Air pollution is an invisible killer: Denial will cost lives!

Shobha Shukla & Bobby Ramakant

World Health Day 2018 special

A senior editor in Thailand is being victimized for putting spotlight on an issue that the World Health Organization (WHO) refers to as “invisible killer” of over 6.5 million people globally every year. Air pollution warrants much more urgency to save lives and help people breathe life, and not inhale deadly disease-causing polluted air.

According to the WHO, 92% of the global population lives in places where ambient air pollution is so high that it makes air unsafe to breathe. As much as 36% of lung cancer deaths, 34% of stroke deaths, and 27% of heart disease deaths in a year are attributed to air pollution. More alarmingly, climate change and air pollution are closely interrelated, further escalating the economic costs and health hazards for humankind. Yet it does not seem to be invoking governments to act with the compelling urgency.

Air pollution is biggest environmental crisis we face: WHO

Air pollution causes 1 in 9 deaths and is the biggest environmental health crisis we face, says WHO. Over 80% of the world’s cities have pollution levels exceeding WHO’s guidelines for safe air.

Is feeling concerned about the quality of air we breathe, a crime? In Thailand, Pim Kemasingki, Editor, Citylife Chiang Mai magazine, has been on the forefront of several initiatives over the years for helping make Chiang Mai city in northern Thailand, a better place for everyone. Recently, Citylife Chiang Mai magazine aimed to draw attention to the region’s sometimes dangerously unhealthy air pollution, probably caused by crop burning and traffic. Editor of Citylife Chiang Mai was charged by authorities for posting on Facebook a student’s painting of ancient kings wearing pollution masks. Even more shockingly, instead of supporting Thai citizens’ initiative to raise awareness about the invisible killer- air pollution – the Governor of Chiang Mai recommended that police should investigate and charge the publication for being disrespectful and endangering tourism. According to a news published in The Bangkok Post, Citylife Chiang Mai Editor Pim Kemasingki could be imprisoned for up to five years if convicted under the Computer Crime Act, which has several broad provisions, including criminal penalties for undermining national security and entering false information into computer systems.

Editor Citylife Chiang Mai Pim Kemasingki told Reuters that “I shared this picture (a student’s painting of ancient kings wearing pollution masks) thinking it was pertinent and powerful” and “For decades I have been promoting the city and loving it… so it’s quite unsettling that fighting for healthy air for my fellow citizens has turned into me besmirching the city.”

Hope sanity prevails, and justice ensues for not only protecting and promoting citizens’ call for improving air quality, but also for protecting those who bravely stand up to defend human rights – right to breathing clean air!

No air pollution data from most polluted cities

WHO says “Many cities in the world, including some expected to be among the most polluted, do not collect information or report on its ambient air quality.” Similar news comes from India where unmonitored cities had much higher air pollution levels than those cities that came under the radar for monitoring air pollution. Not surprisingly, countries, such as Thailand, that share air pollution data in a spirit for collective action and shared learning to ensure that citizens breathe life (read clean air), get noticed.

Undoubtedly, we need reliable data on air pollution from every country/ city so that appropriate action is taken without delay. Targeting only those cities or countries that are reporting and sharing air pollution data will do more harm than good. Targetting or profiling of those who raise issues such as air pollution is even more worse. The larger issue should be to encourage every country to share reliable data on air pollution and take urgent evidence-based action to address the issue and mitigate human suffering, and avert untimely deaths.

Profiling those spirited crusaders, such as Pim, who raise a long over-due alarm on air pollution, and targeting them will not help address the cause; rather it might be detrimental for efforts to save lives from non-communicable as well as from infectious diseases and fail us in averting untimely deaths.

It is important to mention that Thailand is among the 190+ countries that promised to deliver on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015. Some of these SDGs aim to reduce untimely deaths due to heart disease and stroke, lung cancer, asthma, among other diseases, by one-third by 2030 – a lion’s share of these diseases is caused by air pollution.

It is important for the government of Thailand, and every other government in the world, to have coherent policies, programmes and actions on the ground to help progress towards delivering on the promise of SDGs. Uncalled for targeting of citizens who champion human rights causes, like the one to control air pollution, will only take nations further away from achieving these goals and will be a setback for efforts to build a better tomorrow.

New Zealand government under pressure to expel Russian diplomats

Tom Peters

Over the past week, the New Zealand Labour-led government has come under sustained attack from the opposition National Party and the media over its refusal to join Britain, the US, Australia and 19 other countries in expelling Russian diplomats.

More than 130 diplomats have been expelled, ostensibly in retaliation for the March 4 poisoning of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK. Without producing any evidence or plausible motive, British Prime Minister Theresa May declared it “highly likely” that the Russian government was responsible, a claim the Kremlin has denied.

Yulia is reportedly recovering in hospital—a development that seriously undermines claims she was the victim of a sophisticated attack using the “military grade” chemical Novichok. Russian officials have been barred from speaking to Yulia.

Just as they lied about “weapons of mass destruction” to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Britain and the US are using the murky Skripal affair to justify their military build-up and preparations for war against nuclear-armed Russia.

Following pressure from Britain’s high commissioner, the New Zealand government announced it would halt efforts to restart trade negotiations with Russia. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have expressed support for Britain’s belligerent stance against Moscow.

New Zealand, however, is the only member of the US-led Five Eyes intelligence sharing network, which has so far refused to expel any Russian diplomats. Ardern told the media on March 27: “While other countries have announced they are expelling undeclared Russian intelligence agents, officials have advised there are no individuals here in New Zealand who fit this profile.”

This decision immediately provoked a storm of criticism. Until recently, the new Ardern government has been heavily promoted by the media as a means of containing working-class anger over social inequality. Now it is coming under intense pressure to fully line up behind the escalating drive to war with Russia.

In a widely-quoted interview with Radio NZ, security analyst Paul Buchanan, a former US State Department official, said Ardern’s statement was “unbelievably silly” and had “made New Zealand a laughing stock.”

University of Waikato law professor Alexander Gillespie wrote on Newshub’s website that expelling diplomats was “not about uncovering spies” but rather “about making a statement of what is unacceptable behaviour between countries in the 21st century.” He noted that Australia’s government expressed support for any move to send weapons inspectors to Russia.

Such professions of outrage are completely hypocritical. Gillespie and Buchanan supported New Zealand’s participation in the US-led imperialist wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have led to at least a million deaths. NZ soldiers in Afghanistan have been accused of war crimes including killing civilians.

In parliament on March 29, Peters echoed British claims that the Skripals were poisoned by a chemical sourced from Russia, but added that culpability was “still a matter of substantial investigation in the UK.”

This prompted an angry response from opposition National Party foreign affairs spokesman Todd McClay, who accused Peters of “dancing around the issue” of Russia’s responsibility. He asked: “Has Mr Peters bought into the Kremlin’s theory that the UK Government might be responsible for attempting to kill the Skripals?” He called on Ardern to “pull Mr Peters into line.”

In fact, Peters did not suggest that Theresa May’s government carried out the poisoning. However, given that the incident has provided the pretext for ramping up the anti-Russia campaign, it cannot be ruled out that the British state, or elements within it, were involved.

Peters was also attacked for correctly stating during an interview on March 11 that there is “no evidence” the Russian government had any involvement in shooting down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014.

Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told a Sydney radio station: “It’s bizarre of the New Zealand foreign minister to make excuses for the Russians.” Australia’s Labor Party foreign affairs spokesperson Penny Wong also insisted that Russia was responsible. The unsolved murder of 298 passengers and crew has been used by the US and its allies to justify sanctions against Russia and military support for Ukraine.

Peter Jennings from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank wrote in the Australian on March 31: “Sadly, New Zealand’s failure to join other democracies in expelling Russian spies and Wellington’s kowtowing to Beijing shows that this is one old ally that already has given up the fight for Western values.”

In fact, the Labour-NZ First-Green Party government supports New Zealand’s alliance with Washington and Canberra. Ardern has kept troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and stated last November that she would be prepared to join a war against North Korea.

Labour, the Greens and NZ First agreed with the previous National Party goverment’s decision in 2016 to spend $20 billion to upgrade the military and integrate New Zealand into the US military build-up against China.

The conflict erupting within the New Zealand political establishment stems from NZ First’s push to re-start trade negotiations with Russia in order to lessen the country’s reliance on China, currently NZ’s second largest trading partner. Talks with Moscow were suspended by the Nationals in 2014 over the shooting down of MH17.

The 2008–2017 National Party government strengthened the alliance with Washington, while also expanding lucrative business ties with China and avoiding direct denunciations of Beijing. This fraught balancing act could not be sustained under conditions where the US is recklessly pursuing trade war against China.

NZ First, an extreme nationalist and anti-Asian party, formed a coalition with Labour in October 2017 after the US ambassador Scott Brown criticised the National Party’s reluctance to endorse Trump’s threats to annihilate North Korea. Last September Anne-Marie Brady, an academic from the NATO-funded Wilson Centre in the US, accused the National Party of being in thrall to Chinese interests and National MP Jian Yang of being a Chinese “agent,” claims echoed by NZ First.

In line with Washington’s demands, Ardern has ordered an investigation by the Security Intelligence Service into so-called Chinese “interference.” NZ First and Labour have for years whipped up anti-China sentiment, scapegoating Chinese immigrants for the housing crisis, low wages and other social problems.

The Labour government has been caught off-guard by the intensifying confrontation with Russia. Whatever the present divisions between New Zealand’s capitalist parties, there is no anti-imperialist faction of the ruling elite. For more than a century it has relied on its alliance with British, US and Australian imperialism to further New Zealand’s own neo-colonial interests in the Pacific. The ruling class has dragged the country into two world wars in the past century and is preparing to do so again.

Russia-Japan dispute over Kurils reflects mounting tensions in North East Asia

Gary Alvernia

In the midst of acute tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Russia announced in January that it intended to base military aircraft in the Kuril Islands, which are claimed by Japan as its Northern Territories. While portrayed by Western media as an aggressive Russian provocation, the decision is in response to the military threats by the US, backed by Japan, to attack North Korea if it does not bow to Washington’s demands to denuclearise.

The Kuril Islands, situated between the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido and the Kamchatka Peninsula on the eastern coast of Russia, are currently controlled by the latter nation. Japan responded angrily to the Russian plan to base military aircraft in a newly-constructed civilian airport on Iturup, one of the more populated islands. The aircraft will bolster existing missile defence systems on Iturup, following a decision last November to build a naval base on Matua, another island.

Russia announced its military basing plan amid diplomatic talks with Japan to ratify an official peace treaty ending World War II. After issuing diplomatic protests, accusing Russia of negotiating in bad faith, the Japanese government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe threatened to withdraw from further negotiations.

Tensions flared again last week when the Russian military conducted an air force readiness exercise in its far eastern territories, including sending two SU-35 fighters to Iturup for the first time. After making a formal diplomatic protest, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono declared that “the strengthening of the Russian military presence in the Northern Territories ... contradicts our country’s position on these islands.”

In Japan, Abe is under pressure. His government had advanced the negotiations with Russia as a means of reclaiming at least some of the Kurils, in exchange for increased economic investment by Japan in Russia’s energy-rich Siberian regions.

The Kuril Islands are a remote, sparsely populated archipelago, spanning 1,300 kilometres. Held by Japan until World War II, the Soviet Union took them over in 1945 and, following its dissolution, they remained a part of the Russian Federation. Japan has always considered the loss of the islands, particularly the southern group, including Iturup, to be a humiliation—a factor in its refusal to sign an official peace treaty with Russia concluding World War II.

Given the Kurils’ relative proximity to Russia and Japan, both nations consider them to have strategic importance. The islands also sit atop large and mostly unexploited deposits of valuable natural resources, including gold, silver and the rare element rhenium.

While an ongoing sore point in relations between the two countries, the dispute over the island chain has not become a flashpoint for military confrontation. However, since the announcement of the “pivot to Asia” strategy by US President Barack Obama, tensions throughout the region have dramatically sharpened.

As part of its growing confrontation with China, the US has encouraged Japan to remilitarise and play a more belligerent role in North East Asia. Apart from its demands on the Kurils, Japan has escalated its dispute with China over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which has led to dangerous stand-offs involving aircraft and ships.

For its part, Russia has indicated that a necessary pre-condition to re-engage in talks would be for Japan to reduce its military ties with the US. Russian government officials have emphasised that the reason for basing warplanes in the Kurils is the US placement of advanced anti-missile systems in Japan. Last December, Tokyo approved the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) batteries and Aegis Ashore missile defence systems on the Japanese mainland.

Though the systems are supposedly defensive, China and Russia regard them as provocative steps intended to enhance the US military’s capabilities in the event of a war. The THAAD systems in Japan and South Korea are equipped with advanced radar systems that enable the US to monitor military installations and missile launches deep inside the two nations.

In January, Pravda.ru suggested negotiations between Russia and Japan have been complicated by Russian fears that any transfer of the Kurils to Japanese control would result in US military forces being based there under the US-Japan Security Treaty. As a result, the US military would have forces close to major Russian Far East bases, including the strategic port city of Vladivostok.

While accusing Russia of militarising supposedly “disputed-territory,” the Abe government has enhanced and strengthened Japanese military bases and fortifications, including with Aegis Ashore systems, on Hokkaido, its northernmost island, adjacent to Russian territory.

Abe has also backed US President Donald Trump’s bellicose threats against North Korea, including his rant last year that the Pyongyang regime faced “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Russia, which shares a border with North Korea, fears the consequences of a war on the Korean Peninsula, which could involve nuclear weapons and create millions of refugees.

The Russian regime of President Vladimir Putin, however, has no progressive solution to the mounting dangers of war. It is organically incapable of making any appeal to the international working class—the only social force able to halt the war drive. Russia’s strengthening of its military in the Far East, as in Europe, only plays directly into the hands of US and Japanese imperialism as they accelerate their preparations for conflict.

US-China trade war intensifies

Nick Beams

The developing trade war between the United States and China significantly escalated this week with the imposition by each country of tariffs on $50 billion worth of products.

The first move came late Tuesday afternoon when the Trump administration announced a list of 1,333 goods that could be subject to the imposition of a 25 percent tariff. Hours later China responded with a list of 106 products, mainly agricultural goods, which would be subject to the same tariff if the US went ahead.

The most significant impact will be on the export of soybeans to China, worth $12.3 billion last year, just under a tenth of total US exports to China. Overall, Beijing’s proposed measures target around one-third of all US exports to China.

The Chinese finance ministry issued a statement that the American measures “have seriously violated the rules of the World Trade Organisation and have seriously violated China’s legal rights.”

Speaking at a press briefing, the Chinese vice-minister of commerce, Wang Shouwen, said China did not want a trade war because no one would win. “But if someone insists on fighting a trade war, we will be there,” he added.

Under the Trump measures, US businesses will have until May 22 to make submissions on the plan, after which the administration has 180 days to decide what action to take.

Yesterday, Trump administration officials hit the airwaves to raise the prospect of negotiations. In a clear attempt to calm financial markets, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appeared on the business channel CNBC before trading opened to claim that the Chinese measures should not have surprised anyone and that the US was not entering “World War III,” leaving open the prospect of negotiations.

“Even shooting wars end with negotiations,” he said.

Larry Kudlow, newly appointed as Trump’s chief economic adviser, took the same line, telling Fox Business: “These are just the first proposals… I doubt there’ll be any concrete actions for several months.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin issued a statement that the administration “will continue to engage in discussions with China to address these issues of reciprocal trade.”

Besides concerns over immediate market reactions, an aim of the media interventions by members of the administration was to counter opposition from within US political and business circles. Sections of the Republican Party are opposed to the measures, reflecting concerns within major corporations about the impact of Chinese retaliation.

The president of the American Soybean Association, John Heisdorffer, said the Chinese tariff would “have a devastating effect on every soybean farmer in the US.” He called on Trump to “engage the Chinese in a constructive manner, not a punitive one.”

The president of the National Association of Manufacturers, Jay Timons, said Chinese unfair trade practices hurt US competitiveness, but that the tariffs would create “new challenges” in the form of higher costs and retaliation, and called on Trump to pursue a bilateral agreement with China “that wholly restructures our economic relationship.”

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers said it was “very concerned” about the deterioration in the US-China relationship and that, while there had to be efforts to create a fairer system, “imposing taxes on equipment used by construction workers and farmers across the country is not the way to achieve those ends.”

Trump, however, has continued his bellicose rhetoric, declaring in a tweet: “We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the US. Now we have a trade deficit of $500 billion a year, with intellectual property theft of another $300 billion. We cannot let this continue!”

The comments of administration officials appeared to have the desired effect of preventing an immediate market sell-off, with the Dow lurching from an opening of more than 500 points down to finish the day up by 200, the latest in a series of major intraday swings that reflect the underlying instability of the financial markets.

Whether an all-out conflict can be averted by talks and negotiations is another question, however.

As the Financial Times noted in a worried editorial comment, the “good news” was that both sides still had time to back down. The “bad news” was that “according to Donald Trump’s negotiating team, the two sides were already at the negotiating table, and purportedly making progress, before the latest escalations were announced.”

The threat of an intense and deepening trade war arises from the nature of the conflict. While Trump rails against the US deficit with China, regularly inflating the figure from $375 billion to $500 billion, the driving force of the US action is the attempt to prevent China from developing its capacities in high technology sectors, including communications, robotics, aircraft and pharmaceuticals.

Under its “Made in China 2025 program,” initiated by President Xi Jinping at the end of 2015, China has announced its intention to become an “innovation nation” by 2020, an “innovation leader by 2030” and the “world powerhouse of scientific and technological innovation by 2050.”

The words are being backed by action, with hundreds of billions of dollars devoted to Chinese high-tech research and development, prompting fears in the US that its technological dominance could be eclipsed.

The US tariff targets reflect these concerns. They are not aimed primarily at the still relatively low-tech goods imported into the US, which are the main contributors to the deficit. These imports are in large part the result of the global supply chains established by US corporations in order to take advantage of heaper Chinese labour. Chinese exports are still concentrated in sectors such as consumer electronics and appliances, clothing, footwear, furniture and toys. The Apple iPhone, for example, will not be impacted.

This point was underscored by Ross in his CNBC interview. He said the tariffs were directed at those products where the US was not “terribly dependent” on China. The focus of the measures was to protect intellectual property rights, which the US has accused China of infringing through so-called technology transfers by companies investing in China as well as outright theft.

Intellectual property had to be protected, Ross said, because it was “the key to our future.” The rules of the World Trade Organisation did not address intellectual property and the Chinese had to stop stealing it, he added.

This issue was at the centre of a comment published in the Financial Timesearlier this week, before the latest US measures were announced, by Richard Staropoli, the former chief information officer for the US Department of Homeland Security. He wrote that the new tariffs would not be directed at “old economy” targets such as steel and aluminium, the subject of new tariffs last month, but would explicitly hit Chinese technology.

He wrote: “The new round will aim straight at Beijing’s ‘Made in China 2025’ program, which the US sees as a direct threat to American hegemony… We are in a new cold war with Beijing to retain control of the technology critical to the modern economy.”

The economy is not the only concern. Developments in information and communications technology have far-reaching military implications, even more so than steel, on which Trump imposed tariffs last month, invoking national security and military preparedness as the justification.

Staropoli noted that in 5G phone technology, Chinese equipment makers were taking “centre stage,” in “stark contrast” to an earlier period “where underlying technology originated almost exclusively in Europe and the US.”

While the outcome of immediate events is impossible to predict amid the ongoing moves and counter moves, the basic trend of development is clear. The post-World War II international economic and trading system, created by the United States, is being smashed to pieces and the world is rapidly descending into a trade war on a scale potentially more disastrous than that of the 1930s, which produced economic chaos and led ultimately to the Second World War.

Google workers demand end to company’s involvement in drone murder

Andre Damon

Revelations last month that Google was designing software for the US military’s illegal drone warfare program have sparked outrage among employees. More than 3,000 Google workers have signed a letter to executives demanding that it end its involvement with the Pentagon.

The program, known as “Project Maven,” involves the use of artificial intelligence systems to analyze drone footage, potentially assisting the Pentagon in identifying targets for drone assassinations, which have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, most of them bystanders, across the Middle East and North Africa. Google’s involvement in the program was reported by Gizmodo last month.

The letter, addressed to CEO Sundar Pichai, declares, “We believe that Google should not be in the business of war. Therefore we ask that Project Maven be cancelled, and that Google draft, publicize and enforce a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology.”

Responding to earlier criticism by Google employees last month, Diane Greene, CEO of the company’s cloud business, said the software would not “operate or fly drones” and “will not be used to launch weapons.”

The letter dismisses these feeble pretexts, declaring, “While this eliminates a narrow set of direct applications, the technology is being built for the military, and once it’s delivered it could easily be used to assist in these tasks.”

The US government’s drone murder program, involving the assassination of people without trial, violates both the US Constitution and international law, implicating Google in activity that could lead to criminal prosecution.

The letter warns that the company’s actions “will irreparably damage Google’s brand,” and that “by entering into this contract, Google will join the ranks of companies like Palantir, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. The argument that other firms, like Microsoft and Amazon, are participating doesn’t make this any less risky for Google. Google’s unique history, its motto Don’t Be Evil, and its direct reach into the lives of billions of users sets it apart.”

In concludes, “Building this technology to assist the US Government in military surveillance—and potentially lethal outcomes—is not acceptable.”

Google’s relationship with the military is in fact not new. Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman for Google from 2001 to 2017, has a position on the Pentagon’s Defense Advisory Board, along with Google Vice President Milo Medin.

The letter points to the growing divide between the employees of technology companies, among the most highly-skilled workers anywhere in the world—many of whom have imbibed an ethos of opposition to concentrated power, surveillance, and the military—and leading executives determined to integrate Google, Facebook, and Twitter into the military/intelligence apparatus.

While workers at technology companies are some of the best-paid in the United States, nearly all of them are compelled to work grueling schedules, regularly involving workweeks of at least 60 hours, making raising a family nearly impossible. Much of their salary is taken up by housing costs. Rents have shot up by more than 50 percent in the San Francisco Bay area, the most expensive real estate market in America. The average one-bedroom apartment rent is $3,390 per month, forcing some workers to live in their cars.

Amid a growing nationwide strike wave that has led to walkouts by teachers in West Virginia and Oklahoma, technology workers throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, the United States, and the world no doubt increasingly feel themselves at odds with their employers, who lured many away from careers in the sciences with promises of “changing the world” for the better.

Now, these workers are being told by these same executives to create systems for mass murder, surveillance, and censorship.

The New York Times, which first reported the letter, wrote that it could not get a single employee to speak on the record, no doubt testifying to the climate of intimidation and repression within the company.

Google’s relationship with the military is connected to its involvement, along with Facebook and other technology companies, in the effort to censor the Internet. Beginning in April of 2017, Google modified its search algorithms “to surface more authoritative content,” claiming that this was aimed at countering “the phenomenon of ‘fake news.’”

As the WSWS documented in an open letter to Google sent in August, the aim of these changes was “to restrict public awareness of and access to socialist, anti-war and left-wing websites.” The consequences of the changes included a nearly 70 percent (now more than 75 percent) drop in Google referrals to the WSWS.

At the time, the WSWS noted that Google’s moves to align itself with the demands of the military/intelligence apparatus would inevitably engender opposition within the company. These warnings have been confirmed.

Google’s actions last year were followed by similar moves by Facebook in January, when it announced changes to its News Feed to rely on material from “broadly trusted and high-quality sources,” a euphemism for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other corporate news publications.

Last month, Google also announced a new “News Initiative” aimed at elevating “authoritative content” in its widely used Google News section.

The involvement of Google with the military and its collaboration with intelligence agencies in censoring information online are two sides of the same process. As the ruling class prepares for an immense expansion of war and domestic repression, it is seeking to utilize the services of the giant technology companies.

Vietnam: Ruling party’s anti-corruption purge continues

John Roberts

The trial concluded last Thursday in Hanoi of Dinh La Thang, a former member of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam’s (CPV) highest body, the Politburo, ispart of a two-year campaign by the dominant party faction to purge its main rivals.

The purge followed bitter conflict at the CPV’s 12th Congress in January 2016, during which the faction around party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong ousted then Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

Thang, a Dung protégé, was on trial with other six executives of the state-owned oil conglomerate PetroVietnam (PVN). They face sentences of up to 20 years for alleged mismanagement and deliberate violation of regulations that led to losses of millions of dollars. Thang was sentenced to imprisonment for 18 years.

Thang was already serving a 13-year sentence imposed on January 22 in a trial involving 22 PVN executives over charges of mismanagement and embezzlement. Thang, until his expulsion from the Politburo last May, was also Ho Chi Minh City CPV party boss. He has received the most severe punishment imposed on a former Politburo member, and the first since the 1970s.

These two high-profile trials follow others. In 2016 and 2017, thousands of cases were processed by the courts. Last September, Ocean Bank chairman Nguyen Xuan Son was given a death sentence. Fifty-one other prominent officials and bankers were convicted at the time. The trials are ongoing.

The main targets have been the top management of large energy and banking entities but the crackdown is spreading into real estate, other industrial sectors and CPV regional offices. Like Thang, many prominent defendants have been associated with former Prime Minister Dung.

As well as pursuing factional opponents through the courts, General Secretary Trong has tightened his faction’s control of the state apparatus. He is secretary of the Central Military Commission and was recently made a member of the Central Party Committee for Public Security—a first for a general secretary. He has also appointed his supporter Tran Quoc Vuong as head of the anti-corruption commission.

Another member of the Trong faction, the party’s Central Organisation Commission head Pham Minh Chinh, has been tasked with integrating government and party posts, beginning at the commune and district level. The Diplomat commented in February that many observers expected the process to end in the unification of the posts of party general secretary and head of state—a situation that has not existed since Ho Chi Minh’s death in 1969.

Both CPV factions are mired in the reactionary, nationalist outlook of Stalinism and support the pro-market doi moi policy that has sought, since 1986, to turn Vietnam into a cheap labour platform for foreign investors. The CPV as a whole backs the use of police-state measures to suppress opposition from workers and the rural poor.

Dung and his faction, however, have pushed for an acceleration of economic “reforms,” including the privatisation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Such moves would undermine significant layers of CPV bureaucracy, whose privileges depend on these corporations.

The Trong faction also fears that the rapid implementation of the doi moi policy was creating conditions for a social explosion and wants economic policy more firmly under the party’s grip.

Pro-market restructuring has already led to high levels of social inequality. A tiny layer of the ruling elite enjoy great wealth while most of the country’s 93 million people live in rural poverty or on poverty-level wages. The average annual income is around $US2,200, despite rapid economic growth, this year expected to be 6.5 percent. Foreign direct investment reached $29.68 billion in 2017.

The government is presenting its purge of functionaries in the SOEs as necessary to make their operations more “transparent” for foreign investors. The Ministry of Planning and Investment has set out a timetable for 375 SOEs, worth a combined capital of $US4.7 billion, to be wholly or partially divested by 2020. The SOEs currently contribute up to one third of the country’s $202 billion annual gross domestic product.

The factional disputes also have been fuelled by rapidly rising geo-political tensions, particularly between the US and China. The Dung faction was oriented more closely to Washington. Dung was behind the whipping up of anti-Chinese riots in 2014 after China placed an oil rig in a disputed area of the South China Sea.

The Trong leadership has continued to develop a close relationship with the US, begun under the Obama administration, including military cooperation. Vietnam has strongly criticised Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. In December, the Trump administration’s national security assessment defined Vietnam as a “cooperative maritime partner” and the US is seeking to consolidate it as an ally against Beijing.

The US think tank, the Brookings Institute, noted last month that despite closer military ties with the US, including a week-long visit this year by the US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, Hanoi still seeks “a stable relationship with China due to their economic dependence and geographic position.” It pointed out that Vietnam has comprehensive or strategic partnerships with 16 nations, including Japan, Russia, India and, more recently, Australia.

Under Trong, Vietnam is seeking to ease tensions with China. Le Hong Hiep, an analyst at Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute told Reuters: “Vietnam will only embrace the US at a pace that doesn’t cause an over-reaction from China.”

A great deal is at stake economically. China is the country’s largest source of imported goods and largest trading partner overall, but the US is Vietnam’s largest export market. As a result, the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of the Trans Pacific Partnership was a major blow to the Vietnamese regime, which hoped to expand its American markets.

Regional governor Tuleev resigns in wake of Kemerovo fire in Russia

Clara Weiss

A week after the fire at the shopping mall and entertainment center “Winter Cherry” took the lives of at least 64 people, including 41 children, the regional governor of the Kemerovo oblast in southwestern Siberia, Aman Tuleev, announced his resignation on Sunday, April 1.

The fact that Tuleev, one of the major figures of Russian politics of the past 30 years, felt forced to resign is an indication of the extreme political and social instability in Russia, which has been aggravated by the Kemerovo fire. Despite his advanced age and poor health, Tuleev was considered “untouchable” and a major pillar of the Putin-regime in the country as a whole.

Tuleev will be temporarily replaced by his former deputy, Sergei Tsivilev, as acting governor. New elections have been announced for September 9.

Coming just a week after Putin’s reelection as President, the Kemerovo fire has brutally laid bare the class relations in Russia and has triggered an ongoing political crisis.

Most people and the children died because the doors of the cinema on the fourth floor, which showed a cartoon for children, were locked. Many fire exits were blocked as well. The alarm and sprinkling system didn’t work, and about 700 people had to evacuate on their own.

The “Winter Cherry” is part of a subsidiary that is owned by the oligarch Denis Shtengelov who heads one of Russia’s largest producers of cheap candy. By now, it has emerged that massive violations of construction rules had been allowed. There had been also repeated warnings about problems in the building’s fire safety system, including just a few days before the fire occured.

Workers in Russia understand the fire to be the result of abysmal safety conditions they confront on a daily basis. Russia has a record number of deadly fires, with about 10,000 people killed every year. Since the Kemerovo fire, people on social media have uploaded pictures of blocked fire exits in schools, stores, hospitals, and other public buildings throughout the country under the hashtag #lockedup (#zaperto). Tens of thousands of people have participated in public commemorations for the victims of the fire, including 12,000 people in Moscow alone in a spontaneous memorial event last Tuesday.

Over the past week, there were angry calls for Tuleev’s resignation, including in a protest by relatives of the victims and local residents last Tuesday, but also on social media and even on state TV. Although he lost his own niece in the fire, Tuleev’s response to the disaster had been marked by a combination of indifference and even hostility toward the victims and their relatives.

Like all other regional and local officials, Tuleev had not visited the scene of the disaster in the 12 hours that the fire was raging. He would also not apologize to the families, but only to Putin when the latter flew to Kemerovo last Tuesday. Both he and Putin refused to address thousands of protesters in the city center that day. In an “off-record” part of his discussion with the president, Tuleev denounced the protesters and declared that he saw his main task in preventing political unrest in the wake of the fire.

The resignation of Tuleev is an expression of fears within the oligarchy of an uncontrollable explosion of working class anger. The Kemerovo oblast, also known as the Kuzbass, is a major center for the coal and steel industry, and accounts for between 54 and 59 percent of all of Russia’s coal production.

It has historically been the main area for the development of working class unrest in the country. In 1989, the union-wide miners’ strike that shook the Stalinist bureaucracy to the core and accelerated its drive to capitalist restoration was started in the coal mining town of Mezhdurechensk, which is close to the regional capital Kemerovo and home to Russia’s largest coal mine, Raspadskaya.

Tuleev’s own political career was closely tied to the restoration of capitalism in the region. A member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) since 1968, Tuleev started his career as an engineer in the railway system of the Stalinist bureaucracy, and was one of the many middle-rank bureaucrats who recognized in Mikhail Gorbachev’s “perestroika” policy of restoring capitalism the path for their own advancement. His personal rise was directly proportional to the destruction of the living standards of the coal miners.

After an unsuccessful candidacy for Soviet deputy in the 1989 elections, he became a member of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) in 1990. He was a vocal supporter of the attempted coup by sections of the military and the bureaucracy against the Gorbachev government in August 1991.

In the crucial years of 1990-1993, which saw the destruction of the Soviet Union and the full reintroduction of private property relations by the Stalinist bureaucracy, he de facto controlled the legislative power of the Kemerovo oblast. Throughout the 1990s, Tuleev, then a member of the Stalinist Communist Party of Russia (KPRF), stood at the center of vicious power struggles within the rising oligarchy and the Yeltsin government with which he clashed repeatedly.

However, in 1997, as the World Bank’s proposals for “Restructuring the Russian Coal Industry” were being implemented, Yeltsin eventually named Tuleev governor of the Kemerovo oblast. By that point, dozens of mines in the country had been closed and thousands of jobs had been destroyed. Large sections of the coal industry were under the direct control of the mafia. Miners, like all layers of the working class, were going without pay for months and even years.

Tuleev had a habit of posturing as a defender of working class interests and has been a vocal and crucial supporter of Putin since 2000. Comments in the Russian press about his resignation repeatedly referred to him as a “genuine people’s leader”. This is, of course, nonsense. Much like Putin, Tuleev managed to publicly denounce companies and the oligarchs, while secretly working with them behind closed doors, and negotiating arrangements that would fully correspond to the interests of the oligarchs while keeping the working class in check. At times, this also included minimal subsidies and social benefits to the by now impoverished coal miners and their families.

By the end of his over 20-year rule in the Kemerovo oblast, Tuleev, negotiation with whom no company working in the Kuzbass could avoid, had managed to transform the region into a playground for the oligarch-controlled major coal and steel companies. EVRAZ, in particular, now controls the most important mining facilities in the region, including the Raspadskaya and the facilities of Yuzhkuzbassugol. EVRAZ is owned by several oligarchs, among them Roman Abramovich, who has an estimated net worth of $11.5 billion, and is known as one of the oligarchs closest to Putin.

Meanwhile, the average salary for miners hovers around 30-35,000 rubles ($525-612), a salary on which often entire families have to live. In the major cities of the region like Kemerovo or Novokuznetsk, 56 and 55 percent of the population respectively counted themselves as “low-income“ in a poll in 2015, meaning that they were able to afford only groceries and items of first necessity. The social situation in smaller mining towns like Mezhdurechensk, which entirely depend on the local mines, is usually even worse.

The past twenty years in the Kuzbass have also seen multiple mine disasters that took the lives of hundreds of workers. Among the biggest were the gas explosion at the Taizhina colliery in 2004 which left 45 miners dead, the Ulyanovskaya mine explosion in 2007 which killed 110 miners, and the Ra spadskaya mine disaster of 2010 which killed 91 men. 

Well aware of the mass social discontent that has been catalyzed by the Kemerovo fire, the “Investigative Committee”, something like a Russian FBI, has arrested five people, including one executive of the firm that owns it. Both these arrests and the resignation of Tuleev are ultimately desperate attempts to stem the tide of working class anger and divert it from the real culprits: the oligarchy and the capitalist system it defends.

Teachers across the UK vote for industrial action

Thomas Scripps

Teachers have voted overwhelmingly for strike action over pay and pensions at conferences of the National Education Union (NEU) and the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) held last weekend.

Members of the Education Institute of Scotland (EIS), the largest Scottish education union, have meanwhile rejected a derisory 3 percent pay rise offer and given the union a mandate to ballot for industrial action.

Representing the vast majority of teachers in the UK, the votes are a response to the catastrophic conditions prevailing in primary and secondary schools across the country.

The action must be seen as part of a struggle of educators across four continents that are in conflict with governments attempting to impose massive cuts to their livelihoods and increase workloads. This week strikes by teachers erupted in the US states of Oklahoma and Kentucky, following those last month in West Virginia and Arizona.

In the UK, most teachers’ pay has fallen by up to 20 percent in real terms since 2010, thanks to a 1 percent maximum pay rise cap fixed by the government for the last seven years—the cap was scrapped this year in Scotland.

This has exacerbated the attack on pensions made in 2015, when teachers were switched from a final salary to a less generous career average scheme. Their retirement age was also raised to 68.

Cuts to pay and pensions have been imposed in the context of a staggering increase in workloads. According to a survey carried out by the Guardian in 2016, roughly three in five teachers were working more than 55 hours a week, with nearly a third working more than 60 hours a week. Much of this is unpaid overtime.

Opposing this, delegates at the NEU supported a call for the removal of a clause in the Schools Teachers Pay and Conditions Document that demands teachers must work “such reasonable hours as needed” in discharging their duties.

The sector is suffering a severe staffing shortage. A report by the Public Accounts Committee in January found the number of qualified teachers exiting the profession for reasons other than retirement increased from 6 percent of the workforce in 2011 to 8 percent in 2016. The number of secondary school teachers has fallen by nearly 11,000 since 2010.

This has seen class sizes increase across the country, adding yet more work for those who remain in the profession.

This is part of a broader crisis in primary and secondary schooling, itself the product of government education cuts, of the social breakdown produced by austerity measures generally and of the introduction of private interests into the schools sector.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), schools will have suffered a 4.6 percent real terms cut in budgets between 2015 and 2020.

Teachers are paying out of their own pockets to fill the gaps, with 94 percent of respondents to a Times Educational Supplement survey saying they are having to buy stationery items, books, art materials and storage equipment.

The current level of funding is leaving many schools unable to provide the most basic levels of educational provision, as they are also dealing with the consequences of other cuts to social care and benefits. Figures from the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) found that 60 percent of teachers felt child poverty in schools had gotten worse since 2015 and 55 percent thought free school meal provision did not come close to meeting the needs of poorer pupils. Half those surveyed said their school offered anti-poverty services like food and clothes banks or emergency loans.

While schools scrape for funds to provide food and toiletries, the government has provided a total of £241 million for 42 state-funded, but privately run free schools in areas with no need for additional places. Vast sums of public money are also being given hand over fist to the trustees, head teachers and chief executives of academy schools and trusts. There are 121 trusts where at least one individual is being paid more than £150,000 a year. One in five of these are paid more than £200,000. A total of £21 million is spent on these salaries, with the highest paid individual, Dan Moynihan of Harris Foundation, earning just over £500,000.

Academies were first set up under the 1997 Blair Labour government as a halfway house to privatized education and have since been massively expanded under the Conservative Party. They now make up 60 percent of secondary schools and 20 percent of primaries in England.

Numerous studies have shown no tangible benefit brought to a school by switching to academy status. The real winners are the well-paid academy bosses and the business interests they bring with them. Wakefield City Academies Trust, for example, which is in charge of 21 primary and secondary schools, paid private companies associated with its chief executive Mike Ramsay (and his daughter) some £440,000. Bright Tribe Multi-Academy Trust was reported by the Observer to have paid nearly £3 million to businesses in which the Trust’s founder, venture capitalist Mike Dwan, had interests.

Far from flourishing with private sector involvement, eight out of ten academies are in financial deficit, based on findings from the Kreston UK accountancy network. Multiple schools and trusts are reliant on continued government bailout programmes.

The intolerable situation facing teachers is the responsibility of the teaching unions who have refused to fight the attacks on jobs, wages and conditions. Teachers have repeatedly shown their willingness to fight the attacks by government and management, only to see any struggles isolated along local and regional lines and led into a dead end by their unions. What few strikes have been organised have been of a token character and designed only to placate growing anger.

With 400,000 members in the NEU, 280,000 in the NASUWT and 54,000 in the EIS, a joint offensive by teachers, in unity with lecturers and Further Education staff, as well as health and local government workers—who are also in dispute—would represent a powerful challenge to the government’s austerity and privatisation agenda. Lecturers and academic staff in universities and colleges workers are currently also fighting for decent pensions and pay against funding cuts and the marketization of education.

The sentiment for such unity was shown by an amendment passed at the NEU conference calling on the teaching unions to submit a joint pay claim for all school workers. Based on an initial pay increase of 5 percent, this was so as to “begin restoring the cuts in living standards all school staff have suffered.”

The teaching unions are opposed to any such struggle. All that the NEU is proposing is a joint committee of the union to meet in May to consider the ballot for strike action called by delegates in its National Union of Teachers (NUT) section. Delegates to the other Association of Teachers and Lecturers section are meeting at their annual conference this week.

The NEU is only committed to holding an indicative ballot of members this summer. If successful, this would be followed by a formal ballot of members for strike action to possibly take place in the autumn.

In order to take their struggle forward teachers must break the stranglehold of the unions. It was only when lecturers threw out an attempt by the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) to sell out their strike last month that it was able to continue. Now, the UCU has agreed another sell-out agreement with Universities UK and is attempting to end the dispute on management’s terms.

The UCU has opposed joint action between lecturers and FE staff, with the last strike of FE workers involving staff at just seven colleges out of nearly 300.

Teachers and students across the education sector must organise themselves into rank-and-file committees, independent of the trade unions. Such a struggle must be waged as part of a socialist programme calling for fully funded highly quality and well-resourced public education as a social right.

CICOPS Scholarships for Developing Countries 2019

Application Deadline: 31st May, 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Students of developing countries can apply for the scholarship.

To be taken at (country): University of Pavia, Italy

Eligible Field of Study: Field of development studies

About Scholarship: In 1996, the Technical-Scientific Committee of CICOPS approved a scholarship project aimed at fostering research collaboration between academic from Developing Countries and the University of Pavia. The scholarships were designed for both junior and senior members of universities in Developing Countries or members of major research centers and international organizations with specific interetes in the field of development studies.
Since 1998, the University of Pavia and the Institute for University Studies (EDiSU) have offered about ten scholarships yearly for a four to ten week stay in Pavia, during which time the scholars carry out research with professors in the department that hosts them and often hold seminars.


Eligible Countries: Gambia, The Niger, Benin, Guinea, Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Somalia, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Liberia, Tanzania, Chad, Madagascar, Togo, Malawi,  Uganda, Congo, Mali,  Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal, Cameroon, Congo, Lesotho, Swaziland, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritania, Egypt, Morocco, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Namibia, Algeria, Gabon, Angola, South Africa, Botswana, Libya, Tunisia, Mauritius

Offered Since: 1998

Type: The scholarships are dedicated to professors and researchers from developing countries who wish to carry out research with a professor at the University of Pavia.

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

• -The scholarships were designed for both junior and senior members of universities in developing countries or members of major research centres and international organizations with specific interests in the field of development studies.
• -Applicants must have either two years of either teaching experience or activity in international organisations and institution.
• -CICOPS scholarships are foreseen for research collaboration in the short period (from 4 to 10 weeks) in order to encourage the mobility of researchers from developing countries and cannot be awarded in case of doctoral studies or enrolment in a Postgraduate course at an Italian University.

Number of Scholarships: The University of Pavia and the Organisation for the Right to Education (EDiSU) provide 10 scholarships annually

Value of Scholarship: Scholarship includes travel (economy class), board and lodging expenses and a pocket money of 150.00 Euro (gross) per week.

Duration of Scholarship: CICOPS scholarships are foreseen for research collaboration in the short period (from 4 to 10 weeks) in order to encourage the mobility of researchers from developing countries.

How to Apply: The students can apply online. Applications must be supported by a letter of invitation from a teacher of the University of Pavia, someone who would work with you on a joint research while in Pavia. Without a formal invitation from a professor of the University of Pavia your application will not be taken into consideration.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Scholarship Provider: The University of Pavia and the Organisation for the Right to Education (EDiSU)

Ashinaga Fully-funded Undergraduate Scholarships for Orphans from Francophone African Countries 2018

Application Deadline: 30th June 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Field of Study: courses offered at candidate’s choice higher institution

To be taken at (country): Higher institutions outside of Africa, in countries such as Japan, US, UK etc

Eligible Countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea Conakry, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Republic of Congo, Senegal and Togo.

About Scholarship: Ashinaga presents the “Ashinaga Africa Initiative” aiming to provide higher education to 20 brilliant students from Sub-Saharan African countries each year, some of which are among the poorest in the world, and encourage them to become leading professionals in their own countries.
We search and screen for potential candidates: orphaned or bereaved students with academic potential but who cannot afford to apply to university. We provide them with a concentrated study camp for six months at Ashinaga’s facility, Kokorojuku, in Uganda and Senegal, where they are given dedicated support and assistance with their study of various subjects and languages, as they prepare to apply to highly ranked universities around the world. We also provide them with a full scholarship and living expenses for four years during their studies abroad.
We expect to see these young, educated people go back to their own countries and establish democratic and fulfilled societies, bringing people a higher national income and high-quality education. This movement will eventually contribute to the overall wellbeing of Sub-Saharan countries by helping to break the cycle of poverty, even though the effects will not be immediate, as they are when food or equipment is donated.
There is a theory that the African population will expand to more than three billion by the end of this century. We believe if we can create a bright future for Africa, a continent with so much potential, humanity’s global prospects will be bright as well.

Offered Since: 2014

Type: undergraduate

Eligibility: Applicants must:

• Be an orphan, having lost one or both parents
• Be 23 or younger, having been born after October 1, 1995
• Have graduated high school within the past two years
• Be committed to returning to Sub-Saharan Africa once they have finished their studies abroad

Number of Scholarships: up to 20

Value of Scholarship: The Ashinaga (100-Year Vision) Scholarship provides a full scholarship that covers the cost of tuition, accommodation (during the terms and vacation), insurance, flight, and provides monthly stipend which covers food and necessary academic costs.

Duration of Scholarship: for the period of undergraduate studies

How to Apply: There are three ways to apply for the Ashinaga Africa Initiative, although the Program prefers online applications or those sent by email. There is no application fee, and you must never pay anyone to apply or to apply on your behalf.

• Completed application form
• Working email address and telephone number
• Document proving the death of one or both parents, such as a death certificate
• Proof of age, such as a birth certificate, national ID or passport
• Secondary school/high school graduation certificate
• Results from final national exams
• Academic report cards from the last two years of high school/secondary school
• Recommendation letter from a principal or teacher
• Passport-style photo of yourself
• Both essays described below

Essays
Please type/write using a separate sheet of paper. If you choose to handwrite your essays, please write in print and with black ink. Essays written with pencils will not be accepted.

• Essay 1: Please describe how you grew up and experienced losing your parent(s). What challenges have you faced after the loss of your parent(s) and what have you done in order to overcome them? Please write in detail, especially the actions you took to continue and further your education. (Maximum 500 words)
• Essay 2: Please describe the goals you wish to achieve after graduating from university abroad. Outline how the skills and knowledge you gain from a university degree would help you reach your goals when you return to Sub-Saharan Africa. (Maximum 500 words)

Remember that these essays are personal—they are about you and so should only be written by you. Ashinaga is interested in how you make the most of what is available to you.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details

Award Sponsors: Ashinaga.

Important Note: Please note that if you apply by post, all submitted documents will not be returned to you. Therefore, you must send copies of documents ONLY.
This application and the selection process are FREE. Any person requesting payment at any stage of the process, does against Ashinaga’s will, and should not be paid.

Brunel University International Excellence Scholarships for International Students 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 31st May 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): London, UK

About the Award: The University of Brunel is offering 55 awards, which will comprise a £6,000 discount on the cost of tuition fees. The International Scholarships are open to Undergraduate and Postgraduate taught students who are classed as overseas for fee purposes.

Type: Undergraduate, Postgraduate taught

Eligibility: To be considered for the International Excellence scholarship you must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Must be classed as Overseas for fees purposes and be self-funded (not sponsored).
• Must have an offer to study on a full time undergraduate or postgraduate taught programme starting in September 2018 for the International Excellence scholarship.
• Must complete the relevant Scholarship application by the 31st of May 2018.
• Must have firmly accepted their course offer by the scholarship deadline date (31^st May 2018).
• All applicants must meet all conditions of their offer by 16 August 2018.

Successful applicants will be contacted by the International Recruitment or Marketing team as and when your participation would be appreciated.

Number of Awardees: 55

Value of Scholarship: £6,000 fee waiver on tuition fee for year 1 only.

Duration of Scholarship: 1 year

How to Apply:

• First you must apply for one of our courses. This is so the Admissions team have enough time to assess your application and issue you with an applicant number, before the scholarship application deadline. Late scholarship applications will not be considered.

• Apply for a scholarship by completing an application form registering your interest by midnight [GMT] by the deadline of 31 May 2018. Your responses, along with your course application and grades, will be the main focus of the Scholarship Panel’s deliberations. Make sure that your application is complete before you submit it. We will not accept incomplete applications and you may only apply once.

If you are applying for a course starting in January 2019 please do not apply yet. Applications for our January 2019 scholarships will open on 1st July 2018. If you apply early your application WILL NOT be considered.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider:  Brunel University