Argentine teachers facing massive pay cuts strike for 48 hours

Andrea Lobo

On Monday and Tuesday, teachers in Argentina’s Buenos Aires province carried out a 48-hour strike to demand wage increases and greater spending for school infrastructure, materials and training. This comes after the provincial governor María Eugenia Vidal, one of the leading figures of president Mauricio Macri’s right-wing Cambiemos coalition, decreed an insulting 19 percent wage increase, in the face of an official forecast of a 42 percent inflation rate for 2018.

While the Vidal administration responded to the strike by continuing the negotiations or paritarias on Thursday after a month of stalled talks, currently teachers would lose almost a quarter of their real buying power this year, on top of significant cuts in real salaries for the last three consecutive years.

Simultaneously with the teachers’ strike, some 10,000 health care workers in Buenos Aires walked out after receiving an offer from the government of a 15 percent pay hike..

The 282,000 teachers in Buenos Aires have seen one of the longest paritarias in history, while mounting social opposition to the government’s intended cuts has been reflected in a record number of individual walkouts this year in the province, adding up to 24 days of strike. The trade unions, however, have used these limited actions to let off steam and isolate teachers from workers in other sectors and regions of the country, let alone internationally.

This comes only two weeks after the fourth general strike against Macri. The most recent one protested the $57 billion loan and austerity package signed by the president with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). One week earlier, the government presented its proposed 2019 budget, which is chiefly aimed at implementing the no-deficit clause dictated by the IMF to pay back creditors. The Congress is set to vote on this bill on October 24, and it will generate a new round of demonstrations and strikes.

Argentina is facing at least two years of economic recession after a massive capital outflow earlier this year, largely in response to higher interest rates in the US and fears over the local impact of the US trade war against China. Initially ineffective measures like increasing interest rates to 60 percent and signing on to the largest rescue package in IMF history have resulted in two weeks of relative stability for the Argentine peso and financial markets.

Nonetheless, world finance capital is demanding far greater attacks on the Argentine working class. As indicated last Friday by the Financial Times: “In the longer term the credibility of the [IMF] programme relies on President Mauricio Macri and his ability to manage the public mood… Austerity drives are always unpopular, especially in election years—and Macri has said he wants to make a re-election bid next year.”

As his approval ratings plummet and militancy grows among workers and youth, including student occupations and strikes in schools and universities, Argentina is approaching major social upheavals that could threaten the ability of Macri to even finish his term.

The deficit-zero bill incorporates massive tax exemptions for the rich and corporations and lowers employer contributions for social security. The cost is placed fully on the backs of workers and the poor.

The Scalabrini Ortiz research center (CESO) cites some of the sharpest cuts in real terms, assuming an optimistic inflation of 17 percent next year: 22 percent in Social Assistance to Individuals, 91 percent in the National Food and Infant Formula Plan, 50 percent in federal money for provinces—eliminating entire food, health, and education plans and cutting 92 percent of the fund for teachers’ salaries, 41 percent in transport subsidies, 17 percent in hospital care and 19 percent in public health insurance; and it goes on and on. Other economists estimate up to a 40 percent cut in real terms to public education.

Macri plans to eliminate at least five ministries and fire thousands of public-sector workers’ jobs, while forcing entire new layers of the population into conditions of unemployment, hunger, cold, and deprivation, willing to work for little to nothing and thereby creating ripe conditions to further intensify the exploitation of the entire working class.

Workers have demonstrated their willingness to defeat this ruthless offensive, with the United Teachers Front of Buenos Aires (FUDB), which incorporates all trade unions in the sector, announcing that 90 percent of teachers participated in the strike this week.

This is occurring against the backdrop of strikes and overwhelming strike-authorization votes by hundreds of thousands of teachers, UPS workers, steelworkers, and other sectors across the United States, a one-month strike in the public sector in Costa Rica, international strikes by Ryanair workers in Europe, and growing class struggles in every continent.

Whether compelled to call for strikes, or postponing them indefinitely, the trade unions are without exception working to subordinate workers behind one or another sector of the local capitalist class and its bankrupt national-reformist promises, which in turn conceal further attacks against social and democratic rights to make workers pay for the capitalist crisis.

The de facto leader of the FUDB, Roberto Baradel, along with other figures in the Confederation of Argentine Workers (CTA) have joined the new Trade-Union Front for a National Model being organized by the Trucker’s Union leader, Hugo Moyano. The front’s main objective is to channel opposition behind efforts to consolidate and bring to power a new Peronist political coalition led by ex-president and current Senator Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, whose administration (2007–2015) began the current austerity drive.

Earlier this month, the General Confederation of Workers (CGT) was left tottering after Juan Carlos Schmid and his Confederation of Transportation Workers left the CGT triumvirate (now duumvirate), in support of Moyano. Ultimately, Moyano is pressuring the CGT into convoking elections to gain full control of the main trade-union confederation.

After participating in the demobilizing alliance between the CGT and Macri since 2015, Moyano suddenly began criticizing the government and CGT around August 2017, while calling for more frequent, symbolic one- or two-day strikes. Beyond corruption charges and government sanctions against the Truckers Union and his side businesses; Moyano’s record at the service of the Argentine ruling class demonstrates that his maneuvers and those of his coterie are aimed against growing militancy and social opposition.

In 1971, the 27-year-old Moyano joined the leading body of the CGT and became the head of the Peronist Trade-Unionist Youth (JSP), which played a key role, in collaboration with the Triple-A death squads and the military itself, in the “disappearance,” torture and murder of left-wing workers and youth under the Peron administration (1973–1976). A US-backed coup in 1976 imposed a fascist-military dictatorship that sharply escalated this repression, including against the CGT. However, Moyano was brought onto the CGT directorate again in 1980 as soon as the dictatorship permitted its collaborationist activities.

Since the return to civilian rule, Moyano has responded to growing opposition against austerity and privatizations by distancing himself from the CGT leadership and the government in place only to channel social anger behind a new bourgeois government and allied trade-union front. In 1993, he founded the Argentine Workers Movement (MTA) in opposition to the CGT and Menem administration only to channel it behind illusions in de la Rúa and the right-wing CGT leader Rodolfo Daer; then in 2001 against the de la Rúa administration and behind the Duhalde administration and finally behind Kirchnerism during the convulsive political crisis of 2001–2003. In 2004, he became general secretary of the CGT in close partnership with Kirchnerism, only to break in 2012 with Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as opposition grew against her government, creating a Dissident CGT that year and eventually forming an alliance with the conservative Macri government in 2015.

Now, Moyano seeks to politically resurrect the discredited Kirchner, while making broader appeals to pseudo-left parties and trade-union currents under his demagogic Trade-Union Front. The only purpose these schemes can have is to prepare a new betrayal against the working class, in correspondence with the turn by the ruling elites in Argentina and internationally to dictatorship and police-state repression.

Polls in German state elections forecast massive rejection of Grand Coalition

Marianne Arens & Markus Salzmann

Elections are taking place in two German states, Bavaria on Sunday and in Hesse two weeks later. These are the first significant elections since the re-launching of the grand coalition in Berlin. If current opinion polls are correct the results will not only send shock waves through the states affected, but also through the federal government.

Both in Bavaria and Hesse, polls indicate a massive rejection of the policies of the grand coalition (CDU, CSU, SDP) at a federal level, an opposition, which only finds a distorted expression in the existing party system.

In Bavaria, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which has governed the state since 1957, and the Social Democratic Party SPD, which has sat in opposition for just as long, face losses of 25 percent. The CSU, which had received 47.7 of the vote five years ago and over 60 percent in its best ever results, is currently polling at 33 percent. The party only polled worse in 1950, when two strong right-wing opponents sat in the state legislature. In the last state election the SPD received 20.6 percent. It is now polling at 10 percent.

A number of parties are profiting from this situation. The Greens, until now resigned to a vote in single digits, are now reckoned to be the second strongest party with 18 percent. The far-right Alternative for Germany, which is running in the state for the first time, is in third place with 14 percent, followed by the Free Voters, who have improved their share of the vote from 9 to 11 percent. The Free Democratic Party could enter the new state parliament with 5.5 percent (up 2.2 percent), while the Left Party is unlikely to be able to clear the five percent hurdle necessary for representation, despite doubling in the polls from 2.1 to 4.5 percent.

In Hesse the picture is similar. The Christian Democratic Union, CDU, which governs the state in an alliance with the Greens, has dropped to just under 29 percent (from 38.3 percent in 2012), the SPD to 23 percent (from 30.7). The Greens have improved from 11.1 to 17, the AfD from 4.1 to 13, the Left Party from 5.2 to 8 and the FDP from 5.0 to just under 7 percent. The polls do not include non-voters and invalid votes.

If the voting results follow the polls, they will be a blow to the grand coalition in Berlin as well as a clear rejection of the right-wing politics pursued in Bavaria and Hesse.

The CSU has played a key role in helping the AfD impose its own refugee policy. CSU chairman Horst Seehofer is the federal minister of the interior responsible for the “Migration Master Plan,” which envisages a comprehensive system of camps for refugees, the hermetic sealing of borders and mass deportations. When thousands of right-wing extremists marched into Chemnitz at the end of August, Seehofer expressed his solidarity with them, declared migration the “mother of all problems” and lined up behind the domestic intelligence agency chief, Hans-Georg Maassen, who also defended the neo-Nazis.

Markus Söder, who replaced Seehofer in March as Bavarian premier, also placed the persecution of refugees at the center of his policy. He railed against “asylum tourism” and said that Bavaria would “organise deportations much more effectively and in a targeted manner.” At the same time, the state government passed a new Police Act (PAG), which grants the police far-reaching powers, overrides fundamental civil rights and serves as a model for other federal states.

These right-wing policies have met with massive resistance. On the day devoted to German Unification, 40,000 people demonstrated against racism and the Police Task Law in the Bavarian capital. It is already the fourth major demonstration this year in Munich.

At the same time, social contradictions in Bavaria have intensified enormously, although the state is home to seven major German companies, including Siemens, BMW and Allianz. With a gross domestic product of 600 billion euros, Bavaria is surpassed by just five European countries.

Poverty is increasing, especially in the big cities. Last year, the Munich Poverty Report counted 269,000 poor adult persons, 65,000 more than five years ago; a percentage increase from 14.7 percent to 17.4 percent. Horrendous levels of rents and the high cost of living have forced many families to spend half of their income on housing while low earners are unable to find any accommodation at all. Child care places and nursing staff for the elderly are also in scarce supply. The debacle of the Bavarian State Bank, caused by the state government, cost the state budget billions, which were then subsequently recovered by cuts to social spending.

In Hesse the situation looks the same. Here too, recent protests against social cuts have come together with demonstrations against the far right. On September 1, Germany’s traditional day devoted to opposing war, more than 10,000 participated in a Rock against the Right concert in Frankfurt. On September 17, 7,000 people called for the resignation of the Interior Minister at the demonstration “Sea Rescues instead of Seehofer!” Wherever the AfD holds electoral meetings, it is met by ten times as many demonstrators shouting “Nazis out” and “Stop the AfD.”

In factories, anger is growing over the attacks on jobs and social gains. Recently, bus drivers, airport workers, daycare workers, teachers, hospital staff and employees of Siemens, Amazon and Ryanair have all taken strike action and hundreds of thousands of workers are ready to go on strike.

Hesse is one of Germany’s richest states, but social polarisation is rapidly increasing. Around 900,000 inhabitants, or 15 percent, are considered to be at risk of poverty. Every sixth pensioner and two-fifths of all families with single parents are affected by poverty. Workers and clerical employees struggle to find a long-term job with reasonable pay. They can no longer afford to live in the cities and there is a lack of teachers and educational assistants. There is a desperate lack of housing in the conurbation of Frankfurt. Following Brexit, more and more banks and bankers are moving to the city, in turn driving up rents. The number of millionaires is increasing at a double-digit rate.

In both in Bavaria and Hesse it is not only the ruling conservative parties (CDU and CSU) that are losing votes. Support for the Social Democrats is also plummeting, although they have been in opposition for years. With its anti-social Hartz laws, support for repressive measures against refugees, police state rearmament and militarism during its tenure as part of the federal coalition, the SPD has destroyed any illusion that it is some sort of left-wing alternative to the other bourgeois parties.

While the AfD has been able to benefit from the fact that its policies have been adopted by the federal government, the urban-based middle classes which formerly voted for the SPD are increasingly turning to the Greens. This is particularly pronounced in Bavaria, where its cities have grown recently due to influx from other federal states. Even former voters of the CSU and CDU, who support a humanitarian refugee policy in line with their Christian faith, are now supporting the Greens.

But the Greens have long since become a loyal representative of the interests of big business, banking and the state. In Wiesbaden (Hesse), they have been governing in a coalition with the CDU for five years. Referring to the Greens, state premier Volker Bouffier (CDU) boasted, “We work together successfully and respectfully. … We don’t argue.”

Under the Green Economy and Transport Minister Tarik al-Wazir, state owned companies such as Fraport, the clinics Giessen-Marburg, Offenbach and Frankfurt-Höchst as well as public transport are being systematically deregulated and privatised. In the election campaign, the Greens prioritised nationalist slogans and placards with the slogan: “Homeland? Naturally!”

In Bavaria, the Greens have long been regarded as bitter opponents of the CSU, now they are already preparing to form a possible coalition government. In a “television duel” between Premier Markus Söder (CSU) and the Greens leading candidate Ludwig Hartmann, Söder repeatedly emphasised their “similarities.” Other leading Greens, including the premier of the state of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, who has ruled in an alliance with the CDU for two years, have commented positively on a possible coalition.

The Left Party hopes to form a government with those parties expected to be punished by the electorate. While it is trying to enter the state parliament in Bavaria for the first time, in Hesse it is abiding by its old plan of forming a governing coalition with the SPD and the Greens, which, according to the polls, has little chance of gaining a majority.

The leading candidate of the Hessian Left Party, Janine Wissler (Marx21), has appeared in the election campaign alongside Sahra Wagenknecht, who recently formed a movement called “Stand Up.” which defends xenophobic and nationalist policies. Wissler has also appeared alongside the SPD’s leading candidate Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel. The Left Party would play its role in a so-called red-red-green alliance, Wissler asserted in an election rally in Frankfurt. Such a coalition is currently in power in the state of Berlin, and its policies are just as right-wing and anti-working-class as those of other state governments.

The Hessian SPD politician Heidi Wieczorek-Zeul called in the Frankfurter Rundschau for “a new alliance of left-wing parties.” In the article she defended the right-wing policies of the former SPD-Green federal government headed by Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer government, in which she acted as a development aid minister.

She went to defend German participation in the war against Serbia and promotes new wars. It is not acceptable “that one praises the UN on the one hand, but on the other Germany refuses to participate in a UN-mandated mission because it rejects any such missions in principle and defames them as ‘war interventions’,” she writes.

The extent to which the Left Party resembles the other bourgeois parties is also demonstrated by its constant calls for an increase in police. All of the parties are responding to growing popular and working-class opposition by moving closer together and further to the right. This will shape political developments after the elections in Bavaria and Hesse.

There are already voices promoting a future coalition with the AfD. For example, the Erlangen CSU city councilor Stefan Rohmer has demanded that the CSU “consider a coalition with the AfD” and justified his call with the “broad agreement on political positions.” These voices are quiet for the moment for tactical electoral reasons, but will undoubtedly become louder after the two elections, when political infighting breaks out.

The danger from the right, the agitation against refugees, police state rearmament and militarism can only be fought by a movement that mobilises the working class and links the fight against the right wing with the struggle against capitalism and a socialist program. This is the policy of the Socialist Equality Party.

US places alleged “Chinese spy” on public trial

Mike Head

In a dramatic escalation of its declaration of economic and strategic war against China, the US government yesterday revealed that a Chinese citizen accused of being an intelligence official had been arrested and extradited from Belgium to be charged with conspiring to commit “economic espionage” and steal trade secrets.

While many of the circumstances surrounding the case remain extremely murky, the extradition of Yanjun Xu as a supposed Chinese “spy” is unprecedented. Xu was reportedly snatched by Belgian authorities on April 1 as the result of a US entrapment operation, in which he was lured to Belgium from China by an offer of information about a fan blade design developed by GE Aviation, an American aerospace giant.

Despite a growing tide of vague and unsubstantiated US government and media allegations of Chinese “theft” of commercial and military technology, this is the first time an alleged Chinese agent has been seized and transported to the US to stand trial.

Moreover, the operation’s timing points to a new stage in Washington’s increasingly open drive to prevent China from becoming an economic or military threat to US global hegemony. This drive is combining punitive tariffs, trade war and sanctions with sweeping allegations of Chinese “espionage” and “interference” in the United States.

Xu’s extradition was announced days after US President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and FBI Director Christopher Wray all declared China to be the greatest threat to America’s economic and military security.

It also came less than a week after the Pentagon released a 146-page document, titled “Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States,” which made clear Washington is preparing for a massive, long-term total war effort against both China and Russia.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang immediately rejected the US charges, telling a press conference yesterday they were “purely fabricated.” He said: “We hope the US can deal with the issue fairly and legally and ensure the legitimate interests of a Chinese citizen.”

Nevertheless, the unveiling of the entrapment operation conducted against Xu was accompanied by provocative accusations against China, both intensifying the confrontation with Beijing and prejudicing any chance of Xu receiving a fair trial on charges that could see him jailed for 15 years.

As Xu made an initial appearance in federal court in Ohio yesterday, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers declared: “This case is not an isolated incident. It is part of an overall economic policy of developing China at American expense… we cannot tolerate a nation stealing our firepower and the fruits of our brainpower.”

Likewise, FBI assistant director Bill Priestap told the media: “This unprecedented extradition of a Chinese intelligence officer exposes the Chinese government’s direct oversight of economic espionage against the United States.”

This language echoed that of FBI director Christopher Wray, who branded China “the broadest, most complicated, most long-term” threat to US interests during October 10 testimony to a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.

The accusations also matched last week’s bellicose speech by Pence, in which he accused Beijing of directing “its bureaucrats and businesses to obtain American intellectual property—the foundation of our economic leadership—by any means necessary.” And Trump himself earlier accused China of interfering in the US mid-term elections in a bid to remove him from office.

The indictment against Xu alleges that he is a deputy division director in a department of China’s Ministry of State Security, the country’s intelligence agency. But the allegations against him relate to what appear to be routine activities involving exchanges of information between researchers and academics, in which Xu was employed by the Jiangsu Science & Technology Promotion Association.

Prosecutors alleged that Xu worked from 2013 through this year with others associated with the ministry and several Chinese universities to obtain “sensitive and proprietary information” from aviation and aerospace companies. They said he invited experts to travel to China, often for the initial purpose of delivering a university presentation, and paid their costs.

Such invitations and arrangements are commonplace among academics, scientists and technology experts, so the charges against Xu are also a wider threat to the civil liberties and basic democratic rights, including those of thousands of Chinese or Chinese-descended researchers and students in the US.

In last week’s speech, Pence targeted the more than 300,000 Chinese students studying in the US, as well as Chinese student organisations, as potential “fronts” to be countered as Washington puts the US on a war footing against China.

Xu was entrapped into travelling to Belgium after months of undercover operations by FBI agents, working in collaboration with GE Aviation. Yesterday, the Justice Department praised GE Aviation for its cooperation in the investigation.

This joint operation underscores the growing merging of the American corporate technology sector giants, which benefit from huge Pentagon contracts, with the repressive intelligence and police apparatus that aggressively protects the global and domestic interests of US imperialism.

The corporate media produced sensationalised headlines about a “Chinese spy” charged with stealing secrets. But any Chinese diplomatic and intelligence activities focussed on the US undoubtedly pale into insignificance compared to the massive operations conducted by Washington’s surveillance and military agencies against China, and every other country. These have been documented thoroughly by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Significantly, Stratfor, which has close links to the US security apparatus, described as “unusual” the decision to haul Xu to the US for a public trial, instead of possibly swapping him for a US spy or informant arrested by China. The state-owned Global Times said the unprecedented operation may be related to the reported 2010–2012 “dismantling” by the Chinese authorities of a CIA network of agents across the country.

On August 15, Foreign Policy reported that the CIA had “botched the communications system it used to interact with its sources in China, according to five current and former intelligence officials.” Dozens of suspected US spies were reportedly executed. China has neither confirmed nor denied the Foreign Policy report, and the US agencies have refused to comment on it.

What is clear is that by seizing Xu, and eight months later placing him on what amounts to a public show trial, the US government has taken another step toward military confrontation with China.

Facebook carries out massive purge of oppositional pages

Andre Damon

On Thursday, Facebook removed some of the most popular oppositional pages and accounts on the world’s largest social media network in a massive and unconstitutional assault on the freedom of expression.

With no public notice or accounting, over 800 pages and accounts have been summarily removed from the Internet. The removed pages include Police the Police, with a following of over 1.9 million, Cop Block, with a following of 1.7 million, and Filming Cops, with a following of 1.5 million. Other pages targeted included the Anti-Media, with 2.1 million followers, Reverb Press, with 800,000 followers, Counter Current News, 500,000 followers, and the Resistance, 240,000 followers.

Right-wing publications, including Right Wing News, were also removed.

The move has no precedent in the modern history of the Internet. Workers throughout the United States and the world must be put on notice: the ruling elite is meeting a growing strike wave by workers with the expansion of censorship and police-state measures.

In a blog post, Facebook announced that it was “banning… Pages, Groups and accounts created to stir up political debate,” referring to this as “coordinated inauthentic activity.”

These pages use “sensational political content” to “build an audience and drive traffic to their websites.” Tellingly, the pages “are often indistinguishable from legitimate political debate,” the social media monopoly said.

Facebook said the pages were targeted for their “behavior” including operating “multiple accounts” and posting “clickbait.” These half-hearted efforts to deny that it is targeting oppositional Facebook pages with unsubstantiated allegations about their “behavior” are a transparent lie.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg shakes hands with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr

In an instant, the world’s largest social media monopoly has removed avenues through which the American population learns about police criminality, state murder, and other government crimes.

An article in the New York Times on Facebook’s moves makes clear that the moves to censor the Internet, which began under the pretext of combatting “Russian meddling” in the 2016 elections, are now openly targeting domestic political organizations.

In “Made and Distributed in the USA: Online Disinformation,” the Times refers approvingly to the suppression of “influence campaigns” that “are increasingly a domestic phenomenon fomented by Americans on the left and the right.” It sites an “information warfare researcher” from the New Media Frontier organization as stating, “There are now well-developed networks of Americans targeting other Americans with purposefully designed manipulations.”

The Times further sites Ryan Fox, co-founder of New Knowledge, as claiming that censored pages and organizations “are trying to manipulate people by manufacturing consensus—that’s crossing the line over free speech.” Fox has previously worked for the NSA and the US Joint Special Operation Command. The CEO of New Knowledge, Jonathon Morgan, is connected to the Brookings Institution and was previously a Special Advisor to the US State Department.

In alliance with the state, Facebook and other social media companies are deciding what organizations constitute “well-developed network” seeking to “manipulate” public opinion. Of course, this applies not to the mass media, which is engaged in constant government propaganda, but opposition groups.

The main targets are left-wing organizations. In August 2017, the World Socialist Web Site published an open letter to Google alleging that it was censoring left -wing, anti-war, and socialist web sites, together with other social media monopolies. As a result of changes to Google’s search ranking algorithm, traffic to leading left-wing pages dropped by as much as 75 percent.

“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 same indictment applies to Facebook’s latest action.

Censorship by social media monopolies have been instigated by leading figures within the US government, including Democratic Senators Mark Warner and Dianne Feinstein and Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, who have demanded that the companies suppress “divisive content” in repeated hearings by the House and Senate intelligence and judiciary committees.

In acting as the agents of the American government in carrying out mass censorship, Facebook is directly violating the First Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits the government from “abridging the freedom of speech.”

While attempting to hide their efforts behind the false pretenses of stopping “inauthentic behavior,” the social media companies have directly acknowledged that they are engaging in political censorship in internal discussions. An internal Google document leaked on Tuesday admitted that “tech firms have gradually shifted away from unmediated free speech and towards censorship.”

The document acknowledged that such actions constitute a break with the “American tradition that prioritizes free speech for democracy.” Amid growing demands by the government and corporate advertisers to police what users say, the document states, censorship is a means to “increase revenues.”

These efforts are entirely in line with plans by the US military to move towards a police-state regime. Last month, the Atlantic Council summarized the proceedings of a US Special Forces conference that called for a sweeping crackdown on the freedom of expression.

The report observed that “technology has democratized the ability for sub-state groups and individuals to broadcast a narrative with limited resources and virtually unlimited scope,” bypassing the “professional gatekeepers” of the establishment media.

Social media companies have been “thrust into a central role” in seeking to stifle “incorrect” political viewpoints because the vast majority of the population opposes direct government censorship, the report noted.

Hitler’s resurrection in Germany

Peter Schwarz

Seventy-three years after Germany’s Nazi Führer ended his life in a Berlin bunker, the words and ideas of Adolf Hitler have been resurrected in one of Germany’s most prominent daily newspapers.

Such was the unprecedented scale of the crimes committed by Hitler’s regime that for decades, his fascist and anti-Semitic rantings were banned in Germany. Publication of his noxious manifesto Mein Kampf was prohibited by the German government for 70 years, reappearing in an annotated edition only in 2016.

Now, however, it has emerged that an October 6 guest column written by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party chairman Alexander Gauland and published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)—the German newspaper with the widest international circulation—is largely based on a November 1933 speech delivered by Hitler to Siemens workers in Berlin.

“Gauland’s text is obviously closely tied to Hitler’s,” commented historian Wolfgang Benz in the Tagesspiegel. “It is a paraphrase that looks as if the AfD chief had laid the 1933 speech of the Führer on his desk when he wrote his guest column for the FAZ.”

Benz, an authority on Nazism and anti-Semitism, commented on the column that “one probably suspects that the same spirit is blowing as in 1933”. It would appear, he said, that the AfD is offering “warmed-up leftovers” from the Nazi era, “with the nationalist movement, the NSDAP [Nazi party] and its epigones as a blueprint.”

In the FAZ, Gauland justifies the “populism” of his party on the grounds that the AfD defends the interests of the “conventional middle class” and ‘”so-called ordinary people” against “a new urban elite.” The members of this “globalized class,” says Gauland, “live almost exclusively in big cities, speak fluent English, and when they change jobs and move from Berlin to London or Singapore, they find similar apartments, houses, restaurants, shops, and private schools everywhere. ... As a result, the bond of this new elite to their respective homeland is weak. In a detached parallel society, they feel they are world citizens.”

In 1933, Hitler had used similar words to vilify a “small, rootless international clique”, which whipped up the peoples against each other: “These are the people who are everywhere and nowhere at home, but who live in Berlin today, tomorrow in Brussels, the day after tomorrow in Paris and then again in Prague or Vienna or in London, and feel at home everywhere.” he told his audience [interrupted with shouts of “the Jews!”) “They are the only ones that really have to be considered international elements because they can do business anywhere.”

Hitler counterpoised the “people”, as a national element, to this “international clique”: “... the people are chained to their soil, chained to their homeland, bound to the life possibilities of their state, the nation. The people cannot follow them.” Gauland’s “warmed-over” version refers to: “... those for whom homeland is still a value in itself and who are the first to lose their homeland because it is their milieu, into which the immigrants pour. They cannot just move away and play golf elsewhere.”

The anti-Semitic undertone of these lines is obvious. The image of uprooted, “cosmopolitan” Jews runs like a red thread through Nazi propaganda. But Gauland’s borrowings from Hitler go further than that. The deification of nation and homeland—blood and soil—formed the core of the ideology of fascism and Nazism.

The fanatical nationalism of the Nazis protected neither the German middle class nor the working class from the blows of the capitalist global economy; it sent them to the slaughter on the battlefields of the Second World War in the interests of German imperialism. At the same time, this fanatical nationalism was opposed to the revolutionary workers’ movement, which was internationalist ever since Marx and Engels published the "Communist Manifesto" in 1848 with the battle cry, “proletarians of all countries, unite!”

As long as bourgeois nationalism was directed against feudal fragmentation and tyranny, it was associated with progressive and democratic tendencies. But this era ended in the 19th century. The nation-state became too constricting for the international growth and integration of capitalist economy. Germany and the other imperialist powers were seeking to forcibly re-divide the world at the expense of their rivals. That was the cause of the First and Second World Wars.

“Attempts to save economic life by inoculating it with virus from the corpse of nationalism result in blood poisoning which bears the name of fascism,” wrote Leon Trotsky in November 1933, the same month that Hitler delivered his speech at Siemens. “Fascist nationalism, preparing volcanic explosions and grandiose clashes in the world arena, bears nothing except ruin.” (“Nationalism and Economic Life”) Seven years later, Hitler invaded Poland and started World War II.

The fact that a leading German newspaper has opened its pages to the AfD chairman to regurgitate Hitler’s blood-and-soil ideology shows just how far the return of the extreme right in Germany has progressed. Faced with growing international tensions, trade war and social conflicts, Germany’s ruling class is returning to its criminal traditions.

The publishers of FAZ knew exactly to whom they were offering a forum. Gauland, who had spent 40 years of his political career in the so-called Stahlhelm [Steel helmet] wing of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) before he joined the AfD, has opened up the party’s leadership to extreme right-wing and fascistic forces, such as Bernd Höcke. Where he stands politically himself, was demonstrated in his statement from June of this year that Hitler and the Nazis were “just so much bird shit in over a thousand years of successful German history.”

Although the AfD received only 12.6 of the votes in the general election, it now sets the tone in federal politics. The refugee policy of the grand coalition of the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats bears its signature, as well as the increased powers for the police and the secret service and the hike in spending on the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces).

Unlike the Nazis in the 1930s, however, the AfD does not head a fascist mass movement. It is rejected by broad sections of the population. In many cities, there are frequent mass demonstrations against the right-wing danger. In Munich alone, tens of thousands have protested against increased state powers, social inequality and militarism three times this year, and in Berlin 40,000 are expected to protest against racism on Saturday.

But this opposition, like the massive social dissatisfaction among the German population, finds no political expression in official politics. The parties represented in the Bundestag (federal parliament), along with the corporate media, are openly adapting themselves to the politics of the AfD. Within the framework of the grand coalition, the SPD follows the right-wing policy of the AfD. The Left Party also advocates a nationalist course; Gauland himself explicitly praised Left Party leader Sahra Wagenknecht in his FAZ column.

Many previously liberal representatives of the affluent middle class are flat on their backs before the AfD. Typical examples include the Green politician Boris Palmer and the Spiegel columnist and Freitag editor Jakob Augstein, who declared that Gauland had written “a clever text”, and called for “the AfD to co-govern.”

The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) has just published the book “Why are they back?" by Christoph Vandreier, which shows how the rise of the AfD was systematically prepared for years by a shift to the right in the universities, in the media and in politics.

As early as 2014, the media had sparked a furious witch-hunt against the SGP and its youth organization, the IYSSE, because they had criticized the right-wing extremist historian Jörg Baberowski, who had claimed in the weekly magazine Der Spiegel that Hitler was “not cruel.”

The leading role in this attack was played by the FAZ; Jürgen Kaube, now co-editor of the paper, defended Baberowski against alleged “Trotskyist bullying.” As the SGP predicted, trivializing the crimes of the Nazis paved the way to the resurgence of right-wing, militaristic and authoritarian politics in Germany.

This development is not limited to Germany. In the US and throughout Europe, capitalist rulers are turning to authoritarianism and the revival of fascism.

There is only one way to stop the revival of militarism and fascism in Germany: the mobilization of the international working class on the basis of a revolutionary program and the building of the SGP and the Fourth International as a mass socialist party.

UNICEF New and Emerging Talent Initiative (NETI) 2018 for Young Professionals

Application Deadline: 22nd October 2018 GMT+0100 (West Africa Standard Time)

Eligible Countries: International

About the Award: NETI Recruitment in 2018 focuses on two functional areas: Operations and Emergency
The New and Emerging Talent Initiative is an entry point for dynamic professionals interested in an international career with UNICEF. As part of UNICEF’s global talent management strategy, the Programme focuses on attracting, selecting, developing and retaining experienced professionals at mid-career level. NETI participants work actively in multicultural environments within the development and humanitarian arenas to contribute to delivering results for children.
The New and Emerging Talent Initiative (NETI) is a two-year career support programme for high-caliber candidates who have successfully passed the NETI recruitment process and have been selected for a regular P-3 fixed-term position.
Performance management is a key feature of the Programme. All participants go through continuous performance assessments and are evaluated systematically throughout their assignments. At the end of their first year and based on performance review outcomes, NETI participants can be extended for a second year in their specific duty stations.

Type: Job/Internship

Eligibility: The Programme has lanched the 2018 recruitment campaign in the areas of Emergency and Operations at the P-3 level..

The Programme is open for internal and external candidates irrespective of category and level, provided they meet the following minimum requirements.

• Completion of an advanced university degree (master’s degree or equivalent*) at the time of application.
• Proficiency in English and working knowledge (B2) of another official language of the United Nations (i.e. Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish).
• Readiness to be assigned to any UNICEF office worldwide, including hardship duty stations, non-family duty stations, and complex emergency operation duty stations
• A minimum of five years of progressively responsible professional experience. Relevant experience should include, but not limit to, work in developing countries and multicultural environments.
• University degrees presented by applicants must satisfy the required level of education and come from accredited academic institutions.

Preference will be given to candidates under 38 years of age.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:

• Participants have the opportunity to undertake a unique learning and career development path, including a two-week orientation at UNICEF’s New York Headquarters (NYHQ). As part of the orientation, participants attend learning sessions and workshops that are designed to help them acclimate to their new roles and increase their familiarity with the processes of the organization. During the orientation, participants get an overview of the organization’s strategies, initiatives and challenges.
• Participants will also have networking opportunities with NETI fellows around the globe and New York Headquarters’ staff.
• Participants are entitled to the same benefits and allowances as United Nations staff members with regular Fixed-Term Appointments.

Duration of Programme: 2 years

How to Apply: Apply Here

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Novo Nordisk International Talent Programme 2019/2020 (Funded to Study at University of Copenhagen)

Application Deadlines:

• 25th October, 2018
• 1st April, 2019

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Universities: The International Alliance of Research Universities are:

• University of Cape Town 

Others are:

• Australian National University
• ETH, Zürich
• National University of Singapore
• Peking University
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of Cambridge
• University of Oxford
• The University of Tokyo
• Yale University

Harvard University is also included in the Novo Nordisk International Talent Program.

To be taken at (country): University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Eligible Field of Study: Bioinformatics, Biochemistry, Biology, Biology-Biotechnology, Public Health, Food Innovation and Health, Global Health, Human Nutrition, Human Biology, Human Physiology, Immunology and Inflammation, Health Informatics, Chemistry, Medicine, Medicine and Technology, Molecular Biomedicine, Nanoscience and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

About the Award: Novo Nordisk International Talent Programme is a scholarship programme set up to assist students from the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) in a range of select academic fields seeking to study abroad at the University of Copenhagen.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: To be eligible to apply, candidate must:

• be enrolled in a degree programme at a IARU university or Harvard University
• apply for admission to UCPH as an exchange or guest student
• study at third year Bachelor’s level or Master’s level while at UCPH in one of the following programmes:
  Bioinformatics, Biochemistry, Biology, Biology-Biotechnology, Public Health, Food Innovation and Health, Global Health, Human Nutrition, Human Biology, Human Physiology, Immunology and Inflammation, Health Informatics, Chemistry, Medicine, Medicine and Technology, Molecular Biomedicine, Nanoscience and Pharmaceutical Sciences
• meet a GPA requirement of minimum 3
• engage in study activities pertaining to metabolism, insulin, haemoglobin and obesity

Selection Criteria: The programme gives priority to applicants who display a strong academic background and have submitted an ambitious study plan for their stay at the University of Copenhagen.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: 

• The scholarship may be spent towards the cost of tuition fees, travel costs, insurance, and other expenses incurred in connection with studying abroad at UCPH.
• The scholarship will typically amount to approximately EURO € 1200 a month. Depending on the costs and length of the study abroad at UCPH, it may increase up to EURO € 26000 in total.

Duration of Scholarship: Scholarships are awarded for up to one academic year.

How to Apply: To submit an application, you will be required to prepare following documents:

• Application form
• A copy of your transcript of records in English, including both Bachelor’s and Master’s grades

The application comprises of an application form, containing a motivated study plan and a list of the courses you plan to attend during your studies abroad as well ad enclosed transcripts of records, including both Bachelor’s and Matser’s grades (if applicable). The application and requested documents are submitted through this link.
You will be requested to submit your GPA, including both Bachelor’s and Master’s grades – if you have Master’s grades.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Novo Nordisk International Talent Programme

Important Notes: Candidates may expect to hear about the outcome of their application 4-8 weeks after the application deadline.

Sciences Po Eiffel Scholarship 2019/2020 for International Masters and Undergraduate Students

Application Deadline: 6th November 2018

To Be Taken At (Country): France

About the Award: Sciences Po only presents applications from candidates with profiles that match the priorities of the Eiffel scholarship. If you are offered a place to study at Sciences Po, we will inform you whether your application will be proposed to Campus France (the organisation in charge of this scholarship).
Applications received from students currently studying abroad are prioritised over those from students already living in France.
Students cannot apply directly for the Sciences Po Eiffel Scholarship. Applications must be made through a higher education institution.  If you are studying in two higher education institutions, you can only submit a single application. In order to apply, you must have already been accepted to a program at Sciences Po. For your application to be successful, it is essential that you respect our deadlines.
The Eiffel scholarship program, launched in January 1999 by the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, is aimed at foreign students whose outstanding ability has been recognised by French institutions of higher education who wish to sponsor these students for the rest of their studies.
The programme is primarily designed to provide an education in France to future decision makers in both the private sector and in the national administrations of emerging countries.

Type: Masters, Undergraduate

Eligibility: Candidates must be under 30 years old.

• Applicants for our graduate programmes
• Applicants for the dual degree in Journalism / Columbia (BAMA) (who are already first year students at Columbia’s university School of Journalism)

Sciences Po students

• Third year Sciences Po students
• Second year undergraduate students in one of our partnership programmes at Poitiers campus
• First year graduate student at Science Po
• Students admitted last year in their first year as a graduate student who requested a deferral
• Students admitted last year who have received a conditional offer of admission if they submit an English test before the scholarship application deadline.
• PhD students who are co-supervised or presenting a joint thesis with a partner university
• Students admitted to the following dual degree programme (other Sciences Po dual degree programme are not eligible for this scholarship):
  • Journalism Sciences Po/Columbia University (candidates for this programme are eligible)
  • Sciences et Politiques de l’Environnement Sciences Po/Université Pierre et Marie Curie (only first year students are eligible)
  • Quantitative Economics Sciences Po/Panthéon Sorbonne Paris I (only first year students are eligible)
  • The Eiffel laureates who graduated in June 2018 and wish to submit an Eiffel application for the PhD.

Not eligible to the Eiffel Scholarship

• Students who already received a grant or scholarship from the French government
• Students who have previously applied for an Eiffel scholarship and who have been unsuccessful, even if they change their field of studies.
• Candidates for the 1year Master’s programmes
• Candidates for the Joint Master in Journalism and International Affairs (Except candidates in their first year)
• Students admitted to a Sciences Po dual degree programme (except for the 3 dual degrees mentioned above)

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Monthly grant. The Eiffel Scholarship does not cover tuition fees.  Students offered a place to study at Sciences Po who receive the scholarship are therefore responsible for paying the annual tuition fees.

How to Apply: 

• Students cannot apply directly for the Eiffel Scholarship. Applications must be made through a higher education institution.  If you are studying in two higher education institutions, you can only submit a single application.
• First time applicants who wish to be presented for the Eiffel scholarship by Sciences Po must indicate so in the “Financial Information” section of their Sciences Po application form and must provide the required documents. Please note that your scholarship request will be taken into account only in case of admission.
• Students already admitted at Sciences Po, students admitted last year who have received a conditional offer of admission or students admitted last year in their first graduate year who requested a deferral have to send their Eiffel Scholarship application by email to the Admissions office by attaching the required documents : Admissions contact form 
• Sciences Po will select the applications that it wishes to present to Campus France. Please note that applying for the Eiffel grant does not guarantee the presentation of your application to Campus France.

All candidates must attach the following documents to their scholarship application :

• CV, including information on the applicant’s level (distinction/honours, ranking or position in the promotion, number of students in the promotion, diploma with information on specialisation, date of the diploma, final grades)
• professional project, one or two pages. The applicant must explain the reasons for studying in France as opposed to their home country, their interest for the selected programme and how this will help them achieve their career goals and objectives.
• academic transcripts all of the years of higher education (including periods spent abroad on exchange programmes)
• ID/passport.
• Language test certificates (french and/or english) if necessary

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

MIT Enterprise Forum (MITEF) Startup Competition for MENA Countries 2019

Application Deadline: 10th December, 2018.

To be taken at (country): Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

About the Award: The Arab Startup Competition is a yearly competition run by the MIT Enterprise Forum Pan Arab that pits entrepreneurs in 3 different tracks: Ideas Track, Startups Track and Social Entrepreneurship Track. The winning entrepreneurs are awarded prizes worth more than USD 160K and benefit from a range of other activities, including top tier training, mentorship, coaching, media exposure, and great networking opportunities.

Eligible Fields: As with last year’s edition, this year’s competition includes three different tracks: Ideas, Startups, and Social Entrepreneurship,

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: 

1. The “MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Startup Competition” (Competition) is run by the MIT Enterprise Forum for the Pan Arab Region (MIT EF Pan Arab).
2. By entering the competition, you hereby warrant that all of the information that you submit is accurate and complete in every respect.
3. Each team is allowed only one entry.
4. Every competing entry must comprise at least one Arab national. Additional eligibility criteria are listed for each of the 4 tracks (Ideas, Startups, Social Entrepreneurship, and The Silicon Valley Program).
5. If you are selected as a semi-finalist, you will be notified of your selection via an email. If you fail to respond within 48 hours of being notified, you will automatically forfeit your right to compete in the second round. If you do not provide the required information needed for the next phase of the competition within the deadline specified by the management team, you will also forfeit your right to compete in the second round.
6. Any changes to the team must be communicated with our management for approval.
7. Semi-finalist teams must attend the workshop, conference & the final award ceremony in person. These events are held each year in a different Arab capital. At least one member per team must attend the workshop.
8. Teams are expected to work on and submit specific deliverables prior to the workshop and conference. Qualified teams are not required to pay a participation fee for any of the workshop or conference. Each of the participants is expected to pay for their own flight ticket. The MIT Enterprise Forum Pan Arab will be paying all other expenses for up to two members per team, including accomodation, lunch and coffee breaks, ground transportation to and from the event venue. Other members attending the event can benefit from our special rates.
9. The calendar of the competition will be posted on our website, and we reserve the right to change any date at any time.
10. Personal information collected about you is used for the purpose of the competition, and will not be distributed to third parties without your consent.

Value of Programme: up to USD $160,000.  Each of the three tracks will award the first three ranked winners with cash prizes in addition to many other benefits including: top tier training, mentorship, coaching, media exposure, and great networking opportunities.

How to Apply: apply here

Visit Programme Webpage for details

Award Provider: The “MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Startup Competition” (Competition) is run by the MIT Enterprise Forum for the Pan Arab Region (MIT EF Pan Arab).

Heinz-Kühn-Foundation Journalism Scholarships for Junior Journalists in Developing Countries 2019/2020 – Germany

Application Deadline: 30th November, 2018

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries and Germany

To be taken at (country): Various countries

About the Award: The foundation awards Journalism Scholarships to young journalists from North-Rhine-Westphalia for six-week or three-month reporting trips in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The foundation also provides funds to enable candidates from developing countries to gain professional journalism experience in North-Rhine-Westphalia for up to three months.
The aim of the Heinz-Kühn-Foundation is to support the training and professional development of junior journalists.

Type: Training

Eligibility: Young journalists from North-Rhine-Westphalia and developing countries are eligible for a scholarship if they satisfy the following requirements:

• have a keen interest in development issues;
• have already gained substantial professional experience in journalism (a completed college education is desirable);
• are not older than 35 years of age; and,
• have a good command of the official language of their host country (candidates from abroad must at least have a basic knowledge of the German language).

Selection: Decisions are taken by the board of trustees of the Heinz-Kühn-Foundation on the recommendation of the selection committee.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Scholarship holders get

• a lump-sum contribution towards living expenses in the host country (with scholarship payments covering training and living expenses in the host country);
• a lump-sum allowance for flight and travelling expenses (the foundation pays a return air ticket for candidates from abroad);
• an allowance to cover costs of research materials (e.g. literature);
• an allowance for trips within the host country; and,
• (if neccessary, for scholarship holders from abroad) a German language course of up to four months at the Düsseldorf or Bonn based Goethe-Institut.

Duration of Scholarship: In the lead up to the scholarship and throughout the duration of the Journalism Scholarships, the Heinz-Kühn-Foundation will provide support.

How to Apply: Journalists who meet the requirements for a scholarship should first contact the foundation to discuss possible host countries and their topics of interest.
The foundation’s postal address is:
Ministerpräsidentin des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen
Heinz-Kühn-Stiftung
Fürstenwall 25
40219 Düsseldorf
The following documents should be enclosed with the application:

• curriculum vitae in tabular form and a photograph;
• certificates of vocational training and present occupation;
• foreign languages certificates;
• German candidates should provide a detailed statement explaining their reasons for applying, their choice of host country and proposed topic of research.
• Candidates from abroad should provide a letter of motivation in German.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Heinz-Kühn-Foundation