Hundreds of peaceful climate change protesters arrested in UK

Paul Mitchell

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

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

Oxford Circus brought to a standstill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Police manhandle protestor

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

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

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

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

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

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

Protestor being handcuffed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Canada’s Liberal government attacks refugee rights

Laurent Lafrance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why Nuclear Doctrinal Stasis is Not a Bad Idea

Vijay Shankar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Application Deadline: 3rd May 2019

Eligible Countries: Any

To be taken at (country): London UK

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


Type: Conference

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

Selection Criteria: 

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

Number of Awards: 15

Value of Award:

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

Duration of Award: 20 – 25th October 2019

How to Apply: Apply

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

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

Application Deadline: Ongoing

Eligible Countries: Scholarships available for residents African Countries.

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

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

Type: Training

Eligibility: To receive one of these scholarships, you

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

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

Value of Award:

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

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

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

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

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

Offered annually? Yes

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

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

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

• Public Policy
• Economics and Business
• International Studies

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

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

Type: Masters Degree

Offered Since: 2015

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

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

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

Value of Scholarship: 

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

Duration of Scholarship: 1 year

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


Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

It Is Time To Take Guesswork Out Of Policies For The Poor

Moin Qazi

India has long been a testing ground for several western products, particularly in agriculture and medicine—making the most of loose regulations and genetic diversity of a huge population. It is done to help cut research costs dramatically for lucrative products to be sold in the West. The relationship is highly exploitative and many believe it represents a new colonialism.

Encouraging vulnerable and poor people to take risks raises ethical questions. This is really tragic because it is they, and not the outsider, who have to pay the price of failure. A painstaking reflection of such interventions needs to be demanded. New agricultural practices are being propagated with enticements of extravagant promises. By manipulating the choices of consumers at the low-income pyramid, they are being disempowered. The damage to the economy and ecology of these already fragile societies is now starkly visible. The cost of bearing the failure of these experiments can be significantly high for those who, apart from coping with harmful effects, also face the opportunity cost of setting them right.

In their book Poor Economics, development economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee list hundreds of “common sense” development projects—crop insurance, food aid, microcredit—that either don’t help poor people or make them poorer. Many of the serious problems of farmers and the rural poor are largely a result of our misguided projects that have severely impaired the local ecology, leading to soil degradation, acute shortage of water, and resistant pests. Monsanto’s hybrid seeds are just one of many such cases. All these have been responsible for so called “afterthoughtish poverty”. Moreover such interventions encourage “social Darwinism”.

It is true that social impact and life-improving technologies –mobile phones and internet, high yielding seed varieties, modern drip irrigation, and low-cost solar-energy grids – have enormous potential to promote human well-being in ways that simply were not possible a few years ago. They provide abundant affordable products like solar lanterns, non-electric water filters, and smoke-reducing stoves, but often the greater challenge is servicing them in a systematic and scalable way. Solar lights are pretty cool little gadgets. Once charged using a small solar panel they provide a good source of light and can be used to recharge   cell phones .The lights mean much more in rural villages without electrical service. They mean children can see to do their homework after dark. They are ideal substitutes for kerosene lamps which pose serious health, safety, and environmental hazards with their smoky fires.

There could be a rock-star engineer from a top university who might have invented the sexiest gadget for use in villages. However, villages don’t have ecosystems for immediate local servicing of failed products. For a rural customer, a broken product is highly   when no comes to replace or help with it. The technology providers can denitrify trusted and respected people in each village, perhaps a school teacher, and persuades them to become   agents.  The must be given substantial training. They can learn how to help buyers set up and service the technology. .meanwhile they can also get income which renews the local economy

Jatropha cultivation was the new bandwagon wherein the Cinderella plant was promised to deliver gold out of barren lands. An entire generation of development literature proliferated with tall promises of wealth out of waste. Today it has become   discredited and in areas like Chhattisgarh, there has been a huge backlash from the tribals who feel they have been cheated and their habitat has surfed damage.  The loss is in terms of “ecosystem service value”—the economic value derived from agricultural products, fresh water, clean air, and fertile soils. It has also jeopardized the livelihoods of millions of tribals who depend on forests and natural resources.

A similar monumental failure of alternative energy model was the disastrous end to the National Biogas Plan of India. In what was termed a revolutionary idea that would transform India’s hinterland, huge targets were allocated for the installation of biogas plants and soft loans were doled out like hot snacks. No effort was made to train masons or create a pool of service agents to ensure proper construction and maintenance. The entire program proved to be a financial tsunami for poor villagers who were left with a legacy of unpaid loans and branded as defaulters.

The loans were written off, but in accordance with the banking norms, the borrowers were no longer entitled to any new loans as they fell into the category of defaulters. They had to pay the penalty for the over-enthusiasm of the staff of development machinery whose promotions were directly linked to the achievement of targets. The National Biogas Plan is the most glaring example of how a top-down approach can play havoc with the life of people whose lot it proposes to improve.

I remember a village called Visakha in remote Gadchiroli district where all households falling within an eponymous Gram Panchayat (comprising about 5 villages) were covered under the programme. There was a recommendation at our zonal headquarter in Nagpur that the concerned development officer should be publicly felicitated. The proposal was almost carried through when a senior officer with vast experience in grassroots programmes strongly insisted that all such recognitions must wait for two years so that a dispassionate evaluation is possible. And after two years, the ghost of National biogas plan was haunting the villages like the spectre of drought that sucked hundreds of farmers in its vortex of mass suicides.

In one of the banks in Chandrapur, hundreds of loans were written off as if a mountain of rotten potatoes was ploughed just to clean the balance sheet and get rid of the toxic assets. In chasing targets, the quality of lending was completely undermined. Working for the poor does not mean indiscriminately thrusting money down their throats. Unfortunately, the world’s largest poverty alleviatiion programme—the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) did precisely that. The abiding legacy of the programme for India’s poor has been that millions have become bank defaulters for no fault of their own. Today, they find it impossible to rejoin the formal credit sector.

A borrower who has defaulted on a loan becomes financially untouchable to the bank. The ripple effect of the default status is still worse. Apart from the borrower, the entire family is deprived of the chance of accessing the formal financial system. Some banks have stretched the definition to include families of those who had stood as a guarantor for the defaulting borrowers.The word “default” is a highly disputed term in the banking lexicon. Even the distinction between a willful defaulter and a bonafide defaulter is so blurred that the banks can use their interpretative acumen to use the way it suits them.

Since the participants in these experiments are often poor, ill-educated and unable to read and write, they have little possibility of redress. Development experts must have the humility to accept a fault when it becomes convincingly clear that the logic behind a particular strategy is flawed; unreasonable risk in innovation can sometimes have serious consequences for the poor. Poor households live by the edge; they do not have financial surpluses to experiment with any new programme or innovation. They are a good subject for donor-funded research studies; development practitioners should exercise great caution in introducing and marketing financial services or agricultural inputs for this class. We must realise that the poor have already paid a great price for development projects. What has been done cannot be undone. The Monsanto evolution has been cited by many experts as the prime driver of farmer suicides.

When conventional wisdom fails and its predictions turn out to be ridiculous and when hopes become cruel illusions, respectable people do not, as a rule, hold up their hands and admit their mistakes. They cannot accept a loss of face and the subsequent denudation of their privileged positions. However, the point to bear in mind is the nature of the beast. Even the most meticulous and conscientious managers will make mistakes. No one is error-proof. In case of the bonafide bloomer, big or small, we must be open. The first instinct of managers is to try and cover up, pretend it never happened and hope it will go undetected if you have made a mistake, acknowledge it. However, if you are defiant and unapologetic, you are in big trouble. Remember credibility is like virginity; it can be lost only once.

The key development issue cannot be pinned down to just a singularity .Lack of adequate food, housing, basic education, primary health care and access to finance and insurance are all inter-related. The focus has to be on addressing these fundamental problems as a composite one, where all the issues are simultaneously tackled. For example, abundant evidence suggests that education can be transformative in a poor country, so donors often pay for schools. But building a school is expensive and can line the pockets of corrupt officials.   The big truancy problem in poor countries typically involves not students but teachers. I remember one rural school where the teachers appeared only once or twice a month to administer standardized tests. To make sure that the students didn’t do embarrassingly badly on those exams, the teachers wrote all the answers on the blackboard. The critics can cite similar unexpected difficulties in almost every nook of the aid universe.

Programmes can have better outcomes when issues and problems are identified by the participants. Though well thought, externally introduced projects can help development; they cannot be sustained in the absence of   active involvement of people whose problems are being addressed. Instead of trying to sell their ideas with vacuous phrases, professionals and practitioners would do better to discuss openly about their plans and to listen to the good solutions that ordinary people have. When the community organizes, and identifies needs and collaborates in the formulation of strategies, it becomes the solution. What e need are Intermediate technologies –hybrid of modern technology and local ingenuity.

Although imported programmes have the benefit of supplying ‘pre-tested’ models, they are inherently risky because they may not take root in the local culture when transplanted. Home-grown models have greater chances of success. The   millions of households who constitute the rural poor are a potential source of great knowledge and creativity who, under present institutional, cultural and policy conditions, must seek first and foremost their own survival. Their poverty deprives not only them but also the rest of us of the greater value they could produce if only they were empowered and equipped with the right tools.

Factors influencing voters

Sheshu Babu

As election schedule has started, debates on victories and losses of political parties has picked up momentum. Among the factors which are responsible for outcome, the role of various lucrative offers to people is a topic of intense analysis by media and elite intellectuals.

Common knowledge

It is an open secret that huge amount of cash and liquor is distributed specially to the poor masses in villages and towns. Mainstream media and newspapers occasionally report politicians distributing cash and bottles and some of these seized by police.

A nationwide survey involving more than 2.7 lakh people revealed that for 41.34% of respondents, distribution of cash, liquor and freebies was an important factor behind voting a particular candidate in an election according to Association for Democratic Reforms. (Liquor, cash, freebies swing votes: ADR Survey ,updated March 25 2019, thehindu.com). Though 97.86% interviewees felt that candidates with criminal background should not be in Parliament or State Assembly, 35.89% were willing to vote for a candidate with criminal records if the candidate had done good work in the past. The survey has indicated that better job opportunities and healthcare remain among top priorities of voters.

Some causes

Despite many people against unethical deed of politicians, almost every election season sees large – scale distribution of money and material. Why? One explanation may be that the targeted people are mostly marginalized sections of society especially dalits, adivasis or minorities who live in poverty throughout their lives and when they are offered such things of temporary comfort, they try to accept so that they may have at least ‘royal’ life for some time. Temporary sentiment plays a vital role in decisions. The masses do not generally think of long- term effects of voting. They are mainly concerned with their day-to-day life and ways to earn their bread to satisfy hunger of their families.

Factors like age, social class and gender also determine voting pattern. According to market research firm Ipsos MORI, (UK) , voters in social classes D/E are more likely to vote Labour, eg in 2017 general elections, 47% of D/E classes chose Labour. (Factors influencing voting behaviour, Part of Modern Studies /Democracy in Scotland and the UK, www.bbc.com). Voters in social classes A/B chose Conservatives. One reason is the historic difference in policies. Similarly, in India, partes like BSP have more voters of dalit sections whereas BJp draws support by wooing upper castes.

Another reason influencing voters relates to region- specific problems. The rise of TRS in Telengana or Asom Gana Parishad in Assam is an example of peoples’ aspirations in particular regions.

Also, quality of leadership influences many voters. Reasons may include communicative capability, connection with grass-root people and confidence on leaders.

Problem with system

It is easy to blame poor people for casting vote on the basis of appeasement. But root cause should be analysed. Major problem is with the system which thrives on corruption and influencing poverty – stricken masses by distributing sops and alluring them with abnormal dreams of future.

As long as money and physical material play crucial role in the daily lives of poor, leaders have fair chances of intimidating and duping them and coming to power through devious means. That is why, eventhough a party or a coalition wins an election, protests, dissent and agitations continue to rock the nation as scores of people come out against anti- people policies. Present system reflects will of the people only to some extent. There are many people who do not vote or vote NOTA expressing their dissatisfaction with parties and leaders. Every ruling party claims that it has won through thumping majority but in reality, it has only about one- third of votes in favour.

Hence rather than casting aspersions on the poor for the state of polity, an alternative effective and efficient system must be developed which reflects true picture of peoples’will and eliminates corrupt practices including cash, liquor, sops or freebies distribution to garner votes. This system has not entirely succeeded in genuine electoral process. The on-going imbroglio on EVMs is an illustration of possible manipulations of presenting majority in favour of particular parties or groups .

A better system is essential for clean and corruption – free governance and where masses are not influenced by temporary sops and freebies suffering long – term losses electing dictatorial and fascist rulers who give scant respect to their electorate and their aspirations

Eurasia’s Great Game and the Future of the China-Russia Alliance

James M. Dorsey

Addressing last year’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, then US defense secretary Jim Mattis dismissed fears first voiced in 1997 by Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of America’s greatest 20th century strategists who advised US presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter, that long-term US interests would be most threatened by a “grand coalition” of China and Russia “united not by ideology but by complimentary grievances.”

On the contrary, Mr. Mattis suggested. China and Russia have a “natural non-convergence of interests” despite the fact that both countries have defined their relationship as a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” Mr. Mattis argued.

“There may be short-term convergence in the event they want to contradict international tribunals or try muscling their way into certain circumstances but my view — I would not be wasting my time going to Beijing…if I really thought that’s the only option between us and China. What would be the point of it? I’ve got more important things to do,” Mr. Mattis argued.

Mr, Mattis predicted that in the longer term “China has more in common with Pacific Ocean nations and the United States and India than they have in common with Russia.”

Mr. Mattis’ prediction of a US-China-India entente may seem even further away today than it did in Singapore a year ago, but his doubts about the sustainability of the Chinese-Russian alliance are being echoed by Chinese and Russian analysts and developments on the ground.

Shi Ze, a former Chinese diplomat in Moscow who is now a senior fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, a think tank affiliated with the country’s foreign ministry, noted that “China and Russia have different attitudes. Russia wants to break the current international order. Russia thinks it is the victim of the current international system, in which its economy and its society do not develop. But China benefits from the current international system. We want to improve and modify it, not to break it.”

Russian scholar Dmitry Zhelobov recently suggested that there was little confidence to cement the Chinese-Russian alliance. Mr. Zhelobov warned that China was gradually establishing military bases in Central Asia to ensure that neither Russia nor the United States would be able to disrupt Chinese trade with the Middle East and Europe across the Eurasian heartland.

Add to that the fact that Chinese dependence on Russian military technology appears to be diminishing, potentially threatening a key Russian export market.

China in 2017 rolled out its fifth generation Chengdu J-20 fighter that is believed to be technologically superior to Russia’s SU-57E.

Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to signal greater awareness of potentially shifting sands in Central Asia by signing an agreement in March during a visit to Kyrgyzstan to expand by 60 hectares the Kant Air Base 20 kilometres east of the capital Bishkek that is used by the Russian Air Force. Mr. Putin also agreed to pay a higher rent for the base.

He further lavished his Kyrgyz hosts with US$6 billion in deals ranging from power, mineral resources and hydrocarbons to industry and agriculture.

Mr. Putin moreover allocated US$200 million for the upgrading of customs infrastructure and border equipment to put an end to the back-up of dozens of trucks on the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border because Kyrgyzstan has so far been unable to comply with the technical requirements of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

Potential rivalry in Central Asia is not the only thing gnawing at the fundamentals of a Chinese-Russian alliance. So is anti-Chinese sentiment and Russian public suspicion of Chinese intentions and commercial and social practices, already pervasive in the region’s former Soviet republics.

Increasingly, Russian leaders are facing mounting public anger in the Lake Baikal region and the country’s Far East at their alleged connivance in perceived Chinese encroachment on the region’s natural resources, including water.

A petition by prominent Russian show business personalities opposing Chinese plans to build a water bottling plant on the shores of Lake Baikal attracted more than 800,000 signatures, signalling the depth of popular resentment and pitfalls of the Russian alliance with China.

Protests have further erupted in multiple Russian cities against Chinese logging in the country’s Far East that residents and environmentalists charge has spoilt Russian watersheds and is destroying the habitats of the endangered Siberian tiger and Amur leopard. The protesters, who denounced construction of housing for Chinese workers, are demanding a ban on Russian timber exports to China.

Russian fears of Chinese encroachment on its Far East go back to the mid-1800s and prompted Joseph Stalin to deport the region’s Korean and Chinese populations. When Russia and China finally settled a border dispute in 2008 with a transfer of land to China, Russian media raised the spectre of millions of Chinese migrants colonizing Siberia and the Far East.

Popular Russian fears diverge from official thinking that in recent years has discounted the threat of Chinese encroachment given that the trend is for Russians to seek opportunity in China where wages are high rather than the other way round.

The official Russian assessment would counter Mr. Mattis’ thesis and support Mr. Brzezinski’s fears that continue to have a significant following in Washington.

“China and Russia will present a wide variety of economic, political, counterintelligence, military, and diplomatic challenges to the United States and its allies. We anticipate that they will collaborate to counter US objectives, taking advantage of rising doubts in some places about the liberal democratic model,” said Director of National Intelligence Daniel R. Coats in the intelligence community’s 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment report to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The report went on to say that China and Russia were “expanding cooperation with each other and through international bodies to shape global rules and standards to their benefit and present a counterweight to the United States and other Western countries.”

The truth is that the jury is out. There is no shortage of evidence that China and Russia are joining forces in multiple theatres across the globe as well as in multilateral organizations like the United Nations and in Russian and Chinese efforts to drive wedges among Western allies and undermine public confidence in democratic institutions.

The question is how disruptive Chinese-Russian rivalry in Central Asia and mounting Russian public unease with Chinese advances will be and whether that could alter US perceptions of Russia as an enemy rather than an ally.

The odds may well be that China and Russia will prove to be long-term US rivals. However, it may just as well be that their alliance will prove to be more tactical than strategic with the China-Russia relationship resembling US-Chinese ties: cooperation in an environment of divergence rather than convergence.

Said strategist Robert D. Kaplan: The “future has arrived, and it is nothing less than a new cold war.”

Over half of councils in England lose all government funding

Margot Miller

UK local councils face a black hole in funding for essential services covering the financial year 2019/2020. By the end of the year, central government funding to local authorities will have been slashed to just over a fifth of what it was in 2015.

According to the Local Government Association (LGA), central government grants to local councils are being cut by 36 percent, or £1.3 billion, from April, leaving a vast £3.9 billion funding gap. This is estimated to rise to £7.8 billion by 2025.

Councils have lost 77 percent of their funding from central government between 2015/2016 and 2017/18, with which they provide essential services such as education, housing, roads, waste collection, social care for the elderly, disabled, the homeless and children at risk, as well as libraries and art galleries.

In 2015/16, councils received £9.9 billion in Revenue Support Grant (RSG) from central government. In 2019/2020 this will be pared down to £2.2 billion.

These devastating figures give the lie to Prime Minister Theresa May’s declaration at the last October’s Conservative conference that after 10 years “austerity is over.”

Austerity is intensifying. Over the past five years, spending on children at risk from neglect or abuse has been cut by 26 percent. Children’s centres have seen their funding slashed by 42 percent. LGA data shows that one out of every seven old people need help which is not there—an increase of 19 percent since 2015.

In a letter to the government sent in December, 76 council leaders indicated the deficit different services were facing—a £1.5 billion gap in funding for adult social care, £1.1 billion in children’s services, £460 million in public health, and £113 million to alleviate homelessness.

Yet homelessness is rocketing, along with social problems, bound up with increasing poverty and inequality. Ten years ago, only four cities out of 62 spent more than 50 percent of their budget on social care. Today that has risen to half of all councils.

The government’s stated aim is to eliminate central government funding to local authorities completely. Almost half of all councils, (168) will receive no central grant this year—10 times more than in 2017/2018 and three times more than last year.

Councils will have to raise all their finances via the local council tax, and will retain 75 percent of business rates collected. Up to now, while taxes on businesses were collected locally, they made up a national pot and 50 percent was redistributed from the centre back to the localities.

By sleight of hand, the Tory government claims the “core spending power” of local councils will increase by 2.8 percent, or £1.3 billion, this financial year, to an overall £46.4 billion. But “core spending power” is a fantasy figure, based on how local businesses will fare in the uncertain post-Brexit climate—and dependent on council taxes rising by the maximum 3 percent permitted, hitting millions of people.

Hardest hit are the large working-class urban conurbations, where Labour councils have followed the diktat of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and imposed draconian cuts. Since being elected Labour leader nearly four years ago, Corbyn has instructed Labour councils to enforce “legal budgets”—i.e., to impose Tory austerity.

At the end of last year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that “the most deprived fifth of councils” would suffer cuts of “8.6% over the four years to 2019–20, compared to 7.2% for the least deprived fifth of councils.”

The research charity, Centre for Cities, found the poorer Northern English cities were disproportionately affected by austerity, experiencing cuts to spending averaging 20 percent, compared to 9 percent in the wealthier south and east of England.

Seven of the 10 worst hit areas are in the North East, North West and Yorkshire. Nearly three quarters (74 percent) of local government cuts have fallen on cities—translated to £386 per city resident and £172 per head elsewhere.

Two de-industrialised urban centres—Liverpool in Merseyside and Barnsley in South Yorkshire—were singled out as the worst hit by local government cuts. Barnsley suffered a mammoth 40 percent reduction in its finances.

Calculated per resident, Labour-run Liverpool council has seen its budget cut by £816, a percentage reduction of 22 percent from 2009/2010 to 2017/2018. In comparison, the residents of wealthier Oxford saw an increase per head of £115.

Labour-run Birmingham City Council, the UK’s largest local authority, has imposed 12,000 redundancies due to funding cuts of £700 million since 2010. From April, additional cuts of £46 million will be made, rising to £85 million over the next four years.

Labour-run Manchester City Council has lost £324 per resident between 2009/2010 and 2017/2018, and seen a spending decrease of 17 percent—the 10th hardest hit in England. The council has imposed £372 million in cuts since 2010 and agreed a budget for the coming year with a further £15 million in cuts.

Newcastle’s Labour majority-run council in north east England, will have imposed £327 million in cuts since 2010 by 2022. Residents are facing a proposed council tax increase of 3.95 percent.

Working class people in London, already struggling with the higher cost of living and exorbitant rents and house prices, are particularly hard hit by council cuts. Huge cuts have been enforced by Labour controlled boroughs in the capital. Since 2010, Hackney’s grant from central government has almost halved, losing £529 per resident, a cut of £140 million, with a further reduction of £30 million in spending predicted by 2022/2023.

Lambeth lost £238 million in funding since 2010, and cuts have left the council with a shortfall inching towards £50 million—more than their current spend on street cleaning and lighting, collecting the bins, and libraries. Newham lost £91 million for services over the past six years and are anticipating a further £8 million will go by 2019/2020.

In the same period, central government funding to Haringey Borough Council has been slashed by £122 million in real terms. The council is now run by Momentum supporters, the “left” group within Labour that backs Corbyn.

Before Momentum took office, Haringey, under a council run by right-wing Blairites, made 45 percent of its workers redundant and sold off 12 council buildings. This year the Corbyn council is to impose more cuts in a “balanced budget” and, in a measure going even further than the Blairites, will increase council tax for the first time in nine years—to 2.99 percent—with the burden falling disproportionately on the less well off.

The Labour administration in Brighton on England’s south coast is imposing cuts of £14.8 million and a 2.99 percent council tax rise.

Bristol council, covering the largest city in the south west of England, laid off 3,000 employees from 2010 to 2018 and will impose an additional £34.5 million worth of cuts in 2018/2019.

To oppose the decimation of all public services and reverse this onslaught by the ruling elite requires a new way forward. Public sector workers must unite with their brothers and sisters in the private sector, both in Britain and internationally. Central to this fight is the formation of rank-and-file committees in workplaces and local communities independent from and in rebellion against the trade unions who have worked with Labour, Tory and Liberal authorities in imposing social devastation over the last decade.