11 May 2019

Insys Therapeutics executives, makers of oral fentanyl spray, convicted of racketeering

Ben Mateus

Last week, Dr. John Kapoor, founder of Arizona-based Insys Therapeutics Inc., and four colleagues were found guilty of conspiring to bribe and force physicians to prescribe a highly addictive painkiller called SUBSYS, which is an oral spray of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, a drug that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.
They were also convicted of misleading insurers into paying for the drug. According to Reuters, Dr. Kapoor, a billionaire, is the highest-ranking pharmaceutical executive to be convicted in the United States in connection with the opioid crisis. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison.
As of 2016, Dr. Kapoor was worth $2.1 billion, with his shares in Insys representing $650 million of his net worth. At that time, the company’s stock was up 296 percent since its 2013 initial public offering. However, it was noted by critics that its $331 million in sales in 2015 was due in large part to use of SUBSYS by patients without cancer. SUBSYS was approved in 2012 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be used only for cancer patients with intractable pain.
Since 2015, Insys and the sales representatives and prescribing physicians on its payroll have been embroiled in legal battles over alleged violations of federal anti-kickback statutes, based on charges that Insys has been paying physicians to prescribe the drug. CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod reported that in 2016 Insys made 18,000 payments to doctors that totaled over $2 million.
By 2016, Insys found itself under investigation by several states for unapproved uses of the drug. It had already settled with the state of Oregon for $1.1 million. Last year, the company paid more than $150 million to resolve a US Justice Department investigation into its schemes to pay kickbacks to doctors to prescribe the powerful opioid medication. Dr. Kapoor was arrested in October of 2017.
According to US Attorney Andrew E. Lelling, “Today’s conviction marks the first successful prosecution of top pharmaceutical executives for crimes related to the illicit marketing and prescribing of opioids. Just as we would street-level drug dealers, we will hold pharmaceutical executives responsible for fueling the opioid epidemic by recklessly and illegally distributing these drugs, especially whole conspiring to commit racketeering along the way.”
Amidst mounting legal troubles and an uncertain future, Insys shares have fallen more than 90 percent.
The opioid crisis began in the early 1990s, specifically with Purdue Pharma and its drug Oxycontin. State and federal regulators noted a sudden dramatic rise of deaths attributed to opioids as well as a sharp increase in the practice of prescribing narcotics for the treatment of pain.
Purdue gave false assurances to physicians and patients that its product had a very low risk of causing addiction. The FDA essentially rubber-stamped its findings and set the stage for what is considered as the first wave of the opioid crisis. To increase sales, the company promoted the use of opioids for non-cancer-related pain, even though efficacy and risk data was lacking. By 1999, more than 86 percent of patients using opioids were non-cancer patients.
Over the following decade, the pharmaceutical industry was effective in preventing restrictions on opioid over-prescribing through lobbying and use of advocacy groups. Court proceedings protected the pharmaceutical companies and their executives, while sealing the courts’ findings from the public.
The second wave of the opioid crisis took hold around 2010 when measures to decrease opioid prescribing led to deaths associated with the abuse of heroin. With restrictions placed on the prescription of narcotics, heroin was cheap and widely available. Death associated with heroin abuse rose 286 percent from 2002 to 2013, according to the National Capital Poison Center. Because heroin is usually injected, the crisis also contributed to a rise in communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B and C.
The third and current wave began in 2013 with the rapid increase in illicitly manufactured synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. A study by Kiang, Basu, Chen and Alexander published in JAMA Network Open earlier this year noted that opioid-related mortality rates from synthetic opioids had rapidly increased in the Eastern United States, while mortality associated with natural and semi-synthetic drugs such as oxycodone had remained stable.
The study found that in 28 states, the mortality rate from synthetic opioids had more than doubled every two years. In the District of Columbia, the rate had tripled every year since 2013.
The authors wrote: “Most opioid-related deaths are occurring among young and middle-aged adults. This equates to a significant loss of life. Nationally, overall opioid-related mortality resulted in 0.36 years of life expectancy lost in 2016, which was 14 percent higher than deaths due to firearms and 18 percent higher than deaths due to motor vehicle crashes; 0.17 years of life expectancy lost was due specifically to synthetic opioids.”
Among the 64,000 drug overdoses in 2016, the sharpest rise was seen among those using synthetic opioids. As of 2017, 29,000 deaths in the US were attributable to fentanyl analogs.

China to hit back if new US tariff threat goes ahead

Nick Beams

Talks between US and Chinese trade representatives, which start in Washington today and will extend into Friday, appear to be the last chance to avert a full-scale trade war between the world’s number one and number two economies.
Earlier this week, the US said it will escalate tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods. China has indicated it will retaliate if the threat is carried out.
On Sunday Trump tweeted that the US would lift tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese products from 10 percent to 25 percent on Friday and that a 25 percent tariff on $325 billion worth would be imposed “shortly.”
As a result, it appeared unlikely that the talks would go ahead. However, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, the country’s chief negotiator, decided yesterday to come to Washington to meet with his counterparts US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
The character of the negotiations has undergone a qualitative change. They had been intended to wrap up the months-long negotiations and come to a final deal, which would then be presented to US President Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for signing.
That perspective has been cast to the winds. It is extremely doubtful if anything like it can be put together again, given the US actions and demands.
The US has claimed that China backtracked on previous agreements to write its concessions into Chinese law but then retreated, saying the measures would be carried out by regulations that carry less weight.
According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, the US is demanding China submit an inventory of laws and regulations that it would enact to guarantee that it was complying with any agreement. In other words, the US would effectively dictate economic policy to the Chinese government.
Beijing appears to have rejected this demand, regarding it as an infringement on its national sovereignty.
The Chinese decision to attend the talks is based on the hope that negotiations will be able to continue in some form and so prevent, or at least delay, a rapid escalation of the trade conflict.
Even that limited prospect is under a cloud given that the position of both sides is hardening.
Yesterday Trump posted a further inflammatory tweet: “The reason for the China pullback and attempted renegotiation of the trade deal is the HOPE that they will be able to ‘negotiate’ with Joe Biden or one of the very weak Democrats, and thereby continue to ripoff the United States ($500 billion a year) for years to come.”
Trump was referring to remarks by former Vice President Biden earlier this week suggesting that it was implausible that China would “eat our lunch” and that China was “not competition for us.”
Uncertainty over the talks caused share prices to plunge on Monday with the Dow down more than 450 points. It fell a further 200 points on Tuesday, but recovered after Trump offered some prospect of a trade deal, and finished flat.
In an effort to calm the stock market, Trump said: “China has informed us that they are coming to the US to make a deal… We’ll see but I am very happy with over $100 billion in Tariffs filling US coffers … great for US, not good for China.”
In fact, the revenues from tariffs, which so far have totaled about $34 billion, are not paid by Chinese exporters but by US importers.
While Trump stepped up the war of words against China, the office of US Trade Representative yesterday filed the necessary papers for the tariff hike scheduled tomorrow. It stated that in recent negotiations “China has chosen to retreat from specific agreements agreed to in earlier rounds.”
China has responded to the latest US threats by saying it will retaliate if the US goes ahead.
“The escalation of trade friction is not in the interests of the people of the two countries and the people of the world,” a Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman said. “The Chinese side deeply regrets the action. If the US tariff measures are implemented, China will have to take necessary countermeasures.”
Trump’s press secretary Sarah Sanders said that the US had indications that China wanted to “make a deal” and that “our teams are in continued negotiations.”
However, that prospect looks increasingly unlikely. One of the main sticking points has been the US insistence that existing tariffs on Chinese goods would not be lifted immediately after an agreement was signed but would be reduced progressively as the US deemed China was complying. This was to ensure that there was an “enforcement” mechanism.
The US also maintained that it should retain the right to impose additional tariffs without a retaliation by China. These demands had already been rejected by Chinese negotiators who have insisted any enforcement mechanism should operate both ways.
But now it is confronted with the threat of new tariffs coupled with the insistence by Washington that it be allowed to rewrite Chinese law according to a list that it has drawn up.
Both sides are under considerable domestic pressure. Trump wants to secure some kind of agreement fearing that failure to do so will see sharp falls on the stock market.
He is also concerned that trade war escalation will severely impact several US states that form a considerable portion of his electoral base. These states have already been hard hit by Chinese retaliation to existing US tariffs directed against American agricultural products. Some rural areas are reporting the worst situation since the farm crisis of the 1980s.
At same time Trump is fearful that if he too readily comes to an agreement he will be attacked by sections of both the Republican party and the Democrats for making a “weak” deal. These layers maintain that trade as such is not the central issue. The US must secure the imposition of so-called “structural reforms” that suppress China’s industrial and technological development, which is regarded as an existential threat to the economic, and ultimately military, dominance of the US.
On the Chinese side, Vice Premier Liu He may be willing to undertake the “reforms” demanded by the US and pull back somewhat on subsides to state-owned industries, to which the US objects on the grounds they are “market distorting.” But he is also under pressure.
Powerful sections of the ruling regime will not agree to conditions that recall the imposition of the “unequal treaties” that formed a key component of the imperialist domination of China in the 19th century and the early part of the 20th.
The immediate issue is the threat of additional tariffs set to come into force on Friday. If Trump withdraws them at the last minute, then he is certain to come under attack for bluffing and having his bluff called.
However, if they are imposed and China retaliates, the trade war will undergo a major escalation.

Pompeo lays down the law during UK visit

Robert Stevens

The reckless character of US imperialism’s actions was underscored by the visit this week of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to London.
Preceding the state visit of President Donald Trump to the UK next month, Pompeo’s remit was to demand that Theresa May’s government toe the line in backing the global geo-strategic imperatives of US imperialism… or else.
Virtually every word out of Pompeo mouth was a threat—either to the UK, to Washington’s “strategic adversaries” Russia and China, or to those countries it is actively preparing to attack, including Venezuela and Iran.
Pompeo met with Conservative Prime Minister May, held a joint press conference with Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, and gave the Margaret Thatcher Lecture on the US/UK relationship at the Centre for Policy Studies in London.
Of particular concern was Britain’s developing economic relationship with China, which is understood by the Trump administration as an existential threat to its plans for global hegemony.
Only two weeks ago, the May government provisionally agreed, at a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC), to allow Chinese conglomerate Huawei to supply “noncore” infrastructure to its planned 5G network. This flies in the face of US calls for a boycott of Huawei’s products and its warning that cooperation with Huawei threatens NATO security.
The decision exposed the conflicting interests of different factions of the British ruling elite and approval of the policy required the casting vote of May herself. Such are the tensions over the UK’s future political and economic strategy that the decision was leaked—the first time this has happened following an NSC meeting—with the anti-China defence minister and pro-US hawk Gavin Williamson sacked as a result.
The prospect of Chinese access to UK infrastructure prompted furious denunciations from Washington, led by Pompeo, including threats that the US could end electronic surveillance and intelligence coordination with Britain. Pompeo warned last month, “We’ve made clear that if the risk exceeds the threshold for the United States, we simply won’t be able to share that information any longer.”
In its drive for global domination, the US is breaking up the post-war order, with every country once deemed an ally now cast as a potential adversary. Immediately prior to Pompeo’s arrival in London, he cancelled a scheduled trip to Germany in order to visit Iraq.
In Baghdad, he issued further threats against Iran, declaring that the US opposes states “interfering” in other countries and stands ready “to ensure that Iraq is a sovereign, independent nation.” This was just three days after the US announced the dispatch of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and US Air Force bombers to the Persian Gulf region to threaten Iran.
Such hypocrisy cannot conceal the fact that the US is interfering in every country, including those that are historically its closest allies. On the UK decision to work with Huawei, Pompeo warned, “From America’s perspective, each country has a sovereign right to make its own decision about how to deal with the challenge.” But this had strict limits that the US would enforce. “With respect to 5G… we are making our views very well known.”
Like a mafia boss making the offer that cannot be refused, he added that he had “great confidence that the United Kingdom will never take an action that will break the special relationship.”
The consequences were made clear: “The US has an obligation to ensure the places where we operate, places where US information is, places where we have national security risks, that they operate within trusted networks and that is what we will do.”
This designation covered the entire planet.
In response, Hunt promised that the UK would not “compromise” its ability to share intelligence with the US. No final decision had been made on cooperation with Huawei on the UK’s 5G and the government was still “considering the evidence.” He hailed “the security relationship that we have with the United States,” which has “underpinned the international order since 1945,” adding that “the preservation of that is our number one foreign policy priority.”
The political destabilisation of the UK by the Trump administration is extraordinary in its scope. While heavily supportive of Brexit—as a means to further undermine what Trump describes as the European Union “cartel”—Trump insists that Brexit must be on US terms. This conflicts with sections of the UK bourgeoisie who see Brexit as an opportunity to better exploit global investment and trade opportunities, especially with China and India.
The UK and the US are also in conflict over Iran. Last week, Washington refused to extend waivers to eight countries that had previously been allowed to continue to import Iranian oil and natural gas, although at reduced quantities.
In a sharply worded response last Thursday, a statement from Brussels signed by the high representative of the European Union and the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK declared that they “take note with regret and concern of the decision by the United States not to extend waivers with regards to trade in oil with Iran.” It went on to say, “We also note with concern the decision by the United States not to fully renew waivers for nuclear non-proliferation projects in the framework of the JCPoA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).”
It added, “We deeply regret the re-imposition of sanctions by the United States following their withdrawal from the JCPoA.”
Trump abrogated the UN-endorsed JCPoA nuclear accord last year, threatening tougher sanctions against Tehran, which are now being implemented.
France, Germany and the UK stressed that the JCPoA remained “a crucial element of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime and essential for our national and shared European security.”
In a further rejoinder to the US, they declared, “The remaining participants to the JCPoA are committed to working on the preservation and maintenance of financial channels and exports for Iran, together with third countries interested in supporting the JCPoA.”
Referencing Washington’s declared “great power” adversaries, it insisted, “We encourage all countries, including Russia and China as JCPoA participants, to make their best efforts to pursue the legitimate trade that the agreement allows for, through concrete steps.”
US bellicosity against Iran was ratcheted up in London. Pompeo denounced the Iranian leadership as “lawless” and bracketed it with China and Russia, warning, “Now is not the time for either of us [the US and UK] to go wobbly…”
Where there was unanimity between Pompeo and the May government was over the regime-change operation against Nicolas Maduro’s government in Venezuela. Pompeo was asked his thoughts on UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn’s “endorsement” of Maduro, a reference to Corbyn’s criticism of the US for “outside interference” in Venezuela.
This was a planted question, with Sky News reporting that it came from townhall.com —a website with close links to Trump.
Pompeo responded, “It is disgusting to see leaders, in not only the United Kingdom, but the United States as well, who continue to support the murderous dictator Maduro… It is not in either of our country’s best interests for those leaders to continue to advocate on their behalf.”
Hunt made sure to equate the Maduro regime with socialism. In a reply summing up the fear of the ruling elite over the growth of political opposition within the working class to social inequality, which is fueling an international strike wave and rising opposition to militarism and war, Hunt said that Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell “describes this [the Maduro government] as socialism in action and I think people need to draw their own conclusions about what his own plans might be for the UK.”

The social crisis and the global eruption of US imperialism

Bill Van Auken

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has spent the past week staging provocations and making military threats everywhere from the Caribbean shores of Venezuela to the Persian Gulf, the South China Sea and the Arctic Circle.
Pompeo, the thuggish former Army tank captain, who claims divine inspiration for his every action, staged his latest provocation Tuesday by summarily canceling a scheduled meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and flying to Baghdad. He flew into the Iraqi capital under a cover of secrecy in an attempt to strongarm the Iraqi government into backing the US war buildup against Iran. He was also there to push for further concessions to Exxon and other US energy conglomerates in the name of “diversifying” Iraq’s supplies.
The trip to Iraq served the dual purpose of escalating the US war buildup in the Middle East and snubbing Germany, with which Washington is in conflict over a host of issues ranging from trade and Iran to the Nordstream 2 Russian gas pipeline.
Wednesday marked one year since US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal or JCPOA, which Tehran signed with the US, Russia, China, the UK, Britain and France. The agreement severely limited Iran’s nuclear program and initiated a strict inspections regime in return for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions imposed by Washington and its allies.
Since then, Washington has steadily tightened a regime of extra-territorial and illegal economic sanctions that are on a scale tantamount to war. They are aimed at stopping all Iranian oil exports, cutting the country off from the world financial system and reducing its economy to ruin in order to further the US goal of installing a puppet regime in Tehran.
Pompeo and other US officials have touted the dispatch of the USS Abraham Lincoln's carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf along with a wing of nuclear-capable B-52 bombers as evidence that US imperialism is “fully prepared” to respond with overwhelming force to any perceived threat to “US interests” in the region that can be pinned on Tehran.
The US has never been closer to an all-out war with Iran, a country four times the size and with more than twice the population of Iraq, the scene of the last major direct US military intervention in the region, which led to a million deaths and left the entire Middle East in turmoil. A new war would drag in the entire region and, inevitably, Washington’s “great power” rivals, becoming the antechamber of World War III.
Even while bringing the Middle East to the brink of a new conflagration, Washington is threatening military action against Venezuela, with Pompeo insisting on Sunday that a direct US regime-change intervention in the South American country—like Iran the target of brutal US sanctions—would be “lawful.”
Meanwhile, on the eve of his flight to Iraq, Pompeo was in Finland attending a conference of countries with territory in the Arctic in which he denounced Beijing for pursuing “national security aims” in the region and Moscow for “a pattern of aggressive behavior in the Arctic.” He even threatened Canada over control of the Northwest Passage. While hailing the thawing of ice in the polar region for opening up new sea lanes and the potential exploitation of vast mineral wealth, Pompeo refused to sign a joint statement of the Arctic countries because it included a reference to climate change.
Then there is the dangerously escalating confrontation with China, with the US set to increase tariffs on Chinese goods to 25 percent by Friday and Beijing vowing to take countermeasures. In the midst of this drive toward all-out trade war, the US sent two of its warships once again into waters adjacent to China’s Nansha Islands, a so-called “freedom of navigation” operation designed as a military provocation that could lead to armed conflict.
More and more, world politics today resemble the conditions prevailing in the run-up to the first and second world wars, a period in which Leon Trotsky warned that history was “bringing humanity face to face with the volcanic eruption of American imperialism.”
This drive to global war is a product not merely of the maniacal outlook of Trump, Pompeo, Pence and Bolton, but rather of the fundamental contradictions of a crisis-ridden capitalist order—between world economy and the outmoded nation-state system on the one hand, and socialized production and the private ownership of the means of production on the other.
US capitalism has sought to offset its declining global hegemony by military means, engaging in unending wars over the last quarter century. In terms of its economy, the capitalist ruling class has directed all of its policies to sustaining the continuous rise of the stock market and preventing a repeat of the 2008 financial crash. The encouragement of the uninterrupted accumulation of profits by means of financial market manipulation and speculation only assures that the next financial and economic meltdown will be all the more catastrophic.
What are the social effects? Under conditions in which the majority of US workers have not seen an increase in real wages in more than three decades, the growth of financial parasitism has led to an enormous intensification of social inequality and rising social tension. This is giving rise to a growth in the class struggle, expressed in the nationwide wave of teachers strikes, the radicalization of youth and, most recently, Wednesday’s globally coordinated strike of Uber drivers.
No section of the capitalist ruling elite and its political representatives, Trump and the Republicans or their ostensible opponents in the Democratic Party, have a “rational” solution to these intensifying economic and social contradictions.
They are driven to find a way out with a turn toward authoritarian methods of rule at home and by deflecting internal tensions outward by means of military violence. They are, in short, looking for a war. Exactly when and where it will come first remains to be seen.
There is in the crisis of US imperialism, its turn toward global military confrontation as well as the domestic social and political context, an echo of the way in which internal crises drove the Nazi regime that headed Germany to war in the 1930s.
The late British historian Tim Mason wrote in his Nazism, Fascism and the Working Class the following about the turn to war by Hitler’s Third Reich:
The economic, social and political tensions within the Reich became steadily more acute after the summer of 1937; while it seems safe to say that Hitler himself understood very little of their technical content, it can be proved that he was informed of their existence and was aware of their gravity. If the existence in the winter of 1937–8 of a conscious connection in Hitler’s mind between this general crisis and the need for a more dynamic foreign policy cannot yet be established, functional relationships between these two aspects may nonetheless be suggested…
The only “solution” open to this regime of the structural tensions and crises produced by dictatorship and rearmament was more dictatorship and rearmament, then expansion, then war and terror, then plunder and enslavement. The stark, ever-present alternative was collapse and chaos, and so all solutions were temporary, hectic, hand-to-mouth affairs, increasingly barbaric improvisations around a brutal theme.
Changing what needs to be changed, there is in the know-nothing Pompeo’s frantic flights from South America, to the Arctic, to the Middle East, threatening war and economic destruction wherever he goes, the same “temporary, hectic, hand-to-mouth” character to the Trump administration’s policies. They too are accompanied by brutal and “barbaric” improvisations, from the attempts to starve the peoples of Venezuela and Iran into submission to the near-genocidal US-backed military campaign against Yemen to the threat of a full-scale global war.
Until now, the US ruling class has been able to hatch its plans for global aggression behind the backs of the American people, relying on the absence of any organized resistance to war. But with the growth of the class struggle, popular anti-war sentiment will inevitably take on active forms and meet up with rising opposition of the working class to social inequality and the attacks on democratic rights.
The contradictions that are behind the eruption of American imperialism cannot be overcome within the framework of the Democratic Party, which is itself a willing and active protagonist in the war fever of the ruling class. The fight against war is the fight for socialism, and the fight for socialism requires the fight against war. Only through the development of a mass social movement, embedded in and led by the international working class, and directed at the overthrow of the capitalist system itself, can the drive to a new world war be stopped.

8 May 2019

CHANEL – One Young World Scholarships (Fully-funded to attend One Young World Summit 2019 in London)

Application Deadline: 15th May 2019

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): UK

About the Award: CHANEL aims to develop impactful and socially transformative actions through different kinds of initiatives involving its best ambassadors: its people. In 2019, CHANEL will participate in the One Young World Summit with a delegation of 25 of its internal young leaders. CHANEL will also offer scholarships to 15 external delegates who are setting the example to make their communities, countries and organisations more sustainable and socially responsible. 
CHANEL is one of the world’s most iconic and influential brands in creating, developing, manufacturing and distributing luxury products. If CHANEL is first and foremost about creation, CHANEL is also about being a human-driven company committed to creating long-term value for the brand and for society. As an iconic brand, our influence far exceeds our business activities. Working within the industry and beyond, we want to use this influence to define and promote a more ambitious way to address and manage sustainability and social challenges.

Fields: This scholarship is particularly intended for young leaders at the forefront of organisations and movements that make an impact in at least one of the following areas:
  • Climate Change
  • Sustainable Retail
  • Social entrepreneurship with handcraft & savoir-faire
  • Human rights
  • Advancing the role of women in society
Type: Conference

Eligibility: Candidates must be:
  • Aged 18-30.
  • Nationals of all countries will be eligible to apply for this scholarship.
Selection Criteria: 
  • Evidenced commitment to delivering positive change
  • Demonstrated capacity for leadership
  • Understanding of key local and/or global issues
  • Track record of generating impactful and innovative ideas
  • One Young World will actively seek and prioritise applicants who demonstrate impact in the firlds above.
Number of Awards: 40 (25 for internal members and 15 for young leaders from developing communities)

Value of Award: 
  • Access to the One Young World Summit 2019 London
  • Hotel accommodation on a shared basis between 22 and 25 (inclusive) October, 2019
  • The cost of travel to and from London (flights in economy)
  • Catering which includes breakfast, lunch and dinner
  • Transport between the Summit accommodation and the Summit venue
  • Summit hand-outs and support materials
Duration of Award: 22 and 25 (inclusive) October, 2019

How to Apply: Apply Here
  • It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying
Visit Award Webpage for Details

One Young World Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2019 (Fully-funded)

Application Deadline: 19th May 2019 6pm BST

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): London UK

About the Award: At the heart of every start-up or enterprise is the drive to solve the problem. One Young World believes that the next generation of young entrepreneurs are here to do more than create the next convenient solution – they are here to take on the world’s major challenges.
The rates of global unemployment, the catastrophic effects of climate change, and the challenges of globalisation all pose significant problems. The skills of young entrepreneurs, equipped with rapid technological advancements, are overcoming these barriers around the world.
The One Young World Entrepreneur Award was created to highlight the work of revolutionary entrepreneurs who will stand as inspiration for existing entrepreneurs and encourage others to become effective entrepreneurs. 
The 5 entrepreneurs identified will receive the Award at the One Young World 2019 Summit in London, which takes place from 22nd -25th October. The ceremony will take place in front of an audience of 2000 people from over 190 countries and live streamed to an audience of  2 million in over 100 countries. 
The Award winners will be chosen by an international panel of renowned entrepreneurs inlcuding David Jones, Co-Founder of One Young World and Founder of You & Mr Jones. 

Type: Award

Eligibility: To be considered for the award the following criteria must be met:
  • Be between 18 and 35 years old.
  • Exemplify leadership in their field. 
  • Demonstrate the importance of entrepreneurship as a way to effect positive change. 
  • Have achieved tangible and material entrepreneurial success [revenue and number of employees can indicate this].
Number of Awards: 5

Value of Award: In addition to receiving the award at the Summit award winners will receive:
  • Access to the entirety of the One Young World Summit 2019 in London, United Kingdom
  • Hotel accommodation for the duration of the Summit, 22 to 25 (inclusive) October 2019 
  • The cost of travel to and from London. Your flight to and from London must depart from and return to one and the same international airport.
Duration of Award:  22 to 25 (inclusive) October 2019

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Innovation Time 2019 (5 000 Euros Prize)

Application Deadline: 31st July 2019

Eligible Countries: Not specified (However, plan must be oriented towards Africa)

About the Award: Innovation Time is the presentation session of 3 success stories in innovation during the Rebranding Africa Forum. The Innovation Awards or the Innovation Award is awarded to the winner of Innovation Time, and is intended to reward the talent and genius of an African actor.
The Innovation Time is part of the Rebranding Africa Awards (RAA), which reward leading personalities who, through their daily actions in their respective areas of intervention, trace the paths of development and lead others to change their lives. look on our continent.


Type: Award, Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: Innovation Time is open to everyone.

Selection Criteria: 
  • Being oriented towards Africa
  • To answer to the problems of the African continent
  • Have a social impact (projects in line with the MDGs – Millennium Development Goals – are strongly encouraged)
  • To be applicable in other countries of the continent
  • The innovative nature of the project presented)
  • The financial viability of the project (Business Plan analysis presented)
  • Relevance to the theme chosen for the Rebranding Africa Forum
Number of Awards: 3

Value of Award:
  • The Innovation Award from the Rebranding Africa Awards;
  • An undeniable reputation thanks to a large media exposure;
  • Meetings with international investors and sponsors
  • A check in the amount of 5.000 Euros
How to Apply: The following information must be sent as an attachment in ONE EMAIL to the email address: innovator@rebrandingafrica.com BEFORE 31.07.2019:
  • Your bilingual Biography (FR / EN) in half a page for each version
  • A synopsis of up to 1,000 characters of your project
  • A brief summary of your Business Plan
  • A brief presentation of the current needs to carry out your project (human, financial or structural resources)
Applications will be evaluated by the organizing committee and ALONE the selected candidates will be contacted again.
Do you know someone around you with an innovative project?
  • It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying

UNESCO International Literacy Prizes 2019 for Innovative Literacy Projects

Application Deadlines:
  • 16th June 2019 for applications
  • 23th June 2019 for nominations by nominating agencies
Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Paris, France

About the Award: This year’s theme is ‘Literacy and Multilingualism’.
The promotion of multilingualism as an asset for both literacy and educational development in general and more particularly Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) and its target 4.6 in terms of inclusivity quality and expanding access. Multilingual education facilitates access to education while promoting equity for populations speaking minority and/or indigenous languages, especially girls and women.
Through two prestigious Prizes, UNESCO supports effective literacy practices and encourages the promotion of dynamic literate societies to close the literacy gap of approximately 750 millions of people.
UNESCO distinguishes between two Literacy Prizes which are given to five laureates:

The UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize (2 awards), was established in 1989 and is supported by the Government of the Republic of Korea. It gives special consideration to programmes that focus on the development and use of mother-tongue literacy education and training.

The UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy (3 awards), was established in 2005, and is supported by the Government of the People’s Republic of China. This Prize recognizes programmes that promote adult literacy, especially in rural areas and for out-of-school youth, particularly girls and women.

Type: Contest

Eligibility: Candidates should take into account this year’s theme – literacy and Multilingualism – and also consider the special focus of each Prize.
  • Institutions, organizations and individuals promoting literacy through effective and innovative projects or programmes.
  • Eligible programmes or projects who have a proven record of innovative work in the field of literacy for at least three years.
  • Programmes/projects that have not been awarded the UNESCO International Literacy Prizes in the past five years.
Number of Awards: 5

Value of Program: Each of the five prizewinners receives a medal, a diploma and US$20.000.
The UNESCO International Literacy Prizes are awarded in an official ceremony on the occasion of the International Literacy Day.

How to Apply: Governments, non-governmental organizations and individuals are kindly invited to apply. All applications should be submitted to nominating entities, such as the National Commission for UNESCO in the country of the programme, or an NGO that is in an official partnership with UNESCO. Applications can be submitted via the online platform, detailed information about the application and nomination process is to be found on the UNESCO International Literacy Prizes’ website.

Visit Program Webpage for details

TED Idea Search 2020 (All expenses paid to speak at TED2020 Conference)

Application Deadline: 29th May 2019

Eligible Countries: Worldwide

To be taken at (country): Contest is Online. TED2020 stage is in Vancouver, Canada

About the Award: The theme of TED2020 is UNCHARTED. The future is more uncertain than it’s ever been; we’re looking for people who will give us a clue as to where we’re heading — and how we’ll get there.
Are you working on an invention, design or vision that will really change the way things are done?
Do you have a thoughtful approach to the world’s shared frustrations?
Are you an explorer who’s discovered something strange and amazing?

Then apply below

Type: Conference

Eligibility: Public speaking experience is not required and there are no age restrictions. If you have an amazing idea, we want to hear it!

Selection: This ideas search will be completely virtual, taking advantage of the TED World Theater, our unique and amazing way to use video streaming to bring people from around the world to one place.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: All expenses paid

Duration of Award: 5 days

How to Apply: 
  • Prepare a one-minute summary of your idea.
  • Then, film yourself delivering that one-minute summary. The video doesn’t need to be anything fancy — it can be filmed from a computer camera or a smartphone.
  • Upload the film to Vimeo or YouTube using the instructions in the form below.
  • Complete and submit the Round 1 form below. Submissions for Round 1 applications are due May 29, 2019.
  • It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying
Visit Award Webpage for Details

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Paid Traineeship in Law and Policy Forum 2019 – Geneva, Switzerland

Application Deadline: 20th May, 2019

Eligible Countries: All

To Be Taken At (Country): Geneva, Switzerland

About the Award:You will assist the Editor and the Editor-in-Chief of the Review in the conceptualization of the themes, contacts with authors, peer reviewers and the publisher, background research and substantive evaluation of articles.
Key Responsibilities:
  • Assistance to the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor of the International Review of the Red Cross;
  • Substantial academic research;
  • Evaluation and legal editing of article submissions (checking the legal reasoning, arguments, structure and sources);
  • Identification of potential authors and peer reviewers;
  • Preparation and co-conduct of interviews of key experts in the field of humanitarian law, policy and action for the Review;
  • Liaison with the colleagues in-house on identifying potential topics to be covered in the Review;
  • Correspondence with authors and partners, and management of the Review files;
  • Authoring blog articles;
  • Occasional involvement in the organisation of launch events of the journal.
Type: Internship

Eligibility: ICRC is looking for candidates who meet the following mandatory requirements:
  • A Master’s degree in law or international relations.
  • A demonstrated interest in humanitarian work, IHL and human rights;
  • Excellent command of English with good French reading abilities;
  • Maximum one year paid professional experience.
  • Initiative and capacity to work independently under minimal supervision;
  • Excellent ability to work in a team;
  • Excellent communication skills including strong writing abilities;
  • Excellent organizational skills.
If you do not fulfil the conditions above, your application will not be considered.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value and Duration of Award: Successful candidates will be recruited on a 12-month paid traineeship contract. The positions are based at ICRC headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Benefits include:
  • Rewarding work in a humanitarian and multicultural environment;
  • Attractive social benefits;
  • Paid traineeship.
How to Apply: Apply Here

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: ICRC

Sri Lanka, ISIL and Religious Tribalism

Gary Leupp

Sri Lanka has been a primarily Buddhist land since King Ashoka’s son Mahinda preached there in the third century BCE. At present 70% of the population is Buddhist, 13% Hindu, 10% Muslim and 7% Christian. (Surely there are secular people, atheists, Marxists, etc. but these are historical communities and identities.) It has been a site of horrific religious-based violence, mostly Buddhist-on-Hindu, although such violence ebbed over the last decade. You wouldn’t think it a likely site for a Muslim attack on multiple Christian targets on an Easter Sunday.
The group identified by Sri Lankan authorities as the author of these atrocities appears to be an established local Islamist organization, National Thowheeth Jama’ath, hitherto known for hate speech against Buddhists but not for violent actions. Now there are reports that they have links to, or are inspired by, ISIL. We know that some Sri Lankans fought in Syria with ISIL. ISIL flags and propaganda have been found in raided sites in Sri Lanka since the attacks, and ISIL has indeed claimed responsibility. This is troubling, as is the announcement that the bombings were to avenge the mosque shootings in Christchurch in March. This seems a new level in the internationalization of religious tribalism.
To avenge 50 Muslims (Indians, Bangladeshis, Jordanians, Palestinians) killed in New Zealand by an Australian Christian, Sri Lankan and Arab Muslims (in ISIL) combined to slaughter over 250 Christians in Sri Lankan churches. (These include citizens of the U.S., U.K., Bangladesh, China, India, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey and Australia.)
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, all over the world until God makes one side win. This principle is found in the Old Testament book of Leviticus and the Qur’an. But it stems from a principle expressed earlier in the Code of Hammurabi, intended to limit the scope of private vendettas in ancient Babylonia. It was all about proportionality (remember that the next time the Israelis boast of a “disproportionate response” after a minor Palestinian attack); one should not overdo the revenge.
But “like the wheel follows the foot of the ox,” as the classic Buddhist text the Dhammapada puts it, revenge produces revenge. When will we awaken to news of a retaliatory mosque attack in any random country?
If ISIL international is behind this, the choice of Sri Lanka was particularly cruel. On this island in 29 BCE the first canon of Buddhist scriptures was compiled. The Buddhist belief system discourages the concept of revenge, and deploys the concept of karma to explain how one evil leads to another and how the point is not vengeance but to seek enlightenment by renouncing selfish desire.
The Dhammapada opens with these verses:
He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me.” Those who harbor such thoughts do not still their hatred.
He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me.” Those who do not harbor such thoughts still their hatred.
Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.
One could argue that, based on such premises as these, Buddhism has historically been a peaceful religion. There is nothing in the Buddhist tradition comparable to Muslim jihads, or Christian Crusades and colonial projects to forcibly convert natives to Christianity. Yes, there were the Shaolin monks in China, and the warrior-monk armies of Japan; but they did not target non-believers so much as protect monastic property and privilege from any opponents. During the second world war the Japanese Zen establishment shamefully embraced Japanese imperialism. And it’s true that in modern times we have seen horrific Buddhist violence in Sri Lanka, as well as Myanmar. Even Buddhist monks have shown themselves capable of savagery against Hindus and Muslims in those countries.
The civil war in Sri Lanka ended in 2009 with the defeat of the Tamil independence movement, pitting Hindus against Buddhists, following the deaths of 60,000 people. A Reconciliation Commission was appointed, and peace has been maintained between the Buddhist and Hindu communities. But that is an issue separate from the relations between Muslims and Christians in a country where both are minorities, and the ability of international terrorists to wreak havoc in an overwhelmingly Buddhist country.
Buddhists have no tradition comparable to holy war, but Tibetan Buddhism (which is, one must admit, idiosyncratic) produced a text in the eighth century, the Kalachakra sastra, that alludes to the coming of the Muslims, and the destruction they inflict in Central Asia; it mentions Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, and predicts a future war of terrible destruction against the barbarians (and Buddhist victory). This is not a text popular in Sri Lanka, the Theravada Buddhism of which is a far cry from Lamaism; but it does pit the Buddhist world in general against Islam in an existential way. It could maybe be exploited (like the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, which predicts a final war between Christ and his enemies at the Apocalypse, has sometimes been) to mobilize and justify support for anti-Muslim violence.
“Islamic terrorism” has of course long targeted Hindus in India. But it hasn’t had much presence in Buddhist societies. (The Taliban shocked the world by pulverizing the magnificent buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, but that was a thousand years after Buddhism had vanished in Afghanistan. It was an assault on culture, and the feelings of the Hazzara people, who are now Shiites. It was not an attack on Buddhists as such.) In China, where Buddhism is enjoying a resurgence, and where over 240 million identify with the faith (such that half the world’s Buddhists are in China) the regime is promoting Buddhism as “an ancient Chinese religion” deserving of respect. Islam is viewed as foreign and threatening, and Uighurs in particular subject to considerable repression. But there have not been to my knowledge any Islamist strikes against Buddhist sites in China. Nor any strikes against Buddhist sites in Myanmar.
But now ISIL-linked forces have declared war on the Buddhist-dominated Sri Lankan state, which has a very experienced military that has just received sweeping emergency police powers for the first time since the end of the civil war in 2009. There has been a wave of anti-Muslim nationalist sentiment in Sri Lanka, and anti-Muslim rioting by Buddhists in recent years. This sentiment perhaps infects the military. In some riots Buddhist monks rallied to protect Muslims, and there has been peaceful coexistence for the most part.
But if in the inevitable army crackdown on National Thowheeth Jama’ath overreaches and alienates Muslims in general, we might expect more cracks in the historical facade of Buddhist pacifism. Revenge rather than enlightenment is likely to prevail; it could mean attacks on Buddhist temples too, and the continued development of religious tribalism.
***
Conservative commentators on RT and Fox News both condemn the U.S. “left” (meaning Democrats) for making a big deal about the New Zealand attack (killing Muslims) while downplaying the Sri Lanka one (killing Christians). The gist is that leftists think Christians are oppressors and Muslims victims. I think it more likely that racism is the main factor. If the story has been downplayed while the U.S. media feasts on the Mueller Report and the Democratic primary races, it is not because the victims were Christians (who do not lack for media support) but because they were dark skinned.
***
April 28: It is reported that an army raid on a National Thowheeth Jama’ath safe house in Sainthamaruthu,10 civilians including six children were killed. The port town of Sainthamaruthu (pop. 25,000) is almost entirely Muslim. If the Sinhalese state has killed Muslim children, there will surely be more blood. This is what ISIL no doubt wants. War against Buddhism has not been high on its list of priorities, but the Easter Sunday massacres pit it and its affiliates against the Sri Lankan state and its mainly Buddhist security apparatus.
***
April 29: ISIL has released a video showing Zahran Hashim, an Islamic preacher and the alleged leader of the bombers, pledging allegiance with six other men to the self-declared ISIL caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. So yes, the worst is true: ISIL is now at war with a Buddhist state.
April 30: al-Baghdadi resurfaces, and in a video takes responsibility for the Sri Lankan church attacks. Interestingly, he depicts them as vengeance for ISIL’s loss of Baghouz, in eastern Syria, to U.S.-led forces—not to the Christchurch mosque massacre.
I would not be surprised if some Sri Lankans are now studying the Kalachakra sastra. It describes Islam as a “barbarian teaching” (mleccha dharma), a “violent teaching” (himsa dharma) that produces “savagery” (raudra karman). It foretells the coming of a universal ruler (Chakravartin) at the end of this age, who will “smite the barbarians…on the entire surface of the earth.” It is not mainstream Buddhism, but a Tibetan product produced in the eighth century in which Tibetan kings sometimes allied with Arabs against the Chinese, and sometimes fought Arab Muslims, but in the end concluded that the adherents of this religion were uniquely bad.
In Sri Lanka the mainstream Muslim community has naturally condemned the church attacks. One assumes good will all around, in a peaceful country. But Islam deplores idolatry, and has traditionally condemned Buddhists as idolaters, while Buddhism deplores intolerance in general. Sri Lanka’s Buddhists have had a complicated relationship with Christianity, the religion of the Portuguese, Dutch and English colonizers. But they will be more sympathetic to the Christians, if this becomes an ongoing fight, and Osama bin Laden’s vision of global jihad spreads into the Buddhist world.
But when we look at the big picture of karmic cause and effect, we must observe that the U.S. invasion of Iraq produced ISIL, which met with U.S. wrath; ISIL responded with more wrath of its own, targeting a broad net of infidels including Shiites, Yezidis, Christians and infidel artifacts from the Temple of Baal in Palmyra to the Ninevah Wall. Now that its caliphate has fallen, as it shifts to a strategy of random localized actions to affirm its continued existence, it takes on new enemies thus further mining the human potential for tribal violence.
Now I see that Sri Lanka has banned “all forms of clothing that cover a person’s face and prevents them from being identified,” an order seen as being directed at Muslim women’s dress. This will likely result in protests or worse as the global jihad launched by Osama bin Laden continues.