Four workers killed in explosion at UK water treatment plant

Richard Tyler

A massive explosion ripped through a large metal tank used to store treated biosolids Thursday morning, killing four workers. The force of the blast at a Geneco water recycling centre in Avonmouth, near Bristol, was so great that one of the bodies was recovered from a lake 150 metres away.

The four who died were named on Friday evening. They were 16 year old Luke Wheaton, who had recently started an apprenticeship at the plant, Michael James, aged 64, Brian Vickery, 63, and Raymond White, 57. The BBC reported “It is understood Mr James was a contractor working at the site, while Mr Vickery and Mr White were employees of Wessex Water…” A fifth worker received non-life-threatening injuries.

The Geneco site in Avonmouth (credit: Google Maps)

The workers were on the roof of the tank when it exploded, tearing it apart. An eyewitness told the media, “They didn’t stand a chance”. Others described the explosion as shaking nearby buildings. A warehouse worker said he and his colleagues had stood rooted to the spot as the walls trembled. Another said, “I thought a bomb had gone off. It was terrifying”.

Within minutes, the police declared a major incident as six fire crews raced to the scene. Specialist search and rescue teams from as far away as Exeter were deployed, using heat-seeking cameras to look for the victims.

Despite no cause having yet been identified for the explosion, which will be investigated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Chief Inspector Mark Runacres of Avon and Somerset Police said there were no “ongoing public safety concerns”.

Geneco, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wessex Water, takes “treated sludge” from its adjacent sewage treatment plant, as well as food waste from homes and supermarkets, to convert into biogas, fertiliser, and other products. In the process of creating the fertiliser, large quantities of highly explosive methane gas are produced.

The Bristol Live news site cited the comments of Tony Ennis, “an expert in the field of fire and explosion hazards for over 25 years.” He said, “The explosion appears to have taken place in a silo which stores the output from an anaerobic digester.

“The waste is organic, for example food waste, and is 'digested' to create methane gas, which is the main component of natural gas—the gas can be used to generate electricity."

“It appears likely that there was methane gas in the head space of the tank.

“Depending on the amount of methane, the pressure developed in the tank could be up to 8 bar. Pressure in a car tyre is 2-2.5 bar.

“The tank is not designed for this pressure and appears to have failed catastrophically at the joint between the roof and cylindrical shell."

Wessex Water is one the UK’s 12 water and sewerage companies, privatised under the Thatcher Conservative government in 1989 as part of its massive sell-off of public utilities including rail, gas, electricity and telecommunications.

The GMB trade union, from the standard nationalist perspective of the union bureaucracy everywhere, complains that since privatisation the main problem is that the water industry is owned by “foreign” conglomerates, rather than UK corporations. Its research found that over 70 percent of England’s water industry is owned by overseas companies, including those based in tax havens, banks, hedge funds and “sovereign wealth funds” belonging to foreign governments.

The nine privatised water companies in England are a cash cows for their corporate owners of whatever nationality. In the past five years, shareholders received £6.5 billion in dividends, £1.4 billion in 2017 alone.

Company executives, such as Wessex Water’s CEO Colin Skellett, are richly rewarded for squeezing every ounce of profit out their workers. Over the past five years, the CEOs of England’s water companies have pocketed £58 million.

Wessex Water was originally purchased by the US company Enron in 1998 for $2.4 billion. Following Enron’s collapse, it was bought in 2002 by YTL Power International, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Under YTL, Wessex Water has seen its capital value almost triple from £1.3 billion to £3.3 billion in 2019.

YTL currently derives half of its turnover from the UK and 85 percent of its revenues from abroad, through companies it owns in Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia.

Earlier this year, Skellett told Malaysia’s largest circulation English-language newspaper The Star, “We are contributing about £75 million a year as dividends to YTL Power from £50mil a year when Wessex Water was initially acquired from Enron.”

While shareholders and CEOs in the privatised water industry see their bank balances growing, this is also at the expense of consumers. Since privatisation in 1989, water bills have increased by 40 percent above the rate of inflation, according to the National Audit Office. Some 2.4 billion litres of water are wasted in England because of a lack of investment in old and decrepit infrastructure.

A report commissioned by ocean conservation charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) shows that UK water companies were responsible for 3,000 raw sewage pollution incidents between October 2019 and September 2020. The report highlights 153 health incidents because of the discharge of raw sewage into coastal waters used recreationally. These included cases of ear, nose and throat infections, gastroenteritis, and more serious long-term health impacts.

The report highlights several serious failings on the part of the water companies. The UK ranks 25th out of 30 European countries for poor bathing water quality. Southern Water, whose region of operation accounted for a fifth of all water-related ill-health reports, had failed to issue a “sewage spill notification” for most of 2020.

Water companies in England discharged raw sewage into rivers on more than 200,000 occasions last year, according to the information obtained by the Guardian .

The Environment Agency (EA), charged with upholding water cleanliness standards, has drastically reduced its activities aimed at protecting public health, citing the coronavirus pandemic.

As well as cutting the number of water quality tests it carries out, EA has curtailed investigations into water pollution incidents. In the five months from April to August, it carried out 292 visits, compared to 1,726 over the same period in the previous year.

Citing data obtained through a Freedom of Information request, the Guardian reports that despite this 87 percent decline in EA visits, the number of pollution incidents reported remains high. The agency received 9,144 incident reports during the same period, compared to 9,424 in 2019.

According to Environment Agency data, only 14 percent of the UK’s watercourses are currently in good ecological health.

While the tragic incident at Geneco that cost the lives of four workers is generally referred to in the media as an “industrial accident”, there is nothing accidental about the risks workers confront each day in carrying out their jobs. The drive to increase profits and shareholder value inevitably leads to cutting corners when it comes to health and safety.

The Avonmouth explosion is the second serious incident in the area in a matter of weeks. In October as much as 20,000 tonnes of scrap metal went ablaze in a fire at Avonmouth Docks, close to the Geneco plant.

In November, 100 firefighters attended a “major fire” at a tyre storage facility in Bradford, West Yorkshire. A spokesman for the local council said the incident would have “far reaching effects on residents, travellers, businesses and schools”.

A fire at an industrial building in Kent in September led to 200 people having to be evacuated.

A major fire in August at a Newhaven industrial unit required 12 fire crews to bring it under control.

At Tilbury Docks in Essex in July, the roof of one building collapsed following an explosion. One person had to be treated for smoke inhalation.

An explosion in June at an industrial site in Erith, near London, caused burns to three people, requiring hospital treatment.

Beijing intensifies crackdown on Hong Kong political opposition

Peter Symonds

Three young opposition activists—Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam—were sentenced on Wednesday to jail terms after pleading guilty to trumped-up charges of organising, participating in and inciting others to take part in an unauthorised assembly last year. Wong has been jailed for 13 and a half months, Chow to 10 months, and Lam for seven months.

The sentences are part of a broader political crackdown by Beijing and its puppet administration in Hong Kong aimed at suppressing large-scale protests that have repeatedly erupted over demands for greater democratic rights. Millions took to the street last year in opposition to legislative changes to enable extradition to the Chinese mainland fearing it would be used against critics of Beijing.

Joshua Wong (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Wong, Chow and Lam were charged over a protest in June 2019 outside police headquarters involving thousands of people over attempts by police to use tear gas and pepper spray to suppress the mounting demonstrations. Chief Executive Carrie Lam was eventually forced to put the extradition legislation on hold but mass protests continued, driven by wider concerns about the lack of democratic rights.

Wong, Chow and Lam were prominent members of a political organisation, Demosistō, established in the wake of the so-called umbrella protest movement in 2014 demanding democratic elections for Hong Kong’s top post of chief executive. Currently, the position is “elected” by a body stacked with pro-Beijing appointees. Demosistō was one of a number of organisations formed by young people disaffected with the timid manoeuvring of the pan-democrat opposition grouping in the territory’s Legislative Council.

Demosistō was disbanded after Beijing rammed a sweeping new national security law covering Hong Kong through the Standing Committee of its National People’s Congress in June. The legislation covers four broad areas—subversion, secession, terrorism and colluding with foreign forces—and can be used to intimidate and suppress political opposition with penalties up to and including life imprisonment. The law also provided for the establishment of an “Office for Safeguarding National Security” in the city and for some cases to be tried by Beijing’s judicial system.

More than 20 people have been arrested under the national security law, including Agnes Chow and Jimmy Lai, who is the wealthy proprietor of the prominent anti-Beijing newspaper Apple Daily. He and two senior managers of his media group were arrested on Wednesday on charges of alleged fraud. Unlike the two managers, Lai was not released on bail.

Beijing justified its national security law by claiming it was necessary to counter “foreign forces” who were responsible for the protest movements in Hong Kong. While the US has attempted to exploit the anti-Beijing opposition in Hong Kong and figures like Lai are well connected in Washington, the scope of protests reflects broad fears about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime’s heavy-handed approach to any opposition.

An armed soldier from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) looks on during a confrontation between police and protestors at Hong Kong Polytechnic University from inside a nearby PLA garrison in Hong Kong, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2019. (Credit: AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Hong Kong was returned to China by Britain in 1997 under the “one country, two systems” schema that supposedly protected the limited democratic rights that had existed under British colonial rule and would extend them in the future. The chief concern of Britain and China was to preserve the well-established corporate framework under which the city became a hub for investment in the Chinese mainland.

The real fear in Beijing is that the massive protests that have repeatedly erupted will trigger similar movements on a far broader scale throughout China. In particular, under conditions of a slowing economy and deteriorating social conditions, the CCP is desperate to prevent social unrest in the Chinese working class. Rather than orienting to Chinese workers, and a unified struggle against the Beijing regime, organisations such as Demosistō have promoted a parochial Hong Kong outlook and made futile appeals to Washington and London.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued an utterly hypocritical statement following the sentencing of Wong, Chow and Lam on Wednesday, declaring that the US was “appalled by the Hong Kong government’s political persecution” of the activists. Pompeo is part of the Trump administration that has had no compunction about sending federal paramilitary police to brutally crack down on protests against police violence and continue to try to overturn the result of the 2020 election.

Like every US “human rights” campaign, Pompeo’s posturing about democratic rights in Hong Kong serves the economic and strategic interests of American imperialism. The Trump administration has systematically ratcheted up the US-led economic and strategic confrontation with China, and has used the issue of “human rights,” not only in Hong Kong, but Xinjiang and Tibet, to encourage separatist movements and to weaken China.

Beijing in turn has exploited US propaganda to justify its police-state methods. The jailing of Wong, Chow and Lam is just the latest step in the CCP’s efforts to stamp out open political opposition in Hong Kong.

Last month the National People’s Congress standing committee gave the Hong Kong administration the right to disqualify members of the Legislative Council who promoted independence for Hong Kong, refused to recognise Chinese sovereignty or called for foreign intervention. The measures were condemned by critics who branded them as a “patriot test.”

Four lawmakers—Kwok Ka-ki, Alvin Yeung, Dennis Kwok and Kenneth Leung—were disqualified. Opposition legislators resigned en masse to demonstrate their support for the four and opposition to Beijing’s actions. Just two of the remaining 43 legislators in the 70-member Legislative Council are considered not pro-Beijing. One of those who resigned, Claudia Mo, told the BBC: “They’re lining us up to oust us bit by bit. What’s the point of staying on like this, thinking will I be ousted today or not?”

Beijing through its state-owned media and the Hong Kong administration is increasing the pressure on the courts, educational institutions and the city’s media to toe the line. A number of opposition activists have fled into exile. This week, one of the lawmakers, Ted Hui, who resigned last month, announced that he was seeking refuge in Britain after fleeing to Denmark earlier in the week. Another 12 activists have been detained in mainland China since August after being caught attempting to leave by boat.

More than 10,000 people have been arrested since the protests erupted last year against the extradition laws and 2,325 have been prosecuted on charges including rioting, unlawful assembly and assault. One account, citing police records, indicated that as of the end of October, 372 people have been convicted and 77 acquitted.

US occupational safety agency fails to report hundreds of health care worker deaths

Alex Johnson

A recent Kaiser Health News (KHN) investigation has exposed hundreds of health care worker deaths in dozens of medical facilities and hospitals across the United States that have gone unreported since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in mid-March. Health care employers have systematically suppressed information on workplace fatalities related to the pandemic, while US Labor Department occupational safety officials have exercised virtually no oversight.

The KHN report examined more than 240 health care worker deaths documented in the Guardian newspaper’s “Lost on the Frontline” database. Out of the 240 cases, KHN found that employers failed to report more than one-third to any state or federal office of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), an agency within the Labor Department. This criminal policy has been based on internal decisions that deem such deaths to be unrelated to workplaces and on conclusions that have never been independently reviewed.

President Donald Trump installed Eugene Scalia, the son of the late far-right Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, as labor secretary in September of 2019.

The nonreporting of health care worker deaths has been aided by OSHA officials nationwide, who have refused to enforce regulatory laws requiring businesses to report deaths tied to workplace settings. State and federal laws mandate that health care facilities alert OSHA officials about work-related employee deaths within eight hours. Regulators, however, have adopted an extremely lenient stance toward health employers during the pandemic, giving them broad discretion to decide internally whether to report worker deaths.

The officially facilitated coverup of worker deaths has continued in the midst of exploding coronavirus infections and deaths over the past month, leading to the highest rate of hospitalizations at any point during the pandemic. The massive influx of COVID-19 patients has already brought entire hospital systems to the brink of collapse, exacting a grim toll on exhausted health care workers, including mounting deaths.

Workplace safety advocates have stressed that investigations into health care staff deaths are necessary to help officials carry out contact tracing and pinpoint the spread of the virus, before it endangers the lives of other health workers as well as patients and people in the surrounding community. By suppressing information on these deaths, health care employers, backed by the government, are also able to conceal shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and inadequate staffing levels in the health care system.

Much of the effort to even document health care worker deaths has been left to investigative journalists and news outlets. The “Lost on the Frontline” campaign has identified more than 1,400 health care worker deaths over the past year possibly linked to COVID-19. Investigators used family reports, contacts with employers and public records to substantiate the fatalities. These worker deaths were tied to more than 100 health care facilities where OSHA records showed no fatality investigation.

The KHN report cited the tragic case of Walter Veal, a mental health technician who worked at the Ludeman Developmental Center in Chicago. Veal died in May at the age of 53.

As the COVID-19 pandemic began making headway into the city, staff members at the facility increasingly struggled to access basic protective equipment such as masks and other gear. Many staff members were forced to ask family members for donations and wear rain ponchos sent by sports teams.

By mid-May, the number of confirmed COVID-19 positive residents and staffers had ballooned to 247, according to the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS). Veal died of the virus on May 16. Three of his colleagues had already passed away, according to interviews with workers at the facility, the deceased employees’ families, and trade union representatives. The facility’s administrators, however, refused to report the first death on April 13 as work-related. The same decision was made about the three subsequent deaths, including that of Veal.

Although the circumstances surrounding the first death on April 13, including the unmitigated spread of COVID-19 across Chicago and rising case levels, were already shedding light on the dangerous working conditions facing health care workers, no worker safety official arrived to inspect the facility. The IDHS, which operates Ludeman and employs the staff, said it did not report any of the four deaths to the Illinois branch of OSHA.

Since mid-March, staff members at the Ludeman Center had been growing increasingly desperate for PPE and faced frightening shortages of basic supplies, including gloves, gowns and hand sanitizers. The first known Ludeman staff member to lose her life, unit director Michelle Abernathy, was forced to supply her own gloves and died after a resident began showing symptoms in late March.

The Illinois OSHA branch began inquiring into the deaths only after seeing media reports on Abernathy’s death. After a cursory review of IDHS responses and a few phone calls, state OSHA officials determined that Abernathy’s death was “not work-related.”

This ruling was immediately condemned by Abernathy’s family. Her mother told KHN that her daughter was “basically a hermit” who could not have gotten the virus from any source other than the facility. In response to OSHA’s request for evidence that the exposure was not related to the Ludeman facility, administrators simply wrote “N/A,” according to documents reviewed by the KHN.

In a March 27 complaint to Illinois OSHA officials, Ludeman staffers said that it took a week for staff just to be notified of multiple workers who tested positive for the deadly virus. Another complaint in early April was even more candid, saying, “Lives are endangered.” According to Walter Veal’s widow, her husband was tested at the facility in late April, but by the time the results were released weeks later, Walter was already dying.

The number of workplace violations documented by OSHA inspectors is a huge underestimation of the true scope of the dangerous conditions in hospitals and medical centers. Despite there being 1,425 health care worker deaths linked to COVID-19 in the “Lost on the Frontline” database, OSHA inspectors have issued only 63 citations to health care facilities for failing to report a death.

In California, public health officials documented about 200 health care worker deaths, yet only 75 fatality reports at health care facilities have been sent to the state’s OSHA office.

Federal guidelines nominally enforced by OSHA do not apply to more than eight million public employees in the US. Only 28 states with their own state OSHA agencies cover government workers. For almost half of the country, if a public sector worker succumbs to the virus, such as an ER nurse at a public hospital in Florida or a traveling nurse at a medical facility in Texas, there is no requirement to report the fatality, let alone investigate its circumstances.

The criminal indifference of OSHA is a reflection of the class interests upheld by the Democratic and Republican parties, both of which subordinate government policy on the pandemic to the interests of the financial oligarchy. Both parties have refused to implement any serious measures to slow the pandemic and allocate the necessary resources to hospitals and other facilities facing dire shortages of staffing and PPE. The stock market has reached unprecedented heights, while health care workers, autoworkers, teachers, and workers in other industries have to sacrifice their lives for the capitalist profit system.

Number of infections among UPS airline pilots doubled in one month

Steve Filips

One hundred pilots for UPS Airlines were infected with coronavirus last month, double the amount for the rest of the year, the pilots’ union announced on Nov. 30. The UPS Airlines division is based in Louisville, Kentucky, home of its massive Worldport facility. In addition to being the largest employer in Louisville with 25,000 employees, UPS has 3,000 pilots in the Independent Pilots Association (IPA) and 481,000 employees total worldwide.

A UPS airplane (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The president of the IPA, Robert Travis, wrote a letter to UPS CEO Carol Tomé Oct. 29, concurring with management that the sharp increase in infections could possibly disrupt operations. But the IPA’s toothless appeal for more testing of pilots was essentially ignored by UPS. International flight crews from hubs in Miami, Florida, Ontario, California and flight crews from all other domestic flights are not receiving any testing. Workers are also not receiving extra hazard pay in spite of the danger of infection.

UPS Worldport’s Centennial hub was the site of an industrial accident on Nov. 18 which killed 28-year-old David A. Platt. The facility has been handling double the regular volume of packages throughout the pandemic.

UPS is one of the world’s largest airlines, with 500 aircraft flying to over 220 countries, and Louisville, Kentucky, is its largest hub, with capacity of up to 500 flights per day from around the world, and the heart of its operations, because of its geographic position where a major portion of the population in North America is within reach. Another major hub for UPS Airlines is in Anchorage, Alaska, a critical base for its lucrative Asian shipping destinations.

At least 185 FedEx Express pilots have also tested positive for COVID-19 according to figures released Nov. 10 by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).

According to a report on Nov. 23 by the Washington Post, UPS has received six Abbott rapid-testing machines as part of government’s Project Airbridge medical supply program. However, according to union officials only one machine in Anchorage, Alaska, was in use for pilots heading to Asia until recently.

UPS’ share value has shot up up over 71 percent since June. The logistics giant also reported $2.4 billion in profits in the third quarter, up 11 percent from the same period last year.

Not to be outdone, shares for rival logistics company FedEx have jumped over 121 percent over the same time frame. The key driver for the bonanza for investors in both companies is the record surge in package volumes as more consumers make purchases online. According to a recent Bloomberg report, both UPS and FedEx are struggling even to purchase enough delivery vans to keep pace with rising demand.

The total number of infections and deaths at both companies is not publicly available, and both companies have largely dropped any regular reporting since the initial wave in the spring. However, at least two employees at Worldport had died as of early April, and a FedEx statement from September suggested that around 8,000 of its workers had been infected. Early in the pandemic, FedEx warehouse workers and delivery drivers complained of being forced to work without even minimal protections such as masks and gloves.

Both companies are strategically positioned to rake in even more profits through the distribution of the vaccine and other pandemic supplies. Tomé declared UPS is increasing its “freezer farm capacity by installing validated freezers that range from negative 20 to negative 80 degrees Celsius.”

The Worldport facility will be utilized by UPS as a key distribution point for the coronavirus vaccine, and has acquired 150 freezers that each can reach the ultra-cold storage temperature for up to 48,000 doses.

Sri Lankan government activates lie machine to cover up prison killings

Pradeep Ramanayake

The Rajapakse government has responded to popular anger over last Sunday’s cold-blooded killing of inmates at Mahara Prison with crude lies to try to cover up the massacre. Heavily-armed prison guards assisted by Police Special Task Force (STF) officers opened fire on protesting prisoners, who were demanding protection from COVID-19, which is spreading rapidly through the prison system.

The number of prisoners killed has risen by three since Sunday, taking the official death toll to 11. According to hospital sources, 117 people are still being treated, with several in critical conditions.

STF commandos patrolling Mahara, north of Colombo, after attack on prison inmates (Photo: Shehan Gunasekara)

The Rajapakse government has stepped up its repression, deploying 200 STF soldiers and 600 policemen inside and outside the prison, 15 kilometres from Colombo. On Monday evening, two helicopters carrying gunmen circled over the prison in an attempt to intimidate inmates and on Wednesday prison guards and STF officers cracked down as tensions mounted inside the facility.

Prison Reform Minister Sudarshini Fernandopolle set the tone for the government’s lie machine, telling parliament the incident was caused by an “invisible hand which activated suddenly.” She claimed that the guards had no choice but to open fire in order to prevent a breakout.

Industries Minister Wimal Weerawansa claimed that a pill used to treat mental illnesses, but which produced violence and a desire to see blood when used by normal people, had been given to prisoners by a drug dealer inside the facility.

Deputy Inspector General of Police Ajith Rohana told a press conference that some 21,000 psychiatric pills were stored in the Mahara prison’s infirmary. He said police would investigate why such a large number had been ordered and claimed that heroin addicts used the pills as alternative drugs.

Likewise, Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella argued that the inmates could have been under the influence of unnamed psychiatric pills. He said measures by intelligence operatives and prison officials to prevent drugs getting into the prison appeared to have been circumvented.

A December 2 press release by the Sri Lanka College of Psychiatrists (SLCP) debunked these assertions. The claimed connection “between the violent and aggressive behaviour of prisoners and the abuse of the drugs used in psychiatric practice,” was “without any rational basis… None of these drugs are responsible for violent or aggressive behaviour and, in fact, many of these drugs promote calmness.”

Industries Minister Weerawansa also alleged that the prison protest was staged to discredit President Rajapakse. “This is a carefully executed attempt to show that when Gotabaya Rajapakse was defence secretary this happened and now that he is president the same thing is happening and is bringing him into international disrepute,” he declared.

These claims are laughable. Rajapakse, as defence secretary, and his brother, then-President Mahinda Rajapakse, are infamous for the war crimes carried out against the separatist Liberation Tigers and Tamil Eelam as well as civilians, and subsequent attacks on democratic rights. These included the kidnapping and killing of political opponents and journalists, as well as a similar prison massacre.

Gotabhaya Rajapakse was defence secretary when the following killings occurred.

• According to UN estimates, 40,000 Tamils were killed in the final months of the civil war that ended in May 2009.
  
  
• In December 2012, STF officers killed 27 inmates at Welikada prison after provoking a clash during a search of the facility.
  
  
• In May 2011, police shot dead a worker during a protest by Katunayake Free Trade Zone workers against the government’s contributory pension scheme.
  
  
• In 2012, police killed a protesting fisherman during a demonstration in Chilaw over higher fuel prices.
  
  
• In 2013, security forces shot dead three people at a protest demanding clean water in Rathupaswela, Gampaha.

In an attempt to deflect from the reality that Mahara inmates were demanding protection from COVID-19, Media Minister Rambukwella claimed there was no similarity with prison riots in countries like Italy where inmates have demonstrated over the lack of COVID-19 safety measures.

Sri Lankan prisons, which are holding approximately three times the number inmates they should, are coronavirus hotbeds. Over 1,100 COVID-19 infections have been reported from the prison system, more than 200 of them in the Mahara facility. More than half of the 117 injured in Sunday’s incident have tested positive.

Relatives of Mahara prison victims demanding information about their family members from STF soldiers (Credit: Shehan Gunasekara)

Anger over the prison killings has been expressed on social media and human rights organisations held a press briefing to condemn the government’s actions. Court cases have been filed against the authorities over the deaths.

The International Commission of Jurists said the events were a consequence of the failure of the authorities to effectively address prison conditions. Amnesty International said: “Prison authorities must ensure an end to the use of unlawful and excessive force against prisoners agitating against their detention conditions during the outbreak of COVID-19.”

The Rajapakse government is attempting to suppress protests. The police obtained a court injunction banning a protest organised by the Committee for the Protecting Rights of Prisoners outside Welikada Prison (also known as the Magazine Prison) in Colombo.

Under the guise of investigations by the Police Criminal Investigation Department and the Prisons Department, the government is subjecting the inmates to surveillance and interrogation.

Corporate media outlets have endorsed Colombo’s repressive response. A December 1 editorial in the right-wing Divaina newspaper warned the government about unrest spreading to other prisons. “The onset of most eruptions can be slow but the end result can be devastating, so proper mechanisms must be put in place to control this situation.”

Justice Minister Ali Sabri has established a five-member panel headed by a retired judge to investigate the prison incident. But as the historical record demonstrates, all such official investigations cover up the real reasons for incidents and justify the security forces’ violent actions.

Committee for the Protection of Prisoners president Senaka Perera told the WSWS the government had already taken steps to remove evidence and protect the shooters.

Perera said the government was attempting to cremate nine of the eleven people who were killed, invoking COVID-19 regulations and claiming they were infected with the virus, thus leaving no evidence for investigation. The committee has filed a petition against the authorities, saying they have violated basic criminal law.

Observations made by the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) following a visit to Mahara prison shed some light on the real conditions inside the facility. HRCSL commissioner Ramani Muttettuwegama told the BBC that remand prisoners selected 12 people to present their views to the commission.

Muttettuwegama said fear of COVID-19 was the reason for inmates’ protests. “All things considered, overcrowding is the biggest problem. I have been to many places like that but I have never seen such congestion anywhere… The capacity of the Mahara remand prison is 1,000, but there are 2,500 in it.”

The HRCSL commissioner complained that although the Rajapakse government took some measures to reduce the prison population by 30 percent by the end of April in response to the epidemic, following requests from HRCSL and various activists, it changed its mind in September.

Pointing to the disregard of authorities toward prisoners’ health and safety, she said: “Prison authorities said bluntly—no PCR [tests] to those who were there, no PCR to those who came in.”

Referring to last Sunday’s incident, she added: “Some detainees mentioned that inmates were shot at from the guard towers. We still do not know if that is true, so we are waiting for the post-mortem report.”

Under these conditions, the government’s attempt to cremate the bodies is suspected of being a move to destroy evidence.

In another indication of tightening repression in all prisons, on December 1, Rajapakse removed Fernandopulle as prison reforms minister. Her replacement, Lohan Ratwatte, was convicted of the murder of ten people during general elections in 2001 but acquitted on appeal.

The Mahara shootings and the government’s response are inseparable from Rajapakse’s moves toward dictatorial forms of rule to suppress growing opposition by the working class and the oppressed masses against austerity measures and the social disaster intensified by the pandemic.

FBI gathered US website visitor logs under the post-9/11 PATRIOT Act

Kevin Reed

An exchange of letters published on Thursday by the New York Times shows that the FBI has been using provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act to secretly collect information about visitors to specific US-based websites.

The three letters—one from Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon, and two from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe—discuss details of the permissions granted to the FBI under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, originally passed in the period following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

The J. Edgar Hoover FBI building in Washington, D.C. (Credit: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

According to the original terms of Section 215, the government must apply to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to gain access to tangible materials that assist in an investigation of international terrorism or other “clandestine intelligence activities.” The law specifically bars use of its provisions on US citizens.

However, following the revelations by Edward Snowden in 2013 that the US government was conducting unfettered electronic surveillance of everyone, Section 215 was reviewed and modified. In 2015, the new USA Freedom Act was voted on by Congress and signed by President Obama and all claimed that the illegal “bulk” data collection programs had been stopped even though the basic structure of Section 215 remained in place.

The letters between Wyden and Ratcliffe, which began in May of this year during congressional efforts to renew Section 215, show that the secret data collection activities of US law enforcement and intelligence have actually never stopped.

After the Senate voted 80 to 16 to extend the mechanisms that permit the US government to spy on people, including their internet browsing activity, Senator Wyden wrote to Ratcliffe asking a series of questions to clarify how US intelligence was monitoring the web search activity of a single targeted individual without also gathering information on others.

For example, Wyden asked, “If the target or ‘unique identifier’ is an IP address, would the government differentiate among multiple individuals using the same IP address, such as family members and roommates using the same Wi-Fi network, or could numerous users appear as a single target or ‘unique identifier’?”

In electronic surveillance, a unique identifier is a mobile phone number or an email address connected with a specific individual or organization. While an Internet Protocol (IP) address is unique to a specific computer or node on the internet, it is more difficult to associate it with a specific user or person because IP addresses are frequently dynamically assigned by routers and other internet hardware and may be associated with more than a single individual user.

In his reply of November 6 (more than five months later), Ratcliffe wrote that Section 215 was not being used to collect internet search records. He also went on to disclose that in 2019 there were 61 orders issued last year under FISC involving and none of them, “resulted in the

production of any information regarding web browsing or internet searches.”

However, according to the New York Times report, the paper pressed Ratcliffe and the FBI to “clarify whether it was defining ‘web browsing’ activity to encompass logging all visitors to a particular website, in addition to a particular person’s browsing among different sites.” The Times wrote that the next day, “the Justice Department sent a clarification to Mr. Ratcliffe’s office, according to a follow-up letter he sent to Mr. Wyden on Nov. 25.”

The second letter from Ratcliffe states that in fact one of the 61 orders, “directed the production of log entries for a single, identified U.S. web page reflecting connections from IP addresses registered in a specified foreign country that occurred during a defined period of time.”

In acknowledging his “error,” Ratcliffe wrote, “I regret that this additional information was not included in my earlier letter. I have directed my staff to consult with the Department of Justice and advise me of any necessary corrective action, to include any amendments to information previously reported in the Annual Statistical Transparency Report required under Section 603 of the FISA.”

Ratcliffe asking the Trump Justice Department to advise him “of any necessary corrective action” on the matter of the government’s illegal gathering of electronic communications and data is absurd on its face. Attorney General William Barr is the godfather of the US government’s bulk data collection program having helped to build the precursor to the present National Security Agency system while he served in the administration of George H. W. Bush in 1992.

Barr worked with his then-deputy Robert Mueller to erect a program under the direction of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) that ordered the telecom companies to turn over the records of all phone calls from the US to countries labeled as centers of drug trafficking. This platform was used as the foundation of the PATRIOT Act’s mass surveillance operation.

While the purpose of the New York Times report and release of the letters is to bolster the claim that the administration of President elect Joe Biden is preparing to revisit the ongoing violations of constitutionally protected rights against unreasonable searches and seizures embodied in the secret surveillance programs, no defense of democratic principles is forthcoming from the Democrats.

Far from it, the report in the Times shows that the blatant defenders of intelligence state surveillance within the Democratic Party worked with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi earlier this year to prevent Section 215 from being directly challenged in the House of Representatives. Pelosi worked with Representative Adam Schiff of California to water down language in an amendment from Representative Zoe Lofgren, also from California, that would bar the use of Section 215 to collect web browsing and search data.

The Times report says, “While privacy advocates initially supported the compromise, they withdrew their backing after Mr. Schiff put forward an interpretation suggesting that it would leave the government, while investigating foreign threats, able to gather Americans’ data as long as that was not its specific intention.”

The disingenuous maneuvering by the Democrats then opened the door for President Trump to intervene and posture about being against secret government surveillance, but only in relation to the Mueller investigation into the his campaign’s supposed collaboration with the asserted but never proven “Russian interference” in the 2016 elections.

The Times report concludes, “With support bleeding away from both the left and right flanks, Ms. Pelosi punted and sent the legislation to a House-Senate conference committee for further negotiations. ... permitting Section 215 to remain lapsed until negotiations resumed under a new president.” Nothing different will come from a Biden-Harris administration.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the global resurgence of class struggle

Keith Jones

As the last month of 2020 begins, working-class resistance is erupting throughout the world in opposition to the mercenary response of the ruling class to the COVID-19 pandemic, its concerted drive to intensify capitalist exploitation, and its evisceration of democratic rights.

Just in the past eleven days, tens of millions have joined strikes or mass protests:

• On November 26, workers across India staged a one-day general strike to protest the Hindu supremacist BJP government’s socially incendiary economic policies. The strikers also demanded emergency aid for the hundreds of millions of impoverished workers and toilers who have been left to fend for themselves amidst an unprecedented health and socioeconomic catastrophe.
  
  A 10-week COVID-19 lockdown last spring was accompanied by no serious mobilization of society’s resources to halt the spread of the virus, while the tens of millions of workers rendered jobless overnight were denied social support. This was followed by a premature return to work that has resulted in mass infections and deaths.
  
  In the name of “reviving” the economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has doubled down on the “pro-investor” policies that have made India one of the most socially unequal countries in the world. The BJP government has accelerated its privatization drive; rewritten India’s labor laws to promote precarious contract-labor employment, gut restrictions on mass layoffs, and illegalize most worker job action; and pushed through a “reform” of India’s agriculture sector that puts small farmers at the mercy of agrobusiness.
  
  Drawing support from workers across India, the one-day protest strike dealt a blow to the relentless campaign of Modi and his BJP to promote reaction and split the working class by inciting anti-Muslim communalism.
  
  
• Also on November 26, hundreds of thousands of Greek workers shut down much of the country’s public sector. The strikers, who included teachers, health care workers, doctors and transit workers, were protesting a law that will abolish the eight-hour day and significantly curtail the right to strike and demonstrate. To halt the spread of COVID-19, the strikers also demanded the mass hiring of health care staff and the confiscation of private clinics.
  
  
• Last Saturday, November 28, hundreds of thousands joined protests across France to oppose the Macron government’s law to criminalize filming the country’s police, who routinely employ violence to suppress worker and left-wing protests and to terrorize poor, predominantly immigrant, neighbourhoods. Staggered by the size of the protests, the government now claims that it will rethink the measure. The mass anger is driven by the impunity the police enjoy. Not a single officer has been charged for assaulting Yellow Vest protesters, including for attacks that left protesters maimed.
  
  
• In Spain, thousands of doctors and nurses protested in Madrid on November 29 against cuts to health care in the midst of a devastating “second wave” of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rejecting attempts to stoke nationalism, they chanted, “fewer flags and more nurses.” In neighbouring Portugal, child educators and primary and secondary school teachers have announced a national strike for Friday, December 11. Teachers are angry over the refusal of the government to protect them from infection in schools and years of austerity.
  
  
• In Chile, 60,000 public health workers, who have been on the front line of the fight against the pandemic, launched an indefinite strike Monday, November 30, to oppose threatened health care cuts and demand payment of long-promised bonuses and better working conditions. Decades of underfunding have left Chile’s public health system so dilapidated that at the height of the pandemic, last May and June, workers had to sew their own masks.
  
  The strike is part of a broader working-class mobilization against the country’s hated ultra-right billionaire president, Sebastián Piñera, for unleashing police-state violence against all forms of social protest.
  
  
• In the US, numerous strikes and demonstrations have been mounted by nurses and other workers at hospitals and nursing homes in recent days and weeks to fight for higher pay, increased staffing and personal protective equipment. In the Chicago-area, for example, 700 poorly paid caregivers and support staff have been striking for the past two weeks at 11 for-profit nursing homes. It is only the sabotage of the unions that has prevented the unification of these manifold struggles into a broader movement prioritising the fight against the pandemic and the protection of workers’ lives over the profits of the health care industry.
  
  
• Autoworkers are resisting the transnational auto giants’ drive to increase profits by slashing jobs, intensifying the pace of work, and forcing workers to maintain production at full throttle as the pandemic rages. Workers at GM and Kia plants in South Korea have mounted a series of four-hour strikes in recent weeks to demand higher wages and job security. Earlier this week, the GM workers rejected a union-endorsed agreement that would have maintained a years-long wage freeze and abandoned their other key demands.
  
  In India, 3,000 workers who walked off the job at Toyota’s Bidadi, Karnataka assembly plant on November 9 and were then locked out are continuing to defy a government back-to-work order. The workers are resisting the company’s demand that they increase monthly output and are fighting the victimization of 40 workers.
  
  In the US, autoworkers have formed a growing network of rank-and-file safety committees at major auto assembly and auto part plants to defeat the conspiracy between the automakers and the United Auto Workers to compel them to work under unsafe conditions amid the pandemic.

***

The years 2018 and 2019 witnessed a global resurgence of class struggle after decades in which it had been suppressed by the corporatist trade unions, social democrats, other establishment “left” parties and their pseudo-left accomplices. From France, Spain, Algeria, Iran and Sudan to South Africa, Mexico, Chile and Colombia, mass strikes and protest movements erupted, frequently in open rebellion against the unions and “left” parties. In the US, there was a wave of teacher strikes that pitted the rank and file against the union apparatuses, and in the fall of 2019 the first national strike of autoworkers in decades.

A key factor in precipitating last spring’s government-ordered COVID-19 lockdowns was ruling-class fear that wildcat worker job action, as in North America’s auto industry, to demand action to halt the spread of the virus would spark mass social unrest.

The Memorial Day police murder of George Floyd provoked mass protests across the US that united working people of all ethnicities and redounded around the world.

Now, ten months after the ruling classes’ criminally negligent response to the pandemic began to produce mass death in countries around the world, mass social struggles are erupting anew. But they do so under radically changed conditions.

The pandemic has vastly accelerated the global crisis of world capitalism. The wealth of the ruling elite has soared to unprecedented heights since March due to the endless supply of cash funneled into the markets by the central banks and other organs of the capitalist state. Workers’ incomes, meanwhile, have plunged due to massive job losses and the meager, and in many parts of the world nonexistent, relief programs governments promulgated in tandem with the initial COVID-19 lockdown measures. The resulting social misery is deliberate. It serves as a bludgeon to compel workers to return to work under unsafe conditions.

The pandemic has also fatally undermined the political and moral authority of the ruling elite and their governments. This is above all true in the United States, whose capitalist class is the wealthiest and most powerful of all. But the European bourgeoisie has no less brazenly prioritized profits over human lives. European governments, whatever their political complexion, whether avowedly right-wing like that headed by Boris Johnson in Britain or comprised, as in Spain, of social democrats and “left-populists” (Podemos), have pursued homicidal back-to-work and back-to-school policies.

It is the ruling-class fear of the incipient political radicalization of the working class that is causing it to turn ever more openly to authoritarian forms of rule and to rehabilitate the ultra-right. A major motivating factor in many of the struggles of the past 11 days was the imposition of new measures to criminalize workers’ struggles and expand the repressive powers of the state.

The breakdown of democracy is epitomized by developments in the US, where Trump is seeking to nullify the outcome of the presidential election and to build up a fascist movement. But this is a universal process. In Spain, recently retired army officers have been secretly urging the King to carry out a coup by illegally dismissing the elected government, a right-wing regime in phony left colours that is implementing austerity and pursuing herd immunity.

The critical question is the infusion of the growing global upsurge of the working class with a socialist and internationalist program.

Workers around the world face—as exemplified by the struggles enumerated above—common conditions and problems. Arrayed against them is a global financial oligarchy and its transnational corporations, which use the global labor market to systematically drive down wages and working conditions. They are determined to make working people pay for the crisis of world capitalism, beginning with the drive to keep them churning out profits amid the pandemic.

If workers are to prevail, they must transform their objective unity in the process of global production into a conscious strategy and coordinate their struggle in a global counteroffensive against the relentless assault on jobs, wages and public services and for workers’ powers.

As the International Committee of the Fourth International explained in a June statement “For International working-class action against the COVID-19 pandemic!” this begins today with the fight to take control of the response to the pandemic out of the hands of the capitalist class. “The massive sums accumulated by the wealthy must be seized and redirected to fund emergency measures to stop the pandemic and provide full income to those impacted. The gigantic banks and corporations must be placed under the democratic control of the working class, run on the basis of a rational and scientific plan. The enormous resources squandered on war and destruction must be diverted to finance health care, education and other social needs.”

To assert its independent interests both during and after the health emergency, workers must build new organizations of struggle entirely independent of and in opposition to the pro-capitalist trade unions, which for decades have worked hand in glove with corporate management and the state and today are herding workers into unsafe factories, schools and other workplaces.

The formation of rank-and-file safety committees by autoworkers and teachers in the US, transport workers and teachers in Britain and Germany, and teachers in Australia represents an important step forward in this regard.

November jobs report shows collapse of economic growth

Jacob Crosse

The release of the November jobs report by the US Bureau of Labor statistics (BLS) revealed the worst job growth since the spring, with only 245,000 additional jobs, less than half of the 638,000 jobs added in October and well below economists’ expectations.

The figures are based on reporting prior to the initiation of partial lockdowns and curfews in some states, such as California and Illinois, dimming prospects for job growth in the coming months, with business activity and spending in the real economy evaporating as coronavirus cases continue to top 200,000 a day and daily deaths hover near 3,000.

A shopper wears a face mask and he walks past a store displaying a hiring sign in Wheeling, Ill., Saturday, Nov. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Despite the dismal jobs report and the US pandemic death toll topping 285,000, Wall Street responded with euphoria, pushing all three major stock indexes to record heights. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 30,218, the S&P 500 index at 3,699 and the Nasdaq Composite at 12,464.

A major factor in the rise on the stock market in the face of mass death and near-Depression levels of unemployment is President-elect Joe Biden’s selection of an economic team including former BlackRock executives and Janet Yellen, the former chair of the Federal Reserve who presided over the “quantitative easing” bank bailout under Obama. Combined with repeated assurances from Biden that there will be no nationwide lockdown and schools will remain open under his administration, the financial oligarchs are assured that the new administration will continue the flood of free money to the markets and the back-to-work and back-to-school drives that guarantee uninterrupted profits from the exploitation of workers forced into virus-infected workplaces.

In a joint CNN interview Thursday evening, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris emphasized the need to keep elementary schools open: “We can keep schools open. We can keep businesses open,” Biden declared. Harris concurred: “Everyone wants our kids to go back to school. Every parent wants their kids to go back to school.” Biden reiterated twice that there would be no lockdown and he would keep the economy open.

Feasting on death, between mid-March and mid-October, 644 US billionaires saw their total wealth increase from $2.95 trillion to $3.88 trillion, a rise of 31.6 percent. They are rubbing their hands in anticipation of more of the same.

The BLS report revealed that the unemployment rate fell from 6.9 percent to 6.7 percent. However, this was a reflection not of job growth, but rather a sharp increase in the number of “discouraged” workers who have given up looking for a job.

The number of long-term unemployed skyrocketed from 385,000 in October to 3.9 million in November. These workers, many from the retail, restaurant, construction, music and entertainment industries, are not counted in the official figures because they haven’t been in the labor force for 27 weeks or more.

If one counts “discouraged” workers along with the 2.1 million workers who are available and looking for work in the last 12 months, but haven’t applied for jobs in the last four weeks, the real unemployment rate jumps to 8.5 percent.

In addition to the staggering growth of the long-term unemployed, who as of November constitute 36.9 percent of all unemployed workers, 14.8 million people reported that they had been unable to work, or lost hours in the last four weeks due to pandemic-related closures.

Exemplifying this trend is the retail sector, which typically sees strong growth during the holidays. Instead the report found a sharp decrease in retail trade. Overall, there are 550,000 fewer people employed in the retail trade sector compared to February 2020.

Another vital sector of the economy that saw minimal job growth was the health care industry, which reported a modest 46,000 hires in November, with nursing homes losing 12,000 jobs. Overall, health care employment in the midst of a catastrophic public health crisis remains 527,000 below the level in February.

The labor force participation rate fell in November to 61.5 percent, 3.8 percentage points below the February rate.

The BLS reports that there are still officially 10.7 million unemployed persons, a slight decrease from the 11.1 million reported in October. However, this number is expected to increase over the winter after five months of government inaction on economic stimulus, which has forced hundreds of thousands of small businesses to close.

The decimation of jobs, along with COVID-19 infections and evictions, has been felt most sharply by lower-wage workers. According to data collected by Harvard and Brown University since January 19, workers making under $27,000 have seen a 19.2 percent reduction in employment as of November 16, while those making above $60,000 have seen a tiny 0.2 percent job growth. Workers making between $27,000 and $60,000 have seen a 4.7 percent reduction in job growth.

In a speech Friday, Biden characterized the BLS jobs report as “grim,” while calling on Congress and President Trump to “act now,” “come together” and pass legislation to avert a further collapse. He cited indicators of widespread distress—“One in six renters can’t pay rent,” “12 million will lose benefits” after Christmas—and declared his support for the “emergency relief framework” revealed earlier this week by a group of Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

Assuming the compromise bill makes it through Congress and is signed by Trump—by no means a sure thing given the last six months of political theater—the $908 billion legislation is nowhere near sufficient to address the scale of the economic and medical crisis befalling millions of people. Besides being half the size of the $1.7 trillion package the Trump White House had endorsed prior to the election, the new proposal does not include an additional $1,200 stimulus check or renew an eviction moratorium set to expire at the end of the month.

The latest US Census Household Pulse Survey showed staggering levels of distress throughout the country. In 13 states, including Texas, New York and Oregon, anywhere from 39.4 to 56.2 percent reported living in households where eviction or foreclosure in the next two months is either “very likely” or “somewhat likely.” Louisiana leads the country with 56.2 percent responding yes, followed by New Mexico, 52.7 percent, Missouri, 48.6 percent, Wyoming, 47.6 percent and Mississippi at 46.4 percent.

The proposed package sets aside only $160 billion in aid to state, local and tribal governments, a far cry from the $1 trillion House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted on in previous iterations of the bill, while only $180 billion is earmarked for additional unemployment benefits, the centerpiece being $300 in weekly unemployment pay through March 31, a 50 percent reduction from the $600-a-week supplement that expired at the end of July.

The most important part of the package in the eyes of the ruling class is an agreement on liability protection for businesses from customers and workers who have either gotten sick or died from COVID-19 due to inadequate safety procedures.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has maintained that liability protection is a “red line” on which he will not compromise. The Democrats, for their part, postured as opponents of such a free pass for corporations, knowing all along that they would eventually lend their support.

A bulk of the bill’s spending, $300 billion, is earmarked for the Paycheck Protection Program, a Small Business Administration (SBA)-controlled loan program, ostensibly created to keep small businesses owners afloat and keep their workers employed through the pandemic. The program has instead been used as slush fund for big businesses and the well-connected, while major Wall Street banks have reaped more than $18 billion in fees since its inception, according to a recent analysis by McCatchy and the Miami Herald based on figures released by the SBA.

Their analysis found that JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the US, collected over $1 billion in fees, followed closely by Bank of America, with $947 million, while Wells Fargo was a distant third at a “mere” $427 million.

Global Health Corps Paid Fellowship 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 13th January 2021

Eligible Countries: All African countries and other regions

To be taken at (country): USA

About the Award: Global Health Corps is building the next generation of diverse health leaders. We offer a range of paid fellowship positions with health organizations in Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, the United States, and Zambia and the opportunity to develop as a transformative leader in the health equity movement. Everyone has a role to play in the health equity movement.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: Global Health Corps Fellowship is looking for a global and diverse group of passionate and talented emerging leaders who:

• Are willing to push themselves outside their comfort zones, to embrace failure, and to approach a personally transformative year – with many challenges in the day-to-day – with integrity, humility, and self-reflection.
• Are ready to strengthen and use their voice — the most powerful tool for change that you have — in order to engage others, create space for critical conversation, and effect meaningful social change in global health.
• Are excited by a design-thinking approach to building a better world, creatively embracing wicked problems and ready to embrace failure as learning.
• Are committed to bringing your best and doing the work in the day-to-day, showing up as a critical part of the global health equity movement.
• Are passionate about social justice in global health and about finding and building their voices to effect health impact.
• Are committed to inclusivity and collaboration across sectors, cultures, and borders of all kinds, while investing in and supporting others.

Selection Criteria: By the start of the fellowship,  fellows must:

• Be 30 years or younger.
• Hold a bachelor’s or undergraduate university degree.
• Be proficient in English.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Fellowship: Yearlong paid placements within partner organizations in Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, the US, and Zambia to address real-time capacity gaps and strengthen health systems.

• In addition to on-the-job training, we engage fellows in a comprehensive leadership training curriculum to build effective, empathetic, and innovative leaders of tomorrow.
• Fellow receive additional logistical and financial support during the year, including:
  • Monthly living and utilities stipend
  • Housing
  • Health insurance
  • Professional development grant of $600 and completion award of $1500
  • Travel coverage to and from placement site, all trainings, and retreats

Duration of Fellowship: 1 year

How to Apply:

• Apply here
• It is important to go through the Application Requirements before applying.

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details