World Economic Forum (WEF) Young Global Leader Program 2020

Application Deadline: 31st May 2019

Eligible Countries: International

About the Award: The Forum of Young Global Leaders is a community of over 800 enterprising, socially-minded men and women selected under the age of 40, who operate as a force for good to overcome barriers that elsewhere stand in the way of progress. The community is made up of leaders from all walks of life, from every region of the world, and from every stakeholder group in society.

Type: Award

Eligibility: To be eligible for the Young Global Leaders Class of 2019,

• · The candidate must be born on or after 1 January 1981.
• · He/she has a recognized record of extraordinary achievement and a proven track record of substantial leadership experience. Typically, this means 5-15 years of outstanding professional work experience and a clear indication of playing a substantial leadership role for the rest of his or her career.
• · He/she has demonstrated a personal commitment to serve society at large through exceptional contributions and a deep ethical fiber, and has earned significant trust at both local and global levels.
• · He/she has an impeccable record in the public eye and good standing in his/her community, as well as show great self-awareness and a desire for learning.
• · Candidates from the business sector must be responsible for the full operation of a qualifying corporation or division and must hold one of the following titles: President, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director, Managing Partner or Publisher, or equivalent of any of the above. If the company is a Member or Partner of the World Economic Forum, the candidate requires the approval of the CEO or Chairman of the Board of the respective company.
• · Companies, organizations and entities can only nominate one candidate from the qualifying company every two years

Selection: Nominated under the age of 40, Young Global Leaders (YGLs) are proposed through a qualified nomination process and assessed according to rigorous selection criteria that creates a diverse and truly representative body, while accepting only the very best leaders who have already demonstrated their commitment to serving society at large.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• YGLs are fully involved in the Forum’s meetings, initiatives and research and interact with the Forum’s wider multistakeholder community.
• YGLs have a powerful role in determining the community’s activities. They are governed by a foundation board of respected leaders and are managed by a dynamic team of young professionals based in Geneva and China.
• Set up as an independent, not-for-profit foundation under the Swiss government, the Forum of Young Global Leaders is an integral part of the World Economic Forum.

Timeline/Duration of Program: 5 years

• Summer: The World Economic Forum shortlists candidates for further review
• Fall: The shortlisted candidates are reviewed by Heidrick & Struggles, recognised as one of the world’s leading executive search and leadership consulting firms
• Winter: A Selection Committee reviews the top candidates and selects 100 to be honoured as Young Global Leaders
• January of subsequent year: The candidates are informed of their selection as Young Global Leaders*
• March of subsequent year: The press announcement for the new Class of Young Global Leaders is released

How to Apply:  submit nominations 

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: World Economic Forum

Important Notes: Kindly note that self-nominations are not accepted.

UNESCO Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Reporting Fellowship (Funded to Paris, France) 2018

Application Deadline: 28th September 2018 (midnight, Paris time)

Eligible Countries: International. Candidates from low and middle income countries will be preferred

To Be Taken At (Country): One month in Paris, France

About the Award: The Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, formerly known as the Education for All Global Monitoring Report (GMR), is an editorially independent, authoritative, and evidence-based annual report that monitors progress in education in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which have been adopted as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with special focus on SDG 4 on education. Its mandate was established in the Incheon Declaration of the World Education Forum in May 2015. The Education 2030 Framework for Action defined this mandate for the GEM Report as the mechanism “for monitoring and reporting on SDG 4 and on education in the other SDGs” and for reporting “on the implementation of national and international strategies to help hold all relevant partners to account for their commitments”. 

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Applications will be opened to all nationalities, however the selection committee will look favourably at applications from individuals from low and middle income countries.
A successful proposal will

• explain the policy areas of interest, spell out the policy questions to be addressed, and indicate how the research will promote access, equity, inclusion and quality in education systems
• show why GEM Report resources and research areas (thematic or geographic) are particularly well suited to address those questions
• show how the research relates to monitoring issues highlighted in past GEM reports or thematic issues of future GEM reports

Applicants will be required to provide three references to support their application. The final output will be a research report of publishable quality.
The fellowship programme will support individuals who have experience with quantitative research methods, including in the use of large-scale surveys, and a strong policy orientation, seeking to use research findings to inform policy makers and other education stakeholders. Applications are encouraged from a variety of disciplines, including, but not limited to, education, sociology, economics, political science, psychology, demography, statistics, and psychometrics. Applicants may be working at research institutions, universities, government agencies or professional organisations. A Ph.D. and a record of publications in peer-reviewed journals will be an advantage.  A commitment from the applicant to engage with diverse audiences will also be considered positively. Preference will be given to proposals with a clear comparative element.

Selection: Calls for proposals will be issued twice a year and published through all relevant UNESCO and partner networks. Applicants will apply online. The GEM Report team will aim to host an average of three fellows per year in the team.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The GEM Report team will provide:

• A stipend (up to US$25,000) for the duration of the fellowship (up to one year) and full travel costs for at least one month to be spent in Paris for each of the fellows;
• A mentor from the team of GEM Report researchers. The GEM Report staff will allocate 3-5 hours per week to mentor and guide the fellows when they are in residence in Paris, and 2 hours per week while they are based in their home country;
• A desk and computer during their stay at the GEM Report team office, in the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.

Duration of Programme: Each fellowship will last between six months to one year, depending on the work to be carried out, with one month spent in Paris.

How to Apply: Submit applications to: l.loupis@unesco.org
It is important to go through the Application requirements on the Programme Webpage (Link below) before applying.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details 

Flirting With the Fires of Hell

Kenn Orphan

“It is such a supreme folly to believe that nuclear weapons are deadly only if they’re used. The fact that they exist at all, their presence in our lives, will wreak more havoc than we can begin to fathom. Nuclear weapons pervade our thinking. Control our behavior. Administer our societies. Inform our dreams. They bury themselves like meat hooks deep in the base of our brains. They are purveyors of madness. They are the ultimate colonizer. Whiter than any white man that ever lived. The very heart of whiteness.”

– Arundhati Roy

With tensions rising around the world thanks to Donald Trump’s escalation of militarism against Iran and Venezuela there are some who have raised the alarm over a coming nuclearconfrontation. There is reason to be concerned given that a narcissistic megalomaniac with the moral intelligence of a tsetse fly is seated on the throne of the American Empire.  With one unhinged tweet the world could be plunged into an instant and enduring misery.

Nuclear weapons are the most totally destructive weapon ever conceived.   Even now, years after the Cold War ended, they continue to menace our world with irreversible and utter devastation. But on the anniversary of the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it is worth remembering that there has been only one nation on the planet which used these weapons on civilian populations, incinerating thousands of civilians in a micro-second and killing nearly 150,000 innocent women, children and men. The heat of those bombs was so intense that it burned the image of some of its victims onto the pavement of the cities. The United States detonated these monstrous behemoths in spite of convincing evidence that Japan, already in ruins, was on the brink of surrender.  Borrowing tactics from other imperial entities in history, it was most likely an effort to send a message of dominance to another rising power, Soviet Russia.

Of course at its heart the nature of empire is to see itself and its actions as nothing but noble.  Edward Said observed: “Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.”  Said understood that the role of these myths were to obscure its supremacist character.  Its atrocities can always be justified via empty slogans like “freedom” and “democracy,” or the lie of “humanitarian military intervention.”   The disease of nationalism convinces the public of its virtuous intentions.  And “the nationalist”, as George Orwell noted: “not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.”

In the years following the Second World War the United States launched an aggressive assault on the Korean peninsula completely leveling Pyongyang in a war that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly civilians.  The growing American super power also tested its nukes out on the once pristine Marshall Islands and its indigenous population in the Pacific, forever poisoning the land and causing untold misery for generations.  It exposed its ownsoldiers and citizens to the detrimental effects of radiation from nuclear tests in the Nevada desert from 1951 and 1957.  It dropped napalm and Agent Orange on Southeast Asia, and carpet bombed entire swaths of the earth.  During the Gulf War in the 1990s the US exposed hundreds of thousands of soldiers to nerve gas which continues to cause suffering today.  More recently the Pentagon has admitted that it used depleted uranium in Iraq and Syria, causing horrific birth defects and cancer outbreaks primarily in infants and children. It committed all of these crimes with the noblest of intentions, or so we have been told.

Of course the United States is not the only nation to have committed large scale, horrific atrocities.Imperial Japan was brutal and ruthless. Nazi Germany was a genocidal monster. Stalinist Russia had its own brand of cruel repression and mass murder, and the history of European colonialism is drenched in the blood of millions. Indeed, small nations too have committed barbarous acts of savagery often with the blessing of super powers like the US, Europe, China and Russia.

But in terms of global militarism, it is the American Empire which has been arguably the most aggressive on a global scale with nearly 800 military bases in over 70 countries. And today it is at the forefront of leading the world toward nuclear war. Indeed, under Obama and Trump it has excelled when it comes to nuclear proliferation in the first half of the 21st century. It justifies all of this with the same old canards about the need for an effective deterrence against the threat of “rogue states” or terrorism.  But to accept this line of thinking is deny these documented crimes of Empire, and to deny that war itself is terrorism with nuclear bombs as its supreme expression.

It has been over seventy since those bombings in Japan. Over seventy years of forgetting the horror. Over seventy years of normalizing the inhumanity. Over seventy years of nation states, big and small, creating and using newer, more fearsome, more cruel and more totally annihilating weapons of mass destruction, with the most powerful one of all leading the pack in this mad journey toward oblivion. But in those seventy plus years very little has been learned from those hateful skies about building a just and peaceful world, or from the shadows of human ghosts cast from them onto the unforgiving pavement. Their shadows are a haunting reminder to all of us of the fragility of all life. And as the Empire flirts with the fires of hell once again, may those ghosts bestow on us an undeserved mercy to spare us a similar fate.

Unreal India

Aditi Munot

A friend forwarded a test by politicalcompass.org on WhatsApp the other day. It was a very interesting test, which plotted an individual’s social and economic leanings. I was very intrigued by it, and I forwarded the same to my various WhatsApp groups requesting people to share their responses.

The results were very fascinating. Most people fell into the same quadrant while the remaining few were borderline or marginally away from that quadrant. The majority were quite libertarian on the social front and close to the centre between left and right on the economic front.

I had forwarded this test to various groups comprising of different age groups. In spite of that there was not much of a variation in the results. I was impressed. So many different people thought alike. Today’s India, or at least urban India appeared to be a liberal and fair society. We were progressing as a nation. And even though there were reports suggesting we had fallen on the democracy index or it felt like right wingism and intolerance had increased in the past few years, that was not really the case.

Then I thought again. Who were these people I had forwarded the test to? They were my friends and relatives with similar family and economic backgrounds, education, travel habits, reading choices and general exposure. It was but natural for all of us to have similar social and economic leanings. Most of us had attended similar schools and colleges and had completed graduation or post graduation. Many of us travelled often in India and abroad. A majority of people enjoyed reading and read books by similar authors and watched the same shows. We all lived in cities and in most cases our parents were educated too. Our parents had chosen to have one or two children and had provided well for us.

Economically, we all belonged to secure backgrounds. Most of us owned more than one house. Every family had more than one car, a two-wheeler. Every adult had a mobile phone plus laptop. We lived in a world of flowing water 24/7 on a tap, continuous electricity and internet, malls and flyovers, airports and escalators, restaurants and lounges. Was this the real India? I was interacting with and talking to only the top 1% of the Indian population!!

According to a research by Credit Suisse, to be counted among the richest 1% of the Indian population in 2016, one required assets of just $32892. Less than 23 lacs!! Even if I choose to deny this figure and double it, it is 50 lacs. So basically, everyone who owns a 2/3 BHK house and has some money in the bank in the top 10 cities of India falls in this category.

My entire life I have associated with only these people. And for everything my world-view is constrained by and limited upto only this 1%. My thoughts and views, ideas and ideologies bear no resemblance to the rest of India in reality.

These figures are not new to me, but I guess I was in denial. Looking at these facts and figures with a fresh pair of eyes shook me. The economic, racial, health, and social disparity was staring me in my face. I could no longer put these facts under the carpet. My way of life is not the reality for 99% of my fellow countrymen! In fact, my circumstances and lifestyle,  are not true for 90% of the world population! And the same applies to almost everybody I know.

Forget being close, what we think and feel is not even in the vicinity of what concerns the majority of the population of this country. Our liberal and fair mindsets make no sense to the people who are fighting every single day for clean water, basic education and sanitation. Most people do not have the luxury or exposure to think, but just follow the most convenient and commonly held belief. They cannot afford to sway from the norms, the teachings, or the most prevalent school of thought on any matter. They do not have the time to be liberal. They do not talk about fairness and justness, because life has shown them nothing is fair or just.

The comfort zone we come from, permits us the liberty to think in the utopian way we do. For how long can I and people like me turn a blind eye to these harsh disparities? Till when are we going to sit in our drawing rooms having these dispassionate discourses? All we do is sit on the armchair with a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and discuss these illusions about society, economy, freedom, individual choice, equality, etc. Were we to be faced with harsh circumstances, how would we react and behave inspite of all our learning and exposure?

Our view of India and the rest of the world seems like just a figment of our imagination when applied on a broader perspective. Honestly speaking, our current world-view is far from real.

Indian government threatens to end citizenship for millions of Assam residents

Rohantha De Silva

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government is threatening to eliminate the citizenship rights of millions of residents in the north-eastern state of Assam. The anti-democratic attack is in line with the BJP’s communalist program.

Over 32 million people in Assam recently submitted documents to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) as required under the Assam Accord rules. When the NRC figures were released on July 30, over 4 million residents had been removed from the official list. The figure was confirmed by India’s Registrar General and Census Commissioner Shri Sailesh.

The Assam Accord was signed 33 years ago in 1985 by then Indian Prime Minister and Congress Party leader Rajiv Gandhi. It followed lengthy negotiations with the anti-immigrant All Assam Students Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP).

AASU and AAGSP had conducted six years of violent protests, known as the Assam Agitation, against so-called “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh, which shares a 4,096 km border with the Indian state. Migrants were accused of “plundering resources” and “taking jobs” from Assam residents. Over 1,800 people, mainly poor Muslim immigrants were killed in violent racialist attacks by chauvinist mobs.

Under the Assam Accord, only those able to provide documents proving that they or their families had lived in India before March 24, 1971—the year that neighbouring Bangladesh declared independence—are recognised as Assam citizens. Anyone entering the state after that date is classified as a foreigner.

While Assam is rich in natural resources—minerals, petroleum and forestry—poverty and unemployment is widespread as the Indian and local elites have siphoned off much of the wealth of the state. Under these conditions, the BJP and other communal organisations have whipped up anti-immigrant attacks to divide working people. Considerable state resources, including over 100,000 government personnel, were allocated to the disenfranchisement project.

Widespread anger and concern engulfed Assam when the NRC list was published last month with tens of thousands of villagers rushing to government centres and Internet booths to get their documents verified.

The NRC figures were uploaded to a government website but many in remote areas do not have access to the Internet and were forced to travel to government offices and booths to determine their citizenship status. Fearing the eruption of anti-government protests, soldiers were mobilised to guard these facilities.

While bureaucratic bungling saw the exclusion of some hereditary Hindus and other long-standing Assam residents, those eliminated from the NRC lists are mainly Muslims. Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh claimed the registration process was impartial but the BJP is whipping up Hindu chauvinism, not just in Assam state, where it also holds power, but throughout India.

During the 2014 general election campaign, Narendra Modi—the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate—promised to deport “Bangladeshis” from India. “You can write it down,” he told an April campaign meeting. “After May 16 [polling day], these Bangladeshis better be prepared with their bags packed.”

After coming to power, the BJP boosted the country’s anti-immigrant infrastructure and introduced the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, to grant automatic citizenship to Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh. The legislation is pending in the Indian parliament.

Attempting to calm the tense political situation in Assam, the Indian government declared that names can be resubmitted with documents between August 30 and September 28 or appeals made to a so-called foreigners’ tribunal.

Indian Home Minister Singh told the media that there was no need for anxiety or fear and that “those whose names are missing can re-submit their papers.” Registrar General and Census Commissioner Sailesh said, “There is no question of anyone being taken to detention centres or foreigners’ tribunals.”

Such reassurances are worthless. Assam residents have no idea what will happen and, according to quint.com, there are already over 2,000 people at six state detention centres.

Will those excluded from the NRC list be deported from India? Will they have any political rights in India? Can they remain in the places they currently live or will they be incarcerated in immigration concentration camps? All these questions hang over the heads of four million people in Assam.

Nur Banu, a 45-year-old woman from Darrang district, said: “Although we have been told that we can apply once again to get our names enlisted in the citizenship list, we are worried about our future.” All six members of her family were missing from the list.

The opposition Congress party is attempting to exploit the fears of Assam’s Muslim minority. Assam state leader of Congress Ripun Bora cynically declared that the BJP was “trying to isolate Muslims” and “we are going to fight it out.”

In fact, the reactionary 1985 Assam Accord, which agreed to disenfranchise so-called “illegal” immigrants, was negotiated and signed by Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress government.

The Accord and the NRC procedures, which constitute a fundamental attack on the democratic rights of millions of Assam residents, further underscores the thoroughly reactionary character of the 1947 partition which divided the Indian subcontinent along communal lines. The partition was developed by the departing British imperialist rulers with the active support of the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, and endorsed by the Stalinist Communist Party of India.

All these organisations bear political responsibility for the social and political crimes that still persist in both countries. The unresolved tasks of the democratic revolution that lie at the root of the communal carnages in India can only be addressed by the working class rallying the oppressed masses on the basis of a revolutionary socialist and internationalist program to put an end to the capitalist system and establish the United Socialist States of South Asia.

PayPal closes pro-Palestinian group’s account in collusion with Israeli government

Jean Shaoul 

PayPal has closed the account of the French web site Agence Media Palestine in response to a global campaign by Israel to organise a crackdown on Palestinian supporters and critics of Israel, using fabricated claims of anti-Semitism.

The closure of the account by the American payment-processing corporation poses difficulties for Palestinians and Palestinian journalists, as there are few other international payment mechanisms. It marks a dangerous new stage in the ongoing campaign to isolate the Palestinians, criminalise political expression and censor freedom of speech on the Internet.

Agence Media Palestine, a Palestine solidarity organisation, publishes articles on Palestine in French, translating many from sources published elsewhere. It lists as its supporters prominent figures in France, such as the late author and concentration camp survivor Stéphane Hessel, Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan and human rights activist Mireille Fanon-Mendès France.

Within hours of Agence Media Palestine receiving notification from PayPal that it had closed its account, without citing any reason or violations of the terms of agreement, the web site received an email from Benjamin Weinthal, saying, “Your organisation lists PayPal as a donation method, but the payment is blocked.”

He asked, “Did PayPal close your account? If so, what was the reason for the closure?”

“Is your account in violation of France’s anti-discrimination law?”

Weinthal was gloating. He is a Berlin-based journalist and research fellow for the American neo-conservative group, the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD). The FDD works closely with the Israeli government and has sought to discredit the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights by linking it with terrorism, Hamas and Iran. The Jerusalem Post, along with a host of right-wing media organisations, regularly publish his articles.

According to the Electronic Intifada web site, Weinthal described the smear tactics he uses to engineer crackdowns on individuals and organisations that he claims are anti-Semitic because of their criticisms of Israel at a meeting of Israel lobbyists in Europe in 2016.

Outlining a playbook that will be familiar to the thousands of workers and young people in the UK now seeing Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn slandered, he said, “You have to exaggerate to get these ideas across, because they don’t understand what contemporary anti-Semitism is, many of them.”

He admitted to using smear tactics as an essential component of his work and boasted of getting the journalists Max Blumenthal and David Sheen banned from the German parliament in 2014. He explained how he had compared Blumenthal, who is Jewish, to Horst Mahler, a former left-wing activist who became a Nazi.

Weinthal also described how he had tried to put pressure on PayPal and banks to close the accounts of human rights and civil society groups, focusing on groups across France, Germany and Austria.

The FDD functions as a front for the Israeli government, as Sima Vaknin-Gil, Israel’s director-general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, admitted.

Speaking on an Al-Jazeera undercover investigation into the Israel lobby in the US that has yet to be aired--due to pressure by Israel on the Qatari government which funds the news channel--Vaknin-Gil stated that the FDD was “working on” projects for Israel including “data gathering, information analysis, working on activist organisations, money trail.”

“We have FDD,” and “We have others working on this.”

According to the documentary, the FDD operates as an agent of the Israeli government, despite not being registered as such in accordance with US law.

The day after PayPal closed Agence Media Palestine’s account, Weinthal authored an article falsely claiming that organisations supporting the BDS campaign are “in violation of the Lellouche Law, which makes it illegal to target Israelis based on their national origin.” This is the same claim he used in January after PayPal closed the account of another campaign group, Association France Palestine Solidarité.

Agence Media Palestine accused Paypal of an “arbitrary act,” saying it was impossible to “ignore the links between PayPal and the extreme right-wing propagandist Benjamin Weinthal.”

It added that unless PayPal justified its action, it “reserves the right to take legal action.”

The web site said that it might launch an “information campaign about this discriminatory act for the benefit of a state that has just passed an apartheid law,” a reference to Israel’s recent nation-state law that privileges the rights of Jews above Israel’s other citizens.

PayPal has yet to reply substantively to Agence Media Palestine ’s letters.

PayPal processes more than $300 million in sales transactions every day, around 18 percent of the world’s e-commerce sales, and has a market capitalisation of some $100 billion. It has a long record of using its position to conduct political censorship on behalf of the US state and its allies.

Recently, the corporate giant blocked sales of the World Socialist Web Sitepamphlet, The Struggle Against Imperialism and for Workers’ Power in Iran.

PayPal, along with MasterCard, VISA, American Express, Western Union and Bank of America, also collaborated with the Obama administration in 2010 by imposing a more than seven-year-long financial blockade on the anti-secrecy organisation WikiLeaks, preventing it from receiving donations.

PayPal has also blocked the sale of publications and the use of its services by organisations linked with Iran, under the pretext of abiding by the US-led sanctions regime, imposed by the US and European powers to cripple Iran’s economy and destabilise its government.

PayPal’s action is part of a broader censorship drive by the US technology and social media giants, including Facebook, Google, Amazon and Twitter, that work closely with US intelligence agencies as well as Israel and its military intelligence organisations. In effect, they have given Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government the power to censor criticism by removing it from the Internet.

Last January, the New York Times confirmed an earlier report from Al-Jazeerathat said, “Israel submitted 158 requests for Facebook over the past few months to remove what Israel deemed as ‘inciting content,’ and the company complied with 95 percent of those requests.”

The Times’s chief White House correspondent Peter Baker wrote, “Israeli security agencies monitor Facebook and send the company posts they consider incitement,” and “Facebook has responded by removing most of them.”

Palestinian and international human rights groups have challenged Facebook over its role in censoring Palestinian voices online and sharing information with the Israeli government, which has arrested hundreds of Palestinians over Facebook posts.

In September 2016, Facebook executives met Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who heads the campaign against the BDS movement, to improve “cooperation against incitement to terror and murder.” Since then, it has worked closely with Israel to silence Palestinian criticism of Israel.

Israel’s Ministry of Justice published a report a year later, stating that its cyber unit handled 2,241 cases of online content and succeeded in getting 70 percent of it removed.

Jordana Cutler, Facebook’s head of policy and communications in Israel, admitted that the social media company works “very closely with the cyber departments in the justice ministry and the police and with other elements in the army and the Shin Bet [Israel’s internal security service].” She was previously a senior adviser to Netanyahu.

Unit 8200, the Israel Defence Forces’ cyber spy agency, monitors social media and other forms of electronic communication. It employs Israeli soldiers and students as well as “scouring Jewish communities abroad for young computer prodigies willing to join its ranks” to spread propaganda online and try to get content inimical to Israeli interests banned. Many such individuals work voluntarily and independently.

In addition, the government funds or sponsors projects that seek to place pro-Israel content throughout the Internet and remove information Israel does not want people to see.

Last December, an Israeli report stated that the Strategic Affairs Ministry had a budget of some $70 million to “stand at the forefront of the battle against delegitimisation, adopting methods from the fields of intelligence and technology.”

German government plans reintroduction of military conscription

Noah Windstein

Germany’s grand coalition government of the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats wants to reintroduce general military conscription. This was reported by various media outlets over the past weekend, including Spiegel Online, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Tagesschau.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party conference in autumn is scheduled to adopt a resolution to reintroduce military service and include this in its joint programme with the Christian Social Union (CSU).

Bundestag (parliamentary) deputy Oswin Veith, who is also president of the Association of Reservists, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that conscription should “last 12 months and apply to young men and women over 18”. Another CDU politician, Patrick Sensburg, announced that in the face of an unstable world situation, compulsory military service “for the very purpose of an army, the defence of one’s own country” was indispensable.

The proposal is also receiving support from the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Parliamentary deputy Fritz Felgentreu expressed the party’s position clearly: “We must conduct a social debate over whether we are presently making the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) as attractive as possible, will we actually reach the numbers of personnel we need for national and alliance defence”.

There is absolute consensus in the grand Coalition over the goal of making the Bundeswehr “attractive”, i.e., powerful.

Some politicians—both in the opposition, as well as in the ranks of the CDU and SPD—have expressed reservations about the reintroduction of compulsory military service. They fear this will damage the building of a professional army, which was introduced seven years ago. Professional soldiers, who serve for several years, are far more effective and less subject to the pressure of public opinion than conscripts who leave after 12 months.

They therefore support the introduction of universal conscription, for men and women, with an option for either military of civilian service. After finishing their school education, adult German citizens should “serve Germany” for 12 months—either with the Bundeswehr or with the Agency for Technical Relief, in the health system, or in old age care.

The obligation to choose between compulsory civilian service and the Bundeswehr would increase the pressure to volunteer for the Bundeswehr and at the same time provide the state with cheap labour in care-giving and other sectors. Young people are to be forced into exploitation in the health sector, or drawn into the German war machine.

However, the introduction of such compulsory service would require a fundamental change in the constitution. The Armed Forces Commissioner, Hans-Peter Bartels (SPD), was skeptical about the legality of the proposal. He told Bild am Sonntag: “That falls under the ban on forced labour”. He considers it “quite unlikely that 700,000 young men and women will be compulsorily conscripted annually for one or other task, however sympathetic the idea may sound”.

The discussion about the reintroduction of conscription fits seamlessly into the right-wing and militaristic course of the grand coalition. Ever since being sworn into office on March 14, the SPD and the CDU have been demonstrating daily that they are pursuing a stubborn agenda of warmongering and great power politics, with the aim of strengthening the interests of German business on a global level.

At the end of July, in an interview with Spiegel, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen revealed the vehemence with which the German bourgeoisie is upgrading its military capabilities. Asked by Spiegel about the relationship with US President Donald Trump, von der Leyen stated, “We Europeans are challenged—in our own best interests, and not to please the US president”.

She expressly supported Trump’s call for higher arms spending: “President Trump demands more effort from all NATO partners—he has a point there. Germany must urgently equip the Bundeswehr better and more completely. That’s why our policy turns of the past few years have been correct, and we have to keep going strong here”.

One searches in vain for any fundamental criticism among the opposition parties. In words that sound remarkably similar to those of von der Leyen’s, the parliamentary leader of the Left Party, Sahra Wagenknecht, recently called for a “self-confident foreign policy”, a strengthening of the “German internal market” and more funding for the police and the judiciary. The Greens, under Anton Hofreiter, also accuse the government of being unable to “equip soldiers with the necessary basic equipment” and to enforce German interests abroad.

The course being followed by the ruling class is unmistakable: at the beginning of July, the Bundestag passed the new budget for the remainder of the calendar year, as well as a financial plan until 2021, which massively increases military and police spending. A further 5.4 billion euros are planned for internal security, as well as an increase in the current military budget of just under 40 billion euros to 42.9 billion euros.

The minister of defence is firmly committed to the NATO goal of investing two percent of Germany’s Gross Domestic Product into the military. While wages are stagnating throughout Germany and there are shortages everywhere in education, social care and social security, the bourgeoisie is pumping huge sums of money into the war machine. Even a German nuclear bomb is now being called for.

In an interview with Der Spiegel, von der Leyen brazenly stated: “There is a good understanding among the population that our security situation is permanently changing. And that’s why we need a Bundeswehr that can act together with our allies. That is now the broad consensus”. That is a lie. If the support for rearmament and war were indeed as great as she claims, there would be no need for the reintroduction of compulsory military service.

On the contrary, the establishment parties are becoming ever more rabid because the international working class is on the rise. Around the world, workers are going on strike and protesting against social cuts and militarization. A majority explicitly opposes the disgusting and inhumane policies of the grand coalition

Just last weekend, massive protests supporting the campaign “sea bridge—create safe harbours!” took place in Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Cologne and Leipzig against the government’s refugee policy, which the CDU and SPD have adopted from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). According to a recent survey by Der Spiegel, 67 percent of Germans clearly disagree with the current shift to the right in politics.

US-China trade war escalates

Nick Beams 

The US-China trade war has gone up a notch with the announcement from Washington that it will go ahead with the imposition of a 25 percent tariff on $16 billion worth of Chinese goods from August 23, to which Beijing has declared it will respond in kind.

This is the final tranche of tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese goods that the Trump administration decided to impose in July, invoking Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. As Beijing has matched Washington’s tariffs, $100 billion worth of trade between the US and China will now be subject to the tariff hike.

The US trade war measures are set to escalate. The administration has threatened to impose tariffs on another $200 billion of Chinese products, possibly by the beginning of September, following public hearings on the proposed measures later this month.

The initial threat was a 10 percent levy but Trump has since directed US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to investigate a 25 percent impost. Trump has also threatened that a further $200 billion could be impacted, which would mean that virtually all Chinese imports to the US would be covered.

Beijing has released an additional list of $60 billion worth of US products it would start taxing if the White House proceeds with the further escalation.

The latest hike follows a series of tweets by Trump last weekend in which he claimed the US was “winning” the trade war against China. He pointed to the fall in Chinse stock markets, down by more than 25 percent so far this year, and the fall in its currency, the yuan.

China responded with an editorial in the state-owned Global Times saying it was prepared for a “protracted war” and did not fear sacrificing its short-term economic interests. “Considering the unreasonable US demands, a trade war is an act that aims to crush China’s economic sovereignty, trying to force China to be a US economic vassal,” it declared.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry responded to the latest US tariffs by releasing the list of goods to be targeted. “In order to defend China’s rightful interests and the multilateral trade system, China has to retaliate as necessary,” it said.

An editorial published by the official Xinhua News Agency on Wednesday stated that China would get through the storm and those imposing the tariffs would end up hurting themselves.

“Some people selfishly swim against the tide and act against morality, wantonly raising the barrier of tariffs and waving the stick of hegemony everywhere,” it said.

While informal discussions are being held, there seems little prospect of top-level negotiations to de-escalate the conflict. This is because the central demand of the US administration is that China must not only reduce its trade deficit with the US, but must also take action to wind back its plan to develop its industrial and technological base under the “Made in China 2025” program.

The US maintains that the Chinese plan involves the appropriation of US intellectual property rights through theft and forced technology transfers. It also claims that state subsidies to Chinese firms give them an unfair advantage in global markets, especially in the key area of hi-tech.

As many commentators and economic historians have pointed out, the Chinese practices are a repeat of many of those used in earlier times by the US and other countries, including Japan and South Korea, as they sought to develop their industrial and technological capacities.

However, key anti-China hawks in the Trump administration, particularly Lighthizer and White House economic adviser Peter Navarro, insist that Chinese efforts to do the same threaten the economic and ultimately the military supremacy of the US and cannot be tolerated.

The view in Beijing is that the US objective is not primarily the reduction of the trade deficit but the subordination of the Chinese economy to the US, turning it into an “economic vassal.”

This assessment was strengthened by the events of last May when Chinese vice premier Liu He came to Washington. He reached an agreement with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to increase Chinse imports from the US by as much as $100 billion and put the trade war “on hold,” only to have the agreement overturned by Trump within a few days.

While Trump is claiming the US is “winning” the trade war because of growing problems in the Chinese economy, the prospect of a significant downturn is striking fear among many countries in South East Asia that are dependent on Chinese markets.

As the South China Morning Post noted in a report on August 4, if China were forced to devalue its currency, “the only reaction in Southeast Asian capitals from Kuala Lumpur to Hanoi, Bangkok and Jakarta will be panic.”

There are vivid memories throughout the region of the impact of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. Its effects were in some cases equivalent to the 1930s Great Depression in the West, and could have been even worse had the Chinese currency been devalued. The outcome of the crisis was a turn by South East Asian nations towards the Chinese economy, on which they have become increasingly dependent.

Concerns are also being raised in South Korea about another aspect of the US trade war—the threat to impose tariffs on cars and auto imports on “national security” grounds, under Section 232 of 1962 legislation. While this tariff threat has been put on hold following talks between Trump and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker last month, it has not be removed.

According to a Wall Street Journal article, if the tariff threat is carried through the South Korean parliament will not ratify the US-Korea trade deal announced earlier this year. Under that agreement the US won major concessions, including allowing it to retain a 25 percent tariff on South Korean trucks and an agreement to cap steel exports at 70 percent on their level over the past three years. South Korean officials have said they have not been able to get a clear commitment from the US on whether their country would be excluded from any US auto tariffs amid warnings that the trade deal will “blow up” if they go ahead.

The potential global impact of the escalating US trade war has been highlighted in a report issued this week by Oxford Economics before the latest measures were announced. It stated that the US-China conflict could reduce world output by 0.7 percent by 2020, with China’s economy slowing by 1.3 percent and the US by 1 percent. It said while there was not yet a major risk of “damaging stagflation”—rising prices and a slowing economy—the prospect remained of a “bigger blow-up” that sharply reduced trade as took place in the 1930s.

Fight back against internet censorship!

Andre Damon

In July 2017, the World Socialist Web Site published an exposure of the fact that changes to Google’s search algorithms had massively slashed traffic to left-wing, anti-war and socialist publications. Over the course of dozens of articles, we established that Google, together with the other technology monopolies, was engaged in a campaign of censorship of oppositional viewpoints, in close collaboration with the US intelligence apparatus.

In the ensuing year, every claim made by the WSWS, initially denied by the technology giants, has been established as fact. Google, Facebook and Twitter have all acknowledged that they have promoted “trusted” news outlets, while restricting the distribution of “alternative” sources of information. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stated that it is promoting publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, while demoting and blocking “sites that have intense followings” but are supposedly “not widely trusted beyond their core audiences.”

Under conditions of growing social and political opposition, censorship is taking ever more overt forms. Just last week, Facebook announced that it had shut down the official event page for a left-wing counter protest to “Unite the Right 2,” a neo-fascist demonstration scheduled in Washington on April 12, the anniversary of last year’s Nazi rally in Charlottesville.

The Washington police plan to escort the fascists to the scene of this weekend’s rally and “protect” them from anti-fascist demonstrators. And the Washington, D.C. transportation authorities had been pushing a plan to provide separate metro cars for fascist demonstrators at the rally, which it only abandoned in the face of mass opposition by transit workers.

Even as the extreme right receives state support and promotion, the major technology companies have begun censoring far-right organizations as a cover for their aim of shutting down left-wing opposition to capitalism, war and inequality.

This week, Apple, Facebook, YouTube and Spotify all removed or blocked the content of far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, censoring his podcasts, videos and livestreams. The companies justified their actions by claiming Jones had violated their policies against “hate speech” and “harassment.”

The actions of these corporations are shot through with hypocrisy and bad faith. Whatever their justification, the fact remains that such censorship is a fundamental violation of the freedom of expression.

Long experience has shown that political censorship by the state and corporations does not harm the fascistic right but strengthens it by burnishing its absurd claims to oppose the state and political establishment. Jones’ censorship by the technology giants has received widespread coverage in all major newspapers and TV networks, which have largely ignored the censorship of left-wing news outlets. The extreme right, moreover, enjoys support at the highest levels of the military, the police and the state.

The censorship of the far right creates a political precedent for censoring left-wing political movements—the main target. It justifies the false moral equivalency between fascism and left-wing opposition to capitalism, claiming that both represent forms of political “extremism.” Such reactionary amalgams are being used throughout Europe and in Australia to implement far-reaching attacks on democratic rights.

The WSWS, which has been a central target of the censorship campaign, has led the fight against the attack on free speech. In a letter to Google published nearly one year ago, the WSWS demanded that Google “stop blacklisting the WSWS and renounce the censorship of all the left-wing, socialist, anti-war and progressive websites.” It added, “Censorship on this scale is political blacklisting. The obvious intent of Google’s censorship algorithm is to block news that your company does not want reported and to suppress opinions with which you do not agree.”

In January, we issued an open letter calling for “socialist, anti-war, left-wing and progressive websites, organizations and activists,” to join “an international coalition to fight Internet censorship.”

This appeal received the support of numerous principled journalists, including WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, John Pilger and Chris Hedges, along with thousands of workers and young people. The campaign to censor the Internet is intersecting with the attempt to drive Assange from his forced refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. In June, the Socialist Equality Party in Australia organized a powerful demonstration in defense of Assange, demanding that the Australian government secure his safe return to Australia.

As the technology giants intensify their efforts to censor the Internet, the World Socialist Web Site is expanding and intensifying its campaign against internet censorship on the basis of the demands outlined in the open letter:

* Safeguarding the Internet as a platform for political organization and the free exchange of information, culture and diverse viewpoints, guided by the principle that access to the Internet is a right and must be free and equally available for all.

* Uncompromising insistence on the complete independence of the Internet from control by governments and private corporations.

* Unconditional defense of net neutrality and free, unfettered and equal access to the Internet.

* The banning and illegalization of government and corporate manipulation of search algorithms and procedures, including the use of human evaluators, that restrict and block public visibility of websites.

* Irreconcilable opposition to the use of the Internet and artificial intelligence technologies to carry out surveillance of web users.

* Demanding the end to the persecution of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and the complete restoration of their personal freedom.

* Advocating the transformation of the corporate Internet monopolies into public utilities, under internationally coordinated democratic control, to provide the highest quality service, not private profit.

* The fight against Internet censorship and the defense of democratic rights cannot be conducted through appeals to capitalist governments and the parties and politicians who serve their interests, but only in uncompromising struggle against them. Moreover, this struggle is international in scope and totally opposed to every form and manifestation of national chauvinism, racism and imperialist militarism. Therefore, those who are truly committed to the defense of democratic rights must direct their efforts to the mobilization of the working class of all countries.

In the United States, which is at the center of campaign by the ruling classes of the world to censor the Internet, the Democrats have led the way in channeling the demands of the intelligence agencies for a crackdown on domestic opposition. The Democrats have focused their criticism of the Trump administration not on its fascistic attacks on immigrants, its warmongering, its abolition of net neutrality, or its tax cuts for the wealthy, but on the right-wing, neo-McCarthyite claim that Russia is “sowing divisions.” This campaign is being intensified in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections.

Meanwhile, the array of pseudo-left organizations that operate in the orbit of the Democratic Party, and which represent privileged sections of the middle class, have ignored the censorship drive and covered up its far-reaching implications.

This demonstrates that fight against internet censorship must be rooted in the working class, the vast majority of the population. The defense of free speech online is essential for the working class as it enters into struggle to defend is social rights and oppose inequality, war and the capitalist system.

Trump, Kim, and Denuclearisation

Sandip Kumar Mishra


Almost two months since the Singapore Summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, a sense of disappointment seems to have been gradually building with respect to the possibility of North Korean denuclearisation. Even though North Korea has dismantled its missile launch facilities, handed over the remains of US soldiers who died in the Korean War, among a range of other bilateral exchanges between the US and North Korea, undoubtedly the process has not been moving satisfactorily. Trump openly asks North Korea to fulfill its commitment of complete denuclearisation, while North Korea expects some reciprocity from the US in response to its gestures and actions. 

Actually, it is not publicly known if and what kind of detailed timeline or sequencing were agreed on by the US and North Korea during the Singapore Summit regarding denuclearisation. This makes it difficult to judge if the parties involved are fulfilling their commitments, and whether this is being done fully or partially. Overall, however, despite little public information of the facts, it is important to inject new life into a process that started with high publicity and much fanfare. This is critical to sustain the positive momentum built over the past six months. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited North Korea on 7 July 2018 to bridge the perception gap between the US and North Korea about the present and future outcomes of the process. Kim, however, did not meet him directly, and the North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun described the US attitude as "deeply regrettable" and "gangster-like." This was, in a way, a message to the US and to Trump that North Korea expects more than what the Secretary of State could offer. 

In this milieu, all eyes were on the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meet in Singapore on 4 August 2018, in which foreign ministers of the US, China, South Korea, North Korea and Japan were to participate. It was considered an important opportunity for the US to bilaterally reach out to North Korea as well as put pressure collectively through the ARF. 

However, the outcome has been far from satisfactory. North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho openly complained that the US has not shown willingness for "phased, step-by-step confidence-building measures;" adding that the US seems to be moving "back to the old" approach, which could be "alarming." The North Korean representative also refused to meet both US or South Korean representatives on the sidelines of the ARF meet, and preferred instead to have a long meeting with the Chinese foreign minister. Pompeo attempted damage control by emphasising that the situation is much better than in the recent past, and North Korea has not disputed its commitment to denuclearise.

This is an important juncture in US-North Korean exchanges towards denuclearisation. The US apparently feels that it has done enough by suspending its joint military exercises with South Korea. Similarly, North Korea feels that by destroying its nuclear as well missile sites, handing over three captured US citizens, and transferring the remains of an unknown number of the 7,699 US personnel who were unaccounted for after the Korean War, it has done its bit to demonstrate positive intention. In fact, both parties exaggerate the extent of their actions, and appear dissatisfied with how much the other has moved forward. 

North Korea expects the US to take steps to ease the economic and other sanctions on North Korea, along with a commitment regarding security guarantees to North Korea and the Kim Jong-un regime. Both countries appear to have different perceptions of the future course of the process. The US view is that once 'enough' progress is made in the process of North Korean denuclearisation, the issue of easing sanctions and a security guarantee will be taken up. However, North Korea feels that both parties must move simultaneously. Pyongyang is of the view that by being less critical of the US in North Korean media, and through several other overtures, it has moved 'enough' to expect reciprocity for the US. The ARF meeting in Singapore further showed this mismatch in perceptions, and bilaterally, not enough rapprochement was articulated in that time. Collectively, also, although the ARF chair's statement mentioned the complete denuclearisation of North Korea, it avoided using the term, 'complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation (CVID)'. It also appealed to all the concerned parties "to continue working towards the realisation of lasting peace and stability on a denuclearised Korean Peninsula."

Now, the next source of hope is speculation regarding the possibility of a second Trump-Kim summit meet in September 2018. With a widening perception gap, it is important for the two leaders to make another important attempt to resolve the issue. It is hoped that they are able to achieve some modicum of success should a second summit take place. 

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Writing Competition 2018

Application Deadline: 1st December 2018

Eligible Countries: Arabic speaking States

About the Award:

Theme: The missing 
Every year, countless people go missing as a result of armed conflicts, other situations of violence, natural disasters, and migration flows.Families of the missing suffer anguish and make desperate attempts in the hopes of finding their loved ones. International humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) uphold the right of families to know the fate and whereabouts of their missing relatives. States have to make every effort to prevent people from disappearing, to search for missing persons and to deal with the consequences related to such events.
The article could focus on:
• An overview of the legal framework
• Examining the needs of families of the Missing
– Legal, economic, administrative and psychosocial needs
– Justice and public acknowledgement: the importance of accountability
• Recent developments in the humanitarian response
• Psycho-social support for the missing
• National mechanisms for addressing the issue of the missing/the disappeared

Type: Contest

Eligibility: The article should be written in Arabic.

Guidelines:


I. Preparation of Manuscripts
Manuscripts should be submitted in Word format in 12 pt Times New Roman font with 1.5 line spacing (including for the footnotes).
. Length: Manuscripts submitted should be approximately 10,000 words, footnotes included.
. Abstract: All manuscripts should be accompanied by a short abstract (less than 100 words) summarizing the main content/argument of the article.
. Keywords: A few keywords should be identified for easy web search and referencing
. CV: All manuscripts should be accompanied by a short biography (one or two sentences per author) describing the current function/affiliation of the author..
. Highlighting: No highlighting (bold, italics, underlined) should be used within the text body, except for italics for foreign language terms: e.g. a limine. Foreign organisations should not be set in italics.
. Headings: Please do not use more than 3 different levels of headings
o Title Level 1
o Title Level 2
o Title Level 3

II. Internet References:
. For references available on the internet please indicate “available at:” followed by the full website link.
. The first internet reference should indicate the date of the last visit for all subsequent references.
Example: …, available at: www.icrc.org/eng/resources/international-review/index.jsp (all internet references were accessed in March 2014).
III. The editorial basics
. Rules of punctuation common in most of the Arabic countries have to be respected.
. Dates: Use the following style: 1 February 1989.
.Numerals: We use Arabic numbers not Hindi. Numerals below 100 should be spelt out, except for ages, which should always been given in digits.

Value of Award: The ICRC has the honor to offer 3 levels of awards:

• The First place winner will receive a certificate and 1500 USD. In addition the article will be considered for publication by the ICRC
• The second place winner will receive Certificate and 1000 USD
• The third place winner will receive Certificate and 750 USD

How to Apply: You are requested to send your article to iaboloyoun@icrc.org before 1st of December 2018.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Providers: ICRC