Major fall on Wall Street as interest rates rise

Nick Beams

Wall Street experienced its biggest fall in eight months yesterday, as major indexes dropped by more than 3 percent in the wake of the upward movement of interest rates in the recent period.

The biggest falls were in tech stocks, with the Nasdaq Composite index down by more than 4 percent in its biggest drop since June 2016, following the Brexit referendum in the UK. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was down by 3.3 percent, its biggest decline since February. It has now fallen for five days in a row—its longest losing streak since Donald Trump became president.

The Dow fell 832 points, a drop of 3.2 percent, and the Chloe Volatility Index rose to over 20, its highest level since April, an indication that further volatility is expected.

The main factor behind the fall appears to be the spike in yields (interest rates) on US Treasury bonds, which have risen sharply in recent days to above 3 percent. The sell-off in the bond market and the rise in interest rates (bond prices and interest rates have an inverse relationship) imply a fall in the value of shares, as the Treasury yield is used to discount expected future income flows.

The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond hit a seven-year high of 3.26 percent earlier this week, reflecting the belief that the US Federal Reserve will continue to lift its base rate on expectations of higher US economic growth. While it is not explicitly stated, a key factor in the move by the Fed for higher interest rates is the growing push by workers in the United States for wage rises, with stagnant and falling wages a key factor in promoting the stock market boom over the past nine years.

In its report on the plunge, the Wall Street Journal pointed to the fact that major corporations that have fueled the rise of the market with share buybacks are at present on the sidelines, reluctant to engage in further purchases in advance of the release of third quarter earnings results.

The newspaper reported that S&P 500 companies “have spent a staggering $380 billion on stock repurchases through the first half of this year, with Apple, Cisco and Facebook among the most active buyers of stock.”

The fall on Wall Street prompted a comment from Trump on the Fed’s tightening of interest rates. Trump has continually pointed to the rise of the stock market as indicating the strength of his economic policies.

“I think the Fed is making a mistake,” he said. “They are so tight. I think the Fed has gone crazy.”

A statement from the White House issued by press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also indicated the concern of the administration over the market sell-off. “The fundamentals and future of the US economy remain incredibly strong,” she said. “President Trump’s economic policies are the reasons for these historic successes and they have created a solid base for continued economic growth.”

But as numbers of commentators have pointed out, if that is the case, and the US economy is sound and growing, then the Fed should be increasing interest rates more rapidly in order to lift them from the historic lows of the period following the 2008 crisis to more normal levels.

In announcing the latest increase in September, Fed chairman Jerome Powell said interest rates were still “accommodative” and the central bank was moving to a position where they would be neutral, but they were probably “a long way from neutral” at present—an indication that the Fed expects further tightening.

The comments by Trump and the statement from the White House on the market fall point to concerns within the administration that, far from a reflecting the strength of the US economy, the surging stock market may be a house of cards extremely vulnerable to a tightening of financial conditions.

While the immediate outcome of the latest sell-off is unclear, numerous reports on the state of the global financial system ten years after the 2008 crash have pointed to the creation of conditions for another disaster produced by the very measures—ultra-low interest rates and the injection of trillions of dollars—that were used to prop up the global financial system.

In its latest Global Financial Stability Report, produced for its semi-annual meeting being held this week in Bali, Indonesia, the International Monetary Fund said that while regulatory frameworks had been enhanced and the banking system had been made stronger, “new vulnerabilities had emerged, and the reliance of the global financial system has yet to be tested.”

It said medium-term risks to global financial stability remain elevated:

“A number of vulnerabilities that have built up over the years could be exposed by a sudden sharp tightening of financial conditions. In advanced economies, key financial vulnerabilities include high and rising leverage levels in the nonfinancial sector, continued deterioration in underwriting standards, and stretched asset valuations in some major markets.”

One of the key expressions of “stretched asset valuations” is the record rise of the US stock market, prompted by low interest rates and the increasing use of share buybacks.

The IMF said that while banks had increased their capital and liquidity buffers since the crisis, they remained exposed to highly indebted companies, households and governments and to what it called their “holdings of opaque and illiquid assets.”

The IMF report warned that, as central banks withdraw monetary accommodation, financial conditions would tighten and this could “expose fragilities in the financial system” that have emerged since the global finance crisis.

One of those “fragilities” is the build-up of dollar-denominated debt in emerging market economies.

In a speech delivered earlier this month, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde noted that global debt, both public and private, has now reached an all-time high of $182 trillion—some 60 percent greater than in 2007. This left governments and companies “more vulnerable to a tightening of financial conditions.”

If such tightening were to rapidly accelerate, it could lead to “market corrections,” sharp exchange rate movements and a weakening of capital flows. The IMF has estimated that under such conditions, emerging markets, excluding China, could face a “debt portfolio outflow” of up to $100 billion, an amount equivalent to that in the financial crisis ten years ago.

That alone, she said, should serve as a “wake-up call.” Yesterday’s fall on Wall Street and the somewhat frantic response of the White House may be another indication of the underlying instability of the financial system.

Tech firms have shifted away from “free speech and towards censorship”

Kevin Reed

On Tuesday, the far-right news outlet Breitbart News published a leaked internal briefing by employees at technology giant Google that openly discusses political censorship.

The document observes that “tech firms have gradually shifted away from unmediated free speech and towards censorship and moderation.” In the process, the document states, Google, Facebook and Twitter have sought to emphasize creating “well-ordered spaces for safety and civility” over “unmediated ‘marketplaces of ideas.’”

Breitbart said Google did not deny the veracity of the document, but it wrote that “an official Google source said the document should be considered internal research, and not an official company position.”

The leaked Google document quoted MIT Tech Review editor-in-chief Jason Pontin as saying, “On the global scale, the internet and the social platforms have been a wonderful boon for free speech. The internet has given platforms to billion (sic) of people to express themselves and has made it almost impossible for governments—even in highly controlled nations like China—to control people’s speech effectively.”

But the next page of the briefing declares that “recent global events have undermined this utopian narrative.”

The document explains the “shift towards censorship” by pointing to “commercial” and “government” demands. One aim of censorship is to “Protect advertisers from controversial content, [and] increase revenues,” it declares.

The briefing adds that “Google might continue to shift with the times—changing its stance on how much or how little it censors (due to public, governmental or commercial pressures).”

The document admits that there is a shift from the “American tradition that prioritizes free speech for democracy, not civility,” on the part of social media companies.

In August 2017, the World Socialist Web Site published an open letter to Google alleging that changes to its search algorithms had led to a massive drop in traffic to left-wing, anti-war, and socialist web sites.

“Censorship on this scale is political blacklisting,” the letter declared. “The obvious intent of Google’s censorship algorithm is to block news that your company does not want reported and to suppress opinions with which you do not agree. Political blacklisting is not a legitimate exercise of whatever may be Google’s prerogatives as a commercial enterprise. It is a gross abuse of monopolistic power. What you are doing is an attack on freedom of speech.”

The publication of the leaked document followed an October 5 report by the Washington Post that that Google CEO Sundar Pichai met secretly with civilian and military officials at the Pentagon during a recent trip to Washington DC.

Based on interviews with two anonymous sources familiar with the meeting, the Post said Pichai was “seeking to smooth over tensions roughly four months after employee outrage prompted the tech giant to sever a defense contract to analyze drone video”—known as Project Maven.

The Post reported that Pichai met with officials from the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, a department that reports on matters relating to military intelligence to the US Secretary of Defense, former United States Marine Corps General James Mattis. The office is responsible for the Project Maven program, which is developing artificial intelligence capabilities to identify cars, buildings and other objects recorded in videos by drones flying over combat zones and other landscapes.

Neither Defense Department officials nor Google representatives would comment publicly on the secret meeting. The termination of the Project Maven contract—after more than 3,000 employees signed a letter protesting the company’s participation in “the business of war,” was a blow to the efforts of Google to deepen its collaboration with the military-intelligence establishment.

In June, in response to the protest, Google management announced that the Project Maven contract would not be renewed in 2019. However, Pichai was quick to publish a blog post in which he outlined Google’s artificial intelligence objectives and explained that the company would continue work with the Pentagon on “cybersecurity, training, military recruitment, veterans’ health care, and search and rescue.”

Pentagon report points to US preparations for total war

Andre Damon 

Over the past two weeks, with next to no media coverage, the United States has moved substantially closer toward open military confrontation with both Russia and China, the second- and third-ranked nuclear powers in the world.

On October 3, the United States threatened, for the first time since the Cold War, to directly attack the Russian homeland. UN Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison accused the country of violating the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty by developing a nuclear cruise missile and said that Washington was preparing to “take out” the weapon with a US strike.

This statement came just three days after a Chinese warship set a collision course with a US destroyer carrying out a so-called “freedom of navigation” operation in the South China Sea, forcing the American ship to maneuver to avoid a collision and the potentially deadliest military clash in the Pacific in decades.

Behind such hair-raising incidents, the United States is undertaking serious, long-term preparations to restructure the American economy to fight a major war with a “peer” adversary, entailing radical changes to American economic, social and political life.

This is the essential content of a 146-page document released by the Pentagon last Friday, titled “Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States.” It makes it clear that Washington is preparing not just for isolated regional clashes, but rather for a massive, long-term war effort against Russia and China under conditions of potential national autarchy.

Martin employees work on the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter production line in Fort Worth, Texas [Credit - Defense Contract Management Agency].jpg

The document made clear that a major restructuring of the American economy will be necessary to reach the United States military’s stated goal of being prepared to “fight tonight” against a “peer adversary.” The United States must “retool” for “great-power competition,” the document declared.

“America’s manufacturing and defense industrial base,” observes the report, creates the “platform and systems” upon which “our Warfighter depends.” This complex encompasses not just the government, but the private sector, as well as “R&D organizations” and “academic institutions.” In other words, the entire economy and society.

It warns that “The erosion of American manufacturing over the last two decades… threatens to undermine the ability of U.S. manufacturers to meet national security requirements. Today, we rely on single domestic sources for some products and foreign supply chains for others, and we face the possibility of not being able to produce specialized components for the military at home.”

Correcting this strategic deficiency, the report concludes, means that “support for a vibrant domestic manufacturing sector, a solid defense industrial base, and resilient supply chains is a national priority.”

The report squarely targets China, declaring, “China’s economic strategies, combined with the adverse impacts of other nations’ industrial policies, pose significant threats to the U.S. industrial base and thereby pose a growing risk to U.S. national security.”

The promotion of US manufacturing dominance, in other words, is vital for promoting military dominance.

The protection of heavy industry goes together with the administration’s efforts to defend America’s high-tech sector, the source of a vast portion of US profitability.

As the report notes, “One of the Chinese Communist Party’s primary industrial initiatives, Made in China 2025, targets artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, autonomous and new energy vehicles, high performance medical devices, high-tech ship components, and other emerging industries critical to national defense.”

It warns that “Chinese R&D spending is rapidly converging to that of the U.S. and will likely achieve parity sometime in the near future,” and worriedly points to the fact that the Chinese manufacturer DJI dominates the commercial aerial drone market.

The Pentagon’s plans for protecting and expanding the US high-tech sector include its backing for the administration’s efforts to limit the admission of Chinese students to US universities through visa restrictions. The report complains that, with as many as 25 percent of “STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] graduates in the U.S. being Chinese nationals… American universities are major enablers of China’s economic and military rise.”

The vision in the document, in other words, is the concrete expression of the conception outlined in the latest US national security strategy, calling for “the seamless integration of multiple elements of national power—diplomacy, information, economics, finance, intelligence, law enforcement and military.”

A leading element of this equation is the American corporate technology sector, which has scrambled for fat Pentagon contracts to develop the latest generation of weapons systems. In exchange for these payouts, and aggressive protection from their international rivals, they have worked closely to implement what one leaked internal Google document called a “shift towards censorship” in cooperation with the demands of the US military and intelligence agencies.

The logic of this growing fusion between the repressive apparatus of the state and increasingly powerful monopolies is the necessary correlation between “total war” and a “totalitarian” society, in which key constitutional provisions are rendered effectively meaningless.

The central target of such measures will be the forcible suppression of the class struggle in the name of promoting “national security.” The escalation of global US militarism has coincided with a major upsurge in the class struggle, including the rejection of a concessions contract by workers at UPS, the logistics giant whose powerful workforce is capable of crippling not just America’s industrial base, but substantial sections of the wartime economy.

Murder in Istanbul

Bill Van Auken

As more and more details emerge about the disappearance on October 2 of the well-known Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, it is becoming clear that a monstrous crime has been committed with serious worldwide implications.

The Turkish media has published photographs and video footage documenting the arrival at Ataturk airport on the same day as Khashoggi’s disappearance of a 15-member Saudi death squad. It included two air force officers, intelligence operatives and members of the elite personal guard of the Saudi monarchy. Also among them, according to Turkish authorities, was a forensics expert, who reportedly came equipped with a bone saw.

Turkish media reports indicate that Khashoggi had visited the consulate a week earlier seeking documents he needed for his planned marriage to a Turkish woman. He was told to return on October 2 at 1 p.m. Local staff were instructed to take the afternoon off as the 15 state assassins arrived. Khashoggi was, according to accounts of Turkish security officials speaking on condition of anonymity, dragged from the consul’s office and killed, and his body then dismembered with the saw.

This crime has attracted worldwide attention for its brazenness and brutality, as well as because of the identity of the apparent victim. Khashoggi’s journalistic career has been that of an insider within Saudi ruling circles, with close connections to some of the Kingdom’s most powerful officials and billionaires. He served as an aide to the long-time Saudi intelligence chief and former ambassador to the US, Prince Turki bin Faisal, and was known as an interlocutor between the monarchy and Western media and officials.

In September 2017 the kingdom’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS)—praised by the Western media as a great “reformer” and feted by the Trump administration as well as America’s financial elite—launched a brutal crackdown, including against members of the royal family, prominent business figures and some journalists. The dictatorial actions were largely ignored or supported by the Western media. The ineffable foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, who was wined and dined at a royal palace in Riyadh, wrote at the time that “not a single Saudi I spoke to here over three days expressed anything other than effusive support for this anticorruption drive.”

Khashoggi chose to avoid imprisonment through self-imposed exile in the US, where he was given a column in the Washington Post and initiated the process of becoming a US citizen. He used the column to criticize Mohammed bin Salman from a standpoint reflecting the divisions within the royal family itself. Most recently, he wrote a condemnation of the war waged by the Saudi regime against Yemen, an intervention initiated by MBS.

Despite his prominence, the Trump administration has been extremely reticent to call any attention to Khashoggi’s disappearance, waiting a week to make any statement. Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that he knew “what everybody else knows—nothing” about the journalist’s fate. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement calling on the Saudi monarchy to support a “thorough investigation” of its own crime.

It appears, however, that the US government was well informed of Saudi plans to eliminate Khashoggi, with the Washington Post reporting that before his disappearance, US intelligence had intercepted communications between Saudi officials revealing a plan to abduct the journalist.

Whatever the case, Saudi Arabia’s vicious monarchical regime has long been the linchpin of imperialist domination and political reaction throughout the Middle East. These ties—under both Democratic and Republican administrations—have remained firm as the regime has routinely beheaded political opponents and non-violent offenders, putting 150 to the sword in 2017 alone.

Before Khashoggi’s disappearance, an estimated 30 Saudi journalists had already been imprisoned or disappeared, without any protest from the Western powers, the US chief among them, who sell billions of dollars in arms to the kingdom and profit off its oil wealth.

The US-Saudi connection has grown only closer under the Trump administration, which has sought to forge an anti-Iranian axis based upon Saudi Arabia and Israel, while continuing and expanding US aid to the near-genocidal war against the people of Yemen.

This relationship—underscored once again by Washington’s official reaction to the disappearance of Khashoggi—exposes the unmitigated cynicism and hypocrisy of US imperialism’s “human rights” pretensions and feigned outrage over alleged crimes carried out by governments that it views as strategic rivals or that it is seeking to overthrow, from Russia and China to Iran, Syria and Venezuela.

The Khashoggi affair has far broader international significance. It is emblematic of a sinister shift in world politics, in which such heinous crimes are becoming more and more common and accepted. It recalls the conditions that existed in the darkest days of the 1930s, when fascist and Stalinist death squads hunted down and murdered socialists and other opponents of Hitler and Stalin throughout Europe.

Journalists have suffered the consequence of this change in global politics, with the Committee to Protect Journalists reporting 48 killed this year—a 50 percent increase over all of 2017—as well as another 60 “disappeared” around the planet.

Targeted assassinations, developed by the Israelis as a central instrument of state policy, were adapted by Washington in its so-called “global war on terror” on an industrial scale. The killings, torture and “extraordinary renditions” begun under the Bush administration—for which no one was ever punished, not to mention a “black site” torturer being elevated to director of the CIA—were institutionalized under Obama with the White House organizing its so-called “terror Tuesdays” in which targets for assassination were selected from files and photographs presented to the president and his aides.

US wars of aggression that have claimed the lives of millions, the routine assassination of supposed “terrorists,” and the wholesale repudiation of international law as an unacceptable fetter on American interests, have created a fetid global political environment in which crimes like that committed against Khashoggi are not only possible, but inevitable.

In the face of growing social tensions and sharpening class struggle rooted in the crisis of the global capitalist system, there has been a sharp turn to the right and toward authoritarianism in bourgeois politics, from the rise of Trump in the US, to the increasing strength of far-right forces in Europe, to the near election of a fascistic former army captain in Brazil. Under these conditions, the methods of assassination and disappearances as a means of dealing with opponents of the existing governments and social order will become ever more prevalent.

The fate of Jamal Khashoggi, whose high-level connections apparently failed to protect him, must be taken as a serious warning. Those who place themselves in the hands of the state in virtually any country have no reliable expectation that they will emerge intact.

The only answer to this threat—and that of a global relapse into fascism and world war—lies in the building of a mass revolutionary socialist movement to unite the international working class in the struggle against social inequality, dictatorship and war.

French Agency for Development (AFD) Digital Challenge Innovation for Women in Africa 2019

Application Deadline: 12th November 2018 – 13:00 TU

Eligible Countries: Francophone and Anglophone African countries

To be Taken at: France

About the Award: To promote entrepreneurial initiatives managed by women and/or men, tackling the challenges of women’s inclusion and gender inequalities – whether social, economic, cultural or political – and leveraging digital innovation for  their development.

Type: Contest

Eligibility: Eligible projects for the AFD Digital Challenge Innovation are those that take into account the specific constraints and issues of women, and facilitate the access to:

• education, vocational training, mentoring and tutoring services.
• health services (including sexual health and reproduction),
• employment and professional opportunities, including women’s participation in sectors that traditionally employ men,
• financial services and other markets
• information about rights and access to judicial services
• mobility and transport

Will also be considered projects that contribute to:

• the deconstruction of gender stereotypes (eg media)
• the fight against gender-based violence
• the development of practices that do not discriminate against women (eg in the professional world, at school, etc.).

The challenge will be open to all entrepreneurs who have developed innovative solutions for Africa on this topic.
Number of Awards: 5 startups

Value of Award: Award-winning startups will receive financial and technical support.
The Challenge will reward three categories of projects:

1. AFD Digital Challenge Initiative, which rewards two start-up startups in the seed phase, remarkable by their capacity for innovation. Definition of seed stage in the context of the competition: the start-up is currently developing its prototype or its first product and is entering the commercialization phase.
2. AFD Digital Success Challenge, which rewards two start-ups in the development phase that are remarkable for their ability to grow and expand. Definition of the development phase in the context of the competition: The start-up is positioned within its sector and its market, covers part of its costs through the income generated by its activities and to a well-established clientele.
3. AFD Digital Challenge – Jury Award, which rewards a company that stands out for its original approach to women’s inclusion and gender equality, regardless of its stage of development.

All of the winners of this third edition of the AFD Digital Challenge Innovation will benefit from unprecedented visibility and privileged access to a global network of partners, customers and investors. They integrate a community that brings together the best talents of digital innovation, in Africa and for Africa, sharing experiences and practices.

How to Apply: Apply here

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Provider: French Agency for Development

MIT-Africa Empowering the Teachers Fellowship 2019/2020 for African Academics (Fully-funded to Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT, Boston, USA)

Application Deadline: 18th November, 2018 8pmEST

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be taken at (country): Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston, USA

About the Award: MIT-Empowering the Teachers (MIT-ETT) is a teaching-focused fellowship, offered by MIT-AFRICA together with its corporate partner NNPC/Total E& P Nigeria Ltd.

The MIT-Empowering the Teachers (MIT-ETT) program at MIT strives to foster innovation in science and engineering education in tertiary academic institutions in Africa through an intense engagement with faculty members from African universities.

The aim is to facilitate in African institutions improved teaching content development that is geared towards (1) students-centered content delivery (2) problem solving and (3) creativity. This amongst other things will result in the development new courses and the modification of existing curricula to ones that are geared towards critical thinking, open ended problem solving and hands-on design but also promote innovation and creativity. While at MIT, these African academics developed new course content for their home universities which are consistent with the objectives of developing these skills in their students.
During their semester at MIT, Fellows do the following:

• observe instruction in their own disciplines & subjects
• interact with MIT faculty teaching in their own disciplines & subjects
• develop courses based on problem-solving approach inspired by equivalent course at MIT
• discuss & explore curricular enrichment & reform through both formal and informal interaction with the MIT community

The ultimate goal is to reform their current curricular using new materials, approaches and methods that exemplify the best of MIT’s practices: problem-solving, student-centered, innovation and bringing knowledge to bear on the world’s greatest challenges.

Type: Fellowship, Training

Eligibility: MIT-ETT welcomes applications from all qualified faculty who are:

•  Interested in developing new curriculum and teaching methods and consider themselves to be change-agents;
• A faculty member holding a PhD and teach in a department corresponding to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering or Petroleum Engineering at a university in Nigeria;
• Lecturer One rank. Applications will be thoroughly vetted.

Value of Fellowship: MIT-Empowering the Teachers will cover the travel, living and instructional materials expenses of the participants. The home universities of the successful applicants will commit to provide paid leaves of absence during the period of the MIT program.
The faculty selected to participate in the MIT-ETT program will spend a full semester at MIT observing classes similar to ones they themselves currently teach. They will work on new curricular materials and teaching approaches for adoption in their own classes. During their stay at MIT, they will participate regularly in at least two MIT subjects (including lectures, recitations and tutorials) that correspond to courses the faculty members teach at their home universities. They will attend twice-weekly MIT-Empowering the Teachers Seminar meetings, one which will focus on curriculum review and development led by Professor Akinwande.

Duration of Fellowship: 6 months

How to Apply: To apply, please visit the Links below
MIT-ETT 2019-2020 Application

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider:  MIT-AFRICA together with its corporate partner NNPC/Total E& P Nigeria Ltd.

The Future Awards Africa (TFAA) Nigeria’s New Tribe Awards Program 2018

Application Deadline: Ongoing

Eligible Countries: Nigeria

To Be Taken At (Country): Nigeria

About the Award: Themed ‘Nigeria’s New Tribe’, this year’s edition seeks to acknowledge inspiring young people making a difference through social enterprise, social good, and innovation. Beyond tribal lines, tunic differences and religious affiliations, they are united by the possibilities of their talent, commitment to hardwork and driven by achievement in impacting the economy, society and rewriting the African narrative.
In the last twelve years, the Awards have been a catalyst towards building a new tribe of citizens who are bound by their potentials, relentless hard work and united by their soaring achievements.
With the first franchise set to be unveiled in Ghana, the awards will find young
Africans who understand that the future can only be shaped by ideas and secured by action that seeks to elevate and unify, placing The Future Awards Africa as the ultimate soapbox for their unconventional points of view.

Understanding the true value of these innovators, the public can nominate unorthodox persons, community advocates, creators and pioneers from their communities between the ages of 18 – 31 in 21 categories ranging from social activism and business, to media and entertainment.

Type: Award

Eligibility: Persons eligible for nomination must have made considerable impact within Nigeria and/or globally within the last year and must have easily accessible documentation of their achievements.

Categories: The categories for the 2018 TFAA are:

• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Acting
• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Fashion and Design
• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Beauty
• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Music
• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Professional Service
• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Business
• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Sports
• University of Sussex & The Future Awards Africa Prize for Education
• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Technology
• The Futures Awards and EbonyLife Prize for New Media
• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Media Enterprise
• The Future Awards Africa Prize in Public Service
• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Arts & Culture
• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Comedy
• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Advocacy
• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Agriculture
• The Edwin George Prize for Photography
• The Futures Awards and EbonyLife Prize for Journalism
• The Future Awards and EbonyLife Prize for On Air Personality (visual)
• The Future Awards and EbonyLife Prize for On Air Personality (audio)
• The Future Awards Africa Prize for Young Person of the Year

How to Apply: Nominate here

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Japan Student Services Organization (JSSO) Follow-up Research Fellowship for Students from Developing Countries 2019

Application Deadline: 30th November 2018

Eligible Candidates: Returnees from Japan with nationalities of developing countries and regions

To Be Taken At (Country): Japan

About the Award: The Japan Student Services Organization provides the Follow-up Research Fellowship for former international students in Japan to researchers who have previously come to study in Japan from a developing country, region, etc. These fellowships are available to conduct short-term research of 60-90 consecutive days.
The aim of the fellowships is to give an opportunity to researchers to conduct short-term research with academic advisors at universities (except junior colleges) in Japan.

Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO) is an independent administrative institution established under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and  Technology.

Type: Fellowship, Research

Eligibility: 

• Under 45 years old.
• At least one year after returning from Japan.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• Round-trip Air fare and
• Daily allowance (¥11,000/day) for the recipient and
• Remuneration for cooperation (up to ¥50,000) for the research advisor

Duration of Program: 60-90 consecutive days

How to Apply: 

• Applications must be received by November 30th, 2018. The deadline is just for JASSO. The deadline at your host university might be different. Please confirm the deadline for your host university.
• Submit both 5 printed copies of application forms（1 copy of Form1 original) and the digital file data. Please let you confirm “For University Use:Cautions When Submitting Files” by all means when you make it.

Visit Program Webpage for Details

NNPC/Total Undergraduate Scholarships for Nigerian Students 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 31st October 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Nigeria

To be taken at (country): Nigerian Tertiary Institutions

Eligible Fields of Study: All

About Scholarship: Each year, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), and Total Upstream Companies in Nigeria (TUCN): Total Exploration & Production Nigeria Limited (Total E&P Nig Ltd) and Total Upstream Nigeria Limited (TUPNI), award scholarships to deserving Nigerian students in the tertiary institutions in the country.
The Total Scholarship scheme is aimed at promoting academic excellence and quality manpower development in the Country. This is one of the the many ways Total demonstrates its commitment to the educational development of Nigerian students. This is part of Total’s rich Corporate Social Responsibility. This scholarship scheme has been successfully carried out over the years.

Type: Undergraduate

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

1. Be a Registered FULL TIME undergraduate in a recognized Nigerian University
2. Be a certified 100 or 200 level student at the time of application
3. Show proof of SSCE or Equivalent Certificate.
4. Show proof of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) score.
5. Show proof of Admission letter from the University and Matriculation Number
6. Show proof of A-level or Equivalent Certificate (for direct entry students)

PLEASE NOTE:

• Students with less than 200 score in UTME need not apply
• Students with less than 2.50 CGPA of 5-point scale, or equivalent
• 300 level students and above need not apply
• Current beneficiaries of similar awards from other International Oil Companies (IOCs) need not apply

Number of Scholarships: Several

Value of Scholarship: Yet to be confirmed

Duration of Scholarship: Onetime financial support

How to Apply

1. Personal Information: Enter your name, date of birth and permanent home address Upload your recent passport photograph.
2. Contact Information: Enter your email and mobile phone information. Only use an active email and mobile phone number.
3. Origin: Enter your state and local government of origin data. You are required to upload a certificate or proof of origin from your local government or state.
4. University Information: Select your university, course and year of study. You will be required to upload your JAMB/University admission letter.
5. Result Information: Input your JAMB score or CPGA. You are required to upload your JAMB statement of result and university CPGA. For year two medical students, your JAMB score suffices.
   6. Review Application: Review your application ensure all fields have been correctly entered. Upload all the documents required:
   

   • Recent Passport Photograph
   • Certificate or Proof of Origin
   • Senior Secondary Certificate of Education (SSCE)
   • UTME result
   • JAMB/University Admission Letter
   • 1st Year Result showing CGPA

   7. Conclusion: Attest that all info given is true. Accept terms and condition. On screen alert will confirm that you have successfully completed the application. You will receive an email to confirm this too.
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After Four Decades of Chaos is Iraq Finally Stabilizing?

Patrick Cockburn

Changes of government in Iraq are often fiercely disputed and frequently violent. When the monarchy was overthrown in 1958, the young King Faisal II was machine gunned in the courtyard of his palace in Baghdad and his body later strung up from a lamp post.

Few of his successors met peaceful ends up to the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and political transitions in the following years have provoked extreme rancour inside Iraq and intense political pressure from foreign powers.

In contrast to this bloodthirsty tradition, the choice of the veteran Kurdish politician Barham Salih as president by the Iraqi parliament and his selection as prime minister of Adel Abdul-Mahdi, an independent Shia Islamist politician, was peaceful and low key.

The formal handover ceremony took place at the presidential palace in Baghdad’s Green Zone, where Mr Salih was saluted by an honour guard and received by outgoing president Fuad Masum.

The appointments were a long time coming – it is almost five months since the general election on 12 May – but, when they did come, they were welcome or, at least, accepted by almost all the main political players. Mr Abdul-Mahdi now has 30 days to put together a government and is likely to succeed in doing so.

The political climate is very different today from the last change of prime minister in 2014 when Haider al-Abadi took office after the Iraqi army had been routed by Isis, whose fighters were only an hour’s drive north of Baghdad.

Isis still carries out sporadic killings and bombings but on nothing like the scale of the past. Violence is at its lowest level in Iraq than at any time since 2003. The turnaround is really even more radical in that Iraq is no longer being engulfed by wars, crises, revolutions and sanctions as it has been over a period of almost 40 years since Saddam Hussein seized supreme power and invaded Iran.

Cynics in Baghdad contend that the lack of serious political strife is explained by the fact that Mr Salih and Mr Abdul-Mahdi are well-entrenched members of the Kurdish and Shia political elite that replaced Saddam Hussein 15 years ago and has misruled the country ever since.

Both men have held senior government posts in the past, leading to expectations that the politicians that chose them will get their normal share of ministries, jobs and contracts.

“Has any state as corrupt as Iraq ever really been reformed?” asked one political commentator with a long experience of Iraqi politics.

The pressure for reform of the kleptocratic state is greater than ever before. Popular discontent was underlined this summer by the mass demonstrations in Basra protesting the lack of electricity and water, supply failures that culminated in the drinking water becoming so poisonous that thousands of people were admitted to hospital after drinking it.

The electoral success of Muqtada al-Sadr, the populist nationalist cleric whose Sairoon Alliance topped the poll in the general election in May, showed the growing primacy of social and economic issues over sectarian solidarity.

Mr Sadr is well aware of the scepticism among many Iraqis who believe that his movement’s zeal for reform would evaporate once its leaders took office as ministers.

To counter this, he said on Thursday that his bloc would not nominate “any minister whatever” for the new cabinet, giving Mr Abdul-Mehdi one year to carry out reforms or face “an uprising”, a threat which carries more weight since the burning of government and party offices in Basra.

“We have succeeded in pushing for an independent prime minister … and have encouraged him to form a cabinet without being put under pressure from parties or sects,” tweeted Mr Sadr. “We have issued our instructions not to nominate any member of our bloc to assume a ministerial post in the upcoming cabinet. We have agreed to give the premier a one-year ultimatum to prove his success and take serious steps to build Iraq and shun autocracy.”

Such reforms will be difficult to carry out because it is not only the elite that plunder Iraq’s oil revenues. At least $4bn a month is spent paying some 4.5 million state employees who often hold their jobs because of party or religious allegiance.

The choice of president and prime minister already shows that there is some change in who holds power in Baghdad and the Kurdish region. Mr Abdul-Mehdi is not from the Shia Dawa party that has provided the last three prime ministers, but from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), a religious party that has had close links with Iran. Mr Salih comes from the much-divided Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) that rules the east of the Kurdistan Regional Government territory.

Both appointments show a shift towards Iran and away from the US. This is significant because the US was hoping to see Mr Abadi, with whom it had cooperated successfully against Isis, stay on as prime minister. At one moment, he had seemed to say that he would go along with US sanctions against Iran.

Although Mr Abadi was prime minister when Mosul was recaptured from Isis and the oil city of Kirkuk reclaimed from the Kurds, he gained little credit for it among Iraqi voters.

The reduction in violence allowed them to focus on the mass theft of state resources under Dawa which has failed to improve, or even maintain, the infrastructure.

The choice of Mr Salih is a sign that the influence of Masoud Barzani, long the most powerful Kurdish leader, has been reduced by his referendum on Kurdish independence last year. This precipitated the advance of the Iraqi security forces on Kirkuk and other territories disputed with the Kurds. Part of Mr Salih’s party, the PUK, cooperated with government forces.

All Iraqi governments are, to a greater or lesser extent, fragile because of religious and ethnic differences, but the new government is a sign that Iraq is stabilising after four decades of violence and division.

Macedonia and NATO: the Implications for the Future

Stavros Mavroudeas

The area and the identity of Macedonia has been a contested terrain for many decades. Leaving aside references to antiquity, its modern form has its roots in the birth of national states in the Balkans in the beginning of the 20^th century with the protracted collapse of the Ottoman empire. During the latter’s rule the area of Macedonia has been inhabited by various ethnic groups. In the Balkans, Greeks were the first, from the 19^th century, to acquire a national identity and to construct a national state. Slavic people, in the Macedonian area, were the last to follow in this road and significant segments of them oscillated for a considerable period between different competing national identities (primarily Greek and Bulgarian). After several local wars and two world wars the Balkan area had been stabilized with established nation states that had, to a great extent, homogenized their populations by all the means available. Nevertheless, there remained several contested areas and significant ethnic minorities within every Balkan nation state.

The modern Macedonian issue was born after the Second WW. The northern part of the Macedonian area belonged to Titoist Yugoslavia and was inhabited mainly by Slavs. The southern Macedonian area belonged to Greece, was more or less ethnically homogenized – particularly after the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey – but also contained a Slavic ethnic minority. Before the 2^nd WW the Macedonian area was claimed by Bulgaria also, by trying to patronize its Slavic populations. Yugoslavia, in order to secure its southern area – from both Greece and Bulgaria – promoted a distinct Macedonian identity for the people of its southern area. A necessary corollary of this was the promotion of irredentism as the whole Macedonian area was considered the rightful home of the Slavomacedonian people. As usually happens in such cases, the creation of a modern national identity tries to find roots in the ancient times: thus, the ridiculous Slavomacedonian claim on Alexander the Great and the ancient Macedonian kingdom that was, in the end, part of the Greek world.

On the other hand, Greece promoted its own irredentism by claiming that the whole Macedonia – and the Macedonian identity – belong to it. The internal Greek politics and particularly the Greek civil war painted in blood this project. The situation was stabilized during the Cold War era as the two main adversaries belonged to different camps. However, with the collapse of the Eastern bloc and particularly with the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia under the auspices of the Western imperialisms, the whole situation destabilized abruptly. The big Western powers (the US and the EU) strived to expand their spheres of influence in the Balkans. Local elites and emerging bourgeoisies tried to expand their spaces and maneuvered between the big players. All of them fomented nationalisms as a means for their plans.

This is exactly what happened with the small former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Once becoming separated from old Yugoslavia, it faced an acute existential problem as its miniscule political and economic size made it almost unviable. On top of that, the increase of its Albanian population endangered further its unity. This resulted in the exaggerated promotion of the Macedonian identity and the concomitant irredentism.

On the other side, Greek capitalism actually invaded economically FYROM’s and became one of the main Western economic powers in its economy. This was facilitated by FYROM’s drag in the EU’s orbit. Ironically, the bigger the political controversies between FYROM and Greece the bigger the economic influence of the latter in the former. Of course, all these under the wings and succumbing to the prevailing interests of the bigger Western powers. This resulted in a new stalemate: Greece blocked the further political integration of FYROM in the EU and NATO unless it dropped its Macedonian claims.

Recently, this stalemate became strained. The resurgence of Russia led the West to try to secure as much of the Balkan area it can under its influence. Thus, the incorporation of Montenegro, FYROM and possibly Serbia into NATO became a priority. This goes together with their incorporation in the EU (despite the increasing tensions between the US and the EU). For this reason, the West proceeds – extremely heavy-handedly and by blatantly neglecting existing political, social and national balances – to rearrange relationships and even to redraw borders in the very volatile Balkan area (which has produced several wars in the not very distant past).

The Prespes agreement between Greece and FYROM is such a case. First, the West instigated almost openly a governmental change in FYROM by marginalizing a part of its elite that was subservient to the West but at the same time wanted a better deal with Greece. Then, the West employed the weak and completely subservient to US interests SYRIZA government to pass hurriedly a settlement with FYROM. The end result is a disaster for the peoples of the Balkans. Irrespective of the technical details of the agreement which do not matter, its authoritarian imperialist imposition aggravates nationalist tensions in both countries. Of course, the West is indifferent to this so long as it passes its plans. Afterall, in the end, it can play also with local nationalisms.

But there is a problem in these imperialist games: at some point people have to vote. Such a point was the referendum in FYROM. Despite the blatant Western intervention in internal affairs and the lack of even a major political party opposing the agreement (as the FYROM elite is terribly weak, corrupted and depended from the West), the majority of the population voted with their feet and by a meagre participation actually rejected the agreement. This was a terrible slap in the face to the Western arrogance. Furthermore, it showed the rapidly diminishing charm of the EU as the sweetener of joining it (and supposedly gaining economically) was turned down. Spontaneously, the people of the poorer Balkan country have probably sensed something that the Greek people learned through pain and tears the recent years: the EU is not the paradise but the hell for the peoples and for the countries laying in its periphery.

Nevertheless, the West did not learn its lesson and proceeds with greater impertinence. All of them – big and small, from NATO’s general secretary and the German foreign ministry to the preposterous Greek SYRIZA and FYROM politicians – pronounce the referendum as a success and demanded the implementation of the agreement. Their ludicrous argument is that 91% of those voting (that were merely the 35% of the eligible voters) supported the agreement. It does not require great intelligence to grasp that this is a direct insult to the very basic rules of democracy. Wouldn’t it be better if only a few ‘enlightened elites’ and foreign agents had voting rights instead of the whole population?

Notwithstanding, the West and its local stooges proceed to try to impose the agreement. Currently, their main effort is to practically bribe and/or blackmail some corrupt FYROM MPs in order to pass it the parliament. Ironically, Alexis Tsipras suggested so; probably banking on his well-known expertise on how turning a popular vote to its opposite. As an obedient puppet of his masters, he forgets that in this case it is the turn of his government to begin rocking dangerously.

The West’s plans for the Balkans are bringing again, few years after the bloody Yugoslavian disintegration, tensions and upheaval in the area. They are fomenting nationalism and promoting imperialist conflict. The peoples of the Balkans have nothing to gain from this.

Particularly for the poor populace of FYROM – and contrary to their elites – their country’s participation in the EU and NATO would worsen its condition. These are imperialist organisations infamous for sowing misery and wars in their path. The participation in the EU would make the weak and already dependent FYROM economy even weaker. Greece, and the other euro-peripheral economies have a bitter taste from this participation that made their economies weaker and simple appendages of those of the euro-core economies. It is indicative that other Balkan economies linked to the EU were lucky not to participate at least in the European Monetary Union (EMU). This shielded them from grave consequences during and after the global capitalist crisis of 2008. Moreover, NATO is always the long arm of US aggression and its record is well-known. Instead of stabilization and peace it brings conflicts and war. Its march to the East sows gunpowder in the Balkans.

Concluding, the failure of the Western plans for the Balkans is the only way to keep the possibility of amicable and cooperative relations between the Balkan peoples alive.

There is No Legitimate Reason to Impose Sanctions on Iran

Vijay Prashad

A friend in Tehran tells me that he marvels at the attitude of the United States ruling establishment towards Iran. ‘Why do they hate us so much’, he asks? It is a fair question. His country, he says, is not perfect, but it is certainly not a threat to the world. The current government – led by Hassan Rouhani (Iran’s seventh president since the 1979 Revolution) – is moderate in many ways, its foreign minister – Javad Zarif – a man of dignity. Certainly, my friend says, there are elements inside the higher reaches of government that are erratic. But, ‘don’t all countries have such people in power’, he says, the smile pointing towards India’s Narendra Modi and Donald Trump of the United States. Can any country these days, he eggs me on, say that it does not have its own version of Trump?

In 1953, the United States and its allies overthrew the democratically elected government in Iran. The reason why Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh bothered the West was that he began to nationalise the oil sector. Oil firms could not tolerate this. He had to go. The overthrow of Mosaddegh brought to power the repellent Shah of Iran, who then ruled Iran with an iron fist till the Revolution of 1979. Two years into the Shah’s reign, the United States and Iran signed a Treaty of Amity – a normal agreement signed between countries to promise fair treatment on a wide variety of matters. It is important to underscore that the US signed this treaty not with a democratic government – which it had overthrown – but with the autocratic regime of the Shah – which it had installed.

This week, the United States withdrew from the Treaty of Amity (1955). US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States should have torn up the treaty in 1979, thirty-nine years ago. Iran has never reneged on that treaty, despite the fact that it was signed by an autocratic regime.

Nor has Iran reneged on the 2015 nuclear agreement (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) that it signed with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and the European Union – an agreement ratified by the full UN Security Council.

The United States unilaterally walked away from the nuclear agreement earlier this year, which provoked Iran to sue the US in the International Court of Justice. This week, the Court ruled in Iran’s favour. My friends in Tehran say that they would have been surprised if the Court had not ruled on Iran’s behalf. There was no reason why the US should have withdrawn from the 2015 agreement nor why the US should threaten to increase sanctions on 5 November. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Nuclear Security Report (2018) notes, ‘Iran is implementing its nuclear-related commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’. This sentence is clear enough. At the IAEA’s Board of Governors meeting this September, its Director General Yukiya Amano said that he hoped Iran would continue to fully ‘implement its commitments’. There was no sense that Iran has violated the agreement. Based on this, and on the Treaty of Amity, there was no other option for the International Court of Justice. It had to rule on Iran’s behalf.

There is no reason why the United States should ramp up its sanctions against the 82 million people of Iran.

Against all evidence, the United States – and other Western powers – continue to reiterate the view that Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons. But, there is no evidence of Iran’s interest in nuclear weapons apart from the statements by Western and Israeli leaders. In the 1990s, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, wrote a fatwa that condemned nuclear weapons. This fatwa built on one written by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that was written in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War and was against the use of any chemical or biological weapons. Khamenei’s fatwa was not released, but in October 2003 he made an oral fatwa against the production and use of any weapons of mass destruction. This was in the context of the US war on Iraq and threats of a US expansion of that war into Iran. The IAEA has not found any evidence of nuclear weapons production in Iran. What Iran had begun – with US help from 1957 – was a nuclear energy programme.

The UN’s position against Iran is in bad faith. All the member states and the UN secretariat know that Iran has no nuclear weapons programme. Yet, they have allowed the US and Israel to push against Iran. They have allowed Iran’s people to suffer under an intolerable sanctions regime and are now allowing Iran to go through an even tighter sanctions policy. No legal shield from Europe is going to help. No mild criticism of the United States is sufficient. My friends in Tehran – who have their own differences with their government – appeal to the world, asking for a break with the US-Israeli position on Iran, an opening to the people of Iran who are being strangled by the sanctions.

In 2010, the brilliant Iranian artist Farah Ossouli did a miniature painting called Put Your Gun Down. It depicts two angels, the woman feeding water to a bird and the man with a gun in his lap. They have their backs to each other. It looks like hope has been banished. But, the picture has a strong name – put your gun down. That was the message of the 2015 nuclear agreement and the message against sanctions, another form of war. It remains the message today.