Women in Africa (WIA) Club Entrepreneurs’ Hub 2019 for Female Entrepreneurs in Africa (Fully-funded to Morocco)

Application Deadline: 15th February 2019

Eligible Countries: African country

To be taken at (country): Marrakesh, Morocco

About the Award: WIA CLUB PHILANTROPY is a non-profit structure aiming at supporting and funding businesses led or managed by African women, through two main projects : the Women in Africa Entrepreneurs Hub and the Women in Africa Revelations Night.

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: 

• The companies or initiatives meeting the following criteria can apply to the Entrepreneurs’ Hub:
• Companies or initiatives based in one of the 54 African countries.
• Created or managed by an African woman.
• With a strong market traction (turnover, number of users, funds raised)

Selection Criteria: We will select the most innovative and high-growth potential companies or initiatives with already proven traction:
• Innovative product, service or technology and/or a strong human impact.
• With a first traction on the market (turnover, number of users, raised funds…).
• Proven business model, scalability.
• Large growth potential (in own country, Africa and globally).
• Ambitious team with deep execution skills.

Number of Awards: 54 women

Value of Program: 

• Invitation to the WIA International Annual Summit in Marrakesh (June 27/28 2019): reimbursement of travel, accommodation and exhibition space decoration.
• Unique visibility: Unique visibility from 500 delegates, including investors, top executives and media from all over the world plus visibility on Women in Africa Club print and media supports including WIA Mag, social media, press, offering key visibility.
• High-level Networking: Business meetings organized during the WIA Club Annual Meeting in Marrakech and during all the events of the Club (Regional and Local meetings).
• Special access to the WIA Link digital platform in order to exchange with each other and with international top executive. Real social network of entrepreneurs and all year long acres exclusive club.
• Mentoring: Mentoring for 1 year from large companies (depending from the fundings and sponsors)
  

The African Revelations Night will invite women entrepreneurs to present their project on stage.

Duration of Program: June 27/28 2019

How to Apply: Apply to Women Entrepreneurs Hub 2019

Visit Program Webpage for details

Cornell Climate Online Fellowship 2019 for Students and Professionals

Application Deadline: 31st January 2019

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): Online

About the Award: Climate change poses threats to environments, communities, and economies, yet no single “one-size-fits-all” solution can be implemented across different countries and contexts. The Cornell Climate Online Fellows will work together over a period of 12 weeks to identify, discuss, implement, and assess greenhouse gas mitigation actions they take locally and within their social networks.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Environmental and education professionals, volunteers, and university students from any country. Discussions will be in English. Students lacking a basic knowledge of climate science will need to complete parts of online course, Climate Science, Communication, and Action, prior to the fellowship.

Selection Process: Applicants complete an online application about their environmental and education work or volunteer activities, motivation for participating in the fellowship, ideas about climate action projects, and ability to commit the time to be an active participant in the fellowship over the 12-week period. Civic Ecology Lab staff will select the final fellows based on their applications and on our commitment to creating a group of fellows who bring different ideas and experiences and represent a diverse set of countries.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• Free. This is a serious commitment,from 4 -10 hours of work per week. All fellows will be expected to actively participate in weekly Zoom conference calls Thursdays from 8-10am Eastern Standard Time (New York) and to implement a climate mitigation action.
• Participants who complete the fellowship will be awarded a Cornell University certificate. However, the main benefit of the fellowship is the opportunity to work with a diverse group of climate-concerned citizens globally who will provide support and provide feedback on your local climate actions.

Duration of Programme: 12 Weeks: February 14 – May 9, 2019

How to Apply: Please click HERE to apply now

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

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Sexual Predators in the Era of Trump

David Rosen

Long after the Trump presidency passes into the historical graveyard, it will be recalled for the scandals involving sexual abuse that occurred during his tenure.  These scandals bespeak the sexual pathology that long characterized the president himself.

A series of revelations about men who take advantage of underage girls has placed the issue of sexual predators at the center of public debate.  These include the financier Jeffrey Epstein and the entertainer R Kelly as well as the male sex tourists traveling overseas to have sex with trafficked young girls.

Lifetime is airing a six-part documentary series, Surviving R. Kelly, that tells the gruesome story of how the entertainer sexually abused African-American girls and women for decades.  Willa Paskin, reviewing the series for Slate, notes: “We chose to ignore his deeds, downplay them, or remain willfully ignorant of them so we could go on enjoying his music. …  We made a deal with the devil on the cheap — let us keep this song! — and had 16-year-old girls pay the exorbitant price.”

Kelly’s sexual exploitation of teenage girls were first revealed in the mid-90s by Jim DeRogatis, the Chicago Sun-Times pop-music critic.  He long covered Kelly musical career, but in 2002 he received two videos from an anonymous source that depicting the pop star engaging in sex with young girls. Working with his colleague Abdon Pallasch, over the years they interviewed innumerable people involved in the case, including dozens of young women Kelly allegedly sexually exploited.  DeRogatis’ articles and the two videos led to criminal charges against Kelly. He went to trial in 2008 and was found not guilty on all 14 charges.

One of the weirdest aspects of the Kelly story that DeRogatis reported on concerns the allegations that he has operated a series of sex cults, essentially imprisoning girls and young women to a form of sex slavery.  These facilities were located in Chicago and the Atlanta suburbs and, as reported, “dictating what they eat, how they dress, when they bathe, when they sleep, and how they engage in sexual encounters that he records.”  In a Duluth, GA, “guest house,” a 31-year-old “den mother” “trained” new young women as to “how Kelly liked to be pleasured sexually.” The reporter has also detailed how Kelly paid “hush money” to an underage girl to avoid further litigation.

Numerous women appear in Surviving R. Kelly and testify to the sexual abuse that Kelly inflicted on them.  However, the key experience that shapes the series involves the performer, Aaliyah, Kelly’s protegee and who he married when she was just 15 years old.  They first met during his child-pornography trial and Aaliyah died in a plane crash in August 2001 in the Bahamas. Her mother, Diane Houghton, has challenged the series’ account of her daughter’s relationship with Kelly.

A second prominent sex predator is the financier Jeffrey Epstein.  In 2005, he began to assemble a network of dozens – if not a hundred — underage girls for prostitution. The Miami Herald found about 80 women Epstein allegedly molested or sexually abused over a five-year period, including 36 underage victims.  Some of the girls were only 13 or 14 years old when they were molested.  More damaging revelations involve Trump’s Sec. of Labor, R. Alexander Acosta, who, as the U.S. attorney in Miami, brokered what the Herald calls the “deal of a lifetime” so that Epstein received a slap on the risk.

The latest twist in this twisted tale involves the lawyer and TV personality, Alan Dershowitz. Sarah Ransome has alleged in a New York federal court filing that Epstein and his alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, “directed” her in 2006 to have sex with Dershowitz and others.  It’s a claim the attorney adamantly denies.

On September 4, 2015, David Strecker, a 66-year-old Florida resident, was arrested at a Costa Rican airport for violating the country’s law for promoting prostitution and received a five-year sentence. Strecker operated a blog, “Cuba Dave,” celebrating his sexual exploits with girls and young women in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Cuba. He was the first person ever tried under the country’s new anti-prostitution law and received a 5-year prison sentence in Costa Rica.

Costa Rica is among the leading international destination favored by American sex tourists.  Others include the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, The Netherlands, Spain, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Mexico. World Vision Australia estimates 250,000 tourists visit Asia each year for sexual activities with a minor and an estimated 25 percent of sex tourists originate from the U.S.  Men are considered to be the primary sex tourist around the globe with most sex tourism customers coming from middle to upper class backgrounds.

In 2003, the U.S. adopted the PROTECT — Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to end the Exploitation of Children Today — Act.  An Urban Institute study finds that from 2003 to 2012, only 33 individuals were prosecuted under the act.  The study notes, “by prioritizing this crime and enforcing the PROTECT Act, more US citizens and legal US residents traveling overseas for the purposes of sex tourism can be identified and brought to justice.”

Since Harvey Weinstein was outed in October 2017, about 80 women have publicly revealed how they were sexually abused. Many of those accused of such immoral, if not illegal, behavior are among the social elite, including judges, politicians, business execs and entertainers.

Among these men, both white and African-American, are judges Alex Kozinski (CA federal judge) and Ray Moore (R-AL); politicians Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) and Reps. Ruben Kihuen (D-NV), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Pat Meehan (R-PA), Trent Franks (R-AZ) and John Conyers (D-MI); and entertainers Kevin Spacey (actor), Russell Simmons (co-founder, Def Jam Recordings), Garrison Keillor (host, “A Prairie Home Companion”), Charlie Rose (host, PBS and CBS), Matt Lauer (host, NBC “Today”) and Mario Batali (TV star and chef).

Sadly, in the era of Trump, further revelations about prominent men who are sexual abusers and predators are likely.

Everything the Western Mainstream Media Outlets Get Wrong When Covering Poor Countries

Tamara Pearson

If you want to find out what’s happening in a poor country, be sure to add tourists to your Google News search.

“Canadian and Italian tourists feared kidnapped in Burkina Faso,” was the recent headline in the BBC, a day after clashes there claimed 46 lives. The BBC didn’t cover the clashes online, nor did they cover a terrorist attack there a few days prior, or the country’s trade deals with China. If the tragic events had happened in Europe though, the media would have been all over it.

We see similar scenarios with the recent media coverage of tourists robbed in Brazil (just as a president who is arguably more racist, sexist, and homophobic than Trump has taken power – yes, it’s possible), of a tourist murdered in Morocco, and the killings in a Mexican tourist resort.

From de-prioritizing the lives of locals in poor countries, to downplaying global inequality, racism, and condescension, the way Western news agencies do international news is deeply harmful. They judge other countries based on the assumption that US and European political and economic standards are the best and only way to do things, and that practice is leading to some seriously discriminatory and damaging outcomes.

As the news becomes increasingly corporatist, with agencies blurring the lines between native advertising and news stories and focusing on clicks over quality, there is little desire to examine this sort of malpractice, let alone rectify it.

A list of deliberate distortions the mainstream media makes about poor countries

1) News discourse is based on the assumption that the only way to do democracy, elections, and economics is the highly dysfunction two-party neoliberalism of the US and Europe. If countries stray from the West’s way of doing politics, or from “free” trade and privatization, they are labelled as tyrannies, dictatorships, regimes, and more. Though the news claims to be unbiased, there is a stark inconsistency in the terminology used for the West and for poor countries.

2) Media coverage of charity and aid from the US and Europe rests on the assumption that such “help” is desired, and that the US and Europe have something to offer poor countries, despite their responsibility for colonizing, looting, enforcing abusive debt repayment, and largely causing the poverty in the first place. The historic and economic context behind the poverty is rarely discussed, creating the impression that poverty has no cause.

3) Media agencies boycott news stories about what people in poor countries are doing, achieving, calling for, hoping for, or building. By omitting this sort of coverage, one gets the false impression that people in poor countries aren’t doing anything about their economic or political situations. That contributes to the myth perpetuated by charities that poor people are incapable and passive and need outside help.

4) Media analysis assumes that institutions in other countries work in the same way as those in the media’s home country. For example, that police and national guards should play the same role in Venezuela as they do in the US, and if they don’t, there is something wrong with them.

5) The media consistently boycotts experts from the actual poor country in question when it comes to quotes and interviews and analyzing what is going on there. Instead, experts are typically US or European white male academics who aren’t in, or have never set foot in the country they judge and opine on. This sort of boycott contributes to the stereotype about who an expert is and what they look like. Hypocritically, the media never invites qualified intellectuals in poor countries to pass judgment on the US or Europe.

6) Related to this, is the belief that poor countries are so simple and similar that a Western journalist can be parachuted in to one to cover a presidential election, for example. These journalists often don’t speak the local language, and don’t know how the local elections work (as I witnessed while covering numerous elections in Venezuela). The media also thinks it is acceptable to use locals to do all the networking work and on-the-ground grunt work as “fixers“, or worse, as unpaid “contacts”, while a Westerner gets the byline credit and much higher pay, for writing up that work.

7) US and European culture is portrayed as the default or norm, while everyone else’s culture is “exotic” or “colorful”. Further, the media usually thinks its enough to do the occasional photo gallery of such culture (ie a festival in India) for people to then have an understanding or insight into the ways of being and living of people in countries like India, with its 1.2 billion people.

8) The media’s errors regarding poverty extend to its default definition of it. It sees poverty as how much stuff people can buy, rather than, for example, access to culture, education, and healthcare. When covering other countries’ situations, it doesn’t include their perspective on what good living consists of.

9) Western mainstream media values the lives of people in rich countries more. People have to die in the thousands in a non-political tragedy in poor countries to get a similar amount of coverage as the death of a white Australian mountain climber in Indonesia.

10) The media brands itself as “neutral”, though it always takes the perspective of its home country or region. But when 1 billion people are hungry, we need the media to have a more global perspective.

11) And despite lauding itself as being objective and factual, accuracy is less important to the media when it comes to poor countries. Getting a president’s name wrong, the actual title of the head of state, or labeling community organizations as “terrorists” isn’t a big deal.

12) When something really huge happens in a poor country – like a tsunami and earthquake that kills 230,000 people, then the media is happy to exploit it for all the clicks they can get. Once the main drama has passed though, don’t expect too many follow-ups that analyze why earthquakes cause more damage in some countries than others, or the rebuilding and recovery needed.

13) Further, when the media does bestow to cover poorer countries, it usually needs to be in terms of a richer country. Stories about Mexico, for example, are more likely to get covered if Trump is in the headline. African countries are more likely to see the light of day when a famous Western actor deigns to visit.

14) Sometimes the media takes the position that poor countries are “too depressing” for readers. But if the reading is tough, imagine what its like to live it. We should be screaming about the worst injustices from our rooftops, not sidelining such injustice with pathetic excuses.

Causes and consequences of anti-poor country bias

Global racism, classism, and prioritizing profits are the key factors behind all these distortions. Stories about poor countries don’t appeal to advertisers, except for those promoting charities who typically victimize poor countries and simplify poverty because they want their donors to think that $1 a day makes the exploitation, wars, and debt go away.

Further, mainstream media has stopped seeing itself as an active force in the world that has a responsibility to inform people and to help them understand what is going on – if it ever did see itself that way. Instead of being a public service, the news is a commodity. As such, media companies understand that stories about first world events, white people, celebrities and the rich and powerful tend to get more clicks than those about the poor.

In addition, over the past decade with the smartphone becoming more accessible to more people, the media has shifted over to bite-size stories and easily and quickly digestible content that can be scan-read, then shared, in a few seconds or minutes. However, the key issues in poor countries aren’t bite size nor simple. They require context, and the media shies away from that – especially where worker rights, inequality, or historical injustice are concerned.

Finally, US media in particular loves individual stories of rags-to-riches and to perpetuate the myth that financial success is all about individuals working hard. Poor countries simply don’t fit into that narrative, so they get left out altogether.

The consequences of this selective and distorted media coverage are serious. What it ultimately does, is perpetuate the status quo; the racism, the dehumanizing of people who live in poor countries, the global inequality, and US and European cultural, economic, and violent dominance. That is, mainstream media coverage of poor countries is an active, and deliberate participation in the oppression of those countries.

The coverage ends up distorting how we understand global forces, culture, and history. It obstructs our ability to learn from other culture’s amazing lifestyles, literature traditions, philosophies, art and film techniques, and it fosters closed-minded adults. Such rich-country centric coverage also promotes unjustified arrogance in those countries, which in turn fosters blind spots to how damaging US and European foreign policy (ie wars) can be.

With high rates of homelessness, police impunity, racist attacks, consumerism, and more, countries like the US are in no position to be judging other countries. A healthy media landscape would instead see the news media as informational and educational rather than entertainment, and would prioritize local journalists and local experts.

Combating Racism With Exposure

Matt Johnson

When I started volunteering at a youth detention center, whose incarcerated population was entirely African American and Latino, I was told by an Africana Studies professor I respected that I should focus on my own community — white people — instead. He said this after I asked whether my presence in the detention center was fostering cross-racial solidarity. Despite respecting his knowledge and experience, I took exception to his advice then and still do now.

My reason for taking exception is purely strategic: I am not sure that a white person can convince another white person to be less racist. This is, in effect, what it means to be a “white ally” in the grassroots left. White allies take their marching orders from people of color, and then reenter their own (presumably white) communities to conduct missionary work in reverse: instead of racist attempts to “civilize” darker-skinned peoples, white allies conduct anti-racist attempts to civilize their lighter-skinned neighbors. This is well intentioned but somewhat misguided in my opinion.

I am a believer in the mere-exposure effect because it worked for me. To give just one example, I studied abroad in China as an undergraduate student and grew so accustomed to seeing mostly Han Chinese people everywhere that, upon my return home, diverse crowds of Americans seemed strange to me. People were larger, louder, and more intimidating than ever before.

But Chinese people not only became more familiar, they became more attractive. A similar change occurred in my psyche when I lived and worked in areas with more African Americans than whites.

I am not arguing that racism can be eradicated solely by (positive or neutral) exposure or that racist white people never encounter people of color on the streets or at work — but I am positing that exposure is a necessary condition for abolishing racism. Racism cannot be resisted in the abstract: it must be addressed practically and contextually. If ‘Racist Rick’ were replaced in his job some time ago by a person of color, and this was his only experience with an individual from said community of color, he would likely remain racist — especially if the media he consumes, the education he recalls, and the friends he keeps cast further suspicion on the black community. He would need a positive experience to shift his thinking.

I met a Palestinian man in the historic town of Beit Sahour a few years ago who allowed me to stay in his home for the night. He told me he opened his doors to just about anyone who wanted to visit — including Jewish settlers who laid claim to his land and denied his rights. When I asked him why, he recounted a story about an Israeli (Jewish) man: a stranger who had given him a ride when he was stranded and desperate. The man took him to his home, introduced him to his family, and served him dinner. My host said this experience changed him and that henceforth he was committed to exposing even the most reactionary Jews to Palestinians (himself and his family) by hosting them so that their minds would open the way his did. He bragged that he had even convinced a Jewish-American guest to reject an offer to settle in the West Bank out of respect for the Palestinians living there.

My Palestinian friend did not refuse the ride or his potential guests — he did not tell said Jewish guests to go home and lecture their (Jewish) friends about Palestinian rights. He made bold attempts at integration and (willingly) put himself in a vulnerable position in order to do so. The man who gave him a ride did likewise. The context may be different, but the power differential between Israelis and Palestinians is comparable to whites vs. (some) communities of color in the United States. The level of segregation is also comparable in some respects — and it will be more so if Trump gets his wall.

Exposure, however, is not as easy as it sounds given continued de-facto segregation in America. And this segregation is only one aspect of a larger system of racial oppression that most whites are loath to address. That system will have to be dismantled for racism to die, but in the meantime, we should allow ourselves to be exposed.

After attempted coup in Gabon, government imposes internet and media broadcast blackout

Eddie Haywood 

The government of Ali Bongo Ondimba imposed a country-wide blackout of all Internet and television and radio broadcasting services throughout Gabon for more than 24 hours in the wake of an attempted coup Monday morning that saw insurgent soldiers take over the operations of state-owned television and radio broadcaster RadioDiffusion Television Gabonnaise in the capital city Libreville. The group’s leader, Lt. Obiang Ondo Kelly, broadcast a call on national television for viewers to overthrow the Bongo government.

Several hundred demonstrators responded to the insurgent soldiers’ call to “take control of the streets,” and swarmed a downtown section of Libreville, setting a car aflame and burning several tires.

Expressing the anger toward the Bongo regime felt within a broad layer of the Gabonese masses, Stephane, a 27-year-old tripe seller, told Agence France-Presse (AFP), “What happened (yesterday) was a good thing, it should have worked. We have to get out of this situation. We weren't criminals or looters. We answered the call. We are 120-percent fed up!”

Another resident told AFP of the internet shutdown, “They did the same thing to us in 2016 [referring to the government’s blackout of the internet during the 2016 election]. Can you understand how frustrating it is to live in a country where there is such a blackout?”

Gabonese security forces swiftly put down the coup attempt, killing two and arresting eight. Shortly afterward, the government declared “the situation is under control,” and proclaimed that it had restored peace and order. In the wake of the government crackdown, the internet was cut, along with electricity in many sections across Libreville.

Agence de Press Gabonnaise (AGP) reported on Tuesday that order had been restored and routine had returned to Libreville, with children returning to school and businesses open. By then the government had restored internet access and broadcast services, after being down since the morning of the coup attempt.

Internet Without Borders, an organization which monitors internet censorship by governments around the globe, found that beginning Monday morning almost immediately after the coup attempt, internet connection requests from Gabon sharply dropped, indicating the starting point of the blackout. Traffic remained down for the next 28 hours. When the government lifted the blackout, traffic requests in the country began functioning as normal. Internet Without Borders’ report was corroborated by Netblocks, another like-minded organization tracking censorship of the internet.

The cutting off of internet service to the population stands as a stark threat to the Gabonese masses that the Bongo regime is willing to resort to any means necessary to stifle any opposition to its rule. Such anti-democratic methods have been utilized by governments in countries around the world, including nearby Democratic Republic of the Congo, during the recent elections, and in Tunisia and Egypt, during the Arab Spring revolutions that overthrew the dictatorships in those countries.

The imposition of a complete blackout of internet and broadcast services has long been utilized as a tool of repression by the Bongo government. Comprising a quasi-dynasty, the Bongo family has been in power in Gabon for more than half a century.

During the 2009 and 2016 elections, internet service and broadcasts were shut down in the days preceding the poll, illustrating the thoroughly criminal and anti-democratic character of the regime. Over the decades, the ruling government has arbitrarily shut down newspapers and broadcast media.

Security forces in 2012 raided and then shuttered two newspapers critical of the ruling government, Ezombolo and La Une. In a move ominously Orwellian the government body charged with the regulation of media, the National Communications Council, accused the two weeklies of “disrespecting public institutions and the personalities that embody them.”

The underlying motive in carrying out these thoroughly anti-democratic actions is the palpable fear within the ruling elite of the Gabonese masses. The ruling class is acutely aware of their deep unpopularity and seek above all to quell a social explosion which may escape their control. In order to accomplish this the Bongo government is seeking to control the dissemination of information and to regulate what the masses see, hear and read.

The development of the internet has revolutionized mass communications and created a vast expansion in the manner by which workers are able to express ideas and their opposition to the ruling class, as evidenced in many protests organized over social media, such as the Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011, the teachers’ strikes in the United States last year and recently, the Yellow Vest protests in France.

Efforts to censor the internet by governments worldwide is being led by the United States. In the closest collaboration with Google, Facebook, Twitter and other powerful information technology corporations, the American ruling class has implemented severe restrictions on access to socialist, antiwar and progressive websites. The growth of opposition from the working class has struck a chord of terror within the ruling class. In response they are seeking to severely limit workers’ access to the internet and transform it into a tool of state surveillance, censorship and repression.

Sri Lankan president issues bogus promise to fulfil election pledges

K. Ratnayake

Politically discredited Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena claimed on Tuesday that he would fulfil all his remaining election promises this year, including to eliminate “fraud and corruption.”

Sirisena’s pledge, made at the opening of a new Laggala village and irrigation scheme in Central Province, marked his fourth year as president—he was elected on January 8, 2015. His term ends in November, with the next presidential election due in January 2020.

Sirisena’s comments are in line with his efforts to strengthen an alliance with former President Mahinda Rajapakse, as part of their continuing conflict with the United National Party (UNP)-led government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Sirisena ousted Wickremesinghe as prime minister in a political coup on October 26, replacing him with Rajapakse and then dissolving parliament. Last month, however, Sirisena was forced, following a Supreme Court ruling and under pressure from Washington, to reinstate Wickremesinghe.

Washington made clear that it would not allow any undermining of the military and political relations it had built up over the previous four years on the strategically-located Indian Ocean island. The US had previously opposed Rajapakse as president because of his economic and political orientation toward Beijing.

Sirisena declared on Tuesday: “We have made huge sacrifices to fulfil the aspirations of the people in the country.” He ludicrously claimed that his presidency had taken important measures “to build a society free from doubts and fears, ensuring people’s democracy and liberty, as well as building a free media, an independent judiciary and an unbiased government service to strengthen the national economy.”

He admitted that his campaign “to eliminate fraud, corruption and malpractices” had failed but called on Sri Lankans “to join hands to reject corruption and fraud through a strong program.”

Sirisena’s proclamations are laughable. He and Wickremesinghe, who helped bring him to power, together established a “unity government” in 2015 and have fulfilled none of their election promises.

Sirisena was a senior minister in Rajapakse’s government until he defected in November 2014 to become the presidential candidate of a UNP-led electoral front. Sirisena and his supporters made all manner of promises. These included changing the constitution and abolishing the autocratic executive presidency, strengthening democracy, restoring human rights, ending ethnic discrimination and improving living and social conditions.

These promises exploited the anger of workers and the poor against Rajapakse’s autocratic 10-year rule, the military atrocities committed in the war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and the escalating attacks on democratic and social rights.

Sirisena’s elevation into the presidency was orchestrated by Washington and its political allies, including Wickremesinghe and former President Chandrika Kumaratunga. While the US had backed Rajapakse’s communalist war, it was hostile to his government’s reliance on China for investment and military hardware. Washington, which was stepping up its economic, diplomatic and military offensive against China, was determined to bring Sri Lanka back into its orbit.

After taking office, Sirisena and Wickremesinghe reoriented Colombo’s foreign policy in favour of the US, India and the European powers, and integrated the island and its military forces with US preparations for war against China.

While the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration provided limited increases in agricultural subsidies and salary rises to some state employees, it soon began to implement the austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The shaky unity government’s promise to abolish the executive presidency never eventuated. The only changes were to prune some presidential powers, including the dissolution of parliament. Action on human right violations and war crimes was swept under the carpet to appease extreme-right Sinhala-Buddhist formations and the military. De facto military rule continued in the island’s North and East.

Colombo’s austerity policies provoked struggles by broad sections of the working class, as well as by farmers and students. The government responded with threats and repressive measures.

The anti-government opposition also manifested itself in landslide defeats for Wickremesinghe’s UNP and Sirisena’s SLFP in last February’s local council elections. Most of the council seats were won by the newly-formed Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP)—a breakaway Rajapakse faction from the SLFP.

Sirisena then calculated that the best way to deal with the growing opposition was by aligning himself with Rajapakse.

Sirisena said not a word in his Tuesday speech about the October 26 anti-democratic sacking of Wickremesinghe, or the prorogation, and later unconstitutional dissolution of parliament.

Since the failure of his political coup Sirisena has sought to undermine the UNP-led government and strengthen his own powers. When a new cabinet was announced late last year, Sirisena retained the law and order ministry and then established a special committee, answerable to himself, to assess the “suitability” of all individuals chosen as heads of state-owned enterprises and boards.

In the 225-seat parliament, Sirisena’s faction of the SLFP and the United People’s Freedom Alliance only has about 20 MPs, with about 75 MPs backing Rajapakse and his SLPP.

Sirisena is desperately trying to secure his political future by linking up with the SLPP and Rajapakse. Exploiting this crisis, Rajapakse hinted that he would support an alliance with Sirisena but indicated that it must have the blessing of SLPP. Rajapakse also issued a statement on his ouster in 2015, declaring that his removal as president had created “triple dangers” for the country.

These dangers, Rajapakse claimed, are: the 19th amendment to the constitution, which prevents the president from dissolving the parliament in any circumstances; the collapse of the economy; and the government’s alleged attempt to divide the country which, he falsely insisted, would hand over the North and the East to the Tamil elite.

Rajapakse is seeking to build an extreme-right movement, appealing to Sinhala chauvinist groups and military in the hope that these forces can suppress the opposition of the working class and rural poor.

Sirisena is appealing to the same right-wing elements. He has repeatedly opposed the arrest of any military officer over human rights violations and war crimes.

Rajapakse also declared that his party has started discussions with the US and other major powers in order to change their political attitudes toward a future Rajapakse government.

For his part, seeking to justify another round of IMF-dictated measures, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe has declared that Sirisena’s failed coup has had a “huge economic” impact. Wickremesinghe also has initiated discussions with the pseudo-left Nava Sama Samaja Party and so-called civil society groups to establish a National Democratic Front, another right-wing movement.

Under conditions of mounting economic problems, including $US5.9 billion in foreign debt repayments due this year, and developing workers’ struggles in Sri Lanka and internationally, every faction of the ruling elite is preparing for dictatorial forms of rule.

While the internecine political war continues within the ruling elite, the working class must take the political initiative to chart its own course—that is, to fight for a workers’ and peasants’ government on the basis of an international socialist program.

Germany deports more refugees to Afghanistan

Marianne Arens

The German government, a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union, Christian Social Union and Social Democratic Party, is continuing its policy of deportations to war-torn Afghanistan. On Monday night, a further 36 refugees were deported to Kabul. This is the 20th such mass deportation from the Franz Josef Strauss airport in Munich.

While the identities of all those deported have not yet been published, they included persons from the German states of Bavaria, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein.

The German interior ministries and the BAMF immigration authority are proceeding with malice and complete contempt for basic human rights. Several refugee initiatives have reported that amongst the deportees were people who had lived and worked for years in Germany and had no idea they were at risk.

Politicians have sought to justify the policy by arguing that only “convicted criminals” would be deported, but this is not the case, at least for Bavaria. Twenty-three people were deported from this state alone, just 12 of whom were considered “offenders.” The remaining 11 were in part well-integrated young or older men, who had German language skills and jobs, or were just starting their education.

The Bavarian Refugee Council reported that physically and mentally ill refugees were also scheduled for deportation. One of them was a construction worker who speaks German and worked in the building trade in Lower Bavaria. After a steel beam fell on his hand, the man was incapacitated and needed medication and social assistance. Nevertheless, the immigration office in Deggendorf had planned to deport him.

In Kempten, immigration officials also tried to detain an Afghan who had a contract to train as an electrician. The immigration office was well aware of this fact. Another Afghan national held in detention had worked in a pizzeria in Plattlingen, before his work permit was arbitrarily withdrawn. In order to hide its deportation machinery from the public the Bavarian immigration office set up a detention center in a former Air Berlin hangar at Munich Airport last November.

The latest deportation has shocked and frightened many Afghan refugees, according to refugee organisations in Bavaria and Hesse. Stephan Dünnwald, spokesman for the Bavarian Refugee Council, stated, “Bavaria indiscriminately targets all male Afghans whose applications for asylum have been rejected. … Many Afghans go underground in response to this policy or flee to other EU states, including those who are not at risk.” This inhumane practice has also led to many Afghans who had a place in a vocational school or a company to stop turning up at work for fear of arrest.

In recent months, the deportation policy of Germany’s grand coalition and state governments has become increasingly brutal. The aid organisation Pro Asyl documents numerous cases on its website. One male Afghan from Zwickau was deported to Afghanistan. He had lived and worked in Germany for five years. “A young man and a dependable employee who had never done any harm,” his employer complained. “We lose a wonderful employee with him.”

People are evidently dragged out of their beds at night, including families with small children. At the beginning of November, the police in the Rhein-Hunsrück district broke open the door of a family from Armenia at 4 a.m. to deport the parents and three children. The youngest was seven months old. Another family was deported from Baden-Wuerttemberg in the morning. The immigration office snatched one child out of kindergarten and another from an elementary school.

An Iranian family was due to be deported from Rhineland-Palatinate to Croatia in mid-October although the mother was pregnant. The woman was detained by officials at a hospital and taken to Hannover Airport in an ambulance.

The deportation failed only due to the pilot’s refusal to fly. A similar case occurred in Saalfeld, Thuringia, where eight policemen abducted a man from the hospital where his wife was in labour. The man was dragged out of the maternity ward, despite protests from midwives, and taken to the Rhein-Main airport in Frankfurt. The deportation was only prevented after the man resisted and was supported by other passengers on the flight.

These and many other examples demonstrate the ruthlessness of the government in its deportation policy. Since the end of 2016, 475 people have been deported to the dangerous war zones of Afghanistan on charter flights. As recently as Christmas Eve, 43 people died following an hours-long attack on the government district in Kabul.

Other countries are also deporting people en masse to Afghanistan. Large-scale deportations to Afghanistan, Tunisia and Nigeria are planned for January in Albania, Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo. Germany’s grand coalition, in cooperation with all the other parties in power in the state governments, are relentlessly implementing the policy of the xenophobic Alternative for Germany: Foreigners out!

Syriza government enforces new budget cuts in Greece

John Vassilopoulos

The budget passed by Greece’s Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) government for 2019 continues to enforce austerity on behalf of the nation’s creditors among the global financial institutions and European Union (EU).

Passed by parliament in December, it was the first budget since Greece formally exited the eight-year loans for austerity programme in August. Since then Greece has been allowed for the first time since 2010 to raise funds in the financial markets. In his speech to parliament, Greek prime minister and leader of the pseudo-left Syriza, Alexis Tsipras, declared: “Today we are voting the first ‘post-bailout’ budget. A budget of fiscal expansion after eight years austerity. The first budget which is our own.”

None of this is true.

Greece has exited the austerity programme in name only. Its budget is still subject to approval by the EU Commission, which it gave one month before the vote in parliament. Moreover, under the terms of the programme the Greek government is required to run primary surpluses of 3.5 percent of GDP until 2022 and then 2.5 percent of GDP until 2060. Failure to meet these targets can mean that the EU can demand that the Greek government impose additional austerity measures.

The burden of maintaining these primary surpluses is borne by the Greek working class with household incomes having been reduced by nearly 30 percent since 2010. Taxation measures imposed by successive governments, with a ballooning especially of indirect taxation, disproportionately hits the poorest in society. Indirect taxation in Greece made up a massive 39 percent of all tax revenues in 2017—the largest such proportion in the EU and compared to 26 percent in Germany. But for the wealthiest, corporation tax is set to be reduced again under Syriza this year by 1 percent, as part of the annual reductions until 2022 when it will be set at 25 percent.

Tsipras’ claims of “fiscal expansion” are patently absurd. Apart from a few paltry measures such as earmarking €400 million in housing benefit for 300,000 low-income families this is another austerity budget that reduces even further the social position of an already devastated working class.

Syriza claims that it has cut the tax burden involved in the ENFIA tax, or Consolidated Tax on Property Ownership. The reality is that applying a paltry 10 percent average reduction that mostly applies to lower property bands, Syriza has made this hated tax a permanent feature—after it had pledged to get rid of it before coming to power in 2015. In any event, even such small decreases to the tax will most likely be clawed back the following year given that property bands are set to be revalued in the coming months.

Another attempt of adding gloss to the budget by Syriza was the trumpeting of the fact that the incomes of around 620,000 low-income pensioners on mostly €600 per month will be revalued by an average of €100 more under the new regime that kicked in this year. However, even this paltry increase will not be granted in full from the outset. Instead, it will be increased in instalments over the next five years, which means that the average increase in 2019 for these pensioners will be a paltry €20 euros a month.

The government hailed its decision not to implement planned pension cuts worth around €2.7 billion that were to take place under the new regime and which would have meant cuts of up to 18 percent for 1.4 million so-called “old” pensioners who retired prior to May 2016. This is no consolation for all other “newer” pensioners who will see cuts of one form or another. Under the new system, all who retired between May 2016 and December 2018 will see cuts of up to 20 percent, while those retiring after 2019 will receive up to 30 percent less than they would have done. These come on top of the total of €67 billion that have been wiped off Greek pensions at the behest of the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since 2010.

Except for the 620,000 low-income pensioners, pensions will be frozen until 2022, which represents a cut in real terms as incomes will be eroded by inflation. In the case of the “old” pensioners the freeze will extend beyond 2022 until “newer” pensioner incomes have caught up to the same level.

This is also not to say that there will be no pension cuts in the future. For instance, in the case of the “old” pensioners, the amount that was not cut is now accounted for on their statement as a so-called “personal difference” amount. This can be slashed at a moment’s notice if stringent budget targets are not met.

Attacks on health spending are set to continue in 2019. Latching onto an increase in the health budget of just €128 million for this year, Syriza Health Minister Andreas Xanthos attempted to turn reality on its head by claiming, “This support is a continuation of the very crucial boost received by the National Health System over the past four years.”

The exact opposite is true. Notwithstanding the paltry increase for 2019, the Ministry of Health budget is projected to be €3.9 billion, which is €500 million less than in 2015 when Syriza came to power and around half the level of health spending in 2009—one year before Greece signed the bailout programme with the EU, IMF, European Central Bank troika.

In a statement following the budget, the Panhellenic Medical Association highlighted that health spending in Greece “continues to be very small, around 5 percent of GDP. In contrast, the European average is around 7 percent, while the minimum safe limit for every health system, as we have repeatedly stressed, is 6 percent of GDP.”

The vicious cuts imposed on Greece’s health system have produced what has been described as a humanitarian catastrophe. According to a study published by the Lancet in July 2018, the death rate jumped from 997.8 per 100,000 in 2010 to 1,174.9 per 100,000 in 2016—a 17.7 percent increase in a space of just six years! That these deaths are the direct consequence of the cuts imposed is underscored in the Lancet article, which states that “many of the causes of death that increased in Greece are potentially responsive to care, including HIV, neoplasms, cirrhosis, neurological disorders, chronic kidney disease, and most types of cardiovascular disease.”

The budget testifies to the extent to which the selling off of public assets has been embraced by Syriza in office. Junking its previous pledges to end the selloff of public assets—that are demanded by the behest of the EU and the IMF—Syriza’s privatisation drive has surpassed the efforts of previous conservative and social democratic governments. According to figures in the latest budget report, a record €2.1 billion worth of state assets were sold off last year, including €1.1 billion to extend the current concession granted to private shareholders operating Athens Airport for another 20 years.

The budget privatisation target for this year is €1.5 billion. A fifth of the target is already accounted for by the €300 million that will be paid in 2019 by Lamda Development—a real estate group owned by shipping magnate Spiros Latsis—in a first instalment of its €915 million deal to acquire the site of the old Athens airport. Lamda’s plan, part of an overall €8 billion investment, is to develop the site in Elliniko, a coastal suburb in the south of the city, into a “Metropolitan Park” that will include shopping centres, luxury hotels and casinos.

Macron launches fraudulent “national debate” on “yellow vest” protests

Alex Lantier

The announcement yesterday by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe of next week’s launch of a “great national debate” on the demands of “yellow vest” protesters was a debacle. Like his previous offer of temporarily increasing the minimum wage via an increase in bonuses, it is a blatant attempt to strangle mounting opposition while continuing reactionary policies of austerity and militarism under cover of a few empty phrases.

Even before Philippe spoke to summarize the conclusions of a ministerial meeting at the Elysée presidential palace, the National Commission on Public Debate (CNDP) was discredited. Its president, right-wing politician Chantal Jouanno, had announced that, outraged at the public outcry over her €176,400 yearly salary, she was refusing to organize the debate. Nonetheless, she refused to step down and is still drawing her exorbitant salary, even though she refuses to do the work that she is supposedly being paid to do.

This provoked broad anger among “yellow vests” and workers. As journalist Vincent Jauvert noted on France Info, French Senate investigations have established that “leaders of such high administrative authorities are often extremely well paid…for minimal work.”

This observation on the fictitious character of the work of Jouanno and other top state officials speaks volumes about the character of the “great national debate” Macron wants her commission to organize. He intends for this debate not to result in a realignment of his policies to reflect popular opposition to austerity, social inequality, and war, but to issue a few propaganda phrases to “sell” the diktat of the banks Macron is imposing.

Philippe’s speech at the Elysée proved to be so vacuous that even BFMTV journalists were left to complain that “much uncertainty” remains as to the content of the “great national debate.”

“In the current phase in our country, we must be both extremely open to a useful and productive debate, and obviously extremely firm on the functioning of Republican institutions,” Philippe declared. While he said that he would only reveal the details on Monday, he proposed to organize it in various forums: “local initiative meetings,” “mobile stands,” digital platforms, or “regional citizens conferences” whose attendees would be selected by the state, supposedly at random.

No details emerged on what policies Philippe was proposing. The four themes for debate raised by all the ministers who since have spoken out on the subject are taxes, the effectiveness of state policies, the ecological transition, and citizenship. The last element appears to be the xenophobic debate on national identity and secularism—that is to say, against foreigners and Muslim religious clothing—that Macron mentioned on December 10, as he proposed the “great national debate.”

Since Macron obstinately refuses to go back on his cancellation of the Tax on Wealth, the debate on taxes and state effectiveness will boil down to defending the fortunes of the financial aristocracy by slashing taxes and intensifying austerity policies targeting workers above all. The government is giving itself room to maneuver by trying to ram through these antidemocratic policies under cover of either “ecological” or frankly xenophobic and neo-fascistic rhetoric.

Attempts to give a progressive coloration to the debate are marred by hypocrisy and lies.

Urban Minister Julien Denormandie has declared that the abolition of the death penalty and of democratic rights linked to sexuality would be off limits in the national debate. He explained, “A great debate is not a great surrender. … The right to abortion, the abolition of the death penalty, and gay marriage are social advances. But we all remember the extremely bitter and divisive debates that took place on the issue of gay marriage. So there can be no question of going back on this social progress.”

This is a cynical maneuver, aiming to reassure the narrow layers of the affluent middle class that emerged from the Green and post-1968 student movement, who are indifferent to workers’ economic conditions, fear the “yellow vests,” and are obsessed only with their own lifestyles.

The idea that the Macron government is defending democratic rights against the population is a political fraud. The “yellow vest” protests are not hostile to abortion or gay marriage or demanding the reinstatement of the death penalty. The Macron government is not defending democratic rights but the wealth and power of the financial aristocracy, mobilizing armored vehicles and tens of thousands of riot police. With his declaration of support for fascist dictator Philippe Pétain, Macron has made clear that he intends to build a police state.

In this context, the main danger to abortion and gay marriage is that the state itself could attack these rights that were written into law by the Socialist Party (PS), a big business party that is now widely hated, as it seeks to cultivate its base in the riot police and other layers close to the far right.

As the WSWS and the Parti de l’égalité socialiste (PES) have insisted throughout the “yellow vest” protests, workers will get nothing from Macron or his backers in the European Union (EU). The beginning of his “great national debate” has only confirmed this assessment. As the class struggle rises in France and across the world, the only way forward is the mobilization and organization of the working class, independently of the trade unions, in a political struggle against the EU and the capitalist class.

In this struggle, the PES insists that the only viable perspective for workers is to transfer power to the independent organizations created by the working class. All the offers of aid or debate by procapitalist politicians or parties will prove to be traps for the workers. The demands of “yellow vests” for social equality, wage increases and an end to war and police repression are incompatible with capitalism and require an international struggle of the working class for socialism.

Claims that the “yellow vests” can ally with the various bourgeois populist parties across Europe are political lies. The only way to satisfy the urgent social needs of workers and oppressed sections of the middle class is a determined expropriation of the financial aristocracies on an international scale.

This emerges also from the analysis of popular demands presented to the Association of French Rural Mayors (AMRF) in the context of the government’s “complaint notebooks” campaign, made by AMRF President Vanik Berberian.

Berberian told Le Point that “the top concern is the question of purchasing power. The second is social injustice. Today, the French people do not have common living standards and the gaps between them are ever greater. Augmenting a tax on fuel may not cause problems for a manager who is working, but it is disastrous for a retiree who is on 500 euros a month and who has no other choice but to take his car. The questions of overseas tax optimization are also perceived as an intolerable social injustice.”

He added, “Another source of concern is the observation that there is a broad decline in living standards, including in upper layers of the middle class, who feel dragged towards the bottom. Finally, the disappearance of public services in rural areas feeds a feeling of exclusion.”

Asked about immigration, he said: “The demands indicate that this is not a subject of major concern, in rural areas in any case, as it only arrives in 8th position. This confirms what we have said for years: if the neo fascists sometimes get enormous votes in rural areas where there are few or no foreigners, it is that another problem is in fact involved. … I invite you to go see yourself, there are many villages where foreigners are living without it causing any problems, on the contrary.”