9 Jan 2018

NATO’s Fraudulent War on Behalf of Women

George Szamuely

In a recent Guardian article titled “Why NATO Must Defend Women’s Rights,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Soltenberg and Hollywood movie star Angelina Jolie assert that “NATO has the responsibility and opportunity to be a leading protector of women’s rights.” NATO, moreover, “can become the global military leader in how to prevent and respond to sexual violence in conflict.” The two vowed to identify “ways in which NATO can strengthen its contribution to women’s protection and participation in all aspects of conflict-prevention and resolution.”
The pairing of a NATO bureaucrat and a famous movie actress may at first glance appear odd. However, this partnership has been long in the making. Some years ago, NATO, always on the lookout for a reason to justify its continued existence, not to mention its perpetual expansion, came up with a new raison d’être: It would be the global champion of women. “Achieving gender equality is our collective task. And NATO is doing its part,” said Mari Skåre, the NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security, in 2013. In March 2016, on International Women’s Day, NATO held a so-called “Barbershop Conference” on gender equality. Stoltenberg took the opportunity to declare that gender equality was a frightfully important issue for NATO because “NATO is a values-based organization and none of the Alliance’s fundamental values—individual liberties, democracy, human rights and the rule of law—work without equality.” Diversity was a source of strength. “We learned in Afghanistan and in the Balkans that by integrating gender within our operations, we make a tangible difference to the lives of women and children,” Stoltenberg explained. He stressed that NATO is proud of its record in embedding gender perspectives within its work. Last November, Stoltenberg was at it again: “Empowering women is not just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do: it makes countries safer and more stable. NATO is determined to make a difference.”
NATO has indeed made a difference but not through empowering women. When it isn’t bombing, killing, blowing up bridges and buildings, destroying wedding receptions, empowering jihadis, triggering refugee flows and ruining the lives of countless women, NATO holds unctuous press briefings, organizes self-congratulatory conferences and publishes articles such as the one by Stoltenberg/Jolie seeking to present a gargantuan 29-state military coalition as a do-gooder charity helping out the needy.
This is where Angelina Jolie comes in. Jolie is a goodwill ambassador of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and, in that capacity, wanders around the world berating the “international community” for not doing enough to address humanitarian crises. Her take on these crises is invariably the same as that of NATO. “It is important that we intervene in a timely fashion,” she once explained, “diplomatically if we can, with force if we must.” In October 2011, following seven months of relentless NATO bombing, Jolie rushed to Libya and excitedly hailed the Libyan “revolution”:
I’m…here on behalf of the Libyan people to show them solidarity. I think this revolution on behalf of human rights, which is what I feel these people really have been doing and what they have pushed for, and to help them to implement these new laws and help them with the future of their country.
Sometimes it’s breathless enthusiasm for “revolution,” sometimes it’s tearful pleading for plain, old-fashioned “humanitarian intervention”—Angelina Jolie is nothing if not consistent in her advocacy for Western use of force. When it comes to Syria, Jolie has declared that “some form of intervention is absolutely necessary.” She sneered at the U.N. Security Council permanent members that stood in the way of intervention. “I feel very strongly that the use of a veto when you have financial interests in the country should be questioned and the use of a veto against humanitarian intervention should be questioned,” she said in an interview. Jolie was of course simply echoing the blustery words of the Obama administration. Recall Susan Rice’s tirade following Russia’s and China’s veto of a February 2012 Security Council resolution calling for Bashar al Assad to step aside and for the Syrian army to return to its barracks. Rice, then U.S. permanent representative at the U.N., called the vetoes “disgusting and shameful.” The countries “that have blocked potentially the last effort to resolve this peacefully…will have any future blood spill on their hands.”
This kind of attack on the veto-wielding Security Council members has become a staple of the humanitarian intervention crowd. For example, former French President François Hollande told the U.N. General Assembly in September 2013 that when mass atrocities were taking place, U.N. Security Council permanent members must give up their veto powers:
The U.N. has a responsibility to take action. And whenever our organization proves to be powerless, it’s peace that pays the price. That’s why I am proposing that a code of good conduct be defined by the permanent members of the Security Council, and that in the event of a mass crime they can decide to collectively renounce their veto powers.
Taking action, of course, means taking military action. It never means, say, the lifting of sanctions so that food, oil, medical supplies could get through. To the contrary, if military action is ruled out, the humanitarians immediately resort to demanding the tightening of sanctions. Interventionists such as Hollande, Rice, et al., never explain why it is necessary for U.N. permanent members to give up their veto if the right course of action is so self-evident. The unstated assumption obviously is that any reluctance to sanction the use of force must be motivated by moral failings such as greed, selfishness, political ambition or lack of compassion.
The heartlessness of the so-called international community was the message of the 2011 film she wrote and directed about the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, In the Land of Blood and Honey. The film, she said, points a “finger at the international community, which should have intervened in the Bosnian war was much sooner.” She proudly boasted that among the experts she consulted in making the film were Richard Holbrooke and Wesley Clark, two figures who played prominent roles in the devastation of Bosnia and Kosovo. The film, predictably, features villainous Serbs persecuting innocent Muslims. Asked whether her film should have been a little more balanced, Jolie replied “The fact is that the war was not balanced. I could not make a film where it’s 50-50. It’s inaccurate to what happened.” This is standard NATO stuff, particularly the part about NATO’s military intervention as having finally brought peace to Bosnia.
Jolie is useful to NATO not only because she can be relied on to echo the military alliance’s self-justifying rationales for its favored solution to any problem, namely, the threat to use force. Jolie’s is the glamorous face of NATO’s revamped PR campaign. NATO would have us believe that it’s not only bringing enlightenment to backward societies but also to us, NATO member-state citizens, by informing us about something of which we had hitherto been apparently unaware: sexual violence occurs during wartime. The obvious remedy—doing everything possible to avoid war—is not one that either NATO or Jolie favors. NATO can’t very well be expected to advocate itself out of existence. In NATOspeak you threaten and defend military action even as you bemoan in lachrymose terms its predictable consequences, namely, war crimes, including sexual crimes.
In April 2014, Jolie traipsed around the Balkans with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, visiting the Srebrenica memorial center in Potocari, Bosnia. During the visit, Jolie stated, “The use of rape as a weapon of war is one of the most harrowing and savage of these crimes against civilians. This is rape so brutal, with such extreme violence, that it is even hard to talk about it.” Hague and Jolie jointly launched a campaign called Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, the goal of which was “to address the culture of impunity, ensure more perpetrators are brought to justice and ensure better support for survivors. We’re campaigning to raise awareness, rally global action, promote international coherence and increase the political will and capacity of states to do more.”
Hague earnestly explained, “I started this campaign with Angelina Jolie because foreign policy has got to be about more than just dealing with urgent crises—it has to be about improving the condition of humanity.” Then Hague warmed to his theme: “Tens of thousands of women, girls and men were raped during the war in Bosnia. We are visiting to draw the world’s attention to their search for justice, and to call for global action to end the use of rape as a weapon of war once and for all.” In a BBC interview Hague claimed that sexual violence in conflict was “one of the great mass crimes of the 20th century and the 21st century….If anything, this is getting worse—war zone rape as a weapon of war, used systematically and deliberately against civilian populations.”
Hague was of course British foreign secretary during NATO’s 2011 Libyan bombing campaign. It hardly needs to be said that NATO did nothing to help Libya’s women. To the contrary: Thousands of women lost their lives as a direct result of NATO and Hague’s humanitarian bombs. NATO destroyed government, law and public order, institutions that before its intervention had protected the women of Libya from sexual crimes. Most striking of all, NATO helped deliver perhaps millions of women into the hands of ISIS. Here is an account of the record of ISIS rule in Libya from Human Rights Watch (a reliably pro-interventionist outfit) in its 2017 country report on Libya: “In the first half of 2016, fighters loyal to ISIS controlled the central coastal town of Sirte and subjected residents to a rigid interpretation of Sharia law that included public floggings, amputation of limbs, and public lynchings, often leaving the victims’ corpses on display.”
Not to worry: In June 2014, Hague and Jolie co-hosted in London a grand three-day Global Summit to End Sexual Violence. Participants included Secretary of State John Kerry and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. According to one report, the summit cost £5.2 million to host. The food bill alone was more than £299,000, while total expenditure on taxis, hotels and transport reached £576,000. Jolie declared:
We need to shatter that culture of impunity and make justice the norm, not the exception, for these crimes. We need political will, replicated across the world, and we need to treat this subject as a priority. We need to see real commitment and go after the worst perpetrators, to fund proper protection for vulnerable people, and to step in to help the worst-affected countries. We need all armies, peacekeeping troops and police forces to have prevention of sexual violence in conflict as part of their training.
Punishing the perpetrators of sexual violence sounds laudable enough. The trouble is that NATO’s record of making incendiary charges and then failing to back them up with serious evidence is not one that inspires confidence. During the Bosnian war, for example, the media reported obsessively on the use of rape as an instrument of war. In 1992, Dame Ann Warburton’s European parliamentary delegation estimated that 20,000 rapes had already taken place in Bosnia. In January 1993, Newsweek carried a lengthy cover-story charging Serbs with the rape of as many as 50,000 women, mostly Muslim, as part of “deliberate programs to impregnate Muslim women with unwanted Serb babies.”
Systematic research on the subject however resulted in findings that were insufficiently dramatic to make it into the papers. On Jan. 29, 1994, the U.N. secretary-general issued a report on rapes in the former Yugoslavia, including Bosnia and Croatia, based on a study by the U.N. Commission of Experts. The report found “126 victims, 113 incidents, 252 alleged perpetrators, 73 witnesses.” The report also stated “some of the rape cases” were “clearly the result of individual or small-group conduct without evidence of command responsibility. Others may be part of an overall pattern. Because of a variety of factors, such a pattern may lead to a conclusion that a systematic rape policy existed, but this remains to be proved.”
Allegations of mass rape were a key component of NATO’s propaganda campaign during the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook regaled the public with lurid tales of Serbs forcing women “to endure ‘systematic rape’ at an army camp at Djakovica.” Clare Short, Britain’s international development secretary, added that the rapes were “deliberately performed in front of children, fathers and brothers.” The British Foreign Office followed up with claims of having discovered three more rape camps: “Refugees reported orchestrated rapes at Globocica, Urosevac and an unidentified point on the Kosovo-Albania border.” Subsequently, when it was too late to matter, the media sheepishly admitted that the rape-camp stories, like most of NATO’s allegations, were a fabrication. The Washington Post reported that “Western accusations that there were Serb-run rape camps in the cities of Djakovica and Pec, and poorly sourced allegations in some publications that the Serbs were engaging in the mutilation of the living and the dead—including castration and decapitation—all proved to be false.” Even Human Rights Watch’s Fred Abrahams, who had worked as an investigator for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, admitted in testimony that he had found no evidence to support the incendiary rape-camp allegations.
Still, NATO remained undeterred. During NATO’s next campaign, the one directed against Libya, rape stories made their appearance within days of the launch of the first bombs. Susan Rice, the U.S. Permanent Representative at the U.N., informed the Security Council that Libya’s leader, Muammar Qaddafi, was supplying his troops with Viagra in order to help them commit mass rape. Though Rice offered no evidence to support her claims, her charge was sufficient for the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, to announce that he had “information to confirm that it was a policy in Libya to rape those who were against the Government. Rape is a new aspect of the repression.” Moreno-Ocampo even accepted as confirmed Rice’s Viagra story: “We are finding some elements confirming this issue of acquisition of Viagra-type of medicaments to show a policy. They were buying containers with products to enhance the possibility to rape, and we are getting the information in detail confirming the policy.”
In the end, predictably enough, NATO’s rape allegations turned out to have been made up out of whole cloth. Donatella Rovera, a senior crisis response adviser for Amnesty International, reported that the organization had “not found any evidence or a single victim of rape or a doctor who knew about somebody being raped.” Rovera also dismissed the Viagra story. She said that “rebels dealing with the foreign media in Benghazi started showing journalists packets of Viagra, claiming they came from burned-out tanks, though it is unclear why the packets were not charred.”
Though one allegation after another has proved to be false, NATO will continue to make them, seizing on whatever is the hot-button issue of the moment. NATO does nothing for women and does nothing to stop sexual crimes, whether in NATO member-states or anywhere else in the world. What NATO does do well, thanks to its multimillion dollar sophisticated PR machinery, is seizing on highly emotional issues such as rape and turning them into justifications for bigger budgets, more weaponry, more expansion, more deployments in more countries and, in the end, military action.

Afghan Refugees Feeling The Heat As US-Pakistan Geopolitical Tensions Rise

Ali Mohsin

Last week, the Pakistani government callously doubled down on its strategy of using Afghan refugees as pawns in its ongoing political dispute with Afghanistan when it refused to grant a long-term extension of their stay in Pakistan. Islamabad’s move will anger Kabul, which has struggled to absorb and reintegrate the massive influx of Afghans returning from Pakistan in recent years.
On December 31, the Proof of Registration (PoR) cards of 1.4 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan expired after the federal government refused to provide an extension on time.  The PoR cards allow the refugees to live in Pakistan “legally” and avoid harassment by the state. On January 3, the long-suffering refugees learned they would only be given a 30-day extension, rather than the 1-year extension the government had been considering under a trilateral agreement with Afghanistan and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).  The decision to limit the extension to 30 days was made during a meeting of the federal Cabinet in Islamabad which was chaired by Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.
There are currently 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented refugees also living in the country.  The first wave of refugees began came over from Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War, with many more arriving during the bloody civil war of the 1990s.  In 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan, beginning the longest war in American history. The 16-year neo-colonial occupation has devastated the lives of the Afghan people and created a new generation of refugees.
Many of the refugees have lived in Pakistan for decades and have had children in the country. There are indeed children among the 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees. A large number of refugees have established firm roots in the country and have lost all ties to Afghanistan. Kabul has struggled mightily to reintegrate the refugees into Afghan society, repeatedly insisting that Afghanistan does not have the resources to deal with massive numbers of returnees from across the border. Many refugees are also terrified at the prospect of returning to war-torn Afghanistan.  Civilian casualties due to the war reached a 16-year high during the first six months of 2017, according to the UN.
Pakistani politicians often scapegoat the refugees as “terrorists” and charge them with being a burden on the state.  Indeed, while Islamabad has agreed not to forcibly return refugees to Afghanistan, in recent years, it has resorted to a policy of intimidation and harassment of the refugees, so as to bring about their “voluntary” repatriation to the country.  In mid-2016, Pakistan launched what Gerry Simpson, a refugee expert at Human Rights Watch, described at the time as the “world’s largest recent anti-refugee crackdown.”  Afghan refugees have told human rights organizations about the cruel methods used by Pakistani authorities to coerce them into leaving for Afghanistan, including deportation during the winter and police abuses like arbitrary detention, extortion and nocturnal police raids. In fact, during the recent three day period during which 1.4 million refugees lost their documented status, the refugees were reportedly harassed by security personnel, leading them to confine themselves in their homes until the 30-day extension was granted.
In seeking to build domestic support for the forced repatriation of refugees to Afghanistan, Pakistani officials have described the refugee camps where the Afghans live as “safe havens” for terrorists. There is no doubt, however, that Islamabad hopes to use the refugee crisis to punish Afghanistan for shifting ever closer towards it arch-rival, New Delhi.
The deepening alliance between Afghanistan and India is viewed by Pakistan’s ruling elites as a vital security threat due to their fear of “strategic encirclement” by India, but Washington has turned a blind eye to Islamabad’s concerns and has encouraged the two countries to further enhance bilateral relations.  Moreover, US President Donald Trump has recently adopted a hardline stance towards Islamabad, with Washington suspending military aid to Pakistan on January 4.  The increasingly belligerent approach of the US towards Pakistan, where anti-US sentiment remains high, has forced the country’s ruling establishment to adopt a defiant stance towards Washington. Pakistan’s working-class majority remains steadfastly opposed to America’s imperialist war in Afghanistan, and to their government’s role in supporting and facilitating the ongoing occupation. With few options available to hit back at the US and Afghanistan, there is a danger that the Pakistani government may decide to throw the Afghan refugees to the wolves.

Australian aged care workers confront worsening conditions

Michelle Stevens

Following a trade union sell-out of month-long industrial action in the state of Victoria late last year, residential aged care nurses and care workers across Australia are facing deteriorating and stressful working conditions.
Aged care is an increasingly important part of society, because people have been living longer due to advances in medical science. But the essential social right to decent care is being eroded, at the cost of both the elderly and the care workers.
Decades of government funding cuts, combined with the rise of corporate profit-making operators, have led to severe under-staffing, accompanied by the replacement of highly skilled nurses by lower-paid and less medically-qualified personal care assistants (PCAs).
One result has been a staggering rise in potentially preventable deaths among residents. A study published in the Medical Journal of Australia last year recorded 3,291 such deaths in aged-care nursing homes between 2000 and 2013. That number had increased more than four-fold over a decade.
This crisis is intensifying despite an official report last year admitting that in many residential aged care facilities, a single registered nurse (RN) can be responsible for the care of up to 150 residents each shift.
A workforce survey in 2016 provided an indication of the escalating exploitation of very poorly-paid and minimally-trained PCAs. Between 2003 and 2016, PCAs increased as a proportion of the residential aged care workforce from 58.5 to 70.3 percent, while the proportion of RNs dropped from 21.0 to 14.6.
None of this would be possible except for the role of the nurses’ union, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF). It has facilitated the employer’s cost-cutting and profiteering by signing enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs) and stifling the growing anger and resistance of aged care workers.
Last year’s ANMF sellout of workers employed in Victoria by the international health corporation Bupa took this policing function to a new level. After a month of limited, but unprecedented, industrial action, the union struck a deal with Bupa that met none of the core demands of nurses and carers: comparable pay with nurses in the public sector, introduction of minimum nurse to patient ratios and increased numbers of RNs on each shift.
In September, 92 percent of Bupa nurses and carers in the state voted in a ballot for industrial action after 14 months of failed negotiations for a new EBA. On October 3, around 1,000 nurses and carers in Bupa’s 26 Victorian facilities began a campaign that included wearing protest T-shirts, refusing overtime and banning non-clinical paperwork.
Although the campaign was kept under close union control, on October 23, 400 workers walked off the job and demonstrated outside Bupa’s corporate office in Melbourne. The campaign extended to two-hour stopwork meetings and community rallies at various sites.
On November 1, rolling stopwork action commenced at 13 sites, with two or more nurses or carers walking off the job on both morning and afternoon shifts. Just a week later, the union pushed through a deal that provided for pay rises of only 11.25 percent over five years, not even enough to cover soaring living costs.
This outcome was not only far short of the workers’ fight for parity with public sector nurses, and a rise of 14 percent. The ANMF completely shelved the demand for improved staffing and more RNs, offering an empty promise to lobby for these changes to be made by federal legislation.
An ANMF “campaign update” announced the “settlement of the dispute,” saying “a national campaign is needed to harness the momentum of the extraordinary Bupa dispute to legislate ratios.”
Cynically, the union hailed the Bupa workers as “trailblazers.” But no mass meeting was conducted to allow nurses and carers to democratically debate the EBA deal. Instead, the union isolated members, with separate meetings at each of the 26 Bupa sites across the state.
Bupa is Australia’s biggest private aged care provider, with nearly 7,000 residents across 71 sites nationally. The Australian/New Zealand Bupa conglomerate reported a 9 percent increase in profits in 2016, making an estimated $587 million in its aged care enterprises alone.
Such lucrative profits are derived from exploiting the labour power of the 155,000 direct care workers in residential aged care facilities nationally. This number has grown from 115,600 in 2003, but the ratio of workers to residents, which reached 197,046 in 2016, has not improved.
The ANMF is straitjacketing aged care workers in a lobbying campaign directed at sowing illusions that the Turnbull Liberal-National government or a Labor government would adopt recommendations made in last June’s Australian Law Reform Commission report, Elder Abuse–A National Legal Response.
That report expressed concern that 70 percent of the direct care workers were now PCAs, with minimal qualifications. It cited a number of coronial inquiries which had concluded that staffing numbers were not adequate in the circumstances of the deaths under inquiry.
Based on the report, the union is calling for a skills mix of 30 percent RNs, 20 percent enrolled nurses, and 50 percent PCAs. It also says residents should receive an average of 4 hours and 18 minutes of care per day, compared to the current 2.84 hours.
Even these inadequate proposals are incompatible with the profit-driven system that was further spurred by the previous Labor governments of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. Labor’s “Living Longer, Living Better” aged-care policy, introduced in 2012, abolished any distinction between “high-care” and “low-care” beds in nursing homes, removing restrictions on charging some prospective residents accommodation bonds.
In effect, these measures dismantled a safety net for elderly people requiring care, and boosted profit prospects. A survey of aged care homes by Bentleys Chartered Accountants, found that the average profit before interest and tax increased from $4,497 per resident per annum in 2014 to $6,278 in 2015.

UK: Social media giants face sanctions if they fail to provide “proof” of Russian interference

Julie Hyland

A parliamentary committee has set a deadline of January 18 for Facebook and Twitter to provide information on supposed “Russian misinformation” or face sanctions.
Damian Collins, Conservative chair of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, declared the deadline before the New Year, insisting that Facebook and Twitter supply details of social media accounts and pages allegedly operated by Russian “misinformation actors.”
The select committee is investigating so-called “fake news,” centring on accusations of foreign interference in the June, 2016 referendum on UK membership of the European Union and the June, 2017 general election.
Both polls resulted in shock setbacks for the ruling elite, with the “Leave” vote narrowly winning the Brexit referendum and Prime Minister Theresa May losing her parliamentary majority in the general election.
The inquiry is bogus. If the committee were remotely concerned with false information, its first port of call would be parliament itself.
It was the British government under Labour’s Tony Blair—along with its various intelligence and security agencies and parliamentary committees—that was responsible for the gravest item of fake news: the “dodgy dossier” of false intelligence information alleging Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. More than a million people have been killed, Iraqi society devastated and the Middle East turned into a war zone due to this barbarous act of “foreign interference” on the part of British and US imperialism.
Instead of investigating real crimes, however, the select committee’s aim is to manufacture a pretext for new imperialist intrigues on the part of Britain’s ruling elite, this time against Russia, while systematically censoring and closing down alternative media sources that would expose its plans.
The select committee was first launched in January 2017. Timed to coincide with the Democratic campaign against the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election, it expressed the divisions over foreign policy objectives—especially the targeting of Russia—that exercise sections of the ruling elite on both sides of the Atlantic.
Even so, a report published by MPs in April that year, “Lessons Learned from the EU Referendum,” concluded that it did not believe foreign interference “had any material effect” on the outcome. None of the written evidence submitted to the MPs’ investigation by more than 100 individuals and organisations made any reference to Russia, and any reference at all to foreign interference was inserted only at the last moment.
The select committee’s probe was suspended in May 2017 for the June general election. The result, which saw the Tories reduced to a minority administration, further exposed the huge gulf separating the powers-that-be from the broad mass of the population. Once again, the standpoint of official commentators was proven to be at odds with much of public opinion. At the same time, the crisis within ruling circles, especially over foreign policy orientation, deepened.
Since then, the Electoral Commission has launched an investigation into several of the “Leave” campaign groups in the Brexit referendum. The official remit is to ascertain whether they overspent on electoral materials, but its real objective is to tie them to “foreign actors,” primarily Russia.
Collins’ threat to sanction Facebook and Twitter was made under conditions where the committee he heads has found no proof of Russian meddling. The findings given to the select committee by Facebook are a copy of those it had already submitted to the Electoral Commission. These show that the worth of paid advertising from Russian sources during the Brexit referendum and aimed at British users amounted to just 72 pence.
Similarly, a submission by Twitter, also given to the select committee and the Electoral Commission, listed just six Russian tweets promoted as paid advertisements during the referendum period. All were sent by Russia Today to promote its news coverage of the ballot to British users, at the cost of just £750.
Collins is now demanding that Facebook and Twitter produce the results required or face the consequences. While stating that companies were “best placed” to monitor Internet content while “safeguarding the privacy of users,” Collins threatened these multi-billion-dollar corporations that if “you fail to do that, if you ignore requests to act, if you fail to police the site effectively and deal with highly problematic content, then there has to be some sort of sanction against you.”
He made clear exactly what is required, claiming that Facebook had identified “tens of thousands of fake pages and accounts that were active during the French presidential election.” In the US, Facebook claims to have identified 470 accounts and pages run by a St. Petersburg-based Internet research agency.
Representatives of the social media giants have been called to appear before the inquiry next month. The committee does not have the power to sanction directly, but the Guardian reported that “ministers are understood to be concerned by the companies’ attitude and could be sympathetic to any request for action.”
One area of sanctions under consideration is social media revenue, to be attacked by targeting advertising deemed to be unethical. But Collins threatened to go further. Noting that “other countries” had taken “different positions” on sanctions on social media, he said pointedly that “Germany has obviously gone furthest down this road.”
On January 1, the German government began implementing its Network Enforcement Law, which threatens social media companies with fines of up to €50 million if they do not immediately remove content deemed objectionable. Two days later, France’s President Emmanuel Macron said he intended to introduce a ban on “fake news” during election cycles.
As the WSWS noted, this is part of an international campaign to censor the Internet. One of the options under consideration in the UK is to class Google and Facebook as publishers, making them subject to regulation.
The response of the social media corporations to the select committee’s demands make clear that they are working with governments to violate free speech. A spokesperson for Facebook said the company would respond to the select committee once it had taken “the opportunity to review the request.” The spokesperson added, “We strongly support the Commission’s efforts to regulate and enforce political campaign finance rules in the United Kingdom, and we take the Commission’s request very seriously.”

Deadly influenza outbreak spreads throughout US, most severe in California

Dan Conway

The United States—and in particular the state of California—has experienced a drastic increase in influenza cases over the past few weeks, many of them life threatening.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), influenza cases were widespread in 36 states at the end of 2017 and 21 of those 36 states were experiencing high levels of cases. Influenza is considered to be “widespread” if cases cover a wide geographic distribution while states experience “high” levels of cases if documented instances of influenza at a given time are much greater than seasonal averages.
According to the CDC, the 2018 flu season will likely be the worst since the 2014-2015 season which was the “most severe season in recent years” as the CDC reported at the time.
Like the 2014-2015 season, most patients are contracting a strain of influenza known as H3N2. This particular strain is unusually virulent even putting those with up-to-date flu vaccinations at risk. Flu vaccines often do not provide adequate resistance to the H3N2 strain with health officials estimating that this season’s vaccine may only be about 32 percent effective against it.
“Typically in years when the predominant strain is H3N2, there are more hospitalizations, more severe disease and people tend to get sicker,” Dr. Michael Ison, a professor of Infectious Disease at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, told NBC News.
Moreover, the flu season this year has only just begun. Most deaths occur among the elderly and infirm as the flu’s weakening effect on the immune system leads to heightened risk of disease and infection.
Pneumonia is a common influenza-related complication and can often prove fatal. This has led the CDC to monitor Pneumonia and Influenza (P&I) mortality rates together which it utilizes in its classification of possible flu epidemics. Using data obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) which reports mortality causes on a weekly basis, the CDC found a P&I rate of 6.7 percent during the last week of 2017.
The epidemic threshold for the flu is 6.9 percent, however there is a lag in mortality classifications due to the fact that many death certificates are still processed manually by the NCHS. This means that the flu may have already reached epidemic proportions using CDC criteria. At the time of the 2014-2015 epidemic, mortality rates due to P&I reached 8.5 percent.
Regardless, the latest outbreak has reached almost crisis level proportions in California, the nation’s most populous state. Twenty-seven people younger than 65 have died as result of the outbreak while only three died during the same period last year. Last year, 68 people died in California as a result of the flu by the end of February.
Hundreds of thousands have been forced to miss school and work due to the outbreak. Many others cannot call in sick due to the precarious nature of their employment, putting neighbors and family at risk of infection.
Pharmacies throughout the West Coast are reporting inadequate supplies of Tamiflu, an antiviral medication considered among the most effective in reducing severe flu symptoms.
Emergency rooms have been filled over capacity with long wait times for patients seeking treatment. UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, for example, typically sees around 140 patients per day. This week, it averaged more than 200 patients per day. “The Northridge earthquake [of 1994] was the last time we saw over 200 patients,” Dr. Wally Ghurabi reported to the Los Angeles Times.
Other area medical centers report emergency rooms so crowded that ambulances are not able to quickly unload their patients preventing them from responding to 911 emergency calls. Some hospitals in the San Francisco Bay area are refusing admittance to children under the age of 16 to reduce their exposure to the virus.
Dr. Randy Bergen, clinical lead of the flu vaccine program for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, spoke to the Times of the perilous character of the recent outbreak. “Rates of influenza are even exceeding last year, and last year was one of the worst flu seasons in the last decade,” he said.
Several hospitals throughout the state have resorted to setting up makeshift emergency facilities in outdoor tents to take care of the patient flow.
This year’s flu outbreak as in prior years demonstrates nothing else so much as the contradiction between the basic health needs of the population and the obscene profit making of the capitalist health care industry. As hospitals and emergency services find themselves overcrowded and virtually unable to meet the demands of a predictable disease outbreak, health insurance company profits are increasing at levels in excess of the regular economy as a whole.
This is in large part due to the imposition of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, which from its outset has been used as a mechanism to provide expensive yet substandard care to the population in order to divert vast sums of wealth into the pockets of the managed care corporations.
Even as the stock market soared to record heights in 2017, managed care stocks performed far better than the average. The Standard and Poor’s stock index returned an average of 135.6 percent during the seven years preceding the end of 2017. During that same period, managed care stocks increased by 300 percent.

Billionaire warns of growing class conflict in US

Jerry White

With the stock markets soaring and corporate America celebrating a massive tax cut, there are increasing warnings from some business circles that the immense level of inequality is generating deep social discontent.
In an interview published in the Wall Street Journal last week, Ray Dalio, who manages the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, warned that “elevated stock valuations” had not translated into higher long-term economic growth, let alone improvements for the bottom 60 percent of the population. This layer of the population, he said, lacked any savings, suffered a higher percentage of premature deaths, and had children destined to earn less than their parents.
“His biggest worry,” the Journal declared, “is that lower corporate taxes and higher stock prices do nothing for the bottom 60% of households who own almost no assets and whose stagnant wages are the mirror image of expanding profit margins, feeding resentment and political polarization. Says Mr. Dalio: ‘If we do have an economic downturn, I worry we will be at each other’s throats.’”
Dalio, who has a net worth of $17 billion, is no social reformer. In 2004, he infamously summed up the parasitic character of the social layer of which he is part by saying, “The money that’s made from manufacturing stuff is a pittance in comparison to the amount of money made from shuffling money around.” His warnings will have no serious effect on the financial oligarchy, which is demanding austerity measures, tax cuts and deregulation.
A decade after the global financial crash, the financial aristocracy in the US and around the world is flush with cash from government bailouts and the near-zero interest rate policies of the world’s central banks. This has fueled the unprecedented stock market rise, which added $1 trillion to the personal fortunes of the world’s 500 richest billionaires in 2017.
A new survey of workers at 5,000 large employers by global advisory firm Willis Towers Watson found that two-thirds “were feeling more on edge than they did in 2015” due to stagnant wages and higher household debt. Fifty-one percent reported suffering a “significant financial event” in the past two years, including a major medical expense. Ten percent of workers reported taking a loan from their 401(k) retirement funds.
Despite supposed “full employment” in the US—with the official jobless rate at the lowest level in 17 years—wages only rose about 2.5 percent in 2017, barely above the official rate of inflation of 2.0 percent. This is well below the annual increases of between 3.3 and 3.6 percent before the Great Recession.
An analysis compiled by Bloomberg News of 665 contracts signed in late December showed first-year pay raises averaging 2.7 percent for workers overall, 2.5 percent for manufacturing workers and only 2.1 percent for government workers.
Analysts have warned that Trump’s sharp reduction in corporate taxes will encourage workers to demand significant wage improvements in 2018. Hundreds of thousands of workers in the trucking, warehouse, telecom, health care and entertainment industries have labor agreements expiring this year, according to Bloomberg.
These include:
* The contracts covering nearly 3,000 employees at Allina Health hospitals throughout Minnesota and 3,000 employees of Abbott Northwest Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota, members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), expire on February 28. Nearly 5,000 nurses conducted a month-long strike at Allina in 2016.
* The Teamsters contract covering 7,500 workers at ABF Freight Systems in multiple states expires on March 31.
* Contracts covering 5,000 workers, members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, expire March 4 at Lockheed Martin plants in Georgia and California.
* The contract for 4,500 members of the United Auto Workers at Daimler Truck plants in North Carolina expires in mid-April.
* Several contracts covering 40,000 hospitality and casino workers in Las Vegas expire in May.
* The contract covering 132,000 television workers, members of SAG-AFTRA, ends June 30.
* An agreement covering 43,000 members of the International Association of Theatrical State Employees expires with Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on July 31.
* 230,000 United Parcel Service workers, members of the Teamsters, will see their contract with the giant package delivery company expire on July 31.
* The contract covering 200,000 United Post Office Service workers, members of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), expires on September 20.
After decades of falling real wages, workers are determined to recoup lost income from companies making record profits. “I think everyone’s going to have their hand out when it comes to the potential benefit of the tax bill,” UPS spokesman Steve Gaut told Bloomberg. “Certainly investors are going to expect to benefit,” he added.
UPS made $5 billion in the first three quarters of 2017, after a profit of $3.4 billion in 2016. Corporations will use their tax windfall not to improve conditions for workers, but for stock repurchase programs and dividend payouts to wealthy investors, and to increase mergers and acquisitions, which will result in greater attacks on the jobs, wages and pensions.
The employers are counting on the continued collusion of the Teamsters and other unions. Faced with the danger of a “wages push” in 2015-2016, President Obama called in the leaders of the unions for a White House meeting in July 2015. The result was the sabotage of any unified struggle, the signing of sellout deals barely above the rate of inflation, and the isolation and betrayal of strikes the unions were forced to call, including by oil refinery workers, Allegheny Technology steelworkers and Verizon workers.
The 10-year period between 2007 to 2016 saw the lowest number of major work stoppages since the US Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting data in 1947, with an average of only 14 per year. This compares to an average of 145 per year in 1977-1986, 332 in 1967-1976 and 344 in 1947-1956. Last year, there were only eight major strikes—with half lasting fewer than three days—the lowest annual number since 2009, when there were only five.
The financial orgy on Wall Street has been made possible by the artificial suppression of the class struggle by the unions. Class antagonisms, however, have only grown more intense during this period, guaranteeing that they erupt more explosively, and encompass the widest layers of the working class.
The 2015 rebellion by autoworkers against the United Auto Workers union demonstrated the weakening grip of the union bureaucracy, which is thoroughly discredited after decades of collusion with the auto bosses and the exposure of widespread corporate bribes funneled through labor-management training centers and phony charities. The contracts for 150,000 autoworkers will expire in September 2019.
The New Year has begun with signs of growing class conflict internationally, including demonstrations by workers and young people in Iran opposing price hikes and austerity; strikes and protests by Israeli pharmaceutical workers; and Jerusalem municipal employees against mass layoffs.
In Germany this week, workers are conducting limited strikes at VW, Porsche, Siemens and other corporations, as 3.9 million auto, steel and engineering workers face the expiration of a wage contract at the end of the month. This follows the wildcat strike by Romanian autoworkers at Ford’s Craiova plant in late December.
In France, autoworkers and other workers are confronting the government of Emmanuel Macron, “the president of the rich,” who has unilaterally imposed American-style labor “reforms” to facilitate the firing of workers and vastly expand the use of part-time and temporary labor. In England, rail workers are continuing walkouts against the elimination of conductors pushed by the Tory government and its Labour Party allies.
On January 3, a wildcat strike by an airport ground crew in Buenos Aires followed strikes by subway workers and others in Argentina.
These struggles are increasingly pitting workers against employers, the corporate-controlled governments that defend them, and the pro-capitalist and nationalist unions. Increasingly, workers are being driven to coordinate their struggles against the global corporations and banks on an international scale.
To take this struggle forward, workers will have to break with the pro-capitalist unions and build new organizations controlled by rank-and-file workers based on the methods of the class struggle, not class collaboration. Such a struggle must be linked up with the building of a new revolutionary leadership in the working class, to fight for workers’ power, the seizure of the ill-gotten gains of the financial aristocracy and the socialist reorganization of economic life.

US to deport 262,000 Salvadoran immigrants

Patrick Martin

The US Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that it is terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than a quarter-million immigrants from El Salvador. The immigrants, a large majority of them poorer workers, have 18 months, until September 9, 2019, to leave the US or be arrested and deported.
Including the roughly 190,000 children of the 262,000 Salvadoran TPS recipients, the total population immediately affected is larger than the population of a city the size of Toledo, Ohio or New Orleans, Louisiana. Rounding up the TPS recipients for deportation will require Gestapo-type operations in the Washington DC metropolitan area, where 50,000 Salvadoran TPS recipients live; Los Angeles, where 40,000 live; and Houston and New York City, where a combined 50,000 reside.
The Salvadorans are the largest single group covered by the TPS program, under which the DHS secretary may allow people fleeing natural disasters or civil wars to stay in the United States for more extended periods of time than under traditional refugee status.
The Salvadoran TPS recipients constitute a significant section of the working class in the US, where most have put down deep roots. The average Salvadoran covered by TPS has been living in the US for 21 years. Those now facing deportation are primarily of middle age and have lived here for most of their adult lives. By one estimate, removing these workers will slash the US gross domestic product by nearly $110 billion over the next 10 years.
Some 190,000 were admitted before 1994 and all 262,000 entered the country before 2001, when several major earthquakes devastated El Salvador. Tens of thousands escaped the civil war that ravaged the country from 1980 to 1992, during which US-backed death squads razed villages and massacred the population, including the estimated 1,200 peasants murdered in the village of El Mozote 37 years ago last month in what is known as El Salvador’s My Lai.
The move is a death sentence for hundreds or even thousands of those who will be sent back to a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world, dominated by criminal drug gangs that operate with impunity, protected by a corrupt military that rakes in money from both narcotics trafficking and US military aid. According to a 2015 report in the Guardian, dozens of deported Salvadorans were murdered after being deported by Obama in 2014-2015 alone.
The decision to terminate TPS for Salvadorans signals the Trump administration’s determination to put an end to the program entirely. Previously, DHS Acting Secretary Elaine Duke terminated TPS for 2,500 immigrants from Nicaragua, giving them until January 5, 2019 to leave the United States, and for 57,000 immigrants from Haiti, whose TPS status is set to expire July 22, 2019.
But equal responsibility for the move lies with the Democratic Party, which paved the way for Trump’s mass deportation program during the Obama administration. President Obama deported 2.7 million immigrants, including hundreds of thousands when the Democratic Party controlled Congress in the first years of his administration.
This makes the phony statements of support for immigrants by leading Democrats all the more cynical. Barack Obama jailed tens of thousands of Salvadoran children and their mothers who crossed into the US during a flare-up of Central American violence in 2014.
As for Trump’s request for $15 billion more in funding for border “security,” the Democratic Party has long embraced the militarization of the border and has made clear it will back the allocation of additional billions to increase what is already a small army of border police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
The Democrats’ opposition to Trump’s demand for $18 billion to build a physical wall along the US-Mexico border is a political maneuver to divert attention from their basic agreement on stepping up the war against undocumented workers.
When the precursor to Trump’s wall was first proposed in the 2006 Secure Fence Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush, top Senate Democrats backed it, including then-senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joseph Biden, as well as Charles Schumer, now the Senate Democratic leader. As a result of this and other bipartisan border militarization measures, up to 27,000 immigrants have died crossing the desert in the last 20 years.
In 2013, the Democrats agreed to spend $40 billion on border security, doubling the number of Border Patrol agents to 40,000 and expanding the use of high-tech surveillance equipment, including sensors and drones. The Democrats also agreed to eliminate the visa lottery, exclude siblings of US citizens from family reunification visas, and expand visa offerings based on education levels and work expertise, along the lines demanded by US corporations seeking highly skilled labor. The bill was voted down by the Republicans.
Today, they are proposing to go above and beyond their previous anti-immigrant pledges. The move to deport TPS recipients comes as the Democratic Party and Trump are engaged in Kabuki theater negotiations over the fate of 800,000 young people brought to the US as children who are enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program enacted during the Obama administration. Trump rescinded the DACA order, effective March 5, at which point mass roundups of former DACA recipients could begin, using the information they supplied to the government as part of their applications for DACA.
The White House is also demanding cuts in legal immigration as part of a “compromise” on DACA, including the elimination of the visa lottery program and so-called “chain migration,” which allows US citizens and legal residents to sponsor family relations for entry.
Last week, Senator Schumer made clear in advance of talks on DACA that he supported further measures to militarize the US-Mexican border. Senator Bernie Sanders reiterated his support for stepped-up attacks on undocumented workers in an appearance Sunday on the ABC program “This Week.” Sanders declared that while he opposed Trump’s border wall, “I don’t think there’s anybody who disagrees that we need strong border security. If the president wants to work with us to make sure we have strong border security, let’s do that.”
Sanders, in line with the trade union bureaucracy, echoes Trump’s economic nationalism and pseudo-populist attempts to pit American workers against their class brothers and sisters in other countries.
The vast majority of Americans disagree with the anti-immigrant nationalism of Trump, with nine in 10 believing the government should give citizenship to immigrants who have lived in the US for a number of years. Mass protests broke out at airports across the country in January and February 2017 after Trump announced his initial travel ban. Since then, the Democratic Party has worked systematically to divert and suppress popular opposition to Trump’s anti-immigrant, pro-corporate and pro-war program. It has instead promoted reactionary, anti-democratic campaigns.
These include the so-called “Me Too” movement, which rejects basic democratic principles such as the presumption of innocence and due process in order to promote the feminism of privileged layers of the middle class; the anti-Russia campaign, which seeks to shift American foreign policy to an even more aggressive military posture against Russia; and the campaign against “fake news,” which is being used to justify censorship of the Internet and social media.
In December, the Supreme Court allowed a revised version of Trump’s travel ban to take effect shortly after House Democrats voted two-to-one against a move by a Democratic congressman to introduce articles of impeachment citing Trump’s mass deportation program.
Socialists reject the entire reactionary framework of the so-called “debate” over immigration “reform.” The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) rejects the position of Democrats and Republicans alike that undocumented workers are guilty of a crime and must be made to “pay” in one fashion or another for their supposed misdeeds.
The SEP upholds the right of workers from every corner of the globe to live and work in whatever country they choose with full citizenship rights, including the right to return to their home countries without the threat of being barred from re-entry to the US and being separated from their families.
The total number of people who work in the same factories, construction sites and other industries alongside the 262,000 Salvadoran TPS recipients number in the millions or tens of millions. The attack on them is an attack on the entire working class.
Only the power of the working class—united across race and nationality—can block the drive to destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands of Salvadoran workers living in the US.

A Human Security Approach to Nuclear Disarmament

Shivani Singh


Despite the best intentions of nuclear disarmament groups, failure to adopt norms surrounding human security in disarmament has proved to be a major impediment in achieving concrete progress. Why is the human security approach needed in nuclear disarmament? Why has it taken a backseat to a country's military and strategic considerations? How can human security norms be built into the nuclear disarmament discourse? 

Human security studies deal with the merging of traditional and non-traditional threats to security, narrowing down the analysis to the unit level where the individual is the subject matter of the debate. 

For any use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against an adversary state, it is ultimately human lives that stand at the receiving end. The very nature of nuclear weapons defies distinctions between combatants and non-combatants in a state of war. Considering the exorbitant risk attached with the possible usage of a weapon that is technically never meant to be used, the costs fail to match the benefits. 

The risks to human lives are not only limited to the actual use of a nuclear weapon but in fact span the production, stockpiling and transfer of nuclear weapons and fissile material. Exposure to nuclear radiation while cleaning radioactive leaks and spills, uncertainty regarding the extent of genetic mutation among populations that neighbour reactors and testing grounds, and the potential for disasters at the site of a nuclear reactor are some of the inadvertent yet crucial consequences of maintaining a nuclear arsenal. 

Any discussion therefore that accounts for traditional, state-centric conceptions of security must also focus on individual, human security. After all, what is it exactly that nuclear weapons are supposed to secure? Whose security are they prioritising? 

The human security approach becomes all important in dealing with nuclear disarmament given the scale at which nuclear weapons can affect human lives. This approach does not de-prioritise the state - instead, it complements state security and works in tandem to attain the goal of nuclear disarmament. 

The place of norms surrounding human security, however, has been rather precarious. States still see nuclear weapons as intrinsically linked and even synonymous with their national security, focusing on the strategic and military considerations rather than - or in tandem with - humanitarian or ethical concerns. 

The reason is two-fold. Firstly, there is an inherent power struggle that emerges from the systemic realities of the international system. Nuclear weapons are validated by the understanding that striving for power is the ultimate aim for any state - their possession provide states with defensive (and offensive) power to ensure their survival. This power-seeking behaviour gives rise to the notion of security that gives precedence to protecting borders and maintaining the status quo over ensuring the survival of its citizens. 

Secondly, the international system is plagued by innate trust deficits that motivate states to adopt security-centric approaches while formulating national security strategies. A result of this trust deficit is the logic of nuclear deterrence which is based on the principle of mutually assured destruction. Deterrence, through repeated articulation, has become the norm, thus convincing states to nuclearise in order to survive. 

The problem, however, is in the very rationale of nuclear deterrence theory which encourages a spiralling arms race. In fact, what deterrence promises is a heightened state of fear to maintain the status quo - that is, guaranteeing ‘security’ by perpetuating ‘insecurity’. 

Since human security norms in nuclear disarmament are weak, the starting point in any norm-building exercise would be to explore ‘security’ from a humanitarian lens rather than solely viewing nuclear weapons as symbols of power and prestige. This requires a paradigm shift towards using the individual as the proper referent of security rather than the state.

To this end, states like Austria and Japan have initiated efforts on international forums to emphasise the humanitarian initiative in nuclear disarmament. Treaties like the Mine Ban Treaty and Convention on Cluster Munitions have set a positive precedent in customary international law on armament policy by stigmatising the use of these associated weapons. These treaties can act as a guiding framework for successful norm-building around humanitarian considerations for nuclear disarmament. 

The traditional understanding of security must undergo a paradigm change in order to recognise the centrality of humanitarian considerations in nuclear disarmament, and subsequently incorporate them in national security strategies.

8 Jan 2018

Kisii University-DAAD Msc and PhD Scholarships for African Students 2018/2019 – Kenya

Application Deadline: 9th February 2018 at 11:59 pm.
Offered annually? Yes
Eligible Countries: Kenyans or citizens of a sub Saharan African country.
To be taken at (country): Kisii University, Kenya
Eligible Field of Study: Applications are invited from qualified candidates for the award of DAAD Msc and PhD scholarship in the area of specialization of Fisheries.
About Scholarship: Kisii University offers DAAD In-Country/In-Region Scholarships for Postgraduate Studies, Eastern Africa 2018/2019. The awards are available for up to a maximum of two years (Master) and three years (Ph.D.) respectively.
kisii university kenya
Type: MSc and PhD degrees
Eligibility: The applicants must meet the following criteria for selection:
  • they must have a minimum of upper second class or first class honours degree in fisheries or in a closely related biological sciences field of study for MSc scholarship.
  • they must have a minimum of an Msc in Fisheries or in a closely related aquatic sciences field with above average grades for PhD Scholarship.
  • The PhD proposals must demonstrate relevance to development, and MUST be free of any plagiarism.
  • The candidates must have had their degree not more than six years ago.
  • Candidates must be Kenyans or citizens of a sub Saharan African country.
  • They must have proof of admission to the desired degree programme.
  • The applicants must fulfil all the DAAD application requirements available in the Kisii University website: kisiiuniversity.ac.ke.
  • Female candidates and candidates from less privileged regions or groups as well as candidates with disabilities are especially encouraged to apply.
Number of Scholarships:
  • Msc Fisheries – 4 Scholarships
  • PhD Fisheries – 2 Scholarships
Value of Scholarship:
  • DAAD will pay tuition fees to the university according to the submitted fees structure and a monthly stipend to the scholarship holder, covering cost of living including accommodation.
  • In addition, the scholarship holder will receive an annual study and research allowance. This allowance is intended to assist in covering of any costs related to the student’s research project. The annual study and research allowance is paid in local currency and is equivalent to the amount of EUR 230.00 for Master’s scholarship holders and EUR 920.00 for Ph.D. scholarship holders.
  • Within the final year of studies, DAAD pays a lump sum of EUR 1,025.00 to the scholarship holder, where applicable (in local currency). This final allowance is granted to assist in covering of the thesis production costs in the last year of the course of studies (i.e. second year for Master students, third year for Ph.D. students).
  • Please note that a DAAD scholarship is not a full scholarship. DAAD will only provide funding as stated above. It is not possible to apply for additional funding (e.g. laboratory, field work, conferences, technical equipment, books, travel, etc.)
Duration of Scholarship: This award will be available for a maximum of two years (for MSc), three years (for PhD). The scholarship is initially granted for one year and may be extended upon individual request and receipt of a complete application by using a form to be availed at the appropriate time in the DAAD Portal generally, this is from the month of April 2019.
How to Apply:
  • Applications accompanied by a CV, required documents outlined in information sheet for scholars both in soft and hard copy should be sent to the coordinator Kisii University – DAAD scholarships Programme, Research and Extension Office, P.O Box 408-40200, Kisii. Email: research[at]kisiiuniversity.ac.ke.
  • Only nominated candidates will be informed to apply for the DAAD Scholarships in the DAAD Portal.
Scholarship Provider: German Academic Exchange Service – DAAD.

Government of Brunei Darussalam Scholarships for International Students 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 28th February 2018.
Offered annually? Yes
To be Taken at (university): 
  • Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD),
  • Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali (UNISSA),
  • Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) and
  • Politeknik Brunei (PB).
Fields of Study: These scholarships are awarded for pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate degree program in various disciplines offered by the UBD, UNISSA and ITB at different levels.
About the Award: Applications are invited for Brunei Darussalam Government Scholarships available for foreign students to study at University of Brunei Darussalam [UBD], Islam Sultan Sharif Ali University [UNISSA], Brunei Institute of Technology [ITB] and Politeknik  Brunei (PB) in Brunei. These scholarships are awarded to the students of ASEAN, OIC, Commonwealth Member Countries and others. Scholarship award is normally tenable for the duration of the programme.
Type: Undergraduate and postgraduate degrees
Eligibility:
  • Applications are open to citizens of, but not limited to, ASEAN, Commonwealth and OIC member countries.
  • Applicants should be nominated by their Government.
  • Applicants must be certified to be medically fit to undertake the scholarship and to study in Brunei Darussalam, by a qualified medical practitioner who is registered with any Government Authority(ies) prior to arrival in Brunei Darussalam. Any and all costs incurred in obtaining this certification are to be borne by the applicant.
  • Applicants must be, between the ages of 18-25 for undergraduate and diploma programmes and must not exceed the age of 35 for postgraduate programmes on the 31st July 2018.
  • The award is NOT eligible to Brunei Darussalam Permanent Residents.
Number of Scholarships: Several
Value of Scholarship: The scholars are exempted from paying tuition fees and other appropriate compulsory fees as determined by the university for the duration of the programme.
One return economy class air-ticket for the most economically viable route to Brunei Darussalam will be determined by the Brunei Darussalam Government. No additional assistance will be provided towards other travel expenses.
Allowances payable will include:
  • Monthly personal allowance of BND500.00
  • Annual Book Allowance BND600.00
  • Monthly food allowance of BND150.00
  • Upon completion of the program, Baggage allowance to a maximum institution of BND250.00 to ASEAN region and BND500.00 to non ASEAN region.
  • An accommodation at respective institution residential college is provided. If the scholar opts not to live in the provided accommodation, no additional allowance will be given in the lieu of board and transport.
  • Outpatient medical and/or dental treatment is at any Brunei government hospitals, However an administrative charge is payable for each consultation with the government general practitioner or specialist.
  • Should the scholar seek further medical or dental treatments at any private hospital or clinic, all expenses are to be borne by scholars themselves.
Duration of Scholarship: The scholarship award is normally tenable for the minimum period required to obtain the specific degree which is four years for a first degree with honours, one to two years for a master’s degree, three years for a doctoral degree at UBD, UNISSA and ITB, two and a half years for HND at ITB, three years for diploma of health sciences at UBD, all on a full time basis.
Eligible Countries: Students of ASEAN (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam), OIC (Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Suriname, Syria, Tajikistan, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Yemen), Commonwealth Member Countries ((Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Botswana, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Falkland Islands, Gambia, Ghana, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Montserrat, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, St Helena, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and The Grenadines, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Virgin Islands (British) and Zambia) and others can apply for the scholarships.
How to Apply: Application forms can be downloaded from the following link:
  • Application forms must be duly completed and endorsed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the National Focal Point for scholarships of the applicant’s country.
  • Applicants are required to also submit a security clearance statement from their National Security Agency(ies)/ Police Station (i.e. a statement/ report certifying that applicants are clear from any civil and criminal charges).
  • Completed application forms are to be emailed to the following address:
Applicants applying to Univeristi Brunei Darussalam must also complete an online application through https://apply.ubd.edu.bn/orbeon/uis-welcome/
Visit the scholarship webpage for details to apply
Provider: Brunei Darussalam Government