shouldn’t be in the Australian Senate.” Dastyari has already stood down from all political positions, but the vendetta against him will not halt until he is forced out of the Senate, and, if the new legislation is enacted, charged and brought before a court.

The anti-China campaign is provoking real fears in business circles about the potential that it will damage Chinese trade and investment. In 2016–17, trade between Australia and China reached $175 billion, nearly three times Australia’s trade with the United States. Some 1.2 million Chinese visited Australia last year spending $9.2 billion and the value of Chinese students studying at Australian universities is estimated at $8.5 billion.

Australia China Business Council chairman John Brumby last weekend warned: “The relationship [between the two countries] is finely balanced. It is at a tipping point… It’s crucial to understand that by far the biggest single factor that has driven Australian prosperity over the past two decades has been the rise of China and we ignore that at our peril.”

Former Australian ambassador to China, Geoff Raby, told the Australian that official economic retaliation by China over the “foreign influence” witch-hunt was unlikely. However, he added: “If the Chinese government projects Australia as an unfriendly nation and they sustain that, then it could well have an impact on tourism to Australia and the education sector.”

For more than a decade, successive Australian governments have attempted to balance between the United States—the country’s longstanding military ally and top investor—and China, which is now Australia’s top trading partner. That balancing act has become ever more precarious as US imperialism, first under President Obama and now Trump, has mounted an escalating confrontation and military build-up against China.

The immediate flashpoint is North Korea where an imminent US-led attack on the Pyongyang regime is being closely discussed in the military, intelligence and foreign affairs apparatus in Washington and preparations are being made. A war with North Korea carries the very real danger of escalating into a devastating conflict with China. The poisonous campaign against “Chinese influence” in Australia is a signal that the ruling class is rapidly falling into line with the US war drive and preparing accordingly.

US-Russia tensions mount after ISIS’s defeat in Syria

Bill Van Auken

Washington and Moscow have traded fresh charges of provocative actions by each other’s warplanes in the skies over Syria’s Euphrates River valley, even as their supposed common enemy, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, appears to have been routed on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border.

The Pentagon’s statements directly hinted at the prospect of rising tensions in Syria spilling over into a direct military confrontation between the world’s two largest nuclear powers, with incalculable consequences.

“It’s become increasingly tough for our pilots to discern whether Russian pilots are deliberately testing or baiting us into reacting, or if these are just honest mistakes,” Lt. Col. Damien Pickart, spokesman for the US air command based in Qatar told the New York Times. “The greatest concern is that we could shoot down a Russian aircraft because its actions are seen as a threat to our air or ground forces.”

The Times article published Saturday was written as a brief for the US military intervention in Syria and a more aggressive American confrontation with Russia for dominance in the Middle East. The Pentagon recently acknowledged that over 2,000 US troops are presently deployed inside Syria—more than four times the number previously admitted—and indicated that there is no intention of withdrawing them after their ostensible mission of defeating ISIS is completed.

The Times parroted Pentagon allegations of a Russian SU-24 fighter jet having “nearly collided” with two US A-10 close air support warplanes east of the Euphrates River, and of other Russian aircraft flying directly over the US proxy ground forces and their American special forces “advisers” for over 30 minutes, actions which US officials told the newspaper had escalated “tensions and the risk of a shootdown.”

Quoting the same Pentagon officials, the Times reported that Russian warplanes were violating as many as a half a dozen times a day a deal supposedly reached between Washington and Moscow to keep their aircraft on opposite sides of the Euphrates.

“There’s a risk there,” Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Harrigan, the commander of the US air war in Iraq and Syria, told the newspaper. “Their desire is to set this up for the end state for Syria. We’ve got to be clear-eyed. The Russians are here to support the Syrian government.”

Unstated by the general or the Times is that Washington has intervened in Syria with the diametrically opposed objective of continuing the drive for regime change that it began in 2011 by fomenting a sectarian-based insurgency relying on Sunni Islamist militias funded and armed by the CIA, Turkey Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Gulf oil sheikdoms. With the defeat of these Al Qaeda-linked elements, US imperialism has backed a new proxy ground force, the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is wholly dominated by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. This in turn has heightened tensions in the region, particularly with Turkey, which regards the YPG as an extension of the Turkish Kurdish PKK, against which Ankara has waged a bloody counterinsurgency campaign for decades.

While forces loyal to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian airpower and aided by Iran, the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and other Shia militias, have succeeded in restoring its control over most of the country, Washington is determined to carve out its own zone of influence in order to continue military operations aimed at countering Russian and Iranian regional influence and pursuing its original aim of regime change.

Regional tensions have been further stoked by the recent announcement of an agreement between Moscow and the Egyptian regime of Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to allow Russia to base warplanes in Egypt, long a client state of US imperialism.

Following the publication of the Times article, the Russian military issued a sharp response that included its own charges of US warplanes threatening its aircraft in the same area of eastern Syria. A spokesman for the Russian armed forces accused the US intervening to obstruct Russian airstrikes against ISIS positions.

“Specifically, for example, on November 23, a pair of Russian Su-25 attack aircraft were on a mission to destroy a terrorist stronghold when a US F-22 appeared in the sky,” Russian military spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov told the media. “It started to fire off flares and deployed its air brakes as it simulated a dog fight. It was not until a super-maneuverable Su-35S fighter jet appeared that the American withdrew.”

The Russian general mocked the Pentagon’s pretension that it had control over designated airspace in Syria, noting that the American forces were operating in the country illegally, without either United Nations authorization or the permission of the Syrian government. He urged the US military “to concentrate on the elimination of terrorists in Iraq rather than provoke air incidents [in Syria].”

The Russian Defense Ministry charged that US operations in Syria “focused on impeding [activities of] Syrian government troops,” and that their major result had been that of “destroying Raqqa along with the civilians.”

In the midst of the charges and counter-charges between Washington and Moscow over military operations in Syria, the former official spokesman for the SDF, Talal Silo, who defected to Turkey late last month, told the Reuters news agency that the US had approved the evacuation of thousands of ISIS fighters from the besieged city Raqqa in October. He said that some 4,000 people were bused out of the city, all but about 500 of them ISIS fighters.

Silo’s account confirmed an earlier report by the BBC, which quoted sources who participated in this exodus as stating that the convoy transporting the ISIS members, along with large quantities of arms and ammunition, was some four miles long, including 50 trucks, 13 buses and 100 ISIS vehicles.

Silo told the news agency that the claim by the Pentagon and its proxy forces that a fierce battle was taking place inside Raqqa “was all theater,” designed to keep journalists away from the city during the evacuation.

He said that Washington’s support for the evacuation was driven by its determination to quickly end the Raqqa siege and redeploy the Kurdish militia and its US special operations “advisers” to Deir Ezzor province, the center of Syria’s oil and gas reserves as well as the country’s border with Iraq. The US aim was to cut off the border and thereby disrupt Iranian influence by blocking its land access to Syria.

In a separate interview with the Turkish media, Silo said that according to the US plan, “the [ISIS] terrorists would go to Al-Bukamal [near the Iraqi border] and prevent the regime’s advance.”

The former SDF spokesman said that Raqqa was not the first time the US and its proxies had facilitated the escape of ISIS forces, but rather the third. In the capture of Manbij in northern Aleppo province in 2016, he said, 2,000 ISIS members were evacuated. “The SDF, the U.S. and Manbij Military Council provided security for Daesh [ISIS] members and allowed them to go towards Jarablus. This was the first agreement,” he said.

Subsequently, during the siege of Al Tabqah, on the Euphrates River, the US and its proxy force negotiated the evacuation of 500 ISIS fighters. In both cases, the Islamists were allowed to leave with their weapons and ammunition.

The testimony of Silo, who collaborated closely with top US officials and military commanders in Syria, is another damning exposure of the “war on terrorism.” ISIS, itself a product of Washington’s intervention in the Middle East, has served as another instrument of American military aggression aimed at asserting US imperialist dominance over the oil-rich region.

Amid “full employment,” no recovery in US wages

Jerry White

The US jobs report for November, released Friday, provides further evidence that the much vaunted economic “recovery” in the United States has overwhelmingly benefited Wall Street, whose stock bonanza is based above all on stagnant wages and the destruction of working-class living standards.

The Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls increased by 228,000 and the jobless rate remained unchanged at 4.1 percent, the lowest level since January 2000 at the height of the “dot.com” bubble. Manufacturing payrolls rose by 31,000; construction in the aftermath of the hurricanes in Texas and Florida added 24,000 jobs. There was also a boost in the low-wage retail (18,700) and leisure and hospitality (14,000) sectors.

Despite what economists, the media and politicians are calling “full employment,” average hourly earnings rose only 0.2 percent, or five cents, to $26.55 an hour, from a downwardly revised 0.1 percent drop in wages in October. Year-to-year wage increases in November were only 64 cents, or 2.5 percent. If wages rise by another nickel in December, yearly salaries will be up a mere 2.4 percent in 2017, barely above the official projected inflation rate of 2.0 percent.

“President Trump’s bold economic vision continues to pay off,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders boasted on Friday. “The economy’s vital signs are stronger than they have been in years,” the New York Timesdeclared. “Companies are posting jobs faster than they can find workers to fill them. Incomes are rising. The stock market sets records seemingly every month.”

Economic analysts have pointed to anemic wage growth, euphemistically called weak “inflationary pressure,” as a major factor in the determination of the Federal Reserve to continue pumping up the stock market with cheap credit. Although most economists expect a modest interest rate hike at the Fed’s meeting Wednesday, Jerome Powell, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Federal Reserve, made clear last month at his Senate confirmation hearing that he would keep rates at historically low levels. At the same time, he assured the senators that there was little danger of a wages push because of continuing “slackness” in the labor market, i.e., an ample supply of workers desperate for full-time employment.

Other analysts agree. “Wage growth has been muted thus far,” especially given the “very healthy pace of job creation,” said Michelle Meyer, head of US economics at Bank of America. “It’s been the story throughout the course of this year.”

Describing November’s wage increase as “tepid,” Carl Riccadonna and Yelena Shulyatyeva of Bloomberg Economics wrote: “Even though job gains are well in excess of the natural growth rate for the labor market, labor scarcity is not yet driving wage pressures higher. The moral of the story from this jobs report is that full employment is indeed much lower in the current cycle relative to history.”

US employers are exploiting a reserve of unemployed and underemployed workers to keep wages low. At the same time, corporations are filling positions with young workers who are paid far lower wages and benefits than the older workers they are replacing.

According to the government, 6.6 million workers in the US remain unemployed, including 1.6 million, or nearly one out of four jobless people, who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more. Another 4.8 million were forced to work part-time last month although they want full-time work, and 1.8 million were “marginally attached” to the labor force. The latter want to work but did not search for employment in the four weeks preceding the survey and were therefore not counted as “unemployed.”

The labor force participation rate, or share of working-age people in the labor force, remained at 62.7 percent in November. However, just 79 percent of the prime-age work force, aged 25 to 54, is actually working—below the rate before the 2008 financial crash.

The situation facing the young generation is particularly dire. According to the Class of 2017 report by the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment rate for young high school graduates is 16.9 percent (compared with 15.9 percent in 2007 and 12.1 percent in 2000). For young college graduates, the unemployment rate is currently 5.6 percent (compared with 5.5 percent in 2007 and 4.3 percent in 2000), and 7.1 percent for young male college graduates.

The figures are even higher for “underemployment,” which includes young graduates who are involuntary part-timers or are only marginally attached to the labor force. For young high school graduates, the underemployment rate is 30.9 percent (compared with 26.8 percent in 2007 and 20.8 percent in 2000). For young college graduates, the underemployment rate is 11.9 percent (compared with 9.6 percent in 2007 and 7.1 percent in 2000).

The share of young graduates who are “idled” by the economy—neither enrolled in further schooling nor employed—remains higher in the wake of the Great Recession than in 2007 and 2000, the report noted. This includes 15.1 percent of young high school graduates and 9.9 percent of young college graduates, many of whom are burdened with unsustainable debts.

The stagnation of wages is a long-term tendency. Since the early 1970s, hourly inflation-adjusted wages have grown by only 0.2 percent annually, and labor’s share of national income has fallen from nearly 65 percent in the mid-1970s to below 57 percent in 2017.

The deterioration in the social position of the working class and accompanying explosion of social inequality are not simply the result of objective economic laws. They are the intended outcome of the policies of the American ruling class, implemented by successive Democratic and Republican administrations alike. The transfer of production to lower-wage countries, deindustrialization and mass layoffs in the 1980s and 1990s were used as a hammer to beat back the resistance of workers to a historic lowering of their living standards.

This process was aided and abetted by the trade unions, whose pro-capitalist and nationalist orientation left workers without any progressive response to globalization. Far from opposing wage and benefit cuts, the United Auto Workers and other unions suppressed working-class opposition and collaborated with the corporations to slash labor costs in the name of boosting competitiveness and “protecting American jobs.”

This assault was escalated in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008. In the course of the eight years of the Obama administration, the unions limited strikes to the lowest levels since the Labor Department began recording work stoppages in 1947. They collaborated with the Democratic president to crush a potential wages push in 2015-16 as workers in auto, steel, oil, telecom, airlines, rail, health care, retail and other industries, as well as teachers and other public employees, were coming up for new labor agreements.

While workers were determined to recoup lost income after corporate profits had fully recovered from the crash, the unions signed deals that limited pay hikes to the rate of inflation or barely above it while shifting health care and pension costs onto the backs of workers. This was key to Obama’s “in-sourcing” strategy for attracting investment on the basis of low wages, as well as his “quantitative easing” interest rate policy, which fueled the massive rise in the stock market that continues to this day. Virtually all of the net increase in new jobs created under Obama’s “gig economy” were part-time, contingent or temporary.

Trump claims his $1.5 trillion tax cut—including the slashing of the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent—will create more jobs and increase wages. As in the Obama years, however, this massive windfall for big business and the rich will not be used to expand production, let alone increase the wages and living standards of workers. It will go for stock buybacks and dividend increases, which benefit the richest investors.

Wages are so low now that 7.6 million Americans are forced to work multiple jobs, a number not seen in 20 years. In a recent article titled “China-Like Wages Now Part of US Employment Boom,” Forbes noted that a forklift operator hired at $12.75 an hour at Amazon’s Fall River, Massachusetts fulfillment center makes $382 for a 30-hour week, “not much more than the average guy in Beijing,” where the median weekly wage is $329.53. At 40 hours a week, a higher paid, full-time Amazon worker in Fall River earns $28,800 a year before taxes, roughly what Amazon’s billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos pockets every minute.

Nepal Elections: Reading the Results

Pramod Jaiswal

The Left Alliance made a clean sweep in Nepal's recently held provincial and federal elections. It is speculated that the Chairman of Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML), KP Sharmal Oli, would lead the government and the Chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Center (CPN-MC), Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, would be the chairman of the new Nepal Communist Party, formed after the merger of CPN-UML and CPN-MC. The election results also show that six out of the seven provinces would have a leftist government. 

What were the reasons for the rise of the left in Nepal? What would the future political course in Nepal be? How will the new government deal with its two neighbours, India and China? 

Rise of the Left

The chances of forming the government was nearly certain when the two biggest left parties - the CPN-UML and the CPN-MC - announced the formation of an alliance ahead of provincial and federal elections. Both parties were the second and third largest force in the parliament respectively. They also announced that they would work for their formal merger after the election.

There are numerous reasons for the left alliance's thumping victory. Foremost of them was the agenda of development and political stability. In the last ten years, Nepal has had ten prime ministers. Due to lack of political stability, Nepal failed to experience development. Hence, it was most appealing to the people. The people were more convinced as they came with a common manifesto and had already announced the merger both parties after election. 

The second factor was the image of KP Sharma Oli as the ‘nationalist’ leader among the hill voters. Third, there was precise calculation in candidate allocation and election management. The leaders continued rigorous election campaign in spite of their health issues and personal tragedies. Similarly, the Nepali Congress's lack of leadership and clear agenda also helped the left. The Nepali Congress's duality during the ‘unofficial blockade’ failed to impress both hill and Madhesi voters. While hill voters accused them of not speaking against "a hidden Indian hand" during the blockade, the Madhesi accused them of not standing with them. Moreover, incumbent Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba failed to deliver during his tenure and was mired in several controversies which made him quite unpopular. 

Challenges to the Left 

There are three major challenges for the left alliance: The first and most immediate challenge would be of dealing with the power sharing. The CPN-UML and the CPN-MC had shared seats in a ratio of 60:40  for the polls. Hence, both parties would claim share in the same proportion while forming the government and the new party after the merger. Though Oli and Prachanda would be able to deal with power sharing in the government, it is yet to see how they would meet the challenges of the unification of the parties, because apart from ideological differences - which is prime among the left parties - they would have to resist tremendous pressure during the management of leaders and cadres from their parties. 

The second major challenge to the left would be managing the neighbours. It is an open secret that KP Sharma Oli and India do not enjoy good relations. The relations between the two countries were at their lowest during his tenure as the prime minister. Oli signed several agreements with China to challenge India’s predominant position in Nepal. India sees him as ‘anti-India’ and ‘pro-China’, and suspects a Chinese ploy behind the left alliance. Hence, it would be a herculean task for the Oli government to convince and bring India into its favour. 

On the other hand, it is expected that relations between Nepal and China would meet new heights. Chinese President Xi Jinping might visit Kathmandu within a few months and announce several projects under Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Railway connectivity between China and Nepal would be significant.

The third major challenge would be addressing the grievances of its long-marginalised communities, which, if left unaddressed, could lead to renewed conflicts. Some of the demands of marginalised groups in the Terai region, including Madhesis and Tharus, are still unaddressed. The Madhesi parties also performed well in the elections. The Nepali Congress and Madhesi parties would form a strong opposition. Failure to manage the opposition will affect delivery on the left government's part. Moreover, it is rather alarming that not a single voter turned up for polling at Mahadeva Village, Saptari, owing to CK Raut’s call. CK Raut is Madhesi secession activist who was later arrested for carrying out anti-election activities and calling people to boycott voting.

The Way Forward

Though the CPN-UML has emerged as the largest political party, it is highly unlikely that it might grab a simple majority to form the government. Hence, the alliance of the CPN-UML and the CPN-MC is inevitable. 

However, even after the merger, the left parties might not get two-third majority, which would mean theycannot fiddle with the constitution. They would require the help of the Madhesis or the Nepali Congress to make any amendments to the constitution. Thus, there will be checks and balances. 

Most probably, India and Oli might improve their relations as it will be mutually beneficial. On the other hand, India should stop betting on the old horse as the Nepali Congress lacks proper leadership at the moment. It should improve its relations with all the political parties and cultivate them to serve its national interest, rather than favouring one party. Oli would fail to deliver on the promise of a stable government and development if he fails to balance both its neighbours. If India fails to cultivate good relations with the left, it might lose its geopolitical advantages in Nepal and is bound to adopt a defensive approach vis-à-vis with China.

Zimbabwe: Political Solutions to Legal Questions Undermine the Rule of Law

Phephelaphi Dube

The much-publicised recent events in Zimbabwe at the initiative of the army are unsettling, despite the removal of long-serving President Robert Mugabe from power. Unsettling not least because the change in governance took place outside of legal norms; but also because of implications for neighbouring states, particularly South Africa.

In terms of the Zimbabwean constitution, the first vice-president should have assumed the president’s office for 90 days, in which time the governing party elects a new leader, who then becomes president. The Zimbabwean constitution further provides that where the first vice-president is removed from office, then the second vice-president assumes the position of the first vice-president. This meant that the second vice-president, Report Phelekezela Mphoko, should have assumed the presidency, albeit in a caretaker capacity, post Mugabe’s resignation. He would have been acting president until such time that the governing party, Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), formally elected him as party leader.

Instead, hours before Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa was inaugurated, the High Court of Zimbabwe issued a declaratory order to the effect that the prior dismissal of Mnangagwa as vice-president was null and void, and of no legal effect. This order seemingly, was meant to remove any legal hurdles to Mnangagwa’s ascendency to the presidency position.

The media too, widely reported that Mugabe agreed to a deal including $10 million, immunity from prosecution, as well as assurances that together with his family, he would receive protection, as conditions for his resignation.

While the South African government responded cautiously to the developments in Zimbabwe, the immunity deal negotiated with Mugabe ignited a similar debate in South Africa, over the beleaguered President, Jacob Zuma. In 2015 the Constitutional Court found that the president failed to “uphold, defend and respect” the constitution after it was established that Zuma had used public funds to build himself a private residence. Additionally, Zuma faces the real likelihood of standing trial for corruption, fraud, money laundering and racketeering. In 2016, the Public Protector’s Office released a report into allegations of state capture, in which the president as well as his family and friends appeared to have played a central role in which key state institutions are being repurposed to unlawfully benefit a few individuals. As such, debate has emerged as to the desirability of a similar immunity arrangement for Zuma, in which he is given a certain amount of money and allowed to keep the proceeds of his corrupt activities with the assurance that he resigns from his position. 

It must be said that the South African constitution does not envisage the shielding of any individuals from the full might of the law in the event of wrongdoing. As such, any such any political solution which sees an immunity deal for Zuma would be outside of accepted legal practice. It would also create an untenable precedent going forward and would serve to undermine South Africa’s constitutional project in failing to hold powerful individuals to the same standard as demanded by the constitution.

The army as a catalyst in Zimbabwe reflects where the underlying State power lies. While there may be a semblance of a civilian president wielding power in terms of the constitution, the reality, however, is that the army is a major, if not key player in the Zimbabwean politics of the day. This does not bode well for the health of Zimbabwe’s already fragile constitutional democracy. A similar discourse about the role of the army in South African civilian affairs is ongoing – albeit within the context of the army assisting with policing in areas with high levels of violence, drugs and gangsterism. While South Africa’s president is yet to respond to the calls for the deployment of the army for civilian purposes, events in Zimbabwe have nonetheless reignited debate about the role of the army outside of warfare. 

Ultimately, despite the veneer of legality under which the leadership change occurred in Zimbabwe, the reality is that this change occurred with the army playing a centrist role, outside of any formally recognised legal structures. It is also of concern, that the High Court was seemingly complicit in the matter. For Zimbabwe, this means, going forward, that there are possibly two centres of power – one being the president and the other being the army commander. This casts a shadow over Zimbabwe’s ability to become a fully-fledged democracy, as the threat of military intervention will forever loom large. Further, the South African government may breathe a sigh of relief that its northern neighbour averted a humanitarian crisis and the possible movement of refugees across the border.

However, the developments in Zimbabwe serve to highlight South Africa’s own lack of political leadership, as well as the urgent need for swift, decisive intervention to address the corrosive effects of corruption and growing lawlessness. It is perhaps too soon to discuss geopolitical realignments within the Southern African Development Community region post the leadership change in Zimbabwe, although given the fact that ZANU-PF remains in power, this suggest little, if any such shifts.

ETH Zurich Excellence Scholarship for International Masters Students 2018

Application Deadline: 15th December 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country):  ETH Zurich, Switzerland

About the Awards: ETH Zurich supports excellent students wishing to pursue a Master’s degree at ETH with two scholarship programmes.

Under the Excellence Scholarship & Opportunity Programme (ESOP) students receive a special scholarship for the duration of their programme as well as specific supervision. The scholarship covers the full study and living costs during their Master’s degree course.

Under the Master Scholarship Programme (MSP) students receive a partial stipend during their Master’s degree course and the offer of an assistantship.

Type: Masters taught

Eligibility: A very good result in their Bachelor’s. Students must belong to the best 10 percent of their Bachelor’s programme.

Selection Process: The applications are evaluated by the Admissions Committees of the respective Master’s programmes. The final decision for awarding scholarships in the Excellence Scholarship & Opportunity Programme and in the Master Scholarship Programme rests with the Rector of the ETH. The number of annual scholarships depends on the availability of funds.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: 

• The Excellence Scholarship consists of a grant covering living and study expenses (CHF 11,000 per semester) as well as a tuition fee waiver. The scholarship begins when the student commences his or her Master’s degree and is awarded for the regular duration of the Master’s programme (three or four semesters). It is awarded independently of the scholarship holder’s financial situation.
• The Master Scholarship consists of a partial stipend for living and study expenses (CHF 6,000 per semester) as well as a tuition fee waiver. The department can additionally provide a scholarship of CHF 1,500 – 3,000 per semester or offer an assistantship from the second semester onwards (with a payment of CHF 600 per month).

Duration of Scholarship: The scholarship begins when the student commences his or her Master’s degree and is awarded for the regular duration of the Master’s programme (three or four semesters).

How to Apply: You can only apply for an Excellence Scholarship & Opportunity Programme or a Master Scholarship Programme if you, at the same time, apply for a Master’s degree programme at ETH Zurich (or if you, as an ETH Bachelor student, continue with a consecutive Master’s degree programme). If you are already enrolled in a Master’s degree programme at ETH Zurich, you are not eligible to apply for this scholarship anymore.

The application consists of

• Application form ESOP/MSP (PDF, 270 KB)
• Letter of motivation
• a pre-proposal for your Master’s thesis (see guidelines on how to write a pre-proposal (in link below)
• letters of recommendation from two professors

Please complete, print, sign and return this form together with the required documents no later than 15 December 2016 to:

ETH Zürich
Studienfinanzierung Financial Aid Office
Rämistrasse 101, HG F 22.2
8092 Zürich,
Switzerland

Please note that your application must arrive at the Financial Aid Office two working days after the application deadline (i.e. Monday, December 19, 2016).

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: ETH Zurich

Important Notes: The scholarship is awarded independently of the scholarship holder’s financial situation. The Master Scholarship Programme requires a financial contribution from the scholarship holder.

University of Nottingham Research Scholarship for International Students 2018/2019 – UK

Application Deadline: 9th March 2018 (12 midday UK time)

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): UK

Eligible Field of Study: Applications from suitable candidates are welcome but would particularly be valued from strong candidates wishing to work within the research priority areas of each faculty. Please check with individual faculties via the links below regarding their areas of research (link below):

• Arts
• Medicine and Health Sciences
• Science
• Social Sciences

Engineering research students should apply for the Faculty of Engineering Research Excellence PhD Scholarship.

Type: PhD Research/ MPhil

Eligibility: Interested candidates can apply for this scholarship if they:

• are classed as an overseas student for fee purposes AND
• already hold an offer to start a full-time research degree programme, PhD or MPhil, at our Nottingham campus with a start date that falls between 01 October 2018 and 01 February 2019 (inclusive), in any subject area** excluding Engineering***

Number of Awardees: 50

Value of Scholarship: Full-tuition

Duration of Scholarship: these scholarships are for up to each of 3 years of a research programme, subject to satisfactory progress.

How to Apply: Applications should be made via the scholarships section of MyNottingham. Click here to log in once you have received an offer to study in 2018.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: University of Nottingham

University of Nottingham Fully-funded Engineering Scholarship for International Students 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 9th March 2018 (12 midday UK time)

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): UK

Type: PhD, Research

Eligibility: We are looking for applications from exceptional students who are seriously committed to pushing the boundaries of engineering, students who are excited about the prospect of working with some of the world’s leading researchers and who aspire to be the best in their profession. The high value of this award reflects the University’s aim to attract the best students from around the world and to support them during their study.

You can apply for this scholarship if you:

• are classed as an overseas student for fee purposes AND
• already hold an offer to start a full-time PhD research degree programme at our Nottingham campus with a start date that falls between 01 October 2018 and 01 February 2019 (inclusive) in the Faculty of Engineering AND
• have a first-class undergraduate degree or an MSc with distinction in a relevant subject; work experience, journal papers published and other esteem indicators (prizes, top-in-class etc.) will be considered

It is important that you state on your scholarship application the specific topic you are interested in researching and why. Applications listing broad fields of research eg ‘civil engineering’ or ‘mechanical engineering’ rarely get supported.

Number of Awardees: 12

Value of Scholarship: Full tuition fee scholarships plus a stipend of £1,015 per month

Duration of Scholarship: Three-year full-time PhD research degree programme

How to Apply: Applications should be made via the scholarships section of MyNottingham. Click here to log in once you have received an offer to study in 2018.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: University of Nottingham

Carrington Youth Fellowship Initiative (CYFI) for Young Nigerian Entrepreneurs 2018

Application Deadline: 31st December, 2017

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Nigeria

To be taken at (country): Interviews follow at the US Consulate, Lagos, Nigeria

About the Award: The CYFI fellowship is built around year-long social innovation projects that are designed by fellows and supported by the U.S. Consulate and private partners. Following successful completion of their projects, fellows remain involved with CYFI and the U.S. Consulate through the CYFI Alumni Program.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington, was a champion of civil liberties, democracy and closer ties between the U.S. and Nigeria. CYFI invites applications from fellows who are committed to putting the ideals of Walter Carrington into practice. The CYFI Board of Directors will select fellows who demonstrate the exceptional passion, skill, experience, strategic thinking and vision necessary to implement their own innovative and impactful projects.

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: 

• Passion
  You are committed to making a significant contribution to your community and country
• Skill & Experience
  You have a unique set of skills and experiences that you can use to make an impact
• Strategic Thinking
  You are excited about the opportunity to launch an innovative CYFI project.
  You know how to design a project that is based on sound research, uses resources creatively, builds or improves on existing systems, and leverages partnerships with complimentary organizations
• Vision
  You know the area of social change in which you would like to work, and you can articulate the positive change that you would like to make

Selection: Applicants selected for an interview will be notified by the CYFI Board. Interviews will be held at the U.S. Consulate General in Lagos.

Value of Program: 

• Implement concrete, youth-oriented solutions to issues that concern you
• Access U.S. Government resources and contacts
• Catch the attention of American and Nigerian leaders in the public and private sectors
• Work alongside talented and motivated peers with diverse backgrounds, but similar visions
• Participate in CYFI Alumni Program

How to Apply: Application opens 12th December. You can only fill the application form after this date.

• In addition to providing biographical information, applicants will be asked to complete a hypothetical scenario.  All fields are required.
• You may save the application and return to it at a later time.  Please note however that incomplete applications will not be considered.
• To start the application, proceed to fill the form (to be available soon).

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: An Initiative of the U.S. Consulate General, Lagos.

School of Medicine Scholarships for International Students at St. George’s University 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 31st December 2017

Eligible Countries: International

To Be Taken At (Country): Grenada

About the Award: #SGUperspective scholarships are available to new students who enroll in the January 2018 class. Students can apply by creating a 30-60 second video highlighting the aspects of medicine that inspire them, sharing it on social media with the hashtag #SGUperspective, and submitting it here for evaluation by the University’s admissions committee.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: In order to be eligible for the grant, participants must be 18 years of age or older, have posted a video, submitted the direct link, and completed an application. Your profile and/or video post must be public in order for your video to be viewed and considered for this grant. By submitting a video, SGU reserves the right to share, repost, and use it on the SGU website and social media pages.

Selection Criteria: Winning perspectives have included leadership and service (Michael DeLuca), having an open heart (Joseph Varvarigos), connect with patients (Adam Kirstein) and empathy in medicine (Laraib Sehrish).

Value of Award: St. George’s will award scholarships of up to $10,000 to as many as 30 students.

How to Apply:  Simply submit a short video (30–60 seconds) which gives a peek into your perspective on medicine. What is “medicine” from your perspective? Just point and shoot that phone to show us…whatever you think. It could be: Comedy in Medicine, Healing Kids, Medicine and Me, Warmth Heals, Medicine in the Streets, or anything that inspires you.

• Shoot a brief video (up to 60 seconds) about your perspective in medicine.
• Post your video to Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook with the hashtag #SGUPerspective
• Complete this short form so we can match your submission with your application.
• Submit your School of Medicine application.

• If you have any questions about this video project (or about anything at all) please contact Josh Fein, Director of Student Enrolment at (631) 665-8500 ext. 1482 or by email at jfein@sgu.edu.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: St. George’s University

Capitalism’s Failure of the Flesh: the Rise of the Robots

PHIL ROCKSTROH

Humankind, being an inherently tool-making species, has always been in a relationship with technology. Our tools, weapons, machines, and appliances are crucial to forging the cultural criteria of human life. At present, amid the technology created phantomscape of mass media’s lurid — yet somehow sterile — imagery, one can feel as if one’s mind is in danger of being churned to spittle.

On a personal note, an informal consensus has formed among my friends who share a passion for reading: We read far fewer books since the time we became enmeshed with the internet. Worse, we find the feelings of isolation that we have attempted to mitigate by an immersion in online activity, at best, provides only a palliative effect. Yet, in the manner of addiction — or a hopeless love affair —  we are prone to trudge deeper into the psychical morass by further immersion into the very source that is exacerbating our feelings of unease and ennui.

Yet we insist on remaining mentally epoxied to electronic appliances, as the oceans of our technology besieged planet die, as the atmosphere is choked with heat-holding greenhouse gas emissions, and, as a result, exquisite, living things disappear forever.

Therefore, it is crucial to explore why we are so isolated from each other but so connected to our devices, and are married to the belief system that misinforms us, technology can and will lift us from our increasingly perilous predicament. When reality dictates, if the past remains prologue, a fetishising of technology will further enslave us in a de facto techno-dystopia. A reassessment, for numerous reasons, of the relationship between humankind and technology must come to pass.

Moreover, the reevaluation must include machines, at present and in the future, we have created in our own image. For example, those such as IA technologies, that on an increasing basis, will cause a significant number of the workforce to be rendered idle.

Of course, it is a given, bottomline obsessives that they are, capitalists crave to replace workers with an automated labor force. The parasitic breed has always viewed workers as flesh machines, of whom, they were inconvenienced by having to pay wages. Capitalism is, by its very nature, dehumanising. From the advent of the industrial/capitalist epoch, the system has inflicted mass alienation, societal atomisation, and anomie. Moreover, the vast wealth inequity inherent to the system allows the capitalist elite to own the political class — a mindless clutch of flunkies who might as well be robots programmed by the capitalist order to serve their agendas.

The question is, what effect will the nature of being rendered superfluous to the prevailing order have on the powerless masses — who have, up until now, been kept in line by economic coercion, by meretricious, debt-incurring consumer bribes, and by mass media indoctrination and pop culture anaesthesia? Will consumers continue to insist that their mental chains are the very wings of freedom?

Yet the Age Of Mass Mechanisation carries the potential to bestow an era of liberty, artistic exploration, scientific inquiry, intellectual fervour, the pursuit of soul-making, and inspired leisure. Or the polar shift in cultural raison d’etre might inflict a crisis of identity so harrowing that

demagogues rise and despots promise to seed a new order but harvest the corpses of dissidents and outsiders.

A couple of weeks back, during a visit to a neighbourhood playground with my four year old, I had a conversation with an executive on voluntary leave from her management position at BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke). She was grousing about a infestation of seaweed choking the beaches of the Florida Keys she had encountered on a recent excursion to the US. When I averred the phenomenon of the warming oceans of the planet, the progenitor of the exponential growth of the sea flora she had been troubled by, was caused, in large measure, by the very socio-economic-cultural dynamic that financed her trip to Florida in the first place…well, it put a crimp in the conversation.

It can be unsettling to be confronted with one’s complicity in the ills of a system that, by its very nature, provides camouflage to its perpetrators — the big bosses, down to its functionaries, and foot soldiers. Soon, she, by a series of subtle moves, extricated herself from the conversation — and I cannot say I blame her. I myself experienced discomfort by the thought of the discomfort I inflicted on her. Therefore, as a general rule, under the tyranny of amiability, which is the rule of the day of the present order, one is tempted to avoid trespassing into the comfort zones that aid in enabling the status quo.

Yet we are faced with the following imperative: The system and its machines must begin to serve humanity, as opposed to what has been the case since the advent of the industrial/technological age: the mass of humanity serving the machine. Therefore, there must arrive a paradigmatic shift in metaphors and the ethos of the era e.g., a renunciation of the soul-decimating concept of human beings as flesh machines — who must, for the sake of monomaniacal profiteering, divorce themselves from human feeling, as well as, must forgo exploration, enthusiasm, and craft in the pursuit of expediency.

We do have a choice in the matter, all indications to the contrary. Yet, in the prevailing confusion regarding what ethos should guide our relationship to technology, we are confronted with phenomenon such as the situation chronicled in a recent article in The Guardian. Headlined: “The Sex Robots Are Coming: seedy, sordid – but mainly just sad.”

Regarding the supercilious nature of the headline, wouldn’t it be more propitious for all concerned to ask and explore why, under the present order, men are so alienated, socially awkward and lonely, as opposed to lapsing into all the predictable moral panic, wit-deficient snark, and supercilious value judgements these sorts of stories evoke?

Isn’t being attracted to consumer goods what it is all about, identity-wise, under the present order? Don’t customers demand that the de facto slaves of the service industry evince the demeanour of compliant androids? Isn’t it a given that the underclass workforce, holders of service industry jobs, will soon be replaced by robots? Do we not worship and are ruled by the gospel of the cult of efficiency?

Withal, for the present order to be maintained, it is crucial for the general public to remain both alienated thus using consumerism as a palliative, and that includes the production and retailing of sexualised, simulacrum appliances that mimic sex partners and the psychical release valve of finger-wagging, easy virtue and shallow vitriol aimed at the poor sods who seek comfort from them.

Addendum: I’m much more mortified by robotics designed for surveillance and war than for one’s designed for simulacrumatic sex. I’m simply beastly that way.

Robots can be programmed to simulate copulation but it is doubtful that machines can be tuned and tweaked to experience the manifold, complex states of being that define human consciousness and its innate ability for self expression, for example, the ability to express themselves by means of spontaneous generated metaphors. While it is true, AI technologies can mimic forms of poetic and artistic expression but, in any honest account of the processes they utilise, machines engage in the activity sans a depth of feeling, the facility to evince empathy and the ability to access imagination i.e., the phenomenon we human beings term soulfulness. Sans the ineffable quality of soul, AI entities, as is the case with our present information technology, will contribute the palliative, yet inherently alienating, effects inherent to our hyper-commodified era.

In contrast, writers/artists/activists must proceed to dangerous places. It is imperative that they descend into the danger zone known as the soul. The soul is not a realm inhabited by weightless beings radiating beatific light. Rather, it is a landscape of broken, wounded wanderers; inchoate longing; searing lamentation; the confabulations of imperfect memory; of rutting and rage; transgression; depression; fragmented language; and devouring darkness.

The reductionist metaphors inherent to the age of mechanisation — which limn human beings in mechanised, commodified terms — as opposed to the organic, unfolding pantheon composed of needs, longings and desires we are — inflicts not only alienation from our fellow human beings but from our essential natures. In our misery and confusion, we have bloated our bodies, maimed and poisoned the earth, and scoured the hours of our lives of meaning by the compulsive commodification of all things. Therefore it should not come as a surprise when alienated, lonely men become enamoured of glambots.

We have delivered insult after insult to the soul of the world, and yet it loves us with an abiding and bitter grace. The question remains, do we love it in turn, and deeply enough, to mount a resistance to the present order thus turn the tide against the love-bereft forces responsible for the wholesale destruction of both landscape and soulscape.