Spain participated in failed 2019 US coup in Venezuela

Alejandro López

Reports show that Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government was at the forefront of the US-orchestrated coup attempt in Venezuela last May.

This would be the second time the Socialist Party (PSOE)-led government, now backed by Podemos, tried to back a US-led coup in the oil-rich South American country in little over a year. Last year, Madrid supported the Trump administration’s abortive coup led by right winger Juan Guaidó, a US-financed political non-entity, who called for the military to rise up and overthrow the government of Nicolás Maduro. At that time, Spain recognised Guaidó as “interim president.”

Venezuela’s vice president of Communication, Culture and Tourism, Jorge Rodríguez, denounced Spain last week for using its embassy in Caracas to plot coups. From Miraflores Palace, he referred to a June 26 article by the US daily the Wall Street Journal. It identifies Leopoldo López—the leader of the far-right Voluntad Popular Party, who has been in asylum at the Spanish embassy in Caracas for over a year—as one of the chief instigators in planning the failed “Operation Gideon.”

The Journal recounts how López held meetings to discuss the coup. The coup was launched in early May, spearheaded once again by self-proclaimed “president” Guaidó, using CIA mercenaries trained in Colombia, in collaboration with the US military and intelligence agencies, to infiltrate Venezuela by sea and remove Maduro from office. It took place at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the deadly virus spread across the world, killing hundreds of thousands.

The plan called for entering Venezuela by boat on May 3-4, 2020 to seize Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetia, snatch Maduro and other top figures in his government, and spirit them out of the country. Maduro has charged that the mercenaries’ objective was a regime change operation aiming to assassinate him.

Rodríguez said López and Guaidó met with up to six private security companies to seal a contract to illegally topple the Venezuelan government. He asked: “Do the ambassador and the government of Spain know that Leopoldo López has made and continues to make repeated video-conferences with the sole purpose of insisting on his plans to assassinate President Nicolás Maduro? […] Do the ambassador […] and the Government of Spain agree to these meetings that have taken place at the headquarters of his residence?”

The answer, obviously, is “yes.” López is a scion of one of Venezuela’s most aristocratic families, with close connections with right-wing regimes in South America and the US State Department. López started planning coups in the 2000s, when he participated in the short-lived coup that briefly ousted Hugo Chávez in 2002 – a coup backed by Spain’s right-wing Popular Party (PP) government at the time. López was also convicted of organising a violent campaign in 2014 known as “La Salida” (the exit), aimed at overthrowing Maduro.

In 2019, López was “freed” from house arrest by Guidó and a dozen military officers during another failed coup in April 2019. When it was clear the operation was failing, López sought asylum in the Spanish embassy in Caracas.

López’s role in coups attempts against the Venezuelan government is so well known that sections of the right-wing opposition have tried to distance themselves from him to give themselves a more “democratic” veneer. Madrid knew perfectly well when López entered its embassy that Spain was hosting a conspirator. Madrid has had close connections with him at least since 2002.

Madrid’s support for regime change in Venezuela exposes fraudulent claims that the foreign policy of Podemos and the PSOE is based on human rights. In fact, Madrid’s interests are determined by its repeated attempts to carve out a new role for Spanish imperialism in its former South American colonies. It fears Spain is falling behind its imperialist rivals in the new redivision of the world.

These ruthless regime change operations seek to advance its imperialist interests. According to the Spanish Economic and Commercial Office in Caracas, Spain is in seventh place on the list of destinations for Venezuelan exports. Statistics from the Central Bank of Venezuela also indicate that in the last ten years, Spain has been the second investor in the country after the Netherlands, with investments practically stagnant since 2017 due to the economic strangulation of Venezuela by Washington.

Currently, a hundred Spanish corporations operate in Venezuela, often present in strategic sectors. After the purchase of Telcel, Telefónica is the second largest mobile phone operator in the country. Spanish banks, construction firms, publishing houses, tourism companies, insurers and energy company Repsol remain in Venezuela despite difficulties posed by US sanctions.

These interests underlie the silence of Podemos in response to the Venezuelan government’s accusations. This silence is even more extraordinary given that the chief founders of Podemos—Pablo Iglesias, Juan Carlos Monedero, Iñigo Errejón and others—worked through their Center for Political and Social Studies Foundation (Fundación Centro de Estudios Políticos y Sociales -CEPS) as advisers of the Chavez regime, and other so-called Pink Tide governments in South America.

According to the Venezuelan Ministry of Culture, the CEPS Foundation received $7 million for its advising services for the government of Hugo Chávez.

While he is frequently attacked by right-wing forces as a Chavista agent, Iglesias has made clear he is aligned with the Spanish ruling class against Venezuela. In December 2018, months after Podemos orchestrated the installation of a minority PSOE government, Iglesias said, in what amounted to a public repudiation of his previous criticisms of the imperialist oppression of Venezuela: “I do not share some of the things I said in the past.”

“The political and economic situation in Venezuela is dire,” he said, without making any reference to the US economic strangulation of the country. The Podemos leader added that “rectifying politics is fine" and that “there are things in which I was wrong. … What I said a few years ago does not correspond to what I think now”.

What had changed was the he was just one step from being part of a PSOE-led government. A year later, he became Deputy Prime Minister of the PSOE-Podemos government.

For years, “left populist” representatives of the affluent middle class, like Iglesias, promoted bourgeois nationalism in Latin America—Lula in Brazil, Chavez in Venezuela, and Evo Morales in Bolivia—as the alternative to building a revolutionary leadership within the working class. They used this to market themselves as “left” while they sought to make their way into government.

In the words of Podemos co-founder Iñigo Errejón in Podemos in the Name of the People (2016) co-written with populist theoretician Chantal Mouffe, a decisive element to his thinking was the “exposure to the popular constituent processes of political transformation and state reform in Latin America.”

Errejón continued explaining his experience working for the Bolivian government: “I thus lived through a war of position inside the state, which I witnessed within. ... I also learned to appreciate how much effort conquests take, and how to build irreversibility, which from then on would become a central object of intellectual preoccupation for me. I remember discovering a statistician in Bolivia who showed that, since the beginning of the process of political change, and as a result of better access to milk, children now weighed more. And I remember thinking that perhaps this wasn’t quite socialism, but that only a fool would dismiss the achievement like that...”

Five years later, since the book’s original publication in Spanish, the Pink Tide has flowed out. Its own austerity and pro-corporate policies paved the way for a sharp shift to the right, including the rise to power of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.

This has also exposed the pro-imperialist policies of Podemos. Errejón’s “irreversibility” and “not quite socialism” paved the way for the US-backed coup in 2019 against Morales, who fled the country, abandoning the population to fight the coup in the streets. Morales is now attempting to reach a grand national agreement with the coup leaders. Podemos, for its part, now stands exposed as a political tool of imperialism’s bloody foreign policy in Latin America.

Naming new French prime minister, Macron coordinates austerity with unions

Alex Lantier

Yesterday, in a perfunctory ceremony reshuffling the government, French President Emmanuel Macron named Jean Castex to replace Édouard Philippe as prime minister. Castex, a member of the right-wing The Republicans (LR) party close to former President Nicolas Sarkozy, is to name a ministerial cabinet and give a political address next week.

While the government reshuffle does not modify one iota the military-police diktat and antiworker program of the Macron government, it is significant as a warning to the working class. Castex, whom Libération described as a “technocrat in the Matignon” prime ministerial palace, made his career by cutting spending and boosting profit levels in public hospitals in close coordination with the unions, before supervising Macron’s ending of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Castex is being brought in to coordinate closely with the trade unions the austerity policies that Macron and the banks will impose in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As workers around the world launch strikes and protests against mass sackings and bank bailouts imposed by the ruling class, Castex’s nomination as prime minister is a further warning: the only way forward for these struggles is to organize them independently of the trade union bureaucracy. The French unions, which have long postured as a “radical” and “class struggle” variants of their corrupt cousins in America or Germany, are also totally integrated into the state machine.

The historic failure of the capitalist governments of America and Europe to promptly stop the COVID-19 pandemic is setting the stage for an international offensive of the bourgeoisie against the working class. While trillions of euros in public funds are being handed over in bailouts to the banks and major corporations, workers are being told to pay for the crisis. In France alone, over 11 million workers are on short-time work, and over 400,000 have lost their jobs even before the latest wave of mass layoffs at firms like Airbus, Air France, and Renault.

These ruthless, socially-destructive policies of the financial aristocracy are expected to trigger the deepest economic crisis since the 1930s Great Depression, even worse than the 2008 crash. Last month Macron announced in a speech that his government would accept mass layoffs and corporate bankruptcies, apparently of smaller businesses that the banks—flush with a €1.25 trillion bailout of public funds from the European Central Bank—want to let go to the wall.

Before asking Édouard Philippe to resign on Thursday night, Macron granted an interview to a consortium of regional papers, including Ouest France, Midi Libre, and the Courrier Picard. He said, “I have been engaged in very broad discussions over several weeks, in order to bring together all the living forces of the nation and face the next steps in the crisis. The back-to-school period will be extremely difficult, and we must prepare for it.”

After publicly boasting last month that he had worked out with Berlin €500 billion in pledges of state bailouts to major corporations, he stressed there would be massive job losses. He said, “I will be very clear with you: mass layoffs are occurring, and there will be more. The health crisis has wiped off five percent of the national wealth and halted entire industries. This will necessarily have an effect on businesses.”

Macron lamely tried to present himself as listening to popular demands, including the rise in vote for Green candidates in last weekend’s local elections and global protests against the police murder of George Floyd in the US city of Minneapolis. Calling for an “economic, social and environmental reconstruction of our country,” he warned, “A key issue is ensuring equality of opportunity. We have not done enough. You see it when some of our youth say, ‘If you have this skin color or first name, you do not have the same place in the Republic.’”

Macron also said he could spend €6 billion to raise French healthcare workers’ salaries, which are among the lowest in Europe.

He went on to make clear, however, that he would in fact wage a ruthless class war against the workers. He said workers would have to accept lengthening the workweek and the length of time they need to pay into the state pension scheme in order to retire on a full pension. At the same time, he insisted it would be a “profound error” to increase taxes on the wealthy, which he slashed at the beginning of his presidency, and that he would not do it.

After negotiating a bailout package with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Macron insisted that the none of the European funds being handed out would go to increase workers’ living standards and save jobs. With a straight face, he insisted that it would be “unfair” if these funds did not all go to the banks and corporations, saying, “We are agreeing to issue debt together. What would be unfair would be if we financed spending on social benefits and wage increases with debt.”

Macron said the task of the incoming government would be to design, coordinate and implement this war on the working class in intimate collaboration with the “social partners,” that is, with the trade unions and business groups. He said, “I will ask the government to rapidly engage deep-going negotiations this summer, in a responsible dialogue with the trade unions on the question of balanced budgets.”

In short, the incoming government is tasked with the most parasitic defense of the privileges of the French ruling class since the feudal nobility refused to pay taxes at the 1789 Estates General; this led the budget crisis precipitated by France’s participation in America’s war for independence to erupt into the French Revolution. After two years of mounting strikes, youth and “yellow vest” protests, the working class is on a collision course with the Castex government.

Significantly, however, both Castex and the union bureaucracy have indicated that they support the broad outlines of the policy laid out by Macron. In the run-up to a prime-time interview on national television, Castex pledged on Twitter to work closely with the unions. “Before giving solutions, I want them to be discussed with the Nation, with the social partners, in every region. We will associate them as closely as possible to the search for solutions and a new social pact.”

Right-wing politician Xavier Bertrand, formerly Sarkozy’s labor minister, replied, “I know and appreciate Jean Castex’s qualities as a servant of the state. They will be indispensable in the difficult times we are about to live through.”

In his colorless television interview, Castex again called for “negotiations” with the “social partners” on his policies and also for a more “rigorous” social policy. At the same time, he signaled a nationalist crackdown on immigrants, especially Muslims, insisting he would not tolerate “certain types of behavior, deviances, self-isolations, or communitarian outlooks.”

At the same time, the trade unions—who are mobilizing no strikes against the mass layoffs now being imposed—signaled their support for the new prime minister. Castex “worked very closely to ensure the trains continued running, while train drivers’ pensions were cut, and since has remained a close friend of former General Confederation of Labor (CGT) union leader Bernard Thibault,” the financial daily Les Échos reported.

François Aubart of the Hospital Medical Coordination union hailed Castex’s intervention to cut costs and raise profit levels in public hospitals, speaking to Libération, “When we spoke to him in 2005-2006 on the hospital crisis, he listened to us. He is a man who does not change based on what his position is. He wants to drive change.”

These remarks point not only to the illegitimacy of the policies of European governments, but to the fraud of the unions’ claims to represent working people.

The first half of 2020 has been dominated by the stunning medical incompetence and economic parasitism of the bourgeoisie’s response to the pandemic. The second half of 2020 will see growing resistance by the working class. As US autoworkers form independent committees to impose safe working conditions and oppose speedup and job cuts, the way forward is to take the struggles out of the hands of the unions. Workers must be organized independently in a struggle to defend jobs and living standards by taking back the vast social wealth now being looted by the bourgeoisie.

Zimbabwe nurses strike as economic crisis brings threat of second coup and military dictatorship

Stephan McCoy

Nurses in Zimbabwe have gone on strike for the second time this year, over poverty wages and the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE).

They are being forced to take pay as low as ZW$3,000 (US$59) per month. This is while inflation of 786 percent forces the price of basics—which are now scarce—to skyrocket, as fears of the hyperinflation of a decade ago continue to grow.

The ZANU-PF government promised a US$75 allowance and salary increment of 50 percent to head-off strike action by the nurses but has not given them even this abysmal increase. The nurses unions rejected the deal as inadequate. Speaking to fin24, a nurse said that they had “not yet received the announced package.”

A top civil servant speaking to News Day said, “The position of the civil servants is very clear, government is collecting taxes in US dollars, they collect duties in US dollars, but they don’t want to pay workers in the same.”

The Zimbabwe Nurses Association (Zina), which represents 15,000 nurses, has responded to their members’ discontent and anger by attempting to negotiate with the government and shut down the strike. Last year, Zina President Enock Dongo attempted to posture as being on the side of the nurses, but proclaimed that there was a “need to give the president a chance”—after the union had called off a strike by nurses the day before it was set to happen. Earlier, Dongo attempted to pit doctors against nurses during the doctors’ strike, stating, “Nurses were at work suffering without resources. Those who were abandoning patients, going on strike... [are] smiling.” Nurses and doctors rejected this attempt to divide them, with both groups of workers striking on June 19.

ZANU-PF youth and the Zimbabwean secret service sought to intimidate nurses at St. Alberts Mission Hospital, Mt. Darwin, after they had informed district medical officer Kelvin Mupunga of their intentions to strike. At least 15 nurses at Victoria Chitepo Hospital were arrested.

Nurses infected by the coronavirus have been abandoned by the government in dilapidated and underfunded quarantine centres. As many as 197 health care workers have been infected and placed in quarantine. Many quarantine centres do not provide food or basic hygiene services. After outrage at these conditions started to surface, the government allowed for lodges and hotels to be used as quarantine areas. The change of venue, however, means nurses are forced to pay for the cost of living in this better accommodation. The dire situation they face is made even worse as skeleton crews left behind during the strike to attend to the sick are becoming infected with COVID-19. At United Bulawayo Hospitals, 68 nurses tested positive for the coronavirus in one day.

The government attempted to undermine the strike by nurses and doctors by hiring more nurses. However, many of the new nurses refuse to work because of low pay and the fear of catching the coronavirus. One male nurse told Times Live, “I was assigned to a COVID-19 centre. I won’t go because my contract stipulates that I have three months to report for duty. This is like being deployed to the war front after training and above all there’s no money.”

As of July 3, Zimbabwe had recorded 617 confirmed coronavirus cases, seven deaths and performed only 65,000 tests. Norman Matara, of the Zimbabwe Association of Human Rights Doctors, warned of an inevitable surge in cases saying, “Previously there was a period that we went through for almost one week without reporting a single case of COVID-19, but that did not mean we were out of the woods yet. With cases of COVID-19 continuing to increase in neighbouring South Africa—and we have people returning home from that country—we should always remain on high alert. It is definitely not time to relax.” The Health Ministry added, “Fourteen cases tested positive for COVID-19 today (Wednesday). These include a returnee from South Africa and 13 local cases who are isolated.”

The Zimbabwean economy is crumbling and facing collapse. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) prediction that the economy is set to contract by 10 percent means that industry will require at least US$1 billion to be “rescued.” The Zimbabwean dollar has collapsed in value against the dollar, trading at US$1 to ZW$83. The haemorrhaging of the national currency is such that the ZW$18 billion economic recovery package (valued at US$720 million when the bank rate was US$1 to ZW$25) has shrunk by 8.3 percent. This meant that by May, when the package was announced, it was only worth $US430 million “at parallel market rates” and is now worth only US$225 million.

Two of the highest denominational notes are unable to buy a loaf of bread valued at ZW$50. According to Bloomberg , the country has US$8 billion in foreign debt. Appeals by Finance Minister Mtuli Ncube to the IMF for US$200 million has only brought US$21 million.

As the dire economic situation worsens, Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government is preparing to confront mounting opposition in the working class through dictatorial forms of rule and the abrogation of democratic rights—even as it is being threatened by the possibility of a coup.

In an unprecedented development following rumours of a coup plot, several generals were forced to call a press conference to say they were not plotting Mnangagwa’s overthrow. Home Affairs Minister Kazembe Kazembe declared, “There is no coup in the making.” However, as the economic crisis intensifies, the impatience of the top military command with Mnangagwa does not rule out such a possibility.

According to Bloomberg , the shutdown of the stock market on June 26 was carried out not by Mnangagwa but by the Joint Operations Command (JOC). It reported, “The JOC includes officials from the military, police and secret service and is the highest body in terms of coordinating state security, though it doesn’t usually pronounce on economic matters.”

The JOC sidelined the country’s top economic leaders to institute the shutdown. Ringisai Chikohomero, an analyst at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, said, “It could be a preemptive move, it could be the generals saying we are in charge. [The military] are the guarantors of the regime: They have a clear stake and key interests.”

Pandemic spirals out of control in South Africa, India, Brazil

Bryan Dyne

The official tallies of daily confirmed coronavirus cases in South Africa, India and Brazil show the pandemic in each country is now spreading exponentially. The three countries have emerged as regional epicenters of the pandemic and they have collectively reported one fifth of the world’s pandemic cases and a sixth of the world’s deaths.

One feature all three countries share is that the number of daily new cases in each has steadily gone up since the coronavirus first emerged. Whatever containment measures that were put in place have collapsed and the pandemic is running rampant through their respective populations.

South Africa continues to have the most coronavirus cases of any African country, with more than 177,000 total cases and just under 3,000 deaths. Both of these figures have more than doubled in the past three weeks.

The explosion of cases and deaths have put a massive strain on the country’s health care system. The pandemic has forced medical centers, such as Cape Town’s Khayelitsha District Hospital, to turn themselves entirely into COVID-19 wards. The head of internal medicine at the hospital, Dr. Ayanda Trevor Mnguni, has been forced to hire outside help to cope with the number of cases.

Dr. Mnguni has also had to hire extra staff on the spot because of a sharp spike in the number of nurses and doctors contracting the virus. In comments to the BBC, Dr. Mnguni noted, “We’ve got a lot of staff who are infected. We’ve had a week where we lost our porters. The following week it was our radiographer. A week after that … our staff from the laboratory.”

He continued, “The majority of our nurses are themselves patients who’ve got diabetes and hypertension, so that puts a huge strain on the system. Also, we’re noticing an explosion of undiagnosed diabetics, who are now being diagnosed as a result of Covid. And that obviously overwhelms our emergency unit.”

Doctors at Khayelitsha are also at times forced to send overflow patients to a sports hall turned emergency coronavirus center run by Médecins Sans Frontières, an organization which has traditionally aided in the fight against HIV/AIDS. In scenes reminiscent of Wuhan, China, in January, a critical lack of supplies, especially oxygen, has meant that the most severe cases are often left to die in favor of those who are predicted to have a better chance of survival.

Similar conditions exist elsewhere in Africa. Egypt trails far behind South Africa in number of cases, standing at 72,700, but exceeds it in deaths, which have risen above 3,200. Egypt itself has seen a relative stabilization of the number of its new daily cases, which currently hover at 1,500. This number is expected to sharply rise now that the country has been reopened for tourism, including the Great Pyramids of Giza.

The number of coronavirus cases in India and South Asia more broadly are significantly higher. India alone has nearly 650,000 confirmed cases and more than 18,600 known deaths. While the country has seen a steady rise in new cases, it also saw a very sharp rise in new deaths, which have doubled in the past three weeks. The spike in deaths is in part the result of revised death tallies submitted from Mumbai and New Delhi, and more are expected as other cities and provinces submit their own death count updates.

The revisions were part of an ongoing effort to accurately count the number of dead, an issue that countries in the developing world as well as the advanced economies have faced. The Financial Times has issued repeated reports that the United Kingdom is missing at least half of coronavirus related deaths from its official tally. Similar studies have been done in the US showing that the number of deaths should be increased by at least 25 percent. Estimates from epidemiologists in India suggest that the true number of dead in the country is double the current estimates.

One of the ways researchers in India have attempted to compare real and reported deaths is by investigating cemeteries and crematoriums. In New Delhi, both report that they have become overwhelmed with bodies in recent months.

Both Pakistan and Bangladesh are facing similar problems, including rising case numbers and death tolls. Pakistan currently has nearly 222,000 reported cases and 4,500 deaths, while Bangladesh has 156,000 cases and 1,900 deaths. Like India, however, there are concerns in both countries that the real casualty estimates are undercounted as coronavirus deaths are mislabeled as cases skyrocket. South Asia as a whole has surged past one million cases and 25,000 known deaths.

Brazil, one of the most devastated countries in the world, is second only to the United States in COVID-19 cases and deaths. Every day it now reports an average of more than 35,000 cases and just under 1,000 deaths. The country has to date reported 1.5 million cases and 62,300 deaths.

As in India, local medical authorities suspect that the actual number of cases in Brazil is much higher than official tallies. The country currently ranks 111th in the world in per capita testing. While it has currently done nearly 3.3 million tests, 47 percent have tested positive. Models of the virus’ spread predict that the number of actual cases in the country may be up to twenty times the official figures.

This has not stopped the economic reopening ordered by President Jair Bolsonaro. Rio de Janeiro, a municipality with a population of 6.7 million, opened restaurants, bars and gyms yesterday. This follows reopening a month ago of car dealerships, home decoration stores, shopping malls and certain public spaces. Since then, the region’s infection rate has increased by 50 percent and its death toll has increased by 70 percent.

Brazil’s native population is among the most vulnerable and have also been heavily impacted. The Xavante territory, which has a population of 22,000 indigenous people, has suffered 16 coronavirus deaths so far. One of the main reasons is that local authorities underestimated the pandemic’s ability to reach the more remote parts of the Amazon and as such did not make plans to send medical personnel to those regions if the virus did emerge.

Another indigenous community, this time in Alto Solimoes, has so far recorded 25 COVID-19 deaths, according to Brazil’s Special Indigenous Health Service. There have been at least 380 deaths and 9,414 infections among the country’s native population.

Millions in the US face catastrophe as federal unemployment relief set to expire amid surging pandemic

Kevin Reed

Tens of millions of Americans who have lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic face financial catastrophe as the federal government moves forward with a plan to end the $600 weekly federal expansion of state unemployment benefits by the end of July.

While the pandemic continues to surge and sets infection records daily—the seven-day rolling average of new COVID-19 infections in the US has now surpassed 50,000—a bipartisan agreement is being worked out in Congress to terminate the federal aid and force workers into destitution or back to work to face sickness and death.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, said that the unemployment benefit that was included in the CARES Act passed in March will not be in the new coronavirus relief bill being planned for a vote in the Senate by the end of July.

Speaking for the interests of the American corporate and financial elite, McConnell said of the $600 benefit that the government should not be “paying people a bonus not to go back to work... And we’re hearing it all over the country that it’s made it harder actually to get people back to work.”

McConnell, who was opposed to the expansion of unemployment payments in the first place, said, “I think it was a mistake,” and that any new bill that included the benefit is “never going to pass the Senate.”

In an interview with Fox Business Network on Wednesday, President Donald Trump backed up McConnell’s view saying that the CARES Act jobless benefit gave Americans “a disincentive to work.”

While the Democrats—knowing full-well that the Republican majority will not approve it—have said they are in favor of an extension of the federal benefit, a deal is being worked out behind the scenes that will tie any new aid to economic conditions in each state or offer some kind of reduced “back to work bonus.”

Whatever the agreement worked out by the end of the month, it is clear that the US political establishment is preparing a new round of government funding that will be doled out to the corporations and stock market while the working class will be cut off from minimal aid as part of the “reopening of the economy,” even as it is projected that daily confirmed coronavirus infections could rise to 100,000 in a matter of weeks.

The consequences of this policy will be devastating for workers who, as some analysts have put it, will fall off a fiscal cliff on July 31. For many individuals, the loss of the $600 federal supplemental benefit will mean that their state-only unemployment checks will drop to $385 per week. One report says that the federal cutoff will reduce benefits for 31 million workers by 61 percent.

Exposing as a fraud the claim that the supplemental benefit is keeping workers from returning to work, new research by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) published on June 29 shows that some 17.6 million workers have no prospect of returning to a job at all.

The EPI report, which came out before the official unemployment numbers for June were released on Wednesday, notes, “Of the 32.5 million workers who are either officially unemployed or otherwise out of work because of the virus, 11.9 million workers, or 7.2% of the workforce, are out of work with no hope of being called back to a prior job.”

To this total, EPI found that, “5.7 million workers, or 3.5% of the workforce, are out of work and expect to get called back to a prior job but likely will not.”

For millions of workers, the termination of the $600 per week benefit will lead to devastating consequences as families are forced to make decisions between feeding themselves or paying for utilities and rent.

Bob Pinnegar, President and CEO of the National Apartment Association told Forbes on Wednesday, “The enhanced unemployment benefits are very important to people, especially those that are in lower paying jobs. They’re really helping them to make ends meet and to be able to put food on the table, to pay their utilities and to pay their rent. The challenge is going to be going forward.”

A massive housing crisis is inevitable as the 120-day federal eviction protection is also set to expire on July 25, at the same time the supplemental unemployment benefits end. Since many rental properties do not qualify for the eviction program to begin with, a large number of families will be thrown out of their homes in August.

A measure of the priorities of the American ruling establishment is the fact that the CARES Act has not addressed the needs of the poorest sections of the population, especially when it comes to food insecurity. A report on Friday in the Hill said, “Congressional stimulus packages passed so far allow states to increase SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits for two months for some, yet the poorest 40 percent of participants, including five million children, have yet to see any benefit increase.”

Data from June 11 through June 23 published by the House Pulse Survey of the US Census Bureau shows that about 11.8 million children live in households that missed a mortgage or rent payment or sought deferment, while 3.9 million children are experiencing COVID-19 induced food shortages.

While Congress and the President Trump are proceeding with an aggressive back-to-work agenda, the reality is that millions of workers are resisting being forced to work under conditions of an expanding pandemic which is just beginning to infect ever broader segments of the population.

Austrian Government OeAD Ernst Mach Grants 2021 for International Researchers

Application Deadline: 1st September 2020

Eligible Field(s):

1. Natural Sciences
2. Technical Sciences
3. Human Medicine, Health Sciences
4. Agricultural Sciences
5. Social Sciences
6. Humanities
7. Arts

Type: Research grants

Eligibility:
Postgraduates
PhD students
PhD holders, post docs

Eligible for application are

• a) postgraduates pursuing a doctoral/PhD programme outside Austria;
• b) postgraduates and post-docs wishing to pursue research in Austria with a view to an academic career and who completed their studies (at a university outside Austria) after September 30th, 2018;
• c) post-docs who are working as lecturers at a university outside Austria.
  Applicants must not have studied/pursued research/pursued academic work in Austria in the last six months before taking up the grant.
• Maximum age: 35 years (born on or after Oct. 1st, 1984).
• Language skills: Very good knowledge of English and/or German
• FAQs: Please check our list of frequently asked questions regarding the application process and eligibility for this grant.

Selection Criteria: Goals:- To promote research cooperation- To promote young academics in the early stages of their scientific career- To establish an effective network of researchers with relations to Austria

Eligible Countries: All except Austria

To be Taken at (Country): Austria

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Supplementary grant, own funds are required

• 1) Monthly grant rate a) for graduates: EUR 1,050 b) for graduates with a PhD degree: EUR 1,150
• 2) Accommodation, health insurance
  • a) It is possible for OeAD scholarship holders to book accommodation (dormitory or apartment) with the OeAD Housing office. The monthly costs are:· monthly rent: roughly EUR 250 to 600 (depending on the amenities)· monthly administrative fee: EUR 18
  • b) OeAD scholarship holders need to have health insurance that is accepted by the Austrian authorities for the duration of their stay in Austria. The OeAD can help with taking out such insurance. The monthly costs can vary, at the moment you should calculate EUR 55 to 200 (depending on your age, scholarship category and state of health).Scholarship holders have to pay the costs for accommodation and insurance themselves.
  • c) Applicants from non-EU/EEA countries who are planning a research stay of more than 6 months: If your monthly costs for accommodation in Austria exceed EUR 300, you may need to provide proof of additional funds to the Austrian residence authority when you apply for your residence permit. This figure may vary depending on your individual costs for health insurance and other liabilities.
• 3) Grant holders do not have to pay tuition fees in Austria. They might have to hand in a request at the rector’s office of their respective host university and demonstrate that they are studying or doing research in the context of transnational EU, national or university mobility programs.
• 4) Scholarship holders from non-European developing countries will also receive a travel costs subsidy of max. EUR 1,000 upon submission of original travel invoices.

Duration of Award: 1 to 9 months

How to Apply: The following documents have to be uploaded with the online application at www.scholarships.at:

• Two letters of recommendation by university lecturers (for these letters of recommendation no specific form is required; they must contain the letterhead, date and signature of the person recommending the applicant and the stamp of the university / department and must not be older than six months at the time of application.)
• Consent of a lecturer at the Austrian target university to supervise the applicant academically
• Scanned copy of your passport (page with the name and photo)
• Scanned copy of your university graduation certificate of your diploma, master, PhD or doctoral studies
• only for PHD-students: confirmation, that proves your participation in a PHD-program at your home university
• only for postdoc-lecturers: confirmation that proves your employment at your home university

General Information:

• Applicants who seek admission to an university in Austria have to contact the institution of their choice directly.
• Short-term grants (1 to 3 months) have a priority in the period from January to June. In other cases problems can arise as regards accommodation. When applying for a short-term grant therefore consideration should be given to applying primarily for the period of January to June.
• The selection process for all grants is competitive, i.e. there is no legal claim to a grant even if all application requirements are fulfilled. The number of grants that will be awarded during one call depends on the quota and/or the available budget. Applicants may apply for several grants at the same time.
• Grant holders must be present at their place of study in Austria to study or conduct their research project.
• Once an application has been rejected, it will not be considered any further within that call. However, it is possible to re-apply for this grant with a revised application in the future.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Austrian Government OeAD Ernst Mach Follow-up Grants 2021 for Developing Countries

Application Deadlines: 

• 1st February 2020
• 1st November, 2020

Eligible Field of Study: Natural Sciences, Technical Sciences, Human Medicine, Health Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, Arts.

About the Award: Applications are open to postdocs who are pursuing research or teaching at a higher education institution/university in a Non-European developing country and who were in receipt of a grant in Austria which was administered by the OeAD-GmbH (formerly ÖAD).
At the time of taking up the grant at least 5 years must have passed since the last scholarship-supported study or research stay in Austria.
Targets
• to promote scientific secondary growth
• to promote scientific cooperation
• to build a sustainable network of academics with relation to Austria

Eligible Countries: See list below

To be taken at (country): Austria

Type: Research Grants PhD

Eligibility:

• Maximum age: 50 years
• For the application deadline February 1, 2020: Born on or after February 1, 1970
• For the application deadline November 1, 2020: Born on or after November 1, 1970
• Applicants must not have studied/pursued research/pursued academic work in Austria in the last six months before taking up the grant.
• Grants in this programme can only be applied for every 5 years

Selecion Criteria: During the selection process the following criteria are examined and assessed:
• Purpose of your stay
• Why did you choose the specific target institution in Austria?
• Added value of the stay for the partner countries concerned (establishment and/or continuation of institutional cooperation)
• Prior teaching and research activities

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Grant: 

• Monthly grant
• Accident and health insurance If necessary.
• Accommodation
• Scholarship holders will receive a travel costs subsidy

Duration of Grant: 1 to 3 months

Eligible Countries: Afghanistan; Algeria; American Samoa; Angola; Antigua and Barbuda; Argentina; Armenia; Azerbaijan; Bangladesh; Belize; Benin; Bhutan; Bolivia; Botswana; Brazil; Burkina Faso; Burundi; Cabo Verde; Cambodia; Cameroon; Central African Republic; Chad; Chile; China; Colombia; Comoros; Congo; Congo – Democratic Republic of the; Cook Islands; Costa Rica; Cote D’Ivoire; Cuba; Djibouti; Dominica; Dominican Republic; Ecuador; Egypt; El Salvador; Equatorial Guinea; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Fiji; Gabon; Gambia; Georgia; Ghana; Grenada; Guatemala; Guinea; Guinea-Bissau; Guyana; Haiti; Honduras; India; Indonesia; Iran – Islamic Republic of; Iraq; Jamaica; Jordan; Kazakhstan; Kenya; Kiribati; Korea – Democratic People’s Republic of; Kyrgyzstan; Lao People’s Democratic Republic; Lebanon; Lesotho; Liberia; Libya; Madagascar; Malawi; Malaysia; Maldives; Mali; Marshall Islands; Mauritania; Mauritius; Mexico; Micronesia – Federated States of; Mongolia; Montserrat; Morocco; Mozambique; Myanmar; Namibia; Nauru; Nepal; Nicaragua; Niger; Nigeria; Niue; Pakistan; Palau; Panama; Papua New Guinea; Paraguay; Peru; Philippines; Rwanda; Saint Helena; Saint Lucia; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Sao Tome and Principe; Senegal; Seychelles; Sierra Leone; Solomon Islands; Somalia; South Africa; South Sudan; Sri Lanka; Sudan; Suriname; Swaziland; Syrian Arab Republic; Tajikistan; Tanzania – United Rebublic of; Thailand; Timor-Leste; Togo; Tokelau; Tonga; Tunisia; Turkmenistan; Tuvalu; Uganda; Uruguay; Uzbekistan; Vanuatu; Venezuela; Viet Nam; Wallis and Futuna; West Bank and Gaza Strip; Yemen; Zambia; Zimbabwe.

How to Apply: Applications must be submitted at “www.scholarships.at“. Only online at www.scholarships.at. A hardcopy application is NOT possible.
The following documents have to be uploaded together with the online application at www.scholarships.at:
• Consent of the academic partner in Austria
• Scan of your passport (page with the name and photo)
• Proof of employment by the home institution
• Curriculum Vitae
• Scan of university graduation certificate of PhD or doctoral studies

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economics – BMWFW

Important Notes: The recipients of grants will get the grant contract (Letter of Award and Letter of Acceptance) from the OeAD-GmbH/ICM. The contract covers the following aspects: Start and end dates of the grant; monthly grant rate; grant payment modalities (including a possible travel cost subsidy); compulsory presence at the place of study; performance record; data protection; repayment requirements.

Yale Drama Series International Prize 2021 for Emerging Playwrights

Application Deadline: 15th August 2020

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Online, USA

Type: Contest

Eligibility: 

1. This contest is restricted to plays written in the English language. Worldwide submissions are accepted.
2. Submissions must be original, unpublished full-length plays written in English. Translations, musicals, adaptations, and children’s plays are not accepted. The Yale Drama Series is intended to support emerging playwrights. Playwrights may win the competition only once.
3. Playwrights may submit only one manuscript per year.
4. Plays that have been professionally produced or published are not eligible. Plays that have had a workshop, reading, or non-professional production or that have been published as an actor’s edition will be considered.
5. Plays may not be under option, commissioned, or scheduled for professional production or publication at the time of submission.
6. Plays must be typed/word-processed, page-numbered, and in standard professional play format.

Terms and Conditions: 

• The Yale Drama Series reserves the right to reject any manuscript for any reason.
• The Yale Drama Series reserves the right of the judge to not choose a winner for any given year of the competition and reserves the right to determine the ineligibility of a winner, in keeping with the spirit of the competition, and based upon the accomplishments of the author.

Selection: The winning play will be selected by the series’ current judge, Paula Vogel.

Value of Program: The winner of this annual competition will be awarded the David Charles Horn Prize of $10,000, publication of their manuscript by Yale University Press, and a staged reading at Lincoln Center’s Claire Tow Theater. The prize and publication are contingent on the playwright’s agreeing to the terms of the publishing agreement.
There is no entry fee.

How to Apply: You can enter the Yale Drama Series Competition in 2 ways:

1. Electronic Submission
2. Hardcopy Submission

It is necessary to go through the application requirements on the Programme Webpage before applying

Visit Programme Webpage for details

Britain’s Disorder and Decline

Brian Cloughley


The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is no longer united, as most recently illustrated by the vastly dissimilar tactics to control the Covid-19 pandemic taken by England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This follows the differences of opinion in each region concerning the disastrous Brexit decision to quit the European Union, as Scotland, for example, strongly supported remaining in the EU, and now 51 percent of Scots have indicated they would vote for independence from Britain — if they were permitted to have a vote on the matter. The citizens of Northern Ireland indicated their preference to remain in the EU by a majority of 56% to 44% and although 52.5 per cent in Wales voted to leave, there has been growing realisation that Brexit is a potential economic disaster, and in June the Welsh government announced that it will campaign for the UK to remain in the EU.

There is no unifying influence being exerted by the central government in London, which is obsessed with severing all ties with the EU.  Indeed it was reported that Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared yet again that the finalisation of Brexit would mark a moment of “national renewal,” after which the UK would be “a great European power, and truly global in our range and ambitions.”

Yet on June 24, when the Guardian newspaper interviewed David Sassoli, the president of the European parliament, who had been video conferencing with Johnson and the presidents of the European commission and European council, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, he said “we are very worried because we don’t see great enthusiasm from the British authorities and we don’t see a strong will to get to an agreement that satisfies all parties.”

The Europeans’ reaction to London’s posture is entirely understandable, because the government of the UK (as we may still refer to it, for convenience) is inflexible concerning the UK’s negotiating stance, which is uncompromisingly superior and appears to stem from the belief that Britain is the more important party and the EU must therefore bend to its will. The government in London ignores the fact that it was the UK that demanded to leave the European Union and that the EU therefore owes it nothing.

Originally, it was possible there could be an extension of the Brexit transition period beyond December 31, 2020, meaning that negotiations could continue until mutually-beneficial compromises were reached, but on June 15 the British side pulled the plug and declined to extend the transition.  The result of that decision is that if there is no agreed solution by the end of this year, there will be a “no-deal” Brexit and all agreements will be annulled.  Unfortunately, it is apparent that the government could not care less about this outcome and that many British citizens are unaware of the consequences, which promise to be calamitous.

The conviction that Britain can be “a great European power” is the base, the essence, of the strange manifestation of national superiority that has led the UK to its present parlous condition.  But it has to be realised by Britain that it is a middle-ranking economic and military “power” whose recent performance concerning control of the Covid-19 crisis has given no cause for optimism.  As The Economist headlined on June 20, “The British state shows how not to respond to a pandemic. It faced difficult circumstances. And has so far failed to rise to them.”  The response to a no-deal Brexit will be equally lamentable.

The Financial Times notes that the UK has “the Brexit delusion of taking back control” but that the European Union had “no significant influence over the UK’s spending on (or policies towards) health, education, housing, pensions, welfare, infrastructure, culture or, for that matter, defence and aid.”  In short, the absurd nationalistic slogans that encouraged the British people to distrust and even hate the European Union had no basis in fact, but were designed specifically as part of the Vote Leave campaign in order to whip up antagonism towards a valuable trading partner.

Independent international analyses have shown that post-Brexit consequences for Britain will be economically damaging.  For example, the RAND Corporation’s assessment is that “The failure of the UK to achieve an open trading and investment with the EU post-Brexit would have negative implications for the UK and EU” and if there is a ‘no-deal’ then “trading under World Trade Organisation rules would reduce [the UK’s] future GDP by around five per cent ten years after Brexit, or $140 billion, compared with EU membership.”  This is fair warning of disaster, one would think, especially when the chief executive of the UK’s Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders told the BBC on June 23 that “It is vitally important that the government achieves its ambition, which is a trade agreement before the end of the year” — but if there is no deal, then UK car manufacturers could not afford to pay import tariffs on foreign components, as the cost would be more than their profit margin.

The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association Fact Sheet is concise in stating that “The impact of a no-deal Brexit on the automobile industry would be potentially catastrophic. There is no other industry that is more tightly integrated than the European automotive industry, with highly complex supply chains stretching across Europe and production relying on ‘just-in-time’ delivery.”  Chaos looms.  And not only in the massive car manufacturing and distribution industry, but right across the board.

The UK publication The Week points out that, for the moment, trade between the UK and EU is tariff-free, “But the Confederation of British Industry predicts that no-deal would mean that 90% of the UK’s goods exports to the EU would be subjected to tariffs.” On June 17 the British Parliament’s research and information service published ‘Statistics on UK-EU trade’ which among other things stated that “the EU is the UK’s largest trading partner. In 2019, UK exports to the EU were £300 billion (43% of all UK exports).”

In spite of the black clouds of impending doom, the government in London continues to ignore the imminent economic catastrophe, and is spending 40 billion pounds (50 billion dollars) on building four Dreadnought nuclear weapons submarines.  It is notable that studies by the independent Nuclear Information Service indicate that the UK defence ministry’s (MOD) estimates are incorrect and that the true cost is in the region of £172 billion, but no matter the number of billions the stark fact is that Britain cannot afford to indulge itself in operating a nuclear weapons force and should concentrate on solving its enormous economic problems.  The country’s government is existing in a world of fantasy in which, for example, the defence minister announced that “wherever I go in the world I find that Britain stands tall.”  He believes that “Brexit has brought us to a moment. A great moment in our history. A moment when we must strengthen our global presence, enhance our lethality, and increase our mass”, which is not only a delusion but a most dangerous military mindset. (And imagine the hysteria if such a policy had been declared in Moscow or Being.)

The British government should concentrate on uniting its own country, engaging with the European Union in order to maintain existing favourable trade agreements, and cancelling the grandiose and preposterously expensive nuclear submarine project.  It owes this to the British people who are watching their country reeling in disorder and facing a dreadful decline.

Profiteering in the Era of COVID-19

Julian Vigo

Several months ago, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) called to end medical profiteering during the recent coronavirus pandemic where the development of drugs, tests, and vaccines will be integral to our getting through this difficult moment in our collective history. While MSF is foreseeing a future inevitability, it is also highlighting what is already happening as many businesses are price-gouging essential products during this crisis.

In the UK the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has recently established a coronavirus task force to crack down on companies that cash in during the outbreak. In fact, the CMA has already contacted traders and online platforms about the inordinate pricing of certain products. In the Philippines, 59 people have been arrested for profiteering and hoarding and in Australia, the government has enacted measures to respond to COVID-19 profiteering with up to five years in jail.

In a moment when freelancers are finding themselves without any clients and most governments are forgetting to consider their economic needs in packages meant to salvage national economies, many are still making money during this pandemic. The kinds of companies thriving are of course those which produce personal protective equipment (PPE) like face masks and gloves as well as the larger corporate structures around these industries. But there are also many businesses thriving at this moment which are not the usual suspects.

Meanwhile, during lockdown many people have sought out ways of staying economically viable while also in search for mental health support. For instance, online therapies to help deal with the stress of 24/7 with partner, kids and/or unbearable flatmates have sent many turning to natural remedies such as cannabis oil, exercise and even sourdough baking. Meanwhile others looked to shore up the damage caused by lockdowns and were conducting online investments in the micro-finance sector boomed in India and where companies providing investment news like LearnBonds started to explode by people suffering the effects of longterm cabin fever. Even New Zealand’s far briefer lockdown fueled cryptocurrency investments. Around the planet as consumers were shifting to online shopping as the safety default and so too were many businesses moving more and more of their sales online. Invariably we will see many studies in the near future that discuss how capitalism was changed by COVID-19.

Among the many fraudsters out to make a quick buck selling masks to healthcare workers at extortionate prices, there have been a few more ethical companies that found themselves surprisingly in need during lockdown. Video conferencing platform Zoom has found itself in high demand internationally as it is has been used by businesses whose workers have had to conference call from their kitchens. Even pet supplier, Chewy, and lesson-to-meal kit company, Blue Apron, were surprised by the upsurge in sales during this crisis. Similarly, there are other business like the bulk packaging manufacturing sector which have not been negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

While many companies are trading ethically, not all are playing fairly. In the past few months, the CMA has found listings on Amazon that have overpriced items such as thermometers sold at almost eight times their normal price and a £3 bottle of disinfectant being sold for £29.99 on eBay. In Florida, one seller was offering fifteen N95 face masks on Amazon for $3,799. Approximately three dozen US states have now enacted anti-gouging laws to protect against these practices during the pandemic, but this raises ethical questions as to why price gouging is ever OK, global pandemic or not.

Many readers might recall that Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, became a household name in 2015 for having changed the price of a life-saving drug, Daraprim, which treats toxoplasmosis, a parasite infection, from $13.50 to $750 a tablet. This drug is primarily needed to save the lives of babies and adults suffering from AIDS. But Turing Pharmaceuticals is hardly unique to the world of price gouging. This is part and parcel of capitalism.

Gerald Posner, author of Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America, recently commented that “Pharmaceutical companies view COVID-19 as a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity,” adding “the worse the pandemic gets, the higher their eventual profit.” In the USA, the Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing (CSRxP) has been “promoting bipartisan, market-based solutions to lower drug prices in America” after research which demonstrates the millions of dollars that the pharmaceutical industry has invested into lobbying, advertising and public relations with the goal of convincing the public that the industry is behaving ethically.

While private industry is fond of claiming that they invested private money into the development, testing, and trials of their drugs, this is often not the case. For instance, during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2002-2003, the United States spent $700 million of taxpayer money on coronavirus research.

Likewise, another possible drug to treat coronavirus, remdesivir, was developed with the help of taxpayer-funded research. Yet if remdesivir turns out to be the solution to COVID-19, then another battle begins since Gilead Sciences, infamous for its price gouging of HIV drug Truvada and Sovaldi, owns the exclusive rights of production to remdesivir. In March, Gilead Sciences was the focus of a public outcry over its monopoly of remdesivir.

In February, 46 members of Congress signed a letter to US president, Donald Trump, asking that COVID-19 vaccines and treatments developed with the support of taxpayer money must be produced without giving an exclusive license to private manufacturers. Think of this as open-access medicine if you will. Meanwhile, the US Health Secretary, Alex Azar, recently stated that he could not guarantee that eventual coronavirus treatments or vaccines would be affordable even though taxpayer money played a large role in their development.

Additionally, the U.S. Department of Justice has added a reporting mechanism on its website in addition to the creation of the COVID-19 Hoarding and Price Gouging Task Force in order to avoid individuals and companies hoarding designated items. This came on the heels of the DOJ having confiscated more than a half a million pieces of medical gear from hoarders who were planning to resell these items at exorbitant prices. The equipment seized included 192,000 N95 face masks, 598,000 medical grade gloves and 130,000 surgical masks. Moreover, the hoarding does not affect only the supplies used to combat the spread of COVID-19 but has been found to prey on the vulnerability of women and girls in Nigeria as now feminine hygiene products have also suffered price gouging according to Plan International.

Now is the time to affirm positive community connections and support those in need of assistance during the global pandemic which will affect each and every one of us in different ways. We are in this together, but it is our choice as to how we engage in this together.