Stripping Shamima Begum of British citizenship a vindictive crime

Thomas Scripps

Last Wednesday, a Special Immigration Appeals Commission upheld the decision of former Home Secretary Sajid Javid to strip Shamima Begum of her British citizenship.

Begum travelled to Syria from London in 2015, aged just 15, with two friends who were all groomed to become a bride of an Islamic State (IS) fighter. She is currently in the al-Roj refugee camp in the country, with 2,000 others. In 2019, Javid ordered that she be deprived of her citizenship using powers in the British Nationality Act 1981.

This Monday February 23, 2015 file handout image of a three image combo of stills taken from CCTV issued by the Metropolitan Police shows Kadiza Sultana, left, Shamima Begum, center, and Amira Abase going through security at Gatwick airport, south England, before catching their flight to Turkey. [AP Photo/Metropolitan Police via AP]

Javid’s decision and its sanctioning by the courts is a gross violation of democratic rights designed to advance a stupefying demonisation of Muslims, preventing any questioning of the role played by world imperialism in fomenting Islamist terror.

The British Nationality Act 1981 allows the removal of citizenship if the affected person has acted “in a manner which is seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the UK” and if there are “reasonable grounds for believing that the person is able, under the law of a country or territory outside the UK, to become a national of such a country or territory”. In other words, the person cannot be rendered stateless.

But this is exactly what the government has done, relying on the technicality that Begum could apply for Bangladeshi citizenship through her parents. Under Bangladeshi law, Begum could apply for citizenship at any time up to her 21stbirthday. But before Javid made his decision, Bangladesh made very clear that it would refuse any such application and that Begum would face the death penalty if she entered the country. In any case, she is now 23 years old—long past the deadline.

In effect, the UK government has punished Begum for an act carried out as a minor by making her a permanent refugee, denying her any rights or services afforded by any country on the planet. This was done without any public accountability whatsoever, let alone a trial.

Defending his decision in parliament in 2019, Javid considered it adequate to state, “Whatever role they took in the so-called caliphate, they all supported a terrorist organisation and in doing so they have shown they hate our country and the values we stand for.” Speaking on the issue again in 2021, he told journalists cryptically, “I’m not going to go into details of the case but what I will say is that you certainly haven’t seen what I saw. If you did know what I knew… you would have made exactly the same decision.”

Last Wednesday’s ruling underscores the gross injustice done, referring to the case made by Begum’s lawyers that she was the victim of grooming, child trafficking and sexual exploitation. Married to an IS fighter immediately upon arriving in Syria, she gave birth to three children, all of whom died young—one of pneumonia while she was in the refugee camp.

This undated photo released by the Metropolitan Police of London, shows Shamima Begum. [AP Photo/Metropolitan Police of London via AP, File]

One of her school-friends, Kadiza Sultana, died in May 2016 in an airstrike, aged 17, while planning to escape. The whereabouts of the other, Amira Abase, is not known, but her husband is dead.

The court’s judgement reads, “In the Commission’s opinion, there is a credible suspicion that Ms Begum was recruited, transferred and then harboured for the purpose of sexual exploitation.” These were “matters which were simply ignored by the Secretary of State.”

But a deeply authoritarian ruling by the Supreme Court in 2021, secured by the government to prevent Begum returning to the UK to fight her case, effectively prevented the Commission from overturning Javid’s decision.

The Supreme Court chastised an earlier ruling initially giving Begum the right to return with the extraordinary criticism that it had “mistakenly believed that, when an individual’s right to have a fair hearing of an appeal came into conflict with the requirements of national security, her right to a fair hearing must prevail,” and “mistakenly treated the Secretary of State’s extraterritorial human rights policy as if it were a rule of law which he must obey, as opposed to something intended to guide the exercise of his statutory discretion.”

Moreover, by ruling that the home secretary’s assessment was not given “the respect which it should have received, given that it is the home secretary who has been charged by parliament with responsibility for making such assessments,” the Supreme Court tied the Special Immigration Appeals Commission’s hands. It was essentially required to limit itself to asking whether Javid had lawfully exercised the extremely broad powers of the British Nationality Act 1981, under which he is entitled to ignore virtually all other considerations by citing “national security”.

The Commission noted February 22, “Reasonable Secretaries of State could lawfully apply different policies to the exercise of the section 40 function [in the British Nationality Act]. It is possible to envisage a perfectly lawful policy that precludes the decision-maker from depriving children at all, or from depriving them without deciding whether they were or may have been trafficked. But that is not the policy that this Secretary of State implemented.”

As Birnberg Peirce, the law firm representing Begum, explained in a statement, the Supreme Court judgment renders the legal appeals process pointless: “The commission’s hands, it considers, are tied by the alteration by the supreme court of its role – it is no longer allowed to come to its own decisions on the merits of a case as a whole. On the key issues, it must defer to the secretary of state. Once that is accepted, it is hard to see what part an appeal against this draconian decision can play.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer immediately backed Begum’s continued persecution, telling the BBC that the Court’s judgment was “the right decision”. The former Director of Public Prosecutions declared, “National security has to come first. The court's reached its decision; it's looked at all the evidence. I support that decision and as I say, national security has to come first.”

The vindictive treatment of Begum, an exploited child who was presented as nothing more than a dangerous and irredeemable monster, is intended to stop any deeper questioning of the details of the case which would expose the intrigues of British imperialism and its allies. Last September it was revealed that Begum was helped to Syria by a Canadian state intelligence asset; British intelligence knew she was being groomed online.

The court made vague reference to these facts in its judgement, writing, “It is also arguable… that there were State failures, and possible violations of the corollary protective duty, between December 2014 and February 2015.”

Begum’s is thus one of many cases in which figures who become associated with terror groups, including some who have gone on to commit terrible atrocities, are shown to have been known to the intelligence agencies. These are windows into the covert activity of the imperialist powers, who routinely use Islamist proxy forces against their geopolitical opponents, as most recently in Syria and Libya.

Nor does the government want to allow any consideration of the social conditions of contemporary capitalism which move some people to support the barbaric ideology of Islamic State, including young women who are particularly oppressed. Government-sponsored Islamophobia and anti-migrant rhetoric, conditions of social exclusion and poverty, and the relentless dehumanisation of the enemy abroad—in recent years largely in the Middle East—and desensitisation of the population to violence and cruelty all play their part.

A play exploring these issues specifically in the context of Begum and the two friends she travelled with, Homegrown, was shut down by the police and the National Youth Theatre in 2015.

The Begum decision also has dangerous implications. The ruling class routinely pioneers massive assaults on democratic rights with the initial targeting of a demonised individual or group. Through this case, it has secured vast, virtually unchecked powers for the home secretary, currently the right-wing xenophobe Suella Braverman, to use against the working class.

Begum’s treatment is seen as a weapon not primarily against terrorist groups, but in the wider attack on democratic rights—including the rights to strike, protest and free speech. In the time her case has been ongoing, the government has already strengthened its right to remove citizenship through the Nationality and Borders Act, removing the requirement to notify the affected person.

Child and youth poverty in Germany rises sharply

Elisabeth Zimmermann

At the end of January, the Bertelsmann Foundation published its fact sheet on child and youth poverty in Germany. According to the report, 2.88 million children under the age of 18 and 1.55 million young adults under the age of 25 were considered poor or “at risk of poverty” in 2021. This means that more than one in five children and one in four young adults are affected by poverty. Young adults have the highest risk of poverty of all age groups.

Young people at a demonstration in Berlin against rent profiteering and social austerity, April 2018 [Photo: WSWS]

Overall, poverty in Germany has risen to a record level. Poverty has risen particularly sharply among pensioners in recent years. Twenty percent of older people, or one in five, now receive a poverty level pension.

Researchers Antje Funcke and Sarah Menne, who prepared the fact sheet on behalf of the Bertelsmann Foundation, based their study on current figures from the federal and state statistical offices. The study contains a detailed breakdown of the extent of child and youth poverty in Germany's individual federal states and in the respective districts and independent cities.

The study defines as “poor” those persons who have so little income “that it is not possible to have the standard of living that is taken for granted or considered normal in our society.” According to the German Federal Statistical Office, the official poverty thresholds in 2021 were 1,148 euro per month for a one-person household and 2,410 euro per month for a two parent household with two children under 14. For a single parent with one child under 14, the threshold was 1,492 euro and for a single parent with three children, two under and one over 14, it was 2,410 euro per month.

It takes little imagination to see that single parents and families with children on these low monthly incomes have great difficulty making ends meet financially. Since inflation has risen to around 10 percent, it is becoming more and more impossible.

Among the most important findings is that many young people need so-called SGB II benefits (the program formerly know as social assistance, Sozialhilfe) to make ends meet. In June 2022, this applied to 1.9 million children and young people under 18. This figure rose significantly in June 2022, the first significant rise in five years. This is due in part to children fleeing the war in Ukraine, who have been eligible to receive SGB II benefits since June 2022.

In reality, the number of poor children and young people in Germany is much higher as there is a large number of unreported cases, because many are not included in the statistics. This applies, for example, to children of parents who work in the low-wage sector and whose income is just above the level required for SGB II benefits or the citizen's allowance (Bürgergeld, formerly known as Hartz IV).

Children and adolescents who grow up in group homes, institutions and youth welfare facilities or live in student dormitories also do not appear in the statistics; neither do the children and adolescents who come as refugees from countries devastated by the U.S./NATO wars, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other countries. Refugee children are not counted because they are required to live in refugee facilities (Erstaufnahmezentren or “initial reception centers”), sometimes alone, sometimes with their parents, for months and years until a decision has been made on their asylum application and residence status in Germany, and they are allowed to find their own apartment.

The factsheet also shows that 7 percent of young adults receive social benefits; that's 432,000 young people under 25. It shows that the support systems that are actually intended for this age group—in addition to the SGB II system, for example, student assistance (Bafög) or the housing allowance (Wohngeld)—”do not mesh well and obviously do not prevent poverty,” according to the study.

The front-runner in child and youth poverty is the federal state of Bremen, at 41.1 percent of all children and young people. But the rate is also in double digits in all other German states. Bremen is followed by the states of Saxony-Anhalt with a child and youth poverty rate of 25.2 percent and North Rhine-Westphalia with 24.6 percent.

Children and young people are particularly likely to be poor if they grow up in single-parent families or in families with three or more children, the report says. For two-parent families with three or more children, the poverty rate was 31.6 percent. For single parents, where no distinction is made by number of children, the poverty rate was 41.6 percent, approaching a situation in which every second single-parent household lives in poverty.

By age group, young adults between 18 and 24 are those with the highest poverty rate, 25.5 percent. One in four young adults is affected by poverty. In eastern Germany, the figure is 32.5 percent compared to 24.2 percent in the west. Overall, 4.43 million under-25s are considered poor in Germany. The proportion of impoverished children and young people, as well as young adults, has remained at a consistently high level for years.

Children and young people growing up in poverty are disadvantaged in every respect, both in terms of their education and health as well as their participation in society. It is a vicious circle from which they usually cannot escape.

In a special section of the study, the researchers discuss the consequences of poverty and provide many examples. They demonstrate that poor young adults who had experienced poverty in their youth are also disadvantaged as adults and suffer from poorer mental health.

The situation is being made much worse as a result of the current crises and the attendant increase in prices. The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 and developments since then have led to a further sharp increase in poverty. If the policies of capitalist governments in all countries can be summarized under the maxim “profits before lives,” this maxim can be taken literally, too: Well over 20 million people worldwide, almost 170,000 in Germany alone, have fallen victim to the pandemic. At the same time, the governments' “rescue measures” and “aid packages” have made the situation worse for the lower layers of society.

First, billions of euro, dollars and other currencies were handed over to the banks and corporations during the pandemic, and the rich were allowed to enrich themselves further on the misery and suffering of billions of people. At the same time, hardly more than small change was provided to support those who lost their jobs and incomes as a result of the pandemic. Since then, with the outbreak of the US/NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, inflation has soared to record heights, dramatically affecting those who were already barely making ends meet. Again, the hardest and most severely affected were the millions of people working in low-wage jobs, and their families.

As a result of the economic sanctions against Russia, electricity and gas prices in particular have risen dramatically in Germany. The compensation payments that the government granted for the high energy costs proved to be a drop in the bucket. Inflation is effectively the mechanism by which the costs of massive rearmament and war, as well as bailouts for the rich, are squeezed out of the working class.

Like many other studies on poverty and social inequality, the Bertelsmann Foundation fact sheet provides important information and a great deal of useful numerical material. As in all the years before, the demands they derive from it and present to the government will fall on deaf ears. While the ruling coalition can launch a 100-billion special fund for the Bundeswehr (German military) overnight, as well as tens of billions more for rearmament and war, there is ostensibly no money to meet social needs. While the defense budget rises and rises again, spending on health and education has been massively cut in the latest federal budget.

At the end of last year, the Child Protection Association (Kinderschutzbund) warned of a further increase in child poverty. Inflation is hitting poorer families and children in particular, said the president of the Kinderschutzbund, Heinz Hilgers. “Inflation hits families with little money particularly hard,” Hilgers said. Child poverty will therefore inevitably continue to increase. Hilgers also warned that families with children will not be able to get by with the standard rates provided by the citizen's allowance in 2023. This rate increase comes too late and is immediately absorbed by inflation.

While the large majority of the population suffers under inflation and a sharp rise in food and energy prices, there is a small minority at the peak of the society that enriches itself enormously on the consequences of the crisis. Here we need only mention the recently publicized example of Hapag-Lloyd.

On February 8, 2023, Handelsblatt reported that the shipping company Hapag-Lloyd would distribute more than eleven billion euro to its shareholders after a “fabulous record year.” Hapag-Lloyd has benefited from the boom in container shipping. The Executive Board therefore intends to almost double the dividend to 63 euro per share compared with the previous year (2021: 35 euro). During the coronavirus crisis, freight rates for transporting goods on the high seas had exploded as a result of disrupted supply chains.

The greatest beneficiary of the wave of dividends is Hamburg billionaire Klaus-Michael Kühne, one of the richest Germans. As a major shareholder in Hapag-Lloyd, he alone receives 3.3 billion euro in dividends. “Within two years, the shipping company's profit dispensations thus add up to more than 17 billion euro,” writes Handelsblatt.

German government ends masking requirement in health and care facilities

Tamino Dreisam

At the beginning of February, the obligation to wear a mask in buses and trains was ended throughout Germany, along with the Coronavirus Occupational Health and Safety Ordinance. This momentous decision will now be followed by the repeal of the testing and masking requirement for employees and residents in health care and nursing facilities on March 1. This means that wearing a mask will only be mandatory in medical facilities.

[Photo by Arquus / wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4.0]

Originally, the masking requirement was to apply until April 7. On its website, the federal Health Ministry justifies the early lifting of this obligation by citing an “infection situation that has been stable for weeks.” Leading politicians from all parties are outdoing each other in declaring the pandemic over and dismissing coronavirus as a normal disease among many others.

“We are now treating COVID-19 like any other infectious disease—even in our country. That means there is no regulatory framework in Schleswig-Holstein that goes beyond that,” said the state’s Minister President Daniel Günther (Christian Democratic Union, CDU), for example. Baden-Württemberg’s Green Minister of Health Manfred Lucha announced the state had “reached endemicity. In terms of acute respiratory illnesses, we are at pre-pandemic levels.”

Other politicians go even further, attacking the protective measures implemented in the past, which—despite their limitations—have undoubtedly saved tens of thousands of lives. In Saxony, for example, the Liberal Democrats (FDP) are calling for a state parliament investigative committee which would, “review the measures taken during the pandemic and put them to the legal test.” Such an investigative committee had previously only been called for by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

At the federal level, Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP), vice president of the Bundestag (parliament), is calling for a “comprehensive... parliamentary review” that would open “a new chapter in coronavirus politics.”

It is clear what is at stake. The imposition of protective measures is to be outright criminalized. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (Social Democratic Party, SPD) told broadcaster ARD’s Morgenmagazin earlier this month that the closure of schools and day-care centres at the start of the pandemic was a mistake. He dismissively referred to the position that “schools must be closed because transmissions occur there” as “science at that time.” In another interview, he called the official figure of about 180,000 coronavirus deaths in Germany “not a bad number.”

The position of the ruling class could not be any clearer: To maximize its profits without interruption, it was and is willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives. Workers should also take Lauterbach’s statements as a warning for the future. In the event of a new pandemic, the ruling class would undertake no serious measures to protect the health of the population from the very beginning—no matter how many people might die.

And contrary to official government propaganda, the coronavirus pandemic is by no means over. This is shown, among other things, by a projection of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on excess mortality. According to the report, 98,632 people died in January, 11,000 more, or 13 percent, than the median number for 2019 to 2022. For 2022, the excess mortality rate was nine percent, suggesting a high number of indirect deaths because of the pandemic. Data from the EuroMOMO network confirm that this is a Europe-wide trend.

The current 7-day incidence of 119.1 cases per 100,000 inhabitants (February 26) does not begin to reflect the true level of infections. For example, the level of coronavirus measured in wastewater in the capital city of Berlin suggest that the true infection numbers are more than 40 percent higher than reported.

Even if the officially reported COVID deaths are taken as a yardstick, it is clear that the virus is still rampant. More than 500 people are still dying from COVID-19 every week in Germany. A recent study by the University of Lucerne, published in the journal Jama Network Open, found that mortality resulting from infection with the Omicron variant is 1.5 times higher than infection with seasonal influenza.

The adjusted incidence of hospitalizations per 100,000 is also nearly 12, which corresponds to nearly 10,000 hospitalizations per week because of coronavirus infections. 1,005 people require intensive care—up from 776 the previous week. In medical treatment facilities, where masking requirements are scheduled to be eliminated March 1, the number of active outbreaks rose to 167 from 117 the previous week. In nursing homes and homes for the elderly, there were 182 outbreaks.

Of particular concern, the Omicron subvariant XBB, also known as “Kraken,” increased to 26 percent of cases. This is considered the most contagious subvariant to date.

The spread of Omicron variants and the accompanying removal of protective measures had already led to a massive increase in infections last year, directly impacting the lives of millions of workers.

According to an analysis by health insurer Barmer, there were significantly more people taking sick leave in 2022 than in the previous year. The proportion of sick leave that was coronavirus-related rose from 0.9 percent in 2021 to 20.2 percent in 2022. In January, health insurance providers Techniker-Krankenkasse and DAK-Gesundheit also published figures on sick leave. The latter recorded a sickness rate of 5.5 percent in 2022 for its 2.4 million working clients. The Kaufmännische Krankenkasse stated that in 2022, the number of those taking sick leave due to mental health problems had skyrocketed. It reported that the nursing, education, and social work sectors were particularly affected.

In addition to the immediate consequences, aggressive infection with the virus also damages public health in the long term. Even seemingly harmless courses of infection can attack the organs and seriously damage them. Hundreds of thousands of people in Germany are already struggling with the consequences of Long Covid. The murderous character of the official coronavirus policy is most clearly reflected in life expectancy, which has already fallen by half a year in this country.

US demands for “existential struggle” threaten war with China

Andre Damon

On Tuesday, a bipartisan House committee held a hearing proclaiming an “existential struggle” between the United States and China.

In his opening remarks to the hearing, committee Chairman Mike Gallagher said the United States’ “competition” with China will not be “polite,” calling the US conflict with China an “existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century.”

Gallagher told the Wall Street Journal the committee would create a two-year “blueprint” for “selective economic decoupling from China.”

The prime-time hearing was aimed at promoting public hostility toward China to justify the United States’ massive military build-up in the Pacific.

In January, Gen. Mike Minihan, head of the Air Mobility Command, sent a letter to his subordinates stating, “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” and urging them to get their “personal affairs” in order in preparation for a conflict with China.

U.S. Army mariners-in-training pose for pictures at Joint Base Little Creek-Fort Story May 27, 2017. [Photo: US Army]

On Thursday, it became known that the US is planning to triple the number of US troops stationed in Taiwan, which the United States has for decades treated as part of China. Last year, Congress passed a national defense authorization act that would directly arm Taiwan, effectively ending the one-China policy with the aim of provoking a Chinese invasion of Taiwan similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The warmongering testimonies by former Trump administration officials—H.R. McMaster, a war criminal who helped organize the illegal invasion of Iraq, and Matthew Pottinger, a key ally of the fascist Steve Bannon—were interrupted by protesters opposing US war plans with China who were gagged and led away by police.

The hearing, which was convened by Republicans who now control the House, won the enthusiastic backing of Democratic members of the committee.

But not a single one of the Democratic members of Congress opposed the warmongering orientation of the hearing. Ro Khanna, a national co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, fully embraced the premise of the meeting, casting the war plans of American imperialism as a struggle to defend US manufacturing jobs.

“Over the last three decades, both Democrats and Republicans underestimated the CCP, and assumed that trade and investment would inevitably lead to democracy and greater security in the Indo-Pacific. ... Instead the opposite happened,” said Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the ranking Democrat on the committee, in his opening remarks.

Democratic Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens called on the United States to carry out policies aimed at ensuring the domination of US manufacturing exports and control of raw materials.

While fully accepting the framework for US-China relations, the entire criticism of the Democrats was that the US conflict with China should not be acclaimed by overt anti-Asian racism. Democrat Shontel Brown said she supported “boosting American competitiveness with equity and inclusion.”

But perhaps the most overt statement of sympathy for Gallagher’s “existential conflict” came from the White House, by way of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In an interview with Fox News, FBI Director Christopher Wray accused China of having created COVID-19 and then covering it up, in the most high-profile, public statement to date of the White House’s approval of the Wuhan lab lie.

The announcement was a direct overture toward Pottinger, who is a leading public advocate of the Wuhan lab conspiracy theory, which he has consistently advocated alongside his demands for the US to prepare for conflict with China.

The hearing marks a major milestone in the embrace of the entire political establishment of the framework of the US-China relationship pioneered under the Trump administration by the fascist ideologue and chief white house strategist Steven K. Bannon, which calls on the United States to economically “decouple” from China in preparation for military conflict.

This narrative was first officially trailered in October 2018 in a speech by Vice President Mike Pence, who argued that the reproachment between the United States and China in the aftermath of Richard Nixon’s 1971 trip to Beijing was a mistake.   

The “Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party” was effectively a vehicle for its star witness former United States deputy national security advisor Matthew Pottinger, who Bannon described as “one of the most significant people in the entire U.S. government.”

In the words of Josh Rogin, Pottinger’s views have lived on in the Biden administration, with the “incoming Biden administration is set to preserve many of the changes in the government’s approach to China that Pottinger, along with other like-minded officials, worked to implement.”

Over the past two months, the Biden administration has massively intensified its conflict with China, passing a bill at the end of last year that would directly arm Taiwan, Surging US troops to the island, and this month, carrying out an attack on what was by all indications a Chinese research balloon that had been blown over the United States.

Tuesday’s prime-time hearing is a major component of the US media’s month-long effort to demonize China, which erupted with the announcement days-long media hysteria over a the Chinese balloon, and continued with the US media’s incessant promotion of the Wuhan lab lie over the past week.

These developments must be seen as a warning. Even as the United States massively intensifies its involvement in its war with Russia in Ukraine, it is escalating its conflict with China, threatening to embroil the whole world in a globe-spanning military conflict between nuclear-armed powers.

British Council Scholarships 2023

Application Deadline:

Application deadlines vary between courses but range from 28 February to 10 April 2023. Please check the deadline carefully with the university you plan to apply to, in order to avoid disappointment.  

Tell Me About British Council Scholarships for Women in STEM:

For the second year running, the British Council has launched a scholarship programme in partnership with 26 UK universities with the aim of benefiting women from the Americas, South Asia, South East Asia, Egypt, Turkey and Ukraine. We are looking for women with a background in STEM, who can demonstrate their need for financial support and who wish to inspire future generations of women to pursue careers in STEM.

Why a scholarship programme?

This scholarship programme aims to increase opportunities in STEM for girls and women. According to data from the UN Scientific Education and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), fewer than 30 percent of researchers worldwide are women and only 30 percent of female students select STEM-related fields in higher education.

Globally, female students’ enrolment is particularly low in Information and Communications Technology (three percent), natural science, mathematics and statistics (five percent), and engineering, manufacturing and construction (eight percent).

What Type of Scholarship is this?

Master, Fellowship

Who can apply for British Council Scholarships for Women in STEM?

Applicants can apply from the following countries

For both Master’s Scholarships and Early Academic Fellowships	Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam
For Masters Scholarships only	Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, Peru, Turkey, Ukraine

We are looking for women who:

• are able to take up a course of study in the UK for the academic year from September/October 2023 – 2024
• can demonstrate a need for financial support
• have an undergraduate degree that will enable them to gain access onto one of the pre-selected postgraduate courses at a UK university
• can attain the level of English required for postgraduate study/research at a UK university 
• are active in the field with work experience or a proven interest in their subject area
• are passionate about their course of study and are willing to engage as committed British Council scholarship alumni

Full eligibility criteria are available below in the documents section.

Which Countries are Eligible?

Women from the Americas, South Asia, South East Asia, Egypt, Turkey and Ukraine.

Where will Award be Taken?

UK

How Many Scholarships will be Given?

Numerous

What is the Benefit of British Council Scholarships for Women in STEM?

Main benefits

• academic prestige – the UK’s universities are amongst the world’s leaders in STEM subjects
• economic support will include tuition fees, stipend, travel costs, visa and health coverage fees
• special support for mothers
• English language support

How to Apply for British Council Scholarships for Women in STEM:

Applications should be made directly to the participating universities. Please follow the links below (information will be updated as the application process in each participating university becomes live).

Please ensure you check and meet all of the eligibility requirements before applying. 

Visit Award Webpage for Details

UK government agrees deal with European Union on Northern Ireland trade

Robert Stevens & Steve James

Three years after the UK left the European Union (EU), the Conservative government has sealed an agreement with the bloc over the vexed issue of the post-Brexit trading rules in Northern Ireland.

The “Windsor framework” deal was secured Monday, after hundreds of hours of negotiations, and announced in a joint press conference by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak welcomes the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to Windsor to discuss the Northern Ireland talks. [Photo by Simon Walker/No 10 Downing Street/Flickr / CC BY 2.0]

The deal amends the “Northern Ireland protocol”, which formed a crucial part of the Brexit deal former prime minister Boris Johnson signed with the EU in 2019. Painting the deal as all things to all people, Sunak declared, “Today’s agreement delivers smooth-flowing trade within the whole United Kingdom, protects Northern Ireland’s place in our union and safeguards sovereignty for the people of Northern Ireland.”

Under the agreement, two new routes for goods will be introduced when they are travelling from Britain’s mainland into Northern Ireland. Goods passing through Northern Ireland destined for the Republic of Ireland—an EU member—must go via a “red lane”, ensuring they pass all customs checks they need to before crossing the Irish Sea. In a clause Sunak said would end “burdensome customs bureaucracy,” products set to stay in Northern Ireland—and therefore in the UK—will go via a “green lane”.

In a bid to win the support of the hardline Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Sunak and the EU have agreed to give members of the Northern Ireland Assembly a say on any changes to EU law by offering them “the Stormont brake”. This will allow the UK, at the request of 30 members from at least two parties in the Northern Ireland legislative assembly, to oppose updates to new EU goods law in exceptional circumstances.

The deal Johnson put in place contained compromise arrangements to prevent a “hard border” on the island of Ireland, to allow trade flows from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland. Preventing such a hard border was necessary to satisfy the provisions of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended three decades of armed conflict between the Irish Republican Army and its political arm Sinn Féin, and the British state forces and their Unionist and loyalist allies. 

The Northern Ireland protocol was opposed from the outset by the DUP. Replacing the external EU customs checks on trade from the North/South border to ports in Northern Ireland and the UK, the protocol resulted in significant problems and higher costs for business. By last year checks on goods from the UK at Northern Irish ports represented 20 percent of all checks at the EU’s borders.

The DUP’s opposition to the protocol was essential to its rejection of power sharing, over a year ago, with Sinn Fein in the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive. The DUP demanded the protocol be dropped before either institution could reopen and power-sharing resume.

The DUP set up “seven tests” under which any deal the UK government reached with the EU would be judged. These include cutting border red tape and giving the Stormont Assembly a veto over rules that apply in the region. The most frothing unionists will not sign up to any UK/EU deal. While not being in its tests, the DUP stressed as a London/Brussels deal edged closer that there is an end to the primacy of EU laws or no role at all for the European Court of Justice in Northern Ireland. On Sunday, the Daily Mail reported that DUP Chief Whip Sammy Wilson had told its reporters that “there should be no EU law applying to this part of the UK”.

The agreement also faces opposition from the Tories substantial hardline pro-Brexit European Research Group (ERG), with a rebellion by up to 100 of the ERG and other Tories being mooted as a possibility only a few days ago if the deal is put to a vote of MPs in Parliament.

Sunak is seeking to ensure that a rebellion is kept down to between 20 or 30 of his backbenchers. He is counting on a DUP majority supporting the deal, convincing most of the euro-sceptic wing of his own party to fall into line. Their mood was summed up by former Tory minister Sir Edward Leigh who told Sunak after the deal was announced, “I can assure him, many of his colleagues on these benches are watching the DUP very carefully, and we will go where they go… It all depends on our colleagues in the DUP. Because unless this exercise gets Stormont up and running, it’s pretty futile, indeed it might be downright dangerous.”

Sunak’s deal has the backing of some leading Brexiteers. As the Financial Times noted, “Steve Baker, Northern Ireland minister and self-described ‘hard man of Brexit’, scotched rumours he might quit, calling the pact ‘a really great deal’. David Davis, former Brexit secretary, also backed the agreement.”

A main player behind the scenes is the United States, which has crucial economic and political interests in ensuring a deal and stability on the island of Ireland. The US has long insisted that nothing must imperil the Good Friday Agreement it played a major role in securing, alongside the Blair Labour government, in 1998. As well as the Republic of Ireland, due to its status as a low tax haven, being a vital European hub for some of the largest US corporations; the Irish American lobby is a significant force in the ruling Democratic Party in the US.

Sunak also faces opposition from his predecessor Johnson, who is operating a campaign to undermine and hopefully replace Sunak as Tory leader. The Guardian noted Monday, “Although most Conservative MPs warmly welcomed the breakthrough after two years of negotiations, Johnson stayed away from the House of Commons chamber and is said not to have made up his mind about whether to endorse or oppose the ‘Windsor framework’”.

For weeks Johnson has publicly demanded that Sunak pass his stalled Northern Ireland Protocol Bill—giving the UK the right to unilaterally suspend aspects of the protocol in an emergency—which was drafted when Johnson was in office, in order to extract more concessions from the EU. However, the Sunday Times reported, “Privately, Johnson was more robust in an extraordinary confrontation in the Commons chamber with his former lord chancellor, Sir Robert Buckland, who lobbied Johnson to back the deal, arguing that it was necessary to cement relations with President Joe Biden. In a move that startled MPs, Johnson was overheard replying: ‘F*** the Americans!’”.

No vote is being held on the deal in Parliament this week, to allow the DUP’s 12 party officers to study the legal text and the Tory’s ERG to scrutinise it with the assistance of a “star chamber” of lawyers it is assembling. Sunak announced that MPs would “have a vote at the appropriate time”. DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson gave a guarded response, saying that while “significant progress” had been made, EU rules would still apply in Northern Ireland. He asked, “The key issue is why is EU law being applied and what is the purpose of that?”

It is highly likely that a vote in Parliament would pass the deal, as it has the backing of the main opposition Labour Party (with 196 MPs) in the 650-seat legislature. Speaking in Belfast last month, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said, “I say to the Prime Minister, if there is a deal to do in coming weeks, do it. Whatever political cover you need, whatever mechanisms in Westminster you require, if it delivers for our national interest and the people of Northern Ireland, we will support you. The time for action on the protocol is now. The time to stand up to the ERG is now.”

Starmer was a former leading Remain in the EU supporter, but has determined to accept Brexit—not least because he fears reopening divisions would politically destabilise the UK and prevent Labour taking office by again losing a substantial number of Brexit voting constituencies in the north of England.

Orion 23: France holds its largest-ever military exercise for war with Russia

Samuel Tissot

On Saturday, the French military’s Operation Orion 2023 (Orion 23) began with hundreds of parachutists being dropped in the Tarn region of southern France. On Sunday morning, an amphibious assault was simulated at Sète on the Mediterranean coast.

This undated photo provided Thursday January 5, 2023, by the French Army shows AMX-10 RC tanks. [AP Photo/Jeremy Bessat/Armee de Terre]

This first stage of Orion 2023, which continues until the end of the week, involves 7,000 troops from France, the US, Italy, Spain, Belgium and the UK, which are all part of the NATO alliance that is waging war against Russia in Ukraine. Over this week, as many as 2,300 military vehicles will be involved in the war games. These include 40 warplanes, over 100 drones, 30 warships and the Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier.

According to General Yves Métayer, who led the organization of the operation, “We have never done an exercise of this magnitude over such a long period of time.” Another officer told France3: “The amount of resources made available, the degree of synergy between the different armies, is unheard of since I joined the army.”

However, the status of this week’s war games as the largest ever on French soil will only last a few weeks. A second stage of Operation Orion, involving over 12,000 troops, is scheduled to begin in mid-April in the Champagne region.

In the capitalist press, Orion 23 is being all but explicitly acknowledged as part of far-advanced preparations for an all-out NATO land war with Russia. Indeed, by supplying offensive weaponry to Ukraine, the NATO powers are already engaged in a de facto war on Russia.

State-run news agency France24 reported that the war games “should enable the French army to prepare for a high-intensity conflict against an enemy state of equal strength. … In a context of global geopolitical upheaval, the use of force is no longer taboo, and the prospect of a major conflict is no longer science fiction.”

While France’s bloody imperialist war in Mali allowed the military to hone its use of modern fighter-bomber aircraft and drones, its ground operations relied on smaller special forces groups. General Vincent Desportes told France24 that Orion 23 is essential to “regain the know-how in terms of managing large joint forces that we have lost because for two decades we have focused on small operations.”

The fictionalized scenario in this week’s war game is widely reported in the media. In a thinly veiled reference to Russia, a hostile power called “Mercure” has invaded a French ally named “Arnland,” and the French army’s goal is to establish a bridgehead in occupied Arnland and begin to push back Mercure forces. Such a scenario played out in occupied southern Ukraine or Crimea is undoubtedly a critical part of NATO’s battlefield plans for direct confrontation with Russia.

Another goal of Orion 23 is also to prepare to place the French state on a war footing. The Orion operation involved a simulated “information war,” where both sides struggle to control reportage on their actions. This is in line with the NATO powers’ efforts to suppress public knowledge of role played by Ukrainian neo-Nazi militias in the war against Russia, in addition to whitewashing war crimes committed by Ukrainian forces.

According to the French Defense ministry’s web site, the exercise will also involve many non-military government ministries and “will bring together the energies of civilian and military personnel working on the cohesion of the French nation.” In other words, police and other nominally civilian sections of the French state machine are also readying themselves for propaganda operations and intensified repression of strikes at protests, in the event of all-out war.

Operation Orion comes amid an explosion of the class struggle in France, as millions march against French President Emmanuel Macron’s widely despised pensions reform, which he justifies with the claim that “there is no more money.”

When it comes to pursuing the imperialist ambitions of the French ruling class and its NATO allies, however, hundreds of billions of euros are thrown around like small change. Orion 23, which cost €35 million to organize and involves billions of euros in military equipment, is only part of a far larger French military rearmament. In January, Macron pledged to spend €413 billion on the French military by 2030 (compared to under €300 billion for 2020-2025). A special amendment adopted in October last year also added an extra €3 billion to the military’s 2023 budget.

Since the beginning of the conflict, France has spent around €2 billion on arms deliveries and other aid to Ukraine. In January 2023, Macron was the first NATO leader to commit to tank deliveries to Ukrainian forces, pledging dozens of AMX-10 RCR light tanks. This year, France will complete the delivery of 30 self-propelled Howitzers to Ukraine, which have a unit cost of €7.5 million. Moreover, 2,000 Ukrainian troops are currently being trained on French soil.

This undated photo provided Thursday January 5, 2023, by the French Army shows AMX-10 RC tanks. [AP Photo/Jeremy Bessat/Armee de Terre]

With millions marching against Macron’s widely despised pension reform and deep popular opposition to further French arming of Ukraine against Russia, the French military’s open preparation for war with Russia with the Orion 23 exercises necessarily raises the question: How is Macron able to so brazenly funnel hundreds of billions to the military and prepare a bloody war against Russia?

The president has only been able to carry out his policy due to the support of the pseudo-left parties and trade union bureaucracies. While nominally opposed to Macron’s pension reform, pseudo-left Unsubmissive France leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon—and his NUPES (New Popular Ecological and Social Union) coalition with French social democrats and Stalinists—claims there is no link between the funding for the war and Macron’s attack on the working class.

Mélenchon and the unions have supported NATO’s arms deliveries to Ukraine since the beginning of the war and continues to whitewash NATO’s years-long efforts to provoke Putin into his reactionary invasion of Ukraine, which ultimately succeeded in February of last year.

The same forces also support massive investment into French rearmament. Earlier this month, a parliamentary report co-authored by Anna Pic, a member of the Socialist Party (PS), and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s NUPES coalition called for even more funding for exercises to prepare France for “the hypothesis of a major conflict.”