EMMIR African-European Masters Scholarship+Internship in Migration Studies 2019/2021

Application Deadline: 20th December, 2018

Eligible Countries: African and EU countries

To be taken at (country): Graduates will be awarded a joint degree by the seven EMMIR partner universities:

• Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Germany
• Ahfad University for Women in Omdurman, Sudan
• Mbarara University of Science & Technology, Uganda
• University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia
• University of South Bohemia in ÄŒeské BudÄ›jovice, Czech Republic
• University of Stavanger, Norway
• University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa (from 2017)

About the Award: European Master in Migration and Intercultural Relations (EMMIR) is the first African-European Erasmus Mundus Master Course in Migration Studies. EMMIR is jointly run by three African and four European universities, facilitated by a wider network of partners. Various associate organsiations on the regional, national and international level provide significant assistance for student internships and graduate’s employment.

EMMIR is a unique study programme focusing on migration through an intercultural approach. It provides profound theoretical skills in migration studies combined with field work in Europe and Africa. It is designed as a multidisciplinary programme that addresses important contemporary issues in an emerging field of study.

EMMIR includes study periods in both Europe and Africa. Students’ mobility is understood as a key to mutual understanding of different views and cultures of migration and movement and will sharpen intercultural sensitivity.

Offered Since: 2011

Type: Masters

Selection Process: The quality of the programme is constantly evaluated by an international board of experts.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Full participation fees, stipends plus travel expenses.

Duration of Scholarship: 2 years

How to Apply: EMMIR uses the management platform eConsort to facilitate the application process. Only after registering with your name, email address you will be able to access the online application form.

Please follow this link to register for application.

The application form must be completed online by filling in all the indicated boxes in the link above.

Upon submission, you will receive a summary of all your application details automatically generated by the application system. This confirmation has to be printed out, dated and signed, and attached to your applications package including all the documentation required. Please note that your application package has to arrive at the EMMIR Coordinator within the given deadline. In other words: The application process is only completed once the paper version of your application has arrived at the University of Oldenburg.

It is important to go through the Application Requirements before applying

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details


Award Provider: European Commission

Undoing Patriarchy

Seth Sandronsky

Patriarchy is male supremacy over women. The Me Too movement fighting sexual assault and harassment is a modern battle against this centuries-long phenomenon. In Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women (PM Press 2018), Silvia Federici connects patriarchy to the rise of a cash society, or capitalism, in western Europe between the 15th and 18^th century, a process proceeding in the so-called developing world of the Global South now.”

Why speak of witch-hunts in 2018? Federici’s themes are straightforward in her two-part book of essays. One theme is the process of peasant removal, or enclosing of the common lands in Europe, that disrupts the social status of men and women. What Europeans did to Africans and indigenous Americans in the so-called “new world” undergirded that old country pattern of conquest and theft that created poverty, immiserating women. Then the patriarchal state criminalized them. It was and is a one-two punch. Federici continues. In Africa and India now, for instance, such land dispossession is underway to benefit transnational corporations.

Communal property relations end violently. With-hunts and homicides are symptoms of this dislocation. Whether it is by the bullet or fire, dehumanizing women as witches is a violent process. Federici shows how the language, replete with the patriarchal-structures of male-centered religious demonology, facilitates the maiming and murdering of independent females.

Federici unpacks male demonizing of women as witches those who resist the rise of a money economy whereby people’s labor becomes a commodity to buy and sell in the marketplace, to produce commodities with prices. These communal societies were and are women-centered in part because they are the gender nurturing and reproducing the future generation.

Theme two is the increasing power of males over the bodies of women. This relationship encompasses women’s sexuality and birth capacity.

The witch-hunts, seen in legal codes of European nations 500 years ago, targeted in part women who struggled to maintain ties to food, land and work that capitalist social relations broke. Historian Peter Linebaugh has written extensively on that period in Europe that Federici cites.

She also sheds useful light on women’s status in the face of a rising tide of capitalist social relations in the book’s seventh and longest essay, tying processes in some African nations under World Bank structural adjustment policies that upend communalism. That violent change produces alienated and frightened males. They are ripe for scapegoating women who labor to maintain their former social status, e.g., folk healers and midwives. Observantly, Federici compares their discrediting as witches to the red-baiting of the Cold War era in which communists were the alleged enemies of the common good for whom no punishment was too severe.

Federici connects past witch-hunting to feminicide. A case in point is the unsolved murders of northern Mexican girls and women in Ciudad Juárez over the border from El Paso, Texas over the past 26 years. She
contextualizes this homicidal trend to whites lynching blacks in front of approving Caucasian crowds stateside. In this case, the more public and brutal the killings, the more such male violence against so-called
witches “is taking forms once seen only in times of war,” she writes in a penultimate essay examining global and historical views of women and capitalist globalization. The killings of women called witches in Africa and India, and female resistance to that mayhem, take up the last part of the book.

The final essay clarifies the whys and wherefores of economic globalization and male attacks on women. They pay for trying to hold on to old ways of living and working as capitalist institutions like the World Bank (behind the scenes to local people) push policies of land robbery. Think the mining of coltan (vital to digital devices) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the mass murders of its women. Especially in harm’s way, in Africa now and Europe of the past, are older women past child-bearing age. They are keepers of folk wisdom, for example, demonized as witches with no right to live under the rules of an economy based on people creating profits for capital.

Undoing patriarchy is a gargantuan process. Honesty about gender relations in the context of global capitalism is key, Federici argues, to creating the new world of equity and sustainability between and among people of all genders. Federici’s new book is a necessary resource for that social change.

UK: May fends off challenge by hard-Brexiteers

Robert Stevens 

UK Prime Minister Theresa May met with backbench Conservative MPs Wednesday evening, gathered by the influential 1922 Committee.

The days leading up to the meeting had a febrile atmosphere, with rumours that May faced an imminent leadership challenge led by hard-Brexit MPs. Sources suggested that the chair of the 1922 Committee, Graham Brady, had already received the required 48 letters from MPs to declare a leadership challenge.

The weekend papers noted the incendiary language being used by some hardline Brexiteers, with the Sunday Times speculating May had possibly just 72 hours left in Downing Street. One unnamed MP said that May was entering the “killing zone,” with another saying that the knife “would be stuck in her front and twisted. She’ll be dead soon.”

Instead, May not only survived the Wednesday’s meeting, but accounts also said that she was warmly greeted and met with what the Financial Times called “thunderous applause” as MPs accepted her “heartfelt” plea that they back her soft-Brexit plan to exit the European Union (EU). Michael Fabricant MP described the meeting as a “love-in. ... It wasn’t Daniella in the lions’ den, it was a petting zoo.”

“She lives to fight possibly until the next election [set for 2022],” the pro-Brexit MP added.

According to the Guardian, May only faced “a handful of awkward questions from Brexiters including Nadine Dorries, Sir Edward Leigh and Philip Davies, but loyalists said she won over the room. ...”

That May, who supported Remain in the 2016 referendum and who has been constantly forced to make concessions to her pro-Brexit wing for the last two years, was able to seize the day in this way reflects a pronounced shift in ruling circles, who cannot countenance a hard Brexit.

With just over five months until the UK is formally set to exit the EU, the well-funded Remain campaign organised a show of force in London last Saturday, with a rally supported by hundreds of thousands. This was accompanied by warnings that investment levels have fallen for four in five businesses in fear of the consequences of a hard-Brexit. Jaguar Land Rover temporarily closed operations in Solihull for several weeks affecting 9,000 workers’ jobs. CEO Ralf Speth warned that major job losses were inevitable if firms lost access to the EU Single Market and Customs Union. The most exposed industries would have “no way to survive a hard Brexit.”

The financial sector and services industries also face devastation. Around 40 percent of UK exports to the EU are accounted for in trade in services, including financial services and the legal profession. London’s economy is 92 percent based on service industries.

The import of this was recognised even by ardent Brexiteer columnist Christopher Booker, who commented in the Daily Telegraph this week that at the outset of Brexit, politicians “were simply unaware of how much of our national activity had become so closely intermeshed with that of the EU and thus legally dependent on its rules. The consequences for many of our most successful industries may thus be devastating: from chemicals, pharmaceuticals, financial services, aviation and our ports to Formula One motor racing: even our ability to move racehorses freely between Britain, Ireland and France.”

May told the 1922 Committee meeting that the Brexit deal was near completion, with two main issues outstanding.

The most important is the post-Brexit border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which will remain an EU member. May is demanding the EU drop its proposal for a Northern Ireland-only “backstop” keeping it in a customs arrangement with the EU indefinitely if a future trade deal between the EU and UK cannot be finalised. May’s alternative, based on pressure from the Democratic Unionist Party whose 10 MPs give her a majority in Parliament, is for a time-limited UK-wide customs backstop. The other issue is on extending the transition period in which Britain stays within the single market and the customs union beyond the end of 2020, as is currently planned.

Negotiations with the EU continue based on a deal being finalised by December at the latest, so the EU’s national governments can sanction it. On Wednesday, European Council President Donald Tusk told MEPs, “Since Prime Minister May mentioned the idea of extending the transition period, let me repeat that if the UK decided that such an extension would be helpful to reach a deal, I am sure that the leaders would be ready to consider it positively.”

A striking confirmation of the determination in ruling circles to clear all obstacles to a soft-Brexit is provided by the previously vociferously pro-Brexit Daily Mail. Following the departure of its editor Paul Dacre, the Mail has steadily moved towards support for May’s positions. Just 18 months ago, the Mail denounced judges who ruled that Parliament had to have a final say on any Brexit deal and advised May to “crush” any “saboteur” MPs who opposed a hard-Brexit. However, on Tuesday, it published a leader describing Tory MPs who were undermining May as “Saboteurs endangering our nation.” The Mail was “well aware of the shortcomings of the Chequers plan. But the truth is that it’s the only plan on the table—and Mrs May is the only person who can drive it forward.”

As well as keeping May in place, getting a deal negotiated by May through Parliament requires a shift in line in the Labour Party under leader Jeremy Corbyn. On Monday, the Times, owned by the Brexit-supporting Rupert Murdoch, published an editorial titled “Labour’s obfuscation over Brexit adds to the sense of national crisis.”

It noted that Corbyn’s absence from the Remain march, “one of the biggest demonstrations in recent times was symptomatic of Labour’s absence from the broader Brexit debate.”

It noted that Labour’s setting of “six tests by which it will judge any deal that the prime minister brings back from Brussels” are “based upon various statements made by Mrs. May and her ministers before they triggered Article 50 [starting the process to leave the EU], chosen in the certain knowledge that they cannot be met.”

“In ordinary times, Labour’s policy of deliberate obfuscation would be politically understandable for the main opposition party. But these are not ordinary times,” the newspaper warned Corbyn. “If his efforts to derive party advantage from a moment of national crisis contribute to a terrible Brexit outcome, it won’t be only the 700,000 marchers who will hold Labour partly responsible.”

All the Blairites within the Labour party are opposed to Corbyn’s stated aim of urging May to call a general election if her deal is rejected. Some have been holding out for a second referendum. But the Times is backing a faction said to number between 20 and 45 who are urging support for May’s deal as the only alternative to a no-deal Brexit. This would allow for the extension period of continued regulatory alignment to be used to campaign for a shift to remain.

Among their main concerns is how to achieve their aims without precipitating the election of a Labour government, under conditions in which many workers and youth are seeking fundamental change and supported Corbyn on the basis of his professed opposition to austerity and war.

Tory Brexiteer Andrea Jenkyns stated that some in the hard-Brexit wing backed off from issuing letters of no confidence in May because of “fear of another election and a Corbyn government.”

In its editorial condemning Tory MPs seeking May’s removal, the Mail warned that “if they continue with their wrecking tactics, they could force an election that no one wants and may well usher an unreconstructed Marxist into No. 10, with all the ruinous consequences that would wreak on the nation.”

European Union steps up Internet censorship in the name of opposing “disinformation”

Johannes Stern

The European Union (EU) summit on October 18 resolved to further tighten the censorship of the Internet. It also threatened with sanctions and penalties any party that diverges from the prescribed political line in the 2019 European election campaign. This is the response of European governments to growing opposition to militarism, social cuts and right-wing extremism.

In the summit’s official conclusions, the European Council calls for “measures to combat cyber and cyber-enabled illegal and malicious activities and build strong cybersecurity.” The EU should be empowered to “respond to and deter cyber-attacks through EU restrictive measures.”

These measures are justified not only by the supposed need to ward off hacking attacks, but also to “combat disinformation, including in the context of the upcoming European elections.” For this purpose, the EU Commission has proposed measures that, according to the Council’s conclusions, deserve “rapid examination.” These include “fighting disinformation campaigns,” “tightening the rules on European political party funding” and “operational follow-up by the competent authorities.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel already announced this in her policy statement to the Bundestag on October 17. Among other things, she threatened parties “whose campaigns actively engage in disinformation” with financial sanctions. “Anyone who does not abide by the democratic rules-of-the-game in Europe cannot expect to receive party financing funds from the European Union.”

Neither Merkel nor the European Council elaborated on what they mean by “disinformation campaigns.” However, it is clear what it is all about. The established media, parties, and Internet corporations label all who deviate from the standard line with terms such as “fake news,” “disinformation,” or “cyber-attack.” This is targeted first and foremost against left and progressive websites and organisations.

For example, earlier this month, Facebook deleted numerous popular left-wing accounts—including organisations fighting against war and police violence—in the name of the fight against “fake news.” In Germany, since the entry into force of the so-called Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG), tens of thousands of contributions have been deleted using the same justification. For a year and a half, Google has been cooperating closely with German government circles in the censorship of left-wing and progressive websites, most notably the World Socialist Web Site.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for more than six years after Wikileaks exposed the war crimes of the US government. He faces extradition to the US and a potential death sentence if he leaves the embassy.

In Germany, the latest report by the domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), uses the term “disinformation” to denounce any left-wing opposition to official government policies. “Internationally broadcasted TV, radio and internet channels operate targeted propaganda and disinformation campaigns,” the report claims. The BfV goes on to boasts that “preventative measures” have “contributed to a high level of attention towards possible disinformation and has led to increased protective measures.”

The stated goal of the BfV, which works closely with the neo-fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD), is the persecution of socialist parties. Thus, its report lists the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) as a “left-wing extremist party.” Justification for the surveillance is not based on violations of law or violent acts, but rather the public advocacy of a socialist programme “directed against the existing state and social order, as a generalised disparagement of ‘capitalism,’ against the EU, against alleged nationalism, imperialism and militarism.”

The SGP will officially announce its participation in the European elections in the coming days. The party recognises the plans of the European Council as a direct threat. Merkel and the other European leaders must disclose the details of their clandestine preparations. What exactly do they mean by “operational follow-up” to be initiated by the “competent authorities”? Will this be similar to those “operations” carried out last week against political opposition parties in France?

On October 16, heavily armed policemen raided the private residence of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the Unsubmissive France (LFI) movement. The police were dressed in bulletproof vests and armed with assault rifles. Fifteen more assault teams broke into the homes of other LFI leaders and occupied the party headquarters. They confiscated material, downloaded data from computers, and unlawfully prevented Mélenchon and other party members from entering their own party headquarters.

Despite its political differences with Mélenchon, the World Socialist Web Site has sharply condemned this attack, calling it an “unmistakable threat to masses of people in France, across Europe and beyond. A decade after the Wall Street crash of 2008, the ruling elites are aware that their grotesque wealth and policies of austerity and war are overwhelmingly unpopular. Weak governments take desperate measures, and they aim to use ruthlessly the police-state powers built up during the ‘war on terror’ against political opposition.”

It is in this context that one has to understand the conclusions of the EU summit. The ruling class is reacting with authoritarian methods to the increase in mass demonstrations and strikes across Europe. Despite fierce conflicts, European governments are joining ranks in suppressing growing popular opposition. The whole document of the European Council reads like a blueprint for the speedy development of a European police state.

The summit agreed to “provide Member States’ law enforcement authorities, Europol and Eurojust with adequate resources.” This will be further strengthened by “partnerships with the private sector” as well as improved cooperation and access to data. Security and law enforcement agencies should thus be able to respond to “new challenges posed by technological developments and the evolving security threat landscape.”

Among other things, a pan-European data system giving police and the law access to the data of millions of people is planned. To this end, the “interoperability of information systems and databases” should be improved, “in particular through a common identity repository.” All “measures needed,” according to the summit, should be given “the highest priority.”

Conflict Research Fellowship of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) 2019

Application Deadline: 6th January 2019 at 11:59pm (EST)

Eligible Countries: International

About the Award: The Conflict Research Fellowship (CRF) offers yearlong support for experienced scholars (based at a university or NGO). The CRF is part of the Conflict Research Programme (CRP), a four year, UK Department of International Development funded research program based at the London School of Economics and Political Science that investigates the drivers of violent conflict in five cases: Somalia, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, and Syria. The program focuses on ways in which the political economy of public authority helps to explain the persistence and spread of violence. Successful fellowship candidates will need to examine how different interventions affect violent conflict and/or the risk of renewed violent conflict; analyze “what works”to counter drivers of conflict; and explore the contextual factors that affect the efficacy of such interventions, including the linkages among international, national, state, and local level dynamics.  Successful candidates will contribute to the overall analysis of conflict through case studies of external interventions in four areas prioritized by the program:

1. Civil society support (including multi-scalar peacemaking and peacebuilding activities, support for reconciliation, and community-level dialogue and mediation)
2. Security and Justice Sector reform (including DDR/RR, stabilization, regional security networks/arenas, transitional, formal and customary justice)
3. Strengthening public authority and legitimacy, including at sub-national levels (the political marketplace, the effects of patronage networks on governance, governance promoting interventions, decentralization and anti-corruption activities)
4. Resource management (including settlement of land and real estate disputes, governance frameworks, and the role of natural resource competition in shaping public authority)

Type: Research, Fellowship

Eligibility:

• Candidates must be postdoctoral scholars, policy analysts, or practitioners based at a university or nongovernmental organization with at least three years of field-based experience since the completion of the PhD (or researchers with equivalent experience who have published one book or two peer-reviewed academic articles).
• Applications will be considered for the following purposes only: funding to support fieldwork, teaching buy-out at your home institution, or a visiting appointment at a US or European university.
• Research projects must focus on the core countries of the CRF: Somalia, South Sudan, DRC, Iraq, or Syria.
• Applicants must also be available to attend a preparatory workshop in New York within the first two months of their fellowship period, and a capstone workshop towards the end of the year-long fellowship.
• At the end of the fellowship period, recipients must produce an original research output that is suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Value and Number of Awards: Up to 7-9 individual grants of a maximum of £17,000 will be awarded.

Duration of Programme: Grants are awarded on a competitive, peer-reviewed basis and are intended to support three months of field-based research, whereas a visiting fellowship can be supported for a maximum of 6 months.

How to Apply: All applications must be uploaded through the online portal.
Do not hesitate to contact program staff at the Social Science Research Council in New York if you have further questions. Program staff may be contacted at uvc@ssrc.org or by telephone at (+1) 718-517-3707.

Requirements

1. Completed Application Form
2. Completed Proposal & Bibliography
3. Two (2) Reference Letters
4. Language evaluation(s) (if required)
5. Updated CV

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

World Bank SDGs & Her 2019 Competition for Women Entrepreneurs (Funded to New York, USA)

Application Deadline: 31st December 2018

Eligible Countries: International

To Be Taken At (Country): New York, USA

Type: Contest

Eligibility: To be eligible you must:

• be a woman owner of a business that has been in operation for at least 3 years
• own a micro-enterprise, with at least 1 and no more than 9 employees
• have a loan eligibility of under USD $10,000 or annual sales of under USD $100,000

Selection Criteria: Entries will be screened by a university partner and then judged by an expert panel. Judges will determine the winners based on the impact on the SDGs, vision and purpose, and clarity of the entries.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:The top winners will be recognized in April 2019 at an event on the margins of the 2019 World Bank Group-IMF Spring Meetings in Washington D.C. The stories of the winning women entrepreneur (and many other notable entries) will be shared through partners’ social media and websites.

How to Apply: Applicants complete a short online template, describing their work and linking their initiative/product to 1 or more SDGs.

Visit the Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers:  World Bank Group, Wharton School’s Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research, UN Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Women

Assassination as a Criminal Tool by the Powerful Against the Weak and Oppressed

Raouf J. Halaby

Only recently a spat between Saudi Arabia and Canada made headlines as a result of the Saudi Government’s beheading of a Myanmar guest worker. After the public barbaric and gruesome decapitation, the corpse was crucified on a horizontal post with the truncated head slung in a bag adjacent to the victim’s mutilated corpse.

This is the 21^st century, and these are Donald Trump’s BFFs.

I suppose that investing $110 billion in lethal weapons, the purchase of Trump apartments, and real estate deals by Saudis flush with cash exonerates Saudi Arabia’s cold blooded murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the thousands of Saudis and Yemeni dead.

The Saudi penchant for beheadings is intended to put the fear of Allah in Saudi citizens and to quash any criticism of a royal family living high on the khanzir (hog), and a family that is squandering its national wealth on palaces, yachts, jets, expensive vacations abroad, casinos, and a luxurious lifestyle not unlike Harun al-Rashid’s celebrated 9^th century epoch.

In 2015 the Saudi Government beheaded 158 people; in 2016, 154 people; and in 2017, 146 people – for any number of crimes deemed offensive to the tenets of the ultra-conservative Wahhabi doctrine. And in the first four months of 2018, 32 people were beheaded. The infractions include drug charges, political activism, critiquing the royal family, murder, and rape.

Because of the financial power they yield around the world, the Saudis thought they could get away with an assassination in far-away Istanbul, Turkey.  The fifteen-member assassination team, including a saw wielding forensic scientist, have allegedly killed, beheaded, and dismembered an international journalist  who’s been a thorn in the Saudi theocratic dictatorship. To date and in spite of a belated Saudi admission that Jamal Khashoggi was killed by rogue Saudi elements, no forensic evidence has been produced. The reason? The evidence will be a damning indictment of the dastardly macabre deed.

It took the Saudis and the Trump Administration over two weeks to put one spin after another on this heinous crime with, no doubt, a Trumpian slant akin to the Brett Kavanaugh swampy appointment and sham FBI investigations. While the Saudis have honed the art of beheading, the U.S. (Bush, Obama, Trump) and the Israelis have excelled in the art of assassination. A drone or jet fighter, after all, is a sure target hit on unsuspecting victims in remote areas of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, or Palestine. And a complicit media that chooses to gloss over the killing of innocent civilians is as culpable as the perpetrators.

To gloss over the extent of the far-reaching destruction of Iraq and because Al Jazeera’s revelatory reporting on the complete pulverization of Iraq’s infrastructure and civil society was irksome to Bush the Dumber, on April 16, 2004, Bush suggested to Tony Blair the “taking out” of Al Jazeera’s quarters in Baghdad. While Blair’s reticence shielded Al Jazeera, the Bush war megalomaniacs bombed the Baghdad-based Palestine Hotel. The hotel housed cadres of foreign journalists whose scathing reports on the extent of the indiscriminate and malevolent destruction of human life and materiel was irritating to the powers that be.

Bush was egged on by Chaney, Rumsfeld and other policy advisors that includes, but is not limited to, Feith, Perle, Abrams, Frum, Adelman, Wolfowitz, Kagan, and Kristol – all members of the Israel-first team.

The assassination of Journalists, opposition leaders, human rights and peace activists is a criminal weapon employed by the tyrannically powerful against the defenseless oppressed and vulnerable.

While Syria, Iran, Turkey, Russia and China are (rightfully so) exorcised by American and European leadership and the media for their repression of journalists, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and (especially) Israel, have been shielded by both the West’s political powers and the  media. And brutal dictators such Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are the American darlings and mechanisms through which cheap oil is guaranteed and a foil for anti-Iran policies.

The first place award for journalistic-repression-by-assassination goes to Israel, “the only democracy in the Middle East.”

Between 1992 and 2018 eighteen Journalists have been killed by Israeli snipers and soldiers. Since August of this year three members of the Gaza Palestinian press corps were also assassinated in cold blood by Israeli snipers given a license to kill medics, children, women, and men. In all cases the journalists wore the journalist’s Blue Flak jackets (emblazoned with an all caps PRESS), and in each of the 18 cases the journalists were singled out so as to prevent the world from witnessing Israel’s ongoing carnage in Gaza and Occupied Palestine. In Gaza, over 100 Israeli snipers were positioned atop a border sand berm to pick off Palestinian protesters as though the killings were a sport, a  skeet shooting competition.

And the same blame the victim tactic employed to smear Dr. Ford and Kashoggi (he is a supporter of the Moslem Brotherhood proclaimed Trump’s many supporters) have been used to smear Palestinian victims, always described by Israeli officials as terrorists or suspected terrorists.

In a 2/2/2018 Newsweek article authored by Jeff Stein under the title “A Secret History of Israeli Assassinations,” Stein draws heavily on espionage journalist Ronen Bergman’s book Rise Up and Kill: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations. Stein describes Ronan as “the veteran Israeli espionage journalist [who’s] taken a slightly different angle into the shadow world of spies, counterspies and assassinations.” Bergman was “Drafted into the Israeli Defense Forces in 1990 [and] spent three years recruiting and handling informants for the army’s criminal investigative division, where he burrowed into military corruption, drug trafficking, arms dealing and other crimes.” According to Stein, Bergman’s army “skills … served him well as Israel’s premier chronicler of the country’s principal spy services—the Mossad (Israel’s CIA), Shin Bet its (internal security organ) and Aman (military intelligence).”

Bergman catalogues six decades of Israeli targeted assassinations for which the Israelis have coined a euphemism:  In Hebrew parlance “Negative Treatment” is synonymous to Targeted Assassinations that includes a long list of people to be “liquidated.”

According to a lengthy list of online Israeli assassinations, the number of political activists assassinated in the Occupied West Bank was as follows: the year 2000, 13 assassinations; 2001, 35 assassinations; 2002, 72 assassinations; and in 2003 the Israeli Government “authorized killing the entire Hamas political” echelon in “a hunting season intended to prop up Mahmoud Abbas.”

Mahmoud Abbas and cronies should be ashamed of themselves for collaboration with the Nazi occupier.

The exponential growth of Israeli assassinations in the three years cited above is primarily due to the fact that the Israelis can do what they want and get away with it. And now that the Saudis and Israel (along with a buffoonish kushnerized  U.S. clownish  foreign policy) are dancing the Saudi desert sword dance in unison, the Saudis have convinced themselves that they are on an equal footing with Israel.

In effect, if Muhammad B. S. is complicit in this crime, then he’s telling his subjects and the world: “We can assassinate with impunity.”

Bergman’s book “catalogues Israel’s six-decade history of ‘negative treatment’ (the Hebrew euphemism for targeted killing operations) …  which, over time, ranged from fugitive German war criminals … to front-line Arab leaders to Iraqi nuclear officials [including] scientists in Iran’s nuclear program.”  And always, of course, “there were the Palestinian leaders, and later Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, to be ‘liquidated.’”

Stein’s meticulous accounting of his Bergman interview is poignant and dovetails with CP contributor’s writings, the late Uri Avneri, who’s convincingly argued that Arafat’s death was planned and executed by Ariel Sharon. Stein writes the following:

I asked Bergman if he came across anything really surprising in his research. Yes, he said quickly. “One day I was sitting in a north Tel Aviv café, not far away from where I live, with someone from the Air Force, and we were discussing all sorts of different topics. And he said, ‘I have something I need to relieve myself of, that I kept for so long.’” It turned out to be the extraordinary story of how, in 1982, on orders from then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, Israeli pilots nearly shot down a civilian plane because of a Mossad team’s mistaken belief that Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir [sic.] Arafat was aboard it. Only a last-second correction by Mossad operatives saved the lives of the passengers, which included Arafat’s look-alike younger brother, Fathi, a pediatrician and founder of the Red Crescent, and 30 wounded Palestinian children he was taking to Cairo for medical treatment. The incident was recounted in a January 23 excerpt in The New York Times. In the book, Bergman hints that Sharon, who was long obsessed with killing Arafat, might have authorized his fatal poisoning in 2004. But even if he knew it to be true, he writes, “the military censor in Israel forbids me from discussing the subject.”

The assassination methods employed by Israeli agents include Hell Fire missiles from Apache helicopters (gifted to Israel by Clinton and Obama compliments of  U.S. taxpayers), drones, motorcycle-riding assassins (in Iran and Malaysia), booby-rigged  telephone booths, phones and cell phones, letter bombs, car bombs, and poison-laced chocolate, to name but a few. Victims were disposed of in their beds, at home and in front family members, including children, while driving, in hospitals, public spaces, schools and university campuses. One of the most dastardly practices employed by Israel Defense Forces is the use of human shields on their assassination hunting trips.  Numerous documented incidents of children placed atop military jeep hoods have been used to enter a Palestinian village or enclave.

As sinister as these assassinations are, the nomenclature ascribed to these murderous acts is equally abhorrent. Operation Sphinx, Operation Spring Youth, Operation Damocles, Project Babylon. Operation Defense Shield, Operation Pillar Cloud, Pillar of Defense, and Mow the Lawn are but a few of these code names.

While the vast majority of those who fell at the hands of Israeli assassins have been residents of Occupied Palestine, Israeli assassinations have been carried out across Lebanon and Syria,  Egypt, Tunisia, Montevideo, Uruguay, Brussels, Belgium, Malta, Jordan, Cyprus, Rome, East Berlin, Saδ Paulo, Norway, Paris, Egypt, and Greece.

Three assassinations stand out. In 1981 Brazilian Air Force  Lt. Colonel José Alberto Albano de Amarante was assassinated in Saδ Paulo “to prevent Brazil from becoming a nuclear nation.” German National Gerald Bull was assassinated in 1990 in Brussels, Belgium because he was allegedly working on Saddam Hussein’s “Supergun.” In 1988 Abu Jihad, PLO’s #2 man was assassinated in his home in Tunis, Tunisia, in front of his family. In 1973 author and poet Kamal Nasser was assassinated in his home in Beirut Lebanon. Because he was a Christian Palestinian, the Israelis hanged him from a cross. Ehud Barak, former Israeli prime Minister led the assassination team; years later he would glibly brag about his bloody deed while costumed in a woman’s attire.

Which brings me to this: Saudi Arabia’s Muhammad B.S. is an Israeli wannabe assassin. Fifteen Saudi characters were dispatched to Istanbul to commit a crime against a Saudi dissident journalist. In 2010 Israel dispatched a team of 33 assassins to kill Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai. No saws or meat cleavers were used. He was drugged and killed in his hotel room. Experienced as they are, the Israeli team entered Dubai using forged Irish, French, German, British, and Australian passports.

God help us should the Israelis coach the Saudis and all the Arab dictators the fine art of political assassination of dissidents, journalists, and those yearning for freedom.

Leak by Leak: Erdogan Exerts His Leverage Over the Saudis

Patrick Cockburn

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a skilful politician who knows how to maximise his advantages and this was very much on display in his speech to the Turkish parliament.

He contemptuously dismissed the official Saudi story that the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was the accidental outcome of a botched interrogation by a “rogue” Saudi intelligence team.

It was always naive to imagine that Mr Erdogan would tell all that Turkey knows about the murder and the Saudi role in it because such information – particularly the alleged audio recording of the killing – is invaluable in giving Turkey leverage over Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser degree, the US.

Mr Erdogan disappointed the media by not producing “a smoking gun”, but it is not in his interests to do so for the moment. However, he was categorical in showing that the killing of Mr Khashoggi was premeditated. “Intelligence and security institutions have evidence showing the murder was planned,” he said. “Pinning such a case on some security and intelligence members will not satisfy us or the international community.”

This unlikely narrative is, of course, exactly what Saudi Arabia is trying to sell to the rest of the world. Mr Erdogan did not mention Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman by name. But then he does not have to. All he had to say was that “from the person who gave the order to the person who carried it out, they must all be brought to account”. The nation has repeatedly denied any suggestion that the crown prince may have been involved.

The crown prince is discovering, as have many authoritarian leaders in the past, that once you win total control of a country it becomes impossible to talk of ignorance of its crimes.

Mr Erdogan is shooting at an open goal. When Saudi Arabia denied knowing anything about the killing for 17 days and then issued a vague and unconvincing admission of the “rogue operation”, it created a vacuum of information about a story which the whole world is watching with fascinated interest. This vacuum is being filled by unattributable briefings by Turkish officials, drip-fed to the Turkish and international media at a pace geared to keep the finger pointing at Riyadh and the affair at the top of the news agenda.

The Saudi admission on 19 October that Mr Khashoggi was killed has made things worse rather than better for them. Their feeble cover story is already in shreds. Mr Erdogan is very reasonably asking what has happened to the body and what are the names of the Turkish “collaborators” to whom Riyadh is claiming operatives have handed over the corpse.

The problem for Saudi Arabia is that any attempt to explain away its role in the killing is likely to be immediately discredited by Turkish leaks. It is almost certain that the audio recording of Mr Khashoggi’s final moments really exists and will finally be made public. Meanwhile, it enables Turkey to pile on the pressure on the kingdom in the knowledge that it holds all the high cards.

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It will play these cards very carefully because, once revealed, they lose their value. For Turkey, the Khashoggi affair has provided an unexpected and miraculous opportunity to recalibrate its relations with Saudi Arabia and the US to its own advantage. The Saudi bid to be the undisputed leader of the Sunni Muslims, although never really convincing and always overstating the kingdom’s strength, is dissolving by the day. Mr Erdogan can look to extract concessions – although he may not get them – from Saudi Arabia when it comes to the war in Yemen, the blockade of Qatar and confrontation with Iran, as well as financial benefits.

Whatever happens, the aggressive, arrogant but disaster-prone Saudi foreign policy over the last three years under the leadership of the crown prince is likely to be thoroughly diluted in future.

Mr Erdogan will be looking to modify the stance of the US towards Turkey on issues such as the US alliance with the Syrian Kurds, whose enclave in Syria Ankara denounces as being run by the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which the Turkish state has been fighting since 1984.

Support free-thinking journalism and subscribe to Independent Minds. This is a delicate moment for President Trump. The Khashoggi affair may not much effect the midterm elections, but it will affect the US position in the world. Mr Trump’s most radical change of policy has been to exit the Iran nuclear deal and to reimpose severe sanctions on Iranian oil exports in early November. The main US regional ally in this was to have been the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, but this strategy is in deep trouble. Turkey has close if shaky relations with Iran and says it will not comply with sanctions. Saudi Arabia will go on being an important regional player because of its oil and money, but its prestige and influence have been damaged beyond repair.

If the crown prince does survive then he is likely to be much more under US influence and less likely to act independently than in the past. For the moment, he will be watching the news from Ankara and living from leak to leak.

Saudi Arabia pledges $6 billion to ease Pakistan’s economic crisis

Abdus Sattar Ghazali 

After weeks of speculation, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday (Oct 23) stepped forward with a $6 billion bailout package for Pakistan’s ailing economy. The package includes $3 billion balance of payments support and another $3bn in deferred payments on oil imports.

The Saudi package may provide breathing space to the government for dealing with economic challenges, but would not be enough to avoid the IMF facility. It is believed that improved foreign exchange reserves would strengthen Pakistan’s negotiating position in talks with the Fund.

The Saudi financial help agreement came during a visit by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to Riyadh where he met King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz.

Khan also attended a Saudi Arabian investment conference where the new Pakistani leader launched a charm offensive targeting potential investors as Pakistan continues to seek funding to plug its deteriorating finances.

Saudi Arabia expressed its interest in investing in Pakistan’s petroleum refinery and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will be signed after obtaining cabinet’s approval. The earlier visit of the Saudi delegation had evaluated the possibility of investing in the project.

The kingdom has also expressed interest in development of mineral resources in Pakistan, the statement added. For this purpose, the federal government and the Balochistan government will hold consultations, after which a delegation from Saudi Arabia will be invited to visit Pakistan.

Finance Minister Umar has said the government don’t want to fully rely on the IMF. He said the loan program with the IMF is almost final, but the government will have to see that the IMF does not place any “undoable conditions” for Pakistan in return.

An IMF team is set to arrive in Pakistan in early November to begin negotiations.

Pakistani media on Monday reported that the country immediately needed $12 billion to $13 billion to ease the financial crisis and retire foreign debt. Pakistan formally approached the IMF on October 12 for a bailout to tide over the economic crisis. But some tough talking by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde and the US on Pakistan’s bailout plan, demanding absolute transparency on the country’s debts, including those owned by China under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects, has upset Islamabad.

It is not a rocket science to know why Pakistan is reluctant to go to the IMF which is a sophisticated tool to control the economy of the IMF clients and to transfer resources from the poor countries to rich countries.

 American Interests and IMF Lending

To borrow Thomas Oatley and Jason Yackee, the authors of  ‘American Interests and IMF Lending,’ the financial resources it controls allows the IMF to exert greater influence than practically any other international organization in history.

Of particular importance here is the American ability to exert influence in the decision-making process surrounding the creation of IMF conditionality agreements which are the IMF’s primary policy instrument.

“Abundant case studies suggest that the US does exert influence over conditionality agreements. During the 1980s, for example, the US pressured the Fund to extend credits to Argentina (Killick, 1998, 74). In 1982, the Reagan administration pressured the IMF to extend a 3.9 billion credit to Mexico (Cohen, 1985, 722). In 1995, the Clinton Administration pressured the Fund to offer assistance to Mexico. Moreover, American politicians act as though the US exerts influence over conditionality agreements. The US Congress has passed at least 60 legislative mandates requiring the American representative at the Fund to use conditionality agreements to achieve specific American objectives,” Oatley and Yackee said and added:

“While episodic evidence thus suggests that the US does exert influence over conditionality agreements, only one large study has looked for a systematic relationship between American power and interests on the one hand and IMF conditionality agreements on the other (Thacker, 1999). Examining a large sample of developing countries across time, Thacker uses American foreign policy interests to predict which governments will receive a conditionality agreement. He finds that governments that are willing to become more supportive of American foreign policy goals are more likely to receive conditionality agreements than other governments. According to Thacker, therefore, the US uses its influence in the IMF to cultivate foreign support for American foreign policy goals.”

American power extends into the operational decision-making surrounding the Fund’s most important policy instrument. American policymakers use this influence to pursue financial and foreign policy objectives, Oatley and Yackee concluded

West dominates global financial system

It will not be too much to say that the West dominates global decision-making through minority control of the central banking system (Bank of International Settlements), IMF, World Bank, Security Council and other institutions of global governance.

The G8 represent less than 15% of world population, yet have over 60% of its income. The West has veto power in the World Bank, IMF and WTO and regulates global monetary policy through the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). Although the rest of the world now has a majority in many international institutions, it does not have the political power to reject decisions by the Western minority.

In The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Samuel P. Huntington describes how “the United States together with Britain and France make the crucial decisions on political and security issues; the United States together with Germany and Japan make the crucial decisions on economic issues.”

Huntington quoted Jeffrey R Bennett to claim that Western nations:  (1) own and operate the international banking system; (2) control all hard currencies; (3) are the world’s principle customer; (4) provide the majority of the world’s finished goods; (5) dominate international capital markets; (6) exert considerable moral leadership within many societies; (7) are capable of massive military intervention; (8) control the sea lanes.

In short, Huntington presents a ‘framework, a paradigm, for viewing global politics’ to protect “Western civilization”.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Interestingly, John Perkins wrote a book titled: Confessions of An Economic Hit Man in 2004 where he exposed the exploitation of the poor countries through western established economic institutions.

John Perkins was an economic hit man. He defines economic hit men as, “highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign ‘aid’ organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources.

Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.

Perkins was hired as an economist for the international consulting firm of Chas. T. Main, Inc. (MAIN).

He told in confidential meetings with “special consultants” to the company that he had two primary objectives:

(1) He was supposed to justify huge loans for countries. These loans would be for major engineering and construction projects, which were to be carried out by MAIN and other U.S. companies such as Bechtel, Halliburton, Stone & Webster and Brown & Root.

(2) He was supposed to help bankrupt the countries that received these loans after the U.S. companies involved had been paid. This would make sure that these countries would remain in debt to their creditors and would then be easy targets when the U.S. needed favors such as military bases, UN votes and access to natural resources like oil.

The original version of this astonishing tell-all book spent 73 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, has sold more than 1.25 million copies, and has been translated into 32 languages.

The Khashoggi Crisis: A blessing in disguise for Pakistan’s Imran Khan

James M. Dorsey

The death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is proving to be a blessing in disguise for cash- strapped Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. Mr. Khan’s blessing is also likely to offer Saudi Arabia geopolitical advantage.

On the principle of all good things are three, Mr. Khan struck gold on his second visit to the kingdom since coming to office in August.

Mr. Khan was rewarded for attending Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s showcase investors conference in Riyadh, dubbed Davos in the Desert, that was being shunned by numerous CEOs of Western financial institutions, tech entrepreneurs and media moguls as well as senior Western government officials because of the Khashoggi affair.

In talks with King Salman and the crown prince, Saudi Arabia promised to deposit US$3 billion in Pakistan’s central bank as balance of payments support and to defer up to US$3 billion in payments for oil imports for a year.

Saudi Arabia declined Mr. Khan’s request for financial aid during his first visit to the kingdom in September but was willing to consider investing billions of dollars in a refinery in the Chinese-operated Arabian Sea port of Gwadar as well as in mining but was reluctant to acquiesce to Pakistani requests for financial relief.

Saudi Arabia’s subsequent agreement to provided finance is likely to help Mr. Khan reduce the size of the US$8-12 billion bailout he is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Speaking in an interview before leaving for Riyadh, Mr. Khan said he was attending the conference despite the “shocking” killing of Mr. Khashoggi because “unless we get loans from friendly countries or the IMF, we actually won’t have in another two or three months enough foreign exchange to service our debts or to pay for our imports. So we’re desperate at the moment.”

Pakistan’s foreign reserves dropped this month to US$8.1 billion, a four-year low and barely enough to cover sovereign debt payments due through the end of the year. The current account deficit has swelled to about $18 billion.

Potential Saudi investment in the Reko Diq copper and gold mine as well as a refinery in Gwadar, both close to Pakistan’s border with Iran would give it a further foothold in the troubled province of Balochistan. Gwadar is a mere 70 kilometres down the coast from the Indian-backed Iranian port of Chabahar.

Pakistani militants reported last year that funds from the kingdom were flowing into the coffers of ultra-conservative anti-Shiite, anti-Iranian Sunni Muslim madrassahs or religious seminars in the region. It was unclear whether the funds originated with the Saudi government or Saudi nationals of Baloch descent and members of the two million-strong Pakistani Diaspora in the kingdom.

It was equally unclear how Saudi Arabia expected to capitalize on its rewarding of Mr. Khan in its competition with Iran for Pakistan’s favours.

Ensuring that Pakistan, home to the world’s largest Shiite minority, does not snuggle up too much to Iran has become even more crucial for Saudi Arabia as it seeks in the wake of Mr. Khashoggi’s death to enhance its indispensability to US President Donald J. Trump’s effort to isolate and cripple Iran economically, if not to engineer a change of regime in Tehran.

Mr. Trump sees Saudi Arabia as central to his strategy aimed at forcing the Islamic republic to halt its support for proxies in Yemen and Lebanon, withdraw its forces from Syria, and permanently dismantle its nuclear and ballistic missiles programs.

Saudi financial support means that Mr. Khan may find it more difficult to shield Pakistan from being sucked into the US-Saudi effort.

Insurgents last week kidnapped 14 Iranian security personnel, reportedly including Revolutionary Guards on the Iranian side of the border with Pakistan. Pakistan pledged to help liberate the abductees who are believed to have been taken across the border into Balochistan, long a militant and Baloch nationalist hotbed.

“Members of terrorist groups that are guided and supported by foreign forces carried this out through deceiving and bribing infiltrators,” the Guards said in a statement that appeared to blame Saudi Arabia and the United States without mentioning them by name.

The incident is likely to heighten Chinese concerns that in a worst-case scenario, Saudi investment rather than boosting economic activity and helping Gwadar get out of the starting blocks, could ensnare it too in one of the Middle East’s most debilitating conflicts.

China is further concerned that there would be a set of third-party eyes monitoring activity if and when it decides to use Gwadar not only for commercial purposes but also as a naval facility.

Saudi investment could further thwart potential Chinese plans to link the ports of Gwadar and Chabahar, a prospect that Pakistani and Iranian officials have in the past not excluded. With Saudi financial aid, that may no longer be an option that Mr. Khan can entertain.

Mr. Khan will have to take that into account when he travels to Beijing next week in a bid to secure Chinese financial support and convince Beijing to fast forward focusing the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a US$45 billion plus infrastructure and energy generation-driven Belt and Road crown jewel, on issues such as job creation, manufacturing and agriculture.

Mr. Khan appeared to anticipate in his interview with Middle East Eye on the eve of his participation in the Riyadh investment conference that he would have reduced leeway by blaming the United States for increased tensions with Iran and hinting that Pakistan did not want to be drawn into conflict with the Islamic republic.

Said Mr. Khan: “The US-Iran situation is disturbing for all of us in the Muslim world… The last thing the Muslim world wants is another conflict. The worrying part is that the Trump administration is moving towards some sort of conflict with Iran.”