Ireland votes to remove blasphemy from the constitution and re-elects Michael D. Higgins as president

Dermot Byrne & Steve James 

The Republic of Ireland voted last week to remove the word “blasphemous” from article 40.6.1 of its constitution, five months after the country’s voters agreed to liberalise abortion laws.

Although no-one has been prosecuted for blasphemy since 1885, the decision, supported in every single electoral constituency, underscores the failing grip of the Catholic Church and a left and liberalising sentiment among broad layers of the population.

Some 65 percent of voters voted to remove the offence of blasphemy from the constitution, almost the same as May’s vote for abortion reform and slightly higher than the 62 percent who supported same sex marriage in 2015. Even Donegal, the only constituency to reject removal of the anti-abortion Eighth Amendment from the constitution, and Roscommon-South Leitrim, which opposed same-sex marriage in 2015, voted in line with the rest of the country.

On the same day, Michael D. Higgins was elected as Irish president for a second seven-year term. Higgins, who claims to be a socialist, won 56 percent of the vote for the largely ceremonial role, compared with 39 percent in 2011.

His run for a second seven-year term was supported by both Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael governing party and the main opposition party, Fianna Fail.

Fianna Fail have been propping up Varadkar’s minority government under a “confidence and supply agreement” for the past two and a half years. The two-party duopoly has facilitated a vast transfer of wealth from the working class to the top 10 percent in society.

The Irish Labour Party, which was reduced to just seven seats in the 2016 general election, also backed Higgins, who is a former Labour TD (member of parliament).

With the candidate of all the main parties a nominal “socialist,” the most striking feature of the election was the degree of political alienation among working people. The turnout of 44 percent was the lowest recorded of any election in Ireland since the foundation of the state.

Higgins, portrayed as a “national treasure,” with a “Miggle D. Giggles” laughing stuffed toy being sold in aid of charity this Christmas, won a record 822,566 first preference votes. However, only 1,473,900 people voted out of a possible 3,401,681. No doubt, the turnout would have been lower still without the poll to remove blasphemy as an offence.

Growing political alienation is rooted in rising social inequality and hardship for the working class. The Irish economy went into meltdown in 2009 when the Fianna Fail government bailed out the banks to the tune of €64 billion. Since then, the share of wealth owned by the ruling elite responsible for the catastrophe has been increasing dramatically. The top 10 percent of the country’s richest households holds 53.8 percent of the national wealth, while the poorest 20 percent of households now owe more than they own.

Emergency accommodation figures for September show that there are now collectively 9,698 homeless people in Ireland. The number of homeless children is now 3,829. There has been a steady increase in the adult figures as well, to 5,869. Last month 88 more families entered emergency accommodation. There are now 800,000 people living in poverty, one in six of the population and 700,000 on healthcare waiting lists.

During the crash property prices collapsed, builders went bust and construction workers left the country. As the state went bankrupt, it cut funding for social housing and for the past 10 years no social housing was built at all.

Higgins, in contrast, will join the ranks of the very wealthy. As president he will receive €250,000 [$US285,000] annual salary, plus another €300,000 as a special unaudited allowance.

While the greatest shift in the election was to “none of the above,” the poll saw the surprise emergence of a right-wing candidate, Peter Casey, a millionaire and television “dragon” investor from the Irish version of the BBC’s Dragons’ Den. Casey is an admirer of US President Donald Trump, and advocate of close relations with the United States and has previously expressed support for Ireland leaving the European Union (EU) along with the UK.

Over the course of his campaign, Casey repeatedly attacked welfare claimants, while claiming to speak for the “average working family of John and Mary with two kids.” Casey also attacked Travellers. Commenting on a dispute between Tipperary county council and local Travelling families who refused to take accommodation because there were no facilities for their horses, he accused them of “camping on other people’s land” and complained, “This is great for my property value now that I’ve got three dozen caravans down the road.”

Travellers have long been the subject of discrimination in Ireland and suffer multiple forms of deprivation. Traveller women are five times more likely to commit suicide than the general population and live on average, 11.5 years less. Just 13 percent of Travellers complete secondary education and just one percent make it to university.

Casey’s other comments drew less media attention, but were of a piece with his attempt to mobilise support in the upper layers of the petty bourgeoisie and in more socially backward rural areas on an anti-working-class platform. Besides attacking welfare claimants, he called for the re-introduction of water charges, which were the target of widespread protests by workers in recent years. He also opposed liberal abortion laws.

Casey was originally predicted to get just one percent of the vote, but secured 23.3 percent, or 342,727 votes. His vote was lower in urban centres and higher in both rural areas and among older voters. With the combined vote of the other right-wing candidates at just 14.5 percent, his “success” was duly noted—with Donegal Fianna Fail asking him to join their party and the right-wing tax cutting, anti-abortion Renua Ireland offering him their party’s leadership. Casey has offered to either become the leader of Fianna Fail or set up a New Fianna Fail.

The media is likewise urging a shift rightwards as its preferred response, with the Irish Times telling all politicians to “get real” and insisting on the “need for a more mature and realistic discussion about politics and the choices facing policymakers” and avoiding raising “false expectations.”

Sinn Fein’s inability to sustain its pretence of representing a left alternative to the major parties was the other significant feature of the election. Its candidate, Liadh Ni Riada, is currently a member of the European parliament.

Ni Riada secured a disastrous 93,987 or 6.4 percent of the vote, compared with 243,030 and 13.7 percent garnered by the late Martin McGuinness in 2011. Sinn Fein haemorrhaged votes to both Higgins and Casey, with the Irish Independent commenting, “Once proud outsiders who mopped up a fair few protest votes themselves, as Sinn Fein get closer to real power in Dublin’s Leinster House, they are becoming more a part of the establishment against which they have traditionally railed.”

The collapse of Sinn Fein and the Labour Party, and their eclipse by the right-winger Casey, underscores the urgent need for a genuine party of the working class in Ireland to prosecute a determined struggle for socialism against all factions of the Irish elite. The Socialist Equality Group in Ireland is seeking to build this party, as a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International.

Massive increase in police violence across UK

Alice Summers 

Incidences of police brutality have risen rapidly in the UK in the last year. According to the statistics supplied by the police themselves, violence and deaths at the hands of police officers have both seen a marked increase.

Figures from a Metropolitan Police online database show that just in London, the Met used violence against individuals a staggering 41,477 times in the five month period between April and August this year.

The data reveal that methods of force, including handcuffs, batons and tear gas, as well as attack dogs, Tasers and guns, were used an average of 270 times a day just in the capital. This compares to an already appallingly high 151 times a day in the corresponding period last year—a 79 percent increase in incidents of police brutality.

Episodes of police violence from just these five months are almost on a par with the total number of incidents from the whole of last year (April 2017-April 2018), when there were 62,153 occasions of force being used by the London police.

Many of the incidents relate violent police methods such as using pressure points to restrain and handcuff individuals. However, in the same period, police officers also fired or aimed Tasers at suspects 2,663 times and trained real firearms on suspects 591 times in London—an average of nearly four times a day.

Since last year, police firearms operations have risen by nearly 20 percent nationally, with some areas seeing an increase of 53 percent. There were around 18,700 police firearms operations across the UK in 2017-18.

The London boroughs in which police violence has been most widespread are Westminster, which saw 2,837 incidences of police violence between April and August, then Lambeth (2,571), Brent (2,489), Southwark (2,000) and Hackney (1,739).

With the exception of Westminster, which is the location of important landmarks such as the Houses of Parliament and the Queen’s residence at Buckingham Palace, these boroughs are predominantly working-class areas with high levels of poverty, deprivation and unemployment.

In these boroughs, police harassment, assault and abuse are daily facts of life, often with terrible and tragic consequences for the working-class inhabitants.

The case of Julian Cole, a young black man who was violently restrained and arrested by police outside a nightclub in Bedford is a prime example. During the arrest in 2013, in which he was forcefully restrained and dragged unconscious to a police van, Cole suffered a broken neck and serious injuries to his spine at the hands of three police officers.

The serious injuries he suffered during the police assault left him in a permanent vegetative state, requiring 24-hour care.

An Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) disciplinary panel, which was set up to investigate the circumstances of Cole’s arrest, found that the three officers who restrained him, Hannah Ross, Nicholas Oates and Sanjeev Kalyan, had committed gross misconduct and lied about the events of the night. They had falsely claimed that Cole had walked to the police van and been “chatty” during their journey to the police station, when in fact his neck had been broken and he had gone into cardiac arrest long before that.

The officers were also found to have committed misconduct by not carrying out any of the basic welfare checks on Cole after he had been restrained.

Rather than being prosecuted for the violent assault, which left the young man permanently and seriously disabled, the three officers were merely dismissed from their posts in the police service last week, with the Crown Prosecution Service finding that no criminal action had occurred.

For others, encounters with police end even more tragically than did that of Julian Cole. According to the annual statistics compiled by IOPC, in the 2017-2018 financial year 283 people lost their lives following contact with police.

Of these deaths, 23 occurred in or following police custody, 57 were apparent suicides following custody and 29 related to road traffic incidents. There were also four police shootings (three of which were related to terrorism) and 170 unspecified “other” deaths at the hands of the police.

The IOPC figures show that more people were killed after contact with police in the 2017-2018 period than in any other year in the last decade.

This escalation of police violence has come amidst calls from senior police officials to ramp up the militarisation of the police. Citing the threat of terrorism, Simon Chesterman, the armed policing lead for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, called in March for the routine arming of all frontline police officers with Tasers, declaring, “if an officer wants to carry it and they can meet the standard, they should be allowed to carry it.”

Chesterman went further still in May, advocating the rolling out of real firearms among police officers, supposedly to counter the terrorism threat. In a paper prepared by Chesterman for a meeting of police chiefs, he called for the routine arming of frontline constables with guns, stating his apparent concern that it could take too long for fully trained armed officers to respond to a terrorist attack in rural areas.

Much of the coverage of this increase in police violence in the bourgeois media has focused on the fact that police brutality disproportionately targets black people and other ethnic minorities. Black people in London were involved in 39 percent of incidents of police violence since April 2018, despite making up only 13 percent of the capital’s population.

While racism plays a role in police violence, the media’s focus on race obscures the fundamental class character of police brutality.

The militarisation of the police and the proliferation of police violence is not the result of a few bad apples within the police force, but flows necessarily from the nature of the capitalist state as an instrument of class repression. The police exist to defend the political and economic system of capitalism, a system of immense inequality and brutality.

This turn to increased violence and repression must be seen in the context of rising class antagonisms worldwide and the global crisis of capitalist rule. To combat the growing unrest of the working class, governments across the world are increasingly acquiring an authoritarian character and strengthening the repressive powers of the intelligence agencies and an increasingly militarised police force.

This repressive apparatus, which is justified as a proportionate response to terrorist attacks, is primarily aimed at combating the political mobilisation of the working class, through violence, intimidation and censorship.

The last few years have seen the massive growth of censorship measures across Europe and the United States. In the name of combating “disinformation” and “fake news”, governments across the world are introducing legislation seriously curtailing freedom of speech.

In addition to targeting left-wing, antiwar and socialist websites, the World Socialist Web Site among the most affected, internet censorship measures have also been taken against popular social media accounts exposing and denouncing police violence. Facebook recently deleted numerous pages by groups opposing and publicising incidents of police violence such as Police the Police, Cop Block and Filming Cops.

Sri Lankan crisis: Washington intervenes to maintain its political influence

Deepal Jayasekera 

The Trump administration has responded to Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena’s October 26 political coup and the subsequent political crisis, by seeking to ensure that the turmoil will not impact on US geo-strategic operations against China.

Sirisena unconstitutionally removed Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister and replaced him with former President Mahinda Rajapakse. The US ruling elite was hostile to Rajapakse because of his pro-Chinese stand and backed Sirisena to oust him in the 2015 presidential election.

Washington is concerned that if Rajapakse were to consolidate his hold on power in the bitter infighting against Wickremesinghe it would seriously affect its carefully cultivated military and political relations with Colombo.

After dismissing Wickremesinghe, Sirisena prorogued the parliament until November 16 to allow Rajapakse, via various horse-trading deals, to garner support from additional MPs and challenge Wickremesinghe’s claims to have majority parliamentary support.

At a media briefing on Wednesday, US journalists repeatedly questioned US State Department deputy spokesperson Robert Palladino about the Trump administration’s attitude to the political situation in Sri Lanka.

One correspondent asked whether the US still considered Wickremesinghe “the legitimate prime minister” of Sri Lanka. Was his ouster “unconstitutional” and a “coup” and did it require US action, the reporter asked.

Palladino provided no direct answers to these questions. He said, however: “The United States believes the determination should be made in accordance with the Sri Lankan law and due process. So again, we call on the president in consultation with the speaker to reconvene parliament immediately and to allow the democratically-elected representatives of the Sri Lankan people to fulfill their responsibility to affirm who will lead their government. And we urge all sides to uphold the law and to respect due process.”

This has been the US State Department’s refrain since the beginning of the crisis and is similar to Wickremesinghe’s stance. The sacked prime minister has called for parliament to be recalled so he can show he has a majority and continue in office.

Another correspondent asked about China’s role and noted “at least one member of parliament in Sri Lanka has accused Beijing of contributing to the ouster of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe.”

One journalist referred to previous remarks made by Palladino about Washington’s concern about “creeping Chinese influence” in Latin America. “This [Sri Lanka] is a case where you have a similar situation, or at least allegations of a similar situation,” the reporter asserted. “What is the [US] embassy in Colombo doing?”

An Associated Press (AP) article about the media briefing, published in the New York Times on October 31, said: “The political upheaval and challenges to the democratic process could endanger improvements in US-Sri Lanka relations since Rajapakse lost power in elections in 2015…

“For the past three years, as Sri Lanka has had a fragile unity government, the US has expanded relations that were curtailed during the later years of Rajapakse’s rule, including renewed military cooperation.”

Since 2015, the US Asia-Pacific Command has developed close relations with the Sri Lankan military, trained Sri Lankan soldiers, established a marine unit, invited the military for joint exercises and sent warships to the Indian Ocean island.

Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate’s Appropriation Committee, told AP that if Rajapakse’s appointment as prime minister were allowed to stand, it would “pose a grave challenge to US engagement with that government.”

Leahy said Rajapakse ran “the government as a criminal enterprise, making sweetheart deals with China, persecuting the Tamil minority and wrongly imprisoning political opponents and journalists.”

Washington’s concerns have nothing to do with defending democracy, due process or the Sri Lankan constitution. The US is concerned that the political gains it made in ousting Rajapakse and installing Sirisena as president will be weakened and its geo-strategic operations against China undermined.

Sirisena and Wickremesinghe now blame each other for violating “good governance” and “democratic principles.” But in 2015 Sirisena joined hands with Wickremesinghe and former President Chandrika Kumaratunga in a conspiracy orchestrated in Washington to remove Rajapakse.

Successive Washington administrations backed Rajapakse’s renewed war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from mid-2006 until 2009, in which tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were killed. The US turned a blind eye to the Rajapakse government’s anti-democratic methods and abuses of human rights. Both Sirisena, as a senior minister in Rajapakse’s cabinet, and Wickremesinghe, in the opposition, were enthusiastic supporters of the brutal war.

Washington only began criticising Rajapakse after he developed close relations with Beijing, and China emerged as the main supplier of military weapons and funds to his government during the final months of the war. India, determined to advance its interests in the region, backed Washington’s moves against China.

The US then presented a series of resolutions in the UN Human Rights Council calling for an investigation of the Rajapakse regime’s abuse of human rights during the war against the LTTE. These resolutions sought to pressure Colombo into distancing itself from Beijing. When Rajapakse maintained his relations with China, Washington moved to oust him.

Deep-seated hostility among working people, the rural poor and the Tamil masses against Rajapakse’s anti-democratic rule was exploited by Sirisena, Wickremesinghe and others, with the backing of pseudo-left organisations such as the Nava Sama Samaja Party, the trade unions and academics, to provide the political operation with a democratic garb.

Claims by Sirisena and Wickremesinghe, who now stand in hostile camps, to be defending democracy are a complete fraud and exposed by their role in 2015 regime-change operation. Rajapakse who once vehemently denounced Sirisena, is now allied with him.

While these sections of the Sri Lankan ruling elite furiously denounce each other, they all defend the interests of big business and international finance capital, and will, as in the past, brutally suppress the struggles of the working class and the poor for social equality and genuine democratic rights.

YouTube Learning Fund 2019 for African Youtubers

Application Deadline: 30th November, 2018 at 23.59 PST.

About the Award: The Program is designed to support creators looking to build unique, multi-session content in the category that is most organic to applicant’s brand and voice. Multi-session content consists of multiple videos that are sequential in nature–building on top of one another. Where rights permit, the video output should be made available globally.

Learning can take a lot of different shapes – everything from math and machine learning to languages and lawn tips. We see people coming to YouTube everyday to learn something new. Many of these learning stories are powered by an incredible community of creators like you, whose videos have demonstrated the appeal of content that enriches as well as entertains.
In July, we announced YouTube Learning, an initiative to support all those who use YouTube to share their knowledge with the world and the millions of users who come to our platform to learn. This includes investing in:
– Improving the learning experience on YouTube
– Supporting educational creators via the YouTube Learning Fund
– Expanding support for learning partners around the world

Type: Grants, Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: Eligible projects must

• Come from applicants that manage at least one YouTube channel with a minimum of 25,000 subscribers
• Demonstrate a strategy to develop multi-session content – multiple videos that build on one another
• Clearly depict the intent to teach in a factual, informative, and trustworthy manner, indicating expertise and / or a scrupulous approach to accuracy, including but not limited to research, fact checking, and objectivity

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Amounts will vary based on the application details.

How to Apply: Please apply via the application form here.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Award Provider: Youtube

Cisco Global Problem Solver Challenge 2019 for Innovative Student Entrepreneurs

Application Deadline: 11th January 2019

Eligible Countries: All

About the Award: How can your innovative technology solution solve the world’s most pressing social and environmental problems?
The third annual Cisco Global Problem Solver Challenge aims to recognize new innovative solutions that leverage technology for social impact from student entrepreneurs around the world. The Challenge is open to students and recent alumni from any college or university.

Type: Contest

Eligibility:  For participants to be eligible, at least half of the team’s members must be students currently enrolled at a post-secondary institution or have received a degree after March 1, 2017. If entering as a business entity, at least 25% of the business must be owned by individuals that meet the above qualifications. Individual students and recent grads may also apply. For detailed eligibility requirements, please click here.

Eligible solutions (technologies, products or services) must:

• Incorporate IoT/digitization as part of the solution
• Have a positive social, environmental or economic impact (e.g. health, education, accessibility, critical human needs (food, water, disaster response/recovery, safety, etc.)

Value of Award: USD$300,000

In addition to a cash infusion to develop your solution, it will be reviewed by Cisco technology experts and high-profile judges. You’ll receive peer and industry validation for your solution, as well as have a great opportunity for global recognition and publicity.

How to Apply: Apply Now!

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Cisco

Airbus BizLab #Africa4Future Joint Accelerator Program 2019 for African Startups

Application Deadline: 30th November 2018

Eligible Countries: African countries

About the Award: #Africa4Future is a “Joint Accelerator Program” between Airbus BizLab & GIZ Make-IT in Africa. The program contributes to UN SDG # 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, and looks to foster the development of aerospace technologies with a goal of helping to solve development challenges in Africa. We focus on early-stage tech start-ups with technologies aimed at unmanned logistics and remote sensing, including automation and drones, electrification, blockchain, artificial intelligence, data analytics and material composites and manufacturing.
The program is implemented by a MEST & Innocircle consortium. MEST is a non-profit Pan-African organization where startups, entrepreneurs and members of the tech community can come together to meet, work and build. Innocircle is a South African based innovation consultancy focusing on co-creating the future with a global network.

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: Early-stage tech start-ups with technologies aimed at unmanned logistics and remote sensing, including automation and drones, electrification, blockchain, artificial intelligence, data analytics and material composites and manufacturing.

Number of Awards: 10

Value of Award: The top ten applicants will have the opportunity to join a six-month acceleration program, starting on 7th January 2019. The teams will benefit from:
– Access to industry-leading experts
– Feedback on technology and business model
– Showcase at Paris International Airshow (France) and CeBit Hanover (Germany)
– Opportunity to launch a collaboration project with Airbus
As part of the program, you will participate in a mix of virtual business support and physical workshops. The preliminary programme includes:
15-17 January: Kick-off in Kenya
11-21 March: Workshop in Europe
03-15 May: Workshop in South Africa
19-26 June: DemoDays in Paris and Hanover
From January to June, all startups will have access to virtual mentoring and co-working spaces in Accra (Ghana), Lagos (Nigeria), Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Cape Town (South Africa) and Nairobi (Kenya).
Travel, accommodation and food will be covered for one person per startup for all workshops. Attendance to workshops are compulsory.

Duration of Programme: Jan 7-Jun 30 ’19 (6 months)

How to Apply: APPLY

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Commonwealth Foundation Grants 2019 for Civil Society Activities

Application Deadline: 7th January 2019 at 5pm GMT.

Eligible Countries: Commonwealth countries

About the Award: The Foundation offers grants of up to £200,000 over four years in support of innovative project ideas and approaches that seek to strengthen the ability of civic voices to engage with governments and that have the potential to improve governance and development outcomes through their active participation.
The Foundation believes in the power of stories and storytelling for social change and will award grants for creative approaches that have the potential to influence public discourse.
All proposals must ensure that the cross cutting theme of gender is mainstreamed throughout the project.

Fields of Funding: We are interested in supporting projects that strengthen civic voice so that it:

• Is more effective in holding governance institutions to account
• Enhances involvement in policy processes
• Shapes public discourse

Your project should address one or both of the following outcomes and may include the use of creative expression to achieve project aims:

1. Stronger civic voices engaging in policy processes to hold government to account:

Your project will strengthen the capacity of civic voices in contributing to:

• Monitoring government commitments and action
• Supporting the implementation of the sustainable development goals or other international agreements, and related local and national policy agendas
• Advocating policy priorities to government that address gender and other power imbalances, disparities and discrimination
• Strengthening participatory methods of engaging in regional national and local governance processes
• Raising awareness and advocating for specific policy issues

2. Public discourse more reflective of less-heard voices

• Your project will support less heard voices to contribute to public discourse on development issues
• Your project will support less heard voices to access policy spaces and/or platforms with the potential to amplify voices and influence public discourse

Type: Grants

Eligibility: To be eligible for a grant, the following criteria must be met:

1. The applicant and, when applicable, partner(s) are registered not for profit civil society organisations (CSOs).
2. The applicant and, when applicable, partner(s) must be based in a Commonwealth Foundation member country and the project should take place in an eligible Commonwealth Foundation member country. A list of countries eligible under this call is available at Annex 1.
3. The application is for funding for a maximum of £50,000 per annum
4. The applicant is applying for funding for a maximum of four years
5. The applicant does not have an existing grant from the Commonwealth Foundation at the time the application window is open.
6. The average of the applicant’s total income over the last two years is less than £3m
7. The project must address one or both Commonwealth Foundation’s outcomes
8. The applicant will provide the following documents as part of the application:
   • a completed logic model using the Commonwealth Foundation template
   • a copy of the organisation’s registration certificate1 (the official registration document provided by the relevant authorities in the country concerned)
   • a copy of the organisation’s most recent audited accounts (it must include both the accounts and the opinion of the external auditor who has certified them; it should not be older than December 2016)
   • a copy of the registration certificate for all partner organisations

Selection Criteria: The application for a grant is a two-stage process: preliminary application and full application. Only shortlisted organisations will be invited to submit a full application.
Preliminary applications will be assessed on the criteria below:
1. The application has a clear problem definition.
2. The application clearly demonstrates that it is demand driven and relevant.
3. The project must address one or both Commonwealth Foundation outcomes
4. The application clearly shows how the planned activities will deliver outputs that lead to the project outcomes.
5. The organisation(s) has the capacity to deliver the submitted proposal.
6. The project must mainstream gender in the project design and project plan
Full applications will be assessed on the criteria below, in addition to the criteria used at the preliminary application stage:
1. The application clearly illustrates a strategy to sustain the positive outcomes from the project beyond the duration of the funding received from the Commonwealth Foundation
2. There is a clear Monitoring and Evaluation strategy for the project
3. The project includes a strong gender analysis of the problem, mainstreams gender and identifies how the anticipated change specifically impacts women and girls.
The selection process is highly competitive and selected projects will have been designed to undertake work that has the potential to lead to one or more of the outcomes in the Foundation’s strategic logic model.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: up to £200,000 over four years

How to Apply: To apply applicants will need to complete and submit an online application form using the online application system in the link below.
It is important to go through every helpful application detail before submitting.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Hult Prize 2019 Student Enterprise Challenge

Application Deadline: 17th December 2018 11:59pm EST:

To be Taken: at any five Hult Prize regions. Grand Prize of $1,000,000 will be awarded at Washington D.C

About Award: The Hult Prize Foundation is a start-up accelerator for budding young social entrepreneurs emerging from the world’s universities. Named as one of the top five ideas changing the world by President Bill Clinton and TIME Magazine, the annual competition for the Hult Prize aims to create and launch the most compelling social business ideas—start-up enterprises that tackle grave issues faced by billions of people. Winners receive USD1 Million in seed capital, as well as mentorship and advice from the international business community.

Theme: “For Us, By Us: The Global Youth Unemployment Challenge”
The 2018 Hult Prize Challenge as announced by President Bill Clinton at the United Nations is: “Harnessing the Power of Energy to Transform the Lives of 10 Million People.” Hult Prize is not necessarily looking for the next big breakthrough in energy, but rather we are looking at the application of various energy innovations to change the world. Much like the light bulb. See, it wasn’t the invention of the light bulb that changed everything, it was how people like you took that tech innovation and lit up the world with it. That’s what we are solving with this year’s challenge. Good luck.

Selection Process: 

• You will be asked to form a team of 3-4 students from your university and submit an application to participate at any of the regional finals locations held in: Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai, Shanghai, Toronto, Mexico City, Quito, Bogota, Melbourne, Lagos, Nairobi, Cairo, Tunisia, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Alternatively, your university may be hosting a Hult Prize@ on-campus event, in which case you can fast track your team’s participation through competing in your local university edition.
• Regional Finals will be held in March 2019.  Approximately 50-60 teams per region, will move on to present their innovative start-up ideas to an executive jury made up of regional CEOs, Non-Profit leaders and Social Entrepreneurs.
• When you apply, you should carefully consider which regional final you would like to attend.
• While we encourage you to pick a region within proximity to where you currently live, you are free to choose any of the five regions.  A regional champion will be selected live at the conclusion of each regional final event and that team will move onto spend the summer at the world-class Hult Prize Accelerator – an innovative incubator for the start-ups of the future.
• Following the conclusion of your time working in the Hult Prize Accelerator, you will attend the Hult Impact Forum where the Hult Prize Global Finals will be hosted in September, 2019 in New York, USA. Within the meeting agenda, regional champions will pitch their start-ups in-front of a world-class audience, who along with other notable global leaders will select and award the winning team the Hult Prize, along with USD1 million in start-up capital.

How to Apply: APPLY TO COMPETE NOW
It is important to read more about the Challenge and go through the FAQS before applying.

Visit the Award Webpage for Details

Award Provider: Hult Prize

United Nations/Japan Long-term Fellowship Programme 2019 Post-graduate study on Nano-Satellite Technologies (PNST) for Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 20th January 2019

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Developing countries

To be taken at (country): Kitakyushu, Japan

About the Award: Every year this “Post-graduate study on Nano-Satellite Technologies (PNST)” Fellowship Programme will accept up to two students in the Masters course (2 years duration) and up to four students in the Doctorate course (3 years duration). Successful participants will be awarded a master or doctorate degree after successful thesis defence. The successful candidates will enroll in the Space Engineering International Course (SEIC) after passing an official entrance examination by the Graduate School of Kyushu Institute of Technology.
The Programme will provide extensive research opportunities in nano-satellite systems through the use of the nano-satellite development and testing facilities available at Kyutech.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Candidates should:

• Be nationals of developing countries or non-space-faring nations (countries without an established substantial capability to develop space technology/launch space objects);
• Be duly nominated by their institutions;
• Be born on or after 2 April 1983;
• Have the academic and professional background required by the specific fellowship programme. Candidates seeking a Master degree are expected to have completed studies ending with a Bachelor Degree or equivalent (4 year university degree) in engineering-related subjects. Candidates seeking a Doctorate degree are expected to have completed studies ending with a Master Degree or equivalent (5 years university degree) in engineering-related subjects. Degrees in different technological fields can be considered by the Doctor Commission;and
• Be able to make professional use of the experience gained in the fellowship programme.

Number of Awardees: Up to two students in the Masters course (2 years duration) and up to four students in the Doctorate course (3 years duration)

Value of Scholarship: The selected candidates will each receive a grant under Japanese government (Monbukagakusho: MEXT) scholarship (Research Students) of about 144,000 yen per month for the duration of their fellowship study (2 or 3 years) to cover housing, food, local transportation, and other expenses (actual scholarship amount is subject to change). Each candidate will be provided, according to his/her itinerary and route as designated by MEXT, an economy class air ticket between an international airport in the country of his/her nationality and Narita International Airport or Fukuoka International Airport. Fees for matriculation, tuition and entrance examinations will be paid by Kyutech.

How to Apply: Visit Fellowship Webpage below for application details

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), Government of Japan

Important Notes: For any further questions regarding the PNST, please contact pnst@unoosa.org.

A Modern Ethic for a Finite World

Zanga Chimombo

At some point, presumably before leaving the relative comfort of Africa and overrunning the more hostile climes and lesser higher primates of Eurasia, ancient man created powerful taboos some of which survive to the present day. The institution of marriage, for example, which may have evolved alongside totemism – whose prevalence (well into the later part of the modern European adventure) amongst indigenous societies of all continents hints at their antiquity. My traditional African marriage not so long ago included a ritual in which my uncle challenged his counterpart representing the bride to reveal her totem clan name; totem clan names were duly exchanged and the ceremony continued. The significance is lost nowadays on our “chakam” generation as Nigerian duo P-Square put it. I wonder what would have happened a century or so ago if we belonged to the same clan totem: would we have been forbidden from marrying, deemed exogamous?

Mankind is capable of creating powerful taboos that shy groups of us away from things we’d otherwise do (like make the planet unfit for decent human habitation as we know it). Witness the fact that the recent (relatively) religions of the books needed not bother too much with incest and cannibalism. Mankind had already grown out of those unwholesome ills seemingly without the need for prophetic intervention.

Homo sapiens has conquered the physical world and the living world so successfully that we no longer fit in many ecological cycles and would not survive for long if we were cut off from the many links of globalisation. Many of us fear imminent anthropogenic climate disaster or anthropostupid nuclear holocaust. What if mankind were not so successful? We have been seduced by the option of choices that only certain classes in far off places could enjoy once. Something once only consumed by the upper class in the next newly discovered exotic place is now readily available at the market, if you belong to a certain class of course. Thus I can have salmon in the heart of Africa when I can afford it.

To deny this individual choice would probably have fatal repercussions for a third world regime. Members of some classes can even afford a spare human organ should the need arise. Few would question this willing-donor willing-recipient miracle of modern medicine. However, just because we can – ethics nag – doesn’t mean we should.

Whether the practice was for sustenance, ritual or other fanciful purposes, cannibalism disappeared from many societies ages ago even though resurgences such as in King Leopold’s Congo are not unknown in history. Not surprising really: a practice of making a meal of a mate is hardly likely to hang around for long nor catch on. Little group solidarity there if we are eyeing who’d make a great rump steak in the morrow.

Still on the subject of food, powerful food taboos exist today. A billion people don’t eat pork, a billion others wouldn’t eat dog though another billion does regularly. Almost everyone would eat beef when they could if they could afford it, but another billion doesn’t. I am in awe of vegans and their movement. I would if I could but I can’t.

Other totemisms and taboos exist too in this modern world, be they as parochial as supporting a sports team and donning their colours and emblems or as global expressions of indignant boycotts of branders of sweatshop produce. Western monogamy.

It occurs to me that we ought to make do with this planet that we have which may be all we ever have since we cannot even revegetate the Sahara. Heroic as it may be, the quest for alternative habitation is delusional certainly for us browner people. I’m stuck on you, Earth.

I pray that when it comes, I can face death – if there is that time to do so – with a dignified equanimity. Writing now, I doubt that I – with my many shortcomings – would have the courage to live up to a self-imposed ethic and refuse a blood transfusion and/ or organ transplant for the reason that it is not too intellectually distant from cannibalism. But collective consciousness or peer pressure could matter. Maybe that would be a decisive in such a sacrifice.

Aren’t our blood veins more sacred than our mouths?

Our ancestors did it, way before organised religion arose in pharaonic Africa and one or two other places, making certain mountains and forests sacred. We can too. Let us indeed make some things sacred again, beginning with the human body. Maybe it is worth extending the life of our species on this planet. As questionable as this is from our track record.

A blood transfusion seems as natural today as the next medical procedure, say, removing ones tonsils. Flying off to India to replace an organ has been trivialised almost to the equivalence of replacing a vehicle part. Just less frequent, hopefully.

To deny food and to deny health care would be indefensible. However, if that food is human flesh and that health care involves other human fluids and tissues and organs surely there should have been a great sign from heaven to guide our ethics? At the very least, where has been the conversation on whether mankind should allow or taboo this? I have qualms about hurting animals, even rats, in order to buy ourselves a few more doomsday seconds but that may be a different topic.

To what extent will we go to save one individual’s life? The answer seems to be beyond the extent to which we will consider saving a species even what we consider a lowly or harmful one especially; blind to any considerations of where it fits in ecological cycles and what other not so harmful species are impacted as some sort of biochemical collateral damage.

Eradicating a disease is heroic. Accepting disease and eventual death is for losers.

One of the strongest taboos – so strong as to have survived the European enlightenment – is that of incest although this may be facing a post-postmodern challenge already someplace. An age of over-enlightenment? Or an age of regression maybe.

The wise men (and women more probably) of old had ample time when not discovering agriculture and domesticating livestock to observe that incidences of cretinism seem to correlate with inbreeding. Perhaps this is how totemism was born. Regardless, totemism may have spread with mankind across the globe; perhaps because a group of people that don’t inbreed are stronger that the next one that does. Perhaps totemism has been reinvented in its various forms again and again.

Would it save the planet if our species rediscovered totemism yet again? Obviously it would mean constricted individual choices for many, some of the time.

An elderly friend describes his totem clan name as “mbadzo” whose members are forbidden from eating nyimbiri– a type of dove. I am on a casual quest to discover what traditional taboo there is for my offspring (who’re lumbered with inheriting their totem clans) and me.

Suppose for a fleeting fantastical moment that residents of California embraced the (first peoples’) totemisation of the salmon: refusing to eat it and vigorously defending its breeding grounds to the point of death? Of course neoliberalism would defend to death its right to destroy the planet in the name of profit.

Since we are here, can we have a conversation on whether transfusions and transplants are ethical? Do we really want to prey on fellow man? The blood and organs will mostly come from less privileged people, sometimes under dubious circumstances, maybe even as a result of a crime. Can we not begin to accept death again? Are we becoming less human(e) trying to cling to individual lives?

I watched with interest a documentary on Russia Today TV describing the multi-billion dollar international trade in human blood that has led to some of the desperate poor in America donating more than the maximum recommended limits just to make money to stay alive (a little longer). The documentary also showed grateful beneficiaries far away from the circumstances of the desperate donors.

Out in the uncharted backwaters of a shithole country in the African province of empire, pax Americana was interrupted for a few months in 2017 with stories of bloodsuckers. Vampires do not exist in African folklore: the wolf is replaced by the hyena, and witches – both male and female – eat the flesh of disinterred recent burials for whatever reason as opposed to drinking the blood of victims, again for whatever reason. Vampires do exist in the imaginations of the African 1%, therefore the English media described the phenomenon appropriately for westernised consumption. The villagers’ non-English stories were mostly not heard for several weeks which is probably why they resorted to killing a few authorities and outsiders via vigilante groups. Unless, they did so just because they are just ignorant superstitious hysterical villagers.

Such were the descriptions by the BBC and the Malawian premium online news source: Nyasa Times. The overwhelmingly one-sided reports in the local English media conjured up images which become misleading in translation: fangs, gory blood-filled mouths of human vampires. No. The word anamapopa consistently used in the 2017 saga is from the English “pipe” and could be literally translated as “those who pump blood”. The association with modern medical procedures is always intended in these recurring bouts of mass hysteria. Since our childhoods we have heard of wandering bands of foreigners out there to “suck blood” into various vessels which are used to carry the blood off to their sinister destinations. Some of the recent reports suggested more than one assailant. The reason 4×4 vehicles were targeted should be indicative that the suspicions lay with well-funded outsiders.

Several alleged victims were eventually heard on state TV and the two local newspapers, Times and Nation only after the President had convened a mass fact finding meeting nearby. The narratives follow a pattern: the incidents occur at night, gas is used (presumably to knock them out: I certainly wouldn’t want anything taken from my body in the absence of my wakeful consent) and they suffered lethargy for several hours afterward whether due to the gas or the “bloodsucking” operation it is not known. No English-educated medical professional took them seriously enough to respond in a timely manner.

What if this was preliminary scouting for potential DNA matches?

In a region where albino people are routinely murdered for body parts, it would not be outrageous to imagine the same being done for even those without albinism for their organs once positive DNA match has been confirmed. In my idly wandering mind some UHNWI somewhere is lying in an expensive hospital needing something that his (or her) body does not have or no longer works but some hapless villager somewhere has. First, however, some sort of DNA matching is required in some cases according to my self-awarded TV-informed qualification.

Maybe this is not as loony as it sounds. After all, when capitalists need something under our soil they have no qualms about sending mercenaries to extract it from the pesky peasants who usually mistakenly think they should have a say or stake. If one of them has bone marrow to spare is it not there for the taking too? I don’t see such services being advertised in any glossy brochure though.

Is it time to broaden the ethical health movement and conscientiously object to commodifying our bodies and body parts?

Undermined Sovereignty in the Middle East

Paul Cochrane

The Israelis have violated Lebanese land, sea and airspace over 1,500 times this year. In the past week, Israeli jets flew over Northern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley and the South.

On a daily basis in Southern Lebanon you hear, if you don’t see, Israeli drones buzzing away like huge mosquitoes in the sky. On occasion you might see Israeli jets flying towards Syria, or even hear Israeli jets pounding positions on the other side of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range, another violation of sovereignty.

All Lebanon can do is register its disapproval at the UN, and call on the USA to rein in its ally, a request the Lebanese state has made twice this year, following mock air raids in February, and every year since the Israelis were pushed out of the South in 2000. (Interestingly, according to a source at the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), there are no cumulative figures on Israeli violations, although they probably run into the tens of thousands).

Such calls for restraint fall on deaf ears, as the USA has no intention of slapping Israel over the wrist for such overflights and is actively trying to undermine UNIFIL, successfully working behind the scenes earlier this year to change the force’s commander to someone more amenable to its and Israel’s agenda.

One of UNIFIL’s roles, which has had its mandate renewed every six months since 1978, is to register the Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty. Locally however it is viewed in certain quarters as an occupation force, albeit a rather benign one. The reason: there is no UNIFIL equivalent on the Israeli side, land or sea, despite three land invasions by the Israelis (1978, 1982, 2006), and the daily overflights (the majority are drones).

Israel can act with impunity as Lebanon lacks political weight internationally, while any forceful response by the Lebanese Army or Hizbullah in defense of its sovereignty would result in Lebanon being sent back “to the middle ages”. Sovereignty be-damned. It is the same in Syria.

In September, an Israeli jet forced a Russian surveillance plane into the sights of Syrian air defense systems and was accidentally shot down. The Israelis blamed the Syrians, and there was minimal criticism internationally as to why Israel was violating Syrian airspace, yet again.

Israel is of course backed to the hilt by the USA and Europe, and can get away with what it likes; for Israel, the rules don’t apply. According to Foreign Policy Journal, there are some 79 ‘UN Security Council resolutions directly critical of Israel for violations of its Charter obligations and international law’.

It is not just the Israelis flouting sovereignty and international law in the Middle East. In North-eastern Syria, the US military, along with British special forces, is present, ostensibly to tackle the Islamic State. The same is true in Iraq.

Much further South, the USA and UK are backing, again to the hilt, the Saudi Arabian-led coalition in its war on Yemen. The legality of the war in Yemen, and the US-led coalition against the Islamic State are on shaky grounds – what mandate do they have, and what legitimate authorities requested military assistance? (What constitutes a legitimate government in Yemen is an open question).

In any case, there is an implicit dependence on US military and political support throughout much of the Middle East. In the Persian Gulf, US and British military bases dot the region, from Qatar and Bahrain to the UAE. As the ill-fated president of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara put it in relation to aid dependency: ‘he who feeds you, controls you’.

Stretching Sankara’s statement to other forms of dependency: ‘he who arms you, controls you’, or ‘he who enters your country armed-to-the-teeth, controls you’. Indeed, how we can talk of meaningful sovereignty – the independence of nations – when, according to Tom’s Dispatch, US Special Operations forces were deployed to 149 countries in 2017 – around 75% of all nations – and to 133 countries this year?

Sovereignty is not just being undermined by boots on the ground, drones in the sky and ‘hard’ power. As dangerous to sovereignty, if perhaps not more so given its impact on nearly all people, friend and foe of the US alike, are financial regulations and sanctions.

The US Treasury has becomes the world’s financial policeman, fining companies for not abiding by anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism(CTF) regulations, and unilaterally imposed sanctions.

Foreign countries and financial institutions have to jump when the US says so, if they do not want to be cut-off from the US financial sector. To be cutoff from the world’s largest economy and financial sector can well mean economic suicide: the US dollar accounts for 62.5% of global reserve currencies, and trillions of dollars in transactions flow through the USA everyday.

Such power is highly evident in the case of Iran, with the US to impose secondary sanctions on the country on 5 November, following President Trump’s decision in May to pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – aka “the nuclear agreement” – inked in 2015.

Countries like Turkey, India and China are in a difficult position as they are exposed to the US financial sector but need Iranian oil and gas – how do you pay for commodities with a trading partner that is under sanctions?

The new sanctions aside, Iranian financial institutions could hardly deal with any European bank – in fact just a dozen – following the 2015 agreement, despite being legally allowed to do so. The primary reason was that Iran was not in compliance with the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) AML and CFT technical standards. The ‘most powerful organisation you have never heard of’, FATF’s mandate was heavily influenced by its core members, the G7 countries.

For Iran to be removed from FATF’s blacklist, a status it shares with just one other country, North Korea, Tehran has to fully implement FATF’s recommendations. One particular requirement is that Iran “should fully address” is “adequately criminalizing terrorist financing, including by removing the exemption for designated groups ‘attempting to end foreign occupation, colonialism and racism’”.

While the FATF does not mention the names of such exempted groups, it is clearly referring to Palestine’s Hamas and Lebanon’s Hizbullah, neither of which are designated by the UN as terrorist organizations (although they are by the US, Israel and some European states).

For Iran to meet this requirement it has to amend Article 154 of its constitution, which supports “the struggles of the oppressed for their rights against oppressors anywhere in the world”.

At a FATF press conference at the end of the October, the current president, Marshall Billingslea, who is also the US Department of the Treasury’s Assistant Secretary, was asked by Iran’s Press TV why this requirement was “such a sticking point for FATF. Does FATF not want to fight against colonialism and racism?”

Billingslea diplomatically answered that these are “terms” that the “international community discusses” and are outside the remit of FATF. “You would need to talk to individual nations as to how they interpret it. We have made it clear (Iran) has to criminalize terrorist financing without reservation,” said Billingslea. He also called on Iran to implement relevant UN Security Council resolutions “without delay”.

In a world where the concept of sovereignty is being so selectively applied, the rule book is in the hands of those with power, and those with powerful backers.