Code 2019 Developer Challenge for Young People

Application Deadline: 29th July 2019 at 11:59 PM PT.

Eligible Countries: All


About the Award: Developers have revolutionized the way people live and interact with virtually everyone and everything. Where most people see challenges, developers see possibilities. That’s why David Clark Cause launched Call for Code in 2018 alongside Founding Partner IBM. This multi-year global initiative is a rallying cry to developers to use their skills and mastery of the latest technologies, and to create new ones, to drive positive and long-lasting change across the world with their code.
The second annual Call for Code Challenge theme is natural disaster preparedness and relief in the context of community health and well-being.
Building on the success of the 2018 competition, the 2019 Call for Code Global Challenge again asks developers to create solutions that significantly improve preparedness for natural disasters and accelerate relief when they hit. We call on developers to create practical, effective, and high-quality applications based on cloud, data, and artificial intelligence that can have both an immediate and lasting impact.
The initiative has the support from an ecosystem comprised of a cross-section of experts, humanitarian and international organizations, including the United Nations Human Rights Office and the American Red Cross who will benefit from the second annual Call for Code Global Prize Event & Concert in October when judging is complete.

Type: Contest

Eligibility:

• Submissions must use one or more IBM Cloud services or IBM Systems. Use of sponsor or affiliate APIs and open source libraries is also encouraged.
• Teams of up to five (5) participants, each at least 18 years old, are allowed.
• A participant may not be part of multiple teams.
• All team members must have accept the Participation Agreement at the time they submit to be eligible.
• Applications must be new and built for the 2019 competition, but they may use code that was open sourced and publicly available to all other participants as of February 12, 2019.
• Winning teams will be subject to a code review after submissions close.
• Overall rights of first refusal to invest in projects will be outlined in the Participant Agreement.

Value and Number of Awards:

• One team will win the second annual Call for Code Global Prize, supported by the United Nations Human Rights Office and the American Red Cross.
• The winner and runners up will also earn several other awards that foster adoption of their application as an open source project through the The Linux Foundation to scale its impact and accelerate its deployment in areas of greatest need.
• In addition, the grand prize winner will have an opportunity to meet mentors and investors to discuss potential funding for the idea and they will receive deployment consultation through the IBM Corporate Service Corps.

Grand Prize

• $200,000 USD cash prize
• Invitation to the Call for Code Global Prize Celebration
• Long-term open source project support from The Linux Foundation
• Opportunity for mentorship and investment in the solution
• Offer to deploy the solution with IBM Corporate Service Corps

First and Second Runner Up

• $25,000 USD cash prize for each team
• Invitation to the Call for Code Global Prize Celebration
• Long-term open source project support from The Linux Foundation

Third and Fourth Runner up

• $10,000 USD cash prize for each team
• Long-term open source project support from The Linux Foundation

Duration of Programme: 

• Initial rounds of judging – August
  Semi-finalists will be judged by leaders from IBM, DCC, the United Nations Human Rights Office, the American Red Cross, and other Affiliates.
• The final round of judging ends – September
  Finalists will be selected by the jury of eminent judges. This round will rank the 5 overall winning teams of the competition.
• Winners are announced – October
  The 2019 Call for Code Global Prize winner will be announced at a celebration and benefit concert.

How to Apply: In order to submit, you must accept the 2019 Participation Agreement. You may edit and resubmit your solution up until the July 29 deadline.

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

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) Scholarship Research Program 2019 for Students

Application Deadline: 7th April, 2019.

Eligible Countries: All. Applications are particularly welcome for research projects in Asia, South America and Africa.


About the Award: The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) runs an exciting and ambitious program, working with partners to transform the world’s seafood markets and promote sustainable fishing practices. Undergraduate and postgraduate students of environmental and fisheries science are able to further their studies through the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) scholarship research program.
This year, the MSC also welcomes applications from students researching best practice in sustainable seaweed harvesting and management. Direct linkage to a fishery certified or wishing to become certified by the MSC is not a requirement, although this is an additional point of interest for the MSC.

Type: Research, Undergraduate, Postgraduate (Masters)

Eligibility:  Qualifying projects will:

• Have the objective of studying some aspect of environmental improvement, performance or best practice in fisheries and seafood product traceability and supply chain management. This may be a direct study of one particular fishery or a comparative study of fisheries problems or management. The project can be desk- or field-based.
• Direct linkage to a fishery certified or wishing to become certified by the MSC is not a requirement, although this is an additional point of interest for the MSC.
• The MSC also has a strong interest in identifying, assessing and managing the risks in seafood supply chains, for example, product substitution and mislabelling, traceability and DNA testing.
• Applications are particularly welcome for research projects in Asia, South America and Africa.

Selection Criteria: Qualifying projects will:
Have the objective of studying some aspect of impact, improvement, performance or best practice in fisheries management and or seafood supply chain management. This may be direct study of one particular fishery or comparative study of fisheries problems or management. Direct linkage to a fishery certified or wishing to become certified by the MSC is not a requirement, although this is an additional point of interest for the MSC.

Selection:

• All applications will be initially assessed on comparable scoring criteria. A maximum of five applications of the highest scoring applications will then be submitted for evaluation by the MSC scholarship research award review panel. The MSC Director of Science & Standards reserves the right for final decision of the scholarship award.
• Your application will be acknowledged with 1 week of the closing date. If you do not hear back from the MSC within that time, you should contact us immediately.
• All applicants will be informed of the outcome of their application within 6 weeks of the closing date

Number of Awards: A maximum of five

Value of Award: The MSC awards travel and study scholarships, up to the value of £4,000 to eligible undergraduate and postgraduate students worldwide.

Duration of Program: The project must be completed within 12 months of the start date stated on the application form, and the final project report must be submitted within 15 months of the start date.

How to Apply: Scholarship grant application form    
Application forms to be completed and returned via email to scholarship@msc.org


Visit the Program Webpage for Details

GCHERA World Agriculture Prize (USD100,000 Award) 2019

Application Deadline: 30th April 2019

Eligible Countries: All. At least one Of these prizes will be dedicated to a candidate from a Developing Country.


To Be Taken At (Country): The 2019 Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for the Agricultural and Life Sciences (GCHERA) World Agriculture Prize Award Ceremony will be held on 28 October 2019 in Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China.

About the Award: The GCHERA WORLD AGRICULTURE PRIZE is the international award of the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for the Agricultural and Life Sciences (GCHERA). The Prize aims to encourage the development of the mission of higher education institutions in education, research, innovation and outreach in the agricultural and life sciences by recognizing the distinguished contribution of an individual to this mission. Two 100,000 USD prizes will be awarded in 2018 with at least one recipient NOT coming from a country classified as having a developed economy.

Type: Contest/Award

Eligibility: Each nominee will demonstrate exceptional and significant achievement in his or her engagement in the mission of higher education institutions in education, research, innovation and outreach relating to the agricultural and life sciences. The impact of these achievements will most likely be demonstrated in the work of the nominee in the development of the institution(s) in which the nominee has served, and in the local and wider geographical region of those institution(s), but not necessarily globally.

Selection Criteria: The nominee will demonstrate exceptional and significant achievement in his or her engagement in the mission of higher education institutions relating to the agricultural and life sciences. This impact will most likely be demonstrated in the work of nominee in the development of higher education in the institution(s) in which the nominee has served, and in the wider geographical region of the institution(s). This engagement in the mission of higher education institutions will most likely have changed in emphasis, scope and the level of achievement as the nominee’s career has progressed.

To be more specific, as indicated in the Introduction above, the nomination will demonstrate the extent to which the nominee has:

• provided innovation and leadership in the education programmes of students at the Bachelor and Master levels, and in the delivery of life long learning,
• engaged in research for the advancement of science for the benefit of society, working with colleagues, and mentoring PhD Students and Post Doctorate staff
• provided leadership in the strategic development of the institution(s) in which the s/he has worked, not necessarily only his/her home institution but other institutions regionally or internationally
• engaged with the higher education institutions’ stakeholders, enterprises, government, NGOs and civil society in the immediate locality, regionally and internationally to strengthen knowledge transfer, innovation initiatives, and outreach ventures which have led to the enhancement of society’s well being
• been an inspiration to students, to colleagues at all levels and to leaders in the wider regional and international community.

The five bullet points above will act as prompts to assist the nominator completing the online nomination form for the GCHERA World Agriculture Prize.

Number of Awards: 2

Value of Award: Prizes to be awarded include 100,000 USD each.

How to Apply: You can register to make a nomination on this page. You will then receive a password by email to allow you to log on to the online nomination form. You can update your nomination form at any time until the closing date of 17.00 GMT on 30 April 2019.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

CIDRZ HealthCorps Global Public Health Fellowship (Funded to Zambia) 2019/2020

Application Deadline: 27th March 2019

Eligible Countries: All


To be taken at (country): Zambia

About the Award: This fellowship provides valuable field experience for future public health leaders in the setting of a vibrant non-governmental health research organisation in Zambia.
CIDRZ HealthCorps targets public health, medical, nursing and management graduates who are passionate about global health and wish to gain exposure. Master’s degree preparation preferred, however graduates with a Bachelor’s degree and substantial experience are welcome to apply. Previous work experience is highly regarded, but not required.

Fields of Study: 

• HIV/AIDS
• Enteric Diseases
• Tuberculosis
• Hepatitis
• Child Health
• Lab Science
• Women’s Health
• Newborn Health
• Water & Sanitation

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: CIDRZ HealthCorps targets public health, medical, nursing and management graduates who are passionate about global health and wish to gain exposure. Master’s degree preparation preferred, however graduates with a Bachelor’s degree and substantial experience are welcome to apply. Previous work experience is highly regarded, but not required.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Fellowship: Modest monthly bursary to cover basic living expenses,local medical services membership, & emergency evacuation insurance

Duration of Fellowship: 10 – 12 months; starting early August 2019

How  to Apply

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: CIDRZ

Young Water Fellowship 2019 for Young Leaders from Developing Countries (Funded to CEWAS, Switzerland)

Application Deadline: 24th March 2019

Offered annually? Yes


Eligible Countries: All low and middle-income countries

To be taken at (country): Training provided in cooperation with Cewas Switzerland with in-country project implementation

About the Award: The Young Water Fellowship Program aims to empower young leaders from low and middle income countries to implement projects to tackle water, sanitation & hygiene (WASH), water pollution and water scarcity issues, by offering them an intensive training program, seed funding grants for their projects, and mentoring support by senior level experts during one year.
Each year, this program brings about 10 young community leaders capable of successfully designing and implementing sustainable and inclusive water initiatives that significantly improve living conditions in their communities, while contributing to the achievement of SDG #6 (water and sanitation for all).
The YWF 2018 will focus on social entrepreneurship. Young people with social businesses ideas (or projects that can be turned into social businesses) that address water-related issues are welcome to apply.


Type: Entrepreneurship, Training, Fellowship (Professional)

Eligibility:

• Be 18 to 30 years old at the time of the application
• Be the founder or co-founder of an initiative that contributes to the solution of a well-defined water problem in your country. The initiative should be in its initial stages and have the ability to be turned into a social enterprise (i.e have a long-term sustainability component or business model).
• Be a resident from the list of low and middle-income countries.
• Have a valid passport and be available to attend a workshop in Europe from August 13^th to September 14^th 2018 (note that these dates might be subject to change),
• Be able to communicate in English (intermediate level at least).

Number of Awards: 10

Value of Award:

• Training: Fellows will attend a one-week workshop in Brussels and will be trained by experts in: IWRM | Project management | Monitoring and evaluation tools | Leadership | Water and gender | Social entrepreneurship | SDG 6
• All training costs are covered by the organization (flights, transportation in Europe, accommodation, meals), but participants must cover their visa expenses and transport costs to the closest international airport in their country of residency.
• Project Implementation: Fellows will be provided with opportunities for seed funding up to €5000 to implement their projects.

Duration of Scholarship: 1 year

How to Apply: Apply Here

• Interested applicants may go through the terms and conditions before applying.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Young Water Solutions

IPCC Scholarship Programme in Climate Change 2019 for Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 22nd March 2019 midnight CET.

Eligible Countries: Students from developing countries


To be taken at (country): Switzerland

About Scholarship: The aim of the IPCC Scholarship Programme is to build capacity in the understanding and management of climate change in developing countries through providing opportunities for young scientists from developing countries to undertake studies that would not be possible without the intervention of the Fund.
Applications from Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) researching topics with the fields of study chosen for the call for applications are given priority.

Type: PhD

Eligibility:

• The IPCC will accept applications from PhD students that have been enrolled for at least a year or are undertaking post-doctoral research.
• Applicants should be citizens of a developing country with priority given to students from Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

Selection Criteria: Applications will be submitted to a two-level selection process. IPCC scientific experts will assess the applications in a first review. The IPCC Science Board will then review the applications and make a final selection of candidates to receive the awards.

Number of Scholarships: Several

Scholarship benefits: Each scholarship award is for a maximum amount of 15,000 Euros per year for up to two years during the period 2019-2021.

How to Apply: Applicants should register via the application portal here: https://apps.ipcc.ch/scholarship/applicant/

Visit scholarship webpage for details

For Creative Girls Mentorship Program 2019 for Lady Creatives and Professionals

Application Deadline: 25th March, 2019

Eligible Countries: All


About the Award:  In the Creative/Professional world, meeting other individuals who have made significant progress in their lives and with their Art and Work is invaluable. It creates a paradigm shift as the young and inexperienced creative is exposed to resources, guides, angles and dreams that are achievable.
Now in its third year, the For Creative Girls Mentoring program matches women who are taking over their industries with upcoming female creatives and professionals.
For Creative Girls has created a 2-month mentorship program for Female Creatives and Professional. The mentorship program has been developed to help upcoming artists and professional women get the guide, help, and resources that they need to accelerate their growth in their chosen fields.
Makers, creators, social activists, and artists are thriving around the globe, and this mentorship program is tailored to help bridge the gap between female creatives uncomfortable with the stage their art and skills are currently at and those who have grown tremendously.
Some of the Mentors include Award-winning Architect, Tosin Oshinowo, Samira Rahimi – Senior Art Director at Microsoft, and Ozoz Sokoh of Kitchen Butterfly.
For Creative Girls is a semi-educational platform that provides all the resources and channels the Female Creative needs to grow and be successful. It is a platform for creative women to share insights about their creative processes (how they get things done and how they execute ideas), the way they get inspiration for their work and how to be profitable. For Creative Girls is run by Gbemi Adekanmbi who is on a mission to make Female Creatives and Artists a living breathing part of how the world, organisations and societies run.

Type: Training

Eligibility: The program is for women engaged in the Creatives (Design, Arts, Writing, Painting, Photography etc) and other types of professionals

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: This program is a One-on-One virtual mentorship guidance that will hold for 2 months causing accelerated growth in a person who is thirsty for growth in their chosen field.

Duration of Program: 2 months

How to Apply: Apply Here

Visit the Program Webpage for Details


Award Providers: For Creative Girls

The Christian Genocide During the Ottoman Empire Sounds a Dark Warning for the Future

Robert Fisk

Israeli historian Benny Morris doesn’t do things by half. The footnotes of his new book on the 30-year genocide of Christians by their Turkish rulers, cowritten with his colleague Dror Zeevi, take up more than a fifth of the 640-page work. “It was nine years, a long haul,” he admitted to me this week, with an audible sigh over the phone. And he talks about the involvement of Ataturk in the later stages of the genocide of around 2.5 million Christians of the Ottoman empire; how “religions do drive people to excessive violence” – he has in mind the Turks, Isis, the Crusades – and even condemns the Arabs for their inability to criticise themselves.

The mere title of the Morris-Zeevi book, The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities 1894-1924, is going to have the Turks enraged, from Erdogan down. The Armenians and other Christians will dispute his apparent claim that he has only just discovered that their slaughter lasted for 30 years – others have talked of the Armenian genocide of 1915 bookended by the late 19th-century massacres in Turkey and the post-1915 killing of surviving Armenians and Greeks, Assyrians and others. And the Arab world will challenge his view that the holocaust (my word) of Christians was more motivated by Islam than Turkish nationalism.

Having written about the genocide of the Armenians for 35 years, I have doubts that the actual call for “jihad” in the Turkish Ottoman empire unleashed at the start of the First World War was as ferocious as Morris makes it out to be. Muftis were indeed told they were in a holy war against Christians – but not against German Christians, Austro-Hungarian Christians, neutral Christians or allies of the Central Powers (Bulgaria, for example). Many Muslim worshipers, sitting on the carpets of mosque floors, must have shaken their heads in puzzlement at these caveats. Well, one way was to notice the German officers training the Ottoman army, the German diplomats and businessmen who witnessed the genocide of the Armenians with their own eyes, and wrote home about it. Hitler asked his generals who now remembered the Armenians just before invading Poland in 1939.

But again and again, I was brought up short by the sheer, terrible, shocking accounts of violence in Morris’s and Zeevi’s work. “Strident religiosity” moved through the Muslim lands, write the authors.

The date: 1895. The place: Severek. The witness: Armenian survivor Abraham Hartunian. “The first attack was on our pastor [Mardiros Bozyakalian]. The blow of an axe decapitated him. His blood, spurting in all directions, spattered the walls and ceiling with red. Then I was in the midst of the butchers. One of them drew his dagger … Three blows fell on my head. My blood began to flow like a fountain … The attackers [were] sure that I was dead … Then they slaughtered the other men in the room, took the prettier women with them for rape …”

Now it is July 1915. The place: Merzifon. The witness: missionary JK Marsden. “They were in groups of four with their arms tied behind them and their deportation began with perhaps 100 … in a batch … they were taken about 12 miles across the plains, stripped of their clothing and, in front of a ditch previously prepared, were compelled to kneel down while a group of villagers with knives and axes quickly disposed of them. For a week, this was repeated until 1,230 of the leading Armenian men had been disposed of.”

In January 1920, YMCA secretary CFH Crathern was in Marash. The wife of an Armenian pastor had reached his hospital. “She was bleeding … from three bullet and three dagger or knife wounds while a child of 18 months had been taken from her breast and slain with a knife, and an older girl killed with an axe. To add to the sorrow of it, this woman was pregnant and had a miscarriage as soon as she reached the hospital.” The woman died the following day.

I have repeated above only a few of the less bloody episodes from the 30 years. I will spare readers the chopped off fingers, the thousands of raped girls, the priests beheaded or burned on crucifixes.

In the final annihilation of the Armenians, an American missionary spoke of “minds obsessed with Muslim fanaticism seven times heated”. Turks, he wrote, had “become drunk with blood and rapine, and plunder and power, and he will be a different man from what he was before the atrocities”. Benny Morris thinks it was more to do with a mixture of modern nationalism and the decline of “Islamic polity”.

I discussed all this with him. Is it possible for a people to be so inured to cruelty that they changed, that their acts of sadism could alter their humanity? Religions drive people to excessive violence, he said again, and then repeated this as “excessive sadism”. Morris agreed that the Romans were cruel, but they were pagans. “In terms of religion, the Romans were amateurs. Abrahamic religions drive people to excess.” Jews had avoided this. Palestinians will disagree.

There is certainly a frightening geographical scope to the killings. Many thousands of horrors were perpetrated in Mosul, Raqqa, Manbij and Deir ez-Zor, names grimly familiar from the Isis torments of 2014 onwards.

Why, one keeps asking, didn’t the Christians leave after 1924? But of course, they had been urged to return to settle in Cilicia and in Mesopotamia and Syria by the French and British – who left; and thus the Christian descendants waited for the next generational bloodletting.

The Turks were not the only killers, and Kurds also killed the Christians for the Turks, as Ukrainians killed the Jews for the Nazi Germans. At one point in Morris’s text, a group of Circassians plait a rope 25 yards long from the hair of young women they have killed, and send it as a present to their commander.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk gets pretty well trashed in this volume. “There are accounts of him saying in 1922 that, ‘Our aim is to get rid of the Christians’ – he said this in a number of conversations,” Morris contends. “He gave orders, and men in his later government were responsible.” But if this 30-year history of blood was fueled by “Muslim fanaticism”, there are “good Turks” in the book. In the first massacres, government officials arrested Essad Bey, an “honest, impartial and tolerant” judge who tried to help the Christians. There is a heroic Turkish doctor who throws out his sick Turkish soldiers from a hospital and replaces them with Armenian refugees. Missionary Tacy Atkinson hoped to meet the doctor one day “in the Kingdom of Heaven”.  There are others. It’s true that the Greek Christians have fewer historians than the Armenians. Tens of thousands of Greeks were transported to Greece in return for an equal number of Muslims – official agreements kept the massacres a trifle smaller – but Morris and Zeevi give too little attention to the awe in which the Nazis held Ataturk’s people.

Ataturk himself cared little for Islam: he smoked and womanised, and was a nationalist before he was a Muslim. The Nazis admired his “Turkified” non-minority republic. When he died, the front page of Volkischer Beobachter was fringed in black.

The authors briefly compare the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian genocide – I prefer the terms Jewish Holocaust and Armenian Holocaust – and there are some already published parallels. Armenians might be spared if they would convert to Islam or marry Muslim men. Jews could not save their lives by converting. The Turkish massacres were more sadistic. I rather think the German-inspired slaughter could be just as bad in the Second World War: witness the head-chopping at the Jasenovac camp on the Croatian-Bosnian border. Persecution of the Jews under the Nazis lasted at most 12 years, but persecution of Christians in Ottoman territories 30 years.

German civilians played little role in the Jewish Holocaust. Turkish civilians played a far greater role. If 2.5 million Christians is the correct figure for those murdered in the 30 years – Morris warned me that it cannot be accurately tallied, and I’m sure he’s right – at least six million Jews were killed in the 1939-1945 period, and so it took the Nazis five times as few years to slaughter more than twice as many human beings. The Turks simply didn’t have the industrial tools to kill more Christians more quickly, because these mechanics were unavailable at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. But working on this basis, how many people will be killed in the future – and how quickly – with new technology?

Diego Garcia: UN Court Calls on Britain to ‘Decolonize’ Chagos Islands

Brett Wilkins

The United Nations’ highest court on Monday called Britain’s claim of sovereignty over the Chagos Islands “illegal” and urged London to “decolonize” the remote archipelago — which is home to one of the most important US overseas military bases — by returning the islands to Mauritius.

In a 13-1 vote, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands issued an advisory opinion declaring that the Chagos Islands were not lawfully separated from the former British colony of Mauritius, which was forced to give up the islands in 1965 in exchange for independence. ICJ President Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf said the “unlawful” separation had not been based on a “free and genuine expression of the people concerned” and was therefore a “wrongful act.”

“The United Kingdom is under an obligation to bring an end to its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible, thereby allowing Mauritius to complete the decolonization of its territory,” Yusuf asserted.

The ICJ agreed with Mauritius’ submission, which argued it had been coerced into giving up the islands. Such an act is a violation of UN Resolution 1514, which prohibits the breakup of colonies before independence. The only judge who dissented from the court’s main opinion was Joan E. Donoghue of the United States.

“This is a historic moment for Mauritius and all its people, including the Chagossians who were unconscionably removed from their homeland and prevented from returning for the last half century,” Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth said after the decision. “Our territorial integrity will now be made complete, and when that occurs, the Chagossians and their descendants will finally be able to return home.”

The British Foreign Office responded by noting the ICJ action was “an advisory opinion, not a judgment” and that it would “carefully” consider its contents. London calls the remote archipelago the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). It paid Mauritius, which gained independence in 1968, over £4 million, or nearly $90 million today, for islands, which include the Diego Garcia atoll.

Today Diego Garcia is one of the largest and most important US military bases in the world. Dozens of US warships along with thousands of troops and support staff are stationed there, and the base is crucial to US operations in the Middle East. However, until the late 1960s Diego Garcia was home to around 1,500 Chagossians, a Creole-speaking people who lived peacefully in the paradisiacal archipelago with their beloved dogs. The John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations secretly convinced Britain to grant exclusive control over the atoll, “without local inhabitants,” to the US. American documents refer to “sweeping” and “sanitizing” the island, while a top British official privately wrote that “we must surely be very tough about this… there will be no indigenous population except seagulls.” One British diplomatic cable at the time referred to Chagossians as “Tarzans.”

The island’s residents were tricked, scared or forced into leaving. When a contingent of US Marines arrived, they told the Chagossians they would be bombed or shot if they didn’t go. In a bid to hasten the evacuation, the islanders’ dogs were rounded up and gassed to death with exhaust fumes from US military vehicles before being burned in front of grieving and terrified children. Chagossians were allowed to take a single suitcase each before being herded onto cargo ships, never to return home again.

Most Chagossians were dumped, initially without any compensation, a thousand miles (1,600 km) away in the island nation of Mauritius, where they were treated as second-class citizens and where many ended up living lives of abject poverty and heartbreak in the slums of the capital, Port Louis. There, they learned the meaning of debt, unemployment, drugs and prostitution. It wasn’t long before suicides and child deaths took a heavy toll on the refugees. Meanwhile, and without any apparent sense of irony, the US military called its new Halliburton-built base on Diego Garcia Camp Justice.

The expulsion of an entire people from its homeland was not reported to Congress or the American people. Britain lied, claiming “there is nothing in our files about a population and an evacuation.” To this day, Chagossians are fighting for the right to return to their homeland. They’ve been unsuccessful despite two  British High Court rulings declaring their removal illegal. Most will likely die without ever seeing home again.

“Back home was paradise,” 81-year-old Samynaden Rosemond, who was 36 when he was forced from Diego Garcia, told the BBC in Port Louis, Mauritius last year. “If I die here my spirit will be everywhere; it wouldn’t be happy. But if I die there, I will be in peace.”

Heavy rains and avalanches kill dozens in Peru

Cesar Uco 

Heavy rains have caused dozens of rivers in Peru to overflow and triggered widespread landslides claiming the lives of at least 39 people and leaving at least 10,000 affected. Hundreds have lost their homes.

The floods have inundated entire villages, while avalanches of mud and stones have demolished homes, schools and medical facilities, while laying waste to thousands of hectares of arable land.

Last week, mudslides buried a mining camp, leaving seven miners missing and presumed dead.

It is feared that as the result of the floods, the dengue virus transmitted by mosquitoes may reappear, threatening to claim more victims, especially among children.

Last Sunday, heavy rains fell in the northernmost part of Peru, Tumbes, for more than 11 hours, making commercial activity impossible and shutting down the border crossing with Ecuador.

Also, the main highway linking Lima with the interior of the country, vital for bringing food supplies into the Peruvian capital, was blocked for more than 12 hours over the weekend after an avalanche covered it 62 kilometers from Lima. Hundreds of people were trapped in buses without food or water.

In Lima, the lack of food from the provinces has increased the cost of chicken—a staple in the Peruvian diet—by 42 percent.

In Huaraz, popular among Andean mountain climbers, the streets and central market flooded, creating problems in providing local food supplies.

Last Thursday, Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra visited some of the storm-damaged areas to assess the effects of the flooding. The storms are affecting virtually every coastal district in Peru, from the border with Ecuador in the north, almost to the southern border with Bolivia. The government has declared states of emergencies in virtually every one of these districts—Tumbes, Piura, Lamabayeque, Cajamarca, La Libertad and Ica—all located on Peru’s Pacific Coast, as the waters cascade down from the Andes Mountains and flood the rivers. Weather forecasts predict that the rains will continue for another two months.

It is still too early to predict whether this year’s flooding and landslides will reach the critical status of the “El Niño Costero” (coastal storms caused by the warming of Peru’s and Ecuador’s Pacific Coasts) of 2017. The 2017 storms and flooding destroyed more than 115,000 homes, killed a total of 113 people, destroyed some 1,500 miles of roads and affected an estimated 1.1 million people. Another 3 million people were put at risk of waterborne diseases

The already catastrophic effects of today’s storms are due not merely to a natural disaster, but more directly to the government’s abject failure to repair the massive damage caused two years ago and prepare for another, inevitable catastrophe. Many families who lost their homes in 2017 are still living in tents.

At the time of the 2017 crisis, Peru’s Central Reserve Bank estimated that repairing bridges and roads would cost $US3.8 billion. Though it later increased that estimate by $US1.5 billion, it became clear that this expanded BCR estimation would only cover 19 percent of the actual amount needed.

In 2017, the government headed by President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski handed over the reconstruction effort to firms such as the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, generating massive profits for private corporations. He claimed that the private sector would be more efficient than the state in repairing the damages and restoring the affected towns and cities. Instead of using government funds and personnel to immediately begin reconstruction, he spent months negotiating juicy contracts with national and international private companies.

Kuczynski, a former Wall Street banker who personifies the corrupt relations of the Peruvian bourgeoisie and with foreign capital, was forced to resign in March 2018 because of his connections with Odebrecht, a company whose name has become synonymous with kickbacks and corruption across Latin America.

The management of natural disasters in favor of profit demonstrates the rapaciousness of a capitalist ruling elite that cares nothing for the lives of rural and city poor, schoolchildren and the elderly. Capitalism lends in crises, demanding profits well above the average, claiming that they are making risky investments. The enormous expected profits come not from any additional risk, but because they are negotiated with the state, an entity full of their corrupt “compadres”.

Peruvians have made it clear they have no confidence in the government. According to a poll done by Commerce-Ipsos, 50 percent believe that the country is unprepared to respond to the flooding crisis, while 41 percent believe it is poorly prepared.

The overwhelming disdain of Peruvians for the Lima government is well-founded. Even as the growing disaster was unfolding on Peru’s coast, Peruvian prosecutors last week began taking testimony from convicted Odebrecht executives in Curitiba, Brazil, who described how the company spread bribes to Peruvian politicians, ranging from $5,000 to candidates for mayor to millions for those running for president. Four former presidents are implicated in the scandal—Alejandro Toledo, Alan Garcia, Ollanta Humala and Kuczynski.

While Peru’s current President Vizcarra praised the prosecutors’ work in Brazil, saying that it would allow them to get “to bottom of the truth and punish” those involved in corruption, he has himself been implicated in the Odebrecht affair. As he prepares, like his predecessor, to cut new lucrative contracts with Peruvian construction companies to “exploit” the never completed reconstruction from the 2017 catastrophe, his government confronts the threat of an explosion of popular anger and a resurgence of class conflict in Peru.

Measles outbreak in Ukraine claims eight lives

Jason Melanovski 

Ukraine’s Ministry of Health announced last Wednesday that eight people had died of measles thus far in 2019. The announcement marks a sharp rise in deaths due to the disease compared to 2018, when a total of 18 people died of measles during the entire year. Among this year’s victims are two children and six adults.

Measles is a highly contagious disease that is spread through the air by coughing, sneezing or coming into contact with saliva or nasal secretions of infected individuals. Initial symptoms, including fever, cough, runny nose, and inflamed eyes, usually start 10-12 days after infection, and are then followed by an infamous spotty red rash that spreads from the face to the entire body three to five days later. Death, while occurring in just 0.2 percent of infected cases, can occur in up to 10 percent of cases with malnutrition.

Measles today is a disease that is easily preventable thanks to the widespread availability of safe and effective vaccines that can be administered in early childhood. Even those who do not receive the vaccine are protected by “herd immunity” when approximately 95 percent of the surrounding population is vaccinated. This makes the outbreak in Ukraine all the more politically significant.

Ukraine has by far the highest rate of both measles infections and deaths in all of Europe. In 2018 over 53,000 people were infected with measles in Ukraine. Serbia, the country with the second highest rate of measles infections in 2018, had just over 5,000 cases. Meanwhile, Russia, a former Soviet state as well, with a population of approximately 100 million more people than Ukraine, experienced just over 2,000 cases of measles in 2018.

The outbreak is not limited to any single region: it has spread throughout the country, leading to the closing of schools, day care centers and playgrounds for quarantine. In the capital of Kiev, over 100 schools have been closed due to measles and an accompanying flu outbreak.

According to the Lancet medical journal, Ukraine’s “precipitous” fall in measles “vaccination level began after 2008, when 95% of eligible children in Ukraine received their second (and final) recommended dose of the MMR vaccine. By 2016, the rate was 31%, among the lowest in the world. Although now rising again, the latest 85% measles vaccination rate recorded by WHO remains below that needed for herd immunity.”

Ukraine also has relatively low rates of vaccinations for other diseases, such as polio and hepatitis. In 2018, only 67 percent of one-year-olds in Ukraine received the polio vaccine and 51 percent received the hepatitis vaccine.

According to World Health Organization vaccine specialist Katrine Habersaat, in addition to the promulgation of medical misinformation throughout Eastern Europe, “other factors include complacency about the threat of the disease, the convenience of vaccination services, and confidence in health workers who carry out vaccination campaigns.”

Mistrust of the medical establishment is particularly high in Ukraine since, due to extremely low salaries of around $200 a month, doctors and other medical workers are often forced to rely on bribes from patients to make ends meet. A recent poll by the Ukrainian government found that 68 percent of Ukrainians had experienced bribery and corruption in healthcare.

While medical care is theoretically free in Ukraine, nearly half of all healthcare payments are made out-of-pocket, further limiting the access of care to those who can afford it.

The country also faces a shortage of skilled workers such as medical doctors, who, faced with poverty wages, are fleeing the country in droves to earn better wages in countries like Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. Between 2016 and 2017 alone, 66,000 doctors left the country.

Despite the fact that the rapid drop in vaccinations began in 2008, Lancet, in accordance with imperialist propaganda, blames the reports of measles outbreak on “Russian trolls” allegedly using social media. Lancet ’s claim is ludicrous. The journal does not even bother to explain how or why these trolls would have carried out such a scheme.

This kind of propaganda seeks to divert attention from the fact that the current outbreak is the result of a massive social crisis, which is ultimately the product of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the restoration of capitalism, and that has been significantly exacerbated in the wake of the imperialist-orchestrated, far-right coup in Kiev in 2014.

Following the dissolution of the USSR, Ukraine, as all former Soviet republics, has experienced an enormous spread of diseases that had hitherto been de facto wiped out, including tuberculosis and polio. Russia and Ukraine have also become the countries with the largest HIV epidemic outside of Africa, an epidemic that is bound up not only with a lack of sex education, but above all with extremely widespread heroin abuse, a stark expression of the social despair facing millions of workers. Ukraine also has one of the lowest life expectancy rates in Europe.

While the exact causes for the drop in measles vaccinations since 2008 remain to be investigated, it is clear that they are bound up with the devastating economic and social crisis that has ravaged the country. The financial crisis of 2009 has hit Ukraine particularly hard. As a result of a skyrocketing trade deficit, inflation and widespread layoffs between 2008 and 2009, Ukraine’s GDP fell by over 14 percent. Subsequently, health expenditures per capita fell by 22 percent between 2008 and 2009.

The western-backed coup in 2014 and the civil war in eastern Ukraine further exacerbated the crisis of Ukraine’s health sector and disrupted the country’s supply chain for vaccinations. In 2014, following the secession of parts of eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea by Russia, Ukraine began imposing sanctions on a wide variety of Russian goods, including medical supplies, thus forcing the country to find new sources of vaccines for import and causing shortages. The country’s current American-born health minister, Ulana Suprun, has admitted that several years ago the country imported ineffective vaccines that worsened the current crisis.

In 2014, as a result of the right-wing coup in Kiev, Ukraine’s GDP fell by 6.6 percent and then by another 9.8 percent in 2015. Ukraine’s health expenditures per capita fell in 2014 by over 35 percent and another 31 percent in 2015.

According to the World Bank, Ukraine continues to rank much lower than other European countries in per capita health care expenditures. While the country’s healthcare sector continues to falter and disease outbreaks that are rare in neighboring countries continue unabated, the Poroshenko regime plans to spend just $3.4 billion on healthcare in 2019, while spending $7.45 billion on the Ukrainian military.

France’s ruling parties launch anti-Muslim campaign against sports veil

Will Morrow

On Tuesday evening, the French-based sports clothing retailer Décathlon announced that it could not proceed with plans to place on sale an Islamic sports veil, designed to be worn while jogging, at stores in France. The cancellation came in response to a three-day-long campaign of racist and anti-Muslim hysteria by the French political establishment, demanding the banning of the item. It resulted in the mobilization of fascist layers to threaten the company and its employees.

Lydia Guirgous, a spokeswoman for the right wing The Republicans (LR), launched the campaign on February 24, after a marketing blogger announced the upcoming release of the veil. Guirgous tweeted: “Décathlon is submitting itself to both #Islamism that only tolerates women whose heads are covered by a hijab to secure their place in the Ummah, and to men. Décathlon is thus renouncing the values of our civilization upon the altar of the market and communalist marketing.”

The Tweet triggered a deluge of anti-Muslim statements in the political establishment, some employing the same absurd and fraudulent pretext that they were seeking to defend women by banning the sale of a religious garment.

Valérie Rabault, the Socialist Party (PS) deputy in the National Assembly for Tarn-et-Garonne tweeted: “Boycott Décathlon in France?” Former PS minister Laurence Rossignol published a foul joint communiqué by the League of International Womens’ Rights and the Secular Republic Committee, denouncing Décathlon as a “promoter of sexual apartheid.”

Valérie Boyer, the LR deputy for Bouches-du-Rhone, said she was “revolted to see this French company choosing to prolong the sexual apartheid imposed on women in public spaces.”

The attacks escalated the next day, after Décathlon tweeted in reply to Guirgous that “the hijab was needed by certain runners, and we responded to this sporting demand.” The item is already on sale in Morocco.

The Macron government publicly joined the campaign on Tuesday morning. Solidarity and Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said, in an interview with RTL, “I would prefer that a French brand not promote the veil. It’s not outlawed, but nonetheless, this is a vision of women that I don’t share. I find that it does not correspond to the values of our country.” Another spokesperson for the governing party in the National Assembly, Aurore Bergé, tweeted that she would “no longer place trust in a brand that breaks with our values.”

The same morning, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, of the right-wing Stand Up France! party, was invited for a TV interview on France2, where he declared that he did not intend to allow his two young daughters to grow up in a country like Saudi Arabia, and demanded a boycott of Décathlon.

Just a week ago, Stand Up France! was forced to withdraw the candidacy of Emmanuelle Gave in the European elections, after news outlets published her social media posts, one of which said there were “too many blacks in the 100 meter race” and the other that “muslims are totally unacceptable as housekeepers or nannies.”

The extreme-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen published a communiqué the same day, denouncing the “latest intrusion of Islamic communalism into public spaces.” While welcoming the anti-Muslim crusade by the Socialist Party and others, it demanded an end to what it called the “policies of massive immigration that are the most undoubted causes of sectarianism.”

The outpouring of filth had its intended effect, with a mobilization of fascistic layers to threaten the company and its employees. Décathlon tweeted that “Our customer services have received over 500 calls and emails since this morning. Our staff have been insulted and threatened, sometimes physically.”

Décathlon published extracts of various anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic messages it received. One stated: “Rotten gang. Money has no smell. You betray the values of the French Republic. Shame on you for contributing to the Islamist invasion. You’ll end up like the riff-raff in the ovens in Poland.” Another asked whether the company planned on marketing “explosive belts.”

On Tuesday evening, Décathlon announced it was withdrawing the product indefinitely “in the face of the violent polemic it has triggered” and “out of concern to guarantee the safety of our staff.”

The Republicans deputy Lydia Guirons tweeted gleefully in response that the “mobilization of citizens” who uphold “the values of our civilization has won. I am happy that Décathlon is retreating from the sale of the hijab. It is a wise decision. The struggle against Islamism is a fight at every moment.”

This disgusting operation exposes the fraudulent character of the official campaign against “anti-Semitism” mounted by every one of the parties who whipping up this anti-Muslim propaganda. It has nothing to do with opposing anti-Semitism, and everything to do with slandering growing left-wing opposition to social inequality in the working class as anti-Semitic and fascistic.

An effort is underway to downplay the indissoluble connection between anti-Semitism and fascism, and to associate anti-Semitism with socialist opposition to capitalism. As the past week’s events demonstrate, the campaign over anti-Semitism is being used to strengthen Le Pen’s National Rally and other fascistic forces with the promotion of anti-Muslim hysteria.

The entire political establishment is shifting rapidly to the right in response to a leftward movement of the working class, which has found only an initial expression in the “yellow vest” protests.

In a speech last Wednesday, Macron repeatedly warned about the growth of “radical Islam” and called for stepped up policing of working-class neighborhoods. “This ideology grows like gangrene in certain suburbs,” he said, calling for a “Republican conquest of these territories.”

The French political establishment has long utilized campaigns against the Muslim veil as a means of inciting anti-Islamic xenophobia and justifying attacks on democratic rights directed against the entire working class. In 2010, two years after the onset of the global financial crash and the initiation of austerity across Europe, President Sarkozy introduced a ban on full facial coverings with the support of the Socialist Party.

In their campaign, the ruling elite can largely count on the complicit silence of what passes for the French left, which has supported or accommodated itself to veil bans.

Jean-luc Mélenchon, the leader of the La France Insoumise (LFI), has remained silent amid the anti-Muslim campaign. No statement is available on the web site of LFI—much of which has supported the Aufstehen movement of Sahra Wagenknecht in the German Left Party, which has discussed allying with the anti-Muslim Pegida movement. Mélenchon’s Facebook and Twitter pages are silent on the Décathlon affair, as is the website of Lutte ouvrière(LO), a longstanding supporter of the veil ban.