Extreme right takes power in Italy

Peter Schwarz

The new Italian government sworn in yesterday afternoon in Rome is the most right-wing since the collapse of the fascist Duce Benito Mussolini’s regime in 1945. Installed with the approval of President Sergio Mattarella, it is a coalition of the far-right Lega and the populist Five Star Movement (M5S).

The strongman within the government is Lega leader Matteo Salvini. Although his party secured just 17 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections, Salvini pulled strings and dictated terms during the weeks-long wrangling to form the government.

As deputy prime minister and interior minister, he is now gathering together the powers to proceed with the deportation of half a million refugees and the strengthening of the police, as agreed by Lega and M5S in their government coalition pact. He intends to construct a police state that will clamp down ruthlessly on all social and political opposition.

Salvini makes no secret of his fascist outlook. He invited leading figures of the European neo-Nazi scene to his rallies, including German New Right ideologist Götz Kubitschek and the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn. He also collaborates closely with France's National Front, the Alternative for Germany and other neo-fascist parties. He regularly makes fascistic denunciations of refugees and Muslims.

Formerly called Lega Nord, the party defended the interests of privileged sections of the population in the better-off areas of northern Italy before developing into a nationwide party. It ran in the election in an alliance with the Forza Italia of Silvio Berlusconi, who more than anyone else embodies the corruption and criminality of the Italian bourgeoisie, as well as Fratelli d'Italia, whose roots can be traced directly to Italian fascism.

The fact that M5S, the largest party in the coalition, is helping hand the levers of power to this right-wing filth puts paid to the myth that M5S is a party neither of the left nor right.

M5S was founded by the comedian Beppe Grillo following the 2008 financial crisis, which devastated Italy. For decades, every Italian government has pursued policies of militarism and austerity, including those based on the social democratic Democratic Party (PD) and various pseudo-left parties such as Rifondazione Comunista. The resulting social catastrophe and political vacuum on the left allowed Grillo to win a hearing with demagogic attacks on the corruption and self-enrichment of Italian politicians. M5S gained a foothold among youth who sensed that the so-called “left” around the PD defended capitalism.

However, the Five Star Movement’s programme was in essence right-wing from the outset, as the World Socialist Web Site noted five years ago. We wrote, “Under the guise of a struggle against corruption, monopolies and bureaucracy, it calls for an historic assault against workers and the entire framework of the postwar welfare state. While M5S claims to oppose the corrupt political class, its target is the social gains of the Italian working class.”

This assessment has now been confirmed. M5S’ alliance with Lega, whose xenophobic programme M5S has fully embraced, directly targets the working class and youth.

In the election, M5S secured most of its support by promising to furnish a basic minimum income to everyone. It won votes above all from young people, many of whom are so impoverished that they cannot leave their parents’ home until their late 30s and are unable to start a family. It also did well in the impoverished south.

As second deputy prime minister and minister of industry and labour, Five Star leader Luigi di Maio is now responsible for the implementation of this electoral promise, which amounts to a gift to the corporate elite. The basic income of €780 per month is conditioned on recipients accepting any and all job offers. Like Hartz IV in Germany, it will serve as a mechanism for the creation of a huge low-wage sector.

Lega and M5S have also agreed on the introduction of a two-stage flat tax, a multi-billion-euro handout to the rich and big business.

The installation of such a government is a warning to workers not only in Italy, but across Europe and internationally. The ruling elite is rapidly turning to authoritarian forms of rule.

The fascistic Lega-M5S coalition is coming to power with the stamp of approval of the European Union. Only days before Mattarella used his constitutional powers to give approval to the formation of an M5S-Lega government, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini stressed that she had “full trust” in the Italian president.

Last night, officials across Europe hailed the far-right regime in Rome. German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the “close and friendly ties that unite Germany and Italy in all spheres—political, cultural and economic,” and told the new Italian government, “I look forward to developing and deepening this close partnership with you.”

EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called for close collaboration between the EU and the new government, downplaying Salvini’s fascistic outbursts with the remark, “One should measure politicians by their deeds, not their rhetorical statements.”

The only reservations held by Mattarella and the EU were concerns that under Salvini, Italy might leave the euro or cease fully servicing its massive €2.3 trillion debt. Just last year, €66.4 billion in interest payments were due on the debt, though the interest rate of 0.7 percent was very low. A rise in interest rates would quickly multiply this figure.

Neither Mattarella nor the EU took issue with the government’s plans to detain and deport hundreds of thousands of refugees. They had just as little to say about the new interior minister’s racist tirades and his support for authoritarian rule. This is because these policies are now the consensus in Europe.

In every country, the ruling class is resorting to censorship, state repression and fascistic methods to defend its rule. This is driven on the one hand by the unprecedented crisis of European and world capitalism, and, on the other, by the mounting opposition in the working class to social cuts, repression and militarism. This opposition threatens to break free of the suffocating grip of the trade unions, the social democrats and their allies in the pseudo-left, whose ability to contain and suppress the class struggle is eroding.

Far-right parties now sit in government in several European countries, including Austria, Hungary and Poland. The fact that an ultra-right government has assumed power in Italy, a founding member of the EU with a population of 60 million and the fourth largest economy in the EU, must be seen as a warning to the entire European working class.

The social democratic parties, the pseudo-left organizations and the trade unions are neither able nor willing to oppose the danger of fascism. The have helped legitimize the extreme right. By pursuing right-wing policies in the interests of big capital, they have allowed the fascist parties to posture as opponents of the status quo. Moreover, the social democratic and pseudo-left parties have adopted much of the platform of the extreme right, demanding a crackdown on refugees, domestic repression and the remilitarization of society.

Only an independent movement of the working class can oppose the threat posed by the far-right. The objective prerequisites for such a movement are present. Social tensions and the class struggle are growing across Europe, together with opposition to attacks on democratic and social rights and the militarisation of the continent.

Everything now depends upon the building of a new Marxist party to unite the Italian, European and international working class and mobilise its revolutionary potential for the overthrow of capitalism. This urgently poses the task of building sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in Italy and other European countries.

Israel deepens crackdown on human rights advocates, opponents of government’s policies

Josh Varlin

The Israeli government is deepening its crackdown on human rights activists and academics critical of the criminal policy being carried out by Tel Aviv in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

It has initiated unprecedented proceedings to deport Human Rights Watch (HRW)’s Israel and Palestine Director Omar Shakir from Israel, while carrying out similar actions against other human rights advocates.

While a Jerusalem District Court issued an interim injunction on May 23 pausing the deportation, court proceedings on the deportation order are set for next month. Shakir had his work permit revoked and was given a 14-day notice to leave Israel on May 7.

The Interior Ministry ordered Shakir’s deportation after compiling an extensive dossier on his activities stretching back over a decade to his time as a student at Stanford University. The dossier includes tweets and petitions Shakir has signed and alleges that he is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. Neither HRW nor Shakir actively promote BDS, and HRW has noted that only a handful of other countries, including North Korea and Sudan, have restricted their activities.

The injunction was based on the fact that the information used by the Interior Ministry to order Shakir’s deportation—alleged support for BDS—was known before his work permit was granted in the first place.

The mere existence of the dossier will have a chilling effect, as it indicates that other human rights activists and academics in Israel, or who merely publish writing on Israel, have had their political activities monitored by the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs.

A May 25 piece by Shakir in Haaretz notes that “Israel claims to be the region’s only democracy, yet it is deporting a rights defender over his peaceful expression,” and that HRW “has offices in Lebanon, Jordan and Tunisia” and other countries in the region.

Shakir has previously been expelled or blocked from entering other countries due to his activities. “In 2009, Syria denied me a visa after an official said that my writing ‘reflected poorly on the Syrian government,” he notes. “In 2014, I was forced to leave Egypt after I wrote a report for Human Rights Watch documenting the Rab’a Massacre, one of the world’s largest single-day killings of protesters. A year ago, Bahrain held me for 18 hours and denied me entry after I identified myself as working for Human Rights Watch.”

The temporarily delayed deportation of Shakir is in line with Israel’s other recent actions aimed at restricting the movement of human rights activists and even elected officials.

Katherine Franke and Vincent Warren [Source Twitter]

Israeli authorities denied entry to Katherine Franke, a human rights activist and professor at Columbia University, on April 29 due to her political views. An anonymous spokesman for the Strategic Affairs Ministry confirmed to Haaretz that she was prevented from entering the country because of her alleged “prominent role” with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which supports BDS.

Franke was one of four human rights activists detained for 14 hours by Israeli immigration authorities before being deported. The four were part of the “Justice Delegation,” consisting mostly of American activists who went to visit Israel and Palestine and speak to organizations and activists. Franke, who is the chair of the board of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), was to lead the delegation along with Vincent Warren, CCR’s executive director.

The other two deported activists asked not to be identified.

Franke is the Sulzbacher Professor of Law, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Columbia University in New York City, and is also a member of the Executive Committee of Columbia’s Center for Palestine Studies. Her faculty page notes that “she works regularly in Palestine, most recently serving as an academic mentor for the human rights faculty at Al Quds University in East Jerusalem.”

Warren, formerly an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said: “The Israeli government denied us entry, apparently because it feared letting in people who might challenge its policies. This is something that we should neither accept nor condone from a country that calls itself a democracy.”

During her interrogation, Franke was presented with supposed “proof” of her ties to BDS-supporting organizations, in the form of what she believes were articles taken from right-wing Zionist websites that post information about critics of Israel. Franke told Democracy Now! that “the security personnel of the Israeli government have assigned to private, right-wing, unreliable trolls the job of deciding who is a security risk and who isn’t.”

She was also told that she was going to Palestine to promote BDS, which she pointed out was false—they were there to witness human rights violations—and illogical—promoting BDS in Palestine does not make sense, as “BDS takes place elsewhere.”

After being harshly interrogated and fingerprinted, Franke was told that she has been banned from Israel for five years, although her deportation order does not mention a ban. Warren told the press that he was told that he would be deported even before his interrogation. The Israeli government absurdly claims that Warren left voluntarily.

Franke has previously supported Steven Salaita, whose appointment as a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was revoked because of his tweets protesting the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians during the 2014 war against Gaza.

Less than two weeks after Franke was deported, Israel launched air strikes against Iranian positions in Syria, highlighting the acute risk of a regional war involving at least Israel and Iran, and potentially Saudi Arabia and the United States. The ultimate aim of Tel Aviv, backed to the hilt and encouraged by Washington, is regime change in Tehran.

Moreover, Franke’s deportation came only weeks before the expected culmination of weeks of protests by Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinians are protesting the apartheid-like conditions under which they live, including the debilitating blockade by Israel and Egypt. The Israeli response has been to kill over 100 protesters and injure thousands more. Notorious videos depict unarmed protesters shot by Israeli sniper fire.

In April, Israeli authorities denied Patrice Leclerc, the mayor of Gennevilliers, France, entry to the West Bank due to his support for BDS. The same month, they attempted to deny Dublin Lord Mayor Mícheál Mac Donncha entry, but due to a clerical error he was let through. Before returning to Ireland, Mac Donncha signed a document saying he would not reenter the country without permission.

The crackdown by the Zionist state on its critics, including BDS proponents and human rights officials, is symptomatic of the growing crisis of the Israeli ruling class as it attempts to divert growing social contradictions outward in the form of war.

Harley-Davidson workers’ anger grows over impending Kansas City plant closure

Marcus Day

Anger among workers at Harley-Davidson continues to build over the planned closure of the motorcycle manufacturer’s Kansas City, Missouri assembly plant. Fueling the outrage is the company’s brazen display of corporate greed, as they revealed weeks later that they would be showering investors with hundreds of millions of dollars more in dividends and stock buybacks.

The initial announcement of the plant closure on January 30 came on the heels of the enactment of President Donald Trump’s corporate tax-cut package. The news was an embarrassment for the Trump administration and refuted claims by Republican Party officials and their media mouthpieces that the legislation would benefit American workers through better job security and higher wages.

Trump, who lauded Harley-Davidson executives when they visited the White House in February 2017, asserted at the time—baselessly—that the company was “going to even expand” following the slashing of corporate taxes. “We want to make it easier for businesses to create more jobs and more factories in the United States, and you’re a great example of it,” he added.

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, visiting a Harley plant in Wisconsin the following September, said, “Tax reform can put American manufacturers and American companies like Harley-Davidson on a much better footing to compete in the global economy and keep jobs in America.”

Harley has stated that its effective tax rate for 2018 will drop by roughly 10 percentage points, from approximately 35 percent to 25 percent or less. With annual pre-tax income of around $1 billion, the company stands to save nearly $100 million per year.

As Harley’s decision to close its Kansas City plant demonstrates, the corporate tax cut bonanza was intended from the beginning solely to enrich American companies’ wealthy executives and investors, while doing nothing to improve workers’ living standards let alone prevent future layoffs or factory closures. Meanwhile, the reduction in government tax revenue as a result of the cuts is being used to justify massive reductions to social services, public education, health care, and other programs on which the working class and poor rely.

As Rick Pence, a worker with over 20 years at the Kansas City plant, told MSNBC, “When the tax cut finally rolled down to us, I got about $16, $17 more a week. But now Harley’s giving me one heck of a tax cut, ‘cause I won’t have no income at all next year.”

“They’re just pulling the rug out from underneath us. Putting 800 people out on the street, and all our families, too.”

Adding insult to injury, workers were not informed of the decision until the morning the company released the news to the press. Workers were kept in a hallway, told the plant would be shut down, and sent home for the day without pay, according to a report by the online news site Vox.

Harley has claimed that it had no choice but to shut down its Kansas City plant in the face of flagging sales, with those in the US declining 12 percent in the first quarter of this year. Nervous over recent reports of workers’ anger over the plant closure, the company blocked the press from attending its annual shareholders meeting on May 10, while writing in a statement, “Unfortunately there is nothing that could have been done to address the pressure of excess capacity we have in the US market.”

However, these claims are contradicted by the company’s recent moves to open the spigots and transfer enormous sums of money to its shareholders.

Less than a week following the news of the closure of the Kansas City factory, Harley announced that it would increase its dividend and initiate the repurchase of an additional 15 million shares, valued at $696 million.

In an April conference call with Wall Street analysts, Harley Chief Financial Officer John Olin obliquely referred to plans for layoffs and restructuring as a “multiyear manufacturing optimization initiative…[which] will simplify our manufacturing footprint,” while emphasizing the company’s determination to enrich its investors, stating, “Beyond what we invest in the business we will return and continue to return all excess cash to our shareholders.”

The inflation of Harley’s stock price will overwhelmingly benefit a handful of major financial institutions. Just ten firms control nearly sixty percent of Harley’s shares, while the top three—Capital Research Global Investors, the Vanguard Group, and BlackRock—own approximately 30 percent of Harley’s shares.

Harley’s looting of workers’ livelihoods in order to give ever-larger windfalls to the financial aristocracy is by no means an aberration, but rather increasingly the norm. Corporations have spent  at least $158 billion on stock buybacks in the first three months of 2018, and analysts from Goldman Sachs expect that corporate spending on buybacks and dividends will continue at the current record pace, topping $1.2 trillion by the end of the year.

While the corporations are accelerating their drive to transfer billions of dollars and more from the working class to their coffers, the trade unions are doing everything possible to block a collective fight back, and instead are promoting illusions in appeals to the Trump administration, while simultaneously seeking to whip up national chauvinism and direct workers’ anger against their brothers and sisters in other countries.

Following the announcement by Harley in 2017 that it would be opening a plant in Thailand, Robert Martinez, Jr., the president of the International Association of Machinists (IAM), which represents most of the workers at the Kansas City plant, said, “It’s a slap in the face to the US workers who built an American icon.” In March, Martinez wrote a letter to Trump, saying it was “galling” that the company supported jobs overseas, and appealing to the president to intervene with Harley executives. “Our nation deserves better,” he said.

The nationalism promoted by the unions, based on the lie that American workers and corporations share the same interests, dovetails with the “America First” chauvinist populism peddled by Trump and his fascistic advisers.

In reality, the true allies of Harley workers in Kansas City are not the criminal billionaire politicians such as Trump, but rather the millions of workers in South America, Asia, Europe and beyond, who share the same class interests as workers in the US. If workers are to conduct a successful fight against plant closures and in defense of secure, safe, good-paying jobs, wages and benefits, they must break with the pro-capitalist unions and form their own democratically elected organizations—rank-and-file factory committees—that unite with workers internationally in a common struggle.

Sri Lanka and the World: Whither Political Prudence?

Asanga Abeyagoonasekera

There is piercing hopelessness for the future when listening to certain political rhetoric in Sri Lanka. The International Workers Day, a day to remember workers’ rights, was initiated from the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago. It grew from a general strike for the eight-hour workday and has over time developed into a showcase of political muscle at the May Day rally. The competition among the political parties is to generate the most amount of crowd moving out of the initial idea.

The line that divides the opposition and government in Sri Lankan politics has been blurred by a bipartisan mechanism introduced by the incumbent government. It is further blurred with 16 Sri Lanka Freedom Party ministers having become part of the joint opposition or ambiguous in their political affiliation. Political party loyalty and discipline has reached the lowest ebb in Sri Lankan politics.

The appointment of cabinet ministers in the beginning of this month to what the largest cabinet in the world is perhaps has been questioned by former members of the former government who claim there is no scientific basis to the allocation of ministries to particular individuals. Yet such an accusation leaves the general public to wonder if the previous government itself had a mechanism to select its cabinet ministers. Although there was a message to the public from certain politicians including a senior cabinet Minister who said “Cabinet reshuffle will take place in a scientific manner” and that a “scientific formula” was introduced to allocate ministers, the substance of the formula was not revealed to the public. A government should allocate its cabinet ministers based on merit and achievements in their area/s of expertise even though party leaders will be limited to selecting only 25 out of 225 members. Whatever the “scientific formula” used was, it will not give results because most members of parliament were elected from a grave miscalculation, and not based on merit.

Sri Lankan political scientist Dr Jayadeva Uyangoda rightly calls for academic scrutiny of this changing behavior of political party members towards their leadership, especially on the question of party discipline/indiscipline changing the dynamics of Sri Lanka’s political party system. According to Dr Uyangoda, “Sri Lanka’s political parties have become new creatures with some unusually new characteristics. Monitoring these new changes requires not only scholarly vigilance, but also detachment from our old images of what democratic political institutions are.” The new creature created by the system sows confusion for political society. 

Moving from domestic political society to the international, China’s President Xi Jinping recently spoke of Karl Marx’s idea of the struggle of the proletariat, the ideal that underpins some international workers’ movements. Xi said, “Writing Marxism onto the flag of the Chinese Communist party was totally correct.” Two centuries since Marx’s death, while advancing a much more open economic system, the leader of the second largest economy of the world said Marx is “the greatest thinker of modern times.” As a rising power, China liberalised its economy and ushered in globalisation to move millions out of poverty. 

Closer home in South Asia, India took up a somewhat similar formula. As China and India underwent these changes, their respective foreign policies were impacted. After 1990, with the end of the Cold War era, India underwent two important adjustments to its foreign policy: first was economic liberalisation and deregulation; and the second was India’s changing relationship with the US. In their book, India at the Global High Table: The Quest for Regional Primacy and Strategic Autonomy, ambassadors Teresita and Howard Schaffer correctly identify this phenomenon. Over 50 years ago, the classical realist international relations theorist Hans Morgenthau had explained that “The character of foreign policy can be ascertained only through the examination of the political acts performed and of the foreseeable consequences of these acts.” By assessing given actions, one could evaluate what statesmen have actually done for the foreign policies of their countries and the profound impact on the outlook towards the world outside. Sri Lanka, with its middle path idealistic foreign policy, is stuck somewhat in the non-aligned past, which needs re-calibration towards a more realistic approach in this century. The idealistic view adopted in the past could be due to the influence of Buddhist values towards our leaders.

Today, China has expanded its trade with US. Nonetheless, in the past few weeks, Beijing has faced a serious trade war with Washington due to the US Department of Commerce ban on ZTE, one of the largest Chinese telecommunications companies in the US. In February 2018, US intelligence agencies warned Americans against buying products from ZTE and Huawei, another Chinese telecom company, claiming that the companies posed a security threat to American customers. The chairman of ZTE called this “unfair and unacceptable,” decrying the US export ban as a massive disruption to its business since the company relies on US firms for key smartphone components. 

This incident is a clear indication of how national security plays out in the present context despite an open trade policy. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka has opened its gates for the lowest price with a high percentage of telecommunication infrastructure based on ZTE and Huawei products. Such a predicament was anticipated and highlighted during a discussion of experts from national security think tanks in Sri Lanka a year ago. Its outcome was circulated among the highest policy makers. 

Should such warnings from experts go unheeded?

Japanese and Russian leaders meet to discuss economic and security concerns

Gary Alvernia

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Russia on Saturday, on the sidelines of the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum. Economic and security concerns dominated the talks, underlined by the unpredictable outcome of the United States’ approaches toward North Korea and continuing fraught geopolitical tensions.

Putin told a joint press conference the talks were “very constructive and business-like.” Both leaders spoke on the need to resolve the territorial dispute over the four southernmost Kuril Islands (which Japan refers to as the Northern Territories) and conclude a peace treaty to formally end World War II between the two countries. The Soviet Union occupied the islands during the war.

Abe and Putin hinted there could be a resolution to the issue at some point in the future. They agreed that a Japanese business delegation would go to the islands to work on joint economic projects, and former Japanese residents could return to the islands for the first time to visit relatives’ graves.

Abe stated: “The Japanese and the Russians will be able to reap the fruits of the joint work on the islands. If we cooperate, we can achieve great results that bring mutual benefit.” The Japanese prime minister indicated in January the importance he is putting on Russia, saying it had “the most potential of any bilateral relationship.”

Despite the public pleasantries, tensions remain between Tokyo and Moscow. Japan is planning to deploy one of two Aegis Ashore missile batteries to cover the northern part of the country and almost certainly the disputed islands.

In response to this deployment, Moscow has held military exercises on the islands this year, involving thousands of troops. It has also converted a civilian airport on Iturup, one of the four disputed territories, into a base capable of hosting military aircraft for the first time since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

As with all territorial disputes in Asia, the rival claims over the Kuril Islands are used to stoke nationalism and project domestic tensions outward, and in the case of Japan, to paint itself as a victim and provide another rationale for remilitarisation.

Furthermore, while Abe said he and Putin discussed the issues on the Korean Peninsula in detail, the two leaders did not speak at great length on North Korea, suggesting key differences exist.

Japan has called for continued pressure on North Korea, which has included threats of military action, but Russia has taken a different approach. Putin told the press conference that “every side in the process should exercise restraint, preventing any further confrontation.” This was a reference not only to North Korea, but to the United States and Japan.

Russia has largely sided with China in the dispute over the Korean Peninsula. Beijing has regularly called for the resumption of the six-party talks over North Korea’s nuclear program, which would include Russia, allowing both to have their security concerns heard. Beijing has sharply criticised the deployment of a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in South Korea, ostensibly directed at the North, and the ballistic missile systems in Japan.

China and Russia, which both share a border with North Korea, correctly fear that these missile systems and accompanying radar systems are being used to spy on their territories and could be deployed against them if a larger war breaks out. Washington earlier this year said it was preparing for great power conflicts with both China and Russia.

The United States is concerned that Japan’s relationship with Moscow will cut across Washington’s rabid anti-Russia campaign. Last year, trade between Japan and Russia grew by approximately 25 percent, amounting to $US18.3 billion. Japan, the world’s largest importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), receives 10 percent of that total from Russia.

Tokyo still publicly states that the US is “the foundation of peace, prosperity and freedom not only in Japan but also across the Asia-Pacific region,” according to its 2018 Diplomatic Bluebook. Yet, Tokyo was caught off guard by Trump’s announcement of a summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and fears being left out of any negotiations.

In addition, the US tariffs on aluminum and steel, as well as Trump’s threatened tariffs on automobiles, brought a sharp rebuke from Abe on Wednesday. He told parliament: “From a security perspective, it’s very difficult to understand why this would be imposed on Japan, a military ally.”

While a sharp change in US-Japan relations is unlikely in the near future, these emerging cracks highlight the inter-imperialist rivalries between the two nations. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which has close connections to the US Defense Department, pointed out following the Abe-Putin summit that Tokyo fears Washington’s anti-Russia campaign is pushing Moscow toward a front with China, at the expense of Japan’s security interests.

While the CSIS called for the US and Japan “to stay joined at the hip” in their response to matters in East Asia, the Trump administration’s actions on trade and lack of communication on North Korea are contributing to a wedge between the two allies.

Ultimately, Japan hopes that it can win enough favour with Russia to prevent a growing Moscow-Beijing relationship, which would negatively affect Tokyo’s imperialist designs on the Asian mainland. The growing isolationist sentiment of the US is bringing tensions, once hidden behind the phony talk about “democratic values” or “human rights,” to the surface. Regardless of any potential deal with North Korea in coming weeks, these tensions will only sharpen.

Bangladesh & Nuclear Power: Significance for India

Tarika Rastogi


The Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP) in Bangladesh has the potential to re-energise India-Russia cooperation and significantly enhance India's geopolitical clout and standing in the nuclear community. 

The RNPP (whose construction began in 2013) will be Bangladesh's first and is being constructed by Rosatom (State Atomic Energy Corporation, Russia). It is the first atomic energy project in a third country under an India-Russia deal where Indian companies train the workforce while Russia builds the reactor. The RNPP involves two units, each with a capacity of 1200MW. Built on a turnkey basis, Rosatom will manage the entire project and will be liable for any complications that arise in the plant. The estimated cost of the project is US$12.65 billion; of which, the Russian government will provide 90 per cent of the cost on 1.75 per cent interest. The Bangladeshi government would arrange the remaining 10 per cent. The loan will be settled 28 years after the plant becomes operational, and, if required, a grace period of an additional 10 years period would be provided.

For India, this is important for a variety of reasons, foremost of which would be the exposure to international project management. This involves being closely associated with all stages of construction, albeit on an observer basis to ensure knowledge of construction and then acting as an interface between the Russian engineers and the Bangladeshi operators. This is an important role of understanding, translating and transmitting information, the lack of which can result in severe cost overruns—as was seen in the Olkiluoto 3 reactor in Eurajoki, Finland. Moreover, it will mean the adaptation or development of a new set of standards, guidelines and legal frameworks to deal with holistic nuclear plant management such as safety (from sabotage or terrorism, static or during transport); countering the possibility of pilferage and smuggling; setting up emergency response centres; and cyber security to name but a few. It will give India the opportunity to stress test frameworks it will develop from this and similar projects in Vietnam and Sri Lanka. The knowledge gained through these projects enhances India’s credibility and enables it to further undertake such projects as a knowledge partner.

The knowledge and human aspect here are particularly important as it leverages India's experience with several generations of Russian reactors. The training of a diverse set of Bangladeshi experts from operational to supervisory and regulatory staff in much the same way as graduating from Western universities creates a point of reference and peer approval of an alumna network; and such training essentially makes Bangladesh's emerging nuclear experts dependent on and therefore closely linked to the Indian nuclear ecosystem, in most human aspects. What is particularly important here is that this will be the first 3rd generation Russian reactor that India has dealt with, as opposed to India's Russian reactors which are second generation. This means India has internalised the operational philosophy of Russian reactors and can provide more culturally sensitive training to third countries in a brand new design from its construction stage; and as such this marks a significant increase in Indian human capital generation.

All of this required much sustained effort from the Russian and Indian sides. It did not develop in a vacuum but out of a deliberate plan. In 2014, Russia and India signed a strategic vision (Strategic Vision for Strengthening Cooperation in Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy) under which both countries will explore opportunities of sourcing materials, equipment and services from Indian industry for the construction of Russian-designed nuclear power plants in third countries. In this regard, the Russian Nuclear Agency, Rosatom, opened a regional centre in Mumbai in 2016 to facilitate projects in the region to facilitate greater Indian inputs and suppliers. This is significant because it represents the first seemingly successful attempt by both countries to break the traditional relationship that was focused on fossil fuel and military sales.

This is also good for India's reputation on the international stage. First, it validates the 2008 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) exception for India, showcasing its credentials as a responsible country in the international nuclear market. Moreover, given the visible lack of a functioning export worth reactor in India, the provision of knowledge services to third party nuclear reactors augments India's case for membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). The very fact that this is being carried out in partnership with Russia—a country that China is increasingly drawing closer to and one that disagrees with China on India's NSG membership—is significant as may create a point of friction between China and Russia. This becomes even more important given how Chinese projects in the region are either extractive or financially unsustainable, whereas the RNPP is designed to give Bangladesh clean energy and energy security on a financially sustainable basis.

India should consider this project as a stepping-stone to becoming an international knowledge partner for third country reactors. Such projects are a low risk, high yield way of gaining institutional links with other countries and greatly enhance the capability and credibility of India's nuclear industry as well as its standards, procedures, safety and security.

Rohingya refugees face catastrophe in Bangladesh

Rohantha De Silva

With the monsoon season about to start in Bangladesh, the plight of Rohingya refugees in the Cox’s Bazar district in the country’s south, is about to drastically worsen.

Around 900,000 refugees, including those who have fled Myanmar since last August to escape attacks by Burmese military and Buddhist supremacists, are living in flimsy bamboo shelters spread across steep hillsides and in flood-prone valleys and islands.

Rohingya in Myanmar’s northwestern Rakhine state are an oppressed Muslim minority. They were stripped of their citizenship rights in 1982 and have faced numerous anti-democratic restrictions and periodic violence. Around 200,000 Rohingya were already living in Bangladesh before the recent wave of refugees.

Many refugees are living without adequate clean water, sanitary facilities, health care and food. According to a Daily Star report, the UN refugee agency, UNHRC, estimates that up to 200,000 Rohingya are at risk from landslides, floods and outbreak of epidemics this monsoon season.

The UN has admitted that it is “very unlikely” that bamboo community shelters would survive cyclones and the World Health Organisation warned there could be “massive loss of lives” when the monsoons hit.

Despite widespread sympathy among ordinary Bangladeshis for the Rohingya, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasani’s Awami League government initially tried to block the most recent refugees from entering Bangladesh and is attempting to push them back into Myanmar.

As for the major global powers, they describe the Rohingya as “the world’s most persecuted minority” and feign “concern.” This is entirely hypocritical.

While UNHRC and its partners launched a $US950 million Joint Response Plan this year to provide minimum facilities, only 16 percent of the required funds have been received. A World Health Organisation (WHO) situation report on May 24 said it needed $113.1 million, but had only received 6.3 percent of this amount.

The UK’s department for international development has boasted that it was one of the “biggest” providers of humanitarian aid to Rohingya in Bangladesh, but it has only donated $172 million. The US claims to have given Bangladesh $163 million in refugee aid since last August.

These amounts from are a drop on the ocean and a tiny fraction of the annual military expenditures of these imperialist countries.

US President Donald Trump has written to Bangladesh Prime Minister Hasina declaring that his government will “continue to pressure” Myanmar in order to create the necessary conditions for a return of Rohingya.

Trump’s statement, however, has nothing to do with sympathy for the plight of refugees. Washington wants to maintain close relations with Bangladesh whilst at the same time keeping political pressure on Myanmar so that it adheres to the US’s geo-political agenda in the Asia-Pacific. Both Myanmar and Bangladesh are strategically important for Washington and its increasingly aggressive efforts to undermine Chinese influence in the region.

For months, Washington and its allies ignored or downplayed the Burmese military’s brutal operations in the Rakhine state against the Rohingya minority, which began last August.

The Trump administration is currently exploiting the banner of “human rights” to put pressure on the Burmese military and the National League for Democracy (NLD) government of Aung San Suu Kyi to distance itself from Beijing.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh authorities have no serious plans to evacuate refugees to safe places. In fact, the Bangladesh government announced plans earlier this year to send 100,000 refugees to Bhasan Char, a muddy, uninhabited island. The low-lying island is prone to flooding and other dangers, including pirates and human traffickers.

Sinohydro, a Chinese construction company, has been engaged to build a $US280 million, 13-kilometre flood-defence embankment but this will do little to prevent the disasters created by the monsoons.

Aid agencies in Bangladesh have warned of a disastrous situation. Early this month Francesco Segoni, emergency coordinator for Doctors without Border (MSF), said: “Where relocation is already happening, sanitation and hygiene conditions are below the minimum standards. When the rain comes, not only do we anticipate flooding and landslides… [but] an “exponential increase in the risk of a [disease] outbreak. Latrines will go underwater; contamination seems inevitable. We are bracing for the worst.”

Referring to the lack of safe water, Segoni said: “The provision of clean drinking water is an absolute priority in the camps. It’s as much a lifesaving activity as our medical work. We are racing against time to reach out to new areas and keep up with the ever-evolving context.”

Deputy South Asia Director for Amnesty International Omar Waraich has raised doubts about the Bhasan Char island plan. “No one in the humanitarian community who we spoke to thought this was a good idea. This is a silt island that only emerged into view [above the sea] recently,” he told the media. People have been killed and homes destroyed by monsoons in the nearby Sandwip Island.

One refuge, Jahid Hussain, told the press that he would not relocate to Bhasan Char, which means floating island, but “would rather die right here.”

H. T. Imam, a political adviser to Prime Minister Hasina, told Reuters that sending Rohingya to Bhasan Char was a “temporary measure.” The refugees would not be given Bangladeshi passports or ID cards and would be allowed to leave only if they were returning to Burma or a third country.

Between 40 and 50 armed officers will be stationed on the island, Imam said, while cynically declaring “it’s not a concentration camp.”

Over 10,000 jobs at risk at Deutsche Bank

Gustav Kemper

In the last two and a half years, Deutsche Bank has slashed 6,000 jobs and closed 188 branches. Now the global workforce of 97,000 is to be further reduced to “well below 90,000,” the newly appointed chief executive of the bank, Christian Sewing, told shareholders at a meeting last week.

Some shareholders, pointing out that rival banks compete with half the staff, clearly expect even more layoffs. The Handelsblatt business paper quoted internal sources who remarked, “Behind closed doors the target figure (for total staff) is more like 85,000.”

Last weekend witnessed the legal completion of the merger between the private and corporate businesses of Deutsche Bank and Postbank, which is also expected to be the prelude to further job cuts. The new company, with the name “DB Privat-und Firmenkundenbank AG,” will be based at Deutsche Banks’ Frankfurt headquarters. Financial circles anticipate a reduction in staff of around 15 percent.

An annual reduction of 1,500 jobs at Postbank over the next four years is already in process. Employees will be forced to “voluntarily” quit their jobs over the next four years via redundancy programs and the non-replacement of vacant posts. The contractually agreed protection against dismissal is due to expire in mid-2021 and the entire program resembles a form of blackmail.

A large proportion of the redundancies are planned in Deutsche Bank’s investment sector, from which the bank plans to withdraw after realigning its strategy. Some 600 investment bankers in the United States have already left the bank in the course of the past seven weeks. In the US there is no protection against dismissal. In all, the bank will provide €800 million for severance payments in the current year.

At the annual general meeting, the new boss was applauded by shareholders after announcing the job cuts. All agreed that the job losses were necessary and overdue, particularly with regard to the increasing digitization of the financial industry, where Deutsche Bank lags behind.

The union Verdi, whose representatives sit on the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank and in 2017 approved bonus payments of €2.2 billion for the firm’s top investment bankers, sought to play down the significance of the planned job cuts. In such discussions it was “urgently necessary to include the works councils,” tweeted Jan Duschek, who heads the union’s banking section. The union, relying on the works councils, has agreed to a steady loss of jobs in recent years.

Deutsche Bank has been in turmoil since the onset of the financial crisis 11 years ago. Its share price has fallen 35 percent this year alone. Before the start of the financial crisis in 2007 its share price fluctuated around €91. On Monday it fell below €10. In 2015, Deutsche Bank recorded a record loss of €6.8 billion and has continued to incur substantial losses since.

After the bank’s profit in the first quarter of 2018 fell by 80 percent compared to last year, its CEO, John Cryan, was fired and replaced by Christian Sewing, the head of the bank’s private customer business. At the annual meeting, Sewing announced a change of strategy and demanded the “necessary hard measures” to enforce it.

Business newspapers have sought to find culprits for the bank’s crisis among its previous executives. They argue that former CEO Josef Ackermann had allowed the uncontrolled expansion of Deutsche Bank into the field of investment banking, while his successor, Anshu Jain, had tolerated illegal transactions and secret deals, and last but not least, CEO John Cryan had failed to reorganise the bank quickly enough.

In reality, the problem does not primarily lie with the mistakes of individual managers, but rather in the crisis of the entire financial sector, where banks all over the world are struggling for market share and using increasingly criminal means to compete. In the late 1970s, when gains were being made more quickly through speculation in financial markets than through investment in industry, Deutsche Bank followed suit, ditching its traditional business model known as “Rhenish capitalism.”

The former close interdependence of bank and corporate boards, which controlled and protected each other, was dissolved. Instead, stock markets determined the strategy of the corporations.

With the takeover of the London investment bank Morgan Grenfell in 1992 and the New York Bankers Trust Company seven years later, Deutsche Bank sought to compete for world market leadership against the biggest American investment banks.

Like many other financial institutions, Deutsche Bank participated in criminal mortgage transactions, Libor interest rate manipulation, money laundering for Russian oligarchs and other shady and criminal practices. According to a study by the London CCP Research Foundation, Deutsche Bank had to pay fines of more than $14 billion between 2010 and 2014. The bank still faces more than 7,000 legal suits. Last year alone it set aside a total of €3.2 billion for legal claims.

The bank’s attempt to compete with the big investment banks has “crashed with a bang,” according to financial analysts. The future holds a wealth of other dangers. The growing trade war between the US, Europe and China, the crises in the Middle East, North Korea and the Ukraine, a hard Brexit or interest rate hikes could all spark a new banking crisis more serious than that of 2008.

German industrial circles regard this prospect with great concern. Already two years ago, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the mouthpiece of the German business world, warned: “German companies do not want to just rely on American investment banks … they want a reliable partner from the home market by their side. This role cannot be filled by other German banks such as Commerzbank. The German economy needs a healthy Deutsche Bank.”

The German government is also worried about the crisis at Deutsche Bank. Social Democratic Party Finance Minister Olaf Scholz told the press that the government needed a bank that was a “global player.”

This was precisely the promise made by the new head of Deutsche Bank at its shareholders’ meeting. The firm was to become a “bank for Germany” of which one could be proud again. The price will be paid by its employees.

Growing tensions over New Zealand’s ties to China

John Braddock

New Zealand’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Winston Peters, last week concluded his first trip to China, after several months in which he had played a key role in fomenting tensions over Beijing’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Peters, who leads the populist, anti-Asian New Zealand First Party in the Labour Party-led coalition government, will next month assume the role of acting prime minister when Labour leader Jacinda Ardern takes maternity leave.

During the three-day visit, Peters met Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi and other high-ranking officials, including Politburo member and former Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, and the Minister of the Communist Party International Department Song Tao.

Peters said they had “excellent discussions on issues of direct relevance for peace and security in the Asia-Pacific... and resolved to stay in close touch as we continue to encourage all parties to find a path to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, including through the North complying with all relevant UN Security Council Resolutions.”

Peters added that the trip ended with “an agreement for future high level visits between the two countries to maintain and build on the bilateral relationship.” The next round of discussions on the New Zealand-China Free Trade Agreement (FTA) are to begin in June.

China is New Zealand’s second largest trading partner after Australia. The FTA, signed in 2008, has almost tripled bilateral trade and discussions about an “upgrade” of the deal were formally launched in late 2016.

Peters’ trip took place amid increasingly bitter conflicts between Beijing and Washington over trade and the Trump administration’s belligerence over North Korea and the South China Sea. Washington is intensifying its struggle to maintain American hegemony and has identified Russia and China as its main strategic rivals.

New Zealand has sought to maintain an ever-more fraught balancing act between its traditional military alliance with the US and economic reliance on China. Addressing a China Business Summit in Auckland earlier this month, Ardern said her government intended to “ramp up” engagement with China. However, she expressed caution over Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative, the multi-billion-dollar infrastructure and investment plan to link China with the rest of the world and counter Washington. Ardern said New Zealand was “still considering” how it would “engage” with the plan.

The 2008–2017 National Party government signed a “memorandum of agreement” to work with China on the initiative. In a speech to the Sydney-based Lowy institute in March, however, Peters lashed out at the decision to sign the agreement “so quickly” and suggested the new government should not feel bound by the deal.

Peters promoted the government’s “Pacific reset,” a policy aimed at maintaining New Zealand’s neo-colonial position in the increasingly “contested strategic space,” in an alliance with the US, Australia and European powers. The government’s recent budget included almost $1 billion in foreign affairs spending, mostly for aid and development in the Pacific region, while billions are being spent on the military.

Labour and NZ First have for years sought to whip up anti-Chinese xenophobia in order to more closely align New Zealand with the US military build-up. Following last September’s election, the government banned house purchases from overseas, promised to cut immigration by up to 40 percent and signalled restrictions on Chinese investment. Peters called for an inquiry into foreign “interference,” demanding an investigation into Chinese-born National MP Jian Yang, who he denounced as a “Manchurian candidate,” i.e., a Chinese secret agent.

Ahead of his trip, however, Peters indicated he would not raise the Chinese “interference” allegations. “I’m in a job called foreign affairs and diplomacy is rather important,” he declared. Asked whether he would raise issues regarding the South China Sea, Peters said he would not air New Zealand’s position via the media. “The Chinese would not have any respect for me if I did that, and I do want them to respect me,” he said.

In fact, the government has already made clear its alignment with Washington’s stance. Last November, Ardern said New Zealand would “intervene in North Korea if backed by a United Nations resolution.” She opposed Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, claiming New Zealand’s position was based on “international law” and the need for “consensus on a code of conduct.” These terms echo the “rules based order” invoked by the US—whereby it sets the “rules”—to assert its strategic interests against China.

Washington is now intensifying its pressure on the New Zealand government over its links with China. Hillary Clinton, former US secretary of state and failed 2016 presidential candidate, told an Auckland audience this month that China’s attempt to gain political power and influence is part of “a new global battle.”

Clinton claimed that Beijing is much more active in the Pacific and intent on “dominating its part of the globe through soft power and the projection of its military capabilities.” Clinton cited the work of NATO-funded Christchurch academic Anne-Marie Brady, who has called for New Zealand’s intelligence agencies to take action against Chinese “influence” in NZ politics and business.

The military-intelligence apparatuses in NZ, Australia and the US are demanding stepped-up anti-democratic surveillance measures. Testifying at an Australian Senate hearing last week, Duncan Lewis, head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), demanded the urgent passage of the government’s “foreign interference” bills to help combat the “threat” of “foreign interference” on an “unprecedented scale.”

Meanwhile, in a Washington hearing of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in April, former CIA analyst Peter Mattis called for a review of New Zealand’s membership in the US-led Five Eyes intelligence alliance, considered to be a “cornerstone” of New Zealand’s external security arrangements.

Mattis claimed the NZ Labour Party had accepted money from donors with links to the Chinese Communist Party, while former Prime Minister Bill English had “routinely” briefed Jian Yang on China-related matters. Mattis did not offer any evidence for his claims.

Mattis told the hearing: “Australia and New Zealand both face substantial problems with interference by the Chinese Communist Party, [...which has] gotten very close to or inside the political core, if you will, of both countries.”

Labour’s General Secretary Andrew Kirton said the party followed the law on donations and had no idea which donor the testimony referred to. National Party leader Simon Bridges said it was “completely false” that English had routinely shared information. Bridges added, however, that the commission hearing showed there was “a growing mistrust of this government in the US.”

Also this month, a report published by Canadian Security Intelligence Service, China and the Age of Strategic Rivalry, stated: “New Zealand is valuable to China, as well as to other states such as Russia, as a soft underbelly through which to access Five Eyes intelligence.”

Ardern refused to comment on the report, telling the Newsroom website she had had “no indication that our Five Eyes membership is under question.”

Speaking to the New Zealand Herald on May 26, Victoria University academic Van Jackson warned Wellington against being seen as taking insufficient action in response to Washington’s “perceptions.” Jackson, who has worked in the Office of the US Secretary of Defence, said NZ so far had pushed the line that “there’s nothing to see here.” Jackson added that such a response “shows there is a problem” in US-NZ relations.

Zayed Future Energy Prize of US$3 million for Entrepreneurs 2019

Application Deadline: 9th August 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All countries in The Americas, Europe, Africa, Oceania and Asia

To be taken at (country): United Arab Emirates

Categories of the Prize: The Zayed Future Energy Prize awards 5 categories:

• Health
• Food
• Energy
• Water
• Global High Schools (1 award for each of the below regions)
  • The Americas, Europe, Africa, Oceania and Asia

About the Award: The Prize fund comes from the Abu Dhabi Government as a way to honour and continue the legacy of the late founding father of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company, manages the Zayed Future Energy Prize. A dedicated team works on the Prize all year round.
This annual award celebrates achievements that reflect impact, innovation, long-term vision and leadership in renewable energy and sustainability. You are invited to be a part of this vision and commitment to finding solutions that will meet the challenges of climate change, energy security and the environment.

Offered Since: 2008

Eligibility: The Zayed Future Energy Prize is open to all entrants other than:  (a) board members and employees of Masdar; and  (b) anyone who has been involved in organising, promoting or judging the Prize.

Selection Criteria: The Prize criteria for all categories are: Innovation, Impact, Leadership and Long-Term Vision.

Number of Awardees: several

Value of Awards: The total Prize fund is US $3 million, distributed as such:

• Health  – US$ 600,000 (Six hundred thousand dollars)
• Food      – US$ 600,000 (Six hundred thousand dollars)
• Energy  – US$ 600,000 (Six hundred thousand dollars)
• Water   – US$ 600,000 (Six hundred thousand dollars)
• Global High Schools   – US$ 600,000 – Total value (Six hundred thousand dollars)
  • Divided amongst 6 Global High Schools in 6 different regions, awarding each up to US$100,000 (One hundred thousand dollars)
  • The Americas
  • Europe & Central Asia
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
  • East Asia & Pacific
  • South Asia
  • MENA

How to Apply: Apply

Visit Award Webpage for details

Award Provider: The Abu Dhabi Government

Important Notes: The submission should be sufficiently detailed and clear to enable the judges to analyse properly and to form a view on all elements of the submission and the nominee.

Women Leaders in Global Health Challenge Contest​ (Funded to London, UK) 2018

Application Deadline: 1st July 2018

Eligible Countries: All. Submissions are encouraged from women from developing countries

To Be Taken At (Country): London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

About the Award: The Contest is looking for creative ideas to make the research year more flexible or spur more women to apply. Individuals who submit exceptional ideas will be supported to join the Women Leaders in Global Health conference in London this November. But more importantly, selected ideas deemed feasible by WHO/TDR will be implemented to increase women’s participation in the fellowship.
 The WHO/TDR clinical research and development fellowship (“the fellowship” in this challenge) provides support for mid-career individuals from low and middle-income countries (LMIC) to spend one year in a high-income country to learn about clinical research. Mid-career is defined as within 10 years of a medical degree or PhD.
Over the past four years, 16-24% of fellowship applicants have been women and about one-quarter of all participants are women. But this is not a simple problem and we need your creative solutions. A wide range of concerns may discourage women from applying, including issues related to moving away from home (finding work for spouses and child care), administrative issues related to going from an LMIC to a high-income country (obtaining visas for spouses, children, and care-givers), and other obligations associated with caregiving. One former fellow explained, “Having worked in the laboratory previously, it was exciting to be involved in work that could see promising candidates become actual products given to communities to save lives. However, I had a baby under 2 years at the time and the thought of leaving her and my older child and husband for a whole year was heart breaking. Besides, I had already been away from my husband while undertaking my PhD in Europe! Was I doing the right thing?”. There may be other barriers that prevent women from applying for this fellowship.

Type: Contest

Eligibility: 

• The contest is open to anyone from any location.
• Ideas from women in low- and middle-income countries are particularly encouraged, but review will be blinded so that judges do not know who submitted each one. Confidentiality will be maintained throughout the challenge contest.

Selection Criteria: Submissions will be judged on a 1-10 scale according to the following three criteria:

1. capacity to increase the number of women who apply and receive WHO/TDR fellowships;
2. feasibility;
3. innovation, defined as different from the current practice used in the fellowship.

Final decisions about semi-finalists will be made by the Steering Committee.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• At least three semi-finalists will be supported (registration, travel, hotel, per diem) to join and present their idea at the Women Leaders in Global Health conference in November 2018.
• Selected finalists will have their idea implemented to increase women’s participation in this fellowship.

How to Apply: Send us your plan to expand women’s participation in a mid-career fellowship from WHO/TDR. This could be a way to more widely disseminate the fellowship call in order to increase awareness, a way to make the fellowship more conducive to women with caregiving obligations, or a way to increase the number of qualified women applicants. Be creative!
Format for submissions: Submissions must be written in English and less than 500 words. Submissions with figures have a 450 word limit.

Apply Here

Visit Programme Webpage for Details