Another flammable cladding fire in Australia highlights government failure

Paul Bartizan

The complete failure of all levels of government in Australia to fix the problem of flammable cladding was on display early on Monday morning when yet another high-rise building erupted in flames.

The fire, which is believed to have been ignited by a cigarette, began on a balcony on the twenty-second floor of the NEO200 apartment block in central Melbourne, and spread rapidly up five levels of the building’s 41 storeys. Eighty firefighters were able to quickly douse the pre-dawn blaze, and fortunately only one resident suffered smoke inhalation.

NEO200 apartment block in central Melbourne

Over 370 apartments have been evacuated, and residents remain locked out of the building located on the corner of Spencer and Little Bourke Streets, pending rectification of fire safety systems. The operation of automatic fire sprinklers within the apartments in the affected levels prevented the fire spreading internally but caused significant water damage.

The apartment block was designed by Hayball Architects, and construction was completed in 2007 by LU Simon. The building was awarded the 2008 Master Builder Association’s Excellence in Construction Award. The neo200.com website claims that the apartment block is “maintained to a high standard by a range of professional staff with oversight of the executive committee of owners.” A real estate website offers a penthouse in the building for $1.3 million and a two-bedroom apartment for $629,000.

Just 750 metres around the corner from NEO200 is the 21-storey Lacrosse apartment block which caught fire in November 2014. At Lacrosse, a balcony fire similarly caused by a smouldering cigarette spread up 13 floors on the outside of the building within 10 minutes.

Lacrosse was also built by LU Simon, who were subsequently involved in long-running legal action against owners and building authorities over whether or not the flammable polyethylene core aluminium composite panel (ACP) cladding should be replaced and who would pay.

While LU Simon has reportedly agreed to replace the Lacrosse cladding, at a cost of around $6 million, more than four years since the blaze the building remains a fire trap.

Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews responded to Monday’s fire by insisting that the government would not change its current response to the cladding crisis but continue to follow proposals outlined by the state’s Cladding Taskforce.

“We don’t for an instant underestimate how serious these issues are, that’s why we have taken action and that’s why we will stay the course on it,” Andrews complacently declared. The state government’s previous responses to the flammable ACP cladding problem, however, failed to prevent the latest potentially fatal fire.

A 2017 audit conducted by the Victorian Cladding Taskforce identified 43 buildings as highest risk; 232 high risk; 228 moderate; and 126 low risk. The Neo200 building was listed in the moderate risk category and smoke alarms were installed in bedrooms adjacent to the flammable panelling in the building. Additional smoke alarms were installed on the balconies.

That the “moderate” NEO200 building has now burnt poses urgent and obvious questions about the dangers facing residents in the 275 higher risk buildings.

According to current estimates there are about 250,000 owners and residents of some 1,400 apartments in Victoria clad with flammable polyethylene core ACPs.

The state government, however, has refused to publish the location of the “at risk” buildings on the spurious pretext that arsonists or terrorists could target these structures. A key factor in not revealing the location of these buildings, however, is the commercial impact it will have on the already rapidly declining Australian property market.

The Metropolitan Fire Brigade recently revealed that on average firefighters are called to more than 10 fires each month started by cigarettes in Melbourne. More fires involving flammable cladding are likely.

Monday’s fire at NEO200 was caused by the very same flammable panels used on London’s Grenfell Tower, where a devastating fire killed 72 people in June 2017.

Following the Grenfell Tower disaster, Australia’s Liberal-National Coalition government expanded an ongoing Senate inquiry into the use of dangerous materials in the building industry, to include flammable ACP panels. While the inquiry eventually called for a total ban on the import and use of the flammable cladding, this recommendation was rejected out of hand by the federal government.

NEO200 residents, like those evacuated from the Opal Tower in Sydney following major structural damage and fear of collapse of that high rise apartment block on Christmas Eve, have been treated with contempt.

Evacuated residents seeking access to apartments

NEO200 residents were initially told on Monday that they would be let back in after 48 hours and to pay for their own alternative accommodation. The evacuation order has been extended until at least Friday.

Yesterday afternoon hundreds of angry residents were summoned to the apartment block where they had to queue for hours. Authorities would only let four people at a time into the building and for just five minutes to pick up essential items.

WSWS reporters spoke with Rosanna, an apartment owner and a registered nurse. “I’m very unhappy. People aren’t allowed to go back in. Yesterday someone was telling us that we could go back to the apartment, but by the time we got there police told us to go away. You see babies and mums standing outside in their pyjamas,” she said.

“I read online that they [apartment owners] got two warnings about the material. But as an owner in that apartment block, I know nothing about it. I didn’t even know that they were using the flammable cladding until the fire happened.

“The Body Corp has emailed me twice since the fire. The first email was just to say that they are aware of the fire and the second email said that they’ll reimburse us for two nights of accommodation. That was it.

“I’ve emailed and asked about the food that’s in our fridges and clothing. I didn’t have anything. I had to go and buy my own clothes. Who’s going to reimburse us? The Body Corp never replied. They just said to find your own accommodation, spend up to $200 per night, send them the receipt and they’ll reimburse us. What’s next? I don’t know.

“We saw what happened [at Grenfell Tower] in London. There are other apartments in Melbourne that are at even higher risk but they haven’t been named. We don’t even know where they are. People need to know. It’s not safe.”

Michael

Michael, an international student from Korea who rents an apartment in the NEO200 block, was unaware of the flammable cladding on the building until told yesterday by the WSWS reporters.

“Now that I know this, I’m angry. So they save money with cheap materials to construct? What can I do? What’s next? I feel powerless. A lot of people from the building are being forced to live with their families. They don’t know where to go next.”

As in the case of other privately-owned high-rise apartment blocks, the cost of removing the dangerous ACP cladding from NEO200 will fall on the owners of the building’s 371 apartments. Liability for any problems caused by the design or construction of the building expired in 2017, ten years after construction was completed.

The danger facing people living in such complexes is a direct result of government deregulation of building industry standards, privatisation of safety inspection, and cost-cutting in line with demands from property developers and the construction industry.

In the UK, the Socialist Equality Party and the Grenfell Fire Forum have insisted that the current British government inquiry and police investigation into the disaster are not seeking to bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of 72 people but are integral elements of an orchestrated state cover-up. Twenty months after the terrible event not a single person responsible has been arrested, let alone charged.

Australia: Bank shares soar after release of report into financial “misconduct”

James Cogan 

The grandly-titled “Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry” brought down its final 530-page report on Monday, accompanied by a second volume containing hundreds of pages of cases studies and a third volume of appendices.

The Liberal-National Coalition government initiated the commission in November 2017, under conditions of rising anger over the rampant profit-gouging and other predatory practices by the banks and financial institutions. It formally invited public submissions on January 22, 2018.

Among the practices exposed were:

* Charging fees on superannuation assets despite not providing any advisory services.

* The aggressive marketing of life, funeral and vehicle insurance products to clients who did not understand what they were being sold, who did not need them or could not afford them.

* Continuing to charge fees on accounts and insurance policies of deceased people.

* Allowing people to overdraft on their basic accounts without their agreement and then charging penalties.

* Lending to distressed small businesses and farmers and then driving them into bankruptcy and seizing their assets.

* Residential mortgages, personal loans and credit card limits being extended to people who could not afford to realistically repay them without enduring severe hardship.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg declared on Monday that the Royal Commission had revealed the banks were “driven by greed” and that “the banking sector must change.” Labor opposition leader Bill Shorten asserted that it was a “terrible indictment on the greed in the industry.” Both the Coalition and Labor claimed it was in the interest of the public to implement all the recommendations of the report.

A more accurate assessment was given by Adam Creighton, the economics editor for the Australian. He advised liquor stores in the financial districts of Sydney and Melbourne to “stock up on Moet”—an expensive brand of French champagne—for the celebrations in financial circles following the release of the report.

Announcing its establishment in late 2017, then prime minister and former merchant banker Malcolm Turnbull asserted: “This will not be an open-ended commission; it will not put capitalism on trial.” Turnbull has proven to be right.

The 76 recommendations brought down by the commission do not put anyone on trial, let alone capitalism. Rather, they propose amendments to various pieces of government legislation that would, if ever implemented, curb only some of the most egregious practices that were exposed in the course of the public hearings. The banks, which have been at the centre of rampant financial speculation, may well prove to be the main beneficiary of the Royal Commission.

The report does not call for winding back “vertical integration,” which, as the financial system was deregulated over the past three decades, enabled banks to take over other investment bodies, such as insurance, and then aggressively market such products to their customer base.

Instead, it suggests that the banks establish their own internal mechanisms to identify “any problems” with their “culture and governance” and review the bloated salaries and bonuses paid to their executives.

The commission report insists that oversight of the banks be carried out by the very regulatory authorities—the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA)—that it criticised for ignoring flagrant misconduct. It has recommended that the two bodies investigate possible cases of criminality, without naming any individuals. Even if charges are laid, however, analysts have noted it will likely result in court actions that span a decade or more.

Corporate investors responded to the report yesterday by pouring around $19 billion back into the shares of major banks. The largest, the Commonwealth Bank, saw its share price rise by 4.7 percent; Westpac by 7.4 percent; ANZ by 6.5 percent and National Australia Bank (NAB) by 3.9 percent. More gains are expected today.

Among the largest shareholders of all these Australian-based institutions are global conglomerates such as HSBC, CitiGroup and JP Morgan, as well as the private and part-union managed “industry” superannuation funds. Their demand for short-term profits and high rates of return is the main factor behind the predatory practices of the banks, not the individual “greed” of bank executives.

One of the report’s major recommendations is the gradual phasing out of the commission-based mortgage broking system, where people seek advice from a “third party” on which loan best suits. Brokers, who at present are paid a commission by the lender, have had a vested interest to encourage people to borrow amounts that were more than they needed or could afford.

Over the decade following the 2008 financial crisis, nominally independent brokers increased their role in the mortgage market substantially, arranging between 45 and 55 percent of all loans given by major banks.

A belated March 2017 investigation by ASIC, which was one of the impulses behind the calling of the Royal Commission, found that “loans written through brokers have a higher incidence of interest-only repayments, have higher debt-to-income levels, higher loan-to-value ratios and higher incurred interest costs compared with loans negotiated directly with the bank…”

The banks, in other words, have been more than prepared to use the brokerage system to condemn borrowers to severe hardship or even personal ruin to maintain their profit margins. Even under conditions of historically low interest rates, a study last year by Digital Finance Analytics estimated that some 820,000 mortgaged households—about one if four—were in “financial stress.”

The commission has recommended a legal stipulation that a broker “must act in the best interests of the intending borrower.” Moreover, it has proposed that legislative changes be made—but only over a period of years—that will force brokers to charge an upfront fee to the borrower for their advice, rather than receiving a commission from the ultimate lender. Such fees, according to financial analyst Eugene Ardino, cited in the Australian on Monday, could range from $6,000 to $14,000.

If such changes were made, borrowers would have little incentive to use a broker. The commission has used that fact to make the remarkable recommendation that the banks be compelled to charge comparable fees on customers, supposedly in the interest of “competition.” In fact, it would simply create a new revenue stream for lenders.

One of the main motives behind the demands for the Royal Commission by the Labor Party and others, and its eventual creation by the Coalition government, is coming into clearer focus. It was not to hold the financial sector to account. Rather, it was to encourage the major banks to reduce their exposure to potential bad loans, ahead of a protracted slump in Australia’s vastly over-priced property market.

Australian banks have reaped immense profits over the past two decades due to the income they derive from interest payments on residential mortgages, which, at over 60 percent of their total loans, is by far the largest proportion of any banking sector in the world.

The speculative increases in housing costs combined with stagnant or declining real wages have seen household debt-to-income in Australia double since the early 2000s to an unprecedented 200 percent. As property prices began falling in parts of the country during 2017, the banks belatedly acted to tighten their lending standards and curtail access to credit.

As analyst Adam Creighton put it in the Australian, the commission recommendations dovetail with “little more than a vigorous spring clean of the financial sector” that has been in the “pipeline for some time.”

It all appears to be too little, far too late. The drive for profit, which is central to the operations of capitalism and led to the 2008 financial meltdown in the US and Europe, has created the conditions for an immense social catastrophe in Australia. As well as nearly one million mortgage holders already struggling to meet their repayments, there are now at least 400,000 who face paying down loans that are greater than the value of their property. These numbers are set to soar over the coming months and years.

While millions of households are being left to deal with the consequences of slump, the primary concern of the corporate and political establishment is to protect the major banks and financial institutions, along with the wealthy layers of society, that benefit from their predatory operations.

UK: Employment growth at the expense of pay and job security

Alice Summers 

A study by the think tank Resolution Foundation (RF) has issued a sober corrective to the frequent and glowing accounts in the bourgeois media of Britain’s “booming” jobs market and “record” employment rates.

According to the report, titled “Setting the Record Straight,” while employment rates have been steadily rising since the 2008 global financial crash, this increase has gone hand in glove with growing levels of job insecurity and stagnant pay.

A decade on from the 2008 crisis, while the employment rate is 2.8 percentage points higher than pre-crash levels, and 2.7 million more people in the UK are in work, 1.9 million of them (two-thirds) are insecurely employed.

The rise in insecure, or “atypical,” employment—defined in the study as self-employment, part-time work, temporary work, agency work and zero-hours contracts—has been particularly severe among young people between the ages of 18 and 29 years. For this demographic, the growth of these insecure forms of employment has been 50 percent faster than for the rest of the population.

The study found that atypical forms of work saw a rapid expansion in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 crash and were particularly concentrated in some sectors of the economy, such as hospitality, health and social work. In recent times, the hospitality sector has virtually become a byword for insecure and highly exploitative forms of work, with many workers in this sector on minimum wage and zero-hour contracts with next to no working rights.

As well as young people, the rise in insecure employment has hit other population groups particularly hard, including single parents, people with disabilities and workers with low-level qualifications. According to RF’s research, 56 percent of single parents were in atypical employment in 2018 as well as 48 percent of those with disabilities and 45 percent of people out of the third of workers with the lowest level qualifications. Women, ethnic minorities and those born outside the UK also had above-average rates of atypical work.

While over the last year, all jobs growth has occurred in full-time positions, there are still 780,000 people on zero-hour contracts in Britain, 950,000 agency workers and one in seven workers are now self-employed. All these figures are significantly above those of the pre-crisis period.

This sharp increase in atypical work is not just a result of the 2008 crisis, the RF research found, but forms part of a pattern of attacks on and casualisation of employment dating back to at least 2001. Self-employment has risen from 11.9 percent of all employment in 2001 to 14.7 percent in 2018. More than half (1.7 percent) of this 2.8 percentage point increase occurred after 2008.

While self-employment is often celebrated by the ruling elite as a result of a desire among workers to “be their own boss,” the reality is much different. The rise in self-employment is not driven by an “entrepreneurial spirit” but rather its opposite: the lack of full-time employment offering adequate income and pensions.

Businesses often classify workers who are, to all intents and purposes, full or part-time employees as self-employed so they can avoid paying sick pay, holiday pay and pensions. Self-employed workers also have far fewer employment rights than employees. In fact, as numerous studies have shown, many “self-employed” workers earn less than a full-time employee on the living wage and poverty rates have been steadily rising within this group.

Low rates of pay are not made up for by pensions, savings or investments, with 64 percent of low-paid self-employed workers having none compared to 36 percent of low-paid employees. Figures from HM Revenue and Customs showed that 80 percent of the UK’s self-employed workforce was living in poverty in the year 2012-2013.

In line with the rise in atypical employment, full-time work saw a fall from 65.2 percent of total employment in 2001 to 63.2 percent today. Yet while rates of full-time, “typical” employment have fallen, the average number of hours worked by employees has actually risen.

Since the early 19th century, there has been a steady decline in average hours worked outside of wartime, with average hours declining by roughly 12 minutes a year between World War II and the 2008 financial crisis. Yet in the decade since the crash, this trend has been reversed, with average hours actually rising by an average of two extra minutes a week for the first time in nearly two centuries.

The RF research explains that many people are having to work longer hours to compensate for a loss of earnings power and a decrease in other sources of income. Since the financial crash, it notes, real earnings have stagnated or declined, while at the same time working-age welfare spending has seen a significant reduction.

In fact, despite the growth in employment and hours worked, the brutal attacks on workers’ pay in the last decade have led to a situation where real average earnings are still £470 lower than they were before the crisis, according to RF.

The increased rates of insecure working and poor pay have meant that the rise in employment has coincided with a large growth of in-work poverty. After factoring in housing costs, the proportion of households in poverty has remained roughly steady over the last 10 years, at an already shockingly high 22 percent of the population. However, the past decade has seen a massive increase in the proportion of these households where someone is in work. While before the 2008 crash, out-of-work poverty was far more common that in-work poverty, today the “working poor” make up roughly half of all households in poverty.

Low pay is particularly common amongst those in atypical, insecure work. Average pay is far lower among atypical workers, with the average atypical worker in 2018 earning £9.20 an hour, compared to £12.80 for full-time employees. Even after accounting for personal and job characteristics such as occupation, industry, education level and age, atypical workers still face a “pay penalty.” For temporary workers, this penalty is 66 pence per hour (a 6 percent reduction), with zero-hour workers and part-time workers also facing pay penalties of 45 pence (-5 percent) and 29 pence per hour (-3 percent) respectively.

The report also lays out the geographic and demographic spread of the new employment, noting that many of the new jobs have gone to those in the lowest income brackets and that employment rate increases had happened across the country, not just in London and the South East as in commonly thought. The largest improvement in employment rates was seen in two de-industrialised and poverty-stricken areas of the country. In South Yorkshire, there was a 6.5 percentage point increase in the 18- to 69-year-old employment rate, with the second largest being Merseyside (6.4 percentage points).

Commenting on the report, Stephen Clarke, senior economic analyst at the Resolution Foundation, said, “While the jobs surge has not been as dominated by London or low paid work as some claim, new challenges have developed—particularly for younger workers and with a big rise in insecure work.

“And while more people are working,” he explained, “as a country we are still earning less each week for doing so than we were 10 years ago.”

The collapse in living standards, pay and job security is the conscious product of a social counterrevolution being implemented by the UK and global ruling class, which has been rolled out by governments of every political stripe. Wages and working conditions have been slashed in order to ensure that the capitalist class continues to rake in massive profits at the expense of the working class.

Strike wave hits Kosovo

Paul Mitchell 

Kosovo has been hit by a strike wave with workers demanding better wages and conditions and opposing a new salaries law.

The strikes are the beginning of a resurgence of the class struggle in the Balkans. Along with the last Assembly elections in 2017—in which the turnout was just 41 percent—they indicate growing disaffection with the “independent” regime created in 2008, following the bloody imperialist-backed war of 1998-99 and run by corrupt former Kosovo Liberation Army figures.

Life for workers and youth remains desperate. Wages, averaging €360 ($410) a month, are among the lowest in Europe. Unemployment is around 30 percent (youth unemployment is over 50 percent) and a similar percentage of the population lives in poverty. Nearly 10 percent are recorded as living in extreme poverty, surviving on less than €1.70 ($1.90) a day.

Over the last weeks, virtually the entire public sector has experienced industrial action. Healthcare workers ended 2018 with a two-day nationwide strike and surgeons continued their action into January, demanding they be treated the same as judges and prosecutors who saw their salaries doubled last year by Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj. Haradinaj doubled his own salary and those of his cabinet members at the same time.

Imri Jashari, director of the Cardiology Clinic at the Kosovo University Clinical Center, told reporters about the “miserable” conditions for experienced doctors, who earn just €600 per month. “There is huge dedication and great investment by healthcare workers, while on the other hand the appreciation of our society and state for this category [of work] is just miserable,” Jashari said.

Miners staged a nine-day strike from January 3 to demand a 20 percent pay rise and only agreed a temporary return to work pending talks with the Ministry for Economic Development.

Teachers began a stoppage on January 14, seeking a 30 percent pay rise at all education levels. Sejdi Rexhepi, a professor of economics at Pristina University, said the new salaries law “may lower the salaries of some teachers… By our calculations, a regular professor will have a fall in salary of €100—and, depending on their academic title, some salaries may fall by up to €200.”

Last Friday—the day before the law was passed in the Kosovo Assembly—the head of the Union of Education, Culture and Science of Kosovo (SBASHK), Rrahman Jasharaj, announced an agreement with the government claiming it “has brought us closer to our demands, so congratulations to all, the school year will commence on Monday.” SBASHK deputy head, Vjollca Shala, disagreed, saying “As for now, there is no deal reached, and the moment that we reach an agreement, we will release a communiqué.”

Municipal workers in the capital Pristina have been on strike and others in Mitrovica, Vushtria/Vucitrn and Rahovec/Orahovac and elsewhere have warned of possible strikes over their 30 percent pay claim. Union leader Mehmet Bajrami said the new salary law could actually lower their pay by up to 40 percent.

The union representing workers at Kosovo Telecom has warned of strikes if their salaries are cut. Once the most profitable company in Kosovo, it has been starved of around €500 million in investment since 2010 when the government, then led by Hashim Thaci, now Kosovo’s president, said it would be privatised. Talks on finding a new owner are continuing.

Workers in the energy sector, airport control and customs have threatened to strike.

The Kosovan government is determined to prevent workers seeking to overturn years of stagnant or declining wages. Erol Belegu, one of Haradinaj’s advisers, said large pay increases would starve the country of investment. “We have already had criticism from the IMF [International Monetary Fund] that the budget is heavily weighed down by salaries.”

In December, the IMF, following its last visit to “advise” the Kosovo government what to do, insisted, “To lower wage and non-wage cost and improve productivity, it is critical to restrain wage and social benefit growth… Fiscal initiatives such as the public salary law and excessively generous maternity/parental benefits, as well as a large minimum wage hike, would not only be costly but also undermine these efforts, providing another reason why they should be avoided or redesigned.”

The IMF, warning that a further onslaught is in the offing, declared, “structural challenges remain largely undented, and should be at the forefront of the policy agenda… plans to restructure public enterprises need to move ahead.”

The IMF has been offering such prescriptions for nearly two decades, but Kosovo, a country of just 1.8 million people with abundant natural resources, remains an economic, social and political disaster.

The country is a product of the tragic consequences of the deliberately engineered break-up of the Yugoslav federation in the 1990s by the major imperialist powers, particularly the US and Germany. Serbia was targeted as the regional power considered the main obstacle to the West’s control over an area of geo-strategic interest. Russia’s influence in the region had to be rolled back.

The resulting civil war and new ethnically-based states proved incapable of providing a progressive solution to the problems facing the Balkan people. Kosovo, the protectorate of the Western powers, became the most glaring example of the subservient status of these new states.

Following the 2008 financial crash, the European Union’s promise of membership as part of moves to keep the Balkan countries firmly on side against Russia floundered. No one now talks about a date for Kosovo to join the EU.

Moreover, the concept of a union in Europe has been thrown into crisis with the impoverishment of Greece through EU savage austerity, Britain’s vote to exit the EU, and the Trump administration’s attacks both on the EU and on Germany in particular, as a trade competitor.

Kosovo remains in limbo over its attempts to gain international recognition. Some 90 out of 193 nations refuse to recognise the 2008 declaration of independence, including UN Security Council members Russia and China, Serbia and five EU members—Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia and Romania—who fear the precedent the border changes might set for their own countries. Last November, the boast by Foreign Minister Behgjet Pacolli that Kosovo’s bid to join the global policing body Interpol would be successful, was dashed.

Kosovo’s relationship with Serbia remains at a knife-edge. At one moment there is talk of a land swap, at another trade war blows up with threats of a military war.

The declaration of independence left some 120,000 Serbs as a minority around Mitrovica in Kosovo’s north, which continues to function as a de-facto independent enclave. About 50,000 ethnic Albanians remain in the Presevo Valley in Serbia’s south.

Last year, Thaci raised the possibility of an exchange of territory between Kosovo and Serbia in an article published in the Financial Times and supported in an editorial. Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, made it known that Washington “would not weigh in” on the matter. However, such an exchange could have profoundly negative repercussions throughout the Balkans, particularly in Bosnia which is divided into a mosaic of ethnic cantons.

In November 2018, a trade war broke out when the Kosovan government imposed a 100 percent customs tariff on goods coming from Serbia. Haradinaj declared he would only reverse the tax if Serbia discontinued its “campaign against Kosovo’s aspiration as a sovereign state.”

In December, tensions escalated further when the Kosovan Assembly voted to transform the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) into a regular army. The Serbian government called the decision the “most direct threat to peace and stability in the region” and warned that armed intervention was “one of the options on the table.”

FDA advisor criticizes agency’s response to opioid epidemic

Brian Dixon

In a recent interview with the Guardian, the chair of the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) opioid advisory committee, Dr. Raeford Brown, claimed the agency is manipulating data in favor of the pharmaceutical companies seeking approval for new opioid painkillers.

“They should stop considering any new opioid evaluation,” Brown told the Guardian. “For every day and every week and every month that the FDA don’t do the right thing, people drop dead in the streets. What they do has a direct impact on the morality rate from opioids in this country.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), deaths involving opioids are now six times higher than they were in 1999. Nearly 70 percent of the 70,200 deaths from overdoses in 2017 involved an opioid.

Brown says that he no longer has confidence that the regulatory agency is taking the opioid epidemic seriously.

As a case in point, Brown pointed to the recent approval of Dsuvia, a sublingual sufentanil pill (a more potent version of fentanyl) manufactured by the California pharmaceutical company AcelRx. While the drug was rejected in 2017 over safety concerns, the FDA eventually approved the drug in 2018 after excluding members of its own drug safety committee from attending the hearing.

The pharmaceutical industry has long criticized the FDA for lengthy approval processes. In response, the agency has developed a number of pathways to speed up the drug-approval process. This includes expedited approvals, where the agency reduces the number and size of clinical trials required for approval. As a result of these efforts, the FDA approved drugs an average of 60 days faster between 2011 and 2015 than its European counterpart, the European Medicines Agency.

Thus, the FDA has approved a number of drugs with limited data on their safety and efficacy. In turn, pharmaceutical companies have charged outrageous prices for treatments that may not even work and are potentially dangerous to patients.

Brown also criticized the “cozy, cozy relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and various parts of the FDA.”

As a way to speed up the drug approval process, in 1992 the pharmaceutical industry began funding the salaries of agency reviewers in exchange for time limits on reviews. According to an article published this past June in ProPublica, 75 percent of the agency’s scientific review budget came from the drug industry, an increase from 27 percent in 1993.

“You don’t survive as a senior official at the FDA unless you’re pro-industry,” Dr. Thomas Marciniak, a former FDA medical team leader who retired in 2014, told ProPublica.

“The FDA has to pay attention to what Congress tells them to do, and the industry will lobby to get somebody else in there if they don’t like you,” Marciniak said.

United Nations Teen Advisors Program 2019 for Young Girls

Application Deadline: 18th February 2019 11:59 pm Eastern Time

Eligible Countries: All


About the Award: The Teen Advisor program is where Girl Up truly lives out its “by girls, for girls” mission. Composed of a widely diverse group of teenage girls, Teen Advisors are passionate change-makers who together spread and fuel Girl Up’s work. As Teen Advisors, they are central to all Girl Up decision-making including advocacy, fundraising and communications strategy. To support the Teen Advisors in this task, Girl Up provides skills-based trainings, professional development opportunities, hands-on learning, and most significantly, personal relationships with the staff.

Teen Advisor Responsibilities include:

• Attend and actively participate in and prepare for monthly calls/webinars (scheduled for the second Sunday of every month)
• Attend two mandatory in-person meetings — one preceding the annual Leadership Summit in Washington D.C. (mid-July), the other in January or February of the following year (for those U.S. applicants, the weekend generally follows either MLK….”
• Start and/or lead a Girl Up Club in your school or surrounding community
• Regularly contribute to the Girl Up Community, an online hub for Girl Up Clubs and Campuses
• Represent Girl Up in the media and at events in their communities

Type: Training

Eligibility: Applications are open to self-identified girls from the U.S and outside the U.S.

Applicants:

• Must be entering the U.S. equivalent of 9th-12th grades
• Display a sense of maturity, cultural-sensitivity, and openness to learning about different cultures
• Be committed to the empowerment of girls and women
• Possess strong leadership skills and have proven desire to become a globally-minded citizen through meaningful discussion, learning and action in their community and school
• Have knowledge of and passion for Girl Up’s mission and vision for adolescent girls around the world
• Be able to complete all Teen Advisor responsibilities as outlined below

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: 

• Access to United Nations speakers, agencies and initiatives
• Access and financial support to attend speaking and blogging opportunities for special events and conferences like the Social Good Summit and International Day of the Girl
• Intensive skills-based trainings, professional development opportunities, hands-on learning
• An insider’s view into Girl Up through constant communication with staff, and most significantly, personal relationships
• Decision-making power in the work of the campaign

Duration of Program: Program starts June 1 2019. Runs for 1 year

How to Apply: 

• The 2019-2020 Girl Up Teen Advisor application consists of an online application answering the below essay questions and a video submission.
• In addition, a letter of recommendation with the subject line Teen Advisor Application Recommendation Letter_Last Name_First Name must also be submitted to Community@GirlUp.org for an application to be considered complete. Only complete applications submitted by 11:59pm EST on February 18, 2019 will be considered.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Africa Food Prize (Win up to USD100,000) 2019

Application Deadline: 14th May, 2019 

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Countries in Africa


To be taken at (country):  The Prize will be awarded annually at the Africa Food Prize gala dinner in Kigali, Rwanda.

About the Award: The Africa Food Prize evolved from the Yara Prize, which was established in 2005. With agriculture emerging as Africa’s best bet for increasing food security and expanding economic opportunity,  a $100,000 award called the Africa Food Prize, has been created to inspire innovations in the field and the marketplace.
Today, in places like Ghana and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa there are glimpses of the enormous progress African farmers can make when they have what they need to succeed, and how the food they produce and the income they earn can send good vibrations throughout the economy. But many challenges remain. In addition to a dearth of financing, millions of farmers lack understanding of good agricultural practices and they have limited or no access to high quality agricultural inputs, safe storage, and basic processing, which collude to stifle production and income opportunities.

Type: Contest, Entrepreneurship

Eligibility:

• The Africa Food Prize can be awarded to any individual or identifiable group of individuals, as well as to established institutions, associations, organizations or government bodies with a formal and recognized judicial and organizational structure contributing to the overall objectives of the Prize.
• The Prize can be awarded to any qualified candidate, irrespective of nationality, profession or location, whose work, and contributions deriving from the work, has had a clear impact on the African situation, nationally, regionally or for the continent.
• The Prize can be awarded with reference to a specific contribution or achievement, or a series of efforts and results in the recent past, preferably within the last few years. Current or recent members of the Africa Food Prize Committee, or an institution/ organization headed by such a member, are ineligible for the Prize.
• The Prize cannot be awarded to a person already deceased, but will be presented in the event a Prize winner dies before receiving the Prize. The Prize can be awarded to more than one winner, but not more than two.
• If shared, each winner will receive equal prize money (USD 100 000 divided in two), a diploma and a trophy.

Selection Criteria:

• Contribution to reducing poverty and hunger and/or improving food and nutrition security in measurable terms
• Contribution to providing a vital source of income and/or employment in measurable terms
• Potential for transformative change through scalability, replication, and sustainability
• Increased awareness and cooperation among African audiences and organizations
• Proven leadership potential of the individual or organization, specifically the ability of the to persevere desp

Number of Awardees: One (1). The Africa Food Prize Committee chooses the Africa Food Prize winner by unanimous vote. The Prize Committee has absolute authority and its decisions cannot be overruled or appealed.

Value of Award:  $100,000, a diploma and a trophy.

How to Apply: Please fill the nomination form, attach the supporting documents and submit it online.

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UNESCO/ISEDC Co-Sponsored Fellowship Program 2019 for Developing Countries – Russia

Application Deadline: 1st April 2019

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: See list below

To be Taken at (Country): Russia

About the Award: The aim of this fellowships programme is to enhance the capacity-building and human resources development in the area of sustainable and renewable energy sources in developing countries and countries in transition. The training activities in the framework of these fellowships are tenable in specialized institutions in the Russian Federation. The medium of instruction will be English. UNESCO will solicit applications from the developing countries and countries in transition.

Fields of Study: The candidates may choose to study in the following fields of study, which are aligned with UNESCO’s objectives and programme priorities, as per approved 35 C/5 and in accordance with the decisions made by the Executive Board (161 EX/Decision 3.6.3 and 165 EX/Decision 8.6) :
(a) Energy and sustainable development;
(b) Ecological management of energy resources;
(c) Renewable energy;
(d) Sustainable and renewable energy power generation.

Type: fellowship

Eligibility: Candidates must meet the following criteria:
(a) Holder of at least a BSc degree or BA in Economics;
(b) Proficient in English language;
(c) Not more than 35 years of age;

Number of Awards: Twenty (20)

Duration of Award: One month duration: from 30 September to 25 October 2019.

AFRICA (46 Member States): Angola*, Benin*, Botswana, Burkina Faso*, Burundi*, Cameroon, Cape Verde*, Central African Republic*, Chad*, Comoros*, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo*, Djibouti*, Equatorial Guinea*, Eritrea*, Ethiopia*, Gabon, Gambia*, Ghana, Guinea*, Guinea-Bissau*, Kenya, Lesotho*, Liberia*, Madagascar*, Malawi*, Mali*, Mauritius, Mozambique*, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda*, Sao Tome and Principe*, Senegal*, Seychelles, Sierra Leone*, Somalia*, South Africa, Swaziland, Togo*, Uganda*, United Republic of Tanzania*, Zambia*, and Zimbabwe

ARAB STATES (15 Member States): Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania*, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan*, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Yemen*

ASIA and THE PACIFIC (39 Member States): Afghanistan*, Bangladesh*, Bhutan*, Cambodia*, China, Cook Islands, Federal States of Micronesia, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Kazakhstan, Kiribati*, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic*, Malaysia, Maldives*, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Myanmar*, Nauru, Nepal*, Niue, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa*, Solomon Islands*, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor – Leste, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu*, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu*, Viet Nam

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN (32 Member States): Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia (plurinacional State of), Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti*, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela

EUROPE (22 Member States): Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Montenegro, Republic of Moldova, Republic of Serbia, Romania, Slovak Republic, The former Yugolsav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, and Ukraine

ASSOCIATE MEMBER STATE (1): Tokelau

How to Apply:

(a) All applications should be endorsed by the National Commission for UNESCO and must be duly completed in English or French with the following attachments in DUPLICATE:

• • The prescribed UNESCO fellowship application form;

• • Six photographs;

• • Certified photocopies of Diplomas;

• • Certificate of English Language proficiency;

• Subsequently, for those who have been selected, the UNESCO medical examination form duly completed by a recognized physician (not more than four months before the actual date of studies). The prescribed form of which will be sent along with the letter of award. Expenses incurred in the constitution of the medical dossiers will not be reimbursed.

(b) Files which are incomplete or received after the deadline for the submission of applications and candidatures, and do not fulfil the requirements mentioned above, will not be considered.
(c) Each invited Member State is requested to nominate not more than two (2) candidates.

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Important Notes: Selected fellows from countries where there are Russian Federation Embassies or Consulates must obtain their entry visa in their country prior to their departure. Fellows from countries where no such embassy/consulate exists must secure their visa through the nearest country where the Embassy or Consulate of the Russian Federation can be found.

UNESCO and ISEDC provide no allowance to defray passport and visa expenses.

World Bank/Africa Center of Excellence in Materials, Product Development and Nanotechnology (MAPRONANO ACE) Masters and PhD Scholarships 2019

Application Deadline: 22nd February 2019 at 5:00pm.

Eligible Countries: East African countries


To Be Taken At (Country): Makerere University, Kampala Uganda

About the Award:  The scholarships tend to promote the core research mandate of the center in three key thematic areas; 1) Materials science & Product Development 2) Nanotechnology Innovations 3) Nano medicine.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: The scholarship program is meant to support research costs for local and regional students in the fields of Engineering, Energy, Physics, chemistry, biological sciences, applied sciences, Health Sciences and related subjects. Female students are encouraged to apply.

Number of Awards: The center will fund a maximum of 30 students under this scheme.

Value of Award: Fully-funded

Duration of Program: The scholarships are tenable for a period of 1 year.

How to Apply: Applicants are required to provide the following:

1. A Motivation letter (one page)
2. Admission letter
3. A recent Curriculum Vitae (CV), Maximum 2 –pages
4. A fully defended proposal approved by the host department

Please send your application and related attachments in one file to; bmujuni7@gmail.com or mapronanocedatmak@gmail.com. The deadline for submission is February 22nd 2019 at 5:00pm. Successful applicants shall be notified by February 28th 2019.

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Award Providers: World Bank

United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) International Law Seminar Fellowships 2019 for Graduate Students and Law Professionals

Application Deadline: 8th April 2019

Eligible Countries: ALl. Fellowships available for developing countries


To Be Taken At (Country): Geneva, Switzerland

About the Award: The Seminar takes place on an annual basis and is designed for postgraduate students in international law, young scholars, government officials as well as young lawyers in the field of international law, to widen their knowledge of both the work of the International Law Commission and of the codification and progressive development of international law. It also provides an opportunity for lawyers coming from different legal systems and cultures to exchange views regarding items on the agenda of the Commission.
The International Law Seminar is not intended to be an introduction to international law. Applicants must prove a sound knowledge of international law, on the basis of either their postgraduate studies or significant professional experience in the field. Twenty five participants from various Member States of the United Nations participate in ILS. As well as attending the meetings of ILC, participants are expected to take an active part in the discussions which follow lectures given by members of the Commission, officials of the United Nations or specialized agencies in Geneva and other speakers invited for the occasion.

Type: Training, Conference

Eligiblilty: Applicants must between 24 and 38 years of age. This rule will be applied strictly.

Selection Criteria: The members of the Selection Committee choose an average of six candidates from different countries from four geographic regions (Africa, America, Asia/Middle East and Europe) and are guided by the following criteria:

• Legal experience and academic background
• Usefulness of the Seminar for the career of the applicant and for his/her country
• Good knowledge of at least two of the three working languages of the Seminar (English, French, Spanish)
• Adequate gender balance
• Availability of funds for fellowships.

All applications will be considered, but the Selection Committee does not disclose the motivation of its choices and decisions are final and cannot be appealed.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: While participation in the Seminar is free of charge, the United Nations is unable to cover the cost of travel or subsistence for all participants. Governments have however contributed to the Trust Fund of the Seminar which awards fellowship stipends every year to participants, primarily from developing countries.
Candidates can request for fellowship on the application form and justification must be provided in the letter of motivation. The awarding of fellowships will be decided by the Selection Committee, depending on the availability of funds.

Fellowships awarded for subsistence
An allowance to cover accommodation, meals and miscellaneous will be paid to participants upon their arrival at Geneva. Participants must provide proof of accommodation to the Legal Office.
This allowance does not cover (and the United Nations does not assume responsibility for) the following:
a)  all expenses for passport, visa, vaccination and other miscellaneous items; all expenditures in the home country and in connection with the travel;
b)  payment of any salary and related allowances from the current employer of participants during the period of the Seminar;
c)   travel and other costs incurred by dependents who might accompany participants;
d)  costs incurred with respect to travel and accident insurance, medical bills and hospitalization costs in connection with attending the Seminar;
e)  compensation in the event of death or disability in connection with attendance of the Seminar.

Fellowships awarded for travel
Participants will be awarded a return air ticket to Geneva from their country of residence for the period concerned (arrival the day before the opening of the Seminar, return at the latest the day after closure). No payment will be made to cover other routing or modes of transportation or extension of the period referred to above.
The ticket issued to you will be in economy class and no change in the reservation will be permitted which would incur additional expenses to the Organization.

Duration of Program: Three weeks (8 to 26 July 2019)

How to Apply: The 2019 online application is now available here.


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Government of Austria ITH Fully-funded Masters Scholarships 2019/2020 for Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 1st May, 2019

Offered annually? Yes


Eligible Countries: Scholarships are offered to i) ADC Priority countries (See list below) and ii) Other Developing countries

To be taken at (country): The Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management in Salzburg Klessheim, Austria

About the Award: The Austrian Development Cooperation through the Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management offers about 30 scholarships to applicants from priority countries as well as other developing countries. The Tourism School in Salzburg has an outstanding international reputation and a long tradition. They train future entrepreneurs and employees according to the needs of the international tourism and leisure industry.

Type: Postgraduate

Eligibility: To apply for this programme at ITH, candidate must meet the following criteria:

• Be between 18 – 35 years of age
• Have a secondary school leaving certificate (high school diploma)
• Have a minimum of one year‘s experience within the tourism and hospitality industry
• Non-native English speakers must have an English qualification e.g. TOEFL, Cambridge 1st Certificate, IELTS or equivalent

Successful candidates should be ambitious and open-minded with good organisational and time management skills

Number of Awardees: up to 30

Value of Scholarships: Scholarship for Priority countries include:

• tuition fee
• accommodation
• flight tickets (from home country to Salzburg and back)
• health insurance
• food from Monday – Sunday
• excursions (except field trip to ITB Berlin)
• € 205.- pocket money per month

Not included in this scholarship are:

• transfer from the Airport to the hostel and back to the Airport when leaving
• visa fee: the visa fees have to be paid by the applicants. The entry visa is approximately $ 110, – and the 8 months residence permit, which will be issued in Salzburg, costs approximately € 120.

Scholarship for Developing countries include:

• tuition fee
• health insurance
• food from Monday – Friday
• excursions (except field trip to ITB Berlin)
• € 205.- pocket money per month

Not included in the Scholarship are:

• accommodation: accommodation costs have to be covered by students who are awarded this scholarship. It is € 247, – per month. (€ 1976, – in total). The total accommodation fee of € 1.976, – has to be remitted in advance before admission letter can be issued.
• flight ticket: Students who are on this scholarship have to cover their own travel expenses from their countries to Salzburg and back.
• visa fee: the visa fees have to be paid by the applicants. The entry visa is approximately $ 110, – and the 8 months residence permit, which will be issued in Salzburg, costs approximately € 120.

Eligible Countries: 
ADC Priority countries include: Ethiopia, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Bhutan, Palestinian Territories, Georgia, Armenia

Other Developing countries include: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Benin, Burundi, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Dem. Rep., Eritrea, Gambia, The, Guinea, Guinea-Bisau, Haiti, Kenya, Korea, Dem Rep., Kyrgyz Republic, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo, Rep., Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Arab Rep., El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kiribati, Kosovo, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Mauritania, Micronesia, Fed. Sts., Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, Samoa, São Tomé and Principe, Senegal, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Timor-Leste, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vietnam, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen, Rep., Zambia, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Angola, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Fiji, Gabon, Grenada, Hungry, Iran, Islamic Rep., Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Libya, Macedonia, FYR, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Mexico, Montenegro, Namibia, Palau, Panama, Peru, Romania, Serbia,  Seychelles, South Africa, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Thailand, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu and Venezuela

How to Apply: Apply here

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