UK: 1,000 Asda supermarket workers threatened with sack for rejecting new contract

Margot Miller

UK supermarket giant Asda has extended its November 2 deadline for workers to sign a new contract by another week. Despite the threat of sign or be sacked, the company admitted that around 1,000 employees were holding out. The GMB union, in contrast, says that 12,000 could be fired.

The new contract 6, rolled out first on a voluntary basis with the support of the GMB in 2017, imposes flexible working that means the workforce is at the beck and call of the company. Workers can be called into work with little notice between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. at night and ordered to switch departments. Long-service benefits will end, as well as paid tea breaks and time off during bank holidays. The number of hours defined as part of the better paid night shift will also be reduced. The pay cuts are not compensated for by Asda’s offer to increase hourly pay, while working conditions will suffer a regression to before unionisation.

On Wednesday, the company upped its offer of a wage increase to push through acceptance of these punishing work conditions—to a meagre £9.18 an hour (in London £10.31) from April 1 on top of an increase to £9 from November 3. The current basic hourly rate is the minimum wage of £8.21 to £8.84.

Cath Sutton, an employee at the Runcorn store who has not yet signed the contract, told the “BBC Today” programme she was worried because “they can move me into any department … onto the shop floor, carrying heavy boxes, filling the shelves.”

Cath, who has been an Asda employee for 45 years, spoke of the tremendous stress workers are under because of the restructuring. Her colleagues “are having to sign out of desperation because they are terrified of losing their jobs.”

GMB regional officer for Yorkshire and North Derbyshire Neil Derrick said, “Many staff cannot sign because of the upheaval to their domestic life. Others have signed just to get them through Christmas or until they can find new jobs.”

Asda is a subsidiary of the US-based retail chain Walmart, owned by the Walton family—with a staggering personal fortune of $191 billion. One of the big four supermarket chains in the UK, Asda along with Tesco, Sainsbury and Morrisons are facing increasing competition, not only between each other but from German-based retailers Aldi and Lidl. Customers are increasingly looking for cheaper brands at the discount stores as recession looms and wages for the lower earnings quartile remain stagnant.

Former Sainsbury chief executive Justin King, who used to work for Asda, called conditions at Asda “almost Victorian” with “legacy arrangements with their workforce which simply don’t reflect the modern workforce that we’re in.”

King’s disparaging comments confirm that all retail bosses are attempting to return the working class to Dickensian conditions, to intensify exploitation and maximise profits as the supermarket giants engage in a cut-throat price war.

Asda is following in the footsteps of Tesco in introducing flexible working as all the supermarket chains engage in restructuring. In April, Tesco in Northern Ireland introduced a flexible contract like Asda’s contract 6. The agreement was pushed through with the cooperation and approval of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, a union with 160,000 members. This gave the green light to impose restructuring throughout the industry.

At Asda, the GMB, the only union recognised by the company, has worked to suppress the near unanimous opposition of the 120,000-strong workforce to the contract.

While the unions have been in negotiations with Asda bosses since the spring, workers were only informed that the company intended to impose the contract on pain of dismissal during intimidating one-on-one meetings with managers. The GMB merely wrote to the company asking for a delay in implementation to help the chain “adapt to the demands of the highly competitive retail industry.”

Despite 93 percent of the workforce voting in opposition to the contract in a consultative ballot, the union has refused to mobilise its members for all-out strike action or reach out to workers facing the same attacks in the other supermarket chains.

To dissipate the militant mood of its members, the GMB organised a rally in Leeds in August, which included a march to Asda headquarters. Hundreds attended from across the UK.

At the rally, Labour MP for East Leeds Richard Burgon, a supporter Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, indicated his acceptance of flexibility in principle, saying, “Flexibility has got to be a two-way street.” Commenting on the dispute during election campaigning, Corbyn has said he “stands in solidarity” with Asda workers—words of cold comfort that were accompanied by an appeal for Asda to get round the negotiating table.

Past years have seen the retail sector haemorrhaging jobs, with 85,000 going this year alone. Major high street chains such as Coast, Mothercare, House of Frazer and Marks and Spencer have closed stores, hit by flagging consumer confidence due to low wages and creeping unemployment, and ferocious competition from online retailers.

Since the beginning of the year Tesco, the UK’s largest supermarket, has implemented its plans to close 90 fresh-food counters and delicatessens as part of a three-year restructuring plan initiated in 2016 in a bid to save £1.5 billion. Hundreds more jobs will disappear as 200 staff canteens are shut, and the numbers of head-office employees are trimmed.

In 2017, around 9.5 percent of the UK workforce or 2.8 million workers were employed in retail. Retailers predict that a third of these jobs will be lost by 2025. This may yet prove to be an underestimation, as technological innovations replace workers.

The US-based international online behemoth Amazon, which sells everything from books to clothing to electronics, represents a formidable challenger as it begins its move to the high street. Beginning in London in 2017, Amazon purchased seven stores of the high-end supermarket chain Whole Foods Market.

In January, Amazon launched its first check-out free grocery store in the US in Seattle, Washington. It now has 11 Amazon Go stores in the US. All customers need do is download a special app onto their phones which connects to their Amazon account and credit card. Passing through smartphone-controlled gates, ubiquitous cameras monitor what shoppers take from the shelves, or even return. No staff are needed, apart from an assistant overseeing the purchase of alcohol.

The first of Amazon’s “Clicks and Mortar” pop-up stores opened in St. Mary’s Gate in Manchester in June operating on the same check-out free principle, selling everything from food to electrical goods. It has also opened a store in Wales and the latest appeared in Edinburgh in Scotland. Amazon plans to have 10 shops on high streets across the UK, cutting staffing costs to the bone and enabling it to undercut the established chains.

The unions have proved themselves to be nothing less than cheap labour contractors for the bosses as competition intensifies.

The experience of Asda workers is the latest example that underlines the necessity for workers to take the struggle to defend their jobs, terms and conditions out of the hands of the union bureaucracy. This means creating democratic rank-and-file committees independent of the unions, based on the fight for a socialist programme to mobilise retail workers at supermarket chains in Britain and internationally who confront the same attacks.

Bipartisan drive to outlaw protest in Australia

Mike Head

Australian Labor Party leaders immediately backed Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week when he denounced political protests and boycotts and vowed that his government would draft new laws to ban them.

Morrison, who heads the Liberal-National Coalition, adopted the fascistic language of US President Donald Trump, accusing environmental demonstrators of “economic sabotage” and “indulgent and selfish practices” to “disrupt people’s lives and disrespect your fellow Australians.”

While cynically claiming to uphold the right to protest, Morrison said it was “not an unlimited licence.” Essentially, he declared that any activities, including street demonstrations and calls for business boycotts that threatened profits, would not be tolerated.

Morrison’s offensive against the basic democratic right of protest and free speech came in a radio talkback interview and a speech to a mining industry gathering last Friday. Without providing any specifics, he said his government would “identify mechanisms” to “successfully outlaw” conduct that potentially damaged any businesses.

Turning reality on its head, the prime minister charged protesters, not the corporate elite, with seeking to impose their views on society. He claimed that “progressivism”—which he labelled a “newspeak type term,” invoking George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 —intended to “deny the liberties of Australians.”

Branding environmental demonstrators as “anarchist groups,” Morrison told radio station 3AW that their protests were “getting well beyond the pale.” It was “not OK” for them “to be able to disrupt people’s jobs and their livelihoods and to harass in the way that we’ve seen down in Melbourne.”

This was another perversion of the truth. Last week, police mobilised in Melbourne by the Victorian state Labor government violently attacked several hundred climate change protesters who sought to oppose a global mining conference at the city’s convention centre. Many people were arrested and dragged off, and at least one woman was hospitalised after police horse charges.

Last Friday night, Morrison gave a pledge to a mining executives’ function in Queensland. “Let me assure you this is not something my government intends to allow to go unchecked,” he said. Branding consumer boycott campaigns against big banks, mining and other corporations as an “insidious threat” to the Australian economy, he stated: “There is no place for economic sabotage dressed up as activism.”

Seeking to agitate a right-wing base, the prime minster painted a picture of society under threat from people concerned about the devastating impact of climate change. “A new breed of radical activism is the on the march,” he claimed. “Apocalyptic in tone. Brooks no compromise. All or nothing. Alternative views—not permitted.”

Likewise, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton threatened new measures to punish climate protestors, whom he said were “completely against our way of life” and “don’t even believe in democracy.” Dutton, who is in charge of the federal police, intelligence agencies and Border Force, suggested demonstrators should be forced to pay for police deployments used to counter their protests. “The disharmony that they seek to sow within our society is unacceptable,” Dutton said.

Labor Party leaders were quick to join in. Deputy leader Richard Marles said protesters had been “absolutely indulgent” at “the expense of Australians” and the parliamentary opposition would consider any legislation the Morrison government brought forward. At the same time, Marles urged the government to enforce the anti-protest laws already in place.

These laws include a bill that the government pushed through parliament in September, backed by Labor, that could see people jailed for up to five years for using social media, emails or phone calls to promote, or even advertise, protests against agribusinesses.

Victorian state Labor Premier Daniel Andrews also condemned the Melbourne protesters for their “appalling behaviour.” Like Morrison, he claimed to support the right to “peacefully protest,” but there was “a big difference between peaceful protest and what we saw.” Andrews and his ministers enthusiastically endorsed last week’s violence by their government’s police force. Later, evidence emerged that at least two of the police officers involved in the brutality displayed symbols associated with far-right and neo-fascist organisations.

In fact, the Labor Party has taken the lead in a wider drive by Labor and Coalition governments across the country to outlaw many forms of political protest. This is taking place amid growing discontent in Australia and worldwide, particularly over worsening social inequality, deteriorating living conditions and ecological dangers.

Queensland’s state Labor government rushed new anti-protest laws through parliament last month. Demonstrators using proscribed “devices” can be jailed for up to two years and police have expanded powers to conduct personal and vehicle searches without judicial warrants.

Morrison’s Coalition government is also working with state Labor and Coalition governments alike to impose harsher jail terms on demonstrators, adding to barrages of expanded anti-protest laws imposed over the past three years.

Exactly what further laws Morrison has in mind is not yet certain, but they will constitute a further sweeping attack on the fundamental democratic rights of the working class.

So-called “secondary boycotts” and other solidarity industrial action by workers against companies are already outlawed under draconian industrial relations laws imposed during the 1970s. This legislation and other anti-strike measures were entrenched by the Hawke and Keating Labor governments, with the help of the trade unions, in the 1980s and 1990s. However, the Competition and Consumer Act currently still permits boycotts (but not industrial action) for the “dominant purpose” of environmental protection or consumer protection.

The targets of this authoritarian drive are not only the most recent climate change protests but the broader growing opposition to big business. This has been reflected in the huge demonstrations led by school students across Australia and around the world during September, and the mass protests erupting, from Chile to Iraq, against social inequality and attacks on working class conditions.

What is alarming the ruling class and its political servants, Labor and Coalition like, is the deepening anti-capitalist sentiment among young people and throughout the working class, which finds no voice within the political establishment.

The anti-protest laws have nothing to do with protecting the public from “unsafe” protests. Rather, they attack the most basic democratic rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of movement and freedom to organise.

Forty-nine Malian soldiers dead in Islamic State attack, as protests grow against French-led war

Alex Lantier

An attack last Friday on a Malian army outpost at Indelimane, near the border with Niger, killed 49 soldiers, as the seventh year of the French-led war in Mali was drawing to a close. This attack, one of the deadliest targeting the Malian army, makes clear that French imperialism has not succeeded in stabilizing the Malian government. Instead, it, along with its allies, has sunk into a bloody quagmire.

At about noon, the squad of 80 Malian troops posted at Indelimane came under mortar fire, followed by repeated attacks by gunmen riding on motorcycles. By the time Malian army reinforcements could arrive at Indelimane, later in the day, most of the soldiers were dead. A few dozen managed to flee, but the Malian army, which initially gave out a death toll of 53, indicated that several of its soldiers as well as weapons and equipment were still missing.

On Saturday, a French soldier of the 1st Spahi regiment based in Valence, Ronan Pointeau, was killed when his vehicle detonated a roadside bomb in the same area.

The attacks came amid an upsurge of protests against the military operations led by France, the former colonial power across the region, which are spreading from Mali to Burkina Faso and Niger.

The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for both attacks in communiqués posted on the Telegram app. “The soldiers of the caliphate have attacked a military base where elements of the apostate Malian army are posted in the village of Indelimane, in the region of Ménaka,” the IS wrote in the first communiqué, adding later, “The soldiers of the caliphate targeted a convoy of vehicles of French forces… near Indelimane in the Ménaka region by setting off an explosive device.” Both communiqués were signed by the “West Africa Province” of the IS.

The latest attack on the Malian army comes just a month after two deadly attacks on Malian troops, in Boulkessi and Mondoro, in the south of the country near Burkina Faso, which claimed 40 lives.

The French media openly admit that Paris, its European allies in Mali led by Berlin, and the neo-colonial Malian regime are failing to stem a rising tide of armed opposition. Yvan Guichaoua, a lecturer at the University of Kent specializing in the Mali war, told Radio France Internationale (RFI): “We see not only a relatively technologically advanced character in these attacks, but also attacks that are mobilizing ever larger numbers of men, which shows that jihadist movements can recruit and maintain relatively large force sizes.”

Commenting on the Malian army, Le Point wrote: “Without French aerial support, it would usually confront enormous difficulties in the face of the increasingly daring operations of the jihadists. Despite their greater materiel, French units also face problems: the soldiers of Operation Barkhane usually intervene after the fact, in a hunt for terrorists who have melted away into the countryside… The enemy each time seems to have disappeared, regrouping only to undertake military action in order to avoid being located.”

If France and its allies are losing the war in Mali and the broader Sahel, it is above all because they are waging an unpopular, neo-colonial war of plunder, which aims primarily to secure French and European imperialist interests at the expense of their great-power rivals.

Paris launched the Mali war after the bloody 2011 NATO war against Libya, as Tuareg militias employed by the Libyan regime destroyed by NATO fled across the Sahara desert into northern Mali. The war, facilitated by Algeria’s decision to grant French bombers overflight rights from France over Algeria to Mali and back, barely halted a collapse of the Malian regime. By bombing and invading northern Mali, however, French forces only provoked rising opposition.

The region is strategic not only as a supplier of gold and other key raw materials, including uranium for French and European nuclear plants, but as a zone of increasing rivalry between America, China, Russia and the European powers. Berlin, which is aggressively remilitarizing its foreign policy in order to involve its army in deadly conflicts abroad, agreed to send its forces to Mali to back up the French war in 2016.

These deployments aim not only to plunder key strategic raw materials, but also to set up networks of concentration camps, like the ones in Libya and the Nigerien city of Agadez, to detain refugees and prevent them from fleeing to Europe.

Since the NATO war in Libya, there has been a rapid escalation in geostrategic rivalry in sub-Saharan Africa. Russia has signed contracts to train forces in the nearby Central African Republic and sell billions of dollars of weapons to Mali as well as Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Angola and Algeria. China is launching major infrastructure projects across Africa, including a railroad linking the Malian capital of Bamako to the Senegalese port of Dakar. It is also selling arms and cheap consumer goods.

Le Point wrote that these new powers, “pushing their weight around in the old backyards of the former colonial powers like France and Great Britain, also displease the United States, which is on the defensive… across the world and so in Africa as well.”

But amid the growing geostrategic conflicts between the imperialist powers, Russia, China and various regional powers, there is at the same time a growing upsurge of protests by workers and oppressed people across the former French colonial empire. As mass strikes and protests like those of the “yellow vests” erupt in France and across Europe, the preconditions for the building of an international movement in the working class against the imperialist war in Mali and the broader Sahel are emerging.

In February, protests of youth and workers began to demand the overthrow of the regime in Algeria. With its large population and strategically central position in western Africa, the Algerian regime is key to French attempts to dominate the region.

Increasingly, however, mass protests are erupting in countries across the Sahel to demand the withdrawal of French troops. They point to the collusion between France and the NATO powers with Al Qaeda in Syria and beyond to discredit the justifications for the war and raise questions about French complicity in attacks and ethnic massacres across the region.

In May, after a wave of attacks, thousands of youth marched in the Nigerian capital of Niamey to demand the withdrawal of French troops. They shouted slogans including, “Down with foreign military bases,” “Down with the French army,” “Down with the US army,” “Down with the jihadists and Boko Haram” and “Our country is independent since August 3, 1960.”

Last month, a protest took place in the Malian town of Sévaré, near Mopti, which torched the local offices of the UN mission in Mali (Minusma). The protesters submitted a petition to UN officials demanding the withdrawal of French and UN-sponsored troops from the region. They also chanted slogans, including “France leave our country,” “Minusma out, Barkhane out, we’ve understood everything” and “Minusma is a terrorist base that gets money from the UN.”

Protests also erupted in northern Burkina Faso, near the border with Mali, after a jihadist unit killed 16 people in the grand mosque of Salmossi. Afterwards, thousands demonstrated in the capital, Ouagadougou, shouting slogans such as “French army out of Burkina Faso” and “Foreign troops out of Africa” at an event billed as an “anti-imperialist day of action.”

Halle, Germany: Government moves to establish a police state after fascist attack

Gregor Link

In the two weeks since the attack on a synagogue in Halle, the German government has made no attempt to clean out the extreme right-wing networks in the police, judiciary and Bundeswehr (armed forces), which have been known about for years. Instead, it is using the fascist attack as a pretext to further arm the repressive state apparatus and implement its long-held plans to comprehensively spy on journalists and Internet users.

The new Intelligence Authorisation Act, which until now had been hidden in the drawers of the Interior Ministry, is to be deployed for this purpose. “For months, the draft...remained simply lying around,” the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote on Sunday. “Now things could move quickly.”

A spokeswoman for the Justice Ministry had informed the newspaper that the “law for the harmonisation of secret service powers” was now already in departmental coordination with the Justice Ministry. “Seehofer’s old bill,” the newspaper continues, “suddenly seems like a current answer to the crime in Halle.”

As the World Socialist Web Site wrote in March, the law is a comprehensive attack on freedom of the press and fundamental democratic rights. It provides, among other things, for the secret service to use trojan spyware to spy on journalists and editorial offices—without judicial authorisation and without the persons concerned having committed a criminal offence.

Providers of encrypted messenger services would also be forced to record the communications of their customers and transmit them to the authorities based purely on suspicion.

At the beginning of last week, Thomas Haldenwang, president of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, as the secret service is called, and Holger Münch, head of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), used the attack in Halle as an opportunity to promote the law and to announce an increase in staffing by 300 and 440 new posts, respectively. They will be used to establish “new units” to combat extremism.

According to the broadcaster MDR, the two federal authorities are also calling for “stronger surveillance of the Internet,” “further bans on voluntary associations” and measures against right-wing “festivals” and “concerts.” The German domestic intelligence service will in the future also be allowed to monitor children under the age of 14 and infiltrate video game platforms.

According to a report by broadcaster Deutsche Welle, at their conference in Kiel, the interior ministers already decided to tighten up the firearms law and to “obligate Internet platforms” to report “relevant content under criminal law” immediately so that it can be deleted or those responsible prosecuted. Furthermore, the police and state intelligence agencies of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein are to cooperate even more closely in the future—also within the North German network.

At the same time, Family Minister Franziska Giffey (Social Democratic Party, SPD) announced to the Osnabrücker Zeitung that a new law against the radicalisation of young people would be introduced this year.

The newspaper quotes the family affairs minister saying that “certain risks of interaction” on the Internet “must be prevented or minimised from the outset by technical measures.” The “targeting of young people on the Internet” must be “prevented as far as possible.” To this end, the “providers” of digital platforms should be “made more responsible.”

Long experience shows that such measures—once introduced—will be directed primarily against the left. Two years ago, the then interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, banned the anti-fascist website “linksunten.indymedia” and declared its editorial staff to be part of a “listed association” in order to circumvent the right to freedom of the press.

Two years later, the public prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe suspended all criminal proceedings against the presumed operators of the website because it was unable to prove any criminal offence against them. Last year, the Saxony state secret service branch listed the concert “We are more,” directed against the right-wing extremist riots in Chemnitz, under the heading “left-wing extremism” in its annual report.

In close consultation with German government circles, Google has censored the World Socialist Web Site. And the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) has been listed in the secret service report for two years because—as the government’s response to the SGP, which lodged a legal complaint against it, says—”fighting for a democratic, egalitarian, socialist society” and “agitation against supposed ‘imperialism’ and ‘militarism’” are unconstitutional.

Just a few weeks after the murder of Kassel’s regional government president, Walter Lübcke, Giffey’s ministry had cut off funds for numerous civic programmes. At least 120 organisations were affected, including the anti-racist Amadeo Antonio Foundation and the well-known right-wing extremism exit programme “Exit,” the financing of which for the period after 2020 is now unclear. In future, a total of €8 million will be cut from civil society projects.

Meanwhile, in a feverish campaign, all parties in the Bundestag (parliament) are working to further strengthen a state apparatus that is riddled with right-wing extremists. The budget of the Interior Ministry increases by €720 million to €15.3 billion in the new federal budget; €6.4 billion alone will be spent beefing up the federal police, the BKA and the cyber authorities. During the budget debate in the Bundestag, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer had already announced—almost four weeks before the attack in Halle—the creation of new BKA and constitutional protection units with “hundreds of posts.”

A report by news weekly Der Spiegel illustrates the extent of the expansion of the repressive state. According to the report, the BKA has grown by almost 50 percent since 2013, from 5,012 to 7,562 officers in 2020. During the same period, the Federal Police grew from 38,297 to 46,848 posts in the current year. According to the draft budget, another 2,000 additional jobs are planned for 2020.

At the same time, the number of employees at the Bonn Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) is expected to almost triple—over 1,400 civil servants are expected to work for the Cyber Combat Authority in the coming year. In addition, the Munich-based Central Office for Information Technology in the Security Sector (ZITiS) is to grow from 190 to 232 employees. According to its own reports, the digital weapons foundry that was formed in 2017 develops tools for “cryptanalysis” and “telecommunications surveillance” for the federal security authorities.

The budget debate in the Bundestag in September showed that there is no opposition in parliament to the establishment of a police state. If there was criticism of Interior Minister Seehofer’s plans, it came from the right.

Burkhard Lischka, SPD spokesman for domestic policy, said, “A good domestic policy relies on a strong state. What we have achieved in the area of internal security is really something to be proud of.” Stefan Ruppert of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) said, “You don’t hear much about the Interior Ministry. We think—too little, because the tasks are still very big.” He called for the more consistent deportation of refugees.

Irene Mihalic, domestic affairs spokeswoman for the Green Party parliamentary group, also attacked the plans of the interior minister from the right and made an aggressive plea for a further strengthening of the security authorities.

“You want to create 7,500 new posts in the security authorities,” she shouted at the interior minister, “So far so good. We also support all of this, but new posts do not yet mean new employees. Aspirations and reality are miles apart here! Thousands of positions are still vacant.” She shouted at the parliamentary plenum, “There has been no investment in the security authorities for 10 years, but massive savings have been made in the area of personnel, which really cut to the bone!” Such a “retreat of the state at the expense of security” should “not be allowed to happen again.”

André Hahn, Left Party deputy faction leader, spoke in a similar vein. After he had also pointed to “thousands of posts” that could not be filled, he shouted at the interior minister, “What you are doing here, Mr. Seehofer, is action for action’s sake that does not solve a single problem.”

The breathtaking increase in the repressive state apparatus and the massive expansion of the powers of the security authorities are directed against the widespread opposition among workers and young people who reject militarism, war, state armament and social cuts.

Death toll mounts as Iraqi protests defy repression

Bill Van Auken

Iraqi protesters and security forces clashed at the edge of Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone Monday, leaving at least another six demonstrators dead and scores more wounded as the mass protests that have gripped the country continued into their second month.

Monday’s clashes came after demonstrators forced their way across the Ahar Bridge, which spans the Tigris River, and into the Green Zone, a restricted area that is the center for government buildings and residences of top officials, as well as both embassies and offices of military contractors and other foreign entities. The crowds reportedly came within 500 yards of the prime minister’s office and reached the headquarters of Iraq’s state-run television.

Protesters set tires and dumpsters ablaze and hurled rocks inside the Green Zone, which was quickly flooded by security forces firing live ammunition, military-grade tear gas and water cannon.

The clashes came a day after a fatal confrontation between security forces and a crowd that attempted to storm the Iranian consulate in the Shia Muslim holy city of Karbala, south of Baghdad.

Anti-government protesters chant slogans during a demonstration in Baghdad on Friday [Credit: AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed]

The latest killing brings the known death toll since the start of the demonstrations in early October to over 260, with thousands of protesters wounded, in some cases grievously injured by live rounds, rubber bullets and tear gas canisters fired directly at demonstrators.

Friday saw the largest mass demonstrations since the US invasion of 2003, with crowds filling Baghdad’s Tahrir Square as well as wide avenues funneling into it. It was organized in defiance of the Iraqi military, which attempted to clamp down on the protests by imposing a nightly curfew. Ignoring the order, crowds remained in the square overnight, erecting tents and occupying an 18-story building overlooking the area, which has been dubbed “Revolution Mountain.”

Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi made a statement late Sunday calling for an end to the protests and declaring that “it’s time for life to return to normal.” The appeal expressed the increasing fears within the corrupt Iraqi ruling oligarchy that growing sections of the working class are joining the mass upsurge and threatening its wealth and power.

Mahdi in particular condemned the roadblocks that have shut down Umm Qasr, Iraq’s main Persian Gulf port in the southern city of Basra, as well as the joining of the demonstrations by oil workers outside key oil installations in the south of the country. There is also a continuing strike by teachers that has shut down schools throughout much of southern Iraq, as well as by public employees. Government buildings in many cities have been shut down, in some cases draped with banners proclaiming, “Closed by order of the people.”

Mahdi warned that the closing of the port and the threat to the oil fields risked “causing big losses exceeding billions of dollars.”

As Monday’s events showed, this appeal clearly failed to produce the desired effect. The protests are driven by mass unemployment, particularly among younger Iraqis, including those who graduate from universities to find there are no jobs. It is further fueled by stark social inequality and the knowledge that the “billions” in oil revenues that Mahdi is worrying about losing are flowing into the pockets of foreign and domestic capitalists and corrupt politicians, rather than benefiting the Iraqi masses.

Mahdi’s remarks were also notable for their failure to mention a promise made just days earlier by President Barham Salih that Mahdi was prepared to resign once a suitable replacement had been found, and that early elections would be held following the drafting of a new electoral law.

Even if Mahdi were to resign, this alone, along with the meager social concessions that have been proffered by the government, would not pacify the hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets. They are demanding an end to the entire political setup imposed under the US military occupation that followed the criminal American invasion of Iraq in 2003, along with a fundamental social transformation.

The chant being taken up by the Iraqi protesters is the same one used by Egyptians and Tunisians in 2011: “The people want the fall of the regime.”

In the case of Iraq, the US-imposed regime was constructed upon reactionary sectarian lines aimed at furthering Washington’s divide-and-rule strategy. State positions and spoils were divided up between Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties that would supposedly represent their respective ethnoreligious constituencies, while looting the country’s resources to line their own pockets and reward their followers.

The revolt that has erupted since last month has been directed at this entire reactionary setup and has explicitly rejected religion and ethnicity as the lines of political division, posing instead that of class interests.

The fear of this movement within the Iraqi ruling establishment has found sharp expression in efforts to prevent any spread of the protests into the Sunni areas of Anbar Province, which were devastated in the-called “war on ISIS.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Monday that security forces had arrested two men in Anbar for posting statements of solidarity with the protests on Facebook. It cited the case of Sameer Rashed Mahmoud, who posted a comment stating that students and public employees should strike in support of the protests on October 26. Within an hour and a half, counterterrorism police raided his home and arrested him for the post, charging him with incitement. He has been imprisoned ever since without charges.

A second case cited by HRW was that of a 25-year-old man who also indicated solidarity with the protests on his Facebook page on October 26. Within four hours, five police cars came to his house to drag him away. “They hit him and accused him of inciting protests, before handcuffing him and putting him in one of their cars,” a relative said.

The Anbar security forces issued a statement calling on all of the province’s residents “to head to work and continue with construction, preserving security, supporting security forces, and benefiting from past lessons, from which the province has only gotten destruction, killings and displacement.” This was an unmistakable threat of more mass killings in response to any attempt to emulate the protests in Baghdad.

The character of the mass protests has cut across Iran’s relations with the Iraqi government, which have centered upon Shia sectarian parties, whose political leaders, such as Mahdi, willingly offered themselves as functionaries in the puppet regime set up under the US occupation.

Last week, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated, “I seize this opportunity to tell those who care about Iraq ... to remedy insecurity as their priority,” while warning, “The US and Western intelligence agencies, with the help of money from regional countries, are instigating unrest in the region.”

While US imperialism will no doubt do whatever it can to exploit the crisis in Iraq to further its own interests in the region, the social explosion that has taken place not only there, but also in neighboring Lebanon, is driven by an intensification of social inequality, anger over conditions of poverty and unemployment, and hatred for corrupt ruling establishments that are totally subordinated to the interests of international finance capital.

To the extent that the Iranian bourgeoisie has sought to defend its own interests in the region by cementing alliances with these ruling elites, it has joined US imperialism as a target of the protesters’ ire.

Washington has responded cautiously to the events in Iraq, where it maintains thousands of troops and military contractors, using the country as a base for its operations in Syria as well.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo advised the Iraqi government to “listen to the legitimate demands made by the Iraqi people,” while cautioning all sides—the security forces and their victims alike—to avoid “violence.”

Protests erupt after Peruvian government approves controversial Tía María mining project

Cesar Uco

Protests by farmers and peasants have continued to escalate in the days following an announcement by the Mining Council, a division of Peru’s Ministry of Energy and Mines (Minem), of its approval of a construction license for the controversial Tía María mining project.

Following the council’s decision, the mine’s owners, Grupo Mexicano, through its subsidiary Southern Peru, a US company, announced that it would postpone construction due to the violent rejection of the project in the Tambo Valley, where the open pit Tia Maria mine is located. It is a heavily populated agricultural region near the city of Arequipa in the southern Peruvian Andes. The transnational Grupo Mexicano has a long presence in Peru, operating two large copper mines in the south of the country—Cuajone and Toquepala.

Enraged by the Council’s decision, hundreds of protesters blocked the main roads in the region. Thirty kilometers of road linking the districts of Cocachacra, Deán Valdivia and Punta de Bombón were impassable. The population of the province of Islay woke up to the presence of pickets in the area.

Protest against Tía María mine [Credit: ocmal.org]

Protesters did not wait for the Mining Council’s ruling to express their dissatisfaction. Since last Monday, according to El Comercio, the director of the province’s school district, Juan Luque, said that “school work is carried out normally, but in the Tambo Valley few students have attended their educational centers.” Several had been affected by tear gas fired by the police, he said.

In addition, shops remained partially paralyzed and farms are without workers. A farmer who joined the roadblocks at dawn told El Comercio: “That mining project is not going to enter the Tambo Valley, which the president [of the Republic] understands. For 10 years we have been fighting and my children are no longer afraid of the police.”

Arguing against approval of Tia Maria, the Tambo Valley farmers-peasants said that the authorization of the mine’s construction had ignored the findings of a previous report that it poses a direct threat to the fragile ecosystem in the region, particularly the so-called “Lomas de Cachendo”, which the Ministry of Agriculture (Minagri) designated as protected land. It is an ecosystem located in the Tambo Valley where extractive activities cannot be carried out because the land belongs to the Regional Government of Arequipa, which prohibits private economic activities. This ecosystem has an area of 8,092 hectares, at least a tenth of which would be destroyed by the mining project.

Following the Mining Council’s decision, Arequipa Governor Elmer Caceres Llica reiterated his opposition to the project. And a spokesperson of the farmers and peasants of Tambo Valley, Miguel Meza, said that they had decided to intensify their protests. Meza announced that strikes will continue beginning Monday, until the government of President Martín Vizcarra reverses the Mining Council’s decision. He accused the government of “not honoring their word”, and Vizcarra of “mocking the Tambo Valley.”

Meanwhile, the head of Arequipa’s Regional Environmental Authority (ARMA), Carlos Santos Roque, charged that Southern Peru was already carrying out construction activity in the Lomas de Cachendo area in violation of its promise not to begin until an agreement had been reached. The biologist told Radio Yaravi that satellite photos had shown signs of roads and penetration of the sensitive area. His agency, he said, would be using drones and other technological resources to corroborate these violations. The local authority was barred by the Vizcarra government from participating in the environmental impact study on the Tía María project.

Only three months ago, Vizcarra met with the governor of Arequipa and declared his opposition to Tia Maria. On August 8, Vizcarra was audiotaped speaking against the project.

“On August 9, the National Mining Council suspended for 120 days the license of the Southern Peru Copper Corporation, which was in charge of the construction of the Tía María copper project,” reported El Correo. It then cited Vizcarra’s taped statements in which he claimed agreement with the Arequipa governor, while emphasizing that a “technical” means should be found to get out of the mine deal.

This is the same language used by the businessmen represented by the National Society of Mining, Petroleum and Energy, which issued a brief statement claiming that the Mining Council issued its ruling based on “technical” and “legal” criteria, after evaluating the documents presented against the construction license. No explanation was provided as to what “technical” and “legal” criteria were used.

Tia Maria is the latest in a long series of conflicts between the transnationals and the comuneros – peasants and small farmers. The usual tactic in these struggles has been the blocking of roads and winning the support of the dozens of peasant communities who oppose mining extraction because the roads carrying supplies into and minerals out of the mines pollute rivers and their land, affecting their produce and livestock, and even causing deaths. The Tambo Valley inhabitants’ fears are based on the fact that their agriculture is heavily dependent upon the clean waters of the Tambo River basin.

In early September, miners decided to take their complaints to the capital, Lima. At the time, according to news radio RPP: Workers from dozens of mines (including from Tia Maria) who had been “on an indefinite strike since last week for salary improvements clashed last week with the police in front of the Ministry of Labor main building, which some protesters managed to enter by force. After the riots, 17 miners were arrested and taken to the Jesús Maria district police station.” Back in 2015, three Tia Maria miners and a policeman died in a protest.

Why, after 10 years of feasibility studies by Grupo Mexicano, along with reports on the ecological damage the mine would cause, and the ongoing demonstrations against it, have Vizcarra and his Mining Council now made the decision to approve it, reversing the position taken by the president less than three months ago?

The fundamental reason for the president’s ditching his “populist” attempt to posture as a friend of the comuneros is the deepening crisis of the economy of Peru and the region.

Mineral export revenues—the principal engine of Peru’s national economy—have dropped significantly, in large part as a result of the China-US trade war. Secondly, economic stagnation and a brutal increase in social inequality have created political instability . With the mass uprisings of the Chilean and Ecuadorean masses—on Peru’s southern and northern borders—there are growing expressions of fear within the bourgeois media of “contagion” leading to similar upheavals in Peru itself.

As result of these interrelated economic and social processes, foreign investors are pulling out of Peru. And, for the same reason, according to the business newspaper Gestionˆ, Peruvian multimillionaires are massively taking their money out of the country and investing it in overseas financial funds.

President Vizcarra’s shift on Tia Maria is bound up with the government’s attempt to stem this tide of capital flight and win back the favor of the transnational corporations and banks. The deputy minister of Mines recently said that the government is “focused on winning [by] 2021 mining projects [worth] up to US$ 21 billion in investments.” Thus, Vizcarra’s job is cut out for him: provide more profitable conditions for the transnationals while suppressing social opposition.

Such a policy will inevitably lead to a resurgence of class struggle under conditions in which the entire political establishment in Peru has been discredited by a massive corruption scandal.

This hatred for the government found expression on September 30, when President Vizcarra dissolved the Legislature—winning a slight gain in popularity. But the anger is directed at the corrupt executive and judicial branches of the government as well. The most popular slogan in demonstrations by students, public employees, teachers and health care workers has been “¡Que se vayan todos!”—Down with all of them!

As a result of an all-encompassing corruption scandal centered on bribes and kickbacks on contracts with the Brazilian mega construction company Odebrecht, the last five presidents are in jail, under house arrest or in exile. One of them, the Aprista Alan Garcia Perez, committed suicide minutes before he was to be arrested. Also, the last two Lima mayors are implicated in taking money from the company.

Democrats, media silent over identification of CIA “whistleblower”

Patrick Martin

Right-wing media sources have identified 33-year-old Eric Ciaramella, a career CIA analyst specializing in Ukraine and Russia, as the official who filed the “whistleblower” complaint that has become the pretext for House Democrats to launch an impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

Ciaramella was assigned to work at the White House in 2015, during the second term of Barack Obama, where he worked under then National Security Advisor Susan Rice as Ukraine director. He was held over for a time in the Trump administration, and eventually became personal aide to National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster before being sent back to the CIA in mid-2017, allegedly under suspicion of leaking anti-Trump material to the media.

The influential pro-Republican web site Real Clear Politics (RCP) published a report October 30 by its Real Clear Investigations unit, which named Ciaramella, a Connecticut-born registered Democrat. The story quoted former CIA analyst and Trump aide Fred Fleitz to this effect: “Everyone knows who he is. CNN knows. The Washington Post knows. The New York Times knows. Congress knows. The White House knows. Even the president knows who he is.”

The attorneys for the whistleblower, Mark Zaid and Andrew Bakaj, issued a statement declaring they could “neither confirm nor deny” that Ciaramella was their client. This is language virtually identical to that employed by the intelligence agencies themselves when one of their agents or informants has been identified publicly by the media or another government.

The RCP identification came in the course of a week when Republican congressmen appeared to be making special efforts to elicit information about the whistleblower from every witness who appeared behind closed doors before the House Intelligence Committee. There were several occasions where the Democratic chair of the committee, Adam Schiff, directed witnesses not to answer questions that might assist in exposing the whistleblower’s identity.

Ciaramella’s name has been widely publicized by right-wing publications like the Washington Examiner, ultra-right talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, and numerous Republican senators and congressmen. Senator Rand Paul, for example, tweeted the CIA analyst’s name to 2.4 million followers on Twitter.

Without further evidence, it is not completely certain that Ciaramella was the official who filed the complaint against Trump with Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.

His biography, as reported in the media, definitely conforms to the profile of the whistleblower: the son of a Hartford bank executive, he majored in East European studies at Yale, went on to postgraduate work in that field in Harvard, worked briefly at the World Bank, and then joined the CIA. He speaks Russian, Ukrainian and Arabic, and was sent by CIA Director John Brennan to work on the Ukraine desk in the White House, where he accompanied Vice President Joe Biden on several trips to Ukraine.

There is, moreover, a striking connection to the House Intelligence Committee. Two people who worked with Ciaramella at the National Security Council during that period, Abigail Grace and Sean Misko, now work at the House Intelligence Committee under Schiff. Misko was reportedly hired by Schiff in August 2019, the same month that the whistleblower allegedly consulted with “staff” at the committee—not directly with Schiff—before filing his complaint with the inspector general.

A possible reason for caution in accepting the identification of the whistleblower as conclusive is that neither President Trump himself, nor his cheering section at Fox News, have yet made any reference to Ciaramella by name. Trump has confined himself to tweeting demands that the whistleblower come forward to testify in public, along with denunciations of him as a liar and Democratic partisan, but gave no indication that he had been identified.

But it is remarkable—and tends to reinforce the likelihood that Ciaramella is the whistleblower—that the anti-Trump media, including the bulk of the corporate-controlled newspapers and networks aligned with the Democratic Party and pushing the impeachment narrative, have refused to publish his name.

Publications like the New York Times and Washington Post have not even reported the fact that right-wing pro-Trump outlets claim to have discovered the identity of the whistleblower. Nor was this fact referred to on any of the five Sunday television interview programs on ABC, NBC, CNN, CBS and Fox.

The entire corporate media—including Fox in this case—is honoring the standing demand of the intelligence apparatus that its agents and operatives never be publicly named, even refusing to inform the American people that there are allegations, whether true or not, against a particular intelligence agent.

There was at least one sign that the campaign to expose the anonymous whistleblower was having an impact on the whistleblower himself. His attorney, Mark Zaid, said Sunday that his client was willing to answer in writing questions submitted directly by Republican congressmen, without going through Schiff or the Democratic majority on the House Intelligence Committee. This would be a less restrictive procedure than that adopted by the House of Representatives in a resolution passed Thursday morning, which gives Schiff effectively full control over the questioning.

The utter subservience of the congressional Democrats to the military-intelligence apparatus was summed up by Representative Peter Welch of Vermont, a member of the Intelligence Committee. “It turns out the deep state are deeply committed people in the military, deeply committed people in the intelligence community, deeply committed people in the State Department,” he told the Washington Post. “They’re coming forward to advocate for enduring democratic values.”

This formulation elevates the CIA, the greatest enemy of political liberty on the planet, organizer of military coups, assassinations and torture around the world for more than 70 years, to the status of guarantor of democratic rights for the American people. No more reactionary and, literally, counterrevolutionary, political perspective can be imagined.

According to the Real Clear Politics report that identified Ciaramella, this groveling before the CIA characterizes all the actions of the Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee. At several points, the agent’s name was mentioned in questions of witnesses, and these references are to be redacted before the transcripts of the committee hearings are made public this week or next.

The floating of Ciaramella’s name sets the stage for further political convulsions in Washington. The CIA itself could bring legal action against the publications and web sites that have identified him, although most legal protections apply only to covert agents, not analysts.

The House Intelligence Committee has scheduled a full round of closed-door hearings, perhaps its last week of such endeavors, but it is not clear whether the witnesses it has subpoenaed will appear. These include John Eisenberg, the White House attorney for the National Security Council, and former National Security Advisor John Bolton, now viewed by the Democrats as a potential “smoking gun” witness against Trump on the allegations that he withheld military aid from Ukraine to force that government to launch a public investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden.

DAAD Master’s Scholarships in German Studies 2020 for Sub-Saharan African Students

Application Deadline: To be Announced

Eligible Countries: Students from countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

To be Taken at (Country): Nairobi, Kenya and Germany

Type: Masters

Eligibility:
(i) A Bachelor’s degree in Germanistik or DaF (in the major or minor)
(ii) Language proficiency (German language skills) at level B2 

Selection & Criteria:

• An independent selection committee consisting of experts in the field will review applications.
• After a preselection the best candidates will be invited to submit their application via the DAAD portal An interview by DAAD Office Nairobi (if applicable via video or telephone conference) for final selection will follow.
• Criteria for selection are academic achievements, proficiency in German and a convincing explanation of professional and personal reasons for choosing this study programme.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Participation at the two-year Master’s Programme in German Studies at the University of Nairobi incl. a research stay beginning of the second year at one of the German partner universities (TU Dresden, U Bielefeld, U Bayreuth or U Oldenburg)

• Monthly stipend of 240 Euros (for Kenyans) or
• Monthly stipend of 380 Euros (for Non-Kenyans)
• University fees
• Annual research allowance
• Insurance (only for Non-Kenyans)
• Travel allowance (only for Non-Kenyans)

Duration of Award:

• 24 months altogether, to start on 1st October every even year.
• In the first instance, an award of 12 months is granted, a renewal of another 12 months can be applied for at a later date.

How to Apply: Only students who are admitted to the Master’s programme may apply for a DAAD scholarship. Application for admission is done online: https://application.uonbi.ac.ke/index.php/CourseApplication/viewdetailslogin?deg_code=C531

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Global Fund for Women (GFW) Adolescent Girls Advisory Council: Call for Applications 2019

Application Deadline: 25th November 2019

Eligible Countries: Countries in Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

About the Award: Global Fund for Women is a global feminist fund that envisions a world where every woman and girl is strong safe, powerful, and heard. No exceptions.
We are a global champion for the rights of women and girls, using grant-making and advocacy to propel global movements for girls’ and women’s rights.  
Today, Global Fund for Women wants to ensure that the needs, ideas and solutions of girls – cis, transgender and gender non-conforming – are at the center of our work and governance. We firmly believe that girls are experts of their own lives and who best to guide and shape our work than girls themselves! 
The Adolescent Girl Advisory Council will play a critical role in finding, funding and amplifying girl-led groups and expanding their leadership, activism and movement building. 

Type: Grant

Eligibility: Are you:

• From the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa and 10 to 17 years old?
• A young feminist, who believes in a world where everyone should be treated equally and fairly, a world where girls’ and women’s rights matter, are respected and upheld? 
• Committed and passionate about social justice? 
• Ready to use your voice and take action to bring about change? 
• Willing to be part of the Adolescent Girls Advisory Council for a minimum period of two (2) years? 

Then Global Fund for Women wants to hear from you! 

Number of Awards: 9

Value of Award: As a member of the Adolescent Girls Advisory Council, your voice and ideas count!
Global Fund for Women wants to listen to you and, together, give adolescent girls around the world the support they need to become leaders and change-makers. 
You can expect to: 

• Share your knowledge, experience and give advice on issues related to girls and the region you represent (girl and regional expertise); 
• Give ideas and recommendations to the Adolescent Girls’ Rights team to help develop the program goal, key priorities, and ways to measure change (co-develop the Adolescent Girls’ Rights Program Strategy); 
• Identify groups and initiatives that are led by girls and that need support (financial, technical or other) (map girl-led groups); 
• Read proposals, discuss and provide suggestions for groups to fund together with Global Fund for Women staff (participate in Global Fund for Women’s grantmaking process); 
• Participate in key meetings and events to ensure girls’ voices are heard (attend key convenings). 

Duration of Award: 2 years

How to Apply: Click here to complete the application form in English.
This is a two-round selection process. 

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Rondine Cittadella della Pace Program in Conflict Resolution 2020 (Fully-funded to Italy)

Application Deadline: 24th November 2019

Eligible Countries: Countries in Middle East, Balkans and South Caucus regions; Mali, Russia, Colombia.

To be taken at (country): Italy

About the Award: Are you ready to meet your enemy? To learn the art of dialogue? To learn how to transform the conflict into an opportunity and generate social change? The World House is the experience that you are looking for!

Type: Training

Eligibility: Participants will be selected among candidates showing the following characteristics:

• Ages between 21-28;
• Sensibility and readiness to work on the topics of conflict of the country of origin and conflicts in general;
• Predisposition to leadership;
• Predisposition to public speaking and communication;
• Predisposition to team and group work and active listening;
• Predisposition to taking on roles of responsibility;
• Predisposition to team building and active involvement;
• Predisposition to civic engagement and volunteering;
• Predisposition to entrepreneurship and Social Innovation
• Project-oriented attitude, aiming at implementing social projects upon return to his/her home country;
• Knowledge about civil society and the non-profit sector;
• Sensibility about global sustainability or at least about some of the following topics: climate change, cooperation, welfare, civil and social economy;
• A wish to deal with conflict management, during his/her own personal professional growth

Please, note that Italian is the official language for communication and activities in Rondine. For this reason, the program starts with a 3-month intensive course of Italian language and culture. Knowledge of English is also required for a profitable participation in the Rondine training.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: During the whole period of the participant’s stay, the association takes responsibility of covering the following costs:

• Cost of the training activities in Rondine
• Cost of the lodging
• Cost of the academic or vocational training (enrolment fees, learning material, transportation)

A more detailed description of the economic aspects will be part of the Learning and Participation Agreement that the candidate will be asked to read and sign before the start of the trial period.

Duration of Programme: Two-year training program (July 2020 to June 2022)

How to Apply: Those interested in participating in the Rondine program must send the documents mentioned below before the Deadline to the following email addresses: international@rondine.org, or international.rondine@gmail.com
The required documents are:

• Application form in Link below
• Copy of passport, valid at least until June 2020;
• Motivation letter;
• Curriculum Vitae or Resume;
• Copy of the last qualification or certificate, diploma or degree earned;
• The social impact project proposal that the candidate is planning to develop during his/her experience at Rondine and to implement upon return to his/her home country. The project should include the following points:
• ◦Social and geographical contest in which the project will be developed;
• ◦Objectives of the project;◦Expected activities;◦Methodologies to be used;
• ◦Expected time-frame;
• At least one recommendation letter, signed by a professor from the student’s university, or a supervisor of a non-profit or association in which the candidate is active;
• Copy of the driving license;
• Notice on personal data protection (hand-signed

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

World Bank SDGs &Her 2020 Competition for Women Entrepreneurs (Funded to New York, USA)

Application Deadline: 10th January 2020,

Eligible Countries: International

To Be Taken At (Country): Washington D.C, USA

Type: Contest

Eligibility: To be eligible you must:

• be a woman owner of a business that has been in operation for at least 3 years
• own a micro-enterprise, with at least 1 and no more than 9 employees
• have a loan eligibility of under USD $10,000 or annual sales of under USD $100,000

Selection Criteria: Entries will be screened by a university partner and then judged by an expert panel. Judges will determine the winners based on the impact on the SDGs, vision and purpose, and clarity of the entries.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award:The top winners will be recognized in April 2020 at an event on the margins of the 2020 World Bank Group-IMF Spring Meetings in Washington D.C. The stories of the winning women entrepreneur (and many other notable entries) will be shared through partners’ social media and websites.

How to Apply: Applicants complete a short online template, describing their work and linking their initiative/product to 1 or more SDGs.

Visit the Programme Webpage for Details