German government adopts new law to expand immigrant deportations

Peter Schwarz 

Asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected are to be ruthlessly bullied, persecuted, detained and deported. In summary, this describes the content of the Orderly Return Act adopted by Germany’s federal cabinet on Wednesday. It now only has to be approved by the Bundestag and Bundesrat, the lower and upper houses of Germany’s parliament, where, with a few cosmetic changes, the law is assured of winning a majority.

The draft bill, prepared jointly by the Interior Ministry under the leadership of Horst Seehofer (Christian Social Union, CSU) and the Ministry of Labour led by Hubertus Heil (Social Democratic Party, SPD), was made public several weeks ago and has already provoked widespread protest and opposition. It abrogates fundamental democratic rights and in parts violates European law. Nonetheless, all of the SPD ministers backed the new law, including Justice Minister Katarina Barley, the SPD’s lead candidate in the European elections.

With its new law, the grand coalition is in effect enforcing the far-right policies of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Although the right-wing extremist party won just 12.6 percent of the vote at the last federal election, it is dictating the government’s refugee policy.

The Orderly Return Act enforces the following changes to existing legal instruments:

* Refugees required to leave the country can be taken into custody much more easily than is currently the case. To this end, the prerequisites to deem someone a potential flight risk have been reduced.

* In order to make available a sufficient number of detention places, the European Separation Order, which stipulates that detention pending deportation and standard criminal imprisonment must be kept strictly separate, is to be suspended for three years. As a result, refugees who have committed no crime will be detained in normal prisons.

* Immigrants who, in the opinion of the authorities, fail to make the effort to provide missing paperwork will fall under a new designation: tolerated with unconfirmed identity. They will have fewer rights than tolerated refugees, who, although they have had their asylum applications rejected, are often allowed to remain in Germany for a period of time. Missing passports and failing to turn up to meetings can be used as grounds for deportation. Anyone who fails to attend an embassy appointment can be detained for 14 days, a crime which has not previously existed. In summary, anyone who refuses to voluntarily cooperate in their own deportation will be thrown in jail and deported as a punishment.

* The date and planned route of a deportation will be declared a state secret. Any public servant who provides advanced warning of a deportation thus commits a criminal offence. Although the original plan for a criminal offence for refugee aid workers and journalists who report deportation dates was formally removed from the bill, it was reintroduced through the back door. This is because the assistance in or encouragement of the circulation of state secrets is punishable as a criminal offence.

* Asylum seekers whose applications fall under the responsibility of authorities in another European country will receive virtually no support. They will be starved into leaving the country. If they are deemed to be in need of aid, they can receive a maximum of two weeks of limited financial support to cover costs until their deportation, and the support can be claimed only once within a two-year period.

* The Federal Agency for Immigration and Refugees (BAMF), which to date had three years to review the grounds for offering protection to asylum seekers, will have five years in the future. This means that refugees who have been accepted will be left living in fear for five years, since their recognition of their asylum claims could be revoked at any time.

* Individuals convicted of a crime can be immediately deported if they receive a six-month sentence, a reduction from the previous 12-month minimum.

In the first instance, the Orderly Repatriation Act is aimed at getting rid of the 240,000 people currently living in Germany who are required to leave the country, and in particular the 56,000 who received no tolerated status. Seehofer intends to send 18,000 people back to war-ravaged Afghanistan alone.

But the law goes even further. It is not merely anti-refugee and undemocratic, but also inhumane and barbaric. It recalls the darkest chapters of German history.

The Himmlers, Heydrichs, and others in SS uniforms were not sufficient to carry out the industrial extermination of 6 million Jews. It was also necessary to have an army of officials in every ministry who identified, rounded up and deported the Jews to concentration camps in a cold-blooded and bureaucratic manner. Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe this.

Such a layer of unscrupulous apparatchiks, who suppress any trace of empathy and bully their victims with inhumane laws, regulations that are impossible to comply with, and prison, all in the name of “law and order,” is once again being trained.

Even the law’s cynical name, Orderly Return Act, underscores this fact. Reinhard Müller summed it up in a comment for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He enthused, “Why hasn’t this long been the case?” and proposed naming the law “Return to Legality Act.”

Seehofer and the FAZ’s term “legality,” which pours scorn on all core democratic principles, is directed not only against refugees, but the working class as a whole. It takes aim at anyone viewed by the ruling class as a hostile entity or a threat, either because they are fighting mounting exploitation, poverty and social inequality, or because they oppose the witch-hunting of refugees, the strengthening of the repressive state apparatus and militarism.

The new deportation law goes hand in hand with the strengthening of the instruments of state repression, including the police, and the rise of militarism. Seehofer’s department alone has tabled the Intelligence Agencies Special Powers Act and an IT Security Act this month alone, which lay the basis for a state of all-embracing surveillance.

None of the other parties oppose this. As coalition partner of the CDU and CSU, the SPD bears direct responsibility for the new law. Justice Minister Barley, who loudly proclaimed her objections to the suspension of the separation of refugee detainees and prisoners just a few weeks ago, supported the law. SPD leader Andrea Nahles has not uttered a word of criticism of the law.

The Greens and Left Party agree with the measure in principle and have at most raised verbal objections. In the two German states with a Green or Left Party minister president, Baden-Württemberg and Thuringia, the authorities are deporting refugees just as eagerly as anywhere else. The Greens’ only concern, raised by Hamburg’s Justice Senator Till Steffen, is that the prisons are already overcrowded and are therefore unable to accommodate refugees.

UK life expectancy continues to fall

Dennis Moore 

Figures produced by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFA) show that life expectancy has fallen by around six months in England and Wales.

IFA conclude that life expectancy for men aged 65 has fallen from 87.4 years to 86.9 years, and for women from 89.7 years to 89.2 years.

The fall in longevity appears to be a trend, with last year’s analysis showing a decrease in life expectancy by two months. Compared to 2015 data projections, life expectancy is down by 13 months for men and 14 months for women.

The IFA data is produced annually on behalf of the insurance industry and is used to price insurance products that are linked to life expectancy. These include life cover, annuities, and pensions, including defined benefit schemes, used to value pension promises made to members.

Tim Gordon, chair of the Mortality Projections Committee for the Continuous Mortality Investigation, who carried out the IFA study, said, “It’s now widely accepted that mortality improvements in the general population since 2011 have been much lower than in the earlier part of this century. Average mortality improvements between 2000 and 2011 were typically over 2% per year but have since fallen to around 0.5% per year.”

Actuaries said evidence that life expectancy was slowing down started to emerge in 2010-11. Though the IFA would not commit as to why longevity is falling, some analysts suggest that there is a link between decreased life expectancy and austerity—with the then soon-to-be Tory prime minister David Cameron inaugurating the “age of austerity” in 2009—as the result of factors such as cuts to the National Health Service (NHS), increasing rates of diabetes, dementia and obesity.

The growth of life expectancy is now considered by some experts to have ground to a halt, and there is increasing evidence that prolonged austerity is a major factor.

Sir Michael Marmot, director of University College London (UCL) Institute of Health Equality, said it is “entirely possible” austerity has had an impact, while dismissing the idea that humans are reaching the limits of their natural lifespan. In 2017, Marmot’s UCL research, utilising data taken from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), showed that the rate of increase in life expectancy had dropped by 50 percent since 2010.

Last year, four senior academics, after analysing official mortality data, accused the Department of Health of ignoring concerns about a potential link between death rates and underfunding of the NHS and social care.

The Independent Review of the State Pension Age, “Smoothing the Transition,” published by the Government Actuary’s Department in 2017, examined life expectancy and the “sustainability” of the pensions system. Written by John Cridland, a former director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, no less, it predicts increases in the age when an individual is entitled to the state pension.

From this year, the state pension age will increase for both men and women, to reach 66 by October 2020. Further increases are planned, raising the state pension age from 66 to 67 between 2026 and 2028. This is justified by the government based on its claims that life expectancy is increasing.

Fall in life expectancy benefit pensions companies and the state, who must pay out pensions. If people die earlier, they will not receive pension payments, with those working now under the age of 45 having to wait until they are 68 before they can draw their pension. A Department for Work and Pensions document suggests that those who are now under 30 may not be able to access their pensions until they reach 70.

Aon, the professional services risk management company, estimates that the downgrading of life expectancy could potentially remove 2.5 percent of the liabilities from a defined benefits (DB) pension scheme. A DB pension is one in which a secure income is paid out for life, and which increases each year. These pensions, often linked to large organisations such as those in the public sector, are under attack and are being replaced by inferior Defined Contribution schemes.

The Cridland report complains, “If the proportion of older people—past State Pension age or more generally over 65 goes up, then other things being equal so does the burden on working age people of supporting older people not in work.”

In order to justify cutting pension rights, a general theme in ruling circles and the pro-capitalist media is the demonization of sections of the elderly who have benefited from pensions such as final salary schemes. They are traduced as part of the baby boomer generation who have “never had it so good” and that such pension rights for all are “unsustainable.”

What is sustainable for the ruling elite and their political representatives is predicated entirely by the imperatives of the profit system, that puts the continued enrichment of a super-rich few before the needs of both old and young.

Further analysis of ONS stats confirm that the worst affected by falling life expectancy are those living in the most deprived areas across all age ranges.

A study published this week by two academics, Torsten Kleinow, associate professor in actuarial mathematics and statistics at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University, Andrew Cairns, a professor at the university and director of the Actuarial Research Centre, and a Herriot Watt PhD student in actuarial mathematics, Jie Wen, looked at ONS data from November 2018 that “consists of death counts and mid-year population estimates for 10 socio-economic groups, distributed by level of deprivation.”

The authors found, “It is widely acknowledged that life expectancy in the UK and other countries is linked to socio-economic variables, with the rule of thumb being that those who are best off in life live the longest. The data for England published recently by the Office for National Statistics reinforces that rule, but also allows us to quantify this statement and investigate how large the differences in mortality rates are—and how differences are changing.”

They note “that survival probabilities to age 90 have increased for women in all socio-economic groups, but they have improved the most for the least deprived. In fact, the chances of surviving to age 90 in the most deprived areas have remained flat since 2009. The gap is widening. It is also remarkable that there is almost perfect ordering by socio-economic group.”

It summarises, “[T]here are substantial differences between mortality rates in different socio-economic groups. This is reflected in life expectancies, chances of surviving to old age, and infant mortality. There is no evidence that the mortality gap is closing, although it might have stopped widening further.”

After 10 years of austerity in the UK, the human cost is devastating. A 2017 joint report by Oxford and Cambridge Universities and the University of London concluded that savage cuts to the NHS and Social Care provision could result in nearly 200,000 “excess” deaths by the end of 2020 in England.

The savagery has reversed a trend that saw life expectancy improving in the six years prior to 2010. The ONS shows that of the 20 countries examined, it was only the United States that has potentially worse life expectancy outcomes than the UK. After all the progress made in the 20th century in improving health care, the eradication of disease, and achieving overall better living conditions, it is an indictment of capitalism that life expectancy in the UK—one of the richest countries in the world—is now falling.

Egypt stages referendum to institutionalize General Sisi’s dictatorship

Bill Van Auken

Egypt’s military-dominated dictatorship is rushing ahead with a referendum this weekend on constitutional amendments that would effectively make Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi dictator for life, while institutionalizing the bloody repression his regime has carried out against all forms of political opposition and particularly the Egyptian working class.

The plan for the three-day referendum beginning Saturday was announced on Wednesday, just one day after the country’s parliament, stacked with Sisi supporters, approved the proposed amendments to the Egyptian constitution by an overwhelming margin of 554 to 22, with one abstention. The vote was staged as a patriotic event, with legislators waving small Egyptian flags and national hymns being played in the background.

The referendum is being staged under conditions in which there has been no time for the Egyptian population to even consider the sweeping amendments to the constitution, which not only extend the presidential term to six years, but also establish a “transitional” period, allowing Sisi to override a two-term limit and run for a third term, remaining in office until at least 2030. They also provide him with complete control over the judiciary, while expanding the already overwhelming role of the military in the country’s political affairs.

One of the amendments establishes the military’s responsibility for “safeguarding the Constitution and democracy, preserving the basic foundations of the State and its civil nature, the gains of the people and the rights and freedoms of individuals.”

The constitutional “reform” institutionalizes the already widespread practice of trying civilians in military courts. Some 15,000 people, including 150 children, have faced such drumhead trials since the 2013 coup that overthrew the country’s elected president, Mohammed Morsi, and brought Sisi to power, according to the estimates of human rights organizations.

Sisi consolidated his rule with the massacre of over 1,000 people by Egyptian security forces at Cairo’s Rabaa Square in 2013. Since then, over 60,000 people have been thrown into the regime’s jails for political reasons, facing rampant torture. Since the beginning of 2019, the regime has executed 15 political prisoners who were sentenced to death on the sole basis of confessions extracted under torture.

In truly Orwellian style, the regime plastered the streets of Cairo with propaganda posters and hung giant banners in Tahrir Square, the iconic setting of the mass demonstrations in 2011 that led to the downfall of the 30-year, US-backed dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, all calling for Egyptians to “do the right thing” and vote “yes” in a referendum whose contents had not even been made known.

Amnesty International issued a statement denouncing the constitutional amendments as designed to “strengthen impunity for human rights violations by members of the security forces,” while Human Rights Watch stated that they were written to “institutionalize authoritarianism.”

Speaking at a press conference called by human rights groups in Paris, Amr Waked, among Egypt’s best known actors, who is banned in his own country, said, “These amendments would take us back to a dictatorship fit for the Middle Ages.”

The actor denounced the major Western powers which support the Sisi government, particularly with massive arms deals.

“Why are you giving the dictatorship legitimacy? Why are you selling arms to it?” he demanded. “Have you turned into arms dealers?” He warned that those who are backing Sisi today will one day pay a price “higher than their investments in keeping him in power”.

Washington stands first and foremost among those supporting the blood-stained dictatorship, with the US Congress approving the Trump administration’s request for $3 billion in aid to the Sisi regime, with another $1.4 billion in the pipeline for 2020.

Trump welcomed Sisi to the White House last week, praising him for doing “a fantastic job in a very difficult situation” and declaring “We agree on so many things,” no doubt among them, the support for draconian methods of repression against domestic opposition, with the US president clearly wishing he could use the same measures in the US as Sisi does in Egypt.

Earlier this year, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, facing rising social protest at home, flew to Cairo to sign approximately 30 deals with the Sisi regime, with whom Paris has declared a “strategic partnership.”

Germany has likewise established close ties with the Sisi regime, while Sisi hosted heads of state who flew in from across Europe to embrace the Egyptian tyrant at a first-ever summit of the European Union (EU) and the League of Arab States (LAS) held in Sharm el-Sheikh in February.

The support of the US and European powers for Sisi is not merely a matter of mercenary considerations of the major arms corporations. They have embraced him precisely because of his leading role in suppressing the revolutionary movement of workers and young people that toppled Mubarak in 2011, which threatened to spread throughout the region and inspired millions across the globe.

The Egyptian regime has blocked more than 34,000 websites in an attempt to shut down an internet opposition campaign being waged under the title Batel, or “Void”, seeking to express rejection of the amendments and the government’s rigged referendum. Nearly 300,000 people have registered their support for the campaign, despite the government crackdown, which has disrupted a large number of websites belonging to businesses, religious organizations and others unconnected to the opposition effort.

The referendum will have no more legitimacy than the two elections Sisi has staged for the presidency. He won the last one by 97 percent after disqualifying and locking up any credible opponents.

There is, however, no one in the West suggesting that his rule is “illegitimate”, in contrast to the bellicose demands for the overthrow of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro over elections staged in 2018 that were a paragon of democracy by comparison to the sham votes in Egypt.

In addition to violently suppressing the resistance of the Egyptian working class, Sisi plays an increasingly central role in counterrevolutionary conspiracies throughout the region. On Monday, he staged a meeting with the former Libyan general and longtime CIA asset Khalifa Haftar, even as his “Libyan National Army” escalated its siege of Tripoli, where over 200 have been killed, 600 wounded, and more than 13,000 civilians have been displaced by the fighting.

Sisi issued a statement praising Haftar’s “efforts to combat terrorism and extremist groups and militias in order to achieve security and stability …” According to news reports, the Egyptian regime also offered Haftar sophisticated military equipment, including night-vision goggles and anti-aircraft jamming devices to aid in his attack on the Libyan capital.

Meanwhile, high-level Egyptian delegations have gone to Khartoum to assist the Sudanese military in strangling the mass popular rebellion that has forced out the country’s ruler, Omar al-Bashir last Thursday.

The millions of workers and young people who have been on the streets of Algeria since February, forcing the resignation of president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, are calling attention to the bloody Egyptian events as the Algerian army headed by Gen. Ahmed Gaed Salah claims that it will oversee a “transition” and unleashes escalating repression against the protests.

The approval of Sisi’s dictatorship by Wall Street and Western finance capital found expression Wednesday with the rating agency Moody’s raising Egypt’s rating to B2 with a “stable” outlook, with assurances that “profitability will remain strong” in the subjugated country.

Under conditions in which 40 percent of the population lives in desperate poverty, subsisting on less than $2 a day and with even these meager incomes being eroded by an inflation rate that has risen to 15 percent, such stability, along with Sisi’s dreams of becoming president for life, may soon prove short-lived. The powerful movement of the working class in areas like the textile mill towns of the Nile Delta and Egypt’s ports that brought down Mubarak will inevitably erupt once again. The critical question is assimilating the lessons of the betrayal of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and building a new revolutionary leadership in the working class as a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International.

Chinese authorities arrest editors involved with workers’ protests

Navin Dewage & Peter Symonds

Chinese authorities intensified their crackdown on labour activists and leftist students last month, arresting journalists sympathetic to the plight of workers and critical of the government. This followed the detention of students and workers, 44 of whom are still in custody, for their involvement in a struggle by Jasic Technology workers last year to form an independent trade union.

On March 20, Wei Zhili and Ke Chengbing were taken into custody. They are editors of New Generation, which reported on the conditions of the millions of internal migrant workers in China. Wei’s laptop and mobile phone were confiscated. Yang Zhengjun, the publication’s editor-in-chief, had been detained already on January 8.

Amnesty International reported that a police officer had told Wei’s father, who was present when the arrest was made, that his son would be sent to a detention centre for re-education. The officer accused Wei of “not having a proper job although graduating from a good school, and being ‘brainwashed’ to engage in anti-communist and counter-revolutionary activities that disturb the social order.”

Wei’s wife, Zheng Churan, an activist for women’s rights, told the Financial Times: “My husband just wants to help workers, he hasn’t done anything wrong but still he has been detained and lost his freedom, it’s devastating.” She said she was worried the police would use “abusive methods to force him to admit that he did something wrong.”

A Guangdong-based activist told Newsgram.com that the New Generation editors were likely detained for assisting migrant workers suffering pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease, who were seeking compensation. “Seven hundred pneumoconiosis sufferers from Hunan launched a complaint last November in Shenzhen,” the activist said.

“Their treatment hadn’t worked, and they had spent a lot of money on it. If each person was awarded 100,000 yuan ($US14,840) that would be 30 million yuan in total, so that’s why the Shenzhen authorities detained [the editors] in a hurry.”

Steven Butler, Asia program coordinator for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a statement: “The arrest of Wei Zhili is just the latest example of how frightened China’s leadership is of journalists who expose the truth about labor conditions in China. Wei and his colleagues should be released and hailed as heroes who expose the truth about labor conditions in China.”

Authorities confirmed on March 26 that Wei was being held in detention at Guangzhou, the provincial capital. He has no access to legal support.

The China Labour Bulletin (CLB) reported that on March 27 the police barred a group of nearly 100 workers at the Sangzhi railway station who tried to travel to Shenzhen to stage a protest to express their solidarity with Wei.

Gu Fuxiang, 52, a father of two, who was diagnosed with pneumoconiosis in 2009, told CLB: “In 2017, I was stage 2 patient. Earlier this year I was found to have reached stage 3… I only have one lifetime, and even if I fear reprisals, I just simply cannot stop fighting for a fair deal.”

The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) organised a small protest outside Beijing’s liaison office on March 26 and marched through the city to demand the release of all Jasic workers and detained labour activists. On the same day, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) picketed the Chinese embassy in Seoul to oppose the detentions.

On March 28, the Philippine trade union organization SENTRO demonstrated outside the Chinese embassy in Manila. SENTRO general secretary Josua Mata condemned “the steadily widening repression of Chinese workers” and demanded their immediate release.

In a separate arrest on March 21, Chai Xiaoming, a former editor of Red Reference and a former Peking University lecturer, was detained for “subversion of the state” and held under “residential surveillance at a designated location.”

According to Radio Free Asia, the reason for the arrest appears to be the publication of a recent lecture by Jin Canrong, a former lecturer in international relations at Renmin University, suggesting that China could take “a different path to modernisation”—a veiled criticism of the Chinese government.

Red Reference was forced to shut down last year, after police raided its office and the office of another labour news outlet, Epoch Pioneer. The raid was carried out simultaneously with the crack down on Jasic Solidarity Group supporters on August 24. These web sites had given media coverage of the Jasic struggle. Their documents and computers were confiscated. Seven editors of Epoch Pioneer and Shang Kai of Red Reference were arrested and detained in an unknown location. Later Shang was granted bail under condition that he not appear in public.

According to the CPJ, at least 47 journalists were in detention in China at the end of 2018. The Paris-based Reporters without Borders (RSF) stated that the figure was at least 60. The actual number could be far higher.

Amid a slowing economy and growing signs of working-class unrest, the Chinese regime is using its police-state apparatus to clamp down on any opposition. It fears that the isolated strikes and protests over wages, conditions and jobs could transform into a broader political movement against the government. As a result, its crackdown is directed particularly at left-leaning students and journalists.

At the same time, under conditions of heavy state censorship, the sources of information about the arrests are limited. The above reports are from publications and organisations that in one way or another follow the line from Washington and must be treated with caution. In the case of Radio Free Asia, it is a propaganda arm of the US State Department.

Washington has no interest in defending the rights of journalists in China, other than to provide further fuel for anti-China propaganda as it intensifies its confrontation with Beijing and prepares for war. The Trump administration is currently seeking the extradition of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, to face imprisonment and potentially the death penalty for exposing the crimes of American imperialism.

Chinese workers, students and journalists should certainly be released. However, organisations such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, which describes the Chinese editors as “heroes” and calls for them to be immediately freed, do not apply the same standard to Assange. On Assange’s arrest, CPJ issued a mealy-mouthed statement declaring it was “deeply concerned,” but did not call for his immediate release and certainly did not hail him as a hero.

Hundreds of peaceful climate change protesters arrested in UK

Paul Mitchell

Around 400 peaceful climate change protesters have been arrested in the UK over the past three days.

According to the Metropolitan Police Service, 290 protesters at Oxford Circus, Marble Arch, Piccadilly Circus and Parliament Square were taken into custody in London on Monday and Tuesday. Protests in the Scottish capital Edinburgh led to 29 arrests.

Oxford Circus brought to a standstill

Activists have said they are willing to be arrested and go to prison, acting in the non-violent pacifist tradition of the Suffragettes, Gandhi’s independence movement in India, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1960s and Martin Luther King in the U.S. civil rights movement.

On Wednesday, police switched off some of London’s publicly available webcams and the London Underground’s wi-fi system and flooded stations with officers in response to announcements that “Participants will peacefully break the law in order to stop the Tube and then will wait to be arrested.”

Superintendent Matt Allingham from British Transport Police said, “We have robust plans in place to help us respond to any potential protest activity targeting London’s rail network, including the London Underground.”

In the event, just a couple of protesters glued themselves to the top of a train in the Canary Wharf financial district. But the protests led to road closures and the shutdown of 55 bus routes, affecting half a million people.

A group of protesters chained themselves to the fence outside of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s house.

On Wednesday, the Metropolitan Police said a “designated senior police officer” had declared that all protests had to be confined to the traffic island at Marble Arch in west London and all other protests ended, under Section 14 of the 1986 Public Order Act.

The Public Order Act was introduced by the Margaret Thatcher-led Conservative government in response to the year-long miners’ strike (1984-1985). As well as creating many anti-democratic public order offences, it allows the police to restrict or prohibit protests and marches if they think “serious public disorder” will result.

Police manhandle protestor

This week, there have been no serious incidents of public disorder except when the police arrived in large numbers and swooped in to arrest people. Despite police surrounding their targets, sticking video cameras in their face and dragging them to police vans, there has been no violence from the demonstrators.

No one was spared from the arrogant demands of the police. At Oxford Circus, police officers threatened anyone whom they suspected of “participating” in “unauthorised” protests with arrest.

Police lined up ready to snatch activists identified by surveillance officers from crowd

One shop worker who had stepped out to see the demonstration during his lunch break was warned, “If you stay in this area you risk being arrested.” When he asked why he couldn’t listen to what the speakers were saying, he was asked, “Are you refusing to leave and go to Marble Arch?” The officer then said, “I believe you are participating and I am asking you to leave.”

Other local workers, journalists and tourists were treated in a similar manner.

Scores more were arrested yesterday, creating a situation where the police were running out of vans and holding cells in London. More and more demonstrators turned up to take the place of those who had been arrested.

Protestor being handcuffed

The UK protests were part of global protests held by the Extinction Rebellion (XR) group in more than 80 cities across 33 countries this week, according to the organisers. XR was launched in October last year by a small group of environmentalists called Rising Up. The launch was supported by an open letter from 100 academics, NGO leaders, authors and politicians from the UK, US, Australia, France, New Zealand, Ghana and Bénin, including Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, Rowan Williams, a former archbishop of Canterbury, former Ecology Party leader Sir Jonathan Porrit, Labour Party MP David Drew and Green Party MP and former Green leader Caroline Lucas.

Since then, XR has carried out various civil disobedience campaigns, occupations and media events, including pickets of this year’s London Fashion Week and naked demonstrators gluing themselves to the perspex barrier in the House of Commons public gallery during a Brexit debate.

The same pressure politics strategy is evident in this week’s XR leaflets, which are devoted to three demands, pleading with the “Government” to:

* 1. Tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.

* 2. Act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.

* 3. Create and be led by a national Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

XR was supported by the Guardian newspaper and its columnists, including George Monbiot and Owen Jones. Labour Party Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, reacting to a speech by Bank of England Governor Mark Carney in which Carney said the banks faced an existential risk from global warming, tweeted, “Mark Carney’s intervention is breakthrough moment. In addition to rewriting government spending criteria, we’ll now consult on changing the Bank of England’s mandate to reflect the climate change emergency highlighted by #ExtinctionRebellion demo.”

On the day’s events, protester Finbarr told a World Socialist Web Site reporter: “I agree climate change is probably the worst catastrophe facing mankind. People are showing they are fed up with capitalism and want to do something about it.

“But I am worried about the tactics being used by Extinction Rebellion. They are talking about assemblies, but how are they going to operate? I was involved with the Occupy London movement in 2011 and we had a lot of stuff from self-appointed people who came from nowhere to spout on about grass roots democracy, horizontalism and assemblies. But what happened? People should ask themselves what happened to Occupy.”

Despite ever more urgent scientific warnings, international emissions agreements, global warming targets and protocols are ignored by governments and corporations alike. Yet XR continues to claim that local and national governments and business leaders can be pressured into making piecemeal changes that will alleviate environmental collapse.

In regard to XR, the WSWS has stated: “Only the most extraordinary, rationally planned mobilisation of humanity’s immense productive, technical and scientific capacities can hope to overcome the challenges of rapidly rising sea levels, accelerating CO2 emissions, loss of biodiversity, collapse of food chains and desertification. But production under capitalism is directed solely to expand the private wealth of billionaires, regardless of the social or environmental cost.

“Moreover, climate change by its very nature demands a global response in which production is subordinated to the needs of the world’s working population. But the world is divided into competing nation states, each dominated by the selfish interests of rival groups of super-rich profiteers. Each continually seeks strategic trade and military advantage over its rivals in the struggle to dominate the world’s market and resources, and each continually seeks new means of extracting more from the working class. As it has twice in the 20th century, this ferocious conflict ends ultimately in world war, threatening the nuclear destruction of the planet.”

“Climate change, therefore, confronts humanity with the need for the socialist reorganisation of society on a world scale and the abolition of the nation-state system.”

Canada’s Liberal government attacks refugee rights

Laurent Lafrance

In a major assault on democratic and human rights, the Trudeau government surreptitiously concealed reactionary amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in its 392-page omnibus budget bill, the Budgetary Implementation Act. The amendments will make it significantly more difficult for migrants fleeing war and persecution to find asylum in Canada, and are accompanied by a Liberal pledge to spend an additional $1 billion on border security over the next five years.

Under the amendments, asylum seekers who have already made a refugee claim in a country with which Canada has an “information-sharing agreement” will automatically be refused asylum. They will be denied the right to a full-case hearing and, in most cases, will be quickly sent back to their home countries. The “information-sharing” countries in question—Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the US—comprise, along with Canada, the US-led “Five Eyes” spying network that conducts mass surveillance of the world’s population.

Given that the US is the only one of these four partners with which Canada shares a border, the practical effect of the legislation is to empower authorities to summarily deport refugee claimants crossing the US-Canada border to escape Trump’s anti-immigrant witch hunt.

This reactionary legislative change comes amid statements from Minister of Border Security Bill Blair and Canada’s US ambassador David McNaughton revealing that the Liberal government has been engaged in behind-the-scenes discussions with Washington on closing the so-called “loophole” in the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA). This 2002 US-Canada agreement allows Canada to return to the US anyone seeking refugee status who crossed into Canada via the US, on the grounds that they should have made their refugee claim there.

Even though the Trump administration has attacked and vilified immigrants, especially from predominantly-Muslim countries and Latin America, the Trudeau government has steadfastly refused calls from refugee and human rights organizations to scrap the agreement, insisting that the US continues to be a “safe haven” for refugees.

The STCA applies when migrants cross into Canada at official border checkpoints. This is why in the past two years—according to data from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada—some 40,000 asylum seekers have attempted to bypass official checkpoints by crossing the Canadian border on foot, sometimes in very hazardous conditions.

The Trudeau government has boasted that most of these “irregular” entrants to Canada are being denied refugee status and systematically deported. However, initially it resisted the demands of the Conservatives and the most right-wing sections of the corporate media and ruling class that it deny them their rights under Canadian and international law to make a claim to refugee status and be accorded the rules and protections of Canada’s refugee-determination process.

Now, putting the lie to the Liberals’ pretenses to be “pro-refugee,” the Trudeau government is effectively implementing the Conservatives’ demand that the Canada-US border be declared an “official checkpoint,” so all those crossing “irregularly” can be subject to the terms of the reactionary Safe Third Country Agreement and summarily expelled.

In a clear violation of Canadian law, the Liberals’ refugee law “reform” would mean that asylum seekers who previously made a refugee claim in the US, Britain, Australia or New Zealand, whatever the current status of their claim, will no longer be eligible for a full, oral hearing. Moreover, they will not be able to appeal to an independent tribunal with procedural protections, as is currently the case (under the Immigration and Refugee Board). Instead, they will automatically be brought before an immigration officer for fast-track deportation.

Their only recourse will be the “right” to submit a written “pre-removal risk assessment,” in which they could outline how deportation threatens them with state persecution and violence. According to human rights lawyer Kevin Wiener, those who use this process to halt their imminent deportation are successful in just 3 percent of cases.

The Budget Implementation Act also places limitations on when claimants can ask for humanitarian and compassionate consideration of their cases.

Many refugee lawyers and advocates—including some who supported Trudeau at the last federal election—have voiced their outrage at the Liberals’ measures and are already planning to launch legal challenges. Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), an umbrella organization representing more than 100 refugee aid groups, said the proposed changes to asylum laws are “a devastating attack on refugee rights in Canada.”

A CCR statement warned, “Numerous refugee claimants, who may need Canada’s protection because they are refugees, will be denied access to Canada’s refugee determination system. This applies even if the person never had a hearing on their claim in the other country, and came to Canada for compelling reasons (for example, to reunite with family members).”

The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers harshly criticized what it termed a “deeply troubling” reform that will strip “crucial and hard-won human rights protections from people.”

Trudeau’s push to effectively close the US-Canada border to asylum seekers has been long planned and is being closely coordinated with the Trump administration. Canada’s Border Security Minister Bill Blair said that he received a mandate from the prime minister last September to start talks with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on changing the Safe Third Country Agreement. He recently told CBC, “I can tell you we’ve been working very hard over the past several months to significantly reduce the number of people who are crossing our borders irregularly.”

While Canada and the United States have apparently not yet entered into formal negotiations over the STCA, a spokesman for Blair said that since his appointment as minister last summer he “has met with numerous stakeholders including U.S. members of Congress, Customs and Border Protection and Department of Homeland Security officials to discuss modernizing the STCA as soon as possible.”

The Conservatives’ and the media’s enthusiastic endorsement of the proposed changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act underscores their reactionary character. “After spending the last three years demonizing and personally attacking Conservatives over this issue, Justin Trudeau has effectively admitted that he has failed to defend the integrity of our asylum system,” gloated Conservative MP Michelle Rempel. For years the Conservatives have whipped up xenophobia and criticized Trudeau’s purported refugee-welcoming policies for having created a “mess” at the border and an influx of “illegal aliens” into Canada.

In fact, the Liberal government has pursued ever more pronounced anti-refugee policies, while closely collaborating with Washington in its crackdown on immigrants and in tightening border surveillance and control.

 While Trudeau used Syrian refugees as an election prop in 2015, his government has slashed the number it is allowing to settle in Canada and is providing virtually no support to those already here. Many must rely on charities and food banks just to feed and house themselves.

 Last year, in the name of “securing” Canada’s borders, the Liberal government ordered the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to adopt a new annual target of 10,000 deportations, an increase of 35 percent.

 Hundreds of those awaiting deportation, including children, are being held under prison-type conditions similar to those facing refugee claimants and migrants who have been thrown into Trump’s detention centers by fascistic Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

The number of refugees accepted in Canada is a drop in the bucket considering the millions that have been displaced worldwide by wars, economic instability, and state repression. Canadian imperialism has played a leading role in many of the most devastating conflicts, supporting US-led and -fomented wars that have destroyed entire societies, including in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Iraq.

The Liberal government’s collaboration with Trump and its own anti-immigrant crackdown have strengthened the most right-wing forces within ruling circles. Since coming to power last June, Ontario’s right-wing populist premier, Doug Ford, has repeatedly whipped up anti-immigrant chauvinism, blaming refugees for the terrible social conditions produced by decades of austerity imposed by Progressive Conservative, Liberal and NDP governments alike.

In Quebec, the right-wing Coalition Avenir Quebec, which campaigned in last year’s elections on a xenophobic platform, has introduced legislation to slash the number of immigrants accepted into the province, and is using the “notwithstanding clause” to ban teachers and other public employees in “persons of authority” from wearing religious signs. The principal targets and victims of this discriminatory ban will be Muslim women.

Why Nuclear Doctrinal Stasis is Not a Bad Idea

Vijay Shankar

There is an inherent limit to how precisely predictions can be made, let alone prognosticate impact particularly when polity, power, and people are involved. The historian Michael Howard cautioned against those who would play the oracle: "Doctrinal stasis is not a bad thing when the alternative is to match an opponent’s mistakes" - which implies that understanding and responding to a military doctrine is in the main an exercise in crystal-ball gazing. This, when applied to nuclear-armed states, is critical for stability primarily when destructive capability is not in question but intent is.

Nuclear weapons constitute a powerful deterrent against a nuclear attack; this would appear to be the wisdom of the times. However, an interstate relationship is often equally influenced by historical biases, irrational leadership, unintended events, and hostility. But the essential claim of deterrence theorists, that the probability of an intentional nuclear exchange is low, may be acceptable as long as arsenals are survivable, capability of retaliation is assured, and there exists belief in the lack of political purpose in its use. Unfortunately, this core claim is flawed.

The frailty of this theory lurks in an unspoken part of it. That is, can a deterrent relationship hold in the face of persistent nuclear doctrinal changes? After all, the first reaction to strategic military revision is to find ways of defeating it, and in the process upsetting the existing equilibrium. History will suggest that the cold-warriors with each doctrinal attempt to enhance credibility and survivability of their nuclear arsenals only achieved in bringing the world to the brink.

In the wake of the first Soviet atomic test in 1950, the US tabled a report titled National Security Council – 68 (NSC-68). This report was to become the mantra that guided world order till the end of the Cold War, and in particular defined and drove doctrines for use and proliferation of nuclear weapons. The report contrasted the design of the 'authoritarian' with that of the 'free state' and the inevitable nuclear clash that would ensue. In this scheme of things, the crises in Berlin,  the Korea peninsula, and Vietnam appeared logical, while the threat of mutually-assured destruction was even justifiable.

NSC-68 came at a time when the previous 35 years had witnessed the most cataclysmic events of history; two devastating World Wars, two revolutions that mocked global status quo, and the collapse of five empires. Change also transformed the basis of power; key determinants were now a function of ideology, economic muscle, military prowess, and the means of mass destruction. Power had decisively gravitated to the US and the USSR. The belief that the Soviets were motivated by a faith antithetical to that of the west and driven by ambitions of world domination provided the logic and a verdict that conflict and violence had become endemic. Nuclear theology was consequently cast in the mould of armed rivalry andits nature characterised by friction. The scheme that carved the world was 'containment of Communism'. In turn, rationality gave way to the threat of catastrophic force as the basis of stability.

As arsenals developed to the extreme, both sides were pushed to the acceptance of a nuclear strategy that aimed at deterring war rather than fighting it. Even so, the quest for doctrines that acquiesced to nuclear war-fighting were advanced, almost as if control of escalation was a given, and yet, it was precisely here that all the uncertainties lay. Fielded in 1961, 'flexible response' was considered a defensive doctrine. Purportedly to address the controlled use of nuclear weapons, it called for mutual deterrence at strategic, operational, and tactical levels. Before all else, the concept was unsound in its assumption of ‘mirror imaging’ both the process and content of strategic decision-making. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis very quickly debunked that notion when both cold warriors rapidly came to the brink of a thermo-nuclear exchange, if not for a quirk of fate and the balance of a Soviet submarine flotilla commander, Captain Arkhipov. Unknown to the US, three Soviet submarines deployed off Cuba were armed with nuclear torpedoes that could vaporise a Carrier task group. In the event, despite provocation, information blackout, and the military incitement to engage, Arkhipov opposed the decision to launch and in doing so averted a global nuclear catastrophe.

The Cuban episode highlighted that in a strategic nuclear war there was going to be no winners. However, despite this obvious lesson, planners were adamant to find accommodation for their arsenals within the unfolding nuclear situation.Solutions only masked the atrocity of a nuclear war, they did not answer the central issues of what political purpose was served. And, did credible means of control exist? Nevertheless, short-lived precepts found their way into nuclear theology; they included: the 1974 ‘Schlesinger doctrine’ that suggested a wider array of nuclear options(!); ‘the Dead Hand’ a Strangelovesque doomsday machine that could launch an all-annihilating retaliatory nuclear strike automatically; development of new nuclear war-fighting capabilities, and the move away from strategic arms limitation.

The crumbling of the Soviet Union brought down the curtains on the NSC-68 basis of global stability. In its trail, some scholarly works suggested the emergence of one globalised world and an end to the turbulent history of man’s ideological evolution. Some saw a benign multi-polar order. Yet others saw ­- in the Iraq Wars, the invasion of Ukraine, the continuing war in the Levant, Afghan imbroglio, and the splintering of Yugoslavia - a violent clash of civilisations shaped by religio-cultural similitude. However, these illusions were dispelled and found little use in understanding the realities of the post-Cold War world as each of them represented a candour of their own. The paradigm of the day (perhaps) are the tensions of the multi-polar; the tyranny of economics; the anarchy of expectations; and polarisation of peoples along religio-cultural lines, all compacted in the backwash of a technology rush. An uncertain geopolitical brew as the world has ever seen seethes under the looming shadow of continued nuclear weapons proliferation.

At Cold War’s end, leaders, recognising how often and how close to a nuclear catastrophe decentralising control of nuclear weapons had brought the world to, made reciprocal pledges to substantially retain control and cut-back on tactical nuclear weapons. Collectively, the pledge was to end foreign deployment of entire categories of tactical nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, this lofty vow today lies in tatters to the extent that there is the absurd belief that one could escalate into the nuclear dimension in order to de-escalate a conflictual situation.

The reality of nuclear weapons is that its value lies in non-usage; its futility is in attempting to use it to attain political goals. And as long as one state armed with nuclear weapons believes some benefit to be had through revision in doctrinal underpinnings, fears creep into the mind of the adversary setting into motion a chain reaction raising the degree of calamitous risk. Indeed, in this context, nuclear doctrinal stasis, for starters, is a great idea; while this may not assure happy endings, it provides a footing for a historical quest to do away with the obscenity of a nuclear war.

Audi Environmental Foundation Scholarship to attend One Young World Conference 2019 (Fully-funded)

Application Deadline: 3rd May 2019

Eligible Countries: Any

To be taken at (country): London UK

About the Award: Founded by AUDI AG in 2009, The Audi Environmental Foundation works to promote sustainable behavior and technologies that benefit both the environment and society.
Scarce resources, environmental destruction, climate change and population growth – these are just a few aspects that influence society, politics and business. The Foundation recognises that developing sound solutions to these challenges calls for collaboration with a broad network of partners, especially young people and the leaders among them.
Are you eager to join an international discussion of issues like sustainability and the environment? Would you like to build an international network and gain insight into how other people think? Then apply now as an Audi Scholar for the One Young World Summit 2019!
In addition to participating in the One Young World Summit, Audi Scholars will join an exclusive pre-event where they will connect with fellow innovators from the programme as well as experts from the Audi Environmental Foundation. 


Type: Conference

Eligibility: If you are aged between 18 and 30 years, work for or are involved with a non-governmental organisation, social enterprise, community based organisation, or you are an individual making an impact on environmental topics, then this scholarship is for you. 

Selection Criteria: 

• Most delegates are between the age of 18 and 30. The One Young World team will consider applications from those who are older than 30, pending demonstration of appropriate personal impact, initiative, and willingness to engage. We are not able to accept applications from those who will be aged under 18 at the time of the Summit.
• Candidates must demonstrate:
  • A passion for environment issues
  • Impact and capacity for innovation in this field
  • Leadership

Number of Awards: 15

Value of Award:

• Access to the One Young World Summit 2019 in London, United Kingdom.
• The cost of travel to and from London (economy flight).
• Hotel accommodation London between 20 and 25 (inclusive) October.
• Participation at the pre-event by Audi AG and the Audi Environmental Foundation on 21 October
• Catering which includes breakfast, lunch and dinner
• Transport between the pre-event by Audi, Summit accommodation and the Summit venue.
• Summit hand-outs and support materials.

Duration of Award: 20 – 25th October 2019

How to Apply: Apply

• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Google Africa Certifications Scholarships (Fully-funded to learn Web and Android Programming) 2019

Application Deadline: Ongoing

Eligible Countries: Scholarships available for residents African Countries.

To be Taken at: The program takes place 100% online. You can work from wherever you want to, as long as you have a working internet connection.

About the Award: This year, Google is offering 30,000 additional scholarship opportunities and 1,000 grants for the Google Associate Android Developer, Mobile Web Specialist, and Associate Cloud Engineer certifications. The scholarship program will be delivered by their partners, Pluralsight and Andela, through an intensive learning curriculum designed to prepare motivated learners for entry-level and intermediate roles as software developers.
According to World Bank, Africa is on track to have the largest working-age population (1.1 billion) by 2034. Today’s announcement marks a transition from inspiring new developers to preparing them for the jobs of tomorrow. Google’s developer certifications are performance-based. They are developed around a job-task analysis which test learners for skills that employers expect developers to have.

Type: Training

Eligibility: To receive one of these scholarships, you

• must be a current resident of an African country.
• must also be at least 18 years old and complete the application in full.

Number of Awards: 30,000 scholarships and 1,000 grants

Value of Award:

• Google is partnering with Pluralsight to give you free access to Pluralsight course content plus support from the Andela Learning Community across three skills development tracks: Mobile Web, Android and Google Cloud.
• After completing your desired skills development track, you will be eligible to receive a Google certification grant to take Google’s Associate Android Developer, Mobile Web Specialist and Associate Cloud Engineer certification exams.

How to Apply: Interested students in Africa can learn more about the Google Africa Certifications Scholarships and apply here

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Schwarzman Scholars 2020/2021 (Fully-funded Masters Scholarship) for International Students – China

Application Deadlines: 26th September 2019 at 11:59 PM, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All (except Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao)

To be taken at (country): Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (students live and study together on the campus of Schwarzman College, a newly-built, state-of-the-art facility, where all classes will be taught in English.)

Fields of Study:  Masters degree programmes in one of these three disciplines:

• Public Policy
• Economics and Business
• International Studies

What will be taught: Business, Social sciences, Leadership skills

About the Award: Enrolling the inaugural class in 2016, the program will give the world’s best and brightest students the opportunity to develop their leadership skills and professional networks through a one-year Master’s Degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing – one of China’s most prestigious universities.
With a $350 million endowment, Schwarzman Scholars will be the single largest philanthropic effort ever undertaken in China by largely international donors. The extraordinary students selected to become Schwarzman Scholars will receive a comprehensive scholarship.
Schwarzman Scholars was inspired by the Rhodes Scholarship, which was founded in 1902 to promote international understanding and peace, and is designed to meet the challenges of the 21st century and beyond. Blackstone Co-Founder Stephen A. Schwarzman personally contributed $100 million to the program and is leading a fundraising campaign to raise an additional $350 million from private sources to endow the program in perpetuity. The $450 million endowment will support up to 200 scholars annually from the U.S., China and around the world for a one-year Master’s Degree program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of China’s most prestigious universities and an indispensable base for the country’s scientific and technological research. Scholars chosen for this highly selective program will live in Beijing for a year of study and cultural immersion, attending lectures, traveling, and developing a better understanding of China.

Type: Masters Degree

Offered Since: 2015

Eligibility: The following criteria must be met by all candidates:

• Undergraduate degree or first degree from an accredited college or university or its equivalent. Applicants who are currently enrolled in undergraduate degree programs must be on track to successfully complete all degree requirements before orientation begins in 1 August 2020. There are no requirements for a specific field of undergraduate study; all fields are welcome, but it will be important for applicants, regardless of undergraduate major, to articulate how participating in Schwarzman Scholars will help develop their leadership potential within their field.
• Age. Applicants must be at least 18 but not yet 29 years of age as of 1 August 2020
• Citizenship. There are no citizenship or nationality requirements
• English language proficiency. Applicants must demonstrate strong English Language skills, as all teaching will be conducted in English. If the applicant’s native language is not English, official English proficiency test scores must be submitted with the application. Acceptable test options are:
  • Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL PBT)
  • Internet-based Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL iBT)
  • International English Language Testing System (IELTS)
  This requirement is waived for applicants who graduated from an undergraduate institution where the primary language of instruction was English for at least three years of the applicant’s academic program.
  

Number of Awardees: Up to 200 exceptional men and women will be accepted into the program each year. The class that begins in summer 2019 will include 125 scholars, and the program will grow to include up to 200 students in coming years.

Value of Scholarship: 

• Semi-finalist interview expenses, such as economy class air or train travel, group meals and one night in a hotel if needed, will be arranged and covered by the program.
• Expenses for successful Schwarzman Scholars are also FULLY covered by the program.
• It will include Tuition and fees, Room and board, Travel to and from Beijing at the beginning and end of the academic year, An in-country study tour,
• Required course books and supplies, Lenovo laptop and smartphone, Health insurance, and
• A modest personal stipend.

Duration of Scholarship: 1 year

How to Apply: There is no fee associated with applying to the Schwarzman Scholars program. To apply, you will need to complete and successfully submit an online application form, including all required documents and essays before the deadline date.
Visit the official website (link below) for complete information on how to apply to this scholarship programme.


Visit Scholarship Webpage for details