Russia launches floating nuclear power plant amid new “scramble for the Arctic”

Clara Weiss 

Last Friday, Russia launched a floating nuclear power plant, the Akademik Lomonosov, in the Arctic Sea from its port in Murmansk. The vessel is supposed to bring electric power to settlements and companies that are extracting hydrocarbons and precious stones in the Chukotka area.

The 144-meter (472-feet)-long platform is equipped with two KLT-40 nuclear reactors that are designed to generate power for up to 100,000 people living in the Chukotka region and companies operating there to extract raw material resources. It will first cross some 5,000 kilometers along the Arctic coast to Chukotka, where it will begin pumping out electricity offshore.

The launching of the Akademik Lomonosov platform is part of efforts by the Kremlin to significantly bolster its infrastructure in the region, including by electrifying it, building ports, and further expanding its icebreaker fleet.

It is the first time a floating nuclear power plant has been deployed since the US maintained one in the Panama Canal in the 1960s. Two Chinese state-backed companies are now also pursuing plans for at least 20 floating nuclear plants. American scientists are also reported to be working on similar projects. The Akademik Lomonosov has been criticized as a “floating Chernobyl” by the environmental group Greenpeace—referring to the 1987 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl—and a “nuclear Titanic.”

Fears about a nuclear accident are also running high because the launching of the Akademik Lomonosov comes just weeks after two significant military accidents in the region. In July, a fire on the nuclear submarine Losharik in the Arctic Barents Sea claimed the lives of 14 high-ranking Russian navy officers. A leading navy officer ominously stated at their funeral that they had averted a “planetary catastrophe.”

Then, in August, an accident occurred at a nuclear facility near the northern Russian town of Nyonoksa. Seven people, among them five nuclear scientists, were killed, and radiation that was up to 16 times higher than average was released. The cause for the accident is widely believed to have been a nuclear-powered missile test gone awry. In both cases, the Kremlin was engaged in an attempt to cover up the scale of the accidents.

Doctors at the local Arkhangelsk hospital who treated victims of the Nyonoska accident later told the outlet Meduza, which is close to Russia’s liberal opposition, that none of the medical personnel had been warned that the injured had been exposed to high levels of radiation. Consequently, no security measures by the medical personnel had been taken and both they and other patients in the emergency room had been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. One doctor also reported that files about civilian patients treated at the hospital for injuries they suffered during the explosion were later destroyed. Moreover, reports suggest that four stations in the region measuring radiation were turned off in the immediate wake of the accident.

While the danger of new nuclear accidents is very real, it cannot be understood in isolation from the international nuclear arms race, triggered above all by US imperialism, which has unilaterally withdrawn from the INF treaty, and the escalating military encirclement by the imperialist powers of both Russia and China. The “new scramble for the Arctic” has become an intrinsic component of these developments.

The Arctic is estimated to hold 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil reserves and 30 percent of its natural gas reserves, as well as huge deposits of rare-earth elements and other minerals such as nickel, uranium and diamonds. Climate change has led to a reduction of the Arctic sea ice levels by 40 percent since the late 1970s, making it more likely that significant portions of these resources can become accessible for extraction.

It will also make it possible to establish a direct sea transit route from Europe to Asia. Naval traffic across the Russian Arctic has already increased significantly in recent years. Lastly, the melting ice is set to fuel long-standing, unresolved disputes between the adjacent countries about territorial claims to the Arctic’s land and seas.

Political map of the Arctic (Credit: GRID Arendal)

In recent years, the Arctic has seen the largest military exercises since the end of the Cold War, including one by Russia with up to 70,000 troops in September 2017, and one by NATO in October 2018 that involved 50,000 troops, 20,000 of them from the US.

The Arctic is of central geo-strategic and economic significance to Russia. By virtue of its geography, Russia has a vast border across the Arctic Ocean. Up to two thirds of Russia’s oil and gas reserves are estimated to be located in its Arctic exclusive economic zone. The region, though sparsely populated by only 2 million out of 140 million Russians, accounts for 20 percent of the country’s GDP, which is highly dependent upon the extraction and export of raw materials.

Tongan government threatens to block access to Facebook

Tom Peters

The government of Tonga, an impoverished Pacific archipelago with 110,000 inhabitants, is threatening to block all access to Facebook.

The news website Kaniva Tonga reported on August 10 that Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pōhiva’s government was considering a “temporary” ban after anonymous Facebook users made “vicious allegations of a sexual nature” against King Tupou VI and his daughter Princess Angelika. The statements appeared in the Facebook group Mo’oni mo Totonu (Truth and Right).

Pohiva said a working group was looking into different options and a decision would likely be announced before the end of August. Nothing has yet been confirmed. Facebook officials have made no public statement on this extraordinary, anti-democratic threat.

The aim of such a ban would be to suppress freedom of speech and preempt the anti-government opposition by workers, farmers and young people. There is rising anger over social inequality and the role of the royal family and nobility, who largely control the country’s political system.

Only 17 members of the 26-seat parliament are democratically elected, with the remaining nine chosen by the nobility. The King also controls a Privy Council with powers to veto legislation.

Popular anger towards the royals reportedly flared on social media after the government dropped proposed constitutional reforms. Six pieces of legislation proposed in March would have given the government the power to appoint judges, the police commissioner and the attorney general, who are currently appointed by the Privy Council. The legislation has apparently been withdrawn by Pōhiva’s Democratic Party of the Friendly Islands (DPFI) government after the monarchy and its supporters mobilised against it.

The monarchical system is backed by the churches, business interests, and the regional imperialist powers, Australia and New Zealand, which have great influence over many aspects of the country’s police and judicial system. Neither Wellington nor Canberra has made any statement opposing a ban on Facebook, which is used by tens of thousands of Tongans to share news and communicate with each other.

The Tongan Chamber of Commerce has expressed concern, given the large number of businesses who use Facebook for advertising.

Pohiva has been falsely promoted for years as a champion of democracy, including by the New Zealand and Australian media. However, since being elected first in 2014 then in 2017, his government has enforced the monarchy’s continued domination over political life, while doing nothing to address worsening social inequality.

The royal family and nobility live in luxury while the vast majority of the population is mired in poverty. Youth unemployment is estimated around 40 percent in rural areas and most families rely on subsistence agriculture. Wages are extremely low, while prices for imported goods are high. Matangi Tonga recently reported that a labourer earns just 20.97 pa’anga per day, about US$9.00. Remittances from Tongans living overseas account for 35 percent of gross domestic product, making Tonga extremely vulnerable to global economic downturns and anti-immigrant policies.

Social problems include an explosion in methamphetamine use, particularly among young people. Police reported that more than 260 people were awaiting trial on drugs charges in July, and 28 police officers had been dismissed for involvement in the drugs trade.

The government has responded to the social crisis with undisguised contempt. In June, Pohiva lashed out after questioned about assistance for the poor and unemployed. The Tonga Broadcasting Commission reported he told parliament “the main cause of hardship in Tonga includes slothfulness and dependent lifestyles.”

Journalist Kalafi Moala wrote on August 22 that Pohiva faced criticism for feigning sympathy for climate change victims at the recent Pacific Islands Forum, while ignoring Tongans affected by the February 2018 Cyclone Gita. More than a year later, “damage to school buildings all over the island kingdom has still not been fully repaired.” Some classes are being held in unsanitary conditions in tents, leading to the spread of disease.

The entire ruling elite is supporting the crackdown on Facebook because it fears its austerity policies will lead to an explosion of popular unrest, as is happening internationally. The past year-and-a-half has seen mass protests and struggles of the working class in France, Algeria, Sudan, Puerto Rico and Hong Kong. Last year, Papua New Guinea’s government considered banning Facebook following mass protests against corruption, social inequality and police brutality.

Australian PM calls for new internet censorship measures at G7

Oscar Grenfell 

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison used a trip to the G7 international summit in France over the weekend to aggressively push for an escalation of online censorship, on the pretext of combating “violent” and “extremist” material.

Morrison’s proposals were part of a months-long campaign that his government has waged to exploit the fascist terrorist attack in Christchurch last March to erode online freedom of speech.

While Australia is not a member of the G7, Morrison was invited to attend the summit and took part in a series of sideline meetings, including with US President Donald Trump. Morrison’s performance underscored Australia’s central role as a loyal ally of the US, and an attack dog of its global Five Eyes spying and surveillance network, which has been intimately involved in online censorship.

The centrepiece of Morrison’s intervention was a call for the adoption of an international agreement that would pressure the major social media companies to report on their response to “extremist” and “terrorist” content on their platforms.

According to the Australian Associated Press, this would establish protocols for the social media corporations to regularly issue public reports on “how many attempts there were to upload violent or extremist content, how many the platform stopped before they went up, how many were posted for more than an hour, how many downloads there were, and how the company dealt with the material that was downloaded.”

As in previous calls from the Australian government for more stringent regulations, the terms “violent” and “extremist” are undefined. They could include exposures of police and state violence, footage or images from demonstrations or virtually any controversial political content.

In the wake of the Christchurch attack, senior government ministers warned against “right-wing and left-wing extremism,” signalling that mounting popular opposition to war, social inequality and authoritarianism is a central target of the censorship drive.

While the reporting regime would be voluntary, Australian government representatives said they anticipated that the social media companies would come under “pressure” to comply. Like other measures floated by the Morrison government, this is aimed at compelling the platforms to more aggressively remove content, lest they come under public attack from the authorities.

Significantly, Morrison’s policy has been backed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which announced prior to the G7 that it would provide an unspecified funding package to facilitate its roll-out.

At a one-on-one meeting with Morrison on Sunday, OECD head Angel Gurria reportedly gushed that the Australian prime minister had played the central role in a global crackdown on the internet since the Christchurch attack.

“But then somebody has to lead the charge, to make this have staying power, to make this stick in a way. And that was your role,” Gurria reportedly told Morrison, adding, “What happened then is that the idea caught fire.”

Morrison’s proposals have met with an enthusiastic response, because they dovetail with an attempt by governments throughout Europe and internationally to create a legislative framework for the suppression of political speech on the internet.

In March, the European parliament voted in favour of a directive which, under the guise of copyright reforms, would enforce the use of so-called upload filters in social media. This is aimed at ensuring that all content uploaded to YouTube and other platforms is scanned in advance by powerful computer censorship programs.

Similar measures have been taken by individual European states. In January 2018, the German Network Enforcement Law came into effect, requiring operators of internet platforms with more than two million users to remove or block access to “obviously illegal content within 24 hours of receiving the complaint.”

Last May, French President Emmanuel Macron called an international meeting, along with the New Zealand government, to call for social media corporations to prevent the sharing of “terrorist and violent extremist content.” Macron’s government has also been implicated in attempts to censor social media associated with mass “Yellow Vests” protests against social inequality and austerity.

The US announces provocative arms sale to Taiwan

Peter Symonds

The Trump administration has announced this month the largest and most significant arms sale to Taiwan in decades—66 advanced F-16 Viper fighters worth $8 billion. The provocative move takes place as the White House has stepped up its confrontation with China across the board—diplomatically, economically and militarily.

The sale of the F-16V warplanes will significantly strengthen the Taiwanese air force. Its advanced radar and avionics make it compatible with the F-35 stealth fighters that are operated by the US Air Force, Navy and Marines. The F-16Vs, which are expected to replace Taiwan’s ageing F-5E fighters, will add to its existing fleet of 144 F-16A/B aircraft, which it is in the process of upgrading.

The sale of F-16V fighters is the first such deal since the administration of President George H.W. Bush approved the sale of 150 fighter jets to Taiwan in 1992. The Obama administration rejected a request by Taipei to buy F-16C/D jets, only agreeing to upgrade the existing fleet.

The sale, which was first reported on August 16, still faces congressional scrutiny which may take weeks to finalise. However, both the Democrats and Republicans are supporting the Trump administration’s aggressive stance against China and have backed stronger ties with Taiwan. Indeed, Trump has been criticised by lawmakers from both parties for delaying the sale of the warplanes so as not to interfere with trade talks with Beijing.

Since coming to office, Trump has systematically boosted relations with Taiwan, including through the increased arms sales. In 2017, he approved a $1.42 billion package that included technical support for early warning radar, high-speed anti-radiation missiles, torpedoes and missile components. Last year Trump agreed to the $330 million sale of spare parts for F-16s and other military aircraft.

Trump set the stage for accelerated arms sales to Taiwan by signing the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act into law on the last day of 2018. In relation to Taiwan, the Act specifically calls on the White House to sell arms on a regular basis and urged top US military and civilian officials to visit Taipei for talks with their counterparts.

Two arms sales to Taiwan have already taken place this year: in April, a $500 million package of training and support for its F-16 fleet, and in July, a $2.2 billion sale including 108 Abrams tanks and 250 Stinger missiles. The sales approved by Trump have already exceeded those by both Obama and George W. Bush in their first term of office of $12 billion and $5 billion, respectively.

China has reacted angrily to the latest announcement. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying declared that Beijing “firmly opposes” the sale. “It must be stressed that the Taiwan issue concerns China’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and security interests,” she said, and warned that the “US will have to bear the consequences” if all arms sales did not stop.

Beijing regards Taiwan as an integral part of China and has threatened to use military force if the “renegade province” ever attempted to proclaim formal independence. As part of the normalisation of US-China diplomatic relations signalled by President Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972, Washington accepted the so-called One China policy which treats Beijing as the legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan. At the same time, the US opposes any forcible reunification of Taiwan with the mainland and the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act authorises the sale of “arms of a defensive character” to Taipei.

Israel launches airstrikes against Iraq, Syria and Lebanon

Bill Van Auken

Israel over the last three days has carried out air strikes against targets in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, all of them launched on the pretext of countering a supposed Iranian threat.

Those struck in the attacks included Shia militia members in Iraq, members of the Lebanese Hezbollah Shia militia in Syria, a heavily populated civilian neighborhood in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, and, on early Monday, the pro-Syrian Palestinian faction, the Patriotic Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command, in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

The Israeli media has reported that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also considering the launching of attacks against the Houthis in northern Yemen. The monarchical dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with which Tel Aviv is seeking to form a US-backed, anti-Iranian axis, have been waging a near-genocidal war against Yemen for more than four years. The Israeli military is reportedly already providing intelligence to the Saudi and UAE forces.

The weekend’s attacks came in rapid succession. An airstrike on the village of Aqraba, southeast of Damascus, late Saturday night reportedly killed one Iranian and two members of the Hezbollah military. A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that the target was a “killer drone facility” and that it had been struck in a preemptive attack to forestall what Israel claimed—with no evidence—was a planned Iranian drone attack.

While for the most part Israel has refused to either confirm or deny the hundreds of attacks it has carried out against Syria in recent years, Netanyahu openly celebrated the airstrike, declaring, “I reiterate: Iran has no immunity anywhere. Our forces operate in every sector against the Iranian aggression.” Quoting from the Talmud, he added, “If someone rises up to kill you, kill him first.”

In the early morning hours Sunday, Israel carried out a drone attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut. One drone flying at low altitude was brought down by youth throwing rocks. A second drone, loaded with explosives, blew up outside a residential building that houses a Hezbollah media center, causing significant damage, but no casualties.

The attack on Beirut represented a major escalation. While Israeli warplanes have routinely violated Lebanese airspace, military action has been rare since the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War, and there had been no attacks on the Lebanese capital.

The website Debka.com, which has close links to Israeli intelligence, claimed that the strike was a botched attempt to assassinate Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian major general and commander of the Quds Force, which is responsible for extra-territorial operations of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

And on Sunday, there was a drone attack on the Iraqi town of Qaim, which killed a commander of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), the Shia militias that played the major role in defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Iraq, along with eight others.

Israel has not acknowledged an attack on Iraq since 1981, when Israeli warplanes carried out the bombing of the Osirak nuclear power plant built by the government of Saddam Hussein near Baghdad.

While the IDF has not explicitly confirmed the latest strikes on Iraq, Netanyahu indicated that the IDF has been given a free hand to carry out attacks throughout the region. “We’re acting not only if required, we’re acting in very many theaters against a state that seeks to annihilate us,” he said. “I’ve given the security forces the order and the operational freedom to do what is necessary in order to disrupt these plots by Iran.”

Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun said that the attack on Beirut amounted to a declaration of war, adding, “We are a people seeking peace not war and we do not tolerate anyone threatening us in this way.”

Similarly, Iraq’s President Barham Salih and Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi on Monday called the Israeli strike there an “attack on Iraqi sovereignty.”

The Fatah Coalition, the second-largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament, which represents the PMU militias, called the attack “a declaration of war on Iraq and its people” and demanded the immediate withdrawal of the 5,000 US troops deployed in the country. The Iraqi Shia militias have reported that the Israeli strike was a “blatant attack with air cover over the area from American planes, in addition to a large balloon to monitor the area near the site of the incident.”

This is only the latest in a series of attacks on targets in Iraq. Last month, the New York Times quoted US officials who spoke not for attribution as saying that Israel was responsible for attacks that began on July 19 with a strike north of Baghdad. One of the US sources said that Tel Aviv was “pushing the limits,” and that the Israeli military actions risked “getting the United States military removed from Iraq.”

Oklahoma judge finds Johnson & Johnson guilty in opioid epidemic

Benjamin Mateus

In the first full-scale trial of an opioid manufacturer, Judge Thad Balkman of Cleveland County District Court of Oklahoma ordered the giant pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson to pay the state $572 million for its role in the opioid crisis which has killed more Americans than died in World War II.

The company was found culpable for pushing doctors through “false, misleading, and dangerous marketing campaigns” to prescribe opioid-based pain killers while downplaying the addictive risks associated with them, the judge wrote. Over-prescription “caused exponentially increasing rates of addiction, overdose deaths” and other dire health consequences.

Though there was widespread media praise for the ruling as a landmark event, it is far short of the $17 billion that Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter had urged the judge to order Johnson & Johnson to pay. Balkman’s verdict provides the state only a year’s worth of the estimated costs that would be required to treat those addicted and establish long-term prevention programs.

The financial markets took the verdict in stride. In after-hours trading, Johnson & Johnson’s stock price jumped from $127.78 to $133.61. Many investors had anticipated a judgment of over $1 billion.

Earlier this year Oklahoma settled with two other giant pharmaceuticals also embroiled in the opioid crisis: Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of oxycodone, agreed to pay $270 million, and Teva Pharmaceuticals $85 million.

These cases have been closely monitored by some two dozen opioid makers that are facing more than 2,000 lawsuits throughout the country. Over 500 of these have been filed just against Johnson & Johnson, which supplied 60 percent of the ingredients used by pharmaceutical companies, including its own subsidiary Jantzen, to manufacture opioids.

Johnson & Johnson is a US-based multinational corporation that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals and consumer packaged goods with revenues in 2018 at $81.58 billion. It has total assets worth close to $153 billion, ranked 37 on the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. For a company that size, the Oklahoma penalty is little more than a slap on the wrist, although it would become more than that if replicated in the other 49 states.

So far, despite more than 400,000 deaths and the devastation of entire regions of the country, not one executive linked to the opioid crisis has faced criminal charges, let alone been sent to prison, for their utterly negligent behavior in pursuit of profits.

The Oklahoma Opioid Trial Decision Against Johnson & Johnson notes these facts, among others:

• From 1994 to 2006, prescription opioid sales in the state increased fourfold.
  
• From 2011-2015, more than 2,100 Oklahomans died from unintentional overdoses of prescription opioid.
  
• In 2015, over 326 million opioid pills were dispensed to Oklahoma residents, enough for every adult to have 110 pills.
  
• Oklahoma dispenses the most prescriptions per capita of fentanyl, an opioid far more powerful than heroin.
  
• In 2017, 4.2 percent of babies born covered by SoonerCare were born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (This is a condition when a baby withdraws from certain drugs it is exposed to in the womb before birth.)

Del Monte Foods to close plants in Illinois and Minnesota

Andy Thompson

In the latest attack on jobs, Del Monte Foods announced last Thursday that they will be closing two plants in Illinois and Minnesota, laying off at least 800 workers. Additionally, the company will sell plants in Wisconsin and Texas calling into question the employment status of another 700 workers.

In 2013, San Francisco-based Del Monte Foods, which was being held by a private equity firm, was bought out in a $1.6 billion takeover by Del Monte Pacific, a transnational corporation based in the Philippines.

Del Monte Foods claims that the closing is due to changing market circumstances and a fall in demand for their products. A representative from the company specifically stated that, “Tariffs did not factor into this decision. The decision was made in order to align production with current consumer demand.”

Still, the closing of the plant is likely at least partly due to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. In June, Del Monte Pacific CFO Parag Sachdeva stated that the company is seeing an increase in costs due to “rising metal packaging prices and impact of tariffs imposed by the U.S. government.”

The Trump administration has imposed tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum. Both materials are used in the production of cans in Del Monte plants.

In a statement after the closings were announced Del Monte said that the shutdowns are part of an “asset-light strategy” to cut costs and increase profits. In the past two years Del Monte also closed plants in Arkansas, North Carolina, Indiana and California, eliminating upwards of 400 jobs.

Anti-China witch-hunt targets Australian universities

Oscar Grenfell 

On August 21, the Australian government convened a “crisis meeting” with representatives of the universities and the intelligence agencies, as part of a hysterical campaign alleging pervasive “Chinese influence” throughout society.

Little has been revealed about what was discussed at the closed-door meeting. It was called amid demands by senior political figures and the corporate press for a crackdown on ties between Australian and Chinese research institutions, supposedly because they threaten “national security.”

The official purpose of the talks was to set “guidelines” governing collaboration with Chinese academics. As well as Education Department officials, the gathering was attended by representatives of the Home Affairs Department, which oversees the domestic spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), and the Australian Federal Police. Representatives from the Group of Eight, the country’s elite public universities, participated, along with members of university security and computer departments.

The Australian Financial Review (AFR) reported that the major universities had agreed to the meetings after briefings by Education Minister Dan Tehan earlier this month.

The article declared that the “university sector has allowed itself to become dependent on Chinese students.” It stated: “The government and its security agencies feel the sector has become compromised, and over past weeks and months the sector has been given multiple briefings by such agencies as ASIO, the Home Affairs Department, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Defence Signals Directorate voicing concerns about Chinese influence.”

The article said the “security agencies” were particularly concerned about research partnerships involving Australian and Chinese universities. After the meeting, Tehan insisted that universities would “likely” have to “liaise more closely with national security agencies.”

Lurid claims that such collaboration aids the Chinese military have played a central role in an anti-China campaign spearheaded over the past two years by the government, the Labor Party, the Greens and the corporate media.

These unsubstantiated assertions have been based almost entirely on the claims of the intelligence agencies. In 2017, for instance, the Guardian warned against a $100 million “innovation precinct” at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), unveiled the previous year by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

The Guardian trumpeted “defence fears” over the centre. It was funded, however, by private Chinese corporations, and focused on non-military research projects, including marine technologies, solar and wind power generation and the development of nanotechnologies.

Similar media campaigns have targeted other research initiatives, claiming, without any evidence, that they are of use to the Chinese military. The military and intelligence apparatus has invoked these assertions to push for unprecedented control over research, directly attacking academic freedom.

In a submission to the government in July 2018, the Australian Department of Defence requested powers to prohibit the publication of research, even for scientific purposes, and for warrantless entry, search, questioning and seizure powers to monitor compliance.

The department demanded authority to prohibit research on the virtually limitless ground that it has “reason to believe the technology is significant to developing or maintaining national defence capability or international relations of Australia.”

The request was inextricably tied to the Australia’s deepening integration into the US-led war drive against China, overseen by successive governments, Labor and Coalition alike.

The latest crackdown is also doubtless being conducted in close collaboration with the Trump administration. The AFR reported after last week’s meeting: “The university sector fears the government could be pressured by the United States to crack down even harder on its collaboration with China, following a series of measures being proposed by US Republicans, one of which directly implicates Australia.”

The Trump administration is currently pushing a series of bills targeting Chinese academics, researchers and students.

Britain sold more than £6 billion in arms for Saudi-led coalition’s deadly war in Yemen

Jean Shaoul

The British government, by supplying arms, personnel and expertise, has played a crucial role in the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

The coalition has been accused of hundreds of indiscriminate bombing operations against civilians since the start of the war in March 2015.

Saudi Arabia assembled a coalition to reinstate President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, whom Riyadh and Washington had installed after widespread protests forced the resignation of long-term dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011-12, after Houthi rebels drove out his corrupt government.

The coalition has the full backing of both Washington and London. In addition to Saudi Arabia it consists of Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and the Academi corporation, formerly known as Blackwater. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Morocco were coalition members but pulled out earlier this year. The support of Qatar for the coalition was suspended in 2017.

Britain has licensed the sale of at least £6.2 billion ($7.6 billion) worth of arms to the coalition, selling £5.3 billion of arms to Saudi Arabia, including £2.7 billion ($3.4 billion) worth of aircraft and £1.9 billion ($2.4 billion) worth of missiles, bombs and grenades, £657 million to the UAE, £85 million to Egypt, £72 million to Bahrain, £40 million to Kuwait and £142 million to Qatar, before it withdrew from the coalition.

But the real level of arms sales is probably much higher, as many are transferred under the opaque system of “Open Licences” that is used to sanction arms sales to blood-soaked regimes in the Middle East, such as el-Sisi’s in Egypt and the barbaric House of Saud. According to Middle East Eye, there has been a 22 percent rise in the use of secretive open licences since ministers pledged to increase Britain’s arms exports after the Brexit vote.

As well as supplying arms, Britain has sent more than 80 Royal Air Force personnel to Saudi Arabia, some working within the command and control centre that selects targets in Yemen for bombing and others training the Saudi air force. A further 6,200 British contractors work at Saudi military bases, training pilots and maintaining aircraft.

It also emerged that—unbeknownst to the UK population—there are British troops on the ground in Yemen. The Mail on Sunday reported in March that at least five British Special Forces commandos had been wounded in gun battles as part of a top-secret UK military campaign in Yemen.

The troops from the elite Special Boat Service (SBS), whose activities are never reported to Parliament, suffered gunshot injuries in fierce clashes with Houthi forces in the Sa’dah area of northern Yemen, where up to 30 British troops are based. British Special Forces are thus fighting on the same side as jihadis and militia linked to al-Qaeda that are part of the Saudi-led coalition and use child soldiers as young as 13 and 14 years old.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that last year Prime Minister Boris Johnson—then foreign secretary—had expressed his approval of the export of weapons systems to Saudi Arabia in the expectation they would be used in Yemen. Johnson also supported sending British troops to Yemen to take control of the port of al-Hodeidah, the main entry port for food entering the war-torn country. According to government officials, now that Johnson has become prime minister, that option “remains very much on the table.”

Last week, a United Nations panel of experts reported it had found fragments of British-made laser guidance missile systems used at an air raid site in Yemen, in a strike in September 2016 that it concluded breached international humanitarian law (IHL). The panel also found missile parts from the same British factory at the Alsonidar complex following a second air strike nine days later, where a water pump factory and a former tube maker were located.

These and other British-built aircraft, bombs and missiles have been used to target civilians in breach of UK arms export law that bans the sale of arms or munitions to a state that is at “clear risk” of committing serious violations of IHL. Yet according to the Ministry of Defence’s own data, the number of alleged IHL violations by the Saudi-led coalition had reached a staggering 350 by March 2018.

The war has created the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet in what was already the poorest country in the Arab world. Air strikes and other combat operations have caused the deaths of some 80,000 people, including at least 17,700 civilians. Millions of Yemenis are dependent upon food aid programmes, with at least 3.2 million people needing treatment for acute malnutrition, including 2 million children under the age of five. According to the Save the Children charity, as many as 85,000 children under the age of five have died from hunger and disease.

Last week, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said it would have to close its food aid programme to 12 million and health services to 19 million because both the UAE and Saudi Arabia—the main donors—had failed to honour their combined pledges of $1.5 billion, made last February, exposing yet more Yemenis to hunger and disease.

Andrew Smith of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), speaking about Britain’s role in this catastrophe, said, “Thousands of people have been killed in the Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen, but that has done nothing to deter the arms dealers. The bombing has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the complicity and support of Downing Street. These arms sales are immoral and illegal.”

German automaker Opel to cut workers’ hours and pay

Dietmar Gaisenkersting 

Last Thursday the German business magazine WirtschaftsWoche [Business Week] reported that automaker Opel is preparing to introduce short-time work at its headquarters in Rüsselsheim.

Short-time work is defined by the European Union as "a temporary reduction in working time... It can involve either a partial reduction in the normal working week for a limited period of time – for instance a partial suspension of the employment contract – or a temporary layoff, such as a full suspension of the employment contract."

The report states that the WiWo editors read the minutes of a confidential meeting held by representatives of the IG Metall trade union.

Opel workers go to an employee meeting in Ruesselsheim, Germany on Monday [Credit: AP Photo/Michael Probst]

According to the minutes, Opel management is planning to introduce short-time work “from October for three months.” The short-time work will then be continued next spring.

The introduction of short-time work is part of a radical savings and cutback program, with which Opel’s parent company, French automaker Groupe PSA (Peugeot, Citroen), is responding to the global crisis in the auto industry. Faced with declining sales in major markets, increasing trade warfare and e-mobility, labor productivity and the exploitation of workers is set to increase dramatically.

In a previous article, the WSWS reported that 1,100 jobs at the three Opel plants in Rüsselsheim, Eisenach and Kaiserslautern are to be cut.

Opel workers, along with workers in other car factories and component suppliers, must prepare for a bitter struggle. This requires breaking the control of the corrupt factory councils and union bureaucracy and setting up independent action committees to establish contact with autoworkers in other companies and countries to organise joint resistance.

The offensive against workers will intensify following the current plant holiday shutdown. The planned short-time work will mean drastic financial losses. In the goods distribution center in Rüsselsheim, only 74 of 300 employees will remain. Some 200 are to be moved to Bochum. The rest will be stripped of their jobs via a social plan.

Opel’s European goods distribution center in Bochum, with 700 employees, supplies Opel and Vauxhall dealers throughout Europe with spare parts and accessories. The large Opel plant in Bochum—which employed 20,000 workers in the 1980s—was shut down five years ago in cooperation with IG Metall.

Now the workforce in Bochum is in the sights of CEO Carlos Tavares, who is intent on undertaking drastic restructuring and cost-cutting measures. In future, workers will no longer be paid according to the valid engineering contract. Instead they will be graded on the much lower contract for logistics workers. This means wage cuts of several hundred euros per month.

Volker Strehl from IG Metall in Bochum admitted that such measures were being negotiated. He pointed out that the union had already agreed to wage cuts in the current contract. “We have already made concessions,” he said.

Tavares and IG Metall are playing off the workforce at Opel Bochum against fellow workers in France and external service providers employed by the multi-brand manufacturer’s parts distribution company Distrigo. The PSA Group already uses Distrigo locations for spare parts and accessories. “Instead of supplying all trade outlets centrally as before from Bochum,” the Handelsblatt newspaper reported, “from January 2020 they will be increasingly supplied via the Distrigo Hubs in individual [German] federal states.”

In addition, Bochum also competes with the PSA parts warehouse in Vesoul, France, where costs are to be lowered significantly. Just recently, PSA and the French unions increased weekly working hours by about half an hour—with no additional pay.

The biggest source of contention stems from the partial takeover of Opel’s International Technical Development Center (ITEZ) by the French development service provider Segula. At the beginning of September, Segula will take over around 20 buildings, 120 engine and chassis dynamometers, and around 700 Opel employees. Segula will also take over the Opel test development area in Dudenhofen, as well as the company’s guarantee orders business.

Up to 3,000 Opel workers in Rüsselsheim are expected to lose their jobs. Originally, it was planned that 2,000 Opel workers would switch to the service provider Segula, but more than 1,300 preferred to quit Opel on the basis of severance payments, partial retirement or early retirement.

UNESCO Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Reporting Fellowship (Funded to Paris, France) 2019

Application Deadline: 29th September 2019 (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 

Iso Lomso Fully-funded Fellowships 2019 for Early Career African Researchers

Application Deadline: 15th October 2019

Eligible Countries: African countries

About the Award: Iso Lomso aims to address the gap that exists between completion of the Ph.D. and becoming an established scholar in Africa. While there is increasing support for doctoral study and for post-doctoral fellowships, it is during the extended post-doctoral period that the greatest loss of talent occurs.
Fellows are expected to be present at STIAS for the duration of their STIAS residency, with no academic obligations other than pursuing the proposed research project. The only other duties are to share in the discussion over lunch which is served daily, and to participate in the Thursday STIAS fellows’ seminar where fellows in turn present their work to other fellows and invited academics from the local community.       

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: The programme is aimed at African scholars who have obtained a doctoral degree within the preceding seven years and who hold an academic position at a university or research institution anywhere in Africa.
Candidates should have established a research programme and have completed a post-doctoral fellowship or equivalent post-PhD programme. All disciplines are considered.
To be eligible applicants must:

• be a national of any African country;
• be born after the 1st of January 1977;
• have an affiliation at a research or higher education institution in an African country, and continue to do so for the foreseeable future;
• have obtained a doctoral degree from any recognised higher education institution (worldwide) after the 1st of January 2012;
• have completed a post-doctoral fellowship or equivalent post-PhD research programme;
• be in a position to commence a first period of residency at STIAS during the second half of 2019 or the first half of 2020.

Selection Criteria: Applications will be evaluated and selected on the basis of the following criteria:

• Level: the applicant’s academic excellence and the originality and scholarly strength of the proposed research project;
• Innovation: the project’s promise of new insights and the potential to produce new knowledge;
• Interdisciplinarity: whether the project methodology allows for drawing from different disciplines and its potential to facilitate an interdisciplinary discourse;
• Relevance: the project’s relevance for scholarship and knowledge production in Africa;
• Feasibility: whether the research design and the research plan are convincing and realistic.

During final selection, additional consideration will be given to:\

• gender representation;
• diversity of nationalities;
• diversity of disciplines;
• participation in previous or current research projects;
• previous international experience.

Number of Awards: 20

Value of Award: Iso Lomso Fellows will enjoy:

• a three-year attachment to STIAS during which time they may spend a total of ten months in residence at STIAS to develop and pursue a long-term research programme;
• the possibility of a residency at a sister institute for advanced study in North America, Europe or elsewhere;
• funding to attend up to three international conferences or training workshops anywhere in the world;
• support to convene a workshop with collaborators at STIAS;
• lecturer replacement subsidy for the fellow’s home institution during residency periods.

Duration of Program: 3 years

How to Apply: Download the applications documents of the 2019 call here:

1. Download the Iso Lomso Call for Applications 2019 (PDF)
2. Download the Iso Lomso Application Form 2019 (MS Word format) or the Iso Lomso Application Form 2019 (Open Document format)

Visit the Program Webpage for Details


Award Providers: Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study  (STIAS)

International PhD Program for Agricultural Economics, Bioeconomy and Rural Development (IPPAE) Scholarships 2020/2021 for Developing Countries – Germany

Application Deadline: 30th November 2019

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To be Taken at (Country): Germany

About the Award: The International PhD Program for Agricultural Economics, Bioeconomy and Rural Development (IPPAE) was first accredited in 1992 by the funder, the German Academic Exchange Office (DAAD). The program is the result of a cooperation between the agricultural economics groups of the University of Hohenheim and the University of Giessen. The program is highly competitive and interdisciplinary. Its strength is that all PhD candidates have prior research or work experience in an area close to their PhD topics, which strengthens their analytical skills as well as the amount of knowledge that can be passed from peer to peer. In Giessen, the IPPAE lays its thematic focus on empirical, problem-solving research, at the crossroads between agricultural economics, agricultural sociology, farm economics and sustainable resource use. To date, more than 100 candidates received their PhD through the IPPAE Giessen.


About the Award:

Type: PhD

Eligibility: 

• outstanding scholars from developing countries and emerging economies (DAC)
• 2 years of work experience
• excellent written and spoken English
• MSc degree obtained not more than 6 years prior to application
• MSc degree in agricultural economics or related subjects

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Funding for this program as well as the German language course is provided by DAAD.

Monthly Funding

• A monthly scholarship which presently amounts to € 1.200 is paid for the time of the doctoral studies (38 months).
• Family allowances are provided if the candidate’s family joins him/her during the time of the doctoral scholarship allocation.

Yearly Funding

• One return flight per year for 3 years
• Yearly research grant of € 460 to purchase items such as laptops, winter clothes, or cover the costs to participate to courses or conferences

Additional Research Funding

• A fieldwork allowance is provided for 2 years. This allowance is of maximum € 2.500 and is not extendable at all.
• The publication of the PhD Thesis is supported with up to € 1.200.

German Languange Course Funding

• Allowance of € 410 per month
• Accomodation is provided

Duration of Award: The IPPAE Giessen program lasts 42 months. It has a formalised structure which is compulsory to follow. The programme starts 1st of October each year.

How to Apply:

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

CLIFF-GRADS Scholarships 2019 for PhD Students from Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 30th September, 2019

Eligible Countries: Developing countries

About the Award:  CLIFF-GRADS is a joint initiative of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change (CCAFS) Low Emissions Development Flagship and the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA).
CLIFF-GRADS aims to build the capability of early career agriculture students in developing countries to conduct applied research on climate change mitigation in agriculture.
CLIFF-GRADS integrates the GRA’s new Development Scholarship and the CCAFS Climate Food and Farming Research Network with the common goal of providing grants to graduate students to expand their knowledge and experience in quantification of agricultural greenhouse gases.
Research projects are hosted by CCAFS and GRA members and partners. Funding for CLIFF-GRADS is provided by the Government of New Zealand and by the CGIAR Trust Fund and bilateral agreements in support of CCAFS.

Type: Training, Research, PhD

Eligibility: Applicants should have a background in agriculture and climate change research and be pursuing graduate research related to agricultural greenhouse gas quantification.

• Applicants must be currently enrolled PhD students in a field related to quantification of greenhouse gas emissions or carbon sequestration in agricultural systems
• Applicants must be students from a developing country

Selection Criteria: Applicants will be selected based on three criteria: (1) overall level of research experience, (2) relevance of thesis topic or other research experience to the research opportunity to which the student is applying, and (3) clear description of how the CLIFF-GRADS experience will improve the student’s scientific training

Number of Awards: 33

Value of Award:

• Selected students will be sponsored in the amount of 10,000–12,000 USD for short-term (4–6 month) scientific training and research stays to collaborate with projects associated with CCAFS and GRA.
• The grants will be used to support travel to and living and research costs at the host institution. Grants may not be used for tuition or unrelated personal expenses.

Duration of Programme: 4-6 months

How to Apply:
1. The deadline for applications is September 30, 2019.
2. Applicants must complete the online CLIFF-GRADS Round 3 Survey, which can be found here.
3. Applicants must email a single PDF document containing their curriculum vitae (CV), motivation letter, and a letter of support from their current supervisor to cliffgrads@globalresearchalliance.org

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

$37,000 Facebook Fellowship Program 2020 for PhD Students

Application Deadline: 4th October 2019 11:59pm PST

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Domestic and International Students

To be taken at (country): Any country (excluding US embargoed countries)

Research Areas:

• CommAI
• Computational Social Science
• Compute Storage and Efficiency
• Computer Vision
• Distributed Systems
• Economics and Computation
• Machine Learning
• Natural Language Processing
• Networking and Connectivity
• Security/Privacy
• Research Outside of the Above: relevant work in areas that may not align with the research priorities highlighted above.

About the Award: Giving people the power to share and connect requires constant innovation. At Facebook, research permeates everything we do. We believe the most interesting research questions are derived from real-world problems. Our engineers work on cutting edge research with a practical focus and push product boundaries every day. We believe that close relationships with the academic community will enable us to address many of these problems at a fundamental level and solve them.

Type: PhD, Fellowship

Selection Criteria and Eligibility

• Full-time PhD students who are currently involved in on-going research.
• Students work must be related to one or more relevant disciplines.
• Students must be enrolled during the academic year(s) that the Fellowship is awarded.
• The Fellowship Program is open to PhD students globally who are enrolled in an accredited university in any country.

Number of Scholarships: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Each Facebook Fellowship includes several benefits:

• Tuition and fees will be paid for the academic year (up to two years).
• $37K grant (one-time payment during each academic year).
• Up to $5,000 in conference travel support.
• Paid visit to Facebook HQ to present research.
• Opportunity for a paid internship at Facebook.

Duration of Scholarship: Facebook Fellowship Award to cover two years!

Required application materials:

• 1-2 page research summary which clearly identifies the area of focus, importance to the field, and applicability to Facebook of the anticipated research during the award. Please reference the topical areas below.
• Student’s CV (with email, phone and mailing address). Please include applicable coursework.
• 2 letters of recommendation (one must be from an academic advisor).

How to Apply: The Application is now live. Go to the Site and enter your information.

Visit scholarship webpage for details