Australia Awards Scholarships (Masters and Short Courses) for 1,000 African Students 2020/2021

Application Deadlines: 

• Australia Awards Masters Scholarships: 6th December 2019
• Australia Awards Short Courses Scholarships: 17th January 2020

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroun, Cape Verde, Comoros, Congo(Republic of), Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia etc

In addition to the above, the following countries are eligible for Short Course Awards (SCAs)


Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Mauritania, Niger, North Sudan, Republic of Guinea, South Sudan

About the Award: There are two categories of Award: Australian Awards Scholarships for Masters to undertake higher degree studies in Australia at Masters level. And Australia Awards Scholarships for Short Courses, to undertake short-term, targeted professional training courses, in Australia and/or in Africa, in a range of development-focused sectors.
Australia Awards Scholarships, a cornerstone of the Australian Government’s development assistance program for Africa, provide access to postgraduate education, training and professional development opportunities for suitably qualified Africans from eligible countries. On their return to the workplace, Australia Awards Scholarships Alumni are expected to contribute actively to development in their home countries.

To be taken at: African or Australian Universities.

Priority Fields (varies by African country)

• Agriculture/Food Security
• Education
• Health
• Public Policy (including public sector management, public sector reform, trade, international diplomacy)
• Environmental Management
• Natural Resource Management (including mining related subjects)
• Technical and Vocational Education & Training (available for Short Courses only)
• Energy (including Natural Gas and Oil Technology)
• Infrastructure
• Natural Resource Management
• Transport (including Ports, Roads and Airports Management)

Offered Since: 1980

Type: Masters taught degrees and short courses

Eligibility: To be considered for a masters scholarship or short course award, applicants must meet their country’s eligibility requirements. In general, the following requirements apply

• Citizen of an eligible African country
• Minimum academic requirement: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• Mid-level to senior-level professional, currently employed in a relevant field
• Meet relevant post-graduate work experience requirements
• Demonstrate a clear vision of how the knowledge gained through the scholarship will be used to improve policy, practice or reform in their home country
• Satisfactory English proficiency to enable full participation in a training course delivered in English
• Satisfy all requirements of the Australian Government for the appropriate student visa (subclass 500).

Target Group

• You are a national of an African country. See country list below
• You are an early or mid-career professional working in the Public Sector, the Private Sector or a Non-Government Organisation (Civil Society) in one of the listed priority fields of study.
• You wish to undertake a Masters degree in Australia in one of the listed priority fields of study. You cannot study a Masters of Business Administration.
• You have a clear vision for how you will use the knowledge gained through the Masters degree to improve policy, practice or education in the proposed field of study.
• Gender Equality: Australia Awards target equal participation by women and men. Applications from women are strongly encouraged, and mechanisms are in place to support women applicants and Awardees.
• Disability Inclusion: Australia Awards aim to ensure that people with a disability are given fair and equal opportunity to compete for and obtain a scholarship. Applications from people with a disability are strongly encouraged. Mechanisms are in place to support applicants and Awardees requiring specific assistance.

Number of Scholarships: Up to 1,000

Value of Scholarships: This is a Full government sponsored scholarship

Duration of Scholarship: For the duration of candidate’s programme

How to Apply:

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Orskov Foundation Grants 2020 for Students in Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 31st December 2019

Offered Annually? Yes

Offered Since: 2006

Eligibility: If your application does not meet all the following criteria it will not pass the initial shortlisting for consideration by the Trustees.

• Applications from students registered at university in a country not classified by the UN as lower middle income, or low-income will NOT be funded.
• Applications seeking funding for equipment, or attendance at conferences, will NOT be funded.
• Applications seeking scholarships to cover the costs of complete Bachelor, Masters or Doctorate courses, or parts of Bachelor, Masters or Doctorate courses will NOT be funded
• Applications seeking funding to cover the costs of Bachelor, Masters or Doctorate research projects will NOT be funded
• Applications that cannot demonstrate the potential to alleviate poverty and/or provide sustainable environmental benefits will NOT be funded.
• Applications from students not studying degrees related to agriculture, land use or the environment will NOT be funded.

If you have got this far then keep reading, as the next section contains some important guidance that must be followed for a student application to be successful.

• The student grants are only provided to help support costs of training at a university or similar organisation other than the university/college in which you are registered at the time of the application.
• Eligible students MUST be registered for graduate degrees and MUST be able to demonstrate that they have full support from the relevant university department/organisation that they are seeking training from.
• Preference will be given to support training aimed at sustainable land use problems with an emphasis on animal, plant and soil interactions, where it can be demonstrated that, in addition to contributing to knowledge, they will (a) have the potential to alleviate poverty and (b) provide sustainable environmental benefits, including adaptation/mitigation to the impact of climate change. Training outwith these areas will not be funded.
• The Trustees will only consider projects with a budget up to a maximum of £2,500.   This is the upper limit, not an indication that you should request this amount.
• Applicants will be expected to provide a budget and FULL justification for the funding claimed. Applicants that do not provide an adequate breakdown of the anticipated expenditure will not be shortlisted for evaluation.
• Please do not send any additional documentation, such as exam results, CVs, letters of support, etc.  These will not be used in the evaluation of your application.  Appropriate references will be sought for student applications that pass the evaluation stage.
• Projects will be selected by an open application process.  Grants will be awarded in March/April.
• The deadline for receipt of applications is 31st December each year. Applications received after this date will not be considered for evaluation.
• All applicants will be sent notification that their application has been received.  Applicants will also be sent an email in March or April of the following year to inform them whether they have been successful or not.  We will use the contact email address that you include on your application form, so please ensure that it is the correct address.
• All successful student applicants will be expected to provide a full report at the end of their funding period.  This report will outline the outcomes from the application and a breakdown of the expenditure made.
• Applications MUST be submitted using the Orskov Foundation application form and sent as a MS WORD attachment to an email.
• All applications must be submitted in English.
• Each section of the application form has been included for a reason.  In order to evaluate your application against all the others received you must include text in each section of the application form, otherwise your application will not be shortlisted.

How to Apply: If you would like to apply for individual support  from the Orskov Foundation follow these easy steps:

• STEP 1. Read the Guidelines to see if you are eligible to apply.
• STEP 2. Complete the application form. The application form can be downloaded as a Word file, or in pdf format.
• STEP 3. Submit your application form by email to: contact@orskovfoundation.org

Visit Programme Webpage for Details 

Award Provider: The Scottish Government Small Grants Scheme

Heinz-Kühn-Foundation Journalism Scholarships 2020/2021 for Junior Journalists in Developing Countries – Germany

Application Deadline: 30th November, 2019

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries and Germany

To be taken at (country): Various countries

About the Award: The foundation awards Journalism Scholarships to young journalists from North-Rhine-Westphalia for six-week or three-month reporting trips in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The foundation also provides funds to enable candidates from developing countries to gain professional journalism experience in North-Rhine-Westphalia for up to three months.
The aim of the Heinz-Kühn-Foundation is to support the training and professional development of junior journalists.

Type: Training

Eligibility: Young journalists from North-Rhine-Westphalia and developing countries are eligible for a scholarship if they satisfy the following requirements:

• have a keen interest in development issues;
• have already gained substantial professional experience in journalism (a completed college education is desirable);
• are not older than 35 years of age; and,
• have a good command of the official language of their host country (candidates from abroad must at least have a basic knowledge of the German language).

Selection: Decisions are taken by the board of trustees of the Heinz-Kühn-Foundation on the recommendation of the selection committee.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Scholarship holders get

• a lump-sum contribution towards living expenses in the host country (with scholarship payments covering training and living expenses in the host country);
• a lump-sum allowance for flight and travelling expenses (the foundation pays a return air ticket for candidates from abroad);
• an allowance to cover costs of research materials (e.g. literature);
• an allowance for trips within the host country; and,
• (if neccessary, for scholarship holders from abroad) a German language course of up to four months at the Düsseldorf or Bonn based Goethe-Institut.

Duration of Scholarship: In the lead up to the scholarship and throughout the duration of the Journalism Scholarships, the Heinz-Kühn-Foundation will provide support.

How to Apply: Journalists who meet the requirements for a scholarship should first contact the foundation to discuss possible host countries and their topics of interest.
The foundation’s postal address is:
Ministerpräsidentin des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen
Heinz-Kühn-Stiftung
Fürstenwall 25
40219 Düsseldorf
The following documents should be enclosed with the application:

• curriculum vitae in tabular form and a photograph;
• certificates of vocational training and present occupation;
• foreign languages certificates;
• German candidates should provide a detailed statement explaining their reasons for applying, their choice of host country and proposed topic of research.
• Candidates from abroad should provide a letter of motivation in German.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Heinz-Kühn-Foundation

Danish Government Cultural Agreement Scholarships 2020/2021 for International Students

Application Deadline: 2nd March 2020 at 23:59 (CET)

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries:

• China
• Japan
• Egypt
• Russia
• Republic of Korea

To be taken at (country): Denmark

Eligible Field of Study: All

Type: Masters and PhD

Eligibility: Scholarship will only be considered if the student fulfills the following requirements:

• Is a citizen of a country outside the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA)
• Does not have permanent residence in an EU or EEA country
• Is NOT studying in Denmark through an exchange programme or any other study agreement which is tuition fee waiving
• Has shown good academic results previously from former studies or passed exams
• Has passed an English language test, preferably an IELTS test with a score of 6.0 or similar recognised test with a high score provided for academic studies
• Scholarships are only available to master’s and PhD-level students. However, bachelor’s degree students wishing to study Danish language and literature can also apply if they have studied the Danish language for two years.
• scholarships are only offered to students enrolled in full-degree studies at higher education institutions in the countries listed above.
• PhD students must likewise be employed at, or affiliated with, higher education institutions in the above-mentioned countries.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Danish Government scholarships programme covers 30-50% of the tuition fees, which means that the rest must be paid by the student. Students who are awarded a scholarship from UCN may under certain circumstances also receive an additional partial monthly living costs scholarship.

Duration of Scholarship: Danish Government Scholarships may be awarded for the entire duration of a study programme or for single semesters.

How to Apply: To be considered for a scholarship, the applicants must:

• Fill in the scholarship application form including a motivation letter stating the reasons for applying to UCN and the reasons for applying for the specific programme in question
• Apply and be accepted to one of the English-taught study programmes which UCN offers

Furthermore the students must attach:

• Documentation of passed exams (translated into English)
• Documentation of relevant working experience
• References (if any)
• Copy of passport
• Documentation of applying for a programme at UCN

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

USA State Department Electronic Diversity Visa Lottery (DV-2021) – Live & Work in the US

Application Deadline: 5th November 2019 12:00PM EST (GMT -5)

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: For DV-2021, natives of the following countries are not eligible to apply, because more than 50,000 natives of these countries immigrated to the United States in the previous five years:
Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam.
Persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, and Taiwan are eligible.

About the Award: The Department of State administers the Congressionally-mandated Diversity Immigrant Visa Program annually. Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides for a class of immigrants known as “diversity immigrants” from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States.
For Fiscal Year 2021, 55,000 Diversity Visas (DVs) will be available. There is no cost to register for the DV program.Applicants who are selected in the program (selectees) must meet simple but strict eligibility requirements to qualify for a diversity visa.
Applicants who are selected in the program (“selectees”) must meet simple but strict eligibility requirements to qualify for a diversity visa. The Department of State determine selectees through a randomized computer drawing. The Department of State distributes diversity visas among six geographic regions, and no single country may receive more than seven percent of the available DVs in any one year.
The entry form will only be available for submission during this period and this period only. Entries will NOT be accepted through the U.S. Postal Service.

Before beginning the entry process, you can verify that your picture(s) comply with all requirements in the Photo Tool.

Type: Contests/Awards

Eligibility:
Requirement #1:

• Individuals born in countries whose natives qualify may be eligible to enter.
• If you were not born in an eligible country, there are two other ways you might be able to qualify.
• Was your spouse born in a country whose natives are eligible? If yes, you can claim your spouse’s country of birth – provided that both you and your spouse are named on the selected entry, are found eligible and issued diversity visas, and enter the United States simultaneously.
• Were you born in a country whose natives are ineligible, but in which neither of your parents was born or legally resident at the time of your birth? If yes, you may claim the country of birth of one of your parents if it is a country whose natives are eligible for the DV-2019 program.

Requirement #2:

• Each DV applicant must meet the education/work experience requirement of the DV program by having either:
• at least a high school education or its equivalent, defined as successful completion of a 12-year course of formal elementary and secondary education;

OR

• two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience to perform. The Department of State will use the U.S. Department of Labor’s O*Net Online database to determine qualifying work experience.

Number of Awards: Not specified

How to Apply: 

• Applicants must submit entries for the DV-2021 program electronically at dvlottery.state.gov between noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), October 2, 2019, and noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT-5), to November 5, 2019.
• Do not wait until the last week of the registration period to enter, as heavy demand may result in website delays.
• No late entries or paper entries will be accepted.
• The law allows only one entry by or for each person during each registration period.
• The Department of State uses sophisticated

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: US Department of State


Important Notes: As indicated in the instructions, for the purposes of eligibility some countries include components and dependent areas overseas.  If you are a native of a dependency or overseas territory, please select the appropriate country of eligibility.  For example, natives of Macau S.A.R should select Portugal, and natives of Martinique should select France.

Education is a Neglected Casualty of Wars and Displacements

Cesar Chelala

One of the neglected consequences of the recent wars and civilian conflicts in many parts of the world is their effect on people’s education, particularly children’s education. Because of the close connection between education and health, these events have had a severe effect on people’s health –particularly on children- and on the countries’ development.

In many of the countries in conflict there are attacks on students, teachers, schools and universities, while the military uses schools routinely for their activities. Girls and women are targets of attacks because of their gender. The recent wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria have had devastating effects not only because of the huge number of deaths but also for their impact on education.

Education can increase children’s nutritional levels and their health status, particularly among the poor. In India, the mortality rate among children of educated women is almost half that of children of women without formal education. In the Philippines, primary education among mothers has reduced the risks of child mortality by half, and secondary education reduces that risk by a factor of three.

Children with primary education –particularly in developing countries- can help their families make nutritional decisions that will affect the health of the whole family. The level of education in relation to health is particularly important among women. It has been found that better education, particularly among mothers, is widely associated with better children’s health. In addition, education for women is closely associated with later marriage and smaller family size.

Deteriorating conditions in Syria have led hundreds of thousands of people to leave their country and seek refuge in other places. Before the conflict, 97 percent of school-aged children in Syria attended school, and Syrian literacy rates surpassed 90 percent for men and women, above the regional average. Today, inside Syria, over 2 million children do not attend school, while more than half a million Syrian refugee children are not in school in neighboring countries.

Lebanon’s health, social and education services have borne the brunt of the huge number of incoming Syrian refugees. Lebanon has not received the proper international governmental assistance to confront this crisis. However, several NGOs have been providing succor to the Syrian refugees.

Both the Lebanese government and the Lebanese people have shown considerable understanding and willingness to help their Syrian neighbors. However, the problems created by the influx of refugees have reached such enormous dimensions that they have strained the relations between both the Syrian and Lebanese people and their governments.

Although the aid the NGOs offer to Syrian refugees is invaluable, the need is overwhelming. “During times of conflict and insecurity, maintaining access to education is of vital importance for children’s protection and development,” states Save the Children.

In the Americas, the seemingly unending waves of refugee families coming into the U.S. have jeopardized their children’s education. In many cases, immigration authorities in the U.S. mistreat those seeking asylum. Children’s education and their quality of life have suffered as a result.

The policy of separating children from their parents has had dreadful consequences, and many children suffer post-traumatic stress disorder. In many cases, the result of this separation is that children end up being cared by other children. “The care of children by children constitutes a betrayal of adult responsibility,” said Gilbert Kliman, A San Francisco psychoanalyst, who has evaluated dozens of children and parents seeking asylum.

Recent statistics indicate that by the end of 2019, around 539,000 Central Americans will be displaced, the bulk of whom will request asylum in the U.S. In 2018 alone, 49,000 children and adolescents dropped out of school in El Salvador. It is estimated that in Guatemala and Honduras, more than 2 million children may not be attending school.

In the Northern Triangle –i.e., in those three countries– individuals are escaping from a dramatic escalation in organized crime and poverty. Although in most cases whole families flee together, at times children make this dangerous trip north alone, thus becoming some of the world’s most vulnerable refugees.

Neglecting to deal with the effects of war on education will only aggravate these problems, and with its consequence on children’s health and well being. As Nelson Mandela eloquently stated, “It is not beyond our power to create a world in which all children have access to a good education. Those who do not believe this have small imaginations.”

The Battle for the Soul of India

Saad Hafiz

We are witnessing a battle for the rational soul of India. It has long been the conventional wisdom that the country’s historic and admirable diversity and tolerance would prevent the creation of a Hindu-first nation. But it seems increasingly likely that the narrative of India as a Hindu democratic state will prevail.

There is a danger that India’s secular political culture and pluralistic state for all citizens, regardless of religion, may cease to exist. The world, fixated on India’s ascent as a confident and thriving global economic and military power, has been slow to appreciate a seismic shift in its politics. The country has rapidly moved away from the values of non-violence and secularism espoused by eminent leaders such as Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Although seen from another perspective, India is coming of age. At some stage, all nations have to move forward and leave the past behind. India’s attraction to majoritarian nationalism and national greatness is also consistent with global political trends. And Prime Minister Modi’s broad popularity attests to the fact that India expects decisive leadership and that the end justifies the means.

However, even as India slowly dispenses with secularism, Indians should know that sustaining a progressive country by a slogan of religion is fraught with hazards. Pakistanis have found this out at enormous cost. Nationalism is a political strategy, one of the many that politicians have in their kitty to win popularity and elections.

Feeling slighted since Independence – the Hindu majority – rebelling against minority appeasing corrupt elites, and cutting across caste and class lines has jumped on the nationalist bandwagon. Taking advantage of these beneficial conditions, Modi has built a formidable following. As a charismatic populist, he has promised the Hindu masses salvation from poverty and misrule. Modi’s detractors say that his success will be short-lived as it works on exploiting divisions in society.

While we can’t take issue with Modi’s quest to make India great, we hope that he can avoid incendiary politics to achieve his goal. After two successful elections, for a consummate politician like Modi, his vilification of the opposition Congress party’s corruption and Pakistan-inspired terrorism, are winning themes. But he should be mindful that inciting his Hindu nationalist base doesn’t trigger deadly violence against Muslims and other vulnerable minorities.

There are telling signs that the dark lurking forces of hyper-nationalism and communalism are determined to crush pluralism and tolerance. It is part of the alarming Hindu-only agenda feared by minorities. In a sign of the changing times, the Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse who assassinated Gandhi in 1948 for selling out to Muslims is a revered figure in rabid Hindutva “Hindu nationalist” circles today.

More recently, 800,000 soldiers holding 9 million, mostly Muslim civilians in Indian Kashmir in siege conditions, for over two months, is a blot on Indian democracy. This flagrant denial of human rights can’t be whitewashed or forgotten. It seems too glib and disingenuous for Indian officials to describe the change in the status of Kashmir, as mainstreaming the disputed territory into India’s thriving and vibrant democracy.

We shouldn’t view the projection of power and self-belief, by the modern Indian state, based on significant achievements entirely negatively. For example, India’s growing scientific prowess confirmed by a near landing on the moon is a matter of pride for all South Asians. But India ought to be especially careful that it doesn’t crush criticism, dissent, and debate on its path to progress, which we have seen happen elsewhere.

But all is not lost as secular Indians keep reminding us. They place their faith in India’s inclusive constitution, considered one of the best that has been written and enacted. We hope that any attempt to subvert it will fail as that would be a disaster for Indian democracy.

The other promising factor is that Hinduism doesn’t naturally lend itself to authoritarianism. Unlike Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Hinduism isn’t bound by strictures. A Hindu can be deeply or mildly religious an agnostic or an atheist – and yet can call himself a Hindu.

Moreover, India does pass the diversity test. Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs don’t view themselves Hindus, neither do a substantial number of Dalits; some South Indians consider parts of Hinduism as an imposition of Aryan North on Dravidian South.

Ultimately, it is for Indians to decide if they want to sacrifice their rich culture and democratic values on the altar of nationalism. A firm rejection of a Hindu state or temperance of its excesses will send a clear message, beyond India’s borders, particularly neighboring China and Pakistan, that the land of Emperor Asoka and Emperor Akbar has room for all Indians, not just Hindus. We hope they make the right moral choice.

Iraq Protests: Death Toll Soars as Militias Target Protesters

Patrick Cockburn

Iraqi paramilitary groups close to Iran are suspected of joining attacks on protesters in Baghdad and other cities, leading to heavy loss of life among demonstrators. Some 107 people have been killed and over 6,000 wounded in the last six days, though hospital doctors say the government is understating the true number of fatalities.

“The pro-Iranian militia have each taken a sector of Baghdad and are responsible for its security,” a source, who does not want his name published, told The Independent.

He said that snipers belonging to these groups had fired live rounds at protesters, often aiming for the head or heart. Eyewitnesses say that Iraqi soldiers are also firing directly into crowds of the protesters, who are demanding the fall of the government, jobs and an end to corruption.

The gunmen shooting protesters come from pro-Iranian factions of the Hashd al-Shaabi or Popular Mobilization Units, an 85,000-strong strong body that came into being to stop the Isis advance on Baghdad after the fall of Mosul in 2014. It is a coalition of about 30 groups, many of them predating Isis, which is paid for by the Iraqi government and nominally under its control, but with widely varying political loyalties. They includes powerful units, such as Ketaeb Hezbollah, which say opening that their first loyalty is to the Iranian leadership.

The demonstrations in Baghdad and in much of Shia southern Iraq are largely spontaneous, but where there are local leaders they have sometimes been singled out for killing.

Haider Karim Al-Saidi, a leading organiser of the protests, was shot dead by a sniper near Al-Mudhafar Square late on Sunday night. Earlier, witnesses had reported that they had seen snipers taking up positions on roof tops overlooking the square.

The paramilitaries have assaulted injured protesters in hospital: a doctor working in the Medical City complex in central Baghdad said that members of a paramilitary group called Asaib Ahl al-Haq, known for its pro-Iranian sympathies, had broken into a hospital ward filled with wounded demonstrators and started hitting them. When he protested, he was told “to mind his own business” and was beaten with a baton.

An Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan said that 6,107 people had been injured in the unrest, including 1,200 members of the security forces. Public buildings and political party headquarters have also been destroyed.

A paramilitary group called Kataib Hezbollah, which has no connection with the Lebanese group with a similar name but is strongly supportive of Iran, is alleged to have ransacked at least ten television stations that had been giving full or sympathetic coverage to the demonstrations. In one case gunmen in balaclavas arrived in twelve white cars without license plates and wrecked studios, seizing computers, beating up staff and taking their wallets and mobile phones.

The government has expressed suspicion that a third party is playing a role in provoking greater violence, through using snipers who shoot to kill. Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan said at a press conference that “malicious hands” were targeting protesters and security forces alike. This may be true in part but is also a bid by the security forces to evade responsibility for firing directly into crowds, though there is every sign that they have been doing just that. Repressive measures have included a two-day curfew, a continuing ban on the internet, and pre-emptive arrests.

The demands of the protesters have become more radical since last Tuesday, as the casualty toll has mounted, with growing calls for the fall of the government of Adel Abdul Mahdi. He has shown himself to be ineffective, making a speech at the weekend in which he outlined a 17-point plan including unemployment benefit and subsidised housing but he made little impression. In his year in office, Mr Mahdi has failed to introduce any important reforms, so his sudden zeal for change carries little credibility.

The signs are, for the moment that repression will continue but also that it will not succeed.

“The protesters are very young and feel they have little to lose,” says one observer. “They will go on protesting whatever happens.”

Despite Iraq enjoying monthly oil revenues of over $6 billion, pervasive government corruption since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 has meant that there has been little new building of roads, schools and hospitals and there is a chronic shortage of electricity and, in some cities, water.

Above all there is a lack of jobs with a population pf 38 million, growing by one million year and 70 per cent below the age of 30. Many of these are jobless and include 307,000 graduates. Some of the have been camped outside ministries in Baghdad for the last three months asking for jobs appropriate to their qualifications, but not getting them.

Popular anger over long-standing socioeconomic grievances has been increasing year by year and the defeat of Isis in the siege of Mosul in 2017 means that the government no longer has the excuse that all its energies and resources are absorbed by the war against al-Qaeda type groups.

But this does not quite explain why the Iraqi government – along with pro-Iranian paramilitary groups – should have reacted so violently and counter-productively against a relatively small protest march on the Jumhuriya Bridge in Baghdad last Tuesday.

There have been much bigger protests without provoking such violence in previous years, including one last year in Basra that was close to a general uprising, but without live rounds being fired at demonstrators. In 2016, demonstrators stormed the Green Zone in Baghdad and ransacked the parliament building and the prime minister’s office while the security forces stood by.

Explanations for the self-destructive reaction of the government this time round include Prime Minister Adel Andul Mahdi’s advisers being dominated by military hawks prone to rely on force and with little political understanding. The aggressive role of the pro-Iranian paramilitaries is evidence that Tehran fears peaceful anti-government mass protests, along the lines of the Green Movement in Iran in 2009 and in Syria in 2011, both of which, at their peak, threatened regime change.

“The Iranians want to militarise the situation so it cease to be a mass movement,” says one Iraqi commentator. This would explain the shooting of so many demonstrators. But by over reacting the government and the Iranians may have provoked the very situation that they want to avoid.

Is Literature Dying ?

Rajesh Subramanian

With ever increasing onslaught from the internet, electronic media and urban lifestyles, many critics have started voicing their worries about whether Literature, in its written form, is becoming more and more obsolete and  dying. Death pronouncements about Literature have been made several times and they continue to be made whenever writers start forecasting and start expressing anxiety about their irrelevance in the modern times.

A strong pronouncement about the bed-ridden state of literature came from Alvin Kernan (Professor of Humanities at Princeton University) who declared (sic) “ Literature is dead; it is but a piece of useless logwood “. Kernan identified the killer of literature as post-modernism, which symbolizes the extensive revolutions in society and the literary world. In his book The Death of Literature  Kernan talks about the literature’s imminent death, but does not talk about the death of the printed word or the extinction of imaginative writing. He in fact mentioned in an interview, “I don’t see how Shakespeare and Homer and Joyce can die. They’ll be read by sensible people. There may even be some in the university who’ll want to do it.” He meant the essence of “literature” had moved from the “creativity of authors” to a different state of existence, driven by new waves of literary theories like post-modernism and deconstructionism.

Due to post modernism, realism gave way to deconstructionism. The novel was no more considered a pleasurable experience to the reader; deconstructionism considers the reader and the author to be parts of the novel and the reader is expected to fight tooth and nail with the novel to comprehend it.

That really proved to be an intellectually stimulating exercise to the reader; the process also led to multiple interpretations of the same work of literature. Especially in poetry, this led to subjective interpretation dependent purely upon the scope of intellectual and creative landscape of the reader’s mind. Some people even saw this as an expansion of the dimension of joy of reading and a wonderful effect of modern literature.

Post modernism splits the work of writing into several individually examinable pieces, one of which is the writer/author. Post modernism evolved along with the so called “ counter-culture” and “hippism” of the  1960s. It was during that period that the electronic media ( including colour television that hit the society at that time ) started dominating entertainment scenario and the people lost their interest in “realistic” novels and literature and started opting for the “coca-cola” culture. Serious literature began to be studied only in the Universities and the common man had neither the time nor inclination to read Pushkin, Dostoyevsky or Pearl S Buck. The publication of realist novels has been declining throughout the world since then.

The pop culture introduced first in the world of music made its entry into the world of creative art, with Andy Warrhol. Warrhol revolutionized the concept of creative art and the world of creativity was no more the same. Literature was no exception to this invasion of pop culture. But the eighties and nineties witnessed the emergence of several acclaimed literary works spun along new creative concepts like magic realism, biographical novels, ethnic novels etc. Literature seems to be capable of holding itself against all threats of extinction and perhaps would never kick the bucket.

Pure economic logic tells us that there is so much supply of literature in newer and newer forms, there must also be adequate demand for it. But why do people still choose literature as a pastime activity, when the modern world offers so many more tantalizing entertainment options? It is perhaps because of the luxuries which a written literary work offers to its readers – a novel or book is easily portable, costs less, can be used as and when time permits, does not need any special gadgets, can be stored for long periods of time and is not jarring on the senses.

The increased patronage extended by the general public, especially the youth, to the book fairs and increased usage of libraries including mobile and lending libraries lends credence to the belief that the written book has not lost its charm inspite of growth in electronic media and the internet.

The fact that the advent of electronic teachers has not led to the extinction of text books in Western countries stands to support the contention that a book is  more man friendly than any other medium. Though it may be argued by some that the motion pictures are more lively than the written scripts, the spectator is unlikely to absorb all the nuances and aesthetics that may be portrayed in motion pictures. But a written work has to necessarily portray all such nuances in words and the reader inescapably experiences them. In this aspect, there seems to be no medium that can beat the written work of literature. One cannot but agree with the statement, “Obituary to literature is an impossibility”.

Edna O’Brien, in one of her articles, wonders:

“I come out of my reading corner, back to the daily chores and demands, to the schisms and terrors of the world and I look around at my shelves, heaving with books, and wonder if the next occupant will tear them down and the porter’s chair will be assigned to a rubbish dump. I think of George Steiner’s great essay, “The Retreat from the Word”, written in 1961, depicting those islands of privacy and silence, which the reading of a book entails. With a searing eye, he envisaged an altered world, a society in search of easier, bolder distractions and of pleasures less perplexing to the brain. Then I have to ask myself if, in 20 or 30 years, literature will be an essential branch of life. Will it seep into the fabric of social and political thought, will it have its faithful zealots, or will there be a falling away, which Steiner foresaw. In short, is it a dying animal?”

I prefer replying in the negative.

How Most Americans Favor Corruption

Eric Zuesse

Americans don’t do it voluntarily, but mainly because they don’t understand the way the U.S. system works. Part of that is the nation’s legal system; part of it isn’t, but is instead international.

Regardless of whether or not today’s United States is a democracy, our legal system possesses two features that make corruption especially difficult to prosecute to conviction, and this difficulty is extreme and makes such convictions extremely rare at the top, amongst members of Congress, and Presidents, and former federal officials, and billionaires, so that people at that level need to be extremely stupid in order to be convictable for whatever corruption they might do. (And such extreme stupidity is virtually non-existent amongst that elite, most powerful, group. So, they get away with it. There is absolutely nothing to stop them.) Consequently, corruption is rampant at the top in America.

Both of these two domestic, U.S., features apply also to some lesser extent in every other country; and, at the end, I’ll describe the exacerbating factor that makes the situation especially bad in the United States — the international factor, which intensifies America’s corruption-problem.

Reason Number One why Americans favor corruption is that (especially at the top) corruption is, to a large extent — and very unlike lower-class crimes of direct violence — a judgment-call, largely political, and therefore specifically a partisan matter to judge. Anything that’s “partisan” is especially difficult to produce a unanimous verdict, which is what would be required for a conviction. Consequently, an individual of high status within the elite will be granted by his group or “party” every benefit of every possible doubt. This is likely to protect any elite person from being convicted.

Take, for example, the latest “CBS News poll: Majority of Americans and Democrats approve of Trump impeachment inquiry”. On the question of impeachment, 87% of Democrats approve, while 77% of Republicans disapprove. There’s nothing even approaching unanimity. However, since impeachment is not entirely an issue which is based solely on the possibility of there having been corruption, a better indicator here is the poll’s other main question, of whether Trump deserves to be impeached over Ukraine. That question concerns not only the possibility that Trump might have acted corruptly in this matter, but also the questions of whether Hunter Biden did, and of whether his father Joe Biden did. Consequently, it measures only on corruption (abuse-of-office), not at all on other impeachment-issues; so, this is an ideal measure, for our purpose. Of course, Trump is a Republican but the latter two are Democrats, and Joe aims to replace Trump if Trump doesn’t become impeached by the House and then convicted in the Senate, and Joe aims to replace Mike Pence if Trump does become convicted in the Senate and replaced there by his Vice President. Though corruption is the issue on both sides (Republicans versus Democrats), it is an extremely partisan issue and therefore plays extremely to each side’s political prejudices. 75% of Democrats believe that Trump deserves to be impeached over the issue of Ukraine, and 8% believe that he doesn’t. 70% of Republicans think that he doesn’t deserve to be impeached over Ukraine, and 16% believe that he does. Consequently, the single issue of Ukraine accounts for almost all of the beliefs on both sides regarding whether or not Trump deserves to be impeached, and this issue of Ukraine is virtually 100% an issue about corruption.

In a court of law, whenever a particular issue is politically charged, unanimous verdicts are virtually impossible to attain. Neither impeachment nor removal from office requires anything even close to any such unanimity as judgment in a court-case does, because neither the House nor the Senate would be voting anything like jurors do in a courtroom, and the rules are extremely different; and, so, any corruption trial that’s in a court of law  faces an almost impossible barrier against conviction (because the standards of evidence and the other rules in a court-case are far stricter). So, this is one way in which most Americans favor corruption. (Like everywhere, Americans are prejudiced — i.e., partisan.)

Reason Number Two for this almost invulnerability at the top in America is that America’s elite, even more than in other countries, normally possess the financial wherewithal to hire enough lawyers of enough excellence in order to crush the prosecution’s case. Furthermore, there are a multitude of fine points in our laws that were written precisely in order to enable almost any of these people to be able to avoid being convicted. That’s one of the main things they buy politicians for — to get those types of “fine points” into the laws. It’s how the American system functions.

So: not only are the laws full of ‘loopholes’ that were placed there especially in order to get such people off any hook, but, on top of that, these are the people who can and do hire the ‘best lawyers that money can buy’ — and all of the lawyers and investigators that they need — in order to get off scot-free or else with only slap-on-the-wrist fines and ‘community service’ in order to avoid legal perdition, no matter how corrupt they might actually be.

As regards the non-legal reasons why corrupt individuals in our system almost never go to prison, just consider what those ‘loopholes in the law’ really are: they are expressions of cultural values. Each loophole is argued for on the basis of some cultural values. Whereas those particular values obviously disadvantage the homeless and minorities and uneducated and inarticulate and ugly and poor (since few — if any — of those people hire lobbyists), the flip side of them provides advantages to the successful and the educated and the beautiful and the articulate — the very types of people who are the likeliest to be  corrupt. You don’t find many of the elite people in prison, but you do find them in executive suites and Ivy League campuses and on Capitol Hill and in finance and in think tanks and in lobbying firms — the places where power is wielded for the people who have the most money (who hire these people as their agents).

Whereas individuals who are homeless or minorities or etc. might elicit more sympathy than the rich and powerful do, they really don’t have the laws on their side nearly as much as the elite do, and the elite are also vastly likelier to have the most competent legal representation — and the legislators and judges — on their side. But if ever a non-elite person is corrupt, that person is extremely likely to “have the book thrown at him” and to get no sympathy at all from the public. This exemplifies the core principle of conservatism: all praise goes upward, all blame goes downward.

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And, so, anyone who supports this system is actually favoring corruption. They do it not voluntarily, but instead because there are things they believe and don’t even question — such as that the elite are superior — but that are actually false. So: corrupt people almost always get away with it.

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The reason, why the above-stated reasons apply increasingly and especially in the United States, has been that after Russia ended its side of the Cold War in 1991, America’s elite — the most corrupt part of society — increasingly and especially acquired global immunity for its violations of international laws, such as by increasingly invading countries that had never invaded nor even threatened to invade the United States. The 2003 invasion of Iraq made especially clear, to the entire world, that America would even go so far as to order U.N. weapons-inspectors out of a country in order to bomb it. That brazen and effective termination of the applicability to the U.S. (and to any of its allies, America’s vassals), of any international laws, constituted the making-public that the United Nations has been diminished to being little more than flapping mouths, at least since 20 March 2003.

Consequently, with no international body to restrain the American elite, the lid is now entirely off to corruption in America; and, the lower that the global public esteem the U.N., the worse that America’s corruption will become (if it’s not already entirely free of restraints). The restraints of international law (such as whatever restraints had previously existed) are now perhaps totally gone. Consider, for example, what happened to Gaddafi, and to Libya, in 2011.

A big change in global public opinion toward the U.N. occurred as a direct result of the U.S.-and-allied 20 March 2003 invasion of Iraq. The only periodic polling that was done internationally on the public’s esteem for the U.N., and that covered the period both shortly before and shortly after America’s invasion and destruction of Iraq, was by Pew. It sub-headlined “U.N. Less Popular”, and reported that in the 15 countries where public opinion was sampled both in 2002 (before the invasion) and in 2003 (after it), the favorability rating of the U.N. declined in 14 of the 15 nations, and the decline was sharp in each one of them (declining typically by a third, during just that one year). Only in Pakistan did the public rate the U.N. more favorably in 2003 than in 2002. Only in Pakistan did the public approve the U.N.’s becoming effectively nullified, and the U.S. Government and its allies thereby taking over the world as not only the lawmaker, but the judge, jury, police, and executioner, for all nations — the government of the world (a dictatorial government outside the United States, since the U.S. Government cannot even claim to democratically represent any of those foreigners). And yet, only 13% of respondents in Pakistan approved of the United States in 2003, which was exactly half of the 26% there who approved of the U.N.

The solution, when there is no legal government that stands above the nations of the world, isn’t so much to make the most powerful nation (the U.S.) less effective, as it is to make the U.N. more effective. The problem here isn’t actually the U.N.’s failure, so much as it is the U.S. regime’s freedom to violate international laws — especially the U.N. Charter. There is — clearly, now — no legal government of the world’s nations. The U.N. is less of a world-government now, after 20 March 2003, than it ever was before. So, international bullies such as the U.S. Government reign with impunity. Look, for example, at what such bullies are currently doing to Iran and to Venezuela — and, to Julian Assange. Ever since 2003, the international law-breaking has become blatant, and unashamed — sometimes even bordering on boastful.

The longer that this international immunity of the U.S. and its allies continues, the more corrupt America will become. FDR’s intentions for the U.N. were correct; Truman’s have by now failed utterly; as a consequence of which, the United States is effectively lawless at its top. A country like this, where the courts effectively trash its own Constitution, and the nation’s executive sometimes even flaunts his flouting of the little that still exists of a Constitution for the world, stands in sharp need of an international force that can effectively say no to its government. FDR was correct about international law, and not only about the U.S. Constitution.

One of the reasons why the U.N. has failed is that it has never clearly defined even the most dangerous international crime, “international aggression” (the invasion by one country against another country that had never invaded nor seriously threatened it), much less established penalties for it. The Nuremberg Tribunals after WW II were supposed to start the process, but the effort just faded soon thereafter (under Truman). Furthermore, existing international law is totally irrelevant to non-state aggressors, such as Al Qaeda, which should be allowed no protection by any government. Nor does international law address under what conditions a nation whose government protects terror-groups (such as Afghanistan, prior to 9/11) may legitimately be invaded (such as by the U.S. after 9/11), nor what limitations ought to be placed upon such a retaliatory invasion. “Terrorism” itself is undefined. In other words: the U.N., to date, is almost a total failure. When the U.S. Government steps into this legal void so as to impose its will in flagrant disregard of what international law does exist, this reflects not only the failure of the United States, but the failure of all of human civilization, at the present stage. That’s where we now are. Almost every international institution that the U.S. set up after WW II needs to be replaced. We’ve been on the wrong path, since FDR died. And America has been leading the world on that wrong path. It’s therefore no surprise that Americans approve of this path — Obama’s “the one indispensable nation”, or Trump’s “America first, last, and always” — more than the world’s other nations do. (Of course, Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini, also held that view, which isn’t patriotism, but instead nationalism — specifically, supremacist nationalism.) This has nothing to do particularly with Trump. Obama was perhaps even worse. It has to do, instead, with what America has been, ever since FDR died.

As US vaping-related lung illnesses soar, FDA found negligent in enforcing e-cig regulations

Benjamin Mateus

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of October 1 there have been 1,080 cases of lung injury arising from e-cigarette (e-cig) use, up from the 450 cases confirmed in early September. Casualties have been documented in 48 states and 1 US territory, the US Virgin Islands. Eighteen deaths have been confirmed in 15 states. According to an October 3 New York Times report, additional deaths have been cited in a total of 16 states. This is an increase from five reported deaths a month ago.

The recent explosion of cases over the last two to three weeks includes a combination of 275 new cases as well as prior unrecognized cases of unusual pneumonia-like illnesses that have now been reclassified lung injuries caused by vaping. The CDC has reported more than 3.6 million adolescents in the US have used e-cigs.

1,080 cases of lung injury arising from e-cig use as of October 1 [Credit: vaping360.com/e-cigarettes/]

A report issued by the NIH’s drug abuse section highlights the dramatic rise in vaping among teenagers; 37.3 percent of 12th graders reported they had vaped in the past 12 months. The prevalence of vaping among teenagers in 2011 was near zero. By 2017 it had become the most common use of any tobacco-like product in this age group. The number of adolescents vaping in 2019 is double that in 2017.

In the cohort of people with lung injuries, each affected individual has reported having vaped within the month of falling ill and most note using products containing THC, the principal psychoactive constituent of cannabis. The CDC and medical officials believe THC has played a role in the outbreak.

The exact chemical compound causing these illnesses remains elusive at present. The CDC remarks, “No single product or substance has been linked to all the lung injuries.” Seventy percent of those affected are male, and 80 percent are under the age of 35. One-third of them are under the age of 21 and 16 percent under the age of 18, the cut-off ages for the legal sale of e-cigs depending on the state.

In a recent publication in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) this month, the Mayo Clinic reported their findings on lung tissue biopsies from 17 subjects, 11 of which met CDC criteria for a confirmed diagnosis of vaping-related lung injury. According to their findings, the injuries resemble those that occur with inhalation of noxious chemical fumes, suggesting a similar mechanism of injury.

The CDC noted several THC-related products that were used by patients in Illinois and Wisconsin before they became ill, which include Dank Vapes, Moon Rocks, Off White and TKO.

In her testimony to the subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on September 25, Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, said, “There are a complex set of root causes at play here that will be difficult for us as a nation to address. We need to take it very seriously. There are a set of supply chains that are underground that are adulterating the products in ways that are just experimental that are building on a population that is addicted to e-cigarettes. We have a very vulnerable population and a very challenging difficult supply chain we need to address.”

As the initial study published in the NEJM in September noted, all patients suffer from profound weakness and shortness of breath. They require hospitalization and supplemental oxygenation. Many are treated in the intensive care unit, and some have significant lung injury necessitating ventilator assist to breath. Some are placed on cardio-pulmonary bypass to oxygenate their blood while their lungs have time to heal. Most have recovered and are sent home after a few days or weeks. The long-term impact on their lung function remains to be determined.