COVID-19 surges in Spain as government pushes reopening of schools

Alejandro López

The COVID-19 virus is resurgent across Spain and Europe. On Sunday the Ministry of Health confirmed 1,525 new COVID-19 cases had been detected in Spain in the last 24 hours. This was 300 more than Saturday’s record-breaking total, the first time daily new cases topped the 1,000 mark since early May, when Spaniards were confined to their homes and even daily walks and exercise were still not allowed.

There are now officially over 500 outbreaks of the virus, though the real number is likely larger. New infections are concentrated in three areas: Aragón, Catalonia and Madrid. However, the incidence of the virus this week has risen in almost all of Spain’s 17 regions. Hundreds of thousands of people in various towns and regions have been recommended to remain at home.

In this resurgence, the average age of the infected are younger than in the spring. It has fallen from 60 in March-April, to 45 for men and 41 for women. Data from the last three weeks show that figure is even lower: 36 and 38, respectively.

The political establishment and the media have blamed the youth for this rise, blaming parties and other social gatherings or nightlife that undermine social distancing for the recent surge. María Jesús Montero, the Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government’s spokeswoman, sent a message last week to “people who are younger, because some of the outbreaks are linked to the behaviour in nightlife venues or places where a large number of people gather.”

However, the main reason for the spread is not risky partying, but the criminal policies of the PSOE-Podemos government.

In May and June, Spain was able to contain the virus due to a strict lockdown imposed to gain control over one of Europe’s worst outbreaks, after mass anger erupted at the slow response and a strike wave in major industries erupted in Italy and throughout Europe.

Spain halted all nonessential activity for two weeks and gradually started deescalating. Instead of using this time to rapidly invest in tracers and mass testing, however, the government started lifting measures only in order to open the economy. The aim was to “save” the tourism season, which represents 12 percent of Spain’s GDP, so the extraction of profits from the working class could continue unabated.

While the rise in infected youth highlights the need for more testing and contact tracing, especially as many seem to be asymptomatic, the government ignored the issue. According to data collected by daily El País from the regional authorities, only 3,500 contact tracers have been hired, though international health authorities recommended Spain hire at least 8,000 to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amid this resurgence, the Spanish political establishment is promoting a campaign to reopen schools across Spain in September—as are Britain, France, Germany and other countries across Europe. Most have been closed since mid-March. This threatens to further escalate the soaring levels of COVID-19 infections.

The return to school is a criminal policy exposing children, teachers, families and neighbourhoods open to serious illness and death. It has nothing to do with concern for children. Teachers and children are being sent into unsafe environments that will become breeding grounds for COVID-19. It is the other side of the coin of the back-to-work policy of the ruling class. The back-to-school entails sending children to be kept in confined spaces so millions of parents can be sent to work in nonessential industries.

A hasty reopening of schools has been singled out as a key factor behind the catastrophic resurgence in South Africa and Israel. Israel had 6,800 students of various ages and teachers in quarantine in early July, just two weeks after the centres reopened. South Africa has closed its schools for four weeks to limit the spread, but will once again reopen.

In Spain, testament to the criminality of this policy is the fact that they have yet to plan the reopening of schools. Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced in parliament that he would call a conference with all the regional premiers at the end of August to finalise the “back to school.”

He said, “We have to meet at the end of August to prepare or finalize, rather, the return to school of our sons and our daughters, I think that is also very important.” Education Minister Isabel Celáa put the whole responsibility on the regions, stating that they “must provide the measures and establish a provision of the spaces that allow the distances to be observed.”

At this stage, the only guidance the government has given for the reopening of schools this September was posted in June. The guidance even goes against the general COVID-19 precautions. Social distancing requirements have been reduced from 2 metres to 1.5 metres, while those aged 10 and younger will not be required to social distance or wear a mask in school. Older children will only need to wear masks when the 1.5-meter distance cannot be maintained.

Recommended class capacity has been set at 15, but could be a maximum as 20. However, due to the EU-backed austerity policies implemented by successive right-wing and Socialist Party-led governments, average class sizes are 25 in primary and 35 in secondary education in Spain.

Educators are also expected to use available areas throughout the school area to ensure the latest safety guidelines can be met, including cafeterias and gyms. Classes will supposedly be aired out after each use and windows in classrooms will need to remain open as long as possible throughout the day, even amid cold weather.

As COVID-19 surges, infected Turkish workers forced back to work

Barış Demir

As coronavirus spreads again in Turkey after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government re-opened the economy on June 1, backed by bourgeois opposition parties like the Republican People’s Party (CHP), businesses are forcing even infected workers to work.

Last week, a canned fish company, Dardanel, in the western city of Çanakkale, forced all workers into its factory for 14 days after more than 40 workers tested positive for coronavirus. According to a Bianet report, “All workers of the factory, including those who were in quarantine in their homes and those on annual leave, were placed in student dormitories. Also, workers diagnosed with Covid-19 were brought to the factory with shuttles and worked.”

“Our psychology deteriorates in the workplace, we cannot breathe in the bands, even going to and from the toilets is a problem. Managers, supervisors always keep an eye on us,” one worker told the daily Evrensel, adding: “Our life is almost hostage. The final decision is already a concrete example of this. They throw us all into the fire so that the boss’s job is not interrupted.”

The company’s move came after the Çanakkale Governorate Provincial Public Hygiene Committee declared: “The personnel of enterprises that operate in a closed system shall be taken to the factory and then to the place they will be isolated.” This decision was approved not only by the office of the governor, but also by city’s CHP mayor.

This reactionary collaboration shows how workers are forced to remain at work under deadly conditions and exposes the anti-working-class character of the middle-class parties and trade unions that lined up behind the CHP as an alternative to Erdoğan. Their focus is not to contain pandemic and save lives, but to restrain growing anger and opposition within the working class and divert it into safe channels—even as the pandemic spreads and living conditions plummet.

News of forced labour in Çanakkale came just a few weeks after the CHP supported a massive attack on the working class in parliament. With CHP votes, the Erdoğan government extended the forced “unpaid leave” process until July 2021 for hundreds of thousands or millions of workers. They have been forced to take unpaid leave, receiving only 1,170 Turkish liras (about US$170) per month from the state unemployment fund. After the pandemic, the number of unemployed rose to over 17 million in Turkey, an all-time record.

The criminal practice in Çanakkale follows a stated project by the Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (MÜSİAD). In May, MÜSİAD announced a project to build “isolated production bases” to avoid stopping production amid this pandemic and continue exploitation of the working class.

Coronavirus reports continue to increase from other factories. In the Vestel factory in Manisa, workers report that there are hundreds of infected employees; seven have already died. This white goods factory employs more than 16,000 workers. It is the largest factory in Turkey and one of the largest in Europe. “Workers continue to work. Everyone is very nervous. Cases are coming out, but there is no quarantine application,” one worker told daily BirGun .

At Uğur Konfeksiyon, a factory in the Istanbul İkitelli organised industrial zone, 96 workers have been reportedly infected within two weeks.

Companies are running rampant, imposing criminal policies on their employees. At the end of June, though 40 workers working in railway construction in the southeastern city of Mardin had been infected in one week, Cengiz Holding threatened workers if they refused to keep working. In May, in the same workplace, 118 workers were fired after they protested against working under unsafe conditions.

Growing reports on positive cases and factory deaths come amid an escalation in the pandemic across Turkey amid the international back-to-work campaign.

As the total number of cases in Turkey reaches 232,000, with more than 5,700 deaths, the proportion of COVID-19 patients in intensive care in Turkey rose from 2 percent on July 1 to nearly 12 percent at the end of July. In this period, the number of active cases fell from around 30,000 to less than 12,000, but the number of patients in intensive care nearly doubled.

Despite these signs of serious spread of COVID-19 disease, the Health Ministry’s official figures remained almost the same. The total daily new cases were between 900 and 1,000 since July 14, and death toll was 15-20.

On July 29, the Turkish Health Ministry stopped announcing figures on intensive care and intubated patients, amid growing suspicion and anger among workers that the government is hiding the true scope of the coronavirus crisis in Turkey so as to keep promoting tourism and extracting profits from workers. As of July 28, there were 1,280 patients in intensive care. This amounts to 11.8 percent of active cases, with 403 patients on ventilators.

There are growing warnings from scientists that the COVID-19 pandemic is spiraling out of control due to a “herd immunity” policy implemented by the government with tacit support from local governments led by so-called opposition parties.

Turkish Medical Association (TTB) official Prof. Sinan Adıyaman said, “They do not want to give the number of patients in intensive care. Because we could make inferences by looking at them. We were dividing the number of active patients into the number of patients in intensive care. We have explained that this proportion is over 10 percent in Turkey but it is around 1.5 percent in the world.”

Prof. Dr. Bengi Başer also attacked the government’s deliberate neglect in a tweet on Monday, stating: “We only use PCR tests for those who show symptoms; so we do it to only 30 percent. … The diagnostic value of the test is 60 percent. … We do not apply tests to those who come from abroad. We also no longer make a test for close contacts of positive cases.” She warned, “Focus on reality, not on numbers.”

In an interview on Monday, Halis Yerlikaya, a TTB official, also declared that the official figures are not true: “On the day of death of 8 patients in one night in Diyarbakır, the number of deaths announced throughout the country was 17.” Warning of a serious spread in many cities, Yerlikaya claimed intensive care units in Diyarbakır, Mardin and Şanlıurfa—the Kurdish-majority cities in the southeast—are already full. The daily number of cases in Diyarbakır or Urfa alone is somewhat more than 300, though the official figure across all of Turkey is barely over 900.

As coronavirus spreads unrestrainedly in Turkey and internationally due to the ruling class’s deadly response to the pandemic, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths, the only way forward for the working class is to intervene independently. Autoworkers in the US, who built rank-and-file safety committees in their factories independent of pro-capitalist trade-unions, show what is can be done to save millions of lives by workers around over the world.

Fascist networks in German police and military issue new death threats

Jan Ritter & Max Linhof

Far-right-wing extremist chat groups involving members of the German military and security apparatus have been publicly exposed over recent days. At the same time, a growing number of threatening e-mails and faxes, almost all signed NSU 2.0, have been sent to left-wing artists, immigrants, politicians, journalists and lawyers. Social Democrat leader Saskia Esken recently received a death threat signed NSU 2.0. Many of the threats contain personal information about those targeted that is not publicly available. In at least three cases, the data was accessed from police computers.

The best-known case is of the lawyer Seda Basay-Yildiz, whose secret address was accessed on a police computer in Frankfurt. The lawyer, who represented some of the victims of the far-right National Socialist Underground (NSU) terrorist group, received a death threat several days later signed NSU 2.0.

Der Spiegel reported on July 29 that the police officer whose computer was used to access the data had not been seriously investigated, because another officer could have logged on to her computer with a password displayed nearby. On this basis, she was not initially considered a suspect. However, after officers found out that she was an active participant in a right-wing extremist chat group, they were finally compelled to launch an investigation against her.

The far-right group “Itiotentreff” was almost exclusively made up of police officers in the state of Hesse. A total of 102 pictures, caricatures and messages were shared, of which 40 were deemed to be relevant to the investigation by the state prosecutor. Group members made fun of disabled people, survivors of concentration camps, black people and Jews. The messages showing Alan Kurdi, the Syrian refugee child who drowned in 2015, were especially inhumane. “Whoever finds it can keep it” was written beneath the picture of his lifeless body on a Turkish beach.

The chat group had an openly fascistic character and aimed to serve as a platform for sharing right-wing extremist material and possibly planning acts of violence, apparently all under the protection of the security agencies and local politicians from the government parties.

One of the group’s members lived in 2018 in Kirtorf, a stronghold of the far-right that has played host to several right-wing extremist major events since the turn of the century. In addition, a search of the home of another police officer in Kirtorf in late 2018 uncovered a collection of Nazi memorabilia that investigators described as a “Nazi museum.” The mayor of Kirtorf at the time, Ulrich Künz (Christian Democrats), justified the find by saying that it is normal for people to collect historical material. He described the Nazi memorabilia collector and his brother, who was also a police officer in Hesse, as “nice guys, friendly, very integrated into clubs and associations.”

This is just one example of the building up of far-right structures within the state apparatus. Across Germany, new far-right networks are continually being exposed, from “Revolution Chemnitz” in Saxony, to the chat group led by the special forces soldier Andre S., better known as “Hannibal,” and the nationwide far-right Telegram chat group #WIR.

On July 23, Die Zeit published extracts from these chats in an article headlined “Soldiers who are planning a revolt.” The author and right-wing extremist expert Christian Fuchs wrote that among #WIR’s members, which at times totalled around 240, were “several soldiers, reservists and army veterans.”

According to his research, several right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi members of the army are active in the #WIR chat group. One member was Hartmut T., who holds at least the rank of sergeant in the military. In the Telegram group, he has been presented a series of awards for parachuting and individual bravery during his 12-year career as a soldier, is stationed at an army air base in the Lüneburg region and is now a member of the rapid response division. This unit is part of the same division as the special forces (KSK), which was so heavily infiltrated by right-wing extremists that Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer felt compelled to restructure the force last month.

Like the network organised by Hannibal in the KSK, the #WIR network also planned to murder left-wing figures and establish a fascist regime in Germany on “Day X.”

Hartmut T. wrote in the #WIR chat, among other things, “Can you add me to the group Antifa Reconnaissance? I want to know who my enemies are...so I can take action against these terrorists.” Another contribution cited by Die Zeit underscores just how concrete the plans for a far-right revolt were. “Patriots” must now “keep themselves safe” so that “when the first wave is over with, we can rebuild our country,” wrote T. in November 2019.

The author of the article in Die Zeit adds, “These statements were made in November 2019, so the ‘wave’ has nothing to do with the coronavirus; it probably refers to the initial phase after a putsch.”

The material presented by Fuchs leaves no doubt about the group’s fascist outlook, its close ties to the German army and other European militaries, and its plans for a violent putsch. “Anti-Semitic slogans and racist violent fantasies” were among the messages shared, as well as “free social national.”

Andreas E., another group member, was, “according to his own admission,” active for five years in the French Foreign Legion in French Guyana, Congo and Papua New Guinea.

Another member of the group was Heiko Herbert G., who according to Fuchs is a member of the military reserves, Lower Saxony group. In December 2019, he directed a threat to anti-fascists, “It’s not enough just to slap those guys in the face! I don’t want to write any more about it.”

The plans were apparently far advanced, and links had already been established with other far-right groups. “My preparations are complete. Own weapons, fighting gear, civil war,” wrote Heiko Herbert G. in the chat group. He has everything “up to calibre 38–45.” In addition, the reservist posted a picture “of a mountain of rucksacks, helmets and a sleeping bag with German army insignia.”

One of the administrators of #WIR was Marion G., who consciously wanted to bring together “patriots...and National Socialists.” She was an alleged supporter of “the right-wing extremist terrorist S Group,” whose members were arrested by the police in February. But Marion G. “remained free” and “continued to be active in the digital underground.” And this in spite of the fact that the S Group was reportedly on the brink of striking.

According to a report in Der Spiegel in February, the group had already hoarded weaponry and munitions and planned in a concerted “military” action to launch attacks on mosques across Germany and kill Muslims as they prayed. The goal was to provoke a counter-response and a “civil war.” The investigating state prosecutor summarised the group’s aim as having been the “rattling” and “overcoming” of the Federal Republic’s state structure and social order.

The fascist networks in the German security forces are now so widespread and threatening that the New York Times felt compelled for the second time in a few weeks to warn of the danger of a right-wing putsch. After an initial article on July 3, the Times wrote last weekend about the plans for “Day X” of the Northern Cross group, which emerged out of the network operated by Hannibal. “Increasingly, the German authorities consider the scenario a pretext for domestic terrorism by far-right plotters or even for a takeover of the government,” wrote the Times .

It may well be the case that sections of the state apparatus and government are troubled by the putsch plans and terrorist activities. But the fact is that there is no force within the political establishment or state, including the judiciary, investigative authorities, and political parties, capable of or willing to deal with the far-right threat. The strengthening of far-right terrorist networks in the police, military and intelligence agencies is directly linked to the German bourgeoisie’s return to militarism and war. The only way to stop the right-wing extremist terrorists is through the independent mobilisation of the working class on the basis of a socialist programme.

UK teachers’ pay award: A shoddy deal for all

Tom Pearce

The Conservative government is hailing as a major advance Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s announcement of a pay-rise for teachers.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The offer is divisive and paltry. It will not be funded by the government, but out of already chronically under-funded school budgets.

The deal is being sold as a “generous offer,” aimed at resolving the teacher recruitment and retention crisis but does not come close to resolving the strains of a sector on its knees. Only Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) will get the headline 5.5 percent pay rise, with more experienced teachers being offered 2.75 percent, equating to a measly 3.1 percent increase overall. When inflation is factored in, schools are left where they were 13 years ago.

Young people are being enticed into a profession at breaking point. The statistics are stark. There was a 4.6 percent increase in teacher vacancies last year, with almost 1,300 more vacancies advertised by schools in 2018-2019 than in 2017-2018. The Department for Education (DfE) reported that almost a “third of teachers leave the classroom within five years of qualifying.” The overall number of teachers has not kept pace with increasing pupil numbers and the ratio of pupils to qualified teachers has increased from 17.8 in 2011 to 18.9.

Around 42,000 full-time equivalent qualified teachers left the state-funded sector in the 12 months to November 2018, a “wastage rate” of 9.8 percent. According to the House of Commons Library, “The wastage rate has ranged from 9.1 percent (2012) to 10.3 percent (2015) since the current series started in 2011.” It noted, “32.3 percent of newly qualified entrants in 2016 were not recorded as working in the state sector five years later. This is the highest five-year wastage rate on the current series, which dates back to 1997.”

It noted, “Overall pupil numbers are expected to continue rising, driven by a projected 15 percent increase in the number of secondary school pupils between 2018 and 2024.”

The environment that newly qualified teachers (NQTs) will find is one of constant surveillance and pressure. UK teachers work 47 hours a week on average according to a study by the UCL Institute of Education. A third of teachers work over 60 hours a week and during the “holidays”. These long hours are unsustainable and a major reason why teachers are fleeing the profession.

Since 2014, teachers have had to deal with performance related pay (PRP). This has been used to cap teacher pay, as schools are now allowed to award increases or not at their own discretion.

The 2.75 percent pay rise sanctioned by the Department for Education (DfE) for 2019-20, for example, was not implemented across all schools. The National Education Union (NEU) who surveyed their members, found that out of 25,000 responses only 49 percent received the pay award.

Overseen by the unions, workers have experienced pay freezes and cuts in pay for over a decade. This amounts to a 15 percent loss of income over the last 15 years for workers in education. The new pay deal does not come close to addressing this shortfall.

A decade of under-funding and budget cuts has seen school funding cut by 8 percent in real terms in the last decade, and sixth form funding by 21 percent. In the last three years alone, £5.4 billion has been lost from school budgets, affecting 91 percent of schools in England.

Headteachers have had to make desperate decisions about staffing redundancies and curriculum provision to balance their budgets. Schools now rely more and more on teachers and parents to plug deficits due to crippling budget cuts.

The pay deal will add to financial difficulties as schools will have to find the money themselves at a time when the funding situation is exacerbated by the costs of COVID-19. Schools are having to buy signage and cleaning resources out of existing budgets.

In September 2019, £7.1 billion was promised to schools over three years. The government has also promised a £1 billion catch-up plan for children affected by the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. £650 million will be shared across state primary and secondary schools and a £350 million National Tutoring Programme is being set up. This is paltry compared to the hundreds of billions in bailout funds handed to big business.

The unsafe reopening of schools in September will elevate the crisis. That many older teachers will retire early, concerned about the impact of the pandemic on their health, is also a factor in the carrot of enhanced payments for new starts. The stick will follow the carrot. The stress levels involved in attempting to teach while keeping “bubbles” of up to 240 children and themselves safe with no protective measures, such as social distancing and masks, will weigh heavily on the mental health of staff.

The teaching unions are not opposing the unsafe opening of schools and have refused to mobilise the broad-based opposition among staff. They welcomed the government’s empty promises for NQTs, saying they were merely “disappointed” that the deal did not reward experienced staff.

The National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), General Secretary Dr Patrick Roach said, “Whilst [the] announcement recognises the importance of pay levels in making teaching more attractive to new teachers, the Government also needs to do more to retain experienced teachers in the profession.”

Making no reference to how schools would find the money for such a raise, Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, referred to the government’s move as a “curate’s egg”:

“Raising starting salaries by 5.5 percent should make the profession more attractive to graduates,” she said. “But the prospect of salaries tapering off as they progress through the profession means that progress made in recruiting teachers will not be sustained in retaining them.”

The NEU, after only asking for a 7 percent pay rise for all teachers in their own ineffectual campaign and having again been ignored by the government, responded by glorifying the pay deal for new starts!

This is consistent with their response to the coronavirus crisis—to demand the government incorporate them in their decision making as the best-placed institutions for imposing the government’s pro-business agenda. The NEU have called, yet again, “to establish, in consultation with the teacher unions, a timetable for further above-inflation teacher pay increases beyond 2020.”

It then lists, without irony, the major defeats teachers have experienced under the watch of the unions in the last decade: “The dismantling of the national pay structure, imposition of PRP and real-terms funding cuts have resulted in many teachers not getting the cost-of-living increases announced in previous years.”

The pandemic will only intensify the attacks of recent years. The billions handed out by Sunak to big business will be clawed back from the working class. Teachers need new rank-and-file organisations based on unifying workers in a struggle against the profit system, as the only way to secure a decent education for children and good working conditions for staff.

Lancet warns of massive resurgence of coronavirus after UK school reopening

Thomas Scripps

A modelling study published in the Lancet, “Child And Adolescent Health,” warns that the UK’s testing and tracing for coronavirus is inadequate to prevent a “rebound” of the epidemic once schools are reopened next month.

One author, Chris Bonell, professor of public health sociology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, warns, “Reopening schools fully in September, alongside reopening workplaces in society, without an effective test, trace, isolating (TTI) strategy could result in a second wave of infections between two and 2.3 times the size of the original wave [emphasis added].”

The study modeled an “optimistic” scenario, assuming 68 percent of contacts of people testing positive could be traced, in which “an epidemic rebound might be prevented.” However, the current level of coverage is closer to the study’s “worst case” scenario, which assumed only 40 percent were traced. Bonell explains, “Looking at the NHS reports from the TTI system, it looks like it’s about 50 percent coverage.”

Without an improvement, the government is “likely to induce a second wave that would peak in December 2020 if schools open full-time in September.”

This warning comes as a resurgence of the virus is already underway. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 4,200 people are being infected with coronavirus every day, up from 3,200 the week before and 2,500 the week before that.

But the government’s response to the Lancet study has made clear its determination to reopen the economy in the interests of big business, whatever the cost to the population. Simon Clarke, minister for local government, told Sky News: “One thing is clear, schools are going to reopen in full in the autumn, that is not up for debate.” He described the NHS Test and Trace System as a “massive success.”

On Saturday, the government’s modelling expert Professor Graham Medley suggested pubs and restaurants may have to be closed as a “trade-off” to allow schools to reopen. He said, “closing some of the other networks, some of the other activities may well be required to enable us to open schools. It might come down to a question of which do you trade off against each other and then that’s a matter of prioritising, do we think pubs are more important than schools?”

Even this entirely misguided “trade off” was rejected. The Guardian reported, “English pubs are likely to be spare any new restrictions” after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman played down Medley’s suggestion, adding “we are committed to supporting the hospitality industry, which has had a very tough time.”

Last week, Johnson met with Chancellor Rishi Sunak to discuss ways of avoiding a second UK lockdown in the event of a resurgence of the virus later this year. Their overwhelming concern is to maintain the flow of corporate profits. This precludes any serious public health measures, leaving only piecemeal interventions which cause serious distress to working-class households while doing nothing to substantially address the threat of the virus.

These sociopathic priorities led to the absurd situation last week when several million people in the north-west of England and Leicester were placed under additional public health restrictions at less than an hour’s notice, and mandatory mask wearing was extended, just one day before more than two million medically vulnerable people were told to stop shielding and return to work if ordered to.

As millions of people were prevented from visiting the gardens of their relatives, they were encouraged, along with the rest of the nation, to “Eat Out to Help Out” in pubs and restaurants. The slogan refers to a government scheme subsidising 50 percent of the cost of food and participating cafes and restaurants, up to £10 per head, for three days a week. Several pubs across the country have already been responsible for clusters of COVID-19 cases.

Britons also continue to be encouraged to travel for their holidays—yesterday EasyJet reported it was increasing its number of flights above expectations to cope with increased demand—even as countries like Spain and Luxemburg are suddenly removed from quarantine exemptions, Greek flights are cancelled, and French and German authorities warn of a second wave.

The new laws on wearing masks, which will not be properly enforced, follow months in which the government cast doubt on their effectiveness. According to a survey of 70,000 people by University College London, just 45 percent of adults in England feel they understand current government guidelines, compared to 90 percent in March, during the period of stricter lockdown. The danger is that this confusion, combined with the government and media’s relentless boosterism and lying complacency, will dull popular consciousness of the danger posed by the pandemic—facilitating the spread of the disease.

Dr Bharat Pankhania, senior consultant in Communicable Disease Control at the University of Exeter, told the Independent last week, “When the prime minister lifted lockdown, I said it was unbelievably premature. There were mixed messages… That public health message of ‘go carefully’ just isn’t there.”

Dr Gabriel Scally, President of the Epidemiology and Public Health section of the Royal Society of Medicine and member of Independent Sage, explained that “if there are too many [local flare-ups of the virus] the capacity at a local level won’t be able to deal with them and they will emerge as a wave.”

A major resurgence of the epidemic will bring tens and possibly hundreds of thousands more deaths. The longer the virus is left uncontrolled, the more damage will be done by the ongoing disruption of people’s lives. The Tory government’s cynical invocation of children’s welfare notwithstanding, it is undoubtedly the case that world capitalism’s shambolic response to the pandemic—necessitating the long-term closure of schools and other services—has caused a “generational catastrophe” for young children, in the words of the World Health Organisation.

The ruling class know that they are sitting on a ticking time bomb of unrest and are reaching for a military-police solution. A “major incident” has now been declared in Manchester, giving local police a freer hand to deploy national resources.

Early in July, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) heard a report, “Public Disorder and Public Health: Contemporary Threats and Risks.” Using the threat of “disorder… facilitating the spread of the disease” as a cipher for mass social opposition, the report states, “There has been a step-change in threat levels since the last sustained period of serious rioting in the UK in 2011.” It warns, “The police are in a far weaker position in terms of capacity” and that they “would be likely to require military support.”

Among the risks it foresees over the coming months are “The beginning of protests planned during the lockdown, (e.g., anarchist/anticapitalist groups seeking to frustrate a ‘return to normality’,” and “Rising unemployment and/or anxiety about employment as furlough is wound down.”

On July 22, Lieutenant General Douglas Chalmers, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Military Strategy and Operations), told the House of Lords’ Public Services Committee that the military was wargaming scenarios for a four-way winter crisis of a coronavirus resurgence, winter flu spike, Brexit disruption, and national flooding.

This is a development of the “Operation Yellowhammer” strategy formulated last year to suppress discontent, supposedly in the wake of a hard Brexit. Once again it proceeds with the full support of Labour and other “opposition” parties.

The British ruling class are in an unprecedented state of crisis which they hope to escape through an equally unprecedented exploitation and endangering of the working class, enforced by military-police repression. The working class must respond with their own perspective and programme, based on an international struggle for socialism, for the eradication of the virus and the safeguarding of all jobs, wages, and social services.

US teachers defy threats to cut funding for schools that delay in-person learning

Phyllis Steele

Facing popular outrage over the reckless rush to reopen schools, several large districts, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston and Miami-Dade, Florida, have been forced to start the school year with online learning only. As of July 29, Education Week reported, 20 of the 29 school districts with more than 100,000 students will reopen with remote learning only.

Four of the largest districts, however, including New York City (1.1 million students), Chicago (360,000 students), Hawaii (181,000 students) and Duval County, Florida (130,000 students), will require teachers and students to attend school for at least part of the week under a so-called “hybrid/partial” model, which also includes some remote learning.

600 Utah teachers and supporters protested Tuesday (Source: Granite Education Association)

Five large districts, Education Week reported, will hold a full in-person reopening available for all students. These include three in Florida—Hillsborough County (220,000), Polk County (101,000), Pinellas County (101,000)—and two in Texas—Dallas (155,000) and Cypress-Fairbanks (116,500).

Millions of students are being sent back to school in medium and smaller districts across the US, even though the numbers of COVID-19 cases are higher in many states across the country than they were when schools were forced to close in mid-March. While politicians from both parties profess concern about the academic and psychological impact of keeping schools closed, their chief concern is getting children out of their homes so their parents can be forced back into factories, warehouses and other workplaces to resume making profits.

Over the next week, several districts in Tennessee, Arizona, California, Florida, Nebraska, Mississippi and Utah will open with full in-person learning. At least nine cases have already been confirmed in Indiana’s schools, which opened last week, and in Gwinnett County Public Schools, the largest district in Georgia, 260 school workers have been quarantined after testing positive or being exposed to someone who had.

Protests against the unsafe openings continue to spread across the country. On Tuesday, teachers in Granite School District in Salt Lake City, Utah protested. Around 67,000 students are scheduled to return on August 24 for full in-school learning. About 100 teachers and parents in Columbia, Missouri also protested outside of the school board meeting Tuesday night in an event promoted on Facebook called “Not until it’s safe.” 

Summing up the opposition by teachers, Mike, a high school teacher in central Michigan told WSWS, “The reason why they are giving each district their individual choice when and how to reopen is that if they mandated that all schools across country go back, it would ignite a huge general strike. They are trying to preempt a strike by placing onus on districts. This whole thing is from [Education Secretary] Betsy Devos’ playbook. She is the personification of all that’s wrong with education. DeVos and her husband are looking at this as a crisis to be exploited, to advance their campaign for school privatization,” he said.

As opposition continues to grow, the Trump administration, Congressional Republicans and various Republican-controlled state legislatures are threatening to reduce or cut funding to schools that do not reopen for in-person instruction.

The Senate version of the new stimulus package, dubbed the HEALS Act (Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools Act), commits two-thirds of the proposed $70 billion in federal school funding only to those schools that reopen for in-person instruction for at least half of their students for half of the week. Schools, along with universities, hospitals and other corporations, would also be granted a five-year waiver that prevents them from being sued for any illness or death related to COVID-19.

In Florida, Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran issued an order that says by August 24 all 67 districts Òmust open brick and mortar schools at least five days a week for all students. Schools that do not receive state approval for their reopening plans will not be fully funded, the order threatens.

In Texas, another hotspot for the virus, local health departments can close schools if there is an outbreak. However, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton ruled that closing schools as a preventive measure—as they were in March—would be against the law.

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath warned that district superintendents must offer a semester of in-person learning for high school students after no more than eight weeks of online learning, otherwise districts would forfeit their state funding. At the same time, the superintendents were mandated to implement in-person learning for elementary and middle school students, not hybrid options, or face funding cuts.

Several other states, including Arizona, Indiana, South Carolina and Michigan, are threatening to use the financial stick to force cash-strapped schools to reopen. In Michigan, the Republican-controlled state legislature is trying to blackmail teachers to return to the classrooms otherwise their jobs will be given to private interests, including “pods,” where parents who can afford them hire teachers to provide private education to small groups of children, along with online charters, private and parochial schools.

Michigan House Bills 5910 and 5913—called the “Return to Learn” bills—would outsource the jobs of teachers and other instructional staff to non-certified instructors and for-profit companies to replace experienced educators. They would also create a voucher-style system that funnels public school money to parents who send their children to several e-learning providers during the day. The bills would also require benchmark testing three times over the next school year, which will be used to further punish public school districts grappling with already inadequate funding and the public health crisis.

In Detroit, the state’s largest school district, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti threatened in a town hall meeting last month that if the district does not offer face-to-face instruction in the fall, it risks losing students to charter schools or suburban districts that do. Vitti also boasted that the school district had received a sharp increase in applications for new teaching positions, an explicit threat to older, higher-paid teachers, many of whom fear returning to the classroom out of health concerns.

The Democrats have postured as opponents of Republican efforts to use the pandemic and the resulting economic crisis to accelerate school privatization. But the Congressional Democrats’ federal legislation, dubbed the Heroes Act, would also leave school districts underfunded, forcing them to slash jobs and programs. Under the eight years of the Obama-Biden administration, the economic fallout of the 2008-09 financial crisis was used by the White House to vastly expand charter schools and slash teachers’ jobs and pay.

The back-to-school campaign is being enthusiastically supported by Democratic governors like New York’s Andrew Cuomo, California’s Gavin Newsom and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer. As opposed to the Republicans, however, the Democrats have more closely coordinated the campaign to reopen the schools with the teacher unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

The NEA and AFT have spent the last two years desperately trying to prevent the wave of teacher strikes demanding improved school funding, wages and working conditions, from coalescing into a nation-wide strike against both corporate-controlled parties. Once again, the unions are seeking to divide educators by state and district and prevent a general strike against the homicidal plan to open the schools.

That is why teachers, school employees, parents and students must take the initiative in their own hands, through the formation of rank-and-file committees, independent of the unions, in every school and neighborhood. These committees should prepare for a nationwide strike of educators and fight for the broadest support from every section of the working class.

“I support a nationwide strike if there is a massive endangering of students’ and teachers’ lives,” said Mike, the Michigan teacher, who said there was no safe way to reopen schools during the pandemic. “Say we go from 30 to 15 students and social distance? What about air circulation? No one’s talking about air flow and filtration in schools. But science says this is best for keeping spread of COVID down. Filtration systems are going to cost billions of dollars.

“I am in the middle of a high school that sits on cinder blocks. The structure of most school buildings is not conducive to having good air flow. I know my high school students and they are social creatures by nature. Social distancing will not be happening all of the time. Also, who is enforcing it? Not me, how will I teach? Then what is going to happen when they say, ‘Hey! We’ve run out of money!’ It’s about money, as long as it’s coming, things will be fine. When money runs out that is when people will stop playing nice.”

Massive explosion in Beirut kills dozens and injures thousands

Kevin Reed

Dozens of people were killed and thousands injured by a massive explosion on Tuesday evening in Beirut, Lebanon that flattened the city’s port district and damaged buildings as far away as six miles.

Numerous smartphone videos shared on social media and published by news organizations show a large fire at a port warehouse with a white column of smoke billowing into the blue sky above Beirut followed by a terrifying blast that emits a giant mushroom cloud and a shock wave that engulfs everything in its path.

A report by the Associated Press said that the blast struck with the force of a 3.5 magnitude earthquake, according to Germany’s geosciences center GFZ, “and it was heard and felt as far away as Cyprus more than 200 kilometers (180 miles) across the Mediterranean.”

A frame from a smartphone video shared on Twitter that shows the moment of the blast in Beirut at street level

Other reports said the large number of injured in need of emergency medical attention are overwhelming area hospitals and officials were making public pleas for blood donations. The Guardian reported at 7:30 pm US Eastern Time that there were two explosions in Beirut and that Lebanon’s health minister Hamad Hassan confirmed that at least 78 people were killed and 4,000 injured.

The Guardian report said: “The final death toll from the biggest explosion to ever rock Beirut is expected to be significantly higher than the figures given in its immediate aftermath. Georges Kettaneh, a Lebanese Red Cross official, said more deaths were expected when rescue teams combed through damaged buildings.”

Although the cause of the blast is still to be officially identified, Abbas Ibrahim, chief of Lebanese General Security, told news media that it may have been the product of highly explosive material that was stored at the Beirut port after it was confiscated from a ship.

A tweet from an account identified with the Lebanese Presidency quoted Prime Minister Hassan Diab as saying, “It is unacceptable that a shipment of ammonium nitrate estimated at 2,750 tons has been present for six years in a warehouse without taking preventive measures that endanger the safety of citizens.”

Ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in fertilizer production, is a powerful explosive. By comparison, the Oklahoma City bombers used 2 tons of ammonium nitrate to detonate the deadly explosion that killed 168 people at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995.

A BBC report said, “Prime Minister Hassan Diab called it a catastrophe and said those responsible must be held to account. He spoke of a ‘dangerous warehouse’ which had been there since 2014 but said he would not pre-empt the investigation.”

The AP said that local TV stations reported that a fireworks warehouse had caught on fire and that “the fire then appeared to spread to a nearby building, triggering a more massive explosion ...”

The AP report went on: “One of Israel’s top bomb experts, Boaz Hayoun, said fireworks could have been a factor setting off the bigger blast. ‘Before the big explosion ... in the center of the fire, you can see sparks, you can hear sounds like popcorn and you can hear whistles,’ said Hayoun, owner of the Tamar Group, which works closely with the Israeli government on safety and certification issues involving explosives.”

Screen Capture from video by George Gardiakos/Facebook

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Trump administration is closely monitoring the situation. “Our team in Beirut has reported to me the extensive damage to a city and a people that I hold dear, an additional challenge in a time of already deep crisis,” Pompeo said in a written statement.

Pompeo’s reference is concerning the deep economic and financial crisis that has overtaken Lebanon—including a collapsing currency, soaring inflation and expanding poverty—accompanied by the intensification of sectarian conflict, all of which has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking about the events in Lebanon during a White House press briefing on Tuesday evening, President Donald Trump said that the explosion “looks like a terrible attack.” Trump added: “I’ve met with some of our great generals and they just seem to feel that it was not a—some kind of manufacturing explosion type of event. This was a—seems to be according to them, they would know better than I would, but they seem to think it was an attack. It was a bomb of some kind.”

Trump offered no further evidence or explanation of his statement, which contradicts the position of Lebanese officials.

Widespread protests in Bolivia oppose postponement of elections

Tomas Castanheira

Since Monday, a movement of strikes and blockades of main roads by workers and peasants has been spreading in Bolivia. Protesters are opposing a decree that further postpones general elections, threatening to maintain the de facto government of Jeanine Áñez indefinitely in power.

This week’s actions are a continuation of massive demonstrations that took place last week, on July 28, shortly after the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) announced the cancellation of the elections scheduled for September. Amidst a protest in El Alto, a traditionally militant working class section of the capital city of La Paz, the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB) called a general strike and blockades on August 3 if the court did not back down.

Workers march in a protest against the postponement of the upcoming presidential election, in El Alto, Bolivia. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

According to the COB, blockades were erected at 75 locations in the country on Monday, including strategic points in the Santa Cruz, La Paz, Cochabamba, Potosí, Oruro and Sucre regions. Marches by miners, peasants, indigenous people and poor urban workers took place.

In Potosí and El Alto, police forces clashed with demonstrators, throwing gas bombs and arresting people. In La Paz, a number of young people who were on hunger strike in front of the TSE were arrested and taken into custody by two police buses.

The anger of Bolivian workers and peasants against the coup regime has grown substantially in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The devastation of the virus is intersecting with the substantial increase in poverty in the country.

Unemployment has exploded in Bolivia, rising from 4.8 percent at the end of 2019 to 8.1 percent in May in urban areas. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal) predicts that by the end of the year some 500,000 Bolivians will be driven into extreme poverty and 36 percent of the population will be poor.

Under these conditions, the government has used the prospect of infection by the coronavirus to implement police state measures and postpone the date of the elections three times, while proving absolutely incapable of containing the spread of disease and hunger among Bolivians.

Over the past month, the number of COVID-19 infections has more than doubled, having already exceeded 80,000 confirmed cases. The number of deaths has risen even more sharply. With a record 89 deaths in a single day recorded on Sunday, the total number of deaths tripled in July to over 3,000.

These figures are a gross underestimate of the real situation, as the country has one of the lowest testing rates in the world. The recent explosion in the number of cases is directly associated with the anarchic resumption of economic activity, promoted by the government since June in the interests of the bourgeoisie.

Its most terrible results have been demonstrated in the collapse of the precarious Bolivian health care system. Most hospitals have already been forced to close their doors temporarily after the widespread contamination of their staff. The latest case occurred at the 9 April clinic in La Paz, which declared a state of emergency on Monday after 70 percent of nurses and 60 percent of doctors were found to be possibly ill with COVID-19.

The collapse of the funeral system, which is simultaneously occurring, was graphically expressed in the recent implementation of “portable” crematoria fixed on the back of vehicles that circulate on the streets of Bolivian cities.

In Bolivian prisons, which hold 18,000 people, most of them on a pre-trial basis, the government has already counted more than 150 cases and 40 deaths. Last week, a rebellion broke out simultaneously in four jails in Cochabamba, demanding medical assistance and measures to prevent the transmission of the virus.

Doctors and health professionals have protested against the general lack of personal protective equipment, which is resulting in the extremely high illness and death tolls of these workers. Groups of these professionals have been seen participating in this week’s demonstrations.

The coup regime is terrified that the growing demonstrations will get out of control and threaten to overthrow its power. Its desperate response is to promote an escalation of violence.

Making clear the government’s preparation for military intervention against the protests, the Government Minister Arturo Murillo’s threatened the protesters this Tuesday: “Lift the blockades, or we will lift them ourselves.”

Murillo has been one of the main officials responsible for the government’s fascistic tirades. In recent months, he has attacked the blockades of residents already taking place in the poor district of Cochabamba, K’ara K’ara, as being orchestrated by the “narco-terrorist” Evo Morales.

The conspiratorial accusations of all the opposition as “terrorists,” which justifies the permanent maintenance of Áñez and her allies in power, are growing in direct proportion to the social opposition.

Last week, Defense Minister Fernando López appeared on a television program accusing the massive protests growing in the outskirts of La Paz of being in fact a biological terrorist attack by peasants, supposedly contaminated with COVID-19, against the cities. “It’s not a protest… it is the people of Chapare who have come to El Alto to hack down, they are coming to infect the people of El Alto and La Paz,” he said.

The threat of a brutal repression of the Bolivian masses on the streets cannot be overestimated. The government is preparing even greater violence than that employed by the military in the aftermath of the coup, when at least 23 demonstrators were killed and more than 230 wounded.

In the same way that he abandoned those who were fighting against the coup in the streets last year, Morales is negotiating a deal between the COB and the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) and the bourgeoisie.

“The meetings between TSE Bolivia and COB should not be just a greeting; dialogue is important to reach consensus on a unilateral decision by the electoral authority with dramatic consequences on the population such as postponing elections again and again,” declared Morales on Twitter at Monday.

The agreement being prepared by Morales with the same forces that promoted the coup will only pave the way for the crushing of the working class and peasant forces.

In order to fight against the fascist threats, against the miserable conditions and the coronavirus that plagues the population, Bolivian workers need to advance an independent political perspective towards socialism, unified with their brothers and sisters in Latin America and globally.

House Speaker Pelosi signals readiness to cut unemployment benefits

Jacob Crosse

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in an interview on PBS’ “NewsHour” program Tuesday signaled the Democratic Party’s willingness to reduce benefits for the nearly 30 million US jobless workers who had been receiving $600 a week in enhanced federal unemployment pay. The jobless benefit, part of the CARES Act, which allocated trillions for the corporations and banks, expired this past week.

The federal benefit, along with a moratorium on rental evictions from properties with federally backed mortgages, was allowed to lapse at the end of July, leaving millions in the lurch.

Shortly before the expiration of the federal unemployment benefit, the House of Representatives, in a near party-line vote, passed a $694.6 billion defense appropriations bill for 2021. The bill, overwhelmingly supported by the Democratic Party, included funding for 91 F-35 fighter jets ($9.3 billion) and nine new Navy ships ($22.3 billion). Added together, the cost of these 100 pieces of military hardware could provide supplemental jobless benefits for 30 million people for nearly two weeks.

While both parties worked around-the-clock for the financial oligarchy and their cratering stock portfolios by passing the CARES Act in late March, now that Wall Street has been rescued, the two big business parties are taking their time in working out the terms for imposing the full brunt on the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic on the backs of the working class.

Throughout the PBS interview, Pelosi, with an estimated net worth of $120 million, portrayed herself and the Democratic Party as champions of working people. However, when gently pressed by the news anchor, Judy Woodruff, the House speaker signaled the corporate-financial elite that the Democrats were prepared to cut the already inadequate $600-a-week benefit, saying, “Let’s find out what we can afford.” She added, “We will find our common ground.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows have been meeting daily behind closed doors with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and Pelosi. While the Democratic negotiators have claimed “progress” in the talks, the White House representatives, who had proposed cutting the unemployment supplement to $200, have said the two sides remain far apart.

All parties are seeking to pass a new bill that would provide reduced benefits, using the prospect of hunger and homelessness to blackmail workers into returning to virus-infected work sites or take other work at lower pay when their previous jobs have been eliminated.

At the end of the interview, Pelosi made clear that the goal of the Democrats was the same as the Republicans: “reopening” the economy (i.e., resuming at full blast the flow of corporate profit) by forcing teachers and students back to school so as to allow “our parents to go to work.”

For his part, President Donald Trump in a Tuesday press conference threatened to issue an executive order to suspend the payroll tax, the primary source of funding for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He also took the opportunity to lash out against China, claiming that the looming wave of evictions in the US was “China’s fault.”

The World Socialist Web Site spoke to unemployed workers about the consequences of a cutoff or reduction in the federal unemployment supplement.

April, a cook from rural northern Illinois, said: “The $600 dollar added bonus really did help. We could not have survived without it. It made me realize that everyone needs to be making a basic amount to live and thrive.

“I was actually getting slightly more with the added money than I was with my paycheck before being unemployed, only because my pay was so low. Now that the benefit is gone, I am still unemployed and my partner now makes way less than he did previously.

“I went from working one job. Now I can’t find full-time work. I’ll have to work two or three jobs just to get by. And then my partner started a new job and was denied Medicaid because he makes $3 too much. He makes $11 an hour.

“We have a little saved up. I hope to stay in my apartment and be able to take care of the necessities, but if I don’t find work before then, I am not sure what we will do once September arrives. I am constantly oscillating between being angry and scared. Everything is so unequal. You have millionaires and billionaires and then you have the rest of us just trying to get by.”

A cashier from Virginia who was forced to return to work after the state failed to process her unemployment claim told the WSWS: “I was a cashier, now I am a personal shopper. I applied for unemployment benefits back in April. The benefits never were approved.

“I had panic attacks fearing for my safety. Luckily for me, my family and girlfriend, who was able to get the expanded benefits, were able to help me with rent throughout the last few months. If it wasn’t for them, I’d have been working throughout this entire pandemic.

“Two weeks ago, the last bit of money I received from the $1,200 check Trump sent ran out and I was forced to return to work. I’m not sure if I have a compromised immune system, but I had open heart surgery, so I’m worried if I catch this disease. My parents are elderly. I see people in my state socializing and not wearing masks. I’m definitely scared.

“The fact that I didn’t get any benefits throughout the entire pandemic has really hurt me

financially. My girlfriend and I had plans to move into a house together, but that isn’t going to happen now for a long time.

“This order to get back to work is really tough on people. We’re being forced to take high risks with our health in the middle of a health care crisis. If someone in the US government had actually done something to help people before this pandemic happened, we wouldn’t be in this situation now.”

Swedish Institute Scholarships Spring 2021

Application Deadline: 17th August 2020

About the Award: So what you’ve got to do first is find a programme. And there’s a select number of English-taught programmes that you can choose from.
We offer thousands of English-taught programmes here. Most of them start in the autumn. But some programmes start in the spring semester instead. And we’ve put together a list of the programmes on offer for spring 2021. Want to know more? Keep on reading. We’ll walk you through the application process.

Type: Masters

Eligibility:

• General: So these are things like having completed your high-school studies. Or having a bachelor’s degree. Also? Having a sufficient level of English. And you can find the general entry requirements for bachelor’s programmes and master’s programmes on Universityadmissions.se.
• Programme-specific entry requirements: You may need to meet some specific entry reqruirements too. You’ll find them listed on the programme’s webapge. Navigate there through our programme listing or Universityadmissions.se.

Eligible Countries: International

To be Taken at (Country): Sweden

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Scholarships vary according to institution.

Duration of Award: 2 years

How to Apply: You’ve found a programme you want to apply for. What’s next? Okay, you’ll need to check some things. Like requirements, documents & deadlines.
And you have until 17 August to submit your application. But head over to Universityadmissions.se to find out more. There are a few other dates and deadlines you’ll need to keep in mind.

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

Visit Award Webpage for Details