OFID Development Leaders Scholarship for Youths to Attend One Young World Conference 2018 – The Netherlands

Application Deadline: 20th July 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: OPEC Countries. See list below.

To be taken at (country):The Hague, Netherlands

About the Award: The OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) is the development finance institution established by the Member States of OPEC in 1976 as a collective channel of aid to the developing countries. OFID works in cooperation with developing country partners and the international donor community to stimulate economic growth and alleviate poverty in all disadvantaged regions of the world. It does this by providing financing to build essential infrastructure, strengthen social services delivery and promote productivity, competitiveness and trade. OFID’s work is people-centered, focusing on projects that meet basic needs – such as food, energy, clean water and sanitation, healthcare and education – with the aim of encouraging self-reliance and inspiring hope for the future.
OFID is a long standing supporter of One Young World and has enabled 100 young leaders to participate in One Young World Summit since 2011. This year OFID will sponsor twenty successful applicants to participate in the One Young World Summit 2016 which takes place in Ottawa, Canada from 28 September – 1 October.

Offered Since: 2011

Type: Conference, Training

Eligibility: In order to apply, candidate must be:

• Aged 18 – 30
• A national of one of the listed eligible countries. Click here to view list.

Successful candidates will excel in the following areas:

• Evidenced commitment to the sustainable development of their country. This commitment can come in many forms; ranging from a high level of involvement in community initiatives to social entrepreneurship or from leading responsible business practices to public service.
• Leadership ability
• Concern for local or global issues
• Ability to generate and articulate impactful ideas
• Teamwork

Number of Awardees: 20

List of countries:  Algeria, Guatemala, Nigeria, Syrian Arab Republic, Botswana, Iraq, Palestinian Territory, Occupied, Tanzania, United Republic of, Burkina Faso, Jordan, Paraguay, Tunisia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Philippines, Venezuela, Cameroon, Libya, Qatar, Vietnam, Congo, The Democratic Republic of, Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia, Egypt, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Ghana

Value of Scholarship: 

• Access to the One Young World Summit 2018 in The Hague, Netherlands
• Hotel accommodation on a shared basis between 17 October and 20 October
• Catering which includes breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• Transport between the Summit accommodation and the Summit venue.
• Summit hand-outs and support materials.
• The cost of travel to and from The Hague.

In addition to attend to attending the Summit, all OFID scholars will be able to apply for a €5,000 grant to support their development work.

Duration of Scholarship:17 – 20 October 2018

How to Apply: Submit an online application in English before midnight 5 August. If you already have a One Young World candidate profile, you do not need to create a new application to apply for this scholarship, you will be considered for it automatically.

Apply Here

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: One Young World,OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID)

Australian government pushes cuts to student loan scheme

Oscar Grenfell 

The Liberal-National government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is pressing ahead with a pro-business plan to substantially lower the threshold at which students must begin to repay their exorbitant university debts, under the HECS/HELP fee deferment program.

The move seeks to drive down the number of tertiary students, and transform universities, ever more directly, into corporatised, for-profit entities accessible only to wealthy layers. It is a continuation of a decades-long assault on university funding, prosecuted by successive governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike.

The Turnbull government planned to push the full tranche of its university cuts through parliament this week. It reportedly secured support from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party and other right-wing populist senators, who are playing a crucial role in the imposition of the government’s austerity agenda.

Yesterday, however, Turnbull announced that the education bills would be postponed until August. The government has been preoccupied with enacting its “foreign interference” legislation, aimed at criminalising opposition to Australia’s role in the US-led plans for war with China, and winning sufficient parliamentary support to impose deeply unpopular tax cuts for big business.

Turnbull appears to have deferred the HECS/HELP legislation for fear of the widespread opposition it will provoke, especially in the lead-up to by-elections next month.

The threshold at which students must repay the university debt they accrue during their studies, will, however, be lowered on July 1, as a result of previous cuts imposed in 2016.

As of the new financial year, former students must pay 1 percent of their taxable income, once they begin earning $51,196 per year. This is almost $4,000 lower than the previous threshold of $55,874. The move applies not only to graduates, but also to students, including those undertaking postgraduate degrees, who have begun working.

The government’s latest bill aims to slash the threshold even further, to just $45,000 per year. If it passes, the change will come into effect in July 2019.

The measures will intensify a social crisis that already confronts thousands of young people. Anyone earning $45,000 per year receives about $730 per week after tax.

The average weekly rent for an apartment in Sydney, the centre of a property boom fuelled by financial speculation, is over $500. Average rents for single rooms in share houses in Sydney and Melbourne exceed $200 per week.

The latest cut in the threshold coincides with the second stage of reductions in weekend penalty wages, mandated by the Fair Work Commission, the pro-business industrial tribunal created by the previous federal Labor government. Overall, Sunday penalty rates for hospitality workers will be cut from 175 percent of base pay rates, to 150 percent. Fast food and retail workers face a similar reduction.

That move will hit broad layers of young people, including students and graduates, who are forced to work in low-paid positions, with poverty-level wages, to survive. Precarious casual and part-time employment now accounts for half the entire workforce.

University graduates, like their counterparts internationally, are increasingly unable to find positions in the fields they studied. A Productivity Commission report last year found that only 70 percent of graduates were employed on a full-time basis. Almost a third were performing roles not directly related to their degree.

The government is also seeking to cap state-subsidised university debt for each student at $104,440, across the lifetime of their studies. A student who exceeds the limit will be forced to pay full-fees up-front for subsequent courses. Undergraduate degrees for medicine and other subjects can cost over $30,000 per year.

If there is a substantial rise in inflation, or universities increase their fees amid deepening government cuts, students’ fees may easily reach the HECS-HELP cap.

The move has a broader significance, as an initial step toward the introduction of full-upfront fees for all students. The lifetime cap, like the income threshold at which students must pay their debt, will undoubtedly be lowered by governments seeking to further reduce education spending.

The government’s measures are a direct response to a protracted campaign by the financial and corporate elite. Right-wing think tanks, with close ties to big business, such as the Institute of Public Affairs, and Murdoch-owned publications, including the Australian, have called for reduced annual intakes of university students.

They have bemoaned the fact that growing numbers of working class youth are receiving a tertiary education, and have called for courses and admissions to be tailored, more directly, toward the immediate labour market needs of the major corporations. Amid a deepening slowdown of the Australian and world economy, and the destruction of large numbers of jobs, the ruling elite is seeking to create an entire layer of young people who will be fodder for low-skilled, poorly-paid and menial labour.

The Labor Party opposition, collaborating closely with the education unions, cynically claims to oppose curtailing the HECS-HELP system. In reality, Turnbull’s measures are the continuation of those put in place by previous Labor and Liberal-National governments.

In 1989, the Labor government of Bob Hawke reintroduced tertiary education fees as part of a broader pro-business agenda of deregulation and privatisation. While creating a HECS loan scheme for domestic students, which burdens young people with thousands of dollars of debt, Labor imposed full, upfront fees on international students.

Average fees for international students, for any degree, now stand above $30,000 per year. For domestic students, HECS debts rose from an average of $1,800 in 1989, to $2,454, when Labor was ousted from office in 1996. Today, annual fees for undergraduate arts degrees often approach $5,000, and are substantially higher in specialised fields.

From 2007 to 2013, the Labor governments of Prime Ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd intensified the assault on university education, with the support of the trade unions. They deregulated student enrollments, forcing universities to compete for funding by attracting the largest number of students, while inflicting billions of dollars in funding cuts.

The result has been an unprecedented casualisation of the academic and university workforce, classroom overcrowding and cuts to courses, along with cuts to staff jobs and conditions, imposed by university managements across the country.

The Turnbull government’s latest measures, and the cuts that preceded them, underscore the reality that the fight for free, high-quality tertiary education as a basic social right, can go forward only through a political struggle against all the official parliamentary parties, including Labor.

AT&T colludes with the NSA to carry out massive illegal surveillance

Meenakshi Jagadeesan

In an investigative report released on Monday, The Intercept has further exposed the long-term and highly organized collusion between the communications behemoth AT&T and the National Security Agency (NSA). The story reveals the use of eight AT&T facilities in major cities across the US (New York, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington D.C., and Dallas) by the NSA to serve as “critical parts of one of the world’s most powerful electronic eavesdropping systems, hidden in plain sight.”

In large part due to the efforts of brave whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, the public has been made aware of the massive and illegal surveillance on all forms of electronic communications carried out by the NSA. In addition, there has been sufficient evidence of the “special relationship” between AT&T and the NSA. However, the new revelations are striking in that they not only provide us a much better look at the physical infrastructure of the spying, but also make clear that the sheer scale of the collusion and the surveillance is far greater than has been assumed.

The eight sites identified by The Intercept are different from the hundreds of other sites that are owned by AT&T across the US, in that they primarily carry and process large amounts of data not just from the company’s own customers, but also from other internet providers. Not all internet operators have the infrastructure to send data in an efficient or cost-effective manner. So, when internet traffic in a particular area gets overwhelming for a particular internet provider, they tend to use the bandwidth that is sold or exchanged by another operator with capacity to spare.

Given its position as one of the largest US telecommunications companies, AT&T’s vast network is often used by other operators around the world to transport their customers’ data. Included in the list of companies that use AT&T’s infrastructure are Sprint, Cogent Communications, and Level 3, as well as foreign companies such as Sweden’s Telia, India’s Tata Communications, Italy’s Telecom Italia, and Germany’s Deutsche Telekom. The initial transfer of data between the companies takes place in third party sites (such as those operated by California’s Equinix), but then much or all of it is routed through the eight major sites. These sites are known as “peering” or “backbone” facilities. And it is these facilities that are being put to the service of the NSA’s surveillance program.

Mark Klein, a technician who worked for AT&T over 22 years, told The Intercept that having access to the “peering sites” provides the NSA far greater access than just the usual data “because the peering links, by the nature of the connections, are liable to carry everybody’s traffic at one point or another during the day, or the week, or the year.”

NSA spokesman Christopher Augustine gave the expected official response that the agency could “neither confirm nor deny” the story, while insisting that it “conducts its foreign signals intelligence mission under the legal authorities established by Congress and is bound by both policy and law to protect U.S. persons’ privacy and civil liberties.”

However, the NSA’s extra-legal activities are by now well-known enough for that assurance to sound quite hollow. In addition, the willingness of the ruling class to use all tools at its disposal to curtail mass opposition, means that even the existing “legal authorities” are at best vague and elastic enough to justify mass surveillance and violations of the Bill of Rights.

The NSA had laid the framework for its largest surveillance program, codenamed “FAIRVIEW,” in 1985, before technological developments allowed for this amount of data to be transported and processed. In fact, AT&T (incidentally, the only company to participate in FAIRVIEW) developed the eight “peering” sites, known as “Service Node Routing Complexes,” only in the late 1990s, following the internet boom. However, within a decade these sites were being fully used by the NSA, still within the purview of FAIRVIEW.

The kind and amount of data that control of the peering sites allows the NSA is truly mind-boggling. A majority of the data transmitted from around the world through the vast, under ocean, fiber-optic network is routed at one point or another through the US. This is in part due to the location of the country between the major continents, but also due to the pre-eminence of American telecommunications companies. It is this “home-field advantage” that the NSA has very systematically exploited, with the full support of AT&T.

Under a classified initiative called “SAGUARO,” AT&T worked with the NSA to create a framework on how to eavesdrop in the most effective manner in the peering sites, ranking “communications flowing through its networks on the basis of intelligence value, prioritizing data depending on which country it was derived from.” AT&T’s helpfulness seems to have gone even beyond just facilitating the use of its own servers. According to the information acquired by The Intercept, the company has worked hand-in-glove with the NSA to set up a centralized processing facility, believed to be somewhere in New Jersey, where the material collected from the peering sites are processed once again, before being sent to the NSA headquarters in Maryland.

The NSA has for decades claimed the legal right to eavesdrop on “communications which originate and terminate in foreign countries, but traverse U.S. territory,” under the Reagan-era Executive Order 12333. After 9/11, the agency creatively interpreted this right to surveil communications taking place between American citizens, leading to the eventual exposure of the “warrantless wiretapping” scandal.

While critics rightly pointed out that this constituted a violation of citizenship rights, in 2008 Congress provided a legal patina to the actions of the NSA by enacting Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA). Under this, the NSA is allowed to continue warrantless wiretapping, so long as “it is incidental ... for instance, if it was monitoring people in Pakistan, and they were talking with Americans in the U.S. by phone, email, or through an internet chat service.” The absurdity of supposing this addition in any way protects Fourth Amendment rights was made apparent even in the FISA court’s own findings in 2011 that the NSA “had acquired some 13 million ‘internet transactions’ during one six-month period, and had unlawfully gathered ‘tens of thousands of wholly domestic communications’ each year.”

The court’s ruling meant that the NSA had two options: to shut down its surveillance operations or to put into place measures that would prevent it from reviewing its unlawfully collected information. The NSA claimed that it chose the latter, and had put into place “cautionary banners” that would ensure the protection of constitutional rights. However, there is no indication that these “banners” in fact function as their supporters claim.

In fact, in April 2017, the NSA admitted what it called “inadvertent compliance incidents” and stated that it would no longer be using surveillance programs authorized under Section 702. As with its earlier assurances about respect for constitutional rights, this statement should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. The exposure of the continued activities of the NSA in collusion with AT&T shows that the very same tactics, albeit not under the same legal framework, remain in place, and the construction of an Orwellian state apparatus continues unabated.

Government of Netherlands/Fate Foundation Nourish Nigeria NutriPitch for Nigerian Entrepreneurs 2018

Application Deadline: 7th July 2018

Eligible Countries: Nigeria

To Be Taken At (Country): Nairobi, Kenya.

About the Award: The programme positions entrepreneurs for growth and scale through the intensive Bootcamp Session, Business Gap Analysis and Workshop Sessions.

Start of Programme: NutriPitch – The Nourish Nigeria Challenge will commence in July 2018 in Lagos with an induction session and an intensive one-week accelerator boot camp and GAP Analysis to help each entrepreneur develop an individual growth plan and roadmap to scale. This will be followed by post boot camp sessions aimed at helping the entrepreneurs address gaps that they have identified in their businesses.

End of Programme: The programme will close out with presentation of awards at the NutriPitch Competition and a graduation ceremony will hold at the FATE Annual Celebration on Thursday, December 6^th, 2018.

A Local Elevator Pitch Competition (NutriPitch) will be held at the end of the workshop sessions for businesses to showcase and pitch to key funding partners. The top five (5) entrepreneurs from the NutriPitch competition will represent Nigeria in the Regional Elevator Pitch Competition (REPC) in Nairobi, Kenya.

Key focus areas:

• Input supply
• Production (crop/animal farming)
• Processing
• Packaging
• Logistics and distribution
• Trading and retailing
• Advocacy
• Consulting
• Information management

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: Applicant must

• Be a Nigerian citizen (male or female)
• Have a business whose products and/or services promote nutrition and food safety in Nigeria. Note that the NutriPitch Programme will abide by the UN Business Sector Guidelines  and priority will only be given to businesses whose operations abide by the guidelines.
• Be a start-up or growth stage SME fully registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission
• Be available to participate FULL-TIME in the one-week boot camp in Lagos between from Monday to Saturday, July 23 –July 28, 2018 and ALL other required sessions between July 30 and August 23, 2018.

Number of Awards: 10

Value of Award: The programme supports only for-profit businesses and social-enterprises whose products or services promote nutrition and food safety in Nigeria.

Duration of Programme: 3 Months

How to Apply: Apply Here

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Scaling up Nutrition Business Network , GAIN and the Netherlands Government and supported by FATE Foundation

African Union-Government of Korea Short Term Training Programme for African Policymakers and Government Workers 2018

Application Deadline: 20th July 2018.

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be taken at (country): Cheonan & Seongnam, South Korea

About the Award: A short-term training course of 2 weeks in ‘Trade Facilitation through Modernization of Administration in Customs’ will be offered from 2nd – 15th September 2018 in Cheonan and Seongnam, South Korea. The Language of Instruction will be in English. The Course Information is attached for more details.

Type: Training

Eligibility: 

• To be eligible, a candidate must provide a support letter signed by a Minister from her/his country or by an Executive Secretary of the respective REC.
• The training is intended to policymakers, diplomats, director-level government officials and technical staff from AU Member States and Regional Economic Communities (RECs).
• Candidates from Member States where the Republic of Korea has diplomatic or Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) presence are encouraged to apply.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Program: The CIAT Program provides participants with opportunities to gain first-hand knowledge of Korea’s development experience. The programs are designed to enable participants to apply what they have learned for the development of their home countries.

Duration of Program: 2 weeks (2nd – 15th September 2018)

How to Apply: Applications must be submitted to HRST Department of the AU Commission with a cover letter stating motivation for applying and be accompanied with the following:

1. Curriculum Vitae including education and work experience;
2. Certified copies of Passport or national Identity Card indicating citizenship;
3. Reference Letter signed by a Minister or Executive Secretary of a REC.

Application documents must be sent by post to the address below.
Department of Human Resources, Science and Technology African Union Commission
P.O. Box 3243, Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: Government of South Korea.

Bayer Foundation Fellowship Programme for International Students 2018 – Germany

Application Deadline: 18th July, 2018.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Germany

About the Award: The Fellowship Program consists of five scholarship programs that offer tailored financial support. Important requirements for the support: The project to be supported must be innovative and international. Scholarships are granted to students and young professionals (up to two years after graduation) from Germany wishing to realize a study or research project abroad or to foreign students/young professionals pursuing a project in Germany.

The Bayer Science & Education Foundation supports students and young professionals that would like to study or work outside of their home country with the Bayer Foundation Fellowship Program, which consists of five scholarships.

1. Life Sciences: Students and young professionals in the fields of biology, molecular biology, bioengineering, bioinformatics, chemistry, biochemistry, pharmaceuticals and computational life sciences can apply for the Otto Bayer Scholarship.
2. Medicine: Students and young professionals in the fields of human and veterinary medicine, medical science, medical engineering, public health and health economics can apply for the Carl Duisberg Scholarship.
3. Agro Sciences: Students and young professionals in the fields of agro sciences, digital farming, agronomy, crop sciences, green biotechnology, environmental sciences and sustainability can apply for the Jeff Schell Scholarship.
4. Biology and Chemistry Educators: Student teachers in biology and chemistry (up to Master’s degree level) can apply for the Kurt Hansen Scholarship. Here, the focus is on study projects, internships, summer courses as well as supplemental courses of study.
5. Apprentices: Apprentices and young professionals in non-academic professions can apply for the Hermann Strenger Scholarship. Here, foreign assignments like projects, internships, supplemental courses or on-the-job assignments in the following fields are in focus:
   • Careers in healthcare
   • Technical or scientific occupations
   • Business administration

Type: Fellowship, Research

Eligibility:All applicants should have a high level of commitment, dedication and an innovative project plan. Scholarships are granted to students and young professionals (up to two years after graduation) from Germany wishing to realize a study or research project abroad or to foreign students/young professionals pursuing a project in Germany.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The financing generally covers the cost of living, travel expenses and project costs. Each applicant is asked to set up an individual cost schedule to be approved by the Foundation Council.

Duration of Scholarship: Duration of course

How to Apply: The following application documents are required for the Otto Bayer Scholarship, Carl Duisberg Scholarship, Jeff Schell Scholarship and Kurt Hansen Scholarship:

• Confirmation letter from the foreign host institute/university on the planned project from September 2018 to August 2019
• A description of the project (duration of 2-12 months) with financial plan within the timeline of September 2018 to August 2019. The project can consist of special study courses, laboratory assignments, research projects, summer classes, internships, Master’s or PhD programs.
• Most recent transcripts
• Any additional documents that would enhance the application
• Job application photo (no photo of your passport, please)

For the Hermann Strenger Scholarship, applicants must submit the following:

• Confirmation letter from the foreign host institute/university on the planned project from September 2018 to August 2019
• Most recent transcripts with good to excellent grades
• A description of the project (duration of 2-12 months) with financial plan. The project can consist of
  special study courses, laboratory assignments, research projects, summer classes or internships
• Job application photo (no photo of your passport, please)

Apply Here

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: The Bayer Fellowship Program

Atlas Corps Fellowship for Emerging Global Leaders to Serve in USA 2018

Application Deadline: 15th August 2018

Eligible Countries: International (except citizens of the United States)

To be taken at (country): United States of America (USA)

About the Award: Atlas Corps is an overseas fellowship for the world’s best social change leaders. Our mission is to address critical social issues by developing leaders, strengthening organizations, and promoting innovation through an overseas fellowship of skilled social sector professionals. For those serving in the United States, we will be bringing in new classes every 2 to 4 months. Fellows serve full-time at Host Organizations, develop leadership skills, and learn best practices through the Atlas Corps Global Leadership Lab professional development series and networking opportunities with other Fellows who are talented professionals from around the world. This prestigious fellowship includes health insurance, enrollment in the Atlas Corps Global Leadership Lab, flight and visa costs, and a living stipend to cover basic expenses (groceries, local transportation, and shared housing).

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• Two or more years of professional experience
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• English proficiency (oral, writing, reading)
• Age 35 or younger
• Apply to serve in a country other than where you are from
• Commitment to return to your home country after the 12-18 month Fellowship
• Commitment to living on a basic stipend that only covers groceries, shared housing, and local transportation to and from the Host Organization

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Fellowship: As volunteers, Fellows receive a modest living stipend intended to cover only shared housing, food and local public transportation. The stipend is not intended to cover expenses you may have in your home country; eating out at restaurants; buying new clothes; or emergencies. While Fellows are able to keep their basic expenses (food, shared housing and local transportation) within the allotted stipend, many choose to bring additionalfunds for personal items, such as clothing, or travel and entertainment. We recommend Fellows have a little money saved for emergencies. The amount of additional funds required will depend entirely on your personal spending habits. Monthly budgets vary from city to city, but the monthly living budget for a Fellow in Washington, DC, is as follows:

• Rent & Utilities: $800
• Transportation: $200
• Food and other small necessities: $460
• Total $1,460/month

Atlas Corps provides documentation to secure a J-1, Exchange Visitor visa (trainee designation).

Duration of Fellowship: The Atlas Corps Fellowship typically lasts 12-18 months.

How to Apply: The application is a multi-step process.

1. Online Application – Part 1: You will need to create a login and you can save your responses so you can return to the application at any time. In Part 1 of the application (known as the “short form”), you provide contact information and complete the initial eligibility test, and if you pass the eligibility test, you’ll complete additional background questions and one short essay.NOTE: In order to sponsor candidates to come to the United States for one year as a Fellow, we require detailed information about each applicant. Please answer each question honestly and thoroughly. If you are found to be dishonest in the application, you will NOT be accepted as a Fellow and you will be sent home if you have been accepted.
2. Online Application – Part 2 (by invitation only): Atlas Corps will review Part 1 applications and invite eligible candidates to complete Part 2 of the application (known as the “long form”), which includes additional questions about your skills and interests and several short essay questions. You will also be required to submit contact information for at least two references who know you in a professional capacity and will write a letter of recommendation about your skills and experiences as well as your potential for success as an Atlas Corps Fellow. You will need to send your requests for letter of recommendation directly through the application system. Your recommenders will receive an email that asks for a recommendation. More detailed instructions can be found in the online application form.
3. Atlas Corps Review and Interview Process (by invitation only): Atlas Corps will review Part 2 applications and select top candidates to interview via Skype with the Atlas Corps Selection Board, including Atlas Corps staff and nonprofit sector, government, and business leaders from multiple countries.
4. Host Organization Review Process (by invitation only): Candidates who pass the Atlas Corps interview stage will be designated as Semi-Finalists, which means they are eligible to be reviewed by potential Host Organizations . Atlas Corps determines which of our Semi-Finalists may be a good fit for specific positions at potential Host Organizations based on their interests and skill set and the organization’s needs, and forwards those applications to the organizations.
5. Host Organization Interview Process (by invitation only): Host Organizations conduct Skype video interviews with selected Semi- Finalists.
6. Selection and Visa Process: Host Organizations will make their final recommendations to Atlas Corps, and Atlas Corps will notify the selected candidates. After being selected, Fellows will go to the U.S. Embassy in their respective countries to apply for a J-1 visa. Atlas Corps will provide support in obtaining this visa.
7. Semi-Finalists who are not selected by a Host Organization will be notified and may be given the option to keep their application on file for consideration for the next class of the Fellowship.

For more information, go through the FAQs

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Atlas Corps

UPPA East African Photography Award for Photographers from East African Countries 2018

Application Deadline: 1st August, 2018

Eligible Countries: Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda

To be taken at (country): Uganda

About the Award: The latest edition to the Uganda Press Photo Award, the East African Photography Award is officially open for submissions to EA citizens from Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania & Uganda. Participate by submitting your best images.

East African Photography Award: Any noteworthy subjects may be used as a theme for a story entry, but images submitted should show a clear narrative that is improved, not diluted by the inclusion of multiple images.

Offered Since: 2018

Type: Contest/Award

Eligibility: 

• The Ugandan Press Photo Award will accept published and unpublished photographs.
• The contest is restricted to citizens of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and Ethiopia, 18 years of age or older.
• All entries must have been taken between August 1^st 2016 and August 1^st 2018, and must be submitted by August 1^st This will be confirmed via EXIF data.
• Each entrant can submit up to 2 stories. For each story a minimum of 10, and a maximum of 20 photographs should be submitted.

Selection Criteria: 

• Only photographs in digital form will be accepted. There should be no watermarks, identifying marks or names of authors written on the photographs.
• Each photograph has to be saved as highest quality jpg, at 300 dpi, minimum 3000 pixels on the longer side.
• Photos that have been digitally altered beyond standard optimization will not be accepted. Only minimal adjustments are allowed. The organizers reserve the right to ask for unedited images.
• All photographs should include a caption (short description of who, what, where, when, why. Not more than 50 words per photograph. Include when and where the photograph was first published.) in the EXIF data/metadata.

Number of Awardees: The jury will select 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd. 

Value of Competition: 

• Prizes will be awarded for each place.
• Winning entries will be printed and will form part of an exhibition.

How to Apply: Upload and Submit your photos here

Visit Competition Webpage for details

Award Provider: Foreign Correspondents’ Association of Uganda (FCAU),  Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation (FES)

Syriza and EU plan decades of austerity measures and privatizations

Katerina Selin

At a meeting of euro finance ministers on June 21, the EU states came to an agreement on the formal withdrawal of Greece from the so-called “rescue programs” of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB)—otherwise known as the Troika.

Since 2010, Greece has signed three credit programmes, known as the “Memorandum of Understanding,” which were linked to drastic austerity measures and an unprecedented wave of privatization. This has resulted in an economic depression and a devastating social crisis the likes of which no other European country has experienced in peacetime.

Only a week before the latest euro group meeting, the government of the pseudo-left Syriza (“Coalition of the Radical Left”) adopted another comprehensive austerity package to fulfil the requirements of international lenders.

After the long session in Luxemburg, which went into the evening hours on Thursday, the EU Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici declared an “historic moment” and announced pompously: “The Greek crisis is over as of this evening.” Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos (Syriza) also spoke of the “end of the Greek crisis.”

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission and one of the chief architects of the austerity mandates, tweeted cynically: “I applaud the Greeks for their resilience and their support for Europe. Their efforts have not been in vain.”

On the same day, the EU Commission posted a promotional video on Twitter which was rightly considered by Twitter commenters to be a mockery of the Greek population. In Orwellian newspeak the video enthused about a growing economy and claimed “a new chapter for Greece” had begun. Thanks to the “reforms” and the “support of EU partners”—meaning brutal austerity measures and silencing by EU diktat—the country had become “more able to compete.”

Greek Prime Minister and Syriza party leader Alexis Tsipras sounded the same note when he gave a talk the next day during a government ceremony at the Zappeion building in Athens. Amid the frenetic applause of fellow party members and coalition partners from the ultra-right Anel (Independent Greeks), he blustered that “our country is opening up a new chapter” and passing into a period in which “social justice,” “democracy,” and “stability and dignity” will replace austerity and uncertainty. “Greece will return entirely to the Greeks,” declared Tsipras, emphasizing his close unity with the ultra-right Anel leader Panos Kammenos.

The grotesque spectacle in the Zappeion, which has aroused nothing but contempt among Greek workers, has its own logic. Syriza and the European bourgeoisie are celebrating eight years of social counterrevolution carried out in the interests of the international financial oligarchy. They have run an entire society into the ground in order to pay out billions to the banks and corporations. This attack on the Greek working class is part of a worldwide redistribution of social wealth from below to the top which has taken place since the start of the financial crisis in 2008.

According to information provided by the EU Commission, 450 individual measures were implemented under the aegis of Syriza in the last three years alone, including innumerable pension cuts, wage cuts, layoffs, tax increases and cutbacks to social, educational and health care sectors.

Greece has gone through a catastrophic recession which has seen a 25 percent contraction of its economic output. One in five are unemployed. According to new polls published by the Greek statistical service Elstat on June 22, during the calendar year 2016 in Greece 34.8 percent of the population was threatened with poverty or social marginalization. Among those who did not hold Greek citizenship, the number rose to 62.9 percent.

More than 21 percent of Greeks suffer from material deprivation. Compared with other EU states, that puts the country in second place, behind Bulgaria. Almost half of all low-income households have indicated they have insufficient heating; 78 percent of them are not able to shoulder unexpected expenses of 475 euros. More than half of all households—and 80 percent of poorer families—cannot afford a one-week vacation.

This is the legacy of three years of Syriza and more than 8 years of austerity policies.

Syriza’s claim that the formal withdrawal from the EU “rescue parachute” means the end of austerity policies is an obvious lie. The key elements of the Memorandum policies will remain in place even after the third program is discontinued in August—they will only be repackaged. What is now being touted as the completion of the Memorandum will actually mark a continuation of austerity diktats throughout the coming decades:

• Greece has committed to primary budget surpluses through 2060 (!), which will be squeezed out of the working class through a harsh austerity plan. An annual surplus target of 3.5 percent of GDP is to be maintained through 2022 and, following that, 2.2 percent annually, mainly to serve debt repayment.

• According to the EU Commission, Greece will remain under strict supervision until at least 75 percent of its debt has been repaid. Compliance with austerity requirements decided upon in the previous Memorandum and as part of the new agreement will be monitored by lenders every three months.

• The interest and repayment deadline for 96 billion euros in loans from the second Memorandum will be extended by 10 years—from 2023 to 2033. Because inflation will cause the value of the funds to decline with time, the deferment of debt effectively amounts to a reduction of the debt burden. But given the enormous mountain of debt involved, this is only a drop in the bucket. In the course of the entire “rescue program,” which was supposed to lead to debt reduction, it actually shot up from 129 percent of GDP in 2009 to 180 percent today. This vicious circle will continue.

• The EU is granting Greece a financial tranche of 15 billion euros, which is intended to serve as a safety buffer so that the country can survive 22 months without fresh money from financial markets. This financial reserve originates from the third aid package of 86 billion which still has not been fully disbursed. There were initial differences regarding the amount of the financial buffer between German finance minister Olaf Scholz (SPD), who seamlessly carried on the strict EU austerity course of his predecessor, Wolfgang Schäuble, and his counterparts.

• Under strict conditions, Greece will receive a payment of around a billion euros from Central Bank profits. These are the annual profits which the national central banks of the EU rake in from Greek government bonds. What is being presented here as a generous gift was already promised to Greece in November 2012 but never paid.

The agreed-upon measures, hailed by Syriza as debt relief, serve first and foremost to create trust in the financial markets and attract investors to Greece. The goal is for the country to raise money in capital markets instead of receiving loans from the European Stability Mechanism.

The almost 274 billion euros in loan payments which Greece has received since 2010 have flowed primarily into the banks and debt repayment. The day before the Euro Group meeting it was disclosed that the German government has profited greatly from the plundering of Greece: The Federal Bank of Germany has raked in around 2.9 billion euros in profits since 2010, above all from the acquisition of Greek government bonds as part of the Securities Markets Programme of the ECB.

At the same time, major international companies are profiting from massive privatization, deregulation of the labour market, cuts in wages, the elimination of benefits and restrictions on the right to strike.

Should Greece be unable to pay back one or more debt instalments, lenders may seize the privatization authority and sell Greek state property worth up to 25 billion euros.

In addition to this, the parliament adopted in 2016 a set of measures which not only allowed for the formation of a trust fund but also included a “mechanism of budgetary adjustment” called “Koftis” in Greece: If Greece does not meet the terms of its austerity plan, cuts will be automatically enforced, including to wages and pensions.

EU citizens must register, carry ID cards, in post-Brexit Britain

Steve James

The UK’s Home Office has announced that European Union (EU) citizens currently living in Britain and intent on remaining will be required to register with the Home Office during the “transition” phase of Britain’s exit from the EU.

As many as 3.8 million people are likely to be impacted. Those registering will be allocated a number. Failure to register will mean, post-Brexit, EU citizens, many of whom have lived in Britain for years and decades, face losing access to healthcare, schools, public funds and pensions.

Arrangements across the EU’s remaining 27 countries for the 900,000 or so British citizens living in the EU are not yet clear. That makes a total of 4.7 million people in Europe whose citizenship rights are cynically being used as bargaining chips in the bitter and intractable disputes between the EU and the British government over Brexit. Irish citizens in Britain are not affected.

According to a Home Office document “EU Settlement Scheme: Statement of Intent,” EU citizens and family members resident in Britain for five years or more on December 31, 2020, will be eligible to register for “settled status.” Those resident for a shorter period will be granted “pre-settled status.” The government says that EU citizens falling into either category during the short transitional phase of Brexit will be granted access to social services and be able to work.

Recently appointed Home Secretary Sajid Javid introduced the scheme as based on an agreement with the “EU guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens living in the UK and of UK nationals living in the EU.”

The scheme, announced June 21, will require a complex and intrusive additional layer of Home Office immigration bureaucracy to administer. To this end, 1,500 staff are being recruited. Presented by Javid as being “as simple as possible for the great majority of EU citizens,” the new scheme, even if it remains in its current form, threatens to pitch millions into a bureaucratic quagmire of instability and uncertainty overseen by the Home Office.

British citizens in Europe will surely face similar pressures, refracted through the peculiarities of their country of residence, every one of which is seeking one way or another to further witch-hunt immigrants.

In addition, the current proposal is based on what is only a draft “Withdrawal Agreement” between the EU and the British government and is therefore subject to the turmoil caused by the vicious faction fight within the British ruling class over Brexit and foreign policy. The document makes no mention of the fate of either EU citizens in Britain or British citizens in the EU in the event of a “hard” or “no deal” Brexit. Neither does it consider the immigration barriers being erected in both directions after the transition period.

Most disturbing is that, even as the Home Office scheme currently stands, EU citizens will be required to carry identity cards, which have never been enforced in Britain.

While online processes are supposed to be in place by next year, large numbers of applicants will be required to send their EU member state passports to the British Home Office. Even if operated smoothly, this will create vast amounts of stress. Inevitably, passports will be lost, threatening a devastating loss of rights and status, with employers, landlords and even hospitals increasingly demanding proof of immigration status.

Despite the growth of Internet and smart phone use, a significant number of people, particularly older people, do not have easy or regular Internet access or any familiarity with its use. Inevitably, the most vulnerable people will suffer the greatest disruption.

A study by think tank Transition Advice Fund on similar mass registration processes worldwide suggested that anything between 1 and 50 percent of the target group might not register at all. The report noted that if a mere 5 percent of EU citizens in Britain fail to register, some 170,000 people, again likely to be the most vulnerable, will be “left without status.”

Secondly, the government will attempt to verify individuals’ residency records by scrutinising their tax and social security records.

Presented as a smooth and automated process, this will be nothing of the sort, as anyone with experience of both Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Department of Work and Pensions will testify. While processing might, assuming no major IT failures or data corruptions, be straightforward for those with consistent and unbroken records, for a great many EU workers in Britain, particularly those from Eastern Europe, dependent on casual, temporary or cash in hand work, all sorts of queries, gaps and anomalies will be thrown up.

Others may have no tax records at all. In these cases, the Home Office will require further documentary proof to be provided to verify consistent residence. Thus, the Home Office document suggests the scheme’s administrators might accept, “A dated and signed letter from a registered care home confirming the period of residence in the home” or “an addressed invoice from an accredited organisation for school, college or university fees for education requiring physical attendance in the UK, which includes the name of the student, and accompanying evidence of payment,” might also be acceptable.

Decisions on the fate of individuals will be left to the discretion of a Home Office case worker.

Thirdly, the Home Office will run criminal checks on the millions of applicants. Anyone guilty of a serious crime, defined merely as carrying a jail sentence of 12 months or more or deemed a security threat, can be denied “settled” or “pre-settled” status and will face deportation.

Cost of registration will be £65 per adult and £32 for children. The Guardianreported that under the “hostile environment” created by successive British governments against immigrants, the Home Office can charge £3,250 for someone seeking indefinite leave for an adult dependent relative to remain in Britain and £1,330 for an adult seeking naturalisation. But even £65 per person in a large family on low income amounts to an additional and entirely unnecessary burden.

The creation of two new categories of residents also makes future discrimination and threats to residency rights inevitable.

Earlier this year, the British authorities were exposed as having targeted members of the “Windrush” generation, mostly West Indian workers encouraged to move to Britain in the 1950s to make up for labour shortages. Many were denied free healthcare and benefits, lost jobs and suffered arrest and deportation as a result of the same “hostile environment.” Tens of thousands of former migrants from other Commonwealth countries are also thought to have been threatened with deportation. In 2016, nearly 40,000 people were removed from the UK or recorded as “departing voluntarily.”

The same Home Office now hoping to establish systems to trawl through the tax, employment and criminal records of millions of European citizens was exposed this April as having deliberately destroyed thousands of embarkation cards for Windrush generation migrants. This was despite staff members warning that these cards were frequently the only available record of an individual’s entirely legal arrival in Britain.

Far-right candidate elected as Colombia becomes NATO “global partner”

Andrea Lobo

Colombia’s far-right Democratic Center candidate, Iván Duque, won the presidency with 54 percent of the vote against the 42 percent for Gustavo Petro of the Progressive Movement in a second-round election on June 17.

The political vacuum generated by the alignment of the official “left,” led by Petro, with the militaristic and austerity-driven policies of the outgoing Juan Manuel Santos administration has been exploited by the extreme right.

The largest parties in the Senate are now the Democratic Center and Radical Change, both closely tied with far-right paramilitary groups used by the landed and financial aristocracies to terrorize the peasantry. The coming to power of Duque parallels the rise of far-right forces in Europe and the United States, posing a stark warning for workers in Colombia and internationally about the continued shift of bourgeois rule toward increasingly dictatorial and militaristic governments.

Despite speculation by sections of the national and international corporate press that Duque will moderate his stance once in office, the ruling class as a whole will continue to shift to the right. Its only response to growing social opposition and a deepening economic downturn has been to escalate social austerity, corporate tax cuts, attacks on democratic rights, and domestic and regional militarization.

Colombia is the closest military ally of the United States in the region, and it was announced last month that it will not only become a “global partner” of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but will also join the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which has continued to demand further corporate tax cuts and austerity from Bogotá.

Popular opposition to the ruling establishment characterized the elections. It was the first time since 1853 that neither the traditional Conservative nor Liberal parties and their respective coalitions have come to power or even made it to the second round. After leading two “National Unity” administrations under incumbent President Juan Manuel Santos, the Liberal Party received just 2 percent of the vote, while the coalition favored by the Conservative Party won just 7 percent. Popular anger toward Santos grew after he pushed through the 2016 peace accord with the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla movement after it was rejected in a popular referendum .

Duque graduated from American University in Washington, D.C., where he worked until 2014 at the Inter-American Development Bank. He was then summoned by the right-wing ex-president Álvaro Uribe to become a Senator, which allowed him to quickly come into the political spotlight with a fascistic, law-and-order rhetoric comparable to the Duterte regime in the Philippines. His campaign proposed the death penalty for rape and child murder, along with pro-business tax measures, the elimination of financial and other regulations, and a military and police build-up.

In his victory speech, Duque promised “corrections” to the “peace” accord with the FARC, insisting that “it must be a peace that above all allows the guerrilla combatants their demobilization, disarmament and effective reinsertion.” The leader of the FARC, Rodrigo Londoño, tweeted on June 17: “It’s a moment of greatness and reconciliation, we respect the decision of the majorities and congratulate the new president.”

Petro, a former leader of the M-19 Castroite guerrilla movement that turned itself into a bourgeois political party in the late 1980s, requested the backing of the Liberal candidate, Humberto de la Calle, in the second round. As the mayor of the capital, Bogotá, and then as a legislator, Petro had closely backed the Santos administration since 2010 and supported his second-round bid in 2014, joining ranks at the time with the Conservatives’ endorsement of Santos.

Previously, Santos was Uribe’s defense minister and oversaw a policy that encouraged thousands of extrajudicial executions and detentions of impoverished peasants and workers as part of an escalation of the US-sponsored war on “drugs” and “terrorism” under Plan Colombia. And more recently, Santos’s “Peace Colombia” with the FARC guerrillas, which has been energetically backed by the Obama and Trump administrations, paved the way for Colombia to join NATO, integrating it ever more closely with the bloody maelstrom of the US and European imperialism’s neocolonial repartition of the planet.

Petro’s “critical” support for Santos, represented an embrace of the latter’s attacks against living standards and hypocritical and empty promises of peace. Now, claiming the title of leader of the opposition in Congress, Petro will seek to unite the official “left,” including the Green Alliance, the Democratic Pole, the Patriotic Union, and the Indigenous and Social Alternative Movement (MAIS), while containing its criticisms within an increasingly right-wing framework.

Santos’s policies were also closely associated with clearing the path—firstly through the escalation of state violence and then through “peace”—for the intensified mining and oil extractionist model promoted by Santos’s Conservative finance minister, Mauricio Cárdenas, a darling of Wall Street.

This bet on what Wall Street speculators call “vulnerable” markets was formalized in a pro-business program that cuts taxes for corporations and gives tax refunds for fossil fuel and mining investments. The Colombian economy already suffered a sharp deceleration as oil and other commodity prices fell when the Chinese economy slowed down in 2014, and now the increase in interest rates in the capitalist centers and a trade war between the US, China and the European Union are on their way to upset previous forecasts with inflation and an economic downturn.

The 2017 tax “reform” cut corporate taxes from 40 percent to 33 percent. Meanwhile, a jump in the regressive value-added tax from 16 to 19 percent is already hurting retail consumption—i.e., has measurably impoverished the masses.

Official figures indicate that 67.2 percent of the population are either under the poverty line or “vulnerable” to falling beneath it. Moreover, worries are rising about “worsening of structural and long-term poverty,” as Louvain University professor Jorge Iván González wrote earlier this year for La Razón. He explains that growing land and income inequality, devaluation and an addiction to profits from mineral and oil extraction are “destroying industrial and agricultural production.”

His column notes that 71 percent of agricultural workers and peasants own 3 percent of registered land, while 0.2 percent of landowners, whose predatory interests Uribismo and Duque most directly represent, control 60 percent of the land. Colombia is the second most unequal country in Latin America, a region where the top 10 percent own 68 percent of wealth, while the bottom 50 percent control just 3.5 percent, according to a recent Oxfam study.

The entire official political spectrum in Colombia and the region, from the far right to the Morenoite pseudo-left—which called for a “critical” vote for Petro—reflects the interests of different sectors within the richest 10 percent of society. The “left” layers of the upper-middle class are already fearfully denouncing Duque’s political “insensitivity” toward growing social tensions; however, their “opposition” will be limited to the extent that their padded stock portfolios and bank accounts continue to grow from escalated social attacks against the working and impoverished masses.

The policies pursued by the political establishment to carve out a larger share of wealth for the ruling elites meant that 95 percent of all new wealth generated during 2017 in the region—that is, excluding the profits siphoned off by the imperialist financiers in New York and London—was hoarded by the top 10 percent. The more than 300 million Latin Americans of the bottom half, according to the same Oxfam report, lost more than $22 billion in assets.

Citing tariffs, Harley-Davidson to move US production to Europe

Jacob Crosse

In a financial report sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 25, Harley-Davidson announced that it would be, “implementing a plan to shift production of motorcycles for EU destinations from the U.S. to its international facilities to avoid the tariff burden.” This decision, Harley-Davidson said, is in response to increased retaliatory tariffs announced by the European Union this past Friday against €2.8 billion worth of American products.

In the regulatory report the company further stated that, “motorcycles exported from the U.S. have increased from 6 percent to 31 percent. Harley-Davidson expects these tariffs will result in an incremental cost of approximately $2,200 per average motorcycle exported from the U.S. to the EU.” The EU tariffs were in response to the Trump Administration’s imports on steel and aluminum.

Citing this increased cost, Harley-Davidson will cut an unspecified number of jobs in the United States while shifting some of its manufacturing and assembling to low wage countries in the E.U. The company further stated that it didn’t want to shift this, “tremendous cost increase,” on to its “dealers or retail customers.”

Harley is relying more and more on sales in overseas markets to maintain profits as US sales slow. It recently announced plans to close its Kansas City, Missouri plant and merge it with one in York, Pennsylvania.

The news that Harley-Davidson planned to shift production out of the US evoked worried statements from some Republican legislators, who urged the Trump administration to take a more targeted approach in regard to the use of tariffs.

On the part of Harley-Davidson the tariffs are a convenient excuse to implement a long held strategic plan to increase shareholder profits by eliminating jobs. As recently reported, the closing of the Kansas City plant coincides with an increase in production at the company's Thailand based assembly plant.

Harley finished their statement noting that the, “ramping up production in international plants will require incremental investment and could take at least 9 to 18 months to be fully complete,” and that “increasing international production to alleviate the EU tariff burden is not the company’s preference, but represents the only sustainable option to make its motorcycles accessible to customers in the EU and maintain a viable business in Europe.”

The motorcycle company has a long history of circumventing tariffs by shifting production to, “new markets” in order to maintain a “viable business.” In the 1920s, the last time capitalism faced a similar historical crisis, Harley-Davidson shifted production to Asia and built the first modern motorcycle factory in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan in the face of tariffs from the United Kingdom.

Eventually rebranded to the Rikuo Internal Combustion Company, this factory was used to mass produce motorcycles for the Japanese Imperial Army and their police force during World War II.

Robert Martinez Jr., International President of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which “represents” workers at the four US based Harley plants, responded with typical chauvinist bombast to the planned shift in production. “Will Harley use any excuse to ship jobs overseas? Does Harley even understand what ‘Made in America means?’”

Meanwhile, President Trump excoriated the global corporation for not being sufficiently, “America First,” blasting the management for being the, “first to wave the White Flag,” on Twitter.

Trump continued his attack on the company the following morning, warning, “they will be taxed like never before.” The turnaround was striking, since last year Trump had invited Harley executives to the White House where he praised them for “building things in America.”

While trade union bureaucrats such as Martinez Jr. used Harley-Davidson’s announced job cuts to further divide the working class from the their class brothers and sisters internationally, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker advocated for “free markets,” the elimination of “tit for tat” tariffs, while also appealing for “foreign investment.”

Restructured or negotiated exploitative trade agreements, written to guarantee favorable conditions for this or that national capitalist class, will not stop the development of ever greater economic crisis and war. The tariffs imposed by Trump on its erstwhile European allies are the product of deep going contradictions in the capitalist system and the long-term economic decline of the US. The development of trade war is being accompanied by the unleashing of unrestrained militarism in both the US and Europe.

To oppose these developments the working class needs a unified international strategy. The enemies of American workers are not overseas, but in the United States, where a rapacious class of billionaires headed by the gangster Trump and his Democratic Party accomplices holds power. To oppose this cabal the working class needs to mobilize its political strength through the building of its own independent political movement based on a socialist program.