Further protests against Orbán government in Hungary

Markus Salzmann

On Saturday, in freezing temperatures, about 10,000 people demonstrated again in the Hungarian capital Budapest against the right-wing government of Prime Minister Victor Orbán. In the last weeks, thousands had already protested against the so-called “slave law.”

The protests in Budapest and other cities in the country were triggered by a tightening of labour law allowing companies to demand up to 400 hours of overtime per year from all employees. Orbán’s governing party Fidesz, which has a two-thirds majority in parliament, passed the law in mid-December.

Meanwhile, the protests are directed against the government’s entire right-wing, anti-social policies, which have systematically eliminated press freedoms and democratic rights since it took office nine years ago. The recent restructuring of the judicial system is designed to ensure that the government has full control over the courts. On Saturday, the crowd chanted “We won’t be slaves,” “Dirty Fidesz” and “Orbán, get out!” among other things.

So, it was hardly surprising that the pro-government media in Hungary either barely mentioned the protests or uncritically repeated the reactions of government representatives. As before, Fidesz declared that the demands of the demonstrators would not be met under any circumstances.

At the same time, the government is continuing its anti-Semitic campaign by claiming that US billionaire George Soros was behind the protests. On Saturday, a Fidesz spokesman said Soros was mobilising forces everywhere that were attacking anti-migration governments, such as in Hungary, before the European elections in the spring.

In the meantime, almost all opposition parties and trade unions have joined the protests. They are seeking to bring them under their control and direct social opposition into a political dead end. The Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), whose right-wing policies paved the way for Orbán, the hysterically anti-Communist Greens (LMP) and the trade unions have allied themselves with the neo-fascist Jobbik party, which has repeatedly supported Orbán’s xenophobic government policies.

The MSZP, which emerged from the former Stalinist party of state, has used the protests to forge a right-wing alliance with Jobbik. Bertalan Tóth has emerged as the new party leader from months of fierce in-fighting in the MSZP. He has pledged his party to a radical turn to the right and cooperation with the ultra-right Jobbik. In this year’s local elections, the opposition parties want to nominate only one candidate in each region, who will then compete against the ruling party’s candidate.

The unions are threatening a general strike if the government does not respond to four demands they have made. According to the daily Nepszava, they are demanding the overtime law be revoked. In addition, the minimum wage should be raised, pensions improved and the right to strike amended. Laszlo Kordas of the Federation of Trade Unions said, “We are preparing for strike action.”

Andras Földiak, chair of another trade union federation, told Inforadio that he expected nationwide strikes in early February. A nationwide protest is already planned for January 19.

The trade unions and opposition parties fear the protests against the government will expand and take an independent direction if they do not bring them under their control. That this fear is not unfounded is demonstrated by the growth of protests on an international level. For weeks, the “yellow vests” in France have been protesting against President Emmanuel Macron. The protest wave has already spread to Spain and Portugal. Now, more and more protests are developing in southern and eastern Europe.

For several weeks, thousands have been demonstrating against President Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia. His ruling Progress Party (SNS) is implementing brutal austerity dictates and is acting increasingly violently against the opposition forces.

When 10,000 people participated in a demonstration at the beginning of December, Vučić declared contemptuously, “March as much as you like. I will not meet your demands, even if five million should come.” By the end of the year, the number of participants had quadrupled.

The same Saturday, more than 15,000 people came to the demonstration in the capital Belgrade, despite snow and icy temperatures. There were smaller protests in Novi Sad, Niš and Kragujevac. While the crowd shouted, “Vučić, you thief!” banners read, “It has begun.”

Student protests have again broken out in Albania where they had boycotted lessons for two weeks in December and announced they would resume the protests in January. They are opposing the catastrophic conditions confronting pupils and students in the poverty-stricken Balkan state. The education system is chronically underfunded and ailing. Walter Glos of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation told Deutschlandfunk radio that the mood of protest had since spread to other parts of the population.

Bosnia is also in “turmoil,” as the Süddeutsche Zeitung recently noted. Since the death of a student eight months ago, more and more people have been protesting against the government.

The movement was triggered by the death of the 21-year-old student David Dragičević. While the police portrayed the death as an accident, everything points to torture and murder. In the eyes of his father, a waiter and war veteran, his son was the victim of a plot involving criminals, the police and politicians.

This was the trigger for thousands to take to the streets against the right-wing nationalist government. In social media networks, the protests are supported by tens of thousands. In the area formerly blighted by civil war, the government is deliberately seeking to fuel ethnic tensions, however, in the protests against the government, Muslims, Serbs and Croats are showing their solidarity.

Debate begins in British parliament over May’s Brexit deal with EU

Robert Stevens

British MPs begin several days of debate today ahead of a vote next week on Prime Minister Theresa May’s withdrawal deal with the European Union (EU). The “meaningful vote” is slated to be held on January 15.

May’s deal is opposed by all opposition parties and a large swathe of her own Conservative MPs. She was forced to hold this debate and the vote after she called off a vote on the agreement last month at the last minute. May knew she was set to lose heavily, threatening her position as prime minister.

The crisis facing May has only deepened in the interim, with the “hard Brexit”-supporting Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose 10 MPs the Tories rely on to rule as a minority government, still pledged to oppose the deal. They are opposed to Northern Ireland remaining in an indefinite “backstop” Customs Union agreement with the EU until a free trade agreement can be reached between the UK and EU, which could be years down the line. On Sunday, Deputy DUP leader Nigel Dodds said the “fundamental problems which make this a bad deal appear not to have changed.” He added, “The backstop remains the poison which makes any vote for the Withdrawal Agreement so toxic.”

The EU has insisted since early December—when May’s deal was announced—that negotiations are now over on a text that took two years to complete. Despite this, May continually claims that the UK is still in negotiations with Brussels ahead of next week’s vote. On Sunday, May told the BBC’s “Andrew Marr Show” that she hoped to secure “changes” to the document and was “still working” with the EU to secure legally binding assurances over the backstop arrangements. Before the vote, May is to outline the government’s proposals over the Northern Ireland border and offer a greater role for MPs in negotiations on the next stage of future UK-EU relations.

In public the EU is maintaining its position that negotiations are over. Last Thursday, the European Commission’s Mina Andreeva insisted, “We are not renegotiating what is on the table.” On Monday, Nathalie Loiseau, the French Europe minister, said that some assurances could be offered to May but, “These are political assurances … there is nothing more we can do.”

May is seeking to use the growing possibility of a “no-deal” Brexit at the end of March, with unforetold economic and social consequences, to pressure Brussels for more and to force MPs to back her deal. She told “Marr,” “If the deal is not voted on at this vote that’s coming up, then actually we’re going to be in uncharted territory,” with the danger “we actually end up with no deal at all.” A crisis would ensue as “I don’t think anybody can say exactly what will happen in terms of the reaction we will see in Parliament.”

The MPs who oppose the deal because they are pro-EU and who support a second referendum on EU membership, as well as the hard Brexit wing within her own party and the DUP, must all “realise the risks they are running with our democracy and the livelihoods of our constituents,” she said.

The Daily Mail reported that up to 200 MPs from all parties are uniting to prevent a no-deal Brexit. Representatives of the group, led by Tory Cabinet minister Dame Caroline Spelman and Labour frontbencher Jack Dromey, were due to meet May for talks this week. The group includes Tories Sir Oliver Letwin, Nicky Morgan and Dominic Grieve, and Labourites Harriet Harman, Yvette Cooper, Ben Bradshaw and Liam Byrne, as well as the former Liberal Democrat energy secretary Sir Ed Davey. Among their reported big business backers are auto manufacturers and engineering firms Jaguar Land Rover, Ford, Rolls-Royce, Airbus and employers’ representatives including the Confederation of British Industry, the Engineering Employers’ Federation and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

Amid a growing crisis for governments across the continent, including mass protest against austerity such as the Yellow Vest movement in France, the threat of economic turmoil and trade war, and the rise of rightist anti-EU parties, Brussels is caught between a rock and a hard place. It doesn’t want to worsen things via a chaotic no-deal Brexit outcome, but fears that concessions to Britain would undermine the unity of the EU and fuel demands from other states for concessions.

On Monday, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said the EU was primed to offer May “written guarantees, explanations and assurances” to quell opposition to her deal by UK MPs. The Financial Times noted that although “[M]ay is expected to lose the [January 15] vote … She is pinning her hopes on firmer EU undertakings ahead of a second vote—possibly in late January or early February—speculation is rising that the prime minister will have to delay the UK’s departure from the bloc, scheduled for March 29.”

A delay in implementing Article 50—the legislation authorising the UK to leave the EU—is seen as essential to the Remain wing of the ruling class if they are to be successful in reversing Brexit. The Labour Party right-wing, in alliance with the Scottish National Party and Liberal Democrats, are frantically seeking to shift Labour’s position to overt support for a second referendum in opposition to the current position of party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn favours forcing a general election via a vote of no confidence to remove the Tories and negotiating a Brexit deal more favourable to the dominant sections of business.

Opinion polls are issued regularly, including one commissioned by the Blairite-led People’s Vote campaign, claiming that the majority of Labour members and voters are in favour of a second referendum. The same People’s Vote survey found that—when “don’t knows” were subtracted—54 percent of Britons as a whole would vote to remain in the EU, compared to 46 percent for Leave. This is a significant shift towards Remain, but still shows deep divisions.

Polls showed a similar margin of victory for Remain before the 2016 referendum, which ended in a 52-48 percent victory for Leave. Moreover, a YouGov survey showing a wide margin in favour of a second referendum also saw Labour members backing Corbyn’s policy of seeking to force a general election to remove the Tories to negotiate a better Brexit deal— 47 percent in favour of Corbyn’s position, with 29 percent against, and 19 percent undecided.

Writing in the pro-EU Observer, Andrew Rawnsley said, “The conclusion for Labour supporters ought to be clear. If they want another referendum, they will have to learn from their leader and rebel against him.” This is a continuation of the efforts begun in the aftermath of the 2016 referendum, when 172 right-wing Labour MPs carried out a failed coup against Corbyn with the main charge levelled against him that he was only lukewarm in supporting the Remain campaign.

So far Corbyn has formally maintained his position, while refusing to indicate when he will move a no-confidence motion in the government—even telling the Guardian that he would demand May go back to Brussels if her deal is rejected. But Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has made clear that Labour backing a second referendum was “inevitable” if a no-confidence motion was unsuccessful in removing the Tories. Corbyn this week described preparations for a “no-deal Brexit” as the government’s “Project Fear” because of the parliamentary majority he insisted would prevent such an outcome.

Last night, Labour whipped its MPs to support a backbench amendment to the finance bill tabled by leading Blairite Yvette Cooper restricting the government’s tax powers unless a no-deal Brexit is taken off the table.

The vote saw the government defeated by 303 to 296, with 20 Tory MPs backing the amendment.

The defeat is largely symbolic, but indicative of Corbyn’s readiness to seek alliances with pro-Remain Tories that would be essential in any campaign for a new referendum.

US-Turkish tensions rise over Syria withdrawal plan

Bill Van Auken

The crisis over US President Donald Trump’s plan for the withdrawal of US troops from Syria escalated Tuesday after Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to meet with a visiting US security and military delegation and then publicly denounced statements by Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, as he was preparing to fly out of Ankara.

“No one should expect us to accept or swallow national security adviser Bolton’s comments,” Erdogan told members of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in parliament—and an audience on live television—referring to demands that Turkey guarantee the security of the YPG Syrian Kurdish militia, which has served as the main proxy ground force for the US intervention in Syria.

Insisting that his government saw no difference between ISIS and the YPG, Erdogan declared, “If they are terrorists, we will do what is necessary no matter where they come from.”

He added that he had no need to meet with Bolton, when he could speak to Trump anytime on the telephone.

“Although we made a clear agreement with US President Trump, different voices are emerging from different parts of the administration,” Erdogan said. “Trump’s remarks continue to be the main point of reference for us.”

Bolton’s delegation—which included the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford—was relegated to meeting with Erdogan’s spokesman and a group of deputy ministers. A scheduled joint press conference was abruptly canceled.

After Bolton had left Turkey, Fahrettin Altun, Erdogan’s head of communications, tweeted: “I hope that he got a taste of the world-famous Turkish hospitality during his visit. Turkey’s national security is nonnegotiable.”

Trump announced his planned withdrawal on December 19 following a telephone conversation with Erdogan. He advanced the premise that the defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the ostensible mission of US troops in Syria—some 2,000 according to the Pentagon, but reported by at least one general to be twice that number—had been completed, and that Turkey would “take out any remnants of ISIS.”

The announcement triggered an eruption of furor within the US military and intelligence apparatus and its representatives in both the Democratic and Republican parties, who saw it as an intolerable concession to Russia and Iran. It triggered the resignation of Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis as well as Washington’s envoy to the so-called anti-ISIS coalition, Brett McGurk.

Since then, the Trump administration has steadily walked back Trump’s initial pledge to pull US troops out of Syria within 30 days. A subsequent report indicated that logistical concerns of the US military mandated at least a 120-day period to execute the pullout. Since then, statements from Trump and top administration officials, including Bolton, have made it clear that the illegal US military presence in Syria, at least in some form, is to continue indefinitely.

Bolton’s overseas mission, beginning in Israel and continuing on to Turkey, was to spell out conditions for the troop withdrawal. These include not only the wiping out of the last remnants of ISIS in northeastern Syria, but also a guarantee of the security of the Pentagon’s proxies in the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which is viewed by the Turkish government as a branch of the PKK, the Turkish Kurdish separatist movement against which it has waged a bloody counterinsurgency campaign for more than 30 years.

Bolton has also indicated that US aims of rolling back Iran’s influence in Syria and the wider region and regime change in Damascus—pursued unsuccessfully and at a terrible human costs through a CIA-orchestrated insurgency by Al Qaeda-linked militias—remain on the table.

Bolton’s rhetoric—coming on top of the walking back of Trump’s pledge of a rapid troop withdrawal—appears to have blown up the scheduled meeting with Erdogan and called into question an apparent rapprochement between Washington and its NATO ally in the region.

In Israel, Bolton indicated that he was going to read the riot act to the Turkish president over any move against the Pentagon’s Syrian Kurdish proxies.

Erdogan and other Turkish officials expressed outrage over Bolton’s equation of the YPG with all Syrian Kurds, insisting that their hostility was only to the YPG, which it regards as an extension of the PKK—which both Washington and Ankara have branded as a “terrorist” organization—and not to the Kurdish people.

Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalm, the main official with whom Bolton and his delegation met, denounced the idea that “Turkey will slaughter Kurds if it enters Syria” as PKK propaganda that Washington should not be repeating.

Such claims are belied by the Turkish operation in the Syrian district of Afrin in March of last year, which resulted in the expulsion of some 300,000 Kurds and the unleashing of Turkish-backed Islamist gangs against the population.

Turkey’s aims were indicated in an op-ed piece penned by Erdogan and published in the New York Times in which he spelled out plans for the carving out of a buffer region on Syria’s northern border in which Ankara would “create a stabilization force” after an “intensive vetting process” of Syrian Kurdish forces.

Syria has rejected Turkish military operations on its territory as an illegal violation of the country’s sovereignty.

According to a US official quoted by Reuters, Bolton told Turkish officials that Erdogan’s article was “wrong and offensive.” Part of the article favorably compared Turkish anti-ISIS operations, which left villages taken from the Islamist militias largely intact, to the savage air war waged by the US military that reduced the city of Raqqa and other towns to rubble.

While Turkish officials reportedly told the American delegation that Ankara would not launch military intervention in Syria as long as US troops remained in the northeast of the country, the Turkish media has reported that the Turkish military has continued a buildup of its forces on the border between the two countries.

Turkish officials also reportedly demanded that the Pentagon hand over all of some 22 separate bases that the US military has established in northern Syria, as well as any armaments left behind by departing US troops. They insisted that none of these weapons remain with the YPG militia.

Amid the rising tensions on the Turkish-Syrian border, a contingent of Russian troops in armored vehicles deployed to the city of Manbij, located about 10 miles from the border, conducting security patrols. The city, retaken from ISIS, had formally been occupied by the YPG along with US special forces troops.

Syrian Kurdish forces invited the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which is backed by Moscow, to send its troops into the city as they withdrew in the face of a threatened Turkish offensive.

Meanwhile, military representatives of Egypt and the UAE, which oppose any expansion of Turkish influence in the region, have also visited Manbij and are promoting the growth of a Sunni Muslim militia in opposition to both Turkey and the YPG.

In tandem with Bolton’s abortive mission to Ankara, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began an eight-nation tour of the so-called anti-Iranian axis, which includes seven Arab monarchical dictatorships and the police state regime of Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt.

On the first leg of this tour in Jordan, Pompeo declared that Washington was “redoubling” its offensive against the “malign influence” of Iran in the Middle East. This effort has included the indispensable US support for the near-genocidal war being waged by Saudi Arabia against the starving people of Yemen.

Pompeo tweeted on Tuesday that Washington’s “tactics have changed, not the mission.”

The message is clear enough. Whatever happens with Trump’s Syria troop withdrawal, US imperialism is continuing the quarter century of uninterrupted wars for hegemony over the oil rich Middle East that have killed and maimed millions. And the crisis created by Washington’s protracted regime-change operation in Syria still threatens to erupt in a wider war of regional and even global dimensions.

Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Grants for Research Collaboration 2019

Application Deadline: 1st February 2019 at 12:00 hrs. (Phase 1)

Eligible Countries: 

• Window 1: Research-based institutions in Denmark, Ghana, and Tanzania are encouraged to apply.
• Window 2: Only research-based institutions in Denmark are eligible and only if they are iin partnership with research institutions in Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Mexico, Myanmar, South
  Africa, Turkey, and Vietnam.

About the Award: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (MFA) provides grants for development research activities as part of Denmark’s international development cooperation. Two windows are available in 2018, providing grants for research with partners in Danida priority countries and for research with partners in growth and transition countries.
Phase 1 is the first step of a process in which applicants submit research proposals leading to prequalification. Phase 2 is the submission of a full application by those selected (“prequalified”).

Type: Research Grants

Eligibility: 

• In accordance with the overall objectives of Danida’s support for research, grants will be awarded to strategic research cooperation which generates new knowledge relevant to the needs and strategies of the growth and transition countries and contributes to strengthening research capacity in these countries.
• It is important to note that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2015 constitute an overall thematic framework for development cooperation and research.
• Applications can only be submitted by universities or by a research-based institution (public and private) in Denmark, which will be responsible for the grant. The project coordinator must be attached to that institution.
• At the time of submitting the application, the project coordinator must hold a PhD or equivalent qualification, documented clearly in the CV. Documented evidence that he/she is a Professor, Assistant Professor, or Associate Professor is regarded as equivalent to a PhD.

Selection Criteria: The relevance of the proposal is evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:

• The focus of the project is well-defined with respect to the announced research theme in the chosen partner country;
• The project contributes to the overall objectives of the Danish strategic sector cooperation in the country (where relevant) or is otherwise relevant for strengthening commercial or political cooperation with Denmark;
• Preferably, the project includes private sector partners or has potential for such a partnership in a possible subsequent funding phase.

The scientific quality of the proposal is evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:

• The research experience and qualifications of the project coordinator and the team;
• The originality and innovative nature of the project, in terms of generating new knowledge;The effect of the research is evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:
• The potential direct effects with respect to the selected sustainable development goal (s);
• The effects of the project in terms of the partnerships with public and private sector which could take the research to the next step;
• Strengthened research capacity of the project, which should add value for both the Danish and the partner institution.

Selection: A Consultative Research Committee for Development Research (FFU) is tasked with assisting the MFA by providing professional and scientific advice in relation to research applications and projects.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• DKK 5 million for each project.
• The total budget available for this research window is approximately DKK 60 million. The funding is conditional of the Danish Parliament’s approval of the 2018 Finance Bill.
• It is envisaged that the extension project could be up to 5 years’ duration with an additional grant of up to DKK 10 million.

Duration of Program: 18 to 36 months

How to Apply: 

• The e-application system is accessible from DFC’s website via the following link here
• The e-application form may contain information which is important in relation to the application albeit not covered in this Call.

It is important to go through the Application Requirements and instructions on the Program Webpage (see Link below) before applying.


Visit the Program Webpage for Details

American College of Surgeons International Guest Scholarships 2020 for International Medical Students

Application Deadline: 1st July 2019.

Eligible Fields of Study: Medicine-related fields

About Award: The American College of Surgeons offers International Guest Scholarships to young surgeons from countries other than the United States or Canada who have demonstrated strong interests in teaching and research. The scholarships, in the amount of $10,000 each, provide the scholars with an opportunity to visit clinical, teaching, and research activities in the U.S. and Canada and to attend and participate fully in the educational opportunities and activities of the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress.
This scholarship endowment was originally provided through the legacy left to the College by Paul R. Hawley, MD (FACS Hon), former College Director. More recently, gifts from the family of Abdol Islami, MD (FACS), the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, and others to the International Guest Scholarship endowment have enabled the College to expand the number of scholarship awards.

Type: Fellowship, Short Courses

Eligibility Requirement

• Applicants must be graduates of schools of medicine who have completed their surgical training.
• Applicants must be at least 35 years old, but under 50, on the date that the completed application is filed.
• Applicants must submit their applications from their intended permanent location. Applications will be accepted for processing only when the applicants have been in surgical practice, teaching, or research for a minimum of one year at their intended permanent location, following completion of all formal training (including fellowships and scholarships).
• Applicants must have demonstrated a commitment to teaching and/or research in accordance with the standards of the applicant’s country.
• Early careerists are deemed more suitable than those who are serving in senior academic appointments.
• Applicants must submit a fully completed application form provided by the College on its website. The application and accompanying materials must be submitted in English. Submission of a curriculum vitae only is not acceptable.
• Applicants must provide a list of all of their publications and must submit, in addition, three complete publications (reprints or manuscripts) of their choice from that list.
• Preference may be given to applicants who have not already experienced training or surgical fellowships in the U.S. or Canada.
• Applicants must submit independently prepared letters of recommendation from three of their colleagues. One letter must be from the chair of the department in which they hold an academic appointment or a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons residing in their country. The chair’s or the Fellow’s letter is to include a specific statement detailing the nature and extent of the teaching and other academic involvement of the applicant. Letters of recommendation should be submitted by the person making the recommendation.
• The online application form is structured to assist the Scholarship Selection Subcommittee and assists the applicant in submitting a structured curriculum vitae.
• The International Guest Scholarships must be used in the year for which they are designated. They cannot be postponed.
• Applicants who are awarded scholarships will provide a full written report of the experiences provided through the scholarships upon completion of their tours.
• An unsuccessful applicant may reapply only twice and only by completing and submitting a new application together with new supporting documentation.

Value of Scholarship: The scholarships provide successful applicants with the privilege of participating in the College’s annual Clinical Congress held in Chicago, IL, October 4–8, 2020, with public recognition of their presence. They will receive gratis admission to selected postgraduate courses plus admission to all lectures, demonstrations, and exhibits, which are an integral part of the Clinical Congress. Assistance will be provided in arranging visits, following the Clinical Congress, to various clinics and universities of their choice.

How to Apply: Apply online
It is important to go through the Application Requirements and overview before applying.

Visit Awards Webpage for Details

United Nations Information Service Graduate Study Programme 2019 for Graduates Worldwide

Application Deadline: 3rd March 2019

Eligible Countries: All

To Be Taken At (Country): Geneva, Switzerland

About the Award: The 57th Graduate Study Programme will be held at the Palais des Nations from 1 to 12 July 2019. It will comprise lectures given by senior members of the United Nations and the Geneva-based specialized agencies. The GSP theme for 2019 will be:
100 years of multilateralism: taking stock and preparing the future
“Multilateralism is under fire precisely when we need it most.” – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in his address to the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly, 25 September 2018.

The first global attempt to form a “general association of nations… for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike,” as outlined in the last of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, is 100 years old. After the League of Nations failed, engulfed in the disaster of World War II, the world’s nations came together once again to build common norms and rules to advance their shared interests. But despite the many achievements of multilateralism, be it in terms of building peace or raising the standard of living for millions of people around the world, today, trust in global governance is largely undermined. The most pressing challenges of our time, however, are more global in nature than ever, from climate change to migration flows. How can we restore trust in our multilateral project?

Participants will form working groups to study issues related to the various dimensions of this theme, under the guidance of United Nations experts. They will be provided with selected documents and publications on the theme under discussion.


Type: Conference

Eligibility: The majority of the sessions will be held in English, therefore absolute fluency in English is essential. As several sessions will be held in French, solid working knowledge of French is also required.

Selection and Criteria: 

• The students invited to attend this programme will be selected on the basis of their academic experience and motivation, with due regard to equitable geographical and gender distribution. The age limit for application is 32 years of age.
• Once selected, successful candidates will be asked ahead of time to provide a medical certificate attesting good health and proof of medical insurance coverage in Switzerland at the time of the GSP (these two documents will be only be accepted by us in English or French). Applications from those already employed full time professionally cannot be considered.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:  Participation in the programme is free. The United Nations does not make any financial contribution towards the travel costs and residential expenses of participants. Governments or universities may offer grants to selected candidates. Candidates should seek advice from their universities on this point.

Duration of Program: 1 to 12 July 2019.

How to Apply: 

• The application form is to be filled in on our website, accompanied by a copy of the applicant’s passport, a letter of recommendation (in English or French only)from a university or governmental authority, proof of current enrolment (at the time of application) in a Master’s degree programme or a postgraduate degree programme (or equivalent) and university diplomas obtained.
  
• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage see link below) before applying

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Important Notes: Please note that incomplete applications will not be taken into consideration.

Brexit Bluster: a Sorry Tale About a Country that Wanted to ‘Take Back Control’

Patrick Cockburn

The closure of Gatwick, the second largest airport in Britain, just before Christmas after the sighting of a mysterious drone near the runway, received wall-to-wall coverage from the British media, dominating the news agenda for the best part of a week.

Contrast this with the limited interest shown when a majority stake in the airport was sold by its owners to a French company. A consortium led by the US investment fund Global Infrastructure Partners, which included the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Australia’s sovereign wealth fund, were paid £2.9bn by the French group, Vinci Airports.

The change in ownership of an important part of the British infrastructure from one foreign corporation to another came at an interesting moment. It was only a couple of weeks after the Whitehall spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, had issued a report explaining one reason why the British army is short of new recruits.

It says that back in 2012 the army had agreed a £495m contract with the outsourcing group Capita Business Services to be its partner in the recruitment of soldiers. But problems with the recruiting systems put in place by the company have made it increasingly complicated for even the most enthusiastic recruit to join up.

This is at a time when there is a shortfall of 5,500 in the number of fully trained British soldiers with 77,000 in the ranks compared to a target of 82,500.

The auditor’s report says that it took 321 days for an aspirant soldier to move forward from his or her initial online application to starting basic training. Unsurprisingly, many became discouraged over this long period so no less than 47 per cent dropped out in 2017/18.

More traditional methods such as local army recruitment centres had been run down as out of tune with modern times. The number of such centres was cut from 131 to 68 in an abortive attempt to reduce costs, according to the report.

What makes these two episodes significant is that they took place at the very moment when British politics is in greater turmoil than it has been for decades, if not for centuries, over the question of who runs the country. Yet this argument is focusing almost exclusively on the decision to leave the European Union on 29 March.

Proponents of Brexit argue that this is the best way to restore British national sovereignty and British control over their own country’s future. Yet, as we stagger towards Brexit in less than a dozen weeks’ time, it is extraordinary that decision-making on so many issues directly affecting the daily lives of people living in Britain should be in the hands of corporations at home and abroad.

The ability of national politicians to regulate and, above all, tax these international entities is already low and will get considerably lower if Britain leaves the EU and is scrabbling for new investment post Brexit. Vinci is reported to have got a bargain basement price for Gatwick because of Brexit fears.

Opinion polls have long shown popular opposition to the privatisation of providers of essential services and utilities, but people seem resigned to the idea that everything from airports and pharmacies, to their electricity and water supply will end up in the hands of corporations and foreign investors over which the British government has only diluted authority.

The great failing in the whole divisive debate over Brexit is that it has never really addressed the means by which – to adapt the words of the famous eurosceptic slogan – control could be regained.

The argument has focused instead on Brussels and on a narrow range of economic pluses and minuses, while it should have been over who runs Britain in an era of globalisation when the power of the nation state is everywhere being eroded.

No wonder this is provoking a nationalist and populist reaction across the world, stirring discontent from Wisconsin to Yorkshire and Paris to Damascus. Mention of the Syrian capital is not accidental; globalisation was one unrecognised ingredient in the eruption of the Arab Spring in 2011.

The anti-Brexit forces made a disastrous mistake in treating the issue of the relations with the EU as if it was all about economics and immigration. Instead of treating the nation state and its history as slightly absurd and certainly outdated, they should have promoted the EU as a way of enhancing the power of the nation state by pooling sovereignty in order to re-empower individual EU members.

The baffled anger of the pro-Brexit politicians over why they are being pushed around by Ireland during the Brexit negotiations shows that they do not understand why EU solidarity ensures that the balance of power is against Britain every step of the way – and there is no reason why this this should change for the better.

None of the British political parties have ever faced up to the question of how they would maintain Britain’s position as a nation state as it is hit by the all-embracing impact of globalisation.

Instead, Brussels and the EU became the symbols of these frustrations and discontents, but neither Labour nor Conservative parties ever plotted an alternative course other than promising to maintain a status quo that was increasingly burdensome to a growing number of people.

Labour has always supported national self-determination as the right vehicle for nations escaping colonialism or otherwise seeking to gain independence. But when it comes to Britain – and above all England – Labour has always had an uncomfortable relationship with nationalism, suspecting it of being disguised racism or, at the very best, a diversion from essential social and economic reforms.

The Conservative stance is more frightening because so much of it is rooted in wishful thinking and selling a fantasy about Britain’s place in the world.

Gavin Williamson, the defence secretary, claimed in an interview in the last few days that “this is our biggest moment as a nation since the end of the Second World War, when we can recast ourselves in a different way, we can actually play the role on the world stage that the world expects us to play.” Once free of Brussels, we are to shift our focus to global horizons, opening new bases in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia.

Williamson is not alone in pumping out such deceptive dreams. Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, told audiences during a visit to Southeast Asia – as if he were Captain Cook landing in Polynesia – what good things we are going to bring to our old colonial stamping grounds between Malaysia and New Zealand where: “Britain’s post-Brexit role should be to act as an invisible chain linking together the democracies of the world.”

It is possible that bombast like this is designed to soften the blow for Brexiteers if Britain’s departure from the EU is largely nominal. Inevitably, the country will be weaker and poorer. Less obviously, the obsessive Brexit venture has prevented Britain taking those long-term measures necessary to secure its future as an independent nation state.

Break the Cycle: Say No to the Government’s Cruelty, Brutality and Abuse

John W. Whitehead

“The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.”

—Edmund Burke

Folks, it’s time to break the cycle.

Let’s make 2019 the year we say no to the laundry list of abuses—cruel, brutal, immoral, unconstitutional and unacceptable—that have been heaped upon us by the government for way too long.

Let’s make 2019 the year we stop living in a state of utter denial, desensitized to the government’s acts of violence, accustomed to reports of government corruption, and anesthetized to the sights and sounds of Corporate America marching in lockstep with the police state.

Let’s make 2019 the year we refuse to allow the government’s abusive behavior to be our new normal. There is nothing normal about egregious surveillance, roadside strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, censorship, retaliatory arrests, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, indefinite detentions, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, police brutality, profit-driven prisons, or pay-to-play politicians.

Here’s just a small sampling of what we suffered through in 2018.

The government failed to protect our lives, liberty and happiness.The predators of the police state wreaked havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives. The government didn’t listen to the citizenry, refused to abide by the Constitution, and treated the citizenry as a source of funding and little else. Police officers shot unarmed citizens and their household pets. Government agents—including local police—were armed to the teeth and encouraged to act like soldiers on a battlefield. Bloated government agencies were allowed to fleece taxpayers. Government technicians spied on our emails and phone calls. And government contractors made a killing by waging endless wars abroad.

The president became more imperial. Although the Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers, in recent years, American presidents (Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.) have claimed the power to completely and almost unilaterally alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill. The powers amassed by each successive president through the negligence of Congress and the courts—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whomever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability. The presidency itself has become an imperial one with permanent powers.

Police became a power unto themselves. Lacking in transparency  and accountability,  protected by the courts and legislators, and rife with misconduct, America’s police forces were a growing menace to the citizenry and the rule of law.  Shootings of unarmed citizens,  police misconduct and the use of excessive force continued to claim lives and make headlines. One investigative report found that police shoot Americans more than twice as often as previously known, a number that is under-reported and under-counted.  That doesn’t account for the alarming number of unarmed individuals who died from police using tasers on them.

911 calls turned deadly. Here’s another don’t to the add the growing list of things that could get you or a loved one tasered, shot or killed, especially if you are autistic, hearing impaired, mentally ill, elderly, suffer from dementia, disabled or have any other condition that might hinder your ability to understand, communicate or immediately comply with an order: don’t call the cops.

Traffic stops took a turn for the worse. Police officers have been given free range to pull anyone over for a variety of reasons and subject them to forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases. This free-handed approach to traffic stops has resulted in drivers being stopped for windows that are too heavily tinted, for driving too fast, driving too slow, failing to maintain speed, following too closely, improper lane changes, distracted driving, screeching a car’s tires, and leaving a parked car door open for too long. Unfortunately, traffic stops aren’t just dangerous. They can be downright deadly at a time when police can do no wrong—at least in the eyes of the courts, police unions and politicians dependent on their votes—and a “fear” for officer safety is used to justify all manner of police misconduct.

The courts failed to uphold justice. A review of critical court rulings over the past decade or so, including some ominous ones by the U.S. Supreme Court, reveals a startling and steady trend towards pro-police state rulings by an institution concerned more with establishing order and protecting the ruling class and government agents than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution. For example, despite the fact that a 26-year-old man was gunned down by police who banged on the wrong door at 1:30 am, failed to identify themselves as police, and then repeatedly shot and killed the innocent homeowner who answered the door while holding a gun in self-defense, the justices of the high court refused to intervene to address police misconduct. Despite the fact that police shot and killed nearly 1,000 people nationwide for the third year in a row (many of whom were unarmed, mentally ill, minors or were shot merely because militarized police who were armed to the hilt “feared” for their safety), the Supreme Court has failed to right the wrongs being meted out by the American police state.

The Surveillance State rendered Americans vulnerable to threats from government spies, police, hackers and power failures. Thanks to the government’s ongoing efforts to build massive databases using emerging surveillance, DNA and biometrics technologies, Americans have become sitting ducks for hackers and government spies alike. Billions of people were affected by data breaches and cyberattacks in 2018. On a daily basis, Americans are being made to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to navigate an increasingly technologically-enabled world. The Department of Homeland, which has been leading the charge to create a Surveillance State, began deploying mandatory facial recognition scans at airports and improperly gathering biometric data on American travelers. Police were gifted with new surveillance gadgets that allows them to scan vehicles for valuable goods and contraband. Even churches got in on the game, installing “crime cameras” to monitor church property and churchgoers. The Corporate State tapped into our computer keyboards, cameras, cell phones and smart devices in order to better target us for advertising. Social media giants such as Facebook granted secret requests by the government and its agents for access to users’ accounts. Triggered by background noise, Google Assistant has been actively recording phone users’ conversations. And our private data—methodically collected and stored with or without our say-so—was repeatedly compromised and breached.

Mass shootings claimed more lives. Mass shootings have taken place at churches, in nightclubs, on college campuses, on military bases, in elementary schools, in government offices, and at concerts. In almost every instance, you can connect the dots back to the military-industrial complex, which continues to dominate, dictate and shape almost every aspect of our lives.

The rich got richer, and the poor went to jail. Not content to expand the police state’s power to search, strip, seize, raid, steal from, arrest and jail Americans for any infraction, no matter how insignificant, the Trump administration gave state courts the green light to resume their practice of jailing individuals who are unable to pay the hefty fines imposed by the American police state. These debtors’ prisons play right into the hands of those who make a profit by jailing Americans.  This is no longer a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” It is fast becoming a government “of the rich, by the elite, for the corporations,” and its rise to power is predicated on shackling the American taxpayer to a debtors’ prison guarded by a phalanx of politicians, bureaucrats and militarized police with no hope of parole and no chance for escape.

The cost of endless wars drove the nation deeper into debt.America’s war spending has already bankrupted the nation to the tune of more than $20 trillion dollars. Policing the globe and waging endless wars abroad hasn’t made America—or the rest of the world—any safer, but it has made the military industrial complex rich at taxpayer expense. Approximately 200,000 US troops are stationed in 177 countries throughout the world, including Africa, where troops reportedly carry out an average of 10 military exercises and engagements daily. Meanwhile, America’s infrastructure is falling apart. The interest on the money America has borrowed to wage its wars will cost an estimated $8 trillion.

“Show your papers” incidents skyrocketed. We are not supposed to be living in a “show me your papers” society. Despite this, the U.S. government has introduced measures allowing police and other law enforcement officials to stop individuals (citizens and noncitizens alike), demand they identify themselves, and subject them to patdowns, warrantless searches, and interrogations. These actions fly in the face of longstanding constitutional safeguards forbidding such police state tactics.

The plight of the nation’s homeless worsened. In communities across the country, legislators adopted a variety of methods (parking meters, zoning regulations, tickets, and even robots) to discourage the homeless from squatting, loitering and panhandling. One of the most common—and least discussed—practices: homeless relocation programs that bus the homeless outside city limits.

The government waged war on military veterans. The government has done a pitiful job of respecting the freedoms of military veterans and caring for their needs once out of uniform. Despite the fact that the U.S. boasts more than 20 million veterans who have served in World War II through the present day, the plight of veterans today is America’s badge of shame, with large numbers of veterans impoverished, unemployed, traumatized mentally and physically, struggling with depression, suicide, and marital stress, homeless, subjected to sub-par treatment at clinics and hospitals, left to molder while their paperwork piles up within Veterans Administration offices, and increasingly treated like criminals— targeted for surveillance, censorship, threatened with incarceration or involuntary commitment, labeled as extremists and/or mentally ill, and stripped of their Second Amendment rights—for daring to speak out against government misconduct.

Free speech was dealt one knock-out punch after another. Protest laws, free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors (and championed by those who want to suppress speech with which they might disagree) have conspired to corrode our core freedoms, purportedly for our own good. On paper—at least according to the U.S. Constitution—we are technically free to speak. In reality, however, we are only as free to speak as a government official—or corporate entities such as Facebook, Google or YouTube—may allow. The reasons for such censorship varied widely from political correctness, safety concerns and bullying to national security and hate crimes but the end result remained the same: the complete eradication of free speech.

Police became even more militarized and weaponized. Despite concerns about the government’s steady transformation of local police into a standing military army, local police agencies continued to acquire weaponry, training and equipment suited for the battlefield—with full support from the Trump Administration. Even purely civilian government agencies are arming their employees to the hilt with guns, ammunition and military-style equipment, authorizing them to make arrests, and training them in military tactics. There are now reportedly more bureaucratic (non-military) government civilians armed with high-tech, deadly weapons than U.S. Marines. For instance, the IRS has 4,487 guns and 5,062,006 rounds of ammunition in its weapons inventory.

The government waged a renewed war on private property. The battle to protect our private property has become the final constitutional frontier, the last holdout against our freedoms being usurped. We no longer have any real property rights. That house you live in, the car you drive, the small (or not so small) acreage of land that has been passed down through your family or that you scrimped and saved to acquire, whatever money you manage to keep in your bank account after the government and its cronies have taken their first and second and third cut…none of it is safe from the government’s greedy grasp. At no point do you ever have any real ownership in anything other than the clothes on your back. Everything else can be seized by the government under one pretext or another (civil asset forfeiture, unpaid taxes, eminent domain, public interest, etc.).

Police waged a war on kids. So-called school “safety” policies, which run the gamut from zero tolerance policies that punish all infractions harshly to surveillance cameras, metal detectors, random searches, drug-sniffing dogs, school-wide lockdowns, active-shooter drills and militarized police officers, turned schools into prisons and young people into prisoners. The Justice Department announced that it will provide funding for schools that want to hire more resource officers, while President Trump indicated that he wants to “harden” the schools. What exactly does hardening the schools entail? More strident zero tolerance policies, greater numbers of school cops, and all the trappings of a prison complex (insurmountable fences, entrapment areas, no windows or trees, etc.). According to the Washington Post, more than 4 million children endured lockdowns last school year, leaving many traumatized.

The Deep State took over. The American system of representative government was overthrown by the Deep State—a.k.a. the police state a.k.a. the military industrial complex—a profit-driven, militaristic corporate state bent on total control and global domination through the imposition of martial law here at home and by fomenting wars abroad. When in doubt, follow the money trail. It always points the way.

The takeaway: Everything the founders of this country feared has come to dominate in modern America.

Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if freedom is to survive at all, “we the people” will need to stop thinking as Democrats and Republicans and start thinking like true patriots. As Edward Abbey warned, “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”

Let’s not take the mistakes, carnage, toxicity and abuse of this past year into 2019.

As long as we continue to allow callousness, cruelty, meanness, immorality, ignorance, hatred, intolerance, racism, militarism, materialism, meanness and injustice—magnified by an echo chamber of nasty tweets and government-sanctioned brutality—to trump justice, fairness and equality, there can be no hope of prevailing against the police state.