30 Jun 2016

Trudeau Foundation Doctoral Scholarships in Canada for Developing Countries 2017/2018

Application Deadline: Each participating university has a different deadline within the Fall period for the submission of students’ applications.
Trudeau Foundation Deadline: 9th December, 2016.
Offered annually? Yes
Brief description: Trudeau Foundation offers Doctoral Scholarships for Canadian Citizens and Foreign Nationals (with preference to developing countries) to study Social Sciences and Humanities at Canadian Universities 2017/2018
Accepted Subject Areas: Social Sciences and Humanities related studies, preferably one of the following:
  • Human Rights and Dignity
  • Responsible Citizenship
  • Canada in the World
  • People and their Natural Environment
About Scholarship
Each year, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation rewards outstanding doctoral candidates who are enrolled or about to be enrolled in a social sciences and humanities program and who are doing research in areas related to the four themes of the foundation. This award, the most prestigious of its type in Canada, has continuously attracted the very best scholars in the social sciences and humanities, individuals with a passion for public engagement and who are likely to become leading national and international figures.trudeau foundation doctoral scholarship
Scholarship Offered Since: 2003
Selection Criteria
  • Have a track record of academic achievements on par with the highest standards of the world’s most prestigious doctoral scholarship programs
  • Possess exceptional skills that will enable the Scholar to engage in lively exchange with other researchers
  • Intend to work in an area related to one or more of the Foundation’s four themes and have an expressed desire to contribute to public dialogue
Who is qualified to apply?
  • Be a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant applying to a doctoral program in the social sciences and humanities or registered full-time in the first or second year of such a program at a Canadian university
OR
  • Be a Canadian citizen applying to a doctoral program in the social sciences and humanities or registered full-time in the first or second year of such a program at a foreign university
OR
  • Be a foreign national [with a preference for candidates from the developing world] applying to a doctoral program in the social sciences and humanities or registered full-time in the first or second year of such a program at a Canadian university
  • Present a research project linked to one of the four themes of the Foundation
  • Be nominated by a university
Number of Scholarships: Several
Benefit of Scholarship:
  • $40,000 per year for three years;
  • $20,000 per year for three years, as research and travel allowance;
  • Opportunity for a fourth year: writing or dissemination scholarship;
  • Advice from a mentor from various spheres of Canadian public life, starting the second year of the scholarship;
  • Development of leadership potential;
  • Support from an outstanding community of scholars, fellows and mentors, and opportunities for interaction with 350 leaders and personalities in every sector of the humanities and social sciences;
  • Involvement in lively exchange with other researchers or scholars and a keen interest in contributing to public dialogue;
  • Collaboration with Trudeau mentors, fellows and scholars on interdisciplinary projects going beyond their own field of expertise;
  • Sharing of innovative ideas at events organized by or in conjunction with the Foundation.
Duration: For the period of the programme
Eligible Developing Countries: Students of developing countries
To be taken at (country): Canadian Universities
How to Apply
For more details, visit scholarship webpage
Sponsors: Trudeau Foundation

Economic Liberalization Ignores India’s Rural Misery

Vijay Prashad

“Make In India” was Narendra Modi’s campaign slogan in 2014. Increasing India’s industrial production drove his agenda.
The service sector had made India relatively buoyant since it began to liberalize its economy in 1991. But the service sector’s growth was unsustainable and unpredictable. It could also not absorb the large numbers of educated Indians who found themselves unable to find decent work.
Foreign investment would provide a burst of growth but such a strategy would do little to reduce India’s vast oceans of poverty.
But the Make In India campaign spluttered. Industrial growth has plateaued and job creation has been weak. Halfway through this government’s term, Modi has decided to loosen rules on investment and attract foreign direct investment as a strategy for growth. This is the hallmark of the type of neoliberal policy that the International Monetary Fund’s research department recently warned tends to increase inequality. Such foreign investment would give a quick short burst of growth — perhaps just in time for the elections in 2019. But a United Nations study found last year that such a strategy would widen the gaps between classes in India and do little to tackle India’s greatest challenge – its vast oceans of poverty.
A 2014 McKinsey study found that 680 million people – more than half the Indian population – live in deprivation. To ameliorate this, McKinsey advocated job creation, sharing productivity gains and increased public spending and efficiency for basic services (health care, water and sanitation). None of this is going to be taken in hand by the policy that Modi has inaugurated.
About 70 percent of India’s population lives in the countryside. Modi’s predecessors, the Congress-Left alliance, understood the predicament and put in place a rural employment guarantee scheme. That reform has been sharply narrowed, as all of Modi’s policies seek to benefit the urban middle class at the expense of the rural poor. Poor management of the agricultural sector has resulted in food inflation – prices of tomatoes and potatoes have doubled since last year. That over 300,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide since 1995 seems to mean little to this government. Policies for those in deprivation are in short supply.
Transnational firms are not on a mission to eradicate poverty. It is the role of the government to do so. Modi’s government has abdicated its responsibility – as enshrined in the Indian Constitution – to ensure social, economic and political justice to the Indian people.

Mozambique: Looking For Food In All The Wrong Places

Timothy A Wise

MAPUTO: I spent another week in Mozambique looking for ProSAVANA, the much-touted, much-reviled Japanese-Brazilian-Mozambican agriculture project that has spectacularly failed to turn Mozambique’s savannah-lands in the Nacala Corridor into a giant soybean plantation modeled on Brazil’s Cerrado region. I was there doing follow-up research for a book.
I hadn’t found much evidence of ProSAVANA two years ago (see my previous articles here and here) and I didn’t find much now. Government officials wouldn’t talk about it. Japanese development cooperation representatives spoke only of pathetically small extension services to a few small-scale farmers. Private investors were scarce. Civil society groups debated whether it is worth cooperating in the wholesale redesign of the program.
I wondered why anyone would bother. Like many of the grand schemes hatched in the wake of the 2007-2008 food price spikes, this one was a bust, by any measure. Still, ProSAVANA remains the Mozambican government’s agricultural development strategy for the region. While farmers defend their hard-won land rights, it seems they will have to look elsewhere for agricultural development.
I decided to look elsewhere as well. I didn’t have to go far. I arrived in Marracuene, 45 minutes outside Maputo, just after the rainy-season harvest and as the irrigation-fed winter season was beginning. Marracuene didn’t get much rain or much of a harvest due to the drought that has parched much of southern Africa.
One farmer in the village of BoBole told me he’d earned barely one-quarter what he had the previous year from farm sales, and almost none of that was from maize, the Mozambique staple. Across the region, production is down, prices are up, and hunger is widespread. In Mozambique, 1.5 million people are facing food insecurity, according to UNICEF, with 191,000 children expected to be severely malnourished in the next 12 months.
Diversity the key to surviving drought
In Marracuene, the maize harvest was almost a total bust. Fortunately, the farmers there grow a wide variety of crops, for home consumption and for sale. And they have irrigation, rehabilitated from an old colonial plantation, so they have a second season. I saw healthy crops in the fields – cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cassava.
And I saw young maize plants on what turned out to be the association’s collective plots, the small portion of the community’s 250 acres that this 280-member association agrees to set aside and farm collectively. They work it together every Thursday morning. I watched as women, and a few men, prepared fields, watered new plants, and sprayed for pests.
Women mostly tend these farms and run the association as well. And the maize they are growing now is for seed, because the summer harvest was so bad that many farmers have no seeds for the next season. They save, exchange and recycle seeds, because they don’t grow commercial hybrid maize, they rely on their own preferred native yellow maize. And they keep their community seed bank just for times like these.
In the district farmers’ union office, Mohammed, the Kenyan volunteer who is the local agroecology promoter, showed me small jars of seeds, explaining that this is now all that is left of their seed bank after the drought. The rest is planted on those collective plots. Mohammed was confident they would grow enough maize seed to get farmers back on their feet.
This was one self-reliant, climate-resilient bunch of farmers. Many bunches, actually, with 7,000 members in 19 active Marracuene-area associations, all affiliated with UNAC, the national farmers’ union. Their drought preparedness was no accident. ActionAid has been working with the alliance of Marracuene farmers unions, through UNAC, to promote agroecology, conservation agriculture, and climate-resilient farm management.
I saw them all during my visit to two of the associations, in Bobole and Popular. I saw careful mulching to hold in water and add organic matter to the soil. I saw intercropping in beautifully prepared raised beds, designed to promote drainage, avoid flood damage, and retain moisture during drought. I saw organic manure-based fertilizer awaiting application in the newly sown fields. (Mohammed confessed that some farmers were mad at him because local livestock farmers used to give away their manure; now they sell it due to the demand the project has helped create in the community.) I saw abundant crop diversity.
Self-styled agroecology revolution
I was most struck by the communities’ commitment to its native yellow maize. It predated ActionAid’s promotion of alternative cropping strategies. Farmers in Marracuene had simply decided that hybrid white maize offered them no significant advantages over their local saved variety, which produces small cobs but is dependable (if not this year) even under conditions of sporadic rains and limited fertilizer applications.
They were apparently so committed to rescuing this local variety that they followed the lead of a volunteer from Brazil, who showed them how to better select seed for purity and performance. As with many so-called “local varieties,” the quality had eroded over time due to uncontrolled cross-pollination with other maize varieties, including hybrids provided by international donors or the government. By selecting the best cobs and the purest kernels from those cobs, growing them out in the fields, then repeating the process, farmers restored the purity and performance of a preferred variety of maize. One they did not have to purchase every year.
It’s the kind of participatory plant breeding that is rarely considered when governments and international donors – and the neo-Malthusians predicting the end of food supplies – call for urgent investment in improved seeds. They mean one thing when they talk about improved seeds: hybrid maize sold by national and multinational seed companies. It is part of the new green revolution for Africa that, like the old one for Asia and Latin America, depends on purchased seed every year, from companies such as Monsanto, and heavy applications of inorganic fertilizer, supplied by multinational firms such as Yara.
On their own, these do nothing to improve the fertility of soils. Think of a trout pond stocked every year by the authorities so fishermen can catch fish.
Give a person a fish, goes the adage, and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish…. Well, teach him to fish from a stocked pond, and he won’t eat for a lifetime, he’ll eat for as long as someone can afford to keep stocking the pond. Teach him to create and maintain a healthy pond that sustains life – thenhe will eat for a lifetime.
The soils are farmers’ ponds, and Marracuene’s were being fed by crop diversity, just the kind of approach promoted in a recent expert report, “From Uniformity to Diversity.”
Intercropping is great for soils, building organic matter, adding needed nitrogen for maize and other crops, and reducing input costs. But it also diversifies risk, including nutritional risk in a drought. Mohammed told me that very little maize came out of the fields in this year’s extreme conditions, despite their drought-tolerant, improved variety. But drought-resistant crops like cowpeas, cassava, sweet potato, and okra survived, providing needed food.
Judite Manhica, the tall, strong woman who leads the association, said she didn’t expect a food crisis in her community after the drought. She farms just an acre of land, but she says it sustains her family.
Agroecology is by no means the norm yet in Marracuene; Mohammed estimated that maybe 40 percent of farmers are now employing the practices, or some of them. But he shows the patience of a true agricultural extension agent. He said farmers saw their neighbors do well with the new methods and they slowly were coming around. Mohammed said his efforts to introduce drought-tolerant sorghum and finger millet crops hadn’t taken hold, mainly because farmers in southern Mozambique are not accustomed to growing or eating them. But maybe in due time they will.
Misplaced priorities
I asked if the government was supporting their efforts in any way. Mohammed was charitable, pointing out free bags of organic fertilizer the provincial agriculture department gave them. But he couldn’t name another serious government contribution to sustainable agriculture. Neither could anyone else I spoke with.
I’ve seen little evidence, in fact, of any serious agricultural policies aimed at the 3 million small-scale maize farmers across Mozambique who eke out a living, with eroded local seeds, rudimentary tools, no credit, no irrigation, and no extension agents like Mohammed showing them how to put life back in their soils and food on their tables.
Instead, their government promotes large-scale foreign investment that threatens their lands and their livelihoods. And the international community, led by the Gates Foundation, pressures African governments to adopt restrictive seed laws that threaten farmers’ rights to save and exchange seed, as they do in Marracuene, while promoting the patented varieties being sold by Monsanto and other seed companies.
The day I was in Marracuene, African leaders were gathered in Harare, Zimbabwe, to advance the so-called Arusha Protocol on “Plant Variety Protection.” That is the catch phrase for measures to guarantee the intellectual property rights of commercial plant breeders.
The African Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA), denounced the effort in a statement. “AFSA is committed to ensuring that farmers, as breeders themselves as well as users, remain at the centre of localised seed production systems and continue to exercise their rights freely to save, use, exchange, replant, improve, distribute, and sell all the seed in their seed systems,” said coordinator Dr. Million Belay.
Thus far, the government of Mozambique has dutifully reformed its seed laws to conform, creating obstacles to the kinds of real solutions – to hunger, poverty, and climate change – farmers in Marracuene are creating for themselves.

Why is NATO So Irrational Today?

Jan Oberg

We are witnessing a remarkable increase in tension between the US/NATO and Russia these years – and it can not only be explained by whatever we choose to think happened in Ukraine and Crimea. We find a totally new effort on both sides to use social and other media to tell how dangerous “they” are to “us”. There is a clear tendency to “fearology” – to instill fear in the citizens on both sides about the capabilities and intentions of the other side.
We find deeply concerned articles about the possibility of war between the two parties – a quarter of a century after the Berlin Wall tumbled.
Why is the new tension rising in Europe between US/NATO and Russia so manifestly dangerous and – with the exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis worse than during the First Cold War?
On a series of indicators, the political Western world – US/NATO/EU and Christian (Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic with sects) – is becoming weak relative to other players in the global society.
The West has engaged in a series of wars that turned into very costly fiascos – from what followed from Sykes-Picot which turned 100 in May 2016 over Vietnam to the destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.
The West is still the largest economic bloc and the 28 NATO members cover about 70% of the world’s mind-boggling US $ 1700 billion military expenditures. Africa as a continent, BRICS countries – China in particular – are making progress, also in fields where the West has failed; for instance, China has lifted 400 million Chinese out of poverty in a couple of decades. The wealthy West has done nothing of the sort over centuries but produced a grotesquely, perversely unequal income distribution.
Take a look at the graphs linked to this summary page from SIPRI. They will tell you how world military expenditures in constant prices have risen since 1996 even though the Warsaw Pact had been dissolved. In 2015, the US alone stands for 36% of the world’s military expenditures, China for 13% and Russia for4%.
President Obama stated recently that the US military is stronger than the next 8 – here is what he said in his State of the Union Address on January 12th, 2016:
“I told you earlier all the talk of America’s economic decline is political hot air. Well, so is all the rhetoric you hear about our enemies getting stronger and America getting weaker,” Obama said in his last annual State of the Union address Jan. 12, 2016. “Let me tell you something: The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. Period. It’s not even close. It’s not even close. We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined.”
In spite of these fact that prove the overwhelming and increasing superiority of today’s NATO, we see a constantly increasing propaganda coming out of NATO circles to the effect that NATO is getting weaker and that Russia a formidable, unreliable power just waiting for the next opportunity to invade some country in the West.
Let’s take a look back in time.
What did the ’military balance’ – or what some called the correlations of forces – look like in the 1960s and 1970s between the then Warsaw Pact – the WTO, Warsaw Treaty Organisation – and NATO? This is important in and of itself because there is a whole school of thought that maintains that military balance is a major tool to prevent war and create stability.
Here is what I have calculated on the basis of SIPRI’s data sheet:
(And here some sources to the discussion of the relative inferiority of the Soviets at the time).
The graphs tell you that the Warsaw Pact military expenditures were as big as 75 – 87% of NATOs during the old Cold War.
In other words while considerably smaller (and with a much lower level of technical sophistication but more emphasis on quantity) the Warsaw Pact was indeed a potentialthreat in terms of capability at the time.
Whether it was a real threat would depend not only on capabilities but on another factor: intentions.
As far as I know, no first-strike, out-of-the-blue plan for an all-out attack on Western Europe by the Soviet/WTO has been found when the archives were opened after the Cold War. Both sides had plans for how to withstand and roll back an attack from the opponent. Both parties used simulations and held exercises with that in mind. If there had been a solid evidence that either party had a concrete plan – with intention and capabilities to back them up – for un-provoked invasion and occupation, the other sides would have made it top news to the world.
Be that as it may, the indisputable truth is that today the West is in a much better situation than in the old Cold War era.
The Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union disappeared completely. Today NATO has 28 members:
10 countries are former Warsaw Pact members – the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (joining in 1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. Romania, Slovakia (joining in 2204) and Albania (2009).
From non-aligned Yugoslavia has joined Slovenia (2004) and Croatia (2009). That is, 12 new members over 10 years, all of some security importance to the Soviet Union at the time. It all means that what Russia has a legitimate reason to see as a potential enemy – namely NATO – has moved very much closer to its border.
And what are the Russian military expenditures as percentage of NATO’s today? Less than one-tenth of what they were during the old Cold War!
According to SIPRI’s latest statistics, Russia’s military expenditures are 8% of NATO’s and 11% of those of the U.S. Look above – down from 75-80% of NATO during the First Cold War to 8% of NATO today!
Now, are military expenditures a good measurement of military strength?
It’s true that national military budgets are not always completely comparable; all countries do not include the same expenditures, some categories are included under various other budgets and it is no easy task to compare across exchange rates and time. Likewise the national purchasing power per currency unit is often not comparable.
But then – simply comparing numbers of weapons or soldiers is much less meaningful and much less ‘objective’. Quantity is one thing, quality quite another.
If you look for only one single indicator applicable across the board, military expenditures in constant prices (Milex) is it.
It is true that you can spend your money in different ways and some people, as we all know, are able to get a lot out of little while others just squander money thoughtlessly.
However someone with only 8 dollars shall be smart beyond the imagination to achieve much more for his money than the one who has 100. In addition, one can ask: How many times stronger must you be to have a fair chance to win a war you start against an opponent?
There is of course the theory advanced by Andrew Mack in World Politics in 1975 – “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict” – in World Politics. And there is a fine discussion here by Ivan Arreguín-Toft. Of course, there are other factors than armies and weapons – such as resolve, cohesion, topography, moral strength, economic strength, sustainability and whether you fight for your motherland or far away from it to gain some resources.
And some would maintain – and correctly so in many historical cases – that nonviolence is stronger, among other things because it is legitimate, considered courageous and draws sympathy from third parties (also because it can’t be used for aggression).
On most if not all these indicators, Russia would be a loser if it tried to invade, occupy and control the whole or parts of Eastern Europe. And it could certainly not count on the sympathy from important international players anywhere if it did. Indeed, only a suicidal or mentally ill leader in Moscow would – for years ahead – start a war against NATO.
So, to put it in a different way: Could anyone please find us a NATO general who’d rather serve in the Russian military with the wages, technology, the budgets and working conditions he would have there if he switched from Bruxelles to Moscow. Name and phone number, please!
One must indeed wonder why the West that has much less to fear militarily than ever since 1945 either pretends to be so fearful or acts with such out-of-proportion irrationality and alarmism.

Australian artists and industry professionals oppose funding cuts

Eric Ludlow

Actors, writers, directors and other artists have been holding protests across Australia in the lead-up to this weekend’s federal election to oppose escalating government funding cutbacks to arts institutions and grants to individual artists across all disciplines.
A National Day of Action was held on June 17, with demonstrations in several Australian cities. In Sydney, a protest was held outside Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s electoral office, while in central Melbourne, artists unfurled a large banner on the Nicholas Building, the home to several art studios, denouncing the cuts.
Some theatre companies are ending their performances with actors addressing audiences and explaining the destructive ramifications of reduced funding. Those visiting national- and state-funded galleries, contemporary art spaces, university galleries, commercial galleries and art schools are being urged to sign petitions opposing the Liberal-National Coalition government’s arts cuts in its May 3 federal budget.
Over the past three years, the Coalition has slashed over $300 million from the national arts budget, drastically impacting on a range of artistic disciplines and destroying hundreds of jobs. This includes over $50 million in cuts to Screen Australia, which helps finance and assist Australian filmmakers.
These cuts are contributing to a terrible toll of job losses in the arts. During 2014–15 alone, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, about 16,000 jobs were lost across all artistic disciplines. This was a 7.4 percent decline in employment in the sector, leaving just 210,000 people.
Last year, the federal government imposed a $105 million reduction to the Australia Council for the Arts, the government’s nominally independent arts funding body. The money, which represented 16 percent of the council’s total funds, was diverted into a new so-called National Program for Excellence in the Arts (NPEA), with grants determined at the discretion of the arts minister. There was no prior consultation with Australia Council officials, or other arts administrators, and no details released on how the “excellence” program would operate.
In December, because of a widespread outcry, the government suddenly shut down the NPEA and renamed it the Catalyst fund, declaring that it would provide money only to individual projects, and promised that NPEA funds would be returned to the Australia Council. Only $32 million of the $105 million came back to the Australia Council.
The full impact of the Australia Council cuts only became clear, however, last month when the agency announced this year’s grants. The council slashed the number of arts bodies receiving funds by more than a third, to only 147, and stopped money to 65 organisations, which now face closure. As a result, an estimated 1,300 direct jobs are expected to be wiped out in the creative sector.
Some of the hardest-hit organisations were small-to-medium sized groups, including theatre and dance groups, galleries, experimental or interactive arts groups, small-run publishers and some music and arts festivals. Most of these depend heavily on volunteer labour.
Over half of the 41 visual arts organisations granted government funds since 2012, including the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA), were defunded. NAVA director Tamara Winikoff told the media that the cuts were “an attack on the independence and integrity of the arts and a denigration of its value.”
Andrew Kay from Live Performance Australia, the performing industry’s peak body, told journalists the organisation expected 40 percent of small-to-medium companies would collapse. “That’s 18 to 20 companies that won’t be creating new productions, hundreds of creative and talented Australians out of work and lost revenue,” he said.
Force Majeure, a Sydney dance company, was among those defunded. Its chairperson Jo Dyer said that many arts organisation “have gone from having stable, multi-year funding to having to apply for reduced, one-off, project-based funding in hyper-competitive rounds.”
For their own electoral purposes, the Labor Party and the Greens have attempted to posture as “saviours of the arts,” promising to reverse the cuts to the Australia Council and to boost cultural spending.
Labor’s arts spokesmen Mark Dreyfus declared: “Labor is the party of the arts.” He promised that Labor would shut down the Catalyst fund, return its funds to the Australia Council, and provide an additional $161 million in “new arts investment” over four years. The Greens likewise pledged to restore the Australia Council cuts and invest $270.2 million over four years to “grow the arts in Australia.”
Even these totally inadequate pledges are worthless. They would be thrown aside if Labor, or the Greens in coalition with Labor, came to office on July 2. Contrary to their posturing, these parties defend market-driven outcomes, which increasingly subordinate the arts to the commercial interests of the financial elite, and the corporate profit system itself.
The historical record proves, moreover, that there have been no essential differences between the major parties’ arts policies in the past four decades.
In 1987, the Hawke Labor government introduced an “efficiency dividend” to impose annual funding cuts on all sections of federal public sector, including those at national galleries, museums, libraries, the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) and other cultural institutions. Ever since then, successive governments, including the Greens-backed Labor minority government of 2010 to 2013, have either maintained or intensified these “dividends,” eliminating thousands of public sector jobs.
The “efficiency dividends” have crippled these arts-related bodies, preventing them from carrying out vital work. This includes the ongoing procurement of important art and cultural pieces, but also establishing and managing exhibitions and carrying out vital restoration work and digital archiving. NFSA workers have warned that hundreds of valuable films, photographs and audio files are deteriorating and will be lost if they are not digitalised and preserved.
While Labor and the Greens claim to oppose the Coalition government’s cuts to the arts, they have raised no objections to billions of dollars being made available for the military for the acquisition of submarines, warships and war planes, in line with the US “pivot” to Asia and the associated preparations for war against China.
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) is the only party insisting that access to culture and the arts is a basic social right for all, and not just the wealthy few. Music, theatre, art, film, libraries, museums, galleries and cultural and historical exhibitions are essential to human civilisation, the uplifting of human understanding and the development of artistic, social and political consciousness.
Instead of being gutted, funding for the arts should be vastly expanded, and decently-paid secure employment should be available for all those engaged in creative work. As the SEP explains in its election statement, these and other essential social rights cannot be achieved without a vast redistribution of wealth and the ending of the domination of the financial and corporate oligarchy over economic and social life. This fight can be taken forward only as part of the struggle of the working class internationally, based on a socialist program.

EU maintains hard line toward UK over Brexit

Johannes Stern

On the second day of their summit, European Union leaders continued with their hardline stance towards the UK after its vote last Thursday to leave the bloc.
British Prime Minister David Cameron hardly had time to depart from Brussels on Tuesday before German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared before the cameras and quashed the hopes of sections of the British bourgeoisie that the decision to leave could be corrected. “I want to say frankly that I can see no way that this can be reversed again,” said Merkel.
It was “not the time for wishful thinking … The referendum is a reality which exists,” according to the Chancellor. She welcomed the fact that another informal summit was planned in September without Britain.
Although the British government has yet to trigger Article 50, which regulates the procedure for a member state to leave the EU, and is still formally in the EU, Cameron did not participate in the meeting of the remaining 27 EU members in Brussels yesterday.
Instead, the European Council intended to lay out guidelines for Britain’s exit from and future relations with the EU, the official web site of the German government reported. According to Merkel, “all agreed” at the summit that “until the application, there can be no formal or informal negotiations with the United Kingdom.”
EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker confirmed that the EU states urged Cameron to create clarity about the exit of his country as quickly as possible. “We don’t have months to reflect,” he said after the summit. In an earlier press conference, he sharply criticised the Brexit supporters. He could not understand those “who campaigned for the exit and are then completely incapable of telling us what they want.” He had assumed that they had “a plan.”
Germany’s Social Democrats, who for days have been agitating for a rapid British exit, along with the strengthening of Europe’s military power, praised the hard line course. SPD chairman and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said on the sidelines of a meeting of SPD leading politicians in Brussels: “Angela Merkel has made clear that there will be no informal negotiations with Britain and that we must quickly reach decisions. She had clearly ruled out the idea that one would, so to speak, show a bit of restraint.”
Gabriel declared in an interview with German daily Handelsblatt on Monday that he was in favour of making an example of London if this resulted in the break-up of the United Kingdom. “The politics of Johnson and Cameron have also had the potential result that the United Kingdom could break apart,” he said. Scotland and Northern Ireland had “made absolutely clear they do not want to leave the EU.” Behind the hard line stance is concealed the fear of the German and European elites that the EU could completely collapse. Der Spiegel, which used the cover of its last edition prior to the referendum to plead with Britain to stay within the EU, warned in the lead article of its latest edition: “The EU can have no interest in making the exit for Britain as easy as possible. The danger that the British example could catch on would be much too great.”
Already, the article continued, “the populist tendencies in many European countries [sensed] a breakthrough” and “they will be strengthened even if the mere suggestion is created that the British economy can survive largely unscathed from the divorce from a united Europe.” If after the Brexit, a Frexit or Öxit–i.e. an exit of France or Austria–took place, “the European Union would be at an end. And the euro as well.”
Therefore, it was “so important that Europe’s politicians do everything to prevent such a conflagration,” according to Der Spiegel.
While the European elites are desperately trying to contain the political, economic and social crisis on the continent, Brexit is seen at the same time as an opportunity to “further develop” the EU in areas previously blocked by Britain. Above all, this concerns the creation of a joint European defence and security policy.
Merkel declared that the time had now come to act: “The world is in turmoil, the world will not wait on the European Union and we in the European Union must confront the consequences of instability, wars and crises in our neighbourhood and be ready to act.”
At the heart of the meeting on Wednesday was a paper titled, “EU global strategy on foreign and security policy,” by EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini. According to a report in the German daily Die Welt, the paper was drafted last year in close consultation with Germany’s defence ministry.
The paper presents a blueprint for the establishment of the EU as an aggressive military power capable of waging war independently of NATO in emergency situations and organising military interventions outside of Europe.
“As Europeans we must take greater responsibility for our security. We must be ready and able to deter, respond to, and protect ourselves against external threats. While NATO exists to defend its members—most of which are European—from external attack, Europeans must be better equipped, trained and organised to contribute decisively to such collective efforts, as well as to act autonomously if and when necessary,” the paper stated.
Within the framework of a “concerted and cooperative effort,” military capacities had to be improved. “Developing and maintaining defence capabilities requires both investments and optimising the use of national resources through deeper cooperation,” it continued.
The document makes it clear that the aim of the EU is not the defence of human rights, but rather the pursuit of its economic and geostrategic interests around the globe. The document states that these interests include: “an open and fair economic system, the need for global maritime growth and security, ensuring open and protected ocean and sea routes critical for trade and access to natural resources.”
It continues: “The EU will contribute to global maritime security, building on its experience in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, and exploring possibilities in the Gulf of Guinea, the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca.”
In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Mogherini explained that “after principled considerations,” she had decided “to lay the strategy on the table now.” As a community of “small and medium-sized states,” it was necessary to stick together “in order to play a role in the world,” she said. Precisely now was “a good moment to remember this,” and the referendum could serve as “a wake up call,” not only for “EU institutions,” but also for “the politicians in Berlin, Paris, Prague or Dublin.”

29 Jun 2016

SARETI Masters Degree Scholarship in Health 2016

Brief description: SARETI announces the availability of scholarships that offer full annual support (travel, course fee, accommodation, stipends) for Master ‘s degree students for 2017.
Application Deadline: 26th August, 2016
Offered annually? Yes
Eligible Countries: African countries
To be taken at (country): South Africa
Research Study: Health Ethics and other health research-related fields
About the Award: SARETI is an African programme in health research ethics that offers modular and applied learning. Trainees are enabled to develop the expertise required to ensure that health research in Africa has the welfare of research participants, individuals and communities as its primary focus, SARETI offers a structured full-time Masters programme specialised in health research ethics.
SARETI is a University of KwaZulu-Natal (Pieter Maritzburg) Masters programme, funded by the Fogarty International Centre (FIC) of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) offering advanced learning in health research ethics. The programme is aimed at health researchers, scientists, members and administrators of research ethics committee, public health personnel, social scientists, philosophers, health journalists, lawyers and other professionals in the health field
Type: Masters Research
Eligibility: Eligibility is restricted to candidates who:
  • are able to undertake full time study for 11 months
  • have an eligible prior degree;
  • are involved in health research ethics and health-related research
  • are resident in Africa
Number of Awardees: Not stated
Value of Scholarship: full support  in candidate’s travel, course fee, accommodation, stipends
Duration of Scholarship: Annual
How to Apply: Visit Scholarship Webpage to apply
Award Provider: South African Research Ethics Training Initiative

TWAS – IACS PostDoctoral Science Fellowship for Developing Countries 2016

Brief description: Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science and TWAS are offering fellowships for citizens of developing countries (other than India) to pursue postdoctoral research program. 
Application Deadline:  31st August 2016
Offered annually? Yes
Eligible Countries: Developing countries (other than India)
To be taken at (country): India
Eligible Field of Study: Theoretical physics; Condensed matter physics; Spectroscopy; Materials science; Non-conventional energy; Physical chemistry; Organic chemistry; Inorganic chemistry; Biological chemistry; Polymer science.
About the Award: For young scientists from developing countries (other than India) who wish to pursue postdoctoral research in certain fields of natural sciences at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) in Kolkata, India. Fields include: biological chemistry, condensed matter physics, inorganic chemistry, materials science, non-conventional energy, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, polymer science, spectroscopy and theoretical physics.
Type: Postdoc Fellowship
Eligibility: Candidates for these Fellowships must meet the following criteria:
  • Be a maximum age of 40 years on 31 December of the application year;
  • Hold a Ph.D. degree in physics, chemistry or biology;
  • Be nationals of a developing country (other than India);
  • Must not hold any visa for temporary or permanent residency in India or any developed country;
  • Be regularly employed in a developing country (other than India) and hold a research assignment there;
  • Requests for acceptance must be directed to the Dean-Academic by e-mail (twas-at-iacs.res.in), who will facilitate assignment of a host supervisor. In contacting the Dean-Academic, applicants must accompany their request for an Acceptance Letter with copy of their CV and a 1) a statement on Proposed Area of Research, 2) consent of a Supervisor at IACS (preferable), or (at least) names of 2-3 potential scientists who would be willing to supervise your research at IACS. Please refer to the IACS website for details on potential host supervisors;
  • Provide evidence of proficiency in English, if the medium of education was not English;
  • Provide evidence that s/he will return to her/his home country on completion of the fellowship;
  • Not take up other assignments during the period of her/his fellowship;
  • Be financially responsible for any accompanying family members.
Number of Awardees: Several
Value of Scholarship: IACS will provide a monthly stipend to cover living costs, food and health insurance. The monthly stipend will not be convertible into foreign currency.
Duration of Scholarship: A minimum period of six months to a maximum period of twelve months
How to Apply: Visit Scholarship Webpage to apply
Award Provider: Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS)

Bloomberg Initiative To Reduce Tobacco Use Grants Programme

Brief description: Bloomberg is calling for proposals with solutions on how to reduce tobacco use in low- and middle-income countries of the world
Application Deadline: Friday, 22 July 2016
Offered annually? Not known
Eligible Countries: World Bank Low- and Middle-income countries
To be taken at (country): Global
Eligible Field of Study: All countries
About the Award: A global initiative to reduce tobacco use in low- and middle-income countries was launched in 2006 with funds from Michael R. Bloomberg. A competitively awarded grants program is an important part of the Initiative. The grants program supports projects to develop and deliver high-impact evidence-based tobacco control interventions. The grants program is managed by the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. In the first eighteen rounds of the grants program, 195 grants were approved in 53 countries.
Type: Research
Eligibility: Governmental and non-governmental organizations based in eligible countries can apply for grants.
1) Governmental organizations include, but are not limited to, national Ministries, state/provincial authorities and affiliate offices.
2) Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with relevant advocacy experience aimed at changing or implementing policies including but not limited to civil society organizations and educational institutions.
3) Applicants must be recognized legal registered entities capable of entering into contractual arrangements, receiving foreign funds and assuming legal and financial obligations.
4) NGO applicants cannot be the recipients of financial support from any tobacco product manufacturer or the parent, subsidiary or affiliate of a tobacco product manufacturer.
The grants program does not fund individuals.
Selection Criteria: Proposals must focus on achieving policy change that will lead to substantial reductions in tobacco use. The grants program gives priority to projects that lead to sustainable improvements in tobacco control laws, regulations, policies and programs at the national or sub-national level (e.g. provinces, states), including (but not restricted to):
  • Tax and price measures, including anti-smuggling measures
  • Direct and indirect advertising bans and effective enforcement of bans, including promotion and sponsorship
  • Establishment of smoke-free workplaces and public places, and effective enforcement of smoke-free policies
  • Implementation of graphic warning labels on tobacco products
  • Other evidence-based regulatory/legislative initiatives
The grants program can also support, where improving tobacco policy is their central goal:
  • Development of strategic alliances and coalitions
  • Monitoring & Countering Industry behaviour and practices
  • Strategic litigation
Number of Awardees: Several
Value of Scholarship: Proposals can be submitted for grants from US$50,000 up to a maximum amount of US$500,000. Short-term, one-year or two-year project proposals will be considered.
Funding levels should be consistent with the scope and capacity of the applying organization.  Cost reasonableness is a factor in the consideration of proposals.
Duration of Scholarship:
How to Apply: Applicants should first submit a short “Project Idea” using the online system at: www.tobaccocontrolgrants.org.
 Applicants may submit more than one Project Idea, however, duplicate proposals will be deemed ineligible.
Award Provider: Bloomberg
Important Notes: Alongside other important criteria, priority will be given to candidates with the capacity to establish good communication and coordination with project partners (including the government, as appropriate) early in the application process.