Former Malaysian prime minister arrested and charged

Peter Symonds

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was arrested on Wednesday and charged over a multi-billion dollar corruption scandal involving the state investment fund, 1Malaysia Development or 1MDB. Razak, who appeared in court yesterday, pled not guilty to all charges and was released on bail of 1 million ringgit ($US247,000).

The newly-installed government headed by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad rapidly ramped up the 1MDB probe after winning the May 9 election, which ended six decades of rule by governments dominated by the right-wing United Malays National Organisation (UMNO).

Mahathir, who was head of UMNO and prime minister from 1981 to 2003, exploited the corruption scandal to the hilt during the election campaign. By ensuring that Najib is charged, he is seeking to consolidate his grip on power, which rests on an unstable five-party coalition. Other arrests could be pending. The new government has banned a number of former officials, as well as Najib, from leaving the country.

The 1MDB scandal, which erupted in 2015, has been a revealing exposure of the manner in which UMNO and its allies, not just Najib, have ruled Malaysia since formal independence in 1957. Najib attempted to quash any investigation into 1MDB, including by firing his attorney general, but the scandal triggered probes by authorities elsewhere—in the US, Singapore and Switzerland.

The US Justice Department filed a civil action in 2016 alleging that $4.5 billion was looted from the investment fund. The lawsuits implicated Najib, who was identified only as “Malaysia Official 1,” along with his close associates and relatives. It was alleged that $681 million from 1MDB went into his personal accounts, which he claimed was a legitimate political donation to UMNO.

Najib has been charged with three counts of criminal breach of trust, which is punishable by up to 20 years in jail, and one of using his position for gratification. The charges related to just one aspect of the scandal, involving $10.5 million, allegedly from a former 1MDB unit, that wound up in his personal account.

The scandal highlights the incestuous relations that UMNO and its political and financial cronies developed with all aspects of the Malaysian state. The UNMO-led coalitions presided over a police-state apparatus that suppressed all forms of political opposition. In 1998, in the midst of the Asian financial crisis, Mahathir fell out with his deputy and finance minister Anwar Ibrahim, expelled him from UMNO and had him arrested and jailed on trumped-up charges of corruption and sodomy.

Mahathir has never been charged with corruption, but he was notorious for his close connections to financial cronies. Last July, as pressure mounted on Najib to resign, he sought to deflect attention from the 1MDB scandal by lashing out at Mahathir. “Under his leadership many corners were cut, and the Malaysian people had to pay a very high price so that a few of his friends benefited, even when symbols of national pride had horrendous and catastrophic decisions inflicted on them,” Najib said.

In reality, the 1MDB affair has little to do with fighting the endemic corruption in the Malaysian ruling elites. It is bound up with bitter internal tensions fuelled by global economic instability and rapidly sharpening geo-political tensions, in particular between the US and China. Like its counterparts throughout the region, Najib’s government sought to balance between the economic powers as the Obama administration ramped up its confrontational “pivot to Asia” aimed at undermining China throughout the region—a policy continued under Trump.

Obama sought to woo Malaysia more closely into the US sphere of influence. In 2013, when Najib scraped back into office on the basis of a flagrant gerrymander, Obama rang the Malaysian prime minister to congratulate him, despite mass opposition protests. In April 2014, Obama became the first US president to visit Malaysia since 1966. He signed a “Comprehensive Partnership” with Najib and pointedly refused to meet with opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Najib strengthened military ties with the US and lined up with the Obama administration in criticising China over its territorial claims in the South China Sea. Malaysia also joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), engineered by the Obama administration as a means for undermining Chinese trade and investment.

At the same time, however, Najib sought to maintain close economic ties with China, which is Malaysia’s second largest export market after Singapore, and largest supplier of Malaysian imports. In 2015, the state-owned China Nuclear Power Group announced a $2.3 billion purchase of 1MDB power assets, helping ease the pressure of the scandal on Najib. In 2016, Najib visited China and sealed a raft of agreements, including to forge closer military ties. As part of its huge One Belt, One Road infrastructure program linking Eurasia, China has heavily financed a number of Malaysian projects.

The growing ties between Malaysia and China must have sounded alarm bells in Washington. Certainly, the Wall Street Journal played a major role in exposing the various aspects of the 1MDB scandal and the US Treasury authorised a probe into the allegations. Along with concerns about Malaysia’s ties with China, Wall Street has always been hostile to the economic controls and cronyism that act as a barrier to foreign investment in Malaysia. In 2016, the Economist magazine’s crony capitalism index ranked Malaysia as the second worst in the world, after Russia.

Notwithstanding Obama’s diplomatic outreach to Najib and a meeting between Trump and Najib in the White House last September, Washington played a significant role in his political demise by highlighting the 1MDB corruption revelations.

Mahathir’s new government quickly signalled a review of Malaysia’s involvement in the One Belt, One Road program by suspending three Chinese-backed projects, estimated to be worth $22 billion. It is also probing whether a loan from a Chinese state-owned bank benefitted the 1MDB investment fund. During the election campaign, Mahathir pledged to review all Chinese projects and “unequal treaties.”

Whether there is a pronounced tilt toward Washington remains to be seen. The government’s instability is underscored by the fact that Mahathir and Anwar are both part of the ruling coalition. Mahathir is due to step down to allow Anwar to take over as prime minister in two years.

Their bitter clash in 1998 was over basic issues of economic policy—the right-wing populist Mahathir was determined to protect his economic cronies from the Asian financial crisis, whereas Anwar was doing the International Monetary Fund’s bidding to open up Malaysia to foreign investment. Those fundamental disagreements remain.

Austria: 100,000 demonstrate in Vienna against labour “reforms”

Markus Salzmann

Last Saturday saw the biggest demonstration in the Austrian capital since the 2003 protests against pension reforms. More than 100,000 demonstrated against the working time reform being introduced by the government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Austrian Peoples Party (ÖVP), and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache of the right-wing extremist Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ).

The government wants to permit a maximum working time of twelve hours a day and a working week of up to 60 hours. Previously, the standard working hours in Austria were eight hours a day and 40 hours a week. In special cases, companies can employ their staff for up to ten hours a day or up to 50 hours a week.

The Austrian trade unions called for Saturday’s demonstration under the slogan “For a Better Life.” In addition to trade unionists, prominent social democrats, such as party leader and ex-chancellor Christian Kern and Vienna's mayor Michael Ludwig also participated.

It was the first major demonstration since the right-wing government took office at the end of 2017. According to the government, the number of hours allowed is to be increased to give companies more flexibility. The Austrian parliament votes on the bill today, but the majority enjoyed by the ÖVP and FPÖ means its passage is considered safe.

The Working Hours Act reform is considered the first step in planned social attacks by Kurz and Strache. Further, deep-going “reforms” in pensions, health and education are also planned.

In order to suppress resistance, the government has already launched the so-called “security package.” Under the auspices of the ultra-right Interior Minister Herbert Kickl (FPÖ), surveillance is being massively expanded. The spying on private computers is being legitimized as is the construction of so-called Citizens Defence Leagues.

Another fundamental attack on democratic rights was the closure of several mosques and the expulsion of imams and their families.

Large sections of workers and young people are unwilling to give up their social gains and accept this right-wing policy. Tens of thousands had already demonstrated in January against the government's right-wing course when Interior Minister Kickl demanded that asylum seekers be “concentrated” in the future—an open link to the concentration camps of the Nazis.

But while government policies are rejected by most of the population, the unions and the social democrats are working to divert social opposition and anger into harmless channels. In principle, they support the right-wing policies of the Kurz and Strache government.

As recently as January, the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB) and its affiliated unions had expressly refused to support the protest against the government. In fact, there is a significant section within the Austrian trade unions that supports FPÖ policy. “Even in the chamber of labour and in the unions, contacts with FPÖ officials are cultivated,” noted the news magazine Profil .

The Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) has been in a coalition government with the FPÖ in Burgenland since 2015 and was open to a coalition with the far right at the federal level during last year’s election.

The fact that the protest on Saturday mainly served to let off steam and protect the government's flank was highlighted by government spokesman Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal. He emphasized that it was good “that we live in a country where there is freedom of expression and assembly, and where everyone can exercise these fundamental rights.”

This statement is noteworthy, as several editors-in-chief published articles in their papers on Sunday and Monday warning against attacks on the press and freedom of opinion. This was mainly directed against Interior Minister Herbert Kickl of the FPÖ, who attacked investigative journalists head-on in an ORF program last week.

At the closing rally, the unions' attitude to the Kurz government became clear when the chairman of the post union, Helmut Köstinger, rhetorically called for the “overthrow” of the anti-social and unjust government. Immediately following, several ÖGB leaders spoke out to distance themselves from him. ÖGB leader Wolfgang Katzian stated that the ÖGB accepted every democratically elected government. Before that, ÖGB vice-chair Norbert Schnedl had spoken against Köstinger and stressed that he was not in favour of overthrowing the government.

At the demonstration, the ÖGB then focused exclusively on the Working Hours Act. Not a single speaker mentioned the rigorous sealing off of the country's borders against those seeking help.

A few days earlier, the government had provocatively conducted a patrol exercise on the border with Slovenia. Several hundred policemen and soldiers practiced sealing off the border against refugees. The exercise was above all a signal to Germany. “The background is formed by the debate on internal European border closures, triggered by Germany, as well as current developments on the refugee routes in the Balkans,” said FPÖ chief Strache.

Following the agreement of the CDU and CSU in Germany in the asylum dispute at the beginning of the week, Austria is preparing its own national measures to protect its borders.

Notably, hostility towards refugees is not new to the Austrian trade unions. Two years ago, former ÖGB President Erich Foglar agitated against immigration. “Control of the labour market has been more or less lost,” Foglar told the Presse newspaper. He had previously spoken out in favour of “redefining” relations with the FPÖ and seeking close cooperation with it.

British government imposes collective punishment by evicting families from public housing

Simon Whelan

The British government intends to roll out nationally a scheme piloted in north London, whereby the families of gang members and violent criminals are evicted from their public housing residences.

The Conservatives are acting under laws conferred by the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. Under the legislation, landlords in England and Wales, including councils, can evict tenants as a result of serious and violent criminal activity.

Home Office minister Victoria Atkins, the privately educated daughter of former Conservative MP and MEP Sir Robert Atkins, became the first minister to publicly endorse the scheme, saying the government had “changed the law to enable it to happen.”

Interviewed in the Daily Telegraph, Atkins said, “In the most serious cases, with these people who are exploiting young people, making the lives of local residents a misery, putting fear into people’s hearts when they’re picking children up from the school gates, I think absolutely they should understand the consequences of their criminal behaviour.”

Nick Davies, the police commander in an area of north London in which the eviction scheme has been piloted, said the power to threaten whole families “seems to be a particularly effective strategy in changing the behaviour” of gang members. In an interview with the Sunday Times earlier this month, Davies insisted the “threshold for eviction is high.”

Neither the police nor the government offered any evidence regarding how many families have been thrown onto the streets, nor how they measured the “effectiveness” of teaching offenders the “consequences of their actions.” Neither did they mention the consequences of evicting a family from a decent home, where they could have been living for life, and the consequences of pushing whole working class households into homelessness and destitution.

Such barbarous measures have zero rehabilitative purpose. This is punishment meted out by the ruling class to aid its brutalization of the working class.

Needless to say, the families of those found guilty of corporate crime involving millions of pounds—in the rare cases where this happens—can rest easily in their penthouses and mansions.

The legislation is saturated with right-wing, anti-working class stereotypes. Tellingly, the Daily Mail claimed, “Experts say the impact on family members, particularly single mothers, is one of the strongest deterrents they have.”

Press coverage was replete with stock photos of hooded gang members being led away by police and ubiquitous high-rise, multi occupancy modernist public housing—usually the worst looking examples—which are poorly maintained and neglected by local authorities.

In her Telegraph interview, Atkins claimed, “If they search someone’s address and they have suspicions this person is at the head of a gang or they’re recruiting young people to a county lines gang [that uses children to traffic drugs], I want the police when they get into the house and they find a zombie knife to have the power to arrest that person on the basis of that, so they’ve got all the tools they need to lock people away.”

Other anti-working class stereotypes are utilized to reinforce the claim that irresponsible parenting rather than socio-economic conditions is responsible for crime, that gang members and violent criminals reside solely within public housing, and therefore the provision of public housing, part of a so-called “dependency culture,” is assisting crime.

The measures create a two-tier and entirely arbitrary system, whereby simply because they live in a council home, families are to be made homeless. Working class families in council housing, who lose a member to prison, will then lose their home. Offenders whose families own their own home or rent in the private sector receive a conviction but no eviction.

Children will be uprooted from their communities and schools in addition to losing their home. Adults will potentially lose jobs, reinforcing reliance on a welfare system transformed over recent decades into a series of cruel and vindictive “sanctions,” designed to withhold financial payments for the merest transgression for months on end.

These families will be forced to register as homeless by the very local authority that has just evicted them. If they are lucky they will be housed in temporary rented accommodation. Local authorities no longer have a statutory obligation to provide suitable accommodation to those presenting themselves as homeless—meaning a family, once evicted, could be denied re-housing because they are deemed by the local authority, which colluded in their eviction, as responsible for their own homelessness.

The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 was widely criticised when it was introduced. Civil rights group Liberty noted: “Whole families could be turfed from their homes because of the actions of one person. This will pile pressure on innocent and vulnerable people at a particularly difficult time for them and their family.”

Liberty added that people who had passed through the criminal justice system would be doubly punished. “A basic principle of criminal law is that an individual should be subject to appropriate punishment for their crime just once. Our criminal law is designed to do exactly this.”

The collective punishment of those living in social housing has been prepared over years. Following the 2011 riots in London and elsewhere in the UK—after which more than 5,000 people were rounded up and arrested, with 1,292 jailed for a total of over 1,800 years—Conservative-controlled Wandsworth Council in London moved to evict an entire family from their home based on the actions of a single individual. This was before the person involved, Daniel Sartain-Clarke, had even been convicted of rioting. In the event, he was convicted of shoplifting. The council eventually relented on its threats, but only after the family suffered months of trauma.

Britain’s role in US rendition and torture revealed

Steve James

Two reports published last week bring out British intelligence’s role in torture and kidnapping. One, published by the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) of Parliament, “Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition 2001-2010,” contains over 151 pages listing hundreds of instances of close British collaboration with mostly US torturers.

The sheer number of abuse and torture cases testifies to a level of criminal depravity far greater than previously admitted. The Labour Party was in power for the entire period covered by the first report.

Key findings include:

• 232 cases where UK intelligence agency staff supplied questions or intelligence to other intelligence agencies after they knew or suspected that the person being questioned was suffering torture.

• 198 cases where the UK agencies obtained information “from detainees they knew had been mistreated,” or where mistreatment, i.e., torture or abuse of some form, should have been suspected.

• 13 incidents where British personnel were present during torture and nine cases where British staff made “verbal threats.”

• 25 cases where British staff were told by detainees they were being tortured or abused.

• 128 recorded incidents where British agencies were told by “foreign liaison services” of “detainee mistreatment.”

• Three cases where British agencies paid or offered to pay for “extraordinary rendition” operations—kidnapping and illegal deportation to a secret location for torture. The report described this as “outsourcing” of action “they knew they were not allowed to carry out themselves.”

• British intelligence agencies “planned or agreed to rendition operations proposed by others in 28 cases.”

• In 22 further cases, intelligence was provided by the British to allow rendition to take place.

• The report cites British complicity in 23 more instances where Britain was aware that rendition was intended but its agencies “conspicuously failed to act.” These cases included British citizens or residents.

• The report notes that there is “no evidence in the primary material that any US rendition flight transited the UK with a detainee on board, although two detainees are now known to have transited through the British Overseas Territory of Diego Garcia.” Recording of flights was, however, “woefully inadequate” and available records are unreliable.

The ISC explains that between 2002 and 2004, staff of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS-MI6), the domestic counterintelligence and security agency MI5, and the Ministry of Defence interviewed detainees mostly held by the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. British agencies either carried out their own “interviews,” did so jointly with US agencies, or merely observed.

The committee estimated that the total number of interviews over this period was between 2,000 and 3,000. No estimate is made of how many of those interviewed were abused, but the great majority can be assumed to have suffered extreme fear and torment.

The ISC inquiry was based on 50 hours of oral evidence and the examination of 40,000 documents. Some 30,000 staff hours were expended examining the material. Participants included victims of torture and rendition and three agency staff who came forward as witnesses.

At several points the report refers to deliberately poor recordkeeping by the intelligence agencies where torture, or suspicion of torture, was involved. Former British diplomat Craig Murray told the committee in 2016 that “there was a deliberate policy of not committing the discussion on receipt of intelligence through torture to paper in the Foreign Office.”

The implication is that the documented level of involvement in torture and rendition is only a fraction of what actually took place.

The report lays out the international agreements and conventions the UK has signed and ratified that were routinely ignored. These include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The latter requires states to “prevent acts of torture” and insists that “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever...may be invoked to as a justification of torture.”

The report also cites the 1949 Geneva Convention and the Statute of the International Criminal Court, which covers torture as a war crime. It notes that UK domestic law describes “complicity” in torture as something that might result from sharing intelligence in the knowledge or belief that action resulting in torture might flow from that intelligence.

The findings make clear that the thrust of policy was based on keeping up with the US in its “war on terror.” One SIS-MI6 officer told the committee that as the US “embraced torture as a methodology,” SIS chose to “find a way to deal with it and work as best they could... there were certainly SIS officers who felt that we should sort of go all the way and basically, you know, do whatever it takes.”

The same officer continued: “[S]ome people, perhaps to this day but certainly at that time, felt that the gloves were off and there was this sort of argument that...the UK needed to be much more aggressive in our approach on these issues... I think there was also this sense that we would lose our standing with the Americans if we weren’t aligned with them on this.”

The inquiry was wound up by the committee following Prime Minister Theresa May’s refusal to allow the ISC to question both low-ranking intelligence officers and previous foreign secretaries, including Labour’s Jack Straw, who was in office from 2001 to 2006.

The second report, “Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition: Current Issues,” deals with more recent and on-going questions.

Due to international outrage over torture and rendition, the British authorities eventually concluded that they had to defend themselves from “reputational risks” and litigation—in other words, war crimes charges. A “Consolidated Guidance” package of measures was introduced in 2010 to allow the intelligence agencies to find verbal formulations allowing distance to be maintained from the most egregious abuses.

The Consolidated Guidance demanded that British intelligence agencies and armed forces, according to then-Prime Minister David Cameron, “never take any action where they know or believe that torture will occur.” If they became aware of torture, they should report it.

Most contentiously, the guidance obliged staff to pass instances where there was considered to be a “serious risk” of abuse to government ministers. The government was taken to court at the time on the basis that “serious risk” was looser than the “real risk” formulations used legally. The case was thrown out.

The guidance appears designed to assist intelligence operatives to find “work-arounds,” whereby information can continue to be extracted while the risk of torture is deemed to be reduced to something less than “serious.” This less than “serious risk” is ill-defined, subjective and can simply mean an assurance, even offered retrospectively and verbally, that torture would not take place or had not taken place. It amounts to little more than taking the word of the torturers.

The committee reported that between 2013 and 2016 there were 2,304 cases in which the intelligence services considered that the Consolidated Guidance applied. This can only mean that in all these cases, staff considered that detainees in the hands of British allies might be at “serious risk” of torture or abuse.

No record was provided of how many of these were referred to ministers. However, while in 2013 the guidance was applied on 418 occasions, by 2016 this had more than doubled to 928. The report provides no explanation for this surge, but it coincides with sharply escalating conflicts in the Middle East fuelled by the imperialist powers.

The report considers the current functionality of the agencies. One section, “Agility,” makes clear that both the Consolidated Guidance and the entire set-up of the agencies are in preparation for new wars and new attacks on the working class and democratic rights.

The head of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ—the UK’s mass surveillance agency) told the committee that GCHQ, SIS/MI6 and MI5 now have a “high degree of cooperation and integration.” As an example of this, SIS told the committee that “the lessons it had learned from dealing with the [US whistle-blower Edward] Snowden leaks had enabled it to improve its response to the March 2017 WikiLeaks release on CIA computer network exploitation capabilities.” No detail was provided as to what this meant.

Total PLC Energy Access Booster for Entrepreneurs with Energy Projects in Africa 2018

Application Deadline: 29th July 2018.

Eligible Countries: African countries

About the Award: Access to reliable, affordable and clean energy is one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Reaching this goal means providing electricity to 1.0 billion people and clean cooking systems to 3.0 billion people worldwide by 2030.
To help reach these objectives, Total, ENEA Consulting, SEforALL and Acumen are launching 
“Energy Access Booster” – a call for projects to support entrepreneurs in the field of energy access in Africa.

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: 

• The project relates to one of the areas within the scope of the pilot call for projects Energy Access Booster:
  • Green mini-grids
  • Sustainable mobility
  • Refrigeration (cooling or cold storage)
  • Energy for drinking water and agriculture
• The project is aligned with the SDG7 criteria of providing affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy.
• The project is carried out by a legally established entity (properly incorporated entity).
• The project takes place in subsaharan Africa.
  Note that for consulting missions, only areas assessed as “normal vigilance” or “enhanced vigilance” by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs[1] at the time of the mission are eligible.
• The applicant undertakes to pay the travel-related costs of the consultants acting under the skills-based sponsorship.
• The applicant undertakes to comply with the collaboration rules for Total Energy Services support (and in particular to comply with the HSE and safety rules set out below and to report regularly to the steering committee):
  • the public policy provisions;
  • the standards, laws and regulations in force, in particular those applicable in the countries where the project is performed;
  • industry best practices  and best practices of the trade;
  • the strictest safety standards with regard to the protection of persons property.
• The project requests both financial support and skills support.

Selection Criteria: 

• Relevant and sound project.
• Innovative project from a technical, economic and/or business model point of view.
• Ability of the partners to provide the requested support.
• Need for support from several of the partners. Any applicant requesting financial support only, will automatically be excluded from the list of potential successful applicants.

Number of Awards: 5

Value of Award: Up to five selected entrepreneurs will benefit from a selection of the following support, depending of their needs and the support capacity of each partner:

• A strategic advisory consulting mission
• A financial contribution of maximum $ 50,000 per selected entrepreneur
• Operational support and potentially local support
• Visibility of the project

The selected entrepreneurs will receive support on topics including the identification of relevant and sustainable economic models, customer acquisition and retention, pilot project development, production organization, building adapted distribution models, scale-up to the national or international level, and financing.

How to Apply: Apply Here

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Total, ENEA Consulting, SEforALL and Acumen.

TWAS-DBT Postgraduate Research Fellowship for Developing Countries 2018/2019 – India

Application Deadline: 31st August 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To be taken at (country): Applicants may be registered for a PhD degree in their home country, or may enrol in a PhD course at a host laboratory/institute in India.

Fields of Research: 
01-Agricultural Sciences
02-Structural, Cell and Molecular Biology
03-Biological Systems and Organisms
04-Medical and Health Sciences incl. Neurosciences
05-Chemical Sciences

Eligibility: Applicants for these fellowships must meet the following criteria:

• Be a maximum age of 35 years on 31 December of the application year.
• Be nationals of a developing country (other than India).
• Must not hold any visa for temporary or permanent residency in India or any developed country.
• Hold a Master’s or equivalent degree in science or engineering.
• For SANDWICH Fellowships, be registered PhD students in their home country and provide the “Registration and No Objection Certificate” from the HOME university (sample is included in the application form); OR
• For FULL-TIME Fellowships; be willing to register at a university in India.
• Be accepted at a biotechnology institution in India (see sample Acceptance Letter included in the application form). N.B. Requests for acceptance must be directed to the chosen host institution(s), and NOT to DBT.
• Provide evidence of proficiency in English, if medium of education was not English;
• Provide evidence that s/he will return to her/his home country on completion of the fellowship;
• Not take up other assignments during the period of her/his fellowship;
• Be financially responsible for any accompanying family members.

Number of scholarship: Several

Value of Scholarship: DBT will provide a monthly stipend to cover for living costs, food and health insurance. The monthly stipend will not be convertible into foreign currency. In addition, the fellowship holder will receive a house rent allowance.

Duration of Award: Up to five years.

• SANDWICH Fellowships (for those registered for a PhD in their home country): The Fellowship may be granted for a minimum period of 12 months and a maximum period of 2 years.
• FULL-TIME Fellowships (for those not registered for a PhD): The Fellowship is granted for an initial period of up to 3 years.  Such Fellowships may then be extended for a further 2 years, subject to the student’s performance.  Candidates will register for their PhD at a university in India. DBT will confirm any such extensions to both TWAS and the candidate.

How to Apply:

• Before applying it is recommended that applicants read very carefully the application guidelines for detailed information on eligibility criteria, and other key requirements of the application procedure.
• Applications for the TWAS-DBT Postgraduate Fellowship Programme can ONLY be submitted to TWAS via the online portal and copy of the submitted application must be sent to DBT by email.

Apply Here

Visit Scholarship webpage for Details

Sponsors: The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) of the Ministry of Science and Technology, India, and The World Academy of Science (TWAS), Italy.

TWAS-BIOTEC Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme for Young Scientists from Developing Countries 2018 – Thailand

Application Deadline: 31st July 2018

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Thailand

Fields: 
01-Agricultural Sciences
02-Structural, Cell and Molecular Biology
03-Biological Systems and Organisms
04-Medical and Health Sciences incl. Neurosciences
05-Chemical Sciences

Type: Postdoctoral

Eligibility:  Applicants for these fellowships must meet the following criteria:

• be nationals of a developing country (other than Thailand).
• must not hold any visa for temporary or permanent residency in Thailand or any developed country.
• hold a PhD degree in any of the following fields: molecular biology, molecular genetics, microbiology, biochemistry, protein crystallography, organic chemistry, biotechnology, bioinformatics, or related disciplines.
• apply for the fellowship within THREE years of having obtained a PhD degree in a fields of the natural sciences specified above.
• must not be more than 40 years old by the date of the submission of their application. NB. For instance, if an applicant turns 40 on 15 June, s/he should make sure not to submit the application later than 15 June.
• be regularly employed at a research and/or teaching institution in their home country where they must hold a research assignment.
• provide an official Acceptance Letter from BIOTEC. Requests for acceptance must be directed to the BIOTEC Research Support Division (e-mail rsd@biotec.or.th) who will facilitate assignment of a host supervisor. In contacting BIOTEC, applicants must accompany their request for an Acceptance Letter with copy of their CV and a research proposal outline;
• provide evidence of proficiency in English, if the medium of instruction was not English.
• provide evidence that s/he will return to her/his home country on completion of the fellowship
• not take up other assignments during the period of her/his fellowship
• be financially responsible for any accompanying family members.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: BIOTEC will provide a standard monthly allowance which should be used to cover living costs, such as accommodation and food.

Duration of Programme: Minimum of 12 months and a maximum of 24 months

How to Apply: Apply Here

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers:  Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Thailand, TWAS

Government of Austria IPT Training Scholarships for Peacebuilders in Developing Countries 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 27th July 2018

Eligible Countries: Developing countries (incl. Austria)

To Be Taken At (Country): Austria

About the Award: The International Civilian Peacekeeping and Peace-building Training Programme (IPT) is a practically oriented training programme for experts of various professional backgrounds who work – or aim to work – as civilians in crisis management and conflict prevention.

Type: Training

Eligibility: 
For the Program

• Applicants should be motivated and willing to engage in peacekeeping and peace-building activities in crisis regions.
• Precondition to attend a specialisation course is to have participated in one of our Core Courses or similar basic mission preparation training. Sufficient work experience in crisis management missions can be considered in lieu of a Core Course.
• Applicants must have good command of the English language.
• Applicants should be in a good state of physical and mental health. This is not only necessary for later deployment, but also for some of the outdoor training activities.

Taking into account recruitment standards of international organisations, participants should

• be aged preferably between 25 and 60
• have expertise and relevant work experience in their respective areas of professional competence
• have at least a first level university degree or equivalent professional experience
• be able and willing to work in a team and within a multicultural environment
• have a valid driving license
• be computer literate

For the Scholarship

• Applicants must be from OECD Countries (incl. Austria)
• Applicants from OECD or non-OECD countries already employed by international organisations – at headquarters or in field missions (e.g. Asian Development Bank, OSCE, UN) – are in principle not eligible for scholarships and are advised to ask their organisation for support.

Number of Awards: Limited

Value of Award:

• Scholarships cover, in part or fully, tuition fees and full board accommodation during the training.
• IPT cannot support or award scholarships for travel expenses, insurance, and visa fees.

Duration of Program: 28 October – 9 November 2018

How to Apply: Applicants must fill in an online application form and upload supporting documents in one file. To apply for such support, candidates have to indicate this in the relevant section of the application form and give reasons for their request in a scholarship essay. To complete the application, students will be asked to upload:

• Curriculum Vitae
• A recent photograph
• A scan of the data page of your passport

Application Form
Applicants will be informed about the outcome of the scholarship application in the letter of invitation.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Government of Austria

Iraq is Threatened by Catastrophic Drought

Patrick Cockburn

“I once rescued a friend from drowning when he was swept away by the force of the current as we were swimming in the Diyala river,” says Qasim Sabti, a painter and gallery owner in Baghdad.

“That was fifty years ago,” he recalls. “I went back there recently and the water in the Diyala is so shallow today that a man could walk across it with his dog.”

The rivers of Iraq, above all the Tigris and Euphrates, are drying up. The country is becoming more arid, and desertification is eating into the limited amount of agricultural land.

Dams built upriver in Turkey, Syria and Iran since the 1970s have reduced the flow of water that reaches Iraq by as much as half and the situation is about to get worse.

“On 1 July, Turkey will start filling the Ilisu dam on the Tigris and this will cause another decline in the inflows to our country of about 50 per cent,” Hassan Janabi, minister of water resources, told The Independent.

He says that Iraq used to get 30 billion cubic metres of water a year from the Euphrates, but now “we are happy if we get 16 billion cubic metres”.

As Iraq begins to recover from 40 years of wars and emergences, its existence is being threatened by the rapidly falling water levels in the two great rivers on which its people depend.

It was on their banks that the first cities were established cities 8,000 years ago and where the flood stories of Gilgamesh and the Bible were first told.

Such floods are now a thing of the past – the last was in 1988 – and each year the amount of water taken by Iraq’s neighbours has been rising.

This pattern started in the 1970s when Turkey and Syria built dams on the Euphrates for hydroelectric power and vast irrigation works. It is the latter which choke off the water supply to Iraq.

The same thing happened a little later to the Tigris, whose major tributaries are being dammed by Iran.

Iraqi protests have been ineffectual because Saddam Hussein and successor government in Baghdad were preoccupied by wars and crises that appeared more important at the time.

By now it is getting too late to reverse the disastrous impact on Iraq of this massive loss of water.

“This summer is going to be tough,” says Mr Janabi, a water resources engineer by training who was in charge of restoring the marshes in southern Iraq after 2003.

Some smaller rivers like the Karun and Kark that used to flow out of Iran into Iraq, have simply disappeared after the Iranians diverted them. He says: “We used to get five billion cubic metres annually from the Karkhah, and now we get zero.”

Iraq was once self-sufficient in food, but now imports 70 per cent of its needs. Locally-grown watermelons and tomatoes are for sale beside the road or in the markets, but most of what Iraqis eat comes from Iran or Turkey or is purchased by the government on the world market.

This amount is set to increase this year because the filling of the Ilisu dam in Turkey is forcing the Iraqi government to restrict the growing of rice and wheat by farmers in order to conserve water used for irrigation.

This man-made drought is only the latest blow to hit Iraqi farmers.

​Imad Naja, a returned colonel in the Iraqi air force, inherited his small family farm near Awad al-Hussein village outside Taji, north of Baghdad, 15 years ago where he at first grew wheat and other crops as well as taking up bee-keeping and fish farming. He produced half a ton of honey a year and dug a fish pond close to his house.

“I feel sad that I put so much work into my farm and look at it now,” he says, explaining that three-quarters of his land is no longer cultivated because it cannot be irrigated. He grows alfalfa for sale as animal feed in the remainder but his beehives lie discarded in one corner of his garden and there are no fish in the pond.

He says: “I get some water from a well that we drilled ourselves, but it is salty.”

He makes more money from hiring out a football pitch he has built behind a high-wire fence than he does from agriculture.

Iraq has a complex network of irrigation channels built over the last century to carry water from the Tigris and Euphrates.

One such channel, named 43, runs close to Mr Naja’s house and, on the day we visited, was full of muddy water that comes from the Tigris. Mr Naja says this may look good, but he is only getting the water for two days each fortnight, which is not enough to cultivate all his land.

“I could manage if I got water for seven days out of 14 but not less,” he says.

As with everything else in Iraq, security or the lack of it plays a central role in the villages around Taji. This is a Sunni area which used to be a stronghold of al-Qaeda in Iraq and later of Isis. Mr Naja had been the local leader of al-Sahwah, the paramilitary Sunni movements allied to the US against al-Qaeda a dozen years ago. As Isis advanced south after capturing Mosul in 2014, Taji was heavily fought over, with checkpoints blocking the roads and making travel dangerous.

Mr Naja looks relaxed about his own security, but he has moved his wife and five sons and daughters to Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, not only for their safety but because he wants his children to go to good schools not available locally.

A problem is that Erbil used to be two hours’ drive from Taji, but clashes between Kurdish and government forces last year cut the main road and Mr Naja has to make a long diversion so the trip now takes six hours. Nevertheless, he is planning to re-stock his fish pond.

Can anything be done by Iraq to cope with Iraq’s chronic shortage of water? The government does not have enough political leverage in Turkey and Iran to get a greater share of the water which previously flowed into Iraq.  Mr Janabi shows a report on how to successfully manage water in Iraq over the next twenty years. It is a hefty volume, but he said that it is merely the introduction to a complete study of the water crisis that weighs 35 kilos. This apparently explains how Iraq’s water problems could be alleviated, though at a cost of $184bn (£140bn) that the government does not have.

Iraqis are all too aware that the failing supply of water is changing the very appearance of their country. Mr Sabti has just opened an art exhibition in Baghdad in which 90 landscape paintings by Iraqi artists show pastoral views of rivers, lakes, marshes, palm groves, crops and vegetation. “We need to preserve the memory of these places before the Tigris and Euphrates dry up,” he explains. “Some of them will disappear next year because there will be no water.”

Global Wars and Insanity Fast Becoming Entertainment: Is It the End of Human Ingenuity?

Mahboob A. Khawaja 

Are We Civilized Enough to Claim a Sense of Humanity?

Global politics is fraught with man-made catastrophic tragedies. The human beings are supposed to be the most intelligent social animal on the planet. Yet, our proactive plans and actions continue to dehumanize the fellow human beings and engineer conflicts and wars that destroy the existence of mankind. The driving impulse is war economies, individualistic interest and militarization. We come to realize that politics is a game of pretension and always remains problematic. Politicians need problems to get public attention and to argue being the deliverers. Often, they are not except being treacherous, cynical and deceitful to their ideas and ideals and to the public interests they claim to serve.

Amongst all the creations on Planet Earth, humans are the only one to claim morality as an attribute of life and value. This reality emphasizes and differentiates us from the other creations of God. If we propel uncertainty in our thoughts and behavior, nothing can stop us from surpassing the limit of immorality and insanity. With knowledge-based 21st century human communications improving global collaboration, we are not moving in the right direction that human logic and truth spell out for our conduct in peaceful relationships. The impulse and actions for cruelty and sadistic behavior are increasingly sending alarming trends for the present and future generations to be informed of our implicit wickedness and resulting failure in global affairs. As humans, we are not thinking or moving for the unity of mankind to be at peace and harmony being the chief creation of God. Unless, we are overwhelmed philosophically to imagine that we are something else than humans populating the Earth by chance.

Global Institutions are a Menace to Human Change and Progress                                            

The global warlords are waging wars in the name of peace and harmony. Humanity is being crushed and its compound interest undermined by the few for economic greed and militarization. The UNO originated from the belief and commitment to avert futuristic wars by men of new ideas pursuing peaceful means, diplomacy and accountability to the global mankind. How sad and cynical it looks to view the succeeding generations entrapped again into the same mindset of warmongering and power politics as were the sadistic leaders before the Two WW. Like the past, once again few egoistic nations and leaders have manipulated the time and opportunities to dictate and undermine the interests of the mankind.  The global humanity is the net object of their planned cruelty but without any meaningful role to challenge the few global warlords.  America, Russia and few Europeans find freehand to go anywhere and bomb the humanity at will. This is what exactly happening in the broader Arab Middle East war theatre managed by global warlords. The UNO and its Secretary General need to free themselves from captivity and enlarge their role and initiatives for conflict management and peace-making outside the New York established box. Words and Charter’s core thoughts are repeated but actions are missing. The UN Security Council could finally visit the Rohinga refugee camps but failed to demand equal treatment from the Myanmar Government. Strange, why the same UN Security Council cannot travel to defuse tensions and bring much needed humanitarian peace between Palestine and Israel. Could it shrink its inherent responsibility for the mismanagement of the Middle East conflict? Sarah Lazare explains that (Exporting Death: When It Comes toArming the Planet,

America Is Unrivaled. ICH: 02/23/2016): New report shows that over the past five years, the United States was the top arms exporter in the world.

The 21st century global politics have not producedanynew leaders of vision and moral integrity to imagine the universal phenomenon of peaceful change and futuristic developments. There are no global organizations managed by people of moral and intellectual vision and courage to serve the interests of the global community. Man is a moral and intellectual being articulating happiness and progress horizontally in peace-time, but when fear of the unknown, hatred and animosity attempt to govern the human consciousness, degeneration replaces human progress. America and some Europeans used to be the leaders of change and new strategies to envisage global friendship, co-existence and harmony of the mankind.  If political greed and egoistic interest are the supreme force, how could they serve the interest and priorities of the global mankind for peace and harmony? At best, many world leaders could best be defined as “hangmen” of the 21st century. It is a frightening trend for the present and future generations to imagine our time and role in human history.Humanity in Search of Proactive Leaders

The Middle East – the Ancient Hub of Humanity – the Land of Abrahim, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad is being Scorched

The continuing wars in the Middle East are fabricated and gone out of proportion challenging the human conscience and civilized values that once highlighted the human behavior in conflicts. Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine and Libya are destroyed by political design. Do you remember the paradoxes of history? Do you recall what Sultan Salahudeen Ayoubi did to free Jerusalem and drive out the Crusaders from the ancient lands?  Do you remember how Sultan Salahudeen treated his enemies – King Richard and others even in the battlefield? Do you know that for ages the European feared Salahudeen – the Conqueror of Jerusalem? The contemporary Arab world is devoid of moral and intellectual leadership of any kind. They operate on a dead-ended scale without any role in global affairs. Jerusalem was not US property to be transferred top Israel; it belongs equally to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Under the UNO Plan, Jerusalem is an international city to be shared by all the believers. Yet, the puppet Arab leaders showed no moral courage to question President Trump for moving the Embassy to Jerusalem. One wonders why the Saudi King signed 250 billion worth of military contracts and gave 100 million to Ivanka Kushner when Trump visited the region last August.  It could well be witnessed by the raging sectarian wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere. There is no coming of Salahudeen to rescue the entrenched Palestinians. After 70 years of Nakba, they still have No thinking plan, no leadership, no movement for change and freedom except reactionary emotional outbursts. When Jews lived with the Arabs in Spain (Al-Andulsia) for centuries, they were part of the Arab culture and advancements for the best of humanity. European mistreated Jews but Muslims gave them the best for their protection and participation in Islamic civilization. Look, what is happening now between Palestine and Israel.

Gideon Levy(“60 Killed In Gaza And The End Of Israeli Conscience”, Haaretz and Information Clearing house: 5/21/2018), spells out the present reality for Israelis to think critically:

On the night of the Palestinians’ slaughter, Zion exulted an embassy and a Eurovision. It’s difficult to think of a more atrocious moral eclipse….The truth is that Israel is well prepared to massacre hundreds and thousands, and to expel tens of thousands. Nothing will stop it. This is the end of conscience, the show of morality is over. The last few days’ events have proved it decisively. The tracks have been laid, the infrastructure for the horror has been cast. Dozens of years of brainwashing, demonization and dehumanization have borne fruit. The alliance between the politicians and the media to suppress reality and deny it has succeeded. Israel is set to commit horrors. Nobody will stand in its way any longer. Not from within or from without….

If 60 stray dogs were shot to death in one day by IDF soldiers, the whole country would raise an outcry. The dog slaughterers would be put on trial, the nation of Israel would have devoted prayers to the victims, a Yizkor service would be said for the dogs slaughtered by Israel….The Israeli brain has been washed irrevocably, the heart sealed for good. The life of a Palestinian is no longer deemed to be worth anything.

Towards Thinking of Future-Making

We live in one Planet Earth. What happens across the globe or in the remote jungles of Botswana and or in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan or the bloody streets of Kabul, Damascus and Baghdad, it is vital to global interests and cannot be ignored because European or American television networks do not portray it. According to the Divine revelations, the Earth keeps record of all the human activities. The Earth is a living entity, not dead.  There were many powerful and unchallenging empires and nations in history. What happened to their self-perpetuated glory and triumphs except being part of the archeological record? To all concerned, their artifacts and deadly remains do tell the real story. Most were destroyed by natural causes but the Earth remains in-tact, not by the legislative power of any States of the UN membership but certainly by the Will of God. It operates and maintains balanced life for all regardless of ethnicity, color, creed, religions and nationalism. Should we not care how we live, utilize and draw lifelong gains from the Earth?  We the humans urgently need rethinking to reflect on our plans and behaviors how do we relate to Earth? It is an indivisible comprehensive relationship. The answer should help us to balance our life.

When could this historic change come into being?If we realize to be One Humanity living on One Planet Earth, its imagination could affect and balance our thoughts and behavior. We must respect equal human rights and dignity of all on Earth. Do the Super Powers (powerful nations) have a sense of indifference and biased toward the colored and economically less advanced nations?  In its 2014 Global Thinkers statistics, Foreign Policy (“A World Disrupted: The global Thinkers of 2014”) pinpoints that “something big requires a team rather than an individual….” To enhance global peace and to undo the continuing bogus war on terrorism, there is an urgent need for teamwork by all concerned across the globe. The teamwork if undertaken with unbiased mind and  without pre-conceived notions could usher sustainable change and a new beginning between those who claim to be at peace and somewhat superior than the ordinary folks and those who are fighting reactionary wars of freedom against insanity and catastrophic devastation of the human habitats. Under ‘Advocates’, the Foreign Policy notes:

“The global thinkers herald causes often wrongly considered inconsequential or verboten. They support forgotten victims of sexual violence, protect civilian targeted in internecine violence, count casualties in the fog of war, and demand legal protection for world’s most vulnerable migrants. Often these men and women, scholars, activists and religious leader among them- do this work on their own peril and pay the price landing in court or in prison in some of the world’s most repressive countries. For all of them, however, the risk is worth the possible rewards.”

India's NSG Membership and the Human Capital Factor

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra & Tarika Rastogi


The implications of India’s aspiration to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) has been dissected variously from a strategic prism, as well as from the industrial. While industrial dissections of the argument have focused on India's lack of commercially tested and hence viable technology for export, the human aspect of this has been almost completely ignored. On close examination it would seem that the human capital element of India's nuclear programme could be a major Trojan Horse for entry into the NSG, but could also turn into an industrial bottleneck without NSG membership. 

India is already assisting as a knowledge partner in Russian nuclear projects like such as the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant in Bangladesh. India has signed agreements with Russia's Rosatom to provide similar services in Vietnam and Sri Lanka, if and when those countries agree to the purchase/installation of Russian reactors. Clearly, this points to some level of Russian confidence in India's human resources in the nuclear field, as well as in its capacity building ability. This is also an indicator of the emergence of some kind of geographical market-sharing arrangement, where India becomes a knowledge partner for Russian reactors at least in the eastern part of Asia. What remains to be seen if this can be replicated as a global model. 

With India’s Jaitapur Nuclear Power plant (six units of the European pressurised water reactor), the first two units are being built solely by Areva. But for the remaining four, unspecified services are to be assigned to local companies, in addition to local workshare. Specifically, an agreement has been signed with Larsen & Toubro to create a training centre for design and construction standards for equipment manufacturing for the Jaitapur plant. The National Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), the owner and operator of this facility, will be responsible for obtaining certification and will oversee construction of the reactors and plant infrastructure with assistance from Électricité de France (EDF) and its partners. As simple as this may sound on paper, these are all educative processes that involve the training of micro-specialists on a large scale, creating the kernel of a train-the-trainer programme. 

India then will be privy to knowledge of both Russian and French construction processes and standards, in addition to operations and security. This creates domain knowledge that spans two of the most successful commercial reactors in the market today. As things stand, IAEA inspections of Indian rectors are heavily exempted, leading to criticisms of a lack of transparency. Consequently, adapting existent Indian expertise to third country reactors, which function under more transparent operating standards, as well as more stringent IAEA inspections, allows the building of greater international confidence in India's own procedures and expertise. This will be particularly important in reducing the concerns of some member states of the NSG.   

The nuclear knowledge sector foray is also important to India for purely commercial reasons. In the Rooppur plant, for example, India is only allowed access to participate in areas not covered directly under Russian interpretations of the relevant NPT and NSG guidelines. While the French terms and conditions are not clear, there may very well be some restrictions arising due to French legal interpretations of the same provisions. As such these bars would act as bottlenecks to India developing a range of expertise across the nuclear sector. While there is the possibility of bilateral negotiations in overcoming these loopholes and expanding the respective national interpretations of the relevant rules, such an agreement would always be ad-hoc and prone to the political climate and vagaries of each country. Such temporary measures do not engender confidence enough to invest the vast sums required for building up this sector in India. Therefore NSG membership is a must as it will give an ironclad legal basis for greater workshare in this field.

India's 2008 waiver by the NSG conferred several advantages of a nuclear weapons state - advantages that some member states believe went a step too far for too little in return. While full membership will provide greater certainty and legal foundation to India’s nuclear programme, further integration will also incur a cost. India's entry into the nuclear export market in the knowledge field provides a soft entry that does not appear to have ruffled too many feathers. One possible reason is that such a foray allows the international community to gain confidence in Indian safety and security standards and ethics through intervention from transparent experiences in third countries. Though seemingly minor, India's entry into the nuclear knowledge sector must be seen as a major initiative with the possibility of significant returns on investment and part of a larger political gambit.